Happy Halloween, Besties! I am so sad Spooky Season is already over, but that doesn’t mean we won’t go out with a BANG. I’m actually very excited for this (re)post.
Firstly, because I’m really happy with it…now. See, Hyper Star: Cult of the Filth King (which was a Halloween weekend post 2 years ago) is the only thing I’ve every felt really compelled to rewrite. When I was working on it initially, it had turned out longer than I intended (I know, shocker, right) and I was rushing desperately to get it finished in time for Halloween. So it honestly did not get finished the way I wanted, and it didn’t get polished or edited the way I wanted…I’ve always been disappointed in it.
Secondly, I never felt like the previous story portrayed Hyper Star the way I really envision her. So, this is now also part of the Hyper Star relaunch. I know some of you have been anticipating, or maybe even hoping for this (or something like it) since I led into Spooky Season with the original two Hyper Star short stories. I didn’t want to confirm or deny at that point, because while I was working on this rewrite, I didn’t want to make the same mistake as before: rushing it to post by some self-imposed deadline I felt it was ready.
Buuuut here we are, ready, revised, reworked, reimagined, reposted, and really hoping you all enjoy it. So without further preamble, Let’s begin…

Hyper Star heard the first scream from seven blocks away. She was perched on a roof top overlooking Forty-second Street. Up until then it had been a fairly quiet night for Regent City.

The heroine immediately turned towards the sound and began sprinting across the buildings. Her maximized senses attuned to the sounds quickly, though they were at the edge of her hyper perceptive range. She was still able to make out the sounds of a pursuit in progress. As she got closer, she was able to make out more and more specifics: One person being chased, she assessed. A woman if the sound of the scream is any indicator—shocker. The steps sounded frantic and scrambling. Two giving chase, heavier, probably men. She could even tell the footfalls seemed more sure, focused. They’re closing in…I need to move faster!

Hyper Star leaped across Leyland Street and hit the next roof in a roll… it was almost too far even for her…but she came up nimbly, already putting on a burst of accelerated speed.

The heroine cleared the seven blocks quickly, adjusting as needed to intercept the sounds of pursuit. Now she could even hear the woman’s panicky breathing, and the men’s voices:

“Give it up, Nadine! You know there’s no getting away!”

“Save your breath, Allec, she’ll never reach the street…”

We’ll see about that! Hyper Star thought, cutting across the final roof.

The men were running through a cramped alleyway, into which the heroine dove without hesitation, aiming to cut off the pursuers from their quarry.

“Get away from me!” the woman—presumably Nadine—was crying out. “I won’t go back there!”

“You know you don’t have a choi- shit!”

Hyper Star landed right in front of the two men. “Seems like she’s made her choice,” the heroine declared.

The men pulled up short, skidding to a stop before hopping back a step or two in surprise. The fleeing woman glanced back to see what was happening, stumbling as she did and falling down with a startled shriek.

Hyper Star quickly made an appraisal of the situation. The woman, Nadine, was a petite, frightened blonde, wearing nothing at all. Her chest and stomach were smeared and streaked with some black substance. Her palms and knees were skinned and scraped.  Her bare feet were filthy from the pursuit.

The men were both wearing robes, grungy brown and tattered at the sleeves. They looked either very very old, or very very filthy, or more probably both. Complete with hoods and voluminous sleeves, in the dark alley, she could barely even make out their faces.

The heroine squared up to them, planting both hands confidently on her shapely hips. “Oh geez, don’t tell me,” the heroine began, “Are you guys in some kind of cult?”

She was wearing her usual skintight uniform made of bright crimson Lycra. It consisted of two matching pieces, leggings and a haltered crop top, with a bright golden star emblazoned over her buxom chest. There was a belt around her waist, made of interlocking golden stars. She also wore a pair of high-tech gold armbands, as well as gold knee-high boots, each with red stars on the calf. Her rich auburn hair was pulled back in a slinky ponytail.

“This doesn’t concern you,” said the man called Allec (she could tell by his voice). He took a step towards her. “Leave and you won’t have to get hurt.”

“The name’s Hyper Star,” she responded. “And as the protectress of Regent City and all its inhabitants, especially those being chased down dark alleys by creepy weirdos, this whole situation concerns me very much.”

“Hyper Star? Ahh, I’ve heard rumors about you,” he replied. “To be honest, I thought you were just another urban myth.”

“Turn around and walk out of this alley,” she said, “or you’ll find out just how real I am.”

“Shit,” the other man huffed.

In the shadow of his hood, Allec was grinning. “We cannot leave without that cow.”

They both reached into those deep sleeves and produced knives. Allec had a well-maintained hunting knife, long and gleaming in the meager light. The other man’s was old, rusted, and sporting a few chips in the blade, which only made it look more dangerous.

“Didn’t your mothers ever warn you about playing with knives?” Hyper Star said with smirk.

They lunged forward and Nadine screamed, “No! Look out!”

Thanks to Hyper Star’s enhanced reflexes Allec’s first stab didn’t even come close. She caught him by the wrist, then flipped over his shoulder twisting his arm backwards as she did. Allec howled in pain, but to his credit, kept hold of the knife.

The other man was already starting to circle around so he could get at the heroine. Before he could, she planted one high-heeled boot in the middle of Allec’s back and kicked him forward with her boosted strength. He slammed into the other man with shocking force. They both crashed into a pair of nearby trash cans, grunting in pain and surprise.

Hyper Star turned towards the frightened woman, “Don’t worry, I’ve got—” Nadine was already running for the mouth of the alley. “—this. Okay, well, I guess that is a smart move.”

Allec was already back on his feet and charging the seemingly distracted heroine. The other man was fumbling for their knives, both of which had been dropped by then. However, the enhanced heroine was hardly going to be caught unaware by the likes of these men. She easily slipped Allec’s wild punch, and snagged the front of his grungy robe. She lifted him off the ground with one arm, then drove him back down onto the concrete. He hit with an explosion of breath, and curled into a gasping, wheezing ball.

The other man was back up now and holding both knives. He extended them at the same time and charged. Hyper Star leapt into the air almost casually, turned a graceful cartwheel over his head, and landed behind him.

“Hey! Where-” was all he got out before she wheeled into a powerful roundhouse kick that took him in the side of the head. He cried out, rag-dolling sideways to slam against the brick wall of the alley. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Hyper Star turned back towards Nadine. The frightened blonde was standing just outside the alley now, under a streetlamp. She was hugging herself and shaking.

“Are you okay?” the heroine asked, her golden heels clicking the asphalt as she approached the other woman. “We should get you someplace warm and find you some clothes…”

“You- you’re really a superheroine?” the woman asked.

Hyper Star replied with (barely) restrained pride, “I know if it’s my place to use a term like ‘heroine’, but also…yeah. I am.”

“You have to help me!”

“That’s the plan.”

“No one can help her!” boomed a voice from the alley.

Hyper Star whirled around, What? How could someone have snuck up on me with my senses still maximized? Was I really that distracted kicking those losers’ butts…

Stranger still there was no one behind her. Except for Allec, who had yet to regain his bearings, and of course, the unconscious heap of his comrade.

The Hyperlyte serum had all of Hyper Star’s senses maximized, including sight and hearing. Even in the meager light of that dark alley, she should have been able to find whoever was lurking there. She squared up to mouth of the alley, once again planting both hands on her curvaceous hips.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, scanning even more intently. “Show yourself!”

There was movement—but also—everything stayed still.

“We should’ve run,” Nadine whimpered.

Hyper Star took another step forward trying to figure out what she was looking at. Everything seemed to be moving, and yet, nothing was. Then she realized…it was the shadows. All of them wavering, shifting, almost like flames in a strong wind.

“What is this?” the heroine asked, glancing over her shoulder at the frightened woman.

“The Black Physician…”

“Who, or what, is ‘the Black Physician’?” Hyper Star asked, turning back to the writhing shadows.

“I am,” declared that booming voice.

Then one of the shadows seemed to grow darker than the rest, turning opaque. It bulged outward, stretching into the alley. Hyper Star could only watch in shock as it seemed to take on a solidity and a shape. Despite the incredible things she’d witnessed as a superheroine, her rational mind still struggled to accept what she was seeing now.

“I am the dark apothecary,” the voice continued as a figure now emerged from that shadow, “and cruelest of the old sawbones.”

It was tall and literally shrouded in darkness. It seemed to be draped in tattered robes, themselves an impossible black in color, like he was wearing fabric woven of the night itself. A wide brimmed hat sat atop the head, so wide it might have been comical, if not for the undeniably imposing nature of the figure. Under that hat was a plague doctor’s mask, in the shadows it seemed to be the color of aging bone, and had strange symbols etched all over it.

“I am the master of pestilence and shadow,” the figure declared, lifting a long arm and pointing towards Nadine with an impossibly black hand, “and that cow belongs to me.” His voice was unnaturally loud and grating, like an echo in the heroine’s head. “Stand aside or face my wrath.”

Ice crawled up Hyper Star’s spine, and despite the shiver—she squared up to the shaded being. “Whoever or whatever you are, she is no cow, and she is under my protection. So why don’t you scrape those two…I dunno, what are they, wizards? Evil Clerics?”

“They are my—”

“—Regardless, scrape ‘em up off the pavement and return to wherever it is you all came from, or you’ll be the one facing my wrath!”

“Insolent woman.”

“I am one of those, yes.” Hyper Star thrust out her chin, blue eyes glaring up at the imposing being.

“Have it your way,” the words were accompanied by a mirthless chuckle. It sounded more like a roll of thunder. The Black Physician started forward.

Hyper Star tensed, and whispered over her shoulder to Nadine, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

The frightened woman whimpered, “But who’ll protect you?”

Hyper Star grit her teeth, already lunging at the dark figure. Whatever this thing is, it won’t be able to keep up with my accelerated speed, and a good solid punch from my boosted strength should make it reconsider this fight! She cocked her arm for that crushing blow—but a hand caught her by the wrist.

“Hey! What the—??”

It was not his hand though…rather, it was one extending from the wall of the alleyway and seemed to be made up of pure shadow. Hyper Star gasped and tried to jerk free, but the grip didn’t budge.

“What is this?” she demanded. “How are you doing this?”

“This is but a taste of my power.”

The heroine snatched one of the stars from her belt. They were the only weapons she carried, with sharpened edges and tips (they were also weighted for throwing). She slashed at the shadowy arm and the grip released.

The Black Physician seemed to recoil as well.

Hyper Star immediately turned back and whipped the star at him! Before it could strike, he lifted one of his own hands. The shadows of the alley tore free of every crack and puddle at once, gathering and twisting into a black tornado in front of him. Wind that was not wind whipped grit and scraps of paper into a funnel of pure darkness. Her thrown star vanished into that vortex without a sound.

“Well…that’s a—uh…” Hyper Star’s blue eyes widened behind her crimson mask, “—a neat…trick.”

“The feeble often mistake power for trickery.” The Black Physician reached out towards her and those shadows came spinning forward.

Hyper Star kicked into a high backflip, narrowly avoiding that dark vortex.  She pulled another of the throwing stars from her belt while in midair. Beneath her, the swirling shadows spun out and dissipated, returning to their places amongst the nooks and corners of the dark alley.

“I’ve got tricks and power of my own!” she shouted, and the instant her high heeled boots touched the ground, she flung the star at her adversary.

“Merely the same tricks it would seem—” This time he avoided the projectile by lunging into the shadows and disappearing—Hyper Star barely had time to register this before his hands were on her, seizing her by the shoulders—as quick as he’d disappeared, The Black Physician had emerged just behind the heroine and now he had her!

“—And power that pales compared to mine own,” he laughed.

“Look out!” Nadine shrieked from under the streetlight, clearly too late.

The Black Physician’s touch alone was cold enough to send a terrible shiver through Hyper Star. She tried to wrench free, but he was too strong. And too quick, before she could do anything more, he hurled the heroine across the alleyway!

She cried out in surprise then crashed against the side of a dumpster. The force was enough to knock the heavy metal container over, scattering the stench and trash within.

That almost hurt, she thought with a touch of alarm, and already clamoring back to her feet. How can he be this strong and fast?

“A remarkably vigorous constitution” the Black Physician said, coming towards her again. “A pity the mind is so diseased. Kneel, and I may yet prescribe mercy.”

“You’re stronger than I expected,” she replied, “but this fight’s a long way from finished.”

“We shall see,” the Black Physician extended one gaunt hand, and again the shadows around her began to darken and move.

Hyper Star snatched one of the sharpened stars from her belt and slashed about wildly to keep the reaching shadows at bay. Then the heroine leaped into the air once more out of reach. She turned a tight flip at the peak of her jump, diving towards the Black Physician and hurling the sharpened star at the same time.

“I’ll never kneel to you!” she cried.

“Then I’ll make you,” he replied with unnerving calm, batting away the projectile.

The heroine had only meant for the star to distract him though. She cocked her arm for another punch, this time aided by the high trajectory and her own momentum, there was no way he could avoid her—

The Black Physician caught Hyper Star by the throat with one powerful arm, and redirected her momentum, slamming the helpless heroine down onto her back at his feet. The breath exploded out of her in a cry of shock and pain, and despite her fortified durability, the impact left her dazed and loopy.

How can—this can’t be—have to—get up… She thought blearily, squirming on the asphalt and staring up at the imposing figure standing triumphant above her.

“Now you will kneel and atone.”

“Your resistance has become quite pathological. We shall begin the treatment.”

A coldness closed in around her. The shadows thickened once more, peeling away from dumpsters and brickwork, sliding across the pavement toward her like living oil. Hyper Star struggled to regain her bearings, knowing she had to do something. She sat up on one elbow, still bleary, and dragged another star from her belt. Before she could put it to use, shadowy fingers locked around her wrist and twisted savagely. Cold and pain lanced up her forearm. She yelped! The star clattered to the concrete.

Immediately she began trying to free herself from that icy grip, but more hands were already reaching for her. They formed out of the dark itself, dusky palms with long spectral fingers, extending on tendril-like arms. They rose from the puddles, from the seams in the brick, from the space beneath her own body.

A scream punched up into Hyper Star’s throat but she swallowed it and forced herself to stand. Have to get away, get some room to fight back or—

A hand clamped her left ankle and yanked. Her boot skidded. Another caught her right calf, fingers gripping tight over the gold of her boot. She tried to kick them off but the fingers began to grow—stretching up and wrapping around her legs. She tried to pull away, but they only coiled tighter, and when she bent to try and peel them off—more hands seized her wrists and forearms.

“Stop it! Get off me!” Hyper Star gasped.

Despite her boosted strength, the shaded limbs pulled her arms out wide and held them taut. Hyper Star strained and groaned but could not break their grip. Then she felt more hands touching, groping the backs of her thighs, fingertips ice-cold against the thin Lycra. A shiver inched up her spine as they climbed, sliding up over the curve of her ass –cupping maybe, not quite a squeeze—before unlatching her belt.

Her remaining weapons clattered onto the alley floor.

Those hands moved back down to the full swell of her ass, lengthening as they slid, fingers melting into cold tendrils that wrapped her curvaceous hips and then crept inward to coil along the crease of her thighs.

Hyper Star wrenched sideways desperate to get free. One arm almost slipped. The darkness simply grew another loop and took it back. More tendrils climbed her left arm in lazy spirals, wrapping biceps, elbow, wrist, claiming each joint in turn. She strained against them with a snarl. They gave an inch of slack—just enough to let her believe she had won something—then both arms were wrenched backwards.

The power of the motion emptied her lungs in a sharp, frustrated cry. Her shoulders were forced straight in a helpless line. The darkness crossed her wrists at the small of her back and knotted there, folding her hands against the curve of her spine.

“I said…get off—Stop!”

Her arms were locked behind her when the bindings hauled upward. Hyper Star’s boots left the pavement, she twisted her shoulders, kicking at empty air, trying to find any purchase—but there was none. The tendrils kept moving, encircling the shapely length of her legs next, coiling from calf to knee to thigh, wrapping tighter with every loop, forcing her kicking limbs together until her heels scraped one another.

Hyper Star was trapped! Bound arms. Bound legs. Suspended. Every cinch squeezing more of the fight from her.

That binding darkness turned her to face the Black Physician, presenting the struggling heroine in midair. Her breath came sharp and shallow while her powers proved useless. The tendrils crawled up the hourglass of her waist, traced the flare of her hips, glided over the rounded swell of her ass with a tightness that made her stomach churn. They were ice. They were wrong. She shuddered hard against them, lip curling with revulsion—

—and under the revulsion, traitorous sparks jumped. Tiny. Unwelcome. The Hyperlyte’s worst side-effect waking at the worst possible time.

The serum granted Hyper Star superpowers by enhancing her physiology; strength, speed, senses, etc…however, under the right—or very wrong—circumstances, that included the systems that turned touch into arousal. This meant that stimulation a woman could normally ignore, could become a destabilizing hormonal storm for Hyper Star. She called it the hyper-libido, and she could not think of a worse way to have it activated than by living darkness at the command of a being called the Black Physician.

“Stop this! Let me go!” Hyper Star groaned in protest, struggling even more desperately to find any slack or weakness in the binding tendrils …and yet, those unwelcome flares of heat bloomed wherever the cold dragged across Lycra or bare skin. She clenched her jaw and tried to shove the feeling down.

“You mistake the treatment for the affliction,” the Black Physician drew closer now, “I assure you, the worst is yet to come.”

Hyper Star lifted her chin as far as the bindings allowed. “You don’t get to—”

A tendril slithered into her mouth. It slid between her teeth in one cold, slick push, thickening as it settled, pressing her tongue down and cutting the rest of the sentence into a muffled sound. The taste was cold and mineral, like wet stone. Hyper Star jerked her head. The darkness only followed, coiling behind her teeth. She bit down but there was nothing to bite that would care. Her breath broke around the gag.

The shadows continued tightening around her bound legs and trapped arms. Every constricting pass dragged over Lycra, over skin, over the places that made those traitorous sparks jump again, meaner this time. The hyper-libido made everything louder: the fury, the shock, the first sharp edge of fear. Now she could not even speak. Worse, her body was already responding more and more. Under the crimson crop top her nipples stood up, two clear points pressing the thin fabric. She again tried to twist her torso free, as if she could hide the evidence of her growing and very unwanted arousal…

The plague mask tilted. A sound like dry amusement scraped out of the beak. “Ah. Does my cold offend you, heroine? Or does it find you?”

Humiliation burned up her throat, brighter than the fear, then tangled with it. She tried to snarl around the gag. It came out small.

One spectral hand rose from his shadowy robes, moving as if conducting. The tendrils answered like well-trained instruments. They hooked the hem of the crop top and peeled it upward, slow enough that she felt every inch of the fabric dragging over sensitive skin. The golden star wrinkled, bunched, then her full breasts spilled free of the Lycra, heavy and bare, the hardened peaks unmistakable now.

She thrashed in the air, eyes wide behind the red mask, her big naked tits bouncing with the frantic motion. Humiliation flared brighter and hotter than the traitorous sparks. Hyper Star made a raw noise behind the gag—furious at first but muffled, and it thinned quickly into something helpless.

Exposed. Held in the air. Arms locked. Legs bound. Mouth filled. The loss of the fight was no longer a possibility. It was done. All that remained was what this cruel being meant to do with the heroine he had caught.

No! This can’t be, Hyper Star thought, going still. Not because the fight had left her, because there was nowhere left to put it. I’m completely helpless…

The gag sat heavy on her tongue, cold and faintly bitter, filling her mouth until every breath had to find its way around it. She tasted shadow and alley grit. She looked at him and tried to keep her face from giving anything away. Fear was already climbing, and she hated that he might see it.

As he loomed over her, a silhouette of darkness, glaring down from behind the plague mask, Hyper Star thought she could see human eyes peering out from the shaded depths. Then it is just a person, she decided though it was difficult to make out—to be sure, a very cruel, if powerful person…

Then the tendrils moved across her bared chest and her gaze snapped down again. Dark coils slid under the weight of her breasts, curling around them, lifting. A growl broke in her throat and she shouted into the gag…but hated that what came out was a muffled whine, thin and high, and sounding far too much like a plea.

The Black Physician made a sound, low, grating, almost a chuckle, as his dark tendrils molested the helpless heroine. Circling the heavy bulbs even tighter, squeezing with a stimulating, concentric pressure. Then the coils began changing even while they held her. Darkness flattened, spread, grew knuckles and palms once more, becoming hands that clutched her lush, sensitive breasts. Icy. Unwelcome. They fondled with thumbs dragging, fingers spreading, lifting and molding her soft flesh. Cold raced over her skin in violent goosebumps. Her nipples, already peaked, tightened achingly in that chilling grip.

A whine broke around the gag before she could swallow it. Hyper Star thrashed in fury but the shadow bindings only reminded her how little that was worth now. Suspended, displayed, helpless, she could rock and twist and get nowhere. The hands kept their hold. Cold soaked through her torso. And beneath whatever revulsion she felt, the hyper-libido kept lighting those traitorous flares throughout her nervous system, because her body could not tell the difference between violation and stimulation.

This isn’t happening! So cold, and yet— How can something so creepy still be so—The thought cut off into raw feeling. Disbelief. Then terror, creeping, intimate: not the terror of a punch she could take, but of being handled by something so utterly overpowering…and with such obviously lewd intentions.

The Black Physician watched her struggle dwindle into shaking. Not only the shaded hands working her bare breasts—the way her body answered them. The flushed tightening of her nipples in their grip. The tremor she could not quite conceal. The flush climbing her throat and cheeks above the gag. He watched…and the diagnosis pleased him.

“How little it takes,” spoke that grating voice. “To reduce even a woman of power such as you…to a squirming, mewling, cow.”

Hyper Star glared at him, unable to put any real fire behind her blue eyes, unable to speak past the gag. She forced out a muffle growl.

Then the tendrils at her hips and binding her thighs began to move. The dark lengths slithered upward along the inner seams of the crimson leggings. Hyper Star went rigid in the air, a bright spike of dread cutting through the unwanted heat. She tried to clamp her thighs harder, but they were already bound flush together. And that did not stop those tendrils from sliding into the narrow space at their apex.

The darkness slid over her mound, cold, and pulsing rhythmically over the crimson Lycra. The hyper-libido flared hotter for the wrongness of it—sparks leaping low in her belly, sharp and humiliating, while shade-hands still held and fondled her breasts above. She could not get away from either touch. She could only hang there and feel both of them working her at once. Concentric. Deliberate. A slow coiling pressure that tightened, eased, tightened again, rubbing the fabric against her over-sensitized skin with each pulse.

Stop. Stop—this isn’t—I don’t—

The thought shredded.

She made another muffled sound into the gag, anger breaking thin, and the Black Physician only tilted the beak as if to hear it better.

Between her thighs the tendrils did not stay gentle. They tightened against her mound, cinching the Lycra up into her cleft. She was wearing panties underneath, but they were just as thin and flimsy as the leggings, offering no added protection. In a slow, invasive drag the darkness traced her womanly seam through the fabric with appalling accuracy. Cold soaked in first. Heat answered it, blooming low and fast, the hyper-libido kicking like a live wire.

Hyper Star jerked in the shaded bindings, a pleading sound dying in the gag. She tried to twist her hips away. The coils at her thighs only cinched and held her there, presenting the exact place she wanted least touched.

Shadowy hands kept working her breasts, lifting, squeezing, thumbs flicking and dragging over her stiff, aching nipples. Every cold pass sent another bright flare through her chest and straight down. The two sensations met in the middle of her and stopped being separate. Her traitorous, serum-lit body began to chase the very friction her mind was fighting.

She clenched her jaw around the tendril in her mouth. It did not help. When the coil at her apex pulsed again, firmer, rubbing over her clit through the costume, her whole frame shuddered. A sensuous moan broke through the anger before she could stop it.

Even muffled by the gag, the sound sent a rush of humiliation through Hyper Star.

