The Perils of Enhancegirl 4: Popstars, Cyborgs and Spider Webs
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:51 am
"No way!" Sophie yelped, bursting out of her bedroom door and making her room-mate leap clean out of her seat.
"What, what is it?!" Kirsten shrieked. The last time Sophie had made a noise like that was when she'd woken up with a spider on her face. Not that Kirsten had been much help: they were both hopeless arachnophobes. "If you throw another bug at me, I swear to -" But when Kirsten saw Sophie's face, she realised that the eighteen-year-old redhead was thrilled, not frightened.
"Kirsten, you need to understand that chances like this only come, like, once in a freaking lifetime." Her emerald eyes were wide and Kirsten had never seen her looking so enthused. "She never tours the States!"
"Who never tours the States?"
"Uh, Stellar!"
Everything about Sophie's body language indicated that she thought Kirsten would understand what she meant. The blank look she received told her that she was mistaken.
"You've seriously never heard of her?"
"Seriously."
"Ugh. You totally need to broaden your tastes," Sophie said, flicking her shoulder length, red hair in a gesture of superiority. "She's only the hottest thing in k-pop right now."
"K-pop?" Kirsten replied, still uncomprehending. "You mean Korean pop music? I didn't know you were into that."
"What, you didn't know I was into having showmanship and actual tonal variation in pop music? I'm, like, seriously starting to wonder about the longevity of our friendship."
"I don't even -"
"Kirsten, we haven't got time to listen to what you can or can't even! All you need to know is that you and me are going next Sunday, and you're gonna have the night of your freakin' life." Sophie was grinning. Kirsten couldn't find it in herself to refuse.
"I thought you were always busy weekends with that...whatever it is you do at the weekends."
"I'm taking some personal time," Sophie said.
It was true, despite maintaining the semblance of an active social life, Sophie had been socialising with less and less frequency in recent days, and none of her friends - not even Kirsten - knew why. She would never have guessed the truth. For as well as being a college student and K-Pop enthusiast, Sophie was also a superheroine.
Going by the name Enhancegirl, Sophie used her powers to fight crime in Seacouver and - thanks in part to an admiring journalist named May - had gained quite a reputation in recent months. Her crime-fighting career kept her busy - but for Stellar, Seacouver could wait.
If Sophie had been excited when she'd found out that her idol was coming to America, she was positively ecstatic when it came to the day of the performance. As she and Kirsten queued up in front of Seacouver stadium, her hands were actually shaking.
"Oh my god, Sophie, calm down," Kirsten said. Having listened to some of Stellar's music in the intervening time, she'd actually begun to look forward to the concert. Her anticipation, however, was nowhere near Sophie's.
"How can you tell me to calm down?! This is so awesome!" Even over the din of the crowd, Sophie's voice was attracting attention. And not just her voice: she and Kirsten were both dressed very fetchingly, Kirsten in a shimmering, knee-length dress, and Sophie in one of her favourite outfits: a short, tartan skirt, short-sleeved white blouse, buckled shoes and white stockings, her red hair trailing in a plait down her neck. The redhead drew quite a few stares, and she didn't mind one bit.
As the pair entered the stadium, the atmosphere was already buzzing. The stage was danced upon with brilliant, fluorescent light, synthesised music already playing. Darkness and light pulsed out of the front, a thumping, hypnotic beat enticing and confusing the senses all at once. The audience was packed - Kirsten was surprised that the Korean idol had drawn such a following in America.
"Excuse me, coming through." Sophie had no compunctions about pushing her way through the crowd to get closer to the front. She snubbed her nose at those who were already watching the action through their cellphones. "Oh my gawd," she muttered under her breath. "Who comes to a concert just to watch it through a screen?" Kirsten, who'd been about to whip out her iphone, elected at the last moment not to incur her roommate's wrath.
By the time Sophie and Kristen had pushed their way to the front, a strange hush had fallen on the audience. The beat was still strong, but something had changed. There was a palpable air of anticipation, though no-one there quite knew why. Sophie shivered, and then realised that she was not merely shivering with expectation. She was cold. It was a warm day, and the heat of all the bodies surrounding them should have been exacerbating that. But she was definitely cold.
"Huh?" Something had fallen on Kirsten's shoulder. It was some kind of white powder, but when she brushed it off she found it was icy to the touch. "It's snow," she realised. "Sophie, it's real snow!" The redhead looked up, and she was not the only one doing so. Snow was beginning to fall inside the stadium in greater and greater volume.
"Look!" One eagle-eyed crowd member saw something near the very top of the roof, a figure of some kind. But it shot off as soon as it was spotted, something under its feet supporting it. It danced through the air in dizzying pirouettes, and as it came closer and closer to the audience, it became clear that it was a woman.
Not only was it a woman. It was an exceptionally beautiful woman, slender - waiflike, even - with flawless, pale skin, dazzling ice-blue eyes, and hair of the same colour. Her features were subtle, delicate, yet with a hint of coy sexuality. As she spun in the air, dancing on a sliver of ice hovering beneath her, a thin, shimmering satin robe spun around her body, splits in the skirt occasionally offering tantalising glimpses of a pair of long, flawless legs.
She arced towards the stage, the music building to a sharp, precise resonation which the entire audience felt in their bones. Leaping off the sliver of ice (which melted away the moment she left it), she landed perfectly in the middle of the stage, a microphone stand already waiting for her.
The music went silent. The audience went silent. For a few moments, no-one knew what to make of it. The woman raised her head, eyes towards the heavens. She was not tall by any means, but she was somehow an imposing figure on the stage. She was breathing hard, her chest visibly straining against her satin shift. Condensation came out of her mouth whenever she breathed. Without looking at it, she drew the microphone close to her lips.
"Oh..." she moaned sensually, turning her eyes on the audience. "It's a true beginning..."
At this, the crowd erupted into thunderous cheering and hooting. They had been so wrapped up in the spectacle that they'd almost forgotten why they were there. But they remembered now: and there was Stellar, standing in front of them, about to launch into one of her most famous tracks.
Even though the vast majority didn't speak a word of Korean, they were happily singing along anyway, with the heavy, melancholic electronica that flowed from Stellar's lips like water from a spring in December. However, there were two audience members who were not following along. They moved very quietly and carefully through the crowd, getting ever closer to the stage. Their eyes were fixed on the beautiful popstar, but they looked at Stellar not with excitement or anticipation, but with villainy on their minds.
Sophie, however, was oblivious to this. All she cared about was the absurdly fantastic time she was having. Even Kirsten was loving it, totally caught in Stellar's icy spell. She moved across the stage as though she were skating, though her feet were bare, gliding across without the slightest perturbation of her voice. Blue lights illuminated her at all time, as though she were an operatic heroine lamenting her own death by drowning.
But gradually, the lights began to warm. The tempo of the song began to increase. A distinctly electro-pop note broke into the music, and her expression began to lighten somewhat. She began to spin, faster and faster, whirling round on the spot more quickly than it seemed possible for a human being to do.
"A white star..." she said, and there was a dazzling flash. Suddenly, the blue haired beauty was gone. Or rather, she was changed. Her face, her form, all those were the same. But her hair was no longer flowing and blue, but a cute, blonde bob-cut. Her eyes were green now, and even her skin was a little less pale. She was no longer in a loose satin robe, but an extremely tight, extremely short white dress, its lycra makeup clinging to her gorgeous body. Her shoulders were bare, though a thin white scarf was tied around her neck. Knee-high white boots covered her calves, and she was now smiling sweetly, even flirtatiously at the audience. "It's my champagne dream!" she sang, her voice now bubbly and warm.
"We love the White Star!!" Sophie screamed. None of them batted an eyelid at this transformation, as none of them had batted an eyelid at the ice on which she had sailed. For Stellar was not merely a pop singer. Like Sophie, she was a superheroine. Unlike Sophie, however, she did not hide her abilities, using them to dramatic effect not only to battle injustice, but also to thrill her audiences.
The Blue Star was the first persona they had seen, the White Star what she had subsequently turned into. Unlike most heroes, Stellar had three distinct power sets, and could switch between them at will, using each as an individual stage persona. Her first gave her power over ice and cold. The power of the second became clear, as Stellar's microphone switched off - and the volume of her performance increased.
"What's she doing?" Kirsten asked. She was not up on the specifics.
"She's absorbing the light that hits her skin," Sophie explained, "and turning it into sound." She was doing so to great effect. Modulating the pitch and timbre of her voice, Stellar could make herself sound as if her voice had been subject to all manner of electronic manipulation, when in fact she was doing all the work herself.
"Thank you so much!" she said, in a peppy, not-quite-spot-on accent. "I am so excited today! America, you are such great hosts for me!"
"We love you Stellar!" a few squealing schoolgirls right at the front chorused. She put her hand to her chest in coy modesty, before turning and winking over her shoulder, beginning the next number.
However, before that song was even thirty seconds in, something strange happened. There was someone on the stage. The security keeping the crowd from the performer were astonished to see that someone had got past them. No-one had seen her forcing her way past. She was just there. It was a dark haired woman, clad in a tight, red catsuit. She moved bizarrely, rolling her shoulders with every step. She seemed to have Stellar in her sights.
"What the hell?" Sophie hadn't seen what happened either. Stellar ignored the intruder, and many were beginning to think it was part of the act. However, some of the security guards clambered onto the stage, trying to get rid of the unwelcome supporting act.
