Rebecca's plan

The Ten Rings

Snow fell quietly over the streets of Toronto.

It was 2:13 a.m., and almost every building around the private research facility was dark. Only the seventeenth floor remained illuminated.

Rebecca Maron stood behind the window.

Twenty-five years old. A physicist. A trained Taekwondo practitioner.

On the monitor in front of her, a three-dimensional image of ten golden rings slowly rotated.

The Ten Rings.

Weapons that seemed to defy every known law of physics.

Rebecca examined the data for the fifth time.

Mass.

Velocity.

Acceleration.

Energy transfer.

None of it made sense.

She whispered:

“If they aren't generating the energy... where is it coming from?”

But there was another question that mattered more.

Why did the Rings respond to Shang-Chi?

Rebecca turned off the monitor.

A faint smile appeared on her face.

“So the problem isn't the Rings.”

She paused.

“The problem is the person they trust.”

---

Two weeks later, San Francisco.

Shang-Chi stood inside a small training hall.

The Ten Rings rested around his forearms.

Rebecca stood opposite him, carefully watching them.

Shang-Chi asked:

“You're a physicist. Why do you want to fight me?”

Rebecca answered:

“I don't.”

Shang-Chi raised an eyebrow.

“Then why am I here?”

Rebecca placed a tablet on the floor.

An image of the Rings appeared on the screen.

“Because I think the Rings are in danger.”

Shang-Chi's expression immediately became serious.

“What kind of danger?”

Rebecca displayed several satellite images.

“I've been studying their energy behavior for three months. I found an unexplained pattern.”

“What pattern?”

“The Rings are weakening.”

It was a lie.

But it was a carefully constructed scientific lie.

Shang-Chi looked at the Rings.

Rebecca continued:

“Not in terms of power. In terms of their connection.”

Shang-Chi remained silent.

“Whatever created these Rings connected them to an energy network. If that connection is disrupted, the Rings could become permanently unusable.”

Shang-Chi asked:

“And you can stop it?”

“If you let me examine them.”

Shang-Chi laughed.

“You expect me to hand ten unknown weapons to a twenty-five-year-old physicist?”

Rebecca took a step back.

She assumed a fighting stance.

“No.”

She looked directly into his eyes.

“I expect you to defeat me first.”

---

The fight began.

Rebecca was a skilled Taekwondo practitioner.

But Shang-Chi was on another level.

He deflected her first strike.

Caught her second.

Then sent her several meters backward with a simple movement.

Rebecca landed on her feet.

Shang-Chi said:

“Enough.”

Rebecca smiled.

“No.”

She attacked again.

This time, she deliberately threw a strike that Shang-Chi could easily defend against.

He brought the Rings forward.

Rebecca suddenly changed the direction of her attack.

She wasn't attacking Shang-Chi.

She was attacking the Rings.

Her spinning kick struck his forearm.

One of the Rings briefly separated from him.

Rebecca caught it.

Shang-Chi immediately reached for it.

The Ring returned to him.

Rebecca smiled.

“Did you see that?”

Shang-Chi frowned.

“See what?”

“When the Ring leaves you, it still comes back.”

“That's normal.”

“No.”

Rebecca pointed toward the tablet.

“That means its connection to you isn't permanent.”

Shang-Chi hesitated for the first time.

Rebecca continued:

“If you really want to know whether the Rings are in danger, let me separate one of them from you for a few minutes.”

“How many?”

“Five minutes.”

A brief silence followed.

Finally, Shang-Chi removed one of the Rings and handed it to her.

Rebecca took it.

Nothing happened.

Shang-Chi said:

“Now what?”

Rebecca looked at the Ring.

“Now the real experiment.”

She pulled a small device from her pocket.

Shang-Chi looked at it.

“What is that?”

Rebecca didn't answer.

The device activated.

White light filled the room.

Shang-Chi stepped backward.

“Rebecca?”

Her smile disappeared.

“I'm sorry.”

Shang-Chi reached for the Rings.

But it was too late.

The device briefly disrupted the connection between Shang-Chi and the Rings.

All ten Rings separated from his arms.

They hovered in the air.

Shang-Chi stared at them in disbelief.

“You...”

Rebecca raised her hand.

The ten Rings flew toward her.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Until all ten settled around her arms.

Silence filled the room.

Shang-Chi slowly said:

“You never wanted to conduct an experiment.”

Rebecca looked at the ten Rings.

“No.”

The Rings began to glow.

“I just wanted to know if I could take them from you.”

Shang-Chi attacked without warning.

His speed was incredible.

But Rebecca was ready.

She deflected the first strike.

Avoided the second.

Turned away from the third.

Shang-Chi closed the distance and grabbed her arm.

Rebecca broke his grip with a Taekwondo movement.

But this time, something was different.

The Rings followed her movements.

Rebecca raised her leg.

She delivered a simple kick.

One of the Rings moved simultaneously.

The force behind the strike suddenly multiplied.

Shang-Chi was forced backward.

His expression became serious.

“You don't even know how to use them.”

Rebecca answered:

“I know.”

One of the Rings spun beside her face.

“But I don't need to.”

Shang-Chi attacked again.

Faster this time.

A series of strikes.

Changes in angle.

Feints.

Direct attacks.

Rebecca retreated several steps.

But the Ten Rings acted like an independent defensive system.

Every strike that came close was deflected by one of the Rings.

Shang-Chi tried to attack from above.

Rebecca raised her hand.

Eight Rings simultaneously moved in front of her.

Shang-Chi's attack was blocked.

The resulting shockwave forced him several steps backward.

He came forward again.

This time, Rebecca attacked.

A straight strike.

A rotation.

One step forward.

And then—

A powerful roundhouse kick.

Her leg moved toward Shang-Chi's chest with explosive speed.

At the same moment, all ten Rings aligned behind the strike.

The force multiplied several times.

BOOM!

Shang-Chi was lifted off the ground.

His body was thrown across the training hall.

He slammed into the far wall before falling to the floor.

Several seconds passed.

He didn't move.

Shang-Chi was unconscious.

Rebecca slowly lowered her leg.

The Ten Rings continued to hover around her arms.

She looked at Shang-Chi.

Then she looked at the Rings.

For the first time, she understood that what she had taken wasn't simply ten powerful weapons.

The Ten Rings hadn't merely amplified her physical strength. They had transformed her own martial-arts skills into something vastly more powerful.

Rebecca quietly said:

“The fight was pointless.”

One of the Rings slowly rotated around her hand.

And in the silence of the training hall, the young physicist from Toronto began to wonder what the Ten Rings were truly capable of.