The Perils of Enhancegirl 5: Back to Black
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:30 pm
"I'm here!" Enhancegirl shouted at the top of her lungs. "So where the hell are you?!" Often when entering a situation she knew would be trouble, Sophie Scott liked to start off in her powerless state, before dramatically transforming and activating her powers, but she was not in any mood for theatrics. Her voice rang against the rusted metal of the docks, bouncing back and fading as it travelled out over a calm sea. 'Calm' was not, though, a word that could be used to describe the flame-haired superheroine.
"We don't know who it's from," the Herald reporter had said, "just that it was meant to be sent to this number."
"But why me?" Sophie had replied, worried that someone other than May was getting in contact with her.
"Hey, I don't know and I don't wanna know," the reporter had replied. "If May found out I was talking to one of her sources she'd kill me." He'd hung up, but before Sophie could express her frustration, the video he'd sent had finished downloading.
It featured two very attractive young women. One was evidently South-East Asian - Korean, in fact - and the other Caucasian, blonde and blue-eyed. This was not what had made Sophie gasp. What had made her gasp was that both were bound and gagged, in rope and duct tape respectively. They were looking into the camera with desperation, and though there was no sound, Sophie had known that they were making as much noise as their gags would permit. She hadn't needed to hear their voices to recognise the pair either: one was superheroine and pop idol Stellar, otherwise known as Yumi Tae-Yong, and the other was Herald reporter May Springtide. She knew both personally, even going so far as to say that she considered May a friend. Stellar she'd...attempted to rescue only two nights before, but she'd been a fan of hers for a long time before that. And they'd both been kidnapped.
After a few seconds, the video had cut, and it know showed the two asleep, lying very close to each other in their mutual bondage. Sophie had a strong feeling that they had not fallen asleep naturally. After a few seconds of that, a placard appeared in front of the camera. It read:
FEELING HEROIC, ENHANCEGIRL?
COME TO THE PATTERSON DOCK AT 8PM TOMORROW NIGHT
IF YOU WANT US TO KEEP BEING NICE TO YOUR PRETTY FRIENDS, THAT IS.
So Sophie had gone where she'd been ordered. She knew it was a trap, and even had a fair idea of who'd set it. She knew that someone was probably hiding round a corner waiting to spring out, but in the first instance, she had to rescue May and Stellar on general principle. In the second instance, she couldn't stand the idea of her friends suffering because of who - because of what - she was.
Wary of a hundred possible ways of being snared, Enhancegirl scanned her environs with her powers, aware of the finest detail within - well within the horizon. Even solidity was no barrier to her enhanced vision. Her only "normal" sense was her hearing, though that rarely made all that much difference. It made a little difference in this case, but a vast amount. The motorboat approaching the dock did surprise Enhancegirl with how close it got before she noticed it, but it wasn't anywhere near close enough to being a threat to her. But it wasn't herself that Sophie was worried about.
As the boat got closer, Enhancegirl was able to make out the figure driving it. She'd thought that if she recognised the person responsible for Stellar and May's kidnapping, there were a limited number of people it could be. The person she saw was not on that list. She was blonde and, not that one could tell while she was sitting, tall. She was also a cyborg, enhanced with a number of mechanical components that made her a formidable opponent.
"Cybelle," Enhancegirl growled. They had tangled before, and Enhancegirl had only narrowly come out on top in their third fight, after having been soundly defeated twice before. It certainly made sense that the woman who had been (partially) responsible for Stellar's kidnapping before would try again, but she should have been in jail. How had she escaped?
Enhancegirl's instinct was to pounce as soon as Cybelle pulled in, but with Stellar and May in her clutches, that was dangerous. For the moment, she'd have to let Cybelle dictate the terms of their encounter.
"Well hey darlin'," Cybelle called out as her rather trim little boat pulled up. She hopped out deftly. "How's it goin'?"
"Oh, cut it out!" Enhancegirl barked. "Where are they?" She clenched both fists. In their last fight, she'd torn off one of Cybelle's artificial tendrils, and used it to batter her enemy into submission. She was prepared to do worse if Cybelle had harmed either of her captives.
"Oh, my, we are gettin' down to business, ain't we? Well, alright then..." She pointed behind her. If she meant to indicate that that was where Sophie would find the women she sought, that hardly seemed to make sense. But then, if it was merely the old "look behind you" trick, that wouldn't have worked very well on Enhancegirl. The redhead turned warily, and found to her great surprise that Cybelle was being truthful. From the end of a broken old crane, the two damsels dangled, back to back, their admirable bodies wrapped up in a long, thick chain, their arms bound behind their backs and their legs tied together, metal links criss crossing their chests and legs. Not only were they chained, they were chained to each other, their backs pressed against each other.
"MMMMPHHH!!" May cried out. A thick cloth was tied over her lips, keeping her from speaking. She'd only just caught sight of Enhancegirl, and called out in desperation to her.
"Mmmmphhh..." Stellar whimpered quietly. She had great powers at her disposal, but without her voice she couldn't activate them. As it was, she was just as helpless as she'd have been without them. She wiggled her body slightly, her bare legs rubbing together, the chains wrapping them tight clinking. She didn't make much of an effort. It had been two days since the pair had been kidnapped, and while they had made a couple of attempts at escape, none had worked. Stellar - or rather, Yumi - felt a gentle breeze run over her shoulders. Her dress was torn from repeated manhandling, exposing more of her body than the admittedly revealing outfit had meant to. She saw Enhancegirl as well, and hung her head. She knew what was coming, and so did May. That was why she was calling out so fiercely: not to ask for Enhancegirl's help, but to warn her.
"How did you -?" Sophie scanned again, but she could not see anyone else around. "Who the hell put them up there?" she thought.
"Oh, I don't think you need to worry too much about that, darlin'," Cybelle replied. "After all, you've got me to deal with." Saying that, she attacked.
Enhancegirl had known before the tendril lunged for her throat that that was what it would do. She felt the vibrations in the air, predicted its flight path based on its initial movements as Cybelle unveiled it from behind her white coat. The redhead ducked out of the way, and dashed in to make her own attack, but a second tendril whipped out, aiming for her legs, uncovered by her tight, gold dress. Sophie rolled under the attack, and - close enough now to attack Cybelle's body, swept at the Southern gal's waist. But her senses were enhanced as well - electronically, rather than supernaturally - and just as effectively. She dodged without much effort, retaliating with cobra-like swiftness.
"Whoa!" Enhancegirl dodged as well, but barely. She seemed faster. Their fights generally had a bit of a pattern: they would exchange blows with parity, then Cybelle would reveal some kind of unexpected trick which took advantage of Sophie's powers in some way, defeating the redhead. The only reason she'd lost last time was that she'd attempted to take advantage of a non-existent power: Enhancegirl's super-hearing. It hadn't worked, and Sophie had knocked her out.
But that was then, and this was now. Enhancegirl wasn't even sure she could keep up with Cybelle's new speed. She glanced back at Cybelle's captives, and gritted her teeth. She had to work something out.
"She who hesitates is lost!" Cybelle said, shooting out both her tendrils at once. This time, Enhancegirl did not jump to the side, but up, and her feet landed on one of the metal tentacles. The difference in weight caught Cybelle off guard, and she wasn't able to adjust her servos to accommodate Sophie's mass. While the cyborg dithered, Enhancegirl ran up her tendril, her super-senses giving her an enhanced sense of balance, and leapt off, attempting to boot Cybelle in the face.
"YMMPHHH!!" May yelled, cheering her on. Sophie would have succeeded too - had Cybelle not unveiled her other two tendrils.
"What?!" was all Sophie had time to blurt out before they seized her. One grabbed her round the chest, twisting over her arms and pinning them to her sides. At the same moment, the other tendril encircled her calves three times, and squeezed, holding her legs together. Enhancegirl struggled, but she didn't have any kind of increased strength, and she couldn't get loose. There was a knot in the pit of her stomach as she realised that she'd been caught.
"Ahahaha! Betcha weren't expecting that, were ya?!" Cybelle drawled, bringing her other two metal limbs to bear.
"Unngghhh!!" Sophie groaned, stretching and wriggling as much as she could. She could feel possible weaknesses in Cybelle's grip, but the question was whether she had enough time to exploit them.
As it happened, she did not.
Cybelle grabbed her with her other two limbs, and lifted her up straight above her head with all four. She wriggled, suspended in the air, caught and subdued by her enemy. It was then that Sophie sensed the vibrations within the tendrils, before she saw what emerged from compartments in their heads.
"Oh no," she said simply. It was tape. Strong, black tape, and Sophie knew it was about to be all over her.
"MMMMPHHH!!" May cried as she saw what was happening. "Come on, EG, get a grip!" But it was Cybelle who had the grip.
In several places simultaneously Sophie felt the tape being pressed against her body - her left calf, her right arm, her right thigh and her back. A testament to their great flexibility, the arms began wrapping the tape around Sophie's slinky body, and spinning the redhead around at the same time.
"Aaah! No!" Sophie protested, feeling her lovely limbs being secured in sticky, black bonds. Her arms were manipulated into being crossed behind her back, her thighs clamped together. As she was spun around, the tape began to encircle her, and bind her, her arms becoming first inextricably linked to each other, then to her back. Circuit after circuit of tape was wound over her, covering and squeezing her breasts, and immobilising her upper body almost completely. "Stop!" Sophie demanded, but with every spin of the imperilled superheroine, her long, pale legs disappeared even more under black tape, until she was wrapped from her ankles, to just below her uncovered shoulders. She was then, quite suddenly, dropped.
"Aiiiee!" she squealed, but Cybelle's accuracy was not to be underestimated. Enhancegirl fell squarely into Cybelle's arms - her real arms - which grasped the damsel by her thighs and her arm, long fingers just creeping over the edges of one of her breasts. She was almost completely mummified. Everything from the tops of her breasts upwards as uncovered, yes. "But I bet she did that just so I'd look more vulnerable..." Sophie thought, wiggling her soft shoulders uncomfortably.
"A beautiful dame falls outta the sky and right into my arms," Cybelle crooned, looking at the taped up heroine cradled in her grasp. "This must be my lucky day."
"Why are you doing this? Why does capturing me matter so much to you? What kind of - MMPHHH!!" She was not allowed to ask a third question. Tape was pressed by cybernetic strength over her pink lips, gagging the fetching redhead. "Nrrrmmphh!" she groaned in frustration. "Nmmm-mmm-MMMPPHH!!" Each moan was in response to another circuit of tape being wound around her head, making the gag tighter and tighter, until her mouth was well and truly sealed.
"Gotcha," Cybelle said. She wasn't wrong there: Enhancegirl had been bound and gagged with almost embarrassing rapidity.
"Nmmphh..." Stellar whimpered quietly. There'd been some small hope that Enhancegirl might at least overcome this stage of the plot. She'd expected her to lose eventually, but not at this stage. It was even easier than their captors had said it would be.
"By the way doll," Cybelle said as she began carrying Sophie towards the motorboat, "it ain't me who's so interested in capturing you. I agree with you actually - don't seem to make much sense to be so focussed on little ol' you." She laughed quietly. "Not that you ain't a real peach..." She squeezed Sophie's thighs judiciously.
"Mmmphh!" the redhead protested. She wriggled her body with all the strength she had, and though she knew that the tape was much stronger than the kind one could buy in a hardware store, it was still pathetic that she couldn't escape it with her powers undimmed. "I'm just as useless as I was against Arachna..." she thought, remembering how she'd been effortlessly wrapped up by the spider-like villain, having to be rescued by the mighty Valora.
But perhaps she would have succeeded. Had she squirmed at just the right angle, in just the right way, perhaps her superhuman sense of touch would have allowed her to find a way out of the sticky black prison holding her body so tightly. But she was never given the chance.
"Whhmmphh?!" Sophie exclaimed, as a blindingly bright light flashed before her eyes. Her sensitive vision reeled, and she felt before she saw that Cybelle had released her. Instinctively, Sophie twisted her body to land on her feet - and then came the second realisation. She should not have been able to do so while so tightly bound. Someone or something had untied her legs. As her vision returned to her, she saw Cybelle leaping from side to side, trying to dodge blasts of -
"Light!"
Sophie turned to the source of the blasts, and saw what she'd hoped - and sort of feared - to see. It was a tall, slender Japanese woman, dressed in a figure hugging silver outfit, a short cape trailing partway down her back, and a mask much like Sophie's, only silver, covered the upper part of her face.
"You seem to be in need of assistance," said Spectra.
"Mmmmphh!!" Enhancegirl replied. The oriental beauty - so gorgeous was she that, as Mariko Asakura, she moonlighted as a fashion model - raised her hand, and with awesome precision, blasted away the tape from Sophie's arms, or at least so weakened it that Sophie could remove the rest for herself. She pulled off her gag, and smiled embarrassedly at her rescuer.
"Damn it, what the -" Cybelle began, but seemed to restrain herself from further speech. She grimaced at the pair of heroines. Sophie was hardly surprised by her reaction: she had had occasion to run into Spectra on a number of occasions, and on each one she'd shown a formidable power. The last time, for instance, she'd rescued Sophie from the control of a powerful hypnotist named Mesmeredith, who'd subdued and entranced Sophie without effort. The tide was very much against Cybelle now.
"How did you know to, like, come all the way out here?" Sophie asked her fellow heroine. Spectra opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated for a moment, like the words just wouldn't come. "Spectra?" Sophie had almost said 'Mariko' but stopped herself. Spectra was very prideful of her status as a heroine.
"I received an anonymous tip, if you can believe it," Spectra said at last. She seemed convinced, but the pause had been strange. "Told me that you were in trouble. And since this is quite a usual thing for you to be in, I decided the matter at least bore investigation." She looked over at Cybelle. "I understand that this is the woman who defeated you at Stellar's concert. What made you think you could deal with her now?"
