Chapter Text
A toy factory was under attack. Elves were the defenders. Most of them were armed with toy rifles. Those manning toy machineguns were emplaced behind walls of variously colored bricks. The weapons had muzzle flashes but did not shoot bullets or spend casings. The semiautomatic fire popped. The rapid fire made a clicking noise. The waves of attacking girls withered, but more kept coming.
The elves were pixies, childlike specimens of their race. These were gray and their hair curly and black. Their slanted eyes were various shades of blue or violet. Their pointy ears poked out from under pointy hats.
The attackers were little white girls. All of them were barefoot. Their uniform was a sleeveless white shirt and skimpy red bottoms. A blue “W” was on the breast of the shirt. Their weapon was a carbine that looked like a toy ray gun. None of the girls fired a shot as they charged relentlessly.
“Fall back!” Boss Boy barked. “Fall back!” He managed the factory. He commanded the defense. The dozens of pixies obeyed his command, leaving the grounds of their factory littered with the bodies of scores of little girls. Hundreds more attackers kept coming.
Monsters followed the little girls into the fray. They were toys of the attackers: robots as big as men. They looked like a metal mantis with swords for arms. The head was a ray gun with red eyes on both sides. The gun shot a white beam that cut through pixies as they fled.
Flicker remained outside. He stayed at his toy machinegun, to cover his comrades as they fell back. Little girls winced and dropped as he blazed away into their assailing crowd. Alas, his position was being overrun. He grabbed the gun of an enemy and shot her with a glowing bolt. He ran away, girls shooting at him as he did so. A Mantis noticed him disappearing into a grove and shot a beam at him. It then continued on towards the factory.
The fighting stopped. The little girls did not enter the factory. They faced the building but did not aim at its windows. They became strangely relaxed. The robots with them stopped moving.
A woman strolled onto the grounds, a dozen little girls uniformed in a gray blouse and darker gray skirt coming with her. The adult was a brunette and quite lovely. Her clothes was a dark gray blouse and tight, black trousers and black boots. She smiled, though the grounds were carpeted with the bodies of her underlings.
A little girl stepped into view as if out of nowhere. Her blouse and skirt were black. Her hair was dark and her blue eyes bright. “The factory is all that’s left,” she reported.
“It is what we came for,” the woman told her. “I want it intact.”
“Yes, ma’am. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”
The woman giggled. “Raven,” she addressed the girl. “Of course you shall obey. You command when you do so.”
Raven smiled. She was the boss of the other girls. She liked being the boss.
The woman knocked on the door of the factory. “Hello,” she uttered. “The new owner is here.”
The door cracked open. “Jolly Jim is the owner,” Boss Boy told her. His voice was like that of a man pretending to sound like a child.
“Jolly Jim is a fugitive. Your facility is now the property of Max Wayward, the Principal for the Wayward School for Girls.”
“Are you Max Wayward?”
“No. I am Miss Project, a Teacher of the School.”
“You are not the owner, new or old.” The door again closed.
Miss Project laughed, amused rather than angered. “Elves are notorious for nitpicking details,” she told Raven. “They would make perfect lawyers.” The woman again knocked. “Mr. Boss Boy,” she addressed. “You and the others are not being evicted.”
“We are not leaving,” he responded through the door. “Please go away.”
Miss Project laughed. She stepped through the door, without opening it.
Raven, the three Mantis Swordsmen and the hundreds of little girls waited. The door eventually opened. “Come in,” Miss Project invited. “Secure the building.”
Flicker was forgotten. He watched as the humans took over the factory. The robots turned around, now guarding the building they came to take. The elf had a gun. It was captured from the enemy. It was fully charged other than the one shot that killed its previous wielder.
Flicker was two hundred years old. Most of those years were lived in the factory. It was his home. He wept. His life was taken from him, though he still lived.
Later…
The elves were made to gather the dead. A pile of their own was next to several larger piles of the little girls. Flicker watched from hiding. He considered joining his friends, to help them gather the dead. He would be taken prisoner, for sure, but would not be lonely.
