“Sorry! You told me to!” Milly said, fighting down the rising feeling of panic in her chest. Her elbow ached and she could only imagine how Niki felt.

It wasn’t the most delicate way to shut Niki up. Milly would have to ask for forgiveness later, but this was it! Niki had warned her that Ruth had to be using her power if Niki ever talked about her past, and she'd had been on the edge of revealing something she obviously had wanted to keep secret. Something about blackmail. Not good. Milly couldn’t dwell on it right now, though.

Milly wasn’t sure what her next move was in this situation. A small part of her wanted Niki to finish her story so she could help. But were those her own thoughts? Who even knew for how long they’d been under Ruth’s spell already. Milly had felt no different from normal.

“Woah!” Ruth backed up a step again and folded her arms. “Calm down, you’re causing a scene.

It was true. Several people were looking their way now, too far to hear the conversation but close enough that Milly’s attack on Niki hadn’t gone unnoticed. Especially since she’d sunk down to her knees now and was taking heaving breaths, doing her best not to throw up.

Milly spun around to square off with Ruth. “I know you’re using your power, stop it!”

“Fine,” Ruth snapped her fingers. Whether that actually did anything or not wasn’t clear. Nothing about her stupid power was ever clear. “I was only trying to make it easier for her. You’re the one who told me something was wrong with her. Now we know roughly what. If you want me to stop here instead of fix it that’s fine. Just give me what you promised so I can leave.”

“What?” Milly asked, completely confused.

“The video you took, duh.” Ruth rolled her eyes.

Milly crossed her arms. “I never promised that.”

Ruth glared at her. “I’m sorry did you forget you were blackmailing me to come to fix your little girlfriend? I need that video to get Hilda off my back, and she’ll be here any minute. Now send it over.”

Niki stared up wide-eyed at Milly.

It felt like being stabbed in the chest with a knife. Damn Ruth.

“I wasn’t blackmailing you!” Milly shouted, red-faced. There were too many knots in that spiderweb of a sentence for her to all address at once, but that felt like the biggest one. It did leave all the others glaring unaddressed.

Ruth nodded. “Right, if we want to get technical you are just extorting me for blackmail material on Hilda. Niki, if you could hold it together for five seconds, mind sending me that video? I’ll just leave you two to finish unpacking all that baggage.”

“Screw you. *Cough*. I deleted that.” Niki managed to force out between gasps for air. “As soon as I realized what it was. As if I’d contribute to that.”

Milly flinched while Niki took that second stab at her. Whether it was intentional or not, she wasn’t even sure. Maybe it was just collateral damage. Either way, she probably deserved it. Even if Milly had forgotten about it, it was true she’d initially made that offer to trade information for the video. She just hadn’t realized that Ruth had taken that deal.

“Seriously?” Ruth grimaced while she and Niki glared at one another. “...I see. Well, be sure to swing by the nurse’s office tomorrow so you can see just how many people will have gotten hurt because of you. This was the only way I had to prevent conflict.”

With that, Ruth turned to leave.

“Liar,” Milly called after Ruth while helping Niki back to her feet. “All you have to do is undo whatever you did to Penelope.”

“Ahhh, you just don’t get it, do you?” Ruth sighed as she paused her stride, staring out across the field toward Hilda as she came marching up, dragging a very reluctant-looking girl along. “I didn’t do anything to Penelope. She doesn’t like acting.”

“Since when has that been a problem?” Niki asked bitterly while she propped herself up against the oak tree. “You just finished forcing me to do what you wanted. What? Do you have a cooldown period?”

“I didn’t force you to do anything. I just gave you an ounce of courage so you stopped holding back from what you really wanted to do, you know if you weren’t a coward. The same thing as before, actually. I’m not in the habit of controlling civilians.” Ruth glanced over her shoulder at them and flashed a grin. “Don’t believe me? Try becoming a supervillain. You’ll feel the difference when I bend you to my will.”

