There is a New Villainess in Town

© 2011 by: Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Seventeen

“Your doing well Fluffball” a scientist on the other side of a heavily encrypted channel reported. “It is very obvious that you have many of the heros running around in circles, while at least two are obsessed with you.”

“Night and Solar Man” the feline agreed. “I am working on a way to counter them both, but Night is most important. I can’t fight Solar Man with the jammer on my belt, he might destroy it.”

“Why not just terminate Nights powers, she is on your short list after all” the scientist asked.

Taking a few minutes to think Fluffball finally came to an understanding of the why. “I think that with training she could be very useful” she explained. “Destroy her powers, sir there isn’t anyone else even near like her. It would be like crashing the space station, how are you going to replace it? I will dose her sir, if she becomes too dangerous to me but that’s the easy way out, when you start taking the easy way out you get soft.”

“I see, good thinking Fluffball. While we are on the subject John reports that he should have an implantable jammer ready in a month. Not for yourself, but for her so how are your surgical skills?”

“Fair at best sir.” Fluffball looked around her, there was no way she was going to bring Night into her home, so any special surgery would have to be somewhere else. Somewhere very safe with a lot of complicated routes away from it. “I’ll need a portable setup or at least a waiting surgery. Someplace easy for me to take her, secure and with a lot of escape routes. Even with her enhanced healing I’ll have to keep her under for at least five days so I’ll need a temporary assistant who has medical training.”

“That can be arranged, have you any problems with someone who’s licence to practice has been taken away?”

That was an important question, one the feline really had to think about. “It would depend upon the reason sir. I can pay him, or her a rather large sum of money but I’ll need them again some day so they have to be intelligent and not a drug user or killer.”

“That will be taken into consideration, she has to be nullified and if it can be done in a reversible way so much the better. Pat wants to know how you are holding up out there, all alone and such.”

“That’s an easy answer” Fluffball admitted. “I’m lonely, very lonely and internet porn isn’t all that good to start with. It certainly doesn’t hold a conversation with you but I can’t dare get involved with anyone, those heros are just unstable enough to use her against me and asking someone to live with me underground the rest of her life. No, I can’t do that either.”

Silence answered her, silence and a constant tic tic of the security program as it checked for taps or attempted hacks ever second. Finally the man came back. “Pat says to tell you that she will work on an answer from this end.”

“No blow up girlfriends” Fluffball warned. “They are hell to keep patched and clean.”

Laughter answered her statement. “Pat says she has a few ideas, she’ll get back to you when she has something concrete. Anything else?”

“How are those paralyzing bombs coming along? I’m certain that PQ has found an antidote to the sleep bombs and Detector is working on an iodine detector so I’ll need Plan B in the next shipment.”

“Plan B, got it. Hang on I’m connecting with the gass lab...”

She waited again, listening to the tic tic tic until her contact for the week returned. “They will be in the next shipment but be careful. Unlike the knockout gas in a large enough concentration these will affect you too. A thumb drive with all the details will be with them.”

“Right then, I guess..”

A loud PING interrupted her as the detecting program alarmed. Instantly Fluffballs connection was severed, though a false link remained on the other side that lead to the main police station. Shaken she turned off her communication gear, shutting it down completely. Someone had detected the encrypted data stream and tried to break in. Considering that her connection went directly to a satellite above her, then back down to that hidden base whomever it had been had already broken into the satellite. Finding out what had happened would be interesting.

Checking her Atomic Clock (sold on-line by the ultra secret firm of Oregon Scientific) she noted that it was still two hours before sundown and that it was fifty-three degrees. Walking over she turned on its radio, set to a Golden Oldies classic station. It was about time for the news anyway, not that they had much if anything on the heros but they did have a good news report if a bit short. While she listened to The Cars Fluffball started making dinner, wondering if Mist was still in that tank. She hoped not, it had already been nine days and though Mist needed no food, water or oxygen while in her odd form she would get rather bored fast.

It was raining hard when the unhappy villainess finally arrived at that storage tank. To her relief the ball valve was wide open, meaning that Mist had been released. Looking around her she studied the site, it had worked well once so she would avoid it for a year or three. Just as she was about to leave she spotted the large patch of fog several yards away. Taking a guess she walked over to it “Come out Mist, you can’t hurt me in this storm and I can’t hurt you so lets just girl talk.”

Slowly the fog coalesced until Mist stood about ten feet away from the feline. “Nice trap, it only took them three days to find me” she said, her voice as oddly soft as her name would indicate.

“Three days? I left them a clue they couldn’t miss” Fluffball answered, brushing the rain from her face.

“Your talking Solar here, he’s honest, he’s good but he’s dumb. After he managed to break Night’s prison from the concrete, he didn’t even look around for me. It was the Detector that came looking and found your chalk written directions on the tank.” Mist shivered, herself wiping rain from her face and it was getting worse. “He and I are pretty certain that you just want to embarrass us, not hurt us.”

