Enhancegirl 14: The Sleeping Beauty Society - now complete!

[Damselbinder]

"Please don't touch that, Ivan," Natalya said. The raven-haired, lily-white telepath was not looking at her brother. She was looking through a small lens, while using a pair of tweezers to place a toothpick, glinting with still-liquid glue, on top of another one. This was the one-thousand, seven-hundred and eighth such toothpick she had placed, and now even the most uneducated of troglodytes would have recognised a pretty decent - though incomplete - scale model of the Taj Mahal.
"Why not?" Natalya's brother, so much like her with his sallow skin and yellow eyes, yet so unlike her in just about every other respect, was inspecting another model, of the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest, with his pointy nose less than a centimetre away.
"Because that took forty hours to make," Natalya replied. "I don't want you sneezing and setting it on fire."

The Taj Mahal was the second of only two models in Natalya's rather comfortable little apartment, though it was perhaps the sixtieth she had built in her life. She wasn't a collector, she merely enjoyed the pleasure of the construction. Plus, it kept her professional skills sharp - she built her models freehand, helping to give her an intuitive sense of what worked and what didn't when designing large structures.
"I must say, this is very impressive," he said. "Oh yes, this is a much more valuable use of your spare time than getting up to superheroics."
"Very funny," Natalya muttered. She was applying glue to another toothpick, but something about Ivan's mere presence disturbed her concentration. She gave up, and stood, turning her eyes on him.

"Anything?" he asked.
"Conscious thoughts and feelings," she replied. "Surface stuff." It had been almost a month since Natalya's kidnap at the hands of Hades, where - during the course of an encounter with a superhuman named Mysteria - her ability to use her powers had been seriously diminished. For the first few days she'd struggled to get anything at all when she looked at someone, but now she was again at a level where the most conscious thoughts of anyone she looked at were more or less available to her. For instance, when she looked at her brother, she felt his arrogance - magnified a hundred-fold since his victory over the Supremacist - but also genuine concern for her. But no deeper than that. Before, she'd have been able to dip into his subconscious as easily as she might have dipped into a bath. His emotions would have been painfully, crisply clear, every interaction with him - and with anyone - uncomfortably intimate for a woman so naturally shy.

It was a relief being robbed of that. It was a relief not knowing more about perfect strangers than their own lovers. But there was still pain - her powers were returning every day closer and closer to their former strength, and she felt herself getting closer and closer to the minds of those she saw. She looked at Ivan again, and felt something below the surface, a sharp undercurrent of pleasure. She didn't know its source at first...but then she saw a quick, bloody flash of him punching someone through the stomach, dismembering them, destroying -

"Ivan!" she gasped, turning away. "For heaven's sake, do you have to be so...bloodthirsty?"
"What?" Ivan said. Then, understanding: "Oh, you can hardly blame me for enjoying that memory, dear sister."
"It's repellent," she said, "reliving someone's death like that..."
"Well he was a repellent man," Ivan replied, angrily. "I thought you'd understand," he muttered.
"I understand just fine," Natalya replied. "I don't have to like it."

"Oh, please don't let's fight," Elizabeta said. The wafer thin girl with beige hair and skin even whiter than her siblings was kneeling on Natalya's floor, arranging some clothes in front of her. "We're together so rarely these days."
"I know, Lizzie," Ivan said. He walked over to her, and ruffled her hair. "Oh, I have an idea! I'll speak to Julia, and insist that the two of you be inducted into the Pariahs. Together we'll be Zjarrus, Insyte, and...er...Anti-Suntan Girl!" Elizabeta giggled. She, like her siblings, was a superhuman, but her power was about as harmless as one could get: she was immune to the effects of ultra-violet light. It was she who'd actually been invited over - Ivan had just shown up.

In truth, Natalya was mostly pleased for Ivan. Since being fired from his position at the Yugoslav embassy, she'd feared that he'd been heading towards a rather nasty downward spiral: and now he was part of what had swiftly become the most talked-about new team of superhumans in America. They'd made two more 'interventions' since the Supremacist: the first had been to foil an attack on a police precinct by some more of Hades' mad loyalists. It was here when the cape-watchers and the public at large had first taken notice of the Pretender, who had done most of the work. The second intervention had been at an Inferiorite-sponsored rally. They hadn't even done anything, really - Ivan had just shown up, said hello, and the rally had quickly dispersed.

As for Ivan, he'd been disappointed, though not surprised, to hear that Natalya had hung up her cape, so to speak. It wasn't that he was particularly happy about her superheroic activities as such - he still owed Hades bloody death for what she'd done to his sister - but it got her out of the house. And as much as he thought Sophie Scott was a self-righteous little upstart, he appreciated the good that her friendship had done Natalya. Elizabeta had just been displeased that the new costume she'd designed for Insyte would go to waste.

"Oh, hell!" Natalya exclaimed, noticing her clock. "I didn't realise it was so late!" She hurriedly grabbed the clothes that Elizabeta had laid out, and rushed into her bathroom.
"What's the hurry?" Ivan asked.
"Natalya has a date," Elizabeta said with one of her sweet, but ever so slightly unsettling smiles.
"Wait, what?!" Ivan cackled. "Little Leelee has a date!"
"Don't call me that!" Natalya shouted through her door.
"Who is it?" Ivan asked. "Please tell me not your boss. That little sleazebag has about as much virility as the Pretender!"
"It's no-one you know." Natalya walked out, and Elizabeta clapped her hands together in pleasure.

Her sister was dressed in an elegant, tight fitting little black dress that stopped just above her knees, a pair of tall high heels - Manolo Blahniks, don'tcha know - and a peach-coloured cardigan with thin, black accents.
"Oh, Natalya!" Elizabeta said, rushing over to make minor adjustments hither and thither. "You look amazing!"
"Thank you, Lizzie," Natalya said. "You really have made me look nice." Natalya had never been under any illusions about her appearance, and she was pleased to see her sister's delight. She'd sort of lucked into being well-adjusted - a hair's breadth of difference in her upbringing and she'd have been either an unbearable, spoiled brat or a neurotic wreck - but she was the most genial, innocent person that Natalya knew. Shallow, though, and really - in the end - not all that bright. When Natalya looked into her mind, she often found it distressingly easily sifted through.

Ivan - the opposite to Elizabeta in almost every respect - was staring at her.
"Wh-what?"
"You look like Jacqueline Kennedy," Ivan said. Natalya was about to tell him to be quiet - but then she looked down.
"Oh, god, you're right...!" She looked helplessly at Elizabeta. "I-is that good or bad?"
"Mostly good," Elizabeta replied. "But if you don't want it too look too much like that..." She approached her sister, slipping elastic from her own hair. She took Natalya's long, glossy black hair, and pulled it into a ponytail, tying it so that it ran down her front. "There. A little more modern." Natalya bowed to her sister's wisdom in such things. Looking up, she saw Ivan was smiling.
"You look lovely, Natalya," he said, and she knew he meant it.

Natalya had assumed that his killing of the Supremacist would have catapulted his arrogance heavenward - and it had, of course. He considered himself quite invincible now: she'd discovered that without even needing her telepathy. But there was another change too, an anxiety that had faded, somewhat. With her powers weakened Natalya couldn't directly explore why this was, but she had a feeling that it wasn't about killing his former master - it was about being part of the Pariahs.

But there was no time to probe further. Thanking Elizabeta, she hurried out, and took one last look at Ivan.
"Thanks," she mumbled, momentarily embarrassed.
"What for?" He genuinely didn't know.
"For checking up on me." He flashed his flick-knife grin at her, and Natalya wondered if she'd been unfair all these years. Without being able - being forced - to peer into the thorny depths of her brother's heart, she actually quite liked him.


She ended up arriving at the restaurant, a rather frou-frou seafood place in Seacouver's French quarter, almost ten minutes late. Her celerity gave a rather fetching...bounciness to her gait, and her date was by no means displeased to see her, late as she was. He stood up, but didn't move to shake her hand or hug her or anything, keeping his hands free as a thoroughly ingrained habit. The two sat down - he'd already ordered a bottle of wine.

Natalya's heart was pounding. She hadn't been on a date in years, much less one where she'd made this amount of effort. She mumbled out a hello, but cursed herself when she realised how pointless that had been. She was almost paralysed.
"Just talk...just ask him something...anything!" But she couldn't. Her stomach tightened, her palms were clammy. If she hadn't been late, and in such a rush to arrive, she'd probably have lost her nerve completely. She heard other couples and a large group of Spanish tourists talking loudly, laughing and shouting. She felt panicked. She wanted to run. She wanted to get out and go back to her half-finished Taj Mahal and never get such a stupid idea into her head again. Her hands clenched into fists, and then she felt her companion lightly touch her. When he did, all fell silent.

It was the most perfect silence Natalya had ever experienced. All sound was gone, even the sound of her own breath, her own heartbeat. She looked up at him, saw an unusual, but handsome, friendly face. He had short, fuzzy hair and a short, red beard to match. Sharp blue eyes looked into her own, and he smiled.
"It's nice to see you again, Natalya," he thought, knowing she would hear. "Normally, I guess this is the part where I act cool and smooth and stuff, but, er, I guess you can feel how nervous I am!" He spoke true - he was pretty nervous. "God, she's so beautiful..." he thought, and Natalya realised that he had not intended her to hear that. Her cheeks went beet-red, and so did he when he realised she knew what he'd thought, but the silence was...comforting nevertheless.
"Yes, I can," she replied, mouthing slowly. It did make her feel a little better. "It's nice to see you too, Mark." He blinked at her, uncomprehending, so she mouthed it again, more slowly. He nodded. He took his hand away, and the sound returned. For Natalya was not the only superhuman at that table, and the glances that the couple occasionally got were only partly because of the lady's beauty, but also because people recognised the gentleman: the Pauldron's stealth specialist - Askancepoint.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
One week earlier...

"No...no...no, no, no!" Natalya had her head in her hands, gripping so hard that it looked as though she were pulling her hair out. She was sitting naked, her hands folded over her chest, her legs tucked into her body. There was a light tap at her bathroom door.
"Natalya?" A deep voice said. "Hey, girl, you okay?"
"C-could you please leave, Josh?" she shouted back. "I'm...um, I'm feeling unwell."
"Really? You were fine just a second ago. Are you -"
"Please go!" Natalya shouted. "I've got my cellphone in here! Leave now, or I'll phone the police!" She was almost screeching.
"Wh-what? But..." There was a thump on her door, extremely angry, but just a little shy of actually violent. "You know what? You're great looking, but you're a...a fucking hysteric! I wouldn't have come back anyway!" She heard the rustle as he finished dressing himself, hard taps as his dress shoes smacked against her wooden floors, and then her door slamming so loud that she shook.

She sat there, shivering on her bathroom floor, for at least half an hour. She'd been foolish, so foolish not to take precautions. The first time - the only time - she'd pretended to be into bondage and had her partner blindfold her. She couldn't use her telepathy if she couldn't see, so she was spared the inevitable onslaught. But this time, this time she'd wanted to look into a man's eyes for once, to enjoy his pleasure as well as her own without being assailed by it.

But she'd underestimated just how much of her power she'd recovered. She'd thought that she'd only be able to sense his emotions, and clear, deliberately cogent thoughts - but no. She lacked the power to reach in...but so much had come up to the surface by itself! His desires, even his kinks, fine, but his...obsessions... things he'd done much too young and his perverse revelling in them. Parts of him that hated sex, that didn't want it out of pleasure, but wanted to inflict it on people. Natalya couldn't take it. Even when she'd shut her eyes it was there, he was there, in her, his thoughts becoming her thoughts and - and she hadn't been able to cope. One 'stop', thankfully, had been enough to get him off.

Still shaking, Natalya picked up her phone. She'd been telling the truth about having her phone with her, and she dialled a number that she didn't call very often.
"...hello?" It wasn't exactly the middle of the night, but it wasn't early. She could easily have been asleep. "Whom, may I ask, is speaking?" A coldness - but a familiar coldness.
"M-Mariko, it's Natalya," the telepath said.
"Oh, er...hello, Natalya," Mario replied. There was the sound of rustling. "Is...is this urgent?" Then, quickly, she added: "It's not that I don't want to talk - it's just there's something -" Something inaudible. Another voice - and they sounded upset. "It's alright, my love, I won't be - I do apologise Natalya, but could you phone again in...at another time?"
"I - I'm sorry to bother you, it's just...could you send me the address of that...service?"
"What? Certainly not! No longer being Insyte is one thing but -" This time Natalya distinctly heard the other voice:
"Koko, I'm fine, I promise!" It was Sophie's voice. She did not sound 'fine'.
"I - I'll text it to you in a moment," Mariko hissed, and then hung up. 'A moment' turned out to be forty-five minutes, but the address did come. She didn't wait one moment before heading out.


It wasn't quite raining when Natalya arrived, but she could smell that it was about to. The air was cold, and the now crumpled cocktail dress she'd thrown back on, even with her overcoat, was not sufficient to stop her from shivering. It wasn't a nice part of Seacouver - this wasn't the new-money chic where Natalya lived or the degraded, once rich old districts - this part of Seacouver was poor, and had been poor for a long time, its poverty a crucible for superhero and villain alike. When Natalya found the address, and the rather tasteless neon sign advertising its services she wasn't quite sure if she was in the right place: it advertised itself as a dentist's.

But no teeth were being pulled within its confines. A balding man sat at the front desk, answering no calls. He stank - not of body odour, but of some god-awful cologne. And when he looked at Natalya she found him just as repugnant as his odour. He wasn't that bad, but she was terribly sensitive at that moment, Josh's insults and thoughts still ringing in her ears.
"What do you want?" he grunted.
"I...um...I...want...I want to..." She tried to look him in the eye, but couldn't.
"You want teeth pulled?"
"N-no."
"Good. I been telling 'er to change that sign for a fuckin' year. So you know what we do here?" She nodded. "In there." He pointed his thumb at a door that said 'Doctar Gertrude' [sic] on a printed out piece of paper. Typed in Comic Sans.

Less than entirely convinced of this establishment's credentials, Natalya walked through. Instantly she was assailed by the stale stench of cigarette smoke.
"Ah! Customer!" A tiny woman with a ragged mop of grey hair hurled a still lit cigarette into an ashtray, and pulled a rather startled Natalya forward, directing her into a chair. "A pleasure, a pleasure," she said, her voice almost inaudibly croaky. "So, what kind are you?" Natalya looked at her, and found most of her thoughts occupied with money worries, the latest episode of The Good Wife - and, rather nicely, concern for her daughter, abroad in the military. "Well?"
"What? Oh, I'm...I'm a telepath."
"Ah. I see," she said. She seemed to require no further explanation. "Well, let's get started."

As she pulled up a chair next to Natalya, and took the architect's hands in her own, the raven-haired maiden thought that there might be some last resistance. 'Wait!' she'd cry out. 'I've changed my mind - it's a precious gift!' But no. She just wanted it gone. She just wanted to be able to live.

"Ooh..." Natalya felt a wave of exhaustion flow over her as a pale light surrounded her body, flowing into Getrude. At first she just felt tired...but then, as she looked down at this 'doctar' - then she started to feel the true effects. What had started as a - shallow, admittedly, with her powers weakened - but clear picture of Gertrude's mind was beginning to fade. After three minutes, she could no longer see her thoughts. After another five, she had only the vaguest, weakest sense of her emotions. After two more, it was gone completely. Her powers were gone.

"Uhh..." she moaned, falling back in her chair, exhausted. She panted, sweating from an exertion she didn't realise that she was making.
"Easy there," Gertrude said. "Here, drink this." Natalya was handed a small glass. She expected water, but it was whiskey. She glugged it down nevertheless. She looked again at Gertrude. She peered into her eyes. "What?" the woman said. "What, have I got something on my face?"
"No," Natalya said. And then she smiled. She smiled so richly and so warmly that Gertrude thought she was about to declare her undying love. "Thank you...oh god, thank you so much..." She fell back in her chair, smiling and laughing. It was over. This...cancer, this endless source of pain that disguised itself as a gift was gone. She thought of how her siblings would shake their heads, how her parents would be annoyingly pleased - but she didn't care. She hung on to the words of her friend, of Sophie Scott, as she had done many, many times since she'd said them: "You do you, babe." She tried not to think about how she, and Mariko, would react to the news.

"How much do I owe you?" she said.
"Seventy bucks. We have a payment plan if -"
"As little as that?" Natalya laughed. "For what you've done, I'd have paid a hundred times that. A thousand times!" Natalya reached into her handbag, grabbed her chequebook, filled it out, and handed it over without the slightest hestiation. It was the best four-hundred dollars she'd ever spent.
"So," Gertrude said, "when can I expect to see you again?" Natalya blinked.
"I'm sorry...again? Do I need, I don't know, checkups or something?" Gertrude was confused, but only for a moment.
"Oh, honey..." She shook her head. "First thing I gotta say is...no refunds."
"Well, alright, but -"
"It's not permanent: geez, lady, I'm not that powerful. The effects only last about three hours."

Gertrude might as well have shot her.
"Wh...b-but..." Natalya found herself gasping for air. It was like having an asthma attack. "Three...hours?"
"Mmm. And no more than once a week or you might get a seizure. Didn't Charlie explain?" She looked past Natalya. "Charlie, didn'tcha explain how this works?"
"She said she knew!" he bellowed back. Gertrude shook her head.
"I'm sorry, lady," Gertrude said. She patted Natalya on the shoulder. "You seem like a nice girl. Forget the money." Natalya got up, but slowly. Her ears were ringing.
"Never...I'll never...get rid of...get -" She was about to cry. She was crying, but she was about to collapse into floods of tears. She almost lost her balance, resting her arm on another door in the dingy little facility. "Why this? If anything, why this power?" She grasped the handle, tightly. "Let's see how happy Sophie and Mariko would be if they could see into every horrid, black recess of each other's minds! Let's see how often Ivan would laugh if he knew how much mother and father really loathed him!" She was filled with loathing and envy, and she of all people knew well how toxic those emotions were. But she allowed them in, allowed them to consume her in a thick, dark sludge that sucked away all the best elements of her. She wanted it. She wanted it to destroy her. She opened the door, slipped inside, and pressed her head against it, not looking at the rest of the room. If she had died, then, she would hardly have minded very much. But death was not what she received.

Instead, she received a raucously enthusiastic Gilbert and Sullivan number.

"I am the Captain of the Pinafore!" sung one voice, bellowing it out with joyous tunelessness.
"And a right good captain too!" sung the other, much lower, and much more tunefully.
"You are very very good, and be it understood, I command a right good creeeeeeew!" The singer was so pleased, it seemed, that he could barely contain his laughter. Slowly, Natalya turned around, not quite able to believe what she is hearing.
"He's exceedingly polite, and he thinks it only - oh, crap, that's not until the second verse." The speaker was a tall, handsome fellow, with a distinctly urbane countenance, African-American by the look of him, and actually pulling off wearing a beret.
"How do you mess that up? You're literally just repeating the same line." This man was much shorter, and probably not as conventionally attractive. He had sharp, extremely blue eyes, fuzzy red hair, and a short beard. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Sophie Scott, as it happened. He spoke oddly, in a very staccato fashion, as though he had a slight speech disorder.

"Fuck's sake, Mark, you're the one that dragged me over here to sing operettas with you," the taller man said. The other grinned, sheepishly. He began to reply in sign language, but then stopped himself.
"You're right. Thanks, Shane." He touched him on the arm, smiling with a disarming, almost goofy charm. "It's no fun by myself - I seriously appreciate it."
"Oh, you're going to make me blush, you goon." It was only now that Shane realised they had company. He frowned sharply at her intrusion - but when he actually saw her he changed tack very quickly. "Ahem! Well, ah, hello there madam. How can I be of assistance? What's an elegant lady like you doing -"
"Dude, switch it off." Shane said. He too was struck by Natalya's looks - her long hair, her porcelain white skin, her stunningly ample chest and feminine hips - but he saw her tears first. "Hi!" he said, energetically. "I'm Mark - Mark Mikkelsen. This is Shane, a good friend of mine."
"H-hello," she mumbled back. She avoided looking at them at first - but then, for the moment, she was powerless. She turned her eyes up, and saw Mark looking back at her with curious and kind eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something. "Oh, I'm Natalya. Natalya Nazarov."

"Nice to meet you, Natalya," Mark said. "My friend and I are...huh. I guess it's a little hard to explain, but...would you like to sit with us?" Natalya was about to say no...but she realised suddenly how often wanting to be alone just means you want to be with someone else. She forced a smile.
"Um...y-yes, if that's alright." She sat down in a rather broken down plastic chair. The room had, perhaps, once been a waiting room, but it didn't appear to have any function anymore. There was, however, a rather fancy CD player.
"Great!" The redhead grinned at Shane. "Actually, this is perfect! You can be a tie-breaker." He ran over to a pile of plastic jewel cases, hurriedly picked two up. "Okay...Dark Side of the Moon or Holst's Planets?"
"Um..." Natalya blinked. It was like she'd walked from a black and white film into a full colour one.
"Time's ticking," Shane said. "Hour and a half left."
"I've never heard either before," Mark explained. "Which d'you think?"
"Well I...if I had to suggest," Natalya said, "listen to Mars: Bringer of War and then Pink Floyd. The rest of the Planets isn't...isn't very interesting." Shane smiled.
"Well wouldn't you know it," he said, "a diplomat."

Following her suggestions, Mark stuck Holst on first. He knelt by the speakers, smiling angelically, every sound a pleasure to him.
"Allow me to explain my friend's...eccentric behaviour," Shane said. "You see, he's a superhuman. His powers let him absorb all sound - but this means that he's functionally deaf. He comes here every once in a while to...well, to listen to music."
"I used to love jamming out," Mark added, astonishing both Natalya and Shane - the music was booming, and he was right next to the speakers. "My powers manifested when I was twelve - until I found this place last year I hadn't heard a piece of music or spoken out loud in fourteen years!" Natalya smiled - even without her powers, his simple pleasure was infectious.

But he hadn't forgotten why he'd invited her to sit with them in the first place. Taking a seat by Natalya's side, he tried to speak a couple of times, but his courage failed him. Silent urging from Shane got him back into it.
"So...why are you here, Natalya? Are you a superhuman too?" he asked.
"Er, yes. I'm a telepath. A mind reader."
"Wow!" Mark laughed. He'd never lost the instinct - he could often be seen laughing silently, his own body absorbing any sound he made, but it came out as a somewhat strange sound. "That's really rare."
"Hang on a minute," Shane said. "You must be Insyte." Natalya's stomach tightened.
"Wh-what? Um...no, I..."
"You're the only mind-reader in this half of the country," he said. "Wasn't exactly hard to work out."
"Dude!" Mark said. "What the fuck?" This second sentence he signed. "Well in the interests of fairness," he said, again out loud, "he's Fahrenheit and I'm Askancepoint. Not that I keep my identity secret anyway, but..."
"Oh, from the Pauldron!" Natalya said. She suddenly felt doubly embarrassed: she was in the presence of celebrities. Askancepoint, who had basically been Detroit's only remotely powerful superhero for two years, and Fahrenheit, who'd exposed and defeated the treacherous Gravion - their stars rising so high that they'd been inducted into the Pauldron itself.

"You're a friend of Spectra, aren't you?" Mark said.
"Yes, I'd say so," Natalya replied. "Actually it was f-from her that I found out about this place."
"Oh, yeah?" Mark was a little confused. "Why did you come here? If that's not too personal a question."
"I..." Natalya shrank back. "I didn't know it...was temporary." Mark felt like a fool for pressing and had to suppress an instinct to hold Natalya's hand in solidarity.

"You know Spectra?" Shane interjected, making a quick 'you idiot' sign to Marik. "Well, I can tell you, she's been a tremendous asset." Then, he signed: "Sort of makes you wish that it hadn't been Hydrocita that she'd replaced." Mark gave Shane a stern look. It wasn't playful, jocular antagonism: he was genuinely pissed off with what Shane had said.
"Let's see how personable and stable you are after you're kidnapped and publicly humiliated. You're such a jerk sometimes." Shane looked down at the floor: Mark had made him feel guilty.

"So, what do you do?" Mark asked. "Aside from being insightful?" He winked exaggeratedly at Shane, his umbrage apparently water under the bridge. Merely seeing that Shane felt bad was good enough for him.
"I'm an architect," Natalya replied. "I designed part of the Methos Institute building. What about you, Mark? Do you have a job aside from being in the Pauldron?" She was surprised at just how interested she was.
"I used to!" He put his arms behind his head. "I was a teacher at Detroit School for the Deaf for a while...and then the city completely ran out of money, and they closed it. That was...fun. So I moved out to California and - wouldn't you know - Imperion wants me for his team." He leaned in. "Don't tell anyone we have different salaries, but I'm pretty sure I get paid the least." He shook his head, sadly. "When will the world learn to accept redheads as equals?"

Natalya laughed. These two odd men - and that red-haired goof in particular - had, whether they meant to or not, pulled her out of a quagmire that had been sucking her down into its depths. She felt foolish for how despairingly she'd been thinking beforehand...but then hadn't this just been proving her point? Without her telepathy, it was easier to make a connection with people that wasn't immediately crushed by the weight of their psyche being exposed to her.
"Say, Natalya, I -" His mouth kept moving, but Mark suddenly fell silent. He rolled his eyes, and signed to Shane.
"His powers have come back," Shane explained. "Good," he said, out loud and signing at the same time, "now I don't have to listen to any more weird British music." He got up. "Come on, let's roll." Mark signed something to him, but Shane didn't reply. He signed it again, nodded towards Natalya. Shane was about to say it: "It was lovely to meet you - are you going to be alright by yourself?" - but then he got a different idea.

"My stars, Mark, you are being forward!" he laughed. "Natalya, my little hound-dog of a friend here is being awfully indiscreet. He wants to know if you want to have dinner with him next week." Then to Mark: "There: because you never would, you pansy."
"What? Um, I...um..." Natalya's lovely white cheeks showed a blush particularly clearly, and Mark blushed back when he saw just how charming this feature of Natalya's countenance was. He flapped his arms in protest, but Shane was having none of it.
"I told him he was pushing the bounds of propriety, but there we are." He scribbled something down on a piece of paper. "His number. Just in case."
"Yes," she said.
"Hm?"
"Y-yes, I'd...um, I'd like that." She looked Mark in the eye, and even as she felt the tracks of her scarcely dried tears, she managed a shy smile at him. He blinked at her, not understanding at first, but then grinned broadly when he realised what Shane had done for him. Natalya couldn't help laughing. She couldn't imagine him as the mighty Askancepoint - but he was just funny enough, and just handsome enough, that she could, perhaps, imagine him as a date. "What was the point," she thought, "of giving up being Insyte if you were going to deny yourself everything else as well?"
"Brilliant," Shane said. "Don't worry, Natalya. I'll neaten him up for you."

The two left shortly thereafter, once Shane had called Natalya a cab. Mark was still angrily signing bloody murder at his friend, but he couldn't muster up the virtue to complain quite as vociferously as he might have done. Natalya, meanwhile, mused on the notion that there were, really, so many ways to rescue someone.

She didn't notice, as she hopped into the cab that had been called for her, that she was being watched.
"Oh yeah," the watcher said, "she'll do great."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was, of course, a very odd conversation. Natalya reading Mark's mind, Mark reading Natalya's lips. Her soft, moist...
"Hold it together, Mark, geez!" he chided himself. He saw her blush, and look away. "I...guess you heard that," he thought.
"Yes, but...it's alright." It was a date, Natalya kept reminding herself. Of course his thoughts would turn...physical every now and again. She swallowed. "Why teaching?" she asked. She was instantly glad that she did. As soon as she asked him - or rather, as soon as he worked out what she was asking him on the second attempt - his mind was filled with happy memories. Charming, clever, even the stupid children he'd taught, he had an affection for almost all of them. She wanted to probe further - it was so pleasant to share in these emotions - but she wasn't yet strong enough.

He went on for a while about his experiences as a teacher, and Natalya was pleased to hear all of it. As he went on, decrying the current public school system, and then telling a funny story about one of his pupils when he got worried that he was filibustering, Natalya detected the soul of a good-old-fashioned socialist within his pleasant, jocular exterior.
"Can I ask you a question?" Mark said.
"You want to know why I wanted to get rid of my powers," Natalya said. "Do...you mind if I don't answer that?" Annoyingly, she had to repeat the question twice before Mark understood her.
"No, not at all. I guess I opened my big mouth again, huh? That is...thought...my big...brain?" He scratched the back of his head, and Natalya couldn't help laughing slightly.
"Well... I mean, I'm sure you can imagine the difficulties it brings. I can't switch it off, either." He nodded.
"It must be hard for your family and stuff." This response Natalya had not expected. Seeing her quizzical expression, he went on. "I mean, it must be hard for you personally but - I don't know, if my mom always knew everything I was thinking I'd probably never go to her house!" Natalya stared at him for a moment. "Wh-what? Did I say something wrong?"
"Not at all," she lied. Well, it wasn't quite a lie. She wasn't offended or anything, but she was surprised at how new a thought this was to her. She felt very selfish. "God..." she thought, "Ivan and Lizzie are so...tolerant..."

The next thing she had to say she didn't trust to lip reading. She took out her phone, and texted him:
"I'm sorry. I go on and on about how painful this power is for me, but it puts you at such a disadvantage. Everyone reveals themselves in stages, but you don't have that chance. I get to hold back as much as I want. It must be very awkward for you." Mark read the message, and Natalya felt her stomach flutter slightly when she sensed his reaction: a sharp increase in affectionate feelings.
"Too thoughtful for her own good," he thought. Then deliberately, looking her in the eye: "Don't worry. Thanks to Shane, I'm basically impervious to being embarrassed now."
"Does he get you all your dates?" Natalya said. He laughed silently, and Natalya got a flash of intense admiration and - there was no mistaking it - love from Mark for his friend. Platonic, but very real. He had an image of him in his head as dancing, graceful and untouchable, through battle. It was really rather sweet how much he admired Fahrenheit.
"Only the ones worth seeing a second time," he answered.
"And...th-that includes me?"
"I'd say so." He put his hand on hers. She let him.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Natalya went home, not exactly filled with happiness, but really rather pleased. For once she actually felt like she was glad to have her powers: he wasn't faking his open, easy charm and...god, he was just so nice! He wasn't a genius, but he was clever, in that somehow down-to-earth way that teachers often have. And he'd left her with an image right out of an old Hollywood romance: he'd been practically skipping down the street, singing A British Tar to himself within his own mind.

And then, as she entered her house, paranoia came with her. Paranoia that he was faking, that only with her powers at full strength could she have pierced the veil of his deception...but there was almost a pleasure there, too. That, Natalya thought, was what most people felt when they were dating, surely. She thought about him touching her hand, holding it as they walked together for a little while, and blushed. She felt shy...but it wasn't the painful, desperate hatred of human interaction she often felt...it was just that a boy she liked had held her hand.

Natalya undressed, before slipping into a white, silk night-dress. It was a little frilly at the hem, about three inches above her knees, very low cut. Her bosom strained even the loose, soft silk, her skin even more pristine white than her dress. She sat down on the edge of her bed, and found one of her fingers tracing its way up her thighs, almost without her willing it. The way Mark had looked at her, the way he'd been so obviously suppressing certain thoughts...it had made her feel, well...sexy.


A few minutes later, a somewhat sweatier and more flushed Natalya was going to her fridge to get herself a glass of carrot juice, when she heard something. Something at her door.
"Post at this hour?" she thought. She took a step forward, but then froze. Someone was fiddling with her lock. There was no mistaking it - someone was trying to break in.

Natalya felt herself gripped with fear. An intruder! Natalya was suddenly very much aware of her present status: a lovely young woman, vulnerable and exposed, alone, clad in nothing but a thin, revealing nightdress. She wanted to flee, to cry out - but then, she clenched a fist. She might not have been an active superhero anymore, but she was Insyte. If her powers couldn't give her happiness, they could at least give her strength!

She took a moment to centre herself, to remember her training. She wasn't the best at karate, but with her powers helping her, she was pretty damned good at it, particularly thanks to the lessons Sophie Scott had given her. She decided that she would take the initiative and, moving as quietly as she could, she tripped lightly towards her front door. She heard no voices, no breathing, even. For a moment she wondered if she'd made a mistake, but no - she could see the lock beginning to turn. Summoning her courage, she pulled open the door, and struck with one fast, brutal chop.

But it didn't hit. The woman in the grey, all-encompassing military gear, with the gas-mask over her face, had easily caught the damsel's slender wrist. She looked down at Natalya, the sound of her breathing completely obscured. Natalya was frozen. She didn't see much with her mind, but she saw the damp, sweet-smelling white cloth in the woman's free hand. Natalya's yellow eyes went wide as she realised what this woman wanted. That is to say, when she realised that what she wanted...was Natalya.
"A..ahh!" Natalya's courage fled her in an instant. Pulling her hand free, she stumbled backwards. "Get...get away...!" she gasped. It wasn't fair. Not this. Not now. Not now that something good had finally entered her life.

Two steps forward. That was all it took for this woman to reach her. With one deft movement she seized both of Natalya's wrists, but kept going, and pressed her up against the nearest wall.
"No! Help me! Someone please, I - MMMMMMMPPPPPPHHHHHH!!" Natalya screamed, her owl-like eyes wide as saucers, as the soft, damp cloth was thrust down over her mouth and nose. "NNNNNNMMMPPPHHHH!!" She felt the chloroform flood her senses, overpowering them with chemical sweetness. She was so feeble - just this woman's one hand was enough easily to keep both her arms restrained. Her white legs tried to kick out, but her assailant pressed her so closely against the wall that her legs could barely move. "Nmmph! HHHHLLLP! HHHHLLLP MMMHHHH!!" she cried out, desperate for aid.
"No help is coming, Miss Nazarov," the woman said. "Not for you, at least." To Natalya's horror, two other entered, a man and a woman, dressed the same as her attacker. The woman shut the door behind her; the man was carrying a huge, steel case, as tall as he himself was.

By now it was starting to affect her. Her breathing was getting more panicked, but also heavier, deeper. Each gulpful of air drew her deeper and deeper down. She no longer had the strength in her moist, supple legs to kick: she could barely stand. She couldn't keep her thoughts straight - a warm sense of defeat pulsing through her.
"Mmmhhh...mmmhhh..." Natalya began sighing, her eyes no longer quite so wide.
"That's it, Miss Nazarov," the woman said. "Fall...fall deeply..." Her wrists released, the telepath was ashamed to find that her arms just slumped down. She couldn't move them.
"No...I'm...already so...weak..." So much was this the case that, when her captor began stroking her neck, all she could do to resist was moan softly in what was meant to be protest, but sounded rather like something else.

"A perfect subject," the woman said, slowly sliding her thinly gloved hand down to Natalya's buxom, heaving chest. "So soft and frail...so palpably helpless..." She began massaging the raven-haired maiden's breasts, feeling the heavy, yielding softness of her alabaster skin, the warmth as blood rose to the contact.
"Mmmmhhhh..." Natalya whimpered as she was groped, a wave of sensual helplessness washing over her, almost taking her over the edge of consciousness. She couldn't help it - she still felt herself pulsing slightly from her time attending to herself, and her body was still extremely sensitive.
"That's it...feel the pleasure of it...the sweetness of surrendering your body and mind to the tender embrace of sleep..."
"Feel it," the other woman said.
"Give in to it," their male companion chimed.
"Mmhh...mmmmmmhhhh...!" Natalya could not but obey. Her smooth, sloping shoulders writhed sinuously, her tender thighs rubbed weakly together. To her shame, she felt two points on her thin nightdress tenting. She was not the only one who noticed.

"You can't deny the pleasure. Let it take you. Let the dominion of sleep claim you..." She began squeezing and rubbing Natalya's breasts with more vigour.
"Let it claim you," said the second.
"Let it pull you down," said the third.
"Mmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhhhppphhh..." Natalya sighed. She felt herself quivering. Her eyes rolled back, and not just with sleepiness. Her body was being used against her, and there was nothing she could do about it. She managed to keep her eyes open, to look into the eyeholes of her captor's mask. "Plllhhhss..." she whimpered. "Pllhhhss...nnnhhh..." But there was no mercy. The cloth was pressed tighter, muzzling the raven-haired beauty, forcing her to breathe in even more of the drug. "Mmhhhh...MMMHHHH!" she moaned, shivering, her body fondled, caressed, a body that had ached so long to be touched. And she could feel from her captor, feel the pleasure she derived from seeing Natalya like this. "Oh...I'm...limp...so soft...so...weak...ripe for the...taking..." she thought, unable to keep her captor's thoughts from her own in her sleepy state. "Mmhh-mhh...mhh!" A gasp, a quiver throughout her whole body. "No...I can't...I m-mustn't...give in..." She felt like steam was rising from her skin, so hot did she feel. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin covered in beads of sweat. Her white legs were so moist as to be slippery. "Why...are they...doing this...to me?"
"There is no resistance, Miss Nazarov," the masked woman said, whispering into Natalya's ear. "You now belong...to the Sleeping Beauty Society."

