The Return of Cougaress Ep. 08

Author's Notes: For those of you who don't check the category or the tags, this is an incest story. If you hate that sort of thing don't read it.

This is very likely the last of these. It's been fun, but I don't have any more adventures in mind for our heroine now that I've completed the story arc I had in mind. Hope you enjoyed.

EPISODE 8: Can't Blame A Man For Watching. Well, You Could, But...

You head home after getting a confirmation from the police that they're on the way to look for the bodies of Tyrell's victims. You're tired, and not just physically. Once you get back you take a long shower and crawl into bed.

You can't sleep. Your encounter with Tyrell's ghost makes you think about the way your own life has gone. Tyrell thought that gaining special powers would change everything and make his dreams come true. You were never as deluded as that, but when you gained the powers that allowed you to become Cougaress you still made the assumption that becoming a heroine was the right thing for you. Everything changed when you did that, all right. But if anything the dreams you once had about your future only got further away.

You tend not to dwell on this, partly because it's just too depressing. Most of the time you concentrate on the upsides. You never became a veterinarian, but the career you did pursue is exciting, often a lot of fun, and at times quite fulfilling in terms of the positive effect you have on others. There are lots of people who look up to you, in fact you even have fanclubs devoted to you. You're a goddamn superhero, which certainly isn't something most people can say about their day-job.

Your private life, on the other hand? Pretty much totally fucked-up.

You've never met another person who you can think of as your life-partner. Almost all the relationships you've had have been with other heroes, and those always end up being enjoyable but not real love (like with Hellione), or you think it could be love then end up finding out he's not the person you thought he was (like with Paragon, that rat-bastard). After years of doing this you know enough about all the heroes out there that you don't hold on to any hope that one of them is truly meant for you.

Villains on the other hand are just too unstable for you to consider anything long-term with one. Thermo was nice enough, but during the course of your interaction with him he went from wanting to kill you to wanting to go steady with you to deciding to dump you, all in the space of a few hours. And he's one of the saner ones. You don't think there's any chance of finding your soulmate in that crowd.

There's always the option of trying to date normals again, of course. But you'd have to hold back physically all the time, and you feel that romantic love just isn't right without passion. It really seems like you've gotten to the point in your life where you need to admit there's no one out there for you. And there never will be, thanks to the unasked-for gift from Bast you got as a teenager.

After quite a while of tossing and turning while these unhappy notions fill your brain you finally get to sleep. When you wak in the morning your thoughts start down the same disagreeable path, so after your workout and breakfast you get into costume and head out on patrol to try and distract yourself by finding some evil-doers to beat on.

Going to work like this takes your mind off your problems, at least as long as you're out on patrol. When you're home, the way the house is empty with Ryan away makes you feel lonelier than ever. You spend a great deal of time out patrolling over the next few days, but you have to rest sometimes.

One thing you notice while you're out that does bother you is that you no longer seem to have a stalker. You don't get a single hint that the Watchman is tailing you at any point. You casually ask the other heroines about it, but none of them has noticed him around recently either. You feel a little better after you hear this, at least you haven't lost your ardent admirer to a rival.

Not that you're sure he's really an admirer, or that you have rivals for his admiration, or... Okay, you admit it, this must be all in your head. This mystery man follows you around, at one point saves you from a hostile alien (which he might have had any number of reasons to do, including simple humanitarianism), and now you've invented this big romantic infatuation he has for you out of whole cloth. Probably because deep inside you're hoping for exactly this sort of thing to magically happen and rescue you from your lonely life. Even worse, it looks like you're developing a crush on the heroic figure of the Watchman you've created in your own mind.

You shake your head at how pathetic you're being. True, you've had a long, bad run as far as your love life is concerned. Even before Paragon came into the picture you already had the sense that the chance for true romance in your life was fading, that was a big reason why you accepted his proposal. You hoped Paragon would be the one to change that, but now you're sure that your marriage with him was loveless (at least on his side) all along. You spent years with a husband who never truly fulfilled your emotional or physical needs, and once you got pregnant you got even less from the relationship; no sex, no romance, no supportiveness, not even the satisfactions you used to get from the heroine biz. Your only consolation at that point was raising your little boy, then your fucking ex-husband went stole even that from you, taking Ryan away and bringing him back a teenager!

