The Perils of Enhancegirl: Spectra's Sleepy Trap

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Damselbinder

Hello there! This is the second of Enhancegirl's adventures, and it also features the first appearance of the light-based heroine Spectra. I hope all y'all enjoy Sophie's second outing!

"Come on, hurry it up!" A snub nosed man clad all in black barked at two of his fellows, similarly dressed. Those two men were dragging a heavy, metal object, about six feet across, down a flight of stairs into the dingy basement floor of an old industrial complex.
"If you want us to hurry up so bad maybe you should come up and help us, Vinnie!" One of the two labouring men said back.
"Hey, I'm standin' guard here," Vinne replied. "Ain't you nimrods ever heard of division of labour?"
"I'll be dividing my foot up your ass in a minute if you don't come up and give us a hand with this!" the third man said. "We're the ones who stole the damn thing, so you can help us with the schlepping!"
"Fine," Vinnie said. "You want somethin' done..." He took some of the weight of the large object, realising that the others' complaints had been legitimate as he felt the strain on his back.

Eventually, the three managed to get it down the steps, all groaning in pain.
"What the hell is that thing anyway?" Vinnie asked, rubbing his arms. Though mostly featureless, the grey box had a computer interface on one side, and a series of black nodules on top of it.
"Some kinda new energy source," one of the others said. "Solar powered, but really extreme. Sucks in all the light from the surrounding area."
"What does the Boss want with that hippie garbage?" Vinnie said. "I got one of those solar panels on my house, doesn't produce jack squat."
"God damn, Vinnie, why you gotta be such a luddite? This is some serious tech! The boss already has a buyer, you know."
"They pickin' it up from here?"
"Hell no, the heat's way too high right now. We're just stashing it for a while."

Outside, two more men in black guarded the disused old building, nervously fingering sub-machine guns. The night was warm, and humid, and their black body armour was stifling.
"What I wouldn't give for a cigarette right now..." one of the guards said, having exhausted his supply already. As he threw his empty box onto the ground, he noticed something move through the harsh, orange streetlights, but only for a moment.
"What was that?" A second guard had noticed it too.
"Probably nothing, but look sharp." The two raised their weapons, peering into the gloom. The nicotine craving guard looked closely, until his narrow eyes caught sight of a figure, a female figure, silhouetted against the orange light. He couldn't make out any features, but he did see a small cape fluttering behind the mystery woman.
"Wait a minute," said the second guard. "Is that a super -" He didn't finish his sentence before both men were blinded by a brilliant flash of light.

"Aaaghh! My eyes!" The guards yelled, rubbing their eyes frantically. The smoker was just beginning to get his vision back, when he was struck in the side of the head by a long, boot-clad leg, sending him careening into a nearby wall. The other heard his grunt, but couldn't see what had happened. He soon suffered the same fate as his ally, however, as a slender arm shot out from the night, punching him hard in the stomach. He went down momentarily.

"This is not going to be difficult," the woman who had defeated them said, before slipping silently inside. Inside, there was more light to reveal her presence. It illuminated a tall, slender young woman of Japanese descent, with her black hair tied in a very short ponytail. She wore a silver leotard, emblazoned with an emblem of a glass prism splitting a beam of white light, its off shoulder straps hugging her upper arms tightly. Her long legs were covered below her knees by her silver boots, with a small sort of half skirt brushing the top of her right leg being the only thing covering her thighs. From the straps under her shoulders trailed the small, white cape that the smoking guard had seen: for these were indeed the garments of a superheroine. The oriental beauty smiled, her eyes upturned behind her white domino mask. The more light there was, the better for her. Her name was Mariko Asakura, but she preferred the name Spectra.

The tall young woman moved swiftly through the until-recently abandoned building, her knee-high boots treading softly upon the ground. She heard a group of men coming towards her from around a corner, and pressed herself tightly against a wall. They turned the corner, chatting to each other about whether or not their boss would reward or punish them for the way the theft had gone. The woman was mere inches from them, directly in their line of sight - but they did not see her. For this woman was not an ordinary human: she had formidable powers over light. She had bent the light around her, making her effectively invisible.

This power alone would be enough to make a respectable superheroic career, but Spectra's version came with a slight downside. As she bent the light around her, it didn't reach her eyes. Becoming invisible made her blind. But she could hear well enough, and it was a simple matter for her to wait for them to pass. Once they had moved on, she decloaked, and continued through the building.

"So how come we ain't, like, reverse engineering this stuff and selling it on ourselves?" Vinnie asked the other two, checking the ammunition count of his pistol.
"I don't sweat that kinda stuff," one of them, a square jawed crook named Andreus said.
"Yeah, leave the thinkin' to the bosses - hey, what -" The thug noticed a pinprick of light at the top of the stairs, before he found a blast of energy slamming into his chest, throwing him backwards.
"Joey!" Vinnie and Andreus whipped out their guns, firing up the stairs without thinking. A shimmering barrier of light appeared, however, blocking their bullets.

"Oh crap!" Vinnie said, realising what was happening. "A super!" The door burst open, and Spectra leapt out, diving down the stairs in one bound.
"Good evening, gentlemen," she said, a slight, charming Japanese touch colouring an otherwise thoroughly Californian accent.
"I know you!" Vinnie said. "Yeah, I seen your picture in the paper before! You're the one who rescued the Governor's wife from the No-Law Gang!"
"I am pleased," Spectra said, "that my reputation precedes me. Perhaps if I am so infamous in your criminal world, you would be wise to surrender Doctor Takagawa's invention to me immediately, rather than risk a battle against me." Vinnie at least, began seriously to consider that course of action. Andreus, however, was not so aware of Mariko's repuation. All he saw was a gorgeous, skimpily dressed oriental girl who, though the same height as Andreus at 5'11", was slender, frail-looking even.
"I don't know, superheroine-san," he said, smirking. "Maybe you oughta be the one surrendering to us. Who knows? If you're a really good girl, then maybe we'll be nice to you."

Spectra raised an eyebrow, astonished at Andreus' attitude. "Clearly, the man does not know with whom he is dealing."
"Is this guy outta his mind?" Vinnie thought. "This dame can shoot laser beams out of her face, for chrissake! We're just goons!"
"Come on, hot stuff," Andreus said, "why don't you start by getting down on your knees?" Vinnie looked at Spectra, shrugging apologetically, aware of the idiocy of his ally. Spectra smirked. At least this one wasn't completely stupid. Still, she would not show mercy to his ignorant friend.

"C'mon, girly, you don't want to make me -" Andreus found himself interrupted by a blast of white light to his stomach, sending him flying back across the room. He landed hard against the grey box at the centre of the room, his hand slapping the control panel as he slumped down. However, as he did so, he inadvertently activated the machine.

"Andreus, you moron!" Vinnie yelled, as the machine whirred into life. He turned back to the powerful, confident heroine. "Look, sister, I'm no dope. I know who you are, and I know what you can do. I ain't gonna make trouble with a super."
"For a person in the line of work that you have chosen," Mariko said, preparing to arrest him, "you have a streak of uncharacteristic intelligence."
"Yeah, well tell that to the parole board, honey," he said, putting his hands in front of him. At that moment, though, two events of major importance occurred. The first was that a group of about ten men who had heard the commotion barrelled into the basement floor. The second was that the machine that the thugs had stolen suddenly absorbed all light from the room, plunging it into total darkness.