"I already beat her, actually," Sophie replied, restraining an angrier response. "Don't believe everything you read in the papers."
"Well she obviously got the better of you this time," Spectra said curtly.
"Wow," Sophie thought, "if I didn't know any better I'd say she was extra surly today." She should have trusted her instincts. Spectra was still recovering psychologically from a humiliating ordeal she'd suffered at the hands of an Italian fashion designer. She'd been drugged, tied up, dressed in fetishistic outfits, and - to her mortification - had been so overwhelmed at the domination inflicted on her that even when presented with the chance to escape, she'd not taken it, and had let herself be kept captive.
At least, that was how she remembered it. The memory presented such sharp cognitive dissonance with her personality that it stung her whenever she thought of it - which she did uncomfortably often.
"Focus," she thought. "There are more pressing matters here." She turned her attention to the cyborg, who looked at her with venom. Mechanically enhanced or not, in such an open area she simply couldn't compete with Spectra's powers, and she knew it. It was Cybelle's policy always to pick her battles, and she had not chosen this one.
"Surrender now, Cybelle," Spectra commanded, the manner in which she spoke her foe's name good evidence of her distaste for it. "I will not ask again. Or at least, I will not ask so politely." The cyborg grimaced again.
"Don't underestimate her, Spectra," Enhancegirl said, stepping in front of her fellow heroine. "She's tricky. I'd -" She stopped mid-sentence. In fact, she froze. An instinctive twinge at the periphery of her senses was telling her that something was amiss. It became very quickly apparent what that something was after about three-quarters of a second.
It was a smell. An overpowering, intoxicating smell that wafted into Sophie's nostrils, carried by the sea breeze. It was a sickly sweet, chemical scent which spread through Sophie's body slowly, but surely, like liquid metal. It made her slinky form tremble, made her emerald eyes lose focus, as her strength slipped away from her. It assaulted every corner of her mind, making it hard for her to think, as it wrapped its invisible tendrils around her.
"Chloroform," Sophie whispered, before Spectra clamped a drug soaked rag over her face. "MMMPHHH!! Nnmphhh! Mmmmmmphhh..." That feeling of weakness now spread through her even faster. The soporific drug had a very powerful effect on Enhancegirl, due to the great sensitivity of her senses, and almost immediately her body became limp. She sagged, Spectra taking her by the waist, and easing the redhead back against her. Sophie's head fell against the cushion of Mariko's breasts, her wavy red hair trailing down Spectra's abdomen. The lovely co-ed was no match for the drug's somnolent fumes, and she could barely move, her minds fading into darkness. "Mph..." she whimpered softly, rendered completely powerless by the chloroform in seconds. "Spectra...why...?" was all she managed to think before her emerald eyes fluttered shut. Betrayed and defeated, Enhancegirl gave in to the sweet-smelling fumes, losing consciousness completely.
Spectra held the cloth over Sophie's mouth and nose for much longer than was necessary. She wanted to make absolutely sure that her victim was out cold. She eventually took the cloth away, before releasing the redhead. Sophie tumbled to the ground, lying still at Mariko's feet.
"MMMPPHHHH!!" May and Yumi cried out, seeing their saviour fall. Their attempts to warn Enhancegirl had failed. It was Spectra who had hung the pair of them from that chain, surprising both greatly when she opened the car boot in which the pair had been stashed. Seized by the superheroine, they had been hung up and hidden from Enhancegirl's sight using Specta's powers over light, only to be revealed at a suitably dramatic moment. Once Enhancegirl had appeared, they'd realised what had been planned for her. The only thing that they - like Sophie - hadn't known was why. But that made itself apparent readily enough.
From some dark corner of the docks - there were many - emerged a brown-haired woman, tall-ish but not as tall as Spectra. In contrast with the waiflike model, though, she was buxom and full figured. She was dressed in tight, black leather, thinner than motorcycle leathers, but not quite thin enough to be utterly impractical. Her sleeves were ruffled, like a circus performer. Stellar didn't realise who she was until much later, but May already had inklings.
"Well done, Spectra my dear," the woman said, approaching the silver-clad heroine. However, Spectra did not turn in surprise, or even greeting, at her appearance. Instead, her arms fell by her sides, dropping the cloth she'd drugged Enhancegirl, and she began staring straight forwards.
"It's like she's in a trance," Yumi thought, looking down at the scene below her. It was then, seeing her high-heeled feet dangling in the air, that the Korean first realised how high up she was. "Mmmph!" she squeaked, her useless struggles dampening slightly. She wasn't afraid of heights as such, but she wasn't a huge fan of them either. Bringing herself to look down, she saw Enhancegirl lying by Spectra's feet. "Again she's captured trying to rescue me...if I were not so pathetic this would never have happened..."
"Where the hell have you been?!" Cybelle screeched at the newcomer. "You were supposed to get geisha-girl over here to knock her out straight away! She almost put a hole in mah head!" The newcomer acknowledged Cybelle's complaint, faintly, but was much more interested in Spectra. She walked slowly up to her, standing very close behind the Japanese heroine, and placing her hands lightly on Mariko's shoulders.
"You did very well, Mariko," she said, taking her time over each syllable.
"Thank you, Mistress..." Spectra replied in a half-whisper. The woman behind her ran her hands down the heroine's chest, gently cupping her breasts. "Oh..." Spectra moaned softly as her breasts were massaged, her silver leotard giving little defence - though she appeared not to want it. As the brown-haired woman felt up the oriental beauty, she met not the slightest bit of resistance. Spectra's pride seemed vanished.
"Oh god..." May's inklings had become realisation. "Hypnotra!" Indeed, the woman running her hands over Seacouver's most beloved heroine had once gone by the name Hypnotra, though latterly she'd preferred the nom de guerre 'Mesmeredith.' To May at least, it all became horribly clear. Mesmeredith was, like Mariko, Yumi and Sophie, a superhuman. In her case, she had a powerful ability to control the minds of others, and it seemed that she had Spectra wrapped around her little finger.
Mesmeredith took her hands away from Mariko, and turned her attentions to Sophie, who was sprawled on the ground. She pushed her with her foot, turning the redhead onto her back. Mesmeredith's eyes ran over Sophie; her bare legs, long red hair, and tight, figure hugging gold dress.
"Oh yes," she said, "just as lovely as I remember you." Indeed, she had encountered Sophie before, hypnotising her to make her compelled to drug herself, or to prompt others to capture her. Ironically enough, it had been in her attempts to rescue Enhancegirl from this fate that Spectra had fallen under Hypnotra's spell.
"She is yours, Mistress," Mariko said. Hypnotra laughed quietly.
"Not mine, dearest," she said. "But you, on the other hand..."
She turned back to Spectra. "Not that I didn't enjoy seeing our cyborg friend getting a good scare, but I ordered you to take Sophie Scott as soon as you could. You disobeyed me." She was playing a cruel game: Spectra had followed her orders to the letter.
"I...disobeyed?" Spectra said, surprised.
"Yes, my dear," Mesmeredith said. "Now, shed your powers."
"Yes Mistress...Spectrum is Red." With a flash, Mariko's outfit vanished. She was not naked, though. She'd merely changed back into her civilian form. By a bizarre coincidence, her outfit was strangely suitable for her surroundings. Before being summoned by her Mistress, she'd been at a Naval-themed photoshoot, and as such she was dressed in a sort of sailor suit. It was very much altered, however. Her top was a short sleeved, white blouse, with a blue neckerchief running across the collar. Her taut midriff was completely bared, and the buttons of the blouse were opened to show her cleavage. As for her lower body, she wore a pleated, navy-blue mini-skirt, which barely descended lower than her hips. Her long, tan legs were completely on show, enhanced by a pair of white high heels. She looked beautiful, and vulnerable, and Mesmeredith was very pleased indeed.
"Now, what happens to pretty girls who disobey their Mistress?" She continued, grinning wickedly. With her powers switched off, Spectra's mask was gone, and every corner of her pretty face was there to be admired.
"We..." Spectra hesitated, but not for long. "We must be punished..."
What form that punishment would take became apparent without delay. Spectra found herself once again gripped by the shoulders, only this time it was to turn her around. Mesmeredith took her arms, and folded them at right angles behind Mariko's back. It was then that Spectra felt the bite of cord against her skin: tough, thin brown rope was wound over her wrists and upper arms, a yank pulling the rope tight and cinching her arms together into a box-tie. In principle, there was nothing stopping Mariko from blasting Mesmeredith away with her powers, or worse, but she did not. Her head was bowed.
Mesmeredith anchored Spectra's upper arms together with rope running between them. With a kind of double loop, she used the same length of rope that was attached to Spectra's arms and wound it underneath her breasts, fixing her arms in place, and making her chest noticeably more prominent at the same time.
"Tell me," Mesmeredith asked, making sure that Spectra's bondage was secure, "why must you be bound?"
"Because...I must be punished..." She gasped slightly as she felt Mesmeredith's hands on her bare thighs. "Because I must be shown my place..." As she spoke, Mesmeredith was entwining her long legs, binding them with three coils above Mariko's knees.
"And what is your place?" her Mistress asked, pulling the ropes tight and snapping Spectra's legs together.
"I am..." Spectra looked down at herself. The proud heroine was trapped in tight bondage, her supple limbs bound inextricably in cord. She was - she thought - powerless. "I am your slave-girl, my Mistress..."
"Go on," Mesmeredith said as she tied Mariko's ankles too, happily indulging in reminding her thrall of her position.
"Everything I am...belongs to you. My powers...my body...all are yours...I'm your property..."
"And what shall I do with my property?" Mesmeredith began stroking Mariko's soft thighs, aware of Mariko's sensitivity in that area. Her tiny skirt was no defence against Mesmeredith's wandering hands, which slipped under the hem to feel Mariko's rear.
"Ooh..." the Japanese damsel moaned as she was caressed, pleasure throbbing inside her. "Tie me up even more tightly...gag me so I can't even speak." Mesmeredith smiled, standing up and grabbing Mariko from behind, fondling her breasts while the mesmerised maiden was incapable of stopping her. "Show me that I'm not a heroine," Mariko said," ...just a pretty girl in a revealing outfit...so helpless...so weak..." One could hardly believe such words could come from the mouth of Spectra, Spectra the Proud, Spectra the Strong. But her pride and strength had been taken from her. For weeks now she had belonged to Mesmeredith without even realising it.
"Very well," Meredith said, "I will show you...everything." She pulled a thick, white cloth between Mariko's teeth.
"Mmmphh..." Mariko whimpered gently, cleave-gagged. The cloth was soft, and muffled any sound Mariko might have wanted to make.
"Kneel," Mesmeredith commanded. Spectra obeyed instantly, sinking down to her knees, happy to humble herself before her Mistress. Kneeling, her clothes seemed to cover her even less, like they might just fall away at any time. It was somewhat to her surprise, though of course she did not resist, when Mesmeredith picked up the discarded cloth Mariko had used to drug Sophie, and pressed it over Spectra's lips.
"Mmmphh...mmhhhpphh..." Spectra was not as susceptible to chloroform as Enhancegirl, and the contents had become somewhat diluted on the concrete ground, but she still felt her limbs growing weaker. She'd knelt completely erect, awaiting whatever instruction she was given. But now she began to sag as her strength left her immaculate body. It was just on the point where she was beginning to sway, almost collapsing, that Mesmeredith took the cloth away. Spectra looked up, a little confused. Then Mesmeredith snapped her fingers.
If you have ever been somewhere, on holiday in your youth perhaps, only not to return to or even think about that place until years - even decades - later when one happens on it by chance, and suddenly long buried memories flood back in an overwhelming rush, that might give you some small approximation of the process that went on in Mariko Asakura's mind immediately after Mesmeredith gave her innocuous signal.
"Where am I?"
What's going on?"
"Why am I tied up?"
These were only the first bewildering thoughts that rushed into Mariko's mind, clouded and groggy by the fumes of the chloroform, as she emerged from her trance.
"Mmmmmphhhh...mmmnnnmmphhh..." she protested feebly, wriggling her bare shoulders. It was then that she saw the lovely young lady trapped in a drugged slumber, lying on the ground before her. "Enhancegirl? What is she...?" More memories were flooding in all the time, and she suddenly recalled herself sneaking up on her fellow heroine, recalled drugging her. "Wh-I...I did that?" she thought, sleepily. "Why...why would I...do that?" It was only then that she looked up to see the face of the woman who'd bound her, and it was only then that the flood really broke the dam.
She remembered everything. Remembered the first night when Mesmeredith had stolen into her room, instantly entrancing her. Remembered the nights after that when she'd snuck in to have her way with the hypnotised beauty, stroking and fondling her, and Mariko - to her horror - distinctly remembered enjoying it. She remembered what had really happened the day of Anita's photoshoot. She'd escaped and had had to restrain herself from doing great violence upon her captor - only to be mollified by Mesmeredith, who'd given her false memories of her own submission. Ever since that day at the stadium, ever since that one brief glance in a mirror, Spectra's fate had been sealed.
"All along...I've been a captive!"
"Finally awoken, my dear Mariko?" Mesmeredith said. "It took you long enough." She beckoned to Cybelle, who'd been waiting patiently while Mesmeredith had had her fun. She didn't begrudge that - watching Spectra be humiliated was not a sight one often had. The cyborg turned her attentions to Sophie and - not needing to truss her so quickly - spooled out rope this time instead of tape. Her four metal limbs snatched the redhead's sleeping form, and held her up on her feet.
Sophie's head drooped, but Cybelle took her by the chin, and held her face up. She wanted Mariko to be able to see. Sophie herself was completely tamed, her face peaceful in her drugged sleep. Not even when her arms were roughly yanked behind her, and strong white cords rapidly twisted about her wrists and forearms did she stir. Not even when ropes were twisted above, below, and even between her round, white breasts, securing her arms in a restrictive harness did she make so much as a sound.
