Fluff

Chapter Fifty-One - Rough Day

Today sucked so hard.

First, their gadgeteer wouldn't stop riding her back to keep that stupid generator of his running--which was admittedly nice, she liked having electricity, and having a clear and obvious use for the team was a plus--and then she'd had to deal with the fact that a lot of her favourite foods were just out. That would mean another trip out of the base to grab more to eat.

Oh, and then a gaggle of schoolkids had broken into the base and captured them all.

She hadn't liked that part much either.

"Wow... it must suck, being this bad at being a villain," one of the girls said.

She was a short, stocky sort of girl, with a big, too-confident smile and she looked so proud of herself that it genuinely annoyed Matchstick.

"What are you walking about?" Matchstick asked.

"Don't." Pinprick shifted. She had a piece of duct-tape wrapped all around her head to cover her eyes, and they both knew that removing that would be a nightmare. It was all stuck to her hair.

Maybe Pinprick would end up with a bob cut? But no, that really wouldn't fit her overall look. She'd look goofy with that.

"Don't what?" she asked.

"Don't talk to them," Pinprick said. "You'll just sink to their level."

Matchstick stared at the other woman. She had gotten off worse than any of them. The tall one, with the lumberjack build and the horns had smacked Pinprick around pretty good before stuffing a tarp over her face for a while. She looked rather awful.

"Sink to our level?" the girl asked. "Stupid. We're above you. If you were smart, you'd be trying to rise to our level, maybe. You're obviously nothing but amateur villains."

"Amateurs?" Matchstick asked. "You're like... twelve."

"No I'm not," the girl said immediately. "And I've been a villain since I was born! I was made for this. You never stood a chance."

Matchstick snorted. "I'm a part-time villain at best. Mostly doing this for fun and for the clout."

"Part-time?" the girl asked. "That's some capitalist nonsense. You either are a villain or you're not. You can't part-time it."

"I dunno... and besides, what's wrong with capitalism?" Matchstick asked. Half the point of being here was to get more powerful to make more money to eventually retire to a life of luxury. Maybe in a penthouse somewhere. With like... a butler.

"What's--" the girl started. She huffed. "Let me tell you what's wrong with it!"

"Oh boy," one of the other girls said.

And then the short stack started to rant. She really had a lot saved up in her, because once she got going she didn't look ready to stop.

Matchstick leaned back, sometimes tossing fuel onto the fire by calling the girl's ideas stupid, but really she wasn't paying too much attention. This was just more fun that sitting there and being miserable.

Then she heard William screaming in the next room over and tensed up.

A few of the girls looked, but then one of them, a little pipsqueak with a weird, flat tail came out. She was sniffling.

"Hey, what happened?" the lumberjack looking one asked.

"The... he said I was stupid," the girl said. She sniffed again. "It's okay. He was probably right?"

"What? Nah, I'mma kick his ass!" bear-girl said.

William screamed some more, louding, more desperate. "Um, no? Athena is getting his secrets now."

Matchstick felt sweat pooling down the middle of her back. Maybe... maybe insulting the girls with fragile egos and superpowers was a bad move?

It was kind of sweet to see them all rally around the little one and give her hugs and comfort her. It would have been sweeter if they weren't doing so over the chorus of William's suffering without seeming to care at all about it.

Pinprick shifted to the side, then jabbed an elbow into Matchstick's side. It was a move that none of the girls seemed to notice. "Take," Pinprick muttered.

Matchstick didn't know what the woman was talking about until something was pushed into her hand. She took it, of course, and immediately shifted to the side as if casually trying to make herself more comfortable.

It was a pager. She recognized the shape of it, and the little nubs for buttons along the edges.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"What am I supposed to--" she began.

"Obscure," Pinprick muttered before giving her a slight kick.

She supposed that Pinprick couldn't exactly use the thing herself. She'd need eyes to see the screen and know what to press, and she was tied up way more than Matchstick was.

Matchstick leaned back and turned the item around in her hand. Was it worth it? One person couldn't take on this many villains, could they? Besides, of anyone on her team, Obscure was the one she trusted the least.

Then she watched as William stumbled back into the room. He looked like he had been crying. One of the girls, looking a little too smug with her little owl feathers in her hair, deposited him in a chain, then she turned a grin onto Pinprick.

The sight of it sent a shiver down Matchstick's spine. Ah, right, Villains. They might've been kids, but she had the impression that they weren't here to play games.

The dangerous girl had one of the others escort Pinprick away. Matchstick licked her lips.

Another, the oldest of the group, started to putter around in the kitchen. The others seemed distracted, though there was some excitement as they found the Orbject.

Damn.

And she had thought that Will had hidden it well, but... yeah, she didn't blame him for giving it up.

Slowly, she summoned a flame into her hand. Just a little one, because that was all she had ever managed, but it was a flame all the same, and it melted through the tape binding her arms together at the small of her back.

Keeping her head down, she pretended to be sulking... mostly. It wasn't all pretend. Eventually the bindings came apart, and she felt her shoulders loosen as she had one arm free. It would be enough.

She waited a few more minutes. It wasn't too long before no one was watching her. So she brought her hand around and fought against the feeling of pins and needles as she looked at the pager's little screen.

There was only one number in the contact's list. This thing was a huge security risk, but they had to have it.

She sent a message. Or rather, a ping. It was the best she could do. Then she sent it again three more times before shifting her arm back.

The HRF was one-hundred percent monitoring calls and any sort of data sent out like that. There wasn't anything too telling in a simple ping, but unless they were idiots, they'd have things in place to triangulate where the call had come from.

She didn't like the idea of being captured by the HRF, not one bit.

She liked the idea of being left with this gaggle of girls even less. At least the HRF had like... laws and stuff. Besides, she could just say that she'd been blackmailed into it or something?

Matchstick was pretty sure that Will had put something out to confuse triangulation, in which case, yeah, her best hope was now the least trustworthy person on their team.

Maybe Obscure would spill their location? Or not. It wasn't like she was able to tell the woman why they were here and so worried in the first place.

"Girls! Food's ready," the leader-sort said.

Matchstick pressed back against the wall, then when no one was looking, she flicked the pager across the room and into a pile of old crap in the corner. The plastic-y clink as it landed sounded loud to her, but no one looked up.

She pulled her hands behind her again, and tried to squish the tape back against her wrists. It didn't hold quite as well, and there was a faint stench of burning plastic around her that might give it all away, but for now it was better than nothing.

She was sweating as the girls cheerfully emptied the pantry she had stolen so much to fill. She couldn't decide if she should get angry about it, or just give up and give in to the despair in her chest.

This whole adventure was a stupid mistake.

Pinprick was returned a few minutes later. The tape on her face had been peeled away, then pressed back into place. She looked rough.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Questions," was all Pinprick said in reply.

Then there were little sneakers in front of Matchstick, and when she looked up, it was to see that same owl-girl, smiling down at her. "Come on," she said. "It's your turn next. And if you're really good, we might feed you once we're done!"

***