Catherine "Kate" Windrunner is the child of a Native American from South Dakota and an Irish woman from Chicago. Her parents participated in biological experiments while both were in the Air Force and stationed in Rapid City, S.D., near his home. Chemicals put in their blood (and who knows what genetic material) were blended together and participated in the creation of young Kate. As she aged, she noticed that her strength and agility were increasing. At the early age of 10 her parents died and she went to live with an aunt and uncle in Chicago, Maureen and Mike Dempsey. Taunts from larger students forced the young woman to study martial arts. She also became a skilled gymnast on her high school team. By the time Kate graduated from high school, she felt somewhat different from others.
Kate moved to Dallas, Texas, and with aggressive pluck and a government grant started a small martial arts school, the "Dakota Dojo". Around her 21st birthday, she saw a friend being attacked by members of a local gang. Kate rushed in to help and, in addition to routing the gang, discovered that bullets and knife blades could not penetrate her skin. Over the next few weeks, Kate also learned that there are small things in her blood that seem to store energy and give her amazing powers such as enhanced speed and agility. Such as the strength of 10 large men. And, of course, invulnerability (her body and anything within 1/4 of an inch of her skin) to cutting or penetrating objects like bullets or knives. Being clubbed hurts her, but far less than it would affect a normal person. The man who experimented on her parents named the things in Kate's blood after himself. Called "Trimblers", their energy can be drained by orgasms or by contact with plant fibers. When bound with a hemp rope, for example, Kate soon loses all her powers and her skin burns from contact with the rope. Orgasms and plant fibers pull energy out of the Trimblers (either in a nice way or a painful way).
Despite these limitations, Kate Windrunner decided to use her powers to help fight crime in her new home of Dallas. She went through several costume changes and ultimately decided on a small black mask, formed by a strip of silk with eye holes cut into it, and tied in the back (she can comb her hair down over the tie). A dark blue spandex top hugs her curvy torso and highlights her full breasts. The bottom end covers her butt and is cut high on her hips so she has more freedom when doing 'athletic' moves. The long sleeves protect her skin from leaves, grass, any of those natural fibers which drain her energy. A pair of dark blue spandex exercise tights are like a second skin on her legs. Finally a pair of light blue shorts cover the tights and bottom of her tunic, to mask the lack of panties. Normally she just wears a g-string, but not a bra. Any more clothing would push the fabric more than a quarter inch away from her body and make it vulnerable. A pair of brown calf-high boots with flat heels and a pair of black police-style gloves cover her feet and hands. The gloves allow a tight fit as well as a lot of dexterity and the ability to handle small things (such as lockpicks). The gloves extend just beyond the wrist. There is a small razor blade hidden between the fingers on her left hand - useful when trying to cut rope bindings. Finally, a red nylon belt with a thick 10-inch-long, high-tech baton with a taser-like ability to deliver a powerful jolt of electricity through the tip. Her other weapons are 2 throwing stars in a small pouch on the belt, and a throwing knife with a 6" blade in each boot. She gets around Dallas on a modified black Honda ST-1100 motorcycle (a crotch rocket).
Her crimefighter name is Raven, selected because it's a powerful symbol among her father's Native American ancestors in the Lakota tribe. Some time after her new career began, she met Susan Books, a Dallas policewoman, who convinced Raven to join the Super Heroes Foundation (SHF), a non-profit organization which supports meta-humans by paying some of their operating costs, in exchange for the right to use them like a private security force. Kate has never trusted the organization and feels exploited by them. Nonetheless, they did provide her with her motorcycle, some of her crime-fighting gear and enough cash to let her neglect her now-destroyed martial arts studio. She spent two weeks in Georgia, at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where her super powers were 'assessed' by Foundation personnel. They put her through a variety of uncomfortable tests to document her strengths and weaknesses. After completing this assessment, the Foundation was ready to employ Raven on at least a part-time basis.
She's already done several jobs for the SHF and has met and beaten a variety of petty criminals. She's honed her skills and although she's had some close calls, she's committed to becoming the premier super heroine in Dallas. Unfortunately, the wealth and assets available in the city and its suburbs seem to draw more and more criminals, including "super criminals". Raven has her work cut out for her!
* * * * *
"So you actually worked with Supergirl?" Susan Books asks in an incredulous voice. Both are at a trendy restaurant in North Dallas, dressed to the nines and drawing stares from more than half of the men in the place (and from a few women, too). Kate is a slim woman with light-olive-skin, short black hair and a curvy figure. She stands about 5'6" tall and weighs about 130 pounds. Books is blond, 5'8" and weighs about 140 lbs. She's moderately-attractive.
"Yes, we worked together," Kate says in an exasperated voice. "She's a nice person when you get past the blond hair (no offense!) and the cape. We could probably be friends. We both feel out of our depth in the hero business but know that if we don't do all we can, who will?"
"Deep!" Books says, laughing slightly at Kate. Kate blushes, then lightly slugs Books' bicep.
"Be nice!" Kate says in mock anger. "We had a good talk after Superman took that Parasite guy away and while she was regaining her powers. She wanted to sit and catch her breath - it was a beaut of a fight, Susan! Do you know that just letting the Parasite touch you gives him the chance to fuckin' drain all your energy! We finally stopped him with some kind of green Kryptonite spray Supergirl found - probably one of MixMaster's creations."(1)
"We found that we also both don't like the Foundation," Kate says grimly. "She asked me about Mentat - he was the Foundation guy killed in that factory by Parasite. I told her I didn't have much contact with him - he was mostly a loner. Then she said that he was working with MixMaster. She also said that a few months ago, she was here in Dallas and was ambushed and turned over to MixMaster by another Foundation person - someone called NightOwl.(2) That was before I joined the Foundation."
"Wow, two Foundation people working for a major criminal! What are the odds of that happening?" Susan asks incredulously.
"Wait, there's more! Remember when I made a visit to the Foundation and I told you about a slime ball who kept hitting on me? The pig was dressed in red with a real 'oh, Chica, you must fuck me because I'm so handsome' Latino attitude? Called himself El Diablo?"