Even muffled by the gag, the sound spurred the Black Physician. His tendrils grew bolder. They pressed deeper into her mound, cold and slick, working the soaked Lycra against her mound until the barrier felt like nothing. Each pulse dragged a brighter reaction out of her—hips twitching forward, then flinching back, as if to match the rhythm. Her body had stopped taking orders—or perhaps—had begun answering his!

The hyper-libido climbed in dreadfully gorgeous waves, drowning the last clean edges of resistance. Her nipples throbbed in those freezing hands. Her bound thighs trembled. Heat pooled and spilled, obvious, humiliating, and still the coils kept their slow, inhuman rhythm, milking sensation out of her while she hung in the air and gave in to them—her heroic demeanor cracking, breath ragged around the gag, every brighter flare of feeling dragging her further under.

Fear should have blunted her arousal, instead it sharpened the pleasure, made every cold pulse feel larger, closer, impossible to ignore. Anger should have given her a weapon. It only heated the blood already primed by the serum, until fury and arousal were the same jittering sensation in her chest. Pride tried to hold the line last—the heroine’s stiff spine, the refusal to yield an inch—and then pride collapsed too, not into peace, but into a dizzy, creeping need to rock into the next pulse just to survive it.

That was the worst part. She was not choosing surrender. She was running out of emotions to fight it with.

Each grind of shadow against her soaked mound stole another clean thought. Each squeeze at her breasts sent a flare through her that was too strong, too much. She tried to hold still and be only disgusted. Her hips answered anyway, small helpless rolls she felt happening, unable to resist. The tendrils met the movement and deepened their work, colder and closer, rubbing her through the clinging Lycra until her knees would have given out if her feet had been allowed to touch the ground.

I am not— The thought did not finish. I won’t—That one frayed too.

What replaced them was sensation: ice and friction, the wet cling of her costume, the gag filling her mouth, the awful knowledge that her body was opening to this. Unwilling. Unwitting, almost—because the hyper-libido did not ask, it only found the contact and fed. Her nipples throbbed in those freezing hands. Heat pooled low and heavy in her body. She gave that final inch without meaning to. The darkness closed over it, pulsing between her thighs, fondling her aching breasts, teaching her shaking frame the shape of yielding while the heroine and the genius and the woman inside her watched it happen and could not make it stop.

A muffled sound leaked out of her that was no longer protest but purely carnal need.

And now the tendrils stopped, leaving the heroine right on the edge of something she didn’t want to admit…and at the moment desperately needed.

The Black Physician’s disembodied laughter echoed once more. His hand moved in a downward motion, and Hyper Star was lowered back to the ground. Before she knew what was happening, the tendrils folded her legs beneath her, and set her at his feet…kneeling.

She had been made to kneel. As promised.

Still hanging on that scintillated edge, Hyper Star looked up at him.

“Now you see.”

And she did. The heroine was hopelessly trapped. The realization arrived not as a thought but as a heavy, wilted acceptance. The serum was still singing in her blood. She would have been able to tear a car door off its hinges but she could only want—No! No, no, no, I don’t—can’t want that...

“I am the profane lord of filth and darkness, my powers are beyond your noble comprehension.” The Black Physician looked down the beak of the plague mask at her, and the alley’s remaining darkness seemed to lean in with him, waiting to see what he would do with a superheroine on her knees.

Hyper Star nodded, squirming powerlessly against the dark powers binding her. It wasn’t so much that she actually agKeene, but her mind was so clouded by the hyper-libido then, acquiescence came naturally—too naturally.

“Yes, your Lowness!” hooted Allec, having gotten back to his feet and watching the horror unfold. “Show that stupid bitch what real power –”

“Silence!” the Black Physician boomed. “I would not hear your pathetic voice when you so nearly failed me!”

Allec immediately dropped to his knees, “Your putridness, forgive me!”

“For- forgive us both,” groaned the other man, crawling up beside Allec.

The Black Physician extended a nearly spectral arm, now pointing straight towards Nadine. “Stop your worthless apologies and retrieve my cow…as I have already bade you!”

“Yes, Master!”

“Of course, Master!”

They both scrambled toward the frightened blonde, still trembling under the streetlight.

A flicker of heroism stirred in Hyper Star’s flushed chest seeing the other woman threatened. She was on her knees, trembling with overstimulation, but she still tried; Muscle jumped in her bound arms. Her shoulders bunched. She hauled against the coils with boosted strength as if the serum might suddenly remember what it was for and tear her free. For one raw second she was bright, furious, reaching toward Nadine with nothing but will.

The shadows punished the attempt. They cinched. They writhed. The bindings at her hips and closed thighs slithered tighter and ground up into the soaked apex of her with deliberate pressure right over her clit that stole the breath out of her gagged mouth. The shade-hands on her bare breasts squeezed in the same instant, cold palms engulfing her, thumbs scraping swollen peaks until a dizzy spike of sensation punched through her ribs.

Hyper Star jerked, a muffled sound breaking high and helpless, and the fight in her muscles went slack. Get up! she implored herself. Stop them. Do something—The thoughts arrived already drowning.

Heat roared up from where the shadows worked her, aching and humiliating, the hyper-libido cresting so hard her vision spotted. She strained once more and only fed it: every twist rubbed her against the coils, every arch offered her chest more fully into those icy hands.

Her heroic instincts flickered, then folded, crushed under a rush of unwanted pleasure and left her kneeling, shaking, on the trembling edge. She could only hang her head and feel her resistance dissolve into arousal she despised but could no longer outrun.

Poor Nadine didn’t even try to run this time, just slumped and let out a miserable sob as the two men grabbed her. They dragged her away from the streetlight and then, right on cue, a large, gray panel van roared up to the curb. The door slid open, and two more grimy-robed figures jumped out to help Allec and his colleague stuff the poor woman inside.

Hyper Star could only watch blearily. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you…and you were right, I couldn’t even protect myself…

And then the Black Physician turned his attention back to her. “Now you will atone.”

His spectral hand gestured towards her face and Hyper Star felt the gag move. She clenched her jaw on reflex but it pressed outward, spreading opening her mouth. She exhaled sharply, eyes lifting back to his in confusion and discomfort.

The Black Physician straightened, pulling back his eerie midnight robes. His form seemed human underneath. The build was lean and long limbed. Hyper Star couldn’t decide if he was naked, or wearing some kind of bodysuit. It was almost like she could and could not see his physique at the same time.

A phallus extended from the shaded hips … that she saw clearly. It was black as night, almost ethereal in its form but unmistakably a cock.

The heroine’s blue eyes widened behind her mask, and she began struggling against her shadowy bonds once more. The cold tendrils moved quickly, lacing up the back of her neck and head, looping around her ears, under her chin and across her forehead. They cinched cruelly. Hyper Star gave one last dejected thrash, then stopped her pointless struggles and merely stared up at that unsettling plague mask…still not sure if she could make out human eyes somewhere in its depths.

The Black Physician fed his spectral cock into her wide-open mouth. The shaded coils drew her forward. She could only let out a shrill protesting whine.

No no no! This can’t be happening, she thought as it slid over her tongue. The eerie shaft was firm and fleshy, but cool. Wha- eww it’s cold too? The dark phallus thrust straight to the back of her throat, gagging her. Is he even alive? Oh geez…what if he’s a zombie? Am I sucking on a zombie dick right now?

The Black Physician pulled back, then thrust in again. Hyper Star gagged and moaned as saliva flooded her mouth. A cringe ran through her body and but then it was answered by her shadowy bonds; the vile hands cupping her breasts squeezed hard, the shaded coils between her thighs undulated along her wet seam. Her already racing heart stuttered. Any thoughts were scattered by the rush of returning arousal.

Overwhelmed by the carnal urges of her hyper-libido, the heroine closed her lips on that spectral shaft and sucked.

In immediate answer, the Black Physician began thrusting deep and rough, choking the helpless heroine each time. Like any man, he seemed to grow thicker and harder between her lips, though his flesh remained as cool as an evening breeze. Hyper Star was heating up quickly though, cheeks growing hot and flushed under her crimson mask. She sputtered and whimpered around the plunging shaft as the coiled shadows held her head in place. Every time he thrust against the back of her throat, a rush surged down her torso and between her legs.

Even now as she found herself sucking on the dark phallus, Hyper Star tried to resist the hyper-libido …It’s just a reflex, she tried to assure herself, a physical reaction to the gagging… A stream of drool spurted at the corner of her mouth, then she slurped all down the eerie length.

Shame began to burn in the back of her mind as lust boiled up from within. It seemed her reflexive participation only heightened the sexual stimulation as well, and it would quickly reach overwhelming, overstimulating, mind-numbing, brain-scrambling intensity.

“You seem to accept your place quickly, cow,” the Black Physician rumbled above her. There was a groan underlying the menace of his voice. “Atoning for your disrespect feels good, does it not?”

“Mm mm! Mm mm!” Hyper Star moaned and tried to shake her head, but her denial ended in a wet slurp as the tendril encircling her head only gripped tighter, and their master thrust even deeper.

“Of course it does…”

Hyper Star choked and shuddered as the head of his spectral cock plunged into her throat. Each time the cringe of her gagging came with a squirm, still trapped in the grip of those shaded hands and coils. Alluring tingles crawled over every curve on her fettered body as her lustful urges strengthened. She began sucking willfully now, pulsing her tongue along that cool, firm shaft. It was almost as if there was something almost refreshing about it in her hot helpless mouth.

I wonder how it would feel between my legs? The thought slipped in and she shivered, either in revulsion or imaging her warm, sensitive labia being parted by the cool penetration- NO! No, I can’t let – have to stay focused. Have to stop this!

But the temptation of her hyper-libido grew more irresistible by the second. Her brain was now swimming – drowning in endorphins as the Hyperlyte in her system drove her arousal out of control. She was sucking harder and even starting to bob her head in steadily growing rhythm—or was it the tendrils beginning to move her—both? Maybe. Spit bubbled at the corners of her mouth and dripped down her chin. Even when she was allowed to gasp a quick breath, it was now her who gulped him eagerly back in.

She stared up at the Black Physician from behind her mask, even as tears flooded her blue eyes and spilled down her flushed cheeks. Even she wasn’t sure if they were the result of her shame, or of gagging repeatedly on his thick hard cock—Both, again. Probably.

No longer able to think straight except for her lustful urges, Hyper Star began making savory moans between each sputtery gag. Her wet lips clung to the eerie shaft, sliding back and forth, quicker, deeper with each pass. Her tongue writhed back and forth in her mouth, and she sucked so tight, so hard, begging wordlessly for…

…For what? She wondered blearily. For cum? Does a being like this have seminal fluid?

The thought made her nipples ache and sent a twinge between her legs. She squirmed once more into the spectral hands groping her bare breasts.  She strained against shadowy binds, now writhing over her trembling curves even more than trapping her…and this time her struggling was not out of a desire to escape, but the insatiable urge to be touched, an increasingly desperate need for the friction against her throbbing clit!

Then she was choking, and gulping, struggling to swallow a huge sludgy load. The substance filling her mouth was putrid, almost gluey, and bitter. So unpleasant it cut through the fog of her hyper-libido.

What in blazes!? Hyper Star tried to recoil in shock and revulsion.

Immediately the binding coils constricted, especially those around her head and jaw keeping her in place as her mouth and throat were filled.

“Did you really think your atonement would be so pleasurable, cow?”  Now the Black Physician began to cackle, the sound deafening and grating in her ears.

Hyper Star mewled helplessly as he pumped more of the foul sludge down her throat. She stared up at him pleadingly, tears streaming from her wide blue eyes as she was forced to swallow more and more. Her stomach twisted as it was filled with the stuff. Her fettered body retched miserably.

The laughter grew louder, crueler.

Finally, Hyper Star overflowed and the wretched substance began to bubble and spew back out of her mouth. Now she could see it was black as tar, and nearly as viscous.

What is this stuff?? What is he doing to me?? She began to thrash desperately, whimpering in frantic appeals for mercy. Oh gawd no please stop!

But the shadowed hands held her as tightly as ever, there was no escape.

The Black Physician continued to cackle as his terrible cock flooded her with that putrid fluid, pumping it down her throat until she was sick with it, and dizzy. He overflowed her mouth until her trembling lips were stained black and the slimy stuff oozed down her tits and streaked her bare midriff.

Hyper Star was sobbing and shaking when he finally withdrew that vile phallus. By then she barely had the strength to spit, coughing and sputtering out mouthfuls of that foul sludge.

“Please…please…stop…” she bawled.

Still the laughter rang in her ears…but the hands of darkness released her breasts. The shaded trendrils uncoiled, the cold slither just and unsettling in their withdrawal. Hyper Star glanced around to see the shadows retreating to their normal places amongst the nooks and corners of the dimly lit alley.

She immediately sprang to her feet ready to flee or fight again – but her knees buckled, and she collapsed back to the asphalt with a feeble whimper. Her mouth oozing a long string of spit…and black…stuff…

The Black Physician’s laughter grew hysterical!

Hyper Star pushed up, knowing she needed to defend herself…but he was gone.

“Where are you? Where did you go?” she whimpered, looking all around.

Hyper Star crawled frantically to put her back up against a wall, so he couldn’t catch her from behind again. She hoped. Both arms came up to hold and cover her breasts, still bare and now streaked black with the sticky black discharge, and her own saliva.

The cackling persisted, echoing off the brick walls and trash cans … but then it began to fade.

She scanned the alley for her assailant, but there was nothing, no one.

And soon all was silent.

Is this some kind of game? The instant I let my guard down he’ll come back and take me just like…

“Nadine…” she croaked, glancing towards the mouth of the alley.

The van and the woman were, of course, long gone by then.

“Where did you go, Black Physician?” she cried. “Show yourself!”

In the distance of course was the constant din of a Regent City night, but in that alley, it remained silent.

“Show yourself, you coward,” her demand crumbled into sobbing. Tears flowing freely down her red mask, lips quivering, stained black and with strings drool and that putrid slime hanging from them. She wiped disgusted at them, and tried to calm herself.

Not like I could fight him if he did… The defiled heroine pulled her legs into her chest, letting her forehead fall onto her knees. Nadine was right, I couldn’t even protect myself, much less her…I’m sorry Nadine, I’m so sorry I failed you…

2

 The next morning, Kit Brookes woke up late for work.

And feeling hungover.

She crawled out of bed still nauseas and dizzy, and anytime her mind drifted back to that horrible encounter in the alleyway, it sent an awful chill up her spine.

After being assaulted by the Black Physician, she had remained there, crouched and crying her eyes out until she was certain he wasn’t coming back for her. The Hyperlyte had worn off by then so she’d stumbled home, feeling sick and barely conscious. She even had to stop and throw up once or twice, spewing gobs of that disgusting black slime all over the sidewalk.

She’d showered before falling into bed, of course, but she still felt dirty…filthy, really. And she’d ruined a toothbrush head trying to scour every remnant of that foul substance from her mouth. She could still taste it that next morning. The stains on her lips remained too, not completely blackened but dark, dingy. The stuff had left dusky streaks down her breasts and abdomen as well.

So she knew it was all real, although her memory of it had gone hazy, like a dream—a nightmare, really.

“This is probably just the residual dopaminergic cascade from the serum,” she muttered, pressing the heels of her hand into her eyes. “Perhaps compounded by whatever that sludge did to my mucosal membranes? How can I even begin to account for that variable…no, focus. One problem at a time, Kit.”

That hazy recall was not entirely unusual when she took the Hyperlyte serum. The way it affected her cognition could make her time as Hyper Star seem dreamlike once the effects had worn off. Especially when she took multiple doses, but she had only taken one last night. Well, one and of course the Black Physician’s putrid seminal fluid, or whatever it was…

Another round of showering and scouring made her feel a little better, if a lot later for work. She was still pretty sore too, moving slowly.

“I can never remember being this sore after a fight,”she muttered, wincing at an achy twinge as she tucked her breasts into a plain white bra. “A little stiff, maybe some light bruising but usually the Hyperlyte enhancements make me too tough for any of that…” She paused, frowning at her own reflection. “Interesting. The bruising pattern doesn’t match blunt force, or bruising, this is more like petechiae. Must be capillary damage from…”

A cold revulsive chill crawled up her spine as she remembered the Black Physician gathering back his robes and revealing—

“…From vomiting. The damaging must be from vomiting.”

She pushed everything else out of her overactive mind and pulled on a pair of comfy jeans, and her burgundy Vista U hoodie. Normally she dressed a little more professionally for work, even though there was no specific dress code. She just couldn’t manage that today. Her hair went up in a tangly bun. Then she kicked on her gray Chucks, grabbed the canvas backpack she used as a purse, and…hesitated…

She didn’t want to see it…didn’t want to think about it…but she reached under her bed and pulled out the red Lycra top of her Hyper Star outfit. The front of it was drenched and stained in that black substance.

“At some point I will have to figure out what this stuff is,” she muttered to herself. “Polymer matrix? Biofilm? More like bio-filth. Although…the way it looks bonded to the Lycra fibers, not just stained or soaked, is frankly fascinating…and also completely disgusting.”

Folding the garment carefully, she went into the kitchen and found a Ziplock baggie to stuff it into.

Her roommate, Dahlia, was on the couch watching cartoons and munching a big bowl of Froot Loops. They shared a cramped two-bedroom studio apartment, so the kitchen and living room were the same room.

“You should eat something,” Dahlia said languidly, and without looking back.

Kit was tucking the baggie into her backpack, her stomach lurched at the mere thought of putting anything into it. She tried desperately not to think about the black sludge she’d been force-fed just a few hours previous.

“I’m not hungry…”

Now Dahlia turned around to lean over the back of the couch. She had a soft round face, smattered with freckles and framed by excessively long hair, the color and texture of straw. She held out her bowl and offered an easy smile.

“Just a few bites, it’ll make you feel better, promises.”

“Well, technically the simple carbohydrates would spike blood sugar and then crash—” Kit tried to stop herself, she really did, but her mouth just kept talking “—which isn’t ideal when you’re already dealing with possible toxin exposure, but that’s very kind of you, really, I just—” She finally cut herself off, cheeks pink, and headed towards the door.

“Oh hunny…” Dahlia frowned and got up from the couch. “Your aura is all sorts of toxic!” She set the cereal down and headed towards her own bedroom. “Hold on, I’ll get the sage…”

“Thanks, but I’m already late,” Kit sighed, keeping herself from rolling her eyes. “I’ll be fine, just a…another long night, drank too much, you know me, such a lush.”

That was the cover story: Brilliant biochemical analyst by day (the true part), hard partying problematic drinker by night (the lie).

Dahlia regarded her with pale blue eyes that were normally glazed, now sharpening a bit. “No…it’s more than-”

But Kit was already out and shutting the door, “Thanks! See you after work!” She hurried towards the elevator.

Their apartment was located in a downtown high rise, and the cacophonous clamor of morning rush hour greeted Kit like a sledgehammer to the face. Cars honked. Tires screeched. People who were just as late as her shoved and grumbled past. Her headache, which had been dulled by a hot shower, immediately resumed throbbing.

She grit her teeth and headed for the subway terminal. The cool autumn air was at least a bit refreshing, if not exactly fresh, laden as it was with the city smells of concrete, exhaust and morning street vendors.

“Morning Kittty Kat!” shouted the old man who ran the newsstand at the end of her block. “Times or Journal today?”

“Sorry Mr. Caruthers I’m really late,” she shouted back with a wave. “Catch you tomorrow!”

“Catch it today!” he hooted and flung a rolled paper at her. “I know you’re good for it tomorrow.”

Kit tried to catch the roll, fumbled it immediately, then tripped as it dropped between her feet, and she fell sprawled out face down on the sidewalk. The morning crowds bustled right on around, a few of them even snickering blatantly as she scrambled back to her feet.

“Gee, thanks,” she huffed, scooping up the paper. She used it to give Mr. Caruthers a quick salute, and then resumed her rushing to work.

On the subway, she skimmed through the headlines, it was a Regent City Journal, looking for any articles about a missing woman, but finding nothing of note.

By the time she made it to work, the lab was mostly quiet and settled. Actually, she was a bit relieved to have missed all the obligatory greetings and perfunctory small talk of the morning arrivals.

“Maybe I should be late more often,” she murmured mostly to herself as she set her backpack down at her desk.

“Just so you don’t have to talk to anybody,” Toby said.

Somehow he always heard her mutterings, no matter how far under her breath they were. His desk sat behind hers, and now he swiveled in his chair. Behind thick rimmed glasses he had a boyish face and short, curly hair.

“I don’t mind talking to people,” she sighed, grabbing the clipboard off her desk. “I just don’t care for idle ‘good morning’ chatter.”

Kit hurried off before he could respond. She made her morning rounds quickly, checking and noting the progress on her ongoing projects. Fortunately, most things seemed to be progressing exactly as she expected (they usually did). After updating her charts, she returned to her desk. There was of course other work she should attend to, new formulas to calculate, variables to factor, emails, approvals, request forms to fil—but she had something else on her mind.

Kit pulled up her browser and began to search:

Nadine. “Nothing.”

Nadine blonde. “No, no, nope. Too broad.”

Nadine missing woman. “Not her.”

Missing women blonde. “None of them.”

Blonde jane doe. “Nothing from this morning so that’s encouraging. Very very slightly.”

Missing women cults. “Yikes.”

Cult activity Regent City. “Well that’s just an unsettling number of specific results.”

“Looking at porn again?”

Kit jumped as Toby slid his chair up beside hers. “Gross, what? No.”

“Don’t be such a prude. Cults?” he chuckled. “Oh, Kit, are you…looking for a little meaning in this mad crazy world.”

“Not hardly,” she said curtly. “Just doing some research.”

“Ah, true crime bug bit you too. What is it with chicks and true crime? Or is it a Halloween thing? Spooky season is upon us. Yeesh, what is it about chicks and-”

“Do you mind terribly?” Kit snapped, swiveling her chair towards him. The quick motion sent a twinge of pain through her chest. “I said, I’m just doing some research. Private research.”

“Easy…” Toby held up his hands and slid back. “I just, y’know, thought I could help.”

“Well your help is never very helpful, is it?”

“Whoa! That’s a little harsh,” he tucked his chin poutingly. “True maybe, but harsh…”

Kit sighed and reached up to rub her temples, which were pounding. “I’m sorry… I don’t feel well today. That’s why I was late.” She twisted a loose strand of hair around one finger, then realized she was doing it and tucked the strand back into her tangles before forcing her hand down. “I may have been exposed to an unidentified colloidal substance with possible psychoactive properties and my executive function is still recalibrating, which is a terrible excuse, I know, but—”

“What?” Toby cut her off.

Dang it! Did I really just say that out loud?? Err—um—uhh—

“Alcohol,” Kit blurted. “I went out drinking last night, you know me and I think I’m still a little—”

“Drunk. And that’s why you’re being such a— …so bitchy… today?”

“Toby—!?”

He pursed his lips, rolled his eyes and turned back to his desk.

“Toby…really, I’m-”

 “I’ll leave you alone, since that’s obviously what you want.”

It is, but not if you’re going to be pissy with me the rest of the day now, she thought, frowning and turning back to her computer. Forget it…he’ll get over it…eventually…

She typed BLACK PHYSICIAN into the search bar. Of course, the first few articles to come up were about standout African-American doctors, but then… Right there on her computer screen was a picture of that rune-etched plague mask.

“Whoa.” The breath caught in Kit’s throat, and spikey chills raced through her body. The taste of that black sludge flooded her mouth once more and her stomach twisted into a sickening knot.

She had to turn away from the computer, certain for a moment that she was going to throw up again. She counted breaths until the worst of it passed, then forced her eyes back to the article.

It was a Halloween feature from the Regent City Historical Museum; Creepy exhibits you can still see this October. The headline sat under the photograph in cheerful type. This one was titled “Silas Bennett’s House of Plagues,” about a serial killer and cult leader from the 1800s. He was also known as “Mad Silas”, “the Evil Sawbone of Cypress Avenue”, and “the Black Physician.”

He did not seem to be African-American.

