Chapter Text
PREVIOUSLY ON BFSRA:
(Please imagine this floating away from you Star Wars style…)
ADORA GREYSKULL had nothing. At 36 years old, she was a divorced attorney, mother of one child whom she didn’t have custody for and always felt she had no time for.
And when she, for the first time in ages, had the weekend free AND it was her week with the kid, her boss SHARON WEAVER forced her to work overtime, leaving her kid FINN in the hands of her mothers MARA and LIGHT HOPE GREYSKULL. It also made Adoras Ex, CATRA, furious. (Not that she usually wasn’t.) Feeling sorry for their mom/daughter, Finn and their grans made a plot in which Adora was to be reunited with her lost best friends, BOW SCRATCHIT and GLIMMER PANUA.
And in the city of COLUMBUS OH they experienced many an adventure including failed robbers, getting arrested, eating sausages, almost getting assasinated, buying books, becoming hostage, and pretending to be trucker wives. In the end it all ended well, they ate pie and the BEST FRIEND SQUAD was back.
Oh, and Catra and Adora slowly began to sneak back into a relationship again.
Some time later, CATRA, in an attempt to show her ex-wife turned girlfriend how dedicated she was, she decided to befriend GLIMMER. Unfortunately, they both hated each other. Under the disastrous date, they became witnesses to a robbery, leading to the introduction of SCORPIA MARSHALL-TAYLOR to the plot, as more than one thing pointed towards the robber being Scorpias wife, PERFUMA MARSHALL-TAYLOR, born SMITH. During the pursuit of Perfuma in an old modified British army vehicle, the vehicle in question got car-jacked by the very same robber and in this part of the story, Catra and Glimmer found themselves in a rather sticky situation!
The solution involved exploding gas canisters, an abandoned barn, a walk in the cold snow, twins - NOT TWINS and blueberry buns.
And lo and behold, the BFS expanded with Catra, Scorpia and Perfuma.
And none of them wanted any more adventures, they were happy living their lives. Catra and Adora got married, and got their second kid (A boy, Milo, as dark haired as his mom), Scorpia got a better job at a bigger hotel (Catra stayed at her old since they had a better policy regarding parenting), Glimmer and Bow did move to Brightmoon to be closer to their friends (And Razz's pies) and everything seemed to be a happy end.
But little did they know what faith had in store for them…
BEST FRIEND SQUAD RIDES AGAIN III -
The cash grab sequel
Part 1: the plan (mon amour)
In a dark, forgotten conference room in the darkest part of the basement of an unnamed firm in Brightmoon, Iowa, three people had gathered. One of them was a man of african-american heritage. He was in his early 40’s and looked like it too. A touch of gray in the hair, one or two wrinkles around the eyes and some love handles that just didn’t go away. And that hipstery kind of goatee guys get at a certain age to look invigorated. The look in his eyes was one of determination and slight paranoia.
The other two were women, both tall and muscular. Heck, one of them was so muscular you would go “ooooh… SHE’S BIG!” if you dared. The crop cut hair and the giant arms made sure you didn’t, although if you saw her friendly face, you wouldn’t want to do it either.
The second woman/third person in the room was of a more normal build, but still tall, with long blond hair wrapped up in a ponytail that would make her loose hair in a few more years or so. She was also dressed up in training gear.
“You made sure no one followed you?” the man said.
“Sure, Bow-man! I parked the Crawler like five blocks away in a garage that/” The man interrupted her.
“No names! Didn’t you read the e-mail? I am archer. And you are Claws. Also, why did you take the crawler? Is that one even allowed downtown? I thought it was considered an environmental hazard?”
The Crawler was an ex-british army vehicle that Claws had inherited from her parents (See BFSRAWA if you feel curious, true believer!).
It was slightly too small to be a tank, and way too big to be a station wagon. The fact that it would withstand a 32 mm missile, and that there still were traces of where the machine guns had been placed, made it impossible to miss. Everywhere. Claws smiled and waved it off.
