"Sign my book!" "No, sign MINE!" "You're pretty, Supergirl!" "Will you be my mommy?" a horde of high-pitched voices shouts at the young Kryptonian.

"Please ... wait, one at a time!" the exasperated heroine begs, as the mob of six year old children presses against her luscious body. "I'll sign everyone's copy of Supergirl's Adventures, just give me a second!"

The Girl of Steel had agreed to come to this special Amazon.com book signing party when told that proceeds of book sales would go to research in childhood diseases. She didn't think so many young kids would be a problem ... When the fifty or so children were admitted to the ballroom, they squealed with delight at the sight of the blue and red clad heroine and rushed her, inexorably pushing the young Maid of Might against one wall as their parents looked on, half in pride of their demon spawn, half in awe of the Kryptonian's lithe figure.

As the youngsters press against the Maid of Might, she can feel their small hands running across her soft body, feeling her thighs, her skirt, even her taut belly, exploring in childlike fascination all of her within their reach. Desperately, she takes books from their hands and quickly signs "Your friend, Supergirl" in each book held aloft by the small hands.

The distracted Maid of Might doesn't feel one little hand reach behind her to press something against the inside of her skirt, just below her curvaceous butt. As the small hand presses his hand, holding a small circular pad, against her red skirt, the pad's adhesive surface quickly bonds to the skirt, hidden from all prying eyes. His task done, the midget slowly eases back into the throng of children, to work his way out of the ballroom.

Eventually, Supergirl completes the book signings, poses for pictures, and exchanges pleasantries with doting parents. As the parents and children leave the ballroom, the Girl of Steel turns to the organizers, Dr. Kerber and his tall, attractive assistant. "Well, I'm glad THAT's over," she gushes. "I almost think I'd rather face a raging alien monster before going through that again!" she says, smiling sincerely.

"We've had a great start to the Supergirl Fund for Research in Childhood Diseases, Supergirl," Diana Pierce says to the Maid of Might. "We can't thank you enough for coming to this first signing. With your example, and with the 2,000 other books you've signed for us, we'll surely raise a considerable sum of money for research," Kerber's assistant states.

"Well, if we're finished here, I'd like to leave, now," Supergirl says. "I need to begin my nightly patrol of Leesburg."

As the scientist and his attractive assistant escort the Girl of Steel through the hotel to the entrance, they talk about their facility outside Leesburg and the research being conducted there. "If you get a chance, Supergirl," Dr. Kerber says, insolently grasping the heroine's blue clad forearm in his hand, "we'd like you to stop by the facility some time to sign some more books for us to sell over eBay.com."

"Mmm, yes ... okay, I'll, uh, try to get there tomorrow," Supergirl replies, slightly affronted by the feel of the chubby doctor's hand on her arm. As they leave the hotel lobby, Supergirl turns to the doctor and adds, "Well, I'd better get to work!"

With an almost effortless leap upward, the Maid of Might swiftly soars into the late afternoon sky, heading toward downtown Leesburg. Kerber and Pierce look at each other briefly, watching her fly off. As Supergirl's figure begins to disappear in the distance, Kerber pulls a small plastic box from his finger, aims it at the distant heroine, and presses the single button on it. The Girl of Steel doesn't even hear the small *pop* as the patch on her skirt explosively discharges the lead lined cover of the part facing her body.

As Supergirl heads toward town, she feels a brief queasiness - very minor, almost unnoticeable, in fact - and wonders what caused it.  However, almost as soon as the feeling occurs, it fades away, so Supergirl turns her thoughts and attention to patrolling Leesburg.

"Do you think it worked?" Diana asks Dr. Kerber.

"There can be no doubt, my dear," Kerber replies. "We tested and retested this patch and it worked at a 10 mile range. I only hope that the small shard of Kryptonite bonded to the patch doesn't become too apparent to her. At least, not until we're ready for her. Is everything else set?"

"Yes, Doctor," Diana replies. "The men reported to me just before the signing that all had been set in motion. And here's Jerry!" she says, as the midget walks from the bushes to join them.

"Let's get back to our lab," Kerber orders. "We must be there when she arrives."

*  *  *  *  *

Police sirens scream in the city below the Girl of Steel as she flies above. Scanning ahead of the racing cop cars, she sees an armored car driving recklessly through the city, swerving around the late-rush hour traffic and heading toward the warehouse area. "This looks like a job ..." Supergirl says, smirking, as she dives toward the racing car.

Supergirl quickly closes the distance and soon is flying at street level just above and behind the armored car. A quick scan of the car shows three men inside, a driver and two in the back. None wear the uniform of the security firm which owns the car. She watches as one man opens a box and extracts a short tube from within. The man pulls off a tab at one end and extends the tube as the other throws open a back door of the vehicle. Before Supergirl can react, the first man kneels in the doorway and aims the tube at her. Instantly, a small rocket flies from the light anti-tank weapon and slams into her face, its armor piercing round exploding in a flash of light and a clap of thunder.

"Unh," Supergirl grunts as the round hits her, blowing her off track and into a nearby building. She's unhurt, of course, but ashamed that she was unable to react quickly enough to avoid the blast. "At least no one else was hurt," she thinks, swiftly getting back on course after the car. Once again, a brief feeling of queasiness washes over her magnificent body, causing her dip ever so slightly in her flight path. The feeling passes almost at once.

In mere seconds, the Maid of Might again approaches the rear of the speeding vehicle just as the men inside close the heavy metal door. The Girl of Steel wastes no time on these thugs - she reaches under the rear end of the vehicle and her powerful hands grasp the rear bumper as her red boots touch the pavement.