“That and steal a lot of cash and stuff, how about coffee” the feline offered. “There is an all night shop off the beaten track about three blocks from here. My treat, we can sit in a back booth and you can threaten me while we both warm up.”

Mist lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the rain. “Coffee? You’re the bad girl right? Wants to rule the world, beat all us good guys? And your offering to treat me? What are you going to do, dump a bottle of rohypnol into my cup?”

Fluffball just laughed at that line. “I don’t think that Kamal or his wife would let me come back if I did something like that Mist. Honest to whatever God or Goddess you want to call upon, I’m cold, wet, soaked to the skin and since I have fur, that means I’m a soaked sponge right now. I was stupid to leave the heights for this, I just wanted to make sure you were free.”

“Coffee...”

“And maybe a pastry, Kamal sells a killer Lemon Tart pastry. My treat.”

Mist shook her head, causing rain to splash from her soaked hair. “You are serious, all right but if you make one move to attack me I’ll suffocate you to death.”

“Deal, and I’ll tickle you to death if you try. Come on lets get out of this monsoon.”

Thus they found themselves in a semi-private back booth, around an L shaped corridor from the front door being served hot coffee and the pastries Fluffball had promised. “Its not fair” the feline complained half an hour later while still rubbing her hair with a borrowed towel. “All you have to do is become all misty like, then when you return to normal your dry as a bone and your hair is always perfect.”

Mist giggled over her pastry. “Does have its disadvantages” she admitted. “Useless on windy days, or when its below zero. Then I freeze out.”

Fluffball sipped her coffee, enjoying the rich brew’s taste. Finally swallowing she shrugged. “I don’t think that your supposed to tell the enemy your weakness’s” she commented. “Brag about your strengths but never your weakness.”

Finishing a large bite of her pastry Mist blinked, “Your not an enemy, at least to me. An opponent and one I intend to get to jail but not an enemy. I certainly don’t hate you, not a bit like Night does and I’m pretty sure you don’t hate us. Embarrass us? Oh yeah, your doing a real good job of that and getting away with the occasional robbery. So far the worst you’ve done is remove Nights... um.. Well...”

“Yeah, I understand” Fluffball admitted. “She looks better that way in my opinion.”

Mist smiled a bit. “Truth is? I think so too, which is why I had it done to me when I was nineteen. Her’s was always ragged, she never took that much care of herself there. Always looked like, well, some street woman. So, to get off this path before you decide to make a pass at me, what’s your next big caper?”

“Your strength, making a pass at you would be a waste of my time. As to my next caper... Remember that drug you were talking about?”

“You didn’t” Mist gasped, looking down at her nearly empty cup. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

Laughing the feline raised her cup, draining it. “No, I gave my word and like Solar Man I never break my word. Besides, I have no idea what the drug you mentioned does and even if I did and had any, to use it here would get me banned for life. Do you have any idea how many little mom and pop places let a bonafide villain from another world simply sit and drink coffee? This is it.”

“You mean this is your whole social life?” Mist asked, her eyes widening. “You must be really lonely.”

“Lonely enough to invite someone to coffee who want’s to put me in jail? Yes, but I like to think of this as a neutral place Mist, the owners are polite, they don’t judge anyone and everyone’s money is just as good as everyone else’s.” She finished her coffee. “Running start?” she asked as she stood.

“You’d just run upwind and its really windy out there still” Mist admitted. “Next time, thanks for the coffee and pastry, its been an interesting time.”

“Right, next time Mist” Captain Fluffball agreed. “But be careful, your people have only seen a small number of my tricks so far and I haven’t even touched the sealed crates that contain dangerous weapons. Not that I ever want to, so for now, good night.”

Fluffball had only made it about two blocks from the little diner when she was slammed into from behind. Reacting automatically with her martial training the feline tucked and rolled, coming up facing her attacker. “You have got to be kidding me Bouncing Boy” she laughed as her opponent simply stayed next to a wall, bouncing lightly up and down while he was protected from the wind. Like Mist, when he was using his powers he was subject to the vagaries of nature and right now the wind had to be blowing near thirty miles an hour, the limit of his safety range Fluffball remembered. ‘Now where is his partner... Behind me of course’ she thought, dropping flat to the wet pavement. A blast of heat rolled over her, followed by a scream of pain as Bouncing Boy took the full brunt of Flash’s initial attack.

‘Twelve seconds to recharge, nine shots to complete exhaustion, twenty minutes to recover’ ran through Fluffball’s mind as she rolled over, tossing a sleep gas ball at Flash’s feet. This was a team she really had hoped not to run into. Bouncing Boy’s ultra-rapid healing powers would heal him from his grilling in minutes while Flash could easily kill her by accident. She didn’t have any defense tonight at all against fire other than her again soaking uniform and fur and those probably wouldn’t survive a partial hit, much less a full on strike. With everything wet, her best weapons would not stick to much so she would just have to hope her general purpose ones would do the trick.

