by R. J. Ross
“Because you don’t look like you are?”
She turns, looking at Superior, who’s facing the front arguing with Nico about something. “Oh,” I say. “That’s why, huh?”
“Huh?” she asks. “What’s why?”
“You’re worried about Superior, right?”
“Why would ANYONE worry about Superior?” she asks.
“Sure, whatever,” I say.
“Just because he was sorta dead for most of my life doesn’t mean anything is going to happen to him now!” she goes on. “Just because—because he was poisoned doesn’t mean he’s going to die, right? He’s not, right?”
“He’s fine,” I say.
“He’s—” she stops, her eyes widening and a soundless gasp coming from her lips. “I can’t feel her,” she says, starting to shake. “I can’t feel her! Where is she?”
“Skye?” Nico says, looking over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“I CAN’T FEEL MOM!” she yells before jumping to her feet and running out of the R.V.
“I’m going after her,” Superior says, opening his door and jumping out. The R.V. shakes dangerously before the door slams closed again and we speed up.
***
*West Hall*
“It seems to me that you’ve got mixed feelings about this,” Marigold says. She’s sitting at her desk, with Diamond Dust sitting in the chair across from her. “You tried to lure her to the villain side. I thought you were trying to force her to become a Liberty.”
“I—” Diamond Dust says. She’s avoiding Marigold’s eyes, and they both realize it. “I was just showing the world that she was determined to be a hero. It was for her own good.”
“How do you know she is?” Marigold asks. “She seems to have the same affinity to jewels that you do.”
“Of course she does, it’s in the blood,” Diamond Dust says. “But she’ll be able to find whatever she wants, soon enough. It’s more of a thrill to carve your own stones. You’re changing the subject, Marigold. You and I both know that Reaper won’t stop until he has her!”
“He’s her father,” Marigold says. “You can’t expect him to just leave it at that.”
“He has no say in her life—”
“But you seem to think you do,” Marigold points out. “I understand where you’re coming from—”
“How could you?” Diamond Dust demands. “You NEVER had children, and we all know it!”
“I couldn’t have children,” Marigold says. “My husband and I tried… it didn’t work. I always wanted… but that’s in the past.”
Diamond Dust stares at her, shocked. “I… I’m sorry,” she says. “I would have—I shouldn’t have said anything about that.”
“No, you should have said something earlier,” Marigold says, “like fifteen years ago. I would have raised your daughter, Di, until she was…” She stands up, turning away, her shoulders shaking for a second before she regains her composure. “I would have been overjoyed,” she whispers.
Diamond Dust stares at her hands, the tears falling silently down her cheeks. “I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“We live very long lives, Di,” Marigold says, her voice just a little raspy. “It isn’t too late to try and make amends. I should have said this before you decided to test the girl like you did. I should have said a lot of things. I don’t always make the right decisions, I know it. No one does. All we can do is try to make the best of what’s already been done, and learn from those mistakes. Your daughter will never come back to you.”
“I realize that!” Diamond Dust says. “I know I screwed up—I was TRYING to make her leave—”
“It doesn’t mean you can’t go to her,” Marigold says. “You can let her become a Liberty, if she wants, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay out of her life. Family isn’t black and white, Di, family is what you make it. Just don’t come back and tell me that YOU’RE going Liberty, too. I only have so many villains in my Hall that I actually like.”
Diamond Dust looks at her, a hint of hope filling her eyes. “I—I’ll do that. Permission to go to Central Hall?”
“I would grant it, but that’s not where she is right now.”
“Then where is she?”
“She’s heading up to the Arctic Circle. Considering who she’s going with, there’s a very good chance that she’s already there.”
“Why is she heading there?” Diamond Dust asks.
“Because her principal makes a habit of giving the kids in his school field work,” Marigold says a bit grimly. “The older, or more powerful they are, the more work they wind up taking on.”
“I see… so you think he’s… using them?” Diamond Dust asks.
“Well, he’s said it, himself. He as good as has his own Hall, thanks to those children.”
