Chapter Sixty-Seven – Entirely Fine

They went to the park next to the college, the same one where they’d met Melaton that one time. It was all sunny and bright, with green grass underfoot and plenty of room to run around in, and that’s exactly what her sisters were doing.

Tina was huffing and puffing as she ran after one of Trinity, arms outstretched as if that would help her catch their newest little sister. But Trinity was really fast, so Teddy didn’t think that she had great odds.

She kind of wanted to join in, but it was her job as the biggest and best sister to keep an eye out for the others. That, and the Boss was sitting on a park bench, bent forward with her phone dangling between her knees. She looked like she was thinking real hard.

Teddy moved closer to Emily’s side, then backed her butt up to the bench and jumped backwards so that she was sitting by the Boss’ side. The Boss looked at her for a moment, and her lips twitched up in a smile that never quite reached her eyes.

“Are you okay, Boss?” Teddy asked.

“I’m fine,” Emily said.

Teddy pouted when the Boss returned to staring at the ground.

Her sisters were still having fun. Athena had pinned one of Trinity to the ground and was laughing a proper Villain laugh as she tickled Trinity into submission. The raccoon-girl’s other two bodies were giggling so hard she was having a hard time running to the rescue of her third, who was writhing on the grass.

Teddy refocused on the Boss. The Boss wasn’t feeling great, that much was obvious. So, with a bit of stretching, Teddy brought her arm up and started patting the Boss on the head. “There there,” she said.

“Uh,” Emily said. “What are you doing?”

Teddy continued to pat the Boss. “Making you feel better,” she said.

The Boss sighed, but it was an amused sort of sigh, so that was good.

Then she looped an arm around Teddy and pulled her into her side. It was a weird hug, and Teddy still had one arm straight up because there was no room for it otherwise, but she figured that was okay. If the Boss was giving out hugs, then things couldn’t be that bad.

“Thanks, Teddy,” Emily said. “That’s nice of you.”

Teddy preened. “Yeah, that’s what I’m best at. Making sure the Boss is happy and stuff.”

Emily laughed, then started to rub circles over Teddy’s back. “Do you mind if I talk a bit?”

“Sure,” Teddy said. “What do you need to rant about?” Ranting was, of course, a time-honoured tradition for Villains of all sorts; monologues were especially common.

“It’s not so much a rant,” Emily said. “Just… Cement’s message is weighing on me a lot. I don’t trust him, of course. He’s a Villain, or near enough. As hypocritical as that might be to say.”

It wasn’t, Teddy thought. Villains didn’t trust other Villains most of the time; it was perfectly natural.

“I think the Cabal are a bigger problem than Cement though, and he’s basically giving us information on them for free… if he’s telling the truth.”

“You think he’s lying?” Teddy asked. Lying to the Boss was a terrible, terrible thing to do. Only little sisters were allowed to do that, and even they risked disappointed looks when they did it.

“I think it would be in his best interest if we weren’t around to mess with his plans anymore,” the Boss said. “But… I don’t know. Call it an instinct? Something is telling me that he was being honest. Or at least mostly honest.”

“We could send in one of Trinity to see if it’s a trap. If it is, she can tell us, and no one important will be hurt,” Teddy said. She was quite proud of that idea, it was really clever.

The Boss shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of sacrificing one of my sisters on a whim, Teddy, even if Trinity has an interesting relationship with the concept of, uh, dying.”

Teddy shrugged.

The Boss stopped rubbing Teddy’s back eventually, and fiddled with her phone. She started by checking her messages. There were a bunch of them from the Boss’ mom… the GrandBoss? that hadn’t been answered yet. The Boss read them faster than Teddy could, then she sighed and went back to the phone’s main page and opened a news app.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Teddy was soon a little bit bored. Sitting next to the Boss was nice and all, but it wasn’t super fun when the Boss wasn’t paying her any attention, and the others looked like they were having all the fun. Trinity had pinned Athena to the ground and were attacking her with tickles while she kicked and punched and giggled a bunch.

Then the Boss gasped and Teddy started. She looked around, but couldn’t spot any trouble, not until she looked at the Boss’ phone and read the article the Boss had stumbled onto.

Local Hidden Villain ‘Cement’ Captured by Glamazon and Silver Fox Team-Up!

Today, around noon, the intrepid new Hero Glamazon, as well as local celebrity Silver Fox, teamed up to capture a Villain known only as Cement.

Cement was an active, if discreet, Villain operating within Eauclaire for well over a year, mostly focused on white-collar crime, but he is suspected of organizing and leading a gang of drug smugglers and sellers operating within the very heart of the city.

The arrest came after a short but decisive battle on Elm street, leaving part of the street unusable.

“He was arrested,” the Boss said.

“Looks like it,” Teddy replied. He must not have been all that good of a Villain then.

The Boss stood up suddenly. “So he was telling the truth. At least… partially. Teddy, we might have to go see that house he mentioned, before the police and everyone else gets there.”

“Oh?” Teddy asked. “We’re not in costume though.”

Emily nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go home, we need to pick things up real quick before heading out.” She brought her hands to the side of her mouth. “Girls! Tina, Trinity, come on.”

The others untangled themselves, then ran over, Trinity looking bright and happy, despite one of her six eyes being black on the edges and her clothes looking a bit rumpled. Athena, on the other hand, didn’t look happy at all.

The Boss didn’t seem very impressed, but Teddy didn’t say anything. If it were up to her, and she weren’t responsible for looking over her smaller sisters, she’d have been in the tussle too.

“Right,” Emily said. “We need to hurry home.”

“What’s going on?” Athena asked.

“That Villain that contacted me? He was arrested today, probably just after calling me. He gave me the location of some stuff that he thought I might need. I was going to ignore it, but with him being arrested, I don’t think it’s fake.”

“So we’re going to sneak over and grab something,” Athena summed up. “I can do that. I’m very sneaky.”

“I’m more sneakier,” Trinity said.

“You are not!”

“Girls,” the Boss snapped, and both Trinity and Athena flinched. “Not now. We’ll have plenty of time to test your… sneakiness later. For now, we need to get back home, and sooner rather than later.”

Everyone agreed to that, and Teddy knew that Trinity was looking forward to putting on her new costume.

Still, Teddy wondered if they had time to stop by that doughnut place on the way home.

The Boss nodded, then started off towards the exit of the park, all of her little sisters jogging along to keep up. It seemed, at least to Teddy, that the Boss was in a hurry to act.

That was actually kind of cool. The Boss was really growing into her role as the Boss. She was becoming more… bosslike, and she was a whole bunch more scarier. Teddy imagined that in a few weeks, the Boss would be terrorizing the entire country, or at least the city.

She couldn’t wait—it was going to be so much fun!

“Hey, Boss, can we stop at that coffee place?”

“No, Teddy, we’re in a hurry.”

“What about on the way back?”

“I… guess? It depends on what we find,” the Boss said.

Teddy shared a grin with her sisters, and a silent bit of communication passed between them. First they’d help the Boss as best they could, because they were all good sisters. And then they’d reap the rewards: snacks and hugs and sleep for everyone.

***

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