Enhancegirl 8: Prisoner of the Sleep Mistress

[Damselbinder]

As dawn broke on Seacouver, there were already quite a few people making their way to work. It was no New York, but it was still buzzing in a vital sort of way. The streets were wide, and open, and what few tall buildings there were weren't oppressive, didn't crush the rest of the city together.

A tall, beautiful woman walked these streets, quickly and brusquely. Her name was Mariko Asakura. Her black hair was neatly, stylishly groomed, her gorgeous face impeccably made up. She wore a long, beige overcoat over a short, black-and-white dress, tall heels clacking hard against the ground. She was on her way to a modelling gig - no-one looking at the gorgeous young woman would have doubted that.

Today, though, Mariko walked with less cool, poised confidence than she ordinarily did. She walked hurriedly, her head down, her hands thrust into her coat pockets. The normally cool-headed heroine was in a state of emotional turmoil, her head spinning from a recent discovery which she had not in the least expected.

Mariko was in love. She hadn't wanted it, hadn't sought it out - but it happened. A feisty, hot-headed girl named Sophie had captured Mariko's proud heart. But the model wasn't happy at this realisation. As her heart pounded, it tore at her as well. It wasn't because Sophie was a woman - Mariko had never actually been with a woman, but homosexual attraction was nothing new to her. It wasn't even because she, like Mariko, was a superheroine. It was because, simply, she didn't believe that it was humanly possible that Sophie could return her feelings.

She was too cold, she thought. Too proud. Perhaps even too powerful, too intimidating.
"And vain..." she added to herself. When she'd first met Sophie, she'd made an earnest attempt to sabotage her career, humiliated by the fact that Sophie had had to rescue her from a common thug. She'd revealed what she'd done just after the two of them had escaped the clutches of Madam Black, expecting Sophie to hate her for it. Though angered, the redhead had eventually forgiven her, not least because since then Mariko had more than once put herself in mortal danger to help her.

Yet still, when she thought of that now, she was sick to her stomach. Sophie, she assured herself, would never feel what she felt. How could she? After all, she was Spectra - the beautiful, the mighty - but she had not cultivated a character that people would fall in love with. She had made herself something distant, something to be looked up to and admired, even in her personal friendships.

"So how could she...how could she love me back?" Mariko thought. "How could anyone?" She clenched her fist. "I'll forget it. People fall in love unrequitedly all the time. I'll just - I'll forget it." This was, however, the third time she'd told herself this, and she still couldn't get Sophie, and her feelings for her, out of her mind. Every thought raced back to the sweet, yet intemperate girl who had made her heart throb.

"Why did this have to happen?" she thought. "Why can't I control this?" She shook her head. "You're being ridiculous. It's just an infatuation, you don't really -" But even before she finished the thought, she stopped herself. Sophie didn't deserve just an infatuation. She deserved to be adored, to be taken care of, to be made to feel special, and wanted, and -

"Christ!" Mariko shouted out loud. "What the hell is wrong with me?! I sound like a simpering schoolgirl..." She tried again to push Sophie out of her thoughts - but this time she met with a greater degree of success. That was not due to any hidden well of emotional control, however. She saw that the pedestrians around her were pointing at something, murmuring with the nervous confusion of a people used to coping with astonishing events - but sensible enough to be afraid.

They were pointing at the Seacouver Needle, the tallest structure in the city - sometimes called 'The Shitty Needle' due to its resemblance and inferiority to the Seattle Needle - and with good reason. The whole building was crackling with electricity, and as Mariko looked closer, she could see some kind of blue bubble around the highest part. It crackled and hissed - before making a very strange sound indeed.

It was a kind of high pitched, electronic shriek, followed by a low 'boum'. The sound itself was startling enough - but every Seacouverite knew it for what it was. It was the sound that accompanied the use of the powers of a particular man, a man most had thought long dead.
"The Supremacist!" one of the civilians shouted. "Jesus Fucking Christ, the Supremacist is back!" The controlled concern of the people around now turned to abject panic. People started screaming, and running.

"The Supremacist...?" One of the most powerful supervillains ever to have threatened the world, the Supremacist had been thought killed by the Indigo Titan. In addition to his own vast powers, he'd once commanded a legion of lesser villains, and had killed thousands in his time. The people were right to fear - but terror was not a luxury Mariko afforded herself.

"Spectrum is Green!" There was a bright flash, the people's panic forgotten in astonishment. When the light faded, the attractive woman that some of them had noticed, but none had recognised, was clad in silver. Knee high-boots, a tight, silver, off-the-shoulder leotard, a kind of half-cape skirt, and a silver domino mask marked the outfit of Spectra, Mistress of Light, one of Seacouver's most beloved heroes.
"Do not fear," she said. "Your champions will not fail you."
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"Mmmhhh..." Sophie Scott mewed, stirring awake. She stretched like a cat, curling her toes and fingers. "Uhh..." She rubbed her nose, sitting up, but still resting. She still felt exhausted from her ordeal at the hands of the Sin Eater, the freakish superhuman who had captured and brainwashed the young heroine. In her distress, she'd run to her fellow heroine Mariko, also known as Spectra, and indeed had fallen asleep on her couch.

"Mariko?" she said softly. But her friend wasn't there. She looked down, seeing that Mariko had laid a blanket over her as she slept. She found herself blushing a little, though she wasn't sure why. It was such a sweet, comforting gesture. She held the blanket against her chest, filled with a sense of affection for her slender friend. She had a feeling that not many got to see that side of Mariko.

She got up, rubbing the bridge of her nose, and blinking her eyes a few times. "Geez, what freaking time is it?" She yawned, glancing at a clock. It was only 7.30. "Huh. Thought for sure it'd be later..." She'd only been asleep for about four hours, yet she felt incredibly rested. "Well, not like I'm complaining..."

She called out to Mariko again, and received silence as an answer. She wandered into the kitchen, and saw a pastry sitting on a plate in the middle of the worktop, with a small note by it.
"Went to work," it read. "Didn't want to wake you. Feel free to stay for a while - but don't feel compelled either." Sophie laughed at Mariko's compulsive brusqueness.

She felt a great deal of warmth towards her lovely friend at that moment. She'd been there for her in a very significant way at an hour of great need. Mariko had rescued her from physical peril more than once before - but this had touched the maiden's heart in a deeper way. She sat down, eating what her fellow heroine had left for her.

She remembered throwing herself into Mariko's arms in her distress, the tall young woman's soft limbs curled round her. Sophie had an odd feeling, like nothing but Mariko's embrace would have done in that moment. Talking with her, joking with her, falling asleep next to her, it had all felt so...nice. Sophie had a feeling that wasn't quite the right word, but it would have to do.

Sophie walked back into the room she'd slept in. The television was still quietly buzzing to itself. When she'd fallen asleep it had been playing a Roy Rogers movie, but now it seemed to be playing some superhero flick. Despite the fact that superheroes were real, people still made brainless fantasies about them. It seemed to be set in Seacouver, prominently featuring the Shitty Needle, with energy blasts - and indeed people - flying around in all directions. Sophie was about to change the channel, when she saw a face she recognised.

The camera had zoomed in on a platform near the top of the Needle, and there were two people fighting. One was a muscular looking man in a featureless black bodysuit, who seemed to be shooting some kind of red ray out of his hands. Battling with him, shielding herself with her arms, was a woman that Sophie recognised. She was tall, blonde, and clad in a tight, blue leotard, and though the ray seemed to perturb her, it was not hurting her a great deal.
"Hey...that's Valora!" Sophie exclaimed. She'd met the famous powerhouse once before, when she and the gorgeous Stellar had been defeated and captured by Arachna. Valora had come to rescue them, and though Sophie was grateful, her breezily proud manner had not left the best impression. She didn't know much about her - but she knew that she didn't sell out her likeness to film studios. She wasn't watching a film - this was actually happening.

"No rest for the wicked," Sophie muttered. "Alright then, let's do this..." She psyched herself up, trying to remember her victories, rather than her defeats. "Time to make a name for yourself, Sophie - Enhance!"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When the gold-clad Enhancegirl arrived on the scene, all was chaos. A proactive police department had evacuated most of the local citizenry, but there was destruction everywhere. Superhumans were battling in the sky, on the ground, even in some of the surrounding buildings.

She saw a hero she recognised, Weregild - the Golden Man, fighting with a telekinetic who was battering him with pieces of rubble. Weregild's shining gold skin was giving him some protection, but he was not, alas, the Steel Man, the Iron Man - even the Nickel Man would probably have been more useful, if less flashy.

"Hey, jackass!" Sophie shouted. The telekinetic, a squat man with a nose that had been broken more than once in his life, turned to her.
"You just made a big mistake, legs," he said. "No-one insults the Smashmaster and gets away with it! I'll crush you once I'm finished mopping this douchebag up."
"Well, Smashmaster," Enhancegirl said, "with a name like that, and with powers that lame, you'd probably be better off mopping floors. Seriously, I could hook you up with a janatorial job. Then you can, like, give lame threats to weak and defenceless piles of vomit, which I'm sure will be no match for your mighty cleaning supplies."
"Oh, that's it!" Smashmaster turned his attentions to the redhead. He hurled a steel beam at his new foe.

Sophie easily sidestepped it, and began running at him. He threw another beam, missed. Tried a piece of concrete, missed. He even tried grabbing Enhancegirl herself, but it didn't work. His telekinesis did not allow him to just do whatever he could imagine - he had to release a sort of psychic grappling hook from his hand, and Enhancegirl's powerful senses detected it travelling. It could only fire in a straight line: against someone with Enhancegirl's speed, reflexes and agility, it was next to useless.

"S-stay back!" he said, hurling things with more panic, and less accuracy every time. Enhancegirl, unsurprisingly, didn't listen, and closed the gap between them, before delivering a devastating, full power high kick straight to Smashmaster's face. "Aagghh!" he cried out, falling back, his nose broken once again.
"Guess I'm the Smashmaster now, huh?" Enhancegirl laughed. "Why do I always do so much better against dudes...?"

"Hey, you okay?" Enhancegirl said, helping Weregild to his feet.
"Alas, fair maiden!" he cried out, gesticulating effusively. "That crass cur assailed me from behind, and I was unable to best him in direct combat! Would that these were my salad days, when I vanquished vile villains voraciously!"
"Dude," Sophie said, flatly. "Like, switch it off." Weregild looked at her, before sighing and letting his hands drop to a more natural pose.
"Sorry," he said. "Forget I ain't in front of the cameras sometimes. Thanks for the save."
"Don't mention it," Sophie said. "Just tell me what the hell's going on."

Weregild pointed up at the Needle. "It's him...the Supremacist."
"Whoa, what?!" Sophie's stomach tightened. "I thought he was dead!"
"We all did. But he's hooked some kind of device up to the shield - we don't know what he wants it for, but he's protecting it with that bubble."
"Shit," Sophie said. "What's the plan? Is there a plan?"
"Some of the heavy hitters are trying to just smash their way in - Valora's up there, so's Thaddeus. I swear I've even seen Nucleon zipping around. The rest of us are doing our best to keep the goons off their backs."
"What about the Titan?" The Indigo Titan was the Supremacist's arch-enemy - the one who'd been thought to have killed him. "Any sign?" Weregild shook his head.
"Last I heard he was trying to repair the damage that the Fifty Fractals did to the Moon. He might have no idea the Supremacist is even back. Hey, where are you going?" Enhancegirl had started running towards the Needle.
"Where does it look like? I'm going to help!"

Enhancegirl ran through the melée, trying not to get bogged down by the 'goons', as Weregild had described them. However, she was not allowed to proceed unobstructed. Someone stood in her path, clearly intent on facing her down. She was tall, and muscular, with a shaved head, and white eyes. She was wearing an armoured, silver bodysuit, with a sort of stylised fist drawn in the centre.
"You," she said, in a low voice. "You are Enhancegirl, yes?"
"What's it to you, sister?" Sophie replied. It was not entirely clear whether this was friend or foe.
"Do not be arrogant, girl. I am offering you a chance to choose the better side - the side which recognises the supremacy of our kind." She clenched her fists. "You are known to us. You have some power - you could serve our Leader well. He could guide you, teach you to hone your gifts properly."
"Uh, thanks but no thanks," Sophie said. "Your 'leader' is a mass murderer. You know, if he wasn't so clearly a gigantic tool, you'd probably have more goons." She clicked her neck. "I'm guessing we're gonna fight now?"
"I'd hardly call what's about to happen a 'fight'," the woman said. "You will know what it is to oppose the Supremacist - and, indeed, to oppose Regulus."

She drew back her arm, and Sophie expected a punch. One came, and Sophie dodged it. Regulus was no faster than an ordinary woman. But from her hand, a sort of burst of seismic energy exploded backwards. Sophie had nowhere to run, and she was hurled back.
"Aaahh!" she cried out, landing hard on her back. "Unhhh..." She felt like she'd been punched in every part of her at once. "Oh, man..." She struggled to her feet. "Okay, let's - aaaagghh!" There was another blast, more powerful than the last, and the slender redhead was tossed aside like a leaf in a tempest.

"Unnhhh..." Sophie had landed on her front, and was trying to push herself back up. "How...do I beat her?" she said to herself. She turned her head, scanned Regulus for weaknesses. She found a few - her armour was cracked on her right thigh, the vision in her left eye didn't seem to be as good as her right, and an old tendon injury made it hard to clench her left fist. But Sophie couldn't exploit these weaknesses. She had to get in close, and by the time she did, Regulus would just use another of her shockwaves. They came out too quickly, and were unavoidable at the range Sophie needed to be at in order to attack.

Still, she had some options. Forcing herself up, she grabbed a discarded glass bottle, and hurled it at Regulus. She simply swatted it out of the way, but that had merely been cover. While Regulus was distracted, Enhancegirl grabbed two jagged pieces of glass, smashed by a previous attack, and threw those. Attacking from the side of her worse eye, Regulus didn't see them until it was too late to get out of the way. She squeezed her hand to trigger her shockwave, but she wasn't quick enough, and one piece of glass cut a deep gash in her cheek. Recoiling from the pain, she didn't stop the other one either, which she could have done if she'd been more clear headed. This one, however, merely skimmed off her armour - before bouncing up and giving her another wound in the same place.

"Aaaahhhh!" Regulus cried out, blood spurting from the cross-shaped wound. Enhancegirl pressed the attack, drawing close and delivering a solid punch to her stomach. Her armour protected her, but Sophie kept going, aiming for the weak spot on her thigh. She felt the cracks grow deeper, felt Regulus' leg begin to buckle. But it wasn't enough. She simply hadn't done enough serious damage in time. Regulus took the attacks, calmed herself down even as Sophie battered her - and then let off her strongest shockwave yet.

"Uuuuhhhh!" Sophie cried out, hurled up into the air, before landing painfully on her back. "Ooohh...unnhh..." she moaned, hands weakly flapping by her sides. She was winded, and dazed from Regulus' attack. But even more painful was a sharp awareness of the truth: Regulus was out of her league.

The bald woman strode towards her, one hand covering her bloodied cheek.
"You fight well, for one of such meager strength." She stood over Sophie, hand outstretched. "If you survive this attack, perhaps our Leader will still consider you if you supplicate yourself before him. But I rather doubt you will have the chance." She grinned. "Goodbye, Enhancegirl. It was - oh shit!"

Regulus suddenly lost all interest in Enhancegirl. She backed away, her eyes now on a different target. Enhancegirl could smell it from her - she was afraid. Following her line of sight, Sophie saw a tall, graceful young woman in a shoulder-baring silver leotard standing before her, posed almost like a dancer. Regal, yet feminine and slender.
"S...Spectra!" Sophie gasped. "She...she came to save me..."

"Regulus," the long-limbed Mistress of Light half said, half spat. "The pilotfish finds another shark to hide under. The Supremacist this time, eh? I can't say I'm surprised."
"You be quiet!" Regulus shot back. Her calm demeanour was thoroughly changed. "You could be one of his greatest disciples! Yet you choose to defend pitiful, ordinary humans instead!"
"I will not waste time debating your master's inane ideology, lapdog." Spectra's lip curled. "Prepare yourself."
"You're the one who needs to prepare! HAAA!!"

Regulus pointed both palms at Spectra, and let off another shockwave, even stronger than she one she'd floored Enhancegirl with. This one wasn't spherical, but a flat wall of force that ground up the concrete as it travelled. Spectra answered the blow, creating a dazzling wall of light, which sparkled like crystal. Regulus' shockwave crashed against it, groaning and shrieking as it tried to burst through the wafer thin barrier which Spectra had created.

The muscular, armoured villainess strained desperately, trying to force her way past Spectra's barrier. Spectra hardly seemed as if she was putting in any effort at all. Despite Regulus' struggles, she couldn't keep up a continuous wave of force, and it sputtered and died.
"Urrghh!" Regulus growled in frustration. "I won't lose this time!" She let loose another spherical shockwave. Spectra dropped her barrier, pointed one finger at her enemy, and fired a razor-thin beam of light. It burst Regulus' shockwave like a bubble, before colliding with the villain herself. However, Spectra had altered it in flight, shifting the wavelength down to the infrared. As such, Regulus was assailed by a wave of pure heat.

"Aaagghh!" she cried out, her armour crisping and melting. "Uuughh..." She collapsed to her knees. "Damn...damn..." Spectra strutted over to her.
"Did you really think it would be different this time?" she said. "Actually, I take that back. This was entirely different from last time - this was much, much easier." She glanced up. A news helicopter was hovering bravely nearby. Spectra realised that her battle had been recorded, and she smiled. "Now, I -"

It was in the moment of her victory that she saw Regulus' previous opponent. She'd been so focused that she simply hadn't noticed her.
"Sophie!" she gasped as she saw the downed, defeated heroine lying on her back. Forgetting Regulus in an instant, she ran over to her, clutching her in her arms. "Are you alright?! Soph - I mean, Enhancegirl!"
"Y...yeah, I'm okay," Sophie murmured, having recovered from Regulus' vicious assault. Spectra helped her to her feet. "Looks like you're my hero again, huh?" Mariko blushed. She realised that her hands were on Sophie's waist and one of her soft, bare shoulders, and she quickly withdrew them.

"I, uh..." she stammered. "Y-you shouldn't have gone up against someone that powerful!"
"Well, she didn't give me much of a choice," Enhancegirl replied. "Spectra, are you feeling okay?" The redhead's super-senses allowed her to see that Mariko's heart was thumping rapidly in her chest. Her breathing was quick, and she had a strange, slightly tangy scent about her.
"I'm fine," she said curtly. "Sophie, I -" She seemed to be having a hard time meeting Sophie's eyes. "I wouldn't stick around if I were you. The people here: it is a different level of power compared to what you're used to. Regulus is one of the Supremacist's weakest underlings"
"Oh, come on Mariko, this again?" Sophie said. "I know I'm not the toughest gal in the business, but I can help. I mean, even Weregild was here!"
"Weregild? Are you serious? What a -" She shook her head. "That's not the point. Regulus almost killed you! Sophie, please."

This wasn't like before. She didn't come across as arrogant - 'desperate' would have been a better word. She looked strange: confused and sort of...jumpy? No that wasn't it, but it was hard to say what 'it' was.
"Mariko," she said, putting her hand on Spectra's shoulder. "Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing," Spectra said, brushing her hand off. "You're right - you can make your own decisions. I've no right to stop you." She turned away from her, and picked out a target in the battle. "Do what you will, Enhancegirl." She ran headlong into battle, leaving Sophie more than a little confused.
"What the fuck is up with her?"

Putting it out of her mind for the moment, Sophie focused on the real problem, and went for the Needle again. She used her powers to plot a course that would involve the least likelihood of encountering further threats, and within a few minutes she had reached the base of the structure. Only now did she see the real fury of the battle.

A group of men in identical purple costumes were exchanging blows with someone using the very earth against them. Someone who seemed to be shooting acid from his hands was having a hard time against a wielder of flame, and a man and a woman with super speed were locked in a deadly chase, too fast for anyone but Sophie to see.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghhh!" Sophie looked up just in time to see someone falling from the top of the structure. He landed with a terrific crash, and Sophie thought for sure he was dead. But he merely lay there, groaning. Sophie recognised him - it was the man Valora had been fighting on the broadcast. Sophie grinned.
"One less problem for me then," she said, before heading inside.

The visitor's entrance was reduced almost completely to rubble. Several heroes were recuperating inside, being helped by a man in a magenta outfit who seemed to have healing powers of some kind. One of his patients saw Sophie enter.
"Hey, Enhancegirl!" He was Thaddeus, one of the strongest of Seacouver's heroes. He didn't look like he was in great shape. "You're Enhancegirl, right?"
"That's me," she said.
"Everyone here is jacked up, but we cleared the path to the top. You gotta get up there and help Valora out. She's good, but she's not invincible."
"Where's the Supremacist?" Sophie replied.
"He's fighting someone a few thousand feet above our heads," said another hero. She was possessed of vision even better than Sophie's, though all her other senses were normal. She spoke through gritted teeth - one of her slim arms was broken. "He should be distracted. If you can get up there and - ahh - help Valora disable the device, as long as you're quick..." She couldn't keep talking, biting her lip to stop herself from crying out, her thick, black hair covered in dust, her tight, white spandex outfit torn.
"Falcona, don't talk!" The healer shouted, going back over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her close.
"Oh, Simon," she whispered, kissing his cheek. The two were, apparently, a couple. "Please." This was to Sophie. "Get up there." The redhead nodded, and hurried up the stairs.

She didn't encounter any resistance, until she got near the top. There was another platform below the one where Valora was fighting and Sophie saw, constantly scanning the building with her enhanced vision, that the stairwell straight up to the top was inaccessible. She had to go via this other platform, taking a small elevator that she prayed was still working.

However, as she came out onto this second platform, she found her way blocked once again.
"Ooooooohhhhhhhhhh - you're pretty!" A woman stood as if waiting for her, with wild blonde hair, and an odd green outfit made of some kind of glowing bands. She was barely five feet tall. "Hi there!"
"Uh, hi," Enhancegirl said. "Who are...you?"
"Oh me? I'm Ribbon! Aren't I as cute as a button?"
"Yeah, adorable." Enhancegirl didn't have time for this. "Whose side are you on?"
"Me?" She blinked, as if not understanding the question. "Uhh...oh! Well, whichever side lets me tie up lots of pretty girls, of course." She winked. "So what do you think?"
"Great..." Sophie said. "Say, Ribbon, why don't you bang those two I.Q. points you got together and work out that it'd be a good idea to get out of my way?"
"Mmm...I'm pretty sure my last I.Q. test was about 149...but that doesn't matter!" She grinned, revealing an unsettlingly sharp row of teeth. "Let's play, pretty girl."

Ribbon quite soon demonstrated the reason for her name. From her arm, a green ribbon of energy flowed out, shooting whip-like towards Enhancegirl. The redhead avoided it, but it chased her, curling in mid air to follow her. But it couldn't keep up with her reactions. Her awareness of the air currents for several hundred metres around her meant that Enhancegirl was more than capable of getting out of its way.

She ran towards Ribbon in a zig-zag pattern, her shining band of energy not able to keep pace with the slender heroine's movements. Ribbon tried to back off, but she hadn't realised how quick Enhancegirl was. She brought her other arm to bear, and another band of energy fired out. Yet Sophie had suspected that Ribbon might possess this ability, and as the band snaked towards her, she vaulted it - and then grabbed onto it.

