I've seen too many of these padded rooms already. They're not quite cells - but they're not not cells either. This one's made up like an infirmary, with vitals monitors, IV drips, all the works. Inside, NovaGirl lies on the cot in a white patient gown, eyes closed but breathing. Sedated. Her face isn't quite as pretty as it was once. Bruises, burns, a busted nose that may or may not ever heal perfectly straight ever again.

The collar is still around her neck.

"You're lucky you found her when you did," says the Lady Lune. She keeps her mask up well. Her face is as calm as ever, but there's new lines around her eyes. "Much more of that and they might've actually killed her."

"She's made of hardier stuff," I say aloud, though personally I'm of the same opinion. The way those men had been treating her was…

…horrid.

I can feel the flush coming up my neck, over my cheeks. "How did they get her?" I ask quickly. "Do we know yet?"

"We think she stopped by one of the rallies," says Hammergirl, frowning in disapproval. "Tried to talk with them. To reason with them."

She doesn't have to clarify which rallies she's talking about. They were a pain in ths ass long before this whole collar affair began. There have always been vanilla citizens who see the work we do, the good we do, and still decide for some reason that we're the problem. That they would be better off without us.

Some days, I'm tempted to stay home the next time a portal opens up and starts pouring out alien invaders. Let them see how that goes for them.

It had never been a major movement, though. The vast majority of people have more than enough common sense to realize that it's actually a good thing to have heroes around. The only people who ever showed up to these things were the fringe types, conspiracy theorists, the mentally unsound. 'Rallies' were a a couple dozen people who'd gather up and make some noise and wave some posters and make a nuisance of themselves before going back to their basements to doomscroll some more. No one had honestly taken them seriously at all.

But with power suppression collars becoming public knowledge, the rallies have taken a decidedly different tone lately.

The Lady Lune shakes her head. "I don't know what she was trying to achieve. There's no getting through to those kind of people. I've warned her again and again-"

"We all have," I say, because it's true. NovaGirl had the hopelessly optimistic naivete that only comes from a place of privilege. In her case, power.

"And now we're left with a cape down on top of it all," Hammergirl says bitterly. "Just because she had to play hero."

Something's been nagging me, this whole time. "Why is she still collared?" I ask. "Her body should heal itself back to normal, once she gets enough solar radiation back in her cells. She'll be out of commission for a few days, maybe a week, but it shouldn't take her long to get back on her feet."

The only answer I receive is a stilted silence, and awkward glances.

"You've already discussed this," I say slowly. "You've already decided."

"For her own safety," says the Lady Lune quietly, "it may be best to leave NovaGirl in her current state."

"You can't be serious. She's the best we have."

"She's not what we need right now," says Hammergirl. "She's gotten collared once already."

"And she'll learn from it," I snap. "I don't know what you're so afraid…"

Then the realization hits.

And when it does, I feel more than a little stupid for having taken so long to think of it.

And I feel ashamed, and embarrased, and outraged.

But I understand now.

"You're scared," I accuse them. "Of her."

Hammergirl laughs mirthlessly. "What, and you're not? Grow the fuck up. She could stomp any of us flat in three seconds. Probably less."

"She's our friend-"

"And she's been through an ordeal," interrupts the Lady Lune. Her silver eyes flash as she turns to the one-way window into NovaGirl's room. Cell. "An terribly traumatic ordeal. There's no telling what impact it'll have on her."

"You think she's going to turn evil? Because she was…?" It's unbelievable, the implication. And yet, too believable.

"What would you do?" says Hammergirl. "You've just had a train run on you by a bunch of street trash. You're going to look for revenge. On them, and everyone like them. And then you're going to start thinking about all the other people you should punish. Or put down."

"That's a lot of if's," I tell her. "And she's not that type of person. You know it."

Hammergirl shrugs. There's bags under her eyes. She hasn't slept in a while either. "She wasn't. Who knows now?"

"This is a temporary measure only," says the Lady Lune. "Until the situation is under control."

"If she doesn't get solar radiation now, she might not even heal properly. The scars, the burns, she might have those for life. Don't you know that?"

Hammergirl has an odd sneer on her face as she says, "Then she'll be just like the rest of us." And I realize that there may be more to this move than simple risk assessment.

"We'll have psychics examine her thoroughly," says the Lady Lune quickly. "Get her approved for release as soon as possible."

"Approved for release?" I can barely keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Can you hear yourself right now?"

"Nobody likes this," says Hammergirl dismissively. "But we don't have any other fucking choice! If we take that collar off, we don't know what she'll do - but we know exactly what she'll be capable of. And we won't be able to stop her. Look at her. You don't think she's going to fly out there and laser-eye the next fucking anti-cape rally she can find? Hell, I don't know if I'd even want to stop her. So stop being such a santimonious bitch about this."

