The
Global Protectors – Tangents
By Marcus_Lycus@hotmail.com
Credit
for part of this story goes out to the recent “high school students in bondage”
film Learning Curve. The
information I use for the Penalizer's gun fetish comes from an excellent book
called Twentieth-Century Small Arms by Chris McNab. The Penalizer and Firestater of course are
completely original characters, not stolen from any popular comic book
characters (please don't sue me!).
Legal
Horrors: Characters and text are copyright and trademark Marcus Lycus. Please do not redistribute this story
without permission, and please do not read this if you are underage for your
country or state.
And
finally, please e-mail me with any comments, complaints or suggestions. Remember feedback leads to more stories!
Tangent
4 – The Penalizer's New Partner
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-17-2004: I
pick up the Soviet RPG2 and let it rest on my shoulder. A souvenir from my old friend Victor
Charlie. The weight feels good in my
hand, reassuring, like an old friend. I
squint through the telescopic sight and grin.
Third car in the convey.
The target was clever. I'd been looking for him for months with no
luck till I got an anonymous tip from a woman with an Argentine accent. I don't know what he did to her but she sure
wanted him dead. I was glad to oblige.
Maximillion Grande wasn't dumb.
'Cept he forgot one little thing,
weight. Maximillion Grande's the
biggest drug lord in
I put the crosshair on the sunroof and
squeeze the trigger. The backwash hits
my scarred face and ruffles my thinning hair.
The rocket propelled grenade shoots forward like the wrath of God. The sun roof shatters, the limo explodes and
Max Grande is on his way to hell.
I love my job.
I disassemble the RPG and throw it in my
duffel bag. I throw a trench coat over
my skull shirt and head downstairs.
Who am I?
My driver's license (my real one) calls
me Chuck Forte, but that's not who I am.
Not really.
I'm the vet who saw his family gunned
down by the mob and decided it was time to go back to war. I'm the guy who goes after scum the judges
can't touch. I'm the hero who knows you
can't fight crime with nothing but a boomerang and a utility belt. I'm the one the cops keep promising to catch
but somehow keep missing (love you guys!).
I'm the Penalizer.
I am punishment.
***
I make it to the first floor of the old
Maximum warehouse before I see them.
Back in the jungle I'd have never let them get this close, course I was
a bit younger back then.
14 of them. Grande's men. Looking for
payback.
They were gonna have a tough time collecting.
I toss the duffel bag at them and whip
out the old .45 Colt M1911. I love that
gun. The 1911 in the name is the year
it went into service with the
I call her Annie, after my late
wife.
She was a loud heavy old broad too.
Annie barks twice and the duffel bag
explodes taking out four of them and a chunk of the wall. Five more shots, four more kills.
What can I say, I'm getting old.
The six of them left start to get bold,
figure I'm out of ammo. They see me
jump through the hole in the wall and start scampering. One of them lets off a couple of rounds from
his shity little .38; the kevlar absorbs them without a problem. Come back when you have a man's gun.
Two of them follow me into the
alley. They're so cocky they don't even
see the claymores I left till they got a thousand ball-bearings ripping through
their flesh.
Four left.
I'm at the van before what's left of
Grande's guards find the courage to come after me. No time to punch in the codes and open it. Lucky I keep a little emergency stash under
the van. Takes me just a second to find
the right spot and pull Uziel Gal's classic SMG from the hidden compartment. The 9mm UZI twitches in my hand and three
more go down.
The last Columbian takes long look at me,
my hot smoking UZI and the skull of death on my chest and wets his pants.
I let him run. He'll stay scared. He
won't come back. And he'll stay the
hell away from Megapolis and the Penalizer.
I climb in the van and wave to the boys
in blue as I pull out. The cops will
make up some bullshit about me escaping at the last minute, they always
do. Just like Colonel Liberty, Nightbat
and all the other heroes somehow never try too hard to catch me, cause I'm
doing all the stuff they wish they could.
I ride off into the sunset, feeling on
top of the world.
***
I'm about six blocks away when the
fireball hits. The van's hull is
reinforced with titanium and ceramic armor but that does nothing for the
tires. The front two melt into black
goo and the van spins out of control into a junkyard. It hits a pile of fenders and flips over.
Looks like Grande has some friends.
So do I.
The manufacturer calls it the Pancor
Piledriver, a bullpup fully automatic shotgun.
I call it 'Tyson' cause it hits like a son-of-a-bitch. I grab Tyson and some other goodies and jump
out the back door before Grande's backup team has a chance to cook me in my own
van.
I know better than to wait for the cops
to come, they're only six blocks away but part of our little understanding is
that I'm on my own. They can get away
with failing to catch me but they can't really be going around helping me
either.
A dozen bad guys show up right on
cue. Shiny black helmets, infrared
goggles, high tech com-links, black body armor, some nice H&K MP5s. Definitely a step up from the usual low rent
goons I fight. Don't see any heavy
artillery though; I wonder where that fireball came from. Didn't look like any ordinance I know. And I know a lot about ordinance.