“So that was why Mist asked me to coffee” she yelled as she rolled. “To give you two time to set up your trap. Foolish Earthlings, I’ll deal with her later, I’ll make her my slave.”

A second beam of blue-white energy flashed from her attackers mouth, scoring a direct hit on a large puddle she had just jumped over causing it to flash into steam instantly.

‘Flash, flash, flash... No wonder he took that name, for the puns’ Fluffball thought as she fired a sticky ball at the blue suited hero. He dodged left like she hoped, putting him right in front of an approaching car. Hitting his breaks the cars driver tried to avoid the figure abruptly in front of him, to no avail. A sickening thud filled the night, followed by a sound of screams from the cars passengers. Flash though stood up, shook his head and turned to get a face full of ploy-mix while the cars driver, realizing what was happening took the right course and drove away as fast as he could with his badly damaged vehicle.

Because of the rain the polymer didn’t really stick, but where it did it slowed Flash forcing him to watch his balance. Where was Bouncing Boy the feline asked herself, only to spot the green clad figure laying on a sidewalk apparently asleep. One down, she barely dodged the full force of Flash’s third attack as she worked out how to deal with him. One sleeve was smoking from that last attack but the rain quickly put that out. Flash was obviously aiming to put her out of the picture and explain himself later. One to go.

Fluffball’s main problem was that the majority of her offensive weapons didn’t work in water, or a heavy rainstorm. Some of those that did, like her sleep gas, were rendered near useless by the wind. To add to all that her back was screaming from Bouncing Boys attack so right now she just wanted to lay down on a warm bed, too bad that was at least an hours trek from this place. Flash still hadn’t said anything, which was par for the course when he was in a fight. No fancy one-liners from this guy Fluffball knew, he was all business and no fun in costume. No one knew his secret identity (well the feline did, he was a lawyer but she didn’t want to use that knowledge, yet) so no one knew what he was like out of costume. She fingered a flash bomb from one of her little utility belt pockets. Maybe if she could blind him.

Another beam of blue white death flew her way, this one though was weaker than the first three. In front of her the earth erupted the water within it abruptly became steam. Not moving this time Fluffball threw her little light bomb, closing her eyes as she did so. His history said that he was overly susceptible to bright lights, maybe...

Magnesium powder flared into light, throwing stark shadows everywhere. Still standing her ground the feline saw that Flash was blinded, he even fired two beams in the direction he thought she may have leapt into. One struck a tree which instantly exploded, sending wooden shrapnel everywhere. Unable to hit the ground fast enough Fulffball felt a searing pain in her right leg. Looking down she discovered a large splinter of wood sticking through the meaty part of her leg just above her knee. A little lower and she would have been crippled for a month or two.

A cry of pain had escaped her lips but Flash didn’t hear it because a different splinter of wood had hit him in the head, stunning him. Taking advantage of his temporary disability Fluffball threw two more of her little bombs at the staggered hero. These did their work and another popped beside Bouncing Boys head, for insurance. In a few seconds the deadly energy projector was unconscious on the ground.

“Don’t move” a now well known voice called. Falling to the ground on her butt Fluffball just looked at Mist. “So” she managed through her pain. “This is where you read me my rights, cuff me then send me to some secret Government laboratory where they will cut me into tiny little pieces for fish bait right?”

“Not even funny” Mist answered as she hurried over. “Because it would be true of our Government. Come on, we have to get you into hiding before those two wake up and how do you think old Bouncer went down so fast anyway? He barely got enough of your knockout gas to stagger him the first time, I did the rest.” She reached down, offering the feline a helping hand. “And I didn’t know they were around, this is my patrol area not theirs.” She pulled an emblem off her uniform, dropping it into a storm drain. “Let the Professor track that.”

Reaching up Fluffball accepted the help, then with the feline leaning on Mists smaller frame the two made their way back to the diner.

“Store Room, I get the First Aid kit” Mrs. Panchal ordered when the two entered.

Grimacing in pain Captain Fluffball told the woman thank you, then let Mist lead her into the back. “And why help me” she asked Mist as she settled down on the floor.

“Because your nice and I think Flash was going to kill you” Mist answered. “He hero worships Night, sometimes has a short temper and you’ve given her an atomic wedgie twice now. I think he wants to take her away from the Professor but that isn’t going to happen in this lifetime, at least not him since he makes her sick. Besides, I don’t like Bouncing Boy that much anyway. He keeps making passes even though he knows I’m married.”

“Your married” the feline asked in surprise. She knew that, but also knew that a lot of what was in those files had to remain secret so a little acting never hurt.

