Four Wonder Women and a Cheerleader

[FifteencentiKim]

Nadia Lane felt distinctly out of place. The young actress had answered the general if vaguely worded casting call for a woman who could appear as Wonder Woman for an undefined amount of time because the advertisement had promised that any individual who passed the initial screening process would get paid five hundred dollars, regardless of whether they made the final cut or not. Nadia had just gotten a minor role on the soap opera "Night of our Times," playing the part of an agent in an international security agency. At present, the part paid minimum screen guild wages, but there was talk about expanding the role. Of course, there was also talk about having Nadia's character getting killed in a massive gun fight that would be the culmination of the story arc her character was in. Either way, the young actress was not going to pass up the opportunity to earn five hundred dollars just for showing up.



Nadia had no delusions that she would be the only one showing up. But she thought she stood a good chance of getting through the door and thus earning five hundred dollars. With no false modesty, she knew she had the Mediterranean good looks and shapely body that ought to make her a Wonder Woman contender. And she had shown up for the casting call in form fitting jeans and top that left her midriff bare, that she thought would seal the deal.

What Nadia wasn't expecting was to show up in a room full of women all dressed like...well, Wonder Woman. It seemed like Nadia was the only woman who hadn't shown up in a costume of some sort. Everywhere in the room were women dressed as some incarnation of Wonder Women, from her inception almost seventy years to her latest incarnations. Point of fact, more than one of these Wonder Women came up to Nadia, asking her questions about the audition, thinking that she was one of the staff.

Another odd thing that Nadia noticed was that the majority of women who responded to the casting call were non-actresses. Point of fact, she had yet to meet another actress. It seemed that the majority of the women there were models, with a good percentage of those being celebrity impersonators and semi-professional cosplayers.

And she had no idea what the people running this event were looking for. Everyone who got through the door was paid five hundred dollars. And about every hour and a half, a winnowing process took place, and a number of the applicants were sent home. But there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the winnowing process. The staff wandered around, asked random questions, then moved off. And then, shortly after, announced the next round of winners.

Then there was the security personnel. Their appearance was actually a notch higher than the studio personnel. Their uniforms were neater, they all looked well groomed and physically fit and their conduct and speech was curt but professional. But to a man (and they were all men), there was a hungry, expectant look in their eyes, anytime Nadia caught them looking at her.

Nadia tried to dismiss the shivers those looks gave her, focusing instead on what she would win if she made it the final cut. But that was the weirdest thing. She wasn't really sure what she would win. She had just been told that the final four would be involved in a project that would bring them the notice to the Hollywood Elite.

And finally, after hours of waiting, Nadia found herself in the final four.

[FifteencentiKim]

Kathryn "Kate" Greene was getting bored. Actually, she had been bored almost the moment she walked into the casting call. She had started the day expecting to get paid the five hundred dollars just for showing up, and then go shopping for the rest of the day.

Instead, she kept on getting selected for the next round, and she was told that she wouldn't get paid until she either got eliminated or she made it to the final round. And if she made it to the round, she'd get something really special.

But Kate didn't want anything special. She wanted the five hundred dollars so she could go shopping and get out of here.

For the most part, Kate rarely had to do anything she wanted. She had been using her looks and her ability to manipulate others with her looks almost from birth. When she moved out on her own, she had made ends meet as a paralegal and a Megan Fox impersonator, until she found a rich senior partner for the law firm whom she could manipulate with her looks. So in exchange for a sweaty and ultimately unsatisfying session (for Kate) once every one or two weeks, Kate got a furnished apartment and a very generous allowance. But despite all that, Kate always wanted more. And more often than not, she still wanted to show she could still manipulate others with her looks. So she showed up at the casting call dressed as Wonder Woman.



And Kate regretted showing up almost as soon as she did. It was naturally a given that she would be the best of everyone who showed up. So of course she made it past every round of selection. They kept on promising her that she would really appreciate the prize when the final selection was made. But what did she need some mysterious prize for? She had everything she wanted in her life as it was.

