"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"

by Max Hass

Copyright August 2006 (*Wizard's Note - Story not submitted prior to this date, per author, so is accepted as a story contest entry)

Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, Batman, Robin, Rupert Thorne, Commissioner Gordon, Superman and Supergirl, as well as any other copyright names or locations, are all copyright of DC Comics. This story is a fan fiction and is not meant as a challenge to the copyright of the owners. It is not to be posted on a for-pay web site or other publishing formats for profit.

All fictional characters portrayed in this work are adults and above the age of consent.

This story is not meant to be read by children.

Prolog

The Bat signal was softly fading back into darkness as Batgirl rode away from police headquarters late that night. Her meeting with the chief had gone quite well, far better than if she had to go through such an event with her father. The few times she had already managed to pass herself off as a stranger while in the company of Batman had gone well. Now she had to reconcile the fact that her identity would be at risk as long as Jim Gordon was the commissioner of Gotham City.

Pushing all that baggage to the back of her mind, allowing the sensations of her motorcycle to pull her focus sharply back in to the moment, Batgirl pondered the report she had gone over with the chief of police. It seems that the old mobsters of Gotham were beginning to diversify their activities. Moving out of the regular and less profitable rackets, they struggled to compete with the newer generation of criminals who held the spotlight, as well as drawing the attention of Batman and his associates.

One unidentified gang had taken to robbing laboratories in the more upscale industrial parks of the city. No clear pattern had appeared in what evidence the police had shared with the newest crime fighter. "I guess I should be happy that they even speak to me at all, given their antique attitudes about women and crime fighting!" she muttered out loud into the wind, covering her thinly moderated resentment.

As Batgirl, Barbara Gordon found a new channel for her inner voice and values. As the librarian and daughter of the commissioner of the police, she had to maintain a facade of modest civility. Her core goals were no different from her father's though. And her desire to make her home town a safe and better place for everyone was just as strong a motivation to act out. She just had to walk a much tighter line now that her Batgirl persona had more opportunity to express that hidden desire.

One thin lead had popped up from the information Batgirl looked over moments before. A possible pattern of activities began to appear, based on the type of science the criminals were attempting to obtain. "It is a system for distributing an aerosol compound, looks like a powder rather than a liquid. How odd" she thought as the possible uses for such a device would be put to in the hand of a criminal or terrorist.

Her motorcycle knifed through the night air, the destination now determined. Batgirl formed a plan of action in her mind. First: set up a simple night watch over the only remaining lab in the city that specialized in aerosol research and wait for any action.

One of the problems with a watch and wait investigation such as she planned was that she had put in a full day of research at her day job at the city library. In short, she was fatigued. Despite her age and training, Batgirl was still subject to the same physical limitations as the mere mortals she struggled to protect.

And in her gathering fatigue, seated in the shadows of a rooftop perch, Batgirl continued to piece together what few bits of factual data she had. A weapon was certain. But some of the parts seemed to fit a projection device, like a common tank fed weed killer.

It was the research in this lab that confused Batgirl. "The device patent for this company is more of a military or police application. A grenade that disperses a powder in a circle about ten meters in diameter without harming the people within the target zone..."

The brief sound of footsteps brought Batgirl back from the edge of slumber. Something moved around outside the building before 3:00 AM. She hated the trend of her peers when she attended college and abstained from caffeine based drinks of any kind. Sugar was also off the list of things she would use willingly. Her workouts, which had doubled in time and intensity since she took on her new role, provided her with a solid physical condition. But her mind was not immune to fatigue.

"Time to see what's going on!" she thought to herself as she scanned the plaza patio for signs of the people who had made the noises. And she was not disappointed with what she witnessed. "Good! Now I can find out what these goons have planned for the things they've stolen so far." Pitching the batarang towards the highest point above the lab roof, Batgirl managed to find a solid target to anchor her rope to.

Waiting for the thugs to force their way into the lab (in order to confirm their role in the crime wave she had been sent to investigate), Batgirl watched as the men all entered the door. With this, she flung her body from the perch into the cool air of the night, the sensations refreshing her mind. Landing mere feet from the open door, Batgirl swiftly scanned for signs of a posted guard. Finding none, she moved into pursuit of the criminals.

