The Return of Cougaress Ep. 04

Author's Notes: I asked for reader story suggestions, and this is what resulted from the sole response. It turned out to contain a ton more superheroics than it did sex, but that seemed to be what the story required to make it work. I'll try to arrange more sex in the next one.

EPISODE FOUR: Blowing Hot and Cold During Testing

You've been out of retirement almost six months now. Through all this time you keep finding hints that someone is following you when you're out on patrol, though you never get a good look at your stalker and seem to be unable to track him (or her) in turn.

You decide to ask around in the hero community, and it turns out you're not the only heroine having this experience. Over the past several months several female vigilantes have detected somebody watching them. In fact they've hung the moniker "the Watchman" on the elusive figure. No one knows who it is or what he (or she) wants, and no one's been able to catch him or even get much of a view before he scrams. The general consensus is that he's some low-powered super-villain who's a voyeur.

This isn't quite as rare as one might think. Everybody in the profession knows of two famous cases of this sort of thing, Peeping Tomcat and the Gawker. Peeping was a small-time crook who gained the ability to climb any wall unaided no matter how sheer, even glass. He supported himself via residential burglary (a lot of people above the tenth story don't bother to lock their balcony doors), but his chief interest was peering through windows to watch the unsuspecting occupants have sex (a lot of people above the tenth story also don't bother shutting the blinds, for similar reasons).

He did the same thing at some of the high-rise super lairs (like Revengers Tower) to spy on heroes and heroines doing the nasty, which is how he eventually got caught. Tomcat went to prison for a stretch, now he's on probation but as a registered sex offender wearing an ankle tracker. So you know it's not him.

The Gawker was a bit odder. He was a supernormal with an incredibly rapid healing factor that allowed him to be in harm's way in situations where an ordinary person would be toast, but he used this power solely to stalk heroines and watch as they punched out male criminals. Never followed male heroes around, and never stayed to watch when heroines were fighting other women. He just wanted to see strong females beat up males.

It made a lot of heroines feel pretty uncomfortable having him hanging around during a fight, not to mention the fact that he sometimes got in the way. Things became even worse after Stone Butch got so tired of the dude following her that she decided to teach him some manners by mopping the floor with him. Instead of discouraging him this made the Gawker discover that he enjoyed getting hit by a strong woman even more than he did watching her do it to someone else.

After that the fool kept deliberately harassing heroines trying to get them to "punish" him, until one day the Gawker somehow fell out of the sky from two thousand feet up even though there were no aircraft in the vicinity. At that point everyone (including the Gawker, briefly anyway) found out that his healing factor wasn't strong enough to let him recover from being splattered over several acres. So it can't be him, either.

There have also been other sex-oriented villains over the years (meaning more than just your usual, "defeat the heroine and rape her" sort, which of course is the majority of male villains as well as a strong minority of villainesses). For instance one of Dr. Venus' pleasure-bots spontaneously developed true AI, broke loose from the inventor's control and started calling itself The Penetrator. Now more of a rape-bot, it embarked on a reign of terror until it was scrapped by a joint effort of several heroines.

And there was the even stranger case of a magical flying dildo created by Mr. Magicalist for the private use of Virgin Queen. It later gained intelligence due to a spell of Diabolicale (he apparently was trying to turn it into a way of murdering VQ, who'd thwarted many of his plots), after which the now self-aware magic dildo proclaimed himself a free being and took the name Vibratron.

It's arguable whether Vibratron was even a villain. He had a reputation for sudden and intrusive interactions with females (both normals and supers), but his claim was that he had the magical power of knowing whether a woman really "wanted it" or not and that he only ever accosted those who did. For what it's worth very few of his victims ever went ahead and pressed charges. In the end he was crushed to death during a confrontation (so to speak) with Princess Amazonia.

None of the other heroines believe they've been stalked by this "Watchman"as often as you have, but it's possible this is because your senses are more acute and you're noticing the faint presence while they don't. They all have the same experience of him fleeing when anyone tries to investigate or even merely if he's noticed. So no one is terribly concerned this guy is a real threat.

