Chapter 1 - Finding the problem
Being a super villain put you in a certain group of individuals unlike any others. Super heroes have their clubs and leagues and what not, but villains by their nature are loners.
Likewise, heroes follow the rule of law, which are well established and documented, villains... not so much. But that doesn't mean there aren't rules we follow, just that they are more informal guidelines than anything else.
A case in point is interfering in the plots and machinations of other active super villains. It's frowned upon to say the least, unless of course your both trying to execute the same plan, in which case the gloves come off.
However, in-active super villains, either through death, retirement or incarceration, are fair game. There is a whole subset of villains that focus solely on stealing from other villains in such circumstances.
I'm not one of them, however I do keep an eye out when an opportunity arises and Dr. Tormentor's labs were on the top of my list. The last time he'd been incarcerated I'd sent a team to his primary lab, only to have none of them return.
It wasn't much of a surprise, Dr. Tormentor's technology was top of the line and it only made sense that he protected his lab to the full extent of his abilities.
So I put my pursuit of his equipment on hold, waiting for a more opportune time to take advantage. As a super genius, I could wait, I had many other plans to keep me busy.
The news last week of Dr. Tormentor's capture, once more, had piqued my curiosity again and I reached out to a few sources in the know and was not surprised by what I learned.
Dr. Tormentor had taken down almost a dozen heroes in his latest attempt to take over the city, some were still missing, others recovering from their injuries. This only further confirmed my suspicion that his technology was worth acquiring.
As a side note, I have never understood so many of my breatherens need to "rule the world", it seem unachievable and, more to the point, useless. What would one do with a world? What would be left to achieve?
No, my plans, while ambitious, were more grounded in achievable goals that brought me wealth and power, without attracting the attention of too many irritants.
Fortunately in this case, my source had some additional information. While Dr. Tormentor was out of commission, his minions were still hard a work in his labs and were planning a shipment from his primary lab to an undisclosed location up state.
And that was my opportunity, the truck would be far less well protected then the primary lab and I could send one of my teams to retrieve it with relative ease.
My team had performed flawlessly, retrieving the truck and it's contents without issue. As instructed, they had brought it back here, to one of my many bases of operation, unopened and undamaged.
I had been cautious of course, getting the truck open might have seemed like a trivial feat, but with Dr. Tormentor you could never tell what might kind of booby traps might be present. However after several hours of scanning and precautions, it appeared the truck was nothing more than a standard armoured vehicle.
A small plasma drill had made quick work of the lock and now, now as I stood inside the truck, I frowned at what I had acquired from Dr. Tormentor.
Three cryo-stasis superheroines lay out before me, each in a separate tube with several lights blinking, with nothing else contained in the truck.
My mind quickly deduced what had happened, Dr. Tormentor had captured the heroines and put them in stasis. Now, that he was in prison, for who knew how long, his henchmen had taken action to relieve themselves of three problems that they were unprepared to deal with.
More than likely the truck had been heading to an empty field far from any populated area where the three heroines would be released with a timer and allowed to return to their normal lives.
I sighed and shook my head, my luck with Dr. Tormentor had continued to run bad. Not only had I failed to acquire any of his technology, but now I had three superheroines in one of my bases that I now had to deal with.
Of course capturing a superhero wasn't actually the problem, pretty much every villain had at some point found themselves in possession of a hero. Often as part of an overtly elaborate scheme to defeat them, but even the lowliest of villain could stumble upon a hero with something else on their minds and end up defeating them.
The problem was that a captured hero was a ticking time bomb, they tended to find ways to escape, or their friends showed up. Then what you ended up with, if you were lucky, was some minor bruising and a few days in jail. If you weren't so lucky, well, that could really ruin your month... or more.
I turned to my team lead who was still standing outside of the truck, "So what did you do with Dr. Tormentors people?"
"All taken care of, no witnesses as per your order boss."
"Good." I said stepping forward deeper in to the truck, wiping the frost from the first tube to get a better look.
The placid face of SolarGirl looked back at me, her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders.
The second tube held Miracle Maiden, her short cropped dark hair held in place by the tiara on her head.
The third tube revealed StarFlare, her curly bright red hair offset by her pale orange skin.
The three tubes caused a frown to come over my face, here were three of the most powerful heroines on Earth, a source of more trouble for villains across the globe, and both a risk and opportunity at the same time.
Over the years I had steadfastly refused to take superheros as captives, they brought nothing but trouble, but that didn't mean I didn't have contingency plans, just in case. Well, at least as far as SolarGirl and Miracle Maiden were concerned. StarFlare was another matter, like SolarGirl she was an alien, but unlike SolarGirl, she had no known weaknesses. There was also so little know about her home world as she was a relativily new arrival on Earth in comparison to SolarMan and his cousin.
I did a quick calculus in my head; they were well contained, I was not tied to their capture in any way, my team had done a fine job in ensuring they would not be tied to the attack on the truck. There seemed little risk in holding on to them for the time being, I could aways finish Dr. Tormentor's plan and release them at some point later if I so choose.
I jumped down from the truck and turned to he team lead, "Get those tubes to my lab, then get rid of the truck."
"You got it boss." the man replied and quickly got to work as I walked from the loading dock of my base.
Chapter 2 - Waking SolarGirl
I opened the stasis chamber and worked quickly to secure the Rayton collar around SolarGirl's neck, the slight blue glow casting across her flesh.
The stasis would normally have worn off of regular human in an hour, or perhaps slightly less, but superheros with their increased stamina and healing would only take a few minutes and so it had been critical to ensure the collar was in place before SolarGirl managed to recover.
Many had used such a collar before on her, but they had all simply used as much Rayton as they had to subdue her, leaving her nothing more than a rag doll. I had more of the substance than I needed though and my research had found that there was a balance that could be achieved, stripping her of her powers but still leaving her with the average strength of a woman her size.
SolarGirl moaned and turned her head to the side as the Rayton took effect, slowing her recovery. I put my arms under her and lifted her from the tube, moving across the room and setting her down on to the frame I custom made for her.
The click of the shackles around her wrists, waist, ankles and neck echoed through the room as her eyes began to open.
