Masquerade

A crash of thunder would have been more dramatic, certainly, but the sky was clear and bright, the air crisp. Not too hot, not too cold, just the temperature she loved. She could wear a coat comfortably, yet if she didn't feel like it, she could live without it, if she hadn't just bought a cute new one that she wanted to show off. She'd outgrown last year's coat sometime over the summer with what would probably be her last growth spurt, no matter how much she'd have liked one last push, to get her out of the high end of normal to straight up tall(ish).

That was why she'd walked home from work that afternoon, or, rather, why she'd walked to work that morning, leaving her clanking old car on the street in front of her house. It hadn't been an easy decision - it was the right time of year for driving with the windows down as well - but all in all, she was pleased with the choice she'd made.

Halloween decorations had been up for a couple weeks now, though some of the houses had added a few last minute touches. Even so, she still enjoyed looking, the beautiful weather, and the fact that it was Halloween day, giving her fresh eyes to view them with. There were only a few trick-or-treaters out, very young, getting their fill of candy before they got put to bed, but those were, of course, the cutest.

She was taking her time, just soaking in every moment, minding her own business, unless a toddler toddled too close to her, at which point she felt obliged to let its parents know just how cute it was. None had seemed particularly surprised at the news, but grateful for the reminder.

It was, she thought to herself, the best day she'd had in a very long time.

Which brought her to the distinct lack of dramatic emphasis that a bit of thunder would have added. Instead, she simply woke up slowly, trying to remember when exactly she had fallen asleep, having to blink a few times before the open window above her came into focus.

It was a very nice window, and a very nice old tree, branches mostly bare, was waving in the wind and moonlight outside of it. None of those things, however, were in her own house, or her own yard.

She let out a gasp of surprise, wracking her brain for a memory that might explain what in the world had happened for her to end up here, wherever that may be. The sound came out a bit muffled, and she reached up to her face quickly, found it to be covered by something that, a moment after she noticed her hands were covered as well, she recoginzed as a mask. She was no stranger to masks, but this one was definitely not hers.

"Ah, you're awake, finally," it said.

"What... Who... What are you?!" she demanded, snatching her mittened hands away from the mask. "Where am I?!" This was one of those situations, she figured, where it was okay to give in to her fear, and even exaggerate it a little bit. That sort of thing could keep villains off guard, just so long as she managed to keep that fear contained in her voice, rather than letting it spread through to the rest of her body, which her waking mind began to recognize was not wearing the same clothes she'd had on when she left her after school job.

"Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about that." She couldn't tell if this was an established villain, disguising their voice, or someone new. Hell, she couldn't even tell if it was male or female!

"Well, what do you want?" she demanded.

But all the voice from inside the mask would say was, "We'll talk downstairs."

"Just..." she started, before giving up to save herself some trouble. If it wanted her to do something, chances were good it wasn't going to cooperate until it got its wish. That was the way these sorts of things tended to work, in her experience. At least she wasn't locked up in one room.

Speaking of which, she decided, it was high time to figure out where she was. So far, she had only seen the window, having been distracted before she could take a look around. Once she did, however, it took her only a moment to realize she was in the bathroom. A much larger, fancier bathroom than she'd ever set foot in before, but a bathroom nonetheless, so she got to her feet to walk over to a mirror, so she could see what she was now wearing.

She, White Rabbit as the world at large knew her, was the youngest member of the Squadron of Light. Youngest ever, to be precise, though to be even more precise, it was more like she was going to be that. She was all but a full blown member, however, and she'd been on quite a few missions with them, even though she'd been relegated to the sidelines for all but the most dire of them. She'd even been kidnapped a time or two before, although never out of costume before.

It was just the whole age thing that was keeping her from being a registered member, she was sure. The older members kept getting on her case, telling her she had to finish high school, had to get her degree, she couldn't just count on her powers to get her through life. She was pretty sure they'd stolen all their lines from a public service announcement, and she paid just as much attention. Not that she had dropped out of school or anything; she just didn't go as often as maybe she should.

It could also have been her parents' fault. They weren't even happy about her having her current, unofficial, sidekick spot on the team. They might have been actively keeping the team from officially accepting her, since that was probably the kind of thing she'd need parental consent for.

Whatever the specifics were, she knew she was still, essentially, the youngest member of the team, by quite a bit, and her unofficial status likely led to her being treated even more like a kid than she might otherwise be. Apparently, whoever her captor was also knew, and had decided to comment on, that.