As the car continues to race ahead, the pavement under her boots throws up shrapnel like chunks of asphalt. Exerting her powerful muscles, she slowly lifts the rear end of the armored car off the street as her feet, like brakes, bringing the car quickly to a halt.

Holding the rear end of the car in the air, its rear wheels spinning uselessly, she halts the car even though the front wheels continue to churn, vainly trying to make progress away from the costumed heroine.

Supergirl shifts her hands slightly as she walks slowly forward, sliding her hands toward the front of the vehicle's undercarriage. Slowly, the rear of the heavy metal car rises and soon even the front wheels lift off the pavement. The Maid of Might stands under the now-trapped armored car, held aloft by her two powerful arms.

"I think you might want to surrender now," she says in a loud voice. As police cars approach, stopping about fifteen feet away, the Maid of Might begins to spin the car like a turntable. Faster and faster the heavy car spins until it is almost a blur. As it turns, her heat vision quickly turns each furiously spinning tire into melted slag. She slowly stops spinning the vehicle. A quick scan shows the men in the back of the car are unconscious, lying on the floor of the car. Her rapid spinning had slammed them against the walls of the car, rendering them unconscious.

Supergirl lowers the disabled car to the pavement and steps to the rear of the vehicle. With an effortless tug, she rips the door off the vehicle and tosses it to the pavement. "They're all yours!" she yells cheerfully at the approaching cops.

As the cops near her, Supergirl's keen super hearing overhears a police radio: "all units, proceed to 8th and G streets at once! Report of a bomb in a health club!"

"Gotta run!" Supergirl says, leaping into the air before the cops can even thank her for her help. A heroine can't wait around for rewards or a "thank you" when danger is at hand! "Hmm," Supergirl thinks, massaging her left bicep with her right hand, "my arms feel funny, for some reason. That couldn't have been THAT heavy!"

Seconds later, the blue-and-red-clad figure alights and is astonished when she briefly stumbles upon landing. Again, there is a vague and slight sense of weakness washing over her magnificent super-body, but it ends quickly and is easily forgotten in the impending crisis. Entering the health club, she quickly wends her way through spandex-clad women fleeing the club, their tae bo class interrupted by the bomb scare. Supergirl quickly strides into the lobby and notices a single staffer, a woman, dressed in a blue sports bra and skin-tight silver body-suit.

"Thank God you're here, Supergirl!" the woman gushes. "We just got a call that a bomb is going to explode in a few minutes! This is the only gym in town that's for women only. Some pig must have it in for us!"

"Don't worry, miss," Supergirl says in an even voice. "Just leave the building and I'll see if I can find it."

As the last of the other women leaves the building, the Girl of Steel begins roaming the club, her super vision scanning for the bomb. "Great Rao!" she gasps when she sees a 50 gallon drum of Semtex stashed in a locked storeroom. "That's enough to destroy the entire block! I better get it out of here, fast!"

Supergirl races to the storeroom and smashes through the door. As she wraps her blue-clad arms around the barrel, she sees that she has just five seconds before the bomb will explode. Wasting not a moment, the Maid of Might leaps into the air, flying through the club, through the front door, and into the air.  She manages to get several hundred feet into the air when the barrel abruptly explodes with tremendous force.  The blast is so powerful that the Girl of Steel is blown backward, unable to use her power of flight and out of control.  Her body spins madly as she struggles to shake off the effect of the blast and she crashes into the side of a nearby building, smashing through a window on the fifth floor and into an office.

"Mmnnh," Supergirl says, putting a hand to her forehead. "What was IN that thing?" she wonders. "Whatever it was, it sure packed a heck of a punch!" Slowly, the Girl of Steel rises to her feet. A slight sense of dizziness washes over her briefly, then passes. "Unh," she says, swaying slightly on her feet, "that must have been a more powerful blast than I thought!" The dizziness quickly fades, so Supergirl leaps through the broken window and into the air. She is no longer concerned with the odd reaction to that explosion since she so quickly recovered from its effects.

As Supergirl slowly climbs into the now-darkening sky, she hears a long, loud wail of a train whistle on the far side of town. "Gee, that's gonna cause a ruckus," she thinks. "Homeowners won't appreciate all that noise." Supergirl scans the distant train and immediately notices that it's moving fast, very fast. In fact, it's racing toward a heavily populated area! As she turns toward the train, her keen vision sees the crew of the train slumped over the controls, unconscious! Obviously, the train's *dead man* switch has malfunctioned.

"Gotta stop it!" she gasps, putting on a burst of speed as she flies toward the train. Oddly, her acceleration is less than it should be. "I gotta figure out what's wrong with me," Supergirl thinks to herself. "Later!" In seconds, the Girl of Steel is in front of the train, her hands against the front of the engine. She uses her muscles and her flying power in an attempt to slow the on-rushing 80-car train as it enters the posh residential area on the edge of Leesburg.

She quickly notices that there are several cars on the train that contain hazardous materials. "Can't ... can't let the ... train jackknife" she says as she exerts all her strength against the speeding train. Supergirl actually begins to sweat from her exertions as she inexorably overpowers the massive train's momentum. Slowly, too slowly, the train's speed begins to drop as the four-unit engine loses the fight against her unearthly muscles. As Supergirl and the train reach the warehouse area of town, she's slowed its speed to a fast walk, but the wheels are still racing madly, still trying to drive the train forward, through the small woman's body.

