Page 90 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

Velveteen sighed heavily. “Dammit. I don’t want to move.”

“You won’t have to,” said Doctor Darwin. “I have revealed your address to no one. After this, you have my word as a villain and a gentleman that I will not trouble you at home again.”

Velveteen blinked. “What?”

“Have you never wondered what could inspire a man to look upon the world around him—a perfectly serviceable world, in many ways, if a bit overrun with mammals—and say ‘I will set my scientific genius, not to the improvement of my surroundings, but to their destruction’? I could make the world infinitely better. But I will tell you a secret.” He leaned close, and said, “This is not my world.”

Velveteen blinked again, more slowly. “Come again?”

“Your Miss Cogsworth is an anomaly in the universe, exiled by the intervention of the same Seasonal Lands which have fought so hard to claim you. I am, admittedly, less unique than she: I’m aware of at least six iterations of myself, stranded across your mammal-led parallels, unable to return to our homes after they were wiped away by the Evolutionary Plague.” His expression turned wistful. “Somehow you humans have caught creation’s imagination. Our homes are remade in your image, and we’re stranded, protected by our science, unable to save the ones we love. All I want to do is set things right. If I can’t go home, I’ll bring home to me.”

“Wait, you mean…” Velveteen stared. “You’re a bird?”

“I’m a person,” said Doctor Darwin. “Before the Evolutionary Plague, I was a feathered person, and I would have called someone who looked like you a monkey. Now I supposed you’d call me a Saurian, if I still had the body I was born to, and scream at the sight of me. I truly do hope you can make the transition into my better world. If you’ll forgive me saying so, your own world has treated you so poorly that a world of my design might treat you better.”

Velveteen strained against the straps which bound her. “I’m not going to help you destroy my entire world!”

“My dear, you already have.” Doctor Darwin pulled a watch from his pocket, checked the time, and nodded. “Right on schedule. Welcome home, by the way. You do keep things more interesting.”

He turned to walk away. “Wait!” shouted Velveteen. He stopped and looked back. “Weren’t you going to extract something from me?”

“Ah.” He smiled toothily. “I already have. Goodnight, Miss Velveteen.”

This time, when she yelled, he didn’t look back.

* * *

When Victory Anna and Polychrome crashed through the skylight half an hour later, Velveteen was still struggling against the straps that bound her to the table. Victory Anna sliced through them, and Polychrome helped her to her feet, scanning her face with concern.

“Vel, honey, are you okay?” she said.

Velveteen shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “I think…I think we may have a problem.”

Outside, rain began to fall over the city of Portland.

VELVETEEN vs. Gainful Employment

Having her first night back at home disrupted by a supervillain, even one as second-string as Doctor Darwin, hadn’t done much to settle Velveteen’s nerves. She perched on the arm of the couch with a blanket around her shoulders and a mug of hot tea cupped between her hands. She had yet to take a sip. Torrey—Victory Anna, really, since she was still in costume—kept shooting her sour looks, as if her reluctance to drink were some sort of personal affront.

“He said he was a Saurian, right before the two of you busted in and broke me out,” she said, looking at Polychrome and grimacing. “He said his world was destroyed by something he called ‘the Evolutionary Plague,’ and somehow that transformed him into a mammal.”

“I shouldn’t like to be a dinosaur-person,” said Victory Anna, somewhat dubiously. “I am extremely fond of my breasts, and must assume that any evolutionary path beginning with the dinosaur would leave me bereft of their presence.”

“I’m sure your breasts are more powerful than evolution,” said Polychrome, in the sort of tone normally reserved for talking to animals, small children, and women who regularly carried ray guns the size of their torso. “And it doesn’t matter, anyway, because we’re mammals, and Doctor Darwin is⁠—”

“I think he was telling the truth, or at least the truth as he understands it,” said Velveteen. She finally took a mouthful of tea, swallowing before she continued. “He knew about Torrey, and how she’s from a parallel world. He said there were at least six iterations of him, all stranded in parallel realities by the Evolutionary Plague. Either he’s a transformed dinosaur person, or he really needs some help.” She yawned then, enormously, and stopped to blink in evident confusion at the other two women. “Why’re you both cartoons now? It’s funny-looking.”

This declared, she slumped back into the cushions, eyes abruptly closing. Victory Anna was there to pluck the nearly-full mug from her hands before she could drop it on the couch cushions, stepping back as the exhausted animus snuggled deeper, mumbling small, nonsensical syllables to herself as she got comfortable.

Polychrome sighed. “Torrey, what have we discussed about drugging other heroes?”

“That I ought only do it when absolutely necessary.”

“And what about this situation made you decide it was absolutely necessary?”

Victory Anna shrugged, a smug expression on her face. “She’s not supposed to be patrolling on her own yet. We’re meant to keep her on light duty while she finishes recovering her strength. I doubt the Princess intended for her to be going off alone to fight supervillains without backup, or to be experimented on via unknown scientific methods.”

Polychrome eyed her. “That’s the real reason you drugged her, isn’t it? Your professional pride has been offended.”