by R. J. Ross
“But we could help people in BETTER ways,” Ruckus says. “We have powers. We could go in and save them from serious problems, not from people robbing an ice cream store!”
“But the ice cream caper will make people laugh,” I say, shrugging. “If you want to go out and save people afterwards, feel free. Right now we have a job to do that has a different goal.”
“A pointless goal,” she says under her breath.
“I think I understand what you’re talking about, Carla,” Dolly says, taking my hand. “Making people smile is a very worthy goal, regardless of what Ruckus says.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” Ruckus says, throwing her hands up in the air. “They’re already on their way.”
I nod, knowing that nothing has been worked out, really, but I don’t know any better way to explain it. We don’t have time for this argument, anyway. Skye’s group is already at the ice cream shop.
***
“There are so many flavors!” Ariel says, floating over the girl behind the counter. “Which should I start with, first?”
“Um,” the girl says, looking at the villains in their uniforms, a confused expression on her face. She’d been told that something was going to happen today, but she didn’t hear WHAT. “What’s your favorite flavor?”
“I like most of the flavors,” Ariel says, floating higher, her eyes glued to the ice cream behind the glass. “Hey, hey Jersey, what’s my favorite flavor?”
“Anything not banana,” Jersey says from where she’s standing at the front counter. “We’re here to rob you,” she says to the second worker. “But first, clear out all the cookies, would you? We want them in a bag. Skystep! What are you doing?”
“I’m checking out the back!” Skye yells from the back of the building. “They’ve got even MORE ice cream hidden back here!”
“Then grab some and get back out here. Who knows when the heroes will hear what we’re up to?”
“But I can’t choose which I want! They all taste so good!” Skye says.
“You’re not supposed to be eating that—” the worker says hesitantly. She stops as Skye comes right through the door, a spoonful of ice cream on her hand.
“We’re here to ROB you, we told you that, right?” Skye asks, licking the ice cream. The girl nods, not daring to speak. “That means we can eat the ice cream! Understand?” The girl nods again, but there’s a look on her face that says she wants to disagree. “Understand?” she repeats, waving the spoon at her. “I’m going to try ALL OF THE FLAVORS!”
“Put the spoon down, Skystep!” Carla yells as the door of the place opens. She stands there, posing dramatically in front of Ruckus and Dolly. “We don’t accept ice cream thievery in these parts!”
“Ohmygosh, it’s the heroes!” Skye says, gasping dramatically, and then sticking the spoon in her mouth. “Oooh, Raindance, you should try this one, it’s yummy!” she tells her partner, completely distracted.
“Which one is it?” Ariel asks eagerly.
“Since when have there been three of you?” Doris demands, the only one to stay on topic. “Who’s the midget?”
“I am Hypersonic Rainbow, and I’m here to stop your dastardly deeds!” Carla says, changing her pose, again. “Well, actually I’m just here to help for a little bit,” she adds a second later before rushing into the building.
“Dollface,” Ruckus says.
“I’m on it,” Dolly says, holding up both hands.
“Oh yay! I LOVE THIS PART!” Skye says. She and Ariel both start clapping excitedly as Doris rolls her eyes and rushes forward to take on Carla. The world shrinks all around them, and soon they’re standing in the middle of a toy ice cream shop, complete with plastic buckets that… have no ice cream in them, Skye notes with a pout. “I just wish she could shrink the ice cream, too,” she complains, throwing her plastic spoon over her shoulder. “Sooo… oh! Doris gets Hy-bo, this time! So who gets Ruckus?” she asks Ariel.
“Rock paper scissors?” Ariel asks.
“I call rock!”
“That’s not how it’s played, though… is it?”
“I’ll take both of you on,” Ruckus says, only to blink as Doris goes flying across the room.
“I can help!” Carla says, appearing beside her with a huge grin. “I’ll take…”
“She’s so cute,” Ariel says, clasping her hands together. “Can I have her? Can I?” she asks Skye.
