Glenn Chambers was a thoroughly unpleasant man. He was the sort of human slug that sent any halfway decent soul mentally questing for the nearest supply of table salt. He was a heavily obese man with a neckbeard and a hairdo best described as a gelled “faux-hawk.” He wore thick, rectangular glasses that amplified his piggish squint and dressed in deliberately unflattering, ill-fitting clothing. His manner was cloying and overweening, invasive of other people’s personal space-- his entire persona was built around looking, acting and being “artfully” ill-kempt to show off his social status; that of someone who considered themselves artistically elevated above the petty standards of things like appearance, presentation, manners or, to judge by the aroma of stale fast food around him, hygeine. He obviously imagined himself clever for this “calculated” presentation of himself, and thought that the sycophants that clustered in his wake as he moved through the oh-so-rarified atmosphere of Public Relations constituted proof of his genius and charisma.

  In other words a delusional, narcissistic ass.

  He was also the head of Public Relations Consultant for the PRT and the Protectorate, and a festering pain in the arse for every single Cape. His “innovations” in their appearance, equipment and tactics consisted of truckling to every cliche’, base stereotype and schizoid focus group dribble, and shoehorning heroes into the mould thus designed. Some of his more genius “suggestions” consisted of telling a darkness-powered and themed hero to dress in brighter colors “to be more accessible to the kids,” giving thumbs down to an entire line of impact, incision and fire resistant Tinker-made costumes because “focus groups don’t like red,” and continually trying to coerce every female cape into wearing plunging necklines and high heels in combat.

  He was a pain to the adult heroes, but he was a nightmare to the Wards, because the Wards had next to zero control over their own image and the PRT had basically took leave of its senses and signed it all over to Glenn Chambers. As such there was a low-level war going on between his department that wanted to dumb down the Wards’ image till they were stupider than “Teen Titans Go”, and the Wards themselves who wanted to be effective, competent and most of all to live through their time in the Wards, or at least die with dignity.

  It was Glenn Chambers who refused to let Vista carry any sort of weapon to defend herself in the field, not even a police baton. It was Glenn Chambers who refused to let any of the Wards carry any gear that even remotely looked like a gun. It was Glenn Chambers who decided that belts and belts of pouches were “in”--- not actual utility belts, just miles of pouches too small to carry anything--- and forced them to wear miles of the damn things for over a month before they threatened to revolt. It was Glenn Chambers who decided Kid Win should look like a weenier version of the late tinker Hero, and that he should ride a flying skateboard because “the kids were into them.” (The next time he’d had a suggestion, he’d shown up with a razor scooter and a pair of Heelies. Chambers still had no idea how close it came to bloodshed.) He’d obstructed holdout weapons, utility belts, better armor, even more protective helmets because he thought they’d interfere with “image.”

  Arguably worst of all was his almost toxic predilection for dressing the girl wards as if they were either five years younger or ten years older than their actual age. There were rumors that he had an entire line of sailor fukus hanging in a closet somewhere… just waiting.

  Ladybird had been told all of these stories, some with relish, some with horror, some with outright seething rage. Still, she had been hard to convince that any spin doctor could truly be half as horrendous as they described. But the moment she walked her little lavender heinie into Glenn Chambers’ office and saw the way his piggy little eyes lit up, she believed every word of it and more.

  He was in the middle of horking down a bagful of breakfast McFood-- another affectation; the PRT cafeteria was right downstairs. He had one of his interns do burger runs to the local burger chain (not even Fugly Bob’s, the philistine) just so he could be seen eating it. “Aaaah, Miss Hebert, come in, come in,” he said, his eyes and little round teeth gleaming. He motioned her to a seat with the hand not holding an egg and sausage muffin.

  With as much dignity as she could muster she climbed up into the seat, adjusting her shawl around her. Truth be told, she was starting to feel a little silly wearing the thing everywhere. It just seemed outright superfluous sometimes. Sitting here in front of Glenn Chambers with that creepy look on his face, though, she was starting to feel underdressed again. He plunked his half-eaten breakfast sandwich on his desk and literally clapped his pudgy hands with glee. “Oh, this is perfect!” he squealed. “Ladybird, selling your image is going to be the biggest success of my career, I just know it!”

  “That’s… nice?” Taylor said.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “You’re practically perfect to be the new face of the Wards.”

  Taylor cocked an eyebrow. “The new face of the Wards?” She gave an awkward little laugh. “I’m not sure the Wards would want to be represented by a cute little lavender unicorn.”