Behind them is a really tall guy in a
snazzy suit and a chick in yellow spandex hanging off of him. A gangster and his moll? Could be, she was hot enough, but she was
dressed a bit funny for that and he had this weird silver headband on. But I didn't really have time for a fashion
critique.
"There he is! I got him-ug!"
My teflon coated solid slug rips right
through the first clown's body armor and puts him down. A second shot drops his buddy. But by then the others have opened up and
are doing the accuracy through volume thing.
I take cover behind a Ford Aerostar and reach into my party bag.
Normally I'd just find some places to
hide and pick these goons off at my leisure, a junkyard's just a metal jungle
after all. But these guys came
prepared.
Bet you think your snazzy little IR gear
is pretty cool huh?
I pull the pin and toss it over the
minivan roof.
Flash grenade!
They're all tearing off their helmets or
shooting blind when I come back around and open up again. Eight shots, six more kills.
I am getting old.
By then the five guys left have their
helmets off and their eyes are starting to clear. I dive under an old Dodge Ram and reload. Out of AP rounds. Damn. Just have to make
do.
I roll out and fire again with
scattershot. The smaller pellets can't
penetrate these guys' body armor of course.
Nice of them to take their helmets off.
***
The last merc is twitching in the dirt,
holding his ruined face when I find the suit and his redhead. I pull out Annie.
The tall guy's cool, too cool. Doesn't even look impressed at the guy who
just killed his squad of high tech mercenaries.
The chick is oblivious. She's standing there with bodies all around
in a yellow jumpsuit, red boots and gloves and a red mask and is busy nibbling
on the suit's ear. She looks kind of
familiar, but I just can't place it.
He looks at me and says something. A couple of red lights on his head band
blink.
Too bad my ears are still ringing from
Tyson's little serenade.
I yell for him to lie down with his hands
on his head. Can't even hear my own
voice.
He whispers something to the chick, I
yell again. The red lights on his
headband blink. The chick turns to me
and fire surrounds her hands.
Oh shit.
I open fire, emptying Annie into the
redhead. There's a flash of light and
the bullets just melt into goo before they hit her. She smiles and looks back at the suit. He says something else.
I feel my webgear start to heat up. All my ammo, my grenades, all that explosive
power I got strapped to my body. I roll
under a RAV4 and cut it loose with the knife.
It goes off just I roll out the other side, lifting the RAV4 ten feet
into the air.
The girl's been blown back into a bunch
of car seats. Lucky girl. I was blown forward into a pile of
windshields. The kevlar took most of
the impact. Got a few more scars on the
head but that hardly matters any more.
Tall guy's yelling again, red LEDs
blinking on his headband but I can't hear and now neither can the girl.
I figure it out.
I've got the knife out and I'm charging
the suit. I'm within thirty feet before
he even notices. He goes for his .44
Magnum, the weapon of choice for under endowed pencil-dicks everywhere.
I'm within twenty feet before he gets it
out of that fashionable shoulder holster and cocks the hammer.
I'm within ten when he aims and fires.
I fly backwards into the dust.
The kevlar holds up better than my
ribs. I hold up my knife. I'm twenty feet away now, lying on my
ass. I can see he's laughing, he aims
for my head.
Surprise sucker!
I hit the release and the spring-loaded
blade flies free and buries itself in his neck.
Spring loaded knives; I thought they were
the dumbest idea ever when I first saw them, why would I need one when I have
guns? But I got it for the novelty
value. And what do you know, it paid
off. I'll have to send the Florida
Knife Corporation a 'thank you' card.
Takes a couple of minutes to pull myself
together. With the adrenaline rush gone
all those old wounds come right back to remind me I'm getting too old for this
crap.
When I finally get to my feet I see the
suit is good and dead. He fell back against a pile of fenders and cracked his
skull open. I notice the headband is
cracked too, the red LEDs aren't blinking anymore. Too bad, would have been a great toy to have around.
The girl's still sitting there, her mouth
hanging open letting all the flies in.
I finally remember where I saw her, Capes & Masks a couple months
ago. Fire, Firestar, Starfire, Firehawk
something like that. She was on one of
the dozens of Ex-Titans teams but disappeared a while ago. Even an old vet like me can put two and two
together. The suit had her under some
kind of control, drugs maybe or that funky headband. Now she's just sitting there like a puppet with the strings cut. She might come back to her senses any
minute. I decide not to give her the
chance.
She'll fit right in at the Penalty Box.
***
After I grab everything portable from the
Battle Van I scuttle it and hotwire a Lincoln Navigator for me and the little lady. Lucky I keep some tranq darts for those few
situations when I might need to take a prisoner. I also grab a couple of toys I
liked from Grande's men.
The ride back to the Penalty Box is
uneventful.
