To achieve my ultimate
goal of overthrowing Zeus and becoming the undisputed ruler of
Then the games can
begin.
-Ares
Wonder Woman awoke, but kept her eyes closed, trying to use her other senses to ascertain her surroundings first. She felt weak, weaker than she had ever been, even during those moments when her enemies had somehow managed to remove her powers. Her other senses seemed dulled, as though they were working thin a veil of fog.
She surmised that she had been drugged. Her body was tied up with rope, which might be her lasso. She could feel herself on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. A very slight tug of her hands shoved her feet forward, indicating that her captors had used a hogtie. The manner of the hogtie sat like a lump of coal in her stomach. It was no doubt designed for some nefarious sexual purpose.
“Looky here, Wonder Bread’s awake!”
She tried to stay motionless, but a hand suddenly clasped around her right breast, and the insulting action made her shout, “Get your filthy hands off me!”
Several men laughed. “Hey, bitch, we have a heartbeat sensor here that monitors you, so there’s no way you can fake it.”
Opening her eyes, Diana looked around. It was an abandoned warehouse, and she was in a large storage area, with about 20 men around her. They all wore masks over their heads, and were still clad in the black commando outfits they had used to capture her.
Diana summoned up her willpower, and strained against her ropes without success. She noted with dismay that her bindings wasn’t her lasso of truth, which made her worry about its whereabouts.
“Hey, Princess,” a man taunted, “You can’t get out of those ropes. We’ve pumped you full of special drugs. You don’t have your Amazon strength, you can’t fly, you can’t do jack shit.”
The Princess of Themyscira disregarded them, and tried to fly upwards. The effort left her dizzy and confused. It must be the drugs.
“See?” The man taunted. “Oh, by the way, we have another incentive for you to stay here and not try anything funny.” He gestured to one side, and Diana’s blood ran cold.
The screen on the TV set showed several children from the orphanage, tied up and wailing with fright. Guns were pointed at their heads.
“Try anything stupid, and BANG! They die…” He hissed malevolently. Wonder Woman hung her head in defeat. She could tell the truth in his voice. They would kill the kids. She was aghast and furious, but her helplessness in the face of this evil tore at her Amazon pride.
“Untie her,” The man who had spoke to her said to his men. He turned to her, “Don’t do anything foolish now, eh?” Diana could now recognize his tone of authority. He was the man in charge. She looked around, for anything she could use to gain the upper hand from her dangerous predicament.
Several men walked over and untied her from her bonds, while several more held her limbs firmly, preventing her from moving. She was lifted to her feet. She tried to struggle against their grasp, but she was still too weak. Her healing powers were ridding her system of the drugs, but her captors had calculated the dosages carefully. The drugs won’t be wearing off any time soon.
The man smiled under his mask, and sat down on a nearby chair, “Now, Wonder Woman, we’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to capture you, and you must be thinking of why we’re doing all this. It’s simple, we just need you to provide some entertainment for us on tape.”
The world’s foremost superheroine glared at them, “Entertainment? I would think not. It is obvious what you have in your perverted minds.”
“True,” the man admitted, “But fail to cooperate, and guess who pays the price?”
She gritted her teeth, “What do you want?”
He clapped his hands in glee, “For starters, a show! I want you to do a little strip dance for us. You’ll have to change into your costume first. Go on and do your little spin. We’ll be watching.”
Diana nodded slowly, then started to twirl her body. There was a brilliant flash of light, and then she was clad in the uniform of the champion of the Amazons.
The uniform highlighted her flawless body’s beautiful features. The golden tiara of her station as Princess of the Amazons set above her exquisite face. Her bare shoulders showing off her tanned, healthy skin. The golden WW insignia on her chest emphasizing the round globes of her breasts, while her golden belt encircled her slim waist. Red boots with a white stripe running down in the middle wrapped around her legs, just below her strong, muscular thighs. Silver bracelets enfolded her wrists as always, symbols of her people’s former slavery under Heracles.
The man nodded appreciatively. “Now, do a strip dance for us, and do it slowly. Or the kids get it.”
Diana’s face flushed with humiliation, but she knew there was nothing she could do until help arrived. There was the Justice League communicator secreted near her belt, though, and if she could get to it…
“Oh, and one more thing.” The man said, “We’ve installed a radio jammer here, so no hanky panky to your JLA pals.” That dashed her last hopes.
Unable to fly or use her powers, threatened by the deaths of innocents, Diana steeled herself for the inevitable.
