Valiant Valkyrie vs the Boarman Part 4: The Trap
Our Story Thus Far:
Valiant Valkyrie pursued the evil villainess Rude Ruby, only to be ambushed and defeated by her gang, the Dark Prizm. Now, she finds herself in the city of Broodhaven, the domain of her hated rival the mysterious Boarman. Acting on a hunch Valkyrie, along with her friends Daring Diva and the Sun Idol, decided that the Dark Prizm's next move would be to go to the notorious Hyboria Hysterium in search of a suitable super-female to impregnate with their stolen sperm. Getting a tour from the prison's warden they located what they think is the Prizm's target: the comatose and imprisoned Chinese goddess known as Jiutian Xuannu aka the Dark Lady. Sneaking back into the prison hospital after their tour the three superheroines re-entered the sleeping goddess's room - only for their cackling foes to immediately call in over the intercom to taunt them. Then the power went out, releasing the captive war goddess from her slumber...
Linguistic and Cultural Note:
within this story, I frequently use the first half of Jiutian Xuannu's name as effectively her shortened name or nickname. Since that's actually a title, and has a literal meaning, that may read very oddly to actual Chinese speakers. But I found it flowed a lot better for me in terms of sounds than using either the second half by itself or the full title every time. Apologies if it comes off as weird. Also, for a whole lot else, probably!
General Notes:
Any resemblance of medical procedures depicted herein to actual medical practice is purely coincidental. All characters appearing within this chapter are over the age of eighteen. To say the least, in a couple cases.
Slowly, as Valkyrie and her two friends watched in stunned disbelief, the ancient Chinese goddess sat up before them. Reaching up, she seized the now-useless gas mask and tore it off. Then, she looked down at the various IV's sprouting out of her limbs. She frowned, her otherwise flawless brow furrowing beneath the nine jade dragons that sprouted from her elaborately-coiled hair. Reaching down, she seized them by the tubing and yanked them all right out of her.
Daring Diva winced, in sympathetic agony, to see this. But no blood or gore emerged along with the suddenly-extracted needles. Instead, within seconds the alabaster-pale flesh where the intravenous feeds had been inserted into her was just as smooth and flawless as the rest of her.
Swinging her legs over, the divine beauty put them down on the floor. She stood up - slightly shakily at first, the only hint of a human reaction she had shown to date - but seemed rapidly to find her footing. She turned to face the three superheroines, and stared at them.
They stared back. Jiutian Xuannu's eyes were enormous, and pure jet black from one end to the other. A phosphorescent cinnabar mist continued to rise up around her, from a ring about her feet, as she stood nude before them.
Looking down, Jiutian seemed to observe her own bare flesh. Save for that she was a little more lithe of build, she was a match for any of the three heroines in the inhuman perfection of her proportions. But still, the sight of her nakedness seemed to displease her. Turning her head, she saw the ancient Chinese gown - pure white but adorned with glowing pearls and elaborate embroidery in nine different colors, with the embroidery forming the pattern of kingfisher feathers - hanging upon a rack nearby.
Lifting her left hand, she snapped her fingers. In a moment, her gown was back upon her flesh, adorning her in her appropriate raiment once more. Looking down again, she nodded. The gown reached to her knees, but had long slits up both sides to the top of her hips, allowing her great mobility - and exposing a significant expanse of her sleek thighs. Then, she snapped her fingers again. A curved, ornately decorated, and faintly glowing jade sword appeared in her other hand as if from nowhere. Clothed and armed, she turned back once more to face the three transfixed women who stood before her. And then, at last, she spoke.
"You are my jailers, I presume?" she said. A smirk spread across her face. "I made short work of the last set, so I assume they found better ones..."
Valiant Valkyrie gasped, as did the other two heroines.
Every word Jiutian spoke seemed to echo repeatedly off the walls behind her, despite the fact she spoke at a quite casual conversational tone and volume. But more to the point, whenever she spoke, despite the fact that they saw her lips as speaking English, her words seemed to come in at least a dozen different languages simultaneously. Kaja Hammer had spent enough time studying her team-mates' native tongues that she was pretty sure she could recognize some words of modern Mandarin among them - but also what struck her as a half-dozen other modern or ancient Chinese dialects as well, plus several more obscure languages at the same time. Beside her, Sun Idol shivered slightly - as she heard the goddess speaking to her in both her native and adopted tongues simultaneously.
When the heroines did not immediately reply, Jiutian cocked her head, her night-black eyes seeming to peer into their souls.
"Well?" she asked them, in her echoing chorus of voices. The heroines, though stationary, still stood just in front of the only exit - blocking her way unless she somehow went through them. "Are you going to resist my passage - or will you part before me?" she asked, testily.
"Do... do you mind if we talk about it for a moment before we decide?" Valiant Valkyrie asked.
"Even your long life is but a moment to mine, corpse gatherer," Jiutian replied, bemusedly. "But, being of partial heavenly blood yourself - albeit one from an exceptionally uncultured branch of the celestial order - you should well know that a lesser being does not waste the time of the truly divine. So... I will give you and your companions exactly one minor ke to decide."
"We, uh, we do not know how long that is," Sun Idol protested.
"Your shameful ignorance is noted, but irrelevant," Jiutian replied, with a prim twist of her head, as if trying to get a centuries-long crick out of her neck.
"R-right," Sun Idol said.
The superheroines quickly leaned together - keeping a watch on the preening goddess even as they whispered to one another.
"What's our play here, Valiant Valkyrie?" Daring Diva asked.
"Still trying to figure that out," Valkyrie replied, staring up at the patiently waiting goddess. "Any thoughts?"
"If we try and fight her, we might get wrecked," Sun Idol said. Facing a literal war goddess was enough to rattle even her nerves. "Even if we win, we will be draining ourselves of strength that would be better used to fight the Dark Prizm - and playing into their hands, since they quite obviously set us up the bomb."
"That's all true," Daring Diva admitted. "But Valkyrie... if you think it was bad that you helped let one of Lady Luna's creations run rampant in the Boarman's city, imagine what he'll say if we let a literal fucking war goddess loose. No Beachport heroine will be able to show her face with pride ever again."
"We didn't let her loose," Valkyrie objected. "The Dark Prizm did that."
"True," Daring Diva said. "Have fun telling the press that, every time they ask why you stood aside and let her walk past. Assuming we live to get that far."
"Right," Valkyrie said. She took a deep breath, and put her best superheroine face on. "Well, let's do this then." The others nodded, grimly.
The three heroines straightened up, spread out slightly, and faced back towards the waiting goddess.
"I'm afraid we cannot let you pass," Valiant Valkyrie said.
Jiutian nodded. "I divined that fifteen miao ago, by reading your thoughts," she said. "But do not worry. I will fight you fairly. By which I mean, I will limit myself to martial techniques, and not simply boil your blood inside your veins where you stand. I can tell that, while perhaps not truly worthy, you are all at least worthy enough for that."
Valiant Valkyrie shook her head. She decided had had enough of being talked down to for one night. "Fuck you, you smug bitch," she said. Then she nodded towards her. "Get her!"