All characters are over 18 years of age.
Everything was fine until the hero showed up.
A man- tall and powerful, muscles thick beneath his costume- shot through the bank doors faster than the eye could see, and took down the three other henchmen that they had been working with, white flames trailing behind him. Doctor Dreadspell- their employer for a little over a week- conjured a half-dozen armoured shades even as he screamed like a little girl.
And she...
She ran. Dropping the ugly, heavy, entirely useless and deeply hated gun that she was carrying with her. He was running beside her, the two of them out the back and through the hole in the wall that they'd used to enter the bank and out onto the alleyway.
"Shouldn't we help him?"
"Fuck it! That was Pale Flame! Just run!"
There was an enormous roar and a flash of heat behind them.
Both of them ran faster, dashing across one street and into another. She turned to him. "I think we lost-"
He wasn't there.
She slowed down, looking around, heart racing. It was funny, she thought. She didn't start to really panic until she couldn't see him-
"Stop right there."
She turned around. Pale Flame floated in the entrance to the alleyway, wreathed in his namesake.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, wondering what the hell she was meant to say. "I- I just-"
He floated closer, frowning. "How old are you, miss?"
"I- I'm not a kid." She realised she didn't even have a weapon to pretend to be a threat.
"Listen...surrender. I can tell them you gave up without a fight. Girl, I can tell when someone's made a terrible mistake-"
There was a flash of green light.
Pale Flame collapsed, a puppet whose strings had been cut.
He stepped out from the side alley, that grin on his face again. "Good job! Kept him busy."
"How- what-"
"Looks like my invention worked!" He brandished the metal rod in his hands. "Come on- let's go."
"Is he-"
"Out of it." Smirking, he whipped out a phone and took a snapshot. "Once I post this on the right places...oh, baby. No more hunching jobs for us! We are going to the big leagues!"
"Are you sure-"
"I'm sure," he said, "trust me."
Then he leant forward and kissed her, rough and hard and every fear, every protest she had was dashed away.
***
"So," said Grey Sentinel. "we can assume containment has failed."
He turned off the live newsfeed. Tanya frowned. "I was watching that!"
"We've seen all we need to see."
"Hey, it's just-"
Grey Sentinel's frown deepened. "This is a PR disaster. We've spent years trying to cultivate a positive image for the people of this city. And now... a bank robbery turned into gay orgy. On live television, no less."
"For what it's worth, White Knight seemed happy enough."
"The man is a committed Christian. And happily married." He scowled at his her. "You just saw a man's entire life destroyed on national TV, Apprentice."
She sighed and looked away. "What do we do now?"
"Keep investigating. We know our curse-forger is an inventor of some sort, and most definitely a villain. Most likely in his late thirties. What did you find out?"
His apprentice fiddled with her blonde hair as she talked. "Ah. You're, uh, not going to like this."
"Out with it."
"It's not exactly a curse. It's a plague, Teach."
"We checked. There are no physical changes beyond a heightened temperature, no sign of any pathogen-"
"No. It's a curse that's
also
a plague. I read up on what happened in Osaka. It was a bunch of murders. They were started by a local sorceress with a serious grudge- but it got out of control. The victims of the initial pulse were hit with entropy curses- reality warped around them, making it so that they died in a bunch of strange circumstances. Fell down a well, drowned in a foot of dark water, mistakenly joined a suicide club, that sort of thing."
He noticed his apprentice as ticking off her fingers as though counting through a list. "How does that make it a plague?"
"Something changed the curse. It started to spread, not just to the intended victims but also anyone who came into contact with them. Investigated their deaths, knew them well, or just...saw the initial murders. An ever-expanding ring of victims. An entire neighbourhood was nearly depopulated before they figured out what was happening and killed the sorceress responsible."
"A magical plague, then. Spread by heroes and villains."
"A magical
sex
plague. But why?"
"To cripple us in anticipation of an invasion. Revenge for some imagined or real slight. A smokescreen for a deeper plot. Or maybe they just have some strange, twisted view of how the world should work, and are trying to force the rest of us to conform to it."
"Maybe they're just really, really horny?"
"Exiled and Endless will be released soon. We need answers by then."
Grey Apprentice gestured towards the screen. "I'm not sure releasing them will make this any worse. Are you going to..."?
"Yes. As dangerous as the woman is...she represents our best chance to stop this." He rose. "Let's arrange a meeting with Barrow Witch."
***
"You wouldn't
dare.
"
The golden-haired girl lay panting on the ground, limbs askew. Her golden wand lay on the other side of the room, its' potent power literally out of her grasp. Her body was covered with a thin sheen of sweat as she gazed fearfully at her assailant.
"I dare, little girl."
Grendlekin Jack grinned, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. The monstrous villain towered above the girl, furred muscles rippling. "You ought to be honoured."
"W-why?"
He chuckled, low and deep, and the girl shivered. "You will be the first one to be chosen. The first to be taken as my slave. The first to be made into the mother of a race of superior beings."
"M-mother?" The girl flushed red.
