Shackles Ch. 02

Trinity bristled at that. Nothing Eleanor fucking Quinn was doing should count as 'charity' - not that a tool like Radiance would ever listen, or care. "I could say the same to you," she retorted, still breathing hard. Radiance wasn't, annoyingly. "Your haircut looks like shit."

Radiance just laughed. "Bullshit all you want. I'm bringing you in, Shimmer. And this time I'm going to make sure you can't brainwash your way out of this. I'll make sure the cops know how to handle you properly. You're going away for good.

"Fuck you I am," Trinity barked, and threw herself at the superheroine.

It was literally the only thing she could think of that might take the golden-haired hero off-guard. Actually tackling Radiance would probably have been about as effective as trying to tackle a tree, which was why at the last moment, Trinity lunged to one side, and instead slammed the palm of her hand into Radiance's chest. And even that would have been pitifully futile, had it not been for the fact that Trinity had infused her hand with the full force of her shimmer.

Pleasingly, as her palm connected, she saw bolts of purple light spread across Radiance's body, and she felt the hero buckle backwards, just a little. Euphoria bubbled up in Trinity's mind. Maybe this was actually going to work. Maybe she really was going to be able to wipe that smirk from the obnoxious blonde's face. She knew that against someone of her caliber, she wouldn't be able to do more than stun, but that might be enough. She just needed to keep her momentum going. Trinity pounded one foot in front of the other, not looking back. The exit was so close. That was all she needed. A few more seconds. Then she could just-

Trinity's face slammed into the ground as she was yanked back by one of her ankles.

That fucking superhero willpower.

She looked down, hoping it would only be a hand. It wasn't. Trinity's stomach sank as she saw that, wrapped around her leg, was a golden manacle, fastened tight, at the end of a long, golden chain held at the other end by the superheroine who was now looking at her with an expression that was almost pitying.

It was over. That chain was Radiance's ace in the hole.

"That's enough of that," Radiance told her firmly. And it simply was.

In a single instant, all of Trinity's will to fight simply drained away, and it felt like a ten ton weight was being draped all across her body. Trinity groaned as she slumped to the floor. She wanted to fight it, but she couldn't. No-one could fight Radiance's golden chain. She could manifest it out of thin air, and once it was wrapped around you, that was it. She was in control. Trinity balled up her fists. It wasn't fair.

Maybe the worst part was that she actually didn't want to fight. She couldn't. The chain wouldn't let her. It was in her head, and 'that's enough' felt like an iron commandment. Enough fighting. Enough struggle. Enough resistance. She wanted to want to fight, maybe, but what good was that? The first couple of times she'd fallen victim to Radiance's chain, she'd tried with all her mind to throw off its influence. It had earned her nothing but a vicious, throbbing headache.

Now, she'd all but given up.

"On your knees," Radiance commanded, striding towards her.

Through gritted teeth, Trinity obeyed. Again, she simply couldn't help it. Pushing herself upright by her hands and clambering onto her knees felt utterly inevitable. It was like she had chains around all her limbs, pulling her into place like a marionette, and trying to stop it would have been like trying to stop the tides coming in. Her limbs simply obeyed Radiance's wishes rather than her own. The superpowered villain did her best to keep her face even as Radiance loomed over her, but the sudden sense of powerlessness she now felt was making her nauseous. How had it all gone wrong so fast?

"Pathetic," Radiance judged, face scrunched up in a look of ugly contempt.

In that moment, Trinity truly felt pathetic. She felt small, and Radiance felt every bit as invincible and indomitable as her reputation. She'd encountered the hero before, but every time, she forgot how it felt, just a little. Radiance walked through the world like she needed no armor but her own righteousness. In her presence, it was impossible not to feel like she was something legendary, like a divine hero out of some kind of fairytale. Before her, you were either innocent or guilty, and even the guilty quivered in fear at her judgment.

Not that Trinity was going to betray any of that. She did her best to arrange her face into a look that she hoped would come across as cool and subversive, in an underdog defeated villain kind of way.

"Yeah?" she shot back. "That's pretty rich, coming from the girl who-"

"Shut up," Radiance told her, and Trinity's jaw slammed shut. "Someone like you has nothing worthwhile to say."

Trinity recoiled like she'd been slapped. She swiftly discovered that she could open her mouth again, but she couldn't speak. At most, all that would come out of her mouth was a weak, strangled gasp. Trinity wasn't surprised that indignity left her seething, but she was surprised that it also made her cheeks burn with an unfamiliar feeling: humiliation. Trinity was used to being defeated, but not to feeling like that. She didn't consider defeat humiliating. It was the way of the world. Heroes beating villains. Everyone knew that. But this... this was different, somehow.

Radiance was different.

She'd always had a massive stick up her ass, sure, but in the past, she'd been far more by-the-book. All about cuffing Trinity as quickly as possible and getting the cops to take her away. Not standing over her to call her 'pathetic' and glare at her with a strange look in her eyes. Trinity found herself squirming in a way she couldn't remember doing since childhood, trying to press her legs together, making her body small and closed. It didn't help. She felt like Radiance could see right through her.

"Why?" Radiance growled, stamping back and forth in front of Trinity, clearly agitated. "Why do you villains do this? You're like animals. Again, and again, and again, no matter how many times I stop you. Each time, sinking lower. Can't you just leave the good people of this city alone? I should just... just..."

For a moment, Trinity was afraid to see what the superhero might say. She'd never felt so utterly impotent. But then, Radiance seemed to recover a little of her composure.

"Ugh." She clenched her fists tight, and then made herself slowly relax them. "It doesn't matter. You don't matter. The cops can deal with you, just like always."

Trinity was almost relieved to hear that. An unhinged super-bitch was more than she ever wanted to deal with, thank you very much. But her relief turned to ashes when she saw movement on stage, behind Radiance.

It was the security guard. The one she'd bewitched. Trinity's eyes went wide with panic as she remembered what she'd told him to do.

"You'll- what?" Radiance was quick to notice where she was looking, and turned to find herself looking at a man in uniform, a big, mindless smile on his face and purple shimmering in his eyes.

Right as he dropped a lit match into the donation box.

'If I can't have it, neither can Eleanor Quinn'. That had been Trinity's thinking. Some of it would be replaced, of course. Some of the checks that were now burning to cinders would be rewritten. But not all, and that was to say nothing of the cash donations, or the celebrity memorabilia to be sold at auction. Trinity couldn't guess quite how much money was going up in flames, right there before their eyes, but it had to be tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe hundreds of thousands. The sight should have brought her satisfaction. It didn't. All she could think about was the unnatural stillness that had come over Radiance.

She made no move to try and salvage the donations. Clearly, she knew it was already too late. When she turned back to Trinity, her lips were pressed into a thin, cold, line.

"You..." she began ominously. Trinity wanted so badly to be able to say something, anything, but her throat was still as frozen as her body.

Radiance could do anything she wanted with her.

"Clearly, I was wrong," Radiance continued slowly. Her voice was ice. "The cops can't handle you. There are no depths to which you will not sink, and you keep slipping away from justice, again and again. The system can't handle you. Only I can."

And with that, she lifted the helpless Trinity into her arms, and carried her up into the sky, borne on angelic wings.