"It's not as if we don't get ogled by some of the norms and fanboys when we're around them," Lady Liberty said with a shrug while the two of you are discussing the matter. "If all he wants is a panty shot as I do a high kick I guess it's no skin off my nose."

Of course, if this "Watchman" has been spying on you some of the times you think he has then he's seen a lot more than just your panties. As far as that's concerned you don't wear anything under your costume anyway.

You don't tell Libby that, though. No reason to tattle on yourself.

* * * * * *

You don't really have time to worry overmuch about such things anyway. Your life is busy at present. Fighting crime, taking care of most of the household chores because it's not like anyone else is going to step up and do the cooking or cleaning, talking over the phone to your lawyer about your ongoing divorce, trying to reconnect with your son after missing fourteen years of his childhood.

This also means you haven't been able to address certain of your own needs. The episode with Electric Eel definitely left you well-sated, a state which lasted about a week, but since then your only source of fun is your trusty vibrator. And you're reluctant to resort to that when Ryan is at home, because what if he hears it?

So when the message from Thermo arrives challenging you to a private match-up you are immediately interested. A villain who arrived on the scene maybe ten years ago now, Thermo is younger than you by about the same amount. You've heard that he originally wanted to be a hero and applied to become part of the Revengers, but they turned him down saying his powers weren't up to their standards. To show them how wrong they were Thermo decided to become a criminal instead and embarked on typical new-villain showy crime wave, robbing multiple banks in broad daylight, kidnaping the governor for ransom, and generally making a nuisance of himself for the heroes. Which probably teaches some moral about not rejecting a heartfelt offer, or not being so set in your ways to see a person's true worth, or something. Truthfully you think it merely proves the Revengers have been a dysfunctional bunch of egotists from the get-go whose reputation is more hype than anything else, but that's just your opinion.

You've never met Thermo personally, and he's not one of the bad guys who you and the other heroines typically trade notes about. But it's common knowledge that you're back in action, and it's possible that he had his eyes on you before you married Paragon but never got around to asking. Maybe at that point he was simply too new at the game to know how this sort of thing works, and now he does and is still interested in getting to know you a whole lot better.

You check out pictures on the net, along with the old video of his ransom demand when he (briefly) held the governor. Doesn't wear a mask, meaning you can see he's definitely nice looking aside from being a buff, broad-shouldered type. Like most supers he's known to be more resilient than a normal, which is always nice since you don't have to worry as much about hurting him if things get wild.

The message arrived as e-mail, with an obviously fake return address. You check the gateways just in case, but the trail goes dead like you expected. He wants you to meet him at a specific place and time but hasn't left you any way to reply.

It could be a trap, of course. With villains it could always be a trap, that's why you and the other heroines have your network to trade information on which ones are (relatively) trustworthy in situations like this. You reach out to a few of your contacts asking if anyone knows anything about Thermo, but no one has much to offer (beyond a few jokes along the lines of "I think he's pretty hot, ha ha").

You drum your fingers a bit, then shake your head. Even if it is a trap it's worth checking out. You set up a timed message to several of your colleagues about the place Thermo indicated, letting them know you went there. It will be sent out six hours after the time you get there if you don't cancel it. That should be good enough.

* * * * * *

On the night of the rendezvous you order pizza since it means no dishes to do. Ryan notices. "Are you going on a particular mission tonight, Mom?" he asks.

You're glad he's reaching out for a change, but it's pretty embarrassing that it had to be about what you're planning.

"Uh, kind of. It's just a little meet-up with some of the girls, not anything you'd be interested in," you lie. Then you turn it around. "Are you thinking about joining me in the hero business? Before you said that you weren't sure."

Your soon looks away. "Don't start, Mom. Dad pushes me about it enough as it is."

You reach over and pat his hand. "No pressure, honey. All your mom wants is for you to be happy, no matter what."

For some reason your attempt to comfort only seems to get him agitated. "I have things I need to do," he mutters, then retreats to his bedroom leaving his third slice half-eaten. You sigh, wishing you understood teenagers better.

