To Prevent Warm Welcomes Read online

  Magical Mayhem Part 5:

  To Prevent Warm Welcomes

  by Emily Martha Sorensen

  Copyright © 2017 Emily Martha Sorensen

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: The Confession

  Chapter 2: The Refuge

  Chapter 3: The Peril

  Chapter 4: The Rejection

  Next Book

  Chapter 1: The Confession

  Ducking to avoid a sharp-toed boot, Florence spun behind the rubber-suited masked man to blast him with a gust of fire. But she was too slow.

  Kazam! The minion blasted her with a lightning strike that was —

  — rather pathetic, actually. It felt like a static shock from someone rubbing their feet across a carpet.

  Florence reached out and grabbed his leg and threw him over her shoulder. That worked for about two seconds before he flipped back to his feet and tried to lightning-fry her again.

  This time Florence avoided it, though she wondered why she’d bothered. The rubber-suited minion’s mouth fell open in indignation, and he tried a flying leap to tackle her.

  Florence flapped her gigantic dragon wings and soared out of his range. The rubber-suited loser stamped his foot and pouted.

  “Stupid . . . leftover . . . minions,” she muttered. If you were going to mount a surprise attack to avenge your boss, the least you could do was upgrade your equipment. She was pretty sure these were the same slackers they had defeated every week for the past year.

  “Behind you!” Felicity shouted.

  Okay, one of the loser minions had upgraded his equipment. Florence spun around to see a rubber-suited man in a jet pack diving downwards, a sharp-looking dagger pointed at her.

  Oh, no, you don’t! Florence thought. She whipped her bracelet in front of her mouth, twisting her wrist so that the green gemstone was on top. Then she blew.

  It turned her breath into a green mist of poison. The minion choked and gasped, but he shoved a rubber-suited arm in front of his face and kept on diving.

  Florence lunged off to the side, flapping her dragon wings, and he kept going towards the spot where she’d been. Before he could recalibrate, she twisted her wrist so that the blue gemstone was on top.

  Whoooooooooosh!

  A cloud of freezing air enveloped him, and he thunked to the ground in an enormous block of ice. The bottom shattered, but there was still more than a foot of it encasing him in all directions. Even better, his rocket pack had gone out, so there was now no way for him to melt his way out of there.

  Ha! Florence thought.

  Down below, Felicity was struggling with the other minion, who had grabbed one of the giant vines she’d been shooting at him and was trying to lasso her with it.

  Florence twisted her wrist so that the central stone was in front of her mouth, and she blew across it. It was the largest stone, and the only one she’d had before her power-up last year. Fire roared down and incinerated the vine through the middle.

  The loop of vines that had squeezed around Felicity loosened, and she pulled her left arm loose. She held up her fist, and the ring on it glowed.

  “How dare you use my own plants against me!” she shouted.

  The minion, guessing what would happen, dove to the side.

  A selection of seven different seeds appeared over the ring, spinning through a disc of light, and Felicity plucked one of them with her left hand. The other six shlooped back into the ring while she held that seed outward.

  “GROW!” she yelled.

  It exploded outward as she let go of it, creating a spiral of spinning vines covered in — clumps of three leaves?!

  Oh, no, she didn’t, Florence thought, appalled.

  The minion screamed and tried to flee, but the vines grew faster and thicker, and one sprawled right in front of his foot. He tripped over it, landing with a splat, and the vines immediately tightened and thickened until he was totally encased.

  “I’ve got mine!” Felicity beamed, landing on the ground with a flutter of her sheer wings. They were shaped like butterfly wings, but the veins running through them resembled leaves.

  She held her left fist off to the side, and the minion encased in ominously three-leafed vines lifted up into the air, hovering a few inches away from her ring.

  She DID, Florence thought.

  “Fe— Green Fairy,” Florence sputtered, “may I ask why you added poison ivy seeds to your arsenal?”

  “I thought we needed a better weapon, since we’re down a teammate,” Felicity said, as if it were obvious. “I found them when my family went camping last week.”

  Florence thanked her lucky stars that her family hadn’t gone camping in a desert. Her teammate would no doubt have come back with cactus seeds. The last thing she needed was a bunch of spark, prickly things being hurled around the battlefield.

  “I also got some rosebush seeds!” Felicity added cheerfully. “They have gigantic thorns. They should be helpful.”

  “What was wrong with kudzu, morning glory, and English ivy?!” Florence exclaimed.

  “I’m just trying to use my new power-up,” Felicity pouted. “I can carry five different types of seeds now, instead of three. Why aren’t you happy for me?”

  Florence glanced behind her at the man encased in ice, then back at the man Felicity had encased in poison ivy. It was true that Florence’s last power-up had given her the ability to breathe ice and poison, as well as fire. But neither of those seemed as casually cruel as wrapping somebody up in poison ivy.

  “Whatever,” Florence sighed. It didn’t seem worth fighting over. She could try to look for something different to entice her teammate later. Felicity didn’t have an unlimited supply of seeds. Maybe before next time she restocked, Florence could have a talk with her about the benefits of dandelions, which grew quickly and burst seeds outwards at a rapid rate. The fluffy snowstorm could be used as a concealing smokescreen, or something.