Still, the twenty-something young woman was curious, and it did appeal to her vanity, so she put aside her boredom until finally...FINALLY...the final four were selected.

[FifteencentiKim]

"Thanks for coming with me again, Kimberly," Sarah said

"No problem, Sarah," Kimberly replied.

Kimberly Jefferson looked around, not believing that she was attending a casting call for...well, it was somehow Wonder Woman related, that much was sure. It was like someone had invited every cosplayer in the state to attend a Wonder Woman movie premiere. And Kimberly knew something about cosplaying, having done so semi-professionally at comic conventions and other such events. Of course, Kimberly's primary occupation was being one of the youngest and most successful stunt women in the independent film industry. It was one of the things that made her so popular when she cosplayed Wonder Woman, Lara Croft and other female actions stars. Kimberly could bring the action in such roles.



Sarah Talley, on the other hand, was popular in the cosplaying circuit because of the way she filled out the bodice of a Wonder Woman costume. Or more precisely, in the way she overfilled the bodice of her Wonder Woman costume. Which is why Kimberly or one of Sarah's other friends always accompanied Sarah to events like these. Sarah was a very sweet girl, and was adored by all the kids in her kindergarten class, but she was a little naive, and more than one potential employer at a comic convention had tried to get to see Sarah without her bodice. Fortunately, Sarah's friends had been able to keep all of Sarah's cosplaying PG-13.



The casting call had been a great opportunity for Kimberly and Sarah to catch up with each other, as well as those cosplaying friends of theirs who had shown up for the casting call. And all while somebody paid them five hundred dollars each just for showing up.

And, as it happened, both Sarah and Kimberly made the final four.

"Time to see what what we won," Sarah excitedly told Kimberly.

[FifteencentiKim]

Not too far away from where the Wonder Woman casting call was happening, a tour was going on. Of course, tours go on at studios all the time. People are as fascinated with the way movies as they are about the movies themselves. The tour in question was a group of seniors from the nearby Sid Vere High School. Most of the group were those who were more interested in the technical and support functions of the Sid Vere High School Drama Club, although two of Sid Vere's beautiful people were present: Constance Fuentes, a cheerleader for the Sid Vere Tigres, and one of her best friends, Anthony Fischer (some of the more waggish detractors of Constance and Anthony said their friendship was based on their shared interest in the same men).



(Author's note: In keeping with the dress code of Sid Vere High School, Constance's actual cheerleading uniform consists of longer shorts rather than a short skirt, and a top which is a bit looser, covers all her midriff, and doesn't show as much as cleavage)

However, though Constance will play an important part in the tale that is about to unfold, the hero of our story is a young man named Harper Fields. Harper could be said to be an average young man. Average in that he tends to blend into background. Oh, in the years to come, women would moon over his dreamy brown eyes, unfettered by glasses, and laugh as they mussed his unkempt his sandy blonde hair. But for now, Harper tended to escape notice. Which was okay, because it meant that those students who enjoyed tormenting those peers who had a lower stature on the school's social ladder ignored Harper. So Harper had his friends, he had his activities, and he was happy.

Well, mostly happy. Harper cast a wanting eye over at Constance, who was sharing a laugh with Anthony. As much as Harper liked his life, he wouldn't mind an opportunity to date Constance. Not only because she was beautiful and talented and brilliant, she was just a generally nice person. And totally out of Harper's league.

Dismissing that dream, Harper asked one of the studio guards where the bathroom was. The kindly older man gave him instructions, but then told Harper that he would need to leave his knapsack outside. Harper nodded, and left his bag leaning against the wall.

[FifteencentiKim]

Whenever Kimberly would remember this day, two themes would come to mind.

When she, Sarah and the other two women were asked to stand up on the stage and take some promotional pictures, she always felt that there was a hushed quality to the air, very much like how the air feels right before the downour of a major storm hits.

