Velveteen vs. The Eternal Halloween.
Title: Velveteen vs. The Eternal Halloween.
Summary: There was a time before Velveteen had retired from The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division; a time when she thought that a hero's life was definitely the life for her. And a time, once upon a dark and stormy night, when Halloween seemed set to last forever...
Sponsored by the 31 Days of Halloween! Wow, am I behind schedule...
***
It was Halloween morning, and for some reason she couldn't quite identify or name -- 'couldn't put her finger on,' as David kept saying, looking mournfully at his own massive claws -- Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of the compound that housed The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division with strange shivers dancing along the back of her neck, and waited for some unseen other shoe to drop.
The compound's public halls had been decorated for the holiday since the first of the month, decked in orange, black, green, and purple streamers, with comically leering masks and cartoon spooks peeking out of every corner. Although The Super Patriots, Inc. was officially a secular organization, holding no allegiance to any religion, faith, or creed, it was impossible for anyone to object to their cheery observance of Halloween. Trick and Treat were two of the most well-known and well-loved members of The Super Patriots, after all, and Halloween was their home holiday. Every year they were booked on every talk show that would have them, and a few that weren't entirely sure they'd asked for the privilege. They were even scheduled to host a special Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live. Halloween's dream team, flying the home flag for every country in the world.
The Junior Super Patriots had filmed their Halloween special at the beginning of August, squeezing into their special 'Halloween costumes' before putting on their little idiot dumb-show about the wonders of the holiday. This had been the first holiday special for the new lineup, but even Yelena hadn't been able to stay starry-eyed with wonder for more than the first few hours of filming. Marketing had been there every step of the way, adjusting lines, demanding retakes, and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking as they pursued the best possible ratings. Trick and Treat had been there, of course, but Velveteen couldn't remember exchanging more than three unscripted words with them. Trick had given her nightmares when she was little, before she became a superheroine in her own right.
If she was being honest with herself, he still did.
It was Halloween morning. She had a special appearance with Yelena -- sorry, with Sparkle Bright -- scheduled for two o'clock, she was due in makeup in half an hour, and something was wrong. She just knew it. The trouble was that she had no idea what it was.
Rubbing her arms in a vain effort to stop the goose bumps, Velveteen shook her head, and kept walking.
*
The existence of the Spirits of the Season has been widely debated for years within both the superhuman community and the somewhat larger, more academic community of scholars dedicated to study of those same superhumans. There are points to support both sides of the debate. Majesty, Supermodel, and Jolly Roger were the first officially known superhumans: this is unarguably true. But there were always stories of people with powers beyond the norm, and there were always strange rumors and legends attached to the points where one season slid into another.
Oak Kings and Holly Kings; Summer Queens and Goddesses of the Spring. Jack Frost. Persephone. All those strange seasonal figures who cropped up again and again throughout the mythology of the world, gradually shifting to suit each culture's understanding of and beliefs about a season. Were they simply stories, or were they based on something more? The existence of the magical heroes made the question difficult to ignore, even before Trick and Treat's mysterious appearance in the middle of a haunted corn maze in Huntsville, Alabama. Had the magical heroes always existed, simply waiting to actively involve themselves with the affairs of an unpowered world until that world was ready to deal with them?
The scholarly view of things is somewhat more interesting, if a little more disturbing: Trick and Treat, it says, are being entirely literal when they call Halloween their 'home holiday.' Further, it puts forth the notion that their interactions with the everyday world are a matter of convenience, not necessity; they could return to the land of Halloween at any time, leaving the world they currently inhabit behind forever. The notion of an entire parallel world of literalized seasons is something few people choose to consider for long. And yet...
There have always been stories of people who embodied the very best elements of certain seasons, certain seasonal festivals. Moreover, since the emergence of the first superhumans, more than a few magical heroes with seasonal or holiday-themed powers have been found, several of them with no known point of actual origin. Sometimes when Marketing says 'mysterious foundling,' they actually mean it. If are Spirits of the Seasons, what does that mean for the reality of the rest of the year? What does the fact that Trick and Treat are essentially cheerfully vapid reality star contestants say about American culture?
And what happens when the less savory aspects of the holidays start finding a way to break through?
*
Aaron was in the training room, playing catch with himself. He would stand at one end of the room (which was the length of a regulation football field) and pitch the ball as hard as he could. Then he would fly to the other side of the room and try to catch it before it could hit the wall. He was getting better; when he'd first started playing, he'd only been making the catch one time in five. Now he was making it two times out of three, and he'd confessed to Vel that the misses were more a matter of aim than speed.
Velveteen stopped at the spectator's rail, where the force field would prevent her from being damaged by any accidentally mis-flung footballs, bursts of cosmic radiation, or other casual by-products of superheroes at play. (Interestingly, Yelena's color-blasts went through the force field like a hot knife through butter. She had been excused from indoor training until Research and Development could figure out what she was doing, a fact that was giving Imagineer fits of rapture, and Marketing, well, just plain fits.) Leaning on the rail, she plucked at the side of her glove, and watched him play.
It was always costumes-on at the compound, unless you were in your room, but Marketing had long since seen the wisdom of allowing each hero to have several different daily costume designs. It was a functional decision -- gym clothes and formal wear and flame-retardant fabrics for those trips into the Hollow Earth -- but it was also a financial one: you sell more action figures when they have actual, visible differences. Aaron always did his workouts in his default costume, all skin-tight orange and blue spandex that somehow made every hormone in her thirteen-year-old body stand up and pay attention. She thought she might be halfway to being in love with him. She thought that might be a really bad idea. But then she saw him flying across the field, all concentration and serious devotion, and she really thought she didn't have a choice.
Aaron was on his fifth dive across the field when he saw her, lost control of the ball, and went crashing, shoulder-first, into the tungsten-and-astroturf floor of the training room. Velveteen stiffened, clapping one gloved hand over her mouth. She didn't realize she was holding her breath until he picked himself up, dusting tungsten dust and bits of green plastic off his uniform, and offered her a sheepish grin. "Uh. Hi, Velm--hi, Vel." He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, scuffing the ground with a toe and digging another deep divot in the tungsten. "I, uh, didn't see you there."
