FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tales from Silicon City: Dark Omens Part II

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

Continuing after Dark Omens…

Sunnyvale was a picturesque slice of the Californian Central Valley. A sleepy little town in the middle of vineyard and orchard country, well outside the limits of Silicon City, the community was almost a literal wellspring of optimism. Even the economic downturn had done little to diminish Sunnyvale's luster. Yet the Hedonists, with their outright sociopathic attitudes regarding beautiful things, were unconcerned that their activities would ruin the peaceful splendor surrounding them. Sitting in the “Southern Charm", a fifties-retro diner that formed the main gathering place for the village of a thousand individuals, the four Hedonist cultists sat and watched, each of the perverse “scientists" picking out a heroine for their recreation of Aphrodite City.

Voodoo the Omniscient, the canine drug chemist, picked out Zelda Clearwater, a local gym owner in town. A slender cheetah with a well-toned, athletic runner's physique; lithe figure, sturdy leg muscles, and a tight round rump, she was very much the traditional “fitness model." Her C-cup breasts were a bit small for the cultists' tastes but Voodoo could easily fix that… probably. Already the southern drug maker was discreetly writing formulas in his notebook as he contemplated possible treatments. Should he go with strength or agility?

Machine Wolf's selection criteria was so obvious that his cohorts knew “Momma's Boy" was going to pick Cynthia Sweetime the moment the marsupial med student walked through the door to order lunch at the diner. The kangaroo was a sleep therapist with a figure that could be best described as “slightly maternal." The others knew their Australian companion was already thinking of ways to improve upon that with his mastery of nanite-based cybernetics. The fact that he was building a hypothetical heroine that would be as useful as a bulletproof vest made of tissue paper didn't even cross his mind.

The last two were slower to pick out, largely due to Nocturnal being incredibly picky and Kay-Nein being lazy and rough-shod at all things requiring actual effort. Finally though, the tech-savvy bat had selected the female who would become his heroine Power Gauntlet. A lemur girl, tall and slender, with her monochromatic fur and fluffy tail immaculately cared for, Susan Smith was a local stylist that moonlighted as a disc jockey at parties. Beautiful and with a tall, “perfect" figure that harkened to memories of the heroine Amp during the Aphrodite City Incident, the bat had found his perfect candidate for his prototype gauntlets.

Kay-Nein likely would have been there all day where it not for his cohorts discreetly nagging him to hurry up. With half the state of California after them, it wouldn't be wise to dawdle too long outside of their temporary safe house. Finally, after having about as much as he could take of his more industrious cohorts giving him the evil eye, he settled on a draft horse mare by the name of Annabel Archer. A towering mountain of a mare with long blond hair, a dark orange-brown hide, and pale blue eyes, the orchard worker looked like she already had a prodigious amount of strength even without the bracelet the lazy wizard was forging in his corner of the workspace.

Like that, without their knowledge much less their consent, the heroines of Sunnyvale were chosen. None of them aware that the lives they had slowly built for themselves were about to be ruined for the amusement of twisted individuals who cared for nothing but themselves and their own amusements. Their own pleasures, their own undeserved power fantasies. They cared nothing for the amount of work each of these four women put into their respective lives, nothing for the amount of work that went into making anything in the world around them. The community's last few days of peace had begun; plans were being drawn, pieces were being put into place, and the surviving Hedonists had been given the signal. Soon, very soon, events would be set in motion that would catapult the cult into paradise!

The day events were to be put into motion began like any other. The sun rose and the people of Sunnyvale went through their morning routines before heading off to work. Officer Thompson grumbled as he finished punching in and fiddled with his new body camera. The old squirrel cop could still remember a day when the police were respected, leave it to a few bad apples to get the media up in arms over a couple isolated incidents. Sure it might work out like dash cameras did in the 90's but Thompson would be damned if these body cameras weren't awkward to use. He was still trying to figure out if the blasted thing was on when the call came in over his patrol car radio.

“This is an alert from Central Dispatch, metabeing disturbance reported on Main Street. I repeat, metabeing disturbance reported on Main Street." The radio crackled as a small explosion echoed from beyond the line of one and two story buildings making up the main thoroughfare of Sunnyvale.

Thompson was already in his car and gunning down the street, sirens blaring, when the dispatcher finished with her broadcast. With one hand on the wheel, he picked up the receiver and confirmed that he had received the message and was on his way. Goddamn metas playing at being supervillains, hopefully the police could stop this idiot before they burned down the whole town. Otherwise they'd have to call in the DSA for tactical support...

