Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
THE Love dojo sat in quiet isolation surrounded by serene woods, perfectly manicured fields of grass, and meditation gardens containing an occasional tea house overlooking a lily-pad-filled pond. The entire property was the cornerstone of class and exhibited the art of dignity at its finest.

The middle-aged man, known within the E.V.I.L. villain community as Showboater, was an absolute affront to everything for which the dojo and its owner stood. This offense was made worse by the fact that Showboater was currently spraying glitter about the dojo’s empty hallways like a farting unicorn. The loss of bling was a natural side effect of the villain’s excessively sequined pants, rhinestone-bedazzled jacket, and glitter-shedding short cape. Luckily, it was one in the morning, so nobody was around to notice.

Truth was, nobody would have noticed at one in the afternoon, either. That was Showboater’s skill. The more he showboated, the more flamboyant he was, the more he disappeared. It was a skill that served him well as an E.V.I.L. villain.

Showboater victory-danced his way through the building and down a barren hallway, and kicked open a door at the end. He jumped inside, dropped to a knee, and jazz-handed it with everything he had. “TA-DAAAA!”

There was no response. Showboater looked around.

The room was empty and dark, except for the moonlight coming through the large windows overlooking the grounds. He rose to his feet and scanned for security cameras. Seeing none, he quietly closed the door and calmly walked over to a wall lined with bolts of fabric. Showboater put a finger to his mouth in thought and started systematically studying the textiles.

“Too flashy. Too pink. Too shiny. Too last season. This one was out before it was even in. Honestly. What was Vogue Love thinking?”

Vogue Love was married to Sensei Love. Sensei ran the dojo, teaching the best of the best. His skill was martial arts. Vogue dressed the best of the best. Her skill was making the perfect fabric and designing the perfect outfit for an individual’s skill and personality. Fashionable and functional, but first and foremost fashionable.

“Ah, this has potential.” Showboater ran his hand down a bolt of dark blue fabric. He stopped and touched his fingers together. They were tacky. “What the Wicked Witch of the West? It’s like a herd of banana-eating three-year-olds manhandled this fabric with their grubby mitts.”

Showboater continued down the line. “No. No. No. Praise Emperor Palpatine! This is it. This is the one.”

The chosen fabric was black. It was rigid and yet fluid. How did Vogue do it? Were those specks of gold hidden in the weave? A masterpiece of textile.

Showboater removed the bolt of fabric from its spot and carried it to the door. He placed his ear against the doorjamb and listened for any sign of late-night activity in the hallway. Silence. Showboater inched the door open, peeked out, and left the room with the bolt of fabric.

Getting into the dojo had been easy. Showboater had snuck into the back of a work truck before it had entered the dojo’s grounds, then showboated his way into the fashion wing, where he’d hidden in a closet until he was sure everyone was asleep. Getting out was going to take some doing. He would find an exit, preferably not alarmed, on the west side, where the forest was about a quarter mile from the building. He could disappear in the trees, make his way over the security wall, and be back in the nearest town before morning and before Vogue would notice her fabric had been stolen. The latter inevitably resulting in a hissy fit Showboater did not want to be around to see or hear.

Showboater crossed from the east wing of the building to the west and stopped, listening. Footsteps?

“Crud.”

Showboater moved down a side hallway and listened again. The footsteps were still coming toward him.

“Double crud.”

He quietly hurried down the hallway and took a left. He needed to hide. There was no way he could properly showboat with the giant bolt of fabric in his arms.

Showboater chose a door and slipped inside. “Oh, just awesome,” he said, in an overly dramatic woe-is-me fashion. “Of all the doors to choose. Now here I am in the belly of the beast.”

Sensei Love’s office was just like Sensei Love. All business. It was minimalist and cold, with two insanely-uncomfortable-looking chairs placed in front of his modern desk.

Showboater circled around to the back of the desk, placed the fabric against the wall in a corner, and moved the mouse on the dustless desktop. The monitor came to life showing a rotation of security feeds. It looked like Showboater could exit from the office windows. If he danced in a straight line, he might be able to go undetected between two cameras.

He moved the mouse up, and the screen went back to sleep. Next to the monitor was a picture of a little girl with red hair in pigtails. She had a dripping ice cream cone in each hand and was delivering a snap kick toward the camera. Showboater smiled at the photo, then noticed a tray with manila folders. The tab on one of the folders read KEEPER CHANCE. Showboater removed the folder, placed it on the desktop, and opened it.

“Great googley moogley!”

Showboater’s head snapped up. The footsteps were outside the door. He grabbed the file, shoved it down his shirt through the neck hole, went straight into his best dance move, the running man, and boogied his way into a corner of the room.

Sensei Love entered and looked around. Saw no one, went to his desk, and began scanning through the folders in the tray. When he came up empty, he walked over to a file cabinet positioned on a wall near the door and continued his search. Clearly perturbed at not finding what he was looking for, Sensei returned to the desk and woke up the computer. Instead of using his fingerprint to gain access, he did something completely uncharacteristic. Sensei said some extremely colorful words, mostly about himself in the third person, complained about fingerprints over facial recognition, and left the office.

Thank goodness, because Showboater wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep the showboating up. He was now done with doing the shopping cart, had moved into the sprinkler, and was sweating up a storm.

Showboater waited a few seconds, which seemed more like hours, until footsteps could no longer be heard in the hallway. He didn’t know who was scarier: the real Sensei or the man who had just been in Sensei’s office and was clearly an imposter. Showboater had to get as far away from the dojo as possible, and fast.

He opened the window and climbed out, leaving the bolt of fabric behind, and took off at a sprint for the woods, not worrying about being seen by the real Sensei or setting off any alarms. The folder was still safely hidden away in Showboater’s shirt. He had an overwhelming feeling that the fake Sensei had been looking for Keeper Chance’s file. It needed to be hidden someplace safe until Showboater could get help.