| abstract
| - Stephanie wakes up to seeing bright lights in her eyes. She tries to cover the lights with her hands in order to see better. She gets up and looks around to see that she is in a hospital. Her necklace is on a table right next to her, and she’s still wearing her torn clothes. ???: You look worried, miss. Don’t worry. Nobody but you and I will know of your identity. Stephanie turns to the door. A man is standing in front of it, and the door is locked. Stephanie: Who… Who are you? The man walks over to introduce himself. He has black hair, a nice red tie, and is wearing a lab coat. ???: Name is Dr. Seth Dwarn. I’m an engineer for Johnson Technology Corporation. You may or may not have heard of me. Stephanie: What do you want from me? My gosh, those doctors here didn’t operate on me did they? Dwarn: No, it seems your body did a good job of healing itself. You are completely healed. However, my boss wanted me to give you a proposal because I was the only man he could trust at the moment. Stephanie: What is it? Look, I’m not going to go under any government experiments or training am I? Dwarn: No. It’s not like that at all. Stephanie: Then what will it be? Please, I just want to live a normal life. How long have I been here? How long have I been asleep? Dwarn: Listen, Ms. Barmms, for a second if you’d please. You remember the explosion from two nights ago, don’t you? It created that crazy woman you for some odd reason decided to confront. Regardless, my men found you, but I advised them not to remove your facial coverings. Your identity is safe with me. All JTC wants to do is use you to help us deal with this mess. Stephanie: So you want me to clean up your mess? Dwarn: We didn’t start this mess at all. You seemed to have not read the news. Dwarn grabs a newspaper and gives it to Stephanie. She reads the title. “TRIAD MEN BOMB JTC BUILDING. HUNDREDS OF LIVES LOST.” Stephanie: The Triad? Like, the Chinese Triad? Dwarn: No, but the men’s uniforms on surveillance definitely point to an international association also known as the Triad. They’re a terrorist organization. And you, miss, seemed to have taken out one of their most valuable assets. Stephanie: If “Black Blast” or whatever that idiot calls himself is their best asset, they really suck at hiring people. Dwarn: Regardless, the bombing hit us unexpectedly. Much of the company’s building was demolished, only a few survived on that side of the building. Kevin O’Reale, Megan Mataline, Maria Valentina, and others. Megan Mataline had escaped our custody and now we need YOU to help Stephanie: No no. I can’t just give myself up to work for you guys. Dwarn: So you’d let a man go astray knowing your identity? Stephanie is silent. She knows what’s exactly going on. Dwarn: All we need you to do is help us gather up this mutated woman and we’ll be on our way until more trouble comes. What you could do at least is help us and others. We can’t deal with this ourselves, and you know that. Stephanie: But she almost killed me. How do you know I’ll be able to fight her again? Dwarn: As inexperienced as you are, you seem to have at least been able to fight her off. We’ll help provide things you need to fight her. Stephanie’s eyes point elsewhere as she thinks about the deal. Stephanie: (I have no other real choice now. I might as well help him out.) Stephanie: Alright, I’ll help. But just this once. I’m not going to be owned by your company. Dwarn smiles. Dwarn: Very good. Dress back up to some normal clothes and come with me. Dwarn passes some clothes to her, which flop onto her lap. She picks up the shirt and begins to put it on. ~~ Stephanie sits alone in a metal-walled room in JTC. She looks out one of the one-way windows. The other half of the building is mutilated, but the half she was in was fully functional. Colt Johnson enters the room through a heavy metal door, walking with a cane. Stephanie: Isn’t it dangerous to be here? Colt: Completely, as Mataline is still roaming this building. Stephanie: Why exactly is she doing that? Colt: No idea. She must have this type of territorial mindset on the broken parts of this building. Regardless, I’m here to help you. Stephanie: What do you have that will make it easier for me to fight? I already can make my skin into crystal. I don’t think you could top that. Colt pulls out some pellets from his coat pocket and shows them to Stephanie. Colt: These are pellets which contain pressurized liquid nitrogen. Such a liquid has the ability to freeze almost anything and make it frail, so I suggest you use this with caution. This is what we will use to stop Mataline. But I also have something else for you. Colt gestures to Dwarn to bring in a suit. Stephanie: Is that something for me to wear? How did you make it so fast? Colt: We developed a hyper-weaving machine. No other company has this. It can create clothing of any color and design within minutes. It’s still being tested but we hope this can help the clothing industry. Stephanie grabs onto the costume. It’s made of a stretchy but strong fabric which is smooth to the touch, almost like silk. It has polygonal patterns all over it, shaped like diamonds like on a card. It has a zipper on the back to easily put on, with the addition of gloves and boots to help her grasp things and run easier. It had a belt for Stephanie to place the pellets in, as well. A built-in microphone set is also connected to the mask. Colt: What do you think? Stephanie: It looks amazing. Better than what I was wearing before. Stephanie notices the mask with green screens to go over the eyes. Stephanie: I don’t think I’ll enjoy seeing green all the time though. Dwarn: You won’t be. It’s only an outside feature. You’ll see just fine through the mask. Stephanie goes into another room to put on the outfit and comes back. It fits perfectly, nice and snug and shows the outline of her