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Sleeping Beauty

An Aphrodite City Story

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

It had been only a few days since Rachel Arsenel was recruited as Wrench Wench and new developments were leaving Deborah Autumns fit to be tied. Out of all of them, the police Doberman concluded that the tech-savvy mink was probably the most promising out of all of them. And her reliance on technology, while a weakness in some respects, was definitely a strength in the current fight. "Debby" just wished that Rachel's arrival didn't coincide with the feeling that an invisible switch had been flipped on the city.

Once, a time that felt like it was ages ago, Aphrodite City was a nice place to live, a decent-sized city tucked away in upstate New York, sheltered in the vineyards and wine country of the Finger Lakes region, a world away from the madness of superheroes, supervillains, and the at-times ludicrous ecosystem that grew up around them. No capes, no cowls, just regular people. Then suddenly, faster then a comic book manchild geek could say "fuck normality," the city slid into chaos. First came the Brothers, bizarre beings with the ability to imbue normal people with superpowers and their twisted desire to set up glorified rape pornographies between misogynistic supervillains and inspiring but ultimately "weak" heroines. The police, untrained and under equipped to take on superpowered threats, were crippled as these "play villains" laughed off bullets and handed lethal hits out like candy. Three-fourths of the city's law enforcement was presently either dead, hospitalized, or had handed in their badges out of fear of the criminals they couldn't bring in or take down.

And like an arrangement of dominos in a demonstration of cause and effect, other criminal groups began to form outside of the Brothers' influence and become powerful entities in their own right. Worst of these were the Hedonists, depraved "fanboys," lead by the charismatic "Loco," that started to idolize the villains and worship the mysterious "entity" that put on such a "magnificent" show. And of course, the slow slide into oblivion wouldn't be complete if there wasn't a new drug on the streets. Sleeping Beauty, the ultimate date rape drug, was becoming all the rage among the Hedonists and other sadists. An aerosol compound that could easily be pressurized into pocket-sized containers, one puff was enough to knock even a female hippo flat off her feet and send her dozing for well over an hour. No one knew who was making and distributing it but the police were desperate to find out, taking this drug off the market wouldn't solve all their problems but it would be a badly needed step in the right direction...

Larry smiled as he stood on the landing overlooking his operation in the basement of an abandoned apartment building. His laboratory had been assembled piecemeal, a dizzying maze of gently used high school chemistry equipment and jury-rigged contraptions he made himself, but it was his and right now it was making him rich. When he first stumbled across the formula for the drug, part of the spoils his gang bagged when they searched an abandoned warehouse, he didn't think it could possibly sell but damn did those Hedonists love their violent sexy times. He and his crew, the politically incorrect Medicine Men, were having trouble keeping Sleeping Beauty in stock. Still, the component chemicals were easy enough to get even with the city completely gone to shit and the process was easy enough to follow for anyone with a basic background in high school chemistry. If they were lucky, another month and they'd all have enough money to escape Aphrodite City and move somewhere that wasn't a warzone. Now if only he could just deal with the nagging feeling that there was something he was missing, like it was all just too easy...

Deep within their basement hideout within the suburbs outside of Aphrodite City, the Brothers watched things develop. Unsurprisingly, this was all ultimately their handiwork. The Brothers were frequent visitors of a place where the drug that was known locally as Sleeping Beauty was commonplace and information was easy to find for those who knew where to look, a place that actually provided much of their inspiration for the chaos now plaguing Aphrodite City. Unfortunately, it appeared their latest scheme wasn't going quite the way they wanted it to go...

"Are they planning on leaving? THEY CAN'T LEAVE!" Short Fox, the smaller and less mature of the two vulpine Brothers, screamed in frustration, wiping spittle from his mouth when he finished venting his frustrations.

"Indeed, I had hoped that the Medicine Men would be willing to stay and ensure a regular supply of the drug and possibly even weaponize it for Loco to use on the girls. But if all they're interested in is making a quick buck and moving on... well we'll have to change that won't we?" Tall Fox, the more intelligent and at least appeared to be the more mature one, mused while stroking his chin. While more in control of himself then his brother, Tall was just as unhappy to discover the unwitting actors in his plan had plans of their own and maintained a view about people just as naïve as his sibling did. Inevitably that was going to be their downfall...

