Last One Standing
By Alexandra Spears
*Disclaimer* I don't own any of the Holograms, the Stingers, the Misfits, or their associates. I don't know who does anymore, but rest assured I'm making NO money off them!
Also-Due to a huge plot hole (more like a CRATER) in the episode "The Day the Music Died," I am not taking it into account, same with "Journey to Shangri-La" and "Journey through Time."
Chapter 1: Deception, Liars, and Betrayal
September 1987
Jerrica Benton sat in the now-darkened sun room with her boyfriend, Rio Pacheco. The two of them were alone together, as Jerrica's younger sister Kimber was on a date with former British teen idol Sean Harrison and everyone else was in bed, since the Starlight Girls-foster girls Jerrica and her sister and friends care for-had school the following day.
Jerrica and Rio had been dating for the past several years. Rio seemed to be extremely reluctant to commit to anything more serious-like, say, marriage-but lately he'd been pressuring her to take their relationship to the next level. Jerrica didn't want to do any such thing unless she had more of a commitment (like marriage), and so the dance continued, around and around.
On top of that, there was Riot, front man for the group known as the Stingers. Riot felt that Jem was the perfect woman for him, which drove Rio crazy. Jerrica also had a major crush on him and she wasn't sure who or what she wanted at this point. The whole situation was crazy and what she really wanted was some kind of resolution.
"Why not, Jerrica?" Rio asked. "No one's going to hear us, and I'd make sure I was gone before everyone was up."
"I think you know why," Jerrica sighed as she looked into his piercing blue eyes that managed to go well with his purple-dyed hair and olive complexion.
"I bet Jem would just let loose," Rio snapped. "You know, Jerrica, you're so uptight, it isn't even funny."
"And how do you know Jem would just give in to your demands?" Jerrica asked. He had no idea that Jerrica was Jem, a singer whose popularity was ever on the increase. As Jem, Jerrica was the lead singer for the group known as the Holograms, whose members were Kimber, their foster sisters Aja and Shana, and a recent addition, Carmen Alonso, who went by Raya. Only the Holograms and a very few other people knew that the blonde Jerrica used a holographic computer known as Synergy, built by Jerrica and Kimber's late father, to transform herself into the pink-haired Jem.
"How do you know she won't?" he fired back.
"Because I am Jem!" she blurted without even thinking. For the past couple of years, she'd intended to tell Rio, but had been afraid to because she feared his reaction. He'd made it perfectly clear that he "hated deception and despised liars."
Funny thing was, here he was, lying about how he could have his way with Jem.
There was complete silence for a few seconds. To Jerrica it seemed like an eternity. She hadn't meant to say it, but the pressure had been building up and it had just popped out.
Finally Rio broke the silence. "What do you mean, you're Jem?" he demanded, looking at her closely.
"I mean just that," Jerrica said weakly. Backpedaling wouldn't help matters; it was time to come clean and face the music.
"How can that be? I've seen the two of you together," he said, puzzled, not sure whether or not to believe what he was hearing.
Unsure if she could trust him at this point, she decided to give him half the truth. "My earrings project holograms. Why else do you think both Jem and I have them?" The truth was, they were Synergy's micro-projectors. But the earrings would be a lot easier to protect-she could probably have Synergy disguise the earrings themselves-than a huge computer.
"I get it. Jem and the Holograms," he spat. "Yeah. The easiest place to hide something is out in the open…." He abruptly stood up.
"I never meant to lie to you," Jerrica said as she gazed up at him.
"How long? Ever since Jem came on the scene?" he asked.
Jerrica nodded.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "And I thought Kimber had issues…does she know about this?"
"All the Holograms do."
"Figures. That just figures. Here I felt bad about 'cheating' on you with Jem and all this time I was cheating on you-with you!"
"I don't think you felt all that bad!" Jerrica shot back. "You were about to go to her and see if you couldn't get laid!" Usually she didn't use that kind of language, but with all the emotion and tension, she was calling it the way she saw it.
"I guess that's out of the question, isn't it!" Rio retorted. "You and I are through-finished! Don't ever call me again!"
Having said this, he stormed out the door. Jerrica just sat there, in shock, trying to process what had just transpired.
A moment later, Kimber came into the sun room. "What's got Rio so upset? If looks could kill I'd be lying in the morgue!"
Jerrica sighed. "I, well, sort of told him that I'm Jem."
Kimber's blue eyes widened. "I guess it didn't go over really well." The fiery-haired young woman sat down next to her older sister. "Did you tell him about Synergy?"
"I just told him my earrings projected holograms. I don't think it's a good idea to tell him about Synergy," Jerrica replied.
"Yeah, who knows what he'd do with that information," said Kimber.
