The Vision lay there on the cold cement floor, in a state of complete shock, the pain in her shoulder from the high velocity bullet having stunned her into complete immobility. She drifted in and out of a kind of waking unconsciousness, barely capable of remembering what had happened, feeling her bodily functions going into an idle mode while her body itself struggled to come to grips with the pain, the impact, and the continuing loss of blood caused by her being shot in the left shoulder at close range in a desperate attempt to protect the life of her friend and partner, DangerGirl. She wondered if she could have survived the shock of this is she was not wearing the semi-bulletproof catsuit that Carnivore had provided her with those months ago. As she wavered in and out of any kind of coherency and comprehension, the Vision suddenly realized that she could hear the woman that shot her speaking, talking to her bound and now, apparently gagged, cohort. She tried to move, to help her captive friend, but still could not, almost completely paralyzed from the effects of the shooting, still tightly bound hand and foot as well. In a moment of clarity as she lay there, her mind at least starting to come back to her, she remembered the bomb attached to the large tank just above her head, then groaned inwardly as she saw, through unmoving and unblinking eyes, Lady Kongou hefting DangerGirl onto her shoulder and preparing to take her away. "Ohh god," she prayed silently, "Somebody help us..."
As the Lady turned to hurry out with her captive, she inadvertently kicked the Vision in the foot as she and her paralyzed load moved past. Like someone tapping a skipping tone arm, she felt her body suddenly pushed into the next "groove", and begin to come back to life. The pain in her shoulder suddenly doubled, but the wounded heroine suddenly realized she could move again, even bound as she was. Turning her head to see Lady Kongou almost running out of the room, with DangerGirl bouncing hard on her shoulder, the Vision then looked up to check the bomb, seeing its timer ticking down, 58...57...56... Knowing she had almost no time left at all, that even if she made it outside she probably wouldn't get far enough away from the blast to save herself, the Vision knew she must still try, for Jill as much as for herself. So she called on her gifted body once again, demanding everything it had, to get her legs under her and raise up, to try and get away. Counting aloud now, knowing that she until the count of about 50 before her time ran out, she struggled and surged, not ignoring the awful pain in her shoulder, but using it to help drive her efforts, like a strong dose of smelling salts. She had to help her friend!
With a grunt and a yell, her count up to 13, she got her bound feet under her, her toes on the floor. She thrust her body upward hard, tying to ignore the wave of dizziness that engulfed her from that move, knowing she had no time to be careful, even though if she passed out or fell again, that she would be dead. But she did not pass out, she did not fall, her superb athleticism and strength of mind and body kicking in, and began hopping as fast as she could through the narrow doorway of the room and towards the outside door, her count heading to 30 now. Panting and gasping at the pain and exertion of it all, she reached the floodlit outside at 40, frantically looking for someplace to hide, knowing she could never outrun the blast now.
Spotting a large, green, slant-top trash container just slightly to her left and up against an eight-foot tall, log-braced retaining wall across the narrow parking area, she hopped madly toward it. She knew the bomb would go off any second, and headed for the back of the container, seeing that it was about a foot away from the dark, musty wall. Cursing her large breasts, she let herself run chest first into the damp, dirty logs, moaning in pain, then simply threw herself to her left, trying to get her whole body behind the green, rusting receptacle. She gasped as her chest and thighs scraped and bumped down along the wall as she fell sideways, the backs of her arms suffering the same fate as they scraped and rubbed down the back of the container. She turned her head to the right as far as she could, trying to protect her face and eyes, her left ear banging painfully against the wall on her way down. As her injured shoulder crashed down underneath her against the hard asphalt of the driveway, she screamed, a scream of animal fear and pain, but a scream that she could not hear, as the bomb suddenly went off, instantaneously detonating the large tank filled with gasoline that it was attached to.
For a split second, the very air around her seemed to compress, the incredible sound of the explosion almost puncturing her eardrums, saved from that only by the fact that her mouth was open from her own scream. Then, with a huge "WHUMP", the blast front arrived. As the almost full garbage container was driven into her, the Vision's scream was cut off in mid-decibel as it suddenly felt as though she was being punched in the back by God, every cubic inch of air pushed out of her body by the force of it. As the waves of force from the explosion ebbed and flowed around her and her sanctuary, the nearly unconscious heroine could feel the protective dumpster sucked away from her slightly, only to be driven into her again and again, all this taking place in the course of just a few seconds. She couldn't breathe at all, her world turning completely black as the air around her filled with dust and debris and the awful roaring of the blast. The motion of the container finally stopping, pressing her tightly into the wet logs of the wall, she could feel and hear pieces of the building crashing down onto her "shield", banging and dinging and crashing around her in an almost orchestrated cacophony of sound and fury.
Her eyes closed, as it was pitch dark now anyway, the Vision struggled desperately to breathe while all this was happening. Even though it had just been a few seconds since the huge explosion, she felt as if she was already suffocating. And perhaps she was, held so tightly in her hiding place, the dust so thick around her, her ribs certainly bruised if not broken, her arms the same, saved only by the short length of the blast's maximum pressure, by the fact that the force of the blows were distributed over her entire body at the same instantaneous moments. Then, suddenly, there was a huge crash just feet above her head, as if the entire wall of the warehouse had fallen on her, the very air around her compressing again, stunning her. The dumpster began to move, tilting some away from the wall and pushing away from her a bit. As she greedily began to gasp in as much air as she could, she felt more debris begin noisily dropping around her. But something else was "falling" down on her now as well. In the total darkness, something huge and heavy began to press down on her right shoulder, turning and driving her onto her stomach, with barely enough room now to twist in, the inexorable weight pushing hard into her back now, pinning her to the hard, unforgiving driveway. "I've been shot...and so this is what it feels like to be crushed too..." was the Vision's last thought as she finally, mercifully, passed out.
Lady Kongou watched the dust and debris of the explosion push up into the sky behind them, the blast having almost knocked her van off the road back there, with her barely managing to hang onto it. Now she drove along more carefully, watching her speed, alternately glancing into her rearview mirror at the carnage behind her and the road ahead of her. Occasionally she would check her inside rearview mirror to gaze at her captive, seeing her still laying there on the floor, bound and gagged, paralyzed from the curare she had injected the young heroine with, unable to resist calling back to her.
"I'm sure your partner did not feel a thing, DangerGirl. I'm sure she died instantly," smiling in satisfaction at what sounded like a sob coming through the tight ballgag that she had strapped into the other's mouth. And in her sadism, Lady Kongou could not resist adding, "And to think she died trying to save YOU...that she is dead now because of YOU, that it is YOU who is alive. You should have watched her back better, DangerGirl, you were not a very good partner for her."
Licking her lips with the tip of her tongue as she heard the sobbing sound increase in intensity, the lovely, skilled, athletic...psychopathic Asian assassin turned off onto Main St., heading across town a ways to "The Bell Bar", where she could interrogate her paralyzed prisoner in peace and privacy, and force her to relinquish the name of the two heroines' informant hiding inside of the Trenchent drug organization. Listening to the soft sobs emanating from the floor in the back of her van, the Lady smiled again, thinking..."This is going to be easy," her smile suddenly widening, "Not quick, not painless...but easy!"
Five minutes after the explosion and her apparent entrapment, the Vision slowly regained consciousness. She herself had no idea how long she had been out, barely able to remember what had happened to her at all for the moment. She could have been like this for a minute, an hour, a day...she had no way of telling, her current world completely dark and silent. But then she realized that it could not have been too long, as she was finding it almost impossible to breathe like this, with whatever it was pressing into her back, crushing her into the ground. If it had been a long time she would have already been dead, knowing even now she didn't have much time left, feeling faint and dizzy from her lack of oxygen, from the loss of blood from her wounded shoulder. She lay there for a few minutes, trying to relax, trying to get enough air into her body for one or two efforts to get free, to call for help. Finally, she was as ready as she was ever going to be.
She began to writhe and twist as best she could then, but stopped almost instantly. If she had had any spare oxygen just then, she would have begun to laugh. Who was she kidding?? She could move her legs a tiny bit as they were only covered with a bit of building debris, but she was still bound hand and foot, the weight pressing down between her bound elbows on her back could weigh ten tons for all she knew, and she was rapidly bleeding and suffocating to death. She wasn't going anywhere on her own. But finally, refusing to give up, she began to yell as best she could, thinking that someone must be above her by now, investigating the explosion and its aftermath. She yelled a few times, her last cries sounding more like the whimpers of a wounded animal, her voice getting weaker and weaker as she ran out of air. Jo struggled not to pass out again, desperate to try and get free to save Jill, her friend and lover, wanting to fight the good fight right up until the very end. She lay there gasping for breath, wanting to make one, last, final effort, when things above her seem to shift, pieces of debris started to move, the terrible pressure on her back lessening slightly. Something was happening!!
The Vision closed her eyes quickly as small pieces of building material began to rain down on her body as the huge weight above her shifted again, seemed to rise higher, its horrible weight almost completely off her back now. She breathed in great droughts of dusty, dirty air, coughing hard, the force of them making her bruised or broken ribs and her wounded shoulder scream out in pain. But she could breathe now!! Somebody had found her, someone had gotten a crane and was lifting the weight and was going to save her. The thought of rescue, the thought of being able to help Jill now, filled the wounded heroine with new strength and determination, allowing her to keep fighting, to call on all her remaining reserves, to try and bring her bound legs under her once again as the weight above her lifted higher and higher. Risking opening her eyes, she could see small shafts of halogen light shining into her sanctuary now, finally getting her feet under her again, wondering just how much more she had to give, calling out "I'm here!! I'm here!!" to try and encourage her rescuers onward.
