A Worthy Adversary

EDIT May 2015

1.

The room is large, mostly empty, and brightly lit. A lot like an airplane hangar. Doesn't feel as if it's underground when you stand in here. It is, though. Very deep.

Cameras in all four corners, suspended from the ceiling. And beneath them, mounted on tripods with their feet bolted into the floor, we've got bulbous robotic swivel guns. They don't shoot bullets—these are zappers, ray guns. Designed for blasting down creatures that bullets can't harm. Smoky purple light pulses behind the triangular emitter panels they have in place of barrels. They look like angry blinking eyes.

The professor sits sideways on his cot with his legs folded in the so-called lotus position; holds his back perfectly straight. His hands are clasped on his knees. He wears an orange jumpsuit, and he's surrounded by a forcefield, faintly shimmering.

Nasty as he is, the man is still pretty handsome, for a guy his age. Reminds her a bit of Jeremy Irons. Only younger than Jeremy Irons is these days—last thing she saw him on, some show on cable, he was looking much more elderly than whatever she'd seen him in before that, probably some movie where he was the bad guy again. You'd have to take him back a decade or so ... Still old, at that point, but not like a grandpa. Still handsome. Then he was like the professor—except the professor was a bit bulkier.

There was a time she trusted this man more than anybody. There was a time she had looked up to him, so much.

Now he smiles at her. "You've come to gloat? I did not expect that from you. Nonetheless, I am pleased to see you again."

The superheroine, standing outside the forcefield with her arms folded across her chest, and one hip canted slightly to the side, shakes her head and sneers. "Do you remember what you said to me before?"

He nods. "Of course. I meant every word."

This remark causes her to snort. "You said I'd regret it if I challenged you."

"I believe the word I used was 'tested,' in fact. I gave you that warning in good faith. And that was not all I said to you, if you haven't forgotten. First I told you I admired you, very much. Because it is true. It was true then and it remains true. You are very brave, very smart, and in addition, very beautiful. You are my very favorite enemy."

"But I beat you, didn't I? I captured you and now you're imprisoned. Caged. You didn't think I could pull that off."

"No. I did not. You surprised me. You really did. I will not disguise the fact. Made me admire you all the more. You lived up to your name in the fullest possible name."

The superheroine is called Knockout. And only a short time ago—a matter of days—she had indeed literally knocked out this professor, when he was in his other and far more formidable form—that of a supervillain using the name Monstrous. The professor is already tall and powerfully built, a well-conditioned individual; his body becomes substantially larger and more muscular when he takes on his other identity. Nearly three times Knockout's size. She'd outfought him and brought him down, all the same. This in spite of the fact that she herself possesses no extraordinary powers. Though a superheroine, she is not superhuman—except perhaps for the intensity of her commitment. Scrupulous discipline and training have made her what she is, no weird technology nor magic nor mutation.

Her costume is not very imaginative. Bog-standard, in perfect frankness. Knockout never bothered to create a distinctive branding for herself, or (as has become more and more common) to pay someone else to design one for her, or to take a sponsorship deal. She has no understanding or interest of the importance of such things—if they have any. (We will not take time to dispute that question further.) She wears a white longsleeve leotard with a short black cape and a short black skirt. Her logo is a blue fist, with a gold starburst behind it, signifying an explosive impact—her tights are the same shade of blue, with little gold stars spangled on them. She wears one of those traditional basic domino eye masks that don't actually do much to hide your identity. However, Knockout's real identity isn't anybody special. She's not one of those heroines that's related to a mayor or police chief, nor is she a wealthy CEO or socialite. It's not going to cause a big scandal if/when people find out her real name, and she has no family to put at risk, nor any close friends outside the super-community. Knockout has practically no alternate life beyond her crime-fighting career, not even a weak pretense of one. She just doesn't bother ...

Her mask is white, and held in place with an elastic cord around her head rather than an adhesive—she doesn't like the sticky masks that most other supers use these days; the goo on them irritates her eyes. She keeps her hair trimmed boyishly short, and it's bleached.

