Chapter 19

Three Interludes and a Prelude

When the crisis started…

-PHOEBE-

I was trying to get ahead on my summer studying when I got the call. After all, if I intended to continue on the Early Admissions track and make it to college by next fall, I couldn't exactly spend all my weekends slacking off, could I? Calculus was on the menu this afternoon. You know, light stuff.

That's when my phone went off. My phone, of course, has various alerts, and each of those alerts had its own sound cue. But there was one sound cue that was special. It was keyed to an app that did not appear on my home screen. It was a special app that could only be accessed by reading my fingerprint. Bridget had installed this particular app on all of our phones. It was designed to alert us to any unusual activity… as in the kind of thing a superhero should be made aware of. It was also used for private communications between the four of us when we weren't in costume. Basically, your one-stop superhero app. Bridget did good work.

Checking my alert, I noted I had two messages, one was a vague police alert of an unspecified "threat" downtown. The other had just come in when I picked my phone up, a message from Lila. -Big alien biker-type guy. We're fighting at Toran Quarry up north.- Well, she certainly got right to the point, you had to give her that. Calc would have to wait. Alien bikers took priority.

…Alien bikers. Why on, or off of, Earth would an alien race develop biker culture? Did they pattern themselves off of Earth transmission, or were rebel biker types just some kind of universal meme? Actually, this presented some rather fascinating xeno-anthropological questions that would probably be worth pondering at a later point, when the Earth was not in danger. For now, I had a very small alien invasion to deal with.

"I'm headed out, Papa-San!" I informed after changing. "Hero business."

"Phoebe-chan, wait," he said. "Are you certain you'll be safe? I must say, this hobby of yours worries me."

"It's not a hobby, Papa. It's my duty. I'm not certain whether fate is real, or if it's just a feeling, but… I have these powers for a reason. I know it. And besides, I won't be alone."

He sighed. "Very well. But I swear, you are going to age me prematurely."

-RHONDA-

I was where I usually was Sunday afternoons, volunteering at the homeless shelter, doing the kitchen prep for the day. It went a lot faster these days thanks to having Wolfgang on board to help. I had to hand it to him; once you got past the whole "bullying our class for years" thing, he was actually a pretty conscientious worker when you got down to it. Case in point…

"Okay, I have to say that is very impressive. How do you do that?"

Wolfgang discarded the perfectly spiral-cut potato-peel in the trash. "What, this? You can blame that all on the Major."

"The Major"

"My dad, I mean. He made me peel potatoes whenever I did something wrong. And they had to be done a particular way. All in one strip like this."

"You… call your dad 'the Major'?" Wolfgang and I had been working together at the shelter for a few weeks now, but he'd never really talked about anything personal up until now. I'd never really thought of Wolfgang as an enigma… I mean, he seemed pretty much as straightforward as they come. I never really wondered if there was anything deeper to him because I simply never considered that there could be. He was Wolfgang. The bully jock. And I'm Rhonda Lloyd, the fashionista gossip. People dismiss me the same way. They don't see anything deeper in me either. There's your lesson. Nobody is the stereotype they appear to be.

"Huh. Guess I do. Never really thought about it. He's just always been 'The Major' to me. He's, y'know, away a lot, and I guess even when he's here he feels more like a commanding officer than a dad…"

"Jeez. That's kinda sad, actually." I commented.

"Yeah, well, like I said, it's not something I really think about. It's just what's normal for me, you know?"

"I guess, but here's me looking at it from the outside and it seems like it's a little messed up that your relationship with your father is more like authority figure and subordinate than father and son…"

"…who asked you, anyway?" he retorted, turning back to the potatoes. "Do ever stop being nosy?"

"Hey, I don't mean to overstep, it just really stood out to me is all. We're going to be working together for a while, so… I guess I just want to get to understand you better? I'm not trying to pry I'm not trying to armchair psychoanalyze, I just want to get to know you, 'cause it turns out you might actually be a decent guy. But, all right. I'm backing off." For now. Okay, maybe I am a bit nosy.

"Good. Just stay out of my business, okay?"

"Okay. Right. Boundaries. Got it."

"…so you think I'm actually a decent guy, huh?"

"Might be. I still don't know you well enough."

"But I'm growing on you, right?"

"I suppose…" It was true. He was kind of a decent guy when he was away from those idiot friends of his. And while I still had no intention of hanging out with him of my own choice, in small doses he was okay company.

"Okay," I said. "Gonna need those potatoes diced for a chowder. Think you can handle that?"

"C'mon, give me a little credit," he said.

"I'm just messing with you. You've done a really good job so far."

And that's when my phone went off… about the same time as a citywide siren. If I hadn't had my phone on vibrate at the time, I never would have known.

"Dude, what's that about?" Wolfgang asked. "Are they doing air raid drills?"

The two of us rushed out to see a black-and-white cruise by broadcasting stay inside orders. "Kinda vague," he said. "It could be anything."

