Ribbons of Justice
an excerpt

Chapter 1 - Death to Pop Stars

...And I'll be with you 'til eternity,
'til the sun comes 'round the stars!
Babe, you can't imagine,
how much you mean to my heart...

"What the shit?"

Smack.

"Ow! What? You can't tell me that made any sense!"

"It doesn't have to, dumbass. It just has to sound good."

"But... but the sun can't come around the stars! I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure the sun doesn't go 'round' anything except the centre of the galaxy."

"Well, then it's kind of going around the stars, right? Just going around with them instead."

Damien Beck shook his head, dyed violet bangs swishing in front of his eyes as he did so. "Still, just... Ugh, you suck! Why are we watching this again, Nina?"

Before Nina could answer, the third member of the group, who had been silent up to this point, interjected: "Because we always make her watch our punk and rock stuff and she hasn't got a turn in a while?"

"Candy, that's just because her music sucks," Damien said with a joking grin.

Smack.

"Ow!"

"You wuss. My grandma could take a harder hit without flinching," Nina snickered, withdrawing her hand and turning her attention back toward the large television screen in front of them. A voluptuous woman wearing a feather in her hair and a tight, sparkling "dress" that left bare iotas to the imagination continued to sing sentimental, incomprehensible lyrics to a catchy, pop music beat that she almost certainly had not composed herself. "Anyway, you have your shallow hair bands, I have my shallow silicone receptacles."

"Oh, now you don't diss on the hair bands," Damien shot back, though he was close to cracking up with laughter of his own by this point. "Power be to the shaggy blondes with tight leather pants and killer guitar riffs."

"And I say you both suck for not bowing to the awesome might that is Beethoven," Candy joined in again, poking Damien playfully in the ribs with a manicured, black-painted nail. "So why don't we leave you guys on that level of equality and just watch the damn concert."

"Ever the diplomat," Damien said with a soft chuckle, casually putting an arm around Candy's shoulders. Nina stuck the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth at the two of them, not looking away from her swaying, possibly lip-synching idol.

...And I'll be with you 'til eternity,
'til we see the lights from Mars!
Babe, just can't express,
these special feelings of ours.

"See, there it is again! There aren't any lights on Mars! It's, like, a red dustball!" Damien protested.

"You sure you don't like science, Dames?" Candy asked as she leaned her head on Damien's shoulder. Nina was now tuning out the conversation in favour of hearing out the rest of the song. "You sound like quite the astronomer."

"Don't like the class. Some science things, they're all right, though. Bill Nye is good peoples. Probably one of the best peoples."

"Better peoples than Beakman?"

"...Damn you."

"Love you too, honey."

Damien and Candy were silent as well at that, with no further protests from Damien despite the lyrics getting progressively more and more ridiculous as the catchy tune went on.

When the song was finally over, the on-screen crowd roared with applause. The idol bowed, perfectly showing off the top of her perfectly plastic assets to all of her adoring fans. "Give it up for Alaria!" an announcer called in the background, though he was nearly drowned out by the cheering. Alaria took another bow, blew some air kisses, and did a quick twirl on the spot, which served only to make the crowd's fervour rise even further.

"What do you want to bet people will have to Google her stupid lyrics just to remember what her fake-ass name is in a couple weeks? Maybe a month, tops?" Damien jabbed to no one in particular.

"Mm, maybe for other girls in the biz, but not Alaria," answered Nina. "Didn't you forget? She's got one thing that all the others don't--"

As if by magic, just before Nina could finish her sentence, the camera angle on the television switched to show a man in a suit barging onto the stage and tromping straight toward Alaria. The plastic idol stopped moving, slowly turning toward the man with a pouting look across her lips. When the man reached her, he leaned down to her ear and whispered something for a few moments. Alaria nodded when he was finished, and then turned to face her fans again as the man quickly left the stage.

"Like, I'm sooooo sorry guys, but I'm gonna have to cut it short there!" The crowd was seemingly divided on this announcement. Most shouted cries of disappointment, but a sizeable number cheered, though not for the reason Damien might have cheered had he physically been in the audience. This portion of the audience knew what the man had come onto the stage for, and were excited to see what was to follow even if it meant their concert experience was cut short.

"Oh yeah. She's one of those... what do you call 'em?" Damien asked, looking down at his girlfriend when his mind blanked on the term.

"Shows how much you pay attention to the world around you," Candy said, giggling softly.

On the television, Alaria closed her eyes, removed the feather from her hair, and held the stem in both hands in front of her chest.

"They're powered agents, Dames," Candy supplied.

"HEAVENLY AURA, ARISE!"

Alaria's voice rang throughout the stadium and through the television speakers, suddenly a bit deeper and more purposeful than it had been before. More than half the stadium seemed to freeze in place at that, as a pale pink, blue and white glow began to form around her and expand outward.

"Or magical girls, if you wanna be politically incorrect."

"Well I knew the whole 'magical girl' thing," Damien said, sounding slightly defensive and hiding a light blush. "Just forgot the real name that the news and stuff uses. I don't tend to follow the stories about them. That's all," he added, watching as Alaria's form glowed bright white in the centre of the pastel-coloured cloud, metamorphosing while her audience stared in silent, awed attention.

