Queen Fic

	The Queen of the World looked over her servant’s handiwork with an air of utter satisfaction.  The guards had been tied with rope, the security cameras disabled (smashed to pieces, really), and the workers who kept the waterworks running were all kneeling before her.  She really had to hand it to herself, the plan had gone swimmingly.  She looked over the huddled group of peasants disdainfully before pointing to one that looked half-way competent.  “You!  Stand before me,” she said, infusing a hefty dose of her charm in the command.
	 The woman stumbled upright, eyes already going dazed and unfocused, then stepped through her colleagues to stand at attention in front of the villain.  “Can you burst the pipes at the intersection of 5th and Main Street,” the Queen asked.
	The worker blinked for a few seconds, the fairly complicated question working its way through the layers of charm, before she nodded and droned, “Sure, the water main runs right beneath Main Street.  I could up the pressure a bit, close off a few connecting pipes, and it should burst.  The main pipe is old anyway, the city council hasn’t approved funding to replace it for-“
	“That’s quite enough information, slave,” the Queen said with an irritable sigh, “I only needed to know if I could use you.  Go join your fellow serfs.”
	Nodding happily, the woman turned and returned to her place, though her coworkers looked at her meek obedience in horror.  The weak were happy to serve as always, the Queen thought with a pout, her powers really did take the fun out of insults and threats.  Turning to the full group, she snapped, “Now heed this, peasants, I need you to keep this place running until I give the call.  I can’t have the authorities reacting too soon after all.  When the phone at the front desk rings, you’ll know it is time to destroy the water main.”
	The group snapped to attention, chanting a ‘yes your majesty’ as her power invaded their minds, before wandering off to their stations.  She observed them for a few seconds to make sure the fools didn’t muck things up, then went to the front room to quickly charm the guards and give them orders to let no one into the control chamber.  It was all a bit sloppier than she usually liked, and she wasn’t sure how effective her charm would be against such a large group, but it only needed to hold for a few hours, she thought as she called her usual cadre to her side.  With a shrug, she turned and left the rather ugly building and headed towards her golden chariot.  It was perfect enough.  She had planned it, after all.
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	“Another nasty looking, boxy building,” the Queen groaned as her chariot pulled up to a warehouse.
	The servants around her just nodded in agreement, which only made her irritation grow.  You couldn’t expect anything constructive from the unwashed masses, just toadying, she thought dismissively.  Deciding to get this section of the plan over and done with as quickly as possible, she gracefully descended from the vehicle and began to direct the trucks that had followed her to their proper positions.  The 18-wheelers were rather smelly, nasty brutes, much like their charmed drivers, but she would put up with them for the plan.
	Once that thankless task was accomplished, she turned to face the warehouse, where a cluster of minions was already building around the doorway.  She had to admit that she was rather impressed, getting some initiative out of this lot was like a cow spontaneously speaking Latin.  “Get on with it then,” she said imperiously, “Let’s get this over with.”
	The door was slammed off its hinges by her servants and came clattering to the floor, quickly followed by a pile of its attackers.  Content with the flashiness of her entrance, she walked over her fallen minions and stood dramatically in the lobby, pointing at the only worker that she saw.  “Surrender now and hand over your sandbags, or face the wrath of the Queen of the World!”
	The scruffy looking teenager took a long look at the mass of brainwashed humanity that had swarmed into the building before pointing towards a doorway labeled ‘FEMA disaster relief supplies’.  “Fuck it, if they honestly expected me to protect this shit they should have paid me for this internship.  Go through those doors, take two lefts, and you’ll see pallets of the things.”
	With that, the teenager pulled out a magazine and started reading it zealously.  The Queen blinked in surprise for a few seconds, the complete lack of resistance a rather rare and unique experience, before shrugging.  It made her life easier, and she didn’t have to stoop to charming someone with lackluster facial hair.  “Forth my slaves, start loading the trucks with as much sandbags as they can hold!” she said, trying to regain the drama of the moment.
	She watched the massive human chain that sprang to work with an air of total victory before returning to her chariot.  The peasants were brain-dead and useless, but not even they could mess this part of the plan up.  Settling into the car, she looked to her driver before snapping, “And has the next part of my grand plan been prepared?”
