Oh, and they all had big, plastic magic wands with musical symbols on the end.
The red dress raptor jumped on top of a statue of Buddha, which I hoped she would not defile in the way birds usually do. It gave me a sense of scale. The largest of her flock, my guess was the top of her head came up to about my shoulder, although that meant her mostly horizontal body would be heavier than even my original.
Her exaggeratedly massive claws clung to the statue’s head, keeping her in a poised, confident perch despite the Buddha’s legendary roundness. Opening her mouth wide, she squawked, “Who’s a pretty bird?”
Pink raptor shook its arm-wings, then its leg-wings, and trotted up next to her. “Pretty bird!”
The blue raptor, crouched low to the ground, slunk up on the other side, looking up at its leader to ask, “Polly want a cracker?”
“Cracker! Cracker!” declared the red enthusiastically, bobbing her head up and down.
Okay, that was two identified. The red’s name was Polly, and the pink Pretty Bird.
Yellow nuzzled Blue’s neck, squeak-growling, “Nice Cookie.”
“Marge, the Thing is talking again!” recited the blue.
“Lucretia! Lucretia! Lucretia!” shouted the velociraptor in the black dress, standing behind the rest of them and hopping up and down excitedly. There’s always one.
Well, those were clearly introductions. Red was Polly, Pink Pretty Bird, Blue Cookie, Yellow Thing, and Black Lucretia.
Back on the Inscrutable Machine’s side, Ampexia slumped a few inches. Sounding decidedly non-vindicated, she said, “Ah. It looks like I procrastinated just long enough.”
Trying very hard to look serious and sound serious so as not to make her embarrassment worse, I asked, “These are your target?”
She said nothing. Maybe she was allergic to frilly dresses.
Before things went any further, I had obligations to supervillain courtesy. Bowing to my opponents, I said, “Welcome, Raptor Scouts. I am the infamous, the diabolical, the unstoppably ingenious Bad Penny. The beautiful goat in a chef’s apron to my left is Gerty Goat—”
“Hiiiii!”
“—whose friendship lays waste to all that stands in our way. And on my right is my partner, who is not the queen of musical larceny only because she spits on royalty and believes in the essential dignity of every man and woman. You may call her Ampexia.”
“I’ll call her a lazy, ungrateful, ne’er-do-well brat, is what I will call her!” argued a high, prissy male voice.
“…what was that?” I looked over the raptors. None of their mouths were moving in time to that voice. On the contrary, they had set up a quiet, chirping chorus, filling the conversational background with an avian barber shop quartet-style soundtrack. It had Gerty’s knees flexing in rhythm.
“That is what we are here to steal,” said Ampexia, her voice strained and her expression tired.
“Steal? Steal? How dare you. After centuries of service to your family, you spurn me simply because I point out the obvious truth that you are a laggardly musical philistine—”
Ampexia jerked back up, bristling. “Philistine? From the book that thinks show tunes are the highest achievement of musical history?”
“The valkyrie theme from Ring of Nibelung is hardly a show tune, and if you properly appreciated classical opera and the fine new traditions of modern musicals, you would be a glorious crime fighter famed throughout the world by now, not a sneak thief in dirty clothes.” Aha. The complaining did come from a book, bouncing angrily in a holster on the back of Raptor Red’s waistband.
Ampexia raised a finger—index, thankfully—and shook it in rage as she yelled back, “Maybe I don’t want to be like my mother, or music forbid my grandmother—”
The book gasped. “How dare you! Your grandmother was a pure, exquisite, impeccably maidenly warrior for justice! You are not fit to speak her name.”
Ampexia wrinkled her nose. “If I did, I’d vomit.”
“You impertinent, immoral little—”
As charming as the family drama was, we were here to steal that book, not argue with it. I took a half-step backwards, and activated my teleport bracers. I landed behind Polly, and made a grab for her belt pouch.
Tesla’s Tinnitus, could those things move! The dinosaur in the red dress’s head whirled around, teeth clamping onto my forearm before I could notice and blink away. It hurt a little, but thanks to my armored sleeves and stone-hard shell, the bite wasn’t threatening.