The sign outside says called Forte's
Secure Storage, one of those places the rich can stash their furs and antiques
and files and stuff without worrying about fires, earthquakes or crooks. It's about an hour out of town so I don't
have to worry about nosy neighbors.
It's a legit business of course.
Gives me a safe place to work from and I've found all kinds of juicy
things in those file boxes people lock away.
Of course it's also the perfect cover for
the Penalty Box.
I give Firebird or whatever her name is
another shot and get to work. We need
coolers here for furs and other stuff that needs refrigeration. Shouldn't take too long to make what I need.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-19-2004:
Taking out that arms dealer was rewarding in two ways. Got rid of another piece of scum, plus I
replaced most of what I lost when I scuttled the Battle Van. I pull into Forte's Secure Storage and head
for the Penalty Box. I leave the boxes
of weapons in the Navigator; I'll sort through them later.
I pass through the armored door to the
stairs down. A laser scans my eye, if
it didn't like what it saw 2 .50 cal Brownings would turn the staircase into a
killing field. I open the second
armored door and enter the Penalty Box.
The first room is my supply room, got
some cans, some freeze dried food and irradiated milk there, enough food to
last me years if they ever drop the big one.
I turn on the monitors and speakers; I
hear one of my guests shrieking at me.
Nice to be home.
I walk a bit down the hall and punch in
the entrance code, my old serial number from '
I open the steel door and step
inside. It's a 12'x12' store room but
with a 5'x'5 metal cage bolted to the floor in the center of the room.
"Forte you bastard! Are you gonna fucking let me go-AH!"
I take my finger off the remote. Just a little shock.
"Now, now Felicity, watch your
fucking language."
"Fuck y----------"
I watch the brunette convulse until her
hair stands on end and let go of the button.
She falls to the floor beaten.
The Kirby Guide calls her
Nightcat, the world's greatest cat burglar.
I caught her about four months ago trying to break into Forte's Secure
Storage. She put up quite a fight; I
still have the scratches from it. Now
she's my longest resident. Stubborn
bitch. Every time I thought I had her
housebroken she went and had a relapse like this. Guess some lessons have to be relearned.
I take out a tray of food and a box of
milk.
"Hungry Felicity?"
Of course I know her real name; it was
one of the first things she told me.
"You… bastard… she muttered through
grit teeth. "Two days you left me
here, no food, no water… two fucking days."
Actually it was barely 24 hours but
without a clock or a window her time sense was all messed up.
"I told you to save some; I said I
was going on a mission. Not my fault
you're part pig."
"FUCK YOU!" She jumped at the bars and tried to reach me
with her claws. The electricity kicked
in. I watch her dance on the bars for a
few seconds before it cuts off.
"Guess I'll have to come back in a
few days…" I start to walk out.
"P-please… please Mr. Forte."
"That sounds more like the Felicity
I know. Now you've been a bad
girl. If you want to eat you have to
give me something in return."
"No… not again… come on, I was good…
I'll be good."
I tap my combat boot a few times. Listen to her beg and plead. I turn to go again.
"I'LL DO IT!" she sobs.
She stands up.
She's quite a woman, 6' tall and lean as
well… a cat. She's wearing her
trademark black leather jumpsuit that covers her from head to toe but hugs
every muscle and curve on its way up.
Even fully clothed, she was hotter than any heroine this side of La
Sola.
She pulled back the cat-eared hood first,
showing off her high cheek bones and strange yellow eyes and letting her long
silky hair fall free. She shook it a
few times and smiled at me. She knows I
enjoy this. I figure she does too. Felicity is a bit of an exhibitionist. From what I hear half her capers end with
her tied up being molested by Nightbat.
She reaches behind her and unzips the cat
suit halfway, then starts unlacing the leather corset. I could never figure how she did that when
the laces were behind her, must be that superhuman agility.
She peels off the leather exposing her
small but firm breasts and tight muscular abdomen. She slowly peels it off one leg then the other stretching like…
y'know and drawing it out.
I was grinning like an idiot by
then. She tossed the suit to me and I
caught it without dropping the food. Suddenly
she turned all shy, looking down and covering her tits with her hands. She wiggled her hips a bit, seeming to
squirm under my glare.
"Please Mr. Forte, may I keep
them?" She pointed at her white
cotton panties with the little black cat on them, the only stitch of clothes
she still had on.
Felicity was as unpredictable as well… a
cat. She'd go from being all lovey and
purring, to clawing and scratching at you in a minute. In her four months here I'd come this close
to letting her out only for her to fall into one of her moods and start hissing
and screaming again. But now it looks
like she was back in the submissive mode.
I thought about her request. I could be hardass and demand it all but if
I did that what would be left to punish her with?
"Sure pretty kitty, keep 'em."
The look of gratitude on her face makes
my day.
I slide the food through the judas
hole. I decide to be bold and stick my
hand in too. She licks it and purrs.
Mmm, I love submissive Felicity.
***
Got a loose end to wrap up, Randy 'the
rat' Richards. I find him in his cage
wearing nothing but his silk boxers.
