Hunting Season Pt. 02 Big Game Ch. 03

Tina continued with her brief but I barely listened to her, this crazy bitch was exactly why I worked so hard to stay anonymous and she was sending me out to bring her in?

"Don't worry Ben, you are strictly backup on this one." I heard her say and snapped back to reality. What I was thinking must have shown on my face because she was trying hard to suppress a grin at my discomfort.

"Everyone should be backup on this one, in fact we should stop this meeting right now." I replied. "How the hell are we going to take down a flying, super strong, invincible, psychotic murderer who can kill us just by looking at us?"

Tina nodded as if she had expected the question and brought up another slide. This showed Homewrecker emerging from the collapsed remains of a building, one she appeared to have brought down on herself in her reckless pursuit of some criminal. Tina zoomed in on her face and a small digital enhancement showed that she was indeed bleeding. There was a trickle of blood coming from a cut on her lip.

"She is not invincible or invulnerable, just very tough. Also, that proves that while she may be superhuman, she is also human." She said with the confidence of a CEO trying to sell her investors on her next project. Well this investor was still skeptical.

"Alright, so she bleeds, well so do the rest of us. How are we going to take her down, collapse another building on her head?" I replied confidently, looking around for support.

Xin was leaning forward expectantly, hanging on Tina's every word like a hunting dog waiting for its cue. Brett was leaning back taking notes on a clip board, ever the professional accepting that he may die on the mission and planning how to do it the most effective way possible. How the hell did I get stuck with these suicidal idiots?

Tina lifted an item off of the equipment table and held it up, it was a small cylinder about the size of a camp stove propane tank with a face mask attached. "This is an aerosolized version of the sedative in Xin's injector, infused with micro bots designed to target the receptors and result in instant and sustained unconsciousness."

"Uh huh." I grunted skeptically. "So how are we going to get it on her before she kills us?"

"That will be Xin's job. Homewrecker may be powerful, but her reflexes and reactions are still those of a normal human. Xin will be able to close the distance and get the face mask attached before she can react." Tina continued, annoyed at the interruption. Xin leaned back in her chair and nodded at me confidently, ah the ignorance of youth.

"Great, but she is always at least 10' off the ground, I don't know why she bothers with boots. Unless you have a rocket pack on that table we are still out of luck. I can't influence her enough to get her to land without physical contact." I continued, confident I had just skewered her cunning plan and won a reprieve from all of this insanity.

She smiled, an evil smile of a cat who was watching a mouse scurry knowing it couldn't escape. "I have determined that while she is resistant to most forms of physical attack, she still has the other weaknesses of a normal human. She should be as vulnerable as anyone else to a sonic based attack that will debilitate her long enough for Xin to attach the mask."

"Wait, sonic? You don't mean..." I stammered.

"Yes, I need you to convince Danielle to help us." She said with a tone of finality.

Shortly after, I was in the basement standing outside the holding cell where I had last seen Danielle Von Mecham, also known as Song Bird. She was the first of the Freedom Flock that I had brought in and the only one who I had to truly break in order to keep her here. I had gone into her mind and destroyed the thing that made her a hero, the spark that drove her to use her ultrasonic powered to help people instead of just herself. She was a selfish, vain, self-centered bitch of a woman but she had been on the side of the angels until I got to work on her. Now she was like a trapped little girl, doing whatever she needed to do to survive in the house of horrors that was Dan's compound.

I nodded at the guard at the control post and the door slid open, revealing a small but well appointed living room. There was a sofa, coffee table and well equipped bar cart. Where one would normally expect a chair there was instead a divan, made of old wood and blue velvet. The kind of thing you could imagine Scarlett O'Harah reclining on while Rhett Butler and other southern gentlemen drooled over her.

I heard the shuffle of feet and Danielle sauntered out of the adjoining bedroom wearing a silk blue dressing gown and matching pyjamas, what looked like a mimosa in her hand. Long honey blonde hair was pulled over one shoulder and seductive cornflower blue eyes twinkled behind an alluring smile. "Well, I wasn't expecting company....." she drawled in a seductive voice until she saw me, then her face hardened. "And I certainly wasn't expecting you." She said with barely concealed anger.

