Chapter Nine

MS. ASHE SCATTER

While Mr. V and Mr. Po took the Recruits inside the wardrobe to introduce them to the grand void of the Door Between Realms that held the Doors that would take them to their different Realms, Ms. Scatter and Ms. Villa remained behind in the Wardrobe room. Staring at the large Wardrobe, Ashe clutched her clipboard to her chest and held her breath. The Door Between Realms could be difficult when too many people entered at once, it was temperamental in a way at least it always had been for her any time she entered it. Ever since she came to the Anti-Castle in the Anti-Realm the Wardrobe would not allow her to enter into the Door Between Realms. It would lock her out when she was alone, and it was far too ready to snap her wrist off if Mr. V was with her and tried to drag her into it. It acted as though it hated her and would not permit her to enter it under any means.

When it came to seeing the Villains in person to help orchestrate and plan the meeting for them all to arrive for dinner last night, Mr. V had to manipulate the shadows and create small portals for her to enter a Villains territory. It took months for her to go back and forth between them all to properly plan around their schedules and find a day that was agreeable for all of them to come. The fact that the day they were all free was Halloween was completely by chance and many of them were in the false hope of being able to return to the surface world. If the Door Between Realms cooperated, she could have passed through their territories all in one place and taken perhaps two months rather than ten, but it was determined to keep her locked out for whatever reason. She only hoped that the others were not experiencing any of the same issues or concerns she had.

Even with Ms. Villa there she was still a little nervous about so many going in at once. The ticking and tocking of the clock kept echoing louder and louder in her mind until it caused her heart to beat faster and stare more intensely at the Wardrobe as the minutes passed. She hoped that the Door Between Realms was good and allowed all the Recruits to make it to their Doors so they could start their missions and start a new life. Ten whole minutes passed, and no one had left the Wardrobe yet and Ashe could feel her anxiety spiking. A hand touched her shoulder and she nearly screamed as Ms. Villa turned her around.

"Easy there, darling," Ms. Villa looked at her over glasses, "you look as though you're being haunted; which I know that isn't true since it isn't time for the ghosts to clean the Castle yet."

"Sorry," Ashe's voice shook as she let out a dry laugh as she tore her gaze away from the Wardrobe. "I just didn't think that things would move this quickly."

"None of us did," Villa snorted as she looped her arm through Scatter's elbow and pulled her over to the bench in the room. "But we all know that Valentino has a way of playing by his own rules at the worst of times."

Scatter nodded her head in agreement before she took a deep breath as they sat down on the bench in the room. No matter how much she worried or how much she fretted, it would do nothing for Ashe or the Recruits. Now that the day's plans had drastically changed, she could at least make lists for future plans and things that needed to get done by the end of the month and just simply distract herself momentarily from the looming presence of the Wardrobe. She almost heard laughter in the air as she sat down on the bench; the ghosts of the Anti-Castle had a terrible habit of mocking her. She hated sitting in the Wardrobe room, she hated it even more when she was alone, at least with Ms. Villa beside her it was less daunting. She wanted to leave this room and be anywhere else but here. But she had a job to do and she would be here waiting for Mr. V; even if this room would possibly drive her mentally insane.

"Why so tense, darling?" Ashe nearly jumped out of her skin as Eva Villa spoke up. She looked over to Eva and saw she had tilted her head to the side as she looked at her. "You're practically sitting on pins and needles as though you're waiting for something terrible to happen."

"I just don't like this room," she sighed as she kept her eyes locked onto her clipboard. Write something, anything, just start writing!

"What, got a skeleton in the Wardrobe?" Eva teased as she pulled out her nail file and began to file her nails.

She gulped and let out a shaky laugh, "That's one way of putting it, Ms. Villa."

"Eva, dear, my name is Eva! Enough with the formalities," she snipped quickly, and pointed her nail file at her like it was a dangerous weapon. "How long have we been working together, Ashe?"

"A few years now," she answered with a furrowed brow. With Ashe working with the other Villains before finally returning to the Anti-Castle, she hadn't worked with Eva or Eito for very long. Eva and Eito worked a little differently from she and Mr. V and though they all worked well together, Ashe hardly knew anything about them.

"Exactly," she hummed happily and went back to filing her nails. "We should be acting like girl friends rather than formal business partners!"

"But we are formal business partners. . ." Ashe tilted her head to the side curiously.

"We don't always have to be." Eva huffed and twirled her nail file around. "Come on, Ashe, can't we at least try to be friends? We're the only two girls here and the two men get along great. Surely it can't hurt for us to get better acquainted with one another!"