She wears mean boots—that's the only thing about her costume that stands out, slightly. They're not the kind of boots people associate with superheroines, sleek and rubbery and colorful, usually with high heels unless instead they're those other extremely flexible kind, "sock-boots". (Boots like that are quite cute and comfy, and also real good for sneaking around in, but not ideal for a heroine to use if she doesn't have the regular range of superpowers—all a bad guy needs to do is stomp on your toes to take you down!) Knockout prefers no-nonsense workboots. Hefty shitkickers with thick-treaded soles and steel toes. No laces on them, either—hers each use half a dozen buckled straps. Much more secure.

She's rather short and looks younger than she is. Frailer, too. Lean as she is, it's a gymnast's body, or a ballet dancer's. Give her cause, and this little girl could take those twiggy arms and legs of hers and tie yours into a knot with them, and then, no matter how big and bad you might think you are, she'll fling your ass over her head all the way across the room and bounce you off the walls like a basketball before you knew what was happening to you ... the professor can vouch for that personally, having undergone the experience.

Facially, she happens to look quite a bit like the actress Jena Malone, and her eyemask does little or nothing to disguise that resemblance. Several times since her career got fired up, the story has swept across the internet that Knockout really is Jena Malone. This is total bullshit. Her real name is Georgia Swafford. She just looks a lot like the actress. The real Jena Malone, mischievously, never outright denies that she's the heroine, whenever she's asked. Seems amused by the rumor.

The professor used to work for the good guys—or at least he pretended to, for many years. He was a respected and highly valued technical advisor to the worldwide superhero community, building a variety of useful gadgets for them and doing other important scientific work. Knockout had thought of him as a mentor, almost a surrogate father figure, and she wasn't the only super to have done so.

Then, almost accidentally, she discovered the truth about him. His other identity.

Nobody had believed her. Nobody had wanted to. Not until she finally caught him redhanded. Took months of careful investigation and planning, working completely alone. No other heroes or heroines would assist her; everyone thought she'd gone out of her mind. The professor always used elaborate holograms and androids of himself to cover his ass—providing watertight alibis, whenever he was elsewhere being Monstrous.

She had persevered and she had triumphed. He was going to spend the rest of his days in prison—unless he got sentenced to execution, instead. There was a very good chance of that. Monstrous had killed a whole hell of lot of people, in a whole hell of a lot of nasty ways. He had been a gleeful showoff about it.

"I often had the sense," he said, "that you used to have a little bit of a schoolgirl crush on me. Before you found out about my dark side, of course."

"In your dreams," she said, and spat on the concrete floor.

He laughed and shrugged. "Quite so. I always told myself I was only imagining it. An aging man's conceit."

"You were important to me, though," she told him, "You used to be."

"I know."

"When I found out who you really were ... God. Just ... I'll never get over it. Not entirely. Cut my guts out. God damn you for that. God damn you for fucking ever."

"I'm sure it was difficult for you. I'm sorry about that. Truly. I wish I was genuinely the kind of person you believed me to be. Alas, I never was. I am altogether different."

"You pretended. You faked it."

"Yes. To protect myself, and my ... amusements. If you had not exposed me, I would still be doing that now. Living two lives in parallel—both as complete as possible. I enjoyed the sport of it. No, it was more than sport. It was a work of art."

"It was disgusting and criminal and sick. That's what it was. That's what you are!"

"Yes. I suppose you're right, as far as it goes."

"They're going to kill you. I'd bet all my money on it. They're gonna put your ass down like a rabid dog."

"No, my dear. I'm afraid you are mistaken on that point. What you've failed to take into account is the value of my intellect. I'm too useful to my friends for them to allow me to perish, or to remain locked away in this place."

"You don't have any friends. Not any longer."

"Perhaps I don't," said the professor, "but that's not the case for my other self. Monstrous still has many friends."

"You mean other supervillains? You think they're gonna stick their necks out, trying to bust you out of here? You're deluding yourself. Even if they dared, they couldn't pull it off. This facility is too well guarded."

He shook his head. "It isn't. It's completely compromised. It has been, since we built this place. I'll show you."

He lifted his left hand and snapped his fingers. The forcefield around him immediately vanished. Switched off, just like that.

