On an overcast, grey day, the normally bustling Santaluca City was eerily quiet, not a soul walking the streets, not even an animal. There were no signs of destruction, or remnants of an Astradrone abduction, or any other typical indicator of a supervillain's presence, it was just as if nobody had bothered to leave their homes... In fact, the only person outside, as far as she could tell, was perched atop a skyscraper, scanning the streets. With the senses of a predator, the masked superhero Wildheart looked for any sign of life... And shivered. "Brrrr... Cold up here. Shoulda brought my coat... Although, seeing as nothing's happening yet..." The costumed girl closed her eyes and began focusing. Her body grew slightly chubbier and heavier, and soft golden fur sprouted from her skin, sending pulses of cozy warmth throughout her body. She rubbed her cold face with her now furry arm and sighed happily. "Mmm, that's better... I should remember to manifest Golden Bears more... So comfy cozy... I mean, not the best for fighting, but nothing's happening anyway so I-" A cacophony of screams echoed from deep within the city , accompanied by a monstrous roar. She groaned, her voice sluggish from the hypnotic coziness she had just coated herself in. "Seriously...?! Now...?! Come on...!" The process to demanifest Golden Bear fur was slow, and she couldn't waste any time, so she leapt into the air still feeling that sleepy warmth inside. She tumbled through the air as she focused her powers, and a pair of brilliant shimmering wings unfurled from her back. Her flight was a bit more wobbly than normal thanks to the extra weight, but she regained herself as the weight faded, and she began gliding towards the source of the sound. Finally, something cool to do as a Superhero!

Annalise hadn't been Wildheart for very long, probably a bit less than a year at this point. It had gone very well at first! She met her now-girlfriend Tina, saved Tina's cousin from a demon, and even saved the leader of the most famous superhero team in the world, the Prismatic League! ...Sure, it was kind of her fault she had to save them in the first place, but Redheart was so thankful regardless, and made her an official ally of the League! And seeing as the League was headquartered on the other side of the world, that meant she had the responsibility to protect quite a lot in her area! But, well... Turns out there wasn't quite as much action as she'd expected. Sure, she stopped plenty of smaller crimes, even one or two wannabe minor supervillains, but nothing really impressive. Anything involving the 'Big 6' villains like Songstress Harmony or massive interdimensional threats was always handled by the League itself. And sure, doing good was its own reward, and she'd made plenty of lives better... But come on, she wanted to do something BIG! Show how Powerful a Superhero she was! So when she received an alert on the superhero tip line she'd set up that something really weird was happening in Santaluca City, she was on it! Maybe it wasn't the best idea to rush into it without backup... But she needed to show she could handle big things without help from the League! Besides, this didn't seem like any of the Big 6's doing, so how bad could it be?

As Wildheart arrived on Kala Boulevard amidst a crowd of screaming citizens, she immediately saw what they were so terrified of. A massive quadrupedal beast made of stone and earth with deadly amethyst spines jutting out from all angles was rampaging through the streets, several cars already impaled by the spikes. She looked up at the beast, suddenly feeling a bit less confident. She wasn't exactly used to fighting massive, mindless threats like this... Usually she was good at pacifying threats by MAKING them mindless, but that wouldn't work here. But she couldn't let that stop her, these people were clearly counting on her! "Hey ugly! Over here!" The beast completely ignored her taunt, continuing to crush a nearby car. "...Might not be able to hear... That's bad... Maybe its legs are a weak point?" Manifesting the bladed arm of a lily mantis, she charged forward and slashed into the beast's leg as hard as she could. It made a bit of a dent, at least, but it certainly didn't seem to faze the beast. The beast raised its leg to stomp, and she only barely managed to get out of the way. She needed to be more careful, apparently... She'd rather avoid needing to find out if she could regrow limbs, although she had plenty of animals to choose from for that powe- "Gah!" The spiked tail nearly took her head off, and she flew back in a panicked retreat. "Okay, don't get distracted while right next to the monster, got it!" She tried to quickly wrack her brain for what to do. Most of her techniques were meant to subdue, not hurt! Backing away slightly, she tried to study it, see if she could tell anything about it, what behaviors it exhibited, what animals it resembled... Unfortunately, all she could think was that it looked just like the first Gembeast from 'Arabella Quartz and the Diamonds of Despair', and she doubted that would be very helpful. Although... That one was defeated via a weakpoint on its head, and even if this one didn't have it, that might be worth a try. It suddenly roared and launched a volley of amethyst spikes from its tail towards her. She leapt away as a spike impaled right where she had been standing. "Let's hope this works!" She climbed onto the spike and launched herself off of it, landing on the beast's head. To her surprise, there was a crack in its head, just like the book. "Probably a bad idea to design your villainous monsters after such a popular book series, especially ones with such glaring weaknesses!" Manifesting a Harp Stag's antlers, she jabbed them into the weak spot, hearing the beast roar in agony. Unlike the book, she wasn't able to generate destabilizing crystal energy to destroy it, but the fast-soaking mucus from a Celan Frog would probably do a great job of softening its earthen body. However, as the mucus began to spread, she heard a loud crackling sound. And saw several electrical sparks flying around her. "Uh oh." Quick as a flash, she pushed herself off of the monster, seeing sparks flying out from all over it. With a shuddering, distorted roar, it froze completely and collapsed, smoke pouring from its orifices. "Of course, it was a robot! Worry not citizens! I have saved... you..." As Wildheart turned to address the citizens, she noticed they were all still screaming in terror. She quickly looked around, but didn't see anything else they'd be frightened of. ...Were they scared of her? "I promise, I'm not here to hurt you! I destroyed the monster that was destroying everything!" They continued screaming, seemingly unaware she was even there. In fact, they didn't even seem to realize the robot was deactivated. She began to feel a bit queasy. Something wasn't right here... This wasn't just an ordinary monster attack, the people were clearly under the influence of someone... Almost like-