"Nnnnmmphhh! Nnnnmmmhh..." Spectra protested, writhing weakly as she watched Sophie being tied up. "I did this...I did this to her...how could I have let myself be controlled?!" Her jade eyes were wide with panic. She didn't know what to do. She tried to summon her powers, but she couldn't. The gag prevented her from speaking the changeword she needed. She was powerless. "No...I'm completely helpless..." Minutes ago that thought would have given Mariko a submissive pleasure. Now it brought her only shame.
"Don't feel too guilty, Mariko," Mesmeredith said, putting a hand on Mariko's shoulder. This brought the Asian model discomfort, but she could do nothing about it. Even out of her trance, Mesmeredith still possessed her. "I'm sure we could have captured your lovely friend without your help...but you made it so much easier."
"Nnnnmmphhh! NNNNMMMPPPHHH!!" Mariko screamed through her gag, her rage and humiliation breaking through the spell of the drug. Drug or no drug, though, she was wrapped in cord, so all the tall, slender damsel could do was watch as Sophie was subjected to the same ordeal. Sophie's pale legs were being lashed together, Cybelle's artificial limbs making efficient work of winding ropes around the centre of her thighs, far too securely to allow for even the slightest independent movement of Sophie's legs. They bound her ankles next, cinching them together in four circuits of rope, which - when knotted and pulled tight - kept the limp damsel far more tightly tied up than seemed necessary.
"Unnh..." Sophie moaned, shifting slightly. Mesmeredith had tarried with Spectra for too long, and their target was beginning to awaken. But the hour was late. For Cybelle pulled from her tendril a strip of silver tape, and, turning Sophie to face her, pressed it tight over her captive's lips, smoothing the edges so that the tape wouldn't come away. She pressed it so tightly that the outline of Sophie's mouth was visible underneath. Just as her gag was completed, Sophie's emerald eyes opened.
"Mmmh?" she intoned weakly. She saw Cybelle in front of her, grinning at the sight of the redhead once again helpless in her grasp. She saw, over the villain's shoulder, a face that she didn't recognise at first, but the shining purple eyes reminded her: Mesmeredith. Her presence led only to confusion in Sophie's groggy mind, but a hint of her significance was revealed when Sophie's eyes turned down.
"Hhhhmmmphhh!" Mariko moaned through her gag, jade eyes wet with shame and guilt. They met Sophie's eyes, and the two heroines shared a gaze. In those brief seconds, Sophie understood.
"You...you were controlled...they got us both..." But that was all she could manage. She was still too weak, and her body betrayed her. "Mmmhhnnn..." she whimpered, as her eyes fluttered closed, and she passed out again.
"Oh, honey, don't worry," Cybelle laughed, "you can sleep as long as you like." Saying that, she grasped Sophie by the waist, and tossed the sleeping damsel over her shoulder, gripping her legs and ass to hold her in place, before carrying away her defenceless body. Sophie, draped over her captor, was meek and unresisting as she was groped and fondled in her bonds
"Nnnmmmphhh!" Mariko cried out, watching as Sophie was abducted. "Damn them! Damn them, I'll...I'll -" Even in her rage, though, she couldn't think of what she would do. She was helpless, truly helpless, and she knew that if Mesmeredith wanted, she could easily bring her back under her spell.
"You know, it's funny," Mesmeredith said, "for all your pride, Mariko, for all the power locked up inside you...it was so easy to make you mine, and to keep you that way. Sweet Sophie, on the other hand...she managed to break my spell all by herself in the end. I wonder why you couldn't do that, Mariko?" She tousled Mariko's jet-black hair, eliciting a muffled protest. "You seemed to just love being my slave."
"Nnnhh!" Mariko protested. But she remembered what it felt like, being completely submissive to Mesmeredith's will. She remembered the thrill of being so utterly dominated, so feminine and tame. "She forced me to feel like that!" she reminded herself, but that didn't mean she hadn't really felt those feelings.
She was not given time to consider the matter further. Hypnotra had kept the drugged cloth in her hand, and she pressed it back over Mariko's mouth.
"Nnnmmm-mmmphhh!" she protested. "No! No....they're going to...kidnap me as well..." It didn't take long for her to start getting sleepy again. Her long, uncovered limbs lost their vigour, her sparkling eyes became listless.
"Oh, don't worry, Mariko," Hypnotra said, putting a hand on her captive's thigh and squeezing gently, "I'm not going to take you away. I just need you to sleep in case you get any ideas about following us."
"Whhmmphh? Mmmmhhhnnnm?" Mariko had almost given in, but she retained enough presence of mind to be surprised.
"Our client didn't pay us to abduct you. If she wants us to bring you in, she'll have to pay extra."
"Mmmmhh...hhhnnnmmmphhh..." Mariko's protests were becoming ever more pathetic. She wiggled her lovely body slightly, but she could barely summon the strength to keep her eyes open, much less escape her bonds.
"Although," Hypnotra leant down to whisper to Mariko. "If I ever do come back for you...I guarantee that you'll be begging for me to tie you up again." It was with that claim ringing in her ears that Mariko was finally overcome by the chloroform. With a plaintive moan, the Japanese damsel closed her eyes and slumped forward, her hair brushing against her legs. Bound and gagged, drugged and humiliated, the scantily clad maiden was left on her knees, totally powerless.
"Mmmmhhh...mmmmhhh..." Sophie moaned, eyes beginning to open. She was aware of movement, of a loud noise all around her, and of the occasional drop of water hitting her skin. She was also aware of being tied up and gagged. "Mmmmphh!" she complained more loudly, as she started taking in her surroundings more. She was sitting, propped up on some kind of wooden bench, and though she felt like she was being shaken about, her immediate surroundings looked still.
It was the smell, really, that let her know where she was. Her super-senses picked up a complex combination of minerals dissolved into the tiny droplets that lay on her.
"Seawater..." She was on a boat. More to the point, she was on the same boat that she'd seen Cybelle turning up to the harbour in. "Mmmphh!" The last thing Sophie remembered was waking up to see Cybelle binding her, and to see Mariko kneeling at the feet of Hypnotra. She knew she'd been captured - she just hadn't known for sure that she was going to be kidnapped.
Still drowzy, she turned her head to the right, and saw Cybelle sitting lazily nearby, controlling the boat with two of her tendrils, but otherwise ignoring it. In fact, Sophie could sense that Cybelle was just lazing, she was actually asleep. Her breathing patterns, even her heart rate all indicated it. Besides, the sun was only just coming up over the horizon - it was perhaps 5.30 in the morning. "I might have a chance," she thought, noting that the boat was too small to be concealing Hypnotra as well. Presumably, Sophie thought, she had taken charge of Mariko and the others.
"Mariko..." She thought of Spectra again, thought of the humiliation she must have suffered at knowing what she'd done, what she'd been made to do. Stellar and May as well - they were all captives now. "And while I'm all tied up like this I can't do anything to help them...I don't even know where they are." Someone else might have begun to despair in that situation, and Sophie was certainly tempted. But she was a superheroine, she thought. To someone like her, despair was useless. "I have to get free!"
She tried to use her super senses to find a way out of her bonds, but the ropes were much too strong. There was no weak point that she could detect. Sophie considered just hurling herself overboard, but with her limbs so tightly bound, she might easily drown. She looked around for something she could cut herself free with, but saw nothing. Nothing, that is, except for a small flick knife sitting very close to Cybelle.
"Oh man..." Sophie thought. She began shuffling towards her captor, hoping that the wood beneath her wouldn't creak too loudly. She moved until she was facing directly opposite the cyborg, who was sat on a bench on the other side. Enhancegirl lifted her feet, hoping her long legs would be able to reach the knife. But they weren't quite long enough. "If I have to be tied up all the time," she thought, "can't I at least get a convenient sharp thing that's actually convenient once in a while?" There was nothing for it. She'd have to stand up.
With her preturnatural balance, standing wasn't too hard. It was getting close enough to grab the knife that was the problem. She hopped forward, unable to move her legs separately and her heeled boots hit the deck with a loud tap. Cybelle didn't stir, however. One hop was, fortunately enough, but - as she'd feared, she couldn't grab the knife without sitting right next to Cybelle. Grudgingly, she did so, and found herself uncomfortably close to her enemy. Still, with her bound hands she was able to reach the knife. All she had to do was stretch out her fingers -
"Oh hey there, doll," Cybelle said, opening her eyes. "Real kind of you to come join me."
"MMPH?!" Sophie gasped in astonishment, instantly trying to wriggle away. But it was too late. Cybelle grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand, and slipped the other under her thighs, scooping the bound redhead up before placing her captive on her lap. "Mmmmm-nnnnmmmphhh!!" Sophie screamed through the tape plastered over her lips, but in vain. Though she writhed, Cybelle had her exactly where she wanted her. "She was toying with me..."
"You thought I was asleep, didn't cha? Well that's the beauty of being a cyborg - my breathing and heart rate are whatever I want 'em to be." She began stroking Sophie's legs, enjoying the feeling of the captive maiden's moist, smooth skin.
"Mmmphhh! Nnnmmm-hhhmmmphh!" Sophie protested, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could feel every peak and trough of the leather on Cybelle's hands, could feel in exquisite detail every intimate detail of the way in which she was touched, could even feel the increase in her own body temperature as she blushed in embarrassment at her fondling. And she could do nothing about it.
"I've got you all to myself, red...and this time, you ain't gettin' away." Her hand went from Sophie's shoulder to her neck, from her neck to her chin and her cheeks. "Now let's see that pretty face." To Sophie's dismay, she realised that Cybelle was about to remove her mask.
"Nnnmm-nnnhhhmmph!" Sophie practically begged, shaking her head. It was not that Cybelle would see her face - she already had - it was the sheer fact of having her mask taken away from her. There was no greater shame for a superheroine. As her domino mask was peeled away, she became still, mollified by the totality of her defeat.
"There we go," Cybelle said. "Now why would you want to cover any of that up?" She stroked Sophie's cheek, before casually throwing her mask into the ocean. Sophie watched it sink into the depths, and it was as if her whole identity as a superheroine was being thrown away as well. "See darlin', you don't gotta worry about being a do-gooder no more. You just gotta worry about lookin' as pretty as you can." She pressed her lips against Sophie's gagged mouth.
"Mph!" Sophie squeaked, surprised into compliance. When Cybelle took her mouth away, there was a distinct lipstick impression on the tape covering Sophie's mouth. "Mmm-mmmphhh..." Sophie mewed. "Why is this crazy broad so obsessed with doing this stuff to me?"
"Mmm, ain't you sweet?" She peered into Sophie's eyes. "You look awful worried there, doll. Don't worry, I ain't gonna hurt you. Say - maybe you're worried about your super-friends!" She laughed. "We ain't interested in them. They won't be joinin' us."
"What...they didn't take the others?" Sophie had a horrible realisation. "All this...was just to kidnap me!"
"You know, we've still got quite a journey ahead of us, doll," Cybelle said. "And I don't see any reason why you should have to put up with being bored, so..." Cybelle stood, hauling Sophie onto her feet as she did so, before forcing her onto her knees.
"Mmph!" Sophie protested, though by now she knew there was little point in doing so. Cybelle brought her two free tendrils to bear, and began spooling out more rope. "I'm already totally tied up! What does she need more rope for?" That became apparent when Cybelle began wrapping cord over Sophie's thighs, then looping it round to go over her ankles as well. She pulled the rope tight, and Sophie found her legs forced into a kneeling position. Cybelle pushed the pretty redhead onto her side, and sure enough, her legs wouldn't straighten.
But Cybelle wasn't done. She took Sophie by the back of the neck, and pushed her down so that her breasts were pressed against her thighs. Before she could even blink, Cybelle's tendrils had wrapped rope between her thighs and calves, and over and around Sophie's torso, pulling the rope tight.
"Mmmm-hhhmmphh!" Sophie exclaimed, finding herself trussed up into a ball. She couldn't move at all; she could barely twitch. She'd been captured a number of times, but she'd never been tied up so tightly. "This is...I - I can't...I can't get free! Even with my powers I'm still helpless..."
"Hehe..." Cybelle chuckled, observing her handiwork. "Ain't you a peach?" She twisted one of her tendrils around Sophie's balled up form, and lifted her up. With another, she opened a small hatch towards the stern of the boat. It was empty, as far as Sophie could tell, save for a small canister of propane, the size of a fire extinguisher. She found herself dropped in, on her side, still completely incapable of unbinding herself. All she managed was a small wiggle of her rear end, almost entirely exposed by the angle at which her supple body had been bent, her short dress not designed for such a situation.
"Mmmph!" Sophie squeaked, as she felt a sharp sting on the taut flesh of her behind. Blushing, she realised that she had just been spanked.
"Pleased to see that cute little tush is as fine as ever," Cybelle laughed. To render such domination over her pretty captive was not only enjoyable for the cruel cyborg, it was thrillingly easy. To have such an attractive young woman so easily manipulable - and add to that that she was a superheroine - was something that would never get old. It was a shame, in a way, that it was not for herself that she had made Enhancegirl a captive.
"What do I do? I can't escape!" Sophie continued to be overwhelmed by the strictness of her bonds. So much so that she didn't notice what Cybelle was doing with the can of propane. She was fixing to its top a plastic tube, a tube which ended with a clear face mask. Sophie only took notice when the mask was pulled over her face. "Mmmhhhphhh!" she cried out, doubly muffled. There was a moment of total panic - but she realised soon enough that the can was merely labelled propane. It contained mostly oxygen, as it turned out, but with something else mixed in as well.
As Cybelle turned the valve to let the gas out, Sophie picked up an unfamiliar scent. It was weakly chemical, almost odourless, but not quite. It had a kind of vaguely minty quality to it, though no-one but Enhancegirl would have picked that up.
