by Gentry Race
“Just like old times, eh?” I said to Hera.
“Except for in old times, we were normal,” she said.
The pressure on my ears and within my head began to increase. We were on our way. And just like that, with an effect one might feel on a super lucid acid trip, the ceiling of the hotel room squeezed and stretched.
I shot from the ceiling downward, but didn’t feel the thrust of momentum. Instead, the ceiling looked like it was shrinking to an infinitesimal point. Then it rebounded, growing into a pure black space. It was the loading program for the SubSpace.
Our feet were sitting on top of water now, and we could see the residual image of our naked selves, reflected in the ripples. A standard black exosuit formed over each of us, looking like something the Acolytes would wear.
We were all in our superhero form. My metal skin was in full effect.
This is where we would meet her — Tessa. Like an innocent infant, waiting for its water birth dispersal, there came a treacherous push through the deadly canal.
The water was still now. Soft, ambient light scattered along the surface, extending a silvery shimmer to an infinite horizon. We saw something moving below the waterline. It was her.
I frowned, waiting for her usual, unkind approach.
A figure started to emerge from the depths, slowly, like she was taking stairs to the surface. Her slicked, wet, blonde hair did not cling to the side of her face like usual, but was pulled back into tight cornrows on the side that terminated in a ponytail in the back. This left a slight pooch of hair in the front, pushed up like some innocent singer from the fifties. This new hairstyle accentuated her thin neck even more. As it began to dry, golden, curly locks formed in the tail.
She arched her perfect eyebrows as she saw me.
I gave her the look of death.
As she ascended closer to the surface, the water fell from her tight, naked body, perfect in every way. Rivulets ran down her black-as-her-soul exosuit and onto her breasts, down over her stomach, to drip over the sides of the small pooch nestled between her thick, childbearing hips. Thighs stood firm on a pair of legs that were trim and toned. Holding a firm gymnasts body. She was the heartbreaker that had caused a shitstorm in my world.
She walked out of the water, like she always had, with a switch in her step that could tame a lion. And we were her prey. Hera was closest to her and stood her ground in confidence. Tessa inspected her and gave her a wink.
“I see you still are with that… fenomaly,” Tessa joked.
As she gracefully moved along us, touching Jess and then Ari, I noticed her Acolytes move away and form up behind her. Before she could finish running her her thumb over Ari, he snapped.
He hissed, his reptilian eyes large and covered in a second, milky eyelid, a defense mechanism for reptiles.
“You did this to me, you fucking bitch!” he yelled, going for her throat with his claws.
She caught him by the neck with ease and twisted a resplendent smile at him.
“I gave you power,” she cooed.
I swelled with anger, firing up my burning red eyes.
“You are a god among ants,” Tessa finished, tossing him to the ground. Then she looked toward me. “And here he is, my greatest creation of all.”
She ran her soft fingers over my metallic banded chest. Her eyes were the soaring blue of the ocean she would drown you in.
“I see you’ve changed,” she said. “For the better? I don’t know.”
She ran her hand over my pants, feeling my nether regions. Her eyes widened, feeling my new addition. I was sickened by her touch, yet paralyzed by her presence.
“Ah, for the better, I see,” she said, passing a wink off to her female Acolytes.
They chuckled in response.
“Cut the shit, Tessa,” I said. I was tired of her flirting. “Tell us why you have brought us here?”
“Well,” she said, stepping back. “There is something worse out there than my supervillainesses now. A man whom can only infect supervillainesses. My creations.”
“A bird told me you created it,” I said.
“Hardly,” she said slyly. “I would not create something that would destroy my life’s purpose.”
“Who is he?” Hera asked.
“He calls himself Lazarus,” Tessa said, lifting her hand up while the dark water below pulled to her palm. “After that little biblical tale you might know called ‘the Resurrection of Lazarus’.”
I watched the liquid form to her will and collect in the shape of a face. The face of the jumper from Edwards Air Force Base.
“He claims to bring life into what was once dead. The dead I create,” Tessa said. “He does this by spreading a Necrovirus.”
“Necrovirus?” Hera asked.
“Is there a fucking echo in here?” the Acolyte woman with the large tusks asked.
“Easy, Blitzkrieg,” Tessa said, with a frown directed at Gem. “The Necrovirus feeds on the supervillain strain. And as you can see, inoculation is only temporary.”
We all looked at Gem.
She squeezed her eyebrows together and said, “This is all your fault. I know you fucking created him.”
Tessa laughed hysterically. “He was created by your government. At first, just as a way to combat the virus, but creating a supersoldier to fight for them proved to be more powerful. This was their way of assuring a ‘super’ was American.”
Jesus Christ. Our own government experimenting on its citizens to ensure they would be the victors in an outbreak.
“We must band together,” Tessa said. “Or it will be the end of all us supers and then your humans.”
I thought for moment about what she said. It was only half true. If we didn’t stop this next stage of evolution in the virus, it could wipe out all of the supervillainesses in the SubSpace. However, if we were to let it grow, who knows what consequences we would face in the long run. Viruses evolve and change. Next could be Superheroes and then humans.
The world can never be black or white, I thought. “Fine,” I said. “We will help you—”
Hera was quick to interject, bold in her conviction. “Joining sides with you is out of the question.”
I looked at Hera, worried, hoping she would come to her senses. She was good through and through. It would take more than a justified reason to have her side with the villainess.
“Hera,” I said, adopting a more authoritative tone. “We must do this, or we lose everything.”
“I don’t trust her,” Hera said, watching Jess with intent. I could see she believed what Hera did. “Tessa has fucked us all over, and now we are going to trust her?”
I walked toward her, eyeing all of my team with a heavy heart.
“It’s this or nothing,” I said. “You’ve seen the hunts dwindling. I don’t think we are getting close; they are getting smarter at hiding. If we help, we will see their inner workings. I promise you, when the Necrovirus is destroyed, you will be closer to stopping all of this insanity.”
Hera glared at the blonde vixen, who seemed to be holding a malicious smile at bay. Then she pushed me hard, but was only able to throw me back a few steps.
“Fine,” she said. “But if she even looks at me the wrong way, I’ll pull her spine out through her mouth.”
Hera was worked up, but her bark was worse than her bite.
Ari nodded his head in accord, along with Jess, Gem and Crystal. We had a team. Some good, some bad, and then there was me: the grey. What I didn’t know was where the rampant villainesses were hiding. This could be to our advantage, learning the ins and outs of the supervillainesses.
“So, what’s first?” I asked.
Blitzkrieg looked at me. “We start with The BoNaNzai.”
7
The BoNaNzai
The BoNaNzai was one of the largest encrypted digital conventions in the SubSpace. Needing a cipher to enter, it was frequented by con-goers and villainesses alike, and hidden by the NaN code, which stood for ