And so this is the 'surprise' I briefly mentioned in my previous post. This project is actually longer than the previous one, but I hope to complete it as quickly as possible.
This story is, of course, posted with Trackman's permission.
I thank once again Trackman for allowing me to write a story featuring his characters. I also thank him for all his advices, and for being so quick to answer to my numerous questions!
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Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
Part 1: New threat
**************
Some nights, she would dream of a cute little girl. One who was called Carrie. She was accompanied by a man wearing glasses. His name was Simon. They were saying they still loved her, and that they would love her no matter what happened.
She would always wake up terrified, shaking in her bed, and it would take her hours to be able to sleep again.
She feared no man. She didn’t fear pain, and she didn’t fear death. But that sight… It was terrifying her.
It wasn’t for nothing that she always avoided Kuebiko. When that dumb Neon Goon tried to molest her in the shower, she bit her ear off. When Glitch mocked her intelligence, she smashed her head into her plate full of food. When Ricochet antagonized her, had the wardens not split them up, she would have broken the mercenary’s trigger finger even if it would have meant letting the markswoman gauge her left eye out. And, had it not hampered her plan to communicate with her followers outside, she would have drowned Bianca in the water of a toilet bowl. Unfortunately, if she murdered another inmate, she would be put into the brig and her accomplices among the guards wouldn’t be able anymore to help her communicate with the outside world. (Therefore she was saving Uniform Stealing Bianca for last.) But Kuebiko… Sarah never dared even looking at her in the eyes. Even without her toxins, Heartfelt City’s ‘Scarecrow’ had a talent to prey on anyone’s worst fears.
Luckily, she was now in a solitary cell, due to her tendency to get into fights with other inmates.
Most nights, she would dream of being locked into a tight dark space. She would dream of herself suffocating slowly. And when she woke up, she was seeing the world in shades of red, with in her mouth a thirst for blood.
If your enemy slaps you, cut their hand. If they spit at you, cut their tongue.
The Leader was following one precept. No matter who crossed her, she would always retaliate tenfold.
And in her eyes, any woman choosing to work as an infiltrator had crossed her. And would therefore pay the price.
She simply needed to step up her game, and change her tactics.
Speaking of which...
**************
Come on, Cass’! You’ve already made the trip up to here! You’re not going to bail out now! Just do it… You’ve promised yourself to be brave!
Cassie was a woman of mostly average size and build. Perhaps she was slightly shorter that the average person, and her thighs and her legs were slightly thicker. She had a round face, dirty blond hair, grey eyes, and a light skin that was slightly tanned. Her haircut was a chin-long bob-cut with a straight fringe.
Cassie took a deep breath and knocked at the door of the small house. The support group she was supposed to meet was waiting inside.
A woman opened. She smiled warmly at Cassie to put her at ease.
“You’re Cassie?” she asked.
“Y- Yes...”
The woman shook her hand. “Name’s Louette! Come in, come in!”
Louette was a tall slim fit woman, with closely cropped hair that were dyed dark blue. Her eyes were blue and her white skin was slightly tanned. There was half-a-dozen piercings in each of her ears. She was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, allowing Cassie to see that a red Chinese dragon was tattooed on each of her arms from the elbow to the shoulder. Black roses were tattooed on her right forearm, and a flock of crows were tattooed on her left forearm.
“Let me introduce you to the other members of the group…”
Cassie followed Louette inside. Three women were sitting on chairs, in a circle. There were two more chairs: one for Louette and one for Cassie.
“This is Magda.” the blue-haired woman said while pointing at the first member of the support group.
Magda was a woman of average size with a white skin, waist-long loose blond hair, and green eyes. She smiled and saluted.
“This is Ellie.” Louette added.
Ellie was a short chubby woman with neck-long light reddish brown hair, light blue eyes, and a tanned skin. She was wearing round-shaped glasses. “Hello!” she said with a huge grin.
“And this is Willow.”
Willow nodded silently without smiling. She was a skinny goth girl with a pale skin, black lipstick on her lips and black eyeshadow. Her armpit-long raven black hair had blood red tips. Her eyes were dark brown.
Willow was younger than the other gathered women, in her early-to-mid-twenties, while the others all looked in their early-thirties, or at least late-twenties.
Cassie smiled nervously. “H-Hi everyone...”
“Don’t worry. You are among friends here.”
Louette showed her an empty chair.
“Please have a seat.”
Cassie complied.
“So… What do I do now?” she asked.
“Why don’t you introduce yourself to us?” Magda asked with an encouraging smile.
“I- I…”
Cassie was afraid to go first.
“It’s okay. I’ll show you.” Louette intervened. She raised her hand. “Hello everyone. My name is Louette.”
The other women, save for Cassie of course, had already heard the story, but they played along. The goal was to put the newcomer at ease. “Hello Louette.” they answered. (Willow simply nodded.)
“H- Hello Louette…” Cassie added.
“I was mugged six months ago.” the blue-haired woman added. “I work as a security guard and bouncer in a nightclub. I was wearing thick black shoes, black trousers, a belt with a pepper spray and a nightstick, a shirt with a grey camouflage-like colour, a black jacket, and a black cap. I didn’t see the woman who assaulted me. It was the night. She ambushed me from behind while I was taking a break outside, clamped a cloth soaked with chloroform over my mouth, and knocked me out. When I woke up, I was already stripped down to my underwear and trussed up. I was wearing a night blue t-shirt bra, a black thong, and white ankle-long socks. The mugger bound my wrists behind my back with zip-ties. She also zip-tied my ankles, and wrapped tape around my calves, my thighs, and my upper-arms as a safety precaution. I was gagged by a piece of cloth shoved into my mouth and tape wrapped around my lower face. My mugger left me hidden and locked in the trunk of the car she stole to come to the nightclub. It took the police three hours to find me. I was fearing I may suffocate, but they managed to found me. By that time, my mugger had already left though, with the till of course.”
Once she was done, Louette turned to Cassie. She didn’t look ashamed or embarrassed in the slightest. Nor did any of the other members of the support group.
“You see? Nobody will judge you.” the blue-haired woman said. “You don’t have to feel shame for what happened to you. It wasn’t your fault. You’re guilty of nothing. Accepting that fact will be the first step to your recovery. And talking about what happened to you will be the first step towards your acceptance.”
“These women get their kicks by dominating their victims. They want you to feel inferior to them, but the truth is that you’re a better person than them.” Magda added. “Never forget that.”
“Louette told every detail of her mugging to show you that, no matter what happened, you must not be ashamed.” Ellie concluded. “But you don’t have to tell us everything if you don’t want to. You don’t even have to tell us anything about the event if you don’t want to. If you prefer, you can simply introduce yourself.”
Willow nodded in silence.
“I- I’ll try.”
Cassie took a deep breath and raised her hand.
“Hello everyone. My name is Cassie.”
“Hello Cassie.”
“I work as a nurse. Healing and helping other people has always been my dream. I… I think that you know what a nurse uniform looks like? I was mugged two weeks ago. The… The woman was a mercenary, looking to assassinate a witness that was being healed in the hospital… She threatened me… She said that she would kill me if I so much tried to resist… And the police said that she already killed a few of her victims… They said that to flee the hospital, she lured a janitress and she... So I... I… I’m sorry. I can’t describe it… Not yet…”
“It’s okay.” Louette reassured her. “For a first session, you’re being very brave.”
**************
The session was long, but did Cassie a lot of good. Once they ran out of time, Louette escorted her to the door, and said good bye. They agreed to have another session next week.
“I like her.” Magda commented when the blue-haired woman returned alone.
Willow nodded in silence.
“Me too. I want to help her recover. But the question is… Is she a potential recruit?” Louette answered.
“I don’t know if she has the stomach… She looks a little TOO gentle for her own good…” Ellie commented.
“Well, these are questions for later.” Louette checked her wristwatch. “The prisoner should have woken up by now.”
The blue-haired woman looked at her phone. The device was connected to a camera in the basement.
“She has woken up.” Louette confirmed. “And she’s still tied to her chair, nice and tight.”
She looked at Magda.
“You’re ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be!” the blonde answered with a harsh smile.
**************
The woman tied to the chair in the basement was called Helen Jacomy. She had a crew haircut. Her hair were short and dark brown. She had chestnut brown eyes and a tanned skin. She had an innocuous-looking appearance, though a closer inspection could allow to see that her arms and legs were more muscular than average. She was a woman who trained in martial arts.
Helen was wearing plain ordinary clothes: grey-and-white sneakers, dark blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a light blue denim jacket.
Currently, she was tied to a chair with ropes wrapped around her calves, thighs, waist, arms, and shoulders. Her wrists were also handcuffed behind her back, and her ankles were also cuffed, to make sure that she wouldn’t be a threat even if she managed to untie the ropes. She was blindfolded with a black scarf, and cleave-gagged with a thick piece of cloth.
The prisoner was struggling in vain, moaning and crying in her gag.
Louette, Ellie, and Willow all put on a white ‘angry face’ theater mask.
Then Louette removed the blindfold and the gag, and allowed Magda, the only one who wasn’t hiding her face, to stand in front of the prisoner.
Helen caught her breath. Her eyes were red because of the fear.
“Who… Who are you?!” she stammered with a frightened tone of voice.
Magda smiled. “You don’t remember me? We met seven months ago. I was wearing white running shoes, pink socks, hot pink sweatpants, and a matching hot pink tracksuit. You commented that I looked very sexy once stripped down to my candy pink sports bra and boyshorts. And you had a lot of fun hog-tying me with ropes, and gagging me with my socks and tape... I hope you had your fun. Because now it is my time.”
Helen’s eyes widened. It had taken her some time, but she had recognized the blonde.
“It’s… It’s you… You’re the jogger that I-”
“Ah! So you finally remember me!”
Magda grabbed the woman’s cheeks.
“See. That’s the problem most women like you have. You forget the faces of your victims. But we on the other hand… We never forget yours.”
Magda squeezed Helen’s cheeks hard, making her wince in pain.
“I also didn’t forget what you said to me. ‘Serves you right for being rude.’ These were your exact words. For the crime of ‘being rude’, I apparently deserved to be beaten up, choked, stripped, and left half-naked and bound-and-gagged in the middle of the park during the entire night…”
“Listen, it was a one-time mistake… I was going through a hard time and I-”
“No need to lie. We did our researches about you.” Louette interrupted her. “You’re one callous little bitch… You seem to like mugging and stripping other women a lot. There are many victims. You’re doing it for the pleasure. I bet it makes you feel powerful, eh? You have a disgusting way of getting your kicks, you know that?”
Helen tried to justify herself, but she had been unmasked.
“Most importantly, I didn’t forget what happened after you left me half-naked and defenseless.” Magda interrupted her.
“Wh- What happened?”
“Let’s just say that I was NOT found by good Samaritans… Let’s just say that I spent a very bad night…”
“I’m sorry… I… I never thought you’d-”
“I’m not here for an empty insincere apology. I’m here to make sure you pay the tab…” Magda interrupted her. “However, I’m willing to give you one chance. Say my name. Say my name, and I might consider changing my mind… You do remember it, right?”
“Of course! I… I remember it! I…” Helen panicked. “It’s… uhm… It’s... Ma… Macha?”
Magda laughed wickedly.
“Nice try. But wrong.”
Louette grabbed a syringe and injected Helen with a colourless liquid. The latter winced in fear.
“Don’t worry.” the woman with dyed blue hair said. “It’s only meant to paralyze. We just don’t want you to pull out a dirty trick during the next part…” She looked at Magda. “Please proceed.”
Magda untied the ropes and unlocked the handcuffs to release Helen’s body. However, because of the paralyzing drug, the infiltrator wasn’t able to try to escape.
Magda removed the clothes Helen was wearing one after the other. Slowly. Since her victim’s body was paralyzed and motionless, the task proved to be easy. The blonde started with the jacket, as it was the easiest article of clothes to remove. Then, she grabbed the t-shirt and roughly took it off. She untied the sneakers and removed them one by one. She also removed the black socks. Finally, she unzipped the jeans and grabbed the legs to pull the trousers off.
The woman was left wearing dark grey boyshorts with black edges and a matching sports bra.
Then, Magda removed her own clothes and put on Helen’s, save for the socks. She appreciated the fact that they were still warm.
“Feeling better?” Louette asked her friend.
Magda smiled ecstatically. “So much better!”
Ellie glanced at Helen. “Now, how about we start the second step…”
Willow grabbed the handcuffs and restrained their prisoner once more.
**************
They hog-tied the cuffed underwear-clad Helen, shoved her own socks into her mouth, cleave-gagged her again, and threw her in the trunk of Louette’s car. Then, they drove her to a specific part of the town.
It was the night.
They stopped in the middle of an empty alleyway, and dropped the trussed up woman on the ground. They were all still wearing their white ‘angry masks’. Even Magda had put on one.
“Here you go.” Louette commented.
In spite of her dire situation, Helen couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. She was being spared!
Louette easily read her face. “I wouldn’t rejoice too soon if I was you… Do you actually know in which part of the town we are?” she remarked with a small cruel smile.
“This area is controlled by the remnants of the Neon Goons. And I’m sure you know what they’ll be tempted to do with a half-naked defenseless woman…” Ellie added.
Willow grabbed a boombox in the trunk of the car.
Magda smiled and said: “Now, a fair woman would let chance decide. After all, there’s no certitude that the Neon Goons will find you first. However, I’m not here to be fair. I’m here to give you a taste of your own medicine. I’m here to make you live through what I lived through because of you…”
Willow placed the boombox next to her, and Magda switched it on.
“J-pop.” Magda explained. “I’m sure you know that the Neon Goons are more into rave music or heavy metal. Playing J-pop in their district is akin to a declaration of war. You can bet that the second one hears that boombox, they will all come running.”
Helen’s eyes widened in fear. “WHHT! PLHHSH! H BHG YHH!”
However, she saw no sympathy in the eyes of her captors. As former victims of infiltrators, they weren’t willing to show her any mercy.
“The time it’ll take the Goons to arrive, think about all the women you hurt for your own pleasure, for your own callous self-fulfillment. Think about them HARD.” Magda harshly commented. “We are THEIR revenge.”
“An eye for an eye, Helen.” Louette said. “We’re taking justice into our own hands. We’re punishing you the same way someone was hurt by you.”
“We are the White Masks. The streets don’t belong to infiltrators anymore. We’ll make sure to get rid of all of you!” Ellie added.
“Have a nice night.” Magda concluded.
Willow remained impassible. Under her mask, she was smiling.
Then they drove away, abandoning Helen to her fate.
The boombox was blaring a loud J-pop music.
**************
Behind the wheel, Louette commented while driving: “And one down…” She was very satisfied. Tonight’s operation was the result of several weeks of reflection and planning. And it went without a hitch.
Willow smiled.
Neither she nor her friends were going to feel bad for Helen. She was the kind of selfish person who didn’t care the slightest for the people she hurt. Several women had ended up in critical condition because of her, usually because they were found too late.
“We should recruit more people… I mean, going after them one at a time is good, but I wish to go up a gear. And for that we’ll need more muscle.” Ellie commented.
The short chubby woman was actually the White Masks’ latest recruit, whom they hired shortly before abducting Helen. She still wasn’t fully aware of all the details of their plan.
Louette shook her head. “I understand your point, but we must not rush. At any cost. Sarah’s mistake was to try to go too fast. She failed two times because of that. And she’s the first to admit it. We have to try a more subtle approach.”
“You’ve heard about these vigilantes on the news, didn’t you? The ones who fight crime during the night?” Magda intervened.
“The Night Angels? Yes.”
“They’re our source of inspiration. Well, right behind leader Sarah of course. Seeing them inspired me to stop dwelling on my misery and to take up arms!” the blonde explained.
“Plus, they’re very good at building a reputation. The medias are eating up their adventures.” Louette added. “The public opinion loves them. We’ll try to replicate their success.”
“That’s why we have to carefully select our targets.” Magda concluded. “We need to target isolated infiltrators to avoid repercussions from the larger groups and, more importantly, we have to choose ones that are especially callous, to build up good PR. Sarah has asked someone to write her biography. Hopefully, this will also help our cause. Then, once public opinion is on our side, it’ll be time to recruit more people… and to lay waste on the bigger teams.”
**************
The patrol of this night was composed of Angel, Marie, Mag, and Soph. Currently, they were driving in the empty streets of Heartfelt City.
“It’s a slow night this time…” Soph commented while driving their van. “Only two catches…”
“Maybe we’re finally seeing the end of it?” Angel asked. She was sitting on the passenger seat. “We’re not in a videogame after all. Neon Goons can’t spawn forever...”
“Maybe…” Soph switched the radio on.
It was Demons, by Imagine Dragons.
Angel grimaced. “Can you… change the frequency please?”
“You don’t like this band?”
Angel shook her head. “On the contrary. I love their songs. It’s just that the lyrics of this one… they bring bad memories.”
Soph didn’t insist. She changed the frequency and lightly ‘mock-punched’ her sister’s shoulder sympathetically, as a gesture of affection.
Suddenly, they heard Tinker talk in their earpieces:
“Girls, I’ve intercepted an interesting information. Apparently, some idiot is playing J-pop music in the district of the town belonging to the Neon Goons.”
“What?! That’s gonna draw them like moths to a flame!” Soph exclaimed.
“Let’s go there! We may be able to help!” Angel immediately said.
Soph stepped on the gas. “Mag, Marie, you’re doing good behind?” she asked to her two sisters, who were in the back of the vehicle. “We will need your disguises sooner than expected!”