No, the problem was that she flailed her neck around, waving my light, hollow body in the air, until she flung me away onto the ground.
“Gerty!” I shouted, but that was all the time I had. Pretty Bird and Thing leaped for me, and I barely scrambled to my feet in time and teleported away before their talons hit where I’d just been.
Landing behind the solid shield of my animatronic pet, I grabbed her apron and gave it a shake. “Gerty! Why didn’t you save me? Gerty?”
She ignored me. Even while fighting, the velociraptors kept chirping. They were naturally musical, it seemed, and the melody had Gerty entranced, paying no attention to anything but bobbing up and down and tweeting discordantly in an attempt to join in.
Ampexia scowled, adjusting her gauntlets. “And that is why the goat is no use against them, and I had to find someone else to help.”
I unslung the mega hoe from my back, twisting one of its handles to start the saw blades vibrating. “Help is here. We can do this.”
“Can you?” asked the book, and I could hear its sneer. “Ready, girls? One two three, Mister Sandmaaaan, dream me a dreeeam!”
The raptors might not be great conversationalists, but they were fantastic singers. They joined together in the song in beautiful harmony, with Pretty Bird supplying the deeper-voiced asides like ‘Boom boom boom boom.’
Gerty whipped out her mixing spoon, holding it up like a microphone, and rocked her upper body from side to side as she tried to sing along, always a half-second behind.
Myself, I lurked, poised, to see what this attack did and gaming out possible evasive strategies and ways to take advantage.
Except nothing really happened. No glows formed, nothing started charring or breaking or even vibrating. Above and behind me remained clear. The book, raptors, and Gerty sang, and that was it.
I leaned over to make a suggestion to Ampexia, only to find her eyes half-closed, her knees wobbling, and her head jerking and bobbing with the effort to not fall asleep. Inside the building and around its plaza, spectators all seemed to find reasons to sit down and lean against something.
Ah. Musical-themed magical girl velociraptors. The wands hadn’t been a coincidence.
Pity for them robots don’t get tired. I opened up with the hoe, leveling it at Raptor Red with one handle, and yanking the other to fire.
The effect was everything I might have hoped for. Furrows carved themselves in the sod and pavement, throwing up debris, until the poor Buddha statue catapulted up off the ground, sending Raptor Red flapping desperately, and the others scattering like chickens.
I teleported about ten feet to the left, and did it again. Then as Pretty Bird and Cookie jumped at me, repeated the process. Each time, laying down a line of destruction that forced Polly away from her teammates.
Their screeching also interrupted the song, giving my partner a chance to recover. Only Gerty kept trying to follow the tune, while quickly running out of words and substituting “Nah nah nah naaaah!”
Petulant, the book squealed, “Girls! Girls! Follow the beat! Pardon my language, but dash it all, anyway. Fine, I suppose violence will have to do.”
“Pretty bird!”
“Polly want a cracker?”
“Lucretia! Lucretia! Lucretia!”
“Crimson flames resin bow!”
Wait, what was that last one?
It came from Polly, who waved her wand as she recited. A rod of red fire formed in the air in front of her, slashing at me.
Of
course, I teleported away from it, but then I heard “Gleaming gold drumstick bludgeoning!” and “Raven void bassoon swipe!” and “Blushing pink ballet shoe blizzard!”
Suddenly, I was doing a great deal of teleporting, blipping around the yard as the chanting raptors waved their wands and fired their instrumental energy blasts. This was fine by me. The attacks weren’t too fast, and I fired back, keeping them disorganized. In fact, one of my hoe’s rows of destruction went right under the feet of Raptor Black, sinking her into the earth and tearing what would be shockingly immodest gashes in her dress if she had anything but feathers to bare. She pulled herself free of the loose dirt immediately, but the dress damage could be useful. I might be able to tear the book off of Raptor Red. Would it damage the book in the process? Did Ampexia care?
