The sensation gradually faded and with a deep breath she sprung up onto her feet. She ran her hands across her matt black leotard and the gold emblems then down over her fish netted thighs and finally over her black knee high boots. Satisfied that her uniform was complete and intact she inspected her gloomy prison. The room appeared to be a simple, square stone cell, common to many buildings in the old towns of Europe. The door appeared to be some kind of steel studded wood. Night Strike thought for a moment. She clutched her chin between her thumb and fore finger and paced back across the cell. She pivoted on her heel as she reached the wall then exploded forwards in a blur of speed. The solid wooden door exploded into matchsticks as the dark clad heroine hit it. Her arms snapped up defensively and her eyes whipped around the dank corridor. Stimulants flooded her system speeding her reaction time to the point that time seemed to have slowed. Strike watched a pice of door spin slowly in the air before it drifted lazily into contact with a wall and shattered into a hail of secondary fragments. For long minutes Night Strike waited in front of her cell. After what felt like forever she concluded that nobody was coming to investigate the noisy escape. Cautiously she stepped forward into a shadowy stone corridor. ***** "Would I be correct in assuming that the cell was never intended to hold Miss Strike?" Said Lothar Kaltenbrunner turning away from the screen
"You are correct Mr Kaltenbrunner" said the hooded figure in a gentle woman's voice
"In which case am I to understand that your bid for the Hungarian Murder Rooms franchise will focus on something a little more inventive than Mr Goke's 'club a celebrity to death'?" Said Lothar
"Mr Kaltenbrunner, I take my business very seriously I am not some common thug, I am an artist" said the woman gesturing towards the screen "I am sure your client would benefit from my humble Murder Maze" ***** The corridor emptied into a semicircular room with 4 equally dark tunnels leading off into the darkness. Night Strike stared at the tunnels then back to the pale white envelope in the centre of the room. She rolled her eyes then stepped lightly forward. She stopped in front of the envelope and reached out gingerly with the toe of her boot to touch it. The envelope shifted. She whipped her head up and glanced around. She strained her ears to their limits but could hear nothing other than the wet plop of dripping water and the occasional skitter of tiny rodent claws. She crouched down on her haunches and reached out to touch the envelope. She lifted a corner slightly, peering under the slip of paper and searching furiously for any hint of a booby trap. Night Strike was almost disappointed when she finally lifted the envelope and nothing happened. She pushed a thumb into the plain white paper slitting it open. She removed the contents and dropped the empty envelope. She flipped open the folded slip of paper that had been contained and began to read. Dear Miss Night Strike
Welcome to my home. I apologise for the mode of your arrival and for failing to meet you when you woke. Please make yourself welcome however kindly note that my home is designed to dissuade visitors and that you progress from here is at your own risk.
Good luck. "So, traps" murmered Night Strike screwing up the paper and dropping it onto the bare stones. She looked at the 4 dark tunnels leading out of the central room. Nothing distinguished the passages. Shrugging she choose the 1st passage to her left and stroke purposefully into the gloom. Her boot heels clicking on the cold stone sounded like gunfire as she walked purposefully along the quiet tunnel. The passage grew darker and darker as she left the semi circular room behind until she found herself in total darkness. Strike's augmented eyes strained against the gloom to give her anything more than the rough outline of the passage. The enveloping velvet darkness didn't trouble the heroine, she had always been at home in the shadows and she smiled to herself at the naivety of her captors in placing her in her natural environment. Light blossomed infront of her. It expanded slowly from a pin prick, unfurling like a flower into a glowing bulb that drifted towards her. A battery of further blossoms began to bloom behind it. Strike dropped onto her stomach as the hail of flaming arrows drifted over her. To a person not equipped with Night Strikes reaction altering drug glands the whole incident would have appeared to happen in barely a heart beat. The dark clad heroine lay on the dusty floor until the rain of flames stopped then, dusting off her costume, she climbed back onto her feet. "Flaming arrows? Are you serious?" She barked loudly into the silent gloom "I can take a bazooka to the face and you go with flaming arrows? You guys better hope I don't find you!" Strike strode up the corridor to find herself at a T junction. A simple rack of crossbows sat in the centre of the junction. Abrasive paper seemed to have been used to ignite the arrowsas they has0d launched. She inspected the rack as well as she could in the near pitch black. It appeared that some sort of twine, probably pulled taunt by a pressure plate down the hall had triggered the machine. Satisfied that she had learned all she could from the simple contraption she smashed the rack and continued up the passage. *****