The professor unfolded his legs to stand up. "You should probably do your best to leave now," he said, "This will be your only chance."

Knockout lifted her fists and shifted her feet to a combat stance. "I won't permit you to escape. You should have waited to kill the forcefield—you just couldn't resist the impulse to show off."

"Very true. My greatest weakness."

"You still gotta get through me to get out of here. And there's no chance you can. Because I know you can't transform."

"Correct again, my dear. They injected me full of suppressants—the same drugs I myself designed."

"How ironic."

"I don't think I would choose to call it ironic, myself. In my opinion, on the contrary, the symmetry of it seemed rather apt. Hoist by my own petard, as it were. Even so, it doesn't present me with any disastrous difficulty, at the present time. I won't need to transform into Monstrous, to defeat you. In fact I won't have to fight you at all."

"How on earth do you figure that?"

"I'm disappointed in your lack of observation. Did my best to teach you better in the old days. It's vital to stay fully aware of your surroundings in any combat scenario. You've completely forgotten about the robo-guns, my dear. The blasters mounted in every corner of this room! Just like the forcefield, they are under my control now. Let me show you."

"Shit," she said.

Did her best to dodge, and held out for more than a minute. A whole acrobatics routine, tumbling in zigzags around and around the room, and made it all the way around again to the outer door without getting hit—only that door was locked. If she had powers, she could have busted through it. She didn't. Strong as she was, it was just regular strength. Not enough to do the job against that metal door, like a bank vault's.

Then she got blasted in the back. Thought she was dead—fried like an egg on the spot. Only turned out the zapper's ray was turned down to a pretty low power level. Just stunned her.

2.

She was only unconscious for a minute or two. The professor woke her up, not deliberately but from jostling her around. Head throbbing—no, her whole body throbbing, actually—she groaned and tried to sit up, blinking to clear her vision.

She was on the professor's cot, sprawled on her back, and he was right next to her. Actually hunched over her. He was in the process of peeling her leotard off. He had it just about down around her hips already. Her arms had been dragged down straight to her sides, trapped at the moment against her hips inside the leotard's long bunched-up sleeves (well, bunched-down). They had both only slid down as far as her elbows.

Her cape, her skirt, and her boots had been removed while she was still unconscious. Now they were scattered around the cot on the grubby prison floor, where the professor had tossed them at random. He'd left her white eyemask alone. Otherwise all she had left was the leotard and her blue and gold star-spangled tights ... Her costume obviously wasn't the sort of thing a girl wore any underwear under. The stupid leotard was well on its way off, and continuing to descend at a rapid and determined rate, as the professor kept tugging down on it with both his hands, chuckling ... Her torso was completely exposed, her freckled bony shoulders, her little boobs. Her belly too, with its striking washboard abs.

Oh God. Her boobs. He could see her boobs. She hated her little funny-shaped boobs, she was always ashamed of them, and the professor was staring at them and leering over them like a demon, getting off on it. So gross! And she couldn't even put her hands up over them to block his view. Not until she wrestled her arms free from her leotard sleeves. And doing that was practically just assisting him to strip her the rest of the way! God!

Then she found she could barely move anyhow. Her limbs felt sluggish, tingling all over. There was a buzzing in her head. The painful throbbing had faded—now this buzzing had taken its place. She couldn't speak properly either—her lips and tongue felt swollen and numb. Dentists could stop using injections, it seemed—they could switch to ray guns, if they wanted, now the tech was perfected. Same affect. She could testify. Well, once the feeling in her mouth finally came back. Ha.

She tried to shout "Stop!" and "Let go of me!" and "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" All that came out of her face was a bunch of high pitched squawking gibberish and slobber.

She tried to kick the professor away from her, and when that failed, to roll herself sideways off the cot. That didn't work either. She was too weak and clumsy to get away from him.

"Don't worry," he said, "you will fully recover your faculties in another minute or so. I promise. Better if you just lie still until then. Try to calm down. I'm not going to hurt you; I give you my word. And flailing around like that will only do more harm than good."

