To Prevent Warm Welcomes

by Emily Martha Sorensen

  “How could I possibly be lying?” Chronos snapped. “I showed you exactly what I’ve seen!”

  “I use my power to lie all the time!” Rhea said sharply. “Take things out of context, add a little editing and splicing . . .”

  “Guess what, Rhea?” Chronos asked, glaring. “I’m not you.”

  “That’s right. You’re not. I’m limited to only things that have actually happened. You have possibilities work with. You could easily take something near-impossible and pretend it’s the most likely future.”

  “What reason would I have for doing that?”

  “You tell me,” Rhea challenged.

  “No reason whatsoever!”

  “Well, I know you’re not above exaggerating!”

  “I’m not exaggerating this, Rhea! That branch of futures was one of the ten most likely! The world was in serious danger!”

  There was silence for a moment while they glared at one another.

  “You realize I could take this to the family,” Rhea said, breaking it. “Let them decide whether you’re becoming a liability.”

  “I may not be able to see you, but I know their futures just fine,” Chronos said coldly. “If I ran, there’s no way they could catch me.”

  “Not if I worked with them.”

  “Then why don’t you just kill me right now?” Chronos shot back.

  Rhea said nothing. Her lips were tightly pursed.

  Because you think I can still be useful, I bet, Chronos thought, her eyes narrowing. You’ve always wanted me working beside you. You think that if you have me under your thumb, the combination of our powers would make you nigh omniscient.

  And it was probably true — that was the worst of it. That was why she would never, ever, ever work with her sister, no matter what the reason.

  It never mattered how clear Chronos was that they would never work together — Rhea always held out hope that she’d be able to manipulate her eventually. She’d lusted after Chronos’s power since they were kids. She’d made Chronos’s childhood a waking nightmare, trying to break her to her will.

  She’ll never kill me, Chronos thought. She can’t do that and win.

  The silence between them stretched on, and on, and on. It felt like it would go forever.

  At last, an angry shout came from outside the doorway.

  “But you have to! She said you would make it for me!”

  “Rhea! Explain to her that this thing is ugly!”

  Her sister’s minion stormed into the room, dragging Tiffany behind her, the little girl holding on tight to her ankle. The minion held up a crayon drawing in revolted indignation, shaking a fist.

  Rhea looked furious at the interruption at first. But then a different expression spread across her face.

  She hadn’t looked at the child’s past before. She’d been too busy focusing on Chronos and Kendra and what she might have to do to her sister. But she realized now that that had been a mistake.

  In the course of just a few seconds, Rhea flashed through just enough to take in the gist of the girl’s life. She could see the turning points and the broad strokes of what the girl had done and what she wanted.

  Tiffany raised many fascinating possibilities.

  She’d been raised by villains. She had no love for her family. She’d spent most of her life alone or avoiding the people she lived with. In many ways, her past seemed similar to Chronos’s, which meant her sister no doubt thought they were similar.

  But in personality, Tiffany was more like Rhea.

  Rhea let a slow smile drift across her face. Interesting . . .

  “Please please please please please please! Please please please please please please! Please please please please please please! Please please please please please please!”

  Tiffany was hanging on to Minerva’s waist, while the woman struggled to get her off.

  It was definitely in their best interest to humor the girl.

  “Give the child what she wants, Minerva,” Rhea ordered.

  Minerva stared at her in horror, waving the paper as if that contradicted what her boss had just said.

  Rhea said nothing more.

  With an exaggerated groan of despair, Minerva hid her face in one of her hands.

  But she obeyed. She used her other hand to push her magic through the paper. A stream of sparkles shot through the page, sending the crayon drawing out of two dimensions and into three.

  It was every bit as ugly as Minerva had claimed. It was enormous, twice as wide as Tiffany’s head, and it had a line of rhinestones on it that looked simultaneously cheap and gaudy. There were three feathers on top that looked ridiculous, and two more on the bottom that looked ludicrous. It was overall a dreadful design, sheer tackiness, exactly what you would expect from a ten-year-old who designed in crayon. Rhea understood why Minerva had been so reluctant to make it exist.

