The blonde heroine stepped forward, putting herself between Overshadow and the Doctor. It was clear to everyone involved who’d win if there were any amount of violence; Swift Fox had never distinguished herself in combat in the way that suggested metahuman abilities, and Overshadow was one of the most physically powerful figures on the planet. Yet there was still no hesitation.

If Bimbeau hadn’t been sure the heroine was fully conditioned, he would have been by that moment. You had to be brave to put on a costume and step up to fight crime, but there were limits all the same, and this was definitely beyond those limits.

“Overshadow,” he said quietly, “what do you mean, exactly, you can’t let me do that?”

The villainess opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. A look of confusion spread over her face. She closed her mouth and tried again, looking bewildered from the start. “I… I…” She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed, looking for all the world like she was trying to choke her own words down.

The Doctor watched it all with a soft smile on his lips. But more than anything else he watched her eyes.

Over the best part of two years since he started on his way down his path, he’d seen clearly just how much the eyes revealed of a person’s internal struggle, if they had one.

He was aware the blonde was looking to him in confusion, but he didn’t look forward her. Overshadow’s eyes had met his now and, in her search for understanding, in her search for logic and reason, she was looking steadily toward him.

Bimbeau was sure now that his gambit had succeeded. Sinner had pulled off what he’d asked her to. And yet the villainess was still fighting. He had to admire that, even as he feared for what it might mean with other superhumans whose power was maybe backed by a literally inhuman will.

Should he let her wear herself out or push her? Either might be the right choice or a very wrong one. “What can’t you let me do?” he asked again.

Overshadow’s lips silently shaped a word, but nothing came out. The blonde fell back a step; instead of standing in front of him, she took up a position at his left hand. Out of the corner of his eye he had the impression that she’d straightened somewhat; that she was standing proud, and that she was finding this to be a natural place for her, standing ready at her Master’s hand.

The confusion in Overshadow’s eyes was enough that he almost wanted to laugh. He took a step toward her, conscious of the blonde moving forward with him. “Having difficulty?” he asked, almost too quiet to hear. Overshadow’s head bobbed fractionally, She’d clearly had no idea what was coming. No idea what had been buried in her head.

And the Doctor hadn’t expected to play this card yet. Not for quite a while; not until enough of her staff had undergone the process at Sinner’s hands. There were still oh so many ways that this could all go wrong, after all.

“Do you know why it’s so difficult?” he asked, quiet again. He saw that same tiny level of movement at her head, a very fractional shake. Beside him he heard the blonde click her tongue and breathe out, knew the heroine had put the pieces together.

But Overshadow hadn’t.

“Let me ask you a better question, then.” He took another step forward, almost in the personal space of this superwoman who still towered over him. “What can I do if I want?”

Overshadow’s lips shaped a word once more, a different word from before, and she might have even said it aloud; but the blonde next to him spoke at the same time, answering the same prompt, and she said it with confidence.

“Anything.”

Bimbeau smiled, reaching up to touch Overshadow’s face, caressing her cheek. He felt her tremble at his touch, as if a deep-seated struggle were still taking place. “You had no idea, did you? You thought your treatment had been exactly as you specified.”

There was a low growl coming from Overshadow’s throat. “I saw you reprogrammed,” she said. “And I know Sinner’s mine. You can’t have done this.”

“Can’t I?” He met the blonde’s eyes, deliberately looking away from one of the most physically powerful people on the planet in her moment of rage, knowing with confidence he was safe. The blonde’s eyes practically shone with eagerness, even as she held herself almost to attention, trying to present herself as the obedient soldier she was.

He looked back to Overshadow. “On your knees,” he instructed. Watched her eyes waver. Saw her bite her lip. “It will make me happy,” he told her, and her eyes widened, her lips parted.

She went down onto one knee, then folded the other leg beneath her too, sitting back on those long black riding boots. Even kneeling her head was comfortably above his waistline; she was just so much taller than he.

“You want to make me happy, don’t you?” he asked with a smile. “More than anything.”

Overshadow nodded. The Doctor realised suddenly that the woman didn’t want to speak; that speaking might make this more than a dream, might make it real, and she would then have to admit it to herself in a new way.

“What does making me happy do?” he asked her. Finally a question she couldn’t answer mutely.

“Making you happy… makes me happy…” she mumbled, no longer meeting his eyes.

“Good girl,” he said softly, and he sensed more than saw the blonde heroine next to him twitch with concern. Anticipating an attack? Sensible of her, but he knew that couldn’t happen. Overshadow could only be happy now by making him happy.