  Glenn gave a dismissive wave. “It’s just common sense,” he said. “The nature of your transformation-- well I’m sure it was rather traumatic, but there’s simply no denying the sheer marketability. The plush toy sales alone...” he took a hasty bite of his breakfast sandwich and started tapping away at his desktop computer.

  Taylor sighed. She’d seen this coming about a lightyear away. “Sir, I know I’m… cute and cuddly… but I really feel I can make a genuine contribution to both the Wards and the Protectorate beyond toy sales. The powers testing staff said my abilities put me in the ninetieth percentile, easily. My telekinetic abilities alone give me a shaker/blaster rating of at least--”

  “Yes yes yes, I’m quite sure,” Chambers said, not looking away from the files flicking across his screen. “But powers aren’t everything, Miss Hebert. Some people are just simply suited for a particular role in the team dynamic. I mean, if you look at Vista’s rating alone you’d say she was perfect for front-line work.” He scoffed.

  “Yes,” Ladybird said scathingly. “I know.” It was a massive sore point with Vista, and even with the rest of the team… Vista had the most training and experience of all of them, and had a power, the ability to expand or shrink linear dimensions, that would make even a complete novice a force to be reckoned with. Yet PRT policy and Glenn Chamber’s rules about “image” kept her stuck as “the cute little girl in the back” and conspired to keep her off the field, even for patrols-- making the team as a whole less effective when it counted most.

  “There, you see?” Glenn went on. “She’d be terrible for actual field work as a cape. I’ve never seen a focus group that had anything good to say about a young girl as an actual cape--”

  “That’s funny,” said Taylor brightly. “I’ve never seen a focus group that had anything worth saying at all.”

  He paused in his typing and gave her a sidelong, sour look. “Like it or not, Ladybird, we all live or die by popular opinion,” he said pompously. “Ignore it at your peril.”

  “Last month popular opinion was that I should die alone, trapped in a locker full of rotting tampons,” Taylor said, her voice like acid dipped in liquid nitrogen. “I don’t have much use these days for popular opinions.” Or people who make their living groveling to them, she thought with sizzling viciousness.

  Glenn took advantage of the rather chilly silence to take another bite of his cold sandwich. “There’s no call for that attitude, Miss Hebert,” he said, spraying crumbs and giving her a condescending look through half lidded eyes… an effect rather ruined by how squinty his eyes were. “We’re here to help you, to make sure you have the best public likability index numbers we can manage.”

  Did he just use the royal “we?” Taylor sighed, but said nothing.

  “Very good,” Glenn said, as if everything had been settled. “Now it’s obvious that you’ll be coupled with Vista as often as possible. I mean, the role is self-writing; the cute youngest hero and--”

  “And her pet?” Taylor said calmly.

  Too calmly, Glenn Chambers might have noted, if he had been nearly as smart as he thought he was. Instead of noting the growing danger, he merely nodded eagerly, jowls flapping. “Team mascot, icon, whatever. That general paradigm.

  “Sort of like Chim-Chim the Monkey in Speed Racer,” Taylor said, her teeth bared in… something like a smile.

  “Exactly! There to give morale support to the team,” Glenn said. “Of course we’ve got an entire line of products and gear and clothing for you to wear in public appearances, to support the merchandising line of course.”

  “Of couuuurse...”

  “Here we go--” He turned his flatscreen monitor so she could see. Taylor barely avoided flinching in horror. They had done a 3d mockup of her, and then dressed it in-- well, she’d never seen so many ribbons, bows and ruffles. Or such a vivid shade of peach. “Of course there’s quite a wide selection,” he said, clicking through image after image of ruffles, frills, furbelows and crinolines in every hue found in nature and several colors probably only achieved through illegal scientific experimentation. Some looked like ridiculous parodies of “active wear” or “formal wear” that no sane being, biped or quadruped, would wear in public save as a joke. “Bright colors, of course, to--”

  “Increase my approachability,” she finished for him. “Right. Mister Chambers,” she said, this is-- all of this is just unacceptable! I didn’t sign up with the Wards to be a… ugh, I hate myself for saying it… clothes horse.” She had a pair of canvas bags sewn together by the handles thrown over her back. She lifted a manila folder out. “Look, I have some basic ideas of what sort of equipment I’ll need, if you’d look at these first--”

  Glenn Chambers gave her a condescending smile. He plucked the folder out of the air and set it down, unopened, on the desk. “Ladybird, I obviously need to explain some things to you,” he said with a smile. “When you signed on with the PRT, you did, in fact, agree to go with whatever “image” we devised for you.”