“Well, I don’t like the looks of this,” Kit muttered, as she began skimming through the article.

Apparently, Silas Bennett had bought an entire hotel on Cypress Avenue and converted it into a hospital. Or so he claimed. His true intentions were much darker, appearing to be convinced that disease, pestilence and fever were not merely afflictions to cure, but forces he could master, power he could claim. His patients became test subjects. Still, a following had gathered, colleagues, staff, “cured” patients, a cult who believed he could command sickness itself. They had reportedly terrorized Regent City—disappearances, horrific experiments, human sacrifices—until finally the authorities had stepped in.

Silas himself was never caught.

The other shoe dropped at the very end of the article, dropping a pit into Kit’s already squeamish stomach.

The final paragraph read: “The frightening story of Mad Silas is something of a pet project for resident archeologist and historical detective, Nadine Cooper. She has personally authenticated all the pieces of this exhibit, and in her own time continues the search for Mad Silas in hopes of figuring out how he escaped the authorities of the time. Although, some people think the Black Physician may still be out there somewhere to this day…”

And right there smiling casually was a picture of the woman Hyper Star had failed to rescue the previous night.

3

Kit didn’t get any actual work done the rest of the day. Her time was spent researching Silas Bennett, which left a bad taste in her mouth. Literally. As well as what little there was to be found on the life and career of Nadine Cooper. Which did not include anything in regards to Nadine having disappeared, or anything that seemed to correlate to the events of the previous night.

No article. No blotter mention. No concerned roommate or coworker posts. If she’d been reported missing, at least there would be a timestamp. A last-seen. Something I could put on a timeline and stare at until it made sense. Instead there’s nothing. No post. No notice. No “has anyone seen.” Is that proof that whoever or whatever took her knows how to keep a disappearance quiet, or just that nobody has noticed she’s gone yet. Or that the people who should have noticed were the same ones who dragged her into that van? Sometimes absence of data is useful, sometimes it’s just the worst kind of clue.

Kit also had to take a few breaks in her research to kiss up to Toby. Not that he deserved it, or even that his begrudging-work-“friendship” took any kind of priority in her life—especially compared against a missing woman apparently being held prisoner by a malevolent being and its cult—but Toby likely would have made the rest of her workweek a living hell of whining and passive aggressive mutterings until he forgave her.

However, as soon as the workday was over, Kit headed straight over to the Regent City Historical Museum. She asked the person at the information desk to speak with Nadine Cooper, only to be told she wasn’t available that day.

“Yeah, I kinda figure as much,” Kit murmured as she headed off into the museum.

She had meant to ask for directions to the Silas Bennett exhibit, but the moment she stepped away from the information desk something settled into her bones like an unwelcome certainty. She knew exactly where to go.

It was quiet at first, then steadily more insistent—an extra-natural tug that sank its claws a little deeper with every corner she turned. A low, sour unease settled behind her teeth. The tar taste returned, faint at first, then stronger with every corridor she entered, as if something in the museum itself were guiding her footsteps.

She passed a display on early antibiotic research and almost stopped—Noting errantly that; the labeling on the penicillin section is badly outdated—but that pull tightened like a hand at the small of her back and hurried her forward before she could finish the thought.

Without a single detour or misstep, Kit arrived at the exhibit.

“Maybe it was just my women’s intuition?” she hoped to herself, although the sickening taste in her mouth and the queasy feeling in her belly told her different.

The exhibit had been moved into a small semi-circular room all to itself for the Halloween season. Naturally, there was a small crowd gathered here, murmuring and giggling to ward off the creeps.

The instant Kit stepped into the room, her eyes were drawn to that eerie plague mask. It sat prominently as the creepy centerpiece and crown jewel of the exhibit. She felt certain he was watching her, and ice rushed up her spine. It was almost like an icy hand stroked up her back, then gripping the base of her skull.

The memory of the previous night had still been hazy until just then, but all became crystal clear in a dreadful flash. Recalling the nightmare brought back all the panic and helplessness and Kit’s whole body shuddered. A sharp pang ran through her chest as she heaved a jittery breath.

“It’s just a mask,” she whispered to herself. “Someone was wearing it, had to be…the mask can’t hurt you…” She took a deep breath trying to steady herself. “Was probably even a fake if this one is here, unless the person wearing it last night was someone who had access to this-” something tickled down her chin, and she wiped at it.

There was a black smear across her palm. She gasped in horror and clamped both hands over her mouth…which was filling up with that thick oily fluid. She gagged suddenly, and gulped as if something solid was plugging her throat –NO!

Kit staggered backward out of that exhibit room with her head spinning and legs beginning to shake.

Not far off, there was a garbage can in the hallway and she ran to it, spitting out the nasty mouthful with disgusted groan.

“Not… not vomit,” she gasped, sputtering then spit again. “Viscosity higher than last night. Possibly concentrating. Or my salivary enzymes are reacting with residual compounds. Either way, extremely not good.”

Queasy as her stomach felt, it hadn’t retched, this had come from…where had this come from? An infected salivary gland? No, surely I would a have noticed that before now. Maybe some psychosomatic—no, this is real, I can feel it, see it, taste it—  

“What even is this?” she took a shaky breath. “Wha- what’s happening to me?”

She gripped the side of the bin, trying to think through the sudden lightheadedness. Her breasts bobbed up and down, feeling oddly tender with the motion of her ragged breaths. She barely noticed as that taste remained thick and foul as ever, though thankfully no more of the fluid returned.

She thought back through all the research she’d done that afternoon. By all accounts, Silas Bennett was a full-on psychopath, either conning or murdering everyone he came across but there was nothing like this in anything she’d read.

“Okay…maybe the mask can hurt me? That means someone here has access…did they take it out? And then put it back this morning before-”

“Powerful isn’t it?” interrupted a voice behind her.

Kit jumped and whirled around, frantically wiping her lips.

There was a tall, older man standing there, holding out a white handkerchief. His eyes were discreetly turned towards the exhibit, as if to afford her some privacy. He was wearing a tweed jacket over khakis, and a bright blue tie.

“I’m sorry what?” Kit asked.

“It can be powerful,” he said, “knowing his terrible works, and looking at the very implements he used to perpetrate them.”

“Oh, right,” Kit murmured. “No thanks,” she refused the handkerchief, unsure how to explain any black stains she might leave.

“Are you quite alright then?” he asked, tucking the handkerchief back into his jacket.

She nodded, using the burgundy sleeve of her hoodie to hopefully rub any lingering streaks from her lips and chin. “Don’t tell me you, like, admire that mad man or something…”

“Now why would you ask me that?”

She imitated his voice, “Powerful isn’t it?” then pointedly cocked an eyebrow at him.

He grinned, dropping his chin slightly, “I suppose ‘jarring’ would have been a better word.”

“Or disturbing…disgusting…depraved,” Kit rambled off. “I can think of a few.”

“Very fair… I suppose I am fascinated with Mr. Silas Bennett, perhaps a bit too much so…but then, I am with all the subjects of our exhibits,” now he extended one hand and gave her a congenial smile. “My name is Walter Keene, and I’m the senior curator here.”

Making sure she had no black slime on her hand, Kit shook his. “Katherine Brookes. Not to be rude but why are you talking to me, mister curator?”

“Do you not think it mere coincidence I happen to be passing by when I noted your distress?”

“Coincidence is what people say when they don’t know how to recognize the correlation.” she tipped her head. “Uncorrelated events cluster much less often than people think. True coincidence is independent events. I’m trained to look for correlation before assuming independent variability.”

The curator blinked, then smirked. “Vista University has served you well, it would seem. Straight to the point then,” he added with a nod, “I was told you were asking about Nadine at the information desk. Are you a friend of hers?”

His smile remained easy, but his eyes focused in, watching her closely.

“More of an acquaintance,” Kit replied, probably taking too long of a moment to consider her answer. “I know she works here though, thought it might be nice to say ‘hello’…and make sure she’s alright.”

“And why wouldn’t she be alright?”

Kit shrugged, “Good question.”

Now it was her blue eyes that sharpened, watching him. Mr. Keene continued to regard her steadily, though he shifted from one foot to the other. His smile began to fade, and he seemed to bite the inside of his cheek.

“Perhaps we should speak in my office,” he said.

“Your office…in private?” Kit’s fingers tightened on the strap of her backpack. Correlational odds he is involved: non-zero. Odds I can extract useful data before deciding…Dang it. Decision matrix favors caution plus information-gathering. She gave a small, awkward nod. “Lead the way.”

He gestured for her to follow, already moving past and down the hallway. Kit hesitated a beat longer, fidgeting with the straps of her backpack. She’d installed a secret pocket on it that contained an emergency flask of Hyperlyte. As she moved to follow, she slipped the backpack off her shoulders, just in case she needed quick access to the hidden compartment.

Are you the Black Physician? she wondered watching him move ahead of her. He walked with long purposeful strides. She didn’t struggle to keep up but had to make an effort to do so.

He would certainly have access to the mask…and he would likely be the only one to know as much about Mad Silas as Nadine. Did he discover something more? Nothing in my research alluded to anything more than the usual esotericism normally involved with these creepy cults… Of course, I’m sure a museum curator would have access to better and more complete information on the subject of an exhibit coming to his museum than I could find in one afternoon of internet research…

Keeping her blue eyes on the senior curator, and carefully thinking through the situation, Kit did not notice the door to the utility area opening as she passed, nor the filthy hands extending from it…until they grabbed her!

She was jerked into a service corridor and a large grubby hand clamped over her mouth so quickly, the startled cry she tried to let out was barely even a muffled squeak. Panic seared up the back of her neck and Kit dropped her backpack to grab instinctively at the hand covering her face. A brawny arm encircled her waist as she was just beginning to flail, trapping one arm against her side, and pining her body to a broad masculine torso.

Wha-!? What is this? What’s happening? No!

The man lifted her up off the ground, carrying her further into the brightly lit service hall. She had no chance to resist.

“Don’t struggle bitch, and we won’t hafta hurt ya…much.”

His hot breath against her neck sent goosebumps prickling down her side. There was something familiar about the voice, but Kit’s mind was scattered, panicking. She couldn’t get her arm free; she could barely move at all as the man’s grip tightened around her curvy frame.

“Keep her quiet, Butchy,” a second man said, rushing past them to peak out the door—making sure no one had seen—then making sure it closed all the way. He was older, balding, and wearing the brown coveralls of the janitorial staff.

Kit only had one hand free to yank at the wrist holding her face. She tried to scream for help, but all she could manage was more muffled squeals. Her assailant held her easily, silenced her easier… without the Hyperlyte boosting her strength, she was clearly overmatched.

“Get over here and gag her already, Mick!” the man called Butchy hissed over her shoulder.

Gag me?? No! Kit’s heart was racing as the balding man now hurried towards her. She growled in protest as he pulled a grimy rag from one pocket.

Kit’s legs were still free, so she tried kicking at the man, at least to keep him back. With her upper body restrained though, she had no mobility and he avoided them easily.

“Open wide doll-face!” Mick said, slinking close enough to seize her by the chin.

“Nnmph! Nnmph!” Kit squealed, trying to twist her head free.

The grip holding her tightened cruelly, and she began to realize there was no getting away. She couldn’t even resist as they forced her jaws and mouth open.

“Thop…hleathe!” she struggled to plead with their grubby hands gripping her face. “—hleathe let go-oulp!” That filthy rag was shoved into her mouth.

Kit whined helplessly as the balding Mick continued stuffing the cloth between her lips. He packed it in over her tongue until she gagged on the grit and grime.

Meanwhile, the other assailant, Butchy, was able to capture both her arms now and trap them behind her back. Kit writhed feebly, even while the other man was assaulting her face, but it was pointless. Her racing heart sank. As Hyper Star she would have wiped the floor with these two, but without the Hyperlyte serum she was just a normal woman and stood no chance against the two men.

Mick stepped back, giving Kit a lopsided grin. She regarded him meekly, cheeks puffed out from the packing, unable to hide the fear in her blue eyes. He took out a roll of duct tape and began tearing off a strip. Kit whimpered pleadingly and shook her head.

“Easy now, this’ll just take a sec,” the balding man snorted and slapped the tape over her mouth. Then he gripped her face in both hands and began to smooth the sticky stuff over her lips with his thumbs.

Kit moaned dejectedly. The grip on her arms felt like iron, and when she squirmed even slightly the one called “Butchy” would wrench them a little tighter. She was completely helpless.

Mick glowered into her fearful blue eyes, taking clear enjoyment in her distress. A second strip of tape was applied to her face, then a third. Tears began to well, as Kit stared pleadingly up at the cruel, blading man. Dread clutched the damsel a little tighter, knowing no one who looked at her that way could have anything but ill intentions in mind.

What’s going to happen to me? One of those tears rolled down her stuffed cheeks.

“That’s enough already,” Butchy barked from behind her, “now get her ankles.”

“Sure thing.”

Before Kit could react, the balding man scooped up her legs, suspending her between them. She snorted in surprise, then kicked again, though more on reflex than any hope of getting free.

“Quit yer strugglin’!” Butchy snapped.

Grabbing hold of her messy bun, he wrenched her head back. Pain ripped over Kit’s scalp and she tried to scream, but the sharp cry died in her gag. With her neck craned back at that harsh angle, she had no choice but to stop struggling.

“Yeah, hold still bitch,” Mick chuckled as he quickly wound the duct tape around her ankles.

The hapless woman shuddered and choked out a miserable sob as strained tears ran out of her eyes. Butchy kept a tight hold of her hair, while managing to restrain both of her arms with one of his. She did her best not to squirm, fearing more punishing reprisals.

“Good, now come get her wrists.”

Mick dropped her legs, and the other man released her hair. Kit sagged forward, auburn tresses falling around her face and shoulders as the abused bun came apart. She hung her head in defeat, more tears spilling down her puffy cheeks. She didn’t bother resisting at all now as the two men crossed her wrists and taped them together.

This can’t be happening, she thought, looking up the hall to where her backpack was laying, just inside the door. If only I could get to my emergency Hyperlyte…

“That oughta do.”

Kit teetered on bound legs as she was turned around to face the two men. Butchy kept a grip on one of her arms, providing the minimal support to keep her upright.

This allowed her to get her first good look at him though. He was also wearing the brown janitorial coveralls. He was bigger than the balding Mick, and quite a bit bigger than her, with a fat, stubbled face and messy brown hair.

“Alright, bitch,” he growled. “Why you snooping around after, miss Cooper?”

Despite her distress…Kit blinked at him. She wiggled her jaw around the tightly packed and taped gag, “Mmph?”

“She can’t answer ya can she, dumbass,” Mick snorted, lightly thunking the bigger man on the arm.

Butchy scowled at him.

“She’s a cutie though,” Mick went on, reaching out to push a few auburn locks back from her face.

Kit recoiled from his touch, whimpering indignantly.

“Don’t get no ideas,” Butchy grunted. “This ain’t the time or place for none o’ your pervy shit.”

Kit’s blue eyes widened in alarm, and Mick leered directly into them. His expression alone made her tremble and sent ice spreading up and down her spine.

Oh gawd, I don’t wanna think what that could mean…

“Well we ain’t gonna get no answers now that she’s gagged,” Mick said, turning back to his companion. “That cow got out last night, right?”

“Yeah,” Butchy said. “Me and Allec had to chase the bitch down…”

So you are one of the men from the alley, Kit realized glancing his way. I knew I recognized your voice!

“So maybe she phoned a friend before you caught her?” Mick suggested.

“Nah, we were on her too quick,” Butchy said, “The Master was even with us, lucky thing too cuz we ended up running into…”  He trailed off, looking at Kit closely, very closely now. “Say……”

Oh no! What if he recognizes me as Hyper Star? Kit realized suddenly. I was wearing my mask but if he got a good look at my eyes or hair…she turned away, letting out a distressed sob and trying to shake more hair to cover her face.

“Calm down, toots, I just wanna get a better look at ya…” he said, beginning to gather back her hair.

Kit squealed as loud and shrill as the gag would allow. She twisted and hopped frantically, trying to pull away so he wouldn’t figure out who she was.

“Mmph! Mmph! MMPH!!”

“Dammit, hold still!” the big man fumbled his grip on her arm, and in her desperation, Kit actually slipped free. “Shit!”

Mick was right there though, and slugged her hard across the face!

Kit’s head snapped to one side! She grunted in pain and collapsed to the floor. The blow left her instantly loopy, with the hallway spinning around her.

“What’d ya do that for?” Butchy balked.

“We can’t have her making all that ruckus,” the balding man replied. “Gagged or not, someone’ll hear…”

Kit lay dazed and squirming at their feet. She could barely move with her arms and legs bound in the duct tape. She couldn’t even think straight. A sob crawled up her throat and tears ran down her aching face onto the floor.

No, please…can’t be happening… Was the only despondent thought she could manage.

“I guess you’re right,” Butchy groaned. “Let’s stash her in the boiler room. We can figure out who the bitch is after close.”

“I’ll take her,” Mick said quickly. “You can go check in with Curator Keene.”

Butch made some half-agreeable grunts, and stomped up the hallway.

Kit’s head was still spinning as Mick bent down to lift her up. She sagged in his grasp, but he hefted her fettered body with ease. His hands slipped around, cupping her soft round butt, then scooped her up onto his shoulder. She grunted into the gag, then folded, nearly senseless over his back.

“Don’t forget this,” Butchy called from back up the hall. He picked up her backpack and tossed it to Mick. “Wouldn’t want someone finding her shit laying around.”

“Right on,” the balding man caught it, then turned and carried the captured damsel away, into the bowels of the museum.

4

The punch had left a hot, ringing blank behind her eyes. Every time she reached for a thought, it wobbled. C—c—concussion, she diagnosed, then immediately lost the word and had to find it again. Con-cuss-ion. Like a file with a cracked label.

Hanging upside-down over the balding man’s back made it even harder for Kit to regain her wits and bearings. Swaying limply back and forth kept her dizzy. The only thought she could hold onto was more a vague sense of dread, and the only thing she could see was the man’s brown coveralls. When she tried looking around, all she got were bleary glimpses of plain concrete floors and non-descript hallways that left her even more disoriented.

Someone had turned the volume up on her pulse. It thudded in her cheek, her temple, thinking through it was like thinking through wet cotton. Her body felt weak and heavy, and when she did squirm around to get those blurry glances, her captor took that as occasion to swat and squeeze her out thrust backside.

SMACK.

“Lay still sweet cheeks,” he would groan, gripping or stroking her ample rump over her jeans, “we’re almost there.”

Kit whimpered haplessly and slouched once more, dangling over his shoulder. I need to think. That was the move. That was always her move. Think. One variable at a time. She could do that. She did that for a living. One. Restraint. Two. Motion. Three. Don’t throw up. Three was less scientific than she wanted, but it kept interrupting. If I can just get my brain to sit still. Sit. Stay. She tried to hold one idea still and the idea listed sideways, nauseous, taking her stomach with it. Eventually she had to accept that upside down was a terrible direction in which to be clever.

Mick’s hands were moving up and down the backs of her denim-clad thighs more and more greedily. Grabbing her butt, squeezing the soft cheeks, and grunting in approval.

Dazedly repulsed by his touch, Kit could do nothing but let the man have his fun. Her muzzy brain not even thinking clear enough to fear he might take it further…

When they moved into what seemed a more open area, she caught a breath of fresh—well fresher—air. This drew her to try looking around again. She caught sight of a large sectional door, they were in some kind of loading dock or garage. She also noticed a gray panel van parked there.

Seeing that cut through her cloudy mind. It was just like the one Nadine had been driven away in the previous night.

SMACK. “Settle down sweet cheeks…” Mick’s grubby hand gripped and kneaded her plump backside this time. “Uuuhhn-yeah…almost there.”

Even with her jeans on, his touch felt lewd and unwelcome. Big hands, thick fingers digging in over the denim. She slumped, knowing there was nothing she could do about it. He carried her across the dock area to a large service elevator, where he finally dumped her onto the floor. Kit yelped as she fell, landed with a painful grunt, her head spinning again.

He dropped her backpack right next to her.

“I ain’t gonna complain ‘bout yer big ol’ ass,” he chuckled, twisting his spine and shoulders, “but carrying it around wears this ol’ back out.”

Kit was trying to sit up, but he leaned down and pushed her flat, face down with her boobs squished painfully against the metal floor…then he spanked her big butt hard.

SMACK! Hard enough Kit yelped into her gag.

“Wonder how else that ass could wear these old bones out…” He groaned, holding her down while rubbing and squeezing her soft ass.

“Yuuhh mihhg,” she tried mumbling through the gag, but just gave up in a dejected huff. I can’t even tell him what a disgusting pig he is…

Giggling to himself, Mick straightened and moved to shut the grated door of the elevator.

Again Kit tried to force her spinning thoughts into order. Arms taped behind back. Ankles taped. Gag secure. Her vision actually was starting to clear, and Kit looked longingly towards her bag, thinking how close she was to her Hyperlyte serum—and yet how far away. Backpack within two feet. Emergency flask still in the front pocket. If I can just get one hand free… or if the tape has any give at the wrists… She tested the bindings with tiny, precise movements, trying not to draw her captor’s attention. He focused on getting the elevator moving.

Still dizzy, Kit wiggled into a sitting position as the elevator began its descent. There was one bright light overhead, steel grated walls, rough metal flooring.

Not that I could drink the serum even if I could get to it, she chewed the gag, feeling the tape plastered over her lips and tasting the now sodden rag packed over her tongue.

“Don’t get too excited,” Mick said, turning back towards her. “You ain’t going nowhere.”

She glared up at him, and snorted in defiance.

His leering dropped shamelessly to her buxom chest. Despite the normal bagginess of her hoodie, the yellow “VISTA” lettering was now stretched tightly across the full curves of her outthrust breasts, thanks to the position of her bound arms arching her back.

Kit looked down, following his line of sight, then back up with a protestive grunt. She tried to squirm and change her posture to give him less to look at…but their ride down was over too quick for it to make a difference; One floor… maybe two. Basement level most likely. Boiler room or storage. Limited exits. Very not good…

“Last stop,” said the man, slinging open the gate. “Everybody off.”

Kit looked out into the darkness beyond. The only light was that spilling out of the elevator, casting the rest of the boiler room in sinister shadows.

A fresh sense of dread clutched Kit, and she began to shake her head, whimpering pleadingly and scooting backwards.

Mick just chuckled and grabbed her by the ring of tape binding her ankles. He dragged her away from the wall. She flopped onto her side, squirming and snuffing as he pulled her off the elevator.

The air was cool and dank, the cement floor, not clean exactly, but finished. Kit couldn’t make out much of the equipment down here, but he didn’t take her far either. Just a few feet off the elevator, Mick stopped and let her legs fall.

Kit slumped on the floor. Fine, maybe once I’m alone I can figure out how to get loose…it’s only…tape…

The man stepped over to straddle her. The lighting cast his face in sinister shadows. He rubbed a hand over his chin, the lust in his eyes made them gleam.

Oh no…Kit thought, the dreadful thought clear as bell as Mick knelt down, pinning her under his weight.

She immediately squirmed, mewling helplessly into her gag. He grabbed her by the chin and leaned close, glaring into her panicking eyes. She expected a threat, instead he just licked slowly up her stuffed cheek, then kissed her over the tape gag.

“This ain’t the time for your pervy shit,” Butchy had said…Butchy wasn’t here now.

Kit whimpered, getting the message, he doesn’t need to threaten me, this is just going to happen…he can do whatever he wants to me!

Mick sat back up, shifting his weight so he could pull up her sweatshirt. Kit whined helplessly as he worked it and the thin camisole underneath up and over her bosom, bunching them around her collarbone. His lusty eyes brightened ogling her plump breasts, still tucked into her plain white bra. He jerked that up too, letting the fleshy orbs spill out into the cool, dank air.

Kit shivered. No no, please don’t do this…keep your hands off me!