Velveteen's cheeks turned a brilliant red as she tried to come up with a reply that would make her sound cool. Or, if cool wasn't an option, at least not seriously mentally deranged. Not seriously deranged would be awesome. "I was just on my way to makeup," she said, finally.
Was it her imagination, or did Aaron look slightly crestfallen? "Oh. Well, I'd offer to come with you, but I have another half hour of self-training before I'm supposed to report to the gym."
"Ugh," said Velveteen, before her brain had a chance to interfere with the functionality of her mouth. "Who did you piss off this time?"
"The gray one."
"Ewwwwww." Velveteen wrinkled her nose. The men and women from Marketing never seemed to have actual names; maybe they thought they'd have more trouble viewing the kids they worked with as 'valuable commodities' if they were humanized even that far. So all the men were 'sir,' and all the women were 'ma'am,' like they were some sort of hive superhero in their own right. Secretly, Velveteen couldn't wait for the day she graduated to the adult team, when all the men and women from Marketing would have to start calling her ma'am.
"You're doing it again," said Aaron.
"Doing what?"
He tapped his nose rather than answering verbally. Velveteen reddened again, resisting the urge to clap a hand across her own nose and hide it from any watching cameras. Marketing had been encouraging her to play up the 'cute and cuddly' aspects of her costume and code name, recommending she do things like twitch her nose when she was thinking hard and eat carrots whenever she knew she might be filmed. As far as Velveteen was concerned, Marketing could go and shove their cute and cuddly up their collective cute and cuddly ass. She'd be damned before she got a reputation as some kind of human plush toy.
Even if the Velveteen soft toy line was one of the season's top sellers. Anyway, she didn't wrinkle her nose to look like a rabbit, she did it because that was what her nose wanted to do when she heard something gross. But if Marketing wanted her to do it more, she was going to do her best not to do it at all.
"Thanks," she mumbled.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Um, so..."
"Yeah." Cheeks growing redder by the moment, Velveteen took a step backwards. "I should get...I should get to makeup."
"Yeah, I should get back to--"
"Yeah."
"Bye." Turning, Velveteen scooted out of the training room as fast as her legs could carry her. She might not have super-speed, but it's never a good idea to underestimate the speed of an embarassed teenage girl.
Aaron watched her go. When she was gone, he watched the door, maybe a little bit longer than he needed to, expression going dreamy. After a few minutes, when he knew for sure that she wasn't coming back, he turned. Time to get back to work, and she'd be back. Velveteen always came back.
That was one of the best things about her.
*
Makeup was horrible, as always. The appearance with Yelena -- sorry, Sparkle Bright -- was okay, since it was primarily a photo shoot. They'd been taken out to a local park that was closed off for their use and allowed to play around for almost an hour while the photographer took candid shots of them. It hadn't taken long for them to completely forget his presence and relax, playing on the swings, chasing each other around the monkey bars, and playing a variant of tag that involved flight and tiny toy helicopters in addition to all the usual things. When the free play time was over, they'd been presented with a variety of photogenic targets to 'fight' against. Balloons for Sparkle Bright, mostly, and little engineering puzzles for Velveteen to take down with squadrons of animated toys. It wasn't as fun as the free play, of course, but it was still better than the normal daily exercises.
The obligatory interview was conducted in the park, and the part of Velveteen's mind that was spending more and more time assessing the world noted cynically that the pair of them, grass-stained and grinning on a park bench as they answered questions, was the sort of image that kept the superheroes human in the public eye, and kept the public loving them. It was all smoke and mirrors. She knew that now.
She really wished she didn't.
The interviewer was young and pretty, which meant that whatever magazine this was for was probably aimed at young, pretty people. It wasn't one of the hero magazines, she knew that much; the hero magazines never staged fights against balloons. Young and pretty as she was, sitting with real live superheroes didn't seem to bother the interviewer in the least. Maybe she'd done this before. Or maybe she just couldn't be afraid of pre-teen girls with grass stains on their knees.
Most of the questions were soft, easy, and almost cliche. What was it like to have super powers? Did they ever miss going to regular school, with regular kids? Did they feel like they were better than the regular kids? Was there ever any fighting amongst The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division? (The correct answers were, of course, 'it's wonderful,' 'sometimes, but I know this is for the best,' 'no, not at all, just different,' and 'no, never, we're like a family.' It was okay to change the wording enough to keep the interviewers from realizing just how well-coached the kids were. Velveteen said that having super powers was better than Christmas, once, and got a long lecture on maintaining the proper image, followed by two weeks of extra lessons with Marketing. She wasn't planning to do it again, but boy, it had been worth it for the look on the interviewer's face.)
The questions got harder towards the end of the interview, and Velveteen found herself taking Sparkle Bright's hand, as much to comfort herself as to comfort Sparks. The man from Marketing who'd been monitoring the entire process from the discrete distance signaled for the interviewer to wrap it up, probably sensing that something inappropriate was about to be asked. The interviewer ignored him, leaning forward conspiratorially as she asked, "So, girls, tell me -- are the rumors true? Does one of you have a crush?"
Sparkle Bright turned an immediate and vivid red. Velveteen squeezed her hand, and the red shifted to an equally vivid purple as panic made Sparks turn her powers on.
"I believe this interview is over," said the man from Marketing, smoothly. And then it was back into the van and back to the compound, with Sparkle Bright staring resolutely out the window the whole way, refusing to talk to anybody, even Velveteen. Vel watched her friend, worried. She hadn't known Sparks had a crush on anybody, much less one that big.
What if it was Aaron?
But before she could dwell on that deeply upsetting idea, it was time to change into the special Halloween versions of their costumes and spend the night handing out candy to wide-eyed kids who couldn't stop staring. The whole thing made Velveteen's chest ache. Maybe her home life hadn't been the best, but she'd been able to spend Halloween nights in a costume that she chose, not one designed for her by a committee and approved by a series of focus groups, and she'd been able to go from door to door, asking strangers for candy, without a news crew following her every step of the way. She was a superhero now. She liked being a superhero.
She just didn't like anything about it.