  “What??”

  “It’s right there in your contract in black and white,” he said smugly. “Part of the standard contract. Your likeness, image, and even your Cape name are all property of the PRT now. If you refuse to abide by the choices we make for it, we-- that is, the PRT, ahem-- can level considerable penalties against you for breach of contract.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “But that’s not fair!” Taylor protested.

  “One must learn to carefully read what one signs,” he chided, waving a finger under her appalled nose. “Now, please, Miss Hebert-- do stop being truculent and look over these images.” He pushed the mouse around to where she could reach it.

  She slouched in her seat. After a few seconds of apparent pouting, she gripped the mouse in her aura and began clicking through the wardrobe images again. Finally she deigned to comment. “Well, okay, one thing I do have to point out...” she paused.

  “Yes? Do go on, feedback is important.” He smiled indulgently at her.

  “These really don’t express anything about the theme of my powers,” she said.

  “Ah, theme?”

  “Oh yes. Now, while I can do a great number of things with my energy aura-- telekinesis, blasting, forcefields, even some limited transmogrification… well, it might have something to do with my trigger event but they work best when what I’m doing something that has to do with…. Bugs.”

  “Bugs,” he said, talking through a mouthful of breakfast sandwich.

  “Yes, Bugs,” she said with a smile. Then she pointed with her hoof. “Like that one crawling out of your Mister Muffin.”

  Glenn looked down to see a pair of long black antennae sticking out of his sandwich, waving at him. He dropped the sandwich like it had caught fire and screamed.

  Ladybird didn’t turn a hair. She plucked the bug, a rather sizeable roach, out of the eggy mess and dropped it-- right back on top of the bun. Glenn let out a little distressed squeal. “It’s really neat, actually. I can make illusions of them, forcefields shaped like them, I can even control them--” the roach skittered in a circle, then a figure eight. Glenn let out another squeal.

  “I can multiply them, even!” Taylor’s horn sparkled, and the desk was suddenly swarming with dozens of bugs. Glenn rose to his feet with a shriek. “They don’t last long though,” she went on and all but one-- still perched on his tie-- vanished. He sighed with relief.

  “I can even make them bigger!” – and the inch-long roach on his tie was suddenly a foot long and staring him in the eye.

  His scream this time was spectacular.

  “Oh calm down, it won’t hurt you,” Ladybird scoffed. She shrank it back to normal. “There, better?”

  Glenn fell back in his chair, jowls shaking and eyes wide and round for once. He did NOT take his eyes off the roach perched on his tie like the world’s ugliest tie-tack.

  “I can even turn them into other KINDS of bugs!” Ladybird said. “Any requests?” Her horn was already lighting up.

  “Butterflies! Butterflies!” Glenn whimpered, his voice piercingly high.

  “Okay!” With a flash, the roach transformed into a butterfly. One with a five-foot wingspan, and its sticklike legs clamped to his shirt. Glenn Chambers learned that no matter how pretty butterfly WINGS are, their FACES are anything but pretty. It licked his face with its proboscis.

  Sound baffling be damned, they heard his unholy scream two floors in either direction.

  The butterfly transformed again… this time to a tiny moth the size of his thumbnail. It fluttered away, leaving him laid back in his office chair, pale grey and sweating and clutching his chair arms and contemplating the new moistness in his shorts. “You know, Mr. Chambers, I don’t think I’m going to be using any of these,” Ladybird said thoughtfully, her forehoof raised to her chin. “In fact I’d rather go naked than wear this garbage.

  “Come to think of it--” she bent her chin down, grabbed her shawl in her teeth, and shook her head till it came off her back. With a flip of her head she tossed it in the corner. “It really was getting ridiculous,” she said, shaking out her mane and tail. She fished around telekinetically in one of her bags and pulled out her cell phone. “Lessee… dial, dial…. Oh, voicemail, oh well. HI Daddy! The discussion with Mister Chambers went great. And guess what, I’m a NUDIST now, Yaaaay! Buh bye!”

  She put the phone away and pronked up onto Glenn’s desk. “Now, let’s take it from the top, Mr. Glenn Chambers, head of the PRT Image Department,” she said. “Your advice is crap, I’m not following it. I’m not wearing any of those ridiculous frou frou silly ass outfits. I’ll be wearing the gear I submitted in that folder,” she tapped it with a hoof, “that my father and I vetted first. And if you try to hassle me on the issue, I’ll have YOU brought up for breach of contract.”

