42: Sapphire Unleashed

One among the crowd saw things through different eyes. A man, looking out of place in such party surroundings, curiously dressed like a tourist who missed his flight, and old enough to be the father of the two deadly damsels at the center of everyone's attention. And unlike the slack-jawed surprise of those around him, this man had the look not of someone who had seen a fantastic urban legend come to life, but that of a man whose plan was coming to delightful fruition.

A hand went to his chest. And Fang Manxie felt the almost-painful hot humming of a mystical amulet excited to near-atomic activity.

It took Sapphire a moment to regain her bearings. A fat lady had collapsed beneath her and was rolling around, trying to get up. The petite superheroine could only writhe around atop, flipped on her back like a turtle balanced atop the ample woman's gelatinous belly as it slid this way and that. Finally the girl managed to roll down off the woman, coming quickly to her feet. And quickly feeling the crushing pain in her head.

She'd heard that ringing sound before -- and felt that disorienting pain. It was Ginger and the crowbar all over again.

But this time she could strike back. She just had to be careful not to hurt anyone else.

Black Widow rushed in, her steel club held high. Sapphire quickly waved it off as she sidestepped her tall foe; Black Widow stumbled but quickly spun around. Sapphire turned, thrusting a pointed hand, jabbing Black Widow's clenched hands with a narrow blast, throwing off bright blue sparks. The force of the blow forced the would-be assassin to drop the weapon; it clanged as it hit the floor. A flick of Sapphire's wrist sent it skidding away under the crowd's feet.

Sapphire put her hands out in front of her, moving them in and out as a clear warning she would strike again.

Val's hands stung. This Sapphire bitch was starting to get pretty accurate with her little thrusts. She looked around; the crowd had backed off a respectable distance, but was more densely packed than ever. There was nowhere to run. She was going to have to take her lumps and hope to get in close again. The arachnidian assassin drew into a taut crouch, legs out wide, straining against her tight pink skirt, hands low, the pose of a spider spied, holding perfectly still but ready to spring...

Onlookers wisely cleared out from behind her; now even they knew what was coming...

Max watched the two young women with awe and wonder. These were not martial arts experts calling and raising each others' practiced moves with clever improvisations. Nor were they brawling testosterone factories bludgeoning each other with predictable jackhammer volleys of five-part projectiles. These two were evolving their fighting style on the spot, minds whirling in search of new ways to use their fantastic gifts, each trying to understand herself as much as trying to understand her opponent, each as different as they were the same. One with street experience, physical advantages, and a disregard for the uninvolved; the other hampered by naivete and concern, but blessed with touchless reach and a fearsome force weapon.

It almost made him sad that he would have to interfere.

But as beautiful as this awkward and unpredictable show of force might be, Max knew a far greater and more lasting beauty awaited.

Max looked around. So focused were minds on this fantastic combat, he felt no need to cloak himself as he stepped closer to the action. He stretched his mind to meet Val's, being ever so careful to look without touching. Her frustration was palpable -- Sapphire was not her interest, yet she was forced to deal with the flitting female before she could complete her mission. Max felt sorely tempted to pull at Val's simmering anger towards the interloper, but he dared not. He already saw in her the growing conclusion that she would have to put Sapphire down before she would be allowed to finish Bates. That thought would be close enough to serve his purpose.

Max's mind turned to Sapphire. He was still fascinated by her impermeability. Every mind he had deigned touch had exposed access tokens -- emotions to be felt, senses to be tapped, thoughts to be turned over. With effort these could be rearranged, or parted to reveal further tokens, or illuminated to see their compositions and connections. With still more effort they could be dashed altogether, or conjured from nothing.

And when Max found one whose body was impregnated with deposits of absorbed sapphire energy, he could tug upon it like a string wound through the mind, extracting and unraveling all the thoughts and feelings it touched with invigorating ease that approached the orgasmic.

But Sapphire was unique. Her mind alone was completely closed to him. But in closing one door, Fate had opened another. Where her sapphires ensured that her mind was hers alone, they laid bare her body to feel her fearsome power become forbidden pleasure at his whim.

Max pondered the irony that the one woman whose mind his quest demanded he subvert was made inaccessible to him...

...and the irony that the one man against whom she would most need her power could turn it against her to render her mindless with ecstacy.

Max was so intent on this curious conundrum that his first imposition upon her was quite accidental.

Valerie watched Sapphire's probing hands with growing apprehension. It was as if the superheroine was trying to decide which hand to use to deliver her devastating attack. As if measuring the distance to her target. As if waiting for the crowd to move themselves clear of the path of harm. As if deliberately pausing to let Valerie's cringing anticipation grow.

Finally, the winged warrior thrust her left hand sharply forward; Val flinched, but curiously felt no furious blast of invisible force. No abrupt phantom shove. Not even a gentle nudge.

And instead of fierce determination on Sapphire's face, Val saw something else.

Surprise.
And lust.

It lasted but an instant, but an instant was all it took. Val knew the look, and she knew what it meant.
It meant Sapphire was vulnerable.

Black Widow launched herself at Sapphire with fearsome quickness. Sapphire, momentarily confused by the pleasant failure of her power, managed to twist out of the way just enough that Black Widow only caught her with an arm, sending the two slamming to the floor side-by-side. Sapphire blasted herself up, spinning free of Black Widow's arm, quickly jumping astride the taller woman, pressing her bejeweled hands into Black Widow's back.

But the Black Widow was not so easily held. Her sinewy form flexed violently, bucking Sapphire up once, then twice, then rearing up and throwing her off behind. The assassin kicked up and flipped back, throwing her head back like a club smashing down on Sapphire's face in a spitting flash of blue.

Black Widow leapt up and spun around to face her downed opponent. Sapphire used a quick burst of force from her hands to propel her to her feet, but just as she planted, Black Widow twisted her hips into a fast leg sweep. Sapphire spilled, but planted her left hand first and cartwheel-flipped into the air, hovering a moment before doing a weightless ballerina-like leg-sweep of her own. Black Widow crashed to her hands and knees. So intent was she on regaining her feet as quickly as possible that she missed Sapphire's landing.

Sapphire was no more than a foot above the floor when her energy suddenly turned on her. Stiletto heeled shoes hit hard, one slipping out from under its wearer, sending the gossamer girl spilling forward to one hand and one knee.

The crowd saw it, but didn't think much of it when she immediately sprung back, sticking a second landing.

But Max knew the truth. His second touch, deliberate and focused, had been *very* effective. He saw it in her face. The way her lips had parted to gasp. The way her eyelids had fluttered ever so briefly.

So revelrous was he at her rapturous surprise that he failed to notice the knowing reaction of the young man standing beside him.

Ricky's brow furrowed. Sapphire had unmistakably stumbled. But there was something more to it -- a momentary change in demeanor. So subtle that no one else caught it, much less recognized its carnal cause. But to Ricky's eyes, Sapphire's fleeting look was unmistakable.

The look brought forth a jolting flashback to Angela sprawled out on his bed...
...and to Sapphire pinned to the restaurant wall by the Black Widow...

And for the first time Ricky had an inkling of Sapphire's horrifying, humiliating weakness...

Val looked up to see Sapphire standing still over her. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she straightened up quickly, leading with a wicked right cross that sparked across the petite heroine's chin and sent her reeling back.

And Max smiled as he chose his moment of triumph.

Sapphire put her hands back to catch herself; her wrist gems flickered briefly, seeking to stabilize her and help her keep her feet. But without warning, their energy reversed course and hit Sapphire with a jarring hot flash. It was just an instant, but the unexpected jolt hit her hard, completely debilitating her with a strobe of sexual nirvana. She fell to the floor hard.

Sapphire's eyes suddenly went wide. She'd shrugged off the first blip as a lack of concentration, but there was no denying what she'd just felt. It was not the gradual, seductive glow of sapphires nearing exhaustion. No, it was a shocking sexual invasion. Such a sudden and... distracting outage could mean only one thing.

The Hunter was here.

