“UNNGHH!” Star Spangled Girl cried out as a blue clad knee came up between her legs to smash into the red and white striped panties that dipped between her legs. Lifted up into the air by crunching knee to her sex, the superheroine didn’t have time to react when a fist struck her chin on her way down. “BLNGH!” she grunted. Her head was snapped backwards and she flew back into the wall. Star bounced off the concrete and steel wall and fell to the floor as shards of cement fell around her.
“Star!” I cried out. “I...” My sentence was cut short as Ultra Man spun around sending the back of his other fist at my face. My reactions are quick enough to deflect bullets, but when I brought my bracelet up to block him, it felt like my wrist was broken. His other punch came at me but I managed to wrench myself backwards so his fingers passed through my hair as I ducked.
“Ungh! No! Let go WWWUNNGH!” I gasped as his fingers locked around the ends of my hair and pulled me forward into his other fist. It plowed into my stomach and bent me around his hand. Without giving me a chance to react, he changed his grip to the hair at the back of my head and started to hammer me. His fist hit my gut again making my legs draw upwards. The second punch struck my left breast making me scream out in pain. His knuckles buried deep inside my breast driving the tender globe into my ribcage. I tried to block the next punch but I was too stunned to do more than flail my arms as he pulled my head forward into his fist. Tiny points of light exploded in my head when he punched me between the eyes below my tiara. A second punch, then a third, all delivered in a blur of blue that crashed into my face. By his third overpowering blow, I was barely able to stand. I am an Amazon, but few can withstand the power of Ultra Man’s strength. He can lift buildings. I can lift cars.
“Stop!” Star yelled as she crashed into Ultra Man’s side. I was yanked with him for a foot then his fingers released my hair. I took a step or two then tumbled to the floor in a dazed heap. Star Spangled Girl and Ultra Man rolled across the floor until smashing into the computer console of the League of Freedom headquarters. The metal console shrieked as the two struggling supers wrestled. It was not a fight that Star Spangled Girl could win, not against Ultra Man. She jabbed and twisted and writhed but slowly the overpowering superhero got Star under control. He flipped on top of her and one by one got her wrists pinned down.
“What is that?!” she demanded in a fearful voice.
I should mention why Ultra Man was fighting us. He looked completely normal, except for the greyish creature on his face. It covered his rugged face like a soft blob of blue-veined flesh, with three arms on either side that locked it into place around his head. It had a tail or some sort that was wrapped around his neck I guess to give it extra holding power. In the middle of the thing, right between where his eyes should have been, was a single globular eye. It was very human looking, other than sticking out of the creature instead of recessed like a human’s eyes. It had a glowing red iris and a greenish black pupil, and the eyeball moved around like a normal eye might. Whatever this...thing...was, it obviously had some kind of control over Ultra Man.
I know Star is powerful, and in fact she is stronger than me. She seems to almost have Ultra Man’s invulnerability, but she doesn’t have Amazon training. She is no match for Ultra Man though, not with something controlling him.
He suddenly jumped into the air and hovered while dragging Star with him. She brought a knee up but he bent his leg to the side and she could only hit him in the side weakly. Moving quickly, he released one of her wrists and brought it smashing across her face, twisting the heroine to the side. He released her other wrist and brought that fist into her other cheek. Star wrenched violently to the other side with her sunny blonde hair flying outwards. She stumbled backwards, but Ultra Man followed her. Punched rained down on Star’s beautiful young face, each one snapping her around as flecks of blood flew from her lips.
I got to my feet slowly. My breast ached and my head was spinning but I couldn’t let him beat my friend to death. I rushed up behind him and drove the tips of my fingers into his lower back.
He did not show many signs of pain from me jabbing his kidney other than his muscles tensing. I readied myself to duck a punch or a kick.
I wasn’t ready to duck a body. He grabbed Star by the blue strap of her top and twisted around. I could duck something small but still aching I was not ready to avoid Star Spangled Girl. Her body slammed into mine. My boots were lifted off the floor and I was sent flying. My back crashed into the stout wall and I tumbled onto the floor. Star and I were tangled together as we both struggled to get up.
Suddenly I felt a hand grab me by the hair and bend my head backwards. Ultra Man stood over us both as he grabbed fistfuls of platinum blonde and sun blonde tresses.
“UNNGH!!”
“GANNGH!”
Our faces collided in an explosion of blonde. Tiny flecks of light exploded in my vision. Both of our bodies spasmed from the impact. We were both lifted up to our feet by Ultra Man. Again Ultra Man twisted our heads back by our hair.
“BLLNGH!”
“AAAGGHH!!”
We both cried out again as Star Spangled Girl’s bloody face struck mine. I felt my own blood seeping from my nose and splattering Star. I tried to lift my arms but they seemed numb. Star’s white boots and my red and blue boots skittered on the floor as we were dragged back away from each other.
“Unnghh...”
“GNNGHH!”
Again our bodies slammed into each other, this time our arms and legs twisted around each other. Red and gold covered breasts collided with blue and white covered breasts. Our hips slapped into each other. This time though, Ultra Man had driven my tiara into Star’s face, on purpose or accidental I don’t know. My tiara is practically indestructible, but it is metal and can be bent. I felt it twist around to the side of my forehead. Star had a star shaped red spot between her eyes where it had struck and the light in her eyes started to dim. Her arms slumped to her sides and her legs stopped moving. Her blue eyes closed.
