Anya, code name Starlight, rode through the night on the aircraft that was her pet turned cyborg, Bond. "It's not looking good, Bond," she said. "Handler is captured. Papa and Scruffyhead don't answer. Mama is on the run. It's up to us." Bond gave a digitized "worff".
They circled the building at the level of the 250th floor, more than a kilometer off the ground but still almost 400 meters from the top. The upper tower rose from a hexagonal base like a pyramid with its corners shaved down, to converge at the core even higher up. She considered a landing pad for helicopters and saucers. "Too easy," she said. Bond worffed agreement. They spiraled upward.
Bond barked again. Anya saw a flashing indicator of a new transmission. She brought it up on Bond's retractable canopy. She immediately beheld a face half-covered by long platinum locks. "I am the Ice Queen," she said. The camera pointed to a table in the café area. "The Cold Front has won another great victory. I have captured three former WISE operatives now in the exotrooper corps: Commander Sylvia Sherwood, otherwise known as Handler; chief designer Franky Franklin; and Loid Forger, the great Twilight himself." The camera zoomed in on Papa, who raised his head.
"Ah, yes, and we do have the child of Twilight and the Thorn Princess, unharmed," the Queen said. Willow entered, carrying Loid Forger, Junior. Loid did not hide the tears in his eyes as he accepted Loidy into his lap. On his left, Damian nodded. On his right, Sylvia smiled. But Loid frowned when he saw that the boy once again held a toy gun. He looked back at the camera.
"Anya," he said. "Don't worry about me. Look for Mama. She is still free."
The Queen pulled the camera back to herself, while keeping the hostages in frame. The longer view showed her platinum hair, sheered on a diagonal from left to right. The shortest parts went halfway to her left knee. The longest reached her right ankle. A wispy braided strand ran over her shoulder and from there all the way down to the floor. "Now, I am free to reveal myself," she said. Willow and her masked, bare-chested Prince came to her side. "Yes, as you can see, I am Fiona Briar, also known as WISE agent Nightfall! Once, I lived and made love under orders, hiding every emotion, until I found the one who stands at my side among those I was told were my enemies. This is the Prince of the Ill Wind, the only man I ever loved!"
"I knew it was you the whole time," Handler said. "And that's obviously your husband, Yuri Briar. You met him on honeytrap duty. And then I told you to just marry him already, repeatedly..."
"You want to talk about secrets, would you like it if I told a few of yours?" the Queen said. "Then be silent until you are called on." She turned back. The Prince waved, and the girl giggled. "Only I now behold his beauty. But I have given him a face that others may see. Show them, my Prince!"
"Sure, snowball," the Prince said, his voice vaguely muffled. He removed the mask. Anya gasped. It was the face of Papa, as he had been before she was born. "I am Twilight!" he declared. When he spoke, the voice was indistinguishable from Papa's. "I am the best Twilight!"
"Still Yuri in a mask," Handler said. "Though I admit, the implications are getting a lot more disturbing. You did finally figure out Fiona was in love with you, didn't you, Loid?" Loid Forger only scowled. Franky started to speak. He whimpered and fell silent at a shock from a collar around his neck.
The girl leaned into the frame. "And that Twilight is my father!" Loid gaped in shock as she pointed in his direction. Throughout the building, watching residents scratched their heads or shifted uncomfortably. Yor Briar, still in an ascending elevator, winced visibly.
"Look, put the mask back on and go play," Fiona said. The man and the girl ran out of frame. Momentarily, they wandered back into view. Willow laughed as the Prince tossed her in the air. That was enough to draw a smile from the Queen.
"There was a time when I thought I had found peace," she said. "It was when I looked upon my unborn child with my Prince at my side, and I had a vision of my girl like she was already there, and I felt so much love that every love I thought I had felt before was like a silly old book about a place I had never been- Ahh! Stop that!" Out of frame, the Prince was holding Willow over the balcony railing.
"I knew, somehow, I saw my girl's face before she was even born, and the more she grew, the more I was sure it was true," the Queen pressed on. "It was all my dreams come true, but a day came when I looked at her in my Prince's arms, and I saw reality. My love for them was the only truth in a world of lies, but it would not save them from it. It was then that I set out on the road that brought me here, to expose the falsehoods that the powerful use to keep the weak in slumber."
Willow and the Prince crept back into frame behind her. "Now, it is true that a small force of exotroopers and loyalists of the Baltican Self-Defense Force have breached the tower and established a foothold I cannot yet dislodge," the Queen said. "But the full forces of the Cold Front are on their way to aid us, both here and abroad. Until then, the nations of the world will witness the fruit of our victory, the interrogation of Twilight!"
"Fiona really went crazy," Anya said to Bond. He worffed. "Wait, we've got something…" Bond circled downward. They pulled up alongside a ledge below the 200th story. There, a form still lay sprawled like a dropped rag doll. There was no sign of life, until a helmeted head looked up.
"Hello," Anya said. "What's your name?"
"Call me the Tick," he groaned.
"What happened?"
"There was a crazy guy and a crazy girl working for a crazy lady," the Tick said. "The guy got behind me and pushed me out a window."
"I'm an exotrooper, too," Anya said. "Can you help me? Or at least climb up?"
"I'm safer out here than in there," the trooper said. "Anyway, there's no good places to grip, plus the surfaces are iced up. If I tried to climb up, I'd just fall all the way down."
"Actually, you'd hit the buttress," Anya said. "Why not let me help you up?"
"It's no good," the Tick said. "I already lost my gun. I lost my partner, too. He's the Flea. Without him, I'm just no good. He always goes in too fast, I'm always too slow. But together, we make up for it. Complimentary, you know? Nope. I'm no use without him. He's no good without me. That fathead." He sobbed.
"You sound like Mama and Papa," Anya said. "They help each other. They can still go it alone. Look, I have a spear gun thingy and a lot of cable. If you hold on just a sec, I can pull you up and drop you off."
"Thanks," said the Tick. Anya threw him a loop of cable. His weight was a strain on Bond, but they carried him up to an exterior balcony on the top level of the mezzanine.
"Good luck," Anya called as Bond ascended again.
"You need it, not me," the Tick called back.