Sparkly Things | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Sparkly Things | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Westefeld
08/26/21
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Belinda Snow, the Speedster, had just finished her third box of pop tarts in less than two minutes. Racing so fast that she was invisible, she arrived at the studio ten minutes after she’d awakened. She didn’t have any regrets about missing her alarm or her breakfast, as she’d had had a busy weekend. Crime fighting burned off a lot of calories and made her tired. As she walked at normal speed to her desk, her producer came towards her with a grumpy expression. “Belinda, I need you to cover for Brandy today.”

Belinda wondered what was wrong with her friend Brandy Anderson. Brandy covered the fashion beat and Belinda knew very little about what her friend covered and said so to her producer. He waved her concerns away with a wave of his hand and responded, “I already forwarded to your laptop all the notes she had worked up on her latest assignment.”

Belinda trudged the rest of the way to her small desk. Pushing the concern she felt for her friend to the back of her mind, Belinda opened the e-mail and read about the opening of a high end jewelry store.

Meeting up with the cameraman assigned to Brandy, she took a news van to the store. Plastering a fake smile on her face, she began to report on the lavish items in the jewelry store. A long couple of moments later the cameraman lowered his camera and remarked, “Not a bad job for a hard news reporter.”

Whatever else he had to say was interrupted by a flash of blinding light. When Belinda’s vision began to clear, she saw a tall blonde woman in a reflective silver outfit breaking the display cases with a hammer. Belinda thought about letting the cops handle a random jewel thief, until she noticed the other woman’s costume sparkle and the bright light flared again.

Belinda used the instant of blindness to switch to her Speedster costume. She was changed before anyone’s vision had cleared, so her secret was safe. Now all she had to do was catch the thief who muttered loudly, “I do love sparkly things.”

Speedster stepped in front of the thief and asked, “Just who are you?”

Her opponent smiled beneath her silver mask and responded, “Hello, Speedster, I’m Sparkler. I’m taking these pretties to give them a good home.”

Speedster felt a wave of gratitude that she was wearing a cowled mask so her surprise wasn’t evident upon hearing Brandy’s voice. Speedster knew, if she successfully captured Sparkler, she’d be covering more stories that were Brandy’s beat. Dismissing the thought as unworthy of a crime fighter, Speedster raised her fists, preparing to rain down a series of lightning fast punches at Sparkler.

Sparkler responded as quickly as Speedster. She unleashed a burst of bright light so strong that it made the previous ones look like shadows by comparison. Speedster instinctively covered her eyes while she tried to blink away the spots from her vision. She heard Sparkler’s high heeled boots tap out her retreat, but as her vision hadn't recovered yet, Sparkler got away.

Switching back to Belinda, she returned to the studio and faced her producer. “A tussle with Speedster and some rookie crook and you don’t have any video?” Belinda took the criticism in stride and thought about how she could do better against the thief next time.

The cameraman groused, “It’s not like I brought polarized lenses with us.”

Belinda turned to her coworker and asked, “How big are these polarizing lenses?”

He shrugged. “Depends.”

She couldn’t be more specific without giving him a clue that she was Speedster, but a stop at a camera store seemed to be in her future. Belinda’s train of thought was broken when she heard the producer scream, “I need a crew down to Spiffiny’s pronto! That Sparkler woman is robbing them!”

Belinda ducked into a supply closet, where she changed back to Speedster. She had a plan that didn’t depend on buying new lenses. Racing downtown to Spiffiny’s, where Sparkler was filling a glittering bag with all the sparklers, she grabbed the bag from her sparkly foe. Speedster placed the jewels back in the display case and turned to deal with Sparkler. Blinking her eyes several thousand times a second to prevent her from being blinded by Sparkler's blast, and a couple of quick punches later, Sparkler was left for the police.

Belinda reported to her producer that Brandy wasn’t coming back to work for a while.

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