**"CUT!"**

A loud, digitized voice echoed throughout the Boulevard, and everyone immediately fell silent, their eyes glazed over and their bodies limp. Wildheart heard a mechanical whir approaching her, accompanied by that same voice. "Good thing I accounted for possible superhero intervention in the schedule. Take five, everyone!" Everyone suddenly vanished in a shimmer of light, leaving Wildheart alone with the robot and whoever this supervillain was. "What did you do to those people?! Show yourself!" The voice responded dismissively. "Oh, they're fine, I just sent them to the break room. And I don't like showing myself on set, but I suppose if there's a superhero intruding on production..." The supervillain paused before coming out into the open, "THE DIRECTOR should intervene!"

Fitting for their name, THE DIRECTOR sat in a massive mechanized director's chair that crawled towards Wildheart like a spider. Their face was covered in a pair of sunglasses, code rapidly flashing by, and a metallic facemask, a silver flat cap adorning their head. They held a director's slate in one hand, and they were surrounded by dozens of robots flying around, taking pictures, recording audio, cleaning the streets up, and doing all kinds of film crew things. THE DIRECTOR gestured their slate towards Wildheart. "Crew, deal with this intruder! The movie must not be ruined this time!" The robots began flying rapidly towards Wildheart, brandishing various equipment. A camera flashed directly in her face, the bright light causing her mind to go blank. As she tried to recover, a spotlight shone in her eyes, a strange, mesmerizing shimmer filling her vision. She smiled dazedly as she felt a robot begin to paint a cool, soothing blush onto her cheeks. "Mmmm... Mmngh... No... Not going that easily!" She screwed her eyes shut and slammed her antler into the makeup bot, trying to wipe off the blush with her wing. Raising her palm before her eyes, she manifested the shell of a Mirrorback Armadillo, feeling the light swirl off of her palm and focus onto the spotlight robot's visual sensor, sending it crashing to the ground. She surged forward, her other hand crackling with the electricity of an Induction Eel that she used to easily dispatch the camera robot, along with plenty of the other 'crew' attacking her. Wildheart stood before THE DIRECTOR, one arm crackling with electricity and the other manifesting a Lily Mantis blade. THE DIRECTOR laughed robotically. "You may have defeated my crew, but I, THE DIRECTOR, will not fall so easily!" Wildheart smirked. "Try me." She ran forward, easily ducking a kick from the chair and delivering a powerful burst of electricity to the robotics. THE DIRECTOR'S chair started to jitter, and their voice became distorted. "WhaT?! WHAt iS haPEnNing?!" Wildheart grinned. "You know, the Induction Eel's unique form of electromagnetic current is really good at disabling machines! Even though it's hardly harmful to organic life at all!" THE DIRECTOR tried to throw a punch, but Wildheart easily deflected it with their bladed arm, knocking their hand away before slicing at their mask. THE DIRECTOR sputtered as the mask flew off, their voice now unchanged. "Okay, look, sorry, can we have a truce please? I... I swear I have a good reason for all of this!" They removed their glasses and looked up at Wildheart with pleading eyes. It took everything Wildheart had to not completely blow their secret identity right there by screaming "DANA?!" Because Annalise knew this person.

Dana went to the same college as Annalise, and they shared a few classes and clubs, most notably the Book Club. They'd never been particularly close, but they sometimes talked about their shared interests, ESPECIALLY the 'Arabella Quartz' series. Annalise had always been a pretty big fan, but Dana was almost obsessed, and had opened up pretty quickly when Annalise mentioned her interest back a month or two ago. Their opinions on the books often diverged, and there were some topics where they did not agree at all. For instance, Annalise felt that the cliffhanger ending of the first book was lame and completely thematically inconsistent for not much payoff later, whereas Dana insisted that it was necessary for her excellent character development in the second book. But there was one topic they absolutely agreed on: The movies sucked. The first one was very poorly made by a studio who clearly didn't care about the source material at all, and just wanted some easy money from the fans. They tried to reboot it a decade or so later, probably just to keep the rights, and while that one was technically better, it  was still a massive disappointment. Dana had mentioned back then that she'd actually made a hypothetical screenplay for another try, but... she was always a very shy, kind person. Annalise would never have imagined she'd become a supervillain to get the movie made!

