The Fearsome Five: Catnapped: Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

January 7th, 1:55 AM

"This is the one," Erin said, pointing at the white wooden house, its planks rotting, its foundations crumbling, its roof full of holes.  "Pull up here."

Margot drove the car off of the dirty road and onto the dirty driveway, winding around the side of the house.  She pulled up in front of a smashed garage door and put the vehicle in park.  She then flicked off the lights and turned the ignition off.

"I don't think anyone's home," she said, looking at the house.  Just one small light could be seen from the car.

"We'll see," Erin said.  She placed her night vision glasses on top of the Blue Lynx mask.  "If nothing else, we can get some clues about where they might be going next."

Margot stared at her.  "Erin, aren't you tired?  I'm exhausted.  And I've havent been tied to a chair for days."

Erin plucked at her costume, pulling her boots up, smoothing out her spandex sleeves, straightening her belt.  "No, Margot," she said.  "When there's an opportunity for payback, I can't be tired."

"Okay, but just know that I'll be tracking you closely," Margot said.  "I really don't think you're going to meet anyone, but, you know, just in case."

Erin put her hand on Margot's shoulder.  "You're a lifesaver, babe."

And with that, the Blue Lynx got out of the car and quietly closed the door.

Margot was probably right.  Sunny, Todorov, that Ninja, the old woman... they probably scattered as soon as they figured out that their prize hostage had escaped.  Erin almost laughed out loud thinking about the image of those four freaks scrambling around, gathering things... Of Sunny drunkenly insisting on taking the wheel... Of all of them blowing up in a fiery car crash.

They were low rate villains, this "Fearsome Five."  Fearsome Four, now: Margot had called the cops on Jeremy, and the girls had waited in the parking lot until the squad car showed up.  Regardless of the number, they were nothing once they met the Blue Lynx.  Sunny and the Ninja had surprised her in her apartment.  She had been resting, she was out of costume.  It was an ambush, plain and simple.  In a fair fight, the Blue Lynx would triumph, as she always had.

Erin crept through the back door and flipped on the night vision.  The interior of the house suddenly appeared in shades of green.  She was in a room she knew well: the room where she had been a prisoner for so long.  The chair she had occupied for days was now on its side; the ropes that had bound her so tightly were gone.  It was just an old, empty space now, with no sign of the nefarious deeds that had been done there in the past week.  Erin was eager to get out of it.

She walked through the room's other door into the hallway.  As she slinked past the bathroom, she realized that it was the only other place in the whole house that she recognized.  Its gross look and gross smell immediately brought back a vision of that old woman, how she had gripped her wrists, how she had yanked Erin's panties down and commanded her to "Sit."  Like Erin was a little girl.  Like she wasn't the city's greatest superheroine.  "She is going to pay," Erin thought, leaving the bathroom behind.

She continued down the hallway and found herself in a den area.  A couple of couches, an old TV.  A fireplace that gave off a pleasant aroma: the villains must have gotten cold.  "Poor babies," Erin thought.  "Maybe they should try riding around in the trunk of a car in their panties."

She heard a sound.  A plop.  She turned around, looked back down the hallway.  Nothing.  She spun around again.

And then, she felt a freight train hit her from behind.  It drove her arms behind her, pushing them into the small of her back, and plowed her across the room.  She didn't stop until she collided with one of the walls.  The impact knocked the wind out of her.  When she tried to clutch her stomach with her hands, she found she could not, that her hands were still held behind her, and that she was being pressed against the wall by a huge, powerful force.  She braced her legs, hoping to hold herself up, but the immense pressure forced her knees to buckle, and she was soon flat against the wall, her breath being pushed out of her like steam.

She couldn't move, could barely think, could only cry out in fear as she suddenly shot away from the wall and up into the air.  She felt human fingers on her butt and her upper back, large but distinct, lifting her within inches of the ceiling, holding her up like she was made of feathers.  She could feel the room spinning around her, and then she was flying, weightless for a second until she connected with a wall.  She bounced off of it and hit the floor, breaking through a few of its wooden planks.

She groaned.  What happened?  Her back ached, her front ached, she had to get up.  She got to her knees and looked at saw him, a large figure all in black.  A ghost?  Death?  No, none of these.

It was that Ninja.  Steve.

He was moving back toward her, patiently but deliberately.  Adrenaline drove Erin to her feet.  She put up her fists.  "Just don't lose sight of him," she thought.  "If you can see him, you can beat him."

So she stared at him.  He moved, and then stopped.  He turned to face not Erin, but a wall.  He looked back at her for a second, nodded, and then returned to the wall.  What was he doing?

