Fluff

Chapter Nineteen - Teddy’s Adventure in Costume-Finding

Teddy woke up from a nice restful sleep to the sound of the Boss’s sock-clad feet thumping around. She peeked out of one eye and followed the Boss around with her gaze as the older girl moved around the room and packed a few things away in her backpack.

“Boss?” Teddy asked.

Emily paused, turning towards Teddy so fast that the towel wrapped in a big bun over her head swayed wildly. “Teddy? You’re awake?”

Teddy shrugged. She hadn’t decided on that yet. “What’re you doing, Boss?”

“I’m getting ready for class. I have a History lecture this morning.” The Boss gestured to some books, which were different from the books she usually carried around in her backpack. “I have another class right after. I should be back by about one?”

Teddy nodded and started to rebury herself when the guilt of not helping started to gnaw at her. “Need help?”

“I’m okay,” the Boss said. “Thanks.”

“Alright,” Teddy said.

“And I don’t think you’d be the best suited to help me with other things,” the Boss muttered.

Teddy’s ears twitched at that. “What other things?”

Emily froze, her face taking on a weird shade of red. Was she angry that Teddy had asked? “Ah. I meant stuff like the Homie thing. And finding a costume and... all that.”

“Oh. Villain stuff,” Teddy said.

“Yeah, that.”

Teddy nestled back into her mattress and vaguely paid attention to the way the Boss was moving about in a hurry. Was the Boss late? That was unlikely. She probably wanted to arrive early to check the place out for any Capitalist or Heroic traps.

“I’m off,” the Boss said.

“Okay Boss. Have fun,” Teddy said with only one big yawn in the middle.

The door opened, the door shut, and the Boss was gone. Teddy also left as she sank back into a deep sleep.

She awoke some bit later, a bit of niggling worry working its way around her tummy in an unpleasant way. What had the Boss meant when she said that Teddy couldn’t help her with her stuff? Did she mean that Teddy wasn’t suited to being a Villain?

That was just wrong. Teddy was a perfectly good Villain!

With an irate huff, Teddy tossed her blankets off and stood on the wobbly surface of her mattress. Her bear-paw-print PJs were a bit of a frumpled mess, even though Teddy didn’t move much in her sleep, and her hair was plastered all over.

First things first, she had to put on a good front. That’s why she reluctantly went to the bathroom and showered, then changed into her everyday clothes. Cargo shorts, a cool t-shirt with the word ‘Bear’ on it, and her hoodie decorated with an awesome image of a grizzly bear roaring on the front.

Now dressed to intimidate, Teddy moved over to the door and paused just before leaving.

She had people to find.

First, the Boss needed more information on that Homie wannabe, the guy who acted like he was some sort of Villain while only being a mere Dealer. Teddy didn’t have much respect for him already, what with his lukewarm level of Villainy and his weird name and the fact that he’d inconvenienced the Boss.

Finding him would be tricky though, especially since the city was pretty big and she was only the one bear-girl.

If only the Boss had more minions...

Teddy turned back into the dorm and rushed over to the Boss’s laptop. Opening it up and typing in the password: Kitt3nsRb3st (Which Teddy had seen the boss typing in the other day, much to her horror. It was proof that the Boss had given in to the consumerist propaganda about the so-called glories of the feline as opposed to the far superior bear).

She paused a bit when she found the search engine browser thing. Her first search ‘Where is alley lactate?’ didn’t help any, especially since auto-correct was trying to push some sort of milk-based conspiracy at her.

Her subsequent searches didn’t help all that much until she landed on one in particular. A thread called ‘I’m Alea Iacta, Eauclaire’s newest ne’er do well, AMA!’

Clicking on that showed her an entire thread of people mocking Alea Iacta, which while kind of funny, was also a bit rude. He was one of the Boss’ minions after all.

It was only after searching through the entire thing that she noticed an interesting exchange.

Material-Sword Two Days Ago
12UP - 3DOWN
> So Alea Iacta, you got any hobbies other than being a so-called ‘ne'er do well? You know, something you could do that wouldn’t be wasting everyone’s time?

The rest of that comment thread was all about making him look like an idiot, which Teddy thought was quite amusing. That one hint stuck with her though.

She pulled up the school’s site, one that was saved in the Boss’s favourites, then looked for a theater club of one sort or another.

“Found you!” she said.

There was a group that met on campus to do plays and such for free in the park. They practiced at one of the old school buildings.

Teddy noted the number down on a piece of looseleaf, tongue pinched between her canines as she made sure to write all the numbers down the right way.

Folding her note away, she stuffed it in one of her pockets, placed the computer on a page with nice pictures of bears so that it would be the first thing the Boss saw on opening up the computer, and then she scampered off towards the door.

She had a minion to track down.

Now a bunch more confident in her chances, Teddy left the dorm and headed down to the first floor. From there it was out the door and down the street.

She had no idea how the numbers on the old buildings worked, but that was okay because she found someone who could help. There were two someones, actually, a pair of people wearing nice red shirts and waving signs around so fast that Teddy couldn’t read them.

They were chanting though, and that was clear enough. “Down with the pigs! Down with the privatisation of our futures!” one girl was screaming.

Teddy moved over to the woman and, when she didn’t notice her, tugged at her jacket.

The screaming stopped for a moment as the woman looked down. “Hello comrade,” Teddy said. “I was wondering if you could give me directions?” She pulled out her note and showed it to the still-blinking girl.

‘Uh. Sure?”

“Thank you. This is part of a mission to take out a filthy drug-peddling capitalist,” Teddy said. She tried to remember the big points from her book. “He’s a horrid person who sells drugs and doesn’t share the profits with everyone.”

Teddy got some good instructions, then with a final farewell and a pat on the back to her comrade, she was off and heading towards a building apparently known as the Old Theater.

As it turned out, the building in question was a huge edifice with statue-decorated stonework all across its front and a billboard next to its entrance with a timetable on it. Teddy eyed that, looking past all the entries about band practices and debate clubs so that she could spot those about the theater club.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know the time or the date, so that didn’t help any.

With a shrug, she yanked the doors open and stepped into a lobby lit only by the sunlight poking through the windows by the front. It was a clean place, but it smelled old, like polished wood and floor wax.

The lobby was divided up with a booth by the front, presumably for ticketing, and some passages off to the side to get to the bathrooms and such.

Teddy shrugged and walked past the unmanned ticket booth and into a large hall where a few dozen rows of seats laid out in big arcs descended down to the base of a raised stage. The curtains were drawn up to the sides, revealing a platform with some discarded props lit from above by a gantry of pale lights.

There was a distinct lack of anyone around, but that didn’t deter Teddy, especially not when she heard someone talking from the back of the stage.

She got to the edge, looked for a way up, and when she didn’t find one, she grabbed the edge and pulled herself high enough to fling a leg over the edge and roll up onto the stage.

“Jacob, you can’t keep doing this,” someone was saying. A guy’s voice, deep and serious.

Someone chuckled in response. “Hey, you know how it is. The show must go on!”

Teddy grinned. She recognized the voice.

The Boss would be so proud of her once she rallied her fellow minion into helping!