\n\t\t\t\t\tgamegod210 originally posted over here for the longest time, but I seem to have gotten caught up in other things. Ah, but you didn't come here for excuses. You came for the art, and if you even bothered to look down here, you probably want a bit of a story, so let's not disappoint.--------------------
It all sounded like a simple mission for a junior member of the Daughters of Justice like Rubber Mouse and her mentor hero, the metal marvel Iron Dragon. There was a new smuggling ring active in Port Verdure, and they'd already aided criminals in moving millions in stolen goods out of the city while military grade weapons were funneling in. So far though, what little info existed on the group seemed to indicate that they were just talented criminals with no superpowers, mad science gadgets, alien technology, or mysterious, arcane abilities. Even for a superhero still learning the ropes (and all too often, the many ways ropes can be used on someone) taking them down should have been a cakewalk.
Oh sure, there was a bit of detective work to do, but Iron Dragon's technological advantage over the criminals cut out a lot of the tedious and boring parts. Soon the pair had tracked down and dismantled several distribution points for the ring, and they'd gained the final clue needed to locate the center of the ring to shut it down once and for all. You know, the way a good hero is supposed to. If it seemed a bit odd that the location turned out to be the Botanique Verrerie (Botany Glassworks) building which had been abandoned decades before L’Abois de la Botanique was renamed Port Verdure City, the superpowered pair dismissed it as an unimportant quirk of the mastermind in charge.
After carefully casing the place and finding only a token crew of women armed with conventional albeit military grade firearms, the two broke in, Rubber Mouse in the lead. It was a well-practiced tactic that had served them admirably against many other criminals including each of the distribution points they'd shut down. As before, Rubber Mouse's nearly invulnerable body absorbed the hail of bullets only to ricochet them back the way they came sending the villains diving for cover. The smarter scoundrels targeted the real threat, but the Iron Dragon didn't become a founding member of The Lady League, sister organization to the Daughters of Justice, by being a wimp.
Bullets spanged harmlessly off her armor or were deflected by repulsor fields as targeting reticles quickly highlighted her enemies and sent electrolasers, concussion bolts, knockout gas, and other non-lethal weapon fire back at them. It was almost boring for her which really should have sent up a red flag because Iron Dragon never had boring jobs that weren't wrapped up in a single night. Slower on the offense but still capable enough against ordinary mortals, Rubber Mouse had demonstrated that her hand to hand training was paying off as the quartet of gunners manning the two .50 cals lay sleeping off their pummeling by the time Iron Dragon was done with the rest. That's when they heard clapping.
"Bravo, Iron Dragon. You do not fail to disappoint," the snow leopardess sneered as she stepped out of a control room overlooking the main floor. "Oh, and your little friend was acceptable too, I suppose, but I'm afraid this is where it ends."
Rubber Mouse's cheeks burned at the insult while Iron Dragon, following standard superhero protocol, shouted back, "Glad to see we're on the same page. So are you going to come down here quietly, or should we just come to you?"
The smug smile on snow leopardess' face widened into a predatory grin. "Oh no, that's not what I meant at all. You see, you're going to have an awfully hard time going anywhere..." Both heroines abruptly felt something cool and solid clamp around each limb, and before either one could get a word out, something shiny clasped around each of their muzzles. "...once my glass golems are done with you. The name is Stelko, though soon enough you'll be calling me Mistress. Next time maybe you should find out who is in charge of all of those easily defeated minions, hmm? Not that you'll get another chance anytime soon."
The thing about criminal masterminds is that most of them get to the top by actually being quite good at using their minds. It's kind of right there in the name. So when one sets up a successful smuggling ring in a city full of superheroes and suddenly the ring starts to fall apart, it's a safe bet that superheroes are at work. If left unchecked, the endgame tends to be both predictable and rather bad for one's criminal career, so it's only good sense to identify your opponents and come up with a plan. Accepting the losses, Stelko had set a watch on each of her distribution sites and waited for one to get hit.
Of course, seeing as how both the Daughters of Justice and The Lady League are well known in Port Verdure, it was child's play to identify the pair and come up with a plan to defeat them. She just needed the heroes to go where she wanted them, so she made sure each of her distribution points had the address of the former glassworks and set up a temporary headquarters there. Of course, it meant losing another distribution point, but that was a small price to pay to be rid of the nuisances.
Now hyalokinesis is the exceptionally rare ability to control glass, and Stelko was probably the most powerful hyalokinetic alive. With literally tons of glass sitting gathering dust in the former glassworks, she had everything she needed for her trap. Oh, the heroes did put up a decent struggle. Iron Dragon managed to trigger one of her many weapons and break her and Rubber Mouse free. The elastic lass even got a few hits in on the snow leopardess while she was concentrating on subduing Iron Dragon, but Stelko was also gifted with remarkably swift healing.
The leopardess feigned being hurt worse than she was, pretending to lose control of one of her golems and have it fall back onto the rubberized rodent. Meanwhile the other shattered under Iron Dragon's assault, though not before it had crimped her suit in such a way as to apply pressure to a nerve bundle at the base of her right wing making it impossible to fly. Undaunted, the experienced heroine raced for the stairs passing beneath a large bucket just in time for Stelko to stumble over to a control panel and 'accidentally' tip out a over a ton of glass fragments on the heroine. Her armor and scales protected her from the sharp edges of the glass, but a ton is a ton, and caught off guard, it flattened her to floor.
Before Iron Dragon could recover, the golem she'd shattered flowed together with the mass already atop her and pinned her firmly. Likewise the one atop Rubber Mouse easily halted her attempt to wriggle out from under it. It was then a simple matter to pry the armor off Iron Dragon piece by piece. Rubber Mouse was stripped almost as an afterthought, and soon both heroines were naked and utterly at her mercy.
Of course she took her time enjoying her victory. After she plastered confusion wards to their foreheads (nothing she made, but a proper mastermind learns to network) so they couldn't recall any useful details that led to their capture, she waited for her people to wake up, let them work out their frustration on the heroes, then brought them to her home to play with further. She kept them there for a couple weeks, hosted some parties to show them off, and generally punished and humiliated them before finally holding an auction.
There were some rather impressive bids that night, but having taken advantage of a recent downturn in heroic effectiveness, Alice Bakk had done quite well for herself both on legal and illegal fronts, and she managed to win the pair for herself. Of course, as an avowed anti-hero, it was practically her duty to make sure she got quite a bit of use out of the pair before letting the Daughters of Justice and The Lady League buy them back. Specifically, her adult club The Moral Horizon had a couple new acts to spice things up for the next month and a half, and she went to bed very satisfied every night. Totally worth it!
Stelko aka Megan Thackman and commission by
\n\t\t\t\t\tgamegod210Alice Bakk © \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Doctor Setta Flamowitz aka Iron Dragon © \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Rubber Mouse aka Arle Dorei © \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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art by \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
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