Diamond Dust stands. “Permission to go to the Arctic Circle, then?”
“Granted; I’ll make the arrangements with Isotonic and call for a plane,” Marigold says.
***
*The Arctic Circle*
“I can’t—I can’t—” Skye says, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Dad—Daddy, I can’t find her—I can ALWAYS find her! Even all the way down home I can find her! But—but—”
Superior is floating right next to the girl standing in the sky. He’s too busy scanning the ground below them to comfort her. His hands go out and an almost invisible pulse spreads out from him. “Found her,” he says, diving to the ground. Skye chases after him, heading for the almost filled hole in the ground. Superior lets out a curse, digging through the snow and grabbing the woman at the bottom.
“Is she—is she--” Skye asks.
“She’s still alive,” he says. “She must have seen a form of the attack coming. She’ll shake it off soon, but…”
“Did the same lady that poisoned you do it?” Skye asks. Superior looks over, hearing an unfamiliar tone in her voice. He hesitates. “She did, didn’t she,” she says. Her hands are clenched at her sides and the tears stop.
“Skye,” he says, “first we need to get her inside.” Skye looks at Tatiana, and then out at the vast expanse of snow, clearly torn. “She’ll want to see you when she wakes up, and we need to wait for Nico.”
Slowly she nods and they head inside. “Pop? There are more,” she says, stopping at the sight of the three fallen females in the kitchen. They’re frozen in the ice up to their hips. “She froze them. I don’t know if they’re alive or not.”
“She ransacked my house,” Superior says, gently placing Tatiana on the ground. All of the non-ice furniture has been ripped off of the walls and thrown into a pile in the middle of the room. “What in the hell was she thinking?” He looks around, noticing that the ice isn’t just around the women. The floor is far too high and there’s water underneath it. He looks down, seeing some of his carpets floating under the ice. “She brought in water.” He looks at the walls. “She’s bringing in water there, there, and there.”
“What for?”
“It looks like she was planning on refilling my mountain,” he says. “She might still be here. Do you sense her?” he asks, his eyes narrowing.
“Refilling the mountain?” Skye repeats. “What a stupid idea!”
“You’re telling me. Nico, are you here, yet?” he asks, tapping on his earbud.
“We’re landing outside,” Nico says. “Have you found Mom?”
“We’ve found her. Aubrey, you’re going to need to come in here. I’ll get the other two out of the ice—” he stops, remembering something. “I haven’t checked on the dresses. Pretty sure I don’t want to.”
“What happened?”
“Just get in here.” He heads for the kitchen, hearing the door open and his son let out a curse.
“What in the hell was she thinking?”
“We’ve got Toodles, Marie, and Duplicitous in here, knocked out,” Superior says over his shoulder. “Aubrey, can you fix your grandmother?”
“I’m on it, Grandpa,” Aubrey says.
He turns his attention to melting the ice, his expression grim. “Kris and Cosmic are going to lose it.”
“That octopus lady did this?” Sandra asks from behind him. He turns, looking at her. The sight of her eyes glowing catches him off guard.
“It looks like it,” he says.
“Toodles!” Malina cries, racing past him to wrap her arms around the woman he’d just freed from the ice. “Aubrey, you have to help Toodles! She’s—she’s not moving!”
“I’ll be there as soon as I’m done here, Malina,” Aubrey says, her tone grim.
“Oh, Toodles,” Malina says, holding the older woman tightly. “Why would anyone do this to someone? Superior, I can help.”
“I have this, if you can stop the water from coming into the room, though, it’d help,” Superior says. She nods and holds out a hand to stop it.
The cracking sound of ice makes Superior look over. Sandra is walking away, leaving the new ice floor breaking beneath her feet with every step. “Where are you going, Sandra?” he asks.
“To find her,” she says.
“Not alone, you’re not,” he says, sharply.
“Then I’ll go with her,” Skye says. “Pop, you stay here and keep Mom comfortable. This lady needs a good talking to!”