"Yaarrghh!" one of them cried out, as he was hauled back by his collar, and thrown to the ground. The other two were similarly dispatched, before they could even get eyes on their assailant.
"Sorry, boys," the newcomer said, rising onto the stage herself. Though Stellar had ignored the first intruder, the cries of the guards drew her attention, and she found herself greeted by a strange sight.
It was a woman, tall and voluptuous, with long blonde hair. Her limbs were long - all six of them. Four were as you might expect them - the other two were not. For one thing, they were made entirely of metal, like long, mechanical tendrils, with formidable looking clamps. They were attached to her waist, and seemed as mobile as her actual arms. She was clad in form fitting leather, also quite alluring, but much more practical than her partner's clothes.
And then there was her face. Most was relatively unremarkable, though quite pretty, but the upper-right quarter of her face was covered by a metal mask, like something out of The Phantom of the Opera. Even her eye was obscured, a red blinking light gleaming from where it should have been.
Stellar was so taken back by her appearance, that she actually stopped singing. Confused murmurs came from the crowd. Most of them hadn't seen the blonde crash the party, so they thought it might be part of the act. Much of the crowd, in fact, was still cheering wildly.
"Wow!" Stellar said, suddenly, projecting her voice across the entire auditorium. "You guys are such big fans you came all the way up here to see me!"
"Oh yeah," the robotic woman said, in a Southern drawl. "We're huge fans..."
"Hehehehe!" the other woman cackled, getting close enough to the microphone that the audience could hear her. "Okay, she's being sarcastic, but I am actually a huge fan, Miss Stellar!"
"That's so nice," Stellar said, smiling winningly.
"I mean, I would definitely be asking for your autograph right now. Y'know, if we weren't here to kidnap you."
At this the entire crowd reacted. People didn't know whether to boo or cheer, or call the police.
"Is this part of the act?" Kirsten said.
"I've got no idea," Sophie replied, the crowd now quiet enough for her to speak at a more or less normal volume. "But that blonde looks weirdly familiar..."
"Oh!" Stellar gasped, clasping her hands to her face. "You - you want to kidnap me?"
"That's what we said, genius," the blonde replied. She was beginning to think that her target was not all there. "So why don't you just make it easy for us and stay still." The two began advancing on her.
"Oh no," Stellar said, "you both look so scary..." Pigeon-toed, Stellar placed her arms behind her back. "I...won't fight back..."
"That's what I like to hear," the blonde said. "Arachna?" The dark haired woman smiled, strutting towards her target.
"This isn't right," Sophie said, and she began barging towards the front, shoving people out of the way to get forward.
"Sophie!" Kirsten called out, but in a moment her friend had vanished. "What is she doing?!"
"Stay still, sweetie, okay?" Arachna said, taking Stellar by the wrists. She gasped, wriggling uncomfortably, but impotently. To her surprise, the Korean superstar felt something soft and silky against her wrists, being wrapped around them, binding her hands behind her back. She craned her neck to see white threads trapping her, threads that were coming out of the hands of Arachna. "Having spider-like powers has lotsa advantages," Arachna said, "but being able to spin webs is definitely my favourite. After all, I can tie up as many pretty pop-princesses as I like!" She knelt down, and Stellar felt her ankles being pressed together, as her feet were tied in silk as well. She was now bound.
"Oh...oh..." she mewed, "please don't tie me up..."
"Oh, you're so cute!" Arachna laughed. "You really think you have a say in the matter?"
"Stop playing, Arachna," the blonde said. "Let's just get out of here."
"No! Don't! Please let me go..." Stellar pleaded, wriggling in the silky bonds.
"Keep your trap shut, doll," the blonde snapped. To her surprise, Stellar was not cowed. On the contrary, her pleading expression turned into a sly smile.
"Actually," she said, "I don't think I will." On the last word of her sentence, Stellar magnified the force of her voice exponentially. Far, far before the blonde could react, she was blown backwards, head over heels.
"What the -?" Arachna stuttered.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Stellar said. "Weren't you listening? It's okay, I'll say it again. Let me go." Another boum, and Arachna was hurled back the way she'd come. Not only that, but Stellar's bonds were ripped asunder.
Needless to say, this provoked an extremely loud reaction from the crowd. Now they were convinced it was part of the show. Even Sophie, who was almost at the edge of the stage now, stopped.
"It looks like she was in control all along...but were they part of the act?" The blonde clambered to her feet, visibly shaken. Sophie gave her another look, and she was much closer this time. "Wait a minute...that's Cybelle!" Sophie had recognised her face for a reason. Cybelle was a notorious villainess, having crossed swords with members of the superheroic community on multiple occasions. No mastermind herself, Cybelle was a mercenary, acquiring as much money and as many resources as she possibly could, to advance her cybernetic enhancements to the greatest extent. Sophie still didn't recognise the other woman, though.
"Okay," Arachna said, "I gotta say, you surrendering like that was kinda hot - I like 'em a little passive - but it wouldn't be satisfying capturing you if you didn't put up a bit of a fight. I mean, you're Stellar!"
"You're being so nice to me," Stellar replied. "I feel a bit..." She searched for the word. "Unkind to do this, but...sorry." Another boum. Once again Arachna flew back, her ears ringing.
"You think you're hot stuff, don'tcha, doll?" Cybelle said. Stellar turned to face her.
"Well," she said, smiling, "I have sold more than two million records."
"Well I think you need to be taught a lesson!" She lunged with her right arm, her cybernetic limbs simultaneously striking from different directions, a pattern calculated to be as difficult as possible to avoid.
But Stellar was more formidable than her charming face suggested, and in rapid succession she dodged all three.
"Damn you!" Cybelle growled in frustration. was more than capable of being indignant and calculating at the same time, and she quickly worked out another plan of attack. She swiped one of her robotic tendrils at Stellar's feet. She jumped over the attack, but Cybelle had expected her to. Her tendril was not only prehensile, but telescopic, and it extended, turning on itself and attempting to strike Stellar from behind.
But the Korean heroine was too cunning. To Cybelle's surprise, Stellar pushed herself up using her powers, avoiding the strike, and almost causing Cybelle to hit herself in the face with her own limb. While she avoided that embarrassment, she did not avoid the strike that came next, as she was knocked down by the Korean word for "idiot."
By this time, the crowd were once again convinced that everything was going according to plan. Indeed, Stellar was dancing around her enemies' attacks with such grace and ease that it seemed no other conclusion was possible. Webs shot at her, but she either dodged or disintegrated them. Cybelle struck again and again with her tendrils, but she simply couldn't get close enough to use them effectively.
The odds seemed stacked heavily against the two villains, until they benefited from a very simple piece of luck. As Cybelle lunged, reaching out with her robotic arms in yet another attempt to seize Stellar, the popstar drew in breath to shout her away once again. But just as she did, the stage wiring, disturbed by the battle raging between the three women, momentarily gave out, plunging Stellar into darkness.
"Back!" she cried out, but with nothing more than her ordinary voice. Plunged into darkness, the source of her power was taken away from her. Frozen with shock, she hesitated for a moment. And in that moment, Cybelle grabbed her.
"Gotcha!" The Southern blonde didn't need to see to be able to swiftly wrap one of her tendrils around the Korean woman, cold metal squeezing against her arms and thighs, pulling her legs together, and trapping her arms at her sides.
"Unh!" Stellar groaned, suddenly finding herself caught. Not only was she powerless, she was blind.
"Heh. You're not so tough, girlie," Cybelle chuckled to herself. She was not hindered in the slightest by the darkness, using infra-red vision to keep watch on her struggling target. But having the pretty starlet in the grip of her tendril was not enough for her peace of mind. Bringing her other cybernetic limb to bear, Cybelle opened a slot at the end of the arm, and pressed it against Stellar's shoulder.
"Ah!" Stellar gasped, still blanketed in night, as she felt something sticky against her skin. She heard the arm move, and heard a tearing sound, at the same time feeling the sticky substance all along her back, just beneath her neck, covering up her exposed shoulders and the upper parts of her breasts, before being wound down her body, the first arm moving to allow the second to wrap up her torso. Indeed, once her upper arms were pinned in the substance, the first arm unwound from Stellar's body, and though her forearms were now free to wiggle, she couldn't raise them high enough. Indeed, all she got for that resistance was that her wrists were grabbed by the free arm, and crossed behind her back. Stellar's physical strength was no greater than that of any girl of her slight and delicate build, and she was no match for Cybelle's powerful limb. Her forearms and her hands quickly vanished beneath the sticky substance.
"What's she doing?" Stellar thought - though she was, of course, thinking in Korean. "What is this stuff? I - I can't get free!" At no point had it even occurred to Stellar that she might lose control of the situation. After all, she was Stellar. And yet now, she was approaching total helplessness. To her dismay, once her torso was wrapped up, Cybelle didn't stop.
"Oh, honey," the cyborg said, "you're gonna be wrapped up like a pretty little Christmas present." Using her free arm, Cybelle began spinning Stellar around to increase the speed of her encasement. The sticky substance continued circling Stellar's body, now ensnaring her legs, covering her fair skin, and gradually pressing her lovely limbs tighter and tighter together, until legs were completely covered, from waist to ankle.