Smiley was a girl of his people. She noticed him and smiled. When Flicker made to come out of hiding. She frowned and raised a hand.
“What are you doing?” a little girl approached the little elf.
“What I am told to do,” Smiley responded.
“Who did you see?”
“I see you,” the elf grinned.
The human frowned. She pointed at the sprawled body of one of her own. The elf draped the corpse over a shoulder and carried it to a growing pile.
That night…
Miss Project sat at the end of a table that came up to her knees. She ate a dinner of fruit, bread and candy. She drank sweet juices of various types. Raven dined with her, as did Boss Boy and a female elf. “One hundred and eighty-four of you,” the female reported. “Nine of us.”
“What?” the woman was confused.
“Rosie tallied the dead,” Boss Boy told Miss Project. “You put her in charge of the cleanup. She did her job telling you what she did.”
“Your girls gathered the weapons,” Rosie mentioned. “I do not know if they are all accounted for.”
Miss Project laughed. “They are all accounted for,” she told the elf. “Your guns don’t shoot pain and sorrow. My girls were killed by hope. Very strange.”
“Hope to survive,” Rosie told her. “We never hope to kill.”
“Yet your hope was the death of many girls. Their mothers will never see them again.”
“Your fault.”
“My fault?” Miss Project feigned offense. “My dear Rosie, I expected of you what I expect of myself. The world is not ours. We obey. You were told to submit yet you resisted. The many girls are dead because of you.”
“You do not care.”
The woman laughed. “I have hundreds more,” she smiled. “More than that if I need them.”
“They are your toys.”
“They are the slaves of my master, as are you.”
“Max Wayward,” Boss Boy uttered the name. “The Wayward Sentry Girls are his toy soldiers.”
“Yes.”
“Miss Project, we did not make the guns of your girls. We did not make your robots. Why did you take our factory? It seems you already have one of your own.”
“Soldiers are not enough. Weapons are not enough. Wars are won or lost by resources and production. Reproduction is important. The fecundity of men and women assures us an endless supply of soldiers and workers.”
“What war?” Boss Boy and Rosie asked in unison. “You rule the world,” the male reminded.
The female asked, “Why do you conquer what is already yours?”
“Me? My dear elves, it does not belong to me anymore than it does to you or my girls.”
“Max Wayward,” Boss Boy reminded Rosie.
“My master has a master,” the woman told the elves. “He is a vassal. His power and authority are not in his own name. He is as much a slave as we are.”
Rosie giggled. “Your master is a slave,” she teased. “You are lowly indeed.”
“As are you.”
Rosie shrugged. “I work for a living. My life is not mastery. It is work.”
Boss Boy dared ask the human, “What shall we make for you?”
“Toys,” she answered. “Make what you were making. We shall sell them. The profits shall allow us to expand our operation.”
“Operation?”
Miss Project smiled. “The Wayward School for Girls is all about a brighter future. It needs money. We need it to invest in the future.”
Boss Boy and Rosie had their own rooms… until Miss Project took that of Boss Boy. The male was invited to share the bed of the female of his kind. “I shall keep to my side of the bed,” Boss Boy assured. “Sleep soundly.”
Rosie giggled. “My bed is big enough for four of us,” she noted. “The two of us have more than enough room.”
Rosie climbed into bed first. Boss Boy turned off the lights before joining her. “How long are they going to stay?” the female wondered.
“Indefinitely,” the male told her.
“What about Jolly Jim?”
“He hides from them. He cannot come back without being found.”
“Shall we see him again?”
“Not as things are,” Boss Boy answered truthfully. Unlike humans, elves were honest with each other. “I am glad he is alive.”
“As am I.” Rosie wondered, “Shall we hear tell of it if they catch him?”
“I think so. I think Miss Project shall tell us, to win our loyalty by ending our hope.”
