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Luca landed, standing straight, legs together, one hand on his hip, the other above his head. “Imbued with the Crystal Tear of the Fierce Cat, I am Pink Prince Titania! Leader of the Midsummer Court!” That name was a blow to the heart. His sister had loved A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Titania was a faerie queen in the play. In folklore, she was insanely powerful, but in that play, mostly used her magic for pranks. Luca had no qualms with the name. Jennifer, ten years his elder, had read that play to him, even translated it for him into language he could understand.
His long hair billowed behind him against a pink backdrop depicting a crouching cat with one clawed paw raised. A mix of classical and metal still played around him as Tschida’s and Nick’s transformation sequences wound down; those sequences were definitely visible and audible. No one had been shot, so maybe they were unattackable in that state, too.
Officer Biff stood at the end of the alley with wide and surprised eyes, he smacked his lips, as if trying to get them to work. He fumbled with his radio, trying to get it off his belt.
Luca was not done monologuing, and these words were not his own; he’d guessed Jennifer scripted them. “We are here to make hope grow in this gloomy place!” Bright pink and white flowers with delicate green leaves sprouted beneath his feet.
Nick landed on Luca’s right, legs parted, fists ready to strike. Behind him was the silhouette of a rabbit with its paws raised like a boxer against a sapphire background. “I am Blue Baron Oberon, Imbued with the Crystal of the Athletic Rabbit! I will bludgeon the misery and despair from this place!” He tipped back his head and gave a manly roar that shook the earth below. Blue flames rose wildly from around his boots, and the asphalt of the alley and road cracked, expanding a pothole that was already at least three feet wide and probably five inches deep.
“Swift Carnage!” Nick held his hands in front of him, a gigantic war hammer like from a video game – not like the much smaller war hammers used in reality – appearing in his plate-covered hands. The handle was silver with swirls of gold. Its head was at least the size of four 1980s computers, and a smiling bunny face was engraved in blue, small hearts framing it. Spikes of blue crystal rose menacingly from it. The dangerous weapon was made cuter by a large blue bow tied beneath the head.
“Dude, do you see this?” Nick seemed to not care about Officer Biff. Behind the blue-furred mask, his brown eyes were fixated on the dazzling hammer. “This is amazing!”
Only Tschida distracted him as he finally landed on Luca’s left. His background was a crouching dog on a field of mint. “Imbued with the Crystal Tear of the Loyal Dog, I am Green Jester Puck. We will bring justice to the wronged!”
In a shower of pink, blue, and green bursts of sparkles, the trio shouted, “We are the Midsummer Court!”
Officer Biff found his voice and rambled into his radio, “Hey, uh, we got a bunch of fruity guys, probably from New York, probably on drugs. They got strobe lights, like they’re at a rave, with loud music in an alley on Canary.”
“We’re supposed to be looking for the people who attacked Sherry,” the voice on the other end said. “Not noise complaints and out-of-state ravers. Tell them to clear the area and get out of town. But run their IDs to make sure they don’t have any outstanding warrants.”
Biff nodded at the trio. “Come out of the alley. I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.” He was handling this weirdness with surprising normalcy.
Luca froze. While they’d just had an amazing transformation sequence, what could they do? They didn’t really want to hurt Biff, or at least they probably shouldn’t hurt him. This was not the time to reason through a moral dilemma about heroes and how their powers should be applied.
Trinket ran out from behind the trashcans, rainbow light flickering beneath his wings. “Yell Chameleon Cloak!” He scampered toward Officer Biff to pull on his pantleg.
As if he’d been doing it all his life, with the same reflex one might use to cover their mouth when coughing, Officer Biff drew his gun and aimed it at Trinket. Nick reacted first and hurled his hammer. It sailed over Biff’s shoulder to land in the center of the pothole. The pothole exploded in vivid blue flames, more shooting outward to fracture the pavement.
“Chameleon Cloak!” Luca and Tschida shouted in unison. The world around Luca wavered, as if viewed through blurred glass before it stabilized. Otherwise, nothing had changed as far as he could tell.
Biff righted himself amid the sounds of opening doors and cries of residents rushing to their porches, though some had already gathered, probably during the transformation sequences. Fights and gunshots were heard regularly throughout Anthracite City, but loud, violent noise close to one’s home was always a concern.
Biff staggered backward and eyed the hammer buried in the center of the road. “That is definitely vandalism, destruction of public property.”
“Chameleon Cloak!” Nick finally said, and he disappeared, gone completely from view. For just a moment, the hammer in the street lifted, before it, too, became invisible.
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