It was late, too late. She knew that she shouldn't have been out at this hour, but that didn't help her any now. Instead she wrapped her pale blue sweatshirt more tightly around herself, trying to ward off the chilly autumn air. Cliché as it was, these early autumn nights always spooked her. There was nothing she wanted more than to be back home, safe, and with warm tea in her favorite mug.

What was that? She spun around wildly, peering through the dark trees. She swore that she had heard something. Still, nothing there. She chewed on her lip nervously as she returned her eyes to the path in front of her. For future reference: walking through the woods at night was a seriously bad idea.

She hurried along now, trying to tell herself that this was the last time she would do something so boneheaded. Her brother had warned her of the danger lurking in these woods, but she hadn't listened. Well, the joke was on her now considering she had scared herself silly. The leaves crunched under her feet, louder now at her faster gait. There was the pond! She was nearly out of the woods!

She paused for a moment to catch her breath, and that's when she realized the leaves kept crunching behind her.

She whirled around; too late! The male figure charged at her and grabbed her around the waist. She screamed and tried to beat him off, but he only lost his grip for a moment. She fell to the marshy ground, fingers sinking into the mud at the edge of the pond. Her heart pounded in fear and she reached for her mother's necklace.

He was going to kill her. She knew this and there was no one there to protect her. She tried to crawl away from him, anywhere but his direction, but he crashed into her again. It was all she could do to keep her head above the surface of the pond.

She whispered a few short words before he shoved her head underwater. Luckily, it was just enough. A soft blue light began emanating from the pendant clutched in her hand. As the light grew, the figure reacted violently, pushing the girl deeper into the pond and he tried to scramble out of the water. Unfortunately for him, they were too far out. As the glow spread, it crawled up the water on the figure's arms and he howled in pain. Soon whole pond was glowing blue with an unearthly light, and the male figure started to disintegrate into wisps of ash.

The young woman broke the surface of the pond, taking deep breath after deep breath. She didn't gasp or choke thanks to years of competitive swimming. Instead she continued floating in the water just allowing her body come to rest after the struggle. She had been in situations like this before thanks to her brother's work, but this was the first time she had defeated one of them, a demon, on her own.

She stood, only a little shaky, and waded out from the pond to the muddy shore. She sat down for a moment, brushing her wet hair out of her face, then kissed her mother's necklace. It should have been obvious before, but the cross was more than just decoration when dealing with demons: it was a weapon. Well, it would help her again. She resolved right there, right then, that she would no longer just be a victim. She stood up, new confidence to her stance and turned to walk home.

When she arrived her brother leapt from the couch, "Vickie! Where have you been? We've been worried sick about you! Don't you know there have been reports of…"

"A demon? Yeah, I know," Vickie said with a little smile, "We met. But Mark… I was thinking. We always run into trouble and I'm done being the victim. I want fight too."

Mark hesitated, then nodded. "It would be good to know how to protect yourself. We've talked about that for ages." He didn't know if it was just part of being popular or part of being in their family that made her a demon magnet, but she needed to know some self-defense.

Vickie shook her head, "No, I want to fight them. I've been their punching bag for long enough! It's time I joined you. I want to take the fight to them. This evening… It wasn't an accident. I didn't know the demon was stalking me, but as soon as I heard it, I knew I had to be the one to kill it. I did and it was the best thing I've ever done. Mark, I'm tired of being your kid sister; I ready to be your partner."

And that's when the credits began rolling.

Katara smiled and stretched in deep satisfaction. That scene was hers. Of course she wasn't the blonde, the demon, and definitely not the male lead, she wasn't the director, but she was the writer, no author, of it. She beamed with pride. The show may have been a huge collaboration with hundreds of people doing dozens of different things, but that little piece of it? That was hers. She had been the one to take Vickie from bubble-headed Tits McGee to Victoria, demon killer and all-around badass. She had been tired of the 'cheerleader' trope where Vickie had nothing better to do but strut around in a swimsuit and get captured and it had been her idea to have Victoria lead the demon into the pond and kill him with some cleverly improvised holy water. Some called it "taking a level in badass," she called it making Vickie the character she should have been all along.

Katara took a swig of her brother's terrible beer in celebration. It had been a successful second-year internship, without question. The badassification of Vickie had been celebrated as a turning point in the show. She knew! She had read the fansites extensively after she returned to school. Now of course that wasn't really the case, instead their head writer at the time had let all of them experiment with the characters on an otherwise failing show, but she wasn't about to make that public knowledge. That freedom had let the once stagnant show blossom into the epic that it was now. Four seasons later and it was still going strong!

She once again pretended to accept the Emmy, even while knowing it was never going to happen. As much as she wanted credit, now a staff writer, she knew that it would go to the current head writer, Zuko Sozin. And that inspired a long slug of PBR. It was terrible, but right now she just wanted, no, needed, something alcoholic. Her head writer was what inspired this not-so-subtle night of binge drinking her way along memory lane. He was, in a word, a complete and total asshole. No, wait, that was four words… five words? Four words, she decided. She was a writer, she should know that. She blamed the half-empty bottle in her hand, and its five empty brothers on the table for that. No, she'd blame Zuko, it was probably his fault too and as she finished off beer number six that was sounding like a better and better idea.

The problem was that Zuko Sozin was an arrogant, pretentious, self-satisfied egomaniac. She had turned in her last script only to receive it back, dripping blood. Red ink, but close enough. And that wasn't the half of it! He had called her into his office, looked over the top of his glasses, and said "Is this really the best you can do? I expect this from an intern, but not staff. I need a full rewrite, by Monday. Don't disappoint me again." She polished off bottle number six and lined it up to complete the top of her squat, little pyramid. She threw her hands in the air in celebration of her architectural achievement. Yep, being tipsy helped.

Somehow, Zuko Sozin had missed the memo that she was a crucial, indispensable part of Grimoire. She was responsible for Victoria's character arc, she was responsible for "Mirror, Mirror," the highest rated episode of season six, and she was responsible for hands-down the best dialogue of season five, when Victoria killed her father. Okay, she hadn't been responsible for season four and Mark's death, but she was in college and that wasn't her fault. She would have killed off Mark if she wasn't busy finishing school.

Now, unfortunately, she'd have to see one Zuko Sozin again on Monday with a new script. That almost had her reaching for bottle number seven, but she stopped herself. She was happily plastered now; a seventh beer could easily become an eighth or a ninth, and she didn't want to completely lose Saturday to a hangover. She belched and that proved that six terrible beers were enough for one night.

Katara staggered towards her bedroom passing Sokka doing… whatever it was he was doing on the computer. He shouted loudly, slapped his hands to his face, and dragged his fingers down his cheeks while moaning in distress. Yep, gaming, not working as he had claimed three hours ago. She shut the door to his room, hoping she could get some rest.

When Katara reached her room, she kicked off her shoes and crawled into bed. Ugh… Monday was already way too close. Still, there was always the possibility Zuko would drop dead from a heart attack before Monday morning. That put a small smile on her face as she passed out.

This is my first time writing in ages, and really just something I'm picking up between art blocks. Please let me know if you enjoyed it and I'll see about writing chapter 2 before too long. If you see any errors, please let me know. I've read it through a few times, but I'm sure I've missed a thing or two.