"TWEEEEEEETT!  HALT! Gestapo!!  HALT OR WE FIRE! TWEEEEET!!"

Two figures, running and hunched over in a desperate bid to hide in the dark shadows cast by run-down tenements, flee from several men in black leather trench coats, waving guns, blowing whistles, and shouting threats.  Two figures, a woman and . . . and a smaller female, maybe a teenager, flee down the dark street, just half a block ahead of their pursuers.  A shot rings out and seems to riccochet off steel.  The two females turn a corner and suddenly their feet leave the concrete of the sidewalk.  Anyone watching the women would seem to see the younger woman wrap her arm around her companion's waist, lift her, and fly!  In a heartbeat, the two women are at the next corner, where they alight and the older woman takes the younger woman's hand and leads her to the left, across the street and down the next block.  After a few steps the pair ducks into a covered passageway between two crumbling old houses.

"It's <puff> just here," the tall woman pants as she knocks on a door covered with peeling paint.  Suddenly, the door opens, casting a dim light into the passageway.  The two women quickly step inside and the door closes, plunging the passageway back into blackness.  On the street, one of the leather-coated men jogs slowly past the passageway's entrance, looking inside but seeing nothing of interest.  He continues on down the street.

Inside the basement flat, the older woman takes a moment or two to catch her breath.  Her apparent age is somewhere between thirty and fifty.  Her body is thin, wasted-thin.  Stringy brown hair hangs limply from her head - it looks like she hasn't washed it in days.  She's wearing a dull brown print dress which extends down to her ankles and a threadbare old gray cloth coat to keep out winter's chill.  Her lower lip is cut and swollen, dried blood has trickled from her nose onto her upper lip, and one eye is swollen almost shut.  Chalky white skin suggests she has spent many months indoors.

The young woman beside her and staring intently at, seemingly THROUGH the door they just came through is, in sharp contrast, breathing normally.  She's wearing white canvas shoes, a short short SHORT white skirt that ends just below her crotch, and a narrow white bandeau straining to encompass two large round breasts.  In the dark, gloomy city outside the flat, the younger woman stands out like a beacon - white clothing, slightly-tanned skin, and neck-length honey blond hair.  She looks like she can't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old, despite a 38D-23-34 figure.  Even standing at ease her nearly bare body shows well-developed musculature, as if she has been pumping iron for most of her young life.  There is a small brown smudge on her back, just below her top, as if something had recently brushed against her skin and moved on.

"Kevin," the older woman finally begins, "this young lass helped me escape from the 23d precinct.  From the Gestapo, man!  And may the Devil himself kiss me arse if yah believe her amazing tale!"

"Moira," the man replies, a stern look on his face, "those same blackguards may come crashing through that very door at any moment after you two!"

"No," the young blond says, her eyes still on the door.  "He continued on down the block, then came back past the passageway.  He rejoined the other men in black.  They are moving away."

"Mmnph!  And I'm sure it is that you can see that through the door and the bricks outside!" Kevin snorts contemptuously.

"Yes."

After several seconds of silence, "Kevin Conroy!" the older woman hisses at the startled man, "shut your pie hole and listen to the child's story!  I wouldna believe it meself had I not spent these last three hours with her, husband!"

"Hi," the blond says, smiling a smile that would melt the heart of any male and turning to face Kevin, "my name is Cai Trin.  I'm from Velor!  I'm a new Protector!"  As if that explains everything.

When the blank look on the man's face fails to fade away, Cai Trin begins to speak to him and Moira, telling them a tale that only fools and children should believe.  In a voice as soft and warm as black velvet, she says that she's from a distant planet named Velor.  Advanced bio-genetic engineering and draconian breeding programs there can create a special kind champion, always female, always blond, called a Planetary Protector.  Each is selected for a lifetime of service on a specific planet, one at an early stage in its inhabitants' evolution.  Each Protector is given training in that planet's history, culture, major life forms, and most importantly, how to fight all who would threaten that planet's normal development and growth.  Each Protector has special powers - great strength, flying ability, invulnerability, super vision, and other abilities to help protect *her* planet.

The Velorian Protectors must often confront and deter members of other races who want to crush all other lifeforms.  Two races in particular, the Arions and their Kintzi allies, are common threats to young planets.  The Arions are distant cousins of the Velorians; their Kintzi allies, a feline species, are just pathological killing machines.  Without the intercession of Velorian Protectors, Arions and Kintzi would sweep through the universe, destroying or subjugating races, Cai explains.