“Sinner wanted more than anything to make you happy,” he told her. “And now you always will be, so long as I am.”

The blonde murmured something. He turned to her. “What?”

He saw her cowl twitch as she swallowed. “M… make her lick your boots,” she said, uncertain now she had to speak up. “Master.”

He looked at her for a long moment, wondering how it was the blonde had come by that desire for herself - clearly she didn’t blurt that out without it meaning something to her. Then he looked back to Overshadow, who was looking up at him nervously.

She clearly already knew that she’d do it if told. She wasn’t used to that idea yet.

He was so tempted to make her.

*

If you left Wayward and Pyre away from the other Rebelles on a mission, sooner or later all hell was going to break loose. It was never, Tanya would insist, their fault; often they would genuinely be minding their own business elsewhere, and then someone would notice them when one of them peered around a corner, and then before you knew it, there was a fight.

Tanya always threw herself into those fights; not only was there no point in not getting involved once they’d been found, it wasn’t uncommon to find out afterward that Melissa had been counting on a distraction happening once she was a little way in.

The big boom had been Pyre; the targets had been a tight knot of soldiers standing guard on an aircraft hangar. They’d scattered, but Tanya was already moving, and that usually meant that unless you were dealing with someone superhuman, or special weaponry, it was more a matter of time than anything else. Her strength and her ability to redirect momentum meant she just never slowed down.

It was a kind of euphoria, the way she darted from target to target, took down problem after problem. And they’d found the captives - at least, she reminded herself, some of the captives; heaven knew what was being done here - so she was perfectly happy to do her part and wait for them to get worse company.

She was just rebounding off a tall woman with sergeants’ stripes on her shoulders, sending her staggering back into the concrete slab walls, when the lights went out, when the aircon fan background noise abruptly died. In a confined space there would have been no light at all, except that Pyre was doing her thing.

And, as Tanya caught sight of a shadowy blur hurtling from darkness and into the light of the flames, she realised that was the point. Whoever had killed the power - and they must have killed all power, somehow, an EMP without the blast - had known it would make Pyre an even clearer target.

However close to invulnerable you are, the first time you swing a punch at someone whose body generates its own fire, you pull your punch; not all the way, maybe, but enough that it makes a difference. Bobbi wasn’t as tough as Tanya by a long way, but that hesitation, that flinch, usually gave her one hit where she could roll with the punch. The assailant took a huge fireball in the face; they barely even budged, hanging in the air.

Flight. Superhuman strength. Near-invulnerability. It was a weirdly common package of abilities for superhumans; others would have some weird side-effect of physics (like Wayward herself), or powers that in some way shaped themselves to a theme. But for whatever reason, these flying bricks showed up regularly.

Tanya wasn’t a fan at all. She’d already switched the course of her rebound, hurtling toward the brick from behind. With all her strength, all her momentum, she knew it was going to be a hard hit. Was it going to be enough?

She was a fraction too late to stop the second hit going in on Pyre; Bobbi had started propelling herself backward, though, and maybe that would do it, maybe that would help. Either way, her flame went out; she was unconscious, hopefully no more than that, and Tanya hit her attacker in the back of the head with her forearm.

The flyer went down, sprawling, and she checked her own momentum to make sure she landed directly above her quarry. Another solid forearm shot to her downed opponent, with her own superstrength, and she felt them still beneath her and rolled off.

There was, of course, someone else in here who’d shut down all the power. Tanya waited, away from where the last sound had been, and closed her eyes and listened.

If it continued to be pitch black, having her eyes open wouldn’t help; if the other person she assumed had come in with the brick had the same issues seeing in darkness she did, Tanya was prepared to use her other senses. Melissa was much better at blindfighting, but she’d taught Tanya a thing or two over time. But…

She sensed the lightening of the room as the other lifted their electrical suppression or whatever it was. Tanya opened her eyes, knowing she’d be adjusting faster than anyone who’d kept their eyes open. The moment she picked out the figure in combat fatigues she was sprinting for them.

She could redirect her momentum, but she couldn’t maintain it without staying moving; she’d lost what she had, so she wasn’t nearly as fast as she’d like to be. But she was fast, and she accelerated astonishingly well; the other meta had a chance to draw a handgun and level it, but not to fire it before Wayward’s fist connected with his jaw and they crumpled.

Tanya grinned fiercely, already rebounding, shifting her momentum to go check on Pyre as quickly as she could.