Milly wasn’t sure if she believed any of that and it didn’t help that the only offered route of testing her claim was completely impossible. Ruth had already proven that she could lie without so much as blinking if she really had no intention of following through on her promise to Hilda. Had that just been to buy herself enough time to get the video?

“If that’s true, why not just have Penelope explain?” Niki asked, incredulously. “Seems like there are plenty of options that do not end up in a pseudo gang fight.”

Milly shook her head. “I reckon it’d be hard to believe with Ruth standing right next to her.”

“Aye. Well, that and the fact the whole point is that people are supposed to think I’m forcing her.” Ruth waved at the pair of Hilda and Penelope as they came within earshot. “Hilda! What took you so long!”

“Do you just enjoy being cryptic for the sake of it?” Niki hissed under her breath while she offered an awkward wave as well. “Why even tell us any of this if it’s a secret?”

Ruth chuckled. “Because you’ll feel worse about the consequences, besides, who’d believe you?”

“So this is just payback for wasting your time?” Milly asked quietly. Ruth didn’t answer, but it was obvious enough and Milly doubted that this much light teasing would be enough to settle the score. She rested a hand on Ruth’s shoulder as she whispered. “Then, how about you shut up and let us handle it? If we figure out a way for everyone to walk away happy, you let this grudge go and leave us in peace.”

Despite her casual attitude, Ruth’s shoulder was tense. She briefly flinched when Milly touched her then glanced down at Milly, regarding her for a moment while she mulled the offer over “...Deal.”

“It’s rude to whisper you know,” Hilda commented as she came to a halt in front of them, staring Ruth down. Hilda tried to raise her eyebrows, but a fresh bandaid over one eye kept her from quite managing it. “It kinda makes me think you’re trying to weasel out at the last minute. What was that about?”

Penelope was half-hidden behind Hilda but she too was staring at Ruth. She just looked a whole lot more uncertain about it. Hiding seemed to be her default mode, even half her face was hidden behind her long dark blonde hair.

At least Milly had an easier time now with believing this girl didn’t like acting or was uncomfortable with taking the lead role. What even possessed anyone to put her in the lead unless they needed a dead-ringer for a Rapunzel play?

“Hello?” Hilda asked, waving a hand in front of Ruth’s face. “What’s with the silent treatment?”

“Mhm,” Ruth gestured toward Milly.

“Oh, right!” Milly straightened up and looked up to Hilda. Way, way up. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to put herself in the position of telling Hilda she wasn’t getting what she asked for. “So, uhm… change of plans.”

“Penelope, right?” Niki asked while extending a hand to her. Niki glanced and Milly and give her a quick nod. “I’m Niki. Could I borrow you for a minute?”

“Right!” Milly offered her hand to Hilda. “And I’d like to talk to you for a minute. Ruth’s on mute till we tell her otherwise.”

Hilda looked skeptical and took a long hard look at Ruth, who just rolled her eyes in response.“...Alright, I don’t hate this. Let’s see where this goes, Penelope.” She shook Milly’s hand.

Penelope looked even more uncertain now but meekly nodded, letting Niki herd her toward the other side of the tree.

“Great! Excuse us a moment.” Milly really wished she actually had a plan. For now, she headed on over to join Niki over with Penelope.

Once Niki had gotten the three of them behind the tree and out of sight of Ruth and Hilda, she got right to it. “Penelope, I would really appreciate it if you could explain to us exactly what is going on. We want to help you.”

“Yeah,” Milly chimed in while she checked her phone for the time. “The lunch period is almost over, so real quick here’s what we know. You were in a play. Ruth talked to you. Now you are not in a play. Everyone thinks Ruth made you quit. Hilda wants to force Ruth to give you the part back. Ruth says you wanted to quit. They are gonna have a fight if we don’t sort this out. Did we miss anything?”

“Oh, uhm…” Penelope cast a hasty glance over toward Ruth and Hilda but found only the tree. She seemed to relax a little bit. “I didn’t hear anything about a fight, but I guess that explains why Hilda was bleeding. I should’ve known no birds would fly that low. Oh, sorry, I’m rambling. Uhm, I think you have the whole thing.”

