Still clutching the mink stole against her face, Belle struggled to pull herself out from under the mirrors, but before she even climbed to her feet, it was clear she had been injured. She shakily attempted to lunge for Vogue and the mask, but she at once cried out in pain, staggered, and fell on the hard ground.
"Are you okay?" Vogue cried, hopping toward her.
Belle shrank back with a snarl, her good eye making her look rather like a cornered animal. She pressed the stole tighter against her injured visage.
"You ruined everything!" she cried. "Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?!"
Vogue looked at her, then looked down at the mask in her grasp. Once again, she recollected the tragic pictures following the devastating photo shoot all those years ago. Compassion touched Vogue's heart, and she took a step toward the fallen villainess.
"Do you really think your plan would have made you feel better, Annabelle?" she asked softly.
Belle drew back again, gritting her teeth.
"Your real name is Annabelle, isn't it?" Vogue gently pressed. "Annabelle Pepperson?"
Belle did not reply. Vogue maneuvered in a slow arc, making her way toward the dais, where she sank down. Still holding the mask, she studied the seething pepper.
"I like your name," Vogue said. "Anna means 'grace' and Belle means 'beauty' — beautiful grace."
"That girl died a long time ago," Belle spat, turning her face further into the stole. "She lived in a false world where she thought love could endure anything, but love was never meant for hideous monsters."
"And what makes someone a monster?" Vogue returned quietly.
"Rejecting your fiancée because she lost her looks," Belle answered, giving Vogue a defiant look. "Ignoring your former colleague because she's no longer good enough to be a runway model. Abandoning a lady who needed help and making her feel worthless, letting her rot away in her misery without even a phone call to check on her. Or do you think they're free of blame, Miss Vogue?" — with a challenging sneer.
"Ah," Vogue nodded, "so you believe that it's not much the outside but the inside that matters, after all."
Belle let out a bitter laugh. "Bless your heart, child. I never once doubted the inside mattered. It's just that for most people their inside beauty is about as lacking as a broken cistern during a two-week heat wave in August."
"Oh, I don't disagree with that," Vogue said mildly. "Even the Bible says, 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?' Without Jesus to give us new hearts, we wouldn't have much inner beauty to shake a stick at."
"Then what's wrong with showing them, sugar? Why stop me from letting them see the truth? Or do you want them to keep living their lies?"
Vogue closed her eyes. She considered pointing out that Belle had stolen from people and possibly caused them physical harm, or that her mirrors had attacked the police station and had destroyed shops and historic buildings, but then Vogue stood and stepped forward, stopping just a little ways from her foe.
"Belle," she said gently, "what do you see when you look into your mirrors?"
Belle's visible eye looked away. "Oh, what do you care?"
"God cares," Vogue answered, kneeling down.
Belle barked a bitter laugh. "He has a funny way of showing it, doesn't He? If He cared so much, why did He let me get like this? Why didn't He shoot lightning bolts at that model before she did this to me?"
"Because He lets everyone have free will," Vogue answered. "Just like He's allowed you to pick this path you're on, He gives everyone a choice."
Belle scoffed, tossing her auburn head. "Why couldn't I have gotten an atheist superhero? They would just take me to jail without a sermon."
Vogue shook her head. She could not even feel offense at the barb, only a compassion as though she were looking at a hurting child.
"Belle, you've let your injury redefine your whole trajectory through life," she said, "so what is it that you see when you look into the mirrors?"
Clenching her teeth, Belle squeezed her eyes shut, but a layer of moisture seemed to appear along her thick eyelashes, causing mascara to drip trickle down her yellow cheek.
"Somebody who should have shone bright," she answered hoarsely. "Somebody who had a lot to offer, but nobody could see it because they couldn't look past my face."
Vogue nodded slowly. Having known a few models from her job with the magazine, she could vividly picture the glorious height of Annabelle Pepperson's career — the thrills and glamorous adventures, the masses striving to catch a glimpse of a beauty, the kind words and bouquets from admirers, the false sense that it could go on forever — and then to lose it all in one fell swoop, to be shown that none of it had been real, that all the affection which Belle had counted on to support her in a crisis had been conditional at best. The injury had gone beyond a physical deformity, distorting Belle right at her soul.
"You still have a lot to offer, Annabelle," she said gently, casting a sweeping glance around the lair. "If this is what you can accomplish as a supervillain making your debut, imagine what you could do if you used your gifts to help people instead — if you used your mirrors (and the power of fashion) to let others see the good in themselves."