Rosie muttered, “A few of us is many and we mourn the loss. Many of them is few and they do not fret.”
“We are friends and family,” Boss Boy reminded. “They strangers even to their own.”
“Sad.”
“Evil.” Boss Boy stated, “I knew our toys would no longer be made as tools for fun. They would be turned into bait for money.”
“Not our money.”
“Not our factory.” Boss Boy said, “The factory was ours as that of Jolly Jim. It was our home. Now it is our prison… and we are its prisoners.”
“Should we escape?”
“And go where? Rosie, my love, the world is theirs, not ours. We have nowhere to go.”
Days came and went. Wayward Sentry Girls guarded the grounds, halls and corridors. The elves made toys. The girls in the blouse and skirt uniform supervised everything. Miss Project would sometimes take a look at things. “Very nice,” she would smile. “I have a better idea,” she would sometimes frown then give advice.
The slavery of the elves was virtually the same as their freedom. The only difference made all the difference, however. Though they stayed of their own volition… they were no longer allowed to leave. Though quality was a matter of pride, it was now mandatory. The work was the play of the elves… but now it was simply work.
Other than Miss Project, the humans were children. The elves were pixies. The workers were the same size as the guards. Though the elves were shorter, they were heavier… and stronger.
Rosie stared at one of the many Wayward Sentry Girls. “She just stands there,” the elf was amazed.
“She is a mindless thrall,” Smiley told her. The elves were together on break, eating lunch. “Her education is indoctrination. She is taught to learn rather than think. She is to obey rather than take initiative.”
“Why?”
Smiley giggled, “Why else would the girls charge headlong while gunned down? They would run away rather than attack if allowed to think for themselves.”
“We fought and died,” Rosie noted. “We think for ourselves. We did not run away till told to retreat.”
“Yes, but we chose to fight. The girls do not. They do what they are told and nothing more.”
“Sad.”
“Pathetic.” Smiley remarked, “They are people turned into toys. The same shall be done to us.”
“No!”
“It is being done to us,” Nimbly, a male of the elves joined the conversation. “Not only am I told what to do, but how to do it!”
“We all are,” another of the females joined.
“Is there a problem?” Raven Crow, the girl in black asked the prattling elves.
“Yes,” Nimbly responded. “I cannot make toys special because they must all be exactly alike.”
“Paying customers don’t like surprises,” the human told him. “We give them what they want.”
“So give the toys for free. Give them as gifts rather than exchange them for digits.”
“Digits?” Raven giggled.
“Money,” Rosie told her. “Give them rather than sell them, like we did before you came.”
“I’ll suggest it to Miss Project,” the human smirked.
“Really?” Nimbly was happy to hear. The girl snickered as she left the room.
“No,” Smiley told him. “She made fun of you, thinking you a fool.”
“I am not a fool!”
“We are now,” Rosie warned her friends. “We live by their rules… or else.”
“Or else what?” Nimbly asked.
“You die,” Smiley told him.
“Die?” The male elf gulped. “I do not want to die,” he muttered. “I shall mind my words.” His life of honesty and candor was now over, it seemed.
Flicker lived in the woods. His food was berries and wild honey. He drank from a creek. He would sometimes venture close to the factory. He would watch the other elves through the windows. He would smile when he noticed them smiling. He would frown when he noticed them frowning. He chuckled when he saw his people laughing, though he did not hear whatever was supposedly funny.
The lonely elf sat alone in the forest. He again considered surrendering. He wanted to be with his people. Alas, he wanted to be free, too. He could not be both as things were. Though he had a gun, he could not fight to make things better. Running away did not make things better. He did not know what to do.
“Why are you still here?” a voice surprised the little elf. A green entity stepped into view. It looked and sounded like a male and was humanoid. It was covered in green hair but its skin was also green. His eyes were red. The arteries in the whites of his eyes were green. “You have haunted my forest for days,” the creature told the elf.
“My home was taken by the girls of a woman,” the elf told the stranger. “I am Flicker.”