  But they were not in her shop. This would never have her name on it or be displayed as one of her designs. It was merely a bribe to bring the child onto their side. And it was working.

  “HURRAY!” Tiffany shouted, leaping up to seize the mask as it swooshed through the air, accompanied by fading sparkles. She had it in her hands before the sparkles were gone, and shoved it on her face and posed. “I am . . . the CUTE AVENGER!”

  “You’re not!” Minerva said, storming out of the room in a huff. “You’re just a kid with no fashion taste!”

  She was absolutely right, and Rhea didn’t mind that at all.

  Very interesting, she thought, watching the child and smiling.

  Seeing the sly look flit across Rhea’s face, Chronos decided this visit was over.

  “Come on,” she said brusquely, shoving her sister towards the doorway.

  Rhea didn’t resist, which was more than enough evidence that she’d been here too long — Chronos had no idea why her sister had looked so satisfied, but she knew that she didn’t like it.

  They passed by Kendra in the upper hallway as they emerged at the top of the stairs.

  “Hey, Rhea, thanks for all these accessories!” Kendra said, waving. “They’re great!”

  “You’re welcome!” Rhea called, waving. “Did you like the straps?”

  “I love the buckles.”

  “I thought you would! I designed them to match the belt —”

  What buckles? Chronos paused in shoving her sister toward the front doorway and glanced at the former magical girl. Kendra was wearing her villain costume, which Chronos vaguely thought she might not have been wearing before. Were there buckles on there that there hadn’t been earlier?

  Rhea took advantage of the pause to keep on talking. “Well, anytime you want new upgrades, feel free to come talk to me —”

  “You wouldn’t do that if you knew what she really does,” Chronos broke in, irritated. “She corrupts magical girls. It’s her favorite hobby.”

  The former magical girl’s eyes widened.

  “GET OUT,” both of them chorused, pointing at the door.

  “Aww, does the nice lady have to leave already?” Tiffany protested, running up the stairs and flinging her arms around Rhea’s neck. “She only just came!”

  “Oh, it’s perfectly fine,” Rhea said, patting Tiffany’s head. “I’m sure I’ll come to visit again. And I’ll bring you a new present next time.”

  “Lots of presents!” Tiffany said hopefully.

  “GET OUT!” Chronos shouted.

  Rhea waved goodbye and ambled out the doorway. The minion huffed after her, waving a long, thin thing with an arrowhead-like tip behind her —

  Wait, is that a tail? Chronos thought, startled. When did Rhea’s minion get a tail?

  “And stay out!” Kendra shouted, standing at the window and shaking her fist.

  “I didn’t want them here in the first place,” Chronos muttered. “Turn back on the barrier,” she added, looking at Tiffany.

  The pigtailed girl pouted. “I don’t wanna!”

  “NOW!” Kendra roared.

/>   Tiffany stuck out her tongue and summoned a wand with a pink heart on top and spiraling ribbons underneath. “FIX IT!”

  There was a slight hum as the barrier returned around the building.

  Chronos relaxed slightly. Rhea was gone. And now that she knew to expect her, her sister would never be able to get in here again.

  “I can’t believe it,” Kendra was muttering. “The last winner of the Solo Magical Girl of the Year competition wore one of her designs. I never would’ve guessed it. I know I read an interview with Rhea Korstanos where she joked that villains always look cooler than magical girls, but . . .”

  “That’s not a joke,” Chronos said. “That’s her mission statement. She’s spent the last decade pushing magical girl fashions to look blander and villain costumes to look cooler.”

  Kendra looked horrified.

  Chronos rolled her eyes. She knew that Rhea’s tactics worked, but she had no idea why. Why would anyone risk their morality for a costume change?