The Yale MBA graduate had realized early
on that beating the market on Wall Street was hard but there was a lot more
money to be made managing the notoriously unprofessional drug trade. He'd become Grande's business manager in the
"Hey man, looking sharp! The big day huh? How'd it go, you get Grande?" Since I got him three weeks ago he's been trying to befriend me,
figuring in time he'd get on my good side.
I kidnapped him, killed two of his buddies and locked him in a cage in
his underwear and he want's to find my good side.
Randy, this is my good side.
"Got a riddle for you, what's yellow
and burns?"
"Uh… I dunno, a flaming banana?”
He seemed sincerely oblivious, so I let
it slide. "Got another one, what
has black body armor and an MP5?"
"MP5s… Hey there was this group of Euro-mercs they were thinking of
hiring, called the Darkstars, they're into high tech stuff. Did you run into them or something?"
"So you knew about those yahoos and
didn't bother to mention it huh?"
"Well, I mean it was just talk, I
didn't know they were going to-hey man put that away!"
He looked at Annie in panic. "Got some good news and some bad
news. Grande's dead."
"Great man! I guess you don't need me anymore
huh?" He looked hopeful for a
second.
"Well that's the bad news."
I shoot him in the chest and in the
head.
He was scum, he worked for scum. He deserved it.
***
Then it's off to see my new guest. After I got her new home ready I looked her
up in the Kirby Guide.
Firestarter was her name, I'd been close. She was a "psychokinetic capable of agitating molecules
through mental energy to generate heat or even combust flammable materials". Don't look at me, I didn't understand it
either. But from what I saw she was one
of those supers who can start fires.
Course you might have guessed that from the name.
I'd never really tried to hold a super in
the Penalty Box before. Felicity was
the closest I'd come. They're more
trouble then they're worth really. 9mm
in the back of the head pretty much solves that problem. But if my mind control theory was right she
might just work out. And she was
fucking gorgeous too.
Not that I cared or anything. I'm fighting a lonely one-man war on
crime. I don't let stuff like that
distract me. Really. I was just holding on to Felicity cause
she's a dangerous criminal.
Honest.
The Kirby Guide had some other
good intel on her too, I'd put that all to good use when I stated the process.
So I walk down the hall to Firestarter's
new room. I stop outside and carefully
check myself for any matches, lighters, guns, grenades, ammo, anything she
might ignite. I put on the parka and the
infrared gear I salvaged. I open the
door.
The cold hits me like a punch in the
face. Four coolers running full blast
keeping the room at a nice blustery 23°F. About ten degrees
below freezing.
The girl was huddled in the center of the
cage as far from the coolers on the walls as she could get. She was scrunched up in a ball, holding her
knees to her chin; her yellow spandex body stocking offered almost no
protection.
A normal girl would be dead from
hyperthermia by now but the IR goggles told me she was at a healthy 96°F, just a point or two lower than
normal. Guess I was right about her
powers protecting her.
Here's hoping I was right about the rest
too.
She didn't notice me at first, just sat
there scrunched up in a fetal position muttering to herself. I'd checked the tapes before coming in, the
girl hadn't slept in 24 hours.
I hit the remote, just a little jolt
electricity to get her attention.
"AIIIIE!" Her eyes shoot open, she sees me all right.
"W-who are you?"
"I'm your new boss." I give her another jolt. "I'm the guy who decides if you eat or
if you starve and if you live or if you die.
You can call me the Penalizer."
"Y-you're that guy, the one from the
junkyard!"
"The one you tried to flambé? Yep."
Another jolt, another scream.
"P-please it wasn't my fault, I'm a
heroine, that guy he had some kind of mind control!"
"Did he now? So you're a heroine huh?"
"Yes, they call my Firestarter I'm
one of the Young Ex-Titans, I fight crime and stuff, just like you."
"Just like me huh? Ain't you the one who started the forest
fire in the
"I-I know and I'm really sorry but
there was this alien invasion and I had to destroy the hive."
"Right. Sure you did. And that
time you and your little school buddies attacked
"That wasn't my fault; we were
tricked by Mister Twister."
"Two dead MPs that time. Nice job." The girl sobbed. "And how about that fight with your own
teammates in
"Brute and Beauty had a fight and he
got a little drunk so things got out of hand… why are you asking me about
this!? I'm a heroine; I saved a whole
bunch of lives, even helped save the world once."
"Huh. Sounds to me like you and your little school group are just a
menace to society. Teenaged atom bombs
walking around on short fuses. Better
just keep you in here for a while."
"No! No! Oh please no! I'm so cold and I'm hungry and I can't sleep
cause if I stop concentrating I'll freeze.
Please you have to let me go!"
"No can do."
"Can't I… please… can I have some
food."
"That I can do. If you do something for me."
She must have seen something in my eyes
cause she looked away in fear.
"No. Not that. I just want
something from you. Your costume."
