Chapter Forty – Entering Again

“Trinity,” Big Sister Boss said.

Trinity looked over, seeing her Big Sister from the right and left. Her sister was only looking at the one of her, but that was okay. It was real tricky to look two ways at once. “Yes?” she asked.

Emily pointed to the rocks by the edge of the forest. They’d left the house they were staying in a bit ago and had walked all the way over. She had her ponchos on, and all of her sisters too! They looked a bit funny, all of them halfway blended in with their backgrounds. They looked like a bunch of knees and legs with heads poking out the top. It was a bit goofy, but it did help them blend in a little.

“Can you add the newest rock to the line?” Emily asked.

Trinity blinked, keeping one set of eyes on her while the other looked ahead. And yeah, there was the line of rocks that they’d been moving every time they passed by the edge of the Endgame. “Okay!” she said before one of her darted ahead.

Her second body moved closer to Emily, so that she’d get her pats right away when the job was done.

Entering Endgame.

The message flashed across her vision, and she looked down. It was… about two of her body’s length away from the edge of the last rock. She darted off to the side, where she’d made a small stack of loose rocks under a bush. She had been thinking ahead!

Grabbing a nice round rock, she ran back and placed it down more or less on the edge of the Endgame. “Here!”

“There?” Emily asked. She looked at the space between that rock and the last. “It’s moved so much.”

Trinity shrugged. “That’s what it does?”

“I guess,” Emily replied. She reached over and Trinity got her pats. Hehe! She smiled smugly at the others. They weren’t getting pats!

“Okay. Let’s step in, then… I need everyone in a line, please? That’s right. Ah, today’s hint is… just as unhelpful as last time. Okay. Let me know how many points you all have left, please?” Emily pulled out her notebook, clicked on a clicky pen, then looked over all of her sisters, starting with Aurora.

“I have five points,” Aurora said.

“I’ve got five too,” Teddy added right away, even if she wasn’t next in line.

“Okay, okay,” Emily said as she noted that down. “Maple?”

“Um, only four?”

“Four is plenty, sweetie,” Emily said. “Trinity?”

“Five too!” Trinity said. She felt a little bad. She’d spent more points than all the others and yet still had more than Maple.

“Hmm, okay, I guess that makes sense,” Emily said. “Athena?”

Athena shrugged. “Five here too.”

“So, fives almost across the board,” Emily muttered. “Okay, well, let’s change that. We won’t gain any advantages just sitting here on a heap of points. Let’s… all get Minor Shadow Blend. We’re going to have to sneak a lot in the next couple of hours, and that seems like a good skill for it.”

There were a lot of ‘okays’ and ‘alrights,’ but Trinity raised two hands. “What if you have it already?”

“Keep your points for now, then, we’ll maybe experiment with something else in a bit,” Emily said.

Trinity nodded, then looked around as her sisters wiggled their hands in the air and interacted with the Endgame’s system. It wasn’t long before they all had the new power.

“Okay, quick tests. Everyone, activate it?”

Trinity could do that part! She pinched her tongue between her lips and activated the power. Minor Shadow Blend came on, and she felt a little more shady than usual.

Glancing over at her sisters, she found that they were also shadier.

It wasn’t too obvious. Just that their legs mostly hid in the shadow they were casting a bit better, blending in with the grass some more. It was a lot more obvious with Maple, who was off to the side a little, and under the shade of a tree. With her hat shading her face a bit, she really did almost-sorta disappear, as long as she didn’t move too much.

“Hmm, not bad,” Emily said. The Boss seemed happy. “I won’t say that it’s perfect stealth, but it might help us all hide. The city has a good number of alleys and if we plan our route a little, we should be able to stick to the shadows a little better.”

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“So, what’s the plan? Other than sneaking around?” Athena asked.

Teddy sniffed. “Give the boss a minute. You know, only capitalists and idiots rush to do stuff.”

“Alright, don’t start fighting already,” Emily said. “The plan is… relatively simple. I have a map of the city. I divided Saint Arie into four sections. We’re going to scout out each one, starting with the area nearest here, the quadrant that we’re in right now. Then we’re going to move around counter-clockwise. We’ll do the area around the HRF base last. I’m assuming that the other Villains aren’t silly enough to have their base right next to the heroes. Any questions?”

Maple silently raised a hand, and when Emily pointed at her, she hesitated for a moment before saying anything. “Um… did you want me to use the things I made?”

“That’s be ideal,” Emily said. “Those Orbject finding birds would be nice, and the more subtle anti-drone things too. We’re not even sure if the HRF is using anything of the sort, but I’d much rather be safe than sorry.”

The Boss was so smart!

With that done, they headed out. The edges of Saint Arie were becoming kind of familiar. Like the areas around their home in Eauclaire. They had passed beside the gas station a dozen or so times already, and she recognized the hardware store they had robbed down one of the streets. Even the school they had snuck into was kind of visible, way off in the distance.

The Boss pulled out her map, then directed them to one side of the city, where there were still big patches of forest, and a few open fields with little farmhouses on them. The streets with homes in that part of the town were kind of like where they were staying. Lots of homes that had nice yards, and fences, and sometimes garages and some trees around them. Most were pressed up against a thin band of forest that looked like a fun place to run around in.

Maple released the new things she made, and Trinity couldn’t help but be curious about them. She thought that if she didn’t have cool racoon powers and the ability to be in three places at once, then being a gadgeteer like Maple would be pretty alright. She liked collecting things. She wasn’t sure if she’d be as quick as Maple was, when it came to giving all of the things she made away, but that was okay.

The first set of birds that Maple released took off like shiny paper airplanes, only they kept climbing up and up, then spun in a big, lazy circle before moving off. Maple released a couple more, and soon they were catching a few glimpses of the shiny planes up in the air.

“Huh, that kind of reminds me of Glamazon’s power. The attention-grabbing bit,” Emily said.

“Oh… I didn’t think of that,” Maple said. “If we can, we should steal her balls.”

“Hehe, steal her balls,” Teddy said.

“Why is that funny?” Trinity asked.

“Because balls are funny. Everyone knows that,” Teddy said with a huff.

Trinity guessed that it was just another thing she didn’t get. There were a lot of those, though, so she didn’t make a fuss about it.

“Okay, I’m gonna launch the Orbject finders next,” Maple said.

“Those are paper pigeons,” Athena said.

“Yes? They’re birds. I guess they don’t look as good as the ones the government makes,” Maple said.

The boss sighed, then rubbed at her face in that way she did sometimes. “I don’t even want to know. Yeah, let them fly, Maple. We’ll continue to patrol in the meantime. I want to canvas this entire area before lunchtime.”

“What’re we doing for lunch?” Teddy asked.

Trinity perked up. She wanted to know too.

“I… don’t know, I guess we’ll find some vending machines, or a gas station or something. There should be something to eat around here that hasn’t had time to go bad yet.”

Trinity cheered, then went silent as the Boss gave her a look. Oh, right, this was sneaky time. They weren’t supposed to be making any noise. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“It’s fine. Alright… let’s see about scanning this quadrant first. But eyes and ears open, girls, we don’t want to get caught out by the HRF if they happen to be patrolling the area.”

***

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