body. The muscles are outlined but not completely shown. Stephanie: Yes, this works very nicely. Colt: Very good. Now, then. Take these pellets with you. Police are going around these parts, make sure not to hurt them if they attack. Stephanie grabs the pellets and puts them into the pockets on her costume. Colt: Do you need a code-name, by the way? Don’t want to be saying your name the whole time if we message you through that mask. Stephanie: Hm… She looks down at her necklace. Stephanie: Emerald. We will go with Emerald. Colt: Alright, “Emerald.” I’ll keep in touch with you. Colt slowly walks over to a button in the wall. He presses it, and it reveals a room where all the security cameras are. He puts on a microphone set. Colt: I’ll be watching you from here, Emerald. ~~ Emerald goes through the wreckage of the ruins. Emerald: (I feel so much more prepared now that I’m more equipped. I just need to find that pink lady again.) Emerald spots some officers looking around the place. Officer 1: This is very frightening all right. Officer 2: It’s almost like suicide, having to go after this thing going around this place. Hehahahahaaaaheeheh… The officers look around themselves with their flashlights. Coming from the broken ground from the floor below them was a pink cloud. It surrounded them as they trembled in fear. Emerald made her way down some stairs to see this happening. Emerald: I see her. She’s about to deal with two more officers. Should I take her down? Colt: Take her down immediately! There is no strategy in this. She could just go away in an instant. Do it while she’s busy. Emerald continues down the stairs, and opens up one of the pouches on her belt. She takes one of the Nitrogen pellets and throws it on the ground as the gas surrounds the officers. The nitrogen breaks open and sprays the gas, making it colder so it becomes liquid instead. Ms. Matter recollects herself as humanoid gas again, but her legs wouldn’t go back to becoming a gas. They begin to freeze into a solid. She can’t move. Ms. Matter: What the… With effort she tries to become gas again, but it’s too difficult for her. Her legs are stuck as a frozen puddle. Ms. Matter looks at the policemen and tries to grab at them, but another pellet breaks and sprays her arms. They get frozen and break off of her torso. The arms shatter onto the ground. The gaseous woman turns around to see a figure in green and purple, and wearing the same necklace as the woman she had defeated not so long ago. Ms. Matter: You again… What’s with the outfit? Emerald: Doesn’t matter. You’re coming with me, miss. Ms. Matter makes a new arm out of the remaining parts of herself and aims a giant fist at Emerald, but Emerald swifty dodges it and kicks Ms. Matter in the face as she flips. Ms. Matter corrects her face and goes back to the fighting. She lunges herself at Emerald, acting like a pressurized spray of water. She knocks Emerald back. Emerald gets back up to find Ms. Matter trying to hit her with a huge solid arm. Emerald’s gem glows along with her body, and her lenses over her eyes shine as she dodges the attack. Emerald was filled with energy! Emerald’s fingernails grew sharper with the crystal and she slashes through the liquid that was Ms. Matter. Matter yelled in pain for each scratch. Ms. Matter sank to the ground, recollecting herself. Emerald threw another liquid nitrogen tablet, which broke and froze more parts of Ms. Matter. Ms. Matter: Ngh… I can’t move very easily. I need to try… I need to heat myself up. Emerald: Not on my watch. Emerald kicked Ms. Matter in the chin, knocking her backwards. Ms. Matter back safely using her hands, and gives Emerald a nasty look. Her pink eyes seemed to be lit with fire. She lunges at Emerald with two sharp arms. Emerald quickly turns her whole body into crystal as she throws another pellet of liquid nitrogen. Both of them get sprayed. Ms. Matter solidifies instantly and shatters into a thousand pieces. Emerald moves her body a little and the diamond cracks off. Soon all of it shatters, revealing her completely okay. Emerald: And now to make sure she stays that way. Emerald drops a final pellet to keep her frozen in those pieces. She stands over Ms. Matter, smiling out of the defeat of Ms. Matter. Emerald: Second time was the charm. ~~ Emerald looks at the glass box in which Ms. Matter is kept it. She notices how it’s being kept at a thermal temperature of -100 degrees. Emerald: So you plan to keep her frozen? Colt: Well if I kept her room temperature she would just escape again, so yeah. She might learn to adapt to these temperatures but for now, we should be safe. Emerald: Thank goodness. Emerald removes her mask, revealing her luscious ginger hair. Stephanie: So this is going to stay a secret between me, you and Dwarn, right? Colt: No doubt. I may need to call on you again if this mess ever gets more out of hand. So are you sticking with the code name? Stephanie: Emerald? Yes. It fits. Just please. I can’t have this being what my life is all about. I’ll try to stay committed as long as this doesn’t interrupt my normal life too much. Dwarn: That shouldn’t be a problem. Stephanie: Alright then, it is settled. I’m going to be your own private vigilante. Don’t expect me to always be your lacky, though. I want to help others. You don't own me. This is a mutual partnership, you guys hear? Dwarn: Loud and clear, Ms. Barmms. ~~ Meanwhile, deep under the grounds of JTC’s main buildings, the injured Kevin O’Reale’s fingers begin to twitch as he begins to wake up. His eyes slowly open. He looks at his hands. They’re blistered and have rashes all over them, along with his arms having spots and being a gross green-ish color. He is breathing heavily as he notices his lungs are in pain and that his nose is stuffed up. Kevin: Oh… I’m going to die, aren’t I?
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