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It worked. It worked perfectly; just a step, an outstretched hand, and instead of running into the screen they stepped... well, into the screen. Damnit. So it was Gawain's power, after all.

The setting was a familiar one, for both of them.

"...In tonight's top story, I present to you a torrid drama of love and betrayal, murder and drugs, unanswered questions and—Gawain?" The redhead behind the desk saw Maxine, too—green eyes met green, with a mutual flare of competitive recognition. But really, how did a girl address her doppelganger?

"Ick," the real Maxine said, squinting at herself. "Yeah, I definitely could have eased back on the mascara."

"...Gawain," her pre-recorded self said, as paperclip tentacles crawled up and over the desk front threateningly. "Explain."

"What did I just say, about the minions, and the sharp objects impaling them?" Maxine huffed, hands on her hips. Though she had to admit, the look on the Blue Fairy's face almost made it worth it. Not to mention the special effects: in the real movie, didn't that raven get turned into stone?

The animators really should have considered rainbow explosions from the get-go. For Great Justice.

"Oh, well. Rex would have been jealous, anyway." She sighed, in what might have been her first pardon as the Dark Fairy's heir apparent. Her Majesty wasn't long for this world, at the rate that fight was going. Sure the green fire was impressive, and the black thorns an imposing atmospheric backdrop. It was all in good villainy until someone took a sword to the heart. Which would be right about—

"Expelliarmus!"

The last of the good fairies' wands went tumbling into the abyss, after the dragon's body. Maxine blew lightly on the top of her own, and slipped it back up her sleeve with a gunslinger's flourish as the three fairies crowded defensively around their conquering prince.

Remember that dark shadow from the forest, that had so obligingly hidden them from Aurora during her little song and dance number? It was back, settling over Maxine's shoulders. She tucked in its edges at her throat as it coalesced into a dark mantle, and a crown of eight silver-tipped horns. Nice. Clearly, the animators knew how to pick their victor.

"Thank you for your assistance, ladies." She said. "Now. Why don't you run along, and wake up the Princess Aurora? You can rest assured that she and Prince Philip have my blessings." Her lips curved into a properly diabolical smile. "Just don't forget to invite us to the wedding."

The Queen was dead. Long live the Queen.

They didn't technically have to move on. There were a lot of things Maxine was willing to do for the sake of ratings. Given five more seconds to think about it, she might have grinned, and...

The scene change was just as well, really.

Maxine gave a flippant twitch of her wand, setting the brave prince free from his horrible shackles, etc. She kept the wand out after she was done, but tried to point it at no one in particular.

"The Good Fairy Maya has shown me the error of my ways," she intoned, "and freed me from the dark influence of Maleficent. Oh please, allow me to right my past transgressions, and help save this noble kingdom."

Had she ever seen a villain get redeemed in a Disney movie? Eh. If they didn't buy it, she and Maya would just have to lock them in a closet again. Win-win.

"Oh, I don't know," the redhead said casually. "I'm sure they're desperate, yes, but I like to think of it more as a reflection of my place in the community." Rather than as an implication that people would only contact her when they were desperate. She didn't know quite why that rubbed her the wrong way, but it did. She'd spoken out for the Americans who went missing in Romania, hadn't she? She reported weekly on the local mutant-human interactions, didn't she? Why wouldn't parents turn to her? Especially when the missing kids seemed to be mostly mutants. Really, she worried about all the ones that were going unreported, because of that—not every parent would care if their mutant child disappeared. Some would consider it awfully convenient. Hmm... Note to self: look into runaway statistics in mutants v. human children. That could make for an interesting segment.

And there the woman went, just assuming that a mutant was involved in the crime, outside of being the victim.

>> "I just come from a place that seems a lot more segregated than here..."

"I'm sure you'll get used to things," Maxine said, with the most understanding smile imaginable. You are going to get eaten alive, blondey.

Maxine accepted the business card. Not to be outdone, she reached into her fanny pack, and pulled out one of her own.