“So, is it true that Ruth is making you quit?” Niki asked.

“Erm…” Penelope looked uncertain while she ran her hands nervously along with one of her long bangs. “No. I mean, yes! I mean… maybe?”

Great. That cleared it up.

Milly struggled to push down the feeling of frustration. “Look, we promise nothing you say to us will get out. Think about it; we’re just a couple of new students who were just seen spending like ten minutes with Ruth in public. Nobody is going to believe a word we say. So, please… did Ruth make you quit?”

Penelope looked around as though to check nobody else was within earshot then shook her head. “Well… Yes and no… I asked her to ‘make’ me quit. It was just so much pressure and I don’t even like acting. I was just doing it because my friends talked me into it. Which was fine! I mean, I didn’t dislike it. It was something to do together, you know? It’s just that at some point I stopped getting roles like ‘Background girl ’ or ‘Tree number two’ and I got actual speaking roles. It just kept getting worse, but I couldn’t let them down.”

“I understand you felt pressured. I’m sorry that happened to you to the point that you thought your best solution was to pretend you were mind-controlled.” Niki took Penelope’s hand in her own and gave it a pat. “Do not misunderstand, I think it is good that you took action, but if your friends are going to get hurt to defend you… has it not gone too far?”

It didn’t make any sense to Milly. If you didn’t want to do something, why would you not just say so? But she kept quiet. Especially since Niki seemed to relate. It probably had something to do with what happened to Niki, yet that was hard to imagine. Niki was a nerd but she was an outspoken one, not like Penelope.

“Of course!” Penelope started to tear up. “I didn’t think they would actually try to fight Ruth. The whole point was that Ruth would be too dangerous for them to try and convince me to go back to acting, let alone confront her. I never thought… Well, I guess I always assumed Hilda would try to take a swing at her but that would be that.”

“Then, maybe it’s time to tell them the truth?” Niki offered.

“You might be right, but… It’s too late, isn’t it?” Penelope sighed. “They’ll just assume that Ruth is making me say that too and the fight happens anyway. I think my only option might be to do as they ask and go back to acting. I can deal with that. It’ll only be for a few more years.”

Niki stamped her foot. “No! You shouldn’t do it if you don’t like it.”

“I reckon it feels like you're caught between a rock and a hard place, but I think I’ve got an idea.” Milly waved awkwardly as they both suddenly looked her way as if they’d forgotten she was even there. “See, what we got here is a case o’ some feller calling yer bluff. Well, there’s only two ways outa a situation like that. Yer fixing to fold ‘n cut your losses. I say we double down.”

Penelope looked at Milly as if she’d grown an extra head. Baffled. “Uhm, were you always that southern?”

Niki on the other hand was all grins. “You goof. Are you seriously trying to look cool by quoting Slingshot Sue as if I would not notice? I saw that episode just yesterday! But I take your meaning. It is not a bad idea. We are going to need an accomplice, though.”

“Luckily, we have two right over there.” Milly shot Niki a grin back. “We’ll have to start by telling Hilda everything.”

Penelope gulped.

————————————————————

“...And why would I believe any of this?” Hilda asked as the explanation came to an end.

“Because what is the point of lying to you?” Milly rolled her eyes while she motioned toward a smirking Ruth, who still hadn’t spoken a word. At this point, it had to be a game. Just to see how long she could go. “Ruth’s right over there. If she wanted to deceive you, you’d think it was true already.”

“I’m the one that lied to you…” Penelope rested a hand on Hilda’s arm. “It was selfish of me. And I’m sorry… But could you please help me fix this?”

Hilda folded her arms and firmly held her ground, for about as long as it took for her to look Penelope in the eyes. For someone that hated acting, Penelope sure could convincingly imitate puppy-dog eyes. “Mhrm... Fine. I’ll at least hear you out. Say I agree to this, what’s the plan? You already know that I need to leave with a good reason and ‘dude just trust me, bro’ isn’t going to be enough to call anyone off.”