"Aaahh ... gotta stop, stop this ... NOW!" she grunts, planting her boots in the roadbed ahead of the train. A few of the wooden sleepers beneath her splinter and shatter as the train pushes her backward. But in moments the train finally slows to a halt even as its wheels continue spinning madly.  The Girl of Steel sweats and strains to hold the train in place, desperately trying to figure how to turn off the motors.  At last, her super-vision shows the crew starting to revive inside the cab.

"Q-quick!" she yells, gasping, "k-kill the ... engine!" Her whole body is shuddering from the incredible energy expenditure required to hold the train in place, her arm and thigh muscles actually twitching from the effort. With relief, she sees one of the men in the cab move groggily toward the controls. With a sigh of relief, she watches the man kill the engine. The wheels slow and the tremendous pressure against her body begins to abate.

As the wheels grind to a halt, Supergirl lowers her arms and is shocked at her body's reaction to this effort. Her arm and leg muscles are still twitching and she's panting, gasping for air. "Th-this doesn't ... doesn't make sense," she says to herself. "What's wrong ... with me?!"

Supergirl starts to step backward away from the train and her over-taxed leg muscles suddenly give out, causing her to trip over a rail and fall to her butt. She continues downward, onto her back. As she lies on the ground, legs straddling the rail, she pants heavily, looking skyward. A slim hand rises to her left breast as her lungs pump air in an out, as her body tries to recover from this exertion.

"Whew!" she gasps. "I ... I never had THAT happen ... before!" she pants.  Once again, a feeling of dizziness sweeps over her powerful body, blurring her vision and making her feel like she wants to retch.

After about a minute, the Maid of Might slowly rises to her feet, again swaying slightly (and longer) when she gets upright. She puts hand to her head in a vain attempt to stop the world spinning before her eyes. Her legs and arms still ache from her powerful exertions.

Wearily, the Girl of Steel leaps into the air and rises barely a hundred feet over the train when she suddenly hears screams and loud crashing noises. In moments she sights a bizarre tableau in a warehouse less than 200 yards away!

Four machines - box-like metal constructs, with treads for movement and three massive arms apiece, have crashed into a building and are now working their way through the warehouse, sending fleeing night shift workers ahead.

"Is there a full moon tonight, or something?" an exhausted Supergirl quips. "Well, here we go again!" she thinks, diving toward the warehouse. She's vaguely aware that she still aches a bit from all the action she's seen tonight, but a heroine can't *take five* when lives are threatened!  She crashes through a sky-light and lands less than a yard before two of the ... robots? Legs spread, hands on her hips, the young woman stands before them like a Chinese resistance fighter in Tienanmin Square confronting a tank column.  She sways slightly and her vision clouds briefly as she confronts the robots. "Hope this doesn't take too long," the Girl of Steel thinks. Her body aches far more than it should!

Supergirl again uses her vision to scan the robots and gasps when she sees that they're lead lined! "This doesn't look good," she thinks as the two nearest robots attack. Each machine has three arms - one atop, one on either side of the boxy body. The center arm has a two foot wide cube on one end, the side arms end with four foot long pincer-like *talons*. Oddly, Supergirl notes that each box has a small rectangular *nameplate* on the front of its box - from left to right the plates say: *Tom*, *Dick*, *Harry*, and *Arnold*.

Dick and Harry, the nearest of the robots, swiftly move against Supergirl. Dick's center arm crashes down on the Maid of Might's head before she can react, and the powerful blow causes the Girl of Steel's knees to bend, ever-so-slightly from the tremendous impact. At the same time, Dick's side arms flash toward her, wrapping around her body, pinning her arms to her side. Harry's side arms grab her legs around her knees at the same instant, and gears inside the thing whine as the arms try to spread her legs apart.

"Hey!" Supergirl says, shaking off the effects of the hammer blow to her head. "What the heck are you guys?" With little effort, she slowly raises her arms away from the side of her body, opening the talons around her torso. As the metal talons groan, vainly trying to resist the heroine's super-muscles, she soon has her arms outstretched and breaks the grip of Dick's metal claws. Before she can do anything else, though, Harry's center arm crashes its heavy hammer on her head as its talons pull her legs out from under her.

The Maid of Might crashes onto her butt from the twin attack. This second hammer blow on the top of her head leaves her eyes briefly unfocused. The depleted-uranium metal cubes on the end of center arms, dented from impacting the girl's head, are somehow having an affect on the mysteriously-weakend Girl of Steel.

Supergirl, still on her butt, reaches toward Harry's arms, hoping to peel them off her legs. As she leans forward, more talons grasp at her as Tom and Arnold wheel around behind her. In seconds, the seated heroine is surrounded and enveloped by the large metal claws of the four robots. Tom's talons have grabbed her left arm and, although unable to pull her arm away from Harry's talons, her arm has stopped moving toward the talons holding her legs. Arnold has the same affect on her right arm.  Supergirl's attempts to pull her arms and legs free from the talons has the treads of the metal boxes grinding the concrete floor of the warehouse into dust as they resist her powerful efforts.

As the grim machines' claws continue to pull her legs and arms in different directions, Dick's talons again grasp the heroine's body, wrapping their powerful clamps around her torso. The metal claws try to crush the girl's chest, squeezing powerfully against her super body.

Suddenly, as if guided by a single intelligence, each machine begins to smash the top of her head with ts central arm. Like a monstrous factory assembly line, the four depleted-uranium cubes smash the top of her head, BAMBAMBAMBAM. After about five cycles of this, Supergirl's vision is beginning to blur from the incredible hammer blows to the top of her head. Her taut buttocks have shattered the concrete floor of the warehouse and she's slowly being pounded into the cement, crumbling it to dust.