That is, the two races would TRY to wreak havoc upon young races until such evil ways upset the balance of the universe and come to the attention of the Old Ones.  The Old Ones are/were an impossibly powerful race that works, or is rumored to work to maintain the balance between good and evil.  Many Velorians and Arions believe that if one side acts too openly or too violently against or for a planet's inhabitants, the Old Ones will unleash horrible retribution on those who upset the balance.  So each side tries, in its own way, to protect or destroy a young race without alerting the Old Ones. Velorians rely upon their Protectors, Arions and Kintzi use brute force to undermine authority and sow terror, chaos and confusion.

Cai was trained to join other Protectors on Earth, to link up with them at a 'modelling agency' in Los Angeles, California.  She was to contact a Protector named Fairchild, also known as Aurora, and complete her training as a Protector under Aurora's guidance.

Sent from Velor in a specially-designed, use-once craft, her ship was in final deceleration toward Earth when a new Arion weapon opened fire.  Cai's ship was bathed in a strange red light and began to shake and bounce when suddenly a second, different weapon from another Arion ship hit her craft.  The converging beams mingled somehow and suddenly Cai blacked out!  When she awoke, she could see that she was rapidly descending toward a large expanse of water - several islands were visible in the distance.  Using her puny reaction drives, Cai managed to steer her craft toward the islands and land atop a tall mountain on one island.  Her studies told her this was a semi-active volcano; she could smell sulphur and see liquid rock pouring from the ground.

Cai had been given two sets of clothing - her white outfit and a second red, yellow and blue outfit.  She was told to wear the first until she found Fairchild. then replace it with clothes made on Earth.  The second outfit included a blue leotard with a large red and yellow "S" (for Supremis, as in homo Supremis) over the center of the breast part of the leotard.  She also had a red cape (with another "S"), a short red skirt, yellow belt, and red, calf-high boots with low heels.  She was told to wear this when acting as a Planetary Protector, so all could see the costume and know who she was.

"I think I landed on one of the Hawaiian Islands," Cai continues explaining to the two others.  "Anyway, I flew east and reached the coast of what I thought was America.  I flew south along the coast and saw an area which seemed, more or less, to be similar to the Los Angeles I was told about.  But when I landed and began looking around, I began to think I was in the wrong place. All the street and store signs were in some strange language - Japanese, I think.  Many people seemed to be Japanese or Chinese or something.  No one I talked to had heard of Fairchild or Aurora, and I was told that the city USED to be Los Angeles, but was now called Hatsuharu."

"Yes," Kevin interrupts, "it's been that since 1948."

"Well," Cai continues, "I . . . I didn't know what to do!  I suddenly remembered something I had read back on Velor.  Fairchild had a model agency.  New York had a lot of models.  Maybe she was here.  So after a week of finding nothing useful in . . . in Hatsuharu, I flew here."

"Flew?" Kevin asks.

"New Danzig, Cai" Moira interjects, moving to sit beside the young girl on a narrow couch.  "This USED to be called New York.  Shortly after the war, the Nazi's renamed it New Danzig.  It hasn't had fashion models since . . ."

"Nazis?" Cai interrupts, arching her eyebrows, "I . . . uh, I thought . . . I mean, I read your history.  They were evil men here.  Weren't they defeated many years ago?"

"Sure an' I wish they were!" Kevin says, slapping one knee, "there's not a decent soul here in America - or should I say Westland, who doesn't have the same wish, lass!  But the bastards control most of the world, and that's for sure."

"But, but," Cai stammers, trying to understand the implications of what he says, "but I was SURE this continent was . . ."

"Aye, lass, sure and it was, once!" Kevin interrupts, "but that's history now.  This is the free port of New Danzig.  Free!  HAH!  And there's a pretty twist to the word.  A Gestapo agent in every closet, an SS brigade in barracks on Stoessel Island . . ."

"But how can this be?" the young girl asks, suddenly so totally disoriented and confused that she is on the verge of losing her self control.  Somehow she is NOT where she is supposed to be.  The question is, where IS she?  How did she get here, wherever HERE is?  And how does she get to Earth - HER Earth, Aurora's Earth?  Unconsciously, Cai slides closer to Moira, who puts an arm around the young woman, protectively.

Kevin and Moira tell Cai what they know of history.  The tell her that  war began in 1939 between Germany and Poland.  England and France joined Poland and made noises about helping Poland, but failed to do anything.  Suddenly, in early 1940, German tanks and aircraft smashed through Belgium, across France to the English Channel.  The Belgians, Dutch, and French collapsed completely at the sudden and violent attacks.  The British Army in France was trapped and crushed on the beaches at Calais and Dunkirk, and many English ships were sunk in the channel in a futile attempt to evacuate the troops.