The Grab-n-Go convenience store was hardly the grand caper Devastator and Love Bites expected to start their supervillain careers with. Beat up the cashier, clean out the register, break into the floor safe, and then bounce out to their next target. Simple, straightforward, hard to mess up… except that Devastator had to grab that one two-liter bottle of soda and guzzle it down while they were on their way out. The excessive carbonation had a predictable effect on his explosive gastro-chemistry, leading to the elastic villain accidentally belching a massive fireball at a parked car across the street. As the mercifully empty car performed a pyrotechnic backflip before landing upside down in the middle of the street and finished bursting into flames, Love Bites cast a most baleful glare towards the rubber vixen's equally stretchy cohort. “You're lucky that car was empty." She growled as a patrol car turned onto the street and came to a screeching halt before the flaming wreckage of what was once a Smart Car. Devastator looked at the police car with a bemused smirk as he swallowed his loot bag with one gulp and started to inflate into a ball. Love Bites followed suit, the vixen fighting to suppress a small smile as she began to bloat outwards into more zeppelin-like proportions.

“No cops?" The soon-spherical wolf asked as he quickly finished inflating and gave himself a tentative bounce and a lone police officer stepped out of the car.

“No cops. Not yet at least." The blimp-like vixen replied as they bounced away to their next target.

On the ground below, gun in hand but pointed downward, Officer Thompson stared at the two fleeing supervillains with no small amount of disbelief. Picking up the receiver to his radio, he reported in.

“This is squad car four, I have a visual on the suspects that hit the Grab-n-Go. They are… they are bouncing to the west."

“Rubber metamorphs Carl?" Patricia the dispatcher asked calmly. Guess there was a benefit to making that feline from the Silicon City Police Department their dispatcher, very little seemed to phase her. “You sure they headed west though? There's nothing out there but a truck stop and the laundromat." Little did either of them know what was going on…

“They want us to hit a laundromat to see if we can steal some panties, you shitting me? Shouldn't we be robbing a bank or something?" Devastator grumbled as he landed in the laundry mat parking lot with a mighty thud that cracked pavement.

“You didn't object to robbing the gas station." Love Bites argued none too convincingly; clearly she was about as thrilled as he was. At least she was until she landed on a small European smart car, a sadistic smile crossing her lips as the bloated, blimpy vixen crushed the fuel-efficient vehicle like a pancake.

“At least the gas station had a good haul in that safe and snacks on the shelf." He countered before deciding to let the subject drop as he shrunk down back to his slender proportions. Love Bites didn't bother arguing either as she followed suit.

Walking into the laundromat with a confident swagger, the two metamorphic villains were quick to notice the lack of functioning security cameras as the small crowd of roughly half a dozen individuals. Mostly rabbits and mice, there was a joke here that Devastator probably wasn't getting but that was no matter. One of the people they currently had trapped was female and that meant the prize was in sight… that assessment somehow hurt more then he thought it would.

The crowd watched the two newcomers with a mixture of bewildered surprise and dread. With Devastator's black jumpsuit studded with white biohazard symbols and Love Bite's hot pink unitard with a stylized broken heart over her belly, it was obvious the two of them weren't part of the Spandex Boy Scout Brigade. It was especially apparent once the stretchy vixen caught a glimpse of a young male rabbit trying to record them on his smart phone.

“Nah-uh!" Love Bites chastised as she stretched her arm and snatched the phone out of his hand. “Can't have you uploading my debut for your friends on U-Tube." She snickered, deleting the video and tossing the phone in the trashcan behind her. Regarding the now terrified male with a toothy predatory smile; she rubbed her chin in contemplation, losing herself in clearly perverse thought until Devastator tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, we agreed no civvies either. Besides, I got what we came for." The costumed villain replied as he held up a second bag before stuffing it into his pocket. Behind him a female rodent lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious from being punched squarely in the face. “Let's get out of here before the cops figure out what we're up to."

The curvy costumed vixen's lips froze into a slight pout but she shook her head. Later, once this so-called “plan" was put in motion, there would be time for the two of them to see to their own projects but now they needed to see about finally roping in the other actors into the play. Just a few more stops then they'd be able to stop playing hot potato with the police and crash in the safe house the Hedonists had established in the city…

Susan Smith's salon was buzzing with chatter between Susan and her fellow stylists about today's happenings. Certain things just simply didn't happen in Sunnyvale, so most of the locals were still in a state of disbelief. Hair was cut and dressed up in all manner of styles, nails were filed and manicured, and fur was groomed and gently oiled. It didn't occur to anyone yet that maybe they should consider heading home and locking their doors if not try to leave town entirely. At least it didn't until Susan the lemur looked up and saw Sunnyvale's first supervillain walk through her door…

Her eyes danced from the villain to the crowd of people around her, Susan choked back an urge to tremble. They had to be one of the supervillains people were gossiping about, Sunnyvale had no superheroes of its own much less any supervillains until now. The immaculate lemur kept her expression polite as everyone but her and the elastic vixen stopped mid-motion as if they were frozen in time. Putting on her best smile, the salon owner summoned what courage she had and addressed the only being that could easily demolish her entire business before lunch.