Following the muted sounds of the men, Batgirl soon came upon the rear guard of the hoodlums who had forced their way in. Thankfully, they had left only one guard in their wake, and she had seen to it that he was alive and able to get out of the building under his own wits. Now she followed their trail and observed their actions in hopes of finding a means to stop their plans.

Batgirl observed the criminals searching unlocked file cabinets and desk drawers in a receptionist area. One raised his arm, holding something. The others dropped what they were doing and gathered around the one with the object. The group then moved down a hallway to a secured door. The man holding the object pressed it to a panel on the wall, and the door slid open.

After the men moved into the room, Batgirl moved swiftly from where she had watched and attempted to see what this room concealed from her sight. A light had come on, casting shadows in the darkly illuminated hallway. More sounds of cabinets and drawers opening and closing came through the open door.

Growing tired of watching this crime unfold, Batgirl chose her tactics carefully. Rather than a risky confrontation, she chose a concussion grenade from her utility belt and tossed the device through the door and waited.

A flash and loud bang confirmed the device had done its job. Dashing into the smoke filled room, Batgirl found most of the men had been dropped to their knees, still covering their ears seconds after the grenade went off. The ones remaining on their feet pointed in the direction of the heroine in the doorway.

Leaping into action, Batgirl strode through the helpless criminals still on the floor with a confidant smirk on her face. "Anyone else want to feel as bad as these guys on the floor?" As she concentrated on the criminals who remained standing, she failed to notice a hand thrust towards her calf, grabbing it in an iron grip.

Looking down to see what held her, the surprised heroine provided the remaining standing hoodlums a chance to charge her off balance form. Striking several blows to Batgirl's body, the criminals managed to take advantage. Using her remaining concentration to drive her free foot into the wrist of the one holding her ankle, she managed to break free and roll across the struggling bodies on the floor, avoiding any further painful strikes.

Reaching for her utility belt for another grenade, Batgirl found her cape now covered the compartment she desperately wanted to open. In those seconds lost, her adversaries charged the corner of the lab where she landed and struggled with her utility belt.

Seeing her current goal was lost, she attempted to push herself back to her feet. Managing to do so, she finally shook her cape back out of the way. In desperation to compensate for the sheer numbers of criminals, she continued to grasp for a concussion grenade rather than trying to fight.

This tactical mistake was the turning point of the battle. Before Batgirl could raise her hand to throw the grenade, the thugs closed in on her, voiding any chance of offering any real threat without harming herself. Dropping the object in her hand, she tried to strike a flying leap. A move that was ended as quickly as it began with a solid blow to her shoulder.

The criminals now held all the cards. Shouting vile obscenities at the overwhelmed heroine as she tried to block the dozens of fists that struck at her almost at once, the men gleefully pummeled the now helpless Batgirl while a pair of dark eyes watched from the other side of the lab.

Holding a round metallic object in his large hand, he pondered it, then the activities in the other part of the room. Striding forward, the man quietly begins to pull some of the others away from the heroine, now half kneeling on the floor. Taking a long look at the work the criminals have performed on her, he finally speaks.

"So, we meet face to face at long last, Batgirl." Hearing the voice, the beaten figure turned her head up slowly and just enough to see the figure of one of the oldest and most powerful mobsters in Gotham City. "Rupert Thorne. I was wondering if you had gone into retirement, given what Batman has done to your mob!"

Flashing a tight smile and looking down into her eyes in a semi-benevolent expression, he responded "Your Batman hasn't even begun to touch my gang! Look at what they've done to you!" And without provocation, several of the toughs drove their knees into the sides of Batgirl's cowled head, punctuating Thorne's point.

"As you can see, my dear vigilante, I have much bigger plans these days. Plans that will cast a vast shadow over those who challenge my control over the underworld of Gotham City." With a flick of his finger, two of the mobsters now hoisted the pummeled heroine to her feet, restraining her by her wrists.