As the huge chunk of building wall finally was raised just above the top of dumpster, her rusty green savior itself crumpled and crushed and leaning away from the log retaining wall now, the Vision pushed wearily to her feet, more and more light shining on her, seeing the way in front of her just past the container still blocked, turning back around to see the way she had entered her hiding place mainly free of debris, hoping that someone would soon reach inside from that direction and help her out, because she was not certain she could hop out on her own without falling, without passing out. But no one was coming, and when the large block stopped rising, only a few inches above her head, she became more and more concerned. Didn't they know she was in here, didn't they know she could barely move??
"Help me...Somebody out there help me, please!!"
But she heard nothing, no one called out to her. The battered heroine suddenly realized she could hear nothing at all...no sounds of voices, no sounds of machinery, just the rushing of the wind through the piles of rubble that must lie all around her haven. She took a small hop toward the opening, almost tripping on some small pieces of debris at her feet. God...why weren't they helping her?? But then, standing there, leaning against the wall for support, exhausted and breathing hard from just this latest small effort, she thought she DID hear something, someone. Quieting her breathing as best she could and leaning slightly forward to get her ears close to the actual opening, she could finally just make it out. It was a voice, a soft, strained voice, occasionally repeating the same sound, but she was not quite able to make out the word. Holding her breath now, she finally heard the word, what the voice was trying to tell her...
"Hurry.."
Oh god, someone wanted her to hurry, and she was so utterly exhausted and beaten that she could barely move. But when she glanced up one last time at the deadly weight above her, and saw it start to waver slightly in the air, she DID hurry, knowing that she had no other option, no other choice. The Vision hopped again, trying to avoid the pile of stones and masonry at her feet, trying not to fall or twist a bound ankle. Hopped again, nearing the opening, fighting off a wave of nausea and dizziness that threatened to bring her to her knees. Hopped again, panting like a racehorse now, finally in enough light to see the large bloodstain covering the front left of her outfit, to see that somewhere during her trial she had lost her utility belt. Hopped for what she hoped was the last time, getting past the end of the dumpster, a higher pile of debris surrounding her, knowing that it would be impossible for her in her condition to hop anymore, looking up to see a few feet of the awful suspended wall still "waving" over her head, knowing that somehow, someway, she had to move a bit farther forward to finally get clear of it. Just then she heard the strained, plaintive word again, weaker this time, but clearer, as she was out from behind the container at last.
"Hurry!!"
The desperate heroine turned her head slightly to the right, towards the source of the sound, recognizing the voice now at the same time as she recognized the body. Standing there with his arms outstretched above him, legs spread, his greatcoat swirling around him in the wind, the very air around him seeming to shimmer and hum, stood Mr.Morpheus, using his telekinetic ability, his Morphine field, and his force of will to hold the multi-ton wall fragment in the air. The Vision could see his handsome face now, strained and distorted with effort, his eyes closed, as he struggled to hold up the great weight. There was nowhere to set it, nowhere to move it, so he simply held it there, against the gods of gravity, waiting for her to get out, if she possibly could. But she could also see that his strong arms were starting to drop a bit, his broad shoulders beginning to sag, his muscular legs shaking as if he was holding up the weight by hand, realizing that he was way over the limits of his strength here, but somehow succeeding anyway, giving her this one last chance for freedom. With that, the totally exhausted heroine simply threw herself face forward on the pile of debris, crying out in anguish at the terrible pain jolting through her from every part of her body. She began crawling up the face of the small rubble pile like some kind of worm, finally reaching the top of it and half-screaming "CLEAR!!" with her last conscious breath, as she rolled down the other side of the pile to land unconscious and near dead at his feet.
Mr.Morpheus heard her cry, felt her roll up against his foot, releasing his TK field with a nearly mind-blowing wrench of concentration and effort, then roaring in pain and triumph as he saw the inanimate, useless object of his struggle crash to the ground with a its own thunderous roar, five feet beyond where the object of his affection lay unmoving at his feet. He stared down at her as the dust from the falling wall section settled around them, trying to bring his mind back from the place where it had gone during his torturous attempt to lift and hold the great weight. He felt dizzier than he could ever remember after such an act, but realized that he had never moved or held so much before with his mind, and doubted that he ever could again, only the knowledge of who he was trying to save allowing him the drive and strength to do it in the first place. With that, the picture of the Vision at his feet, her back covered with blood, her catsuit ripped and torn and filthy, her head and body covered with dust and grime, still tied hand and foot, finally snapped into full focus for him. He knelt down quickly, checking for a pulse in her neck, finding it finally, thready and weak, but still there.
"Oh lord, Jo, what have you gotten yourself into...who did this to you??"
He said this aloud as he examined the exit wound cause by the high-velocity bullet that had ripped through her. He expected no answer, and got none, reaching down to scoop his unconscious lover into his arms, his mind too drained to use his TK field to more gently carry her. He knew that she was injured badly, from the gunshot certainly, but possibly internally as well, and needed immediate medical attention. So, holding her tightly in his arms, he headed over the debris field toward his car as quickly as he possibly could. As he cleared the last of the major debris, Mr.Morpheus began to jog, his silver Bentley just a short way down what was left of the road. He could hear the sounds of many sirens, many vehicles heading their way...fire trucks, ambulances perhaps, cops for sure. Not fearing so much capture as he did delay, he lowered the barely breathing Vision gently onto the back seat of his limo, still bound (no time for niceties now), and restricted her movements even more by using the back seatbelts to buckle her there. He leaped into the front seat of the still running automobile, slammed it into gear and hopped on the gas, the engine revving with a muted roar as he began to race down the street through warehouse row and against time, to get his girlfriend the medical help she needed before it was too late.
Lady Kongou slowly pulled the van into the handicapped parking spot closest to the entrance door in the back of "The Bell Bar", took it out of gear and shut it off, the sudden quiet broken only by the sounds her captive was making in the back. She got out and went to unlock and open the door to the workout facility and then went around to the hatch, opening it and looking inside. DangerGirl lay there staring at her, her face stained with tears, a bit of drool running down her chin from the tight ballgag onto the thin top of her outfit just above her breast. But she was not crying anymore, a look of pure hatred and defiance in her eyes now. The Lady smiled to see this, hoping that the young heroine would show some spirit, would fight her as she set about the task of breaking her, of getting the information that was worth $100,000 dollars to her. Reaching in and pulling DangerGirl to her, the demented assassin put her arms under the bound girl and, lifting her up in her arms like a baby, turned and walked into the club, kicking the door shut behind her with her heel.
She carried the small heroine through a bunch of tables just off the bar and down a short flight of stairs to the workout area below, heading for a large massage table placed in the center of it. It had been covered with a large, white sheet and was brightly lit by four small floodlights that shone down from the low ceiling, above. Laying DangerGirl on top of it none to gently, she then went back upstairs to lock the door, then returned and moved to a large video camera that had been set up facing the table. Lady Kongou turned it on and peered into the eyepiece, making sure her captive and the table were fully in frame and focused, then walked around it and moved leisurely towards the table. She reached it and stared down where the helpless woman lay unmoving, her bound arms underneath her. Then slowly, deliberately, with a smile on her face, she leaned down and began to lick the drool off of DangerGirl's chin, the salty remains of her tears off her cheeks. Not only did the villainess enjoy the kinkiness of this, but it was also a part of her plan to degrade and humiliate the heroine, to show her how truly helpless she was.
DangerGirl, for her part, WAS humiliated, and disgusted with what the other was doing to her now. For the hundredth time she tried to move her head, to jerk it away from Lady Kongou's insidious tongue, but the effects of the dilute curare were still to much for her to overcome. She knew those effects were wearing off, as she was finding it much easier to breathe now, but she still had no control over her voluntary muscles groups, and knew she would be this way for some length of time yet. But still she tried to move, hating what was happening to her, hating her helplessness, desperate to put up some kind of resistance to her opponent's ministrations. God, how she hated her.
Lady Kongou finally stopped licking DangerGirl's face and raised up with a smile. "Time to make you more comfortable, child!" With that, she rolled the other over onto her stomach and untied her arms and wrists, putting her numb arms down along her sides and rolling her over again. Pushing DangerGirl's arms up over her head on the table, the lovely Asian began to work the startled heroine's top off, loosening it, then pulling that and her sports bra up and over her head and arms and off. She then took the discarded rope and tied the other's wrists tightly again, letting the end of the rope drop over the top of the table, and knelt to tie it underneath to a table support, pulling it tightly to stretch the heroine's arms out to there fullest. Lady Kongou stood up then and moved to the bottom of the table, doing the same things to DangerGirl's legs and feet and torso...untying them, stripping off her boots and bottoms and panties, then tying her ankles, each to a lower corner of the table, leaving the groaning young woman slightly spread and completely restrained. She moved back up to the other's face, reaching behind her head to undo and remove the tight ballgag.
"Feel free to yell and scream all you want, DangerGirl, this room is almost completely soundproof and there is no one anywhere nearby to hear you."
DangerGirl groaned and licked her lips, swallowing hard for the first time in what seemed like hours, completely horrified that this beastess, this evil bitch that had killed her best friend, was in control of her like this, could look down and see her naked body like this. Horrified, yes, but also as angry as she had ever been in her life, staring up at her gloating captor.
"Before this..." she croaked, stopping to swallow and lick her lips again. "Before this is done, Lady Fuckface, I WILL kill you. Make book on that..."
Lady Kongou stared back at her, openly laughing now. "Oh dear, I had best run away now, before it is too late, then, hadn't I?" she replied mockingly. "No, little one. I think I shall stay. I think I shall stay and use and abuse you to my heart's content. I will use and abuse you until you beg to tell me whom your informant is in Mr. Trenchent's organization. Then I will use and abuse you some more, until you finally beg me to die. THAT is what I shall do, DangerGirl!"
DangerGirl's eyes went wide at the other's words, swallowing again, a thrill of fear sweeping through her at the certainty and the psychosis in Lady Kongou's voice, knowing she was in for it now, speaking softly aloud to tell her captor the reason why she knew this to be true.
