She fought the urge to drift into an endless slumber and opened her eyes the slightest bit. She straightened out, opening them the rest of the way. Where was she? All around her was dark, and it felt so heavy she could hardly move. Her movement was already limited as-is. She tried to say something, but got a core-full of water instead. Now she was drowning, but at least she knew where her location was. She must have fallen into the water near Sparkle Theater and sunken to the bottom.
She had to get out of there.
Without a body, and being limited to half a core, she was in no position to open a portal. She needed to find some sort of way to get to dry land, recover her energy, and then find her Sour Bunch. They were probably worrying their masks off looking for her.
She tried to fly, but the pressure was too great and she fell into the sand. She tried to yell for help, knowing nothing could pierce the water's grasp on her. She tried to force a recovery, but only had enough energy to recover the rest of her core and a half of her left hand. It hardly resembled a glove, and was lucky to have the basic structure of a hand; although it looked more like a wooden puppet than her real hand. The faint glow from her core was all she needed right now. Even the slightest light was enough to soothe some worries. Trying to remove the water from her core would just do more harm than good. That would have to wait until she came to the surface.
She started to panic. At this rate, she would be crushed or eaten before she could escape. She didn't want things to end like this. And so soon...She spotted a small light coming towards her. She assumed it was only an anglerfish and didn't give it a second thought. Unless it was actually large enough to fit her mask and core into its mouth at once, she would be fine. She wriggled around, trying to free herself from the sand. However, that just made her dig further in. She rolled her eyes. Either way, she was going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it now.
She shifted in the sand slightly as the light came closer. The light stopped right above her. It was far too bright, and she was already getting sand in her eyes. A small click sounded from the light, and she was snatched from the sand. She hit something with a metallic CLANG and moved away with the light.
She was pulled up from the water, coming face-to-face with a woman who looked to be a pirate. Her thick red curls were very fine, and her eyeshadow was perfect.
"Well, what do we have here?"
Grape glanced around, then spat all the water out her core in order to respond.
"Aww, gross! Ya could have done that over the water, at least! Now I need to mop the deck again."
Grape coughed a few times. "I should ask that of you. I don't recognize you. You're a pirate, so you're a thief. I think I would know a fellow band of thieves..."
She looked Grape up and down. "I wasn't expecting ya to be alive, but I can deal with that. It'll be worth more enchanted anyhow."
"W-worth?!" Grape sputtered. "I am not for sale!"
"Oh?"
"I am Madame Grape Lyre! I'm the leader of the feared Sour Bunch, and I demand you unhand me this instant!"
"Sour Bunch?"
Grape nodded the best she could. "You've...heard of them, right?"
"Nope. But I don't care if you got a baby girl at home, I need that mask!" She grabbed it and tried to pull it off. "Oh, dang. This thing's really stuck on there."
Grape stared at her as she strained to remove her mask. "Care to introduce yourself?'
"Captain Syrup!" She pulled at her mask again. "Come on, I need this solid gold!"
"No, you do not. Can you take a moment for me to explain why?"
She finally let go. "Fine. Go ahead."
Grape put her hand up to the magnet that held her mask in place. Tapping her palm to it, it short-circuited and exploded. Pieces of her core flew loose when the air rushed past her, quickly rejoining with the rest.
"The reason you cannot steal my mask is because it is my face." She reformed her hand fully. "And I need to get back to dry ground, if you would like to do that for me."
"Nah, I'm good. If you could get to the bottom of the sea, you can get to the beach no problem."
Grape reformed her other hand. "I see. It's dark, so I may not be able to find my Sour Bunch like this."
She tried to take Grape's bracelets but fell because of her speed and strength held nothing against Grape's solid "stance." "Oops. Heheh."
Grape sighed, the flicked her wrist to make Syrup release it. "I have more important business to do. I'll be taking my leave now."
"Hold up a sec. You look a bit familiar. Were you that giant thing by the theater over yonder?"
"Sparkle Theater? Why yes, I was. That was Grape the Great." She recovered the top layer of her dress. "And I failed, as you probably noticed. Peach killed me in cold blood before I was able to finish my tragedy."
"Here. I'm not going to go, but maybe you might have fun. I don't know how these things work." Syrup handed Grape a flier.
Grape accepted it and examined it over. "'The Villainess Society?'"
"Yep. Those get handed out to every new villainess. Basically, it's a place where female 'bad-guys' get to meet up. I heard they have pretty good crème brule there. But like I said, I never went and probably never will. It's probably your best shot right now. Going back out there after a fight just means you're gonna get ya butt kicked again. I think you should at least catch your breath first. From one female thief to another." She winked.
Grape looked at the flier again.
"Anyways, I need to get going. Unless you want to ride with me tonight, I think you'd better get off here."
"Why'd you try to steal my bracelets?"
"Heh. There's hardly anything for us thieves to take anymore! It's either payed to the heroes in full, or they end being cursed and nearly kill ya without a hero needing to intervine. I kind of guessed they wouldn't come off based off the fact your mask wouldn't, but I still felt I should try." She kicked an empty bucked as she walked away. "Apparently some old hag named Cacklewitch or something founded it."
"Villainess Society...Peach called me a villainess. I might as well play into the part. If she wants a witch, she'll get a witch."