“Mmm, okay! I’ll play with Ruckus!” Skye says, doing a fake karate pose. “Come,” she says, before moving her mouth like she’s still speaking, “Your Kung Fu is weak.” She adds a few more silent words, pretending to be a badly done dub. “Waaaaah!”
Ruckus just stares at her as Skye throws a poorly done kick, and then she shifts, her skin going metallic as she rushes forward to punch Skye in the face.
To the side of the room, Doris is picking herself up from the fallen plastic table. She makes a face. “For such a little thing, she hits pretty hard,” she says. Something plops on her head and she reaches up, touching something cold, sticky, and wet. Slowly she brings her hand down, looking at the melting ice cream on her fingers. “That’s… probably not a good sign,” she says, turning. Behind her is a ten-foot-tall ice cream monster, drooling chocolate syrup.
“Hey, hey, ICE CREAM MONSTER!!” Ariel says, pointing. It leaves her open for Carla to rush forward and send her flying with two open palms. “Does he taste good?” she asks as she soars right past Doris and hits the wall.
Before Doris can answer, the ice cream monster’s mouth opens and bites down on her head.
A puddle of water is where Ariel had fallen, but she quickly regains her form. “Oh, darn, I missed seeing her get eaten,” she complains. She hops to her feet and throws herself at the monster, wrapping her arms around it. “Let Jersey go, you stupid ice cream thing!” The monster tries to throw her off, and she’s swung back and forth as she clings to it. “This is SO FUN!”
“Let go of the ice cream!” Carla yells, grabbing onto Ariel’s legs. She winds up being tossed around as well as the ice cream monster starts thrashing out of control. “Whoa—whoa—what’s happening?” she yells, slamming through a row of plastic chairs and tables and sending them scattering.
“I think something’s wrong with the ice cream monster!” Ariel yells back, still holding on tightly. “Spit up our partner, you meanie!” She starts hitting the ice cream monster with a fist, but it doesn’t have much impact since she’s still holding on with her arms. “Spit her up! She’s bad for your digestion!”
“Maybe he’s Jersey intolerant?” Skye asks, distracted from the fight with Ruckus. That distraction gets her hit in the gut and sent flying straight up. She almost hits the ceiling before she stops herself. “Bad Ruckus!” she scolds the hero before diving straight for the other female and grabbing onto her back. She covers Ruckus’s eyes with her hands. “Now, say you’re sorry!”
Ruckus staggers slightly, blinded by the hold. She reaches up and tries to pull the hands away from her face, but she can’t budge Skye’s hold. “I’ll never say sorry,” Ruckus says. “You’re a villain!”
“Is that stereotyping?” Skye calls over to the others. “I think that’s stereotyping!”
“But Skystep, we ARE robbing the place!” Ariel calls back.
“Oh. Good point.”
***
Dolly grits her teeth, trying not to sweat. She has a hard time keeping the usual four in her playhouse space, but now that there are five, it’s a wonder she hasn’t fainted yet. She forces herself to breathe, realizing that she had forgotten to while concentrating on the ice cream monster. Hopefully, Carla and Ruckus can wrap it up.
“That’s so amazing,” one of the women in the ice cream shop says, nudging her daughter. “I can’t believe they are actually in that tiny little toy house! Oh, oh, do you think that we’ll be on television tonight?”
“Shush, Mom, I’m trying to hear the fight,” the girl says, leaning closer.
That�
��s another thing, Dolly goes on in her mental gripe, she has no ability to play up to the crowd while she’s doing this. She’s so busy concentrating that all she can do is stand there like a doll, holding her hands out and wishing she had the ability to carry on a conversation while working. People are going to start hating her! She can’t show off her good points this way! And now that Ruckus is talking about changing her outfit, it’ll get even worse. All she HAS to appeal to the crowd is her looks! If she’s cute enough, they won’t care that she never says anything, or really even does anything except for shrink people!
She’s so busy complaining silently that she doesn’t even notice the boy sneaking closer to the toy house until he grabs it, starting to run away.