  And she legitimately was glad her teammate hadn’t added some cactus seeds. Felicity’s favorite TV show for years had been Princess Prickly Pear — in fact, her original magical girl from had been an exact duplicate of that character. The only reason she’d changed it was because Kendra had given her a long lecture about “copyright infringement” and “the importance of matching the Wings of Justice theme.” And because Florence had kept complaining about Felicity accidentally spearing her with those spikes.

  She still had the occasional nightmare about Felicity deciding to go back to that costume.

  To avoid prolonging the argument, since the battle was clearly over, Florence walked across the park to find a payphone. She glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, detransformed, and searched through her pockets to find a quarter. She inserted it and dialed the number for the police, drumming her fingers along the ledge that held a phone book.

  This part of the battle aftermath didn’t feel any different from when Cream Angel had been with them. Florence had always been the one to call the police to pick up any prisoners they’d captured, mostly to skip out of Kendra’s interminable after-battle analyses of what the three of them could have done better.

  That was one thing about Kendra being gone that Florence didn’t miss. Her best friend had been annoyingly bossy.

  “Hello?” Florence said as soon as somebody picked up at the police station. “It’s Pink Dragon. We’ve captured two minions at McKinley Park. Can you come collect them right away?” After getting the assent, she was about to hang up, but then remembered to add a warning. “Green Fairy wrapped one of them in poison ivy. Um, can you make sure you bring protective suits or something?”

  There was a very long pause before she got the second assent. The police did n
ot sound any more thrilled with Felicity’s new weapon than she was.

  Don’t worry, Florence thought with a sigh. I’ll try to talk her out of it at the earliest opportunity.

  Now detransformed, the two girls walked away from the park. Behind them, a police officer was gingerly pushing an enormous trolley cart that had both minions on it. One was still encased in a dripping block of ice, while the other was trailing strings of poison ivy along the ground. The police officer flinched and jerked back every time a tendril drifted near him, despite the fact that every inch of skin except for his face was covered.

  “You know, if you used dandelions as your fourth seed type, it might make things more convenient for the police officers who have to collect the minions you capture,” Florence hinted.

  But Felicity didn’t seem to notice. She was bouncing up and down excitedly. “Have you ever noticed you look different right after transforming?”

  Florence was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

  “Your magical girl form,” Felicity said. “Your dress goes red while you’re transforming, instead of pink. And your wings. They look bigger or something. As soon as you finish transforming, you look the same as always, but I kind of wonder if you’re on the verge of a power-up?”

  Florence digested that. She wouldn’t argue that a red costume would be an improvement over pink, and her wings had gotten larger after her first power-up. All of theirs had. They’d all had tiny wings at the beginning. “When did it start?”

  “I dunno,” Felicity shrugged. “It just started recently — DANIEL!”

  “Huh?” Florence asked, baffled.

  “DANIEL!” her teammate screamed again, pointing excitedly.

  Florence looked in the direction Felicity was pointing, and sure enough, there was the boy she had a stalker-crush on.

  Florence just barely stopped herself from saying, “So what?” Given that her first and last boyfriend had been a Deathwave villain who’d betrayed her, she found it hard to get invested in the subject of crushes or dating nowadays.

  But Felicity had no such reticence. “Oh, he’s so beautiful, isn’t he?” she whispered, grabbing Florence’s arm. “I hope he asks me out on a date soon! I can’t wait!”

  “Felicity . . .” Florence said wearily, prying her friend’s long fingernails out of her bicep, “if you really want to go out with him, why don’t you ask him?”

  Felicity stared at her as if this were a foreign concept.

  “You might even tell him that you like him,” Florence hinted.

  Felicity gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I couldn’t! I just couldn’t! What would I do if he said no? No, no, no, Daniel has to ask me!”

  Florence let out an exasperated grunt.

  The boy walking ahead of them turned around. “Huh? Did someone call me?”

  Felicity’s face turned approximately seven colors at once. It went everywhere from super pale to bright red to sickly green simultaneously. Since Florence was too dark-skinned to have to worry about blushing, she found the effect mildly amusing.

  With a bit of impish glee, Florence said, “She did. This is my friend, Felicity.”

  Felicity let out a desperate choking sound.

  “Oh.” The guy looked at Felicity with no apparent recognition, which was astonishing given the fact that she was constantly doodling his name all over her backpack with hearts all around it. You would think the guy would’ve noticed by now.

  Feeling even more impish, Florence added, “Felicity has the biggest cru—”

  “Hi!” Felicity burst in desperately. “I — um — I — uh — oh — I — I’m Felicity!”

  “Yeah, she said that,” the guy said. “Why did you call me?”

  Felicity’s face turned red and white and green all over again. “I’m Felicity!” she gasped.

  Florence had to suppress rolling her eyes.

  “Okaaaaaaaay,” he said, looking confused. “Well, nice to meet you, I guess.”

  Felicity stood there with wild eyes, stiff and straight, as the guy walked away. Florence wondered if she’d maybe gone a little too far. She hadn’t meant to break her friend.

  “You oka—” she began.