"Well, we're both really screwed then, aren't we, Lady Nutcase, because I have NO idea who the informant is," pausing a moment to let that sink in. "Our informant was the Vision's source, and she protects her sources completely, and wouldn't even tell ME who it is. She simply told me that she had notified them that if anything happened to her, if she should die..." pausing again to swallow as a wave of pain washed through her mind, continuing more quietly, "...if she should...die...then the informant was to contact me, to become MY source. But I have no idea who it is now."
Lady Kongou stared down at her young captive, her own mouth open, noting absently that the other was moving her fingers and feet now, the effects of the curare finally wearing off. A good judge of character, either DangerGirl was the best liar she had ever heard, or the bound, naked beauty was simply telling the truth, and that she WAS screwed, and would never find out who the informant was now. $100,000 down the tubes, just like that. Damn that heroic Vision anyway!!
Her smile turning somewhat grim, she leaned against the table, moving closer to her captive's face. "You know I don't believe you, don't you...you know I CAN'T believe you!" watching DangerGirl's slight nod, apparently her neck working now as well. "I have absolutely nothing to gain by believing you, my young friend, so I don't think I will. You'd best tell me the truth. If you do, I promise to kill you quickly, and relatively painlessly. But if you do not...," leaving her threat hanging in the air, no reason to speak it as both of them knew what it was anyway...it was pain, pure and simple...exquisite pain.
"Ok...you want the truth, you get the truth," responded DangerGirl, trying to put on a braver face than she was feeling. "You're an ugly, cowardly bitch that doesn't have the guts to figh...UHHHHHHHHHHH!!", the words driven out of her as Lady Kongou raised her own arm then drove a sharp elbow down into the helpless heroine's unprotected stomach.
"My, my...such a mouth on you. Well, I hope you can continue this level of bravery as we go along, DangerGirl, I really do. Because if you are telling the truth, and you DON'T know who the informant is, the only fun I'm going to have is in breaking you, in watching you crack, in listening to you moan and beg for mercy." She paused, reaching up suddenly, the fingers of each hand delicately swirling all over DangerGirl's naked breasts, leaning even closer to almost whisper to the stunned heroine, "...and rest assured, you WILL moan and beg for mercy...for a very long, long time."
"Let us begin!"
Mr.Morpheus sat in the waiting room, waiting, waiting for what seemed like an interminably long time. He found himself leafing through a magazine, not even aware what he was looking at, just turning the pages, thinking. He glanced up at the large analog clock on the wall occasionally, waiting for a doctor or nurse to come to him and tell him it was alright to go and see the wounded Vision. On one such glance he noticed an older woman smiling at him nervously, realizing he must make a rather imposing, incongruous figure, his broad 6'2" frame and long, dark greatcoat dwarfing the small hospital chair he was sitting in. He smiled back at her grimly, then finally actually noticed the magazine he had in his hands..."The Ladies Home Journal".
"Wonderful," he thought with a grimace, flipping it back on the table. He stretched out his long legs and leaned back in the chair as best he could then, and closed his eyes to think. It had been just a bit less than and hour and a half ago when he had flown up the emergency room entrance in his Bentley, with the injured and still bound Vision belted in his back seat. He had called ahead to Mercy Hospital on his cell phone, informing them he was bringing in a wounded "crime fighter", and, knowing that she had been treated there before, told them of her situation and instructed them to pull her hospital records to have access to her medical history, blood type and the like, telling them that he would be at their door in six minutes.
As his big car screeched to a stop at the Emergency Room entrance, he had been gratified to see two orderlies waiting there with a gurney, and as he leaped out of the car, they were already opening the back door to pull the unconscious heroine out. He heard one of them issue a sharp expletive, suddenly remembering that she was still bound, and as he approached the opened door, produced a large jackknife from one of the pockets of his coat. He had then basically "commanded" the two of them to place his injured lover on her side, and proceeded to gently, but quickly, cut through her bindings and free her tied limbs from the ropes that had constrained them for so long. Muttering "C'mon...c'mon..." to the orderlies, he had led them into the controlled chaos of the emergency room at almost a run. He was again gratified to see a nurse and a rather large male doctor, waiting for the Vision to arrive. Apparently, Mercy Hospital took great pride in their treatment and handling of any of the city's heroes or heroines in need of medical assistance. The doctor rushed up to the three of them as they brought the gurney to a halt just inside the room.
"Are you Morpheus??"
"Yes...this is the Vision...she's been shot once in the shoulder, close range it appears, been bounced around pretty good, and was almost crushed by a large piece of masonry about 15 minutes ago. I'm not sure how long ago she was shot, but...but she's lost an awful lot of blood. Did you get my message about her records?"
"Yeah, got that, looked at 'em myself and have blood for her in...room twelve, guys," he said, raising his voice to instruct the orderlies. The whole time he was talking he was examining the angry wound on the Vision's left shoulder, front and back, tearing away the surrounding catsuit with his latex gloved fingers. As the doctor and the two men quickly wheeled her toward the awaiting room, Mr.Morpheus tried to follow them. The doctor stopped, turned and put out his two bloodied hands to stop him.
"Look, Mr.Morpheus, you can't come in here, I can't and won't let you. There's nothing you can do in there. If you want to help her at all, head over there to Administration, get her checked in and see about her paperwork. Either that or head out to the waiting room." Glaring at each other, the two stood there for a moment, Mr.Morpheus not liking to be denied, the doctor knowing that he was the captain of this "ship". Dropping his voice a bit, he continued.
"It would really be a good thing for her if you would just deal with her paperwork and insurance and all that legalistic crud. It frees me to help her, and it MUST be done...you know that. I promise that I'll bring you word as soon as I have anything definitive to tell you. C'mon, Mr.Morpheus, she doesn't need this."
Finally nodding, the mysterious "villain", turned and headed for the Administration office, stopping to turn once and yell at the back of the now hustling doctor, "You let me know if she needs anything!! You hear me?? ANYTHING!!" The doctor did not stop, but waved a hand above his shoulder to indicate that he had heard. With a deep sigh, Mr.Morpheus had continued into the office to do what he had been instructed.
There was really very little for him to do there except sign a few papers, answer a few questions. He was surprised to find out that, even though she was not technically a police officer, she did appear to hold a transitional title in the "Public Safety Department", and as such, she was covered by the city's own medical plan, even though apparently she was paying the premiums out of her own pocket. He was also surprised and a bit saddened to note the names that the Vision had listed on her last visit to the hospital as "next of kin"...DangerGirl and himself. He swallowed at the sudden lump in his throat, not liking to think about that subject, suddenly realizing that he didn't know if his injured lover even had any family, in the city or elsewhere. As the office worker indicated that they were finished for now, he had asked where the waiting room was and shuffled off in that direction, to begin the waiting. They had come out to him once, to tell him that she should survive, that she was incredibly resilient, but that they were taking her to the operating room to sew up the damage to her shoulder.
As he leaned back in the chair now, waiting, he thanked god that he had had the foresight and, well, the sneakiness to sew that micro-thin radio tracker and bio-telemetry wafer into the inside lining of her right boot last month. He had felt a bit guilty about that, but had done it for just such a situation as this. When an alarm had gone off in his Bentley, indicating that the Vision's vital signs had suddenly gone haywire, he had turned on the tracker, and raced off trying to get to her, to help her if he could, not sure what had happened to her, but knowing from his monitor that something was wrong with her physically. But that is how he had ended up at the warehouse so quickly, just in time to help her from the rubble of the exploded building. He opened his eyes suddenly as he sensed someone approaching...it was the doctor.
"I can't stay," he said hurriedly, "Have another emergency. But she's fine, recovering unbelievably well...well enough so that we felt we could skip intensive care and take her straight to one of our monitored private rooms on the second floor." Putting up his hand to stop Mr.Morpheus from speaking, he hurried on. "You can see her when she wakes up, that should be in about an hour...BUT NOT BEFORE, please. I've instructed the floor nurse to contact you here the second she wakes up. I'm sorry, those are hospital rules, and I will enforce them!" he finished determinedly.
"Ok, Ok...I've waited this long, I can wait another hour, I guess...but god, can't you get some decent mags in here!? A guy could go stir crazy."
The doctor smiled at him, extending his hand, "Thank you for your patience, Mr.Morpheus," the two of them shaking hands. "I know you care a great deal for the Vision, but waiting is really in her best interests now. I'll see what I can do about the magazine situation, too, but I really have to run...duty calls and all that...Goodbye for now."
"Goodbye doctor, and thank you for taking care of my...my...of the Vision for me. Appreciate it."
But the doctor was already almost running off, and Mr.Morpheus thunked back down into the chair with a tired groan, to do the waiting thing again, in the small, boring room that was built just for that purpose.
The Vision knew she was coming to. She knew it because she felt the same every time she recovered consciousness, feeling as though she was at the bottom of a deep, dark well and slowly climbing up its insides, seeing the open air above her getting lighter as she approached the top, as she approached waking up. She slowly opened her eyes, glad that the lights in her...room(?) were set on dim, suddenly aware of a thousand pains all over her body, each of them demanding her attention. The pains were the worst in her shoulder, obviously, but also in the middle of her back. She noticed that her feet were tingling too, not too happy with the implications of that, but not too concerned about it at the moment. From her lack of concern, and the somewhat muted feeling of all her pains, the awakening heroine realized that she must be a bit drugged, turning her head to note the IV tube in her arm, the IV bottle dripping happily into it above her.
She put her head back down on the pillow, feeling very weary, but also feeling her amazing body already starting to come around, gaining in strength even as she lay there. She started thinking back about what had just happened to her, getting shot, hopping madly to escape, the terrible explosion, noise, and dirt flying around her, the crushing weight on her back, the terrible fear. She remembered hopping clear as well from the great weight, seeing her savior, Mr.Morpheus, as he struggled to hold it up with his powers, and that was the last she remembered. But something else was banging around in her brain, something important. She shook her head, as if to shake the drugs out of it, to think clearer. "Godd..what was it?!" She sat up suddenly, as if shot again, a wave of dizziness washing through her..."Oh godd...JILL!!!"
