VELVETEEN vs. The Parliamentarian #4
She glanced over, seeing how close he was to the edge, and paled, sending the carpet into an immediate nosedive.
The owls pulled up, apparently thinking they had defeated their prey, and the carpet came to a stop only a few inches above the ground.
Tag sat up, looking like he was on the verge of losing the lunch he’d eaten so very long before, and Velveteen lunged for him, wrapping him in an embrace that sent them both tumbling off the carpet to the pavement.
“Um,” said Tag, blinking up at her. “Hi.”
“You do not get to die again!” she snapped.
“This is sweet and all, but we’ve got a bigger turkey to roast,” said the Princess.
Both of them turned to see what she was talking about.
Roughly ten yards away, Victory Anna was facing off with a woman in a feathered bodysuit.
She had one of her ever-present ray guns in her hands, bracing it against her hip as she fired.
The woman was blocking her blasts with shields of feathers summoned from the ground, occasionally using one taloned hand to direct a wave of owls in the gadgeteer’s direction.
Overhead, Polychrome seemed to have her hands full with the bulk of the owls.
“That’s new,” said Tag, pushing free of Velveteen’s arms and climbing to his feet, turning to offer her a hand up. “Recognize the weird villain lady?”
“No,” said Velveteen.
“I do,” said the Princess. “That’s The Parliamentarian—capital ‘T’ essential. She’s an ecovillain. Wants to see humanity brought low for what we’ve done to her precious owls.”
“Not another ecovillain,” groaned Velveteen. “We just got rid of Doctor Darwin!”
“Oh, no, sweetie. She’s not out to turn humans into owls or anything like that. She just wants us all dead.”
“Not an improvement!”
The owls had noticed them. Screeching, they began to dive toward the trio.
The Princess waved a hand, almost lazily, and an opposing wall of corvids and raptors came soaring out of the nearby trees, meeting the owls in midair.
Velveteen, meanwhile, was visibly concentrating.
Dolls and plush toys began pouring out of the nearby souvenir shops, some moving to surround her feet, others climbing onto the flying carpet.
As soon as the carpet was fully laden, it rose into the air and then banked sharply upward, the teddies and fashion dolls it carried grinning feral grins at the owls.
Tag pulled out his marker and began drawing cages, quick, irregular things that he pulled into the solid world as quickly as they were finished, stacking them in ranks around him.
He threw one to Velveteen, who tossed it to the Princess, who held it up until a hawk could swoop down and carry it away.
“This is gonna get real silly before it gets any better,” she said.
“Oh, we know,” said Tag.
“Just checking.” The Princess squinted at The Parliamentarian. “Wish we had a few more of our physical crew here with us,” she commented, then raked her hands through the air in a grabbing and pulling motion, drawing them in toward her chest.
Overhead, about a quarter of the owls turned on their fellows, while the corvids and raptors continued to harry and strike.
The flying carpet was gaining altitude, beginning to drop its payload of plush and plastic onto the birds from above.
Even a large owl was a light owl, designed to carry off small to medium prey, and most of the birds the toys struck staggered under their weight.
The ones that didn’t grabbed teddies out of the air with their talons, disemboweling them until foam and feathers drifted down in equal volume, a bloodless carnage.
Velveteen winced. She hated losing toys, and this was an ugly way for them to go. Still, she continued commanding them to attack, even as the Princess’s newly turncoat owls came flying down to land on the ground around her.
“Give it up, Parly!” she yelled. “You got owls, but I got eagles, and you’re damaging my Park!”
“Leave my birds alone!” The Parliamentarian howled back, unleashing another wave of owls on the group.
Sadly for her, mustering this attack required her to take her eyes off of Victory Anna, who promptly fired a beam of solid-looking red light at The Parliamentarian’s chest. The impact knocked her backward into a rank of trash cans, knocking them over and sending her sprawling.
Victory Anna made a small, satisfied sound and propped the gun on her shoulder as the owls that had been harrying them broke off and flew away, all save the ones that had switched sides to fight with the Princess.
Those owls settled in the trees alongside the eagles and ravens, watching the scene with wide orange and yellow eyes.
Velveteen took Tag’s hand as the flying carpet came in for a landing behind them. The Princess stalked toward the fallen form of The Parliamentarian, followed by a swarm of squirrels dragging lengths of velvet ribbon.
“Tie her up,” she said, with an imperious wave of one hand.
The squirrels rushed to do exactly that. Victory Anna nodded approvingly as she watched this happen. “Jolly good,” she said. “Should we call the authorities now?”
“Better,” said the Princess. “We’re going to hand her off to the lawyers. They’ll make sure she pays for what she’s done.”
Somehow the way she said that was far more sinister than anything involving police could possibly have been. Velveteen shuddered.
Victory Anna turned to face her and froze, gun’s muzzle sliding off her shoulder and pointing downward at the ground. She stared, skin going pale under its spattering of rusty freckles. “Epona’s mercy upon us all,” she breathed. “It seems the fight is yet to be ended.”
“Whoa, whoa!” yelped Velveteen, jumping in front of Tag with her hands raised. “Don’t shoot my dead boyfriend who isn’t dead anymore!”
“Your what?” asked Victory Anna.
“Hi,” said Tag, poking his head around her and waving. “How’ve you been, Torrey?”
“Better than you, it seems, as I have been among the living all these many days,” said Victory Anna, eyeing Tag with suspicion.
“Can’t recommend death,” said Tag.
The Princess walked back over to them, dragging The Parliamentarian by one leg. “Vel, sweetie, may I borrow your carpet? I don’t want to carry this deadbeat deadweight all the way back to the castle.”
“Sure,” said Velveteen. “Knock yourself out.” She waved a hand and the flying carpet drifted over to the Princess, bobbing next to her like a faithful hound.
The Princess hoisted The Parliamentarian onto the flying carpet and began to walk gracefully away, the carpet with its burden of supervillain following along behind her.
“We owe her a really nice card,” said Tag.
“We owe her a lot of things,” Velveteen agreed. “Torrey, do the dead not come back in your world?” A little hypocritical if they didn’t, given what had happened with her and Polychrome during the climactic battle against The Super Patriots.
“Not often,” said Victory Anna, watching Tag. “When it does occur, it’s either miracle or transgression against the gods.”
“This is a miracle,” said Velveteen firmly. “And the miracle is coming home with us, so I need you to promise no more ray guns or morning threats, all right? I just got him back. I need him to be around for a while.”
“Also pro not me being dead again any time soon,” said Tag.
With a streak of rainbow light, Polychrome landed next to her girlfriend.
Like the trained superheroine she was, she took a quick look at the situation, sweeping her eyes across the scene.
Like a loving friend, she immediately came to the appropriate conclusion, squealed, and flung herself at Tag, knocking him away from Velveteen with the force of her embrace.
“Are you finally free?” asked Tag, taking in her costume with a quick sweep of his eyes. “Are you allowed to have the bacon?”
“I can eat all the bacon I want,” Polychrome assured him, and squeezed him again.
Velveteen tapped her on the shoulder. “Please let my boyfriend breathe. I just got him back from the dead. I don’t want to go through all that again.”
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Victory Anna.
Velveteen turned to Tag and smiled. “Love him,” she said. “I think that’s going to be enough.”
“I am sort of your problem now,” Tag agreed.
Velveteen smacked him on the arm as the four of them laughed, and an owl watched unblinking from the nearby trees.