She took the cloth away, and for a moment Natalya floated, trembling.
"Uh...hhh..." Natalya gasped, eyelids fluttering. Her captor watched her, and Natalya felt the pleasure of domination emanating from her...but not much in the way of thrill. This was routine.
"Epsilon, Gamma, pay close attention," the first woman said. "This is where it takes her." And take her it did. She fell, tripping over her own feet, turning as she passed out of the waking world, such that the first woman had to catch her. Her breasts shook up and down as she wavered and tumbled, so much so that it seemed they might spill out of her thin nightdress. Falling like a swooning Southern belle into her captor's arms, Natalya might have been the heroine of a Harlequin romance: busty, thinly clad, raven-haired and so very easy to dominate. Natalya looked up, looked over her captor's shoulder. She half imagined that she could see Askancepoint and Fahrenheit bursting in to save her, belting out Gilbert and Sullivan as they did. She wished it so strongly that she almost heard it...but no. She was alone. She was always alone in the end. Her body gave one last shudder, before her eyes rolled back, and then fluttered shut. Her captor felt her weight shift as she went completely limp: she was out.

"Splendid, Delta!" Epsilon said, laying his heavy case on the ground. "I haven't seen such an artful inducement in years!"
"You're too kind," Delta said, cradling Natalya in her arms. She lifted her a little higher, letting her head fall back, exposing her long, white neck. She lowered herself to it, and sniffed it. "Mmm...delicate, but womanly..." Delta hummed. She lifted Natalya into her arms. Not a short woman, Natalya nevertheless seemed light as a feather in Delta's strong grasp. She carried her, being exquisitely careful with her soft, helpless captive, to Natalya's couch, sitting her down. She slumped to one side, but Delta propped her up carefully, tucking her bare legs together so that she remained in place. "Gamma, would you like to?"
"Thank you, Delta," she said.

Approaching Natalya, Gamma removed her gloves. She knelt down in front of the slumbering maiden, and placed her hands on her smooth knees.
"Note this down, Epislon: her skin is exquisitely smooth - easily top class." She moved her fingers up Nataly's white legs, spreading her fingers out in a wide pattern. Each fingertip was searching for imperfections, stroking and caressing, and massaging too. "Mmm...her legs are divine..." She folded one over the other, putting the sleeping Natalya in a ladylike position that would have been dignified had it not been imposed on her. Gamma sniffed her thighs, and giggled. "Someone's been a bit of a naughty girl recently."

She spread her hands up, over Natalya's navel, her ribs, until she firmly cupped both of Natalya's voluminous breasts in her hands.
"Springy, firm...oh, my!" Gamma gripped more tightly, massaging the fallen damsel's chest with delighted vigour.
"Mmhhh..." Natalya mewed, apparently not totally insensate. She sighed, and shifted slightly, her head falling onto her right shoulder. Gamma stroked her smooth, white shoulders, tracing her elegant, pronounced collarbone with her thumbs.
"She's going to be a very popular attraction," Gamma said. She moved to Natalya's face. She cupped her chain, turned her head this way and that, inspecting her. She squeezed her cheeks, feeling just how pliable the silent maiden was. "When we categorise her," she said, "I recommend 'Russian Princess meets 50s pin-up'."
"Noted," Epsilon said. "Now, bring her here."

Gamma obeyed. She took Natalya under her armpits, pulling her up to her full height. She fell limply against Gamma's chest, almost as though she were seeking the comfort of an embrace.
"There now, Miss Nazarov," Gamma cooed, stroking her long, black hair. "We'll take very good care of you." She ran her hand all the way down Natalya's hair...and then a little further too. She bent down, wrapped her arms around Natalya's thighs, and hurled the sleeping beauty over her shoulder. She shuddered with pleasure as she felt Natalya's luscious, perfectly formed bosoms bouncing pleasingly against her back. Natalya's nightdress was long enough to protect at least some of her modesty, but it didn't matter. Gamma happily and with total impunity stroked and squeezed her legs, lifting her hem and giving her behind a good, firm smack - partly to check that Natalya was, indeed, asleep; partly to inspect the firmness and consistency of that part of her body; and partly just for fun.

"Hold her up," Epsilon said. Gamma did so, sliding Natalya slowly off her shoulder, onto her feet. Before she slumped over, Epsilon held her by the shoulders, a strong grip keeping her up. Epsilon turned her around, holding both her arms straight behind her back, before thrusting both limbs into a leather sheath, not entirely unlike a corset in design. He pulled its cords tight, binding Natalya's arms, fixing them completely in place. This done, he wrapped a thick, leather belt around Natalya's torso, squeezing her forearms and pushing up her already prominent chest. Moving down, his hands tracing the contours of her gently curvy hips, until he reached her warm, wet thighs. Another belt went around them, harshly snapping them together, making the sleeping maiden go pigeon-toed. There could have been a more perfect expression of her passive helplessness...but this one wasn't bad. It didn't last, though: Epsilon wrapped one last belt around her ankles, pulling it tight, and binding the defenceless, pale beauty hand and foot.

"Wonderful job, Epsilon," Delta said. "Oh my, look at her...all tight and bound and soft and sleepy..." She shivered. "And they pay us for this!" All three laughed cheerily. Epsilon, still chuckling, laid Natalya down in the now open steel case. It was filled with a foam lining, which deformed to fit Natalya's buxom frame precisely, so she fit very snugly inside. Lastly, Delta handed Epsilon the cloth she'd used to knock Natalya out, and he placed it back over her mouth and nose, tying it in place with a thick piece of blue elastic, assuring that she'd remain totally subdued.
"Perfect," he said.
"Yes...she is, isn't she? Alpha's going to triple our commission for this." Epsilon closed the case, and plunged the fallen damsel into darkness. In her drugged sleep, she didn't so much as slightly stir - even as Epsilon hauled her up, and the three took her away. Gamma looked back into Natalya's apartment.
"Wow," she said, "what a fantastic model of the Taj Mahal! We must add 'talented' to her profile as well..."


A couple of miles away, a deaf redhead returned to his apartment, still smiling the whole time. He took out his phone - and for just an instant considered texting her. But no, he didn't want to be too forward. God, she was lovely. God she was...deep! He felt almost embarrassingly shallow next to her Slavic profundity. He smiled to himself, though. He had a feeling few men had the privilege of that lady's company. He even had a strange feeling that he could...help her somehow.
"But don't get carried away," he thought, "she's a person, not a...lost puppy. She doesn't need to be rescued!"
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sophie woke up moaning, in a cold, terrified sweat. The lithe redhead, who'd turned twenty five days earlier, was perturbed by this, of course - but less so than she might have been. This was because she had woken up in such a condition, either moaning or even screaming, every single night for the last week. She didn't know why. She could never remember her nightmare. All she knew was that she was deathly afraid, felt that some alien presence was hanging over her - and then the feeling would be gone. Sometimes she would wake before Mariko, and be able to hide it, and sometimes she woke her lover, and would be treated once again to Mariko's bewildered, but nevertheless touching, concern. This was such a morning.

"Again, my sweet?" Mariko said, stroking her girlfriend's hair. The first time - that night Natalya had called her - Sophie had been shivering and almost sobbing for hours, but now she only woke up...disturbed.
"It's - it's okay," Sophie said. "I'm fine, Koko. Go back to sleep."
"It's -" She paused to yawn. "It's not as if I can do much else." She took Sophie's shoulders, and turned her so that the two could look each other in their green eyes. "There's something I'm not seeing," she said.
"Yeah, me too," Sophie replied. "I just wish I could fucking remember at least once!" Mariko frowned.
"That's not what I mean," the tall, slender model said, barely speaking above a whisper. "I feel...I feel like you're not alright, my love." She touched Sophie's chest, feeling her heartbeat.
"I..." Sophie looked away. "I guess...I guess I'm not. This Schiffer thing...it's got me really spooked. And...I don't know, back at the Penitentiary Supreme I - I'd never seen that many dead people before."

This was not a lie. As far as Sophie knew these were the most likely reasons for her disturbed state - but she'd not been open about the extent of its effects. Oh she'd told Mariko that she'd felt low on energy and despondent, but not about...the depths. How she'd just curl up staring at the ceiling, how she'd dwell on her worst memories. So much had she done so that she'd even begun remembering things that she'd had no recollection of before: her mother and father having screaming, bitter arguments about the pettiest things, horrible thoughts she'd had about her friends and parents when she was a child, and - most recently and most disturbing - memories of herself, as a little girl sobbing and screaming with tears, begging to know why she felt so sad. "It's not fair on mama!" she remembered saying. "I shouldn't be sad...they don't deserve sad-Sophie...!"

Nor did Mariko. These thoughts, these feelings, they jabbed into Sophie's heart with a kind of alien terror. If she'd had to deal with it all the time she wouldn't have been able to cope.
"Hey," she said, kissing Mariko on the forehead, "I'm gonna shower."
"Sure, sweetheart," Mariko replied, holding her hand until she slipped out of reach. The thing of it was, Sophie didn't have to cope with it all the time. The feelings came - and then suddenly would subside all at once within the span of an hour. If it hadn't been so rapid Sophie would have suspected herself of late-onset development of manic depression - but she couldn't find a case with such short downswings.

As she showered, letting water that was, in truth, too hot to be comfortable, scald away the remnants of her phantom nightmare, she realised how foolish she was being.
"I should tell her," she thought. "I should tell her right fucking now." She'd held off at first because of Mariko's disturbed and unsettled reaction to finding out that fellow Pauldron-member Nova not only nursed a hidden, bitter grudge against her, but was horribly traumatised by her kidnap at the hands of Hades. She'd been so off in her assessment of the situation that she'd been thrown into doubt. But after a week and a half, things had to have settled. Mariko didn't look quite so confused and withdrawn anymore. Sophie was going to tell her. She would have told her.

But then she heard Mariko talking. She didn't speak often - she appeared to be having a very one-sided conversation, where she was on the wrong side - but when she spoke, she was speaking in Japanese. Sophie actually understood almost everything she said, because she mostly used only two words: 'hai', Japanese for 'yes'; and - to Sophie's horror - 'okasan'...Japanese for 'mother'.

By the time Sophie came in, the conversation was over.
"Hey, who was that?" Sophie asked, just in case. Mariko took a while before responding.
"It...was Mother." She was sitting very rigidly. "She was inquiring after my health. News of Hades' attack on me finally reached her, it seems."
"Well...that's nice," she said. "Wanting to know you're okay."
"I thought so too," Mariko said. Her fists were clenched. "And then...hm, what did she say exactly...? Ah yes: 'If you're going to get paraded in explicit poses on television, you should dress in something more appropriate. I was embarrassed to see you looking like that.'"
"Oh, Jesus, Koko..." Sophie covered her hands with her mouth.
"It seems Daisuke told her about you, too," she said, looking with bitter irony at her girlfriend. "She didn't like that one little bit, as I'm sure you can imagine. 'Yet another way to embarrass us'."
"Fuck, sweetie, that's -"
"Exactly what I expected." Sophie knelt down behind her, wrapped her arms around her and kissed her lightly on her swanlike neck. "Oh, it's alright." She laughed without humour. "D'you know she calls me 'Mariko-sama'? That's the honorific you use for someone of much higher social status than yourself. Family tradition - whoever holds the Power is accorded the same status as the head of the household. That always annoyed her."
"Yeah, I bet," Sophie said. "Hope you don't mind me saying so, sweetie, but your mom's an asshole." Mariko stiffened.

"She's a...hard woman," Mariko said. "Finding out about father's...habits only made her harder. I -" She hesitated. "She's...she is still my mother, Sophie, and I - I mean she gave me a home, fine education...and strength, too. She taught me restraint, and self-control - I'm stronger because of her. I am stronger. I'm grateful in m-many -" She couldn't finish. It took all her strength not to cry, and she couldn't say another word. Sophie intervened, took her by the chin, and looked her in the eye
"You're strong, Mariko. So strong...but I'm not going to agree with you about where that comes from, okay?" Sophie didn't believe in the virtues of the school of hard knocks. Kindness and love made someone strong. Receiving it - and giving it, too. Seeing Mariko comforted, seeing her willing to take succour from Sophie, seeing that Mariko needed her - that Spectra needed her! - filled Sophie with strength. The despondent darkness that seemed intent on drowning her heart in misery was put at bay. "Later," she thought. "I'll tell her later..." As long as she could help, as long as she gave Mariko love and strength, as long as she could be a source of comfort to her in times of darkness...then she could let herself believe she deserved her. Maybe.

The two made breakfast together - poached eggs on rye toast - and sat down, not across from each other as one might expect, but next to each other. Both young women wanted to be close that morning. At least it meant Sophie could peek over Mariko's shoulder as she read through the Herald.
"Ah, here it is!" Mariko said. It wasn't the headline, but it was on the front page. "'New information from Second Battle of the Penitentiary Supreme: Enhancegirl fights and defeats Dextrus in single combat - Seacouver's Golden Girl topples villain too spicy for Imperion.'" She squeezed Sophie's hand. "Excellent. I have to say, your reporter friend is good at this. She held off just long enough from the main story that people will pay attention. You'll get the recognition you deserve."
"Yay me," Sophie said. Mariko's pleasure at this gave her more enjoyment than the thing itself. It didn't feel real, all the things she'd done that day. Those had been the actions of a hero - a giant - and, soothed as she was by comforting Mariko, she felt...small. Reduced. But then Mariko looked at her, and smiled, and so clearly loved her that Sophie didn't mind.

"I have to go," Mariko said. "Jackson has some big initiative planned, and we're all needed."
"Sure, sweetie," Sophie said. Mariko slipped her slender arms around Sophie's waist - a little awkwardly in their wooden chairs, but still - and kissed her. "Mhhh..." Sophie moaned into Mariko's mouth. "Mmmhhh!" Gripped with a sudden desperation, she pulled Mariko close, and kissed her with intense passion. She wanted to capture this feeling, this simple Saturday morning with her girlfriend where she'd got upset about her mother, been comforted, and then read the newspaper with her. She kissed her more deeply still, and she tasted of toothpaste and eggs and coffee, and Sophie didn't want to forget any of it. She wanted to hold onto this moment for as long as she could, and she did: they didn't break away for another five minutes.
"You're so passionate..." Mariko sighed. "My vixen..." She kissed Sophie's cheek, flicked her earlobe with her tongue. Sophie giggled slightly, and Mariko rose. "I may not be back tonight," she said. Anxiety entered her expression. "Are you going to be alright?"
"They're just nightmares," Sophie said. "I'm okay."
"Very well," Mariko said, kissing her once more, and then leaving.

Sophie remained alone in Mariko's house for a little while, Arthur the cat still holding her in disfavour. All too soon, she felt it. Reaching up, clawing at her - the darkness telling her that she didn't deserve this - any of this.
"No, god damn it!" she said, inverting her guilt and using it to push her forward. She herself had an appointment: in exchange for all her karate lessons, Natalya had said she'd help Sophie with an essay on the Trotskyite Revolution of 1927, an essay Sophie direly needed a high grade on. She rose, dressed in nothing more than a white tank top and a pair of yoga pants, a satchel slung over her back.

She opened Mariko's door, and found that someone was standing right in the doorway. She looked very much like Sophie, only with black hair instead of red. As soon as she saw her, Sophie started weeping with despair.
"How dare you?" this woman said, quite calmly. "What gives you the right?" The next thing Sophie knew, she was collapsed on the ground, screaming, calling out desperately for Mariko, for her mother or father, for someone to save her.
"Please!" she begged. "I don't want to -"

And then she wasn't there anymore. She hadn't even got up. She was still at the breakfast table, her satchel by her chair. The door was still closed. She'd never got up.
"Wh-what the fuck?!" Sophie gasped. "Enhance!" Turning on her powers out of a burning instinct that she was under threat, she scanned everything around her. But after two minutes of frantic examination that - to Sophie - felt more like twenty, she had to deduce that nothing was there. "I must have fallen asleep again...dreamed it..." She felt cold, and frightened, and not like a twenty-year old at all. "God damn it!" she cried out. "Fuck this! I'm not gonna get messed up by stupid-ass dreams!" She left as rapidly as she could, trying not to think about it - but she wondered if, perhaps, she'd finally had a glimpse into those nightmares that had been plaguing her. Rather too large a part of her felt as if they didn't want to know. At any rate, she turned on her heel, looked back at the door - and flipped it the bird.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Forty minutes later, Sophie was approaching Natalya's door. She thought about asking the telepath to have another look into her mind, to see if she could suss out the source of her nightmares and that...unsettling waking dream...but that felt too much like concealing things from Mariko. She'd discuss it with her first, before bringing anyone else into it. And if Natalya saw something of her own accord...well, that wasn't Sophie's fault.

It was only when she got close that she saw that Natalya's door was open. This brought her thoughts into sharp, immediate focus. Natalya wasn't the type to leave her door anything less than fully locked, much less ajar. Something was wrong. It was too out in the open to use her powers, but she crept close anyway, before peering quickly inside. Not seeing anything, she slipped inside, expecting to find...well, she wasn't sure, but it wasn't going to be good.

Instead, she found a rather bemused Natalya, sitting on her couch, looking at her very quizzically.
"Oh. Um...hi, Natalya, I...uh..."
"You saw my door was open and you thought something was wrong," the telepath said. "I was trying to let him out." She pointed at a bumblebee that was meandering about her front room.
"Oh, well. Good!" Sophie smiled. "Shall we get started?"
"Sure," Natalya said. She yawned. "Ohh...I can't believe I'm still tired..."
"Yeah?"
"I only woke up twenty-five minutes ago. I couldn't have slept for less than eleven hours.I must have dropped like a stone last night."
"Fun night, huh?" Sophie said, winking.
"Well...I, um..." Natalya mumbled. She looked down, blushing.
"Oh, it was fun!" In hushed tones, she added: "there isn't anyone here, is there?"
"What? No, no, no!" She smiled slightly. "Just the bumblebee."
"Ugh, bees are such studs," Sophie said, shaking her head. She began to unpack her notes and her laptop.
"It is a little odd," Natalya said, mostly to herself. She scratched a spot at the base of her neck. "I must have dropped like a stone when I got home. I don't remember a thing from the moment I got back..."

[Damselbinder]

Twenty-five years earlier...

"Oh come on, this is just too easy!" the Supremacist laughed, tearing the roof off the convention centre. The scientists and military personnel inside shrieked with terror as they saw his cerulean light over them, the light of the very man whose rampage had forced them to convene. "All gathering up in one place for me? Gotta appreciate the convenience...but then again it doesn't matter how many weapons engineers you get - no bunch of normies, I don't care how clever you are, are ever going to come up with something to match the Superior Breed!"
"Maybe not, you psychopath - but we're not all 'normies'!"

A short man with a wiry moustache threw off an overcoat, and revealed a bright red outfit, with a white cape. "We knew you'd come - and now you're doomed!"
"Regenerator!" Martin hissed. As soon as the one appeared, so did ten others. Cannonball, Pole-Star, Psy-clone, Infernus - the entire California Cabal! It had been a trap - and the Supremacist had fallen straight into it.
"You may be powerful, Supremacist," Regenerator said, "but even you are no match for all of us."
"Oh," Martin said, "is that a fact?" He raised his hand, briefly deflected a burst of flame from Infernus. "You should know better than to - aaghh!" Pain! Ear splitting pain throughout his entire body. He looked down, saw a young man with web-like tatoos over his eyes: Psy-Clone, the only telepath on the West Coast.
"It doesn't matter how strong you are," this man said, "my powers go straight to your head! Feel it, Supremacist! Feel the pain you've inflicted!" Martin howled in agony as Psy-Clone ravaged his mind. He could barely think. He could barely remember how to use his powers. But he he hadn't forgotten completely - and he turned his might upon Psy-Clone. He turned it upon them all.

There wasn't time for screams. He didn't create a construct: he just poured out his power in a devastating ray of energy until they were gone. He almost exhausted himself - pure power like this was exceptionally tiring - but it was enough. Enough to kill every single person in the room, but for himself. Enough to reduce them to nothing more than vapour. He surveyed his handiwork, smiled merrily to himself, and then left, destroying the project to develop weapons to fight him, and eliminating eleven of his most powerful enemies once and for all - and it had only taken a second.

Yet as he left, he didn't notice the vapour of his dead enemies was not simply dissipating. It seemed to hang in the air for a moment, before moving back into itself. There was a crackle of electricity in the air, as the Regenerator's power took effect. Even vapourised it could not be stifled, so potent were Regnerator's abilities to heal himself.

Yet something was not right. The vapour that was all that was left, not only of the California Cabal, but also of the many civilians whom the Supremacist had murdered, and it mixed with what remained of Regenerator. It was all being drawn in, the remains of more than a hundred and fifty people in a terrible, horrific malfunction of Regenerator's superpowers. The vapour began to gain solidity. Began to take shape.

When the first emergency services arrived on the scene, they thought they had found a survivor. There was a sense in which that was true, of course, but when the mass' eyes opened, it was not Regenerator who took his first look at the world. To the credit of the police officer who approached him - her? it? - they did not take this being's unusual appearance as necessarily a sign that he was to be feared. Nine feet tall with ink black skin - not like human skin, but like the gloss of a tar pit - he was clearly something out of the ordinary. But there were a lot of strange superhumans in the world.
"Sir, are you alright? Did you see what happened here?" The mass turned their eyes to the policeman, and he had to stifle a scream. Its eyes - its eyes! It was sickening: a hundred tiny irises, squirming for space within a single eyeball, the other eye glowing pure white. When it moved, it didn't move like a person did, but with a sort of squamous squelching.
"This is...a strange sensation," he said, in a voice that could not have come from a human throat. He laughed, perhaps, though the sound that emanated from him was not a human sound. A hundred and fifty minds swirled together in one great vortex - it would have been madness and total chaos...had it not been for the power of Psy-clone that had been absorbed into the mass. As Regenerator's power held together the body, so too did Psy-clone's weave together a hundred and fifty minds into one.

The policeman was no poet, but as he looked upon this...being, he couldn't help but feel that ordinary vocabulary was insufficient.
"Inhuman," he thought. "Monstrous!" he thought, but neither were sufficient. Then, at last, he hit on it: "Abomination!"
"We see..." It turned on the policeman, seized him by the shoulders. "There...aren't...words...!" He juddered, shivered, like an old computer sputtering and hissing in an attempt to process far too large a file. It leapt up, launching itself forward on a jet of flame. It roasted the policeman to death in one horrendous flash of flame, but the abomination barely even noticed. It landed on a part of the roof that the Supremacist had left relatively intact, shaking, and - perhaps screaming? It was hard to tell.

And then silence. Calm. The mass stood straight, his body taking on a more definitely humanoid form, shrinking a little to more like eight feet than nine. He looked towards the sky, towards the sun, its hundred irises squirming and wriggling, his body squelching with every movement.
"We understand," he said. He looked down at himself, at his hands. "The world has gone utterly mad, hasn't it?"
"Yes," he replied to himself. "Otherwise we would not exist."
"Yes. Let us inquire. Let us discover why."

It would not be a year until anyone even knew that this entity existed, when it stole the uranium from a nuclear power plant in France. Still later would it be until he was given a name by some sensationalist newspaper in need of a headline: the Lord of Delirium - or Lord Delirious for short: the second-most-powerful superhuman in the world.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Jackson, this is some weak shit," Fahrenheit said, shaking his head. "I'm a superhero, not a...propaganda machine."
"This is part of the job," Panhellius replied. "Maintaining a positive relation between the public and the superhero community is an essential aspect of the Pauldron's duties."
"Isn't that what Chryseis is for?" Shane complained. This drew him a dirty look from the woman in question. "What? Oh, yeah, you dress like that to draw exactly no attention, is that right?"
"You've got a real attitude problem," Chryseis growled. Despite the fact that Fahrenheit was by far the more potent of the two in combat, he still balked when she looked at him so sternly.

"It's a full on charm offensive, guys. I'm gonna need you all on this," Imperion said. His tone indicated that he would brook no further argument. "The Pariahs are telling the world that guys like us are - at best - just there to destroy other dangerous superhumans, that we only exist to solve the problems that we cause. Plus after the Supremacist's little rampage, there's people calling for superhumans criminals to just get executed instead of going to the Pen-Supreme - and the R.A.A. basically means that rogue elements like the Pariahs can pretty much do that if they want. Well I'm not having that, god damn it. I won't live in a world where Ivan Nazarov is the model for what it is to be a superhero!" Mariko, hanging back behind the others, was a little surprised that Jackson was as angry as he was. Indeed, few traces of his easy, boyish charm were to be found on his face that day. He'd shaved his beard, and cut his hair almost militarily short. He looked older.

"Chryseis," Panhellius said, "you're going to the veterans' rally. Besides the obvious good press, there's quite a few supers who served before the Madrid Treaty was signed, and it'd be good for them to know we haven't forgotten about them."
"...and because it's a buncha old timers who've been fantasising about me since before disco died, am I right?" Chryseis laughed. Jackson smiled sheepishly. "Don't worry, Jackie. I'll keep the old folks sweet."

"Fahrenheit, Askancepoint I want you heading to Carson City," Imperion said, turning to the pair. "There's a motion to try to get Nevada's god-damned background-check law repealed, and I want you there showing support."
"And we do this...how, exactly?" Fahrenheit said. "We're not politicians." Imperion didn't reply. He looked suddenly distracted. "Jackson?"
"What?"
"Off in your own world there, boss?" Askancepoint signed. "Shane asked what you wanted us to do."
"Yeah, sorry," he replied, "I've got a headache and...ah, whatever, not your problem. We'll be sending Morrow guys with you," Jackson said, referring to the lobbying firm that bore his name. "They'll do the talking. I'll be honest, guys, you're there to show that we're taking it seriously." Fahrenheit didn't look happy, but he nodded in acquiescence. "Oh, and if anyone from Anubis shows up, try not to be...too belligerent."
"No promises," Fahrenheit said. Imperion didn't look pleased by the response, but he didn't say anything.

"Spectra, with me," Panhellius said. "We're staying local. Some of the escapees from the Penitentiary Supreme have been spotted in Renning City - we're concerned they might be trying to form a new ring, or even take over some of the existing gangs. It's going to be a joint operation with the West Coast Congress."
"Understood," she replied. "Do you have a list of suspects?" Panhellius nodded, handing her a small file. She scanned it quickly: she knew most of them already. She was greatly displeased to find Greyhand listed among their number, but she asked no further questions, she said nothing more. Shaken and embarrassed by her facile attempt to befriend Nova, she was no longer making a great deal of effort to build closer relationships with her teammates. When they went out for drinks after a successful days work, she politely declined to join them. When they had personal conversations, she remained silent. She did what she'd done as a model: she kept herself to herself, remained civil with her colleagues, and made herself notable only by her actions as a professional.

"What about you, boss?" Mark signed. "I mean, wouldn't this Carson City thing be more up your street anyway?"
"You're right, but I'm doing some more urgent damage control," he said. "Today's the vote on the Combined Registration Office." This was a fancy way of describing a new state bureau being proposed, combining registration and funding of superheroes - traditionally something devolved to local P.D. - with the monitoring of superhuman criminals, which was normally a county matter, and the registration and education of people whose powers manifested in childhood, who required monitoring and training to prevent being dangers to themselves and others - this having been a function of local school boards. If that system sounds chaotic, well, that was considered to be one of its virtues: it kept it technical, and relatively apolitical. But with one body controlling it all, the state's whole relationship with its superhumans could easily be steered one way or another by an idealogue or other.

"Today?" Chryseis spoke up. "That's bullshit: they can't have been drafting it for long enough!" Imperion shrugged.
"Things are moving fast. I've heard our old friend Mr Pict has been running around putting sticks up just the right butts." There was a general groan. "I know, I know..." Anubis had been a thorn in their side for far too long. Thanks to Imperion, they'd never been able to gain much influence in California, but circumstances were changing. Criminals and terrorists acting in the name of Hades hadn't stopped, and public opinion was shifting. There was even a popular conspiracy that Hades had really been the one who'd orchestrated the Penitentiary Supreme breakout.

"I just wish Arlington was still around," Jackson said, shaking his head.
"It can't be a coincidence," Panhellius said, "Hades assassinating our biggest supporter in the State Senate." Imperion winced.
"Yeah."
"I still don't get it," Chryseis said. "Anya...why is she doing this? I...kinda get her tricking you to get your power - or a part of it, anyway - but why this? Why's she gotta try to mess with everything you're doing?" Imperion shrugged.
"She hates you." Mariko had been the one to speak, and so the others were caught a little of guard. "When Nova and I were her captives, when she spoke of you, she spoke of you with intense, personal hatred."
"That's the part that doesn't make sense to me," Panhellius said, turning to Imperion. "She's the one who used and tricked you: so why does she bear you a grudge? It ought to be the other way around." Imperion seemed deep in thought. Panhellius wasn't sure if he'd even heard him until he eventually responded.
"She hates superheroes," Jackson replied. "That's what her actions suggest. Helping other villains, doing - what she did to. She hates us for whatever reason, and hurting me is..." He threw up his hands.
"Don't be sheepish, boss," Shane said. "To John Q. Public you're the image of the Superman. Hurting you is hurting all superheroes." Panhellius frowned. He didn't seem convinced.

The matter was allowed to rest, at least for the moment. Mariko and Derek took off together. Of all the members of the Pauldron, Panhellius was least concerned by their new recruit's silence. It wasn't that he didn't care - he approved of her new professionalism.
"Much better than those gabbling fools..." he grumbled inwardly. When Shane and Mark left, the taller man had a cheeky grin plastered across his face.
"What?" Mark signed.
"I'm just picturing the boss' face if he knew that you were porking Ivan Nazarov's sister." Mark slapped him on the arm.
"I am not 'porking' her! We're..." He smiled, unintentionally. "We're courting."
"'Courting'?" Fahrenheit gave a loud laugh. "Mark, you are both pathetic and adorable." He smiled warmly. He hoped quite earnestly that this would turn out to be something significant for his friend.

Only Chryseis lingered for a few moments.
"Hey, Jackie," she said. "I...was wondering if I could talk to you about something. Well, a couple of things, actually."
"Hey, you don't need to worry," Imperion said. "If I didn't want to risk getting an arrow up my ass I'd have recommended you take a sabbatical a long time ago. Hell, settle down, have a bunch of kids if you want. I mean, hell, you've been a member since before the Pauldron was the Pauldron: trust me, there are some big-ass pension cheques comin' your way." Chryseis's rosy lips parted for a smile.
"You're a doll," she said, "but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about Sara." Imperion's friendly smile faded.
"Yeah...I don't know," Jackson said. "We just need to give her time."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sara hated inactivity. When Jackson had all-but-ordered her to take a few days off, she'd been seething with rage at first...but in the end it had actually been soothing. She'd almost got used to the notion of putting herself in mortal danger constantly, so she didn't realise what a relief it would be not to have to do that.

Yet she didn't feel safe. At home, where keeping her identity secret was not an issue, she kept herself transformed at all times. Just in case. If Hades sent one of her agents after her, Sara could defeat them - and if Hades herself returned to claim her prize, then at least Sara could fly away. Sitting on her bed, Sara hugged her knees to her chest. She felt like a coward.

She turned on the television, watched a bit of Columbo. When even that failed to distract her troubled mind, she switched to the news. Some anodyne debate about the Pariahs which seemed to boil down to 'yes criminals should die', 'no they shouldn't' in endless, unexplained shouting matches. She switched to a different channel, and saw something that rather alarmed her: a small coastal town called Arcata had recently voted out its chief of police for being a member of the Inferiorites. Nova knew this town: she and Imperion had once saved its population from a freak tidal wave: they loved superheroes there. What disturbed her, though, was not the ejection of the chief, but the signs people were holding at the rallies and town meetings they were playing footage of.

There were caricatures - flattering ones - of the various Pauldron members on the signs, quotes from Imperion ('Everyone is worth saving') and some generic anti-Inferiorite rhetoric. Something about this unsettled Sara. She glanced at a photograph of her father, that sat by her bedside, in his dress uniform. She didn't actually know him very well - he'd died when she was three - but she had a feeling that he wouldn't have approved. The Goldbergs had been police for generations - a tradition interrupted only by Sara's grandfather, who'd been a stockbroker - and Sara felt proud that she had, in her eyes, continued that tradition.

But the Pauldron seemed to be becoming something more. Superheroes seemed to be becoming something more. The words of two people rang in her ears: Cory, who'd decried the way traditional lawkeepers had been sidelined by their colourful counterparts, and Mariko, who seemed born for this new state of affairs.
"Maybe I was the naive one," she thought. "This is just...the way things are now." She hugged her arms over her chest. She'd been so happy before - or perhaps not happy, but so sure of purpose. Before Hydrocita had left, before Spectra...and before Hades, of course. The two women she hated the most in all the world.

Hades she loathed uncomplicatedly. Surely if anyone deserved detestation, it was her. Yet Mariko, too. Whenever she thought of that proud, haughty face she wanted to break her teeth. The worst of it was that Sara knew how little Mariko had done to earn such hatred. She'd fought alongside her, shown her the utmost respect, and made an awkward, but earnest attempt to befriend her more closely. But she couldn't stop hating her. How dare she? How dare she be alright and happy, when Sara was encompassed by such terror?
"God...I'm such a horrible person..."

A knock at her door. Sara leapt up at once, channelling her power into her right hand.
"Who's there?" she shouted.
"Whoa!" replied a familiar voice. "I know I'm persona non grata back at Jackson's little crib, but don't I at least get a warm welcome from you?" The petite heroine relaxed, turning off her powers. Opening the door, she saw a familiar face.
"Farah," Sara didn't exactly smile, but she was more or less pleased to see her former comrade, the mighty Hydrocita. The muscular blonde entered, grinning. She slapped Sara on the shoulder, sat down on her couch, and clacked a four-pack of beer down on the coffee table.
"Brew time," she said. Sara gave her a confused look.
"Farah, it's eleven o'clock in the morning." Farah's face fell.
"Oh. Is it?" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Man, when did I last sleep...?" Her face resumed its cocky jollity a moment or two later. She looked at a clock. "Well...one hour until brew time ain't bad!" She sniffed. Sara noticed that her nostrils were red.
"You don't have any...stuff with you, do you?" Sara asked.
"What? Ooohhh..." Farah smiled wickedly. "You mean do I have any evil, nasty, naughty drugs on me, right?" She raised an eyebrow. "You want some? Didn't think you were the type. What's your poison, babe?"
"I don't want any," Sara said. "If you'd said you had any I'd have kicked you out of my house." Farah shrugged.
"Fair enough."

Sara sat down across from her. She'd always had a funny relationship with Farah. They'd butted heads many times on missions: Farah angered quickly...but not deeply. Most grudges, even if sworn in bloody hatred, tended to be forgotten by the next day. She'd been quite warm to her when she'd first joined, and Sara had always appreciated that. She'd not been pleased when Hydrocita had been forced out of the team.
"How's your new crew?" Sara asked.
"They're a bunch of assholes," Farah said. She clearly meant it, but it amused her too. "The kid, 'Pretender' - he's alright, but he's a total dweeb. Ivan keeps jumping out at him, 'cause he turns his armour on whenever he's, like, the teensiest bit surprised. It's kinda funny."
"And Ivan?" Sara asked. "How...how is he these days?" Farah smiled.
"He's asked after you a couple of times. But mostly he's been unbearable ever since the Supremacist thing. He's makes Fahrenheit look modest and diplomatic." She frowned. "I...I don't know about him, sister. Like everyone who makes that much noise, there's some shit bubbling underneath."
"Not that you'd know anything about that, of course," Sara said. Farah stuck out her tongue. "What about the other one? The ex-con?"
"Catastrophe? I can't figure him out. He seems like..." She cocked her head to the side. "I'd say he's closest to being a regular cape. Sometimes I think he'd fit more with you guys than in my squad."
"And you?" Sara replied. "How are you doing?"
"Me? I'm great. Free as a bird, havin' the time of my life!" Sara didn't appear convinced. "Something wrong? Is it the drugs thing?"
"Sort of," Sara replied. "I mean, if you can manage your habit, then..." She threw up her hands. "My only real beef is that it's illegal."
"That's cute," Farah said. A silence fell. Farah's ejection from the Pauldron was like a thing in the air that could be touched.

