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The group clad in black outfits and ski masks kicked open the alley's side door and barreled into their awaiting van, the one in the front passenger seat clutching tight to their body a large silver briefcase. The driver slammed his foot on the gas and within seconds, the nondescript van burst out of the alley and into the city's streets, driving down the empty avenue with reckless abandon. An alarm blared out of the building the group had just exited, filling the quiet city streets with a loud, conspicuous ring.
"Come on, come on, lemme see it!" the driver said, turning his eyes from the road to the front passenger seat. "I'm the only one who didn't get to see it in person yet."
"In time, in time." The passenger said, rapping her fingers over the briefcase's shiny exterior. "When we get to the base, you can look all you want. The Emperor won't be arriving until tonight. You can look until your eyes fall out."
"Not literally though," a voice from one of the backseats piped up. "At least I hope not, I had to stare at it for a while to get it."
"This medallion isn't capable of such levels of mutilation" the fourth member coldly announced, picking up a phone and dialing a number into it. "But I think you'll find its true capabilities will more than make up for that."
Before any more questions could be asked about the medallion, red and blue lights filled the side-view mirrors, causing everyone to look back to see how close their pursuers were. The driver clicked his teeth. "Looks like they were waiting for us."
"We're a bit occupied up here," the one holding the briefcase said, gesturing to the van's backdoor with her thumb. "Do either of you want to take care of that?"
"I got it!" One of the voices in the back said, carefully standing up. The rest of the passengers held on tight to their belongings and seatbelts as their companion stumbled over to the backdoor. Flinging the door open, he stared down at the police cruisers zooming towards them and licked his lips. From under his black sweater, he withdrew a golden chain wrapped around his neck, hanging from it a golden medallion with a large palm embossed onto it. Gripping onto the medallion tightly, the thief's body began to radiate a golden color, and with one hand clutching onto the van's side, he pointed the medallion at the oncoming squad cars.
The policemen's eyes widened in shock as a massive golden hand suddenly burst forth from the medallion and charged at their cruiser palm first. The cruiser tried to swerve around it, but the hand was too quick and caught the first car in its grip like a vaunted child grabbing a toy. Effortlessly, the golden hand raised the car off of the pavement and threw it at the accompanying cop car, both vehicles crashing together and rolling off of the road.
Proudly, the thief slammed the backdoor shut and returned to his seat with a smug expression only barely hidden behind his ski mask. "And it's just that easy!" He looked around to his comrades for praise and cheers but only saw them returning to the tasks they were conducting beforehand. Wiping the smile off of his face, he put his hands to his knees and just stared at the van's floor.
"You see anyone else in pursuit?" The driver asked, suddenly. "And I'm not talking about just another flatfoot, either."
"Huh? No, I didn't see anyone out there. Should I have?"
"If you didn't see anyone, chances are she's already here." Everyone else in the van appeared to pick up what the driver was saying, and all reached into their sweaters to withdraw a medallion, clutching them tightly in their hands as they looked out the van's windows. The driver, careful to keep his eyes on the road almost jumped when a white streak leaped across the left-hand rear-view mirror. "White Bolt! She's here!" he said, repeatedly looking through his mirrors for a repeat performance.
"Just keep your eyes on the road," the one in the passenger seat said, clutching the briefcase to her chest. "Leave it to us to deal with her. Grant! Deal with her!"
"I'm on it" the one called Grant answered, handing his phone to his companion sitting across from him and approaching the rear door. Squeezing his medallion with one hand, he opened one of the rear doors, using the other to anchor himself in place.
But before he could unleash his own medallion's powers against the mysterious white streak, a sudden bolt of light struck the van's closed rear door and exploded on impact, knocking the thief to the floor of the van and rattling the other passengers. The driver struggled to keep the van out of a swerve, but further bolts of light striking the van caused it to veer out of control, and eventually crash into a fire hydrant.