As the four machines hammer the dazed heroine and try to pull her apart, a panel on the front of Arnold slowly opens. A small arm telescopes out of the unit, toward the girl on the floor. The thin rod-like structure approaches her unseen.

BAMBAMBAMBAM!

"MMnnnnhh!" Supergirl moans as a familiar weakness washes over her body. "G-green ... Kryp ... Kryptonite," she gasps. Arnold has a small chunk of green k welded onto the end of this fourth arm. The arm stops about two feet away from Supergirl's back, holding the deadly metal perilously close to the heroine. Although Supergirl can't see the green K, she knows it's somewhere near her body - she can feel the insidious waves of pain coursing through her body. "Nn-nnooo!" she moans, closing her eyes briefly.

BAMBAMBAMBAM!

As her strength and consciousness quickly wane, Supergirl realizes that she's in deadly peril. These machines are formidable foes - combined with the green K, they might very well defeat her! Desperately, she focuses her eyes on Dick's central arm and tries to burn it off with a blast of heat vision. The metal glows slightly but the incessant hammer blows cause her head to shake and shudder.  She can't maintain a focus on the arm long enough to burn through the dense metal!

BAMBAMBAMBAM!

After an apparent eternity, the combined assault against Supergirl succeeds. Although held upright by he metal talons, Supergirl's head slumps forward as the machines' powerful arms and the green K rob her of consciousness. The cold metal boxes continue to hammer the top of the girl's head for several more minutes.  Her head bounces left, then right, then forward, her golden hair flying in all directions, as the massive arms batter the top of her head. Finally, the machines stop pounding the beaten heroine.

*  *  *  *  *

"Doctor, I think she's awakening!" Diana Pierce shouts to her boss.

"Mnnh," Supergirl moans, slowly opening her eyes. As she slowly swims back to consciousness, her blurred vision sweeps what she can see of the room. Supergirl lies on her belly on a table or a hospital gurney. The walls are whitewashed, the equipment is sterile metal. The room would not be out of place in a hospital or research establishment. She spots Pierce standing off to one side, several feet away. Pierce is now dressed in a white, one-piece spandex catsuit, tight white leather gauntlets, and knee-high white boots. A white surgical mask covers the lower half of her face. Some kind of spandex hood covers the top of her head, hiding her brown hair from sight.

Supergirl's hands are at her sides, held by some kind of restraint. Supergirl flexes her muscles but is astonished when the metal resists her efforts! Her legs are also pinned together and she can feel bands across her ankles, knees and thighs. Again, her efforts to break the bonds fail. She can also feel wide bands across her buttocks, waist, and the middle of her back.

"Wh-what happen ... happened to me?" Supergirl asks weakly, watching Diana warily. "Where am I?  What do you think you're doing?"

"Ah, so you're with us again?" a male voice booms, its owner unseen by the Maid of Might. Dr. Kerber soon enters her line of vision. "So how do you feel, Supergirl?" The *good doctor* is now dressed in a white suit that partially masks his chubby figure. He too is wearing a white surgical mask and has rubber surgical gloves on his hands.

"I feel like hurting you, Doctor, if you're behind those robots!" a defiant Supergirl spits at the man.  Again she struggles to burst her bonds but again is shocked at her apparent weakness. Her stomach churns slightly - not quite the effect of green k but what ...? "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!" she shrieks, her voice betraying a small loss of control. "What have you done to my powers?!"

"Ah, yes, your powers," Kerber replies, "well, we don't want them to interfere with our little operation now, do we? We've ah, masked your powers, as it were. After we sapped your famous strength, after we wore you out, we brought you here to the Institute.

"This is a very special room, Supergirl," Kerber continues, "built especially for you - you or Superman. the walls, floor and ceiling are lined with two inches of lead shielding. The lighting, as you can see, mimics the rays of a red sun." Supergirl gasps, inhaling sharply as Kerber explains his arrangements. Ignoring her, Kerber continues, "I'm surprised that you were so easy to defeat. All those emergencies you faced yesterday - all those were planned by Diana and myself, to, er, *prepare* you for our robots. To weaken you, that is.

"You've been under the rays of our artificial red sun for over ten hours now, Supergirl," Kerber says, moving closer to the Maid of Might. He puts one hand under her chin to lift her head upward so he can see her eyes. "Soon the cumulative effect of the red sun and the small Kryptonite chip we planted on you will make you so weak, we can begin the operation."

"Op-operation ... K-kryptonite?" the confused heroine says, trying to lift her chin off Kerber's palm. She's still too weak to pull away from the man's chubby paw. "What do ... nnh, do you mean?" Supergirl dimly becomes aware that her body DOES feel remarkably weaker than normal.  Her head feels like it's three times its normal size and aches terribly. "If you ... stop this madness now, I'll see that the courts ... go easy on you," she bluffs. The man must be right about his efforts to weaken her. She feels SOOO tired.

"Oh you will, will you?" Diana sneers, moving to the side of the table, lowering her mask enough so she can grin evilly at the captive heroine. "Why Dr. Kerber, we're sooo lucky to have the famous Supergirl on our side, aren't we?" Supergirl suddenly starts as she feels Diana's gloved hand land lightly on the back of the Maid of Might's thigh, just below the hemline of her short red skirt. As the Girl of Steel protests weakly for Diana to stop, the doctor's assistant ever so slowly slides her fingers along the heroine's inner thighs, toward her skirt and ...