"Why -?"
"Why am I here?" Farah's face turned serious. "'Cause Chrys told me you were all fucked up after Hades." Sara stood up.
"Oh, and I guess you're here to tell me to man up and get off my ass? Is that about right?" Sara was not aware until a few seconds later that she'd been shouting.
"Uh, no. I came with beer, remember?" She shrugged. "I hear you shouted at Spectra. You cried in front of the others." Sara winced.
"I didn't need reminding of that," she said.
"You got your ass kicked, you were kidnapped and publicly humiliated, babe," Farah said. "And you got shown up by a newbie." Sara clenched a fist.
"I really hope you're making some kind of point here."
"Yeah. And your reaction was that you cried and you yelled at somebody." She smiled, as warmly as that face could. "I'd have come into work drunk, probably knocked over a couple of buildings. You were a lot more restrained than I would have been, darlin'."
"That's not exactly a high standard you're setting." Farah laughed.
"My point is, I know you. I know you're beating yourself up. Well cut it the fuck out." She folded one leg over the other. "I don't think any less of you. And I'm an asshole!"
"You're not," Sara said. "You took the time to come and see me."
"You'd have done the same," Farah replied. Sara frowned. She wasn't sure that that was true.

"Can I ask you something?" Sara said, after another impasse. "You...you knew Anya, didn't you?"
"Only through Jackson," Farah replied. She shook her head. "If you're gonna ask me if I suspected she was secretly an evil mastermind, then the answer's no. I mean, fuck, whoever heard of a major-league supervillain who used to be in the L.A-dies?"
"How did she seem?" Farah shrugged.
"Kinda...nice, I guess? Not that bright. I never really got what Jackson saw in her, 'cept for she was smokin' hot. No," she said, "that's not fair. She seemed...sweet. I guess when you fake stupidity people just...don't notice you." She looked from side to side, lowered her voice. "Y'know, Ivan and I were thinking about doing something about her."
"What do you mean?"
"Hades is scary. Way scary. But...she's not the Supremacist. I've been talking with the others: we're thinking about trying to hunt her down."
"What? Don't be crazy!"
"Why's it crazy? As much as it pisses me off to admit it, Ivan's probably more powerful than she is just by himself. Together? All the Pariahs? She'd be fucked." She leaned in, conspiratorially. "In fact, Julia's already started putting out feelers, tryin' to track her down. When we find her..." She grinned. "Do you want in?"

Sara did not have the opportunity to answer. Her phone rang - the phone whose number she didn't give to her friends, that is.
"Hello?" Farah watched Sara's face fall. "Oh, god...yeah, of course, I'll be right there." She closed her eyes, focused for a moment - and in a flash of cosmic blue, her powers were activated, her vest and shorts replaced with the stark white dress of her other self, her brown hair now an almost fluorescent pink, her soft cheeks dusted with sparkles of starlight. Sara Goldberg was gone - and Nova stood in her place. "I have to go," she said. "He - they need me."
"Why? What happened?" But Nova didn't answer. She stepped out onto her porch, surrounded herself with a blue-aura, and rocketed off towards the Pauldron's H.Q. "Oh," Farah said, "I'll let myself out, I guess!"
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was a little before Hydrocita's meeting with Nova when Panhellius and Spectra arrived at the West Coast Congress' headquarters...which was more or less just Thaddeus Murderball's house.
"Hey!" Thaddeus opened the door with a face rich in jollity. He was in his late forties, not very tall, but broad. He had a deep, Mediterranean tan, a bright smile, and a distinguished, aquiline nose. His outfit was simple: a burgundy flak-jacket and padded trousers of the same colour. He was also wearing a chef's hat. "What the fuck's up, Derek?" He seized Panhellius in an embrace that left the Englishman almost shivering with displeasure.
"I could have done without the bearhug," he said. His right arm moved in a blur to iron out the creases in his brown, leather uniform. "But otherwise acceptable." An eyebrow cocked slightly. "How's the life of the self-made man?"
"It's great!" Thaddeus replied, the tiniest of vestigial twinges of his father's Italian accent adding colour to his voice. "Better to rule in heaven, yada yada."

Thaddeus had, once upon a time, been part of the Pauldron's original line-up, alongside Imperion, Chryseis, the now-retired Cougarman, and the - sadly - deceased Hyperia. Back then, his moniker was just 'Thaddeus' - his real name was Giorno - but by the time Derek joined, replacing Hyperia, the suffix 'Murderball' had become such a frequent nickname that he just split the difference and slapped the two together. Round about the time Hydrocita signed up, Thaddeus had decided to make his own way in the world, and had met with a fair amount of success. There was some debate, but generally the WCC were considered to be California's best team, after the Pauldron themselves, of course.

"Spectra! Good to see you," Thaddeus said, extending his hand. The tall beauty took it and shook it, but without a great deal of enthusiasm. The two had met before on a number of occasions: Renning being so close to Seacouver meant that the WCC often operated there. "Is that a new outfit?" Thaddeus said, admiring the skintight silver bodysuit in which Spectra now clad herself.
"It is, yes," Mariko said, brusquely. She'd made some adjustments: added some small shoulder-pads, left a little skin bare on her upper arms, and added a kind of subtle grid-pattern to the suit itself. She wasn't a model for nothing, after all.
"Uh...okay!" Thaddeus said, when it was clear no conversation was to be forthcoming from either stoic, beckoning the two inside.

It wasn't too bad, as headquarters went. There was a training room, though Mariko couldn't imagine how it would be useful for any of the Congress' members: it looked like a normal gym. A bedroom had been turned into a conference room - into which Thaddeus led them - and there was a dedicated secretary manning a phone.
"Giulio, we're outta eggs!" A woman's voice from the next room.
"I don't think it matters too much," Thaddeus called back.
"But I was gonna make everybody omelettes!"
"These are superheroes, Amanda, not... girl scouts!"
"Aww..."

A young woman bounced into the room. Well, she walked in, but she did so with such enthusiasm that she certainly seemed to bounce.
"Hi, Derek!" she cooed, and only an obvious tap on the pommel of his sword saved him from another hug. "Oh, where are my manners? It's so nice to meetcha, Spectra!" She spoke with an aggressively strong Alabama twang.
"Um, likewise," Spectra replied. She knew who she was, but she seemed so baffled by the young woman's enthusiasm that Giulio thought she didn't know of her.
"Oh, sorry, this is my second-in-command," Thaddeus explained. "Vitra."
"What? No, no, I'm sorry, I know who you are," Mariko said quickly. "Uh, a pleasure." She got up, awkwardly shook Vitra's hand.
"Oh, the pleasure's all mine," she replied. She was quite tall for a woman, but not quite Mariko's height. She was, however, a little curvier and significantly more well-endowed. She wore a classic skirt-and-leotard combination - a tight, crimson leotard made of some kind of space-age fabric, and a short, deep-blue skirt. Her shapely, slender legs were clad in translucent, black tights, her calves covered by knee-high, heeled boots, the same colour as her skirt. Down her back flowed a long cape, a darker blue than her leotard, with a gold trim.

She smiled very genuinely at Mariko, a sweet, girl-next-door kind of smile that dimpled her cheeks rather fetchingly. Her leotard dipped just low enough to show off a rather fine décolletage. Her hair, long and slightly wavy, was just on the very edge of what one could call 'blonde' in colour, very nearly brown, but her eyes were unmistakably and unnaturally blue. Oh yes, there was power there.
"This is so great. I can't believe I'm gonna be moppin' up some crime with Spectra!" She almost giggled. She hadn't yet let go of Mariko's hand, and the Japanese heroine felt compelled to respond.
"I'm sure it'll be a...memorable experience," she said. She glanced at Panhellius. He tapped the table impatiently, but without any appearance of internal discord, seeming utterly satisfied in his anti-social nature. Mariko wondered why, if she had to be so awkward with other people, she couldn't at least be at peace with it like Panhellius seemed to be.

"Where's everyone else?" Panhellius asked, as Vitra finally released Mariko and sat down.
"It's their day off," Thaddeus explained. "My budget ain't big enough to have everyone in seven days a week. Plus, I figure the four of us'll be enough for a ragtag group of escapees. So - who's our biggest threat?"
"To most of us, it'll be Ryan Mayhew - he can belch out noxious gases. Breathe too much and you're dead - even you," Derek said, directing the last two words to Vitra. "But there's one of them - Raymond Parr, or Greyhand - who might be a problem for you, Thaddeus. He can erase metal - any metal."
"I know about him. Hayward warned when they locked him up. Don't worry, I'll leave him to you, slick."
"My sword's made from a piece of your shell. How would that work any better?" Thaddeus shrugged.
"You could just punch him, I guess," Vitra proffered.
"Certainly not!" Derek said. "This hand is the most valuable asset I possess. I will not risk damaging it by improper use." At this, Vitra giggled, covered her mouth with her hands.
"Something amused you?" Derek asked, not sure if he really wanted an answer.
"I'm sorry! Just...y'know...'improper use' of his right hand... ahhh, I've got such a filthy mind, I'm really sorry!" Vitra looked embarrassed, but she didn't stop laughing. Thaddeus shook his head.
"I assure you," he said, looking at Spectra, "we're normally, like...twenty per cent more professional than this."
"Don't let it worry you," she said.
"Do," Panhellius said. "Don't abandon all professionalism, for god's sake." He got up. "Where's your kitchen? I need some tea. Real tea, not that herbal garbage you Californians love so much."
"Just through there, sweetie," Vitra said. "And, uh, I think we have some lapsang souchong. Is that okay?"
"'Sweetie'? Are - oh, whatever," Derek said, trudging out of the room.

He didn't like it. He didn't like how friendly and comfy it was. The homely atmosphere, the jokes, the 'aww shucks' attitude of the whole thing. Thaddeus, strong as he was, had never treated his position like a job. He never did paperwork, he showed up late, he was familiar with people he had no business being familiar with. Had Derek wanted Thaddeus out? No, not really. But when he was gone, he wasn't too broken up about it. Clearly Vitra had either absorbed or exacerbated these tendencies. They would never be Great, Panhellius thought. And nor, admittedly, would he. A head for figures and the world's fastest right arm would never make him more than noteworthy: but he didn't need to be great. He just wanted to be indispensable to someone who was. It was only fitting that he be to Imperion what his own right hand was to himself.

It was while musing on these thoughts that Panhellius saw something on the wooden floor of Thaddeus' kitchen. It was a small, black spot. It could have been a bit of grease only...no, it was too oily. More like tar. Momentarily concerned that he might have tracked something in with him, he looked at the bottom of one of his - expensive - shoes. When he looked back, however, the spot was bigger. He kept his gaze on it, and watched with disgust as it began swelling inside, pooling.
"Thaddeus!" he shouted. "There's something wrong with your floor!"
"Huh?"
"There's something wrong with -" He stopped. He peered closer. There was something in the oily sludge now. A little globule, like an eye-shaped marble. Panhellius looked closer still, and was repulsed. It was like he was look at some horrible bacterial colony or something: it was squirming, like there were a hundred little globules within it. "Wait..." He felt positively ill when he realised what, in fact, he was looking at - the globules within the marble were irises and the marble was an eye - a squelching, squirming, compound eye. It was only when the second eye, of pure, radiant white, appeared from beneath Thaddeus' floorboards that Derek realised its significance.
"Lor -!" He wasn't given a chance to finish his warning.


Mariko had just been explaining that Greyhand was thought to possess additional powers to those in his profile, when Panhellius came crashing through the wall.
"Jesus, Derek!" Thaddeus cried out, leaping to his feet. Without thinking, he partially transformed himself, encrusting his arms in spiked, invulnerable metal, and jumping in front of Panhellius. Vitra floated off the ground, hovered by his side, preparing for whatever had done this to Panhellius. When the monster stepped through the breach, even Thaddeus felt fear in his heart.

He walked at quite a normal pace, though it was as if one were not seeing every aspect of his movements. There was always an impression of things unseen. As the mass of tar-like psuedo-flesh stepped in, he bowed politely.
"Good morning," he said, with a hundred voices, bouming in the minds and ears of all present. "We are Delirious." His ink-black body was covered in lacerations, and Panhellius' sword had been driven through his heart. It didn't seem to bother him very much, but he seemed to notice that the others had noticed, and he pulled the sword out, letting it clatter onto the ground.
"Wh-what do you want?" Thaddeus said, trying to sound brave, rather than freaked out. "Why? Wh-why would he...why here?"
"The madness must end. The questions must be resolved," Delirious replied. "Information has come to us. You are required." To her horror, Vitra realised that Delirious was looking at her.
"Th-Thaddeus..." she whimpered.

But it was Spectra who acted first. There was an explosion of light, a burst right in Delirious' face. Mariko didn't even know if this...thing could be dazzled. He wasn't like the Supremacist - his legend was not well known: he just popped up every now and again in the annals of superhero history. Mariko wasn't even sure of all his powers. She ran him through with three lances of light at full power, the excess energy tearing further holes in the WCC headquarters.
"I can damage him!" she thought. But it didn't last. The gaping wounds closed fast in an instant, and then...then he noticed her.
"An unclassifiable," he said. "Displeasing." Sensing danger, Mariko raised a barrier to defend herself, but a wave of force smashed through it - she didn't even see it. Mariko was hurled back, smashed into the opposite wall. "Auughh!" she cried out, slumping down, barely catching herself from collapsing completely.
"Wh-what was that?" Few knew that the powers of Cannonball had been incorporated into this gestalt entity, his telekinetic cannonades magnified into what was among Lord Delirious' most potent weapons. As Mariko tried to right herself, still stunned, something burst out of the middle of Delirious' body. A sort of metal mask, apparently self-propelled, shot out - and clamped itself over Mariko's face.

"MMMPHHH!!" she cried out, blinded and gagged all at once. "Mmhh...mmhhh!!" She pulled and tugged at the probe, but she couldn't get it off. Blinded, she was robbed of her powers, but it was worse than that. As she pulled at the probe, she felt something moving, something...whirring. "What...is this?! What's happening?" And then the voice.
"Resistance detected. Initiating countermeasures." The mask had spoken, and it did not leave Mariko guessing as to the nature of those 'countermeasures' for long. Something was happening, something was coming out of it. It was only when she felt the cold metal grabbing her arms that she realised what. Tendrils - thin but incredibly strong, twisting round Mariko's slender arms like vines. "MMH!" The blinded damsel cried out, struggling desperately, but the mere strength of her body was not enough. They entwined her arms with intimate strictness. "Hhhmmphh!" she continued no moan. "Nmmm-mmm-MMMPPPHHH!!" They were forced behind her back, crossed over each other, and kept under such tight restraint that Mariko feared for her circulation. But that fear shifted targets when she heard the voice:
"Resistance continues. Anaesthetising."
"Mh...?!"

All too soon did Mariko taste this anaesthesia. A hiss of gas beneath her mask, and instantly Mariko felt woozy.
"No!" she thought. "I can't let myself be dismissed so quickly! I must...I must...oohh..." All too quickly she was losing her capacity to think. Her thinly clad legs wobbled, her wiggling arms began to slow down. She felt warm: whatever this drug was, it drew her into helplessness much more gently than the thick, stifling blanket that was chloroform. It was almost soothing... "Mhhh...mmhhh...nnmmmhhh..." Mariko whimpered. "No...don't...I - I must...fight..." But for Spectra, the time for fighting was long past. Delirious had taken the measure of her, and subdued her quite thoroughly.

She stumbled forward, but her freedom even to stand was soon snatched from her. She moaned with dismay as her supple limbs were seized by another pair of prehensile, metal tendrils, bursting out of the mask over her face, and snapping her thighs and her shapely calves together. Overbalancing, she tumbled down to her knees. Bound, drugged and humiliatingly powerless, Mariko felt herself blush with shame. Two members of the Pauldron had been present when Lord Delirious had attacked: one had been smacked aside in an instant, the other captured with terrible ease. They'd failed utterly.
"Mmhhh...hhhmmm...mmphhh..." she moaned, darkness claiming the slender maiden into its clutches. "Mh..." With that little sigh, it was as if Mariko had acknowledged her defeat, for she fell forward onto her front. She writhed a little, her gorgeous, drugged body putting up its last vestiges of resistance, but she soon gave in. In her drugged delirium, just before losing consciousness, she found herself thinking of Nova, as she lay, powerless and defeated. "If she could see..." Mariko thought. "Would she...stop hating me? Sophie... my sweet, I need your help...I don't understand...I don't understand anything..." She could only barely finished the thought before her mind tumbled into black night. The drug took her, and she fell unconscious.

The world had not paused for Mariko's capture, of course, and as she struggled, so too did Vitra and Thaddeus.
"Plan A!" Thaddeus shouted, leaping into the air, and folding his arms across his chest. With long practice, Thaddeus triggered his powers fully, transforming himself into a perfect sphere - though covered with razor-sharp spikes - of a metal no scientist yet had been able to synthesise, though not for lack of trying. Knowing immediately what he meant, Vitra flew up, summoned her superhuman strength, and punched him as hard as he could. He struck Lord Delirious dead on, crushing the abomination into the ground. "Nice!" Thaddeus said, as he emerged from his shell, keeping his arms transformed. Delirious got up, slowly, but Thaddeus didn't waste any time. He leapt forward, striking Delirious with furious speed, hitting him with blows that would have ripped through reinforced concrete. And they ripped through Delirious, too - but he healed about as fast as Thaddeus could hit him.

"We do not blame you for resisting," Delirious said, the repeated destruction of his mouth not apparently a hindrance to his speaking. "It takes a singular perspective to see the world for what it is. But the riddle must be solved."
"Damn your riddle!" Thaddeus shouted. "You're not taking Vitra!"
"We are," he replied. "We have acquired information: she is necessary."
"What about the truce?" Vitra shouted, floating above them. "I thought you h-had a truce with the Titan!"
"Our arrangement with Akwesi has ceased to be fruitful," he replied. "The matter is now too urgent." Throughout this, Thaddeus kept hitting him, and now Vitra ventured to attack as well, flying with outstretched fists at full speed. Yet fast as she was when flying, her reactions were far too slow.

Suddenly, mid-attack, Thaddeus had frozen in place.
"Wh-what?!" he gasped. "Aaah!" Involuntarily, he found himself swung to the right, smacking right into Vitra, who was knocked aside with a girlish yelp. "How...how are you doing this? The metal I'm made of isn't magnetic!"
"We have been using this time to analyse that very claim. It can, in fact, be magnetised, at least by the power of Pole-Star. He forms part of our gestalt form." Effectively paralysed, unable even to revert back, Thaddeus felt himself shaking with fear.
"You're...you're an abomination!" He cursed his enemy - and for the first time, something resembling emotion showed on that inhuman face.
"During your first attack on us, when Vitra struck you, she did so with approximately three hundred thousand newtons of force. You struck me at approximately nine hundred thousand. How do you explain this?"
"My...armoured form...magnifies momentum..." Delirious looked right into Thaddeus' face with his squirming eye of a hundred irises.
"That. Is. Impossible." He didn't blink. He never blinked. "'Magnifies momentum' is a meaningless expression. We detected no propulsion, no chemical or nuclear reaction being triggered. Force went in - and somehow more force came out the other side. You violated the law of conservation of momentum, and you do so every time you use your powers. A law which holds without exception in all the known universe...except for in superhumans on this planet. You see, Giulio Mauritane...we are both abominations." With that, he smashed Thaddeus down into the ground, again, and again and again until his cries turned to choked gurgles. Then he turned his attentions to Vitra.

"Unnhh..." she groaned, as Delirious hauled her up by her shoulders. "Get off me...get off!" Breaking his grip, she punched him hard in the stomach - going part of the way through the stomach, in fact. But with a bubbling squirming of pseudo-flesh, the blonde's hand was pushed out, and then her wrists were gripped. She struggled, and not completely in vain. He was possessed of great strength, but so was she. The difference between them was not like the difference between a superhuman and a normal human - it was more like the difference between the strength of the average man, and the strength of the average woman. Unfortunately, this barrier was higher than it seemed - too high for Vitra. And when three more arms emerged from his body to pull her arms above her head, and to stop her tights-covered legs from kicking him, that gap only heightened.

"Do not resist," Delirious said. "You will serve as our means of solving the riddle."
"K-kiss my..." Vitra began, but she was too frightened to keep up the 'badass' act, and she fell swiftly to moaning horror. "Giulio...Derek...h-help me!" Neither could. "Please!"
"Quiet, please," Delirious said. He fixed her with his gaze. "Agitation is unnecessary. Your fear gives us no pleasure. However, approximately 44% of the individuals in our gestalt self register significant sexual attraction to you."
"Ugghh..." Vitra groaned in disgust. The twenty-five year old had never considered herself the mightiest hero in the world, but being...seized like this, being at the mercy of this freak of nature, she felt humiliated. She was supposed to be strong, but she felt as vulnerable as any kidnapped heiress she'd rescued. A sudden thought for her parents - simple rustics, really, but she loved them dearly. They didn't know she was Vitra...would they ever, now? "This...this shouldn't be happening!" she cried out. "Not to me...I'm...just normal...I'm just a normal girl!"
"You are nothing of the sort. You are a violation by your very existence, like ourself, and these others. You must solve the riddle."
"What are you talking about?!" Vitra was screaming, trying to fly away, but too tightly restrained. "What do you want from me?!"
"At the moment? Sleep."
"What? What are you -?"

Suddenly, Vitra felt like this was a very imminent possibility. A wave of drowziness washed through her tall, shapely body. "Unhh...wh...what?" she mumbled. She felt her unnaturally blue eyes flutter. "Oh...oh...I feel...weak..." She looked at her monstrous captor with wet, lidded eyes. "Wh...what are you...doing to me?"
"We are interfacing with your nervous system. To put it simply, we are switching on the sleep centres of your brain."
"M...my...brain?" Vitra could barely think anymore. It was true: she felt an overwhelming urge to let herself sleep. "Mmm..." she thought. "Just...lie in the grass...drift off in the sun..." She imagined herself in a loose, white sundress, the wind caressing her face and her legs, slowly stroking her as she fell into warm oblivion. "So...sleepy..." she mumbled. "Just...just want...to...oh..."

Vitra could hold out no longer - not against her own neurochemistry. She felt her long, soft legs growing limp, felt her head getting heavy. It dipped forward onto her chest, her long hair flowing down her front in an ochre waterfall.
"Hhhhhhh...aauuuhhhh..." she half-sighed, half moaned, as the she gave in completely. Delirious had told her to sleep - and she had. She was...satisfyingly obedient.

Delirious reached with an ink-black, squamous arm down to Amanda's scarcely-covered legs, taking her by the thighs and tossing her beautiful, limp body over his shoulder as he reset himself to having only four limbs. She flopped like a ragdoll over her captor, arms on one side, her shapely legs draped down over the other. Not that Delirious gave such things any mind, but the way he was holding Vitra made her short skirt completely expose her firm, rather bouncy rear. He noted, quite dispassionately, that the percentage had gone up.
"Mmmhhh..." Amanda mewed, quite contentedly, shifting a little in Delirious' grip, but otherwise completely tamed.

"V...Vitra!" Thaddeus wasn't quite unconscious. "N...no!" Delirious stood over him and the others, turning his wriggling eye on them. "You bastard! I'll...urghh...I'll come after you!"
"No," Delirious replied. "We have no intention of leaving witnesses." He opened the palm of his free hand, and began gathering to himself the fiery power of Infernus, when he was quite suddenly disarmed. That is, his right arm was severed entirely from his body.
"Don't you...know...who you're dealing with?" Panhellius growled. He'd not sat idle: the moment he'd gathered the strength to himself, he'd grabbed his sword and attacked.
"You are Derek Godfrey. Codename: Panhellius. Your right arm can move at superhuman speed."
"'Superhuman speed'?" Panhellius laughed. "There are superhumans, Delirious...and then there's people like me." Panhellius' arm began to move. It began to shake. His sword flashed ten times a second. A hundred. A thousand. Ten thousand. More! Panhellius' sword was flashing round him so fast that if ten different men had been firing chainguns at him from ten different directions, not one bullet would have struck him. The air around him started to swirl into a sort of miniature cyclone, and even the air around him was so sharp it could leave a deep wound. Delirious looked at him, his eye of a hundred-irises flickering, in an apparent effort to keep up.
"You are a threat," he said. "If we are destroyed, none exist who can solve the riddle. There is no choice." Saying that, he looked up - and took off straight into the air.
"No!" Derek barked, as Vitra was stolen away from them. "Damn, damn, damn!" It wasn't just that Vitra had been taken. It wasn't just that he had essentially been defeated, despite reclaiming perhaps a smidgen of his honour. It would take the whole Pauldron to deal with this. All of Jackson's plans were ruined. "I've failed..." he thought.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hello! You look important!" At the same time that Lord Delirious was making his attack, Fahrenheit waved at the person he thought might be a Nevada State Senator. "Repeal the - what was it called again?"
"Proposition 93," Askancepoint signed. These reminders had been more or less all he'd had to contribute.
"Repeal Proposition 93!" he said. "For great justice and so on!"
"I'm a secretary, sir," the bemused woman said. "But, um, great job on that Gravion thing, Mr Fahrenheit...uh, sir."
"Now hold on there, Miss," a third person said. "No reason why you need to be so deferential." Fahrenheit clenched a fist. Askancepoint didn't hear this new man's voice, of course, but he saw Shane's expression.
"Oh," he thought. "Shit."

A man with all the confidence of a freshly rutted stag sauntered into view. He had short, blonde, curly hair, a smile that was invariably described as either 'punchable' or 'shit-eating', and a very nice grey suit. He had cufflinks in the shape of Rolls Royces and, unbearably, a cravat.
"Oh great," Fahrenheit said. "How do you do, Mr Pict? Tell me, what new ways of making our lives as irritating as possible have you come up with today?"
"Now that's just unfair. All my organisation wants is to...level the playing field," Cato replied. Turning to the secretary, he said: "Never feel like you have to lower yourself before superhumans. Even ones as...accomplished as these two. Ultimately, they're the same as you or me. Everybody's been making too much fuss for far too long." She nodded awkwardly, and left in a hurry. "Tsk...I bet she was a looker once. Ah, well." He stepped towards the two, a little closer than would have been polite. "This isn't going to pass...you do know that, right?"
"No, I'm not sure we do," Fahrenheit said. Cato smiled, tugged on his cravat.

"See, the thing is, Anubis always get lumped in with the Inferiorites and those far-right crazies - hell, it's Fox who always want me on as a panellist - but really, we're just applying good old fashioned liberal values here. You guys are like the rich." Askancepoint tapped Shane on the shoulder, and he started translating. Quite patiently, Cato waited for Shane to catch up. "Ready? Well alright then: a lot of people are born rich, or luck out, or whatever to get loaded: America isn't as full to the brim with entrepreneurs as we like to think. So liberals say 'well, that's not fair, let's tax them more than poor people', etc, etc. I dig that. Sounds fair. Now what about you guys? Stronger, faster, more dangerous...doesn't it seem like that's an unbalanced draft to you? You can think of Anubis as...genetic socialists!" Fahrenheit growled, and leaned in close.

"You can try all you like, you smarmy little shit," Shane said, "but you're not going to turn people against us. You can try, and try, and try, but it's not working." He did a damned near perfect imitation of Cato's smile. "Face it, chum: the good people love us. Superheroes are more trusted than ever, and rightly so. Opinion's shifting against you, not in your favour." If Cato was perturbed, he didn't show it.
"Except in Nevada," he said. "And Oregon. And Arizona, Idaho, Utah...they've all got laws like this now. Idaho even has a reg office like the one you guys are gonna have soon. In fact," Cato said, getting so close to Fahrenheit that it looked like they were either going to attack each other or kiss, "I'd say your little California bubble is the only place where things are so sweet for guys like you."

"Does he hate us, I wonder?" Askancepoint signed, when Fahrenheit finished translating. "I'd almost be willing to listen to him if he wasn't so smug about it."
"Shall I take that as a compliment?" Cato signed back. Askancepoint flinched. It felt like Cato had intruded into something private.
"That was a dirty trick," Mark signed. "And rude. You could have been signing the whole time instead of making my friend translate for you." Cato shrugged.
"Sorry, pal. Couldn't resist watching you guys squirm." Now it was Askancepoint who clenched his fist, and for someone who pretty much compulsively kept his hands free this was especially notable. "I thought you were the nice one."
"No-one's nice at 150 decibels," Askancepoint said. Cato's face flickered. Mark's easy bearing sometimes made people forget just how powerful he was.
"I wish I could stay and chat," Cato said, out loud, "but duty calls, boys." He was about to leave, but a thought possessed him. "You want to know a secret, fellas?" He looked almost giddy with excitement.
"Er..." Cato didn't wait for a response. He stepped with an odd fluidity up to Shane, and said in a stage whisper:
"I don't actually give a shit about superheroes!" He stepped away, and bowed, leaving the two baffled.

Were the world a more elegant place, Mark and Shane would have received the urgent communiqué from their leader immediately following Cato's little proclamation. As it was, they didn't get until another forty-five minutes of awkward gladhanding had passed. Their alarm was not muted in the least.
"What happened?" Mark signed, when Shane hung up the call.
"That was Panhellius," Shane replied. "The West Coast Congress were attacked."
"Attacked? By whom?" Shane's face was an admixture of deep worry and outright incredulity.
"By Lord Delirious." He shrugged. "Because today didn't have enough creepy pricks in it, I guess."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Unnhhh..." Mariko moaned, as she awoke, slowly and drowzily. She was lying in a bed, a soft bed. Her vision was blurry, and her body felt heavy. "Wh...what time is it?"
"Eleven thirty," a female voice replied. Mariko, still woozy and confused, was right in thinking that she recognised the voice, but wildly misidentified it.
"Hello there, my love..." she said, looking at...someone. "Did...did you have another nightmare?"
"I'm not your girlfriend, Mariko." That almost shrill sternness - it shocked Mariko into full wakefulness.
"Nova!"

It was she. And she didn't look pleased.
"Jackson asked me to see how you were doing."
"I'm woozy," Mariko replied, "but alive."
"Good," Sara replied. "Everyone's downstairs." She turned and left immediately.
"No change there, then..."

Mariko waited a moment before following her. Nova's diatribe and that phonecall with her mother were lingering in the back of her mind: they had been all day. So much good in her life - her successes as a superhero, both alone and with the Pauldron, and her loving, beautiful partner alongside her - and yet she still felt so...incomplete. So much that she couldn't do which seemed so essential. She'd embarrassed herself a couple of weeks before by asking if Askancepoint and Fahrenheit, who seemed so very close, were lovers, and the laughter this question had engendered had been humiliating. She still didn't know why it had been a stupid question, just like she still didn't know why Nova or her mother detested her so. Or, rather she did know, but she didn't understand: she represented failure for her, what she had not been able to have or achieve, and diverting attention from the man she cared for most.

It was the point at which Mariko wasn't sure whether she was thinking about Nova or her mother that she decided she'd had enough introspection for one day, and she followed her ally.

The entire Pauldron were gathered in Thaddeus' place, though the man himself had been so badly hurt that it had been possible to hospitalise him against his well, and so Panhellius appeared to be holding court. He was sitting at the head of the conference table. Imperion was standing off to one side, his hands behind his back, looking out of the window.
"We know where he is," Panhellius was saying. "He's been spotted in his little...reservation consistently for more than a year."
"He's gotta know we're coming," Chryseis said. "Won't he try to move?"
"He might not be able to," Imperion said. "When I was his prisoner he had a pretty complex lab going on. Even with all his powers, moving all that equipment's gonna take a while." There was a long pause. No-one had wanted to be the first to mention that, many years ago, Imperion himself had been taken by Delirious, defeated, imprisoned, and tortured. "Hey look!" Imperion said, with a wry smile. "There's an elephant in this room!"
"Well, yes, quite," Panhellius said. "So...what's the plan?"

"We're the plan," Fahrenheit said. "We're the Pauldron, for fuck's sake. Hell: me, Mark and Spectra would be all you'd need."
"Is this a rescue mission?" Nova said. There was a hint of awkwardness in the air whenever she spoke. Imperion, clearly, had not found every elephant. "If so, perhaps just Mark would be best. In and out, with me on standby if it goes bad."
"Give the lady a medal," Fahrenheit said, addressing Imperion. "That sounds pretty good to me."
"No," Imperion said. "What's to stop him doing it again? We need to stop him."
"How?" Mariko asked. "I don't mean to be defeatist, but he can heal any injury - instantly."
"He can still be knocked unconscious," Panhellius said. "And drowned, if push comes to shove." His face lit up. "I say, that gives me an idea. Why don't we call -"
"No."

Imperion's pronouncement shook the entire house.
"No, we are not calling Hydrocita. We're not calling the Pariahs, or the Titan, or the L.A-dies, or anyone. If we can't handle this ourselves, then the Pauldron has no reason to exist!" He shook his head. "Not in its current form, anyway."
"You want revenge, don't you?" Askancepoint signed. His leader fixed him with a very stern look. "Not, you know, saying that's a bad thing, necessarily."
"It's not," Fahrenheit signed. Then out loud: "look, we got fucked on all the PR stuff we were doing today. I know I complained, but I do understand its importance. Well, boss, I say this is a golden opportunity to remind everyone who we are." He then signed: "And to get yourself some well-earned payback." Imperion nodded, respectfully.
"He's right," Imperion said. "So we're going after this freak. We're going to rescue Vitra, and we're going to defeat Lord Delirious." He sighed. "You're all capable. You're all powerful, and skilled - if you weren't, you wouldn't be in this team. But Delirious is one of the most terrifying opponents you'll ever face. I'd be worried, maybe, about some of our less experienced teammates..." Mariko and Sara both stiffened at this. "Except I know they've been through terror - and they've come out the other side." He looked Sara in the eye. "They have come out the other side." She had to suppress a shivering gasp of relief.

Imperion put his hands on the table.
"Okay, team," he said, "let's go bag ourselves a monster."

[DrDominator9]

Very enjoyable. I admire your ability to come up with not just an endless array of original superheroes and matching villains but highly creative names for them. You may have to create a downloadable list of them, their powers and their team affiliations.

[Damselbinder]

"So, like," Sophie said, beginning a sentence thusly for about the hundredth time since arriving at Natalya's apartment, "I'm trying to argue that, like, '27 wasn't really about an ideological difference. That Stalin guy was just nuts, and Trotsky didn't want him fucking everything up."
"Use Figes," Natalya suggested. "He's roughly of that position, from what I remember."
"My professor hates Figes," Sophie said. "She doesn't like 'celebrity' historians." Natalya shrugged.
"I don't know, Sophie, you seem to have the facts down pretty well, and I'm not the best essayist in the world." The raven-haired telepath tugged the hem of her grey skirt down, trying and failing to get it to cover her knees. "I'm not sure if I can do much more."

She looked at Sophie, felt her anxiety about her work. Her grades hadn't been slipping, but she'd been finding it harder and harder to maintain them - and they weren't exactly stellar to begin with. Indeed, she felt extremely anxious, about more than just college. Yet Natalya was beginning to think that her power's recovery was slower than she'd realised, for she wasn't able to see much at all. This she knew, though: something was wrong with her. She felt...different. To be sure Sophie wasn't always bubbly sweetness and light, but there was a...heaviness to her negative feelings, like weights hanging from her limbs.

"Well, this has still been really useful," Sophie said, smiling. "Trust a Russian to have a good sense of history. Now," she said, her smile turning into a grin, "tell me about this date of yours." Blushing, Natalya relayed to her the events of her outing with Mark. "Awww!" Sophie giggled. "He sounds adorable! I know this is, like, as early as early days get, but I really hope it works out. Mariko still doesn't know enough ASL to, like, have a conversation with him, but even she likes him." Natalya sensed Sophie imagining the two of them together, and then suddenly feeling creeped out. Sophie saw on her face that she'd sensed this. "Oh, don't read too much into that!" she laughed. "It's just, well, from photos of him I always kinda thought he looked like my dad."
"Oh," Natalya said, relieved that the explanation was so innocent. And indeed, seeing a few of Sophie's memories of her father, the resemblance was a little uncannily jarring.