"What?"
"Huh?"
"Who turned out the lights?"
"What's going on?" The thugs were plunged into utter confusion, with not one of them able to see. There might well have been panicked machine-gun fire everywhere, but cooler heads prevailed. After all, a superheroine was in their midst.
"Damn!" Mariko thought, blinded as well. But that was not all. She was not just a mistress of light - she was in a sense its servant. She used large amounts of energy with her powers, and needed constant exposure to light, through her eyes, in order to recharge her store. Virtually any source of ambient light was enough, but pitch blackness rendered Spectra powerless. This was why, when using her power of invisibility, she could only do so for one minute at a time, due to it cutting off light from her eyes. However, the criminals were blinded and confused.
"For someone of my skill and grace," Mariko thought, "it will be a trifling matter to evade these fools." She began to make her escape, moving her slinky body between the thugs, being careful to listen out for their heavy breathing.

But there was something Spectra, and indeed the criminals, had overlooked. There was not one young woman in their midst, there were two. The second was shorter than the first, with shoulder length, red hair. She too wore a domino mask, but hers was red, and her short, tight dress gold in colour. She too had been made aware of the robbery of Doctor Takagawa's famed invention, and had tracked its thieves to their hideout, using her own particular gifts.

Though the red-haired co-ed, Sophie Scott by name, was two years younger than Mariko, and a few inches shorter, she too was a heroine, with her own set of powers. Hers were not as dramatic or destructive as Mariko's, but they were certainly potent. All of her senses, apart from her hearing, were vastly enhanced. This was the source of her heroic alias: Enhancegirl. And unlike Spectra, being in darkness gave Sophie a decided advantage.

"Oooff!" one of the thugs grunted, dropping to his knees as he caught a sharp elbow in the stomach.
"What was that?" Spectra thought, still moving towards the exit. Enhancegirl had felt the tremors from the man's footfalls so perfectly that she'd been able to pinpoint not only his position, but his size, level of fitness, and strength, and had incapacitated him easily.
"Damn it!" one of the others shouted. "I think she got Neil!"
"Where the hell is she?" Mariko was confused. She hadn't done anything yet, much less 'got' anyone.
"Oh, Sophie, you are just too good at this," Enhancegirl thought. Even she found it a little disconcerting being in utter blackness - normally there was a modicum of light in any gloom that Enhancegirl's eyes could use. Nor was her hearing of much use - the one chink in her sensory armour was that her hearing was that of a normal human. But she could feel the change in temperature from the bodies of each of the men, and from that calculated their positions almost perfectly. There was one temperature reading, a little cooler than the others, that didn't quite make sense to Enhancegirl, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

"Aaghh!"
"Ooogghh!"
"Nyyaarrghh!" In three seconds, three men went down, kicked punched or thrown by the stealthy, bare-legged redhead. By this time Spectra knew something was up, and diverted herself away from whatever was happening, seeking refuge against a far wall. One by one, Enhancegirl overpowered each of the thugs - even though she was no stronger than an ordinary eighteen year old girl - knocking them down onto the floor. One of them swung the butt of his rifle (he was not stupid enough to start shooting in the dark), but Enhancegirl was more than prepared to duck - which she did expertly.
"Dumbass," she muttered.
She used his own weight against him, grabbing his arm and twisting him round. He stumbled, before falling back against the console of the stolen machine. In doing so, he reversed the actions of Andreus, switching the machine off.

There were two men left standing when the machine stopped sucking in the surrounding light. One of them found a blast of light knocking them for six, the other felt an ankle-boot clad foot striking him in the chin. They both fell. The thugs defeated, the two victorious heroines acknowledged each others' presence.

"And who, pray, might you be?"
"Just who in the hell are you?" The two heroines spoke simultaneously, their eyes narrowed with suspicion. From the bright outfits the two wore, each could tell the business that the other was in, but they were still wary.
"Don't you ever read a newspaper, girl?" Mariko said. "I am Spectra, and I have this situation under control. You may leave."
"Yeah, well the name's Enhancegirl," Sophie replied. "And I'm not going anywhere. It didn't look like you had much of anything under control when I got here."
"I suppose it might seem that way to the untrained eye of a rookie." Mariko frowned. "Clearly you have not been in this business for very long. I certainly haven't heard of any 'Enhancegirl', and I would be aware of any major new superheroine. So just run along, girl."
"Would you stop with the 'girl' thing?" Sophie said, intensely irritated by Mariko's smug attitude. "You're, like, twenty."
"That is irrelevant," Mariko replied, annoyed that the gold-clad redhead had managed to guess spot on. "I have no need of your assistance."
"Y'know what? Forget this." Sophie began ascending the stairs. "I'm gonna look around upstairs for more goons. You do whatever you want."
"Feckless neophyte," Mariko muttered under her breath, as Sophie disappeared from view.

The Japanese heroine began inspecting Doctor Takagawa's invention for damage. It was a very sturdy machine, and there were nothing more than a few scuffs on it. As she was looking at it, though, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that part of the back wall was jutting out a little. Getting a closer look, she realised that she had found a hidden door.
"Perhaps these fools have a little more forethought than I had given them credit for," she said to herself, opening the door and walking through. She found herself walking along a narrow corridor, what had once been a maintenance tunnel. The lights were low, but more than enough for the tall heroine to use her powers.

After a while, Spectra found a door at the end of the long hallway. Suspecting a possible trap, she listened for something on the other side. But the confident young woman was sure that nothing on the other side could possibly pose a threat to her. She opened the door, strode in - and found a blindfold pulled over her eyes.
"What?!" Mariko gasped, feeling thick cloth blocking her vision - and her light based abilities. Without light entering her eyes, she was completely powerless.
"Sorry, darlin'," came a voice from behind her. "Can't have you messing up our plans." The blindfold tied in place, Mariko felt her slender arms grabbed by a pair of gloved hands.
"Unhand me at once!" Mariko yelled as her arms were pulled behind her back.
"Not gonna happen," the man holding her said, as she felt a plastic zip-tie being pulled around her wrists.
"Aah!" she gasped, as the zip-tie was pulled tight, fixing her thin wrists together. Spectra was, without her powers, a slender young woman, and she did not have anything like the strength to fight off the man who, to her fury, was binding her, the plastic pinching against her skin. Nor did she have the technique: her powers took a great deal of practise to master, and she'd always considered it more valuable to develop her use of them than to learn much unarmed combat.

At this moment, this choice was proving to be a mistake. The man holding her pulled two more zip-ties around Mariko's arms, binding them tightly together, trapping them in place, her tan skin rubbing against the white plastic. Mariko wriggled her bare shoulders, trying to wrestle free, but she couldn't.
"C'mon, sweet thing," he said, grabbing Mariko by her shoulders, and pushing her along in front of him. Mariko had no wish to co-operate, but she knew that the man was armed. For now, she was a captive.
"How did he know how to rob me of my powers?" Mariko thought, as she was led forward, blindfolded and bound. She had not recognised the man's voice, but the one who had captured the lovely heroine was Vinnie, the canny crook who had been willing to surrender. He'd noticed that, in the gloom, Spectra had not simply illuminated the room herself, which he'd thought she'd be able to do with her abilities. Figuring out that Spectra's powers required light to work, he'd slipped through the secret door while Enhancegirl had dealt with his colleagues, and lain in wait.