"I was hoping for The Batman himself tonight. But you'll do as a hostage. My plan needs bait, and a tender piece of ass like yours will do very nicely." Turning to the rest of the recovering hoods, Rupert said, "Take her back to the hideout and keep her occupied. I'm sure someone will come looking for her shortly." Tossing the ball up and down in his hand like a toy, he mused, "I now have the means to insure a very interesting and final ending to any future encounter!"

Six Days Later...

A female figure cut across the sky from the same Gotham City rooftop Batgirl had left days earlier. However, this figure flew without any of the technology that the heroes of Gotham made use of.

Having been summoned by a deeply disturbed Commissioner Gordon, Supergirl made haste to answer his call. With Batman deeply involved in an overwhelming crime wave in Gotham, the commissioner used his influence to contact the golden heroine and briefed her on what mission his police chief had sent her on.

"The reports of the last crime several nights ago offered very little help, but it did provide one vital lead. One camera escaped vandalism by the criminals who broke in that night. And we got a good look at the person responsible for Batgirl's disappearance." Supergirl took a good look at the surveillance camera image and saw the face of the man accompanying the restrained Batgirl from the lab.

"So, I get to meet this Rupert Thorne and close out this situation for the police. The risks of such a powerful man with a hostage doing something rash in the face of an all out assault by the police are understandable" she thought to herself as she floated over the cityscape after she finished her meeting. The police were reasonable in their latitude, given the amount of footwork The Batman and his 'associates' had provided the community. Since none of them were readily available, the Justice Legion would offer its support in the form of Supergirl.

"Things have taken a profound turn for the worse this week around the world. Superman has his hands full in Metropolis. The majority of the Justice League are tied up in one situation or another. Something is going on" she finished as she located the industrial complex that Thorne was connected with in past dealings. "This is as good a place to begin my search as any."

A swift X-ray exam of the complex exposed many individuals in the buildings. Knowing what he looked like, Supergirl scanned for a particularly large man and found a good match. A quick listen with her hearing exposed a one sided phone conversation, the name of Thorne being spoken more than once. Dropping to the ground slowly, Supergirl moved to find a window near the room to confirm the identity of the criminal in question.

Resolving any doubts about his identity, Supergirl chose a more overt entrance, given the nature of his record and who he was most likely holding. None of her scans from the sky showed anyone who remotely looked like Batgirl inside the building, but there was much of the complex she could not examine from afar without doing great harm to those in the way of her enhanced vision and other senses.

What she found odd was the fact that she could see Rupert Thorne's office clearly. He didn't seem to want to hide his presence in this building. "Time to pay the master of the house a quick visit" thought Supergirl to herself as she selected a point to land. Floating quietly to a rooftop patio by an ornate french door opening into the office suite, the blond heroine set foot on enemy territory. Another brief scan with her x-ray vision showed only small handguns in hidden drawers in the large desk that the man sat at. Secure in the knowledge that he could not harm her with such weapons, she swiftly opened the door and moved to where Thorne could see her.

Once Supergirl came to a stop before the notorious gangster, she noticed that he was deep in concentration, lost in a leather bound book he was reading. Thinking to herself "Must be something important to him", Supergirl was dumbstruck at his lack of interest with the event that had just occurred in front of him. "Excuse me, but are you Rupert Thorne?" asked Supergirl politely as if to shock him back to face her. Rather than answering her, he ignored her outright.

Having never suffered from a lack of attention, Supergirl was unprepared for such a response. Again, she asked if he were Rupert Thorne. And again, the burley man sat behind his desk, all of his attention affixed on the words printed on the pages he read.

"I wondered when someone would come knocking on my door. I hardly dreamt it would be you, Supergirl. Since you seem to know who I am already, I will spare you the usual exchange of snide remarks and get right to business. Please turn around and look at the large flat screen monitor on the wall." Rupert pressed a large button on a television remote control laying on his desk.