Mag scratched the Velcro and adjusted the black fingerless gloves she was wearing. “No problem.” she commented. Currently, she was wearing lime green sneakers, electric blue trousers, a scarlet red t-shirt adorned with a black skull, and a night blue jacket splattered with lime green paint.
Marie put on black fishnet stockings and black ankle-boots splattered with blood red paint. “In fact, we’re done.” She was clad in a black studded leather jacket with studs that were painted blood red, a grey t-shirt with the image of a red bloody hand doing the middle finger, and black leather pants.
Two unconscious Neon Goons were lying at the sisters’ feet. They were, of course, the original owners of the clothes the sisters were now wearing.
Angel, Mag, Soph, and Marie captured the two thugs twenty minutes ago. The criminals were trying to rob at gunpoint an old couple.
The first goon had dyed lime green hair to match her (former) jacket, a light skin, and hazel green eyes. She had a shoulder-long square haircut. She was wearing a purple stick-on bra, lavender lacy tanga panties, and red socks. The second goon had neck-long curly dyed crimson red hair, a black skin, and chocolate brown eyes. She was clad in a white demi-bra and a white g-string.
Both criminals were gagged with red ball-gags. Their wrists and their ankles were bound with white zip-ties. They were still deeply asleep, thanks to the knock-out serum of Marie’s pen.
“Then brace yourselves! The rescue mission begins!” Soph shouted.
She stepped on the gas.
**************
The sisters arrived just in time to prevent of tragedy.
The Neon Goons were half-a-dozen. A bunch of rowdy intoxicated overexcited women with outrageously loud hair dyes and even louder clothes. They were surrounding a bound half-naked woman. For now, they seemed content with groping her and humiliating her, but the sisters knew it was only a matter of time before one would try to go further…
Soph parked the van at a safe distance.
The plan was simple. Mag and Marie were going to approach the thugs first, using their disguises to blend in. They would create a distraction to allow Soph and Angel to approach from their targets from behind. The former would beat the goons into submission, and the latter would carry the bound victim out of harm’s way.
Mag and Marie walked the street and approached the group of thugs. They were imitating the confident rowdy demeanour of the Neon Goons. To better blend in, they were wearing wigs: an electric blue one for Mag, a magenta one for Marie.
“Hey girlfriends! What are you doin’?!” Mag exclaimed.
“Teachin’ this nerd a lesson!” a goon with short bright orange hair answered. Her black leather jacket, t-shirt, and trousers were splattered with a matching bright orange paint.
“Can you believe some moron thought they could play J-pop in OUR turf?!” another woman with ponytailed purple hair added. She was wearing a purple sweatshirt and matching sweatpants.
“But when we arrived to teach ‘em a lesson, all we found was this sweet piece of ass…” a third thug, with waist-long braided spring green hair, added. She was clad in an electric blue jacket, a scarlet red t-shirt, a brown leather belt, and navvy blue trousers.
The thug lightly slapped the bound woman’s butt, making her squirm, and laughed.
“I call dibs on her!” ‘Orange Hair’ suddenly shouted.
“No way bitch! I was here first! She’s mine! Wait for your turn!” “Purple Hair’ retorted.
“Pff! A half-naked chick! You’ callin’ that breaking news?” Marie exclaimed to distract them from their victim. “Are you, like, five? This is Heartfelt City! They find a half-naked bound woman every day!”
“Hey! You’ insultin’ us?” ‘Orange Hair’ barked.
Most goons turned to watch her and Marie, eager to witness a potential fistfight. Luckily, they were too blinded by lust and alcohol to realize that Mag and Marie were impostors. The dark of the night was also helping.
“She’s just sayin’ she found a better thing!” Mag intervened. “Wanna check?” She pulled out a small cylindrical metallic device.
“What’s this?” ‘Purple Hair’ asked.
Mag smiled. “Say cheese!”
She activated the device, a nice little gadget that Tinker built after a movie marathon of all the Men in Black flicks. It let out a hard dazzling light.
The Goons shouted as they were dazzled. Of course, Tinker wasn’t able to give the light the power to erase the memory of recent events, at least for now, but it was perfect to blind an opponent.
“Soph, Marie, with me!” Mag shouted.
She and Marie swiftly took out ‘Orange Hair’ and ‘Purple Hair’ with a few martial moves each.
Soph jumped from the shadows and rushed the remaining Neon Goons from behind. The one with spring green hair tried to turn to face her, and was socked in the jaw with a vicious right hook for her trouble.
At the same time, Angel grabbed the bound half-naked woman and dragged her away from the commotion.
“Here, let me take you to safety.” Angel said to the victim.
The latter was gagged, but nodded frantically.
Reasoning that it would be better to free her once they were away from the commotion, Angel slung the woman over her shoulder and ran away from the fight.
Mag and Marie were neutralizing one Goon each with, respectively, a good old-fashioned beating and a submission chokehold.
Soph was facing the two remaining Neon Goons, who had managed to draw switchblades. Needless to say, the fight was going to be very one-sided… For the Neon Goons, of course.
Once they were near the van, Angel removed the gag and cut the ropes hog-tying the woman.
“Thank you… Thank you so much…” she said.
Angel pulled out a lockpick that Tinker designed to unlock handcuffs. “Don’t move. I’ll remove your cuffs.”
At the same time, one Goon tried to shank Soph. Or, more precisely, she tried to take a step forward and to run towards Soph. But the clone easily read through her intent and, as the thug was taking her first step, Soph’s feet hit her in the chest, sending her onto the ground. The second Goon thought she had an opening. Big mistake. Soph nimbly dodged her knife. She slapped the woman hard on the temples with her two palms to disorient her. The thug grunted in pain and dropped her knife. Soph finished her with a knee to the stomach and a neckchop that knocked her out cold. The first Goon spat a few insults as she was trying to get back on her feet. Her eyes widened when she saw Soph’s fist speeding up towards her face. The clone hit her in the forehead, right between the eyes, sending the criminal to dreamland.
The battle was won.
Mag, Marie, and Soph gathered all the moaning half-conscious Neon Goons, and started to strip them of their outer clothes.
Angel finished unlocking the handcuffs. She helped the woman get on her feet while her sisters were busy stripping and restraining the thugs.
“What’s your name?” Angel asked the victim.
“It’s Helen… Thank you… Thanks a lot...”
As she was busy thanking her savior, Helen noticed the zip-ties on Angel’s belt.
She quickly came up with a plan.
Angel opened the door of the passenger seat.
“You can sit here while we take care of these criminals…” she proposed. “Don’t worry, you are safe now. We will – gahrk?!”
Helen struck while Angel was turned. She wrapped an arm around the clone’s throat and choked her.
“Nothing personal dear, but I need your van and your clothes to escape…” the woman whispered in Angel’s ear.
She indeed didn’t want to be interrogated by vigilantes – or worst, by the police.
Her intent was to knock out Angel, zip-tie her, put her in the van, then flee with the vehicle to a safe place, in order to strip her victim and hostage.
However, Helen didn’t know that Angel was a former overtrained killing machine. The clone had renounced her old ways, but completely forgetting a lifetime of training that had been literally bred into her was impossible. Faced by the perspective of a throttling, Angel’s body took action by reflex, almost by itself.
Angel violently hit the woman choking her in the stomach with her elbow. Helen grunted in pain and her grip loosened, allowing the clone to break free. Then Angel violently moved her head backwards, to hit her opponent in the face with the back of her skull. “Ow!” Helen shouted. She staggered. The clone made Helen fall on the ground by hitting her in the back of the calves with a roundhouse kick.
Helen whimpered in pain. She had hurt her arm during her fall.
Angel’s training was still so much ingrained in her that she reflexively raised her feet to stomp on her enemy’s throat, a technique that she had used several times.
She stopped herself however.
“I… I’m sorry!” Angel exclaimed while taking a step back. “I didn’t want to hurt you…”
“Angel! What’s going on?!” Soph shouted, as the noise of the commotion had drawn her attention.
“I… She attacked me, and it happened… My body moved by itself... It was an accident. I didn’t want to harm her… I didn’t try to kill her…”
Soph grabbed her sister by the shoulders to calm her.
“Calm down! I trust you! I know you didn’t!”
Angel took a small breath. “It’s okay. I’m calm. I’m calm.”
Soph nodded, satisfied. Angel had become a lot better at handling her panic attacks.
Then Soph looked at Helen and her eyes narrowed.
“You ATTACKED her?!” The clone approached the woman. “So, my sister saves your life and this is how you repay her?!” she shouted, making Helen curl up in fear. “You know what? I think this calls for a little… ‘lesson in pain’.”
Soph cracked her knuckles menacingly.
Angel grimaced. “Soph… There’s no need to-”
“Angel.” her sister gently interrupted her. “You know that we all respect your and Tina’s kindness. We all respect your decision to do everything in our power to make sure that the people we mug are found in time once we’re done, safe and sound with as little harm as possible. And when it’s innocent bystanders, I am 100% behind you.” She briefly hesitated, then added: “I admit I have some reservations when we do it with criminals or corrupt people, but I get your idea. We’re not supposed to be judge, jury, and executioner. It’s the court’s job to decide the fate of the criminals, not ours, and we’d be hypocrite to try since we’re also breaking the law.” Soph then casted a terrifying glare at Helen. “However, you can’t ask me to witness someone try to hurt my sister and NOT do something about it…”
She raised a fist.
“Soph… Please…” Angel said while looking at her.
Soph hesitated, grimaced, but then lowered her fist. “Shoot! You know I can’t resist those eyes!”
Angel smiled lightly, in an apologetic way.
Soph grabbed Helen by the collar.
“Fine. I will ask you a few questions NICELY. If you answer them truthfully, I MAY decide to NOT pummel you.”
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
“Then tell me who you are and why you were here.”
“Name’s Helen…” Helen looked at Soph and Angel. “You are… You are THEM, right? The sisters who are also infiltrators? I’m like you, you know! I’m an infiltrator too! You have to help me! There’s this group of crazy women! They say they’ll take justice into their own hands and will get rid of all infiltrators! They left me here because they knew the Neon Goons would find me! You have to help me!”
“You tried to attack my sister, and you ask us to help you? I admire your nerve.” Soph called towards Mag: “Sis’, bring some zip-ties over here please.”
“You said you wouldn’t harm me!” Helen shrieked.
Soph smiled. Her expression was downright terrifying.
“I said I wouldn’t HIT you. I never said anything about letting you put on some clothes. And I CERTAINLY never said anything about allowing you to spend the next couple of hours UN-tied and UN-gagged.”
Soon, a thoroughly bound-and-gagged Helen was sharing the back of the van with a bunch of defeated humiliated Neon Goons.
All women were zip-tied and ball-gagged.
‘Orange Hair’ and ‘Purple Hair’ were wearing sets of bra and panties that matched their hair colour. For some reason, ‘Spring Green Hair’ was wearing pink control briefs and a matching padded bra. Her partners-in-crime were probably going to mock her relentlessly because of that. The remaining Neon Goons were wearing underwear supposed to remind the world that they were tough criminals: black panties with a white skull and black full-cup bras. Of course, given the fact that they were zip-tied and gagged, they looked more ridiculous than threatening.
“Well, I think we got ourselves a nice ‘Catch of the Day’…” Mag commented.
“I feel like a fisherwoman who just got a big haul…” Marie added.
Soph glanced at the Neon Goons. “Some of them indeed SMELL like rotten fish…” she mocked. “But I’m pretty sure that the police will enjoy seeing them nevertheless.” She glanced at Helen. “Especially her. Judging by her reaction, I bet the authorities will want to have a chat with her...”
“MHHHHH!!!” Helen protested.
They ignored her.
Angel started the engine of the van.
“We’ll have to organize a sister meeting with Tina and Tinker.” she commented. “It looks like people are out for infiltrators’ heads once more.”
**************
It had become something akin to a reflex. Whenever they heard about infiltrators being targeted, the sisters would always check the latest activities of two groups: the Phantoms and Sarah Summers’ cult.
“Nothing in the police records suggested that the Phantoms were on the move recently. They are still building up their strength, after their recent confrontation with the Company.” Tinker commented. “What about you, Tina?”
Tina was searching the blog created by Sarah’s husband to look for her, actually their best source of clues when it came to the ‘Leader’.
“She’s still in prison…”
However, Tina was sounding glum.
“Something wrong sis’?” Angel worried.
“Simon Summers ended the activity of his blog.” Tina explained. “He posted one last message to thank everyone for their help, but…”
“Let me guess.” BB intervened. “Sarah pushed him and their daughter away.”
“He didn’t say it explicitly, but yes that’s what happened. He says that they’re not going to give up on her, but…” Tina shook her head. “When Mag informed Sarah’s family about her whereabouts, I thought that something positive was going to come out of their reunion… But it looks like the opposite happened.”
“It’s a defense mechanism.” BB explained. “I’m not an expert, but I’ve read a few articles about psychology. Sarah is afraid they’ll make her determination falter, so she’s trying to drive them away.”
“I wouldn’t rule Sarah out however.” Tinker intervened. “I’ve checked a few of the latest trends and posts on social medias. And it looks like Sarah has been very busy as of late…” She showed her sisters a few articles online. “She’s using a fake ID, but her rhetoric is unmistakable.”
The online articles were denouncing the actions of infiltrators. They were of course biased, selecting the information and twisting the facts to suit Sarah’s needs. She was emphasizing the harm they were causing.
Sarah was also comparing infiltrators to rapists and serial murderers.
Of course, she was purposefully avoiding to mention the fact that some of the most active ones – Tina and her sisters – were actually making sure that their victims were found safe and as unharmed as possible.
Now, hate-filled comments weren’t rare on the Internet. But Sarah’s were especially virulent.
“She has changed her tactics. She’s using the social medias.” BB deduced. “She has understood that gathering big cults is inefficient. So she’s now trying to inspire smaller groups of copycats and to turn the public opinion against us, all the while staying in prison to lay low…” The tall woman shook her head. “I admit, I’m kinda impressed by her ability to renew herself… Usually, people like her are unable to question themselves.”
“Hurrah. I’m so happy for her.” a deadpan Mag dryly intervened.
Tina tried to remain focused. “How can she post messages on the Internet while in prison?”
“I’m pretty sure that a few wardens are among her sympathizers. It shouldn’t be too hard for her to have some access to the Internet.” Tinker explained.
“So you think that this group of vigilantes that targeted Helen is encouraged by Sarah?” Angel asked.
“Maybe. And I think there’s maybe a way to learn more about it…”
Tinker showed them another article.
“Sarah’s recently gotten in contact with a writer. She wants her to write her biography. But we can easily deduce that this so-called biography will be a rallying text used to inspire future sympathizers… The author is called Annette Barkis.” Tinker smiled. “She and Sarah actually never directly interacted yet. Only communicated through letters and messages.”
“It means that she’s only seen pictures of Annette and doesn’t know what her voice sounds like…” Tina concluded.
“Annette’s and Sarah’s first meeting is supposed to occur in two days. I propose that we stick our nose in their business…” Tinker said.
Her sisters agreed.
“I see a few problems though.” BB intervened. “Sarah heard the voices of a good chunk of us. Plus, she’ll expect Annette to talk about her first draft. And while Tinker can hack their messaging system to steal a copy of the text, I don’t think any of us can learn it memorize it in such a short amount of time.”
“Well, maybe except you BB…” Stasis commented to praise her sister. “But you’re too tall to impersonate Annette.”
Tina thought for a moment.
“I think I have a solution...”
**************
“Felicity. I need your help. WE need your help.”
Felicity was a girl who had a multi-coloured pixie haircut, which was brown at the back and sides but a dark purple at the front, she had teal blue eyes, a white skin, and an average body. However, her look was very distinctive: a multi-coloured pixie haircut, a ring piercing and black earrings which served to establish her rebellious image.
She was wearing some of her favorite casual clothes: a white shirt that featured a pink skull wearing shades and putting a finger to its lips. On top of that she wore a green coat with pink patterns on the sides and the back, with the sleeves slightly tucked up, and a wristband. She was also wearing dark red jean shorts over black ripped tight leggings and dark lavender pink boots.
Felicity took Tina’s hands sympathetically. “Tina, I owe you so much, so you know that I would help you with my eyes shut.”
“Thanks…” Tina couldn’t help but smile. In a world where everyone was trying to have her and her sister’s heads for one way or another, it was good to know that she had a few friends she could count on.
“Though I’m surprised you chose me.” Felicity added. “I don’t exactly have the most unassuming appearance…” She pointed at her hair.
“Nothing that a good wig, contact lenses, and some make-up can’t fix. As long as we add the right clothes, of course. Would you mind removing your piercing and your earrings?”
Felicity winked. “Only if it’s temporary.” she joked. “Still, I thought you’d ask a more competent professional infiltrator...”
“You’re the best suited to play the role.”
Indeed, Felicity had a condition called Hyperthymesia, which meant that she possessed a superior autobiographical memory, allowing her to recall virtually anything and everything she’d seen or heard. Or read.
Therefore, she could easily memorize the messages that Annette and Sarah sent to each other, and that Tinker hacked, as well as the first manuscript that the young author sent.
Tina added: “Sarah knows about your existence, but she has never heard your voice. So I’m sure that with the make-up, the wig and the disguise, she won’t recognize you. But even then don’t worry, we won’t leave you alone. One of us will be around as backup.”
Felicity thought for a moment, then nodded.
“I’ll do it.” She hesitated, and added: “Just don’t tell Elisha… I don’t want to worry her.”
Tina winked. “Of course we won’t!”