“Hello, welcome to Smith's Salon. We forge true beauty. I'm Susan Smith, how can I help you?" She greeted while quietly and frantically thinking of how to distract the empowered hoodlum long enough for everyone to get out through the fire escape in the back of the building.

“Really? And just when I didn't think things could get any cornier." The vixen tittered cruelly, cackling as she surveyed the room with a sadistic glint in her eyes. A particularly chilling smile crossed her lips as she caught the eye of one of Smith's newer stylists, a busty feline named Maureen.

Susan Smith didn't know what was going through the brown vixen's head but she wasn't particularly inclined to find out either. Already standing near Maureen's workstation, the lemur quickly reached behind her for the glass jar she knew was there. A tall glass jar with an easily detachable cap, several combs, and filled almost to the brim with harsh, blue-colored disinfectants. At least it was until the brave stylist picked up the container and emptied the contents in the intruder's face. The rubbery vulpine villain shrieked in surprise and moved to protectively shield her face. Either this person wasn't immune to chemical burns or she hadn't had her powers long enough to know otherwise, regardless Smith had her opening…

“EVERYONE OUT THE BACK DOOR NOW!" She bellowed and started running for the fire escape in the back.

No one needed to be told twice. Manicures and haircuts were half finished as patrons and staff followed her lead right out the door. Susan barely had the sturdy metal door opened before the other occupants flooded out behind her. Once the last one was out, Susan moved to slam the heavy emergency door shut… only to feel the sensation of a hand grabbing her ankle.

Through the doorway back into the salon, Love Bites smiled as she retracted her stretched arm. Susan was knocked off her feet as the lemur was pulled back into her salon. Pulled along by gravity, the emergency door slammed shut behind her as the heroic stylist was dragged back towards her attacker.

Throwing the striped female in one of the salon chairs, the spandex-clad villain wiped the last of the azure disinfectant from her face as she took a seat in her captive's lap. “Ooooh, that didn't sting quite as much as I thought it would." Her wicked grin broadened. “I love it when they put up a fight though, let me slip into something more comfortable." The sadistic fox cooed with a moan as she exhaled and her body began to expand as if she relaxed the bindings on an invisible corset. An abdomen as flat as a washboard began to soften and puff outward into a chubby gut but it was below the waist where Love Bites was making her greatest expansions. Hips became swollen and bloated with wobbly fat as her rump ballooned outward, two bouncy beach balls forming a pronounced shelf as her body finished filling out.

“Ohhh yes that feels much better. Sucking it in like that all the time is so uncomfortable." She smiled, her eyes glistening with dark intentions as she leaned forward and ran a hand along the other female's shapely thigh. Susan's heart was in her throat, she wanted to scream but at that moment her assailant shifted positions and buried the lemur's face as well as most of her upper chest beneath the vixen's massive pink clad bottom. Laughing cruelly, Love Bites pushed her backside against the chair and smothered her prey as she got to work having her own fun. Smith's blood felt like it had turned to ice as she felt Love Bites unzip the stylist's dress pants and… the distant wail of a police car caused the elastic vixen to stop halfway through the process of undressing her victim. Somewhere in the back of Susan's mind she began to recall something about the emergency door being linked to a silent alarm…

“Oh drat… oh well, guess we'll have do this again another time." Love Bites sighed as she got off of her prisoner, giving her mark a quick kiss and a grope on the breast before racing off.

Susan Smith simply continued to lie in the salon chair she had been pressed into, her mind having long since gone into a state of shock. The damage to her salon was minimal, a few hours cleaning and it would be fine. The damage to her mind would stay with her for a long, long time…

Zelda's gym was a small, hole-in-the-wall establishment built over an old bomb shelter originally constructed in the fifties. It was also a place where the stereo blared dubstep and energetic “pop rock" from sunrise to sunset. Hence why Zelda the cheetah was still carrying on with a private workout to the tune of “The Flavor of the Week" by American Hi-Fi, oblivious to the explosion that occurred right down the street from her business that caused her midday class of soccer moms to promptly make other plans that took their families out of town.

With the gym to herself, the cheetah brawler sparred with a speed bag while wondering why her entire class was late. One or two of them she could believe but the entire class? She was definitely going to have to chew them all out for standing her up like this.

“Damn, nice ass Spots." A masculine voice catcalled from behind her.

Immediately turning around on the heel of her foot, “Spots"' eyes narrowed as she saw the heckler in full. A fatass wolf with a beer gut that sagged down past his crotch and a black elastic outfit that looked like it was bought off the clearance rack at a costume shop. Hardly something she was inclined to take seriously.