“Nah, We run it on a mix of sunflower oil and tree-sap these days!”
Archer smiled uncertainly. “O…kay… Swords?”
Swords shone up and said “Oh! Oh yes! I took the bus to work, borrowed Net… Someone's bike, rode down to the park, took the tram up to Orange Hills, walked the 500 meter to the commuter train to Plumeria and stepped off two stops earlier, and took a cab here.”
Claws had been frowning for a while and now she said, “why did she get the cool name? Why am I claws and she is swords?”
Archer froze a little. The real reason was the fact that due to problems at birth, Scorpia-I mean Claws- was born with only the pinkie and thumb on her right hand. (Due to a lifetime of insecurities about this, she usually wore big gloves. Lately, she sported a pair of bright red ones, which didn’t help her case.) And Archer, who always wanted a friendly atmosphere, had no wish to tell that to Claws.
“W-well… You… you…your name”
“My name?”
Claws looked at him in confusion and you could see the wheels turn. Then she shone up.
“AAAH! I get it! Scorpia! As in scorpion! Which has claws! Oh yeah! Then I understand.” pause. “I don’t like it.”
“Do we really have to discuss this now? I have…”
“Yes we do! She is Swords, that is so cool! I want to be… Stinger! Like a scorpion!”
Archer’s patience was running out. “Okay! Okay! You can be stinger! Stinger, Swords and Archer…”
“Archer is also kinda silly.”
“ALRIGHT, IN THAT CASE YOU CAN CALL ME SNOWBALL! CAN WE PLEASE GO ON?”
It was really rare to see Archer/Snowball/Bow lose his temper, both Swords and Stinger sat in silenced Awe. Finally Stinger said “You can be archer.”
“THANK YOU!” He took five deep breaths. “Now. Business. As you all know, It is Person A's birthday in four days.”
“Oh yeah! I got her a…”
“Swords! Not. Now. That is the thing. She must not know. Ehrm. Let me start from the beginning. Person A…”
“Who is person A? Glimmer?”
“SSSSHH! There is a possibility that she has this place wired!”
Again, a silenced awe, this time only from Scorpia though.
“...What?”
Archer shook his head. “Look. It is complicated. But it is like this. G-Person A loves surprises. She even demands them, especially from me.”
“Alright? So surprise her then?”
“That’s the thing. If she gets a hunch that I am planning a surprise, she will do everything to find out.”
“...Bummer.”
“Yeah. And then she will be disappointed in me.”
“...Because she found it out?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t want to know.”
“...But she will still…”
“I said that it was complicated.”
Stinger looked at Swords who shook her head. “Yeah. It is a complication wrapped in a mess, covered in obstacles.”
Stinger looked from Swords to Archer. “Would she really wire this place?”
“She did put a bug in my coffee mug this morning.”
“WHAT?”
*
In a different building a few blocks away, three people met in an office that screamed “I have money and I will change the world with them.” Not that it was much of a chock, the whole New Spire-borough gave that impression, but the recently built headquarters for Panua Ltd (With subsidiaries) could probably compete even with Microsoft in that area. The three people was a rather diverse group, and their business today was kinda similar to the other one. They did, however, not wear cloaks, and did not use aliases. One was a 41-year old female, of a somewhat Indian heritage. She wore a marine-green skirt dress and jewelry that made her look like she was the daughter of Poseidon. (In fact she was the daughter of an Indian IT-billionaire.) Another was a 39-year old female, with traces of asian heritage in her face and (tbh pretty chubby) figure. Her meticulously made long nails drummed at her desk as she glared at the third person, a 38-year old female who was splayed over the expensive leather chair, yawning, as she shot the 39-year old a bored look. But it was the 41-year old that broke the silence, in an equally bored tone.
“Remind me again why I am wasting a perfectly fine day that should be spent in my pool, in your sweaty office?”
“Yeah.” the 38-year old added. “I mean, some of us weren’t born with a silver spoon in mouth, Sparkles. I am wasting a perfectly good paycheck on this. Not to mention that I had to bribe Finn with Pizza to stay home and watch their baby brother.”
