The Adventures of the Jade Dragon

Episode 7  The Black Leopard’s Triumph

Chapter 12  Heroine Attack

Suzi moved silently through the warehouse district near the Metro City waterfront.  Somewhere above her was Nova.  They were working the area as a team.  Word had it that Zhuang Zhijian was smuggling in a large shipment of raw opium.  It would be heavily guarded, but danger had never dissuaded the Scarlet Falcon from fighting crime and corruption where it threatened. 

She moved quickly across an open area partly illuminated by a flickering street light.  Her crimson costume did not blend in as well as the outfits worn by her fellow heroines.  Sometimes she wished that she was not so fond of bright colours.  She had chosen the costume more to awe the criminal element rather than to hide from it.  After all, she frequently went after criminals on a motorcycle, a vehicle not well suited to subtlety. 

She was still only twenty one, but had been fighting crime for five years.  During that time her crimefighting skills had improved exponentially.  She had been an inexperienced teenager when she had first started.  But she had learned much from the Jade Dragon and her other companions.  She was now a formidable opponent in hand to hand combat, and she brought her own special talents to the crimefighting game.  

She was a tall girl, and her form-fitting scarlet costume revealed a body that could only be described as majestic.  Her breasts were large, almost disproportionately so.  But the grace with which she carried herself and the firmness of her two melon sized fruit made them seem perfectly natural.  Muscles, rippled in her long legs and shapely buttocks.  Hours of working out with the Jade Dragon and Nova had given her muscles where she hadn’t known muscles existed.  Her waist was narrow, emphasizing the flare of her hips and the swell of her bosom.  Her nipples, stimulated by the coolness of the night air and the movement of her breasts against her costume, were erect and could be clearly seen through the thin silk.  Her head was concealed by a cowl and a mask.  But bunched up beneath the cowl was a mane of glorious honey-blonde hair that reached to the small of her back when it was loosed.  A small golden falcon decorated the front of her crimson costume, just above her left breast.  The only other departure from the scarlet theme was the yellow utility belt she wore about her waist, and the black boots that protected her feet. 

She paused in the shadows.  Her quarry was just ahead of her now.  She could make out about a dozen men on the waterfront.  They were shifting cargo from a small boat onto the dock.  She looked about for Nova, but did not see her.  She should have been close by, traveling across the rooftops of the warehouses.  Suzi had a moment’s doubt.  The Jade Dragon and Scorpion had already disappeared.  Surely Nova had not also become a victim. 

A noise from her rear startled her.  She froze, knowing that a complete lack of movement might prevent anyone from seeing her.  Slowly she turned her head.  Three men were walking between the gap formed by two buildings.  They were not looking at her, but moving toward the unloading operation.  She shrank a little farther back into the shadow of the warehouse.

The scuff of a foot alerted her.  She stepped to one side.  That move probably saved her life, but she was not quite quick enough to avoid the lead weighted sap that struck her left shoulder a glancing blow.  The impact knocked her to her knees and sent a sharp jolt of pain shooting through her arm and shoulder all the way to her fingertips. 

Rolling with the impact, Suzi avoided a second blow.  As she rolled over she caught sight of the man who had ambushed her.  He was nothing special.  Just a thug in workman’s clothes and swinging a cosh.  He raised his hand to strike again and shouted the alarm.  “Superheroine!” he screamed.  “I’ve got a superheroine!” 

“Got” was perhaps the wrong word.  Suzi’s reflexes kicked in.  Years of martial arts training sent her foot into the man’s groin, changing his cry of warning to a high pitched shriek of pain.  Then in a fluid motion she rolled to her feet.  Already the first three men she had seen were rushing toward her.  Two of them had drawn knives and the third was brandishing a snub-nosed revolver. 

Suzi’s left arm hung limply.  The pain in her shoulder was agonizing.  Possibly a bone had been broken.  At the very least it was badly bruised.  But she had no time to worry about her injuries.  The only thing that had kept the man with the gun from shooting her was the fact that she was still concealed by the shadows of the building, but in a second he would be close enough to see her clearly.  Her hand went to her belt and settled on a quick release weapon. 