“Ruth, you good with playing the villain some more?” Milly called over to Ruth who was leaning up against the oak tree.

Bemused, Ruth just gave a thumbs up.

“Then it is simple,” Niki continued while she handed Hilda a notebook and a pen. “We just need you to pretend you are writing for a while. Any scribbling will do. When you return to your campus vigilante group, just tell them you were forced to write down all the information you had on them. Their names, addresses, and plans. Things like that.”

“Mhm. I get it.” Hilda did as instructed, drawing simple spirals across the page. “So, they’ll think that Ruth could easily retaliate if we try anything, even masked. That might actually work if I lay the danger of it all on a little thick.”

“Yeah, you know what might spook them better than we do.” Milly held up her phone. “And I guess you could claim that Ruth has the video of the park encounter. They won’t know it got deleted.”

Penelope broke away from the pack while they were busy discussing how best to sell the threat. She approached Ruth. “Hey… I… I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to act as an excuse for me. Now we’re dragging your reputation through the mud twice as much just to keep the ruse up and…I’m just so sorry.”

Ruth waved her off with a hand as if it wasn’t worth mentioning at all. “Hah, you think this hurts my rep? Don’t be daft. By tomorrow, the whole school will be abuzz about how Hilda came to pick a fight with me, left bloody, and then returned to give me everything I damn well wanted. You included. Honestly, I’m impressed. We have some creative freshmen this year.”

“Oh, uhm, w-well. When you put it like that…” Penelope petered out and backed off again, but before she completely withdrew she seemed to remember there was one other thing to say. She turned back to Ruth. “I don’t know when I’ll get a chance again so, uhm… Thank you.”

Ruth showed her a soft smile and waved her off again, though more half-heartedly this time. “Wanna thank me? Grow a spine. You’re inconveniencing everyone around you.”

Penelope sputtered and then quickly backed off to swiftly put Hilda between her and Ruth.

“Woah,” Milly commented as she came strolling up, taking a spot next to Ruth against the tree. “Just when I was starting to think you might not be so bad.”

Ruth shrugged. “You think I’m wrong?”

“No,” Milly admitted just as the school bell chimed. With a groan, she pushed herself off the bark to get going for the next class. The others were starting to split off as well. “Hey, before I go… I was wondering. Did anything good come of that investigation that Niki helped you with?”

Ruth didn’t budge an inch from her spot, if anything she just made herself more comfortable. She looked up at the sky as she thought about it. “The Corvus Dynamics case? Kind of. It was some sorta mutagen project. Looked pretty shady. We were going to shut it down but then within the week they canceled the project themselves and fired the guy who worked on it. The whole thing got swept under the rug as a rogue agent abusing company resources.”

“So, whatever it was…” Milly mused aloud, “Just knowing someone found out about it spooked them enough to terminate the whole thing?”

“Could be. We tried to follow up with Doctor Vector, the guy who got fired, but he’s been impossible to get a hold of. As I said, ACE is kinda understaffed in the intelligence department. If it’s something that holds your interest, see if you can talk Niki into giving it a chance. You both handled today pretty well, and we could always use a good two-for-one deal.”

Milly wondered if Ruth meant to imply her application was conditional on whether or not Niki was in too or if that was a Freudian slip. “I’ll sleep on it.”

The idea was interesting, though. It was a line of work closely related to superheroes that didn’t require any powers. It wasn’t even that far off from her original idea of becoming a super reporter. It was just a bit more geared toward reporting on villains than heroes. Maybe she would bring it up with Niki later.

“Hi!” Stella teleported in with her arms immediately around Ruth. Stella giggled while she tried to lean in then stopped dead upon noticing Milly standing there. Her face flushed as she stammered “O-oh! I didn’t think you’d have company! Uh, heyyy Milly, right? Shouldn’t you be getting to class?”

“She was thinking of joining us.” Ruth smirked at Milly while she slipped an arm around a rapidly more red-faced Stella’s waist. “Bye!”

And they were gone, leaving Milly alone in the west field.

Dang it! She was going to be late!