“Really? Really? I'm sorry but it should be a law that anyone as fat as you should not be allowed to wear spandex." The cheetah replied with a threatening crack of her neck.

“Ooooh, feisty. Were you expecting your first supervillain to look something more like this?" The costumed wolf made a quick show of sucking in his gut and like that, had slimmed down to a buffer shape. “Name's Devastator by the way."

“Zelda Clearwater." The cheetah answered back automatically. “And I think you need to leave now." She added on reflex, still waiting for a visual cue to ball up her fists and start pummeling this idiot.

Exhaling again, Devastator resumed his normal big-bellied figure, waddling further into the room. “Well now, I'm sorry but I can't do that. Not after you had to go being such a whiney little fitness ho. Let me guess, you were a fat girl in high school?" He asked with a smirk.

“Actually, I was captain of the cheerleading squad." Zelda replied with a scowl. Already horribly impatient, she quickly decided that she was done waiting for this circus act to leave. Balling up her hands into fists and quickly charging her opponent, the trainer sent her first punch squarely into Devastator's wobbly paunch.

That turned out to be a mistake; her fist feeling like it had hit something with the consistency of a rubber bag filled with ballistic jelly. The black-clad wolf merely grinned as her arm sunk up to her elbow into his doughy stomach. As his gut finished deadening the blow, Devastator's cheeks briefly puffed out before he unleashed a deafening sonic belch that hit Clearwater with the force of a truck. As his opponent was thrown across the matted floor before colliding with an unoccupied punching bag, the ballooned supervillain stood in minor confusion. “Hmmm that's new, guess it switches from stun to kill depending on how much pressure I put into it." He muttered to himself as the cheetah groaned and struggled to rise to her feet.

“Bad kitty, stay down." Devastator growled as he rolled himself back up into a tight ball and started bouncing around the room. Pounding on his foe a few times, he used the momentum from squishing Zelda against the mat to ricochet across the gym. Throwing his bulk around; mirrors were smashed, ceiling lights were sent crashing to the floor, racks of freestanding weights were spilled all over the floor, work out machines were smashed, and the entire establishment was quickly vandalized. Satisfied that Clearwater's insurance agent was going to have his work cut out for him, the bloated barrage balloon bounced away. Time to meet up with Love Bites and see what to do about the last two…

“You were about to do what to the lemur lady? Damn, wish I was there to watch that one." Devastator smirked as he munched on an orange, the two elastic villains waddling through one of the many orchards outside of Sunnyvale. The only thing particularly special about this four-acre property was that it belonged to their third target, a towering goliath of an equine female by the name of Annabel Archer. As far as Devastator was concerned, the third verse was the same as the first two. In many regards this was the easiest of their hits to carry out, he contemplated as he continued to stretch his arms up and pluck oranges off of the trees in Archer's orchard. Just needed to eat enough to build up enough pressure and… Devastator smiled as he finished belching up a devastating fireball that lit up several trees in rapid succession. Within minutes a large chunk of the orchard was ablaze. In her farm house off in the distance, Annabel frantically called the fire department as she helplessly watched two peculiar balls, one jet black and the other hot pink, bounce away. Four acres of hundred-year-old orange trees, four little acres containing all of her hopes and dreams and it was all going up in smoke…

“Do we really have to hit this one? Doesn't feel right messing with a doctor." Devastator asked after the two of them received a cell phone call from their patrons, the Hedonists wanted a status update on their reign of terror in Sunnyvale. Apparently things were suddenly very busy back in Pacific Cove and there was a potential change of plans on the horizon.

“Stop questioning our plan minion!" Nocturnal answered contemptuously over the speaker, the arrogant bat not sharing their concerns in the slightest. “She's a sleep therapist, that's hardly a real doctor. Besides she only has an associate's degree, she needs at least a bachelor's of science before people have to start calling her doctor."

Love Bites was glad that stupid leather-winged rat couldn't see Devastator's face at that moment as the wolf looked strongly tempted to bite his head off. Come to think about it, this was the only other part of this plan that she agreed with ol' Barrage Balloon on. Among supervillains, at least among the ones she and the wolf wanted to consider themselves as, there was indeed a certain code of honor. A very flimsy code with a few very loosely enforced tenets but a code none the less. And the Hedonists currently wanted them to break the only part of the creed that all villains universally gave a damn about; known EMTs, rescue workers, doctors, and nurses were not to be harmed if at all possible. Even people that beat up Mennonites or Amish were respected more then someone with a rep for taking pot shots at ambulances just for kicks. Sleep therapist or no, if word that they were beating up medical personal got around, the two of them could kiss their chances of getting help from the supervillain community in the future good-bye.

