You interrogate Queen of Hearts and meet Photobomber again, but this time, on friendlier terms!

To say that Queen of Hearts isn't the most lucid supervillains out there is an understatement. Even when she's terrified of having Dr. Rainbow go back to work on her, she stops to scream **** threats at you so often that you wish you had a notepad to keep track of the actual information separated by bloodthirsty ranting.

After spending some time with her, you actually feel kind of bad for Queen. Yes, she's a sadistic murderer who runs a sex slavery and **** trafficking operation (on paper, anyway - Bunny is clearly the power behind the throne), but she's clearly extremely messed up in the head. It speaks volumes about her that she can't even be bothered to take care of her teeth, and seemingly eats almost nothing but desserts for every meal. God knows how long it's been since anyone dared to suggest she needs to do something so basic. She's basically an overgrown, mal-adjusted child who happens to have some of the deadliest superpowers on the planet, to the degree of being able to pose a threat to Maiden America herself.

"I told you!" the petite blonde villainess shrieks hatefully, scrunching up her face, "My favorite hand of cards, my Full House, was on the table long before I picked them up! I don't KNOW what connection they have with the wrRRRRetched raven! Only that they have one!"

"Raven?" Dr. Rainbow blinks.

"Try to keep up, Doc." you say. "She means Raven Woman. Y'know... one of the Big 7? Second most powerful on the team? Has figuratively-and-probably-literally ungodly powers? She's the one who gave us the power boosting potions that we rubbed into our-" you pause. "Oh, that's right. You weren't there for that."

"Thunderbird!" Dr. Rainbow gasps. "Kicking that poor man in unmentionable places and bursting his eardrums was bad enough, but using performance enhancing ****?"

"Whoah, hold on!" you put your hands up defensively. "Setting aside necessity, does it really count as a **** if it's a magic potion?"

"Did it cause you to lose control of your inhibitions and do things you regret like a non-magic **** would have?" Dr. Rainbow gives you an uncharacteristically assertive scrunch of her cute face.

"..." you grope for a satisfactory response to that. "We're getting sidetracked. The point is, Raven Woman was the one who got the ORIGINAL playing-card-themed gang of perverts in this city released from jail almost immediately. Remember, when I came to that pride rally you were at in my guard uniform? And ended up humiliating Beast Beauty and those asshole cops?"

You turn back to Queen of Hearts. "Enough stalling. I know you're holding out on me. They were YOUR personal henchman family. Even if they only worked for you for a couple of years, you have to know something about their dark secrets."

"Oh, fine- but only so I can AAAAAALSO tell you the secrets of their mistress!" Queen of Hearts's lips curl into a smile for the first time since the fight. "She's BAD!"

There is an awkward pause and you share a glance with Dr. Rainbow. "And...?"

"And EVIL! And wicked! The Rabbit and that hideous bloated hag Caterpillar tell me all about what fools the League of Propriety are for not seeing her schemes for what they are!"

"And what schemes are those?" you ask, getting impatient.

"I don't KNOW that, you worthless air-headed cunt!" Queen of Hearts' face becomes a snarl again. "You're the one sharing that ugly excuse for a castle with her! YOU should know already!"

You rub your temples in exasperation. "Why would Hot-Cross Bunny even care about Raven Woman? There's no way she's old enough to be an old-school nemesis of hers. And I thought that you Wonderland Warriors think that it's good to be evil, or something."

"It IS!" Queen shouts proudly, struggling harder against the bindings keeping her floating aloft now. "It is good to be what we are! But she pretends to be what she is not! That is why we must defeat her, destroy her, EXECUTE her! Off with her head! Our evil - mine, and Bunny's, and all our pathetic pawns - is GOOD for the world! But hers will ruin and destroy the world! That's why Bunny thwarts her by humiliating and ruining the naive idiotic superheroines she uses!"

Your eyebrow raises. Now you're getting somewhere. "That she 'uses'? Uses how?"

"Haha! Hahahahahaha!" The bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived-looking royal brat of a supervillainess laughs discordantly. "The same way that a farmer uses his chickens! You're nothing but a brainless fucking hen! And once I get free of these ropes you'll be-"

"Yeah, yeah." you mute Queen of Hearts with your power. "'A chicken with my head cut off', right? I saw where you were going with that one. But you got my attention now. Raven Woman is... what... feeding off of other heroines, or something? Is that what you're saying?"