While designing her costume, she had managed to stay away from the whole rabbit motif, thinking that would be a bit to obvious, instead focusing on the first part of her name. The kidnapper had gone the easier route.

The mask was mostly blank, which made it all the creepier to be looking at in place of her own face, with only her chocolate colored eyes showing through. There was a little pink nose painted in the center, however, as well as, obviously, the eye holes, through which you could spy the only bit of visible skin. The rest of her body was encased in pink fuzz, looking all the world as if it had been stolen straight from the end of A Christmas Story.

It looked quite a bit like an infant's footed sleeper, but with gloves and a hood adorned with bunny ears, and with the feet being recreations of bunny slippers. As she turned, she saw the little cotton tail on the back.

She looked absolutely ridiculous - there was no way she was going anywhere like that. Whoever the voice belonged to - and considering she would've had to have been stripped to her underwear, she really hoped it belonged to a girl, or a guy with a trusty henchwoman - was just a whole new level of crazy. The rest of the Squadron would be there soon enough to rescue her.

Not that she particularly relished the thought of them seeing her like this, hiding helplessly in a bathroom. Gossamer, who was the closest to her age, would never let her hear the end of it.

Unless, that is, she got kicked out entirely. They had to be getting just as tired of her playing the damsel in distress whenever some new villain wanted to provoke them as she was. At the moment, she wasn't really providing anything special to the team that would make them think twice about losing her. Young metahumans were popping up all over the place lately, and surely at least one of them would be a more useful sidekick than she was.

On the other hand... Maybe if she managed to get out of this and, with any luck, bag the bad guy herself, it would prove to whoever was keeping her from fully joining the team, whether that was her parents or the team itself, that she was ready.

That would have been a much more appealing thought if it didn't involve going anywhere dressed like a three year old, but ultimately, she gave in anyway. After all, she managed to convince herself, it wasn't like this person hadn't already seen her dressed this way. Probably had a camera set up somewhere in the bathroom, too. So what did it matter?

She walked over to the door, then returned to the mirror, trying to convince herself that, somehow, it really wasn't that bad. She took a couple trips around the bathroom, just to make sure she was ready, before finally opening the door.

It was much heavier than she expected, and, once she had gotten it open, the sudden rush of sound from outside nearly drove her back, but her curiosity got the better of her. She crept slowly forward, peeking out over the railing of the balcony the bathroom was resting on. There, beneath a gigantic chandelier, a huge mass of color was spinning and shifting, finally resolving itself into what seemed an almost endless sea of people.

"Screw this," she whispered, backing up. There was no way she was going out there.

At just about that same time, she heard a loud bang from behind her, which nearly gave her a heart attack as she spun around to see what it was, only to be faced with a closed and, no matter how hard she jiggled the knob, locked, bathroom door.

The sound echoed in her ears, long enough to keep her from noticing that all of the other noise had stopped, until she heard a voice, very proper and very British, announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, young Miss White Rabbit."

She turned slowly, finding someone who appeared to be a masked butler standing at the head of a large staircase, leading down into the mass of people. She gave the doorknob one last tug. There were other doors along the wall, of course, but she highly doubted she'd have any more success with them.

She had a feeling the butler was waiting on her, and, having nowhere else to go, and certainly no better way of getting downstairs so that she could get to catching the owner of the voice in the mask, she sheepishly walked over to him.

As she reached the top of the staircase, the crowd below broke into thunderous applause, and she was actually glad for the mask, since it served to cover her reddening cheeks. At any other time she would have felt like royalty, but, as she stared down into the mob, masked faces turned upward, she couldn't help but feel so very, very small.

The applause quickly gave way to the din she'd heard upon first opening the door, the sound of a thousand conversations being carried on at once, while a group of musicians struggled to make themselves heard on top of it all. She stood at the top of the stairs, just watching, her legs refusing to move so that she could do anything else, for what felt like a long time before she felt a gentle hand on her back.

"Go ahead," the butler told her. "Don't dawdle up here all day."

The first step was the hardest, her slippers trying to slide out from underneath her. She wobbled a bit, had to grab the railing to keep from tumbling the rest of the way to the bottom floor. They'd all seen her already, she reminded herself. She couldn't take that back, so she might as well keep going, and hopefully figure out what was going on.

"Glad you could join us," the voice from the mask said, as she was nearly halfway down the stairs.

"I'm going to find you," she promised it. "And I am going to kick your ass."