Her partner, best friend, and lover, taken away helplessly by that awful woman, to do god knows what to her, to try and get DangerGirl to tell her the name of their informant. The Vision's eyes went wide then as the realization stuck her.
"Oh dear god...Jill doesn't even KNOW!!!"
Like the other two before her, she realized the implications of Jill's lack of knowledge, that it would not save her anything, it would only prolong whatever agonies Lady Kongou was forcing on her. Jo tried to hang her hat on two things, scared and hurting at what might be happening to Jill this very second...that she had somehow managed to break free and escape, maybe been given help somehow, knowing from the ache in her own heart that this had almost no chance of being true. The other...that "prolong" was the operative word here, that the evil assassin could never be quite sure whether Jill was telling the truth, that she knew nothing, that even though her friend would be suffering horribly, no doubt, that the other would keep her alive, MUST keep her alive, until she could be sure.
"Hang on, hang on, Jill!" she thought wildly, reaching up to turn on more lights, then reaching over to slide the IV needle slowly out of her arm, wincing at the slight pain of it. Her fear for her partner and her determination to save her if she could were washing the drugs out of her mind, strengthening her body and spirit, as she turned and dangled her feet over the bed, her legs sticking out from her cotton hospital gown. She looked around for her clothes, noting only her boots on the chair on the other side of the room. Damn!! She'd have to do something about that, and about how to get out of here and back to her hidden cycle on warehouse row. She reached back across the bed, grabbed the buzzer, and rang for the night nurse. She let herself down onto the cold floor, fighting the dizziness that standing caused, looking up at the clock as she made her way to the hinged part of the door to her room. Almost two hours...almost two hours DangerGirl had been in the other's evil, sick clutches!! Lord, she had to hurry...
As the door opened and the nurse entered, the Vision wrapped her right arm rather gently around her neck, her left hand grabbing the nurse's left wrist and forcing it into the small of her back, using it to push the startled woman into the room, the door swinging shut behind them.
"Relax...relax...Nurse...ahhh...whatever your name is...Just relax...no way I want to hurt you...!!"
The whole time she was whispering in the young nurse's ear, the other was struggling, harder and harder, apparently scared and rather stronger than the barefoot, hospital-gowned heroine had hoped. But she was strong herself, desperate, and had no time or inclination for an extended struggle with a "civilian". She finally pushed the other over to the bed, then tightened her grip around the other's throat and forced the still struggling woman face first onto it, their feet still on the cold floor.
"C'mon.....C'MON!!....I need your help, dammit....I'm the...arrrghhh...Vision....st....stop struggling....ohhh....SETTLE DOWN!!!" she yelled, yanking the other's head hard, finally dazing and frightening the other into at least a non-writhing submission. "My girlfriend is going to die if I don't help her quickly...so just settle down...please!" Gratified to finally feel her young captive relaxing underneath her, she took advantage of it to tell her practically everything...about the drugs, their capture, the shooting, the bomb, and her escape. Whispering quickly but earnestly in the wide-eyed nurses ear, she begged her for her help. She needed her uniform and her car keys, she needed them desperately, and would simply take them if she had to, but it would be so much easier..."please...my friend is counting on me...please, nurse..."
"Karen....my...my name is Karen...I'll help you, Vision. Let me up and let me help you. I promise...no tricks...I want to help you."
The Vision took a chance and said a short prayer and let Karen go, standing slowly and stepping back, blinking away another small bout of dizziness and fatigue, her wounded shoulder on fire from the short struggle. The young nurse straightened as well, turning slowly to face her "attacker", but her right hand already fishing in the pocket of her uniform and coming out with what looked like a set of car keys.
"I'm a big fan of yours, Vision...would be honored to be of any assistance I could," she said with a shy smile, reaching out to hand the startled heroine her keys. "A blue Saturn, license plate AYR341, by lightpole M3....But god, you're bleeding!! Let me get that for you," she said, indicating the small flow of blood going down the heroine's arm from where the IV needle had come out.
"No time, Karen," she said, grabbing the keys. "But thanks...I, errr, need your uniform now, you know."
Karen smiled at her again, less shyly now, already reaching for the buttons to her outfit.
"I know...you said...and is my honor again, though will probably get in trouble for this. But you are wrong, Vision. You have the time to fix that, it will take me ten seconds to fix, and I can do most of that while you're putting on my uniform. Good thing we're almost the same size, huh?" Finished with the buttons, she was shrugging out of her nurses whites and stepping out of them, clad now in just a nice white bra, panty, garter and stocking set, tossing the outfit onto the bed. "Let me help you with that gown," she said, quickly stepping around the injured young woman, who, although still in a bit of a daze, took about a half second to notice how attractive her "fan" was as she passed by and worked the knots holding the heroine's gown closed. The Vision shook her head at the same time she shook off her gown...she was going to have to start thinking a lot faster than this if she was going to save DangerGirl, "...if she is even still alive," she thought, her heart catching in her throat.
As the shaken heroine moved quickly now, moving to pick up and put on the nurses outfit, Karen, all business for the moment, hustled over to the bedside table, opening a drawer and extracting a cotton ball, a large band-aid, a large roll of white adhesive tape, and a small scissors, practically running back to the half-dressed heroine in her haste to be of help. The Vision had stepped into the dress and was just raising it up past her waist to slide her right arm into the short sleeve when the nurse stopped her.
"Give me fifteen seconds here, Vision, please!!"
As the Vision stopped, then nodded, Karen quickly tore off an eight inch piece of the tape and put if atop the small gauze dressing that covered the bullet hole on the front of the heroines left shoulder, doing her professional best not to stop and stare at the wounded heroine's rather magnificent bare breasts. Succeeding, she then tore a second strip and did it again, quickly moving behind her to work on the much larger bandage on the back of her shoulder.
"You're still seeping from your wound some, Vision. Please try not to pull out your stitches...you could easily still bleed to death if you do. There!!...the extra tape might help you out, hold the bandages on if you have to...have to...well, fight or anything."
The Vision murmured her thanks and slid the outfit somewhat painfully over both shoulders and arms, freezing when the young nurse grabbed her right arm, smiling grimly as she watched her slap a cotton ball and band-aid onto the IV puncture wound that was still oozing out blood along her arm. As she began to button the dress, she watched in amazement as Karen raced over to a wooden side chair, thunked down in it, and began winding adhesive tape around her ankles.
"What are you doing, Karen?"
"I'm sorry, but if you could take just a few seconds to help me out. If it looks like I tried to stop you and that you left me like this, I can cover the fact that I actually helped you, and couldn't get out to the nurses station to call security to find you, so then shouldn't lose my job here at Mercy. My job means an awful lot to me."
As the Vision nodded her assent, as it was the least she could do to help one who had helped her, the excited nurse was already taping her knees together, sporting a large grin. "Boy...wait till I tell the girls in the Vision fan club about this!! They'll just cream themselves with envy..." She looked up just in time to see the heroine moving toward her, rolling her eyes, muttering "Vision fan club..my god!" almost under her breath. Handing her the tape, the nurse followed the wounded woman with her head and eyes for a moment as she walked behind her, then turned to face forward, putting her wrists together behind the back of the chair.
"It's just that we all respect so much what you've done for the city, Vision, the exciting, dangerous, and valuable life you lead. We admire you, and most of us wish we were more like you."
"Look! Being a heroine is not all it's made out to be in the brochures you know!!" She crossed Karen's wrists and began a figure-eight taping of them. "There's all the training, the long, disjointed hours, lack of sleep, lack of free time, no private life to speak of. Then there's all the despair, the PAIN, the uncertainty of whether you'll even be alive tomorrow." She finished taping the underwear-clad woman's wrists and moved back around to kneel down facing her. "Even as we sit here, at worst DangerGirl may have been already killed, or at best is probably undergoing god knows what type of torture or abuse. Lot's of times this job just plain sucks!!"
As she tore off two strips for the gag, the heroine looked up at the young, pretty nurse. "If you should happen to run into Mr.Morpheus, please tell him I'm sorry. He would have tried to stop me, and I don't want him any more involved with this then he already is."
"Mr.Morpheus??...Would that be the mysterious hunk wearing that wild coat in the waiting room?"
The Vision smiled, holding the first strip up the bound nurse's lips, "Yess...that would be him. Ready?"
"Thank you for this, Vision, and good luck in finding and saving your friend."
"Noo...thank YOU, Karen. I will not forget you, and will thank you personally later if everything works out ok."
"You'd better not forget me," Karen said, her voice husky with emotion, her eyes glazed with the excitement of it all. She put her lips together, and the kneeling heroine pressed first one, then the second strip of tape over her lovely mouth and smoothed them down gently. As she raised up then, she leaned forward to plant a small kiss on the gagged lips of the surprised young nurse. Then she stood up quickly and headed for the window, stopping to grab her boots and slide them on, and checking to make sure the car keys were in the uniform pocket.
With a last quick wave to her tied up helper, she open the window and eased her way outside, lowering her body along the wall as she hung from the sash. Her feet were still eight feet from the ground, but she had no choice but to let herself drop as she pushed away from the wall. The landing was jolting and painful, especially to her injured shoulder, but she recovered quickly and headed out toward the employees parking lot on the trot, to take Karen's car and drive to her Visioncycle, to try and figure out where DangerGirl was being held, and to try and save her if she possibly could.
On the cement step to the back entrance of "The Bell Bar" a wino sat, sipping his Thunderbird 50-50 from a paper bag, staring drunkenly off into the night, not realizing for a moment that he was proving Lady Kongou correct. He had been sitting there for almost an hour, and he had not heard a single one of DangerGirl's screams. There had been many of them...wild, piercing, heart-stopping screams, but their sound had not made it out of the soundproofed workout area at all.
