Handheld screamed when he saw Swallowtail fall. He tried to run to her, and was hit by a blast from Victory Anna’s ray gun, mere seconds before a blast from Imagineer’s hand-held phaser sent the Victorian gadgeteer sprawling. Victory Anna cried out in pain when she hit the ground.
Sparkle Bright, who had been blasting away at Epiphany, whipped around in the air, the light surrounding her hands going from white to blue to solid black in less than a second. Her cheeks took on a greenish cast as she frantically scanned the fray. “…Torrey?” she said, loud enough to be overheard.
Epiphany held her fire.
“Don’t worry about it,” called Imagineer, adjusting the settings on her phaser as she stalked toward the fallen Victory Anna. “I’ve got the stupid little steampunk girl. You kill the firework before it starts infringing on your copyrights.”
“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!” Sparkle Bright dropped out of the sky like a meteor bent on revenge, blasts of black light lancing from her fingers as she fell toward Imagineer. Imagineer yelped and turned to fire at her team leader, only to go down in a heap as a lion-shaped hedge punched her upside the head.
Victory Anna didn’t move.
Sparkle Bright—Yelena—hit the ground, stumbled, and ran to gather the fallen gadgeteer into her arms, ignoring the fight that was blazing on around her. Miraculously, the fight returned the favor. Or maybe not so miraculously; everyone on Velveteen’s side had been warned that this might happen, and everyone who was fighting for The Super Patriots was used to thinking of Sparkle Bright as an ally.
“Torrey? Come on, Torrey, open your eyes.” She shook the bruised gadgeteer. She only dimly understood what she was doing here; she remembered being grabbed in Portland, and being locked in the back of a van, but things went blurry after that. Judging by her white uniform, she’d gone back to The Super Patriots. She’d have to kill them all, once she knew Victory Anna was okay. “This is a really lousy thing to do when we’ve only had one proper date. Come on.”
Victory Anna didn’t move.
“Dammit, Torrey, this sucks. You spin this amazing love story for me, all dimensional crossings and destinies and versions of me who did it better, and now you’re just going to go and die on me? You can’t do that. I won’t let you.” Yelena bent and pressed her lips against Victoria’s, only dimly aware that the people around her had stopped fighting to stare. She didn’t care anymore.
Victory Anna squirmed. Victory Anna opened her eyes. And then, with surprising strength and unsurprising enthusiasm, Victory Anna began kissing her back.
On the other side of the battlefield, the Princess used a croquet mallet she’d produced from somewhere to hit Jack O’Lope’s arrow back at him. Rose Dead, who was standing nearby with her hand sunk up to the elbow in Dotty Gale’s chest, gave her a chiding look.
“You did that, didn’t you?”
“Sweetie, I’m a living fairy tale,” said the Princess, gearing up for another swing. “If I say a kiss makes everything better, then a kiss makes everything better.”
The battle raged on. Heroes fell on both sides. Poutine was able to stretch out of the way of most attacks, but the Grizzly was bound by the limitations of his bear form, and was taken captive. One of the Candy sisters, frozen by an ice blast, shattered when she tipped over and hit the ground. Jackie blanched. Then she paused, and skated closer to the candy-coated mess.
“She wasn’t real,” she said, relief beating back her anger. “She was just a candy golem!”
“You didn’t know that when you hit her,” snarled a voice from behind her, and she turned to find Trick and Treat bearing down on her position. She yelped and raised her shield, barely blocking their shadow blasts before they could strike home.
“You tried to kill our daughter!” shouted Treat, sending another blast in Jackie’s direction.
“She was trying to kill me, too!” shouted Jackie, as she desperately reinforced her shield. “Guys, a little help?” Trick and Treat were full holiday guardians, and Jackie, for all her power, was only a trainee. She hadn’t accepted the burden and the strength of Winter.
“Get back!” Dead Ringer leapt between Jackie and the Halloween heroes, her bell out and ringing madly. Trick fell back, stunned. Treat…didn’t.