Ultra Man lifted us up. I closed my own eyes and stopped moving. I was close enough to unconsciousness already, it was not hard to act. My body screamed at me let the darkness take me. I wouldn’t though. I let myself hang there, by the fist in my hair.
With a flip of his hands, Ultra Man tossed Star Spangled Girl and I to the floor. I rolled a few feet and stopped on my side. Star landed on top of me, with her belly bent over my side. Her right breast rested on my left breast and I could feel her arm draped over my shoulder. I kept my eyes closed though. I needed a moment to recover and think.
Ultra Man stalked out of the room, for what I did not know, leaving us two superheroines lying on the cold tile floor. He opened some door and went into another room.
“Ultra Woman?” Star said in a barely audible whisper.
I cracked open one eye. Through all the hair covering our faces, I could see my friend. Her lips were cracked and her youthful, lovely face was smeared with blood. Some of it was mine, I assumed. I also assumed my face was just as messy. I was happy to see that she had faked unconsciousness as well. She is a very bright girl.
I did not move, but I tried to look around. We were alone, from what I could see through the hair over my face.
“We can’t stop him,” Star Spangled Girl said, “ but I...I think I can fly. I can get help.”
“He will catch you,” I replied in a dry, crackling whisper.
We laid there a few seconds when an idea came to me. “Star,” I said, “in the trophy room there is a box. It’s gray and made of lead, with some odd designs on it. They are in the Argonese language. Inside it is a glowing purple stone. I will distract him and you go get it. It will stop Ultra Man.”
I felt Star flinch, then I heard it. Ultra Man was coming back in. “Where?” she asked in a whisper.
“The trophy room, it is past the...”
Ultra Man came back into the control room through the door behind me. I saw a horrified look in Star’s eyes. She could see him and I could not see him from where I laid. The wheels of her mind turned. “You have to get it, I don’t know this building yet.”
“Star, no, he will...” I started to say, but before I could finish, Star climbed off of me.
Star Spangled Girl got to her feet wearily. “Hey ugly,” she said to Ultra Man, or the thing on his face, “Yeah you! One eye! You think it is that easy to get one of those on me?” she said. Leaping into the air, she rocketed down the north hallway, towards the personal quarters.
I wanted to jump up and help, but I understood what Star was doing and did not want to throw it away. My hair flew upwards as Ultra Man zoomed past me and down the hallway after Star Spangled Girl. As he flew after her, I saw he was carrying two of those creatures by the tail. That sent a shiver through me.
Once he went around the corner, I got up myself. Aching from head to toe, I pushed the tangled, blood matted strands of hair out of my face. I forced myself into a run and sped out the south door into the other half of the headquarters. I heard a crash and Star scream, then another crash. That only spurred me to move faster. I grabbed the door to the trophy room and ripped it from the hinges. I rushed past the various oddities and items members of the League had collected over the year and snatched up the lead box covered with engraved symbols. A loud alarm went off throughout the building, which was how important this box was.
I took off, back down the hallway to the main control room. I kept hearing Star Spangled Girl’s cries of pain and a few grunts from Ultra Man as the two went toe to toe. I felt a lump in my belly, knowing that no one could stand up to him like that. Not for long at least. I heard another crash as I entered the control room. I hurried north, passing the doors to private quarters that members used while here. I passed the door with the golden U and W on it.
“Star!?” I gasped when I reached the two supers. Ultra Man had finally beaten the last of the heroine’s resistance out of her. She was lying in a pile of debris that used to be a wall, held up by rubble and twisted steel rods. Her star spangled blue top was torn open revealing her breasts and her red and white stripes panties torn off one hip and hung loosely from her other hip. Her white boots were torn in a dozen places. Her blonde hair was sprinkled with blood.
The controlled hero stood over Star Spangled Girl with one of those creatures in his hand. The single eye on it was dull and lifeless, but surely would come alive once it was attached to Star. He started to bring the creature towards Star’s helpless form. The six thin arms on it reached outwards as the tail started to snake around Star’s neck.
“I am very sorry, Ultra Man,” I said and meant it. As he turned to look over his shoulder at me, I opened the box.
A sickly purplish glow filled the room, bathing Ultra Man and Star Spangled Girl in the rock’s radiation. Ultra Man’s body arched in pain although he never let out of a sound with the creature over his face. He wrenched in apparent pain, then came at me. I tensed for a moment waiting for the impact, but he was moving slowly. I put a boot to his chest and easily kicked him back. Ultra Man fell to the floor, twisting and writhing in pain.
It hurt to see him like that, but with Star behind him lying in a bloody heap I steeled my resolve. I kept the box open until Ultra Man quit moving. I did not want to kill him, but he had to be stopped. I waited another few seconds, then closed the box, throwing the room back into semi-darkness.
The two creatures flailed on the floor. One by one, with a sickening crunch, I crushed them under the heel of my boot.
I carried the box with me to Star. I knelt down in the rubble beside her. I pushed the hair from her face and put her head in my lap. She was breathing, which meant she would recover. Now all we had to do was figure out how to remove that thing from Ultra Man’s face.
Then discover where they came from.