The Perils of Enhancegirl 10: Betrayed into Bondage

[Damselbinder]

"There you fucking are!" Kirsten came out of her bedroom to a welcome sight: her friend and roommate, Sophie Scott, sitting on the couch of the living room the two co-eds shared. It was quite a relief: she'd watched Sophie being kidnapped not two days before, and when she had - to Kirsten's joy - turned up safe, she'd received little in the way of explanation.

Yet as she sat down next to Sophie she saw that all was far from well. The pale, slender redhead had her legs tucked against her chest, her arms folded around them.
"Hey, girl," Kirsten said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Hmm?!" Sophie looked at her with a thoroughly odd expression. She hadn't seemed to even notice Kirsten's presence until a moment before. "Oh, it's you."
"Well who else would it be?"
"Right," Sophie said. A weak smile flickered on her face, but soon returned to her former appearance of deep, difficult contemplation.

Kirsten completely misinterpreted what she was thinking, though it was certainly justified that she did so. She assumed that Sophie was still in shock after being kidnapped, as well she might have been. Yet for as emotionally harrowing as that whole ordeal had been - more harrowing than Kirsten could understand - that was not what occupied the lithe maiden's mind.

Not a few hours before, the young woman known as Enhancegirl had received a shocking revelation. Shocking not because the message was anything terrible or awful, but simply because it was so unexpected: Sophie had discovered that Mariko Asakura - model; tall beauty; and powerful superhuman - was in love with her.

"I don't get it," she'd thought to herself a hundred times. "I know she's opened up to me...I know we've been getting - getting closer, but..." It didn't quite seem possible. Her feelings towards the haughty heroine had been softening, seeing more of who she was under her arrogance and pride: and Sophie had liked everything she'd found: Mariko's intellect, her wry humour, her flashes of vulnerability. Mariko had been letting her get closer too, had allowed - even asked - for Sophie's comfort and friendship in a time of great pain for her.

But...Mariko being in love with her? She'd vaguely assumed that Mariko was heterosexual, for one thing, but that was a small matter. Everyone was somewhere on the Kinsey Scale, after all. But that wasn't it: surely Mariko wasn't interested in someone like her? She was so much more powerful, so much more elegant and cultured than Sophie. And virtuous too: her attempt at sabotaging Sophie's career when they'd first met had been a never-repeated - and often apologised for - moment of weakness and Sophie had suspected (rightly, as it happened) that she had not quite been herself at the time. In all her other dealings with Sophie, she'd been a pillar of uprightness, fortitude and a kind of warrior's nobility. Sophie could almost imagine her in light, silver armour, wielding a sword alongside her control over light: dashing and just, as well as feminine and beautiful: an honourable, powerful knight.

"But I'm no fucking princess..." Sophie thought. She'd allowed herself to be wrapped round the little finger of a far less virtuous woman: a thief, a criminal, who'd seduced Sophie by dominating and capturing her, fulfilling many a dark desire that the redhead hadn't realised she'd even possessed. The more she thought about it, despite Ocelot's occasional flashes of tenderness, the more sullied she felt by her tryst. "Mariko wouldn't want someone like that."

And then there were her own feelings. Whether Mariko loved her or not - did she love Mariko? That was the real question she'd been wrestling with, and she couldn't for the life of her answer it. Of course she did love her, much in the same way she loved Kirsten, but was there more? She felt closer to Mariko in ways she didn't to other friends, but that was partly because the two had gone through rather a lot together and partly because Mariko was the only person, really, who knew her well as both Sophie Scott and as Enhancegirl.

Besides, she knew how powerful an impetus it could be to know that someone had feelings for one. It was flattering in the extreme - and if you liked and respected the person, how easy was it to mistake a friendship, especially a deep, affectionate friendship like Sophie had found that she had with Mariko, for romantic love?

And what of Ocelot? What was their relationship? Was it just a sexual tryst, was Sophie just being used - or was there something more to it? Did Sophie owe her loyalty that meant she'd have to refuse Mariko's affections in either case? She'd seen something in Rachel, something good that had almost been completely buried, but not quite. Was that something Sophie could love? Did she already?

It was with these thoughts and a thousand others, decidedly less coherent, that Sophie tortured herself. She was bright, and quick-witted -but she was only nineteen, after all. She was well-read, and empathetic, and so knew a lot of the theory of human interrelationships, but she wasn't personally practiced in all of them. She'd loudly and firmly give advice to her friends on matters of the heart, but it seemed that she'd saved no wisdom for herself.

"You okay?" Kirsten said. She slowly rubbed her hand up and down Sophie's back, trying to soothe an obviously troubled mind. "You can talk to me, okay?" She'd never seen Sophie like this.
"I'm alright, Kirsten," Sophie said, obviously trying, but not succeeding, to sound chipper. "Just got a lot on my mind."
"Uh-huh," the Filipina replied. "Listen, girl, whatever you are, fine isn't it. You're, like, totally messed up about something." Sophie looked at Kirsten, and suddenly felt guilty. She'd been a damned fine friend to her, and Sophie wasn't giving a great deal back at present.
"You're right," she said, "but I really can't talk about it. Not like it's a secret or anything," she added quickly, "I just...like, I wouldn't know what to say."

Kirsten shrugged.
"Well, I'm here if you need me, alright?" she said. "You know what your problem is, Sophie?"
"What?"
"You've got this thing, where it's like: 'I'm smart, but I'm simple', you know what I mean?" She scratched her head. This sort of conversation wasn't her specialty. "But you're not." She gently tapped Sophie on the scalp. "You need someone to unravel all that stuff in your head, huh?" Sophie looked directly at her.
"You know," she said, with a sly look, "that's not a bad idea."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ocelot's thoughts were not nearly so complex as her paramour's, as the thief stole her way into a fine art museum. The slinky, bodystocking-clad cat-burglar was controlled by one emotion only: namely, jealousy. All her machinations, all her efforts - and the odd genuine feat of selfless heroism - had, it seemed, meant nothing. She'd thought that Sophie was completely hers, that the gorgeous, long-legged maiden was completely under her power.

And indeed, after Ocelot, alias Rachel Artesia, had saved her - along with fellow heroines Spectra and Stellar - Sophie had seemed more under the thief's spell than ever. And then in her sleep, she'd whispered softly, with tender, unconscious gentleness a single name:
"Mariko..."

Since then Ocelot had been in a rage. After all she'd done, after she even tried to do something good, Sophie didn't want her after all. No, she wanted some stuck-up cape, some goody-two-shoes superheroine. And she'd seen - Ocelot had seen the look in Spectra's eyes, the longing, the pain as she'd watch Sophie and Rachel kiss. Ironic, then, that it was now Ocelot for whom this memory stung so fiercely. She could all too easily imagine herself in Mariko's position.

It was fortunate that relieving the museum of some of its more generic - and thus easily fenced - treasures did not require a great deal of Ocelot's skill: her heart simply wasn't in it. Easily bypassing the museum's primitive alarm systems, she took a number of emerald and sapphire embossed rings. Later she'd find out half of the damn things were fake, and she'd only earn about two-thousand dollars for her little excursion, but that - at least - was a frustration she could put off for later.

As she left the museum, Rachel decided to indulge herself a little. She deftly rappelled her way back up from the window she'd left from up to the roof she'd arrived on. She lingered a little in the moonlight, allowing herself to enjoy that feeling of ownership of the city. A city filled with monsters, gods, and heroes - and yet she, with none of that kind of power, ran rings around the whole place. That, perhaps, was why the fact that she'd subdued and ensnared such a genuinely good heroine was such a delight - it was as though she'd defeated Seacouver itself. No-one had caught her, and nobody would.

That is, until somebody did.
"What?!" Ocelot gasped in astonishment, as she felt a strong, metal coil seize her by the waist. It pinned her arms to her sides, before writhing further and further up her torso, squeezing her ample bosom, coiling like a serpent around her, holding her tight. "Wh-what - the - hell?!" Ocelot groaned, straining and struggling against her binding. She could see someone in her peripheral vision, but whenever she turned to get a better look, her captor moved out of the way, taunting her.

"Get the hell off me!" Ocelot growled. "You'll regret it if you don't!"
"Oh, is that so, sugar?" a long, Southern drawl came back. "Seems to me like you'll -" She was cut short. A needle had been fired at high speed towards her by a watchful drone automatically defending its master, but Ocelot's captor quickly swatted it out of the air. She was only momentarily distracted: but it was enough time for Ocelot to act. Straining to move her hands at all, she managed to reach a small metal disc in her belt - she tapped the underside of it, and slapped it on the metal tendril binding her.

"Augh!" Ocelot's assailant cried out, as sparks of electricity shot through her tendril. Safety systems initiated, fuses fired to protect her own body from damage, but the tendril was still weakened by Ocelot's attack, and the slippery thief managed to wriggle free. She rolled to the side, grabbing another disc, and then saw her opponent.

"Cybelle?" It was she - a tall, curvy blonde, with cruel eyes, and a perpetual self-satisfied smirk, three of her four tendril arched behind her, waiting to strike. She was dressed in a long, silver coat, tight, black trousers and tall cowboy boots.
"Hey, sugar," she said. "Been a while, ain't it?"
"Not long enough," Ocelot muttered. "What do you want?"
"Just a lil' chat, darlin'," the woman said. "Just need to make sure I got myself a captive audience." She'd tangled with Cybelle on one of her few unsuccessful attempts at thievery, when the blonde had been hired as security at a seedy art dealer's in Sacramento. She'd been younger then, and Cybelle's enhanced reactions and strength had proven more than a match for her. She'd barely been able to escape.

But that was then. Ocelot readied herself, fingering the disc in her hand. She only had this and one other - if she was perfectly on target with both, she could disable two of Cybelle's remaining three tendrils. With her drone supporting her, she might even have been able to hit Cybelle with a bolo or a paralysis dart.

She ran forward, surprising Cybelle with her speed and hurled one of her discs out. At the same time, a hand signal caused her drone to fire three darts, one tipped with paralysing venom, one designed to explode with sleeping gas, and another with debilitating smoke. It was possible, she realised, that none of them would hit - if that happened, she would run past Cybelle, and make her escape.

But she had not realised how few options were available to her. Before the darts could travel so much as an inch, Cybelle pointed one of her tendrils at the drone, and fired a violent, crackling red beam of energy out of it. It engulfed the drone, melting away at its titanium carapace. The drone managed in its death throes to veer to the side, and it crash landed only a few feet from its master, before violently exploding.

"Ugh!" Ocelot was hurled to the side by the destruction of her drone, landing hard on her back and rolling over. She tried to use her momentum to right herself, but she'd been caught too sharply off guard. Before she could get anything like careful balance, Cybelle's limbs shot out for her. Ocelot cried out in frustration as one of the tendrils caught her by the ankles, coiling around them and dragging her towards her opponent. "No! NO!" she barked, trying to free herself. But it was in vain. Another of the tendrils took her wrists - not just grabbing them but, with mechanical precision, encircling them in tight, green tape.

"Urggghhh!" the thief groaned, as she found herself bound. She writhed, but couldn't break free. She was pulled right up to Cybelle's feet, then hauled up into a standing position. "What the hell do you - ggmmmhh!" Ocelot found a strip of the same tape that had bound her wrists slapped over her lips - she could feel that it wasn't ordinary duct tape. It clung tightly to her lips, preventing them from moving at all, almost more like gel than tape. Her muffled cries were reduced to the most inarticulate whimpers.

"See, doll, when I said that I wanted a chat, I really meant that ah need to talk to you. You ain't gotta say nothin'." Cybelle gently curled one of her tendrils around Ocelot's waist. There was enough strength in that limb to crush the scantily clad thief, and the coil around her was a reminder of that.
"Mmm-mmmhh!" Ocelot protested, unable even to vocalise a growl. "What the hell does she want? How did she even find me here?!"
"Ah believe you and I have a mutual acquaintance," Cybelle drawled. "Dear Ricardo - he's got me on retainer at the moment; threw in some juicy little upgrades as part of the deal."
"Hmmshhmmfhhmm?" Ocelot said. Her angry struggles ceased. "She's working for Hosenfluss?"

"Now, ah'm given to understand that you and he came to an arrangement recently. Apparently you owe him a...favour?"
"Shit!" Ocelot hadn't expected him to come calling so soon. She had indeed offered him a favour - had offered him anything in exchange for information on how to defeat an enemy of Sophie's. She now felt like a total fool for having done so. She would doubtless be less than willing to do whatever it was that 'Ricardo' wanted. At best, she'd be doing something...unsavoury, but brief. At worst, it would be something that even she wouldn't do. That would mean life on the run again. Hiding, again. Setting herself up in a new place, with a new identity all over again. This one act of kindness was about to destroy her life. In that instant, she hated Sophie with a vicious ardour.

"Frankly I don't get why he's askin' you. This sorta thing's more my specialty - but I get paid either way." She leaned in, her face only a few inches from Ocelot's. "You know he's been tryin' to give himself superpowers, right?" Ocelot knew well. She'd almost been drowned on account of her efforts to prevent this. "Well I don't know the details, but I'm pretty sure he's gettin' close. But there's one thing he needs..."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Natalya Nazarov was, and had been for quite some time now, mortified. It was she who had revealed Mariko's feelings to Sophie, through a blundering misunderstanding. She'd happened to pass the proud heroine, and her telepathic powers had revealed Mariko's emotions to her. Through them, and a misreading of a tenderly held memory, she'd become convinced that the two were in a relationship.

Seeing and feeling another person's love, especially one as heartfelt as Mariko's, was perhaps the only great pleasure that Natalya - otherwise known as Insyte - got from her powers. Such a selfless emotion as real love was so much more palatable to the telepath even than other pleasurable emotions, because it was so divorced from ego, from the cruelties and weaknesses that every human hid within their hearts.

She'd been so overjoyed at feeling this bright ardour from such an unexpected source that she hadn't been able to help herself. The normally shy young woman had called Sophie - and had blathered out Mariko's feelings for her. It was a shameful lapse - it felt almost like an abuse of her powers, revealing someone's inner world to another in that fashion, whether it had been deliberate or not. She almost wished that the office of the architectural firm at which she worked was more crowded - a chance for her to drown her guilt in the thoughts of those surrounding her.

But she was to be given no such opportunity.
"Excuse me, Miss Nazarov?" The pale, yellow-eyed architect turned to see one of the building's security guards. He was a burly man with a thick, brush-like moustache. "There's someone here to see you. She says she's a colleague? I know she doesn't work here," he said, gruffly. "Her name is -"
"Sophie." Natalya said. She saw the image of the pretty redhead as soon as she made contact with the guard's mind. "Oh, hell," she thought, casting her eyes down. "This isn't going to be good..."

What Natalya found when she came into the sight of the redhead was a maelstrom of confusion. No thought was allowed to complete itself, no emotion went unquestioned. She felt hints of dozens of things, but no definite facts beyond the bare minimum.
"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Sophie said quickly, as soon as Natalya appeared. She was rather taken aback by her directness.
"Uh, yes, there's a cafeteria and -"
"Good. Come on." She immediately headed towards it, Natalya rather meekly following.

The two young women sat across from each other over a plain, plastic table. Natalya was trying to avoid Sophie's gaze, but the redhead's emerald eyes were staring straight into her. It was difficult to avoid them.
"You -" Sophie began, but stopped herself. Natalya expected anger, but found none. Just confusion. "You have to help me."
"What? Sophie, I don't -"
"You opened this can of worms, okay?" Sophie hissed. There was the anger - but it was only vaguely directed at Natalya. "I mean...you are sure that you were right about Mariko?" Natalya hesitated, but nodded. It was too late to lie.
"Yes. She's - she's deeply in love with you..." Natalya blushed while saying it. She recalled the passionate intensity of Spectra's feelings.
"Jesus-fuck..." Sophie sat back, covering her hand with her mouth. Now it was almost beyond certainty. It was reality.

"Okay," Sophie said. "Then I need you to do something for me." Naturally, Natalya already knew what she was going to ask, but she didn't interrupt. "I need you to...to sort out my fucking head."
"Sophie, I'm not sure I can do that."
"God fucking damn it, Natalya, is this about your confidence in your telepathy? I've seen you do some crazy shit - you broke me out of brainwashing, you took Stellar on one-on-one and beat her - and you destroyed Hynotra's powers! You can do this. So fucking do it. Please," she added, a note of desperation in her voice. "Tell me what I actually...feel."

As she spoke, Insyte got flashes of Sophie lying with another woman - a woman she recognised: Rachel Artesia, whom Natalya had tried and failed to save from being kidnapped, and had later rescued from the mental clutches of the Sin Eater. Now Sophie's anguish made sense - her loyalties were torn between Rachel and Mariko, and she clearly wasn't very sure of her feelings for either of them.
"You misunderstand," she said, having gained a slightly better understanding of the psychic landscape on which she trod. "I don't mean that I'm not powerful enough."
"What, then?"

Natalya hesitated. It was difficult to explain without sounding insulting.
"I...can't affect other people's minds very much. Surface perceptions, that sort of thing - but I can go deeper when a mind is vulnerable."
"Like mine, right?" Sophie replied. "Well great. Go deep. Go as deep as you like."
"I mustn't do that," Natalya replied. "I couldn't help...altering things."
"What do you mean?" Sophie said. "Altering how?"
"I'd...push you. I wouldn't be able to help it. You'd end up feeling what I wanted you to feel. The effect would only be temporary but...it wouldn't help you. Please don't ask me again," she said, casting her eyes down.

Sophie suddenly felt terribly guilty. Natalya's mistake had been an honest one - it was very sweet, actually, what she'd meant to do. Now she was taking her turmoil - a turmoil which, she had to admit, had been catalysed by Natalya's revelation, but not created by it - and dumping it on this shy, extremely introverted young woman.
"I'm sorry, Natalya," she said. "Jesus, I'm being so fucking self-centred...please forget I ever came here. I'm sorry," she mumbled, hurriedly getting up. But she stopped and turned back. "I swear, I'm not normally like this!" she insisted. "I don't do this kind of thing."

Natalya felt Sophie's anguish, felt her earnest, straightforward mind twisted in ways entirely unnatural to it, bent by guilt and shame. She could feel a kind of malignant influence - not supernatural or anything like that - but something making Sophie doubt her very self, much less her feelings towards others.
"Sophie..." Natalya said, trying to find the right words, "you're still you."
"What?"
"You're still Sophie Scott. You're still Enhancegirl," Natalya said. "I can feel how confused and unsure you are...but the core of you is still there. All your strength is still there." Sophie smiled weakly.
"Thank you," she said, and she meant it. "But I don't think it's strength I really need right now. Ah, hell, I guess it couldn't hurt." She made to leave, but turned to ask one last question. "Natalya, you said that I might feel what you wanted me to feel. Why do you, like, want me to feel anything specific?"
"Because I think you and Mariko would be a wonderful couple," Natalya thought - but didn't say. There was more than one way to influence someone unduly, after all.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I assure you, sir, you have thanked me sufficiently," Spectra explained to an effusive old man who was shaking her warmly by the hand.
"You kid me!" he exclaimed, in a thick, unidentifiable accent. "The great Spectra saves my piece-of-garbage little shop and I don't thank her properly? This would be bullshit!" Spectra normally didn't lower herself to saving corner shops from two-bit thugs with knives, but she was passing, and she could hardly ignore someone in obvious danger.

"Thanks ought to be proportionate," she said, as frustration outpaced patience. "I assure you, foiling that drunken idiot required a thousandth - a ten-thousandth - of my power. It was no difficulty at all."
"Hey, hey, is not point, eh?" He began rummaging around in his storeroom for some gift to give her, and she swiftly made her escape.

For as much as Mariko Asakura felt her great powers over light could have been given worthier use, it felt good to just be helping someone. Unlike Sophie, Mariko had been living with the knowledge of her feelings for quite a while now, and while it was painful, she was getting used to it.

And then she'd think about Ocelot. She'd see the two of the them kissing, as fresh in her mind as it had been when she first saw it - fresher, even, as her imagination added details that she hadn't actually seen: Sophie rubbing her thigh against Ocelot's; moaning sensually as she was kissed, sighing deeply with...

"Damn!" Spectra hissed, inadvertently clouding herself with a radiant aura, and giving the fright to some locals. "Oh, er, sorry," she muttered, switching the aura off. She was heading to investigate some rather unsavoury reports - apparently the villain Big Shot had been seen with another criminal named Hell Man. Neither were particularly great threats in their own right - but both had quite potent abilities, and in a team, they might be trouble. For lesser heroes than Spectra, that is.

Yet as she made her way to where they'd been spotted, she had a presentiment. Something was hovering in the corner of her vision. Whenever she turned to look, it wasn't there, but she could feel it nevertheless.
"I'm being followed."

Spectra, for all her combat prowess, was not much of a tracker. Still, she wasn't a fool either. She spotted an old apartment block, with a rickety but functional fire escape. In the orange light of the sunset, Spectra ascended the ladder, her lithe, willowy body managing to retain its grace even as the metal shook around her. She managed to get right to the top of the fairly tall building, and looked around, trying to spot what she'd almost seen before.

And then she saw it, hovering in a spiral around the building she'd ascended - a man-sized metal drone, elevated by two rotors.
"That's what's been following me?" She smirked. "I'll cut it to ribbons. I'm sure some clue as to its ownership can be gleaned from its wreckage." She was about to do just that, when she realised that she was not alone.

"Evening," said a smooth, sultry voice. Mariko spun around to see just about the last person on Earth that she wanted to have anything to do with. It was Ocelot, flanked by two more drones of the same kind Mariko had seen. "You know," she said, silkily, "I've been hoping to run into you."
"What do you want?" Spectra said, coldly, keeping a careful eye on the two drones, and on the third which steadily rose towards her.
"I need to, uh, talk with you about something. It - Jesus!" The thief hurled herself down as two lances of light pierced her drones, which sputtered, and crashed, fizzing and twitching. The third tried to move into a position of vantage, but it too was blasted. It exploded, raining debris on the ground below.

Ocelot watched her drones destroyed, effortlessly torn asunder by Spectra's power. She'd almost forgotten just how dangerous the woman she was dealing with was - this was a rather jarring reminder.
"You know those things are expensive, right?" Ocelot said. "You gonna compensate me for -"
"I've heard from...our mutual acquaintance how you use those machines in combat," Spectra said, sounding emotionless, though she was anything but. "You came here with the equivalent of three loaded guns pointed at me. You'll forgive me for not being conversational. Talk, if you still care to."

Ocelot took pause. Plan a) would have been by far the more straightforward...but it had never been Ocelot's preference. Best to try a different tack.
"I get the whole haughty-warrior thing," she said, "but aren't you being just a little bit ungrateful. I mean, if it weren't for me you wouldn't even have those powers right now." Spectra's mouth twitched: Ocelot was right.
"Fine. You have my thanks, Ocelot." She bowed. "There. Is that all?"
"Not by a long shot. Didn't you wonder how I knew where you were? How I knew about that psycho's weaknesses?"

Spectra's brow furrowed. Indeed, that was something of a mystery. She'd been so caught up in the emotions of that night, she hadn't thought of what - in fact - was a very obvious question. Ocelot went on:
"When I found at what had happened to Sophie - you don't mind if I use her real name, do you? We're all friends here." Mariko scowled, but was silent. Ocelot grinned. Her pain was delightful. "When I found out, I figured I'd do something to help. I went to a man named Ricardo Hosenfluss."
"Your old employer?" Ocelot was surprised that Spectra knew this.
"Yeah, that's right." She giggled. "Has my darling Sophie been talking about me behind my back?" She grinned. "She never talks about you."
"Hardly surprises me," Spectra said. "We do talk, you see. I'm her friend, rather than an idle pastime." If Ocelot wanted to play that game, then Mariko was happy to join in.

Ocelot had to restrain a growl. "Damn her! Thinks she's so fucking smart..." She controlled herself. There was business to be done. "The point is, this guy's not in the mood for giving stuff away for free." She came closer. "He wants me to do something for him. He's still trying to give himself superpowers, and he needs someone who's already got 'em."
"He means to take someone's powers?" Spectra said, more than a little wary at the prospect.
"Not exactly. Just needs them to power some kind of device." Ocelot shifted uncomfortably. "He says it has to be someone with the right kind of powers."

Spectra backed away a step. She gathered a ball of light in her palm.
"I certainly hope you don't mean -"
"No. Believe me, I'd prefer it that way." Ocelot looked down.
"What do you mean?"
"If I'm honest," Ocelot said, "I don't think he needs her specifically. She'll do, but he's only asking for her to spite me." Mariko's stomach tightened.
"Whom do you mean?"
"You know whom," the thief replied. "A certain leggy redhead?" Mariko ground her teeth together. She didn't know whether she could believe Ocelot. She certainly couldn't trust her, but that wasn't to say that she was lying.
"Why do you want my help?" Spectra asked. "Why not just warn Sophie?"
"What do you think will happen if I tell her?" Ocelot said, with a sly grin. "She'll rush in, fists flying. Besides, getting her to safety isn't my only problem. I need dear old Ricardo off my back. And to do that, I need someone very powerful. Someone who can wreck his operation."

Spectra considered. It was quite possible that Ocelot was just appealing to her ego - but she was very powerful, after all.
"Say I do help you," the heroine said. "You're not asking me to kill him, and I wouldn't even if you did. How does this get him off your back?" Ocelot opened her mouth, but then closed it again.
"I thought...when I made that offer I thought he wanted..." Ocelot's hand tightened. "I didn't realise it would hurt her. He can ask me for something else. Anything else. Just...not her." Whether it was because Mariko did see something in the thief's eyes, or whether it was just that she found it very easy to believe that somebody loved Sophie, she found herself somewhat moved.
"Alright," the heroine said, despite her better judgement. "Where do we start?" If Ocelot had specified any other victim of Hosenfluss' machinations - anyone at all - Spectra would have refused. But for Sophie - her strength, and her weakness - she couldn't possibly refuse.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spectra didn't think much of the complex when she saw it. It looked like a perfectly ordinary warehouse. But then, that stood to reason. Hosenfluss was hardly likely to conduct illegal metaphenomena research in a building marked 'Evil Secret Base.' The silver clad heroine, her short cape and half-skirt fluttering in a light breeze, stepped carefully towards the outer fences. She was wary of cameras, having spotted and disabled three already as she'd approached.

"Psst," Spectra was so startled in her heightened state of awareness that she almost fried the woman whispering to her.
"Oh, it's you." It was indeed: Ocelot had already made it past the fencing which, now that Spectra looked more closely, was electrified.
"I've disabled the cameras," Ocelot said. "Just cut your way in, nobody will see." Her tone was a little too much like an order for Spectra's liking, but it was the only thing to be done. She quickly sliced her way inside, and began following Ocelot towards the main building.

"I cased the joint a little," the thief said, "so I know there's a basement underneath the main complex. We won't find anything in the warehouse itself."
"Well and good," Spectra muttered. Exchanging any words at all with her was most displeasing to the heroine. The two quickly reached the main building, where two armed men stood guard.

"Hey, is someone -" one of them began, but he didn't get to say much. Ocelot had run right up to him, and hit him straight in the solar plexus with her knee. "OOHHGGHH!" he wheezed, his gun falling from his hands.
"Larry!" the the other exclaimed, raising his weapon and reaching for his radio at the same time. Both, however, were taken from him in short order, by two razor thin blades of light. His weapon was sliced in two, and his radio was melted into uselessness. He looked up, aghast, to see Spectra, scowling, coming towards him. "Oh, f-fuck!" he stammered, and turned to run from the mighty heroine. But a third blast caught him in the back, searing him badly, and knocking him unconscious.

"Nice moves," Ocelot said. "I mean, some of us actually have to learn how to fight instead of just having power handed to them but, you know. Still." Spectra gave her a black look, her lovely, jade eyes filled with venom.
"It occurs to me," Spectra said, "that, since I am here now, I no longer need you. Remember just how easy it would be for me to cut that tongue out of your head." Ocelot was a little taken aback by the gruesome threat. She didn't lose her smirk - but she didn't say anything either.

The two walked in, and Spectra was a little surprised. The space was gloomy, and seemingly empty. This was curious - if the warehouse was a front for what Spectra assumed was a laboratory underneath, why not fill it up, make it look convincing? If Hosenfluss was so successful, surely this was a lapse he could ill-afford. In addition, while Spectra could do a great deal with very little light, this space was a bit too dark for her liking.
"Come on," Ocelot whispered. "This way." She led Spectra right to the centre of the room. Spectra watched the thief carefully, but glanced round all the time for signs of a trap.

It was when the two young women got right to the middle of the room that Spectra was startled by the lights coming on in full force. This was all to the good in and of itself - but the light revealed something far less palatable. There were five people standing in a circle around the two, hidden by the gloom until a few moments before.
"An ambush!" Spectra exclaimed.

"Hey, gals," Cybelle drawled, flexing her newly repaired tendril. "How y'all doin'?"
"Cybelle!" Spectra had never actually fought the cyborg before, but she had met her at Madam Black's mansion. Two others she knew, the man named Big Shot, and the shockwave-wielding Regulus: former servant of the Supremacist. A fourth, a huge, beefy man with orange skin and more orange hair she vaguely recognised from newspaper reports as the Hell Man.

"Two ways this is gonna go," the fifth said. He was a slight, bald man in heavy-looking sunglasses, perhaps Puerto Rican, but Mariko couldn't quite tell. "Easy way is you get on your knees right now. I'm pretty sure you can tell what the hard way is."
"Ocelot, get behind me," Spectra whispered. "You're quite skilled, so you might be able to handle Big Shot, but don't be foolish enough to try to fight the others." There was a silence. "Damn you, thief, are you listening to me?" Spectra allowed herself a quick glance, and saw something which, in hindsight, made all too much sense.

Ocelot was walking, quite casually, over to the man in the sunglasses.
"Okay, Rubio," she said. "I brought her to you. My part's done." She turned, smirking, to Spectra, recalling her 'conversation' with Cybelle:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Frankly I don't get why he's askin' you. This sorta thing's more my specialty - but I get paid either way." She leaned in, her face only a few inches from Ocelot's. "You know he's been tryin' to give himself superpowers, right?" Ocelot knew well. She'd almost been drowned on account of her efforts to prevent this. "Well I don't know the details, but I'm pretty sure he's gettin' close. But there's one thing he needs."
"He's going to get me to steal more Dexite," Ocelot thought. "The hell with that. I'm not going to help him get any more powerful!"
"Apparently he needs another superhuman. Not just any superhuman either: needs to be someone with mystical-based powers, so no gene-freaks or," she gestured to herself, "cyborgs. And powerful too: the stronger the better. You know anyone like that, sugar? 'Cause if not, you'd better make a new acquaintance, and pronto. Seems like Ricardo ain't the type to let a favour go unpaid."

It was a shame that, in that moment, Ocelot's lips were sealed so tightly as to prevent even expressions. The olive-skinned thief would have been smiling. She knew someone who met Cybelle's description perfectly. And, as it happened, it was someone that she hated perhaps even more than Hosenfluss.
"Sorry Sophie," she thought to herself, "looks like your dreams are going to have to stay in your pretty little head..."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spectra had been angry before. She had even felt betrayed before. But never, perhaps, quite like this. Her slender, willowy body shook with blood-red rage as she realised that Ocelot had betrayed her. She'd not only stolen Sophie for herself, she'd used Mariko's feelings to lure her into a trap.
"Ocelot..." she said, very quietly. "OCELOT!"

There was an explosion of light in the centre of the room. Rubio and Cybelle were the only ones who dared look straight at it. Spectra appeared not as a woman, but as a spectre of burning radiance, filled with power and rage.
"J-Jesus Christ!" Big Shot spluttered. "I don't remember her doing this!"
"You'll pay for this!" Mariko roared. "I will rip you asunder!" She drew her hands back, gathering a terrifically strong blast of light. Her eyes never left Ocelot's.

"R-Rubio!" the thief spluttered, terror growing in her heart. "Stop her!" The man grinned.
"Whatever you say." He flicked off his glasses, and all at once an aura of power nearly as impressive as Mariko's covered his body, dark, deep red. His eyes glowed the same colour. "Come on, little girl," he said to Mariko. "Let's see what you've got."
"AUUGHH!" Mariko screamed, as she hurled the beam forward. She had every intention of killing both people in her sights. But that pleasure was to be denied her. Rubio responded in kind, as what looked like twin beams of energy burst out of his eyes.

The two attacks met directly between the opponents, white light against red energy. The blasts strained against each other, as both combatants put all the power they had into their attacks.
"Why...why isn't this working?" both of them thought. Both had underestimated the other, as their blasts met at almost exactly equal strength. Yet Mariko could feel Rubio starting to slip. It was close, but she was the stronger.

"Grrghh!" Rubio grunted, as he felt himself falter. "No...way...is some...cape...going to beat me!" But she was not given the chance either way.
"Aah!" Spectra cried out, as a shockwave from her old enemy Regulus caught her by surprise. She was thrown to the side, the silver clad Mistress of Light landing on her back. At least she'd been knocked out of the way of Rubio's attack - it collided with the back wall, and exploded, causing the whole complex to shake.

"Attack her, you fools!" Regulus barked, sending another shockwave at her opponent. "While she's vulnerable."
"Er, right!" Big Shot aimed his palm at Spectra, and fired an explosive burst of energy. But Spectra had recovered too quickly, and she pierced the bubble with a pinpoint strike, detonating it early. Big Shot was thrown back, landing right at Hell Man's feet.
"Are you...ever gonna help?" he groaned at his bull of a partner.
"What?" the man grunted. "Oh, right."