"But anyway, if she wasn't one of these girls, you're probably right. She'd got chewed up and spit out within a few months like every other pop girl, if not sooner," said Candy. She shot a wry grin at Nina and continued, "And don't pretend that's not true, you."

"I didn't say anything," Nina answered, grinning a little herself.

When the transformation on the stage was finished, the girl before the people was no longer Alaria. Even though everyone watching her knew that to be her true identity, there was some sort of pull in the backs of their minds, forcing them to push aside the likenesses between Alaria and this girl. This girl, with a pair of white wings on her back and clad in a short, flowing white robe with a blue sash, white skirt, and high-heeled pink boots, was Heavenly Feather.

Finally, the spell on the crowd was broken, and the cheering resumed. Fans bid their farewells as Heavenly Feather waved, spread her wings, and with a little jump, flew off into the sky over the stadium, the camera following her as well as it could until she was gone.

"Well great. Chicago crime's gonna get a can of flooffy whoop-ass, and we don't have to watch this stupid concert anymore. It's win-win!" Damien said, pumping his fist in the air triumphantly.

"Man, I wish we had one of those girls here too," said Nina, reluctantly turning on the living room lights, then taking the remote and switching off the television. "All Calgary's got is cowboys and high rent. We need something more exciting!"

"Well if that's all we've got, then why would we need one of those girls?" Candy asked, disentangling herself from Damien's embrace and stretching. "The police take care of crime well enough. Agents tend to be in real, real big cities, the kind with so much crime going on that no one but a superhuman can take care of it all."

"Um... Uh..." Nina fumbled for an answer as she walked toward the kitchen door.

"Maybe she could round up all the homeless people and zap all the dirt off of them with her magical beams," joked Damien.

"Yeah, then get one of those Wonder Woman lassos and drag them all into a big, magical homeless shelter!" Candy chimed in.

"Magical in what way?" Damien asked.

"Um, never-ending soup! And sleeping bags! Never-ending supply of sleeping bags!"

"Heheh, yeah! And if it has never-ending sleeping bags, it could double as one of those cheap Japanese hotels. You know, the ones where you pay, like, twenty bucks for a bit of space on a giant mattress, or for your own personal capsule?" said Damien.

"I've never heard of those, actually. Where'd you find out about that?" Candy asked, intrigued.

"Project that I'm doing for my journalism elective. I'm doing an article on cheap ways to travel the world," Damien answered, blushing a little bit again.

"Aww, I'd like to read that when it's done!" Candy said, smiling up at her boyfriend as they both stood up, following Nina to the kitchen. "You always write such great stuff and do good research."

"I just like to find out stuff like that, that's all," Damien said, brushing off the compliment as his blush deepened a shade against his tanned skin. "I like surfing around the internet and finding out cool shit about the world and what's happening. I'm not really that good."

"Bullcrap, that's your only A+ class!" Nina called from the pantry. She stepped out of it, holding two cans. "Anyway, cheese soup, or steak stew - now with real steak?"

"Heheh, it wasn't real before?" Damien asked, taking the food opportunity to stop talking about his journalism class. As he moved toward Nina, he could have sworn he saw a shadow rustling outside the kitchen's sliding door, but when he looked again, all he saw were patches of moonlight shining through the backyard bushes.

"Apparently not. At least so close to not real that they had to put this weird 'now with real steak!' label on the front of it," Nina answered, handing the can over to Damien so that he could have a look at it.

"Weird," said Candy, who was looking disappointedly at her boyfriend's back while he pretended to read the ingredients in the stew.

Within a few more minutes, the "real" steak stew was on Nina's stovetop in a pot, bubbling away. "So what do you guys wanna do after we eat?" she asked, brushing some of her long, dark brown hair behind her shoulders and leaning against the kitchen counter.

Damien shrugged. "Dunno. You already said you didn't want to go skating again. I can't think of much else, though."

"I wouldn't mind going for another skate," said Candy, looking at Nina. "Are you sure you don't want to?"

"I suppose I could... I just didn't really feel like going out again," Nina answered, crossing her arms and tilting her head in thought. "I guess I could go if you guys want to. But we'd have to ask my dad first. He doesn't like me going out walking after dark, let alone on a board."

"Eeugh, not good. He'd probably drop a 'no' on you like a ton of bowling balls. With spikes on them," said Candy, putting a finger to her chin in thought.

"I wonder if we should maybe just go after we eat. My mom wants to make sure I study for our Science test tomorrow," Damien suggested, though he seemed as disappointed as Candy that they couldn't go skateboarding.

"Yeah, maybe we should. It's getting a little late. But thanks for having us over, Nina. It's always fun," said Candy, smiling at her friend.

"Sorry, guys. I wish we could go out too, but... yeah, you know," Nina apologized with an embarrassed giggle. "But still, we will have our real steak before you go! And it shall be as magnificent as Alaria's magic feather thing!"

Damien pumped his fist in the air again "Yes! Onward, to magnificent steak chunks!"

~~~~~