Mariko was led over to a chair that sat near the centre of the room, and was shoved into it. She twisted her head round, trying to get the blindfold off, but it had been fitted securely.
"Y'know," Vinnie said, "you look kinda familiar. And I don't just mean from the papers' stories about your, ah, exploits."
"Whether or not you have a sense of déjà vu is of no interest to me!" Mariko said. She suddenly realised the position she was in, tied up and powerless at the mercy of a criminal, and she crossed her long legs, her right thigh resting against her left.
"Very ladylike," Vinnie said, "but I'm not interested in anything like that." Mariko, aware of her considerable attractiveness, did not believe that, but she could do little about it either way.

Meanwhile, Enhancegirl had been having much better luck. Coming upon a group of thugs, she had dispatched them with ease, dancing in-between them gracefully, allowing their own clumsiness to do most of her work for her. Confident that the site was secured, she called in the authorities to sweep up after her. She had recently had a very unpleasant experience at the hands of a villainess named Madam Black, in which she had been drugged and captured, discovering her powers made her very vulnerable to chloroform induced sleep. This night was washing that bad taste out of her mouth, despite the arrogant heroine she had encountered in the basement.
"Ugh, I guess I should check on her," she said, stepping over the bodies of the men she'd beaten, and finding her way back down the stairway.

"Um, hello?" she said, finding the room empty. "Hey...uh...Spectra?" Sophie found no sign of the raven-haired heroine. She did, however, find an open door leading into a gloomy corridor. Suspecting nefarious goings-on, Sophie walked in. She did not call out for Spectra again, unsure whether or not it would be wise to give away her position. She eventually came upon the door at the end, and was about to step through, when she heard voices from the other side.
"...sit tight, sister...drop-off..." Enhancegirl sometimes wished that she had super-hearing too. She couldn't hear much.
"...fool...indignity...release me!" That had been Spectra's voice. And from the sound of what Sophie could hear, as well as the oriental woman's tone, indicated that she was in trouble.

Enhancegirl pressed her hand against the floor, feeling for vibrations from behind the door. As far as she could tell, she could feel the footfalls of only one man inside.
"Right," she said, "let's do this." Kicking the door open, Sophie leapt inside.
"Another one?!" In the gloom, Vinnie hadn't seen Enhancegirl enter, and didn't know that a second superheroine was in the building. Finding himself confronting another attractive, leggy crimefightress, he reached for his gun, but found it swatted out of his hand in an instant.
"What? What's happening?" Mariko, still blindfolded, couldn't see as Enhancegirl disarmed and disabled the thug, finding the perfect spot to deliver a spinning kick, which sent him barrelling down to the floor, his head smacking painfully against the ground. Dazed and bewildered, he groaned on the floor.

"Hey, you okay?" Sophie said, as she undid the zip-ties binding the taller heroine's arms.
"Why did you interfere?" Mariko said, whipping off her blindfold and standing up. "I had this situation under control!" Sophie blinked.
"Um...you were tied up and blindfolded. Didn't look like it was very in control to me..." She realised that the light-powered heroine, who did not seem to be drugged, or extravagantly restrained, had had her powers put in check by the blindfold.
"That's because you're -"
"A rookie, yeah, yeah, I get it," Enhancegirl said, ignoring the fact that Spectra had not even thanked her. "You know most supergals get tied up once or twice. Don't feel too bad."
"Have you?" Spectra asked.
"Well..." Sophie began, but hesitated. She was not particularly happy about revealing what had happened to the proud light-wielder, but it was always a good idea to have relations in the superheroic community. Perhaps Spectra was merely embarrassed, and Sophie could do something to assuage that. "I'm way, way too nice for my own good...I guess that's what being a do-gooder is all about, though," she thought. "I got captured during my last run. The goons were easy, but their leader had a jar of chloroform, and well..."
"She was able to outwit you," Spectra said.
"Didn't take much," Sophie remembered with embarrassment. "Just the whiff of the jar ten feet away was enough to make me dizzy." She realised too late that she had just revealed a serious weakness.
"Well then," Spectra said, walking out, "it seems we are both aware of the other's vulnerabilities. An even exchange, I suppose. Excuse me." She walked out, her gait putting Sophie in mind of an catwalk model. Little did she know, that was a perfectly apt comparison.


A day later, Mariko was again strutting her stuff in an elaborate outfit, a long, white gown with high slits occasionally flashing her legs. But this was not her superheroic uniform. No, this outfit had been designed for her by an Italian seamstress, as had the outfits of all the women on the catwalk that night. While both Enhancegirl and Spectra spent their nights in the same business, Sophie spent her days as a college student, while Mariko spent hers as a model. The bulbs of the photographers flashed constantly, capturing every step of Mariko's walk. She reached the end of the catwalk, fixing her dark green eyes on the crowd in her signature pose, with one leg slightly bent and the other straight, before turning around, her hips swaying alluringly from side to side.

"Bella, bella!" The seamstress said, overflowing with gratitude at how good Mariko had made her designs look. The tall young woman smiled slightly, before returning to her dressing room. She sat, picking up a newspaper that one of her assistants had left for her. The main article was about her recovery of Doctor Takagawa's invention and she smiled. Mariko needed to be in the light, and not just for her powers. She read with relish

"Spectra Recovers Stolen Energy Reactor: The Lady of Light Saves the Day Again,". What followed was a description of the night's events, painting the Japanese heroine in a very flattering light indeed. That had been the morning edition of the Chronicle. She read through the whole thing, keeping herself abreast of current affairs, before turning to the evening paper. The headline was about a political summit being held that night, but there was one other story on the front page, which made Mariko's fists clench.

"New details about reactor recovery: Spectra rescued by 'Enhancegirl' - An official statement given by one Vincent Maguire, one of the reactor thieves apprehended by police, states that our city's leading light, Spectra, was captured by the criminals during her attempted recovery. Maguire tells how he managed to outwit Spectra, tying her up and holding her at gunpoint, before she was rescued by a second heroine, named Enhancegirl." Mariko seethed. She couldn't believe that the papers had managed to get hold of that tidbit: now it was going to look as if the neophyte was the real hero when, as far as Mariko was concerned, she was the one who had done most of the work. A speculative piece about what Enhancegirl's powers were followed, as well as a picture of the pretty redhead, that had been taken by a freelancer during one of Enhancegirl's first outings.

As Sophie had said, the superheroic community often came to each other's aid in certain situations, and Spectra would have suffered no serious loss of face on account of her brief capture. However, it was a great point of pride for her that she always worked alone, and had until then had a reputation of invincibility.
"She must have fed the story to the press," Mariko said, "attempting to make a name for herself." She clenched her fist even tighter, crumpling the newspaper. "She'll pay for this insult."