It was at that moment that the lights came back on. Re-illuminated, Stellar could now see that Cybelle had bound her from top to bottom in thick, silver duct tape. She stared at herself, transfixed by the sight of her own wrapped-up state. She couldn't believe it. So distracted was she that she didn't notice Cybelle herself getting close to her, and whipping the scarf from her neck.
"Whhmmphh!" Stellar squeaked, as she suddenly found that scarf pressed over her mouth, gagging her, and tied tight with a painful yank. "Mmm-nnnmmphh!" The soft silk of the scarf caressed Stellar's lips, as gentle as a lover, but it nonetheless kept her from speaking. The material was thin, and its width was scarcely enough to obscure her lips, yet Stellar was completely incapable of removing it.
It was only when Stellar felt tape being wrapped around her shoulders and up her neck that it occurred to her to try to use her powers.
"MMMPHHHH!!" she shouted, as hard as she could. "MMMMPHHH!!" But it was no use. Her skin was covered so completely by that point that there was practically nowhere left on her body from which she could absorb light, so she had nothing to power her sonic shockwaves with. The tape went over her chin and, then over her mouth, sticking the scarf in place, and muffling her twice over. The silk protected Stellar's lips from the harsh tape, but that mattered little. Now she was even more thoroughly silenced.
"Aaaaahahahahahhahahahaha!" Arachna pointed and laughed at the wrapped-up heroine. "Looks like it's lights out for you, sweetie! Heeheeheeheehee!" Stellar blushed in embarrassment at her defeat, and turned her head away from the giggling villain. It was then that the beautiful damsel realised her position.
Every single member of the audience was staring at her. Some were still cheering, thinking it was part of the act, some were fearful, a few even trying to get away, but most were astonished. Astonished that Stellar had lost. Astonished that she had had the tables turned on her so quickly.
"Mmmmphhh..." Stellar whimpered. "They got me...and everyone can see..." Shamefaced, Stellar didn't know where to look. She didn't know what to do. A metal tendril coiled round her legs, while two hands ran down her body from her shoulders, taking in every contour of her wrapped up form.
"Oh, it's no wonder you get everyone's pulses racing," Cybelle drawled. "You're quite a sexy little creature, ain'tcha?" She was much taller than the diminutive singer, and Stellar suddenly looked very small and frail by comparison, towered over by the villainess who'd conquered her.
"Come on, let's get outta here!" Arachna urged. Her voice was trembling with excitement at the sight of the the lovely singer taped up and helpless, and she was anxious to steal their prize away. But before they could make good there escape, there was a bright flash near the front of the audience. It wasn't blinding, but it was much brighter than the incessant camera flashes, and it drew Arachna's attention.
But before she could even begin to guess at what had caused it, the source made herself very much known. A young girl, who looked no older than eighteen, leapt onto the stage. And once she was on it, she looked as if she fit right in. Dressed in a short, strapless golden dress, matching opera-style gloves, silver ankle boots and a red domino mask, the fetching maiden looked fit to perform.
"Okay, you two-bit morons, put her down right now, or prepare to get your asses well and truly kicked." To the astonishment of the two villains, the girl crouched into a fighting stance. Arachna shot her a withering look.
"And just who the hell do you think you are, interrupting us?"
"The name's Enhancegirl, lady. And you're on my turf, so really I should be the one asking who you are." She grinned. "Not that I actually care who you are."
"You little -" Arachna sprang into action. She leapt forward, propelling herself forward with superhuman strength. A normal person would probably have been able to get out of the way of the initial leap, but certainly not her subsequent strike. But Sophie was much, much more than human, and she knew what Arachna was going to do almost before she herself did. She not only dodged her punch - which would have knocked her out instantly had it connected - she retaliated with a sharp kick to the midriff.
"Oooff!" The high heel of Sophie's - for it was Sophie Scott under the red mask of Enhancegirl - boot connected directly with Arachna's stomach. She was not completely winded, but she was close to it, and - shocked at Enhancegirl's speed and precision - backed off to avoid further attack. "Who...the hell...is she?!"
"Okay, Cybelle," Enhancegirl said. The cyborg raised an eyebrow. She'd not expected this upstart to know her.
"I'm impressed, little girl," she said. "I didn't expect someone of such...clearly unrefined disposition as yourself to be aware of me."
"Put Stellar down," Enhancegirl commanded. "Right now."
"You're not in a position to give me orders, darlin'," Cybelle replied. "I can always -" It became apparent that Enhancegirl had less patience than Cybelle for witty repartee, as she charged towards her foe. Cybelle analysed her quickly - no super strength was apparent, no enhanced speed, no energy projection - she'd taken care of Arachna quickly, but how?
As a test, Cybelle shot out an arm to strike her, but seemingly before she'd finished plotting the co-ordinates of her attack, Enhancegirl had already moved out of the way.
"Some kinda precognition?" Cybelle thought. She tried again, and again Enhancegirl dodged. The tendril was behind her now, and they came in for the attack, but Enhancegirl slipped elegantly between them. However, she not only did that, she grabbed the end of the arm, and increased its speed along its path. To her great surprise, Cybelle calculated that she would not be able to dodge it, and she had to raise her other tendril to block her own limb.
This, of course, meant dropping Stellar; and that was precisely what Sophie had counted on. As Cybelle untangled her limbs, Sophie lunged at her. Early warning systems of her own alerted Cybelle to the attack, and she backed away easily, but this now made it a simple matter for Enhancegirl to grab Stellar, which she managed to do before the popstar had even hit the ground.
With one fluid motion, Enhancegirl tore away the tape from Stellar's mouth, before yanking the scarf from her lips.
"Are you alright, Stellar?" she asked. Her inner fangirl suddenly realised that she was inches away from her idol, who was, for that matter, actually lying in her arms. The lovely blonde smiled in response, making Sophie's heart flutter.
"I will be," she said. "A Black Star!" Suddenly, the rescued damsel was surrounded by a thick black mist. Sophie dropped her in surprise, and watched as she was enveloped entirely in the dark cloud. But as soon as it had come, it had gone.
"Stellar?" Enhancegirl wasn't sure what had happened. But suddenly, Stellar coiled her legs up, and thrust them forward, launching herself up onto her feet. A second letter, there was a loud bang, like the popping of a large balloon. To Sophie's astonishment, the tape wrapped around the slender heroine had been burst off her, and she stood free of her bonds. She was also completely transformed.
Again, the face and body were the same, but her hair was now waist length, straight and black. Her eyes were gleaming hazel, and her clothes were radically different. Gone was the dress, replaced by a, frankly, tiny leather skirt, a leather tube top which left her shoulders, arms and stomach totally exposed, and flat, black shoes on her feet, leaving her legs even more exposed than Sophie's. On her hands and elbows, leather patches with formidable spikes coming off them. Her other personae had looked formidable in their way, once Stellar had really started showing off her power, but this was the first to look dangerous.
A recovered Cybelle, enraged that her work in capturing Stellar had been undone so quickly, shot out a tendril at the transformed Korean. But the heroine simply caught the limb in one hand, holding it in place effortlessly.
"What?!" Cybelle exclaimed, unable to get the limb out of Stellar's formerly weak grip.
"Heh," Stellar laughed, a rougher edge in her voice. "Looks like you underestimated me, cyber lady." With that, she heaved at Cybelle's arm, tossing her across the stage in a long arc.
"Aaaagghh!" she cried out, sailing through the air. She landed hard, in a painful sounding impact. To her credit, though, she was on her feet pretty fast - she was made of sterner stuff than the average joe. By this point, Arachna had recovered as well. The heroines were on one side of the stage, the villainesses on the other.
"Two against two," Stellar said. "I'd say it was fair, if you two didn't look so weak." More even than the White Star, the Black Star was extremely confident. She turned to Sophie. "Thanks for the help. You seem pretty strong." She winked. "I hope you can keep up with me."
"You bet I can!" Sophie said, still a little starstruck.
"I'll take the girl," Cybelle said. "You take care of our princess."
"You betcha," Arachna said. The two sides had chosen their opponents. There was a moment of hesitation...and then they attacked.
"You won't take me by surprise this time, girl," Cybelle said, thrusting out her limbs towards the leggy redhead.
"I don't need to," Sophie said, avoiding the attack. She struck at what she saw to be a weaker point in the tendril - but weaker wasn't weak. She wasn't strong enough to exploit the weakness. She tried to attack Cybelle's body, but she dodged Sophie's blows. In their capacity to anticipate and avoid each other, they seemed matched.
Arachna and Stellar seemed less matched. Though Arachna had strength much greater than an ordinary person, it was scarcely a third of Stellar's. Every time they crossed blows, Stellar knocked her back, or down. And she was fast, too: Arachna had her matched there, but it made little difference considering their disparity in strength.
"Ohhhgghhh!!" Arachna groaned, hurled aside once again by Stellar's power.
"Are you even trying?" Stellar said. "If you want to capture me, you'll have to be stronger!"
Enhancegirl was not in a position to be so cocky. She was having to use the full extent of her power to keep up with Cybelle, though even her cybernetic enhancements were not enough to overmatch Sophie. It was as Cybelle was drawing back her arm for another strike that Sophie felt a curious tremor in the air around the metal limb. It was as if something was building up inside it. The slot at the end of the arm opened, and Sophie concluded that Cybelle was about to try and entangle her in the tape she'd used to bind Stellar. She leapt to the side in expectation, predicting that she'd dodge the tape.
