Episode 2
- The Jade Dragon’s Revenge
- The Jade Dragon and her companion the Scarlet Falcon battle against the
evil forces of Boss Crunch, the brutal crimelord who captured and defiled
the Jade Dragon. Will they triumph
over the powerful thug and his vast criminal organization or will they meet
a cruel and degrading defeat?
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The Adventures
of the Jade Dragon
Episode
2
The Jade
Dragon’s Revenge
Chapter
1 The Jade Dragon Strikes
Back
Sun
Lin
also known as the Jade Dragon, halted in her
patrol. She settled on the edge
of a rooftop and watched the street below
her. She was moving a bit too
fast for her earthbound companion to keep up with
her. “So far so good,”
she thought. It was her
first patrol since her capture and degradation by the brutal crimelord, Boss
Crunch. It had taken her quite
some time to recover from her ordeal at the hands of the arch villain and
his henchmen. It had been a
horrendous affair. She had been
trapped, captured, beaten, and repeatedly
raped. Only her unexpected rescue
by a young woman by the name of Suzi Kendall, also known as the
Scarlet
Falcon, had
saved her life. Suzi was only
sixteen at the time and quite inexperienced in the art of crime
fighting. Grateful for her unexpected
rescue, Sun Lin had allowed herself to be convinced that she should train
the neophyte crimefighter in the martial and spiritual methods of ancient
All that had been six months ago.
Suzi had made amazing progress in the short time that she had been
with Sun Lin, but Master Zhou, Sun Lin’s mentor, was very skilled in
Wushu, one of the most ancient of the Chinese martial
arts. Sun Lin also had learned
much. Her misadventure with Boss
Crunch had shown her that she needed more that just her knowledge of
Wushu. She
needed some sort of weapons and equipment to help her out of tight
situations.
In this area Suzi was
supreme. The seventeen-year-old
had a naturally inventive mind and the scientific knowledge to facilitate
her ideas. When Sun Lin had first
met her she already had prepared a number of clever devices to even up the
odds when encountering those who chose to flout the
law. Much of Suzi’s gear
had been intended to make up for her lack of fighting
skills. Sun Lin balked at accepting
some of the devices Suzi invented, such as the stun grenades she used to
disable opponents, however, she was willing to incorporate traditional Chinese
weapons such as throwing stars into her
arsenal. As a result, the first
time Sun Lin sallied forth after her rescue by Suzi, her utility belt held
more than just her usual climbing gear.
During her absence from the rooftops of
Of course, there were a few who knew what had happened to the Jade
Dragon. Boss Crunch and his henchmen
watched with satisfaction when the heroine failed to
return. It seemed that her treatment
at their hands had so mortified her that she was too frightened and embarrassed
to challenge them again. They
were to be proved wrong.
The sound of Suzi’s specially muffled motorcycle alerted her to the
fact that her companion had caught up.
The
Jade Dragon shifted her weight and vaulted across the
space that separated her from the neighbouring
building. She made it
easily. During her self imposed
absence from the rooftops she had intensified her training under Master
Zhou. Leaps that would have been
impossible for even a trained athlete were now routine for
her. Below her, the Scarlet Falcon
cruised the streets and alleys on her crimson
motorcycle. Together they made
a formidable team.
The first test of the new
combo came only ten minutes into their first
patrol. Cruising silently, Suzi
was the first to come across the scene of the
crime. Three young women had
foolishly ventured out after dark, no doubt believing that crime was something
that happened to someone else.
Their thoughtless bravado had taken them into an area of town that
they should have stayed well clear of.
Now, they were the center of attention of five young toughs, who had
been on the prowl for just such easy victims as the three women
offered.
The hoodlums had already divested the young women of all of their valuables
and were now after something even more precious, their
virtue. Two of the women were
being held tightly by two of the young thugs.
Each struggling female was lying
face down on the ground, her arms pinned behind her
back. The third was being
systematically undressed by the other three, who were reveling in the
girl’s obvious terror. The
young woman’s blouse and skirt had already been torn from her body,
and one of the muggers was straddling her and fondling her breasts through
her brassiere. It was the screaming
and crying of this young woman that had alerted Suzi to her
plight.
So intent were the hoodlums on their evening’s entertainment that
the
Scarlet Falcon was on them before they were even aware
of her presence. The first inkling
that they had that she had arrived was when her well-aimed boomerang bounced
off the skull of the man straddling the potential rape
victim.
The
Scarlet Falcon’s
arrival momentarily stunned the hoodlums, who
had been looking forward to a night of sexual
depravity. But they recovered
quickly even as their comrade slumped over his victim, his skull bleeding
profusely from the head wound Suzi had
inflected.
All three of the female
victims began screaming at once as the thugs who had mugged them leaped to
their feet and faced their unexpected
opponent. By this time three
more of Suzi’s boomerangs were on their
way. One of the deadly missiles
caught a second mugger right between the
eyes. Another fractured a third
hoodlum’s cheekbone. The
third missed, as the intended target ducked under
it.