Of course, the reasonable part of Kimberly's mind told her that she was putting her own spin on those memories. But Kimberly would insist that she had a premonition of what was going to happen.

Kimberly and the other Wonder Women were standing on stage, getting their pictures taken, when suddenly the world was nothing but bright lights and loud noises.

It's here that Kimberly's memories start playing Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain."

Kimberly just stood in something akin to shock (in the same way that a hurricane is akin to a breeze) as her mind tried to process that the world had grown to gigantic proportions. The ground shook as seventy foot giants approached the four woman, kneeling down to scoop them up. Kimberly probably would have remained immobile, letting the giants pick her up, if Sarah hadn't whimpered right next to her.

That sound was what propelled Kimberly into motion. She grabbed Sarah by the hand and started running. Sarah for some reason grabbed Nadia by the hand, who in turn did the improbable and grabbed Kate by the hand. This led to the impossible image of four six inch tall women, running in a chain, all the while (at least in Kimberly's mind) the Keystone Kop Chase was playing in the background as the giants seemed hapless in their attempts to capture the tiny women. Finally, Kimberly made good their escape by running into a floor vent.

None of the women wanted to stop. They continued running, joined "Red Rover" style, through a maze of seemingly endless aluminum tunnels. When they emerged into the light, Fate smiled at them as the elderly guard watching a young student's knapsack had his attention turned to something else. For reasons that she could not tell you to this present day, Kimberly led the other three women into the backpack. All the women were settled down in the bag, more or less, by the time Harper got back to claim his property.

[FifteencentiKim]

As the four tiny "Wonder Women" got settled in to their temporary shelter, numerous activities were being spurred by their recent and highly unlikely escape, events that they were totally oblivious to. But in fairness, the whole world was now entirely oblivious about the tiny women's location, so it all balanced out.

The security guards at the event were all professional abductors who had been promised a little "play time" with the shrunken women before having to hand them over to their superiors, a "play time" none of the shrunken women would have enjoyed. So the security forces were highly motivated to secure the tiny wonder women as quickly as possible.

But here's the thing. The men in question were used to dealing with normal sized people with whom they had gotten the element of surprise with. And they had certainly gotten that here. And the fact that the women were now only six inches tall (more or less) should have made it easier to catch them. Except it didn't.

Part of the problem was that the men had been too eager to catch the women. Individually eager. Which meant there had been some initially minor scuffling between them when they all went to grab the tiny women at once. And another problem was no one had expected Kimberly to move that fast! Especially when she was half leading/half dragging four other women. But she and the train of women she was pulling were almost a little blur moving and dodging across the floor. And their effort was aided by the fact that the men chasing them were too intent on grabbing one for their own personal satisfaction that none of them coordinated their efforts with the other men. And when the four women slid through the cover of an air duct that looked too narrow for them to do so, the men wasted precious time trying to get the cover off while berating each other for their clumsiness and ineptness.

The men's superiors did show up and established a plan, sending mini-drones through the vents of the building, but by that that time the women were safely ensconced in a giant knapsack being carried off the studio property. The wonder women shrinkers tried to expand their search beyond their set, but they met initial resistance from the studio's general security, who had a dislike of the security force that had been used by the Wonder Women set. By the time the powers that be who were behind the entire shrinking event were able to override the reluctance of the studio security, the tin women were miles away.

And things got worse for these powers that be. A member of that cabal had suggested using the technology they had used to shrink the women in question to try to track the women in question. Except they had discovered that some other force had sabotaged their shrinking device. And since this secret clique hadn't developed this technology, but forcibly procured it elsewhere, they were out of luck, since the individual they had procured it from had vanished without a trace.

So, faced with the inability to shrink other women, and the loss of the four women they had shrunken, the Shrinking Cabal was forced to wait and watch, hoping that some inkling of the whereabouts of these four shrinking women would get back to them. And this particular cabal had a long stretch that went deeply in entertainment, political and financial circles. But nary a whisper did they ever hear.