And if it had been tape, she would have done. But she had miscalculated. When the slot was fully open, it was not tape that emerged, but a fine, pink mist. Sure enough, Sophie dodged most of it, but as it diffused, some of the mist settled on Enhancegirl's face.
"What the? -" she gasped, inadvertently breathing more of the mist in. And then the sensation hit her. An overpoweringly sweet smell invaded her enhanced senses, spreading weakness throughout her whole body. "Oooohh...ooooohhhnn..." In an instant, Enhancegirl went from fighting fit, to overwhelmingly drowzy. "No - no...unnhh...sleeping gas..." she mumbled, her knees already beginning to quiver.
Cybelle was very surprised. Her tactic had been one of desperation: her spray was meant to be quite a mild soporific - it would be too dangerous to risk a more potent drug leaking and knocking her out. And yet Enhancegirl was being completely taken down by its effects. It was then that she realised.
"You have enhanced senses, don't you, darlin'? Makes you real sensitive to sedatives and such." Enhancegirl was in no position to answer, and Cybelle knew it. "So...what would happen if I did this?" She pointed her tendril at Sophie again, and sprayed her once more, this time with much more than last time.
"Aaahhh....uuuunnhhh..." Sophie moaned, as her bare shoulders and legs became damp with soporific mist. "Can't...too weak...I...ooohh..." Sophie's oft-flaunted legs failed her, and she began to collapse to the ground. But Cybelle wasn't letting her off so easily. She caught her, coiling her tendrils about her supple form, and reeling her in.
"Well, well," she crowed. "Looks like you weren't all that tough."
"You...you cheap..." Enhancegirl didn't even have enough energy to finish the insult.
"Ahaha!" Cybelle's laughter was inspired by too much genuine surprise to sound malicious, but her expression did the work on that front. "What, you think there are rules? Are you really that much of a goody-two-shoes, superheroine?" She didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she held Sophie up with one arm, while reaching for - of all things - the microphone Stellar had discarded earlier. She ripped the cord out of the bottom, discarding the microphone itself, before using her real arms to cross Sophie's behind her back, at right angles, the redhead far too limp and sleepy to resist. She then started twisting microphone cord around her wrists, cinching them together.
"Unnhhh...no..." Sophie whimpered. But before long, her arms were tightly tied behind her back with strong plastic cord. Cybelle continued, winding rope around her chest, pulling her arms against her back and squeezing her pert breasts from underneath. She wound the cord once or twice down Sophie's body, but didn't begin binding her in earnest until she reached her bare thighs, which soon felt the wire's bite as they were bound together above the knees. Another loose twist down her calves, then the remaining wire, yanked out from the other end as well, was tied around her ankles. Sophie was now totally tied up.
"There. Wasn't so hard to truss you up, little Miss."
It was at this moment that Stellar noticed her fellow heroine's plight, having just hurled Arachna to the floor once again. Ignoring the spiderlike woman, she turned to aid Sophie.
"Hey! Robo-lady! Why don't you come and fight someone a little tougher, huh?" Cybelle seemed to ignore her, so Stellar decided to make the point a different way. She lifted up one of the stage's speakers with one hand, and was about to hurl it at Cybelle, when Arachna happened to shoot a bit of webbing at her. Distracted, Stellar didn't pay it much mind when the soft silk struck her on the thigh. Arachna wasn't strong enough to pull her back.
However, Stellar suddenly felt as if she wasn't strong enough to hold the speaker. Her arm began to shake from the strain, and she dropped it.
"What?" She didn't understand what had happened. One moment she'd been at full strength, the next she hadn't. The only thing that had happened in the interim was that she'd been struck by a piece of webbing. "It's very soft," she realised. "So silky...luxurious..." The thought seemed strangely intrusive, and she suddenly felt the need to rid herself of the substance. But before she could do so, Arachna yanked on the web-line connected to Stellar's leg. To the great surprise of both parties, this pulled Stellar back at great speed.
"Aah!" she cried out, as she fell into the clutches of Arachna. Both of them were so surprised that this had been possible, that there was a moment of mutual hesitation as Arachna gripped the scantily clad beauty by her shoulders. But instinct kicked in, and webs were soon pouring out of her hands, being wound around Stellar's body. "No!" she protested, uncomprehending of how she was unable to break the silk threads. They were weaker, she knew, than the tape she'd been wrapped in before - but she couldn't break them. "Oohh..." she moaned, as her chest was rolled up in moist, sticky threads, her acres of bare skin covered with the white webs. "What's...happening to me?" She hadn't just lost her super strength. Stellar felt positively weakened, weaker than she was without her Black Star power.
It wasn't just that she felt weak. She felt...smothered, somehow, like being trapped under a too-thick, too-soft duvet. The silk against her skin felt sumptuously comfortable, as if it were sucking the effort from her limbs. As her small but perky breasts vanished under white threads, Stellar felt so overtaken by this sensation that she was starting to go weak at the knees.
"Oh, wow, this is a dream," Arachna said, as she put her hands on Stellar's thighs. "Getting to feel up the best legs in K-Pop...and then wrapping them in silk? This is definitely a day to remember!" She made good on her promise. Stellar's leather skirt and the skin of her bare legs disappeared. As Stellar's knees were tied together, she tried to summon what strength she had, but it amounted to nothing more than a wriggle. It accomplished nothing.
"Oh, you're mine, you're mine..." Arachna cackled as she began wrapping up Stellar's calves, trussing them in silk all the way to her ankles, then covering her feet completely.
"Uh...how...how are you doing this...to me?" Stellar spoke so quietly as to be almost inaudible.
"I've gotta be honest," Arachna replied, "I have absolutely no idea!" Nevertheless, she was making the best of the situation. Her hands danced over Stellar's body, securing the webbing just-so. Stellar was not completely wrapped up - her midriff, shoulders, and the middle of her thighs were still open to view. However, when the oriental captive looked down at herself, she found no comfort in her less-than-complete wrapping. Arachna had wrapped her up in such a way as to make it look as though Stellar was completely naked.
"Oh, wow," Arachna cooed, "you're even hotter in person..." she spread her hands all over Stellar's body, stroking the skin she had decided to bare while Stellar impotently struggled, gradually bringing her hands towards Stellar's lips.
"No...no...stop - nnmmmphhh..." Arachna's long-fingered hand settled over Stellar's mouth, holding in her famous voice.
"Let's keep you nice and quiet, sweetie..."
"Nnmmphhh....sttmmmphhh..." Stellar could feel something warm and sticky spreading over her lips, sealing them shut. As the webbing leaked out from under Arachna's hand, she used her other to manipulate the threads round Stellar's head, forming a tight and secure gag. "Captured twice...I don't understand..." the defeated beauty thought. "How...did they make me so weak?"
Both heroines had now been subdued and bound. The only difference was that, for Stellar, her sudden weakness was a mystery, for Enhancegirl, it was no mystery at all. She was beginning to lose track of how many villains had exploited her weakness to sedatives. She tried to move, but she was well and truly trussed up. Her head lolled forward, but Cybelle lifted her chin, pointing her towards the crowd.
"I want you to see, Enhancegirl," Cybelle said, "just how many people watched me dominate you."
"Unnhh..." Sophie moaned, her green eyes half-closed. She looked out into the audience, now half-deserted by those whom the battle had panicked. But there were still hundreds of people looking at her. To her horror, she realised that many had their cellphones out, and were photographing and even filming her. "No...don't..." she mumbled, not wanting to be seen in such an embarrassing state. But they ignored her plea. When she was satisfied that Enhancegirl understood her position, Cybelle turned her around, holding her with both hands by her soft shoulders.
It was then that Sophie saw what had become of Stellar. She saw the slender maiden being scooped into Arachna's arms, limp and weak, and bound securely in webs. To Sophie too, it seemed as if Stellar were naked, for she looked so totally vulnerable. Their eyes met, both perceiving the helplessness of the other.
"Mmmphh..." Stellar mewed. She was completely overcome with the shame of her capture, at her public humiliation. To see another heroine taken down in the same way only made it worse. Stellar had never before experienced anything like this, had never been bound or captured before. She felt utterly defenceless, like all power had been stripped from her for all time. Sophie could actually see tears welling up in the beautiful maiden's eyes, tears of shame and whimpering dismay.
"Now I'm sorry I had to do that to ya, darlin'," Cybelle said, drawing Enhancegirl's attention, "but I figure a hotheaded little thing like you needed to be taught a lesson. That lesson is: don't mess with your betters." She turned her back around, making sure she'd be watching - and she'd be watched - for what came next. She held the end of one of her tendrils right next to Sophie's face, the slot still open.
"Now, Enhancegirl," she crowed mockingly, "why don't you take a rest?" There was a loud hiss, as Cybelle sprayed yet more sedative directly into Sophie's pretty face.
"Oooohhh...oohhnnn..." Sophie whimpered, her eyes fluttering, and rolling back into her head. She was scarcely conscious at all now, completely in the grip of Cybelle's gas. She was, however, just conscious enough to feel Cybelle's hand slipping under her dress to squeeze her rear, just aware enough to hear her whisper:
"Sleep now, pretty girl, and remember just how badly I owned that tight little ass of yours." With that ringing in her ears, Sophie collapsed onto her knees, before falling onto her front, tied up, out cold - and completely defeated.