"Yeah! Criminals never stop being criminals! They don't have dreams outside of crime or get tired of the life they're living!" Short shouted in agreement, practically jumping off of his couch in excitement.

"Indeed, let's see if we can't arrange for them to stay longer..." Tall replied sinisterly as the wheels began to turn within his head. Time to try a more direct approach to the situation.

Larry shook his head as the gang called it quits for the night, shutting down the lab and setting up the compressors to run overnight so they could start packaging the product next shift. Everything looked good; byproducts were carefully collected and sealed away, temperature was a little on the cool side but that was actually a good thing, and there were no new leaks after that patch job where Mac got a little too friendly with the duct tape. Time to lock the doors and bar the windows, make sure everyone that wanted to conduct business tonight had to go through the reinforced side door and walk the "Gauntlet." The Gauntlet was a bit of "offensive remodeling" the Medicine Men did to their abandoned tenet building to shift the odds in the event of a rival gang attack, created by expanding the already open foyer by demolishing some nonessential walls and moving anything that someone could take cover behind at least fifty feet away from the doors. The result was a large, mostly empty space taking up half of the first floor... perfect for wasting intruders with a hail of gunfire from half a dozen Medicine Men seeing how many rounds they could fire in under a minute. It wouldn't stop any of those supers running around but after the first rival gang got mowed down trying to run the Gauntlet, the other crews decided it wasn't worth the trouble to try and sneak past several sentries in open terrain... So how the hell did these two suit-wearing foxes manage to slip upstairs into his personal pad on the third floor?

The 9mm handgun was out of his pocket and in the ferret's hand before his guests could even say a word to him. "Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?" He barked, switching off the safety as his index finger hovered over the trigger.

"Larry, Larry, is that any way to treat two friends who you owe so much?" The taller fox began; the mustelid wasn't sure which of them he trusted less. Tall boy look and sounded like a used car salesman, his shorter partner looked like a barely restrained lunatic in a two-piece suit. Both of them made him edgy.

"Owe you? Dudes, did Mac sell you some of our PCP or something? I don't owe you, I haven't even fucking met you before now... Oh Christ, one of you is 'it' aren't you? The guy who made all this shit happen." Larry realized suddenly, his hand tightening around his pistol as he began to back slowly towards the door, the better to try and take both of these bastards out or call for the rest of his gang.

"Very astute, I see we made the right choice at first. You are half-correct, we are both 'it' as you called us; we both changed Aphrodite City for the better."

The mustelid gang leader snorted at this but declined to comment further. "Okay, what brings you to my little corner of soon to be the biggest slum city east of Detroit?"

"It has come to our attention that the Medicine Men are planning on leaving Aphrodite City, using their drug money to start up again somewhere else. We were wondering what it would take for you to change your minds?"

"For real? You really want to know what would make us stay in the ol' AC?" Larry asked, the gun never leaving his hand and the barrel never swaying from its vigil in front of the two foxes. Tall fox nodded, prompting the ferret to spit on the floor. "Leave, leave and take your super sluts and your frat boy rape squad with you. Don't care where you go as long as it's not fucking here. Business was risky enough back when we were just cooking ecstasy and other designer shit, between the cops and the Mexican drug cartels moving up through Pennsylvania. Now... I don't care if you left the formula for Sleeping Beauty where we could find it, I don't care if you even hand delivered it to us on a silk tapestry with solid gold thread, we are out of here and that's it."

"Please, don't be hasty. Perhaps a few hours with superpowers will change your mind." Tall insisted.

Larry had heard enough; he knew enough to know that nothing in life was free, especially a chance to become a superman. Leveling his gun at the taller one's head, he started to pull the trigger and... nothing. The foxes were gone as abruptly as they appeared, leaving the ferret ganger waving a gun around at an empty studio apartment. It had to be a dream, a side effect of inhaling the fumes from the production process, but at the same time it just felt too real. "Yo Mac, tell the rest of the crew to be on alert tonight. Something weird is going on..."