The Amazing Amazon shuffled around awkwardly, not having any experience with this sort of thing at all, despite having watched a few sequences on television that was almost, but not quite, the same. Her movements, normally graceful and smooth, became jerky and uncoordinated, not just because of her unfamiliarity, but also due to the drugs and poisons coursing through her body.
The men jeered and cheered as she danced around, as several cameras recorded her every action. Her face had by now resumed its normal color, because Diana would not give them the satisfaction of knowing how deeply this was hurting her.
She pranced around uncomfortably for another ten seconds, before the man yelled out, “Start stripping, now!”
Cursing under her breath, Diana reached up for her tiara, before she was stopped again. “Playing us for fools, eh, bitch? Start with your metal breastplate!”
Having no choice, she reached for the breastplate, pulling it off her red bustier. The commandos laughed.
The next few minutes were filled with shame and humiliation, as she was slowly instructed to take off her uniform. Then, she was left in the middle of the storage room, naked except for her tiara, bracelets, and boots. She used her arms to cover her naked torso, bringing forth even more laughter from the evil men.
Then another commando walked over, and pushed her to the floor. She tried to fight back, but her sluggish reflexes failed to make any impression. She was slammed to the ground, and Diana felt a needle in her arm.
“Something to keep you weak. Insurance. Also, there’s extra stuff in the soup this time.” The man grinned. “There’s an aphrodisiac in there. You’re going to prove to the entire world what a slut you are.”
Diana started to scream in rage and fear, but a hand slapped away the sound. This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening to me! The mantra ran in her mind, as she felt the first tinges of arousal. Her bare nipples started to stand up straight, while her skin grew warm. She could feel the touches all over her skin, and she moaned in despair at her fate. Her willpower was being beaten down rapidly by the stimulation from the drugs, and she could not hold out much longer.
“Please… stop…” She murmured, trying half heartedly to break away from the commandos holding her. They were all naked below their waists, and that only meant one thing. “Hera… help… me!” She mouthed breathlessly.
The man announced grandly, “Showtime.”
Tom Serra stopped the bike about two blocks away from his destination. He took out his weapons, and inspected them one last time. Several knives, a shotgun, a Desert Eagle, and a M4 carbine. He wished he had a silencer as well, but none of the commandos at the orphanage had one.
He advanced slowly to the empty warehouse by the harbor, his senses alert for sentries. Keeping his weapons under a long overcoat, he walked unsteadily to the warehouse, acting the part of the stumbling drunk. He looked the part anyway.
“Hey! You there!” Sure enough, a commando had spotted him. The commando had his mask off, but Tom could discern the armor vest under the man’s jacket.
Tom glanced the commando’s way, taking note of the presence of other sentries. No others about. Good.
He stumbled around a bit more, and replied in a slurred voice, “Hey man, just passing through. Got some change to spare?” That last part was added in a half pleading tone. Well, if he had wanted to act the part of the beggar and juicehead, he might as well go all the way.
“No, no change for you, stinky. Go away, man, or I’ll make you regret it!” The commando raised one fist, and Tom seized the opportunity. He staggered as though he was going to fall towards the sentry, but one hand reached under his coat for a knife. The man took a step backwards to avoid getting pushed down by his fall, but was totally unprepared for the knife which sliced into his throat.
Tom quickly searched the sentry, looking up to check for any additional sentries which might have come across him and the incident. He came up with a P228 Sig Sauer and a silencer for the pistol, which he took gratefully. He dragged the corpse to a nearby corner, and threw several nearby rubbish bags onto the body to hide it.
Creeping slowly to a door, Tom opened the door a crack, then slid through the crack. He closed it slowly, careful not to make any sound that might alert the commandos to his presence. At least, not until he felt the time was right.
He found himself inside a small storage room, with another door leading deeper into the warehouse. He walked to near the door, and placed an ear against the door. He heard footsteps, walking towards him.
Tom quickly placed himself beside the doorway such that the door would block the person entering from seeing him.
The commando walked through without a care, humming to himself. Serra took a slight risk, checking behind the commando to make sure that there was nobody behind him, then ghosted behind the man, with his knife against the man’s throat in a split second. “Chill, man,” Tom ordered, one hand with the knife, and another on the man’s mouth. “Or I cut you apart.”
The commando froze in place. Tom made sure his knife was pressed hard against the man’s throat, hard enough to leave a thin trail of blood, but not enough to kill.
