I didn’t know what to think. I knew this was what we were waiting for, and yet fear still coursed through my veins.

The hero of Frozen Wings, Ice King, or Big Boss as Emcee calls him was yet another of the most powerful heroes on earth. Even with his arm in a sling and a boot on his foot I still had to put all my effort into not reacting badly.

Like… What are you supposed to do here? This monster survived the Fey-wild BEFORE he got his powers. Now he’s easily on the same level as IronMagnum who was born that strong.

Suddenly there was a burst of wind as another two people rushed in, another round of gasps and excited shouts sounded from the crowd. Speed Queen was now standing in front of the other hero, glaring at him. She was also just barely holding onto a very dizzy SoundScape, but as soon as he had his bearings he was warily looking between Ice King, Fiesta, and I.

“Don’t you Dare entertain this.” Speed Queen said with the kind of dripping anger that comes from trying to take care of someone restless. “Let us just drive The Theater off and you can go back to the base.”

“And why not?” Ice King said with a malicious smile like he knew he ruled the place. “This is the exact kind of thing Fairy has been talking about, we can’t let this slide again.”

Speed Queen looked like she was about to burst with rage, “Listening to Fairy is what hurt you to begin with. Look, I love you, but we can’t-”

“Can the two of you not do this here?” SoundScape said as he nervously tapped his fingers against his side, “We still have to deal with the fact that the SKYSHAKER is in Chicago, and we know The Theater have a monster with them, and we definitely have civilians talking.”

“Don’t forget the shenanigans.”

“Yes and…” SoundScape slowly turned his head to the huge smile Fiesta had on his face, which was now directed at me. When I noticed a subtle glow behind one of his hands I quickly burst into action.

“You've seen it first here folks! The King and Queen are a part of the show! And who knows what SoundScape can do for you? Come and find out, today and today only!” I made a big and grand gesture out to the now excited crowd and projected to them again. From there I made a pair of “fireballs” and tossed one over to Fiesta, then surrounded the pair of us in plums of fire as the other villain cast an illusion to hide us from sight.

I couldn’t help but chuckle as we slipped past the flabbergasted heroes and started to run back to the arena. Fiesta bumped into me with his own quiet laugh as soon as we rounded a corner. At this point, the pair of us were high off of the energy of the situation. We had just pulled a fast one on one of the most dangerous heroes ever.

Like… seriously… The man not only survived the winter side of the Fey-wild, he then took a gang and turned them into a premier hero organization. Ice King is a very scary individual. That’s not to mention his cryokinesis, hydrokinesis, heat senses, on top of other fey trickery. All without an ounce of magic.

Oh…

He has a heat sense.

I almost literally froze as his good hand landed on my shoulder about halfway to the arena. Fiesta yelped as both of his feet were frozen to the floor.

“Did you really think you could just leave like that?” Ice King said with his own chuckle, “Now tell me whose grand idea this was… ‘cause if it’s who I think it is.”

“Emcee.” Fiesta calmly said as he broke free of the ice, I nodded as I took a step away from the hero. Ice King immediately face-palmed.

“You’re surprised?” I asked, “We saw SoundScape respond to the posts about his whole thing. Half of it was advertising the music.”

“I’m gonna throttle that kid one day.” Ice King said under his breath. “So that’s all this is for?”

“Sí” Fiesta said with a bounce before turning around and continuing to walk away. I just shrugged and followed, dutifully ignoring how the other two heroes didn’t find us until after we were starting to leave.

“Heroes are inbound,” I said over the communicator.

“Got it!” Actress responded, “Fiesta, get back to the arena, Emcee wants to hook you back in. Carnival, help the heroes link up to the communicators and then meet me up in the command booth.”

“You want me to do what?” I said a bit dumbfounded. Fiesta immediately began to run leaving me behind. “You know I am no good with that stuff, right? I am literally the least technical one here.”

I turned around and waited for the heroes to catch up anyway.

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“Don’t be such a big baby.” Actress said with a bit of mirth, she then went on to run through a list of parameters for a spell that I could barely understand in a school and style of magic I had no practice in.

Working with technology in magic is a very warlock kind of thing to do, and most of my basis in magic is with the direct opposite, witch magic. With some sorcerer and wizard stuff in there as well.

On top of that, I had to be very careful with how I was saying things as I argued with Actress. All the heroes saw that I was working on something power-related.

It probably took me a half minute longer than it should have to finish and cast the spell, and it didn’t help that SoundScape was leaning in too close to study what I was doing. But I did manage to elicit a laugh from Speed Queen when I put my hand in his face and pushed him away.