"What?" Ribbon gasped, as the moment Enhancegirl landed, she pulled hard on the band she'd caught. Ribbon was caught off guard, and stumbled forward. Enhancegirl used this to her advantage, getting in close, and knocking her flat with a quick left cross.
"Damn!" Ribbon hissed. Her affectedly childish manner slipped. "You little fucker! You hit me!"
"That's kinda the idea, isn't it?" Enhancegirl said. "You gonna make me do it again, or are you gonna get the hell out of my way?"
"Hrrrrgghhh..." Ribbon growled. This time it was Enhancegirl's enemy who realised that she was out of her league.

It was just then, however, that someone else ran out onto the platform. It was Spectra - her leotard had a small tear in it, but she'd otherwise come unscathed from her battles at the tower's base.
"Spectra?" Sophie said. "What are you doing here?"
"I...I thought you might need my assistance," she said.
"It's okay," she said, smiling. "I got this one."
"Look out!" Ribbon took advantage of Enhancegirl's distraction, and shot out her bands towards the redhead. They made to snake around her, but Sophie hadn't needed the warning. She dodged limberly out of the way, dancing with poise and grace between Ribbon's bindings.

However, from where Spectra was standing, it looked like she'd been ensnared. She quickly blasted out a beam of light, which cut the glowing green bands like a knife through hot butter. That, however, was not the only effect. As the beam cut the bands, the bright flash went straight past Sophie's sensitive eyes.
"Aaahhh!!" she cried out, temporarily blinded by Spectra's attack. She fell back, rubbing her eyes.

"Gotcha!" Ribbon hissed, forming new bands, and shooting them straight at the stunned heroine. She didn't see them coming, and they seized her. Her arms were snapped down by the gossamer thin bands, as they wound round her torso, pressing her hands against her hips, her arms against her sides, swiftly whipping round her.

"Unhh!" she moaned, instantly captured. She fought, but she wasn't strong enough to break the bonds. They went still further, hemming in her pert breasts, winding over her soft, white shoulders, around her tender throat, and up and around her chin, and her mouth. "No - MMPHHH!!" she cried out, as she was gagged, her lips held fast by the glowing green bonds, so tightly she couldn't even part them underneath their seal.

"Mmm-mnmmmmphhh!" Muzzled, she could only protest wordlessly as she felt her creamy, bare legs being bound as well. The bands swept round her like snake, slamming her thighs together, forcing Sophie to feel the softness of her own skin as the bands bound her thighs tightly against each other. They didn't stop there, covering her knees, and then entwining her supple calves as well. "Mmmmmmmmhh-ghhhmmphhh!" Sophie whimpered, as she felt the bands finish tying her up. She was now mummified from her ankles, all the way to her mouth, her slender body thrashing side-to-side, but powerlessly. She was helpless, brought down once more to the level of a whimpering, wriggling damsel in distress.

"Mmmmhh!" Sophie overbalanced, falling to her knees, before dropping down onto her side, completely wrapped up. The whiteness in front of her eyes began to fade, and she saw a figure standing over her.
"Ohhhhohohoohhoho!" Ribbon laughed. "That's right, wriggle! Writhe and wiggle and whimper...oh you're so sexy all trussed up like that...
"Mmmpphhh!!" Sophie whimpered, as she felt Ribbon's hands clutching at her, running up her legs and her slinky hips.
"Oooh, so supple and gorgeous...and you're all mine! Aahahahahaha!"
"No, Ribbon. She is not yours."

This was a new voice. Deep, male and, though it had clearly been softened by years in America, it had an unmistakably Australian twang to it.
"Oh, yes sir, of course, sir!" Sophie's eyes were almost fully recovered now, and she saw that there was someone floating a few inches off the ground, and someone standing near to them.
"NNNMMMPHHH!!" she cried out, as she saw exactly who the two figures were.

One was Spectra. It was now clear why she hadn't helped Sophie as she was being captured. She was being held in sort of crackling blue chains of energy, wrapped around her entire body, binding her arms behind her back, her long legs tightly trapped against each other.
"Unnhh..." she moaned, not seeming able to fight back at all. The chains were wrapped around her head too - and they covered her eyes. Without constantly absorbing light through her eyes, Spectra could not use her powers. Blindfolded, Mariko was helpless.

That, however, was not what had made Enhancegirl scream. There was a man standing next to Spectra, holding out his hand to her. Clearly it was he who had captured her. He was not a tall man, but he was broad, with a dark tan, and short, wiry hair. He had a small mustache, and a scar over his right eye. He was clad in thick, blue armour, some kind of polycarbonate, which itself was pitted and mottled from battle. He looked older than the pictures Sophie had seen of him - but it was perfectly clear that it was the man himself: the Supremacist.

"I believe I've heard of you, my young beauty," he said. "You're Spectra, yes?" He reached out a hand, ran it over his prisoner's long, slender neck.
"D-don't touch me!" she stammered. She attempted to move, but she wasn't even being allowed to try to fight.
"No need for hostility, my dear," he said. "I'd like to make you a proposition. You're rather powerful, aren't you?" He leaned in close. "Though obviously not quite in my league. Still - a lot better than those little rats scurrying about underneath us!" He laughed. "I mean, they can't even defend themselves! Send you lot in to do the fighting for 'em, eh?"

He moved to the edge of the platform, Spectra floating after him, completely in his control. "All those little dots down there...but wait...those ones, a little closer...much brighter dots, eh? My attention just seems so much more drawn to them. Oh, right - that's because they're like us! They're the new breed, my dear. The new breed of a new world. And you could be right at the front couldn't you, Spectra?" He stroked her lovely face, the superheroine helpless even to recoil from his touch. "You could be a queen..."
"NNMMPHHH!!" Sophie screamed through her gag. "Lhhvvhh hhhrr hhhlhhhn!"
"Enhancegirl?!" Mariko had been caught and blindfolded so quickly, she hadn't even seen that Enhancegirl was a captive as well. "No! No, you murderous bastard, let her go!"
"What, the redhead?" the Supremacist glanced briefly at her. "The offer extends to her too. Though she's not quite as strong as you are..." He looked at Sophie again, and she shrank in his gaze. Sophie was no coward, but this man had enough power to destroy the entire city three times over. She was breathing, his eyes seemed to say, simply because he didn't care enough to stop her.

"Mmmphh!" Sophie mewed, as Ribbon spun her over onto her front.
"No interrupting when the grown-ups are talking, okay girlie?" She squeezed the backs of Sophie's thighs, before giving her a sharp slap on her round, tight ass.
"MMMPHH!!" Sophie cried out, shamed and distraught, writhing all the more intensely, but no more effectively. This had the added effect of making it seem as though she were wiggling her rear for Ribbon's pleasure - for it certainly gave her much.
"I'm going to ask Sir Supremacist to let me keep you, girlie," Ribbon said, now straddling her gorgeous captive. "You give the sexiest little wriggles and moans...oooh, it gives me tingles!"
"Nnnnmmmphhh..." Enhancegirl whimpered. Both she and Spectra were desperately ashamed that they couldn't help each other.

"Just think about it, Spectra," the Supremacist said, putting his hand on the small of her back. "We are better than them."
"And who are we?" the heroine spat back. "Some of 'us' have magical powers. Some of 'us' are genetic mutants. Some of 'us' are just normal humans who've enhanced themselves with technology. How can you possibly look on that as one group, you psychopath?"
"Hey, now," he said, chuckling slightly. "I may be a dictatorial, murdering bigot - but I'm an equal opportunity dictatorial, murdering bigot!" He cackled heartily at his own joke.

"Well, look here, I'm going to leave you and your friend here for a bit, eh? I'll float up to where your pal Valora is fighting some of my fellas - and more power to her, those blokes are tough! - and the two of you can give it a bit of a think. Once I've killed her - and sorry, but I've given her far too many chances already, I am going to kill her - and I'm the single most powerful being in the known universe, I'll let you think about which side your bread's buttered on, eh?"
"I will kill myself before I serve you." Spectra hissed. "I will cut this throat you seem to like so much. I will happily watch my own blood drain from my body before I do one thing that you would desire."
"Well, just turn it over in your mind, eh?" the Supremacist said. "And maybe don't think about yourself. Think about your little friend over there." He meant Sophie. Spectra's heart was in her throat at the thought of any harm coming to her. "Is she as brave as you?"

Mariko couldn't actually see Sophie, but she pictured her vividly. Her lovely visage, her laugh, her fierce determination and valour.
"Braver," she said. "There's no comparison, actually."
"Mmh?" Sophie mewed, hearing Spectra's words. "Does...does she really think that?"

"Jesus H. Christ on a fucking unicycle!!" the Supremacist shouted, before Sophie could contemplate Spectra's words any further. He threw Mariko aside, the willowy maiden landing on her back. With his signature, electronic shriek, he created a kind of tube made of blue energy. The reason for this became clear - a fiery blast of incredible power shot straight at him, and he just barely caught it in the tube, redirecting it harmlessly into the air.
"Mmmphh?" Sophie turned her head to see where the blast had come from, and saw what looked like a living fireball hurtling towards the platform.
"Remember me, Martin?!" it shouted, before it slammed straight into the Supremacist's chest, knocking him back. He kept himself on his feet using his powers, but he skidded almost to the other end entirely.

The fireball stood up, taking on the form of a man. The fiery glow faded, and died, revealing a tall, thin, sallow man with jet-black hair and sharp, almost shark-like features. He was wearing an unbuttoned dinner jacket, and sharp shoes - he wasn't dressed like a superhero at all. He looked strangely familiar to Sophie.
"Ahoy ladies," he said. "I do hope my old chum here hasn't been giving you too hard a time. I don't believe we've met - some people call me Zjarrus, but, ah, to such charming young things...Ivan will do just fine." He gave Ribbon a look. "Except you, dearie. You can fuck off, to be quite frank." She did. Loyalty was one thing - getting turned into a spit-roast was quite another.

"Wait a minute," Sophie thought. "Ivan? And those powers...that's Insyte's brother!" Ivan walked over to Sophie.
"I say, madam," he said, concentrating his nuclear powers into one fingertip. "You're a friend of my sister's, no? Got her into rather a lot of trouble recently, I take it - but I don't hold grudges." He carefully - very carefully - ran his finger down the bands binding Enhancegirl. They rippled and popped, before snapping completely, Sophie feeling as her supple limbs were gradually freed.

"Ah!" she gasped, ripping off her gag, and hopping to her feet. "Thank you, Ivan. I really owe you one." He was staring.
"Okay, certainly not holding a grudge," he said. "Wow, I mean that is to say - "
"Um, strongest supervillain in the world standing behind you?"
"Oh, yes, right!" He turned around to face the Supremacist. The man had been quite calmly waiting for him to finish freeing Enhancegirl.

"It's nice to see you again, Ivan," he said. "The prodigal son, and all that."
"Oh, do tell me you've a fatted calf we can sacrifice in my honour," Ivan replied.
"I've fond memories of our time together," the villain said. "I'm particularly fond of how you destroyed my headquarters and killed two of my men when you decided to leave." He gave a rather pointed smile.
"It was the perfect way to say goodbye, wasn't it?" Ivan replied. "And to think...I was only sixteen then." He snapped his fingers, his body taking on a dark, red-and-orange aura. "How much stronger do you think I am now, Martin?"
"Not strong enough." He made a gesture with his hands, creating a huge, blue fist, twice his own size.
"Well," Ivan said. "That's a little...direct, isn't it?"
"But effective," the Supremacist replied, before smashing the fist right into him, sending him flying straight off the edge of the platform.
"Ivan!" Sophie cried out.

But within a few seconds, she heard a blood-curdling roar coming from the empty air around the tower.
"AAAAGGHHHHH!!" Ivan howled, his body surrounded by an unstable red aura, a sphere of heat and nuclear fire around his body. "Not good enough, you old fuck! Not good enough, you murdering bastard!!" Cupping his hands together behind his back, he gathered his power, and sent it in one concentrated blast towards his enemy. Gritting his teeth, the Supremacist erected a simple barrier, taking the full force of Zjarrus' might.

"Get out of here!" Ivan screamed, barely audible over the sound of his own power. "Now!" Enhancegirl didn't need to be told again. She ran towards Mariko, grabbing her, and hauling her into the elevator which, fortunately, she'd landed near to. She knew she couldn't break the Supremacist's chains, and just dragged Mariko by her underarms.
"Unnhh..." she gasped, falling back, as she finished pulling her fellow heroine inside. She slammed the door shut, and hit the button to send the elevator to the top. Miraculously, it was still working, and they slowly ascended.

"S...Sophie," Mariko mewed. She sounded weak, like the Supremacist's chains were draining her strength. "Are you...alright?"
"I'm fine!" Sophie said. "I just...uurrghhh!" She pulled at the chains around Mariko's eyes, but she couldn't even budge them. "I'm sorry, I can't get them off."
"Can't believe...I'm letting you see me like this," she said. "I blunder in like a feckless novice, I get us both captured - and now I can't even untie myself!"
"Mariko, it's okay. He's, like, the second strongest dude in the world. I think you get a pass."
"It's not alright! I was trying to defend you!" She tried to move, but the chains kept her as helpless as a kitten. "I wanted to -" She stopped herself, gritting her teeth. "I wanted to protect you..."
"Mariko, I don't need protecting."

Sophie's tone of voice sounded a little severe, but she offset it with a rather amused, tired smile, a recognition of the nobility of Mariko's efforts, even though they'd ultimately done worse than failed. But Mariko didn't see it - she was blindfolded. She only heard Sophie's words - and even then, to her confused, lovesick mind Sophie's words amounted to:
"I reject you."

The two went the rest of the ascent in silence. Sophie didn't think that had any great significance - but though she was kind, and empathetic, she simply couldn't guess at the significance of her words. Mariko felt a shaking coldness taking hold of her. She forgot entirely their mission. She forgot about the Supremacist. She knew only that the woman she loved didn't want her.


The elevator reached the top, and Sophie once again dragged Mariko's tall, long-limbed form out of the elevator. She pulled her chained up body into a tucked away corner, a failure of architecture that left an odd little gap between two walls.
"I'll come back for you, I promise," Sophie said. Mariko was silent. "Please don't do anything dumb." She stood up. She could hear the sounds of battle, feel the rumbling of the floor.
"Sophie...wait..." Spectra said, but she was already gone. Mariko was left, weak, tightly bound in chains of energy: helpless, defeated and blindfolded. "I'm alone..." she thought.

Using her powers, Enhancegirl scanned the battlefield before making her presence known. Valora was fighting three men, one of whom was pelting her from range with arrows of ice. Another was engaging her directly, getting knocked down, but repeatedly getting back up. He didn't seem very strong, but he was near impossible to put down.

The third man she recognised. He was entering the fray only occasionally, attempting to headbutt Valora, and being continuously knocked aside.
"Is that...Ruckus?" Sophie had tangled with him before. It had not ended well for her, and "Oooh, this is gonna be sweet..."


"Give it up, Valora!" The man who seemed impossible to put down shouted. "There's three of us, and one of you - you don't stand a chance."
"Don't count on it, Rockhead!" the gorgeous, volutpuous blonde shot back. She stood proudly in her tight, blue leotard, and red, knee-high boots, a matching cape fluttering behind her back. A red domino mask was worn across her eyes, but her face was obviously lovely. Her long, slightly curly blonde hair blew in the breeze on the high structure. Her long, firm legs were covered by skin-tone, satin tights, and she looked as sumptuous as she was powerful. Her leotard covered her arms, but the tops of her incredibly buxom chest were displayed almost with pride. "I've already beaten a dozen men stronger than you today, and none of them - arrgh!"

Another arrow of ice crashed into her. She blocked it, but the ice spread across her arm where she'd touched it. She smashed it off, but the cold lingered, slowing her.
"Suck on that, blondie!" the archer yelled from his perch. "While Rockhead's around, you're not going to able to get up here. And while I'm around, you ain't gonna be able to take him down either." The man was British.
"Heh, yeah, and don't forget about me, Stalactite!" Frackas laughed.
"Uh, yeah, sure..." Stalactite replied.

"I don't care how many you bring!" Valora shouted. "I will never permit your leader's brand of evil. I - Valora - will stand against whatever he can muster."
"How 'effin stupid d'you have to be?" Stalactite laughed. "You're exhausted! You can't keep going forever."
"Until I'm dead, then," Valora said.
"If you insist." He aimed, creating another icy arrow with his powers, and fired it towards the voluptuous heroine. She crossed her arms to block it, but the blow never came.

"Aaggh!" Valora looked up to see that Rockhead's arms were frozen in place, literally. His partner's ice arrow hadn't hurt him, but it had covered his torso in a sheath of ice. Unlike Valora, he didn't have the strength to break it. "W...what the hell happened? Stalactite, you dumbass!"
"I - I don't get it! I aimed right at her! Even if I'd missed, it - it couldn't have hit you!"
"Looks like seeing is believing, boys," Valora said. She drew back her arm, squeezing her fist tight.
"No! Oh no!" Rockhead protested. "No no no - FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuu......" He began sailing over the horizon, Valora's full power punch having sent him flying into the air. He didn't stop for quite some time, and when he did, he wasn't Valora's problem anymore.

"Bloody 'ell!" Stalactite gawked at Valora's incredible display of strength. As Ruckus swatted ineffectually at her, Stalactite drew another arrow. But something was coming towards him - someone. "Who the - ?" Enhancegirl, her shining dress glinting in the sunlight, was dashing towards him at full speed, having vaulted her way up to his perch. "Ah, crap, another cape!" He let loose another arrow, but Enhancegirl was in the process of dodging it even before it left his bow. She slipped gracefully underneath the arrow, and before he had a chance to notch another, she socked him clean across the jaw.

"Ooghh!" he cried out, before tumbling off his perch, landing - thankfully - on the platform, rather than the ground several hundred metres below. It was still quite a fall, and he was thoroughly disabled. Valora noticed his fall, and looked up, seeing Enhancegirl standing above her.
"Hey," the redhead called out. "How's it going, Miss Valora?" The blonde thought for a moment, then smiled.
"I remember her," she thought. "When I rescued Stellar from that Arachna woman - she was captured too." She hadn't thought much of the abilities of this 'Enhancegirl' before then, but it seemed her skill had vastly increased since then. It was she who had taken down Rockhead, throwing a piece of stone to redirect Stalactite's arrow at him in mid-flight. It was astonishing.

Sophie hopped down from Stalactite's perch.
"Enhancegirl," Valora said. "Glad to meet you again. Under better circumstances than last time, as well."
"You're not kidding," Sophie muttered. "So, how we doing?" She pointed at the great, blue energy bubble around the tip of the Needle, which jutted out from the platform in front of them.
"I can't break it," Valora said. "He's putting a huge amount of his power into maintaining it. That's the only reason we've lasted as long as we have."
"What's that?" Sophie pointed at something inside the bubble. It was some kind of console, attached to a crystal generating a pulsating light.
"I can't say for certain," Valora replied. "But...have you actually seen him today?"
"Yea
"How old did he look?"

Sophie thought for a moment.
"I guess about fifty. Older than he looks in the pictures you see of him."
"He's sixty-six." That was surprising. "Doesn't look it, does he? That bastard...I think this machine is restoring his youth."
"Oh, please don't tell me he was more powerful when he was younger?" Enhancegirl had seen how strong he was - Spectra had been effortlessly defeated by him.
"No...but only because his powers were so hard to master. I'm sure if he was a young man again he'd be stronger. He might even be as strong as the Titan."
"Oh, Jesus..." Sophie ran her hands through her hair.
"The only thing I can't work out is why that louse is doing this so publicly. Why here? Why not in the middle of the desert, or something?"
"Uh, really?" Enhancegirl said. "That part's easy. He's taunting the Indigo Titan."
"What?"
"He comes to his home city, chooses the tallest, most famous building in the city." Sophie clucked her tongue. "It's not about drawing the most attention possible, otherwise he'd have done it in D.C. or New York - or, even Sacramento if he had to do it in Cali. No, this is personal. He's probably pissed as hell that the Titan hasn't turned up yet."
"That...actually makes sense," Valora said. "You're a pretty canny gal, Enhancegirl."
"Well thanks," Sophie said, flashing a grin. "But what do we do about the barrier?"
"Haven't a clue," Valora said. "I've been pounding on it every chance I get."
"Hmmm..." Sophie looked around. She saw that one of Valora's three enemies was still mobile. Ruckus was gradually trying to creep away. "Say...you tried using a battering ram yet?"


"I'm tellin' ya, girls, this ain't a good idea!" Ruckus protested, as Valora hauled him up by the scruff of his neck.
"Super-strength plus indestructible scalp...I think that makes for a very good idea." Valora said. She hauled him back, and then smashed his head into the barrier.
"Aaahhh, geez, lady, I don't have an indestructible neck!" Ruckus complained. "Quit holdin' so tight!"
"Quit your whining," Valora replied. "You joined with the Supremacist. Be glad that in some way, you're making up for it."
"You gonna tell the judge that at my - aaaagghh!" Again, Valora crashed his unbreakable head into the shining blue barrier. It seemed to shudder and flicker, but it didn't drop.
"Come on, Valora, keep going!" Enhancegirl shouted. "I don't know how long Zjarrus is going to be able to hold him off!" She looked up, not even needing her super-vision to see the clash of energies between the two mighty combatants - blistering orange and red against cold, royal blue.

"Uuuurrrghhh!!" Valora cried out, and hit Ruckus into the barrier again, and again. Each time, Ruckus screamed, afraid that his head was going to pop off in the blonde's iron grip. Each time, the barrier juddered and quivered, but didn't break. Though Valora was frustrated, Enhancegirl could see that it was weakening. With every strike, it quivered for a bit longer, took more time to reassert itself.
"Valora, it's working," Enhancegirl assured her, "but you have to hurry!"
"You don't need to tell me that," Valora muttered under her breath, smashing Ruckus into it again. This time, even she could see that the barrier was getting weaker. "Yes!"
"Great, can you put me down now?" Ruckus pleaded.
"No way, small-fry," Valora said. "We're not done yet."

As it happened, however, she was not going to get another shot with him. She and Sophie both heard the scream, a cry of horrible pain, getting louder and louder as it came towards them. They both looked up to see a figure falling towards them, surrounded in a violent, unstably flickering red-orange aura.
"Aauughhh!" Ivan cried out, using his powers at the last moment to prevent himself from hitting the platform at full speed, but still hitting it hard enough to add to his copious injuries.

"Jesus, Ivan!" Sophie cried out, clasping her hands over her mouth. He was covered in blood, deep cuts all over his body, his black hair mottled, and clumped together with oozing, sticky red fluid.
"Hhhh...aahhh..." he groaned, struggling to get back to his feet. There were two deep blue blades of energy sticking out of his thigh and his shoulder. His right hand was twisted, clearly broken. He looked up at the two heroines, his vision obscured by blood running over his eyes. "He's...he's too strong!" Ivan gasped. "R...run! He'll kill you! He'll - AAGHH!!" A chain of blue energy shot down from above him, twisting around Ivan's neck. "Ghhhkkk!" he spluttered, grabbing at the chain. He tried to summon his powers, but his aura spat, fizzled, and died.