The unfastened passengers in the back of the van were bounced against the walls and each other, knocking both of them out cold on the van floor. The front doors were both thrown open, and the driver and front side passenger leaped from the van and made a beeline for a nearby alley. But before they could get close enough, another blast of light shot from behind them, knocking the driver down and out, while the briefcase wielding thief, the last one standing, turned and faced the source of the attack.
Standing a few yards from the crashed van was a ninja, clad in white. In her hands was a short sword radiating bright white light, clearly the instrument behind the attacks on the van. The ninja in white twirled her blade and stepped towards the thief with an outstretched hand and an intense stare.
The thief, alone and cornered, still found it within herself to crack a smile. Even chuckle in the face of this powerful enemy. "White Bolt! It's a pleasure to see you again. You didn't come all this way for this, did you?" She raised the briefcase in front of her to act as a shield. "If you're expecting me to just give it to you, then I'm afraid you are in for a rude awakening." Unclasping the briefcase handles, the thief quickly reached inside, as the white ninja broke into a sprint towards her. The thief grabbed the medallion sitting inside the briefcase's velvet innards, and squeezed tightly, as White Bolt's outstretched hand came closer and closer to pulling the briefcase out of her grip.
But it was too late, as a blast of golden energy emerged from the thief's body, and pushed the ninja called White Bolt away, along with a small wave of water from the fire hydrant. White Bolt recovered into a flip and landed on her feet, just in time to see the thief cloaked in a gold-colored light. Floating behind her and flying around her outstretched limbs was a long, golden dragon, resting its head on the thief's shoulder and snarling. "I'm sure the Emperor won't mind if I use this to put you down once and for all."
White Bolt gripped her sword tightly and began to breathe hard. This would surely be her greatest challenge to date. To guarantee the defeat of the thief, the reclamation of the medallion, and the protection of the town's citizens would require her to bring together all of her years of training. Twirling the blade in her hand, she pointed it at the thief and took a wide stance, before kicking off with her back foot and quickly closing the distance as she thrust the point of her glowing sword forward.
The dragon wielding thief smirked at the oncoming attack and carelessly extended an arm towards the charging ninja. The dragon's head, resting on that arm's shoulder, traveled down the length of her arm and flew mouth agape towards White Bolt's head. As the two forces approached each other, closer and closer, under a rain of fire hydrant water, a voice cut through to bring everything to a halt.
"CUT!"
White Bolt, formerly in a dead sprint slowed down to a complete stop, as the dragon that once stood across from her faded out of existence. The water spouting upwards from the damaged fire hydrant diminished as a pair of men tended to it, while another person helped free the thief from her complex rigging. White Bolt pulled off her mask and let out an annoyed groan, handing it and the weapons in her hand to an awaiting pair of hands and grabbing a towel from a separate pair of waiting hands. As she dried herself off and walked through the sea of people muttering to each other, with words like "exciting" and "excellent" and "brilliant" being thrown around like a ball during a tennis match.
White Bolt finally reached the door she had been walking towards, but before she could go through it, a hand fell onto her shoulder. Looking back, she was face-to-face with a short, stout man wearing a baseball cap and smiling ear to ear. "Just you wait until they get a look at this," he said, in as loud and boisterous a voice as when he shouted 'Cut' earlier. "They're gonna beg us to make a new season, just you wait!"
The actress playing White Bolt feigned a wide smile of her own as the director patted her on the shoulder and walked away. "Just you wait!" he exclaimed, as he walked through the set, practically skipping with excitement. With her smile still pointed at the man who was no longer in front of her, she opened the back door and disappeared behind it, leaving the set, the employees, and her fellow actors behind as she emerged into a backlot filled with cars and a single, oversized trailer.
Her smile faded as she came near the trailer, being replaced with an expression of annoyance and frustration. Practically kicking the trailer door open, she slammed the door shut behind her and let out a loud groan as she knocked over papers and drink receptacles all over the floor, before giving the innocent inanimate objects a thorough kicking. As she discarded bits of her costume and entered her bathroom area, a knock on the trailer door caught her attention and her ire.