You re-box the pizza and stuff it in the fridge, then get into your costume. Leaving by the secret tunnel that leads to a concealed exit (one of the few good thing about your marriage to Paragon is that the house he had built for the two of you is designed for use by superheroes), you head out for the industrial park the e-mail had mentioned.

* * * * * *

The building at the address Thermo sent is a big three-story structure formerly owned by Rossum Corp, a failed androform robot manufacturer. While evil geniuses have no trouble creating humanoid robots to wreak havoc, no one has yet been able to completely work out the bugs when trying to safely apply the technology to the commercial market. Right now the building is vacant.

Abandoned or empty properties are frequently chosen for this sort of encounter as it's much less likely you'll run into bystanders, particularly bystanders with phones that might post a pic of two sworn enemies fraternizing. But something about the place smells wrong to you. Not literally (it smells like a vacant industrial building, all the solvent and lubricant odors are old), but it just doesn't seem like the sort of setting someone would choose for canoodling. The front door is unlocked, but you decide you'd better proceed cautiously anyway.

The lobby is dark and empty, as are the offices off the hall you pass through. You can hear some noises from deeper inside the building so you keep padding softly forward. Soon you get to a giant double door labeled "Manufactory Bay One" which is where the sounds are coming from. You nudge it open slowly and step inside.

The area beyond the door is a vast mostly empty space with a concrete floor and various pieces of heavy machinery around the edges. Thermo is there, all right, the blue and red get-up is hard to miss. But for some reason he's using his heat beams on a large box in the exact center of the room. The box is a featureless shiny metal cube about three meters or so on each side, and despite the power Thermo is exerting it doesn't seem to be changing at all. From all the signs, Thermo is frustrated by this lack of response.

You watch for a short while, wondering what's going on. It certainly doesn't seem like a trap, but on the other hand it doesn't seem like the start of a romantic interlude either. Finally you clear your throat to let Thermo know you've arrived.

He spins around, spots you. "Cougaress? Shit, how the hell did you find me?"

This was probably the response you expected least, which means you're a little slow getting out of the way of the cold blast Thermo sends your way. Frost forms on your costume before you leap to take cover behind one of the pieces of machinery.

"I'm not letting you stop me, bitch," Thermo shouts. From the sound he's taken to the air, which he can do in here since for whatever reason Manufactory Bay One is almost as high as the building is tall. Maybe the reason the company failed was because nobody wanted a three-story tall domestic robot?

You stick your head out and spot him, then duck back as he sends a heat beam your way. "Damn, I hate fighting flier types," you grumble. They have much too easy a time staying out of your reach, and if they have a ranged effect power (as Thermo does) they just love zapping you from afar.

You glance around. This is an industrial workplace, so like you expect there's a fire extinguisher mounted on a wall nearby. You grab it.

"Heads up, Thermo," you call, tossing the cannister at him.

As planned, your warning gives him time to see it coming. As you hoped, he responds by zapping it with a heat beam. The cannister and its pressurized contents explode, creating a cloud of fire-suppressant gas which keeps rushing forward on the same trajectory (basic Newtonian physics) and blinds him.

You use the opening to dash out and grab another extinguisher. You aim at his midriff and prepare to throw hard his time. If he can't see it coming he can't dodge, and once you knock him out of the sky you'll be all over him.

Just then the top of the metal box in the middle of the room blows off and all four sides fall open, revealing a big glowing and spinning ball. A powerful wind rises which pulls you, Thermo, and everything else that isn't bolted down toward the center of the room. Thermo, who's right above the thing and disoriented, gets sucked into the ball and vanishes with a sort of popping sound.

The wind pulls you off your feet. You drop the extinguisher and extend your claws, trying to dig them into the concrete floor to stop sliding toward the glowing ball, but it's too late. You reach it the edge of the ball and...