"That was a lot more difficult than it had any right to be," the Supremacist said, as he descended from above, wreathed in a royal blue corona. "You've grown quite tough, Ivan." He pulled the chain, eliciting a choked gasp from the bloodied man. "But you'll never be on this level." Ivan's eyes were wide with fear. Valora and Enhancegirl saw that the mighty wielder of nuclear fire was terrified, and distraught.

"Bad dog," the Supremacist chuckled, creating a pin in the ground to hold the chain in place. "Now," he said, turning to the two heroines. "Valora," he said, "and...whoever you are."
"Enhancegirl," the redhead said, trying to maintain her courage.
"Whatever." He cricked his neck. He wasn't exactly unscathed either. His armour was melted in places, his left hand looked badly burned, and there was a cut under his eye, dripping blood down his face. "The two of you had better get away from there right now," he said. "If you're obedient, little girls, I might just allow you to live when this is all finished. Neither of you will be the remotest threat to me then." He grinned. "Not that you're much threat now, eh?"

"You...you monster!" Valora shouted. "I'll destroy you myself!" She began running straight at him.
"Valora, don't be fucking stupid!" Enhancegirl shouted after her.
"You should listen to your friend," the Supremacist laughed. He sent a crackling chain, the same kind he'd used against Spectra, straight towards Valora. She dodged to the side, but it easily followed her movements, seizing her, wrapping around her torso, pressing her arms tightly against her sides.

"No!" she cried out, caught and bound. She struggled, straining desperately against her bonds. Her chains squeezed her tightly, pushing up her round, voluptuous bosom.
"You stupid little bimbo," the Supremacist laughed. "Did you really think you could fight me? Me?!" He laughed madly. Enhancegirl scanned every inch of him a hundred times over, looking for some kind of weakness - but it was a desperate struggle even for Zjarrus - Sophie wouldn't even be able to tickle him. Her heart pounding with adrenaline, she looked round at the barrier. It was still up - but something was different.

No-one but Enhancegirl or Falcona could have seen it. Every one-tenth of a second, the barrier flickered. In that instant, the machine inside was completely unprotected.
"That's it!" Sophie thought. "All I have to do is throw something in at just the right moment - no, wait." There was, it seemed, a way of switching it off, but simply hurling something at a button wouldn't do the trick. There was a lever, and it would need a good, firm, tug. She considered tying something round it, maybe even a piece of her dress, but any delay would be too much. The only thing fast enough was Sophie herself. "The only question is - what happens to my hand if I'm not fast enough?"

"Urrgghhh...AAHHH!!" Valora cried out, summoning all her might, and shattering the chains that bound her. Spectra, with her vulnerability to being blindfolded, was helpless the moment she was captured. Valora, though she felt the draining weakness of the Supremacist's chains almost immediately, had no such easily exploited weakness. She reminded the Supremacist in that moment why few were able to trifle with her.

"Don't underestimate me, old-timer!" Valora shouted. She ran towards her enemy, losing control over her power, her boots leaving cracks in the floor underneath her. She launched herself forward, firing herself like a cannonball. The Supremacist was surprised by her display of ferocity...but not that surprised. He hit her with a blast of pure force. She was knocked flat.
"Unnnhhh..." she moaned, lying on her back, her slightly curly blonde hair her only cushion.
"Not many people can break those chains," the Supremacist said. "Fewer still can do so with enough energy left for an attack. You have earned...a modicum of respect from me, Valora."
"Your respect...is worth less than dog shit!" Valora spat.
"Much like your power," her enemy chuckled. "In comparison to mine, anyway. I mean, honestly, you didn't actually think you could win, did you?"
"No, I didn't..." Valora said, her eyes closing, apparently in defeat.
"Well...good!" The Supremacist laughed heartily. "At least you're not completely stupid, eh?"
"Except...I...unnhhh...wasn't trying to defeat you."
"Eh?"
"I was trying to distract you."

The Supremacist looked up, to see Sophie standing right by the console that was rejuvenating him.
"No, don't!" he cried out. But it was too late. Enhancegirl found her moment, and lunged at the lever, getting her hand in, pulling the lever down, and getting her hand out again in just under one tenth of a second.
"I'm guessing this isn't something you can just turn back on again, right?" Enhancegirl said. "Whoops."

"NO!" the Supremacist roared. He could feel the change stopping, his cells ceasing to rejuvenate. He had wound back the years quite far - he looked and felt about forty-five. However, he'd meant to go back to his twenties. "You'll pay for this, you little tart!" He snapped his fingers, and Sophie found his glowing barrier fade. He gathered its energies into himself, restoring his full power. His chains lashed out and seized the slender redhead.

"Damn it!" Sophie cried out, feeling the bonds of energy snake around her body, criss-crossing up and down her gorgeous form, twisting around her wrists and pulling them behind her back. "Unnhh...no!" Sophie felt her long, pale legs being forced together, as the Supremacist's chain clamped her thighs against each other, before spinning round and tightly binding her calves. "Whhgghmmphh!" Sophie moaned, as the chains wound round her mouth, gagging her pretty lips. "MMMMPHHH!!" she screamed through the glowing, crackling chain. "Mmmmnnmmphhh..." Already she started feeling weak. "Mmmmhhhphhh..." Sophie sighed, before dropping to her pretty knees. She was helpless.

"There we go. Just enough time for me to see how pretty you look on yer knees - before I end you, girl." He focused his energy into his hands, enough power to tear the Needle from its foundations, and more than enough to disintegrate Enhancegirl.
"Oh my god..." she thought. "I- I'm gonna die..."

"NO!" The voice came from behind the Supremacist. He paid it no attention - he was not, however quite so able to ignore the blast of light that came with it.
"Mmmphhh!" Sophie gasped. "Spectra!" She was free - Sophie didn't realise why, but when the Supremacist had taken his barrier back into himself, he'd done so with all his energy constructs, including Spectra's bonds. As soon as she realised she was free, she'd rushed straight to the battle.

But Spectra was still weakened, drained by the chains she'd been wrapped in.
"Unnghh...don't...hurt her..." she groaned, her continuous blast of light rapidly dwindling her power.
"You little fool," the Supremacist said to the willowy beauty who opposed him. It was taking rather more of his power to resist "I think after this, I'll keep you for a while. Give you a lesson in discipline!" Using a fraction of his powers, he created another construct, and sent it after Spectra. It was like a large sheet of fabric, fluttering in the air as it sped towards her.

"What?" Mariko gasped, as the sheet grabbed her, swiftly wrapping round her slender body. It instantly captured her, crushing her arms against her sides, and slamming her long, smooth legs together. "Unnhhh...!" she groaned, bound again. She collapsed, no more strength left in her at all, tumbling onto her front. "I've...been vanquished...so easily..."

"Right, then," the Supremacist said, clicking his neck in frustration. "If there are no more interruptions."
"Auggh!" Valora cried out, as the villain planted his foot on her chest.
"Don't squirm, woman," he said. "It's really not very dignified. I'll get to you in a moment." This time, he didn't bother being flashy. He just pointed a finger at Enhancegirl, ready to send a spike of energy through her skull.
"Mmmmmmphhhh!" the gagged maiden quailed. She tried to wriggle, but was still tightly bound. She couldn't move.

"Time to - AAGHHH!!" the Supremacist roared in pain, stopped from finishing Enhancegirl off once again. He turned around - and saw a battered, bloodied, sallow man pointing his hand at him, his palm steaming from the nuclear blast he'd just fired. "Ivan!" the Supremacist gasped. "How do you have any strength left?!"
"Because fuck you, Martin, that's how!" Ivan spat, blood staining his toothy grin.

Weakened, the Supremacist lost focus on his constructs, and Spectra and Enhancegirl found themselves freed from their bonds. There was little Spectra could do with her newfound freedom - but that was not the case for Enhancegirl. She'd not been idle in her bonds. She'd spent the past minute scanning the device in front of her with every sense available to her. As her mental acuity was boosted such that she was not overwhelmed by the vast amounts of sensory data her brain had to process, she accomplished much more analysis in that short minute than anyone else would have been able to.

While the Supremacist was distracted, Sophie ripped open a panel, and swapped around several wires inside. She had thought about reversing it, trying to re-age the Supremacist, but the process was too gradual - he'd gain maybe a year before easily destroying his machine. No - she had something else in mind.

"Interruptions, interruptions!" the Supremacist yelled, now sounding more petulant than regal. He strode over to Ivan, and lifted him up by his throat. "You stupid fuck!" he shouted in the young man's face. "You could have been a Lord - a King! You tower over even most of your own kind! Instead, you're going to die like a stupid little dog...all because of one pretty girl. I don't even remember her name!"
"Just do it!" He tried to keep up his grinning facade, but there were tears welling up in his eyes. "I've made an...appointment to play chess with Isaac Newton at a quarter past four, so I'd rather not be late to the pearly gates, eh?"
"You know the worst thing, Ivan?" the Supremacist said. "You're not even all that witty." He sighed. "Such a waste. Time to die, Nucleon."

"Hey, shithead!" Almost bored, the Supremacist turned his head, to see Sophie with her hand on the console's lever.
"What are you doing?" he asked. "You can't just turn it back on. And why would you even want to?"
"It's keyed in to channel energy into you," Enhancegirl said. "That I can't change. But turns out it's pretty damn easy just to change the kind of energy it's putting into you." She grinned. "Think this'll wipe off a few wrinkles, you dickweasel?" She pulled the lever.
"Such a dirty mouth for such a cute little - AAUAUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!" the Supremacist screamed. "HHAAAAAUUUGGHHH!!" He doubled over in pain, his body sparking with blue energy. "M-my body! What - what have you done, you little b - AAAUAUUGGHHHHHH!!"

"Pure electrical energy," Sophie explained. "Delivered to every single cell of your body. How's that feel, you asshole?"
"AAAAAGGGHHH!!" Desperately, he aimed his hand at the console, and fired a comparatively feeble beam of energy. He wrecked the machine, and fell back, panting. He had stopped the machine from killing him - but not from wrecking his body. "My...powers..." he groaned.
"I'm no expert" Sophie said, "but I don't think that you'll ever have the strength to use them again without killing yourself." Sophie stopped for a moment. She realised what she'd just done. Enhancegirl - a relatively weak, obscure heroine from a not-so-big city in California - had just defeated the most powerful supervillain in America. "Well, shit," Sophie said. "I really am better against dudes..."

[Damselbinder]

"We...we did it!" Enhancegirl cried out. "We fucking did it!" She couldn't believe it. She and the other, Valora, Zjarrus, Spectra - they'd done it. The Supremacist was beaten, his powers crippled - perhaps forever. Sophie slumped back against the machine she'd used to defeat her foe, exhausted.

"Unnhh..." The voluptuous Valora pulled herself up to her feet. She looked behind her, saw the Supremacist, burnt and writhing in pain, completely defeated. "Oh my gawsh!" she cried out, a mid-west accent slipping through the generic American pronunciation she put on in her heroine identity. She looked at Ivan, the only one - she thought - powerful enough to have done it. But no - he was half-dead himself, despite the exhausted smile on his face. Spectra? No, she was almost unconscious. She turned her head to the left, and saw Enhancegirl, standing by the machine. "She...she did something to him - used his own device against him!" She was, momentarily, awestruck.

"Holy shit!" All who still had the strength turned to see a young man - a boy, really - flying up to the edge of the platform, clad in a birdlike, bright yellow outfit, a truly hideous colour. "Is that the Supremacist? You beat him?"
"Damn straight," Sophie said, stepping forward. "Hey kid, you know that healer dude? He's dating Falcona, I think."
"Oh...Caduceus, right?" His voice hadn't fully broken. "Yeah, I saw him downstairs. He's pulling double duty, with all the -" He saw Ivan. "Oh, geez, oh man!" the flier gasped. "Ooh man, I ain't so good with blood..." He began to dip down, but righted himself. "I'll get him! I'll bring him right away."

A few minutes later, a rather ruffled man with dirty blonde hair in a much more tasteful yellow and blue bodysuit than the flier.
"Good grief!" He ran over to Ivan's bloodied body, and pressed his hands against the other man's chest. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Hhh...I was...uncharacteristically heroic..." he said, barely above a whisper.
"He fought the Supremacist one on one for nearly ten minutes," Valora explained. "I don't know how..."
"He what?!" Caduceus spluttered. "Oh, there's brave and then there's just thick..."

As Caduceus set to work doing what he could for Ivan, Enhancegirl ran over to where Spectra lay, weakly trying - and failing - to pull herself up.
"Hey, Mariko, are you okay?" Mariko looked up at her with half-closed, strangely sad eyes.
"I...was useless..." she said. "He could have killed you...and I was useless. Insyte's brother, and Valora - they..."
"Mariko, it doesn't matter. We won." Sophie said. "Besides, think of all the dudes you beat. If you hadn't been there, Valora and I probably would have been swarmed by dozens of guys."
"You don't get it!" Mariko said. "I -" She cut herself off. "No...you're right. Of course. The day is won - that's all that matters."
"The biggest, baddest bastard of all time shows up, and she doesn't have a major hand in stopping him...ah, damn, this must be killing her." The surmising wasn't by any means stupid. But Sophie was, in this case, well off the mark.

"I've done all I can for your friend," Caduceus said. "He'll live, and I've prevented the damage from being permanent. But he needs to get to a hospital."
"Hey, kid," Valora said, addressing the flier. "Can you take him to St. Michael's? It's about half a mile from here."
"Uh, my name's Doveman," he said quietly, "but, uh, sure. I think so." As Caduceus helped Doveman hoist Ivan onto his back, Valora went over to Spectra and Enhancegirl.

"Hey, gals," she said. "Good job today." She looked at Spectra, who was still extremely weak. "Come on, Spectra, pull yourself together."
"Valora, you didn't see what he did to her," Sophie explained. Valora seemed to be trying to almost taunt Spectra back to strength, but motivation wasn't Spectra's problem.
"No...she's right..." Spectra said. With incredible effort, she pulled herself up to her feet. "I'm quite alright." Valora gave a satisfied smile, but Enhancegirl could see that Mariko was trembling slightly. She was using every ounce of effort in her body to stay upright. Though she was about an inch taller than Valora, she looked much more fragile.

Sophie was about to offer her an arm, but she knew that this would only insult her pride even further.
"Let's go," Spectra said, flashing an unconvincing smile.
"Sure," Sophie said, not knowing what else to say - and not wanting to dampen the exhilaration of her triumph.

"WHOOOOO!!!" When the three heroines, followed by Caduceus, reached the bottom of the stairs, they were met with thunderous cheers and applause. There were dozens of superheroes, rescue workers, cops - and, at this point, even the press.
"Oh my god!" Enhancegirl gasped, blushing. People were cheering for her - not just for her of course, but she could hear her name in the noise - 'Enhancegirl - Enhancegirl - Enhancegirl!' She laughed, grinning. She had to suppress the instinct to wave.

"Valora, Valora!" A group of men with microphones thrust themselves through the throng, straight towards the blonde bombshell. A man lugged a camera behind them. "They say you fought against the Supremacist himself - and you won!"
"It's not quite as simple as that," she said. "But, yeah I fought him. Me and Zjarrus. He almost killed us - but we came through." She posed heroically, hands on her hips. She was the very image of the most classic, noble superheroine imaginable.
"He's gone up against some of the toughest, and barely broken a sweat," one of the reporters said. "How did you survive?" The questions weren't really necessary. A long range camera had caught the long and short of the battle, minus a few details - but it was a kind of tradition to do it this way.
"Because of her." Valora pointed at Sophie. So did the camera.

"Um..." Sophie found herself rather camera-shy. This was a national news network - she'd never even been directly featured on television before. "Hey there..."
"C'mon," Valora said. "Give us a few words."
"Yeah, Enhancegirl, tell us how you did it!"
"Uh..." Sophie scratched the back of her head. "I, uh, figured out the device he was protecting was pumping energy directly into him. It was, like, keyed into his biochemistry or something. I just changed the kind of energy it used, and his body couldn't take it."
"Astounding!" The reporter leaped in front of the camera himself. "Local heroine Enhancegirl, using nothing but her own quick wits, takes out one of the deadliest men in the world!" He made a manic gesture, the camera swivelling round to Sophie again.
"How does it feel to know that you might have just saved the world, Enhancegirl?" Sophie laughed.
"I think 'saved the world' might be pushing it a little bit, but I'm pretty fucking happy about it, yeah!" She frowned. "Wait, am I allowed to swear?"
"Probably not - but we're live!"

Spectra, for once, was trying to avoid the cameras. She staggered away from where Valora and Enhancegirl were being interviewed, just wanting to get somewhere where she could turn off her powers and recuperate. But some hack spotted her, and thrust a mike into her face.
"Jack Bing, Herald," he said, almost too fast to understand. "So, Spectra, your feelings on witnessing the defeat of the Supremacist? Joy, relief?" He grinned. "Pissed off that you didn't take him out yourself?" To the man's credit, he hadn't put it insultingly at all - he was giving her a chance to be good humoured, to let it pass as not 'a defeat for Spectra', but merely a lack of a victory. But Spectra, in her weakened, emotionally volatile state, didn't see it that way.

"I..." Mariko started to say, but she couldn't continue. She felt the lights of the cameras flashing in front of her, each one a jolt of energy into her system, though it was more disturbing than restorative. She saw the eyes of many of the crowd on her, and she felt panicked. She'd failed, been ignominiously beaten - and now they were all looking at her. Perhaps looking for succour, she turned her eyes to Sophie. She was smiling, her shyness forgotten, charming the journalists and the camera with her natural humour, talking at length about how stupid she thought the Supremacist's philosophy was.

Mariko felt an intense, contradictory pang of emotion. On the one hand, she felt as happy as could be for the lovely redhead that she'd found she cared for so deeply. Yet she was also jealous. Jealous that it was Enhancegirl and Valora who were being lauded for winning the most significant superheroic battle since Hypnotra had taken control of the Indigo Titan. Jealous that it had been Valora and Zjarrus who had rescued Sophie when the Supremacist had threatened her life. Jealous of how easily plaudits seemed to come to Sophie, yet how little such things appeared to weigh on her mind. The powerful emotions had on the weakened beauty's mind much the same effect that the Supremacist's device had, in the end, had on him. Overwhelmed, and already on the point of collapse from being drained of almost all her strength, Mariko's began to feel faint.

"Oooohh..." she sighed, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered, and she swooned. She fell straight backwards, her tall, willowy body swaying slightly as she fell. She landed flat on her back - she was already completely unconscious before she'd even touched the floor.
"M - Spectra!" Sophie saw her fall, and rushed over, but Valora got there first. This wouldn't have been a problem for Sophie, had it not been for what Valora did when she got there.

She didn't mean anything by it. For someone of her vast strength it was simply the most natural way for her to pick someone up: but Sophie was aghast, when Valora hauled Mariko's gorgeous, slender body up to her feet, before easily slinging the limp maiden over her shoulder, her long, slender legs draped down the blonde's front.
"Are you kidding me? Doing that to Spectra in front of all these cameras?" Sophie knew that they would lap it up - two beautiful heroines in such close contact with each other - and it made it seem awfully clear that one of the two was easily the more powerful. "Oh, man, Mariko is not gonna be happy when she wakes up..."

"Oooh, out like a light!" Jack Bing crowed. "Looks like that fight really tuckered her out!"
"Don't be an ass," Valora said sternly. "The Supremacist caught her early in the fight, drained her strength with his powers."
"Early in the fight, huh?" the reporter said. "So she got taken down pretty easy, I'm guessing."
"What? No that's -" Valora realised all too late how she was making Spectra look. "That isn't what I said! She took down a whole load of his soldiers, and..." She stopped herself. Anything she said would now make things worse. She shooed the cameramen aside, and began carrying the gorgeous, fainted young damsel to where she could be attended to.

Enhancegirl tried to get over to them - exactly what she thought she would do, she didn't know - but it was a moot point. She was separated from them in the crowd of people wanting to congratulate her. There had been worse crowds. Eventually, she was swept up in the euphoria of her victory, not quite forgetting Mariko, but not having her at the centre of her thoughts, either.

Having turned nineteen the previous week, Sophie had been a superheroine for just over a year and a half. In that time, she'd been through highs, lows, perils, and humiliations of unimaginable kinds. But steadily, she'd been getting better, more capable of handling herself. Her enslavement at the hands of the Sin Eater had been a real blow to her progress, she felt - but this more than exceeded it.
"I've earned this," she thought, before allowing herself to enjoy the celebrations.

Yet, unbeknownst to Enhancegirl, there was someone else watching the celebrations who did not share her sense of elation. She watched through her television screen, heard the crowds cheering Enhancegirl and Valora, and she frowned.
"Oh that won't do," she said. "That won't do at all..."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I'm talking Enhancegirl posters, Enhancegirl action figures, Enhancegirl underoos even! I've even thought of a tagline: The Foul Mouthed Belle Who Gives 'Em Hell!" May Fairweather, reporter for the Seacouver Herald, was ecstatic. For one thing, she was the go-to-gal at the paper for anything cape related - she'd been orchestrating a rather impressive attempt to chronicle every exchange, major and minor, between supers during what was now being called "The Battle of the Shitty Needle."

But there was another reason for her pleasure. The twenty-six year old had been for some time now following the career of Enhancegirl, and indeed giving it not infrequent nudges in the right direction. She was one of the few people who knew Sophie's secret identity, and she often tipped her off to things that might require her attention. May spun around in her chair, crossing her shapely legs, thinly covered with sheer, black stockings, and very deliberately shown off by a short, black skirt, set off by a tight, white blouse, open quite far down the neck. She found her trim, lovely figure a useful weapon when it came to office politics.

For May, to see Enhancegirl so publicly lauded was not only marvellous in itself - she considered it a personal triumph. She was having any tips or reports about her from the battle sent straight to her to be checked: she was beginning to think of herself as Sophie's PR woman.
"Pfft," Jack was sitting across from her. "I don't rate Enhancegirl. She got lucky, that's all. I mean, come one, this a girl that got her ass handed to her on stage by - what - Cybelle? Zjarrus and Valora did most of the work. She's a fad - she'll be forgotten soon." May gave him a black look.
"Hey, Jack, do me a favour," she said. "Remind me of the last time you wrote anything that didn't feature the expressions 'all grown up', 'upskirt' or 'wardrobe malfunction'."
"Hey, the people like what they like. I'm just a servant of the masses."
"You're pond scum." Jack turned around. It hadn't been May that had said that.

Standing over him was a tall, buxom woman, blonde - though a lighter shade than May, and her hair shorter - with pouting lips, a gorgeous, voluptuous figure. With her red lips, long eyelashes and Hartman hips, she looked somewhere between a modern supermodel and a 50s pin-up girl.

"I saw your little write up about Spectra," the woman said. Her name was Valerie Orville, a freelance photographer who often worked with the Herald. Most of the regular staff knew her. "You're an asshole. A real piece of shit, Jack."
"Hey, what was wrong with it?"
"Oh, let me see: 'The sexy super-vixen, once thought to be one of Seacouver's most shining stars, now flopped rather pathetically over the shoulder of the mighty and triumphant Valora, giving the crowd an unfortunate upskirt shot.'"
"See!" May interrupted. "Every damn time!"