"What, what is it?!" Kirsten shrieked. The last time Sophie had made a noise like that was when she'd woken up with a spider on her face. Not that Kirsten had been much help: they were both hopeless arachnophobes. "If you throw another bug at me, I swear to -" But when Kirsten saw Sophie's face, she realised that the eighteen-year-old redhead was thrilled, not frightened.
"Kirsten, you need to understand that chances like this only come, like, once in a freaking lifetime." Her emerald eyes were wide and Kirsten had never seen her looking so enthused. "She never tours the States!"
"Who never tours the States?"
"Uh, Stellar!"
Everything about Sophie's body language indicated that she thought Kirsten would understand what she meant. The blank look she received told her that she was mistaken.
"You've seriously never heard of her?"
"Seriously."
"Ugh. You totally need to broaden your tastes," Sophie said, flicking her shoulder length, red hair in a gesture of superiority. "She's only the hottest thing in k-pop right now."
"K-pop?" Kirsten replied, still uncomprehending. "You mean Korean pop music? I didn't know you were into that."
"What, you didn't know I was into having showmanship and actual tonal variation in pop music? I'm, like, seriously starting to wonder about the longevity of our friendship."
"I don't even -"
"Kirsten, we haven't got time to listen to what you can or can't even! All you need to know is that you and me are going next Sunday, and you're gonna have the night of your freakin' life." Sophie was grinning. Kirsten couldn't find it in herself to refuse.
"I thought you were always busy weekends with that...whatever it is you do at the weekends."
"I'm taking some personal time," Sophie said.
It was true, despite maintaining the semblance of an active social life, Sophie had been socialising with less and less frequency in recent days, and none of her friends - not even Kirsten - knew why. She would never have guessed the truth. For as well as being a college student and K-Pop enthusiast, Sophie was also a superheroine.
Going by the name Enhancegirl, Sophie used her powers to fight crime in Seacouver and - thanks in part to an admiring journalist named May - had gained quite a reputation in recent months. Her crime-fighting career kept her busy - but for Stellar, Seacouver could wait.
If Sophie had been excited when she'd found out that her idol was coming to America, she was positively ecstatic when it came to the day of the performance. As she and Kirsten queued up in front of Seacouver stadium, her hands were actually shaking.
"Oh my god, Sophie, calm down," Kirsten said. Having listened to some of Stellar's music in the intervening time, she'd actually begun to look forward to the concert. Her anticipation, however, was nowhere near Sophie's.
"How can you tell me to calm down?! This is so awesome!" Even over the din of the crowd, Sophie's voice was attracting attention. And not just her voice: she and Kirsten were both dressed very fetchingly, Kirsten in a shimmering, knee-length dress, and Sophie in one of her favourite outfits: a short, tartan skirt, short-sleeved white blouse, buckled shoes and white stockings, her red hair trailing in a plait down her neck. The redhead drew quite a few stares, and she didn't mind one bit.
As the pair entered the stadium, the atmosphere was already buzzing. The stage was danced upon with brilliant, fluorescent light, synthesised music already playing. Darkness and light pulsed out of the front, a thumping, hypnotic beat enticing and confusing the senses all at once. The audience was packed - Kirsten was surprised that the Korean idol had drawn such a following in America.
"Excuse me, coming through." Sophie had no compunctions about pushing her way through the crowd to get closer to the front. She snubbed her nose at those who were already watching the action through their cellphones. "Oh my gawd," she muttered under her breath. "Who comes to a concert just to watch it through a screen?" Kirsten, who'd been about to whip out her iphone, elected at the last moment not to incur her roommate's wrath.
By the time Sophie and Kristen had pushed their way to the front, a strange hush had fallen on the audience. The beat was still strong, but something had changed. There was a palpable air of anticipation, though no-one there quite knew why. Sophie shivered, and then realised that she was not merely shivering with expectation. She was cold. It was a warm day, and the heat of all the bodies surrounding them should have been exacerbating that. But she was definitely cold.
"Huh?" Something had fallen on Kirsten's shoulder. It was some kind of white powder, but when she brushed it off she found it was icy to the touch. "It's snow," she realised. "Sophie, it's real snow!" The redhead looked up, and she was not the only one doing so. Snow was beginning to fall inside the stadium in greater and greater volume.
"Look!" One eagle-eyed crowd member saw something near the very top of the roof, a figure of some kind. But it shot off as soon as it was spotted, something under its feet supporting it. It danced through the air in dizzying pirouettes, and as it came closer and closer to the audience, it became clear that it was a woman.
Not only was it a woman. It was an exceptionally beautiful woman, slender - waiflike, even - with flawless, pale skin, dazzling ice-blue eyes, and hair of the same colour. Her features were subtle, delicate, yet with a hint of coy sexuality. As she spun in the air, dancing on a sliver of ice hovering beneath her, a thin, shimmering satin robe spun around her body, splits in the skirt occasionally offering tantalising glimpses of a pair of long, flawless legs.
She arced towards the stage, the music building to a sharp, precise resonation which the entire audience felt in their bones. Leaping off the sliver of ice (which melted away the moment she left it), she landed perfectly in the middle of the stage, a microphone stand already waiting for her.
The music went silent. The audience went silent. For a few moments, no-one knew what to make of it. The woman raised her head, eyes towards the heavens. She was not tall by any means, but she was somehow an imposing figure on the stage. She was breathing hard, her chest visibly straining against her satin shift. Condensation came out of her mouth whenever she breathed. Without looking at it, she drew the microphone close to her lips.
"Oh..." she moaned sensually, turning her eyes on the audience. "It's a true beginning..."
At this, the crowd erupted into thunderous cheering and hooting. They had been so wrapped up in the spectacle that they'd almost forgotten why they were there. But they remembered now: and there was Stellar, standing in front of them, about to launch into one of her most famous tracks.
Even though the vast majority didn't speak a word of Korean, they were happily singing along anyway, with the heavy, melancholic electronica that flowed from Stellar's lips like water from a spring in December. However, there were two audience members who were not following along. They moved very quietly and carefully through the crowd, getting ever closer to the stage. Their eyes were fixed on the beautiful popstar, but they looked at Stellar not with excitement or anticipation, but with villainy on their minds.
Sophie, however, was oblivious to this. All she cared about was the absurdly fantastic time she was having. Even Kirsten was loving it, totally caught in Stellar's icy spell. She moved across the stage as though she were skating, though her feet were bare, gliding across without the slightest perturbation of her voice. Blue lights illuminated her at all time, as though she were an operatic heroine lamenting her own death by drowning.
But gradually, the lights began to warm. The tempo of the song began to increase. A distinctly electro-pop note broke into the music, and her expression began to lighten somewhat. She began to spin, faster and faster, whirling round on the spot more quickly than it seemed possible for a human being to do.
"A white star..." she said, and there was a dazzling flash. Suddenly, the blue haired beauty was gone. Or rather, she was changed. Her face, her form, all those were the same. But her hair was no longer flowing and blue, but a cute, blonde bob-cut. Her eyes were green now, and even her skin was a little less pale. She was no longer in a loose satin robe, but an extremely tight, extremely short white dress, its lycra makeup clinging to her gorgeous body. Her shoulders were bare, though a thin white scarf was tied around her neck. Knee-high white boots covered her calves, and she was now smiling sweetly, even flirtatiously at the audience. "It's my champagne dream!" she sang, her voice now bubbly and warm.
"We love the White Star!!" Sophie screamed. None of them batted an eyelid at this transformation, as none of them had batted an eyelid at the ice on which she had sailed. For Stellar was not merely a pop singer. Like Sophie, she was a superheroine. Unlike Sophie, however, she did not hide her abilities, using them to dramatic effect not only to battle injustice, but also to thrill her audiences.
The Blue Star was the first persona they had seen, the White Star what she had subsequently turned into. Unlike most heroes, Stellar had three distinct power sets, and could switch between them at will, using each as an individual stage persona. Her first gave her power over ice and cold. The power of the second became clear, as Stellar's microphone switched off - and the volume of her performance increased.
"What's she doing?" Kirsten asked. She was not up on the specifics.
"She's absorbing the light that hits her skin," Sophie explained, "and turning it into sound." She was doing so to great effect. Modulating the pitch and timbre of her voice, Stellar could make herself sound as if her voice had been subject to all manner of electronic manipulation, when in fact she was doing all the work herself.
"Thank you so much!" she said, in a peppy, not-quite-spot-on accent. "I am so excited today! America, you are such great hosts for me!"
"We love you Stellar!" a few squealing schoolgirls right at the front chorused. She put her hand to her chest in coy modesty, before turning and winking over her shoulder, beginning the next number.
However, before that song was even thirty seconds in, something strange happened. There was someone on the stage. The security keeping the crowd from the performer were astonished to see that someone had got past them. No-one had seen her forcing her way past. She was just there. It was a dark haired woman, clad in a tight, red catsuit. She moved bizarrely, rolling her shoulders with every step. She seemed to have Stellar in her sights.
"What the hell?" Sophie hadn't seen what happened either. Stellar ignored the intruder, and many were beginning to think it was part of the act. However, some of the security guards clambered onto the stage, trying to get rid of the unwelcome supporting act.