"Do what you think you need to," it encouraged her. "You just gotta find me first, little girl."

"Didn't anyone ever tell you?" she growled. "Little girls are very good at hide and seek."

Apparently, on the other hand, they were -not- very good at keeping their footing, as, just as she reached the bottom of the staircase, her slippered feet practically flew out from under her, and she landed straight on her butt. It didn't hurt as much as she would've expected, but it still surprised her enough that it took her a few moments to get to her feet, during which time, the hall filled with the sound of laughter.

Once again, she was glad for the mask to keep the world from knowing how much she was blushing, and, to a smaller degree, how close she was to bursting into tears. Before she could succumb to the urge, a realization started to wash over her. There didn't seem to be any real malice in the laughter... It reminded her more of the audience in a theater on the rare occasion a movie was actually funny than the cafeteria at school when somebody dropped their tray.

She jumped to her feet - much less impressively than she normally would, of course - and the laughter turned into another round of applause before everyone turned back to their conversations and/or dancing.

Now that she was closer, she began to see the costumes the guests were wearing, and found herself a bit taken aback by them. They were all dressed as metahumans, she realized, or, rather, caricatures of them. Some of them were in pretty bad taste, like the one dressed up as a butterfly wrapped in coils of wire, or in the plain, black uniform of the Defenders, complemented with a hangman's noose around their neck. Others were just in somewhat questionable taste, like a Wondra who was barely wearing anything at all, other than the mask, or an Oceanus with targets painted all over his costume.

As bad as it made her feel, having met Oceanus and knowing what a sweet man he was, she still couldn't help but giggle at the last one. It seemed difficult to get through a week without seeing a story on the news about some new injury he had gotten.

But surely these weren't all metas... It seemed impossible, or at least improbable, for so many to be in one place. Especially a place like this. Most of them did not have a very good sense of humor about themselves or their chosen... hobby. And, when she thought about it, there weren't many who would dare make fun of other metas who had gotten killed.

"Good show," a man told her, clapping her on the back, sending her sliding a few inches with the impact. "Very clever."

"Umm... Thanks..." she fumbled, not sure how to take that. If these weren't other metas, and of that she was pretty certain by then, did they realize she was the real White Rabbit? It seemed unlikely, especially when the next person spoke to her.

"Great choice," she said. "Damn kids, thinking they can push their elders around just because they've got powers. What's this world coming to, huh?" She walked away, shaking her head, while the White Rabbit struggled to keep herself from chasing her down and beating her to a pulp. Was that really what people thought? She wasn't naive enough to believe everyone loved her, but she'd never encountered anything quite like that.

"Did you see her during the Giga-Golem fight in LA?" someone else asked. "She has got to be the single most worthless meta ever born."

She restrained herself from pointing out that had been one of the earliest missions she'd been allowed on, and she had been expressly forbidden to come within a block of the actual battle. And so, of course, half of the news footage of the fight consisted of her standing there, playing with her cell phone - she'd gotten a new one for her birthday just a few days ago. The fight had been pretty straight-forward, after all, and there wasn't a whole lot to watch. Once you'd seen a giant monster get hit a few hundred times, it started to get a little boring.

"Not bad," nodded an Odin with a ball gag over his mask approvingly.

"Yeah, you too." Her voice came out less sarcastic than she would have liked, since she was pretty sure all those BDSM rumors were totally unfounded, not to mention ridiculous.

"Not enjoying yourself?"

"No, this is a blast," she told the voice, having no trouble sounding sarcastic that time. "Best party ever. Why don't you tell me where you are so I can come thank you for bringing me here."

"Now, why do I get the idea that's not all you want to do?" it cooed.

"What is the point of this stupid costume?" she asked, wanting the voice to keep talking, let her figure out what she was up against. "Are you getting off on all this? What kind of sick pervert are you?"

"You wound me," the mask answered dryly. "It's hardly my fault you have no sense of humor."

"Neither do your guests," she shot back. Everyone had begun to pull away from her, though it felt like more of them than ever were staring at her and whispering to each other.

"Oh, theirs is the very finest. Apparently you just aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate it. Though I can't say I'm surprised." There was something there, in the voice, something odd. It sounded, perhaps, like it was hiding a touch of wounded pride.

That was just the sort of thing she'd been hoping for. If there was one thing most of the Squadron's nemeses had in common, it was pride - you needed a lot of it to think you could take on that many metas by yourself and actually come out on top. But what had she said that had upset this one?