"Yes, I remember you mentioning him. You two sound like you'd have been perfect for each other."
"You bitch! But seriously, Supergirl asked me if I knew a guy in a red costume who could generate a lot of heat. Diablo jumped into my mind.(3) Then she said that a red-suited guy who called himself Diablo was working with MixMaster in Metropolis last month when she tried to rob S.T.A.R. Labs!(4) He hasn't been around the SHF for the past month!"
"SHUT UP! What are the odds that three so-called heroes working with the Foundation here in Dallas would also be working with MixMaster?" a shocked Susan asks, placing her hand on Kate's forearm.
"I KNOW!!" Kate says, pounding the table with her smallish fist. Glasses and flatware bounce on the small table but nothing falls to the floor. Restaurant patrons nearby look at the two attractive women and wonder why there was such an outburst.
"Now, here's the kicker, Susan!" Kate whispers conspiratorially, leaning forward in her chair. "The S-girl said that MixMaster started her career outside Boston and, except for her trip to Metropolis, she stayed in the Dallas/Central Texas area. Why?"
"I'll bite - why did MixMaster stay around Dallas?"
"The S-girl didn't have any answers," Kate says, straightening up in her chair. "But I'll bet you anything it was to be close to this office of the Super Heroes Foundation, or someone who works here."
"You might be right," Susan says, rubbing her chin. Kate nods at her friend as the two women sit looking at each other for a moment. A few moments later, the two women rise from their seats, aware that many eyes in the restaurant are still on them for their frequent and loud outbursts. As the two women leave the restaurant, they lightly kiss each other on the cheek and turn to leave. "You're going to snoop around the Foundation, aren't you?" Books says, arching an eyebrow.
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no felonies I've done or will do in the future," Kate smiles at her pal. She heads off toward her 450cc Honda Rebel for the ride back to the north side of Dallas. (She keeps her ST1100 garaged and it is usually only ridden when in her Raven persona).
* * * * *
"That bitch MixMaster may have put us in deep kimchi," the hooded man tells two others (also in monk-like hoods) in his room. "We'll have to lie low for a while, until we see if Supergirl makes the connection between the late Dr. Collins and us."
"So, it's business as usual?"
"More or less. Blondie and the Amazon may have destroyed the heads of Intergang, but our Dallas group is still alive and functioning. We'll have to keep low for a while. I have some irons in the fire I'm watching and we'll see what develops in the next few weeks. In the meantime, conduct yourselves as you normally do and we'll meet again when I call you."
* * * * *
As Kate Windrunner slips two six-inch long throwing knives into her brown calf-length leather boots, she completes her transition to Raven, ready to go out and battle evil and crime in Dallas. "Right!" she snorts. "As IF I was some kind of super heroine like Supergirl or Wonder Woman! I'm just a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong set of genes. Well, at least I can check out the warehouse where we fought the Parasite."
Moments later, the woman is roaring south on I-35 on her black Honda ST-1100. The night is slightly chilly, so she's wearing a leather jacket and leather chaps, both black, over her costume. As the sun sets, she pulls off the highway just above downtown Dallas and slowly begins to cruise among the railroad tracks and warehouses in the district. Finally, she pulls close to the building where she and Supergirl defeated Parasite a few days ago. Raven parks the bike and removes her helmet and leathers, leaving them in one saddlebag of the bike. Finally, she covers it with a cloth that disguises the fact that there is a motorcycle beneath the cloth.
Raven spends two hours searching the warehouse. Clearly, the 'big time' heroes (Green Lantern and Superman), plus the Dallas P.D.'s forensics team, have found all the clues likely to be found here. "Guess this was a wasted trip," Raven decides, dusting her gloves together to clean them. "Nothing that points to the Foundation as the source of all evil here in Big D."
As the woman leaves the warehouse, she notices a small foreign car parked across the street and down a few hundred feet. The car has a parking enforcement 'boot' on one tire and several tickets flapping in the night air. "I remember dodging around that car when I came here to find Supergirl," Raven realizes. She slowly trots down the street and stops beside the small car. "Let's see if there's anything inside," she muses. She pulls her tac baton from its pouch and forcefully slams it against the driver-side window, shattering the glass. No alarm, no reaction from anyone (there probably isn't anyone within five blocks of here at this time of night, Raven realizes).
After rummaging through the car for several minutes, Raven says, "Yes!" and holds up a sheet of paper that she's found under the passenger seat. "This is a pay stub from the Foundation, for Mentat. This must have been his car." Raven takes the trash off the floor of the car and empties the glove box and puts it all into an old fast-food bag, then turns to leave. "Better not tell Susan about this - she's such a stickler for the law!"
Minutes later, the black-haired heroine is racing north on her bike, back to her home in North Dallas.
* * * * *
Near dawn, a bleary-eyed Kate Windrunner, wearing a diaphanous black teddy, panties and fuzzy slippers, completes her analysis of the trash from Mentat's car. "He's got a bunch of receipts from fast food joints and gas stations. Most are from downtown or the US 75 corridor but two are from Denton. What would he be doing out there?" She dresses in sweats and a t-shirt and drives her little Honda 250 Rebel down to the Dallas office of the SHF. After talking with the receptionist for a few minutes, Kate leaves with a small photo of Mentat. "This may be useful tonight!" she says as she waits for the elevator outside the office.
"Raven - is that you?" a male voice behind her asks.
Raven spins around and spots another of the SHF heroes, an impressive-looking man who calls himself Thunder. He's very muscular, with a figure like a body builder on steroids. His costume consists of brown knee-high lace-up boots, brown above-the-knee spandex bicycle shorts, brown 'Dago-style T-shirt', wrist-length gloves, and a short mask. From her past experience, he seems to be incredibly strong and possibly even invulnerable, too.(5) "Oh, hi there," she mumbles. Kate is very interested in getting to know the man better and is slightly flustered talking with him.