  He attempted to rally. “The-- the standard contract--”

  She gave him a smile. “I didn’t SIGN a standard contract,” she said. “My father took a copy home and went over it with a fine-toothed comb. You remember my dad? The guy who all but runs the Dockworkers’ Union? Taking apart crooked contracts is his bread and butter. After he found some of those cute little clauses your lawyers put in, he went and consulted with a lawyer, Carol Dallon. You know, Brandish? Member of New Wave? Well, she took one look and after she quit laughing, she wrote up a NEW contract, with a LOT more protections for myself, including legal rights to my my likeness, my persona, my name, et cetera.

  And THAT, Mister Glenn Chambers, Image Consultant, is the contract that Emily Piggot, my father, and I all signed.

  “You know what?” She took her folder back and stowed it away. “I think I’ll pick someone else to consult about my gear and appearance. Your track record… stinks.” With that, she hopped off the desk and sauntered out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  “And Piggot let you get away with it?” Aegis gawked in disbelief.

  “Piggot was the one who promised not to warn hiiiim,” Ladybird singsonged, pronking around the floor a bit. Emily Piggot may have had a lot of issues, and been less than fond of capes in general-- but you didn’t have to love your coworkers to hate the PR department with a passion.

  “You are my hero and I want to be you when I grow up,” Clockblocker gasped, collapsed on the couch from lack of air. He’d been laughing for nearly three minutes straight.

  “Oh, I think I should be the one to inform you… Mrs. Dallon’s law firm is offering their services, on percentage, to the rest of the Wards to renegotiate their contracts. Dad says Mrs. Dallon took one look at the provisions in your contracts and was fit to be TIED. She started listing off child labor laws, intellectual property rights, and then she REALLY started going...”

  “On percentage?” Gallant asked.

  “Well, either of the lump settlement for past salaries and lost income, or a percentage of future merchandising,” she said. “She figures a rather hefty chunk of the revenue for all those Wards figurines and t-shirts and what all is rightfully yours. Some of you who are close to leaving might want the lump sum, while someone like Vista would want the percentage of future sales.” she kicked up her hoof. “In my case, I’m going to be getting a little bit of cash every time they sell a cute little purple plastic pony in the gift shoppe, from now in perpetuity...”

  Any watcher could have seen the wheels turning as the Wards each started calculating just how many t-shirts with their likenesses had flown off the shelf since they’d signed on. “Holy cow, that’s a lotta Quatloos,” Kid Win muttered.

  Taylor shook her head. It had been horrifying when her father had pointed it out. They were paid a pittance of an allowance, and another pittance stocked away in a trust fund that wouldn’t have amounted to one percent of the profit the PRT would have made off them. They had been tricked into signing away all their intellectual property rights too-- Kid Win’s inventions, for example, but even their NAMES weren’t their own.

  If the Wards had just been childhood celebrities, it would have been a scandal…. But, all fluff to the contrary, the Wards weren’t just celebrities, they were child soldiers. The PRT was all but guaranteed to fold like wet toast on the issue: being revealed as bilking teenagers who helped fight Endbringers would have been a lethal blow to their reputation.

  Too bad Mr. Image Consultant hadn’t clued them in to that little PR social faux pas.

  “Do you think she can get me a costume that’s a little more...” Vista said hopefully, picking at the hem of her skirt. “I mean a little more mature? Skirts are so-- eighteen nineties.”

  “Well, she should fix it so you can talk and they’ll listen, which is the same thing sort’ve,” Ladybird said. “Oh, that reminds me… Kid Win? Could I ask a really big favor?” she asked, a little timidly.

  Kid Win beamed. “Heck, even if the lawyer thing doesn’t pan out, we all owe you just for making Glenn Chambers swallow his own tongue.”

  “If only we coulda seen it,” Browbeat grumbled.

  “Guys...” Gallant sounded pained. Even Vista couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

  “Actually...” Ladybird said. She shook out her mane; a tiny digital camera fell out. “It’s amazing where you can hide a GoPro these days,” she said smugly.

  “DIBS!” Clockblocker yelped, grabbing the camera and running for the breakroom. “This MUST go up on the main TV screen...”

  “I’m on the popcorn!” Browbeat said, heading for the kitchenette.

  “Chips for me, I hate the little hulls,” Vista shouted after him.

  Kid Win grinned. “Okay, what’d you need, Ladybird?” The little unicorn floated the folder over to him. He opened it and flipped through it, eyebrows rising. “Hey, well thought out stuff here,” he said. “Simple too. I can put it all together for you before tonight.”