Belle sniffed and rubbed her nose.
"But before you can love others as yourself, you have to love yourself," Vogue continued. "As hard as it is, you have to stop hating and start finding the good things God says about you — because even as you are, even at your worst, Jesus says you're worth dying for."
"Oh, stop," Belle snarled, twisting herself away. "If I turn myself in, will you just stop?"
Larry-Boy stepped forward then. He had been listening to the exchange with a mixture of compassion and admiration, but now he returned to that air of seriousness which arose when he had to deal with a criminal at bay.
"You'll come quietly then, Belle?"
"Whatever," she muttered. "I'm about as tired as a hound dog on a summer's day, so get me somewhere that I brood in peace."
Larry-Boy nodded before he strode forward. He pulled Belle up and took hold of the wrists of her opera gloves, pinning the arms behind her back. He next opened the buckle of his Larry-Belt and withdrew from the pocket-dimensional storage container a pair of handcuffs, which he slapped onto the gloves.
"I always wondered when I'd get a chance to use those things," he marveled. He then turned to Vogue. "If you still have the radio, we can try calling the police again, now that the mirrors are down. And we can try Alfred too."
Vogue reached into her satchel, glad she had remembered to include it with her collection before she had gone into the vents, and held it up for him to see.
"Let's get back to the other side of the looking-glass," she said.
Larry-Boy gave her a lopsided smile. "I think you're starting to get the hang of superhero one-liners."
Puggsleyville may have fallen briefly, but it had its way of easing itself back up after a crisis. With the mirrors deactivated, those who had escaped the misleading reflections had crept out to help their shaken neighbors, who slowly returned to normal within the first hour. The police station soon sent out patrol cars, catching looters and rescuing their victims, and other emergency services focused on the danger zones. The local churches and shelters pitched tents offering blankets, soup and coffee. Even in the darkest crisis, light as small as a firefly found its way to twinkle and would not be snuffed out.
As dawn broke over the ransacked downtown area, Petunia gazed at her tenacious city from the top of one of the still standing skyscrapers. The breeze gently played with the skirt of her stylish but woefully wrinkled evening gown (her borrowed superhero costume had been placed back in Belle's shop before the forensic team and bomb squad had sectioned off the area), but her mind was not on her appearance. Rather her eyes followed a robotic cucumber with a jetpack flying over the debris below, removing chunks of concrete and sweeping up broken glass.
"It's a good likeness," she complimented.
Larry-Boy straightened his shoulders. "But it lacks my heroic charms and sense of style, don't you think?"
Petunia gave him a sweet smile. "You are a fashion plate in your own league."
His bruised smile widened, but his mismatched eyes averted bashfully.
On Petunia's other side, a tall asparagus in a suit let out a slight sigh as he maneuvered a joystick.
"I'm afraid the Larry-Bot still needs a lot of work before it can fight crime," Alfred admitted, "but it certainly does a good job cleaning things up."
The Larry-Bot had been the reason why it had taken them so long to contact Larry-Boy's loyal butler. With the cucumber crusader in Puggsleyville, Alfred had decided to take his robot on a test run. Unfortunately, during its patrol, it had tried to help the BPD with a high-speed car chase, and had crashed into the power grid. Alfred had had to use the Larry-Copter to retrieve the Larry-Bot, but after he brought it home, a glitch caused the cucumber-shaped machine to let out an EMP which completely shut down the Larry-Cave's private electricity reserves. Alfred had had to scour Bumblyburg for hours just to find a working phone in order to call Larry-Boy to give him an update. Once he learned what happened, he managed to borrow a car, load the Larry-Bot into the backseat, and rush over to Puggsleyville to help out.
"Nevertheless," Alfred mused, "I don't mind loaning the Larry-Bot to the Puggsleyville Police while they're short handed."
"It's like I told you, Alfred," Larry-Boy remarked as he watched his likeness lift a broken telephone above its head with two mechanical arms that had extended from compartments on its side. "No robot can replace Larry-Boy."
"I cannot deny that."
Larry-Boy limped to the edge of the building, gazing seriously at the lightening cityscape.
"If I can buy some land here," he said slowly, "I could open my own plunger factory. Then I could be Puggsleyville's part-time hero."