“Alright, whatever you say boss." Devastator answered, quickly hanging up and stuffing the phone back in a handy pocket. “Well then… how do we go about mindfucking with this one without destroying what little street cred we've built up?" He turned and asked the vixen rhetorically as the two of them hide outside of Sweetime's house.

“I guess we'll have to step up and actually use our imaginations for a change. At least we each have one, that's more then I can say for those four." Love Bites replied quietly as the two of them watched the kangaroo walk up to her house, oblivious that her long day at the clinic in nearby Silicon City had a strong chance of getting much longer…

Inside her home, Cynthia took off her scrubs and turned on some relaxing piano music before throwing on some sweat pants and a t-shirt and deciding what to do about dinner. Today was a long day; multiple cases of patients suffering from sleep depravation or respiratory problems coming into the clinic. She didn't even have time to watch the news in the break room with the rest of the staff.

Puttering about her home and making dinner, the kangaroo was oblivious to the two flattened metamorphs squeezing themselves underneath her door and squishing themselves till they were as skinny as a coat rack as they spied on the last candidate the Hedonists planned on bamboozling into taking part in their twisted games. Both villains carefully waited for an opportunity to do some sort of physical or psychological damage to her but as they quietly watched her go through her evening routine they found a different kind of weakness for the four Hedonists to exploit…

The next morning, Smith's Salon remained closed. The police report had been filed, the damage had been cleaned up, but the lemur still couldn't bring herself to head back to work. All night she had horrible nightmares of what had almost happened and when she finally woke up it was all she was barely able to hold her tooth brush steady. Giving everyone the day off, Susan went out for a drive to try and clear her head. Sunnyvale had quieted down since the supervillains mysteriously disappeared yesterday evening but there was still so much damage left to repair. Zelda's gym was closed for repairs and the trainer herself was getting her injuries seen by the local doctor, Annabel's entire orchard almost burnt to the ground, the mare was still sobbing uncontrollably at her sudden bad fortune. It was all just too much; Susan needed to spend some time away from Sunnyvale. Getting onto the highway and taking a fateful turn to the west, the traumatized female drove towards Pacific Cove. Maybe a day walking on the beach would be enough to get yesterday's events out of her mind.

After a short, uneventful drive to the coast, the lemur parked her car close to her favorite spot on the beach and turned off the engine. Taking her shoes off and stepping out, the warm sand between her toes, she started walking along the relatively deserted beach. Other then a bored lifeguard streaming a sitcom on his smart phone, the distraught stylist had the white, sandy expanse to herself. Yet after a while the isolation turned out to be less of a blessing then she thought, there were no signs of normalcy to distract her from the feelings weighing heavily on her mind. Nothing like a volleyball game or a child building a sandcastle; just her, the beach, and the stranger that suddenly appeared behind her.

“Wonderful weather for a day on the beach isn't it?" A male voice began from behind her.

Turning on her heel so hard that her neck should have gotten whiplash, the lemur spun around to look the stranger in the eye. Today was not a good day for sudden surprises. “Who are you?"

The bat didn't look like much to Susan Smith; a skinny, greasy-looking fruit bat with his brown hair worn short with arguably the worst haircut the stylist ever saw. While hardly as vain or petty as one would expect someone of her profession to be, the lemur had to fight ingrained instincts to avoid taking the stranger by the hand and giving him an immediate emergency makeover. Looking down she soon realized his hair was the least egregious of his problems, his velvety brown fur having a greasy quality to it that she recognized in furs that didn't shower daily. And then there were his clothes, a pair of old-timey aviator goggles worn as a headband, a ratty-looking brown coat, jeans, and a tee shirt… it looked like the bat was trying to pull off the “badass biker" look and no one told him he didn't have the right anything to make it work.

Looking at her with a smile typical of people who were legends in their own mind, he held up his hands in a non-threatening gesture. “Just someone who has an offer you might be interested in." Nocturnal answered, time to bait the hook…

Zelda Clearwater gritted her teeth and reflexively touched her side as she left the local clinic. Thankfully it wasn't bad enough that she had to go to the hospital in Silicon City but the doctor still insisted that she took it easy for the next few days. Well, with her gym closed for repairs her classes were cancelled anyway. Still, she hated having nothing to do; the cheetah was someone who always had to be doing something. Sitting on the couch watching daytime soap operas just made her restless and she tended to get punchy when restless both metaphorically and literally.

As she walked through Sunnyvale's modest downtown area, her arm in a sling, the cheetah became aware of someone walking behind her. “Looks like y'all had quite the party yesterday." A pronounced southern accent said aloud.