"What!? I'll freeze!"
"It's not doing much for you now is
it Hot Stuff? I just want it as a show
of faith, that you're willing to give up something. What, are you afraid I'm gonna take dirty pictures of you? Hot Stuff if I wanted to that I'd have done
it while you were in slumber land."
She didn't like that reminder of how
helpless she was, she started glaring at me, the front of my parka heated up 20°.
I gave her another jolt.
"Course if you want I could just come back tomorrow; see how you are
then…"
That usually does the trick.
"No! No… I'll do it you bast-" a quick shock cut her off.
When she was done convulsing she looked
up at me afraid. Before there'd been a
little fear but she was more angry and still thought she could figure a way
out. Now I could see that naked fear on
her face. She knew in her gut that I
could do anything I wanted and all she could do was cooperate.
That was the whole point of this. If I wanted her naked I would have stripped
her while she was out. But making her
give up that last bit of dignity and identity really drives home the situation.
"You have two minutes."
She pulled off her red gloves and tossed
them towards me. After another shock
she learned to toss them gently. Her
red high-heeled boots came next. I saw
her bodysuit went all the way down it even had loops under her feet to keep it
in place.
She looked at me and hesitated, like she
was wondering if I was serious. How
quickly they forget. This time I didn't
even have to shock her, just a twitch of my thumb and her hands were at the
front zipper. She pulled it down fast
and yanked her arms out of the sleeves, nothing like Felicity's graceful
striptease. Well she could learn that
in time. I noticed she didn't wear a
bra under the suit; my buddy Nightbat always said heroines were a nymphomanical
exhibitionist lot. She pulled her long
legs out of the bottom and tossed me the suit like it was a live snake. She wasn't wearing any panties either.
Twenty seconds overtime. I let it slide.
"Not bad Hot Stuff." I pick up the spandex and walk around the
cage. She's young, barely legal I'd
wager, nice firm body, not too much muscle and just a hint of baby fat. Her tits were nice, C cups I figured and her
ass was small but with just a bit of meat to it. She shivered, maybe from the cold, maybe from fear, probably from
both.
This was so much more fun than capturing
a fat mob boss.
After doing a full circuit I toss her a
bottle of water, she catches it (exposing her tits to me for a second) but
drops it just as fast. It's a solid
block of ice.
"I can't drink that…"
"Can't you Firestarter? I think you can warm that up a bit."
The girl didn't know it but this was a
little test, to see if she had any power to spare or if she needed it all to
keep herself alive. She probably didn't
know the answer herself.
She picked it up in her hands and closed
her eyes. The IR goggles showed her
body temperature dropping a bit as the water warmed up. Her lips turned blue and her knees started
to wobble but she managed to melt the ice and get the water up to a respectable
60° or so.
She drank it eagerly. I toss in
a bag of trail mix and leave.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-20-2004: Another day, another mugging. Couldn't even bring myself to kill him; just
let him off with a warning and bullet in the kneecap. Getting soft in my old age.
Felicity is all smiles and purring when I
stop by to see her. Offers me a night I
won't forget if I'll give her her costume back. It's a bit too early for me to fall for that one again but I do
feed her in exchange for the name of a fence in
Hot Stuff is huddled in a ball again when
I come in. Last night I raised the
temperature ten degrees and let her get some sleep, the drugged water made sure
she did. So at least she's
semi-recovered now.
I have a pot of hot coffee and a thermos
of soup, I show her and her face brightens up.
Then I move them outside where they'll stay warm. I set up a folding chair and sit down.
"Please mister, just let me go, I
promise I won't tell anyone, just let me go…"
"Now why would I do that?"
She lowers her hands from her breasts and
her bush and tries to smile. She looks
more like she swallowed a toad. "I
could… y'know, do what you want…"
I try not to laugh. Like she has a choice about doing what I
want. And it's not what she's thinking.
"I work on a merit system. You do something for me, I do something for
you. Behave yourself and you'll get
your costume back, you'll get a hot meal, you might even get out of here
sometime."
She looks at me scared. "What do you want?"
"For starters, information. Who was the tall guy you were with?"
She blinks surprised. Not quite what she was expecting. "His name is… was Manuel Grande, Max's
brother in charge of the Megapolis operation."
Grande's not a bad name for him; the guy
must have been close to 7' tall.
"And the funky headband?"
"Some kind of mind control device he
had it when he caught me checking out his abandoned warehouse."
For some odd reasons heroines were always
blundering into traps in abandoned warehouses.
Never figured it out myself, how many abandoned warehouses did one city
have anyway?
"But later, after he was controlling
me, I saw someone who was fixing it, and I know this sounds crazy but I think
that it was a monkey."
This from the girl who burns things by
looking at them.
"OK, so how long were you with
him?"
"Couple of weeks; I really don't
like to think about it, I mean he made me do things…"
"Well you're going to think about
it. Let's start with where his base
was…"
After two hours I have a pretty good
picture of the late Manuel Grande's operation in Megapolis. I had a couple of busy weeks ahead of
me.
