Betsy Visits River City.
CHAPTER 38
Faeryfaye saw a pitiful sight. Only five heroes were there, all looking at the sight before them. The air itself seemed to be warping, coming in and out of focus. She probed the area with her mind and learnt they had more than an hour before whatever was coming could break through. More importantly, she learnt its composition. It was similar to a pixie, but much more concentrated and she knew how to deal with pixies. She approached Billie, who was on her phone trying to ascertain if more heroes could be available at short notice. So far, only the strongest and most powerful of the heroes had made any impact at all on the thing and she wanted as many of them there as possible.
“What about Midas City? Do they have any heroes that could help?” she almost shouted down the phone. It had suddenly started working and she wanted to get the most out of it before it stopped working again.
There must have been an almost instantaneous answer.
“I know Midas City heroes aren’t as good as ours and they’re all small time lesbian heroes. but we’re desperate here. Any help, even from them, would be good. Go back and try. And after that check and see if the X-Men are back on Earth yet. Get them here if they are.” She hung up.
“You’ve got a little more than an hour, Billie,” said Faeryfaye to her while wondering how any ex men would be useful here. Yes, ex men were to be helped and transgender technology was improving all the time, but surely Billie couldn’t think people like that could be of help here. And Faeryfaye disapproved of talking about such people in those disrespectful terms. She was rapidly coming to Betsy’s conclusion that Americans are weird.
“After that it’ll be back in full force but there’s no way we can stop the thing before it enters our world. Until then it’ll be transparent to our physical laws and weapons, so, make sure your heroes are well rested. I’m going to those woods for supplies.” She started walking towards the woods.
“Stop,” said Billie. “What supplies? Will you be back?”
“The supplies to fight that thing and I’ll be back in time. Try and get a blender here by then. That’ll help a lot. And get a fire going. I’ll need that as well. Oh, and a cauldron as well, obviously.” She walked off. It was a bit rude but after all, there was no time to waste. Billie looked at her retreating back with exasperation before getting on her phone and cursing as it had stopped working again. ‘Was Faeryfaye a real witch?’ she thought. After all, that broom was a bit of a giveaway. Once done, she ordered the heroes to start a fire and keep it going.
It took Faeryfaye three quarters of an hour to return, much to Billie’s relief. Billie had organised a fire and a cauldron as well as a blender operating from a battery. She was a wonder at such organisation and nobody now bothered to try and discover how she did such things. They knew she could travel through time, but they still didn’t put two and two together. Super Heroes weren’t very bright unless it was to foil the plans of evil geniuses and even then they usually relied of grit and sheer determination instead of brains or common sense.
Faeryfaye smiled when she saw what Billie had ready and immediately dumped the load of plant stuff from her bag onto the ground next to the fire. She checked the cauldron and was happy to see it was a quarter full of water which was boiling away merrily. Faeryfaye separated out the various herbs and roots and added them to the cauldron in the time honoured fashion. Billie watched with interest and also with a hidden camera arranged by Robbie before her emergency operation. Robbie hadn’t returned yet.
Soon the cauldron with its eldritch, well, Billie assumed they were eldritch, contents was bubbling away merrily. Billie resolved to look up the word ‘eldritch’, when she had the time.
“Any news of Betsy, Billie?” Faeryfaye asked while preparing the potion or whatever it was.
“No, nothing yet,” was the reply.
Faeryfaye had to wait while the potion readied itself, so she looked around and saw five people in spandex waiting around. Each one of them was watching that atmospheric fuzziness which was the monster trying to return.
“Who are they?” she asked. “Have they fought it before?”
“Yes. There’s Flight Man. He can fly and has strength and agility. Beamer can also fly, but he has adjustable rays from his eyes. He can kill with them. No enhanced strength though. Bubble Girl can’t fly but can create and control, well, after a fashion, various types of bubbles that can either knock out or discombobulate a target. It doesn’t sound much, but she is very effective. That’s,” she pointed him out, “another flier called The Block. His speciality is to fly at a target at great speed and use himself as a battering ram. He is effective but he maybe has a problem acquiring a target in the first place. That shouldn’t be a problem here. And lastly there’s Smooth,” she indicated a buxom young woman in a rather fetching outfit. Skintight, naturally. Faeryfaye wondered why they all sported such outfits. Bubble Girl and Flight Man also wore capes. She wondered why, but didn’t ask. Now just wasn’t the time for such questions.
Billie watched Faeryfaye when she started to remove her clothes. Or it looked like that. Her hands went up her back and it looked like she was unzipping her dress. She made a few movements and wriggles and, suddenly, she was holding her bra without actually having removed anything. Billie wondered how she did that. Those bra straps would have needed her arms out of the dress at least, but that hadn’t happened. Billie made certain the recorder was on when Faeryfaye produced a small knife from nowhere and used it to unpick the stitching of her bra before pouring out the powder that emerged into the cauldron. Most of it went into the cauldron, but the breeze blew some of it onto the ground.
‘She wears a padded bra,’ thought Billie happily.
The liquid in the cauldron had boiled down and thickened quite considerably by now and Faeryfaye was pleased with it. After all, she had been very rushed and had taken quite a few shortcuts in its manufacture. She wondered if it would work, but so far, it all looked good. She was beginning to get an appreciation of Betsy’s complaints about the lack of time to do things in the field.
Looking at those atmospheric anomalies that were the monster, she saw them suddenly increase. There was no time left. She quickly removed some plastic sandwich bags from her haversack and half filled and tied each one with the goo from the cauldron. They now looked like some sort of off green flexible mace. A billiard ball in a sock type of thing, except here the billiard ball was all gooey. There was enough for each hero to have two and she handed them out.
“Try and get this down its throat,” she instructed. They all solemnly nodded their wise and tired heads as they nervously watched the atmospheric flickerings increase. They knew this was it. Faeryfaye rushed to her broom and sat on it, sidesaddle again and considered rising vertically into the air, but, she was learning, and that was a waste of the magick that powered it. So, she ran pell mell for about twenty metres and jumped on sidesaddle. The broom dropped groundwards but caught before it hit. Faeryfaye’s feet were parallel to the ground when it caught and rose majestically into the air, to Billie’s cheers. The heroes were now all airborne, except for Bubble Girl, who couldn’t fly but didn’t need to.
Billie quickly pushed a marker into the ground where Faeryfaye’s powder spilt onto the ground.