"What now? We're done for the day!" she shouted, kicking off her boots and throwing her gloves to the air.
The door to the trailer opened and a meek-looking girl wearing a large pair of glasses, apparently having heard the tantrum from beyond the trailer's walls. "Sherry?" she asked, a concerned look across her face. "Everything alright? You doing okay?"
"No! I'm not doing okay!" Sherry answered, shutting the bathroom door behind her. "Do you see what I'm working with here?" she asked, as the glasses-wearing girl entered and shut the trailer door behind her. "It's like all of the years of buildup and blowoff have led to nothing, we're back to square one!" The papers and cups on the floor were collected and reorganized to their original places as Sherry continued to rant. "Who the heck is 'The Emperor' anyway? Where the heck has he been after all these years if he's so important? Damn Status Quo! I'm so sick of spinning my wheels here, I want to move forward, dammit!"
The girl in the glasses jumped as the bathroom door suddenly flung open, the ninja who had entered was now replaced by an actress dressed in a long, white, embroidered bathrobe. "But you understand why they created this new villain, right?" the girl in glasses said, sitting on the trailer's couch and pressing on her phone. "The showrunners want to try saving the show from cancellation. Rumors have been rampant for months now."
"Yeah, and how do they want to save the show, Kat? How do these brainboxes want to save the show?" Sherry asked, bending at the hip to face the girl, Kat, eye to eye. Kat looked away first, unable to stare into Sherry's purple, angry eyes for long. "By pulling the same crap from 8 years ago! It's been done! Who wants to see the same story regurgitated time after time? It's like they're trying to kill my career!" Furiously, she stormed to her closet and procured one of the many black suit bags hanging by a hanger. "What are they paying these writers? Too much, dammit!
"Sherry, please," Kat said, waving her hands to tell Sherry to lower her voice. If Kat was able to hear her from outside the trailer, who knew who could be eavesdropping. "I'm sure the writing team are working their hardest and have a bunch of exciting new ideas. To freshen things up an-and to turn things in a new direction!"
"Oh yeah, they have a history of profound, interesting, deep writing. Gimme a break!" Sherry returned to the bathroom and slammed it shut behind her. "Only reason people even watch nowadays is because of me, my incredible range, and my stunts. When the money was guaranteed, their writing was as good as an elementary school play. What's the likelihood they're gonna pull a clue out of their asses now?"
Kat could hear a shower starting and took the time to bring up a social media site on her phone. The page featured Sherry's name and smiling face throwing up a peace sign.
"Just finished filming the first episode of the season! I think you guys are gonna love it," she wrote. "Everyone is giving it their all this season. Please enjoy the season premiere <3!"
The moment she hit 'sent' and launched her message to Sherry's hundreds of thousands of awaiting fans, notifications came flying in. Many of them were the common replies to updates like these, such as 'nice' and 'can't wait'. But she couldn't help but draw her eyes to several longer comments, expressing their lack of interest in a new season, and declaring that the ending of the last seasons was a perfect conclusion to the entire series.
To say that this was the only time a comment like this came across her mind was an understatement. Last season marked the finale of the longest going storyline in the series, with the long-time villain, the mysterious Red Phantom, finally being discovered to be White Bolt's long-lost sister. The climactic showdown at the top of the Kingdom Tower had a satisfying conclusion that tied together all loose ends and gave everyone a happy ending. And here they were, suddenly introducing a new villain, never mentioned before, who is meant to be more powerful and more influential than the last villain?
Kat was able to deduce that this would all lead to White Bolt and Red Phantom working together for the first time in the series history, but would the promise of such a team-up be enough to convince not only the viewing audience to watch but the higher-ups in the company to keep the show running?