*

To give Swift Fox some credit, she hadn’t objected to being told to lick the Doctor’s other boot; well, his other loafer. Far from it, in fact; she’d dropped to her knees so fast that Bimbeau had actually winced before he realised her costume did have concealed armour in various places, and her knees were cushioned.

He reminded himself firmly that he shouldn’t be wasting time, that he needed to be coming up with a plan, even that they would probably be useful in that planning if they weren’t otherwise occupied. But the very idea had left him hard and he’d needed no further urging; all it had taken was the pregnant silence that unfolded over the next few moments. The temptation remained, and with no other sound to drown it out, it got louder. He’d ordered them both to lick his boots and, as he watched their heads bob side by side, asses swaying in the air behind them, and listened to the needy, happy, excitable moans they made, he decided it had been the right call, even if it was costing them precious time.

There was a point where, as he enjoyed it, he cleared his throat. Or clearing his throat was the intent; it came out instead as a throaty growl of appreciation, and he was startled to hear Overshadow respond with a long sigh of delirious happiness.

He was going to have to remember that. He’d only decided, here, to tie pleasure to the pleasure of others as his first vague idea of a way he could twist the control he was going to give Overshadow, so he could take the advantage in due course. But seeing someone so powerful made not just helpless but willingly assisting in her own submission…

After a few moments the thought was too much for him. “Stop,” he said, and they did, but did not rise from their positions on all fours. He stooped down and took Overshadow by the chin, lifting her bowed head, tilting it back for the eye contact, something that became more precious to him the more slaves he had in his collection.

Then he almost completely released his grip, leaving just a fingertip under her jaw. Overshadow was stronger than Meridian; there was a famous news clip of her lifting an aircraft carrier out of the water to use as a weapon. Even if he’d bent down, used both hands, put his back into it, if she’d wanted to stop him his efforts would have been not just useless but insignificant.

But as he straightened up she rose helplessly with him, rising from the hips then scrambling up on one unsteady leg then the other as he continued to lift. He brought her up until the two of them were at eye level; she was still not fully upright, her arms hanging limply from her shoulders, leaning forward slightly at the waist.

He took his hand away and Overshadow stayed exactly where she was. The blonde sat back on her impossibly thick thighs, tossing her head to get the hair that spilled from her cowl out of her eyes so she could watch.

He’d been too busy, when they’d brainwashed Meridian, focusing on the upcoming transfer to her buyer. He hadn’t taken the time to drink in what was happening and enjoy himself.

But now he was looking at a helpless, needy Overshadow, thoroughly programmed and needing his own pleasure to keep herself happy, and he remembered what Candace had said about the power under her control when she brainwashed the Symphony.

And now he got it. On a deep, primal level, he felt just how much more an erotic charge it carried for him that she was more than capable of destroying him without working up a sweat - except that she could do nothing he didn’t want her to. Didn’t command her to.

The Doctor reminded himself firmly that there were other things they should be doing. That he should be concentrating on a plan to get out of there, a strategy that would eventually, at least, bring him back to Candace and to his tiny son.

Instead, he put his hand on the villainess’ chest, just above her breasts, and moved forward, pushing her back. In spite of her power she gave ground as docilely and automatically as he could have asked for, moving backward until her back was against the wall. He fumbled at her belt, pulling it open, and suddenly very aware that the blonde behind him had fallen excitedly silent.

“Do you want to make me happy?” he growled, yanking her pants down to just above her knees.

“Yes, Doctor,” Overshadow said, and along with the frustration in her tone there was now also an eager excitement.

“Do you know how you’re going to?” He slipped his fingers under her panties to pull them aside, then hesitated for a startled, delighted moment as he discovered how wet her panties were.

He hadn’t expected that, somehow. Not with the amount of fight her eyes and body language had suggested.

But then, that seemed to be fading now. The pleasure was doing its job.

“I hope so, Doctor,” she said, and there was none of the meekness that he expected from Lulu or Sinner; there wasn’t even the automatic deference of Candace. Overshadow was trapped into obedience and submission to him, but she was in most ways unchanged.

He should probably tread carefully, but he was being carried away, and every hesitation had just led him further into temptation.

“Master?” a voice came from behind him. “May I touch myself?”