He stepped forward, cricking his neck. He stepped forward, leaning on a large, steel column, at least twenty feet high. He scratched his nose - and then tore the beam out of its sockets. He swung the beam straight at Spectra in a wide arc, almost taking Regulus' head off as he did. But Spectra vaulted it, and gathered spears of light behind Hell Man, before releasing them right at him.
"OW!" he shouted, as the spears collided with him. But he did not seem hurt.

"Damn," Spectra hissed, but she had no time to think of a strategy. Another shot from Rubio, and another shockwave from Regulus. Spectra dodged the former, and put up a shield against the latter, which held fast. Regulus just didn't have the muscle to break Spectra's luminous constructs.

But Cybelle, newly upgraded, did. She aimed two of her energy-cannon outfitted tendrils at Spectra, and fired. The heroine saw the blasts, which moved vastly slower than her own beams, coming, and raised a second layer of shield. But both were smashed by Cybelle's blasts, and the residual energy threw Spectra clear across the room, into a wall.

"Urrghh..." she groaned, getting back to her feet with difficulty. "Aah!" She ducked another shot from Rubio, whose beams thankfully punctured the wall behind her, rather than exploding. Then, at the last moment she blocked an attack from Big Shot, and was almost crushed by Hell Man's steel beam. "I can't keep going like this," she thought. The assault was relentless, and she was tiring far faster than any of her enemies. She needed drastic action.

To the surprise of all, Spectra broke into a sprint - straight at Hell Man.
"What the -?" he groaned, and swung again - but not only did he miss Spectra, he knocked Cybelle away, the cyborg barely defending herself with her tendrils. Big Shot took his chance, but Spectra created an angled wall of light in response. When the blast hit, it bounced off, not quite hitting Regulus, but exploding at her feet, and knocking her down.

Rubio was standing behind Mariko, and had the best shot - while she was busy, she wouldn't be able to block his powerful attacks. He'd require her full attention to defeat, and he had no chance of letting her have that opportunity. He gathered his power, aimed, and fired.

He didn't realise, however, that his aura produced so much light that Mariko could sense it without having to look: it added noticeably to her available power sources. Because of this, she leapt out of the way at the very moment that Rubio fired - meaning that his beams collided directly with Hell Man.

"Ugghh...uuuhhh...." Hell Man groaned, looking down to see two thin holes in his chest. "Oh...fuck..." He went down like a sack of hammers.
"Shit!" Rubio hissed. Behind him, Ocelot shrank back a few steps. If Mariko won, she was dead. Adding to her concerns, Big Shot, who'd rather been using Hell Man as walking cover, ran for something to hide behind, but found nothing. He too was taken down with a blast to the chest.

But the tide would not stay on Mariko's side for long. Cybelle had recovered, and she came as close to Spectra as she dared, before forming a right angle with two of her tendrils, and then firing her beams of energy. Neither came close to Spectra - but they trapped her. Spectra couldn't run in either direction, she was caught between the two beams on either side of her, and the wall behind her. The obvious solution was to attack Cybelle, in front of her, but that was not made easy. Using a third tendril, Cybelle created a screen of energy which deflected Spectra's lance of light.

The heroine dropped back. She gathered a greater proportion of her power, enough to break through the screen. But she took her eye off Regulus, and a shockwave came right at her.
"Unh!" Mariko groaned, putting up a shield at the last second. But from the other side, at almost the same time, Rubio fired one of his blasts. She blocked that too, straining desperately to keep her barrier up, holding shields on both sides of her body. But it got worse. Cybelle turned off the beams she'd used to hem Spectra in, then fired both of them at the heroine herself. Crying out in frustration and defiance, Spectra now surrounded herself with a sphere of light, blocking Rubio's blasts, Regulus' now constant onslaught of shockwaves, and both of Cybelle's beams.

"Unnhhh..." Spectra strained, feeling herself draw too heavily on her reserves of strength. She was getting to the point of exhaustion - and she was trapped. She couldn't dodge: one of them would get her. She couldn't repel the blasts: she didn't have enough power to overpower all three of them. "I...can't get out..." Mariko thought, fear creeping into her, fear that this was no longer a fight she could win.

The three villains continued their relentless onslaught, scenting weakness in their prey. They increased the intensity of their attacks, and Spectra felt her knees buckling, felt the energy inside her dwindling. She couldn't absorb light fast enough to power her attack, and she had run out of reserve energy. She could feel her body weakening, exhaustion seeping through her.

But the attacks didn't stop, and neither could Spectra's defence. Her ears were ringing, her long legs shaking. She felt as if her power itself was her enemy now, greedily drinking too much of her strength, making her body weak. "I...can't..." she murmured, beginning to feel light-headed. "It's...it's too much...I can't...can't focus..." She felt her strength faltering, felt her barrier getting thinner, more fragile. "My strength...I...I...unhh..." She felt her barrier sputter, and die. At that very moment, the attacks stopped. They weren't trying to kill her, after all. But she was far from unharmed. Mariko's arms dropped to her sides, and she swayed for a moment, like a reed in the breeze. She felt the shock of her loss running through her, vulnerability entering her mind as she realised she was beaten. Then, the tall, beautiful heroine fell slowly, gently down to her knees, as if her weight had gone with her power. "No...no, I've...I've been...defeated...Sophie..." she whimpered, helpless, dizzy and drained. "So...ph...ie..." With that last, desperate moan, her strength gave way entirely, and she swooned, falling flat on her front, completely unconscious. It was over: Spectra had lost.

"Oh, Jesus..." Rubio gasped, dropping on all fours, panting hard. "I thought...she'd...never go down!"
"Oh, quit your whinin', boy," Cybelle laughed. "Wasn't that tough." However, internal alarms noted that her own energy reserves were dangerously low. As for Regulus, by the time Spectra had fallen, her shockwaves had lost so much of their potency that they wouldn't have knocked Big Shot over.

Ocelot breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Mariko fall.
"Ha! Take that, you smug fuck!" the thief exclaimed. Cybelle turned to her.
"Don't know what you're crowin' about," she said. "You didn't do nothin'."
"Wey-ull, sug-ah," Ocelot replied, imitating the Southerner's drawl, "I ain't been asked to do nothin', a-hyuk! I just brought her here - that's all I was meant to do." Adressing Rubio, she said: "We're done."

She observed Mariko's beautiful, unconscious body, how her arms lay so passively by her sides, her legs crossed over one another, her pretty lips slightly apart. There was, for an instant, a twinge of guilt at having caused the downfall of this gorgeous, courageous warrior - but only for an instant. All Ocelot had to do was remind herself of Sophie whispering the heroine's name, and all guilt was quenched.

Cybelle approached the fallen maiden, a little gingerly, for fear that she was playing possum. But no - she was truly defeated. The blonde coiled one of her tendrils around her waist, lifting her up to her feet. Mariko fell back, her arms dangling in the air. But Cybelle quickly drew her in, holding her tightly in her grasp. She turned her victim around, and crossed her wrists behind her back. Out of a second tendril, Cybelle unwound a spool of slightly sticky white cord, and began manually winding it around Mariko's wrists, tying them tightly together.

"Oh..." the supple damsel whimpered softly, as her arms were bound behind her back. More thread was wound around her chest, pinning her arms in place, squeezing her just underneath her small, but pert breasts. Cybelle, grinning, fondled Mariko's chest, and ran her fingers over Mariko's soft, slim shoulders, their bareness making Mariko look all the more vulnerable and weak. Mariko's head fell to the side, exposing her neck, light-tan and smooth.
"Oh, ain't you soft, sugar?" Cybelle laughed. A few moments ago, Spectra had been a fearfully dangerous superhuman - now she was just a slender, caressable damsel, limp and helpless in the cyborg's grip.

With Spectra's upper body bound, Cybelle allowed her to flop forwards, so that her tight rear was made all the more prominent. The cyborg let her hands feel the contours of the heroine's supple figure - the gentle curve of her waist, the subtle roundness of her hips and her ass, the long, smooth lines of her bare thighs - she was sumptuous. And she was powerless.

Cybelle pressed Mariko's slender legs together, before slowly winding rope above her knees, drawing her thighs against each other. The rope adhered to her moist skin, and three circuits were enough to hold Mariko's thighs together. Cybelle lifted the tall, bound maiden into the air, her feet pointing down as they dangled off the ground. She slowly pulled off the heroine's boots, baring her legs and her soft feet completely.

"Why are you doing that?" Rubio said, as Cybelle began cinching Mariko's ankles together as well. "We're on a fucking schedule, here."
"Oh, Rube," Cybelle said, pretending familiarity. "Don't you know nothin' 'bout psychology?"
"My primary skill set involves me shooting people with my eyes. Y'know - psychology's never seemed like a topic for, uh, urgent study."
"Well, you're in the kidnapping trade now, boy," Cybelle said. "You gotta understand certain things." She ran a finger up Mariko's calf, appreciating its flawless smoothness - it was so much more satisfying capturing a woman who took good care of herself.

"Now there's two things here," she explained. "Firstly, a gal wakes up with no shoes, she's gonna think twice about runnin' off. Seems dumb - but it's all subconscious, boy. It'll just make her a little more hesitant, feel like that little bit of power and independence has been taken away. Doubt it'll apply to this one, she seems pretty tough, but with some gals, they'll feel like they need to be carried around."

"That's retarded," Rubio muttered to himself, smiling humourlessly. "But whatever. What's the other thing?"
"Well, see the thing is about your average cape is that the duds - a big part of who they are. Secret i-dentities and all that. Take a piece of it away...you've taken away a piece of their power. With that in mind..." The drawling cyborg pulled the mask off Spectra's eyes. "This is a classic. She's gonna feel exposed, and helpless the moment she realises it's gone."
"The, uh, being tied up isn't gonna do that on its own?"
"Oh, sugar, you gotta attack the liminal and the subliminal if you really want to turn your super-hottie into a real damsel-in-distress." Rubio cocked an eyebrow.
"You've, uh, given this a lot of thought, huh?" The cyborg smiled.
"A gal's gotta do work she loves, sugar."

With that said, she was about to gag Mariko with some of the gel-tape she'd used on Ocelot, but her conversation with Rubio had given her an idea. She ripped Mariko's short cape from her back, damaging the top of her leotard, and making it slip a little lower down her chest. Next, she tore the cape into two strips, one thinner than the other. The thinner one she balled up, and sprayed it with a fine, pink mist from one of her tendrils. She then placed it inside Mariko's slightly open mouth. Next, she wound the thicker one around the heroine's mouth and nose, holding the now drug-soaked ball of fabric in place, and tightly sealing the maiden's lips. There was enough material for a couple of layers, leaving Mariko completely muzzled.

Cybelle slung Mariko onto her shoulder, enjoying the fact that the willowy heroine was significantly taller than she was. It felt like she'd felled a mighty tree. She brushed Mariko's half-skirt out of the way, completely exposing her rear. She ran her hands up the damsel's naked, silky legs, and - unable to resist - gave her a few quick smacks on the ass, feeling just how taut her lovely flesh was.
"Why ah can hardly believe I've never gone after this one before...she's as ripe as a peach..." She began carrying Mariko off, thrilling at the thought that the mighty Spectra was fainted and bound in her arms.

Rubio followed her, shaking his head.
"Fuck's sake," he muttered. "I thought the Boss hired chicks to avoid this unprofessional shit."
"You! The mouthpiece!" Rubio turned, finding Regulus staring daggers at him. "What now?"
"Back to headquarters. You're on contract until the boss is done with the cape. If she escapes, or some of her superfriends come for her, we'll need muscle."
"Ugh..." Big Shot groaned, struggling to his feet. "Wh-what about Hell Man?"
"Fuck 'im," Rubio spat, covering his red eyes with his shades again. "Incompetent bastard..." Regulus haughtily followed, with Big Shot scurrying after them.

This left Ocelot alone, give or take an unconscious Hell Man or two. She smiled to herself. Mariko would probably be killed by the process, as far as she understood it. Sophie would find out in due time - minus Ocelot's part, of course. Of course she'd be distraught. She'd weep, and tremble - and fall right back into Ocelot's arms.
"Wow," she said out loud. "I am an absolutely terrible person!" She was silent for a few moments, then laughed. "And I just don't give a shit." She strolled out, flexing her arms contentedly. Ocelot had veered on the fence of villainy and goodness for some time now - and she'd finally chosen.

As for Mariko, her helpless, willowy body was thrown carelessly into the back of a car, her legs tucked against her chest to fit the tall damsel in. She'd raised not a whimper in protest as Cybelle had fondled her legs and her ass while carrying her, and she didn't protest as she was roughly tossed around. She was a captive: completely in the power of those who had defeated her. She was driven off into the darkness, the powerful heroine now totally helpless - fooled, trapped and captured, betrayed by her own lovesick heart.
:icondamselbinder:

[Damselbinder]

"Mmmhh..." Mariko whimpered, slowly beginning to come to. This was a slower process than it should have been: a piece of her cape had been torn off, soaked in a soporific drug, and stuffed into her mouth after she'd fainted. She woke, therefore, in a confused, drowzy state. "Whhmph?" she intoned softly, shifting a little. She found her long limbs tightly restrained, her arms bound behind her back, and her legs securely tied together. She could barely move at all, stuffed in what she rightly assumed was a car's trunk. "I've been...uhn...kidnapped..." she thought, finding it difficult to think coherently at all.

She vainly tried to use her powers to free herself, but this was vainly done. Her reserves of energy were drained, there wasn't enough light in her cramped prison to recharge herself - and with the soporific keeping her dizzy and weak, she wouldn't be able to concentrate enough to use her abilities.
"Mmhh...?" As Spectra writhed weakly around, she felt that certain things were amiss. Her leotard felt torn, her cape was gone, and her boots had been removed. She blushed, both at the realisation that parts of her uniform had been stolen, and when she felt that it was her own cape that was gagging her. "Mmmph..." she whimpered, embarrassed at feeling her own clothes used against her.

In the shame of her defeat, and the ignominy of her powerlessness, Spectra remembered just why she was where she was.
"Ocelot..." If she'd been able to, she'd have gritted her teeth. Yet as she lay, growling weakly into her thick gag, she felt the character of her rage alter.

"She...did this to me...because of Sophie..." Mariko thought. Fear entered her mind, not for herself, but for the flame-haired object of her affections. She'd thought Ocelot was a thief, a low-tier villain perhaps, but not evil. But this was not someone who could be trusted with anything. "Least of all something so...precious..." She found a new resolve to escape, to defeat her kidnappers and warn Sophie of the danger that Ocelot presented.

The instant that the trunk opened, Mariko decided, she would thrust her legs out at whomever was there, use the light to recharge her powers, cut herself free, and get away. She slowly reoriented herself, ready to attack.
"I must...must be quick..." she thought. She kept herself like that for nearly half an hour, struggling to keep herself awake as the soporific soaked into her gag suppressed her thoughts and her movements. However, she maintained just enough presence of mind that, when the trunk finally did open, she thrust her bare legs out in what would have been a respectably powerful kick.

'Would have been', because the kick did not come close to landing. Mariko felt her ankles seized by a preternaturally strong arm, caught between biceps and triceps.
"Well now," came a sickly-sweet, sing-song drawl, "I didn't think you were awake when I was feelin' those sweet gams of yours...but you musta liked it, or you wouldn't be shovin' 'em in mah face like this."
"Mmmrrhmph..." Spectra sleepily complained, feeling Cybelle's hands fondling her calves. "Mmh!" She was hauled out of the trunk, the cyborg's superhuman strength making easy work of manipulating the willowy damsel's body. "Mmhghmph?" Spectra found herself on her feet, held tightly in place by her bare shoulders, which wriggled uncomfortably in Cybelle's hands.

The heroine's proud, wrathful - if drowzy - gaze met Cybelle's but the tall blonde wasn't intimidated.
"Go on, sugar. Try to use your powers." Perturbed by the fact that she was being invited to do so, Spectra nonetheless attempted to do just that. Despite the darkness of the night that had fallen, there was plenty of artificial light. Sunlight was far better, richer a fuel, but electric lights should have been sufficient. Yet it wasn't working.
"Mmmgghmmphh...?" Mariko moaned, straining herself to make her powers work. But nothing was happening, not a spark. A moment of panic made her think that Adrienne, the woman who'd stolen her powers before, had some hand in it - but no. She could feel that she still possessed her powers. They just weren't working.

"Feels kinda hard to concentrate, don't it?" Cybelle laughed. One of her tendrils was idly running up and down Spectra's long legs. "That stuff I soaked into your cape 'fore I popped it into your pretty mouth - you're gonna be way too weak to be doin' any of them lightshows of yours."
"Mmmhh..." Mariko looked down, embarrassed at how easy it was to keep her helpless.

"I know," Cybelle said, leaning in closer, "I coulda just blindfolded 'ya...but I know Ricardo's gonna want to see those lovely eyes..." She stroked Mariko's face with one finger, from her jaw to her scalp. It was only then, as Mariko felt the path of her captor's finger uninterrupted, that she realised her mask had been removed. "Mmh!" she gasped through her gag - Cybelle had been onto something. Without her mask, Mariko felt naked. She shrank back, feeling silly in her skimpy outfit without her boots, her cape or even her mask - now she was just an attractive, long-legged maiden in a tight, revealing leotard - all tied up and completely vulnerable.

Cybelle saw the realisation in her captive's eyes, and took the opportunity to seize her. She coiled one of her tendrils around Spectra's chest, and another around her knees.
"Mmh...nnmph!" Spectra protested as she was lifted up into the air. She squirmed, but was no match for the smooth metal that wound, serpent-like, around her. But if it was the coils that she objected to, she got her wish: they suddenly unwound themselves, and Spectra fell, straight into Cybelle's waiting arms.

"Oh, my, how romantic!" Cybelle laughed, carrying the weakened maiden like a bride, cradling her by her back and her thighs.
"Mmph! Mmm...nnmmmphh..." Mariko half protested, half whimpered, the feminine passivity of her pose yet another thing that added to her feeling of captive helplessness. She felt hands on the backs of her smooth thighs, and she couldn't stop herself crimsoning.

The weakened captive was carried inside, writhing powerlessly in Cybelle's iron grip, into an even dingier looking building than the one she'd been captured in. Inside, however, it was modern, and ruthlessly professional. Men and women in white coats bustled busily, even in what was essentially a reception area. Armed men in sunglasses, with all the cocky-bearing of ex-soldiers turned soldiers-of-fortune. Some of the scientists guiltily avoided looking at the bound damsel in Cybelle's arms, while others simply couldn't help it. The soldiers didn't even try not to look: Mariko was half-dressed, beautiful, and tightly tied up - a difficult combination to resist.

"Mmhh..." A small moan escaped Mariko's lips as she saw how many were ogling her. "All of them in this...this bastard's employ..."
"Wow, what a hottie!" one of the guards laughed, lowering his shades so Mariko could see him eyeing up her bare legs. "New distraction for Mister H?"
"Sorry hun," Cybelle replied. "I don't talk to the little people." The soldier grimaced, but let her past. She could have snapped his neck before he even thought about using his weapon.

Cybelle took her tall, slender captive down via an elevator - and by 'down' it is not meant that Spectra was merely taken to a basement. She was taking down perhaps five storeys' worth underground. Entering this new space, Spectra saw fewer workers, and less bustle - but there was an air of grim dedication to task among the people there. They had been working on this project for a very long time, with a hard taskmaster. There was no ambivalence when they saw Spectra - she was an ingredient in their experiment, and one they were eager to get their hands on.

"You've brought her!" One of the scientists, a woman in her late forties, came forward. She was rake thin, with prematurely white hair. She had some kind of scanner in her hand, and ran it over Spectra's body.
"Mmh!" the damsel protested impotently, still wriggling slowly in Cybelle's arms.
"Yes...yes, this is perfect!" There was a tinge of an accent in her voice, but a careless or uninterested ear would never have heard it. She gestured to one of her underlings. "Simon!" she barked. "Tell Stantz we are in possession of the subject. We should be ready to proceed shortly."
"Yes, Dr Ramikin," he replied, nervously reaching for his radio.

"Where d'you want her, Lisa?" Cybelle asked. Spectra was surprised to hear Cybelle addressing her so familiarly, and even more so when she wordlessly obeyed an order from the woman to lay Spectra on a large, metal slab. She wasn't to know, but it was Lisa Ramikin who had given Cybelle her original cybernetic implants, starting the blonde's obsession with further enhancing herself. She'd since dismissed cybernetics as her main field of study, noting that no cyborg in the world was a true match for the strongest of superhumans.

Still, she'd continued to read up, and maintained a good working relationship with her old subject. It was she who had suggested Cybelle to Hosenfluss when she realised she required a superhuman for the I.T.2 project.
"Oh yes, I could hardly think of a better subject," Dr Ramikin said. She pressed a button on the slab, and strong plastic straps shot out from one end into the other, holding Spectra down tightly by her chest, her flat stomach and her ankles.
"Mmmhh..." she mewed, feeling herself now tied down as well as up. She writhed a little, but she was beginning to accept that she was too weak to fight back. The prospect of escape was slipping away.

"So, we gonna do this? The lady's all yours, Lisa," Cybelle said.
"What?" the scientist replied. "No, no no, we are not nearly ready yet. We need to attune the device to her particularly...species of power. If my calculations are off one way or the other, either the process will fail and the Dexite will be ruined, or it will work, but it will kill Mr. Hosenfluss."
"What do we need to do?" Ramikin didn't answer. She wheeled a tray with a large piece of electrical monitoring equipment attached to it next to the bound maiden, before begin to attach leads to her shoulders, sticking them to her skin with little suction pads. "Bella, why did you leave this on? I need as much data as possible!" She was referring to Spectra's leotard - which she now violently tore off, revealing Mariko's gorgeous, light-tan skin, and every curve of her slender body.

"Mmph!" Spectra protested, seeing herself stripped almost naked. Only scraps held in place by the plastic holding her down remained of her silver leotard. She blushed at her nudity, feeling desperately ashamed. Helpless to prevent it, she watched as the scientist attached more leads to her stomach, her thighs, and even one on her pert breasts. "What...what are they doing to me?"

Ramikin switched the machine on, and Spectra felt a little strange, like she was buzzing slightly all over. It wasn't painful - ticklish would have been the best word - but she had no idea what it was actually doing.
"Alright..." Ramikin mumbled. She ran a long cable from the monitoring equipment into the base of what looked like a large water tank at the back of the room, the sort of thing a magician would defy death in - except this was attached to, or was in itself, scientific equipment.

"There," Ramikin said. "Within the next one-hundred and twenty minutes, the extraction chamber will have adjusted to the peculiarities of Spectra's energy signature."
"Mmmph...?" Spectra intoned through her thick gag. "Extraction chamber? Wh...what does that mean?" She tried to move, but the straps, her bonds, and the drugged piece of cloth in her mouth all conspired to keep her subdued.
"Keep her quiet, would you?" Ramikin barked. "I don't want to listen to all that ridiculous 'mphh'-ing for the next two hours, if it's all the same to you."
"Aww, you sure?" Cybelle said. "Personally I love hearin' 'em moan and whimper." She took it upon herself to elicit such sounds by rubbing her hands along Mariko's supple thighs, and laughed when they came involuntarily from behind Spectra's gag.
"Bella, my dear," Ramikin said, "you know I love to indulge you - but this is very delicate work! I cannot have my nerves being...affected."
"Well, alright," Cybelle said. "Business before pleasure, et cet-er-a." She stood over Spectra, grinning wickedly at her. "Sorry sweetie," she said, "but good damsels should be seen...and felt...and maybe even tasted - but not heard." She laughed, before holding the end of one of her tendrils over Mariko's face. "Lights out, darlin'."

"Nmmphh - MMH!" Mariko protested, but was shocked by the sudden spray of a pink cloud of mist in her face. "Nmmh!" she moaned, as she felt herself breathing in the sweet gas. "Nmmphh! Nhh...mmmhhh..." Almost instantly, she felt the dizziness of her drugged gag replaced with outright weakness and sleepiness. "Mh..." she mewed, as she began sinking into slumber. She could no longer move, not even feebly wriggling anymore.

"Have to...stay awake..." she thought, but it was not a battle she seemed able to win. A quick spray of mist in her pretty face, and Mariko was back to half-conscious helplessness. And that fraction was diminishing every second. She felt her limbs growing warm, and still, felt her eyes slipping out of her control, so heavy and sleepy...
"That's it, girl," Cybelle said, stroking Mariko's short, black hair. "Just drift off...it's so easy...so comforting..."
"Mhhh...nnnhhh..." Mariko sighed, feeling all strength desert her. It was so easy, just as Cybelle said. And in her drugged, pliant state, it was almost possible for Mariko to imagine it was Sophie stroking her hair, whispering softly to her. "Sophie!"

In her humiliating captivity she had almost forgotten about the danger that Sophie faced. Her paramour was far, far more immoral than she'd thought - she'd sold Mariko out to pay off a favour, and to rid herself - surely - of a love rival.
"She's...in peril..." Mariko thought. "I have to...have to get away...I have to warn her...to save her..." But she wasn't in a position to save anyone. Her body defied her mind and her heart, only growing softer, and weaker. "I must...I...oohhh..." Mariko couldn't summon any strength, mental or physical. She was entirely in her captors' power. "Sophie...my Sophie...please...don't...trust...unhh..." With that thought, a desperate plea that the gorgeous redhead would never hear, her strength failed her, and she gave in, her eyelids fluttering shut. She passed out, now as silent and tame as Ramikin required...
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Natalya had been more than a little perturbed by her run-in with Sophie. The turmoil she'd felt within the redhead's mind was just as affecting, in a different way of course, as what she'd felt from Mariko. Natalya had never been too keen on entering into others' emotional problems, and she would have left Sophie to her own devices under ordinary circumstances. After all, she didn't know her that well, and as unpleasant as the redhead's mental tumult had been, it was hardly of world-ending importance. Surely Sophie would sort things out herself, in time. She herself had said as much within her dozen apologies.

Yet there were three things which made Natalya hesitate to dismiss the idea of, well, dismissing it all. The first was that she herself had caused this situation, by blurting out Mariko's feelings.The second was that Sophie and Mariko were so young: only nineteen and twenty respectively. Natalya wasn't much older, at twenty-four, but it was enough. The third was that malignant influence she'd felt in Sophie's mind. She realised that she'd sensed something like it before, only more pronounced, in a cousin who'd been in an near-abusive relationship.

In Sophie it wasn't quite so strong, but the similarity was disturbing, and Natalya couldn't get the thoughts out of her mind. Almost despite herself, as she left work, she found herself not going home, but to one of Seacouver's fanciest districts. A telepath was never short of information, and she'd gleaned from her encounter with Sophie that morning where she might find the thief known as Ocelot.

Natalya didn't change into her garb as Insyte. She wasn't going to be fighting the thief. She was dressed in a tight, black skirt that didn't quite reach her knees, open-toed black heels, and a relatively tight, beige blouse. She didn't like drawing attention to her appearance, but even in what she'd judged to be a relatively conservative outfit, she received plenty of glances as she made her way to the location Sophie had inadvertently revealed to her.

Ivan, her brother, had waxed lyrical in the past about how Natalya had heroic instincts: she earnestly wanted to help people. She was rather resenting this impulse now. She wasn't going to confront Ocelot, or even talk to her. She just wanted to know that Sophie was in safe hands in her emotionally vulnerable state - a quick glance would confirm it. Whether the two were destined for one another or not wasn't the issue: she had a nasty presentiment that Ocelot would be a threat, somehow, and not just to Sophie. She'd made telepathic contact with her before, and she was left with an impression of someone...unhinged. If there was a danger to Enhancegirl, there was a danger to others too.

She came near to the luxurious apartment building in which Rachel Artesia made her home, and waited. She sat in a coffee shop which faced the building, ordered something, and made a show of drinking it as she watched. This was not easy. The street was hardly bustling, but it wasn't empty either. She was assailed by the thoughts of everyone within her field of vision.
"Did I fill in the -"
"Jeremy's the dumbest -"
"What a strikingly attractive -" Natalya realised that this last was directed at her, and she shyly crossed her white legs. She shut her eyes for a moment, took a breath, and looked up again.

"That promotion was -"
"Electricity meter should be about -"
"Poor Sophie, how -"

Natalya stood up. She recognised the mental impression, if the word 'Sophie' hadn't been clue enough: it was Rachel. She scanned left and right, trying to sift through the noise.
"It's -"
"As much as -"
"Ghostbusters were -"
"Spectra should be -" There. She passed in and out of Natalya's sight, but it was definitely her. She was moving away from her apartment building, obviously having just left. Natalya followed, trying to get an uninterrupted view of her for long enough to get a clear scan.

She saw fragments of images, heard half-broken sentences, not able to do any sifting beneath the immediate surface of Rachel's thoughts. Natalya moved right onto the kerb, trying to get a better angle, her black heels tapping against the pavement. Now she saw more clearly. Rachel was imagining - and it seemed she was imagining, rather than remembering - Sophie kneeling at her feet, her head in the thief's lap, sobbing.
"There there, my sweet," Rachel imagined herself saying. "You know, I'm sure she died in battle...isn't that what she'd have wanted? A warrior's death?"
"Yeah, I know..." the illusory Sophie replied. "You're right, Rachel...oh, I don't know how I'd be able to handle this without you..." As the fantasy took a rather more erotic turn, Natalya felt an urge to look away. But no - something was very amiss here. Who had died? Was she imagining the death, as well as the upset? Or was the death real, and Rachel was just imagining the result? She looked further, peering into memory.

And then she saw. She saw Ocelot succour Mariko in with lies, using the heroine's love against her to bait her into a trap. She saw the battle, saw Spectra's valiant struggle, her awful defeat. She saw her being bound and carried off. In her shock, she didn't look for greater detail, but Natalya put two and two together from what she'd seen. Ocelot had betrayed Spectra, sold her out into a deadly trap - a captivity which the thief did not expect Spectra to escape with her life.

"She's - she's evil!" Natalya gasped, quite forgetting - quite fairly - her original purpose. But her gasp had betrayed her. Ocelot heard her, and turned around slightly. The two women saw each other: one slinky, olive-brown, the other curvy, almost alabaster. Rachel didn't actually recognise her straightaway. But when she did, her hazel eyes went wide.
"Oh fuck!" she thought loudly, and ran. "Oh hell! If she catches me, I'm -" Her thoughts vanished from Insyte's mind as she passed behind another pedestrian.

"Hey!" Natalya shouted, running after her. Keeping her in sight wasn't too hard: the street wasn't very crowded, and Insyte could keep track of her via the thoughts of those she could see. The problem was keeping up. Both of them were in heels, with Rachel wearing black trousers and a half-unbuttoned shirt, but Rachel was just faster.

She ducked into an alley, and Natalya followed, half expecting to see Rachel attempting to vault a chain-link fence, like an episode of L.A. Dragnet - but found the thief standing stock still, staring right at her. She almost crashed into her, stopping only about a foot away from her. She saw the thief, and was immediately struck by a powerful fantasy that Rachel was having.

Natalya saw herself, in a revealing nightgown, bound hand and foot in thick chains, writhing and moaning in her bonds. Ocelot was behind her, kissing her neck, fondling her ample breasts, and pulling her nightgown back to reveal her thighs.
"Oh, Mistress..." the imagined Natalya whimpered, "I'm all yours...please make me your helpless pleasure-slave..." she sighed, her eyelashes batting coquettishly at her captor. "Oooohh...I've never been with a woman before...be gentle with me...I'm so weak and sexy..."

Natalya's face went bright scarlet.
"I...I would never - I - how dare she even imagine that I would - !" Past the overwhelming shock and embarrassment of what she saw, Natalya looked no further, her maidenly shame making her withdraw rather than look deeper. For that reason, she did not see that Ocelot's fantasy was wholly purposeful - to make Natalya react exactly as she did.

In that moment of shock, Ocelot's arms snapped out, lightning fast, and seized Natalya by her smooth, pale legs.
"Oh!" Natalya gasped, as the thief lifted her up and tossed her over her shoulder, holding the telepath's thighs tightly against her chest, keeping them together. "P-put me down!" Natalya gasped, her calves kicking, her arms batting feebly against Rachel's back. She could have done more if she'd put her mind to it, but she was so astonished at being simply grabbed and thrown over the thief's shoulder that she felt powerless already.

"Don't think I'm gonna, sweetie," Ocelot said. "Can't have that pretty mouth blabbing all my secrets, after all." She used her free hand to lift Natalya's skirt, completely revealing her milky thighs and her soft, heart-shaped rear.
"Wh-what are you doing?!" Natalya gasped - but Ocelot's action was more functional than it had first appeared. "Ah!" Natalya felt a pinprick in her behind. "What was that, what did...did you...uunhh..."
Natalya's yellow eyes, now feeling perilously close to shutting, saw an empty syringe clatter to the floor. From the place where she'd been injected, she felt a kind of heaviness spreading. It travelled down her now exposed, white legs, making it feel like lead weights had been tied to them. Natalya’s calves settled down, completely still.
“What…what did you…do…?” she moaned, as her arms went from feebly batting at Ocelot’s back, to barely brushing her.

“Oh, come on, Insyte,” Ocelot laughed. “Can’t be that hard to work out, can it?” She felt Natalya writhing weakly in her grip, but she didn’t say anything. “No? Well, sweetie, I’ve drugged you. You’re gonna get nice and helpless – well, more helpless, I should say – and then I’m going to take you for…” She chuckled. “Well, you saw what I was thinking…”

“N..noo…” Natalya whimpered. “She’s…she’s capturing me…oh, I’m so…so weak…can’t fight back…” This was true on both accounts. She was indeed being captured, and she was already too weak to fight back. But the sedative wasn't just weakening her muscles. She was starting to feel drowzy, her eyelashes fluttering, her body feeling soft, warm, and fragile. She felt ashamed - she'd seen this woman for what she really was, and had been instantly defeated and seized by her. She could warn no-one.

