Bass stood outside the Edith family mansion, on the lookout for any nefarious evildoers. Edith’s brother’s words echoed around her head.

Competence. All she needed to be was competent. And she was competent. Not the best, because nobody ever really was the best. She just needed to do a good job.

And when Bass really thought about it, she realized she could definitely do a good job. She got good grades, good enough to get into a school of her choice; she had friends, enough friends to have a social life. She had herself, and she thought she was a pretty nice girl, all things considered.

And even if she didn’t have any of that, as long as she still tried her best, then that’s really what counted, wasn’t it? Only one person can be number one; but anybody can do their best. As long as she amounted to herself, then everything would be alright.

Several of Garcia’s men took up stations around the mansion as well, all of them armed with pistols and shades. Unable to help themselves, one of them set up a phone from which they could all hear Wharton's speech.

Right on time, the speech started, playing on cellphones, livestreams, and television broadcasts across the entire globe. Bass snuck a peak at the screen; Wharton looked calm and collected, standing inside his bubble, looking right into a camera.

“Good evening, Earth,” Wharton began, his words fearless. These were the words he said to start all of his videos, after all. “How’s everybody doing tonight? I understand things aren’t ideal right now, which is why I made this video. This is a serious topic that requires discussion. And, of course, since this video will get political, I would like to once again apologize for my comments on the Finno-Korean Hyperwar. Those comments came during a dark period in my life and do not reflect my values as a person.”

Wharton took a deep breath. “But what I’m about to say does reflect my values as a person. I’m talking, of course, about Ruta. We all know her. We all believed in her. And now…we've turned against her, merely because we discovered that we placed upon a pedestal constructed with pillars of salt and and pillars of sand.”

A sharp explosion suddenly took Bass out of the video. She looked up and heard gunfire. A few guards stationed further up the winding road screamed and fired their guns, but right before Bass’s eyes, they were knocked away like a child kicking over a sandcastle. More guards joined their fray, but they too were knocked away. Each time, the sound of a thunderclap came a second later.

“She has a Talent,” Bass warned the guards with her, frowning.

“We have this,” a guard proclaimed, smiling as he cradled an RPG. Bass bit her lip in worry, but followed along with their plan. From the intensifying sounds, Rankin was getting closer. Bass readied her fist, iron metal covering her skin.

Right as Rankin emerged around the street corner, the guard fired the RPG. Rankin already held her hand up and did a one-handed clap; in the blink of eye, Bass watched the missile stop on a dime, then immediately fly backwards, carried by the sound wave, right back into the guards who fired it.

Bass raised her metal fist to protect herself; the blast still knocked her off her feet, carrying her yards away. Her ears rang, her vision looked blurry, everything seemed slow and out of balance. She rose to her feet and touched her face; her hand came away bloody.

The guard station had been utterly destroyed; Bass looked around and realized that Rankin defeated all the guards. Only Rankin and Bass remained standing outside the mansion.

“Rankin…what are you doing?” Bass couldn’t help but ask.

“Holloway wants this thing shutdown,” she explained, not looking tired at all from the asswhooping she just delivered to the elite guard of a an entire country.

“Holloway…” Bass repeated. “Are you working for him? Is that why you didn’t want us to investigate?”

“I like to play both sides,” Rankin simply said with a shrug. “Edith becomes CEO, I’ll become her number two. Holloway holds the world hostage with his device, I’ll get the second-largest slice of the pie. Money is everything. Power is everything.”

Bass took a timid step backwards. “You really think he’s just going to hold the world hostage?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Rankin thought about it, then shrugged. “Then I’ll become his number two in whatever he does to the world. Now, out of my way. I’m stopping this broadcast. I’ll kill this idol in front of all his followers. Millions of people with their spirits further broken, just like that.”

Bass thought about millions of people feeling like her. That made her take a step forward, her fist raised. “You’ll have to get through me first.”

“That can be arranged,” Rankin said. “But didn’t your mother already break your spirit?”

Bass frowned, but didn’t back down. “You know, I learned something today. Some people will have incredibly high expectations for you. Too high and too unrealistic.” She slapped a hand across her chest. “But as long as you do your best, then whatever you achieve, you should feel proud of, no matter what other people say-”

Rankin used the opportunity provided by Bass’s lengthy monologue to send her Thunderclap at her. Bass protected herself at the last moment, but the soundwave still slammed her backwards into a hedgerow. Ignoring the jabbing pains and the feeling of shellshock, Bass emerged out of the hedges, but Rankin was already there in front of her.