"'Looks like our 'Mistress of Light' tried a shot at the big leagues,'" Valerie continued, "'but she couldn't quite make the cut.'" She glowered at him. "You have no idea what actually happened there. From what I understand, she took out a dozen of the Supremacist's troops. And not goons either, but real bastards like Regulus, and Twilight Thorn. She was one of the most important players in that fight, and you made her seem like a pathetic weakling." She looked fiercely at him. Though her lovely limbs were firm, they were not muscled. Yet there was still something about her that suggested great strength, and Jack was a little intimidated.

"Hey, kiss my ass! The people love a fallen hero," Jack grinned. "Besides, I'm not the one who threw her over their shoulder and displayed her, uh, assets to the public. I just filled in the caption, basically."
"That's -" The remark seemed to catch Valerie off guard. "You're the one who wrote it. And you set the tone for all the coverage of her participation in the fight. You're a louse."
"Yeah, well, I'm a louse in touch with the zeitgeist, so bite me." Valerie shook her head, and let him be. She couldn't be bothered.

After haggling relatively successfully for some photographs she'd taken of the battle, Valerie was leaving, when May happened to bump into her.
"Hey, doll," she said. "Thanks for chewing that jackass out for me. He's heard it so many times from me that he barely notices it now. You scare him, though." She smiled as she said this. "And that's a compliment, by the way."
"Thanks, May," Valerie said. "Hey, I know you're kind of the unofficial Enhancegirl spokeswoman, but do you think you could -"
"Do a little damage control for Spectra?" May grinned. "Oh, honey, I'm way ahead of you." Her smile flickered. "I'm not exactly editor-in-chief though, and my little corner of the world doesn't carry that much influence."
"You'll do what you can," Valerie said. "That's all anyone can do. Hey, May," she said, just as the more slender blonde turned away, "I don't scare you do I?"
"Oh, of course you do, Valerie," May said. "That's why I find you so damned attractive." She winked. "See you later, honey."
"See you round, sister."

Valerie liked May, even though she failed utterly to understand her. She'd actually worked with her quite a few times over the years, on quite a few different papers, the two women almost exactly the same age, their careers having followed divergent, but comparable paths. They were definitely friends, but it was an odd friendship. They'd never even shared a coffee together.

May, for her part, thought Valerie was a bit of an enigma in her own right. She seemed very forthright, and straightforward, even a little aggressive sometimes. But she kept something hidden - May just didn't quite know what. She had her suspicions, but they were vague at best. Little did she know that she was right to be suspicious - Valerie Orville was one and the same as the mighty Valora, if May did but know it, and she had more reason than most to hate Jack Bing - she'd fed right into his horrid little column by her unthinking actions.

A few hours later, May - having through tricks, manipulation and threats got a rather complimentary fact file on Enhancegirl published in a national 'Who's Who' of capes, persuaded two of her friends in other papers to write vicious rebuttals to Jack's article, and having got a source to come forward and speak on the record about a massive corporate tax scam - she decided that she'd put in enough effort for the day.
"See you later, you sad excuse for writers," she called out affectionately to her few remaining colleagues.
"Blow it out your ass!" came the chorus from the bullpen.
"Oh, I love this place..."

May walked out into the parking garage, her tall high-heels clack-clacking against the concrete, her hips swaying appealingly side to side as she walked. She walked over to her car, fumbling a little with the key in the lock.
"What the -?" May realised that her key didn't seem to fit. She had a fairly normal car, just a 2011 Fiat, so she could have just come to the wrong one. But she saw some of her stuff inside the car - it was definitely hers. "Something wrong with the lock, maybe?" She looked closer.

Something had been jammed deep inside the lock. A little piece of metal, preventing the key from going all the way in.
"Well of all the - WHHGMMPHH!!" May felt something pressed over her mouth, and a slim but strong arm wrapping around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides. "MMMPHHH!!! MMMMMPHHHH!!" The lovely blonde screamed, and writhed, kicking her stocking-clad legs, and trying but failing to stamp on her assailant's feet.

"Sorry, sweetie," came a calm, smooth, female voice from behind her, "but I've done this to plenty of women a lot tougher than you."
"Mmmmgghhmmphhh!!" May complained. She glanced down, seeing that the thing on her mouth was some kind of plastic mask, and it was connected to a small metal tube. "What is that? Oh, no, please don't tell me..." Her assailant flicked a button on the side of the tube, and May heard a slow, hissing sound.

"Mmmnnnnmmmphh!" May cried out. As a daring reporter, she'd been in trouble before, and while she hadn't been grabbed like this before she had a fair idea of what was about to happen to her. "Mmmmphh! Mmhhh...mmmhh..." It was as she'd feared. May could feel herself getting weaker. "S...sleeping gas..." she thought. Her eyes went wide - but they would not stay that way for long.

"I do find halothane just a little dull," May's captor said. "No scent, no...sensuality. But it gets the job done." She wasn't wrong. May's shapely legs were shuffling against each other weakly, a gentle rushing sound created by the fabric of her sheer stockings rubbing together.
"Mmmhhhgghhmmphhh..." May whimpered. "Wh...what's going on? Why am I being...uhh...captured...?" May's hands batted uselessly at her sides, the blonde effectively and mercilessly restrained. She felt herself growing not just weak now, but limp, becoming less and less able to hold herself up. "I...don't understand..." she thought, her mind confused and groggy. "Why...ooohh...?"

May's pert breasts rose and fell deeply. Her body instinctively sought more oxygen, feeling the weakness spreading through it, but this only meant that May drew herself closer and closer to helpless slumber with each breath. She felt herself slump back against her captor, feeling an equally trim, though somewhat more athletic body against hers.
"That's it dearie, just go to sleep...I promise that's all you'll have to do. You've done nothing wrong...this isn't a punishment, or revenge, or anything like that...it's nothing personal, May..." She whispered softly in May's ear, adding to the inescapable relaxed feeling that washed through the sultry reporter's scarcely resisting, feminine body. "You're helpless...but you're safe...so just go to sleep...go to sleep..."

"Mmmphhh..." May couldn't help but begin to obey. Her eyelids were fluttering. Unlike chloroform - which she'd been dosed with before - which was like a powerful wave of sleepy helplessness crashing against one again and again, the halothane drew her under slowly, calmly, drawing away her strength almost without her feeling it. Almost. "Mghghhmmphh..." May tried to look back to at least see her attacker, but she couldn't find the strength even to turn her head. The only clue she had, was the feeling of two smooth legs rubbing against her own, clad in black tights, their smoothness somehow highlighting the soft silkiness of May's own supple calves and thighs.

May's captor was able quite safely to take one of her arms away from May, allowing her arms to hang where gravity commanded. She reached back, finding the side door of a van that she'd had the sense to park right next to her target's car. She pulled her captive directly into the hold, allowing her to fall back against her. The woman now wrapped her limbs around May's, holding her legs with her own, and pinning her arms again. It was virtually pointless - May was almost paralysed with weakness at this point.

"Mmmphh...mmphh..." she whimpered rhythmically, spiralling down into slumber. She couldn't fight - she was powerless before the halothane, and before this woman taking her. Her captor's legs went up and down her own, and May was astonished at how good it seemed to feel. As her consciousness faded, her blue eyes flickering open and shut, she was still in a state of total confusion. "Why...me?" she thought, before she faded away completely, her eyes shutting like traps, soft, yes - but unopenable. She was completely unconscious.

"There we go, my dear." The woman said. She had supplies waiting in her van already. She grabbed a roll of silver duct tape, pulling some off the roll. She flipped May's lovely, limp body over, so she was lying on her front. She crossed her wrists behind her back, before rolling tape over them, binding them together with two, three, four circuits, keeping May's arms tightly tied.

She moved down to the reporter's shapely, stocking-clad legs, rolling tape down her calves, completely covering them in sticky, silver plastic. She allowed her hands to linger on May's legs, feeling the smoothness of them, only enhanced by her stockings. The blonde wasn't her ultimate target, but she was very attractive in her own right. Her pretty face looked entirely peaceful - she was completely subdued.

May's captor gently smoothed a strip of tape down over her lips.
"Mhh..." she mewed quietly, shuffling a little. Now bound and gagged, she'd have been helpless even if she hadn't been knocked out. Her captor had a desire to spend a bit of...quality time with her acquisition - but she was on the job, and time was money.
"Oh, you're gonna have a hell of a story to tell by the end of this...consider that compensation for your time, sweetie."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hey, Mariko," Sophie said, "I'm just calling to check up on you. I didn't see what happened to you after...well, after all the excitement, I guess." She was sitting on her bed, half dressed, in just a t-shirt and her underwear, her long legs dangling over the bed, her left calf bobbing up and down.

"I'm fine, Sophie," Mariko replied, her voice echoing slightly as though she were on speakerphone. "The effect of the Supremacist's bindings was only temporary. I recovered quite speedily, I assure you."
"Aww, come on, you know that's not what I mean," Sophie said. She could hear the coldness in Mariko's voice. It hadn't taken much of her intelligence to work out that the Japanese heroine was harsher when she was upset by something.
"Well, what do you mean, then?"
"I'm...well, let's just say I'm calling to check on Spectra as well as Mariko." She heard Mariko start to say something, but stop herself.
"Your thoughtfulness is appreciated," Mariko said, "but unnecessary." Sophie didn't believe that. The footage of Mariko fainting and flopping over Valora's shoulder had been endlessly repeated on the news, the public seeming to take a sordid delight in seeing her helpless.

On the other hand, Sophie's interview had given her a very favourable profile.
"She's sweet, she's spunky, she's drop-dead gorgeous: why Enhancegirl is your new favourite superhero!" had been the most memorable headline - and that hadn't even come from the Herald. Her natural, unaffected humour had played very well on screen: she realised for the first time that stardom could be hers, if she were a bit more media-savvy - and if she wanted it.

"Look, Mariko," Sophie said. "D'you want to, like, grab a drink or something? Just get your mind off things."
"No thank you," she replied. "The Supremacist's defeat does not mean that there isn't work to be done. Spectra cannot afford to rest."
"Maybe I can help you -"
"That's quite alright," Mariko interrupted. "I won't require your help."

Later, Sophie realised that her reaction to what Mariko had said was irrational. Of course she was upset. Of course she would close ranks and refuse help. She was a very proud woman, and she'd just been publicly humiliated - she wanted to try to feel strong in herself. Yet at the time, Sophie did not come to these conclusions, and said:
"What, so I can come to you for help, but I'm not good enough for you to come to me?"
"What?" The tenor of her voice changed - she had picked up the phone. "I didn't say that! You - oh, damn it all!" The line went dead.

"Fuck!" Sophie shouted, hurling the phone onto the floor. She was suddenly extremely angry, and she wasn't entirely sure why. She was angry at herself for saying something so stupid, but most of her anger was directed at Mariko. Even as she felt it she didn't understand it. She was frustrated that Mariko seemed not to see her as an equal, but again, that wasn't the whole of it.
"I...I just want to be there for her..." Sophie thought. "Why won't she let me in?" This got closest - but even then, Sophie felt there was still something in her that was obscured to her.

Turning onto her back, she tried to put it out of her mind.
"This is no time for me to get wrapped up in other people's fucking problems," she said. "My help's here if she wants it - as for me, I should be celebrating!" Sophie picked up her phone again, and searched through her contacts list. But as she looked through her list of friends, she realised that no-one she wanted to celebrate with knew her true identity. Insyte didn't exactly seem like the life of the party, and celebrating her triumph with Aerogirl might be rather rubbing her face in the difference between their reputations. That left, alas, only Mariko.

"Ugh...god damn it!" Sophie growled. "Why does everything have to be so fucking complicated with her?" But then she realised - there was one other person she could call. She used her other phone, her 'EG' phone as she called it, and dialled May's number. She smiled, imagining that the, admittedly somewhat unhinged, reporter would be hopelessly enthusiastic about the previous day's events.

"Hello there?" A voice on the other line - but not May's.
"Oh, sorry," Sophie said. "I was looking for May Fairweather. Do I have the wrong number?"
"No, you don't. I'll pass you over."
"Sweet, thanks." She heard a shuffling. Then silence.
"Wh...what?" That was May, but she sounded like she was half asleep.
"Hey, May," Sophie said. "I'm, uh, guessing you probably heard about the big news. Feel like treating me to a glass of champagne?"
"S...Sophie?" May mumbled back. "H...he..."
"What?" Sophie replied. "I didn't catch that."
"Help...she's...kidnapped me..."
"Wh-what?!" Sophie gasped. "May, what's going on? May?"
"Help...help me...mmmphhhhh! Mmmmhhhnnn..."

Sophie didn't know what to do. "What the hell is happening?!"
"Still there, 'Sophie'?" came the other voice. It sounded familiar, but Sophie couldn't place it.
"Yeah, I'm here. What the fuck do you want? Actually, let me put it another way - let her go, right now, and I won't track you down and break every bone in your body."
"Such strong words, Enhancegirl," the woman said. "That's your true name, isn't it? You know you saved me a little trouble by making the call yourself."
"So, you've mastered the secret art of looking at caller I.D.," Sophie shot back. "Whoop-de-doo. My point still applies."
"Well, you can come and get her if you like," the woman said. "I'll text the address. Be there in...oh, what shall say - two hours? See you then!"
"Hey, wait!" But it was too late. She'd hung up. A moment later, she received a text - a Westside address, not in an area Sophie knew well. Another text: "Oh, and if you call anyone else, any of your superfriends, or the cops...bad things might start happening."

Sophie leapt up to her feet. "I guess Mariko was right," she thought. "No rest for people like us." Then, out loud: "Enhance!"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Sophie arrived at the address she'd been given, she was transformed into her superheroic identity, her senses sharpened to razor points. The street was in a part of Seacouver that normally even the scuzziest criminals didn't frequent, in desperate need of urban investment. Ulteo Maps, the GPS service from the French tech giant, had had trouble finding the place. Sophie had even tried the program of an obscure company called "Googol", but despite its cult popularity, Sophie never found that anything they made worked very well.

She came up to a small, boarded up corner shop. According to her smartphone, this was the place. She gave it a quick scan, and saw that while the boards were old, the nails weren't. Someone was trying to make the place seem abandoned, when it wasn't.
"This has to be it." She pulled on one of the boards, trying to prise it off. "Hhhnngghhh!!" Enhancegirl, for all her super-senses, wasn't any stronger than a young woman of her build looked, and she couldn't get the damned thing open.
"Need a hand?" Enhancegirl whipped round, drawing back her arm - but quickly relaxed it.
"Valora!"

Indeed, it was the mighty maiden herself, the primary colours of her outfit - blue leotard, red boots, cape and mask, and yellow hair - a bold statement of her beauty and strength. Her cape fluttered in a light breeze, the setting sun a halo behind her head.
"What are you doing here?" Enhancegirl asked.
"I'm guessing the same thing as you. Turns out we have a mutual acquaintance." She smiled. "Can't say I'm sorry to see you. Two supergals are always better than one. Besides - after yesterday, there's not to many people I'd rather have watching my back."
"Well, alright," Sophie flashed a grin. "Think you can get us in?" In answer, Valora strode up the the boarded up door, and gave each board a quick tap. In turn, they each crumbled into dust. "Okay," Sophie said. "Guess that was a stupid question."

The two heroines walked inside. The interior of the store was covered in dust - but tellingly, the floors were much cleaner. Still dirty, but the thick dust had been recently disturbed.
"She's obviously not here," Valora said. "Are we just supposed to wait here?"
"No way," Enhancegirl replied. "It's still visible from the street. There's gotta be a secret entrance or something."
"Do you think you can find it?" Valora asked. But the gold-clad redhead was already walking behind the counter. She kicked at the floor, and several of the boards - fused together - sprang up at once, revealing a passageway. "Okay," Valora said, smiling. "Guess that was a stupid question."

The two heroines descended the stairs. These looked as ill used as the storefront, but Sophie could see faint traces of someone having gone up them recently, someone who was good at covering their tracks. They went down what was the equivalent of about four flights of stairs, until they found a heavy, thick steel door.
"This has to be it. I doubt this door was even here a week ago," Sophie said. "Hopefully it won't come to this, but if May's kidnapper gets away, we can probably track down whoever had this installed."
"I'm impressed."
"Hmm?"

Enhancegirl looked back at her fellow heroine. Valora was standing a few steps above her, her already tall height emphasised. She was a pillar of strength and confidence, mighty and dazzlingly gorgeous. Enhancegirl realised that she was a little star struck.
"You use your powers well," she said. "Really intelligently. I've known plenty 'a capes who have a lot more raw power than you, who don't get half the use out of them." She smiled. "When this is over, I might reach out to the West Coast Congress - you know, Thaddeus' group. I used to work with them myself, and I hear they could use a gal with your talent."

Enhancegirl was taken aback.
"Valora, I - don't know what to say." She blushed. She'd never been someone who desperately required recognition and praise - but there's a world of difference between not needing it and being indifferent to it. "Um...I'd need to think about it but...that you would even say that! I'm - oh, man, should I be playing it cool?" She ran her hands through her hair.
"I don't know why you're so surprised."
"Hey, you gotta remember who you are, right? You're not just any cape - you're a real life superstar! You're Valora!"
"And you're Enhancegirl. You've earned the right to have just as much pride in that name as I have in mine." Sophie's heart fluttered, her stomach feeling warm. That it was Valora of all people saying this was almost too good to be true - and the fact that she was a stunningly attractive woman didn't hurt matters either.

"Sorry, I've distracted you," Valora said. "C'mon. Let's get focused." She had a natural authority that was very easy for Sophie to fall in line with. She stepped up to the door. "Enhancegirl, the door. Is it - ?"
"Booby-trapped? Not from this side." She looked again. "It's lead. I can't see through it. There's..." She looked carefully at the lock, her enhanced vision straining to get as much detail as she could. "The lock is weird. I don't think I'd be able to pick it."
"No worries," Valora said. "Stand aside."

Enhancegirl did, and Valora put her hand on the door. She began pushing, a little irritated to find that her power couldn't just force it open immediately. She pushed harder - and felt something click. For a moment she was worried she'd triggered a trap - but it was just the lock turning.
"I don't understand," Valora said. "Why did it open?" Sophie thought for a second.
"Oh! I get it! That weird-ass lock was designed to open when a certain amount of pressure was put on it. I just don't get why it's designed like that."
"I do," Valora said. "It's so that only someone as strong as me can open it. So either May's kidnapper has similar powers to me -"
"Or it's tailor made for you to open."

Despite this knowledge, the two heroines slowly pushed the door open, and came into a large room. It was opulently decorated, with a beautiful Persian rug, paintings on the walls, and a King-sized bed, with thick, soft covers and comfortable looking pillows.
"Uh...is it just me or does this not exactly scream, like, evil fortress?"
"This is weird, you got that right."
"Oh, I don't know." Both heroines snapped into fighting stances. The speaker had not been either of them. A door had just opened on the far side of the room, and another woman walked out.

"Oh...shit!" Enhancegirl gasped. For while Valora didn't know this woman, Sophie knew her all too well. She was somewhere between the two heroines in height, with her hair in a slightly messy bob, a darker yellow than Valora's burnished gold locks. She was dressed entirely in black: a practical jacket; a sort of zipped leotard, done up to the neck; not-quite knee-high boots, and dark black tights. She also wore a black mask over a slyly smiling face. Her name was Nyx: the self-styled Mistress of Sleep.

"So nice to see you again, Enhancegirl," she said, walking slowly and casually across the room. "I always love our little confrontations."
"You know her?" Valora said, under her breath.
"Yes, I know her!" Sophie hissed. "Her name's Nyx. She's got a weird power: she's immune to sedatives - so she likes to use them on other people."
"That's her only power?"
"As far as I know."
"Then this shouldn't be too tough."

Valora stepped forward. "Nyx!" She said, her voice booming, echoing off flat, stone walls. "What have you done with Miss Fairweather?"
"Oh she's quite safe," Nyx said. "In fact, she's going to wake up in a few hours in her own bed. She'll be a little tied up of course...but she seems like a resourceful woman. She'll be fine."
"Wait, I don't get it," Enhancegirl said. "She isn't here? She's at her house?" Nyx nodded. "Great, thank you." She turned to Valora, again speaking so Nyx couldn't hear. "Let's go, now."
"What? Don't be ridiculous. We still need to school this louse."
"Valora, this is a trap. She was waiting for us. This looks like it could be her house. There are probably booby traps everywhere."
"I think you're forgetting who you're dealing with, Enhancegirl," Valora said, stepping forward.
"Damn it, Valora, do you have a super respiratory system?! Her drugs will work on you too, right? So we have to go!"
"Can't do that. She could be lying - did you think of that?"
"Why would she lie about that? She's taken away her only leverage! Why would she lure us here and then lie to us so that we leave again? We're in her house, in an enclosed space. I am telling you, we shouldn't try to fight her here!"
"I don't run away, Enhancegirl." She walked towards Nyx.
"Damn it!" Sophie said. She turned around, and saw that the door had shut itself - and re-locked itself to boot.

"You know, you really should listen to your friend," Nyx said. "She's a smart one. I never had any interest in your reporter friend...it's you two I want."
"You're welcome to try," Valora said. "But I warn you - I have no intention of going easy on you." Nyx laughed.
"I wouldn't have it any other way."

Enhancegirl hadn't been listening. She'd been straining her ears for something else. No, she didn't have enhanced hearing, but it was still sharp enough. She heard something...a hissing.
"The floor!" Sophie looked down, and her enhanced vision saw slight disturbances in the air currents around the ground. She could smell something, something she wasn't familiar with - a chemical smell, almost like iodine. "Gas! Valora, we have to - have to...unnhh..."

Too late, Enhancegirl felt it begin to affect her. The weakness started in her chest, slowing and deepening her breathing. It spread outwards, through her shoulders and into her arms, making them heavy and hard to move. It spread down through her hips and into her thighs, travelling down her pale legs, making them shiver and tremble. It spread up through her neck, into her head, making her feel drowzy, and dazed.
"N...no..." Sophie mewed, as she felt herself growing ever more feeble. "Not...again..."

The lovely redhead felt her legs shake, before dropping down to her pretty knees. The gas was rapidly draining all her strength. She could no longer lift her arms, and her eyes were growing more and more dull, her eyelids heavy. "Has to...be...some way out...oohhh..." Sophie thought. But if there was, she was in no fit state to think of it, as her quick wits were slowed to a crawl by the effect of the gas on her sensitive body.

"Enhancegirl!" Valora rushed over to her.
"So...weak..." Enhancegirl moaned sleepily, as she began to flop backwards. Valora caught her just in time, the slender young woman light in her powerful arms.
"It's alright," Valora said. "The gas doesn't seem to affect me. So I'll take care of everything, okay?" She laid Sophie down gently on her back. "I'll get you outta here once I'm done with 'Nyx'."
"No...Valora...wait..." But the blonde ignored her. She turned to the blonde villainess, leaving Sophie weakly writhing on the ground, soft whimpers emerging from her pink lips.