"Hi Danielle, we need to talk." I replied with my best ingratiating smile.

She snorted politely and waved to the sofa while she moved over to the bar cart. She poured a scotch, added a teaspoon of water and handed it to me before settling herself on her divan. All southern hospitality while the only thing that kept her from blowing me to bits with her sonic scream was the diamond studded dampening collar she wore around her neck.

I looked around the small room, "Why are you still down here? Everyone else has rooms in the main house?"

"You mean everyone else has gilded cages with windows and doors they can open as long as he lets them." She replied with barely concealed contempt. "Let them play at being free, I know what we are. We are prisoners here and as long as I am a prisoner, I will act like one."

I couldn't argue with her there. Tina, Grace, Xin, they all were making the best of their situation and may actually be enjoying doing so but they lived at the whim of Dan. They each had some form of control dampening their powers and any moment he could have them all in cells much less comfortable than this.

"Then why do you do it? You are part of his security detail, screening against invisible or microscopic intruders. You have been up for dinners and parties with his VIP buyers, singing and chatting and seemed quite happy mingling with the rest of them." I asked.

I could feel the loathing coming off of her in waves, the hatred actually pushed me back a bit before I could get a grip on it. "I do what I need to do to survive in this place, just like they do. I just don't have any illusions about my value. He owns me, so I work for him but I don't have to enjoy it." She snapped. She raised her drink to her lips, then changed her mind and set it gently but firmly down on the coffee table.

"We need your help with a job, something big but offsite." I replied, leaning forward and trying to project calm into her.

"So? You don't really have to ask do you. Get my little leash holder with the control tablet and point me at who you want screamed at." She replied haughtily.

"I would rather it be a bit more consensual than that. There may be a need for independent action and I don't want you thinking about whether you want to help at each instance. What do you want, what can I do to get you on board with us?" I replied, still trying to push calm against the waves of anger and resentment that were flowing off of her.

"Let me go." She said simply. "Take this collar off of me and once the job is done we never see each other again."

"And Grace, Tina, Xin, what happens to them? You know that Dan won't break up the set and will hold them accountable if you do disappear." I countered, and probed lightly, there was something else going on here.

"They have made their choices, let them live with them." She shot back, grabbing her drink and taking a long sip.

She didn't want to cut out on them, I could feel that on her, she just wanted something else. "We both know that you won't do that Danielle. You can lie to yourself but you know you can't lie to me. What would it take to get you onside?"

"What does it matter, just have him grunt and wave that fat hand of his. I am worse than a prisoner, I am his slave. I am his lounge singer act brought out to entertain him and his guests on demand. I am his whore, cozying up to whomever he deems worthy of bedding me at the time. Even a prisoner has rights, I am nothing more than a body and a mouth." She shouted, throwing her glass against the wall. I could see the diamonds on her collar flare as the worked to suppress her sonic scream. She collapsed, sobbing into her hands.

"Get out, please just leave me alone." She sobbed.

I stood and moved over to her, resting my hand on her shoulder comfortingly. I didn't slip into her mind, I didn't think I had to yet. Lets do this the hard way.

"Danielle, what if I could fix all that? I can't get you out of here but I can make your stay better."

She looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy from her tears. "Don't lie to me." She said softly.

"I'm not. This is a big job, and we need you. Between Tina and I we can probably convince Dan that the price is you perform by choice not demand, and you don't have to 'entertain' anyone you don't want to." I said reassuringly.

She stiffened under my hand, wiping tears from her eyes. "You mean if I play their little game, I don't get treated like a slave? Thanks a lot."

I sat down beside her, she shuffled aside to keep from touching me. "I mean that for the time being, you are stuck here. Why not make the best of it? Who are you punishing besides yourself by staying down here? There is no 'Free Grace Von Mecham' campaign fighting for you out there."

She sniffed, but then replied stiffly. "A gilded cage is still a cage."

"Then how about a move to 'minimum security'?" I touched her hand and slid into her mind.