The glarer, Glimmer Panua, (Sparkles to NOONE, It was just Catra who was a brat) sat at the room's desk and glared even more at the other two.
“Mermista. You spend every damn day in that pool. You even have a laptop, a projector and a loudspeaker to have zoom meetings there and two waterproof cell-phones! You don’t dry out if you spend some time around regular people.”
“Duh! Just because I can doesn’t mean I have to!”
The glarer didn’t care about the reply.
“And I have offered to pay you for your loss of income, Catra!”
“Oooh! Buying your friends again are you, Sparkles? That's typical upper class behavior! Not cool. When the revolution comes…”
Glimmer rolled her eyes.
“Shut up cat-shit. You accepted the check without a word when you got it.”
“Yeah yeah, so I have double standards. Who doesn’t?”
“Your wife for example? And don’t try to change the subject! This is serious business!”
Catra rolled her eyes. “We get it, it is scary to be almost 40 years old and to be reminded that you’re not immortal but come on! You have your husband, let him kiss your worries away in the Bahamas and buy us drinks at a bar instead of this!”
Glimmer shook her head. “At the same time as you put the finger on the right spot, you are completely wrong about this, Catra. Yes. Bow - who’s not my husband by the way/”
“Really? What about that ring?”
“He is my fiancee, but we don’t need to get married to declare our love to the world and/”
“Ah. He hasn’t bothered to pop the question. Heh. Sea-Hawk proposed to me at least once a week for the first five years we were together.”
“What the… Nevermind, that is so Sea-Hawk. No, he hasn’t but we don’t need a fancy wedding in the Egyptian sand-dunes to show the world how much we love each other, and that is not the point of this!”
“Alright, what is it? Even if you deny me my pool, I still have to make sure Sea-Hawk doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“What is his latest thing?”
“A detective agency! He thinks he is Sherlock Holmes, but most of the time they just find people who cheat on their spouses or make counterfeit blueberry pies. He is just making a fool of himself…”
“Okay, so don’t allow him to do it!”
Mermista eyes turned to small slits and she added with a hint of real anger,
“Listen, Cat. The day you start limiting your partner's ways of expressing themselves is the day you need to book a counselor.”
“...You two are made for each other.”
“Thanks, or whatever.”
“LOOK! This is serious! Bow is getting me a present for my birthday.”
“As he should.”
“And it will be a surprise.”
“Duh, that’s kinda the point of presents, right?”
“And. I need to know what it is.”
“What?”
*
“Okay, Archer. I am saying this with love. Are you sure this relationship is healthy?”
Archer looked away briefly.
“Look! I love G…Person A! I want to make sure she is happy, and if she really wants a surprise… I will give it to her! Besides Stinger, you are married to an ecoactivist!”
"Allegedly! Nothing was ever proven!”
Over the years, Perfuma HAD been involved in more than one slightly shady activity. Releasing ferrets, throwing soup at pictures of former presidents, gluing herself to walls… She was said to be the head of the Daughters of Plumeria-movement, but until now, nothing could be proven in court. Some of it was due to the fact that Glimmer had hired Perfuma as the head of the environmental department at Panua Ltd. making sure that the company stayed eco-friendly and her friend's wife stayed outside prison.
(If you don’t remember, faithful reader, do check up the previous part of this series. For now, this is all you need to know!)
“Glimmer was there, Stinger.”
“Wasn’t it Person A?”
“...I don’t care anymore. Are you going to help me or not?”
Two steady hands were placed on his shoulders.
“Of course we are going to help you!”
“Yeah, Bow-man! We’re mates!”
Archer looked up and smiled. “Alright. Here’s the plan.”
*
“You. NEED. To know what Bow is getting you?”
“Yes.”
“...And you still want it to be a surprise?”
“Yes.”
Mermista rolled her eyes. “That's it. I am out of here.”
“Hey! You can’t leave!”