Thunder approaches the woman and stands mere inches away from her. He seems to reek of charisma and strength and Kate feels a weakness in her knees she hasn't felt in a while. A good weakness, as far as she recalls. "I'll go down with you," Thunder says in his deep voice. "Are you going on an assignment for the Foundation?"
"Mnh, uh, no, no ... I'm uh, I'm just doing some personal stuff," she stammers. "Get hold of yourself, girl!" she thinks. At the same time, her eyes wander down to feast on his heavily-muscled chest and massive biceps.
"Uh, Raven?" Thunder says softly, "my eyes are up here."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologizes. Before she can say anything else, the elevator arrives and they enter it, joining maybe a dozen 'civilians' (possibly federal government employees; SHF offices share space in a building with a number of federal offices). Neither hero speaks as the elevator drops downward. Both are aware that many in the car, including all the women, are staring at Thunder's body.
When the elevator reaches the lobby, Thunder and most of the other people leave but Kate smiles at the man and remains in the car. "I'm parked downstairs," she says in a sheepish voice. Thunder smiles and waves at the woman as the doors close. By the time Kate reaches her bike in the parking garage, her composure has returned and she's ready to ride. "But DAMN he looks fine!" she thinks as she settles her helmet on her head.
After Kate returns to her small apartment, she spends the rest of the day in bed, dozing fitfully and thinking about all the villains she's had to deal with, including her own versions of MixMaster. Several times she awakens and sits upright in bed, her body covered in perspiration and breathing rapidly due to a vivid dream about the Garza boys, Jesus and Jose. When they're close to each other, they have telepathic (Jesus) or telekinetic (Jose) powers and have beaten and raped her in every confrontation. She shudders when she recalls the time they trapped her in an alley and used a high-tech dildo to rape her, again and again.
As the sun sinks in the west, the woman Kate Windrunner readies for her trip up to Denton. She dresses casually in jeans, boots, and a flowery print shirt, over which she dons a leather motorcycle jacket. She believes she can make better progress if she comes on as a normal woman rather than as a super heroine. Kate bundles her costume into a gym bag ("Just in case!" she thinks to herself) and proudly slips out of her North Dallas apartment.
Kate decides to take the big Honda - it will be a longish drive and she might need to become Raven. She descends into the building basement to retrieve her Ravencycle, a black Honda ST-1100 with some modifications for her needs. After donning a helmet and gauntlet-style gloves and stashing the gym bag in a saddlebag on the bike, she quickly navigates her way out of the city and roars north on I-35E towards the college town of Denton.
Some time later, Kate slides her bike into the parking lot of a seedy bar a few miles north of Denton on one of the farm-to-market roads and, after securing her helmet and gloves on the bike, heads into the bar. "Both of Mentat's charge card receipts were for this bar. Maybe he was here on business for MixMaster," the woman muses as she opens the door.
"Hello," the attractive woman says to the bartender, a swarthy overweight man covered in tattoos. "I am looking for this man," she says, flashing Mentat's photo, "and I have reason to believe he was in here some ten days ago." She turns and shows the photo to several nearby patrons of the bar, then turns back to face the bartender.
"You '5-0' or something?" the man asks, laughing. Several others nearby also laugh at the comment. Kate's jaws tighten at the man's behavior. Then he compounds his offense by suggesting, "why'n't you get up on the stage and dance fer us, sweetie? Luther can put some music on the juke box ..."
"I don't want any trouble ..."
"Then yah shouldn'ta come here, sweetie, dressed so hot, givin' me attitude and asking about my customers," the barkeep interrupts in a harsh voice. He reaches under the bar and brings up an aluminum baseball bat which he uses to lean against the shelf on his side of the bar. "Why don't you get yer little ass outta my place before we inspect it, up close, if you get my drift."
Kate realizes she won't get anything from the barkeep. Especially with the fifteen or so patrons in the bar likely to back him in a fight. She retrieves her photo and slowly backs away from the bar, keeping her eyes on the barkeep and darting peeks to either side to keep track of most of the patrons. The woman breathes a sigh of relief when she backs out to the parking lot and closes the door behind her. "Maybe five too many in there to be sure to win a fight," she thinks as she turns toward her bike.
She jerks to a halt when she spots a man, half-hidden by shadows and standing between a van and her bike. "Can I help you?" she asks the man in a soft voice as she walks toward him.
"Mebbe I kin help you, girlie," the man says, retreating deeper into the shadows. "If the person in that photo is who I think it is, that is ..."
"Come out here and I'll show you." Kate begins to wonder about the man. "He probably doesn't want to be seen talking to me," she decides, then begins to walk toward the man in the shadows. Behind her, she hears a brief increase in noise as the bar door opens and then closes.
Kate shows the photo to the man - it seems barely visible in the darkness beside the van but the man scrutinizes the photo for several long seconds. "Yep, I know him," the man says, returning the photo to the heroine. "He and ..." the man says. The photo falls from his hands and flutters down between him and Raven. She stoops to retrieve the photo and doesn't see the man pull a small handgun from a holster on his belt, in back and concealed by his long coat. As she bends at the waist, he brings the butt of the pistol down hard on the back of her head, knocking the woman to her knees.
"Wha ... nnnnnhhh," Kate gasps as she recovers from the sneak attack. She's on her knees and one hand, the other hand massaging the back of her head. While the blow does no physical damage to the woman, it does rattle and stun her.
"Hard-headed bitch," the man snarls and this time hammers the top of the heroine's head, driving her down onto her belly. Suddenly the door on the van slides open and two other men leap out and quickly lift the woman off the ground. Her vision is spinning after two hits that would have cracked another person's skull. After dragging her back into the van, Kate's brain clears enough for her to realize her situation. Like a lioness, she begins to struggle against her three captors. She kicks one man in his nuts and he falls sideways, screaming from the painful strike. Kate tries to shake off the two other men when a fourth man leans forward from a dark recess in the van, pulls a small bottle from his shirt pocket and holds it open under her nose.