**************
Annette was a woman of average size and build with light brown hair tied up into two shoulder-long low ponytails. Her skin was white and she had light blue eyes.
She was wearing casual clothes: red shoes, black leggings, a light green knee-long skirt, a large beige belt tied around the waist, a white light button-up shirt, and a light green light jacket. She was carrying a light brown handbag.
Annette was a young writer. She fancied herself as a talented author, but the truth was she had never been successful...
That was, until she got in contact with the infamous criminal Sarah Sandy Summers. For now, they only exchanged letters and texts, but their collaboration looked promising. The ‘Leader’ needed someone to write her biography. Well... officially it was going to be marketed as her biography. In reality, it was more going to be a pamphlet to give her followers some kind of ‘official sacred book’. A way to rally them even though she was behind bars.
Annette rubbed her hands. She was going to make so much money… Personally, she didn’t care about Sarah’s philosophy and message. However, she knew that, lately, stories about infiltrators sold like hot cakes. A book as controversial as the one she would write for Sarah could only bring Annette media exposure… and plenty of money.
Today, Annette was going to meet Sarah in person at the prison. She had arranged for a car.
Her chauffeur was called Mercedes. She was tall, had a light skin, blue eyes, and ash brown hair tied into a midback-long voluminous low ponytail. She was wearing a classic driver uniform: black shoes, a white button-up shirt, a dark grey chauffeur jacket, a small black tie, dark grey pants and a matching dark grey chauffeur cap, as well as light grey driving gloves.
“Greetings, ma’am. Let me lead you to the car.” Mercedes commented.
Annette nodded and followed her.
“Thanks! Today is a good day! I’m going to visit the infamous criminal Sarah Summers in prison, you know?”
“That sounds fascinating.” Mercedes answered with a nod. (She was indeed contractually obligated to politely agree with whatever her customers said.)
They left the hall of the hotel and went to the underground parking.
The place was empty, save for the parked cars.
Suddenly, on the way, Mercedes grimaced.
“You okay?” Annette asked.
“My shoes are killing me…” the chauffeur answered. “They were actually given to me by the company, but they’re too small… I wish I could take them off.”
“Do you want a Band-Aid? I have some in my handbag.” Annette proposed.
“Yes, please.”
Annette grabbed her handbag. At the same time, Mercedes bent forward to scratch her heels.
thump!
Suddenly, a small dart hit the leather handbag.
whiz!
At the same time, a green ball flew over Mercedes’ head.
Marie was actually aiming at Annette, of course, but the woman raised her handbag at the worst moment possible for the infiltrator and unwittingly parried the dart.
The same thing was true for Stasis: she was aiming at Mercedes’ face, but the chauffeur just HAD TO bend forward in order to scratch her heels just in time to involuntarily dodge the knock-out ball.
Soph and BB, who were approaching the two women from behind to catch them, actually had to duck to avoid being knocked out by their sister’s green projectile, preventing them from grabbing their targets.
All in all, Annette and Mercedes were able to foil the first attempt of their muggers by complete chance.
Annette noticed the dart embedded in the handbag.
“Uh? What’s this?”
She and Mercedes looked at the small device.
“I can’t believe I missed! When did that ever happen?!” Marie exclaimed while stepping out of the shadows.
“Talk about a MISSED opportunity!” Stasis added while following her sister.
“Weak pun, sis’. Weak pun.”
Annette stared at them with a dumbfounded expression. “Who are you?”
Marie raised her hands to try to appease the two women, as she didn’t have another projectile in her pen and Stasis didn’t have the time to reload her slingshot. She needed to buy some time.
“Please don’t scream. If you try to scream, my sisters will have to beat you up.”
Soph and BB were indeed now standing behind the two women. They had approached them discreetly.
“What’s going on?!” Annette shrieked.
“It seems we’re being hijacked, ma’am.” Mercedes calmly answered.
“Hijacked?! Who are these women?!”
The chauffeur shrugged. “You said you’re about to enter a prison complex to interview someone, right?”
“Well… yes...”
“Then, probably by some people longing to infiltrate the building while posing as us.”
Annette blinked, then exclaimed: “How can you be so calm?! Protect yourself! Protect ME!”
Mercedes shook her head. “Sorry, ma’am. Company policy. We have insurance for this type of situation, don’t worry.”
Marie smiled. “Oh, so you already know the drill? Perfect, then it’ll make things easier.”
Mercedes nodded.
Annette’s eyes went from her chauffeur to Marie, then to her chauffeur again. She was sensing Soph’s and BB’s presence in her back. The former put a hand on her shoulder. Annette’s lip quivered.
“But… My money… My fame…” she stammered.
**************
The four sisters escorted Annette and Mercedes to the back of a van they had rented for the occasion. Once they were away from prying eyes, the two women were swiftly stripped of their outer clothes.
Stasis slipped into the chauffeur uniform. “These shoes are killing my feet… The person who designed them should be thrown in jail!” she complained.
At the same time, Marie adjusted Felicity’s wig and make-up. “There you go.”
“I admit, I wouldn’t want to make it my job, but there’s a certain thrill at playing the part of a disguised infiltrator…” Felicity put on the contact lenses to change her eye colour and smiled. “I feel like the heroine of a spy flick. I don’t think even Elisha would recognize me right now...”
The hacker was now looking like Annette’s twin sister, thanks to the magic of make-up, wigs, and contact lenses.
BB gave her the young author’s clothes: the shoes, the leggings, the skirt, the shirt and the jacket.
Felicity took them, removed her casual clothes, and got dressed.
“You’re sure it’ll be enough?” she asked.
“Sarah never met Annette in person and they only communicated by written messages. Apparently, even with the complicity of her wardens, a phone call was too risky. They had to wait until she was allowed to receive visits.”
“And these two will be alright?” Felicity asked, mentioning the real owners of her and Stasis’ current clothes.
“We’ll send an anonymous call to the police to have them rescued once we’re done.” BB explained.
“A van, some blankets, an after-mission protocol... You sure got a lot more organized! I still remember the time Tina rescued me… Things were a lot more… improvised on the fly back then.”
“We learned from our experience.” BB said. “Though don’t worry, improvisation is still our forte. Especially when this one’s around…”
She pointed at Stasis, who playfully stuck her tongue at her with a wink and a smile.
“Just making the world a funnier place…” she jokingly retorted.
Divested of their outer clothes, Annette and Mercedes were sitting on a thick blanket in a corner of the back of the van. Annette was wearing night blue cheeky panties with golden yellow edges, a matching full-cup bra, and black socks. Mercedes was clad in grey socks, a sky blue push-up bra, and white boyshorts with black stripes.
Both women were bound with pink ropes from Libido’s stash: wrists tied behind the back, shoulders bound with ropes, knees restrained, and ankles tied together. They were silenced with black ball-gags with air holes in them. They were also blindfolded with sleep masks.
Mercedes was quiet and compliant. (After all, she at least was able to remove the shoes that were too tight.) Annette was grousing in her gag.
“Quit complaining! You’re writing an anti-infiltrator book. You knew this was coming.” Soph commented while checking their bonds.
“Thhtht’s hnfhhr!” the young author protested.
“You are aware that your book will be used to convince people to kill other people, right?” Soph added. “Honestly, you should be thankful that our sister insisted we give you a blanket.”
As she was talking, she put said blanket on the two women’s bodies to cover them from the shoulders to the feet.
“Time to go!” Stasis told Felicity. “Your appointment is waiting for you.”
“THHT’S SHLL SH HNFHHR!” Annette tried to shout.
Everyone else, including Mercedes, ignored her.
Felicity took a deep breath. She wasn’t a professional infiltrator but, for Tina, she was going to do her best!
Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
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rufusluciusivan
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- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
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rufusluciusivan
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
Warning: This is the second post. Be sure to read the first post beforehand.
**************
In Heartfelt City’s prison, ‘Annette’ was greeted by a guard.
“Good day, ma’am. I’ll be your escort.”
The warden was a tall athletic-looking woman. She had boyish short ginger red hair and orange brown eyes. Her skin was light. She was wearing black laced boots, black trousers, a blue security shirt, an equipment belt, and a security cap. She had a name badge reading ‘Leonie’.
“Thanks, Leonie.” Felicity answered with a smile, playing the part of ‘Annette’.
Stasis, playing the part of the chauffeur; discreetly gave her a thumb-up and smiled encouragingly.
Felicity nodded, then followed the warden alone.
They had to walk across a good chunk of the prison complex.
Sarah Summers was currently locked in a solitary prison cell. During the first weeks of her imprisonment, she was put into a normal cell, ironically near a lot of Tina’s other foes. However, soon afterwards she was moved in another one. Sarah indeed wasn’t popular among the inmates. It was a little ironic, given the fact that some of these prisoners were actually here because of uniform stealers. However, everybody knew that Sarah was chummy with the wardens, and in the eyes of the other inmates this was unacceptable…
Felicity took a deep breath when Leonie made her enter the room in which the reunion was going to take place.
Sarah Sandy Summers, aka the ‘Leader’, was sitting on a chair.
Felicity felt a little intimidated.
Right behind the Phantoms, Sarah was the main threat to the women who chose the life or the job of an infiltrator, including her friend Tina. For what she lacked in cleverness, subtlety and organization, Sarah made up with a relentless brutality and fighting as dirty as she could.
The Leader’s appearance had changed compared to the pictures Tina showed her. She looked slightly thinner and slightly paler, with sunken cheeks. Her hair were now close-cropped, as if she needed to show even more that she was some sort of cult leader.
Leonie allowed ‘Annette’ to sit, then went to a corner of the room behind Sarah to watch them.
The Leader smiled politely.
“Greeting, Annette. I am glad that you agreed to meet me in person.”
Felicity smiled back, and was careful to stay in-character. “The pleasure is all mine. I wanted to ask you a few questions in person before starting to write the core of the story.”
“Of course. After all, this is the point of this meeting.” Sarah calmly answered.
They started to converse. Before trying to get information about the vigilantes targeting infiltrators, the fake ‘Annette’ indeed had to play her role a little. She spoke about the manuscript. Thanks to her photographic memory, she could talk about the draft as if she had written it.
**************
From a room in their flat, Angel, Tina and Tinker were watching everything on a monitor thanks to the hidden camera on a button of Felicity’s shirt.
“She seems different.” Angel commented while looking at the image of Sarah.
Indeed, the woman was carrying the conversation with a pleasant tone of voice and a warm polite smile. Her movements were calm and collected. A far cry from the bundle of hot-headed hatred and anger that she remembered.
“It’s fake.” Tinker said. “My software is analyzing the quivers of her face that are invisible to the eyes. She’s faking her composure.”
Tina had an easy time believing that.
“You know what? I think that I find her scarier that way…” Tinker added.
On the surface, the Leader looked calm and collected. However, according to Tinker’s software, there was pent-up anger in each of Sarah’s movements.
And her eyes were betraying her true nature.
Tina could see in them that the Leader hadn’t changed a bit. When she was talking about infiltrators, there was still the same unbounded hatred.
However, there was no burning anger anymore. Instead, there was a cold calculated mind.
It was actually the most dangerous kind of hatred. The one that was thoughtful and deceitful.
As BB said, Sarah had learned from her mistakes and changed her strategy.
**************
Felicity played along with the conversation for some time before trying to broach the subject that interested her.
“For my book, I need your opinion on some current topics. There are now people who are trying to emulate your actions. What do you think of that?” she asked.
Sarah’s smile widened. “These women are promising. I’m following their actions with great interest.”
So it means that these vigilantes ARE connected to her… Please, ask her more about them... Tina said in Felicity’s hidden earpiece.
The fake ‘Annette’ leaned forward. “Does it mean that you are in contact with them? You’re encouraging them?”
Sarah nodded.
“How?”
“I’m sending them a few messages and giving them advice.”
“But who are they exactly? You say they’re promising. They must be very good.”
“They are. They are emulating the techniques of these crime-fighting vigilantes called the Night Angels. And, most importantly, they are touring support groups to recruit like-minded people. I hope that your book will also help other women to come out, and join their fight...”
Sarah smiled. She started to stare into space and added as if talking to herself:
“Oh yes! And once they’re strong enough, I’m hoping they will come across the team of sisters…” The Leader’s façade of calm briefly cracked, and a glimmer of pure hatred ignited in her eyes. “Disgusting creatures. I can’t stand the hypocrisy of these women. I can’t stand how they pretend to be good persons. How they trick other people into thinking they’re good. I see them for who they really are. Liars! Hypocrites! They thought they could break me? They only made me stronger. And I long for the day these hypocritical scums will get what’s coming to them...”
Felicity refrained a grimace. She knew that Tina and her sisters were good persons. She couldn’t stand hearing Sarah badmouthing them.
The hacker couldn’t help but briefly break character and ask: “Some people are calling you a criminal. What would you answer to them?”
“That I am merely restoring the dignity of the victims of the REAL criminals. That I give them the pride to fight back.”
“But-”
Without any warning, Sarah suddenly grabbed Felicity’s wrist. The latter winced. The redhead’s grasp was firm and powerful. It was actually hurting her a little.
“You seem unnerved.” Sarah commented with a blank expression. “Why? You knew from the start what kind of story I would ask you to write. Are you actually sympathizing with THEM?”
Sarah looked Felicity in the eyes.
Her stare was as sharp as steel, and at least ten times colder. At that moment, Felicity – as well as Angel, Tina and Tinker – could see in full display the true hate-filled merciless woman hiding behind a veneer of friendly politeness.
Felicity quickly glanced at the warden watching the room.
Leonie wasn’t moving. She was pretending that she wasn’t seeing anything.
**************
In front of her monitor, Tinker whispered while referring to the warden: “Why isn’t she reacting?”
Tina bit her nails because of her worry. The answer was obvious. Leonie was actually one of Sarah’s followers!
“Of course not. I would never sympathize with THESE people...” Felicity finally lied. She was doing her best to appear natural, and was succeeding, but the sisters could see on one monitor that her heart was beating faster.
Sarah peered at ‘Annette’ for a few long seconds. She was carefully analyzing her reaction.
Then she finally said slowly: “Of course you’re not…”
With a warm smile, she let go of Felicity’s arm. Her expression was once more friendly and polite.
“I suppose that you don’t have other questions then?” the red-haired Leader kindly asked.
“No.”
“Splendid! I can’t wait to read your manuscript!”
Felicity did her best to give Sarah a smile that looked genuine. “I’ll do my best. I don’t want to disappoint you!”
“I trust you won’t.”
Sarah made a gesture of the head.
Leonie moved forward. “Allow me to escort you outside, ma’am.” she said.
**************
Felicity discreetly sighed in relief once she was outside the room. Things almost got out of hand at the end, but she was able to get out of this dangerous situation.
The fake Annette and her escort were walking some empty corridors of the prison. They passed in front of restrooms used by the wardens.
Suddenly, Leonie grabbed Felicity’s shoulder. The latter yelped.
“Ma’am. Before you leave, I will have to ask you a few questions.”
Felicity paled. The warden’s grip was firm, as if she was expecting her victim to try to flee. The fake Annette understood that she had been unmasked, or that at least they were having strong suspicions about her. She started to panic. How many wardens were on Leonie’s side? Would there be enough women to make her disappear inside the walls of the prison with no one the wiser?
Suddenly, another warden approached them.
“Excuse me Leonie. I’ve been sent to escort the biographer out of the building.” she said.
The red-haired guard frowned and turned to face the newcomer. The warden had hazel brown eyes and olive skin. Her hair was black, though a closer inspection would reveal that the right side of the head was dyed, as if they were naturally white but had to be hidden behind black dye. Leonie saw the name tag on the uniform. She let go of Felicity and pointed a finger at the warden.
“Hey! You’re not the real Ingrid! You-”
She shouldn’t have wasted time stating the obvious. She should have attacked directly.
While she was busy pointing an accusing finger at Mag, the disguised infiltrator punched her in the stomach.
“Oooorrrfff!” Leonie groaned.
A clean swift neck-chop knocked her out cold.
Leonie collapsed on the floor with a grunt and went still.
“We suspected that Felicity may need to make a swift exit.” Mag explained to the knocked out warden. “So we took the liberty to send someone to stand in for a warden.” She looked at Felicity. “You alright?”
The latter nodded. “Got a little scared, but I’m okay.”
Mag nodded and grabbed Leonie under the shoulders. She lifted the warden’s upper-body and started to drag her towards the door leading to the nearby restrooms. She stitched an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the door.
“You’ll have a change of clothes, just in case.” Mag announced. “Open the door of the restrooms for me, please.”
The hacker complied. "So... How did you manage to steal a warden's uniform?"
"Well, it's a long and complicated story..." Mag answered with a mysterious smile.
"You're right, we don't have the time." an oblivious Felicity said. "Let's just quickly leave this building."
Now, Mag was hoping that the other woman would be curious and ask her more about her part in the mission, but her intent flew over the hacker's head.
Soon, the two disguised impostors and their victims were inside the restroom.
Felicity noticed however that one of the stalls was occupied.
“Uh… Mag… I think we’ll have a hard time being discreet… There’s already someone...” she whispered.
Mag smiled and lightly patted the door. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she won’t mind us…”
“Why-”
“Once you’re done changing yourself, I’ll open this one and you’ll understand.”
“Oh, I think I’ve already a good idea of what I’m about to see…” Felicity joked.
Mag grabbed a small plastic box in her uniform pocket and pulled out a small syringe. “Just give me the time to give our dear friend Leonie her little injection. I wouldn’t want her to wake up while you’re taking off her clothes…”
“That would be very awkward indeed.” Felicity admitted.
