Autumn caught in shower

The Adventures of Autumn

Autumn Meets Shadowcloud

L’Espion with Melissa Gallant

Chapter 3 Catfight

Autumn hovered over the city. “Pretty quiet tonight,” she thought. But there was one disturbing element that bothered her. Someone had captured and brutally tortured a woman at a meat storage warehouse. The fact that the woman who had been brutalized was a well known cat burglar did not make it any more excusable. “If I ever catch up with the thugs who did that I’ll make them pay dearly,” she said aloud.

Deciding that not much was going to happen where she was, she flew over to the Grande Capital Hotel. There was a special gala going on there tonight together with a rare jewellery exhibition and auction. Although the function was heavily guarded there was no harm in checking up on it.

Her night vision spotted the intruder almost immediately. Incredibly the black-suited figure was climbing straight up the side of the building, apparently without any climbing equipment. She moved in for a better look, maintaining enough height and distance that the intruder wouldn’t see her.

“A woman,” Autumn thought. There was no mistaking the smooth contours of a woman’s body beneath the almost sheer midnight black catsuit she was wearing. This was interesting. The woman was moving up the vertical wall of the building almost as if she were climbing stairs. Another superheroine? Autumn had never met anyone else with abilities like hers. The idea excited her. Then she realized that another heroine would probably not be trying to sneak in to a heavily guarded building in the middle of the night by climbing the wall. That meant she was a super-villainess. Although disappointing in way that was almost more interesting. What sort of person would she be? What kind of powers other than the ability to climb walls did she have? Autumn decided to wait until the woman had reached the top of the hotel before dropping in and having a chat.

Shadowcloud permitted herself a small smile. This was almost too easy. All of the building’s security was concentrated on the ground floors. There was nothing to stop her from breaking in through the rooftop entrance once she climbed the thirty stories to the top; and she was almost there.

She peaked over the parapet that ran around the edge of the building. Directly in front of her was the large skylight that was directly over the ballroom and just to her right was the entrance to the building. The glow from the skylight made it easy to pick out any details, not that her eyes needed much help to see in the dark. Nothing. Not even a single security guard. But perhaps the rooftop stairs would be guarded. She would have to find out. Even if they were, however, she didn’t expect one or two guards to give her much trouble. She pulled herself up on the roof and waited to catch her breath. It hadn’t been much of a workout, but it would give her a chance to listen for any activity on the top floor.

A sudden swooshing sound to her left alerted her. Moving to a crouch she stared in astonishment as a lithe figure clad in a somewhat revealing dark costume dropped out of the air and landed on the roof just a few feet away. “Hello,” the figure said politely.

A light bulb popped in Shadowcloud’s head. This must be the Grande Capital superheroine. She had heard about her. What was her name? Summer? No, Autumn. Stupid name for a heroine. Didn’t mean anything. “Hello to you too,” Shadowcloud replied. Her eyes swept over the superheroine, sizing her up.

The heroine was a few inches shorter than she was. Probably about five-foot-seven or eight. She was well-proportioned, with full breasts, a flat belly, womanly hips, and long rounded legs. She couldn’t see all of her face as it was partly covered with a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. Sunglasses at night? That really made a lot of sense.

Her costume was rather daring, seemingly designed to show off the heroine’s body rather than serving any useful purpose. It was mostly black, but trimmed in red and gold. A single thin strap over her right shoulder supported the top, leaving a good deal of her shapely bosom exposed. From there the costume flowed down her body to her hips where it ended in a pair of gold bikini bottoms that were worn over black tights that covered her legs. Black boots and gloves completed the outfit.

“Nice outfit,” she commented drily. “You out for a night on the town? Well you missed it. There’s a strip joint a few blocks over.”

Autumn bristled at the comment. The woman facing her was quite intimidating, but not someone she couldn’t handle. She was dressed from head to toe in a micro-thin black body stocking that hid nothing of her magnificent physique. She was very tall, almost six feet, and everything beneath the costume showed, from her prominent nipples to the cleft below her mound of Venus. But it was her eyes that were the most fascinating. They glowed in the dark like a cat's, and had vertical irises. In spite of being faced by a superheroine she seemed completely unafraid.

“You should talk,” Autumn replied, returning the greeting the dark-suited villainess had given her. “Halloween is still five months away. And I doubt that you’ll be free to enjoy it.”

“Really?” Shadowcloud asked. She gave a little laugh. “What are you going to arrest me for? Climbing a building without a permit? I don’t think that draws jail time. And beside I doubt very much that you can take me in.”

It was good thing it was dark. Autumn blushed. The villainess was right. She hadn’t really done anything yet. She should have waited until she broke into the hotel. Nevertheless, she was determined that this strange burglar wasn’t going to go anywhere. At the very least she would be taken down to police headquarters and fingerprinted and photographed. “Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt,” she said.

The villainess laughed and then launched herself at Autumn with a speed that the heroine would not have believed if she had not seen it. She had no weapons, but Autumn quickly found out that the cat-woman had her own built in armory.

“Aaaggh!” Autumn cried as razor edge claws slashed across her midriff shredding her costume and ripping four bloody stripes across her belly. Only her lightning reflexes had enabled her to dodge the full impact of the attack. If she had been one inch closer she would have been gutted.

