Return of the She-Ra Fight Club

Talk Back!

January

Return of the She-Ra Fight Club. Commentator: Julie Wolcott. (16 Jan)

I woke up in a wrestling ring, circular with padded walls. I'd heard of women who'd woken up that way. I hoped I'd get a chance to avenge them.

Most people know me as "Mrs. Ellipsis", the wife of the world's most powerful superhuman. We're not like Superman and Lois Lane in the comic books, though. My husband Stephen uses his energy powers and his huge intellect to help scientists. I gave up my career as a newspaper journalist to help run his business.

I've had superpowers for a few years too. Mine is telekinesis, from a power stone. A friend of Stephen used to carry the stone, but she gave it to me. The stone's barely small enough for me to hold with one hand, so I usually don't carry it. But the stone usually knows where to find me when I want it.

Last year, billionaire businessman Malcolm Dunevoy tried to smear me and my husband and drive us out of business. With the help of Dunevoy's son Michael, we made Malcolm flee instead. But that wasn't good enough. I wanted to find Mal Dunevoy.

Dunevoy used to work in Nashville, Tennessee. I went there on the 15th of January to shmooze with his old associates at a Friday-night cocktail party. They were mostly happy to talk with me, because I was in and Dunevoy was out. There was this one drunken millionaire who tried to convince me that every Friday was Pantsless Friday down on Lower Broadway street. I'm convinced he believed it. I found out from him, though, Dunevoy was probably working with New Russians - who act like Russia is the Wild West all over again and they're the robber barons.

But that's the last thing I remember from that night.

In the wrestling ring, I tried to figure things out. This must be the same fight club that some sick men were running on the Moon. Their secret Moon base got destroyed, so they must have moved. Gravity was normal, and I didn't feel like I was spinning in a centrifuge, so I figured I must still be on Earth.

They must have drugged my glass of wine at the party. I figured they might. That's why I left my power stone with Stephen, and stayed in telepathic contact with him. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't feel it happening and wake me up.

But I was sore on one shoulder. I then remembered feeling shocked there. They must have tasered me!

But how could they even do that without Stephen finding out first? ... Hey, I think I saw Yon Schmidt at the party. He's a superhuman businessman himself, so I didn't think much of it. But he's also a mercenary hunter of superhumans. I'd just been hunted. And I knew I was being watched in my cage. So I said for the audience, "You're all going to feel a world of pain for this."

"Not at all, Ms. Wolcott." Now I knew Mal Dunevoy himself was watching. "You've been transported and shielded from detection. I'd rather have captured some of your less short and dumpy compatriots, but no matter. You are ours to play with."

"Yeah, right. Figure the odds."

"The odds are, you get mauled sometime in the first six minutes."

A teenage boy much taller than me entered the ring through a door in the wall. He rushed me. But as "Mrs. Ellipsis", I'd been trained in self-defense long before. I sidestepped and stomped his instep. As the boy collapsed in pain, I said, "I don't play the way your sick fight club does."

"Oh, you will." Another boy came in. He was more careful, but I feinted toward his foot and then kicked him in the balls.

"Don't worry, there's more." This one looked like an actual high school wrestler. He actually grappled me. I had to bloody his nose to get free.

Dunevoy blathered on, "Just to make things interesting, we'll be dropping a power item into the ring sometime during the match. You'll have to actually beat your other contestants to it." Meanwhile, the wrestler with the bloody nose kept coming. Now he was swinging at me. But he hadn't trained at blocking, so I downed him with a palm strike to the chin.

"Oh, that will be quite enough... Boris, pobedit' yee." I started checking the fallen wrestlers for nose plugs, because I figured they'd be gassing me. But Dunevoy continued, "Oh, don't worry about gunfire. Boris is leaving his gun with me. He'll be smashing you with his bare hands."

A big guy in a suit came in. I went into full defensive posture. But Boris still almost knocked me over. I thought, "Stephen, where are you?"

Then... Unlike Boris, I was watching for other hazards. So I saw something drop from the wall. Hey, power item! I had to duck under Boris to get it, but I got it.

I was hoping for a taser, but it was just some kind of pendant. Oh, crap.

Boris grabbed for my hands around the pendant. But there was a force field around them! I thought, my stone does that too. Cool! I expanded the field and smacked Boris back. But it was lots weaker than my stone. Boris punched it back, and I felt it.

What else could I do with the pendant? I shoved a spike of force as far up as I could.

Then I tripped while backstepping from Boris. He planted his foot on my chest, and started leaning. Even when I grabbed his leg and lifted with the pendant plus all my strength, I could barely move it enough to breathe.

Then the lights went out. No, not for me, for the whole ring. And I finally felt the voice in my head. Stephen wasn't here yet, but he was on his way! I'd finally broken the shielding enough for him to find me. He was using his energy powers to interfere with the base, and his telepathy to speak in advance. "Dunevoy. I have tracked you across the world."

I had to break in: "Stephen! Help!" Boris promptly fell over. Stephen wasn't here, but his mental powers were.

The lights came back on in my ring, as Stephen continued: "You did not think to hide..." But then the lights flickered, and I lost Stephen's voice!

Stephen said I'd gone around the world. Dunevoy must be in Russia, and using some kind of superweapon against him!

I ran for the door where Boris and the wrestlers had come in. I found a hallway, and a side stairway leading up. I guessed, go up.

There was a room, with spectators looking into the ring. Mal Dunevoy was there. I said, "Your bodyguard's gone. You want some of this?"

"Unlikely. Your husband's been neutralized, and this room is full of bodyguards."

Then the roof smashed open. And I felt something slap hard into my hand. My power stone had come to me! Ellipsis could only get to European Russia from North America in ten minutes, but the stone could go even faster.

I had the stone pulse once. Someone near Mal was typing something on a screen, but it went blank. And I felt Stephen's voice again: "Dunevoy. This ends now." Mal Dunevoy slumped, drooling.

"You others: Teper' zaklyuchennye moyei zheny. You are now prisoners of my wife."

I'd been teleported to Russia after I was captured! Mal Dunevoy must have paid a mintful of money to someone to get a Heid-Ketzel teleport device that still worked after reality shifts in 2005.

The pendant was magic from Serbia. Ever since Vojvodina got occupied from the realm of dreams and then disappeared into time, minor mystical power items are cheap and plentiful enough for Russian robber barons to use them as toys.

These are New Russians, so no charges will stick. They'll be back.

But I'd done what I wanted. I'd gotten Mal Dunevoy.