I give her the coffee and the soup and
enjoy the look of appreciation on her face.
She's genuinely grateful, already starting to forget that I'm the one
who put her in this situation.
As I leave I tell her that if she can
remember anything tomorrow I might give her her union suit back.
She thanks me three times.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-23-2004:
In a foul mood. One of Grande's goons
managed to get me in the chest. The
kevlar held but my ribs hurt like anything.
Felicity back in her manic mode, shredded her sleeping mat and tossed
the fragments at me. Had to shock her
for three minutes before she calmed down.
At least Firestarter's in a good
mood. She's got her costume back (I
even washed it for her) and has been having hot meals the last 3 days. Gave her a sleeping mat too. Even turned the coolers up to 30°
Decide to be hardass today. Can't let Hot Stuff start to get
complacent. She tells me something she
just 'remembered' about a big shipment coming in tomorrow. I accuse her of holding out on me and give
her a nice long shock. She cries and
denies it. I shock her again. She cries and apologizes. I accept it but make her give the sleeping
mat back. Toss her some frozen water
and trail mix and leave.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-26-2004: Productive day. Killed about twenty three of Grande's men, blew up more than 100
kilos of coke and grabbed some files that will lead me to more of them
tomorrow. Even got to use the LAW.
Feeling good.
One problem though.
Good ole Firestarter is tapped out. There's nothing she can tell me about Grande
that she hasn't told me five times already.
So now what?
Deep down (deep, deep down) I'm a nice
guy. She's a sweet kid, about as old as
my daughter Jodi would be if she had lived.
She did what I told her and I should let her go. I've let a couple of other snitches go free
after I was done with them.
But there's also a nasty side to me
that's kept me alive all these years.
He says that superhero teams don't like it when you lock up and torture
teenaged girls, especially when the girl is a heroine herself. She might not know where my base is but the
Ex-Titans are about the biggest superhero team in the world once you include
all their spin-off teams like Ex-Titans West, Teen Ex-Titans and Toledo Ex-Titans. Sooner or later they'd find me and things
would get ugly. So the nasty practical
side of me says give her a 9mm head massage and call it a day.
Then there's a really small voice that
says I have another choice. It'll take
a while and there's a bit of a risk but if I can pull it off…
What the hell, it's worth a try. With Grande's gang on the way out I should
have some spare time for this little project.
I can always free her or, y'know, later.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 4-27-2004: Started
today.
"Please sir, I can't remember
anything else! I just can't! Please…"
With nothing to give, Firestarter hadn't
had hot food in a few days. I had
turned the coolers down a bit too.
I sit down on the folding chair and
listen to her plead for a bit.
Finally… "So, what's your
name?"
"My name?"
"Yeah your name. You got one don't you? Or are you the daughter of Frankie and Fanny
Firestarter?"
"It's…” she hesitated. Typical heroine. They'll take off their costume and show you their tits at the
drop of a hat but God forbid they reveal their oh-so-secret identities. Like I hadn't already run her
fingerprints.
"Never mind." I get up and head for the door.
"It's Linda! Linda Lewis! I'm from
"Go on. Tell me about your self."
"I'm 18, I'm a mutant. I like dance and aerobics… what do you
want?"
So I ask and she answers. I hear lots about how her powers
developed. She was just 15 and was
making out with a guy when he caught fire.
His whole house burned down.
Same thing happened with the next two guys she got intimate with till
she figured it out. Kind of messed her
up. She hadn't really been with a guy
till Manuel Grande got a hold of her.
She spends time talking about the sick little games he made her play
with him, his men and that girl's volleyball team he brought in. Just listening to it makes me wish I could
dig him up and kill him again.
Then she tells me how she ran away from
home got found by Professor Salvador and his handy mutant detector. So she joined the Young Ex-Titans, got some
superhero training, fought some villains, saved the world, traveled through
time, the usual.
I already knew the basics, but this gives
me some really juicy stuff to use.
By the end of it I know what I'm going to
do. Honestly after talking to the girl
I just can't kill her. And I sure don't
want her to leave.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-8-2004:
Talked about villains today.
"So you had a chance to kill Mister
Twister, burn him into ash, and you didn't.
Why?"
"Professor Salvador said heroes
don't kill!"
"Right. So you decide not kill Twister instead you bring him to
jail. The charges don't stick, and he
walks free like he always does. Three
weeks later he pumps nerve gas into a preschool and kills 12 kids. Good job hero." I hold up the picture.
She starts to cry again. She does that a lot these days. The lack of sleep and minimal food can't be
good for her emotional stability. She
looks at me, I can see the uncertainty, she's starting to question all the
superhero crap she was fed. Starting to
believe what I tell her.
“Course Mister Twister never does
anything without a twisted reason.