"Chickens! Chickens in a coop!" Queen shrieks back at you. "Delivering your owner a steady supply of misbegotten spawn as ingredients!"

You roll your eyes and sigh. "Normally I love bird metaphors but you've lost me, you crazy bitch. Here's what I really want to know: I know that Raven Woman secretly had a child with 'King', the former leader of the Full House Gang. Now, supposedly, he offed himself by overdosing on sleeping pills when he ran up such a huge debt with the city's mobsters that he could never get out from under it, and when I ran into Queen of Spades - the dominant lady with the magnetism powers and her three perverted kids - they were working their way up to the mob boss they thought was responsible. Who turned out to be a demon or something that was working for Raven Woman."

Walking up to Queen of Hearts you squat down so you can stare into her eyes, meeting her challenging, imperious glare. "So you clearly knew something. Enough to put you on the trail. For some reason, this 'King' guy cheated on his wife with Raven Woman..." you pause and think. "Okay, that part's not hard to understand. She's pretty hot, and power is sexy. But then, for some reason, he stole all the money from Queen of Spades and their three kids, gave it to that fake mob boss who, I'm guessing, laundered it to Raven Woman, and ki-" you stop and glance at Dr. Rainbow, and decide on an awkward euphemism: "...un-alived himself. And since you and Bunny hate her so much, I'm guessing that is exactly what you wanted the Full House gang to find out."

You grab Queen of Hearts by her cheeks and stare harder. "So tell me: WHO put them, and you, on the trail of the shadow-bird-demon thingy posing as mob boss Cornelio Vida?"

"Ohhhhhh.... grrrr.... arrrrrrrrhhhh..." Queen of Hearts makes faces hatefully at you and seems to be mulling it over, clearly resenting having to tell you such a secret. "Fine! FINE! It was one of my latest new subjects. One who came to me - and that valuable INNNNNformation is the coin by which he purchased his own continued life after he rudely intruded upon me!"

"WHO?! Out with it already, if you try and stall me anymore I'm gonna tell Dr. Rainbow she can do every health procedure she can think of on you, I can hold off your entire gang for another hour if I have to!" you shout at her impatiently.

"Jack!" Queen of Hearts says. "A man in a guise who came and went as he pleased! I gave him his royal station as Jack of Hearts!"

"WHAT?!" you shout. "Aw, goddamnit! I should have seen that one coming. The very same guy who was acting all weird and mysterious and carried out Hot-Cross Bunny's orders to give Snowflake a creampie. There's no way I'll find..." you pause and think, then look down at your suit. "Oh. Ohhh, I'd almost forgot. These fancy super suits Petite Mort made are full of tiny cameras and sensors and such. And I got a good look at his face."

You tap your headset. "Julia? You hear me?"

"AHHH! Shit, Rikki, you scared me!" your technical specialist assistant says in shock. "I was just... um... how do I put this... Green Streak-"

With a sigh, you run a hand through your yellow-dyed hair. "It's fine, Julia. I don't blame you. I was gonna fuck him too."

"No, I didn't- Uh, nevermind." Julia says nervously. "What's up?"

"I've got a detailed facial analysis of some mysterious guy that gave the Wonderland Warriors the info they needed to start tracking down Raven Woman's dirty laundry." you say. "Since Snowflake, Red Balloon and Shush are about to go tell some bullshit to the Big 7 and get me arrested, you need to work fast and find him."

"Oh, that?" Julia chuckles nervously. "I got that started a while ago. Running his face through every database out there. I'm gonna do it with all of those henchmen so they can be arrested later. But I figured I should start with that guy, since, ahem, Mx. Snowflake might need to have a few words with him later."

"Julia, you're awesome. How did I ever think I could be a heroine without you?" you say with a grin. "What'd you find?"

"Suspiciously little, so far." Julia replies over your earpiece. You can her her fingers click-clacking away, back at the command center built into your penthouse crimefighting headquarters. "He's a bit of a ghost. No arrest records, nothing in anything official, nowhere on the regular internet or the darkweb."

"And that's unusual?" you ask, curious.

