Ultraday! Nothing Could Go Wrong!
Cindy, Leia, Mimi, Kerri, Diabloman, Larry all stood there waiting for me to create the portal to the Ultraday celebration. While Diabloman and Kerri weren’t coming, they were there to see us off. Larry looked uncomfortable and I knew I should probably speak with him about what was going on, but I was just glad he was coming. In a weird way, he was the biggest connection I had right now to the original Mandy—and someone I was determined to reunite with the shadow of his mother. Incredible disaster as that might turn out to be.
I put down the Boom Box of Destiny, presently playing Kenny Loggins’ “Nobody’s Fool” (The theme from Caddyshack II for those not up on their soundtrack trivia) and pulled out the Sword of Samael in its knife form. The knife transformed into a sword, and I heft it up to try to cut a hole in reality.
“Gary, are you sure it’s wise to use the Devil’s sword?” Kerri asked, watching from the sidelines.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Jewish people don’t believe in the Devil!”
“Just demons,” Leia said, wearing a pleasant summer dress with a minimum of attention paid to makeup and fashion. It was, all in all, a fantastic contribution to her normal fashion sense. She was also playing around on her infopad, which was hardly a rare occurrence for her.
“What are you doing?” Mimi asked.
“Day trading,” Leia said. “I’m using Dad’s golden parachute and buy out money to build a corporation devoted to mad science.”
Cindy gave me a sideways look. “See, this is why I don’t let her touch my side of the fortune.”
“Hey Dad, you own Trans-Bavaria now,” Mimi said, looking over her sister’s shoulder.
Cindy’s face drooped. “I always wanted my own country!”
“Stop financing war crimes!” Leia said, frowning. “Then maybe I’ll buy you your own country.”
“Oh, everything finances war crimes!” Cindy said, defensively. “Where do you think sneakers come from!”
“Yeah, my vote of no confidence as CEO was due to my decision to have our cybernetic war panda division in China only use ethically sourced volunteer pandas,” Kerri said, pressing the tips of her forefingers together guiltily. “Ooo, man, were those guys mad.”
“Cybernetic war pandas are big business,” Diabloman said, nodding. “It’s the merchandising.”
“Now I feel guilty about my Pandamon cards growing up,” Larry muttered.
“Ooo, we should compare decks,” Mimi said, cheerfully. “Sadly, Leia mathematically sorts hers in the most crushing combinations and it just takes all the fun out of it.”
“Winning is fun,” Leia said, not taking her gaze from her infopad. “Dad, do you want the city of Raven’s Roost?”
“No one wants Raven’s Roost,” I replied, clumsily raising the sword over my head.
“I do!” Cindy said. “We can crowdfund a massive campaign to move everyone there somewhere decent and keep most of the money!”
“Never change, guys,” I said, swinging the Sword of Samael like the Reaper’s Scythe. I hoped the two magical artifacts worked the same way.
I was pleased to say the sword sliced through space/time just as easily and created a portal to the Stephen Soldiers Memorial national park near Washington DC. It said something that the government hadn’t bothered to do anything to honor the tried-and-true WW2 hero known as the Prismatic Commando (former AmeriCommando) until after his death. Then again, Stephen Soldiers hadn’t been the sort of guy who cared about statues or honors. Indeed, he probably would have said to make any park named in his esteem into something honoring the common soldiers who’d dedicated their lives to preserving freedom.
“I bought all your holdings, Mom,” Leia said. “You’re fired.”
Cindy’s omega phone pinged, and she pulled it out of her $15,000 purse before checking it. “So, you did.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Mimi said. “Except not really. You’re kind of terrible.”
“It’s fine,” Cindy said. “I’ll just go back to scamming suckers by saying Ultragod stole the election.”
Everyone turned to look at her. “Wait, that’s you behind all those ads?”
“What?” Cindy asked. “You’d rather the money go to someone who actually believes it?”
I stared. “Cindy, you may actually just be too evil for me.”
Cindy shrugged. “I’ll just pretend to be redeemed for a few months and get with a superhero. Then everyone will forgive me for all the crimes and give me a pardon. It’s a common tactic. Certainly, it worked for you and Ultragoddess.”
Sometimes there were no words. “Let’s get going, guys.”
The others were already in a heated argument, though.
Cindy sighed. “Fine, I’ll donate the money to charity, but I’m not giving up my co-ownership of the National Weapons Association Network. That’s the only channel that shows my reality show.”
I shook my head, picked up my boom box, and walked through the portal, finding myself on the edge of the crowd gathered for the President’s speech. It was smaller than expected because most of the people who wanted to attend were outside of the park, kept away by Foundation agents as well as the Washington D.C. police force.
Most of the crowd were a collection of VIPs ranging from reporters to politicians to a sea of retired heroes. Many of them were wearing their uniforms, some no longer quite fitting right, while others were showing their civilian attire as if a badge of honor.