She felt Ocelot begin to carry her off. The alley was at the back of her building, and she was ascending its fire escape with Natalya's body slung over her. In fact, Rachel had taken great pains to keep these method of egress and ingress functional. More than once she'd had to use it to get in and out undetected from her apartment.
"Wh...why...have you...taken me?" Natalya mumbled, almost passing out mid-sentence. She couldn't concentrate enough to see Rachel's thoughts, but in her narcotised dizziness she could still feel her emotions: avarice, malice, lust for the beautiful maiden in her arms - and just for an instant, a tinge of self-loathing.
"Well sweetie," Ocelot replied, "I came to a bit of a realisation about myself recently. I'm not...well, I'm not good, let's put it that way. I mean, I'm a thief. The whole point is that I take whatever I want. And when I saw you...I decided I wanted you."

"Ah!" Natalya cried out, as her heart-shaped ass was slapped hard by her captor. "Ohh..." she mewed, blushing. "Unnhh..." She felt herself spanked two, three more times, a red hand-mark appearing on her smooth, pale skin.
"Consider that a preview," Ocelot said, now roughly groping the flesh she'd smacked, feeling her legs as well. As she ascended the stairs, she felt Natalya's limp, voluptuous form going up and down slightly in her grip, her soft, white breasts, so pleasingly sized, bouncing against her back. The sleepily sighing telepath was so lusciously feminine - not quite as classically figured as, say, Valora - but sweetly curvy and buxom all the same.

"Unnhh..." Natalya sighed. She felt her bosoms bouncing against her captor as well, and it was perhaps one humiliated blush too many. The helpless, beautiful architect could no longer resist the sedative's effects. "H...help me..." she mewed, to no-one in particular. "I...I...oooohh..." With that, she gave in, passing out completely.
"There we go, darlin'," Ocelot laughed, imitating Cybelle simply to amuse herself. "You have a nice long rest." Yet as she carried her easily-vanquished prize away, she found herself halted.

What was her endgame? What would she do with Natalya? She could hardly keep her hidden in her apartment. Could she...? No. She didn't have the stomach for that. She wouldn't even have been able to do it to Spectra let alone this woman, who hadn't just not done her wrong, but had saved her from being a brainwashed slave.

"Slave, huh?" She grinned. "You know, that's not a bad idea." She took Natalya to the window of her apartment, undoing the hidden latch, and slipping inside. She carried the maiden to her couch, hands running over her legs and rear all the time she was in her grip, and casually threw her down. Natalya fell noiselessly, passively, where she was thrown, her shoulder-length, black hair slightly dishevelled, her skirt barely covering her thighs at all. Mocking the damsel's natural modesty, Ocelot crossed her smooth legs, though this only made her skirt slide back even further.

Leaving her where she was for a moment, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't be going anywhere for some time, Ocelot went to her laptop. She turned on a program that would simulate idle browsing, while she herself accessed some of the more...unsavoury elements of the web. She was looking to get in contact with a particular person, someone with whom she'd done good business in the past.
'Dear Madam Morpheus,' her message read. 'Think you'd be up for moving another super-cutie to a loving home? Two thirds of what I gave you last time - but she's already subdued. Just got to find a buyer, and do the transport.'

She didn't expect an immediate reply, and set about securing her new acquisition. She pushed Natalya forward, and she slumped down, her breasts resting on her bare thighs. Ocelot went into her workshop, and grabbed a thick length of chain, letting it trail along the floor as she brought it back into her living room.

Coming over to her captive, she began winding the heavy, thick chain around her torso, starting by pinning her upper arms to her back, the chains pushing up her breasts from below, and squeezing them from above. Rachel then twisted the chains around Natalya's forearms, binding them together, before running the chain around her midriff, making sure that her arms were totally immobilised.

She pushed her back up, and she fell softly against the couch's cushions, her head slipping slightly to the side, her mouth forming an 'o' as if she was frozen in one long, helpless 'No'. She smirked, and uncrossed her captive's legs. She forced her thighs together, before coiling three circuits of chain around them, the hard metal a ruthless contrast with Natalya's tender, white skin.

Ocelot drew the same length of chain down her calves, before coiling it around her ankles as well, trapping Natalya's gorgeous limbs completely. The buxom maiden was now a chained prisoner, trussed up, drugged, and entirely in Ocelot's power. The thief stepped back to observe her. She saw her ample breasts straining against the chains, saw her supple legs pressed so intimately against each other.
"Hmmm..." She noticed Natalya's flattering business outfit, and cocked her head to the side. "Less 'superheroine in distress'...more 'sexy secretary tied up at the office by evil boss'!" She laughed. "Well, I'm sure that's appealing too. But there's something not quite right here..." She leaned in, and unbuttoned Natalya's blouse about halfway down. She tugged at its sleeves, baring Natalya's soft, white shoulders. The thief gave them a gentle squeeze, appreciating the maiden's ever growing appearance of sensual vulnerability.

Lastly, she found a thin, purple scarf, and wound it around Natalya's eyes, blindfolding her.
"Can't have you taking any more of my secrets," she said. Natalya had to see someone to read their mind - much like Spectra, she was powerless while blindfolded. That done, she sat down next to her captive, and started slowly massaging her now partly exposed breasts. They were so round, and soft that Ocelot's fingers started to tingle from touching them. She leaned in, and started kissing her shoulders and her neck, drinking in the subtle scent of the chained-up beauty. Her groping grew more intense, and she turned Natalya's head towards her, kissing her on the lips now, making out with her passive, limp new prize. Natalya was hers, at least for now, and she intended to make the best of it. Then she'd be got out of the way, and Sophie would be her prize - just as helpless and unresisting as Insyte was now - except Sophie would be made to like it.


Elsewhere, a woman with dirty blonde hair and a rather curiously specific - but useful - superhuman ability, received an email on one of her many deep web accounts. She perused it. It seemed very much like her kind of work - easier even. Then, however, she saw the sender's address.
"Oh no," she said. "I'm not having anything to do with you. Not again." She would have ended it right there, just ignored it - but then a smile came onto her face. She decided that, that day, she would do something good. That it was motivated by professional rivalry and spite...well that was just a bonus. Besides, after what she'd heard Ocelot had done...she deserved to be taken down a peg or two.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Mmmghhmm...?" Mariko came to slowly, feeling her trussed-up, willowy body jostled from all sides. It took her a few moments of hazy sleepiness to gather enough presence of mind for her to realise the situation she was in. She could feel hands on her, not in a lascivious manner, but roughly carrying her slender body. She was held like a sacrifice between two of the scientists, one with their arm around her calves, the other holding her by her shoulders.

"Mmmghhmphh!" Mariko complained, feeling a little vigour return to her. She began struggling in her captors' grip.
"Shit, she's awake," one of them said. "Hurry this up." The two scientists brought her over to the upright, glass tank she'd seen earlier, and with some effort, stood her tall, half-naked body inside. She blushed, partly because she'd had to feel the men's hands on her bare skin, and partly because it was more than a little embarrassing being lugged around helplessly by two people so much weaker than she was - or should have been, at least.

"Mmhhh!" Mariko complained, writhing her body in her rubbery bonds. "Wait...rubbery?" She hadn't remembered them feeling like that before. She looked down to see that she had been untied in her sleep, then bound again with what looked a little like orange, rubber tubing. She was bound a little differently now - her arms were box-tied, and the rubber bindings were criss-crossed down her body in a tight mesh that kept her from being able to move much at all. She was tied such that her gorgeous, light-tan skin was almost completely on show, but she was as strictly restrained as if she'd been mummified.

"Dr Ramikin," the younger of the two men said, "do we put the device on now?" He glanced back at Spectra, but she was alert enough now to stare daggers at him, and he looked away. As far as this young man was concerned, handling Spectra had been about as nervewracking as handling a large, temperamental bomb.
"Yes, Thompson, get it on her!" their leader barked. "And called it by its proper name will you?"
"Yes, Doctor," the other man said. He was older, and a little less nervous than his colleague. Having his hands on the helpless body of the beautiful, Japanese damsel had been nothing but a pleasure. He took a large, heavy looking circle of metal, dotted with what looked like jewels, and with a few wires sticking out of it. Despite her struggles, he placed this circle onto Spectra's forehead, clipping it into place.
"Ramikin Engine primed," he said, grinning.

"Mmhph?" Spectra looked up, trying to see what it was they'd stuck onto her, but she couldn't get any idea of what it was or how it worked. She did, however, find the tank she'd been put in shut over her. "What are they doing? What is all this damned machinery for?!" Spectra shook her head, flicking her tongue inside her mouth against the gag. "Wait a moment..." It occurred to Mariko that she had not been able to move her tongue around before, as Cybelle had stuffed a drugged wad of her own cape in her mouth. This, now, was gone, though the first layer of her gag remained. "I'm not being drugged..."

Though she still felt dizzy, she was beginning to recover, her powers of concentration returning themselves. Spectra realised that in a few minutes, she'd have the concentration to use her mastery of light again. She looked around the laboratory she'd been taken to, and saw only one person who might be a threat: Regulus, who was scowling at anyone who came near her. "I could do it...I could escape!" she thought.

Something happened, however, which dimmed her hope. The first, was that she felt water at her toes.
"Whhmph?!" Mariko felt her bare feet being covered by lukewarm water, rising quickly up her calves. "What? What's this, now?" She wriggled futilely in her strong, rubber bonds, as the water quickly rose up past her knees. She kicked her now wet legs, and would have fallen if the space in which she was stood had not been so small. The water showed no signs of stopping. It went up her midriff, past her breasts, and was approaching her neck.

"Are they going to drown me?!" Mariko thought, more frustrated and confused than fearful. "Couldn't they have just smothered me in my sleep and spared themselves the bother? I know villains tend to have a flair for the elaborate, but this is ludicrous!" Yet the slender damsel was not to be ended like she imagined. From a hidden compartment inside the tank, a thick plastic nozzle shot out, clamping tightly over Mariko's mouth and nose.

"Mmghmph!" she exclaimed through her gag. Her instinct was to struggle, but she realised that the mask's seal was airtight - yet she could still breathe comfortably. "I'll be able to breathe through it..." Indeed, as the water went up over her chin, up over her cheeks, and eyes, the seal held tight. Mariko kept her eyes closed at first - she'd never been a very good swimmer, for one thing - but eventually opened them. Her vision was made a little blurry, but she could still see relatively well.

"Why the water?" asked the older of the two scientists who'd carried the heroine into the tank.
"It has nothing directly to do with the extraction process, Chapman," the lead scientist explained. "It just makes it easier to control the temperature. Process occurs at greatest efficiency one degree above body temperature."
"I see."
"And stop staring, you little pervert!"
"What? I -" He turned to protest, but Lisa's cold gaze defeated him. "Come on!" he thought. "She's right fucking there!" He dared a glance at the writhing, half naked beauty, her legs so long and slender, her figure so delicate and feminine - how could he not look?

Thompson, for his part, seemed to be managing.
"I hate this superhuman stuff," he muttered to another colleague. "None of the rules make sense. Why does the process occur at one degree above body temperature? Why does the dexite need to be energised to release the energy it already has? None of the laws are connected to anything else."
"Tcheh," Regulus laughed. Thompson recoiled. It was possible she'd taken offence at what he'd said. He was all too aware that a fit of pique from Regulus could result in the death of everyone in the room - and she wasn't even one of the stronger superhumans. "You scientists are always such poor philosophers."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Thompson stammered.
"Read your Hume, little norm."

'Norm' was a word that Regulus intended with racist force against ordinary humans. Unfortunately, it was a term rather confined to the Supremacist's circle, and Thompson didn't get that he was meant to be offended. Irritated that he wasn't insulted, Regulus went on. "There are no laws. There are merely regularities. Your role as a scientist is simply to observe what is. Do not try to guess at why things are. Simply report that they are, and take advantage of the facts that you discover."
"Now that sounds like a scientist," Chapman sniggered. He looked the villain up and down: despite her scar, Regulus was not a bad-looking woman, and the fool decided to try his luck. "Say, sister, you ever think you might be in the wrong profession?"

Regulus looked at him much in the way that one might look a man who, having spilled one's pint, promptly spills his own pint onto one's lap.
"Ramikin," she barked. "Do you need this man?"
"Not especially," the scientist replied, distractedly.
"Good," she said. She placed her hands either side of Chapman's head, and before he had time to make a stupid joke, she sent two shockwaves directly into his head. He slumped down on the ground, comatose.
"Aaahh! Oh my god!" Thompson screamed. He thought Chapman was dead. "You...you inhuman monster!"
"Don't be dramatic," Ramikin snapped. She thought Chapman was dead too: she just didn't think it mattered altogether much.

During this little drama, Spectra had been quietly gathering her power back to herself. She'd expected that the breathing mask would be drugging her as well - but if anything she felt a little giddy, as she was being given nearly pure oxygen. In fact, she already had the capacity to use her powers again, but she needed to be careful. Her body was still a little weak, and if she got into a protracted battle even with normal gunmen, she might be at a disadvantage. She decided to be subtle. She would damage the machine first, then go for Regulus. She'd observed the scientists talking, and figured that she could probably hold this Thompson character to threat.

She had to be careful not to damage part of the machine that kept her breathing. She focused on a part that seemed innocuous, but would draw alarm. She gathered her power, and formed a blade of light.
"MMMMPHHHHH!!" Mariko screamed. The instant she tried to use her powers, she felt a terribly disturbing sensation through her whole body. She felt her power subverted: she was taking in the light, but her body wasn't doing with it what she wanted. "MMPH!" A shiver ran through her: it was as if her energy was being sucked out by vacuum.

"Ah, good," Ramikin said, observing the screaming, writhing, damsel. "She's tried to use her powers."
"Mmmph! NNMPH!" Spectra wriggled in her tight bonds, her long, nude legs sloshing the water about them. "What's...happening to me...?" It was as if she'd opened a channel that she could no longer close. They'd allowed her to regain her strength. They'd wanted her to do this.

"The Ramikin Engine," the machine's namesake explained to her underlings, "is designed to absorb metaffecive radiation from a suitable source. The subject is now effectively a generator. Her power ordinarily absorbs light, then re-radiates it out. That much is odd, but perfectly ordinary in terms of physics: she takes energy, she uses energy. Simple. No: what we're interested in is the process of her shaping light. The energy she uses for that, she generates within her own body. That is what we need, and that is what she now cannot help giving us."

"Mmmhh?" Spectra whimpered, writhing around, her short black hair floating upwards in the warm waters surrounding her. Something about what Ramikin said made a strange kind of sense. She could feel some kind of energy being drawn out of her. Not just the light she was absorbing: that wouldn't have made her feel tired, just...powerless. This was different. An inner light, her light, was being drawn from her. "Mmmhh..." she moaned, as she started to feel physically weak. "Nnnmhhh..." Her slim shoulders were not writhing quite as hard, her slender hips not twisting as fiercely as they had been. "They're...they're draining me..."

"Ha!" Regulus laughed, seeing the tall beauty's struggles grow more feeble. "The Mighty Spectra, already feeling weak?" She approached her old enemy's watery prison, seeing the helplessness in her lovely eyes. She recalled every defeat that the proud, powerful heroine had ever handed her, every time she'd humiliated her. She remembered how even the Supremacist had taken a strong interest in her, much more than he ever took in Regulus. "Pathetic," she spat. "I can't believe He thought you were worth His attention. You should try to hold onto your strength: I'm no scientist...but I understand they're only just starting. They're going to take it all, 'Mistress of Light'."
"Mmmphh..." Mariko tried to sound defiant, but all she could manage was a kittenish whimper. As she felt more and more of her strength drain away, she had to resist the instinct to hang her head in shame, and defeat. With every second that passed, she felt herself get weaker, and weaker, and weaker...
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Unnhh..." Natalya sighed, as something stirred her awake. "I can't...can't see..." she mumbled. Indeed, she found that there was a thick blindfold wrapped over her eyes, preventing her from using her abilities on anyone who might be around her. She moved, weakly shifting, and heard a clink of metal. She tried to lift her arms, but she couldn't. "I'm...bound!" she gasped, only now remembering in her drugged stupor what had happened, how Ocelot had captured her.

She remembered too that Spectra was, somewhere, languishing in captivity, her life in peril. Shocked into wakefulness by the thought of her one-time saviour in such danger, she began desperately thrashing around in the chains binding her. She felt, though, how feeble she was in comparison to the metal entwining her limbs. Her arms were double bound, her legs inescapably drawn together. All she could do was writhe around on -
"A...bed?" It certainly felt like she was lying on one, her head resting on a pillow, soft sheets beneath her bare legs. "Ah!" she gasped, as she felt a hand graze her thigh.
"Morning, darling," Ocelot giggled.

Natalya tried to wriggle away from a hand that now rested more firmly on her white legs, but she found that she couldn't move away. Her ankles were not just bound - a length of chain had secured them to the end of the bed. So too with another chain running from her arms' bonds to the head of the bed. The upshot was that she was secured in place, as well as chained up. She could only wriggle, and vainly protest as Ocelot's hands travelled up her legs, over the feminine curve of her hips, her flat stomach, and onto her soft, ample bosom.

"T-take your hands off me!" Natalya demanded.
"Oh dear, how shameful!" Ocelot replied, imitating her tone of shock. "The shy, virtuous maiden blushes as the evil kidnapper has her wicked way with her! What will the village elders think?" She laughed. "You're not exactly a powerhouse, Nat," the thief continued, slowly massaging the damsel's breasts, kneading her supple flesh between her fingers as she gasped and strained in protest. "You're totally helpless...so why not just lie back and enjoy it?"
"You dare...you dare think you can...seduce me?" Natalya said, trying to be strong in the face of an overwhelming sense of weakness and pathetic sensuality.
"Well, I managed it before, didn't I?" Ocelot grinned. "You must know that if you've been inside my head."

Indeed, Insyte had seen, but she still didn't quite understand how it had happened. She could believe that Sophie was attracted to her, could even believe that she'd had a sexual relationship with her...but how had she let the thief exert such a powerful influence on her? She thought back to when she'd been in closest contact with Enhancegirl's mind: when she'd entered her subconscious to free her from the Sin Eater.

She'd found a strange sense of unworthiness, of something that she desperately wanted, but felt so strongly that she didn't deserve that she'd buried entirely her consciousness of her desire. It was this, somehow, that Ocelot had exploited, had made her feel as if she deserved to be sullied and dominated. But sheer abuse...that would never have worked. Sophie was too strong-willed for that.

She tried to think of any scrap of information that she might have gleaned and ignored. She wished that she'd spent longer with Sophie that morning, to work out exactly what was going on in her mind - such information might have been crucial. But there was one thing, a hint that she'd almost ignored. Within the confusion about Sophie's feelings for Rachel, there was an emotion that seemed out of place at the time, but now made a strange kind of sense: gratitude. Sophie had felt a powerful sense of gratitude towards Rachel, though gratitude for what Natalya didn't know.

She couldn't scan Rachel's mind. But then, she realised that she didn't have to. Ocelot had her as a helpless captive - and not just a captive, but a captive audience. And as long as she wasn't gagged...
"I don't understand. I...I know you have Sophie completely under your spell," Natalya said, choosing her words carefully to stroke Rachel's ego. "I just don't get how. She seemed so strong...but she's putty in your hands. You villain!" she added, to make her disgust clear. It was real, but it also helped to keep Ocelot thinking the right things.

"Completely under my spell, huh?" Ocelot smiled. As far as she was concerned, Natalya was not formidable in any way - she was a shy, retiring young woman with a weak power, too naive to match wits with her. For this reason, her guard was not up against trickery. "Well, the thing about Sophie is...there's two things that get her really hot and bothered. The first...is doing things like this." She patted the chains around Natalya's chest, running her finger up and over her exposed shoulders. The telepath whimpered - she hadn't realised that her blouse had been pulled down. "Who'd have thought such a feisty, foul-mouthed little hellcat would have such a submissive side?" She laughed cruelly.

"As for the other thing," she went on, "what does every damsel in distress want? A knight in shining armour, of course. Somebody rescues her, and she makes googly eyes at 'em no matter what." She leaned in close. Natalya could feel the heat from her captor's body. "I bet you'd like someone to come and save you, wouldn't you?" She lay down on the bed, and began tracing her finger between Natalya's breasts. "Some nice handsome man who buys you dinner and doesn't even think about taking you back to his place - literally!"
"Y-you saved Sophie? When?"
"Oh, you didn't know? There isn't, like, a myspace for superchicas?" She started fondling Natalya's bosom with one hand, and idly playing with her hair with the other. The combination of dominating and affectionate touches was disturbing for the shy maiden. "Spectra and Enhancegirl had their powers stolen...I got them back for them." She was exaggerating, but not by much. "For all the gratitude I got..."

That confused Insyte. Sophie had felt gratitude, that she knew for a fact. Had all this happened just because Sophie hadn't thanked Ocelot enough?
"Speaking of saving her, I..." Ocelot had been about to reveal something else entirely, but she realised that she'd been quite talkative already. "Maybe she's a little more canny than I thought..."

She turned Natalya over, the chains connecting her to the bed just loose enough to allow this. She sat astride her curvy, pale captive, squeezing the maiden's thighs with her own.
"You don't need to worry about Sophie, little Miss," Ocelot said. "You need to worry about yourself." She looked outside the window. Clouds were gathering, and the wind was rattling her windows slightly. "See, I'm not going to be able to have that much fun with you, sweetie." She began rubbing Natalya's ass, feeling her curves through her tight skirt.
"S-stop!" the maiden mewed.
"I will," Ocelot replied. "Once an...acquaintance of mine comes to collect you?"
"Collect me?" Insyte replied. "What are you talking about?"
"I can't have you blabbing, sweetie. You're going away, for a loooooong time."
"I - I don't understand," Natalya whimpered, now feeling more concerned for herself than for Sophie, or even Mariko. "What are you going to do with me?"
"What are you, thick? You're a hot, twenty-something superheroine, with a phenomenal rack. I'm selling you into fucking slavery is what I'm doing with you."
"Wh...what?!" Insyte gasped.
"Fuck it," Ocelot said, grinning. "This I gotta see."

She leaned down, and pulled the blindfold off Natalya's eyes, just for a second. In that instant, she saw the fear and helplessness in her captive's yellow eyes, the feminine distress and dismay, her lovely face made all the prettier in Rachel's eyes because of it.

Yet it was not just she who had seen something she wanted. When her eyes were uncovered, Natalya had, just before the blindfold went down, regained the presence of mind to look into Rachel's thoughts. She was searching, in fact, for where Mariko was, but she didn't find it. What she found was a memory of what Rachel had almost revealed verbally:

"Why do you want me to film them?" Nyx asked. She seemed to find the idea unsavoury.
"What the hell do you care?" Ocelot replied, handing over the agreed sum. "Just do it if you want the cash."
"Fine," the kidnapper said, shrugging, but with unease in her eye. "So let me be clear - you want me to take Valora?"
"You don't have to, but I assume you can make a profit off her."
"Got it," Nyx replied. "But dear EG is off limits, is she?"
"After a few hours, I'll make an appearance myself. I'm going to 'save' So - Enhancegirl."
"And...why are you doing that?"
"Not that it's any of your business," the thief hissed, "but there's nothing like a rescue to make girl swoon, is there?"

Natalya stared, open-mouthed at the thief. She saw more. Saw how she'd lied to Sophie, that she'd seen Mariko saving Enhancegirl and Valora from Nyx, just before she had the chance herself. But she'd told Sophie it was her anyway when she'd learned that Mariko had hidden the truth. She saw how she used it, being gentle and comforting with Sophie between bouts of domination, slipping inside Sophie's head at the moment of her greatest humiliation with all the skill of a telepath, making her feel all the more humiliated, making her embrace her humiliation, while pretending to be a source of comfort at the same time. Betraying Spectra in the way she'd done was certainly the worst thing Ocelot had done...but this was the most sickening.

"You...you -" Natalya couldn't think of a word that she was both willing to use, and matched the situation.
"I...I -" Ocelot mocked, before shoving the blindfold back down.
"No!" Natalya cried out, still not having found anything that would help rescue Spectra. Not that it mattered much to Ocelot anyway. She'd realised that Natalya couldn't really learn anything that would make her more dangerous than she already was, and seeing the shock on her face was truly delicious.
"You shouldn't have peeked, sweetie," Ocelot laughed. "So naughty. And...you do know what happens to naughty girls with great asses, don't you?"
"No, don't, I - ah!" Natalya gasped, as she felt Ocelot's hand smack down hard on her tight, heart-shaped behind. "Unh..." she mewed in her helplessness, torn between shock, loathing, and whimpering dismay.
"See, I'm guessing a good girl like you feels a bit naughty anyway. I mean running around in a tight little dress, fighting crime and flashing your assets...I bet you think you deserve a little punishment."
"You don't fool me..." Natalya said. "You bury it, but I can feel your guilt." She couldn't - but she made an educated guess.
"Shut up!" Ocelot suddenly snapped. "Right, I think I've let you have the privilege of speech for too long." She leapt up, about to march into her kitchen to find some tape she could silence her captive with.

But she never made it out of the bedroom. As she stood up, she noticed that the room's large, bay windows were rattling fiercely. She looked outside - the weather didn't seem that bad.
"What the - aah!" Ocelot was hurled back, as the windows burst violently open, a powerful blast of wind knocking the thief flat on her back. Groaning, she sat up - and saw something she had, to say the least, not anticipated.

A beautiful young latina was floating into her apartment, carried on currents of air. Her dark hair billowed in the wind along with her cape, her tiny, flouncy yellow skirt just about managing to preserve its wearer's modesty. Aside from that, she was adorned with yellow boots halfway up her calves, and a tight, midriff-baring lycra vest-top, emblazoned with a mysterious, runic symbol.

"Fucking...Aerogirl?!" Ocelot spluttered. She knew this heroine all too well. She had a peculiar weakness, one that was most entertaining to the thief: she lost her powers when she was tied up. Ocelot had taken advantage of this to defeat and humiliate Aerogirl many times, but in their last encounter, Aerogirl had saved her from death. Yet now, with the winds raging about her, Ocelot rather wondered if she'd come to correct a mistake.

But no. The caramel-skinned damsel simply saw Natalya, and put her hand in front of her face.
"Is it...is it true, then?" Maya said, raising her voice over the sound of her powers. "You kidnapped Insyte...and you betrayed Spectra!" Ocelot's stomach tightened.
"How the fuck does she know that?!" Ocelot thought, panic almost overtaking her. But then she remembered with whom she was dealing, and a smile appeared on her face. "So what if I did?" She moved over to her bed. Underneath it was a length of rope that, with some deft fingerwork, she could probably fashion into a lasso without a great deal of trouble. "You're going to be next, chica." Once she ensnared Maya, she'd be helpless.

"No!" the heroine cried, throwing the thief back again with another windy blast. She floated down, and attended to Natalya. She was about to just lift her with her powers, but she was chained down.
"Wh-who's there?" the telepath whimpered, not quite understanding what was happening. She didn't recognise Maya's voice - they'd never met before.
"It's alright," Maya explained. "I-I'm here to help you..." Focusing around the link that connected the chain around Natalya's feet to the bed, the aerokinetic maiden created a powerful vacuum, which snapped the chain. She did the same to the links connecting her to the bed.

But there was a reason why Maya had the reputation that she did, as something of a failure as a heroine. She was not paying attention to Ocelot, who had recovered herself, and found the rope. As she formed it into a lasso, Maya lifted Natalya's chained up body into her arms with her powers. Both demure maidens felt a little embarrassed as Maya had her hands on the telepath's bare legs, and Natalya felt her thighs rubbing against her saviour's flat midriff.
"S-sorry..." they both mumbled.

But this gave Ocelot the time she needed. She sprang up, lasso in hand. As soon as it fell around Maya's body, she'd be powerless. She lifted it above her head, Maya seeing what she was about to do. Her light-brown eyes went wide with fear.
"Y-you promised!" she gasped. Ocelot hesitated. Maya was right. After the heroine had saved her life, Ocelot had promised that she'd back off if they ever came into conflict again, as thanks. She'd meant it then, but she was more than willing to break it now. But it was just enough to make her hesitate - and that hesitation was just enough for Maya to take Natalya securely in her arms - and fly straight out.
"NO!" Ocelot screamed, as Maya stole away the heroine she'd stolen. "Get the FUCK back here!"

The thief's hands started shaking, and for a moment, she didn't know why. Then, as her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the floor, it became a little clearer. With Natalya's escape, and the inevitable revelation of her deeds, her life in Seacouver - perhaps in America - was over. She'd have to run. Hosenfluss was a fearful enemy to have - but to be the enemy of the entire superhero commmunity? In Seacouver? It was tantamount to suicide. And beyond that, Sophie would probably try to kill her. Certainly she would leave her, and -
"No." Ocelot found her fist clenching. "No, no, no. I decide how - and if - this ends. She's mine - until I want to be rid of her."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After her run-in with Natalya, it had been a therapeutically normal day for Sophie. She'd attended all her classes, got into an argument with her professor about the geopolitical ramifications of the anti-cyborg military pact, and had rescued an old woman from a burning building as Enhancegirl. That last had been particularly satisfying - there was more to being a superhero than punching criminals, and Sophie sometimes felt her skill set was too combat oriented to serve her city fully.

It was a disturbing break from her consolingly normal day, then, when - upon ascending the stairs to her dorm room, Sophie found two superheroines waiting outside her door: Maya Ciera and Natalya Nazarov; otherwise known as Aerogirl and Insyte. She was perplexed. She'd never associated the two of them, for one thing, and they'd encountered a problem so urgent that they'd come to her home, risking the exposure of the identities of all three of them.

"What the fuck are you guys doing here?" Sophie said, in a hushed, but concerned tone. She looked closer, and saw that there were red marks on Natalya's white legs - she'd been bound, tightly, and recently. Neither answered, both looking nervously at each other before looking at Sophie.
"I, um-" Maya couldn't say it, her un-confidence getting the better of her.
"What, what is it?"
"Sophie," Natalya said, taking charge of the situation. "I - we need to talk to you." It was strange that she sounded so purposeful, yet had her eyes cast down. She clearly didn't want to be distracted by Sophie's thoughts. "It's about Rachel - and Mariko."
"What...what do you mean?" Sophie said. Something in her felt a deep sense of dread about hearing those two names in the same sentence. She swallowed, suddenly fearful of knowing the truth. "What's she done?"

[Damselbinder]

Sophie Scott had been through many difficulties in her relatively short, though notable, career as the heroine Enhancegirl. She had been defeated, captured, kidnapped, hypnotised, and drugged more times than she could count. She had seen madmen of various stripes: slavers, burglars, killers, megalomaniacs; she'd fought against the mightiest of enemies, and through pluck, skill, quick-thinking, and the help of her allies and friends, she'd managed to come through.

None of that had remotely prepared her for what she'd just heard. Wisely, Natalya had asked her to sit down before telling her, and she still felt like she'd been about to collapse.
"I..." She'd tried to speak a few times, but she couldn't. Her mind raced; she had no idea where to settle her thoughts. First, the knowledge that her paramour Ocelot, the woman into whose arms she'd fallen almost nightly, had sold an innocent person out to their likely death. That alone would be enough for her to earn Sophie's detestation. But there was more: it was Mariko that she'd given up - Mariko, whom Sophie knew to be in love with her. It couldn't be coincidence. Guilt and rage mixed inside Sophie in a swirling broil: guilt because Sophie felt that Mariko had come into harm's way because of her, because Sophie had trusted someone so unworthy of that trust. The rage hardly needed explanation.

That was not to mention, of course, her fear for Mariko's life. She wanted to get up and run straight to where her friend was being kept, but she knew that there was not, at present, any way of doing that.

The telepathic Insyte, whose powers had allowed her to glean all this information from Ocelot herself, felt Sophie's pain and rage. So far, all she had explained was what had happened to Mariko. There was more to tell.
"Sophie," she said quietly, "should I go on?"
"Give me...give me a second," Sophie said. She got up, and started pacing.

Maya Ciera, otherwise known as Aerogirl, was almost as bewildered as Sophie. She hadn't known Ocelot as anything but a villain: finding out that a woman who had a decent claim to being her archenemy had been romantically involved with Enhancegirl was a surprise, to say the least.
"I don't understand..." the manipulator of winds thought. "She helped me fight Ocelot. Why was she with her?"

"Wait," Sophie said, through gritted teeth. It was too much to take in all at once and her mind snapped to something else. "Maya, how did you know to help Natalya?"
"I, um..." Maya found it difficult to say anything at all. Several times she'd considered leaving - it all felt too intimate, too personal for her to hear, but as she heard more and more, Sophie underwent a transformation in her eyes.

Beforehand, she'd seen Enhancegirl as, not invincible exactly, but indefatigable. Despite having far less physical power available to her than Maya, and despite a comparable weakness, she was so much more capable and confident than Maya dreamed she ever could be. Despite being younger than Maya, Sophie had even been something of a mentor to her. It was no coincidence that, since her encounter with Sophie, the incidence of her defeats had gone down - somewhat.

But now, Sophie was no longer the unquenchably capable superwoman Maya had seen her as. She was a distraught, angry, bewildered girl, and Maya couldn't leave her. Enhancegirl had been there for Aerogirl, so Maya would be there for Sophie.
"I got a message," she said. "It wasn't sent to me exactly...but only someone who knew the deep web would have been able to find it." She could have given a more technical explanation, but the mechanics didn't seem all that important. "It just said that Ocelot was looking for someone to...to buy a...slave-girl," she continued, looking a little awkwardly at Natalya. "And gave an address."
"You didn't think it might be a trap?" Sophie asked.
"I...thought probably it was a trap," Maya said. "But I had to try to help." Sophie smiled. More than any heroine she'd met, she felt Maya's motivations as Aerogirl were pure. She didn't like being a superhero very much - but she did it anyway.