Of course I could also barely hold the spell together once it was done. Instead of my normal quick and simple spells, I was used to just tossing them out, this one looked like someone had taken a high-level ritual and compressed it into something the size of a small child’s hand.

I heard SoundScape say “Is it supposed to shake like that?” when I finally grabbed his wrist and slapped it into his communicator. The spell going on to infect their system.

“I am never doing something so complicated ever again,” I complained out loud. Actress sighed in a way where I could tell she was rolling her eyes.

“Alright, they're connected.” The fabric witch’s voice sounded out from every communicator nearby. “Photographer should have all of the equipment needed on the arena floor, and Carnival, get your fluffy butt up here!”

“First you put me in a costume where I’m half shirtless, now you’re going after my butt too. Is there nothing sacred anymore?” I joke as I begin to move again.

There was quite a range of emotions coming from the heroes as I left. Ice King was just laughing at the whole situation, somehow finding my joke funny. Speed Queen looked genuinely confused at the goings on, and SoundScape was highly concerned and checking his communicator over trying to find out what I did to it.

Fortunately, they left me alone as I made my way to the command booth.

It actually took me a while to find it, the halls of the SKYSHAKER were not set up so that just anyone could make their way around. And as much as I hate to say it out loud, I had to open my sense of smell up until I could find Actress. Surprisingly, for the way she presents herself, she doesn’t wear any perfume that I can easily track. I also don’t make a point of learning how to differentiate between the members of the theater by smell, that would just be weird.

So I just did my best to find a “human” smell and track that.

The door to the control room itself was inconspicuous, the only reason I even thought to stop at it was because I could hear Actress and Requiem talking behind it.

“Hey Actress,” I said as the door opened up to reveal the scene behind it. I was honestly expecting something far more complicated than what there was. Most of it looked like everything was operated from one computer to the side of the room, the only thing that hinted that this was a command center were the windows out to the arena and the many inactive TVs. “If you ever make me do something like that again, I’m putting in my will that you have to speak at my funeral saying you caused my death.”

“What?” Actress said incredulously, “Why?”

“Ice King was literally threatening us and then as soon as we got away you had me turn around and cast a spell. One you could have had Photographer do.” I took a seat on the other side of Requiem and crossed my arms, “Ya know… our resident technomancer? Not a witch who can barely do anything outside of anything.”

“He has a point,” Requiem said, pretending to hide a smile behind her hand.

“Don’t you take his side.” Actress pouted. Suddenly she shook her head and ran her hand through her hair, recentering herself. “Anyways, chatter says that the rest of the saints are on route. It should be easy to work SoundScape in and GoldBella too once she’s here. But there might be an issue with Ice King.”

“Wait… really? Besides the casts, he seemed to be okay.” I tilted my head.

“Speed Queen has been asking for accommodations for him behind his back. And she tried to threaten me if we told Ice King at all.” Actress tapped her nails on the armrest of her chair.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t been healed by now.” Requiem interjected, “pretty sure they have access to healers, from the fey-wild too.”

I put my chin in my hand and watched Emcee go at one of his original songs. “Yeah, he even has permanent access to the other dimension if what I heard was right… what were these accommodations anyways?”

“Don’t make him fight, don’t make him sing… and don’t put him on camera.” I couldn’t help but cringe at Actress’s words, especially that last part.

“I get no fighting, that was never in the plan,” Requiem tapped at a screen showing the live stream absentmindedly, “But no music from him?”

“We’re gonna have to break the whole no camera thing anyways… We could just continue to advertise Ice King and paint Speed Queen as the bad guy if he doesn’t follow through.” I laughed to myself, “Today’s whole MO is manipulation, what’s gonna stop us?”

Actress immediately took out her phone and started to text. A few moments later a new post popped up on Photographer’s social page.

It was of a very confused SoundScape and a curious Ice King. Firework was striking a pose next to them as if he was just another fanboy.

“About to work SoundScape himself into the next act, and of course we have another special guest coming on soon. Can you guess who he is?”

The three of us shared a little laugh, enjoying our job a bit too much.

“So when is the monster being summoned?” Requiem inquired after a moment. “I’m excited to see it.”

“Oh yeah! When’s my big moment?” I sat straight up and tried really hard to not let my tail wag too hard.

“Hmm? Oh.” Taylor turned back to her phone and spent a moment looking something up. “So Emcee was gonna let the heroes have a few songs, then you are gonna jump from here and activate the final spell.”

“He’s gonna what?” A new voice sounded out, PrincessesShifter was standing in the doorway to the announcer’s booth.

“I’m gonna…. WHY?”