"I can't believe this. And what if they don't clear her? What if there is something… wrong with her, now? What's your plan then?"

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it," says the Lady Lune grimly.

I have nothing to say to that. It's difficult for me to wrap my head around the sheer nerve of the Hero Corps to allow NovaGirl to remain collared - even as the more I think about it, the more I find myself unable to argue against it.

Because if there's one thing I've learned from fighting alongside NovaGirl, it's that you really, really don't want to fight NovaGirl.

-

I'm running out of leads. Too many dead ends, not enough answers. The primary question remains unresolved. Where is all the nullium coming from? The damn collars seem to be everywhere. There has to be a source, a supplier, but nobody seems to know anything. Every criminal I interrogate has never even heard of the stuff - they're all under the impression that the collars just work.

I'm about to finish my last patrol of my night. The hotline's received a tip about an illegal arms shipment that could be promising. Could lead to some hint about where the nullium is coming from. It won't, but I'm telling myself it will. I have to.

The railroad station is old, abandoned, run-down, and in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, out on the city outskirts. The police don't go here. Haven't gone here since the 1950's, probably. The perfect place for an illicit transaction.

All the men here should be armed to the teeth. Big guns, high caliber. Fancy laser scopes. But instead, they've all been laid out cold, littered across the depot like toy figurines. Guns dismantled or outright broken.

All but one. One is still conscious. One is on the floor, screaming. Pleading, begging for mercy.

The shadowy figure above him gives him none.

She strikes again, and again. Each blow perfectly placed, precisely calculated - but there's no mistaken the rage behind them. This isn't justice being done. This is simple catharsis.

She lands a blow to his temple that makes a sickening noise, and the screaming stops.

She stands, black cape fluttering away from black body armor. Gauntlets dripping red. Her cowled head turns slightly.

"You're late," says the Night Shrike.

Out of all the heroes in Centropolis, the Night Shrike is the most controversial by far. It's not even clear to everyone that she even is a hero at all. She doesn't have much in the way of powers. She doesn't play by the rules, doesn't hold back from killing. Does she even care that much at all about saving people? I honestly don't know.

Hers is a sad story. A tragedy full of horror and hardship. Murdered parents, a fall from grace, an unending quest for vengeance; a decade of martial training at a remote monastery hidden in Himalayan caverns; years of guerilla urban combat in the concrete jungles of São Paulo, Shangai, Moscow, and now, finally, Centropolis. Resulting in the all-black combat-suited vigilante standing before me now. Clad head to toe in hard-worn combat armor and tactical gear from all different centuries, from throwing stars to EMP bombs.

Even to me, she's one scary bitch.

"Did you kill him?" I ask.

"He's still breathing."

I think she's telling me the truth. I can't really tell. "How uncharacteristic of you."

She reaches down and takes his assault rifle. She does so without looking - her cowl is a smooth, featureless, eyeless plate of armor. Part of the same tragedy that claimed her parents had also cost the Night Shrike her sight. There's something else enhancing her other senses, compensating for her blindness - some gift that allows her preternatural awareness of her surroundings. Some rumors tell of a mystical blessing laid upon her during her training. Others tell of a reaction to exposure from some experimental chemical that went up in the fire that killed her parents. I don't know what the truth is. It's difficult to penetrate the veil of mystery that surrounds her past. But everything I've heard and observed about her seems to indicate that the Night Shrike is truly functionally blind. Yet I've never once seen her taken by surprise.

The weapon doesn't stand a chance in her hands. She strips and disassembles the gun with easy familiarity, in under five seconds flat. The pieces clank as she drops them to the floor. "He wouldn't have done the same for either of us."

"Maybe," I say carefully. Out of the vigilantes I know, the Night Shrike is not who I would consider the most stable. Or the least dangerous. "Maybe not."

She shakes her head as if in disgust. "Your lot and your half-measures are the reason we're in this mess in the first place."

"If you mean that we don't want to murder people-"

"How do you think this gets fixed?" She may not be able to see, but I can feel the heat of her glare all the same. "How do you think this goes away? Some nice words and a little jail?"

"We have to have rules," I tell her, even though I know it's a hopeless cause. "If we don't have rules then-"

"We are different," says the Night Shrike. "You keep trying to make it out like we're not, like we're the same as those scum. But we're not. You want to know the difference? You want to know who the bad guys are? It's the ones that are murdering, killing, thieving from the ones who don't."

"And what about second chances?"

Her lip curls derisively. "I believe in first chances."

"One day," I warn, "you're going to go too far, and the Corps won't stand for it."

"Fuck the Corps."

"You think just because you operate on the outside that they'll let you run around doing whatever the hell you want? Think again. They're getting fed up. They've been fed up. One of these days they're going to have enough, and they're going to send someone to shut you down."

The Night Shrike nearly smirks at that. "And who are they going to send? NovaGirl?"