“Don’t shout, or do anything stupid, and I might just let you live through this. Capish?” The man nodded numbly.
“Good.” Tom lifted his hand away from the other man’s mouth, and grabbed onto one of the man’s wrists. “Now I want you to answer some questions for me, and I want my answers whispered back, or you’ll get it. Also, I can tell if you’re lying by your heartbeat, so don’t try anything funny.”
That last part was an outright lie, but Tom had used the same trick dozens of times before, and it had worked every time. Simply put, they just couldn’t know if he was indeed telling the truth. He hoped it would work one more time.
“Now, where are the kids you took from the orphanage?”
“They’re in the basement.”
“How do I get there? How many guards?”
The commando answered him, and Tom prayed that the man was not lying.
Then he asked where Wonder Woman was.
“In the main storage room.”
“How many men?”
“More than twenty. There’s no way you’re going to get them all.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Tom let go of the man’s wrist, and used his free hand to pinch a nerve on the man’s neck. The commando fell to the floor. Then Serra fired one round from the pistol with the silencer through the man’s forehead.
Better safe than sorry, Tom thought coldly as he dumped the man’s body into a crate in the storage room to hide it. And if you were lying to me, here’s my revenge in advance.
They had Wonder Woman naked on the ground, and Gus Dekman was enjoying the sight of the amazon clutching at the men around her. It was a shameful display for the stuck up and haughty Princess of the Amazons, and best of all, every minute of it was being caught on film. Film which would be edited and then sold all over the world, making him and his men rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Not for the first time, he thought about the client who had hired him to organize this ‘event’. The client had offered a huge sum of money for the job, and had even been kind enough to allow them to take all the proceeds from the underground video sales of Wonder Woman’s humiliation for themselves. It was pure profit, and Gus had been suspicious of the whole deal.
If he wasn’t mistaken, he believed the client was less out for the prestige and novelty than for the chance to humiliate the world’s most powerful and beautiful superheroine. The way the whole thing was conducted led him to believe that it was an act of a jealous woman.
And the list of women with that kind of dough was rather short. He was almost certain he knew who the client was, and he planned to blackmail her with that information when the time was right. It was a dog eat dog world, after all, and Gus planned to milk this opportunity for all it was worth. Of course, he also planned to milk Wonder Woman for all she was worth first. And then he and his men would be set for life.
The Champion of Justice was now being forced to rub her body against the stiffened cocks of his men, even as they sprayed her body with semen. Gus had ordered them to take it slowly. According to the client’s orders, the amazon was to be defiled bit by bit. First her flawless body, then her mouth. Then her anus, and then finally her virgin pussy. The drugs and the stimulation were designed to drive her mad with desire, and to make her come across on the video as a slut. Not Wonder Woman, but rather Wonder Whore.
And what a slut she is proving to be, Gus watched admiringly as he saw her cavort around with his men, her graceful hands wrapping around their genitals, her generous breasts shaking with desire as they tit-fucked her over and over again in an unprecedented orgy of pleasure. Many of his men were experts at this, from frequent whoring and visits to prostitutes. And Gus had given them firm orders, to prevent the amazon from achieving orgasm too quickly.
So just before Wonder Woman could orgasm, they suddenly withdrew, leaving her screaming for their touch, their hands on her body, not caring how that sounded and looked like on the cameras. Dragging her soaked and cum stained body in the ground, pleading after his men, seeming not at all like the formidable superheroine they had seen all too often battling evil on TV, but rather just another sex-crazed whore.
“Please, I must have… more! Please… Oh Hera, it feels so good! I want more… Why did you stop… Ohhh gods…” Gus could feel his own cock rising despite his iron control. Her pleading was that intense.
How the mighty have fallen, Gus mused, even as he gave the signal for his men to hang back while another dose of the drug cocktail was administered to the fallen heroine, who had slumped over with her long silky hair covering the front of her face as she wailed on the ground in frustration. He took the time to pick up a mobile phone, and tried to call the men at the orphanage. Taking care of business there should not be such a problem, but none of them had reported in yet, which worried Gus slightly.
He made his men wait another minute, in which Wonder Woman’s cries of arousal became even more urgent. She was still too weak to stand, but she was able to crawl around on the ground, her strong-looking and muscular limbs, especially her long legs, accentuating her sexuality as she squirmed.
Then he ordered them to move in. This time one of them jabbed his penis in between her luscious lips. Wonder Woman was soon sucking him, then his comrades, even as she rubbed her firm body against theirs, trying to bring herself off. Gus was looking forward to the finale already. Now, who should he pick to pop her cherry? Or would he do the honors himself?