He grinned. “Sure,” he said simply. His hands went behind Overshadow, closed on her buttocks, lifted her against the wall. She was bigger than he, and so much of her body was muscle, and she was bulletproof, yet she went up light as a feather and he knew she was using her own flying powers to accommodate him as he stepped in close and she wrapped her legs around him. Her eyes were alight, her whole demeanour changed. She could see how much pleasure she was giving him and her head was trapped in a force-feedback cycle, every heartbeat making her giddier, happier, hornier, his own arousal keying her in turn.

“How long has it been since someone fucked you?” he asked, a sudden smug impulse as he gave way to every impulse along the route. Overshadow bit her lip, her hands braced against the wall, using it to time her motions against him, but some part of her was thinking about the question.

“It must be ten years,” she said.

“Ten years since you’ve had sex?”

“No, Doctor. Ten years since someone fucked me.” She fell silent for a few more thrusts. “I think four years since I had sex.”

“Why so long?”

“Nobody is worthy, Doctor.”

He felt himself grow harder inside her just from those words. Grinning fiercely, he looked at her closed eyes, her euphoric expression. “I’m flattered.”

“You are not worthy either, Doctor,” she told him. “But I can deny you nothing. I…” He saw the muscles in her neck clench as if she was trying to force the next words down, trying to stop them from being spoken. “I serve Doctor Bimbeau,” she said at last, and there was something different in the way she said it, a change in the rhythm of her speech that made it clear this had been dictated to her by Sinner and had been taken on in one whole piece.

He chuckled. “I’ll take it.” Still fucking her against the wall, he lowered his head to her neck, half-kissing, half-biting, leaving absolutely no mark on her invulnerable body.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” a man thundered from behind him.

From the open doorway.

*

“Evelyn,” Candace answered the call, keeping her tone level only with an effort. “What do you have for me?”

“I have several things, Doctor,” her Master’s slave answered. “I think some might be more useful than others, though.”

“Alright.” Candace exhaled slowly. Her temper hadn’t been a problem since…

…huh. Actually, her temper hadn’t been a problem since she’d gone abroad in order to condition Evelyn. When the Doctor was around, there wasn’t anything going on in her mind that even might result in anger. When he wasn’t…

Well, that was something to devote some thought to later, she supposed. It couldn’t be allowed to be relevant now.

“Start talking,” she directed, “and I’ll assess what’s important.” The because you aren’t smart enough to went unsaid but probably not unheard.

Candace knew she’d feel guilty about that in a couple of hours. She always did. There was something to be said for not getting angry.

“Yes, Doctor,” Evelyn said, and Candace sat back and listened, idly trying to remember if she’d been scared or sad in the Doctor’s presence since he first brainwashed her…

“Most of this information comes through my friend Penny,” Evelyn said. “She’s… well, she doesn’t really have a government role. Or a title. Or a post. She’s a facilitator. Works off the record, tirelessly. We were both at Mount Holyoke at the same time.” Candace made a mental note to look up what that was and why it might be important.

“Okay. Go on.”

“Penny makes a lot more money than my husband,” Evelyn went on. “A big portion of it goes to charity, actually, she’s… well, that part really isn’t important. But most of that money comes from the rich who want access.” A pause and a heavy sigh; for the first time, Evelyn’s voice was loaded with actual judgement. “I’m afraid some of those rich people, Doctor, are criminals or criminal cronies.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Right. So… Penny tells me that there’s been at least six different groups, this year, who’ve had representatives sound her out about contact details for mind controllers. Well, you can imagine the conclusion I jumped to from there; obviously she’d been the one to give out a tip to…” Evelyn trailed off discreetly, and Candace wasn’t sure how much that was her wanting to avoid distressing her, and how much it was Evelyn avoiding words that AIs might monitor government-adjacent phone lines for.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t like to ask her directly; Penny never really responds well to that. But I do know how to raise some leading questions, and I don’t believe it was; neither Penny giving out the information, nor our quarry seeking it. However, if that information is being searched for…”

“Quite. But to sell it, someone has to have it.” Thinking about the Doctor was, Candace was delighted to realise, giving her more patience once again. “Which means someone was looking for it.”

“Oh, yes. A small exploratory committee in the House of Representatives, coupled with a Department of Defense assignment. They’ve had a line item in the last six or seven budgets, giving them money and people to try tracking controllers. I wasn’t able to confirm they’re the ones who knew about Master, but they’re definitely looking for mind controllers of various stripes. The committee chairwoman is Senator Pacheco, from New Mexico.

“She’s also the woman who got the committee put together in the first place.”

“Do we know her agenda?”

“No, Doctor, I’m afraid not. With a little more digging I may be able to find out.”