My blood runs cold. There's no way she should know about that. We've kept NovaGirl's incident as under wraps as superhumanly possible. "I don't know what-"

"That's the problem with your Corps. You're all too afraid of yourselves to do anything worth fearing." She stalks over to a stack of crates, kicks it over savagely. "Too pussy to make any real change."

"It's a temporary situation," I tell her in spite of myself. "For her own safety, while she recovers."

She shakes her head. "I don't give a shit what you do with her. She was never a real hero."

The statement catches me off guard. "She's the best of all of us."

"She was playing dress-up," says the Night Shrike dismissively. "There were never any stakes for her. Never any real danger. She gets to fly around and look pretty for the cameras. She was never in the shit like the rest of us."

"She saved people. You can't take that away from her."

"Saving people is only half the job. You heroes don't seem to realize it."

"She has to be careful. Responsible. She's the most powerful-"

"Then how'd she get collared?" Her words come out bitter, mocking. "You tell me this. If NovaGirl is so fucking powerful, how did they get her? A bunch of lowlife street trash somehow got a collar on her. How?"

"We think she went to a rally. Tried to talk them down. De-escalate the situation."

"That doesn't answer the question."

And I know it doesn't. Somehow, some random thug manages to slip a collar on NovaGirl, of all heroes? It doesn't pass the smoke test. Something else is going on. There's another game running, somewhere.

"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know how they collared her."

The Night Shrike whirls around, and I'm face to face with that blank slate of a cowl. The metal is painted pitch black, except for the silvery scratches and scuffs left by the blades and bullets of desperate, fearful men. I can't begin to fathom how many times someone's tried shooting her in the face. It can't have gone well for any of them. "Sure you do. You just don't want to say it."

"Say what? I don't understand-"

"NovaGirl wanted it," says the Night Shrike. Her voice is cold and completely empty of emotion. "She wanted to get collared. And she got it. So pardon me if I'm lacking in sympathy."

I'm completely, utterly at a loss. "What do you mean, she wanted to get collared?"

"Don't play the idiot. There's only one way the most powerful woman on the planet gets collared, and that's because she wanted to be."

"That doesn't make any sense-"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Paladia, Velocigal, now NovaGirl. How the hell are any of these heroes getting collared by vanilla humans? They aren't, unless they wanted it."

"Wh-why would they want that?"

"You tell me." She steps even closer. So close I can smell the steel. "You were so busy fingerfucking yourself on that roof, watching NovaGirl getting goddamn gangraped below. I'm sure you have some idea why a superheroine might want to get collared."

There's something cold and clammy gripping my heart. "I, I, I don't, whatever you're trying to insinuate-"

"You're going to deny it?" She's even closer now, somehow, right up against me, and I don't realize I've been backing away until my back hits the wall and she's there, filling my vision like a terrifying spectre of the night.

"I-I wasn't- I didn't-"

"Wasn't what?" Then the Night Shrike's gauntleted hand clamps there, right between my thighs, in just the right way such that my legs nearly buckle under me. She isn't supposed to touch me there, she isn't supposed to be so fucking close, her lips aren't supposed to be nearly brushing mine- "Wasn't touching yourself to the 'best of us' getting raped silly by those thugs? Go on. Say it. Fucking lie to me."

I can't. I can't lie to her. I can't form the words. I can barely breathe with her hand, still there, clenching, fingers digging against the material of my suit, searching, demanding-

"You thought you were alone," she breathes. Her lips are impossibly red, against the paleness of her face, the blackness of her mask. "All alone, with your degeneracy. You never thought anyone would know, did you? Didn't think anyone would find out?"

"Nuh- n-no- no, I-"

A wall. A shield. Of steel, or brick, or goddamn anything to come between me and her. I try to focus, to sharpen my racing imagination, and a flickering shimmer appears in the air between us, molecules vibrating, humming as they rearrange themselves to my will. The ghostly shape of a barrier begins to solidify between us.

And vaporizes, sputters into nothing but sparks and smoke as her fingers delve, no longer just touching but fucking. There's no other way to describe it. The material of my suit is tough, impenetrable, but pliable, and she plies it relentlessly, mercilessly and I can't think of anything, can't concentrate on even a word as her lips curve against my ear. "You get off to it, don't you? To this? Your cunt is fucking molten, right now. I'd say you haven't gotten off in weeks, but that's not true. Not at all. How many times did you cum, watching NovaGirl down there? Do you even know? Or were you too cuntbrained to keep count?"

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck-

"I was there," she breathes. "I know what you did. I heard every single fucking climax, you fucking slut. That's all you are. That's all any of you are, prancing all over the city in your skintight slut-suits, posing for the crowds, for the television - you're not heroes. You're just whores, goddamn attention whores, begging for anyone with balls to actually fuck you up."