Mag injected the red-haired guard with a sleeping drug. Leonie’s body relaxed slightly, and they heard her moan faintly. Then she fell into a deep slumber.
“There you go. That’s how you get one hour of peace and quiet… She’s all yours. I’ll watch the door.”
Felicity dragged Leonie inside an empty stall and closed the door to get some privacy. First, she removed the warden’s uniform. As undergarments, Leonie was wearing a practical pair of black panties, white sport socks, and a comfortable black t-shirt bra.
Then, Felicity took off her wig and her contact lenses, as well as Annette’s clothes.
Finally she slipped into Leonie’s uniform. She had to roll up the sleeves and the legs of the trousers a little, but hopefully from afar her disguise would still work. The shoes were a little too big, she used toilet paper to fill them. She adjusted the cap and the belt.
“I’m done!” Felicity announced while exiting the stall, dragging the unconscious underwear-clad Leonie.
Mag used an enhanced lockpick to open the locked stall from the outside. Felicity looked inside.
“Yep. I was expecting that.”
A light-skinned blond-haired woman was seated on the toilet seat. Her hair were midback-long and tied into a thick braid. She had been stripped down to her sky blue full-cup bra with white edges, and matching briefs and socks. She was secured to the toilet seat and the pipes with a copious amount of black tape, designed by Tinker to be sturdier than average package tape. The blonde’s hands and wrists were secured behind her back to the main pipe. Her thighs, calves, and feet were immobilized with tape, and several layers of tape were securing them to the white toilet bowl. She was gagged with a clean sponge shoved into her mouth, and two thick strips of tape stuck over her lips while forming an ‘X’ pattern.
“As you can see, Ingrid is a pretty understanding person.” Mag commented. “She knows that we infiltrators need some peace and quiet when we work.”
Though it wasn’t as if Ingrid had any choice in the matter. Currently, she was deeply asleep, and would remain so for roughly one more hour thanks to the little injection of sleeping drug Mag gave her.
Felicity and Mag worked together to sit Leonie on Ingrid’s lap. They secured the redhead’s thighs and legs to the blonde’s legs and thighs and to the toilet seat at the same time with tape. Then, they taped Leonie’s hands and wrists behind her back. They wrapped a few layers of tape around her upper-arms, and shoved a sponge into her mouth before sealing her lips with more tape wrapped around her lower face. Finally, they wrapped a few more layers of tape around Leonie’s torso and Ingrid’s.
It also had the side effect to pin the redhead to Ingrid’s body, with Leonie’s chest being literally right under Ingrid’s nose.
“Things will be very awkward when they wake up…” Felicity commented.
“There’s nothing personal. It’s simply best to make sure that not too many stalls are occupied at the same time, or else the remaining guards will start asking questions.”
Mag closed to door and once again used her enhanced lockpick, this time to close it from the outside and to move the lock to ‘OCCUPIED’.
“Now, let’s leave the building before they notice these two’s disappearance…”
**************
Thankfully, they managed to leave the prison without any more nasty surprises, and regrouped in the sisters’ flat.
The first thing Tina did was to take Felicity in her arms.
“I’m so sorry…” she exclaimed. “I put you in danger… I shouldn’t have asked you to-”
“It’s okay…” Felicity interrupted her. “You took extra precautions to protect me, didn’t you? And your carefulness paid off.”
Tina took a small breath and calmed herself. “I guess you’re right.”
Felicity shook her head. “I don’t think I was very useful anyway…” she sighed. The hacker wasn’t an infiltrator. While she was forced by circumstances to steal a woman’s clothes, it wasn’t something that she enjoyed. But she wanted to help Tina, and felt that she wasn’t able to do much.
Tina embraced her a second time. “On the contrary! Thanks to you, we were able to get leads.”
“Indeed.” Tinker concurred. “Now we know for sure that Sarah is in contact with them. Therefore, we know it’s worth the risk to try to hack their conversations. And we also know more about their modus operandi. They’re using the support groups of former victims of uniform stealings to recruit people, so we’ll have to do some digging there.”
Felicity smile. “Then it wasn’t all for nothing…” She cleared her throat. “But Tina, can you stop hugging me? I don’t want Elisha to be jealous.” she joked.
Tina chuckled. “Sorry.”
“More importantly, we know that these women are a threat to our family.” Mag intervened. “The moment she’ll have an opportunity, Sarah will sic them on us. And I refuse to let her harm any of my sisters! Or any of my friends, for that matter! Sooner or later, we’ll have to stop these women.”
**************
“Can I get an ice cream mum?” Shannon asked while pointing a the red-pink-and-white kiosk.
Blink smiled. “Of course…”
Holding her daughter’s hand, she approached the kiosk.
“One ice cream cone please. Chocolate.” she asked the vendor.
“Right away, madam!”
“Thank you!” Shannon said.
The vendor smiled at the little girl. “Aren’t you adorable…” she commented. “Here, extra Chantilly cream for you. On the house.”
She gave the beaming young girl her cone. Shannon was delighted.
“You certainly made her day…” Blink commented with a smile as she was paying. “Please keep the change.” She read the badge on the woman’s uniform. “Thank you, Ellie.”
The short chubby ice cream vendor smiled. “You’re welcome!”
However, when she left with her daughter, Blink didn’t notice that Ellie kept staring at her once her back was turned…
“You’re welcome indeed…” the vendor repeated to herself in a whisper. This time, her tone of voice was a lot more sinister.
This specific park was a huge place of passage. Ellie could learn many things just by standing in her kiosk. And since she was static anyway, nobody was interested in her uniform.
Well, except this one time… But Ellie intended to find the woman who locked her in the cupboard and to make her pay! She still remembered how tight and cramped she was, half-naked and ball-tied with her chin pressed against her knees… She still remembered how she spent the entire night inside, stewing in her own fear and sweat, with her cramps becoming more and more painful, and her oxygen supply dwindling... She actually needed several physio sessions before the pain fully went away...
The small chubby woman grabbed a cellphone. “Hi. It’s me. I’ve found the one called ‘Blink’, right where we thought she’d be.”
“Perfect.”
“Is Willow done with her bomb? Since that one took part in Annie Keys’ little bombing attempt, it would be poetic justice at its finest... I’ve watched her, and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t have the custody of her child very often. We would just have to make sure to plant the bomb at a time she doesn’t have her daughter with her.”
“We should probably leave her be for now. She’s laying low. And as much as I hate to say it, since Keys’ bombing failed, the public opinion about Blink isn’t negative enough. Assaulting a mother wouldn’t give us good PR.”
“Too bad… I was hoping to make good use of that bomb…”
“I’m sure we’ll find something.”
Ellie hung up and smiled.
**************
TO BE CONTINUED
**************
In Heartfelt City’s prison, ‘Annette’ was greeted by a guard.
“Good day, ma’am. I’ll be your escort.”
The warden was a tall athletic-looking woman. She had boyish short ginger red hair and orange brown eyes. Her skin was light. She was wearing black laced boots, black trousers, a blue security shirt, an equipment belt, and a security cap. She had a name badge reading ‘Leonie’.
“Thanks, Leonie.” Felicity answered with a smile, playing the part of ‘Annette’.
Stasis, playing the part of the chauffeur; discreetly gave her a thumb-up and smiled encouragingly.
Felicity nodded, then followed the warden alone.
They had to walk across a good chunk of the prison complex.
Sarah Summers was currently locked in a solitary prison cell. During the first weeks of her imprisonment, she was put into a normal cell, ironically near a lot of Tina’s other foes. However, soon afterwards she was moved in another one. Sarah indeed wasn’t popular among the inmates. It was a little ironic, given the fact that some of these prisoners were actually here because of uniform stealers. However, everybody knew that Sarah was chummy with the wardens, and in the eyes of the other inmates this was unacceptable…
Felicity took a deep breath when Leonie made her enter the room in which the reunion was going to take place.
Sarah Sandy Summers, aka the ‘Leader’, was sitting on a chair.
Felicity felt a little intimidated.
Right behind the Phantoms, Sarah was the main threat to the women who chose the life or the job of an infiltrator, including her friend Tina. For what she lacked in cleverness, subtlety and organization, Sarah made up with a relentless brutality and fighting as dirty as she could.
The Leader’s appearance had changed compared to the pictures Tina showed her. She looked slightly thinner and slightly paler, with sunken cheeks. Her hair were now close-cropped, as if she needed to show even more that she was some sort of cult leader.
Leonie allowed ‘Annette’ to sit, then went to a corner of the room behind Sarah to watch them.
The Leader smiled politely.
“Greeting, Annette. I am glad that you agreed to meet me in person.”
Felicity smiled back, and was careful to stay in-character. “The pleasure is all mine. I wanted to ask you a few questions in person before starting to write the core of the story.”
“Of course. After all, this is the point of this meeting.” Sarah calmly answered.
They started to converse. Before trying to get information about the vigilantes targeting infiltrators, the fake ‘Annette’ indeed had to play her role a little. She spoke about the manuscript. Thanks to her photographic memory, she could talk about the draft as if she had written it.
**************
From a room in their flat, Angel, Tina and Tinker were watching everything on a monitor thanks to the hidden camera on a button of Felicity’s shirt.
“She seems different.” Angel commented while looking at the image of Sarah.
Indeed, the woman was carrying the conversation with a pleasant tone of voice and a warm polite smile. Her movements were calm and collected. A far cry from the bundle of hot-headed hatred and anger that she remembered.
“It’s fake.” Tinker said. “My software is analyzing the quivers of her face that are invisible to the eyes. She’s faking her composure.”
Tina had an easy time believing that.
“You know what? I think that I find her scarier that way…” Tinker added.
On the surface, the Leader looked calm and collected. However, according to Tinker’s software, there was pent-up anger in each of Sarah’s movements.
And her eyes were betraying her true nature.
Tina could see in them that the Leader hadn’t changed a bit. When she was talking about infiltrators, there was still the same unbounded hatred.
However, there was no burning anger anymore. Instead, there was a cold calculated mind.
It was actually the most dangerous kind of hatred. The one that was thoughtful and deceitful.
As BB said, Sarah had learned from her mistakes and changed her strategy.
**************
Felicity played along with the conversation for some time before trying to broach the subject that interested her.
“For my book, I need your opinion on some current topics. There are now people who are trying to emulate your actions. What do you think of that?” she asked.
Sarah’s smile widened. “These women are promising. I’m following their actions with great interest.”
So it means that these vigilantes ARE connected to her… Please, ask her more about them... Tina said in Felicity’s hidden earpiece.
The fake ‘Annette’ leaned forward. “Does it mean that you are in contact with them? You’re encouraging them?”
Sarah nodded.
“How?”
“I’m sending them a few messages and giving them advice.”
“But who are they exactly? You say they’re promising. They must be very good.”
“They are. They are emulating the techniques of these crime-fighting vigilantes called the Night Angels. And, most importantly, they are touring support groups to recruit like-minded people. I hope that your book will also help other women to come out, and join their fight...”
Sarah smiled. She started to stare into space and added as if talking to herself:
“Oh yes! And once they’re strong enough, I’m hoping they will come across the team of sisters…” The Leader’s façade of calm briefly cracked, and a glimmer of pure hatred ignited in her eyes. “Disgusting creatures. I can’t stand the hypocrisy of these women. I can’t stand how they pretend to be good persons. How they trick other people into thinking they’re good. I see them for who they really are. Liars! Hypocrites! They thought they could break me? They only made me stronger. And I long for the day these hypocritical scums will get what’s coming to them...”
Felicity refrained a grimace. She knew that Tina and her sisters were good persons. She couldn’t stand hearing Sarah badmouthing them.
The hacker couldn’t help but briefly break character and ask: “Some people are calling you a criminal. What would you answer to them?”
“That I am merely restoring the dignity of the victims of the REAL criminals. That I give them the pride to fight back.”
“But-”
Without any warning, Sarah suddenly grabbed Felicity’s wrist. The latter winced. The redhead’s grasp was firm and powerful. It was actually hurting her a little.
“You seem unnerved.” Sarah commented with a blank expression. “Why? You knew from the start what kind of story I would ask you to write. Are you actually sympathizing with THEM?”
Sarah looked Felicity in the eyes.
Her stare was as sharp as steel, and at least ten times colder. At that moment, Felicity – as well as Angel, Tina and Tinker – could see in full display the true hate-filled merciless woman hiding behind a veneer of friendly politeness.
Felicity quickly glanced at the warden watching the room.
Leonie wasn’t moving. She was pretending that she wasn’t seeing anything.
**************
In front of her monitor, Tinker whispered while referring to the warden: “Why isn’t she reacting?”
Tina bit her nails because of her worry. The answer was obvious. Leonie was actually one of Sarah’s followers!
“Of course not. I would never sympathize with THESE people...” Felicity finally lied. She was doing her best to appear natural, and was succeeding, but the sisters could see on one monitor that her heart was beating faster.
Sarah peered at ‘Annette’ for a few long seconds. She was carefully analyzing her reaction.
Then she finally said slowly: “Of course you’re not…”
With a warm smile, she let go of Felicity’s arm. Her expression was once more friendly and polite.
“I suppose that you don’t have other questions then?” the red-haired Leader kindly asked.
“No.”
“Splendid! I can’t wait to read your manuscript!”
Felicity did her best to give Sarah a smile that looked genuine. “I’ll do my best. I don’t want to disappoint you!”
“I trust you won’t.”
Sarah made a gesture of the head.
Leonie moved forward. “Allow me to escort you outside, ma’am.” she said.
**************
Felicity discreetly sighed in relief once she was outside the room. Things almost got out of hand at the end, but she was able to get out of this dangerous situation.
The fake Annette and her escort were walking some empty corridors of the prison. They passed in front of restrooms used by the wardens.
Suddenly, Leonie grabbed Felicity’s shoulder. The latter yelped.
“Ma’am. Before you leave, I will have to ask you a few questions.”
Felicity paled. The warden’s grip was firm, as if she was expecting her victim to try to flee. The fake Annette understood that she had been unmasked, or that at least they were having strong suspicions about her. She started to panic. How many wardens were on Leonie’s side? Would there be enough women to make her disappear inside the walls of the prison with no one the wiser?
Suddenly, another warden approached them.
“Excuse me Leonie. I’ve been sent to escort the biographer out of the building.” she said.
The red-haired guard frowned and turned to face the newcomer. The warden had hazel brown eyes and olive skin. Her hair was black, though a closer inspection would reveal that the right side of the head was dyed, as if they were naturally white but had to be hidden behind black dye. Leonie saw the name tag on the uniform. She let go of Felicity and pointed a finger at the warden.
“Hey! You’re not the real Ingrid! You-”
She shouldn’t have wasted time stating the obvious. She should have attacked directly.
While she was busy pointing an accusing finger at Mag, the disguised infiltrator punched her in the stomach.
“Oooorrrfff!” Leonie groaned.
A clean swift neck-chop knocked her out cold.
Leonie collapsed on the floor with a grunt and went still.
“We suspected that Felicity may need to make a swift exit.” Mag explained to the knocked out warden. “So we took the liberty to send someone to stand in for a warden.” She looked at Felicity. “You alright?”
The latter nodded. “Got a little scared, but I’m okay.”
Mag nodded and grabbed Leonie under the shoulders. She lifted the warden’s upper-body and started to drag her towards the door leading to the nearby restrooms. She stitched an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the door.
“You’ll have a change of clothes, just in case.” Mag announced. “Open the door of the restrooms for me, please.”
The hacker complied. "So... How did you manage to steal a warden's uniform?"
"Well, it's a long and complicated story..." Mag answered with a mysterious smile.
"You're right, we don't have the time." an oblivious Felicity said. "Let's just quickly leave this building."
Now, Mag was hoping that the other woman would be curious and ask her more about her part in the mission, but her intent flew over the hacker's head.
Soon, the two disguised impostors and their victims were inside the restroom.
Felicity noticed however that one of the stalls was occupied.
“Uh… Mag… I think we’ll have a hard time being discreet… There’s already someone...” she whispered.
Mag smiled and lightly patted the door. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she won’t mind us…”
“Why-”
“Once you’re done changing yourself, I’ll open this one and you’ll understand.”
“Oh, I think I’ve already a good idea of what I’m about to see…” Felicity joked.
Mag grabbed a small plastic box in her uniform pocket and pulled out a small syringe. “Just give me the time to give our dear friend Leonie her little injection. I wouldn’t want her to wake up while you’re taking off her clothes…”
“That would be very awkward indeed.” Felicity admitted.
Mag injected the red-haired guard with a sleeping drug. Leonie’s body relaxed slightly, and they heard her moan faintly. Then she fell into a deep slumber.
“There you go. That’s how you get one hour of peace and quiet… She’s all yours. I’ll watch the door.”
Felicity dragged Leonie inside an empty stall and closed the door to get some privacy. First, she removed the warden’s uniform. As undergarments, Leonie was wearing a practical pair of black panties, white sport socks, and a comfortable black t-shirt bra.
Then, Felicity took off her wig and her contact lenses, as well as Annette’s clothes.
Finally she slipped into Leonie’s uniform. She had to roll up the sleeves and the legs of the trousers a little, but hopefully from afar her disguise would still work. The shoes were a little too big, she used toilet paper to fill them. She adjusted the cap and the belt.
“I’m done!” Felicity announced while exiting the stall, dragging the unconscious underwear-clad Leonie.
Mag used an enhanced lockpick to open the locked stall from the outside. Felicity looked inside.