“Do it,” Candace ordered. “I’m sure the Doctor will want payback, once he’s back.”

“Of course, Doctor. Please convey my pleasure at service to the Master.”

Candace hung up the phone and sat back, wondering whose strings Senator Pacheco wanted to pull.

Then she started wondering if instead anyone was pulling Pacheco’s strings.

*

Tanya helped Pyre back to her feet, one arm under her friend’s for support. Pyre was shaky, but her eyes focused well enough; the hit had knocked her down but it hadn’t taken her out. Wayward gave her a gentle hug before turning toward the hangar doors, knowing it was time to get out.

There was a burst of gunfire from the doorway; Tanya felt a brief patter of bullets against her shoulder, shrugging them off in the most literal of ways. She released Bobbi for a moment, leaving her friend standing uncertain and unsteady, and surged forward into action, accelerating with her usual careless disregard for the constraints imposed by physics.

She was halfway there when the world turned on its head and she was flying away from the incoming soldier - except as she did, she caught sight of the woman standing beside him and realised with a sinking feeling that actually, no, she wasn’t flying.

She was falling sideways, because that was how Featherweight wanted her gravity to be.

What the hell?

“Hey!” She hit the far wall and came up leaping, or tried. “It’s me! Same team!”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it, and she found herself falling back to the wall before she could properly respond. This time she landed harder; there was less she could do as Featherweight increased her effective weight.

The soldier with the gun got hit with a fireball to the chest and crumpled, out of the picture. “Stop this!” Pyre yelled. “We’re here for you!”

As Bobbi suddenly started falling backward toward the wall too, Tanya realised this wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Featherweight knew it was them. That was, somehow, why she was doing this.

That probably also meant that being stripped down to her underwear and a pair of combat boots wasn’t someone being funny to a prisoner, either. What it would be instead she was less sure of. “Put us down!” she yelled, but she was honestly surprised when Featherweight eased her powers, leaving the Rebelles’ two most combat-focused heroines to fall to the floor.

“What are you doing?” Bobbi asked, just as Tanya blurted “Why are you doing this?”

Featherweight’s expression seemed to crumple into tears just from being asked. “This is your fault!” she shot back. “You shouldn’t be here! And if you have to be here, you shouldn’t be doing this!”

“Doing thi - we’re here to rescue you!”

“I don’t need to be rescued!” They could see rather more of their teammate’s expression than she could see of theirs, and what they could see wasn’t happy. The way her lip quivered she looked on the verge of bursting into tears. “Why won’t you just leave her alone?”

“We wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t abducted you!” Bobbi retorted. “And you do not seem grateful, by the way.”

“I can’t make her happy if you take me away,” Featherweight’s voice was a growl. “You’re ruining everything.”

Tanya and Bobbi exchanged looks. None of this made sense; Tanya shrugged, and was about to say something else, but gravity shifted on them again, Featherweight using her power, and the two heroines were suddenly whirling through the air as gravity pulled them this way and that, yanking them in a wide, fast circle around the brainwashed heroine, spinning helplessly as gravity shifted, picking up speed, whirling around and around.

They’d never seen Featherweight do this before; she wasn’t a frontline combatant, always lurking in the background, finding ways to use her powers to support her team.

Tanya was suddenly sure this was a tactic that Featherweight had dreamed up long ago and was simply scared to use, in case she hurt people she cared about. Which came with the inevitable realisation that Featherweight didn’t care now about either of them.

They collided in midair, still accelerating, and as the G-forces acting on them grew and grew, first Bobbi passed out and went limp and then, several revolutions later, Tanya lost awareness and was unconscious, unable even to register the impact when Featherweight released them from their spinning trap and left Wayward crashing shoulder-first into the wall.

The two heroines’ unconscious forms slid down the wall to the ground, lying crumpled together.

*

Melissa had been so occupied in watching Master fuck the woman who was evidently his newest conquest and in fingering herself at the pace set by Master’s hip thrusts that she had completely neglected to pay attention to the open doorway.

It was a cringingly embarrassing realisation. She hadn’t been tricked. Hadn’t been outwitted. She’d simply let her guard down. Now she didn’t just understand how Candace had felt; she was completely out of position and the new arrival, a surly man in combat fatigues and sergeants’ stripes, had his pistol levelled at her Master.

Red Fox would already have been moving to disarm him, she thought; on the other hand, she couldn’t imagine Red Fox on his knees, masturbating helplessly, glove slick with his own juices, in the middle of the action. He wouldn’t have had anything to slow him down.