"NNOOO!!" Kate bellows, recognizing the sickly-sweet scent of chloroform. Her struggles increase but then the man holding onto her left arm clobbers the back of her head with his pistol, rattling her brain again. This time the fourth man slips a damp cloth over Kate's nose and mouth, a damp cloth soaked with chloroform. His timing is excellent. Just as she draws a large breath, the cloth rises to cover her face and she gets more knockout gas than air in her lungs. Kate freezes, then has to cough to clear her lungs. As she coughes, the cloth is pinned against her lower face, flooding her body with more of the odious fumes.
Kate's eyes roll back up into her head as her body shuts down from the drugs. As her struggles weaken, one man uses duct tape to bind the struggling woman's legs together (wrapping it around her ankles and thighs) and the other binds her wrists behind her back, then binds her above her elbows, and finally binds her arms to her body. The fourth man gives the chloroform-soaked rag to one of the men and leaps from the van, joined by another man. The mind-dulling vapors float upward into her nostril and a second later, Kate sags in the hands of her captors, unconscious. A last bit of tape covers her mouth as the van slowly pulls out of the parking lot headed east on the rural road. The two men manhandle the woman's motorcycle into a nearby pickup truck.
"Who is she?" one thug in the speeding van asks.
"Never did catch her name," the first man replies, finally able to sit upright despite painfully-sore testicles. "She was asking about Keith - had a photo of him. The boss said someone might come by, but he was worried she might have on a blue cheerleader costume and a red cape. Don't know who this bimbo is, though, but she sure can fight!"
"Maybe this is what Supergirl looks like in civvies?"
"Please, don't shatter my fantasies! Besides, you think this gas would work on her?"
"I dunno - I never fought with her. Let's just take her to the ranch and let the boss worry about her. Then we'd better get back to Pepper's and see if that blonde shows up, too."
"I'm gonna make her pay for that kick," the first man says. He uses a buck knife to cut the tape off her thighs. He then unbuckles her jeans and pulls them down to the tops of her boots. Her panties follow and he pushes her feet closer toward her butt, allowing her legs to bow outwards at the knee, exposing her pussy. For the next twenty minutes, the three men in the van, including the driver, take turns fucking the unconscious woman. Her moans and sighs suggest she's struggling to regain consciousness but they quickly reapply the rag to her nose and her consciousness slips away. By the time the van reaches its destination, her jeans have been pulled up over her cum-soaked thighs and she's deeply asleep from the drug and the sexual assault.
* * * * *
An eon later, Kate slowly regains consciousness. She's still tightly bound and is lying on the stone tile floor in a wine cellar. Through a high window, she can see the faint red glow of dawn in Texas. "Ohhhh, that stuff packs a wallop!" she thinks, shaking the chloroform cobwebs out of her head. The disguised heroine sits on her butt for several seconds as her mind clears. Her mutant body is as susceptible to chloroform as the next person's and her amazing powers provide no defense. For some reason, her crotch also aches and feels damp, sticky.
Finally somewhat recovered, Kate begins to work on the duct tape bindings. She manages to stretch and snap them, one at time, beginning with the ones on her wrists, then those on her arms and so forth. Five minutes later and she's again on her feet, still somewhat woozy from the knockout gas, but ready to break out of the wine cellar. She looks at the door and sees that it's solidly constructed of a natural hardwood. Even if she had the time to do so, she wouldn't want to punch through the door - touching the wood might drain energy from the Trimblers inside her bloodstream and she's too drained as it is. Why does she feel so exhausted?
"The door is too thick for anyone to hear me scream for help, and I doubt if they'd even care," she thinks. "Hmmm, I wonder ... I wonder if ..." and with a mighty pull, yanks over one of the tall wooden racks holding several dozen bottles of wine. The rack crashes onto the stone floor and the bottles shatter, splashing wine around the cellar. Seconds after the loud crash, the door flies open and two men with Mac-10 machine pistols enter the room, scanning for their captive.
Kate gives them no chance to stop her - she leaps at them from five feet away and slams into their bodies sideways, her elbows hitting one man's chest, her knees hitting the other man's chest. The two men fall backward and slam against the cellar wall, their heads cracking and bouncing off the hard wall. As the two men slide down the wall, unconscious, Kate quickly rises to her knees and looks for signs of other guards through the open doorway. No one!
Kate rushes up a short flight of stairs and finds herself at the end of a veranda on one side of a long, single-story house. She can see ranch buildings nearby - she must be at the "big house" on the ranch. No one is around but her heart leaps when she spots the Ravencycle resting on its kickstand under a spreading cottonwood tree. Kate sprints across the dirt and grass to her bike and quickly dons her helmet and gloves. She rocks the bike upward and fires the engine. In a second, she's roaring down a gravel driveway and away from the ranch. Through rear-view mirrors, she can see several men on the porch, aiming and shooting at her. Her head rocks slightly from a nick against her helmet and she grunts when a slug hits her in the middle of her back.
In her best imitation of 'Ah-nold' Kate says, "Ah'll be back!" as she roars onto the highway and blips the throttle on her bike.
Back at the ranch, a tall and handsome man yells at his employees, "All of you with guns and you couldn't keep one little girl hostage or stop her from getting away!? Why am I paying you?"
One of the men she knocked down in the cellar says, "She used some kind of judo or something on us, Mr. H. And she was fast!"
"Well, either she'll be back, or she'll send someone else back. Do we know anything about her?"
"Just she was lookin' fer Keith. You said to bring back anyone looking for him."
"From that bar and several others, yes. Anything else?"
"She didn't have no purse 'er nuthin, boss," another man says, "and we didn' get to look in her bike. We was gonna do that after lunch."
"Lazy shits," the boss thinks. "Okay, here's the plan, boys," he says. He details how the men will be deployed for the next few days while they await a visit from the strange woman, some crimefighter or the state cops.
* * * * *
Kate has to drive to several intersections before she finally realizes that she's quite a distance from Denton, deep in rural north central Texas. Ranch country. She checks her leather jacket and grimaces at the sight of a small bullet hole in the middle of her back. She was driving fast - the jacket was flopping around on her back and was too far from her body to be protected as would her costume be protected. She sees that it is just a little before 11 a.m. - far too soon to return to the ranch.