At that moment, Sophie was enjoying a round of drinks with some of her girlfriends.
"So," a friend of hers called Kirsty said to Sophie, "where have you been sneaking off to these past few nights?"
"Yeah, Sophe, what's been keeping you so busy? Got a new man, or something?"
"Y'know, it might be a total shock to you, but some women do actually have lives outside men." She sipped her drink. "Also, some people actually study from time to time."
"Ohmigod, you're such a nerd," Kirsty said. "I swear, you're forgetting how to have fun."
"Yeah, well," Sophie said, feeling her phone vibrating in her pocket, "at least I'm not jumping from guy to guy every week." As Kirsty loudly objected to Sophie's insult, she checked the text she'd been sent.

It was from one of Sophie's press contacts, who helped her locate trouble from time to time.
"Paper sent anonymous tip. Someone saying there's going to be a robbery at the Acton Heights Bank tomorrow night. Contact police?"
"No," Sophie replied. "Leave it to me." Foiling a bank robbery would be just the sort of classic daring-do that had attracted Sophie to the business in the first place. She smiled. "This is going to be fun."

The next night, the red-haired dame found herself standing outside a Acton Heights Bank. It was closed, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but these tips, in Sophie's experience, had a way of panning out. Sneaking round to the back of the building, Sophie made sure that no-one was watching.
"Enhance!" she said, her body surrounded by a brilliant flash of light. That word was what activated Sophie's powers: she was an ordinary human unless she chose to be otherwise. Her vest-top and knee-length skirt vanished, replaced by the tight, strapless golden mini-dress and ankle hight boots that made up her outfit.

Atop the building, there was someone who noticed Enhancegirl's transformation. Looking down from the roof, someone had been waiting for the redhead to appear.
"Spectrum is Green," she said, and a similar transformation occurred as the one she had watched. When it finished, Spectra stood atop the Acton Heights building. She too required a change-word in order to activate her powers, a normal human in her unchanged state. Taking after the criminal who had blindfolded her, Spectra pressed herself against a wall, near to the doorway onto the roof, using her powers to render herself invisible. She had a glass jar in one hand, and a thick cloth rag in the other.

Enhancegirl, though, did not use the stairs. She leapt up the building by a sewage pipe along the side, her powers allowing her easily to find foot and handholds. She'd guessed that the top-down would be the best way to catch the bank's security with their pants down, so had gone up to the top to catch the would-be robbers off guard.

But there was no-one there. Or at least, it seemed that way. Despite her incredible vision, Enhancegirl could not see the cloaked heroine, nor could she detect her in any other way. Normally she would have been able to feel the heat from her body, but Spectra had not placed herself where she had because of its proximity to the door. She had deduced that Sophie's powers were sense-based, and had placed herself right on top of a vent, hot air constantly pouring out. Sophie could not tell the difference between the heat of the vent and the heat of Spectra's body. She had managed to disguise her presence completely.

Enhancegirl looked around, but could see nothing. She was starting to think that the entire thing had been a hoax, until she heard the smashing of glass near her feet.
"Huh?" She looked down, but before she could see the spilled contents, she could smell them. "Oh no..." She recognised the heady fumes instantly. Chloroform. Immediately, the red-haired heroine began to feel weak, her supple body losing its strength. She tried to move away, but she was getting groggy so quickly that the dizzy damsel tripped over, falling onto her bare knees.
"Ooohh..." she moaned, "this stuff...got me so quickly...my body...so...sleepy...unnhh..." On her knees, Enhancegirl found herself even closer to the pool of narcotising, sweet-smelling liquid. Her arms fell by her sides - she couldn't even try to cover her mouth. Her large, green eyes were fluttering open and shut, as the drowzy girl sunk deeper and deeper into the grip of the narcotising pool. She swayed to and fro as her slinky hips grew weak, before she fell onto her side, her face actually landing in the puddle of chloroform.

"Nnn...oooohhh..." Sophie moaned, immediately overwhelmed. The heroine fell unconscious, her Achilles heel getting the better of her once again. At this point, Spectra revealed herself, taking long strides towards her fallen rival.
"A truly pathetic weakness," she said, turning Enhancegirl onto her front. The redhead was completely pliable, her skimpily dressed body soft and narcotised. She offered no resistance when Mariko folded her arms behind her back, crossing her wrists at the point her back met her waist. The silver-clad heroine then produced a roll of duct tape, which - with an ominous tearing - she began to unroll.

She stuck tape to Sophie's left wrist, before rapidly winding it around, fixing both wrists together before continuing to cover Sophie's slim arms in tape, pulling them tighter and tighter, wrapping the tape right up to just under her bare shoulders.
"Ooh..." Enhancegirl mewed in her drugged slumber as, now bound, Mariko turned her back over, with some unwound tape still pressed against Sophie's arms. Mariko held onto the length of tape, which began encircling Sophie's torso as she was rolled over, pressing her arms against the back of her gold mini-dress, and plumping up her half shown-off breasts, squeezing them up from underneath.

Mariko then turned to Sophie's uncovered legs, sticking silver tape to her exposed, fair skin. She bound Sophie's ankles first, before wrapping tape just underneath her knees, leaving her soft thighs naked, though the bindings pressed them tightly together. Enhancegirl was now bound hand and foot, her feminine body squeezed in from almost all sides by Spectra's bindings.

"You do have rather a big mouth for a neophyte, don't you?" Mariko said, as she pressed down a single strip of tape over Sophie's lips. The preparations were now complete. Spectra took out her cellphone, but she did not need to make a call. She was interested in its camera. "Two can play at your game, girl," Mariko said, taking the first picture of the bound, drugged redhead, lying vulnerable on the floor in her tight, revealing dress.
"Mmmmpphhh..." Sophie whimpered gently, utterly at Spectra's mercy, helpless to stop her bondage being documented. Mariko decided to pose her model, tilting her head to the side, exposing her slender neck to the camera, and making her look that little bit more defenceless. Noting that in addition to rivalling her in heroics, the long-legged, charmingly freckled redhead also rivalled Mariko in beauty, Mariko's lip curled. Deciding to humiliate her captive even further, to assure that her reputation as a heroine was a laughable one, she reached down, and lifted the hem of Sophie's already short dress, revealing the white underwear she wore beneath it. To cap off the effect, Spectra took off Enhancegirl's mask - the ultimate humiliation for a masked heroine.

Exposed and unmasked, Sophie was photographed many times in her captive sleep. Mariko even turned Sophie onto her front so that she could make sure she had a photograph of Sophie's firm, exposed ass, which was uncovered by her lifted hem. Tricked and trapped, Enhancegirl could do nothing to prevent this, the occasional muffled moan coming from behind her silver gag.
"Spectrum is Red," Mariko said, changing back into her civilian attire. She had enough photographs to ensure Sophie's public humiliation, so she left, descending the stairwell that Sophie had neglected to use, leaving the bare-legged redhead bound and alone on the bank's roof.

