Author's note: So with this new chapter, I've decided to change my approach a bit for this series. It occurs to me that, when the fandom you're writing Minuets in is just an open-ended mashup of unrelated stories, having the four vignettes also be unrelated is a little too much incoherence - so I've arranged to have the four Minuets in this chapter tell a single continuous story. Hopefully this will make for a richer reading experience. (And, incidentally, I'll be deleting and reposting this chapter when the Fools Up Top fix the site alerts again, so that my subscribers receive their proper notifications. So don't be too surprised if, someday soon, you see this collection atop the archive again without any new material to justify it.)

"[A]s everyone turned to see[,] the royal carriage was droved to the entrance." –Kuro Toa, "A Day at the Water Park"*

"Easy, boy," John Stewart murmured, as he herded the jittery Lowline steer up to the front door of the Enchancian royal palace with his power ring. "Easy, easy… attaboy. All right, Your Highness, one enchanted royal carriage coming up the steps."

"Thanks, Mr. Stewart," said Princess Sofia. "Cedric, you think you can break the spell?"

"In time, my dear," said Cedric the Sorcerer loftily, patting the steer on its side. "In time."

"Well, that's good," said Sofia. Then she sighed, and added, "It's just too bad that it had to happen today. My friend Lincoln Loud is announcing the Noragami characters' big fashion show, and I'd promised to be there for moral support – but I don't know how I'm going to get there now."

"How about I give you a lift?" John offered. "After all that wrangling, I wouldn't mind sitting back and watching shinki show off their duds for an hour or two – and I'm sure my ring's faster than your carriage would be, anyway."

Sofia's eyes lit up. "Would you?"

"Why not?" said John, and extended his beam to embrace the little princess. "Baileywick, send a message to the rest of the Justice League, would you? Tell them –" he grinned "– that it's into town now for a little fun and a beer or two for Johnny Stewart, drover."

"Lincoln: FRUIT ELEMENTAL STYLE: NAVAL ORANGE!" –Jamesdean5842, "The Loud House: Revamped"†

"Fruit elemental?" said John as Tsuyu strode down the catwalk in a bright-orange sailor suit. "Is that what she is?"

"Well, she's the spirit of a plum tree," said Lincoln. "You've got to find fancy ways of describing things when you're an announcer, you know; it's why they pay me the big bucks."

"I thought you volunteered," said Sofia.

Lincoln flushed, and cleared his throat markedly. "Okay, so who's next?" he said. "Rabo in a polka-dot zoot suit; I'll call that…"

"Oh, Rabo canceled," came a gentle murmur from above their heads, and they looked up to see Tsuyu glancing down at them as she posed for the photographers. "He had to rush up to Scotland and see the Mule destroy Brigadoon."

John stiffened, and put down his bottle of Guinness with a thunk! "Come again?"

"Didn't you hear?" said Tsuyu. "The Mule announced this morning that he was going to empathically manipulate up to a dozen residents of Brigadoon to exit the village at nightfall – which, of course, will cause the village to disappear forever once the rest fall asleep. All the best villains have made appointments to go and cackle over it." And she gave the crowd one last swing of her hips and headed back to the curtain.

John's ring blazed, and he rose abruptly to his feet. "Lincoln, can you get your folks to give Sofia a ride home?" he said. "I think I have an appointment down on MacConnachy Square."

"Ahh, April the first, don't you just hate this time of year. Your favorite content creator . . . announces a new exiting project only not to do it at all . . ." –jb4280218, "The Greatest Infinity Crisis Evahr"

"Lovely country, isn't it?" the Mule murmured, running his spindly fingers through a clump of heather. "'Brigadoon, Brigadoon, blooming under sable skies…'"

"Indeed, sir," said Han Pritcher, with as much impatience as a Converted was capable of feeling toward the emotion-controlling mutant. "But, if I may, how much longer do you intend to wait before initiating your project? The sun is almost down, and several of the onlookers are growing dangerously restless."

The Mule looked up at his general with a wide-eyed affectation of innocence. "Project?" he said. "What project?"

Pritcher frowned. "You know, sir," he said. "The one where you cause a number of the local residents to leave Brigadoon, and send the enchanted village plunging into eternal oblivion. You announced this morning…"

The Mule laughed lightly. "Oh, come now, Pritcher," he said. "Don't you know what today signifies, here on old Earth? Surely you didn't take that announcement seriously?"

Pritcher's jaw dropped. "You mean, sir," he said, slowly and incredulously, "that the whole exiting project was just a hoax? You announced the impending erasure of a miracle of goodness, knowing that it would summon to your doorstep all the most ruthless lovers of evil throughout the multiverse, solely so that you could call them April fools?"

"You needn't act so alarmed, Pritcher," said the Mule, with a thin smile. "Surely you don't forget that, at the first sign of irascibility among the disappointed gawkers, I can reach into their minds and create complete and unassailable content with their lot?"

"Those of them that have human emotions, yes, sir," said Pritcher, still disbelieving. "What of the malevolent artificial intelligences among them? What of the superhuman beings? I'm certain I saw a shinki in a polka-dot zoot suit mingling among the crowd…"

He broke off here, not because he had no more to say, but because he had been lifted up and flung aside into a privet-bush by a beam of solid green energy. Next moment, the wielder thereof had descended, his eyes agleam with moral indignation. "All right, Mule, game's up!" he thundered. "You get your slimy little mental hands off the people of this village, or you'll get a taste of this beam where you don't want it! And don't try any funny stuff; an Oan-trained will's a match for your kind of tricks any day!"

The Mule arched an eyebrow. "Ah, Mr. Stewart," he said. "Fancy your arriving at this moment – just as General Pritcher there was expressing concern that my own powers wouldn't be enough to protect me from the consequences of my recent harmless prank. If I weren't the creation of a notorious atheist, I suppose I would call it providential…"

"After that we listened to old songs: [']Diamonds and Rust['] from Joan Baez . . . [']Summer [W]hine['] from Nancy Sinatra . . ." –crazyindira, "Broken Beauty"

"Rose chafers, sunburns, and a hundred blackfly stings: my summer whine is to complain of all these things…"

"Ooh, turn it up!" said Sofia eagerly. "I love this song!"

Rita Loud chuckled, and spun the volume knob on her car radio. "Well, you've got some refreshingly good taste," she said. "You know this song only went to #49 on Billboard? No idea why; to my mind, it's ten times better than most of Nancy Sinatra's mega-hits, like 'These Boots Are Made for Joaquin'."

Sofia's brow furrowed. "Who's Joaquin?"

"Got me," said Mrs. Loud. "Could have been her brother; could have been her boyfriend; could have been her agent or somebody like that. All I know is, it's somebody she liked enough to make boots for him, and then sing a #1 song about it."

"Oh."

Sofia didn't seem to have anything more to say to that; when she spoke again, it was only to remark, "Thanks again for letting me ride with you, ma'am. I know Enchancia is pretty far out of your way…"

"Oh, it's no trouble," said Mrs. Loud. "When you have friends in other imaginary universes, you have to learn to be flexible. And besides," she added wryly, as a window-rattling moo thundered overhead, "I can name some other people who are having a much crazier day than I am."

Sofia glanced up through the sun roof, and suppressed a giggle as she saw her court enchanter clinging desperately to the hind leg of a wildly bucking, bright yellow Lowline steer with helicopter wings and a propeller sticking out of its back. "Need some help, Cedric?" she called up.

"No!" Cedric shouted. "No, I've almost got it! A few unexpected spell reactions, that's all; nothing that I can't… aaagghh!"

*Crossover with Cartoon X-Overs.

†Crossover with Loud House.