	The man nodded and said, “Yes your majesty, the dress that you have requested has been ‘acquired’ and is waiting for you at the country club.”
	“Then what are you waiting for, slave,” she said, “A party is lacking my glorious presence.”
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	Her entrance to the party was the very definition of perfect.  A posse of her most attractive slaves came before her, dressed in impeccably fitted business suits (though conservative and black, she didn’t want them showing her up after all).  She followed, wearing a long and flowing white dress whose neckline and bodice were covered in intricate blue and gold beading.  The patterns the beads formed where poor imitations of the ones from her heyday in Egypt, but at least they were made properly out of gold and turquoise.
	She surveyed the room, noting with satisfaction the obvious power and wealth of its occupants.  Perfect.  Sweeping through the room, she made a beeline for the final target for her plan.  She didn’t move to quickly though, the trophy wives’ jealous glares were utterly delicious, and there was no reason to not enjoy every aspect of her coming victory.  Her target also turned to stare at her, the cigar he held in his teeth falling to the floor as he locked eyes with her.
	He normally wouldn’t be even a blip on her radar, a weathered but classy man in his 50’s, but it was what he wore on his head that drew her attention.  A captain’s hat.  She stood before him and let the full power of her aura wash over him.  The man’s eyes widened as he felt her influence worm into his mind, and she had to admit that she was impressed that he managed to hold against her for a full five seconds.  Sure as the sun sets in the west though, his eyes glazed over and his posture slumped.
	“So, I heard you have yachts.  Could I borrow one?” she asked sweetly, though her smile was nothing but predatory.
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	Rena jogged towards the downtown park, reluctantly pressing the button on her morpher to change into her work clothes.  The hero organization was damned lucky that she had been slacking on her missions as of late, she had to interrupt a date with Bridgette to go do this.  Well, her nemesis was the cause of her slacking now that she thought about it, but she was determined to be in a foul mood for this anyway.  She finally came to the intersection with Main Street and turned the corner, still fuming at the injustice of being a hero, but came skidding to a halt as she saw the park.
	What should have been the park, at least.  Instead of a view of the fountain, there was what appeared to be a mountain of sandbags that filled the gap between two office buildings.  A team of people were continuously adding to the pile, a pair filling the bags while a chain of workers passed the finished bags towards the pile.  She moved forward cautiously, desperately wishing her tablet had given her more information other than the villain and location, until she got close enough to notice their faces.  Their glazed eyes were unmistakable, this had to be part of the Queen’s plan.
	Seeing as how she really didn’t want to get tackled by a bunch of mooks, she decided that now would be an excellent time to try out some of that stealth training that Chet Manlystache had taught her.  She darted from parked car to parked car, crawling whenever there was a gap in cover.  The crawling was the hardest though, she had a bad habit of letting her butt stick up too far in the air and giving away her position.  She was focusing so hard on getting her technique right that she almost crawled straight into person standing in front of her.
“Hello Rena, please proceed to the ramp 100 meters to your left,” the person droned, and Rena hung her head in defeat.
	Awkwardly standing and dusting her knees off, she nodded a quick thanks and darted off towards the ramp before he could see her blush.  At least it seemed that the Queen wasn’t going to swarm her, though that just made her worry what the villain’s plan really was.  Passing through a crowd of potentially hostile workers did little to soothe her, especially since each drone would stare at her as she passed, give the same message as the one who caught her sneaking, then return to work.
	She was thoroughly creeped out by the time she reached the sandbag ramp, and darted up it as quickly as possible to just get this over with.  Maybe it was some kind of fortress or something, she thought as she climbed, maybe the Queen was making a wall with sandbags.  Her eyes widened in disbelief as she reached the roof that the ramp led to.  It seemed that she had underestimated the villain’s plan.
	The entire park had somehow been replaced by a lake.  She could see tree tops poking above the water, as well as the heads of a few statues, and small waves broke against the second story windows of the office buildings that surrounded the park.  Adding to the utter insanity of the scene, a small yacht bobbed at its moorings on the edge of the very roof she was standing on.  Rena stood and took in the scene for a few moments, trying to figure out if this was a dream or some strange hallucination brought on by a super power.  No matter how long she looked at it though, the cheerily painted boat remained at its berth and the sun’s light still glistened on the water.