After exploring the roads for a while, always keeping in mind a way back to the ranch, Kate finds a small footpath leading to a stand of trees well away from the highway. She roars off-road and pulls into the trees, hiding the bike behind some brush. When she looks around and spots a creek behind the stand of trees, Kate decides to clean off in a small pool of water at a bend in the creek. Kate strips and rushes down a slick and muddy slope into the creek, yelping when her bare feet touch grass or wood. She finally reaches the water and finds it knee-deep. As she starts to splash water on her body, she goes "Eeeuuuwww!" when she notices dried cum on her thighs. "Bastards must have done this after they knocked me out!" she realizes, disgust in her voice.
For twenty minutes, Kate splashes in the creek bottom, cleaning most of the mess off her body. She slowly rises and climbs out of the creek and makes her way back toward her bike. She pulls a towel out of one saddlebag and dries off, then spreads it on the ground outside the small wood. She sits on it and lets the sun warm her body. Eventually she falls asleep, half-on and half-off the towel. Not until late in the day, maybe an hour before sundown, does the woman awaken fully from her nap. As the sun sets again, Kate retrieves her gym bag from her saddlebag and begins to don her Raven costume. She pulls on the dark spandex tights and then the dark blue top and light blue shorts. Seconds later, she's wearing her mask, gloves, belt and boots and is ready to go after the 'cowboys' who kidnapped her.
"Might be nothing," she decides as she readies her bike for travel, "but my intuition says they know something about Mentat."
"Susan," Kate says into her cell phone a few minutes later, "I'm going to investigate some people who might have information about Mentat. They're a pretty rough bunch. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, maybe you'd better send in the troops." Kate describes the location of the ranch house to Susan Books.
"I'll see if Commander Scott has any friends in the DPS," Books replies. "That's outside our jurisdiction but not outside the state police's area. I wouldn't trust any county mounties - they might be on the payroll. If I don't hear from you by nine a.m., I'll see if we can't get some Department of Public Safety troopers or even a Texas Ranger or two up there. BE CAREFUL!"
"Of course I will, Susan, but give me until midnight tomorrow night, okay?" Kate says, smiling at her friend. "I might have to lie low during the day if my investigation takes more than two or so hours."
Three hours after sundown, near midnight, the Ravencycle pulls out of the small copse and heads back toward the ranch. Her bike was customized by the SHF and sports features not found on the stock Honda ST1100. She can kill her headlights, the muffler is heavily-baffled, and the engine is very quiet. Its speed and black paint make it a very fast and very stealthy bike. She uses that now - she kills the light a mile after passing the ranch and glides slowly, almost silently toward a bridge over a creek just beyond the ranch entrance. Anyone watching the road would have seen a bike roar past the ranch and fade into the distance. When she 'went stealthy', she was far enough from the ranch to not be seen.
Raven slows the bike as she nears the creek crossing and coasts off into the grass beside the highway, stopping when the bike is hidden from the road. Fortunately, her costume keeps the grass from touching her body, otherwise she would be in great pain with the tall weeds all around her. She removes her helmet and leather jacket and stashes them in a saddlebag, then locks the bike and hides the key on it. She covers the bike with a cloth that disguises the fact that there is a motorcycle beneath the cloth.
"This should be a fun night," she thinks confidently as she moves down to the bank of the creek and begins walking alongside it toward the farmhouse. She can't see the buildings but she can see the glare over the top of the high ground beside the creek. "I just hope there's not too much greenery between me and the ranch house," she decides as she picks her way along the stream.
* * * * *
"I've got movement down by the crick," a man on the roof of the grain silo radios the boss. With AN/AVS-6 Aviator's Night-Vision Imaging system/goggles (ANVIS) on, Raven stands out like a candle in a cave. Moving along the creek warms her up and makes the heat rising through her costume shine on the infra-red spectrum. Inside the house, several men redeploy.
"Doesn't seem to be Supergirl," the boss tells his crew. "She'd fly in here, not sneak along the creek. So it's probably one of the local heroes. Keith told me that none of them can withstand a gas attack, so everyone don your masks. We'll gas him as soon as he enters the house."
* * * * *
Raven moves with extreme stealth, using trees or other objects to block her presence from anyone inside the ranch house. At one point, she spots a man hiding behind a tree, looking at the ranch house. Raven sneaks up behind him and as the man turns toward the sound of her movement, she unleashes a haymaker punch that <THWACK> hits his chin, makes him spin around and drop to the ground. " No sound and one down!" the heroine thinks, pausing to look for any reactions from the ranch house. "Good thing Susan isn't here," Raven realizes. "She'd have to arrest me for assault and breaking and entering!"
After a few moments, the heroine sprints lightly across the open ground between trees and the house and reaches the edge of the wide porch, near the wine cellar entrance. Glad that no one has raised an alarm thus far, the heroine begins to walk slowly along the veranda, checking windows in search of one that's open. After a few tries, she finds a large patio door that isn't locked. She slowly opens the door and steps inside, careful to make almost no noise to awaken anyone in the house. After closing the door, Raven turns to move around inside the large room when suddenly the lights flick on and several men rise from behind couches or other furniture. All are armed with clubs or firearms and all are wearing gas masks!
Before Raven can react, two men launch cannisters at her. They hit her body and drop to the floor, hissing as the gas inside billows out at her feet. Raven is immediately surrounded by a thick cloud of gas that blinds her eyes and makes her fall back against the door. When she turns to open the door, she fumbles with the latch, her eyes too tear-filled to guide her. Suddenly a fusillade of shots rings out and bullets smack against her back and head from half a dozen pistols and rifles. The impact of so many rounds forces her against the door, preventing her from opening it.