"How can he turn us down like that? We offered him powers! He could have been our best rape god yet!" Short fumed.

His brother was silent for a moment; mind wreathed in silent fury as he tried to deal with what just happened. While the more logical of the two Brothers, his sense of reality had been similarly warped by badly written comic books that recycled the same tired plots and clichés over and over. And in the comics, intelligent criminals didn't exist. Crooks didn't plan on plying their trade with an endgame in mind... and yet that's what just happened, a ganger disgruntled with the "thug life" just turned them down.

"I believe it's time for plan B then..." Tall Fox said after what felt like a long time.

To say Shield was suspicious of this sudden turn of events as the heroines gathered in an alley outside of an abandoned apartment building in the bad side of Aphrodite City was an understatement. It was completely unlike the Brothers to do anything so completely altruistic as help locate the drug lab producing Sleeping Beauty that the masked police-themed heroine wondered if there was something more going on. Who was she kidding? Of course there was more going on, but whatever it was probably wasn't important right now. The important thing was to shut this plant down and take the drug off the streets. If they could accomplish that then maybe the skimpily dressed Doberman could start to feel good about her double life as what was essentially a super-powered porn star.

Turning her head towards the others, she let a small smile escape from her lips. Amp did her best not to look nervous as she shouldered her magic electric guitar; the canine sonic controller was as ready as she'd ever be. Express Panda was definitely ready, the super-fast panda had a fire in her eyes that Shield felt herself all too often. Pvt. Doll looked grumpy as she fingered the safety on her police shotgun and loaded it with beanbag shells but she complied with the canine's insisted "recommendation" all the same. Lastly was Wrench Wench, the final girl unlucky enough to get forced into this superhero farce. In addition to her "Southern pinup mechanic" costume and an oversized hollow sledgehammer with a liquid mercury weight, the white-furred mink carried a large bag from a local industrial supply store. Without saying a word she stuck her hand in the shopping bag and started handing out industrial-grade half-mask respirators. The others regarded her with silent confusion until finally Private Doll said something.

"You know I probably could have pulled some military-grade gasmasks out of my backpack right?"

"Military grade gasmasks provided by a pair of idiots who thought a bastardized, almost painted-on, version of Marine dress blues was appropriate combat wear? No thanks; I'll trust the guy behind the counter at the local hardware store long before I trust those two bastards. Told him some friends of mine and I were going to do some auto body detailing over the weekend and well, if these are good enough for painting with pressurized paint guns, they're good enough for whatever these guys are cooking up. Besides, if the Brothers have a problem with it then they can go pound sand; gasmasks and rubber suits can be very très chic."

"Don't give them ideas, bad enough we're all a bunch of spandex Barbie dolls. Do you really want them to turn us into rubber sex toys too?" Shield shook her head and half-joked before putting her respirator on. Time to see what fresh nightmare awaited them this time...

The canine brick heroine had barely kicked open the door and called up her metallic shell before the Medicine Men gang had her sighted and opened fire. Almost a dozen mustelids of various species, clad in street clothes and decorated with a variety of Native American tattoos they probably had no business wearing, were ducked behind sofas and flipped tables, leaning out of cover to take a shot at her. For not the first time, Shield was grateful she was practically bulletproof.

The other heroines filed in behind her and in the span of a heartbeat, the canine police avenger knew Wrench Wench made the right call getting them all respirators. With a scream of "MASKS ON!" the gang's apparent leader pulled a lever by the stairs leading up to the second level of the apartment building. Jets of a pale, lime-green gas blew up through the ventilation system in the floor and quickly flooded the arena with a lime-colored fog. A classic supervillain gas trap loaded up with Sleeping Beauty made by someone who wasn't one of the Brothers' play-villains, almost flattering in a sense.

"Dawwww, look sugahs. They rolled out the red carpet just for us." Wrench Wench commented sarcastically, her voice muffled by her breathing mask as the heroines fanned in.