“Rowll!” Shadowcloud growled. The heroine was faster than she had expected. That attack should have finished her. Without stopping she hurled herself at the bloodied heroine once again.

Autumn was ready this time. She now saw what she had not noticed in her assessment of the villainess. Protruding from her fingers were inch long razor edged claws. They had cut though the tough material of her costume as if is had been tissue. As the attack came in she used her martial arts skills and superhuman reflexes to duck below the claws and counterattacked.

“Ooooff!” Shadowcloud had never felt such power. It drove the breath from her body and hurled her twenty five feet across the rooftop; her hurtling body coming to a stop only inches from the skylight. She couldn’t breathe. The blow must have cracked a couple of her ribs, doubling over she fought for breath and spat up blood.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Autumn said calmly. “You’re a very naught pussy.” She walked slowly toward the wheezing villainess, sure that the fight was over.

It wasn’t. Shadowcloud fought for control of her breathing. Slowly her breathing slowed as her amazing powers of recovery took hold. But she didn’t move. She waited. Waited until that smug little bitch was so close that she could smell her blood.

Autumn started to reach for the handcuffs in her utility belt when the supposedly beaten villainess suddenly revived. The attack was unexpected, but this time Autumn was not caught completely unprepared. As the black-clad villainess suddenly exploded from her fetal position, her needle-sharp claws extended Autumn caught her wrists, blunting the attack. She was not, however, prepared for the powerful blow to her crotch.

Shadowcloud used her right shin, with all the force she could muster to strike the heroine between the legs. There was a very satisfying cry of agony and the then to her shock and alarm she and the heroine were falling backward onto the skylight.

It wasn’t supposed to break, but it did. And Autumn shouldn’t have fallen either. But her power of flight was momentarily forgotten as she struggled with the pain between her thighs. “Damn good thing I’m not a man,” she thought, as waves of pain consumed her. Then she and the villainess, still locked together, were crashing through the Plexiglas and plummeting toward the floor fifty feet below.

Fortunately they landed on the buffet table. In the middle of the pastry section to be exact. The impact broke Autumn’s hold on the villainess who somehow had managed to turn in the air and land on top. For a second neither woman moved, then almost simultaneously they went at each other again, oblivious to the stares and shrieks of the crowd of people about them.

“Aaahhh!”Autumn screamed, as the knife-like claws ripped through the most prominent portion of her anatomy, tearing open her costume and leaving four more nasty cuts across her breasts. She swung wildly, disoriented by the pain only to have the villainess duck beneath her blow and rip her right and left-handed. Screaming in agony, Autumn finally had the presence of mind to levitate, leaving the raging villainess slashing at the air. She was now bleeding heavily from a score of bloody cuts. She knew that if she did not end the fight quickly she would soon lose too much blood to continue.

Shadowcloud growled in frustration. She had almost gotten the bitch. What was she, part bird? Just one more good hit. That was all she needed. Yes. The heroine was dropping toward her hoping to hit her feet first. With a yowl she launched herself from the tabletop, scattering cakes, and sweet rolls in all directions.

She fell short as the heroine suddenly pulled up, leaving her claws raking empty space. Then as she dropped back toward the floor, momentarily helpless, the heroine suddenly surged toward her.

“Uuuuggh!” The full force of the heroine’s boots caught her in her injured ribs. For a second the pain almost overwhelmed her. And then suddenly the heroine was on her, forcing her arms behind her back. She struggled desperately, but the heroine’s strength was enormous. There were two sharp clicks as the handcuffs closed. She screamed in rage and hate, twisting her arms in an attempt to reach the chain connecting the steel bracelets, but the heroine must have read her mind, because she had locked them over her arms just above the elbows. Try as he might she could not reach them.

Autumn rose into the air, holding the struggling cat-woman with one hand and trying to cover her breasts with the other. Blushing furiously she carried the kicking shrieking villainous over to the security guards who now rushed toward them. “Here,” she said. “You take her. I’m sure you can find something to charge her with.” Then rising quickly she disappeared through the broken skylight and into the night.

Shadowcloud howled in dismay as she was seized by a dozen pairs of hands. She was caught. She almost wept with shame as additional shackles were locked onto her ankles and a chain was locked around her waist so that her arms could be better secured. Captured by the police like a common criminal. It was the one thing she feared most. She would be hauled into the police station, forced to strip, subjected to a humiliating body search and then locked up with the scum of the earth. The embarrassment was almost too much to bear. But she fought back her tears. It was the superheroine bitch’s fault. She’d get even. Before she was through with her she’d make what she had done to Astra seem like a Sunday school picnic.

“Oh Lord,” Katie said aloud, as she sat on her bed in her loft apartment. “They caught the whole thing on tape. There must have been a television crew at the gala.” What a humiliating fiasco. That bitch ripped my costume to shreds.”

Her breasts were tastefully pixeled out, but all the details of the fight were clear. “God, she really kicked my ass. How will I live this down?” She held her head in her hands.

Darkstorm watched the evening news with more than usual interest. “At last,” he rumbled. “Someone who is a match for that show-off heroine. And I know just where to find her. I think it’s time I gave the chief of police a call.” He picked up the phone.

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