"Yaarrghh!" one of them cried out, as he was hauled back by his collar, and thrown to the ground. The other two were similarly dispatched, before they could even get eyes on their assailant.
"Sorry, boys," the newcomer said, rising onto the stage herself. Though Stellar had ignored the first intruder, the cries of the guards drew her attention, and she found herself greeted by a strange sight.
It was a woman, tall and voluptuous, with long blonde hair. Her limbs were long - all six of them. Four were as you might expect them - the other two were not. For one thing, they were made entirely of metal, like long, mechanical tendrils, with formidable looking clamps. They were attached to her waist, and seemed as mobile as her actual arms. She was clad in form fitting leather, also quite alluring, but much more practical than her partner's clothes.
And then there was her face. Most was relatively unremarkable, though quite pretty, but the upper-right quarter of her face was covered by a metal mask, like something out of The Phantom of the Opera. Even her eye was obscured, a red blinking light gleaming from where it should have been.
Stellar was so taken back by her appearance, that she actually stopped singing. Confused murmurs came from the crowd. Most of them hadn't seen the blonde crash the party, so they thought it might be part of the act. Much of the crowd, in fact, was still cheering wildly.
"Wow!" Stellar said, suddenly, projecting her voice across the entire auditorium. "You guys are such big fans you came all the way up here to see me!"
"Oh yeah," the robotic woman said, in a Southern drawl. "We're huge fans..."
"Hehehehe!" the other woman cackled, getting close enough to the microphone that the audience could hear her. "Okay, she's being sarcastic, but I am actually a huge fan, Miss Stellar!"
"That's so nice," Stellar said, smiling winningly.
"I mean, I would definitely be asking for your autograph right now. Y'know, if we weren't here to kidnap you."
At this the entire crowd reacted. People didn't know whether to boo or cheer, or call the police.
"Is this part of the act?" Kirsten said.
"I've got no idea," Sophie replied, the crowd now quiet enough for her to speak at a more or less normal volume. "But that blonde looks weirdly familiar..."
"Oh!" Stellar gasped, clasping her hands to her face. "You - you want to kidnap me?"
"That's what we said, genius," the blonde replied. She was beginning to think that her target was not all there. "So why don't you just make it easy for us and stay still." The two began advancing on her.
"Oh no," Stellar said, "you both look so scary..." Pigeon-toed, Stellar placed her arms behind her back. "I...won't fight back..."
"That's what I like to hear," the blonde said. "Arachna?" The dark haired woman smiled, strutting towards her target.
"This isn't right," Sophie said, and she began barging towards the front, shoving people out of the way to get forward.
"Sophie!" Kirsten called out, but in a moment her friend had vanished. "What is she doing?!"
"Stay still, sweetie, okay?" Arachna said, taking Stellar by the wrists. She gasped, wriggling uncomfortably, but impotently. To her surprise, the Korean superstar felt something soft and silky against her wrists, being wrapped around them, binding her hands behind her back. She craned her neck to see white threads trapping her, threads that were coming out of the hands of Arachna. "Having spider-like powers has lotsa advantages," Arachna said, "but being able to spin webs is definitely my favourite. After all, I can tie up as many pretty pop-princesses as I like!" She knelt down, and Stellar felt her ankles being pressed together, as her feet were tied in silk as well. She was now bound.
"Oh...oh..." she mewed, "please don't tie me up..."
"Oh, you're so cute!" Arachna laughed. "You really think you have a say in the matter?"
"Stop playing, Arachna," the blonde said. "Let's just get out of here."
"No! Don't! Please let me go..." Stellar pleaded, wriggling in the silky bonds.
"Keep your trap shut, doll," the blonde snapped. To her surprise, Stellar was not cowed. On the contrary, her pleading expression turned into a sly smile.
"Actually," she said, "I don't think I will." On the last word of her sentence, Stellar magnified the force of her voice exponentially. Far, far before the blonde could react, she was blown backwards, head over heels.
"What the -?" Arachna stuttered.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Stellar said. "Weren't you listening? It's okay, I'll say it again. Let me go." Another boum, and Arachna was hurled back the way she'd come. Not only that, but Stellar's bonds were ripped asunder.
Needless to say, this provoked an extremely loud reaction from the crowd. Now they were convinced it was part of the show. Even Sophie, who was almost at the edge of the stage now, stopped.
"It looks like she was in control all along...but were they part of the act?" The blonde clambered to her feet, visibly shaken. Sophie gave her another look, and she was much closer this time. "Wait a minute...that's Cybelle!" Sophie had recognised her face for a reason. Cybelle was a notorious villainess, having crossed swords with members of the superheroic community on multiple occasions. No mastermind herself, Cybelle was a mercenary, acquiring as much money and as many resources as she possibly could, to advance her cybernetic enhancements to the greatest extent. Sophie still didn't recognise the other woman, though.
"Okay," Arachna said, "I gotta say, you surrendering like that was kinda hot - I like 'em a little passive - but it wouldn't be satisfying capturing you if you didn't put up a bit of a fight. I mean, you're Stellar!"
"You're being so nice to me," Stellar replied. "I feel a bit..." She searched for the word. "Unkind to do this, but...sorry." Another boum. Once again Arachna flew back, her ears ringing.
"You think you're hot stuff, don'tcha, doll?" Cybelle said. Stellar turned to face her.
"Well," she said, smiling, "I have sold more than two million records."
"Well I think you need to be taught a lesson!" She lunged with her right arm, her cybernetic limbs simultaneously striking from different directions, a pattern calculated to be as difficult as possible to avoid.
But Stellar was more formidable than her charming face suggested, and in rapid succession she dodged all three.
"Damn you!" Cybelle growled in frustration. was more than capable of being indignant and calculating at the same time, and she quickly worked out another plan of attack. She swiped one of her robotic tendrils at Stellar's feet. She jumped over the attack, but Cybelle had expected her to. Her tendril was not only prehensile, but telescopic, and it extended, turning on itself and attempting to strike Stellar from behind.
But the Korean heroine was too cunning. To Cybelle's surprise, Stellar pushed herself up using her powers, avoiding the strike, and almost causing Cybelle to hit herself in the face with her own limb. While she avoided that embarrassment, she did not avoid the strike that came next, as she was knocked down by the Korean word for "idiot."
By this time, the crowd were once again convinced that everything was going according to plan. Indeed, Stellar was dancing around her enemies' attacks with such grace and ease that it seemed no other conclusion was possible. Webs shot at her, but she either dodged or disintegrated them. Cybelle struck again and again with her tendrils, but she simply couldn't get close enough to use them effectively.
The odds seemed stacked heavily against the two villains, until they benefited from a very simple piece of luck. As Cybelle lunged, reaching out with her robotic arms in yet another attempt to seize Stellar, the popstar drew in breath to shout her away once again. But just as she did, the stage wiring, disturbed by the battle raging between the three women, momentarily gave out, plunging Stellar into darkness.
"Back!" she cried out, but with nothing more than her ordinary voice. Plunged into darkness, the source of her power was taken away from her. Frozen with shock, she hesitated for a moment. And in that moment, Cybelle grabbed her.
"Gotcha!" The Southern blonde didn't need to see to be able to swiftly wrap one of her tendrils around the Korean woman, cold metal squeezing against her arms and thighs, pulling her legs together, and trapping her arms at her sides.
"Unh!" Stellar groaned, suddenly finding herself caught. Not only was she powerless, she was blind.
"Heh. You're not so tough, girlie," Cybelle chuckled to herself. She was not hindered in the slightest by the darkness, using infra-red vision to keep watch on her struggling target. But having the pretty starlet in the grip of her tendril was not enough for her peace of mind. Bringing her other cybernetic limb to bear, Cybelle opened a slot at the end of the arm, and pressed it against Stellar's shoulder.
"Ah!" Stellar gasped, still blanketed in night, as she felt something sticky against her skin. She heard the arm move, and heard a tearing sound, at the same time feeling the sticky substance all along her back, just beneath her neck, covering up her exposed shoulders and the upper parts of her breasts, before being wound down her body, the first arm moving to allow the second to wrap up her torso. Indeed, once her upper arms were pinned in the substance, the first arm unwound from Stellar's body, and though her forearms were now free to wiggle, she couldn't raise them high enough. Indeed, all she got for that resistance was that her wrists were grabbed by the free arm, and crossed behind her back. Stellar's physical strength was no greater than that of any girl of her slight and delicate build, and she was no match for Cybelle's powerful limb. Her forearms and her hands quickly vanished beneath the sticky substance.
"What's she doing?" Stellar thought - though she was, of course, thinking in Korean. "What is this stuff? I - I can't get free!" At no point had it even occurred to Stellar that she might lose control of the situation. After all, she was Stellar. And yet now, she was approaching total helplessness. To her dismay, once her torso was wrapped up, Cybelle didn't stop.
"Oh, honey," the cyborg said, "you're gonna be wrapped up like a pretty little Christmas present." Using her free arm, Cybelle began spinning Stellar around to increase the speed of her encasement. The sticky substance continued circling Stellar's body, now ensnaring her legs, covering her fair skin, and gradually pressing her lovely limbs tighter and tighter together, until legs were completely covered, from waist to ankle.