The sound of Dead Ringer’s lifeless body hitting the turf somehow managed to be very loud, despite the noise on all sides.
The fall of Dead Ringer was initially unremarked. She hit the ground hard, and she didn’t get back up, but lots of heroes had hit the ground hard; lots of heroes had failed to get back up immediately. Then one of Velveteen’s model horses, doing a sweep of the damage, reached her body. The tiny plastic stallion tapped her nose with a hoof. The fallen heroine didn’t react. The horse turned and bolted back toward Velveteen, ducking and weaving across the battle field.
Meanwhile, Velveteen had problems of her own. “We know they have Midwest here with them,” she snarled to the Princess, throwing a sharp-clawed teddy bear at the face of an unsuspecting member of The Super Patriots. “Now I’m getting word that Leading Lady’s been seen near the building. Did they call in East? Because if they called in East, we’re screwed.”
“No more than we were a few minutes ago, when we thought we were just going up against two of the four teams,” said the Princess. “Most of South is here with us, and they’re having trouble hitting their own associates. The Super Patriots are having trouble, I mean. The Southerners are kicking ass and having a lovely time.” Maybetoo good of a time, when you got right down to it; Lake Pontchartrain now covered half the lawn, where Mississippi Queen and the Claw were taking on any attackers who got too close to the water. Jackie Frost kept freezing the surface of the water just enough to fool nonaquatic heroes into thinking it was safe to walk there, and then laughing hysterically as they fell into the frigid waters below.
“I don’t care; we didn’t give them this much warning.” Velveteen shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”
The plastic horse, which had fought its way through dangers no plastic horse should ever have been forced to face, reached her ankle. It reared up on its hind legs, whinnying to get her attention.
Velveteen bent and picked it up. “Hey, little guy. What news do you have?”
The horse whinnied again.
“I’ll never understand how you can talk to toy animals when you can’t talk to real ones,” said the Princess. “Sometimes, sweetie, your power set just doesn’t make that much sense.” She stopped talking as she realized that Velveteen wasn’t smiling; wasn’t reacting to her; wasn’t, in fact, doing anything but standing and staring, pale-faced, at the horse in her hands.
“She’s dead,” she whispered.
“Honey?”
“Dead Ringer. Trick and Treat hit her—I knew that, Jackie saw it coming, and then she drew them off so that Dead Ringer would have a chance to recover—but she’s not going to recover, because she’s dead. They killed her.” Velveteen shook her head slowly. “They actually killed her.”
“My,” said the Princess. “That…changes things a bit, doesn’t it?”
Velveteen nodded grimly. Most superhuman fights weren’t intended to be deadly; everyone pulled punches, everyone held back, just a little bit, to keep from crossing that line. Once the line was crossed, there was no going back. You had heroes, and you had villains, and the heroes were never the ones who drew first blood.
“Princess?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you think you can get Cinder to do that trick with my voice again? I have something this whole fight needs to hear.”
The Princess nodded, stepping back onto her carpet. “Wait right there, sugar, and don’t get caught. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Then she was gone, zooming off into the fray.
Battles, large and small, raged all over the property. One on one, two on one, even five on one, there was no end to the combinations the heroes had divided themselves into. But all of them froze when Velveteen’s voice rang out across
the battlefield, tired and cold and angry.
“Dead Ringer is dead,” she said. “Trick and Treat killed her with a blast intended for Jackie Frost. We have lost a comrade. We have lost a friend. And The Super Patriots have lost the high ground. If you are fighting for freedom, if you are fighting for the right to make your own decisions, if you are fighting for me, this is your moment.” There was a very small pause before she added, “Light ‘em up.”
Brilliant flares of light marked four positions on the battlefield as Sparkle Bright, Epiphany, Gastown, and Showgirl unleashed their powers. Cinder placed herself in the path of Epiphany’s blast, becoming a living disco ball as she shattered the single deadly laser beam into a hundred, all of which somehow seemed to avoid her allies as they lanced into the crowd. The newly-freed Grizzly ran past on all fours, Brittle Red astride his back with a machine gun in her hands, whooping enthusiastically as she fired into the crowd. Her bullets were less discerning than Cinder’s refractions, and Poutine and Rue Royal had to dodge quickly to avoid being shot.