“Yep. I was expecting that.”
A light-skinned blond-haired woman was seated on the toilet seat. Her hair were midback-long and tied into a thick braid. She had been stripped down to her sky blue full-cup bra with white edges, and matching briefs and socks. She was secured to the toilet seat and the pipes with a copious amount of black tape, designed by Tinker to be sturdier than average package tape. The blonde’s hands and wrists were secured behind her back to the main pipe. Her thighs, calves, and feet were immobilized with tape, and several layers of tape were securing them to the white toilet bowl. She was gagged with a clean sponge shoved into her mouth, and two thick strips of tape stuck over her lips while forming an ‘X’ pattern.
“As you can see, Ingrid is a pretty understanding person.” Mag commented. “She knows that we infiltrators need some peace and quiet when we work.”
Though it wasn’t as if Ingrid had any choice in the matter. Currently, she was deeply asleep, and would remain so for roughly one more hour thanks to the little injection of sleeping drug Mag gave her.
Felicity and Mag worked together to sit Leonie on Ingrid’s lap. They secured the redhead’s thighs and legs to the blonde’s legs and thighs and to the toilet seat at the same time with tape. Then, they taped Leonie’s hands and wrists behind her back. They wrapped a few layers of tape around her upper-arms, and shoved a sponge into her mouth before sealing her lips with more tape wrapped around her lower face. Finally, they wrapped a few more layers of tape around Leonie’s torso and Ingrid’s.
It also had the side effect to pin the redhead to Ingrid’s body, with Leonie’s chest being literally right under Ingrid’s nose.
“Things will be very awkward when they wake up…” Felicity commented.
“There’s nothing personal. It’s simply best to make sure that not too many stalls are occupied at the same time, or else the remaining guards will start asking questions.”
Mag closed to door and once again used her enhanced lockpick, this time to close it from the outside and to move the lock to ‘OCCUPIED’.
“Now, let’s leave the building before they notice these two’s disappearance…”
**************
Thankfully, they managed to leave the prison without any more nasty surprises, and regrouped in the sisters’ flat.
The first thing Tina did was to take Felicity in her arms.
“I’m so sorry…” she exclaimed. “I put you in danger… I shouldn’t have asked you to-”
“It’s okay…” Felicity interrupted her. “You took extra precautions to protect me, didn’t you? And your carefulness paid off.”
Tina took a small breath and calmed herself. “I guess you’re right.”
Felicity shook her head. “I don’t think I was very useful anyway…” she sighed. The hacker wasn’t an infiltrator. While she was forced by circumstances to steal a woman’s clothes, it wasn’t something that she enjoyed. But she wanted to help Tina, and felt that she wasn’t able to do much.
Tina embraced her a second time. “On the contrary! Thanks to you, we were able to get leads.”
“Indeed.” Tinker concurred. “Now we know for sure that Sarah is in contact with them. Therefore, we know it’s worth the risk to try to hack their conversations. And we also know more about their modus operandi. They’re using the support groups of former victims of uniform stealings to recruit people, so we’ll have to do some digging there.”
Felicity smile. “Then it wasn’t all for nothing…” She cleared her throat. “But Tina, can you stop hugging me? I don’t want Elisha to be jealous.” she joked.
Tina chuckled. “Sorry.”
“More importantly, we know that these women are a threat to our family.” Mag intervened. “The moment she’ll have an opportunity, Sarah will sic them on us. And I refuse to let her harm any of my sisters! Or any of my friends, for that matter! Sooner or later, we’ll have to stop these women.”
**************
“Can I get an ice cream mum?” Shannon asked while pointing a the red-pink-and-white kiosk.
Blink smiled. “Of course…”
Holding her daughter’s hand, she approached the kiosk.
“One ice cream cone please. Chocolate.” she asked the vendor.
“Right away, madam!”
“Thank you!” Shannon said.
The vendor smiled at the little girl. “Aren’t you adorable…” she commented. “Here, extra Chantilly cream for you. On the house.”
She gave the beaming young girl her cone. Shannon was delighted.
“You certainly made her day…” Blink commented with a smile as she was paying. “Please keep the change.” She read the badge on the woman’s uniform. “Thank you, Ellie.”
The short chubby ice cream vendor smiled. “You’re welcome!”
However, when she left with her daughter, Blink didn’t notice that Ellie kept staring at her once her back was turned…
“You’re welcome indeed…” the vendor repeated to herself in a whisper. This time, her tone of voice was a lot more sinister.
This specific park was a huge place of passage. Ellie could learn many things just by standing in her kiosk. And since she was static anyway, nobody was interested in her uniform.
Well, except this one time… But Ellie intended to find the woman who locked her in the cupboard and to make her pay! She still remembered how tight and cramped she was, half-naked and ball-tied with her chin pressed against her knees… She still remembered how she spent the entire night inside, stewing in her own fear and sweat, with her cramps becoming more and more painful, and her oxygen supply dwindling... She actually needed several physio sessions before the pain fully went away...
The small chubby woman grabbed a cellphone. “Hi. It’s me. I’ve found the one called ‘Blink’, right where we thought she’d be.”
“Perfect.”
“Is Willow done with her bomb? Since that one took part in Annie Keys’ little bombing attempt, it would be poetic justice at its finest... I’ve watched her, and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t have the custody of her child very often. We would just have to make sure to plant the bomb at a time she doesn’t have her daughter with her.”
“We should probably leave her be for now. She’s laying low. And as much as I hate to say it, since Keys’ bombing failed, the public opinion about Blink isn’t negative enough. Assaulting a mother wouldn’t give us good PR.”
“Too bad… I was hoping to make good use of that bomb…”
“I’m sure we’ll find something.”
Ellie hung up and smiled.
**************
TO BE CONTINUED
-
tirepanted3
- Posts: 1940
- Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 11:40 am
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
Indeed, quite a surprise. But a welcome one. 
A fun new story, adding some new layers to Trackman's already multilayered universe.
I recall you made a joke while commenting on one of my stories about having USB victims create a "Mugged Anonymous" group for their experiences - and now here it is! It's an idea that seems too silly to work, but it's all played seriously with just enough humor to make it self-aware. Perfect tone. I can't say I recognized most of the women from previous stories (except Ellie), though that may have been intentional.
You continue to write the Sisters' interactions well. Obviously some differences from Trackman's writing style (like the way his stories tend to be present tense, while this one is past tense), but the characterizations feel consistent, at least to an outside observer like me. Also seems to focus more on the more serious heroines (Stasis barely appears and Libido isn't there at all), which helps add to the serious (albeit still fun) story.
Good mugging and disguise scenes throughout, from the Neon Goons (so much dyed hair! I think Trackman will appreciate ) to Annette and Mercedes (an appropriate name for a chauffeur, no doubt). Good to see Felicity back as the focus, and her scenes with Sarah have an extra level of tension since she is not a professional like the Sisters are.
Sarah herself is a pretty despicable villain - despite her sympathetic motivations, she can be pretty abhorrent in her schemes. I admit I don't latch on to the character as well as some of the other villains - perhaps it's partly because she was introduced in a non-canonical story ("Protecting One's Lifestyle") so she takes some getting used to as a "real" villain.
A suspenseful final scene with Blink and Ellie. (And an ice cream vendor disguise that wasn't stolen. Perhaps Zuhal could learn a thing or two.
) Looks like more crossover chapters are on the way - looking forward to what's in store.
A fun new story, adding some new layers to Trackman's already multilayered universe.I recall you made a joke while commenting on one of my stories about having USB victims create a "Mugged Anonymous" group for their experiences - and now here it is! It's an idea that seems too silly to work, but it's all played seriously with just enough humor to make it self-aware. Perfect tone. I can't say I recognized most of the women from previous stories (except Ellie), though that may have been intentional.
You continue to write the Sisters' interactions well. Obviously some differences from Trackman's writing style (like the way his stories tend to be present tense, while this one is past tense), but the characterizations feel consistent, at least to an outside observer like me. Also seems to focus more on the more serious heroines (Stasis barely appears and Libido isn't there at all), which helps add to the serious (albeit still fun) story.
Good mugging and disguise scenes throughout, from the Neon Goons (so much dyed hair! I think Trackman will appreciate
) to Annette and Mercedes (an appropriate name for a chauffeur, no doubt). Good to see Felicity back as the focus, and her scenes with Sarah have an extra level of tension since she is not a professional like the Sisters are.Sarah herself is a pretty despicable villain - despite her sympathetic motivations, she can be pretty abhorrent in her schemes. I admit I don't latch on to the character as well as some of the other villains - perhaps it's partly because she was introduced in a non-canonical story ("Protecting One's Lifestyle") so she takes some getting used to as a "real" villain.
A suspenseful final scene with Blink and Ellie. (And an ice cream vendor disguise that wasn't stolen. Perhaps Zuhal could learn a thing or two.
) Looks like more crossover chapters are on the way - looking forward to what's in store.-
rufusluciusivan
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
How can you comment so fast?! I confess it'll take me a few days to properly read and review your next installment.
Given the number of people that are mugged for disguise, and given the fact that realistically not all of them would take a mugging well, I thought it would be logical that some women would create support groups.
None of the White Masks are supposed to be returning characters however, they are all new characters, including Ellie. (Her sharing a name with a guard from previous stories was a complete coincidence.) These women were all hurt by infiltrators, both Louette and Ellie mention for instance that they almost suffocated to death, therefore they can't be former victims of the sisters this time.
Though it will feature light-hearted moment, I want this story to be more serious, and indeed the more serious sisters will be at the forefront, especially Angel.
The starting point of this story was the scene between Felicity and Sarah. I really enjoyed writing this tense moment. Plus it was interesting to make Sarah's character evolve, which is something I owed to your previous comment in a story featuring her when you mentioned that her scheme was redundant.The same thing happened with Catalina and her team. This kind of comments is stimulating because they keep on pushing me to change things.
Sarah has to be abhorrent in her schemes precisely because she has sympathetic motivations, or else there would be in my opinion too much unfortunate implications when the sisters fight her. The same logic will apply to the White Masks. Personally, I have some sympathy for Sarah, because she's a victim of circumstances and clearly has psychological issues. A criminal like Shen or even uniform stealers that hurt and kill others for money or for their pleasure are in my opinion more despicable, since they're fully accountable for their actions.
Ellie is a real ice cream vendor, though her little recalling of her own mugging was indeed supposed to be a reference to what Zuhal did.
I confess it'll take me a few days to properly read and review your next installment.Given the number of people that are mugged for disguise, and given the fact that realistically not all of them would take a mugging well, I thought it would be logical that some women would create support groups.
None of the White Masks are supposed to be returning characters however, they are all new characters, including Ellie. (Her sharing a name with a guard from previous stories was a complete coincidence.) These women were all hurt by infiltrators, both Louette and Ellie mention for instance that they almost suffocated to death, therefore they can't be former victims of the sisters this time.
Though it will feature light-hearted moment, I want this story to be more serious, and indeed the more serious sisters will be at the forefront, especially Angel.
The starting point of this story was the scene between Felicity and Sarah. I really enjoyed writing this tense moment. Plus it was interesting to make Sarah's character evolve, which is something I owed to your previous comment in a story featuring her when you mentioned that her scheme was redundant.The same thing happened with Catalina and her team. This kind of comments is stimulating because they keep on pushing me to change things.
Sarah has to be abhorrent in her schemes precisely because she has sympathetic motivations, or else there would be in my opinion too much unfortunate implications when the sisters fight her. The same logic will apply to the White Masks. Personally, I have some sympathy for Sarah, because she's a victim of circumstances and clearly has psychological issues. A criminal like Shen or even uniform stealers that hurt and kill others for money or for their pleasure are in my opinion more despicable, since they're fully accountable for their actions.
Ellie is a real ice cream vendor, though her little recalling of her own mugging was indeed supposed to be a reference to what Zuhal did.
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Trackman281
- Posts: 1600
- Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:08 am
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
I was pleasantly surprised to find this appear when I was on here earlier and ever since, I've been absolutely chomping at the bits to get stuck in as I know I've been just as eager to read this as you have been to post this. So without further ado, let's see what awesomeness you've conjured up. 
Haha, what am opening to behold, it seems that the leader's (Sarah) seems to be quite the woman when defending herself in Heartfelt's prison, although I can understand why she'd avoid Kuebiko as there's a reason why even the other inmates avoid her. Speaking of which it was funny, seeing how she would deal with the other inmates around. Well played.
Damn, now that was a powerful scene afterwards with Cassie and Louette, although my mind keeps pondering about Willow, I'm sure it's just my imagination, but why does she seem so familiar, I can't put my finger on it. Either way, what a fantastic scene and I;m all too curious to see what happens next.
OH WOW! What a remarkable few scene's afterwards, I was so eager to write a bit for each scene, but I just got SO addicted to it, I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know just what the white masks were going to do to Helen and wow, they certainly are some strong antagonists that's for sure! Indeed, the Neon goons love their rave music, so playing something like J-pop on one of their turfs is indeed a full declaration of war. WOW! This is incredibly intense and honestly.........I LOVE IT!.........Must see more!
Oh no.......Those poor fools........So they too have no idea that the Night Angels are of course......The Nine.......See, this is going to be great! Seriously, what a fantastic job you've done, the steaks are high, the antagonists are evil as anything, the setting is perfect, the call backs to wonderful and my excitement is at all time high! ...............In case you couldn't tell, I'm extremely enjoying this!
Love the way the first thing we see the sisters, they've already taken down a ck yoouple of neon goons and are wearing their clothes, excellent stuff, I always very much enjoyed the band Soph chose as I too am a "imagine dragons" fan.
First of all, I absolutely loved the fight scene, very well executed and I think you wrote it superbly.
Secondly, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire segment from start to finish, clever trick as I genuinely wasn't expecting Helen to suddenly turn on the sisters so quickly, but not only am I happy that Angel put her in her place, but I'm also happy that when she realized just WHO had actually saved her life, she changed her attitude very quickly. This was such a GREAT scene!
What a great follow up scene too, I like the good old planning sessions that the sisters have to do before each and every assignment, I don't know, I just think it's kind of cool. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet, but I really must. Once again, you've absolutely NAILED the sisters personalities.......Soph's fighting styles and hot head personality (well, when it comes to criminals and bullies), Mag's resourcefulness, BB's intellect and her love of books, Tinker for ever being the tech head and the computer wiz and I really enjoyed the new gadget she invented too, that's what you have to admire about Tinker, just when you think she can't create anything else, she always does. You got Angel's, Tina's and Marie's personalities perfect too. FANTASTIC WORK!
Thank you ever so much as well, I've been wondering for weeks now how could I possibly get Felicity back into the spotlight and low and behold, you have already done so. Honestly, thank you for doing this as Felicity has been away for far too long!
Hahaha! The next scene was great! The way Mercedes and Annette unknowingly blocked and dodged Marie's pen and Tinker's green ball, was actually quite funny as to be honest, I just didn't see it coming.
I also like the way Mercedes is just so cool and relaxed about all this, the fact she's about to get bound and gagged in her undies while someone impersonates her, still, it is as she said, her company do have contingency's for this.
The follow up scene as well, was just absolutely incredible, plus it feels really nice to see Felicity getting back into the whole disguise routine, even if it is only temporally. Also I love the dialogue between the sisters, very natural, very genuine and that is exactly how they'd react. Angel's caring side, Stasis's jokes, all of it is wonderful and I absolutely love it I really do. But wait...............Oh god STASIS is impersonating the chauffeur, oh no, that means Stasis is going to DRIVE! What evil have we just unleashed on the roads HAHAHAHA!
So far, so good, it seems the plan is going well so far, Felicity is doing very well and she'll be fine, the other sisters are nearby, they always are........Plus, did Stasis actually manage to drive the car their properly, good grief, it seems miracles can happen haha.
It doesn't surprise that Tina could immediately see through Sarah's charade and false smiles, even without Tinker's technology, Tina would still be able to see through it. She always does.
Good grief, this Sarah certainly is a cold and calculating individual isn't she, I must admit, I faint drip of sweat apepared on head when she lunged for Felicity, she truly is creepy..............I LOVE IT!...............Seriously, you have such a strong knack for writing dark and creepy characters, I'm really, REALLY, enjoying this!
I really loved Mag's and Felicity's scene here, I enjoyed the way, it was left to our imagination as to how Mag, got Ingrid all alone, then over power her for her uniform, I loved Felicity's reactions to it all, because she isn't an infiltrator after all and her thought her questioning of some of the things, were both sweet and very natural. Plus I reckon Libido would certainly approve of the position that Mag and Felicity left Ingrid and Leonie in. .........Honestly, what a truly, remarkable and such a well written scene! It's such a delight to read!
Loved the scene that came afterwards, Tina's natural worry about her friends, Mag's genuine care for her sisters, it was gelled so well together, the entire scene was so expertly written, while it may be one of the more shorter scenes, it was certainly one of the more impact full one's. Nicely done indeed.
WOW!...............WOW!, WOW, WOW!...........NOW THAT IS HOW YOU DO A CLIFFHANGER!..................Yes, it's all in capitals and no I don't care because I needed to show you just how both excited and fearful I am now for Blink!
God damn it..........I'm at the end.
Okay, first of all, let me give you the biggest THANK YOU! I could possibly give, this has just been AMAZING! Your using EVERYTHING here...........The antagonists, the sisters and even the other side characters.........I wonder how many people will actually remember "Annie Keys!"
