Written to inventrix‘s prompt here to my Giraffe Call!

This is at least in part due to watching Far Too Much Venture Brothers and contemplating a semi-Venture-Brothers-style webserial recently.

“Well?” Dragonfly looked around her minions. “Did you do it right this time?”

One of the more nervous minions stepped forward. Faceless in her smooth mask, featureless in her robe-and-loose-pants, the minion’s glove held her only identification. Seventy-two.

It had been a very bad year for henchwomen.

“She fell off the edge of Tanaron Cliff, ma’am. She doesn’t have flight powers, she doesn’t have super-science. She’s dead.”

Dragonfly sighed. “Take me there.” When they hesitated, she raised her voice. “Take me there!” The problem with henchwomen was that you either ended up with smart ones that betrayed you or loyal ones that just weren’t fast enough. “Come on. Let me see the place where she fell off the cliff.”

She was going to have to run Henchwoman Training School again, she could see. If this particular group survived their own mistakes.

~

“She’s gone! That blight on the face of femininity is dead!” The Matriarch did not often engage in ranting or raving, but she felt the situation deserved it this time. “She will never survive the death trap; nobody ever has.”

“Um, ma’am?” One of her perfectly-clad minions bowed cautiously. “The death trap is empty, ma’am.”

The Matriarch hissed. “Well, then, fix the problem! What happened to her?“

“I, ah, I’m not certain, ma’am. But we did find three of your Techniors naked and unconscious in the observation room by the death trap.”

The Matriarch hissed. “Next time, next time I’m going to put a bullet through her myself. No matter how male that might be.”

~

The Firebrand brought up the giant fireball that was her namesake power and most favorite trick. She flooded the room – the room which had one exit, which she was blocking – with her superheated flame.

When the flames died away, the room was empty, without even a charred bone remaining. She was gone. Dead. Eliminated.

~

“Well.” She pulled another, identical, super-suit from the closet and dusted off the charred remains of her last one. “Note to self,” she called to her computer. “Check up on the Matriarch next week. That death trap has to be completely dismantled before some other schmoe falls into it. And then send Dragonfly a sympathy card. She really ought to have better henchwomen.”

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