"The Germans just . . . I don't know . . . I had a teacher once, in high school, who remembered the war," Kevin says, "and he said that the Germans had weapons the others couldn't touch.  Tanks and troop carriers that were impossible to knock out, hand-held rockets that could allow a man to knock out a tank or even a small warship, special ammunition that would punch a hole through several inches of the best steel, self-guided flying bombs that would fly several hundred miles and crash into a bunker through its back door . . .  Macushla, nothing could stop their terrible weapons!  By 1943, Europe, Russia, North Africa and the Middle East were all controlled by the Germans and Italians.

"When the Japs attacked the US on the 4th of July in 1942, they quickly conquered much of the Pacific.  Then, with the help of the Germans, the Japs crushed the U.S. Navy at the Battle of Hawaii and soon thereafter landed on the west coast as Germans landed here on the east coast.  By 1944, the war was over.  All but a few countries are now run by one of the three Axis powers."

"B-but that's not what happened!" Cai says, her lower lip trembling, "I may not recall everything, but I know the war was won in 1945 by the *good* guys!  England.  America . . ."

"I'm sorry, darlin'," Kevin replies sadly, "but you can see for yourself that the Germans are here and are here to stay!"

The three continue to talk for a few more hours.  Eventually, Cai cried herself asleep, unsure how she would get back to the Earth she *knew*.  Although she would like to help defeat these Nazis, her code prevents her from interfering with this planet's *normal* development.  Since there doesn't seem to be a threat from Arions or other spacefaring races, since there has never been any indication of super powered beings, of any kind, Cai sees no reason to stay here.  However, getting *home* is, for the moment, beyond her capabilities.

"When we were in the Gestapo's jail cell, Cai, you didn't say why you had been picked up," Moira asks the young Velorian the next morning over breakfast.

"After I flew across the country to New York . . . ah, New Danzig, I landed in the big park and began walking around, looking for Aurora or her agency.  After about 30 minutes or so, I realized that everyone else was wearing lots of clothes, lots of gray or brown or black clothes.  There was a little snow or ice or something on the ground.  I guess I looked out of place, dressed like this.  Different.

"Three guys stopped me. They asked to see things - IDs, papers of some kind, but when they saw I didn't have what they wanted, they said it was time to visit *downtown* or someplace.  I didn't know any better, so I went with them, hoping they could help me find Aurora.  They just put in the cell with you, said they would see me again when they had orders."

"When she saw what the Gestapo had done to me," Moira says, turning toward Kevin, "she agreed to help me get away."

"Bit rash, that," Kevin opines, looking at the young girl, answering his own unasked thoughts.

"Well, good for me, I say," Moira continues, "good that she believed me when I told her about the Resistance, and when she got us out of that place.  I think another trip down that hall . . ."

"Hush, now, darlin'" Kevin says, wrapping an arm around his wife.  "Sure and it's over.  We just must move out of town, find someplace else, before the Gestapo catches up with you.  I'll call Josh for some travel papers."

"Travel papers?" Cai asks, looking up from her cup of weak tea.

"Aye, Cai," Moira replies, "it's what we need to show to the authorities if we're stopped and we're not in our *proper place*.  Our ID cards limit us to New Danzig.  Bless me for a fool, Cai!  You don't have any ID cards at all, now, do yah lass?"

"I . . . I guess not," Cai says, looking uselessly at her short skirt and skimpy top.

Kevin leaves the room and returns a few moments later.  "Josh will SELL us papers we can use to go to Bad Kreuzin.  Six hundred New Reich's marks for each of us."

"Oh, Kevin!" Moira gasps, "sure and it's a small fortune he askin'!  And we'll need a few hundred more if we're to take the train there!"

"Can I help?" Cai asks hopefully.

"Maybe you can, Macushla," Kevin replies, winking at his wife. "You said you have special powers.  There's a, a kind of fort near here, a German place it is, and tis certain that it has enough money for us to get the papers we need so we can travel freely, without fear of the Gestapo or the polizei.  Tis certain I am that there will be enough for train tickets, too!"

"Well let's go!" Cai said, brightly, "we can get this *money* stuff - I read about it but I don't really understand it very well.  I just know everyone needs it.  So, am I dressed all right?"  She rises to display her white outfit, just perfect for the beaches of southern California - in another dimension.