A deep curiosity drove her forward, and with a short walk and a jump she was aboard the yacht.  She glanced around cautiously before walking around the cabin, dreading the inevitable trap that no doubt waited for her.  To her surprise, she found the Queen of the World instead, lounging in a deck chair with a glass of wine held high in an elegant salute.
	The villain smiled as she caught sight of Rena, calling out in a strangely friendly manner, “Greetings, my nemesis!  I was hoping they would send you, this wouldn’t have been as fun with someone else.”
	She gestured to a matching deck chair that lay next to hers, saying, “Have a seat, I’ll pour you a glass.  The woman I stole this wine from said that it is of an excellent vintage.  It’s not bad, but I want your opinion on it.”
	The scene was so completely baffling that Rena just nodded and sat down stiffly, taking the glass of wine the Queen handed her with a murmured ‘thank you’.  At this point, she just wanted to see what exactly the Queen’s plot was, and playing her game was the best way to see how things played out.  She started as she felt the boat shift underneath her, and stared longingly at the ‘shore’ that they were quickly drifting away from.
	Deciding that a bit of liquid courage was just what she needed, Rena took a deep sip from her glass, though her eyes widened as the flavor spread across her palette.  The stuff –tasted- expensive, a warm and honeyed sweetness that reminded her of gold.  She looked at the glass apprehensively before taking another sip.  She was pretty sure that this stuff would probably cost her a few years’ salary at her old job at the supermarket.
“I’m glad you like it,” the Queen said, smiling bemusedly at Rena’s expression, “I needed something proper to celebrate the success of my plan after all.  So, what do you think?  It took a bit of effort, but I now have my own private lake in the middle of the city.”
	She gestured proudly at the expanse of water before settling into her chair with a palpable air of satisfaction, “I usually go for smaller schemes, but sometimes it takes something on this scale to show off your superiority to the rank and file villains.”
	Rena had to admit, she’d seen some pretty strange things in her time as a hero, but this really ranked up there.  “It’s um, really nice.  I’ve never seen something like it,” she admitted, gazing in wonder as the yacht passed the marble head of one of the city’s founders, “How did you do it, though?”
	“Never underestimate what you can do with enough vision and manpower,” the Queen said haughtily, obviously enjoying the revealing of her scheme, “I had my slaves drag this boat into the park, put up a sandbag wall on every gap between the buildings, blew the water main, and now I have a personal lake.  It took a while, but I think the result was well worth it.”
	Rena nodded and asked, “Okay, but why did you do it?”
	To her surprise, the villain’s superior smirk slipped somewhat, and she gazed over the expanse of water pensively a few seconds before saying, “Oh, it’s my birthday today.  I missed the Nile, so I decided that I would recreate it here, if only for a day.”
	She fell silent and sipped at her wine, and Rena wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, so she took a sip from her glass as well.  A few minutes passed similarly, and Rena was content to watch the setting sun and the reflection of the water off the windows of the buildings around them.  The Queen followed her gaze, and said quietly “The sun is rather gorgeous, isn’t it?  I didn’t have anybody else to share this with though, and there’s no point in doing something if it isn’t seen by someone else.  So I chose you, since you are far more interesting than my usual servants.”
Rena was surprised at how intimate this entire situation had become, and she had to admit that she was strangely touched by the Queen’s admission.  “I’ll remember this for the rest of my life,” she said honestly, “But you know I’ll have to fight you at some point, right?  Destroying a park, stealing all of these supplies, all of the people you’ve brainwashed, it’s all pretty villainous.  Kind of impressively so, really.”
The Queen smiled warmly at this, replying with her usual air of superiority, “Deliciously villainous, I should think.  See, I knew that you would appreciate this properly, I’m glad that it was you who came and not some brute like that Magical Girl Sparkle.  As for a fight, I think that I’ll just give up in a bit and leave.  I’m in too good of a mood to ruin with something as lowbrow as combat, and I just wanted to enjoy the sunset anyway.”
“Fine by me,” Rena said, only too happy that she didn’t have to embarrass herself trying to fight.
They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the sun slowly turn a deep red and slip below the horizon while taking the occasional sip of wine.  As the last few rays of light began to fade from the sky, Rena started as she realized that she had forgotten to say something important.  She raised her wine glass in a toast, and quietly said, “Happy birthday, your highness.”