The Nanny, longtime member of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, hung back at the edges of the fight. “This isn’t right,” she muttered, looking from one cluster of furiously swinging superhumans to the next. “This isn’t right at all.”
“What’s wrong?” demanded Handheld.
“They’re not naughty.” She turned on her team leader, her umbrella already out and in her hand. “I swear to you, I don’t know how I know, but I know. These people? They’re not naughty. They’re here for the right reasons.”
Handheld, whose psychic powers were limited to communication with machines, had nonetheless learned to respect the Nanny’s appraisals of others. “They shot Swallowtail out of the sky,” he said.
“But they didn’t kill her, and they could have. We didn’t afford them the same favor.”
Swallowtail was still out cold. Handheld looked to her, and then back to the Nanny. “Can you get to Velveteen? Can you tell her…tell her that we surrender, but only if she’ll help us get Swallowtail to cover?”
The Nanny blinked. “What about the others?”
“Apex and Super-Cool won’t surrender, even if it’s that or die. Bedbug will follow Swallowtail. I don’t know about the Candy sisters.” To be honest, he’d never known about the Candy sisters.
The Nanny nodded. “I’ll be back,” she said, and opened her umbrella, soaring away into the cold blue sky.
Lady Luck and Fortunate Son fought back to back, spinning the probabilities around them to fell their enemies and help their allies hit their marks. Neither of them seemed to be doing much to the naked eye, but the sea of bodies and bloodstains around them testified to how effective their methods really were.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever loved you more,” panted Fortunate Son, yanking the luck out from under Firefly and sending her sprawling into the turf. “Your momma’s going to be proud of you.”
“I’m already proud of you,” said Lady Luck, hitting Poutine with a burst of good fortune that helped her twist out of the way of Jack O’Lope’s latest volley of bullets. “This is a good day.”
“Yes,” agreed Fortunate Son. “It is.”
They were both so focused on their work that they’d forgotten they weren’t the only probability manipulators on the field. Second Chance, who had been a trainee when Majesty died; Second Chance, whose powers allowed him to try again if he failed something the first time. He fired his blaster at Fortunate Son and missed, the shot deflected by their swirling shell of probabilities. Time rewound, and he fired again.
This time, he didn’t miss.
Fortunate Son was born lucky: he was the sort of man who would trip and fall on the sidewalk rather than walking in the path of an oncoming bus. And so, when Second Chance fired, Fortunate Son’s powers moved him just a hairsbreadth to the side. Still close enough for the shot to hit home…and at the same time, far enough that it didn’t hit its intended target.
Lady Luck screamed as she fell, a blistered wound covering half her chest. Fortunate Son shouted in dismay, and flung a ball of bad fortune at Second Chance before diving after his fallen wife. He didn’t see Firecracker slam into Second Chance; he didn’t see the two of them engulfed by the unforgiving waters of Lake Pontchartrain. He had no eyes left for anything but Lady Luck, who was gasping and glassy-eyed with pain.
“Come on, baby girl, don’t you do this,” he said, gathering her up into his arms. “Don’t you leave me. Shit, you think I know what to do without you? I’m a mess when you’re not running my world.”
“Let me,” said a voice behind him.
He turned, and there was Showgirl, glittering like a sequined dream. “Showgirl, this ain’t the time—”
“This is the perfect time,” she said, and leaned forward, pressing her hand against Lady Luck’s chest. The fallen heroine gasped, eyes going wide. “You’ve never respected me much, have you? I can’t say I blame you. I never tried to force the issue. But you could have asked what my secondary power set was.”
“What are you—”
“Sonny?”
He turned back to his wife, who was wide eyed and blinking at him. He helped her sit up, hands shaking. “It’s all right, baby girl. You’re all right.”
“The show must go on,” said Showgirl, and jumped back into the fray.
