A Sneaking Mission

Jade Chrysanthemum goons swarmed every floor of the Nise Kitai headquarters. Their orders were clear: find the hostage.

The building was already growing more and more crowded than normal. News that the hostage was none other than the child of Sweet Bear and Wolf Knight had spread throughout the whole organization. Plans were being moved up. Because everyone understood that it wasn’t a question of whether the two would strike back. It was when.

Somewhere on the twentieth floor was a break room with all the lights turned off. Kumiko sat in the far corner, munching on the last remaining donut she’d stolen. She was careful not to move too much. The lights were motion activated.

She had to figure out what her next move was. This wasn’t a good place to stay hidden for long. Also sitting down on the ground next to a refrigerator wasn’t comfortable.

Kumiko saw the lights come on and froze. No one was walking in. What had turned it on?

“Hello!” Kuma-chan floated down to Kumiko. He twirled in the air before landing hard on his rump. “Wow. You already worked yourself free.”

Kumiko shouldn’t have been shocked. In all the chaos of learning Wolf Knight was real, she barely remembered seeing Kuma-chan shoot out of her backpack on the bus. But all she could do was lightly poke him on the head.

“Hey!” Kuma-chan’s belly puffed up. “The great and mighty Kuma-chan doesn’t appreciate being poked between the eyes!”

Her finger stopped short of his head a second time. Kuma-chan. Kuma-chan’s real, then that means…

Kumiko shot to her feet. “Oh my gosh. Magical Girl Sweet Bear.”

Kuma-chan groaned. “Always second fiddle….”

“Is Magical Girl Sweet Bear coming to save me too?!” Kumiko would’ve been over the moon if it wasn’t her life in danger. “Sweet Bear and Wolk Knight?!”

“Of course they are! What, you think your parents wouldn’t come for you?” Kuma-chan chuckled.

That broke Kumiko. Her parents? Her parents? Her biggest heroes were her parents?! Her parents were Sweet Bear and Wolf Knight the whole time and they never told her?! Those were her favorite shows and they let her pretend it was all fake?

Kuma-chan somehow snapped his paws. “Hey! Sorry to be the one to break that news to you, but we’ve got some work to do!” He reached into the crook of his wing and pulled out a thin sliver ring with a blue jewel. “Put this on.”

Kumiko knew what it was. A ring like this had played a crucial role in several episodes of Magical Girl Sweet Bear, where Sweet Bear could communicate with people who wore it.

When she slipped on the ring, Kumiko saw a transparent vision of her mother in a kimono across the room. Miho crossed towards Kumiko with a smile. “I’m so glad to see you’re ok. Your father and I’ve missed you.”

Kumiko stomped her foot. “You two were Sweet Bear and Wolf Knight this whole time and you didn’t tell me! When were you going to tell me?”

Miho chuckled. “We were going to wait until you were a bit older.”

“But why?” asked Kumiko.

“Your father and I wanted you to be able to be a kid.” Miho kneeled down to look her daughter in the eye. “When I was your age, I was already Sweet Bear. I had to juggle being at school, studying, sneaking out to protect people. I didn’t want you to have to live the life I lived. And your father, I think it would’ve broken his heart if you wanted to be like him.”

Kumiko flinched at the thought of going through any of the terrible things Wolf Knight had gone through in his show. But that didn’t quell her frustration. “What if I wanted to be like you? Be a magic girl, fly around, save people?” She gestured around. “These guys are real! They’re hurting people! We should be doing something about it!”

Miho filed that in the back of her mind. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, I need you to help me. I need you to get to a computer. I’ve got a plan.”

----

With the number of cubicles scattered around the building, it didn’t take long for Kumiko to find one that she was convinced was safe. She didn’t like having to go into one of the offices, but she’d found a few smaller ones with solid walls and a sliding door.

She pulled herself onto the chair and scooted close to the desk. Her mother gave her instructions on how to log in, only pausing when Kumiko occasionally heard people walking outside. They needed to remain unseen long enough for whatever plan they had to be put into effect.

The folders on their computers had all kinds of random names. Kumiko wasn’t sure how her mother knew which folder to open or which to ignore. Only that she seemed sure of where to look.

It was only when they opened a folder named “Master” that she started understanding what she was looking at. The name of every show Nise Kitai had the rights to were spread on the screen before her. And the oldest folders had very familiar names.

“‘MGSweetBear’… ‘WKnight’.” She opened the MGSweetBear folder and saw dozens of video files, each assigned a number and a title that Kumiko knew by heart. “One, The Winged Bear. Two, Sweet Bear Rise Up. These, these are episode from the Sweet Bear show! They’re all here!”

Kumiko had to know. She backed out and checked the ‘WKnight’ folder. There were about fifty videos there, all named the same way the ones in the MGSweetDear folder had.

The vision of Miho smiled. “Perfect. Now, listen to me carefully. We’re going to come tonight. I need you to stay safe until then.”

“You promise?”

“I do,” nodded Miho. “Now, I need you to keep your hand on the desk.”

The blue jewel on Kumiko’s ring crackled with electricity, shooting out into the computer. The monitor began to glitch as icons on the screen disappeared, reappeared, changed names and file size…

Kumiko’s heart raced. Tonight was going to be awesome.