It was a nasty piece of lethal equipment, consisting of a small disc about three inches across.  Weighted, and with its edges filed to razor sharpness, it was a vicious weapon in the hands of an expert.  Too quick for the eye to follow Suzi whipped three of the discs toward the onrushing thugs.  A scream of acute agony sounded from the throat of the man with the gun.  He had been Suzi’s principle target.  One of the discs had caught him just above the bridge of his nose, sending blood spraying into his eyes.  The other struck his forehead and imbedded itself in his skull.  He dropped his gun and clutched at his wounds screaming loudly all the while. 

The third disc was meant for one of the other toughs, but he moved his head just as she threw and it sailed past his cheek.  And then the two assailants were upon her. 

Crowded against the wall, Suzi had little room to maneuver, but even with only one arm she was a formidable adversary against untrained street brawlers such as the two men who closed with her.  Her black booted leg flexed and drove into the solar plexus of the man to her right, even as he sought to slash at her with his knife.  With a “woof” the air was driven out of him and he doubled over, dropping his weapon and falling to his knees.

The last man slashed at Suzi from her unprotected left side.  Unable to block the blow, she did as she had been taught and sidestepped it instead.  And then without missing a beat, she drove her right fist into the side of the thug’s neck.  There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage and her opponent spun in a circle before crashing into the brick wall of the warehouse as he went down.

But now there was the sound of many rushing feet.  The men unloading the opium were now stampeding toward her, armed with anything at hand, including several carrying guns.  There were too many to take on at once.  Even if she had not been injured there was no way she could avoid so many armed men.  Suzi looked for a way out.  But she was backed into a corner.  As the men closed on her, she realized that she would have to fight or die.


Nova shifted her athletic body from one rooftop to the next.  There was a gap of thirty feet between buildings, but for her the jump was routine.  She landed like a cat, her grapefruit sized breasts hardly quivering as her powerful legs absorbed the impact.  She moved immediately to the edge of the roof and peeked down toward the water. 

In her white and black costume, Nova or Natassia Green, to use her non-heroine name, presented a remarkable spectacle.  She was not as tall as Suzi, nor as well endowed.  But in every other respect she was at least her equal.  Her costume was a brilliant white, highlighted with black diamonds that ran down both arms and also from beneath her armpits to the top of her black knee-high boots.  She seemed to shimmer as she moved, the contrasting colours making her difficult to see in the uncertain light of the dock area.  The alternating black and white markings broke up the outline of her body so that as she moved from light to shadow and back again it was difficult to make out what she was.  If she remained very still, she blended in with the shadowy background. 

Her raven hair was tucked under a black and white cowl that covered her head, and a black mask covered half her face.  Like Suzi’s, her costume was skin tight, revealing an anatomy that was breathtaking, from the crevice between her thighs to the taut nipples of her firm breasts.  The same age as Suzi, she had not been a crimefighter for quite as long, but was actually more proficient in the martial arts, having spent most of her teen years in China where she had mastered Chinese fighting technique. 

But it was what couldn’t be seen that was Natassia’s greatest asset in her fight against crime.  Around her slender waist, but concealed by her costume was a belt into which Natassia had set a glowing gem the size of a walnut.  Known as the Dragon’s Eye the mysterious green stone gave Nova immense strength and the power to heal herself and anyone she touched.  It also greatly slowed the aging process although at the age of only twenty one; Natassia did not yet suspect that it had that power. 

She had been paralleling Suzi through the warehouse district, but a strange noise had attracted her attention.  It sounded like the crying of a child and it moved Nova to investigate.  Below her was the edge of the waterfront.  There were a number of boats tied up along it, both large and small.  One of the boats, a rusting hulk that should long ago have been consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker, was disgorging passengers.  There were quite a number of them for such a small vessel.  They moved quietly, carrying their few possessions with them. 

“Illegal migrants,” thought Natassia.  She looked thoughtful.  By law she should have descended upon them and arrested the smugglers who had brought them ashore.  But she knew what that would mean for the migrants.  They would all be poor people, desperate to start a new life and deeply in debt to the smuggling syndicate that had arranged for their transport.  If they were arrested they would all be sent back home.  But that would not mean they would be debt free.  They would still owe the money for their passage to the syndicate, and it would be collected whether or not they were delivered to their destination.  And if they could not pay, then their relatives would be made to pay.  There was no escape from the debt, no matter how long it took to pay it off.  Natassia sighed.  The best she could do would be to deal with the smugglers.  Her conscience would not let her take the illegal migrants into custody.