While this, all this and more, was going on, Velveteen fought her way steadily toward the doors. She was backed by Jolly Roger, Jackie Frost, and the Claw. Maybe not the most predictable of teams, but it turned out to be an effective one. Heroes fell all around them, and they pressed on.
Halfway there, a teenage girl in an old-fashioned nanny’s uniform, clutching an umbrella in one hand, descended from the sky. She put her hands up as soon as she landed. “Please don’t hurt me,” she said. “I come in peace.”
Jolly Roger stared at her. “We’re in the middle of a battlefield, girl,” he said. As if to illustrate his point, Whippoorwill went flying by overhead, blown backward by a blast from Jack O’Lope. “If you’re here to surrender, go get on the boat. We’ll deal with you later.”
“I’m not, quite. I just…” She turned to Velveteen. “You’re not naughty. You’ve never been naughty. How is that possible?”
Jackie snorted. “I could’ve told you that.”
“I just wanted to be left alone,” said Velveteen. “You’re the Nanny, right? Is the rest of your team okay?”
“I don’t know about all of them. One of the Candy sisters got busted like a pinata, but I’ve always suspected that they weren’t all real. Please.” The Nanny seized Velveteen’s hand. “You’re not naughty, and some of the people we’ve been working for are. Please, can we switch sides?”
There was a deeper question there, because it implied that Velveteen had a side to switch to: that this was more than just a temporary thing. She took a deep breath, sighed, and nodded. “Yes. Any of you who want to change allegiances, just go to the Phantom Doll and wait for us there. We’ll be back soon.”
“Thank you,” said the Nanny fervently. She reopened her umbrella and soared away into the sky. Velveteen and the others watched her go.
“You sure that was wise, girl?” asked Jolly Roger.
“No,” said Velveteen. “But it’s a chance I wish I’d been offered. Come on.” They resumed moving toward the doors. Jackie blasted anything that got past Velveteen’s marching array of toys, and Jolly Roger and the Claw handled those who managed somehow to come in close. It bought them ground, yard by yard, until they were standing right outside the entry hall.
Apex, American Dream, Super-Cool, and Action Dude barred their way. All four heroes hovered a few feet off the ground, their expressions ranging from heroic determination to quiet desperation.
“Please don’t make me do this, Vel,” said Action Dude.
“Fucked up times five billion,” muttered Velveteen. Then she raised her voice, and said, “You messed up, Action Dude. I thought you were smarter than this
.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can see inside, asshole.” She closed her eyes and raised her hands, and the statues that lined the hall stepped off their pedestals and grabbed the last line of defense keeping her outside. The heroes struggled. The statues tightened their hands, and kept tightening until the struggling stopped.
“Did you…did you kill them?” asked the Claw, in a hushed voice.
“No,” said Velveteen coldly. “Come on.”
And she stepped inside.
The fight was losing momentum. Velveteen and her allies were outnumbered to start, but for every one of them who fell, they were taking out two or more of the corporate heroes. Their minds were clearer. Their tactics were harsher. They had, in the end, one hell of a lot more to lose. Rampion watched impassively as her hair choked Flash Flood into unconsciousness. Nearby, Victory Anna was tying up Mechamation, while Imagineer studied her thoughtfully.
“We would have given you much better toys, you know,” she said.
“I’m a grown woman,” she replied. “I have no time for toys. Now be silent, or I’ll shoot your fingers off.”
Sparkle Bright and Firefly were in the air above the artificial lake, blasting each other with glittering bolts. Sparkle Bright seemed to be wavering, and dipped lower in the air…allowing Mississippi Queen to lasso Firefly with a watery rope and yank her into the water, where Lake Pontchartrain made short work of her.
The former trainees of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, watched from the deck of the Phantom Doll. Only four of them had chosen safety: the Nanny, Handheld, Swallowtail, and the Bedbug. All of them were now absolutely sure they’d done the right thing.
The sound of the doors slamming shut was enough to catch their attention, even over the noise of the fight. “What do you think’s happening in there?” whispered Swallowtail, her hand groping for Handheld’s.