Instead, she made herself as still as possible, with the hope she would cease to be relevant to the newcomer. If Master and his new slave stalled, that might give her time to act decisively in any case.

He advanced into the room. “You want to get your dick out of her, shithead?” he demanded.

Melissa saw Overshadow flush. “Burke,” she said warningly, “stay out of this.”

“Can’t do that, ma’am,” he answered. “With respect. It looks like this asshole managed to get into your head somehow. You’ll feel a lot better when we get him out.”

Master slowly, worriedly, pulled out of Overshadow, his cock already limp again, an expression on his face that showed clearly how scared he was now there was a threat in the room once he’d let his guard down.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Overshadow said sharply. “Stand down.”

“Can’t do that either, ma’am.” The gun was still pointed unwaveringly at Master. “You. You going to tell me how I fix this?”

Master looked at him for a long moment and shrugged. “If I told you, would you trust it?”

Burke, as his name clearly was, didn’t take that well. Melissa watched his lip twitch several times, working with emotion. The barrel of the gun dipped and it fired.

Master yelled out and fell to the floor, clutching at his calf. “Master!” Melissa blurted. So much for her invisibility by silence; Burke spun and brought his gun to bear on her.

It didn’t matter, of course. Her training kicked in, as smooth, as flowing, as instinctive and reflexive as her programming. She came up off both knees, spinning in a low arc, heedless of the wetness around her hand, the juices flowing down her legs, moving with purpose and precision even with her suit half-open.

The heel of her boot caught Burke’s wrist. The handgun went flying. Melissa was still moving, ready to follow up, but there was a superhuman in the room, and she’d just witnessed her Master shot by someone threatening to take his control over her away. Melissa only saw a blur, but by the time that resolved and Overshadow was visible again, Burke was down, and seemed to have been folded down the middle.

Melissa registered that and her body was already turning as she rushed toward her Master, hands fumbling at her belt for her first aid supplies.

*

Now the fight was over, Paloma was feeling conflicted, which was obviously stupid. Mistress Overshadow’s pleasure meant far more than the welfare of her former friends. No, it must just be that she’d done something she’d never quite been willing to do beforehand. Her head was still spinning from pulling it off; a tiny part of her thought that if Bobbi hadn’t been the victim, she’d be proud of her; it was an idea Bobbi had voiced, one night, after seeing astronauts pass out in their high-G spin tests on YouTube.

But Paloma was never comfortable as a fighter. If she hadn’t chanced upon the other Rebelles at a time they needed help, she might well never have put on a costume; might instead have gone to work for a construction firm or similar, where pinpoint control over gravity could be a huge bonus. She didn’t think she’d ever have the nerve for combat.

That clearly wasn’t true any more; Mistress Overshadow had a space for Paloma in her army, and as one of her obedient slaves, Paloma would serve however she best could.

Yes, she decided; anything that felt like guilt must instead be the aftermath of the rush that came from her first proper fight, and her somewhat-addled brain was just misinterpreting it.

She was just debating whether she should bring her former friends to Sinner, who seemed to have taken over processing Mistress Overshadow’s slaves from the Doctor, when her ears popped.

For most people, that just suggested the plane had taken off or their journey had taken them up a steep hill; at worst, that extreme weather was coming very quickly. On the other hand, when you were a costumed metahuman, the expectations were different. She knew exactly what that feeling meant.

Monsoon.

She tried to turn fast enough, but a gust of wind caught her and sent her tumbling forward. Paloma’s reflexes weren’t trained for threats to herself, but before the gale force wind could smash her into the wall, she increased her own gravity to the point she was securely grounded.

It was a strain; she felt like she was moving through treacle, but she was at least back facing Monsoon in time to see her former leader demand “Why?”

Abruptly it was all too much for Paloma and she burst out sobbing. The wind subsided and she fell to her knees. “You’re ruining everything,” she got out, halfway between choked gasps and an agonised wail. “Why can’t you let me have this? You never let me have anything else! Just let me have this!” Even she wasn’t sure what she was talking about, where that came from. If she’d still been her own independent woman, she would have wondered about where this came from, what insecurities and fears and anger she’d buried. As her Mistress’ devoted slave, it wasn’t an issue.

Monsoon said something, but she was so quiet, so subdued, that Paloma couldn’t make it out. The air was suddenly thick, somehow, and there was a strange coppery tang to it; and then there was a sudden crack, a flash of lightning inside, and Paloma passed out.