"But that would spread you too thin," Petunia countered. "Bumblyburg gets into enough trouble on a slow day. You need to stay there."
"But Puggsleyville got into this mess because they didn't have a hero," he sighed, pivoting toward her. "They asked me to be theirs years ago, but I turned them down, and now look what happened!"
Alfred turned to him, a knowing light spreading over his long features.
"Fret not, Master Larry. Puggsleyville may already have the hero it needs — or 'heroine,' if you prefer," he added with a smile.
Petunia whirled around, gaping. "Me?"
Larry-Boy stared. "Her?"
"Her," Alfred affirmed calmly.
Petunia quickly backed away, shaking her head. "Oh, no, no, no, no. That was strictly a one-time deal. I'm no real hero — I only did it because Belle might have hurt Larry-Boy if I hadn't come back for him! If anything had happened to him, then I— well, I—"
She broke off, looking toward Larry-Boy, whose eyes had widened with surprise and something rather hopeful. She felt heat rise to her face.
"I only did what I had to do," she insisted.
"And you did good," he mumbled shyly, but he slowly began to brighten.
Meanwhile, Alfred gave Petunia a kind look.
"You'll find that much of hero work is simply doing what you have to do at any given moment, Petunia," he said. "Master Larry and I got into this business because we saw the darkness which had kept Bumblyburg in a stranglehold, and we decided we would fight that darkness with light."
"That's true," Larry-Boy reflected. "I only got into this business because I was wearing a costume to do this event for kids at the library, and — well, I already told you that story in our interview a few years ago," he added.
Petunia shook her head, taking another step back.
"But I'm not a millionaire with a bunch of resources to make up for having no superpowers," she countered. "I could never go against space aliens or the Rumor Weed by myself."
"I didn't do it by myself," Larry-Boy pointed out. "In every adventure God sent veggies to help me, from Alfred to Junior — and even you, Petunia." He met her eyes. "You'll never be alone when He has your back."
Alfred nodded, his eyes encouraging as he peered through his monocle.
"My dear, I was not suggesting knocking you out of the nest before you're ready to fly. If you are willing to take up the mantle — and you feel like that is the path which God wants for you — Larry-Boy and I can train you until you reach the point where you can confidently be a protector. I also have a few designs for super suits that you might like to try out — you will not be powerless."
Larry-Boy took an excited hop forward. "Yeah! We can train you how to fight and stuff! You'll be prepared for anything!"
Petunia pivoted away. "I don't know…"
"That's why you should pray about it," Alfred advised. "This is not a job for the faint of heart, but if God raises you up like David to fight your city's giants, then you will never have to worry about being strong enough, since He will strengthen you at every turn."
Petunia bit her lip. Her intellect screamed at her to refuse; it was one thing to help a superhero from the sidelines, or to do the right thing when she had no other options. but even with all her self-defense classes and gymnastics, she was still a scrawny, sometimes clumsy, woman who could not even bench press her own weight. How could she stand up against the criminal underbelly of Puggsleyville, or face down a supervillain with weapons far deadlier than an army of robot mirrors?
Yet when she raised her eyes to the sky, she thought of young David fighting Goliath — and Gideon facing the Midianite army — and Deborah riding into battle — and Daniel choosing to pray to the one true God even with the threat of death hanging over him — and the Apostle Paul facing persecution. They were hailed as heroes of the Bible, but none of them could have been so brave without a Greater Power guiding them at every turn.
Petunia took a deep breath and squared her slim shoulders.
"Maybe we could do a trial run?" she suggested. "Like Daniel's ten-day experiment with food? If God wants me to be Vogue for real — or whatever I end up calling myself — then I'll know by the end of a few weeks of training."
"I think that is an excellent idea, Petunia," Alfred smiled.
Larry-Boy sidled up to her. "Don't worry, Petunia. I'll teach everything I know, and Alfred will teach you everything he knows, and between the two of us, you'll know a lot, and, well, maybe" — he looked suddenly shy — "maybe, uh, I can finally have a superhero buddy to grab pizza with… you know, if it's cool with you."
Petunia could not help smiling. "I think I might like that."
"Really?" He cleared his throat. "Uh, cool."
"Cool," she agreed.
"Cool," Alfred chimed in, with a hint of a smirk.
THE END
A/N: A shoutout to VeggieManiac for her encouragement and interest in Belle Pepper, which helped me to begin writing this fic in the first place.