Honestly, I know this is only the first part, but my goodness, what a treat! I will NEVER regret letting you write my characters, you have such a unique and amazing way in which you write them. I LOVE the way you go all in and use all the lore and everything else at your disposal, it truly shows hearts, passion and dedication and from the bottom of my own heart, I truly thank you ever so much!
Despite the fact, that I'm writing so many paragraphs here, I will say that you've left me speechless in all the right ways. Allow me to say as well, that I don't just think, I KNOW that you have done such a fantastic job here and I think you've written everything to absolute perfection! The USB scenes themselves, were fun and very enjoyable and if I'm being honest, they were quite creative too. Honestly, I can't get over how awesome this is.....Seriously, this is why I will never doubt your talents, never doubt your skills and most importantly, I'll always be able to trust you with my characters. You do them all absolute justice and I believe you've got another amazing hit on your hands here!
Again,thank you ever so much and now Blink is in the fray too, I can imagine things are about to get a lot more heated!
Haha, what am opening to behold, it seems that the leader's (Sarah) seems to be quite the woman when defending herself in Heartfelt's prison, although I can understand why she'd avoid Kuebiko as there's a reason why even the other inmates avoid her. Speaking of which it was funny, seeing how she would deal with the other inmates around. Well played.
Damn, now that was a powerful scene afterwards with Cassie and Louette, although my mind keeps pondering about Willow, I'm sure it's just my imagination, but why does she seem so familiar, I can't put my finger on it. Either way, what a fantastic scene and I;m all too curious to see what happens next.
OH WOW! What a remarkable few scene's afterwards, I was so eager to write a bit for each scene, but I just got SO addicted to it, I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know just what the white masks were going to do to Helen and wow, they certainly are some strong antagonists that's for sure! Indeed, the Neon goons love their rave music, so playing something like J-pop on one of their turfs is indeed a full declaration of war. WOW! This is incredibly intense and honestly.........I LOVE IT!.........Must see more!
Oh no.......Those poor fools........So they too have no idea that the Night Angels are of course......The Nine.......See, this is going to be great! Seriously, what a fantastic job you've done, the steaks are high, the antagonists are evil as anything, the setting is perfect, the call backs to wonderful and my excitement is at all time high! ...............In case you couldn't tell, I'm extremely enjoying this!
Love the way the first thing we see the sisters, they've already taken down a ck yoouple of neon goons and are wearing their clothes, excellent stuff, I always very much enjoyed the band Soph chose as I too am a "imagine dragons" fan.
First of all, I absolutely loved the fight scene, very well executed and I think you wrote it superbly.
Secondly, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire segment from start to finish, clever trick as I genuinely wasn't expecting Helen to suddenly turn on the sisters so quickly, but not only am I happy that Angel put her in her place, but I'm also happy that when she realized just WHO had actually saved her life, she changed her attitude very quickly. This was such a GREAT scene!
What a great follow up scene too, I like the good old planning sessions that the sisters have to do before each and every assignment, I don't know, I just think it's kind of cool. Also, I haven't mentioned this yet, but I really must. Once again, you've absolutely NAILED the sisters personalities.......Soph's fighting styles and hot head personality (well, when it comes to criminals and bullies), Mag's resourcefulness, BB's intellect and her love of books, Tinker for ever being the tech head and the computer wiz and I really enjoyed the new gadget she invented too, that's what you have to admire about Tinker, just when you think she can't create anything else, she always does. You got Angel's, Tina's and Marie's personalities perfect too. FANTASTIC WORK!
Thank you ever so much as well, I've been wondering for weeks now how could I possibly get Felicity back into the spotlight and low and behold, you have already done so. Honestly, thank you for doing this as Felicity has been away for far too long!
Hahaha! The next scene was great! The way Mercedes and Annette unknowingly blocked and dodged Marie's pen and Tinker's green ball, was actually quite funny as to be honest, I just didn't see it coming.
I also like the way Mercedes is just so cool and relaxed about all this, the fact she's about to get bound and gagged in her undies while someone impersonates her, still, it is as she said, her company do have contingency's for this.
The follow up scene as well, was just absolutely incredible, plus it feels really nice to see Felicity getting back into the whole disguise routine, even if it is only temporally. Also I love the dialogue between the sisters, very natural, very genuine and that is exactly how they'd react. Angel's caring side, Stasis's jokes, all of it is wonderful and I absolutely love it I really do. But wait...............Oh god STASIS is impersonating the chauffeur, oh no, that means Stasis is going to DRIVE! What evil have we just unleashed on the roads HAHAHAHA!
So far, so good, it seems the plan is going well so far, Felicity is doing very well and she'll be fine, the other sisters are nearby, they always are........Plus, did Stasis actually manage to drive the car their properly, good grief, it seems miracles can happen haha.
It doesn't surprise that Tina could immediately see through Sarah's charade and false smiles, even without Tinker's technology, Tina would still be able to see through it. She always does.
Good grief, this Sarah certainly is a cold and calculating individual isn't she, I must admit, I faint drip of sweat apepared on head when she lunged for Felicity, she truly is creepy..............I LOVE IT!...............Seriously, you have such a strong knack for writing dark and creepy characters, I'm really, REALLY, enjoying this!
I really loved Mag's and Felicity's scene here, I enjoyed the way, it was left to our imagination as to how Mag, got Ingrid all alone, then over power her for her uniform, I loved Felicity's reactions to it all, because she isn't an infiltrator after all and her thought her questioning of some of the things, were both sweet and very natural. Plus I reckon Libido would certainly approve of the position that Mag and Felicity left Ingrid and Leonie in.
.........Honestly, what a truly, remarkable and such a well written scene! It's such a delight to read! Loved the scene that came afterwards, Tina's natural worry about her friends, Mag's genuine care for her sisters, it was gelled so well together, the entire scene was so expertly written, while it may be one of the more shorter scenes, it was certainly one of the more impact full one's. Nicely done indeed.
WOW!...............WOW!, WOW, WOW!...........NOW THAT IS HOW YOU DO A CLIFFHANGER!..................Yes, it's all in capitals and no I don't care because I needed to show you just how both excited and fearful I am now for Blink!
God damn it..........I'm at the end.
Okay, first of all, let me give you the biggest THANK YOU! I could possibly give, this has just been AMAZING! Your using EVERYTHING here...........The antagonists, the sisters and even the other side characters.........I wonder how many people will actually remember "Annie Keys!"
Honestly, I know this is only the first part, but my goodness, what a treat! I will NEVER regret letting you write my characters, you have such a unique and amazing way in which you write them. I LOVE the way you go all in and use all the lore and everything else at your disposal, it truly shows hearts, passion and dedication and from the bottom of my own heart, I truly thank you ever so much!
Despite the fact, that I'm writing so many paragraphs here, I will say that you've left me speechless in all the right ways. Allow me to say as well, that I don't just think, I KNOW that you have done such a fantastic job here and I think you've written everything to absolute perfection! The USB scenes themselves, were fun and very enjoyable and if I'm being honest, they were quite creative too.
Honestly, I can't get over how awesome this is.....Seriously, this is why I will never doubt your talents, never doubt your skills and most importantly, I'll always be able to trust you with my characters. You do them all absolute justice and I believe you've got another amazing hit on your hands here! Again,thank you ever so much and now Blink is in the fray too, I can imagine things are about to get a lot more heated!
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rufusluciusivan
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
I liked being able to do a few continuity nods to your arrested villainesses, plus it was a perfect way to highlight Sarah's reckless relentless personality.
About Willow. For now, all I'll say is that while Louette seems to be calling the shots - plus she has tattoos and hair dye -, she may not be the most dangerous of the group...
I want the antagonists of this part to be more complex - basically, they are more sympathetic versions of Sarah: they share the same kind of tragic backstory and are just as merciless with their opposition, but contrary to their leader they have more pleasant personalities in their everyday life: they hold steady jobs that they like and they genuinely want to help other victims, even those they can't recruit. Honestly, with a few minor tweakings and in a different story, they could be anti-heroines 'à la Punisher', and that's the point. However, to avoid unfortunate implications and to justify the sisters' decision to fight them, they have to use brutal extreme heinous methods. Hence their cruel treatment of Helen - and trust me, as the next part will show, the White Masks can be a lot more cruel with their targets.
Basically, they are meant to be a middle ground between 'Reality' and Sarah - not as sympathetic as 'Reality', but still sympathetic antagonists.
I can't wait to write the scene during which the White Masks will learn the true identity of their idols. I guess it's not a spoiler, we all know this story is building up to this.
I wanted to bring Neon Goons one last time, but I guess Angel's right. They're maybe seeing the end of this gang. Unless another story features them at some point... The fight scene pales in comparison of another recent fight scene ( ), but I'll never get tired of watching Soph punching goons around and just being awesome. Marie and Mag already being disguised was necessary for the pace of the scene, but from time to time I like having only the aftermath and leaving the rest to the imagination.
Also an Imagine Dragons fan here.
I want this story to be morally grey: Had the White Masks chosen to be 'Batman-like' vigilantes, only arresting the uniform stealers, they'd be heroines, plain and simple. So to highlight the moral greyness of the situation, I needed to show how a good chunk of the infiltrators are bad people. (Something your stories have hinted several times, such as with Shen's comment that they are all mercenary looking only for money.) So what better way than to introduce a cowardly ungrateful little b*tch such as Helen? A callous bully who gets her kicks by humiliating other people with no care for their fate afterwards, who pathetically begs when the tables are turned and she has to face consequences for her actions, and who betrays her saviour the second it's more convenient to her. I hope tirepanted will forgive me, but I imagined her as Bobbi's evil counterpart / shadow archetype (to quote tv tropes): I took Bobbi, removed her positive qualities, enhanced her flaws, added a great dose of coward into the mix (I mean, can you picture Bobbi begging for her life if captured?), and Voilà! you get Helen! (Helen even mugged Magda while the blonde was doing her jogging and because she was rude to her, the detail that betrays the inspiration of this character since it references a recent scene with Bobbi.) Gosh, I just realized that I can't get the question of Bobbi's character development out of my head... I should hibernate until after her story is over... The detail of Helen betraying Angel was the illustration that she's a horrible person, and while it illustrates that Angel still has trouble overcoming her inner-demons, her upcoming thrashing and humiliation are meant to be karmic.
Annette's and Mercedes' part was supposed to be the 'light comedic' part of the post, so I'm glad you enjoyed its humorous elements. The scene of them completely unwittingly foiling (the first attempt of) their mugging would probably have worked better in pictures, but it was just too funny to pass.
Bringing back Felicity was indeed something I really wanted to. A way to prepare her return for the upcoming arc featuring the Phantoms? Writing the parts of a novice uniform stealer was a refreshing change of pace.
Didn't even remember the horrors of Stasis' driving when I wrote this scene. I guess she really got in character and DIDN'T crash on everything on their way.
Sarah has changed her tactics, but at heart she remains the same, and indeed Tina would easily understand that.
That moment when Sarah grabs Felicity's wrist after she almost betrays she's a disguised infiltrator, and allows Felicity to see her true character, making the tension skyrocket while the sisters are powerless to do anything. THAT moment was the thing that started this entire storyline.
A funny moment born out of sheer laziness I confess. When writing the part, I realized that while the turnaround of Mag already being in disguise was a nice twist, it would need some explanation... Then because I didn't want to write that (and to keep the reveal a surprise and to not break the pace), I turned the fact that we don't know how she did it into a joke. Poor Mag, she wanted to show off but Felicity ruined her effect by being too literal-minded! Let's just say that a delivery woman and a janitress were involved at some point. Libido would approve of Ingrid's and Leonie's position indeed, though as Mag said it was done for a practical purpose.
After the tension with Sarah, a heartwarming epilogue with the sisters was needed.
Blink will probably not be in immediate danger: as Louette said, since they're only at their beginning, they need to carefully select their first target. Blink isn't heinous enough, they need to go after the infiltrators that kill first. However, a little later and while nobody's looking...
The scene was more a way to illustrate the effectiveness of the White Masks at gathering information, a detail to highlight the threat they pose.
You're welcome. I thank you for all your compliments. I love trying to write your characters: they have pleasant personalities, their hearwarming or funny interactions just write themselves, and it allows me to explore a universe and thematics that I will probably never be able to explore in my stories since I don't have the right set-up. Plus, doing shot-outs to other stories is the raison d'être of these side-stories.
About Willow. For now, all I'll say is that while Louette seems to be calling the shots - plus she has tattoos and hair dye -, she may not be the most dangerous of the group...
I want the antagonists of this part to be more complex - basically, they are more sympathetic versions of Sarah: they share the same kind of tragic backstory and are just as merciless with their opposition, but contrary to their leader they have more pleasant personalities in their everyday life: they hold steady jobs that they like and they genuinely want to help other victims, even those they can't recruit. Honestly, with a few minor tweakings and in a different story, they could be anti-heroines 'à la Punisher', and that's the point. However, to avoid unfortunate implications and to justify the sisters' decision to fight them, they have to use brutal extreme heinous methods. Hence their cruel treatment of Helen - and trust me, as the next part will show, the White Masks can be a lot more cruel with their targets.
Basically, they are meant to be a middle ground between 'Reality' and Sarah - not as sympathetic as 'Reality', but still sympathetic antagonists.
I can't wait to write the scene during which the White Masks will learn the true identity of their idols. I guess it's not a spoiler, we all know this story is building up to this.
I wanted to bring Neon Goons one last time, but I guess Angel's right. They're maybe seeing the end of this gang. Unless another story features them at some point...
The fight scene pales in comparison of another recent fight scene ( ), but I'll never get tired of watching Soph punching goons around and just being awesome. Marie and Mag already being disguised was necessary for the pace of the scene, but from time to time I like having only the aftermath and leaving the rest to the imagination.Also an Imagine Dragons fan here.
I want this story to be morally grey: Had the White Masks chosen to be 'Batman-like' vigilantes, only arresting the uniform stealers, they'd be heroines, plain and simple. So to highlight the moral greyness of the situation, I needed to show how a good chunk of the infiltrators are bad people. (Something your stories have hinted several times, such as with Shen's comment that they are all mercenary looking only for money.) So what better way than to introduce a cowardly ungrateful little b*tch such as Helen? A callous bully who gets her kicks by humiliating other people with no care for their fate afterwards, who pathetically begs when the tables are turned and she has to face consequences for her actions, and who betrays her saviour the second it's more convenient to her. I hope tirepanted will forgive me, but I imagined her as Bobbi's evil counterpart / shadow archetype (to quote tv tropes): I took Bobbi, removed her positive qualities, enhanced her flaws, added a great dose of coward into the mix (I mean, can you picture Bobbi begging for her life if captured?), and Voilà! you get Helen! (Helen even mugged Magda while the blonde was doing her jogging and because she was rude to her, the detail that betrays the inspiration of this character since it references a recent scene with Bobbi.) Gosh, I just realized that I can't get the question of Bobbi's character development out of my head... I should hibernate until after her story is over... The detail of Helen betraying Angel was the illustration that she's a horrible person, and while it illustrates that Angel still has trouble overcoming her inner-demons, her upcoming thrashing and humiliation are meant to be karmic.
Annette's and Mercedes' part was supposed to be the 'light comedic' part of the post, so I'm glad you enjoyed its humorous elements. The scene of them completely unwittingly foiling (the first attempt of) their mugging would probably have worked better in pictures, but it was just too funny to pass.
Bringing back Felicity was indeed something I really wanted to. A way to prepare her return for the upcoming arc featuring the Phantoms?
Writing the parts of a novice uniform stealer was a refreshing change of pace.Didn't even remember the horrors of Stasis' driving when I wrote this scene. I guess she really got in character and DIDN'T crash on everything on their way.
Sarah has changed her tactics, but at heart she remains the same, and indeed Tina would easily understand that.
That moment when Sarah grabs Felicity's wrist after she almost betrays she's a disguised infiltrator, and allows Felicity to see her true character, making the tension skyrocket while the sisters are powerless to do anything. THAT moment was the thing that started this entire storyline.
A funny moment born out of sheer laziness I confess. When writing the part, I realized that while the turnaround of Mag already being in disguise was a nice twist, it would need some explanation... Then because I didn't want to write that (and to keep the reveal a surprise and to not break the pace), I turned the fact that we don't know how she did it into a joke. Poor Mag, she wanted to show off but Felicity ruined her effect by being too literal-minded! Let's just say that a delivery woman and a janitress were involved at some point. Libido would approve of Ingrid's and Leonie's position indeed, though as Mag said it was done for a practical purpose.
After the tension with Sarah, a heartwarming epilogue with the sisters was needed.
Blink will probably not be in immediate danger: as Louette said, since they're only at their beginning, they need to carefully select their first target. Blink isn't heinous enough, they need to go after the infiltrators that kill first. However, a little later and while nobody's looking...
The scene was more a way to illustrate the effectiveness of the White Masks at gathering information, a detail to highlight the threat they pose.You're welcome. I thank you for all your compliments. I love trying to write your characters: they have pleasant personalities, their hearwarming or funny interactions just write themselves, and it allows me to explore a universe and thematics that I will probably never be able to explore in my stories since I don't have the right set-up. Plus, doing shot-outs to other stories is the raison d'être of these side-stories.
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Torreken
- Posts: 106
- Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:20 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
I am quite behind on the main storyline and I am not familiar with the characters, but I enjoyed the story (and the story's universe) a lot.
Fantastic writting.
Fantastic writting.
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rufusluciusivan
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
Torreken, thanks a lot! If you enjoy the universe, I suggest to check all the stories by trackman, since I'm merely 'renting' his setting and most of his characters.