So, yeah, recently you've trying to rebuild your life from the ashes of your failed marriage and not making much headway. Maybe that's the reason you created this fantasy about a man you don't know, who in point of fact has never even spoken out loud to you. But sweet fantasies are not what you need, nor do you need to wallow in self-pity or your regrets over what might have been. You're not dead yet, and you are not about to give up on life until you are.

The hell with thinking about this nonsense! You peer out over the city from your high vantage point and snarl, daring a criminal to show his face. You're Cougaress, damn it. You're a first-class hero, you're a fierce, independent woman, and (according to more than one independent judgement over the past few months) you're still pretty fucking hot for a middle-aged mom. And you know what? You're going to grab the world by the throat and demand that it cough up the life you deserve!

[]

The next day you go get out of bed and go to the kitchen to find that Ryan is home from his camping trip, sitting at the kitchen table having some cereal. You welcome him back with a hug and see that he's got faint bruises on his face. "Oh, my god! Ryan, what happened?"

He gives you a rueful grin. "We decided to try rock climbing and I lost my grip. Found out once again that my powers don't include flight."

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry," you say, gently touching his face. "Does it hurt?"

"Nah, I'm pretty much healed up," he replies. "Looks a lot worse than it is. Good thing it was me who fell and not one of the other guys. They would have broken their faces on the rocks, but for me it was mostly vice versa."

This only makes you more upset. "You got hurt that bad? How high up were you? Shouldn't you have been using a safety line? What if..."

He turns his face down to his cereal bowl. "Stop nagging me about it, Mom. I'm fine, aren't I?"

You sigh. "I can't help worrying about you, Ryan. I love you."

"I know," he says to the cereal. "Sorry, Mom, I didn't want to worry you. I'll be more careful, all right? I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."

You smile, because it's a thing he would say when he was four. "Thank you, Ryan. I won't nag you about it anymore."

Just then your phone goes off, loud. Both of you look up because it's a red alert.

You grab the phone and look at the message. Belligerous has gone on a rampage. From the location you're the closest hero in the city.

"What is it?" Ryan asks urgently.

"I've got to go," you answer as you dash back to your bedroom for your costume. "I'll see you when I get back, maybe we can eat lunch together."

* * * * * *

You take to the rooftops, leaping along over the streets. It's broad daylight so you're obvious up here, but it's faster than trying to make your way through busy traffic. As you get closer you start hearing the noises; crashes, gunshots, screams.

Belligerous is superpowered and not a hero, but strictly speaking he's not a super-villain either. Originally a scientist named Basil Lygeros (B. Lygeros, get it?) who suffered a nasty lab accident involving a combination of DNA experimentation and cosmic rays, most of the time he's essentially a normal. But then he'll encounter a violent or dangerous situation that triggers his powers, at which point he transforms into a massive blue-skinned rage machine who even in the absolute best case inflicts huge amounts of property damage on everything around him. This of course means he's been the target of any number of damage lawsuits, and since he generally doesn't stick around to defend himself there's something like billions of dollars of uncontested legal settlements and court fees that he owes.

The end result is something of a vicious cycle. Constantly hounded by litigants and debt collectors, Lygeros has to live as a fugitive which prevents him from engaging in the research that would be needed to cure or control his condition. This in turn means he gets exposed to hostile situations which turn him back into Belligerous, wreaking even more havoc and leading to yet more lawsuits. The biggest problem of all is that in his Belligerous form the poor guy is not only a berserk near-imbecile but also incredibly freaking powerful. It takes someone like Titanic or your ex-husband to go toe-to-toe with him solo. Other heroes need to gang up on the guy to have any chance at all of taking him down.

Unfortunately as you come on the scene it's clear there are no other heroes around as yet. Just you.

It's easy to spot your target. It's hard to miss a bright blue eight-foot tall muscle-bound and nearly-naked figure that's currently hoisting an SUV, the better to throw it at the police who are firing their handguns at him. The cops should know better, bullets only piss him off more. The officers scatter as Belligerous tosses the truck towards them.