*
Even on Halloween, lights-out was set for nine-thirty, no argument or negotiation. For once, Velveteen went willingly, grateful for the chance to get away from the rest of the team, from Marketing's constant assessments, and from the way Sparks had been watching her own feet all evening long. Things were weird, and Vel didn't really like weird very much. She liked it when things stayed the way they were supposed to, and all the enemies were ones she was allowed to hit.
She brushed her teeth while the teddy bears made her bed and put her laundry into the hamper. They put themselves back on the shelf when they were done, and Vel crawled under the covers, pulling the pillow over her head. There was a click as one of the toy soldiers flipped the light switch, and everything went dark.
After a little while, Velveteen slept.
*
It was Halloween morning, and for some reason she couldn't quite identify or name -- 'couldn't put her finger on,' as David kept saying, looking mournfully at his own massive claws -- Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of the compound, almost coming into sight of the training room before she stopped, frowning. "Aar--Action Dude's going to be in there, playing catch," she murmured, and started walking again, faster now, practically jogging by the time she reached the door and peeked inside. There was Aaron, racing from one side of the field to the other, chasing a ball that he was throwing to himself. Vel froze. She didn't have any psychic powers, and she liked it that way. The last thing she wanted to do was start testing precog.
Coincidence. Aaron spent a lot of time in the training room, since his powers were strong enough that he could seriously hurt somebody if he didn't have them under careful control. So it was just a fluke, that was all. Anyway, she needed to head for makeup. Still... "The Claw's in the science wing arguing with his dad about genetic therapy," she whispered, and looked to her left as she passed the door to the labs. There was David, waving his claws wildly as he tried to convince his father to try another means of curing him of his, um, lobster-ness.
Tears springing to her eyes, Velveteen broke into a run, not stopping until she reached makeup. Sparkle Bright wasn't there. She remembered Sparkle Bright being there. She stopped, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted off her chest...and nearly broke into tears as Sparks walked up behind her, saying bemusedly, "Did you run all the way here? Gosh, Vel, are you okay?" ('Gosh' was, of course, the team's officially allowed 'strong language.' They were all encouraged to practice it, so that it would sound natural during fights.)
"I'm fine," said Velveteen, swallowing heavily. "Just fine."
"Okay." Sparkle Bright threw herself into her own makeup chair, starting to chatter happily about the upcoming appearance, and the brief freedom it would allow them. Velveteen didn't pay any attention. She didn't need to; when Sparks paused, she just made the appropriate noises and waited for the babbling to start up again.
What was going on?
*
The interview was hell the second time through; without the acting lessons and coaching she'd received, Velveteen wouldn't even have been able to fake having fun.
Halloween was worse.
When bedtime finally came, she tumbled into bed before the bears were even done smoothing out the sheets, praying that this had just been a fluke, or a supervillain playing tricks, and that it would all be better when she woke up. It would all be okay.
*
It was Halloween morning.
Velveteen pled food poisoning as an excuse to stay in bed. She was pale and shaky enough that Marketing believed her, and allowed it.
*
"--hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Please, if you can hear me, do something. Nod your head. Better yet, open your eyes. Opening your eyes would be awesome." The voice sounded calm until you listened closely; then it became clear that the speaker was somewhere pretty close to the verge of panic. She was working hard to hide it. She needed to work harder.
Velveteen didn't recognize the voice. Or, she realized with relief, the words -- if she was going precog, she hadn't managed to precognate this. She was relieved enough, in fact, to do as she was asked, and open up her eyes. Then she blinked. That wasn't her ceiling. She pushed herself up onto one elbow. This wasn't her room. This was a big, vaguely creepy-looking room, with cobwebs in the corners and boards over all the windows. The wallpaper was flocked and peeling, which was normal enough, except that it was in a bats-and-pumpkins pattern. And this wasn't her bed, unless she'd somehow acquired a four-poster overnight.
"Oh, thank the Great Pumpkin," said the voice, now filled with its own measure of relief. "I wasn't sure I could call you over."
"Over where?" Velveteen looked to her left, and blinked again as she was the girl sitting there. "And who are you?"
"Oh. Right. Hi." The girl offered a wide, slightly sheepish smile. "I'm Hailey."
"Vel."
"I know." Hailey looked about sixteen, with the sort of figure Velveteen was pretty sure she'd never have. Her hair was pale blonde, streaked with green and orange, and her clothes were weird, even by the standards of the superhero world. Striped purple and orange tights, a tattered black skirt, and a bright green tank top, with elbow-length fishnet gloves and bat-shaped hairclips wasn't exactly what anybody was going to call 'marketable.' She managed to clash with herself, and that was without accounting for the pumpkin-orange eyes and the green and purple nail polish. "Thanks for coming."
"...I came somewhere?" Velveteen sat up the rest of the way, looking down at herself. She was wearing the special Halloween costume Marketing had designed for her. Which was almost as weird as waking up somewhere that wasn't her room, since she never went to bed in her costume. "Am I awake?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
Hailey blinked. "Not complaining, but you're taking that pretty easy."
Velveteen shrugged. "It's part of the Heroing 101 lesson plan. If you find yourself in an altered reality, don't fight against it, you'll just hurt yourself and be stuck there longer." She paused. "Am I stuck here? Is the rest of my team here? Are they okay?"
"Um, not exactly, no, and sort of for right now, but that's why I need your help, and that's why I've been trying to call you."
"Okay." Vel swung her feet around to the floor, focusing her attention on Hailey. "Where are we?"
"That was my first question when this happened to me," said Hailey, shaking her head. "This may seem a little weird to you, and I'll completely understand if you need a few minutes to wrap your head around it, although you can't have much more than a few minutes, because we really need to get moving as soon as we can. And I know this is going to seem like it's just crazy talk, but--"
"We're in Halloween, aren't we? We're in the place that Halloween comes from."
"Well, technically, we're in the Autumn Land. It's just that it's Halloween a lot of the time here, and Halloween has a lot of power here." Hailey was openly staring at her now, expression torn between 'impressed' and 'I don't believe you just said that.' "But...how did you know?"
"Oh. That. I guess because of the cobwebs. And your tights. And the scarecrow that's coming up behind you." She paused. "Is it supposed to be there?"