A shot echoed along the waterfront, settling the issue for her.  “Suzi!” she thought.  In an instant, she was a blur in the uncertain light of the warehouse district, as she streaked across the rooftops toward the sound of the shot.


Suzi ducked as a bullet ricocheted off the brickwork behind her.  The mob of thugs heading toward her was shooting even before they could see where she was.  Her right hand went to her utility belt, a move she had practiced hundreds of times.  Inserted between the pouches containing her other crimefighting paraphernalia were a series of cylindrical objects similar in size and shape to shotgun shells.  Pulling one out, she flicked off the safety and threw it hard in the direction of the charging mob. 

There was a blinding flash and a loud explosion split the air.  Suzi looked away just before the explosion to avoid being blinded.  Then she pulled out another and sent it after the first.  There was another bright flash and then Suzi was moving as fast as she could. 

The grenades she had thrown did little more than produce a loud noise and bright flash.  They were intended to disorient an opponent not to kill.  She had found them useful on numerous occasions when the ear bursting explosion, accompanied by the blinding light had confused an enemy, enabling her to attack against heavy odds or retreat from an impossible situation.  This was just such an impossible situation and she ran for her life, the bewildered shouts of her assailants behind her.   

She almost made it.  But a lucky, or from Suzi’s point of view, unlucky, stray bullet caught the fleshy part of her thigh.  The startling pain accompanied by the buckling of her right leg pitched her face forward onto the pavement.  For a second she lay there, stunned, and then she rolled over, prepared to defend herself. 

“I got her, I got her,” shouted one of the thugs.  He was brandishing his revolver as if it were a toy, threatening Suzi and the other men around him. 

“Put that away, Royce, you idiot,” shouted one of the other hoodlums.  “We’ve got her now.  She can’t get away.”

But Suzi was far from finished.  She still had not emptied the contents of her other pouches.  As she lay in the roadway, her leg throbbing with pain, her fingers snapped open another of her belt pouches.  She reached in and took out several marble-like objects.  She should have tossed them one at a time, but she the men were all around her now.  She simply threw the entire handful at them. 

As the tiny spheres made contact, they burst open, each one emitting a cloud of yellowish gas.  By rights the gas pellets should not have been used out of doors, but the men were so close to her and so close to one another that the gas did not have a chance to dissipate the way it would have in a more open area.  The gas was not poisonous, but it had a powerful soporific effect.  Within seconds half the men around her were weaving drunkenly, many of them falling to their knees, and the others attempting to retreat from the sleep-inducing gas.  But other men on the periphery of the action were not affected.  They were too far away, and the slight evening breeze quickly dissipated the gas. 

Suzi, unaffected by the gas because of the built-in filters in her cowl, snapped open still another pouch.  She reached in more carefully.  Inside was her latest invention and she did not want it going off while she held it in her hand.  Again, the object was a sphere.  But this time somewhat larger, about the size of a hen’s egg.  Suzi pressed down hard on a tiny catch.  There was a click and then she hurled the sphere toward the remaining thugs.  Even as the sphere was on its way, she was reaching for a second.

As luck would have it, the sphere struck Royce, who having backed away, was in the process of drawing a bead on the prone heroine.  There was an intense bluish flash and Royce’s arms and legs flew out from his body like a child’s toy that is activated by a pull string.  Those near him screamed in pain as a powerful electrical charge crackled through the air from Royce’s jerking body to the men closest too him.  This was too much for the remaining hoodlums.  Without waiting to see what was happening to the rest of their cohort they took to their heels and ran off into the night.

With a gasp of relief, Suzi watched them go.  Her electro-bomb had worked much better than she had planned, but she only had a few of them and they were limited in range to the distance she could throw them.  And right now, lying in the street with her right thigh gushing blood, she could not have fought much longer. 

At that moment a white and black clad figure dropped in front of her.  “Nova,” she gasped, “am I glad to see you.” 