You leap down next to a sergeant, who seems to be the ranking officer present so far. "Look, you know you can't stop this guy. It will be hard for me to even slow him down," you shout over the din of shattering glass and car alarms. "Concentrate on getting civilians out of the area and I'll do what I can to keep him busy."

As soon as he agrees you jump away and run straight at Belligerous, making sure he sees you. He takes up an arms-bent "I'm going to crush you like a grape" pose.

"GRRAAHHH!" he announces.

"Yeah, good morning to you, too," you reply. Right before you come into his reach you jump sideways, grab the pole of a streetlight, and swing around it to change direction so you're coming at him from an angle.

He reaches for you but you duck under, allowing you to get close enough to side-kick him in the kneecap at full power. He winces, but as you expected isn't at all incapacitated. A massive blue fist comes punching down at you, but you've already skittered away.

You start playing cat-and-mouse with your foe, except of course that this time you're the mouse and instead of trying to get away you're taunting him to chase you. You know better than to try to beat Belligerous in a fair fight, the idea is to distract him while the bystanders evacuate. If you can keep it up long enough other heroes will start arriving, at which point you'll try coming up with a plan to do more than just limit the damage he causes.

So you keep leaping and dodging and flipping, evading his attacks while making sure you stay close enough to keep his attention fixed on you. When he starts to get interested in a softer target (like this one stupid rubbernecker shooting a phone video of the action, along with the policewoman trying to drag the idiot to safety) you get even closer and land a blow of your own, just to remind him that you're still here. One time you need to do this last part you end up being just a bit slow in avoiding Belligerous' counterstrike.

It's a wild slap and only the very tip of his fingers hit you, but that's enough to make you fly backwards like a missile and slam into a nearby building. "Owww, that really hurt," you groan.

You've instinctively landed on your feet facing your foe even after splatting against a brick wall, but your head is spinning and you wobble on your feet, unsure you can dodge his next attack.

At that moment a black rocket dives from the roof of the nearest building to land on the back of the blue-skinned giant. It's the Watchman, who starts punching Belligerous in the head for all he's worth.

This stops your foe from charging toward you, but the punches aren't strong enough to knock Belligerous out or stun him for more than a few seconds. Annoyed at getting pounded in a way that's actually painful, Belligerous yells and grabs the Watchman by the arm, yanking the black-clad figure off his back. The giant twirls his smaller opponent through the air a few times like a doll, then hurls him at a nearby tow truck.

The impact leaves a big dent on the truck's door and shatters all the auto glass on both it and the car on its flatbed. It's obviously a worse fall than the one you took. Your rescuer recovers his wits enough to roll under the truck to try to get away, but Belligerous walks over and picks the whole vehicle up, tossing it to one side. Watchman makes a lunge and grabs the larger fighter around the ankle, but Belligerous simply draws his other foot back and kicks him away like a soccer ball.

Watchman arcs through the air and lands like a sack of potatoes near you. He's out cold. His black hood has come loose, and while he's wearing a domino mask under it there's no mistaking that face.

"Ryan?" You run to your son's side and cradle him in your arms. He's breathing but he doesn't respond to your pleas. A small rivulet of blood runs from his hair down over his forehead.

You feel a huge fear for your child. In the next instant fear is pushed entirely aside by a deep, dense, molten anger, erupting out of a place inside you that you hadn't known existed. You hear Belligerous stomping forward, coming to finish the two of you off. You stand up and face him, fingers flexed and claws out, your face contorted with an insane rage you've never felt in your entire life, not even toward your ex-husband.

" You fucker, " you yell. "YOU HURT MY LITTLE BOY!"

Your battle roar makes every unshattered pane of glass for blocks around rattle. Belligerous pounds to a stop. His squinty, bloodshot eyes peer at your expression.

He takes a step back.

There's a large signpost ("S. Lee Ave") on the corner next to you. Normally you'd have to make an effort to get it loose from the concrete it's bolted to, but you're so furious that you pluck it out like it's a stray hair and grab it by the end, gripping it like a baseball bat. You shout wordlessly and charge forward, swinging the heavy pole at Belligerous.