"No!" shouted Hailey, whipping around. "Get out of here! I'll hold him off!" The scarecrow -- a huge, hulking thing that was shedding bits of hay and squiggling things with every step -- moaned and lurched towards her as she moved her hands through the air in an arcane pattern.
Velveteen ran.
*
The house was a crumbling old Victorian, the sort that always seemed to be occupied by Vincent Price in the black-and-white movies that the cable access channels all showed at midnight. Velveteen ran out the front door and down the porch before she turned around, staring wide-eyed at the building. She could see the boarded-up windows of the room where she'd woken. They were easy to spot; those were the only boards that had beams of orange and purple light bursting out from between them. The light somehow managed to be nothing like Sparkle Bright's. Sparks shot lasers, and this was more like...like glitter caught in smoke. It was strange. It was a little scary. And she really hoped it meant that Hailey was winning.
A hand grabbed her wrist. Stifling a scream, Velveteen whipped around, frantically reaching out with that weird toy-radar of hers to find something, anything, that she could animate. What she found was strange, and difficult to get a handle on. It was like everything was waiting for her orders, and nothing was waiting for her at all. And she had no idea what that meant.
The hand belonged to a little boy, six or seven at the most, wearing a black cat costume and watching her gravely, eyes very green in his painted face. "You're her," he said, revealing several missing baby teeth in the process. "You're the one Hailey went for." Still grave, he looked her thoughtfully up and down. "Hope you're worth it. C'mon."
"What about Hailey? And who are you?" Velveteen pulled her wrist out of his hand, eyes narrowing. "What's going on here?"
The little boy sighed, looking briefly much older. "I'm Scaredy Cat, Hailey can take care of herself, and what's going on is an attempted takeover that we need to stop, unless you feel like finding out what happens when the monsters under your bed get rabies."
"I -- what -- you -- wait, what?"
Scaredy Cat sighed again. Speaking very slowly, like she was a particularly stupid child, he said, "We are standing in the middle of a big, wide, undefended street, surrounded by big, dark, scary buildings that could have just about anything inside of 'em. And this is Halloween, so 'anything' means a whole lot of things. I don't mind answering questions. Answering questions is pretty normal. But if we don't go someplace safe for answering questions, we're probably going to get attacked by something really nasty. Do you want to get attacked by something really nasty?"
Velveteen shook her head mutely.
"Good. Now come on." Scaredy Cat turned and started walking calmly down the street, leaving Velveteen to follow him.
Glancing back over her shoulder at the beams of light still bursting through the window, Vel followed.
*
"Autumn's always been here," Scaredy Cat said, apparently comfortable with giving her a history lesson just as long as she kept on moving. "It's changed a lot over the years -- all the Seasons have changed a lot, since people change all the time -- but it's always Autumn Land underneath it all. The place where the leaves fall off the trees and the air goes cold and the walls get a little weird and thin. We have the hardest time keeping things under control here. Well, us, and Spring Land. At least they have Persephone to help when something goes wrong. We only get her passing through on the way to Winter, and she's usually not in a fighting mood then. More in a 'go away, leave me alone, I'm going to see my husband, take care of your own problems' mood."
"But this can't be Autumn," said Velveteen, ducking as she followed him through a hole in a long wooden fence. There was a barren field studded with haystacks on the other side. Haystacks, and scarecrows. That made her walk a little faster. "Autumn's not a place, it's a time."
"You have bedtime and a bed, don't you? Time for school and a school to go to? Every time has a place. It's just that some of them are more abstract and weird than others." Hearing the word 'abstract' come out of the mouth of a six-year-old was enough to make Velveteen's head spin. "All four Seasons exist, and have their own problems. Trouble is, we get heroic turnover, and sometimes people don't make sure that their jobs are going to be handled before they go gallivanting off to do something they think will be more 'fun.'"
Something about the bitterness in his voice made Velveteen pause. "You mean Trick and Treat, don't you? This is where they really come from. Autumn Land."
"Give the girl a candy apple," said Scaredy Cat, and pointed into the distance, towards a rickety, gray-brown farmhouse. "We're almost there. And yeah, they were our defenders, and they walked out on us without even making sure we had somebody to keep things going. Now Halloween's in trouble, and if Halloween goes down, all of Autumn Land is in danger. We need help."
"So why me? Why don't you -- I don't know, why don't you call Trick and Treat? Ask them to come back?" Velveteen's training said not to treat this as a dream, but that was becoming increasingly difficult. It was all too...iconic, too brightly, blatantly ghoulish. It was like walking into an amusement park version of a haunted house.
The trouble was, it was also scary. It was very, very scary. And if she admitted that, she'd have to admit that she wanted it to be a dream, she wanted it to be something she could wake up from. She was alone. She had no team. She had no toys. And if this was really real, well, then, she just wanted to go home.
The farmhouse door opened. "Because they won't take our calls," said Hailey, stepping out and wiping her hands against the sides of her skirt. They left trails of green and orange glitter behind. It faded quickly. "Great Pumpkin knows, I've tried, but I never get past their first defenses. They left. They don't want anything to do with us anymore. If we have problems, they're our problems."
"Then...then why are they my problems?" Velveteen lifted her chin, trying to look braver than she felt. "They're from here. You just brought me here."
"Here in Autumn Land, a holiday is only vulnerable to takeover when it's actually happening," said Scaredy Cat, stepping onto the porch next to Hailey. "One day a year, you can try to take it down, if that's really what you want to do."
"What does that have to do with--"
"I finally got your attention the twenty-first time Halloween happened," said Hailey, in a voice that was almost devoid of emotion. "It's happened twenty-three times so far."
"Thirty-one's the end," said Scaredy Cat. "All they gotta do is run the holiday thirty-one times, and they can shatter its links to the season."
"And then what happens?" Velveteen asked, eyes going wide.
"Halloween dies," said Hailey. "All the Spirits of the Season with links to Halloween start to fade. The ones that survive, anyway. Or maybe Halloween doesn't die. Maybe it just winds up under new management, and things get bad again."
"So what am I here for?" Velveteen was starting to feel dizzy.
"Simple," said Hailey, and smiled. Her expression wasn't without sympathy. It also wasn't without resolve. "You're here to help us save Halloween."
"Oh," said Velveteen. "Right. So no biggie, then."
*
...TO BE CONTINUED...