She kept right on flailing, all the same. Didn't stop him from getting the leotard off of her—didn't even slow him down. At least her arms were free now. Her first instinct, embarrassingly, was still to cover her boobs. She resisted it, though. Groped for his throat instead. Got hold of his neck and tried to throttle the shit out of him. Didn't work. He only clucked his tongue at her, and then grabbed her wrists and pried her fingers from his neck with humiliating ease. She was weak as a kitten! It was horrible! She started to cry.

"Leggo me. Leggo my-ands." She was almost able to talk again. For all the good that did. "Fucker!" Well, that was satisfying—being able to swear properly. "Fucker! Fuck off!"

"There, see? Just as I told you. You'll be back to your normal strength very soon," the professor said, "Hmm. Now, what am I going to do about that? Ah, this should work. Yes!"

He darted aside for a moment to snatch her skirt from the floor. Her narrow white belt was unbuckled but still attached to it, threaded through its loops. He tugged it out. "This will do the trick."

He used the belt to lash her hands together, at the wrists. Knotted them painfully tight. She screamed and cursed again. "You asshole! Don't! Stoppit!"

"It's necessary, I'm afraid. Now I can keep you pinned pretty securely with one hand ..." As he then demonstrated. He pinned her facedown this time on the cot, with her bound arms stretched over her head. "And that leaves my other hand free to finish what I started."

By which he meant the removal of her last article of clothing (leaving aside her stupid useless mask). Her tights.

No! No! Not them too! She had to stop him! How could she stop him?

If he got the tights too she'd be totally utterly—NO! No fucking way! It must not happen!

He peeled them over the jutting ridges of her hips and next over her butt, then down her legs ... He took his time about it, savoring the act ... pausing every few inches to pinch and caress the new expanse of bare soft white flesh that he'd exposed, moist and slick with sweat, bristling with goose pimples. Extremely sensitized.

She didn't hold still for this treatment. Thrashed around and kicked as hard as she could. None of it helped. In fact her desperately bicycling legs probably assisted him. There was a moment where he pushed the tights low enough he couldn't reach them any longer, to get them the rest of the way off. Not in the position he was holding her arms down. The tights were bunched up around her ankles. To take them off completely, he would have needed to shift his weight, and it might have given her an opportunity to wrestle out from under him or perhaps even flip him around so he would get pinned instead. But she blew the opportunity, kicking her feet too much in a brainless panic. She finished the job for him—kicked the tights completely off. She squealed, when she realized what she'd done—and that she'd done it to herself! "No! Noohh! Gahuuhhrr!"

Now he had her utterly stark naked. And still pinned beneath him on the cot, flat on her belly with her arms stretched over her head. Pretty much completely helpless. Completely at his mercy.

At least flat on her belly, her boobs were hidden, and her pussy too. Mostly. Her poor defenseless ass, though ... Like it was served up on a platter for him to do whatever he desired ...

"Leggo of me! Get off me! Get off! Let go! You fucker! Swear I'm gonna kill you for this! Gonna kill you! I swear! I fucking swear!"

He slapped her bare ass. It stung so bad and she couldn't even fight back. "Just hush up for a minute. Listen to me now. It's time to get serious. It's time for you to shut up and think about your circumstances. You need to face the realities of your present predicament. Your options are very limited, from here on. I'm going to offer you a couple choices. I need you to hear me out, think it over, and then make your decision. All right? Are you listening? Are you ready?"

Knockout didn't answer him, but she'd stopped moving and stopped yelling. She waited. She had better settle down and listen, like he said. It was a humiliating agony, but it was what she had to do, so she'd do it. Pretend to surrender. Only viable choice right now. She held still and kept her face down, nose burrowed deep in the musty-smelling mattress of the cot. Fuming, biting her lip—but trying to calm down, or at least to fake it. While at the same time, inside, she was steeling herself in mind and body and spirit for whatever terrible shit was going to happen to her next. She must maintain personal psychological discipline at all costs. That was key! Husband her strength and bide her time until the right opportunity presented itself to correct this situation. Then she would save herself and take out this villain, just as she succeeded in doing before. A chance would come—she mustn't miss it when it did. Things looked very grave at the moment ... All the same, she mustn't lose heart. Mustn't let herself. She was a fucking superheroine!