"I see no harm in it." She shrugged her shoulders as she thought about the possibilities. Ashe only ever focused on work as it was an all-consuming presence in her life with the mountain of responsibilities she did. The only time she took leisure time was sleeping in on the weekends and doing a facial routine every other Friday night. As they were in a villainous world, she had no friends whom she could claim, so perhaps she should take advantage of this opportunity. . .

"Good." Eva clicked her tongue with a smile as she turned to Ashe and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Now, turn around."

"Why?" Her brow furrowed with a frown as Eva turned her around anyways. Perhaps she should rethink this opportunity . . .

"Your hair looks a mess." Eva said bluntly as she straddled the bench behind her and began to pull her hair out of its tight bun. "It's been driving me crazy, please just allow me to fix it."

Eva didn't give her a chance to argue and already set to working on her hair. A little squeak escaped her as Ms. Villa snatched her bun from the unfamiliar sensation as Eva began raking her fingers through her hair. It was pleasant and caused her to relax a little as Eva proceeded to part her hair into three portions for a braid.

"You have lovely hair, darling," she commented as she continued to comb her fingers through the hair and play with it however she wished. "You should do more with it rather than just throwing it up in a bun so much. It'll damage your roots!"

"My hair gets in the way otherwise," she laughed through hooded eyes as she enjoyed having her hair played with.

"You should do more with it!" Eva chided. "Your hair is too pretty not to show off."

Eva played with Ashe's hair by braiding it, undoing the braid, giving her space buns until she let that out and put her hair in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Ms. Villa quickly grew bored with playing with the hair and finally combed her fingers through it one last time before leaving down around her shoulders. Ashe was still reeling from the wonderful sensation that it took her a moment to realize that Eva was done and had eventually gone back to filing her nails while Ms. Scatter went about adjusting her time charts.

"Surely what's on your clipboard can't be more entertaining than a good girls' talk," Eva whined with a frown as she saw how quickly Ms. Scatter was ready to jump back into work.

"Far from entertaining, but I have to try to get ahead before Mr. V gets back." Ashe laughed and scooted her glasses back on her face. "Once he changes a single thing from the schedule everything else will change too. It's only a matter of time before he makes my schedules entirely useless!"

"Why make them in the first place?" Eva questioned as she leaned over and tried to sneak a peek at what was on her clipboard.

"Because if I don't Mr. V would allow too much chaos to ensue," She huffed as memories of Mr. V's lack of control still haunted her to this day. "Though he is a great front man and a leader, doing all the paperwork that goes along with it is something he would procrastinate about until his dying breath."

"A little chaos never hurt anyone," Eva chuckled as she tried to peek over Scatter's shoulder to see what was being adjusted. Begrudgingly Ashe just finished what she was writing and let the stack of papers cover what she had just written. "Do you think they'll be in there for much longer?"

"Probably not." Ashe sighed. "Knowing Mr. V, he didn't want to waste his breath and probably let them jump right in without much of an explanation."

"Something tells me that is only going to promise more work for us later." Eva her nose wrinkled as she frowned. "I'd rather they take their time in that case."

"Don't count on it." Ashe snorted. Mr. V was a smart man when he wanted to be, but if he could take a shortcut here or there which almost always meant that there was to be extra work. As if on cue she could already sense motion on the other side of the Wardrobe to hear a quick knock and see two familiar faces appear. Both Mr. V and Mr. Po emerged from the Wardrobe and Ms. Villa jumped to her feet upon seeing her lifelong partner in crime.

"Eito!" She cooed as they met in the middle and Mr. Po enveloped her in his arms and twirled her around in a circle. They always acted as if the last time they saw each other would be the last and that every reunion was very special. In a way it was sweet and endearing, however, it was rather overwhelming when Ashe was not so used to love and romance.

Ashe huffed and pushed her glasses back on her nose, "Could you two get a room?"

"No." Eva smirked with her nose in the air and continued to hold onto Mr. Po.

"We could go to the library, Ms. Villa." Mr. Po chuckled as he drew her chin to him to capture her attention.

Her nose wrinkled with a frown, "And why would we go there?"

"Because, we now have a mission to remove all of the original Story books." He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "It will cause trouble for the Recruits."

Scatter turned her back on them to not gag at their public display of affection. It bothered her greatly to the point it did annoy her, but she did not have any reason to be upset by their public display of affection, but for some reason it rubbed her raw.

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" She purred and twirled out of his arms but grabbed his hand to pull him behind her. "Let's go!"