A chill ran up her spine as Sapphire's head snapped back and forth, eyes frantically searching the crowd for the source of her sudden weakness.

Movement in front of her demanded her attention. Recovering quickly, the superheroine kicked a toe at Black Widow, manifesting itself as an upward thrust to the gut, knocking the girl up and back a good six feet.

Val landed on her feet, just barely. But the blow wasn't nearly as surprising as Sapphire's darting, wild eyes. Her focus was not on her opponent, but on the crowd. As if she was searching for something. As if she was *afraid* of something.

Ricky gasped in horror as his precious Angela fell flat on her back, twitching briefly. What was happening to her? The look of denied rapture told him what, but why? Was it some kind of curse?

The answer suddenly crystallized when he saw the fear in her eyes. And the way they scanned the crowd. Her weakness wasn't internal. Something was causing it.
Some*one*.
Someone close.
Someone *very* close...

Through the corner of his eye, Ricky saw something unexpected.
In a crowd full of shocked and frightened onlookers, the man standing next to him was *smiling*.

The hairs on the back of Ricky's neck stood on end as his head slowly turned to look. An older Asian man, completely unremarkable. And completely familiar. The memory of a grainy black-and-white surveillance video flashed through Ricky's head.

The Hunter.

Max prepared to hit the girl again, waiting with bated breath for the superheroine to try flexing her ethereal muscle again, itching to hit her even harder. His eyes bulged in gleeful anticipation. Arrayed around the black spot of impenetrability that marked Sapphire's mind, Max felt Valerie's spike of bright red frustrated hate towering above an array of minds filled with blue-green excitement and bewilderment...

...and a growing spectre of white horrified outraged recognition standing right beside him...

"It's you..."

Max turned to see a teenage boy staring at him. His eyes burned with righteous indignation. Muscles tensed in anticipation of movement...

Max's eyes flashed with recognition. He knew this boy. He'd touched him before, in the boy's own home, expecting to find a reserve of captured sapphire energy but finding only a well of infatuation. Max touched him now, his hand on the boy's arm...

...and felt a dizzying rush of emotions feeding an overwhelming urge to protect Sapphire. Emotions Max recognized, emotions he'd felt once, and might still feel toward Val.

Concern. Anger.
Love.

Max panicked. He threw a huge disruptive field of mental energy at the boy, a desperate random wall of illusion. He ducked, spun on a heel and bolted.

Ricky blinked his eyes in confusion. The Hunter just *vanished.*

Val prepared for another rush at the downed heroine. But Sapphire's next move surprised the assassin. Directly from her seated position, the winged wonder shot up in the air, crossing to Val in a single graceful arc, landing just inches from her. She grabbed an arm and pulled, spinning the surprised assassin around, and threw an arm around Val's neck.

Val felt herself pulled down, arching her back to keep from losing her feet. An instant later she was hauled skyward, her feet dangling above the heads of a stunned audience.

Sapphire leaped into the air, sapphires blasting her high above the crowd, aiming for the top floor balcony. Black Widow dangled helplessly from one arm, Sapphire reinforcing her headlock with her other hand on her elbow, drawing her arm in tightly to her chest, forcefields squeezing each other with a bright blue glow.

She had to get to the balcony. She had to remove herself and the Black Widow from the crowded floor before anyone else got hurt.

But a heroine's concern for the innocent was second in her mind. Fear was first and foremost.

She had to get away from The Hunter.

Halfway up, Sapphire felt something draw taut across her shoulders, briefly slowing her progress before snapping free. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a broken cable slither away through the darkness. She looked up. Her eyes strained to see countless more shadows an instant above, criscrossing each other in every direction. Her memory flashed back to early that evening, when she'd killed time waiting in the rafters, watching workers erect and secure statues and stages and towers of speakers and lights and equipment, waiting in the shadows as gaffers scurried about just below, throwing and catching and hauling and taping and connecting myriad guy wires and power cables and decorative banners.

She would have to power through them now, relying on brute force to break past the web of wires and onto the freedom of the balcony.

But as she kicked her legs for a little extra energy, she felt not a burst of speed, but a blast of bliss.

And gravity gripped her shuddering form.

Valerie inexplicably felt the grip on her neck slacken. She tucked hard, head forward, pelvis thrust back, knees up, pushing away from her captor. A moment of weightlessness yielded to the pull of gravity; she saw a large irregular object coming up toward her. Val reached out to tackle the object, painted in irridescent pinks and greens that sparkled in the dim disco lighting, wrapping arms and legs to either side as the object's leading edge hammered her torso bluntly. The air was briefly hammered out of her lungs with the unexpected impact, but she hung on until the world stopped shaking.

Valerie looked up over her shoulder, squinting through the flashing, spiraling, strobing lights, expecting to see Sapphire bearing down on her.

Instead, she saw a frightened, flopping, falling female clawing at the air as she slid back down through a twisted web of wires...

Max growled with animal delight as his mental attack quickly reversed the rocketing heroine's fortunes. Valerie had fallen free to land on top of a large decorative wall shaped like a fish. Sapphire had renewed her escape attempt, shooting through a tangled web of wires and cords and cables on her way to the top floor balcony.

Max would be sure she didn't reach it. He clenched his fist in physical mime of mental action, all of his attention focused on the sputtering dance of the girl above.

Sapphire felt the wave of unwanted ecstacy rip through her once again, short-circuiting her flight. She kicked and clawed frantically at the suddenly-unsupportive air as weightlessness gave way to unrelenting gravity. She thrust upward again, only to feel the crashing horrible pleasure grip her body and tug her earthward. Again and again she kicked, pushed, arched, coiled, and stretched; and again and again she was rewarded with frightening flames of curling physical heaven.

She screamed as she felt something grab her ankle.

Something sinewy and smooth wrapped itself around her calf, then suddenly drew taut; Sapphire's body lurched upside-down for a moment, sapphires sparking in protest. Her arm felt something constrict as she cartwheeled, suspending and stretching her sideways. She stopped in mid-air, but only for an instant before the grip on her calf slackened. Again she began to fall.

Again and again she tumbled down, only to be yanked and stopped and started by spinning, snapping metal serpents twisting, coiling, constricting about limbs and torso, shaking her like a ragdoll on her sickening earthward journey. All the while her desperate sapphire blasts crashed back upon her, pummeling her with erotic energy.

Finally, her descent stopped as as stubborn cable snagged her wrist above her and twin coils gripped her thighs.

Valerie sneered at Sapphire's predicament. She didn't seem to be struggling much; and she had *that* look on her face. Val doubted the bonds would hold for long. But Valerie didn't need long.

She pushed up off the large object that had caught her, rising to a sitting position, legs swinging down to straddle it like a rider on a huge horse. She looked up the length of its curving spine, its bent shape surrounding one of the elevated dance platforms below to the right. She rolled forward onto her chest, kicking her legs back and up until toes touched the ridge, then pushed her upper body back up as one foot came forward, neatly uprighting herself and breaking into a run down the giant fish's spine toward the main stage.

The assassin scaled the stair-stepped dorsal fin, almost instinctively plotting an elevated course toward the main stage, leaping off the fin into darkness, her entire body stretching airborne, reaching for a shadowy ripple. Hands grabbed and clung to one of the large hanging banners hoisted above the hall, momentum swinging her in a half-arc up toward the top of a huge bare scaffolding tower bedecked with massive speakers and bristling with lights. She looked down; directly below was a knot of dark suits pushing through the dancing masses.

Max watched with disappointment as his queen rushed off, her vengeful quest renewed. But he dared not tamper with her again, not while she was so focused. He looked up at his bound angel. He would have to harvest Sapphire's stones himself. Quite a trick in her present condition...

Sapphire hung in mid-air, forty feet above the floor, a butterfly snagged by a spider's web, gasping in exhaustion and surprise -- and arousal. She fought to remain still as she took stock of her situation, afraid that movement would only tighten the terrible coils around her tender flesh -- and afraid that any attempt to use her power to free herself would only bring her closer to the brink of sexual enslavement and ignomious defeat. For all she had endured this day, the Hunter frightened her like nothing else. As long as he was here, Sapphire was never more than a heartbeat from heavenly horrifying helplessness.