Believing that a mere human ruffian would pose no significant physical threat, Supergirl simply turned as the gangster boss asked. The screen was blank, but the power indicator blinked green. Then a scene appeared on the monitor that made Supergirl's blood run cold. On the screen was Batgirl. Her uniform in tatters and her limbs in steel bondage rods, holding her upright for the camera. Two burley men stood beside her, one on each side. They appeared pleased with their task.

"Before you state the obvious, Supergirl, bear in mind that your associate crime fighter is not in this or any other building I own or lease. She is far beyond anyplace you can reach without my guidance. And if anything happened to me, those two are quite capable of ending her life in moments, should anything prevent me from stopping them. There is a 24 hour a day security wall around Batgirl that will insure my wishes will be carried out if you do anything at all to me."

Supergirl paused to take in the weight of what this human just said. She had no reason to doubt that what he was saying was perfectly true. But she had several advantages that she would try to employ before surrendering totally to this criminal. "You have my full attention, Mr. Thorne. As long as Batgirl is safe, I will listen to what you have to say. If she dies needlessly, all bets are off, as you might say." Thorne smiled at the response he heard. "Very wise. child. My men will not harm her any further than what she has already endured at their hands. But now, to business."

"What do you want of me, Thorne?" came the cold as ice response to his presentation to this point. "Actually, I propose that you go now. I will inform you with this cell phone when I have need of you again. And as I said, Batgirl will not be harmed in any way unless you break our current agreement. You will hear from me within the hour. Be ready to travel when I call." Thorne held up a cheap cell phone and offered it to the heroine standing before him.

Considering that she would have time to report what she had to the authorities in the time she had free, she accepted the terms of the next meeting. "Know this, Thorne. You understand that I am not the only person capable of bringing this situation of your to an end. This is a matter of time. Yours is running out swiftly." With that, she floated off the carpet and back out the way she entered.

"She's left. You may resume your tenderizing of the thorn in my side. Make sure she's ready for the next step in my plan." The faces of the two men in the hidden cell containing Batgirl's restrained body lit up like children on Christmas morning. "But keep her in one piece. She's worthless dead!"

As the screen went black, Rupert opened the center drawer and removed the same object he fondled the night he captured Batgirl. "She didn't even notice this little gem. So far, so good."

o runs this city!"

Picking up a phone, Rupert pushed a button and waited to hear a voice at the other end of the line. "Yes, she has the cell phone. You may begin stage three of this plan when you are ready. The sooner, the better!" A wicked smile came over the lips of the elderly gangster. "We'll teach these amateurs who runs this city!"

Chapter 3

Seconds after Supergirl flew out of the building and back into the unfamiliar skies over Gotham City, she fingered the device the mobster had given her. "Any other day I would have crushed this toy and smashed the smug look off that monster's face! But my options are very limited. Any error in judgement and Batgirl's life could be ended. I won't have her death on my account."

While Supergirl reviewed the events, both past and present, a group of men on a rooftop were busy. Three large tubes mounted on heavy tripods were already aimed at the sky in the general direction that the heroine was flying in. One man hung up a cell phone and turned to a laptop some distance from the launchers across the rooftop. With the depression of a button, two of the rockets housed in the tubes were sprung out, their engines lighting off several yards away from the launchers.

A third launch, delayed by several seconds, concluded the mission assigned to this mysterious group of individuals. Sitting in the background, a scale sized helicopter was warming up. The unmanned aircraft had a pair of robotic arms in the nose of the fuselage. Seconds later, the remote aircraft took to the skies.

The rockets closed the gap slowly, taking some time to catch up to the heroine as she flew by. But the heroine was unaware of all of this, deeply lost in thought. Supergirl had encountered the trio of self appointed vigilantes who struggled to counter the likes of this fat, egotistical and power mad criminal.

Supergirl did respect what Batgirl had tried to do. Rather than risk any further harm to Batgirl, she gave Thorne the illusion that he had something he didn't: control of the situation. Little did she realize what she was about to confront, ripped from the illusion of her own command over this situation.

