Chapter Nine - Train Station

Emily put her hand over the receiver on her phone and took a deep, deep breath. She needed it to recentre herself. Then she spoke into the phone once more. "What do you mean she's bringing them home?"

She had calmed down a little after Athena's revelation and had settled on calling Alea Iacta so that he could explain himself.

Sure, this was probably… definitely Teddy's fault, but she was a pre-teen, and he was more or less an adult.

"Would you believe me if I said she threatened me?" Alea Iacta asked.

Emily thought about it for a moment. "I would," she said.

"Really?" Alea asked, sounding somewhat surprised. "I mean, yeah, that's definitely what happened. Anyway, we're heading back now. Teddy's insisting that we bring them to the train station."

"The train station?" Emily asked.

She had to duck a moment later as a spray of water missed her head.

Turning, Emily fixed the girls (minus, of course, Teddy) with a look that froze them on the spot. Trinity was fighting Maple and Athena for... something. She hadn't paid attention to the root cause of their fight. All the girls had Maple-modified water guns and they were taking turns firing at each other while using the couches as cover.

The water guns had been stringently tested by Emily, of course. All they did, as far as she could tell, was hold a lot more water than they realistically ought to, and that water tended to instantly evaporate about three seconds after hitting something.

She was pretty sure the water was returning to the water guns, somehow. Maple explained that it was because she had put a sponge in the guns' little tanks. Emily decided not to poke at the impossible solution too much.

The toys were letting the girls have fun splashing at each other without making an actual mess, and that was worth a lot as far as Emily was concerned.

She shook her head and refocused. "Which train station?" she asked.

"Uh. You know where the train base was parked before?" Alea said. It seemed as if they weren't trying very hard to be inconspicuous anymore. "The platform next to that. There's an entrance to it not far away."

"Okay," Emily said. "But why?"

"She said we needed to impress the new minions with how awesome their new Boss is," he explained.

Emily suppressed a groan. The last thing she wanted to do was to let in more people onto her secrets, or complicate her mask life. Yes, more help would be welcome, but more helpers would mean more people that could betray them and cause a bunch of issues. It was a miracle that she had found Sam already, and Alea Iacta, she was sure, was only helping because she had so much blackmail material on him, and because he was a little bit scared of her.

"Okay. Can you put it off?" she asked. "Or... cancel this whole thing outright?"

"Uh... I don't know about that. Look, you haven't seen how excited Teddy is about this. She's kind of already revealed... more than she should have."

Emily was gaining a pounding headache.

"Okay, I'll be there," Emily said.

She didn't want to. She very much didn't want to. She would much, much rather not have a last minute social event with no time to plan and less time to grow anxious and then calm down about it, but here she was.

"Girls," she said after hanging up. "Get in your costumes. We have a thing."

There was a cheer, then a mad scramble for costumes. Emily herself dipped into her room (the only one with a bigger bed, which she needed because she inevitably woke up with every sister piled on top of her every morning, even if she locked her door) and got her costume out.

At some point Sam had gotten it to a laundromat, one that was paying them in protection money, so the costume itself was actually pretty clean. She suited up, tied her hair back, then looked at herself in the mirror.

The Emily in the reflection--the Boss, she supposed--was a confident-looking young woman in a black suit tailored to fit, with a small black tie over a white button up and a brimmed hat that she could hide her tied-up hair in, giving the impression that she had much shorter hair.

Sam had stapled two thin black bands to the inside of the hat, and when she adjusted them, it gave the impression that Emily's hair was black... or maybe brown? She suspected that Sam had used two different wigs to make the disguise.

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Adding a domino mask hid her face a bit more, then she inexpertly, but carefully, applied some red lipstick on. Another layer of obfuscation.

Not that she suspected she had any real hopes of hiding her identity if someone got a good photo of her face.

There had to be ways of identifying people just from their chin.

Maybe she could invest in a full-face mask?

And armour?

... Power armour.

Remote-controlled power armour? So that she could do all of this from home, in her PJs.

She made a mental note to ask Maple about it.

On leaving her room, she found the girls already waiting, though one of Trinity's bodies was still wrestling her shirt on.

Trinity was dressed like a bandit. Black-and-white shirt over black cargo pants and black boots, with some army-style facepaint on (which she always got everywhere) and a bag with a dollar sign tucked into her belt. She was so comically villainous that it wrapped around to being somewhat heroic.

Or so Sam, and a few internet forums that had bought the 'we're actually all heroes' ruse, said.

Athena's costume was a little simpler. A leather jacket over whatever she felt like wearing that day. Today that was a cute sundress.

Maple's costume was still somewhat undecided. The girl had almost comically large goggles on, however, with some lights sticking out of the side that flickered on and off seemingly at random, and she had a doctor's facemask on to cover her lower face. The rest of her costume was pretty much made up of her lab coat, and a few bandoleers of random items criss-crossing her chest.

Looking at her gaggle of villainous little sisters, Emily could truthfully say that they... were not very intimidating.

She picked up her phone and sent two texts. The first to Sam, telling her to meet, if she had the time, at the old train station. The other went to Alea Iacta, telling him to take his time. They'd only arrive there in ten or fifteen minutes, and that was if they rushed through the tunnels.

Messages sent, she turned to her sisters and eyed them all. "Okay. Here's what's going on. We're going to go meet with some people. Teddy and Athena have decided, without informing me, that we need more minions. Then without discussing it with me, Teddy went out to recruit some people. I'm... not very happy about all of this, but I'm going to live with it. So I need all three of you to be on your best behaviour."

Athena at least looked a little chastised about what she'd done, but Emily wasn't sure if that was all an act or not.

"Are we gonna scare them?" Trinity asked.

"I... I can make something for that," Maple said.

Emily was about to suggest that they don't do that when she had an idea. "Can you make something that'll help us see if a person is loyal?" she asked.

"Can't I do that?" Athena asked. "All I need to do is look in their eyes for long enough and ask a few questions."

She hadn't considered that. Athena was a decent counter to any planned betrayals.

That made the idea of hiring more assistance (she didn't want to call people minions) somewhat more palatable.

Emily slowly nodded, considering the idea. "Alright, Athena, you'll be in charge of checking their loyalty. Maple, do you think you can find a non-lethal way of subduing them if they turn out to be... problems? Trinity... you'll be the muscle."

"Ah, yeah!" Trinity cheered. "Teddy's gonna be so angry!"

"I'll be the one deciding if we actually accept anyone into our group. We're not trying to scare them away, but we do want to see if any of them will be a good fit. Understood?"

The girls nodded in agreement. There was a bit more excitement there than Emily was comfortable with, but maybe that was just because it had been a while since the girls had gotten out and done... mask stuff. She hoped this impromptu recruitment session wouldn't lead to more trouble than it was worth.

Taking a deep breath, Emily began to lead her sisters out of the bunker and through the tunnels of the subway network. She couldn't help but wonder how much more complicated her life was going to become, and if this choice would ultimately be a blessing or a curse.

***