Finally she felt something break loose above her. She fell, twisting and gyrating and spinning like a cat trying to land on its feet, her gems trying in vain to stop her ragged descent, their energy exquisitely shunted straight into her nervous system. Her body spasmed helplessly, snagging and snapping an unending web of cord and cable and wire as she tumbled, limbs and torso being yanked and squeezed and released in rapid succession. Onlookers likened her to a marionette at the mercy of a demonic puppeteer, twisting and tangling her threads with sadistic glee.

But as helpless as Sapphire was in her fall, things only got worse once she landed. For an instant, the girl stopped moving, stunned by the impact. But then angry coils of trailing wires, pulled so violently earthward by her frantic airborne struggles, now caught up to the tossed and tangled teen, accumulating in a sea of sinister spaghetti, whipping and binding, their increasing mass bearing down on her. Sapphire's panicked mind envisioned being buried alive, permanently ensnared beneath a mountain of meshed wire that wouldn't stop falling.

Sapphire thrashed and screamed, a frightened fly stuck by a spider's spinnings, mindless clawing and kicking only snaring her more seriously. The heroine's bondage seemed to multiply, Sapphire cemented to the center of a spun singularity, drawing endless lengths of roping restraints in from everywhere. Ends frayed and split whipping and biting, odd anchors and connectors and plugs pummeling like stones.

Panic and pleasure pushed the girl far beyond the rationality to reign in her sapphires, frantic force-blasts fizzling, erotic energy curling in on her, crashing her senses, caught inextricably in an escalating ecstatic feedback loop.

Ricky pushed forward, digging at the crowd, getting agonizing glimpses of his fallen angel through the shifting compressing flesh of an interested throng. He wanted to be at her side, but others nearer her were already moving to untangle her; he found himself pushed back. He looked at his tortured heroine's sexual state. He recognized the flushed cheeks; the heaving, swollen chest; the pelvic gyration. He'd seen her this way before. It at once sickened, scared, enfuriated, and enthralled him.

Through the web of wires, Sapphire began to feel hands. Countless hands, grabbing and pulling and sliding and groping. Helpful onlookers fought through the network of random netting that held the heroine down, but the frantic female felt only aggressive grip, subversive stroking, and teasing touches.

And the more the cables constricted, the less Sapphire was able to move, the more panic fueled fearful excitement. At first Sapphire's thrashings were desperate bids to escape, but now as the girl continued to coalesce into a bundle of bondage, her helpless situation and the rhythmic rubbing of myriad textures both binding and caressing her skin became a frightening stimulant of sexual surrender. Abject flailing became cyclic squirming. She felt her will to resist fading. Her body flopped less furiously, her pelvis thrusted more rhythmically, the horrified heroine's will shrinking amid the sexual assault of a thousand threads and a hundred hands and the taut cord between her legs...

Ricky continued to watch in helpless horror as his precious Angela was ruthlessly humbled, humiliated, violated...

...and helpless concern became focused anger.

He looked over the crowd, scanning the sea of bobbing bodies for the phantom Hunter who moments ago had stood beside him. Ricky's fists clenched tightly; he could not just stand here while his angel was so wickedly manipulated by a monster.

I don't know by what witchcraft you've hidden yourself, but with God as my witness I will find you. And I will make you pay.

There, in the shadow of the giant fish statue's tail, something shimmered. A face came into focus. It was a man, though somehow his features seemed to shift before Ricky's eyes. The furious teen shoved his way closer; the man's face clarified. His brow was not furrowed with concern, but concentration. Ricky continued working his way through the thick roiling crowd, glancing back and forth between his fallen angel and this mystic devil.

As Angela's kicks and squirms become more rhythmic, her unbidden pleasure more overt, Ricky saw the Hunter's face become recognizable. Concentration became calm, became satisfaction, became a spreading smile... the sick bastard was taking pleasure in Sapphire's misfortune.

No, not just taking pleasure... but giving it. Creating it. Causing it.

Max began to withdraw his attack; Sapphire's gemstone-outbursts grew less and less frequent as her thrusting gyrations became more and more lustful. The girl had worked herself up enough that her own momentum would carry her over the edge. He turned his focus back to the crowd, searching their reactions and gauging the method and effort required to extract his fallen angel and her precious stones from this chaos.

And it wasn't long before he became aware of an insurmountable problem -- a growing spike of an aberrant mental pattern, a jagged angry red tower of anger and galvanizing response suddenly looming over the mental landscape, a red-hot glowing spectre of violent emotion among a forest of fright and sympathy and disbelief.

Ricky Aquino.

This boy would have to be put down.

Max reached out toward the approaching teen -- and quickly drew back a painfully shattered thought. This boy had the same hornet's nest of emotion protecting him that Val had thrown at Max earlier that day at the airport. But how? He had no sapphires of his own...

Max cursed the prickling emotional barrier he'd encountered. It wasn't about the sapphires at all.

It was about this meddlesome young man's feelings for Sapphire herself.

Damn! Max would have to deal with this mental infidel conventionally.

It was then that he saw Ricky reach into the back of his trousers...

...and pull out a gleaming metallic trump card.

Max flexed his mind, compelling those around him to suddenly shove themselves clear, opening a bubble of freespace around him. As soon as the boy got close enough, a quick aikido move would disarm him...

...but the lad suddenly stopped, raising the weapon and taking deadly aim.

Max probed delicately, and found a disturbing well of confidence. Max remembered that this was the son of a policeman. And he'd come as prepared in skill as he had in equipment.

Max would best this boy, but it would not be now.

Max gritted his jaw with mental effort, suddenly closing the empty space between them with a liquid rush of confused bodies.

Ricky lowered his weapon, gripping it tightly to his side to keep from losing it in the jostling mass of party flesh, forcing his way through to the space where The Hunter had stood...

...but he was gone.

After a few moments of frozen chaos, Bates found himself hurried off the stage, across the great hall's floor toward the north side. A great statue of a man wielding a hammer, a classic symbol of age-old manual labor, and a latticework tower of lights and speakers stood between him and the doors that led to the loading dock, where his bulletproof limousine and escort cars awaited.

Bates hated running. But the Black Widow was no ordinary assassin. Terrifying images of her last attempt on his life played over and over in his mind. A restaurant full of terrified people. A highly trained and very expensive team of bodyguard/counterassassins mowed down in a few moments. An entire building destroyed. Himself a breath away from death, saved at the last minute by an angelic young woman descended from above.

And it was all happening again.

Something leaped from the darkness above to land with a Smack! directly in front of him. She was ablur, moving too fast for eyes to focus on her. Two bodyguards immediately jumped her; she threw them off with a lightning-quick dodge. Bullets from a third bodyguard sbounced off her, their ricochet killing him and a fourth.

It wasn't just like last time. This time, his guardian angel had come up short.

Bates wheeled around to flee, and stumbled over a fallen bodyguard, falling to hands and knees. Three sharp footsteps hammered the platform as they approached from behind him. But instead of a fourth footstep beside him, there was silence.

Then a pair of black high-heeled ankle boots come down hard right in front of him.

Bates looked up to see a beautiful young woman. He'd known her, years earlier, her body just blossomed and her mind caught in that knowing ignorance of adolescence. Such sweet fruit that had been his undoing. She had sated his old demons in a way no one before had done -- and awakened new ones he'd scarecely understood. And after five years of state-sponsored abstinence, those terrible, beautiful demons had barely begun to stretch their wings when this wicked warrior had descended upon him.

Twice, now. Back from the grave to resume her wrath.

Her eyes bore the searing heat of a mind with just one thought: end his existence.

The blood drained from Gerald Bates' face.

The woman snarled. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Her name was Valerie Strain.