"STOP THAT!" Supergirl protests, wiggling her ass in a vain attempt to get away from Pierce's hand and the ... unwanted sensations it's causing.  A sudden warmth between her thighs causes Supergirl to moan slightly as Pierce's hand continues sliding up the leg, shoving aside the red skirt. When Pierce's fingers reach the top of Supergirl's legs, a leather-clad middle finger deftly slides between Supergirl's legs, rubbing against the Maid of Might's nether lips.  Again, an unwanted moan escapes Supergirl's lips as long-suppressed sensations flood upward from her vagina.

"Well, Supergirl," Kerber says, still holding the Girl of Steel by her chin, "once we found a web site all about you and Superman, we learned quite a bit about your strengths and weaknesses. Quite a bit, yes.  You see, we need your help in our research."

"MMmnnh," Supergirl moans, more loudly than before as Pierce aggressively rubs one of her middle fingers against the Girl of Steel's nether lips. "Re-research? Wh-whu-what do AAAHH do you mean  <gasp>?"

"Why, cloning research, Supergirl," Kerber says expansively, releasing the Maid of Might's chin. Her chin falls, crashing onto the metal surface of the table. "Didn't you read my bio before you agreed to help us? For the past fifteen years I've been working on cloning, trying to find ways to replace damaged organs by growing new ones from the host's own body.

"You see," he continued, "I've found that brain stem cells can be urged to grow almost any kind of tissue - heart, nerve, muscle. You merely put the brain stem cells amid normal cells you wish to clone and something in the brain stem cells triggers them to grow more cells of the type surrounding them. Why, I learned how to take cells that are starting to grow, say, muscle tissue or skin, and transplant them into a body, where growth continues.

"So I thought, what if I could take some cells and get them to grow muscles and skin like Supergirl? Once they begin to grow, if I transplanted them to, say, my body or Ms. Pierce's, why, what would happen? I did some experiments with rats and chimps and I believe your brain stem cells will help me turn Ms. Pierce and myself into super powered beings. Oh, we won't fly or have your supervision, but we should have your strength and invulnerability, I think."

"Br-nnnh  <moan> brain cells?"

"Brain STEM cells, Supergirl. Buried in the back of your head, at the end of your spine. We might cause some damage getting them out but you can't make an omelet ..." he says, turning toward a table along one wall. "Diana, please prepare her for surgery."

"Nightgale!" Pierce says sharply. "in this costume, I'm Nightgale, Doctor!"  Pierce roughly removes her finger from between Supergirl's thighs, dragging it one last time along her nether lips and eliciting another moan from the Maid of Might. Pierce reaches her hands up to Supergirl's shoulders and grasps the neckline of her tunic. Pierce then pulls the material apart, stretching the neckline until it passes over Supergirl's shoulders. In moments, Supergirl's top and cape have been pulled down to the metal band that stretches across the middle of her back.

"Please don't do this," Supergirl begs weakly, ashamed as the other woman tucks the costume under the band.  Nightgale brushes Supergirl's hair forward, across the top of her head, exposing the heroine's neck.  Supergirl's long blonde tresses cascade over her head to fall toward the floor. The villainess then grabs another of the metal bands - made of titanium, and uses it to clamp Supergirl's head to the table, pinning it, making it impossible for Supergirl to move her head.  As Kerber again approaches the bound heroine,  Nightgale leans forward and deftly drags her tongue across the nape of Supergirl's neck. When Nightgale then leans down and gently nibbles on Supergirl's earlobe, another involuntary moan escapes Supergirl's lips.

"You can play with her later, uh, Nightingale ..."

"NIGHTGALE!"

"Yes, yes, of course," a disgusted doctor says, "let's see if we can break her skin now. It's been ten hours - she must be weak enough for us to cut into her body!"

"NOOOOOO!!" Supergirl screams, as the cold tip of a scalpel is felt against the base of her skull. "P-please don't do this!" she begs, suddenly very afraid of her situation.  The Girl of Steel isn't as concerned with herself as she is with the prospect that her powers will be *stolen* and used for evil purposes! As the scalpel drags against her skin, she cries out both in shock and pain as the sharp surgical steel scores her skin.  Scores her skin but cannot penetrate more than a micro millimeter of her epidermis.

"Damn," Kerber says, exasperated at the scalpel's failure to penetrate. "She's still too invulnerable. We'll have to find another way to get into her head."

"A laser?" Nightgale asks. "More Kryptonite?"

"No, no more Kryptonite! The radiation might damage the brain cells ... We might as well try the laser. And she moves too much. See if you can sedate her with that nitrous oxide. If she moves under the laser, I might damage some of the brain stem cells."

Supergirl squirms desperately under the metal bands, anxiously trying to free herself before these villains mutilate her body and maybe even kill her.  Despite her best efforts, she soon collapses weakly on the table, sobbing silently at her failure.  Her pert breasts, pressed against the cold metal table, peak out on either side of her chest, small, soft lumps just begging to be caressed.

Nightgale returns to the table, pushing a long metal cylinder on wheels ahead of her. She removes the metal band which pins Supergirl's head to the table, then roughly pulls the Girl of Steel's head off the table by grabbing her long yellow tresses and yanking viciously. Nightgale then expertly slips a small mask over the Maid of Might's mouth and nose and twists a valve on the metal cylinder. A faint hissing sound indicates that the gas is flowing.