Zelda turned around to find herself face to face with a smirking canine mutt wearing a top hat, jeans, and a baggy overcoat. He looked like trouble but at that moment the fitness trainer was confident she could handle him, arm in a sling or no. “What do you want?" She asked impatiently.

“Good question but not as good as what you want." The canine replied with a coy smile, this one looked like his easiest sell since he took up selling narcotics to support the cult…

Back at the Hedonist safehouse, the undercover FBI agent watched nervously as his targets returned home with their captives in tow. From what he could gather, two had been mentally disarmed before being gassed with some aerosol drug that had been made during the Aphrodite City Crisis while Kay-Nein and Machine Wolf apparently didn't bother with “foreplay" before gassing their targets and stuffing them in the trunk of a car before driving back here as fast they could. How these idiots managed to avoid being detected by any competent police officer worth his badge was a cruel joke Paxton didn't care much for.

“Get the laboratory ready acolyte!" Voodoo ordered as the four potential heroines were quickly taken from the cars and carried into the house, all of them still unconscious.

Paxton fought to avoid grimacing but did what he was told, the bear wasn't sure what the Hedonists had in mind would work. Their approach to bestowing powers to people was very… sloppy at best, he was frankly surprised Devastator and Love Bites survived their procedure.

Speaking of them, the elastic supervillains currently reclined on the sofa and watched as the heroines-to-be were brought in. For some reason he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something “off" about their supermodel physiques, they moved almost as if they were under some sort of invisible restraint. Eh, that was hardly the most important mystery going on at the moment. Still, the smile that crossed Love Bites' face as the lemur was dragged in made the undercover cop's skin crawl. As Paxton descended into the laboratory and prepped the workspace, for not the first time he dealt with the nagging doubt that this assignment was going downhill faster then a greased handcart in freefall…

Susan groaned and stirred as she came back around. The last thing she remembered was talking to that bat on the beach and him pulling something out of his pocket then getting hit with the overwhelming scent of mint. Attempting to bring her hand to help still her throbbing head, the unfamiliar heavy weight caused her to look down and see the gauntlets seemingly fused to her hands before she blacked out once more….

Zelda Clearwater felt as if she was seeing the world in hyper-clarity, her eyes of such unnatural sharpness that she could make out every individual speck of dirt in her grimy cell. She could even sense the subdermal needles gently trickling some mysterious substance into her bloodstream, making her muscles feel almost fluid. Whatever it was; it felt good, so very good….

Cynthia Sweetime was having the strangest dream; the kangaroo felt like she was inflating like a water balloon being filled with some kind of soft, squishy substance, something that felt like it had the same consistency as marshmallow fluff. Her body began to bloat and round out until it resembled an overstuffed plushy filled to bursting with cotton padding. And then she opened her eyes… and succumbed to the overwhelming urge to scream as Machine Wolf pumped her full of a gray sloshing goop.

Annabel Archer wondered what she had done in a past life to deserve this. First her orchard nearly burnt down, it still might not recover from the damage done, and then she was kidnapped after opening the door expecting to see an insurance agent. Just one thing after another, now she was trapped in a steel cage covered in weird glyphs. Outside of her cage, a positively filthy canine wizard muttered to himself as he referenced spellbooks and checked on some foul-smelling concoction bubbling in a pewter cauldron tucked away in the corner. Even clearing her throat resulted in the cage coming alive with electricity, her captor allowing a faint smile to escape his lips the first time she discovered that nasty little trick. Ignoring her regardless, the disheveled arcanist held up an intricately wrought brass bracer with a pair of tongs and a golden amulet with a gloved hand. Smiling devilishly, he proceeded to dip both into the brewing tempest at the same time, seemingly taking a particular care in the action that suggested something more then a bizarre form of obsessive-compulsive disorder….

The Hedonists smiled to themselves as the final pieces of the puzzle started to come together. Now all they needed to do was clean up any loose ends and eliminate potential witnesses. A saner criminal mastermind would argue what they were planning was completely unnecessary, the kind of pointless overkill that more rational minds would avoid doing based on the grounded belief that wiping out an entire town simply to steal away four females would do the exact opposite of what these four monsters were thinking and instead turn a routine investigation into a furious state-wide manhunt. But the Hedonists as a group were never big on “thinking logically", likewise things such as the “Geneva Convention" and the “Rules of War" were entirely foreign concepts to them…

It was a testament to how prevalent metabeings were in the world that the shock of events earlier in the week had already faded from Sunnyvale's collective memory. Sure, no one could recall seeing Susan, Zelda, Cynthia, or Annabel lately but after the stress of the last few days perhaps they were just taking some time away from town. For Officer Thompson, it was a welcome reprieve from the events and the paperwork of the last few days. And oh was there paperwork. Witness reports, damage claims, the list of paperwork to file was so horrendous he practically jumped at the chance to get out of the office and go on patrol. At least it was a lovely day for a drive and he finally figured out how to work that new-fangled body camera.