Valerie looked down at her shivering prey. The world fell away, leaving nothing, not even her own life, only this manifestation of evil before her. She knew not how she had existed before this. And she cared not what would happen after.

All that mattered was that He Paid.

A vicious kick to the chin. A boot to the chest. He was upright. And unable to breathe.

She could have ended his life with a single blow to the throat.

But she wanted it to hurt.

Rock-hard fists rained blows down upon Gerald Bates. Bloodied the face, smashed the nose, cracked the orbital socket, fractured the cheek, dislocated the jaw. Bates fell back to the floor with a heavy crash.

She jumped on top of him, fists banging down on his chest. Bludgeoning him with her body.

But the reality of her attack, the crushing weight of pain as this armored assassin hammered away at his flesh overrode his fear. Gerald Bates was not accustomed to receiving pain; he dished it out. His mind rejected the reversal; defiant anger amplified self-preservation; a lifetime of violent experience gave it direction. And Gerald Bates struck back.

Val scarcely felt the first blow, interrupting her whirling fists only briefly. The punch to the ribs was barely worth notice.

But the second shot, a massive knee to the groin, demanded her full attention. It lifted her lightweight body three feet off the ground, her fists suddenly striking nothing but air.

In this unexpectedly-elevated position, meaty hands found the base of her ribcage and gave a mighty thrust. Suddenly Val found herself tossed through the air, legs pistoning uselessly. She crashed against a fake planter box, her bulletproof back smashing the laminate structure to bits. Plastic leaves rained down on her.

But before Bates could get all the way to his feet, she was on him again, screaming like a banshee as she unleashed a violent volley of kicks and punches. He blocked what he could, but even Gerald Bates' massive frame couldn't take an endless barrage of blows from hands and feet and limbs harder than steel...

Gerald Bates fell like an imploding skyscraper, his face smacking the carpeted floor with a sickening wet splat.

Sapphire swiftly approached sexual release, but her cocoon of constriction became progressively less intense. Hands stroking, gropping, and grabbing became less insistent, preferring to grasp at the strands that held her rather than the heroine's flushed skin. As her bonds were loosened and the fantasy of powerless escape faded to the reality of physical extraction, Sapphire began to realize that those around her were not trying to stimulate her, but help free her. As the cords digging into her slackened and her sexual fever cooled, a small part of her felt disappointment. But Sapphire quickly regained control, finally standing and shucking the last of her plastic-coated prison.

Her eyes scanned the dark floor, straining to somehow see her attacker. She could think of only two alternatives, both chilling. She could flee him, or she could fight him -- but neither with the aid of her sapphires. It seemed hopeless -- but she had survived hopelessness more than once already.

The sound of crashing props and flashing gunfire drew the superheroine's attention across the great room. Hunter or no, Sapphire could not leave the Black Widow to plow through countless innocents on her path to destroy Bates. And Ginger Hartwick's threat of mass destruction still hung heavy in the air. Quitting was not an option.

Sapphire rose up, freeing herself of the bonds of gravity, carefully checking herself for any lingering appendages as she floated upward, stopping her ascent just above the heads of those around her, eyeing the dark space around her cautiously. People looked up in awe as the crowd swallowed the space where she'd stood a moment ago. Hesitant hands reached up, hoping to touch the feet of this floating female, this goddess of gravity hovering just out of reach, and just outside the bounds of reason if not reality.

Satisfied that her bonds were broken, Sapphire leaned forward, arms held out behind her, mentally gathering herself for a brief moment before setting off across the massive hall. The superheroine appeared to dance above the crowd, bounding back and forth inches above the human river, eyes peeled for obstructions as she zigzagged with longer hops and increasing velocity of regained confidence, finally streaking across the hall just above the dancing hoardes like a night fighter skimming the treetops...

"Jimmy, it's Ricky. I'm at the party."
"I can see that."
"So is the Hunter."
"Fuck. You saw him?"
"That's just it. He was right in front of me, and then he just vanished."
"He got away?"
"No; he *became* *invisible*."
"You're seeing things."
"I'm *not* seeing things. Just help me."
"Well, there's a problem. Everybody else took off. I'm all you've got."
"Fuck!" Ricky's profanity stunned Jimmy. "He's hurting her. I have to stop him." His voice was pleading.
"Ricky, you don't know what he can do; maybe you shouldn't-"
"I don't care!" Ricky erupted, his voice both angry and anguished. "You gotta help me."
"All right. I'll try... Holy shit!"

Gerald Bates collapsed. His whole body screamed with pain. Broken ribs, shattered wrists, hands turned to hamburger, face fractured and cut and swollen. No one dared intervene on his behalf; the half-dozen men who'd tried were broken or dead, bodies arrayed about him. There was no one left to fight. Not even him. There was simply no stopping a woman made of iron and fueled by hate.

"You sick son of a bitch. You evil motherfucker. What you did to me, and you only got five years. You should have gotten the fucking chair. You should have been fucking tortured, the way you tortured me. I wish I could torture you forever. I wish I could make you hurt the way you hurt me. But all I can do is kill you. At least that way you'll never do to anyone else what you did to me."

Bates coughed, a sputtering, bloody cough. "But *you* seduced *me*," he gurgled, lisping through broken teeth. "You unleashed the demons. You created me."

Val's blood chilled.
The worst evil is the evil that fails to recognize itself.

She squeezed her legs together, putting excruciating pressure on his ribs, leaning forward to address him. He vaguely felt his head lifted up by his hair. A pair of lips hissed hotly in his ear.

"When you get to Hell, tell them Valerie Strain sent you."

He felt his tie yanked around and pulled taut around his neck...

...and a furious rush of wind seemed to blow his killer off his back.

A blinding-white blast of light strobed the building. Valerie's vision blanked; her body folded around a furious meteor, screaming in pain.

Sapphire suddenly stopped in mid-air; Black Widow's momentum carried her forward, smashing her through a fully-stocked bar like a cannonball. Her limbs caught as she skidded to the ground, spinning and cartwheeling and flipping like a disintegrating airplane. Her body finally came to rest at the foot of a giant statue.

Valerie opened her eyes and looked up. She breathed carefully; nothing was broken, she was sure, but she felt like she'd been hit by a truck.
At Mach Two.

Sapphire touched down gently several feet away from the fallen assassin. "No more," she said in a commanding tone.

Now that mortal danger had been subdued, a bevy of fresh black suits appeared from nowhere to attend to the beaten Bates; they lifted him to his feet, throwing his arms over two men's shoulders and hurrying him off toward the north exit and the loading docks beyond.

Val stood, dusting herself off overdramatically. She gritted her teeth as she watched Bates flee the scene. A step toward him brought a forbidding response from the angel. Sapphire raised a hand next to her head, open palm pointed toward the would-be assassin, fingers curled as if holding an invisible ball of force. The heroine's whole body stretched, torso turning, hand drawing back. And her eyes glinted with fury.

This would be no displacing shove. Val remembered their restaurant dance, and the way Sapphire had used her as a wrecking ball. Reaching Bates with Hurricane Half-Pint here ready to strike was out of the question. So was getting to the nearest door. She needed a distraction...

Sapphire watched Bates' entourage rush him across the floor to the far end of the hall. She saw Black Widow's eyes dance back and forth between the receding Bates and the nearby door.

But the assassin made a third choice.

Unexpectedly, Black Widow juked to her right; Sapphire flinched to deliver a blow but saw people in her path; damn! She leaped into the air, looking to get a clear line of fire as she wondered what the hell the Black Widow was doing going the wrong way, pinning herself in a corner. Black Widow's behavior seemed to get even stranger as the tall woman ran headlong right into the base of a scaffold equipment tower. The scaffolding rang with the impact...

...and then it began to creak.

Sapphire lowered her hand. If she struck Black Widow now, she would knock over the tower, and it would come crashing down on all these people...

But as Black Widow extricated herself, Sapphire saw with horror that it was already happening. She kicked her legs and zoomed higher, hoping to extend her defiance of gravity to this swaying, screeching, shuddering totem.