Supergirl gags initially and her body, even weakened as it is, resists the insidious effects of the gas, but finally, after a few minutes, her blue eyes slowly shut and her body sags limply against the table. "She's out!" Nightgale shouts gleefully, again leaning down to again kiss the nape of Supergirl's neck.

Across the room, Kerber fires up his industrial-strength laser.

Nightgale helps Kerber roll his laser to Supergirl's operating table, anxious to get some of the heroine's super powers.  In moments, the laser is in operation, its tight red beam lancing into the Girl of Steel's creamy white neck.  "Must be ... very careful!" Kerber says to himself, "can't bore too deeply ..."  Suddenly, a thin trickle of Kryptonian blood appears against Supergirl's milky skin.  "Success!" Kerber says, "we are getting through her skin!  Nightgale!  Increase the power!"

Nightgale turns a rheostat on the laser's control panel, and as the deadly instrument's whine ratchets up a few ticks, neither villain notices a dimming of the red background lighting in the room.  On the line which runs the emitters that pour red sun radiation into the room, a circuit breaker trips, cutting power to the emitters in response to the laser's priority demand for power.

A few minutes later, Kerber stops the laser and takes a long hypodermic needle from the side table.  Delicately, he inserts the tip of the needle into the bloody hole in the back of Supergirl's neck.  "Just ... just a little longer, Supergirl," he says to the unconscious heroine, "and we'll be done!"  Slowly the needle draws several cc's of fluid flood into the hypo.

"Finished!" Kerber says triumphantly.  "Use ... oh, use some of those clamps to close her wound."

"Let's just kill her!" Pierce responds venomously.  "She's a threat!"

"NO!" a shocked doctor says, turning toward his assistant.  "What you see here," he continues, holding the hypo in front of Nightgale, "is just enough of her brain cells for one person.  Why, I intend to use her as a milk cow, if this works.  We can sell her super powers for millions ... billions of dollars!

"Ah, now, uh, Nightgale," the doctor says, "remove all of, uh, all of your clothes.  Except your underwear, of course."

"I don't wear underwear, doctor," Nightgale responds sexily, causing the chubby man to blush.  "And why do you want me to take off my clothes, hmm?"

Kerber, busy at one work table, replies, "I'll soon have these cells merged with my accelerated growth mix and we can begin to test my theory that her cells will stimulate a human's body to make new cells patterned after hers, with her strength and invulnerability."

"Why am I first?" Nightgale says warily as she removes her boots.

"Er, well," Kerber begins, stalling for time to form a good lie, "well, you're younger than me.  Yes. Your body should react more quickly to the process."  As he talks to his assistant, Kerber continues to create a mix of Supergirl's brain stem cells and his own accelerated growth mixture.  He finishes his effort and begins filling several syringes with a milky brown fluid. When done, he turns back to face his stunning and nude assistant.  Kerber gasps and pauses, almost dropping the needles at the sight of his lovely assistant, his lovely NUDE assistant standing before him.

"Ah, you ... you should sit for this," Kerber stammers, awed by Pierce's magnificent body.  She could be an Amazon with a body like that, he muses.  Almost six feet tall, muscular, long black hair ...  Kerber slowly approaches his assistant as she settles on a lab stool, her legs slightly spread apart, her hands on her thighs, and her eyes locked on Kerber's.

"So what's the plan?" she asks in a deep, throaty voice, happy to see the man's discomfort.

"Ah, well, ah, I'll inject you with this mixture," Kerber says as he stands beside the raven-haired woman, almost unwilling to touch this goddess.  As she nods her permission for him to proceed, Kerber begins injecting his mixture into her body.  Each major muscle group gets one or two injections of a small amount of the mix.  Many times, his injections barely break the surface of Pierce's skin, injecting the mix into her epidermis to give her some of Supergirl's invulnerabilty.  After about 30 minutes of quick pricks, Kerber finally lays down the last empty syringe and mops his sweaty brow.

"Now, let's move to phase two," he says, turning away from Diana.  "It's almost ten a.m.  Get up to the roof and soak up as much sun as you can.  I believe that web site said that her powers come from the yellow sun.  We must use as much of it as we can to accelerate the growth of new muscle and skin tissue."

Diana Pierce leans down and picks up her *costume* as Kerber puts the used syringes aside for cleaning later.  He scrubs his hands and cleans up the area where he mixed the potion.  Satisfied that he has cleaned up properly, Kerber joins Pierce who's standing by the door.  As they walk out, the ever-meticulous Kerber absentmindedly flicks off the light switch for the lab, bathing it in darkness.  Both are unaware that even had they left the light on, red sun radiation was no longer flooding the lab. Supergirl continues to lie motionless on the table.

*  *  *  *  *

Two days later, Nightgale and Doctor Kerber meet outside the lab.  She's spent the intervening time, both day and night, soaking up the rays of a yellow sun (real or artificial).  Kerber's made a few trips back into the lab to check on the Maid of Might but has not had to do anything to Supergirl. She drifts in and out of consciousness as her super body tries to recover from the operation.

The operation has apparently left her still very weak and ... dazed.  The hole on the back of her neck is healing rapidly but she is still largely unresponsive to him.  Except to check her *vitals*, Kerber basically leaves Supergirl alone in the lab, assuming that the red radiation is keeping her subdued and unable to escape.  Unknown to the scientist, the Girl of Steel IS aware of her situation and has been faking her condition, to lull him into a false sense of security.  Each time he leaves the room, she tries to burst the titanium bonds holding her to the table.  At first, she has absolutely no success, but lately she's felt them yield slightly under her super muscles.  "Must ... must wait till I can break all of them," she decides, "and my strength has returned."