“Sandra… this doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Superior says. “You should stay here and—”
“Tatiana accepted me,” Sandra says, turning on him. “It isn’t much to you, maybe, but it’s really important to me.”
“Fine… Nico, go with them,” Superior says.
“I’m not doing this because you told me to,” Nico says, heading for the door. “Come on, let’s go hunting… before she goes after the others that live up here.”
The three leave, and Superior pulls Marie out of the ice. Her heartbeat is even slower than the others, he thinks grimly. He should have started with her, but he hadn’t been thinking. “I’m going to take her collar off,” he says, making everyone else jump slightly.
“Can you do that? Isn’t it set to explode?” Malina asks. “Zoe told us about it.”
“Let’s hope I’ve regained enough of my powers to keep that from happening,” he says. “But just in case, you might back up a bit.”
She picks up Toodles and then grabs Duplicitous before running.
***
“We don’t need you for this, Nico—you should be with Mom and Pop,” Skye says as we start out through the snow. I feel strange. I can’t feel the dirt under my feet. I ignore that fact, trudging through the snow and focusing on what really matters.
“Why did she do it?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
“She’s…” Nico says, “she cares more about the ocean than she does humans, and apparently, her fellow capes. She used to toss oil tankers onto the land to get them out of her waters. She’s probably heard that the ice up here is melting.”
“So she tried to refill Pop’s ice mountain?” Skye asks.
“Those big ice drifts are a part of the ice,” he says. He walks closer to me, taking my wrist and tapping on my com-bracelet without asking permission. “I’m not sure that’ll help, but it’s better than nothing. Come here, Skye, I’ll do the same to you.”
“What are we doing?” Skye asks.
“Turning on your E.P.B. The only problem is, E.P.B.s don’t exactly block physical attacks that well. I’ll fix that when I get the chance. Keep your eye out for anything that stands out. She can change her shape and her color at will, thanks to her abilities,” he says.
“Sounds amazing—you know, if she wasn’t evil,” Skye says, quickly covering up her first reaction. “Hey, hey Sandra, are you REALLY the daughter of Reaper?”
“What?” I say, looking over at her.
“I found one of his comic books once! I kept looking for more of them, but it was a second-hand store, so there weren’t any. He’s like, one of those super scary villains that—well, I’m better than he is, obviously, because I’m the BEST super villain in the world, but he’s pretty…”
“Out of date?” I offer. “Seriously, the scythe thing is lame. Nobody even knows what a scythe is unless they play roleplay games, or something—”
“Or read Discworld books,” Nico says.
“Read what?” I say.
“Remind me to get you a copy for your phone,” he says. “We just need to—” He stops as the world around us seems to go still. “What in the world—” the wind picks up again, blowing heavily for a few seconds before stopping once more. Nico reaches up, touching one of the snowflakes that is frozen in time. “What does this look like to you?” he asks quietly.
“Century?” Skye says, looking around. There’s actually a strange hint of hope in her voice that has me looking over at her. “Hey! You big idiot! You can’t get away with hiding if you’re stopping time!” Then she stops. “Nooo… I don’t feel him.”
“You yelled at him before checking to see if he’s here?” I ask.
“He’s my stalker!” she declares.
“He’s not your stalker, he just kissed you once,” Nico says, taking to the air.
“Totally my stalker,” she whispers loudly. “He’s a kiss-maniac, too.”
“Century kissed you?” I say. I like Century, he seems pretty cool. “So… are you two dating, or something?”
“Don’t you think we should be more worried about the time skip thing that’s going on?” Nico asks as time starts up again. He groans. “Never mind, I think I know what’s happening. Skye, go down.”
“What?” Skye says.
“Go straight down, through the ice.”
“Okay!” she says, grinning and diving into the ice. I watch her go, wondering what she will see down there. A second later she pops out of the snow.
“Santa’s gone crazy,” she says, “along with about half of the elves. The other half are trying to help them, but it’s sort of turned into a massive… well… brouhaha.”