Sapphire held her arms out wide above her head, hands spread, mentally stretching her force as broadly as she could, trying desperately to cradle the falling tower. The spindly assemblage creaked and groaned and flexed, joints pulling open over its length, but so much equipment snaking so much wire over the scaffolding held the thing together like tendons on bones. The petite heroine grunted with the effort, her gemstones glowing bright. She slowly, carefully began rising higher, pushing the A/V colossus back toward the vertical.

She looked below her; an overconfident crowd had scarcely started to scatter when Sapphire's heroic move brought them rushing back to get a better view of this miraculous deed.

Suddenly Sapphire's lights went out.

The superheroine felt a sickening sweet sapping. Gravity wrapped its tendrils around her body as unimaginable terrifying ecstacy strangled her soul.

Sapphire's scream froze the people below her in abject terror.

Ricky's heart leaped into his throat as he saw his heroine falter.

But Sapphire refused to fall. Somehow she fought off the licking flames of sexual feedback and pushed out the marauding presence that was trying to turn her stones against her. As the tower began to sway back toward her, she halted her descent, toes just inches from the ground, and shot back up.

But it was a pyrrhic victory. Her body screamed at her, begging to succumb to the subtactile assault, pulling at her will like a loose thread on a sweater...

...and as Sapphire met the falling tower with arms held wide, her gemstones blazed with an uneven, warm flaming purplish light.

The steel skeleton shivered and shuddered, held up by the defiant heroine but quickly coming apart. Even as Sapphire fought mind and body, she saw her battle with the tower was doomed.

And below her, people still scrambled to get clear of its looming shadow.

Max felt a growing nausea as he pushed harder; was he nearing the limit of his strength? Beads of sweat formed on his brow as he fought with the girl for control of her sapphires. For control of her.

"Fall, damn you! Fall!"

"Nnnoo!" Sapphire screamed, bouying briefly upward. The light of her stones sparked and faded, color shifting from bright purple to ice-blue and back. But the jolting move had broken the tower in two, the upper half swinging down like a massive club, certain to crush a dozen people under its tangle of equipment and cord and steel.

If Sapphire couldn't still the tower, she would have to move the people.

Like a misguided rocket Sapphire shot down to the floor, hammering the concrete with a shockwave that sent debris scattering. Her calves and thighs flexed, springing her forward, hands held out in front of her, pushing out a wall of force. Chairs and tables and people alike, everything in her path was swept clear like playing cards in a wind tunnel.

A horrendous crash, shattering, smashing, splintering chaos of steel and glass and wood and wire fell on an empty floor.

And a shuddering superheroine.

Ricky rushed toward the still-settling wreckage. He screamed for others to help him dig.

Max's eyes surveyed the scene around the heap of equipment, stage props, and signage that was Sapphire's sarcophagus, but his focus was on what his amulet-given mind's sight beheld: minds watching and reacting to spectacle, a chorus of thoughts easily arranged and conducted. He reveled in the mental regimentation brought about by physical chaos and his contribution to both.

His smile grew as he touched upon mind after mind, effortlessly erasing his presence as he sampled surprise and fear and confusion and anger and hope, seeking out those who'd received gifts of sapphire energy he was compelled to collect.

And with each rush of energy he felt, he turned and shot some of it back toward the fallen girl. He wanted her completely subdued by the time her rescuers extracted her. There would be no blasting away this time.

Soon her stones would be his. Max's smile grew into a sneer.

Until his mind felt a sudden stab, like jumping barefoot on broken glass, a lone jagged edge of emotion rising above the crowd.

It was The Boy.

Ricky heard something stir beneath the twisted mess of metal and cords. His hand reached into a dark recess... and felt a small hand grab his.

"Thank God you're alive!" Ricky breathed. "We'll get you out of there in a second."
A voice came up from beneath the pile of broken equipment. "The Hunter. He's here," she said weakly.
"I know. We have to get you out of here. You can't let him keep doing this to you."
"I have to stop Black Widow. I have to stop Ginger."
"But he'll keep hurting you!"
"Not if you find him. He's... [moan] he's still close, I can [gasp] feel him touching me..."

Ricky burned hot, but... "I can't leave you. Just hang on." He looked pleadingly at the growing group of rescuers frantically shucking smaller pieces of debris and straining at larger ones.

"You have to find him. I'll be [grunt] all right. Just find him. He won't come near me if he [gasp] knows you see him. Use your friends... he can't hide from them."

Ricky could tell by the strain in her voice that The Hunter was still assaulting her. It enraged him that someone could be touching her so... intimitely. It was a worse violation than any physical attack.

"I'll stop him." He stood up, jumping up on a fallen amp, spinning around a full 360 degrees, scanning the crowd. "I'll kill him if I have to," he said through gritted teeth.

Max felt Ricky's emotion burning like a flare over the candles of other minds. It seemed the more Max weakened Sapphire, the stronger her valiant knight became. Max had been lucky to be far enough away to duck into the crowd beneath Ricky's gaze; the boy seemed to have a sixth sense for spotting him when he was near.

Perhaps Valerie's mind wasn't the toughest nut to crack after all. Perhaps he wasn't meant to subdue this meddlesome child on his own. Perhaps it was time to enlist the help of his queen.

Max turned and vanished into the crowd.

Ricky's phone rang. It was Jimmy. "Dude, he was right there!"
"Where? Which way?" Ricky began turning, looking hopelessly over a jostling jumble of bodies.
"There, stop! Dead ahead! He's on the run!"
Ricky didn't see anyone, but he did spot a void pushing through the crowd. His right hand balled into a fist of anger. And with a shimmer the shape of a retreating man revealed itself. "You're mine now, you bastard." Ricky leaped off his makeshift pedestal, wading through the crowd in hot pursuit.

His phone squawked; Ricky put it back up to his ear: "What?"
"Ricky, what are you gonna do when you catch him? How are you going to stop him?"
"My dad's a cop." He tapped his side, knowing Jimmy could see him.
"You're *packing*?" Jimmy said, incredulously.
"I've always known the combination to my dad's safes."
"Dude, when he finds out, he's gonna ground you till you're thirty."

A dozen able-bodied men and women struggled and strained at the twisted jumble of scaffolding imprisoning their fallen savior. They tugged this way and that, trying to break pieces free so they could release the fragile-looking girl, all the while growing concerned at her shallow breathing and quiet gasps.

But then a soft grunt, and the mewling sounds stopped.
For a moment, they thought the worst.

Then: "Back away! I'm gonna break out!"

The twisted rubble squeaked and groaned and bulged. The ad-hoc rescue squad quickly scrambled for safety.

Suddenly the wreckage split open, and a rocketing eruption of light burst through the top to come to a gentle landing a dozen feet away.

Sapphire looked a little shaken, but she was still standing. She nodded to the people who'd been digging for her. "Thank you," she said.

"Thank you!" an appreciative man shouted back. Moments earlier he'd been standing where a smashed collection of spotlights now rested. He was lucky to be alive.

Sapphire quickly dusted herself off as she looked up and down the hall, considering the quickest route to Bates -- and the Black Widow.

Suddenly she felt a large hand grab her arm. "Sapphire, you're under arrest!"

A goatee-dusted man stood before her, his free hand holding up a police detective's badge.

Detective Miguel Rubio tucked his badge into his pocket as he reached for his cuffs. He'd finally bagged the scourge of the city. Sapphire was his!

Without warning, he felt his legs knocked out from under him; he spilled to the floor, landing hard on his ass.
"Back off, *Defective* Rubio," Sapphire spat. "This is just between us girls."

Detective Rubio watched in amazed silence as the scantily-clad heroine took to the air in pursuit of her prey.

The loading dock ran the length of the building. A dozen pairs of doors connected the dock to the intermediate hallway, and through another dozen pairs of doors lay the main floor of the convention center. From the dock, a concrete lip hung out over the rough-textured roadway, periodically interrupted by diagonal cuts for trucks to angle in and load or unload cargo. Opposite the building was a concrete wall fifteen feet high, up to ground level, where reflecting pools seperated the monolithic structure from the street. The roadway between spread out some fifty feet wide, forty of which was covered by the convention center's mezzanine level above, leaving ten feet of open sky, sliced into sections by the massive concrete beams and columns forming the flying buttresses that connected retaining wall to structure.