Mick groaned taking in the sight, savoring it; her breasts were big, firm and natural. Pertly round, dark cherry nipples already starting to harden in the cool dank air. The lush bulbs heaved and jiggled as Kit was forced to snuffle panicky breaths due to her airtight gag.

She bucked under him, knowing it was pointless, but desperate to get away.

Mick just hooted and grabbed her breasts with both hands. He squeezed hard, sending a chilling twinge through her chest. Kit shuddered, a whine dying in her throat as she tried to pull away from the unwelcome touch. It was almost as if she could feel every crease and callous as his fingers dug into her. Goosebumps stood against his palms as he clutched the full—apparently highly sensitive—Wait why are my breasts so tender? Or is he that just that rough? I know it’s not time for my—

Mick groaned above her, kneading and twisting her lush bulbs. Kit’s head lurched as a wave of sensation crashed through her, not entirely pleasant, not entirely painful…but intense. Aching. It spread all through her chest and shoulder, before seeping down into her belly.

Kit cringed and shut her eyes, mewling into her gag.

“That’s right,” Mick hissed, twisting the plump orbs, wringing another helpless squeal from the bound woman. “We can have some fun…or I can hurt ya, don’t make me hurt ya…”

Kit looked up at him and shook her head, whimpering pleadingly into the gag. Wetness rimmed her blue eyes. Fine…fine, you lecherous pig, she thought miserably. Do what you want, I can’t stop you anyway, just…just don’t hurt me…

Humiliation crept into her head amongst the growing fear and receding fog. How could she have ended up like this? For all her intelligence—the power she could imbue herself with—and still this common creep was about to—

Mick hooted excitedly, rolling her big, soft breasts in his rough hands. Kit felt the squeeze, the squish of her flesh, the intense twinge in her nipples. Panting through her nose, she writhed in discomfort, inadvertently pressing her chest more firmly into his grasp. Her head was almost swimming from the sensation. I feel almost as sensitive as if I was under the effects of my hyper-libido…but that can’t be.

“Atta girl,” Mick grunted, and released her mid-twist.

Kit slouched, trapped between his legs, her exposed bosom heaving and aching as she fought for breath. It almost felt as if she could feel the shape of his fingerprints still on her skin.

Mick stood up and unzipped his coveralls, shrugging them off to reveal he was completely nude underneath.

“Normally, I like a little oral to start, foreplay, y’know…”

Kit turned her head, a disgusted muffling under her gag. She couldn’t stop him but didn’t want to watch.

“Way you took in that gag, I bet you suck like a champ,” he went on, settling back down on top of her. “But I think we can make do without your pretty little mouth.” He cupped her chin, running a thumb over the tape.

Kit whimpered and pulled away, a few tears already spilling across her face.

Mick just chuckled, tucking his hairy thighs against her curvy sides. They felt almost abrasive against her soft skin. She could feel his balls on her stomach, hot and swampy. Kit shuddered in disgust.

Mick thumped his cock down along her sternum. It was already hard. Kit tried to ignore it, but then she felt his rough hands on her tender breasts again. This time cupping them, pushing them up and together around his erection. She couldn’t help but notice how tight breasts felt…swollen even, like they were full of…no that doesn’t make any sense, what would they be full of?? I’m not pregnant…I’m not-

“Nnnhh-yeahhh,” Mick groaned, jiggling the big soft globes excitedly. “These are even nicer when I can be nice to ‘em…”

Kit snuffled derisively, hating the stimulating tingles creeping through her chest. This isn’t nice…you’re not welcome to be touching those!

She squirmed impulsively, but not resisting. Mick continued to grope her tits, admittedly more gentle now. Her nipples began to prickle as he rubbed over the stiff nubs with rough thumbs. His cock was twitching every time he groaned. It felt so heavy with her heart thumping underneath it.

Next, Mick leaned forward and spat between her breasts. The warm slimy splatter sent goosebump rippling out over her naked chest. He continued sputtering, drooling into her cleavage as much as he could for lubrication.

Kit still refused to look at him, the brimming tears began to sting as her stomach coiled into a sickening knot.

He squeezed her tits together tightly, and rocked his hips. Slowly. Letting her feel that cock push between her sensitive orbs. Disgust boiled up in the back of her throat. Back and forth, he began pumping between her soft fleshy mounds. His cock twitched, swelling, getting warmer, she felt it keenly. His spit oozed and spread, making the slide easier, slicker. He sped up.

Kit shuddered as his pace quickened, his hips rocking against her ribcage. The lubrication made the slide easier, but meant his clutch had to tighten, mashing her tits closer around his pulsing phallus. Chills rushed down her sides, her hips twisted on instinct, bound legs flexing and kicking pointlessly.

“Ngh! Fuck yeah…” Mick didn’t even notice, grunting with every thrust. “Yeah…yeah…yeah…”

Kit rocked helplessly with his motions. A painful sort of tension began building through her chest with the hard cock surging between her tits. Waves of pressure swelled under and into the fleshy bulbs. Her nipples ached as he squeezed even more roughly, growing more and more excited.

She began to feel something pushing back against his cruel grasp…something inside her breasts! Foreign and filling the lush orbs, something that absolutely should not be there!

Wha-what?? What is—what is happening?? Kit’s wide, alarmed eyes snapped up to Mick now, as if he could provide an explanation. She mewled and mumbled into the gag. What are you doing to me?? To my—my—oh my boobs!!

“Yeah… yeah…yeah!” he only grunted and continued, oblivious.

The pressure grew almost agonizing through her chest, intense, stimulative, mounting with Mick’s bony frame arched backwards above her. His leathery skin was covered in thick but also somehow patchy, white hair. His head craned upward in bliss, completely ignoring her plight.

His grubby hands hung onto her tits so tight, squeezing that dizzying pressure upwards until her nipples were prickly and hot with it. That sensation pulsed and swelled anxiously with every buck of his hips.

“Yeah…yeah…y-y-yeah-yeah-yeah!”

His pace jolted her roughly against the floor, quickening steadily until he was riding her hard, fucking her tits feverishly.

Kit grunted, grunted, grunted, then started sobbing as each rugged thrust hammered her quivering chest. The pressure surged suddenly and stinging pain stabbed through her nipples, then ran down the curve of her breast…Wait! What??

Kit looked down in confusion. A black, murky fluid was leaking from her aching nipples. She squealed in alarm but the sound once again died in her gag. That foul oily taste was growing in her mouth once more, even worse than the gritty, filthy rag filling it. This made her realize, vaguely, through her confusion and terror, that the fluid oozing out of her breasts was similar to what she’d been spitting up since her encounter with the Black Physician, perhaps a bit thinner and less viscous.

Mick hadn’t noticed, hadn’t so much as glanced down with his head rocked back in ecstasy. The tighter he gripped her breasts, the more that pressure swelled through them. Every time his hips bucked against the aching orbs, her nipples twinged and spurt more of the black fluid.

Tears streamed down the sides of her face as Kit stared at the murky streaks running down her breasts, and then up at the man fucking them, then back and forth as he continued. Even Kit’s powerful mind struggled to comprehend what was happening as it swirled with a dizzying miasma of impotent fury, abject humiliation, complete confusion and pure panic…all she could do was lay there and cry until he finished.

“Yeah – yeah – yeah – y-y-yeah – YEAH!!! NNNNNgh…”

Hot, thick, slimy spunk oozed up her collar bone, mingling with the black dripping over her chest. Kit sobbed in disgust feeling the mixture pool across her clavicle, soaking into and under the twisted garments bunched around her neck.

Mick pumped a few more times, milking more of his own viscous load and clutching her tits so tightly in orgasmic bliss, that both nipples squirted stinging streams of the murky black liquid.

Kit shook between his legs, bawling and letting out a painfilled whimper.

Finally, Mick released her breasts and slouched with a satisfied groan. Kit squirmed in unwitting relief as the pressure quickly receded, although her breasts still felt hot and swollen, her nipples achy, taut and…wet. He was still sitting on her, so Kit couldn’t move. She had to lay there, feeling his cum and that strange black discharge dripping over her skin.

When he finally looked down, his glassy eyes popped wide open at the sight of her luscious globes, streaked with black stains.

“What the…?” he reached down, swirling a finger around one leaky nipple, stirring up the murky fluid. He lifted his finger staring at it. “Oh no…no no no…” he murmured, then looked at her accusingly. “You didn’t tell me you’d already been defiled!”

5

I certainly have been defiled, you disgusting pervert! Kit huffed underneath the man, her humiliation muffled and muted by the gag and binding.

Then the word snagged. Defiled. She turned the word over like a bad sample label. The Black Physician had said it in the alley, but she had taken it just as ritual nonsense. Ugly poetry for what he’d done to her. But now this man using it, and specifically after seeing that unnatural discharge from her nipples…Oh no! What if… Have I somehow been marked or contaminated? A grotesque correlation clawed through her mind: the putrid cum she’d been force-fed by that being. The sludge and foul taste that kept resurfacing in her mouth. Now the black fluid her breasts had produced under this  man’s hands. Three observations, one ugly category. She didn’t have a mechanism yet, but the correlation was enough to make her stomach drop. No, no, no, what have they done to me?

Mick was getting off of her quickly, looking nervously around the boiler room as if the walls might be watching.

Kit groaned, not quite in relief, and rolled onto her side. Her arms and shoulders had gone numb from being pinned beneath her while the cruel janitor had sat on her chest to fuck her tits. The tape at her wrists did not care that the weight was gone. It still bit. Her fingers barely wanted to flex, a tiny useless motion, and felt only the dull throb of blood trying to return.

She shuddered and dragged air through her nose. The gag made every breath too narrow. The struggle to get enough oxygen kept her lightheaded, the boiler room swimming at the edges, heat and metal-smell and the ache in her chest stacking until the room would not sit still.

She could taste tar and filth and was now dreadfully sure it wasn’t just the gag. She could feel the murky liquid leaking from her nipples and dripping across the trembling curves of her breasts. She could feel her stomach folding in itself. Her heart racing. Her head—

Don’t panic. Think. Correlate. But do not panic! Five things you can see, she told herself. Grounding. She knew this. Pipes. A drain. His boots. The floor. The dark. Four things you can feel. Tape. Concrete. The numb. The gag. Three things you can—

The list tried to organize itself and instead started to run.

She could taste the tar as if it were getting stronger.

That was the wrong column. The exercise collapsed. Her pulse climbed anyway, bright and useless, and the more she tried to name the room the more the conclusion sat on her chest instead of him: it’s in me. It’s already in me. She snorted another insufficient breath, shoulders screaming as blood began, unkindly, to return to her bound arms, and the grounding technique did what it sometimes did in actual crises.

It gave her a tidy way to notice she was panicking.

Three things you can hear…She heard her own heart. She heard him moving. She heard—

“Daggum women,” Mick snorted, “you’re all nothing but trouble.”

He squatted down and started tugging her bra and sweatshirt back into place. Her soaked clothing smeared his cum and that black secretion down over her chest, as well as freeing some of it to drip up the curve of her neck. The sensation made her squirm in disgust.

“Here we go,” Mick was saying, “Won’t even notice…”

Then Kit realized something was moving around them. The shadows were beginning to move, to waver…the same sick, deliberate thickening she remembered from the alley, peeling a little too far from the pipes and the under-edges of the boilers, as if the darkness in the room had learned to crawl.

The tar taste surged behind the gag. Stronger. Fouler. Coating her tongue and the soft palate until her throat worked on nothing. No sludge came this time—no sudden welling, no fill. Thankfully! With her mouth packed Kit could picture it too easily: that putrid stuff arriving with nowhere to go, nowhere to spit, nowhere to breathe. Drowning in it, quietly, on a boiler-room floor.

Her breasts began to ache. Not the bruise-ache of having been handled so roughly, but a deep, returning fullness. Pressure bloomed within the heavy bulbs as if something in her body had recognized a cue and begun to prepare. She hated how specific it felt.  Kit’s insides twisted around an observation she did not want and could not reject.

Not now. Please not now.

Her insides twisted with an unnatural certainty.

He was here.

Not a guess. Not a hypothesis she could argue with. She knew him now the way a sealed sample knows its contaminant.

Mick was still tucking her clothes back and muttering, “Sure, sure! See, good as new, nobody will notice – He w-won’t even…”

“I noticed.” The hauntingly familiar voice ground through the boiler room, deep and grating.

Both Kit and Mick cringed and began to tremble at the sound of it. Behind the man, a looming figure took shape out of the darkness.

Kit could just barely make out the silhouette of a wide brimmed hat, and under it, the rune-etched beak of the Silas Bennett plague mask, the Black Physician.

“How dare you touch what belongs to your Master!”

Mick whirled around and dropped to his knees before the shaded figure. “I didn’t know! I swear, your Lowness, I didn’t realize, you know I wouldn’t-a -”

The Black Physician extended an arm, the hand clutched as if to choke the man. Instead of touching him though, tendrils of black whipped out from the darkness. They wrapped about Mick’s arms, pulling them straight out to his sides. Some of them coiled about his neck, choking off his pathetic pleas for mercy.

Kit’s heart slammed against her ribs. She began to scramble away as best she could with bound arms and legs, kicking and bucking as best she could. Somehow she reached the elevator, and squirmed around until her shoulders fell against her backpack. She pressed herself back, fingers fumbling for the zipper of that secret pocket.

All the while, she kept her wide blue eyes locked on the looming figure in the plague mask, fortunately he -or it- was entirely focused on torturing Mick.

“You were eager. I understand hunger. But you tasted what was not offered. Now you will learn the difference between service and theft.”

Kit’s fingers worked their way inside the secret pocket and found the star-shaped flask. The metal was cool, familiar. The flask-stars weren’t sharpened, but they were still pointed, and she angled one of those points against the thick duct tape wrapping her wrists. It wasn’t easy but she began to poke and saw in short, urgent strokes, desperately hoping the Physician would not look her way.

“…the cows are reserved. Their mouths, their milk, their marked flesh—these belong to me. The cattle give what I draw. The congregation drinks what I allow…”

The dark figure was slowly clenched his fist as he admonished his follower. The darkness answered, pulling at Mick, stretching, straining, strangling him.

Mick gurgled in instant agony, his whole body going rigid, eyes bulging.

The blood chilled in Kit’s veins. The thought of watching the darkness pull the man apart limb from limb—even after what Mick had just done to her—made her stomach twist. Her moral compass, the same one that had sent her into that alley the night before, would not simply let her watch that.

Kit forced a muffled, pleading sound through the gag and shook her head hard enough that her tangled bun came half loose.

The Black Physician finally turned the blank gaze of his mask toward her, and she made another desperate noise and jerked her chin toward Mick.

Don’t kill him. Please don’t—“Mmph! Mmph!”

The tendrils paused, loosening just enough for Mick to drag in one wheezing breath.

“You would intercede on behalf of this wretched specimen?” That unnerving mask cocked slightly to one side.

Kit’s wrists burned. The tape was fraying. Another sawing motion. Another. One strand of tape parted. Then another. She felt the binding loosen. She kept her upper body trembling, kept the performance of helpless terror going even as her bound hands worked with frantic precision.

The Black Physician drifted toward her now. “Surely you do not object to a little corrective treatment?”

As the imposing figure drew closer to her a sense of abject dread clawed through Kit. Only it didn’t seem to be her own reaction to the admittedly frightening situation, but rather something that emanated from the Black Physician himself. Something attacking her resolve and courage, weakening her very spirit in his presence. The taste of pitch and tar grew nauseating in her mouth, she felt sick and dizzy.

Kit looked at Mick, seemingly about to be torn apart at the seams. Cruel and disgusting as he’s been, he doesn’t deserve to be torn literally limb from limb by…by…whatever the heck you are…

She gave a quick nod of the head, “Mm mm.”

The Black Physician looked back towards Mick, twisting his fist, tightening the strands of darkness holding him until the man let out another choked cry.

“It seems my cow wishes to spare your life or limb,” that voice grated through the air.

Cow? Kit swallowed, cringing at the taste. That’s what they kept calling Nadine—she suddenly recalled the appearance of the naked blonde, how her body had been covered in black streaks—and now me…she’d been defiled and now I—

The Black Physician raised his other hand, beckoning to her. “Despite the debaucherous liberties he has taken with you,” his terrible voice rumbled, “You would advocate for such a hopeless case?”

Now she could once more see the eyes, human eyes, behind the mask. They stared out at her, though not with the malice or cruelty she’d have expected…they seemed almost blank, watching not looking.

How strange…

The Black Physician released Mick with a contemptuous flick of shadow. The janitor collapsed in a gasping heap. The Physician’s attention fixed fully on Kit. New tendrils of darkness uncoiled from the walls and floor and began sliding toward her.

“You plead for the life of the worm who touched you,” the Physician observed, almost curious. “Noble. Pointless. You are already one of us…”

The shadows reached for her ankles.

Just then, Kit felt the last of the wrist tape give. Her hands came free. In one frantic motion she brought her arms forward and tore the duct-tape from her mouth, spitting out the foul rag.

“Deceitful little cow!” The Black Physician roared.

Kit was already wrenching open the starshaped flash and jamming it between her lips. The blue-raspberry Hyperlyte hit her tongue just as the Black Physician’s rage shook the boiler room.

Every shadow seemed to lunge at her.

Kit swallowed. Heat roared outward from her core, flooding muscle and nerve and bone. The fog in her head began to burn away. Strength surged into her limbs so suddenly that the remaining duct tape around her ankles parted with a sharp pop when she flexed. Sensation returned in a rush and with it came the full, crystalline awareness of her maximized senses.

Cold, dark tendrils curled around her calves and thighs, yanking her across the floor toward their Master’s towering silhouette. Kit cried out and twisted hard, rolling onto her side, then her stomach, trying to break their grip with sheer frantic motion. The shadows clung like living tar. Every time she wrenched one ankle free, another tendril coiled higher, dragging her backward inch by inch.

She kicked and writhed, hips bucking, shoulders slamming against the concrete. She twisted like a cat, got one knee under her, and shoved. The shadow-grip slipped just enough for her to scramble and claw a few feet forward before the tendrils caught her again around both wrists and ankles.

“No! Let me go!”

She thrashed harder, throwing her weight against the pull. The shade’s touch was freezing and somehow hungry, sliding over the curves of her body as if tasting her. A thicker coil whipped around her waist and hauled her bodily off the floor. More tendrils surged in, wrapping her thighs, her upper arms, the soft indent of her waist. Kit was yanked backward through the air and slammed against something that felt like a chest made of pure cold. The Black Physician’s arms closed around her from behind. The wide brim of his hat tipping over the top of her head. The beak of the plague mask lowered beside her ear. His entire dark being seemed to enfold her.

“You belong to me now, little cow,” the voice grated, thick with possessive fury. “Every drop. Every curve. Every trembling breath. I will milk you dry and fill what is left with my filth until even your clever mind forgets it ever belonged to yourself.”

Kit bucked and writhed, but the shadows held her fast. Two tendrils slid under the hem of her sweatshirt, curling along the undersides of her full breasts, then up and around them, squeezing. Hard. A sharp pressure swelled through her chest. She felt her already stiffened nipples twinge and then—worse—spurt, warm and thick into her already damp bra, soaking the cups, spilling over the edges, and running in sticky trails down her ribs.

The sensation was obscene and intense.

Another tendril wormed between her legs, rubbing firmly along the seam of her jeans, pressing the rough denim against her mound. Kit’s hips jerked involuntarily. Hyper-libido flared like a match dropped into gasoline.

“Stop!” Kit cried out. “No…no, not again, please!”

Heat flooded her belly and thighs. Her thoughts scattered. A low, helpless sound escaped her throat as the tendril between her legs rubbed again, slower, more deliberate. The ones on her breasts kneaded and milked in rhythmic pulses, forcing more of the black fluid to spill from her aching peaks.

The Black Physician’s laughter rolled through her bones. “Yes… feel it. Your body already knows its place. Stop fighting and open for your Master.”

Black sludge welled up in her mouth without warning—thick, bitter, tar-sweet. It coated her tongue and threatened to slide down her throat. Kit’s eyes flew wide. Revulsion slammed into the rising tide of unwanted arousal like a bucket of ice water. She clamped her jaws shut and held the foul substance, refusing to swallow. No! Not again! The disgust became a blade. She focused on it on the putrid taste, on the violation, on the absolute wrongness of every cold, groping touch—until the hyper-libido’s fog thinned just enough for her heroic instincts to take over.

She twisted hard to the left, then the right, using every scrap of boosted strength and enhanced reflexes. One wrist tore free. She drove her elbow backward into the densest part of the shadow holding her.

Somewhere within the darkness—echoing behind the mask—a sharp exhale of breath.

The coil around her waist loosened. Kit dropped, hit the concrete on her knees, and rolled. More tendrils snatched at her, but she kept moving, kept thrashing, until the last coil slipped.

She dove toward the elevator once more, snatching up the star-flask from where she’d dropped it. With a violent retch she spat the black fluid directly into it, sealing the sample with a frantic twist of the cap—even as shadows boiled after her across the floor and walls. She felt them snatching at her heels, brushing the backs of her knees, trying to tangle around her ankles. Each time she kicked sideways or leapt, changing direction by instinct more than thought. Enhanced reflexes made the world seem to slow just enough for her to anticipate the lunges and slip—however narrowly—between them.

She hit the elevator at a full run, snatching up her backpack as one shoulder slammed into the grated wall at the back. There was a service hatch in the ceiling and Kit jumped, punching the thin metal with the heel of her hand. It buckled and knocked askew. She grabbed the edge and hauled herself up.

The elevator cables hung in the narrow vertical tunnel like black vines. Kit shrugged on her backpack, then seized the cables and began to climb. Accelerated speed turned the ascent into a blur of hand-over-hand motion. Below, the shadows poured into the shaft after her, black and formless, climbing the walls around her with unnerving fluidity, reaching for her with elongated arms and writhing tendrils.

One caught her ankle.

Kit yelped and twisted, spinning around the cable like a gymnast on a vertical bar. The tendril slipped. She kept climbing, faster now, heart hammering. Another shadow lunged from the wall to her left; she swung her body to the opposite cable, transferring mid-motion in a move that would have been impossible without the serum. Cold fingers brushed her midriff as she passed, sliding under the hem of her hoodie and across the soft skin of her stomach before she wrenched away.

Higher. The lit rectangle of the first-floor doors—light seeping around the edges—seemed so far away. The shadows were gaining. Kit pushed harder, arms burning despite the enhanced strength, lungs dragging air. A thick coil whipped around her waist from behind and yanked. She lost her grip on the cable and dropped three feet before catching herself on a horizontal support beam, legs dangling. The shadow hauled at her again, trying to peel her free.

Kit dragged herself up onto the beam and leaped with all she had. Her body shot upward and she caught the main cable again, swung in a wide arc, using the momentum to propel herself the final distance to the first-floor doors. She hit the metal with both feet—a boosted strength kick that blasted them open.

Kit tumbled through, scrambling to her feet and realizing she was back in the loading dock of the museum. She didn’t wait another moment, dashing madly for one of the big bay doors. She did not look back, did not want to see those shadows reaching for her. She could sense them and that was chilling enough.

Daylight—waning but bright—and city noise exploded around her as she burst out into the alley behind the museum. She did not slow, making a mad dash for the mouth, passing dumpsters and parked service vans, using every scrap of speed the serum still granted her.

Even once she hit the street, she kept running, weaving through the pedestrians and putting as much distance between her at the Black Physician as possible.

Only when the foul, oily taste in her mouth began to thin and fade, did she dare glance over her shoulder.

Nothing. No pursuit she could see or sense.

She had escaped.

Barely.

6

The Hyperlyte was still surging through her veins as Kit ran.

She stayed high, leaping from rooftop to rooftop across the east end of downtown with accelerated speed and boosted strength. The city blurred beneath her—neon signs, tar-paper roofs, the occasional startled pigeon taking frantic flight. Every landing sent a jolt through her tender breasts, the sticky residue of her apparent defilement still clinging to her skin under ruined clothes. The affect of the serum was beginning to fray at the edges; she could feel the familiar crash waiting.