A sudden gunshot made everybody except Wonder Woman stop in their tracks.
Shit, shit, shit! Tom cursed as he frantically freed the wailing children from their bonds with his knife. One of the commandos guarding the children had managed to get a shot off despite his best efforts.
There had been five guards on the kids, and he had lured two of them away, waylaying them in a swift, silent ambush. Then the other three were about to call for additional help to look for their missing comrades, which had forced his hand. He had gone in and taken two of them out immediately, one with a knife to the throat and a round from his silenced Sig Sauer to the forehead of another, but the split second he needed to aim his pistol at the last target had enabled the commando to get a shot off. Doubtless the other commandos would be running and gunning for him now, and the camera he had found in one corner told him the rest.
“Mister Sirra?” One of the kids asked through her tears and fright. It was young Amanda. No surprise they knew him. He sometimes worked in the orphanage to clear up garbage or to rake the grounds, odd jobs which the orphanage didn’t have the money to hire a permanent staff for.
“Yes, Amanda?” He said as she, and the other two boys with her, began to cry again. Not knowing why he did so, he quickly gathered them into his arms for a quick hug. Their cries subsided into sniffles, comforted by the reassuring arms of an adult around them, telling them that all was well.
Serra drew away from them, and looked over each of them carefully. No marks, no visible injury. Good, those bastards didn’t hurt them. The mental scars will take longer to heal, but kids are resilient.
At least they didn’t go through what he had been
through. Nobody deserved that, and Tom felt a surge of anger at the thought of
those commandos depriving these kids of even a moment’s happiness in their
youth. I never had a real childhood
myself, and I’ll never let anyone suffer as I did. These fuckers are going to
pay.
“Mister,” it was Amanda again, even as he tried to figure a way to get the children out safely. “You smell. Bad.” She waved a dainty hand back and forth in front of her nose, driving away his stench away from her, for emphasis.
Tom rolled his eyes. Trust kids to say the most outrageous things at the worst times.
“Go, go, go!” Gus yelled at his men as they scrambled to get their pants back on. Wonder Woman was secured with ropes, and injected with yet another dose of the drug cocktail, this time without the aphrodisiac. She was being carried by two of his men, and they were heading to the ship Gus had arranged to be docked near the warehouse.
The plan had called for them to perform
whatever they had to do with Wonder Woman in the warehouse first, then bring her aboard the ship, where they would transport
her to some other country and then sell her, perhaps to some
He didn’t know how many attackers there were, or how good they were, but he did know that any force capable of getting 5 of his men with only one man able to get a shot off was worthy of respect and not a little fear.
Wonder Woman’s golden lasso of truth was in his hands, and Gus tucked it away in a small bag, while he hefted his AK47. He started moving for the ship, while his men covered the retreat. They would have to find some other way to keep Wonder Woman under their control, but they would have to move now before she could be rescued.
Within minutes, he was aboard the ship, and they were preparing to depart.
Tom peeked around the corner, then moved forward with the children following close behind him with a gesture. He was leading them out of the warehouse to a nearby street, where they could hide out until the police arrived.
The movement of men and dim lights from the warehouse to a ship told him all he needed to know, but in the meantime the children’s safety was his highest priority. He would need to go back for that ‘Wonder Woman’, but as far as he was concerned, the kids came first.
They managed to reach a dumpster in a dark alley without problems, and Tom leaned down to them. “Now, stay here quietly and wait for the police. Understand?”
They nodded, but he could see that they were on the verge of tears again. He gave them one more hug, just to give them strength to carry them through, even though he had no courage of his own. After all, what use is courage to a man who considers himself dead?
As he disentangled himself from the jungle of their arms and legs, Amanda asked him, “Is Wonder Woman going to be all right?”
Serra froze. Young Amanda’s voice was so full of hope, so innocent. He remembered passing by the bunk she shared with several other girls, and that they had posters of this Wonder Woman over the walls. He remembered vaguely that for the past few days, many of the kids had been extremely happy and obedient. He realized now that it was this Wonder Woman who had made them happy. She had given them something to strive for, the ideal of a better future.
It was something special, and that probably made her special too. Tom still didn’t know who exactly this Wonder Woman was, but if Amanda and the other kids looked up to her so much, and those damn commandos wanted her brought down, then he would do his utmost to bring her to safety. For the kids, he told himself.