During the days and hours before a major convention, the dock would be full of trucks coming and going, strong-armed laborers pushing and pulling and waving and shouting, horns and backup chimes and diesel engines honking and beeping and growling. But by the time the event started, the dock was abandoned -- an overscale western town's main street, deserted for a gunfight.

As it was on this night, save a single tanker truck marked "Master Brew" at one end, and a trio of sinister-black Cadillacs at the other.

"Come on, boss, it's time to go!"
"Dammit [cough!] Spicoli, I'm not leaving until I know that bitch-freak has left the premises. [cough!] That woman is a menace!"
"And that's exactly why we've got to get you out of here. Need I remind you, sir, it's *you* she's trying to kill!"
"If I leave without ensuring the safety of those people inside, the media will villify me!"
"Better to be villified than dead," Spicoli said, trying once again to shove the beaten but still imposing entrepeneur thug into his limo.

It was when his boss suddenly stopped resisting and fell into the car that Spicoli knew something was wrong. He leaned inside to give the driver a final instruction. "Take him straight to the plane. Don't wait for us." The door slammed shut.

Spicoli turned around.

The pastiche of city lights leaking into the partially open cavern shimmered across a tall, slim spectre some two hundred feet away. At first it seemed an illusion, but as it strode with demonic confidence down the double yellow line, its heels clicking and crunching the rough pavement, he knew it was all too real.

"All right boys, time to take the gloves off. Remember Joey and the boys at the Club."

Five burly men gathered at the side of the limousine, placing themselves between their boss and the hate-possessed woman who approached. They brandished weapons both improvised and well-honed, from a pair of black-polished batons to a homemade mace.

Spicoli smacked his palm on the side of the limo. "Come on, take off already!"

One of them stepped forward with a heavy assault rifle. He snick-chacked the first round into the chamber, bringing the weapon to bear off his right hip like some action movie star.

"Dammit, Marty, you're only gonna piss her off!" Spicoli cautioned.

The AK-47's muzzle flash lit up the shadowed road and walls like a bonfire, the reverberations of its crackling report hammering eardrums as its bullets hammered against the girl approaching them, spitting blue sparks as they ricocheted away. Black Widow's pace increased, now taking large, hip-swaying steps, arms out, fists clenched, eyes burning hot red hatred.

Spicoli's head snapped around, looking at the limousine that was inexplicably still there. "Go, go, go!" he shouted at the car. He snapped back around to regard the agent of vengeance rapidly approaching, his eyes widening in panic.

As Black Widow charged toward them, the optimistic gun-toter still standing in front of them, blissfully changing cartridges, Spicoli thought he saw something move near the other end of the dock. Like paper caught by the wind blown across the roadway and out to the street beyond. But not exactly paper. Softer, faster, like a racing ghost.

Black Widow was on Marty now, quickly juking her upper body like a boxer to avoid the meaty man's awkwardly-slow roundhouse. She reached and spun around him, impossibly fast in those heels, jabbing him hard in the kidney. Marty's body contorted in agony before crumpling forward to the pavement.

Another moment and she would be upon them.

But it never happened.

A whispering roar of air rushed the space between them, swirling around the woman who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, a coiled collection of curves that formed a now-familiar calling card.

Sapphire.

Black Widow stumbled in surprise; where the fuck did she come from? Before she could contemplate an answer, she felt herself hammer against an invisible barrier a few inches beyond Sapphire's outstretched palm. Black Widow bounced back through the air, tumbling and skidding against the outer wall before landing in a heap more than twenty yards back down the corridor.

"Get out of here," Sapphire barked over her shoulder. Weapons dropped to the pavement as big men moved faster than would be thought possible toward open car doors.

Sapphire leaned forward, taking one step before levitating and gliding down the corridor toward her fallen foe.

Black Widow began to rise, shifting her feet defensively, looking for an angle of attack. Sapphire kicked a toe forward; Black Widow felt a tremendous blow to her chin that seemed to stretch her out and launch each of her vertebrae separately; she skidded and rolled, the rough concrete pavement clawing and biting and grinding, thinning and holing her skirt before ripping the side seam to the waist, snagging and tearing her stockings and blouse.

Val scrambled back to her feet, but this time turned and ran. This was not advantageous ground; she was trapped here, helpless but to careen off the walls like a human pinball. And her opponent seemed determined to set the high score.

"Stop the car," Bates ordered. "Have the men guard the doors. Get word to security. I don't want anyone coming onto the docks. If these two are going to duke it out, I don't want anyone else hurt." He coughed, wincing at the pain in his chest.

"Fine, Mr. Bates." Spicoli got out, waving to the other two cars and pointing at the doors. "No one comes on the docks! Call Security!" He ducked back in as the men scrambled. "Now you've got to get out of here. It's too dangerous. What if Valerie gets loose?"

"That's not going to happen," Bates said, his voice wavering with the effort of pointing down the corridor.

Spicoli looked. Bates was right. Black Widow was being tossed like a paper cup in a storm.

And Sapphire was a typhoon.

A shove to the back spilled Black Widow to the ground. An invisible kick flipped her over. Another sent her bounding and rolling to slam up against the outer wall. She coughed and gasped for air. Her whole body ached, her muscles stiffened, her bones buzzed. Her mind struggled to hang on, desperately digging for a way out of this beating.

Valerie looked up to the dock, recognizing the squat security hut and the candy machine that she'd passed on entering this corridor just moments earlier. Her head swiveled back toward her attacker. Sapphire hovered just inches above the center of the road, her form long and lissome, feet together, head down, arms outstretched and upswept. As she touched down her body seemed to draw more compact, her arms lowering to her sides. Swirling winds stirred her scant garments into flames licking and leaping from her petite curves. The vision of feminine power had momentarily held Val in awe despite her confused scramble for self-preservation. Only when Sapphire looked up and stepped into the glow of a nearer light could Valerie tear her eyes away.

Valerie scrambled up onto the dock, running back the way she'd come. She felt a force shove her sideways, up against one of the buttressing concrete walls that extended halfway out the dock, but she kept her feet, dragging her arm along the wall as her legs continued propelling her toward the door and escape.

But just before she reached it, the door opened. And a blonde woman dressed in a fitted waitstaff's black suit charged straight into her, halting her retreat and knocking her on her ass.

A rush of wind and a scratching click of stiletto heels marked Sapphire's leaping arrival next to the fallen vigilante. Valerie rolled sideways, pushing herself up to stand in a single fluid motion. But all her grace was hammered out of her in an instant as Sapphire pivoted and slammed Val up against the wall with a powerful palm thrust. Val sagged against the wall, only to feel herself lifted onto tiptoe and flattened. When her eyes could again focus, Sapphire stood before her, right hand extended low away from her hips, fingers extended, as if pushing against a wall. Which in a way she was -- with Val caught in between. She saw Sapphire's eyes flash in recognition as she took a labored breath. She tried to move, but found she could only twitch fingers and toes. Even her head was pinned, turned awkwardly to one side, toward the door that seemed so close and yet impossible to reach. Sickly green-white flourescent light streamed through the door from the hallway beyond. Val could see the opposite doors that led to the convention center floor.

"Nice trick," sneered the black-suited blonde, noticing the way Val struggled against Sapphire's invisible hold to no effect. The sinister silhouette turned toward the gossamer girl. "Get the door, would you, honey? We don't want to be interrupted."