It was at that moment that the lights came back on. Re-illuminated, Stellar could now see that Cybelle had bound her from top to bottom in thick, silver duct tape. She stared at herself, transfixed by the sight of her own wrapped-up state. She couldn't believe it. So distracted was she that she didn't notice Cybelle herself getting close to her, and whipping the scarf from her neck.
"Whhmmphh!" Stellar squeaked, as she suddenly found that scarf pressed over her mouth, gagging her, and tied tight with a painful yank. "Mmm-nnnmmphh!" The soft silk of the scarf caressed Stellar's lips, as gentle as a lover, but it nonetheless kept her from speaking. The material was thin, and its width was scarcely enough to obscure her lips, yet Stellar was completely incapable of removing it.
It was only when Stellar felt tape being wrapped around her shoulders and up her neck that it occurred to her to try to use her powers.
"MMMPHHHH!!" she shouted, as hard as she could. "MMMMPHHH!!" But it was no use. Her skin was covered so completely by that point that there was practically nowhere left on her body from which she could absorb light, so she had nothing to power her sonic shockwaves with. The tape went over her chin and, then over her mouth, sticking the scarf in place, and muffling her twice over. The silk protected Stellar's lips from the harsh tape, but that mattered little. Now she was even more thoroughly silenced.
"Aaaaahahahahahhahahahaha!" Arachna pointed and laughed at the wrapped-up heroine. "Looks like it's lights out for you, sweetie! Heeheeheeheehee!" Stellar blushed in embarrassment at her defeat, and turned her head away from the giggling villain. It was then that the beautiful damsel realised her position.
Every single member of the audience was staring at her. Some were still cheering, thinking it was part of the act, some were fearful, a few even trying to get away, but most were astonished. Astonished that Stellar had lost. Astonished that she had had the tables turned on her so quickly.
"Mmmmphhh..." Stellar whimpered. "They got me...and everyone can see..." Shamefaced, Stellar didn't know where to look. She didn't know what to do. A metal tendril coiled round her legs, while two hands ran down her body from her shoulders, taking in every contour of her wrapped up form.
"Oh, it's no wonder you get everyone's pulses racing," Cybelle drawled. "You're quite a sexy little creature, ain'tcha?" She was much taller than the diminutive singer, and Stellar suddenly looked very small and frail by comparison, towered over by the villainess who'd conquered her.
"Come on, let's get outta here!" Arachna urged. Her voice was trembling with excitement at the sight of the the lovely singer taped up and helpless, and she was anxious to steal their prize away. But before they could make good there escape, there was a bright flash near the front of the audience. It wasn't blinding, but it was much brighter than the incessant camera flashes, and it drew Arachna's attention.
But before she could even begin to guess at what had caused it, the source made herself very much known. A young girl, who looked no older than eighteen, leapt onto the stage. And once she was on it, she looked as if she fit right in. Dressed in a short, strapless golden dress, matching opera-style gloves, silver ankle boots and a red domino mask, the fetching maiden looked fit to perform.
"Okay, you two-bit morons, put her down right now, or prepare to get your asses well and truly kicked." To the astonishment of the two villains, the girl crouched into a fighting stance. Arachna shot her a withering look.
"And just who the hell do you think you are, interrupting us?"
"The name's Enhancegirl, lady. And you're on my turf, so really I should be the one asking who you are." She grinned. "Not that I actually care who you are."
"You little -" Arachna sprang into action. She leapt forward, propelling herself forward with superhuman strength. A normal person would probably have been able to get out of the way of the initial leap, but certainly not her subsequent strike. But Sophie was much, much more than human, and she knew what Arachna was going to do almost before she herself did. She not only dodged her punch - which would have knocked her out instantly had it connected - she retaliated with a sharp kick to the midriff.
"Oooff!" The high heel of Sophie's - for it was Sophie Scott under the red mask of Enhancegirl - boot connected directly with Arachna's stomach. She was not completely winded, but she was close to it, and - shocked at Enhancegirl's speed and precision - backed off to avoid further attack. "Who...the hell...is she?!"
"Okay, Cybelle," Enhancegirl said. The cyborg raised an eyebrow. She'd not expected this upstart to know her.
"I'm impressed, little girl," she said. "I didn't expect someone of such...clearly unrefined disposition as yourself to be aware of me."
"Put Stellar down," Enhancegirl commanded. "Right now."
"You're not in a position to give me orders, darlin'," Cybelle replied. "I can always -" It became apparent that Enhancegirl had less patience than Cybelle for witty repartee, as she charged towards her foe. Cybelle analysed her quickly - no super strength was apparent, no enhanced speed, no energy projection - she'd taken care of Arachna quickly, but how?
As a test, Cybelle shot out an arm to strike her, but seemingly before she'd finished plotting the co-ordinates of her attack, Enhancegirl had already moved out of the way.
"Some kinda precognition?" Cybelle thought. She tried again, and again Enhancegirl dodged. The tendril was behind her now, and they came in for the attack, but Enhancegirl slipped elegantly between them. However, she not only did that, she grabbed the end of the arm, and increased its speed along its path. To her great surprise, Cybelle calculated that she would not be able to dodge it, and she had to raise her other tendril to block her own limb.
This, of course, meant dropping Stellar; and that was precisely what Sophie had counted on. As Cybelle untangled her limbs, Sophie lunged at her. Early warning systems of her own alerted Cybelle to the attack, and she backed away easily, but this now made it a simple matter for Enhancegirl to grab Stellar, which she managed to do before the popstar had even hit the ground.
With one fluid motion, Enhancegirl tore away the tape from Stellar's mouth, before yanking the scarf from her lips.
"Are you alright, Stellar?" she asked. Her inner fangirl suddenly realised that she was inches away from her idol, who was, for that matter, actually lying in her arms. The lovely blonde smiled in response, making Sophie's heart flutter.
"I will be," she said. "A Black Star!" Suddenly, the rescued damsel was surrounded by a thick black mist. Sophie dropped her in surprise, and watched as she was enveloped entirely in the dark cloud. But as soon as it had come, it had gone.
"Stellar?" Enhancegirl wasn't sure what had happened. But suddenly, Stellar coiled her legs up, and thrust them forward, launching herself up onto her feet. A second letter, there was a loud bang, like the popping of a large balloon. To Sophie's astonishment, the tape wrapped around the slender heroine had been burst off her, and she stood free of her bonds. She was also completely transformed.
Again, the face and body were the same, but her hair was now waist length, straight and black. Her eyes were gleaming hazel, and her clothes were radically different. Gone was the dress, replaced by a, frankly, tiny leather skirt, a leather tube top which left her shoulders, arms and stomach totally exposed, and flat, black shoes on her feet, leaving her legs even more exposed than Sophie's. On her hands and elbows, leather patches with formidable spikes coming off them. Her other personae had looked formidable in their way, once Stellar had really started showing off her power, but this was the first to look dangerous.
A recovered Cybelle, enraged that her work in capturing Stellar had been undone so quickly, shot out a tendril at the transformed Korean. But the heroine simply caught the limb in one hand, holding it in place effortlessly.
"What?!" Cybelle exclaimed, unable to get the limb out of Stellar's formerly weak grip.
"Heh," Stellar laughed, a rougher edge in her voice. "Looks like you underestimated me, cyber lady." With that, she heaved at Cybelle's arm, tossing her across the stage in a long arc.
"Aaaagghh!" she cried out, sailing through the air. She landed hard, in a painful sounding impact. To her credit, though, she was on her feet pretty fast - she was made of sterner stuff than the average joe. By this point, Arachna had recovered as well. The heroines were on one side of the stage, the villainesses on the other.
"Two against two," Stellar said. "I'd say it was fair, if you two didn't look so weak." More even than the White Star, the Black Star was extremely confident. She turned to Sophie. "Thanks for the help. You seem pretty strong." She winked. "I hope you can keep up with me."
"You bet I can!" Sophie said, still a little starstruck.
"I'll take the girl," Cybelle said. "You take care of our princess."
"You betcha," Arachna said. The two sides had chosen their opponents. There was a moment of hesitation...and then they attacked.
"You won't take me by surprise this time, girl," Cybelle said, thrusting out her limbs towards the leggy redhead.
"I don't need to," Sophie said, avoiding the attack. She struck at what she saw to be a weaker point in the tendril - but weaker wasn't weak. She wasn't strong enough to exploit the weakness. She tried to attack Cybelle's body, but she dodged Sophie's blows. In their capacity to anticipate and avoid each other, they seemed matched.
Arachna and Stellar seemed less matched. Though Arachna had strength much greater than an ordinary person, it was scarcely a third of Stellar's. Every time they crossed blows, Stellar knocked her back, or down. And she was fast, too: Arachna had her matched there, but it made little difference considering their disparity in strength.
"Ohhhgghhh!!" Arachna groaned, hurled aside once again by Stellar's power.
"Are you even trying?" Stellar said. "If you want to capture me, you'll have to be stronger!"
Enhancegirl was not in a position to be so cocky. She was having to use the full extent of her power to keep up with Cybelle, though even her cybernetic enhancements were not enough to overmatch Sophie. It was as Cybelle was drawing back her arm for another strike that Sophie felt a curious tremor in the air around the metal limb. It was as if something was building up inside it. The slot at the end of the arm opened, and Sophie concluded that Cybelle was about to try and entangle her in the tape she'd used to bind Stellar. She leapt to the side in expectation, predicting that she'd dodge the tape.