Rankin grabbed Bass by the throat and tossed her to the ground. Bass’s world spun around her, and she could just barely make out Wharton's speech from the phone, which must’ve survived the blast.

“It’s the truth,” Wharton explained. “We created an idol out of Ruta. We worshiped her, letting the media narrative rule our lives. Holloway wasn’t wrong. She was a distraction. But it was our own fault for being distracted. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to each other to recognize injustice when we see it. Instead, we allowed ourselves to be swept up by the whirlwind known as Ruta, myself included.”

Wharton’s words sounded confident. “Rather than fix any of our own problems, we looked to Ruta and used her success story to feel successful in our lives. We borrowed her success, pretending it was ours. Thus, when her success turned out to be false, it’s like we lost our own. And that made us angry. We turned against each other, blaming everyone, blaming ourselves, blaming Ruta.”

Bass struggled to her feet, but Rankin kicked her back down onto the pavement. Rankin knelt right on her chest, a firm grip on her collar.

“Don’t be afraid, Bass,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper. “You’re just an ordinary girl of whom greatness was expected. Instead, you can only do the best you can. That’s why you can’t protect yourself and can’t protect the bubble boy.”

“Ruta lied about the allergy, but nothing she said about boundaries was false!” Wharton declared. “She’s right - it’s a very scary thing, stepping out of your own world, especially for the first time, especially when it’s been a while. But we must. That’s the truth. We must go beyond the boundary. Even if it’s just once in a while. Because that’s the only way you can find other people. Person A will always be Person A. Person B will always be Person B. Some say there will always be a wall between them, and they’re right. But what they’re forgetting is that you create something greater than that - you create Relationship AB. A bridge over the wall. And doing that is the only way to become a part of something greater than ourselves.”

Bass freed an arm and caught Rankin’s hand before she could Thunderclap; Bass pushed down on it with her metal hand until she heard a satisfying crunch. A hand now crippled, Rankin looked too overwhelmed with shock, pain, and confusion to do anything. Bass punched her right off of her, Rankin tumbling away on the concrete.

Bass rose to her feet, confident in each step. Rankin snarled and Thunderclapped with the other hand; Bass shielded herself with her fist, finding the strength to remain in place. Rankin, breathing heavily, Thunderclapped again and again, but each time, Bass remained in place, and advanced during each interval.

“But…the real you!” Rankin protested. “She’s weak, she’s scared-”

“I’m all of the above,” Bass confirmed. “But this is also me.”

She struck Rankin across the face, sending the girl spinning through the air and crashing on top of the corpse of a guard. Bass thought she heard Wharton still talking, but his words didn’t really register with her.

“Right now…she's fighting…to protect me…because we have an AB…because all of us have an ABCD and beyond, even if we don’t know it…”

Bass moved to end things, but Rankin suddenly sat up with a wild grin, the guard’s gun in her hands. She shot Bass through the stomach several times; Bass felt the kick of each bullet then didn’t feel anything, not even falling to the ground. She gasped for air and squirmed, but pain flashed across her entire body.

Rankin limped over to her, tossing away the gun. She towered over Bass, her hand stretched down toward her, ready for a final Thunderclap.

“This is the real me,” Rankin proclaimed, almost regretfully, then moved her fingers to clap-

Two rockets exploded out of the side of the mansion, their trajectories taking them directly into Rankin’s chest. The girl literally exploded, the remnants of her body lifted into the air and settling down amongst a row of hedges.

Bass, still wide-eyed, managed to tilt her head over. She saw Wharton's Bubble Tank rumble out of the mansion, smoke trailing out of the barrels that fired the rockets.

“Ruta made me step outside my comfort zone,” Wharton declared into the camera inside his bubble. He looked over at Bass. “And this girl inspired me to defend my right to step outside.”

Bass realized Wharton was now pointing the camera at her.

She managed to wheeze out a response.

“It’s because I did the best I could,” was all Bass said.

Well, then, feeling the pain all over, coughed out, “Could I...get like an icepack or something?”