"Do you know who sent the message?" Sophie asked. It helped to try not to think too much about the betrayal of her lover.
"Someone who called themselves 'Madam Morpheus'," the latina replied.
"Madam Morpheus..." Sophie thought for a moment. She wasn't much of a classicist, but she seemed to recall 'Morpheus' being something to do with sleep. "Fucking...Nyx?"
"What?"
"Nothing, just sounds like someone I know, is all," she said. "Why the hell would Nyx sell out Ocelot?"

And then she remembered. Something Nyx had said when she'd had Sophie and Valora in her grasp, that she'd been...reluctant to broadcast their helplessness. Like she was doing it for someone else. Like she'd been hired.
"No...no way..." She remembered what Rachel had said to her when she'd abducted her for the first time. "The world will turn against me..." She went pale. It had seemed like a cruel twist of fate, that her most ignominious public humiliation had occurred just after her greatest triumph. But it wasn't a coincidence.

"Me being famous...me being celebrated...it didn't fit her theme." Sophie's fist clenched so hard that her nails were digging into her skin. "She did it...she had Nyx do that to me..." She understood now. Rachel had wanted her to feel defeated, had wanted her to feel unsure of herself as a superheroine, to feel vulnerable - and then she had swooped in to save her. Captor and saviour all rolled into one - she had drawn Sophie into a web of deceit - and bound her tightly in its threads.

"FUCK!" Sophie bellowed, slamming her fist into a wall. Both of the others recoiled in shock at her sudden violence. She turned to Insyte, her eyes wet with bitter tears, her teeth clenched. "You know what I was thinking," she hissed at the telepath. "I'm right, aren't I? About what happened to me and Valora." Insyte wanted to just say yes. She wanted to just leave it at that. Sophie's cleverness had spared her from having to tell her that at least - but there was one more element.
"Al-almost," she mumbled.
"What do you mean, 'almost'?" Sophie said, trying to control the tone of her voice. She didn't want to make it seem like it was Insyte she was angry with - the heroine was doing her a service, and through her bitterness, she knew that full well.
"I...you were right that Rachel - that Ocelot - arranged it, but she wasn't the one who saved you."

Maya stepped forward at this.
"I think...she meant to," she said. "When it happened she...she got in contact with me, asked me to try to find where you were."
"Then...was it you?" Sophie said. "Maya, why wouldn't you -?" Insyte was shaking her head.
"Sophie...it was Spectra."

Sophie felt her legs shaking. She tried to speak, but she couldn't. She fell to her knees, running her hands through her hair.
"Mariko...Mariko rescued me?" She looked up in desperation at Insyte. "Why...why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she say anything?" But Natalya had no answer for her. Somehow, of all the things she'd heard, all the painful revelations, this hit her the most. Mariko, someone more dear to her than she could quite express, had rescued her from the most humiliating ordeal she'd ever experienced - and she hadn't told her. "Oh my god...!"

The very reason that she'd immediately thought that Ocelot had rescued her was that she had had vague impressions of someone gently, carefully lifting her up like a bride, and softly kissing her cheek. She touched her face where Rachel - no, where Mariko had kissed her, and she found her other hand on her heart. "Oh, Mariko..." she whispered. She felt a warmth in her stomach, a kind of release in the knowledge of Rachel's manipulative evil. She began to feel that -

"No." That, whatever it was, could wait. There were more urgent matters. Restraining her emotions, she got back up. "I think we -" She was interrupted by Maya suddenly running forward and hugging her.
"It'll be alright!" she said, almost in tears herself at seeing Sophie so upset. "We'll save her, Sophie - please don't cry!"
"Uh, okay..." Sophie mumbled, finding herself smiling a little at Maya's embrace. "Hey, Maya?" The latina broke her embrace, suddenly embarrassed by the effusiveness of her gesture. "Could you do something for me?"
"Of course," she said. Her confidence was rarely an issue when someone clearly needed her - it was just that these occasions were so few and far between.
"Do you think you could try hacking Hosenfluss' servers, or whatever? Maybe find out where he's keeping her? I'm guessing you didn't pull that from Ocelot's head," she said to Natalya. The telepath nodded.
"I'll...I'll try," Maya said.
"Thank you. Please hurry," she said, desperate urgency in her voice. Prompted by it, Maya found the nearest window, and hurled herself out of it, catching herself on the wind, and flying back to her base of operations.

"What are you going to do, Sophie?" Natalya said, seeing the redhead heading for her door.
"You know that already," Sophie said. She was right: Natalya knew exactly what she intended.
"Isn't this a risk? Mightn't she be expecting you?" the well-bred architect said.
"Oh, for sure," Sophie said. "But Maya might not be able to find Mariko. Ocelot will know where she is."
"Do you want me to come with you?" Sophie looked askance at Natalya when she said this.
"What I want isn't important," she said. "This isn't about me. This is about rescuing someone whose life is in danger, right?"
"Right," Natalya said. The redhead was about to walk out, but she paused.

"Thank you, Natalya," Sophie said. "This is the third time you've stuck your neck out for me, you know?"
"I - I want to be stronger," Natalya said. "I want to be..." She didn't know quite how to say it. "When you were kidnapped by Madam Black, and Spectra came to me...I didn't realise until later how much that meant. I want to be...I want to be the sort of person people come to for help."
"Fuck me..." Sophie said, shaking her head.
"What?"
"You, Maya, Kirsten and...and Mariko...I really don't deserve such awesome friends." Through her anguish, she smiled, but she couldn't hold the expression. Natalya felt rage boiling up in the redhead, all directed at one person. Despite herself, Natalya realised that she was afraid.

Afraid for Ocelot, that was.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Mmmhh...mmhhhphh..." Mariko Asakura whimpered softly. The scintillatingly beautiful, sylphlike heroine was bound hand and foot in strong rubbery cords, twisted around her slender arms and her long, bare legs. With her powers over light, she should have been able to cut them easily, but her powers were not available to her.

As she floated helplessly in a tank of water, allowed to breathe by a plastic mask over her lovely mouth, Mariko felt the machine attached to her sucking every drop of energy out of her body. It didn't take her powers exactly, as it seemed to need Mariko to keep producing her mystic energies. But she felt incredibly weak, as the device continued to siphon off her strength, taking all that the willowy maiden had to give, and more.

"I...can't...let them..." Mariko insisted to herself, but there was nothing she could do about it. The process had been going on for more than two hours - it had long since passed the point where Mariko had felt like she had nothing more to give. She floated limp in the slightly uncomfortably warm water surrounding her, her head gently bobbing back and forth in the small, random currents. She was essentially paralysed: drained to such a point that even if they'd untied her, she wouldn't have been able to move. She was helpless.

"How's it coming along?" A sleazy, arrogant voice rang loudly throughout the laboratory as Ricardo Hosenfluss, the man who'd ultimately orchestrated Mariko's capture, strolled in. He was flanked by the burly Stantz, and the slim Rubio, the latter of whom had been one of the superhumans who had ambushed and defeated Spectra.

"Mister Hosenfluss!" Thompson, one of the scientists gasped. He almost saluted.
"Hey, no need to get nervous, Doctor T," Hosenfluss said, winking at Thompson. "I'm just satisfying my curiosity."
"Ricardo, this is most improper," Lisa Ramikin, the chief of Project I.T.2, huffed. "You cannot personally sully your hands with this sort of thing. What if there was an attempt at rescue and you were seen here? Even superheroes may present testimony at trials, eh?"
"Well I'll have to come here anyway for the transfer, won't I?" Hosenfluss replied. "Besides, Lisa, it really isn't your concern, is it?" The greasy-haired, tanned businessman walked through his lab, straight towards the tank where Mariko floated. "Holy crap!"

Ricardo found himself presented with an almost completely nude, bound young lady, limp and weak, her eyes heavy, her gorgeous, svelte figure completely on show. For an instant, he considered finding an alternative use for his sumptuously attractive captive, but only an instant. Power before pleasure, after all.
"Damn, she's a beaut," Ricardo muttered to himself. He grinned at Rubio. "Bet it wasn't such a chore capturing her, huh?"
"Hhhrmph," Rubio grunted, awkwardly straightening his tie. It had, in fact, been extremely difficult, even with the help of three other expensively procured, powerful superhumans. And Big Shot.

Ricardo tapped the glass.
"Hey, you awake in there?" He laughed. "Heh, just like a kid at the zoo, huh? I was always so fucking pissed when the snakes were asleep. I mean, if they're there to entertain us, why can't I tap on the glass to make them do something, right?"
"Yes, Mr Hosenfluss," Stantz and Rubio replied in chorus.
"Oh, wait! I see those pretty eyes sparkling..." He waved. "Hey there, gorgeous. Enjoying my hospitality?"
"Mmmghhmphh..." Mariko whimpered. "You...you're...the one who...unnhh..." It was growing harder and harder even to think. Though her eyes were heavy, and only half opened, she narrowed them as best she could in anger. All she accomplished, though, was a rather fetching crinkle of the bridge of her nose.

Ricardo laughed. "I didn't think Spectra would be such a little hottie!" he said, despite the fact that she was taller than he was. "Such a shame, really..." He patted the tank, as if consoling her. "Ah well." He now turned his attention to something else - a small, glowing, purple rock in a sealed container fixed to the top of the tank. This was what Spectra's energy was being channeled into. "How close are we?" he asked.
"I have no way of monitoring the energy levels of the Dexite itself," Ramikin replied. "I have no idea what kind of energy the subject's power is unlocking. I know it doesn't sound very scientific, but all I can measure is the intensity of the glow. That being said...I'm guessing it's about 70% complete."
"Coming along nicely, then!" Ricardo said. "Ow..." Ricardo complained, scratching his neck just under his jaw. "So what's the next step?"

"We increase the intensity of the drain. We could maintain it at current levels, but it reduces chances of success," Lisa explained. "I suppose I might as well ask if you're here, you are sure about this?"
"What, the power?" he laughed. "Uh...yeah, think I'm pretty set on that."
"No, not that," Lisa said. "I mean murdering a young, beautiful, completely innocent woman for your own personal gain. If I do increase the intensity, her chances of survival go from very low, to essentially nil." She shrugged. "Not that I'm judging. I just don't want you tearfully turning yourself in to the police later, yes?"

That Lisa had put it like this actually gave Ricardo pause. He'd certainly arranged for deaths before, but always obliquely, at a distance. He looked at the noble, proud damsel he'd had captured, and while he didn't feel guilt exactly, he did feel that it would be rather like throwing acid at a Manet.
"I suppose I could - AGH!" Suddenly, he felt a terrible pain in his neck, and looked with horror to see blood spurting out of it. "Wh...what the fuck?!" he gasped.

Instinctively, Stantz drew his weapon, and Rubio charged his powers.
"Who was it?!" Stantz bellowed. "Come forward now or I kill every last one of you!" The scientists stared, bewildered. Ramikin ran over to her employer, inspecting his wound.

"I'd have...to guess that something has punctured your carotid artery," she said. "Something tiny, or you would be unconscious already. Maintain pressure on the wound, or you will die in less than a minute."
"How...far...in...?" the businessman gasped.
"What?"
"How far in is the carotid artery?!" he spluttered.
"I...don't know, I'm not a medical doctor." Ramikin said. "And stop talking, man!"
"One and a half inches," Thompson said.
"What?"
"One and a half inches under the skin, that's how deep the carotid artery is."
"What the hell does that matter?" Rubio barked. Then at the other scientists: "Aren't any of you real fucking doctors?!"

But while Rubio didn't see the use of it, Ricardo did. He held up his hand to his wound, and concentrated. With all his might, he focused on a spot one and a half inches beneath his skin.
"Grrhhh...rrgghhh!" he growled, summoning all his strength. Ramikin watched in some surprise as the flow of blood reduced, and then stopped almost entirely.
"What...did you just do?"
"I'm...holding the wound closed," Ricardo said. Ramikin stared.
"How?" She was gaping.

Ricardo looked around, seemingly embarrassed. He beckoned Ramikin closer, and said in a harsh whisper:
"I'm telekinetic!" This was putting it generously: Hosenfluss could apply, at an extremely small distance, about half the pressure that he could apply with his big toe.
"You're already a superhuman?!" Ramikin spluttered. "Why didn't you tell me?! I have no idea how the Dexite will interact with your power. This affects everything!"
"Oh, how can it?!" he hissed, gasping in pain. "It's almost completely worthless - I can't remember the last time I actually used it!"
"Well for God's sake, don't put any more pressure on, or you'll cut the blood supply to your brain," Ramikin said. "Hey, goons!" she said, addressing Rubio and Stantz. "There's an infirmary on sub-level 2; take your boss there if you want him to live."

The two bodyguards helped their boss up.
"I don't get it," Rubio said. "How did he get wounded at all?" Ricardo happened to look back as Rubio said this: and then he knew. He saw Mariko looking right at him. She should have looked pathetic: drained, weak, half-naked and trussed-up - but she didn't. Even with her eyes half closed, Ricardo saw the hatred, and the core of strength that would not yield

"I can't...allow that man..." Mariko had thought. She knew what Ricardo was trying to do: he was going to use the Dexite to give himself the same powers as the Indigo Titan, arguably the most powerful human on Earth. "He...doesn't...deserve them!" Summoning the tiny amounts of strength she had left, she'd made a concerted effort to stop him the only way it seemed possible so to do: to create a tiny construct of light that would sever a major artery. Ironically, in her state of near powerlessness, all she could do with her powers was do fatal damage. Even so, even this tiny amount of force had almost brought her to unconsciousness.

But Ricardo didn't see that. He saw her standing in judgement over him, over his near-useless power. "That's right," her eyes seemed to say. "Even captured, bound, drained of all but a drop of my strength...I'm still far more powerful than you." The businessman growled, almost letting the pressure slip from his wound.
"Do it," he hissed to Ramikin. "Drain that bitch dry!"

As he was carried out, Spectra would have laughed if she'd had the energy. "If my chest had been a cannon..." she thought, with bitter humour. She'd failed to kill him - but she'd seen the look in his eyes. The fear. The astonishment. "Even now..." she thought, "I am...still...Spectra..." Just that little pinprick of light, though, had taken so much of her failing strength that her sparkling jade eyes were fluttering. She whimpered softly, before her head fell back. "I...fought him...I'm not just a...a damsel in...dis...unhhhh..." she thought, before she faded, and fainted: limp, beautiful - and proud.

But Ramikin was not to let her have her small moment of triumph undisturbed. She attended to a panel on the front of Mariko's tank. The machinery had been emitting a low hum of electronic satisfaction, but this now began to increase in pitch.
"Mmmhh...MMPH!" Mariko whimpered, startled back into consciousness. "Mhh...mmh!" She felt what had been a steady river of energy leaving her turn into a torrent. "Mmmhh...mmhhnnn..." She felt as if a barrier had been broken. The energy being taken from her now was not something which should ever have been violated. With a fearful whimper, Mariko realised that something akin to her life-force was being taken, or its nearest equivalent in any case. Her pride at injuring Hosenfluss vanished, replaced by distraught helplessness. To her dismay, she now felt exactly like a damsel in distress.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ocelot knew that, unless she made a very distant escape very quickly, she would be found. Enhancegirl's sense of smell was better than a bloodhound's: she would find her. But that was just what Rachel wanted. She knew that the redhead wouldn't be able to keep away. She'd lie to herself, tell herself that it was for some noble purpose - but really, she'd just be running back into Rachel's arms. She'd beg, and squirm, but a firm spank, and a kiss on her thigh, and Sophie would whimper submissively in her grip once again.

She was still prepared for a fight. Her last two heavy drones, and contingent of Egg-Shens, her egg-shaped, rope-equipped robots hovered around the roof of the Zonzo building, where she'd abducted Sophie from that first night, when she'd sewn the seeds that would go on to blossom into total, tame passivity.

She waited for a while, becoming impatient that Sophie wasn't coming to her sooner. She was then struck by a thought.
"When the hell did she start mattering so much?" She should just leave. She'd been exposed. She had to leave, before she was confronted - perhaps even arrested. She shuddered at the thought of a prison cell. What did Sophie matter? She'd had lovers before, and plenty of them. She'd done her share of breaking up, and she'd been broken up with in her turn. Why had she almost destroyed her life here just for one pretty redhead?
"I mean," she thought, "it's not like I'm in love with her." And yet she couldn't bring herself to leave.

About half an hour after this less than firm denial, Ocelot noticed something strange. One of her main drones was swaying from left to right, drunkenly. She looked closer, and saw that the main camera on the front of it had been smashed. As its processors gradually clicked as to what had happened, it started hovering in place.

"When the hell did that happen?" Ocelot hissed. She was about to bring it closer to her to see if she could effect a quick repair - when she heard something behind her. She looked round to see that now her other drone was blinded as well. This one, however, did not respond the way it was supposed to - a glitch in its programming made it veer wildly. It nosedived, and crashed into the tower, before plummeting down to a grisly demise.

"For fuck's sake!" Rachel cried out. That was yet another wrecked drone. At least the blinded one would be an easy fix, but her last five ventures put together wouldn't pay for replacing all that she'd lost that one day. At least she didn't have to pay the fee to Nyx - the kidnapper had never even responded to her e-mail.

But she wasn't thinking about money. One of them having a malfunction? No. Despite what Ian Fleming asserted, twice was enough to establish the presence of enemy action.
"It has to be her," she thought. She smiled - it was smart for Sophie to take out the drones first. Her accuracy really was astounding. The only question was - where was she?

There weren't many ways up onto the roof. There were the stairs inside the building of course, but that would have been a little obvious. There was another way, onto a small section of the roof that was about ten feet down, under an overhanging platform. That, surely was where Sophie was. Ocelot walked slowly over to the platform, sending two of her Egg-Shens ahead of her.

It was rather to her surprise, then, when the main door onto the roof opened behind her - and there she was.
"Sophie..." Ocelot said, smiling wickedly. Enhancegirl had come. She walked slowly out onto the roof, with an expression on her face that Ocelot had never seen on anyone, let alone on the gregarious student. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist." In the glow of the streetlights below, Sophie's gold dress shone a burnished orange. Her hair seemed aflame. Her green eyes became red in the light. Her soft mouth was twisted into a wrathful scowl. She seemed as if she was struggling not to bare her teeth, like a she-wolf.

"Let me make something very, very clear," Sophie said, through gritted teeth. The very sight of Ocelot made her tremble with anger. She couldn't believe she'd had the temerity not to flee for her life. "I'm not here to play. I'm not here to flirt. I'm not here to exchange witty fucking banter with you." She continued to walk forward. "I am here, Rachel, to beat you into fucking submission, and make you tell me where my friend is."
"I believe that you think that," Ocelot said. "I really do." She gestured to her drones. Two Egg-Shens flanked her, another two buzzed around her in a circle. Three more circled the entire rooftop. "But that's not why you're really here. You're really here because it doesn't matter what I've done, not really. You still belong to me."
"Well," Sophie said, her voice inflected with a vicious sarcasm, "I guess we'll see about that, won't we?"

She began walking forward, her silver boots tapping against the floor beneath her, surprisingly loud in the ominously still darkness of the late night. An Egg-Shen swooped down at her, but she ducked out of the way. She grabbed the rope trailing from it, and swung it around her head like a slingshot: it's lightweight construction making this easy even for the slim redhead. She used her new cudgel to batter the next drone that came her way. Both drones survived the impact, but both of their flight systems were damaged. One crashed, and the other would have if Sophie had not continued holding onto it.

A third drone came for her, and this time Sophie threw her weapon. The agile robot swerved out of the way of its fallen brother, however - only to be kicked out of the air by Sophie's next attack. Two drones swooped at her at once - she dodged the first, but was very nearly ensnared by the second, as a loop of rope went around Sophie's wrist. Fortunately, it had been meaning to execute a two-man attack with its fellow Shen, so it wasn't able to capture Sophie.

Indeed, the boot was on quite the other foot. Stepping down on the rope coming out from the Shen, Sophie hauled the rope around her wrist as high and as quickly as she could, using the space between the heel and instep of her boot like the fulcrum of a winch. The rope snapped, and the Shen was sent spinning away. Its guidance systems managed to recover, but Sophie was too quick. She grabbed a broken piece of metal from one of the larger drones, and violently stabbed it into the port from which the rope had been extended. The Shen fizzled, and died.

This left only one more. The one Sophie had dodged before tried a different tack - it rushed straight at Enhancegirl in a powerful dive-bomb. This time, however, its master joined the fray as well. Thinking Sophie would be distracted, she ran to the side, and took a compact bundle of rope, with a steel ball at either end. With a deft, practiced motion, she unfurled her bolo whip, and hurled it at Sophie.

But Enhancegirl was just too quick. She ducked down underneath the whip, but stuck her hand up, allowing it to coil around her wrist. Then, even as the whip spun, she used its momentum to smash one of the steel balls into the last Shen, hitting it with so much force that it cracked in two, and dropped out of the air.

But Ocelot was already closing the gap between them. She leapt for Sophie as the redhead was getting back to her feet, lunging at her like a panther.
"Unh!" Sophie grunted, diving out of the way. The slinky, platinum-blonde thief pressed the attack, one of her stocking covered legs snapping out at Sophie's calves.

The idea was to trip her - and Sophie allowed her to do this. She converted the fall into the beginning of a handstand, landing on her palms. Using her slender, bare legs, she shocked Ocelot by seizing the thief by the neck, squeezing her between her calves.
"Ungh!" Sophie grunted, using all her strength to pull herself up, so that her whole weight was resting on Ocelot's shoulders.
"Urk!" Ocelot gasped. Sophie was using a very different style from her normal set of techniques - she seemed more luchador than martial artist.

Ocelot couldn't maintain her balance, and she fell backwards. She lifted her arms to cushion the impact to her head, but Sophie grabbed her wrists as she fell just to stop her doing this. As it was, Ocelot cried out in frustration and pain as her head struck the concrete floor. Slightly dazed, she barely dodged a vicious punch from Sophie, her fist hitting the ground instead.
"Ahh!" Sophie cried out. This was the same hand she'd rather violently introduced to her wall, and it throbbed with pain.

Ocelot took the opportunity, pulling her feet up to her chest, and kicking Sophie in the stomach. The redhead took the impact, and rolled back, getting onto her feet.
"Say," Ocelot said, panting as she stood up as well, "you remember our first fight?" Sophie said nothing. She seemed to be scanning Ocelot for another opportunity to attack, but was slightly wary of her opponent. She couldn't afford to be headstrong.
"No mistakes," she thought. "Not this time." She entirely ignored Ocelot's question.

"I sure do," the thief said. "You were so fast, so accurate - I have to say, I thought for a second I was outta my league. And don't get me wrong, Sofe," she laughed, "you're still good...but there's no fire. Not against me." Sophie seemed to back off slightly. Ocelot's eyes narrowed. "There it is..."

She stepped forward.
"See, as angry as you are, and as much as you hate me right now - you know you're still mine. You have to fight - but only because you have to be defeated, have to be taken. That's what you like. That's what you need."
"Shut up," Sophie spat.
"Ahaha, see, I'm right, aren't I? You know it. You're fighting, sure...but you want to lose. You want to be my wriggling, moaning little captive, don't you?"

To Ocelot's unpleasant surprise, Sophie burst out laughing. She doubled over, shrieking with what was close to hysteria.
"Wow!" she shouted, curtly cutting off her own laugh. "I cannot believe I ever found that shit sexy!"
"Don't lie to -" Ocelot stopped mid-sentence. Sophie's eyes had taken on a wrathful aspect.
"Oh? I'm sorry, what was that?" Sophie started walking forward very quickly. "You didn't just talk to me about lying did you?" She closed in on Ocelot, and delivered a fast right cross, catching her on the edge of her chin.

"Ugh!" Ocelot stepped back a few paces, but Sophie was faster. She jabbed at Ocelot's face and stomach, the thief using an imperfect boxing guard to deflect most of the damage.
"It wasn't enough to lie to me!" she said. "It wasn't enough to try to make me hate myself enough that I could sleep with you! It wasn't enough to have me kidnapped and publicly fucking humiliated?!" Her attacks grew more vicious now, a barrage of rabbit punches that Ocelot could barely avoid, followed up by a flying kick to the side of her head that she couldn't dodge. Ocelot landed hard on her back.

"You tried to take away everything I've built for myself," Sophie growled. "My confidence, my...my fucking career!" Ocelot tried to hop deftly back up, but Sophie was having none of it. She kicked her hard in the chin, sending her sprawling. "You tried to...to make me feel like being Enhancegirl was silly, that it was...was...girlish or naive - that giving into you was all that mattered. That it was okay for me not to have anything about myself that I fucking liked!"

Ocelot crawled backwards. She couldn't delude herself: there was only anger and hatred in Sophie's eyes.
"But you know what, Rachel? All that, I could forgive. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd never touch you again - but I don't think we'd be here right now. But what you've done to Mariko..." She clenched her fist. "What you've done to her...I will never forgive."
"Oh, please!" Ocelot spat. "Mariko's not that important to you. You're just flattered because she - ohhghh!" Sophie interrupted her rather succinctly by punching her square in the jaw.
"You don't get to say her name, you hear me?! And she..." Sophie's body shook. "She is...ten-fucking-THOUSAND times...no, un-countably more important to me than you ever were, even when I was at the god-damned height of my fucking delusion!" She stood over her fallen foe. "Now, you're gonna tell me where she is, or I'll -" Suddenly, Ocelot's left hand snapped up. From a gauntlet on her wrist, a cloud of thick, white gas spurted out in a thick jet.

"No!" Sophie gasped. She dodged the jet itself, but particles of the gas hung in the air around her. It wasn't enough to affect someone normal, but Enhancegirl was particularly vulnerable to the effects of sedatives. She fell back a few steps, trying to get away. But despite her efforts, Ocelot watched with pleasure as Sophie began moaning, long and dismayed whimpers. Her long, creamy legs shook, and she fell to her knees. "N-no...no...not now..." she mewed.

Grinning, Ocelot stood up. She strutted over to the kneeling redhead, panting from her opponent's brutal assault.
"See, Sofe?" she giggled. "That's more like it." The redhead looked up with wet, glittering, green eyes. Ocelot took her by the shoulders, and hauled her up to her feet, which shuffled weakly against the floor.
"No...you can't...do this..."
"Yes, I can, Sophie," the thief said, a wide grin exposing her sharp teeth. "And I'm gonna keep on doing it, for as long as you keep whimpering when I wrap you up in my net."
"No...you don't understand..." Sophie moaned. "My...my powers..."
"I know, sweetie," Ocelot laughed. "Such an unfortunate weakness for a sexy superchica, ain't it?"
"No...you don't...unhh...get it..." Suddenly, Sophie's eyes became completely clear and alert. "I never turned my powers on, you fucking moron."
"OOOFF!!" Ocelot groaned, as Sophie drove her knee into the thief's stomach. "Ghhrkk..." She was the one to kneel this time, winded to the point of speechlessness.

"You think it didn't occur to me that you might try something like that?" Sophie hissed. "Now normally when I transform, I take that risk: I need to to beat the enemies I face. But you? I don't need my fucking powers to beat the shit out of you." She stepped back - and performed one more attack: a powerful, fully wound up roundhouse kick that sent Ocelot sprawling onto her back.

"Unnhh...uuhhh..." she moaned. She couldn't believe it. Sophie had defeated her - completely defeated her. She had no tricks left, no strategies. She looked up, and saw Enhancegirl - no, she saw Sophie Scott - standing over her, finding no pleasure in her victory.
"You know what the hardest part of this was?" she spat. "Finding a convincing Enhancegirl costume in a fancy dress shop."

"I..." Rachel said, but cut herself off.
"What? Go on, talk!" Sophie shouted.
"I saved you...from...from Adrienne..." she gasped. "That was...was real!" All her plans, her machinations had crumbled. She was shaking. "I really wanted to help you!"
"I don't care," Sophie said, simply. "I'm willing to believe there's good in you. But I don't give a shit. Tell me where Mariko is, or I'll kill you." Ocelot believed her - but she could always lie. Why not lie, one last time? It would be too late for -

"Enhance!" There was a burning flash. When it dissipated, Sophie looked the same - only not the same. The sharpness of her eyes became a hundred times more intense, as her senses and the speed of her thoughts were multiplied a hundred fold or more. This was Enhancegirl. "If you lie to me again, I'll see." Ocelot was about to reply - but she couldn't think of anything. What, now, was there to say? She was an expert liar: she'd fooled lie detectors dozens of times before...but she had no confidence in her mendacity now.
"It's...it's over..." she thought, and found to her shame that there were tears in her eyes.

A minute later, Sophie was making a hurried phonecall to Natalya.
"Yeah, out where the French embassy used to be," she said. "I'll get there as soon as I can - I don't know how much time we're gonna have left. Let Maya - yeah, right." Her voice was trembling slightly. For all she hated Rachel now, unwinding her tendrils had been very painful. "Thank you so much for..." She paused. "I'll be there as fucking ASAP, yeah?"

She began to leave, but she turned back to Rachel one last time. Despite herself, she felt a wave of pity for the fallen thief. Something was wrong, terribly wrong inside her - but that wasn't Sophie's concern. And it never would be again.
"If I ever see you again," she said, "I'll make sure you end up behind bars for the rest of your life. And if Mariko is..." She couldn't quite bring herself to say it. "If what you hoped would happen has happened...." She let the threat linger. Rachel was barely listening, though, drowning in the catastrophe she'd brought on herself.. Sophie turned away from her, and began hurriedly descending the stairs of the building.

But she stopped a flight down. She was breathing hard. She was shaking.
"Gyyyaaagghhh!" she screamed. She was excising Ocelot's poison like venom from a wound - but that didn't mean that it didn't stab at her. She collected herself, and breathed slowly to calm down. "Mariko..." she thought. "I'm coming for you..."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Alright," Vinnie Maguire said to himself, admiring his suit in a mirror. "Now this is more fuckin' like it!"
"Hey, champ," his boyfriend Steven, a fae blonde man a little younger and a lot slimmer than the stocky thug said, admiring him as well. "You look like a real rent-a-cop."
"Oh, thanks a fucking lot, Ste," Vinnie shot back. "This is my first actual break since getting outta the slammer." Ste burst out laughing.
"The 'slammer'?"
"Hey, kiss my ass!" Vinnie shouted.
"Maybe later, champ," Steven replied, winking.
"Ah, whatever," Vinnie relented, before taking his leave.

Working nights didn't suit him much, but it was a lot better than his last job - more money, more prestige - and no Newman up his arse all the time. Strictly speaking, he didn't work for the people who owned the place he was guarding, near the old French embassy building, but apparently he'd been requested personally: "something about relevant past experience," his manager had explained, "but they didn't say what."

Still, as seedy as it all seemed, it was entirely above board. His parole officer didn't like to see Vinnie flourishing, but "there's dick all he can do about it", as Vinnie had put it. When he arrived at the place 'nondescript' didn't quite seem to cover it. It looked like it was a hood chop shop that had fallen on hard times.
"They're paying me 100 bucks an hour for this shit?" he said. As he approached, he saw another man, in his mid-twenties, walking from the opposite direction, also wearing a suit. The two men eyed each other, and when they both slowed down in front of the dirty, dusty lot, they both realised that they were there on common purpose.

But before they could greet, a burly white man in dark glasses walked out.
"Okay gentlemen," he said, speaking quickly. He shoved a pistol into each of their hands. "Unless your bosses are liars, you both know how to use one of these. Job's simple." He pointed at the gate. "You stand there for the next four hours. Actually, you stand there until I tell you otherwise. Anyone comes close, you point - you shoot." He began to turn around.

"Uh, small thing," Vinnie said. Stantz was not happy to have to turn back. "You want us to shoot people just...walking down the street?"
"It's four in the morning," Stantz replied. "Nobody's going to show unless they mean trouble."
"Not exactly filling me with confidence here, pal," Vinnie said. Stantz came uncomfortably close.
"Look, do you want the fucking job or not?!"
"The job I want fine," Vinnie said, not breaking the larger man's gaze. "I'd just rather not go back to jail if it's all the same to you." Stantz growled.
"Fine. Whatever." He headed back into the small-looking office at the back of the lot. Vinnie shrugged, and turned around. The other man was staring at him.
"You do know that guy works for Ricardo Hosenfluss, right?" he said. Vinnie raised an eyebrow.
"No, kid," he said. "But there's one thing you start to learn when you reach a certain age."
"And what's that, 'old-timer'?"
"Every boss in the world is exactly the fucking same."

About an hour after they'd started, the two men felt an odd chill in the wind. Neither said anything, but both found it odd when what had been quite a strong wind died down. About twenty minutes later, they heard women's voices across the street, but couldn't see anything. The younger man fingered his gun.
"Oh, chill out," Vinnie said, "just -" And then he saw them. One on one side of him, dressed in gold, with long, red hair. On the other side, a dark-haired, caramel-skinned woman in a tiny yellow and green ensemble.
"If you're just goons," the redhead said, "then I advise that you -" Enhancegirl - for it was she - hesitated.

Vinnie had halted too.
"Wait a minute...you gotta be fucking kidding me..." He knew her. He'd encountered her twice - once when he'd still been a criminal, and she had given him the pasting of his life, and once in his last job, where he'd found her, and the girl in yellow, tied up in a closet. "Not again!"
"You!" Sophie exclaimed.

Ignoring this reunion, the younger man levelled his gun at the oddly dressed, though lovely, young woman in front of him.
"Down on the ground! Now!" Maya found herself flinching. She could do far more damage than a handgun, but she didn't feel confident in blocking bullets - and she wasn't sure her reactions were fast enough to get the gun out of his hand. "I'm...I'm already out of my depth..." she thought.