There was something a little odd, there. She saw, in rapid succession, a few broken fragments of Sophie's memories of her parents: some happy, some sad, but all...warm. The memories of a young woman who deeply loved and was grateful to her family. Yet there were some which were of a...a different colour. Far fewer, and far less clear, but they painted a very different picture. Screaming shouting matches between her parents, Sophie shutting herself up in her room to get away from them, resenting them - being miserable. They didn't fit with her other 'colour' of memory, even her sadder ones. It didn't make sense.

"Sophie, is something wrong?" Natalya asked. Sophie was about to make a dismissive gesture, before realising to whom she was talking.
"I...I don't know," she replied, quietly. "I've been having nightmares." No memory presented itself to Natalya's powers as Sophie spoke.
"What kind?"
"I can never remember." Yet, as she said this, an image appeared to Natalya, briefly: Sophie, but not Sophie - with black hair. Something about this image was profoundly unsettling.
"How often?"
"Every night for the past week," Sophie said, wearily. "I don't know, it's probably not that big a deal, but -" She very, very nearly lost her composure. She was going to have told Natalya everything right then, probably had a full on, weeping breakdown, but she slammed the brakes on. That would be treachery, opening up to Natalya before Mariko. "They're just nightmares!" she thought.

"If you say so," Natalya replied. Sophie winced at the reminder that her thoughts were open to Natalya's gaze.
"Hey, um, I gotta go," Sophie said. "Thanks so much for your help: I think I might actually get an 'A' on this one."
"I'm glad I could be useful," Natalya said, a little put out by the speed with which Sophie was making her egress. As she rushed out, giving a caramel-sweet smile as she left, Natalya recalled what Mark had said to her about her powers: yes, they made life hard for her, but sometimes they really made it hard for other people, too.

Sophie left Natalya's house feeling worse than when she'd entered. Normally it wasn't this bad. Normally she just got brief spikes, and then the feeling faded quickly, but this time it was lingering, like clammy hands on her shoulders. She hadn't lied to Natalya - she really did have a meeting with someone. An old friend: one who might just be able to give her some help with what was now her preferred problem, the mystery of her powers. At least that one she could clearly understand.

She did not see, as she left, the pair of eyes watching her. Watching her throwing her thick, red hair over shoulder. Watching the bounce of her perky bust in her white vest. Watching the way her yoga pants so stunningly accentuated her heart-shaped behind, her long legs.
"Gamma, stay here," Delta said, taking off her mask.
"Delta, you don't mean...? We haven't even done a background check yet!"
"Sweetheart, look at that!" She pointed at Sophie. She laughed, slightly. "Why, looking like that, our clientele could even pretend they'd got their hands on Enhancegirl, couldn't they?" Gamma still looked worried. "I'll be back in time for the second trial run. Don't give me that sad face." She booped Gamma's nose. "Now...time to bring another beauty into Morpheus' embrace..."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Don't give me that shit!" May Fairweather barked into her phone. As Sophie walked in, she smiled at her and beckoned her to take a seat, but didn't hang up. "I'm on the record with one of your guys bragging about how he gets mad commission money. Now, I somehow doubt that a guy who lives in Palm Beach pays his taxes in the Cayman Islands - so why do you? Hello? He - hello? Ugh." She shrugged at her guest. "He hung up. Oh, well. That was just a courtesy call. I'm totally gonna nail his ass to the wall anyway."
"Who's 'he'?"
"C.F.O. of Einradd: big property firm. We're doing a big exposé. But," she said, "that's not why you're here, is it, sweetness?"

May Fairweather was, perhaps, Enhancegirl's oldest friend. That is, she was the first person to know that Sophie Scott was Enhancegirl, thanks to a chance encounter a few days after Sophie's first entanglement with Madam Black, when Sophie had saved her life. She'd been instrumental in securing Enhancegirl's fame, always happy to sing her praises. Now, as Features Editor, she had to exercise her influence in Sophie's favour a little more distantly, but she still exercised it, and Sophie was always grateful for it. So when she'd asked May to, if and only if she had the time, see if the name 'Peter Schiffer' meant anything to anyone, she'd seen it as another favour to her. May, however, had seen it as quite the opposite.

"So, I couldn't find that much on him," May said, "but what I did find has piqued the hell out of my interest. He did his doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology...pops up working for a pharmaceutical company in Georgia - the country, not the state - in '85, where best I could tell he was 'politely' 'asked' to 'leave.'" She gave air quotes as she spoke. "Wait. I guess he did actually leave."
"Is that when he came to America?" Sophie asked. May nodded.
"I think so. I know it's when he changed his name," she said, "which is just juicy as shit, 'cause now something shady's gotta be going on. He used to be called Peter Hauser." May beckoned Sophie closer. "Now here's the weird part. He drops off the radar for years - I can't find a trace of him between 1993 and 2005. If what you tell me is true about him bein' involved with the military project with that dude from the Pariahs, I'm guessing he was probably doing military work back in the nineties and the oughts too. Now," May said, "grinning. You've got a shady scientist, who probably got fired for unethical fuckery, comes over to the States, changes his name - again, I emphasise, always pretty suspicious - does some spooky secret work for the military -"
"Possibly."
"Sure, but, anyway, a shady-ass scientist, who we know was doing military work at some point - and then, in 2006...I find him on the books of a lobbying firm. And guess which one." Sophie shrugged. "The fucking Anubis Foundation!"
"Whoa, what?" The average twenty-year old might not have heard of the relatively shadowy group, but Sophie had done a module on modern political lobbying, and as a superhuman herself, she'd naturally taken quite an interest in the group who'd done more to sour things for her kind than Joseph McCarthy.

May threw her blonde hair over her shoulders.
"It's super weird, right? I got no idea what a guy with that kind of skill set would be doing for them. They don't have an R&D division or anything like that - I mean, what would a lobbying firm be developing? The latest in totally-not-a-bribe technology? I can't figure it out, and nobody's talking." A thought occurred to Sophie.
"Who owns Anubis?" she asked. May smiled wickedly.
"Now ain't that the fuckin' question," May replied. "I don't know. It's one of those kinds of firms. They don't trade on the Stock Market, which is real weird for a company with that much dough. Their official parent company is some bullshit hedge-fund based in Zurich, but I'll be damned if I can find out anything they actually fund."

Sophie frowned. Anubis being involved with Schiffer...it could easily have been happenstance, but she didn't like the thought of there being any connection between her powers and the shadowy organisation.
"Do they have any agenda besides legislation against superhumans?" Sophie asked.
"They're pretty pro-cop. Got a lotta friends in police unions, from what I hear. Though I guess those two things might go together." She cocked an eyebrow. "You know, it's funny. Without them, Cali'd be a lot different."
"Preaching to the choir," Sophie replied. "I did, like, a whole essay on that. They've made shit so inconvenient for superheroes in the states around California, and things are so good for us here, there's, like a...a cape-drain into this state. It's one of the reasons why there's such a culture of it." May raised an eyebrow.
"'Cape-drain'? You come up with that yourself?" Sophie shrugged. "Oooh, sister, there might just be a sleazebag journalist in there somewhere." Sophie seemed less than entirely convinced, so May changed the subject

"I'm pushing the Herald to give me a team to push further into Anubis, but all my editor wants is more shit on the Pariahs." She mocked yawning.
"What's your problem with the Pariahs?"
"They're not hot enough!" May said. "Oh, please let me get a shot of you and Spectra making out on a rooftop or something...our readership would triple!"
"Hey, what the - why would I make out with Spectra?" Sophie blushed. May might have known Enhancegirl's identity, but she didn't know Spectra's.
"Aww, I'm sorry, Sofe," May laughed. "Y'can't stop the seedy rumour mill from churning."
"You are the seedy rumour mill!" May laughed, and started making an odd circular motion with her head. "...What are you doing?"
"I'm churning. Churning all my seedy rumours." Sophie laughed. Not just a quick chuckle: she burst out laughing, uproariously. When she stopped, she was looking at May with a much easier, softer smile.

There it was! It might have taken a while, but at last, she'd punched through that horrible, grasping gloom, and she was restored. Her posture changed, her eyes grew brighter, and as she tossed her hair back, and casually put one leg over another, she - in May's eyes, at least - became a damned sight more attractive. She knew Sophie wasn't single, and she was too young for her in any case...but it was still nice to see.
"Well let me know if you churn up anything interesting, yeah?" Sophie said. "I'm gonna go wear my other skin for a while."
"Gonna rescue some cats from some trees?" May asked, batting her eyelashes.
"Y'know what, after the Supremacist, Hades and...well, I guess Captain Cur wasn't so bad but - I could totally do with saving some cats from trees right about now."

As Sophie walked onto the relatively crowded Kronos Avenue which was the traditional home of most of Seacouver's rags, she did not notice - nor really could she have noticed - the sharp-nosed brunette tailing her. Though had she turned around even once, it would not have been hard to spot her interest in Sophie. She couldn't keep her eyes off her.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Natalya couldn't help but feel that she'd done something wrong. Sophie had always been very understanding about her powers, even going so far as to warn Natalya in advance if she was to expect any...vivid memories before they met. Yet that patience had, it seemed, run a little dry that day.
"Even Sophie..." Natalya thought. She sighed. She wondered what their friendship was really based on, in the end. Their one true source of commonality - their positions as superheroes - was no longer there: Insyte was no more. But there wasn't much that they did together. Sophie would help train her, or sometimes they would have coffee, and talk about the news, and Sophie would regale her with her latest adventures, and moon over Mariko while trying not to sound like she was mooning over her. Natalya would tell Sophie about her job and she...wouldn't exactly feign interest, but architecture wasn't the most interesting thing in the world to her. Their friendship was built on luck and circumstance more than anything. She just wanted someone who would tolerate her powers, and Sophie just wanted another person to save. That was all. Their friendship didn't really mean anything.

"Oh god!" Natalya was starting to get a little bit sick of herself. "Isn't every friendship a bit like that, you stupid woman?!" She shouted this out loud. How easy it was to be a pessimist, how easy it was to reduce anything good to something mundane and hollow. If she hadn't had her powers, if she hadn't been able to see for herself things as pure and good as Elizabeta's heart, or the burning hearth of Mariko's passion for her lover, she would have just reduced them to naivete or codependence, or the desperation of a lonely heart.

Yes, there was something, alright. Many people doubted outright the existence of selflessness, or true love, or what have you - but Natalya could have no such doubts. She knew it as she knew her own mind. It didn't bring her any joy, perhaps, but it saved her - now and again - from total despair. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she maintained her friendship with Sophie. To be in the presence of a good, and loving heart. Was that a bad reason to keep up a friendship?
"I'm sure I'll think of a way for it to be..." Natalya thought. She nearly smiled.

Continuing her program of efforts at social bravery, Natalya had arranged a cinema trip with an old schoolfriend. She liked films - not in the same enthusiastic fashion as the cinephile Sophie, but it was nice to see 'people' and not know what they were about to do or say. She put on a pair of flat shoes, put on a pastel-blue blouse to match her figure-hugging, light grey skirt, and collected herself. This would be another effort. She opened her door - and found a woman in a gas mask staring back at her.
"Wh-what the-?" Natalya, shocked, jumped back. "Who are you?" She scanned her mind as deeply as she could - 'Gamma' was the first name that came to mind, then Michelle Van Dyke - but what really jumped out at Natalya was not anything about Gamma herself - it was was that Gamma knew her. She couldn't see much detail, but she did see scattered memories of the previous night. Of Gamma and two others breaking in, capturing her, somehow making Natalya herself forget. The vile upswelling of sexual pleasure Gamma derived from the memory...and her intention to do it again.

"Y-you...you did that to me...and I - no! NO!" Natalya shouted. She would not allow it. She had no intention of being taken again... just taken and then dumped back in her house as if nothing had happened! No! She wouldn't allow them to get away with this violation of her mind and her body. She couldn't see deeply and subtly enough to predict Gamma's movements well, but she had some combat experience, damn it. She wouldn't just let Gamma -
"Unit four-oh-eight-two-five-seven," Gamma said. "Sandman mode." Natalya saw what Gamma had just done.
"No..." she mewed. "Please don't - ah!" It wasn't painful, really. Just a little shock at the top of her spine. "Uhh...nnhhh..." Natalya felt as if the legs had just been kicked out from under her mind. "M-my...body...what...ahhhhhh!"

A wave of weakness shot in both directions from her neck. It flooded Natalya's body and mind like seawater into a torpedoed submarine. There was no softness, no mercy. The weakness thrust itself through Natalya's curvy, lily-white body, stealing all her strength. Her arms fell to her sides, her legs quivered.
"Aahhh...aahhhh!" Natalya moaned, frozen in place, feeling herself so shockingly and rapidly subdued. "Can't...can't think...can't..."
"Sssshhhh, Miss Nazarov," Gamma said. "Just accept it. There's nothing you can do." Natalya could not but accept this.

"Nnn...no...uhhhh...oooooohhhhhhh..." Natalya sighed. She swayed from side to side, her head bobbing left to right, before - confounded, subdued, and uncomprehending - she stumbled forward two steps, and slipped into Gamma's arms. She caught Natalya around the waist, hooking her arms behind her back, and letting Natalya fall backwards. Her long, black hair brushed against the ground; her long, white neck exposed to her predator. Her arms waved slightly, back and forth in a gentle rhythm, but not by any means under her own power. Her lips, a deep, rose red against the pristine whiteness of her alabaster skin, were slightly parted, and soft sighs, tinged slightly by the sounds of distress, emerged from them at regular intervals. Her buxom chest heaved against her blouse, and as Gamma lowered Natalya to the ground, she couldn't help but rub her hands all over Natalya's bosom, feeling its heavy, yielding ripeness.

"Oh, gawd I love this job," Gamma crowed, placing Natalya's hands in her lap. She quickly twisted a zip-tie around the damsel's wrists, pulling it tight, before doing the same with her ankles. Zip-ties were a quick and dirty way of binding a pretty girl, but that was partly why Gamma liked it.
"'Zip-zip' - and you're all tied up!" Gamma laughed. She frisked her, looking for her phone, quickly browsing recent texts and messages. There weren't many, but she seemed to have arranged some rendezvous with a 'Cynthia'. Quickly, Gamma typed 'Sorry, something's come up - can't make it.' This done, she slipped her hands under her captive, and - with a groan of effort - lifted Natalya up into her arms.

"Hh..." Natalya sighed, ever so softly, as she was cradled like a stolen bride. Lifting her legs a little higher, Gamma was somewhat disappointed that Natalya's tight skirt clung pretty tenaciously in place. It took some quite vigorous jiggling of her busty captive for Gamma to see the skirt sliding back to expose her smooth, white thighs - which had been the whole point of carrying her like that in the first place! But when she did get a glimpse of her Russian princess' skin...mmhh! A shiver rattled her whole body, and she giggled.
"Now," Gamma thought, "let's just hope Delta doesn't fuck this whole thing up..."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sophie eventually found somewhere suitable. A blind alley, in plenty of shadow. No-one would spot her there, but before putting on her mantle, she paused for a moment. She was, even though she felt so restored, touched by a lingering fear that her despondency would return at any moment, so she wanted to hold onto this feeling just for a moment. She took out her phone, and left a voice message for Mariko.
"Hey, gorgeous," she said. "I wanted to tell you I love you. And..." She summoned her courage. "It's not, like, an emergency or anything, but there's something I want - I need - to talk to you about. But just...just always remember how happy you've made me, okay?" She hung up, recalling one of those painful memories that had assailed her that morning. "They don't deserve sad-Sophie!" she remembered her younger self wailing. "Amen to that," she said. All her wonderful friends, Natalya, May, Kirsten, Talia - and, of course, her beloved - they deserved her best self, and she would find a way to make sure that that was all they got. But for the moment, it was her city that was her concern. "En - ow!"

Sophie thought, at first, that she'd been stung in the thigh, for she felt a short, sharp pinprick just beneath her rear. Ready to swat the offender, she looked down - and a familiar fear washed over her. A feathered dart was sticking out of her thigh.
"Wh-what the fuck?!" Sophie gasped. She yanked it out, threw it aside, prayed that she'd been quick enough...but the trembling in her legs told her that she had not. "Unnhh..." She stumbled backwards, trying to keep her balance, spinning around.
"Oh! Miss, are you alright?" Sophie saw her in silhouette, the woman now entering the alleyway. She was plain looking, thin, with a theatrical gait. But the way she moved...she wasn't normal. And that look...that lustful, predatory gaze that Sophie had seen so many times before.
"No...no!" Sophie cried out, already feeling herself losing her grip on consciousness. "Please...not again!" The woman smiled, laughed slightly.
"You're looking very tired..."

She tried to run. She knew if she'd turned her powers on it would only make things worse, but her legs hadn't the strength even as it was. She fell back against a wall, gasping, her bosom heaving as if, somehow, the next breath might wash this feeling away, but to no avail. It was all Sophie could do to stand. Her eyelids fluttered briefly. "No...w-what...why is...this happening again? I...I...uuhhh..."
"Mmmhh...should I call an ambulance, Miss? You're really not looking great..." Delta said, striding right up to where Sophie was standing.
"Wh...what do you...mmhhh...!" Delta had pressed her hand over Sophie's mouth. "Mmpphhh...mmhhh!" the redhead moaned, feeling thin fingers sealing her soft lips. She lifted her arms, grabbed Delta's wrist, but she couldn't pull her away. She was getting weaker...and weaker...and weaker...

"Oh, look at you, my darling," Delta said. She took one of Sophie's hands, and the redhead was shocked by the ease with which her resistance was dismissed. "Oh my...such fine hands...!" Delta giggled, rubbing her cheek against Sophie's palm.
"Whhmphh...?" Sophie whimpered. "Mh!" Delta had begun kissing her wrist, and as Sophie's cheeks went red, she realised what a sensitive spot this was. "Mhhh...mmmmmmhhhh..." she moaned, squirming, batting feebly with her free arm, but to no avail. "Wh...what's she doing...what does she want?" Delta took her hand away from her mouth, grasped both of Sophie's arms together. "Who...?"
"Call me Delta, my sweet," her captor said, before dropping Sophie's hands. To the redhead's dismay, they flopped to her sides, as limp as if she were unconscious - a danger that was getting closer by the moment.

"Oh how sumptuous..." Delta took Sophie by the upper arms, forced her against the wall.
"No...s-stop..." Sophie mewed, as Delta pulled the straps off her vest and her bra, baring her smooth, creamy shoulders. "Mmhh...don't... don't..." she sighed, as Delta started kissing her exposed skin. "Ahhh..." she sighed, her head falling back, exposing her neck. She felt hands massaging her breasts, tracing the lines of her collarbone, kisses on her soft, vulnerable throat. "I...can't move..." she whimpered.
"I know...and doesn't it feel lovely?" Delta laughed. "Like a hot bath...let yourself sink into the warm embrace of sleep..."
"I...don't...uuuuhhhhh..." Sophie felt herself slumping into Delta's arms, now too weak to hold herself up. She went pigeon-toed, her thighs rubbing together, covered only by the thin, springy material of her leggings. "Someone...help..." she mumbled, sapped of the strength she'd need to shout. "I'm being...k-kidnapped..."

"Such youthful firmness," Delta said, cupping Sophie's half-exposed bosom. "Such slender grace!" She ran her hands all the way down Sophie's torso, down over her hips. As she bent down to feel her legs, Sophie wobbled, faltered, and then - with nothing holding up her upper body - flopped down over Delta's shoulder.
"Oh, yeah!" Delta giggled. "What a humble, obedient lass...the Society will like that." She stood up, letting Sophie's weight sink into her, carrying the supple damsel with a great deal of pleasure. She stroked her legs, enjoying the swish of her gloved hands against Sophie's leggings, massaging her thighs. "Mmh...oh yes...you're perfect," Delta said. "Yours is just the right kind of sweetness." She put her hand on Sophie's ass, squeezed it, feeling its soft, springy firmness through the thin protection of her leggings. "Oh, feel you, all limp and soft over my shoulder...oh, it's too much!" She laughed. "You were born to be wrapped in Morpheus' embrace..."

"Uhh...hhhnnhh..." Sophie could barely keep her eyes open. Essentially paralysed, fondled and helpless, there was a kind of barrier between what was being done to her tight, slender body, and what she could actually feel. She was sensitive, but...it was like she was floating away from herself. "I'm always like this..." she thought, a strange clarity coming over her, like a bubble of oxygen within a dark ocean. "Doesn't matter how...strong I get...someone's always just...waiting to take me..." She could feel she was about to go under, but she held on. Part of her held on, at least. She'd almost completely blacked out, but there was a tiny, lingering part of her that stayed awake. Drifting from consciousness into unconsciousness, the dreaming part of her was all that was left. "Please..." she whispered, "don't...make me sleep... ." Delta couldn't hear her, but she felt Sophie shiver with fear when she said: "She...she'll be waiting for me..." Then - darkness. All that was left was for her to give a deep sigh as her body gave in. "Aahh...hhhhnnnn...hhhhh..." This Delta did hear, and it made her quiver with delight.


A few minutes later, an unassuming black car pulled up as close to the entrance to the alley as possible. With Sophie draped over her, Delta slipped into the back seat, and hastily dumped the limp damsel in the seat next to her. She had not even shut the door by the time the car began screeching away.
"Good work, Gamma!" Delta said, finding that Sophie was not the only helpless damsel slumbering in the back of their getaway vehicle. Sitting next to her, her legs primly tucked together, her hands resting peacefully in her lap, was Natalya.
"Second trial seems promising," she said. "She doesn't exactly have a packed social calendar. I think Miss Nazarov might make a good regular."
"Excellent," Delta said, stroking Sophie's hair.
"Ooh..." the redhead whimpered, her eyebrows slightly creasing.
"There, there," Delta cooed, "all safe now..." Gamma frowned. Delta had been taking severe liberties recently - just snatching a girl off the street the way she'd done was very risky. But - she did have seniority.
"Upsilon's not gonna like this..." Gamma thought. Glancing into the rear-view mirror, Gamma saw Natalya's head wobble from a bump in the road, and come to rest on one of Sophie's shoulders, soft enough that it looked like Natalya had found quite a comfortable spot to rest. Indeed, her lips were getting perilously close to Sophie's neck, almost as if she were stretching to kiss her. The pale beauties shifted softly, amorously against each other...so limp and nubile... "Mmmhh..." Gamma found herself licking her lips. "Okay...maybe she'll have mixed feelings..."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Where's his base?" Nova asked over her communicator, flying in at top speed. Naturally, as the team's flier, she had arrived first in Delirious' 'reservation', but the rest of the Pauldron had followed shortly after in the team's helicopters. No-one knew why Delirious had insisted on this little square mile for himself, but as long as he kept in it, people were...relatively comfortable with his existence.
"Military spy-eyes put it one click North North-East of your current position," Imperion replied. He kept anxiously checking the map, muttering to himself.
"Something bothering you, sir?" Panhellius asked.
"Just checking the populations in the towns around here," Jackson said. "Eureka...Arcata...oh, man so...should be...hmm...and we're...fifty miles from Seacouver, maybe...so...sixty-five?" he muttered.
"Sixty what, sir?"
"Sixty miles from here to the State Border," Imperion said. "It'd just be inconvenient if this got federal."

Nova landed where Imperion had directed her: the featureless scrubland didn't exactly look like much.
"I don't see anything," she said. "The ground looks...blackened though. Like something was here, but isn't anymore."
"It would be simplicity itself for him to destroy any facility he had," Mariko said. "But is it possible he fooled the military satellites somehow?" Few doubts entered her mind at that moment: here, on a mission, she knew exactly what she was doing. "He's never been recorded as having illusory powers, but -"
"No!" Imperion shouted, in response to Mariko, but not really at her. "That's impossible!" The Jade Colossus jumped out of his seat. To the consternation of all, he opened the helicopter's hatch, and just jumped out, sans parachute.
"Well," Fahrenheit said, "that's nice and dramatic." They'd been three-thousand feet up.

Sara practically jumped out of her skin when Imperion landed with a resounding crash on the rocky ground behind her.
"This is impossible!" Imperion shouted. "It's here! It should be here!"
"I'm sorry, Jackson, there's no sign of anything." Nova couldn't remember seeing him so angry.
"Damn it!" He slammed his fist against the ground, and the whole plain shook. "No no no!" He reached down, tore great chunks out of the rock, hurling truck-sized boulders aside like they were pebbles. "DELIRIOUS!" he bellowed. "Where are you?!"

"Jackson!" Nova gasped, astonished by this display of rage. He looked back at her, and for just a moment she saw red hot fury in his eyes. She was almost afraid. But then he seemed to realise at whom he was looking, and his expression softened. "I-I'm sorry Sara, I don't normally...lose it like that."
"It's alright," Sara said.
"I know we made that truce with him when the Titan got brainwashed - hell, I helped broker it - but...I really, really want to go another round with him." He snarled like a dog. "I want to break the bastard in half!" His teeth were bared. His fists crackled with red lightning. Sara was a little frightened - but then she thought she saw something familiar. That same raw, wounded rage.

"It's because of what he did to you, isn't it?" she said.
"...You're damned right it is. But y'know what? I'm gonna find him, Nova. I mean it. I'm gonna rip his -" The next thing he knew, Nova was hugging him. Her slender arms were wrapped around him, her forehead against his chest.
"Please," she said. "Please don't let him have done to you what Hades did to me."
"What do you mean?"
"You're...you're such a good man, Jackson..." Nova looked up at him with warm, almond shaped eyes. "So I understand...I know what it feels like - you know I understand what must be inside you right now. It's consuming and black and disgusting, and it makes everything...makes everything but revenge feel worthless. But please... don't let him have ruined you. Not you."
"Sara, you're not ruined, you're -"
"Damn it, Jackson we all need Imperion to be Imperion! If even you're giving into - vengeance and violence then what fucking hope is there for the rest of us? We need you..." It was only now that Nova realised the position she was in. Her arms were wrapped around him. She was staring into his eyes, and he was looking back. "I...I need you..." she said, very, very quietly.
"Sara..." Jackson responded softly.

"Oh, am I interrupting something?!" From above, Fahrenheit dropped from the helicopter's open hatch. He couldn't survive as high a fall as Imperion, but with his powers he could massively slow down a descent. He dropped with a kind of stiff grace onto the ground, his clothes singed from the heat of his friction powers. "If we could halt the love-in for a moment, we have a supervillain to smash to pieces, don't we?"
"R-right," Nova said, detaching from Imperion, blushing like a schoolgirl.
"So I take it he's not here," Fahrenheit said. He was in his more ostentatious colours today: a blue sash over a white, vaguely military looking jacket with a blue trim. "What now?"
"No idea," Imperion said. "He couldn't have been gone long..." Fahrenheit raised an eyebrow at Imperion's certainty over this fact, but bowed to his leader's wisdom. "He must have been spooked because he knew we were coming, but...where did he go?"
"Wait," Sara said. "This isn't where Delirious captured you, is it Jackson?"
"No, he got me years before -" Imperion gave her a fearful look. "Oh, shit..."
"That makes sense," Fahrenheit said. "If he's planning to do more with Vitra than just ogle her, he'd want a laboratory. He's decided to use his old one, hoping we wouldn't realise. Where is it, boss?"
"I...don't know exactly," Imperion said. "I was pretty messed up when I escaped. But it's somewhere in Greenlee County, Arizona...near Hannegan Meadow..." He put his hand to his chin. "Shit..."
"What are we waiting for?" Nova said. "At top speed I can make it there in an hour and a half."
"It's in the middle of nowhere," Imperion said.
"So?" Fahrenheit said. "That's better, surely. Less possibility of civilians getting hurt." Imperion frowned deeply.

"Alright," he said. "But I'm changing the plan. It's a rescue operation now. We go in, we get Vitra, we get out. We'll find some other way of dealing with him at another date." Fahrenheit narrowed his eyes.
"You've changed your tune, Jackson. I thought this was going to be our chance to show the world who we are."
"There'll be other chances," Imperion said. "To be honest, I was letting anger mess with my judgement - I wouldn't be the first person to convince himself his goals were noble when all he wanted was revenge. You made me realise that," he said to Nova. "I wouldn't be surprised if you just completely saved my ass. Now get your ass over there, see what you can spot. Do not engage Delirious under any circumstances."
"Understood," Sara replied.
"And Nova..." The Starlit Maiden turned back. Imperion was smiling. "We all need you too."

From the helicopter above, Mariko, Mark and Chryseis looked down at the three heroes. They'd seen Nova and Imperion embrace: Mariko was quizzically analysing the nature of this, trying to recall any clues as to whether this was romantic or not. Chryseis, thinking it might be, frowned slightly. Mark, happily assuming it was romantic, merely thought that it was about time.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Sophie woke up, it was with the lightest heart that she had awoken with for quite some time. She'd had no nightmare, no torturous chilling of her tender heart - she'd just slept. Little did she know, at least for the moment, that this quietude had a less than benign origin: it was simply that the drug she'd been given didn't allow her to dream as she slept. She felt herself lying flat on - well it wasn't a bed - it felt more like a thinly padded slab.
"Where...am I?"

"Oh, get those horrid things off." Such was the first voice that Sophie heard in her wakefulness. She felt a tug on her hips - her leggings were being pulled off, slowly peeled from her thighs, then her calves, completely exposing the pale skin of her long, silky-smooth legs. Sophie blushed as she felt multiple pairs of hands on her skin, whipping her leggings off, and lingering to stroke and gently squeeze her. She heard light giggles all around her, fragments of whispers.
"Isn't she lovely?"
"Look at those legs..."
"Oh, I wish I had her hair..."
"...unh...?" Sophie mewed, casting her eyes down, still so heavy and unfocused. She couldn't move much more than that. She could see figures moving in front of her, men and women, wearing surgical masks. She could see her own legs, bare, the only covering on all of her lower body now her frilly, light-blue panties. "Who...uunhh..." she moaned, trying to move, but still far too weak to do so.

"Master Anaesthetist, she's waking up," one of her captors said.
"Don't worry," the other replied. "That drug will keep her helpless for a while yet. Get that vest off."
"D-don't..." Sophie tried vainly to resist, but there was nothing she could do. Sophie felt her arms being lifted, then long fingered hands slipping under the boundaries of her vest. Slowly they pulled it up, exposing her flat, taut midriff, then the swell of her bosom. The black fabric reached her neck, and with one quick tug was yanked up and over her her head and her arms, leaving Sophie in nothing but her underclothes. But they didn't stop there: Sophie felt herself lifted by her shoulders, her torso slumping forward. She thought they might be about to pick her up and take her off somewhere, but no: they were just unhooking her bra. Sophie let out a soft moan as it was cast aside, baring her perky breasts, the rosy buds of her nipples.
"No..." Sophie whimpered, seeing herself exposed, stripped. Her cheeks crimsoned, even more so as curious fingers danced lightly over her sensitive skin. "Unh..." She feared what they might do: there she lay, so soft, naked and powerless...all the loveliness of her feminine body there to be...appreciated however her captors desired, and she was so very helpless to defend herself. A pulse of tangible vulnerability ran through her, and almost made her faint.

"Wh...what do...you want with me?" She tried to lift her arms, tried to fight, but her mind was still in a drugged haze.
"Nothing bad, my dear." Her vision a little clearer, Sophie saw that while most of those around her were dressed in a kind of ornate nurse's scrubs, one of them was wearing a long, white coat, and a ceramic mask that covered all but one of their eyes. "You see, we at the Sleeping Beauty Society recognise that a woman's...true loveliness," this woman said, stroking Sophie's cheek with the back of her hand, "is manifest only in soft, limp slumber..."
"Ugh..." Sophie tried to turn her head away, but she didn't even have the strength for that. "You...l-let me...let me go...you...fuckers..."
"Oh don't worry," the Anaesthetist said, "we will. In due time, of course.
"What? What... do you mean?" Behind her mask, the Anaesthetist raised an eyebrow. That last sentence had been a little clearer than she would have liked.
"I think she's getting a little...active. Nurse?"

Before Sophie knew what was happening, a plastic mask had been placed over her mouth and nose, tied there with an elastic strap.
"Nhhh...!" Sophie protested, hearing the hiss as the gas began flooding her system. "Have to...have to...fight it...!" Sophie thought, trying to pull the mask off, but too weak even to get her hands onto it. "Can't...let this...happen to me..." But she seemed to have no choice in the matter. She felt herself getting drowsier, softer. "Mhhhhhhhhhh..." she sighed, one arm flopping onto her stomach, the other hanging limp by her side. "What...can I...I do...?" Her bare legs shifted softly against each other, her pert chest rose and fell slowly, heavily. Her head fell to the side - and it was only then that her dismay really set in.

There was another slab, a few feet away from her - and lying upon it was the helpless, slumbering form of the lovely Natalya. A nurse was unbuttoning her blouse, another slowly sliding her tight grey skirt down from her legs. They exposed her soft, white legs, not quite so long and lithe as Sophie's but still fine. As they unbuttoned her blouse, her bosom seemed almost to burst its restraints, so thrillingly voluptuous was the sleeping maiden. Yet as they disrobed her, completely exposing her chest as well, it became clear that size was not her breasts' only virtue: they were perfectly rounded and symmetrical, firm, but pliable as well, her nipples little islands of hot pink on skin so pristinely alabaster. Her sloping shoulders, her long, white neck...and she was utterly defenceless, beautifully vulnerable in her slumbering stillness. There was a kind of hushed silence among those who were stripping her, a sort of awe at her radiance.
"Natalya...? No...they...captured you too?" Sophie thought, trying to reach out to her friend. Though the boot was on quite the other foot, she felt as if it was she who had brought this on the dark-haired telepath. But that was her last cogent thought before she faded completely, and sank once again into oblivion.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Silently they entered. Men and women, some even arm in arm. All were dressed to the nines: the women in elegant dresses, the men in rakish suits and tuxedos. All had one thing in common - well, two things, but only one was clear to the eye. Each of them was clad in an ovoid mask.
"Oh, hello, Blue Joker," one woman said, patting another on the arm. "Dahhling, it's been faaah too long." The masks were not only to obscure their faces: they were fitted with little synthesisers which disguised their voices.
"Oh, you're so right, Black Seven," the other replied. "I hear they had some lovely Chinese girl in last week - I was aggrieved to have missed that, I can tell you." Their masks were painted with the images of cards, so that they would know what to call each other - anonymity was supreme at their little establishment. As it happened, though, these two did know each other. Last time Black Seven had been Red Four and Blue Joker had been Indigo King...but they played volleyball so often that they didn't need to see each other's faces to recognise each other.

There were around fifteen or so, gathering in a semicircle in the darkened hall. They chatted quite amicably with each other - a lot of them talked stocks, or property prices - until they saw a cloaked figure enter. Little could be determined about him other than his height, for his identity was obscured even more than the others'.
"Laaaadies and gentlemen...I am...Upsilon, your host...for the evening..." he said, drawing out an exaggerated, drawl in a deliberately unidentifiable accent. "I bid you welcome to this gathering of the Sleeping Beauty Society." There was light applause, like one might find at a golf game.
"I can't stand this asshole," a man in the mask of the Black Five muttered to a nearby friend. "Like, I mean come on, we're all here for the girls, right?"
"Oh, you are such a buzz-kill," the other, masked as Blue Jack replied. "It's my first time here, Je - uh, Black Five. I like the theatrics! Makes it feel less sleazy." Black Five shrugged, conceding the point.
"Now I know," Upsilon continued, "that we are all first and foremost worshippers of Morpheus." This drew light laughter - quite intentionally. "However, we are also here to appreciate the loveliness that only a woman wrapped in the silken embrace of slumber can embody." Upsilon snapped his fingers, and the lights went out. Those new to the society gasped.

Spotlights appeared, highlighting two chairs, shaped to accommodate a person in repose, all at that moment, empty. Then, footsteps. Heavy footsteps, like those burdened - and burdened they were, though not unhappily so. Delta and Gamma entered carrying sleek, black sacks over their shoulders. They wore long, colourful dress-coats, and walked with solemnity, and purpose - there was a delightful air of tension now that even Black Five was being swept along by. Delta laid her burden down first, then Gamma.
"The two newest tenants of the Blind Palace," Upsilon said. "Unveil them." The bags were unzipped, and a number of the guests began umming and aahing as enthusiastically as one might at a fireworks display.
"Oh boy," Blue Joker said, giving a wolf whistle, "I sure am glad I turned up today!"