Even as her body recovers its alien strength, the small shard of green Kryptonite - still affixed to the inside of her skirt, just below her ass, continues to pour its insidious radiation into her body.  This unknown threat has been the only bar to her quick recovery from Kerber's operation.  Unaware of the green K, Supergirl, like Kerber, assumes that the operation or the room must be slowing her recovery.

Finally, after two days, the Maid of Might finally feels strong enough to burst her bonds.  Supergirl rotates her arms so that her elbows are against her hips.  Using that as a base, she begins to move her forearms away from her body, pivoting at the elbows.  With a titanic exertion of her super muscles, the Girl of Steel bursts the bonds that had pinned her wrists to the table.  With her arms freed, and with a few minutes of great effort, she manages to free herself entirely from Kerber's table.  After adjusting her costume to again cover her breasts and shoulders, the Maid of Might sits on the edge of the table, panting slightly, trying to recover her breath.  Sadly, she still feels ... unnaturally weak!  And her neck aches where Kerber had bored into her super body.  Only her alien physique kept her from dying on this table.

Suddenly, the door opens and Supergirl sees Nightgale and Kerber enter the lab.  "WHAT!" Kerber screams as he spots the heroine seated on the lab table, "how did you get free!?!"  Nightgale halts beside the doctor and her hands rise in a classic judo defense.

"I'm Supergirl," the heroine says weakly but valiantly.  "Did you really think you could stop me?"  She rises off the table - far weaker than normal but still more powerful than any mere human.  "I think it's time we went to the authorities.  You've done your last experiment, doctor," the Maid of Might says hautily as she walks toward the doorway.

"Let me handle this," Nightgale says, putting one arm across Kerber's chest and shoving him back out of the lab.  In the last day, she's discovered that Kerber's insane scheme HAS worked.  She now has strength far beyond that of normal people and her skin IS nearly invulnerable.

"Don't kill her!": Kerber says, "we need her brain stem ..."

"Shut up, you little cretin!" Nightgale hisses.  "Only one of us will walk out of this lab and it will be ME!  And the HELL with your silly plans to give this remarkable power to others."

Kerber quickly turns and flees from the room as Supergirl and Nightgale approach each other warily.  Supergirl hasn't fully recovered from the green K poisoning and the operation, so her powers are roughly on a par with Nightgale's.  Nightgale, however, has had training in the martial arts.  As Supergirl swings a left toward the woman in white, Nightgale deftly uses the move to throw the Girl of Steel over one shoulder.  Rather than releasing Supergirl's wrist after the throw, Nightgale steps in and puts one white boot into Supergirl's armpit.  As Nightgale pulls Supergirl's wrist, hyper-extending her arm, the Girl of Steel groans in pain, slapping her right arm against the lab floor to counteract the pressure.

"St ... stop it!" Supergirl gasps as her left arm feels like it's being pulled out of the shoulder socket.  Nightgale drops her boot from Supergirl's armpit to the floor and swings her other boot forward to slam against Supergirl's head.  Her head rolls to one side, blond hair flying across her face and a moan escapes from her lips.  Nightgale's boot, made of ordinary leather, cracks under the impact.  Nonplussed, the villainess again kicks Supergirl's head - again and again, until the tip of the boot shatters.

After several powerful kicks, Supergirl again finds her vision blurring, her concentration faltering.  Grimly aware that she MUST defeat these people, she exerts all her strength to turn on her left side to face Nightgale.  Just as she finishes her turn, she gets a kick on her forehead that throws her head back and is slightly dazed.  "Nnnh!" she moans, shaking her head to clear it.

Seeing Supergirl's efforts to get free, Nightgale stops kicking the heroine's head and moves as if to step over her body.  Before she even raises her leg to step over the fallen woman, Supergirl looks briefly at Nightgale's face and fires off a blast of heat vision.  The unexpected blast hits Nightgale's eyes, temporarily blinding the villainess.  Supergirl's wrist is forgotten as Nightgale raises her hands to cover her own eyes, to shut out the incredible pain.

While Nightgale stumbles backward, shrieking in pain and covering her eyes, the Maid of Might uses the time to slowly, PAINFULLY pull herself first to a sitting position, then to her hands and knees.  Supergirl can see Nightgale starting to recover from the blast of heat vision.  She's shaking her head, blinking her eyes and has stopped screaming from the pain.

The Maid of Might uses a lab chair as a crutch to pull herself to her feet.  She sways briefly, then turns and heads out of the lab.

Outside the lab, the Girl of Steel stops and gasps.  She's still in the warehouse where she battled the robots!  The lab was one of the small rooms at the back of the warehouse!  She looks about for signs of where Kerber went, then considers whether she should flee or stay to fight Nightgale.  "I can't let her escape ... not with the powers she now has.  She's just too dangerous!" Supergirl decides, turning back toward the lab.  Just then, Nightgale charges out the lab.  Both women throw punches, nearly at the same time, and as Supergirl's fist hits Nightgale's chest, a white-gloved fist hits the Maid of Might's jaw.  Both women fly backwards, Nightgale into the lab and Supergirl farther into the warehouse.  Each lands roughly on her butt.  Each is slow to rise - Nightgale in reaction to the super punch, Supergirl in reaction to all she's suffered.

Each combatant reaches her feet at nearly the same time.  They're about twenty feet apart now when Kerber suddenly comes around one side of the lab, clutching a small box in his hands.  "Now we've got her!" he says exultantly, pushing a button on the box.  A deep roar suddenly fills the warehouse and Supergirl turns in search of the source of the sound.