With the puddle of chloroform lying next to her face, Enhancegirl was kept unconscious well into the night, lying helpless where Mariko had left her. Eventually, as the chloroform began to dry in the night air, it started losing its potency.
"Mmmpphhh...nnmmmppphhh..." Sophie moaned, at last beginning to come round. Her vision swam, and the trussed up damsel was very drowzy, but she remembered what had happened. "Hmmmmmmppphhh..." she bleated, as she shifted her lithe body, feeling duct tape pressing against her curves. As she'd feared, she had awoken to find herself tied up. "No way..." she thought to herself, "I got tied up again...I can't believe it..." She saw, and felt, that her mask had been pulled off as well. "No! Whoever captured me...they might know who I am now...how could I have been so...so stupid..." Smelling the chloroform near her face, Sophie was in danger of passing out again, but she managed to get some strength in her body, and started wriggling away from the narcotising pool, the nubile damsel gradually edging away. As she did, her vigour started to return.
"Mmmpphhh...mmppphhh..." she mewed as she moved slowly across the concrete. She was still groggy and weak, to be sure, but she was not as overwhelmed by the sweet scent as she had been. Reaching the edge of the roof, she was clear headed enough for her enhanced senses to be useful again. She felt the sticky bonds again, but now with purpose. She could feel every pore and strand of the tape that pressed against her soft, smooth skin, and she was able to deduce its weaknesses. She pulled at a strange angle, one arm one way, the other pulling in the opposite angle. But she was proved right. It took ten minutes of solid pulling, her lovely body writhing around on the cold floor as she struggled, but eventually she managed to pull her forearms apart.

Once that was done, it was a simple matter to unwind the rest of the tape from her arms, before freeing her legs.
"Downgrade!" she said, turning back into her normal self. She lost the use of her powers, but also her particular vulnerability to chloroform, so she didn't have to worry about being overcome again. Nervous that she might encounter her captor, she crept carefully down the stairwell, not wanting to risk the pipe in her civilian guise. She kept on guard the whole way down, and out of the building. But she needn't have done. Spectra was long gone.
Damselbinder

Part Two: Lissom Lasses Kidnapped

Just as Sophie Scott was getting out of the bank, Mariko Asakura was getting out of an expensive car, outside her luxurious home. A pair of long legs, longer even than Sophie's, came into view first, appearing to be lengthened even more by a pair of very high black heels. As the rest of Mariko's body emerged, it could be seen that she was dressed in a short, black cocktail dress. It hung from her narrow shoulders by a pair of thin straps, hugging gently against her slender, feminine figure. Even when capturing and humiliating her rivals, Mariko dressed to impress.

Her plan was to e-mail the pictures of Sophie's distress to the same paper that had printed the story about Mariko being captured. Clearly liking a sensation, the rag would be sure to print the photos.
"That ought to teach her not to be arrogant," Mariko thought. But the proud heroine ought to have taken her own advice. She didn't notice the three pairs of eyes watching her from the shadows, ogling the sylphlike model's figure. As she put the keys in the lock, Mariko felt a thick cloth being pulled between her pretty, rouged lips.

"NNYRRRMMPHH!" she cried out. Cleave gagged, Mariko felt a pair of strong hands pulling the cloth at both ends, keeping it firmly within her mouth. "NNYYRRMMPPHH-HHMMMPPHH!!" Mariko lifted her arms to fight the man gagging her off, but she found her thin wrists each grabbed by two gloved hands, which was far more than was necessary to overpower the tall, but slender maiden. Both arms pulled behind her back, she felt them being forced into a box tie, her forearms parallel to each other. While one pair of hands kept her arms in this position, the other pair began to wind white, nylon rope around Mariko's seized limbs. She couldn't see them at any rate, but Mariko's assailants were clad all in black, with masks over their faces. Unfortunately for Mariko, the street was deserted at the late hour, and no-one was around to see her being snatched.

"Nnnngggghhhpphh!!" Mariko protested, being trussed up by the masked men, as her forearms were pulled tighter and tighter in by the ropes, until it became impossible for her to move one without the other. "Who are these men? Why are they here? Why am I being captured?!" The possibility occurred to the raven-haired young woman that her secret identity had been discovered, and she had been targeted by her enemies.
"Don't fight, Miss Asakura," one of her assailants said. "There's three of us, and one of you. Just make this easy on yourself." It seemed that the speaker was the one who had gagged Mariko, as he tightened the gag, knotting it behind Mariko's head. As Mariko felt rope being wound under her relatively small but perky breasts pulling her upper arms against her back, she wriggled her narrow shoulders, dislodging one of the straps of her dress. As it slipped down her arm it, as well as the bound maiden's wiggling, caused one side of her low cut dress to slip down a little, just enough to reveal the top of Mariko's strapless black bra. She noticed this, the shame of her exposure only adding to her distress.

"Llmmm mpphhh ggggpphh!" Mariko insisted, but she was hardly in a position to make demands. She kicked out with one of her high heeled feet, but didn't accomplish much. She did, unfortunately, remind one of the men that her long legs were still free. Her gag secure, the man who had silenced her (more or less) moved round, grabbing Mariko by her slim ankles, lifting her immaculately smooth, kicking legs into the air. Her phone slipped out of her pocket, clattering on the ground. "Dnnnph tffhh mmpphh!" Mariko protested, feeling the man's gloved hands on her delicate ankles. Holding them together, Mariko's captor nodded at the other two men. One took her by the shoulders, while the other came round to slip his arms under Mariko's soft thighs.

"Nnnnpphh!" Mariko felt the leather of the crook's gloves pressing against the soft, tan skin of her much-admired thighs. Her legs made up significantly more than half the length of her body, so the thug holding her thighs and the one holding her ankles were still quite far apart. With the bound, oriental beauty in their grip, the three men began carrying her back towards the road, to a large, black SUV, her high-heeled feet dangling in the air.
"Heh heh," the man holding Mariko's thighs chuckled. "Y'know, maybe if this crew ran more jobs like this - y'know, kidnapping leggy, Japanese supermodels in mini-dresses - I don't think there'd be so many complaints about pay."
"Would you shut up?" said the man holding Mariko's shoulders. But even he found capturing and manhandling the tall, dark-haired maiden a very alluring prospect.
"Yrrrll pmmmpphh frrr thmmmmppphh!" Mariko said, her arresting green eyes glaring at them. But at that moment, Mariko was not particularly threatening. It seemed as if her capture had nothing to do with her superheroine identity: they had targeted her because she was a catwalk model. The three men, bearing Mariko in their arms, came up to the SUV, its back door already open. Relaying her willowy body from one to the other, they placed Mariko across the back seats.

Her legs were momentarily free, and she tried to kick - her pointed stilettos certainly would have packed a nasty punch - but this move was anticipated. Both her ankles were caught, and pushed down against the car seat, as well as being held together. While one of the kidnappers held her ankles, another leaned into the car, and began binding them. Soft, but tough nylon cord encircled Mariko's ankles in a flash, looped four times to make sure the damsel had as little room to manoeuvre as possible.

Reaching further in, the man who had bound Mariko's ankles overbalanced a little, leaning on the oriental beauty's silky thighs.
"Whoops," he said, grinning at the helpless heroine, giving her legs a playful squeeze for good measure.
"Hwwph DRRRPHH YMMMPPHH?!" Mariko roared through her gag, aghast that she had been groped so openly, but once again powerless to do anything about it. She felt not only the man's hands on her thighs though, but nylon ropes, wrapped in two circuits above her knees, binding her legs.