As she pondered the emotional depths of the event she had been dragged into, two anti-aircraft rockets sped at Supergirl's heels, followed by seconds by a larger and heavier anti-tank weapon. Lost in thought, she didn't notice the sounds as they approached.

With a whistle and whine, the two rockets roared past the blond heroine, leaving a pair of bright, dusty trails that she was now flying through. Supergirl came to a stop in the midst of a cloud of particles ejected by both of the rockets. As she looked around at the colors, she thought she was in a rainbow. In these seconds of distraction, Supergirl failed to consider what this event meant to her, or the danger about to strike.

Continuing to breath as if the particles were harmless to her, the blond beauty floated for a few more seconds, then realized the rockets that passed her might pose a threat when they fell from the sky. Not wanting the innocent to be harmed, she sped out of the cloud and after the rockets.

Flying faster, Supergirl began to notice that it was taking far more effort to fly. Using her enhanced vision, she saw the trails left by the motors up ahead. While she strained to move faster, she ignored the sound lost behind her. She was far too occupied in noticing the fact her breathing was now labored, an effort she never experienced before.

The larger and heavier anti-tank rocket had closed the gap and was targeting the signal transmitted by the cell phone her enemy had given her. Eyes monitored the telemetry from the rockets as they conducted their missions. A screen displayed the distance between the last rocket and the cell phone transponder. Then a graphic flash, demonstrating that the final rocket had found its target.

All Supergirl recalled of the next few moments was a nearly perfect white flame that overtook her from behind, the heat and shock wave blowing her body into an uncontrolled tumble towards the ground. When the warhead exploded, a jet of super intense flame roiled over her body, burning her clothing and scorching her skin. The concurrent explosion, designed to demolish the largest tanks built for war, had knocked her unconscious.

Less than a minute later, the robotic helicopter had caught up to the impact point where Supergirl had crashed to the ground. Cameras in the nose exposed a grim scene. The jet of flames had burned almost every stitch of clothing from her still unconscious body. Patches of her exposed skin were burned.

Watching on the other end of the transmission from the remote aircraft, the pilot and mission specialist sent commands to the on-board computers, telling the robotic arms to begin their assigned tasks. Unfolding and extending, the arms reached out as the helicopter floated over the body. Claws slid under Supegirl's arms, closing on them firmly. Sensing that the subject was secure, the helicopter strained slightly to lift the excess weight of the still unconscious female.

Another set of eyes monitored the events unfolding from a safe distance. Rupert Thorne sat in his office, a smug expression playing out on his face. "So, she can be hurt. Now to see if she can be broken." Reaching for a phone, Thorne contacted the team he had hired for this mission. "Tell your employer that I'm quite happy with the outcome of this first test. Please secure your prisoner and await further instructions."

Thorne then hung up. Opening the drawer by his left leg, he removed and examined the same sphere he had stolen a week earlier. "If this works on Supergirl, it will stop Superman as well! No longer will we have to suffer his self-rightous acts. We will be free to conduct our business once again!

Chapter 4

Three days earlier.

Pain and utter darkness are all that Batgirl knew of her place in the world in the uncounted hours and days since she fell into the hands of Rupert Thorne and his thugs. Alternating between hours of his men taking turns fighting with her to prove their worth to their master, bragging how each would break her. Then, after facing repeated combat, being dumped without ceremony into a room the size of a small closet, left to deal with the wounds and bruises she received that day.

At first, her bravado and martial arts were more than a match against the men Thorne set upon her. Then the hours and days wore on. Her opponents managed to slowly gain advantages over her. No matter how many bones she broke, how many crotches she kicked, how many jaws she fractured, the parade of towering challengers never ended.

And as she weakened, Batgirl began to pay a cruel price for her resistance. The more sadistic of the gangsters began to ignore more and more of Rupert's orders in hopes of accelerating the eventual victory over her. After all, she was no superheroine. Just a vigilante whose luck had run out. Many of the thugs had either been sent to jail because of her, or had friends inside, waiting to get out. This was revenge most savage.