On the left, Natalya, clad in a deep blue, velvet dress, her shoulders bare, her arms clad in matching opera gloves. Her dress was tailored such that it clung in place with a line of elastic around Natalya's ribs, so it plunged very low for a strapless dress, revealing as much of her buxom chest as possible. On the right, Sophie, in a tight, red qipao, and flat, shoes, her long legs left bare and lovingly displayed. They glinted in the spotlight, her whole body so lithe and slinky...

"The raven-haired maiden on your left," Upsilon said, "is of Russian ancestry, well-bred, of a premiér social class. It is not...impossible that those of us who move in better circles may recognise her. Naturally, any such information you are to keep entirely within your own breast." He moved over to her, gently tracing a single finger up her stomach and between her bosoms. "She is noteworthy both for her voluptuous figure, and for her exceeding softness." He took one of her wrists, lifted it, and then let her arm fall limply onto her stomach. There were murmurs of appreciation for this display in the crowd. Pretty girls were not necessarily hard to come by, but the pleasures afforded by the Sleeping Beauty Society catered to a more...developed palate. Or so its guests liked to think, at least.

"One of our...less imaginative employees started calling this young woman 'Anastasia'. Not the wittiest thing to say in the world...alas, the name has stuck, and we are listing her under that moniker." Slight laughter - more hushed this time as the clientele admired the SBS' new attractions. Blue Jack raised his hand. Upsilon nodded towards him.
"Thank you. Is Anastasia approved for request-abductions?"
"Provisionally, yes," Upsilon replied. "There is some debate still over whether to list her as a Class One or a Class Two - she does seem to be relatively unsocial, but she has certain...potentially troublesome family connections. As always, please remember that in acknowledgement of your generous contributions, the Sleeping Beauty Society shoulders all legal risk."

He moved over to Sophie, and hesitated before speaking.
"We were...not expecting to be presenting two new tenants to you today," Upsilon said, "but circumstances thrust this supple young lass into our collective embrace." He gave Delta a quick look, and she almost visibly recoiled. The slap-mark on her cheek for her audacity still stung. "Note particularly the slender grace of her legs," Upsilon said, "and of the somnolent distress in her features." He squeezed Sophie's cheeks slightly, turned her head to the side. With a small mew, Sophie's head flopped onto her shoulder, and this too was greatly appreciated by the SBS' clientele. "This, ah, diamond in the rough we are calling La Renarde." They were just going to call her 'the vixen' - but the name was already taken by another girl.

The clientele now moved in, forming two circles around the two helpless women. They quite openly ogled and fondled them, though with the refinement of someone inspecting a famous painting, not with the rapacious roughness even of Delta. Sophie's legs were repeatedly, lovingly stroked, their length and shapeliness multiply appreciated.
"Oh I wish I had her skin," Blue Joker cooed.
"Careful now," Black Five said, "you wouldn't want it to be you in this chair." Both laughed, and some sipped champagne - through straws, on account of the masks - as a kidnapped, defenceless woman lay drugged and helpless in their midst.

Those admiring Natalya were a little quieter. They tested her slumber, turning her head from side to side, lifting and letting drop her arms. With a nod of permission from Upsilon, they even lifted the hem of her dress to examine her legs. They received some appreciative pats, but again, a measure of restraint was shown. These were fine wines to be sampled with care - fully sampled, yes, but not thrown down the throat like common grog.

"I hear your Master Anaesthetist has been hard at work," Blue Joker said. "Apparently you've some very fine tricks to be played now." Others murmured happily: they had seen things she had not. Upsilon shrugged.
"The talents of our Master Anaesthetist are legion, to be sure," he said. "I don't suppose that you'd care for a demonstration, perhaps?" Murmurs - even cheers - of assent went up. Beneath his mask, Upsilon smiled.

The Anaethetist entered with all the flourish and arrogance of a feudal lord. She too was now wearing a mask, a bespoke latex mask which gave her an almost deathly appearance. A nurse trotted behind her with a small case, full of the tools of the Anaethetist's trade.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," she said. Her tone was businesslike, but with a sneering quality to it. "For some time now, I have been searching for a way to combine the two aspects of my role as a member of the Sleeping Beauty Society - the administration of sedatives, and the control of thought. In the past, this latter aspect has merely been to erase our sleeping beauties' memories of their time in our company, to ensure maximum peace of mind both for them, for us...and for our benefactor. Now, however, thanks to a little experimentation with certain barbiturates, I have developed..." She stuck out her hand. "I have developed..." she said again, quite insistently.
"Oh!" The nurse behind her snapped open the case, remembering belatedly that that had been his cue. He placed a syringe in the Anaesthetist's hand, receiving a glower from her for his tardiness.

"I call this formula 'Gepetto'," the Anaesthetist said. "I'm sure the reason will be obvious momentarily." She snapped her fingers, and Delta took another syringe from the nurse, then moved over to Sophie. She carefully injected her in the neck, not with Gepetto, but with a different drug. "This will keep La Renarde in a state of conscious, but somnolent weakness." The drug was relatively fast to take effect, and Sophie's eyes began fluttering slowly open.
"Wh...hhh..." she sighed. "What's...?" She saw faces all around her, peering, heard hushed voices. Her legs tingled - she could feel that someone had been touching her. It was a strange sensation - she was relatively compos mentis but felt incredibly drowsy and...floaty, like her fingertips were just brushing against wakefulness, but she couldn't quite grab it.
"Hold her up," the Anaesthetist ordered, and Delta did so, holding Sophie by her shoulders, lifting her into a sitting position.
"H...hey...what's...going..." Sophie couldn't wake properly. She was stuck in this...limbo, so weak that she was still just as defenceless as she'd been when she was asleep. There were people around her. Did they know? Did they understand. "H...help..." she mumbled. "I've been...kidnapped..." There was a ripple of laughter.
"Oh god, that's adorable..."
"Oh, she's precious!"
"Mmmhhh...look at her wiggle those pins..." Sophie mewed in dismay as she realised that all of those around her were her enemies, before a sharp pinprick in her neck roused her - but only for a moment.

If chloroform was like a thick, sweet blanket, then Gepetto was like a cool, still lake on a hot day. As the drug surged through her, Sophie felt a deep sense of relaxation spread through her, over and above tiredness or weakness. It was a soothing sensation, as if a sort of...neutrality was being imposed upon her. It wasn't as though she couldn't think. She just...didn't.
"Ooohh..." Sophie sighed, falling back into Delta's arms. Her eyes remained half-lidded. Every point of her body felt very sensitive, in a not altogether unpleasant fashion. It was almost like having her powers on, only without the thrill and rush. She could simply feel everything in exquisite, pleasurable detail: Delta's arms on her shoulders, the feeling of her legs against each other, of her dress against her skin. The Anaesthetist saw her expression: she was ready.

Perching with surprising elegance for one whose movements often had a touch of the staccato to them, the Anaesthetist sat on the edge of Sophie's seat.
"I am going to call you Renarde," she said. "When I say Renarde, I mean you."
"Wh...huh?" Sophie's eyes fluttered. "What...? Yeah...okay, call me...whatever..."
"Tcheh," one of the clients tutted. "Didn't think she'd be such a valley girl."
"Oh, can it," another said. "It's cute." The Anaesthetist bristled. She didn't like being interrupted.

"Renarde," she said, "look at the sleeping woman on your right." Sophie did so. She didn't even think about it. "What do you think of her?"
"She...she's my...friend..." Sophie mewed. There were concerned murmurs. The two knew each other? The Anaesthetist was surprised too, but she pressed on.
"Tell me, Renarde," she said, "do you like women?"
"Wh...? Y-yeah...I'm gay..."
"Oh, then that makes this much easier." She leaned in, whispered into Sophie's ear: "Do you find your friend attractive?"
"Sh...she's..." Sophie's eyebrow twitched. "She's great looking, but...I don't...not that way...not with her..."
"'Great looking'? No, that's not good enough." The Anaesthetist grinned. "She's beautiful."
"She's...beautiful..." Sophie hadn't looked away since being ordered to cast her eyes onto Natalya. Of course Natalya was beautiful. Who'd have doubted that.
"You want her, don't you?"
"No..." Sophie replied. "I...have someone..." The Anaesthetist was about to go on, but she was aware that her skills lay more in the realm of chemical persuasion. She beckoned to Delta, who happily took her place at Sophie's side.

"Renarde...you have someone special, yes?"
"Yeah..." Sophie replied. She smiled. "My Mariko..."
"We don't want to know about her love life!" a more impatient client grumbled. "Get on with whatever it is you're doing!" He was just a little drunk, and some of the others around him angrily hushed him.
"So," Delta said, softly stroking Sophie's hair. Instantly relaxing, Sophie slipped back in her chair, "you love this 'Mariko'?"
"Mmmmhhh..." Sophie sighed. "Yes..."
"And she loves you?"
"Unnhh...yeah..." In her floaty, dreamlike state, she could almost imagine her willowy lover throwing her arms around her, kissing her, seeing that warmth and softness in her eyes that Mariko seemed to save only for her.
"So if she loves you...she wants you to have pleasure..."
"I...guess..." Sophie felt her chin grabbed, tugged so that she was looking squarely at her unconscious friend.
"Touching her would give you pleasure...kissing her would give you pleasure...oh, look how lovely she is! Look at her breasts, her neck, her figure...what self-respecting lesbian wouldn't want her?"
"Give me...pleasure..." Sophie repeated. Well, of course. Of course it would have given her pleasure. Who on Earth would doubt that?
"You want her."
"No...I...don't..." The Master Anaesthetist twitched visibly when she heard Sophie say this. A little token resistance as the drug took effect? Sure. But outright contradiction? Under the effects of Gepetto? This was a strong will indeed. But Delta was not deterred, and took action.

She slipped her hands under Sophie's back and her thighs, and scooped the long-legged redhead into her arms.
"Unnnhhhh..." Sophie moaned, totally limp, her legs dangling in the air, bouncing slightly with every step Delta took. Her head fell back, her hair a fiery waterfall flowing downwards. The clients of the SBS watched this spectacle enraptured. This was what they'd come to see! Sophie was carried to Natalya, laid down in her lap, the maiden's head falling weakly against Natalya's shoulder.
"Mmmhh...doesn't she feel good?" Delta said. Sophie blushed. She could feel Natalya's breasts pressing into her - soft and yielding, could feel the heat from her skin. They were so close, and she was so weak...

Delta placed one finger on Sophie's ankle, and slowly began running it up her legs, criss-crossing between one and the other. "Ah! Ooohhh..." Sophie moaned, rendered perilously sensitive. She throbbed inside.
"Imagine it...imagine, Renarde, your friend here and your Mariko both taking you. It's alright...your girl knows it's just for fun. It's just pleasure...you'd be allowed to enjoy it..."
"I'd...be...allowed..." Drugged and pliable of mind, Sophie couldn't help getting drawn into the fantasy. The Gepetto drug was just too strong. She imagined herself naked and bound, being pleasured by both of them at the same time, Mariko massaging her breasts and making out with her while Natalya kissed and stroked her legs. "Oh...god..." she moaned sleepily, shivering. Loyalty was one thing, but the thought of two beautiful women wrapping her up and making her moan with helpless pleasure...she may have had her loyalties, but her id didn't always know that.

"She's there, Renarde...just a little kiss couldn't hurt. You're allowed, remember?" She saw Sophie shifting against Natalya, her arousal palpable, her smooth legs moist with sweat. She weakly nuzzled against Natalya's long, white neck, but she kept pulling away as much as her powerless body would allow her. "Look, Renarde!" she said. "Your..." She'd forgotten the name. "Your...lover is standing right behind you!"
"She's...behind me?"
"Mmmhh...and god, this is turning her on. She wants it. She wants to see you do it. She's touching herself, Renarde," Delta whispered, the whole room aside from her falling silent. "She wants you to do it..."
"She wants me to do it..." Delta had hit on it at last. How could Sophie possibly refuse Mariko what she wanted?

It happened surprisingly quickly. With a sort of sinuous shuffle, Sophie raised herself upwards a little, and pressed her lips against Natalya's warm, rose-red mouth.
"Mh...?" Natalya felt something under her heavy blanket of sleep: a tingling in her mouth. She was being kissed. She was barely awake enough to register anything at all, but she did feel a tingle of pleasure running through her body, and it stirred her.
"Mmmhhh....mmhhh..." Sophie sighed, rubbing herself with what little strength she possessed against Natalya, feeling heat rising from her body. "Is this...good...? Do you like this, Koko...? Mhh...she's so...soft..."

Natalya's yellow eyes fluttered open slightly: and there she was. Sophie, lying in her lap, sleepily but seductively kissing her, rubbing her lithe body against her friend's, moaning softly as she did.
"Wh...what?! Why is Sophie...?" A swirl of memory. Her abduction; Gamma's memories of a kidnapping that Natalya couldn't remember herself - and then a pulse of something else entirely. Sophie's mind: the shackles on it, or perhaps the strings, rather, of Gepetto. She barely had any more free will than one of Hypnotra's thralls, so helpless was she to resist the drug's effects. But something more than that - she felt Sophie's pleasure.

"Mmmhh..." Natalya sighed back into Sophie's kiss, for just an instant absorbed into the spell herself. But when she shut her eyes, of course, her telepathy was cut, and she was merely left with a renewed sense of shame at having been taken by Sophie's shackled emotions. Sophie stopped, eventually, but even then she still panted, still shivered, still rubbed her thighs together.
"As you can see," the Master Anaesthetist said, "there are still a few...kinks to be ironed out. Soon I'll have a drug which produces total obedience...or less than total, depending on individual client preferences. But I trust that that was an entertaining display nevertheless." There was a smattering of applause at this.
"No-one puts on a show like the SBS," Blue Joker said.
"Hear hear!" came the answers from the others.
"Now," Upsilon said, taking centre stage once again, "we shall be returning them to individual quarters. By custom, Black Ace and Red Ace, if you'd do the honours?"

Two stepped forward, one man and one woman, in the masks that had been called for. Epsilon handed each of them a cloth - black and red, respectively, before dosing each in a certain sweet-smelling liquid. The Aces approached the two maidens, one half-asleep, mesmerised and panting, the other almost completely out anyway. It didn't matter to the Aces. Each wrapped an arm around one of the girls, and forced the cloth over their mouth and nose.
"Mmmhhh...?"
"Mh...hhh..." Neither stood a chance. As the chloroform raced its way into them, shutting down all resistance and sucking away all meagre strength. Sophie could barely think at all as it was, still tingling and gasping from the sensuous onslaught that Delta had inflicted upon her. Natalya had a little more presence of mind, but it didn't make a difference, and she knew it. "Nothing...I can do...never anything I can do..." she thought, sinking into darkness. Sophie didn't even think that. She just heard her mews grow softer, quieter. Felt herself caught in an inescapable net: one that would not even allow her to struggle in it. They surrendered at almost the same moment, with long sighs from their helpless, gorgeous bodies.
"Good lord," Blue Joker said, ostentatiously fanning herself. "This is an exciting town, isn't it?"

[DrDominator9]

You've developed an interesting premise to highlight your special fixation on sleepy submission...and it works. As always, it lovingly written with luscious detail.

My only complaint with your writing is an editing issue. You often link an attributed quote to the wrong person in a new paragraph. That makes it confusing as to whom you're referring. I can't cut and paste here on my tablet easily but I will PM you later with an example of how to clarify things.

Other than that, it's all good.

[Damselbinder]

You've developed an interesting premise to highlight your special fixation on sleepy submission...and it works. As always, it lovingly written with luscious detail.

My only complaint with your writing is an editing issue. You often link an attributed quote to the wrong person in a new paragraph. That makes it confusing as to whom you're referring. I can't cut and paste here on my tablet easily but I will PM you later with an example of how to clarify things.

Other than that, it's all good.

I've spotted a couple of instances of the thing you're talking about. Thanks for the heads up.

[Damselbinder]

"Please...please let me go..." Vitra whimpered. If her captor heard, he elected to ignore her. It had been hours since she'd really tried to struggle: her arms were raised above her head, her arms sealed in a thick, mechanical clamp, holding her up in a standing position. Her feet were clamped together as well, her slender legs forced tightly together. "Please...I haven't done anything to you!" the blonde whimpered, her strength proving vastly insufficient for the task of freeing herself. "Please..."

Lord Delirious was not paying attention to Vitra. Or at least, it didn't seem like it. He stood in the centre of a huge cavern, its stone walls now lined with steel. There was rust, broken machinery, and some unidentifiable metal objects that seemed half weapon and half sculpture. Delirious was reforming his laboratory into working condition, using his magnetic powers to put everything back in its proper place. Already, however, there was a centrifuge whirring in one corner of the room - some of Vitra's hair was inside.
"We do not claim," he said, the whole room seeming to resonate with his voice, "that you have injured us, or that you are guilty of any crime. It is simple: you are required."
"Why...why do you need me?" Vitra replied. She tugged on the clamps binding her hands, but they didn't even budge.
"Information has come to us," Delirious replied. "The manner of the acquisition of your powers has the potential to be greatly revelatory."
"What do you mean? I was...born with my powers, like lots of people...what's so special about me?"

Delirious turned to her, and just the sight of his face made her cry out with fear. He focused on her with his glowing eye, while the other still attended to the process of rebuilding his old base.
"We have collected data from a number of superhumans. Those with powers woven into their genome, like the majority. Those who appear to have had latent abilities catalysed by exposure to fissile material. Those who have been exposed to substances which defy ordinary scientific explanation like dexite. Certain...unclassifiables. This itself has been a frustrating mystery...so many different, apparently unconnected explanations for the same phenomenon that at first we were not sure if it truly was one phenomenon at all. We have even drawn data from one who fell into multiple categories."
"He...must mean Imperion..." Vitra thought. It was public knowledge that his two powers derived from completely different sources, and common knowledge in the superhero community that he had been Lord Delrious' prisoner.
"You, however," Delirious said, "are the only superhuman we have discovered whose powers have an...unearthly origin." The mass of tar-like slime that was his body moved closer to the damsel he'd captured.
"Wh...what do you mean?" Vitra squirmed helplessly as Delirious approached. "Wait...the meteorite?" Indeed, Vitra had acquired her abilities in a rather unusual fashion. She'd found a meteorite in her backyard when she was thirteen. She'd touched it, it had crumbled into dust, and a week later she could fly and bench-press a Hyundai. "How do you know about that?" She had not told many people about the origins of her powers - even her parents didn't know.
"The knowledge was given to us by an ally," Delirious replied. "But this is not important. What is important is that you are unique. You are the last piece of the puzzle - the riddle shall be solved." He stared at her, and Vitra shuddered.
"I don't get it...what riddle? What are you talking about?!"
Delirious almost seemed surprised. "What riddle? The riddle, the one that must be solved if this world is to survive." He leaned in. "To explain why it is possible for superhumans exist."

At that moment, the centrifuge that had been whirring stopped, and something emerged from a socket within a terminal to which the centrifuge was connected: a flat, metal probe. This was not being animated by Delirious' magnetic powers, but seemed to be moving under its own propulsion. It looked similar to the mask that Delirious had subdued Spectra with. It flew right into Delirious - literally plunging into the tar-like mass that was his body. He shuddered for a moment, his glowing eye changing colour briefly, to green - and then to red.
"Analysis... complete," he said. He didn't sound pleased. "Useless. Useless. You are useless." Did he sound...angry? It was hard to tell. "You are a genetic superhuman. Your powers must simply have been catalysed by whatever this meteorite was composed of."
"S-so?"
"You bring us no closer to the riddle's answer. We have risked a great deal to no purpose." He squelched closer, peering right into Vitra's face. She couldn't help crying out in terror. "You bring us nothing but potential danger. We are...deceived." He touched her temple and she recoiled, desperately thrashing in her restraints, but to no avail. "Hmm...your terror is genuine. You are not party to this deception."
"Then...can't you l-let me go?" Vitra whimpered. "Please...I'm too weak to fight you...just let me go, please!"
"We think not," Delirious said. "We may find...other uses for you." His hand lingered on Vitra's temple for just a little too long, and she whimpered with fear.

Vitra was rather glad, then, when an alarm sounded - or at least a kind of shrill buzzing that she assumed was an alarm. Delirious ceased his reconstruction, moved over to some kind of terminal. His hand seemed to merge with it, partly, as if he was transferring its information directly into himself. Vitra watched him change his appearance, seeming to bulk up somewhat, taking on a more imposing form.
"We are located... but only one..." He turned to Vitra. "We have thought of a use for you after all."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nova had all but exhausted herself by the time she reached Hannegan Meadow. She had to stop, floating down on top of the tallest building she could find in order to catch her breath.
"Nova, you're getting too far ahead," her communicator trilled. Panhellius was the one speaking. "The RM-170 can't fly as fast as you."
"It's alright," Nova said, trying to catch her breath, "I'm not sure where to go from here anyway."
"There's a relatively bare patch of scrubland West-North-West of your position." This was Mariko's voice. "It's the most likely candidate for Delirious' base, if one assumes he's keeping away from population centres."
"Acknowledged," Nova replied. "I'll take a look." Gathering her strength, she surrounded herself with her aura of starlight, and raised herself up into the air. The residents of Hannegan Meadow saw a streak of blue-white light, burning across their town as Nova took flight once again.

She was only travelling for about another ten minutes when she saw something moving below her - a blob of red and blue moving across the empty scrubland. Peering down, and dipping a little lower, Nova realised that it was a person. Dipping lower still, she realised that she recognised her.
"Vitra!" she cried out. Indeed, it was she: the trim, leggy blonde was running across the sparse Arizona countryside, and quite quickly at that. Nova dipped lower still, wondering why the hell Vitra wasn't just flying. "Guys," she said into her communicator, "I've found Vitra! It looks like she's escaped, but...something's wrong. She's running. As in, literally, using her legs."
"Shit, girl, just fly down and scoop her up, and get your butt outta there!" Chryseis yelled.
"It could be a trap," Spectra said.
"Keep your distance," Panhellius said, at the same time.
"Yeah, yeah, fools rush in..." Nova muttered. She lowered herself even further, and saw - perhaps - why Vitra wasn't flying. Her arms were bound behind her back with steel tendrils, and there was some kind of metal mask clamped over her mouth and nose. "Shit." Nova knew she was taking a risk - but she couldn't leave the poor woman terrified and powerless.

"Vitra!" Nova flew down as fast as she could, landing right behind the captured blonde. There were tendrils around her legs, too, but not actually binding them - perhaps she'd managed to snap those ones apart. "Vitra, it's me, Nova!" She didn't stop. She just kept running. "Vitra, stop!" But she didn't listen. "Can't she hear me?" Taking off again, Nova swept round, and landed in front of the blonde this time. "It's me, Nova," she said. "Let me -" Looking Vitra in the face, only then did Nova realise that something was terribly wrong. She wasn't just bound - she was unconscious. "What?!" Nova looked again, and realised what she had not seen before. The tendrils surrounding Vitra's body were not just coiled around her, not just binding her - they were controlling her, using her slumbering form like a puppet. "A trap!" Nova realised. She gathered her power, began taking off into the air - but it was too late.

Out of the ground it burst, a wriggling, seething bubble of ichor, black as oil. It lunged out, grasping greedily towards Nova. She pointed both arms down, ready just to detonate the stuff - but Vitra was so close, and Nova's level of power could have killed her at that range. She hesitated, and in that moment of hesitation, it got her.
"Aahhh!" Nova found herself screaming the moment it touched her soft, pink skin. She couldn't help it. A sense of horror shot through her, her whole body quivering, shuddering as she felt it reach up over her, covering her calves, stretching further and further - and pulling her legs more and more tightly together. Strong, slimy and disturbingly warm, it thrust itself up over her bare, shapely thighs, snapping them together, covering her white loincloth with its oily embrace.

Nova tried to shoot the stuff off herself - she was invulnerable to her own powers - but the ichor surged up, seizing both her arms, forcing her slender limbs behind her back.
"NO!" she cried out, firing blasts from both hands, easily bursting the slime covering them. It didn't do her any good, though: her arms had been forced into the position of a box-tie, pointing both palms out and away from her body. Unlike Mariko, who could summon her somewhat less potent energies not only from any part of her body, but also from outside her body, Nova could only really channel her powers through her hands. What little she could get from her feet made her fly, but wasn't strong enough to destroy her bonds.

"No! Oh, god, no, no, noooooo!" Nova screamed, panting and desperate, her panic disturbing her breathing, making her powers weaker. She thrashed around in mid-air, blasts of blue white light bursting out at frequent intervals, but doing nothing to prevent her capture. The ichor stretched and squirmed over her stomach, her soft bosom, her smooth, pink shoulders. "It's happening again...it's just happening again!" She knew it wasn't Hades who was capturing her, who was wrapping her lovely, petite body in thick, oily bands, but she felt the same fear. "MMMMMPHHHHH!!" she moaned, as the ichor stretched over her neck, her chin and her soft lips. "MMM-NNNNNMMMPPHHHH!!" She couldn't escape. She was bound, gagged - totally mummified in what looked from the outside like a latex sheath into which she'd been stuffed. Bitter shame took hold of her. She'd come back to the Pauldron and within hours she'd been captured. "How...how am I supposed to - what do I do?!"

Matters were taken out of her hands. Surging upwards from the hole that Nova's bonds had burst through, Lord Delirious appeared, rocketing upwards to where Nova still floated, thrashing and wiggling, and he seized her, clutching her by one of her shoulders.
"Mmmphhh!" Nova felt a chill, a paralysing terror. Almost literally - she stopped struggling completely once Delirious had grabbed her. She knew, rationally, that this was in part due to Psy-Clone's powers working within him, but it didn't stop the terror from being real. She quivered with dread as his squirming, hundredfold eye turned upon her.
"You are Nova," Delirious said, and his hundred voices made Nova shiver. "Your birth-name is not known to us. You are part of Imperion's Pauldron."
"Mhh...mhhh..." She couldn't cut through the fear. She felt tiny, and powerless in the face of this inhuman...thing.
"We did not anticipate that you would find us so quickly." He looked around. "We do not detect the presence of your comrades. Only Askancepoint would have the ability to evade our sensors for any length of time, and we would see him on this flat terrain. You are alone."
"No," Nova thought. "I am not alone...I am not alone...and even if I were - I will not be a coward!" She narrowed her eyes, finally managing to reach through the terror Delirious was imposing. She twisted her hips, pointing her trapped palm at Delirious - and fired.

"What?" Delirious said, fairly calmly, but his calm did not reflect what had just happened. Nova had blasted apart the entire left side of his body, and both of his arms. Nova fell, tumbling towards the ground, Delirious still reeling. She fired again and again, not trying anymore to free herself - but to cause as much damage as possible. The other members of the Pauldron might not have reached her - but when they did get to that point, they'd know plain as day that there'd been a battle.

It was well that Nova's plan had been twofold, for the first part of it did not work for very long. Delirious - with quite a bit more effort then he was used to - regenerated his injuries, flew down, and caught Nova just before she hit the ground.
"Curious. Very curious. Very curious." His eye was squirming especially quickly, the whole mass of him quivering. He seemed excited. "Your power - that energy - we have never encountered it. This must be investigated. You must be investigated. The hour is too late. We must have answers now!"
Any satisfaction Nova might have felt from her quick-wittedness was pulled out from under her feet. The way he looked at her - her helpless, soft, tightly bound body - she had a horrible feeling that his interest was not purely scientific. "What's...what's he going to do with me?" she thought. Delirious did not need to impose the fear that took her then.

"Sleep now," the creature said. "We do not require your consciousness in order to make use of you." He fixed his glowing eye on her, and Nova felt a pulse of something through her. Melatonin surged into her bloodstream, and a warm, soothing drowsiness took hold of the starlit maiden.
"No...I have to...stay awake..." Nova thought, even as she felt her eyelids flutter. But she couldn't resist. Delirious' power to force sleep onto someone he could only exercise with prolonged physical contact and concentration - but Psy-Clone's abilities were much more easily wielded. He used them now, not only to make Sara feel sleepy, but also to suffuse into her a warm, relaxing pleasure.

Nova felt it, and knew that it was alien, but she couldn't escape it. Sleep descended on her like she was bathing in caramel: soft and sweet and warm and cloying, smothering her, drawing her down.
"Mmhhh...mmhhhh..." Sara mewed, her eyes half-shut, her whimpers quiet, almost sensuous. "I...did the right thing...she was in danger...I...I'm not a fool...I'm not a failure...I was...r-risking...my..." Her thought, disjointed as it was, was interrupted by a pulse of pleasure through her body, her pink cheeks blushing, her hazel eyes fluttering closer and closer to being completely shut. It was so relaxing...and she was so soft...so weak...how could she not give in? "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhh..." she sighed, quivering slightly in her skintight bindings. For a mind that had been so tortured of late, this serenity was irresistible. She writhed slowly within the tight confines of her bonds, like she was settling down in a big, warm bed.
"So...relaxing...I...can't fight...don't...want to...ooohh..." Her neck swayed two or three times, before finally the starlit maiden went completely limp, and her head flopped onto her right shoulder. She was fast asleep, breathing softly, her face quite peaceful. It was over.

Satisfied, Delirious withdrew the piece of his body he'd used to bind her back into himself, and threw the petite beauty over his shoulder. Not forgetting Vitra, of course, Delirious grabbed her too, throwing the tall blonde over his other shoulder. The two lay draped over him, his hands on their legs, their bodies soft, vulnerable, warm against him. There was no particular reason why he needed to carry them like this. He could have used one of the many drones he'd constructed that he kept within his own flesh to fly them over. But there was a portion of his gestalt consciousness which simply...preferred it this way.


Still quite some way away, Panhellius barked repeated inquiries after his comrade into his earpiece. No reply was forthcoming.
"Damn!" the Englishman barked. "Of course it's all gone tits up!"
"What's going on?" Askancepoint signed, seeing the concern on the others' faces.
"Nova's gone silent," Fahrenheit replied. "She said something about Vitra, we heard some static and then...nothing."
"Oh, god..." Askancepoint thought. He was assuming the worst.

"How close are we?" Imperion said. He seemed to be making a very careful effort to seem calm. He was not wholly succeeding. Panhellius looked back, frowning deeply.
"Fifteen minutes from her last known position," he said.
"That's not fast enough," Imperion said. He breathed heavily, his eyes flickering back and forth, like he was trying to work something out. "Shit..." He took a breath in. "Alright...no choice then." He stood up. "You guys get there as fast as you can to back me up."
"You're going alone?" Mariko said. He nodded. "But he defeated you the last time you battled one-on-one."
"Things have changed since then," Imperion said, with a grim expression. In what was close to becoming a signature move, he dropped out of the helicopter, smashing hard into the rocky ground below. But he wasn't on the ground for long. With one burst of titanic strength, he leapt up and forward, so far and fast that even Panhellius' eye - as fast as his arm - almost lost sight of him. He easily cleared a mile and a half with one leap.
"Panhellius!" Fahrenheit yelled. "Step on the fucking gas, and get us there before he turns Arizona into a crater!"
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Uh...hh..." Sophie sighed, shifting slightly. She felt her chest rise and fall against something smooth, soft. She felt very comfortable. She could feel, almost as soon as her mind had cleared to even the slightest extent, that she was lying on a soft bed, a fluffy pillow beneath her head, her supple body lovingly cradled by the finest of mattresses. She tried to move a little more, but she couldn't. She wasn't tied up, she was just...weak. "Aauhh..." she moaned, quietly, writhing a little, but not able to do much more than roll her shoulders and rub her warm, creamy thighs against each other. She found it hard to cut through the fog, but she remembered - at least - that she'd been kidnapped.
"S...Sophie..."

Slowly, blinking heavily, Sophie turned her head to her right, and found that she was not alone. Looking into her with half-lidded, yellow eyes, was the raven-haired telepath in whose embrace she'd lain not long before, their shoulders just about touching.
"Natalya..." Sophie barely had the strength to speak. "What's...happening?"
"I don't know..." Natalya two seemed extremely weak. Her gorgeous chest rose and fell rapidly but she didn't seem able to move much at all. "I woke...woke up like this..." She was blushing heavily, and when Sophie felt her breasts rubbing against something silky, she realised why.
"Oh...n-no...!"

They were, indeed, lying on a plush, expensive bed. A velvet blanket was laid on top of them, deep red, covering their bodies right up to their chests, exposing everything from the tops of their breasts upwards. That was not what had made Sophie cry out, however. What had made her cry out was the fact that she could feel that she - and Natalya - were both completely naked.
"Those...perverts...those fucking assholes!" Sophie thought. She was not as shy as Natalya by any stretch of the imagination, but she too blushed. Naked in bed next to one of her female friends? Even Sophie was bashful.

Several minutes passed where the two just lay there, almost paralysed with weakness. Sophie writhed a little, but achieved just as little as her more tame friend. The two both let out soft whimpers every now and again, lacking the strength to do more. All was still. The two lay silent, naked - captive. The Sleeping Beauty Society seemed not to care that they were superheroes: they didn't even know. They were just as weak as any that they captured. Awareness of this was in both damsels, but particularly keenly in Sophie. She whimpered with the realisation of just how vulnerable her beautiful, naked form was.
"I'm helpless..."

Natalya remembered, while Sophie did not, what had happened just before they'd been chloroformed, but even Sophie felt surprisingly embarrassed - even under the circumstances. She remembered pleasure. She remembered nuzzling against someone - a kiss. Seeing her out of the corner of her eye, Natalya sensed this.
"They...they drugged you...gave..." She had to pause for breath before continuing. "Used it to...hypnotise you. You...you...weren't yourself..."
To Sophie, this was little comfort. "Have you seen any of them?" she asked. "Wh...why are they doing this to us?"
Natalya shook her head. "It's...I don't...don't know exactly. It's like..." She tried to recall what she'd seen from the mind of Gamma. "A... a sort of...social club. They...they kidnap young women, display them for...their clientele...and then just...put us back when...they're finished."
"Wh...h-how do they...get away...with that?"
"They can...can erase...memories..." Natalya said. "At least to some extent." She had to pause. "They've already...taken me...at least once...before..."

Sophie's eyes opened in shock.
"Wh...what?" A cold fear washed through her. Had this been the first time for her? "They can't just take us whenever they...want!"
Natalya looked at her sadly. "Not you, Sophie. I...the woman who carried me in here...Delta, I think she's called...she's the one who kidnapped you?" Weakly, Sophie nodded. "Then...I think she made a mistake. Her superiors p-punished her for taking you."
"Why...?" It was getting very hard to concentrate on all this.
"They...didn't check...anything about you." She turned her head up, slightly. "My guess is they'll discover you have an active, social life, a girlfriend, room-mates...you'll be too much risk." She smiled slightly. "They'll erase your memory of...today, put you back and - and leave you be."
"What about you?"
"I...I live alone. I have few friends, I don't go out much...I'm probably exactly the sort of person they look for."

Another long silence passed. There must have been something in the air, because Sophie didn't feel any physically stronger. Her mind, at least, was relatively clear, but her muscles were kept perpetually relaxed, her limbs feeble.
"I'll think of something," Sophie said. "I'll get us out of this..."
"Sophie we're...we're completely helpless as we are right now. I...I can't even move..." Natalya replied. "You'll be alright: they'll leave you alone, I'm sure of it." She forced a smile. "Perhaps you can save me at another time..."
"But...I'll forget!" Sophie said, with emotion in her voice. "I'll forget that...that they have you! I won't even know you need saving..."
"It's alright," Natalya said. "It's not as if I'll remember either..."
"That's fucking horseshit...!" Sophie wanted to get up, to gesticulate and shout: her weakness was agonisingly frustrating. "You...can't be okay with them treating you like an object!"
"There's nothing I can do about it," Natalya said. "If there were, I would do it, but...there's nothing."
"Can't you, like...leave me a psychic message or something? Stop me from forgetting?"
Natalya shook her head. "Even at full strength, I can't do that. I'm not being defeatist, Sophie - I really am...powerless. They'll just have me whenever they like and there's nothing I can do..."