Turns out that Dr. Bruce Flag’s illegitimate daughter was in that
preschool. He gets the news and goes nuts,
turns back into the Incredible Behemoth, kills five people in
"We're… different. Cops and stuff are part of the system; we
can't just act as judge, jury and executioner."
"But you're not a cop, you don't get
search warrants, you don't read them Miranda rights, you don't eat
doughnuts. And have you even studied
the law? How come you can break a dozen
laws before breakfast but killing some slime ball is wrong?"
"I…"
"And have you even been in a
war?"
"We fought Genghis Khan when we
traveled back in time to stop Cronos from gathering the 12 Zodiac Gems during
the Secret Crisis.”
“The what?”
“I shouldn’t really tell you, it’s kind
of a secret. But basically Zeus’ father
the mad titan Cronos tried to-“
I cut her off. Superhero stuff gives me a headache.
"Yeah, whatever. The point is in a war, a real war, you don't
have time for niceties, you have a second to decide if that guy is going to
kill you and you have to kill him first.
And sometimes that guy isn’t trying to kill you. Sometimes he’s taking a piss or sleeping but
you kill him anyway. That’s how you
make sure he won’t come back for you later."
"But…"
"And you've killed before. That fight in the
"That was different, they were alien
monsters!"
"OK so killing aliens is good;
killing scummy mass murders is bad.
That where you're coming from?"
"No, no… I don't know what I
mean…"
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-9-2004: "Y'know what I think. I think you guys like supervillians."
"What? That's crazy! Villains
are terrible, they kill people, they killed Cosmic Girl!"
"Yeah but she came back didn't
she?"
"Well yeah, she got better."
"That's the thing about you
folks. It's all a game, no one really
dies, it's always a dream or a hoax or a clone or something. The only people who stay dead are the
civilians and they're just extras in your widescreen action. Hell you guys need your super battles or no
one would pay attention to you. Without
supervillains you’d just be a bunch of freaks hanging out in your superhero
clubhouse. You want them to keep coming
back. For example, how come Doctor
Gauss is still alive?"
"We tried! We thought he was dead three or four times."
"Obviously you're not trying hard
enough. Why not just use your powers on
him, make his brain melt out his ears?
He wouldn't come back from that."
"But that would be…"
"Last time out Doctor Gauss stole a
dozen nuclear warheads and threatened to start World War III. Now you guys stopped him, I give you
that. But what if you'd been a bit
slow, a bit weak, what if some key member had been away on a team-up or a
cross-over? Millions would have died. Millions.
And when you were done you let him escape to try again next year."
"I… I'm sorry…"
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-12-2004: I
come in and she's naked. Just standing there with her suit in her hands. She throws it to me.
"Please. I don't want to be Firestarter anymore. You're right, it was all so dumb. Alternate realities and supervillians who keep coming back cause
we're not allowed to finish the job. I
mean… how can anyone take that stuff seriously?"
"Glad to hear it. Course you've been on good behavior, I can't
leave you there naked can I?"
She cups her breasts and leans close to
the bars. "Well… you can have me
whichever way you want me."
I give her a bit of a shock, a small one
but her first in weeks. She screams.
"Don't even think it Linda. Don't even think it. I'll bring you something to wear tomorrow."
I walk out and head for Felicity's
cage. I have a boner so huge I can
barely walk. Hope the cat woman's in a
good mood.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-11-2004: Rough
day. DiAngelo, one of the last of
Grande's old lieutenants was a smart puppy.
Moved to his ski lodge upstate, surrounded it with imported muscle who
don't know enough to run when they hear I'm coming. Even I couldn't get closer than 500 meters.
Luckily the Barret M82A1 .50 cal sniper
rifle has an effective range of over 1000 meters.
Scratch one more would-be drug lord.
Getting out was pretty hairy though. After everything was said and done I had no
more than half a clip left in the UZI and three rounds in Annie.
So it's nice to have someone special to
come home to.
I come in and she's wearing black cargo
pants and a black skull tee-shirt just like mine. I tried to give her some sweatpants and an Old Navy fleece and
she turned them down. She wanted to
look like me.
One other change. Her hair's gone. Cut down to some red fuzz. Kind of like my crewcut. Except I didn't leave her any scissors.
"Nice do."
"Thanks sir." She's blushing, she's actually happy I like
it. "I heated up my hand and
burned it all off. It made me look too
girly."
I'd watched it on video before I came
in. Quite a sight. Besides the obvious psychological
ramifications it also meant that her powers had become stronger. With the coolers running she shouldn't have
been able to pull that off. Not only
were her powers stronger but she hadn't tried to use them to escape or to kill
me.
Yet.
Lately we'd stopped talking about her and
her heroic delusions. She was past
that. We'd moved on to more practical
topics.
"I want to talk to you about the
Voodoo Brotherhood; they're a gang out of
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-14-2004: We're
finishing up a lesson on how the Russian mafia works. I get up to go (have a little 'appointment' with a pedophile who
just got paroled) and out of blue she asks me a question.