One of her more cruel tormentors decided to make an example of her on her third day. Waiting until he knew that Thorne would be occupied with other business, several of the less injured thugs entered the darkened cell where she would be allowed to nurse her wounds and suffer the pains she received in those many fights.

Dragged out and back into the chamber where she had fought so valiantly, the dark knight damsel was subjected to the most violent and one-sided of beatings. Her utility belt, long since emptied by her captors, was now used as a whip against her. Each man took long turns striking Batgirl's weary body, her uniform now beginning to shred as her belt struck her.

After an hour of this, there was very little left of Batgirl's uniform. And nothing left to the imagination about her body underneath the tatters. Welts and bruises covered much of her exposed skin. Trickles of blood ran from the deepest cuts. And any screams she had left after this ravaging were reduced to tiny whimpers, vanishing with what strength she had left.

Seeing that there was little risk of resistance left in their captive, Thorne's employees picked her body up from the floor where she tried in vain to pull herself into a fetal pose. Pulling her arms and legs apart, these thugs began to grope and stroke the few areas that their thrashing had not reached. By design or accident, her crotch had escaped the punishment the rest of her body suffered.

With their victim on the edge of collapse and showing no sign of resistance, they pushed her against a wall and began to slap her senseless while screaming at her. Unlike her previous attempts to resist, Batgirl tried in vain to slouch as the hands violently propped her back up, the stings of each slap pushing her into the wall.

"You took a lot out of us. How does it feel now to be the punching bag, bitch!" The slapping continued despite any obvious signs of resistance now. One of the men stepped away and began to undress. Moments later, he stood naked as his associates paused to examine their victim. "Batbitch, you have two choices. Do you want us to keep on using you for exercise, or do you want a break?" Pulling Batgirl's weakened body up by her arms, they dragged her to where the naked man stood, a tight smile on his face.

"The deal is simple. Have sex with him and you won't be beaten. Refuse, and we'll pull you right back over there. Your call." With that, they released her arms and she fell into the waiting hug of the naked man. He let her slide down his body, ending up kneeling on the floor, her head bent down.

Waves of never ending pain had drained every last iota of resistance from Batgirl's now shattered mind. What few chards of logic she had remaining grasped at the bits of the offer her ears received. Forcing her head to look up from where she knelt, she looked up slowly at the legs, then at the erection before her eyes.

Hoots and hollers began to rise from the thugs as Batgirl crawled the short distance between her and the naked thug. With a huge effort, she slowly lifted her body up. She placed her arms around his hips and pulled her naked and bruised breasts against his aroused sex, trying to rest against him.

"Looks like we have a winner!" Take her, Barney! Take her where she's never gone before!"

A tiny bit of relief dared to enter Batgirl's fatigued mind when she realized that the beating had indeed stopped. She moved her chest from side to side, feeling the penis straining against her skin. Then she heard one last voice. A voice that made her heart stop. "When Barney is finished with her, everyone take a turn, then toss her back into her hole to think about things for a bit."

Chapter 5

Present

Supergirl knew nothing of the way she had been defeated, nor the means used to move her to where she was now. All she knew now of the world she was in was the remains of searing pain and weakness. She was distantly aware of the noise the helicopter made as it exited the large space she was now in.

A shaft of sunlight struggled to illuminate the building Supergirl's body now lay in. At one point, it had been a factory floor, designed for the construction of something very big. Now, all that remained was the darkness and that one bit of light.

At the first sign of movement by Supergirl, a small sphere was fired at the concrete floor several feet from her. A brief hiss and a cloud of particles saturated the air around the groggy figure. If Supergirl had ever learned of the nature of human frailties, the ones she was experiencing now would still confuse her.

Unable to breath normally, every effort to fill her lungs with air resulted in new and increasing pain.  And with the pain came weakness to fill the voids. After several hours of this repeated pattern, the sound of a set of footsteps approached the now still superheroine. A person encased in a hazmat style suit drew near to the scene. Pausing to pick up the several spent spheres that littered the floor, the person turned to look over the handiwork of the compounds that the objects had sprayed.