Valerie's eyeballs strained left toward Sapphire, who turned her head slowly to regard the still-open door. Her left arm raised, cocked back as if to slap a rude man for an unwelcome advance. Valerie felt the weight on her chest slacken slightly, then press down harder as Sapphire's free hand flipped and struck at nothing. In time with the slap, a thunderous cacophany marked the candy machine's crash against the door, slamming it shut and crumpling sideways to block it. Soft metallic creaks and groans emanated from the settling wreck. Sapphire turned back to look at Val again, the superheroine-puppet's right hand pulling back ever so slightly, appearing for some reason to adjust the pressure of her hold for her captive's comfort. Val suspected that had she not been wearing sapphires of her own, she would have been crushed by the initial attack. She was able to move her head enough to look at the smaller girl directly. Sapphire's look softened, her glare of determination fading as if she was only now becoming aware of her surroundings. Valerie almost thought she saw a moment of sadness before the girl's face again hardened into an expression of sullen distaste.

Suddenly Valerie felt the burning of another's stare. She turned to regard the woman in the black suit, who strutted confidently right up to the pinned vigilante's side, a brief glance betraying the woman's desire to stay out of Sapphire's line of fire.

The unflattering orange glow of the dock's night security lighting cast an evil bent on the woman's sharp features. But the eyes were unmistakable. Valerie had stared into those eyes before. The devil's eyes.

Ginger Hartwick's eyes.

"Well, as you live and breathe!" Ginger announced broadly. "For the moment, anyway," she added, almost dismissively.

Ginger looked at Valerie with a growing hatred. Black Widow, indeed -- on first glance, an insignificant thing, but her bite had nearly been fatal.

For all Sapphire's enfuriating thwarts, the naive girl was still fundamentally just a bumbling bimbo puppet whose strings had to be found -- and now, despite the heroine's unexpected persistence and surprising toughness, she was firmly under Ginger's control.

Valerie Strain, on the other hand, represented an impossible aberration in Ginger's universe: someone who'd outwitted her. Outplayed her. *Tricked* her. It was a far more profound threat to Ginger's existence than Sapphire could ever be. The Black Widow was not a woman to be controlled; this was a demon to be destroyed.

Valerie's sneer masked her fear. "You again. So what, are you just Bates' hired gun, or do you fuck him, too?"

Slap!

"Do I look like I work for a human slug like Bates?" Actually, dressed in a waiter's uniform not much different from the dark suits Bates' thugs had worn in the alley that night, that's exactly how she looked. But there was a defiance, a lack of fear despite her obvious peril that made impossible subservience to any man. This woman was a predator.

And Black Widow was on the menu.

Max strode down the access hallway with regal confidence, heading for the first set of doors that would lead to the dock. Two beefy-looking black-suited "gentlemen" stood in front of it, arms crossed. Max smiled broadly as the men's eyes suddenly blinked, apparently caught unaware of his approach. They each stepped to one side as their faces went blank, only to step back and shake off their momentary lapse of attention after the invisible Asian had passed.

The Black Widow was trapped.

The slender young woman kicked and squirmed, looking not unlike a caught spider. Her pink patent leather jacket and skirt were in tatters; her sheer stretch top was riddled with holes, gathering and stretching into a broken web of fabric; her stockings were torn and holed and run.

Ginger approached, licking her lips in anticipation. "Now, be still while I relieve you of your charming little necklace, and I promise I'll make my bitch here kill you quickly." She reached for Valerie's neck. The pinned vigilante felt the hold on her upper body lessen. She reached up with her arm, but Sapphire used her free hand to slap it back down -- hard -- with a flick of her wrist. Ginger leaned far over, doing her best to stay out of the avenging angel's line of fire; she never cared to feel that crushing pain again.

Sapphire watched Ginger as she fondled Black Widow's baubles. It made the superheroine ill. She wasn't sure which gleamed more brightly: the sapphires, or Ginger's eyes.

But the evil glee quickly dimmed. "Dammit, where's the clasp?" Ginger's fingers tugged at the choker, pulling it around her victim's neck an inch at a time, inspecting each link for some kind of loop or catch.

Black Widow smiled, turning her head on her immobile body. "There isn't one, stupid." She spat in Ginger's face.

Ginger looked to Sapphire, as if to elicit a punitive response, but the heroine did nothing.

"Fuck!" Ginger shouted, her voice echoing up and down the docks, returning like the voices of an angry mob. "Hold her," she ordered before storming off to the security booth.

Ricky squirmed in the grip of the mountain of a man that held him. He looked down the corridor to see the Hunter striding purposefully down the center of the roadway. "Stop him!" he pointed.

The thick head rotated slowly on massive shoulders. What was this kid pointing at? "Stop who? There's nobody there. You're seein' things, kid. You're on a bad trip. Just relax; there's nothing to see here."

Ricky was incredulous. Couldn't they see the Hunter? Didn't they know what he could do to Sapphire?

Of course not.

Ricky drove his heel down hard into the top of the huge black dress shoe; he spun around and ducked low, driving his elbow back as hard as he could. The falsetto yelp told him he'd found his target. As did the slackened grip on his arm. Ricky quickly twisted free and lit off through the door, jumping down off the dock to sprint down the roadway.

"Leon! Get the kid before he gets killed!"

The kid was quick, but Leon was 6'2" and a former track star. The teenage troublemaker wouldn't get far.

Sapphire watched the Black Widow squirm at the end of Sapphire's ethereal lance. The pinned woman's eyes burned with defiance and... contempt. As if she were better than Sapphire. "How does it feel to be a puppet for evil?" the vigilante sneered with moral superiority. The comment bit deeply into the heroine's psyche. It was true. Sapphire's dogged pursuit of this woman wasn't done to save Gerald Bates, or even to save the Black Widow from herself. Sapphire was just carrying out her orders. Delivering a package. Enabling evil. Sapphire twisted in the irony that this single-minded ruthless vigilante had the moral high ground. As little regard for bystanders as Black Widow had shown, as brutal as she'd been toward a corrupt man who probably deserved a firmer temperance of justice than he'd received but surely didn't deserve the merciless violent death this woman had sought...

...it was nothing compared to the willful, wanton wickedness Ginger Hartwick had already inflicted. She lied, she belittled, she destroyed, she killed without hesitation, she took pleasure in beating someone senseless, she gambled lives with cavalier cruelty, as if she relished losing as much as winning.

Black Widow, for all her mindless violence, was nothing compared to the calculated chaos Ginger Hartwick would create.

That Sapphire would create.

But could she commit innocents to die based on nothing more than an intuition of evil?

A voice interrupted her thoughts. "These should work." Sapphire turned to see Ginger approach with what seemed to be an oversized set of pliers, but with a nasty parrot-beak looking business end. "Bolt cutters," Ginger answered the unarticulated question.

Sapphire looked back to Black Widow; her face had turned the pale shade of imminent death.

Sapphire watched Ginger approach, each step slow and deliberate, the predator's prance before the prey is killed.

The dance of the devil before she ascends to let loose all the fury of hell upon the world.

Ginger hefted the cruel cutters, adjusting her grip to open the powerful jaws. The lower blade came to rest on the Black Widow's collarbone, making her shiver as it slid in for the kill.

"It'll all be over soon," Ginger said, both in mock comfort and quavering anticipation.

In a flash, Sapphire saw the awful accumulation of this devil's deeds, the terrible trauma she herself had set in motion, and she reacted. Unseen might leapt from an upswept left backhand, hurling Ginger away from the Black Widow, bouncing her off the wall and dumping her to the concrete floor several feet away. Another furious burst lifted her off her knees and slammed her back against the wall. The force of the impact made her spit blood. She hung there, limp as a ragdoll, hammered a heartbeat short of death.

Ginger lifted her head slowly, turning her head as she gasped and coughed, looking out beyond the dock to the opposite wall. Just out of her field of vision, she knew the tanker truck sat, ready to let loose its explosive cargo. Pinned where she was, her back to the thick concrete buttress, there was a chance she'd survive -- singed, but standing. Most of the blast would hammer through the thin roll-up door in the next bay, force belching fire tearing into the heart of the convention center. And Sapphire, standing out on the end of the dock, would be tested to the extreme. Bullets were one thing; a 3500-degree supersonic storm of flame was quite another.