“Mister Sirra?”
“I know, Amanda. Don’t worry, Wonder Woman’s going to be all right.” She held out her right hand, and poked out her little finger, “Promise on it?”
He sighed, and used his own little finger to curl round hers. “Promise. I’ve to go now. Remember what I said.”
Then he was off again, moving silently in the night.
Diana slowly felt the effects of the aphrodisiac wear off until she could control the urges, and she shook her head, even as the memories of what she had done flooded into her mind. She bit back a bitter curse. The men had humiliated her and taken advantage of her body, defiling her mouth with their perverted desires. She had to consider herself lucky that they had not taken away her virginity.
But the other drugs were still in effect, and Wonder Woman was still unable to break free from her bonds, now tied into a chair and gagged with a piece of cloth. Furthermore, she was being watched over by two of the black clad commandos in the small cabin, one with a syringe ready to keep her weak and under control. She could see that they were tense, and it was then that she remembered the gunshot.
Somebody
has rescued the kids, Diana deduced from the fact they had stopped their
molestation of her, and the tension in their bodies. Good, that means I don’t have to hold back when I finally recover a
portion of my strength. Her eyes burned with rage as she imagined herself
punishing the men for their abuse and rape of her body. They had put her
uniform back on, but it sat uncomfortably on her body, and the semen of the men
still coated her skin, making it crawl. The aphrodisiac had not burned off
completely, and it took all her willpower to keep it under control.
Then there was more gunfire in the distance. More yells, more screams.
What is going on out there? she thought. It sounds like all hell is breaking loose.
Tom rampaged through the commandos in his path as he stormed through the warehouse. There was no need for stealth now; they knew there were intruders, and were actively searching for him. That was fine by him. Finding him was a death warrant for them.
He had already slaughtered more than ten commandos when he came across the storage area where Wonder Woman had been abused. He saw the fluids on the ground, and a strange rage came over him, mingling with his building bloodlust. Then he saw the cameras.
They
raped her, he realized. They raped
her and taped it all down. These are not men. They are beasts. A look of
deadly seriousness came over his face.
And I have no trouble at all killing beasts, for it takes beasts to kill beasts.
He grinned, and anyone would have been frightened by the twisted form of
his mouth.
He could hear the sound of running boots, growing louder, indicating that they were headed towards him. He raised his M4, and opened fire just as the commandos burst through the door.
“You mean to tell me they were all killed by one man?” Gus demanded of his second of command, who was shaking with fear. “What sort of bullshit is this? Rambo?”
“Boss, this is no joke. The boys are pulling back. They say this guys fights like the devil. They say he’ll eat Rambo for breakfast.”
Gus gritted his teeth, “So you’re telling me we should get away?”
“Yes, boss. We don’t have to fight this fellow if we can help it. Let’s haul anchor, and get to somewhere else on the coast with the bitch.”
“The tapes?”
“We have them already. But the cameras…”
Gus waved it off, “No big deal. As long as we have Wonder Woman, anything else is possible. Pull the boys back, all of them. I don’t think anything of them will want to fight now anyway.”
By the time Tom managed to fight his way through the warehouse, he was tiring fast, both from sheer physical exhaustion and minor wounds he had taken. Despite his best efforts, he had been grazed by many near misses, and the overall blood loss was making him more than a bit light headed.
His lack of physical conditioning over the past year made it even worse, but Serra forced himself to keep going. I promised Amanda I’ll rescue Wonder Woman.
He stumbled out of the warehouse to the attached pier, only to see the cargo ship just streaming away. Tom started to run forward down the pier, throwing away most of his guns and taking off his jacket and shoes, leaving only a knife clutched between his teeth, a pistol tucked in his pants, and a grenade. He dived into the ice cold water.
The ship was pulling away, but Tom propelled himself forward with desperate strokes of his arms and legs, spurred on by his promise and the chilling knowledge of what the commandos might do to their captive.
He was almost to the ship when a commando spotted him, opening fire with his MP5. Tom paused in his swimming to throw the grenade, which flung the commando off the ship into the water with its dull explosion.
He managed to catch up with the slow moving ship, one arm snagging a low hanging rope, his other hand coming up with the pistol to drop another commando on the deck. He swung himself up onto the deck with nimble footwork on the ropes, then snatched up the man’s shotgun. He spun around in time to smash two salvos of buckshot into another attacker. He advanced forward, blazing away. In the close confines of the ship, there was little room for evasion and dodging. Whoever shot first would get the kill.