"No sign of movement whatsoever. The target appears fully unconscious. What are your orders?" "Return to the airlock and clean up. Our cameras and sensors will keep track of her vitals. The boss gave specific orders to make a full test of this. She's going to get the full battery of the trial compounds.

Chapter 6

Two days later.

Batgirl was brought from the holding cell at the order of Rupert Thorne. Despite his first reaction to the disobedience of his minions in savaging his prisoner, he grew to appreciate the state of her former uniform. She was led into his presence by a leash around her neck, her body covered with a network of corse ropes that chafed at her exposed skin. Her legs were restrained by a short length of steel cable, preventing her from using her feet as weapons.

He had ordered what little was left of her costume restored as a constant reminder of what would happen to her should she 'get any funny ideas' about resisting, as he so quaintly phrased it. The ball gag that had been placed in Batgirl's mouth was unhooked from her face, allowing her a bit of air and the chance to talk, which she wisely didn't in Thorne's presence.

They were brought together in the observation and control suite where the technicians had been continuing their procedures on Supergirl, just on the other side of the inch thick composite glass panel. Batgirl took in the scene in silence, hoping that Thorne would take her lack of resistance as a victory. One that he would celebrate with an explaination.

"Look at her, Batgirl! Thanks to a significant contribution from a common enemy of hers, I now possess the means to stop the most powerful aliens on Earth!" Supergirl remained prone on the bare concrete floor beyond the screen. A thin film of dust motes scattered the light, like a wild rainbow.

"See, the air in there is saturated with microscopic diamond dust and crystals of minerals from her home world" he continued. "Her lungs have long since been filled with these compounds, also provided by my partner, Lex Luthor. His industrial divisions discovered the existence of a layer of Kryptonite here on Earth, deposited when a large meteorite struck in Eastern Russia sometime in the late 19th century."

"As he explained it to me, a river had cut a vein of the layer, exposing the new resource to his geological surveyors working with the Russians on oil exploration. Recognizing the possibilities, they obtained tons of these compounds, isolated the most recognizable types of Kryptonite, and blended them into these aerosol pods designed for biological warfare."

Batgirl was, even in her fatigue, able to put the rest of the story into perspective. "As you may have guessed, this was but the first demonstration. Superman attempted to intervene while you were in dispose, Batgirl. He's now a prisoner of Mr. Luthor in another location. The rest of the Justice League is far too busy to bother with you, given the loss of one of their most powerful members."

"Batman and Robin won't be coming to your aid very soon, either. They're far too busy with a mass breakout we organized to coincide with your capture. Don't bother waiting up for a rescue!" Rupert gloated as he grabbed Batgirl by her cowl and dragged her up to the glass. "Look at her! She's weaker than a 90 year old! If I left her in there one more day, she would be dead. But Luthor is sending specialists to pick her up. Then all I need to concern myself with is what to do with you."

Looking again at the defeated superheroine, Thorne concluded his thoughts with "She won't be flying over the rainbow ever again. And neither will you, Batgirl!"

Postscript

A wide screen television was flashing breaking news images in a bar somewhere in Gotham City. The images were of a series of high profile criminal acts against targets in the city. The sound, muted, was un-required as a series of banners flowed along the bottom of the screen, detailing the outrages of each crime. Banks robbed, museums plundered and other outrages.

The remote control for the set was clenched in the hand of the day manager of the bar. Alone in his workplace save for a bar maid who was making herself busy in the back room, he stood the watch in hopes that some of the regulars might return to drown their individual sorrows. But even the most loyal, "Barney" and "Homer" as he called them in his memory, not wanting to assign real names to drunks, had not shown up for over a week. He brought up the volume to break the monotony of the moment.

Something in the audio from the TV managed to pierce the attention of the manager. "Lexcorp has just announced a major medical breakthrough in genetic research. They plan to begin human testing of stem cell treatments that could, if proven, treat dozens of terminal conditions." He turned to see scenes of patients on the screen. "These early volunteers, convinced of the promise of new stem cell procedures, are ready and willing to be the first to be cured of their various problems."