While the two Hosts flitted away off to the library, Mr. V stepped out of the Wardrobe and looked down at Ms. Scatter. He placed his hands over the top of his cane and leaned on it as he looked at Ms. Scatter. "You don't stay still for long, do you?"

Her head snapped up at him and she saw that smirk on his face and felt her eyes flash yellow. It was only for a split second, but she felt her eyes flash yellow. Calm, Ashe. Be calm. . .

"Of course not, Mr. V," She smiled, relieved that the two lovebirds were gone and slowly counted from ten to one. "There is plenty to do around here."

"But of course," He tried to smile, but it fell kind of flat as he stared a little more intently at her.

"Are you all right, Mr. V?" She watched him carefully and with concern as she took a half step towards him. Did he see?

"I'm fine," He rubbed the left side of his face. "I'm just really tired. I think the lack of sleep has finally caught up with me."

"Well, it's what you get," she crossed her arms and felt a little less concerned for him. She wanted to play up his exhaustion and use that as a way of diverting his attention from her. Just let him believe he was seeing things. . . "You've been up for a whole three days! Of course, your body is tired and is demanding sleep!"

"Right, right," he shrugged with a chuckle. "How's my schedule looking today?"

"Well, since you just let the Recruits just jump in to do field work. . ." She slipped through the papers on her clipboard. With that large time period planned for training completely ignored and removed there was a large time gap in his schedule. "You have the next four hours free."

He raised his brow at her, "It was supposed to take me four hours to teach them?"

"Well, from what we had initially discussed," She frowned at her clipboard. "You had originally planned to talk to them one on one and then would teach them per time slot."

"Ah," He yawned. "Right, I remember now."

She frowned at him because she knew he had not remembered and had forgotten entirely. That was why she was here to remember all the things for him with her tight schedule "Well, since your schedule is freed up," She clutched her clipboard to her chest and tried to push her negative thoughts aside. "You'll have a few hours to get a nice, long nap in."

"Well I had planned on doing that with or without your permission from the schedule," He chuckled and began to leave the room.

"Rude." She mumbled and earned a laugh from him.

"Sounds like you could use a nap too, Ms. Scatter."

Her face flushed, but she put her nose up in the air in indignation. She pursed her lips and she felt her face flush. She wanted to hit him for saying that, but she put her nose up in the air to point her eyes towards the ceiling. She could feel that flash of yellow fighting back. Calm down, just calm down. . .

"I'm afraid I can't." She pulled her hair back into a low hanging ponytail. "There are quite a few things that I must take care of for the next few hours. Besides, wouldn't it be better for one of us to wait here for the Recruits to ensure that they return safely?"

"You're right," He rubbed his chin hair. "You don't absolutely have to do so, but if you so choose to do so please record the hour, minute, and second that they return."

"Of course, sir," She smiled, looking a little relieved, actually. "May I know why you want the time recorded?"

"To see how long they're actually out on the field." He yawned again, and this time his eyes were acting difficult to stay awake. "If they're there for too long then they're more than likely getting into trouble. If they're there for too short of a time, then they're more than likely getting into trouble. If they're actually in there for just the four hours that I plan to attempt to take a nap, then it means that they did as they were told, and they will more than likely be getting into less trouble than the others."

"I see. . ." She wrote it down on her clipboard in her things to do. "Should I wake you in four hours, sir?"

"No," He waved her off and tried to cover his yawn. "Not unless they all return within four hours, then no. I'll see their field reports at some point and time."

"Understood, Mr. V." She smiled up at him. "I hope that you have a lovely nap, sir."

"Thank you, Ms. Scatter," he waved over his head as he walked away. "Good luck with your duties."

He did not bother to wait to hear her response, but instead tapped his cane, summoned a portal, and walked through it to be tossed immediately onto his bed. Quite a few questions dealing with Ms. Scatter were buzzing around in his head, but he decided to file those away until after his nap.

She watched him leave counting the seconds until she was alone before she took another deep breath, closed her eyes, snapped her fingers, and one of her planners appeared in her lap. She did not care which one it was, she had planned on using it for something to distract her mind. She opened the planner and began reading the to-dos, scratched a few of them off, looked at Mr. V's schedule, rearranged some things, and very quickly ran out of things to do. She looked at Mr. V's schedule again, he didn't exactly have a busy day anyways, but since he was killing ten birds with one stone, he opened up several hours of his schedule. She could rearrange some of his meetings with other Original Villains, however, he was exhausted, and she would rather put something in his next cup of coffee to put him to sleep for those now available hours.