If Mariko had thought that, being bound hand and foot, as well as gagged, made her so helpless that the crooks would not bother restraining her further, she was sadly wrong. They took the seatbelts from the three backseats, and began winding them around Mariko's slender body, around her midriff, just beneath her shoulders, and around her calves. They then fitted the metal flaps into their buckles, pressing Mariko down tightly.
"Nyrrmmphh? Hmmpphh?" Mariko whimpered, feeling her body pulled against the leather seats, scarcely able to wriggle in the tight, improvised bindings that she had been wrapped in. "How did this happen to me? I've been rendered completely helpless! I - Spectra - captured so quickly... I can't move an inch!"
"There you go, Miss Captive-san," one of Mariko's captors laughed. "We take road safety very seriously you know." The three laughed, and hopped into the car. One of them sat down next to Mariko, the seatbelts binding her giving her ankles just enough slack for him to lift them up, resting them on his lap. Mariko felt vibrations beneath her, as the car's engine started. The SUV promptly sped off, taking Mariko with it.

"We got a long drive ahead of us, darlin'," the thug said, running his hands along the whole length of Mariko's naked legs. "I hope you enjoy it. I know I'm going to."
"Mmmmmppphhh! NNNMMMPPPHHH!!" Mariko moaned, as the strapped-down damsel was driven off into the night: bound, gagged, and thoroughly kidnapped.


The following morning, Sophie was still chafing from her ordeal atop the Acton Heights, and still mystified as to who had subjected her to it. Her dorm room-mate was still asleep, but Sophie had been up for a while. She was dressed in a short, tartan skirt, translucent, flesh-tone stockings, and a thin, green shirt, the top four buttons left undone. She was buried in a volume of commentaries on Supreme Court rulings from the 1970s and, though she was more than intelligent enough to understand its contents, she was nonetheless finding it more than a little dull.

Putting the book down out of frustration, she switched on the television, and immediately sat up.
"Renowned catwalk model Mariko Asakura has been kidnapped," read a news summary on the bottom of the screen, while the anchor droned on about the police's lack of leads, Sophie having tuned in mid-sentence. Though the news would certainly have drawn her attention in either case, it was the image in the top right hand corner of the screen that had made Sophie sit up so fast.

"Spectra!" She was not wearing her mask, but the beautiful young woman who looked indignantly, yet forlornly out of the screen was unquestionably the heroine that Sophie had encountered before. Perhaps an ordinary person wouldn't have recognised her, but Sophie never forgot even the smallest detail of a face. "Damn, for someone who's so stuck up about it, she sure gets captured a lot." Sophie said. Thinking fast, she dialled a number in her phone, connecting to her to a spunky young journalist at the Seacouver Herald.

"Well if it isn't my favourite rookie heroine!" said May, a twenty-seven year old feature columnist at her paper, and one of only two people who knew Sophie's secret identity. "How you doin'?"
"May, would you, like, keep your voice down?" Sophie hissed back. "If someone else in your dingy little press room heard that, I swear to god..." The two had befriended each other during Sophie's first superheroic mission, in which May had managed to find the hideout of a gang of art thieves, information Sophie had used to great effect. Still inexperienced, she had transformed back to her civilian attire in full view of the journalist, whom she had by ill luck met once before, when the journalist had given a speech at Sophie's high school. The redhead had, to her later chagrin, made an impression.

Still, feeling she owed Sophie a debt of gratitude, May had entered into a working relationship with the heroine, feeding information to her, and more often than not getting a good scoop in return.
"I'm guessing you're calling about the abduction," May said, swiping her messy blonde hair out of her face.
"Yeah," Sophie said. "The news says all the local outlets and papers got sent the picture of Sp - I mean, Mariko Asakura."
"We did indeed," she said, "but I'm currently working on a lifestyle piece about Seacouver's emerging golf scene."
"Wow," Sophie said drily. "Thrilling." A groan from the other end let Sophie know May shared her sentiments.

"So why the interest in the case?" May said. "Think you know something the cops don't?"
"Not yet," Sophie said. "Kinda why I'm calling. I need you to send me that photo, the highest definition you can."
"Alright," May said. "Y'know, freckles, if you rescue her this is going to make you a real big name. Dibs on the first interview of the rising starlet."
"May, I promise, you'll get the first interview," Sophie said, intending to keep her promise by never giving an interview at all.
"You're a doll. I sent the snap, by the way," the journalist said. "I'm doing this under the assumption that you don't just want a picture of a gagged hottie for your viewing pleasure, freckles."
"I have no idea how someone like you became, like, a halfway senior journalist," Sophie said. "Oh wait! It's because you work for a paper even the Enquirer thinks is sensationalist."
"Which is why you need to let me interview you, freckles: you're a sensation!" May said.
"I'm hanging up."
"You just use me, girl! I've had enough! This marriage is over!" May yelled, eliciting quite a few confused stares from her colleagues in the bull pen.
"Ughhh..." Sophie sighed, ending the call.
"What?!" May barked, making her colleagues turn back to their work.

Sophie sat in front of her laptop, bringing up her e-mails (an anonymous account), and opening the picture that May had sent her. She realised that the journalist's joke about why Sophie wanted the photograph made a little more sense once one had seen the whole thing. It was steamy to say the least: Mariko was not just gagged, but tightly tied up in a skimpy black dress, a dress which had become even more dishevelled since her kidnapping. Her ponytail had been undone, leaving her short hair messy, but still somehow with a sense of elegance. Her legs were almost shiny, moist from the strain of her wriggling struggles, struggles that had only been intensified as her captor had stroked and fondled her calves and her soft thighs as she was driven to where they'd stashed her.

"Spectra..." Sophie said, feeling bad for her fellow heroine, despite the model's haughtiness. She got up, and locked her door. "Enhance," she said, as quietly as she could, hoping that the flash that accompanied her transformation would not be too conspicuous. Once changed, she peered as closely as she could at the photograph, looking intently for any detail that would be useful for Mariko's rescue with her superhuman vision.
"Those assholes," she muttered, able to perceive the faint traces of fingerprints on Mariko's long, tan legs, and her soft, mostly uncovered shoulders, which had been squeezed and felt up multiple times. She did see, however, a reflection in Mariko's eyes. There was the face of the photographer, still masked, but that did not interest. What caught Sophie's attention was a reflection of a reflection in the lens of the camera. It was a tiny window, barely large enough for a cat to squeeze through. Yet through the window, behind the glass, Sophie could make out with her superhuman abilities a short, squat statue, half covered in bird faeces. Unloved though this hideous piece of bronze was, Sophie knew it.
"Grosvenor Street..." she said. Enhancegirl had found a target.