Tired of the empty hope, the manager pressed buttons on the remote, tuning to an internet video channel he normally would run in the late hours to 'entertain' his drunken clientele. In better days, this monitor, along with others scattered around the bar, had run sporting events. That was, until the costs of buying rights to rebroadcast such events had become too expensive.

Lately, the criminals of the city would post their own shocking entries to boast of their successes. But the most outrageous videos had gone viral just a week earlier. Someone had begun to post 3 to 5 minute short videos of someone who looked like Batgirl being subjected to the most outlandish fetish assaults anyone had ever witnessed.

Listening for any signs his hired help might intrude, the bar manager kept the volume muted. But the action on the screen didn't require any audio content. The woman appearing in the various internet videos appeared to have already been put through a grinder. Her costume had been torn to tatters. There was more rope than cloth, and nothing was being left to the imagination.

If this were the very real (and very missing) Batgirl, she had fallen hard and wasn't getting up. The videos were testimony to the most sadistic of acts imaginable. Yet, the bar manager let the cascade of imagery continue. Unlike most crude works of fiction he had seen on the web, this was far more real. Far more despicable.

What seems like dozens of men (and women) had their ugly ways with the bound heroine. Every tool of sadistic merit was employed on this Batgirl. Yet the heroine was left to survive in the end. These animals were not going to let their cruel pleasures come to a crashing end.

At the end of every chapter, a web address indicating where viewers could purchase longer high definition versions of this carnage was included. Given the collective effect of the short examples, it was doubtful many would need to pay for more.

"Hanna, please come out here" said the manager at last, fingering the remote control twice to end the videos in play and shut the monitor off. Appearing after a few seconds, the only other employee walked from the storage room. "Hanna, I'm going to go take my 10 minutes out back. Keep an eye on the fort, OK?" Nodding quietly, the bar maid took her place behind the counter. "I doubt we'll see anyone. But we're still open for business" concluded the manager as he strode towards the back of the establishment and the door to the alley behind the bar.

The manager pulled a nearly empty hard box of cigarettes from his jacket pocket as he walked along under an overhang, shading him from the rain outside. The last smoke bounced around in the crumpled pack. He went to his favorite place to sit and contemplate the world around him. The overhang ran the length of the building, almost to the end of the alley where he could take in a nice view of the city.

Stopping and pulling his lighter to finish off his last smoke for the day, he contemplated the view of the city, darkened and blurred by the constant rain that had fallen for three days. After taking several puffs from his cigarette, he formed one last thought before he turned back towards his business.

"I doubt we'll be seeing any rainbows now or anytime soon." The clouds seemed to grow darker and more ominous as the bar manager began walking back to his job.

END NOTES:

For those who are wondering about some of the plot points used in this story, I wrote this after watching a rerun of a Nova PBS television show about the U.S. government military program on biological warfare and the methods that were developed in the 20th century to create an aerosol dispensing system for powdered toxins.

At first, I had thought to use this along with a synthetic form of kryptonite as the primary weapon against Supergirl. But then another paper came to my attention concerning the discovery of another fantastic accident of nature.

In the course of researching the materials found in historic layers of geography, scientists found that, under extreme focused pressures and heat from a meteorite or comet striking the planet, the carbon locked in the geography would be crushed into microscopic sized diamonds. Tons of so-called nano diamonds are now being found in what are commonly called extinction layers: layers of soil that were created as the dust and pollutants that dropped out of the sky after a large meteorite or comet impacted our planet.

Thus, I did alter the story slightly to invoke the plot point of a cross pollination of a kryptonite laced comet that left a layer of nano diamonds that were reasonably available thanks to a freak discovery after an earthquake changed the path of a river. The balance of the plot of my story was outlined in August of 2006, over half a year before Joe Kelly wrote a similar Supergirl story line for a 2007 comic. I was there first, baby!

The Postscript was what held this story from release. Rather than dumping more and more energy into the various nooks and crannies I had envisioned, I chose to take an ending for another story and character I worked on and used it here. It fit like a glove, and leaves room for the reader to insert his or her specific details of what happened to their imagination.