Yes, that's what she would do. She would find a way to make him take a nap. A smile came to her face and she glanced up at the Wardrobe. No one had returned. Anxiety squeezed her heart again as she looked at the grandfather clock and saw that only thirty minutes in total had passed. She was going to go insane. Between Mr. V, Ms. Villa and Mr. Po she was going insane by the end of all this. . .

She snapped her fingers and replaced her planner with a black journal. She could always write to clear her head. What she wanted to write about currently was absent from her brain since she felt scattered, but it would come to her if she let her mind go into autopilot. She took one more glance at the wardrobe before squeezing her eyes shut and pinching her pen tightly. She hated this room. This room had a mind of its own and it had a way of making her even more scatterbrained than usual. It always reminded her of her failure in the wardrobe and it always reminded her that she could never return to her Realm because she failed. . .

She only hoped that the new Recruits would not be curious enough to ask her why she could not join them, or what sort of accident she caused. She had yet to tell Mr. V what had happened. He wasn't around when it had happened, it was when Dr. Facilier was still here. He had been far from happy, but he also wasn't angry. Since she had not made a deal with any of those that he did business with and it was not something that affected him directly he did not entirely care. He just liked to give her hell about it. She already gave herself plenty of hell for it since she would never be able to return to her Realm . . .

When she opened her eyes again, she merely stared at the page and began to write. She did not pay attention to the time, but instead wrote and wrote and wrote. She was in a daze when she wrote, but it was just what she needed for her distraction. All the noises from the mocking ghosts, all the creaky floors, squeaky doors, and shuffling of shoes as the servants worked did not bother her. Her hand began to cramp, and it was her first break to return her to reality. She blinked a few times, remembered where she was, saw that no one had returned, and saw that an hour had passed.

"Ashe," she sighed and leaned back on the bench. "Just what are you doing?"

She set her glasses in her lap and rubbed the corners of her eyes to relieve the tension, but when it lingered, she pulled her hair out from its tight bun and pulled it into a low ponytail that sat at the nape of her neck. She fidgeted with her hair and realized her hair was to her elbows; it hadn't been that long since she first arrived here in this Realm. She would have to cut it soon. Leave it long enough to still pull up but cut enough off to where she would not think about her Realm. She could feel herself getting worked up again and tried to calm down by doing her breathing exercise; she couldn't keep up her act for much longer no matter how much she wished she could. No matter of counting could hide the swelling of power within her, she couldn't force it away.

Her eyes were closed as she breathed slowly. As the power surged through her, she let her hair down, took her glasses off, rolled her neck, and when she opened them she was in a long black slinky off the shoulder dress that had a plunging sweetheart V neckline, a high slit that curved around to her right hip, thigh high black leather boots, fingerless black lace gloves, and a cape of silvery spiderwebs. She looked down at her hands, then to the mirror on the side of the Wardrobe. Her hand went to her mouth and she heard more dark laughter as she saw herself in her Evil Form.

"No," she shook her head and held herself and breathed heavily. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I cannot allow this to happen. . ."

She shut her eyes tight and only thought of good things: chocolate ice cream, big red roses, sunny and blue skies. She slowly felt the Evil Form melt away and when she opened her eyes again, she was in her grey pencil skirt suit attire, and she fell to her knees in relief.

"Varuo!" She called and a meow echoed in the room. A fluffy black cat with green eyes flicked its tail in the shadows.

"Yes?" he crooned and appeared from the shadows of the room.

"Varuo," she smiled faintly, and he rubbed his head in her hand. "I need you to do me a favor."

"Anything, Mistress," he purred loudly as if trying to soothe her. "What is it?"

"I need you to record when the Recruits return through the wardrobe." She pushed her glasses on her face and felt calmer. "I need to situate myself. . . I'm more scattered than I would like to be at the moment."

"Yes, Mistress," he bowed, and she set the clipboard on the floor.

"I have the names already listed; all you need to do is write the times for me." With a snap of her fingers, a small black inkwell appeared in her hand. She carefully unplugged it and set it next to the clipboard. "Please write neatly and don't spill the ink."

"I shall try my best, Mistress." There was a smirk on the cat's face, but it laid down next to the paper and inkwell and turned his attention to the door.

She quickly left the room and returned to her own room to get rest as well. She wouldn't be gone for more than an hour if she managed to take her medicine. . .

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading and bearing with me as I have been editing this. I promise I am working on this as much as I can to make it better.

Please remember to leave a comment or review and let me know what you think of the story so far!

Thanks for coming along the journey with me, stay tuned for more!

Ko-fi/SarahtheWriter