Summary: There was a time before Velveteen had retired from The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division; a time when she thought that a hero's life was definitely the life for her. And a time, once upon a dark and stormy night, when Halloween seemed set to last forever...
Sponsored by the 31 Days of Halloween! Wow, am I behind schedule...
***
It was Halloween morning, and for some reason she couldn't quite identify or name -- 'couldn't put her finger on,' as David kept saying, looking mournfully at his own massive claws -- Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of the compound that housed The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division with strange shivers dancing along the back of her neck, and waited for some unseen other shoe to drop.
The compound's public halls had been decorated for the holiday since the first of the month, decked in orange, black, green, and purple streamers, with comically leering masks and cartoon spooks peeking out of every corner. Although The Super Patriots, Inc. was officially a secular organization, holding no allegiance to any religion, faith, or creed, it was impossible for anyone to object to their cheery observance of Halloween. Trick and Treat were two of the most well-known and well-loved members of The Super Patriots, after all, and Halloween was their home holiday. Every year they were booked on every talk show that would have them, and a few that weren't entirely sure they'd asked for the privilege. They were even scheduled to host a special Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live. Halloween's dream team, flying the home flag for every country in the world.
The Junior Super Patriots had filmed their Halloween special at the beginning of August, squeezing into their special 'Halloween costumes' before putting on their little idiot dumb-show about the wonders of the holiday. This had been the first holiday special for the new lineup, but even Yelena hadn't been able to stay starry-eyed with wonder for more than the first few hours of filming. Marketing had been there every step of the way, adjusting lines, demanding retakes, and tweaking, tweaking, tweaking as they pursued the best possible ratings. Trick and Treat had been there, of course, but Velveteen couldn't remember exchanging more than three unscripted words with them. Trick had given her nightmares when she was little, before she became a superheroine in her own right.
If she was being honest with herself, he still did.
It was Halloween morning. She had a special appearance with Yelena -- sorry, with Sparkle Bright -- scheduled for two o'clock, she was due in makeup in half an hour, and something was wrong. She just knew it. The trouble was that she had no idea what it was.
Rubbing her arms in a vain effort to stop the goose bumps, Velveteen shook her head, and kept walking.
*
The existence of the Spirits of the Season has been widely debated for years within both the superhuman community and the somewhat larger, more academic community of scholars dedicated to study of those same superhumans. There are points to support both sides of the debate. Majesty, Supermodel, and Jolly Roger were the first officially known superhumans: this is unarguably true. But there were always stories of people with powers beyond the norm, and there were always strange rumors and legends attached to the points where one season slid into another.
Oak Kings and Holly Kings; Summer Queens and Goddesses of the Spring. Jack Frost. Persephone. All those strange seasonal figures who cropped up again and again throughout the mythology of the world, gradually shifting to suit each culture's understanding of and beliefs about a season. Were they simply stories, or were they based on something more? The existence of the magical heroes made the question difficult to ignore, even before Trick and Treat's mysterious appearance in the middle of a haunted corn maze in Huntsville, Alabama. Had the magical heroes always existed, simply waiting to actively involve themselves with the affairs of an unpowered world until that world was ready to deal with them?
The scholarly view of things is somewhat more interesting, if a little more disturbing: Trick and Treat, it says, are being entirely literal when they call Halloween their 'home holiday.' Further, it puts forth the notion that their interactions with the everyday world are a matter of convenience, not necessity; they could return to the land of Halloween at any time, leaving the world they currently inhabit behind forever. The notion of an entire parallel world of literalized seasons is something few people choose to consider for long. And yet...
There have always been stories of people who embodied the very best elements of certain seasons, certain seasonal festivals. Moreover, since the emergence of the first superhumans, more than a few magical heroes with seasonal or holiday-themed powers have been found, several of them with no known point of actual origin. Sometimes when Marketing says 'mysterious foundling,' they actually mean it. If are Spirits of the Seasons, what does that mean for the reality of the rest of the year? What does the fact that Trick and Treat are essentially cheerfully vapid reality star contestants say about American culture?
And what happens when the less savory aspects of the holidays start finding a way to break through?
*
Aaron was in the training room, playing catch with himself. He would stand at one end of the room (which was the length of a regulation football field) and pitch the ball as hard as he could. Then he would fly to the other side of the room and try to catch it before it could hit the wall. He was getting better; when he'd first started playing, he'd only been making the catch one time in five. Now he was making it two times out of three, and he'd confessed to Vel that the misses were more a matter of aim than speed.
Velveteen stopped at the spectator's rail, where the force field would prevent her from being damaged by any accidentally mis-flung footballs, bursts of cosmic radiation, or other casual by-products of superheroes at play. (Interestingly, Yelena's color-blasts went through the force field like a hot knife through butter. She had been excused from indoor training until Research and Development could figure out what she was doing, a fact that was giving Imagineer fits of rapture, and Marketing, well, just plain fits.) Leaning on the rail, she plucked at the side of her glove, and watched him play.
It was always costumes-on at the compound, unless you were in your room, but Marketing had long since seen the wisdom of allowing each hero to have several different daily costume designs. It was a functional decision -- gym clothes and formal wear and flame-retardant fabrics for those trips into the Hollow Earth -- but it was also a financial one: you sell more action figures when they have actual, visible differences. Aaron always did his workouts in his default costume, all skin-tight orange and blue spandex that somehow made every hormone in her thirteen-year-old body stand up and pay attention. She thought she might be halfway to being in love with him. She thought that might be a really bad idea. But then she saw him flying across the field, all concentration and serious devotion, and she really thought she didn't have a choice.
Aaron was on his fifth dive across the field when he saw her, lost control of the ball, and went crashing, shoulder-first, into the tungsten-and-astroturf floor of the training room. Velveteen stiffened, clapping one gloved hand over her mouth. She didn't realize she was holding her breath until he picked himself up, dusting tungsten dust and bits of green plastic off his uniform, and offered her a sheepish grin. "Uh. Hi, Velm--hi, Vel." He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, scuffing the ground with a toe and digging another deep divot in the tungsten. "I, uh, didn't see you there."
