Penny felt restless. Usually, she was more than content to sit behind the counter and read some of the new releases as she waited for a customer to come in. Working in a book shop, there was an endless supply of material to kill the time when business was slow – and business was mostly slow.

But today, Penny was pacing up and down the small shop floor, circling book stands, checking the time, tapping her feet, twiddling her thumbs. Her fingers seemed to itch with a deep-seated urge to create something, and that itching feeling had slowly, over the course of the morning and early afternoon, annexed the rest of her body.

She was possessed by an idea, and she needed to write it down. It was like it had developed its own life inside her brain, and wanted to get out to the world outside, like a captive animal rattling its cage.

But she couldn't write here. Horrible nightmare scenarios played themselves out in her head – of someone looking over her shoulder and seeing what she was writing -- or her leaving the room and someone stumbling upon her unattended notes. It would be just so incredibly embarrassing.

She knew intellectually that it wouldn't happen. Even if someone decided to buy an antique book from Mister Buchanan's store, they would hardly just check on the contents of someone's laptop. But writing at work was just... unseemly. She was being paid money to be here after all, and indulging in her fantasies just felt wrong.

On the other hand... did it really make a difference if she spent her time reading the inventory or writing something of her own, even if it was going to be... ever so slightly smutty and not at all high-brow?

If she were writing a Bildungsroman or some other great American novel, no one would mind it one tiny bit! 'Commendable', they would say – probably in a British accent. 'A young woman, following her dream of being a writer! Well done, I say! Carry on, young lady! Cheerio! Huzzah!'

But because she was writing for herself, to fulfill her own personal fantasy, it was deemed as less worthy. Less respectable. Didn't every writer do that, though?! That's what being a writer meant! To have a story in you that you need to tell, a story that only you can tell, because even if other people might be better with words, or spelling, or metaphor – no one else was you.

"Fuck it," she mumbled, and grabbed her laptop from her backpack in the small storage room in the back of the shop. Feeling positively dizzy, she put it on the counter next to the cash register, booted it up and opened her word editor.

She usually took a minute to gather her thoughts, even in the best of times. In the worst of times, she would sometimes stare at the screen for an eternity. The white expanse of a blank page was a terrifying and unexplored country, full of monsters and tricky terrain. Even the most inviting dales and valleys could narrow into craggy and winding ravines as you explored them, and often lead to nothing but a narrative dead end, forcing you to go back all the way, deleting and editing and throwing out so much stuff that you worked so hard on.

But today was different. Her fingers started flurrying across the keyboard like they had prepared a choreography in her absence, and the words seemed to write themselves. She could feel the idea in her head flow out of her straight to the page, and she couldn't quite tell if she was the one channeling the idea or if the idea was just using her to make itself real.

After less than a quarter hour, she already had the opening of her 'fic.

“Self-Fullfilling Prophecy”
by Penny98

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Elementa, the greatest superhero of all time, had just defeated Negatron a short time ago. But she didn't know that his energy was now everywhere! In the air! In the water! In the space between space, and time, and fire and earth and molecules, but it was spread thin and wispy like a cloud you couldn't see and no one could see it but it was still there effecting everything and everyone and there would soon be consequences.

Elementa was scared even though she didn't know that. The reason why Elementa was scared was that there were suddenly many more villains than before, and she had to fight them all the time now. Usually the military did a lot but not anymore. All the villains were magic and the military couldn't handle them and Elementa had to fight them. Also, the League of Heroes was in trouble because they had grown weak and unable to help Elementa. Elementa wanted someone to help her.

She was flying across the sky when she suddenly noticed something on the ground. It was Awthora, a strong superhero like her, tall and with large breasts and long black hair and a crimson red suit that could turn invisible.

"Hello Awthora" Elementa said.

"I have discovered something" Awthora said, and her eyes were steely and hard like Iron.

"What?" Elementa asked. "I don't have time. There are so many villains."

"You will defeat them, because you're strong. But you cannot stop them all! You can never stop them!"