"Why don't you get into that other costume of yours now?" Kevin asks.  "Moira, darlin', where's your other coat?"

Cai stands up and casually slides her white skirt down, past her hips, past her knees to form a pile around her ankles.  Kevin sucks in his breath as he looks at her taut tanned legs, her golden bush, her tight ass and stomach.  As Cai steps out of the skirt, she deftly uses her feet to remove her white shoes, briefly showing incredible muscles on each calf, in turn.  At the same time, she pulls the bandeau upward, over her head.  Her now-unrestrained breasts bounce only minimally, then resume their perfect position, seemingly unaffected by gravity.  Solid little nipples, each about half an inch in length, point at Kevin's chest.

From inside the bandeau, from inside a hidden pouch, the nubile nymph pulls a wad of fabric.  A flick of her wrist and her colorful costume appears in her hand, shaken out to form its full, if still skimpy size.  As Kevin gapes, drinking in this vision of a goddess, Cai climbs into her blue leotard, stretching the alien fabric until it looks like it is spray-painted on her body, her breasts seeming to strain to burst through the shiny, thin material.  She pulls the red skirt up her short legs to her waist and cinches closed the belt's buckle, letting it settle just below her navel.  Next, she fastens the cape around her neck, connecting it to hooks inside the neckline at the back of her leotard.  Finally, Cai bends at the waist and pulls on her shiny red boots, specially designed on Velor to bend and flex as her calf muscles grow or shrink from her exertions.  Finished dressing, Cai turns to look at Kevin and stands with her legs slightly spread, her hands on her hips and her breasts pointing jauntily at Kevin.  "Is this okay?" she asks, smiling at the man.  Cai notices that Kevin has a very pronounced tent on the front of his pants.

"Faith and I'd give you all my money just to see you get dressed again," Kevin gushes at the young Protector.

"Wipe the drool off your lip, man," Moira says to Kevin as she returns to the room, a second coat draped over her arm.  After helping Cai don the coat, the trio leaves the flat and walks, huddled together, hunched forward, trying to keep the cold winter wind from chilling their bodies too quickly (except for Cai, who waits a moment before imitating the other two people's style of walking).

Fifteen minutes later, three people walk into the lobby of the Reichsbank of New Danzig.  They had discussed their plan on the walk to the bank.  Kevin and Moira each slip one of her old nylon stockings over his or her head as Cai, in the middle of the lobby, removes her coat and tosses it onto a check-writing counter.  As she stands with her legs spread and her hands on her hips, Kevin pulls an old Luger pistol from his jacket and fires a round into the air.

"Nobody move," Kevin shouts, "and we'll be out of here in a minute!"

A guard at one end of the lobby raises his Schmeiser sub-machine gun and aims it at Kevin.  As the first few rounds spit from the end of the gun,  Cai suddenly leaps into the line of fire.  A score of shells rapidly smash into the young woman's body, pushing her back half a step from their impact.  As the bullets hit her torso, sounds like metal falling on metal echo in the lobby and her costume dimples slightly from each round before the bullets carom off her body.  When his magazine is exhausted, the guard slowly lowers his weapon, his mouth agape at what he's just seen.

"Gott in Himmel," the guard grunts, trying to comprehend the impossible.  Two other guards rush toward the young woman, weapons blazing, scores of rounds hitting her petite form and riccochetting around the bank.

Cai uses her super vision to hit each guard's weapon with enough energy to melt the ends of the barrels.  Before that, however, the weapons fall from the singed hands of the guards.  Cai casually walks toward the two guards, lifts one in each hand and tosses them twenty feet, to land among the desks of the bank officers.

As Kevin and Moira move toward the bank's vault, Cai strides about the floor, her boot heels clicking on the marble floor, her cape swishing against her the back of her skirt.  Kevin and Moira clean out the tellers' drawers, stuffing hundreds of NRMs into sacks.  They enter the open vault to get even more money and after they cross the threshhold, one of the bank's senior staff suddenly leaps from where he had been huddling and throws his shoulder against the massive vault door.  Before anyone can react, the thick steel door slams shut, locking Moira and Kevin inside the vault.

Cai heard the man hit the door - it sounded like a loud *KRANG* that caused her to turn toward the vault.  As she sees the door slam shut, and her friends nowhere in sight, Cai shouts "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY FRIENDS!" at the bank officer.  Like a gazelle, the teen leaps into the air and sails twenty feet, across the floor of the lobby and over the top of the tellers' counter, to land beside the man who closed the door.