Jerrica suddenly started to cry. Her sister held her and let her cry on her shoulder.
The next day, Jerrica seemed to be on autopilot as she went through the motions of running things at Starlight Music, the company her late mother, Jacqui Benton, had founded in the mid-1970s. After her death in a plane crash in 1978, her father had taken over and later on had hired an executive named Eric Raymond. In retrospect it had been a bad choice, as Eric was rather ambitious, and not in a good or ethical way. After Emmet Benton's death, right before Jerrica's twentieth birthday in 1985, Eric, who had inherited half of the company, had intended to use it to promote rather questionable bands, such as the Misfits, who were Jem and the Holograms' biggest rivals. Jerrica, who had inherited the other half, had not wanted to see her father's company run into the ground. One stormy night, Synergy, the holographic computer Mr. Benton had built, had revealed herself, and to make a long story short, that had been the beginning of Jem and the Holograms' career.
Jerrica had never really intended to have a musical career. She'd only done it to keep Eric from ruining things. In a Battle of the Bands in December of that year, she had won the other half of the company, as well as a mansion that was now known as Starlight Mansion, where the Holograms and the Starlight Girls lived. She wondered what would happen if people knew that the young woman who was a popular singer was also running the company that promoted the group.
"Are you all right, Jerrica?" Joanie, her assistant, asked at one point.
"Rio and I broke up," she said sadly as she leafed through some documents.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Joanie said sympathetically.
"I'll be okay. Really," Jerrica said, looking up at the older woman.
Finally the work day was over, and Jerrica drove home in the Rockin' Roadster. They had two roadsters now-the original one that Mr. Benton had left the girls, and the Glitter 'n Gold Roadster, which the Holograms had won in a contest. Naturally she had to drive in gridlock, this being Los Angeles.
By the time Jerrica got home, the girls were home from school and Mrs. Bailey, the housekeeper, was serving dinner. There were eight girls now instead of eleven, since a few them had been placed in adoptive homes, and Jerrica could see the looks of sympathy on their faces. They'd liked Rio and had often giggled about the possibility of Rio and Jerrica marrying. There went that idea.
After dinner, everyone sat around to watch television. "Let's turn it on the Harriet Horne Show," Kimber said as she used the remote to turn the television to the right channel.
"Harriet Horne. Please," said Aja Leith, an Oriental girl with hair that was dyed light blue, the same shade as her eyes, which she was now rolling. She had been one of Jacqui Benton's foster girls, and thus a foster sister of Jerrica and Kimber. Shana Elmsford, an attractive black girl with hair dyed lavender, was the other foster sister.
"The Queen Barracuda of Rock Gossip," Shana chuckled. "Why am I not surprised that Kimber would want to watch her?"
On the television, a smarmy-looking, primly-dressed woman with her blond hair in a beehive hairdo sat behind a desk in the studio, just like any other late-night talk-show host. "Kids, you are not going to believe the guest I have tonight, much less what this person has to say!" Harriet said gleefully into the camera, seemingly addressing the studio audience, her pale blue eyes dancing with excitement. Of course, any kind of juicy gossip excited this particular woman, who no doubt experienced quite a bit of schadenfreude while "barbecuing" her guests. No one in the entertainment industry was safe-anyone was fair game for the likes of Harriet Horne. Kimber herself had once been on the receiving end when the Misfits found her diary, but she'd managed to extricate herself from that mess. Luckily for Jerrica, Kimber had not revealed her sister's double identity in that diary!
"May I present-Rio Pacheco! Boyfriend-or should I say ex-boyfriend-of Jem!"
Rio came onstage looking like a man on a mission. He sat down in an armchair that was next to Harriet's desk.
"What in the world is Rio doing on Harriet Horne's show?" Raya asked in her slight Mexican accent, narrowing her blue eyes.
Jerrica had a sinking feeling she knew why he was there. He had been pretty steamed last night and he was one to hold grudges. No doubt he thought he was getting justice somehow for having been wronged the past couple of years.
"Hi, Harriet," Rio said easily as he leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankles.
"So I understand you have some information about Jem's true identity," she said, cutting right to the chase. She didn't mind keeping her audience in suspense, but it seemed she herself wanted to get right down to brass tacks tonight.
"That I do. Jem is really Jerrica Benton," he said. "She thought she could make a fool out of me."
In the den at Starlight Mansion, the girls all gasped; they'd had no idea that Jem and Jerrica were the same person.
In a living room elsewhere in Los Angeles, a solitary viewer was watching the show, his deep green eyes widening in disbelief. "Jem…is Jerrica?" said Rory Llewellyn, who was known as Riot of the Stingers. "My Jem…is Jerrica?"
He wasn't sure what he felt. Disappointment? Disillusionment?
He had to think things over.