Velveteen's cheeks turned a brilliant red as she tried to come up with a reply that would make her sound cool. Or, if cool wasn't an option, at least not seriously mentally deranged. Not seriously deranged would be awesome. "I was just on my way to makeup," she said, finally.
Was it her imagination, or did Aaron look slightly crestfallen? "Oh. Well, I'd offer to come with you, but I have another half hour of self-training before I'm supposed to report to the gym."
"Ugh," said Velveteen, before her brain had a chance to interfere with the functionality of her mouth. "Who did you piss off this time?"
"The gray one."
"Ewwwwww." Velveteen wrinkled her nose. The men and women from Marketing never seemed to have actual names; maybe they thought they'd have more trouble viewing the kids they worked with as 'valuable commodities' if they were humanized even that far. So all the men were 'sir,' and all the women were 'ma'am,' like they were some sort of hive superhero in their own right. Secretly, Velveteen couldn't wait for the day she graduated to the adult team, when all the men and women from Marketing would have to start calling her ma'am.
"You're doing it again," said Aaron.
"Doing what?"
He tapped his nose rather than answering verbally. Velveteen reddened again, resisting the urge to clap a hand across her own nose and hide it from any watching cameras. Marketing had been encouraging her to play up the 'cute and cuddly' aspects of her costume and code name, recommending she do things like twitch her nose when she was thinking hard and eat carrots whenever she knew she might be filmed. As far as Velveteen was concerned, Marketing could go and shove their cute and cuddly up their collective cute and cuddly ass. She'd be damned before she got a reputation as some kind of human plush toy.
Even if the Velveteen soft toy line was one of the season's top sellers. Anyway, she didn't wrinkle her nose to look like a rabbit, she did it because that was what her nose wanted to do when she heard something gross. But if Marketing wanted her to do it more, she was going to do her best not to do it at all.
"Thanks," she mumbled.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Um, so..."
"Yeah." Cheeks growing redder by the moment, Velveteen took a step backwards. "I should get...I should get to makeup."
"Yeah, I should get back to--"
"Yeah."
"Bye." Turning, Velveteen scooted out of the training room as fast as her legs could carry her. She might not have super-speed, but it's never a good idea to underestimate the speed of an embarassed teenage girl.
Aaron watched her go. When she was gone, he watched the door, maybe a little bit longer than he needed to, expression going dreamy. After a few minutes, when he knew for sure that she wasn't coming back, he turned. Time to get back to work, and she'd be back. Velveteen always came back.
That was one of the best things about her.
*
Makeup was horrible, as always. The appearance with Yelena -- sorry, Sparkle Bright -- was okay, since it was primarily a photo shoot. They'd been taken out to a local park that was closed off for their use and allowed to play around for almost an hour while the photographer took candid shots of them. It hadn't taken long for them to completely forget his presence and relax, playing on the swings, chasing each other around the monkey bars, and playing a variant of tag that involved flight and tiny toy helicopters in addition to all the usual things. When the free play time was over, they'd been presented with a variety of photogenic targets to 'fight' against. Balloons for Sparkle Bright, mostly, and little engineering puzzles for Velveteen to take down with squadrons of animated toys. It wasn't as fun as the free play, of course, but it was still better than the normal daily exercises.
The obligatory interview was conducted in the park, and the part of Velveteen's mind that was spending more and more time assessing the world noted cynically that the pair of them, grass-stained and grinning on a park bench as they answered questions, was the sort of image that kept the superheroes human in the public eye, and kept the public loving them. It was all smoke and mirrors. She knew that now.
She really wished she didn't.
The interviewer was young and pretty, which meant that whatever magazine this was for was probably aimed at young, pretty people. It wasn't one of the hero magazines, she knew that much; the hero magazines never staged fights against balloons. Young and pretty as she was, sitting with real live superheroes didn't seem to bother the interviewer in the least. Maybe she'd done this before. Or maybe she just couldn't be afraid of pre-teen girls with grass stains on their knees.
Most of the questions were soft, easy, and almost cliche. What was it like to have super powers? Did they ever miss going to regular school, with regular kids? Did they feel like they were better than the regular kids? Was there ever any fighting amongst The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division? (The correct answers were, of course, 'it's wonderful,' 'sometimes, but I know this is for the best,' 'no, not at all, just different,' and 'no, never, we're like a family.' It was okay to change the wording enough to keep the interviewers from realizing just how well-coached the kids were. Velveteen said that having super powers was better than Christmas, once, and got a long lecture on maintaining the proper image, followed by two weeks of extra lessons with Marketing. She wasn't planning to do it again, but boy, it had been worth it for the look on the interviewer's face.)
The questions got harder towards the end of the interview, and Velveteen found herself taking Sparkle Bright's hand, as much to comfort herself as to comfort Sparks. The man from Marketing who'd been monitoring the entire process from the discrete distance signaled for the interviewer to wrap it up, probably sensing that something inappropriate was about to be asked. The interviewer ignored him, leaning forward conspiratorially as she asked, "So, girls, tell me -- are the rumors true? Does one of you have a crush?"
Sparkle Bright turned an immediate and vivid red. Velveteen squeezed her hand, and the red shifted to an equally vivid purple as panic made Sparks turn her powers on.
"I believe this interview is over," said the man from Marketing, smoothly. And then it was back into the van and back to the compound, with Sparkle Bright staring resolutely out the window the whole way, refusing to talk to anybody, even Velveteen. Vel watched her friend, worried. She hadn't known Sparks had a crush on anybody, much less one that big.
What if it was Aaron?
But before she could dwell on that deeply upsetting idea, it was time to change into the special Halloween versions of their costumes and spend the night handing out candy to wide-eyed kids who couldn't stop staring. The whole thing made Velveteen's chest ache. Maybe her home life hadn't been the best, but she'd been able to spend Halloween nights in a costume that she chose, not one designed for her by a committee and approved by a series of focus groups, and she'd been able to go from door to door, asking strangers for candy, without a news crew following her every step of the way. She was a superhero now. She liked being a superhero.
She just didn't like anything about it.
*
Even on Halloween, lights-out was set for nine-thirty, no argument or negotiation. For once, Velveteen went willingly, grateful for the chance to get away from the rest of the team, from Marketing's constant assessments, and from the way Sparks had been watching her own feet all evening long. Things were weird, and Vel didn't really like weird very much. She liked it when things stayed the way they were supposed to, and all the enemies were ones she was allowed to hit.