"Mmmhh..." It was only when her tightly tied up body began to feel drowzy that Enhancegirl guessed at what it was. "Sleeping gas..." Strictly speaking, it was halothane, but Sophie was close enough.
"There," Cybelle said, watching the redhead squirm pitfully, "that'll make this trip a lot less boring for 'ya. All you've gotta do is ride it out." Being of a much weaker scent, this sedative was proving less overpowering than chloroform, but it was more than a match for the balled up redhead.
"Have to...stay awake...can't give up..." But it was not a matter of will. Her eyelids grew heavy, her senses dull, and her twitches devolved into almost imperceptible movement. She'd thought when Cybelle had bound her so restrictively that it would not be possible for her to feel more powerless, but once again Cybelle proved that she could always make Sophie feel even more humiliated. "I...uh...I can't...do anything..." Sophie thought hazily, the drug making her slinky body slower and weaker the more it entered her system. She couldn't even take a breath without falling even deeper into captivity. The soft-skinned, lovely redhead managed only one thought before her body betrayed her, and she fell into drugged slumber once again: "I...I'm caught...I need...someone...please...save me..."
"Mmmph?!" Mariko started awake, around about the same time that Enhancegirl made her plea. "Mmmmnngghh!" she groaned, her head swimming. She tried to sit up, but she'd forgotten about her bonds, and remained prone on the ground. "They didn't take me..." She was right. True to her word, Hypnotra had left her be. She hadn't untied her, though. She still lay on the cold ground in her tank top and mini-skirt, tied up and gagged.
It was only when she looked up that she realised she was not alone. Still hanging from the chain suspended in the air, May and Stellar hung, chained up and unconscious. Mariko wondered if they'd been drugged as well, but they had merely collapsed from exhaustion. Mariko summoned up her blood: despite her shock at how she had been used, she forced herself to confront what was going on in front of her. She was a superheroine, and there were damsels in distress that needed rescuing. "Even if I'm one of them..." she thought bitterly.
She rolled to the left, her long, bound legs becoming damp from the moisture that had accumulated on the ground during the night. She didn't need a knife to break her bonds - all she needed was an exposed rivet or something, and such things were almost everywhere in the abandoned dock. She found a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground, and moved her head towards it, wriggling on the ground in the tight ropes binding her. She maneuvered so that she could get the metal under the fabric of her gag. She pulled hard, and it came loose.
"Ugh!" She spat it out. "Spectrum is Green!" There was a brilliant flash, and while Mariko was not much less skimpily attired when the flash subsided, the internal difference was much more significant. There was not much daylight yet, but it was more than enough for Spectra. She manipulated as many photons as she could get her hands on to split the ropes binding her in twain, freeing her slender body. She leapt to her feet - and had to steady herself, for she was still affected by the chloroform Hypnotra had used on her. But once that passed, she directed her attentions toward May and Stellar.
She had been the one who had chained them up there in the first place, while she was still under Mesmeredith's control, so she remembered the way she'd taken to get to the top of the crane from which the damsels dangled. But there was an easier way.
"Hmm...mmphh?!" May was startled awake by a sudden rushing of wind. It took little time for the reporter to realise that it was not the wind that was rushing, but her. She was falling. "MMMMPPHHHH!!!" she screamed, realising that she and the beautiful popstar chained to her were hurtling towards the ground at a lethal velocity.
"MMM-MMMPHHH!!" the Korean echoed, as she too was awoken, the two bound damsels feeling sure that the end was nigh. May even closed her eyes out of fear (unlike Yumi, she was afraid of heights), but she really shouldn't have done so. For if she hadn't, she would have seen the pale golden light surrounding them, and would have seen that their descent begin to slow. In fact, by the time their feet touched the floor, they were hardly moving at all.
"Mmmphh!! Mmmm...mmmphh?" It took a while for May to realise that their descent had stopped and that, indeed, they were standing, bound though they were. She didn't have time to adjust to this situation before two flashes of light danced across her body, and she found her chains falling in a pile on the ground. Yumi's soon followed. Having been restrained for some time, it took a good deal of stretching for the two to feel comfortable again.
They were free.
"I'm...sorry." May turned to see her saviour, though rather confusingly she had been one of her captors too. "What happened...what I did..." Spectra began to explain, but the words 'I was brainwashed and controlled' were difficult for the proud young woman to pronounce. Fortunately, explanation was hardly necessary. They had seen what had happened, and it explained a rather burning question the two had. That was: why had Seacouver's most beloved heroine suddenly become a villainous kidnapper? That some kind of brainwashing made a horrible kind of sense.
"You don't have to apologise," Yumi said. "You didn't mean to do..." Her English faltered slightly. "...what you did," she eventually finished.
"That hardly helps matters," Spectra said. "Anyway...you've been dragged into this unnecessarily. Please go." She only now recognised May, and still only vaguely. A look of horror appeared on her face.
"You can't expect me not to report this," May said, recognising Spectra's expression. "A) Hypnotra's back, again, and B) Soph-Enhancegirl has been kidnapped." The side of her mouth twitched slightly. She'd not meant to reveal that she knew Enhancegirl's secret identity. The fewer people knew that, the better. She'd been targeted just for being someone who regularly wrote about Enhancegirl: if it became known that she knew her personally her life could get very difficult. But Spectra, at least, seemed not to have noticed. She looked extremely distressed.
"If they knew...knew that I'd been controlled...knew that I'd allowed this to happen to me...Seacouver would never trust me again..." She turned away, breathing extremely rapidly. The shame of her brainwashing, the guilt she felt at delivering Enhancegirl into her enemies' hands, and now the possibility of public disgrace were too much. The immediate task of saving Stellar and May done, her mind had wandered to worse thoughts.
"Look, Spectra, I could...fudge a few facts. Leave your part out of the story." May offered, seeing Spectra almost on the point of tears. But she didn't hear.
"I couldn't...I could never look Hikari-sensei in the eye again..." Spectra thought, putting a hand on her chest. "I've failed...I've failed so completely..." She was rather surprised when she felt a pair of arms wrapping around her chest, and that surprise rather interrupted her train of thought.
"Don't despair, please," Yumi said, in perfect Japanese. It was she who had embraced her fellow heroine. "I...I know what it's like to feel like you've been reduced to nothing." She took her arms away, but Spectra turned to listen to her. "I know what it's like to feel as if you could never be called a heroine again. But...when I was at my lowest point, someone was there to remind me not to give up. The same person that we have to save now." She meant Enhancegirl.
"Enhancegirl...Sophie..." Spectra thought about their encounters, remembered how she'd tried to humiliate the redhead after being rescued by her. Remembered how Enhancegirl had nonetheless come to her rescue when she'd been kidnapped. "How many times I've thought of her as being weaker or less important than me - yet she'd never hesitate like this, would she?"
"Someone want to let me know what's going on?" May asked. "My knowledge of Japanese goes about as far as the theme tune to Bubblegum Crisis." It spoke to her strength of character that she was still capable of humour at five thirty in the morning, in a torn dress, on the docks and just having been in captivity for an extended period of time. Indeed, some of her colleagues might have said it was a testament to something other than strength of character.
"I'm going to go after Enhancegirl," she said. Then in Japanese: "You can't help me, Stellar. Not more than you already have, anyway."
"Why? I know I don't seem it like this -" Yumi said, gesturing at her dishevelled dress and her red heels, " - but I'm quite powerful."
"You misunderstand," Spectra explained. "It's not a question of how much power you have. You could go instead of me, but not with me."
"I don't understand," Yumi replied, rather echoing May's sentiments at that moment.
"I need help..." she said, struggling not to say that through gritted teeth, "but not your help."
"Whose, then?"
"The person who defeated Hypnotra last time." Her mind set, Mariko began to walk away.
"Spectra!" Yumi called out. Mariko stopped. "Be awesome, okay?" she said, channelling the perky persona of the White Star. Spectra smiled slightly, but continued on her way.
"Hey!" May said. She'd been on her phone, recovered from where Cybelle had apparently dropped it during her fight with Enhancegirl. "I understood that! You said she was awesome right?"
"Not exactly," Yumi said, switching back to English. "But she is."
"And you're not going with her?"
"No. She doesn't need the kind of help I can give."
"What a load!" May laughed. "She's way too damned proud. Hey," she said. "If Spectra's too good for you, what about me?" Yumi didn't understand. "I could use your help with something, if you've got the time. Apparently someone broke four sevenths of the Catastrophe Gang outta jail." Now Yumi really didn't understand. "I got somethin' brewing in the back of my pretty little head...and I think it just might work."
Natalya Nazarov was a beautiful woman. She had long, jet-black hair, skin as pale and pure as moonlight, a charming face with almond shaped blue eyes and rose-coloured lips. Her neck was slender, sloping gently to her white shoulders. Her legs were long and supple, her hips curving just the right amount for the rest of her figure. She was around 5'9", and very buxom indeed, at least a Double D.
And she hated it. She hated people looking at her as she walked down the street, hated being asked out by men in whom she had no interested, hated the jealousy of her friends. So as she sat at her desk with pencil and slide rule in her knee-length skirt and the plainest blouse she could buy, trying to figure out a way that her boss' ludicrous asymmetrical spire could be affixed to the top of the new Municipal Building without making it collapse, she tried to ignore the fact that every time she crossed her legs, or moved her hair out of her face, at least one person turned to look.
"Hi, Nat." Ernest Wilkinson, the man responsible for designing the monstrosity that Natalya was trying to fix, stood behind her. He insisted on calling her 'Nat' despite repeated attempts from her to stop him doing so. "How's the Municipal Building working out?"
"There are a few adjustments to be made, Mr Wilkinson," Natalya replied quietly. She had gone into architecture because she hoped she'd be able to work in relative isolation. Ernest patted her on the shoulder, and Natalya winced. She hated being touched. Unfortunately, she was too shy to tell him where he could stick it.
"Shouldn't take you too long, Nat. I mean, you're just making some adjustments." 'Making some adjustments' to Ernest's designs was, in fact, one of the most difficult jobs at Wilkinson's Architectural Firm due to the man's increasingly bold incompetence. Nepotism had got him his job, nothing more. It was a testament to Natalya's skills (and to others in the firm, to their credit) that Ernest's designs had not yet caused disaster.
"Yes Mr Wilkinson," was her eventual reply. "Now please go away..."
Moving on, he left Natalya simmering with anger. Not so much because of his incompetence, or because of his insistently referring to her as 'Nat', or even his hand unwarrantedly placed on her shoulder. It was because he had been picturing the buxom architect naked the entire time he'd been speaking with her.
For Natalya was not merely an architect: she was a telepath. Anyone she could see she could mind-read, and she was invariably assaulted by their conscious thoughts, though concentration allowed her to probe further if she wanted. It was not exactly that she was angry because Ernest had been fantasising about her: practically every man that met her did, though she found the nicer ones embarrassedly chiding themselves and trying to think of other things. In Ernest's case, though, not only did he fantasise about Natalya (and every other good looking woman in the company), he seemed honestly to believe that he had merely to ask, and Natalya would fall at his feet.
Needless to say, he was mistaken.
Though, unlike some other telepaths, Natalya could prevent herself from perceiving the thoughts of others simply by not looking at them, whenever she had to speak to someone it was hardly possible to avoid it. Over the phone at least, things were a little easier, so when her cell rang, Natalya didn't mind all that much, despite her shyness about face to face communication.
"Hello?" she said. She was very surprised indeed when she heard the voice on the other line.
"I apologise for contacting you in this way," she said, without any introduction. "It has been a while, but I hope that you remember me. My name is Spectra. I...need the help of Insyte."
"Hey, Nat?" Ernest had come back. He was about to make a change to Natalya's design that would give her another four hours of work, but when he came to her desk, she was nowhere to be found.
It was not for some time that Cybelle's small boat carried its occupants to their destination. Had she sailed as the crow flies, it would only have taken four or five hours, but she'd had to take a painstakingly circuitous route to avoid coastguard patrols. By the time she arrived, it was almost a quarter past nine.
Cybelle opened up the boat's hatch, finding the lovely superheroine she had captured still in her halothane-induced slumber, bound into a ball and tape-gagged to boot. Cybelle didn't need to tax her brain much to recall the decisive and brutal defeat Enhancegirl had handed her in their last encounter. With all her gadgets and upgrades, Enhancegirl had still been able to out-think and out-fight the cyborg.
"Not today, though, little redhead." Cybelle snaked her tendril around her defeated foe, getting a tight grip on the balled-up damsel. She closed the gas' valve, and pulled the mask off Enhancegirl's face before hoisting her up into the air.
So tightly was she bound that Sophie wouldn't have been able to give Cybelle the slightest trouble as she was carried from the piste into the huge mansion that dominated the landscape of the tiny island on which they'd landed. As it was, she couldn't even try. In a way, Cybelle would have preferred her to be fully aware of her helplessness, but she wasn't just indulging herself. She had a job to do.
As she strolled towards the front gate, she was picked up by at least a dozen security cameras. It didn't seem to matter much - in fact, the gate was opening before she even reached it. A pair of burly men with formidable looking weapons eyed the cyborg up through their sunglasses, but again they let her pass.
Cybelle was expected.
In fact, there was a trim young woman in a very fetching beige suit who was waiting to greet her.
"Please come this way, Miss," she said, in a slight French accent. "Madáme awaits you."
"Grand," Cybelle said, following the attendant through the vast house.
"Mmmhhhh..." Enhancegirl whimpered softly as she was carried, wrapped in ropes and metal tendrils.
"Is our guest beginning to awaken?" the attendant asked. Clearly the sight of Cybelle's captive did not perturb her in the slightest.
"I hope so," Cybelle answered. "I don't want her to miss out on all the fun."
Escorted into the bowels of the building, Cybelle felt slight movements coming from her captive. She was indeed awakening.
"In here, please, Miss," the attendant said, beckoning Cybelle inside.