“Can, and just did, Sparkler. This is ridiculous. Paranoid even. Just let the man give you his gift in peace.”
“...I can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t`?”
“Look! I love surprises! Life is not fun if you know everything you are going to get all the time!”
“Isn’t that kinda how life works?”
“Yes, but I mean the fun stuff! Gifts and lottery tickets and all that!”
“...Fine. But still, why this?”
“Because. Bow loves me. But he is terrible at surprises!”
"Okay?"
“So, unless I give him a challenge, he won’t bother! He will just give me an envelope with a trip to Rome and call it a day! And while that was a nice trip, there was no nerve! No edge! No Pizazz! No… Something RuPaul would say! Anyway, this year… is serious. I am turning 40. This year’s gift will be good. So I need to step up my game.”
“And… that includes us? Why us? Why not… Well, Adora? She’s a lawyer.”
“As much as I love Adora, she is useless for this. She has no detective instincts what so ever.” She paused. “Besides, I know that Bow has already enlisted her. And Scorpia. I think. It sounded like her” Here Catra and Mermista exchanged looks. “So!” Glimmer went on, “I need my own braintrust to outsmart his!”
Catra rolled her eyes but Mermista nodded and sat down.
“Okay. I get that. I kinda wish Sea-hawk was a bit more subtle sometimes. If this goes well, I will throw him at Bow when it’s time for me next year. He could use some pointers.”
“What did he do last year?”
“He took me down to the harbor, where he had gifted me a full sailing ship with “Happy Birthday, queen of the sea and my heart” on the sails. All 22 of them..”
“Brightmoon doesn’t have a harbor.”
“It has now. Called Seaworthy. And I don’t want one quarter of revenue lost on a gift. Again …Even if it was a nice gesture…” she added with a murmur. Glimmer blinked.
“Okay. Unfortunately I don’t know anything else, other than he will put his plans into action in a few days.”
“And you know that how?”
“It was the last thing I heard before he found the hidden microphone in his coffee mug.”
The other two blinked, equally at the action and Glimmer's genuinely disappointed face. “SO that means that I need you to keep your eyes open. Catra, you watch Adora. I take Bow. And Mermista…”
“Yeah yeah. I’ll see what Scorpia is up to. I can do a surprise inspection of the hotel and let her pretend she’s a real cockney. Wouldn’t it be easier to talk to Perfuma?”
Glimmer shook her head. “Perfuma is…slightly too spacey for my taste for matters like this. And she is busy. She is attending a conference about lowering the carbon imprint in Canada. The conference. Is in Canada.”
“Oh yeah, she is your green guru these days. Mkay, fine. I can probably take Scorpia. But isn’t this a bit late? Your birthday is in four days? On friday?”
“Yes. But up until now he hasn’t done anything. Last week I told him about this meeting. I am sure that he has something going on by now.”
Mermista blinked. “You need a kid. Or a dog. Or both.”
Glimmer shook her head. “First we need to marry.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Bow won’t have it any other way. Alright, that’s all. If you hear anything. And I mean ANYTHING. You let me know, okay?”
“...I could use some cash to cover my expenses, Glitter.”
“...What kind of fuckin expenses? You are married to a lawyer. And you say that you are my friend.”
“Yes, but this goes beyond friend-stuff. This costs extra.”
“...I will pay you a cab to go back to work?”
“Taken!”
*
“...And in the end, we will all have cake and there will be streamers and balloons and a mariachi band and…Swords, take this envelope. It’s the actual gift. To make sure she won’r strip search me. Alright, everyone on board?”
Stinger looked Archer in the eyes. “Sorry mate, This plan? D.o.a.”
“What? It’s a good plan!”
“Ehrm.” Swords cleared her throat. “As a practitioner of law, I can not condone this. It has more than one weak spot and/”
“See? The Ambulance chaser agrees with me!”
“EXCUSE ME?”
Stinger ignored her. “Look. You want to make sure this stays under the radar? Then you have to make sure that the pigs won’t get it.