  “Well, we don’t have to get rid of their pretty stuff, do we?” Tiffany asked, holding up her large feathered mask and a red necklace with a dangly piece shaped like a teardrop.

  “Yes,” Chronos said.

  “No!” Kendra snapped.

  “You do realize that they might be magically tainted, right?” Chronos asked irritably. “We don’t need Rhea listening in on us or whatever else she might have done to them.”

  “Cool accessories!” Kendra said.

  “Boss speaking!” Chronos shot back. “Tiffany, we’ll need your BREAK IT power —”

  Tiffany shrieked and fled, holding her feathered mask in both hands. “No one’s taking my mask away!”

  “I’m keeping the buckles,” Kendra added, pointing at her boots.

  “Whatever happened to me having authority?”

  “Tiffany,” Kendra called down the hallway, ignoring the comment, “can you break magic without breaking objects?”

  The little girl stopped and put a finger to her mouth. “I dunno. I’ve never tried it.”

  “Try it,” Kendra ordered.

  Obligingly, Tiffany poked her wand at Kendra’s costume. “BREAK but only any magic that isn’t supposed to be there on the thingys and don’t break my pretty mask either because it’s super pretty IT!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Did it work?” Kendra said.

  “I dunno,” Tiffany said.

  “Try doing it with the cannons,” Kendra said.

  “NO!” Tiffany shrieked.

  “You can fix them later,” Kendra snorted.

  “NO!” Tiffany shrieked.

  “It’s fine,” Chronos broke in. “We’ll just get rid of them. If there’s a chance they might have unknown magic on them —”

  “Wait!” Tiffany cried. “I can use Margie the Magic Detector!”

  Chronos stared at her blankly. “Since when do you have —”

  But Tiffany was already racing down the stairs towards the dungeon.

  Tiffany came running back with a little gadget that looked like a TV remote control. “Margie will save the day!”

  “Did you build that thing or steal it from a police station somewhere?” Kendra asked suspiciously. “That looks like standard issue, and it’s illegal to own magic detectors without a license.”

  “Margie the Magic Detector was a present from Daddy,” Tiffany said defensively.

  In other words, the villain who had kidnapped her when she was four years old and raised her as a prisoner for three years before he’d been killed and replaced by her second “owner.” The girl had serious Stockholm Syndrome problems.

  “So it’s stolen,” Kendra said. “We’ll have to return it.”

  “No!” Tiffany yelped. “Margie’s my friend!”

  “If it was stolen, it was replaced years ago,” Chronos sighed. “Just use the thing already.”

  Tiffany stuck her tongue out at Kendra and pushed the button on the remote. It immediately went bananas, beeping like crazy and flashing lights in all directions.

  Tiffany pushed another button, and the thing went silent.

  “I guess Margie noticed that we all have magic,” she said.

  “Gee, ya think?” Kendra said sarcastically.

  In the end, they piled all the new accessories in a corner, then added both the costumes Chronos had gotten from Rhea in the first place. Kendra stripped hers off to dump it in the corner and stood around in her underwear, apparently with no sense of shame or modesty.

  This would explain why she had a nude transformation scene, Chronos thought, shaking her head. It wasn’t uncommon for magical girls, and such things generally happened in the blink of an eye, but seriously. Was it really that hard to create a transformation scene that covered you while your clothes were changing? Magical girls in the Middle East always did.

  The magic detector found nothing unusual on anything.

  “Yay!” Tiffany said happily, running over to pick up the mask. “I think I’ll name you Marnie!”

  “It might still be safer to get rid of them,” Chronos said. “Symbolically, at least, if we accept a bribe from Rhea —”

  Kendra gave her an incredulous look.

  “Marnie’s my new friend!” Tiffany declared.

  “But if she’s trying to win us over —”

  “Then we won’t fall for it, and we’ll look really cool in the meantime,” Kendra said.

  “You’d understand if you ever bothered to look pretty!” Tiffany announced.

  Kendra looked at Chronos. “She’s not kidding.”