DangerGirl's interrogation had not started out immediately like that, as the first thing the evil villainess had done to her naked and bound captive was to simply rub her...rub her all over her twisting, writhing body with her fingertips and palms. "Exciting the nerve endings," she had called it. The Asian's fingers had been everywhere, caressing and teasing DangerGirl's alabaster skin. The struggling heroine had tried to ignore what the other was doing to her, to act disdainful and unconcerned. But her captor was relentless, and had openly laughed at her when the small crime fighter's nipples jumped to attention as the other drew small languid circles around them with her fingertips. Then Lady Kongou, taking every opportunity to embarrass and abase her subject, to try and break her will, had ridiculed her humiliated captive as the gasping young heroine's body betrayed her again, her pussy becoming slick and damp as the smiling assassin had gently stroked her labia and clit.
"What a complete slut you must be, DangerGirl. Your partner dead because of you, your own body helpless and at the complete command of the woman that killed her. Yet still you become aroused so quickly, longing for my touch, my caresses...what a wanton slut you must truly be!"
DangerGirl had only moaned then in complete despair, struggling hard but futilely to get loose and attack her mocking tormentor. She had give up insulting the other as the body rub had continued, as each insult she had uttered had been answered with a ringing, painful slap or a vicious elbow to her undefended body, the invective and resistance it showed no longer worth the pain of the response. So she lay there quietly, struggling when she could no longer control herself, desperately praying for some opening she could take advantage of, to stop this terrible thing that was happening to her.
There was no screaming either, when the Lady stopped her "massage" and began to attach some electrodes with their trailing wires to DangerGirl's excited skin, first to her upper arms and thighs, and then, much to the startled heroine's dismay, alligator type clips to her swollen nipples and clit. These three clips trailed insulated wires as well, and the young captive had had to bite her lower lip to almost bleeding to keep from granting the grinning villainess the satisfaction of her cries. Lady Kongou had then connected all seven wires to a small electric generator sporting a slightly larger wheel crank at the opposite end.
"Doesn't look like much, does it, DangerGirl? But I had it specially designed and made by experts in Japan, with just the right amount of voltage and amperage to provide the most amount of pain over the largest area while causing the least amount of actual physical damage. The faster I crank it, the more pain you feel...isn't that wonderful. It is most ingenious, actually. Let's test it out, shall we?"
For the first three cranks, each a bit faster and longer than the one before, DangerGirl had resisted screaming, even though the pain was overwhelming, even though her entire body had arched and gone rigid in a painful, straining rictus. But on the fourth crank, the longest and fastest yet, she had screamed, loud and long, the awful pain too much for her to bear.
"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"
"Tell me the name, DangerGirl...the name of the informant, and this will all stop."
When the gasping, sweating heroine had not replied, the crank was spun again, and then again, and the screaming had continued. After the seventh crank, DangerGirl began to moan...
"I don't know...I don't know..."
"WRONG ANSWER!!" Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttt......she spun the wheel quickly and for an even longer time.
"AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"
"AGAIN!!!"
"Don't...don't know...you know I don't know.....AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
"Once more, DangerGirl...tell me the name!"
"Ok...ok...tell you...no more...will tell you...Kiefer...Kiefer Sutherland... ....AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!"
"I watch many American movies, you stupid girl...AGAIN!"
"Don...Donald Pleasence......OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
"I rooted for Michael Myers the whole movie...ONCE AGAIN!!"
"Bernie...Bernie Koppell.....ugghh"
Lady Kongou turned the wheel once and stopped.
"WHO ?!?"
"I...I doubt you'd understand...the concept...AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"
And it went on like this for some time, DangerGirl wildly just making up names now, hoping to hit one that was on the organization list of Trenchent's "employees" that Lady Kongou had, then more cranking and screaming and finally just the continuing sobs of "I don't know...I don't know...I don't know" from the beaten crime fighter. DangerGirl knew that if the other ever believed she was speaking the truth, then she would very shortly be dead. But The Vision was dead, and she herself would rather be dead than to go through this any longer. Her body was on fire, every nerve and muscle screaming at her, dripping with sweat, her wrists and ankles almost bleeding from her frantic and helpless struggles against the ropes that held them. Yes, better to die quickly then to go through this.
She didn't know it, but Lady Kongou by now DID actually believe that DangerGirl did not have the information she sought, knowing that none of her previous subjects had ever been able to resist blurting out what she wanted to know this long. But she was mad now, out $100,000, and still not 100% convinced that the near unconscious heroine did not actually know the name. So, with nothing to lose, and only her demented enjoyment and possible 100 grand to gain, she decided that she wouldn't even ask the question anymore for now, that she would just torture the other to within an inch of her life, then to ask her the question one final time, taking whatever answer DangerGirl could still give her, and assume that it must be the truth.
So then the whipping had begun. Not the weak, backhanded, grabbing and snapping, light flogging with a ribbony cat-o-nine tails that one would see in a cheap BDSM movie. This was a vicious, thick leather strap, stinging, near-permanent-mark-leaving whipping, up and down the front of the screaming, nearly insane heroine's body, blow after blow on her legs, crotch, stomach, and breasts.
"This will soften her up for my needles," thought Lady Kongou, giving her helpless captive a few more snapping blows for good measure, even her own incredible dementia growing tired of DangerGirl's harsh, ragged screams.
Outside the bar, the wino slowly staggered off, never having heard a thing.
The Vision raced through the streets in Karen's Saturn, going as fast as she possibly could, heading back to the Visioncycle and her Visioncomputer, feeling that every second counted now. She had no idea where Lady Kongou may have taken her friend, but she had at least one clue, one thing that the evil assassin had said that seem incongruous, out of line with normal conversation. It was something she had heard the Lady say to Jill just after she had been shot. " But I guess it's up to you now to give it to me, to be the belle of my bar tonight." The wording had been so strange that maybe it was a clue to where DangerGirl had been taken.
"Dear god, let it be a clue," she prayed as the roared recklessly down a side street near warehouse row, only a minute from her hidden bike now. She was lucky she had parked it so far away from the site of their capture and the huge explosion, because up ahead she could see the flickering colored lights of what must be countless police cars and fire trucks at the bombed warehouse. Farther down the road she could see the street cordoned off, the same as probably all the streets leading up to the site. But she didn't have to go that far luckily, the alley where she had stowed the Visioncycle just up ahead. She slammed on the brakes, shut off the car and jumped out, racing into the alley.
She found the cycle where she had left it, behind some large crates and old trash bags, and hopped on the seat, keying the ignition to "Accessory" and turning on her computer. It was slaved via microwave relay to the large computer at her residence, giving her access to her rather detailed "Trenchent database", a file of Trenchent's employees, businesses, and holdings. She worked it into search mode, typed in "belle" and "bar" and hoped for the best. Reaching inside a large satchel on the back of the cycle, the horribly impatient heroine pulled out her spare utility belt, and snapped it on around the nurse's uniform, fearing that there was no time to put on a spare catsuit, then straightened out her spare baton along her hip as she waited for the search to complete. When she saw just the one entry for the "Alberta Belle", a riverboat gambling casino that plied the river between the harbor and the cities upstream, her heart leapt. But when she accessed the ship's manifest on the river traffic database to see where it was now, her heart sank back. Right now it would be at the farthest point on its cruise for this week, over 250 miles away upriver. Realizing that it almost certainly couldn't be her target, she went back into search mode and just keyed in "belle" this time, silently urging her computer to hurry.
This search brought her back the "Alberta Belle" and two more entries. She scanned them quickly, hoping against hope. But her hopes were dashed as they turned out to be a florist shop at a mall, and a 24-hour supermarket on Cramden Avenue. The odds of Jill being taken for interrogation to either of these two places was almost zero. The Vision almost began to cry in frustration...she had no place to go and was rapidly running out of time, if it was not already too late. She pounded her fists on the handlebars, trying to think of something to do, something that would help her find her captured partner. "Belle of my bar...belle of my bar...What could she possibly mean by that!? Belle of my bar, belle of my bar, belle..." She stopped her mumbled litany, striking out angrily at a moth that landed on her comp screen, her own ending words echoing in her mind. "Bar, belle...Bar, belle...BARBELL!!"
She almost screamed then, quickly keying "bar", "bell", and "barbell" into her search engine. Could this be it...god, let this be it. She waited impatiently as five eternal seconds passed, then a single entry appeared on the small screen..."The Bell Bar", a gymnasium/bar combo on Lexington. God, she knew that place, remembered even being in it once, checking it out. She hadn't known it was a Trenchent business though. She passed by it often, just the other day, in fact, and she remembered...she remembered...
"It's closed for renovations!!" she screamed aloud, her cry echoing down the alley.
Keying her bike from "Accessory" to "Run", she healed the kickstand, backed it out of the alley, and roared off into the night.
Mr.Morpheus had stopped sitting ten minutes ago, and was now pacing like a caged lion, back and forth across the waiting room, the rest of those waiting strategically moving out of his way, not wanting to mess with the large man with the dark eyes and the flapping greatcoat.
"This is ridiculous!" he stopped and said aloud to no one in particular. "I should've been able to go see her a half hour ago! They said they'd send a nurse or someone out to tell me. This is just ridiculous!!" He began to pace again, even faster this time, becoming more and more agitated as he strode around the small room. After about another five minutes of stewing, he had finally had enough, walking to a hospital phone and calling Admissions.
"Mercy Hospital...Admissions," came the soft voice on the other end of the line.
"Room number for The Vision, please."
"First name of the patient, please?"
"Try 'the'...how should I know?!...she was admitted to the emergency room almost three hours ago under the name, 'The Vision'!!"
"There is no one under the name 'Vision, The' in our hospital records, sir."
"WELL TRY LOOKING UNDER THE 'T's THEN, FOR GOD'S SAKES!!"
"Yes sir, no reason to shout, sir, I'm doing the best that I can for you here...just a moment."
Mr.Morpheus stood there, gripping the handset like death itself, tapping his foot at about 100 beats per minute, waiting...again.