  “Florence!!” Felicity screamed, seizing her arm. “He was glad to meet me!!”

  “Hurray,” Florence snorted. “Now my life is complete.”

  Chapter 2: The Refuge

  Up above the lair so high, like a darling in the sky, Tiffany was showing off her new invention.

  “And this one’s name is Billy, and that one’s name is Bobby, and . . .”

  “Did I ask you to build new defenses?” Chronos glowered, leaning a ladder in between two of the four enormous cannons that now graced the top of their entryway. “Why no, I don’t think I did.”

  “Billy can shoot cannonballs!” Tiffany effused. “Bobby can shoot bubbles! Franky can shoot pizza! Freddie can shoot freezy things! And they’re all voice-activated —”

  “All four cannons, self-destruct,” Chronos said immediately.

  Nothing happened.

  Tiffany giggled. “Silly! I meant activated by my voice, of course!”

  Of course she had. Chronos would just have to pull the cannons down the hard way. She wiggled the ladder to make sure it was stable, then started climbing up it.

  “Kendra! Come admire my new cannons!” Tiffany shouted, balancing on one foot on top of one of the long metallic tubes. She held her arms out for balance, a wide grin on her face. “They’re super fun and pretty and neat!”

  “. . . Pass,” Kendra said indifferently from her position at the top of the stairs. She had been taking notes about something or another in a spiral-bound notebook for hours. Chronos would have liked to think that it was some sort of schoolwork, but alas, knowing Kendra, it was probably notes on magical girl battles.

  No, make that definitely. She still hadn’t managed to persuade the former magical girl pest that maybe, just maybe, it would make sense for a fifteen-year-old to go back to school.

  “You wouldn’t have to go back home if you don’t want to face your friends or family,” Chronos had griped. “Just take a correspondence class or something! I’ll pay for it!”

  “Waste of time,” Kendra had retorted. “I’m here to save the world, not pass tests.”

  Chronos had taken to keeping an eye on every magical girl school in the world for signs of any flimsy excuse she could use to convince Kendra to go in undercover, but alas, none had presented themselves. She’d thought of simply lying, but despite the girl’s refusal to spend any time getting an education, she wasn’t stupid.

  She would have loved the chance to get Tiffany out of the lair and into an elementary school even more, but that was looking even less likely. “Other kids are all big meanies!” had been Tiffany’s indignant response to Chronos’s attempt to persuade her that school would be fun. And seeing as that had been her own opinion as a kid, Chronos had found that hard to refute.

  At least Tiffany had clearly gotten some education. The girl could read, for instance, despite having been a prisoner here since she was four years old. Apparently “Daddy” had taught her. That was the villain who had kidnapped Tiffany and made her a prisoner initially, and try as she might, Chronos had not been able to learn the man’s real name. Perhaps Tiffany didn’t know it. Regardless, she was glad Tiffany seemed to have been happy with that particular “master,” but also more than a little wary that the child might have some serious Stockholm Syndrome.

  “Freddie’s freezy things are super dangerous!” Tiffany bragged. “I could make you one to kill magical girls with!”

  Case in point. What ten-year-old said things like that?

  “. . . Pass,” Kendra said again.

  Tiffany continued to prattle on about her brand new cannons, but Chronos’s patience was at an end. She reached the top of the ladder and reached for the little girl’s ankle balancing just above her head.

  “Get down from there!” she ordered. “Get down, alrea
dy!”

  The little girl skipped nimbly from one cannon to the other, not seeming to notice the ten foot drop between them. “Hee heeeeeeeee!” she squealed.

  Argh! Chronos thought. Exactly like that future of Lavender Mystery with —

  Hundreds of futures for that person flickered across her mind. Chronos was taken aback, and took nearly half a second to check. There was something glaring missing from all of them. Which meant . . .

  “Why are there no futures left for Lavender Mystery?!” Chronos shouted.

  On top of the stairs, Kendra flipped a page, looking completely blasé. “She got in the way of my halo.”

  “I’ve ordered you not to kill anybody!” Chronos screamed.

  “And I didn’t. Her human life is fine.”

  “Including magical girl forms!”

  “You didn’t specify that.”

  “No more killing magical girl forms!”

  “I can’t guarantee that.” Kendra flipped a page in her notebook, not looking up and not even looking particularly interested in the conversation.

  “We could un-break Brian and brainwash them instead!” Tiffany suggested from above them. Chronos glanced up to see her lying lengthwise across a cannon.

  “See?” Kendra commented. “My methods seem completely mild by comparison.”

  “Not, they do not!” Chronos shouted.

  “Ooh, that reminds me!” Tiffany squealed. “Who wants to see my blueprints for Doris the Death Ray?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Suuuure,” Kendra said. “I’ll get that.”

  You’d think a lair would be a refuge from homicidal lunatics, Chronos fumed. But no, I don’t even feel safe with the people who are supposedly on my team!

  If all villains felt that way, she would never, ever understand why anyone chose such a bothersome way to live.

  Kendra strolled through the doorway, which had no actual door, but didn’t need one. Thanks to the defense grid, the only people who could pass through it were her, Chronos, and Tiffany. Even insects couldn’t fly in.