"N- I'm not - please, pl-please, I don't-"

"Is that why none of you ever put your villains down for good? You just lock 'em up, over and over again, so they can keep escaping, keep wreaking havoc on this city. You put on a big smile and you put them away so they hate your guts, they hate you until their eyes go red, because that's how you like it. You like having those big bad criminals out there, who want to show you exactly what kind of 'hero' you are underneath. You love their hate. You fucking get off to it."

"I-I- it's not, no, I never-"

"I was going to save her," the Night Shrike tells me, with her razor edge of a voice. "You know that? I was going to go down there and beat the shit out of the men who dared touch her. I was going to avenge her the way none of you would."

I can't breathe. I can't breathe. And then the gauntleted fingers of her other hand clamps around my throat, more powerful than they have any right to be. Cutting off my airway, crushing down until I'm choking, gasping but getting nothing.

"Instead I watched her cum her fucking brains out," she hisses. "Some big goddamn hero she is, right? Woman of Steel, folded like kleenex after the first load dumped in her alien whore cunt. Treated like streetside trash and she's gushing like a fountain. And you liked it too. You loved it. You loved every second of it."

I'm not even collared and I'm losing. I've already lost. I'm at her mercy, and my complete powerlessness runs rampant in my mind. It's all I can think about. My own defeat is fixed there in my head, like an event horizon I'm inexorably drawn towards. An inevitable, total ruin that makes my pussy pulse like a live wire. She's right. I like it. I love it. I love it and I don't know why. I can't understand it, can't make head or tails of it. I've always hated it. I remember when I was back in college, shy and painfully quiet. It was like I had a sign permanently taped to my back that said RAPE ME in big bold letters. Guys just knew, somehow. They'd pick on me, shove me into closets, drag me into bathrooms and pull my panties down and take whatever hole they wanted. The worst part every time was how I could never stop myself from cumming. Not a single time.

I remember with painful alacrity wishing for a boyfriend - not even for any romantic purpose, but just to have someone there to protect me. To tell me that I was worth something, anything. Worth protecting.

It never happened, of course. There never was any boyfriend, no Prince Charming. Just a stream of horrible, terrible men. Nobody ever saved me. I couldn't even save myself, until the particle accelerator accident. Then I had powers, and nobody could lay a finger on me.

Until now. Until these collars emerged out of nowhere. And until the Night Shrike had me up against a wall with one hand fucking my cunt through my suit and the other throttling my throat.

"You're all the same," she hisses. The palm of her hand grinding against my clit that's screaming, shrieking at the abuse, and I'm trying to scream too, but my lungs are burning, and I still can't breathe, and the slickness is streaming down the insides of my legs. "Grandstanding, self-serving, jumped-up rapesluts. Masochistic whores who can't keep their legs shut. Baiting every fucking man in this shithole city to jump you and take what you keep teasing them with. And everyone knows it. It's pathetic that you're the best this city has to offer. Disgusting, pathetic, self-righteous degenerates."

Is she right?

Is that all we are?

Is that all I am?

That can't be right. I don't want it to be right, but my mind is sinking, twisting, melting under her touch. She's obliterating me, her fingers digging as viciously as though she hates me, and I believe she does, I believe she hates me as profoundly as she hates the lowest, most despicable criminal, the same way I hate myself in this moment, because the flat of her palm is mashing into my clit in a way that will leave me sore and aching for days and I'm about to cum, about to cum from the shame of cumming, from such a contemptuous demonstration of this weakness that's taken root inside me, and my throat is convulsing against her iron grip and my cunt is convulsing against her thrusting fingers, and I'm so close to cumming-

-and then I'm falling, legs buckling to the floor, crying out and gasping, whimpering at the orgasm that's denied to me. Shaking in the cold, vacuous lack of humiliating pleasure that she doesn't even deign to give me.

"This city deserves a better class of hero," the Night Shrike says coldly. "Unfortunately, all I've got for them is me."

She turns on her heel, to the crates. Selects one, and starts working the lock. "There's something wrong with this whole picture," she says. "Details that don't line up. There's too much nullium out there, and it's too effective. The fucking stuff is suddenly everywhere and nobody knows how or why. Someone has to get to the bottom of what's going on. And the great Dr. Materielle is obviously too compromised to get the job done." The lock clicks open, she tips the case over, and the things inside spill out onto the floor for me to see.

Collars.

Dozens, and dozens of identical nullium collars.

There's enough collars in one crate alone to subdue half the Hero Corps.

"But in case you still care to ask the right questions…" says the Night Shrike.

Then she tosses the emptied crate at me, so I can see the logo printed on the casing.

HALL INDUSTRIES, INC.

"…you might want to ask your girlfriend."

She disappears without another word into the dark, and I hardly even notice between the questions swirling in my head and the empty ache between my legs.