She'd been talking about the people at the party, and their sense of humor... Going just from the latter, she might think it was Chuckles, but not only would he not be speaking, he hadn't been seen for years, ever since he successfully robbed five banks in one day and, most people agreed, moved to the Bahamas. Also, she really, really did not want to have to fight a mime. Giant lizards and vampires she could handle, but there was just something about mimes that freaked her out.

Jester, then? No, he was dead. Maybe The Ventriloquist? Now that one made a lot of sense, except for the part where she had supposedly reformed.

But maybe, she thought, mind going back to a newspaper headline she'd seen just a few days before, this person wasn't -controlling- the crowd. Maybe they -were- the crowd.

Word was that Simulacrum had escaped from prison earlier that week. She'd never been entirely clear on what his - or was ir her? - powers were, exactly. S/he could make copies of him/herself, but they weren't exact copies, seeing as they weren't all the same gender, nor did they tend to act anything alike. Except that she was pretty sure they all had reasons to hate all of the "good guys" who had crossed their various paths and eventually caught them. She'd never gone up against them personally, but she was sure that wouldn't stop them from using her to send a message to the rest of the Squadron.

She had several seconds to revel in the fact that she had actually worked it all out for herself before she couldn't hold off the horror of what it actually meant any longer. She'd found her captor - all 200 of them. How could she take them all out by herself? And how was she going to keep from tipping her hand, from letting them know that she knew?

Check your surroundings, she reminded herself. There's always something to use. It was one of the basic principles Lumina, her main combat instructor, was always trying to drill into her mind. Just take the time to stop, look around. Lumina went on and on about how many times doing so had saved her life, and maybe even the whole team, and blah blah blah.

But then, for the first time, as she glanced skyward, White Rabbit began to think that her teacher might have had the right idea.

She still wasn't used to walking in those damned slippers, or else things would have been a lot simpler. Even so, she was pretty sure she had it all worked out so that, with any luck, it wouldn't matter too much. She whirled around, started running straight for the staircase, ducking in between people to keep from having to slow down too much before she got close enough.

The first jump didn't go quite as well as she'd hoped, though at least she'd somehow kept herself from crashing into the stairs, as she'd been afraid for a moment she would, but she managed somehow to get her feet under her in time to jump again, this time landing on the railing nearly halfway to the top. She lost a precious few seconds waving her arms around like an idiot to keep from falling back onto her ass again, which, once she'd jumped from there up onto the railing of the balcony below, didn't give her nearly enough time to position herself again.

So she held her breath, said a little prayer, and launched herself backwards. She somehow managed to avoid slamming her head into the ceiling above, and, by some further miracle, ended up close enough to the chandelier that she'd been able to grab ahold of it with one hand, though she nearly lost her grip as the full weight of her body was suddenly being supported by just that hand. Pain shot through her shoulder and tears stung her eyes, but she held on, reaching up with her other hand as the sound of creaking and cracking from above greeted her ears.

She pulled herself onto the chandelier at just about the same time as it pulled itself free of the ceiling, and began to plummet to the ground. Unfortunately, she didn't even get to see it land, as glorious as the crash sounded. Instead, she jumped off a few second before impact, making sure she'd get far enough away to avoid most of the flying glass, landing on the shoulders of a Simulacrum copy dressed as some meta she didn't even recognize, then hopping down off of him as he began to fall.

She spun, her foot catching the man in the back as he fell, launching him into a nearby group, still standing and staring, dumbfounded. One of the women standing closer to her was a little more quick-witted, and leapt forward at her, arms outstretched.

White Rabbit wasn't anywhere near her top speed, but she was more than fast enough to dodge that, knocking the woman's feet out from under her before she even realized she'd missed. She ducked another man's fist, and had time to admonish him with a, "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to hit girls?" before she kicked him in the stomach.

As he stumbled backwards and started to fall, he bumped into someone else, and in the ensuing tangle of falling bodies, his mask came loose, and fell, almost in slow motion, revealing the person underneath.

A person who was, most definitely, not any iteration of Simulacrum. "Daddy?" she whispered, too shocked to go to him. She turned to look at the people still struggling to get out from under the chandelier, many of whom had also lost their masks, or had them knocked askew. She saw Shellie, one of her coworkers, there, and her math teacher from third grade, strangely enough. What were they all doing there? Surely they didn't all hate metas... Her dad, at the very least, couldn't, just couldn't!

And then, from the corner of her eye, blood dripping down the side of her face, she saw Gossamer, or Gossamer's civilian identity, anyway.