Fortunately, her storage unit was only a few more roofs away. Before reaching it, she dropped into a narrow alley behind a row of aging brick buildings, her chucks absorbing the impact admirably. It was twilight by then, and around the corner, warm yellow light spilled onto the sidewalk from a 24-hour bodega.

Kit hesitated for a moment, looking down at herself. The Vista U hoodie was all but ruined. Dark streaks stained the burgundy, too black for mere dirt. They had dried in places to a stiff sheen and stayed tacky in others, clinging where the fabric pulled across her chest and stomach. Her jeans were also smeared at the hips and down the thighs, stains she clearly could not assign to an alley puddle or a dropped coffee. She did not have a story for this that would survive fluorescent lighting.

And under the clothes was worse, the remnants she did not want to inventory; A thin, tacky film against her skin. Oily. Wrong. Every shift of the hoodie made her feel it, a faint drag over her curves. The tar taste still ghosted across her tongue.

Kit crossed her arms and hunched forward slightly, then forced herself towards the bodega. She needed mouthwash more than she needed her dignity.

And a few other supplies of course…

The bell above the door jingled and the man behind the counter looked up from a Spanish-language newspaper. Javi was in his late forties, stocky, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and the permanent half-smile of someone who had seen every kind of late-night customer Regent City could produce. His eyes widened the moment he registered her.

“Kit? Jesucristo, what happened to you?”

“I’m…uh…training,” she managed, voice coming out smaller than she wanted. “For a… Tough Mudder. Obstacle course. Really intense one. Mud and, um, other …dirts. You know how it is.”

Javi’s eyebrows climbed higher. He set the newspaper aside and leaned on the counter, concern written plainly across his face.

“You look like you lost a fight, amiga …in a tar pit. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” Kit forced a quick, awkward smile and moved down the narrow aisle before he could ask more questions.

“Whatever you say.” Javi did not look convinced, but he also knew better than to push. He had seen her come in at odd hours before, sometimes limping, sometimes carrying odd equipment. Sometimes fresh from a Hyper Star fight. Sometimes Kit wondered what he really thought she was into…Or if he was just jaded enough by weird customers that he never actually gave her a second thought.

Sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, Kit grabbed a family-size bag of Cheetos, two tall energy drinks from the cooler, a cheap shammy cloth, a gallon jug of water, dish soap, and a bottle of mint mouthwash. When she set everything on the counter, Javi rang her up without further comment, though his eyes flicked to the black streaks on her chin more than once. Kit fished cash out of her backpack, mumbled a “thank you,” and practically fled back into the darkening evening.

The next block over was a climate controlled storage facility. She went to the side entrance and punched in her code. The lock buzzed and she slipped inside, hurrying down the fluorescent-lit corridor to Unit 47-B. It looked normal from the outside, nothing more than a reinforced metal door and a heavy padlock. Inside was the secret laboratory and superheroine headquarters she had built for her work as Hyper Star.

By the time the heavy door rolled shut behind her, Kit let out the breath she had been holding and her legs simply folded. All strength drained out of her and she slid down the cold metal wall of the storage unit, sitting on the concrete floor, plastic bodega bag still clenched in one trembling hand.

Maybe the last effects of the Hyperlyte had finally guttered out, she wasn’t really paying attention to the time. Or maybe she was just finally letting in the trauma of her ordeal at the museum: Mick’s gross naked body pinning her. The wet, grunting sounds he had made while using her breasts. The hot slide of his erection. The Black Physician’s freezing arms closing around her from behind. The way the shadows had slid under her clothes, squeezing and…and…milking.

All of it arrived at once, unfiltered by serum or adrenaline. A small, broken sound escaped her throat. Then another, lower. She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped both arms around them, and pressed her forehead hard against her denim-covered knees. The position made her tender breasts ache with every shallow breath, but she didn’t care. Quiet, shuddering sobs shook her shoulders. Tears came hot and fast, dripping onto her stained jeans. She didn’t try to stop them. For a long stretch of minutes she simply sat there and let the weight of it crush her—the violation, the helplessness, the way her own body had responded against her will when the hyper-libido took hold. She felt filthy in a way that no amount of scrubbing seemed like it would be enough.

Eventually the worst of the crying loosened its grip. Kit sniffled, wiped her face on the sleeve of the ruined hoodie, and fumbled the bodega bag open with trembling fingers. She tore into the Cheetos and shoved a large handful into her mouth. The loud artificial crunch and the hit of salt and cheese was absurdly comforting. She knew, clinically, that her body needed the carbohydrates and sodium after the Hyperlyte crash—her blood sugar was almost certainly tanking, electrolytes depleted, nervous system still recalibrating.

The Hyperlyte crash always leaves my system depleted, she told herself that while she chewed. But there was a quieter truth: She just needed to eat her feelings for a little while. To fill the hollow place left by the assault and terror with something loud and delicious and orange. Which she did, until her fingers were coated in cheese dust and the sharp edges of panic had dulled into an exhausted buzz. Only then did she crack one of the tall energy drinks and gulp half of it in three long, cold swallows. The carbonated liquid shocked her system, bitter and chemical, and after a moment the world began to sharpen again.

Get it together, she told herself, cheese dust clinging to the corners of her mouth. You’re a scientist. You’re a superheroine. Act like it!

It took another full minute before the rational part of her mind fully shouldered its way back into control. Kit wiped her face on the sleeve again and pushed herself to her feet with a hard, final sniffle.

The storage unit was narrow but meticulously organized. Metal shelving held lab equipment, sealed chemical containers, a compact centrifuge, a portable spectrometer, and two spare Hyper Star uniforms hanging in garment bags. A small utility sink and a stack of bottled water occupied one corner. She kept emergency clothes here too—soft gray sweatpants and a faded university tee—folded neatly on one of the shelves.

Kit stripped.

The hoodie was ruined. The formerly-white bra beneath peeled away from her still-tender breasts with a sticky sound, the cups soaked through and drying black. Her jeans followed, the denim stiffened by the stains, then her panties. She stood naked under the harsh fluorescent lights and looked down at herself.

Dark streaks and smears painted her skin—across the full, heavy curves of her boobs, down the soft plane of her stomach, along the insides of her thighs. The black residue had dried in places into thin, flaking lines. Her nipples were still a deeper pink than usual and painfully sensitive. Even the cool air of the unit made them tighten.

“Okay,” she muttered, voice still rough from crying. “Catalog the damage. Epidermal staining consistent with previous exposure. No open wounds. Breast tissue is engorged and abnormally sensitive, possible inflammatory response or hormonal cascade triggered by the substance. Compare to early pregnancy symptoms: tenderness, swelling, heightened sensitivity… oh no...” Her hands hovered over her chest. The implication hit like a second crash. “No. No, that is not possible. Despite the incredible violations, there’s been no vaginal penetration, nothing to get into my womb that would…impregnate. Right?”

She cupped one full breast carefully and tried to express anything that might be left. Nothing came. She tried the other side, applying gentle, experimental pressure the way she had once learned about in a reproductive-health elective years ago. Still nothing. Only a dull, aching sensitivity.

Kit let out a shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “No discharge. That’s good. Extremely relieving. I am not gestating some kind of fetal shadow demon. Note to self: never think that phrase again. But it does mean that fluid production, much like the sludge in my mouth, seems tied to proximity with the Black Physician and or the Silas Bennet plague mask.”

She opened the mouthwash, tipped her head back, and swished until her eyes watered. She spat into the utility sink, repeated the process, and kept going until the bottle was empty. The alcohol burned mercilessly but eventually seared the tar taste to a faint ghost beneath the acrid minty-ness.

Then, using the shammy cloth, dish soap and gallon of water, she cleaned herself as thoroughly as she could in the limited area. The black streaks lightened but did not completely disappear; faint grayish shadows still marked the undersides of her breasts and the soft skin of her inner thighs. She scrubbed until the cloth was filthy and her skin was pink and raw in places. But then she was finally able to pull on some spare clothes: soft sweatpants that sat low on her hips and an oversized tee that hung loosely on her chest. Her nipples were still tender enough to make her wince when the fabric brushed over them.

Kit stood in the middle of the unit for a long moment, bare feet on cold concrete. Better. Not fine. But better is enough to start.

And now her eyes drifted to the backpack on the floor by the door; in it was one of her star-flasks, only instead of Hyperlyte it was full of that disgusting, invasive substance.

Whatever that sludge is may be the key to figuring out what the Black Physician did to me, she thought then, I can do this part. This part has steps.

Kit Brookes squared her shoulders and reached for her lab notebook.

7

Kit set the star-flask on the white plastic folding table she kept in the storage unit, and flipped open her lab notebook to a fresh page. First, she transferred a few drops of the black sludge into a clean petri dish. The substance was still viscous, almost oily, with a faint iridescence when the fluorescent light hit it just right. She tilted the dish, watching how it coated the glass.

“Non-Newtonian,” she muttered, lifting the bag of Cheetos with her clean hand and shaking a few into her mouth. “Shear-thinning under agitation, but it re-thickens almost immediately. Viscosity higher than crude oil, lower than pitch. Color is stable under white light… no obvious fluorescence under the UV lamp.”

She ran a basic pH strip. The result made her frown.

“Eight-point-four. Mildly alkaline. That tracks with the burning sensation in the mouth, but it doesn’t explain the binding affinity to organic tissue.” She took another long pull from the energy drink, then set it aside and reached for the portable spectrometer.

For the next hour Kit worked in a focused, almost meditative rhythm. She prepared slides, ran spectroscopic scans, attempted simple solvent separations, and scribbled in her notebook with observations and crossed-out hypotheses. Every so often she would pause, absently fish more Cheetos from the bag, and chew while staring at a result, figuring an equation or deciding her next test.

“The data refuses to make sense,” she concluded finally, tapping a pen against her lower lip. “The sludge shares certain traits with complex organic polymers, yet it also behaves like a living colloidal system. It responded to electromagnetic fields in ways no known biological or synthetic compound should or does. And when introduced to a tiny sample of my own saliva, the substance somehow assimilates the saliva into itself—or maybe ‘defiles’ it?”

That thought sent a shiver up her spine.

“You’re not chemical,” she said quietly, staring at the microscope. “Not entirely. You don’t seem to be a disease, at least not in any organic sense. Something supernatural then.”

She rubbed her eyes with the back of one wrist and kept working.

It was well past midnight when the first promising reaction occurred. She had been systematically testing common chelating agents, enzyme disruptors, and strong reducing compounds. Most did nothing. One combination—an experimental mix she had originally developed for breaking down stubborn biotoxin residues—caused the black sludge to lose cohesion. The iridescent sheen collapsed. The substance thinned, then separated into a cloudy supernatant and a darker, inert precipitate.

Kit’s heart rate picked up. “Supernatural or not, at some point everything is chemistry!”

She refined the ratios, muttering concentrations under her breath, adjusting, retesting. Within another forty minutes she had a clear, pale solution that reliably disrupted the sludge’s structure in vitro. She labeled a beaker in precise handwriting: Provisional Counter-Agent, Batch 01 – Purge Lyse.

“Note to self,” she mumbled, “come up with a cooler name later.”

Whether it would work on a living system was another question entirely.

Kit stared at the pale solution for a long moment, pipette poised. Drinking an untested compound she had mixed herself in a storage unit at two in the morning was, by any reasonable standard, reckless. And far from the first time she had done so.

She ran through the risk matrix one more time: the counter-agent has only been validated in vitro, the exact metabolic pathways are unknown, and I have no way of knowing how it might interact with the Hyperlyte metabolites when I take my next dose of that…

Then she glanced at the now mostly empty star-flask…and remembered how she had filled it; the sludge welling up in her mouth, the taste, the thick, slimy feel of it on her tongue—

“Whatever this does,” Kit murmured decisively, “it can’t be any worse than already being defiled.”

She drew a careful dose and drank it before she could talk herself out of the decision. The liquid tasted faintly metallic and bitter, nothing like the bright blue-raspberry of her Hyperlyte. Kit set the pipette down, closed her eyes, and forced herself to catalogue every sensation with deliberate precision.

And at first there was nothing.

Then, gradually, the deep, aching tenderness in her breasts began to ease. The hyper-sensitivity that had made even the soft cotton of her tee shirt feel abrasive faded, leaving only a dull residual soreness. She exhaled, surprised by how much relief that single change brought.

The faint ghost of tar at the back of her tongue, however, remained exactly as it had been.

Kit opened her eyes and looked down at herself, running a cautious hand over the curve of one breast. The tissue no longer felt alarmingly engorged or reactive. Something had clearly happened. The counter-serum was not inert, even if the tar taste lingered.

“Partial effect,” she said softly. “It disrupted the peripheral symptoms… but perhaps the core markers will take longer.” A cold thread of dread slid through her chest and settled low in her stomach. “Unless the defilement is already bound deeper than a single dose can reach? Maybe deeper than any dose can reach.”

Kit stood very still in the middle of her secret HQ, listening to the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights, and utterly unable to leave the problem half-examined; “If the defiling substance has already integrated past superficial tissue layers,” her mind began spinning out the implications with merciless clarity, “it may have reached lymphatic channels, or crossed into the bloodstream, or worse, already begun interacting with my nervous system…and then what I just drank might only ever be a temporary treatment. A suppressant. Not a cure. What if there is no cure…?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers pressing into the soft fabric of the oversized tee. For a moment the storage unit felt smaller, the shadows in the corners deeper. She could almost feel the Black Physician’s presence again—the cold weight of his attention, the way the darkness had claimed her as if it already owned her—How much of me is still mine? She couldn’t help but think it, and then she couldn’t stop thinking it. And what if it’s something more than biology and chemistry. Something metaphysical? How do I cure or even combat that?

Kit swallowed hard against the residual tar taste and forced her breathing to stay even. Panic would not help. Catastrophizing would not help. Only more data would help.

Or maybe punching that creeptastic mask right in its antique beak!

No. What she needed was more data, more information on the Black Physician, the history of Silas Bennet, his practices, the nature of his powers. She needed to consult an expert like…Nadine.

And then she remembered that Nadine was still out there. Whatever had been done to Kit had been done to Nadine first and for longer. The other woman was still in the Black Physician’s hands. That fact cut through the dread more cleanly than any chemical ever could.

Kit returned to the workbench with renewed purpose. She filled three additional star-flasks with the Purge Lyse, sealing each one carefully before nesting them into slots on her utility belt. The counter-serum had done something, the sudden easing of the deep tenderness in her breasts was proof of that. Maybe it simply needed more time to work its way through whatever deeper pathways the sludge had already claimed. Maybe a single dose was only the first step. Maybe it would help Nadine when Kit found her. Maybe it would even function as a viable weapon against the Black Physician if Kit was forced to face him again.

Right, I’ll just offer him a drink…or maybe splash it onto him. Get real Kit, this being, whatever he is, has proven far too dangerous even with the Hyperlyte at full effect. And now I’m about to face him again with a few bottles of some anti-curse serum?

She heaved a deep breath in and out, before drifting towards the spare Hyper Star uniforms, hanging not far off.

Yes. Because Nadine needs me. No one else is even looking for her. Okay, so I don’t have to figure out how to defeat the Black Physician, I just have to rescue her, and then figure out how to escape the Black Physician.

Only then did she close the lab notebook, pressing the cover flat with both palms as if sealing the night’s work inside it. She picked up the last energy drink, tipped it back, and drained what remained in two long swallows. The cold, chemical sweetness settled in her stomach. Kit wiped her mouth and turned to sit on the cot she kept in here as well.

There was a laptop resting on it, and she opened it as she settled on the sparse cushioning. The machine was an older model she had heavily modified with extra encryption, custom scripts, and a carefully maintained backdoor into several of Regent City’s public and private security networks. She had gained and hacked more access since becoming Hyper Star, rationalizing that an hour of Hyperlyte was rarely enough time to search an entire city on foot. Planning routes in advance had become as much a part of her process as the serum itself.

“Okay,” she muttered, dragging the bag of Cheetos closer with one hand while the other navigated to her custom interface. “Museum first. Service entrance. After closing. Come on, come on…”

She scrubbed through the external camera grid, orange dust already faintly coating the trackpad. The timestamps blurred past until the loading dock came into view. Kit leaned closer, chewing.

“There—there you are.” Her voice dropped. “Mick. Two others… and that’s Keene. Of course it’s Keene.” She watched the museum curator carry the plague mask across the frame, holding it with both hands like something sacred. “Look at the way he’s cradling it. Elbows in, head down. That’s reverence. That’s worship.”

She shoved another Cheeto into her mouth and kept muttering as she jumped feeds.

“Traffic cam on 14th… got them. Turning south. Storefront on Lexington—yes, still there. Bank exterior… parking garage loop… come on, stay in range.” Her free hand fidgeted with the drawstring of her sweatpants, twisting it around one finger, then releasing it, then twisting it again. “They’re moving east. Older blocks means fewer cameras. Come on, come on…”

She tracked it for nearly twenty minutes before the signal chain broke. The final usable camera showed the van turning left onto a narrower street lined with older brick buildings and sparse streetlights. After that, nothing. No municipal cameras she could reach. No private feeds she could find. Kit sat back, frowning at the last frozen frame.

Then she zoomed in and—“Cypress Avenue,” she read aloud from the street sign at the edge of the screen.

The name landed wrong. She opened a second window, pulling up a historical reference map, and the article on— “Silas Bennett’s supposed hospital was on Cypress. Of course. Same stretch. Most of the original footprint is gone or rebuilt, but the street’s still there…” She cross-referenced current property records, muttering under her breath as she worked. “Mixed-use… partially vacant… sits right over the old hotel looks like. That can’t be coincidence.” Kit stared at the map pin for a long moment, absently licking cheese dust from her thumb. Then she closed the laptop. “I know where you are,” she said quietly to the empty unit. “I’m coming.”

She peeled off the oversized tee and soft sweatpants, folding them neatly and putting them back on the shelving unit. The cool air of the facility brushed her bare skin. For a moment she simply stood there in the dim light, taking stock of her body: the faint residual streaks that scrubbing had not fully erased, the way her breasts felt—were they fuller and heavier than usual? The soft curve of her waist and hips. Then she reached for the garment bag.

The Hyper Star uniform came out in pieces.

First the leggings. She stepped into the crimson Lycra and drew them up slowly, feeling the material slide over her calves, her thighs, the full swell of her hips and backside. The fabric was thin and fiercely elastic; it clung to every contour, molding itself to the lush hourglass shape of her lower body, until every curve was outlined. She adjusted the waistband, smoothing it flat, and felt the familiar second-skin tightness settle into place.

Next came the haltered crop top. Kit slipped her arms through the straps and drew it down over her head. The Lycra stretched taut across her full, heavy breasts, the golden star emblem centering itself precisely over her sternum. She reached behind to fasten the halter, the motion lifting her chest. The cropped hem left a smooth band of bare midriff exposed between top and leggings.

She pulled her long auburn hair back with both hands and secured it in a high, tight ponytail. The simple act changed the line of her neck and shoulders. Already her posture was beginning to straighten.

The golden knee-high boots came next. She sat on the low bench, drew them on one at a time, and zipped them snug. The red stars on each calf caught the dim light. Standing again, she felt the added height and the way the boots forced her weight forward onto the balls of her feet.

The high-tech gold armbands clicked into place around her upper arms. Last of all she settled the utility belt around her hips, the interlocking metallic stars resting against the curve of her lower abdomen. The weight of the flasks and throwing stars was familiar and steadying.

Kit picked up the crimson domino mask, looked at it for a beat, then pressed it into place.

She turned to the small mirror she kept on the wall and studied her reflection.

The shy, exhausted woman who had stumbled into the unit hours earlier was still there somewhere beneath the mask, but that was no longer what the glass showed. Shoulders back. Chin lifted. The skintight crimson Lycra leaving almost nothing to the imagination: the full, high curve of her breasts strained against the golden star, the narrow waist flared into generous hips, and the firm, rounded shape of her ass was perfectly outlined by the clinging leggings. She looked like every superheroine she had ever idolized in the pages of the comics she had grown up reading.

Beautiful. Confident. Unapologetically sexy.

And, once she drank the Hyperlyte…powerful!

A small, breathless smile touched her lips. For years she had curled up with comic books in the quiet hours after everyone else went to sleep, tracing the panels with her fingertips, dreaming of the women who filled those pages. To be one of them: to stand like that, to move like that, to know the world had to take you seriously because you could make it. Strong enough to stand between the city and whatever darkness came for it. And now, standing here in the dim corridor of a storage unit, she was looking at the dream made real.

Almost.

Kit reached for a fresh star flask of Hyperlyte, thumbed the seal open, and felt the familiar weight of anticipation settle in her chest. In a moment the serum would finish what the costume had started. The last of the soft, uncertain edges would burn away, and Hyper Star would step fully into the night.

She drank.

8

Hyper Star dropped onto the rooftop of the building on Cypress Avenue. The structure was taller than the surrounding tenements, a patchwork of renovations stacked on top of one another over the decades. Newer brickwork sat uneasily atop older foundations. Fire escapes zigzagged down the sides in mismatched styles. From above it looked ordinary, just another aging, mixed-use building in a neglected part of the city.

The heroine suspected it was something more. She moved to the edge, scanned the alley—nothing there—then dropped silently onto one of the fire escape landings. The door there was secured with a modern padlock. She snapped it off easily with a twist and a little boosted strength, then slipped inside.

The upper floors were unremarkable. Almost suspiciously so: Fresh drywall. Fluorescent lights. The faint smell of dust and old carpet. She moved quickly and cautiously down a narrow stairwell toward the lower levels. The deeper she went, the more the construction changed. Dry wall became plaster, plaster gave way to exposed brick. The air grew cooler, damper. The walls began to show seams that were clearly not up to any modern building codes.

It’s almost like walking backwards in time, she thought, then that article on Silas Bennett began flashing through her mind in sharp fragments. Hospital of horrors. Hidden passages. Rooms that locked from the outside. Chutes. Trapdoors. Bennett designed the whole place to kill and dispose. Now it all looks so…ordinary.

She slowed at the bottom of the stairs.

Well…it did.

A long corridor stretched ahead, lit by a single bare bulb. The floorboards were older here, dark, scarred wood that did not belong to this century.

“Yeah, this is freaking creepy,” she mumbled out loud, and started forward, stepping carefully, maximized senses on alert.

Almost immediately her boot came down on a pressure plate with a soft click. Panels on both sides of the corridor snapped open. A rapid thwip-thwip-thwip filled the air as a volley of darts shot toward her. Her enhanced reflexes activated and Hyper Star threw herself into a tight roll as the projectiles hissed past at head level, burying themselves in the opposite wall.

She came up on one knee, eyebrow ached, and reached for the nearest dart. The tip glistened with something dark, viscous, and entirely too familiar. She couldn’t be completely sure, of course, but it was remarkably similar to that black sludge that had so recently marked her skin and filled her mouth.

“Well, I hate this,” she muttered.

Before she could proceed—a  second panel dropped open in the ceiling above her, revealing a rusted iron pipe. It let out a hiss and began pouring thick, yellowish gas into the corridor. The smell hit her fast, chemical sweet and strong.

Hyper Star leapt upward, boosted strength carrying her high enough to seize the pipe with both hands. She twisted hard, crimping the metal shut with a screech of protesting iron. The flow of gas cut off, but a heavy cloud had already filled the air around her. The effects came fast. Her vision swam. The corridor tilted. A thick, cottony pressure settled behind her eyes, and her limbs suddenly felt slowed, like in a dream.

Hyper Star staggered, one hand bracing against the wall as the noxious gas worked its way into her system. She forced herself forward, waving her hands to try and clear the cloud, but there was not really anywhere for it to go. The corridor swam around her, walls seeming to bend in sickening arches, but she maintained her focus; Have to get out of this gas!

She put on a wobbly burst of accelerated speed to reach the far end—but just as she did a massive metal grate slammed down from the ceiling with a thunderous crash, sealing the exit completely!