"Yeah, I have to be, they're being awfully sketchy with the details." I surreptitiously slipped out my phone at took a glance. Two messages, one from Bridget and one from Lila. My eye immediately was drawn to the word 'alien'. It was immediately obvious what that siren had been about. "Uh, hey, Wolfgang? Think you can handle things by yourself a while? I have to go. It's an emergency."

"Are you crazy? Didn't you hear? We're supposed to stay indoors, and- ohhhh…"

"Yeah, it's that kind of emergency." I was already headed for the back door. Once there, I would be away from prying eyes and able to let my wings out and fly home for a quick costume change. "Hopefully this won't take too long and I'll be back in time for the dinner rush."

-HELGA-

What was I doing at the time? Something I'd been putting off for way too long.

"Hey, Football-Head, how's it going?"

His ovate visage smiled back at me from the Skype window on my laptop's screen. "I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me," he joked.

"No such luck, bucko. So, how's it going? Saved the world yet?"

"Ha. I wish. No, I haven't saved the world, but my Spanish is getting really good."

"Well, mine still sucks, so I'll have to take your word for it."

"*chuckle* I really miss you, you know."

"Wow, really? You'd think a bitch like me would be easy to get over. Especially when you're probably surrounded with all sorts of Latin hotties."

"Am I? I hadn't really noticed."

"Like hell you didn't. You're virtuous, but you're not dead."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say 'virtuous…'"

"Seriously, Arnoldo. Don't tell me you haven' so much as taken a second glance."

"…well.. a second, maybe…"

"Ha! I knew it! So… have you taken the plunge yet?"

"No! I… well, it would be lying to say I haven't given it any thought, but no… feels like it's too soon."

Ouch.

"What about you? Have you been seeing anyone?"

"No, of course not," I lied, immediately feeling a sharp guilt pang in my gut. "It's like you said. Too soon. Although if you had been seeing someone, I'd totally have been fine with it," I lied further.

"Me too," he said, though I noticed his eyes shift back and forth as he said it. So, you're capable of lying too…

"Well. Good to know that we're both okay with it," I said, feeling a bit less guilty now that I knew Arnold wasn't being entirely honest either. And, honestly, was I really lying when I said I wasn't seeing anyone? Sure, in the technical sense, I was seeing Brainy, but I wouldn't exactly call us a couple or anything. Did I like Brainy? Yes, I did. He was smart, he as nice, he was capable of keeping up with me in a conversation and even challenging me on occasion. Did I like-like him though? I wasn't sure I was there yet, if I ever would be. So, I suppose, you could say that I haven't really moved on, right?

In fact, in a way, you could say I was being considerate by lying. After all, I know I probably wouldn't really want to know if he was dating, so the same probably would apply to him, correct? So really, me lying about dating Brainy was just me being extra sensitive to how he felt, right?

It's amazing what you can justify to yourself, isn't it?

We spent the next hour or so just catching up on what had been going on in each others' lives. It was weird, just reconnecting like that after almost a month and a half. I'd been desperately avoiding this moment until now because I was sure that if I saw him, my resolve would break and I would beg him to take me back. In fact, I'd been making a conscious effort to force myself not to think of him this whole time. Sort of going cold turkey, if you will.

I don't know why I suddenly decided today, of all days, to confront my fear of speaking with Arnold again. It could be that this nebulous budding relationship with Brainy had convinced me that I could handle it, or, conversely, that it was making me feel guilty that I hadn't talked to him while dating Brainy behind his back (and yet, here I was talking to him and still dating Brainy behind his back). In actuality, it turns out that it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been dreading. I felt no urges to, say, jump the next tramp steamer to San Lorenzo (were tramp steamers still a thing? Feels like something that would've died out in the thirties) or break down crying. I was just… talking to an old friend. An old friend whose mouth had on occasion played host to my tongue. Oh wow, I miss that. I don't think I've even kissed Brainy yet. Apart from that one time. And tat one other time, but those were both years ago. And not since I've been dating him. Not even on the cheek.

"Well, this was kinda nice, Football Head."

"Yeah, it was," he agreed. "Why didn't we do this earlier?"

"I dunno," I lied, once again. "Just been kinda busy lately."

"Well, hopefully we can still make this a regular thing. Like, maybe we can *unintelligible*"

"What'd you say?"

"I said, *unintelligible*"

"Arnold, I can't hear you. Ugh, stupid siren keeps going off… wait, why is there a siren going off?"

"Helga? I can't hear you, sounds like there's a siren going off?"

"That's what I said! I - hold on, my phone's going off now…"

"WHAT?"

Damn it, it was so hard to think with the siren going off and him yelling and this text from Lil- alien? ALIEN? Arnold, I gotta go. Big-time superhero shit going down! I promise we'll talk later! Bye!"