"I mean it, sister," he said, Stantz's words ringing in his ears. "You'd better - ugghh!" Maya watched in surprise as the man crumpled to the ground in front of her. As he fell, he revealed Vinnie standing behind him, having bludgeoned him over the head.
"Don't judge him," he said. "He seemed like a good kid. Just a bit...enthusiastic."
"Why did you do that?" Enhancegirl asked. She seemed nervous - jumpy, even. In reality, she was almost overcome with anxiety for Mariko.
"Third time I've run into you," he said. "I think the universe might be tryin' to tell me something. If you're here...I'm figurin' my new bosses are into some dirty shit?"
"They've kidnapped my...my friend," Sophie explained. "Her life's in danger."
"Friend, right," Vinnie said, seeing the look in Sophie's eyes. "Well shit, sister. Looks like I'd better -"

The thug-turned-Samaritan stopped talking when he saw, from the gloom, a pale, dark haired woman in a pink, lycra dress and unevenly high stockings dashing towards him. However, she stopped as soon as he became clearly visible.
"Oh, I - oh..." she mumbled.
"Insyte!" Maya said. "You got here!" The curvaceous, pale damsel smiled briefly. Telepathy sometimes was useful for avoiding small talk - a few quick glances at Sophie and Maya, and she understood what was going on.

"Good thing you got here when you did," Sophie said, her increased ability to process neural information helping her to think quickly. She looked at Vinnie, and at Natalya, clucked her tongue. "I just had an idea." Vinnie sighed.
"Oh man... what the hell did I just get myself into?"


"Stantz! Get up here!" The burly bodyguard had been standing by his employer. Some quick microsurgery, using a polymer filament, had effected a working repair to his damaged artery, but the doctors were still concerned. He didn't want to leave his boss in the hands of that gene-freak Rubio, but he couldn't let the rest of the operation go to the dogs either.

When he reached the top floor, he found, much to his chagrin, that one of the guards he'd just arranged for as extra backup was holding one of his men to threat.
"Ohhh, you think you're all so god-damned great, don't you?" he shouted. "Think working for biiiig bad Hosenfluss makes you all better than the rest of us lowlives, huh?"
"H-hey!" the man with the gun to his head stammered. "What the hell did I do to you?"
"You personally? Nothin'. It's your whole damned organisation!" He started ranting and raving about a number of not entirely related subjects, including his ol' grandpaw who got struck off a year before making full pension, the general evils of capitalism, and the rise and fall of the Los Angeles Rams.

The point of all this, was to allow a psychological moment to take place. The telepathic Insyte had the power to affect subtly the minds of those around her, to the point where they might not even notice her at all. This was much easier when they were distracted, however. For this reason, Sophie had asked Vinnie to create this diversion.

Enhancegirl, Insyte, and Aerogirl entered the building rather aware of how they stood out - both as beautiful women, and because they wore rather unusual, revealing clothes.
"Nnghh..." Insyte groaned quietly, even this putting quite a tax on her abilities. Quickly, the three heroines made their way to the elevator. As they entered, still unseen, Sophie turned to mouth a 'thank you' to Vinnie. He winked in reply, just as the elevator doors shut. The three breathed a small sigh of relief. At the very least, they were in.

"Where do you think they're keeping Spectra?" Aerogirl asked. "Maybe at the bottom.
"I don't need to guess," Enhancegirl replied. Her superhuman vision allowed her a full scan of the whole building. She saw a faint outline, five floors down, of a tall, slim woman. Her pose was strange, like she was floating...but it had to be her.

The heroine jabbed the relevant button, and the lift began descending, with what to Sophie felt like an agonising slowness.
"She's probably going to be guarded heavily," Insyte said. "By Hosenfluss' goons - and by those superhumans I mentioned." Insyte, having seen into Ocelot's mind, had also seen the battle between Spectra and her captors. "Assuming they're all there, I think we need a plan of attack."
"Leave Cybelle to me," Sophie said. "I've tangled with her enough times by now. Maya, you'll be better off with Regulus. I can't think of a way for her to exploit your weakness, and -" She said, making herself smile to encourage her. "I've fought her before. You're definitely stronger." She nodded, delighted that Sophie had confidence in her, though still nervous of combat.
"I...I think I can take Big Shot," Natalya said quietly. "I - I'm not a very good fighter, but...I've taken him on before. He's -" She almost smiled. "He's not exactly formidable."
"Sweet," Sophie said. "I guess that only leaves...the sunglasses guy, right?" None of them had any strategies. Even with what Natalya had seen, Rubio was an unknown element. "I guess we play that one by ear, then."

As the lift descended, a quietude descended on the unlikely trio.
"Thank you," Sophie said suddenly.
"S-Sophie you..." Maya began, "you don't need to thank us."
"No, like...ah fuck, what am I saying..." Sophie mumbled. "I know it's not for me, right? It's for Spectra - like, obviously...but - but I -" She felt a hand on her shoulder. Natalya was smiling at her. She was looking straight into her eyes and smiling. Sophie had never seen that before.

"It's alright," she said. "We understand." She certainly seemed to understand better than Sophie - or Maya, for that matter. But the latina nodded along.
"Okay," Enhancegirl said, psyching herself up for the coming battle. "This isn't gonna be easy. These guys managed to take down Spectra - and she's one of the strongest women out there. But I - we - aren't gonna let anything happen to her." The others nodded. "Right...as soon as those doors open, we're in for some serious shit."

But just as the lift passed the fourth floor, the damsels felt it judder to a halt.
"What's going on?" Maya looked around nervously. Perhaps out of her association with the air and wind, perhaps just because of who she was, she was not overly fond of confined spaces.
"Hang on," Sophie said. "If it's broken, we'll just..." She scanned the elevator, but nothing seemed to be wrong with it. "Someone must have stopped it with a direct circuit. I don't -"

And then she smelled it. Just on the edges of her sense of smell, she smelled a cloying, sweet scent filling the lift.
"N...no!" she gasped. "Guys we have to - we...have..." But as the hiss of gas now became audible, Sophie found herself weakening. Her slender legs began to tremble, her vision growing cloudy, her mind dizzy. "M...Maya...you have to...unhh..." She slumped back against a wall, her sensitivity to sedatives now truly debilitating her.

"Sophie, what's wrong?" Maya gasped. "What's happening to her?"
"I don't know, it's -" Insyte saw Sophie's mind - and her stomach went cold. "Sleeping gas! The elevator's filling with it, we have to get out of -"

But that was not the real peril. Certainly, the gas would not have filled the space fast enough to prevent Maya from breaking them out. It set to work too slowly, was too thinly concentrated. Only Sophie's vulnerability made her affected so strongly. But that had been the entire point. As the redhead began sighing in drowzy weakness, neither of the others noticed that the lift had gone back up one floor - and that there was someone standing at the doors. They slid open - and only Sophie saw. But in her weakened state, she couldn't warn the others fast enough.

"Maya...Nat - MMPHH!"
"Wh - MMPHH!"
"MMHHPHH!"

The three damsels found themselves whimpering through thick, damp cloth, as three strong, metal tendrils shot out at them, seizing them, pressing them up against the back of the elevator and forcing them to breathe in a scent that all three found distressingly familiar.
"Chloroform..."

"Well, well, lookee what we've got ourselves here," a good-looking, blonde cyborg crowed as she stepped into the lift. "Three purty supergirls...delivering 'emselves right to us."
"Mmggghmph! NNMMPHH!" Insyte screamed, trying desperately to pull the rag off her face. She could feel it already, a warmth spreading through her curvaceous body.
"Mmmhh..." Maya whimpered, as her arms flopped by her sides. "I...I'm so weak..." She cast her eyes down. As she felt herself becoming drowzier and sleepier, she had already given in. As far as she was concerned, she was already completely defeated.
"No! No...not...unhh...now..." Sophie thought, desperate as she felt her slender form growing ever more pliable and soft. "I can't...ooh...can't think properly...my...my body..." The lovely redhead felt her green eyes fluttering, growing wet with helpless, distraught tears. "Mariko...Mariko, they got me...!"

The three damsels moaned, and writhed, but more and more slowly, their gorgeous legs shuffling weakly against each other, Sophie's creamy limbs stroked on one side by Maya's caramel coloured legs, and on the other by Natalya's porcelain-white, half-covered thighs.
"That's it, sweeties," Cybelle laughed. "Just let it happen. You're such pretty, vulnerable little sexpots, ain'tcha? You really thought you could go up against someone like Hosenfluss and win? I mean, you guys aren't exactly high-tier are ya?"

She looked from one to the other.
"Insyte...famous for beating one villain, and hasn't done jack-shit since." Natalya blushed with shame, feeling her arms grow heavy and limp.
"I can't fight...I...ooohh..."
"Aerogirl...pretty much a byword for 'pathetic' to anyone in this town - on either side of the line." Maya whimpered quietly, passively accepting the truth of what Cybelle was saying. She looked at Sophie, seeing the redhead barely able to stay awake.
"I'm sorry..." the latina thought. "I...wasn't...any use..."

Last of all, Cybelle turned to Sophie. For her, she came close. Sophie would have slumped to her knees by now, but for the pressure Cybelle was applying in holding her against the wall. Her arms were by her sides, her feet pigeon-toed.
"And you...y'know, I kinda thought you were goin' up in the world," Sophie's captor said. "Ah mean, hangin' with Valora, takin' on the Supremacist - you go girl!"
"Mmph...mmbbhhmmhh..." Sophie mumbled weakly. She could barely hear anything. A soft, sensual cloud had wrapped around her body, holding down all her strength, wit and skill.
"And then Nyx grabs you, shows off that sweet tush of yours for the whole world..." She grabbed Sophie's thighs with her real hands, roughly massaging them, before running them underneath the hem of her dress.
"Mmmph...nnmmphh..." Sophie mewed, as she felt her tight, round ass being squeezed and fondled. "I lost...Mariko...Mariko I'm so...ooohhh...." The unwanted sensuality, the drug, and her humiliation were too much, and with a helpless moan, the red-haired maiden shut her eyes, and went totally limp.

"Sophie..." Insyte heard her last thought, felt the redhead's shame as well as her own. But she couldn't hold out much longer. As she watched Cybelle grope her friend's helpless, sleeping body, she felt herself sinking. At the same time, Maya's body gave out - her mind had given in almost immediately. The two damsels were released, and collapsed in a heap on top of each other, their soft, lovely legs entangled with each other as they fell, Maya's head coming to rest on Natalya's womanly, buxom chest.

Sophie didn't fall to her knees. She was held up by her captor, as the blonde cyborg began the altogether pleasant task of binding Sophie. She spooled out sticky white ropes, and - turning Sophie by her warm, bare shoulders, crossed her wrists behind her back. She tightly cinched them together, her shoulders being pulled back emphasising her bust. This was enhanced further by rope being drawn under her breasts, pinning her elbows as well with three circuits of cord.

Letting Sophie fall against the wall, she began twisting ropes around Sophie's ankles with one of her tendrils, rapidly spinning the ropes around her so quickly that her legs came together with an audible smack. She added to the bondage of Sophie's creamy limbs by winding rope just under her knees as well, pinching the tops of her calves tightly, and forcing her smooth thighs against each other.

"Ain't you just a peach?" Cybelle laughed. She bent Sophie over, lifting the helpless maiden's dress, firmly squeezing her ass, and spanking it for good measure. She then released Sophie, letting her sink down in her drugged slumber onto her knees, where she passively awaited her captor's next act of lascivious fondling.

With Aerogirl and Insyte, she decided to have a little fun. Using her dexterous tentacles, she pulled off Insyte's small, black heels, and peeled her stockings off her white legs, leaving them bare. She then lifted both limp, unconscious damsels to their feet. She pressed them tightly together, their breasts pushed right up against each other, their moist, naked legs kept in close proximity as well.

Then she began binding them. Using two of her tendrils at once, she began coiling rope around them, constricting their arms against their sides, forcing their lovely breasts even closer together. As she wound cord further and further in a jagged criss-cross pattern, Cybelle - spider-like - carefully folded their limbs, making sure their arms were tucked tightly against their hips. As she got to their legs, she couldn't help using her real hands to assist her tendrils, to make sure as much of Natalya's white, pale skin was in intimate contact with Maya's light-brown, caramel coloured legs as possible. She bound them tighter and tighter, making it impossible for them to move without essentially caressing each other - and indeed, hardly making it possible for them to move at all.

Finally, she unspooled a roll of duct tape from one of her delightfully multi-functional tendrils, and quickly smoothed a thin strip over each damsel's mouth, from cheek to cheek. She then began wrapping it round both maidens' heads, forcing their gagged lips against each other, going round and round, making it tight enough that they would not be able to escape their muzzled kiss.

She lifted them both into the air, supporting them with two tendrils, before making her way over to Sophie. She lifted the defeated, kneeling heroine up onto her feet again, before stuffing Natalya's shorter stocking, rolled into a ball, into her pretty mouth, before pressing the longer one over her mouth completely, thoroughly gagging the beautiful, softly sighing redhead. She then lifted her by her thighs, and slung her over her shoulder, carrying the three bound, drugged damsels at once.

As she carried them off, she freely felt up Sophie's gorgeous, supple legs, feeling the redhead's nubile figure entirely in her possession. In her helpless state - draped over her captor, her firm ass sticking out into the air, routinely squeezed and smacked by the lascivious woman who'd ambushed and captured them - Sophie hardly looked like the heroine who'd so categorically defeated Ocelot scarce hours before. But while Sophie had freed herself from Ocelot's mental webs, she was still a slender, attractive, desirable girl - and her body was still just as capable of being subjugated as before.


A level below the three captives, a fourth floated, bound, stripped, and drained beyond what she thought her limit could possibly be. In her half-conscious state, she imagined herself being saved, being rescued at the last moment. But she didn't just want to be saved - her addled mind too weak to be properly controlled, she fell into a romantic fantasy, of Sophie Scott dashing in, vanquishing her captors, and carrying her, bridelike, away to safety. Little did she know just how close to coming true that fantasy had come...and how far away it now was to realisation. All she knew was that she desperately wanted the woman she loved to come for her.
"Sophie..." she thought, only barely above the level of dreaming. "Please...please rescue me...my love..."

[Damselbinder]

"Mmmhh...mmhhhph?" Enhancegirl mewed softly, as she began to emerge from her drugged sleep. Her emerald-coloured eyes blinked a few times before her vision became clear. She tried to move, but she felt her svelte figure restrained. She looked down and saw to her dismay that she was tightly tied up, her hands bound behind her back, her long, bare legs forced to meet by white, slightly sticky ropes coiled around her ankles, and just under her knees. "No...no!" she lamented in her mind, seeing herself a captive. She began to struggle, shuffling her legs and flexing her wrists, trying to loosen the bonds around them.

However, almost as soon as her struggles began, the redhead felt hands seize her by her warm, naked shoulders. Sophie felt her stomach tighten. In her confused, drugged state, she got the events of the last few hours mixed up, and as she turned her head, she expected to see a smirking, olive-skinned -
"Cybelle?" Sophie saw a blonde woman with a cruel grin sitting next to her. The two were on a couch, apparently in some kind of employee lounge. She felt a deep fear replaced by a shallower one, but supplemented with bitter frustration and embarrassment. She remembered what had happened now, how she and the others had fallen into a trap, been seized and chloroformed into unconsciousness.

"Mornin', doll-face," the cyborg said. She gently coiled one of her tendrils around Sophie's chest, holding her without much force, but more than enough to keep the writhing redhead in her grip. She then began slowly stroking her captive's naked legs, feeling her soft creamy skin.
"Mmhh! Mgghhmphhh!" Sophie protested. "No! I can't believe I let this fucking happen!"
"You do sound just so gosh-darned pathetic when you're moanin' through a gag, sweet-cheeks," Cybelle taunted, gripping Sophie's thighs more tightly. "Say, you've got super-senses, right? Can you guess what I muzzled you with?"

Sophie could, in fact, taste something very faint on the material not only over her lips, but stuffed into her mouth. It tasted familiar, like the scent of....
"Insyte!" Sophie looked at Ocelot, a mixture of anger and humiliation on her face. She'd been gagged with her fellow heroine's stockings.
"Mmhh...mmhhph..." The redhead heard the whimpers coming from the other side of the room, and she turned to look.

She saw Maya and Natalya lying on a small, bare bed that had been left there for Hosenfluss' more dedicated scientists. They were not lying next to each other, however. They were lying right on top of each other, moaning and writhing, their gorgeous bodies pressed tightly together by the ropes coiled around them, as the two fought helplessly against their bonds.
"Mmhh...mmnnnmphh..." Maya mewed, feeling a wave of helpless shame as, with every wriggle, her gorgeous, caramel-coloured legs rubbed intimately against Natalya's pale limbs. She felt the smooth softness of her fellow heroine's body, her curvy figure, her soft, voluminous breasts. "I...I couldn't help..." she said to herself as she felt just how powerless she was, her unique weakness keeping her from using her abilities at all.

"Mph!" Insyte moaned in response. She could see every thought of the beautiful, supple latina bound to her, knew that Maya couldn't get her mind away from the gorgeous femininity of her fellow captive. She herself couldn't even look away, except by closing her eyes. For the two maidens had been gagged in such a way that their heads were taped together, forcing their lips against each other, separated only by two strips of tape. Because of this, Insyte couldn't stop looking at Maya's lovely, distressed face, and because of the way her powers worked, she couldn't stop feeling her thoughts. She blushed brightly, the shy maiden feeling every inch of Maya's long, smooth legs, and the outline of her lips. Maya's embarrassment and shame only increased her own as their emotions bled together in her mind.

"Mmmphh..." they moaned into each other's mouths, feeling a kind of devastating inevitability about the speed of their defeat. Neither of them had very high opinions of themselves as heroines, and while the actual events of their capture couldn't honestly lead either to believe that they had personally failed, they still felt as if they'd been fools to think they'd be able to succeed against enemies who had defeated even Spectra.

"Damn her!" Sophie thought, seeing the two captive heroines rubbing so closely against each other. For the shy, demure damsels there could have been few more embarrassing torments. She glared at Cybelle, her green eyes shimmering.
"Oh, please," Cybelle laughed. "You really think you scare me, sweet-cheeks?" She tightened the coil around her chest.
"Mmph!" Sophie gasped. Cybelle had made her point. She was entirely in the cyborg's control. "This can't happen...someone like this - someone like this fucking halfwit can't be what stops me from getting to Mariko! I won't let it!" She growled beneath her gag, writhing, fighting against the cyborg's powerful limbs with all of her strength.

But that strength was nowhere near enough. For all of Sophie's powers, she was no physically stronger than her lissom frame suggested. She couldn't even break her ropes, much less Cybelle's bonds. She wished at that moment that the woman who'd entrusted Sophie with her powers had given her different ones instead - that she had the raw power to tear the building apart until she'd found and saved her friend.

Yet her powers were not so useless as all that. As the heroine struggled in Cybelle's grasp, she saw something that only those who shared her incredible eyesight would have noticed - and there were not many of those. One of Cybelle's tendrils was slightly damaged, one of the claws, to be precise. The edge of one part had been sliced such that it was now - in a very particular spot - extremely sharp. Sophie guessed, and rightly, that this was a result of her battle with Spectra. If she could get Cybelle to grab her with that tendril, she might be able to maneuver herself such that the sharp edge would slice her bonds.

But she wasn't careful enough. She'd forgotten that, with her upgrades, Cybelle's senses were almost as good as her own. Cybelle saw her looking, and her attention was drawn to her tendril. She too saw the damage, and put two and two together.
"Nice thought, darlin'," she said. "But you gotta remember something." She took Sophie by the chin, turning her face towards her. She smiled smugly. "Anything you can do...I can do better."
"Mmmrrhhmphh!" Sophie complained - but moaning through her gag was all the objection she could muster.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Two floors below them, Ricardo Hosenfluss was nervously re-entering the room where his captive, Spectra, floated, bound and drained, feeding power into the machine that would grant him, he hoped, all the might of the Indigo Titan. He entered nervously because last time he had been inside, Mariko had almost killed him.

He'd been patched up, but he was still anxious. Rubio, his superhuman bodyguard, eyed Spectra carefully for any signs of trouble. But she was not to give any. She floated limp and helpless in the tank of water in which she was bound, her jade eyes barely open. She had been drained now to the point where even thought was almost beyond her, the awful feeling of lightness and emptiness within her being all that kept her conscious at all.

She had, as they had begun to drain away her very life, called out in her mind for Sophie, for the woman whose cheer, sharp mind and sincere compassion had made Mariko fall head over heels in love with her. But that wasn't possible for her anymore. She felt so terribly weak that even her beloved's name escaped her - but she just about had the strength to picture her face. If nothing else, she wanted Sophie to be the last thing she saw.

"We are almost ready, Ricardo," Lisa Ramikin said. The scientist inspected the violet mineral embedded into the tank where Spectra floated. It now shone with radiant brilliance, bathing them in an unnatural light. "It might even be ready now, but I would suggest we wait another hour or so."
"We may not have another hour," he said. His cool, sleazy veneer of confidence was gone. Spectra had shaken it out of him. "You heard about the little disturbance yet?"
"The superhumans? I thought dear Bella took care of them."
"'Dear Bella' got them, yeah, but there were three capes here," Ricardo said. His instinct was to touch the bandage on his neck, make sure it was fixed on properly, but he resisted the urge. "If anyone shows up that it isn't so easy to take down, you may have to just take the risk."
"I don't advise it, but it won't be me taking the risk," Lisa said. "And that's in either case. You should have told me about your power, you fool!"

Not happy to hear his employer insulted, Rubio stepped forward, but Ricardo held him back with a gesture.
"Just get everything ready," he said, before leaving again. He passed Regulus on the way out, her white eyes not even glancing at him; never leaving her beautiful enemy. He glanced back at Spectra. "Soon..." he thought. "Soon, I'll be stronger than anyone!"

Spectra watched him leave, hardly really aware of what she saw. She felt that she was sinking into darkness, a cold, empty blackness that held nothing for her but oblivion. She couldn't verbalise her thoughts; but she knew she was afraid. She'd always been just a little afraid of the dark.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sophie was all too aware of the passage of time as she languished in Cybelle's clutches. As much as she struggled, Cybelle kept a tight grip on her, stroking her legs, fondling her soft bosom, letting Sophie know just how little power she had, and just how desirable she was.
"I'm always grateful to the supergals who wear such skimpy outfits," Cybelle laughed. "Just makes things so much more convenient when I've gotcha all roped up, don't it?" She emphasised the point by running her hands over Sophie's bare shoulders and upper arms. Sophie whimpered, feeling aggrieved by her own helplessness.

It was at that point when one of the other superhumans Hosenfluss had hired entered: it was Big Shot, former member of the Catastrophe gang, and easily the weakest of the superhumans in the businessman's employ. He smirked as he entered, seeing the gorgeous, long-legged redhead moaning through her gag in Cybelle's arms. He saw too the whimpering, delightful contrast of Insyte and Aerogirl, the shy, demure damsels helplessly intimate with each other.

Of all the members of the Catastrophe gang, Big Shot had been the least liked, even by his oftentimes partner Mindblow. They'd liked him enough to start with: he had a kind of wry humour about him. But he had revealed himself to be a thuggish, cowardly little snake of a man, and had been the first man of the gang, which had since also shed Mindblow, G-Bomb and Angermax, to get kicked out.

Nevertheless, he had a sense that he was punching a bit above his weight here. He'd only been called in by Hosenfluss because he had fought Spectra before, and had in fact provided the team that took her down with some useful information about her favoured tactics. Beyond that, though, he was wary of playing with fire. So while he watched Maya and Natalya unintentionally caress each other - he didn't dare actually touch them.

Still, he leered at them, grinning like a fool.
"Man, what a job!" he laughed. "And I thought Spectra was hot!" Big Shot had a preference for ladies with well endowed chests, and as he ogled her, Natalya sensed this.
"What a sickening, vile little git," she thought. Stangely, this actually helped her confidence a little - she had fought Big Shot before, and beaten him too. But it didn't make her feel any less of her withering embarrassment.

"Hey, Biggie-Smalls," Cybelle called over.
"It's Big Shot. You know it's Big Shot. You're just being an asshole."
"Sorry, it's just a little weird having to treat'cha like a human being this time," she said, idly tracing an infinity symbol on Sophie's creamy thighs. "Last time we worked together you were Hypnotra's little lap-dog, weren'tcha?"
"Go fuck yourself," he shot back. He suddenly felt like he had less respect than anyone else in the room - even the three tied-up captives.

"Oh, don't be like that, handsome," Cybelle laughed. "I wanted to ask you something." Sophie realised that her interest in Big Shot's opinion was a pretense. She was looking right at the lovely young woman writhing next to her. "You want to watch a movie?"
"A movie?" Big Shot was confused. "The hell you talkin' about?"
"I guess you could call it a home movie," she said. "Recorded it myself, just a few hours ago." She tapped her right eye. "Part of the upgrade package." She unwound the tendril she'd had snaked around Sophie, pointing it forward. She deployed a kind of flashlight, pointing it at the far wall. "I call it 'The Fall of Spectra'."

A light spilled out from the end of her tendril, resolving itself into an image. Sophie couldn't make it out at first, but it became gradually clearer.
"Mariko!" Indeed, Sophie realised that she was watching a recording of the radiant Mistress of Light. She saw her standing, in the middle of a dingy warehouse, surrounded by four people - five, if one included the woman who'd been recording all she saw.

Sophie watched as they attacked her, sending blow after blow at the slender, beautiful maiden they'd tricked and ambushed. Even though she knew the outcome, Sophie couldn't help but feel a pang of hope as she saw Spectra fooling Rubio into defeating Hell Man for her, and seeing her easily take down Big Shot.

"God, she's amazing..." Sophie thought, her heart fluttering as she saw Spectra battle. She was fierce, yet controlled, beautiful and graceful as she fought with her mind as well as her strength. She had never seen Spectra faced with such odds in a battle, and she now understood better than ever why Seacouver had made Mariko one if its chiefest champions - it wasn't just her power. Spectra was mighty, to be sure, but the city had some stronger superhumans defending it. It wasn't even just her beauty, though Sophie wouldn't in that moment have thought that anyone, let alone another of Seacouver's heroines, matched Mariko in that regard.

It was her grace. The way she moved, the subtle gestures when she summoned her powers, the way she held herself when she dodged an attack. Even when she was thrown back by one of Cybelle's blasts, she maintained an effortless physical dignity. Before, Sophie had thought of Mariko as a warrior, but while that wasn't untrue, it seemed the wrong word now.
"She's an artist..."

This made it all the more distressing when she saw the tide turning against the lissom heroine. She saw her hemmed in, saw Regulus and Rubio taking advantage, throwing everything they had at her faltering shield. An involuntary cry escaped her gagged mouth as she saw Spectra straining to defend herself. It seemed so unfair, so wrong. Her enemies were like vile little poachers, mobbing a beautiful, mighty tigress, trapping and netting her because they dared not face her fairly. It felt wrong. Spectra had been so valiant, so noble, and Sophie felt a deep heartache as she watched her grow closer to losing.

At this point, Cybelle switched on a small speaker on one of her other tendrils. Sophie now heard the crackling and thumping of the superhumans' powers. Then an awful silence - Spectra's barrier fell, and she stood there, dizzy and weak, staring straight forwards, her strength expended as her arms fell to her sides. Then Sophie heard the mumbled words that came from the half-conscious, overwhelmed heroine, and the redhead had to stop herself from being overcome with emotion.
"No...no, I've...I've been...defeated..." That was hard enough to hear. The next two words, however, were like hammers crashing onto the lithe maiden's heart: "Sophie...So...ph...ie..." She then fell, beaten, to her knees.

"Mmhh...!" Sophie moaned, her eyes going wide. "She...she called out my name..." She felt herself shaking. "Mariko...called out for me..." She felt hot. Her eyes stung. Her hammered heart now hammered back, throbbing with an almost painful intensity in her chest. She didn't know whether to scream in anger at what had been done to Mariko, or to sob, and if to sob, with pity or with...something different entirely.

"Oh, Sophie!" Maya thought, filled with pity. She didn't know about Mariko's feelings for Sophie, of course, but her heart still went out to her fellow heroine. She could tell just from the way Sophie behaved how deeply she cared for Spectra, and knew that this would have been torture for her.

Cybelle was not blind to the emotional response of her captive. She stared at her, looking at her distraught expression, her intense dismay.
"Oh, no, no, this is too good. This is waaaaaaaaay too good, sugar!" She threw her head back and laughed. "You're Sophie! She was callin' out to you! Oh, that is fucking adorable!" She rolled back the footage. "Let's just make sure." Again, Sophie heard as Mariko softly cried out to her, just before collapsing.
"Oh, Sophie, Sophie!" Cybelle mocked, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead like she was swooning. "Oh, please, Sophie, won't you come and save me!" She laughed riotously, as her captive writhed desperately in her grasp. "Man, did she ever back the wrong horse, huh?"
"Shhhd hhhp!" Sophie half growled, half-begged.
"Okay, sweet-cheeks, I'll stop talking." She grinned. "I'll let dear, sweet Spectra do it for me." She rolled back the footage, and played it again. And again. And again. And again.

It was Insyte, of course, who noticed first. She'd felt Sophie's torrent of emotion as she heard Mariko call to her, her despair as Cybelle taunted her. But with every repetition of the footage, her dismay changed into something else. It was a flicker at first, but it built and built, each time she heard Mariko's soft cry, and Cybelle's laughter throwing wood onto what was becoming a blazing fire. It spread through her like a flood, cutting off all other emotion, until Sophie was filled with rage as red as her flaming locks.

Insyte was surprised to find Sophie looking directly at her.
"Scan Cybelle," she thought, knowing Insyte would hear. Even in her head, Sophie's voice seemed to shake with anger. "Does she have any cybernetics in her nose? Like, structural reinforcements? Blink twice if it's yes, three times if it's no." A little perplexed, Natalya obeyed, and looked into Cybelle's mind. She found a sneering arrogance, bordering on solipsism, like other people existed merely for her pleasure and amusement. Still, Natalya cut through the self-love, and found memory. It was a strange experience reading a cybernetically enhanced mind. Parts of her brain were oddly ordered, and looking into them was, appropriately enough, like typing on a computer. Eventually, she found the information she needed. She looked at Sophie as best she could - and blinked three times.
"Sweet."

Sophie leaned forward, doubling over so her chest was resting on her knees.
"Aww, sweet-cheeks," Cybelle laughed, "you really are upset, ain'tcha? Maybe I should -" Cybelle did have enhanced vision and reaction time, just like Enhancegirl. There was no real reason why she couldn't have avoided it. She was just so smug and certain of Sophie's helplessness that she didn't think anything could be a threat. Not until Sophie snapped back up with fearsome speed, and broke Cybelle's nose with the back of her skull.

"AUGHH!" Cybelle cried out, clutching her face as blood oozed from her nostrils. "You little...!" She lashed out at Sophie with her tendrils, but as she was sitting next to her, she was in an awkward position for a direct attack. For that reason, the lithe damsel was able to throw herself forward, across Cybelle's body an onto the floor. This actually made it easier for Cybelle to grab at her, the nearest tendril automatically registering Sophie as a threat, and shooting out at her. It was only just before it reached the redhead that Cybelle realised that this was the one that had been damaged. Sophie had deliberately positioned herself so that this would happen.

As Cybelle's limb got close, Sophie twisted herself such that the tendril just barely grazed the ropes binding her arms and chest - and given that it had been worn down to a razor's edge, it severed them.
"Oh fuck!" Big Shot cried out, leaping up as he saw Cybelle wounded, and Sophie's arms free. "You idiot!" he shouted at his fellow villain, before firing one of his fireballs at the half-untied redhead.

This was not a boon for which Sophie had planned, but she took it. She leapt forward out of Cybelle's reach, pushing herself with her bound legs, so that the fireball almost touched her limbs. It was painfully hot, but it didn't burn her skin. It did, however, partially melt the ropes around her legs. With one strong effort, she pulled her legs apart, snapping the ropes. She whipped the gag out of her lips, spitting out the stocking that had been in her mouth.
"Alright," she hissed. "Who wants to be fucking first?!"

Big Shot hesitated, but Cybelle didn't. Her mouth and chin red with her own blood, she leapt at Sophie, lunging at her with one tendril, and firing her powerful energy ray with another. This would have killed Sophie if it had hit, but Enhancegirl leapt out of the way. She closed in on Cybelle, her sense of the air currents around her letting her know long ahead of time where each attack would be.

"Oh, you think I won't getcha for that?!" Cybelle shouted. "You think you aren't going to be - aagh!" Enhancegirl kicked Cybelle's knee, the heel of her boot hitting her hard, and making her leg buckle. She supported herself with one tendril, and lunged at Sophie with another. But she dodged. And then again. Cybelle made lunge after lunge, but nothing was working.
"She's...she's too fast!" she thought. When last they'd fought, Sophie had beaten her by turning the automation of her tendrils against her, but as for speed and raw skill, they'd been more or less evenly matched.

But this time...this time Cybelle couldn't touch her. She'd heard rumours that Enhancegirl was considered more of a threat in recent months, but she too had received upgrades since their last fight. But they weren't working. Sophie ducked, weaved, and dived out of the way of every strike. Cybelle would set traps, lunging for her with one tendril, while another awaited to grab her when she moved, but she could never predict what Sophie was going to be. Or rather, it seemed that Sophie could predict what she was to do.

Then, suddenly, with savage fury, Sophie's fist snapped out like a whip and caught Cybelle in the jaw. She was stunned by that, and then another blow. Rattled, she couldn't think how to respond. She used her real arms, which were enhanced for greater strength, and tried to punch back. But Cybelle wasn't any kind of martial artist. Sophie ducked the punch, then grabbed Cybelle's arm, and flipped her. Only her tendrils' automatic response stopped her from landing on her back.