"Wh-what?  How . . . how'd you do that?" the man gasps.  "You . . . you're not a Prime - what are you?"

"WWHHAAAATT?" Cai screams, stepping back a half step in shock, one hand rising to cover her mouth.  The man has said something these people should not know about.  "What do you mean, a *Prime*?  What are you?" the girl asks the man.

Instead of answering, he kicks upward with his foot, catching the Protector off guard.  His shoe hits her jaw and as she flies backward several yards, his shoe disintegrates on his foot and the man falls to one knee, wincing in pain from a broken foot and five broken toes.

Cai recovers immediately and after rising to her feet, she rushes back to the man.  Muscles on one arm bulge outward as she lifts him to his feet and examines his body with her super vision.  "You . . . YOU'RE A BETA!" she gasps.  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!"

"Nngh," the man grunts in reply, "and . . . and you are obviously not a a Terran.  What are you and what are you doing here?"

"I'm a Protector - Velorian!" she says proudly, raising the man off the floor, holding him at the end of one powerful arm, his feet inches off the ground.

"Vel-Velorian?" the man gasps, "Protector? You bitches aren't <gak> aren't supposed to be here."

"What?" the girl replies, "What do you mean?  WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT VELOR?"

"Put me down, and I'll talk," the man replies.  After Cai drops him onto a nearby chair, she begins to explore the vault door to find some way to open it and free her friends.  Finally, in desperation, she grasps one of the three-inch thick metal bars which has settled into its locking coupling.  As her small hands wrap around the metal bar, as she begins to apply tremendous pressure against the metal, her bicep and tricep muscles begin to bulge tremendously, stretching and straining the fabric on her costume.  As even more pressure is put on the case-hardened steel, her shoulder and back muscles also begin to swell.

Slowly the metal rod begins to deform, to heat and melt over her hands and puddle on the floor at her feet.  In less than a minute the first of six rods has been split.  "TALK, ARION!" she commands, glancing at the man.

"I . . . I know you Velorians haven't left your planet in the last three hundred Terran years, bitch," the Beta hisses at the heroine.  "When you started sending teams of Protectors out to obliterate us from several worlds, the Old Ones reacted.  They expelled you Velorians from every  planet you claimed as Protected and all you Protectors went home.  You must know your own history!  So why are you here, now?"

Thinking fast, Cai replies, "we decided to see what you Arion scum have been up to.  So how did you beasts foul this planet with your evil ways?"

"Hah," the Beta replies, chuckling at her grandiose speech.  He had pushed the silent alarm when the robbery began and pushed another alarm when he saw bullets bounce off this young woman's body.  Police and *other* forces must be coming here even now, he reasons.  "If I can keep her here, if I can somehow help defeat her, I will be rewarded beyond all measure by the High Command!" he concludes.

"We found this planet sixty or more years ago.  One ship.  We put one or two Beta engineers in each critical war industry in Germany, and helped them *discover* new weapons, new ways of killing other weak Terrans.  We slipped our men into their armed forces and helped their generals *develop* new warfighting methods.  With just a handful of Primes and a hundred or so Betas, we helped that Hitler fool conquer this world.  Then we killed him.  Now, WE rule this planet, and none of these feeble excuses for lifeforms knows that Arions - not their Aryans - rules this world!

"But now, we have three shiploads of Arions on the planet, Velorian bitch.  How long do you think the High Command will allow you live?"

By now, Cai had broken four of the rods.  She tries to peel the door open but fails - even her vaunted strength cannot quickly defeat this much metal.  Before beginning work on the fifth rod, she turns and punches the Beta in the chin.  The powerful blow lifts him off his chair and flings him across the lobby to smash through the plate glass window, to fly across the sidewalk, and land on his back in the middle of Goeringstrasse.

Through the remains of the lobby window Cai can hear the wails of many sirens closing on the bank.  Turning back to the vault door, the young Protector frantically grabs one bar in both hands and uses tremendous amounts of energy to pull and rend the bar.  At the same time, her super vision begins pumping incredible heat radiation at the other remaining bar, turning it red, then yellow, then white hot.  As the young girl, now sweating, grunting, moaning from the exertions, works on the the last two bars, onlookers note with awe that her once-prominent breasts are slowly shrinking in size!