The impact shook dust from the ancient beams and the heroine staggered to a stop, staring at the heavy iron lattice.

Too slow. The thought cut through the fog with sharp disbelief. I shouldn’t have been too slow. The gas…

It had to be the gas. Her reflexes were blunted, her timing off, abilities slowed or weakened. Hyper Star bared her teeth and seized the grate with both hands. Slow or not, hopefully her boosted strength would tear through century-old iron. She planted her golden heels, braced her shoulders, and began to pull—Then the floor gave way beneath her.

A trapdoor she had never sensed swung open. The grate slipped from her grasp and she plunged into a steep, greased chute with a startled cry. Smooth wooden walls rushed past in a blur of darkness. She tried to slow herself, tried to catch an edge with hands or boots, but the surface offered nothing. The chute twisted once, then again, carrying her deeper into the bones of the old hotel.

She shot out into open air for a heartbeat—

—before slamming into a heavy cargo net suspended in a dark chamber.

The mesh wrapped around her instantly. Rough, tarred rope slid over the thin crimson Lycra of her leggings and crop top as she immediately began to thrash. Hyper Star twisted violently, trying to get a knee under her, trying to find some place she could grip or tear. It was all too slick, she had no purchase, and the net seemed to answer her struggles by coiling around her. Loops slid up her calves and cinched behind her knees. More strands snaked around her thighs, pulling them together, the rough mesh dug at her soft flesh through the skintight fabric. The rope creaked as it drew tight, the Lycra stretched and scraped between the strands.

“No—come on—what!?” Hyper Star kicked harder, hips bucking, as another thick coil tightened across the full curve of her ass.

Even when she wrenched one arm free, it caused three more loops to wind around her upper body. The net dragged her arm back against her side, then crossed her chest, riding up under the swell of her breasts. The golden star on her crop top distorted as the mesh pulled the fabric taut. Another tangle of the net caught her other wrist and yanked it inward until both arms were pinned tight to her ribs.

“How can this—what’s happening?” Hyper Star arched hard, trying to create slack. The motion only drove her deeper. Rope slid across the bare midriff between crop top and leggings, rough and cold against her abdomen. More strands seemed to loop over her shoulders, she felt helpless in the dark, the trap settling fully around her.

The chamber spun slowly or—or maybe she did. Her breathing came fast and shallow against the crushing embrace of the mesh. The gas must still have been thickening her thoughts, blunting the edge of her strength just enough that she could not simply rip through the ropes. She thrashed again, harder this time, the net creaking and biting deeper into the thin Lycra with every desperate twist. Still the ropes refused to give.

What is this? And how is it all still functioning? she thought, the realization cutting through the lingering fog of the gas. None of this…The mechanisms are over a century old. Rust. Decay. Time. It should not be this hard to get out of a freakin’ net…

Then she saw the shadows. Dark shapes slid along the walls and across the floor of the chamber, pooling and stretching with deliberate purpose. They were moving independently of the single weak light source coming from somewhere above.

Hyper Star’s breath caught. She looked down at the net that held her and finally understood. Shadowy tendrils wound through the mesh itself, reinforcing every coil, tightening every tangle turning old cargo netting into something far more dangerous—something that could hold a fully powered superheroine.

And the Black Physician was controlling it.

A low, grating chuckle rolled through the chamber. The shadows at the far end of the room gathered, thickened, and rose. The tall figure stepped forward out of the darkness, tattered robes the color of the void, wide-brimmed hat, and the pale, rune-etched plague mask that had haunted her since the alley.

“Welcome back, little cow,” the Black Physician said, voice echoing inside her skull.

Hyper Star swallowed and clenched her teeth, “Let me out…now—”

The Black Physician raised one black hand and the net answered. Shadowy tendrils and the tarred ropes wound tighter, lifting Hyper Star higher and rotating her slowly in the air until she hung facing him.

“My servants will be pleased to know their maintenance of my hospital has served so well.” As he spoke, cold, formless shadows slid up her ribs and beneath the edges of her crop top, pushing the crimson Lycra upward. The golden star wrinkled and bunched as the fabric was slipped over the trembling curves. “Perhaps I’ll reward them with a taste of your milk.”

Hyper Star thrashed and snarled, “You can’t! I’ve purged my system of your…” She shivered, both at the thought and as cool air kissed the bare skin of her breasts. “…your filth!”

The wide brim of the hat and the beak beneath it tilted as if considering her. “Indeed…” he grated, and then net began to constrict again.

“No!” Hyper Star gasped, straining futilely once more. “Stop this! Let me g-OH!”

Ropes bit deeper into her thighs and waist. The shadow formed dusky hands that cupped her breasts, squeezing and lifting, icy thumbs dragging across her nipples until they stiffened against her will. The bound heroine gasped again as the sensation, both unpleasant and stimulating, swept through her chest.

Another tendril slid down the length of her spine, then lower, tracing the cleft of her ass over the clingy red leggings. Hyper Star jerked hard, trying to twist away…but seeming to only press herself more firmly into the groping darkness. There was now nowhere to turn or thrash or grasp that he was not.

“Such a clever cow,” the Black Physician observed, a hint of amusement in his inhuman voice. “Somehow you have begun to cleanse yourself of defilement.”

It might have been a comforting confirmation for the heroine, had she been free to enjoy it—had not more tendrils immediately slithered around her helpless curves. Coiling around each thigh and pulling them slowly apart. Another caressing the shape of her butt before slipping between her legs to rub firmly along the seam of her Lycra and over her mound. Hyper Star shuddered helplessly feeling the press against her slit over the slick red fabric, already moving in slow, deliberate strokes. Her hips jerked in both protest and unwitting response. A startled, traitorous sound escaped her throat.

No. “No!”

Heat was already blooming low in her belly. Her hyper-libido flared like a match dropped into dry grass. Every cold, invasive touch sent fresh sparks racing across her nerves. She tried to focus on anger, on escape, on anything except the way her nipples ached under the shadows’ attention and the warmth of already growing wetness between her thighs. By then the tendrils of mystic shade had drawn the netting so snug and biding across her curvaceous figure, it was almost a woven bodysuit.

Her crop top was bunched around her collar bones, leaving her voluptuous breasts fully bare, exposed to the coarse ropes and the kneading, pinching, writhing tendrils of darkness. They rolled over her stiff, sensitive peaks, sending trills of cold and arousal through her chest and up over her shoulders. They wrapped the under-curves, pulsating and squeezing the soft, fleshy bulbs. And Hyper Star had to grit her teeth and swallow a moan.

The Black Physician drifted closer. “Your body answers so eagerly,” that unnerving voice seemed to be inside her head, “As if it knows what it was made for.”

It’s the hyper-libido, dammit! Hyper Star shook her head wildly, auburn ponytail whipping against the ropes. “It’s not—that isn’t—I don’t—don’t want—this—!”

The denial sounded weak even to her own ears. She was nearly panting. The tendril between her legs had found a steady rhythm, rubbing her through dampening Lycra with mercilessly steady rhythm. All her powers, the boosted strength, enhanced reflexes, accelerated speed, even her thoughts were being overridden by the hyper-libido. Her hips had begun to move in tiny, involuntary rolls, chasing the friction even as she tried to stop them. Her defiance was still there, but it too was drowning in thick, syrupy lust.

The Black Physician made a low, pleased sound then gestured again. The net and shadows shifted, stretching Hyper Star out until she hung spread-eagle in midair: arms pulled wide, legs forced open, back arched by the tension of the ropes. The position left her completely helpless and displayed. She couldn’t look to see but felt icy fingers tickling along her inner thighs. She shivered and gasped, the sensation triggering sparks all through her hips. She felt the shadows tugging at the crotch of her leggings, then hooking, yanking, tearing! The Lycra split with a soft, silky sound, exposing her bare sex to the cold air of the chamber.

“N-no!” Hyper Star writhed, the motion meant to be resistance but only making her look more desperate—almost offering. “Don’t! Please don’t—”

A shaded tendril immediately pushed through her now defenseless slit. It felt like ice against her flushed wet pussy lips, and the chill raced through her whole body. She could not hold back this time and threw back her head letting out a shrill, helpless moan.

“Such exquisite sounds of fury and surrender,” the Black Physician said as he took position between her forcibly splayed legs. “Perhaps it is a gift to have to defile you twice.”

His shadowy robes parted. From the darkness of his form rose the same black, ethereal phallus she remembered from the alley. It was long, thick, and already glistening with foul sludge. It looked darkly unreal, a spear of living shadow and corruption…and yet, unsettlingly human at the same time.

Hyper Star’s blue eyes widened behind the mask. She knew she should have been repulsed, disgusted, terrified…but instead her stomach tightened in anticipation. She didn’t want this, but the hyper-libido made her anxious for it. She might have tried to close her legs, but the net and tendrils held her open without effort, so she didn’t bother. Her hips, traitorously lifted toward him even as she forced herself to say; “No! Don’t put that in me! You can’t—”

Ignoring her, the Black Physician moved forward between her open thighs, one cold hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. The thick head of his cock notched against her entrance, smearing black sludge across her sensitive folds. It tingled and Hyper Star’s breath hitched. Her body clenched in raw, conflicted panic, then relaxed and opened in involuntary willingness.

“Please—” With the hyper-libido singing in her ears, Hyper Star couldn’t even be sure what she was pleading for now.

The eerie cock thrust in, one ruthless stroke to the hilt.

Her world short-circuited.

Thick, freezing fullness slammed deep into her, stretching her open, flooding her with the Black Physician’s corruption in a single brutal invasion. The hyper-libido detonated. Pleasure—violent, unwanted, overwhelming—ripped through every nerve. Hyper Star’s back arched hard against the net, a broken cry tearing from her throat as her pussy convulsed around the intruding length in a sudden, helpless orgasm.

“Oh my fucking gawd!” she cried out in bleary shock and unwanted ecstasy.

“Yes. I am.” The Black Physician did not give her time to recover. He drew back and slammed into her again!

Hyper Star screamed for him, the sound high and broken as the thick, freezing length of his ethereal cock stretched her open with every brutal stroke. Black sludge slicked her inner walls, cold and wrong, yet the hyper-libido twisted the violation into something her body craved, fresh waves of unwanted pleasure tearing through her.

Shadowy tendrils rejoined the assault with cruel enthusiasm, coiled around her bare breasts, squeezing and lifting them in rhythm. The shadowed thumbs rolling and pinching her stiff nipples until they throbbed. More tendrils slid over every curve, tracing her waist, gripping the soft undersides of her thighs, stroking the sensitive skin of her inner arms where the net held her spread. One particularly thick coil wrapped her throat, not choking, just a cruel reminder of how completely she was held…how completely she was surrendering…

“Look at you,” the Black Physician grated, voice thick with triumph as he fucked her in long, punishing thrusts. “The noble little cow, dripping and shaking on her Master’s cock. Your body knows its place even if your mind still pretends to deny it.”

Hyper Star tried to form words of defiance. All that came out were gasps and hapless moans. The hyper-libido rose and ebbed like a tide she had no hope of holding back. Every cold thrust, every squeeze of her breasts, every sliding caress of the shadows fed it. Thought frayed. Resistance thinned. Her hips met his strokes, lifting into each invasion as if begging for more.

She came a second time with a shattered scream, pussy clamping hard around that strange invading length. Her own juices mixed with the black sludge already coating her stretched lips and quivering thighs.

The Black Physician laughed and the sound echoed inside her head. Kit heard it, or felt it…barely. Woozy from two orgasms she could hardly think clearly but even worse…the darkness was creeping through her brain now. Not just the hyper-libido—not just the overwhelming sexual sensations—not just the terror of being bound and raped by this cruel demonic being—it was like her skull was filling with that black sludge.

“This time you will swear to me,” he demanded, never slowing his pace. “Swear your obedience. Submit yourself to my ministrations. You will call me Master, and count yourself fortunate to be under my care.”

Hyper Star’s head tossed against the net, and Kit felt the surrender deepen. Not just the unwilling physical surrender usually triggered by hyper-libido (dangerous as that could be), this was like being changed…with each of his words—each of his stokes—more of that sludge seemed to flood her mind until the last scraps of defiance flickered…and then drowned.

“I—I’m yours,” she choked out. “I swear…obedience…subservience…please—” The words tumbled from her in a broken rush, she wasn’t sure if she meant them but she needed to say them. Desperately. “Please defile me again, please, Master…fill me…use me…ruin me…”

“Good cow.”

Shadowy tendrils forced her mouth open. They slid past her lips, over her tongue, and thickened rapidly inside her throat, forming a second spectral phallus that stretched her jaws wide. Hyper Star gagged hard around the sudden intrusion, then the hyper-libido rewrote even that sensation. Her throat relaxed. She began to suck. Thirstily.

The Black Physician fucked her from both ends without mercy.

The cold cock in her pussy drove deep and steady, while the shadow phallus in her throat thrust in matching rhythm. Behind the crimson mask, her blue eyes rolled. Another orgasm crashed through her almost immediately, her body seizing and trembling in the net as pleasure overwhelmed what little coherent thought remained. She sucked greedily. She rocked her hips to meet every ruinous thrust. She—or the Hyper-libido—or the defilement of her soul—gave every part of herself over to her dark Master without reservation.

Time blurred into pure, filthy sensation.

When the Black Physician finally climaxed—or whatever—he did so with a guttural, triumphant roar. Thick, putrid black sludge erupted from both ethereal cocks at once, flooding her throat and her cunt in heavy pulses.

Hyper Star swallowed convulsively around the length in her mouth, gulping down as much as she could even as excess spilled from the corners of her lips in dark rivulets. Below, her pussy milked the invading cock in helpless, rhythmic spasms, drawing the corruption deeper, pulling it into her womb as if her body itself were hungry for the defilement.

She took it all. Moaning and gurgling in pleasure and surrender and gratitude. And when both spectral cocks were spent, they withdrew slowly, and the netting loosened.

Hyper Star dropped to the cold stone floor in a heap, coughing, shaking…defiled.

She did not try to rise at first, crumpled on the cold stone, body still twitching with aftershocks. Thick black sludge continued to seep from her well-used pussy, each fresh trickle sending another shiver of corrupted pleasure through her core. The torn remnants of her crimson costume clung in sticky, ruined scraps. She could feel the corruption still warm and heavy inside her womb, a cold, oily fullness that made her hips shift restlessly against the floor. A broken little sound escaped her as the sensation dragged another weak aftershock through her. Her thighs clenched.

Finally, she pushed herself up onto her knees with shaking arms, head hanging forward, auburn ponytail limp and sticky against her neck. Black trails ran from the corners of her mouth, down her chin, and painted glistening paths over the full curves of her bare breasts.

She stared at the dark wetness coating her skin.

Slowly, almost dreamily, she lifted one hand and dragged her fingers through a thick streak on her left breast. The sludge was oily, tar-like, clinging to her skin. She swirled it around her nipple in slow circles, watching the stiff peak glisten darker. Another soft, mindless sound left her throat. She did the same to the other breast, coating both nipples thoroughly, pinching and rolling them through the filth until they ached.

Then her hand drifted lower.

She spread her knees wider on the stone and pressed her fingers between her thighs, gathering the sludge that continued to ooze from her stretched, fluttering cunt. She rubbed it over her swollen folds in lazy, circular strokes, pushing some of it back inside herself with two fingers as she could not bear to let any escape or go to waste. She brought her coated fingers up and licked them clean, sucking slowly, savoring the bitter, oily taste that had once made her gag. Now it only made her shiver with corrupt pleasure.

“Disrobe.” The Black Physician’s voice rolled over her like a command carved into her bones.

Hyper Star obeyed instantly, peeling the ruined crop top the rest of the way off and casting it aside. The torn leggings followed, crimson Lycra sliding down her sticky thighs. Boots. Armbands. The utility belt with its sharpened stars and flasks. Everything. She removed every last piece of the costume she had once worn with pride, discarding the symbols of the heroine she had been until she was completely naked in the dark chamber—skin marked, body leaking, mind broken open and filled with him. With…Master.

“Kneel.”

She did.

Then she crawled.

On hands and knees, naked and subservient, Hyper Star crossed the cold stone toward the towering figure. Murky slime dripped from her dangling breasts and from between her thighs with every slow movement. When she reached him, she sank down fully, forehead pressing to the floor at his feet (or the shadowed place where feet should have been). Her bare ass remained raised, pussy still slowly weeping his corruption. She stayed there, trembling, worshipping in absolute defeat.

“Master,” she whispered, voice hoarse, ruined, and utterly sincere. “I am yours. Your hapless cow. Completely. Forever. Command me. Use me. Defile me again. I exist only to serve. Please… defile your cow further.”

She remained, bowing low, naked and dripping, the last fragments of any supposed heroism drowned beneath the heavy, ecstatic weight of her corruption. She waited in perfect, broken obedience for whatever the Black Physician desired next.

9

The fog receded slowly.

Not a clean awakening, but a gradual, sticky thinning. The effects of the Hyperlyte had drained away. The roaring tide of the hyper-libido receded, leaving behind something colder and far more unsettling.

Kit became aware of her body first. She was naked. Completely. Her wrists were chained high above her head, manacles bolted to a rough stone wall. Her ankles were likewise secured, forcing her to stand upright with her back against the cold rock, body stretched out and fully displayed. Every shift made the chains clink softly. Black sludge still coated her inner thighs. More of it had dried in streaks down her breasts and stomach. And though she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, it felt as though fresh residue still continued to seep from between her legs.

And that taste…that bitter, repulsive, oily taste…coated every inch of her mouth, sitting heaviest on her tongue.

The chamber was a dim, subterranean hall of ancient brick and blackened stone. Heavy wooden beams, dark with age and tar, crossed the ceiling. The walls were lined with rusted iron rings and manacles; dried black stains ran down the masonry in long, sinister trails. Iron braziers and a handful of sputtering oil lamps provided the only light, casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to move even when the flames did not. The air was thick, cold, and heavy with the reek of old smoke, wet stone, and the unmistakable bitter-tar stench of the Black Physician’s corruption.

Or maybe that was just…her.

This must have been part of Silas Bennett’s original hotel, Kit’s thoughts came thickly, as if pushing through oil. Some sort of…worship hall? Torture chamber? Likely both…

To her right, similarly bound and equally naked, was Nadine. The blonde’s head rested limply against the wall, eyes half-lidded, a small, peaceful smile on her stained lips. She was watching Kit, but there was no intent, disdain, or…anything…behind her expression.

Between them stood a low, roughly hewn stone altar, nearly the length and breadth of an operating table. Its surface was scarred with deep grooves and gouges, some of which glistened wetly, while others were stained a dark, rusty brown that seemed to have seeped into the stone itself. It had the dreadful appearance of a surgeon’s table upon which a century of unspeakable operations had been performed, and where the blood had never quite washed away.

And resting upon it, like an object of worship, sat the rune-etched plague mask.

Master.

The idea rose in her mind unbidden and unwelcome, but urgent, certain. Kit thought she should be angry, disgusted, instead; I belong to him. It is an honor to be so dishonored—

She grit her teeth and forced the thought down. The effort made her head throb. I am not- I am not—not …oh gosh…why can’t I even—

“N-N—Nadine…?” Her voice was hoarse, almost meek. She needed to distract herself, focus on something to get her bearings.

The other woman’s soft, dreamy smile widened. “You’re awake. Good. Master will be pleased his newest cow is recovering.”

A wave of corrupt pleasure rolled through Kit’s chest at being called “cow.” Her bound body arched slightly against the wall before she could stop it. She looked down at herself, at the bare, heavy curves of her breasts, the dark trails that painted her skin, and for a moment the sight filled her with a deep, shivering pride.

Yes. Look how well I take his filth. Look how he has defiled me.

The rational part of her mind recoiled hard. No. That is not me. Fight it.

“Don’t… don’t call me that. We’re not—”

“Cows?” Nadine’s expression remained soft. “Oh but we are! Soon you’ll feel it. Your udders are already filling with his putrid milk, just like mine…” She arched her back, proudly presenting her large, heavy breasts, beads of something dark and murky quivering at her swollen nipples.

Kit felt a pang of envy—what? No, she tried to push the feeling down. No way, gross! But when she shifted uneasily, and felt the heavy sway of her own chest, she looked down again. This time she realized her breasts looked bigger than normal, swollen. And that tenderness had returned. Even worse, now they felt tight, and flushed, and…full.

“No,” Kit whimpered, “it can’t be—”

“Yes,” Nadine said. “Soon we will be milked for his black communion. His followers will all drink of our defilement. There is nothing more meaningful.”

The words slid into Kit’s head like warm oil, too welcome. A low, traitorous heat stirred between her legs. She dragged in a shaky breath and tried to will her head to clear…instead the rise of her chest made the sensation in her breasts harder to ignore. An ache gathered at the tips, not pain exactly, but an insistent pressure behind her nipples.

Kit squirmed uncomfortably, swallowing a whimper.

Nadine watched her with gentle, glassy eyes. “It’s easier if you stop resisting,” she said softly. “It is a great dishonor to become his vessels…to serve him with our bodies and our surrender.”

Kit felt the words try to settle into her like truth. The defilement was stronger now, deeper than that first dose of sludge after the alley. It clawed constantly at the edges of her thoughts, whispering devotion, obedience, the sweet relief of simply giving in.

No! That is not me. Her rational mind—battered, exhausted, but still present—slammed against the cognitive invasion. This is the corruption. Kit turned the thought over, trying to test it the way she tested a hypothesis. The Purge Lyse. Maybe that’s the reason I still have a foothold. The full, mindless submission in the net… that was the hyper-libido. Chemical amplification. Overload. Without that, the defilement alone hasn’t been able to erase me completely.

She glanced at Nadine, now smiling at the mask on the altar. Kit saw the complete absence of self behind her chillingly calm eyes.

But Nadine had no such protection. No Hyperlyte. No counter-serum. Just the sludge, and time, and whatever else Master’s done to her. If I’m right, that’s why she’s already gone. And if I don’t do something quick, a cold spike of fear cut through her head, that is what I will become. Exactly like her. Peaceful, empty, and utterly owned. There would be no more Kit Brookes. No more Hyper Star. Only another smiling cow.

Kit swallowed against the residual tar taste and forced her voice to steady.

“You’re not yourself, Nadine. We’re not ourselves. This thing is trying to control us. We have to fight it. There has to be a way…”

“There is not.” A voice that was not quite sound began to unfurl inside Kit’s skull, deep and gratingly familiar; “There is no escape.”

Kit closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the manacles dig into her wrists, another slow leak of sludge down one thigh, and the constant, oily pressure of the defilement trying to rewrite her from the inside. She held on to the small, hard core of herself that the counter-serum had preserved, and began, desperately, to think. To analyze. To do what she did best—

 “Look at me, little cow.”

Against her will, Kit’s gaze snapped to the mask resting on the altar. The bone-colored beak, the etched runes, those gaping empty eye holes… they seemed to pull at something deep behind her sternum. She tried to look away, but couldn’t make herself. She felt the Black Physician’s presence slide into the cracks within her mind which the defilement seemed to hold open.

“Get out of my head,” Kit whispered.

“You already swore yourself to me,” the presence seemed to whisper. “You cannot resist your Master.”

Kit’s breath hitched. Her bound body arched slightly against the wall as a fresh wave of corrupt longing rolled through her. For a moment the chains, the cold stone, even Nadine beside her, all faded. There was only the mask and those deep, black eye holes pulling her in.

She fought the only way she knew how, clinging to the habit that had always defined her. Break it down. The sensation must be a neurochemical cascade triggered by residual binding agents in the sludge. The sense of presence is likely a psychosomatic projection reinforced by repeated exposure. The emotional pull is an artificial reward response. It is not magic. It can’t be. I can fight this.

She forced her eyes away, staring hard at the opposite wall, counting the cracks in the stone, reciting molecular weights under her breath, anything to keep her analytic mind occupied and grounded.

“Such a clever little cow.”

