I propped my elbows on my knees as I stared down at my minions through the rungs of the fire escape I was sitting on. They were huddled in the shadow of a dumpster in a narrow alley six blocks from the bank. It had taken me nearly an hour of combing through the back alleyways to find them, all while lugging six duffel bags and trying to stay out of sight of Fireball. Although I admired their skills at hiding, I would have preferred them not to hide quite so well from me.

Bea was sitting against the wall, biting her nails, while Peg paced back and forth beside her. Malik was crouching nearby, running shaky fingers through his hair. Abe leaned against the dumpster, arms crossed, oblivious to both the smell and the nerves of his companions. Knife was still holding his gun, rubbing the barrel as though he were trying to summon a genie who would swoop down from the sky and deposit money in his lap.

That thought was enough to make me bounce to my feet, a move I immediately regretted as it sent hot sparks shooting up my calf. Still, the pain couldn’t stop my smile. I was no genie, but Knife was about to get some money unexpectedly dropped on him.

I swooped down on the group silently, sliding down the side of the building to land on top of the dumpster. My dance slippers made no noise as I padded across the dumpster and knelt behind Abe’s head. All my minions, foolish as they were, kept darting glances up and down the alley, but never once looked up. I eased the duffel bags to the ground, then leaned forward until my mouth was right next to Abe’s ear.

“Boo.”

“Shit!” Abe jerked around, stumbling backward from the dumpster. As he did so, he tripped over Bea’s feet and went sprawling on the ground. Knife’s gun immediately swung up to take aim at me, and Peg fumbled to pull hers from her belt.

“Hello kiddies, miss me?” I said, swinging my legs around to dangle over the edge of the dumpster. Ignoring Knife’s gun, I flicked stray gravel from my tutu and adjusted my gloves.

“You actually made it out of there!” Peg sounded surprised, for once. I frowned, hurt that she hadn’t believed my plan would succeed. She always seemed the most organized of the bunch, with all of her questions. I had assumed that if anyone would understand my brilliant plan it would be her, even without all of the itty-bitty details. True, my timing had been a bit off, and I hadn’t foreseen the police in the alleyway, or the superhero, but we all make mistakes. The important thing was that the plan had succeeded, and succeeded brilliantly.

“Of course I did!” I said cheerily, jumping off the dumpster to perform my signature pirouette. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about my injured leg, and only made it through half the pirouette before stumbling and catching myself against the cold green metal. I blushed in embarrassment, and quickly straightened, pretending nothing had happened. “No amount of police can keep Death’s Dancer from accomplishing her goal of taking over the city!”

I looked around, my grin fading as a nagging sense of something being out of place took over my brain. Something wasn’t right...

That was when I realized they had already removed their ski masks. Obviously the masks were not the most comfortable things to wear, but how could they possibly thought it was a good idea to reveal their identities in the middle of a caper?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Put your masks back on!” I snapped, scooping up Abe’s from the ground by my feet and flinging it at his face. “We’re not done yet! Do you really want to go running through the streets with bags of stolen money and your faces indecently exposed to the entire world?”

They all fumbled for their masks, which they had either stuffed in their pockets or tossed on the ground – in disgust most likely, or perhaps despair. I smiled as they transformed back into anonymous robbers, and relaxed my tense muscles.

“Much better. Now, I have a duffel bag of cash for each of you.” Noticing their furtive glances, I hastened to add: “And should any of these sacks go missing, I would just like to remind you that I know where all of you live and work.”

A long glare halted their furtive glances and would, I hoped, prevent them from getting frisky with the duffel bags. Retrieving them from the top of the dumpster, I handed one to each of my minions. They took them, while carefully avoiding brushing against my blood-red gloves. It was cute how they still persisted in their belief that if they just didn’t touch me, they would somehow be safe.

The final bag, the first one I had filled and the plumpest of the lot, was safely hidden on the far side of the dumpster. They never had to know about that bag; it was a little bonus to myself for coming up with the plan. The night was not over yet though, and there was still the possibility that one or all of them might be captured before they could make it safely back to the warehouse. Hence the distribution of cash.

“Now, you all know what you need to do. Split up and head back to my lair in as round about a way as you can manage. Do you all remember where it is?” There were nods all around. I had showed them my secret lair the previous night. It was a risk, but if they were to be my minions I had to start trusting them to some extent.

“Good. Now, there’s just one more thing you ought to know.” As I spoke, I realized I was stretching my toes, pushing the top of one foot into the ground, then the other. It was a nervous tick I had developed before ballet performances when I was little. I only noticed I was doing it now because the movement had caused my calf to start stinging again.

I deliberately put both feet on the ground, pressing my heels into the gritty pavement to keep both the pain and nerves bottled up inside. Now, where had I been? “Right. So I ran into that superhero, Fireball, back at the bank, meaning he’s somewhere in the area. If you catch even the tiniest glimpse of his ridiculous red cape, I want you to run as fast as you can in the other direction. Got it?”

To my surprise none of them argued, they just nodded and looked extremely serious. At least, their eyes looked serious. The rest of their face just looked black and expressionless, which was exactly as it should be.

“Alright, off you go!” I clapped my hands together. The sound echoed off the surrounding buildings, making my minions jump. Bea and Peg took off running down the alley to the left, while Malik, Knife, and Abe went right. I watched them go, making sure they had all disappeared around their respective corners before retrieving my own bag of cash and climbing back up to the roof. I actually used the convenient fire escape for half of the climb, because there was a headache building at the base of my neck, a sure sign that I had overexerted my powers. Between lifting myself out of the bank and blocking Fireball’s attack, I was ready for a long rest. I hoped I would not need to use my powers tonight, because there was no way that was going to end well if I did.

On the rooftop I paused for a moment to gain my bearings, then set off in a circuitous route towards my warehouse. I certainly didn’t want to lead the superhero directly there if he was on my trail, but neither did I want to take all night to get there. Who knew what sort of mischief my minions would get up to if they arrived there first.