Driving along in his patrol car, the typical scenes of small-town Americana rolling past him, Thompson's route first seemed so ordinary that the first stranger in outlandish purple robes sitting on a park bench next to the ice cream truck stood out like a clown attending a mime convention. Blinking and immediately focusing his attention back on the road, the veteran police officer wrote the outlandish sight as proof that he needed a vacation after the last few days. And then he saw three more robed figures… all carrying some sort of backpack-fed spray guns.

“Die cockblocker for the glory of Loco!" One of the cultists screamed as he raised his weapon and fired a thin spray of corrosive acid at the wheels of Thompson's patrol car.

His right side tires exploded with a violent bang the instant the chemical spray hit them. The car shuddering furiously as he fought to maintain control and avoid hitting now-panicking pedestrians, coming to a skidding stop into a fire hydrant. After his world briefly went black from the impact, the squirrel drew his pistol as he grabbed the still-working radio receiver with a free hand.

“Armed assailants on South and Main. Repeat, armed Hedonist assailants on South and Main, officer in need of assistance!" He shouted over the dispatch before quickly abandoning his vehicle, the uncontrolled spray of water soaking him down to his pelt...

Thinking that the crash had taken him out, the three Hedonists were joined by the first one he had spotted earlier. Now he had three with the horrifying acid-spraying guns and one with a conventional American-made assault rifle, all of them attacking random townspeople for seemingly no discernable purpose. Children howled in pain as they were hit by acid strong enough to melt rubber while adults feebly struggled to crawl away despite losing horrific amounts of blood from gunshot wounds. Faced with a horror unlike anything he had seen in over twenty years of proud service, the squirrel checked the magazine on his pistol and then, as a quick afterthought, checked to make sure the camera was recording everything going on in front of him. Weapon raised, he knew someone in the future would review this and expect him to demand the Hedonists' surrender. Instead, his voice barely audible over the din of screams and weapons fire around him, he uttered the final verse of the policeman's prayer as he thought of his wife and two school-aged children, both still somewhere in town. With DSA or SCPD SWAT support being at least an hour away, God was the only one who could protect his family now.

“Lord if some dark and dreary night, I must give my life. Lord, with your everlasting love, protect my children and my wife." He prayed, ending his plea with three quick shots from his pistol. His aim honed by several successful police marksmanship tournaments, the bullets found their mark on an exposed acid tank worn by a Hedonist standing relatively close to all of his peers, rupturing the metal vessel and spraying two of the three acid-wielding cultists in caustic chemicals. On reflex, the rifle-armed cultist turned and fired back, managing to land an entire three-shot burst squarely in the officer's chest. Pain unlike any he could imagine before shot through his body as the middle-aged rodent fell to the ground. As his blood mixed with the pooling water from the ruptured hydrant and his vision began to blur, the wounded male became aware of several figures moving about the carnage and even through the murderous cultists. And when one stopped over him, that's when Thompson knew he was hurt in a very bad way.

The Sentinel, an iconic superhero from a bygone age in Silicon City's past, had died in the process of saving children from a burning school building over two decades ago. His heroism was one of the things that inspired Thompson to become a cop. Above, the deceased legend looked down at the fallen police officer and nodded approvingly. Starting to lean forward to offer Thompson his hand, the muscular masked bear stopped mid-motion and looked at something in the horizon behind him. Below, the squirrel looked past him and suddenly found the strength to cling to life. He should have realized that the instant someone so much as said the word Hedonist that everyone listening would come running. Yet to still see the Avenger VTOL flying in like all of hell was right behind it, knowing that with it came a team of superpowered DSA operatives, the sight filled his wounded body with joy. Elsewhere his ears could pick out panicked screams of a distinctly different pitch compared to the howls of agony and terror coming from the people that were his friends and neighbors, sounded like the Hedonists were having trouble. Good, Thompson couldn't think of a nicer bunch of people to have something like that happen to…

In the Avenger VTOL above, Rivetgal sat as stoically as she could manage as the All-American Gadgeteer and the rest of the DSA team listened to the radio and cell phone chatter down below. Kraken, Dozer, and Black Vespa, three nanite-enhanced supersoldiers representing a Sea, Land, and Air trinity and all three experienced with the Hedonists' antics back in Aphrodite City, sat around her. Beside them, fidgeting nervously in polymer combat armor and testing the heft of their overstuffed medical kits, was a trio of medics on loan from the Department of Superhero Affairs' medical division. Normally sent in after the action had subsided, Control decided an exception needed to be made in order to save as many lives as possible. The passenger cabin aboard the Avenger rattled as the pilot unapologetically fought the turbulence head on and the team listened to the situation unraveling down below.