"Hrrggppphhh...nyyrrmmmpphh..." Mariko moaned, lying on a torn mattress in a dingy room. One of the men who had kidnapped her stood watch, the others somewhere else in the two storey, vacant house they had appropriated.
"You know it's funny, I bet there's a hundred crooks who'd love to get their hands on you," the thug said, "and I ain't just talking about those sexy gams of yours."
"Shhhpphhh uuhhphh!" Mariko protested, sick of hearing the goons compliment her slender body.
"It was Vinnie who figured it out," he said. "He always was a canny piece of work. Shame the cops got him."
"Hhhrrmmphh?" Mariko didn't know what the man meant. Had 'Vinnie' worked out where she lived?
"He's the one who pieced together that you were Spectra. He recognised you when he caught you before."
"NNNMMPPHH!!" Mariko screamed through her gag, sitting up. Her identity had been revealed.
"Hey, settle down, geisha-girl," the thug said, pushing her back down. "Don't feel betrayed. He didn't even mean for us to know. He told his lawyer, and his lawyer told us...for a price."
"Nnnnmmmpphhh...nnnmmmpphhh..." Mariko whimpered, closing her sparkling eyes in shame. "They know who I am...they know my identity...what am I to do?"
"Oh relax, lady," the crook said. "It's not you we're interested in."

"Go on guard duty...that's so important..." one of the thugs, the one who had carried Mariko by her shoulders, said. "How come Reggie always gets to look after the damsel in distress, and I'm always stuck on the door? Lousy...no good..." As he grumbled, the other of the three came in, with two more men who had been keeping watch on their safehouse while Mariko was being captured.

"Anything yet, Ken?" said the man who had gagged Mariko, a man named Brandon.
"Nothing," he said. "Just as quiet as a...hey wait." He looked more closely at a small security screen in front of him, which was hooked up to a security camera the criminals had rigged outside the door. Something was moving outside. Something was moving fast.
"Ken?" Brandon said. "Is that my..." Suddenly, there was a loud boom, as Brandon's SUV crashed into the front of the house.
"What the hell?!" Ken cried out, leaping to his feet. The house's thick walls held firm, but the formerly locked door almost flew off the hinges. It held on by a thread, a thread that was broken when the door flew open, revealing Enhancegirl standing in the doorway.

"So we can either make this easy, or we can make it difficult," Sophie said, cracking her knuckles threateningly.
"Get her!" Brandon cried, seeking to avenge his car. His goons rushed forward.
"Looks like you've gone for 'easy'," Sophie said. She ducked under the first punch which, it had to be said, did not require superpowers to avoid. She scanned her attacker in an instant, seeing his centre of mass was high on his body from his lunge. She capitalised on this, kicking at his heel, sending him into the wall which had been hard enough to take the impact of a car.

"C'mon, it's just one dame!" Ken said, charging at her. Had Vinnie been there, he would have scolded Ken for his foolhardiness. As it was, Ken learned his lesson the painful way, as his forehead was marked with a bootprint. Enhancegirl noticed that, despite the fact that her assailants were going for her in a serious way, none of them were trying to use the guns at their waists. This certainly made things easier, but Sophie was suspicious.
"You selfish jerk, aren't you gonna help?" Ken said, half conscious, crawling along the floor towards Brandon.
"Not yet," he said. "Just let our red-haired friend tire herself out a bit first."

From the looks of things, though, that would have taken some time. However, just as the lovely heroine was about to send another of Brandon's men hurtling into a wall, she felt the aerial tremors of something being thrown towards her. She avoided it without even turning to look, but as it sailed past her, she realised that she should have caught it. As the vial of chloroform cracked against the concrete wall, Enhancegirl cursed herself.

It smashed, spilling its contents over the floor. As the scent reached her nostrils, Enhancegirl was already beginning to feel dizzy.
"They're the ones who knocked me out on the roof of the bank! It was some kind of practise run to make sure my weakness was what they thought it was!" Her rational, though mistaken, conclusion would have done her little good if she'd been exposed to more of the chloroform. However, this time Enhancegirl was more quick witted.
"Downgrade!" she said, transforming back into her civilian attire. Though she'd robbed herself of her powers, she'd also eliminated her extreme sensitivity to chloroform.

"Huh?" Brandon hadn't been expecting that. Nor was he expecting Sophie to leap forward and sock him in the jaw. "Ow!" he exclaimed, knocked back, but not exactly knocked for six either. Without her powers, though she was no physically weaker, Sophie was less accurate and her fighting techniques much less effective. Still, it gave Sophie the opening she needed and, now clad in her tartan skirt and shirt, she ran through the door to the next room.

All she had to do, as her red kitten heels tacked against the ground, was get far enough away from the spilled jar of chloroform that its contents would not affect her in her transformed state. Brandon, recovered, ran after her. As she reached another door, he grabbed for her, but missed, as she pushed the door open, and slammed it in his face once she was through.
"Aarrghh! God damn it!" he cried, nursing his nose.

"Spectra!" she cried, coming upon the bound, oriental beauty as she went into another adjoining room.
"Nyyrrrmmmpphhh! Hmmmpppphhh bmmhmmpphh yyhhph!" Mariko yelled through her thick cleave gag, as she saw the pretty redhead enter. Sophie hadn't expected such an extreme reaction as that from the cool, haughty young woman. She must have been desperate to be freed after her ordeal.
"Don't worry," Sophie said, "I'll get you out of here. Enha - HHMMMPPPHHH!!" Sophie felt a piece of thick, red cloth being pulled over her mouth and nose, gagging her instantly, and preventing her from using the change-word she needed to utilise her powers.
"Not gonna be enhancing anything today, girlie," Reggie said. Mariko's guard had snuck up on Sophie from behind and gagged her, and without her powers her relative physical weakness was making it impossible for her to overpower him. The door opened again, Brandon standing in its doorway, red-nosed, but otherwise none the worse for wear.
"Good job, Reg," he said. "Get her in here."
"Sure thing, boss-man," Reggie said, pulling Sophie through the doorway by the cloth gagging her.
"NNMMMPPHH!!" she cried, pulled backwards, agonised by the thought that with one phoneme more she'd have been able to transform.

Pulled into the next room, Sophie found Brandon's hands seizing hers, pulling them behind her back.
"That was pretty clever, turning off your powers like that," Brandon said, as he bent his arm, locking Sophie's wrists between his bicep and his forearm. "I can't say we caught you because you were stupid. We were just prepared for you, girl."
"Mmmphh! Nnmmphh!" Sophie felt Reggie tie the cloth gag in place, pressing her shoulder length red hair against her head, as well as securing her muzzle. Meanwhile, Brandon began trussing Sophie's wrists in the same nylon ropes that he had used to bind Mariko, pulling them against each other. "Nyyrrmmpphh!!" Sophie protested, as she felt her arms being bound, feeling the ropes constricting her through her thin shirt. Brandon wound the same length of rope binding her wrists around and around Sophie's chest, pressing her arms against her back tighter with each circuit, tying her arms against her back, and covering her midriff in coil after coil of rope, until her shirt was only visible from her breasts to her neck.

Her arms thoroughly tied, Reggie knelt down by Sophie's stocking clad legs, holding them together at the knees.
"How come all these super-dames have got such great gams?" Reggie said, as he began twisting rope around Sophie's ankles, pressing into her soft skin through the thin stockings.
"Guess being a hottie is a job requirement," Brandon said, giving Sophie's ass a squeeze through her tartan skirt.
"Ymmmphh pmm-hrrmmpphh!" Sophie protested, wriggling in her bonds. But the captured girl was too tightly tied up to put up much of a fight. Two circuits of rope were tied above her knees, and Sophie gave a yelp as the cords were pulled tight, snapping her long legs together inextricably.