And if Ginger didn't survive, at least she would see the end of this insipid bitch who'd wrecked everything.

Her arm scraped along the wall, moving toward the transmitter in her pants pocket...

Sapphire took a half-step forward, leaning toward Ginger, her eyes flashing with commanding fury.
Ginger's hand froze. And her eyes bulged as her breath left her by force.

The heroine's hand backed off and relaxed slightly; Ginger took a huge gasping breath, relieved to be granted the ability, and fearful that this slight girl who stood before her could take it away again with the slightest movement.

"Now what?" Ginger rasped. "You can't kill me."
Black Widow strained at her unseen bonds like a collared pitbull. "Lemme go, I'll kill her."
"No, you will *not*!" Sapphire remanded, pressing home her point with a flex of her hand; Black Widow gasped. "Whatever happens, you are finished here," she said with authority. She was clearly in control.

But Sapphire herself was not convinced.

It was a stalemate. Sapphire stood, afraid to move. Frozen by indecision. Feeling the weight of the world settle on her. All she could do was hope that help would come -- Police, Security, even Bates. Help to immobilize Ginger, disarm her, find and defuse the bomb...

Anyone.

She looked to the Black Widow. Maybe she could help. Maybe Sapphire could explain the danger, maybe the terrible cost of so many innocent lives would temper the young woman's vengeance. But the fear and rage spiraling out of control in those eyes said otherwise. She'd already acted with criminal disregard for the lives of others in her unrelenting pursuit of vigilante justice. Black Widow could not be trusted.

Sapphire needed help. If it was left to her alone, disaster would result. She couldn't hold them forever. Even now, she felt the familiar flame curling its tempting tendrils around her... it was only a matter of time before she failed.

Seconds ticked away. Why wasn't anyone coming?

Someone was coming. But not to help Sapphire. To free his Queen.

Max saw Valerie, her clothes in tatters, pinned up against the wall. Even from this distance, he felt confusion, fear, helplessness, defeat, despondence.

No. His queen would not be stripped.

Max reached out, his thoughts hardened into a singular petard of amuletic energy, borne down upon Sapphire with brief but terrible impact. It was not an attempt to neutralize; it was an attack intended to destroy.

Angela's conflict of mind had seemed insurmountable, an impossible test of character with no positive outcomes. But in an instant it became a triviality, lost in the all-encompassing throes of violent animal ecstacy.

Mind-numbing, blinding pleasure gripped Angela's whole body, squeezing the very life out of her with agonizing, blissful spasms.

No defense, no understanding, no thought, no breath, no space, no time.

Only overwhelming sensation.
Ice and flame.
Oppressive touch.

Synaptic rapture.

Black Widow felt herself fall forward, her weight returning to her feet. Sapphire stood before her, just barely, eyes unfocused, her body trembling. The hands that had held Black Widow and Ginger prisoner fell to the slight girl's side.

Inexplicably released from her invisible bondage, Black Widow leaped at Ginger, who was bending down and reaching for the bolt cutters. But Black Widow was quicker, striking with lightning brutality. Her right hand shot out, fingers grabbing blond hair, pulling Ginger's head toward her left knee, rising and turned with cocked hips, smashing the older woman's nose with a sickening wet crush.

Ginger staggered back, propelled by the force of the blow; hands shot to face through a stream of blood. She felt something grab at her side, underneath her jacket. Her gun...

Ricky ran as fast as he could, at once toward the Hunter and away from the well-meaning mafiosos who couldn't see him. The Hunter had to be stopped. Somehow he was able to break through Sapphire's forcefield and render her helpless. And he seemed to be able to cloak himself from others' awareness at will, even vanishing twice before Ricky's very eyes. The determined teen didn't know it was his focus on protecting his love from this sinister shadow that now kept the Hunter in sight. But as the memory of Angela's sickening fall flashed through his mind, Ricky did know that he could not let the Hunter violate Sapphire again.

Ricky saw Max stop and fall to one knee, head still up, one hand outstretched, fingers closing into a fist as he began to sway from extreme effort. Beyond, he saw his beloved Angela.

Only moments earlier she had stood proud and defiant, hands pushed out in front of her, holding down her opponents.
Now her hands fell, her shoulders slumped, her head lolled. Angela was in agony. The Hunter was crushing her.

And as Ricky continued racing headlong toward the beast of a man still some thirty yards distant, seeing Sapphire another fifty yards beyond practically withering away where she stood...

...the corridor seemed to grow, the roadway seemed to stretch, the heavy footfalls of his pursuers seemed to loom.

He had to stop it now.

In two hammering steps, Ricky stopped. He squared up. His hand reached behind him, extracting the terrible agent of his love's salvation. It was but a heartbeat, but Ricky felt the moment draw itself out slowly. Left hand cradled right. Eye sharpened down the sights. Shoulders shifted slightly. Target found. Finger squeezed. Slide shivered back.

Ricky's vision blurred as he felt himself propelled violently forward by something large pressed against his back. Arms circled his chest. Concrete rushed up toward his face. Disorientation. Crushed. Can't breathe.

Max strained with extreme concentration; his vision tunneled. He couldn't hope to keep up such an intense outflow of energy for more than a moment. But the moment seemed unending. His vision blurred, but his mind's eye could see Sapphire folding, collapsing within herself; he could see his precious Queen loosed, her fury intact but redirected; he could see the woman called Ginger fall.

And he could feel the gunshot, feel the large-caliber bullet rip through her flesh. As if it were ripping through his flesh.

But it was more than a psychic sympathy. It was painfully real. The sensation crashed his concentration, pulling him back from the ether into the immediacy of his own peril. His hand went to his shoulder while his eyes watched Sapphire stiffen and fall to one knee.

As suddenly as it had attacked her, Angela felt the devastating feedback vanish, pulling her into a vaccuum of sensation, leaving her feeling empty and disoriented.

A horrible wet gurgling sound brought Sapphire resoundingly to the present. She looked up to see Ginger bent over, eyes wide in disbelief and confusion, her face a dripping bloody mess. But as Ginger's hands came up from her torso, it was the blood she found there that first perplexed, then immobilized the evil woman. A dark crater of ruined flesh dominated her abdomen. A pool of fluid oozed down from the wound to pool around her feet, looking black under the orange glow of the dock lights. Ginger's gasps were shallow, her face ghostly white.

Sapphire felt as gutted as Ginger looked. Despite the heroine's indecision, a choice had been made. And within seconds, the terrible price would be paid.

Ginger's body went slack. Her eyes lost focus, staring dead at nothing.

Sapphire heard an echoed Click! from across the corridor. She turned to see the tanker truck, and what looked like a tank of balloon-filling helium sitting next to it. And something clicked in her head.

The walls of the tanker truck rippled, then shredded open as if rent open by a thousand invisible knives. A vibrating Crack! reached her ears an instant later. A shimmering cloud of vapor began to expand . . .

With inhuman speed, Sapphire launched herself toward it, limbs drawing inward. An impossibly-bright spark ignited at the center of the deadly cloud. A matching brilliant flash burst forth from the superheroine, expanding as a shield of light.

Flame ripped through the vapor, igniting it in a growing, glowing, boiling tumble of heat that reached out toward the building...

...and was rebuffed by an impenetrable blue-white barrier, turned back on itself in rolling, careening, swirling confusion, ripping back through its host, slamming and searing and slagging the outer wall, fleeing out and up toward the night sky, boiling water, scalding grass, incinerating trees, blasting above and across the street, heat and flame chasing the force of displaced air, a wall of glass shattering at once, windows of five floors seemingly winked out of existence to leave gaping holes into which bubbling flame reached...

...and then retreated, pulling millions of deadly shards back with them, the vaccuum of explosive consumption recalling much of its fury back toward its core before slowing, separating falling solids from rising black gases.

As the angry orange flames subsided, so too did the unnatural blue glowing tendrils that shrouded them, until darkness took hold.

And an agonized, exhausted cry marked a spent heroine's fall to earth.