The battle continued.
The sounds of gunfire grew louder, and Diana could see her two guards growing ever more anxious. She could also feel the strength slowly returning to her limbs. It wasn’t much, but even the ability to function at mortal levels would be a relief.
One of the guards glanced at his watch, then at her. She stared at him with anger as he walked over, obviously to administer another dose of that hated drug, when the door burst open. Both men spun to face the door, their guns raised. The syringe with the drugs was forgotten, dropped onto the ground.
They saw a black commando standing by the door, but then they all realized that the man was already dead from the dozens of bullet holes leaking blood over his body.
A gun poked out from under then commando’s right shoulder, and barked once, twice. Her guards collapsed onto the ground with bullet holes right in their heads, blood pooling rapidly on the cabin floor. The black commando in the doorway was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, allowing Diana to have her first good look at her rescuer in the dim light of the cabin.
The man staggered into the cabin, breathing hard. His unkempt beard and hair were slick with seawater, but the most striking feature about him were his blue eyes. Diana had never seen eyes like his. They looked dull and dead on first sight, but burned with a strange fire upon closer observation. His body didn’t look strong, like that of a typical superhero, but she sensed an inner strength within him that lay dormant, as well as a hint of something dark and terrifying. His strong jaw and mournful turn of his mouth gave the impression of a man who had been beaten down again and again by fate, and had little inclination to fight back any more.
She ignored the sexual sensations that threatened to overcome her in the presence of this male, and struggled against her ropes. The man complied, cutting her loose. She rubbed her sore wrists after removing the horrible gag from her mouth, allowing her to speak, “Thank you for your help. I am most grateful. Are the children safe?” She noticed that he smelt very bad. He probably had not bathed in months. Who is this man? she wondered. His stench drove away any thoughts of sex she had, which was a good thing, she supposed.
The man answered, “I left them in an alley, and told them to wait for the police. They should be fine.”
She nodded gratefully, then looked at the corpses before her. “Still, you should not have killed these men.”
She turned her gaze back at the man, only to be surprised by the look of sheer disbelief on his face.
“Not killed them?” He asked her, his tone incredulous. “How the fuck did you expect me to rescue you then? By shooting them in their wrists and condemning them to a slow death as they bleed to hell without medical attention?”
“Look, I was just…”
“Forget it.” His tone was harsh, like sandpaper grating. Behind it, she could hear only despair and death, as though the man no longer cared if he lived or died. “We’ve to get off. There’s a lifeboat about 5 meters towards the stern, starboard side. Come on.”
“No.” She stopped him as he was about to leave. “I’ve to get my lasso of truth back.”
“What?” He seemed surprised.
“It’s a gift from the gods.” She was surprised that he did not seem to recognize her or the lasso of truth. Was this guy stuck in a cave for the last few years?
He sighed, “Okay then. Follow me closely.”
“Try not to kill any more of the men.”
He looked at her again, and Diana was suddenly chilled by his eyes. They were the eyes of a corpse. “I’ll try, but no promises.”
But there was one more thing she wanted to know. “Who are you?”
His voice was bitter as he responded cryptically. “91.”
Tom blazed away, with Wonder Woman behind him. She was still weak from the drugs they had pumped into her system, so he made her hang back in relative safety. She had insisted on coming along, which he had protested to no avail.
He did not know why he was even obeying her request not to kill any more of those shitty commandos. It was stupid, sentimental, silly. This was the sort of thing which made killers slip up, lose their edge, got them killed. But he didn’t care about his own life or death. Or did he? He drove the distracting thoughts away.
He aimed for their wrists now, disabling them and preventing them from fighting on. It was far more difficult to hit a man in both places than it is to place a single shot in his forehead, but Tom pushed himself anyway. It was just another challenge, an impossible one. The type which was thrown to him as a gauntlet when he was young, and he would accomplish it anyway just to spite his handlers.
They were almost to the bridge when there was a series of massive explosions on the ship, throwing them violently to the side of the passageway they were in. Then there were more explosions. He realized the explosions were getting closer.
“Come on!” He yelled as he started sprinting forward despite his fatigue. She followed him easily. He guessed that she had recovered more of her strength. Still wasn’t enough to help in a fight though. Not that he needed any help. He tried not to think of the hurt and disabled commandos on the ship. His efforts to spare them death was all wasted.
They burst onto the bridge, and Serra stopped himself from shooting in time.
The whole place was wired with explosives.