“WAIT!” she yelps, her concentration breaking from the shock. A poof explodes and the five supers appear out of nowhere. Those that can’t fly fall to the ground, grunting loudly. Carla is still holding onto Ariel, and brings her down with her. “What the—”
“JERSEY!” Ariel says happily, seeing the other female. “Did the ice cream poop you out?” she asks, tilting her head curiously.
“No, the ice cream didn’t poop me out,” Jersey says, glaring at her. “But I do feel the need for a shower. Skystep, can we go yet?”
“I was having fun!” Skye complains. “What happened?” She looks over at Dolly, running over to her and placing her hands on her hips. “Did you have an accident?”
“That boy,” Dolly says, looking around. “He tried to grab the dollhouse. Did anyone see him leave?”
The norms look around, shrugging after a second. Well, she can’t blame them for not seeing anything, the sight of five supers appearing out of thin air tends to distract people. “We’ll check the video later. Right now, Skystep! Jersey! Raindance! You’re under arrest for armed robbery!” Ruckus says, striking a pose.
Skye brings up her arms, flexing just enough to show that her muscles are rather small. “These are the only arms I NEED!” she brags, doing strong man poses.
“Oh, come on, already,” Doris says, grabbing one of the arms in question and taking to the air. “Raindance! We’re leaving! I need a long shower.”
“I’m grabbing our cookie bag, first!” Ariel says, grabbing the bag before grabbing onto Skye. Ruckus jumps, trying to grab onto her, but her arms go straight through as the three phase through the ceiling, getting away.
“That’s an amazing ability! I especially liked the ice cream monster!” Carla says to Dolly. “But we should go try to catch them, right?”
“We should,” Dolly says. The Nemeses run out of the building, chasing after the Deadly Darlin’s until they can slip out of sight. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Dolly says, showing just how stressed out she was by the mistake. “I had everything under control, but some strange boy just GRABS the dollhouse! I couldn’t even stop him! I don’t—I’m so sorry. I’ll… I’ll speak to Century about being reassigned—”
“How was a strange norm grabbing the dollhouse your fault?” Ruckus asks, surprising Dolly. “Had it been a villain, you could be blamed, but norms know better than to interfere with a gig! Or they should.”
“I still… I have ONE job, Ruckus! I stand there and people stare at me while I try to keep everyone from escaping the dollhouse! If I can’t keep that from being interfered with, then… then I’m a failure.”
Ruckus sighs, turning away and rubbing her temple. “Let’s go to the Hall. We’ll tell Century what happened and he can look into who the kid that grabbed the dollhouse was. Maybe we can even find out why he did it.”
Dolly nods, still not quite looking at her. “I’m still sorry,” she whispers, only to blink as Carla wraps her arms around her.
“It’s okay, Dolly, you didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, I had a TON of fun in there while it lasted,” she says, happily. “That ice cream monster eating Doris was AMAZING! And then we were all hanging on for dear life as it threw us all over the place, and Ruckus got to go up against Skye, and she looked really good doing it! That’s always a good sign when you’re dealing with Skye, you know? So you did GREAT!”
“Thank you,” Dolly says, smiling slightly. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“I can see why Skye and the girls love you so much,” Carla adds. “Now let’s go tell Century to have one of the technopaths track down that jerk that ruined our game!” She starts out, on a mission, only to be grabbed before she can step out of the alley.
“OUT of uniform,” Ruckus says, letting go of her arm. She’s already changed into her jeans and Voltdrain T-shirt.
“Oh, right,” Carla says, tugging off her mask and digging through the tiny bag attached to her hip. She pulls out a tanktop and shorts, moving at a blur as she changes. “Ready!”
“And all I have to do is… this!” Dolly says, tugging off the top part of her uniform to reveal the cute little dress that’s underneath. She wads up the top part and sticks it into her bag, patting her hair once to make sure she hadn’t messed it up. “Okay, I’m ready to go!”
