Chapter One - Smoggy

The worst part of living under an underpass--other than that persistent smell of exhaust fumes from all the cars and the constant rumble above--was that Emily always felt terribly self-conscious when they arrived at the entrance of their base.

Sure, this one underpass wasn't in the trendiest part of Eauclaire. Any traffic would be on the underpass, not beneath it. The road it was on curved out a bit, so it wasn't even like people in the nearby apartment buildings could see that their van had stopped in the maintenance lane on the side, and this particular part of town was relatively quiet.

It was close to the college, but not so close that it was packed full of dormitories. It was situated in just about the weirdest little nook and that was probably what was best about it. No one would go looking for them here, or so she hoped.

Emily opened the side-door of the van and jumped aside as two Trinity's spilled out. "Were you wearing your seatbelt?" she asked.

"I was wearing one of them," Trinity said as she jumped to her feet.

Emily decided not to pursue that line of inquiry. "Alright. Girls, help me with the boxes?"

Soon they had the van's trunk open and Emily was handing out boxes to her sisters. She took a few of the heavier ones for herself, then made sure she could juggle them one-handed for a moment.

"I'll go park while you take all of that down," Sam said from within the van.

"That sounds fair," Emily said. "Will you come down after?"

"Yeah, sure, I can spare a few minutes. Besides, I've got your cash."

Emily nodded, then closed the backdoor to the minivan and told Maple to shut the sidedoor. Then she guided her gaggle of sisters to the interior wall of the overpass. A splash of old graffiti--with words she'd rather her sisters not learn but feared it was too late--hid the entrance, but the door into the base was still relatively easy to open... if she had more than one free hand.

Emily popped open a little panel, pushed aside the wires within, then wiggled her key into the lock and twisted the handle.

The door hissed open, a flat panel of concrete sliding back and away from the wall with its edges so tight that they were almost invisible until pressed in.

Her sisters, of course, had no fear of what might lurk within and eagerly pressed into the base. The corridor beyond had been a dusty, grey passage once, but a couple of weekends exploring the place had improved it... somewhat.

The walls were now a lively pastel green. The paint had been on sale at the local hardware store in large enough quantities to cover everything.

Splotches and speckles dotted the floor where she'd failed to cover it with enough newspaper, and the edging was... not fantastic. But it was better than the flat grey it had once had. The door into the main part of the base at the end of the corridor now featured a surprisingly well-done painting.

Trinity had some real talent when it came to drawing and painting, and with six arms and three heads, she was quite quick as well.

The painting featured a large bear, three raccoons, a beaver and an owl, all smiling and all wearing domino masks. It was cute. Less cute was the large image of a blonde woman in the background wearing what looked like a windswept toga with her arms spread. Sunrays splashed out of her and onto the backs of the animals, giving the entire background an almost... religious feel to it that always made Emily uncomfortable.

Maple got the door open, and soon they were in their new home.

The base's main section featured a dormitory of sorts, with several rooms that were just large enough to hold a bed and a small desk. Further in was the kitchen space and a single larger room that Emily had taken as her own.

The middle of the base had several pillars rising to the ceiling, big stout ones that looked strong enough to support the world, which was comforting whenever a semi-trailer rumbled past on the highway above. There was a recess in the floor with a big wrap-around sofa--all made of concrete. They'd purchased a number of bright cushions however, and the girls had added stickers to their doors and some curtains had been placed at the entrance of the kitchen to split it off from the rest.

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Her dad had donated an old TV from his workplace which now sat on a shelf to one side. They didn't get any signal down here, but they had a DVD player and Teddy had several nature documentaries she could put on to fill the space with a bit of ambient noise.

It wasn't... home, not the way the dorm had been. It was still too sterile for that. But maybe it would be something like a home soon.

In any case, Emily set down her boxes with a sigh and rubbed at the small of her back. "Okay, let's unpack everything," she said.

As much as her sisters had hated packing, they seemed to love tearing their boxes apart. Maybe they felt like it was opening presents? Even if they'd been the one to pack everything away just a bit ago.

Emily found herself smiling as they made a bit of a mess. She'd get them to clean up afterwards, of course, but sometimes it was just nice seeing all four of her sisters just having fun.

Maple looked up and met Emily's eyes, then smiled shyly. For a moment, Emily figured that things were looking up.

Sam opened the door then and looked at the mess, one eyebrow perking up. "You know, someone's going to have to clean that up," she said.

"Not me!" Athena said.

The others all jumped to say the same, but then an argument broke out about who called dibs on not being the one to have to pick up, and Emily tuned it all out.

"Did you find a place to park?"

Sam nodded. "Oh yeah. There's a corner store just around the corner near the exit ramp. It's one of those combo gas-station ones. Terrible coffee, lots of overpriced snacks... they have these little hot dogs on this machine that rotates them that taste way better than they should."

"I think I know the one," Emily said.

"Yeah, anyway, I parked there. The guy manning the counter said it was fine after I buttered him up a little."

"Buttered him up?" Emily asked.

"That's when you put butter on someone," Teddy said. "So they taste better, right?"

Sam laughed and rubbed the top of Teddy's head so that her ears wiggled. "Sure, that's one definition. Once you're a little older and you start thinking that boys look like more than just snacks, ask me again and I'll tell you about the other."

She was talking about flirting, Emily realized, a subject she knew less than nothing about. "Let's hope that's not for a while," Emily said.

"Boys are disgusting," Athena said.

"They've got cooties," Trinity agreed. "I heard about them on TV."

"What are those?" Maple asked.

"It's a sickness they've got that makes them stupid and gross," Trinity said. She stopped picking her nose to cross her arms.

Sam laughed and nodded. "That's exactly right."

"Maybe we can cure them?" Maple mumbled, just loud enough that Emily could hear. She had that vacant look in her eyes, like she always did before taking something apart. Emily... decided to leave her to it for now. It wasn't like cooties were an actual thing, so she figured Maple would just spend some time building and having fun.

"Wanna talk finances?" Sam asked.

"Sure," Emily said. "The kitchen?"

They wandered over to the kitchen, the sisters having some fun on their own, properly distracted by the TV as Teddy turned on one of her nature documentaries.

"So, we've got a lot to cover," Sam said as she pulled out her phone and opened, of all things, an accounting app. "Expenses are actually pretty low, but I'm totally counting gas costs in all of this, and I set aside an amount for costuming. The girls will need new clothes and even if the laundromat is technically paying us protection money, we still need to use their services discreetly, which costs a premium. Otherwise though, we're making bank."

"Really?" Emily asked.

"Well, in a manner of speaking. A couple of hundred a week? It's enough to keep ahead of the food bills and such. Not even a fraction of what a real villain would need to operate, I don't think. But hey, this is Eauclaire."

"Yeah, we don't have real villains here," Emily said.

And thank goodness for that.

***