A/N: Many thanks to all readers, and to angelicalkiss, Al, Margaret A66, Elizabeth K. Joan, xcherryxlipsx, max2013, and Smallish for reviewing chapter 13.
"I'll be taking that."
In one fluid, automatic defensive reaction, Nancy pivoted her back to the wall of the ventilation shaft, yanked the strap of her hip pack so the pouch rested on her low back, and held the DVD in a tight grip with her hands behind her. Her adversary must not know that she had a hip pack on, or he would take it away.
She looked into his eyes and felt a cold fist squeeze her heart. It was the director of Fullmetal Alchemist, whose name she had never bothered to learn. With two Redshirts behind him, in the shadows so she couldn't see their faces. But just to make it known that she was outnumbered.
"How could you?" Nancy cried out. "What you created—your answer to the final panel question this morning—it inspired us! This is against all Fullmetal values!"
"Keep your voice down or I'll gag you," the director said, keeping his own voice quiet. "You think I'm happy that I had to pull this final desperate move? That I've spent the last thirteen years focused on raising money when I want to be making art? You think I've wanted to direct trash live-action movies on a chump-change budget, or develop a pathetic Roy/Riza app that waters down their entire relationship and makes me ashamed to get out of bed in the morning?"
Nancy slowly unzipped her hip pack behind her back. The incessant blast of the air conditioning helped to both cover the sound and hide her movements, as she was—per usual—violently shivering. She couldn't use any functions on her phone since she couldn't see it and her hands were behind her back. And there was no cell reception in the shaft.
"I wandered into the Ninja Turtles panel for networking purposes, as Seth Rogen is a tad more rich, famous, and powerful than I am," the director continued, his voice laced with disgust. "I saw him check for the DVD in his briefcase and walk away. So I told my assistants to stand in a row behind me to block everyone's view. I took the DVD, and then I shook Seth's hand and congratulated him on his new project. Worthless reptiles in a sewer get funding and I don't."
While he had been speaking, Nancy had popped the DVD out of its plastic case and taken her tool-that-looked-like-a-pen out of her hip pack. "Different fandoms speak to different people," she shot back. "What, you're envious of a group of reptiles? Artists should promote each other, not work to destroy each other."
"Sacrifices are necessary. You can't gain anything without losing something first," the director responded, and Nancy felt fresh outrage that he would dare to quote from the final Episode 64 in his defense. She carefully, slowly clicked her tool behind her back so that the small blade popped out.
"Why are you telling me all this," Nancy said, to keep him talking. "Surely you're not going to kill me for FMA funding?"
"No. You're going to hand that DVD back to me, let me find another hiding place for it, and keep this our little secret."
Nancy stared at him incredulously. She'd dealt with some stupid criminals in her day, but this seemed more like insanity. "Humans who would dare to play God must pay a steep price for their arrogance."
The director tilted his head back and looked down on her. "I already have a financial deal with another movie that's also releasing on August fourth. The other movie is paying me to leak Mutant Mayhem for free online to eliminate the competition. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and wait a year or two, and you'll be watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 2. Another 64 episodes."
Nancy had positioned the blade at the top of the DVD. Her hand froze at his words.
"And the bad guys are dead. So the entirety of Season 2 will be about rebuilding the country. Character-driven." He stared her down. "I alone know whether Roy and his lieutenant Riza get together, and how many kids they do or do not have, and I alone am able to make it happen. And, yes, if Roy Mustang has a hard time doing what's right when he's only a colonel, he will have even more difficulties now that he's the most powerful man in the land. He'll be tried for his war crimes, you know, just like everyone else. And those minor characters? All dangling loose ends, if you let Fullmetal Alchemist die from something silly like lack of funding. It's your choice. A rodent fro mullet, or FMA:B Season 2."
And Nancy seriously considered giving him the DVD and letting him go.
Forgive me, Turtlemania.
She remembered Data's words to Captain Picard in Star Trek: First Contact, referencing a proposition made by the Borg Queen. And for a time I was tempted by her offer. For 0.68 seconds, sir. For an android, that is nearly an eternity.
Forgive me, Turtlemania. You'll have to wait two weeks to watch Mutant Mayhem, along with everyone else.
Using the plastic case for backing, Nancy used her tool to slice the DVD from top to bottom, creating two equal halves. Then she glowered at him. "You're no longer worthy of directing Fullmetal Alchemist for us. Instead of getting consumed by envy, you should have created a fanfiction account, like the rest of us who have no money. Post some images on DeviantArt. Lack of funding is never an excuse for lack of art."
The ex-director shrugged. "I figured you would say that. So, first, I'll be taking this." He snatched Nancy's attendance badge, which had been pinned to her crop top; her crop top tore partially off as a result. "My assistants will use this information to find out absolutely everything about your family. You're one of those people. You don't care if you get covered in wounds, but if your relatives get hurt, you can't take it."
Another quote, this time from Episode 13: Beasts of Dublith. "And you would use that against me," Nancy seethed.
"You know what to expect if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone. Along with a merciless smear campaign on social media to discredit anything you have to say, and make it so that you'll never get a job or even want to leave your house again. And now I'll be taking the DVD. With your cooperation or without it." He held out his hand.
Nancy glared at him and used the dramatic pause to pop the two halves of the DVD back into its case and shut the lid. "You bastard." She handed over the DVD.
"You agree to my terms, then?" he said.
He was really thinking of just letting her go? "There is no part of me that wishes to lower myself to your level," Nancy said. "But you haven't left me any choice."
"Nice doing business with you." The director and his cronies began to crawl back the way they'd come.
Nancy desperately began to crawl away from them. Her three antagonists were near the exit, and she had a long, long way to crawl to get to the opposite exit. She prayed that they wouldn't notice—
She heard an anguished cry of despairing rage from the director. "What have you done?!"
She heard their quick approach from behind her, sounding like an echoing stampede within the metal tunnel. She managed to pick up her speed, frantically focusing on the Fullmetal Alchemist's motto—keep moving forward, keep moving forward—and arrived at the cross section. She could turn right, but she knew that there was no exit in the smaller ventilation shaft. Then she felt her feet yanked out from under her.
Nancy felt herself roughly turned onto her back and she looked into the enraged eyes of the director, a blind fury that she'd seen many times before. The look of a grown man who has just lost everything including their pride, and not to a worthy adversary, either, but to a "little girl" that now needed to be punished.
Her Nancy Drew Luck had run out.