"...Why?!" Wildheart asked, bewildered, and Dana began to explain. "Well, first I should explain some things. So there's this book series called 'Arabella Quartz' and-" Wildheart interrupted. "Yeah, I got that, I recognized the monster." Dana's eyes widened. "REALLY? You like 'Arabella Quartz' too?! Okay, what did you think of the part in-" Wildheart interrupted again. "Da-DIRECTOR, why did you enslave an entire city?!" Dana pouted. "I was getting to that! The movies all sucked, as you know, and they were so unprofitable that of course the studios chose to take the lesson that the series is poison, and so they'll probably never try it again, at least not for years, but I developed my own screenplay that adapts everything from the books thay it should, with of course a few necessary changes for the condensed length, but anyway I learned recently that a bunch of my favorite actors, most importantly Javier Smyown who is the PERFECT cast for the first arc's villain, were in Santaluca City filming... Some other movie I forget, doesn't really matter now, because now they're filming 'Arabella Quartz and the Diamonds of Despair' for me!" She took a deep breath, and was about to continue talking again when Wildheart asked, "...But HOW did you enslave an entire city?!" Dana blinked. "Oh, it was actually surprisingly easy! I was at a pawn shop a while ago, and I found this weird machine that was like nothing I'd ever seen. It was a silver box that was totally solid, but I could see light swirling in the center, and there were all these switches and buttons that made it swirl faster and brighter... It was so mesmerizing to look at... I just had to see how it worked... So I bought it and started reverse engineering it, and it was surprisingly simple! In fact, I even started using what I learned from it to make all of this! First I upgraded my wheelchair, then I upgraded my camera, then I started making all these robots... It almost felt like it was making itself at some points, it was so easy! And once I made all of these awesome devices, it felt like a waste not to use them! I just Had to use them..." Her eyes glazed over slightly, and Wildheart frowned, a bit scared. Whatever that 'box' was, anything Powerful enough to turn a regular girl like Dana into a Supervillain was way, way higher above her level than she thought at first. Although, Dana was definitely still herself, at least partially. Maybe she could try and convince her what she was doing was wrong!

"Look, I know it's frustrating that the series has such bad luck with movies, I agree, but you can't do this!" Dana pouted again. "Why not?" Wildheart began to think. What would convince Dana...? Oh right, she was always big on actor's rights! "Mindlessly working on the movie all day is seriously damaging to them! Both their minds and their bodies!" Dana cocked her head. "They're not ALWAYS working, I ensure they only work a maximum of 8 hours per day before sending them to the extradimensional break room I made! There they stay in happy, mesmerized bliss, and they can sleep all they want! And there's wonderful catering in there, too!" Wildheart blinked. "Uh, well you can't just have them work for free! They have jobs that you're stopping them from doing!" Dana shook her head. "Nope! I'm paying them all plenty of money, more than most of their regular incomes probably! I found some massive bank accounts that I'm pretty sure belong to a supervillain, so I'm taking all the money from there! Taking from criminals to pay the common man!" Wildheart shook her head. "No, that's still not okay! They didn't consent to any of this, dirty money isn't going to fix it!" Dana paused, before averting her gaze, her eyes glazed over slightly. "Well... I mean, sure, they didn't consent beforehand, but this is going to be massive! They'll love being part of a movie like this! And because they're under my control, they all act as perfectly as they can through my direction! And plus... They're happy hypnotized like this! See?" A robot suddenly flew in front of Wildheart's face. "Gah! What-" A film reel started spinning in front of her face, a spiral drawn on the middle. Another robot began making a clicking noise like an old projector firing up, and it was oddly soothing. She was too caught off guard to do anything, and more robots swarmed her, bombarding her with hypnotic makeup, costuming, lighting, music, and anything else a film crew would need while she stared into the film reel, watching it spin around, and around, and around... She dimly realized the Induction Eel must have worn off after all that talking, but her attention was soon pulled deep into the film reel. Feeling her mind get all wrapped up in film... As if this was always going to be the end of her own movie, and every rotation brought her closer and closer and closer to- **SNAP** "Lights out!" Dana snapped her slate shut, and Annalise's eyes shut in sync.

Dana smiled, putting her glasses back on, the code flying in front of her face again. She was THE DIRECTOR, and she needed to deal with this intruder. But as she looked at the deeply hypnotized superhero, she realized something... The face looked oddly familiar... Of course! "You're perfect for playing Arabella! You look almost just like how she's described!" The superhero smiled happily, but THE DIRECTOR noticed her bug hand. "...We may need to CGI the hands though, not sure costuming can fix that." The superhero responded in a sleepy tone, "I can demanifest it, DIRECTOR." Her hand slowly morphed into a regular human hand as THE DIRECTOR looked on in shock. "...How much can you do with that power?" The superhero morphed her other hand back. "I can change most parts of my body... Though I prefer to manifest animal parts..." THE DIRECTOR looked closely, then commanded, "...Make your nose a bit smaller." The superhero focused, and her nose shrunk slightly, now exactly the size Arabella's was! THE DIRECTOR smiled in glee. "Perfect! This will make things so much easier! Now, let me help you get into character, Arabella..."