In moments, the four robots that bested her appear, each from a different section of the warehouse.  A startled Maid of Might staggers slightly at the appearance of these hellspawn.  As the machines move toward her, as Tom passes the left side of the lab and Harry passes the right side of the lab moving toward Supergirl, Dick and Arnold move toward her rear.  Suddenly, Tom and Harry pause and wheel toward Nightgale and Dr. Kerber, standing in front of the lab.

As Supergirl turns toward Dick and Arnold, she rushes at the gap between the machines, ignoring the ones now behind her.  Supergirl races beteen Dick and Arnold and gasps when she sees the nameplate on Arnold flip open.  The green Kryptonite-tipped arm begins to telescope out of the machine, toward the running girl.  As the two metal boxes turn on their treads toward her, Dick spinning to its left, Arnold to its right, Supergirl continues running toward and through the narrow gap between the two machines.  As they pivot toward their prey, their metal arms flailing to try to catch the Girl of Steel, their arms suddenly crash together with a loud rending noise.  Talons intertwine with talons and one of Dick's arms inadvertently slams into the Kryptonite-equipped arm, shearing the pole and causing the deadly arm to fall to the floor of the warehouse.

As the two machines try to untangle their arms, the Girl of Steel leaps into the air and lands atop Arnold, one of the lead-lined machines.  She glances around the warehouse to locate the other robots and notes with some joy that Tom and Harry are now chasing Nightgale and Kerber!  "These dumb things must have been programmed to go after anything with a pulse!" Supergirl realizes. In seconds, one of Tom's talons reaches forward and clasps Kerber around his waist.  Designed to *crush* a Kryptonian, the talons squeeze together and bloodily bisect the chubby scientist. His torso falls to to the right and his bottom half drops down with a thud. The black remote control box skitters across the floor away from his dying body.

Harry's talons reach toward Nightgale, snapping like lobster claws.  Overconfident of her new star-born strength, Nightgale slams away first one, then another of the talons.  Harry's central arm whooshes in an arc and slams down toward Nightgale's head to deliver a skull-crushing blow.  At the last second, Nightgale steps backward, avoiding the blow.  Steps backward into BOTH of Tom's waiting talons.  As the long metal tongs envelope her curvy body, Tom's center arm slams down in a powerful arc, ending at her head.  The incredibly dense weight cracks Nightgale's skull, spewing her brains across the floor of the warehouse.  Her body may have stolen some of Supergirl's alien physiology, but not enough to stop machines designed to bring down a full-blooded (albeit weakened) Kryptonian!  Tom's talons close on the dead woman's body, crushing her arms and ribs together into a bloody mess.

From atop Arnold, Supergirl is at both glad and shocked at the death of her foes.  Now she has to just defeat these four mechanical monsters!  As Dick tries to use its talons to capture the Maid of Might, Supergirl realizes that the machines have at least one design flaw - when they raise their arms up toward the top of Arnold, they clear the sides, but then can't bend back down to pluck the woman off the machine.  No elbows!  Supergirl watches for a moment as Dick, then Tom and Harry each tries unsuccessfully to reach her with its talons.

Suddenly, as Supergirl lies atop Arnold, trying to melt his central arm so it can't swing, Tom's central arm hammers into her back between her shoulder blades, slamming her flat against Arnold's *roof*.  "Unnh," Supergirl moans, trying to reach her left arm back to massage the small of her back.  Before she can do anything, though, Dick's arm also slams into her, hammering her thighs with incredible force.  "AAAHHH!" Supergirl screams as the pain lances through her legs. Her knees and thighs are literally hammered into the soft lead shield atop Arnold.

Just as Harry's arm swings toward her, Supergirl manages to roll out of the way.  The hammer hits the top of Arnold where her head would have been had she not moved and a hairline crack forms in the soft metal.  Guided by some sixth sense, Supergirl again rolls, this time the other way, as both Tom and Dick hammer at her.  Instead of landing on the cute Kryptonian, Tom's arm hits the top of Arnold (finally cracking it open) and Dick's arm hits Tom's arm, breaking the normal-steel portion.  Tom's *club* falls uselessly to the warehouse floor as Arnold grinds to a halt, its innnards smashed by the last hammer blow.

Grimly, using the last of her strength, Supergirl leaps off Arnold and flies across the warehouse, barely missing robot talons desperately trying to pluck her out of the air.  She lands beside Kerber's black control box and falls to her knees, her physical resources all but exhausted by the events of the last few days.  As the three remaining mighty robots swing slowly toward her and begin crawling across the warehouse floor, Supergirl manages to lift the remote and click the *OFF* button before she collapses on the floor, unconscious.

*  *  *  *  *

Some time later, Supergirl's eyes flutter open.  Painfully pulling herself to her feet, she surveys the warehouse.  Three of Kerber's hellish robots stand just a few feet away, stopped at the last moment by the remote control's electronic command.  Kerber and his assistant lie dead outside the lab.

Supergirl sways slightly and suddenly feels something brush against her thigh.  She briefly flashes on the notion that this feels like one of those kids from ... when was it? ... grasping at her skirt. Looking down, she spies a piece of ... something?  "What is this?" she asks herself as she pulls a thin wafer off the inside of her skirt.  There's no green K on it - a powerful hit during the battle shattered the small shard and it fell off the patch.  An incredibly exhausted Maid of Might tosses the curious object away and leaps into the air.  Supergirl has one thought on her mind - get home and soak in a hot tub for a WEEK!

*  *  *  *  *