Natalya laughed, suddenly, but she didn't sound very amused.
"Wh-what is it?" Sophie asked, more than a little surprised by this reaction.
"I feel like such a fool..." Natalya said. "Everything...everything I've done over the past few weeks...it's been so pointless. Giving up being Insyte. Trying to get rid of my powers. Being more social. Dating. It's like...like bailing out the Titanic with a...teaspoon."
"What...what are you talking about?" Sophie said. "What does that have to do with us being here?"
"I..." Natalya's voice quavered, and Sophie saw tears in her eyes. "It's just - of course this happened. Of course this would happen to me now. It's like the world is telling me I was right all along - I should never have bothered. I - you wouldn't understand..."
"Why?" Sophie asked. Natalya was not normally one to be dismissive of her.
"Because you don't know what it is to be...hateful," she said. "I know you've felt hatred before, but only... to people who go far beyond the point of deserving it." She smiled bitterly. "I don't hide away just because I'm afraid. I do it because I hate people. Not in the abstract, not conceptually. I mean the individual people I meet, that I see...I hate them." The tears were flowing faster now, her tone increasingly hysterical. She had to stop, but only briefly. Sophie didn't know what to say.

"Every day I see into people's souls, and it's always...sickening. People's spite, and shallowness and anger...their prejudice and self-satisfaction...it's always screaming at me! Or I hide away and then - then I'm alone...! And it's left me as this...this cowardly, judgemental, egocentric...hypocrite! S-so why not let them have me? I'm nothing to anyone else..."
"Natalya, that's -"
"I know you're my friend..." Natalya said. "But...your life without me in it wouldn't really be all that affected. That's true for everyone. Ivan. Elizabeta." She laughed bitterly. "Mark."
"That's not true...Natalya, come on, you can't actually think that!"
"I know it's true. And it's my fault, I know it is - I'm the one who...who runs from everyone. I know it's my own doing - but I can't bear people! I can't bear knowing what's inside them all the time: feeling my boss fantasise about me. Feeling Ivan's bloodlust. My mother's wilful... stupidity. And it's all the same, really. All lust and greed and selfishness. Like Madam Black. Like the No-Law Gang. Like Hades. Like everyone."
"Come on, Natalya you know not everyone's like that! Not even most people. I mean...am I like that?" Natalya looked at her with anxious eyes.
"No. You're not. You're a good and loving person, but god, Sophie, do you know how rare that is? And you...even you have darkness in you." Natalya didn't really mean much by this, just that there were things in her subconscious that Natalya didn't like interacting with, but the words made Sophie shiver.

"At least," Natalya went on, "at least the Sleeping Beauty Society...at least they expose their darkness. At least it's not something only I have to see..." She couldn't cover her face, so she just turned her head away. "I'm only twenty-three..." she said. "Wh-what if I live another sixty years? Another sixty years of this?! I...can't - I can't do it..." She wept, and wept, sobbing and gasping, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, god, Sophie, I'm... so m-miserable..."

And then she felt something on her hand - Sophie's fingertips. Slowly, weakly, they reached across her palm, until they were far enough over that Sophie could close her fingers, and hold Natalya's hand.
"Look at me," Sophie said. "Look at me, Natalya." Slowly, the architect turned her head. Despite her weakness, despite her drugged state, Sophie was looking at her with wide, open eyes. "You are my friend. I would be affected if you were gone. And yeah, alright, you get stuck in your own head sometimes, but..." She had quickly thrown together what she'd hoped would be a moving, inspiring speech. She would have talked about Natalya's genuine desire for change, her willingness to help others, the ease with which she forgot her selfless side, to express gratitude for her insight and wisdom. But it all seemed to fall flat. So she put her feelings into the only words she thought could possibly express them correctly: "I love you, Natalya."

The raven-headed beauty actually shuddered a little as Sophie said this. She felt it. She felt the truth of Sophie's words, felt the emotions behind them. She felt the belief Sophie had in her, the sympathy - the occasional frustration - and even the admiration for her having borne so hard a burden, and just a sheer, uncomplicated desire to see Natalya being happy. She'd never felt someone feel like this towards her outside of her own family - if at all.
"Stay strong," Sophie said. "Please..." She squeezed her hand tighter...and Natalya couldn't help squeezing back.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"How did we not spot this before?" Upsilon barked. His mask off, he was revealed to be a prematurely greying man with a long moustache and a thin, beige beard.
"I...I don't know," Epsilon said. "But the point is, we're taking a big risk by even having her in this building."
"What are we talking about?" Delta said, entering their break room. Her shift was over, and the clients were being shown around by other staff. She'd been about to go home.
"The new girl," Epsilon said. "There's a problem."
"N-now hang on!" Delta said, backing away. "I was already bollocked because of Renarde! I'd prefer not to get slapped again!" She looked uncomfortably at Upsilon.
"Not her," Epsilon said. "The other one. Natalya Nazarov." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You know the guy who killed the Supremacist? The one in that new team, the Pariahs?"
"Oh, Zjarrus?" Delta said. "What about him?"
"She's his sister."

Further back in the room, Gamma dropped a cup of coffee. "She's what?!" she screeched.
"We have to put her back. We have to put her back right now," Delta said, her hands shaking.
"Calm down," Upsilon hissed.
"I'm sorry, sir," Delta said, "but I'd really rather not get atomised if it's all the same to you!"
"Of course," Upsilon said, "this changes things. We cannot keep her." He sighed. "Two duds. The redhead is a wild card, much too risky, and now Anastasia as well...the clientele aren't going to be happy, I can tell you that - but I'm sure they'd rather keep their lives." He gestured to Epsilon. "You and Gamma take them now. We might as well get it over with."
"But there's still the 1 A.M. slot," Gamma said. "Who are we going to use?"
"Getting rid of Renarde isn't so urgent. We'll hold onto her for now. I've already sent Beta and Zeta to bring two more girls. A couple of old favourites - we should be alright. Get going. And don't mess it up this time!"

The two nodded, and placed their gas masks on: no reason to take risks. They made their way swiftly to the 'Scarlet Chamber' where Natalya and Sophie had been left.
"Wait," Epsilon said, just before they entered. They could hear the two maidens speaking. "Up the dosage. They're getting a bit lively." Gamma nodded, and altered a dial outside the chamber.
"Sophie, I -" Natalya began to say, but then felt a further wave of weakness wash over her. "Unhh..." she moaned, her eyelids fluttering.
"Something's...changed..." Sophie said. "We're...we're getting...weaker..."

Explanation was forthcoming when Gamma and Epsilon walked into the chamber. The two damsels moaned in dismay as they saw their captors enter, but neither could do anything about it.
"You...crazy...assholes - l-let us out of...here!" Sophie gasped, trying and failing to rise. Gamma and Epsilon didn't answer. They ignored Sophie, and Epsilon made his way straight to Natalya. He threw back the cover that had been preserving her modesty, complete exposing her naked, lily-white body. He hesitated for a moment: even by the standards of the Sleepin Beauty Society, the helpless, buxom damsel was not a sight that he wanted to forget. But duty called: he took Natalya by the shoulders, lifted her up, turned her so that her legs were hanging over the side of the bed.

"S...stop..." Natalya moaned. "Please...please don't..." But there was no way of stopping him. Strong, gloved hands hauled her up to her feet, before Epsilon bent down, hooked one arm around Natalya's waist, and stood up, tossing her over his shoulder at the same time.
"N...Natalya!" Sophie gasped, damning whatever she'd been drugged with for keeping her so feeble.
"Unnhhh..." Natalya moaned, flopping over her captor, her pale legs draped down his front, her voluptuous, naked bosom bouncing against his back, her whole body soft, limp and completely helpless. "S...Sophie..." she whimpered, as Epsilon began carrying her away, tightly gripping her thighs to keep her in place. Natalya felt like some buxom bar-wench seized by a lusty warrior, divested of all strength and dignity, and simply seized as a prize. She whimpered quietly, but could offer no meaningful resistance.
"No...no!" Sophie strained as hard as she could. Spots appeared in front of her eyes as she forced herself up. Naked, drugged and captive, she stumbled off the bed, clambering to her feet. "N...no you don't...you...bastards..."

Gamma strutted over to her. Sophie's resistance, to her, was both admirable and amusing.
"Oh, sweetie, it doesn't really matter how iron-willed you are. Chemistry is chemistry, and you can't fight it, no matter how hard you try." She took Sophie by the waist, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and pulling the stripped, drugged damsel onto her lap. Sophie wriggled feebly in her grip, but there was little she could do. "But just to be safe..."

Gamma whipped out a zip tie, pulled Sophie's arms behind her back, and with practiced speed, encircled Sophie's wrists within its grip and yanked it tight, instantly binding Sophie's hands.
"S-stop it...!" Sophie protested, her cheeks aflame. "Ah!" Gamma had pushed her onto the bed, Sophie falling onto the velvety, red blanket. She felt hands running down her thighs, her smooth calves, all the way down to her feet. And then with a short, sharp 'zip' Sophie's ankles too were bound. "No...unnhhhh..."

Sophie could smell the drug in the air now - a sharp, slightly sweet smell. At the lower dose it had sapped her bodily strength but left her mind relatively unclouded. Now, however, everything was swimming. She felt Gamma's hands on her, felt her own arms bound, felt the all-too familiar sensation of being tied up and captured. Her head flopped to the side, and she saw Natalya being carried away. So sad and frightened, so tired of the effort she put just into living, let alone living happily. Now this new cruelty was being inflicted on her: it was beyond unfair. Sophie had to help her. Sophie had to save her. She was a superhero, for god's sake!
"N...Natalya..." Sophie said. Groggy and out of sorts, she could barely remember where she was, or what was really happening, but she didn't let herself forget her friend. "I...won't...let this happen..." she mumbled. "Have...to..." She was almost on the point of passing out. She'd strained too hard, and her body was close to giving in, her mind not far behind. In her drowzy, confused state, all she knew was that she had to save Natalya. And for Sophie Scott, there was generally one word that preceded such efforts.

"...En...Enhance!"

With a flash of light, and the sudden manifestation of the golden warrant of Enhancegirl, everything changed. Not for Sophie - or at least not for the better: the moment she triggered her powers, the drugs being pumped into the Crimson Chamber magnified their effect on her vastly, and with a small cry, she fell completely unconscious in an instant. Epsilon cried out expletives. Natalya - sensing his thoughts - felt a terrible fear for her noble friend. Gamma damn near screamed.
"A...a superhero?!" she gasped out at last. "Oh, shit...oh shit!"
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Mph?" Nova woke up just as her gag was being clipped over her mouth and nose. One called it a gag - it was more like a metal clamp, really, though slightly padded on the inside. "Mhhh...mmmhhhh!!" Nova awoke with a start, and in a terrified panic realised where she was and what had happened. "MMPHH!" She looked up, saw that her arms were wrapped in chains, and she was suspended from a hook on a metal ceiling. Looking down, she saw her feet were chained as well. She tried, of course, to use her powers - but the moment she did, the moment she even thought about it, she felt a hiss from her gag, as it spurted some kind of vapour into her nose. "Mmphh... mmhhhh..." Nova mewed, awash with a sudden weakness. Her head drooped, her thrashing slowed, and her cosmic energies did not answer her call. Little did she know, Delirious had adapted her gag from one of the Penitentiary Supreme's collars. She did realise, however, that she had been rendered effectively powerless.

Sara heard quiet sobbing nearby. Turning her head, she saw Vitra, once more shackled in the clamps that kept her so effectively restrained. She had stopped literally crying - the tracks of tears on her dimpled cheeks were beginning to dry - but her chest still heaved against her tight leotard with every shaking sob. Her head was hung, her cheeks red with shame, and she had long since given up actually trying to escape her restraints. As Nova looked at her, she saw herself reflected. Unable to bear it, she looked elsewhere.

She saw Delirious, of course, moving with disturbing rapidity from one piece of machinery to another, muttering to himself - mathematical formulae by the sound of it.
"Intriguing," Delirious said, a little louder. "Electromagnetic energy...but it travels at only three-times-ten-to-the-three metres per second..."
Nova assumed he was talking about her powers - he'd expressed an almost hysterical interest in them for solving his damned riddle. She tried to look on the bright side - at least he hadn't just killed her. "I'll be alright," she thought. "They'll come for me...he'll come for me." Even this thought had its sting - to be reduced to merely a damsel in distress - again! Just waiting for her prince to come and save her. She felt girlish, and foolish. Again, she tried to keep her courage, reminding herself that even her 'prince' had been in her position once himself.

She looked again at Vitra. Saw how terrified and ashamed she looked, how helpless. Nova knew Vitra - not well, but she did know her. They'd chatted once or twice at one of Imperion's Pauldron-affiliate barbecues and she'd seemed...well, nice. Normal, slightly goofy, even sweet. And the way she looked now - well, she'd not been subjected to quite the same depth of humiliation as Nova had by Hades, but Nova recognised the expression. A normal person. A good person. Sara imagined how she'd react to Vitra behaving the way she'd behaved after her ordeal.
"I'd tell her to get over it and stop being so...weak," Nova thought quite aware of the hypocrisy - that was rather the point. But then she thought again. Would she really react like that? Looking at this woman, did she feel as though she deserved criticism? "No..." Sara would probably have reacted how everyone had reacted to her - with at least a modicum of sympathy and kindness, as she felt sympathy with Vitra now. Amanda looked up at her, the more powerful, respected heroine who'd been captured alongside her, and gave her the same look Sara imagined she might be giving Jackson if he were there with them: "Why aren't you saving me?" Nova might not have been able to do that, but she at least tried to look reassuring - how she wished someone had been there to do the same for her when she'd been in Hades' clutches.

Of course, she was not in Hades' clutches, and Delirious desired something quite different from her. The abomination rushed about, almost excitedly.
"Yes..." he hissed at regular intervals. "New data. New data! Perhaps in a world that has lost its mind, there is such a thing as destiny..." He turned towards Nova. He was squirming with excitement, and she tried not to let her disgust show too plainly. "Your abilities are transmundane in nature. We require more study. We require more data."
"My...? Is he talking about my powers?" Nova wasn't sure what he meant - though her powers did indeed have a somewhat mysterious origin.

She'd been a girl of sixteen when it had happened - her awakening. She'd had a dream - a wonderful dream - that she'd been bathing in starlight, a child of the cosmos, floating with a pleasure borne of dissolution, of kinship with all that lay beyond the warm, safe hothouse of the Earth. She'd awoken quite sad that it had just been a dream - and only when she saw the glow of starlight still hanging on her body did she realise that it had not merely been a dream. How had it happened? Why had it happened? This she did not know. She rather liked the mystery - there was a romance to it, almost.

Delirious, however, did not tolerate mystery. "This site is insufficient for full analysis. We require more." His squirming eye writhed in its socket, though Nova was disturbed to find that all of its irises seemed to be trying to look right at her.
"Wh-what are...what are you gonna do with us?" Vitra said.
"Not 'us'. You are no longer required." He looked hard at Nova, at her chained up body, her soft, exposed legs, her supple frame. "You are required."
"Mh!" Nova cried out, as she suddenly jerked towards him, grabbed by the chains wrapped around her limbs with Delirious' magnetic powers. "Mhh....mmhhhh!!" she moaned, thrashing in his grip, once again the prisoner of a - a nightmare!
"Your consternation is unnecessary," Delirious said. He physically held her now, by her wrists, her feet dangling quite some way above the ground. "You will be of great...use to us. You shall be our key to unlocking...everything!" It almost seemed as if Delirious was right, that the world was insane - a world which tolerated the existence such mad, inhuman darkness.

Yet darkness was not all it tolerated. There was light in it as well, and if Nova herself was not sufficient evidence of that, then she was given a little more - when the roof of Delirious' base collapsed, and the fading Arizona sunlight shone in a burnished orange.
"What?" Delirious swatted aside the rubble itself with a telekinetic burst. What had arrived with it, however, was not quite so easily dismissed.
"He...he's here!"

Nova had seen Imperion angry before. She had seen him frustrated, annoyed, perturbed - and even wrathful. But she had never seen...this. His hair, short as it was, was standing on end, his whole body crackling with red lightning. His fists were clenched so tightly his gauntlets were crumpled. His eyes were so wide that it almost seemed as if they were trying to bulge out their sockets. His teeth were bared like an animal's. And he saw her. He saw her chained, gagged, and drugged. He saw her captive, helpless. He saw her writhing in the grasp of his enemy, knowing that Delirious had taken her prisoner, knowing that he had bound her, knowing - or at least imagining - that Delirious had put his foul hands on Nova's beautiful body.
"The anomaly!" Delirious dropped Nova. She landed on her feet but, weakened, she immediately slumped onto her knees. "Leave this place at once," Delirious continued. "We have no further data to -"

It always surprised Imperion's enemies, when they actually had the poor sense to fight him, just how fast that kind of strength made someone. In one bound he closed the distance between himself and Lord Delirious and, when the abomination began calling upon his flame powers to defend himself, Imperon drew back his arm, and punched him. If Delirious hadn't left a new hole in the ceiling of his laboratory as his body rocketed through it, Nova would have thought that he'd gained the power of teleportation. Well, that and the deafening cacophony as Imperion's fist thundered into him.

Imperion turned around, tore the chains off Nova's body like paper. He ripped away her gag, not once looking her in the eye.
"Unhh..." Nova moaned as she was freed, the haze already beginning to clear a little. "God, Jackson, I don't know how to -"
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No, I'm -"
"Panhellius," Imperion said over his communicator, "I've found them. Put down the bird at my current co-ordinates." He turned to Nova. "Get Vitra out, and rendezvous with the others." He didn't wait any longer. He spun on his heel, and leapt through the hole he'd made when he entered, leaving Nova freed, incredibly grateful - but just a bit frightened too.


It took quite a while for Nova to get Vitra out of her restraints, even with the use of her powers. She managed to blast them away right enough, but finding the right 'calibration' which would both destroy the restraints and allow Vitra to escaped unmaimed took a bit of doing.
"Oh god...!" The perky blonde cried out, throwing her arms around Nova's neck. "Th-thank you...oh, thank you, Nova." She clung very tightly to her.
"I...didn't do much. I got captured as well, remember?" Gingerly peeling herself away from Vitra's - very powerful - grip, Nova heard the thwub-thwub of a helicopter's blades. As she and, a little shakily, Vitra flew out through the hole they'd created, they saw the Pauldron's chopper just landing.
"Hey!" Fahrenheit shouted at them, sticking his head out of the hatch. "You're not dead. Good job!"
Nova was almost amused. "What's the situation?" she asked.
"The situation is that Imperion and Delirious are knocking seven bells out of each other," Fahrenheit replied. "Derek and Mariko have gone ahead to help, and we're going to join in too. So get in, kid." He grinned. "We're going hunting."
"One second," Nova said, turning to Vitra. "We can handle this. Fly away. Get to safety."
"I can help!" Vitra said. "I know I'm...I'm not as strong as you, but -"
"If you fought him now," Nova said, "if you were face to face with him - would your courage hold?"
"I...don't know," Vitra admitted.
"Which I completely understand," Nova said. "Believe me - I understand. But it means any plan we make that involves you is unreliable. Please," Nova said, a little more softly. "We came here to rescue you. If you get away, then even if he kills us all, we still win."
"Okay..." Vitra said. "I -" She smiled slightly. "There really is a difference between you guys and the rest of us," she said.
"Let's hope so," Nova replied.


Lord Delirious, as one might imagine, was not one easily perturbed. So alien was his mind and his way of thinking, that it was hard to predict how he would respond to anything. Yet he was not utterly inhuman - his gestalt mind could still feel fear.
"You shouldn't have taken her, Delirious!" Imperion bellowed. "You shouldn't have taken her!" He hurled himself through a volcanically hot wave of fire, reached in, and grabbed Delirious by the throat. Like a javelin thrower, he hurled the monster with such force that Delirious' body burned from the compression of air as he travelled. He hit a great rock formation, his sludgy body splattering against it like a fly swatted against a wall. Slowly reconstituting himself, Delirious rapidly went through his list of powers, thinking of what might be an appropriate response. Then he heard the crack.

His upper body mostly repaired, Delirious looked down, and saw that the rock onto which he was splattered - roughly the size of a five storey building - was being lifted up, torn completely from its base. Delirious heard a great roar, and then found himself travelling very quickly towards the ground, and then smacking very hard into it. The rock, which had stood for millions of years, exploded with the force of a bomb, reduced to stony splinters, and leaving Delirious a messy, black puddle on the ground.

Putting more effort into reforming himself quickly, Delirious had already mostly retaken shape by the time Imperion reached him again. He responded quickly, summoning his strength and hitting Imperion with a telekinetic cannonade. This gave even Imperion pause, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. Around him, the rocky ground was ripped up just by the excess force. But Imperion wasn't done. He leapt forward, slamming his fist toward Delirious once again. This time, however, Delirious caught the punch. Moreover, and rather to the surprise of both of them, Imperion couldn't overwhelm him.
"What?!" Imperion gasped. "No!"
Delirious took his chance, and reached out with his psychic powers, giving Imperion what, so long ago, Psy-Clone had tried to give to the Supremacist. "Pain."
For a moment, Imperion froze. It was almost as if his mind couldn't quite process it for a few seconds. And then his face twisted, contorted, and he spasmed - and screamed.

"You have surprised us," Delirious said, standing over his foe, as Imperion collapsed to his hands and knees. "Your abilities were not as potent last time."
"D...d..." he stammered, but seemed unable to get the word out. He looked at Delirious with hatred, and agony, but he was in too much pain to fight back. His body crackled with lightning, but he couldn't direct it.
"You are a threat. In opposing us you risk more than you know - it is regrettable that you would not comprehend if we attempted explanation. Your resources would be a valuable asset to us. But we cannot acquire them, so you must die." He opened his palm, and Imperion was engulfed in flame. His screams grew even louder. The heat...the heat! A blast from Zjarrus might have had more force, but not this burning. Imperion gasped for air, finding none, gasping - choking on smoke and flame and still in agony from Delirious' telepathy. And not even that was all. Delirious blasted him again and again with his telekinetic cannonades, each enough to vaporise a small town. He even used his magnetism to crush Imperion's armour against him. Jackson couldn't move. He couldn't fight back.
"Not here!" he thought. "It...it would all have been for nothing!"

It was well for Imperion, then, that Delirious was laterally bisected by a spear of radiant light.
"Aaahhh!" Imperion gasped, as Delirious' hold was released. He seized his chance, roared, and - gathering all the power he had - blasted Delirious with every volt in his body, sending him flying. "Ugh..." He collapsed again, just as Mariko and Panhellius arrived at his side.
"Jackson!" Derek cried out, seeing his leader in distress. His legs might not have had superhuman speed, but he was still moving impressively quickly. "Dear god, man, are you alright?"
"Yeah...yeah, I'm okay..." He staggered to his feet. His armour was melted, his cape burned away to nothing. He did not cut quite as imposing a figure as he had before.
"What of Nova and Vitra?" Mariko asked. "Did you find them?"
"Yeah, they're not harmed." He shook his head. "God damn him..." He switched on his communicator. "Everyone...we're retreating. Pick us up, and then we're getting the hell out of here." He smiled sheepishly. "Lost my temper, I guess." He tried to take a step, but fell with a groan back down to the ground again. "Damn it...damn it!"

The helicopter buzzed into view, piloted ably - if not quite with Derek's grace - by Chryseis. It swept round, and seemed about to lower itself, but then it just stopped. Not just it, but the helicopter's rotors too.
"Hey, what the hell?" Chryseis said, wrestling with the controls.
"Oh fuck!" Fahrenheit said. "Delirious has magnetic powers! Bail out!" He didn't have time to sign, and just grabbed Askancepoint, leaping out with him, both men slowing their fall using their powers.
"Chryseis, hurry!" Nova shouted, as the metal in the helicopter began tearing itself apart. The archer ran over to her, threw her arms around Nova's neck, and let the much shorter, thinner young woman take her, flying her at high speed out of the machine. They only just cleared it by the time it had been utterly torn apart.

Nova carried her down to the others, but there was little time for happy reunions. Delirious floated above them, a spot of darkness in an orange sky.
"Hey, freak!" Fahrenheit called out, gathering his power, and cracking his knuckles. "I liked that helicopter! I think some fair compensation is in order, don't you?" They were already taking flanking positions: Mariko and Chryseis on the left, Askancepoint and Fahrenheit on the right, Nova helping Imperion to stumble away.
"We would be no enemy to you," Delirious said. "We seek only to explain what must be explained."
"You kidnapped an innocent woman!" Chryseis shouted back. "You do something like that, you are our enemy, whether you like it or not!"
"Then perish," Delirious said - and all was flame.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"You idiot!" Upsilon barked, viciously striking Delta across the face. "You stupid girl! You couldn't resist, could you? You couldn't help bringing us a fucking superhero!"
"Hey, boss," Epsilon said, but Upsilon just slapped him as well, even harder than he'd slapped Delta.
"Don't you defend her! You've all been having far too much fun in this job for much too long!" He shook his head. "We don't take superheroes. We don't take superhumans at all, if we can avoid it. There's always...complications. They could be immune to the drugs we use, or to having their memories erased, or they might have other superhero friends who wouldn't take kindly to our...activities." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is why we research our captives before we take them!"
"But boss," Gamma said. He looked daggers at her, but he let her continue. "I mean, it's Enhancegirl. From what I hear she's, like, more susceptible to sedatives than normal."
"And thank god for that. Can you imagine if she'd turned out to be Nova or something? She would have torn this place to shreds."
"Well, then why don't we just do what we were planning to do? Why don't we just put her back?"
"Oh, no no no. That's much too risky. She has super senses, doesn't she?" Episolon nodded. "Then her nervous system might be totally different from ours. She could be immune to the erasure process. And anyway..." Upsilon grimaced. "We have...an arrangement with our benefactor. She goes to him."

Natalya was in the room with them. They had haphazardly thrown a silk robe over her, so she wasn't still naked, but she was still helplessly weak, writhing and moaning softly in the chair Epsilon had dropped her in. She was strapped into it too: leather straps binding her arms against the chair's, and binding her feet to its legs. This was not their break room: it was a small, dark little chamber, without a great deal in it except one chair, and one screen in front of it.
"No..." she mewed, "let...let me out..." She didn't need her telepathy: they talked quite openly in front of her. After all, she was soon to forget it all. She'd been wrong, terribly wrong: it was not she who was at greatest risk - it was Sophie. Her brother, in a way, had saved her. They would not risk the might of his ire, but Sophie was another story. A superhero: and one whom they could not risk releasing.

"You blithering incompetents," the Master Anaesthetist said, striding in with a kind of enraged strut. "Even when I have provided you with a means to be totally immune from risk of discovery, you still find ways to invite disaster." There was a small console next to Natalya's chair, and the Anaesthetist stood by it. "This damned thing..." She took off her mask, revealing a hard, square, but haughtily intelligent face. Natalya turned her head to look at her, and was surprised by what she found. Her name was Suzanne Strode, the eldest of seven siblings. Natalya couldn't look very far in but, aside from a domineering fascination with finding new ways of controlling people, she couldn't see any reason why Suzanne had been pulled into a criminal enterprise, even if a very professional one such as this. There was some vague intimation of a once urgent need for money, but she couldn't see anything more. Certainly nothing she could use.

"If you struggle, I might make a mistake," Suzanne said. "So be good unless you want an air bubble in your bloodstream." Saying this, she took Natalya's chin, forcibly turned her head to the side, and injected something into her long, lily-white neck.
"Aah!" Natalya cried out, but the pain didn't last long. In a few moments, a soothing, sleepy warmth began pulsing through her. "Unhh..." Her head fell back in the chair, her yellow eyes blinking slowly. "What...are you...doing?" Natalya whimpered, still straining her bound limbs, but even more uselessly than before.
"Don't worry about that," Suzanne said. "Just watch the screen."

Suzanne flipped something on the console next to the chair, and indeed something appeared. It was meaningless, really. Just a series of coloured patterns and odd sounds. Yet it was very soothing. Natalya found herself feeling very...pliable. She couldn't look away. She knew what this had to be, that this was the way they would erase her memories, but she couldn't resist. Drugged into submission, she felt her whole body relaxing. She stopped struggling, the busty, helpless damsel thoroughly ensorcelled by her wicked captors.
"If you must know," Suzanne said, "it's a simulation of the kind of mental field some telepaths produce. Vastly inferior to the real thing, but combined with that drug...you might as well be drinking the waters of Lethe, my dear." Natalya didn't get the reference, but she got the idea. She knew that with her powers weakened by her encounter with Mysteria, she'd have no way of resisting it.

And that would have been that. Natalya stared, mewing quietly, as her mind was subdued the way her body had been, as they took from her all memory, all evidence of the crimes they had committed. Except, just for a second, Upsilon happened to walk into her line of sight. Unable to control her powers even then, she drew information from his mind. Not much, but enough. A vision of what this 'benfactor' looked like. Even in her trancelike state, Natalya's eyes went wide with horror when she obtained this image.

Upsilon was thinking of a huge, tall figure, more than seven feet in height. No face: just an empty, ovoid mask. No body, just cold, hard metal. No voice, just the distorted, harsh, electronics. Power, and lust, and evil incarnate.
"Hades...!" Natalya thought with a choking terror. "They're...going to give Sophie...to Hades!"

She tried to struggle. She tried to fight. She tried to free herself. She tried to break out of her trance - but there was no breaking out of it. Not with the drug in her, sapping away all possibility for resistance. With whimpers that turned slowly into soft sobs, she felt herself begin to fade. Yet in that last instant, in that last moment before she sank into oblivion, she thought of Sophie. Thought of how kind she'd been, of the love she'd allowed Natalya to feel, of Mariko's agony if she were taken from her, and of her own sorrow if Sophie fell out of her life. She thought all this - she felt something inside her...click.

"It's done," Suzanne said. "She won't remember a thing." Epsilon began unstrapping Natalya, while Gamma fetched the clothes she had been captured in. Quickly, they dressed her, slipping her back into her blouse and her tight, grey skirt. Epsilon took an odd little tool, and pressed it against Natalya's neck, before sending a little jolt of electricity into her. This signalled the implant they'd put in her neck to dissolve itself, and break down into Natalya's bloodstream: no evidence of their involvement in her life at all.

Epsilon hoisted Natalya's limp, sleeping body up into a bridal carry. As pleasurable as it was to feel her soft legs dangling in his arms, and to see her lovely neck exposed, he felt little joy in his work. There'd been too many fuck-ups, and this was just about correcting them. As they carried her away, Epsilon had to own that he felt a little guilty. Not for the ordinary business of the Sleeping Beauty Society - but of their association with this...Hades. He'd heard the name before, of course, whispered fearfully among their ranks, but it was only when he'd seen the public broadcast of Hades' humiliation of Spectra, Nova and Stellar, that he realised he was in the employ - essentially - of a real monster. Indeed, he knew of Enhancegirl - who didn't? - and he regretted that she would disappear from Seacouver's streets. He liked her. Indeed, she'd even rescued a friend of his from being mugged, once.

But alas, this was not the part of the story where the villain realises the error of his ways and provides the hero with succour in their hour of need. This was merely when a criminal who drugged women and kidnapped them for the sexual gratification of others realised, very belatedly, that he was in fact a very bad man.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A little over an hour later, Gamma and Epsilon had delivered Natalya back to her apartment. Epsilon laid her on her bed, and Gamma fetched the strongest bottle of liquor she could find, placing it by Natalya's bedside. Just before leaving, Gamma took one last look at her. She had an angelic quality, so very pale, and so very beautiful. Grinning, she ran her hands up Natalya's soft, white legs one last time, and had one last fondle of her gorgeous bust.
"For fuck's sake, Gamma!" Epsilon hissed.
"Oh, what's the harm," she replied. "Have a nice life, Anastasia," she said, a little sadly, before the two left in rather a hurry. They did not expect ever to see her again.

When Natalya woke, two hours later, she didn't move at first. She very slowly collected her thoughts, which were certainly in a confused state. She felt groggy, and weak. She so often felt weak - it was much of the reason that she had given up being Insyte. Yet there was a strength that her powers gave her, a strength that she didn't all too often have a use for. At full power, she was functionally immune to other telepaths, though they were not - in her experience - immune to her. Weakened, though, they'd not be able to stand up to that sort of strain.

Except something had changed. At that last moment before passing out, when she'd thought of Sophie, of her imminent deliverance into the claws of Hades, something had snapped. When Natalya rose, she rose with fury at what had been done to her and her friend. When she rose, she rose with her full memory of what happened, her power making the SBS' attempt at erasing her memory useless.

When Insyte arose, she did so with her full power, and with what every superhero needs to give them purpose - someone to save.

[DrDominator9]

Good fun. Really enjoying Insyte's journey. I do worry about Sophie changing into Enhancegirl in front of foes and jeopardizing her identity. It would be ironic however if doing so would somehow forward her search into the origin of her powers, no? Just a thought.

[Damselbinder]

Though one can never be exactly precise about these things, one-hundred and twenty decibels is the level of sound at which a person risks permanent deafness. When Askancepoint used his powers to counter Lord Delirious' flames, and attack the villain himself, sound radiated out of his body at one-hundred and sixty-eight decibels. If this doesn't sound all that impressive, it should be pointed out that this would be six times the sonic power of the roar of a jet engine, and four decibels shy of the loudest sound ever made on the planet. It was well, then, that Askancepoint could control his powers so well that he could direct everything into Lord Delirious. If he hadn't been able to do that then not only would he have deafened his team-mates, who were rather surprised that they were not being devoured by Delirious' fire, he'd have probably killed them too.

Delirious, for his part, was stunned. The noise was more than 'loud', more even than 'deafening'. If he hadn't put his regenerative abilities on overdrive he would have been torn apart. In the face of that sound, that cacophony, Delirious' gestalt mind was put into disorder, and confusion. He couldn't think, couldn't decide which of his wide array of powers to use. The force even disrupted the magnetic field he used to fly, and the squirming mass of his body dropped to the ground. Askancepoint didn't relent for a moment, his red hair burning in the Arizona sun, his teeth bared, his will ironclad. Fahrenheit, his great friend, watched this awesome display. He did forget, sometimes, just how strong Mark was. He grinned, though: he always got shivers up his spine when he was reminded.

Mark seemed to sense as Shane approached, because he threw up a sign: not ASL, but a military hand signal. "Get back. Regroup. Plan."
Fahrenheit cursed that he could not reply with Askancepoint facing away from him. He had little choice but to do as he was told. To the others he said: "We need to use this opportunity. Retreat and regroup! Chryseis - the moment Mark lets up, put down a smokescreen and pull him out!" With Imperion so badly hurt, it didn't seem that there was much choice, and the Pauldron headed for the shelter of a rock formation nearby, Chryseis taking position, notched a smoke-bomb arrow into her bow. Mariko brought up the rear guard of the retreating Pauldron - literally keeping a barrier of light raised to protect them.

"Uughh..." Imperion groaned. He was in pretty good shape for one who had been subjected to what he'd been subjected to, but in pretty bad shape for...well, for Imperion. "You...you have to run..." he groaned.
"We can't," Panhellius replied. "With the RM-170 destroyed we have no way of doing that."
"I will assist Askancepoint," Spectra said. "Together, the two of us will be able to delay him long enough for at least some of you to escape, even on foot."
"As thematically appropriate as Mr Sound and Miss Light fighting side by side would be," Fahrenheit replied, "I don't see any way for us to get out of this with Jackson."
"Sara can fly him, no?" Panhellius said. "The problem is the rest of us."
"I..." Mariko hesitated. She didn't want to say it - but no - the facts came first. "I do not see a way that we all live. My powers can be very disorienting for an enemy, so I am likely to be able to buy time at least for some of you. But...we will not all live." A pang of fear in her stomach: fear that she would never see Sophie again. But that fear didn't show on her face.
"Cold," Fahrenheit replied.
"She's right," Panhellius piped up. "I see no way out of this."
"I do."

All heads turned to the maiden in the white dress.
"I have a plan," Nova said. "If..." She looked at Jackson, groaning, bleeding. He was in no position to lead them. "If you follow my lead...I know a way for us to beat him."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hhh...hhhnnnn..." Enhancegirl mewed softly, writhing a little in Delta's grasp as she was...attended to. This was no longer a gentle preparation for her to be exhibited to the SBS' clientele. She was being rendered as helpless as possible. "N...Natalya..." Sophie whimpered, slipping in and out of consciousness, her moments of wakefulness still filled with the thoughts of what she imagined her friend's fate would be, not knowing that it was she who needed rescuing.