I was in a night club, actually it was the night club where Grace had first introduced me to her the night before I took her but it had definitely seen better days. Half of the lights were out and the rest were too bright leaving garish light and ominous shadows at random. The furniture was scratched and torn and the stale smell of mildew filled the air. On the stage, under a garish white spotlight, Danielle sang in a hoarse crackling voice to the empty room.

I walked up to her, or at least her mental image of herself. She was old, her hair coloured with a bad dye job. Her skin sagged on her face and her stained and ragged cocktail dress hung off of her emaciated frame. A cigarette smoldered in one hand and a glass half full of cheap booze was held in the other.

'Hey stranger' she croaked. 'Been a while since I saw you here.'

'So, this is what you think of yourself now is it? A washed up old woman performing for an empty venue?'

'This is what you made me.' She snarled back. 'A cheap whore trying to survive on the crumbs of her talents.'

'No, this is what you made you. The rest of them are in the same position and aren't wallowing in self pity like this.' I pushed back and she snorted, then started coughing.

'What does it matter what I think. It won't change anything.' She said mournfully.

I waved my hand and imposed a new image on the nightclub, the image I remembered from that evening. The lights softened, the furniture gleamed in the candlelight and the room filled with people. I looked over to Danielle and waved my hand again, her skin tightened and toned, her dress filled out as her body became the voluptuous vamp who I sat beside me and her hair regained its natural luster.

'This is who you are, not the person you have imagined yourself out to be. Don't let your circumstances dictate that.' I told her.

She looked around wistfully, then snorted again. 'Still a golden cage, an illusion to mask the bars and the gatekeeper.'

'You mean Igor?' I replied softly, and on cue an evil chuckle came from backstage.

She screamed and spun around, eyes darting in terror at the shadows. Igor was a construct of her nightmares that I used to break her and then left here to keep her under control. He was the worst of every man she could imagine and she had spent what felt like an eternity having him rape her in her mind. Now, all it took was the mention of his name and he could be brought forward to destroy her again.

'I will take him away, you will never have to fear him again.' I said, resting my hand on her shaking shoulder.

She pushed back against me fearfully as another sickening laugh came from the shadows. 'Then you will just put him back whenever you want.' She said in a trembling voice.

I sighed, I had run out of carrots so now it was time to show the stick. I tilted a spotlight to shine on the dark patch where Igor's laugh had come from and heard Danielle whimper in terror as he was revealed. He was a brutal ogre of a man, covered in dark coarse hair and lumped with more muscle than anyone could really have and still be able to move. His tiny piggy eyes gleamed hungrily under his shaggy eyebrows and he licked thick cracked lips with a thick slimy tongue. One hand held a pair of pliers, the other a lit propane torch and a massive cock bulged from beneath a dirty leather kilt. The rank odor of sweat and dried semen oozed off of him to fill the previously pleasant air.

'Your choice Danielle. You can help us, and earn a reprieve from everything you hate about this place, or I can leave now so you and Igor here can have some quality time together.' I said with an impatient voice.

She sobbed in fear, collapsing to the floor and trying to crawl behind my body. I let her, I wanted her to see me as a protector not a threat. 'Do you promise, do you promise to take him away!' she wailed.

I turned off the light, shrouding Igor in shadows again then turned and crouched to look in her tear filled eyes. 'Danielle, I will do better than that. I will let you destroy him yourself.'

She tensed, then looked up at me with undisguised hope for a moment before she composed herself. I helped her to her feet and soon the familiar Danielle Von Mecham, Song Bird was standing before me. I pulled out of her mind and we were sitting on the divan again but now she was pressed hard against me.

She shuffled back, not as far this time, and looked over at me with a determined expression. "If I do this, help you, then here is what I want. No more 'performances', no more 'VIP treatment', understood?"

"You will have to earn your keep here, Dan is not a charitable person, but I will ensure that everything you do is by your choice and you can say no but there may be consequences." I countered.

"Consequences I can accept, slavery I can't. Also, I want a guest house, not just a bedroom on the second floor. The one down by the lake, and a renovation budget." She continued. There was the Danielle I knew, always had to be better than everyone else.

"I will see what I can do, but you have to explain it to the others." I conceded.

She stood and extended her hand "Then we have a deal Mr. Comber."

