Chapter Fifty-Four – PR

“Oh!”

Teddy interrupted herself mid-rant and glanced over at Trinity. “What is it?” she asked.

Teaching her new disciples–even if some of them seemed to think they were too cool for communism–took a backseat to helping her sisters and the Boss with trouble, and Trinity would be the first to know.

Trinity bounced over to Teddy, waving off some of the kids who were playing with her. “Boss said that we’re going now!” Trinity said.

“How did she say it?” Teddy asked. “Was it like… ‘hey! We have to go now!'” She tried to sound like the Boss when she was stressed and loud. “Or was it more, ‘Okay, we’re going now.'” That time she tried to sound like the Boss when she was just normal stressed.

Trinity frowned, her head tilting to one side a little as she thought. “I think it sounded like, ‘Trinity, can you tell Teddy to come to the lobby, please? And you come too. And don’t steal people’s food on the way. And tell Teddy not to start a revolution.’“

Teddy sniffed. “Your Big Sis voice is awful.”

“No it’s not, yours is.”

Teddy shook her head. “No. Mine’s so good, you wouldn’t even be able to tell us apart. That’s because I’m related to her by being her sister.”

Trinity blinked. “But I’m her sister too?”

“You’re a third of her sister, so you’re only a third as good at imitating her,” Teddy said. The math was impossible to deny. Grinning, Teddy turned back to her disciples and jumped back onto the table she’d been using to proselytise. “Alright. So, in essence, people that wanna sell you stuff are probably capitalist shills that want all of your money so that they can eat your food. Remember, those people aren’t people, so it’s okay to kick them around.”

Teddy gave them a thumbs up, then leapt off the table.

Trinity was pouting nearby. “I’m not a third of a sister,” she said. “I asked the Boss, and she said that sometimes I’m three times as much trouble as anyone else, and that means I’m three times more of a sister than you.”

Teddy and Trinity started to argue back and forth as they began to make their way through the hospital. They only stopped for a moment to tell Melaton that they were leaving, and that was only because she happened to be nearby.

Melaton was pretty cool, for a hero, but she was still a hero, which by default made her very uncool. It wasn’t her fault… Teddy frowned. Actually, powers were usually given with a morality that explicitly fit the person that received them. So it totally was Melaton’s fault.

She might have been trying to look cool and suave and kind of anti-heroic, but deep down she was probably-definitely a do-gooder. It didn’t matter how dark and edgy her costume was, or how gruff and mean she tried to sound, she was still in a hospital reading books to sick kids, and that made her lame.

It didn’t take long to find the Boss and her other sisters. Maple and Athena, and the rest of Trinity were milling around the entrance, doing signings for some fan-people.

Teddy wasn’t sure what to think about signings. Her villain name, Ursa Minor, was pretty long to write, and her handwriting was very scratchy. That, and people paid for her to write her name on stuff. It was weird, and sometimes she worried that it was a little too capitalistic.

Then again, she did like the attention. Sometimes she’d let the people touch her ears, which people seemed to really like doing.

“You’re here,” Big Sister said. She seemed… not all that stressed, actually. That was probably for the best. Teddy had been quietly very proud of all the steps Emily had been taking towards becoming a better villain, and gaining confidence in herself was one of the big ones.

Obviously, Teddy didn’t need to worry about that, because she was a bear.

“Alright, we’ll be heading out in a minute. I just want to say goodbye to Soothe-Sayer and let… the HRF agents know that we’re heading out.”

The Boss led them outside, where she talked with lots of gestures to one of the clipboards, and then she walked over to that hero with the patchwork coat. Teddy followed, grabbing Emily’s hand now that she wasn’t paying too much attention.

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“You handled today really well,” Soothe-Sayer said. “I know you probably don’t hear it enough, since being a hero means that people just assume it of us, but I’m proud of you, Boss.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” the Boss said.

Teddy looked up to her sister with narrowed eyes. Then gave her a sniff to be sure. It didn’t look like Emily was in love with this guy, but she was very blushy. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I… being a hero is hard, sometimes.”

Soothe-Sayer smiled. “We do our best, but I understand. These places can be tough. But hey, just remember that you made a difference today, and if you keep it up, you’ll make a difference tomorrow, and the day after. If we all put some effort into it, some kindness, the world will be a better place. Or so I’d like to believe!”

Teddy snorted. This guy was, in her professional villainous opinion, an idiot.

“Right, thank you again, Soothe-Sayer. Maybe we’ll see each other around,” Emily said.

It didn’t take long before she was tugging Teddy away and back to the others who were waiting nearby.

“That guy’s so wrong,” Teddy said.

“You think so?” the Boss asked.

“Yeah. He’s too optimistic, which makes him dumb. Heroes always think like that. That they can save people. But it’s really just about keeping things the way they are. He wants to help people get better, but he’s doing nothing about stopping people from getting hurt in the first place.”

“I’m not sure it’s dumb to want to help,” Emily said.

Teddy shook her head. “If people are getting hurt because of cars, then you can either spend a lot of time fixing the people, or you can blow up any car that drives over the speed limit.”

“Then you’d have blown up people,” Emily said.

“Only for a while. The non-blown-up-people would drive slower, I bet. If people are getting sick because of bad food, then you can either cure them, or burn down the factory the food came from. If people are getting old and dying, you can either sit back and let them, or you can fight against death. That’s like, the core of being a villain.”

Emily glanced down at Teddy. “That’s a very… uh, destructive view of things.”

Teddy shook her head. “No, it’s proactive,” she said. “Heroes react. Villains act. That’s what makes us better. Well, it’s one of the things. We’re also just cooler.”

“I don’t think all change comes from destruction. Sometimes people build new, good things for good reasons.”

“Yeah, sure. But it’s usually just to help them react more. Plus it takes forever for that kind of change to happen. Like, months and years.”

“I think we can afford to wait, sometimes. I don’t think I want to become the kind of person that hurts others just to get what she wants.”

Teddy shrugged. “You don’t have to hurt everybody, if that’s not the kinda villain you wanna be. You just gotta hurt the ones that will be between you and what you want.”

Emily let out a long sigh, but she didn’t seem able to contradict what Teddy had said. Which was obvious, because Teddy knew that she was objectively correct.

The two of them walked in silence for a bit, at least until they reached the rest of the group. “Okay! I hope everyone had a nice time?”

“It was alright,” Athena said. “Networking isn’t fun, but I guess it’s good. Plus we made a lot of good PR.”

“What’s a ‘PR’?” Trinity asked. “Can you eat it?”

“No, those are pears,” Maple said.

“Not pears, Pee Arr,” Athena repeated, drawing the word out.

“Your pee are stinky,” Teddy said.

The Boss had to separate them because Athena had decided to bap Teddy on the head for that one, and Teddy had just laughed and fought her back because she was stronger and more clever.

“Alright, break it up, you two,” Emily said. “I think we were memorable enough for one day. I don’t want a video of you two fighting to end up on Outube.”

“Teddy started it,” Athena said.

“Her stink started it,” Teddy shot back. She grinned. That had been a good one, but the Boss just sighed and started walking home.

One day, Teddy figured the Boss would learn how to villain properly.

Then she’d appreciate Teddy’s fantastic sense of humour even more!

***

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