“Why did you have to take forever to get to the meeting spot?” Valo complained. “If you hadn’t taken, like, two hours to put on makeup, we could have been here on time.”

“Don’t blame me,” Tacita snapped. “Besides, the traffic here was horrible, and it took forever to find a parking spot. Remember?”

“Yeah,” Jade agreed. “Do you think maybe there’s a convention or something going on today?”

“I hope not,” Valo remarked. “Last convention they had here was a video game convention.” She shuddered. “I never want to go through that again.”

“Why?” Emily asked. “I thought you liked video games and all that stuff.”

Mae guided the group down the hall toward the room that was booked by Elemental Fashions, while Valo gave her explanation.

“I do like video games,” Valo replied. “But you try being the only woman at one of those things.”

“I fail to see the problem,” Tacita said slowly.

“You either end up with a whole ton of guys staring at you like you’re some weird new creature, or they treat you like you don’t know squat about gaming. Never mind that I’ve been playing video games since I was able to hold a control,” Valo grumbled.

“I think it’s that room,” Mae spoke up, pointing.

Almost at the same time, they all became aware of the great deal of noise coming from the room. They looked at each other, perplexed, and AJ asked, “Are you sure that’s the right place? I mean, are all of the shows so loud?”

“Sometimes,” Emily replied. “Last time she did a show, some idiot jumped on the stage. Apparently, he was trying to get some publicity for his new movie.”

“What a dolt,” Jade remarked.

“Well, let’s go in and see what all the ruckus is about,” Tiffani spoke up.


Mae pushed open the doors, and the group stared in disbelief at the huge group of people yelling and attacking each other. Mae scratched her head and muttered, “I thought this was the right room.”

“I think we’ve stumbled upon the local fight club,” Valo remarked. She looked around at the combatants, then added, “Women’s chapter, maybe.”

“I didn’t think they really existed,” Emily said, rolling her eyes.

“Of course you wouldn’t know about them,” Valo replied. “The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club. But this can’t be Fight Club.”

“Yeah, what gave you that idea?” Emily asked.

“Only one fight at a time allowed, and only two people per fight.”

“Valo, as smart as you are, you can sometimes be really stupid about real life,” Mae said exasperatedly. She pointed and gasped out, “Look, there’s Ophelia!”

Indeed, Ophelia was trying to pull two fighters-- one of her models and a protester in a tasteful lady’s suit-- apart. Mae looked at Ophelia, then back at her group, trying to think as quickly as possible. Finally, an idea hit her.

“AJ, you used to play football, right?” Mae asked. “I want you and Valo to make a path for me to get to Ophelia and help her out. Tacita, you follow them and try to get onto the stage; I know they have an emergency phone somewhere backstage. The rest of you, try to find out what’s going on. I know my cousin said she’d try to help us, but this can’t be it.”


“Hey, look, they’re here,” Taste of Honey cried out, pointing. Without thinking about it, she calmly shrugged off the petite woman who, despite being a foot shorter and a good fifty or so pounds lighter, was determined to take her down. “Nice try,” she told the smaller woman. “Why don’t you try one of the models?” Elbowing people out of the way, Taste of Honey ran over to Tacita. “Did you see my cousin?”

“You mean Mae?” Tacita asked.

“No, Richard Simmons,” Taste of Honey responded, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, Mae. Where is she?”

“Over there, fighting with that woman in pink,” Tiffani replied, pointing.


“So, what do you think?” Taste of Honey asked.

“About what?” Tacita asked.

“Who do you think got all these people to show up to help your cause? Well, I mean, I wasn’t totally responsible for it. I did get the help of someone with some serious clout,” Taste of Honey responded. Turning briefly, she called out, “Hey, Mark, she’s here now.” Mark ran up to them, and Tacita gave him a look of disgust.

“Mark?” Tacita spat out. “So, let me get this straight… you and Mark are the reason that Ophelia’s fashion show is ruined? You two are the reason there’s about five hundred mall Goths in here, beating up on a group that they seriously outnumber?”

“Well… yeah,” Mark said slowly. “Well, we didn’t think it would get this far out of hand.”

“You remember what happened at your last concert, don’t you? And you didn’t think things would get crazy here? As angry as I am at Ophelia most of the time, even you’ve gone too far. Now, I want you to get your groupies and fan girls out of here this instant. And I want you to give Ophelia the money to set up a show to make up for the one that was ruined today. You’re not getting out of this,” Tacita snapped.

Mark stared silently at Tacita for several seconds, then opened his mouth to speak.