It was not enough.

“Silas was like you once,” the Black Physician’s voice and presence simply flowed around her mental resistance like water around a stone. “So certain his mind, his intellect could bend this universe to his will. And he too was consumed by something more powerful…As you have been. You already swore yourself, body and will. Why do you still pretend there is a separate self left to fight with?”

“Because there is!” Kit insisted, though her defiance already sounded more like an apology. “There has to be! I won’t let you—”

The Black Physician’s will pressed down like a vast, cold hand and simply took her. One moment Kit was still fighting…the next her thoughts went soft and distant. Her eyes unfocused, still locked on the mask, and her mouth flooded without warning. Thick, bitter sludge welled up from nowhere, coating her tongue, filling her cheeks. The taste was the same grit and tar she had learned to hate, and suddenly, horrifyingly, to crave. Kit’s throat spasmed. For one last fractured second she tried to hold it, to spit it out, to reject this putrid communion.

“Swallow it cow!”

Not a suggestion. Not a temptation. An order from her Master. It was law. Her powerful, analytical mind—the same intellect that had created the Hyperlyte, that had formulated the Purge Lyse, that had always been her sharpest weapon—folded under the order.

Kit’s eyes fluttered.

She swallowed.

The sludge slid down her throat in a slow, reverent gulp. A full-body shudder rolled through her as it settled. Her head drooped forward, eyes never leaving the mask. When she spoke, the words came soft, hoarse, and utterly sincere.

“I am sorry, Master,” she whispered. “I am yours. Forgive this silly cow. You are the darkness that claims. I am only a vessel…only a cow…made to be filled and used for your will.”

As oily devotion slid further into her thoughts, the ache in her breasts surged. The fullness was no longer a distant pressure, it became a low, demanding throb, gathering and tightening within the lush bulbs of flesh. She could feel the weight of it now, heavy and restless, the urgent twinge behind her swollen nipples.

“Yes,” the Black Physician’s voice rolled through her and her pussy answered with a twinge of delight. “That is your place. You were never meant to stand against the dark. You were meant to kneel in it. To open for it. Your body was shaped to carry my corruption—your lovely breasts to swell and leak for me, your cunt to take my filth and hold it deep, your mouth to drink and to praise. Every drop you swallow, every climax you surrender, every word of devotion you speak feeds me. That is the dishonor I have given you. Filthy. Perfect. Defiled.”

Kit’s eyes remained locked on the mask. The runes seemed to shift in the low light. Her chained body arched again and she answered, “Yes, Master. I understand,” there was no hesitation left in her voice, only soft, broken reverence. “My body is your vessel. I am your cow… your filthy, devoted cow…”

A soft, almost loving pressure brushed across her thoughts: approval, possession, the heavy satisfaction of a king accepting tribute. Kit shivered hard against the manacles, thighs pressing together as fresh sludge seeped from her as if in answer, and she continued to stare at the mask with open, worshipful hunger.

Beside her, Nadine made a quiet, almost tender sound of approval. “Yes, isn’t it better when you stop fighting?”

Kit turned her head, and their eyes met, glassy with the same ruined devotion. There was no need for words and before either even could have spoken again, that sludge spilled over their tongues, coating their teeth, cool and gritty, until both mouths were full. Their cheeks bulged. For a second neither of the defiled women swallowed. Not in defiance this time but in reverence…savoring their own desecration.

Kit’s powerfully rational mind was still present, still functioning, but powerless before something that refused rationalization. Something that made her crave the Black Physician’s corruption. Despite her intellect, despite her heroic bearing, despite her disgust and terror—she wanted it. And her brilliant mind could do little more than bear witness to what he was making of her.

Nadine gave the smallest smile and Kit’s lashes fluttered in answer. Thin black threads leaked from the corners of their mouths, running down their chins, while their tongues delighted in the rancid taste of the foul sludge. Then, together, they tipped their heads back against the wall and gulped, swallowing the poison of their Master like a cruel sacrament.

10

Heavy doors at the far end of the chamber groaned open. A procession of dark figures began to file in. They were wearing ragged brown robes, same as those worn by the men Kit had encountered that first night in the alley. The hoods were drawn up, faces half-hidden in shadow. All except for the man leading them.

Kit’s gaze caught on him as the cultists filed in, and the recognition landed cold. Walter Keene. The curator. The man who had spoken so carefully in the museum. The neat academic was gone now. He stood at the head of the procession, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, and when his eyes landed on Kit—Those eyes! She knew them, had seen them glinting from the depths of the plague mask while the shadows held her.

She should have hated him. Should have felt nothing but disgust and rage that the polite curator had been the vessel all along. Instead a strange, dark recognition passed between them—quiet, almost intimate. A shared understanding of hierarchy. He was not the Master, but…He was the one who carried the mask, who spoke the rites, who stood between the congregation and the thing they served.

Meeting those eyes, Kit felt an unwelcome pull of gratitude. Of reverence. As if some part of her, a part already marked and claimed, recognized the profane priest who had helped deliver her to the altar and she was, in some twisted way, relieved.

The feeling sat wrong in her chest. She did not push it away.

Mick was there too, lumbering near the middle of the group, along with the other janitors. Their shadowed expressions were slack with the same glassy reverence she had seen in Nadine…and that they now, presumably, saw in Kit.

Walter stopped before the altar. When he spoke, his voice carried a hollow, ritual cadence.

“The Master has been generous,” he intoned. “He has brought us a new cow. Fresh. Strong.”

A low murmur of approval moved through the cultists. Some bowed their heads. Others simply stared at Kit with hungry, worshipful eyes. The sound of their collective reverence slid under her skin. Despite the revulsion twisting at the far back of her mind, a treacherous swell of pride and excitement rose in answer.

A fresh swell of pressure gathered behind Kit’s nipples, they twinged sharper this time, the sensation tightening into something even more insistent, an urgent throb that made her shift against the manacles. She could feel the restless pressing weight of it now, as if her body had registered the attention of the congregation, and answered it by demanding a release.

Release of what…she tried not to wonder as Walter continued, gesturing toward the two chained women.

“Tonight we take black communion from the vessels our Master has prepared. It is our honor to drink what they produce in his name. To share in the filth that elevates. To remember that we are nothing without his corruption.”

He turned fully toward Kit and Nadine.

“Cows, let the congregation hear your devotion.”

Kit’s breath caught. For one precious instant, she remembered herself. She clenched her jaw against the words rising in her throat, holding fast to the knowledge that she was Hyper Star, that she—Then the command reached her, and her resistance faltered almost before it had begun. The last thin barrier of the Purge Lyse strained against the invading will—and failed. An impossible reverence flooded into the breach, carrying the words of a dark prayer she suddenly knew by heart.

Beside her, Nadine lifted her head and together, they spoke.

“All praise to our Master. He has claimed us. He has remade us. Our corruption shall provide his communion.”

And as she spoke them, Kit found herself believing the very words she had meant to refuse.

Four cultists stepped forward, approaching the bound women. Two carried large, tarnished silver goblets, already stained black from previous use. When the man who stopped in front of Kit pushed back his hood, it was of course, Mick. The same thick-fingered janitor whose life she had begged their Master to spare…even after he had pinned her down in that boiler room and tit-fucked her against her will.

Kit’s stomach should have turned—should have felt only revulsion. She still remembered the weight of him, the roughness of his hands, but when his eyes met hers, she felt a shameful kinship instead. They had now both been claimed by the same darkness.

They now both belonged to the Black Physician.

And so Kit leaned towards the janitor, arching her back to present her heavy, swollen breasts to that same rough grasp. Mick’s eyes dropped, not leering this time but taking in the stained curves as a sacred offering. When he cupped them, it was with careful reverence, palms sliding under the outer swell, thumbs settling just outside the areolae, and lifting until the full weight rested in his hands.

The contact alone made Kit gasp. Even that first, gentle support sent a low, taut throb through the tissue. Her nipples already tight and stiff, twinged against the air, the skin around them flushed and sensitive. A shiver ran through her chest and down her ribs. He stroked the undercurves once, then again, testing the give of the flesh and gathering the weight of each breast fully in his palms.

Kit breathed a little easier, despite noting with sickened clarity; This is the same man who assaulted me… Her back arched another fraction before she could stop it, pushing more of herself into the supportive cradle of his hands.

Keene spoke again before she could examine the situation further, “Now, gather the profane sacramental.”

Mick’s fingers closed all at once. He set his grip high and wide, thumbs on the outer curves, fingers sinking into the softer underside until the flesh dimpled and the pressure inside Kit’s breasts jumped—dense, hot, pressing back against his palms as if it had been waiting for exactly this.

She whined, high and sharp, hips jerking involuntarily. The sensation was too big for the careful touch, a heavy, aching resistance that made her stomach tighten and her breath catch halfway out.

He began to knead. Slow. Firm. Each compression started at the base and rolled upward. Kit felt the fullness surge outward against his palms, the skin tightening, the ache sharpening into something that bordered on pain—a deep, almost bruised ache behind her nipples; then a sharper pull that traveled down through her ribs and into the low center of her belly. Her thighs clenched. She tried to stay rigid, to keep her shoulders back and her chest still, but the next squeeze forced a small, helpless shudder. The manacles rattled as her shoulders jerked.

When he added short tugs at the end of each stroke, pinching the stiff nipples and drawing them downward, the pressure inside her spiked. The fullness felt enormous now, hot and heavy, throbbing against the insides of her breasts with every heartbeat. The rhythm settled into her body. Each squeeze sent a fresh pulse of heat low in her belly; each pull on her nipples made her clit pulse in sympathy.

She squirmed against the wall, not trying to escape just unable to stay still while the sensation became more than she could stand. Little involuntary sounds kept escaping her—sharp gasps and pitiful whines she couldn’t swallow.

Mick cooed and hummed to her gently, the way a farmer might with a skittish cow…Kit hated how soothing it was.

But he worked her harder. Both hands compressing from the base, rolling the heavy flesh forward, then pulling her stiff nipples in demanding strokes that ended in a firm twist. Each squeeze changed the shape of the ache—first a deep throb, then a hot, stretched pressure that made her nipples feel raw and overfull, then a low, coiling pull in her belly that made her thighs shake. She could feel the milk moving now, a slow, thick shift inside her, answering the pressure.

Kit’s breath hitched hard.

Mick cooed again and set his hands lower, fingers digging into the underside, palms squeezing the outer swell, forcing everything forward. The pressure crested. Kit’s stomach went tight. Her breath locked, toes curling against the stone. For one suspended second the ache became a hot, liquid weight that had nowhere left to go and she was certain something inside her was going to rupture—Then a thick, dark bead forced itself free of her left nipple with a sudden, wet give. It hung, heavy and black, then dropped in a slow, viscous line into the goblet.

After that the pressure tore free in a sudden, continuous stream and Kit’s mouth fell open on a ragged moan. Relief crashed through her so hard her vision blurred. Her hips bucked. Her knees gave. Luckily the chains binding her wrists over her head kept her upright.

Mick’s hands were already working harder, twisting and pulling, forcing the flow to keep coming, and every fresh gush sent another sharp, helpless spark straight down between her legs.

“Good girl,” Mick hummed and Kit moaned in response without thinking.

“She has given first milk!” Keene cried and the congregation broke into applause.

Kit felt a swell of pride, which she hated. He is now forcibly expressing an induced, chemically altered lactation product from my body in a profound violation of—

Mick began milking her in earnest, continuing to murmur low-throated encouragements. Both hands worked her now, one then the other, a steady alternating pull that never quite let the pressure drop.

—Oh gawd, why does this feel so good! Don’t stop, please, don’t stop!

His left hand closed around the outer swell of her right breast, fingers sinking deep at the base, and drew downward in a long, firm stroke that ended in a short, twisting tug at the nipple. A thick pulse of black milk squirted free, hot and sudden, arcing into the goblet. Before the stream could finish, his right hand repeated the motion on the other side—same deep grip, same downward draw, same sharp little twist—and another jet followed. Left. Right. Left again. The rhythm settled into something rhythmic and practiced, the way a farmer would strip a cow that had already learned to let down.

Kit moaned on every pull. The fullness didn’t stay still under his hands; it shifted and answered, a heavy internal give that made her nipples feel stretched and raw even as the ache eased. Each stroke forced a fresh spurt—sometimes a thin, continuous thread, sometimes a thicker, darker jet that splattered into the cup. The wet sounds were constant, soft and obscene in the quiet chamber. She could feel the milk moving inside her with every tug, a steady drain that traveled from the dense weight at the base of each breast, through the tight peaks, and out.

Her thighs flexed and released without her say. Her stomach pulled tight. Heat kept gathering low, sharp and unwanted, every time the next stroke landed and the next squirt answered.

Despite everything the last analytical corner of her mind kept counting—left breast, right breast, the way his thumbs pressed just behind the nipples on the final pull, the way the black milk ran in twin rivulets. And she understood exactly what she looked like: chained, naked, her heavy breasts being drawn down and stripped in alternating rhythm like udders, each stroke forcing another helpless jet while a room full of cultists watched.

The humiliation sat thick in her throat—or, it should have—I’m supposed to be Hyper Star, a superheroine, I’m supposed to stand against monsters like this, and protect people from these horrors…

Instead she had now become a spectacle of the very evil she had sworn to defeat— My body is producing a foreign, corrupted substance on command, the last analytical corner of her mind recorded. I should be revolted beyond capacity.

And she was revolted.

And she was also pushing her chest forward into Mick’s hands, chasing the next squeeze because the relief of the release was already stronger than the shame. The pressure that had felt like it might split her open was draining in steady, forced pulses, and her body kept offering more of it every time he tugged.

Mick hummed low in his throat, the same steady sound that soothed her and kept her in rhythm. Left. Right. Each downward stroke ended in that short twist, and each twist dragged another squirt free.

Kit’s breathing went ragged. A few thin black drips ran down the undersides of her breast and onto her stomach. They almost tickled. She hated how good the drain felt. She hated that her hips kept twitching in time with the pulls. She hated, most of all, that some ruined part of her was starting to settle into the rhythm—shoulders dropping, back bowing, breath hitching only when the next stroke came and the next jet answered— the way, no doubt, livestock settles, because the ache was worse than the humiliation of being milked.

Beside her Nadine was just as lost, or more so it seemed, moaning praise while her own milker drained her breasts with similar thoroughness.

Mick’s grip tightened again, rolling hard from the base, and another thick pulse of black milk answered. Kit moaned, low and broken, and without intending to, her gaze drifted past him to the mask on the altar. Something stirred behind it. She felt the Black Physician’s attention settle on her with approval, satisfaction, and ownership.

To Kit’s horror, something inside her lifted to meet it. A profane flicker of pride, ugly and warm, answering the fact that he was watching her give. Savoring her utter corruption. She still understood she should be ashamed. The feeling remained anyway: a profane satisfaction that her Master regarded this—her body answering, the vile milk running, the way she arched into the hands that forced it from her—as a triumph.

You deserve it, Master…enjoy your victory. Enjoy my defeat…

Mick gave Kit’s breasts several painfully rough, but final, compressions, stripping every last thick pulse of black milk he could force into the goblet. When he finally stepped back, the tarnished cup was nearly full of the dark, murky, slightly iridescent substance.

Kit hung in her chains, chest rising and falling, a soft, entranced smile touching her stained lips as she looked down at her own thoroughly milked breasts—flushed, glistening, streaked with black, dark nipples chaffed and raw.

The last protected fragment of her intellect was still present, still cataloguing the violation in distant horror.

But it had been pushed very, very far back.

The new cow had given well for her Master.

11

Around the chamber the cultists were taking their black communion.

The tarnished goblets moved from hand to hand. Each robed figure drank deeply of the defiled milk, some closing their eyes in visible pleasure, others murmuring low words of devoted dishonor.

Kit hung in the manacles, drained and trembling. Her breasts ached with hollow soreness. A few beads of that murky fluid still clung to her nipples or ran in thin trails down the soft undersides. The front of her body was streaked and shining. She felt used in every possible way, emptied out, displayed, corrupted.

When the goblet that held her milk passed nearby, cultists slurping at it with reverent greed, Kit felt a fresh, unwanted surge of pride roll through her chest. I produced that. I fed them. The defilement inside her purred at the sight. My corruption is their communion…there is nothing more meaningful. She was no longer sure if it was her Master speaking into her mind again, or her own corrupted thoughts, or just the memory of Nadine’s earlier words…but it felt horrifyingly true. Meaningful. And she could not push the feeling down.

The humiliation of hanging naked and freshly milked while the Black Physician’s followers drank that foul substance her body had been forced to produce should have inspired pure revulsion. Instead, it tangled with that corrupt sense of fulfillment.

Walter Keene moved towards Nadine. He stopped before the blonde, studying her with the solemn satisfaction of a priest inspecting an offering. One thin hand rose to brush a streak of black milk from her lower lip with almost tender care.

“You have given well, cow,” he said, loud enough for the chamber to hear. “The Master is pleased with his vessel.”

Nadine’s glassy eyes shone with quiet happiness. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Then he turned to Kit. “And you, Hyper Star. So heroic. So noble. Yet here you stand among the Master’s faithful.”

His words sank into her with a terrible warmth. Kit felt herself straighten beneath his attention, an involuntary flicker of pride rising through the shame that still haunted the protected corners of her mind.

“The communion is complete,” Walter declared, turning toward the congregation. “Bring the cows before the altar.”

Another cultist approached each of the women. Metal rattled as they unlocked Nadine’s restraints, then Kit’s. She nearly collapsed when her arms were lowered. Her legs trembled beneath her, and she caught herself against the stone.

For an instant she understood the opportunity. Her hands were free! She could move! But the impulse to flee seemed strangely distant.

Keene stepped before the altar, raising his hands for silence. “There remains one final offering,” he announced. “Our newest cow has surrendered herself to the Master. But the heroic image she once embodied has not yet been properly…defiled.”

He reached into the voluminous folds of his ragged brown robe and withdrew a familiar bundle of crimson fabric. He laid the torn Lycra upon the altar, then produced her utility belt, the band of interlocking gold stars.  He set it beside the ruined uniform before the congregation, a heap of lost hope.

Kit’s eyes widened. My costume? My gear!

“Behold the instruments of her former arrogance,” he proclaimed. “The trappings of a woman who imagined herself powerful enough to defy our Master.”

A low murmur passed through the chamber. It seemed uneasy, even confused.

“Tonight, she shall prove her devotion by renouncing these false symbols of power. Hyper Star will prove her defilement by destroying the last remnants of her heroic identity.”

Kit stared at the altar. Her inventions. The tools she had designed and perfected through painstaking work. Now, looking at them arranged like sacrificial offerings, she felt a dreadful acceptance. She had been defeated by the Black Physician, defiled, claimed and corrupted. It was fitting she be the one to destroy the implements of her foolish heroism.

An uneasiness stirred beneath the reverence, a part of her mind still pushing back. But it could not quite seem to break through.

“Come, vessel. The Black Physician awaits your final dishonor.” Keene approached and took her gently by the elbow. Kit swayed as he guided her toward the altar, her exhausted legs struggling to support her weight.

Then his grip tightened.

“Don’t look at me but listen.” he whispered, scarcely moving his lips. “When we reach the altar, you have to grab your equipment and do…something. Get us out of here. It’s our only chance.”

Kit blinked, struggling to follow the sudden change in his voice. “Our—huh?”

His ceremonial composure was gone, replaced by something frightened and urgent. “We’re all trapped here,” he breathed. “None of us can fight him. But you can. Please, Hyper Star. Help us.”

Kit looked toward the golden belt. For an instant, her brilliant mind seized upon the opportunity. The Hyperlyte. The Purge Lyse. Her equipment. A chance to recover her strength, to fight back, to escape this nightmare.

He brought it for me? she realized, hope flaring in her chest. And then, horribly, she felt it falter. Because Keene wasn’t merely offering her freedom. He was asking her to betray the Black Physician.

To betray her Master.

The realization struck with a force that frightened her. She knew what the Black Physician could do to her—had done to her. How thoroughly he had violated her body and corrupted her mind. She could barely remember the woman who would have fought him. And now the thought of defying him filled her with an almost unbearable dread. Worse, the thought of disappointing him…hurt.

Kit’s lips parted. She wanted to tell Keene to stop. To take the belt away. To stop tempting her with a freedom that some terrible, remade part of her no longer wanted.

NO! the rational part of her mind screamed desperately. This is my chance. I have to take it.

But another thought rose to meet it, intimate and appalling in its sincerity.

But I belong to him. I swore myself—

Her rational mind recoiled. She recognized that thought as something the Black Physician had planted inside her. She understood that the devotion was unnatural, that the longing for his approval was another symptom of her corruption. But that understanding changed nothing. Beneath her horror, beneath the last desperate objections of her old self, she could already imagine the Black Physician’s approval when he learned what she had done. What a clever obedient cow I am.

She wanted that approval more than she wanted help. More, in that terrible moment, than she wanted her freedom.

The Master must know.

She turned toward the congregation.

“Walter is a traitor!” Her voice rang out clear, carrying easily through the chamber.

Keene stopped dead.

“He brought my equipment so I could escape,” Kit confessed with the terrible sincerity of someone performing a sacred duty. “He wants me to turn against our Master.”

For one heartbeat, the chamber fell utterly silent.

Then a voice thundered across the chamber.

“SEIZE THE TRAITOR!” It was Mick.

The congregation erupted.

Half a dozen cultists descended upon Keene. Someone struck him across the face, sending him staggering into the waiting grasp of another. Hands seized his arms, wrenched them behind his back. His protests vanished beneath a chorus of furious accusations.

“Blasphemer!”

“Traitor!”

“An offering for the Master!”

Mick watched with grim satisfaction as Walter Keene was dragged toward the altar. Then he turned to Kit.

“Well done, cow.”

The words sent an awful little thrill through her. The janitor approached, his heavy footsteps deliberate, and placed one broad hand upon the crown of her head. Kit bowed slightly, leaning in as he stroked her hair with casual approval.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

Kit stood motionless beneath his hand. He was petting her. The brute who had pinned her down and assaulted her was now praising her like an obedient creature. The brilliant woman who had made herself into Regent City’s superpowered protectress was no more than livestock in her Master’s service.

Kit’s eyes drifted toward the plague mask resting upon the altar. The Black Physician would be pleased. He’ll know what I did. The thought filled her with a terrible, almost childlike anticipation. She had been useful. Faithful. She had recognized a threat to her Master and exposed it without hesitation.

Mick gave her head one final, proprietary pat. “That’s what the Master wants from his cows,” he said. “Obedience. Remember that.”

“Yes,” Kit whispered. The answer escaping before she could stop it.

“That’s a good girl,” Mick grinned, then turned away, leaving Kit standing beside the altar, trembling beneath the lingering warmth of his approval.

A sharp cry interrupted her thoughts.

Keene.

The cultists had forced him down on the altar, arms trapped behind his back. His face was bloodied, his ceremonial robes torn. He was struggling desperately, but futilely, as two men pinned him against the stone.

Mick pushed through the crowd, drawing a heavy ceremonial blade from beneath his robe. It looked old and wicked, and cruelly dull.

“Thought you could betray the Master?” he snarled.

“Don’t do this!” Keene thrashed against his captors. “Please! You don’t understand! None of us are—”

Mick struck him across the mouth. “Silence.” He raised the blade for the congregation to see. “Let the traitor’s blood prove what becomes of those who turn against the Black Physician!”

A roar of approval filled the chamber.

Kit watched.

Only moments ago, she had been basking in the knowledge that she’d done something right. Now she saw the museum curator’s terrified face, the blade gleaming above him, and the awful consequence of her obedience began to take shape.

They’re going to kill him.

And beneath that realization, another thought emerged.

Because I told them to.

The corruption answered with terrible certainty.

He betrayed the Master.

Walter’s face was turned toward her now. Blood ran from his split lip. His eyes were wide with fear. He had tried to save her, and she had condemned him.

“Help me please!” Keene mewled.