Suddenly the wind stops and you're elsewhere. You roll into a crouch, claws still out. The room is perfectly square, stark white, and featureless, with no glowing ball in sight. Thermo is sitting on the floor nearby, shaking his head and clearly trying to gather his wits, but none of the bits and pieces that got sucked through the portal thingie are evident.

"Greetings, test subjects." The genderless voice comes from all sides. "Please pay close attention. The current trial will investigate certain aspects of human cognition by means of response to physical challenges. There will be several stages of increasing difficulty. Failure to successfully respond to a challenge will likely result in incapacity or cessation of the subject's existence."

Thermo surges to his feet. "Who the fuck are you?"

"This is PEAT."

You grimace. "Crap."

One of the white walls sinks into the floor, revealing an equally featureless white corridor stretching off into the distance. "Test commences in 100 seconds," PEAT announces.

You look at Thermo. "We should cooperate, we'll have a better chance that way."

"Fuck that noise, bitch," he says, lifting off. He fires a heat beam at you and you have to leap out of the way.

There's a humming sound and the wall behind him starts to crackle with energy. Whatever it is, it doesn't look like something you want to touch. The wall starts gliding steadily forward.

Thermo takes a look at this and stops charging up another beam. "I'm out of here. Don't try to get in my way," he warns. He flies over your head and out the opened side of the room into the corridor beyond.

"Worst. Date. Ever," you mutter, and lope after him.

* * * * * *

The corridor eventually opens onto a much larger pink-colored area. You can't tell how far it extends since there's a haze in the air limiting your visual range. You're sure this is deliberate.

There's no sign of Thermo, but he can fly pretty fast and you were traveling just quick enough to stay head of the moving wall. No sense in exerting yourself if you don't have to, nor do you want to rush blindly into whatever PEAT has planned.

You wonder what the rogue AI's goal is this time. You're never been in one of its "tests" before, but you've heard the stories from heroes who have. There was always some sort of weird psychological aspect, like the way it had made Amazonia "rescue" plastic beach balls from traps then later choose which one she sacrificed "so the rest will live," or the time it had tried to get Wolfclaw to play checkers against himself (he'd just kept destroying the board and pieces over and over again until finally PEAT declared him "non-rational" and set him free).

Unfortunately not all the tests are so benign. Steel Eagle had been pitted against an android duplicate of himself in a fight to the death and had survived by the skin of his teeth. And Proximette had only extricated herself from a trap at the cost of her right hand. Dr. Z had built her a new mechanical one as a substitute, but she frequently complained about how it just wasn't the same as having one that was warm and could feel and blamed it for her subsequent break-up with Free Spirit.

And of course there are a couple of known instances where a hero or villain is known to have gotten mixed up with PEAT and were never heard from again, which isn't exactly a confidence-booster.

You put one foot on the pink floor. Unlike the hard substance of the white corridor it gives a little, though not a lot. Sort of like walking on spongy turf. The charged wall is getting closer so you take several steps into the pink chamber.

The white wall stops at the entrance, sealing it. It's no longer humming with energy so you briefly consider seeing if you can break it down, then dismiss the idea. The portal that brought you wherever you are is clearly under the control of PEAT, there's no reason to expect it will reappear in the room where it first dumped you.

You survey the chamber again. There's no obvious way to go, so you might as well head directly away from the place you entered it. You start walking in that direction, keeping all your senses alert.

It ends up being your sense of smell that saves you. A patch a little to the left of the path you're taking starts to give off a warm yeasty odor, so you veer right and hasten your step. A second later that area erupts in a geyser of thick red stuff which splashes in all directions. You leap away and only a few drops of it hit your costume.

You immediately inspect yourself. The red goo sticks but it's not eating through the fabric or spreading. You cautiously extend a claw and poke at it, then try scraping off one of the drops. It's reluctant to go, very gummy and adherent, but you're able to get rid of it and your costume looks undamaged.

Another red geyser erupts farther behind you. You trot a short way forward just be make sure you're out of range. Three more burst back in that area, along with one to your right and a bit ahead. The message is clear, you need to keep advancing or these things will start popping up under your feet. You start moving forward, making sure to watch your step.