"Excuse me, uh Mr. Penalizer, could
you tell me your name? If it's
OK…"
I think about it for a minute… Felicity
figured out who I was cause she was breaking into Forte's Secure Storage but
even after these weeks the girl didn't know anything about me. I didn't have to tell her anything.
"Sure Linda, it's Chuck, Chuck
Forte."
"That's a nice name. Thank you Chuck."
"You're welcome Linda."
Now why the hell did I do that?
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-18-2004:
It's final exam time. I put another one
of those spring-loaded knives under my parka just in case she fails. I grab her test case and drag him in.
She looks up, she's reading a classified
CIA report about drug trafficking in the
"Got someone for you hot stuff. They call him Mad Dog; he's a lieutenant in
the Voodoo Brotherhood. Found him
selling crack outside a junior high school but I can't get him to tell me
anything. Got any ideas?"
She smiles. It's not a friendly smile.
It's just like my smile. I drop
the drug dealer and walk to the other side of the room to watch the show.
"Who the fuck are you lady? The Penis-Exerciser?" The punk laughs at his own joke. "And why the fuck's it so cold in here? I got rights y'know, this is prisoner abuse!"
"Cold?" She asks.
Her eyes turn a fiery orange.
"Let me see what I can do."
"Hey that feels kinda good-ah!"
His sleeve starts smoldering and Mad Dog starts beating it against the
wall. It only gets worse, his skin
starts to blister. He screams like a
girl and the fire goes out.
"What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck!"
Linda doesn't like that answer
either. His other sleeve bursts into
flame.
After both his legs are burnt he finally
talks. Names, addresses, weapons,
schedules. Everything.
"So now what do we do with
him?"
"Could give him to the cops. Course his lawyers will have him back on the
streets tomorrow and he'll warn his buddies I'm coming."
"Can't do that then."
"Could keep him here."
"That would be a lot of work. Let's just finish up."
She looks at Mad Dog one last time. He whimpers, he squirms, he convulses and
finally bursts into flame from the inside.
In a minute there's nothing left but bones and ash.
My little heroine has been getting
stronger.
Time to really finish up.
I open the cage.
She smiles and blushes like a kid who
just won the spelling bee.
"Does this mean…"
I drop the remote and squish it with my
boot heel.
"You've done good kid."
"I… I'm not really a kid
anymore."
"Hmm?"
"I mean… uh… Chuck do you like
me?"
I take a few steps closer.
"Like you how?"
"Y'know, like me… as a girl and
stuff."
"You're cute if that's what
you-"
She cuts me off by sticking her arms
around my neck and her tongue down my throat.
We fall to the floor in each other's
arms. Her cargo pants were always loose
on her, they're mine after all, and slip off easily, I pull her skull tee shirt
up and suck on her sensitive breasts, her long delicate fingers start pulling
down my pants. It's 30° in here, I should be freezing, instead
I'm sweating like it's a steam room.
She gets the pants undone and I slip inside her. I think for a second about her old
boyfriends in the burn ward then she makes me forget everything.
***
I wake up a few hours later; she's
holding me, nuzzling her stubby head against my chest. The short hairs tickle.
I gently pry her loose and head out. One last loose end to tie up.
Hot Stuff might not understand my little
relationship with Felicity. She doesn't
know anything about it yet, she thought the scratches were from a fight, but
when she finds out…
I walk up to Felicity's cell, take out
the gun and shoot her twice. She goes
down without a sound.
I drive the black body bag out to Wolfman
cemetery and find myself an empty grave.
I drop the bag in.
I drop a note behind it.
"Come near me again and you're dead
- Penalizer"
When she wakes up from the tranq darts
she'll see it. She'll get the message.
***
Penalizer's
War Journal 5-18-2004: With Grande's gang pretty much dead or fled the
Voodoo Brotherhood thinks they're gonna move in. One of Mad Dog's addresses leads me to the old CGW Warehouse
where there's 21 of them waiting for this week's shipment to come in from
The .50 cal Browning's another classic
from the last century. It’s been the
A couple of them run for the back
door. Normally I'd have to let them go,
I'm good but I’m just one guy.
Not anymore.
Their clothes catch fire first but in a
few seconds I can smell burning meat even over the acidic power smell from my
Browning. I cease fire, take out the
two Beretta Model 12s and head inside.
I see Hot Stuff coming in through the
back door. She's in her new outfit, black leather pants and a cropped black tee
shirt with a flaming skull on it.
Course I shouldn't call her Hot Stuff
anymore, she's got a new name.
The Incinerator.
She smiles at me and giggles.
"Come on we should get going before
the cops-"
Her tongue is my mouth again, her hands
in my hair, her leg between mine.
I really shouldn't.
But she gives me a little smirk and drops
to her knees. I let her open my fly and
wrap her lips around my hard dick. She
sucks on it like a popsicle till I cum in her mouth.
Damn.
I should have picked up a partner years
ago.