"Yes sir, here it is. It was misfiled. The Vision is in private room 212. I can ring through to her if you like?"
He slammed down the phone and set off, finding a stairwell and bounding up the steps three at a time, grumbling and cursing. Almost knocking over an orderly as he opened the stairwell door he snapped at him, "Room 212..which way!!" The orderly pointed down the hallway to his right, then backed out of the way as his accoster brushed past him and stalked down to the room marked 212. Stopping for a second to settle his breathing and straighten his short, but unruly hair, he finally pushed open the door, trying to put a smile on his face in case she was awake.
He spotted the bed, but the bed was...empty? He looked to his right a bit and gasped. There sat a lovely woman...nurse?...tape bound and gagged, dressed only in her underwear, struggling slightly in a wooden chair. He rushed to her and ripped off her gag, almost yelling, "Where's the Vision!?"
"OWWWWWW...you didn't have to rip it off like that...sheesh...She's gone. She overpowered me and bound me and took my nurses uniform!"
Mr.Morpheus squatted down, grabbing the still bound nurse by the shoulders. "How long ago did she leave!?"
"About...about twenty, twenty-five minutes ago, I guess. Going to try and save her girlfriend from the woman that shot her, I think. You're Mr.Morpheus, aren't you?"
He would have none of that. "Jill...I mean, DangerGirl was abducted?! By the woman that shot the Vision!?" Lord!! He hadn't even known about Jill...all this time...WASTED!!
"Yess...that's what she said. Heyyyy!!! She wanted me to TELL YOU SHE WAS SORRRRY...!" Karen yelled after him, struggling with her bindings.
But he was no longer there to hear her, as with a loud expletive he had already bolted from the room, and was now tearing through the hospital, almost forcing people to dive out of his way as he raced headlong to his car.
DangerGirl was almost too completely exhausted and drained and beaten to even scream anymore. She had been shocked and whipped and "this" for hours. She was starting to have difficulty breathing now, strung up as she was between two large support pillars on the floor of the workout gym. After tiring of whipping her and listening to her scream, Lady Kongou had ball-gagged her again, untied her twitching and whip-marked body from the table, carted her over between the two Romanesque columns that stood about ten feet apart close to the back wall of the facility, and tied ropes tightly around each unresisting wrist, each unresisting ankle. She then pretty much literally hauled her into the air, using the ropes to painfully lift and spread her suspended between them, her arms in a position halfway between hanging straight down and an outright perpendicular-to-the-floor crucifixion. Her legs were so spread that they actually DID take some of the weight off her arms and shoulders and chest muscles, and was probably the only thing that had saved her from already suffering Jesus' fate on the cross. But her body felt like it was pulling itself apart, her shoulders almost dislocated, her own hanging weight and the thick ballgag making it harder and harder to draw a full breath. And then the needles...
Lady Kongou stood in front of her, holding one of her two long, super-thin, stainless steel needles, the other currently protruding from just underneath the nearly unconscious heroine's ribcage. This had been a "good" needle...one that had soothed some of the unbearable internal pain caused by the much more numerous "bad" needle insertions, relaxed some of incredible rigidity in the tortured crime fighter's muscles that existed from the constant, straining abuse she had been going through. Growing impatient and fatigued herself, the Lady had used a "good" needle placement to bring the other back to some form of consciousness, then had reached across, grabbing DangerGirl by the short hair on the back of her head and lifted it, staring into her face. Tapping the other needle against her own cheek, she stared straight ahead into the blinking, tear-filled eyes of her captive, noting a bit of life there yet, but no longer a single trace of fight or resistance. That had completely disappeared after the second "bad" needle had been inserted at a small angle behind the screaming, jerking heroine's navel. There had been many other "bad" needles after that.
"DangerGirl...DangerGirl," she said, speaking quietly, letting the other's head go and watching it drop back on her chest, the other too weak to hold it up, even though she was conscious now. "This is your last chance to tell me the absolute truth, DangerGirl. You have only two choices now. Either you tell me what I want to know, in which case I will put these needles together and plunge them into your heart and end your suffering for good, or you don't tell me, in which case I will separate them, push them into your chest, and scrape the walls of your heart until it stops. You will be dead in either case, but the second is so much more lengthy than the first, and I have done the second before, and believe me, it is incredibly, incredibly painful. So it is your choice, my dear, the last choice you will ever make. So chooses wisely, but choose quickly...my patience with you is at an end."
DangerGirl slowly raised her head, and looked at her tormentor with dazed, defeated eyes. It is to her everlasting credit that she tried not to look past her, to the spot where the Vision was approaching her, extended baton in both hands, held over her head like an ax, looking almost like some demented angel to Jill in her hospital whites and utility belt and her wild, unruly hair. She tried not to look, knowing she shouldn't look, but the surge of joy and relief and hope that surged through her body at the sight forced her to glance, if only for millisecond, back to where her friend, lover, and partner approached their terrible foe.
Lady Kongou saw that glance, maybe subliminally heard the sound of a soft breath or footfall, instantly ducking her head and trying to bend over and move to her right, groaning in pain as the hard blow from behind her crashed down between her shoulder blades, sending her twisting and sprawling to the floor, the needles flying out of her hands across the room. She rolled desperately onto her back, hoping to defend herself with her legs and arms from the attack she knew would be swiftly coming.
And the Vision was attacking with her baton, groaning inwardly that her first blow had failed, had not been enough to end this, knowing that her opponent was tough and highly skilled, knowing that her own endurance and abilities would be limited by her previous loss of blood and the painful damage to her shoulder and ribs. She moved after the rolling assassin, raining down blow after blow, looking for any good opening to get in a finishing strike.
But Lady Kongou WAS skilled, and fresher, and desperate as well, painfully blocking blows with her legs and forearms, finally catching the Vision in one misdirected swing, and kicking out hard at her opponent's gripping hands, knocking the baton free and sending it flying and bouncing across the floor to a place just below DangerGirl's bound left leg. But her successful kick had left her open for a counterattack, and the Vision pounced on it, literally...diving on the Lady, triggering off a twisting, rolling, close quarters wrestling battle across the floor. Lady Kongou was quick and agile, but the Vision was stronger, more desperate, putting everything she had into ending this quickly, knowing that if it went on too long she would lose, already screaming in pain as she felt her stitches being torn loose, her blood starting to flow again from the opening wounds. Finally, as they raised up, kneeling face to face, both women tired and gasping, the Vision used her greater strength to twist the other's body, to move slightly behind her, and to put her opponent in a sleeper hold, hanging onto it for dear life, putting as much pressure into it as her battered body would allow.
Lady Kongou went crazy then, struggling and twisting, trying to elbow her attacker in the ribs, but not able to get a good angle or good enough leverage to deliver a punishing blow. She tried digging at the Vision's hands, but the other, though she cried out, refused to give in to the pain of that, or relax her relentless grip. The struggling villainess was starting to get scared now, her vision starting to tunnel and blur. As her brain began to shut down, she thought desperately of how to break free, looking for any weakness in the other's hold. A thought suddenly came to her, and she quickly slid her right hand along the Vision's right forearm, reaching over her own shoulder to suddenly plunge two fingers into the uniform and bandage covering the bullet hole on the heroine's left shoulder, causing the other to cry out in pain and try to pull back slightly from the grinding fingers. But this weakened the Vision's hold, giving Lady Kongou more room to turn, to drive her fingers in farther, harder, weakening the grip even more. The villainess, with a bit of room to move, a bit more air and blood getting to her brain, attacked, driving a stiff elbow now into the almost broken short ribs of the weakening crime fighter.
The Vision moaned in pain, releasing the grip on her hold even more, allowing her opponent to slide an arm in between her neck and the gasping heroine's left arm, yanking it down and breaking the hold completely. Knowing she was in trouble now, the Vision tried to stand, to make a break for her lost baton, but Lady Kongou would have none of that, grabbing her left wrist and driving a hard right hand into the inside of the Vision's right leg, just above the knee, paralyzing her leg completely. Crippled, she fell to one knee, the smiling villainess using a simple judo pull on her arm to throw her completely down and onto the floor on her stomach. With a roar of triumph, Lady Kongou leapt onto the small of the gasping heroine's back, pressing her ass down on it hard as she squatted there, pulling the Vision's arms back and up past her knees onto her thighs, trapping them there with her elbows, grabbing her around the chin with both hands and heaving, trying to break her neck or back.
DangerGirl, seeing the fight going against her friend, was struggling wildly, but uselessly, screaming into her ballgag as she fought to free herself, to help her friend, her wrists and one ankle literally dripping blood now from the force of her struggles against the ropes. The Vision, for her part, was trying to scream, her neck too stretched, pulled up and back too hard for her to do more than groan as an incredible pain shot through her spine from the force of Lady Kongou's hold. In desperation she did the only thing she could. Her right leg already dead, she managed to raise her numbing left leg, using her natural flexibility to drive it up and behind her, to smash her attacker between the shoulder blades again, this time with her heel. But it wasn't enough to dislodge her, only to drive the Lady forward, to relax her back-breaking grip for a moment. And it wasn't enough for her to get free, to completely break the other's awful hold. But it was enough for the Vision to pull her right arm off of the assassin's thigh, and to bring it to the floor.
Feeling the other trying to pull her arm back up, the struggling heroine grabbed her utility belt and hung on tightly, refusing to let her have it. Lady Kongou gave up after a moment, not really caring all that much, pinning the other's arm to her own side with her foot and calf, trapping it there, then readjusting her position a bit to reef hard on the Vision's chin again, to press down on her back, to break her in half. Gasping at the pain and the horrible strain on her body, her wounded left arm completely useless, trapped on the other's left thigh, her legs completely numb now, the Vision struggled not to give up. Using the only weapon at her disposal, her utility belt, she began to rummage in the three pockets of it she could reach. As this was her backup belt, she was not absolutely certain what it contained, checking each pocket in turn, as she felt herself getting weaker and weaker, her blood pouring out again, her neck and back nearly snapped in two.