"Looks like your little plan didn't work, Nyx," Valora said. "Whatever you used to take down Enhancegirl doesn't work on me. So why don't you just surrender now and spare me having to knock you unconscious."
"Oh, I rather think that boot is going to be on the other foot," Nyx said. "I knew this gas wouldn't affect you, blondie. It wouldn't affect most people - your friend there just has an oh-so unfortunate vulnerability to sedatives. You see, I had to take out the real threat first."
"The real threat?" Valora clenched her fist. "What are you talking about?"
"You're brute force, Valora. And you bring a whole lot of that to the table, don't get me wrong. But it hasn't forced you to be all that bright. Your powers don't need forethought to use them correctly, like Enhancegirl's, or creativity to wield them in a variety of ways, like Spectra's. You just hit things until they fall down, then pose for the cameras." Valora growled. She had not worked to become one of the most respected superheroines in the country just to be taunted by some small-fry villain with an incredibly low-tier power.

"You little rat," Valora cracked her knuckles threateningly. "I'm sorry, but you're not quite as clever as you think you are. The thing is, I don't believe you were targeting Enhancegirl specifically. You're just trying to get me to hesitate, maybe give you time to think of something else. I'm ending this, now."
"You're welcome to try." Nyx extended a gloved hand, and beckoned her closer.
"Alright, then. I will." Valora launched herself forward, her strength propelling her quickly towards Nyx. The black clad villainess didn't flinch, though. She waited until Valora was close, then pointed her wrist at her, revealing a gauntlet hidden beneath her sleeve.
"Time for you to go to sleep, Valor - aah!"

Before she could squeeze the firing mechanism, Valora had grabbed her wrist, and pointed it up into the air. The gauntlet did indeed trigger, but it sprayed harmlessly upwards, spewing a fine white mist to dissipate in the air.
"Not good enough," Valora said. "Nowhere near good enough to take me on." She tightened her grip slightly, and felt something crack. "There goes your little trap," she said. "Next time, that 'crack' will be your wrist. So keep still."
"Huh," Nyx said. She seemed to be trying, and failing, to keep cool. "So, you're, uh, pretty strong then?"
"Pretty strong, yeah."
"It's a shame then."
"What is?"
"That you're just not all that bright."

Valora felt something move at her feet. A hidden panel in the floor had shifted, revealing a thin nozzle.
"Oh no - ahhh!" Before Valora could react, a thick blast of white gas poured out, completely obscuring Valora's body. "Uhhh! No! No!" the gorgeous blonde waved her hands wildly in front of her face, trying to waft the gas away. And, to her credit, with her great strength, she did manage to blow quite a bit of the stuff away - but nowhere near enough.
"Unnhh..." Valora moaned. "What's...happening to me?" She felt something that she had rarely felt in her life as a superheroine before: she felt weak. She staggered back, shaking her head, trying to get herself out of it. But it wasn't working. She felt as though a leak had been sprung in some well within her, and strength was pouring out of her. She couldn't plug the hole, couldn't stop the draining.

"Feel that, blondie?" Nyx said, striding - totally unaffected - through the gas. "That's you becoming just like every other sexy super-hottie that I set my eyes on." She came over to Valora, and took both the heroine's wrists, before holding them down at her sides.
"Nnghh!" Valora groaned, straining to lift her arms. But she couldn't. Her arms were trapped by this woman's grip. "Y...you're...stronger than me!" she gasped, her bright blue eyes already fluttering.
"Well..." Nyx said, smiling, "I prefer to think of it as you being weaker."

Valora now felt her knees begin to tremble. She looked down, seeing her feet shifting, her confident pose turning into a shy, pigeon-toed posture. "M...my legs..." she whimpered, feeling her lovely limbs becoming too weak even to hold her up.
"I know, right?" Nyx said, rubbing Valora's satin covered calf with her own leg. "They're really something." She pushed Valora lightly in the chest, and the blonde fell back a few steps.

"Unhh..." she moaned, staring with drowzy, dismayed blue eyes at the woman who'd drugged her. "I'll...beat you...I'll...uhh..." She lifted her arms, flapping uselessly in Nyx's vague direction, her vision too blurry for her to perceive depth properly. "Can't...fight...what's going...on?" Dazed by the overpowering blast of sleeping gas, Valora couldn't think. She didn't understand why she felt so weak, why her limbs felt leaden and immovable. Her arms, despite her efforts, dropped to her sides. She blinked, barely able to keep her eyes open. "Why...am I so...weak?" she said - and fell. Her tall, gorgeous, hourglass figure tumbled backwards, gradually pulled to the ground like a mighty oak brought down by a woodsman.

With a sigh, she landed on her back, her sumptuous breasts bouncing visibly as she shockwaves of her landing travelled through her. She moaned, turning her head from side to side, but she had no strength left at all. Valora, one of the most powerful women in the world, was completely defeated.

"N...no..." Sophie mewed. To her dismay, the gas that she'd been drugged with wasn't knocking her out. Nyx seemed content to keep the two heroines moaning gently in helpless weakness - but not actually render them unconscious. Nyx turned her attentions to the redhead now, calmly striding over to her. "Wh...what do you...want with us?" Sophie asked, barely able to get her soft lips to form the words.
"Oh, that would be telling," Nyx said.

The blonde villainess bent down, kneeling next to the nubile maiden. She softly, gently ran the tip of her left index finger down Sophie's left thigh, before switching legs and travelling back up again, feeling the delicacy of Sophie's creamy skin.
"Ooohh..." Sophie sighed, her cheeks reddening. Her powers made her extremely sensitive, and shivers travelled up her spine.
"Already blushing, Enhancegirl?" Nyx said. She flicked the hem of Sophie's short, gold dress. "We've barely even started." She stood up. Taking Enhancegirl by the arms, she began dragging her towards Valora.

"S...stop..." Sophie mumbled, as she felt herself pulled along. She couldn't do anything - she was like a puppet. "Unnhh..." She was dragged right next to the fallen blonde, placed alongside her.
"Oh, what a pretty picture," Nyx said, standing up to look at the two helpless, slowly writhing, whimpering beauties. By chance, Valora's hand came to rest on Sophie's, and Nyx grinned. "Oh, what's this? Do I detect a hint of romance? The slender young rookie tutored by the more experienced, buxom superheroine, and the feelings between them become more than just master and student?" She laughed. "How charming."

"It's...not like that..." Sophie felt compelled to protest. "Unnghh..." Using the tiny amounts of her strength that remained, she pulled her hand away. But even as she did, she realised she was wasting her efforts. "Why...why did I...need to say that...?" As the redhead pondered, lost in her daze, Nyx was unclipping two of the pouches on her belt. From one, she took a small glass vial. From another, a thick, folded white cloth. She poured some of the contents of the former onto the latter, and then knelt in the small space between the two heroines.

"Mmm...as much as I love watching the two of you writhe around, they don't call me the Mistress of Sleep for nothing." She smiled, and moved some of Valora's wavy, golden hair from where it had fallen slightly over her face. "Nighty-night, Val," she said.
"No...you mustn't...you - mmmphhh..." The soft, damp cloth covered Valora's mouth and nose, assailing her curvy body with sharply sweet chloroform. "Mmmm...MMPHH!!" The powerful scent seemed to stir Valora into wakefulness for a moment, but she lost it soon enough.

"Mmmhhmmbhhmmhh..." she mumbled sleepily into the soft cloth, feeling a warmth in her chest, that spread through her, settling her, taming her. "Mmmhhh..." She cast her fluttering eyes down to see Nyx's hand running up her tights-covered legs, feeling Valora's firm, feminine form. "She...can't do this to me...I'm...I'm weak...uhh..." She was now completely still, the debilitating gas and chloroform in combination rendering the tall, strong heroine completely powerless. She could only watch as her gorgeous limbs were stroked and gently squeezed by her teasing captor.

Valora felt her eyes begin to roll back in her head, felt the soft, encroaching sleep taking hold of her, like dark tendrils gradually pulling her under a warm, inky-black lake. "Mmmphhh..." the beautiful blonde whimpered. "Can't...fight it...ooohhh..." Valora was permitted no more thoughts after this. Her eyes rolled back fully, and she fell under the grip of the chloroform. Her lids fluttered once - twice - but not a third time. They were completely shut, and Valora was completely unconscious.
"There we go," Nyx crooned. "That's just how blonde bombshells like you should behave...a helpless victim for the 'monsters' like me."

Sophie, just barely sensate enough to understand what she was seeing, was incredulous. She'd just watched Valora being tricked, defeated, and sent into drugged sleep. She lay there, her blonde hair and tranquil expression in her sleep making Valora look pure - and that purity was Nyx's to despoil. Sophie suddenly felt terribly vulnerable: if even Valora was helpless, how much worse must things be for the fragile, slender redhead?

"Now for you, my lovely heroine," Nyx said. She moved over, swinging her left leg over Enhancegirl's body. She was straddling the gently writhing damsel, feeling her wriggling slowly underneath her.
"Get...get off..." Sophie mumbled.
"In a minute," Nyx replied. She took out the small vial again, but this time simply dipped her finger in it, and rubbed some of the liquid onto her own lips. "But first, we need to get you comfortable."
"What are you - mmmmphhh!"

Sophie found her tender lips covered by Nyx's own, and her sensitive sense of smell and touch made her tingle as the villainess kissed her. But it wasn't just Nyx's mouth - it was what she'd put on it.
"Mmmhhh...mmmmhhnnhh..." Sophie sighed into her captor's mouth. She could feel herself getting even more powerless, as she tasted that Nyx's lips were themselves dosed with chloroform. "Mmmnnmmgghhhmmphh..." she whimpered, her protests muffled by Nyx's long kiss. The blonde slipped her tongue inside Sophie's mouth, and the young maiden crimsoned again as she felt Nyx expertly caressing the redhead's tongue with her own.

"She's...kissing me...unconscious..." Sophie thought, confused and drowzy. "I'm so helpless...she's defeating me with...a kiss..." The lovely damsel was growing groggier by the second, and in her addled state, she began to think of another kiss - the kiss of Ocelot, whose overwhelming sensuality had made her swoon with pleasure. "Mmmhhh..." She closed her eyes, for a moment thinking that it was the slinky, olive-skinned thief who was caressing and weakening her. She felt a gloved hand stroking her thigh, and another cupping her pert breasts. She moaned softly, her feeble struggles stopping, her arms and bare legs now still. "Feels...nice..." she thought, her consciousness beginning to ebb away. "Maybe...I should just...let her..." But in her last instants of wakefulness, she remembered whom it was who really had her in her grip.

"Nnnhhh..." she moaned, almost inaudibly. But it was too late. The beautiful, vulnerable damsel was no match for the drugged kiss, and she gave in at last. She was already close to paralysis from the drugs' effects on her body, but Nyx could feel something change in her as she went completely limp. She too was now under Nyx's chemical spell.

The criminal stood up, and admired her handiwork. The two maidens were now powerless, helpless captives: her captives, to be precise. She leant down, and slowly ran her hands up both defeated heroine's long legs: Enhancegirl's naked and soft; Valora's smooth and firm. Neither of them stirred, both reduced to unresisting passivity.

Nyx stepped away for a moment, returning with two bundles in her arms. She dropped both, one hitting the ground with a thump, the other with a metallic clang. She then picked up the first bundle, brought it over to Sophie - and began binding her with it. The bundle was, in fact, a coil of strong, thin white cords. Nyx started by turning Enhancegirl onto her front, easily manipulating her slender form. She moved her arms behind her back, folding them parallel with each other, before coiling white cord around her wrists and forearms, roping Sophie's limbs into a box-tie.

Nyx lifted her captive slightly, to slip rope under her chest. She did this three times, three circuits just beneath Sophie's gently rising and falling breasts, pinning her upper arms to her back. Bound, Sophie's hands rested on her back, her fingers curled slightly, her body seemingly powerless. Nyx turned her back over, her pretty face turning to the side, her long, red hair falling over her left shoulder and breast, almost as if in an effort to protect the heroine's tender body. But it was a vain effort: Nyx simply brushed Sophie's hair aside, exposing as much of her creamy skin as possible.

Nyx paused for a moment, tracing her fingers over Sophie's soft, bare shoulders, her slender neck.
"Uhh..." she moaned, the nineteen-year-old sensitive enough for some part of her to feel the caresses even in her sleep.
"Oh, Enhancegirl," Nyx crowed, "even when you're out like a light you're so much fun..."

Nyx placed Sophie's legs against each other. She then took a length of cord about four feet long, placing the middle of it under Sophie's ankles. Then, using both hands, she ran each end of the cord over and under Sophie's legs again and again, criss-crossing the rope around her calves, the visual effect rather like knee-high, lacy sandals. Nyx watched with pleasure as Sophie's long, naked legs became cinched more and more tightly together. By the time the rope reached her knees, Sophie would not have been able to prise her legs an inch apart had she been conscious.

Tightly tied up, Sophie still did not struggle in the slightest. It was child's play, therefore, for Nyx to take a thin, silky, red shawl, and press it over Sophie's lips, so tightly that the vague outline of her mouth was visible through the gag. She tied it off, sealing Enhancegirl's lips. She licked her lips. The sight of Sophie like this was utterly enthralling. Her shoulders were pulled back a little by the ropes binding her arms, accentuating her bust, and the bare skin above her dress.

The redhead's legs, forced into such straightness by the ropes coiled around them, seemed even longer than they were. The manner in which Nyx had bound them suited her very well - Sophie's limbs were clearly inextricably tied together, but it covered very little of her skin, leaving her acres of smooth, most skin open to be caressed by her oh-so appreciative captor.

Leaving her personal favourite victim, she turned to the equally appealing prospect of the voluptuous Valora. The blonde lay just as helpless and meek looking as her fellow heroine, just lying there: waiting for Nyx to have her wicked way with her. The criminal dragged the other bundle along with her - that bundle being a clinking series of chains. She sat behind Valora, pulling her up into a sitting position, so that her back rested against Nyx's chest.

From there, Nyx began to wind the somewhat thin, but very strong silver chains around Valora's body. First, she wrapped a chain around Valora's torso, under her breasts. She drew it round so that it pinned her arms to her back at the elbows, before locking it in place with a heavy padlock. She then coiled metal around Valora's wrists, pinning together the hands that had brought so many evildoers low. She slung this chain up the front of Valora's torso, drawing it between her fulsome bosoms, and over her right shoulder. She connected it to the first chain with another lock.

"Uh..." The now chained-up captive shifted a little, her head falling back against Nyx's chest, her wavy, thick blonde hair a soft cushion for her. She was so sensuous and vulnerable, Nyx couldn't resist reaching forward and massaging her ample breasts, feeling their feminine softness, kneading them firmly in her hands. She was sumptuously powerless, the delicious softness of her bosom a scintillating contrast to her power.
"Oh, don't worry, Valora," Nyx whispered, stroking her hair. "I promise I'll take very good care of you." As if to prove her point, she let the mighty maiden's hourglass figure fall gently back onto the floor. She stood up, slowly circling her slumbering captive. She leant down, and ran her hands all the way from Valora's curvy hips, down her gorgeous legs. Nyx enjoyed the feeling of her hands against the maiden's satin tights, feeling the firmness of her thighs and finely curved calves. But feeling wasn't enough - she was Valora's captor, not her girlfriend.

Like with Sophie, she began criss-crossing chains up Valora's legs, squeezing her smooth, firm legs, pressing into her skin, and forcing her legs together. Only this time, she didn't stop at the knees, running the chains all the way up to the tops of Valora's thighs. Locking it in place with another padlock, Nyx finished binding the defeated heroine. About to use another shawl to gag her, Nyx smiled to herself, as she had a better idea.

She grabbed Valora's cape, which was folded and trapped behind her back, before tearing it from her back. This had the additional effect of tearing one of the straps of the blonde's leotard, baring her right shoulder. This was not something that Nyx minded in the slightest. She tore a thick strip off the cape, before pulling it tightly over Valora's mouth and nose, gagging her even more strictly than Enhancegirl. Nyx felt a tingle of pleasure. For all she thought well of her abilities, she knew that she wasn't exactly an A-List villain, but she - she - had just muzzled Valora.

Both gorgeous heroines were now drugged, bound, and gagged, and seeing the two so close to each other was a delight to the black-clad kidnapper, their proximity and equal attractiveness enhancing both maidens' appeal. She could hardly wait to have her hands on them again - and she didn't. She lifted Valora up to her feet - her height and the chains tying her up making this less than entirely easy. She prevailed, though, and soon Valora was up on her feet, her head falling back. It flopped forward, however, when Nyx allowed her captive to fall against her.

Nyx then took Valora's by her waist, before lifting her up and over her shoulder. This was not easy, but Nyx was no weakling, her muscled arms eventually forcing her captive to dangle limply over her, her satin-clad legs draped down her front. She began carrying her over to the luxurious looking bed the two heroines had seen, constantly caressing the chained heroine's limbs, enjoying the sound her glove made against the thin satin which was all that protected the damsel's skin.

As she walked, she felt Valora's gorgeous breasts bouncing against her back, so soft and supple. Nyx laughed. Feeling Valora limp and sleepily subdued over her shoulder was very much to her delight, she rather liked the idea of Valora knowing that she'd been reduced to such a helplessly sexy state, thrusting her buxom bosoms against her captor with every step that was taken.

Coming over to the bed, she laid Valora down, propping up her lovely head with a soft pillow, leaving her prisoner in the lap of luxury. She looked delectably passive as she lay on Nyx's bed.
"But you'll look even better with company," Nyx thought.

She went back over to Enhancegirl, again admiring her slender, sleeping form. She placed her hands on the maiden's shoulders, and gradually ran them down her chest, over the swell of her chest, down her sides, her slinky hips, and all the way down her bare, bound legs.
"Mmmphh..." Sophie whimpered in her slumber, a tiny part of her somewhat aware that she was being fondled. That whimper was her only resistance, however. Nyx hoisted her to her feet - much shorter and more slender than Valora, this was significantly easier than it had been for the blonde. She gently put her hands on Sophie's silky thighs, as her head came to rest on Nyx's chest, almost in what felt like an affectionate gesture.

Nyx rather liked this feeling, and took the back of Sophie's head, stroking her hair almost sweetly. For her, however, there was nothing romantic in this - it was simply a new way to dominate the headstrong damsel. She slipped the hand on her thigh underneath Sophie's dress, feeling the subtle curves of her tight, round behind. She began slowly massaging it, knowing that there was absolutely nothing the stunning girl could do about it. She was so soft, so helpless and warm, her flesh so tender and yielding...

She'd been about to toss Sophie over her shoulder as well, but she decided against it.
"Such a soft, helpless damsel," she whispered, "deserves something a little...gentler." She slid the hand she'd been fondling Sophie with down her legs, enjoying every inch of moist skin. She grabbed her by the shoulder as well, before scooping the mollified maiden up into her arms like a beautiful, stolen princess.

She carried her captive to the luxuriant bed, her head falling back, her hair like a waterfall down to the ground. Her long legs dangled from Nyx's arms, her dress sliding back, revealing her round ass and just a hint of her white underwear. As if sensing her embarrassing exposure, Sophie whimpered through her gag, shuffling a little in Nyx's arms. But she didn't awaken. Nyx's chloroformed kiss had utterly subdued her.

Sophie was laid down next to Valora, the two sumptuously attractive young women in a state of total powerlessness. Nyx knelt between them, running her hands all over their bodies, squeezing their thighs, rubbing their breasts and shoulders, unsure of which damsel, or which body part, she wanted to get her hands on next. The two captive beauties, bound, gagged and drugged, lay in a state of utter helplessness: completely defeated, and Nyx's to do with whatever she desired...

[Damselbinder]

"Mmmhhh...mmmhhhph..." Sophie Scott whimpered, as she emerged from a dreamless sleep. A heavy cloud of drowziness still hung over her, keeping her body languorously slow, and her mind disordered. Her green eyes blinked behind her mask, her bare shoulders shifting a little as she awoke.
"Where...am I?" She was looking almost straight up, seeing a plain ceiling that told her nothing. She knew that Nyx had drugged her, and she remembered weakly writhing on the ground as she'd watched the mighty Valora fall to the same fate. Yet after that, she could remember nothing...save for a tingle on her lips.

Before her senses could take greater stock of her situation, she found a sharp scent wafting into her nostrils. As she breathed it in more, she felt more clear-headed, and was aware of more. She was lying on something soft and comfortable, her head propped up by a thick, feathery pillow. She looked down, and saw something by her nose - a glass vial of some kind, with a powder inside it.

"Mmmphh...mmpphhhh..." Lying next to Enhancegirl, a sumptuously endowed blonde was stirring awake as well. "Mmmhhh?" A note of confuison, perhaps even fear, entered the powerful heroine's voice. "What happened to me?" she thought. "I...can't be remembering this right...I can't have been defeated..."

That the two lovely lasses were awakening simultaneously was no coincidence. The vials being wafted under each of their noses contained powerful smelling salts, which stirred them back into wakefulness - but not into total alertness. Their captor took the salts away before that could happen.

"Morning ladies," came the smooth, taunting voice of Nyx, who was sitting on her knees between the two heroines. "Have a good rest?"
"Mmmhh?" Sophie mewed, still groggy and weak. "Mmmphh!" Her louder cry, along with one from Valora, was prompted when both damsels felt the backs of their heads grabbed, and pulled forward.

"Take a look, gals," Nyx said. "This is what I've done to you."
"MMMPHHH!!" Valora screamed through her gag, shocked and embarrassed.
"Mmmhhh..." Enhancegirl mewed, distressed, but with the resignation of familiarity.

Both maidens were forced to look at their own beautiful bodies - which had been tightly, inescapably bound: Sophie in soft, smooth white ropes, Valora in thin but strong silver chains.
"NNMMPHHH!!" Valora moaned. "This isn't possible...unnhh...I'm - I'm a captive!" She writhed her curvaceous body, but her strength was being suppressed by the drugs still in her system. "I...can't get free...no! My...my body! I'm chained..." Her cheeks reddened slightly as she felt the chain that ran between her heaving bosoms rubbing against them in her weakened struggles. Not only that, she recognised the fabric over her lips, and realised that her own cape had been used to gag her.
"Mmmphhh..." Enhancegirl whimpered. She wriggled her slender body, but she could feel that her strength was no match for her bonds. "Can't believe this...my body's too weak, I - I'm all tied up again..."

The two heroines looked at each other, their wet, wide eyes meeting. They each looked at the other's gorgeous, tightly bound bodies, feeling a wave of humiliation as they saw their own helplessness reflected in the other.
"I should be stronger than this," Valora thought. "I should have protected her!"
"I can't believe I let Nyx do this to us..." Sophie let out a quiet whimper. "I should have seen something...worked out the trap..."

Nyx allowed her captives' head to fall back against their pillows. They writhed with delicious weakness, whimpering and moaning through their gags.
"Oh, you super-beauties never look so good as when you're all trussed up and wriggling..." Nyx said, giving each damsel's thigh an appreciative squeeze, before taking two objects from where she'd laid them on the bed. "With one exception maybe."
"MMMPHH!!"

The two damsels found their lips even more tightly sealed, when Nyx forced two damp, white cloths down over their mouths.
"Nnnyyyrrrmmmphhh..." Sophie whimpered, feeling the familiar, sweet weakness running through her again. "Wh...why? She just woke us...up..."
"Mph! Mmm-MMPHH!!" Valora moaned, feeling a desperate helplessness as the cloth descended over her rosy lips once again. She shook her lovely limbs, but this merely rattled the chains that bound them. "My...my strength..." She shifted her satin clad legs against each other, but this was all the resistance her subdued body could muster.

