Chapter 9. In which our heroine is tested

It had been an easy decision for Cindi, but a tough one for Majestic Woman.

«Too bad for her, » thought Cindi as she loaded up her field pack.

Normally when she went home, she just flew there. It was a long trip, but she always enjoyed the scenery. There had been one time when she was too exhausted to fly herself, but then she just took a commercial flight to Athens as Cynthia Royal. That was fine too.

But now she had orders to follow, and she didn’t want to waste the transit time. So she was going to teleport through Spyglass for personal use for the second time in a week. «At least this time I’m not transporting a giant rubber dildo!»

Thinking about the dildo though reminded Cindi of Annette’s note this morning:

Dear Cynthia,

I did a little, ahem, shopping yesterday. I hope you enjoy the surprises I left in your underwear drawer.

Of course, you can imagine my surprise at what I found as I was emptying out your old things. Master tells me you call it the BRM, the “Big Rubber Monster”. He told me that you tried to deep-throat it. No wonder your throat has been so sore the last couple of days!

Until now I thought your bravest moment was when you fought the Cloud Warriors all by yourself. That was nothing compared to this.

(°o°)

I know you’re new to all this, Cindi, but please be careful!

H+K!

Annette

It had been a nice morning laugh. It certainly helped lift her spirits some.

The packing was going slow. Cindy was not sure how well some of her fragile new undergarments would hold up to being stuffed in a military-style ruck sack. So she was packing them with extreme care.

Besides that, she felt very tired. I had ordered Annette to keep Cindi’s body up the rest of the night. I was hoping that the lack of sleep would help with the ‘jet lag’: 10 hours difference between Arizona and Greece. We would have been arriving in Greece in late afternoon if we were to leave at that moment. I had been hoping that Cindi would be tired enough to sleep tonight, even accounting for the time shift.

She was just finishing her packing when her LoH communicator suddenly started going nuts. Emergency call. «Looks like that leave of absence will have to wait a little while longer. My Lord, what’s the emergency?»

Oh, crap. It was bad ... in a sense. But I couldn’t tip her off or it would seem too suspicious. «“No time to explain, baby bitch. Just get there. They need you now!”»

She hit the response button and felt the tingle as the teleporter took her up to Spyglass. The Wraith was at the controls. “Power Man and Greased Lightning are on the ground. They’ll brief you when you get there.”

She had just enough time to think how odd it was that Blake would not even tell her where she was going, and then she was there. It was an open grassy field with no structures in sight but a large concrete post. The other two heroes were standing on either side of the post with grim looks on their faces. Greased Lightning was holding a length of chain and a padlock.

«Oh, shit!»

She flew away as fast as she could, but it was useless; Power Man was much faster. She engaged him, bringing to bear her greater combat experience, but that was useless too; he was much faster and much stronger. Soon he had her arms pinned behind her back. The last two times that happened...

«“Discipline”» Crap! She did that to herself. She began to shiver uncontrollably.

«“Snap out of it, Cindi.” WWMWD?»

The last part was not a verbal seed; it was a visual seed image of one of her yellow calligraphed sticky notes.

Immediately she was back, struggling, snapping her head back to try to break his nose, anything to break free. That’s my girl. But it was all to no avail. Power Man was forcing her to the ground.

Faster than even she could follow, Greased Lightning threaded one end of the chain through the D-ring on her collar, then through the O-ring at the other end of the of the chain. Then in a flash, he was back at the concrete post padlocking the chain to one of several iron rings on the post.

Instantly her powers disappeared, flight, invulnerability, super-strength, super-eyesight, super-hearing, the works. Majestic Woman had been ready for it since she saw Greased Lightning holding the chain. Unfortunately Power Man wasn’t ready. With a wet snap, bright pain blossomed in her right arm.

«WWMWD?»

“Claud, you asshole, You broke my fucking arm. Let me go!” «This is either one of Blake’s stupid training exercises, or I’m dead.»

Sure enough, Power Man immediately let go, murmuring his apologies. The Wraith appeared from nowhere as his holographic invisibility dissipated, holding a stopwatch. He must have arrived when she was ... busy, although, it could have been any time really. The “Wraith” that spoke to her at Spyglass could have been one of his hologram projectors. How would she know?