On the plus side, the shooting immediately stopped once the room was filled with gas. On the negative, none of the girls could see more then a foot in front of them. Meanwhile, somewhere in the building there was the sound of ten or twelve pairs of feet running upstairs and racing around above their heads. Shield wasn't a veteran beat cop but even she knew a perp escape when she heard one. Fortunately, leave it to their resident Southern science genius girl to come up with a solution for at least one of their problems.

"Amp honey, your guitar creates shockwaves when you play it right? Could you play us a little ditty just to clear the air and blow out the windows?"

The Afghan Hound replied with a nod and blasted the room with the opening cords from Five Finger Death Punch's "Under and Over It." Glass shattered and the cloud of Sleeping Beauty dispersed as if an invisible giant had blown the building out like an old game cartridge. And not a second too soon either, the instant the room was cleared, one of the Medicine Men threw a lit road flare down into the room below, clearly there was something that was supposed to be extremely flammable. A second burst of sound extinguished the flare and the small fire it had started, leaving the girls free to explore the now vacant building.

A search upstairs revealed nothing, any notebooks or laptops that were up there were taken when the Medicine Men fled the building. The basement on the other hand was a completely different story. Several air compressors, about a thousand dollars in chemistry equipment, and all of the gang's notes on Sleep Beauty. Wrench Wench immediately thumbed through the notebook, looking annoyed as she paged through formulas, descriptions, and other things that made Shield wished she paid more attention in high school chemistry. "Something's not right, none of the Medicine Men could have written these original notes."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well for starters it's mostly typed in all caps like the original author was god damn brain damaged or had a broken keyboard. The few times they do write something out, it looks nothing like the little foot notes the Medicine Men clearly wrote for them... oh God... oh God no..." Wrench Wench began, a chill visibly running through her body as her voice trailed off.

Nervous, Shield looked over her friend's shoulder and read down where the mink's white-furred finger stopped. There, typed out in capital letters, were the words "IT HAS THE SAME PROPERTIES AS LOX (LIQUID OXYGEN)" next to a Medicine Man's hastily scribbled "Note to self: Do NOT put any of our smokers on the Sleeping Beauty line." Even with her chemistry as spotty as it was, she knew that, before revolutionizing the healthcare industry, liquid oxygen was originally used as rocket fuel for both NASA and the military. Rocket fuel was being made in a building with an electrical system of questionable reliability.

"Everyone, out NOW!" The masked policewoman bellowed.

Turns out it was the right decision, no sooner did everyone get out then something shorted out in the basement. The entire building completely exploded in a violent fireball, within an instant the apartment complex was reduced to a crumbling shell of its former self. Holding the notebook in her hands, Wrench Wench tossed the notebook full of the date-rape drug formulas into the roaring conflagration. Like that, Sleeping Beauty's hold on the city was weakened. Not gone, as there were probably other black market chemists trying to replicate the formula and cash in on the drug's popularity, but seriously weakened.

After a quick call to the Aphrodite City Fire Department was made before the firestorm in front of them consumed the entire neighborhood, the girls stood and silently watched the burning building from a rooftop across the street.

"So does anyone believe in karma or some kind of higher power?" Amp asked suddenly.

"Why do you ask?" Wrench Wench replied, curious what brought up this topic.

"Well... it just feels like a message was sent. I mean, okay so who here believes the Brothers have something to do with the Medicine Men getting the Sleeping Beauty formula?"

"I think it's safe to say all of us believe we were used as mob muscle just now. What are you trying to say Amp?" Shield replied, wondering where the Afghan hound was going with this.

"Well, the recipe had to come from somewhere right? Probably somewhere more messed up then Detroit or here. So it feels like someone or something said 'No, not here' and burned the building to the ground." The All-American Rock Goddess explained.

The other heroines looked at the canine in the tri-color costume then back at the burning building. Was there really a place that could be worse then what Aphrodite City was turning into? Shield and the others shuddered at the implications. But if that was the case, and it was entirely possible that it wasn't the case, then Amp was right and today was a greater day then any of them realized....