"Hey!" she cried out.  "Steve!  Come fight me!"

And then she saw him put on his hand and flick his fingers.  He hit a lightswitch, and the room suddenly blazed with white, white that burned every brighter through Erin's night-vision glasses.

"Augh!" she shouted, blinking rapidly, tossing the glasses from her face.  That asshole!  "Why don't you fight fair, you coward!" Erin yelled, waiting for her eyes to adjust, casting her fists this way and that.

Another flick, and the room was dark again, and Erin stopped moving.  She couldn't see.

"Shit," she muttered.

Then, the barrage came, seemingly from all sides.  She felt a fist in her stomach, a chop on her back, a slap to the face, a knee to the leg, a foot to the groin, another fist to the stomach, a shove to the chest, a punch to the face.  She fell to her knees, and then felt herself being pulled up again by her spandex.

"He's...so... fast..."

The beatdown resumed.  He grabbed her arms, her body, her hair.  He tore at her V-neck, ripping a jagged line down her torso, revealing the center of her lavender bra.  He ripped pieces out of the arms of her costume, took off her gloves, unsnapped her belt and threw it to the side.  He hurled her against the wall, to the floor, on the couch.  He kicked her when she was up, kicked her when she was down, until Erin's entire body felt like one massive bruise, and she couldn't stand.

"I... can't... fight him..."

She moaned in pain, arched her back, found that she couldn't attend to one sore without immediately needing to focus on another.  She felt Steve's body all around her, even when it wasn't hitting her, kicking her, choking her, throwing her.  Her hair was a mess, her costume was in tatters.  She was entirely at the ninja's mercy.

She didn't see him when he lifted her arm in the air, only felt a delicate touch.  And then, with the sound of a horrifying snap, she felt him break it.  Her arm.

"AUGGGGGHHHHH!!!"

It fell to the ground with a sickening thump.  She howled in pain, again and again, her eyes welling up with tears.  She writhed on the floor in the darkness, clutching at her arm, knowing that this was it: the Blue Lynx was finished.

As if to punctuate that thought, Steve lowered himself to the ground, and, using both of his steady, unfaltering hands, removed Erin's mask.  He raised it from her face in a straight line, with little fanfare, and Erin watched it leave like a small blue helicopter taking off with all of her secrets.

The pain was still too overwhelming for her to protest.  She just shook her head, let the tears dribble down her cheeks.  Steve had broken her arm, and now, he had broken her superheroine career.  All she could do was whimper.

The ninja pocketed Erin's mask and placed a hand on her knee.  He looked at her with a long, unshakable gaze.  When Erin finally met his eyes, he lifted his index finger to his face, as if to say, "Shhh."

And then, he took off.  Vanished.  And Erin was left alone in the cold, black room.

She was still there when, minutes later, Margot came in, clumsily wielding a flashlight.

"Erin?  Erin?  Where are you?"

"Margot," Erin whispered.  "Help me."

Margot shined the flashlight on the floor and gasped.  It was the Blue Lynx, but not at all the Blue Lynx he was used to seeing.  That superheroine was calm, confident, strong, and ready to fight.  This girl, on the other hand, was a wreck.  Belt-less.  Glove-less.  Covered in dust and bruises.  Clutching her right arm and gritting her teeth.  Underwear peeking through frayed pieces of her costume.  And without her mask!

"Erin!" Margot said, running down to her friend.  "Oh my God!  What happened?"

"That ninja," Erin whispered.  "He got me."

"We need to get you to a hospital!  Your arm is broken!"

Erin nodded.  "I know."

"And your mask!"

Erin nodded.  "Yes.  He unmasked me."

"Did he take your picture?  Did he say anything?" Margot asked.  She had placed her arms around Erin and was cradling her.

Erin shook her head.  "No.  I... I think my secret is safe, with this one."

"Oh, Erin," Margot said, on the verge of tears, stroking her friend's hair.  "I'm so sorry."

Erin shut her eyes.  Her arm still throbbed with a pain like nothing she'd ever felt, but her thoughts had turned to places other than her immediate condition.  "He won't tell anyone," she told herself.  "He doesn't have to."  This Ninja, this Steve guy: the things he wanted were different from what the other "Fearsome Five" wanted.  He didn't seem to care about who she was.  He only wanted to fight her, and to defeat her.  And he had defeated her easily.

Erin sighed.  It was a relief that he had let her go, that he had stopped after breaking her arm.  But as long as he was a member of Hammerson's team, she would be powerless.

The Blue Lynx couldn't stop him.

She shuddered.

END OF PART ONE

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