So there we were, eight-foot Godzilla-like thing on the beach smashing sandcastles and throwing around policemen, and I, at least, had been planning for a nice quiet weekend blending in with the locals and watching the myth of the supernatural from a nice safe place.

I counted heads.  Not five, six of us.  Ten had come here, the ones that get called Amazons in deference to Diana, First of Us (never mind all the myths, she was First in all the ways that count).  The sixth, Youngest Sister, had decided to be Supergirl today.

Well, we all had to have our phases.  I gestured to Leda, she of the cornrow braids, and she stepped forward and pulled a long “prop” sword from her beach bag.

Jitsuko had a golden lasso that happened to be a very nice garrotte.

I had Thor’s hammer, or at least a replica of it.  Thor doesn’t like to part with his actual weapon.

We circled the lizard-thing slowly.

Nzingha spoke.  “Surrender now,” she told the thing.  We always told it to surrender.

They almost never did.  I could pretend I was sad about that, but you probably wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t fault you one bit.

“Ladies,” the cop still standing tried. “I know it’s tempting to try to be Wonder Woman, but let’s leave this to the professionals.”

“Yes.” Sarojini told him.  She was young and proud, her smile a little sharper than those that had gotten a bit worn down, like me.  “Why don’t you leave it to the profes-oh!”

The fight was on.  The thing had grabbed for Jocasta. Jocasta was not that easy to grab, and that sword was no prop.

We did our best to make it look staged.  There was a risk in that – the thing had actually hurt the police officer and a bystander; someone could get angry at the convention.  We still wanted to play it off as a fake if we could. My sisters and I, we prefer to be as quiet as we can.

Even when godzilla shows up on the beach while we’re on vacation.

Godzilla had no intention of going quietly.  He ended up throwing Agaidika across the beach and into the ocean, but Agaidika takes to water like, well, a fish does, and splashed back up in quite a good mood and looking like the goddess that she was rising from the waves.

In the end, it took the replica of Thor’s hammer, the pretend-prop sword, and the garrote, and we ended up with a very subdued monster who was turning a bit grey around the gills.

We all held our breaths.  This is where the police could be a very big problem, if they wanted to.

The oldest officer, a senior who had hurried onto the scene while we fought, took a look at the creature – clearly, by this point, inhuman, and then looked at all of us, superhero swimsuits and prop weapons.

“Well done, sisters.”  She saluted us, and we saluted her back.  It’s always good to have a cousin on the local police force, after all, and there was more than one reason we liked this convention.