The three of us converged on the old quarry a few minutes early. Toran Quarry had been pretty much defunct since the fifties, once its limestone deposits had more or less been exhausted. Nowadays it was just a gaping rocky hole in the environment.

"Looks like we beat both of them here," I said. "The place looks pretty deserted."

"I don't know," Phoebe replied nervously. "My suit's sensors are picking up a very strong source of power here."

"Really?" Rhonda interjected. "And what do they say?"

Phoebe, adjusting her visor, replied, "It's… OVER NINE THOUSAND!?"

Rhonda, without missing a beat, responded, "WHAT? NINE THOUSAND THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

Heaving a deep sigh, I said. "You two have been waiting years for the opportunity to do that, haven't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rhonda replied innocently.

I shook my head. "You guys are dorks. Can we get serious here?"

"Yer early." came a voice from nowhere. The three of us turned in its direction as a figure shimmered into existence. A green-skinned, red-eyed, noseless, antennae figure dressed in what I would assume are the space equivalents of denim jeans, a leather jacket with the sleeves torn off, and steeltoed boots. Yep. Alien biker. Lila's description checked out.

"Personal cloaking device?" observed Phoebe. "Intriguing…"

"So," the newcomer added, "what do we got here?"

"I dunno… copyright infringement?" I replied.

"Not to mention atrocious grammar," added Rhonda.

"Lemme cut off the guessing game right here. What we got here is Red (I can safely assume he was referring to Lila here) tryin' ta weasel out of our honorable duel by callin' in unauthorized help. An' that wouldn't be fair, would it? Gangin' up on the Prime Dude (again, I assume he's referring to himself) like that. It's a good thing I came prepared." He tapped something on his belt, and suddenly our attention was called to four blinking objects that suddenly had appeared on the battlefield.

"What are those?" Phoebe queried, reaching for her concealed sword.

"No idea," Rhonda replied, her fhands crackling with electricity, "but they're about to be sc-"

Her words were cut off by a bright flash, and then… the world stopped.

-LILA-

I was running a bit late for the confrontation, having had to first make absolutely sure that Oskar was safe and would be cared for before I could depart. I wasn't too worried, though. I had given the other girls plenty of time to get there and by that time they would probably have overwhelmed the invader or at least softened him up enough that he'd be easy to take out. I was well aware of my own insufficiency in fighting, but with the others to pick up my slack I could hold my own.

At least, that was the plan. The reality was quite different. When I did arrive at the quarry, I found my friends trapped in a shimmering dome of energy, frozen in varying poses of battle-readiness, as if time had stopped for them.

"Yer late," the invader announced, as I arrived, leaning up against the rocky wall of the quarry, puffing what I assumed was the alien equivalent of a cigar. "Unlike yer friends, but… they won't be bothering us." He indicated my trapped friends. "Stasis field. That's what they get tryin' t'interfere with a gentlesapients' bout. Looks like I get me four heads for the price of one. I'll finally be able t'afford that moon I've had my eye on."

"I wouldn't go making that downpayment just yet," I said, raising my upper fists and flaring my wings in what I hoped looked like an intimidating pose. "You still have to go through me."

He laughed heartily. "Well, I can't fault ya for not havin' guts, tiny." He flicked his space cigar or whatever aside.

"It's Decibelle. Not 'tiny.'"

"Oh, we're on a name basis now, eh?" He grinned that shark's grin again. "Well, then. Name's Oso, the Prime Dude. Figure you deserve the honor of knowin' who's gonna rip you apart."

Well. This was it. No one to back me up. No one to bail me out. Just me, my powers, and my wits. Against the unknown.

"Well, then, Oso," I said. "Shall we dance?"

A.N.: Originally this was going to be the final chapter of the arc, but I figured that it would be nice to see where the other girls were during all this, and further the Helga/Brainy/Arnold and Rhonda/Wolfgang plotlines in the meantime.

Jose: It's all right, and thanks for the continued support. Yeah, the engame of this arc was always going to be Oso and Lila duking it out one-on-one, to have Lila truly come into her own, but I had to address why the girls don't just gang up on the guy.

Veganmama: Sadly Helga doesn't get to fight this particular alien this time, but she'll ger her chance in the future. After all, if one is out there, more are…

Caffeinatedsaiyangirl: Thanks! I'm glad you like how I'm developing Lila. If there's a pet peeve I have with a lot of HA fics, it's that a lot of characters get reduced to one-note stereotypes… Lila is so often the victim of this, and I really wanted her to not fall into her usual trap of "high school mean girl" or "Arnold's boring girlfriend who must be done away with so he can get together with Helga." Rhonda also gets a lot of this. When she's not "the bitch" (usually when Lila isn't, or as beta bitch to Lila's alpha bitch), she just shows up to host the party where plot happens. I really want them both to shine as characters. You'll be seeing Lila develop a lot more in upcoming chapters, perhaps in some surprising ways.

Next: And then they FIGHT!