"Wait... What?" If Gossamer was there, why hadn't she helped her, or at least stopped her? And why in the world would she be there in the first place?

"All right, just stop the program," Lumina's voice boomed, and all of the sudden, the ballroom began to shimmer, then vanish out from under her. The costume, also vanished, leaving her in the clothes she'd been wearing earlier that day, though she felt a sudden rush of vertigo as her mind realized her body was lying down rather than standing up.

"Are you okay?" asked The Sorceress, reaching out to pat her hand. "I've been told it can be a bit disorienting coming back out of my illusions."

White Rabbit nodded slowly, her mind still trying to piece everything together. "You... You guys kidnapped me?" she inquired finally. The Sorceress nodded with a blush.

"I don't know if I'd put it quite like that," she protested. "We did have your parents' permission."

"We couldn't let you know what was going on," Lumina interjected. "It throws the whole test off."

"A test?" White Rabbit started to sit up, but got only halfway there before her head started to spin too much, forcing her to lay back down. "What kind of a test was that? That was seriously messed up!"

"And so are our enemies," Lumina countered. "They'll use anything they can to mess with you, to throw you off your game, screw with your mind."

It started to fall into place then, when she heard that. "There was no bad guy at the party at all, was there? He was probably watching from China or something."

"A lair downtown, actually, but same theory," Lumina nodded. "It's too bad you didn't work that out before you injured all those innocent civilians."

"Innocent?" White Rabbit coughed. "Did you see what they were... Well, of course you did."

"There are those who don't like us. You know that." Lumina shook her head. "That doesn't mean they deserve to get killed if you go off half-cocked."

"Well, I didn't deserve to get snatched off the street and brainwashed, did I?" she shot back.

"It's not brainwashing..." The Sorceress protested.

"Excuse me... I didn't deserve to get snatched off the street and subjected to your screwed up little fantasy, did I?!"

"Calm yourself," Lumina commanded, and a ball of light engulfed them. White Rabbit felt her heart's beating start to slow a bit, but she wasn't any happier about what they'd done to her. "This was a necessary test," she began to explain, using that annoying teacher's tone she had. "We needed to see if you were ready to become a full member."

"I assume I failed," she said icily.

"Hardly anyone passes their first time," The Sorceress chirped.

"And they all get humiliated in front of everyone they know?!" she demanded. At a more calm moment, she might have reflected that there were likely worse things they could have made her wear, or do, though even then she would tell herself that it wasn't like they -had- to do anything of the sort, that surely it would have been just as effective to keep her in her street clothes.

"Well, those were just supposed to be random people, but I thought that would get your attention a little more, you know, just..." The Sorceress prattled on, even as Lumina started on her own lecture.

"To be a member of the Squadron, you need to be able to look past any of your own concerns, and concentrate on saving lives, rather than worrying about your own dignity and happiness. No matter what is done to you, you..."

"Oh, shut up!" the Rabbit roared, actually sitting up this time. "Just shut up! Do you really think I care about any of that?!"

"Well, you'd better, young lady, if..." Lumina began, only to be interrupted.

"Now, I know you're upset, dear, but just..."

"If you plan on becoming a member of the Squadron," Lumina cut her teammate off with a glare, "then you had better start caring."

"I guess it's a good thing," she said, getting to her feet, pleased at how quickly she was recovering, "I don't plan on doing that."

She didn't feel confident enough in her strength to kick Lumina in the face, as she would dearly have liked to, so she simply walked away, while The Sorceress called after her that she should take a few days to cool down, and everything would make more sense, then. She heard Lumina assure the other woman that White Rabbit would be back.

She was tempted to turn around then; it took all her strength not to. Oh, she would be back all right, but it wouldn't be to beg for that old hag to teach her whatever asinine tricks the team wanted her to know, so she could be a good little soldier like all of them.

Lumina was right about one thing - she knew there were people out there who hated her, just because she was born with a few little special abilities. And she was definitely not going to go through anything like what had happened in the illusion again for their sakes.

And she was sure as hell not going to let Lumina get away with putting her through that. No, scratch that... She wasn't going to let the Squadron get away with it. They were probably all in on it, even Gossamer, smiling and laughing with her just the day before as if nothing was going on.

Well, screw 'em all.

She slammed the front door of the headquarters behind her, stepped out into the clear, Halloween air, full moon shining bright above her.

And the Rabbit began to make plans for the hunt.