Chapter Thirty-Seven - All Out

Emily watched as Glamazon turned away from Fabien and stared at her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

For a second, just one irrational second, Emily felt like telling her the truth. Something like “We’re here to stop you from capturing Fabien back there because he might tell you all that we’re villains, which isn’t actually wrong, but really, I’m trying to be a good person and don’t need the police knocking at my door, thank you.”

Fortunately, she had more self-control than her sisters, so instead of replying she self-consciously stood a little taller and levelled a look at the heroine. Then she realized that she wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

“We’re here to kick your butts,” Teddy rescued her.

More or less.

Emily’s eyes darted across all the heroes before her. Glamazon looked irate. Hindsight confused. Cheatah was glancing between Emily and her sisters and Fabien, and Black Shield... it was hard to tell with the last. Her costume included a face-covering helmet which left only her body language for Emily to figure out, and figuring out what someone was thinking from the set of their shoulders wasn’t something Emily was good with.

There was one person left in the group, the odd one out. Iron Chains. He was dressed in a tight spandex suit, one that failed to hide that he had some love handles on him. It was bright blue and white, the same colour as the chains wrapped around his middle and his arms. Those had links that were painted in the same pattern. Blue-white-blue-white.

Emily pointed to him, then to Black Shield. She had an idea, and it wasn’t going to work. “The question is, Glamazon, why are you associating with two known villains?”

There. Turn the tables around.

“What?” Cheatah asked. She glanced at Emily, then to the people around her. She was quick to take a small step away from Black Shield.

“What are you talking about?” Glamazon asked. “We’re here to capture him.” She pointed behind her, in the vague direction where Fabien stood.

“He’s just a bank robber,” Athena said. For a moment Emily was worried that her sisters were going to ruin her admittedly awful plan, but then Athena went on. “We know what he’s up to. It’s just robbing places. But Iron Chains was doing villain stuff. Like taking people’s money. And beating people up.”

“Yeah,” Teddy agreed. “Fun stuff like that.”

Athena nodded. “So the Boss put him in his place, with our help. Now he’s working for you, isn’t he?”

“That was a misunderstanding,” Iron Chains said.

“Liar!” Athena shot back.

“Can we set his pants on fire?” Trinity asked in stereo.

Glamazon shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. “Look, Wrap-Up might have messed up a little, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a hero. Show them, Wrap.”

Iron Chains hesitated for a moment, mumbled something, then some words appeared over his head.

Wrap Up

Level 1

Hero

“See,” Glamazon said. “He’s a hero.”

Emily froze. From the corner of her eye she could see people on the sidewalks and the edges of the street, even in the store that Fabien was about to rob. They were watching, and they were listening. She knew why. This many masks in one place, one of them even proudly showing off his tag. They’d be taking pictures and filming, then bragging about it later.

A mask fight was like a car crash, but a thousand times worse when it came to bystanders.

And now all those people were staring at her. She felt as if she was naked in the spotlight. This was her third grade play all over again. Her heart clenched, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if she could remember how to breathe.

Then she noticed the Trinity behind Fabien picking her nose.

She almost snapped at the girl. What was Trinity thinking? People were watching! She... she took a deep breath, then focused on Glamazon. All she had to do, she realized, was pretend that the heroes here were misbehaving children. Easy. She dealt with those on the daily.

“The system might acknowledge that he’s a hero,” Emily said. “But I don’t. Same for Black Shield over there. I don’t want to hear any excuses. Just because someone can conjure up a little glowing sign that says their innocent doesn’t mean they are.”

Glamazon looked honestly stumped. It reminded Emily a little of when she explained to her sisters that no, stealing things wasn’t okay, even if they didn’t get caught.

“We both know what he did,” Emily said. “I’m surprised you want to fight alongside him.”

“Hey!” Iron Chains... no, Wrap Up, she supposed, said. “Look, I might not have been the greatest guy around, but don’t I deserve a second chance?”

“Would you have gotten that second chance if your tag read villain?” Emily asked.

He scoffed. “Well, no, but I’m a hero.”

“And that’s why I can’t trust you. You expect me to judge you based on some glowing word instead of your actions,” Emily said.

“Look, can we talk about this after we catch that guy?” Glamazon said with a gesture towards Fabian.

Hindsight nodded. “Yeah. I’m interested in what you have to say too, but this doesn’t feel like the time or place for it.”

“We’re not just going to talk it out, are we?” Teddy asked, clearly disappointed. “Because I came here to fight.”

“We don’t need ten heroes to capture a b-rated villain-wannabe,” Glamazon said with a gesture in Fabien’s direction. “Wrap Up and I almost caught him last time, and that was just with the two of us.”

“Athena,” Emily muttered. “Your time to shine.”

Athena nodded, then smiled angelically. If Emily didn’t know much better, she might have assumed that Athena was the most innocent and sweet girl there was. “We think that there’s a lot more villains than that,” Athena said. “So it’s more like six on three.”

“She’s attacking me!” Black Shield said. The very first words out of her mouth since the two groups had met. She pointed to Athena. “Right now, she’s attacking me mentally.”

Cheatah looked between Black Shield and Athena. “What? What are you on about?”

“I can feel it,” Black Shield said. Her arms snapped to the side and two black circles appeared with twin cracks.

Emily tensed up. Unfortunately, Cheatah and Hindsight seemed willing to listen to others, and they were both ready to de-escalate. Glamazon was more annoyed by her image, Emily suspected, and Wrap Up was just confused.

She knew that her plan relied on her adversaries being a little stupid, and now it wasn’t working out.

“Iron Chains! Take out Glamazon! Black Shield, grab Cheatah. I’ll take out Hindsight!” Fabien the Fabulous shouted.

The heroes, who had partially turned towards Emily, were caught entirely flat-footed as Fabien darted towards Hindsight, his sword sliding out of its sheath with a metallic rasp.

Everything went chaotic a moment later. Fabien stabbed towards Hindsight who tripped backwards, arms flailing.

Glamazon flung out a brilliant ball of light, and for a moment all Emily could do was track it with her eyes before she snapped her attention away.

It was just in time to notice Wrap Up flinging some of his two-coloured chains towards Fabien.

Fabien spun, his sword reached out, and the very tip slipped into the hole of the leading chainlink. With a continued spin, he flicked his sword out and the chain flew out and smacked Cheatah in the face.

Things spiralled out of control even further when Black Shield rushed towards Fabien only for Hindsight, who was still on the ground, kicked her legs out from under her.

Athena started to cackle. “It’s beautiful!” she cheered.

Emily looked around. Some of the civilians were running away. Others, with less common sense, were running towards the fight.

Her distraction almost cost her as a length of chain whipped out and only Teddy’s tackle prevented it from smacking her in the head. “Okay, enough,” she said from the roadside. “Teddy, focus on Wrap Up. Athena, keep doing what you’re doing. Trinity, get in there!”

“Alright!” Teddy said.

She ran into the fray, then jumped up and turned into a grizzly with a happy roar.

“Not again!” Wrap Up shouted a moment before Teddy ran into him forehead first.

Fabien the Fabulous had turned his attention towards Glamazon, who was swearing as she worked to dodge his attacks. She flung out a brace of those light balls which exploded with powerful bangs that were loud enough to set off car alarms and make everyone wince.

Black Shield was screaming something at Cheatah, who was darting around so fast that all Emily could see of her was the occasional blur. Then Trinity got involved, two of her tackling Black Shield from either side and refusing to let go.

Somehow, this was all her fault, she knew. So she’d just have to do something about it.

***