And meanwhile, four tny wonder women got settled in to the knapsack of one Harper Fields and began discussing their future.

[FifteencentiKim]

The four tiny women had barely been able to get themselves situated inside the giant bookbag when it suddenly lurched, sending the women sprawling from their perches on the books and other sundry inside Harper's sack. Sarah, who had landed on top of Nadia, started sobbing.

"Quiet!" Kate hissed. "You're going to get us all caught."

"Shhh, honey, it's going to be okay," Nadia said, drawing Sarah's head to her chest. As the other woman cried quietly, Nadia shot Kate an evil look. Kate just rolled her eyes, before turning her attention to Kimberly. "So where the hell did you take us?"

Kimberly hadn't been paying attention to the exchange. Instead, she was eyeing how the contents of the bookbag had settled, and how best to climb up to the top of the bag. So she was caught by surprise by Kate's question.

"She got us out of a bad situation," Nadia replied, practically growling.

"Away from the people who could have fixed this...this...whatever they did to us," Kate retorted, refusing to back down,

"The people who did this to us," Nadia said, shaking her head. "You saw the way those guys were looking at us when we were normal sized. You think they were going to help us, if they got their hands on us?"

Kate looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at everyone and everything about her.

"So what's the plan?" Nadia asked Kimberly. Sarah lifted her head up to her the answer.

"We wait for the bag to stop moving, we climb out and we get help," Kimberly answered. "From the look of the bag, it looks like something that doesn't belong

"And who are we going to call?" Kate asked. Beneath the snarkiness in her question, there was a hint of a plea. Kate had been thinking about the senior partner who had been "keeping" her. At her normal height, she could manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted. At her present size, she knew the tables would be turned, and being in that man's power wasn't something she wanted to think about.

"I...might have a friend who can help us. I don't know. Being unshrunk isn't something I've ever had to think about," Kimberly said dryly. "Anybody got any suggestions?"

The other women shook their head.

"What if somebody just dumps the bag and we all end up on the floor?" Kate asked, all traces of petulance gone from her voice gone.

"Then we run and keep on running," Kimberly said "And we get this fixed somehow. And we will," the last was said with a reassuring smile toward Sarah. Sarah smiled in return before snuggling back into Nadia, who wrapped her arms around the other woman. Kate looked unconvinced but said nothing.

"But until the bag stops moving, we just sit and wait. And keep our voices down," Kimberly added. "So, anyone know any good traveling games?"

[FifteencentiKim]

One can wonder how Harper could have been oblivious to the fact that four tiny women were having a discussion just inside the knapsack he was carrying. Well, there was the fact that they were tiny, and the knapsack was fairly thick (thick enough that it would have masked the ringer on his phone if it had been on anything but the highest setting), and the women weren't trying to be loud enough to be detected. And there was the fact that the combined weight of the women was negligible, and Harper was definitely not the Princess and the Pea type. Someone would have had to put a large brick in his backpack for him to notice that it weighed differently.

And there was the fact that Harper wasn't expecting a conversation to be emanating from his knapsack, so why would his subconscious be expecting to pick up any hints that one was?

We are all oblivious to the happenings and conversations around us, and Harper was no exception. The little dramas that unfold in everyone's lives were unfolding all around Harper, but his only thought was about getting on the bus, exchanging a few quips with his friends on the trip, and wondering what (or if) his Mom would be making him for supper tonight.

The "if" was a real possibility, in that Harper was often left to fend for himself at a moment's notice. Harper's single mother was a nice enough woman, and thanks to healthy divorce settlement and child support payment from a father who had been absentee parent almost from the day Harper was born, Harper and his Mom had a nice life. But Harper's Mom had been dating heavily even while she was married (hence the reason she was divorced). To her credit, she never brought any of her dates home, but because some of her dates lasted overnight or longer, Harper had had to learn how to take care of himself since he was twelve.