Then, after one teleport, a voice behind me shouted, “Spoon stirring vortex!” and I nearly screeched in shock, and fell off my feet, because only Gerty was supposed to be behind me. The realization that it was Gerty’s voice chanting followed that up, but the second of delay figuring out what happened was not good. Polly had her wand leveled at me, and was just finishing the word, “…bow!” and I hadn’t even lifted a foot for another teleport.
But before the fiery weapon formed, Polly’s wand slipped out of her hand, flying across the park for Ampexia to grab out of the air. She followed with Cookie’s, and Thing’s, clearly intent on working her way down the row with her gauntlet’s snatching ability. The raptors just didn’t have good enough fingers to hold on. Their claws were designed to rip, not grip.
Of course, yellow and blue both charged Ampexia immediately, but I blew them off their feet with the hoe, savaging their costumes in the process.
Gerty tried again. “Mixing spoon vigorous kneading!”
“Back! Back!” shouted the book. Its panic turned to pride, and then to song. “Remember, girls, you’ve got the Touch! You’ve got the Power!”
Music yowled around the raptors as they leaped back into a group. Sparkles and vertical lines of light sprung up around them, lifting them into the air and spinning them around. Their dresses disappeared, leaving the killer cretaceous avians in only their feathery glory for a second before new dresses appeared. These had rather deeper necklines, and even shorter skirts. The upper halves of shiny laced boots appeared on their lower legs, but gave up before enclosing those sickle-clawed feet.
Thing looked at me, made an awk noise, and came zooming at me in a blur of yellow.
Criminy!
No more activation phrases. Now Cookie slashed at me with blue lightning following her already dangerous feet. A bigger, shadowy version of Lucretia tried to peck me. Pretty Bird’s cloud of pink valentine hearts did not seem to do anything, but I didn’t wander into it to test that theory.
Polly got extended phoenix wings of red fire, which she charged forward to swing at Ampexia.
Nuh-uh. No touchy the partner.
I teleported right in front of her, palming the weather sponge. I squeezed it hard, but not quite as fast as that first attempt. Instead of a thunderclap, water roared out of the air, extinguishing Polly’s wings and sweeping her off her feet, dropping her hard on top of the battered Buddha statue.
She twitched, stunned. I blinked over on top of her, reaching for the book.
Thing came flying out of nowhere, a streak of burning yellow light. She smacked into me, and my clothes sizzled as her four legs took hold.
A screech like nails on a blackboard surrounded us both. It made my body vibrate sickeningly, but the raptor got it much worse. She somersaulted over me, releasing her grip, her back hitting the side of a bench, and she collapsed to the ground, flailing.
Ampexia had both arms held out, fingers spread and the speakers in the palms of her gloves visibly trembling as she poured the sonic attack onto the unfortunate bird.
“Mystical spoon energy comfort!” shouted Gerty. No, this one didn’t do anything, either.
The other three raptors all came at us at once. I decided discretion was the better part of valor, grabbed hold of Ampexia, and teleported us out of their reach.
The book sounded none the worse for wear from its owner taking a tsunami to the face, but definitely even more peeved. “Oh, now you want to learn to fight? Suddenly there are problems stealing things won’t solve? Well, it’s too late! Prepare for an up-close look at the legacy you squandered, because the girls and I are just getting warmed up.”
And he started to chant again. And they started to chant again. Impressive, high-pitched, foreign—oh, right, it was “O Fortuna,” the Latin song every movie uses for climactic fantasy battle scenes.
Spheres of colored light engulfed the raptors.
What, another power-up sequence? Forget that. I lifted the hoe, and blasted Raptor Red with it.
Nothing. The line of torn dirt stopped dead at the energy globe, with no effect. Apparently, magical girl powers were not quite that stupid.
Their owners, however…
“Criminy. What a stupid din. Ampexia, can you drown this hokey tune out with something worth listening to?” I yelled over the chanting.
“Kitchen magic spoonabulation!” contributed Gerty, in her own little goat world I would have liked to share.
Smirking at me, Ampexia tapped a few buttons on her gloves, and twisted a knob on her backpack. Synthesized music throbbed around us, deep, grinding with metallic pain. After a few seconds, a lighter melody broke in, fast and sharp, dancing maniacally over the unhappy harmony line.