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Trackman281
- Posts: 1600
- Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:08 am
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
If I'm being honest, I really miss Reality, it turns out the more and more I think about it, she was probably one of my strongest villainesses, not in terms of strength but in terms of really making an individual feel the weight of their actions, now one could argue that Kuebiko fills that role and "yes" to a degree she does, but she just uses peoples own fears against them and twists them so their even worse, whilst Reality really dove into the problems and really justified why they should feel guilt for their actions........*sigh*......I admit, part of me really regrets killing her off so soon, but oh well, what's done is done.Basically, they are meant to be a middle ground between 'Reality' and Sarah - not as sympathetic as 'Reality', but still sympathetic antagonists.
Wait a second, are you insinuating that the neon goons are going to be appearing again in the future, but this time at that full strength? Why, what ever makes you say such a thing.wanted to bring Neon Goons one last time, but I guess Angel's right. They're maybe seeing the end of this gang. Unless another story features them at some point...
Don't worry, thankfully because it was Felicity who was the passenger, I doubt she's aware of what happened the last time Stasis was aloud to drive.
It's because Bobbi is such as awesome character, Tirepanted has done such a fantastic job with her, that I know how you feel, as I too can't wait to see her scene's whenever Tirepanted posts a new chapter.
Goodness, in that case I'm both very excited and very nervous to know what sort of trouble, Blink's going to find herself in and god help them all if they touch Shannon, because, while Blink maybe a true professional and a very adaptable infiltrator, I can assure you, all of that goes out the window, if anyone is stupid enough to touch her daughter, as Evans found out the hard way.Blink will probably not be in immediate danger: as Louette said, since they're only at their beginning, they need to carefully select their first target. Blink isn't heinous enough, they need to go after the infiltrators that kill first. However, a little later and while nobody's looking...
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rufusluciusivan
- Posts: 1230
- Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:08 pm
Re: Chapter 36.5: Chronicles of Heartfelt City 2
Well, maybe we'll be able to do something approaching that in this story at some point.If I'm being honest, I really miss Reality, it turns out the more and more I think about it, she was probably one of my strongest villainesses, not in terms of strength but in terms of really making an individual feel the weight of their actions
Part 2: First blood
**************
“I’m sorry.” Leonie said with her head down.
Sarah shook her head. “You don’t have to blame yourself. I was fooled too. Do not see failure as a bad thing, see it as a chance of improvement. Our enemies are a crafty bunch, but each mistake we make is a chance to learn. One day, they’ll be out of tricks. And that day…”
Sarah closed her fist, as if she was crushing something. The Leader then added:
“I think I’ve identified the impostor who took Ingrid’s place, thanks to your description. She’s the one who tried to break me.”
“She won’t trick me twice. If I meet her again, I will kill her.” Leonie immediately commented.
“If she’s truly the one I think she is, then we’ll have to be wary. She’s part of the team of sisters. They’re highly-trained. Well-coordinated. And they have several allies.”
Sarah scratched her chin, then she added:
“But I don’t understand why they’d try to interrogate me so openly. It’s clear that they were looking for information about Louette’s White Masks… But the sisters aren’t stupid. They must have known that I wouldn’t reveal information allowing to identify Louette and her teammates, even to Annette. They must have known that they wouldn’t get all the information they wanted...”
She thought for a long moment.
“Unless… Unless this was only a first step… Unless they simply wanted to get the confirmation that Louette is in contact with me! But what can they do next?”
Sarah remembered that one of the sisters was a tech-expert, with drones and all sorts of gadgets.
She suspected that such a genius could hack new technologies with ease.
“Leonie. I want you to contact Louette and her team the old-fashioned way. No phone call, no e-mail. Meet them in person. Tell them that, from now on, they will have to consider that all our conversations using phones will be tapped, all our e-mails will be intercepted. Tell them to buy new phones to communicate between themselves, but to still use to same phone to communicate with me.”
“Why?”
“Because we can’t let such an opportunity go to waste. They are listening to our conversations. But they don’t know that WE know they are listening. It could be a great opportunity to set up a trap…”
Leonie smiled. “I think I see where this is going.”
“Louette’s team is too small to hope defeating these enemies in a direct confrontation, at least for now. Therefore, our chance is to try to outsmart them…” Sarah concluded.
**************
Cassie was feeling more and more at ease with her new support group.
Louette was gladly putting on a show, Magda was very nice, and Ellie was often bringing them ice creams in an icebox. Willow wasn’t talking much though. In fact, Cassie couldn’t recall hearing her speak even once. However, the others didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Now, I’ll tell you what, I am personally very glad to hear that women are taking up arms outside.” Louette commented with a bottle of beer in her hand. “Women like the Night Angels. And this new group called the White Masks.”
How did the conversation drift to this topic again? Cassie didn’t remember. She sipped at her beer. Then she nodded. “They are a source of inspiration for us.”
“You really think so?” Louette asked her.
Cassie realized that the other members of her group were looking at her attentively. “Yes. They’re showing that even normal women can take action against crime.” she said.
Louette, Magda, Ellie, and Willow exchanged a look and smiled. They seemed very pleased by her answer, though Cassie had a hard time figuring out why.
“We can’t agree more…” Louette then said.
“In fact, we’re hoping that they will one day manage to do what the police can’t do, and get their hands on the women who harmed us.” Magda added.
“I would gladly see these people brought to justice!” Cassie agreed.
“Or maybe we could follow the examples of the Night Angels and dispense justice ourselves.” Ellie commented.
Cassie looked at her. “Really?”
“Well, she’s speaking hypothetically…” Louette intervened. She casted Ellie a meaningful glare.
The chubby woman avoided the blue-haired woman's gaze, and sipped at her soda in silence.
“Oh. Of course...” Cassie said.
"Anyway, how are you doing at work?" Louette asked her.
"Very good. I'm not feeling afraid anymore."
In fact, Cassie was feeling more and more confident thanks to her new friends. The idea of confronting and bringing down her mugger seemed less intimidating if she could have them at her side.
A part of her was even liking this idea actually...
**************
One week after Felicity’s infiltration, Tinker’s efforts to hack Sarah’s conversations and to learn more about her copycats were starting to pay off. Of course, the Leader easily deduced that infiltrators were trying to spy on her after Leonie, Ingrid, Annette, and Mercedes were found. However, she was apparently underestimating the sisters’ capacity to hack the new technologies. Therefore, while she couldn’t pinpoint for now the real identities of the new threat to her family, the tech genius was patiently assembling the threads. Just like her bots, she was patiently weaving her spider’s web.
Angel was helping her a lot. She wasn’t hesitating to spend sleepless nights reading countless posts. For her, it was personal. As their opponents were people who suffered a lot because of infiltrators, she couldn’t help but take it personally. It was bringing to her memories of ‘Reality’, and all the other women she hurt when she was still ‘Demon’.
Searching the dark web also proved to be a good idea. A name was circulating there. The White Masks.
However, even though they were on the lookout for this new menace, the sisters also had other missions. Indeed, in Heartfelt City, crime never slept.
Speaking of which...
**************
Tina parked the rented car in an empty alleyway. She turned to talk to her sisters gathered inside the vehicle.
“Alright. Stasis and I, we’ll take the right side of the building. Libido, BB, you’ll take the left side.”
“Got it.”
“And Angel…”
“Yes?”
“You stay in the car.”
Angel’s face fell. “What?! But Tina…”
Tina raised her hand to ask her to stop talking and shook her head. She was looking very worried. “Don’t think I didn’t notice what you’re doing, sis’. We’ve all noticed. You already insisted to be part of the previous mission with Soph, Mag, and Marie. And also to be part of the one before that. And you’re spending most of your free time with Tinker to learn more about this new group of vigilantes that copy Sarah’s actions.”
Angel bit her lower lip. She was trying to find a justification.
“You’re pushing yourself too hard. You need to rest.” Tina concluded.
“Tina-”
“You knew perfectly well that I wouldn’t allow you to come this time.” her sister interrupted her. “That’s why you sneaked inside the car when I wasn’t looking, and waited until we were almost arrived to reveal your presence.”
Angel had indeed spent most of the travel hidden under Stasis’ and Libido’s legs in the back of the car.
Tina looked at said Libido and Stasis. “By the way, I’m not thanking you two for NOT saying anything. I know she bribed you to stay quiet.”
The two sisters didn’t try to refute the accusation… because it was true.
They winced when Tina added: “We will have a little conversation once this mission is over. Just the three of us.”
She turned once again towards Angel.
“We started these patrols to help innocent people and to help you, not to see you ruin your health. You may think you’re not doing enough, but you ARE. So, please sit this one out. Do it for me, to ease my worries.”
Now, Angel’s pleading eyes were very effective – as proven by the last time, when she used them on Soph. But Tina’s were just as effective, if not more, due to the motherly concern one could see in her gaze.
Angel bit her lower lip, but nodded. “Yes…”
Tina smiled, grabbed her hand and held it. “Thanks.” She turned to her other sisters. “BB, Stasis, Libido, let’s go.”
****************
The compound they were looking to infiltrate was a warehouse. Two pairs of sentries were patrolling its outskirts.
The sentries were all wearing the same clothes: long black leather boots, a black leather jumpsuit, a black leather headband, and a black utility belt with handguns and combat knives. They were armed with machine guns.
Tina and Stasis found the pair watching the right side of the warehouse.
The first sentry was called Zoe and was 26 years old. She had strawberry blonde hair, tied back in a shoulder-long ponytail, a white skin, and green eyes. The second sentry was called Ruby and was a 34-year-old woman with warm ivory skin, sparkling amber brown hair styled into a modern mullet look, and vale green eyes.
“I’m just saying that I don’t understand what the boss’ end game is… I mean... I understand wearing leather pants. But why a stupid fetish leather JUMPSUIT?” Zoe complained.
“Sure… ‘Cause the blue neon sticks WEREN’T stupid as fuck!” Ruby mockingly commented. “You HoloDecks always looked like Christmas trees!”
“Shut your trap, Crimson Lancer! At least we looked like something! We weren’t wearing stupid slutty-looking red corsets!”
Ruby’s cheeks became red. “Those were nice and retro!”
“Well, maybe if you were younger, but come on… It was just embarrassing. You could be my mother! Act your age, don’t try to look sexy. Your glory days are gone.”
“I could be your MOTHER?! I’m 34, twat! How dare you?!”
The sentries kept bickering with each other, unaware that two women were watching them from afar.
“The sentries of this compound doesn’t seem to be living the true love…” Stasis commented.
“That’s because most of them are former members of rival gangs.”
Indeed, with their leaders brought to custody, three of the main gangs of Heartfelt City (the HoloDecks, the Ravens, and the Crimson Lancers) were in complete disarray. However, you could always trust vultures to come to try to take advantage of the situation… Some wannabe mob boss was trying to take advantage of the power vacuum. She was dreaming to create her own criminal syndicate by recruiting the remnants of the three leaderless gangs and combining their forces with her own small group of crooks. Now that the Golden Tigers were out of commission and the remnants of the Neon Goons were brought to their knees by the Night Angels, this upstart was already seeing herself as the new kingpin of Heartfelt City.
The sisters didn’t think that this syndicate could last for long, given the fact that the four sides couldn’t stand each other, but they didn’t want to take any chance either. As unlikely as it was, IF this new gang managed to go the distance, the city would have to deal with a new dangerous threat.
Hence why they intended to crash the little smuggling operation taking place in this warehouse, and deliver everyone inside to the police...
Stasis shared a look with Tina. “I take Christmas Tree, you take Corset.” she said.
“Don’t start with the nicknames please.”
The two infiltrators deployed, using their black catsuits to blend in the night.
Stasis positioned herself to have Zoe in her line of sight, and raised her slingshot.
“Hey! Up’Gorgeous!” she exclaimed.
The sentry reflexively turned to face her.
“What’s ‘Up’Gorgeous’?” she asked.
Stasis shot a green ball at her face with her slingshot.
“Why thank you, dear. You’re not too bad-looking yourself!”
Zoe breathed a good dose of sleeping gas, coughed, and blinked. “Ah… oh... uh…? oh… uhm… uh…? nyuhhhhhhhh...” she answered. Then her eyes rolled back and she fell on the ground. Sound asleep. She started to snore lightly.
Ruby raised her machine gun.
“What’s the big idea, you bit-ffffmmmhhhh?!”
Tina clamped a hand over her mouth and wrapped her other arm around her throat. She kicked her in the stomach to make her fall on her knee, then squeezed. Ruby grunted and moaned, but the handgag muffled her cries for help and she wasn’t able to escape the grasp of Tina’s sleeper-hold. She let out one long final moan, then succumbed to the effects of the hold and passed out.
Stasis smiled. “You know, Tina, it’s been a while since the last time we were paired up in a mission… Just the two of us... I’ve missed it! Things are so efficient with you-”
“Flattery won’t help you escape your scolding, sis’. Just accept the inevitable.” Tina interrupted her.
“Bummer.”
The sisters quickly divested the two sentries of their outer clothes. It was easier said than done, because the garments were made of leather. Tina complained about the ‘stupid fetish outfits’.
Ruby was wearing a carmine red seamless bra, scarlet red socks and ruby red high-waist retro panties. Zoe was wearing grey socks, a carnival purple racerback bra and Hawaiian pink Brazilian panties.
Stasis searched her backpack.
“I think Libido got carried away and took all the restraints with her.” she commented with a sheepish expression.
“And you only realize it now…” Tina rolled her eyes indulgently and spoke in her hidden microphone. “Tinker, a little help please?”
“Right away!”
Two mechanical spiders dropped down from the wall. Ebony and Ivory quickly scurried over. Each bot mummified one sentry to tie her up. They wrapped their strings all the way around the body from the tips of the toes to the blades of the shoulders. More webbing was wrapped over the mouth and around the lower face to gag them, as well as over the closed eyelids to serve as a blindfold. Ivory and Ebony checked that every part of the body was secured, then went back to their wall. Zoe and Ruby now looked like two flies trapped in two cocoons of web.
“Luckily, I always come prepared…” Tina commented.
They heard Tinker’s little exclamation of pride and superiority in their earpiece.
Stasis smiled awkwardly.
She and Tina slipped into their disguise. (Tina complained a second time about the fetish outfits.)
The two cocooned women were then dragged further away by the sisters, and seated leaning against each other in a corner, concealed in a blind spot of the warehouse.
Stasis raised her hand to stop Tina when the latter went to enter the building and regroup with Libido and BB.
“Oh, just give me a second! I’ve always wanted to do something like that!”
Stasis put on a Spiderman mask and grabbed her phone. She posed next to the two webbed-up unconscious sentries who were huddled together, and took a selfie.
“Now, let me add a photo-shopped picture of Tobey Maguire doing one of his ‘meme faces’, and I can post it online.”
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/e9/9f ... f84a8c.jpg
“Stasis…”
“What? Somebody has to build up our good PR. We’re starting to become famous, sis’. People admire the exploits of the ‘Night Angels’. We’re inspiring them! Look, I’m adding a title: ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Crime Fighter’… and a legend: ‘Hey Bianca, look at that! I’m making more views with one picture than you with one live...^^’ #UniformStealingBiancaIsLame”
“Stasis!”
“Come on! I know you’re not on board with the idea of humiliating our victims. But these two are criminals and repeat offenders. It’s not like I’m doing it with two innocent people… Plus, they’re all webbed up. People can’t even see that we stole their clothes!”
Tina sighed. “Just wait until after we’ve left to post it. I don’t want one of the goons inside to come across our exploit before we’re done.”
“Yes chief!”
**************
BB and Libido were infiltrating the compound through the other side.
They had found the pair of sentries patrolling the left side of the building.
The first woman was slim and of average size and build. She had an ivory white skin, raven black hair, and brown eyes. There was a silver piercing over her left eyebrow. Her hair were straight and neck-long. A part of them was tied into a small high ponytail with a purple scrunchie. Her features showed that she was from an Asian country. She was called Ae-Cha. The second woman was burlier, had a Peruvian skin, short coarse black hair, and dark brown almond-shaped eyes. Her name was Margarita.
The Peruvian woman asked her partner: “Have you heard about that J-pop band who got mugged for disguise? It was all over the news in Hong-Kong!” She was speaking English with a thick Spanish accent.
“Why would I necessarily care about what’s going on there?” Ae-Cha retorted.
“Well… Aren’t you Chinese?”
“Excuse you? I’m Korean.” an annoyed Ae-Cha retorted.
“Isn’t it the same?”
Ae-Cha glared daggers at her. “Okay, you racist, one more word out of your shithole and you’ll need a straw to eat your food for the rest of your life!”
Margarita wasn’t intimidated. “Oh yeah? Bring it on! I was in the Ravens, puta! I’m not afraid of you upstarts!”
“Upstarts?!”
“Yeah! You guys turn up out of the blue after the battle’s over to assimilate us and the HoloDecks and the Crimson Lancers! And you think we should kiss your ass for that?!”
“Girls, girls, girls… All this negativity is ruining my mood…” a female voice intervened. “The world needs more love.”
The two sentries stared at the newcomer.
“What the-?! Who are you?!” Margarita exclaimed.
“A distraction. A gorgeous sexy-looking distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.” Libido announced while striking a sensual pose, shamelessly putting her breasts forward.
Ae-Cha and Margarita blinked and exchanged a flustered look. At least, they had forgotten their argument.
Just thank the power of the boobs. Libido thought to herself.
“Is she for real?” Ae-Cha finally commented. She was looking dismayed and a little disgusted, which hurt Libido’s self-esteem.