"What! How?" Elementa gasped and then she suddenly saw something very strange: Suddenly the air was still like a broken radio, and Awthora's lithe form shimmered than disappeared like a cloud. Elementa was surprised.

"Awthora where did you go?" Elementa said and she was confused.

"I am everywhere" said the voice and it was everywhere. It was the clouds and the trees and the air and even Elementa's body vibrated with the sound of Awthora's voice and she felt a shiver run down her spine and then she heard Awthora's voice again and it was like it was in her head like her own thoughts.

"You will defeat my minions, but you will never defeat me." 

"What? But you are a Hero, Awthora! Why do you do this? I have always respected you."

"I know but I am evil now. I was always jealous of you. I could never be apart of your adventures and now I will have revenge!!!"

"What?"

Suddenly, the very air seemed to thicken, and the hairs on Elementa's back stood up on end as the world around them receded into blurry darkness.

There had been birdsong. There had been a gentle breeze. It had all stopped. There were just the two of them.   

"Can you not feel the power you have unleashed upon this world?" droned the voice in her head. Elementa tried to pinpoint it, tried to shut it out of her mind, but it was like stopping the rising tides with a pail of water.

"Can you not feel reality itself singing? Can you not feel it bend and shift?"

"Get out of my head," Elementa screamed. "Get out!"

"I will have you, Elementa," boomed the impossible disembodied voice.

"I will reduce you to nothing, and you shall kneel before me like I always desired. You will lap at my feet like a bitch when I'm done with you, because you're not special! I'm the one that's special!"

With a feeling like emerging from cold water, reality unwarped itself and released Elementa from its grip.

The sexy superheroine fell to the ground, panting heavily. She was afraid now because it had been terrifying. She clasped her chest and felt her heart beating beneath her full breasts and her damp skin was wet and shiny with sweat. It became a much more beautiful day all of a sudden, and then she took flight again because she wanted to return home and be safe but she remembered that she had to hold a press conference because she was famous and everyone wanted to know how she had defeated her latest villain.

"We will meet again" she heard in the air and it was the last Echo of beautiful Awthora who had turned evil and wanted to defeat her now and Elementa knew that she would become her greatest villain ever because Elementa was secretly in love with her all along.

Penny looked at her work with quiet satisfaction. Nice. It didn't really have anything sexy yet, but she'd get to that sooner rather than later. She prided herself in writing more than mindless fan service. She really enjoyed crafting a believable narrative with characters that had some depth.

For a moment she considered whether or not she'd used too much of herself for Awthora, but then decided to run with it. After all it was really hard to write people that were different from how she was. It really helped her to get her mind into the character if there were parts of them that she could relate to.

She was just about to continue writing when the bell rang and an actual, real-life, flesh-and-blood customer entered the store. She closed her laptop and greeted him with a smile.

When she returned home in the evening, she didn't even make herself any dinner before jumping on the Internet to post to the Elementals fan forum.

[Fanfic] SHE NEEDS A NEMESIS!!!
posted 2019-05-05 19:13 EST

Why haven't I thought of this before?! Those of you that know me know that I write lots of stories about Elementa. Sometimes I'm just filling the gaps between the news coverage to tell the truth as it might have happened. But sometimes I also make up whole new stories! And I just had an idea!!!

Why doesn't Elementa have a arch-nemesis?!?!

Because no one is strong enough to survive having her as her enemy! Her life must be so boring. Flying somewhere, defeating them. Again and again!

But what if there was someone strong enough to keep her on the edge, someone she could never quite defeat? Someone that wanted to defeat her but that didn't want to kill her because that would mean losing the challenge?

Wouldn't that be so cool?!?!? I love this idea! I'm writing a fic around it right now! Heres the opening chapter! Tell me what you think! If you steal my idea I will curse your blood!

That last phrase might be crossing the line a little bit considering what had happened to the Red Dame, but she was dead serious. She attached the first part of her story, and hit 'post'.