As if merely thinking about his situation was enough, as soon as Harper got on the bus, found his set and put his daypack on the floor, his phone vibrated. With a sigh, Harper pulled the phone out of his front pocket and saw a text from his mother waiting. In it she told him that she had an undefined "Fabulous Opportunity" and Harper would have to take care of himself until she got home Monday, Tuesday at the latest, Wednesday as a set in stone return date. She told him not to worry, as the refrigerator and pantry were full.

Of course they were full, Harper wryly thought to himself. He was the one who kept them that way.

Harper's Mom also apologized that she wouldn't be able to pick him up from school, but that was okay, because Harper could either ride the bus home or get a ride home from that very nice Constance Fuentes.

That elicited a double sigh from Harper.

The bus route that Harper could take was far from direct, and would take him an hour to get home. And yes, Constance was very nice, did not live too far from the Fields household, and had dropped him off on more than one occasion. She was always very nice about it and even made sure to ask Harper about what was going on his life, what was going on in school, etc.

And that was the rub. Constance treated Harper like a favorite little brother, and not like the potential love interest or even friend he hoped to be. Everything in their interactions established the fact that Constance had her circle of friends, and Harper would never, could never, be a part of that circle. And it crushed Harper's spirits every time he got a ride home from Constance.

Wondering what to do, Harper set his bag on the floor of the bus and pondered.

Inside the bag, all four tiny women immediately notice the change of the motion of the bag and, as one, looked to Kimberly.

"Well?" Nadia asked.

Kimberly shook her head. "We're in a moving vehicle of some kind. Let's wait until it stops. Then I'll stick my head out, see where we are, and we'll plan from there."

Even Kate didn't put up an argument, but nodded her assent with the rest of the women at Kimberly's plan.

[FifteencentiKim]

With a sigh, Harper decided to take the leap and go ask Constance for a ride home. As he neared the seat, her and Anthony were deep in discussion about the drama club sponsor.

"Stop being a whiny bitch," Constance said dismissively, almost eliciting a gasp from Harper. For the most part, Constance exuded the "good girl" vibe, avoiding even words like "bitchy" and "anything-gasm."

Constance continued, unaware that Harper was almost hovering over her and Anthony. "If Mr. Kimmels doesn't want to do a rewrite for the next play our club puts on, then he doesn't have to. You're just going to have to live with it."

"It just makes more sense if," Anthony retorted with an overly dramatic air of exasperation, before he noticed Harper standing there waiting patiently. "Your baby bro is here again, Connie. Please make it fast, Harper. The beautiful people have important things to talk about."

Harper wanted to walk away right then. Unfortunately, Anthony was right. He and Constance were the beautiful people. Anthony was a dead ringer for a young Tom Welling, though Harper thought the look was ruined by the fact that Anthony had rhinestones plastered all over his black rim glasses

"Be nice Tony," Constance admonished. "Is there something I can do for you, Harper?"

"I was hoping, er maybe...could you give me a ride home today?" Harper managed to stutter out.

"Sure, no problem," Constance beamed. "I need to run to my locker really quick, but I won't mind in the least."

"Thanks," Harper gushed, feeling immediately embarrassed over his reaction. He stood in place, feeling a little awkward about how to walk away, when Anthony "saved" him by making a shooing motion. As Harper scurried away, he overheard Anthony telling Constance, "Don't you know that when you feed strays, it just encourages them to come back?" Constance's giggle made Harper turn red, and made him wish he had just took the bus after all.

[damonderd49]

Great story can’t wait to see more of it.

[Heny]

Why is the same story repeated as in Unstructured?

[Axtwyt]

Why is the same story repeated as in Unstructured?

Kim had wanted to write this story anyway, despite the RP, and since she made that one end horribly, it only made sense that she'd have to "fix" it all.