However, that had entirely been the point. All four were occupied holding Cybelle up, and her body was unprotected. Sophie dashed in, and delivered a crushing knee strike to Cybelle's stomach.
"Ohhhgghhh!" she groaned, badly winded. She clutched her stomach, and looked up. She saw Enhancegirl's arm drawn back, her eyes full of wild rage.
"Anything you can do," she growled, "I can do better!" Her punch fired like a piston, hitting Cybelle straight in the skull. With a moan, the blonde toppled, and fell on her back, knocked out.

"Who's next?!" Enhancegirl bellowed. She turned around - she knew Big Shot hadn't tried to attack her yet; she would have felt the heat as he gathered his power. He was standing, gaping at her.
"Uhh..." he mumbled, as he saw the redhead turn her eyes to him. "I...hey look, I'm just a hired gun, right? I'm not who you're really after? I - I'll help you! I know where they're keeping your friend!"
"I can see through walls," Enhancegirl replied. "I know where she is."
"Then, I...uh...ha-ha!" Big Shot launched out one of his fireballs, Sophie easily dodging it. He meant to use this as cover to make his escape, but when he saw Sophie avoid his shot without even breaking eye contact, he rather lost his nerve. Enhancegirl used his hesitation to run over, and clock him in the jaw with a spinning back-kick, that sent him hurtling into a nearby wall. He slumped down, beaten.

Maya and Natalya gaped. Neither had ever seen Sophie fight with such anger. She came over to them, and began cutting them loose. The two maidens felt their limbs becoming free, and they rather awkwardly set up freeing each other from their gagged kiss.
"Ah..." Maya gasped when her lips were finally free. She felt a pleasant warmth as, unbound, her patron spirits returned her powers to her. "Thank you, Sophie," she mumbled. She couldn't quite get herself to look at Natalya. Her skin still tingled from where they'd so intimately touched.

"Sophie, let's -" Natalya began to say, but Sophie had already run out of the room. It had been remarkable that she'd even remembered to free her allies, so focused was she on Mariko's rescue.
"I will find her...I will find her..." she said to herself again and again. She ran to the lift, just as its door opened onto her floor. Two guards with semi-automatic rifles blinked at her.
"Hey, are you with -"

Sophie showed no mercy. She delivered a palm strike to one guard's nose, grabbing a billy-club from a holster at his waist and then bludgeoning the other guard over the head with it, before she even had the chance to think. She kicked both of them out, where they crumpled to the floor, groaning in pain. She jabbed the controls, and the doors shut - just as Maya and Natalya reached it.

"Why did she do that?" Maya asked. "Won't she need our help?"
"She only sees Mariko," Natalya replied. "She barely remembers that we're even here. We'll just wait for -" It was fortunate for both heroines that the doors of the lift were so reflective. Insyte saw the gun raised, and dived down onto Maya, making them both narrowly avoid the bullet of the man whom Sophie had palm-struck.

"Unh!" Maya gasped, landing underneath Natalya. She saw the man aiming again, but sent a powerful blast of air at him. It lifted him clean off his feet, and hurled him back, smashing him hard enough into the wall to dent it. "Phew..." Maya gasped. She looked up - and realised Natalya was pressed against her once again. "Oh!" she gasped, blushing again, as Natalya awkwardly got off her.
"S-sorry..." Natalya mumbled, her own white cheeks reddening as well. She turned around to summon the lift, but saw to her dismay that the guard's shot had smashed the controls. "Oh, hell!" she exclaimed. "What do we do now?"


As the lift reached the bottom floor, Sophie found her breaths growing more and more rapid. She tried to calm herself down, but it wasn't happening. She was shaking. She felt desperate purpose, an intense longing to see Mariko safe. But she had almost failed completely, and for the time she'd lost - for all she knew, Mariko was -
"No. No." Sophie said. Yet as the doors opened, she saw yet another high hurdle present itself.

"You?" Regulus laughed. "You're the one foolish enough to come after your precious Spectra?" The muscular, bald woman in her silver armour smirked. "I suppose you weren't to know that I was here." The last time they had fought, Enhancegirl had been completely outmatched. But Sophie wasn't thinking about that. She only saw an obstacle to her goal, to what she desired more than anything in the world. With a fierce battle cry, she ran at her enemy, brandishing her newly acquired weapon.

"Fool." Regulus lifted her hand, and let loose a spherical shockwave that shook the room, and sent Sophie flying back.
"Unngh!" the redhead cried out, feeling herself hurled back against a wall. She slid down, then struggled to her feet. "I'm...not...losing!" She ran forward - but was hurled back again. "Aah!" she hit the metal doors of the lift this time, and her body shook as she fought off the pain of Regulus' attack.

"In an open space," Regulus said, "with a plethora of projectiles available, you were still not even the beginning of a match for Regulus."
"Why doesn't Regulus just shut the fuck up," Sophie said, "and show me what she's got." She came forward, and stood firm, crossing her arms, apparently to defend herself.
"You really are stupid, girl," Regulus said. "But if you like..." She fired yet again, and Sophie again was thrown back.

"Uurrrhhh..." she groaned, this time barely able to stand at all. She walked forward, almost stumbled, and stood in the exact same spot as before. "W...well..." she said. "C-c'mon then." Regulus gave a hard, harsh laugh.
"Are you even trying to fight me anymore?" the villain said. She lifted her hand, and fired one more time - and as she did, she saw a smirk on her opponent's face.

Two things happened. The first was that Sophie dived for a concrete pillar, which shielded her from the brunt of the blast. The second was that she hurled her billy club right at the oncoming shockwave. It was thrown back, of course, ricocheting off the lift doors, and the wall, and the ceiling...before, with almost all the force of one of her own attacks, the club struck Regulus in the back of the head.
"Wh...what?" the villainess whimpered. "But...she's so...weak..." Yet it was she who felt weak. She trembled, swayed...and collapsed, unconscious onto the floor.

"Ughh..." Sophie groaned, hauling herself up. "Gotcha...you stuck-up...jackass..." she panted. She had taken so many blows from Regulus for one clear reason. The villainess had thought that the enclosed space gave her the advantage, but the reverse was true. In the regular, square room, Sophie only had to determine the right angle of one of Regulus' shockwaves, and she could ensure that a projectile ended up in more or less anywhere in the room she wanted.

Breathing hard, she went approached the door. She knew that Mariko was on the other side. Trying to ignore the pain in her body, she pushed it open, and stepped through. When she saw what was on the other side, she almost screamed with rage and anguish.
"Mariko!" she cried out.

She was there. Floating in a tank of water, bound, her mouth covered with a plastic mask - there was the woman that Ocelot had betrayed, that Sophie had risked everything to save. And there, too, was Hosenfluss, the architect of all of this. The greasy haired businessman visibly recoiled as she entered.
"Let her go now," Sophie said, "and I won't break you in half." None of the scientists remained, save for Lisa. None of them had been judged to be necessary any longer.
"You can damn well try!" Ricardo laughed. "Rubio...deal with her, would you?"
"With pleasure."

The slim, bald man stepped forward, whipping off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of red eyes.
"We know you, Enhancegirl," he said. "Super-senses. Agile, good close range fighter. Thing is, kid," he said, "you're not gonna get to do any close range fighting. Your friend Spectra couldn't beat me, and she's a way higher level threat than you are. I'll put it another way, sister: you ain't shit, and now you're gonna die." He fired. His moved at five times the speed of sound - and Sophie still dodged it.

"Try again," she said. A little irritated, he did just that. He missed again. "You got all the information on me, right?" She stepped forward. He fired again - and missed again. "Super-senses, right?" Another miss. "Yeah, that's what I thought too." This time she feinted right, and Rubio didn't even need to be dodged. "But then how would I react this fast? How am I so much quicker than you, right? That's what you're thinking."

She wasn't wrong. Rubio's attacks should have been far too quick to be avoided.
"Rubio, stop fucking around!" Ricardo hissed. Even the unflappable Doctor Ramikin was moving behind Rubio.
"Yes, boss," he said. He tried again, but he just couldn't hit her. "What the fuck is going on?!"

And as she walked, Sophie came to a sudden realisation. She could see how fast Rubio's attacks were. Her senses were one thing, but she was moving aside far faster than should have been possible. She almost laughed. For all this time, she hadn't understood what her powers were. She didn't have enhanced senses - or rather, those were just a side effect. What she had was an enhanced nervous system. Everything was faster. Her thoughts, her movements.

There was no delay; no thinking time; microscopic reaction time. She could make decisions at the very instant that she received sensory information. That was how she'd beaten Cybelle, and Regulus, two opponents who should have been beyond what her powers were supposed to be. In essence, Sophie realised that she was able to evade Rubio's quite literally lightning fast attacks, because she could make decisions based on information that hadn't yet reached her brain. Her entire nervous system was available to her conscious mind.
"My limbs...my hands...I can think with my body!"

She saw as Rubio fired another shot, and she allowed her hands and eyes to communicate without involving her brain. She instanty realised that Rubio didn't fire a beam of energy at all. His eyes generated a self-propelled projectile that moved so fast that its exhaust trail was mistaken for a beam. She found her hand reaching up almost of its own accord in response to Rubio's shot - and turning it 180 degrees in the other direction.

"Wh -" Rubio didn't even have time to exclaim in surprise. His own attack hit him, right between his shoulder and his clavicle. "AAAGHH!" he screamed, wracked with agony. "AAAAAGHHHH!!" His body shook, and he collapsed in pain. "Sh-she turned it...back on me!" One inch to the left, and it would have severed his arm. One inch to the right and it would have killed him. He saw his own blood - and he fainted.

"Oh...shit! Hosenfluss exclaimed, seeing the last of his defenders fall. He glanced back, seeing the Dexite. He turned back to Sophie.
"Don't try it," she said.
"No, I'm not letting you take this from me!" He screamed. He turned around and ran at the glowing mineral. "Augh!" He felt something hit him in the leg, and he stumbled over, tripped by Sophie's hurled billy-club.

Sophie walked forward, and kicked the back of his head. It didn't quite knock him out, but he groaned, stunned. Sophie now approached the scientist.
"Let her out," she said. "Now." Lisa Ramikin rather took stock of the situation she was in, and nodded. She went over to the tank, and pressed some keys on a console at its front. The water began to drain out. Mariko, no longer suspended, slumped limply against the tank. For an instant, Sophie's heart froze - but with her senses, she could see Mariko was breathing - but only just.
"Oh, thank god," she gasped. The rage that had fuelled her furious victories drained away. "Thank god..." She now felt merely an exhausted relief.

Lisa pressed another set of keys, and the glass of the tank swung open.
"There, that should - aghh!" Lisa was roughly shoved to the side, as Sophie leapt up, and took Mariko in her arms, her tall, slender body soaking wet.
"Mariko!" Sophie cried out. She shook the lithe maiden in her arms, trying to stir her. "Mariko please, talk to me!" She ripped the odd crown thing from her head, throwing it aside. "Mari -" Sophie stopped. She felt her arms shaking. She felt her whole body trembling as she held her courageous, gorgeous friend. She realised just how good it felt to have her arms around her. She felt Mariko's soft, smooth skin against her own, felt her lithe, limber figure resting against her. She had, not a few hours before, been wracked with ambivalence and confusion. But as she saw Mariko's proud, beautiful face, that stern brow, the lips which smiled so rarely, but so sweetly when they did, that ambivalence fell away.

And she knew.

"Uunhh..." Mariko breathed softly, her jade eyes opening just a crack. She felt slender, white arms around her, cradling her gently. She felt, though she was perilously weak, that no further strength was being taken from her. As the Mistress of Light's eyes opened further, she felt a tiny modicum of energy being restored to her, enough, at least, to think. "Wh...who?"

As her eyes opened further, for a brief second she thought she saw her own reflection. For all she saw was another pair of green eyes staring back at her, the same colour as her own - no, not quite the same. A little lighter. Then, as her vision resolved, she saw red hair. "No..." she thought. "I must...must be..." Yet as her vision resolved even further, she saw a lovely, intelligent face, saw soft, pink lips and light, charming freckles on a pair of fine cheeks. "Oh, hell," she thought. "Now I'm...hallucinating..."

"Mariko? Mariko can you hear me?" came a familiar, sweet voice. Mariko's heart jumped at the sound.
"S-Sophie...?" she said. Her eyes narrowed. Then, with her voice trembling: "You're...really here?"
"Of course I am," Sophie said, feeling a tear running down her cheek. "Mariko, I - this all happened because of me...because I was stupid...I'm so sorry that I trusted her...that I didn't see! I'm such a fucking idiot..." But even as she said this, she felt a hand reaching up, and stroking her cheek. She gasped slightly.
"Don't...please..." Mariko said, "you...you came for me. How could I...ask for...more...?" Sophie saw Mariko looking at her with gentle eyes, and she clasped the beauty's hand against her chest.
"Oh, Mariko..." she sighed. "I -"

It was at that moment that the two heroines, clasped so tenderly together, heard a deep rumbling above them. Suddenly the ceiling cracked open, rubble falling down onto the ground, the ceiling above them melted all the way through. Through the hall, a fiery figure fell, landing with a rumble on the ground. A fiery aura around him dimmed, revealing a sharp-featured, sallow man in a grey suit.

"Zjarrus!" Sophie gasped. She'd met Insyte's brother once before, the day she'd fought with the Supremacist.
"Oh good," he said, "I didn't melt anyone." He strutted over to her. "Dear little sis thought you might need some heavy backup. Something about a man with the Indigo Titan's powers?"
"It's okay," Sophie said. "I stopped him."
"Oh really?" Ivan said, flashing a toothy grin. "Good show."

He saw a tall, lithe maiden clutched in Sophie's arms, soaking wet and half-naked. He knew this woman - it was Spectra, the heroine who, in her despair, had tried to throw herself at him not two days earlier.
"What happened to her?" he asked.
"They were draining her power," Sophie said, not taking her eyes of Mariko for a second. "They almost killed her."
"Did they now?" He turned to see Lisa cowering at the sight of him, and Hosenfluss groaning on the floor. He felt a spark of anger. "I don't suppose you'd care for me to return the favour, would you?"

But Sophie wasn't listening. She could see Mariko's heartbeat slowing, her eyelids fluttering.
"Hey, stay with me," Sophie said, seeing Mariko falter.
"Too...too weak..." she murmured, her voice scarcely above a whisper. "I...I need...sunlight..." Sophie realised just how much danger Mariko was still in.
"If I'd arrived five minutes later..." she thought, clutching Mariko tighter, the maiden feeling cold in her arms. "We'll get you sunlight," she said. "I've got you now, okay? Everything's gonna be alright."
"O...okay," Mariko said, her cheeks reddening as she felt Sophie's skin against hers. "She's...so warm..."

"Let me take her," Ivan said. "I'll get her outside." Sophie felt an instinctive reluctance to let Mariko go, but she nevertheless relented. She allowed Zjarrus to take Spectra, gently easing the slender maiden into a fireman's lift.
"Hold her tight, okay?" Sophie said, looking on Mariko's weakened form with fear for her fate. Ivan saw the look in her eyes - and he smiled.
"Now I get it," he said. "Oh, that's rather marvellous, actually." He shook his head, grinning sardonically. "Don't worry, dearie," he said to Sophie. "I'll keep her safe for you."

Sophie watched the two vanish. Then, with a gasp of relief, she fell to her knees.
"I did it..." she said. "We did it..." A tension that had become so ingrained that she'd barely even been aware of it was released, at least in part. She sighed, and stood up. All she had to do now was destroy the Dexite, and -

"Ricardo, what the hell are you doing?!" Sophie spun around. She saw the greasy businessman on his feet, saw him grab the violet mineral. "You idiot, the energies need to be released into you gradually!"
"What does it look like?" he said. "I'm taking what should always have been mine!" He knew the stories, that the Titan hadn't just been exposed to the Dexite to get his powers - he'd been impaled with it. He held the jagged rock over his chest, trying to find the nerve to stab himself.
"Put it down," Sophie said. "Even your own goon thinks it's a dumb idea!"
"Well," Hosenfluss said, smirking, "you would say that, wouldn't you?" With that, he gritted his teeth, and plunged the rock in.

There was a moment where it looked like he'd just killed himself. He froze, eyes apparently blank - but then, slowly, the brilliant light of the violet mineral began to dim, as it flowed into Hosenfluss' body.
"Ah...ah...ah..." His whole body began twitching, spasming as new power flowed into it. "Aha...aha...ahaha...AHAHA!" His body seemed to contort, floating a few inches off the ground, his legs and arms twisting into unnatural positions. "AHAA...AHAAA...AHAA!" Sophie couldn't tell if he was laughing, or crying out in pain. The glow began to increase in intensity, a high pitched whine coming from Hosenfluss' body.

"Oh, no," Lisa said, backing away from him.
"What is it? What's happening to him?" Sophie asked. "Is this not what was supposed to happen?"
"Yes and no," Lisa said. "It looks like it worked - the Dexite is channeling its energies into him, so hooray for me: I was right." She didn't sound particularly pleased. "But the reaction's too violent. It might tear him apart - and that's just for starters!"
"Is there a danger to the city?" the heroine asked.
"Not with him so far underground. We on the other hand..." Sophie looked around, and saw a fire alarm nearby. She pulled it, and the building was filled with a high pitched shriek of alarm bells. "Hopefully that gets everyone out..."

Hosenfluss' body continued to contort. She saw Ramikin running over to the back of the room, and followed her. Scanning, she saw a stairwell behind what she hadn't even realised was a door.
"I thought the lift was the only way out," she said.
"Be glad it's not!" Lisa said. She threw the door open, and the two began running up a tall, cramped set of stairs.

Lisa quickly fell behind the athletic heroine, but Sophie didn't pause for her. She glanced back, seeing Ricardo through the wall, his body still twisting and writhing, the energy still building and building. She got to the top, and dashed out, finding herself coming out of a street maintenance hatch just next to the building she'd been inside. She looked around, and saw her allies gathered nearby. Just before she returned to them, she helped Lisa out of the stairwell.
"Hey," she said, "this was all Hosenfluss' idea right? You just worked on the machines?"
"My dear," Lisa said, "I invented the machines."
"Right, right," Sophie said, before punching Lisa in the face. She left her unconscious on the ground.

"Sophie, thank god!" Insyte gasped as she saw the redhead running towards them. "I was sure something had happened..."
"I'm fine," she said, flashing a smile at the telepath, but running straight past her to where Mariko lay, propped up against a wall. She wasn't the only one with wet skin now - it was pouring with rain, the clouds thickly overcast.
"Sophie..." Mariko said, seeing the redhead coming towards her. "I..."
"Shh," Sophie said, kneeling next to her and taking her hand. "Don't talk." She looked up at the grey sky. "There isn't much light, so just save your strength and take what you can, okay?" Mariko nodded.
"I must look...rather pathetic like this..." she muttered, smiling weakly.
"You could never look pathetic," Sophie said. She put her hand on Mariko's cheek. "You could never look pathetic to me."

"Ivan," Natalya said to her brother. "Thank you for coming so quickly."
"Oh, not a bit of it," he said. "I don't know why you didn't call me before, frankly." Natalya raised an eyebrow.
"You know why," she frowned. "Frankly, I'm a little worried about you being an active superhero again. Don't you remember -"
"Yes," he said sharply. "But I've got it under control, alright?"
"I know, I'm sorry," she said, touching him lightly on the arm. "I didn't mean to start telling you off. I'm very grateful."
"It's alright," he said. "I suppose there's an honour in being the weapon of last resort, eh?"

"Oh!" Maya gasped, feeling a rumble beneath her feet. She was still a little jumpy from an encounter with Stantz. She'd turned a corner to see him raise a gun, and had damn near flattened him in reflexive response. "Wh...what was that?"
"I take it..." Mariko said, "she hasn't...lived in California...very long..." Sophie laughed, but hushed her. She looked down - and her laughter ceased in very short order.
"Oh no."
"What?" Mariko said, strength slowly returning to her. "What...what is it?"
"He's not dead!"

From the ground beneath them, an indigo light burst out, a pulsating orb of power. It shone brightly enough to illuminate three city blocks, and all but Spectra shielded their eyes. For a moment Ivan, the only one among them who had ever met the Indigo Titan, thought that he was in the man's awesome presence again - but no. This light was crackling, fizzing, uncontrolled. It wasn't the Titan.

The light began to fade, and the figure of a man appeared. It was and it wasn't Ricardo Hosenfluss. He had all the same features - but all could tell he was just...different. His eyes burned with violet light, a vein in the side of his temple twitched, swollen to gross proportions.
"Well now," he said. "It worked after all."

[DrDominator9]

Been busy with work but finally finished this chapter. Great job! I like how Enhancegirl seems to be becoming more dangerous and powerful than ever. Give her a pair of nose plugs and she'll be unbeatable. I mean, really, how often does EG have to smell where her opponents are?

[Damselbinder]

Been busy with work but finally finished this chapter. Great job! I like how Enhancegirl seems to be becoming more dangerous and powerful than ever. Give her a pair of nose plugs and she'll be unbeatable. I mean, really, how often does EG have to smell where her opponents are?

Nose plugs don't cut it, I'm afraid! Her senses are just too sharp.

[Damselbinder]

There were six superhumans assembled in a certain dingy lot in one of the seedier parts of Seacouver on that day. One controlled the winds. Another had senses more powerful than any animal, while the woman she held could control light itself. Another still could read minds, her nearby brother able to channel nuclear fire from his body.

Yet all of them felt their powers paling into comparison with those of the man stood before them. As he glowed with terrifying power, they realised that his attempt to replicate the powers of the Indigo Titan, the strongest man on the planet, had succeeded. He smiled, clenching one of his fists, feeling enough strength to crush diamond into powder. He then opened his hand, and felt mystic energies gathering in his palm. If he released it, he could have detonated the entire district.

All were surprised when it was Aerogirl who spoke first.
"What do you want?" she shouted. "You have power now...so what do you even want it for?" Hosenfluss smiled at this. Unsettlingly, there was light behind his teeth too.
"Oh, honey," he laughed. "What, you think I want to take over the world or something?" He cackled, and the ground shook. "What would be the point of that? I don't plan to change the way I live one bit."
"What?!"

Enhancegirl stood, stepping forward, apparently unafraid.
"You...you almost killed..." She couldn't quite get the words out. "You almost killed someone to get that power...and you don't even want it for anything?!" She clenched her fist.
"Look, ladies - and, uh, gentleman - you're all one of the 'new breed', right? Every year there's more and more of you - of us - and soon regular people aren't gonna be worth shit. Don't get me wrong, I think the Supremacist is a loon, but he's right. I just wanted to -" His face flickered. "I just wanted to be one of the ones who matter."

"That's not true," Insyte said. She saw him for what he was. "You don't care about that. You were just..." She peered in with her telepathy, his newfound power no defence against her ability. "...you were just jealous because your older brother was born with a stronger power than you. You -" She covered her mouth. "Oh my god! You - you -" She saw something she had not been looking for. She saw him with a knife in his hand. She saw his brother, a much more handsome man, bleeding to death, a yellow glow fading from his eyes. He had murdered his own brother out of sheer envy.

Hosenfluss saw that she saw, and his face twisted into bloody rage.
"You had no right!" he shouted, and raised his hand. A ball of light appeared in his hand, and he let it fly right at the pale telepath.
"Aggh!" Ivan hurled himself in front of it, summoning his full power to block the attack. He just barely managed to succeed, but he was forced to his knees. However, as his fiery barrier faded, he saw that Hosenfluss was on his knees as well.

He was clutching his head, the swollen vein throbbing in his temple.
"Aughh!" he groaned.
"Natalya," Ivan said, "what's happening to him? Does he know?"
"No, he has no idea."

But there was one who did. Mariko, lying weak and drained against a nearby wall, had overheard what Ramikin had said to him. She tried to raise her voice to let the others hear, but she couldn't find the strength.
"Sophie..." she said.
"What is it?"
"Tell the others..." Her rescuer leaned down, as Mariko whispered into her ear. By the time she was done, Sophie was grinning.

"He already had a power!" the redhead shouted. "It's really weak, but the scientist who was helping him was worried about combining it with the Titan's power." She herself could see that the ethereal glow about her, which to Sophie appeared as a multicoloured, multifaceted corona stretching out in almost all directions, was fading. "It's weakening him!" Ivan grinned.
"Oh, is that so?"

Hosenfluss saw Zjarrus coming towards him.
"W-wait!" he said. "We don't need to fight! I'm no threat to your precious city, hero. I'm not going to try to claim the world as mine - I'm just a man with a superpower now. That's all I wanted!"
"Few problems there, chum," Zjarrus said. "Firstly, this city isn't all that precious to me. Secondly, you got those powers by nearly killing someone I actually rather like. Thirdly..." He focused, and his own aura of violent red power appeared, surrounding his body with atomic fire. It hissed as the heavy rain evaporated on impact. "Thirdly, you just tried to kill my sister." Hosenfluss gritted his teeth. He was no longer certain he could beat Zjarrus. He focused his new power into his feet this time, and took off into the air.
"Oh no you don't!" Zjarrus hissed. He was about to follow, but he turned back to Natalya. She nodded.
"Don't hold back." He grinned, and flew off through the downpour into pursuit.

"Maya, what are you doing?" Sophie saw the bare-legged latina begin to take off after them, gathering the winds to carry her into the air.
"I'm going to help," she said.
"You're not as powerful as they are," Sophie insisted. "You could die!" Maya did indeed hesitate. She looked up, and saw bright, indigo light and burning, blood red flame colliding over the city.
"So could the people," she said. "If Hosenfluss wins, or if Zjarrus isn't careful..." She clenched a fist. "Sophie...you let me understand what a hero really is. I - have to do what I can."
"Bullshit," Sophie replied. "You didn't get that from me. I just taught you some moves - you've always been a hero, you understand?" She smiled.
"All the more reason then," she said, before raising herself on the wind, and flying into the fray. Natalya ran after them, trying to keep her brother in sight. This left Mariko and Sophie alone in the rain.

There was a silence. It was out of their hands now, both of them. Sophie could't pretend that this wasn't a relief. She felt a wave of exhaustion washing over her, now able to feel the pain of her battle with Regulus as her adrenaline levels went down. She looked at Mariko, who was struggling to keep her eyes open, but needing to do so to absorb light. She looked at Sophie, still hardly able to believe that her fantasy had come true. Sophie had saved her. She had called out to her in her helplessness - and she'd come.

Sophie sat down next to her friend, and felt the water splash against her skin. It felt good, cooling her overworked, tired body.
"Pretty irritating we can't fly, huh?" she said. Mariko winced.
"D...don't make me laugh..." she said. She looked up. "Of all the days...I needed sunlight most...and now it's raining. Bloody California..." She felt herself blushing, and for a moment, she didn't know why. Then she realised that Sophie's hand was resting on hers. She looked to the side, straight into the redhead's eyes. She felt a pang in her heart, her ardent affection for the redhead threatening to overspill into something she couldn't hide. She felt gratitude for Sophie's rescue of her, of course, but that wasn't why she felt so overwhelmed.

She had loved Sophie's wit, her humour, her inner strength and warmth. But now, saved by Sophie's skill, her prowess and mastery of her abilities, she felt her admiration for those qualities change. She had been in love with Sophie Scott for a while - but only now did she fall in love with Enhancegirl as well. She almost wept. Her relief took on a bittersweet quality. For as her love for the beautiful redhead swelled to a greater volume than she'd thought her heart could hold, she also knew that Sophie did not, for all that she clearly, undeniably cared for her, did not love her back.

And yet Sophie kept staring into her eyes...


"Aagghh!" Hosenfluss cried out, as another nuclear blast crashed into him, sending him into a spiral. He fired a shrieking, chaotic pulse of energy in response, but Ivan was an able flier, and avoided it. He ducked in and out of the heavy clouds, always keeping out of sight before attacking. For this reason, his next attack struck his enemy in the back, a lance of raging plasma colliding with him, causing a terrific explosion.

Hosenfluss screamed with rage. Yes, he had power now. Yes he was clearly extremely strong if he could withstand the attacks of the mighty Nucleon. But he was supposed to be invincible! He was supposed to be the equal of the Indigo Titan himself. And all because of his pathetically weak power - even now it was holding him back, keeping him from his true strength.

He cursed himself for not telling Ramikin. He probably could have worked something out, perhaps got that woman Rubio had tracked down for Ocelot to take his power away.
"FUCK!" he screamed, furious with himself, and what he saw as cruel fate, and threw out a powerful omnidirectional blast of crackling energy.

"Uurgh!" Ricardo's rage had not been in vain. Even unfocused, his power still knocked Ivan for six. He had blocked the brunt of it, but hadn't been prepared for just how powerful it was. He barely managed to right himself, a little blood trickling down his forehead. He growled, charging his power again. He looked up, and saw Hosenfluss grinning.

The attack hadn't taken much effort at all, and he'd injured Nucleon already. Ricardo grinned. He might not have been as powerful as the Titan - but he might still have be stronger than Nucleon. He charged an attack, and fired. Ivan just about avoided it, but he realised that the blast was still travelling down.

It hit the ground, exploding, blowing a chunk out of a nearby building. It was early and there weren't many on the streets, but a middle-aged couple was walking just underneath the building Ricardo had damaged. The stone tumbled towards them, and they screamed - but it didn't hit them. They looked up to see a beautiful, caramel skinned latina had caught the rubble in a cage of air. She let it down safely.
"Are you alright?" she called out, flying a few feet above them.
"Uh...yeah," the woman of the couple said. The latina smiled, and began flying away. "Wait a minute!" the woman she'd saved called out. "You're Aerogirl, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's right," she replied, keeping a nervous eye on the battle in the clouds.
"Th-thank you." Aerogirl smiled, and flew away, caressed by the winds who served her.
"I never believed what they say about you in the papers!" the man called out, as the heroine sped towards more people she could help.


"Sophie, I -"
"Mariko, listen -" Both heroines, sitting close together in the rain, tried to speak at the same time. Sophie laughed quietly. "You go first." Mariko swallowed. She didn't know whether it was appropriate. Would Sophie be offended? Would she think it was unseemly or embarrassing? She didn't know how people generally behaved in these situations. She almost thought to silence herself.

But she couldn't quite do that.
"Sophie," she said, her voice a little shaky. "I'm about to...do something very selfish."
"What do you mean?"
"When they were...draining me..." she said, risking what energy she'd recovered by talking at all. "I thought I was going to die. I won't pretend that it was my only regret, but...it was my most bitter." She closed her eyes. It wasn't what she'd been taught. She'd been taught restraint, and control. But she couldn't stop herself. "I can't...I can't now bear the thought of something happening to me without telling you." She was breathing hard. "Sophie, I..." She opened her eyes, looking into Sophie's as she did. "I'm in love with you...with all my heart, Sophie, I love you..."

Mariko didn't quite understand Sophie's expression as she the redhead heard her words. She couldn't read it. Was it shock? Pity?
"Please, don't misunderstand," Mariko said, her voice trembling. "I don't expect anything. I know you couldn't - you don't feel the same way..." The redhead covered her mouth with her hands. "I've embarrassed you..." Mariko sighed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -"

And then she saw the tears in Sophie's eyes, spilling out, rolling down her lovely cheeks, mixing with the rain that soaked her hair and her skin.
"What is it? I - I didn't mean to upset you!" Mariko tried to reach out to wipe the tears away, but her arms were still too weak. "I understand, I do. I'm - I'm arrogant, and prideful, and cold...I barely understand other people at all - I've been so cruel: I've put you down so many times without even thinking about it - please, please don't think I don't get it!"
"Oh, Mariko..." Sophie said. "Please...please forgive me..."
"What?" Mariko suddenly found herself wrapped in Sophie's arms, the maiden's cheek against her own.

"I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry..." she repeated.
"It's alright," Mariko said, "I told you, I didn't expect -"
"No, you don't get it!" Sophie pulled back, holding Mariko by the shoulders, and looking right at her. "I'm sorry for letting you think you were cold, or cruel. You're not, okay? You're thoughtful in a way I've never known anyone before. You just...you just think a little differently from most people. It's not bad, or wrong, or...or cold. I can see your warmth...your compassion..."

Sophie found herself almost blinded by tears, and wiped them away on her long glove. "Fuck, I'm not explaining this right...look, I'm not...I'm not as confident as I seem, okay?"
"I know that," Mariko said. She'd seen Sophie's vulnerable side.
"Of course you do," Sophie laughed. "Of course you do, you're my best friend..." She wiped some of the tears away. "But I really mean it! It's just you seemed so strong, and so powerful...and you are! I - I didn't think I could compare to you. I didn't think you could ever feel anything for someone like me...someone who'd let herself get - get -" She searched for the right word. "Sullied - by that fucking liar! It was so easy to think I was just...weak." She let go of one of Mariko's shoulders, clenching a fist. "God, I probably let her do it just to...prove that I was right about myself!"

Mariko looked on with a great depth of feeling for Sophie's obvious pain, but she still didn't understand.
"I buried it, Mariko," Sophie said. "I didn't let myself even realise, because it hurt too much. You were so far above me...so far away..." She had a wistful sadness in her eyes. "I didn't think I deserved to climb up to where you were..."
"I don't...I don't know what you mean..." Mariko said. Her body was shaking. "What are you saying?" Sophie laughed slightly.
"Seriously? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one..."

She came closer, kneeling so that her legs were almost entwined with Mariko's. Their faces were very close together now.
"D-don't you remember? That night in your house," Sophie said, her voice scarcely above a whisper. "I came into your bed, Mariko. I held you...I slept next to you...I wrapped you in my arms..." She slowly, very slowly, began caressing Mariko's soft cheek as the thick rain pelted them. "Didn't you know then? Didn't at least part of you realise that I belong to you?"