Enhancegirl, with her sensitivity to sedatives, didn't last long. Her sparkling emerald eyes began fluttering the instant the cloth was pressed over her mouth. Valora was to last longer, but they were ultimately in the same state: it was simply a matter of time. The two supple damsels undulated languorously in their bonds, as the sweet invitation to surrender that the chloroform pressed into them came in waves through their bodies, a rhythmic ripple that wasn't quite struggle: it was, perhaps, like their bodies' answer to the involuntary whimpers that escaped from their mouths.

"Mmmhhh..." Sophie sighed, as her undulations slowed to a halt, her slender form going limp, her eyes only open a crack as she was drawn back into chemically induced sleep. "I can't...can't fight it..." she thought, as she silently gave into it. She saw Nyx kneeling over her, smiling calmly, in absolute control of the two heroines she'd captured. "I can't...fight her..." Nyx seemed to be a living embodiment of her greatest weakness, a reminder that whatever Sophie accomplished, she could always be drugged and trussed up by someone with a jar of that vile liquid. She reflected that if any one of the Supremacist's men had had a whiff of chloroform to direct her way, the day of her triumph would have gone very differently. With this dispiriting thought, Sophie surrendered, and sighed gently, drifting back into sleep.

"Nnnmmhhh...mmhhh..." Valora moaned sleepily, her blue eyes heavy with somnolence. "I...won't...won't let her...do this!" But she didn't have any choice in the matter whatsoever. Nyx seemed to answer her mental defiance, pressing the drugged cloth a little tighter. Valora felt something give way within her, and devastating weakness rushed through the broken dam. "Mmmmphh...mmph..." The busty beauty wouldn't admit her powerlessness, but that didn't make it less real.

"You're a lot more famous than your lovely friend here," Nyx said. She let the cloth she'd drugged Enhancegirl with rest on her face, while using her now free hand to cup Valora's bosom. "And you probably think you're a lot better...a lot stronger" She began massaging her fulsome breasts, the sense of weight giving them an especial sensuality. She began tugging on the chain running between them, moving it back and forth, the cold metal drawing in the heat which rose from Valora's increasingly sensitive skin.

"You know, as much as I love having your redhead friend all helpless and weak...it's nothing against her. I just think she's way too sexy for her own good...but she's a fine heroine, from what I can tell." She said 'heroine' with cynical irony, but she meant what she said, at least to a degree. "But you're probably looking down on her, right? I mean, you're Valora. Who's she? No-one, right? An up-and-comer at best. That's why you didn't listen to her before." She moved her hands away from Valora's breasts, down to her satin-covered thighs. "But look at this...you're just as helpless as she is. I can fondle you, rub my hands all over you...and for all your power, there's not a thing you can do about it."
"Mmmphhh..." Valora sighed. She was barely conscious enough to hear by the end of Nyx's diatribe, but she understood. She'd told Enhancegirl she could be proud before...but had those just been words? Was meting out her approval like that just a demonstration of her greatness and magnanimity? "When it counted...I treated her as...less than me..." Alas, Valora had meant what she said with perfect genuineness. However, with her mind and resistance weakened by Nyx's drugs, putting ideas into her head was much easier than it ought to have been.

After this, she didn't last long. Her eyelids batted as if at a man she was seducing, before closing. As they did, they took the feet from out under Valora's last remnants of strength. It was just too relaxing, too tempting to just allow the chloroform to claim her - and before she knew it, it had. With a slow sigh, halfway between protest and acceptance, Valora gave in.

Once again, Nyx had the two gorgeous maidens in the soft, but inescapable grip of drugged slumber, deliciously defeated by her machinations. Thrilling in the excitement of having two sexy young women so vulnerable before her, she ran her hands all over their long legs, squeezing their supple thighs, both maidens completely defenceless.

"Mmmhh..." As she was fondled, Sophie shifted a little in her drugged sleep. Her head fell to the side, coming to rest on Valora's bare shoulder. The two looked almost like they were amorously snuggling together, and this was not an image that Nyx had any intention of forgetting soon.

Nyx leaned over them, allowing her hands to play with their sleeping bodies, feeling their different, but equally sensuous figures. Valora was like a greek goddess, shapely and womanly, her statuesque form curvaceous, voluptuously soft and then firm in all the right places. It was that fulsome softness, though, that made her so very appealing in her captive state, her ample bosom somehow making her seem all the more helpless as it strained against the heroine's bonds.

Enhancegirl, by contrast, was like a nymph: slender, maidenly: her long, supple legs and nubile, almost virginal femininity making her seem very much like the sort of divine, delicate young beauty that a satyr would long to steal away. Nyx could imagine her sitting clad in nothing but a short, leafy tunic, idling by a body of water, until her lithe body was seized, and hurled over the shoulder of an amorous satyr, the redhead gasping and helplessly kicking her bare legs...except unfortunately for this putative, mythological captor, Nyx had got there first.

Nyx spent at least an hour simply fondling and playing with her beautiful captives, stroking them, squeezing their breasts and caressing their limbs. She covered their helpless bodies in kisses, on Sophie's white, naked shoulders and slender neck, and on Valora's ample chest. She turned them over, stroking the backs of their lovely legs, and massaging and squeezing their behinds: Sophie's round, firm and tight, Valora's heart shaped, and a little softer. The differences between the two beauties made Nyx's exploration of them endlessly diverting and arresting.

She smiled broadly the whole way through, reflecting that for all the difference in the power between Enhancegirl and Valora, both lay completely tame and captive in her grasp, passively permitting her to fondle their gorgeous bodies. The heavy embrace of chloroformed slumber made them equal in power - for they were both utterly powerless.

But eventually her smile flickered. She had no particular wish to do what she was about to do, but it was nevertheless necessary for her present purposes. She hopped off the bed, and fetched two items from the room she'd been hiding in. Neither had anything directly to do with further enfeebling her captives - at least not physically. One was a tall tripod; the other a video camera. She fiddled with the settings until both maidens were in shot, more or less in their entirety.

Having done this, she sat back down between the two heroines. She began gently running her hands over their shoulders and breasts, enjoying the feeling of their softness, but trying to forget the camera trained on them. When Nyx had a pretty damsel under her control, she liked to have them all to herself. Filming them felt rather like sharing.

"Mmmhhhphhh..." Valora was the first of the two to stir. She came to gradually this time, slowly remembering the state she was in. "Nnnmmphh..." she whimpered, as she felt the powerful chains still binding her voluptuous body. "No...can't...be bound like this...have to fight..." But she was barely awake enough to think, let alone fight. She wiggled her shoulders, and the muscles in her legs tensed, but no greater resistance was mustered.

Sophie was so subsumed by drugged sleep that she was perfectly silent when she eventually awoke. She blinked a few times, staring upwards. She could feel her bonds, feel the probing hands on the edge of her dress, could hear Valora's helpless, mewlingly defiant whimpers next to her. She knew the state she was in, how utterly subdued she was by Nyx's bonds and her drugs. "I'm helpless," she thought, with awful simplicity.

"Awake again are we, girls?" Nyx said. "Don't worry, I plan on letting you stay that way a little longer this time." She stroked the maidens' hair, lowering her hands until she was holding both of them by the backs of their necks. "I mean, you need to be awake for our audience, right?"
"Audience...what?" Sophie thought sleepily, finding her pretty head turned towards the camera at the foot of the bed. "Is...is that a camera?"
"Wh...why is she filming us?" Valora thought. Her stomach tightened.

"You'll be happy to know, girls," Nyx started, but she paused. Something about her easy confidence and superiority seemed affected, somehow. "You'll be happy to know," she continued, "that you're going to be even bigger celebrities thanks to me." She pointed to the camera. "I'm streaming this live to about fifteen different websites."

There was a long, terrible pause.
"Whh...whhmmhhh?" Sophie mewed, eyes going wide. "She's...what?!"
"NNNMMPHH!!" Valerie screamed through her gag, her struggles resuming a touch of their old vigour. "No! No, I can't have the world seeing Valora like this! Not after yesterday...not after all I've done!" She strained and writhed, but her strength was still fully suppressed. "NNNMMPPHH!!"

The two damsels now writhed with desperate helplessness, their eyes fixed on the camera, which seemed to be boring into their souls.
"Nnnnmmphhh...nnnnnnnmmmmphhhhh!" Sophie whimpered. "No...not now! I...I only just..." Sophie couldn't believe it. The day - the very day - after her greatest triumph, she was being publicly paraded in her helpless, captive state. They would laugh. They would jeer. Even the sympathetic would think her pitiable. And Sophie knew how good-looking she was: two gorgeous heroines, helplessly bound...that would not be an image easily forgotten. She turned to Nyx, looking up at her with wet, pleading green eyes. "Please..." her eyes seemed to say. "Please not this..."

But what was bizarre was that, for just a moment, Sophie thought she saw something like sympathy in Nyx's eyes. No - not sympathy but...distaste for what was happening. It vanished in an instant, leaving Sophie wondering if she had imagined it. That seemed possible, for Nyx straight afterwards turned towards the camera. Addressing it, she said:
"I know that these two have, uh, been in the public eye recently. Now I'm a dastardly villain and all, but I'm no fan of the Supremacist, so I say - good going, girls." She smiled, beginning to run her hands along the two whimpering damsels' legs.

"The problem is, I don't think you should get the wrong idea about these two. We should all be glad that they were as lucky as they were - but it was luck. I think these two should stick to stopping muggers, bank robbers, rescuing cats from trees, that kind of thing." She suddenly seized Enhancegirl, hauling her up by her shoulders so she was resting on her knees. Nyx sat behind her, holding her by the waist.

"I mean, I know this...gorgeous little redhead has become oh-so-popular all of a sudden, but, well..." She pulled Sophie's hair back, exposing the bare skin above her breasts. Nyx leaned forward and began kissing Sophie's shoulders, her traps, her neck.
"Mmmhhh...mmhhh..." Sophie mewed. She couldn't help blushing - her body was tremulously sensitive to touch with her powers active. She couldn't take her eyes off the camera either. "Mmmhh..." she mewed, feeling a hot pulse of shame wash over her. How many hundreds of people were watching her be fondled, and forced to blush and whimper in her tight, restrictive bonds? How many thousands more would watch later?

"See how helpless she is?" Nyx said, now reaching round to massage Sophie's breasts. "See how sexy and weak she is? I mean, I'm not exactly the Indigo Titan here...and she fell to me easily." She slid her hands down Sophie's lithe body, reaching the tops of her thighs. "I took her down without breaking a sweat...tied her up tight...and now she's my whimpering little captive." To Sophie's horror, Nyx lifted the hem of her dress, nearly exposing her white panties.
"Nnnmmphh!" Sophie moaned. "Pllhhhhss nnnnnmmphh!!" She shook her head in weak protest, looking from Nyx to the camera and back again.

"See? She's literally begging me not to do this." She let Sophie's hem slip back down. "I've decided to be generous." She took hold of Sophie's chin, and turned her face back to the camera. "I mean, she's just so cute when she's helpless. How could I refuse?" She looked at her other captive, the voluptuous blonde. "And as for the mighty Valora...she can't do anything, can she? Can't even help her pretty little friend."
"Nnnnmmmmggrrhrhhmmphhh!!" Valora growled through her gag.
"She's a little more feisty than her friend, isn't she?" Nyx laughed. "But look..." She let Sophie back down. She moved over to Valora, and began gently squeezing her breasts with one hand.
"Mmmphh! Nnnmmphh..." Valora whimpered, eyes fluttering a little as she tried to summon more energy than Nyx's drugs allowed her.
"If you're so angry about it, and you're so strong," Nyx said, "then by all means: stop me."
"Mmmmphh! Mmmhh-nnnmmphh!" Valora wriggled her shoulders, and weakly kicked her legs...but accomplished nothing whatsoever by her efforts.
"See, ladies and gents," Nyx said. "They're both just weak, wriggling damsels in distress." Both heroines blushed deep scarlet with humiliation: neither could honestly deny what Nyx was saying.

Having made her point, their black-clad kidnapper went over to the camera, and switched it off. She gave a long breath just afterwards.
"Sorry about that, girls," she said. "Not really my style, but my emp -" She cut herself off. "Anyway...now I've got you all to myself again." She moved back over to her captives, and her intense, delighted frottage of their helpless bodies continued.

Both now lay back, looking upwards, even Valora barely able to summon the energy to fight. Nyx might as well have marched them in chains, naked down Market Street. The same level of humiliation and mockery now awaited them. They lay softly moaning in their defeat: Nyx could not have dealt them a more perfect blow.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On the other side of Seacouver, in a rather nicer part of the fair city, another heroine who was all too used to the kinds of humiliations Valora and Enhancegirl were suffering was doing a bit of detective work.

After Maya Ciera's latest encounter with the thief Ocelot, she and Sophie had both considered the threat of Hosenfluss, who had attempted to use the mineral dexite to give himself vast powers, was over. But she'd had a pessimistic presentiment that the truth was not so simple. A skilled hacker, she'd kept a watch on the company servers of Hosenfluss' business, looking for any oblique reference to exotic chemicals or that kind of thing. She was just about to investigate a suspicious looking company receipt to a "Vargas Holdings Holdings (sic) Ltd." when she received a programmed alert.

Something had just been published to a deep-web address on which Maya kept a weather eye. It was a favourite haunt of some more tech-savvy supervillains, and every so often Maya got a useful lead from it. She was actually a little frustrated to give up the chase to check the site - but when she saw what had been posted, her mild frustration gave way to abject shock.
"Oh my god!" Maya gasped. "Sophie!"

The heroine watched in horror as she saw the smug, black clad, masked woman taunting and fondling Enhancegirl and Valora. The kind-hearted maiden covered her hands with her mouth as she saw the two heroines publicly humiliated.
"Who would do this?" Maya said. "Why would anyone do this?"

The video looped, and Maya found herself watching it two, three more times without thinking. Already, things were popping up on her news feed.
"Defeat! Triumphant superheroines kidnapped - their struggles broadcast for all to see!"
"'Damsels-in-distress': Valora and Enhancegirl!"
"Mysterious Mistress of Sleep Strikes Again? Her Latest Gorgeous Victims!"

Maya was distraught on behalf of her ally, and even for Valora, though they'd only met once, under fairly trying circumstances. She had been overjoyed to hear of Sophie's now famous victory, and seeing it end up like this was truly awful. Maya dithered, wanting to help somehow, but not able to think of a way. That was, until her cell went off.

"H-hello?" Maya said. "Oh, hi - but...how did you get this number? What? Yes, I've seen it. Oh, maybe...it might take a bit of time, though...y-yes, of course I'll hurry!" The line was abruptly cut. "I never thought I'd hear from her again," Maya thought. "But...if I can help..." She quickly set to work drawing as much information as she could about the video that had been posted. She was only looking for one thing though - where it had been sent from.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Mmmhhh...nnnmmphhh!!" Valora moaned, as Nyx continued to fondle her voluptuous figure. She writhed and thrashed, unbelieving that what was happening was real. Yes, she'd suffered her share of defeats, of course. But not like this - not this ignominious humiliation. Not by some no-name freak like Nyx. She writhed, straining her gorgeous limbs, thrusting out her jiggling breasts as she fought against her chains.

Enhancegirl only writhed now as a matter of natural revulsion to Nyx's hands on her body, but she was under no impression that she could free herself. She was humiliated by her publicised captivity. She let her head fall to the side, just allowing Nyx to do with her whatever she wanted. "It's not like I can do anything..." She felt the involuntary tingles of pleasure up her spine as Nyx ran a finger down the middle of her thighs, whimpering and sighing in her helpless captivity.

Yet as Enhancegirl turned her head, she saw something that even Valora herself had not noticed: with her enhanced vision, Sophie could see that Valora's bonds were weakening. Gradually, the mighty maiden's strength was returning, and Enhancegirl could see ever-increasing stresses in the metal that bound her.
"She could actually break them!" Sophie realised. "Looks like she'll need...maybe fifteen minutes if she doesn't get any more of her strength back." The drugged haze fading from her as well, Enhancegirl realised what she needed to do.

"Mhhh...mmph..." she whimpered, kittenishly, looking at Nyx and batting her eyelids at her. "Mmph?" she mewed, inquiringly, almost invitingly.
"Oooh, Enhancegirl," Nyx laughed. "Looks like you're really getting into this, huh?" She smiled, and began slowly rubbing Sophie's bare shoulders.
"Mmmmmhhh..." Sophie sighed, closing her eyes, pushing out her breasts towards Nyx. "Come on..." she thought. "That's right...just look at me...I'm all sleepy... so pretty and helpless...just focus on me..." She opened her eyes again, stared straight into Nyx's. She drew her bound legs in, rubbing them slowly against Nyx's tights-covered thighs. "Come on, you freak...don't you want to stroke my legs? They're all naked and soft..." Nyx was loving it. She straddled Sophie, squeezing the redhead's thighs with her own. She grinned.
"Don't worry, Enhancegirl, I'll give you plenty of attention if that's what you -"

For as much as she was thoroughly enamoured with Sophie's new submissiveness, Nyx wasn't stupid. She realised she was being distracted. "Nice try, honey," she said. She turned towards Valora, seeing that the blonde was at a dangerous level of alertness. "I think it's time to try a certain special something..."

She moved over to a small closet just to the left of the bed. She opened it up, and took out a large, glass jar. It was filled with what looked like blue petroleum jelly. Nyx opened the jar, and removed her gloves. Enhancegirl got a faint whiff of the stuff - it smelled sweet, and vaguely familiar.

"This wonderful gel is a personal invention of mine," Nyx said. "You remember, Enhancegirl?"
"Nnmph!" Sophie did remember. When Spectra had been captured trying to rescue Sophie from enslavement, they'd rubbed something into her body which took away her strength. "No, she can't!" She tried to warn Valora, to urge her to hurry, but she was powerless to communicate as long as she was gagged.

She could - and she did. Nyx took a fair amount of the stuff on her hands, and knelt next to Valora.
"I know you've been feeling a little stronger, blondie...but we can't have that."
"Nmmmphh! Nmmmmphhh!!" Valora moaned, writhing desperately in her bonds. She could feel her power returning to her - just a little more and she'd be strong enough to free herself - if she could only snap those damned chains!

"Mmm..." Nyx sighed. "You do just have the most marvellous bust, don't you? Hope you don't mind if I have another feel..."
"Mmrgghhmphh!" Valora minded very much - but she still couldn't stop her. Nyx began slowly massaging her, and Valora was repulsed when she realised that she was spreading the sticky substance all over her ample, yielding breasts. She worked the stuff in, massaging until Valora could feel her skin begin to absorb it. She spread it further up, over her sternum, right up to her neck.

"Mmmphh! Mmmm-nnmmmphh!" Valora complained, glowering at her captor. "Mmmhh! Mmmhhh...mmph?" Valora had been feeling her power gradually returning to her...but no longer. It was fading again. "No...no, what's going on? I'm...weakening..."
"I guess you're feeling it already, Valora," Nyx said. She continued rubbing the gel in, feeling Valora's fulsome white breasts becoming stained with her slimy gel, felt her struggles getting slower. "Like...someone's drinking your strength through a curly straw or something, right?" She laughed. "That's how one of my test subjects described it, anyway. I'm immune to its effects, so I wouldn't know myself."

"No...I was so...close..." Valora thought, feeling her gorgeous body getting weak again. It felt different this time: not like waves of choking sweetness as the chloroform had done, but as though her body was just...giving up. The strength was deserting her, and it felt almost as though it chose to. Her body was betraying her, drinking in the weakening gel through every pore, forcing her to remain a captive. She felt a terrible disconnect between her mind - still defiant, though distraught, and resisting - and her body. For all her power, she still had a very womanly figure - she could make herself look very powerful yes, but it was just as possible to make her curviness seem an expression of feminine weakness.

Nyx moved down her body, once again dipping her hand into the jar of gel. She now began rubbing the substance into Valora's thighs, the gel soaking straight through her flesh-tone, satin tights.
"Mmmhh..." Valora moaned, feeling her weakness increasing ever more quickly, and disturbed by the sensation of the gel sullying her tights, sinking through to the soft skin below, stealing the remainder of her power. It was wet and gelatinous, and it felt disturbingly...organic against her lovely legs.

"Vllhhrhh..." Sophie moaned, seeing the damsels' hope for escape dashed by Nyx's invention. For a brief moment, there was a hope in the back of her mind that, given how much less powerful she was than Valora, Nyx wouldn't feel the need to use her gel on the redhead - but this hope, too, was dashed, when Nyx gave her a sly smile, even as she continued to roughly squeeze Valora's legs. Indeed, soon enough Valora was almost totally still, her muffled protests against her treatment now virtually silent. It was at this moment that Nyx turned her full attention to the young maiden whose body she knew oh-so well.

"Let's make this a proper massage, shall we?" Nyx said.
"Nyymph?" Sophie mewed, as she was taken by the waist, and slowly rolled onto her front. "Mph!" She felt a cold, slimy substance on her back, between her shoulder blades. "No!" she thought, beginning to struggle more seriously, her fingers flexing uselessly, her bound hands flapping impotently as she tried vainly to get loose. "Oh god! She's...gonna make me even weaker..." The lithe redhead felt Nyx begin rubbing the gel up her back, working it into her skin with all the skill of a masseuse.

"Don't start struggling now, honey," Nyx said, as she took more gel, working the sticky substance into Sophie's bare, white shoulders, the great amount of skin left uncovered by her costume now working decidedly against its wearer. Nyx squeezed Sophie's traps with her fingers, while she rolled her thumbs along the borders of her shoulder blades.

"Mmmhhh..." Sophie mewed. She felt a warm current of weakness spreading through her. She couldn't help it: Nyx's massage was perilously relaxing, working out the stresses accumulated from the previous day's combat. It took a little time for the gel itself to start working on her: the method of delivery meant that Enhancegirl was no more vulnerable to it than anyone else would have been. But when it hit her, it hit her hard.

"Nnnnnnnnnnhhhh..." the lovely redhead sighed, feeling the same betrayal of her muscles that Valora had done. She was growing sleepy - no, sleepy was the wrong word. Just -
"Just drained..." she thought. She could feel it running through her subtly curved back and her soft shoulders, easing every inch of her into a state of relaxed weakness. Nyx kept adding more, rubbing it into her slim arms, pulling back her long gloves to work it into her forearms as well.

"Mmgghhmmphhh..." Sophie protested, feeling her body giving in, bit by bit. "Too...unnhh...weak..." She felt Nyx moving above her, changing her position so that she had unfettered access to Sophie's bound legs. Sophie knew that, in a moment, her captor would have her hands all over her naked skin, and she whimpered tremulously at the though.
"You know, the people I sold this stuff to," Nyx said, "used it as a kind of spray - guess that makes sense...but it's such a failure of imagination, don't you think?" She laughed, and coated her hands in gel, her finger dripping with the stuff, before she seized Sophie's tender, bare thighs.

"Mmmphh!" Sophie mewed, gasping as she felt the slimy, wet substance all over her long legs, accompanied by Nyx's expertly teasing touch. The kidnapper rubbed slowly, up and down, coating every available inch of Sophie's skin in the gel. She lifted Sophie's legs, resting them on her own thigh to rub the gel into the front of them as well. She wanted every inch of her moaning, sensuous captive to be wet with weakness. "Mmmngghhmmphhh..." Sophie now felt the loss of strength travelling through her legs, what little struggle she'd been able to put up now being thoroughly suppressed.