"Thanks doll," Cybelle said, winking at her. She walked inside, bringing Sophie with her. "So, 'Madáme'," she said to the black-haired woman she found sitting inside, "she's your huckleberry, right?"
"Oh yes," the woman said, venomous satisfaction in her voice. "She's the one, alright."
"We don't know who it's from," the Herald reporter had said, "just that it was meant to be sent to this number."
"But why me?" Sophie had replied, worried that someone other than May was getting in contact with her.
"Hey, I don't know and I don't wanna know," the reporter had replied. "If May found out I was talking to one of her sources she'd kill me." He'd hung up, but before Sophie could express her frustration, the video he'd sent had finished downloading.
It featured two very attractive young women. One was evidently South-East Asian - Korean, in fact - and the other Caucasian, blonde and blue-eyed. This was not what had made Sophie gasp. What had made her gasp was that both were bound and gagged, in rope and duct tape respectively. They were looking into the camera with desperation, and though there was no sound, Sophie had known that they were making as much noise as their gags would permit. She hadn't needed to hear their voices to recognise the pair either: one was superheroine and pop idol Stellar, otherwise known as Yumi Tae-Yong, and the other was Herald reporter May Springtide. She knew both personally, even going so far as to say that she considered May a friend. Stellar she'd...attempted to rescue only two nights before, but she'd been a fan of hers for a long time before that. And they'd both been kidnapped.
After a few seconds, the video had cut, and it know showed the two asleep, lying very close to each other in their mutual bondage. Sophie had a strong feeling that they had not fallen asleep naturally. After a few seconds of that, a placard appeared in front of the camera. It read:
FEELING HEROIC, ENHANCEGIRL?
COME TO THE PATTERSON DOCK AT 8PM TOMORROW NIGHT
IF YOU WANT US TO KEEP BEING NICE TO YOUR PRETTY FRIENDS, THAT IS.
So Sophie had gone where she'd been ordered. She knew it was a trap, and even had a fair idea of who'd set it. She knew that someone was probably hiding round a corner waiting to spring out, but in the first instance, she had to rescue May and Stellar on general principle. In the second instance, she couldn't stand the idea of her friends suffering because of who - because of what - she was.
Wary of a hundred possible ways of being snared, Enhancegirl scanned her environs with her powers, aware of the finest detail within - well within the horizon. Even solidity was no barrier to her enhanced vision. Her only "normal" sense was her hearing, though that rarely made all that much difference. It made a little difference in this case, but a vast amount. The motorboat approaching the dock did surprise Enhancegirl with how close it got before she noticed it, but it wasn't anywhere near close enough to being a threat to her. But it wasn't herself that Sophie was worried about.
As the boat got closer, Enhancegirl was able to make out the figure driving it. She'd thought that if she recognised the person responsible for Stellar and May's kidnapping, there were a limited number of people it could be. The person she saw was not on that list. She was blonde and, not that one could tell while she was sitting, tall. She was also a cyborg, enhanced with a number of mechanical components that made her a formidable opponent.
"Cybelle," Enhancegirl growled. They had tangled before, and Enhancegirl had only narrowly come out on top in their third fight, after having been soundly defeated twice before. It certainly made sense that the woman who had been (partially) responsible for Stellar's kidnapping before would try again, but she should have been in jail. How had she escaped?
Enhancegirl's instinct was to pounce as soon as Cybelle pulled in, but with Stellar and May in her clutches, that was dangerous. For the moment, she'd have to let Cybelle dictate the terms of their encounter.
"Well hey darlin'," Cybelle called out as her rather trim little boat pulled up. She hopped out deftly. "How's it goin'?"
"Oh, cut it out!" Enhancegirl barked. "Where are they?" She clenched both fists. In their last fight, she'd torn off one of Cybelle's artificial tendrils, and used it to batter her enemy into submission. She was prepared to do worse if Cybelle had harmed either of her captives.
"Oh, my, we are gettin' down to business, ain't we? Well, alright then..." She pointed behind her. If she meant to indicate that that was where Sophie would find the women she sought, that hardly seemed to make sense. But then, if it was merely the old "look behind you" trick, that wouldn't have worked very well on Enhancegirl. The redhead turned warily, and found to her great surprise that Cybelle was being truthful. From the end of a broken old crane, the two damsels dangled, back to back, their admirable bodies wrapped up in a long, thick chain, their arms bound behind their backs and their legs tied together, metal links criss crossing their chests and legs. Not only were they chained, they were chained to each other, their backs pressed against each other.
"MMMMPHHH!!" May cried out. A thick cloth was tied over her lips, keeping her from speaking. She'd only just caught sight of Enhancegirl, and called out in desperation to her.
"Mmmmphhh..." Stellar whimpered quietly. She had great powers at her disposal, but without her voice she couldn't activate them. As it was, she was just as helpless as she'd have been without them. She wiggled her body slightly, her bare legs rubbing together, the chains wrapping them tight clinking. She didn't make much of an effort. It had been two days since the pair had been kidnapped, and while they had made a couple of attempts at escape, none had worked. Stellar - or rather, Yumi - felt a gentle breeze run over her shoulders. Her dress was torn from repeated manhandling, exposing more of her body than the admittedly revealing outfit had meant to. She saw Enhancegirl as well, and hung her head. She knew what was coming, and so did May. That was why she was calling out so fiercely: not to ask for Enhancegirl's help, but to warn her.
"How did you -?" Sophie scanned again, but she could not see anyone else around. "Who the hell put them up there?" she thought.
"Oh, I don't think you need to worry too much about that, darlin'," Cybelle replied. "After all, you've got me to deal with." Saying that, she attacked.
Enhancegirl had known before the tendril lunged for her throat that that was what it would do. She felt the vibrations in the air, predicted its flight path based on its initial movements as Cybelle unveiled it from behind her white coat. The redhead ducked out of the way, and dashed in to make her own attack, but a second tendril whipped out, aiming for her legs, uncovered by her tight, gold dress. Sophie rolled under the attack, and - close enough now to attack Cybelle's body, swept at the Southern gal's waist. But her senses were enhanced as well - electronically, rather than supernaturally - and just as effectively. She dodged without much effort, retaliating with cobra-like swiftness.
"Whoa!" Enhancegirl dodged as well, but barely. She seemed faster. Their fights generally had a bit of a pattern: they would exchange blows with parity, then Cybelle would reveal some kind of unexpected trick which took advantage of Sophie's powers in some way, defeating the redhead. The only reason she'd lost last time was that she'd attempted to take advantage of a non-existent power: Enhancegirl's super-hearing. It hadn't worked, and Sophie had knocked her out.
But that was then, and this was now. Enhancegirl wasn't even sure she could keep up with Cybelle's new speed. She glanced back at Cybelle's captives, and gritted her teeth. She had to work something out.
"She who hesitates is lost!" Cybelle said, shooting out both her tendrils at once. This time, Enhancegirl did not jump to the side, but up, and her feet landed on one of the metal tentacles. The difference in weight caught Cybelle off guard, and she wasn't able to adjust her servos to accommodate Sophie's mass. While the cyborg dithered, Enhancegirl ran up her tendril, her super-senses giving her an enhanced sense of balance, and leapt off, attempting to boot Cybelle in the face.
"YMMPHHH!!" May yelled, cheering her on. Sophie would have succeeded too - had Cybelle not unveiled her other two tendrils.
"What?!" was all Sophie had time to blurt out before they seized her. One grabbed her round the chest, twisting over her arms and pinning them to her sides. At the same moment, the other tendril encircled her calves three times, and squeezed, holding her legs together. Enhancegirl struggled, but she didn't have any kind of increased strength, and she couldn't get loose. There was a knot in the pit of her stomach as she realised that she'd been caught.
"Ahahaha! Betcha weren't expecting that, were ya?!" Cybelle drawled, bringing her other two metal limbs to bear.
"Unngghhh!!" Sophie groaned, stretching and wriggling as much as she could. She could feel possible weaknesses in Cybelle's grip, but the question was whether she had enough time to exploit them.
As it happened, she did not.
Cybelle grabbed her with her other two limbs, and lifted her up straight above her head with all four. She wriggled, suspended in the air, caught and subdued by her enemy. It was then that Sophie sensed the vibrations within the tendrils, before she saw what emerged from compartments in their heads.
"Oh no," she said simply. It was tape. Strong, black tape, and Sophie knew it was about to be all over her.
"MMMMPHHH!!" May cried as she saw what was happening. "Come on, EG, get a grip!" But it was Cybelle who had the grip.
In several places simultaneously Sophie felt the tape being pressed against her body - her left calf, her right arm, her right thigh and her back. A testament to their great flexibility, the arms began wrapping the tape around Sophie's slinky body, and spinning the redhead around at the same time.
"Aaah! No!" Sophie protested, feeling her lovely limbs being secured in sticky, black bonds. Her arms were manipulated into being crossed behind her back, her thighs clamped together. As she was spun around, the tape began to encircle her, and bind her, her arms becoming first inextricably linked to each other, then to her back. Circuit after circuit of tape was wound over her, covering and squeezing her breasts, and immobilising her upper body almost completely. "Stop!" Sophie demanded, but with every spin of the imperilled superheroine, her long, pale legs disappeared even more under black tape, until she was wrapped from her ankles, to just below her uncovered shoulders. She was then, quite suddenly, dropped.
"Aiiiee!" she squealed, but Cybelle's accuracy was not to be underestimated. Enhancegirl fell squarely into Cybelle's arms - her real arms - which grasped the damsel by her thighs and her arm, long fingers just creeping over the edges of one of her breasts. She was almost completely mummified. Everything from the tops of her breasts upwards as uncovered, yes. "But I bet she did that just so I'd look more vulnerable..." Sophie thought, wiggling her soft shoulders uncomfortably.
"A beautiful dame falls outta the sky and right into my arms," Cybelle crooned, looking at the taped up heroine cradled in her grasp. "This must be my lucky day."
"Why are you doing this? Why does capturing me matter so much to you? What kind of - MMPHHH!!" She was not allowed to ask a third question. Tape was pressed by cybernetic strength over her pink lips, gagging the fetching redhead. "Nrrrmmphh!" she groaned in frustration. "Nmmm-mmm-MMMPPHH!!" Each moan was in response to another circuit of tape being wound around her head, making the gag tighter and tighter, until her mouth was well and truly sealed.
"Gotcha," Cybelle said. She wasn't wrong there: Enhancegirl had been bound and gagged with almost embarrassing rapidity.
"Nmmphh..." Stellar whimpered quietly. There'd been some small hope that Enhancegirl might at least overcome this stage of the plot. She'd expected her to lose eventually, but not at this stage. It was even easier than their captors had said it would be.
"By the way doll," Cybelle said as she began carrying Sophie towards the motorboat, "it ain't me who's so interested in capturing you. I agree with you actually - don't seem to make much sense to be so focussed on little ol' you." She laughed quietly. "Not that you ain't a real peach..." She squeezed Sophie's thighs judiciously.
"Mmmphh!" the redhead protested. She wriggled her body with all the strength she had, and though she knew that the tape was much stronger than the kind one could buy in a hardware store, it was still pathetic that she couldn't escape it with her powers undimmed. "I'm just as useless as I was against Arachna..." she thought, remembering how she'd been effortlessly wrapped up by the spider-like villain, having to be rescued by the mighty Valora.
But perhaps she would have succeeded. Had she squirmed at just the right angle, in just the right way, perhaps her superhuman sense of touch would have allowed her to find a way out of the sticky black prison holding her body so tightly. But she was never given the chance.
"Whhmmphh?!" Sophie exclaimed, as a blindingly bright light flashed before her eyes. Her sensitive vision reeled, and she felt before she saw that Cybelle had released her. Instinctively, Sophie twisted her body to land on her feet - and then came the second realisation. She should not have been able to do so while so tightly bound. Someone or something had untied her legs. As her vision returned to her, she saw Cybelle leaping from side to side, trying to dodge blasts of -
"Light!"
Sophie turned to the source of the blasts, and saw what she'd hoped - and sort of feared - to see. It was a tall, slender Japanese woman, dressed in a figure hugging silver outfit, a short cape trailing partway down her back, and a mask much like Sophie's, only silver, covered the upper part of her face.
"You seem to be in need of assistance," said Spectra.
"Mmmmphh!!" Enhancegirl replied. The oriental beauty - so gorgeous was she that, as Mariko Asakura, she moonlighted as a fashion model - raised her hand, and with awesome precision, blasted away the tape from Sophie's arms, or at least so weakened it that Sophie could remove the rest for herself. She pulled off her gag, and smiled embarrassedly at her rescuer.
"Damn it, what the -" Cybelle began, but seemed to restrain herself from further speech. She grimaced at the pair of heroines. Sophie was hardly surprised by her reaction: she had had occasion to run into Spectra on a number of occasions, and on each one she'd shown a formidable power. The last time, for instance, she'd rescued Sophie from the control of a powerful hypnotist named Mesmeredith, who'd subdued and entranced Sophie without effort. The tide was very much against Cybelle now.
"How did you know to, like, come all the way out here?" Sophie asked her fellow heroine. Spectra opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated for a moment, like the words just wouldn't come. "Spectra?" Sophie had almost said 'Mariko' but stopped herself. Spectra was very prideful of her status as a heroine.
"I received an anonymous tip, if you can believe it," Spectra said at last. She seemed convinced, but the pause had been strange. "Told me that you were in trouble. And since this is quite a usual thing for you to be in, I decided the matter at least bore investigation." She looked over at Cybelle. "I understand that this is the woman who defeated you at Stellar's concert. What made you think you could deal with her now?"
"I already beat her, actually," Sophie replied, restraining an angrier response. "Don't believe everything you read in the papers."
"Well she obviously got the better of you this time," Spectra said curtly.