  “What does my appearance have to do with anything?!”

  “If you owned an iron, you’d know the answer to that question.”

  Chronos had a nasty feeling that those blasted accessories were staying.

  Zazz looked out the window of the helicopter, watching the lair recede into the distance. As far as she could tell, all they’d done was deliver a few presents and commit a fashion atrocity.

  “What a waste of time . . .” she muttered, kicking the seat in front of her.

  Rhea had a curious smile on her face. “Oh, not necessarily . . .”

  Zazz shot her boss a sharp look. “What did you do? Did you do what we came for?”

  Rhea laughed. “Of course. And of course you didn’t notice. You were the distraction, Minerva.”

  Zazz tried not to pout. She hated it when it was her job to be the distraction. It happened all too often at work.

  “So what did you learn?” she asked hopefully.

  Rhea smiled, patting the control panel of the helicopter in front of her. “For one thing, that she has another teammate.”

  “Ugh . . .” Zazz groaned, putting her face in her hands. “That mask . . .”

  “Indeed.” Rhea smiled. “But it earned us the child’s loyalty. That’ll be useful.”

  Zazz eyed her boss. She wanted to ask what the boss was planning, but she knew she wouldn’t be told. Rhea’s plans were always shifting when she learned new information, anyway.

  “What’s our next step?” she asked cautiously.

  “That all depends,” Rhea said.

  “On what?”

  Rhea said nothing.

  “On what?” Zazz repeated, feeling indignant. She deserved to know that, after making that mask!

  Rhea smiled. “It all depends on whether the family will listen to me.”

  Chapter 4: The Rejection

  X-ray vision would’ve been nice to have, so that Florence could have looked at the school building and found out why her teammate was late. Or mind-reading powers.

  Come to think of it, mind-reading powers would have been even better, because then she could have had some clue what her ditzy teammate was thinking.

  Come on, Felicity, Florence thought impatiently, twisting her focus item around her wrist. The bracelet was all summoned, and she was itching to transform. It had been a long day, track practice had been canceled, and she was dying to find out if Felicity saw anythin
g different with her transformation scene this afternoon.

  It had been nearly a week since they’d fought Queen Hemlock’s minions and Felicity had mentioned that Florence’s transformation scene looked different. Ever since then, Florence had been looking for a chance for them to get together and compare the details, but Felicity had been too busy. It was only today that Florence had gotten her to commit to coming.

  And now Felicity was ten minutes late.

  Come on, come on, come on! Florence thought anxiously, twisting the bracelet around her wrist.

  She was a little afraid that their magic was becoming less interesting to Felicity. She couldn’t blame her; after all, Florence had been starting to lose interest in their magical girl team before Kendra left. But now it was different. Now there was a mystery to solve. Now Florence felt lost, and her best friend wasn’t here to try to tell her what to do, which had always been helpful for convincing Florence that she wanted the opposite.

  Florence twisted the bracelet around her wrist nervously.

  Her other teammate now had new friends. Felicity had been gradually drifting away to spend more and more time with them since Kendra had left. She’d started sitting with them every lunchtime, and even though she had invited Florence, Florence had found she had nothing in common with those chattering gigglers.

  The only thing she really had in common with Felicity anymore was their magical girl team.

  Come on, Felicity, Florence thought, twisting the bracelet around her wrist and fretting. Don’t dump me. You’re the only friend I have left.

  She didn’t make friends easily. She wasn’t shy, but she found it hard to open up to people. Lute Deathwave savaging her heart had made it even more difficult.

  Sure, she was friendly with the other girls on the track team, but it wasn’t the same. There was nobody she felt like telling her feelings to. Nobody she felt like sharing secrets with. Nobody she could ask for help when she felt shaky.

  Is Felicity really any of those things? she wondered.

  Another ten minutes later, Florence decided to leave. It was clear her teammate wasn’t coming. She started to walk down the sidewalk, shoulders slumped . . .