“Dammit!” Cindy said, stepping through the portal. “Costume was an option! I’m way overdressed for this.”
“It’s also in the middle of a park,” I pointed out. “Not the place for high heels.”
Cindy lifted her hand and showed off a diamond studded ring that included some stones stolen from the Dragon King’s horde. She proceeded to lift a few inches off the ground. “Ring of Levitation. Massed produced by Bad Wolf Industries in conjunction with Hasbro. The first sign your whole Dungeon magic fiasco wasn’t a complete disaster.”
“I may be starting over on that,” I murmured, not wanting to get into the fact Jacob may have removed all the Dungeon magic I’d known to let me start over without the baggage. “Get back to basics. A clean fresh start.”
“You should rename all of the spells, copyright it, and charge everyone every time they use it,” Cindy said. “At the very least, make a monthly service.”
“Not everything is about money,” I said, getting an odd sense of déjà vu.
“You know who says that, Gary?” Cindy said, increasing said sense.
“Poor people,” I interrupted. “I get it. Actually, I think rich people say it much more often.”
“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Leia said, walking through the portal with Mimi and Larry as it closed behind them. She was looking at the sky and, indeed, gray clouds were forming above us. “You’d think they could get some weather control for this public announcement.”
“Or set it at the Four Seasons,” Cindy muttered. “You might as well set this at a lawn and gardening store.”
I turned my head back to my children, only to do a doubletake as they were now dressed in thick galoshes, plastic rain yellow raincoats, and yellow hats. They also had translucent umbrellas in their hands.
“How?” I started to ask before thinking better. My children were second and fourth generation Supers. They followed cartoon logic even more than I did. Besides, any question I had could probably just be answered with “magic” or “science”.
“Ugh,” Cindy said. “I’m going to get wet and not in the good way.”
“You can always do the dog fur shake,” Leia suggested.
“Ha-ha,” Cindy said. “Not in this jewelry. It’s like throwing away money.”
Leia handed her mother her umbrella before pulling out an identical one from her pocket that could not fit one. Yeah, we were dealing with extradimensional super-science or sorcery here.
Cindy took it and looked at Larry. “So, you’re Mandy’s bastard, huh?”
“Yeah,” Larry said, looking uncomfortable.
“Nice to meet you,” Cindy said. “I just want you to know I hate Joan Rowling too.”
“Uh, thanks,” Larry said, offput as only someone approached out of the blue about their identity by a stranger can be. “Can we just be friends by never speaking again?”
“Sounds good,” Cindy said, making finger guns. “If you ever want to market the Ultra-Paladin brand, well, talk to my daughter. She owns my company now.”
Larry smirked, clearly assuming she was joking, and Leia hadn’t literally made a few billion dollars in the past hour. “I actually haven’t settled on a name. It seems disrespectful to try to take part of another superhero’s name without their permission.”
“Otherwise, you end up in a lawsuit like that poor Pakistani girl, Prism Girl,” I replied. “You know, with Colonel Prism.”
“That was Colonel Prism’s lawyers, and you know it!” Leia snapped, uncharacteristically intense. “Prism Girl is awesome and the best superhero to come out in the past twenty years!”
“What are you, in her fan club?” Cindy said.
Leia stared. “I hosted Prism Con in our backyard last month.”
“Oh,” Cindy said. “I thought it was an invasion by a gang of Rainbow Brite cosplayers. Either that or a Pride Day thing.”
“In any case, Ultragod has spent his entire life trying to be a symbol to inspire others,” I said. “He absolutely wouldn’t object to you using the Ultragod brand to save the innocent, protect the helpless, and so on.”
“Yeah, but his lawyers would kill your entire family and eat them,” Cindy said. “Which, wait, your family is Mandy and the Coltons, who are all a bunch of evil superspies.”
“Morally ambiguous superspies,” Larry corrected. “Also, a family of Londonium dentists raised me.”
“What happened to them?” I asked.
“They got killed by a giant robot,” Larry said.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said.
Larry shrugged. “It’s like the third most common way to die on the island after car wrecks and heart disease. I just don’t want to get in any trouble with the Anders family.”
“Which is why you’ve named yourself after the only guy who has killed Ultragod and Ultragoddess,” Cindy said.
“Wait, what?” Larry asked.
“I didn’t kill Ultragod!” I snapped, panicked. “That was Merciful pretending to be me! Also, ix-nay on mentioning killing the President-ay at his celebration-ay.”
“You’ve also killed the President,” Cindy said. “Admittedly, not this President.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill-kill Charles Omega,” I muttered. “Much to my disappointment.”
Larry looked ready to run for his life and I didn’t blame him.