Just as she starts to recover from the military-style CS tear gas and bullets, a flurry of blows begins to strike her back and the back of her head, driving the woman to her knees, her head against the glass door. One powerful blow forces her face through the glass and only her Trimblers protect her face from the falling glass shards. The Trimblers don't help her against the repeated hammer blows against her body, though. Raven struggles to turn around and even raises one hand as if to stop the clubbing, but between that and the gas, her ability to fight is severely limited. The brave woman slowly sags down to lie on one side as the clubbing continues, interrupted by the loud bark of a pistol or rifle being shot at her.
"Hold it, boys," a commanding voice says, and the clubbing and shooting stops. "You're wasting ammo on her and I think she's not going to resist too much now, are yah, darlin'?" Raven looks up with tear-filled eyes and manages to focus on the man talking to her. He's a tall, thin, attractive man, someone she's seen before. He reaches one hand down to help her to her feet and the woman gratefully takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet.
Suddenly the man whips a cloth out from behind his back, steps forward, and wraps his left arm around her upper body (pinning her arms to her sides) while he jams the chloroform-soaked cloth against her face with his right hand. His muscular chest presses against the woman's succulent breasts, squeezing them against her body.
"Mmmphf .. MnnhhOOOOO!" Raven shouts through the sense-robbing drugs filling her mouth and nostrils. She tries to raise her arms away from her body but the man shouts for help and suddenly she is surrounded by men, pressing their bodies against her, restricting her movement.
"Tie her up!" the man shouts and Raven soon finds herself tightly bound with rope and duct tape. The kind of rope made from plastics, fortunately, but still wrapped tightly around her legs.
As the heroine's eyes slowly close, the last thing she sees is the tall man's face, smiling at her. His calm voice drones in her ears, saying, "Go to sleep, now, darlin', and we'll talk later."
* * * * *
Some time later, Raven slowly awakens and, through bleary eyes, tries to take stock of her situation. She slowly perceives that she's chained to some kind of metal frame. And that she's naked. She struggles to escape her bonds but only manages to rattle the thick metal chains. And alert her guard. A lanky guy in faded denim, with a cowboy hat on his head and a Louisville slugger over his shoulder, steps around to stand in front of the bound woman. "Jest hold yer water, missy and I'll call the boss," the man says in a thick east Texas drawl. He moves out of sight but Raven can hear him talking over an intercom to someone.
As Kate waits, she looks at her restraints. Each wrist has a chain looped around it several times, then is looped around a metal cross-piece and held in place by a padlock. The same arrangement is on each ankle. She can see another set of chains around her waist and assumes they too are hooked around the metal frame and secured by a padlock. There isn't enough slack in any of the chains for her to rattle them and they are too strong for her enhanced strength to break. She's here until they let her go. She's about three feet away from a cinder-block wall and about two feet away from the same wall to her right. To her left there is a black curtain blocking any view. Of course she can't see what's behind her. As it is, she can't tell if it's daylight or not - no view of the outside is in sight.
Several minutes later, the tall thin man from her capture moves into Raven's line of sight. "Well, we meet again, it seems," the man says as he smiles at his helpless captive. "Denny tells me you're the same woman he picked up the other night at Pepper's. Explains how you escaped yesterday morning. So you're some kind of super heroine, eh?"
"I'll talk when you release me and let me get dressed!" Raven snarls at her captor. "And what do you mean, 'we meet again'?
"I don't think you need to give me attitude, darlin'," the man says, stepping closer to the woman, ignoring her question. He cups the bottom of her left breast and seems to be weighing it. Raven fumes and struggles to pull away but can't. "Why are you asking questions about Keith - or maybe you know him as Mentat?"
"Nnnnhhh - let me go, you bastard!" the heroine spits at the man. "When I get free ..."
"I don't think that's going to happen, now that you know where our operation is located," the man smiles at the woman. "Now, about Keith ..." and the man slides his hand up to cover Raven's breast. Then his fingers surround her nipple and he begins to squeeze it, tighter and tighter. After squeezing for a minute, he stops when he realizes the woman can't feel his pinch.
"My, so you do have some kind of invulnerability. I thought so, but wasn't sure. Well, I'm sure we can find some way to make you more cooperative. We could hook a battery to your nipples, or tickle you, or," and he leans forward and slips two fingers inside Raven's love canal.
"Ooohh ... nnnnhhh NNNOOOO!!" the irate woman snaps at the man as his fingers continue to slide in and out of her most sensitive area. The man begins to caress her left breast and suck on the right, stoking the fires of passion in the woman. "Ooohhh ... d-don't ... please!" she begs as her body begins to respond the man's attentions. First her love canal begins to lubricate, making it easier for his fingers to slide in and out of her pussy. Then her nipples harden, giving him something to play with and nibble as she squirms in her bondage.
Between suckings of her breast, the man says, "I have a crew of twenty men and <SLURP> I can send them down in shifts <SLURP> to continue this 24/7 until <SLURP> you talk to me. Now <SLURP> what's your name and <SLURP> why are you after Keith/Mentat <SLURP>."
Betrayed by her body, a few moments later Raven sags in the chains and moans in a deep, throaty voice, "Gooddddsssss, st-stop, please stop," as her body suddenly rattles from a powerful orgasm. Her chin drops down on her chest and her long black hair cascades forward in sweaty strands to block her face. She shakes from aftershocks even though the man has already pulled his fingers out of her pussy and no longer torments her full, round breasts.
"I'll give you a moment to compose yourself," he says, lifting her chin up so he can see her half-closed eyes, "but then you will answer my questions or else."
"Guh-go to ... Hell, bas-bastard," Raven says in a weak voice. She looks up at him with hate in her eyes.
"There's more of that attitude I find so unattractive in you," the man says. He drops down to one knee and gently drags his finger nails along the bottom of the woman's left foot. "Does your invulnerability protect you from this?" he asks. He gets his answer almost at once as the heroine squeals and rattles her chains.
"Ooohhh ... nnoooo ... hahaha ... st-OOOOHHHH hahahahaha," Raven bleats helplessly. Suddenly she begins to laugh uproariously when he begins to tickle the bottom of her right foot. "AAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!! SSTTOOPPPP!!" she cries out. The man finally stops tormenting her and slowly rises to his feet. Raven is able to gain control of her involuntary laughter with a few deep breaths.