“Brouhaha,” I repeat.
“If all the fighters are wearing pointy toes and bells, it seems like the best word to describe it,” she offers. “Or, actually, it might be more of a kerfuffle than a brouhaha. But either way, it looks like a lot of fun! Except Santa keeps stopping time, so I don’t think they’ll EVER get done with it.”
“Take us down, Skye,” Nico says, dropping down and grabbing her hand and mine. We sink through the ground and into a massive room full of brought colors and Christmas decorations—all of which are knocked down and strewn all over the room. I hear water, I think, looking at the walls. There’s sea water trickling into the ice building from there, there, and there, I realize, seeing the glint and picking up on the minerals that it’s carrying.
“Nico—” I say.
“STOP HIM!” someone shouts as a blur rushes past us.
“Stop who?” I ask.
“STOP SANTA!”
“This is a little more than a brouhaha or a kerfuffle, Skye,” I have to point out.
“Yeah, but it’s still an excellent reason to use the words in a sentence! I mean, really, how often do YOU get to say brouhaha or kerfuffle?”
I think about it for a long second. “You might have a point.”
***
I jump over a table, landing on both feet, only to have to dodge as one of the larger elves swings a fist at me. He’s not a fighter, I think, his swing is wild and too round, but I don’t have time to correct him. I’m too busy dodging the fist. Half of them, or more, we aren’t sure, have been poisoned by the octopus lady. They think we’re intruders. Santa, that “jolly elf”? Well, he’s floating over our heads, having a meltdown of sorts. She must have gotten him REALLY good, because time just stopped again, leaving the elves in strange fight poses.
“Nico!” I yell. “He’s coming your way!”
Nico grunts as Santa slams into him. They crash through several tables, several piles of toys, and a few walls before I hear them stop.
“This is EXACTLY how I pictured the North Pole!!”
Skye exclaims excitedly, jumping up and down in the air. “I’M SO HAPPY!”
“Skye,” I say, wondering if I should even bother. It’s probably better that she keeps her dreams, right?
“Yeeesss?” she asks, moving so she’s right in my face. “Hey, hey, Sandra! I got an idea! Let’s burn the naughty list!”
I look around, seeing several fistfights between elves frozen in place, and the large elf that had been trying to attack me poised to throw another punch. I should pull them apart, I know, but… well…
“Do you know where he keeps it?” I ask her, earning a happy little squeal.
“We can find it, I’m sure!” she says, hugging me happily before skipping off, going “I bet it’s THERE!” several times and failing to find it. She looks through the floor, her legs waving around in the air happily. Time snaps back into place just as she pulls herself out again, a list in her hand. “I FOUND IT!” she says, waving it in the air.
“She has the list!” one of the non-affected elves says, pointing at Skye. “SAVE THE LIST!”
I look around, seeing even the elves that are affected turn towards us both. “Maybe that wasn’t the best idea, after all?” I say.
“Ummmm…” Skye says, looking at them all, her eyes large and innocent. “I was just… saving it?”
“SAVE THE LIST!” the elves chant, rushing forward. “She’s with her! Stop the rock mimic!”
I groan as half of them turn their attention to me. I tap on my com-bracelet, since Nico’s still busy with Santa. “Can we get a healer with a teleportation watch up here?” I ask.
“What’s going on?” Max asks. “Where are you?”
“We’re being attacked by elves,” I say, ducking as the closer ones try to grab me, and starting to run again. “They’ve been hit by the same venom that Superior was hit with—” I grunt as a rather large elf catches me, hauling me into the air. “Send help!”
“I just wanted to burn it!” I hear Skye say.
“Did you REALLY have to tell them that?” I demand, twisting in the guy’s hold and hitting him in the gut with both feet. He grunts and I get free.
“Are you beating them up?” Max asks.
“It’s purely self defense, I swear,” I say, jumping as another grabs for me. “I thought elves were supposed to be short and cute,” I complain as a rather bulky looking guy swings a fist at me.