"Wh...what?" Mariko said, almost inaudibly. "You - you...what?" she stammered. She didn't dare to believe what she was hearing.
"Mariko...I love you too," Sophie said, finding that the words came much more easily than she'd thought. "I love you so much...every part of me wants to be yours...wants to be with you. Every inch of me is - is...desperate to touch you, to be near you. I've loved you for so much longer than I realised...and I've been falling deeper and deeper all the time. I was just too stupid to realise it. But I know it now, okay? You're..." Her voice quavered. "You're my soulmate..."

"I don't believe you," Mariko sobbed. "This is a trick! I'm still a captive aren't I?! They've got some...some illusionist taunting me!"
"What?" Sophie gasped.
"This can't be real! It's too perfect...I've dreamed about this! I -" She stopped, finding her head in Sophie's hands. She looked directly into her eyes, unable to look away.
"Mariko...my heroine..." Sophie said, "let me show you how real it is." She leaned forward, and slowly, with exquisite, feminine tenderness, she kissed the lips of the woman she loved.

"Mmmmhhh..." Mariko sighed, as she felt Sophie's warm lips against hers, wet with rain and tears. She closed her eyes. She wanted to believe it. Desperately she wanted to believe it - but could she bear the pain if it was a trick? But then it occurred to her that that didn't matter. "She's worth the risk," she thought. "She's worth any risk..." She opened her mouth slightly, allowing Sophie's tongue to meet hers. She moved forward a little, kissing Sophie back, passionately falling into her beloved's arms as they gently, tenderly explored each other.

Sophie drew Mariko even closer, feeling with a sharp, radiant joy as Mariko returned the kiss, feeling her ardour met every inch of the way, the two beautiful lovers awash with the waters pouring from the sky. Even as they kissed, Sophie felt herself laughing with happiness. She'd known, rationally speaking, that what Insyte had told her was the truth. She was a telepath, how could she be wrong? But it was only now that the truth of Mariko's love took hold inside her heart. The two beautiful, closely entwined maidens broke the kiss, their noses brushing.
"Sophie..." Mariko whispered.
"You believe me now?" Sophie said, wiping away the tears that were welling up in Mariko's eyes.
"Y-yes..." the willowy beauty replied. "That was...that was more real than anything I've ever experienced...oh, my love!" Mariko sighed, and kissed her again. "It hurt...it hurt so much..." The floodgates burst, all the passion she'd hidden away coming out all at once. "Realising it, and thinking you'd never feel as I did...seeing you with - with..."
"Oh, God, Mariko, I'm so sorry!" Sophie gasped, squeezing her soulmate against her. "I was such an idiot! You almost died because of my fucking inferiority complex!" She began shaking with half-restrained sobs.

"Ssshhh..." Mariko breathed into her ear. Sophie felt a wave of effervescent tingles up her spine as she heard Mariko's gentle, hushing whisper. "It's alright, my love," the oriental maiden said. She felt her heart pound as she was able to call Sophie with the epithet she'd longed to use. "You made a mistake, and maybe it was foolish...but you couldn't have known..." With a great effort of strength, she lifted her arms, and softly embraced her flame-haired rescuer. "We've...we've found our way to each other now," she said. "You're a good person - have no doubt of that; you're earnest, intelligent, and heroic, and so...so beautiful, Sophie...and you love me..." She kissed Sophie on the cheek. "It really would be the height of fussiness for me to complain about your ex-girlfriend."

Sophie laughed.
"You don't think the circumstances are, like, a little more extreme than you're making them out to be?"
"I really don't care, Sophie. I mean it," said Mariko. "You don't...you don't know how happy I am right now..."
"Yes, Mariko," Sophie replied, "I do." She took Mariko's hand, and kissed her slender wrist. "I really, really do..."


"HYYAAGGHH!" Ivan screamed, as he charged towards Hosenfluss in a dizzying spiral of red hot energy. Hosenfluss fired blast after blast at him, but he had only had his powers for minutes, and was hardly practiced with them. As such, Ivan managed to get right up to him, the sallow man drawing his arm back for a punch.

"Really, Nucleon?" Hosenfluss laughed. "You're going to p -" He was caught across the chin by a blow that came much faster than he'd anticipated. This was because Ivan hadn't punched him, exactly. He'd triggered an explosion out of his elbow that sent his arm into Hosenfluss like a rocket.

A few feet below him, a British tourist was huffing in a decidedly fusty manner on top of the Seacouver Needle.
"If I had wanted it to be pouring with rain, I would have stayed in bloody England!" he grumbled.
"I say, dear," his wife said. "What's that over there?" He followed her gaze, seeing an indigo light streaking through the sky.
"Oh, I expect it's one of the city's rather appalling glut of supermen," he replied. "I don't know why the American ones all feel the need to gather in one place the way they do. Seems dashed inefficient to me. I mean send a few over to bloody Shropshire, why don't you? Spare us all from Gideon Goodheart, for Christ's sake..."
"I say again, dear," his wife replied, "doesn't it seem as if it's getting just a trifle closer?"
"Nonsense woman, why would -" He looked again. "Oh, hang about, dearie, you might just be onto something." He peered closer still. "Good Lord!"

With a deafening crash, the empowered businessman crashed into the Needle. He'd slowed himself down to some extent, but his understanding of the principles of flight were so poor that he hadn't been able to right himself. He hit the observation platform, almost knocking the tourists off like bowling pins, rolling over a dozen times before climbing to his feet. He was still smiling, though. He'd been knocked back - but he wasn't hurt.

"Hey, is that Ricardo Hosenfluss?" His smile ceased abruptly.
"Hey, yeah, it is!" He saw the flash of a camera. "I didn't know he was a super!" Ricardo's stomach tightened. This wasn't supposed to happen. No-one was supposed to know about what had happened. He had no intention of shedding his cushy corporate lifestyle, and if it was discovered how he got his powers...
"I'm sorry about this everyone," he said, as he ignited a ball of energy. "It really isn't anything personal." He turned around, and was about to murder everyone on the platform, when he found himself caught in sudden maelstrom of air. "What the...?!" he growled, buffeted from all sides. "Whooaa!"

He found himself hurled into the air, as the maelstrom began to form into something rather more fierce. Spun round and round at truly dizzying speed, Hosenfluss found himself caught by a tornado. "Aagh!" He roared, in frustration, rather than pain. Every so often, he saw a flash of a woman in a skimpy yellow-and-green outfit, mastering the winds, keeping him trapped. "Oh, no, no," he growled. "HAA!" He threw his power out in an explosion of indigo light.

"Uhh!" Aerogirl cried out, the protective cyclone she'd weaved around herself barely defending her. She was hurled back, her tornado fading as she lost concentration.
"Not by you," Hosenfluss growled. "Nucleon? Alright, sure, I'll accept him giving me a bit of a tough time. But you? Fucking Aerogirl? No, no way. You don't get to even irritate me."
"You're evil!" Maya shouted back. "You...it isn't for you to decide which of us f-fights you!"
"No, I suppose not," he said. "I guess I'll just settle for the power of life and death, shall I?" He lifted his hands, and gathered a huge ball of energy in his hands. Maya gaped. She had no way of really sensing his power, but she could tell - there was enough in that sphere of light to kill her a thousand times over.

"Time to die, little damsel," he said. This would be only the second time he had murdered someone by his own hand. It had been rather fun the last time - he anticipated it would be the same now. It was rather jarring for him, then, when a column of nuclear flame engulfed his energy ball, and caused it to explode.

"AAAGGHHH!!" He roared, sent spinning wildly by his own power. He was prevented from landing when another blast hit him from behind. "Damn you!" he shouted. "Come out and fight!" Ivan did just that.
"You gave me an idea," he said, as he drew his hands back to charge another attack, "when you crashed into the Shitty Needle. I've come up with your supervillain name!" He gestured grandly. "I give you Ricardo Hosenfluss: the Shitty Titan!"
"Don't you mock me! DON'T YOU MOCK ME!" Rather to his chagrin, Ivan found a flurry of indigo beams of light flying towards him.
"Oh, hell!"

He was struck by one, and sent plummeting down. Ricardo followed him, pelting him with shot after shot, forcing him to expend energy defending himself. Stray blasts sent rubble and stone flying everywhere, and only the intervention of Aerogirl, catching, deflecting, or destroying errant masonry prevented dozens of deaths.

By now the running battle had drawn media attention, and wary news helicopters caught glimpses of the battle as it raged in the skies of Seacouver. Speculation ran rampant: who was it that Nucleon was fighting? Reports were coming in that it was the businessman Ricardo Hosenfluss, that he'd tried to kill a group of tourists, who'd been rescued by Aerogirl of all people.

They followed the battle as the indigo lights became more and more frequent, and Ivan's responses more intermittent. Despite the pale man's mastery of his abilities, Hosenfluss was simply stronger: nothing Ivan hit him with fazed him for long. The black-haired diplomat found himself growing increasingly enraged by Hosenfluss' failure to go down.

As it happened, he and Hosenfluss happened to fly again over the lot where Sophie and Mariko were. This was not such a great coincidence: they covered almost the entire map at one point. However, it was at this point where Ivan, sick of running, made a stand.
"Enough!" he shouted, surrounding himself in a sphere of energy. One of Ricardo's blasts hit him, but it deflected off the sphere, and span away.

"You!" Ivan shouted. A little curious at what his enemy was up to, and now rather convinced of his own might, Hosenfluss stopped. "If you really want to test your strength, stay right there!" He put out his arms, forming a cross with his limbs. He breathed hard, and focused. He began to build the energy inside himself, channeling the full might of the nuclear cauldron at his command.

"Haaaaaaaaa!!" he cried out, as the level of energy rose higher, and higher. His red aura started shaking and sputtering as it grew higher, heat now pouring in waves from his body. He could feel it trying to burst forth, but he wouldn't allow it to. He locked eyes with his enemy, and gritted his teeth. "I am sick of being the man who can fight the best, but never win!" he thought. "I am sick of being the silver bloody medallist! This time, this man - I will kill!" He stared up at the arrogant, smug villain, and for a moment he saw not the greasy-haired, tanned businessman, but a bald, green-armoured Australian. "GYYAGGHH!!" he screamed with hatred, and clasped his hands together in front of him. A red light appeared in his palms, but he held it in. It tried to come out again, but he held it in. He had to wait, wait for the pain of restraining his power to become more than he could bear.

He laughed. When he'd first started using his powers, he'd rather childishly given names to his various attacks, though in the early days it had helped him to focus a bit better. But there was always one he'd never had the chance to use - and it was the best one he'd ever come up with, too. He grinned viciously.
"CRITICAL MASS!" he screamed, and let forth a blast of such raging, tempestuous intensity and size that the very sky seemed to turn orange.

Hosenfluss just stood there and laughed. And he continued to do so, right until it hit him.
"Oh, sh -" He was engulfed, as the blood-red might of Zjarrus carried him further and further into the sky. "AAHHH!!" he cried out, feeling the blistering, burning heat of Ivan's attack all around him. He knew in that moment what it might be like to fall into a star.

"No!" Long since having given up physically chasing him, Ivan's sister had been watching the battle on a television in a shop. She didn't need the television to see his last attack though. "Christ, Ivan, no!" she gasped. "He won't be able to control himself!"
"AAHHHHAHAHAHAHA!" Ivan laughed, feeling a rush through his body as he let loose with his full power, better than any drug he'd ever sampled. "I'm the strongest!" he cackled. "Do you hear that, Martin?! I'M THE STRONGEST!!" He put even more power in, exulting in his might.

Yet within the nuclear tempest, a light emerged, an indigo light that formed itself into a sphere.
"No!" Hosenfluss screamed back, charred, but not remotely beaten. "No! Not now! Not now that I'm finally powerful!" Defiant, he let fly a blast of his own, throwing all of the power he could feel in himself down. It seemed like it would overpower Ivan at first, but soon the two men's powers met at a rough equilibrium, sometimes shifting in Ivan's favour, sometimes in Ricardo's.
"Gyyyaaahhh!!" Ivan screamed, not willing to give an inch. "No, NO! Not this time!" He would not relent, even as he felt terrible pain throughout his body.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Enhancegirl, a hundred feet or so below, gaped up at the battle directly above them. "Damn, Ivan's really going at it?"
"I'm...not complaining..." Mariko said. She was still very weak from her ordeal, but the burning brilliance of Zjarrus and Hosenfluss' battle was giving her more light than the dismal, rainy morning. So she had enough strength now to reach out for Sophie's hand, entwining her fingers with her love's. The redhead turned to look at her.
"You sure you're gonna be alright?" she asked. "When I found you, you...you looked so weak, I thought you'd -"
"I'm...over the danger, I think," Mariko replied. She smiled. "I've no intention of letting you rid yourself of me so easily."

Sophie lifted Mariko's hand, and kissed it. It felt thrilling to be able to be so affectionate with the proud damsel she'd fallen for.
"Same here," she replied. She pressed her forehead against Mariko's, shutting her eyes. "Even if we all blown up in the next ten minutes," the redhead said, "I'm so glad this happened...I'm so glad that I realised..."
"I know, I -" She noticed something, however, when she happened to glance up. "Sophie, look. I think something's wrong with Ivan!"

Enhancegirl followed her gaze, and saw that there was indeed something amiss. His body was contorting, twisting, and spurts of energy were flying out of him.
"Fuck, I think he's losing control of his power!" Sophie exclaimed.
"For a man named, 'Nucleon', I have a feeling that that's not a good thing."
"You're not -" Sophie stopped talking. With her enhanced vision, she saw another involuntary blast come off Ivan's body. In less than one tenth of a second, the redhead had calculated its trajectory. It was headed straight for them.

Sophie realised how powerful it was. She knew her slender body would provide scant defence. But she didn't think very hard about it. She leapt on top of Mariko, prepared to defend the woman she loved with her life. But the awful fire and heat never came. She dared to open her eyes, and turned around.

There was a brilliant, golden-white shield of light protecting them both from the blast. It hadn't been just a stray fireball - it had been quite as powerful as many of the attacks that Ivan had used against Hosenfluss during their battle.
"Rgh..." Spectra, Mistress of Light, groaned, holding the barrier until she was sure the inadvertent attack was spent. She dropped the barrier.
"Whoa, Mariko, that was amazing!" Sophie gasped. "I didn't think you'd have that kind of power yet." She clutched Mariko's hand - but it didn't squeeze back. "Mariko?" She turned around.

Mariko was staring straight up. Her breathing was shallow, and slow. Sophie could see that her heartbeat was erratic, and getting slower. She was shivering.
"I shouldn't have done that," she said, very calmly. With what looked like it took a great deal of effort, she turned her head to look at her red-haired companion. She smiled. "I love you, Sophie."

With that, her eyes fell shut, and her body shuddered.
"Mariko? Mariko?" Sophie said, shaking the oriental beauty by the shoulder. "S-sweetie, what's wrong?" her voice trembled. She was barely breathing, and her heartbeat was getting slower, and slower. She'd used far more power than she'd really had, and had delved into reserves that should never have been delved into. With a horror that could scarcely be described, Sophie realised that Mariko was dying.

"No!" She scanned every inch of her beautiful sweetheart, looking for something, anything she could do. She tried opening her eyes, making her look at the raging battle to absorb more light, but they wouldn't stay open. "No, no no! NO!" she screamed, clutching Mariko against her. "It's not fair...it's not fair..." She looked up at the battle of the two mighty superhumans above her, who had doomed her beloved by sheer accident. "AAHHH!!" she let loose a vicious, enraged, sorrowful scream at them. If she could have killed them both, she would have.


Completely unaware that he had just broken Sophie's heart, Ivan continued to fight, pouring all he had in a seemingly never-ending torrent. Aerogirl watched in horror as she saw the core of the struggle between the two build, the pressure of energy not able to be released.
"Whoever wins," she said in horror to herself, "the city will be destroyed!" She tried to do something, to create a cyclone to funnel the energy upwards, but that didn't work. She couldn't hold energy. There was only one thing for it.

She flew right next to the maelstrom, and began coiling a powerful cyclone around it, weaving the winds tighter and tighter in a funnel of air that would have ripped to pieces anyone inside it. Neither saw her. Neither even noticed. In their battle, they were simply trying to kill each other - only Aerogirl had a nobler purpose.

She knew that, when the energy blew up - and it would - it would kill her. But, much like someone leaping on a grenade, she hoped that her cyclone of wind would cushion the explosion at the moment of its beginning, reducing its impact. Even if she couldn't save everyone, perhaps she could save most of them.

As she rallied more and more winds to her favour, putting her abilities under quite some strain, she saw the clash of energies began to pulsate within her cage of air. It was beginning to happen.
"It's alright," she said to herself, trying to calm down. "It's alright...this is good..." she said, again and again. "Maybe...mother will be watching...maybe she'll be proud..." She felt the two men begin to lose control of the clash. She saw that she was about to die. But then she felt a whisper, a dark, but soft whisper in the back of her mind. "Not yet, my dear...not yet..."

"Ogghh!"
"Auugghh!" the two combatants cried out, as the felt a strange force knock them both aside. Both expected the other's attack to pass them.
"NO!" Ivan screamed, realising that if Hosenfluss won, the attack would go straight into the city. Sanity took hold of him again, and he realised that neither had won. "What the hell?!"

A storm was raging. A very small, but very powerful storm. A woman held the violent energies in a cage of wind, compressing them, crushing them into a smaller and smaller space. He recognised the woman, but couldn't quite believe his eyes. "Is that...Aerogirl?" It was, but one could forgive him for thinking otherwise. The woman's eyes burned bright gold, and a destructive tempest swirled about her. "How is that possible?!" Ivan gasped. It didn't matter how powerful she was - wind couldn't hold nuclear plasma - and Hosenfluss' power wasn't even physical in nature. "Whatever she's doing," he thought, "and however she's doing it...it has nothing to do with controlling air!"

Hosenfluss saw it too, only his response was more wrathful than bewildered.
"How dare she interfere? That little weakling!" He flew down to her, having to adjust his trajectory several times. "You - ghhakkh!" As soon as he opened his mouth, Aerogirl took the energy she'd collected, compressed it into a sphere the size of a golf ball, and shoved it down his throat.

"Hghhakhh!" he groaned. "Whh...auhh!" He felt the energies inside him being released from their cage. He looked up in horror, at a pair of merciless, glowing eyes. "Oh...god!" he groaned. Panicked, he flew up as high as he could, somehow hoping that this would save him. But it didn't.

As he raced above the clouds trying somehow to push the chaotic energies out of his body, he realised that he couldn't.
"Oh god, oh god," he muttered again and again. "I'm going to die...I'm going to die..." He felt the power reach a crisis point, as the last of Aerogirl's cage faded. "Julian...I'm sorry..." The energy exploded within him, in a catastrophic blast equivalent to about four times the payload of the bomb that the Americans would have dropped on Hiroshima.

This left Ricardo, much to his surprise, completely unharmed.
"Aha...ahaha!" he laughed. "Ahahaha!" The interaction of the dexite with his weak telekinesis had stifled his physical strength and his powers of energy projection, but his durability was on par with the man he was trying to match. He'd been wrong to try to challenge Ivan's attack - it was a waste of energy. He could have just ridden out the storm. Aerogirl hadn't been trying to kill him - she was just putting the energy where it could explode harmlessly.

Except there was one small problem. He didn't possess the Titan's rapid healing power either. He felt a small pain in the side of his neck, and looked to see that the piece of synthetic tubing used to patch up the wound he'd been given after Spectra's near-deadly attack had burst from the pressure of the energies inside him. He felt his life blood flow out of him.

Instinctively, he reached up to do the same thing he'd done before, apply pressure with his native power to the wound. Except, Hosenfluss hadn't realised why his other powers had been so much weaker than the Titan's. As he applied his original power, expecting the tiny pressure which had saved him before, he instead sent out a pulse of telekinetic energy far, far mightier than his energy projection powers. In a lifetime of shame over his pathetically weak ability, it hadn't once occurred to him to try using it after his empowerment. For that reason, he rather caught himself by surprise when, instead of holding his wound closed, he snapped his own neck. He died instantly, tumbling down to the city below. It landed in the ocean, just off the docks.

His body wouldn't be found for weeks.


A few hundred feet below, Aerogirl's supernatural might began to dim. The danger over, her eyes lost their lustre, and the winds around her died.
"What did I...oohhh..." she swooned, and began falling, her strength spent. She would have, as she'd predicted, met her demise - but for the black-haired, pale wielder of nuclear fire, who swooped in to catch her.
"Oh, no you don't!" he said, holding her tightly. "No-one gets to save me from doing something really stupid and then die! D'you want to give me nightmares, woman?"
"Unnhh..." Maya mewed, looking up at the sharp featured man who held her. She looked into his eyes.
"Well, hello there," he said, cocking an eyebrow. He realised that his hands were on the bare skin of a very fine pair of legs - indeed, he held in his arms a very lovely young woman. Maya blushed...and then passed out in his arms. "Hmm..." He clucked his tongue. "That's a very ambiguous response..."

He saw that he was near the lot where Sophie and Mariko were, and he flew down with Maya, laying her down near the two other heroines.
"Ahoy my dears," he said. "What's the - Jesus!" As soon as he came near, Enhancegirl launched herself at him. "Agh, Christ!" His physical fighting left much to be desired, and he was assailed by a raging flurry of attacks. "Fucking hell, what are you - aahh!" A vicious kick smashed into his jaw, nearly breaking it, and sending him spinning to the ground. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

She seized him by the collar, lifting him up. He drew his hand back, igniting his powers. "Hit me again," he said, "and I will hit back." It was then, however, that she saw tears streaming down her face.
"You killed her."
"What?" Ivan didn't understand. "Killed whom?" He turned around to Maya. "She's fine, she's just - AH!" Another punch, this time to the other side of his jaw.
"Not her!" Sophie was shaking with rage and grief. "You incontinent fuck! You couldn't hold it together for five minutes?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?!"
"She saved me...Mariko saved me from one of your little run offs! But she...she didn't have the strength..."

Ivan looked past her, and saw Mariko lying flat on her back, completely limp.
"Oh my god," he mumbled. "Is...is she dead?"
"I don't know," Sophie said. "Her heart's still beating but...it's getting slower..." She shook. "Ivan I can feel it. I can feel her slipping away..." She went back over to her, and put her hand on her chest. "She's got...maybe a minute left..."
"Christ, woman, have you called an ambulance?"
"Of course I have! But that's not..." She could see it, with her enhanced senses, but she couldn't explain it. "It's not...she needs light...but there isn't enough." Again, she held Spectra's eyes open, and they were fearfully unfocused and unresponsive.
"The clouds..." Ivan murmured.
"What?"
"The clouds..." He looked up.

"Sophie, right? That's your real name?"
"Yeah, wh-why?"
"Turn your powers off."
"What for?"
"You'll know it when you see it, my dear." With that, he ignited his corona of power, and took off into the sky. "Make sure she sees!" He shouted back.

Sophie was left in the rain, clutching the still body of the woman she'd found that she loved so dearly. It wasn't fair. No, it was cruel. She had so much she wanted to know about Mariko, so much of herself that she wanted to show, and to discover alongside the beautiful maiden to whom she'd given her heart.
"Downgrade," she said, reverting to her civilian clothing - a short, cream sundress - her senses fading to normal levels. "Oh!" she gasped. Without her enhanced senses, Mariko's breathing and heartbeat were invisible to her - she looked truly lifeless.

Above the grieving heroine, in the midst of the clouds, Ivan floated. Once again, he gathered his power. But this time, he didn't even try to restrain himself. He gathered everything he had within himself, feeling his muscles ache with the strain.
"Oh, I really hope the newscopters have the sense to back off..." he muttered. He gathered every drop of energy into himself - and then released it.

"Ungh!" Natalya groaned as, a few thousand feet below, she and the rest of the city were hit by a powerful shockwave. She looked up, but her eyes couldn't bear it for long. A huge ball of nuclear fire was expanding out, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet in diameter. She knew it was Ivan, but she didn't understand. The whole city was shaking.
"He's never done this before," she thought. "What is he thinking?" A terrible thought came to her. "Can he...survive this?"

"Urghh!" Sophie groaned, as everything around her shook. But she understood. She pointed Mariko's limp head right at the explosion, and held her eyes open. For a moment, nothing happened - but as the clouds were thrown aside by Ivan's power, the sun appeared in the sky, bathing them city in golden light next to the orange and red fire that had revealed it.

"Aaaaahhh!" Mariko gasped, as her body was flooded with energy. She shook - it was almost too much - but Sophie felt with a shock of relief as Mariko's heart began to pump as it should have done, her breathing becoming, though still weak, safe. "Wh...what happened?" she whimpered. She felt odd, both drained, and filled with power at the same time. "Wh...what happened to the rain?"

But Sophie didn't respond. She couldn't. She just wrapped her arms around Mariko, and began intensely, furiously kissing her. Mariko was a little taken aback, but she had no objections. Sophie lay on top of her, embracing her, entwining her long legs with Mariko's naked, slender limbs, feeling her sensuous beauty, her delicacy. Mariko, for her part, perceived the feminine softness of her lover, her cheeks crimsoning as the oriental maiden felt Sophie's smooth, creamy skin. Neither spoke, but every kiss, every embrace, every caress said the same thing:
"I want you. I need you. I love you."

Natalya, seeing the battle return to where it had started, returned to the lot, hoping to find her brother. Instead, she saw Mariko and Sophie entwined in love and desire, lying on the wet ground, kissing each other again and again and again. "Oh!" she gasped, blushing as she felt their ardent passion, but finding herself smiling as well. She felt in both young women a warm, strong river, un-dammed at last, flowing freely from one to the other, its waters formed of sweet affection, its banks built of deep, mutual admiration and respect.
"My Sophie..." she heard Mariko think, "you're so warm..."
"I'm yours..." Sophie seemed to reply. "I'm yours, Mariko..."

"I'm okay...I'm okay..." Insyte heard from behind her.
"Ivan!" It was he. Battered, burned, even his resistance to his own power taxed by what he'd done, he'd managed to stagger back to the ground on his sputtering, failing powers. "Why did you do that?! Are you insane?"
"Too hard...too explain...but I assure you it was both noble...and extremely impressive..." He slumped down onto his knees. "I just...don't think my powers are going to work again for...quite a while..." He looked up to check that Mariko was alright. He saw her, very much alive - passionately kissing and caressing a woman of just as great beauty as herself.
"Hey, alright," he said. "And I'm not even paying for this. Ow!" he cried out, as his sister slapped him on the back of his head. "God damn it, I shouldn't have helped you get so assertive!"
"Just be quiet, Ivan!" Natalya hissed. "This is a beautiful moment...and whether they knew it or not," the telepath said, "they've been waiting a very long time for it..."

It was at that moment that Maya awoke. She saw Insyte and the charred, burned Ivan on one side, and Sophie and Mariko passionately kissing on the other side.
"I...I guess we won...?" she thought.

Nearby, on a high rooftop, another woman watched Sophie and Mariko kissing through a pair of high-tech binoculars. She felt a painful pang of envy - but resignation too.
"She deserves it," she thought. She sighed. "Have a nice life, Pippi..." The high-class social scene of Seacouver wondered why - after the day that titans battled in the skies of the city, the day with the morning of two suns, where the most unlikely heroine had become the most celebrated woman in the city, having saved millions of lives - they never again caught sight of Rachel Artesia.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That evening, Mariko Asakura found herself sitting alone in her large house, reclining on her couch, dressed in a sleeveless, turtle-necked sweater-dress. She curled her toes in the carpet beneath her feet. She almost couldn't believe she'd made it back. A small, black cat with a patch over one eye was sitting on her warm, bare thighs, purring contentedly as she stroked it.

She felt a kind of lightness, not giddiness exactly, but something close to it. She felt like a cripple who, after ten years of being unable to walk, suddenly found themselves restored to strength and wholeness - fulfilling a hope that they had tried to quash, but never quite could. She'd felt like her heart was torn apart when she'd discovered, sitting in that very room, that she was in love with Sophie. Finding that the energetic, incorrigible girl loved her back, though, hadn't merely repaired the damage - it was like she'd been given a new heart entirely. Stronger, larger - and capable of far more love than Mariko had realised, even after she'd known about her feelings.

"Hey," Sophie said, somewhat coyly, as she walked in, carrying a steaming cup of tea. "I'm not much of a tea-lady," she said. "I had to find a bag. Hope that's okay."
"It's fine," Mariko said, "I'm the one who's still too weak to get my own tea...but aren't you the woman who once told me that instant coffee was the single worst crime of the twentieth century? 'I'm excluding genocides, but everything short of that - instant coffee is worse'. That's what you said, isn't it?"
"Tea's tea, coffee's coffee. It's not the same."
"Yes: tea is drunk by the world's civilised cultures, and coffee is for, well...Americans."
"Careful," Sophie replied, "or I might accidentally tip and spill this stuff aaall over that nice Persian rug of yours."
"Oh, be quiet," Mariko said, though she couldn't keep the smile off her face.

Sophie handed her the mug, and sat down next to her. Arthur opened one eye and, seeing Sophie, hissed - but then went straight back to sleep.
"Such a little asshole!" Sophie said.
"Oh, he's alright," Mariko replied, tickling the little tom's chin. "He seems rather frosty, but he wasn't a very happy kitten - wasn't in a good home, as I understand it. He takes a while to trust you, but once he does, he's a rather sweet, affectionate creature." Mariko felt Sophie sidling up against her, their shoulders touching.
"Kinda sounds like someone I know," Sophie said, very quietly. She leaned in, and kissed Mariko's long, slender neck. "I don't think I ever said this before," Sophie half-whispered. "I guess I didn't want to inflate your ego...but Mariko, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life..."

Mariko felt her heart fluttering. She put her tea down, and shooed Arthur off her lap. She turned towards Sophie, stroking her sweetheart's calf with her foot.
"I adore you, Sophie," Mariko said, her difficulty in expressing her feelings making them come out all the more passionately when she did. "And I...there's no sight I find lovelier than you..."
"Mmm..." Sophie sighed. Even such a simple gesture as Mariko rubbing her calf made her tingle. She looked into Mariko's sharp, eyes, the eyes of a warrior and a pristine, if rather caustic, intellect. But they were also the eyes of a thoughtful, and strangely vulnerable young woman. Sophie loved that vulnerability, as she loved every part of Mariko. It made her want to take care of the willowy maiden, to make her feel safe, and cherished. So too Sophie felt Mariko's strength, felt warm and comforted in her arms, and knew that Mariko would always be there for her - she'd felt that even before she'd realised she loved her. Now she felt it that much more intensely.

She loved how Mariko moved, how she breathed...she even loved the steady thump of her hero's heart. She ran her hand through her lover's short, black hair.
"I just..." she began, but she didn't know what to say. She laughed. "It's almost, like, convenient, you know what I mean?"
"Oh, very romantic," Mariko said, smiling sardonically.
"No, it's..." she took Mariko's hands. "You're already my best friend. I already know you so well, it's like...it doesn't feel fast, you know what I mean? I...feel like we've already earned it." Mariko understood, but only because Sophie had explained it. That sort of complexity of human relation was normally a little beyond her, but her emotions led where her mind could only tentatively follow.
"I...think I understand," she said. She felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. She still felt very weak, and she fell back against the couch.

"Hey, Mariko, you okay?" Sophie said, holding her gently. Mariko's eyes opened gently - and Sophie almost gasped. All hardness was gone. She looked at the heroine with open, soft and tender eyes.
"I am now," she said. "Sophie?"
"Yeah?"
"Kiss me..."

Sophie smiled, and slowly leaned in. She pressed her mouth gently against Mariko's, and both maidens embraced with their arms and lips.
"Mmhh..." they sighed, feeling each other's warm, loving kiss, their bare legs slowly rubbing against each other. They broke the kiss, but stayed very close.
"With all my heart, Mariko..." Sophie said. "With all my heart, you understand?"
"Yes, I understand," she replied. "Will you...stay with me?"
"Forever," Sophie said. Again, the two melted into each other, their hearts singing, as they both sighed and whimpered tenderly into the other's mouth. It felt to Sophie almost as if it could never have ended any other way, so right did it feel to belong to Mariko, and for Mariko to belong to her - she'd just never expected to find herself in a love story.

[mjkjets]

Excellent ending. Is this the finale?

[DrDominator9]

So, so, so enjoyable and heart-warming. I'm not sure that Sophie should have been lying all over a very depleted Spectre but girls will be girls. I look forward to your next installment but you've certainly earned a break.

[shevek]

So beautiful! Major kudos on this amazing saga, it should be put to film,

I'd be hard put to write a lesbian love story as poignant as this. But I'm gonna try!

[Damselbinder]

"Hey, gorgeous..." Mariko Asakura woke up to the feeling of a warm hand stroking her face. She blinked a couple of times, and saw staring back at her the sweet, lightly freckled face of Sophie Scott, her fellow heroine - and her beloved. She returned the gesture, caressing Sophie's face; then pulled her in. She kissed her sleepily on the mouth, feeling her lips tingle as she did, before sitting up in her bed.

"How long have I been asleep?" she said. It had been eleven in the morning when she'd laid down 'for a brief rest'.
"About twelve hours," Sophie replied. "Guess you were pretty fucking exhausted."
"What?" Mariko looked at her clock. "I've slept the whole day away..."
"Don't feel bad; I slept for most of it too." Sophie had fought long and very hard to free Mariko from the clutches of Ricardo Hosenfluss, and while they hadn't done to her what they'd done to Mariko, she'd still been exceptionally tired.