Suzi now faced only two remaining thugs, but they had yanked guns from their
pockets and were in the process of training them on
her. How she would have handled
the situation herself she never found out, because at that instant a green
and black phantom descended like lighting from above. The Jade Dragon had
returned!
Sun Lin swung into the would-be gunmen with incredible
force. Her outspread feet made
contact with each of the remaining villains’ heads, knocking them head
over heels into the street. They
were unconscious before they hit the
ground. Now only the hoodlum
with the fractured cheekbone remained, and he was too busy groaning in agony
to offer any resistance.
The two heroines remained on the scene of the crime only long enough to ascertain
that the three young women were alright.
Then with the sound of sirens echoing in the distance they departed
the scene. Apparently some community
minded citizen had phoned the police.
Since the authorities were sometimes less than appreciative of the
efforts of vigilantes, the two heroines thought it best to be
elsewhere. A short time later
they were back in Sun Lin’s home, the palatial residence of Master
Zhou. Suzi was ecstatic with
excitement. “We got
them! We got them!” she
crowed.
Sun Lin smiled. Except for the
time she had rescued Sun Lin, it was Suzi’s first face to face encounter
with danger and she had accounted herself
well. The young woman had a right
to be pleased with her performance.
The fact that Sun Lin had deliberately stayed away from confronting
some of the more dangerous criminal elements in
“
“Tea,” Sun Lin answered.
“You’re too young to
drink.”
Suzi grinned. She had never seen
the Jade Dragon consume alcohol.
And during her life, as the pampered child of very wealthy parents,
Suzi had drunk more champagne than Sun Lin had seen
bottles. Nevertheless, she did
not protest her mentor’s decision.
If abstinence from alcohol was the price of becoming a superheroine,
then Suzi was prepared to pay it.
Tomorrow night they would patrol
again. And this time they might
seek more worthy opponents.
The next night found the Jade
Dragon
and
the
Scarlet Falcon
zeroing in on the area of
But Sun Lin had a plan. She would
not attack Crunch directly. Instead
she and Suzi would wear him down
gradually. It would be a war
of attrition. They would attack
the outlying sectors of Crunch’s operations, destroying the body to
get at the head. She had decided
to strike first at Crunch’s illegal distillery, the most lucrative of
Crunch’s operations. Cheap
booze from this establishment was the main source of the illegal trade in
alcohol. It was also the cause
of numerous deaths due to the tendency of Crunch’s operatives to mix
the pure ethanol with the cheaper, but deadly methyl
alcohol. Due to its high profit
margin the warehouse that housed the distillery was heavily
guarded. It would be a tough
nut to crack.
Sun Lin cased the warehouse from an adjacent
rooftop. As she had surmised,
there were at least a half dozen men guarding the facility including two
on the roof. “It’s
almost as if they were expecting me,” she
thought.
She checked the streets below.
There in the shadows was
Suzi. She had apparently parked
her bike and had entered the area on
foot. Sun Lin gave a low
whistle. It was a signal that
she and Suzi had prearranged. Suzi
responded with a whistle of her own.
It meant that she had received the
signal. She watched as Suzi moved
toward the building on which Sun Lin was
perched. Quickly Sun Lin dropped
a line to the street and slid down to where her friend was
waiting. Briefly, she outlined
her plan. Suzi
nodded. It had an element of
risk, but could work.
Suzi worked her way back to her bike.
A few minutes later, she roared up in front of the building moving
at full speed. The men in front
reacted by drawing their guns, but even as they took aim the Scarlet
Falcon’s
arm hurled a variety of explosive devices toward
them. Although not powerful enough
to kill, the blasts from the stun grenades disabled the men before they could
fire. Then with a roar Suzi gunned
the bike’s engine and raced away before any of Crunch’s other men
could react.
On the other
side of the building Sun Lin watched with satisfaction as the guards on the
roof moved to the far side. The
gap separating her from the roof of Crunch’s warehouse was too great
even for her psychically enhanced muscles to jump, so she drew a small spring-
loaded gun from her belt. It
was one of the new devices she had worked on with Suzi’s
help. The device was compact,
but capable of driving a steel spike attached to a silken line into several
inches of concrete. The barbed
tip was capable of holding a weight of 500 pounds, which was more than enough
to convey Sun Lin across any space.
This time, she aimed for the small building that housed the entrance
to the stairs that led to the roof of the
building. It was most likely
built of wood, which was a better and safer holding material than concrete
or brick.
Her aim was true. The steel dart
struck home, taking a hundred feet of line with
it. Sun Lin pulled on the line,
testing its security. Satisfied
that it was safe she attached the other end of the line to a heavy air intake
pipe on her building. Then she
fastened a pulley to the line and launched herself across the open
space. Since the roof that she
was on was slightly higher than that of Crunch’s warehouse, she slid
quickly down the rope to the rooftop of the other
building.