"I presume you expected her to survive the arrows?" Said Lothar
"Exactly, though I thought at least one might hit her. Her reactions are incredible" said the hooded woman
"I understand that they have a battery of drug glands in their chests that they can use for various things, one of which alters their perception of time and gives them a greater opportunity to react to things" said Lothar
"So my own investigations revealed" said the woman "Though I fear I have underestimated the effect"
"I do hope this will not make my journey a wasted one" said Lothar coldly
"My dear Mr Kaltenbrunner, I have planned much more interesting diversions for Miss Strike. She will trip up eventually" said the woman gleefully ***** Night Strike scanned around her as she continued purposefully through the maze. The constant strain on her eyes was beginning to cause a headache or at least she hoped that was the cause. Cautiously she rounded a corner in the gloomy dungeon. In a lot of ways the dark passages reminded her of her own background. Although the Hleinir solution that had changed her into Night Strike had supposedly ripped away the memories of the other Hleinir created members of project Hlin Night Strike found that she could remember almost everything of her previous life. She suspected that the Hleinir didnt effect the memory at all and rather that Science director Muhle had used this as an excuse to cover his true obedience methods, namely hypno conditioning. None of the other heroines seemed to remember being strapped down and pointed at a wall of flashing lights. Nor did anyone seem to be able to recall anything but broken fragments of their past. The irony was that Night Strike would have gladly switched places with any of them. Valkyrie, Tethys and Athena all had been told that they had glowing public service careers. Valkyrie and Tethys had both been mortally wounded in the line of duty and Athena had been crippled trying to sedate a derranged hospital patient. They said Night Strike was a civilian volunteer, a terminally ill patient with nothing to lose from a secret experimental procedure. Strike remembered differently however. She recalled a life of brutal gang warfare in recession choked Hungary. Knife fights and punishment beatings across the suburban slums of Budapest had been her school. She had been unrivalled in her ability to conceal herself in shadows and had risen to become the terrifying right hand of the gang leadership. A midnight clad enforcer striking to brutally slay the lazy and incompetent. Dissidents met a grisly fate and were left on display for all to see. And then something had gone wrong. A routine enforcement had ended with her beaten half to death and gang raped by the paramilitary police force after which she was shipped off to Austria and the not so tender mercies of the newly formed Jagkommand science division. The impact came from her left. Too late she snapped out of her reminiscing. The huge wooden trunk slammed into her with the force of a speeding train. Strike yelled as the air wax driven fro  her lungs. Her over taxed bones strained to resist the force that would have turned a normal human into pink mist. The careening dead weight carried her a few meters to her right before slamming her into the wall. An explisikn of dust covered her and a woman's profile was pressed into the wall for posterity. Strike gasped feebly in agony unable to draw the air necessary for an injured scream into her compacted lungs. Her shoulders felt like they had been folded. At any moment she expected the joints to shear or her ribs to collapse. She knew if something failed now it would be like dominos and her skeleton would crumble. The weight suddenly swung away. Air rushed into her starved lungs and she coughed painfully. Realisation clicked in her mind and she pried herself out of the indentation. She dived forward frantically glanding painkillers and stims as the battering ram swung back again with a ponderous thump. A flicker of movement in her perhipheral vision sent her springing forward again as a second dead weight smashed into the wall. Night Strike sprinted up the passageway as tree trunks swung like pendulums behind her. The choking dust billowed everywhere