The three pause at the end of the alley, peeking out to make sure no one is walking past, and then head out, chatting along the way to avoid standing out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What in the world just happened?” Century demands after watching the recording of the fight. He’d tried to be here in time to see it live, but there’d been a hiccup in traffic that he’d had to clean up. He’d come to his office, fully expecting to see something good, and he’d gotten it… until a somewhat familiar looking kid tried to grab the fake ice cream shop out of nowhere. “Are the girls fine?” he demands of the black suit next to him.
“They’re all fine,” the black suit says. “Dollface lost her concentration and the shop disappeared, but… sir, would you look at the boy?”
“What about him?”
“This,” the black suit says, placing an envelope on Century’s desk. He opens it up, showing the teen and an entire file about him. “That was Davis Monk, the super genius. He tried to get placed in Cape High, but his mother refused to let him go.”
“He’s wearing a hat and glasses in the video,” Century points out.
“Our drones are very good at facial recognition,” the black suit says.
“I see… well… then it might be that this is just a cry for help,” Century says, calming down after thinking for a moment. “If his mother won’t let him go to the school he wants, he might be trying to get our attention on his own.”
“That’s possibly it,” the black suit says.
“Would there be another motivation?” Century asks. “He’s a twelve-year-old boy, he’s hardly the type to try and kidnap a group of supers, especially when he’s smart enough to realize they could kill him easily. I’ll have to go make a visit to his house.” He stands up, straightening his bolo tie and reaching for his hat. Before he can get it, he catches sight of a foot coming through the ceiling.
“Our fun time was ruined, Century!” Skye says, pulling her partners down along with her. “You had better explain why my very first fight against Carla was cut short before I even got a chance to go up against her!”
“Sugar, I’m working on it, I promise, and I’ll be more than happy to arrange for another showdown, but right now—”
The door opens and the Nemeses group walks in. “We need Nico to find out who that kid is,” Ruckus says. “If he’s going to interfere in fights like that, he needs to be dealt with.”
“Yeah!” Ariel agrees. “What she said.”
“That’s the thing, ladies,” Century says, “we already know who the boy is.”
“We do? Then why haven’t we brought him in and punished him?!” Skye demands, standing on his desk and propping her hands on her hips as she glares down at him self-righteously.
“Because, Sugar, he’s the boy that should have been put in Cape High South, but wasn’t,” Century says. “He’s most likely acting up to get our attention, away from his mother’s influence.”
“Oh!”
Carla says, her eyes widening. “You mean the mad scientist boy?”
Skye goes pale, looking terrified. “He’s a mad scientist? No way, no how! You can’t just bring a mad scientist into my territory! Send him to another branch!”
“Sugar, he’s just a boy,” Century says, a bit startled at her response. “He’s not going to do anything to you. He couldn’t even if he wanted to.”
“I don’t care! I won’t accept any mad scientists in my Hall!” she says, glaring at him. “Get him out of my branch!”
“Skye?” Ariel says, hesitantly. “Are you okay?”
“I just—I HATE MAD SCIENTISTS!” she yells, stomping her foot and breaking his antique wooden desk. “I don’t want them anywhere near me! And if you won’t get rid of him, I—I’m moving to another branch!” she yells at Century. Doris and Ariel look at each other silently before looking at him, as well.
“We’ll be moving, as well,” Doris says. “I’m actually not that fond of scientists, either.”
“I’m going wherever Skye goes,” Ariel says, jumping into the air to float next to her leader.
“Girls, girls! You need to calm down for a moment and listen to yourselves—”
“We ARE listening,” Skye says. “You’re the one that isn’t! A mad scientist ruined my life! I’m never going to let one near me again!” She grabs her partners and jumps into the air, dragging them through the ceiling behind her. Century just stays there, his jaw dropped slightly.
“What mad scientist?” Carla asks, looking at him.
“I… have no idea,” he admits, feeling stupid. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
“But if you don’t do something, she’s going to leave the Hall,” Ruckus says quietly.
“Wouldn’t that make you happy?” Dolly asks. “Once they’re gone, we’ve got no reason to be a team anymore. You can finally be the hero that you want to be instead of playing these… ‘ridiculous’ games.”