Fumbling through the first pocket she found only medical supplies, tape and bandages. The second pocket held nothing of use either, only tracking devices and electronic bugs. Her vision starting to blur, her entire body getting numb and giving out, she tried the third, her hands and fingers barely obeying the commands of her fading mind. Finally, unsnapping the third pocket and reaching inside, she felt her Vision penknife, thinking that maybe she could do something with that, but feeling something else as well, not even sure for a time what it was. Suddenly she knew. It was a spare clip for her tranquilizer gun!! But was it empty?? Noo...there was one dart left in it!! Losing consciousness fast, she thumbed the dart out of the clip and worked it around in her hand, praying to god that she didn't drop it now. With her last bit of effort and control, she worked her hand up around and above the small of her back, and jammed the tip of it into Lady Kongou's ass.
But the Lady was smart, too, recognizing instantly what had happened, feeling the warmth of the drug spreading through her system, raising her ass to pull off the dart so quickly that the Vision's weakened fingers had not even had a chance to let it go, keeping herself from getting the full drug load. At he same instant she let go of the Vision's chin and raised her own arms above her head, realizing if she could incapacitate the heroine it would still give her a chance, as it would then only be a race to see who recovered first, and to the victor would go the spoils. With her last conscious effort then, she brought both fists down in a vicious axe handle blow to the back of her the Vision's neck, driving the other's chin into the floor and knocking the heroine out cold, then collapsing herself to lay unconscious on the floor next to her.
DangerGirl was going crazy, seeing what had happened, both friend and foe lying still and unconscious on the floor. "Oh god, help me!" she thought, twisting and struggling to get free, but knowing it was useless. "C'mon, Jo...c'mon!!" she thought as she writhed, knowing that their only hope was for her friend to come to first, to release her and let her deal with her horrible captor.
And her prayer was answered in a way, the incredible recovery aspect of the Vision's nature coming to the fore one last time, dragging her back from the depths of unconsciousness first. The Vision looked over at the still "sleeping" Lady, trying to get up, to go to her friend and free her. But her legs wouldn't work for her, numb and useless. So she raised up on her arms, using them to begin dragging herself over to her bound partner. Collapsing onto her face as she reached DangerGirl, she rummaged in the third pocket for her penknife, flicking it open like a stiletto, then reaching up to slice through the rope holding her partner's left leg. The knife was razor sharp and cut through easily, but of what help was it if she couldn't manage to free DangerGirl's arms? She desperately tried to stand, but she could still not feel her legs, and the attempt was useless. Groaning at her weakness, at the pain shooting through her body, she crawled over to cut through the rope holding Jill's other leg. But what now...how could she free her friend?
Barely able to see, the Vision rolled onto her back and tried to throw the knife up to DangerGirl's waiting hand, but she could not even see that far now, her loss of blood clouding her mind and sight. She saw the knife coming back down and grabbed for it, the ultra-sharp blade cutting into her hand. With a moan of pain, she held it, trying to think. She could hear her friend screaming to her through her tight ballgag, but couldn't make out what she was saying, laying there on her back in a daze of pain. Her arms fell outstretched at her sides, too weak to hold them up anymore, her hand bleeding now as well. Something was under her right arm, she could feel it, wondering briefly what it was. Her baton, that's what it was. HER BATON! As a plan came to her, she pulled it to herself and began rummaging through her utility pockets again. Pulling out the adhesive tape there and placing her knife between her heaving breasts, she pulled out a length of tape and tore it off with her mouth, then moved the penknife up to the end of her baton. She started to tape the handle to it there, then, remembering how she had cut her hand, stopped and taped the BLADE of the knife to the flat end of the baton instead, her fingers weak and trembling. As she started to pass out again, she slid her hand to the other end of the baton and raised it as high as she could in the general direction of DangerGirl's hand. She held it there, moving it around slowly, finally feeling some resistance and a small jerk. She passed out then, saying a silent prayer that she had succeeded, her arm dropping, her baton falling to the floor with a thud.
DangerGirl cried out into her gag, now holding the knife in her own numb hand, succeeding in shucking off the tape against the rope, now trying desperately to cut through it and get free. She glanced up, terrified to see Lady Kongou lifting her head, looking around blankly. She redoubled her efforts, trying to push the knife through the rope holding her left hand. But she could barely feel the thing, her fingers practically useless, scared to death she would drop it and ruin their last chance. She risked a glance down again, seeing her dazed tormentor rising up onto her hands and knees, beginning a slow crawl towards her. "Hurry, hurry, oh god hurry!" she thought, seeing the other fingering her ring again, getting closer and closer to her hanging legs, knowing what that meant...the curare.
As Lady Kongou got closer, DangerGirl took the risk of dropping it, and began sawing with the blade, barely able to put any pressure on the rope at all. But just as the crawling fiend reached out to grab her leg, the rope parted, the remaining rope acting like a Tarzan vine to swing her to the far pillar and away from Lady Kongou's clutching hand, at least for the moment. The hand with the knife now free, DangerGirl slashed wildly at her remaining restraint, the sharp knife cutting through it like butter, setting her loose, but dropping her down on her ass onto the floor with a crash, her own legs failing her, the knife flying out of her hand, free but dazed. Jill looked up to see her crazed-eye opponent reaching for her again with her ringed hand, acting instinctively now and spinning herself on her rear end, her left foot knocking the other's hand to the side, her right foot crashing into the other's temple. Knowing there was nothing else to do, DangerGirl crawled forward crab-like, and attacked. Using the bottom of her right foot she smashed it into the back of Lady Kongou's head, spinning it around. She did it again, screaming into her gag, the heel of her foot driving into her now unconscious foe's face, not even hearing the crack as she splattered the other's nose across it.
DangerGirl then heel-kicked her again to the temple, her mind a fog of fear, hate, and revenge. She struggled slowly to her feet and kicked the defeated Asian again, standing there shakily but defiant. Then again, and again. Unable to see, unable to think, DangerGirl knew only one thing...to kick, to kick her tormentor, her torturer, until she couldn't kick anymore. So she kicked, and kicked again, kicked her in the head over and over, crying and screaming into her gag, until she was lifted up in the air and spun around by a strong pair of arms around her waist. Determined not to be stopped now, the shell-shocked heroine began raining weak blows down around the head and shoulders of the person who held her, finally hearing something, finally hearing words that cut through the brutal fog of hate and fear that held her mind so tightly, that pushed through the roar of blood in her ears.
"Jill...Jill...stop...it's done...it's over...you've killed her...it's over, Jill...STOP!!"
Jill finally managed to focus her eyes again, stopping her flailing arms, looking down into the worried face of Mr.Morpheus, moaning out into her awful gag and collapsing, knowing it was finally over, her head dropping back, arms outstretched, hanging like some rag doll backwards over his arms, mercifully unconscious at last.
Mr.Morpheus looked down at her hanging there, his eyes filling with tears as he saw her bleeding wrists, the oozing of blood through the many puncture wounds all over her body, the bloody red welts crossing her stomach, breasts, and neck. He lowered her quickly onto her back on the floor, glancing over at the Vision, seeing her unconscious as well, a small pool of blood spreading on the floor under her left shoulder. He quickly began to remove the rope remnants from Jill's wrists and ankles, the ballgag from her mouth, thinking for the hundredth time..."Why do they do this?? What is it about them that makes them risk their lives, to risk all the pain and humiliation, to risk THIS!! Why do they do it!?...Nobody cares, the drugs and the crime never stop, they receive nothing for it, just the occasional thanks from a victim or the city. Why do they do it?!" He really had no clue as to why, but realized that was perhaps why he loved them so. His favorite play had always been "The Man of La Mancha", so maybe that was it...their purity of purpose, the way they tilted at the windmills of an ungrateful world, the way they gave of themselves for the greater good, as useless as it might be in the end. But they had courage and determination and a desire to help, no matter what the cost, and he truly did marvel at that, and in a way, envied it as well.
Picking up Jill in his arms like a little child, he engaged his TK field and lifted the Vision off the ground with it, pulling her along behind him as if on a cloud, stopping only once at the video camera to hit the "stop" button, then hitting the release and removing the tape, managing to slide it into a pocket of his coat. Then he hustled along and up the stairs, working to get back to his car with the two of them, to make the trip back to Mercy Hospital once again.
"Ok...paper, rock, scissors...loser goes to pick up the food."
"No, no...I always lose at that!!...I know somehow you're cheating...I just know it." Jo replied defensively. "Pick something else."
"Ohhh, you're no fun anymore. Ok, I got it!! We'll cut cards, then YOU can go get the Chinese...loser!"
Jo look down at her diminutive, laughing friend, so happy that things had finally gotten back to normal between them, that they could now goof and joke around again, that they could be loving and kinkily intimate again when and if they so desired. But it hadn't been like that right after the "incident", not even close.
"BWAHAHAHAHA...you've fallen for my trap, oh mighty mite. I NEVER lose at card cutting. These dexterous fingers know all the tricks."
Jill smiled up at beatifically, then let her face slide into a rather naughty grin, "Why yes...they most certainly do, don't they?"
Jo didn't blush then, because for some reason she almost never blushed. She just continued to smile, but could not resist the urge to keep the innuendo going by licking her fingers, ostensibly to help her in cutting the cards that she had just pulled out of a side drawer for their game of chance. It was so nice to see Jill smiling, afraid for a time it would never happen again.