"There!" she cries exultantly as both rods break.  Panting for breath, the Velorian grasps the vault door and begins to pull it backward.  Unfortunately, her earlier efforts with the door had warped it and misaligned the seals.  Again the girl has to throw every erg of her power into moving the metal door. Finally, with a loud groan, the door pops off its tracks and falls against the girl.  The weight of the safe and slippery footing under her boots, from the molten metal, causes Cai to loose her footing and fall backward onto the floor.  The massive door lands on the Protector, pinning her body underneath.

As Kevin and Moira flee the vault, leaping on the door on their way out, Cai shouts from under the door, "K-Kevin, Moira, run!  I . . . I need a second to get free.  I'll <pant> nngghhhHHHH" she grunts as she raises the massive door off her body and tries to slide out from underneath it. Her grip slips and again the door falls, crushing her body against the floor.   "RUN . . . I'll try to mmmnnn to join you later, at your flat!"

Kevin and Moira pick up their bags of NRMs and head toward the back door of the bank.  As a guard rises and takes aim at them, Kevin snaps off a quick shot, dropping the guard with a bullet in his chest.  Neither one looks back at Cai, neither offers help.

Cai finally manages to slip from under the vault door and once out from under the door, she has to use her hands to pull herself to her feet.  As she stands beside the door, breathing quickly, her legs trembling slightly, she notices that her breasts are now little more than 34Bs!  "My . . . my god," she wheezes, "that was too . . ."

Suddenly the front door of the bank flies inward with a tremendous roar.  Three ruggedly handsome black-haired men, dressed in black leather jackets, shiny black kneeboots, and black leather pants and sweaters step into the bank lobby.  Cai scans them quickly with her super vision. "Oh, oh," she says quietly to herself.  "This can't be good."

The leader, Gauleitier Karl Messner, is an Arion Prime, and with his two Beta assistants, they are the real rulers of this *free* port.  He is the chief administrator of the city, his two companions control the local police and Gestapo (security police).  The Betas have the strength of a hundred men and are invulnerable to all but the most powerful attacks.  Messner's powers as an Arion Prime are roughly one fourth to MAYBE one third of her NORMAL power.  No Primes can fly, but at this point, Cai is too drained of energy to flee the bank by air.  She also knows that she would have to fly past the Arions to get out of the bank, and they would surely grab her.  Cai rises to her full 5'6" height to confront the three Arions, each of whom must be over 6'1" in height.

Messner, only fifteen feet away from Cai, suddenly uses HIS super vision on the weakened Protector. His companions quickly pull unearthly weapons from under their coats - long rods with two *barrels* at one end.  Powerful beams shoot from the ends of the weapons, the twin beams of each weapon converging on the Protector.

When the Prime's heat vision and the Betas' weapons hit Cai, they slam into the woman and she is thrown back into the bank vault.  Tremendous heat radiation pours from the eyes and weapons of the three Arions, all beams converging on the young blond teenager's chest.  At first, the powerful beams cause the girl to scream in pain and agony.  Liquid in every part of her body, her eyes, mouth, and so on quickly heats to a gas and escapes from her body, hissing.  She tries to raise her hands to protect her breasts, but the tremendous force of the Prime's eyes and the weapons just burn her palms and she has to pull her hands away.  Cai twists and squirms on the vault's floor, trying to escape the agonizing pain, but the Arions relentlessly walk toward her, their rays punishing her young body mercilessly, pinning her to the floor.

As gigajoules of energy pump into the girl's chest, she suddenly notices dimly that her incredible breasts are actually absorbing some of the energy.  "Mmnnggghh!" she grunts, still suffering painfully from the barrage, "Arions on - on this dimension must not nnnnhhh know about Velorian breasts - the dolts are transferring their - energy to my body through my breasts!"  Like all Protectors, her breasts act as batteries, storing the energy she needs to use her amazing powers.

Karl, the leader of the Arions, suddenly realizes that the strange female 1) has not vanished in a puff of smoke and 2) her breasts are growing larger by the second.  A dim memory surfaces in his brain.

"STOP!" he shouts at his companions, ending the punishing super vision blasts directed at the young blond female.  "This - this is a Velorian bitch!"

"WHAATT!?!?"  "UNMOGLICH!"  The ray guns fall silent and are lowered.

"Come on!  Let's get her!" Messner shouts.

Like one person, the three men leap the bank counter and sail into the vault, their jackboots aimed at the young woman in blue lying on the vault's floor.  Just as their boots are about to pound her into the floor, she rolls to one side and the three men land in a heap and skid to the back of the vault.  Cai rises slowly to her feet and walks - staggers! out of the vault.  She has some of their energy now, but her body aches from the stresses to which she has subjected herself, not to mention the withering heat radiation from the Arions.

