Maya felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she dove into the flaming cave after Sara. It had felt like ages since she had cause to feel fear or anxiety, but she could not shake the unmistakeable sensation that something was definitely not right. Whatever was causing them to lose their powers had something to do with this conflagration. Without knowing more, Maya felt vulnerable. Sara would have made light of the feeling, saying that vulnerability was the state women had to learn to cope with as a default, and that the strong women just went on regardless. Maya began to wonder how ordinary women could make it through the day.
"Sara?" she called, hoping her voice could be heard over the flames. No enhanced eyesight or superhuman senses were helping her navigate the flame-filled tunnels. Flames gushed through the abandoned coal tunnels like a chimney, and it was all Maya could do to navigate by touch. The heat grew more intense. For the first time in her new body, Maya began to sweat. Pain was starting to build. Maya decided that pain sucked equally bad for both men and women.
And then it was over. Maya broke through an invisible wall, and she was in a dark chamber about thirty feet across. The flames went up to the entranceway, and stopped as if held back by a force field. The flames provided an eerie, reddish illumination on the stark chamber, which must have once been a junction way for the miners. Maya realized that her clothes had burned away, and the ends of her hair were singed. She hardly felt superhuman anymore.
Sara was in the center of the room, collapsed and barely conscious, weakly supporting herself into to her knees. Looming above her was a dark figure in a cape. He looked huge, but in the dim light Maya could not make out any details about him.
"This is not how it was meant to happen," the shadowy figure said. Something about the voice was familiar, but Maya couldn't place it. She could only grunt in reply.
"I gave you godlike power. You, and only you. You could have risen to great heights to become my deputy. Instead, you had to bring her into it. You had to become her."
The figure spoke with dramatic intensity. Even after ordeal, Maya could not help but think of a melodramatic villain monologue. And with that thought, it all clicked. The love of cliches, the flair for the dramatic, the desire for control,
"Tony?"
"Tony is no more. Now there is only The Maker."
"No, you're Tony Stinson. From Halotech. We used to game together."
"And that is how you came to my attention, Mark. I saw something worthwhile in you. Ambition, the willingness to dream, a desire for something more."
"It's Maya now." Maya looked to Sara, worried. Tony was the intense sort of gamer who was hyper-competitive. Who knows what he was capable of with the kind of power he now possessed? Sara stared groggily at the two, trying to make sense of the exchange.
"How sad," Tony said. "Perhaps a failure of imagination on your part. I was beginning to find godhood lonely and boring. I was hoping that you could serve as a worthy lieutenant."
"So you sent me the disk."
"Among others. But yours was special. You were going to be the one to challenge me. To inspire me to great heights. I stayed in the shadows for months until the discs could do their work. I was going to create the world we had always dreamed of, where superheroes were real and anything was possible."
"So what's your gripe with Sara and me?"
Tony sighed. "I thought you were like me. I thought you understood the genre. Instead, you act like some horny teens. You two break all the rules, you...you become a girl..;"
"That's what this is about?" Maya asked incredulously. "What the hell? I mean, I was pretty freaked out when this happened, but it's not like anything important has changed, at least not compared to what you've been able to do with trashing the laws of physics."
"Everything has changed!" Tony raged. "After me, you were going to be the most powerful being in the universe. Instead, you chose to be female. To be weak. And now you're only good for one thing."
Sara finally found the strength to talk. "Seriously, dude? You have some major issues. First, you fuck with us by making up play your magical superhero game, which nearly got Mark killed. Then you act like a spoiled loser and decide to take everything away because of your insane misogyny. Now you bring us here to strut around like a sneering villain because you don't like my vagina?"
"Insolent bitch!" Tony cried. I was going to roast you and start over, with someone I could trust, but I have a better idea. Come here, and show me what you're good for."
Fear flashed across Sara's eyes for an instant, a look that was replaced by empty-headed adoration. She crawled across the rough stone floor to where Tony stood gloating. Without hesistation, she reached up to his trousers, undid his belt, and freed his impossibly long erect cock from its confinement. Tony turned to Maya to gloat. "You see, Mark? This is what whores like you are built for. Care to join me now? I'll let you start over, on one condition. I get to keep your girlfriend."
Maya tried to lunge at Tony, but she found herself unable to move anything below her neck. She knew what was happening. Tony was going to taunt her until she went insane, then turn her into another mindless puppet like he did to Sara. Tony had talked at length about his desire to dominate and control women. While he was still a reclusive nerd, Mark had thought him harmless. Now that same perversion threatened his very identity.
"I don't want any part of your world," Maya spat. "I don't know how you got the power you now have, but I can't think of anyone worse to wield it."
Tony laughed. He stroked Sara's head as she eagerly took his foot-long dick into her mouth. Maya winced as his girlfriend was forced to enjoy every sensation. "Your loss, dude. I think I'll like having the Wonder Twins as my first girlfriends. Oh, there's going to be a lot more, but you two are going to be special."
Maya looked around for something she could do, something she could use, to save herself and Sara. All hope faded. How could she fight infinite power, when all of her strength came from her enemy?
"I'm sorry, Sara," she said, sobbing slightly. "I wish I could help you. I love you so much."
"Well isn't that touching..." Tony began, but in his gloating, he came to a sudden realization. His hyper-intellect was focused for a moment on mocking his former friend. And Maya's words were able to touch on a power that even he had no power to control. In that instant, Maya's love touched Sara, and she found herself once more in control of her body. And at the moment, her body was giving head to a loathsome nerd with infinite power.
She bit down.
"FUCK!" Tony screamed. The distraction provided Maya with the opportunity she needed. Freed for a nanosecond from Tony's control, she shot at lightspeed into her enemy's chest, driving him into the solid stone wall. Tony was even stronger than she was, but the lightning attack caught him off guard. He tried to focus his thoughts on defense, but the pounding he was taking from the two women enabled him to do anything more than cry out in pain.
Maya delivered a hammer blow to Tony's chest. There were two audible cracks. The first was a huge gemstone Tony wore on an amulet around his neck. The second was his ribcage as, no longer guarded by the source of his power, collapsed under Maya's blow. Panicked, he wheezed and looked up at Maya and Sara for mercy.
Maya and Sara took each others' hands. They walked to where the force field holding back the flames started to flicker and weaken. Without looking back at Tony, Maya looked into Sara's eyes.
"Ready?"
"As long as I'm with you."
Two fists hammered into the wall beside the cave entrance. Flames flooded in, consuming the air in the room in less than a second. Tony's anguished cry was swallowed up by the roar of flames.
________________
Atop the smouldering mountaintop, two naked women gazed through the smoke at the stars above.
"What now?" Maya asked.
"We're still pretty kick-ass," Sara said. "We could continue as we were, and no-one would know the difference. It's not like they have kryptonite to stop us."
Maya sighed. "Yeah, but after what we just went through, I'm not sure it holds the same appeal for me. I mean, Tony was nuts, but was the world he wanted to make that different from the one we were making for ourselves?"
"Great. You have to go and get all moral," Sara moped. She squeezed Maya's hand and caressed her cheek. "You're right, though. Anything we can do to make the world better than the one that fuck wanted to make is worth doing."
"With great power, yadda yadda."
"Spider-man?"
"Yep."
"I love you, Maya."
"And I love you, Sara."
"So that's it? We're good guys all of a sudden?"
"Why not? Could be fun."
"It's not like there's a shortage of dicks int he world. But promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"Together forever."
"Forever."
For a moment, the light from the flames cast long shadows of two figures soaring upwards into the night sky. Then they broke through the clouds and were gone.