She brushed her teeth while the teddy bears made her bed and put her laundry into the hamper. They put themselves back on the shelf when they were done, and Vel crawled under the covers, pulling the pillow over her head. There was a click as one of the toy soldiers flipped the light switch, and everything went dark.
After a little while, Velveteen slept.
*
It was Halloween morning, and for some reason she couldn't quite identify or name -- 'couldn't put her finger on,' as David kept saying, looking mournfully at his own massive claws -- Velveteen was uneasy. She walked through the back halls of the compound, almost coming into sight of the training room before she stopped, frowning. "Aar--Action Dude's going to be in there, playing catch," she murmured, and started walking again, faster now, practically jogging by the time she reached the door and peeked inside. There was Aaron, racing from one side of the field to the other, chasing a ball that he was throwing to himself. Vel froze. She didn't have any psychic powers, and she liked it that way. The last thing she wanted to do was start testing precog.
Coincidence. Aaron spent a lot of time in the training room, since his powers were strong enough that he could seriously hurt somebody if he didn't have them under careful control. So it was just a fluke, that was all. Anyway, she needed to head for makeup. Still... "The Claw's in the science wing arguing with his dad about genetic therapy," she whispered, and looked to her left as she passed the door to the labs. There was David, waving his claws wildly as he tried to convince his father to try another means of curing him of his, um, lobster-ness.
Tears springing to her eyes, Velveteen broke into a run, not stopping until she reached makeup. Sparkle Bright wasn't there. She remembered Sparkle Bright being there. She stopped, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted off her chest...and nearly broke into tears as Sparks walked up behind her, saying bemusedly, "Did you run all the way here? Gosh, Vel, are you okay?" ('Gosh' was, of course, the team's officially allowed 'strong language.' They were all encouraged to practice it, so that it would sound natural during fights.)
"I'm fine," said Velveteen, swallowing heavily. "Just fine."
"Okay." Sparkle Bright threw herself into her own makeup chair, starting to chatter happily about the upcoming appearance, and the brief freedom it would allow them. Velveteen didn't pay any attention. She didn't need to; when Sparks paused, she just made the appropriate noises and waited for the babbling to start up again.
What was going on?
*
The interview was hell the second time through; without the acting lessons and coaching she'd received, Velveteen wouldn't even have been able to fake having fun.
Halloween was worse.
When bedtime finally came, she tumbled into bed before the bears were even done smoothing out the sheets, praying that this had just been a fluke, or a supervillain playing tricks, and that it would all be better when she woke up. It would all be okay.
*
It was Halloween morning.
Velveteen pled food poisoning as an excuse to stay in bed. She was pale and shaky enough that Marketing believed her, and allowed it.
*
"--hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Please, if you can hear me, do something. Nod your head. Better yet, open your eyes. Opening your eyes would be awesome." The voice sounded calm until you listened closely; then it became clear that the speaker was somewhere pretty close to the verge of panic. She was working hard to hide it. She needed to work harder.
Velveteen didn't recognize the voice. Or, she realized with relief, the words -- if she was going precog, she hadn't managed to precognate this. She was relieved enough, in fact, to do as she was asked, and open up her eyes. Then she blinked. That wasn't her ceiling. She pushed herself up onto one elbow. This wasn't her room. This was a big, vaguely creepy-looking room, with cobwebs in the corners and boards over all the windows. The wallpaper was flocked and peeling, which was normal enough, except that it was in a bats-and-pumpkins pattern. And this wasn't her bed, unless she'd somehow acquired a four-poster overnight.
"Oh, thank the Great Pumpkin," said the voice, now filled with its own measure of relief. "I wasn't sure I could call you over."
"Over where?" Velveteen looked to her left, and blinked again as she was the girl sitting there. "And who are you?"
"Oh. Right. Hi." The girl offered a wide, slightly sheepish smile. "I'm Hailey."
"Vel."
"I know." Hailey looked about sixteen, with the sort of figure Velveteen was pretty sure she'd never have. Her hair was pale blonde, streaked with green and orange, and her clothes were weird, even by the standards of the superhero world. Striped purple and orange tights, a tattered black skirt, and a bright green tank top, with elbow-length fishnet gloves and bat-shaped hairclips wasn't exactly what anybody was going to call 'marketable.' She managed to clash with herself, and that was without accounting for the pumpkin-orange eyes and the green and purple nail polish. "Thanks for coming."
"...I came somewhere?" Velveteen sat up the rest of the way, looking down at herself. She was wearing the special Halloween costume Marketing had designed for her. Which was almost as weird as waking up somewhere that wasn't her room, since she never went to bed in her costume. "Am I awake?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
Hailey blinked. "Not complaining, but you're taking that pretty easy."
Velveteen shrugged. "It's part of the Heroing 101 lesson plan. If you find yourself in an altered reality, don't fight against it, you'll just hurt yourself and be stuck there longer." She paused. "Am I stuck here? Is the rest of my team here? Are they okay?"
"Um, not exactly, no, and sort of for right now, but that's why I need your help, and that's why I've been trying to call you."
"Okay." Vel swung her feet around to the floor, focusing her attention on Hailey. "Where are we?"
"That was my first question when this happened to me," said Hailey, shaking her head. "This may seem a little weird to you, and I'll completely understand if you need a few minutes to wrap your head around it, although you can't have much more than a few minutes, because we really need to get moving as soon as we can. And I know this is going to seem like it's just crazy talk, but--"
"We're in Halloween, aren't we? We're in the place that Halloween comes from."
"Well, technically, we're in the Autumn Land. It's just that it's Halloween a lot of the time here, and Halloween has a lot of power here." Hailey was openly staring at her now, expression torn between 'impressed' and 'I don't believe you just said that.' "But...how did you know?"
"Oh. That. I guess because of the cobwebs. And your tights. And the scarecrow that's coming up behind you." She paused. "Is it supposed to be there?"
"No!" shouted Hailey, whipping around. "Get out of here! I'll hold him off!" The scarecrow -- a huge, hulking thing that was shedding bits of hay and squiggling things with every step -- moaned and lurched towards her as she moved her hands through the air in an arcane pattern.