With an incredible effort of will, the young Protector begins to slowly run toward the counter, hoping to leap over it and fly out the window while the Arions are untangling themselves from their pile.  Cai leaps into the air and just as her leading leg clears the counter, one of the Betas leaps after her and manages to wrap his arms around her waist, pinning her cape to her back.  The impact drives them both to the floor on the other side of the counter and Cai grunts from the landing.  As she tries to rise, the Beta rises to his knees and slams his clenched fists into the base of her skull, driving her face several inches into the tile floor.

Before Cai can respond, the others have cleared the vault and counter and are at her side.  One Beta grabs her left leg, the other her right, and they lift her into the air, her head hanging down near the floor, her wrists lying limply on the marble tile floor.  Messner moves in front of the up-ended Protector and viciously kicks her face with every erg of energy in his body.  The others barely hold onto her legs as her body shoots backward from the force of the blow, stretching backward and up until her body is parallel to the floor.

"NNNghhh!" Cai grunts when her body swings back down and she's staring at Messner's boots, "s-stop it!" she cries, unaccustomed to such vicious combat and the unexpected pain.  She never experienced anything as painful as this during her training on Velor!

Smiling cruelly, the leader waits till the helpless heroine stops swinging toward and away from him.  He then lunges forward, drops to one knee and rams his fist against the woman's torso just below her breast bone, driving his fist over an inch into her young body, almost reaching her heart!  Again her body shoots away from him and Cai screams like an animal from the incredible pain.  Dully, she realizes that this man can kill her if he grabs her beating heart and squeezes it until it stops beating.  He has the strength to do it, too.  Her will tries to resist them but her body is still too weak to respond.  Again her body swings back toward the Arion Prime.

"Let's see the other end of this Velorian cow!" the leader snarls.  His cohorts swiftly spin Cai around and support her, their large powerful hands encompassing her biceps, pinning her forearms behind her back.  Messner steps closer and wraps his meaty paw around the back of the girl's neck.  His other hand lifts her chin upward and he looks at her and smiles condescendingly.  "You are far too young and untrained, little girl, to play at being a Protector for this planet.  Besides, we already OWN IT!

"But since you Velorians no longer leave your planet, we have had to settle for Beta females for our pleasures.  I heard stories about the fun one could have with a Velorian, especially with a Protector.  Are you a Protector?  Will you mind if I . . . *have my way* with you?  Haw haw haw!"

"Puh-please," Cai gasps, "I - I don't belong here.  I just want to go home."

The Prime looks with contempt upon the begging *heroine*.  He leans forward and presses his lips against the girl's lips, pressing harder and harder, digging his tongue at her lips until he forces it into her mouth.  She squirms weakly in protest as his tongue probes deeply into her mouth.  Then, suddenly, his free hand envelopes one of her breasts and squeezes it with all his strength.  In her weakened state, Cai can only moan and feebly attempt to move away from his tongue and hand.

She fails.  And sadly, she LIKES what his rough grip on her breast felt like.  On Velor, she had been warned to keep her sexual urges in check, to remain chaste and pure so her focus and energy could make her a more powerful and successful Protector.  But this man's kiss and touch . . .

Messner steps back from his captive and watches with pride as her head sags down onto her chest.  "Take her back to the headquarters," he commands, "while I clean up here."

As his companions carry the limp young Protector out of the bank, Karl slowly turns around the lobby.  His eyes send forth beams that melt the bank's surveillance cameras.  In succession, he then quickly and efficiently vaporizes every Terran in the building.  "No witnesses!" he declares when the last victim's body becomes a puff of smoke.

Outside, the two Betas are carrying the limp Protector, her heels dragging across the concrete, her head lolling on her chest.  As they cross the sidewalk and near their awaiting vehicle, Cai suddenly explodes into action, planting her feet on the ground and standing.  She flexes her arms and raises the two Betas off the ground, smashing their heads together above her head.  She then tosses each one into the air, one to her left, the other to her right.  The Arions land yards away in crumpled heaps.

Cai turns back toward the bank just as Messner walks through the bank's doors.  She only needs a second to decide that she knows too little about this planet and these Arions.  She also decides that she is too weak to risk further combat with this Prime.  Before Messner can react, Cai leaps into the air and flies straight up.  Messner leaps after her but stops just short of grabbing her boot heel when his momentum ends and he falls back toward the ground.  Cai doesn't look back as she soars over the surrounding buildings and flies toward Kevin and Moira's apartment.  She doesn't see the enraged Arion Prime using his tachyon vision to burn his own men and innocent bystanders, anyone who might have seen his leap into the air.