“Yeah and he’s completely normal so please don’t hurt him. Now I have to get this pants leg off and the only way I can do that is cut it off.”

Fulffball winced as Mist turned her leg a little. “Mist, family is always off my target list unless they are heros too. He’s a lucky man.”

“Don’t you just know it” Mist agreed. “And thanks, I’ve always been worried sick some bastard would hurt him just to get at me. Until you showed up no one ever had the smarts, the ability or the resources combined to be a real danger. You scare us, a lot of us.”

“Go ahead and cut the pants off” Fluffball decided. “I have a couple more pair but stick the ruins in a trash bag so I can get rid of it.” She saw Mist’s surprised look. “Yes, I sew my own clothing, doesn’t every villain?”

“Don’t know, you have anything for pain?”

Fluffball thought, then shook her head no. “And aspirin will kill me so that’s out too. All I have is stuff that will knock me out for hours, once I’m home I can take it but not until. Leave the utility belt alone, there is some real dangerous stuff in it, dangerous to both of us and especially our kind hostess. Ah, here she is.”

Mrs. Panchal came in with a surprisingly large first aid kit, one she expertly opened and began taking needed items out of. A large pair of scissors was given to Mist who immediately began cutting off Fluffball’s pants leg. “I was helping nurse in India” the older woman explained. “Husband was Doctor. We come here retire get away from poverty and Muslim killers. Become American citizens.”

“Great, maybe you should do this then” Mist offered stepping out of the way after removing the pants leg.

Examining the feline’s leg Mrs. Panchal pursed her lips. “Need shave fur, you furred everywhere Miss Fluffball?”

“I’m a real cat, so everywhere” Fluffball admitted, watching as the Indian started cutting away fur with the same scissors Mist had used. “Even there. So, what are we going to do Nurse.”

“I think cut leg off here” the woman answered, running a finger across the cats leg just below her crotch. “Then we see, maybe have take other leg too.”

“You are shitting me” Mist gasped, horror in her voice. At the nurse’s giggle she realized that Mrs. Panchal was joking. “Please don’t say things like that, Night has threatened to cut her voice box out, then lobotomize her and give her to the zoo.”

“Night very angry woman sometimes, help with shaving please this is bad wound even for crazy people like you two. Now we stop chatting, this going be hard work.” Offering Fluffball a leather wrapped rod she shook her head no when the villainess tried to set it aside. “Hurt a lot.”

So they worked, Mist finding herself drawing out the bloody splinter of wood while Fluffball screamed in pain around her self imposed gag. Suddenly it went silent in the storeroom as pain overwhelmed the feline and she passed out. In the silence both women could hear the unmistakable sound of wood being drawn through living meat.

“Is she going to live” Mist asked after putting the wooden splinter aside, there was real concern in her voice.

“You like her?” Mrs. Panchal asked as she probed the large wound looking for bark and other debris, carefully removing it as she found it.

“I think she’d make a good friend” the heroine admitted. “Even if she does claim to be preparing us for invasion.”

“Bottle sterile water please” ordered the Indian. “You believe what she say?”

“About an invasion? No, about her being an alien? Probably no there too. She acts too much like a human and that isn’t something you can train yourself to do. About her being alone? Hell yes. Probably half of what she says is a bald faced lie, well maybe three fifths. But she’s the bad girl, she’s supposed to mis-direct us. What is next?”

“Wash out wound, then ointment and bandage. She right, aspirin deadly to felines and she feline yes. Been here many times, husband allergic to felines but like her so not throw her out, she make him laugh I like to hear husband laugh. I think he like her little too much though. She lesbian so not matter, but I not like him watch her all time. I his wife, he supposed to watch me like that.”

“Don’t feel alone, my own husband is probably one of her biggest fans. Wait until I tell him how I spent tonight, he’ll go all green with envy.”

She poured the last of the water out into the wound, it taking blood and a few things that didn’t belong with it as it fell to the concrete floor, then she moved out of the way while Mrs. Panchal worked. Finally the bandage was done and the two started cleaning up. Abruptly Mrs. Panchal pulled off Fluffball’s soft green underwear, offering them to Mist. “Give husband, see he like her more you. If like her more you we carve up little kitty, put in dumpster out back.”

Laughing Mist folded up the soft cloth and shoved it into her own belt. “Better idea, she’d make a tasty stew I bet. How long before she wakes up?”

Lifting one of Fluffball’s eyelids the Indian examined her carefully. “Hour, maybe two. After sunrise so how get her out without be seen?”

“Mind if we stay here? I can pay you next week, that’s when my husband gets paid.”

“Is spare bedroom upstairs. You I, we carry. I tell husband he touch her I serve him sausage and meatballs for breakfast.” Both women laughed, then turned to the chore of carrying a limp, half naked fully adult feline woman up a narrow back staircase.