“Well, well, well, looks like Rambo here has managed to save the damsel in distress.” One of them, obviously the leader stepped forward. His two remaining men hung back, with guns pointed at Serra and Wonder Woman. The leader held some sort of blinking remote in his hands.
Tom noted that the one of the guns leveled at
him was a tranq gun. Not powerful enough to set off
the explosives, but useful for this sort of situation. The gun in the other
man’s hands, though, would certainly set off the explosive crates in the room. If
only Wonder Woman had not come along, he would had no
problems getting the job done. Even if he had to die to do
it. These men were desperate, or they would not have resorted to such a
move.
The leader continued, “But as you can see, all you’ve done is to drive up my profit margin. Shoot at my men, and one wrong move makes everything go boom. So put away your guns, Rambo. See this?” the leader waved the flashing remote in his hands. “I’ve started a countdown. In three minutes this whole place will blow up. Either that or I can blow everything up with another press of the button. Only way out is for Wonder Woman to submit to us, and I can stop everything.”
“I’m not Rambo. And you forget the third option.” Tom said, moving sideways as the leader and his men shifted position to keep him within their sights. Then he flung both of his guns at the commandos, distracting them for the instant he needed to close in with the commando holding the gun with normal rounds.
Everything blurred into motion in that instant. The commando with the tranq gun fired, not at him but at Wonder Woman, even as she dove to one side to avoid the rounds. The other commando threw aside his gun, running forward and lashing out with a kick towards Serra. The leader headed for Wonder Woman.
Diana had managed to dodge the tranquilizer darts, but she was still fighting off the effects of the drugs coursing through her system. Her limbs felt weak, but she knew that she was currently at the strength level of a normal human female.
That should be enough for her though. She was trained in the Amazon ways of war, which included unarmed combat. She was the finest warrior of the Amazon nation, with or without her powers, and she intended to show this proud male just what that meant.
After just the first two seconds, when he had easily parried her blows, she began to doubt the feasibility of her actions.
“Think I’m easy meat, eh?” the leader taunted as he pummeled her cruelly, “Did I mention that I’ve gone up against Lady Shiva before? Sure, she beat me to within an inch of my life every time, but the lessons I paid her for were more than worth it.”
The amazon screamed as he managed to slide a vicious blow past her defenses against her groin, as he continued talking. She resisted the urge to hold her hurt genitals, but the pain was distracting her, and she was unable to fight back effectively.
“You’re nothing without your powers, just like most of them superheros. Take you off your pedestal, and you’re nothing than a big breasted bitch.” He took advantage of her faltering concentration as he hit her on several of her nerve clusters, sending terrible jolts of pain through her body,
He finished her off with a powerful blow to her head. Diana lost all sensation to her body as she felt darkness crowding in on her, but she managed to hang on through the pain.
Then she felt the commando holding her in front of him, and cold steel on her neck.
The commando fighting him was skilled, but Tom was in no mood for play. He responded with a vicious set of moves that ended with the commando being incapacitated in three seconds.
Then he was set upon by the other commando. It didn’t take long for him to knock him unconscious either.
“And your third option wasn’t too bad, but I still have all the cards.” The words made him spin around, to face the leader. Serra cursed as he saw Wonder Woman, bruised and battered, in the leader’s arms. He had one gun at her throat, and Serra remained calm as he watched the man slowly use the gun barrel to caress her face. She jerked weakly away from him.
Serra said disgustedly, “You get your kicks by hurting defenseless women? Asshole.”
“Defenseless? I think not. She thought herself a pretty good fighter, and she was, but compared to me, she’s still nothing.” The man looked over at his men, down and out on the floor. “And I thought my men would do a better job against a shitty beggar like you.”
“Apparently they weren’t as good as you thought they were.”
“No matter. You’re about to die anyway.” The leader aimed his gun at Serra. “But I’d like to know one thing. Just who the hell are you? I’d like to know if I should contact any next of kin.”
Serra forced himself to relax on the outside, while gathering his strength and focus for what he was going to do next. “Just a nobody. No family, no friends.” He found himself staring into the woman’s eyes, and he saw realization come over her as she shook her head slowly and mouthed the word “No”.
This is it. Tom thought, feeling very calm. The end of my poor, misbegotten life. At least, at the very least, I’ve made it worth something at the end.
“Fine, Mister Nobody. Then nobody will mourn your death,” the commando leader started to press his trigger, and Serra sprang into action. The gun roared as he moved to his left.