"What did you do while I was asleep?" Mariko asked.
"Not much. I just kinda hung around your house. Watched half of The Poseidon Adventure." She grinned. "Stole some food from your fridge."
"You've been with me for less than a day and you're already mooching off me? I suppose I should expect no less," Mariko snorted with mock-derision.
"Call it redistribution of wealth, Richie Rich," Sophie shot back. "You live in a fucking palace - I think you can spare a couple of papayas."
"Yes, yes, you're a veritable Robin Hood," Mariko sighed.

Mariko got up, the tall, willowy damsel swinging her long legs out from under the sheets. It only stood to reason that she was so tired. She'd spent nearly ten hours having every ounce of energy sucked out of her body as she'd languished powerlessly in captivity, a tool in the scheme of a man trying to give himself superpowers. She'd almost died; yet Sophie, with help from fellow heroines Aerogirl and Insyte, had saved her.

Sophie pulled Mariko close to her, and kissed her. She still could hardly believe that it was real, that the two of them were together. For weeks, she'd been coiled in the grip of a woman called Rachel Artesia, fooled into thinking that her manipulation and domination was something real. But thanks to an act of true evil on her former lover's part, she'd seen the Ocelot for what she was.

Then in the rain, beneath the fires of a scorchingly destructive battle, she'd found her way to Mariko at last.
"Come downstairs," Sophie said.
"Alright," Mariko replied. Sophie seemed oddly nervous. She took Sophie's hand, and the redhead gave an almost girlish giggle. "What?" Mariko suddenly felt a little self-conscious. She didn't know what was too far, or not far enough, what was romantic and what was just soppy. Misinterpreting Sophie's laugh, she was about to withdraw her hand, but the nineteen year-old redhead held her tighter.
"I'm not laughing at you," she explained gently. "It's just that it's so, like, normal. You holding my hand...but it feels so exciting..." Mariko blushed a little, and entwined her fingers with Sophie's more intimately.

It had taken Sophie too long, she thought, to realise that so much of Mariko's apparent coldness was caused by a difficulty in understanding emotions, and certainly expressions of emotions. Lack of care was, eight times out of ten, lack of complete understanding. But one of the things that the co-ed had belatedly realised she loved about Mariko was the sincere effort she put into overcoming this difficulty around Sophie. Lacking much in the way of instinct, she made up for it with sheer intelligence and analysis.

The two began descending the stairs together, hand in hand. The slender, feminine redhead liked that Mariko was taller than her - it meant that when she leaned her head onto her, it fell very comfortably onto Mariko's shoulder.
"Sophie..." Mariko whispered as she felt Sophie's wavy red hair brushing against her skin.
"Mmm?"
"Nothing," the oriental maiden replied. "I just like saying your name."
"I like hearing it," Sophie replied, nestling just a little closer.

As the two entered Mariko's faintly stylish kitchen, its owner saw plates, each with a delicately constructed, slightly sweet-smelling mushroom and red onion tartlet.
"You cooked for me?" Mariko sniffed the dish that had been prepared for her. It smelled good.
"I'm sorry it's so simple: it was all you had. I've never cooked with the mushrooms you had, so I'm not sure if I fried them right." Mariko sat down, and took a small piece with her fork. "My oven in my dorm sucks, so I might have had yours on a bit high..." Mariko took a bite, and chewed it slowly. Her face took on a quizzical aspect.
"This is..." She paused. "This is..." She swallowed, and looked straight at Sophie. "Sophie, this is - I mean, the pastry's not faultless -"
"Oh, god damn it -"
"No, no, but..." She took another bite. "This is one of the most...subtly flavoured things I've ever eaten." She looked at Sophie with amazement. "How the hell did you do that?" Sophie shrugged.
"I used my powers when I was making it," she said, smiling sheepishly. "Super taste-buds."
"I can think of nobler uses for your abilities," Mariko said, "but I'm not complaining." She smiled, and took another bite. "Fuck, this is bloody good..."

She started eating almost voraciously. It was only now that she realised just how hungry she was.
"You really like it?" Sophie asked.
"I love it," Mariko replied. "I admit, your cooking being supernaturally aided does give you something of an unfair advantage," she said, "but this might be the nicest home-cooked meal anyone's made me in -" She paused. "Actually, I can't remember the last time someone cooked for me."
"I always hated thinking of you being on your own in this house," Sophie said. "Didn't you feel lonely here?"
"No," Mariko said. "It never occurred to me. I've lived on my own since I was sixteen."
"Why?" Sophie asked. Mariko laughed drily.
"If you knew my mother," she said, "you wouldn't be asking that question." Her face fell. "Oh, hell, I'm going to have to introduce you at some point." She grimaced. "I apologise in advance."
"Well my folks are gonna love you," Sophie said. She laughed. "Oh my god, I can't believe we're talking about this! We've been together for, like, less than twenty-four hours..."
"Believe me," Mariko said, "if you'd like to suspend talking about my mother, you may be my guest."

Sophie sat down and started eating as well.
"Fuck, that is good," she said. She looked at her willowy lover, emerald eyes meeting jade ones, feeling a joy in the simple domesticity of sharing a meal with her. She realised that in all her time with Rachel, all the pleasure she'd had experienced, nothing had made her happy. This did. Mariko did.

The two talked for a little while, quite some time after their plates were empty. It was just chit-chat, really: Sophie talked about how hard it was to find decent herbs in Seacouver ("Would it be so bad for us to get just a little gentrified? Just a teeny bit?"), and Mariko went on a little rant about the insistence of certain Americans dropping the 'h' when pronouncing 'herbs' ("Why that one word? 'Yes, I'll take some erbs please; I'm olding a dinner party at my ouse. Oh no, I dropped my andbag! Ow umiliating.'. Ludicrous.") Sophie joked, and Mariko rolled her eyes, but couldn't help laughing. They talked about minutiae, unimportant things...but it was all so pleasingly mundane. No superpowers, no out-of-this-world villain, or mad plot - or even dramatic confession. They just talked, relishing having time with each other. Without even thinking about it, they found their hands intertwined.

"I wasn't telling the truth," Mariko said.
"What?"
"When I said that it never occurred to me to be lonely here, that wasn't true. It used to be, but..." She closed her eyes. "After that night..."
"Which night?" Sophie said, rubbing Mariko's hand with her thumb.
"When our powers were stolen," Mariko said. "When you lay in bed with me. After that...after that it felt lonely lying in it without you."
"I was so fucking stupid," Sophie said. "I should have known then..."

The two looked straight into each other's eyes. A sort of current passed between them through their hands. Sophie found herself breathing a little more heavily.
"Hey, y'know," she said, biting the bottom corner of her lip, "I...don't want you to feel lonely."
"Nor I you, my love," Mariko replied. It felt like a warm breeze in Sophie's heart whenever she heard those words, but Mariko wasn't quite getting it.
"It's just...you say it felt lonely lying in your bed by yourself..." She ran her foot up Mariko's shapely calf, up to her thigh.
"You...you mean -"
"Yes," Sophie said.

Mariko stood up. She came round the table, and Sophie was again struck by her grace. In her short sweater dress, Mariko's long, smooth legs tripped lightly as she approached the redhead. Mariko saw that Sophie was ogling her, and she gained a new confidence in what she was doing.
"Stand up," she said. Sophie did so, excited by Mariko's directness. Mariko looked her up and down, saw her drinking in her slender, but feminine figure, just a little curvier than Mariko's. Sophie was dressed in a short, pleated blue skirt and a white vest top. Her creamy limbs were bare, and her soft breasts pushed visibly against her top, partly shown off by the low cut.

Mariko stroked Sophie's face with the back of one finger, drawing a slow line down her cheek, her white neck, her shoulders, and down to her chest.
"Mmmh..." Sophie sighed, feeling the intimacy of her touch. She felt the hand run slowly down to her waist, and to the small of her back. Mariko got closer, moving her other hand down the backs of Sophie's thighs, settling just above her knees. "Ohhh...sweetie, you have such soft hands..." she half whispered.
"I'm glad you think so," Mariko replied, "but soft isn't all they are."
"Oh!" Sophie was more than a little taken off-guard when Mariko took hold of her more tightly, and then lifted the lithe maiden into her arms. "M-Mariko!" Sophie gasped, her cheeks going as red as her hair. Her lover said nothing. She began carrying her through the house, her grip strong, but tender. Sophie was happy to lie in her arms, feeling Mariko's hands on her warm skin.

She was taken up into the same room where she'd woken her fellow heroine, feeling a very acute awareness that Mariko was carrying her like a bride.
"I love you, Mariko," she said suddenly, not having intended to, exactly. It had just...come out. She felt like a princess, raised into the arms of her noble, beautiful knight. It didn't matter what had gone before - with her beloved, she felt pure. She put her arms around Mariko, nuzzling her slender neck. "I feel so...cherished..."

Mariko laid her down on her silk sheets, Sophie's long, red hair spreading out around her like a burning halo, a striking contrast with her creamy skin. She laid one hand on her breasts, sinuously rubbing her warm thighs together.
"You're so beautiful..." Mariko said, leaning in and kissing Sophie's pale arms.
"You...think I'm beautiful?" Sophie said, smiling shyly.
"Of course I do," Mariko replied. "I'd be a fool not to." She gently ran her hand over her lover's chest and shoulders. "Sophie...you're exquisite." Sophie sighed with delight, taking Mariko's hand.
"I...I want to know something," she said. "I'm happy - I'm so happy - that you find me...beautiful, but do you...I mean, do you -?"
"Do I desire you?"
"Yeah..." Sophie replied, her heart fluttering at the very pointed emphasis Mariko had put on that word. "Does that sound stupid?"

Mariko came closer, sliding her legs between Sophie's. The redhead gasped, and shivered, feeling Mariko's supple skin against her own.
"No," Mariko said, "it doesn't sound stupid. It's just that I should have thought that you'd know by now." She leaned back, sitting on her knees, and in one fluid motion, she pulled off her dress, revealing her gorgeous body almost in its entirety, her achingly beautiful figure, her flawless, light-tan skin. "I desire you very deeply. Sophie, I desire you more than anything." She slowly traced her hand down her chest, stroking her own small, but perfectly formed and pert breasts. "And you?"

Sophie didn't hear her question. She was staring. She took in every inch of Mariko's scintillatingly attractive form, every graceful contour and subtle curve. If she'd been designed from the ground up by someone reading Sophie's mind and following her idea of the perfect woman, they couldn't have done better. Worse, in fact: Sophie could never have dreamt Mariko up.

However, she answered Mariko's question - after a fashion, anyway. She raised herself as well, kneeling right next to her half-naked lover, embracing her and kissing her with maidenly passion, their warm, slightly wet lips pressed together, their tongues pleasurably exploring.

Even as they kissed, Sophie began pulling off her blouse, hurriedly scrambling to disrobe. She pulled herself closer, and felt as her breasts touched Mariko's; both so soft and ripe, like summer fruit. They were both in the throes of passion now, moaning with pleasure and anticipation as they drew each other close, feeling the warmth of each other's bodies.

Sophie sighed as she felt Mariko begin to unhook her bra. Mariko hesitated, looking into Sophie's eyes, for one last confirmation of permission. In her lover's blushing ardour, she found it, and with a quick flick of her wrist, she bared Sophie's breasts.
"Ooh..." Sophie mewed, as Mariko leaned down and began kissing them, gently, but not shyly, teasing Sophie's pink buds with her tongue, sending a wave of pleasure coursing through Sophie's body. "Oh, Jesus..." Sophie sighed. She lay back, and allowed Mariko to ease her skirt past her thighs, completely baring her legs, slipping it off the ends of her soft feet.

Mariko felt her heart pounding with great speed within her chest, as she gingerly reached for Sophie's panties, white and slightly flowery. She found herself gripped with a sudden bashfulness - but she felt Sophie's hands on hers, helping her to pull them off. Mariko gasped as, for the first time, she saw Sophie completely naked. Her long legs, her supple breasts, her red hair - above and below - and her gorgeous, creamy skin were all completely exposed to Mariko.

She looked enticingly vulnerable: naked, blushing and sighing as Mariko gazed at her svelte, sylphlike form.
"No..." Mariko thought. 'Sylphlike' was wrong. With her fine, pale skin, long red hair, and light freckles, she put Mariko in mind of a Celtic goddess: playful, sensually tempestuous in her passions, natural and beautiful.

Sophie watched Mariko looking at her, and her very stare felt like a caress. She playfully imagined that this was some subtle manifestation of Mariko's powers, but really it was just the intensity of their heat for each other. She realised that she'd not quite given Mariko enough credit - yes, in normal social situations she was strangely uncomprehending at times, but here, in the realm of the sensual, she found that Mariko's confidence in her powers quite matched her confidence as a lover. Here she could communicate with exquisite subtlety.

She eased herself down onto Sophie's thighs, massaging them in such a way that Sophie cried out with pleasure, as Mariko began kissing her navel at the same time.
"Oh...oh, Mariko..." she sighed, flushing. She felt entranced. Mariko went lower, kissing Sophie's hips, and the line of softer skin just above her pelvis. Sophie hadn't even realised that this would be somewhere especially sensitive, yet Mariko already seemed to know her body so well. It gave her an intense delight to know that Mariko had already discovered something about her that Rachel had never even guessed at.

Mariko went lower, and lower, and Sophie's chest heaved as she breathed deeply with anticipation.
"Oh my god!" she cried out. "Oh...oh...!" She felt Mariko kissing her directly between her thighs, and it was like a firework going off inside her. She continued, rhythmically pressing against Sophie with her lips, occasionally flicking with her tongue, each time slightly differently; testing, experimenting with her, finding what made her moan the most sweetly, gasp the most loudly.

Sophie lifted her legs a little, altering the angle at which Mariko approached her. She shivered with pleasure, her hands gripping the sheets, biting her bottom lip as she tried not to scream. Mariko didn't make this easy. She kissed with a slightly open mouth, exploring just a little deeper into her lover.
"Oh...my...god...M-Mariko..." Sophie whimpered. Suddenly, she realised that there was no reason not to scream: "Aaaaaahhh!" she cried, feeling herself throb, her whole body spasming with delight. "Oh...Jesus, it's so...uuunnhhh!" Mariko had not taken this as indication that she should stop. Rather, she began teasing with her tongue with even more intensity, surer now of the particular flicks and strokes that Sophie would like the most.

For fifteen minutes this continued, and Sophie felt her supple body in the climactic throes of sexual ardour dozens of times. By the time Mariko finally lifted her head, and gracefully drew herself against Sophie, the redhead was moaning almost inaudibly, her eyelids fluttering as the aftershocks of what her lover had done still shuddered within her.
"Fucking...oh, my god..." Sophie said breathlessly. She turned to Mariko, and the oriental beauty saw Sophie's eyes brighter and greener than she had ever seen them before, limpid and sparkling like starlight.
"I take it you enjoyed that?" Mariko said. She did own to feeling rather pleased with herself.
"You're...really good at that..." Sophie said, panting. "How many times have...you done that before?"
"It depends how you define 'that'," Mariko replied. She stood up, and began undoing her own bra. "If we're speaking in the most general terms, probably six or seven times. If we're only talking about women," she said, as her breasts were bared, "then..." She smiled. "You're my first."

Sophie sat up. Their were two reasons for this. One was that she saw Mariko's naked chest, not remotely buxom, but still enticingly feminine, adding to her womanly elegance - as well as Sophie's lust for her. The second, however, was that she couldn't believe what Mariko was saying.
"You've never done that with someone?"
"Sophie," Mariko said, tucking her hands behind her back, a little shyly, "I've never been with a woman before at all."
"What?" Sophie remained incredulous. She tried to stand, but her legs were shaky. She settled with sitting on the edge of the bed. "Then how are so fucking good at it?" Mariko laughed slightly.
"Well I know what I like," she said, "and I know you...or at least I'm beginning to." Sophie loved hearing her talk so intimately. "Don't get me wrong," Mariko laughed. "It's not as if I thought I was straight. I've just...never had the chance."

Sophie grinned. She'd had an idea.
"Mariko...come here." Mariko did so, rather liking hearing Sophie be so direct. Sophie stood to meet her, wrapping her arms around Mariko's neck, and kissing her, needing to stand on her tiptoes to do so. The maidens' bosoms touched as they made out with each other, "I want to try something," she said.
"Oh?"
"Okay, this is..." Sophie giggled. "I've kinda been fantasising about doing this, but..."
"What?" Sophie looked quite reticent.
"Okay, fuck it, I'm just gonna do it - Enhance!"

Sophie's naked body was wrapped in a clear, white light, a flash which left her clad in a shimmering, tight gold dress, long gloves, and short, silver boots. Mariko was a little confused.
"I don't..." Then she thought of something: "Oh, do you -" She arched her eyebrow. "Do you want me to do that as well?"
"What? Oh, no!" Sophie laughed. "That's not it - in fact, get the hell over here and help me strip." Mariko did so with not a little relish.

She pulled the gold dress from Sophie's feminine figure, helped her slip the opera gloves from her arms. Sophie kicked off the shoes, and Mariko found to her delight that while Sophie's powers let her summon her outfit, underwear wasn't part of the deal. She was still naked underneath.
"Take off my mask," Sophie said, softly. Mariko did so, brushing Sophie's hair out of the way, before slowly peeling it off. She felt a warmth running through her stomach. The symbolism of the act hardly needed explaining.

"So why did you - ooh!" Mariko gasped, as Sophie touched a spot just above her hip, and began running her finger back and forth. She had no idea why it had produced such a powerful reaction. Sophie knelt down, ran her fingers slowly down the whole length of Mariko's slender, smooth legs, her fingers pressing and lingering in seemingly random places. But whenever she did, Mariko felt a sharp pleasure running all the way up her thighs, right to the very centre of her.
"Ahhh..." Mariko moaned. Man or woman, no-one had ever touched her like that, produced that electric sensation.
"You getting why I turned my powers on yet?" Sophie said, kissing Mariko's inner thighs. "I can feel you...I can feel which parts of you want me to touch them the most...I can see which parts of you tense, and I can feel your blood rushing to it when my fingers get close..." She kissed her again, on the back of her knees, tickling her slightly with her tongue.
"You see right into me..." Mariko said, emotion tinging her voice. Saying this, she slipped her black panties right off her hips, letting them fall to her ankles.

"Fuck...!" Sophie whispered. She stood up, seeing Mariko completely naked. Her enhanced eyes drank in every inch of her: her flawless skin; her small, pert breasts; her achingly lovely, long legs which seemed to Sophie to beg to be caressed; the small patch of closely cut black hair between her thighs; her proud, delicate, beautiful face. It almost felt to Sophie as if this, now, was the real reason she had her powers: to see Mariko's beauty better than anyone else could.

"Come on, gorgeous," Sophie said, taking Mariko by the hand and leading her back to the bed. Mariko lay down, and Sophie lay next to her. She wanted to show her lover the things that only a woman could do. She wrapped her arms around the black-haired maiden, and pulled her close. Their breasts touched, soft and supple against each other.

"Unnhhh..." Sophie whimpered, feeling a jolt of pleasure. She hadn't been prepared for the magnification of her pleasure that would take place. She tried to control it. She wanted to be the one to lead Mariko, if only at first. She pushed Mariko closer against her, and began kissing her shoulders and her neck, using her powers to give Mariko the greatest possible thrill with each touch of her lips, which felt as if they sparked whenever they met her lover's skin.
"Sophie, you're so...oh..." Mariko mewed, "so...sensuous...so sexy..." It was not a word she used often, but nothing else seemed to do. It was a perfect description. She felt Sophie taking the lead, and allowed her to do so. She let herself be rolled over, and gasped as Sophie lay herself on top of her. Sophie's wavy red hair trailed down, tickling her cheek, and Mariko reached up to stroke it.

Sophie began slowly, sinuously pressing herself against Mariko, pushing their hips together as her body felt truly aflame with pleasure. She suddenly felt as if she knew what it was like to be Zjarrus - to hold a raging inferno within one's own body. She had not quit begun to do what she'd ultimately intended, when she felt something. It was a simple enough gesture - Mariko was stroking Sophie's shapely, creamy legs with her own slender thighs, their moist gorgeous skin coming into sweetly intimate contact.

"Uunh...!" Sophie gasped, feeling her legs caressed by Mariko's. She hadn't realised quite how sensitive she would be. She felt a powerful pulse of pleasure building in her, spreading throughout the whole of her body, starting in her thighs, flowing upwards into her stomach and chest, then sinking and settling between her hips - where it burst.

"OOOHHH!" Sophie screamed, her body trembling. She felt herself fall from Mariko onto her back, weakly sighing with climactic delight. Yet at the same time, the flushing maiden blushed. "I...didn't think I'd be so...unhh...sensitive..." She turned to Mariko. "I guess that kinda backfired, huh? I tried to take the lead but...I guess I'm defenceless against you..." She seemed embarrassed, aware that Mariko was older, more experienced than she was. Sophie had thought that because Mariko was new to the sapphic side of things she'd be able to sweep her off her feet a little. "I couldn't resist her for twenty god-damned seconds!" she thought, feeling like a girlish novice. Mariko was so beautiful, so graceful - Sophie was starting to feel that her girl-next-door charm couldn't quite compare.

"Here," Mariko said, turning Sophie onto her side. She slipped her legs in between Sophie's, and clasped both of her hands. "Together, Sophie." She kissed her with warm, honey-like passion, slowly and sweetly. Her lover felt her anxiety dim in Mariko's earnest passion. Mariko began gently pressing against Sophie, the most sensitive parts of their bodies now in full contact, filling both to the brim with bright, ardent pleasure.

Together, they found each other's natural rhythm, and reached a golden mean without saying a word, Sophie now able to relish in her enhanced sensitivity without being completely overcome by it.
"I can't believe this," she thought, feeling Mariko's hot, wet softness. "I can't believe I'm making love to her..." She almost laughed, but she couldn't quite. For she saw a kind of gentle light filling Mariko's jade eyes, feeling her shiver and arch as the first, small climax whipped through her svelte figure: there was no lie in that light. There was nothing selfish, or narcissistic, or deluded. It was a woman happy to be with a woman she loved, uniting with her, communicating more than words every could, in that act that language to this day is playing a desperate game of catch-up with.

Mariko, for her part, saw every wave, every throb of erotic pleasure in her lover - for they were many, and they came fast - and she saw a kind of future in her that she'd never dreamed she'd have, that until weeks before she'd never even known she'd wanted: a companion; an equal; a counterpart who knew and loved her for all she was. It was beautiful, and it was frightening.

The two continued in this way for longer than either could keep track of. They both reached the height of pleasure more times than either could count, each feeling the other growing moist, their gorgeous, constantly writhing legs - so smooth and silky - becoming slick with the sweat of their amorous exertions. They came against each other over and over, having to clutch each other not just out of love, but to top themselves from falling, exhausted onto their backs. Neither wanted it to stop. Neither wanted this moment to end. Eventually, however, Mariko happened to catch Sophie at a particular angle that she found overpoweringly stimulating.

"Oh god..." Sophie sighed, drawing in breath again and again to push her climax as far as it could go. "M-Mariko...I...oh - oh - OOOHH!!" She screamed, every cell in her body seeming to sing. "That...that was...unnhhh..." She sighed, completely taken by the explosion of sensual pleasure within her. Her green eyes fluttered, her body achingly weak with delight. "Ooohhhh..." She found herself utterly overcome, and, falling like a wounded bird into Mariko's arms, she swooned, and collapsed in total, wonderful surrender to the beautiful maiden who embraced her so lovingly. "I'm...all hers..." she thought, as she slipped into unconsciousness.


"Sophie? My love?" Sophie's eyes fluttered open as she felt Mariko gently cajoling her awake.
"Oh, hey..." Sophie replied. "Was I dreaming?" Mariko didn't understand.
"Well you were unconscious so -"
"No, I mean, before..." She was positively glowing. "Did we really...?"
"Well either that," Mariko said, "or we're both rather poor wrestlers."

Sophie took Mariko by her slim, nude shoulders, and pulled her in, sleepily kissing her, her mouth tingling, sending golden sparkles through her whole body.
"Thank you..." Sophie said. "That was...I wasn't kidding about the dream thing, that's the kind of sex people fucking fantasise about having, Mariko."
"You don't have to thank me, my sweet," Mariko said. "It was perfect. You were perfect."
"You're being nice," Sophie said.
"I won't argue the point if you don't want to believe it," Mariko said. "But that was, for me, the most...erotic experience of my life."

The naked, oriental beauty grinned.
"I can't believe you used your powers for that..." she stroked Sophie's legs, making her shiver all the more. "My mischievous vixen..." She smiled. She liked very much how sexually imaginative her lover had turned out to be.
"I'll have you know I...I've never done that before." She batted her eyelids. "You might say Enhancegirl just lost her virginity," she said in a faux-coy voice. Mariko laughed out loud.
"Well, I'm proud to be the one to whom she gave it," the proud heroine said. Then more softly: "I mean that." Sophie smiled, and stroked her face.

She sat up, trying to wake herself from her pleasurable drowsiness.
"You're telling me you've never used your powers for...recreational purposes?" she said to her lover.
"Even if I were of a perverse frame of mind," Mariko said, "my powers don't really have many mundane uses."
"Really, nothing?"
"Hmm..." Mariko thought. "Oh, that eclipse we had last year? I could look at it without sunglasses. Which is something, I suppose."
"You're living the dream there, sweetie," Sophie said.
"Well," Mariko added, "I don't have to eat if I don't want to. My body can metabolise light." She stroked her chin. "I've never had to do it any kind of extended period of time. I suppose I'd still need vitamins; minerals; maybe water..." Sophie was looking at her with shock. "What? What is it?"
"Oh my god!" Sophie gasped. "I just fucked a plant!"
"You -!"

Mariko leapt onto Sophie, grabbing her by the wrists and holding them above her head.
"You incorrigible, bloody -!" Mariko shouted. "You teasing - ooh!" She held Sophie tightly, and she writhed sinuously beneath her.
"Hey, that's not fair!" Sophie gasped. "I'm all sleepy and...helpless..."
"All the better for me," Mariko said, and kissed her writhing lover. She stopped writhing in short order, giving herself over to Mariko with relish. She withdrew, letting go of Sophie's hands.
"You're such a good kisser," Sophie said. "Fuck, Mariko, why does this all feel so right?"

Mariko swallowed. An aspect seemed to come over her: not-quite-unfamiliar, but still uncommon for Mariko. She sat back a little, the control she'd taken shifting back. She seemed almost like someone waking from a dream - but it wasn't a dream.
"Sophie, I..." she began. "I love you so much..." There were tears in her eyes. "I've never...it's never been like this. I've never felt..." She searched for what she meant, and laughed a little bitterly when she found it. "I've never felt a connection to another person that wasn't utterly shallow. I'm afraid that I'm - I'm atrophied. It hurts - and I'm glad that it hurts - but I..." She touched her chest. "I can feel you Sophie. I can feel you, in here."
"That's just where I want to be," Sophie said. "And I've got you here." She tapped her own chest.
"But that's my point - I know what you can offer me. I know how much I'll gain from being with you, how much it will help me to...understand things. But what do I offer you? You say you love me, Sophie, and I believe you - but is that enough? Apart from my feelings for you, I don't know what I can give you."

Sophie sat back for a moment. She looked deeply, thoughtfully into Mariko's eyes.
"You know what?" she said. "I don't know either."
"Well, there you go," Mariko said. "Then -"
"Just listen," Sophie said. "I don't know yet. But you're beautiful, and powerful, and stubborn...you're intelligent...and you're compassionate, in your way." She took her lover's hand. "How about this? You give me the feeling that no matter what crazy shit ever happens to me, I'm going to have the strongest person I know backing me up."
"I'm a little sick of being strong," Mariko said. She quickly added. "But thank you, Sophie. That does make me feel less anxious."

Sophie came closer.
"I understand that, I think," she said. She nudged her playfully. "Kinda dug your own grave there, though."
"Oh?"
"It's what everyone says when they talk about you. 'She's so strong, and poised, and graceful' - people think you're invulnerable. But that's what you seem to want people to think about Spectra."
"Is...is that how you see me?"

Sophie kissed her cheek.
"Yeah, it is. Those things are all true...but you know I see more. I see someone who wants to matter - who does matter. Someone who needs to have the power to affect things. But sweetie, I see a kind, strong heart; someone who cares about the world. For some people it's personal: they care about people they see: they want to protect the people in front of them. For you it's...it's like - it's like it's abstract. But that doesn't mean it's worse. It's just different...it takes a different kind of heart, but not a colder one. Mariko...my Mariko..." She ran her hand through her lover's black hair. "I see someone with so much fucking feeling, so much passion - but you've been taught to hold it all in." She'd not really vocalised these thoughts before. "I just want you to know..." Sophie said. "You don't have to be like that with me. You can feel anything you want to feel."

Mariko didn't know what to say. She'd known Sophie was intelligent, but not that she was this perceptive - it was like having someone peering into her soul. If it had been anyone else, she'd have felt embarrassed at best. But from Sophie...from Sophie it felt like an embrace. She was understood - and she was loved.

"Sophie," she said, "can I ask you something?"
"Of course," the redhead said. Mariko seemed to look around. She got up, Sophie watching the naked damsel, and walked over to where she'd undressed Sophie, and picked up her two long gloves. The way she looked at her lover, Sophie had a fair idea of what she wanted to do - but she felt a little anxious. The idea of Mariko tying her up was appealing, but for obvious reasons it was something that she associated quite strongly with Rachel. "Hey, Mariko I'm not sure I -"
"Sophie," Mariko said, looking bashful, "would you...I want you to bind me." The words came out awkwardly - but it was a strangely heartfelt request.

Sophie blinked. That had not been what she'd expected Mariko to say. But she felt a powerful sense that Mariko was trying to communicate something to her. Wordlessly, she approached her lover, taking the long, satiny gloves from her. She stood behind her, drawing her arms behind her back, and winding one of the gloves around her wrists. She took the other, and affixed Mariko's elbows together too, keeping her arms tightly tied, winding the material around her chest to affix her arms in place.

"Mmh..." Mariko sighed, feeling as Sophie bound her, flexing her wrists as she felt her slim arms being trapped behind her back. She turned around, looking at the shorter woman who'd tied her up. "Whatever I do have, Sophie," she said, seeming feminine and fragile in her bondage, "it's yours. Do you understand? I'm..." She smiled, shyly, and Sophie was suddenly very aware that, despite being taller, Mariko was thinner, more waifish than she herself was. "I'm giving everything to you. All of me...is yours." She moved her arms in their golden bonds, and Sophie saw with excitement that she really was very tightly restrained, genuinely bound. She looked over her shoulder at Sophie, her eyes almost begging for Sophie to take her, to control her slender, gorgeous, tied-up body.

Overcome with desire, Sophie turned Mariko around, and started kissing her shoulders from behind. She pulled Mariko towards her, and slipped her hand around her front. She began massaging, stroking between Mariko's thighs, making her gasp, and tremble. Yet at the same time, because of the way she'd bound Mariko's hands, her lover was quite able to return her desirous caresses.

"I thought...you were giving yourself to me..." Sophie gasped.
"Aren't I allowed to...oohh...please my captor?" Mariko said. This last word, though, sent a wave of a very curious feeling through Sophie. She'd found in herself an enjoyment of this kind of sensual captivity - but always as captive. But now she felt herself desiring to possess Mariko, to keep her safe - to have her. Mariko was hers - and she felt worthy of her at last.

She moved Mariko over to the bed, her own legs shaking. The bound maiden lay down, finding a pleasure in being under Sophie's control. The redhead saw her pleasure, but also knew what an effort it had taken for Mariko to put herself in such a vulnerable position. She took Mariko in her arms, kissing her again and again, wanting to let her know just how much she felt, to make it so clear that Mariko would never doubt it. She ran her hands all over the maiden's beautiful body - her shoulders, her breasts, her long legs.
"Sophie..." the oriental damsel sighed.
"What is it?"
"I feel so safe..." she was smiling, looking at her beloved with a rich tenderness. Sophie covered her mouth. She had a presentiment that Mariko hadn't felt safe in a very long time.
"Yeah, sweetie?" she said, her voice quavering with emotion. Mariko nodded, and moved with a sensuous grace in her bondage, tempting Sophie to take her again. This she did, with feminine passion, and the tenderest ardour.


An hour later, she and Mariko lay together, naked, their naked bodies entwined, a sweet, heady scent of lovemaking in the air. Mariko was asleep, drained in the most pleasing of ways by what she and Sophie had done with each other. She was still bound in her sleep - it hadn't felt to either of them that it was especially necessary to free her.

Sophie stroked her lover's hair, a sense of genuine serenity, a kind of spiritual quietude settling over her. She knew she was only nineteen - she knew that she and Mariko led unusual, even volatile lives and that any number of things might happen. It was naive and foolish to think what she did - but she didn't care. All Sophie knew was that she wanted to be this woman for the rest of her life.
"Thank you," she whispered, "thank you for choosing me..." But she realised that she was doing herself a disservice by phrasing it in this way. Mariko had placed herself in such a vulnerable position - had asked Sophie to capture her. She had seen Mariko's eyes when she'd said she felt safe - she'd meant it. "She trusts me..." Sophie thought. So too did she trust Mariko. Thinking about it now, she would happily have returned her partner's gesture, shown Mariko that she was willing to belong to her utterly - as she felt that she already did.

Sophie thought about all that she and Mariko had been through, all they'd done for, and occasionally to each other, all the battles they'd fought, within and without. They'd earned this. She'd earned this. She looked at Mariko again, and smiled. She was excited. From now on, whatever happened, she could take it.

Sophie let her eyes fall shut, taking Mariko's hand as she did, swiftly slipping into dark, warm sleep. Yet even in her sleep, Sophie found her Maiden of Light waiting for her, with loving arms, and powerful fragility, and - certainly whenever she thought of Sophie - nothing but love in her heart.

[DrDominator9]

Sentimental hogwash exquisitely rendered, damn you!