"For someone in a supervillain gang? Yes, absolutely. Thereis one thing on record, from after he joined up with the Wonderland Warriors. He was booked in prison for a couple of months and awaiting trial - they weren't able to find out his real identity, either - but he broke out in the confusion after that Wonderland Warriors raid on the HQ a few days ago. The one thing that I DID find is that he was part of a foiled scheme by a couple of new heroes. A duo who joined the League together around the same time you did."

You feel your pulse quickening, anticipating that you're finally close to some answers. "And they are?"

Julia enters something into her computer on her end. "Looks like it was.. Starburst and Mechanoid."

Your shoulders slump. "I have no idea who those are. I mean, I think I've heard them mentioned before? But that's it. Dammit - Julia, can you give me anything on them that might help?"

"Just one thing." Julia replies. "The day that they claim credit for apprehending Jack of Hearts and his squad of henchmen, after they'd hijacked a shipment of experimental weapons, which the two heroes retrieved, was... your last day as Nightingale."

"Ohhhh, right." you sigh. "Dr. Rainbows' two archenemies that followed her here to Acropolis and tried to **** me into that crazy 'sadness song' scheme of theirs... I made some questionable decisions that day. Damn - I don't have very long to solve this mystery, do I? Maybe I can buy myself some time by turning in Queen of Hearts, here. Point me towards an exit to this place." you say, grabbing the cable holding Queen of Hearts in place. She strains, trying to use her telekinesis to pull free, but only squeezes herself painfully in the process.

"Sure, I'll get right on it. But you don't have to hurry THAT much." Julia giggles conspiratorially. "Snowflake has turned off all the wireless capability in her suit, but that airhead Red Balloon forgot to. She and Shush just got back to the HQ and went into Red Balloon's room. And since they went in there, Red Balloon's vital signs have been WAY elevated. If it weren't for the interference in the Warriors base, you could tap in and watch her live. I think RB and Shush are doing more than just discussing how to get their story straight in there."

You make a disgusted face. "Eww. Gross. First Hot-Cross Bunny, and now Red Balloon... I can't believe that Elliot is getting karmically rewarded for all of his blackmailing bullshit by getting to fuck buxom women whose hearts are almost as black as his."

"Are you really one to talk about getting lots of sex as a result of a costumed identity?" Julia says in an amused tone of voice.

"Whatever, fuck off." you say with a smirk and a shake of your head. "I'm a superheroINE, it's, like, part of the job for me." You grab Dr. Rainbow's hand and sling Queen of Hearts over your shoulders. "Let's get back to headquarters."

....

Fortunately it turned out that there were quite a few hidden secret exits from the Wonderland Warriors base. You get the feeling that Bunny always has a back-up escape route, and you are able to use it to your advantage. Not long after, you have Queen of Hearts safely locked up in the 'stormchaser' van that your abortive weather-themed heroine team was issued. Snowflake is nowhere to be seen, but after flying off the handle like that, she can make her own way back as far as you're concerned. You put the pedal to the metal and race back to the League of Propriety headquarters at top speed. Since the underground parking garage is still fucked from the explosions, you park at a temporary lot above ground.

Just as you are walking towards the entrance, proudly, with a high-level captured supervillainess slung over your shoulder... you see a familiar ugly hawaiian pattern in a reflection on the glass. Dropping Queen of Hearts to the floor (she curses and threatens to decapitate you for the 1000th time), you whirl around and take up a fighting stance.

"PHOTOBOMBER!" you shout at the man in the hawaiian shirt wearing a black cartoon-bomb mask, "you fucking bastard! Don't you dare blow up the headquarters AGAIN, just when I'm about to get some answers! I don't care if it kills me, I'm going to-"

"Wait, wait! Thunderbird - Rikki - calm down, please." Photobomber says, holding up his hands. "I just wanted to thank you before I go. I don't know how or why, but you did it. You saved me. This is the furthest forward in the timestream I've dared to go since my original backwards jaunt. I was hoping that you defeating Queen of Hearts might do it, and it did! It must have been that in the altered timeline that led to me never being born, my dad was killed by Queen of Hearts, because now that you've captured her, look!" He waves a little slip of something in the air.

You squint at what Photobomber is showing you. It's that some polaroid-style photograph from before, when he revealed his whole time-traveling schtick, but this time, instead of the woman standing alone at the beach, it's a handsome red-haired young man wearing that same loud hawaiian shirt over his swim trunks with his arm around the waist of the woman in the photograph. While the woman was a little sad looking before, now both she and the man (clearly Photobomber, in the future time he came from) are smiling broadly.