Natassia surveyed the bodies sprawled in the street.  “Doesn’t look like you were in much trouble,” she said.  “Are you hurt?”

“My shoulder and my leg,” said Suzi.  Now that the adrenaline that had surged through her system was wearing off, she was quite cognizant of the pain of her injuries.  “I think the shoulder may be broken and there is a slug in my leg.  Only the tightness of the costume is preventing major bleeding.”

“I’d better get you someplace private quickly,” Natassia said.  “Grit your teeth.”  Stooping, she gathered Suzi in her arms and picked her up as lightly as if the tall heroine had weighed nothing. 

Suzi put her arms around Nova’s neck, and held on.  She could feel herself weakening.  The loss of blood and the shock of her injuries was now making itself felt.  Moving down the street Natassia approached a warehouse.  “My apologies to the owners,” she said.  Drawing back her foot, she smashed the door of the warehouse office off its hinges.  Inside there was a long counter.  Placing Suzi on it, she put the door back in place and then turned on the lights.  “Now,” she said, “the leg first.  Got any more of that sleeping gas?’

Suzi nodded and reached into her pouch.  Natassia eased Suzi’s cowl back from her head and then crushed the sphere between her thumb and forefinger.  The gorgeous blonde heroine took a single breath and then went limp, her agitated breathing becoming more relaxed as she drifted off into unconsciousness. 

Quickly, Natassia removed Suzi’s utility belt and then unzipped her one piece costume, starting at the neck.  She peeled it off the heroine’s body stripping her right down to the knees, revealing a body that would have had most men drooling like idiots had they been around to see it.  As Suzi had surmised the wound in her leg was serious.  The bullet had missed the bone, but it had ripped a deep hole in her thigh and had imbedded itself in the soft flesh.  Blood welled out of the wound.  It would have to be closed, but first the bullet would have to be removed. 

Suzi’s utility belt provided all of the necessary instruments.  First, a length of strong cord to serve as a tourniquet.  Then a razor edged knife that Natassia used as a scalpel. 

She cut deeply, not worrying about the size of the incision she was making.  She wanted to be sure that she did not miss any bullet fragments.  She located the bullet without difficulty and using her fingers extracted the slug.  She examined it, and noting that it was intact, turned her attention to Suzi’s shoulder.  The wound in the unconscious woman’s leg bled slowly, restricted by the tourniquet. 

She examined the shoulder.  It was something had had learned to do well over the years.  Her fingers ran over the bone structure with practiced skill.  “Good, she said, “no broken bones.”  Placing her fingers on the gaping wound in Suzi’s thigh she pinched the flesh together, and then she concentrated. 

The energy of the Dragon’s Eye flowed through her fingertips.  The ugly gash beneath her fingers closed.  The bleeding stopped.  In a few seconds all that was left was a red scar, and then as the healing continued, it shrank to a thin line and then disappeared entirely.  Natassia gave a sigh of satisfaction.  The leg was healed and the shoulder as well.  Leaving Suzi for a few seconds she sought out the washroom and returned with a few towels.  They were none too clean, but there was no danger of infection.  Carefully she wiped the blood from the heroine’s body.  Then tossing the towels into the wastebasket, she pulled Suzi’s costume back onto her and zipped it up. 

“Well,” she said aloud, “I better get you home.” 

Nova knew that there was unfinished business.  The transfer of drugs from ship to shore had been interrupted, not stopped.  But getting Suzi home was more important.  The gas would have no long lasting effect, however, it was best to wait until Suzi’s head was completely clear before chancing taking on Metro City’s criminal element.  In the meantime it was best if she slept.  Suzi’s car was only a few blocks away.  Nova would carry her there and then drive her home.  Tomorrow they could resume their search for the Jade Dragon and Scorpion.  If they were still alive.  Somehow, Nova knew they were, but they had been missing a long time.  And there was almost no news of them.  It was most mysterious.  She couldn’t help feeling that when they were found there was going to be something seriously wrong with them.  With another sigh, this one most despondent, Natassia headed to where Suzi had parked her car. 

---

PREVIOUS CHAPTER WIZARD'S LAIR MAIN PAGE   L'ESPION'S STORY PAGE   NEXT CHAPTER