“The girls of a woman,” the entity repeated. “You wield the weapon of a Wayward Sentry Girl.”
“I took it.”
“I am Green,” the stranger introduced himself.
The elf chuckled. “Yes, you are.”
“It is what I am. It is my name. I am what I am by name and aspect. I am what I am by me.”
“Green.”
“Yes,” the entity bowed. “I am Green. You are Flicker. Welcome to my forest.”
“I may stay?”
“Mr. Flicker, my forest is my forest but it is also yours for you live here too.”
“I do.”
“The girls and woman are the girls and woman of Max Wayward,” Green told the elf. “They laid a fortress atop my hill. My cave is now a secret room within.”
“Sad.”
“Unfriendly!” Mr. Green stated, “Max Wayward has taken our homes! His girls and women try to kill me. I have met the man, though not in person. He means to do what his women and girls are doing.”
“What are they doing?”
“Taking over the world, I suppose. Men like him are always trying to take over everything. They fight each other doing so, using the children of their slaves to do so.”
“Slaves?”
“Humans are unfriendly. They enslave or submit, one or the other.”
“Mr. Green, I do not want to be a slave!”
“So?”
“Slavery is bad!”
“So what?”
“Mr. Green, you do not mind slavery?”
“I am my own. Others are what they are regardless of me. I do not fret what is not my problem.”
“What about me?”
“Go where you go. Do what you do. Eat what you find. Sleep where you nestle. You are as free as I am.”
“Mr. Green, I am lonely.”
“Though I am with you?”
“Are you my friend?”
Mr. Green chuckled. “I am to you what you are to me,” he answered.
Flicker offered his hand. Green stared at it. He touched it with a tip of his finger. The elf giggled. Green wrapped his bigger hand around the extremity of the little creature. “We are friends,” Flicker declared.
Green released the hand of his supposed friend. He sat on the ground and stared at the elf. “Are they looking for you?” Green inquired. Flicker shook his head. “Scout Girls roam about. They shall report you if they spot you.”
“Scout Girls?”
“They are the better soldiers. Unlike the clueless Sentry Girls, they sometimes notice me. Though by my magic I can hide in plain sight, they sometimes see me.”
The elf gulped. “Can they spot me unnoticed?”
“Flicker, are you sensitive to attention? Do you feel it when you are stared at?”
“I do not hide among my own. My life was never one of hiding… till the humans attacked the factory.”
“The factory.”
Flicker nodded. “They took our factory. We make toys. We still do… though I am away now.”
“I have never seen your factory. Flicker, my friend, it seems you have wandered far from home.”
“Not far.”
“I know my forest.”
Flicker pointed. “That way,” he said. “Not far. I can take you to it.”
“Take me to the Wayward forces?”
“To the factory.”
“Take me to the factory,” Mr. Green requested. “Let me see what Max Wayward is doing.”
“Follow me,” the little elf led the way. The trek was a matter of hours.
“Goodness me,” Mr. Green said of the sight of Wayward Sentry Girls and Mantis Swordsmen. “Girls and monsters guard your factory.”
“I know.”
“Max Wayward has many girls but few monsters. Your factory must be important to be so heavily guarded.”
“We make toys.”
“Do you make guns and robots?”
“Yes.”
“You make them for him now.” Mr. Green chuckled. “Not you,” he corrected. “You are free of such toil.”
“They are enslaved by our common enemy.”
“Enemy?” Green chuckled. “Mr. Wayward and his women and girls are my enemies as all humans are. They are unfriendly.
“Evil.”
“Am I good?” Mr. Green wondered. “I only bother when it suits me. I think my goodness is no different than the evil of the unfriendly.”
“Green, will you help us?”
“Help you?”
“My friends are prisoners in their own home.”
“Flicker, what would you have me do?” The little elf shrugged. “You are my friend now. I did agree to our friendship.” Green took a moment before saying, “I have much to consider.”