Margarita grumbled something and swallowed. Her eyes were fixated on Libido’s chest. It was as if she was hypnotized by the sight. She was actually even sweating a little. It restored Libido’s self-esteem.
While they were distracted. BB grabbed the two sentries from behind.
It was a double sleeper-hold. One arm was wrapped around around each woman’s throat.
Ae-Cha and Margarita groaned and tried to struggle, but they were lacking the teamwork that could have helped them break free. They were too weak and small to escape BB’s clutch without cooperating, even if the latter was only using one arm.
They passed out together.
BB carried the two unconscious women under her arms to a concealed blind spot of the building, and dropped them on the ground.
She and Libido stripped the two women down to their underclothes. Ae-Cha was clad in Star Wars-themed underwear: black panties with light red lacy edges adorned with Vader’s face and a matching plunge bra adorned with images of the Death Star and Tie-Fighters. There were white little stormtroopers on her black socks. A fitting choice for a low-ranked goon.
Margarita was wearing a sexy golden brown g-string and a cocoa bandeau bra, as well as black socks.
Libido eyed the second sentry (and her g-string) appreciatively. “I’m going to pretend that she was wearing it for me…”
BB rolled her eyes.
“I swear she looked interested!” her horny sister justified herself. “I think I could have had a shot with her… Maybe I should leave her my number?”
“Libido. Keep focused. And keep your hands to yourself.”
“You’re right. Dating a bad girl has its perks, and it’s undeniably hot, but it’s just too much trouble… Statistically, a stable relationship allows to have sex more often.” Then something clicked in her mind. “On the other hand… for a one-time booty call...”
She extended her hand. BB slapped the back of her hand.
“Cock-blocker…” her horny sister commented with a pout. “Fine, you won. For now. But I’ll let you know that I intend to keep the bathroom to myself when we return home.”
Libido then searched her handbag to grab something to bind and gag the sentries.
“Oops… Looks like I brought all the restraints with me…” She shrugged. “Oh well, might as well not waste them.”
She wrapped so many ropes around the two women’s lower-limbs and upper-arms that they were almost mummified. Then, Libido made sure to wrap more ropes around both their bodies at the same time in order to bind them facing each other, with their breasts and crotches pressed together.
Libido added crotch-ropes, because why not? She made sure to connect each woman’s crotch-rope to the other’s bound wrists.
To silence Ae-Cha and Margarita, Libido pulled out a little surprise. A double ball-gag! She strapped the device to both women’s heads, making them chew on the same black rubber double-ball. Not exactly a ‘true kiss gag’, but close.
“Hopefully, this will help them get over their argument…” Libido joked.
Then, the two sisters got dressed.
Of course, Libido appreciated the leather a lot. BB’s outfit didn’t match her size, but she had no alternative so she didn’t complain. She had to keep the leather jumpsuit slightly open.
“See? You’re ready to distract them Libido-smile!” her sister exclaimed. To show solidarity, she also partly opened her jumpsuit.
BB ignored her. “Tina, Stasis, we’re done.” the tall woman said in her hidden microphone. “How about you?”
“Disguises acquired. We’re moving inside the warehouse.”
“Copy that. We’ll regroup with you.”
**************
Angel didn’t like being left behind. However, she couldn’t contest Tina’s decision. Her sister was right. She was pushing her body too hard. And if she made a mistake because she was too tired, she could endanger her sisters…
She just had to bide her time and wait for her sisters’ return.
The sentries had been neutralized. The Night Angels knew that there were roughly five-to-ten thugs inside the warehouse. If they were as dysfunctional as the four outside, getting the drop on them would be a piece of cake.
Suddenly, the radio they were using to listen to the police’s messages came to life.
“Attention all units. A group of masked vigilantes have been seen manhandling an underwear-clad woman in the alleyway.”
Angel let out a small shout of surprise.
It looked too much like what happened to Helen to be a coincidence!
“We have to investigate!” Angel exclaimed to herself.
But she knew that her sisters couldn’t be here on time. They were inside the building, trying to capture all the gang-members.
Angel hesitated. The alleyway was close to her position. She could go there on foot.
And she was the only one who could intervene.
She didn't hesitate.
“I… I have to do something!”
Angel rushed outside the car. She used the hood of her black coat and put on a ‘Zorro’ mask to hide her head.
**************
BB and Libido were on one of the warehouse's catwalks. Below, in the warehouse, four-or-five leather-clad criminals were loading crates. Or, more precisely, they were loudly arguing with each other about how to load the crates. They were the sisters' final targets. However, first the disguised crime-fighters had to deal with the two guards watching the scenery from above in the catwalks.
Libido saw, at the other side of the building, a tall red-haired light-skinned sentry with a high ponytail being suddenly grabbed from behind by Tina. Her sister hand-gagged the sentry with one hand, and hit her between the shoulder and the neck with the other. From afar, Libido could only imagine the sound of the neck-chop and the sentry's grunt. The criminals below didn't see or hear anything. They were too busy arguing with each other. Then, Tina lowered her burden and they both disappeared behind the railing, where the stripping began. Two spider-bots descended from the ceiling, ready to wrap and gag an underwear-clad gang-member with their web.Shoot! Wish I could have seen her underwear! Libido thought to herself.
Stasis took the sentry's place. From below, since she was wearing the leather uniforms of the gangs, the other criminals couldn't recognize her as an impostor - as long as she was careful to keep her head in the shadows to prevent them from seeing her hair.
BB and Libido would simply have to make sure that the sentry on their catwalk wouldn't have the time to realize that her colleague had been replaced.
BB was approaching said sentry. The latter was petite blonde with a pearly white skin, faded blue eyes, and a bob haircut, who was watching her fellow gang-members bicker with each other, and therefore didn't notice the fate that befell on her partner.
"Yeah Marilyn!" the blond sentry commented to herself. "Go get her! You show these Ravens why the HoloDecks are number 1!"
However, the blond sentry heard BB arrive in her back. She turned just as the tall woman was about to knock her out with her electric gloves.
Since the woman was rather short, her face was just in front of BB's chest, that was barely covered by the half-open jumpsuit.
Now, in spite of all her posturing, this specific gang-member was apparently a very shy prudish woman, because she became bright red with embarassment and, for one second, she forgot to raise the alarm.
BB was a professional, the kind that would never waste such a golden opportunity. Without a word, the tall woman grabbed the blonde's neck. One electric shock put the petite sentry out of commission, knocking her out instantly.
BB laid the blonde on the catwalk and quickly removed her outfit.
"Now sis', I think you were a hit with her..." Libido commented.
BB raised a doubtful eyebrow.
"I'm serious! There are lots of people who love tall women line you!"
"Don't try to bribe me into giving a good word to Tina. It won't work."
Of course, it had never been Libido's intent. She would never use something like that to manipulate her sister. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but then she noticed that BB was smiling.
"Are you driving me up the wall? For the love of- You've PRANKED me?! Stasis won't believe her ears!"
BB finished stripping the small blond criminal, who was wearing rainbow-coloured underwear with little ponies on them (ankle-long socks, classic briefs and a t-shirt bra).
"'Friendship is Magic'..." Libido read on the panties. In the warehouse below, the bickerings became louder, and the argument was now threatening to turn into a full-out brawl. "Ironic."
She and BB used ropes to restrain the blond sentry with a loose hog-tie, then gagged her with a few layers of white tape.
At the other side, Tina and Stasis were also done.
It was time to put an end to the actions of this gang.
**************
Angel entered the alleyway.
“We were expecting you, Night Angel.” a voice immediately greeted her.
Angel froze.
In different parts of the alleyway, there were four women. To hide their faces, they were each wearing a white ‘angry’ theater mask. While browsing Sarah’s messages, Angel had realized that these masks had become a rallying symbol for Sarah’s partisans – a bit like the Guy Fawkes mask for some protesters. Angel couldn’t see much of their heads. The woman who seemed to be the leader was tall and athletic-looking. One was short and chubby. One was of average size, but Angel got a short glimpse of her long blond hair. The last one was standing in the shadows, and looked eerily pale.
Three of them were wearing black hooded jackets, trousers, and shoes. Clothes that were actually very similar to the ones the Night Angels were sometimes wearing during their patrols. However, to cover their hands and not leave fingerprints they were using white gloves, and white belts were tied around their waists. The fourth one was wearing different clothes: a brown leather jacket over a night blue t-shirt, a red belt, beige trousers, and grey sneakers. She was hiding her hair under a red cap.
Reflexively, Angel took a guard stance. She was ready to face an attack.
The woman who seemed to be the leader took a step forward, and showed her hands to prove that she didn’t have a weapon.
“We are not here to fight you, Night Angel. We just want to talk.”
Angel hesitated, then tried to buy some time.
“I take it that the police message was a lure.”
The leader nodded. “We heard that you may be in the area tonight, so we took our chance. Police is trying to figure out what frequency the Night Angels use to listen to their radio messages. They have several leads. Apparently, one of them is right.”
“What do you want from me?”
“We want to ask you to send a message to the rest of your team. We think that our groups should join forces.”
Angel frowned. She was expecting anything but that. “Wh- What?”
The leader of the masked women explained: “We’ve heard about your exploits these past few months. About how you’re fighting against the various gangs. How you’re rescuing victims of the sex slave market. We may not fight the same kind of criminals, but we have the same goal. To get this city rid of the scums that infest it.”
Angel didn’t understand the masked women’s reaction. They’re talking about infiltrators. But then… Why aren’t they attacking me? Don’t they know that I am-
Something clicked in her mind.
Of course! They can’t have a good look at my face. And nobody knows that the Night Angels are also infiltrators… They only know about our crime-fighting...
The leader of the masked women added, unaware of Angel’s inner-turmoil: “You are a source of inspiration for the women of this city. We saw you fight, and we realized that we could do the same!”
In spite of the mask, Angel could hear in the woman’s voice that she was sincere.
Angel was teared apart by contradictory sentiments. On the one hand, she was having a proof that her and her sister’s actions could make a difference. People were noticing what they were doing. They were inspired by them. It should have been a positive feeling.
But at the same time, she was seeing people who interpreted wrongly what she and her sisters wanted to stand for. Women who mixed up justice and revenge. Women who thought they could be judge, jury, and executioner.
She was horrified. I inspired people who would leave a half-naked woman to be molested by horny Neon Goons?
This wasn’t trying to uphold the law. This was satisfying one’s resentment and anger by making others suffer. This was what Sarah was teaching. Revenge over justice. People like Helen were criminals, no questions asked, but they still had rights.
The leader of the masked women was still talking: “Before we saw your exploits, we were lost and scared. We had been hurt, and we were living in fear. But you showed us that there was another way. You showed us that women could take up arms, and fight back. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re fighting back against our torturers. We’re fighting back against the scums who think they can make money at the expense of innocent women, the scums who humiliate and hurt and kill us for their own sick twisted pleasure.” She pulled out her hand. “We want to follow in your footsteps. There are the Night Angels, and soon there will also be the White Masks standing at their side. Just imagine what we could do. Together, we’d be unstoppable! Together, we’d purge this city!”
Angel finally noticed the fifth figure, that was half-hidden in the shadows of the alleyway. The woman had an unassuming appearance, with her neck-long chestnut brown hair, hazel eyes, and light skin. She was of average size, thin, with an angular face. She was stripped down to her underwear: a red thong and a black bra. Even her socks had been stolen.
Well, now Angel knew why one of the White Masks was wearing different clothes…
The woman was standing on a stool. Her wrists were hand-cuffed behind her back and her ankles were taped together. She was cleave-gagged with a thick rag. She was looking scared and exhausted. A noose was wrapped around her neck, and the rope was tied to the banister of the metallic emergency stairs of a nearby building. If someone removed the stool, the woman would be hung.
Angel reflexively took a step forward to try to rescue the underwear-clad woman, but quickly realized that the four masked vigilantes were blocking her path.
By witnessing her stance, Angel easily deduced that the leader had some training in hand-to-hand combat. And while the others didn’t seem to be fighters, the way they were keeping their hands under their clothes was a clear proof that they had weapons. Probably firearms.
“Please release her.” Angel begged.
There was a short moment of silence.
Then the leader of the group retorted: “She’s getting exactly what she deserves. I’m sure you heard about her on the news. Bonnie Corday. Infamous mercenary-for-hire and infiltrator. Do you know she strangled a chambermaid to death just because she wanted to steal her uniform? Threw the body in the laundry chute. Her victim was called Sadie Hawk. She had a husband and an infant son.”
“And Bonnie must pay for her crimes.” Angel agreed. She took a step forward. Her words were coming from her heart. “But we can’t pass sentence. That’s for the courts!”
“And what would the courts do?” the shortest chubbiest White Mask retorted. “Put her in prison, only for her to escape in a few years at most after stealing the uniform of a warden?! That's what they always do! Everywhere!”
“You’ve seen how easy it is for criminals to escape prison, especially when they’re trained to steal uniforms.” the blond White Mask added. “I’m sure you saw how Blink escaped her trial right under everybody’s nose.”
“She was innocent of what she was accused! Evans was the one who released Kuebiko!”
“Some people seem to forget that it’s not her only crime.” the leader of the White Masks retorted. “Among many things, she’s also complicit of a bank robbery and she helped a maniac trying to bomb the city. There was no victim only because the plan was foiled, and the fact that there was no victim doesn’t exonerate her from paying for what she did. Why would she be allowed to live free, able to harm another woman for her clothes at any time?”
Angel was tempted to retort that the bombing was foiled by other infiltrators, but she could see that the women wouldn’t believe her. The clone could easily deduce the White Masks’ stories. They used to be victims. They were hurt. Just like all the women who genuinely believed in Sarah’s path, they were still traumatized by their mugging, and weren’t able to look past their anger and their thirst for revenge.
Still, Angel stood firm in her convictions. “We can’t be judge, jury and executioner. I refuse to pay evil unto evil. Our message never was to torture and kill other people. It was to stop them and give them to the authorities.”
The leader shook her head. “I respect your idealism, but you must realize that some people are too dangerous to be left alive. They would keep on hurting innocents, over and over again.” She paused, then added: “And, more importantly, some people simply don’t deserve a second chance.”
Angel bit her lower lip. The White Mask’s words were echoing her own doubts. Did she deserve a second chance?
The blond White Mask looked at the bound Bonnie and added: “We look at things from the perspective of the victims. Sadie Hawk deserved a second chance, but did this bitch give her one? No. So why would SHE get to have one?”
“We’re not trying to lie to you.” the leader said. “We’re not trying to pretend we are something different than what we are. We just want to convince you to join us. Deep down inside, I know we’re the same. Women longing for justice.”
“You are mistaken if you think that what you’re doing is justice. And you are mistaken if you think that we’re the same. I can’t be complicit in what you are doing. You have misinterpreted our message. You have misinterpreted what we stand for. Please, step aside. It’s not too late.”
Angel took a step forward.
“But if you refuse to let me release that woman so that she can be arrested, I will have to fight you.”
“It’s a shame. We could have done great things together.”
Angel got ready to fight, expecting them to pull out their firearms.
The leader shook her head. “I told you, we don’t want to fight you.”
One White Mask kicked the stool under Bonnie’s feet. It was the pale one, who hadn’t said a word since the beginning of the conversation. The prisoner let out a muffled cry of fear.
Angel immediately rushed to save her.
The White Masks took advantage of the situation to flee.
“I still believe it’s a shame. Think of what we told you!” the leader shouted.
Then, they disappeared into the night.
Angel grabbed Bonnie by the legs and lifted her to stop the rope from strangling her. The prisoner was letting out muffled cried of panic.
“Calm down! Calm down! I’m going to lift you! My sisters will be here soon!”
She moved to sit the woman on her shoulders and lifted her.
“Calm down! My sisters will save you!”
**************
Tina, Stasis, BB, and Libido exited the warehouse. They were leaving behind a building full of half-naked half-conscious bound-and-gagged criminals. Counting the four sentries outside, there were thirteen neat packages for the police.
“So… What do you think of this new success?” BB asked her sisters.
“Honestly, it was a little embarrassing. This gang is so dysfunctional, with its four-way infighting, we barely needed to do anything…” Tina commented.
“It’s so sad to see these sexy leather-clad criminal vixens fight each other when they could be doing OTHER things…” Libido regretted.
“By the way… Have you checked my latest post? It’s already trending!” Stasis intervened.
They returned to their car. And realized it was empty.
“Where is Angel?!” Tina asked. “Gosh! I told her to stay in the car!”
Then they heard her call for help.
The four sisters rushed inside the alleyway.
**************
Angel ended up rather shaken by the encounter with the White Masks. Ironically, it wasn’t by the fact that she had to hold a woman by the legs for quite some time to save her life.
No, it was by her conversation with the vigilantes.
After calling the authorities to let them deal with thirteen gang members, and an infiltrator guilty of first-degree murder, the sisters gathered in their flat.
They needed a group meeting.
“The events of this night settles it.” Tina announced. “Sarah’s copycats, the White Masks, are dangerous and on the loose. We have to stop them.”
“They are brutal and merciless, but I don’t think they’re completely bad… More like angry and misguided… I think we can maybe reason with them…” Angel intervened. “They seem to admire our alter-egos. Maybe we could use it to our advantage.”
“Sarah made it clear that we’re on their hit-list.” Soph objected. “I don’t think we can peacefully settle things with them…”
Angel grimaced.
“But if we can, we’ll try…” Tina added.
“One thing is certain. We have to stop these women.” Mag concluded.
“Then the first step will be to find everything we can about them.” Tinker said. “I’m on it.”