Interlude: Rest Stop

It was clear from the flight that something was wrong.  The girls had gotten used to travelling at impossible speeds, crossing oceans and continents in a matter of seconds.  Though it was less than a thousand miles from North Jersey to the location in West Virginia, it took them over a half an hour to clear the Alleghenys.  Worried, they set down in an industrial park just a few miles past Pittsburg. 

 

"I'm worried we'll lose flight altogether," Maya said.  "I don't want to crash in the middle of nowhere.  And with our defenses draining, too, who knows what could happen to us?"

 

"You want to take the bus? Not very superheroic," Sara stated.  It was clear that she was worried, too, despite her joke.

 

Maya sighed.  "No, but I think we should fly low, and slow enough that we can safely land if our powers fade."

 

Sara nodded grimly.  She hated having to be serious, but even she had to admit that the situation looked bad. Neither of them wanted to speculate on what would happen if they lost all their powers.  Would they return to their old bodies? Would they face criminal charges and lynch mobs for all the damage they did? What if the draining didn't stop at what used to be normal for them? What if they faded away into nothing?  She set her jaw.  Giving up was not an option.

 

"Let's test our strength," she said.  She strode over to a dumpster, and to her relief, lifted it with only the slightest effort. It was clearly more of a strain than it would have been hours ago, but she was able to toss it dozens of feet into the air.  Maya glanced up and with a blast from her eyes turned the entire metal bin red-hot in under a second.  Sara cooled it down with a blast of her breath, knocking it ninety degrees off of its trajectory.

 

"At least we can still pack a punch," Maya said.  "We can fly at a few hundred miles an hour, and we should be able to take a bullet, right? Maybe we're getting worked up for nothing."

 

"Let's hope we find answers about whatever is doing this," Sara said.  "Now that we know that there are other supers out there, I don't want to be on the receiving end of what we pulled on those clowns in New York. "

 

"Do you think there's some Alpha Unit out there draining us down to the level of 'ordinary goddesses'?"

 

"Let's not waste time guessing," Sara said.  "It shouldn't be far now. " She lifted off into the night sky.  Maya followed behind her.

 

The address that they had searched appeared to be a small corporate building atop a mountain in a remote area of West Virginia. The last known occupant of the building was LightSword Games, the publisher of the role-playing game that had started the whole affair, but according to real estate records, their lease had expired a year ago.  The image on Google Maps looked like the parking lot was overgrown.  The girls had no idea what to expect.

 

What they found certainly caught both of them by surprise.  They saw the glow for a dozen miles before they reached the site.  The entire mountaintop was on fire.  It was as iff all of the coal underneath the mountain had caught fire at once, turning the landscape into a hellish scene of flame and glowing rock.  There was no sign of the building.

 

"You've gotta be shitting me!" Sara cried.  "All this way for nothing!  And now we're out of clues altogether!" 

 

"No wait," Maya said, grabbing Sara's arm and pointing.  "There, where the mountaintop used to be. It looks like the building fell into a cave or sinkhole or something.  I can see tunnels." Sure enough, their vision was acute enough to see through the acrid black smoke, and radiating out from the jagged hole were a series of tunnels, filled with flames and noxious gasses.

 

"Are you sure?" Sara asked.  "There can't be anything alive in there, and anything useful must be melted into slag."

 

"We could live down there," Maya said.  "Maybe another like us could, too.  Who else could do something like this?"

 

Sara nodded. "Well, I'm out of alternatives.  Into Hell it is."  She pointed straight down and dove into the infernal pit.

 

Holes in the armor

Ten minutes later saw Maya, Sara, and four new superheroines in the musty basement of a suburban Jersey home. Maya sat curled on a couch where, just a few hours earlier, a role-playing game had taken place. Batgirl and Supergirl snuggled to either side of her, while a busty woman in a Flash costume curled up between her legs.  Sara sat in a threadbare easy chair opposite, with a svelte green woman named Jade leaning over the back, offering kisses and tender caresses.  Sara looked a little annoyed.

 

“Really?  Did we really need super-bimbos? You can be such a guy sometimes!” she said. 

 

“Oh, now who needs to lighten up and enjoy themselves?” Maya retorted playfully.  “C’mon, all I did was make some new toys for us to play with.”  The four submissive women giggled at the statement.  Sara rolled her eyes.

 

She was about to offer a comeback when they were interrupted by a middle-aged woman in her pajamas.  She clutched a revolver in her shaking hand.

 

“One of those…women is my son, isn’t it?” she said, hoarsely.  “I know what you did to him.  He changed himself and you changed him some more.”

 

Maya smirked.  She was learning to regard the threats of ordinary people as insignificant, but Sara was not in a mood to joke around.  She got out of her chair.

 

“Look, lady, we both know that gun won’t hurt us, but it might make us mad enough to do some real damage around here.  You seem like a sensible woman…”

 

“Bring back my son!” the woman cried, her words catching on her sobs.  Maya replied by blasting heat vision to the laptop, which glowed for a second before vaporizing into a foul-smelling cloud. 

 

“No dice,” Maya said, stroking her Batgirl, “We like them better this way. Now run along before we make your former son tear you apart.”

 

Now it was Sara’s turn to speak for restraint.  Perhaps she had a better sense of the woman’s pain.  At any rate, she stepped forward, holding out her hand to receive the gun.  “We’re not going to hurt you, and we’re going to treat your son..er, daughter well.  They’ll have a life they could have only dreamed of before…”

 

The woman had heard enough, and she pulled the trigger. Sara let the bullet smash into her, and Maya blew the woman upstairs with a swift but forceful puff of breath.  She hit the wall opposite the top of the stairs and fell to the floor unconscious.

 

“”We have to go,” Sara said.

 

“Yeah, this place is a dump,” Maya agreed.

 

“No, we have to find out who sent those CD’s.  Now.”  Sara’s tone was firm.  “That bullet…that bullet actually hurt me.”

 

“What? Are you hurt?  Do you think that our powers are fading?”

 

“I’m fine, but I’m pretty sure I’m bruised.  And I don’t know what’s happening to our powers.  But I want to find out before we’re back to our old selves and the subject of a lynch mob.”

 

“Good idea,” Maya agreed.  “Batsie, do you have the envelope that CD-Rom can in?”  The cowled sexpot hurried to bring it to Maya.  “Well, we have an address.  Somewhere in West Virginia.”

 

“Fine.  Get directions then let’s go.  Leave your bimbos here.”

 

“Aw,” chorused Maya and the girls.

 

“I’ve created a monster,” Sara quipped, but I don’t need to remind you of all the things that could go wrong.”

 

“Fine.  Let’s go.  Before we have to take the bus.”