Velveteen ran.
*
The house was a crumbling old Victorian, the sort that always seemed to be occupied by Vincent Price in the black-and-white movies that the cable access channels all showed at midnight. Velveteen ran out the front door and down the porch before she turned around, staring wide-eyed at the building. She could see the boarded-up windows of the room where she'd woken. They were easy to spot; those were the only boards that had beams of orange and purple light bursting out from between them. The light somehow managed to be nothing like Sparkle Bright's. Sparks shot lasers, and this was more like...like glitter caught in smoke. It was strange. It was a little scary. And she really hoped it meant that Hailey was winning.
A hand grabbed her wrist. Stifling a scream, Velveteen whipped around, frantically reaching out with that weird toy-radar of hers to find something, anything, that she could animate. What she found was strange, and difficult to get a handle on. It was like everything was waiting for her orders, and nothing was waiting for her at all. And she had no idea what that meant.
The hand belonged to a little boy, six or seven at the most, wearing a black cat costume and watching her gravely, eyes very green in his painted face. "You're her," he said, revealing several missing baby teeth in the process. "You're the one Hailey went for." Still grave, he looked her thoughtfully up and down. "Hope you're worth it. C'mon."
"What about Hailey? And who are you?" Velveteen pulled her wrist out of his hand, eyes narrowing. "What's going on here?"
The little boy sighed, looking briefly much older. "I'm Scaredy Cat, Hailey can take care of herself, and what's going on is an attempted takeover that we need to stop, unless you feel like finding out what happens when the monsters under your bed get rabies."
"I -- what -- you -- wait, what?"
Scaredy Cat sighed again. Speaking very slowly, like she was a particularly stupid child, he said, "We are standing in the middle of a big, wide, undefended street, surrounded by big, dark, scary buildings that could have just about anything inside of 'em. And this is Halloween, so 'anything' means a whole lot of things. I don't mind answering questions. Answering questions is pretty normal. But if we don't go someplace safe for answering questions, we're probably going to get attacked by something really nasty. Do you want to get attacked by something really nasty?"
Velveteen shook her head mutely.
"Good. Now come on." Scaredy Cat turned and started walking calmly down the street, leaving Velveteen to follow him.
Glancing back over her shoulder at the beams of light still bursting through the window, Vel followed.
*
"Autumn's always been here," Scaredy Cat said, apparently comfortable with giving her a history lesson just as long as she kept on moving. "It's changed a lot over the years -- all the Seasons have changed a lot, since people change all the time -- but it's always Autumn Land underneath it all. The place where the leaves fall off the trees and the air goes cold and the walls get a little weird and thin. We have the hardest time keeping things under control here. Well, us, and Spring Land. At least they have Persephone to help when something goes wrong. We only get her passing through on the way to Winter, and she's usually not in a fighting mood then. More in a 'go away, leave me alone, I'm going to see my husband, take care of your own problems' mood."
"But this can't be Autumn," said Velveteen, ducking as she followed him through a hole in a long wooden fence. There was a barren field studded with haystacks on the other side. Haystacks, and scarecrows. That made her walk a little faster. "Autumn's not a place, it's a time."
"You have bedtime and a bed, don't you? Time for school and a school to go to? Every time has a place. It's just that some of them are more abstract and weird than others." Hearing the word 'abstract' come out of the mouth of a six-year-old was enough to make Velveteen's head spin. "All four Seasons exist, and have their own problems. Trouble is, we get heroic turnover, and sometimes people don't make sure that their jobs are going to be handled before they go gallivanting off to do something they think will be more 'fun.'"
Something about the bitterness in his voice made Velveteen pause. "You mean Trick and Treat, don't you? This is where they really come from. Autumn Land."
"Give the girl a candy apple," said Scaredy Cat, and pointed into the distance, towards a rickety, gray-brown farmhouse. "We're almost there. And yeah, they were our defenders, and they walked out on us without even making sure we had somebody to keep things going. Now Halloween's in trouble, and if Halloween goes down, all of Autumn Land is in danger. We need help."
"So why me? Why don't you -- I don't know, why don't you call Trick and Treat? Ask them to come back?" Velveteen's training said not to treat this as a dream, but that was becoming increasingly difficult. It was all too...iconic, too brightly, blatantly ghoulish. It was like walking into an amusement park version of a haunted house.
The trouble was, it was also scary. It was very, very scary. And if she admitted that, she'd have to admit that she wanted it to be a dream, she wanted it to be something she could wake up from. She was alone. She had no team. She had no toys. And if this was really real, well, then, she just wanted to go home.
The farmhouse door opened. "Because they won't take our calls," said Hailey, stepping out and wiping her hands against the sides of her skirt. They left trails of green and orange glitter behind. It faded quickly. "Great Pumpkin knows, I've tried, but I never get past their first defenses. They left. They don't want anything to do with us anymore. If we have problems, they're our problems."
"Then...then why are they my problems?" Velveteen lifted her chin, trying to look braver than she felt. "They're from here. You just brought me here."
"Here in Autumn Land, a holiday is only vulnerable to takeover when it's actually happening," said Scaredy Cat, stepping onto the porch next to Hailey. "One day a year, you can try to take it down, if that's really what you want to do."
"What does that have to do with--"
"I finally got your attention the twenty-first time Halloween happened," said Hailey, in a voice that was almost devoid of emotion. "It's happened twenty-three times so far."
"Thirty-one's the end," said Scaredy Cat. "All they gotta do is run the holiday thirty-one times, and they can shatter its links to the season."
"And then what happens?" Velveteen asked, eyes going wide.
"Halloween dies," said Hailey. "All the Spirits of the Season with links to Halloween start to fade. The ones that survive, anyway. Or maybe Halloween doesn't die. Maybe it just winds up under new management, and things get bad again."
"So what am I here for?" Velveteen was starting to feel dizzy.
"Simple," said Hailey, and smiled. Her expression wasn't without sympathy. It also wasn't without resolve. "You're here to help us save Halloween."
"Oh," said Velveteen. "Right. So no biggie, then."
*
...TO BE CONTINUED...