Maxine Ralls
Wolf News

Send office supply invoices to...

She always carried cards: it was the only way she could avoid being prosecuted for shop lifting every time her power caused a flock of stock to fly out a shop's doors in her wake.

"What capacity are you consulting in, Lumen?" She asked, as a pen wiggled out of the fanny pack's open zipper, and flew up to her waiting hand. She held it poised over the card, clearly ready to add in the occupation line that was so blatantly missing from the woman's information.

Twenty feet; about the distance from this room to its neighbors on either side, through concrete walls freshly painted.

In the room to left, there was a newspaper being read for the second time by a teenager lying in bed (the stock market still sucked; so did the economy; so did being locked in a room with a light bulb, a bed, and yesterday's newspaper). There was a pen, that he'd stolen on his last mission, and a paperclip, which he was vaguely considering trying to unscrew the vent covers with.

In the room to the right, there was a jumbo box of colored pens—the good kind, thanks boss!—tumbled over on its side on a desk, and a fresh stack of printer paper being scribbled through in real time. A Swiss army knife (in Butcher's Red and Hi Ho Silver); a Seattle Mariners hat (in Peace Lily White and Mesopelagic Teal); a telescoping lens that would fit her sniper rifle so good (lovingly shaded in Camo Coat Green and Sunny Camel Brown). A sketch animator never knew what she'd need.

All told, that was forty-six pens, one hundred and one paper clips, and a simple, every-day sheaf of five hundred sheets. Also one newspaper, twice read.

Maxine wasn't paying much attention to them, of course; she was a bit busy at the moment, gasping at Vicente's bad manners—he'd thrown a knife. He'd actually thrown a knife! At her!

(That's not to say they were not paying attention to Maxine.)

As the paperclip school defensively tightened its mesh to block the knife, a tapping started up on the walls—a very persistent, repetitive tapping. Just a lone tap from the left; an entire angry flock from the right.

A miniature black abyss opened in the path of Vicente's second knife, swallowing it in midair. The snap of the monkey tailed man's fingers as it opened could almost be missed with the sudden noise from the walls, but his amused expression certainly wouldn't be.

(A single paperclip wiggled its way under the closed door, easily scooting past Vince's shoe to join the school in front of Maxine.)

"Uh-uh, Vince," he said, his tail draped over one arm of the chair, "if you want to fight the big boys, you'd better take down the little girl first."

After the paperclip came the paper. White and solid, rustling past like a howl. Like the pen had gone for Vicente's blood, the paper went straight towards the redhead—

—Who met it with a smile, an airy hum, and a complete lack of flinching.

"Shut up and do what you're told, for once."

The paper spun for a moment more; a tornado in place. Its papers contracted, coalesced, its form becoming more clear as it packed itself more solidly into existence.

A single newspaper page, half-torn where a hand had tried to grab it, slipped under the door and drifted up to settle as a gray-typed mask over its snout.

"You haven't even shifted yet, Vincey," she smiled. "I can't help but think you're not taking me seriously."

The paper dog looked quite ready to kill someone. Maxine hummed an obliging tune.

Maxine took the offered hand and, with a smile that was nearly non-nefarious, stepped with him into the next scene.

The prince was talking modernist circles around his father; how cute. Almost as cute as iridescent wings on a young Black Knight. She couldn't help but give them a little tug as they watched. Just like at the start of the movie, no one was paying them any particular mind. No real need to infer, here, either; the Prince could go and get himself captured all he wanted.

Wait. Captured? That meant that in the next scene, they'd be face-to-face with—

"Crap." She whipped out her wand, and pointed it at Prince Charming's back with zero remorse. "Hog tie!"

He face planted the ground, right in front of a certain queen's feet. Maxine curtsied, keeping a good grip on her wand.

"Your majesty; a gift for you. So; we were discussing a certain princess?" She said, somewhat out of breath.

Fairy Queens were known for being more suspicious about good tidings than sixteen year old girls were.