The bullet ripped into his right side, and Tom ignored the pain, letting the anger fuel him in his final attack. The leader threw Wonder Woman away from him in order to better defend himself, and Tom took that instant to flick his knife at the leader, who dodged in time, but was left with a gash across his cheek.
“Damn you!” The commando leader yelled, kicking back at Serra. Serra dodged low, and the battle was on.
Diana picked herself up painfully from the ground, turning her head round to see the two men fighting ferociously. The commando leader was extremely skilled, while the stranger was wounded and barely holding his own.
“Get your lasso and go, now!” the man who had rescued her yelled. “Move it, dammit!”
The leader laughed, “Yes, go now! Leave like the cowardly bitch you are!”
Diana staggered forward. She found her lasso of truth in a small bag near the steering wheel. Then she looked at the two men, and saw the leader smashing the stranger’s head savagely against the floor. The leader took out another knife and stabbed down, but the stranger just managed to get his hand in the way, pushing back but losing slowly.
“Go, now!” He yelled again as he somehow pushed the leader off. “There’s less than a minute left till the ship blows! I’d hold him off! You got the bloody lasso, so go now!”
She knew she wasn’t the leader’s match, not at this time, with her still weakened from the drugs. There was nothing she could do to change the outcome of the battle with the amount of time left. But her amazon heart quailed at the thought of leaving a comrade to die…
The stranger grunted as the leader landed a blow on his injured side, but continued blocking the leader’s way to Diana. Then he yelled again, “GO!” The scream was a plea, a request, and an order, all rolled into one.
Diana ran out of the bridge, tears in her eyes. There was nothing she could do. She could feel more of her strength returning, so she dove straight into the water, then swam as fast as she could for the shore.
Moments later, the ship died in a glare of brilliant red and orange explosions.
“Is there anything else, Ma’am?” The police officer asked politely.
“No.” She answered numbly. A man had died for her. And she still didn’t know his real name.
“Wonder Woman?” One of the captured kids, a girl, ran up to her. Diana embraced her in a welcome hug.
“You’re safe! Mister Sirra kept his promise!”
“Mister Sirra?” Diana asked, not quite comprehending.
“Yeah, Mister Sirra. Old Stinko himself. Coz Mildred says he smells bad all the time. He promised me he’ll rescue you!”
Diana smiled sadly, “Yes, he did.”
The girl craned her neck to look around, “But where is Mister Sirra?”
Diana clutched the girl tighter to herself, sobbing silently, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But your Mister Sirra isn’t coming back.”
She did not know why she was crying, but her heart was torn for a man who had been willing to make a promise to a little girl, and died to fulfill it.
He staggered, his right hand supporting himself against the wall, his left hand trying to staunch the bleeding in his right side.
He walked slowly and tiredly along the desolate alley, slumping against the wall for support the whole while, leaving a long trail of thin blood behind him. He wondered if he should have just allowed himself to sink to the bottom of the harbor when the ship exploded. Why had he swam for the surface? For more punishment? More pain? For what, exactly?
Then he felt a hot flash of anger. Oh yes, he finally remembered what was keeping him alive and fighting. He still had the illusion of vengeance in the future. It had given him that final burst of strength that drove the leader’s dagger into his own throat. He had ran out of the bridge in time and dived into the water as the ship exploded all around him. An illusion is all that made me want to stay alive, and I won’t be alive much longer anyway now that I want to. I am such a fucking joke.
He was unlikely to survive the night. He was freezing,
and he had lost most of his clothes when he had dived into the harbor, with
only an old T-shirt that had more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese, and an
equally tattered pair of pants. He was bleeding badly, and blood loss was
sapping all his energy. Hunger and thirst had also caught up with him at last,
and he wanted to just give up and die. No friends, no hope, no future.
Then he sensed a presence in the alley with him. It was an amorphous sensation, crowding his senses, making them scream out in alarm. He closed his eyes, trying to place it… there!
His left hand came up with a pistol as he spun around painfully to face the presence, his sights centered on a tall man in dark and expensive looking clothes. The man’s eyes glowed red with power.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, fighting off the waves of dizziness that took the opportunity to hit his mind at that moment. He was on his last legs, and he knew the man with menacing red eyes knew it too.
The man smiled, “I am Ares, and I wish to
obtain your services.” Ares raised a finger at him, and Tom Serra knew no more
as he was knocked unconscious with an invisible force, bleeding to death in the
lonely alley.