coating her costume and burning her eyes. The floor was gone. One minute her glossy black booted legs had been pummelling the ancient stones of the corridor. The next she was hanging in mid air. Gravity suddenly caught her and she began to pitch forward into a sinister dark pit. Strike's shapely leg kicked out behind her finding a tiny purchase on the pit wall behind her. She drew back her left arm as her kick sent her forward to connect with the sheer wall facing her. At the last moment her fist snapped out pulverising the rock and giving her just enough indentation for a hand hold. She hung by her arm and stared down into the pit. She strained her eyes but couldn't make out how deep it was. She gave up searching the darkness, her head hurt even worse than before and her lungs felt like they were on fire. Small wonder she thought as she scolded herself for effectively getting sucker punched like a rookie. She decided a minor head ache was better than having her brains splattered on the wall by the deadfall. After a few moments she reached up with her right arm searching for a lip on the pit. She pulled up with her left and thought she could feel ground. She dropped back down extending her arm from the handhold then yanked herself up hard. The questjng fingers of her right hand found the lip of the pit and she quickly drew herself out. She dusted herself down as she stood once more in the inky blackness. She glanced around and concluded that she must be ninety degrees to the right of the passage she had originally been in. Her new route sloped down slightly and there seemed to be a dull light barely visible at the bottom. She waved her hand in front of her face. The black and gold glove moved slowly but not as slowly as she would have liked. She glanded more stim waited a moment and repeated. No change. She shook her head venting her frustration. She had glanded too much and would have to let her drug glands recharge. She stepped forward cautiously and told herself that she would have to concentrate fully. No chemical tricks would be available to boost her reactions for a while. The light had been growing for the last few paces. She exited the tunnel into a warmly lit room. At first glance she thought the sconces around the chamber were torches but on closer inspection she realised that they were mundane electric lights with fluttering streamers of paper. A small table with bread and a jug of water was set in the middle of the room. "Well on the one hand probably poisoned" said Strike loudly "On the other I can metabolise most poisons and I wouldn't put it past the kind of nut who'd build a place like this to just leave out refreshments" She took a half step into the room and stopped. She stood perfectly still for a long moment. A thin red tear trickled down her cheek. A second rivulet slowly wound it's way down her thigh. She blicked and watched in horror as her eyelash sheered in two, spining off into the room. She strained her eyes to their maximum searching for inconsistencies in the room. There. Directly infront of her eye and strung across the room like some ghastly web was a lattice of monofilament wires. She was lucky that the first few wires were head and leg height otherwise she might me holding her breasts together right now. Probably the wires were strung that way to ensure that an intruder collapsed into them and was reduced to diced meat. She took a half step back. Immediately she felt the warm tingle of her regeneration as the tiny wounds sealed. What the hell were the wires made of? Diamentium reflected light and would give off a glow. Nothing else she was aware of should be able to pierce her skin, certainly not without almost instantly blunting itself and snapping. Very slowly Night Strike squatted down and drew a handful of dirt from the floor of the room. Just as carefully she stood back up then carefully threw the dust forward. The web of razorwire suddenly loomed into bright and deadly focus. Night Strike relaxed a little content that she now had a distinct foe to face. She studied the web and threw a few more carefully scooped handfuls of dirt. Certain she had divined a plan to cross the room she dropped down on her chest and, holding herself as close to the ground as possible, she wriggled forward under the death mesh. ***** "I really thought you had her there" said Lothar "It's surprising how smart they are"
"Surprising?" Said the Woman in an amused tone
"Well, from the point of view that you usually get brains or brawn. The combination of both is really something quite special"
"You're a fan of them? I though you would be clapping your hands to see this haughty attack dog diced by the razorwire" said the Woman