"Sherry, I just wrote up a post for you!" Kat announced as loud as her little voice could through her anxious smile. "Fans are excited to see the new season!" The shower stopped running, and Kat bolted upright, expecting more shouting on the other side of the wall. "Pe-People are sharing it like crazy." A hairdryer was turned on, but there was still no reply from Sherry. Kat swallowed hard and could feel her knees knocking together. "Th-th-this is the k-k-kinda buzz we want, right?" The hairdryer turned off, and silence was the response Kat received. The minute that followed felt like an eternity, as Kat stood there, breath getting heavy and her heartbeat finding itself in her throat.
"Can I show you something, Kat?" Although Kat was waiting for a response, hearing Sherry's voice made her jump. Thoughtlessly, she nodded in response before realizing that Sherry couldn't see her.
"Y-ye… sure" she meekly said.
"Then open the door. Come on in." Kat sighed in relief. Something about the shower must have relaxed her temper and washed all of the frustration out of her head. It must have been that new shampoo and conditioner combination Kat got her.
Kat approached the bathroom door and slowly opened it, peeking through and seeing Sherry sitting on a stool, facing away from her. Meeting her gaze in the mirror, Kat's eyes drifted down to Sherry's bare back facing her. Going red in the face, Kat stepped away before she noticed something on Sherry's rib that caught her attention. Her eyes went wide and she threw her hands to her mouth to suppress her fear. "Oh my god, Sherry!" Kat said, jumping up and down in worry. "I didn't know you were injured. Was this on set? We have to tell the director! We need to tell the medical staff! We gotta get you a hospital!"
"Take it easy! This isn't an injury!" Sherry snapped. "Haven't you been reading up on the news? These holes on people's bodies aren't caused by guns or wayward debris." Sherry beckoned her to get closer and Kat obliged, peering into the seemingly bottomless hole that theoretically should go straight to Sherry's lung. "It's those jewels that fell from the sky and give people amazing abilities. While I was out looking for inspiration last month, I got hit by one! And I think it's going to be the key to drumming up the interest we need." Curiosity got the better of Kat, and she couldn't help but insert her finger into the hole to see what would happen, and how deep it would go. "Imagine if I get the ability to summon lightning, or control the world's seas. Forget another season, they could build an entire industry around me-HEE!" Sherry yelped as she felt Kat's cold finger touch her.
She jumped to her feet and shot her assistant an even colder glare as Kat threw up her hands and practically burst into tears. "Sorry, sorry! I'm sorry!"
Wordlessly, she shoved Kat out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her again as Kat stumbled and fell face-first onto the couch. "Make yourself useful, get the message out that I'm going to do something incredible. Find someone or something that could be taken down a peg by my new, incredible powers."
Kat looked up, eyes still brimming with tears, and picked up her phone. "How do you know they're incredible?" she asked, sobbing. "From what you said, it sounds like you don't even know what it is yet."
"Everything I do is incredible!" Sherry insisted. "No matter what I end up with, it's going to turn the world on its ear! And when every camera in the world lands on me, my future won't be decided by stuffy suits in a boardroom or the incompetent writers in an office!" The bathroom door flung open, and Sherry stood there wearing A t-shirt and sweatpants. She raised her fists in the air and threw few punches to the air, before stepping back and throwing a swift roundhouse kick. Sherry left her leg high in the air, with her entire body completely frozen in place, with no trembling on her part whatsoever. "My future will be a wide-open plain for me to freely stroll, where I choose my direction, my speed, my destination, and my destiny!"
"It's amazing she's able to keep quiet under that mask," Kat thought, scrolling through the latest news on her phone. There was bound to be a troublemaker wreaking havoc with newfound powers to act as a punching bag for Sherry's ego somewhere.
"According to the local news, there's a man who's been throwing rocks off an overpass. You could scare him off with your air kicking" Kat said with a smirk, before realizing what exactly she said and focusing all of her attention on the phone.
"Too small!" Sherry declared, bringing her leg down and staring at the phone over Kat's shoulder. "I need something bigger, something to grab the nation's attention."