After Mr.Morpheus had taken them to the hospital, they had been treated for their traumas in the emergency room, then put in a semi-private room for further treatment and recovery. DangerGirl had spent two nights there under observation, by both the hospital staff and by the Vision, who was desperately worried about her friend, unable to drag her into conversations, unable to get her to laugh, waking up once in the middle of the second night to hear the other's muffled sobs into a pillow. She had left the next morning with a quick peck on the Vision's cheek and a "Will see you soon, Jo, just get some more rest tonight and I'll call you." She herself had stayed one more night, recovering quickly, but bowing to the doctor's wishes for one more night of enforced bed rest and observation. Mr.Morpheus was there, as he had been the last two nights for the both of them, holding her hand and talking a bit about anything that came to their minds. And about Jill. Jo had listened while her enigmatic lover told her of the doctors' concerns that their small friend and lover was repressing too much about the awful things that had happened to her, refusing to speak to a staff psychologist or anyone else about it. Jo knew that to be true as well, Jill always deflecting the conversation whenever the subject of that night had come up. Both of them agreed that Jill needed to be watched carefully.
The next day she had gone as the Vision to the police station, and it was there that she saw the coroner's photos of the deceased Lady Kongou. She was stunned, horrified at the way the evil assassin's head had been pushed in and pummeled, the way it was soaked in blood. Had DangerGirl done all this!? Had she brutally smashed in the face and skull of this other woman?? Albeit she was a horrible example of a human being, she still WAS a human being, and the Vision could not believe that her sweet, jovial, happy-go-lucky partner could ever, WOULD ever, do such a horrible thing, even to the worst of her enemies. DangerGirl had done an almost inhumane thing, and also broken two of the unwritten credos of heroine "law"..."thou shalt not kick an opponent when they are down and out of the fight", and "Unless there is absolutely no other way, thou shalt not kill."
Jill had called as promised later that day, and Jo had perfunctorily invited her over for dinner. Both of them had been very quiet all throughout the meal, both of them uncomfortable, both of their minds on other things. They watched a rented movie and ate their popcorn a little while later, still neither of them saying much, certainly nothing important, nothing that mattered. When the movie had ended, Jill stood up and made indications of leaving, the usual point in the evening when Jo would ask (or sometimes beg) her to stay. But she could just not get the image out of her mind of her wonderful, sweet friend kicking and stomping and crushing the life out of another human being long enough to form the words, to ask her almost plaintively staring lover to stay, to share her bed and her strong arms tonight. Jill had finally dropped her head, turned with a shrug and a goodbye, and left. She didn't call Jo the next day.
Two nights later, Jo had gone to Mr.Morpheus's large house to spend some time with him, to maybe share HIS bed if they both felt the longing. Any thoughts or hopes of that were dashed, however, when they began to share notes about Jill. She hadn't talked or called him since the second night in the hospital, nor returned any of his calls, and he was plainly worried about how she taking all this mentally. Jo described their "date", the meal, the movie, the goodbye, a bit shaken when Mr.Morpheus's expression became almost angry, said anger being apparently directed at her!
"It sounds like she was reaching out to you there, Jo, like she needed someone real bad just then...And you sent her away!?!"
Jo dropped her head to her chest in despair and shame. "I couldn't help it. I just kept picturing what was left of Lady Kongou's face, and the fact that Jill, my Jill, had done that too her. I wanted to ask her to stay, but I couldn't do it. And it scares me, Morph. I don't know it I can ever make myself feel about her the way I used to again..."
Mr.Morpheus had just glared at her for a moment, then simply said:
"Ok...alright...but before you leave tonight I have something to show you, something you have to see."
And with that he had made Jo sit down on the couch, while he went to his video cabinet, grabbed a tape, and slid it into the machine. He moved back to sit beside her, picked up the remote and hit the play button.
When Jo saw what the tape was about, saw DangerGirl bound to the table, she turned to her grim-faced lover and demanded that he turn it off, that there was no way she ever wanted to watch this. He met her alarmed gaze with his own, determined that this was the right thing to do.
"If you really love Jill, you will turn around, be quiet, and watch every minute of this. Watch...feel...learn, Jo..."
She stared at him for a minute, then turned to watch as the video played on. And it is to HER everlasting credit that Jo, the Vision, watched every minute of that tape, smiling at Jill's early defiance, getting angrier and angrier as the Lady mocked her friend during the "massage", sobbing openly as the electric shocks were being administered, Jill arching and writhing and screaming in her restraints. She had had to run to the bathroom to throw up as Lady Kongou gleefully brought down her whip again and again on Jill's defenseless body. Mr.Morpheus had simply paused the tape while Jo was gone, wiping the sweat off his brow, his heart pounding, his hands shaking, never so uselessly angry in his entire life. This was the first time HE had viewed the tape, and it was immeasurably worse than he had ever thought. When Jo returned, sweating and ashen-faced, he started the tape again, and they clung to each other to watch the rest...the awful suspension, the horrible needles, the desperate fighting and attempts to escape. Jo sat there, reliving in her mind and body the last bit of the tape, her body quivering in sympathetic motion to the actions on the screen. Mr.Morpheus was even worse, pushing and pulling at her as if he was actually doing the fighting himself. And at the end, when Jill had finally cut herself loose and gone on the attack, it was he who stood up, shaking his fist at the screen, yelling, "YEAH!! Kick the shit out of her Jill, make her pay...Yeah...kick her ass...that's it...yeah!!" As he, himself, appeared on the screen then to stop her, lifting and turning Jill to almost face the camera, Jo could see the look of absolute insanity in her friend's eyes, realizing now that if that had been her in Morph's arms, she would have had the same look, no longer remotely questioning the how or why of Jill's actions.
Mr.Morpheus sat down next to her again with a thud, panting as if he'd just run a race. Her own heart almost beating through her chest, Jill took his hand and pulled him to look at her.
"I'm sorry...I have to go. I have to go to her right now, this instant...I have to go!"
He nodded to her as they both stood, then gave her a quick, sharp kiss and a tight hug, breaking loose to go to the player and remove the tape. As he walked over to her to intercept her at the door, he held out the tape, gesturing for Jo to take it.
"If she went through...through THIS, then you have to get her to talk about it, you have to draw her out, to draw it out of her, or it will eat her up alive. Use the tape if you have to...it belongs to her anyway...but get her to talk about it...what she felt, what she thought, what she feels now. You may be the only one that can help her through this, Jo. Don't let her down again...please."
She almost jumped up to wrap an arm around his neck, kissing his cheek, and half-whispering in his ear, "I won't Morph, I won't," then turned and raced out the door, heading for Jill's apartment. By the time she got there it was nearly 2 AM, but she didn't care, first ringing the doorbell, then banging on the door until it was opened by a rather harrowed-looking Jill, who blearily, but quickly, stepped aside to let a taping-waving Jo enter with a rush. She closed and locked the door then, the two of them turning to face each other.
"Jill...Jill...I watched the tape. I watched it with Morph. I saw...I saw what that bitch did to you. I saw it all..." She moved closer to her stunned friend, almost whispering now. "I know what she wanted from you. I know what you went through. I thought I "knew", but I had no idea...I had no idea at all!"
Tears rolling down her face, Jo dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around her great friend, and pressed her cheek into her stomach, almost wailing now. "Ohh god...I'm sooo sorry, Jill. I'm soo sorry....I didn't know...I shoulda told you the name...I shoulda been there for you sooner...I'm soo sorry...," repeating the same refrains over and over till Jill broke her grip, lifted her up, and held her tightly in her arms, whispering up in her ear.
"It's ok, silly...shhhh...It's ok...If you had told me the name I would be dead now, and so would your informant...shhhh...relax hun, it's ok. You saved me, you idiot...c'mon...you took a bullet for me, climbed out of a hospital room and saved my life. Stop it...stop crying, it's alright."
Jill led her over to the sofa and forced them both to sit down, still holding Jo tightly while her heaving sobs abated slowly. There followed the normal embarrassing sniffles, from both of them, Jill suddenly realizing she had been crying a little too, both of them laughing slightly at that. Then Jo remember why she was really here...not to beg forgiveness, but to try and help her friend, to show her how much she still loved her. She showed the tape to her.
"You need to watch this if you can. We need to talk about this, just you and I."
"I can't watch that! Are you crazy?! I spend all my time trying NOT to think about that anymore, to not relive what I went through, to not remember...what I did..." the end of her sentence trailing off into an almost inaudible whisper.
"Jill...c'mon sweetness, it's me!! You have to talk about this with someone. I was the cause of all this, you have to talk to me about it. I need to hear this. I have fears and guilts, too. C'mon Jill...it hurt so bad to watch you go through that, it hurt so much to see you whipped and stuck. C'mon Jill, please..let it go..." She was almost begging now, feeling her friend so small in her arms, feeling her begin to shudder, slowly at first, then faster and harder as if she was priming up to explode. And finally, she did.
"Oh god, Jo...I was just soo scared!!"
And with that, it began to all pour out of her, her grief at the Vision's apparent death, her fear and humiliation on the table, the knowledge that she had no safe word, that she didn't know the name to stop her torment, the shame that she would have told Lady Kongou anything she wanted to hear if she had only known what to say, the endless, wracking, intolerable pain, the incredible hate she felt for her captor, then finally, the awful guilt she felt at what she had done to her in the end. All this poured out of Jill as she held onto her friend like a lifeline, sometimes eerily calm, then crying like a child, the occasional near-hysterical giggle, and the violent shaking, whenever she described the fear or her pain.
Jo held onto her tightly throughout, prompting her occasionally to go on, rocking her in her arms, always letting her know she was there. And when it was over, when Jill was completely spent of all energy and emotion, she picked her up and carried the small one to her bed, climbing in under the covers with her, and held the sleeping woman all throughout the rest of the night.
From there things had gotten much better, slowly but surely, and now seemed to be almost completely normal, most of the physical and emotional scars healing and fading, their relationship maybe even stronger than it had been before. They had gone through the shadow of the valley of death together, and had come out alive, to live and love and fight another day.
"So you gonna cut those cards or just fondle them?" Jill inquired impishly, breaking her friend out of her reverie.
"I'm gonna cut them, you doofus, but you forgot one thing first."
"I did?? And just what, pray tell, is that?"
Jo looked down at her brave and beautiful friend, dropping her hand with the cards in it to her side, then stepped up close to her, smiling broadly.
"How about a kiss for luck??"