"There are monsters, tyrants and thugs in this world that would gladly feed on my pampered kind given the chance, I would not last long against a Briarwolf, but these girls charge off to face down these nightmares. They endure rape, torture and all manner of horrific torments to keep malevolent people like me safe" Lothar glanced back at the screen "at the very least you have to respect them"
"An interesting point of view" said the Woman politely 
"One other thing" said Lothar "What are those wires made of, we have had a hell of a time creating things that can penetrate their skin"
"My research revealed as much" said the Woman "Have you heard that the only thing hard enough to cut a diamond is another diamond? Well I harvested some, erm, material from Night Strike while she was incapacitated. This was used to make what I like to call a Necrotallic compound and the wires were treated with it. It has worked far better than I anticipated. Which of course bodes well for the end game" ***** Night Strike shook the dust from her now filthy uniform. Tears and gashes marked the back of the once pristine black and gold garment and small patches of angry red skin showed where the merciless wires had caught the squirming heroine. She sighed as she stared up the dimly lit corridor in front of her. "You enjoying this freak?" She yelled up the corridor "Nobody builds one of these and then dosen't watch. You liking me dodging all your handy work" Silence bounced back at her. "You're gonna wish you'd killed me in here when I get my hands you!" She shouted before quitely muttering "Next party trick" She stepped into the new corridor. A metal plate slammed down behind her. She glanced forward and saw that a wall of bars had secured the far end. She slammed a fist into the metal plate. It left a small fist shaped dent. She rocketed 3 more punches into the warm steel. She had created a small dented patch but it would take forever to break through the plate. She turned and began to walk towards the bars at the far end. Her dark hazel eyes scanned the passage for any hint of the trap that must be lurking in it. Absently she brushed a lock of her flowing auburn hair out of her face tucking the sweat damp strand behind her ear. She realised suddenly that sweat was prickling her brown and that a tiny bead had formed on her generous cleavage. She touched a hand to the wall and then snapped it back. The wall was red hot. She sped up and reached the bars in a few powerful strides. Gripping the bars she tried to force them apart. The air was starting to haze in the incredible heat pouring into the corridor. "If this dries my hair out and gives me split ends then someone is going to die screaming" she panted as she struggled with the bars. The metal refused to budge. Sweat was pouring off the trapped heroine and breathing was beginning to hurt as the scorching air attacked her lungs. She switched to her less efficient but more resilient multi lung, conscious that it would only buy her a few extra minutes. She scanned the corridor again for any clue on how to escape. A desperate idea came to her. Frantically she tugged at the sleeve of her costume until the resilient fabric tore. Hurriedly she wrapped it round two of the bars and began to twist the remaining material tight. Desperately she pulled again and again on the fabric using it as a lever to magnify her own strength. Her eyes stung from the heat and even her toughened skin was redening. The soles of her boots smouldered horribly. The bars skewed. Slightly at first and then quicker until they touched. Night Strike looked at the tiny gap and the down at her fabulous bust. "Sorry girls" she gasped She pushed through the bars with her left shoulder leading. As anticipated the gap was too small to comfortably accomodate her voluptuous assets. Resignedly and now in considerable pain from the oven trap she mashed huge mounds down as hard as she could. The first popped through and she almost wept for joy. She struggled with her scond breast. Her strength seemed to be pouring out of her as fast as her sweat. Her remaining breast slid through and she collapsed to to the floor. Heat continued to wash over her from the hellish corridor. Night Strike forced herself to crawl away from the heat. Each centimeter felt cooler and soothed her abused body. After a few moments she collapsed onto the cool stone floor and lay, basking in the cool air. She sucked in huge lung fulls and her chest heaved up and down. She lost track of the time she had spent laying on floor. Eventually she rolled onto her knees and drew herself up. She looked around the latest room and cursed at the diabolic mind that was throwing these trials at her. The room presented no obvious challenge. A small wooden stool sat in the centre of the room with a glass of water. Night Strike stooped and took a handfull of dust scattering it in the air before her. No killing wires loomed into sight.