"What about a suspected gun smuggler," Kat asked, not looking at Sherry yet. "According to the police, he's working with a bullet smuggler who should be showing up next week. You can beat him up before they unite and cause trouble."
"Bigger! Bigger!"
"Here's another guy who got powers from the Jewel. His Jewel gives him the power to eat dirt! He's eaten over three miles of countryside and is reportedly unstoppable!"
"What are you even reading? Who has time for something dumb like that." Sherry plucked the phone out of Kat's hand and proceeded to scroll through the news page herself, scanning headline after headline for something that caught her eye. There had to be some force out there big enough and terrifying enough for her to put her skills to the test against. "Ah-ha!" She said, finally landing on something that got her smiling. "Look here, Kat. The Silver Eye Gang! Looks like they're trying to expand their influence to a nearby town! This is perfect." While Sherry smiled excitedly, Kat's face froze in shock. Sherry tossed the phone back to Kat, but her assistant wasn't able to catch it in time, and it bounced off the couch. "Nice catch."
Kat could only utter small squeaks in response as Sherry walked past her and entered her bedroom on the opposite side of the trailer. Finally, she was able to snap back to reality and get her words out. "Are you crazy?" She asked in a flustered tone, following Sherry to her room. "These guys have been trouble for longer than you've been alive! These aren't some tv show goons, this is the real thing."
"Exactly my point!" Sherry said, standing in front of a trophy case full of trophies, medals, ribbons, and certificates. "I want to show people that I'm not just some TV show superstar. I'm a superstar of life, and I'm sick of not being treated like one."
"But Sherry"
"No buts! Get a camera and some equipment. We got a few days before the next shoot, and we're gonna use them!"
"These guys are dangerous. Even the police won't go after them!"
"The police are cowards! They don't have half the skills I do."
"There could be dozens of them! You can't take all of them on yourself. Don't you want to look at the dirt guy again?"
Sherry didn't answer. Instead, she slid open her trophy cabinet and reached into the back for a long, red object. At the head of it was a golden ring and a red handle that Sherry grabbed onto tightly. "Kat, who is the best martial artist you've ever seen, live and in living color?"
Kat swallowed hard. "You are."
"Who has more black belts than birthdays?" Sherry asked, in a more annoyed tone.
Kat made herself small and answered in a weak, quiet tone. "You do."
Unsheathing the katana in her hands, Sherry stared at the blade reflecting in the bedroom's overhead light and smiled. "And finally," she said, in a louder and angrier tone. "Who has enough trophies, medals, and blue ribbons in gymnastics and combat sports to start their own trophy store, and keep it running and profitable for years and years?" There was no answer from Kat, as she stared nervously at the blade in Sherry's hand. All she could do was raise a hand and point her finger at her. "Exactly!" she snapped, pointing the tip of her sword at her assistant, who pressed herself against the wall to make some distance between herself and the weapon. "I've been carrying this series on my back through nothing but my skill and talent. I've made bastards rich because of how good I am at everything! You of all people are the last person in the world to doubt me! If I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna do it better than anyone else can dream of, got it?" With terror and tears in her eyes, Kat nodded vigorously. Smiling, Sherry pulled the blade away and returned it to its sheath. "The only reason these guys have been such a problem is because I've never cared to go after them. But that all changes as soon as you get a camera, and you get some equipment, and you get me to their place of business. Leave the rest to me, I won't let you down."
Stuck to the wall like a poster, Kat sidled her way out of the room and back into the trailer's foyer. She didn't have the strength to argue, especially whenever Sherry gets an idea in her head like that. As she left the trailer, all she could do was look back at the star of the show ogling her trophies. As skilled and confident as she was, this was a greater threat than anything she's seen in all of her life. Would she be willing to risk her safety for a greater chance at fame? Was being a star of television not enough? If not, then where would she need to draw the line to find satisfaction?
Kat retrieved her personal phone to make a call she needed. If Sherry didn't plan on letting her down, then Kat had to make sure she didn't let Sherry down. "I hope you know what you're doing.