Your first attack whacks your foe on the elbow of the arm he tries to block with. After that you're swinging so fast that he can't parry all the blows, you rain them down on his arms, head, neck, sides, every part of him you can get to. He tries to snatch the pole away from you to make it stop. You let him, claw his hands so he yells and drops your weapon, then you scoop the pole back up and beat on him some more.

When Grizzly and Iron Knight arrive a few minutes later in response to the red alert, Belligerous is curled in a ball on the ground, whimpering and trying to protect his head as you scream obscenities and whack him with a twisted piece of scrap metal that used to be a street sign. Once they convince you that you can stop now, you calm down and turn to look for Ryan.

He's gone.

* * * * * *

When you get back home Ryan has changed out of his Watchman costume and is in the bathroom, rinsing his wounds in the sink. You let him finish, then say, "Honey, we need to talk."

You sit in the family room. He's twisting his hands together, clearly nervous. But then he begins.

"When I first started, it was to see what it was like," he says quietly. "Being a hero, I mean. Dad told me a bunch of things about selflessness and protecting others and justice and stuff, but that was all just words, you know? I wanted to see how it actually worked."

"So you followed me."

"No, at first I followed Dad," Ryan says. "Not being able to fly made it harder, but I put a tracker on his cape. He never noticed. Despite how he has X-ray vision I kind of think Dad isn't too observant about some things."

You have to chuckle. "You could say that, yes."

"Anyway, that's how I found out Dad's a gay bottom."

You must look confused or at least puzzled, because Ryan starts to explain. "In a dominance relationship, you know? One of the people is a top and the other's a bottom, meaning they're on the receiving end and..."

"No, no, I know what 'bottom' means," you say. "Are you sure? I mean, I was married to him, and he never seemed that way."

"Yeah, I'm sure. He would meet up with guys like Steel Eagle or Lumberjacked and have them tie him up in chains made of that special alloy that nullifies his powers, and then he'd want them to, umm..."

"Okay, I get it. That's probably enough details." Wow. You had a feeling Paragon might be gay, but you never suspected that. No wonder the marriage didn't work out.

"He spent a lot more time doing stuff like that than he did fighting crime, at least while I was watching him," Ryan says sadly. "At first I felt really disillusioned about everything. I know that for a while there I was constantly acting like a jerk, even to you, but I felt like my whole life was a lie. Dad always told me he'd sent me away from home to become this perfect hero and follow in his footsteps, that being a hero meant ignoring your own needs no matter what. But he turned out to be a big phony."

You swallow. "Your father meant well, honey," you say, trying not to make it sound too forced.

"Maybe, but he took me away from you, didn't he?"

You have to turn away so your son won't see the tears starting. "We're together now."

"It doesn't make up for all the years we weren't," Ryan says fiercely. "I missed you so much, Mom. I cried for weeks when Dad first left me with the Abemians."

You dry your eyes. "Those were the people who raised you? Were they good to you?"

"I guess. No, that's not fair. They did their best," he says. "It's just that they had no idea what to do with a kid. Dad left them a bunch of instructional books and videos and stuff from Earth, but they'd never seen a child before."

Now you are definitely confused. "How is that possible?"

"The Abemians don't, um, have sex, at least not the way humans do," Ryan says. "They taught me about it. They trade genetic information by ingesting little bits of each other at holidays, then when one of them wants to reproduce he does it asexually."

"Weird."

"I'll say! There was a time when I started looking for porn on their version of the internet, but all I could find was videos where thumpy music played as an Abemian split itself in two."

You laugh. "So, I'm guessing curiosity about human sex is a reason you started following heroines around."

"Um, no, not exactly. Dad had hooked me up with Fliedermaus for training, so I knew something about stealth and using the shadows. Fliedermaus also gave me some of his gadgets, like the tracking device I put on Dad. I was worried at first about training with him because he admitted to me up front he's gay, but it turned out he had total respect for my personal space and said it was up to me to decide what I wanted in life."