And a few seconds after that, the book broke off chanting to whine, “Stop that unholy racket. That is not music! It’s just beep beep boop boop noises! Any child could put together a melody like that!”
The energy spheres disappeared, leaving the velociraptors unchanged, blinking at each other in confusion.
I teleported right on top of Polly while her bird brain tried to catch up with events, and latched hold of the book pouch with both hands.
Of course, she hadn’t gotten any slower. She had my lower leg in her jaws in a heartbeat, but that was why I’d appeared actually on top of her. I let her grab me, for the extra half second to get a grip on the book. As she yanked me away, the book came free of its pouch, and I threw it up into the air.
Ampexia raised a hand, the book shuddered, and it shot down straight into her grip.
Holding it high, she shouted, “I call upon the power of the Muses! Inspire me with your song!”
What with being shaken around by velociraptors, I missed about two seconds worth of action. It ended with Ampexia in a sparkling white dress, her regular gear on the ground behind her. The velociraptors were back to their natural clothes-less state, looking at each other and mumbling, “Cookie?” “Pretty bird?”
Gerty, mixing spoon gripped in both hands, waved it up and down, pleading, “Spoon spoon spoon spoon spoon powers!”
“Ampexia! You’ve accepted your gift! I’m so happy!” the book crowed. Now that it was out of its holster, it looked like a song book for kindergarteners, with thick pages and cover, and pastel eyes with big eyebrows painted on it. The pages flapped when it talked.
Its owner responded by clamping those pages shut with her hand. “Quiet. Bad Penny and I are going to teach these bird brains a lesson.”
The plaza rang with a new voice. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Trailing her three chicken minions, Diamond Pullet stepped out of the hole we’d broken into the third floor wall of the FruiTastiCo building. Skiing elegantly down the slope, she dropped in front of us with a flurry of chicken feathers, followed by her three fluffy minions.
I watched her for signs of violence, but instead she walked past us, glittering like a disco ball, and wrapped her arms around the necks of the velociraptors, pulling them in for a comforting hug. “These poor darlings only wanted to be heroes and help people. I stole powers for them, and I accept that you stole those powers back, but if you wish to hurt these sweet little ancestors of all that is good and
chickeny, be aware you will also reap the fabulous, fabulous whirlwind.”
This was Ampexia’s fight, and I gave her a questioning look.
She shrugged, and turned away. The book started babbling again. “I knew shame and jealousy would teach you where your real destiny lies. Don’t worry, Ampexia, I’ll teach you to embrace real music, and you’ll be a hero to make your—mmf!”
That was as far as he got before Ampexia pulled a spare belt out of her giant stereo backpack, wrapped it around the book, and yanked it shut. She did this a second time. And a third time. She’d apparently brought a lot of belts just for this purpose. The eyes on the book’s cover blinked and darted around, but uselessly. Soon, they too were obscured, which was when the white dress evaporated, returning Ampexia to her regular jeans and T-shirt.
“Whatever,” she said, not even looking back at Diamond Pullet.
In the quiet aftermath, I noticed the supervillainess with the bushy hair had long since disappeared. Along with the dress she’d stolen. But leaving behind the phone we’d tracked her with. Smart girl.
Gerty shook her spoon angrily, but it continued to not be magic.
I gave Diamond Pullet her official answer. “The Inscrutable Machine accepts your truce, mainly because we wish we’d thought of stealing magical powers for a flock of dinosaurs ourselves. Find them good homes.”
Turning away from Diamond Pullet, I leaned over to whisper to Ampexia, “If anybody asks, we were trying to recover the dress, and I never saw a book.”
She looked down at me, flashed an awkward grin, and lifted her fist. I lifted mine, and our fists booped.
Hello Mother and Father,
Camp Supervillain is getting exciting. I’m starting to like the kids I’m sharing a cabin with. One of them seemed distant at first, but she’s got a lot of passion under the surface, and knows a lot. The counselors challenged us again, but Mom’s advice about figuring out your opponent’s obsessions worked. Now that I’m having to spend the summer without you, I can see just how much you taught me.
You Believe Her Page 17