In mere seconds, the young Protector flashes over the city and drops down on the street outside her friends' apartment.  She rushes inside, glad that the few people on the street do not seem to be more Arions and are barely interested in this flying costumed youngster.

Three hours later and still no sign of the Conroys.  Moira and Kevin were terrified at the thought that the *Gestapo* (whatever THAT is) might appear at the apartment's door.  As she awaits their return from the Reichsbank, Cai reasons that there must be some link between this Gestapo thing and those Arions.  Now even she is worried - she's recovered considerably from her battle with the Arions but is not ready for another confrontation with the Arions.

"Maybe they went to - what did they call it?" Cai asks herself.  "Yes, to the *train* place.  But . . . I can't go out there dressed like this!" she says, looking at her red, yellow and blue costume.  She goes into the Conroy's bedroom and after a few minutes she manages to put on one of Moira's skirts - on Moira it was knee-length and a bit loose.  On Cai, it tightly hugs her waist and reaches down nearly to her ankles, concealing most of her red boots.  One of Kevin's shirts, knotted at the waist, fits loosely on her body (except at her breasts, where the fabric just barely reaches across her [slightly-depleted] breasts).  Cai dons a gray workman's cap, stuffing her blond hair into the hat, and regards herself in a mirror.  "There's not much else here to work with," she decides.  She still has her costume on under these clothes but she thinks the Conroy's clothes make her look like a normal Terran.  She picks up her white outfit and shoes and squeezes them in her powerful hands, compressing them down to a small wafer which she slips into a pouch in the waistband of her costume's skirt.

The Protector uses her super vision to scan beyond the door and out to the street.  Seeing nothing, she leaves the flat and turns to walk along the passageway toward the street.  Suddenly, she hears squealing tires and revving engines - two large black cars just turned onto this street and are headed toward this passageway!  Cai quickly turns and runs the other way down the passageway, entering an alley behind the building.  Looking both ways, she jogs toward one end of the alley just as Gestapo agents, both Terrans and Arion Betas, enter the other end of the passageway.  As they break into the Conroy's apartment, Cai leaves the alley and moves quickly away . . . toward . . . toward where?

"Excuse me," she says to a woman she meets on the street.  "Can you direct me to the, uh, the train place?"

"The station?  Which one?

"I'm looking for friends.  We're supposed to go to Bad . . . uh, Bad . . mmm Bad Croison?"

"D'yer mean Bad Kreuzin?" the woman asks.  She knows the authorities don't like to see people clustering together on the street and wants to move away from this strangely-dressed young girl.  "Try the main depot, gel.  Four blocks, that way," she says, pointing off in one direction.

Cai thanks the woman and starts to move toward the station and suddenly realizes she has to go back past the Conroy's apartment!  "Well, I can't wait for sundown," she says to herself.  "If I use my powers, I'll just draw attention to myself.  Someone must have seen me land and go into their home - that's probably how the men in black knew where to go."

"Well, they're looking for a blond in a costume.  Maybe they won't stop me if I walk like the Conroys!"  Cai hunches forward at the waist and wraps her arms around her chest, hands grasping biceps as if to keep out the cold.  She begins walking quickly and resolutely toward the *main depot*.  As she passes the street where the Conroy's apartment is located, Cai sees that the original two sedans are now surrounded by a dozen more vehicles, including large gray metal boxey things with pipes or tubes sticking out at odd angles.

Cai decides to bypass the street, walking around it before getting back on course, and in a few moments the block is but a distant memory.  Minutes later, the slight young woman reaches the steps of an imposing brick and marble edifice with the words "Westland Banhoff Stazion" over the doors.  Gritting her teeth, the young Protector enters the station and moves down a broad staircase to the lobby.

After sitting in the lobby for five hours, Cai decides that the Conroys must not be coming to this station.  The hour is late, well after curfew, and there are only three or four passengers still sitting on the hard wooden benches of the station.  Cai looks at the only other woman in the lobby, eyes begging for her help, her friendship, any contact, but the woman quickly breaks her eyes free and looks away, fearful of strangers who seem overly friendly.

As the large clock chimes 23:00 hours, Cai settles back into her seat and pulls her legs up onto the bench so she can hug her knees to her chest.  "Wh-what do I do, now?" she asks herself.  A small tear trickles from one eye and slides across her cheek.