The rooftop guards were still completely occupied with the commotion that
Suzi had stirred up. So intent
were they on watching what was going on in the street below that it was simple
matter for the Jade Dragon to come up behind them and take them by
surprise. She did not waste time
on niceties. She simply struck
each of the guards on the head with a length of pipe that she found lying
on the roof. It was quicker and
easier than using her martial arts
skills.
The roof secure, she then entered the building by way of the rooftop
staircase. Inside, the upper
floors of the building were quite dimly
lit. The darkened staircase led
down to a catwalk high above the floor of the
warehouse. From this vantagepoint,
she could study the entire main floor of Crunch’s
distillery. Below, there were
about a dozen of Crunch’s henchmen busily involved in the production
of illicit and dangerous booze. In
one corner, near a loading dock was a stack of barrels containing
methanol. In the center were
huge vats used in the distilling process.
Coils of copper tubing ran from the vats to large holding tanks, into
which the distilled alcohol dripped.
Sun Lin guessed that all of the distilled liquid would be highly
combustible. That along with
the barrels of methanol should make a fine
blaze. All she had to do was
start a fire. It was at this
point that she wished she had some of Suzi’s explosive
devices. But she had not liked
the idea of carrying potentially dangerous explosive material strapped to
her body and so had declined to carry such
weapons. She would have to find
another way to start the fire.
Then she had it. Most of the
building was lit by large overhead lights dangling on long electrical
cords. If she could bring one
of those lights into contact with the inflammable material in the warehouse
it should explode into flame.
Moving stealthily along the catwalk she moved directly over one of the dangling
electrical cables. The cord that
held the light was stapled to the roof above her, only about an arm's length
away. Taking a small pry bar
from her utility belt, she popped out the staples holding the electrical
line one after the other, until the light was held only by a single
staple. Then she took out her
spring-loaded gun and inserted a steel spike into
it. Taking careful aim she fired
it into the base of one of the ethanol
tanks. One again her aim was
perfect. The steel dart struck
about a foot from the bottom of the tank.
The clunk of the dart hitting the tank attracted some
attention. Some instinct caused
one of the plant workers to look up.
“Hey!” he yelled, “we’ve got an
intruder.” Immediately a
number of other men ran his way, drawing their guns as they
came. Sun Lin realized she would
have to work fast.
She pulled hard on the line, jerking the steel dart loose from the tank and
releasing a stream of volatile liquid.
The tank must have been nearly full, as the alcohol shot a good ten
feet across the floor creating a widening puddle of inflammable
liquid. Then she reached
above her and yanked the electrical cord holding the huge 500-watt bulb of
the lamp. At that moment, shots
rang out as Crunch’s men realized what she was up
to. Bullets whizzed around
her. “Stop the
bitch! She’ll blow the place
up!” screamed one of the men.
Ignoring the hail of poorly aimed shots, Sun Lin ripped the cord free of
the ceiling and let it drop. It
hit the floor in a shower of electrical sparks, directly in the middle of
the pool of alcohol.
Booompph! With a muffled roar the alcohol
exploded into flame. Fed by the
stream of fluid pouring from the ruptured tank it sent flames leaping 20
feet into the air. Within seconds,
Sun Lin found her perched in the center of a growing
conflagration.
Hastily she shifted her position, running down the catwalk away from the
flames. Most of Crunch’s
men had stopped shooting at her.
Instead, they were rushing toward the flames carrying fire
extinguishers. “That won’t
do,” she thought.
Reaching into her utility belt she extracted a half dozen throwing
stars. More rapidly than the
eye could follow, she hurled the deadly little missiles at the oncoming
thugs. The lead henchman
stopped, literally dead in his tracks.
Two of the stars had caught him in the head, killing him
instantly. A second screamed
in pain as a third star pieced his
cheekbone. A fourth dropped his
firefighting equipment as two stars impaled themselves in his arm and
shoulder.
This unexpected assault brought a halt to the firefighting
efforts. The thugs instead focussed
their attention on the Jade Dragon, firing a murderous volley in her
direction. Fortunately, none
of them were armed with anything more accurate than pistols, and Sun Lin
was not an easy target to hit. Her
dark green and black outfit blended in well with the shadows and her quickly
moving form made it difficult for any man to draw a bead on
her. As a result, although bullets
zipped by close to her, none hit their
mark. In the meantime, the fire
continued to gain ground, reaching and heating the tank containing the source
of the burning alcohol.
Sun Lin decided that it was time to exit the
building. By this time she had
reached the stairs to the roof.
Leaping up them three steps at a time, she burst through the door
at the top and dashed across the roof to her
line. Unhooking it from the metal
dart, she raced to the edge of the roof and launched herself into
space. She swung in a wide arc
toward the building that she had fastened the other end of the line
to. Bracing herself, her powerful
legs absorbed the impact as she swung into the side of the
building. Then using the line
as a climbing rope, she hauled herself to the top of the
building.
KAABOOOM!
Crunch’s warehouse erupted in a powerful explosion.
Sun Lin turned to watch for a
few seconds. In the distance
she could hear the wail of sirens as the police and fire department headed
for the inferno. She smiled in
satisfaction. Round one to the
Jade Dragon.