Looking at the timer, Blake shook his head. “Ten seconds, Cynthia. I think that’s a record. No one’s ever subdued you that fast before. ‘Trapped in bonds of metal by a man’. That’s what it says in your personnel file under ‘Weaknesses’, right?”

“You damn well know it is, Blake. But did you know that I was the one who fought for the ‘Weaknesses’ category to be mandatory when the Legion was founded? We have to know these things so we can watch each other’s backs, not so we can get our kicks on a slow morning.”

“Is that what you think of me, Cynthia?” asked Blake, sounding genuinely hurt, “No, ‘watching your back’ is precisely what I’m trying to do now.”

“Well congratulations, Blake. None of the other LoH Chairmen ever thought of directly attacking my stated weakness with a Rheonean and a super-speedster before. Enjoy your ‘ten-second record’.”

“Right. And there’s a reason nobody ever thought of that. None of us ever wore our weakness around our freaking necks before you did. Claud, break the chain, please. That broken arm is gonna make me lose my lunch.”

“Wait!” screamed the powerless heroine, “Nobody touches anything before I’m done. Claud, I need you to reach up under my uniform, on my right hip and find the key I have stashed there.”

Power Man’s shy reaction is more reminiscent of Claud Bolling, Cosmopolis City Librarian, than of the mightiest hero on Earth, “Um, Cynthia, I, uh, don’t think I-”

“You fucking broke my arm; you can fucking well reach in and get my key. I can’t!“

Claud had never heard her swear like this before. Of course, he’d never seen her this angry before either. He reached inside her uniform. She added, calmly, levelly, but with unmistakable menace, “And if you grab my buttcheek, I swear I’m gonna visit you one night with a jar of rheanite in one hand and a can of whoop-ass in the other.”

He flinched but found the key, pulled it out, handed it to her. Key in lock, lock released, then collar released. She felt her powers flow back into her, and, as that happened, the other feature of the Shield of Athena manifested itself: instant healing of any undesired damage that had happened when the shield was down.

She flexed her arm a couple of times and then turned to Blake. “There. Damage repaired. Power restored. Hero not subdued. How many seconds now, Blake?”

Blake didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to the other two and said, “Guys. Thanks for the help. I’ll take it from here.”

“No!” Cynthia shouted, With a powerful whip-snap motion she broke the chain off the concrete post and unthreaded it from her collar.

“We’re gonna do one more demo, this time without the collar. Claud, you’re gonna subdue me just like before. Try not to break my arm this time. Bill, unlock the padlock and keep the chain and padlock ready. This time thread the chain through the ring on the post and the O-ring at the end of the chain. Wrap the free end of the chain around my neck and use the padlock there. Go!”

With that she was off in the sky, with Power Man hot on her trail. «So, My Lord, is this what Majestic Woman would do?» Rather than answer I just flooded her with the warm feeling she would get in Annette’s slavebody when she knew she had pleased me. She got the point.

This time it took 15 seconds, mostly because Bill and Claud took exaggerated care to ensure that Bill was closing the padlock just as Claud was releasing her.

“So, here I am, powerless, just like before. Oh! Except I can’t escape this time, because I don’t have the key to this Gods damned lock. So, what did we learn here, fellas? All you really needed to bring Majestic Woman down was that post, this chain, and this padlock. The collar didn’t make a fucking bit of difference. Quod erat fucking demonstrandum!”

Blake looked at her coolly. “You’ve made your point. Bill, unlock her please.”

The speedster actually seemed slow in response. He fished the key from the hidden pocket in his skintight suit. He opened the lock. A man of few words, the speedster only said, “You okay, Cynthia?” as he removed the chain from her neck.

“Yeah, fine Bill. Thanks.”

She apologized to Power Man for snapping at him, “I’m kind of cranky, Claud, I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

Then she turned to Blake again.

Blake held up his hand. Wait. “Cynthia, I’ll be happy to let you yell at me all day long, but let me speak my piece first. Bill, Claud, please teleport out now.”

The two heroes even seemed to teleport away at super-speed. They didn’t want any part of the argument they saw brewing.

Blake began to pace as he talked. Something to mask his anger, his concern for his friend. It worked; he’s good at hiding things. “Did you see the news footage of your heroics the other night? It’s the most successful large building fire rescue operation any LoH member has ever been involved in. Even Claud. But all they could talk about was your interesting new choice in neckwear.”