And if it had been tape, she would have done. But she had miscalculated. When the slot was fully open, it was not tape that emerged, but a fine, pink mist. Sure enough, Sophie dodged most of it, but as it diffused, some of the mist settled on Enhancegirl's face.
"What the? -" she gasped, inadvertently breathing more of the mist in. And then the sensation hit her. An overpoweringly sweet smell invaded her enhanced senses, spreading weakness throughout her whole body. "Oooohh...ooooohhhnn..." In an instant, Enhancegirl went from fighting fit, to overwhelmingly drowzy. "No - no...unnhh...sleeping gas..." she mumbled, her knees already beginning to quiver.
Cybelle was very surprised. Her tactic had been one of desperation: her spray was meant to be quite a mild soporific - it would be too dangerous to risk a more potent drug leaking and knocking her out. And yet Enhancegirl was being completely taken down by its effects. It was then that she realised.
"You have enhanced senses, don't you, darlin'? Makes you real sensitive to sedatives and such." Enhancegirl was in no position to answer, and Cybelle knew it. "So...what would happen if I did this?" She pointed her tendril at Sophie again, and sprayed her once more, this time with much more than last time.
"Aaahhh....uuuunnhhh..." Sophie moaned, as her bare shoulders and legs became damp with soporific mist. "Can't...too weak...I...ooohh..." Sophie's oft-flaunted legs failed her, and she began to collapse to the ground. But Cybelle wasn't letting her off so easily. She caught her, coiling her tendrils about her supple form, and reeling her in.
"Well, well," she crowed. "Looks like you weren't all that tough."
"You...you cheap..." Enhancegirl didn't even have enough energy to finish the insult.
"Ahaha!" Cybelle's laughter was inspired by too much genuine surprise to sound malicious, but her expression did the work on that front. "What, you think there are rules? Are you really that much of a goody-two-shoes, superheroine?" She didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she held Sophie up with one arm, while reaching for - of all things - the microphone Stellar had discarded earlier. She ripped the cord out of the bottom, discarding the microphone itself, before using her real arms to cross Sophie's behind her back, at right angles, the redhead far too limp and sleepy to resist. She then started twisting microphone cord around her wrists, cinching them together.
"Unnhhh...no..." Sophie whimpered. But before long, her arms were tightly tied behind her back with strong plastic cord. Cybelle continued, winding rope around her chest, pulling her arms against her back and squeezing her pert breasts from underneath. She wound the cord once or twice down Sophie's body, but didn't begin binding her in earnest until she reached her bare thighs, which soon felt the wire's bite as they were bound together above the knees. Another loose twist down her calves, then the remaining wire, yanked out from the other end as well, was tied around her ankles. Sophie was now totally tied up.
"There. Wasn't so hard to truss you up, little Miss."
It was at this moment that Stellar noticed her fellow heroine's plight, having just hurled Arachna to the floor once again. Ignoring the spiderlike woman, she turned to aid Sophie.
"Hey! Robo-lady! Why don't you come and fight someone a little tougher, huh?" Cybelle seemed to ignore her, so Stellar decided to make the point a different way. She lifted up one of the stage's speakers with one hand, and was about to hurl it at Cybelle, when Arachna happened to shoot a bit of webbing at her. Distracted, Stellar didn't pay it much mind when the soft silk struck her on the thigh. Arachna wasn't strong enough to pull her back.
However, Stellar suddenly felt as if she wasn't strong enough to hold the speaker. Her arm began to shake from the strain, and she dropped it.
"What?" She didn't understand what had happened. One moment she'd been at full strength, the next she hadn't. The only thing that had happened in the interim was that she'd been struck by a piece of webbing. "It's very soft," she realised. "So silky...luxurious..." The thought seemed strangely intrusive, and she suddenly felt the need to rid herself of the substance. But before she could do so, Arachna yanked on the web-line connected to Stellar's leg. To the great surprise of both parties, this pulled Stellar back at great speed.
"Aah!" she cried out, as she fell into the clutches of Arachna. Both of them were so surprised that this had been possible, that there was a moment of mutual hesitation as Arachna gripped the scantily clad beauty by her shoulders. But instinct kicked in, and webs were soon pouring out of her hands, being wound around Stellar's body. "No!" she protested, uncomprehending of how she was unable to break the silk threads. They were weaker, she knew, than the tape she'd been wrapped in before - but she couldn't break them. "Oohh..." she moaned, as her chest was rolled up in moist, sticky threads, her acres of bare skin covered with the white webs. "What's...happening to me?" She hadn't just lost her super strength. Stellar felt positively weakened, weaker than she was without her Black Star power.
It wasn't just that she felt weak. She felt...smothered, somehow, like being trapped under a too-thick, too-soft duvet. The silk against her skin felt sumptuously comfortable, as if it were sucking the effort from her limbs. As her small but perky breasts vanished under white threads, Stellar felt so overtaken by this sensation that she was starting to go weak at the knees.
"Oh, wow, this is a dream," Arachna said, as she put her hands on Stellar's thighs. "Getting to feel up the best legs in K-Pop...and then wrapping them in silk? This is definitely a day to remember!" She made good on her promise. Stellar's leather skirt and the skin of her bare legs disappeared. As Stellar's knees were tied together, she tried to summon what strength she had, but it amounted to nothing more than a wriggle. It accomplished nothing.
"Oh, you're mine, you're mine..." Arachna cackled as she began wrapping up Stellar's calves, trussing them in silk all the way to her ankles, then covering her feet completely.
"Uh...how...how are you doing this...to me?" Stellar spoke so quietly as to be almost inaudible.
"I've gotta be honest," Arachna replied, "I have absolutely no idea!" Nevertheless, she was making the best of the situation. Her hands danced over Stellar's body, securing the webbing just-so. Stellar was not completely wrapped up - her midriff, shoulders, and the middle of her thighs were still open to view. However, when the oriental captive looked down at herself, she found no comfort in her less-than-complete wrapping. Arachna had wrapped her up in such a way as to make it look as though Stellar was completely naked.
"Oh, wow," Arachna cooed, "you're even hotter in person..." she spread her hands all over Stellar's body, stroking the skin she had decided to bare while Stellar impotently struggled, gradually bringing her hands towards Stellar's lips.
"No...no...stop - nnmmmphhh..." Arachna's long-fingered hand settled over Stellar's mouth, holding in her famous voice.
"Let's keep you nice and quiet, sweetie..."
"Nnmmphhh....sttmmmphhh..." Stellar could feel something warm and sticky spreading over her lips, sealing them shut. As the webbing leaked out from under Arachna's hand, she used her other to manipulate the threads round Stellar's head, forming a tight and secure gag. "Captured twice...I don't understand..." the defeated beauty thought. "How...did they make me so weak?"
Both heroines had now been subdued and bound. The only difference was that, for Stellar, her sudden weakness was a mystery, for Enhancegirl, it was no mystery at all. She was beginning to lose track of how many villains had exploited her weakness to sedatives. She tried to move, but she was well and truly trussed up. Her head lolled forward, but Cybelle lifted her chin, pointing her towards the crowd.
"I want you to see, Enhancegirl," Cybelle said, "just how many people watched me dominate you."
"Unnhh..." Sophie moaned, her green eyes half-closed. She looked out into the audience, now half-deserted by those whom the battle had panicked. But there were still hundreds of people looking at her. To her horror, she realised that many had their cellphones out, and were photographing and even filming her. "No...don't..." she mumbled, not wanting to be seen in such an embarrassing state. But they ignored her plea. When she was satisfied that Enhancegirl understood her position, Cybelle turned her around, holding her with both hands by her soft shoulders.
It was then that Sophie saw what had become of Stellar. She saw the slender maiden being scooped into Arachna's arms, limp and weak, and bound securely in webs. To Sophie too, it seemed as if Stellar were naked, for she looked so totally vulnerable. Their eyes met, both perceiving the helplessness of the other.
"Mmmphh..." Stellar mewed. She was completely overcome with the shame of her capture, at her public humiliation. To see another heroine taken down in the same way only made it worse. Stellar had never before experienced anything like this, had never been bound or captured before. She felt utterly defenceless, like all power had been stripped from her for all time. Sophie could actually see tears welling up in the beautiful maiden's eyes, tears of shame and whimpering dismay.
"Now I'm sorry I had to do that to ya, darlin'," Cybelle said, drawing Enhancegirl's attention, "but I figure a hotheaded little thing like you needed to be taught a lesson. That lesson is: don't mess with your betters." She turned her back around, making sure she'd be watching - and she'd be watched - for what came next. She held the end of one of her tendrils right next to Sophie's face, the slot still open.
"Now, Enhancegirl," she crowed mockingly, "why don't you take a rest?" There was a loud hiss, as Cybelle sprayed yet more sedative directly into Sophie's pretty face.
"Oooohhh...oohhnnn..." Sophie whimpered, her eyes fluttering, and rolling back into her head. She was scarcely conscious at all now, completely in the grip of Cybelle's gas. She was, however, just conscious enough to feel Cybelle's hand slipping under her dress to squeeze her rear, just aware enough to hear her whisper:
"Sleep now, pretty girl, and remember just how badly I owned that tight little ass of yours." With that ringing in her ears, Sophie collapsed onto her knees, before falling onto her front, tied up, out cold - and completely defeated.