The cable ties had been cut off - they were seen as extraneous. Instead, Delta was just wrapping her up in coarse, thin, strong cord. Lying the fair maiden in her lap, she coiled ropes from her waist up, binding Sophie's arms by her sides, squeezing them tightly in. As Sophie's midriff was obscured, the damsel gained just enough awareness to realise that she was being tied up.
"No..." she whimpered, as her upper arms were pressed against her ribs. "I...have to...save her..."
"I think it's yourself you need to be worrying about," Delta said. She continued looping rope around the weakened girl, enjoying the fact that every circuit pressed her arms in tighter, causing Enhancegirl to squeeze her shoulders inwards and upwards. It gave a rather cutely girlish quality to her helplessness, and though Delta preferred her ladies limp to having them bound - but she certainly didn't mind it.

"Unhhh..." Sophie's head flopped back against Delta's chest as the long-legged redhead writhed in her captor's grasp, rubbing her bare, squeezed-in shoulders against Delta's clavicles. "Why...why is it always like this?" She was starting to feel more clear-headed, but no new awareness brought her anything but anguish. "I can give all the pretty speeches in the world but...if I can't actually help her...what's the fucking point of me?"
Delta stood up, letting Sophie fall onto her back, before kneeling down next to her, and propping Enhancegirl's ankles on her thighs. "I'm sorry you turned out to be a superhero, sweetheart," she said. "It would have been so nice to make a habit of this." She ran her hands up and down Sophie's supple, creamy legs, feeling her warm skin, so soft and smooth, her thighs shapely and exactly malleable enough when she squeezed them. It was almost a shame she'd have to cover them up

"Stop...stop touching me...!" Sophie protested. She almost hated this Sleeping Beauty Society more than her more vile foes. Being overpowered and rendered helpless by a Great Evil was a horrible thing, of course: the Supremacist, the Sin Eater, Hades - being their captive was terrifying, so terrifying that for the first couple of days her string of nightmares hadn't felt all that inexplicable. But at least they felt significant. When Ivan Nazarov had overthrown the Supremacist, he hadn't just punched some desperate kid slinging meth on a street corner: he'd overcome someone who'd been trying to change the whole world for the worse. When Spectra had astonished and aggrieved Hades by knocking her down with her soul-light, she'd seemed to have struck a brilliant blow for all superheroes. But these bastards? They were just kidnapping pretty girls for the amusement of the rich and the cruel. Being captured by them made Sophie feel like she hadn't advanced one whit since she'd first fallen into the clutches of Madam Black. "What...what gives you the right?" she moaned.

Delta heard this question, but she didn't reply right away. She was more preoccupied with tying up Sophie's legs. Her ankles were first, then her calves. She was thorough, but quick, the creamy-white of Sophie's skin rapidly disappearing beneath the brown cords, her limbs cinched tightly together.
"'The right'?" she replied, eventually. "Oh, you are a sweetie, aren't you?" She gave Sophie's now rope-covered calf a patronising pat. "I guess superheroes wouldn't have much of a taste for realpolitik, would they?" When Sophie looked confused, she added: "There's no such thing as 'rights'. There's just whatever the powerful permit the weak to do. It's not good, it's not bad - it just is. So here, now, we're the strong...and you're the weak, babe."

Delta altered her position so that she could reach Sophie's thighs, using both arms to wind rope over and under and over again, twisting it with such expertise that her binding of Delta's lovely, bare-legged captive had a spidery quality to it. The skill and speed with which Sophie found herself being tied up was intimidating, feeling her thighs squeezed and grasped as if by a rapacious lover. She craned her neck, and as she saw the last gold flash of her hem vanish beneath the yards and yards of rope wrapped around her, she gave a mew of dismay.

She was completely bound, from her ankles, right up the way to just below her clavicles, leaving her soft, naked shoulders wriggling weakly as Enhancegirl struggled uselessly. She wasn't just bound - she was cocooned. The ropes rubbed roughly against her skin, like calloused hands grasping her lithe, slender body. They hemmed her in, squeezing her, an unwanted embrace keeping her as helpless as if she was paralysed or drugged. With her powers active she could feel in intimate detail every cord, every fibre of every cord against her, all reducing her to a wriggling, moaning damsel in distress.

She may not have had super senses, but Delta drank in the sight of Enhancegirl's struggles damned near as keenly. She stood up, and then hauled Sophie up to her feet as well, pushing her up against a wall in a room that was hardly more than a closet.
"You think...unh...you think something like this can go on without being noticed?" the redhead said. It was well that she was bound - she was almost back to full strength now - so she wriggled in Delta's grip with youthful vigour. "You're gonna get caught. You already fucked up bad by grabbing me. How long until you piss off someone really powerful?"
"You mean someone like Ivan Nazarov?"
Sophie froze. "Wh...what?"
"Oh, yeah. We know. Your little friend, Natalya? She's safe and sound. We've put her back, and we're gonna leave her be. Once we realised who her brother was...well, we're not stupid."
"Then - whmph!" Enhancegirl was not long permitted to speak. Delta, with impressive sleight of hand, whipped a strip of duct tape from where she'd stuck it to her own thigh - in preparation for this very moment - and slapped it down over Enhancegirl's mouth. "Mph! Mmm MMMPPHHH!!" The heroine blushed, glowering furiously at her captor.
"Oh, like you weren't expecting that?" Delta pressed down the two ends of the strip of tape, smoothing it over Sophie's lips.
"Mmmphh! Mff...mmmmmrrrhhhmmmphhh!" Sophie growled, embarrassed and very confused. Naturally, hearing that Natalya was free was very good news - but it was difficult for her to be straightforwardly happy about it. What had they done to her to ensure their safety? What, now, were they going to do with Sophie herself?

Delta knew, of course. She knew where Enhancegirl was going to end up. She didn't feel guilty about it - really and truly - but it was...a little distasteful, in her eyes. Besides, while the Sleeping Beauty Society had a pretty strict policy about physical harm any more serious than a spanking, she felt perhaps that Hades might not. "I'd better show her some affection then," she thought, "just to make her feel better." She slid one hand from the base of Sophie's neck right up to her jawline, which she clutched, holding Sophie's head in place. She might not have had the sculpted grace of Spectra, or the ethereal beauty of Insyte, but Enhancegirl really was a very attractive young woman, with a charming, exceedingly pretty face. Delta could even see the outline of her lips beneath her gag. So she yanked the bundled up damsel close, whipped off the heroine's mask and pressed her lips against Sophie's taped-up mouth.

"Mmmhhh!!" Sophie gasped, flushing red in helpless shame. The one-two punch of stealing away her mask and then forcing a kiss onto her was an extremely effective one. Sophie was bitterly reminded of her status as a captive, and there was another aspect of it as well. As Delta pushed the bundled up beauty down onto the ground, Sophie realised not only how powerless she was, but also how...sexy she felt. She wasn't aroused, exactly - but lying there, wriggling, bound and gagged, her exposed shoulders probably making her look naked - she had an intense feeling of how desirable she looked - a prize waiting for someone to snatch and claim for themselves. She felt feminine, helplessly sensuous - and she wished that she didn't. It only made the slender maiden feel all the more vulnerable.

"Now," Delta said, "you seem awfully tense. Let's get you a little more relaxed." She took a small glass vial out, and a white gauze pad.
"Mmmhhpphh..." Sophie moaned, thinking that she knew what was coming. But then, as Delta strode towards her, a wicked idea entered her mind.
"Oh wait...you're Enhancegirl. If what people say is true, then I don't even need to give you the full treatment, do I?" Delta unscrewed the jar, and Sophie's all-too-sharp senses immediately smelled the bittersweet, familiar scent of chloroform. Her sensitive, hyperactive nerves began already to respond, even though the fumes were so mild that Delta - holding the jar - wasn't affected in the slightest.
"Mmph...mmmhph..." Sophie mewed, already feeling new weakness shoot through her. "Damn it...damn it!" She already felt her strength being sapped, already felt the cloud settling over her, dulling her wits.

Delta, however, was not going to be so prosaic as just to leave the open jar by Sophie's side. She dampened the cloth with the jar's contents, as one might expect, but didn't place it over Sophie's mouth. No - she soaked the cloth in the stuff and, kneeling down, began rubbing it against Sophie's chest.
"Whh?" Sophie mewed, bemused at first, but not for long. The scent of the chloroform was overpowering, even if it wasn't being directly applied to her respiratory system. "Mhh...mmmmmhhh..." she sighed, her head falling back as Delta rubbed chloroform into her skin, wetting her upper chest, her soft, smooth shoulders, and her graceful, slender neck.

"Mmmhhhhhhhh...mph..." Sophie throbbed with somnolent weakness, her eyes fluttering, her lithe body shifting weakly within the tight confines of the coils trussing her up. "Can't...oh...ohhhh, I'm...can't think..." Considering the leggy redhead quite wet enough, Delta threw the cloth to one side, and began rubbing the chloroform in like oil. As the captured twenty-year-old grew increasingly limp, Delta spread her fingers out like a fan, reaching over both of Sophie's naked shoulders, squeezing them, massaging them.
"That's it, sweetheart...get nice and relaxed..." Delta said, her voice quavering with pleasure. Leaving her fingers squeezing and stimulating Sophie's traps, she moved her thumbs in semicircles along her clavicles, before reaching her soft neck. Delta pressed her thumbs into it, enjoying the sensation of power she felt from having her hands on the maiden's throat. But she was perfectly gentle, simply relaxing Sophie further, cajoling her towards sleep.

Not that she needed much cajoling. The chloroform on her skin - her very skin! - was more than a match for the kidnapped damsel. Her shoulders drooped as she relaxed, her head only staying upright because her neck was being massaged. She couldn't keep her thoughts straight at all, just sinking into a soft daze, like cotton candy was being wrapped around her brain. As her eyes began settling shut, she did have a thought after all. Completely clear, like the drug wasn't affecting her in the slightest.
"You deserve this." This thought struck her fading consciousness like a hammer. Mewing in sleepy dismay, she was subdued, and tumbled into an inky, unfriendly darkness.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Welcome to the Blind Palace," Randy Berkowitz said, with weary irony, beckoning two men inside the isolated little villa. This guard - a glorified doorman, really - didn't get to indulge in the pleasures of the Sleeping Beauty Society. In his entire time working for them, he'd never had any contact with the slumbering ladies, even when they'd been carried in and out - indeed, as far as he knew it was just a bit of a pretentious escort service or something. No, Randy's job was boring, and simple: the vast majority of his pay-cheque was to keep him quiet, and he had no problem with that.

Most of the guests were men, as might be expected, and most of those were rich socialites or top-tier businessmen. Randolph didn't notice faces, of course: he was almost completely blind. He was yet another guarantee to the SBS' clients - who would collect their face-concealing masks from him - of total confidentiality. But despite his impairment, he spotted patterns. He recognised the clipped, almost affectedly drawling accents of the old money types, and the haughty, sneering barks of the new-money business sort, the investment bankers or hedge fund managers, and so on.

So when he heard the tap of high heels, and a quiet, slightly anxious, intelligent voice giving him the day's password, he was a little surprised. She was new, he knew that much. Indeed, her manner was so different from their usual clientele that he almost thought of alerting one of his superiors. But then, they paid him to be quiet, not to make noise.

Randy directed this woman to take one of the masks. Not that he could tell, but she took the Fuschia Queen. Having fit it into place, she spoke to Randy in a distorted voice.
"You're not an evil man," she said. "I suggest you leave this place. Now."
"Why would I do that?" he replied, now actually pretty suspicious.
"I don't think Jerry and Frances would want to see their father in prison," she said, before walking inside.
"What the -?!" He got out of his seat, grabbed his nightstick. "How do you know my kids' names?" But she was gone. A moment later, with a feeling of great foreboding in his stomach, so was he.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The cacophony was fading. Askancepoint could not create sound, only absorb and then direct it. To hold of Lord Delirious he was using weeks' worth of accumulated noise: normally his duties required subtlety, not hammerblows of sonic might. And when he did have to use his powers like that...well, his targets were not normally as powerful as Lord Delirious. And as the cacophony faded, Delirious was at last able to gather his myriad wits. The response he thought of, while not complex, was certainly effective.

Askancepoint, of course, could not hear the 'boom' as the telekinetic cannonade was fired off. But it itself was so loud that he could feel a significant portion of his internal store of sound energy recharging - and of course, he felt it when it slammed into him.
"Jesus!" Askancepoint was not astonished by the power of Lord Delirious, but simply at the fact that he wasn't dead. He was, however, thrown back about fifty feet, wrapped in a sonic bubble that was the last of his serious power - and even then he'd broken two ribs.

Chryseis took this as her cue, and fired an arrow up into the air, right above Lord Delirious. It exploded, dropping a dizzying and disorienting mixture of blinding smoke, noxious gases, and debilitating flashes. Dropping back as she fired, the curvaceous archer fired an explosive arrow into the maelstrom she'd created and - sure enough - Delirious didn't see it until it hit him, exploding with the force that Chryseis reserved only for the Pauldron's deadliest opponents. She fired another, and another, moving closer to Askancepoint all the time. When she was close enough, she made sure he could see her before signing: "We've done our bit. Let's retreat." She didn't know enough ASL to hold a conversation, but they all knew enough to send Mark - and each other - basic messages in combat.
"Grand idea," he replied, appending a simple 'yes' when she looked blankly back at him.

She helped him up, and the two began making their way with all haste to the others, but they didn't get far. Irritated and actually getting rather angry, Delirious flew up out of the smoke trap Chryseis had made, and slammed down into the ground in front of Chryseis and Askancepoint.
"This interference is intolerable," Delirious said. "We will endure it no longer." He raised his hand, and flame spewed out of it. Askancepoint threw himself in front of Chryseis and tried again to protect them, but he had much less power available to him now. The flames were halted, initially, but they encroached, closer and closer. A withering, deathly heat threatened to engulf them even before the flames reached them. Chryseis held out hope, but Mark became honestly convinced that he was about to die. He didn't have many regrets, exactly, but he felt a little sad that he'd never get the chance to know Natalya better.

All the better for both of them, then, when a blue-white flame rocketed down from the sky and exploded behind Delirious. Knocked back, the assault of flames stopped, just in time for all three of them to a streak of blue-white zooming overhead.
"Nova!"
"No," Delirious said, his hundred voices ringing in Chryseis' ears. "You cannot be allowed to escape! The need is too great!" He flew after her, leaving a confused, but rather relieved pair of superheroes in his wake.

Nova was faster than Lord Delirious. Rather, she hoped that she was faster than Lord Delirious, because her plan rather hinged on this assumption. She moved as fast as she could, diving into gulleys, between rock formations, making painfully sharp turns back on herself, anything to stop Delirious getting a lock on her. She heard the explosions behind her as Delirious blasted the rocks apart, felt the heat as his flames almost singed her. In truth, if she'd only been able to fly, Delirious would have downed her quickly, but she used her cosmic energies to defend herself from his attacks.
"Why do you run from us?" he called out after her. "We do not promise you the lives of your allies - they must die to preserve our secrecy, but our resolution of the riddle will save far more lives than that, if this is your concern."
Nova didn't reply. She was just trying to keep track of how much time has passed, and to make sure she hadn't flown too far away. Realising that she had not delayed him long enough, she threw a spear of blue-white fire backwards, and it detonated just next to Delirious in a mighty explosion.

The abomination was knocked off course, but corrected himself almost immediately. The right side of his body was melted, but it quickly reformed. His hundred-irised eye was not squirming - it was locked onto Nova. Delirious fired volley after volley, stray shots leaving huge craters in the Arizona scrubland, or leaving smouldering burn marks on the rocks - those that had not begun to melt, that is - but Nova was proving a tougher nut to crack now that he lacked the element of surprise. But there was a reason that Delirious was generally considered second only to the Indigo Titan. His telepathy - so rare, and almost impossible to block - was a major component of this...but there was another reason as well.

Letting Nova continue on ahead of him, Delirious focused his two strongest offensive powers together: his telekinesis and his mastery of flame. A moment of concentration, and then he fired. The pulsating, red-hot orb shot past Nova, and in a display of quite unsubtle might, it exploded with such violent intensity that even Zjarrus would have blanched.
"Aaaaaahhhhh!!" Nova screamed, knocked nearly senseless by its sheer force and heat, having only the wit to fly as fast away from it as possible. The explosion filled the sky with light and fire, and the earth shook. A city might have been wiped off the face of the Earth with such strength.

Stunned and hurt, Nova plummeted towards the ground, occasional blue-white flashes keeping her from becoming a greasy smear when she landed. She hit the rocky scrubland gracelessly, tripping, stumbling, and rolling from the sheer momentum she'd been carrying with her. "Unnhh..." she moaned, struggling to rise. She looked around, dazed, trying to remember if this was the right spot. She'd been sort of aiming for it, but so badly shaken by Delirious' attack that she'd found it hard to fly at all, much less to aim correctly. She looked around for her allies - but a shadow fell over her.
"Resist further," Delirious said, "and we will dismember you. If you are gambling on the notion that we will not kill you, then you are correct: we most likely require you alive. We do not, however, require you intact."
"Do your worst," Nova spat. "The Pauldron doesn't surrender!"
"It would seem not," Delirious replied. "But no sane person would ask for my 'worst'."

He extended his hand. He planned, not to burn her to death, but to cripple her. That would be enough. A portion of his gestalt mind registered dissent at the notion of doing such awful harm to such a beautiful woman, but the riddle came first. The riddle always came first. He gathered his pyrokinetic energies inside himself, and unleashed his flames.
"Hm?" That is, he tried to unleash his flames. Rather curiously, nothing was happening.
"It's a funny thing, friction, isn't it?" a haughty, New England accent boomed across the wide Arizona scrubland. "There's so little that still works when you take it away."
Delirious turned around. He saw two men striding towards him - one tall, of noble bearing, dressed in white with a blue sash across his chest. The other in brown leather, a sword in his hand, and daggers in his eyes.
"The Indigo Titan may have shown you mercy, Delirious," Panhellius said. "But we will not."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was a slightly different crowd this time around, though many stayed on for the second session. Smaller, for one, but older. There were fewer of the barking finance-droogs than the ones who'd drooled over Natalya and Sophie, and more of the fading pseudo-aristocracy of traditional power and status. The affair was a much more measured one, and when Upsilon introduced the session's girls, he did so without the humour hat he'd used before.

"We have two exhibits for you today, ladies and gentlemen," he said. Those who had been many times before noticed that Upsilon seemed a little out of sorts. Even humourless, he had a kind of cool, low-key pomposity to him most of the time, but he was clearly a little nervous that evening. "Our first was a request from one of our company - the lovely Audrey." Beta - a musclebound, bald, Slavic giant, entered with a woman draped in his arms, a petite young lady in a silver and pink negligee, with brown hair in a classical updo. The hairstyle had been given to her by her captors - an effort to cement her resemblance to the actress from whom she'd derived her nickname.

Delta carried in the other, whom Upsilon announced as 'the Princess'. Unlike the other, who had a refined, classical beauty, the Princess was much more openly sensuous. Her skin was a warm brown, the colour of milky coffee, her legs long and smooth, revealed by the outfit into which she'd been stuffed: nothing more than a lacy, red-and-black corset, a garter belt, and stockings. She had full, ravishing lips, short, black hair, and cat-like eyes - a captive whose sexuality insisted upon itself.

Blue Three - in reality a fifty-seven year old solicitor named Carl Carmichael - had been the one who'd requested Audrey. He'd had the poor girl kidnapped no fewer than seven times, and as an elite client he'd had the privilege of spending time alone with the petite brunette, enjoying the pleasures of toying with her limp body, fondling her, appreciating every contour of her - but he wasn't interested in her.
"Good god, what a stunner!" he thought, looking at the Princess as she was carried, slung over Gamma's shoulder. "Look at those legs, those hips, that ass! Oh, boy, I think I have a new favourite!"

It was at that moment when someone bumped into him.
"Watch it!" he hissed at the woman who'd bumped him. But then, he felt something - something in his pocket. Confused, he reached into it, found an A5 piece of paper. He unfolded it, read it, and went completely white beneath his mask.
"Good god, what a stunner!" it read. "Look at those legs, those hips, that ass! Oh, boy, I think I have a new favourite!"
"What the fuck?!" Carmichael whispered, breathlessly. He looked around, bewildered and frightened, just about ready to jump out of his skin. He turned the paper over, and found that there was more.
"I know you, Carl Carmichael. I know, for instance, about the affair you're having with your paralegal. A lawyer as skilled as you should know how much your wife would get in the divorce. To avoid this, make a very loud, very insistent ruckus, and make it count: I will punish failure as well as disobedience."
Carmichael felt like he'd been clubbed over the head with a baseball bat. His palms were sweaty, his heart was pounding. He looked again, praying that he was going mad - but callous as he was, he was quite sane. He had to obey - he wasn't stupid, he knew that someone was reading his mind - but he didn't know how to obey.

"We will begin bidding for private audiences," Upsilon said. "Our guests can be prepared for you at your preferred level of somnolence, and you may do with them as you wish - but nothing below the belt, eh? This is an art-house, not a whore-house." He straightened his tie, restraining the urge to glance back at the door. "We'll begin with the Princess, bidding starts at six thousand dollars."
"B-bullshit!" Carmichael bellowed. Very, very slowly, the others began to turn towards him.
"...Excuse me?" Upsilon replied.
"Uh, um, I mean...th-that's insulting! We only get thirty minutes with them! Six thousand is an insult. I, uh, I-I won't pay more than two."
"Blue King," Upsilon said, very, very coldly, "you are, remember, at perfect liberty not to bid."
"Shut up, you idiot!" another client, hissed.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Carmichael almost lost his nerve completely - but then a saviour leapt to his defence.

"He's...uh, he's right!" It was Black Queen. "The costs have been going up and up, and...and..." Carmichael saw Black Queen hurriedly stuffing a piece of paper into his pocket. "And another thing! This new site! It's miles away from where we used to be - it takes me more than an hour to get here. How am I supposed to explain where I am?"
"Sir, it has always been part of the arrangement that -"
"Where are those two girls from before - Anastasia and La Renarde? We barely even got a proper look at them before you whisked them away!" This dissenter had been quite unprompted, merely emboldened by Black Queen and Blue Three. There were a few who'd been miffed about Anastasia and Renarde being so little examined by them - no chances for bids had even been offered - and more dissent began. These in turn prompted a great deal of argument from people who just wanted to dispense with the drama and get on with the proceedings, and soon the whole room was in chaos.

And so, as Upsilon hurriedly urged Beta to do a little crowd control, the woman who'd started it all slipped quietly towards the door from which Upsilon had emerged. She quite easily swiped the keycode to the door's electronic lock from Upsilon's worried mind - as well as a rather unpleasant trip into an exquisitely corrupt soul - and slipped silently inside.
"Alright..." Natalya thought. "Almost there."

Still masked, she moved through the corridors that were the real heart of the Sleeping Beauty Society, silently seeking her captured friend. She was surprised by how...mundane everything was. There was a break room, a little kitchen, even little spots where it seemed like the SBS' employees could sleep. If it hadn't been for the subtle smell of sedatives in the air and the sinisterly opulent 'chambers' where their captives were either kept or enjoyed by its clientele, it would have seemed pretty normal.

Only, however, in the life of a heroine of Seacouver was it 'normal' to see a beautiful girl with red hair trussed, gagged, and helplessly slung over the shoulder of a woman in a gas mask. They pair - captor and captive - were coming in Natalya's direction. She had nowhere obvious to hide, so she simply pressed herself up against a wall, and reached out with her powers, trying to pull the trick of just getting Delta - for it was she - not to notice her. Fortunately, with Insyte's full strength restored, it worked. She glanced briefly at her, trying to work out where she was going. It was difficult at first to find this out - Delta's mind was choked with desirous thoughts, with the sweet pleasure of having bound and drugged the lovely maiden she'd captured, as well as all sorts of things she'd like to do with her - as well as repeating many times the memory of seeing Sophie and Natalya kissing while sedated and hypnotised.

"Oh!" Natalya looked away, ashamed and embarrassed, and absorbing too much of Delta's arousal to keep it separate from her own psyche. But she steeled herself, and followed, ensuring that Delta did not hear her footsteps. She didn't really need to glean the next piece of information from Delta's mind, but she did it anyway: Sophie was being brought to be collected.

She was taken towards the back of the building. Natalya had discovered while scoping the place out that there was a rear exit, and a small driveway: that was how Sophie was to be spirited away, it seemed. Delta walked into a small room, and Natalya carefully sidled up to the door. If Delta had been alone, she would have struck then. She didn't have the greatest confidence in her abilities, but Natalya was fairly sure that she could take Delta who, after all, had no superpowers to speak of. But there were already two others in there: the Master Anaesthetist - again, unlikely to be much trouble - and one other.
"That's her." The voice was familiar: gruff and hard, and not too bright. Natalya dared to peer in, and realised that she recognised him.
"Royal Rumble!"

Of all Hades' superhuman goons, Royal Rumble - or Seismictus, as he called himself these days - was probably the least like Hades himself. A blue-collar thug, he had no pretensions above what he was, and what he was was a good-old-fashioned henchman. He'd been working with Hades for a long time, and only the loss of Plasmarr and Griseous had got him to a level of relative seniority in the master criminal's organisation - and he was still doing grunt work. That aside, however, he was still a dangerous and powerful superhuman. Insyte had no idea how to deal with him. A terrakinetic, he had enough power to level the building, with some effort - and all she could do was read minds.

"I'm sure," the Master Anaesthetist began, her voice already dripping with sarcasm, "that you don't want to speak for your employer - but...is he pleased that we've got Enhancegirl for him...or annoyed that we accidentally captured a superhuman?"
"I'm just a grunt, lady," Seismictus replied. "I get told what to do, and then I do it. I only know if he's pissed if he's pissed with me."
"I just need to know if I ought to flee the country or something," the Anaesthetist replied. "Speaking of grunts: Delta, out."
"Sure thing, ma'am," she replied, faux sweetly. She stepped out - and would of course have noticed Natalya if not for her abilities. Even then, Natalya had to be extremely careful: she wasn't Sinistrus. Her illusions were subtle, the veil easily torn.

Delta walked quite casually: she was intending to get herself some coffee. Insyte discovered all sorts of things about her as they walked: her real name was Olive; she'd once earned money kidnapping the offspring of the rich for ransom - where she'd acquired the skills the SBS wanted - but none of it was useful. And then Natalya delved a little deeper, found a very happy memory: Olive graduating from college, and being kissed by a girl that she'd go on to date for the next two years.
"There," Natalya thought. "That's what I'll use."

Delta was less than pleased when she felt Natalya grab her from behind, and shove her roughly into one of the cells. For a moment she thought it was Upsilon losing his temper at her, but when she turned around and saw the Fuschia Queen's mask, she was bewildered.
"What the hell are you doing back here?" Delta growled. "You're going to -" And then she took a closer look at her attacker. That figure, that long black hair, the alabaster skin... "Anastasia?" Frustration turned briefly to fear - and then to amusement. "I don't know how the hell you managed to get back here," she said, "but I'm so glad you did." She took out a small syringe from her pocket, took a cap off the needle. "It's going to be so nice having you sink into -"

She was surprised at how much it hurt when Natalya kicked her in the wrist. The syringe went flying out of her hand, of course, but her whole arm throbbed.
"Don't test me," Natalya's distorted voice growled.
"Oh, you've got some moves, huh?" Delta growled. "Fine. Let's go, sweetie." She dropped back, took up a jeet kune do stance. She wasn't exactly an expert, but she was decent enough. Decent enough for this soft, delicate young lady, anyway. She kicked out at Natalya's head, but she seemed to avoid it before Delta had even finished deciding what move to make. She tried to punch her, but Natalya had already got out of the way. "Aaahh!" Natalya had struck her, a hard chop to Delta's neck. Delta stumbled, a little taken aback with Natalya's agility. Grimacing, she tried again, but Natalya not only avoided her spinning kick, she caught Delta's ankle, and completely upended her.

"Aughh!" Delta cried out, landing hard on her back. She kicked out, but Natalya had already moved around her, and planted a foot on Delta's neck. It was well for Delta that Natalya had swapped out her heels for some flatter boots - but it was still exquisitely painful.
"Listen to me," Natalya said. "I'm going to give you the chance to do something good. You're going to help me free Enhancegirl."
"Ghhkk..." Delta groaned. "Wh-why would I do that? You m-might be better - ack - than me, but there's no way you can take all of us!"
"No, I can't," Natalya said. She breathed sharply. She did not like herself for what she was about to do, but she felt no sympathy for Delta. Not after what she and the others had done to her and her friend.

She dived in. It didn't take long to find what she wanted - it was the part of Delta's mind which was deepest, darkest, most closed off. The same for anyone - the things she'd repressed. It was not easy going here - it was all pain, humiliation, loneliness, all the things which it really wasn't useful for a person to remember. She dived as deep as she could, and pulled out the worst thing she could find.
"What do you think you're doing?" Delta asked. Insyte didn't answer, but then Delta felt something. An image in her mind, sensations - and familiarity. She remembered, suddenly, something which she hadn't thought about in years - a Thanksgiving where her father had got drunk out of his mind and punched - not slapped, but punched - Olive's mother, breaking her jaw. She remembered the embarrassment as her mother lied to the hospital staff, the threatening glares from both parents, how well-meaning doctor after well-meaning doctor had asked her if she was sure that what her parents said had happened had really happened. She remembered it all, the worst day of her life, in crisp, clean detail. She almost started crying.

"This is what I can do," Insyte said. "I can't make you do something. I can't control you, or brainwash you - but I can tinker." She reached in again, pulled out another memory - Olive's happiest, the day of her graduation and of a 'Breanne' saying yes to her. She pulled that memory up, as well as the other - and let them mix.
"Wh...what are you doing to me?" The contradiction was unbearable. It was like Delta had been poisoned, or like rotten fruit had been put with fresh, spreading its foulness onto everything. "What are you doing?!"
"This is how it'll be from now on. I've linked these memories together in your mind - whenever you think of one, you'll think of the other. Whenever you think of Breanne, you'll think of your mother's broken jaw, your father's drunken rage and the lies they made you tell."
"Why? Why would you do that?"
"Because I can fix it. Because I can take those memories of that awful, awful day and shove them back where they belong. I can leave your memories of your lover as pure as the driven snow. And I will - if you do as I ask."
As the tears streamed down her face, Delta agreed to Natalya's demands without even knowing what they were. Natalya had been sure that she would: she of all people knew the power of anguish and pain.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lord Delirious was another who knew the power of pain - it was one of his chiefest weapons, after all - and was less than happy to see it being used against him so effectively. Every single movement burned, as Fahrenheit ramped up the friction around him to such a high level that it would have burned the skin off a normal man. Slowed and aflame, he couldn't get a bead on Fahrenheit - or on Panhellius.
"Ha!" Derek lunged again, striking Delirious a hundred, a thousand times, slicing great chunks out of him, tearing off his limbs as many times as they would regrow. Whenever Delirious tried to strike back, Panhellius would just tap him with his powered hand and fly back like a super powered ice skater, his ally keeping a kind of frictionless slipstream behind him at all times.

Then, when Panhellius was clear of him, Nova would attack, a blue-spear of cosmic flame bursting against him, detonating with formidable strength, keeping him down and pushing him back. If he tried to hit her with his telekinesis, she would fly out of the way; if he tried to use his flames, Fahrenheit took them from him. Back they pushed him, further and further.
"It's working!" Nova thought, raising herself up to get a better look at the terrain, making sure that they were headed in the right direction. "Aaaahhhh!!" She'd hovered in place for too long, and with a look, Delirious caught her in a psychic mesh, wracking her body with pain. She tumbled to the ground, only avoiding a deadly fall because of Fahrenheit slowing her descent.

Convulsing in agony, Nova tried and failed to raise herself back up, but the pain disordered her mind, made her breathing ragged.
"Don't...stop!" she cried out, even as a thousand knives stabbed at her. Fahrenheit had no intention of stopping, and signalled to Panhellius. The Englishman nodded, and 'skated' back to his ally. The two might not have been the firmest of friends, but they knew perfectly well how effectively they fought together. Indeed, before Askancepoint had joined the Pauldron, it had been Panhellius who most often was to be found in battle at Fahrenheit's side.

Now free from being harried by Nova, Delirious turned his attention to the two men, concentrating just enough to keep Sara helpless with pain.
"You cannot destroy us," he said. "The longer this battle draws on, the likelier it is that you will die."
"My lord," Fahreneheit replied, smiling. "Who says that we're trying to destroy you?" He swept his hand forward, and before Delirious could work out what, if anything, he'd done, Panhellius pushed his ally in the back. With the speed that Panhellius transferred into him, and all friction stolen from the ground under his feet, Fahrenheit shot forward like a bullet. He slammed right into Lord Delirious, grabbing onto him, and channelling his full power into his body.

"AUUUGHHHH!!" The scream filled the scrubland with what felt like not a hundred, but a thousand voices, as Lord Delirious bellowed in agony.
"I know," Fahrenheit said, "that you're not exactly like the rest of us - but you are, essentially, human. Somewhere inside you, you've got little moving parts, some way of carrying energy from one part of you to another. And anything that moves, anything inside - I can make it burn."
Delirious tried to fight back, but every movement was agony. Even his eyes burned within his sockets as they moved. Though he had certainly considered them a genuine threat, he realised just how sorely he had underestimated the Pauldron.
"It must be tiring, repairing every little boo-boo we give you," Fahrenheit went on, "I wonder just how many fixes you've got left?"
Delirious didn't reply. To do so would have been further agony. He only thought of what would happen if, then and there, he was destroyed. The Riddle unsolved. The world slipping further into darkness and madness. More than a hundred-and-fifty voices shouted up in unison: "No!" Then all as one - and his voice was as a cannon - screaming together: "NO!"

Delirious fired one of his cannonades, wildly missing anything important. However, one of his first analyses of the insanity of superpowers had been - naturally - his own. With his mass, shooting one of those blasts of his should have sent him flying back because of Newton's Third Law. But it did not...unless, as he discovered, he wished it to. He and Fahrenheit hurtled backwards, and only by taking away all the friction from his own body and sliding to safety did Fahrenheit escape serious injury, but he was thrown from Delirious nevertheless. He managed to right himself, and hop deftly onto his feet, even as he slid away. But even then he realised his error. He'd just focused on not being crushed, and hadn't thought about where he'd end up. He'd gone too far from the others, from Panhellius and Nova, when Nova's plan had been premised entirely on united action. He saw Panhellius rushing towards him, but he'd never get there in time. Delirious bore down on him - one telekinetic blow would be enough to reduce Fahrenheit to splinters.

And then it struck him - not Fahrenheit, but Delirious. A blue-white spear struck him, throwing him aside, before exploding violently. Fahrenheit looked up and saw Nova hovering where Delirious had been a moment before, gasping, shaking with pain - but she'd still overcome it. She'd still managed to save him, accomplishing what even Imperion had not been able to do. Fahrenheit was going to give some witty, back-handed compliment to her, but he didn't have the heart.
"Thank you, Sara," he said, with all sincerity.
"No problem," she replied, helping him up. Mercifully, that last blow had broken Delirious' concentration enough to break the mesh of agony. "C'mon, we can't let up now."
"You got it, boss," he replied, with just a little less sincerity.

Delirious was not left alone. Panhellius was not one to spurn opportunity, and when he attacked his arm was as a cyclone, carving slices out of Delirious' body as a butcher might from a carcass. Each time the damage was repaired...but with his eyes, the only part of him as fast as his arm, Panhellius could see that it was taking longer and longer.
"Enough!" Delirious barked, and struck at Panhellius with his superhuman strength. The hero blocked it with his sword, but the weapon was cast from his hand, and he himself was hurled backwards. Delirious was about to crush him - but again, victory was taken from him when an arrow struck him in the back, and delivered a powerful electric shock. Not powerful by Delirious' standards - he'd endured far worse from Imperion, but it nevertheless drew his attention. He looked around, saw Chryseis perched up high, ready to loose another arrow, saw Askancepoint moving towards him.

And then he realised something. Delirious had long since worked out that the Pauldron had been driving him to some particular spot - but he hadn't realised why, for it hadn't appeared much to matter. Yet only now he saw it: he was right back where they had started. He didn't understand why they would go to so much trouble, unless they were buying time. But buying time for what? He looked again at his enemies. Fahrenheit, still restraining his powers as much as he could; Nova, rocketing towards him; Askancepoint, coming to join his allies; Panhellius on the ground; Chryseis perched at a point of vantage; Imperion presumably nursing his injuries. There was one missing.