But as Sophie felt her lithe limbs fondled and stroked, the weakness spread from her body into her mind.
"Can't...fight...have to - try...but..." Her thoughts became disorganised, higher order reasoning getting more and more difficult as a soft blanket of dullness clouded her ability to think. She could feel her supple calves being massaged by her captor, and the slimy wetness of the foul gel now took on a rather...untoward sensuality. What had disturbed Valora sent tingles through the scantily clad redhead, the organic feeling of the gel being rubbed into every inch of her gorgeous, vulnerable body giving Sophie a kind of forbidden thrill of violation: her pale, delicate skin being covered in the thick, sticky fluid...

"Nnnnnmmhhh..." Sophie summoned up the energy to object to this mode of thought. "Can't...let her...do this to me..." She didn't refer to being massaged and captured - she knew she was powerless to do anything about that. But she could tell from the gentle care that Nyx took with her body, the slow, lingering caresses: she was trying to make Sophie enjoy it.

Nyx was enjoying it, there was no mistake about that. This was the fourth time that she had had Enhancegirl as her captive, and this was the first time she had been capable of enjoying the sylphlike maiden's body with such deep appreciation. Her creamy legs, her soft shoulders, the gentle swell of her hips and her bosom...she was a truly delectable specimen of womanhood.

She ran her hands from Sophie's ankles, over her calves and thighs, right the way up to the edge of her dress - an edge which she then mercilessly lifted, completely revealing the redhead's firm ass, a perfect, round counterpoint to the lithe length of her slender legs. She cupped it, squeezing it as she coated it in weakening gel.
"Mmmmhhh..." Sophie moaned, blushing as she was exposed, and whimpering as that which had been exposed was felt up. She was ashamed that Valora could see her being so helplessly fondled, ashamed of the tingles of submissive pleasure which sparked between her thighs every time her guard even slightly slipped.

Nyx turned her over again, this time to rub gel into the skin below her neck, and her pert, ripe bosoms. Sophie stared meekly into her eyes as she did this.
"Mmhgghmphh..." she sighed, unable to hide the blush in her cheeks. She felt so weak, so dominated...her body so fragile and beautiful, she was like the very idea of 'helpless' made tender, caressable flesh. Her breasts were wet with the gel, as were her legs, moist and glinting as the redhead was massaged and fondled.
"Just enjoy it, sweetie," Nyx crowed. "There's nothing else you can do."

It was rather a surprise to Enhancegirl when, turned over again, she found her captor loosening the knots around her arms - not just loosening them, but undoing them completely. She slowly untied Sophie's arms, undoing the cord that had been pressing into the bottoms of her breasts, and then removing it from her completely. She untied Sophie's legs, too, making them separable, and sending a wave of relief through Sophie's body. Her gag came off next.

"Wh..what are you...?" A moistened finger silenced her. First it was simply Nyx shushing her, but then the kidnapper began coating Sophie's soft lips with the gel.
"Something fun, I hope," she said, winking. She turned her attentions to Valora, and that was when Sophie really realised the situation she was in.

Nyx's gel, moistening every inch of her skin which was even somewhat exposed, had made her so feeble and helpless that even unbound, she was just as much a captive as she'd been before.
"So...weak..." she mewed, her arms weakly shuffling on the covers beneath them, her long legs impotently writhing.

Using a small key, Nyx unlocked the padlocks that held Valora's chains in place, and then slid the by-now warm metal off her body, the chains having drunk in the heat from the curvaceous damsel. Valora felt her limbs unbound, but she too discovered to her dismay that she was just as helpless without the chains as she had been with them. The bonds were within, now - soaked into every pore.

"Mghhmphh..." Valora intoned uncomfortably as her gag was removed. "Why...are you doing this...to us?" Nyx laughed distractedly.
"Y'know, blondie, today the answer to that question is a lot simpler than it normally would be...but I'm still not telling." She moved down to the bottom of the bed, and reached up Valora's left leg, this time not touching her thigh...but one of her boots.
"Wh..what are you doing?" Valora quailed, as she felt her boot being unzipped.
"You'll thank me in a few moments," Nyx said. "You'll be a lot more comfortable." She pulled the boot off, revealing Valora's shapely calf, before doing the same with her other leg. Only her tights now covering her lower body, the blonde felt strangely vulnerable.

But to her dismay, Nyx didn't stop there. She began peeling the tight leotard off her arms, pulling it down her body, revealing her breasts, her stomach and her waist.
"What...?" Valora gasped, her body too weak to fight what was happening. "Why...are you stripping me?"
"Because you're a beautiful woman, and because you can't stop me," was Nyx's firm, straightforward reply. "I guess that one was pretty simple too."

She pulled the leotard all the way down, the now crumpled fabric stroking Valora's legs as it was taken off her. When it was, the gorgeous blonde felt terribly naked, for she almost was: her body covered only by her tights, and her blue underwear. Her ample bosom seemed almost too womanly to be contained by her bra, and her curvy hips seemed even more feminine. Her legs were not bare but they felt just as naked as if they had been. Long and shapely, the thin satin covering seemed only to highlight their strokeable smoothness. It was thoroughly humiliating for the mighty maiden.
"Stripped to my skivvies...and I can't do a thing about it..." she thought, bitterly.

"I...don't get it..." Sophie moaned weakly, as Nyx bared her pretty feet by pulling off her short, silver boots. "What does this...unhh...get you?" Nyx was running her hands around the top of her gold dress, evidently trying to find the best way of getting it off its owner. "Is...the...Supr...." Sophie didn't even have the strength to finish the word, her near paralytic feebleness almost dipping her under the waters of unconsciousness as she drew on reserves of energy that no longer existed.

"The Supremacist? Ohhh...you think I was hired as revenge..." She found a small, almost invisible catch at Sophie's back, and unfastened it. "Not a stupid guess, but no. If I had been...well I wouldn't have been. He'd have hired an assassin, sweetie. And I have no intention of harming those sweet limbs of yours..." She found Enhancegirl's tight, shiny dress becoming looser. With a little wiggling, she managed to get it down over Sophie's pert bosom, running the material all the way down her body, Enhancegirl finding her naked legs caressed by her own glossy, stolen dress.

Sophie now lay, writhing almost imperceptibly, in nothing but a strapless white bra, and slightly frilly, white underwear - and her red mask, of course. It seemed a sting to both heroines that their masks were left on. Nyx had no interest in exposing their identities - merely in exposing their bodies.

Again, the two captive damsels happened to catch sight of each other, and both blushed at seeing the other in their near-nudity: neither could deny the sensual beauty of the other, and for Sophie the sight had a particular thrall over her. As they gazed helplessly at each other, neither mollified, moaning maiden noticed what Nyx was doing.

She had obtained a roll of silver duct tape, and she drew Sophie's attention by tying a single circuit of tape around her ankles, once more binding her legs.
"Wh...why...?" Sophie mewed, feeling herself being tied up once more. This time, a circuit went round just above her knees, drawing her thighs together. They were not the heaviest of restraints, by any means, but Sophie couldn't break them. Her hands fumbled about on her flat stomach, before Nyx forced them to her sides. Again, with just a single circuit of tape, Sophie's arms were bound to her sides, tape sticking her wrists in place, her hands flat against her hips. "Why would she untie me...just to...tape me up again?" Sophie wondered, dazed and confused.

"Mmph..." she mewed softly, as a single strip of sticky tape was smoothed down over her rosy lips. She looked down at herself, and gave a long, helpless whimper. The restraints were not only simple, but not even very strong. Even Sophie wouldn't have needed her powers to break them under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. She was as weak as a kitten, and a few strips of tape were all that were needed to tie the flame-haired beauty up.

Alas, the same was just as true for the blonde bombshell next to her. Nyx started with her hands this time, fixing her arms against her sides. Valora couldn't believe that she, who had only a day ago hit a fully grown man hard enough to send him flying for about a mile and a half, was powerless against the simple restraint of duct tape.
"Mmmphh..." she whimpered, as she too was easily muzzled.

Valora tried as hard as she possibly could to find some as-yet untapped font of strength. Yet the weak shuffles of her satin-covered legs were easily halted by Nyx's arms, then made impossible with two circuits of tape, one around her knees and another around her slim ankles, the tape clinging with particular keenness to her tights. No new source of strength revealed itself - Valora was truly a captive.

The two bound, gagged damsels writhed in terrible, all-encompassing weakness. They felt terribly powerless, weaker even than the helpless victims of villains that they regularly saved, somehow a defeated heroine being even more impotent than someone without any power at all. Neither could do anything as Nyx grabbed them by their bound ankles, and dragged their legs a little way off the bed.

"I know you're wondering why I even bothered with all that," Nyx said, "but let me make it clear." She took something out from underneath the bed, something she'd stashed for just such an occasion. It was a bundle of fabric, which she began to unfold. As she did, Sophie happened to see it.
"Hhhmm nnnmmphhh..." she mewed through her tape-gag. "Nnnnnmphh...plllhhss..."

Nyx ignored her protests. That she knew what was coming only made it all the more delicious. She opened the lip of the fabric, and began pulling it up both maiden's legs at the same time.
"Whhhmpph?" Valora mewed. She looked down too, and thought she saw Nyx pulling another layer of tights over her legs. But that was not quite right. She was encasing both Valora's and Enhancegirl's legs in a tight, nylon sack.

"Nnnmphh..." Sophie mewed. She'd been subjected to this once before, when she and Nyx had first met. It had been a distressingly...intense experience. The thought of being encased along with Valora was not one that Sophie wanted to contemplate very far. Nyx worked the nylon up their calves and supple thighs, taking every opportunity to feel the heroines' gorgeous legs. Sophie blushed as she felt the soft material stroking her delicate, bare skin.
"I've always wanted to try this," Nyx said, licking her lips as the nylon reached the two maidens' hips: Valora's curvy; Enhancegirl's slinky. "But let's get you two a little more...intimately acquainted, shall we?"

Nyx took the two heroines by their hips, and turned them inward, making them face each other - but not only that. It was clear why she'd waited until then to do this - for the nylon seemed to tighten around their legs, holding them in place.
"Mmmphh...!" the damsels moaned weakly, finding their shapely legs, and their feminine hips pressed against each other. Each slow, weak wriggle was now a sensuous writhing against the other's gorgeous body.

It was now clear why Nyx had untied and retied them in the way she had: she wanted them to be able to press against each other as closely, and perhaps as comfortably, as possible. She continued, pulling the nylon sack over their flat stomachs, beginning to cover their arms now as well. The damsels felt an extra degree of restriction from this, as the tight material held their limbs securely. Nyx went even further, up and over their upper arms and shoulders, continuing the soft, restrictive caress of their bare skin.

"What's happening?" Valora thought, feeling her body pressed in from all sides. "What is this...? We're...we're being cocooned!"
"Mmmhhh..." Sophie mewed. "So tight...unnhh...can't fight it...I'm all trussed up..." feeling herself hemmed in, softly surrounded by nylon - and what was more, she felt herself ever more tightly pressed against her fellow heroine.

The two maidens felt as their breasts were pushed against each other, Sophie's smaller, delightfully perky bosom rubbing against Valora's yielding, ample, womanly chest. They could feel each other's bodies, their sumptuously smooth skin wet from Nyx's debilitating gel, their breasts slick and slippery as they rubbed against each other.

Sophie couldn't help but writhe, and felt her limbs rubbing against Valora's. Her lithe legs couldn't help but stroke the buxom blonde's, her naked skin caressed by the satin tights covering her fellow captive's. She looked into Valora's blue eyes, and found herself blushing, shy whimpers emerging from beneath the tape slapped over her lips.
"Mmmhh..." she mewed, trying not to look into Valora's eyes, deeply ashamed of the sensuality of their captivity.

As for Valerie, she felt Sophie's loveliness forced against her, the redhead's nubile, slender femininity only highlighted by her bare shoulders and long, white legs. The heroine didn't want to notice this quite as much as she did, but she couldn't help it. Sophie was a beautiful young woman.

Nyx kept the process of encasement going, feeling the gentle writhing of her delectable victims. She pulled the nylon over their necks, mouths and noses, but further still, over their eyes, and foreheads - until both damsels were completely cocooned, from head to toe.
"Mmhhh...mmmhhh-nnnnmmphhh..." Sophie moaned. As the nylon cocoon covered her nose, she smelt what she'd feared she would smell. The cocoon, translucent and beige, was slightly damp - Nyx had moistened it with chloroform before binding her captives in it.

"Mmhhphhh..." Sophie sighed, the sensitive maiden feeling a familiar sleepiness overtaking her, dulling her senses, making her feel soft and fragile. "Nnnnnhh..." she sighed, her sparkling eyes fluttering.
"Mmmmhh...nnnmmphhh..." Valora whimpered. It was not quite as sudden as the effect on Enhancegirl, but she too began to feel herself growing soft, and drowzy.

"That's right girls," Nyx crowed. "You're all wrapped up in a soft, sleepy embrace..." She ran her hands all over their feminine curves, the soft nylon making them feel even more vulnerable and helpless.
"Unnhh...can't...think..." Sophie was hardly able to keep conscious. She was weakened by the chloroformed cocoon, weakened by the gel, by her own humiliation at her captivity and publicly displayed helplessness. All she could feel was Valora's gorgeous, curvaceous body weakly writhing against hers, the two beauties' bodies forced into an intimate embrace. "Unhh...she's so...sexy..." Sophie thought, almost forgetting entirely where she was. She found her body gently, sleepily undulating against her fellow captive's, and her blush deepened.

For her part, Valora fought harder than Sophie to resist the overwhelming sensuality of their helpless state. The soft nylon rubbed against every part of her - her legs, her rear, her shoulders - and where it didn't, there was the even softer skin of Sophie Scott, her breasts, her supple legs, her sensual whimpers...
"No!" Valora shook her head. "Wh...where is this coming from?" But it couldn't be denied. The damsels' sheer feminine magnetism, their sensuous helplessness - in their drowzy, vulnerable state, almost naked, writhing sinuously against each other and feeling every curve and contour...even Valora found herself flushing. She realised that she was fighting to keep her lips away from Sophie's. It was not that either damsel was trying to have their lips meet...but there seemed a terrible danger that they would.

"Mmmmhhh..." Sophie sighed, now almost completely unconscious. Her gorgeous body was overwhelmed, could hardly take any more. "Unnhh...I'm...defeated...completely defeated..." She had an intense awareness of her own sexuality - both her own loveliness, and her propensity to be attracted to the loveliness of others. She whimpered, realising that it was being used against her, making her softer, more vulnerable. A beautiful, blushing damsel, easily ensorcelled by chloroform, bondage - and by the beauty of other women.

As she faded into drugged sleep, she vaguely thought of all the other times this part of her had been used against her. How many times had she found her bound limbs rubbing against another damsel's? How many times had her pretty mouth been pressed against the lips of a fellow captive? Enhancegirl realised that she had another weakness, one almost as powerful as her weakness to sedatives...she was weak against beauty. Several faces flashed through her mind, though one lingered rather longer than the others...before Sophie's eyes fell shut, the tamed heroine surrendering to sleep.

The lovely Valora hardly lasted much longer. She was less sensitive to chloroform, yes, but she was still trapped in a tight cocoon, the air around her heavy with the odour of the drug, as well as the delicate scent of the defeated Enhancegirl's limp form. She too found herself fading, felt Nyx's hands squeezing her, massaging both maidens' bodies, forcing them even more tightly together. Valora wondered how it had come to this, how she had allowed herself to fall this far into captivity. She had no answer - it all still seemed an impossible nightmare.

This was all the more true because of how close Valerie herself was to unconsciousness. She too felt her eyelids fluttering, her rational thought slipping from her.
"How...can I be this weak?" she thought, still unbelieving. "Mmmmhh..." she sighed, as she too started drifting off.

Nyx watched her half-naked captives with relish, drinking in the sight of them sleepily wriggling against each other, enjoying the sounds of their muffled moans. She had complete control over them, had overwhelmed them and defeated them utterly. She had two rare beauties in her grasp, and was delighting in dominating both of them. She squeezed their behinds, their thighs, their shoulders, possessing every part of her helpless damsels.

She vaguely heard Nyx taunting them, laughing about how gorgeous and helpless they were, how they'd been reduced from superheroines to whimpering, sighing captives.
"So helpless...so sexy..." she crowed, Valora falling in and out of unconsciousness. She didn't have the mental wherewithal to follow it, but she began to pick up fragments of conversation.

"When...payment...did my part..." Nyx's voice. Valora didn't hear another, and would have assumed that Nyx was speaking on a phone, had she the mental acuity. "Better not...camera thing...should charge extra for..." There was a longer pause, and not because Valora had passed out. "Not already here, are you? Then who's -"

The conversation was cut off. There was shouting, and the sound of a great ruckus.
"A...battle...?" Valora thought, disinterestedly. "But...who...?" She had no more strength left than that. The chloroformed cocoon was too much for her, and Valora passed out, going the same way as the slender redhead sleepily nuzzling against her.

It was a shame that she didn't remain awake, for she would have been something other than displeased to see Nyx thrown on her back, beaten with remorseless swiftness, having been completely taken by surprise. The victor stood over her, scowling, her lip curled in distaste. She saw the two captured heroines, and began cutting them loose...
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Unnhhh..." Sophie moaned, as she began to come to. "Wh...where?" She tried to move - and in the same instant realised that she was free to do so. "I'm not tied up..." She looked down at herself - indeed, she was completely free. "Unnhh..." She still felt weak, though, and was reluctant to try struggling to her feet at that time.

She seemed to be back in the empty storefront above Nyx's lair - and there was no sign of the thief herself.
"Hey, are you alright?" Sophie turned to see Valora standing near her. She too looked dishevelled and weak, but had managed to recover faster.
"Wh...what happened? How are we free?" Sophie shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Valora seemed to hesitate before answering.

"I - I don't know," she said. "I only woke up a few minutes ago myself. I was lying next to you - and we were free."
"Did Nyx let us go? Maybe she was...like, done with us, or something?"
"No, she -" Valora cut herself off. "I don't think so. I mean, maybe, I don't know."
"Wh..." Sophie began, but was too drowzy to pursue the inquiry carefully. "I don't get it..." She sat up, and found her dress slipping down her front. "Oh!" she gasped, quickly clutching it. She realised that she wasn't in it, it had merely been laid over her. "Like a blanket..." she thought. For some reason, a little red appeared in her cheeks.

"I...Enhancegirl, I know you're probably feeling...bad about what happened," Valora said. She spoke with the surity of one sharing a burden. "But...please don't let it get you down." Sophie had, in fact, not been thinking about what Nyx had done to them, preoccupied by the mystery of their rescue. But she soon recalled the humiliating, sensual ordeal the two had been put through. She gritted her teeth, realising just how helpless she had been - and how the world had now seen it.

"How can I not let it get me down?" Enhancegirl said, swiftly dressing herself. "If she was telling the truth about streaming that footage, then..."
"Don't worry," Valora said, forcing a smile. "You're the girl who beat the Supremacist. That's what people are going to care about."
"Really?" Enhancegirl found her strength, standing up - though she had to lean against the dusty counter. "I'm pretty sure they're just going to think I'm a joke."
"Enhancegirl, people are good, they'll -"
"Oh, that's easy for you to say!" Sophie snapped. "You're Valora! You'll survive this. I know it'll be hard, but people totally love you. They'll forgive one failure." She kissed her teeth. "But me? Who the hell am I? I'll tell you: I'm a fluke."
"Enhancegirl..." Valora had no words of comfort for the young heroine. She knew that Sophie had a point: such ignominious failure the day after her triumph would cast a dim light on the redhead's capabilities.

"I'm sorry," Sophie said. She found it hard to look at Valora, the memories of writhing against her too fresh in her mind. "It's not your fault. You were just being a decent person. Fuck, I'm being a real asshole...you didn't deserve that."
"No, I guess not," Valora replied.
"Look, I'm just gonna go, okay?" Sophie said, hurrying out of the door. "Downgrade!" She didn't care about Valora seeing her change back. Yes, she'd yet to see Sophie without her mask, but she'd felt completely revealed to her anyway. Hoping for anonymity as she went home, Sophie walked quickly away.

"Damn it!" Valora slammed her hand against a wall, and the whole building shook. She felt like a failure. She'd wanted to take the redhead under her wing to some extent - but her own arrogance had led them to this. She hadn't listened to Enhancegirl's warnings, and while Sophie was quite right to point out that Valora would suffer the consequences too - it was Enhancegirl who would bear their brunt.

As Sophie walked, she felt a masochistic instinct to check the her news feed. Switching her phone on, Sophie's heart sank:
"Flukegirl? Enhancegirl's disastrous defeat!"
"A New Analysis: Did Enhancegirl Contribute that much to the Supremacist's defeat?"
"Second Public Defeat for Seacouver's New Star: Do we think it's smart for her to continue as a super?"

"AAGHHH!!" Sophie hurled her phone to the ground, smashing it to pieces. She clenched her fist in bitter rage. "One fucking day! One bad fucking day! God damn it!!" She thought back to the words of Ocelot: "When you lose...that's what people are itching to see...People's love for you will vanish in a second." They seemed impossible to dispute.

"Wait a minute..." Sophie froze. Fragmentary memories were coming back to her. She could remember...someone cutting her free...a vague sense of being lifted up and carried like a bride...and a soft, gentle kiss...and whispered words in her ear:
"...you're mine..."
"Could...could it have been her?" Sophie thought, sudden realisation dawning on her. Perhaps there was more than one reason that her thoughts had tended the way they had. "Did...Ocelot save me?"

[mjkjets]

Another great Enhance Girl story. Especially love Valora. Please keep writing:)

[Damselbinder]

Rachel Artesia's apartment did not look overmuch like the sort of place that one would expect to find Rachel Artesia. It was an expensive loft, yes, and the front room and kitchenette were very fancy, with a touch of the garish that just hinted at a bit of a sense of fun. However, it was the strangely large amount of machinery lying about in broken pieces, or half-assembled and then abandoned, that was incongruous with the lovely socialite.

At the moment, Rachel was attending to the construction of a new kind of drone. It was based on her Egg-Shens, but designed to be a little more versatile, equipped with a sleeping gas canister as well. However, Rachel had been struggling to keep the weight to thrust ratios right with the new additions, and the Shens were flying inaccurately, bumbling around rather uselessly for the slinky thief's purposes.

Abandoning the project for the moment, Rachel walked into her kitchen, and grabbed a bottle of mineral water. She never drank tap water if she could avoid it. Not that she could even taste a difference...but she liked to remind herself of her financial position, what it was - and what it no longer was. She took a long swig, before setting the water down. She took some of the condensation from the outside, and rubbed it against her olive-brown legs, shown off by tiny, cut-off denim shorts, a white vest top covering her torso.

Of course, she really wanted to be admiring her latest acquisition, a rather delightful pair of imitation gold earrings - worthless in substance, but incredibly valuable to the right people because they had through various accidents of history interwoven the fates of half the royals of Europe, and been in their way responsible for dozens of deaths. But she did not keep her...extra-legal acquisitions in her home, and she never went directly from her home to where she stored her finds.

"Ah, well," she mused, "that's the price I pay for being so damned good at all this..."