"Wow," Sophie thought, "if I didn't know any better I'd say she was extra surly today." She should have trusted her instincts. Spectra was still recovering psychologically from a humiliating ordeal she'd suffered at the hands of an Italian fashion designer. She'd been drugged, tied up, dressed in fetishistic outfits, and - to her mortification - had been so overwhelmed at the domination inflicted on her that even when presented with the chance to escape, she'd not taken it, and had let herself be kept captive.
At least, that was how she remembered it. The memory presented such sharp cognitive dissonance with her personality that it stung her whenever she thought of it - which she did uncomfortably often.
"Focus," she thought. "There are more pressing matters here." She turned her attention to the cyborg, who looked at her with venom. Mechanically enhanced or not, in such an open area she simply couldn't compete with Spectra's powers, and she knew it. It was Cybelle's policy always to pick her battles, and she had not chosen this one.
"Surrender now, Cybelle," Spectra commanded, the manner in which she spoke her foe's name good evidence of her distaste for it. "I will not ask again. Or at least, I will not ask so politely." The cyborg grimaced again.
"Don't underestimate her, Spectra," Enhancegirl said, stepping in front of her fellow heroine. "She's tricky. I'd -" She stopped mid-sentence. In fact, she froze. An instinctive twinge at the periphery of her senses was telling her that something was amiss. It became very quickly apparent what that something was after about three-quarters of a second.
It was a smell. An overpowering, intoxicating smell that wafted into Sophie's nostrils, carried by the sea breeze. It was a sickly sweet, chemical scent which spread through Sophie's body slowly, but surely, like liquid metal. It made her slinky form tremble, made her emerald eyes lose focus, as her strength slipped away from her. It assaulted every corner of her mind, making it hard for her to think, as it wrapped its invisible tendrils around her.
"Chloroform," Sophie whispered, before Spectra clamped a drug soaked rag over her face. "MMMPHHH!! Nnmphhh! Mmmmmmphhh..." That feeling of weakness now spread through her even faster. The soporific drug had a very powerful effect on Enhancegirl, due to the great sensitivity of her senses, and almost immediately her body became limp. She sagged, Spectra taking her by the waist, and easing the redhead back against her. Sophie's head fell against the cushion of Mariko's breasts, her wavy red hair trailing down Spectra's abdomen. The lovely co-ed was no match for the drug's somnolent fumes, and she could barely move, her minds fading into darkness. "Mph..." she whimpered softly, rendered completely powerless by the chloroform in seconds. "Spectra...why...?" was all she managed to think before her emerald eyes fluttered shut. Betrayed and defeated, Enhancegirl gave in to the sweet-smelling fumes, losing consciousness completely.
Spectra held the cloth over Sophie's mouth and nose for much longer than was necessary. She wanted to make absolutely sure that her victim was out cold. She eventually took the cloth away, before releasing the redhead. Sophie tumbled to the ground, lying still at Mariko's feet.
"MMMPPHHHH!!" May and Yumi cried out, seeing their saviour fall. Their attempts to warn Enhancegirl had failed. It was Spectra who had hung the pair of them from that chain, surprising both greatly when she opened the car boot in which the pair had been stashed. Seized by the superheroine, they had been hung up and hidden from Enhancegirl's sight using Specta's powers over light, only to be revealed at a suitably dramatic moment. Once Enhancegirl had appeared, they'd realised what had been planned for her. The only thing that they - like Sophie - hadn't known was why. But that made itself apparent readily enough.
From some dark corner of the docks - there were many - emerged a brown-haired woman, tall-ish but not as tall as Spectra. In contrast with the waiflike model, though, she was buxom and full figured. She was dressed in tight, black leather, thinner than motorcycle leathers, but not quite thin enough to be utterly impractical. Her sleeves were ruffled, like a circus performer. Stellar didn't realise who she was until much later, but May already had inklings.
"Well done, Spectra my dear," the woman said, approaching the silver-clad heroine. However, Spectra did not turn in surprise, or even greeting, at her appearance. Instead, her arms fell by her sides, dropping the cloth she'd drugged Enhancegirl, and she began staring straight forwards.
"It's like she's in a trance," Yumi thought, looking down at the scene below her. It was then, seeing her high-heeled feet dangling in the air, that the Korean first realised how high up she was. "Mmmph!" she squeaked, her useless struggles dampening slightly. She wasn't afraid of heights as such, but she wasn't a huge fan of them either. Bringing herself to look down, she saw Enhancegirl lying by Spectra's feet. "Again she's captured trying to rescue me...if I were not so pathetic this would never have happened..."
"Where the hell have you been?!" Cybelle screeched at the newcomer. "You were supposed to get geisha-girl over here to knock her out straight away! She almost put a hole in mah head!" The newcomer acknowledged Cybelle's complaint, faintly, but was much more interested in Spectra. She walked slowly up to her, standing very close behind the Japanese heroine, and placing her hands lightly on Mariko's shoulders.
"You did very well, Mariko," she said, taking her time over each syllable.
"Thank you, Mistress..." Spectra replied in a half-whisper. The woman behind her ran her hands down the heroine's chest, gently cupping her breasts. "Oh..." Spectra moaned softly as her breasts were massaged, her silver leotard giving little defence - though she appeared not to want it. As the brown-haired woman felt up the oriental beauty, she met not the slightest bit of resistance. Spectra's pride seemed vanished.
"Oh god..." May's inklings had become realisation. "Hypnotra!" Indeed, the woman running her hands over Seacouver's most beloved heroine had once gone by the name Hypnotra, though latterly she'd preferred the nom de guerre 'Mesmeredith.' To May at least, it all became horribly clear. Mesmeredith was, like Mariko, Yumi and Sophie, a superhuman. In her case, she had a powerful ability to control the minds of others, and it seemed that she had Spectra wrapped around her little finger.
Mesmeredith took her hands away from Mariko, and turned her attentions to Sophie, who was sprawled on the ground. She pushed her with her foot, turning the redhead onto her back. Mesmeredith's eyes ran over Sophie; her bare legs, long red hair, and tight, figure hugging gold dress.
"Oh yes," she said, "just as lovely as I remember you." Indeed, she had encountered Sophie before, hypnotising her to make her compelled to drug herself, or to prompt others to capture her. Ironically enough, it had been in her attempts to rescue Enhancegirl from this fate that Spectra had fallen under Hypnotra's spell.
"She is yours, Mistress," Mariko said. Hypnotra laughed quietly.
"Not mine, dearest," she said. "But you, on the other hand..."
She turned back to Spectra. "Not that I didn't enjoy seeing our cyborg friend getting a good scare, but I ordered you to take Sophie Scott as soon as you could. You disobeyed me." She was playing a cruel game: Spectra had followed her orders to the letter.
"I...disobeyed?" Spectra said, surprised.
"Yes, my dear," Mesmeredith said. "Now, shed your powers."
"Yes Mistress...Spectrum is Red." With a flash, Mariko's outfit vanished. She was not naked, though. She'd merely changed back into her civilian form. By a bizarre coincidence, her outfit was strangely suitable for her surroundings. Before being summoned by her Mistress, she'd been at a Naval-themed photoshoot, and as such she was dressed in a sort of sailor suit. It was very much altered, however. Her top was a short sleeved, white blouse, with a blue neckerchief running across the collar. Her taut midriff was completely bared, and the buttons of the blouse were opened to show her cleavage. As for her lower body, she wore a pleated, navy-blue mini-skirt, which barely descended lower than her hips. Her long, tan legs were completely on show, enhanced by a pair of white high heels. She looked beautiful, and vulnerable, and Mesmeredith was very pleased indeed.
"Now, what happens to pretty girls who disobey their Mistress?" She continued, grinning wickedly. With her powers switched off, Spectra's mask was gone, and every corner of her pretty face was there to be admired.
"We..." Spectra hesitated, but not for long. "We must be punished..."
What form that punishment would take became apparent without delay. Spectra found herself once again gripped by the shoulders, only this time it was to turn her around. Mesmeredith took her arms, and folded them at right angles behind Mariko's back. It was then that Spectra felt the bite of cord against her skin: tough, thin brown rope was wound over her wrists and upper arms, a yank pulling the rope tight and cinching her arms together into a box-tie. In principle, there was nothing stopping Mariko from blasting Mesmeredith away with her powers, or worse, but she did not. Her head was bowed.
Mesmeredith anchored Spectra's upper arms together with rope running between them. With a kind of double loop, she used the same length of rope that was attached to Spectra's arms and wound it underneath her breasts, fixing her arms in place, and making her chest noticeably more prominent at the same time.
"Tell me," Mesmeredith asked, making sure that Spectra's bondage was secure, "why must you be bound?"
"Because...I must be punished..." She gasped slightly as she felt Mesmeredith's hands on her bare thighs. "Because I must be shown my place..." As she spoke, Mesmeredith was entwining her long legs, binding them with three coils above Mariko's knees.
"And what is your place?" her Mistress asked, pulling the ropes tight and snapping Spectra's legs together.
"I am..." Spectra looked down at herself. The proud heroine was trapped in tight bondage, her supple limbs bound inextricably in cord. She was - she thought - powerless. "I am your slave-girl, my Mistress..."
"Go on," Mesmeredith said as she tied Mariko's ankles too, happily indulging in reminding her thrall of her position.
"Everything I am...belongs to you. My powers...my body...all are yours...I'm your property..."
"And what shall I do with my property?" Mesmeredith began stroking Mariko's soft thighs, aware of Mariko's sensitivity in that area. Her tiny skirt was no defence against Mesmeredith's wandering hands, which slipped under the hem to feel Mariko's rear.
"Ooh..." the Japanese damsel moaned as she was caressed, pleasure throbbing inside her. "Tie me up even more tightly...gag me so I can't even speak." Mesmeredith smiled, standing up and grabbing Mariko from behind, fondling her breasts while the mesmerised maiden was incapable of stopping her. "Show me that I'm not a heroine," Mariko said," ...just a pretty girl in a revealing outfit...so helpless...so weak..." One could hardly believe such words could come from the mouth of Spectra, Spectra the Proud, Spectra the Strong. But her pride and strength had been taken from her. For weeks now she had belonged to Mesmeredith without even realising it.
"Very well," Meredith said, "I will show you...everything." She pulled a thick, white cloth between Mariko's teeth.
"Mmmphh..." Mariko whimpered gently, cleave-gagged. The cloth was soft, and muffled any sound Mariko might have wanted to make.
"Kneel," Mesmeredith commanded. Spectra obeyed instantly, sinking down to her knees, happy to humble herself before her Mistress. Kneeling, her clothes seemed to cover her even less, like they might just fall away at any time. It was somewhat to her surprise, though of course she did not resist, when Mesmeredith picked up the discarded cloth Mariko had used to drug Sophie, and pressed it over Spectra's lips.
"Mmmphh...mmhhhpphh..." Spectra was not as susceptible to chloroform as Enhancegirl, and the contents had become somewhat diluted on the concrete ground, but she still felt her limbs growing weaker. She'd knelt completely erect, awaiting whatever instruction she was given. But now she began to sag as her strength left her immaculate body. It was just on the point where she was beginning to sway, almost collapsing, that Mesmeredith took the cloth away. Spectra looked up, a little confused. Then Mesmeredith snapped her fingers.
If you have ever been somewhere, on holiday in your youth perhaps, only not to return to or even think about that place until years - even decades - later when one happens on it by chance, and suddenly long buried memories flood back in an overwhelming rush, that might give you some small approximation of the process that went on in Mariko Asakura's mind immediately after Mesmeredith gave her innocuous signal.
"Where am I?"
What's going on?"
"Why am I tied up?"
These were only the first bewildering thoughts that rushed into Mariko's mind, clouded and groggy by the fumes of the chloroform, as she emerged from her trance.
"Mmmmmphhhh...mmmnnnmmphhh..." she protested feebly, wriggling her bare shoulders. It was then that she saw the lovely young lady trapped in a drugged slumber, lying on the ground before her. "Enhancegirl? What is she...?" More memories were flooding in all the time, and she suddenly recalled herself sneaking up on her fellow heroine, recalled drugging her. "Wh-I...I did that?" she thought, sleepily. "Why...why would I...do that?" It was only then that she looked up to see the face of the woman who'd bound her, and it was only then that the flood really broke the dam.
She remembered everything. Remembered the first night when Mesmeredith had stolen into her room, instantly entrancing her. Remembered the nights after that when she'd snuck in to have her way with the hypnotised beauty, stroking and fondling her, and Mariko - to her horror - distinctly remembered enjoying it. She remembered what had really happened the day of Anita's photoshoot. She'd escaped and had had to restrain herself from doing great violence upon her captor - only to be mollified by Mesmeredith, who'd given her false memories of her own submission. Ever since that day at the stadium, ever since that one brief glance in a mirror, Spectra's fate had been sealed.
"All along...I've been a captive!"
"Finally awoken, my dear Mariko?" Mesmeredith said. "It took you long enough." She beckoned to Cybelle, who'd been waiting patiently while Mesmeredith had had her fun. She didn't begrudge that - watching Spectra be humiliated was not a sight one often had. The cyborg turned her attentions to Sophie and - not needing to truss her so quickly - spooled out rope this time instead of tape. Her four metal limbs snatched the redhead's sleeping form, and held her up on her feet.
Sophie's head drooped, but Cybelle took her by the chin, and held her face up. She wanted Mariko to be able to see. Sophie herself was completely tamed, her face peaceful in her drugged sleep. Not even when her arms were roughly yanked behind her, and strong white cords rapidly twisted about her wrists and forearms did she stir. Not even when ropes were twisted above, below, and even between her round, white breasts, securing her arms in a restrictive harness did she make so much as a sound.
"Nnnnmmphhh! Nnnnmmmhh..." Spectra protested, writhing weakly as she watched Sophie being tied up. "I did this...I did this to her...how could I have let myself be controlled?!" Her jade eyes were wide with panic. She didn't know what to do. She tried to summon her powers, but she couldn't. The gag prevented her from speaking the changeword she needed. She was powerless. "No...I'm completely helpless..." Minutes ago that thought would have given Mariko a submissive pleasure. Now it brought her only shame.