Something inside Kit’s mind lurched forward. Past the corruption. Past the devotion that still pressed heavily upon her thoughts. Something deeper. Something that refused to be ignored. Something…her.

Help him!

Kit’s gaze snapped toward the utility belt.

Mick began his downward stroke.

She lunged across the altar, seized the belt, and swept a throwing star from its fastening in the same motion. The star flashed through the candlelight and struck Mick’s forearm.

He shouted. The ceremonial blade clattered across the stone.

“Wha—BITCH!”

Kit was already moving. She slammed her shoulder into the nearest cultist and stumbled past him, clutching the belt against her side. Another grabbed at her arm. She twisted free, ducked beneath a swinging fist, and drove her elbow into the attacker’s ribs. But she was exhausted. Her legs felt like lead. Her breath tore painfully through her chest.

The congregation surged around her, and the terrible weight of the Black Physician’s influence still dragged at her thoughts.

Go back. The impulse was almost overwhelming. Submit. Kneel. Ask forgiveness. Kit stumbled. For one horrible instant, she nearly obeyed.

Then she heard Walter scream behind her, “Don’t stop Hyper Star! Please, save us all!”

She kept moving. She just needed space and a moment, just enough to guzzle down the serum.

A cultist moved to intercept her. Kit threw a star at his feet, forcing him to recoil, then slipped past.

Some of the congregation was already moving after her. Most of them were still wrestling with Keene—intent on murdering him.

Her fingers fumbled with the belt, finding one of the star flasks. She tore it free.

“NOT HIM, GET HER!” Mick was shouting.

In the chaos of the moment, Kit couldn’t even be sure which serum she was about to drink. She ripped the lid open, put it to her lips and swallowed—Hyperlyte!

The serum hit like blue raspberry flavored lightning. Heat surged through her exhausted limbs. Her heartbeat thundered. Strength flooded back into muscles that had scarcely been able to support her weight moments earlier.

The fog in her mind began to break apart. Not completely. She could still feel the corruption, still sense the terrible emotional pull of the Black Physician’s presence. But the Hyperlyte restored something she had been missing for hours: Her determination to resist it.

One of the cultists was rushing her, his own knife held high. She caught his outstretched wrist with boosted strength, pivoted, and threw him sprawling across the floor.

Another charged in behind him. Her enhanced reflexes stepped aside so quickly that he merely crashed into the stone wall behind her.

Across the chamber, Mick stood over Keene, clutching his injured arm. His face twisted with fury as he watched the cultists fall. Then his gaze shifted toward the altar. Toward the plague mask.

Keene saw it too. “No,” he gasped.

The janitor climbed onto the altar. “Take me Master!” he growled to the mask. “Let me be your most profaned vessel!”

He lifted it.

Keene struggled against the cultists holding him. “Don’t! You don’t know what you’re—”

Mick placed the mask over his face. For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then Mick let out a loud, ragged moan—either pure agony or supreme ecstasy. His bulky frame convulsed. Black vapor poured from beneath the mask, twisting around his shoulders and arms. The candles guttered as a cold wind swept the chamber. Shadows climbed and danced across the walls like living things. Mick’s cries deepened into something inhuman. Then stopped. The figure standing upon the altar straightened. The tattered darkness surrounding him hung like a funeral shroud.

The Black Physician had returned.

Kit felt the familiar pressure descend upon her thoughts. Her stomach tightened. Master. For one awful instant her corrupted devotion stirred in recognition.

But she clenched her fists and stood before him anyway.

The Black Physician regarded her through the empty darkness of the mask. “Such a troublesome creature,” he said, his voice resonating through the chamber. “Even now, you struggle against what you have become.”

Kit buckled the utility belt around her naked hips, her body exhausted and marked by the ordeal, but her eyes were clear. The Hyperlyte sang in her blood.

“This ends here. I’m not going to let you hurt or defile anyone else!”

The Black Physician descended from the altar, living shadows gathering around his hands. The mask tilted, “You have forgotten your place, little cow.”

Hyper Star raised her chin.

“No,” she answered. “I’m remembering it.”

12

Hyper Star moved.

Naked except for the heavy utility belt riding low on her hips, she launched herself into the crowd of cultists with accelerated speed. Bare feet slapped stone. Full breasts bounced hard with every sharp change of direction. The residual black streaks across her skin and the fresh marks from the milking only made her look more desperate—and more dangerous.

Shadow tendrils lashed from the Black Physician’s position near the altar, seeking to wrap her wrists, her ankles, the soft curve of her waist. She twisted between them, dropped into a slide that carried her under one sweeping coil, then sprang up and drove her shoulder into the nearest cultist hard enough to send him sprawling. Another reached for her. She caught his arm, used his momentum, and flipped him over her hip. Her bare ass and the undersides of her thighs flashed in the lamplight as she moved.

Submit! The Black Physician’s voice crashed through her mind, thick with command. Return to your knees, cow. You already swore yourself to me. Feel how right it is to obey.

A wave of corrupt devotion surged up from the defilement still living inside her. For a fraction of a second her steps faltered as a dark, filthy desire filled her chest. Master—I belong to— Her nipples tightened. Her thighs pressed together around a sudden pulse of need. She wanted to stop. She wanted to drop to her knees right there on the stone and crawl back to him.

Hyper Star snarled and forced the feeling down.

The Hyperlyte burned even hotter through her veins.

She leapt onto a fallen cultist’s back, used him as a springboard, and cleared a cluster of reaching hands. An icy tendril of shadow finally snared her left ankle. She hit the floor hard, naked body scraping stone, and immediately thrashed and twisted with boosted strength until the cold grip slipped. She rolled, came up running, breasts swinging, belt of stars glinting on the rolling curves of her hips.

“You are mine!” the Black Physician roared, both aloud and inside her skull. “Kneel!”

The urge to obey slammed into her even stronger. Her vision swam with the need to surrender. She staggered, one hand briefly touching the floor, fingers spreading as if she might lower herself fully.

But the heroine pushed through it.

A burst of accelerated speed carried her the last distance in a blur. She hit the Black Physician’s manifested form like a missile, one hand locking around the edge of the plague mask. Shadow tendrils exploded around them, coiling over her bare back, sliding between her breasts, trying to drag her off. Hyper Star only tightened her grip and pulled.

With a shriek of displaced power the mask tore free.

Mick collapsed to his knees, gasping. The living shadows receded and thinned. Hyper Star staggered back, chest heaving, naked skin marked with fresh red lines from the cruel grip of those tendrils. She flung the mask aside and glared at the group still holding Keene. They regarded her warily as it clattered across the stone.

“Let him go,” she ordered, and took another of the star flasks from her belt. One filled with the Purge Lyse. Thumbing it open, she leaned down and forced it between Mick’s lips. “Drink.”

He swallowed convulsively. For several heartbeats nothing happened. She hadn’t given him the full flask but—then a violent shudder ran through him. The gaunt, hollow look in his eyes fractured. Clarity flooded back in like cold water. He coughed, stared up at her and, maybe for the first time, truly saw the naked, sludge-streaked heroine standing over him.

“My head…” he rasped. “My god, my head is… I can think again.”

“Hyper Star! Behind you!” Still being held by the other cultists Keene suddenly started shouting with fresh alarm. “It’s not over. The mask! Anyone marked can—”

A heavy, triumphant laugh cut him off.

The heroine spun.

Another man stood a few paces away, the plague mask already settled over his face. Darkness boiled outward from his body, tattered robes of living shadow forming around him as the Black Physician’s presence possessed its new vessel. The air grew colder. The shadowy tendrils returned, lifting like a dozen ready serpents.

“I really should have considered that,” Hyper Star huffed in self-admonishment.

The new Black Physician turned his masked face toward Hyper Star’s naked form and spoke in that same vast, grating voice.

“Did you think taking the mask from one vessel would free you, cow? I am not so easily denied.”

13

Hyper Star put the flask to her lips and drank the Purge Lyse. The intensity of the Hyperlyte had kept the corruption at bay, still every time the Black Physician’s will pressed in on her it was harder to resist. She would need every scrap of clarity to survive this.

The Black Physician raised both arms. Tendrils of living darkness exploded outward across the chamber.

Hyper Star was already in motion, a burst of accelerated speed carrying her to the new vessel and grabbing for the mask.

“Stay back!” he thundered. “You will kneel cow!”

Fortunately, our heroine could already feel the lingering defilement—that sticky devotion, the craving to kneel—receding from her mind like a tide pulling back from shore.

Hyper Star ripped the mask from his face, but before she could do any more—another man lunged for her arm causing her to fumble the mask. The heroine spun, bare feet pivoting on stone, and drove a heel into his chest hard enough to send him crashing into two others. Her naked breasts bounced sharply with the motion.

A tendril snared her left wrist. Another cultist already had the mask!

Hyper Star twisted, thrashed, and tore free just as two more coiled around her thighs from behind, sliding upward to grip the soft flesh of her ass and digging into the sensitive crease where thigh met hip. A tingling sensation raced up her sides—not quite pain, not quite the hyper-libido…yet.

Hyper Star dove into a roll, slipping out of the tendrils and came up running. She closed the distance on the next vessel in a blur, grabbed him by the front of his robe.  He was still in the midst of the transformation, shadows and robes swirling around him. She slammed him into the wall with enough force the mask tumbled free again.

A different pair of hands caught it before it hit the floor.

Another cultist tackled Hyper Star to keep her from it.

“You cannot elude me forever, cow!” The Black Physician’s laughter rolled through the chamber, or her head—it was hard to be sure even now. “Every vessel I touch becomes mine. Every moment you fight only delays the moment you return to your knees.”

Hyper Star shoved her attacker aside, but shadow tendrils came from every direction at once. One wrapped her right ankle and yanked. She hit the stone hard on her side, air rushing from her lungs. Before she could rise, more coils surged over her, sliding around her bare breasts, squeezing them together, cold tips flicking across her nipples until they stiffened. Another thick tendril pushed between her thighs from behind, rubbing firmly through her vulnerable folds, spreading the residual sludge still clinging to her skin.

That caused her hyper-libido to spike hard and Hyper Star arched with an indignant cry, thrashing immediately. No! No, I can’t—can’t let this happen again!

She twisted using her boosted strength to get one knee under her. She tore an arm free, then the other, and rolled clear, breasts swinging, the tendril between her legs leaving a cold, glistening trail across her inner thigh.

She was losing ground. The confined chamber left her nowhere to create distance. Every time she tore free of one set of tendrils more were waiting. The mask continued to move from hand to hand among the cultists. Even her Hyperlyte enhanced body was being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and close quarters.

This time three cultists had formed a rough triangle, trying to shelter the person donning the mask. Hyper Star grabbed the nearest, using him as a shield against a sweeping coil of shadow. She threw a wild punch, interrupting the transformation…but sent the mask flying.

Another man caught it and immediately lowered it toward his own face. Shouldering through two more cultists, Hyper Star closed the gap, seized his wrist, and—a massive tendril slammed into her midsection, driving her backward into the wall.

The impact made stars burst behind her eyes. Instantly more shadows swarmed her—wrapping both wrists and hauling them high above her head, coiling around her thighs and forcing them apart, sliding over the soft undersides of her breasts and squeezing in rhythmic, milking pulses. One particularly thick tendril pressed directly against her clit, rubbing in slow, deliberate circles.

The hyper-libido flared. Heat exploded low in Hyper Star’s belly. Her hips jerked helplessly into the rubbing tendril. A broken sound left her throat. The shadows immediately intensified their assault, sensing her weakness—squeezing her breasts harder, rolling her nipples, the tendril between her legs speeding up.

“Yes,” the Black Physician growled, rising to his full frightening height amongst the chaos of struggling cultists. “There it is. Your body still remembers its true purpose. Stop fighting. Come for your Master. Submit.”

Hyper Star thrashed wildly, auburn ponytail whipping, naked body straining against the living restraints. Every movement made her full breasts bounce and jiggle within the cold coils. The rubbing against her clit was relentless. Arousal built with terrifying speed, wetness slicking the tendril, her inner walls clenching around nothing.

The urge to stop resisting—to simply let the orgasm take her and drop to her knees in surrender—grew stronger with every stroke.

A particularly deep, grinding press against her clit dragged a high, desperate moan from her. Her thighs trembled. She was already close—embarrassingly, dangerously close—hips beginning to roll into the shadow’s touch even as she tried to pull away. The craving for submission rose like a black wave, promising relief if she would only stop fighting and let herself climax.

Hyper Star’s head fell back against the wall, eyes fluttering, naked and spread and shaking on the edge of release. The current vessel of the Black Physician laughed—a grating, layered sound—as more shadows closed in to continue their relentless work. Coils wrapped her waist, her ribs, they lifted and squeezed her breasts until residual black milk once more beaded and ran. Heat punched low into her belly. Her clit throbbed under the sliding pressure. She kicked and thrashed, but the motion only ground her more firmly against the tendrils. A helpless, traitorous sound escaped her throat. Seizing the opening, another tendril forced its way between her parted lips, into her mouth and throat, not deep enough to choke, just enough to the helpless heroine had to resist the urge to suck—to be filled—defiled again.

Hyper Star’s struggles grew less coordinated. The tendrils reclaiming her wrists and both ankles stretched her out spread-eagle against the stone. The shadow between her legs rubbed faster. Her hips jerked. A sharp, climbing pressure built at her core. The need to submit, to stop fighting and simply take whatever her Master gave her, rose like a black wave—as if the Purge Lyse and the Hyperlyte were suddenly losing their battle against her hyper-libido and any lingering defilement.

“Yield,” the Black Physician commanded, voice everywhere at once. “Orgasm for your Master and then kneel.”

Hyper Star moaned in response, loud and surrendering, her back arched hard against the wall. Her bare breasts heaved. The tendril stroking her clit moved with perfect, merciless timing. The tendril grinding against her clit had pushed her to the very edge, seconds from the kind of orgasm that would shatter the last of her resistance in this confined, shadow-choked chamber—and gawd, how badly she wanted it!

Hyper Star was seconds from breaking. Her naked body shook in the living restraints, full breasts heaving within the cold coils, thighs slick and trembling. The craving to simply let go—to climax and then drop to her knees in complete surrender—was a black roar in her mind.

When the next deep, grinding stroke forced her hips to roll hard into the touch, she turned the motion into a violent twist. In a last ditch effort, she summoned her boosted strength and in pure desperation ripped herself away from the wall and those molesting shadows.

Hyper Star dropped, scrambled under a sweeping coil, and threw herself upright on shaky legs. Then she bolted for the doors at the far end of the chamber, belt of stars bouncing against her naked hips. Just beyond was a stairwell leading up.

Behind her the Black Physician roared in fury.

She heard the cultists shouting and falling over themselves to give chase.

Hyper Star hit the stairs at a run. Accelerated speed carried her up the narrow, uneven steps two and three at a time, bare feet scraping on old wood. Behind her the first shadows spilled after in thin tendrils, snaking along the banister and the wall, trying to snare an ankle. Mid stride she twisted away from a coil grazing her calf and kept climbing.

The floors above were a decrepit, aging maze. Hallways that had never been remodeled, doorways that opened onto short corridors that seemed to dead-end, wallpaper peeling in long strips. She didn’t know the layout. She only knew up and out.

A tendril lunged from a dark doorway and wrapped her wrist. Hyper Star yanked free, the cold grip leaving a red line, then she cut left because the right-hand hall looked darker, more crowded with shadows.

Her breath came hard. The Hyperlyte was still fresh, but the exhaustion underneath it was real. Another shaded tendril whipped across her path. She dropped, slid under it on the dusty floorboards, and came up running again.

Somewhere behind her a cultist shouted that she’d gone toward the service side.

The heroine burst through a swinging door into a long, unused kitchen—stained counters covered with dust, a row of cold ovens, the smell of old grease and older metal. At the far end a plain service door stood under a faded exit sign. Shadows were already sliding along the kitchen floor behind her, stretching out toward her legs.

Hyper Star hit the exit door with her shoulder, knocking it clean off the frame, and stumbled out into dark alley. She hesitated there, shivering as the night air hit her skin. All her skin.

She looked down at the utility belt riding low on curvaceous hips…and remembered it was the only thing she was wearing. The rest of her was bare, skin streaked with dried black residue, breasts still marked from the milking, thighs trembling and stained, and all now covered in goosebumps from the evening chill.

A hot, ridiculous flush climbed her throat—embarrassment, stupid and wasted—before she could shove it down.

Then the roar came from inside the building. “You cannot escape me, cow!” The Black Physician’s voice rolled out through the door she had just crashed through.

Hyper Star turned and saw him already crossing the darkened kitchen, the plague mask catching what little light there was, living shadows pouring ahead of him across the floor. All around her the alley answered. The dark between the dumpsters and the brick thickened, stretched, and began to move, tendrils peeled free of the walls, rose from the puddles, all reaching for her.

She turned and ran for the mouth of the alley, bare feet slapping rough pavement, the belt bouncing against her hips, now holding only a few throwing stars and two flasks of Purge Lyse. The first shadows were lunging after her as she reached Cypress Avenue. Accelerated speed carried her down the dark street in a blur of bare skin and ratty red hair.

The Black Physician came after her like a living storm of darkness, the plague mask gleaming at the center of the swirling shadows. Cultists spilled out of the building behind him, but she ignored them. She had only one destination in mind.

The river. Regent City’s wide, dirty waterway cut through the eastern edge of that old neighborhood only a few blocks away.

Hyper Star’s lungs burned. Residual arousal still pulsed between her legs with every stride, her nipples tight from the night air and the lingering stimulation. She risked one glance back—and the Black Physician was closing fast.

Just as she reached the low stone embankment above the river a thick tendril snared her ankle and yanked.

Hyper Star hit the pavement hard. Instantly more shadows swarmed her, wrapping her wrists, forcing her onto her back, sliding greedily over her naked body. Cold shadows coiled her breasts and her nipples, pushed between her thighs and rubbed directly against her still-hypersensitive clit. The hyper-libido flared again at once. Her back arched. A helpless, needy sound tore from her throat.

“You should have stayed on your knees, cow,” the Black Physician snarled, looming over her as the tendrils worked her open and trembling body. “Now I will complete this operation.”

Her vision swam. The urge to submit crashed through her again, stronger for the cool open air and the fresh stimulation. She forced her mind to the single remaining objective: Kit’s plan driving Hyper Star’s desperate flight.

Putting all her booster strength into one motion, Kit lunged upwards and locked both hands onto the plage mask.

“Again?” The Black Physician tried to pull back. “Have you learned nothing? It will not matter—”

Hyper Star only tightened her grip and ripped. The mask came free with a sound like tearing cloth and breaking bone.

The living shadows convulsed, freeing the cultist’s body, which staggered and collapsed. The tendrils wrapped around Hyper Star weakened enough for her to roll away. Still clutching the mask, she sprang to her feet and dashed to the very edge of the embankment. Without hesitation she hurled the plague mask as far as she could into the dark water of the river. It hit with a heavy splash, bobbed once, then was caught by the current and dragged under.

A final, furious howl of displaced power echoed across the water.

The reaching tendrils dissolved into black smoke.

The shadows lining the street simply stilled.

Hyper Star stood panting on the embankment, naked except for the utility belt, body marked with residual black streaks, red lines from the tendrils, and the evidence of everything she had endured. Her legs trembled. The hyper-libido was already receding, leaving exhaustion and a bone-deep ache in its place.

Slow, uncertain footsteps approached behind her.

The remaining cultists, who had followed at a run, robes flapping, ready to reach their Master, now slowed as they arrived at the embankment. The mask was gone. The shadows were gone. The figure they had been rushing to aid was just one of them again, an empty vessel gasping on the pavement. One by one they stopped. The glassiness in their eyes thinned. A few looked at their own hands as if they didn’t recognize them. Others simply stood there, bewildered, the momentum of obedience draining out of them with nothing left to answer it.

Walter Keene pushed through to the front of the group, alive, shaken, blood still drying at the corner of his mouth. Beside him came Nadine. She was wrapped in one of the ragged brown robes, the fabric clutched closed at her throat with both hands. Her eyes were clear. Tired, red-rimmed, but clear. She stepped past Walter and held out a second robe.

“You…you saved us…” Nadine said, voice rough and unsteady. “Thank you…thank you so much.”

The cultists behind them stayed where they were, silent now, watching the empty river and the superheroine who had thrown the mask into it, as if none of them were entirely sure what they were supposed to do next.

Hyper Star looked down at herself—again remembering she was completely naked except for the utility belt. She took the robe with a small, sheepish nod and pulled it on, belting it loosely closed over the gold stars around her hips. Then she reached back into it, and pulled the remaining flasks of Purge Lyse, and held them out toward the cultists.

“I know how this might sound to a group of unwilling cultists,” her voice was hoarse but steady, “but I’m going to need you all to drink this.”

Epilogue

Kit awoke up the next afternoon feeling like she had been hit by a truck…that had then reversed and run her over again.

The Hyperlyte crash always left her drained and aching, but this one carried extra weight. Every muscle protested as she pushed herself upright. Her breasts were still tender in a deep, wrung-out kind of way. The faint phantom taste of tar still lingered at the back of her throat no matter how many times she had scoured her mouth the night before.

The cultists had seemed to return to themselves after drinking the Purge Lyse. Dazed. Frightened. Some had cried. A few had thanked her in shaky voices. Most had simply walked away in small, quiet, probably very confused groups. Kit hoped it had been enough. She hoped the small, shared doses of counter-serum had truly broken the defilement’s hold and not merely suppressed it. Maybe even just now that the mask’s influence was gone, they’d be safe to return their normal lives. Whatever that meant.

Most of them will probably just go home and try not to think about it…like I am. But what if some of them are still looking for something more? Kit shuffled into the bathroom once more and turned on the shower. The water was hot enough to sting, and she still didn’t feel clean. Kit stood under the spray with her forehead against the tile and tried not to think much. She failed: People don’t usually have to be captured to join a cult, they join because something is already missing. Or they think it is. Structure. Meaning. A story that explains why the world feels rotten and offers a role inside the rot. Did I just yank the story out from under them? The mask is gone. The Physician is gone. The black communion is—Kit turned the water hotter and forced the memory of that murky fluid spewing from her nipples out of her mind. Will some of them just go looking for the next thing that tells them the emptiness has a shape and a master? What if they find something worse? I hope it’s not worse. How could it be worse? Surely…it can’t get worse…

She stayed under the water until it started to cool and her skin was pink from scrubbing.

After drying off and conducting one final, careful self-inventory— No new black residue. No sudden swell of devotion when she thought of the Black Physician. No urge to drop to her knees. No deep, oily pressure in her head and thoughts—Kit let out a slow breath.

Maybe it really was over. Even if it’d be a while before she actually felt clean again.

Deciding to forego underwear for the day, Kit pulled on a long sleeve tee shirt and her comfiest joggers before padding out into the combined kitchen and living room of her small apartment.

Dahlia was exactly where Kit expected her to be: sprawled on the couch in a pajama shirt and faded harem pants. There was a half-eaten bowl of Froot Loops balanced on her stomach, and some vintage cartoons blaring on the television.

Dahlia glanced over, took in Kit’s damp hair and exhausted posture, then offered a stoned smile. “Cereal’s on the counter,” she said, lifting her own bowl as if it were proof. “It’ll make you feel better. Promise.”

Saturday. No work. No waiting supervillain. Hell yeah.

Kit walked straight to the cupboard and poured herself a giant bowl of the brightly colored sugar rings. She added milk, grabbed a spoon, and dropped onto the opposite end of the couch without ceremony. Dahlia lifted her legs just long enough to make room, then laid them back onto Kit’s lap, and turned the volume up a little on the TV.

Kit took a bite and savored it. Not even the bitter taste of black magic could stand up to the chemical sweetness of a kids’ breakfast cereal. She stared at the bright, mindless colors on the screen, took another crunchy bite, and let herself sink a little deeper into the couch cushions giggling at the next gag.

For now, that was enough.