  “Really?” Ladybird beamed. “Great!”

  “But first… time for America’s Funniest Superhero Videos,” he chuckled, heading for the breakroom.

  The video footage was even better than the story. Even Gallant was howling with laughter five minutes in.

  “Okay, let’s see what you guys came up with,” Vista. “Ladybird, come on out!”

  Ladybird trotted out of Kid Win’s workshop. The other Wards made sounds of approval. “Looks very slick, very utilitarian,” Gallant said. “With a little touch of futuristic.”

  Clockblocker pinched his fingers together, italian style. “Ahh, but also a certain arteestic je ne se qua...” Vista slapped him. From across the room. “Ow.”

  As a costume as such, there wasn’t much to it. There was a rather wide wraparound visor covering her eyes but so transparent that it did not conceal them, and a body harness with two good-sized semirigid saddlebags, sporting a copy of Ladybird’s hip-mark for decoration. Everything was in pale blue or white, save for the Ladybird logos. Her hooves were encased in pale blue booties. “Why the boots?” Aegis asked.

  “Nailless horseshoes, actually. To protect my feet,” Ladybird said. She held one up. “Horse hooves aren’t solid all the way across; we have a sensitive area in the middle, the frog. It DOES get chilly stepping in cold water or mud.”

  “Why not regular horseshoes?” Aegis persisted.

  “What? No way!” She said. “Even if I wasn’t averse to NAILING THINGS TO MY BODY, I did some research. Horseshoes like that are actually BAD for horses’ hooves and legs. Restricts circulation, among other things. And the nail holes open the hoof to infection, and...”

  “But people have been shoeing horses for hundreds and hundreds of years,” Aegis said.

  Kid Win snorted. “Yeah, and it’s not like humans have ever done something stupid for centuries on end,” he said.

  “.,.Point. Okay, moving on; the rest of it?”

  “The visor is a full heads-up display,” Kid Win said. “I based it off of one of Armsmaster’s old ones. Virtual screen and keyboard, she has an onboard computer in one of the saddlebags-- this one’s scavenged from a laptop but I can put in something more powerful later…. It has Wifi of course. It also hooks up to her cellphone and to our comm system. The inside is actually a touch screen with a virtual keyboard and mouse-- turns out she can manipulate touchscreens with her TK.”

  Ladybird already had the computer up and was flipping through some online pages. “Wouldn’t be able to use my cellphone if I couldn’t. Hooves don’t work so great on them.”

  “And the saddlebags?”

  “Stuff I might need in the field,” Taylor said, flipping the bags open and levitating a few items out. “First aid stuff… plastic cuffs… extra thumb drives and stuff for my computer…”

  “A police baton?” Aegis said, reaching into one bag and pulling out a collapsible baton.

  “I might need it, you never know,” Ladybird said straightfaced, and deliberately NOT looking at Vista.

  “a taser? Long-range foaming mace? Brass knuckles?” Aegis went on.

  “Very utilitarian, those things,” Ladybird said. “Who knows when I might need them.”

  “Or somebody you’re very likely to be partnered with?” Gallant said in amusement, looking over at Vista.

  Ladybird frowned. “Yeah, yeah. I do NOT like that Vista’s basically ordered to go out completely unarmed. There’s more than one villain out there who can get around her space-stretching power, and plenty of thugs who just might get lucky, catch her off guard and close distance with her. Bitch at me all you like, I’m keeping this stuff for HER.”

  Aegis sighed. “Our supervisors---”

  “Can’t say diddly so long as it’s MY equipment, right?” Ladybird insisted. “And hey, it’s my business if I loan it out to some teammate or other in the field for a minute or two...”

  “She shouldn’t NEED any of this--”

  “And houses shouldn’t need fire extinguishers, either,” Ladybird said stubbornly.

  Aegis sighed and held up his hands in defeat. “ I get it, I get it,” he said. “’What melee weapons?’ This is gonna turn around and bite me in the butt, I know it. ” He sighed and dropped the stuff back in Ladybird’s saddlebag, shaking his head. The others could see a wry half-smile on his face though. Ladybird wasn’t the onlyone uncomfortable with an unarmed Ward.

  Of course not everyone was comfortable with an armed Vista. She could be seen trying the brass knuckles on and giving a nervous looking Clockblocker a speculative eye.

  “So, you ready to go out and make a splash on the scene?” Gallant asked.

  Taylor took a deep breath, then let it out. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.