 

"You know, I am getting angrier by the minute" Strike declared to the room "I swear if this is just some comical, give her water after we cooked her, joke room then I will be massively pissed"

 

She scanned the walls but could see no obvious defects or concealed dead falls. Shaking her head she walked carefully into the centre of the room. She dipped a finger from her gloveless right arm into the liquid then removed her digit and licked it. She could detect no poison. She was sorely tempted to throw the water on the floor but the heat and execration had taken its toll on her and she wanted at least a small measure of refreshment. She compromised by glanding a dose of anti venom then picked the glass up and took a sip. It occurred to her as she sipped the cool water that an poison could have been put on the glass rather than in the water itself but as the liquid slid down her throat she realised she didn't care. All that mattered was the tiny cup of refreshment. She would just have to trust the anti venom. She returned the empty glass to the stool and stood waiting for a few moments. Nothing happened. No cramps hit her, her temperature remained at its raised level, no retching filled her. 

 

She glanced towards the door at the far side of the room. It was dark and open. She glances behind her again and saw that the previous door was also still open. The glass fell off the stool and shattered. Night Strike stared at it trying to figure out what had knocked it over. She watched as the stool twitched and jittered. Then she felt it. A deep bass thrumming that set her teeth on edge. The sound increased in volume quickly and the pitch began to slide up the scale. She clamped her hands to her aching ears and ran for the door. She slammed straight into a clear wall of glass and staggered back dazed. The sound was sliding back down the scale and she could feel her bones vibrating horribly under the frequency. Her head felt like it was bouncing the waves around inside her skull. Wetness coated her lip and she realised that her nose was bleeding. She stumbled back toward the way she had come in but met the same thick glass wall. The room was by now swirling, screaming maelstrom of clashing sound one minute a throbbing bass that stuttered her lungs the next a shrieking high pitched scream that tore at her costume and exposed flesh. 

 

Strike collapsed on the floor and flopped under the assault like a landed fish. Bits of shattered glass, dust and cobwebs swirled around her, she could feel the sonic assault tearing her apart. Her heart was stuttering and she her breathing was being interrupted by the conflicting impulses to her muscles. Her enhanced bones seemed to be amplifying the sound waves and her soft tissue was feeling the strain. Her vision swam with red as the capillaries in her eyes failed. Through her screaming head she realised that her eye balls could not be long behind and after that brain damage and death would claim her. 

 

She rolled onto her front and crawled painfully towards the door. As she reached the solid perspex she beat on it feebly. Her strength had been reduced to that of a kitten and her thoughts were slurring. She pulled herself up on her knees and pressed herself against the door. Her fist swung back and forth like a piston against the perspex. She could feel the material thrumming but it had obviously been designed to take punishment. As the sonic assault swung again into deep bass a crack slid up the door. Blood poured from Strike's ears, nose and eyes as she continued hitting the door. 

 

The door exploded in a blizzard of fragments and the abused girl tumbled forward out of the sonic trap. She jerked horribly in the aftershock of the quieting sounds as her nervous system tried to calm her battered body and repair the various internal ruptures. He spasms slowed and she raised a hand to her eyes. She wiped the blood from her eyes and blinked at the ceiling. 

 

"I would give just about anything for today to end" she muttered. 

 

"I don't want just anything" said a quiet woman's voice. 

 

"about damn time" said Night Strike as she pulled herself up onto her feet "Do I trust this was all your handy work?"

 

"I had contractors, but yes the design is mine" said the woman. 

 

Night Strike studied her tormentor. The woman was of the same height as herself and wrapped in a dark blue velvet cloak. A hint of copper hair emerged from the heavy hood of the cloak that hid the woman's face. 

 

"And the point?" said Night Strike attempting to keep the woman talking while she recovered enough strength to be sure of taking her tormentress down. 