"Lord Delirious!" Emerging from the rockface behind which Imperion was convalescing, a maiden clad in silver stepped forth. Delirious knew little of her, only that he'd dismissed her quite easily in their first encounter. Yet something was different. She seemed to shimmer with power. "I must warn you," she continued, "though my aim is merely to incapacitate you, I fear that I can only kill you. I therefore offer you one chance to surrender."
"Your assessment is incorrect," Delirious replied. "You can do neither, so we reject your offer."
"Very well." Spectra clenched her fists, breathed slowly - and a figure of light burst out from her body.

Delirious readied his defences. He blasted Mariko's soul-light with his telekinesis, and burst it apart, but it instantly reformed. He struck it physically, but it just warped around his fists, and then it struck. Its fist became a hammer, the hammer became a dozen hammers, and they struck Delirious' head with all the power that its master could muster. Delirious staggered backwards, struck again, and again, and again, almost as fast as Panhellius, and with much greater force.
"Yes!" Nova pumped her fist. Her plan had worked. She and the others had harried and delayed Delirious while Mariko had charged up her soul-light to the greatest strength she could get it to. At the same time, they'd done as much damage to him as they possibly could in the time they had. Why? One simple reason: Delirious had considered Panhellius a threat. "It's possible," she'd explained to her allies, "to do more damage to him than he can fix. If we do enough, and fast enough...then we can take him."

Spectra struck again, and again, and again, knowing that she was their last chance for victory, knowing that the others depended on her. She looked around, saw them all, saw the Pauldron surrounding their shared enemy, united in purpose. And it did not intimidate her. Here, now, she did not feel like the odd one out: she felt something she assumed she'd only ever have felt with Sophie - a sense of belonging. One hero among many - each lifting the others to greater heights of greatness, not jostling jealously and competing for it. She was inspired, and let that inspiration be her strength.

Delirious attempted to escape, but Spectra wouldn't allow it. Her soul-light grabbed him, and threw him down, and burned with golden radiance as it forced him to use up every last drop of regenerative power. His body seemed to thicken, to solidify, and that was Spectra's cue. With one great roar, she struck with enough force to level a skyscraper in an instant.

There was a silence. Delirious stood, motionless for a moment. For a second Spectra thought that she might have killed him - but his eye was still squirming slightly.
"You do not understand," he said, quietly. "The hour...is so late!" With that, the black mass of once-humanity fell like a chopped oak, tumbling down onto the ground - unconscious.
"Yes!" Spectra cried out. "We...oooohhhh..." She'd used too much strength. Her soul-light was still, in many ways, a misuse of her abilities, and her body could not handle the strain for long. The willowy beauty wavered. Her head began bobbing from side to side, her long legs trembling, her jade eyes almost falling shut. "Unnhhh..." she moaned, before she slipped backwards. Tumbling into darkness, she heard a 'swoosh', and felt a pair of slender arms catching her.
"Mariko!" It was Nova's voice. "Mariko, are you alright?"
Woozy and hazy, Spectra's eyes just about managed to stay open. She looked up, saw the starlit maiden holding her. "Y...yes," she said, weakly. "I'm drained, but...I'm unhurt."

As Nova caught Mariko, Chryseis hurriedly tossed something she'd taken from the wreckage of their helicopter to Panhellius, who hurriedly affixed it to Delirious' head: it was a small cylinder, filled with a pomegranate smelling liquid - a sort of miniature stasis tank to keep down the most dangerous of their enemies.
"Let's just pray this works," Panhellius muttered. "I'd rather not have to do all that again."

As his team finished restraining Delirious, and wondering how the hell they were going to get back, Imperion emerged from his hiding-place, his breathing still ragged. He was quite surprised to see that the Pauldron had managed to vanquish Delirious without him, and even more surprised to see Nova and Spectra arm in arm.
"Eh," he muttered to himself. "I'll take it."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Suzanne, the Master Anaesthetist, was not happy to see Delta walking back in. Having caused them so much trouble, she'd become a bit of a pariah within their organisation. Suzanne had every intention of convincing Upsilon to fire her: and with her talents, Suzanne's voice naturally carried quite a bit of weight. Rightly, Delta looked upset and nervous.
"As well she might," Susan thought. Dismissing Delta completely, she turned her attention to the bound, slumbering redhead. It was concerning. In all fairness, Delta had been pretty staggeringly unlucky, and there was...a certain thrill about knowing that such a skilled superhero was just as much putty in her hands as any other pretty girl. Playing close to the line was part of the fun. But they had to keep on the right side of it, nonetheless. Things had, indeed, been very good for the SBS in Seacouver, with Hades sponsoring them, and their own carefulness keeping them hidden. Yet ever more frequently they were finding it harder to be sure of their victims. Either they would turn out to be superhumans themselves - and quite a few had been added to Hades' collection through the SBS' unwitting uncovering of their identities - or they had cousins, brothers, friends who might be or clearly were. She was beginning to feel that Seacouver just wasn't the place for the SBS anymore. Perhaps they might try Canada, where there were famously so few superhumans.
"Could I stand living in Toronto again?" Suzanne thought. "The weather there is -"

"Ahhh, what the fuck!" Royal Rumble cried out, as Delta jabbed a needle into his neck. "What the hell are you doing?!" He leapt up, and seized Delta by the throat. "Is this some kind of double-cross?!"
Suzanne quavered as she felt the ground shaking. "Delta, you fool! Are you trying to get us all killed?!"
She didn't respond. Seismictus growled at her, but his growls were becoming decreasingly intense. "I've got half a mind to...to..." The rumbling stopped in short order. As his fingers relaxed, Delta pried them off her throat, and let the lump of a man topple over completely.
"You do realise," Suzanne said, "that you've just signed your own death warrant. Ours as well, probably. Was Upsilon slapping you really enough to warrant a betrayal?!"
"No," Delta said, her voice choked. Suzanne's eyes narrowed. There was something going on that she wasn't seeing. That is, she didn't see it until Insyte, entering unseen, snap-kicked her in the temple.
"Huh...whhh...nhh..." was about the level of discourse of which the Master Anaesthetist was capable once she'd been kicked. She dropped to her knees, and then slumped unconscious onto her side.

"Alright," Delta said, "now please...please put everything back how it was."
"No," Natalya said, still masked. "Not yet. Untie Enhancegirl, then give her something to wake her up."
"Uh...yeah, sure." Delta obeyed, unwrapping the cords from Enhancegirl's body as quickly as she could, her hands shaking, Insyte ensuring that her memories kept stabbing at her, forcing her obedience. When Sophie was unbound, Delta hurriedly rushed over to Suzanne's slumbering body, fetched a small capsule from her pocked, then broke it open, spilling its contents just underneath Sophie's nose.

"Hhh...what?" Her eyes fluttering, Sophie found herself staring up at a face that she was not happy to recognise, with a masked figure lurking in the background. She was pleased to find that something had stirred her quite quickly into vigour, and Delta saw anger in her eyes.
"Wait, Enhancegirl, don't!" Delta cried, but in vain. Enhancegirl drew back her legs, and kicked Delta hard in the stomach, sending her careening backwards, winded.
"You messed up, you sack of shit!" the redhead barked, leaping to her feet. "'Cause now I'm not stopping until -" She took better stock of her surroundings. The Master Anaesthetist and Royal Rumble unconscious. Her bonds undone. A masked figure who looked - and smelled - rather familiar. "...Natalya?"
"Yes, Sophie, it's me!" Natalya said, removing her mask, rather relieved that Enhancegirl wasn't going to attack her as well. "Are you alright?"

Sophie didn't answer. She leapt down off the little slab that she'd been lying on, and threw her arms around her saviour.
"You came back for me..." She squeezed her tightly, and pulled away, beaming. "If I ever hear you say something down-on-yourself ever again I am gonna kick your ass!"
"Um...thank you...?" Natalya replied.
"How did you stop them erasing your memory?" Sophie asked. "Or, did you escape before they could?"
"They tried," Natalya said. "But...when we were captured together - what you said to me, I -" She smiled, shyly. "It gave me a little push: they couldn't take my memories with my powers back at full strength. So in a way," she said, daring to look Sophie in the eye, "you were the one who saved us."
"Bullshit. This is your win, Insyte." Sophie grinned. "Now let's get the fuck outta here."
"Happily," Insyte said. "Just one thing first." She moved over to where Delta lay, spluttering and coughing from Sophie's attack. She placed her fingers on her temples, and seized hold of Olive's memory of that awful Thanksgiving. Focusing her power - fixing was always easier than destroying - she pushed the memory back down, back into the recesses of Olive's subconscious. As she'd promised, she'd left her memory of her lover untouched.
"Thank you..." Delta gasped. "Oh, god, thank you so -" That was the last word she got out before, on Insyte's signal, Enhancegirl delivered a flying kick to the side of her head, knocking her out as well. Insyte had promised mercy - but not a limitless amount of it.

"What did you just do?" Enhancegirl asked. Insyte looked down, a little ashamed of how she'd achieved her victory.
"I'd rather not say," she replied. "We need to get out of here, quickly."
"Why?" Sophie asked.
"Because I wasn't going to risk the possibility that I might fail," Natalya said. "But if they'd started by just attacking, I thought it would be too easy for someone to spirit you away in the confusion, so I came in first to make sure that you were rescued."
"'First'?" Sophie blinked. "What do you mean? Who's 'they'?"
"A...family connection," Natalya said. "Sometimes it's useful being a Nazarov."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It had taken quite some time for Upsilon to get the crowd quiet again. He had never seen such a display in all his time working there, and Beta and Zeta, ruffians that they were, had had to eject quite a few of the patrons for their disorderliness.
"Now," he huffed, "if we can possibly get back to the order of today's business..." At last things were settled down, and the Sleeping Beauty Society was at last devoting itself to its true purpose - the appreciation of somnolent beauty.

"As you can see," Upsilon said, "Audrey has a particularly old-world charm about her. Note the very fine quality of her small features - offset very nicely by a pair of large eyes. They're brown - but I suppose you'll just have to take my word for that." There was a light ripple of laughter - and one very loud guffaw.
"Oh, that's brilliant!" A sharp voice cut once again through the subdued, dignified atmosphere. "We'll have to take your word for it...because she's asleep and her eyes are closed! I get it! No, really, take a bow. I mean it. That's hilarious."
"Oh god, what now?!" Upsilon barked.

The man did, in fact, look like he belonged, save for the fact that he was unmasked. He was wearing a fine, close fitting suit, and he had a kind of genteel sleekness to him: those like him could smell the old-money on him. But no-one was happy to see him. Indeed, they moved away rather fearfully from him. Some ran for the door, but found it blocked. A man clad in twisted metal blocked their path. He said nothing - having learned that he was generally more intimidating when he kept silent.

"This is a really fine organisation you've got here," the newcomer said, striding to the front. "Mm, these girls certainly are pretty. I bet everyone's having a great time. You know, at the expense of these unconscious women that you've kidnapped for your own pleasure and gratification."
"Who are you?" Upsilon demanded.
"Who am I?" the man said. "Well, if you must know..." With a snap of his fingers, the newcomer clad himself in a burning, bright orange aura, the floor melting where he stood. "My name is Ivan Nazarov. A friend and I decided that we didn't like what you lot were up to, so we decided we'd do something about it." He grinned. "Essentially, ladies and gentlemen, all you really need to know is...you lose."
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Natalya had feared, the panic and chaos that followed meant that quite a few of the SBS' clients and operators managed to get away, but the majority of them - and Royal Rumble - were rounded up - and Audrey and 'the Princess' were rescued.
"Well well well," Ivan said, as he rendezvoused with Sophie and his sister. "It seems like you owe me another one." This was addressed to Sophie.
"I owe Natalya," Sophie replied. "You guys were...cleanup." To her surprise, Ivan actually conceded the point.
"I suppose. Indeed, we Pariahs don't normally do this sort of work. We're more...large scale." As he trotted off to liaise with, and make fun of, the latterly arriving police, Sophie turned back to Natalya.

"I don't have any expectations," the redhead said.
"Hm?"
"Like...if you're thinking that I'm gonna assume you're going back to full-time hero-ing because of this, I'm not. Nothing's changed - you need to do you. If that still doesn't include Insyte, then that's totally cool. You know that, right?"
"Thank you, Sophie," Natalya said. "I...I don't know about being Insyte. I don't know about being a superhero. I mean, how did I solve things today? I used emotional blackmail and then called in some stronger heroes to do all the heavy lifting. You or Mariko would have foiled them all yourselves I'm sure."
"So what? You saved the day. You saved me."
"I know I just mean...th-there was a point I was trying to make..." She winced. "I've...I've spent so much time thinking about my own unhappiness, I...I don't think I want to do what you do, but I want...I need to find some way to help people. Not just because it's right - but because it stops me from...collapsing in on myself."
Sophie smiled. "Whatever you think is best. Just...please don't give up. You don't deserve to be so god-damned sad."
"Neither do you," Natalya said, almost instinctively. She was surprised, however, by Sophie's reaction. She stiffened, and something seemed to...flare up inside her. It was a very odd sensation to be in mental contact with. Natalya semi-accidentally probed a little deeper, and found a sort of subconscious block, connected closely with Sophie's response to what she'd said. But almost as if it fled her, the block seemed to slip away, and she couldn't find it again.

"Look, I...I gotta go," Sophie said, almost nervous. Shifty, even. "It's late as shit - my room-mates are probably wondering where the hell I am."
"Sure," Natalya said. "Oh...and Sophie?" Natalya almost lost her courage, but steeled herself. "I...I love you as well. I hope...I sincerely hope that you know that."
"You tell me," Sophie said, smiling wryly. So, Natalya peered in - and found to her great pleasure that within Sophie's great heart, there was, indeed, a place for her.

[DrDominator9]

Excellent! I enjoyed all of it. The slighter threat of the Sleeping Beauty Society nicely counterpointed by the world-threatening danger of Delirious and that battle. Nicely constructed and written. I do worry however about that riddle not being solved. Sounded important.

[Damselbinder]

"Cheers!" Imperion - or rather, Jackson Morrow - clinked his glass of champagne enthusiastically against his allies'. "You guys...holy crap, man, I haven't seen fighting like that in a long time."
"Yes, we were very impressive, weren't we?" Shane laughed, taking a large gulp. "Seriously, Sara, thank Christ you decided to cut your little Sabbatical short: we'd have been up shit creek sans pagaie if it hadn't been for you." Murmurs of assent went up - though they'd all had their parts to play, it had generally been Nova who'd been considered the hero of the day.
"We were all indispensable," Nova said. "Every single one of us would be dead if just one of us hadn't been there. Yeah, it was my plan, but you guys executed it damn near perfectly. So yes - I'll take your praise, I know I deserve it, but so do all of you."
"Hear hear," Derek said. More clinking, more gulping.

Delirious had not been taken to the Penitentiary Supreme. It was still being repaired, for one thing, and there were now growing concerns about 'Project Eggs in One Basket' as some had started calling it. Instead, he'd been taken to a facility in Arkansas which specialised in housing the extremely dangerous. Imperion hadn't seemed too happy about this, but he'd had little choice in the end. And there was another problem too.
"I am sorry about all this, Jackson," Panhellius said to Imperion in a low voice, aside from the others. "I...if I'd stopped him - if Spectra and I had defeated him then and there... we would have been able to stop it from passing."
"Hey, I don't know about that," Imperion replied. "The thing in Nevada was pretty much guaranteed to fail, and the Combined Registration thing...well..." He shrugged. "I know it passed, man, but maybe we can still fight it."
"I let you down," Panhellius said, struggling to maintain eye contact with him. "It's...the consequences of this could reverberate for years."
"Listen to me," Jackson said. "One on one, Delirious was a match for me. You know how much I rely on you, Derek. I don't do that because I think that you're perfect. I do it because I know that you're trustworthy. Y'dig?"
"Fine."

At the same time, while Fahrenheit and Askancepoint tried to convince Chryseis that 'Derek needs to get laid' in ASL in fact meant 'Derek, your swordsmanship is unparalleled', Sara pulled Mariko aside. The Japanese heroine was...hesitant about being alone with Sara, and she stiffened noticeably.
"I owe you," Sara said.
"Likewise," Mariko replied, quickly. "As you said, each of us owe much to the other."
"Hold your horses." Sara breathed out, sharply. "That was only the beginning of a sentence. I was going to say I owe you an apology. I only stopped halfway because of how...inadequate it sounded."
"What do you mean?" Mariko kept glancing back at the others. She didn't feel safe around Sara, not after their last conversation.
"I mean I..." She shook her head. "I embarrassed myself in front of you before. God, that's putting it lightly...I'm ashamed of myself for how I spoke to you."
"You were upset," Mariko said. "I'm...not entirely a stranger to that sort of dismay. It was very disquieting, but I suppose it was much worse for you than it was for me. You were quite right - I ultimately reaped benefits from Hades'...assault. I can well imagine that that would be galling."
Nova smiled. Mariko's brusqueness had an almost innocent quality about it. "The point is...I don't really hate you. I thought I did, but..."
"Ah, you were projecting." Mariko nodded sagely. "Sophie - my partner - told me about this. In situations when an emotion must be felt, but cannot be directed against a suitable target, it will find a surface to which to cohere, so to speak. Clearly, with Hades - so remote and alien a -"
"Mariko, I know what psychological projection is."
"Oh." Mariko was a little deflated. "Well, you take my point."
"Yeah...yeah I do."

Sara walked over to a window, looked out at the city below them.
"You...you've been captured before Hades, right? Other people have...taken you?"
"Yes," Mariko replied. "More than once. Why?"
"Because I feel bad for what I said about Seacouver heroes. There's...darkness there, and you fought it for a long time. Just because the darkness comes in weird shapes...well, shit, look at Lord Delirious." She ran her fingers through her brown hair. "God..." She shook her head. "I must have lost your respect a hundred times over..."
Mariko moved so that she was in Sara's line of sight. "You never lost my respect, Sara...I just don't understand you."
Sara turned back to her, and gave her a half-smile. "Maybe," she said, shrugging, "that's okay." She walked past Mariko, but the tall, willowy heroine stood in place for a moment, not following.
"Maybe that's okay..."

Eventually she did follow, and still found a mood of relative levity. But Imperion was absent. Partly just so she'd have something to do while she churned certain thoughts in her mind, she went looking for him. It didn't take long.
"Jackson?" Mariko found him sitting at his desk, his fingers pressed to his temples. He didn't seem to notice her at first. "Jackson?"
"Huh? Oh, Mariko, hi." He didn't seem altogether pleased to see her, but his manner changed quickly. "It's good that you're here, actually: there's something I want to talk to you about."
"Oh, of course." Mariko sat down. "How can I help?"
"Well," Imperion said, "isn't that the question?"

He cricked his neck, clearly still nursing an injury or two. "First off, great job with how you fought today. That really was something special."
"Thank you," Mariko replied. It never got easy hearing compliments from this...giant.
"But...that's not what I want to talk to you about." He sighed. "I can't say I've got anyone to blame but myself, I guess..."
"What is it?" She narrowed her thin eyebrows.
"The Combined Registration Act passed. That you knew...but I didn't tell you how." He ran his fingers through his hair. "There was opposition to it, but the guys who were against it lost their nerve. So they bargained. It passed - but with one major amendment."
"What?"
"The Registration Office...it's being put under the control of the Pauldron."
Mariko blinked. "Wh...what? We're a - that doesn't make sense; we're a team of superheroes not a municipal office! Surely they can't do that."
"They can. We're a state functionary. I mean, I think I could refuse, actually. We do have some autonomy over what our purview is, but...I don't want to refuse. Frankly, I think this combined office thing is bad - but if we have control of it, we can mitigate the damage. Maybe even do some good with it." He leaned back. "I think it's time for me to be more than just a superhero. I don't think the world really needs another guy who punches dudes in the face."
"I...I mean, it's your decision, Jackson," Mariko replied, very much taken off-guard, "but - well, what does that mean for the rest of us?"

Imperion frowned. "Well, that's why I wanted to speak to you," he said. "If I'm running this, if I'm actually going to do it...well the Pauldron is going to have to change. I haven't decided completely, but I think Panhellius is going to run the first team, at least for now."
"The 'first' team?"
"I want to start a second Pauldron group. Panhellius and the others will still operate as they have done, state-wide - but I want to start a second team here in Sacramento. Young heroes - new blood from all across the country."
"And...you want me to be part of that team."
"Part of it? No, I want you to lead it," Jackson said. Mariko's mouth opened, and didn't close for some time.
"I - excuse me?"
"You don't have to say yes, and even if you do it's gonna take a while to set up - but I have to confess that I had this in mind when I recruited you. This has been at the back of my mind for a while." He grinned. "Two teams. Two Pauldrons. Two groups of six: you, Mark and Shane, with three new recruits; and Derek with Sara and Chrys, leading three others. Both equal. Both accountable to me, of course - but yeah. You'd be one of the leaders."
"I..." Mariko didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to think. "Why me? I haven't really shown much in the way of leadership qualities. After today, I rather think you should be having this conversation with Sara."
"Sara...I'm not sure she's ready for full leadership yet."
"And I am?"
"You...you're like me, Mariko." Jackson stood up. "You get it. You get what a superhero needs to be - you're more than just a warrior. Spectra is a symbol, and she's getting brighter and brighter every day. I can see you inspiring people."

Mariko put her hand to her mouth. "Based out of Sacramento?" she asked. "Would we do different kinds of work?"
"Not really," Jackson said. "Unless you wanted your team doing that. You'd be in charge."
Mariko was stunned.
"There's one - ow!" Jackson winced, clutching his chest. "Oh, geez, I guess Delirious did more to me than I thought...ugh, yeah, there's one problem." Mariko looked at him quizzically, so he went on. "Where you live. You're making it work now, but...commuting from Seacouver ain't gonna work if you're leading a team. You'd need to be on hand at a moment's notice."
Mariko suddenly felt cold. "I'd...need to leave Seacouver?"
"Now I know what you're thinking," Imperion said. "Your partner lives in Seacouver too, right? Well...she could always move out here with you."
"That's impossible," Mariko replied. "She's a student at Seacouver U. She has to live there."
Imperion was about to speak, but stopped. He paused for a few moments, as if letting it sink in. "Well, Mariko, I could always put Shane in charge. But I don't want to do that. I want it to be you. This...this is gonna be big for you, Mariko, but -" He threw up his hands. "I guess you've got a choice to make."
But Mariko had already made her choice. And as she made it, she felt like a traitor - and not to Imperion.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"So did, you, like, kill the Supremacist by yourself, or was it, y'know, a team effort?" A small, busty blonde lay quite naked in a large, plush bed. She wriggled around in its silk sheets with the pleasure of a post-coital haze.
"Oh, I suppose the others had some small part in it," Ivan mumbled. He lay on his back, rather pleased with himself. Seducing Gallantria hadn't exactly been difficult but - well, she wasn't a genius, but she knew what she was doing in bed. "Say, d'you think we could move pillow talk to some topic other than the people I've killed?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," she said, lazily. "Ummm...what's your favourite movie?"
Ivan laughed. "Oh, is that how it is? You fuck guys and then ask them inane personal questions?"
"Oh my god, you're such a jackass!" She got out of bed, stretched her arms above her head like a cat, giving Ivan a very nice view of her smooth back, her shapely legs and her rather perky behind. She'd flown straight there from a pretty unsuccessful nightly patrol, so when she dressed, she was getting back into her tight, red leotard. Ivan didn't mind that view either.

She turned around, pouting, her curly, almost fluffy blonde hair swishing about her thin shoulders as she did. "Look, this was kinda good, but you've got a real big ego, you know that?"
"Too easy," he muttered. "Taxi Driver."
"Huh?"
"Taxi Driver. My favourite movie." He smiled at her. "What's yours?"
"Me? Uhh...I don't know. I don't really watch movies," Gallantria said.
"Oh. Well, there goes that stimulating conversation..."

Gallantria walked in front of a large bay window. This was not Ivan's apartment - this was the high-rise that the Pariahs had co-opted the top ten floors of. He'd found himself crashing there with increasing frequency.
"So, this is the life of a big, top-tier superhero, is it?" Gallantria said. "Cool pad, railin' hot girls every night, fame, fortune..."
"More or less," Ivan said. "But I wouldn't describe you as a 'hot girl'."
"Oh my God, you, really are a jackass!" She turned around, fuming.
"Temper your ire, my dear," Ivan said. "I was going to say that you're not a 'hot girl' because you are, in fact, a rather beautiful woman. But I shan't say that: you've spoiled the moment. So there."
Gallantria giggled. "You're such a weirdo."
"Is that good or bad?"
"It's -"

Ivan didn't get an answer. There was a 'thwipp' through the window, as an object small enough to break through the glass without shattering the pane zipped in, striking Gallantria in the thigh.
"Ow!" She reached back, pulled out a small, metal object. "What the hell is...is...ooohhh..." She put her hand to her forehead. "I feel...kinda funny..." She tumbled to her knees, and Ivan shot up in alarm.
"Gillian? Are you alright?" He got up, slipping on a pair of boxers, and rushing over to her. "Gillian!" Only now did he see the discarded dart on the floor. "What the fuck?"
"Ivan...I feel...sleepy..." Gillian mumbled, unable to keep her eyes open. "D-did you...slip me...something?"
"No, of course not, you bloody woman!" Ivan hissed. "Someone's shot you with a tranquiliser dart. Where the hell -?"

For all his power, Ivan didn't really have any way of detecting attack in advance. When the second dart came, striking him in the arm, it was as much a shock to him as it would have been to anyone. Hurriedly, he grabbed the offending needle and whipped it out, but he was too late.
"Oh...shit...shit!" He could already feel its effects taking hold. "Sh...shit!" He began to stumble towards his bed, to reach his discarded phone. "Farah..." he groaned. "Have to...get...Farah...!" He stumbled, gasping to his knees. He tried to summon his powers, but he was too disoriented. Just a wisp of orange fire surrounded him. "Have...have to..."

Ivan was so disoriented that he didn't hear the loud, heavy thump. He didn't hear the metal footsteps, slow and calculated, against the floor of his bedroom. He only realised there was an intruder when they grabbed him by the neck and turned him around. Only then did he see whom it was he was facing.
"H...Hades!"

Even in silhouette against the light of the buildings across the street, it was perfectly clear at whom Ivan was looking. That thick, metal armour, that faceless oval of silver covering the villain's face - it could have been none other.
"This is Zjarrus? This is the man who overthrew the Supremacist? A pasty little stick of a man who comforts himself by seducing airheaded superheroines. Pathetic." Hades threw Ivan down, and drove an armoured foot against his chest.
"Auugh...auuughhh!!" Ivan cried out. "You...fu...fucking...!"
"Don't, Mr Nazarov," Hades said. The voice had a disturbingly...mechanistic quality to it. "You have brought this upon yourself. Your organisation's...taunts were not appreciated. Nor were your infantile attempts to locate me. I reveal myself when I choose, and at no other time."
"Y...you...you're weaker than...me...if you hadn't...drugged me...I'd be...wiping the floor with you!"
"Perhaps."

Hades took Ivan again by the throat and slammed him against a wall, leaving a crack in it, and in one of Ivan's ribs.
"Perhaps that is true. Perhaps in terms of raw power you are my superior - but I think I've just proved that doesn't really matter, does it Ivan?!"
"Grhhh...hhhhghh!" Ivan was panting, hyperventilating, trying desperately to keep awake enough to use his powers. But they just weren't coming.
"You think raw strength is all there is to power? Of course you do. You're a disciple of the Supremacist, after all - that fatuous, simple-minded fool. I know that my power is great, but I also know that it is not infinite. There will be others who exceed it. But who could destroy me? Who could find me? Who could kill me? You cannot kill a shadow, Ivan Nazarov, and that is why I am stronger than you, and always will be! You reach for me, but cannot touch, you try to grasp me, I slip away. I am darkness, and death. I am Hades!" The villain grabbed Ivan's forearm, and squeezed, crushing every bone into splinters.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Ivan screamed. The pain - it was like...no, there was no comparison. If Hades had asked him if he wanted his arm just cut off, he would have wailed and begged for it. Hades dropped him, and he fell whimpering, clutching his smashed limb.
"I could kill you at any moment of my choosing. An assassin shoots you as you stroll down the street. Or an explosive is planted in your bed. Poison put in your drink. You will never be safe - and I will never be at risk. I would do it myself, now...but I rather like the sight of you squirming."
"Aahhh...hhhhh..." Ivan panted, fighting back tears.
"Oh, dear oh dear. Poor little boy. I'm sure there have been plenty of terrorists who were motivated by their daddies not loving them enough...but you have to be one of the most pathetic."

Hades strode to where Gallantria's unconscious body lay and, with one casual movement, grabbed her by the ankles, and tossed the petite, buxom blonde over her shoulder.
"I take your little conquest as...weregild, let's call it. For your having offended me." Hades ran a cold, metal hand down Gallantria's soft, naked legs, squeezing her ass and showing Ivan just how much Gallantria's beauty was...appreciated, as she lay limp and helpless over the monster's shoulder. The message was clear: the maiden had been claimed by the stronger of the two warriors.

"Let all your kind learn the lesson of - aagh!" Just as Hades thought him down for the count, an orange flame shot out, striking the villain in the chest. A sudden movement of the ovoid head indicated surprise - great surprise that Ivan had managed to attack at all.
"My power..." he gasped, "processes...adrenaline...into nuclear...material..." He was shaking, shivering, his shattered arm hanging limp by his side. "Well guess...what hormone...your brain releases...when you're in A LOT OF FUCKING PAIN!!" He fired another blow, much stronger this time. Hades dodged it, and didn't waste an instant - leaping out of the building whole cloth, with Gallantria slung over his shoulder. "NO!" Ivan bellowed. He tried to fly, but it wasn't happening. "No-one does that to me...no-one humiliates Nucleon and gets away with it!!" He squeezed his broken arm, and the agony brought with it clarity. "HADEEEEES!!" He flew out in a clumsy, broken, sputtering arc, flying down where he guessed Hades would have gone, gathering as much power to himself as he could.

He could barely fly above street level, and he wasn't trying very hard not to.
"Where are you?!" he screeched. "WHERE ARE YOU?!" He let loose a nuclear blast, atomising a car, and destroying the side of a building. "I'll destroy you! I'll kill you! I'll do to you what I did to the Supremacist! I'll rip you apart! I'll tear you limb from limb!!" But his body couldn't match his rage. His aura sputtered, and he tumbled to the ground, so hot that he melted the tarmac upon hitting it. As he staggered, gasping to his feet, he screamed with pain and rage - and then he saw that the street, late though the hour was, was not empty. People were looking at him, some screaming, some just staring dumbfounded in terror.
"Oh my god, that's...that's Zjarrus! The Pariahs guy!"
"What's he doing? Did he finally snap?"
"He was gonna kill us! He was gonna kill us all!"
Ivan shook, and fell to his knees. Tearing black hair out of his scalp with his one good hand, he trembled with humiliation. A moment ago he'd been king of the world - and in a few short minutes Hades had dragged him right back to being the scum of the earth.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As Mariko took the last slam-rail train back to Seacouver, many things weighed heavily on her mind. She frowned deeply, her aloof beauty seeming all the fiercer to those who saw her. By now, of course, she knew about Sophie's ordeal at the hands of the Sleeping Beauty Society, and that was deeply disturbing, but at the very least that ordeal was over - Natalya had saved her, and Mariko tried to find room for gratitude in her troubled mind.

She took out her phone, dialled Sophie's number. She wasn't expecting an answer, and didn't get one - it was past midnight. As it rang, she composed herself to leave the message she was going to leave.
"Sophie," she said, when prompted. "It's...it's Mariko. I have something I...I need to say to you. Imperion - well the reasons are complex but, because of the Combined Registration Office...Imperion's creating two Pauldron teams, splitting us in half and adding more members. He wants me to lead one of them, and I'm sure you can see what a chance that would be for me. But...I'd have to live in Sacramento." She swallowed, and went on.

"So...I said no, Sophie. I...it's a very strange feeling. To have worked all one's adult life for one single goal, to put all one's energy into something for years...and then finding out it's not what you want at all. I really did want glory. I really did want to advance as far and as fast as I could...but then you happened. You happened, Sophie, and now everything is different." She stopped. It wasn't easy to put it all into words. "I feel like a traitor, if that makes sense. Like I've been disloyal to some sort of idea - or disloyal to myself even. It's - it's almost ridiculous how insignificant my reputation seems now compared to you. To being with you. There's this...odd idea now that it's somehow foolish to make sacrifices for those one loves - that everything one wants apart from that must necessarily be of greater importance. Well nothing is more important than you. And if that's unhealthy, then healthiness be damned. Mercifully I can't imagine a situation where I'd make good on this claim, but if I had to...I would give up being Spectra for you, my love. I can't...I can't imagine denying myself you: your warmth, your love...your compassionate, beautiful mind..." She smiled. "Your insistent goofiness." A dozen happy memories breezed through her.

"And it's not just you, my love - I've...I've found myself really beginning to find a place with the others, and I don't want to rocket past them. Being a member of the Pauldron means something to me now, being part of it, being an ally to Sara, and Shane and Jackson...even if I'm not quite their friend. It's not just a title, it's not just more status - and I think it was at first. It certainly would have been before you. And that's the thing Sophie...even if I did take Imperion's offer, even if I did become...oh, I don't know, the new Lady Corvus, or something, it would have no colour without you. It's not just that you make me happy, my Sophie, it's...you make it possible for other things to make me happy as well. And I am. I am happy." She smiled, and found herself blushing. "I...want to be with you for the rest of my life." She said this very softly. She wanted to stroke her lover's face, but satisfied herself with the knowledge that it would not long be kept from her. She imagined slipping into bed next to her, hearing Sophie grumble at being woken, then feeling her turn and nestle against her, before dropping back off in an instant. "Not long now..." she thought.

Upon arriving at Seacouver's station, she heard her phone trilling. This surprised Mariko greatly, but it was Sophie's number. Perhaps her message had woken her.
"Sophie?"
"Is - is that Mariko?" It took Mariko a moment to recognise the voice.
"Kirsten? Yes, it's me."
"Um, can you please come over? Like now?"
"What? I mean of course, but why?"
"I - I don't know it's...something - something's wrong with Sophie."
Mariko's blood turned to ice. "I'll be right there.

Twenty five long minutes later, she was. Talia, Sophie's other roommate, met her at the door. She looked gravely concerned.
"What's the matter?" Mariko asked.
"She woke up screaming," Talia replied. "Calling out for you. We can't get her to stop - it's like she's having a nervous breakdown or something." Before any questions could be asked, a scream tore at the two women's ears.
"Mariko!" Sophie's scream was like a dagger through the air. Mariko winced at it, and ran into Sophie's room. Kirsten was holding her hand, or trying to, but Sophie kept covering her eyes. She was writhing as if in agony, her body trembling.

"Sophie!" Mariko was frightened as well as terribly worried, but she took her lover in her arms, holding her tightly. "Sophie, sweetheart, it's me. What's wrong?" The wails turned slowly to sobs, and slowly Sophie slipped her arms around Mariko's body. "There now...it's alright..."
"It's not!" Sophie pulled herself back, yanking her arms away as though they were something unclean. "It's not alright...it'll never be alright!" Suddenly she looked at a corner of the room with venom in her emerald eyes. "Shut up, Elena, shut the fuck up!"
"Elena? Wh -?" Mariko looked back, but saw nothing. "Sophie there's nothing there!"
"I know...I know it's just in my head," Sophie said, "but - it's in my head! It's real...it's what's supposed to be there!" She stopped shaking for long enough to look Mariko in the eye, although this seemed to cause her great anguish. "Mariko...oh god, Mariko, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry!" Then, with panic: "I wasn't lying! I swear to god I wasn't lying to you, I just didn't know! I'd never have...never have made you...never have wanted you to have me..."
"Sophie, for heaven's sake, what are you talking about?" Mariko said, and now she was shaking too.

Sophie looked at her again, with those large, soft, green eyes of hers, even her pain and terror unable to mask the warm ocean of love she had for her beautiful partner.
"Mariko...there's...there's no such person as Sophie Scott."

[DrDominator9]

Well, that was a surprise! I thought the story was over and then I read myself right onto the edge of a cliff. Nice job.