“Pigs?” Scorpia was of British heritage and from time to time she let her old slang out, to everyone's confusion.
“Yeah. Can’t let them spoil the plans, you know? First of all, we need other names. You are mr. Cucumber.”
"What? Why?”
“Because I say so. You are Mrs Tomato.”
“And you are?”
“Mrs radish. This way the names can’t be traced back to us!”
“...Smart!”
“Thanks, Saul. Now, for the part. You need Person A to be at this location, at 1400 hours on Friday.”
“Yeah?”
“Alright. The first thing we need to do is to make sure she won’t suspect anything. Cucumber. You will bring her to the tram stop at 17 and half at 1100 sharp.”
“Okay, why?”
“Because that is the easiest place you can lure her to. Three of her favorite lunch places are in that area, one of the two gyms she has cards to is nearby and there is also the magic shop at vines. If you take her there, she will suspect nothing more than lunch.”
“Why do you know so much about Person A?”
“I know stuff.” The look on Scorpias face was enough for Bow not to ask further questions. Swords nodded slowly. “I think I see your plan. We will be there, lying in wait, and then we will grab her? In that little area between the tram stop and the bus stop? That small throng?”
“Exactly! How do you know about that?”
“...No reason.”
“Huh. I imagined only teenagers who wanted privacy would…. OOOOOH Yeah, no reason. SO! We will grab her, silence her, and take her away.”
“Not in the crawler, right??”
“Why not?”
“...She will recognize it.”
“We can paint it pink?”
Tomato and Cucumber looked at her with a really-look.
“...Alright, alright… you have a point. Any car she won’t recognize?”
“Maramom has a Volvo? I don’t think she is familiar with that.”
“Does it have enough space for a body in the trunk?
“...I don’t… Know?”
“Alright, check it out. So, Let me see. “ Scorpia produced a paper from her pockets. It was a starbucks recipe, Swords noticed.
“Cucumber, bring the bomb to 17. Tomato and radish secures it, brings it to rendez-vouspoint where it all will explode at 1400 hours.”
Cucumber looked at Radish with big eyes. “How can you be so good at this?”
Radish smiled. “You know how Perfuma is only allegedly an activist? This is why.”
*
Catra leaned back in the seat. Taking a cab to work was a piece of every day luxury she wasn’t that accustomed to and she decided to get as much of it as possible. Glimmer put it on the companies tab and Catra used it to the max. She went to the store to get this week's groceries, she went to the market to get some sweet freshly smoked salmon for lunch, she went home to hug her babies and give them a little snack so none of them would get bored, and then back to work. Well in her car she sighed and began to really think this whole thing through. It was insane. More than insane. She shook her head. Sparkles was mental. This whole thing was to be put in an institution and looked at through a circular hole. But, if Sparkles wanted to waste money on a wild goose chase, she wasn’t going to stop her. She prepared to take a little nap for the last 20 minutes until she reached work. But then a familiar sight passed by. A tall blonde on a bicycle. A very familiar blonde… Adora? At first, Catra dismissed it. There were more than one blonde on a bicycle downtown these days. But as they passed the biker at a red light a bit further down the road, she saw her face clearly. It was Adora. At once, the wheels began to spin in Catras head.
Adora on a bike… in the middle of the day. Okay, so she sometimes work-out on her lunch, but that comes when there has been a must-pie… and Razz hasn’t been around for a few weeks. And besides, she prefers weight lifting. Not to mention, that is not her bike. Now, even if she might have the urge to go cycling, she would use her own, because she is not that spontaneous. That means she has been somewhere, and that place is somewhere she didn’t want anyone to know about, because no one looks at a biker… DAMN IT! Sparkles WAS right. There IS something going on…
Catra sat up, and looked at her watch. She would miss her lunch break, but that couldn’t be helped. This was more important. She gave the driver contra orders, and when Adora arrived at her office some minutes later, Catra was already sitting in her chair.
“Hey Adora…”
Catra smirked. The look on Adoras face told her everything. There was something going on. and she was going to find it out.