"My name ... is Raven," Kate tells the man a minute later. "Mentat - Keith was killed a few days ago. I'm trying to find out who he was working for." Defeat washes through the heroine's body - she can't break the chains and if his men do rape her 24/7, she'll never be able to escape. All the orgasms will deplete the energy in her body.
"I saw his death reported on TV and thought this would bring trouble to my doorstep," the tall man says, rubbing his chin. "He certainly wasn't working for me. He hasn't worked for me for a month or so. I've used him from time to time in the past, whenever I needed him to help me by clouding someone's mind."
Raven looks at the man. She's feeling stronger now and can hold her eyes open. Even so, the orgasm bled a lot of energy from her Trimblers. "Why do you say I should know you?" she asks in a soft voice.
"Think back. Maybe two months ago, to the Dallas Diamond Exchange ..."(6)
Raven gasps, "YOU! You and that lizard and Mistress Ursula were in the basement. You were taking something from the computer down there."
"Yes, a series of addresses and databases. Hidden from the Internet but readily accessible from a direct hack on the server. Ursula and Snapper were hired to help protect me while I stole the information. I thought they left you tied up?"
"They did, but I got away. I didn't find the lizardman, but I did rescue my partner Force and send Ursula to jail." Raven doesn't admit that patrolwoman Books lent a hand.
"Ursula's out of jail already," the man says, sliding one hand up from Raven's hips, across her waist, and up her side to her armpit. She shudders briefly from his touch but won't yield to him if she can avoid it. "By the way, my name is Harley - no first or last name, just Harley. I buy and sell stuff, here and across the border. Usually I just deal in information. Easier to move and worth more, pound for pound, than almost anything else."
"I called the police before I came here ..."
"Oh, I know. And we're not at the ranch any more, darlin'.
We pulled out an hour after we took you captive. We're at another
place of mine. Well, most of my men are here. I left a few
at the ranch to make it look like a normal working ranch. They called
and told me that six DPS troopers, a Texas Ranger, and a Dallas cop came to the ranch
looking for you. My boys played dumb, said they had no idea what
the law was talking about. After a while, the law left. So
you're not going to be rescued. I just have to decide what I'm going
to do with you now, Raven. I don't usually traffic in people but I
hear there's a lively trade in buying and selling super heroes and heroines."
Raven shudders. She's been on that market already. Only the
timely intervention of Supergirl saved her from being sold as someone's
own personal super heroine.(7) She knows that protesting
will do her no good. Harley turns and begins to walk away from his
prisoner. "I'm going to see what I can learn about selling you, Raven.
Until then, I'll let some of my boys come down to, er, entertain you. Ha ha ha ha!"
"Shit!" Raven mutters as Harley passes through the black curtain. Again she tests her chains for slack or weakness and again finds nothing. She's about to quit when the curtain parts and one of the cowboys working for Harley enters and approaches her.
"You kicked my nuts pretty good the other day outside Pepper's," the extremely thin man says, "'n now yer gonna pay, bitch!". His grin shows stained and crooked teeth, as well as some gaps. His breath is so bad it would make a corpse turn away. His face is badly scarred by acne and he has a two-day growth of stubble on his chin. He moves close to the woman and presses his hands against her breasts, squeezing and compressing them with all his strength. Even weakened by her recent orgasms, Raven feels nothing and shows no reaction to the man's efforts. Fortunately, his rough handling of her body doesn't elicit even a miniscule erotic tinge. Actually, his activities are more of a nuisance.
"C'mon baby, let's see a little life from you!" he snarls at the girl. Still she continues to look at him with a bland expression on her face. Frustrated, the guy makes an exaggerated swing and slugs her belly with his best shot. Still no reaction from the nude prisoner. The man screams in rage and begins to pound the woman's body, using her breasts as speed bags and her belly as a heavy bag. He steps back and kicks her crotch and when the pointy tip of his cowboy boot hits her, she's lifted up as far as the chains will permit, then settles down in her restraints, all without making a sound or grimace. She makes a silent prayer of thanks that her body is still invulnerable enough to ward off his blows where he's hitting her. He doesn't have the strength to do enough damage with just his hands, or even with his kicks.
"Fine! <PANT> Be that way, yah skank <PANT>," the man, whose name is Billy Joe, says, bending at the waist to catch his breath. "Can't beat on yah, at least I can screw yer brains out!" Billy Joe stands in front of Raven and drops in blue jeans down to his knees and grabs the woman's hips.
Raven looks down the man's body and pauses to stare at his tool. Suddenly the captive woman begins to laugh hysterically as she looks at the man's small tool. "Shuddup, yah cunt!" the man snarls, immediately aware that she's laughing at his manhood. As he tries to back away from her, he trips on his jeans and falls backward, slamming into the wall behind him. The wall keeps him on his feet but those same feet are about two feet away from the wall, so he looks clumsly and awkward leaning against the wall. Raven's laughter increases to the point that tears begin to run down her cheeks.
"With your pants down," Raven laughs, "you could still be charged with having a concealed weapon! BWAH-HAHAHAHAH!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU GODDAMNED CUNT!" Billy Joe roars as he pushes off the wall. He shuffles closer to the laughing woman and when he reaches her, he again begins to pound on her face, breasts and belly with his fists. His wee weiner wags from side to side as he pummels the heroine, who further enrages him by continuing to laugh. After several minutes, Billy Joe stops hitting Raven and pulls up his pants as he pants for air.
"Oooohhh, don't go away mad, little man!" Raven taunts as the man buckles his over-large (and obviously compensatory) belt buckle.
BJ glares at the woman and pulls a 9mm semi-auto from a holster on his belt. "Harley said we wasn't s'posed to kill yah, but I don't care no more!" He puts the barrel between her large tits and pulls the trigger. The bullet leaves the barrel and immediately hits the force field surrounding her body. The bullet riccochets upward to embed in the ceiling. Powder from the firing hits her body and makes a dark splash mark in the valley between her twin 36Cs and up toward the two nipples. The impact knocks the wind out of Raven and makes her buck in the frame. Her head drops down onto her chest. Inside the darkened area surrounding her and Billy Joe, the smoke powder looks like dark blood and she looks like she's dead from his shot.