“This is Officer Johnson and Friday to Dispatch, we're cut off from the station with a bunch of wounded civvies. Jesus Christ where did all these cartoon rejects come from?"

“Holy fuck they just shot the ambulance! What are we going to do now?"

“Oh thank God this thing works, thank God it works… This is Rachel Thompson from the general store; I'm down in the old bomb shelter with my children and a working short-wave radio. If you can hear this, try to get to Zelda's bomb shelter, you know where it is."

“Haha! Look at those civvies run- OH MY GOD RUN! IT'S MENTALRIX!" A panicked Hedonist screamed in terror over the radio, bringing a grim smile to each of the DSA agents as the VTOL came to a stop and started to hover over Sunnyvale's devastated Main Street. Opening the rear bay door, Black Vespa flew out as the rest of the team rappelled down or jumped and landed with a super-strong thud. The instant her boots touched the ground; the blue-armored Rivetgal raised her rifle and scanned the carnage around her.

Over a dozen wounded lying on the pavement, many of them burnt by acid, and almost as many dead from the looks of things. Further down the street, a pair of cultists were in the process of looting a wounded police officer but attempted to scatter upon seeing the Avenger drop off its cargo of hardened super-cops before finding a place to land. Rivetgal wasn't having any of that though; firing her signature rifle the instant her mind registered a flash of purple. Fortunately for her foes, she had forgotten to check which ammo type she had set it for. Instead of the electro-magnetically propelled metal needles normally reserved for situation where lethal force is not only authorized but encouraged, her Rivetgun fired a burst of bright green pellets roughly the same size and shape as paintballs. Her aim remained true; the GOOP rounds found their mark. Exploding on impact, the immobilizing rounds covered her opponents in a sticky, lime-green slime that glued the struck Hedonists to the asphalt. Her targets neutralized, the rest of the team fanned out as the medics worked frantically to save whoever they could. The armored canine briefly gritted her teeth as she radioed her status back to Control. The landing was successful but the town… The street was littered with wreckage and horribly maimed citizens, thick clouds of black smoke billowed over the horizon, and corrosive acid bubbled and pooled as it eroded the asphalt. They were going to need more reinforcements to get control of the situation; at the very least Hydro, a canine firefighter with a water-spraying power suit, was definitely looking at a long day once he got here…

It was done; the maidens that would be their offerings to the divine Brothers had been empowered and issued their costumes. There were… problems of course with getting them to cooperate but that's what the fail-safes and the willing assistance of Devastator and Love Bites were for. Love Bites' presence was particularly effective at cowing the lemur Susan Smith into doing what they wanted. Everything had been since relocated to the Hedonists' hidden island fortress as per Loco's latest instructions, the old WWII bunker complex erected off the Californian coast had been the perfect place to hide the cult's activities since the Aphrodite City Crisis was brought to a close. Now, seating all four of their captives down in the common room and turning the television on to the local news, it was time to show the cult's might and destroy their hope with the complete destruction of Sunnyvale…

“And now for an update on today's breaking story. Previously we had received reports that the Hedonists, already at the center of a massive statewide manhunt, were committing an act of spree violence in Sunnyvale. As of half an hour ago, DSA officials report a successful counter-terrorism operation, apprehending or killing the cultists responsible for the act. Reports are still coming in with the number of dead or wound… They used acid? Oh god no." Cynthia Winters briefly lost her composure before regaining enough to continue on. “Reports are still coming in with causalities estimated to be in the hundreds. It's… how can I report the news after that?" The anchor doe asked behind the camera.

“Just do your best, no one rehearses for something like this." Came a voice from off-screen.

Cynthia nodded and focused back on the camera. “Reports are still coming in for what some officials are already calling the largest single act of domestic terrorism in the last fifty years. Support for the people of Sunnyvale has been overflowing, coming from as far away as Aphrodite City with Dr. Townes of Ambrosia Biotech pledging medical assistance for the community. Reports are also coming in of the Red Cross receiving mass aid anonymously from various donors. Meanwhile law enforcement continues their search for the Hedonists and four Sunnyvale locals believed to have been either kidnapped or coerced into accompanying them. While unable to comment on an ongoing investigation, sources close to law enforcement officials state that the foiled attack has produced new leads into where the Hedonists may be hiding. This is Cynthia Winters, MRB News." The doe signed off with a stoic nod.

None of the reluctant heroines said a word as the television was abruptly turned off by Machine Wolf throwing the remote at the screen. All four ladies would have smiled if their current situation weren't so precarious. Clearly their captors thought they had more control over things. How silly of them, they barely had any control over anything….