 

"Employment" replied the woman. As Strike returned a blank stare she continued "You have surely heard of the Murder Rooms? They are expanding and I am bidding for the local franchise. They wanted to see how my bid would stand up"

 

"I'm nobody's fucking marketing tool!" yelled Night Strike springing forward in fury

 

The woman's fist caught her full in the face like a freight train. Night Strike dropped to the floor her head ringing. She spun and tried to right herself. A knee smashed into her head and dropped her back down again. A boot followed into her gut driving the air from her and spinning her over. She tried to push herself onto her knees but the boot smacked into her midriff again and she spat globlet of blood onto the floor. 

 

"You're augmented then!" she hissed as she clutched her aching stomach and lay on her side.

 

"No" said the woman "You're de-powered. The maze isn't the trap, it's a distraction"

 

She bent down and lifted a handful of dust. 

 

"This has been killing you since you broke out of your cell. This is the trap" said the Woman "The rest was just to get you to keep taking big old lungfuls of it"

 

"That's impossible" stammered Night Strike "I can't be poisoned and I've been using anti venom"

 

"This is powdered necrocide, ah, yes you do know what that is, that's right this will kill even you. No nice stasis shock to be revived from just blood rot and liquefied organs" the Woman said radiating smug enjoyment 

 

"You can't do this to me!" said Night Strike in sudden panic as her headaches suddenly began to make terrible sense "You need to get me back to my base!"

 

"Oh don't be so melodramatic you stupid cow" said the Woman chuckling "The Murder Rooms don't want you actually dead, they can hardly run a pay per view heroine slaying business with no heroines. They just want you weak enough for the big finish"

 

The woman drew her arm out of her cloak. Her hand clutched a squat brass rifle. A sickly green and bulbous pouch seemed to be attached to the bottom of it.  

 

"What the hell is that? Another sound gun?" said Night Strike 

 

"You liked those? Sonic Crushers, I think those alone would have won me the franchise, but no, this is the cherry on the cake" she said as she pumped the rifle "This is my Grub Gun"

 

The gun made an unimpressive squelch as it fired. For a moment Night Strike thought it had misfired. Then pain flared in her side. She glanced down at her shredded uniform and almost threw up. A fat wriggling larvae had buried itself in her abdomen. Before she could grab the thing it disappeared under her skin eating it's way inside her. 

 

"Get it out of me!" she screamed hysterically as pain shot through her gut

 

"Oh don't be such a baby" said the Woman "Honestly you sluts act so tough but a little bug bites you and you go to pieces"

 

She giggled as she pumped the weapon and sent another ravenous grub into Night Strike's body. She repeated the action again and again as the heroine began to twitch and jerk. Terror and pain filled Night Strike's mind as she felt herself being eaten alive then mercifully she blacked out. The Woman kicked the heroine with an outstretched toe. To give her her due Night Strike had taken more grubs than her projections had anticipated. She reached down to the still girl and slipped a hand under the crotch of her costume. The Woman withdrew a midnight blue glove and looked at the fingers. A soft tacky film coated them. 

 

"Honestly, eaten to death by larvae and she;s still wetter than a monsoon, where the hell do they get these girls" she muttered as she turned to leave the maze. 

 

******

 

Night Strike screamed herself awake. She thrashed in her bed and ran her hands across her body clawing at the image of larvae burrowing into her. 

 

"Strike, calm down, you're okay" said Sovereign Girl grabbing her team mate's arms

 

Night Strike's wild eyes flickered up to meet her team mate "Are they gone? I'm back, how did I get back?"

 

"Somebody left a crate at the Dutch embassy in Zagreb. You were in it. You looked like hell and err, well you had these things inside you" said Butterscotch Fox looming into view

 

"She shot me with grubs" said Night Strike flatly "She made me run through a maze then shot me with fucking larvae"

 

"Yeah they were pretty horrible" said Sovereign 

 

"Who is the she" said Butter

 

"Murder Rooms are expanding, she's the new franchisee" said Strike running a hand through her hair "She didn't give me a name, just poisoned me, kicked me in the guts and let me get eaten alive"

 

"Well, nobody goes to that sort of trouble on a one off" said Butter "I doubt we've seen the last of her"