"SHITSHITSHIT!!" Billy Joe says, suddenly aware that he's killed the woman Harley said to fuck, not kill!
"What's goin' on in there?" the guard outside the confinement area yells through the black curtain.
"Just playin' with the bitch, Jack, no need to worry yourself. Might even be some more shots. Why don't you go across the road and tell Harley I'm havin' a lot of fun with his girl."
"Okay, but hurry up! Mike's next, then me." Sounds of a door opening and closing tell Billy Joe that he's alone with Raven. For a few minutes, at least.
Working with feverish panic, BJ uses his pistol as a hammer to break the padlocks holding the chains on Raven, freeing first her feet, then her waist. Finally, two good whacks knock off the locks on the chains binding her wrists to the metal frame and the 'dead' heroine falls forward into the man's arms. At first BJ's more concerned with putting his gun back into its holster but after doing that, he suddenly notices that her back is a solid sheet of light-olive skin. "Damn bullet musta stayed in her," he decides, lifting her body up and tossing it over her shoulder.
BJ quickly pushes through the curtain and outside the small building, into the harsh glare of the mid-afternoon Texas sun. As he scampers around the corner of the building, Raven suddenly explodes to life, hammering the small of his back with her clenched fist as she kicks his chest with one knee. BJ blurts out a whimper of pain and drops to the ground, dropping the naked heroine onto rough gravel. Raven quickly rises to her knees and smashes her elbow into the man's face. The blow makes blood spatter from his nose and a cut lip and knocks him backward, unconscious.
The woman looks around and can't see anyone else. She's within sight of a city - she can see the golf ball shape of Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas in the distance so she must be northwest of the city, probably near the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. She quickly unbuckles Billy Joe's jeans and pulls them off, as well as his black poly-blend shirt. As she gets the shirt off the man, she hears shouts coming from the front side of the building.
"Time to beat feet!" she decides. She tosses both garments upward and they disappear when they land on the roof. Raven expertly leaps upward and her hands grab the edge of the flat roof of the one-story building, her bare breasts smashing as they hit the side of the building. She quickly scrambles upward and rolls flat on the roof, just as someone comes around the corner of the building.
"Billy Joe's over here!" the man shouts and Raven hears other men rush around to this side of the building.
"Is that sorry son-of-a-bitch still alive?" she hears Harley ask.
"Yeah, Mr. H., he's just knocked out."
<BLAM> "Get rid of that dumb motherfucker's body. Spread out and look for the woman. She's naked or she's wearing his jeans and black shirt. You two, come with me. We need to pack up and get out of here, in case she gets away."
Raven lies on her back, chest heaving as she breathes rapidly from the climb up the side of the building. Sounds of footsteps get quieter and she risks a quick look over the side of the building. She can see a few men a few hundred yards away, moving through tall weeds in a field ("HAH! As if I'd go there naked!" she thinks). She's in a small group of buildings - mostly single-story, with signs indicating several different businesses, like a car repair place and a plumber. Raven rolls away from the edge of the roof and begins to dress in the stolen clothes. The pants are loose on her 33" hips and the shirt is a little tight on her 36C chest but they'll do for the moment.
The woman checks the view from the front side of the building and sees several men loading boxes into unmarked vans. Harley is helping his men load the vans. Suddenly Raven spots a man climbing onto the roof of the building across the street. "Great scott!" she thinks. "He'll spot me. There's nothing on this roof to hide behind." Raven crawls backward and gets to a corner at the rear of the building. She lies flat with her black hair and the black shirt facing the man on the other roof. "With any luck," she assures herself, "he won't be able to see me as anything but a shadow."
Several tense minutes later, Raven risks raising her head to look at the other rooftop and smiles. No one is up there. Suddenly she hears the roar of multiple engines. Harley and his cowboy gang must be pulling out! The woman slowly crawls to the front edge of the rooftop and smiles at the sight of the trucks heading away from her.
* * * * *
Raven calls Books from the car repair shop and within an hour, the policewoman arrives to meet her friend. Together the two women head toward the gang's ranch. As they slowly pass the front of the ranch house, they can see a pair of trucks parked outside and men scrambling to load boxes into it.
"Aren't you going to arrest them?" a shocked Raven asks Susan.
"For what? Loading trucks without removing their t-shirts?" Susan snorts. "Kate, I can't arrest them without evidence, even if this was my jurisdiction. Now, we can follow them and call for backup by the Department of Public Safety ..."
"No, forget about them," a disgusted heroine says. "They can't help me find out who hired Mentat. I'll let someone else worry about arresting them."
"What about your costume?"
"I'm sure that's long gone," Raven replies. "Harley wouldn't keep around evidence that might tie him to me. Looks like I'm going to have to find a new costume and weapons." She sighs deeply and says, "Let's go get my bike. At this point, I just wanna go home and take a long, hot soak in my tub."
* * * * *
"I have learned that Raven has managed to disrupt Harley's operations in north Texas," a hooded man says to two other people also wearing hoods.
"Is that good?"
"For the present, she's not infringing on us, so we let her run free," the first man replies. "She's going to find out that MixMaster hired Mentat and, with Dr. Collins dead, I hope Raven will stop there. If she continues to pursue this, though, we can take action against her at a later date."
"See you in two weeks, then," one of the others says. All rise and leave the darkened conference room. Each has a small folder containing several pages of information about Dallas' super heroine. Each is grimly determined that she must not interrupt their plans to consolidate their power over the city's underworld.
===============================
Comments and suggestions are always welcome; send to rw5xxx@excite.com
(1) Missions of Supergirl #35 <return to the story>
(2) Missions of Supergirl #4 <return to the story>
(3) Foundation #6 <return to the story>
(4) Missions of Supergirl #30 <return to the story>
(5) Foundation #4 <return to the story>