She turned around to return to her work. She was a little distracted, however, by the sight of a slender, gold clad superheroine standing in the middle of her front room. The window was open - she had obviously climbed in. Rachel knew her: she was Enhancegirl, the gorgeous redhead who had captured the thief's attention - and been captured in return.

"Well, hey there," she said, cocking an eyebrow. She looked the heroine up and down, smiling as she looked over Enhancegirl's slender legs, bare shoulders and lovely features. "Not that I'm not super happy you decided to drop by, but...how did you get in?"
"Was it you?" Enhancegirl asked. She had an indescribable look in her eye. Wild and desperate, but - hopeful? Pleading?
"Maybe," Rachel said carefully. "Why don't we make it clear what you're accusing me of first, huh?"

Sophie stared at her, her eyes wide as a cat's. She didn't know what she was doing. Tracking down Ocelot - a relatively simple matter with given her minor celebrity status - and breaking into her loft...she didn't understand it herself.
"This isn't me..." she'd thought to herself, again and again as she'd taken every step in this direction. "What am I doing here?"
"Well?" Rachel said.
"W-what?"
"What did I do, Pippi?"

Sophie stared straight into Ocelot's hazel eyes, her powerful senses seeing every fleck and flaw in her irises...but she couldn't tell what she was thinking. She couldn't read her at all. "Could I have been wrong? She doesn't look like she understands..."
"Hey, I should be congratulating you right?" Ocelot said. "You stopped the Supremacist, saved the world." She clapped mockingly. "Go team!"
"Th-that's not why I'm here..." Sophie said. She broke Ocelot's gaze, but found her eyes travelling down the slinky thief's body, her bare legs, her breasts straining against her tight vest top. Her olive-brown skin was slick with the sweat of her labours. Sophie gulped slightly, her thighs shifting against each other.

"Why are you here then?" Rachel said, taking a few steps towards her.
"Someone saved me from..." the redhead began.
"From that woman who captured you, right?" Ocelot said. "I was wondering how you got yourself outta that. Such a shame, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, right after the public falls in love with you...your sexy little bod' gets paraded in front of the cameras, all tied up and helpless..." She grinned. "Talk about your bad luck, right? Bet you're starting to see the truth in what I said to - whoa!"

Ocelot found herself having to duck a punch.

"So, what is this?" Ocelot said, stumbling back. "Figure out where I live and you're here to arrest me? Figure bringing in the big, bad burglar's gonna help your reputation?"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" Sophie swung a kick at Ocelot, but the thief dodged that too. Her senses were on fire, her rage almost literally blinding her. She made wild, artless attacks at the thief, forgetting all her skill as she fought her.
"Hey, hey, Pippi - calm - down!" Ocelot grabbed Sophie's wrist and spun the redhead around, forcing her arm behind her back. Sophie struggled against her, the women's bare legs rubbing together as she writhed. "Don't know why you're so - angry with me! Shouldn't you be doing this to the woman who captured you?"
"You were right, damn it," Sophie spat. "I'm a joke, now. People couldn't fucking wait to tear me down!" She managed to force Ocelot back, freeing herself from her grip.

"Don't get me wrong, Pippi," Ocelot said. "I'm plenty sympathetic - after that freak who caught both of us, how could I not be, right? But it's not like I didn't tell you it'd be like this." Her upper lip twitched. "Doesn't matter how many good, or trustworthy, or kind folks there are in the world. Put 'em all together...and they will always let you down."
"I know...I know!" Sophie balled her fists, but then dropped her hands. "I bet you were loving it...I bet you couldn't get enough of it..."
"You know," Ocelot said, "I would have thought so too." Her face altered, her sharp smile softening. "And hell, everyone likes to be proved right. But...well, I don't know...after the Sin Eater - I didn't want to see someone doing that to you."
"Rachel..."

Sophie realised that there was at least one thing she definitely wanted from the thief, and she had let it begin to slip her mind.
"When I woke up after I was freed," she said, "Valora acted like she wasn't telling me something. Like she knew who saved us, and didn't want to say who it was."
"Wouldn't expect someone like her to be so cagey," Ocelot said. "What's that got to do with me?"
"I...I don't know why..." Sophie said. The heroine took on a shy, almost girlish aspect, her feet going a little pigeon-toed. "I thought, like, it had to be you - after what happened to us it just felt...like you of all people rescuing me would just be..."
"Thematically resonant?" Rachel said. Sophie blinked.
"Well, I'm not sure I'd have put it quite like that but, yeah, I guess." She ran her hands through her hair. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you! God, I'm an idiot - you kidnapped me yourself! You paralysed me, and wrapped me up and made me - made me..." Sophie was blushing brightly now. She turned away from the thief, suddenly feeling very exposed.

"You were right," Rachel said, simply."
"What?"
"You were right, it was me." She came closer to the redhead. "That Nyx chick didn't do a good enough job hiding her location in that broadcast. I found you. I kicked her narrow ass."
"You did...I knew it," Sophie said, feeling her heart thumping inside her, feeling hot all over. "You rescued me..."
"I did," Rachel said. She came closer still. Sophie took a step back. "The problem is, Pippi, you just broke into my house. That's, ah, not something I can just overlook."
"I...wasn't thinking straight," Sophie said. "I don't know what I'm doing."
"You're lying," Rachel said. She looked straight into Sophie's green eyes. "You know exactly what you're doing."

She was very close to Sophie now. She reached her hand over, and gently grazed the back of it over Sophie's left shoulder.
"Ah..." Sophie half-gasped, half-sighed. Suddenly, she shook her head, and jerked away. "No!" She rediscovered her skill, shifting her weight to destabilise Rachel, and throwing her to the ground. She'd not stuck for very long with judo, but she learned well.

"Uggh!" Rachel groaned. She landed on her back, but rolled deftly back up. "You little..." There was a degree of frustration in her voice, but also of amusement. "So," she thought, "not gonna make this too easy, huh?" The two beautiful girls now began fighting in earnest, Rachel's spacious loft providing more than enough room for their latest exchange.

Rachel might have at first thought that she'd be at a severe disadvantage against Sophie, whose powers had meant that the last time the two had fought fairly, hand to hand, she had been vastly, vastly superior to the thief. But this time...
"She's good, but...the girl's heart just ain't in it..." Ocelot smiled. She blocked an attempt at a knee to her stomach, grabbing Sophie's leg with both hands, and upending her.

"Whoa!" Sophie righted herself in mid-air, but in such a way that she had her back to Ocelot now. Before she could turn to face her opponent, she felt hands seizing her slender arms. "Unhh!" Sophie moaned, as she felt her wrists forced behind her back. She writhed, but couldn't escape Ocelot's iron grip. In fact, she felt one hand be taken off her wrists - and she still couldn't get loose.

"L-let me go..." Enhancegirl rather weakly insisted. "Get off - mmmhhh! Mmmphh..." Sophie found her soft, rosy lips covered by the subtle fingers of Ocelot, who clamped her hand tightly over the damsel's mouth. "Mmmhh!" Sophie protested, feeling Rachel's palms against her lips. The way she'd been gagged was so rough, so dominating - yet Rachel's skin was so smooth...

"You break into my house and tell me what to do, Pippi?" Ocelot said. "No. Not having that." She began marching the leggy redhead back towards the kitchenette.
"Mmmmhh!" Sophie moaned, astonished at being so well restrained. It should have been child's play for someone of her ability to get out of this...but she couldn't. Whenever she thought of a way to extricate herself, something in her made the plan fade away from her mind. She found herself helpless but to go where Ocelot forced her.

"Mmph!" Sophie moaned, as she was forced against Rachel's kitchen counter, bent double over it, held down by her wrists with only one hand. "Ah! Get...get off me!" Sophie complained, as Ocelot took her hand off her mouth. "Why...can't I fight her?"
"Let's see here..." Rachel said, opening a drawer and rooting around inside it. She took much longer about this than she needed to - with Sophie bent double in front of her, her round ass was wriggling against Rachel's pelvis in her oddly weak struggles. "Ah, there it is."

A second later, Sophie heard an ominously familiar tearing sound - as Rachel pulled duct tape from a roll with her teeth.
"N-no..." Sophie felt her slim wrists caught by the tape, the practiced captor swiftly winding the sticky material round Sophie's wrists and forearms, three, four tight circuits, holding Sophie's arms in place behind her back. "Unhh!" Sophie groaned, the pretty maiden feeling herself becoming a captive yet again. "Stop! D-don't tie me up..." She wriggled her shoulders, flexing her delicate fingers - all useless. "I'm caught..."

"Sorry, Pippi," Rachel said, "but tying you up is exactly what I'm gonna do." She hauled Sophie up, pressing tightly against her, her bosom against her captive's back. The redhead complained, and blushed, but she wasn't fighting with any effectiveness.
"Oh!" she gasped, as she felt Rachel's hands on her breasts, stroking them from below - as they wrapped tape just underneath them. "Unhhh...unnhh!" Sophie moaned, one whimper for each circuit she felt drawn around her, squeezing her bust from below and drawing her upper arms against her back. She could no longer even really wriggle her arms - they were fixed in place.

"Man, you really weren't clever, were you, Pippi?" Ocelot said, holding Sophie by her bare shoulders. "I mean, I just wanted to be a good Samaritan and let you on your way...but you had to try it on, didn't you? Well, I hope you like the consequences." She leaned in and whispered. "Hmmm...you know, I never thought you were stupid...makes you think you knew this would happen..."

Her bondage and Ocelot's taunt seemed to stir a little resistance in Sophie, her naked legs now kicking and fighting to get Ocelot away from her.
"I...won't let you do this!" Sophie said.
"Really?" Rachel said. "I seem to remember you being as fierce as a fucking she-wolf last time we fought...hell, even that mind-controlling freak was getting a bit nervous of you. So what's happened to you, huh?" She moved her hands down Sophie's body, over her sides and her hips, down to her naked, moist legs. "You're so...soft..." She knelt down, and held Sophie's thighs together. She leant forward, preparing to tape them up.

"Oh..." Sophie sighed, as she felt a sensation she never had before. As Rachel leant forward, her semi-exposed breasts rubbed against the backs of Sophie's thighs. "Ohhh...!" The redhead felt a perilous sensuality. No lover she'd had in the past had ever done this to her, and the feeling of a gorgeous, sensuous woman's yielding bosoms rubbing against her long, naked legs...it was unbelievably erotic. It put Sophie in mind of when she'd first realised she was gay, as a girl of sixteen: she was at a prom, in a backless dress, when a friend had excitably embraced her. Sophie had felt the girl's breasts rubbing against her smooth back, pressing into her not only her body, but the very idea of the unique sexual charms of the feminine form. By the time this friend had let go, Sophie had realised that no boy held the slightest interest for her.

What Sophie was experiencing now was vastly more intense, however. Rachel was no girl, she was a fully-grown, sumptuously filled-out woman, and Sophie's naked, white legs were far more sensitively erogenous than her back. That was not even mentioning the effect Ocelot had on Sophie, an effect she still didn't fully comprehend.

As it was, the sapphically stimulated Sophie was almost putty in Ocelot's hands - almost. There was still something, something at the back of her mind, a quiet - but not silent voice: "She can't be trusted." Even so, it wasn't enough to make Sophie fight harder.
"Y'know, for all I'd be happy to slit the Sin Eater's throat if I could," Rachel said, too distracted by the smoothness of Sophie's legs actually to begin binding them. "But I'll give her this...at least she knew which one of us would be in charge, right?" Memories came flooding back into Sophie's mind - Féa's control and domination of her, the way she'd been...handed over to Rachel like a prize, the utter powerlessness of the whole situation...

"Go to hell!" Sophie yelled, finding her strength and kicking back, hitting Rachel in the stomach, not winding her, but forcing her back. Rachel had touched on something that was still just a little too raw - she'd miscalculated its effect. Remembering Féa did not make Sophie submissive - it made her wrathful.

But as Sophie turned around, a hint of combativeness in her eyes once more, she realised that Rachel had already tightly bound her arms before she'd found the capacity to resist. The thief had been a little shaken, but she looked in control once more.
"C'mon then, Pippi," she said, smiling. "You gonna try fightin' me again? I don't recommend it..."
"Sh-shut up!" came the rather unconvincing rejoinder. Rachel backed away a few steps, and beckoned Sophie to try it.

The redhead stared at the slinky thief, the woman who instilled such bewildering and contradictory emotions in her. She was so gorgeous, and confident - while Sophie was lost in confusion and humiliation. The heroine felt a wave of anger at her: how dare she be so strong? How dare she be so sure of herself? So effortlessly sexy and mesmerising...how dare she make Sophie feel what she did?

"Aaahhh!!" Sophie screamed, a wolf-like howl of rage and frustration, before running headlong at Rachel. She didn't really have any idea of what she'd do when she reached her: she just did it. But Rachel was more than ready for her. As Sophie got close, Rachel grabbed her by the hips, and spun her around, using the fair damsel's momentum against her.

"Uhh!" Sophie groaned, as Ocelot forced her up against a wall, taking hold of her supple thighs, and lifting her so her back was against the wall, supporting most of her weight, but her legs were dangling in the air, held in place by Ocelot's hands. Sophie's feet were off the ground, her captor parting her legs and pushing herself between them, holding her gold-clad captive even more tightly. "Ohh...l-let me down..." Sophie mewed. "Ah...ohhh..." she sighed, as she felt Ocelot's pelvis press against hers, sending sparks of pleasure through her.
"Well," Rachel said, "isn't this cozy?"

Sophie's chest rose and fell heavily, the bound damsel wriggling sinuously against her captor. She felt Rachel's hands squeezing her thighs, felt the heat from her body, could literally smell the attraction from her. Rachel ground her pelvis against Sophie's as she kept her beautiful paramour in place. The two young women couldn't take their eyes off each other. Every breath from Sophie was a feminine sigh, every movement an aroused writhing.
"Why did you come here?" Rachel asked.
"I...unhh...told you I don't know..." Sophie said. Her cheeks were flushed a deep crimson.
"You're lying. Why did you come here?"
"I..."

Sophie felt how easily Rachel controlled her. She'd been overpowered, bound, now held up by her bare legs...but it wasn't like Nyx. She wasn't humiliated - or at least not in the same way. "I...I wanted you to..." she began, quietly.
"Speak up," Rachel commanded, not roughly - but irresistibly.
"I...I wanted you to...to take me..." Sophie said, her voice trembling.
"Why?"
"I...because you're gorgeous and you - you make me feel...god, I don't even know..." She was breathing hard, near the point of hyperventilation. "I - MMPHH!" Sophie mewed - as she felt Ocelot's lips press tightly against hers.

"Mmmhhh...mhh...MMHH!!" Sophie whimpered over and over, as Ocelot continued to press her pelvis between Sophie's warm thighs, now only heightening the effect by sliding her tongue into Sophie's hot mouth, stroking Sophie's own tongue...and finding it more than a little receptive. "Mmmhh..." Sophie moaned, shutting her eyes, and not just allowing the kiss to happen, but participating in it, returning Rachel's passion. "How...has she done this to me?" Sophie thought, her whole body throbbing with forbidden pleasure. "I'm hers...I'm hers...ohhh...I'm her possession! Oh...yes...yes...she's so sexy...she can do anything to me...I'm helpless...oohhh...OH!"

Rachel felt her paramour shake with overwhelming pleasure, moaning long and loud into her mouth, her back arching, and just a faint hint of moisture running down her thighs. Rachel let Sophie's legs down, until the redhead was standing on her own two feet. But as a kind of erotic aftershock went through her, Sophie felt her knees tremble, and she began to fall.

Rachel caught her, letting her down slowly until the gorgeous maiden, her lovely skin slick with sweat was kneeling at her feet. She looked up with bright green eyes. They sparkled in a way Ocelot hadn't seen before, and in the heady grip of helpless pleasure, Sophie seemed all the lovelier. Her eyes didn't just show her arousal, they showed something more, something that Ocelot had sensed hints of, but only now saw for certain. She saw a rabbit-like temerity, mixed with the heavy sensuality of a tigress in heat, intense - yet passively feminine. But it wasn't enough to see it. She had to hear it.

She hauled Sophie back up to her feet, pressed her slender, helplessly pleasure-filled captive against the wall. She began kissing her lovely neck, her bare shoulders, with a firm intensity, smelling the sweet odour that emanated from her moist skin.
"Oohh..." Sophie sighed, letting Rachel do it, feeling the delight of her kisses on her body.
"Say it," Ocelot said, beginning to massage Sophie's breasts.
"S...say...what?" the sensitive maiden replied.
"You know what," Ocelot said. She took Sophie by the chin, forcing her to look straight into her eyes. "Say it."
"I..." Sophie did know. She also felt something in her still fighting - but why? What was the point? She wanted it. Rachel knew that she wanted it. "I just have to let go..."

She returned Rachel's gaze willingly now, drinking in the feeling of her own helplessness, of the pulses of pleasure still emanating from between her thighs, the sensual weakness of her legs.
"Say it," Rachel repeated - though she now knew Sophie didn't need further persuasion - simply a cue.
"I surrender..."

There was a bright flash. The maiden felt her senses dull to the level of a normal person's, felt her clothing change. She stared down at herself in astonishment. "M...my powers!" She looked up at Rachel. She felt as if the gorgeous thief had just wrapped her in the thickest, strongest chains imaginable. "I...I didn't know that would happen..." she said, shyly. "I guess...I've never said that before in...in costume..."
"Well, Pippi, I'm not complaining..."

Rachel found her paramour clad just as skimpily as before - a black, strapless dress, revealing the tops of her breasts and totally baring her arms and shoulders. Its hemline was high, the dress flouncier as it went down to her hips, slightly pleated. Her long legs were completely bare, their length only emphasised by a pair of strappy, black heels, a little higher than kitten heels, but not much. The black contrasted delightfully with Sophie's pale, smooth, white skin, and her bright red hair. It made the parts of her that were open to view look all the more naked and exposed.

The thief couldn't help herself, and began running her hands all over the beautiful redhead's body. Her skin felt soft, and delicate, the black dress and heels making it look more vulnerable, somehow. She grabbed the roll of tape, and grinned when she saw the colour almost matched Sophie's dress exactly. She pressed the damsel's legs together, and rapidly squeezed Sophie's calves against each other with four circuits of black tape around her ankles.

She then did the same around Sophie's knees, clamping her thighs together, binding the silky-skinned sylph far too tightly for her to be able to move. Sophie stood there, passively allowing it to happen.
"Do you like that?" Rachel asked.
"Does it matter?" Sophie replied, allowing her head to fall back against the wall. "I'm your captive...I'm all...taped up and helpless..."
"It won't stop me, if that's what you mean," Rachel said. "But...I want you to like it. Don't lie, that's not what I mean...I want you really to like it."
"Yeah..." Sophie said, quietly, smiling with the pleasure of one breaking a long held taboo. "Yeah, I like it...I like it when you do it..."

Sophie had never felt like this. She was being completely dominated, her own hidden desires being used to tighten the chains even further. Yet she didn't mind - it was, perhaps, all too late for that.
"You like it when I do this?" Rachel knelt down, right to the bottom of Sophie's ankles. She then eased her tongue partway out of her mouth, and began running it up Sophie's legs, slowly, licking both limbs at once.
"Oh...oh my god!" Sophie gasped, a bead of sweat running down her neck. Rachel continued right the way up, over her calves and knees, her tender, white thighs - she even moved her dress out of the way - and flicked her tongue once against Sophie's underwear. "OH!" Sophie cried out, shivering. "Ooh...Rachel..."
"Well?" Rachel said, before gently kissing Sophie in the same spot she'd flicked her tongue. "Answer the question," she commanded, before continuing to kiss her captive's sensitive body.
"Y-yes!" Sophie gasped. "I - oh....oh god - yes I...I like it! Oooohhh!" She shivered again, her cheeks flushed, her whole body weak with sensual pleasure. Her knees began trembling, and she found herself losing the strength to stand.

"Unnhh..." she sighed, and began falling again. Ocelot allowed her torso to start falling forward...so that she could catch her with her shoulder, and ease her sighing, helpless Sophie onto it. She took her by the thighs, and slung her over her body properly.
"Gotcha," she said, Sophie's white legs draped over her, her upper body weakly wriggling against Rachel's back.

Sophie felt herself being carried by her gorgeous captor, her slender, bound form easily lugged around by the olive-skinned thief. She felt her moist legs being roughly fondled and caressed, but she lay their in utter passivity, mewing occasionally when Rachel squeezed or stroked her in a way that gave her particular pleasure.
"I can't...believe she's making me so submissive..." Sophie thought. "I'm tied up, my powers are gone, and now she's thrown me over her shoulder like...a kidnapped princess or something...and I like it..."

"Such a meek little thing," Rachel crowed. "So good and obedient...but you're so naughty too." She looked to the left, saw that the redhead's flouncy black dress was failing summarily to protect her modesty. Her gorgeous, round ass was open to view, protected only by skimpy black panties. "What kind of damsel in distress goes around flashing her assets to anyone who grabs her. I mean, villains must be tossing a girl as hot as you over their shoulders all the time...clearly you like getting exposed, Sophie."
"I - ooohh!!" Sophie gasped, as a sharp, yet unseemly sensation travelled through her body. "Oh!" she cried out again, as Rachel spanked her helpless paramour.

"You better get used to being punished like this, Pippi," Ocelot said, giving her another sharp smack to her round ass. She could already see her handprint on Sophie's pale, yielding skin. "I get the feeling I'm going to be spotting a lot of things you need to be...penitent for." Sophie didn't answer. She didn't say anything. She didn't move at all. She'd been effectively paralysed from the moment Rachel had slung her over her shoulder. Being carried by the object of her affection in this way felt primal, deeply sensual...and just plain sexy.

Rachel carried her limp, passive maiden over to her bedroom. She kicked open the door, and hurled the damsel onto the bed. She leapt, catlike, onto her. She stared at her, looking down at the helpless girl like a lioness looking at a slender gazelle.
"You're mine, Pippi. You're all mine, you understand?"
"Yes...yes...I'm all yours..." Sophie sighed, humiliated by the words even as they left her lips, but somehow not able to care. More than that - she welcomed it. She wanted to be sullied, debased, dominated...Rachel had brought her to heel, and it made her tingle. "Just..." Ocelot's eyes narrowed.
"Just what?"
"Just...call me Sophie..." she said, writhing temptingly under her lover, showing her just how tightly her bonds held her. "I want you to have me. Not Enhancegirl. Not 'Pippi'. Me." Ocelot leaned in close.
"Alright, Sophie..." Rachel said, leaning in close. "It's you I've got, is it?" Sophie nodded.
"Can I...ask one more thing?" Sophie said, shivering with anticipation.
"You can ask. Whether that affects what I'm going to do with you or not...that's a different story."

Sophie sat up a little, leaning in closer to Rachel. She nuzzled her neck, kissed her cheek, and leaned towards her ear.
"Take me." she said, hardly able to get the words out. "Make me yours..."
"Oh, you sweet thing," Rachel said. "Don't you get it? You've been mine since you first laid eyes on me..."

As Sophie felt Rachel begin to undress her completely, she sighed with weary pleasure. She was perfectly helpless, more so even than she'd been in Nyx's cocoon, or Féa's magicks, or even Mesmeredith's hypnotism. This time she wanted it. This time...she was giving herself. Sophie had completely, and utterly surrendered.