Thankfully, Mimi came to save the day and grabbed him by the armor by putting her hand on him. Which if that doesn’t make sense, Ultragod and Ultragoddess don’t have super-strength and invulnerability so much as a form of hard light telekinesis that permeates their body. They’re tough as well, but it’s useful for things like picking up crashing planes or lifting buildings since they don’t fall apart due to physics.
“Hold up. My granddad gave me the legally trademarked and copyrighted name Ultragirl last year. I don’t want it. I’m doing my own thing. But I’m allowed to pass on one variant to a sidekick or recruit to the Ultra-Family. So, yes, you can be Ultra-Paladin,” Mimi said, making the papal finger gesture. “I dub thee and knight thee in the name of the House of Anders. Blah-blah-blah.”
“Wait, your granddad?” Larry did a double take. “You mean the rumors about Gary and Ultragoddess are true? I always thought they were just—”
A few months ago, the Daily Surveyor, which was the news agency people turned to when the Omega News Network (now independent) wasn’t extreme enough, did an exposé about the idea of Ultragoddess and I being together. Ultragoddess had rather brusquely dismissed the very idea. We were already broken up over the whole, “my killing her evil side that cost her the powers she’d had for decades”, but it had really hurt. I mean calling me a criminal psychopath? That’s fine. Saying I was a creepy weirdo? That was just uncalled for. Oddly, I’d started getting more fan mail from Super women afterward.
“Malicious slander?” Cindy asked.
“No, Cindy,” I said, annoyed. “It’s libel when you print it.”
“You stole that,” Cindy said.
Larry looked conflicted about all these revelations. “Wow, everyone really is related in superherodom.”
“Listen, let’s just go find Ultragod and I’ll give him his magical artifact,” I said, not mentioning it would make him the most powerful being in the Multiverse. “Then Leia can get back to her day trading.”
“Oh, I stopped day trading when I collapsed the Londonium economy. Err, sorry, Larry,” Leia said, looking up. “Sadly, Gizmo Industries is stuck at being a Fortune 500 and 1 company. A shame, but I figured I didn’t want to start any wars on Ultraday.”
“Well, there’s always tomorrow,” I said, more than slightly terrified of my daughter.
“We may have to blow up a server farm in Alabama after the announcement,” Leia said, her eyes darting back and forth. “You know, for reasons other than covering up mass wire fraud and insider trading. For some other reason that’s completely different.”
“I have guys, don’t worry,” I replied, patting my daughter on the head. “But yes, please pay attention to Ultragod’s speech, Leia. This will be a historic day.”
“I predict there’s an eighty percent chance of supervillains attacking,” Leia said, shrugging. “I intend to spend the entire time commenting on internet forums about your biographies. There’s some heavy discussion since they went on sale this week.”
“I’m sure—” I started to speak.
“They think you’ve dramatically overpowered your character and are sick of the love triangles,” Mimi spoke up, holding her own infopad.
“People love the love triangles!” I said, appalled. “That’s like how soap operas survive for eighty years!”
“People hate the love triangles,” Mimi said. “They like Mandy, Gabrielle, and Cindy but are just sick of the drama.”
“Cindy also shouldn’t get a sequel, novel” Leia said, showing me the posts. “They find her whiny.”
“Hey!” Cindy said.
“Top picks from the polls are thirty percent Mandy, twenty percent Gabrielle, ten percent Splotch, six percent Death, and two percent Cindy,” Mimi said. “There’s also one write-in vote from another dimension that thinks you should hook up with someone named Kitty Pryde. Which was posted by Weredeer2000 and no points for who that is.”
“What’s the remaining thirty-two percent?” I asked.
“They think you should hook up with Other Gary,” Mimi said. “It’s the fifty-third most popular fanfic pairing on WeirdPad.”
“I hate the internet,” I muttered.
“Why only two percent?” Cindy asked. “It’s because they think I can do better, isn’t it?”
“Don’t ask, Cindy,” I said, looking over at her. “In that way lies madness.”
“They think you’re a rip off of a previous supervillain called HarleQueen,” Leia said, reading from a sheet. “Apparently, she was a Golden Age supervillainess. She has a sexy granddaughter younger than you are, too.”
Cindy blinked. “How many forum users are on this superhero board?”
“It’s a major site so like eight million,” Leia said.
“Get me their names,” Cindy said. “They must all die.”
“Mom—” Leia said.
“All of them!” Cindy said.
“Doesn’t she not age as a werewolf?” Larry asked.
“Shh,” Mimi said, putting her forefinger to her lips. “It’s more fun if you never remind her of this fact.”
“The same for your father,” a familiar female voice spoke nearby. Thankfully, she wasn’t behind me, and I saw her arriving.
It was Gabrielle in a suit of Ultranian armor and she was accompanied by the new Prismatic Commando (formerly the new AmeriCommando), Sam Eagles.
I gave us a fifty percent shot of not being arrested.