"That's got her," Brandon said. "Get her in there with the other one."
"You got it, boss," Reggie said, grinning, grabbing Sophie by the waist, and tossing the red-haired damsel over his shoulder. "Alley-oop, sweetheart."
"MMMPPHHH!!" Sophie loudly protested, as the outwitted heroine was draped over her captive's shoulder. Her body was too tightly bound for her to do much to stop this from happening. "No way!" she thought, as she became aware of her mini-skirt revealing her ass in her pose. "This was supposed to be a rescue mission...now I've been captured too! Damn it, why do people keep tying me up?!"

Carrying her into the room where Mariko was being kept, Reggie held onto Sophie with some relish, gripping the uncovered parts of her thighs which her stockings did not reach, before laying her down next to the dark-haired model the others had captured the previous night.
"Mmmmpphh!" The two damsels complained, writhing next to each other on the mattress, their lissom bodies rubbing together in their sinuous, bound struggles.
"You're not the one who needs to worry, geisha-girl," Reggie said. "You ain't seen our faces, and you're hot product. Too hot to move right now, no matter how much every villain in the country would love to get their hands on those thighs of yours."
"Stmmmpphh tmmpphh-mmpphh a-mmphh hmpphh lmmmpphh!" Mariko protested, her gag preventing her from being understood.
"We only caught you 'cause the Herald said you two were partners. Your red-haired friend is the one we were after."
"Whhmphh?" Sophie was taken aback to say the least. This whole thing had been a plot to capture her.
"How do you think we knew about your little Achilles heel?" Brandon said, walking in. "We got a tip off from someone who's paying good money for you. Someone who used to have a nice set up round here until you walked in." Sophie went pale. She realised who Brandon meant. The only person outside that room to know her weakness: Madam Black.
"She's sending a guy to pick you up in a couple hours," Brandon said. "So sit tight, girlie. Reggie, watch them."
"You got it, boss-man!" Reggie said, as Brandon walked out.

"It can't be...not her...oh, gawd, not her..." Sophie felt hopeless. Her bold rescue mission had been a trap, her body was bound, and she was about to be sold into Madam Black's clutches. "I'll probably have a drug-soaked rag over my face for the rest of my life..." Mariko saw her would-be rescuer despondent, and couldn't help but feel ashamed of what she'd done to her before. In tracking her down and coming after her, Sophie had shown intelligence, skill and selflessness.
"Exactly the qualities of a true heroine..." Mariko thought. She looked at Reggie, who still ogled the two bound maidens, and she had a thought. "This is going to be exquisitely embarrassing..."
"Mmphh?" Sophie bleated, as she felt Mariko begin to rub her long, naked legs against her. This was no accident either, Mariko was caressing Sophie's legs with her own, slowly and deliberately.
"Mmmmpphhh..." she moaned sensuously, batting her eyes at her fellow captive.
"Gmmphh?" Sophie was completely confused. "What the hell is she doing?" The bound, oriental beauty gyrated slowly against Sophie, the redhead getting a good feeling of how supple Mariko's body was, whether she wanted to or not. "What, does getting trussed up turn you on, or something?" Mariko's eyes were fixed on Sophie's, but they darted over to Reggie for an instant, before looking back. Sophie cottoned on.
"Mmph..." she mewed, as kittenishly as she could, moving her own smooth legs against Mariko's. Reggie, amazed by the display of affection between the captive damsels, moved in closer. He wasn't quite close enough, though, and Sophie took matters into her own hands, so to speak. She leaned forward, and used her chin to move the remaining strap of Mariko's dress off her shoulder, leaving both shoulders bare, acres of Mariko's soft skin exposed on her upper and lower body.

"Hey, I knew you guys were partners, but I didn't realise you were...partners," Reggie said. "Heh! Guess you won't be seeing each other for a while. It'd be cruel of me to stop you." He moved closer still, but still not close enough.
"To myself, I swear now, this will never be spoken of again," Mariko thought, using her last remaining recourse. She leant in, brushing her nose against Sophie's. From genuine embarrassment, Sophie's freckled cheeks blushed.
"Nnhhmphh..." Mariko whimpered, before pressing her lips against Sophie's.
"Mmmmpphhh...mmmmppphhh..." Sophie bleated, closing her eyes to give plausibility to the deceit. She could feel Mariko's rouged lips through her thin cloth gag, and Mariko, whose gag did not actually cover her lips, could feel hers. As the two bound, long-legged beauties kissed through their gags, Reggie came in for a closer look. Again, if Vinnie had been there, this tactic would not have worked, but Vinnie's breed were rare in Brandon's line of work. Reggie was a fool, and once he got close enough, Mariko broke the kiss and thrust her stiletto heeled feet into his stomach.

"OOOFF!" he grunted, falling to his knees.
"Grrmmpphh!" Sophie delivered the finishing blow, kicking him in the head, knocking the idiot unconscious. Mariko immediately put her face to Sophie's hands, allowing the redhead to pull the cleave gag from between her lips.
"Spectrum is Green!" Mariko said, instantly transforming into Spectra, Lady of Light. She was still tied up, but this had suddenly become a much less serious concern. She used her powers to cut the bonds from her body with lasers, before doing the same for Sophie.
"Enhance!" the second heroine said, her tartan skirt replaced with her gold mini-dress, her super-senses restored. Brandon heard their battle-cries, and rushed back in, seeing Reggie unconscious, and the heroines loose.
"Oh...crap," he said simply.

From there it was a trifling matter for the two heroines to disable the thugs and, once they arrived, the two men who'd come on Madam Black's behalf. Later, as the cops led the criminals away, the two heroines stood next to each other, feeling just a little awkward.
"Thanks for cutting me loose," Enhancegirl said. "You totally saved my bacon."
"I..." Spectra paused. "I am...grateful that you elected to come to my aid. I apologise for my attitude towards you before. You are fairly capable after all."
"You too, I guess," Sophie said. "Probably the closest thing I'm gonna get to a compliment from her..." She swallowed her pride. "What are you going to do about your secret identity?"
"I hope that Mariko Asakura being Spectra will end up as little more than a rumour," she said. "After all, there is no concrete proof, and there are plenty of theories about who I really am."
"If you say so," Sophie said, wondering if the time would come when her secret identity would become a serious problem.
"Ah...Enhancegirl?"
"Mmm?"
"About the way we subdued the man guarding us...I would prefer if you did not speak of it."
"Don't worry about it!" she said quickly. Both young women blushed at the memory. "Look, I gotta go. I'll see you around, Spectra?"
"I hope not," the Japanese model said. Sophie frowned, hardly believing that she was still so standoffish. "I would hate for you to have to come to my rescue a third time." She was smiling slightly. "Nor I to yours."
"Amen to that," Sophie said. The two shook hands before parting. They parted as, perhaps not friends, but at the very least, two capable heroines, each with respect for the other's abilities.
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