I stood and took it, shaking it firmly and politely. She held my grip after the handshake, her fingers squeezing gently. "You are quite the negotiator, I am sure you could talk me into just about anything." She said in a sultry voice.

I smiled, then removed my hand from her grasp. "Briefing in one hour, I am looking forward to working with you Ms. Mecham." I replied respectfully.

She smiled knowingly "I heard that Grace had her claws into you. Oh well, I love a challenge." She purred and slid her fingers up my chest and over my shoulder as she slunk into the bedroom to dress. Great, I know just how patient and understanding Latina's are about other women hitting on their boyfriends. I was glad Grace wasn't part of this mission or one of them wouldn't be coming back.

A few days later and Danielle and I were crouched behind a dumpster in an alley across from an abandoned building waiting for the target to arrive. I saw the last of the three wanted criminals arrive and step inside. They had been contacted to pull off a job, but actually were being used as bait to bring in Homewrecker. 'Two birds with one stone, and we can control the location to minimize the risk to civilians' she had said. Good plan, except for the part of me hiding behind a dumpster in a low income neighborhood part.

"You sure know how to treat a lady." Danielle muttered.

"Hey, take it up with Tina. She's the brains." I whispered back, nervously reaching out with my mind trying to sense everything in the area with my frustratingly limited abilities. Killer Clown had been bad enough but at least she couldn't crush my head like a grape.

"Target en route, approaching from southwest at 400 feet." I heard someone say through the earbud microphone. I focused my mind in that direction and picked up on the feeling of righteous determination that I was told to expect from our target.

A few seconds later and Homewrecker descended to street level, hovering her usual 10-15 feet above the ground. Her skin tight white and gold bodysuit showed me a well formed woman with long lean legs and a muscular ass. Her short cape billowed gently in the breeze, accompanied by the long braids of her black hair. I couldn't see her face, she was facing away from us looking at the building where our bait targets had entered a few minutes ago.

"Wait for it." I whispered into the throat mike. "Remember her MO, she will posture and call for them to surrender before she does anything. We hit her when she is distracted with her monologue."

"I know you are in there, come out and give yourself up and you won't be hurt." I heard her call to the abandoned building. "If you make me come in after you, I won't be responsible for what happens....."

"Now" I said, tapping Danielle on the shoulder. She stood up from behind the dumpster and screamed.

Windows shattered in the building we were facing and I saw cracks appear in the brickwork. If it wasn't for the noise cancelling earbuds I was wearing I would be rolling on the ground in pain, and I was behind her. 'Lady Justice' had no such protection.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhh" I felt her scream in my mind as she clamped her hands over her ears and fell to the ground.

"Now Xin." I yelled, the throat mike picking it up because nothing other than Song Bird's sonic scream could be heard in the area.

I saw an iridescent streak appear from nowhere and suddenly Xin was there beside the collapsed form who was rolling on the ground in pain. I saw a scarlet beam of energy explode from Homewrecker's eyes but Xin easily dodged it and pressed the mask to her face.

"Mask is in place but I don't have a seal. Her hair is in the way." I heard over the earbud in Xin's rapid fire speech. "Give me a sec...accchhhhhh!"

My head popped up at the strangled sound and I saw Homewrecker had Xin by the throat, one hand still clasped to her head buy the other wrapped around the small woman's neck.

"Oh Shit!" I exclaimed as I tapped the box in my pocket and felt the nanobots flow over me. I don't know what this vest would do to protect me, but I felt better with it on. "Keep it up!" I told Danielle as I darted forward. She nodded, but I could see the strain on her face. She was flushed and her scream was already faltering, she may be a super hero with a sonic voice but she still needed to breathe.

I dashed forward, cursing Tina fucking Stane for getting me into this mess. I had spent a lifetime avoiding situations just like this one and here I was being sucked in AGAIN because some redheaded bitch's cunning plan had gone off the rails.

Xin was struggling, one hand tugging feebly at the powerful wrist of the psycho who had her buy the throat, the other desperately trying to hold the anesthetic mask in place. I could see that the gas was starting to work, Homewrecker was beginning to slump down but not fast enough. If Xin lost her grip it would be all over for all of us.