"Don't feel too guilty, Mariko," Mesmeredith said, putting a hand on Mariko's shoulder. This brought the Asian model discomfort, but she could do nothing about it. Even out of her trance, Mesmeredith still possessed her. "I'm sure we could have captured your lovely friend without your help...but you made it so much easier."
"Nnnnmmphhh! NNNNMMMPPPHHH!!" Mariko screamed through her gag, her rage and humiliation breaking through the spell of the drug. Drug or no drug, though, she was wrapped in cord, so all the tall, slender damsel could do was watch as Sophie was subjected to the same ordeal. Sophie's pale legs were being lashed together, Cybelle's artificial limbs making efficient work of winding ropes around the centre of her thighs, far too securely to allow for even the slightest independent movement of Sophie's legs. They bound her ankles next, cinching them together in four circuits of rope, which - when knotted and pulled tight - kept the limp damsel far more tightly tied up than seemed necessary.
"Unnh..." Sophie moaned, shifting slightly. Mesmeredith had tarried with Spectra for too long, and their target was beginning to awaken. But the hour was late. For Cybelle pulled from her tendril a strip of silver tape, and, turning Sophie to face her, pressed it tight over her captive's lips, smoothing the edges so that the tape wouldn't come away. She pressed it so tightly that the outline of Sophie's mouth was visible underneath. Just as her gag was completed, Sophie's emerald eyes opened.
"Mmmh?" she intoned weakly. She saw Cybelle in front of her, grinning at the sight of the redhead once again helpless in her grasp. She saw, over the villain's shoulder, a face that she didn't recognise at first, but the shining purple eyes reminded her: Mesmeredith. Her presence led only to confusion in Sophie's groggy mind, but a hint of her significance was revealed when Sophie's eyes turned down.
"Hhhhmmmphhh!" Mariko moaned through her gag, jade eyes wet with shame and guilt. They met Sophie's eyes, and the two heroines shared a gaze. In those brief seconds, Sophie understood.
"You...you were controlled...they got us both..." But that was all she could manage. She was still too weak, and her body betrayed her. "Mmmhhnnn..." she whimpered, as her eyes fluttered closed, and she passed out again.
"Oh, honey, don't worry," Cybelle laughed, "you can sleep as long as you like." Saying that, she grasped Sophie by the waist, and tossed the sleeping damsel over her shoulder, gripping her legs and ass to hold her in place, before carrying away her defenceless body. Sophie, draped over her captor, was meek and unresisting as she was groped and fondled in her bonds
"Nnnmmmphhh!" Mariko cried out, watching as Sophie was abducted. "Damn them! Damn them, I'll...I'll -" Even in her rage, though, she couldn't think of what she would do. She was helpless, truly helpless, and she knew that if Mesmeredith wanted, she could easily bring her back under her spell.
"You know, it's funny," Mesmeredith said, "for all your pride, Mariko, for all the power locked up inside you...it was so easy to make you mine, and to keep you that way. Sweet Sophie, on the other hand...she managed to break my spell all by herself in the end. I wonder why you couldn't do that, Mariko?" She tousled Mariko's jet-black hair, eliciting a muffled protest. "You seemed to just love being my slave."
"Nnnhh!" Mariko protested. But she remembered what it felt like, being completely submissive to Mesmeredith's will. She remembered the thrill of being so utterly dominated, so feminine and tame. "She forced me to feel like that!" she reminded herself, but that didn't mean she hadn't really felt those feelings.
She was not given time to consider the matter further. Hypnotra had kept the drugged cloth in her hand, and she pressed it back over Mariko's mouth.
"Nnnmmm-mmmphhh!" she protested. "No! No....they're going to...kidnap me as well..." It didn't take long for her to start getting sleepy again. Her long, uncovered limbs lost their vigour, her sparkling eyes became listless.
"Oh, don't worry, Mariko," Hypnotra said, putting a hand on her captive's thigh and squeezing gently, "I'm not going to take you away. I just need you to sleep in case you get any ideas about following us."
"Whhmmphh? Mmmmhhhnnnm?" Mariko had almost given in, but she retained enough presence of mind to be surprised.
"Our client didn't pay us to abduct you. If she wants us to bring you in, she'll have to pay extra."
"Mmmmhh...hhhnnnmmmphhh..." Mariko's protests were becoming ever more pathetic. She wiggled her lovely body slightly, but she could barely summon the strength to keep her eyes open, much less escape her bonds.
"Although," Hypnotra leant down to whisper to Mariko. "If I ever do come back for you...I guarantee that you'll be begging for me to tie you up again." It was with that claim ringing in her ears that Mariko was finally overcome by the chloroform. With a plaintive moan, the Japanese damsel closed her eyes and slumped forward, her hair brushing against her legs. Bound and gagged, drugged and humiliated, the scantily clad maiden was left on her knees, totally powerless.
"Mmmmhhh...mmmmhhh..." Sophie moaned, eyes beginning to open. She was aware of movement, of a loud noise all around her, and of the occasional drop of water hitting her skin. She was also aware of being tied up and gagged. "Mmmmphh!" she complained more loudly, as she started taking in her surroundings more. She was sitting, propped up on some kind of wooden bench, and though she felt like she was being shaken about, her immediate surroundings looked still.
It was the smell, really, that let her know where she was. Her super-senses picked up a complex combination of minerals dissolved into the tiny droplets that lay on her.
"Seawater..." She was on a boat. More to the point, she was on the same boat that she'd seen Cybelle turning up to the harbour in. "Mmmphh!" The last thing Sophie remembered was waking up to see Cybelle binding her, and to see Mariko kneeling at the feet of Hypnotra. She knew she'd been captured - she just hadn't known for sure that she was going to be kidnapped.
Still drowzy, she turned her head to the right, and saw Cybelle sitting lazily nearby, controlling the boat with two of her tendrils, but otherwise ignoring it. In fact, Sophie could sense that Cybelle was just lazing, she was actually asleep. Her breathing patterns, even her heart rate all indicated it. Besides, the sun was only just coming up over the horizon - it was perhaps 5.30 in the morning. "I might have a chance," she thought, noting that the boat was too small to be concealing Hypnotra as well. Presumably, Sophie thought, she had taken charge of Mariko and the others.
"Mariko..." She thought of Spectra again, thought of the humiliation she must have suffered at knowing what she'd done, what she'd been made to do. Stellar and May as well - they were all captives now. "And while I'm all tied up like this I can't do anything to help them...I don't even know where they are." Someone else might have begun to despair in that situation, and Sophie was certainly tempted. But she was a superheroine, she thought. To someone like her, despair was useless. "I have to get free!"
She tried to use her super senses to find a way out of her bonds, but the ropes were much too strong. There was no weak point that she could detect. Sophie considered just hurling herself overboard, but with her limbs so tightly bound, she might easily drown. She looked around for something she could cut herself free with, but saw nothing. Nothing, that is, except for a small flick knife sitting very close to Cybelle.
"Oh man..." Sophie thought. She began shuffling towards her captor, hoping that the wood beneath her wouldn't creak too loudly. She moved until she was facing directly opposite the cyborg, who was sat on a bench on the other side. Enhancegirl lifted her feet, hoping her long legs would be able to reach the knife. But they weren't quite long enough. "If I have to be tied up all the time," she thought, "can't I at least get a convenient sharp thing that's actually convenient once in a while?" There was nothing for it. She'd have to stand up.
With her preturnatural balance, standing wasn't too hard. It was getting close enough to grab the knife that was the problem. She hopped forward, unable to move her legs separately and her heeled boots hit the deck with a loud tap. Cybelle didn't stir, however. One hop was, fortunately enough, but - as she'd feared, she couldn't grab the knife without sitting right next to Cybelle. Grudgingly, she did so, and found herself uncomfortably close to her enemy. Still, with her bound hands she was able to reach the knife. All she had to do was stretch out her fingers -
"Oh hey there, doll," Cybelle said, opening her eyes. "Real kind of you to come join me."
"MMPH?!" Sophie gasped in astonishment, instantly trying to wriggle away. But it was too late. Cybelle grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand, and slipped the other under her thighs, scooping the bound redhead up before placing her captive on her lap. "Mmmmm-nnnnmmmphhh!!" Sophie screamed through the tape plastered over her lips, but in vain. Though she writhed, Cybelle had her exactly where she wanted her. "She was toying with me..."
"You thought I was asleep, didn't cha? Well that's the beauty of being a cyborg - my breathing and heart rate are whatever I want 'em to be." She began stroking Sophie's legs, enjoying the feeling of the captive maiden's moist, smooth skin.
"Mmmphhh! Nnnmmm-hhhmmmphh!" Sophie protested, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could feel every peak and trough of the leather on Cybelle's hands, could feel in exquisite detail every intimate detail of the way in which she was touched, could even feel the increase in her own body temperature as she blushed in embarrassment at her fondling. And she could do nothing about it.
"I've got you all to myself, red...and this time, you ain't gettin' away." Her hand went from Sophie's shoulder to her neck, from her neck to her chin and her cheeks. "Now let's see that pretty face." To Sophie's dismay, she realised that Cybelle was about to remove her mask.
"Nnnmm-nnnhhhmmph!" Sophie practically begged, shaking her head. It was not that Cybelle would see her face - she already had - it was the sheer fact of having her mask taken away from her. There was no greater shame for a superheroine. As her domino mask was peeled away, she became still, mollified by the totality of her defeat.
"There we go," Cybelle said. "Now why would you want to cover any of that up?" She stroked Sophie's cheek, before casually throwing her mask into the ocean. Sophie watched it sink into the depths, and it was as if her whole identity as a superheroine was being thrown away as well. "See darlin', you don't gotta worry about being a do-gooder no more. You just gotta worry about lookin' as pretty as you can." She pressed her lips against Sophie's gagged mouth.
"Mph!" Sophie squeaked, surprised into compliance. When Cybelle took her mouth away, there was a distinct lipstick impression on the tape covering Sophie's mouth. "Mmm-mmmphhh..." Sophie mewed. "Why is this crazy broad so obsessed with doing this stuff to me?"
"Mmm, ain't you sweet?" She peered into Sophie's eyes. "You look awful worried there, doll. Don't worry, I ain't gonna hurt you. Say - maybe you're worried about your super-friends!" She laughed. "We ain't interested in them. They won't be joinin' us."
"What...they didn't take the others?" Sophie had a horrible realisation. "All this...was just to kidnap me!"
"You know, we've still got quite a journey ahead of us, doll," Cybelle said. "And I don't see any reason why you should have to put up with being bored, so..." Cybelle stood, hauling Sophie onto her feet as she did so, before forcing her onto her knees.
"Mmph!" Sophie protested, though by now she knew there was little point in doing so. Cybelle brought her two free tendrils to bear, and began spooling out more rope. "I'm already totally tied up! What does she need more rope for?" That became apparent when Cybelle began wrapping cord over Sophie's thighs, then looping it round to go over her ankles as well. She pulled the rope tight, and Sophie found her legs forced into a kneeling position. Cybelle pushed the pretty redhead onto her side, and sure enough, her legs wouldn't straighten.
But Cybelle wasn't done. She took Sophie by the back of the neck, and pushed her down so that her breasts were pressed against her thighs. Before she could even blink, Cybelle's tendrils had wrapped rope between her thighs and calves, and over and around Sophie's torso, pulling the rope tight.
"Mmmm-hhhmmphh!" Sophie exclaimed, finding herself trussed up into a ball. She couldn't move at all; she could barely twitch. She'd been captured a number of times, but she'd never been tied up so tightly. "This is...I - I can't...I can't get free! Even with my powers I'm still helpless..."
"Hehe..." Cybelle chuckled, observing her handiwork. "Ain't you a peach?" She twisted one of her tendrils around Sophie's balled up form, and lifted her up. With another, she opened a small hatch towards the stern of the boat. It was empty, as far as Sophie could tell, save for a small canister of propane, the size of a fire extinguisher. She found herself dropped in, on her side, still completely incapable of unbinding herself. All she managed was a small wiggle of her rear end, almost entirely exposed by the angle at which her supple body had been bent, her short dress not designed for such a situation.
"Mmmph!" Sophie squeaked, as she felt a sharp sting on the taut flesh of her behind. Blushing, she realised that she had just been spanked.
"Pleased to see that cute little tush is as fine as ever," Cybelle laughed. To render such domination over her pretty captive was not only enjoyable for the cruel cyborg, it was thrillingly easy. To have such an attractive young woman so easily manipulable - and add to that that she was a superheroine - was something that would never get old. It was a shame, in a way, that it was not for herself that she had made Enhancegirl a captive.
"What do I do? I can't escape!" Sophie continued to be overwhelmed by the strictness of her bonds. So much so that she didn't notice what Cybelle was doing with the can of propane. She was fixing to its top a plastic tube, a tube which ended with a clear face mask. Sophie only took notice when the mask was pulled over her face. "Mmmhhhphhh!" she cried out, doubly muffled. There was a moment of total panic - but she realised soon enough that the can was merely labelled propane. It contained mostly oxygen, as it turned out, but with something else mixed in as well.
As Cybelle turned the valve to let the gas out, Sophie picked up an unfamiliar scent. It was weakly chemical, almost odourless, but not quite. It had a kind of vaguely minty quality to it, though no-one but Enhancegirl would have picked that up.
"Mmmhh..." It was only when her tightly tied up body began to feel drowzy that Enhancegirl guessed at what it was. "Sleeping gas..." Strictly speaking, it was halothane, but Sophie was close enough.