"Uh..." you blink. "Not going to lie, Photobomber - I actually didn't give a shit about saving your life. To tell you the truth, I suggested Green Streak go ahead and get a vascectomy so you'd just disappear for good and get it over with."

"WHAT??!?!" Dr. Rainbow gives a deep, dramatic gasp of disbelief. "Oh my... Thunderbird... I am...." she sounds like she is struggling to maintain her sunny demeanor, "...so, SO sorry that I wasn't around to keep you from making unethical decisions like that! I promise I'll be a better friend and avoid getting kidnapped so I can support you in the future!"

"...huh." Photobomber coughs awkwardly. "Well, I did kind of... blow you up. I promise, I was aiming for Queen of Hearts, I had a hunch she might've been the killer responsible for my dad's literally un-timely **** before he could, uh, y'know... So I guess we can call that even. One happily-failed-roundabout-attempted-**** for another."

He straightens up and squares his shoulders. "But I figured you would apprecite knowing that I'm leaving the past behind - again, literally - before I fuck something else up and change the past in an irrevocable way again. This is goodbye for now. Do you mind if I take one last selfie of us to remember this exciting time, for posterity? Like I said - no explosives this time."

"Uh, sure, I guess." you sigh. Photobomber crowds in next to you and points you towards a timed camera (old fashioned looking even by 2016 standards, let alone the 2030s or whenever he comes from)... and, to your surprise, he finally pulls off his mask. You do a double take - rarely do villains unmask voluntarily. You scrutinize his face for a moment. He looks... well, quite a bit like Green Streak. No surprise there. But a bit younger and more handsome. Green Streak doesn't look bad himself, but, damn - this guy could be a professional model.

"Wow... um..." you allow yourself a smirk and lean against him, putting your arm over his shoulder. "Maybe you should have run out the clock a little longer, Photobomber. Couldn't you 'interrogate' me by taking me on a date or something? I wouldn't have objected to that."

The handsome young red-haired man cringes, and smiles very awkwardly. "Yeah, uh... that was actually one of the reasons I was always wearing a mask. And why I planted that bomb close enough to singe you and get you pissed off at me. I was trying to avoid this kind of awkwardness if you got a little too friendly."

"Huh?" you turn to the side and look at him. "I don't get it. What are you talking about?"

The unmasked Photobomber shakes his head and sighs wistfully. "Now that I know and you don't need to keep the awkward secret anymore about your time in costume, I'm sure we can look back and have a laugh about it. You really do look better with your natural red hair, by the way."

"What?" you say flatly, more and more confused.

"Just look at the camera, smile, and say cheese..." Photobomber says, tightening his grip on your shoulder, "...big sister."

"WHAT THE F-" your profanity is immortalized in a photograph. The camera flash is impossibly bright, blinding you for a moment. And when it finally dissipates, the mysterious time traveler is gone.

"ARRRRRRGHHHHHHH!" this time, the inchoate scream of rage is coming not from Queen of Hearts, but from you, as you shake your fists at the sky helplessly. "Green Streak....! You motherfucker!"

Julia's voice comes across the radio, sounding halfway apologetic and halfway like she's trying to hold back laughter: "Si."

"Juliaaaaa!" you whine, slapping a hand on your forehead. "You knew, didn't you?! That's why you were acting weird like I'd called you at an embarrssing moment a few minutes ago!"

"I had some suspicions when Green Streak didn't take Nightingale straight back to the headquarters, yeah.... but c'mon, Rick! You know that if I tried to say something, either it would've erased him from time, or he would've seen it coming and blown up my command center to stop me."

You sigh deeply. "This is one more thing Raven Woman has to answer for, giving my mom that damn aphrodisiac-potion at a time like this..." you pause and think about the bewildering implications of this for a moment. "Shit... what are the odds? Mom is only about 3 and a half years away from turning 50. I thought at her age, it wouldn't be like that she could..."

Looking down, you see that the repair patch you slapped on the crotch portion of your skin-tight romper is holding, although it may as well announce to anyone that sees you 'I just had sex in costume and didn't even have time to strip first'. "Oh shit. I hope that superpower-boosting potion's side effects were JUST an aphrodisiac..."