"There," Cybelle said, watching the redhead squirm pitfully, "that'll make this trip a lot less boring for 'ya. All you've gotta do is ride it out." Being of a much weaker scent, this sedative was proving less overpowering than chloroform, but it was more than a match for the balled up redhead.
"Have to...stay awake...can't give up..." But it was not a matter of will. Her eyelids grew heavy, her senses dull, and her twitches devolved into almost imperceptible movement. She'd thought when Cybelle had bound her so restrictively that it would not be possible for her to feel more powerless, but once again Cybelle proved that she could always make Sophie feel even more humiliated. "I...uh...I can't...do anything..." Sophie thought hazily, the drug making her slinky body slower and weaker the more it entered her system. She couldn't even take a breath without falling even deeper into captivity. The soft-skinned, lovely redhead managed only one thought before her body betrayed her, and she fell into drugged slumber once again: "I...I'm caught...I need...someone...please...save me..."
"Mmmph?!" Mariko started awake, around about the same time that Enhancegirl made her plea. "Mmmmnngghh!" she groaned, her head swimming. She tried to sit up, but she'd forgotten about her bonds, and remained prone on the ground. "They didn't take me..." She was right. True to her word, Hypnotra had left her be. She hadn't untied her, though. She still lay on the cold ground in her tank top and mini-skirt, tied up and gagged.
It was only when she looked up that she realised she was not alone. Still hanging from the chain suspended in the air, May and Stellar hung, chained up and unconscious. Mariko wondered if they'd been drugged as well, but they had merely collapsed from exhaustion. Mariko summoned up her blood: despite her shock at how she had been used, she forced herself to confront what was going on in front of her. She was a superheroine, and there were damsels in distress that needed rescuing. "Even if I'm one of them..." she thought bitterly.
She rolled to the left, her long, bound legs becoming damp from the moisture that had accumulated on the ground during the night. She didn't need a knife to break her bonds - all she needed was an exposed rivet or something, and such things were almost everywhere in the abandoned dock. She found a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground, and moved her head towards it, wriggling on the ground in the tight ropes binding her. She maneuvered so that she could get the metal under the fabric of her gag. She pulled hard, and it came loose.
"Ugh!" She spat it out. "Spectrum is Green!" There was a brilliant flash, and while Mariko was not much less skimpily attired when the flash subsided, the internal difference was much more significant. There was not much daylight yet, but it was more than enough for Spectra. She manipulated as many photons as she could get her hands on to split the ropes binding her in twain, freeing her slender body. She leapt to her feet - and had to steady herself, for she was still affected by the chloroform Hypnotra had used on her. But once that passed, she directed her attentions toward May and Stellar.
She had been the one who had chained them up there in the first place, while she was still under Mesmeredith's control, so she remembered the way she'd taken to get to the top of the crane from which the damsels dangled. But there was an easier way.
"Hmm...mmphh?!" May was startled awake by a sudden rushing of wind. It took little time for the reporter to realise that it was not the wind that was rushing, but her. She was falling. "MMMMPPHHHH!!!" she screamed, realising that she and the beautiful popstar chained to her were hurtling towards the ground at a lethal velocity.
"MMM-MMMPHHH!!" the Korean echoed, as she too was awoken, the two bound damsels feeling sure that the end was nigh. May even closed her eyes out of fear (unlike Yumi, she was afraid of heights), but she really shouldn't have done so. For if she hadn't, she would have seen the pale golden light surrounding them, and would have seen that their descent begin to slow. In fact, by the time their feet touched the floor, they were hardly moving at all.
"Mmmphh!! Mmmm...mmmphh?" It took a while for May to realise that their descent had stopped and that, indeed, they were standing, bound though they were. She didn't have time to adjust to this situation before two flashes of light danced across her body, and she found her chains falling in a pile on the ground. Yumi's soon followed. Having been restrained for some time, it took a good deal of stretching for the two to feel comfortable again.
They were free.
"I'm...sorry." May turned to see her saviour, though rather confusingly she had been one of her captors too. "What happened...what I did..." Spectra began to explain, but the words 'I was brainwashed and controlled' were difficult for the proud young woman to pronounce. Fortunately, explanation was hardly necessary. They had seen what had happened, and it explained a rather burning question the two had. That was: why had Seacouver's most beloved heroine suddenly become a villainous kidnapper? That some kind of brainwashing made a horrible kind of sense.
"You don't have to apologise," Yumi said. "You didn't mean to do..." Her English faltered slightly. "...what you did," she eventually finished.
"That hardly helps matters," Spectra said. "Anyway...you've been dragged into this unnecessarily. Please go." She only now recognised May, and still only vaguely. A look of horror appeared on her face.
"You can't expect me not to report this," May said, recognising Spectra's expression. "A) Hypnotra's back, again, and B) Soph-Enhancegirl has been kidnapped." The side of her mouth twitched slightly. She'd not meant to reveal that she knew Enhancegirl's secret identity. The fewer people knew that, the better. She'd been targeted just for being someone who regularly wrote about Enhancegirl: if it became known that she knew her personally her life could get very difficult. But Spectra, at least, seemed not to have noticed. She looked extremely distressed.
"If they knew...knew that I'd been controlled...knew that I'd allowed this to happen to me...Seacouver would never trust me again..." She turned away, breathing extremely rapidly. The shame of her brainwashing, the guilt she felt at delivering Enhancegirl into her enemies' hands, and now the possibility of public disgrace were too much. The immediate task of saving Stellar and May done, her mind had wandered to worse thoughts.
"Look, Spectra, I could...fudge a few facts. Leave your part out of the story." May offered, seeing Spectra almost on the point of tears. But she didn't hear.
"I couldn't...I could never look Hikari-sensei in the eye again..." Spectra thought, putting a hand on her chest. "I've failed...I've failed so completely..." She was rather surprised when she felt a pair of arms wrapping around her chest, and that surprise rather interrupted her train of thought.
"Don't despair, please," Yumi said, in perfect Japanese. It was she who had embraced her fellow heroine. "I...I know what it's like to feel like you've been reduced to nothing." She took her arms away, but Spectra turned to listen to her. "I know what it's like to feel as if you could never be called a heroine again. But...when I was at my lowest point, someone was there to remind me not to give up. The same person that we have to save now." She meant Enhancegirl.
"Enhancegirl...Sophie..." Spectra thought about their encounters, remembered how she'd tried to humiliate the redhead after being rescued by her. Remembered how Enhancegirl had nonetheless come to her rescue when she'd been kidnapped. "How many times I've thought of her as being weaker or less important than me - yet she'd never hesitate like this, would she?"
"Someone want to let me know what's going on?" May asked. "My knowledge of Japanese goes about as far as the theme tune to Bubblegum Crisis." It spoke to her strength of character that she was still capable of humour at five thirty in the morning, in a torn dress, on the docks and just having been in captivity for an extended period of time. Indeed, some of her colleagues might have said it was a testament to something other than strength of character.
"I'm going to go after Enhancegirl," she said. Then in Japanese: "You can't help me, Stellar. Not more than you already have, anyway."
"Why? I know I don't seem it like this -" Yumi said, gesturing at her dishevelled dress and her red heels, " - but I'm quite powerful."
"You misunderstand," Spectra explained. "It's not a question of how much power you have. You could go instead of me, but not with me."
"I don't understand," Yumi replied, rather echoing May's sentiments at that moment.
"I need help..." she said, struggling not to say that through gritted teeth, "but not your help."
"Whose, then?"
"The person who defeated Hypnotra last time." Her mind set, Mariko began to walk away.
"Spectra!" Yumi called out. Mariko stopped. "Be awesome, okay?" she said, channelling the perky persona of the White Star. Spectra smiled slightly, but continued on her way.
"Hey!" May said. She'd been on her phone, recovered from where Cybelle had apparently dropped it during her fight with Enhancegirl. "I understood that! You said she was awesome right?"
"Not exactly," Yumi said, switching back to English. "But she is."
"And you're not going with her?"
"No. She doesn't need the kind of help I can give."
"What a load!" May laughed. "She's way too damned proud. Hey," she said. "If Spectra's too good for you, what about me?" Yumi didn't understand. "I could use your help with something, if you've got the time. Apparently someone broke four sevenths of the Catastrophe Gang outta jail." Now Yumi really didn't understand. "I got somethin' brewing in the back of my pretty little head...and I think it just might work."
Natalya Nazarov was a beautiful woman. She had long, jet-black hair, skin as pale and pure as moonlight, a charming face with almond shaped blue eyes and rose-coloured lips. Her neck was slender, sloping gently to her white shoulders. Her legs were long and supple, her hips curving just the right amount for the rest of her figure. She was around 5'9", and very buxom indeed, at least a Double D.
And she hated it. She hated people looking at her as she walked down the street, hated being asked out by men in whom she had no interested, hated the jealousy of her friends. So as she sat at her desk with pencil and slide rule in her knee-length skirt and the plainest blouse she could buy, trying to figure out a way that her boss' ludicrous asymmetrical spire could be affixed to the top of the new Municipal Building without making it collapse, she tried to ignore the fact that every time she crossed her legs, or moved her hair out of her face, at least one person turned to look.
"Hi, Nat." Ernest Wilkinson, the man responsible for designing the monstrosity that Natalya was trying to fix, stood behind her. He insisted on calling her 'Nat' despite repeated attempts from her to stop him doing so. "How's the Municipal Building working out?"
"There are a few adjustments to be made, Mr Wilkinson," Natalya replied quietly. She had gone into architecture because she hoped she'd be able to work in relative isolation. Ernest patted her on the shoulder, and Natalya winced. She hated being touched. Unfortunately, she was too shy to tell him where he could stick it.
"Shouldn't take you too long, Nat. I mean, you're just making some adjustments." 'Making some adjustments' to Ernest's designs was, in fact, one of the most difficult jobs at Wilkinson's Architectural Firm due to the man's increasingly bold incompetence. Nepotism had got him his job, nothing more. It was a testament to Natalya's skills (and to others in the firm, to their credit) that Ernest's designs had not yet caused disaster.
"Yes Mr Wilkinson," was her eventual reply. "Now please go away..."
Moving on, he left Natalya simmering with anger. Not so much because of his incompetence, or because of his insistently referring to her as 'Nat', or even his hand unwarrantedly placed on her shoulder. It was because he had been picturing the buxom architect naked the entire time he'd been speaking with her.
For Natalya was not merely an architect: she was a telepath. Anyone she could see she could mind-read, and she was invariably assaulted by their conscious thoughts, though concentration allowed her to probe further if she wanted. It was not exactly that she was angry because Ernest had been fantasising about her: practically every man that met her did, though she found the nicer ones embarrassedly chiding themselves and trying to think of other things. In Ernest's case, though, not only did he fantasise about Natalya (and every other good looking woman in the company), he seemed honestly to believe that he had merely to ask, and Natalya would fall at his feet.
Needless to say, he was mistaken.
Though, unlike some other telepaths, Natalya could prevent herself from perceiving the thoughts of others simply by not looking at them, whenever she had to speak to someone it was hardly possible to avoid it. Over the phone at least, things were a little easier, so when her cell rang, Natalya didn't mind all that much, despite her shyness about face to face communication.
"Hello?" she said. She was very surprised indeed when she heard the voice on the other line.
"I apologise for contacting you in this way," she said, without any introduction. "It has been a while, but I hope that you remember me. My name is Spectra. I...need the help of Insyte."
"Hey, Nat?" Ernest had come back. He was about to make a change to Natalya's design that would give her another four hours of work, but when he came to her desk, she was nowhere to be found.
It was not for some time that Cybelle's small boat carried its occupants to their destination. Had she sailed as the crow flies, it would only have taken four or five hours, but she'd had to take a painstakingly circuitous route to avoid coastguard patrols. By the time she arrived, it was almost a quarter past nine.
Cybelle opened up the boat's hatch, finding the lovely superheroine she had captured still in her halothane-induced slumber, bound into a ball and tape-gagged to boot. Cybelle didn't need to tax her brain much to recall the decisive and brutal defeat Enhancegirl had handed her in their last encounter. With all her gadgets and upgrades, Enhancegirl had still been able to out-think and out-fight the cyborg.
"Not today, though, little redhead." Cybelle snaked her tendril around her defeated foe, getting a tight grip on the balled-up damsel. She closed the gas' valve, and pulled the mask off Enhancegirl's face before hoisting her up into the air.
So tightly was she bound that Sophie wouldn't have been able to give Cybelle the slightest trouble as she was carried from the piste into the huge mansion that dominated the landscape of the tiny island on which they'd landed. As it was, she couldn't even try. In a way, Cybelle would have preferred her to be fully aware of her helplessness, but she wasn't just indulging herself. She had a job to do.
As she strolled towards the front gate, she was picked up by at least a dozen security cameras. It didn't seem to matter much - in fact, the gate was opening before she even reached it. A pair of burly men with formidable looking weapons eyed the cyborg up through their sunglasses, but again they let her pass.
Cybelle was expected.
In fact, there was a trim young woman in a very fetching beige suit who was waiting to greet her.
"Please come this way, Miss," she said, in a slight French accent. "Madáme awaits you."
"Grand," Cybelle said, following the attendant through the vast house.
"Mmmhhhh..." Enhancegirl whimpered softly as she was carried, wrapped in ropes and metal tendrils.
"Is our guest beginning to awaken?" the attendant asked. Clearly the sight of Cybelle's captive did not perturb her in the slightest.
"I hope so," Cybelle answered. "I don't want her to miss out on all the fun."
Escorted into the bowels of the building, Cybelle felt slight movements coming from her captive. She was indeed awakening.
"In here, please, Miss," the attendant said, beckoning Cybelle inside.
"Thanks doll," Cybelle said, winking at her. She walked inside, bringing Sophie with her. "So, 'Madáme'," she said to the black-haired woman she found sitting inside, "she's your huckleberry, right?"
"Oh yes," the woman said, venomous satisfaction in her voice. "She's the one, alright."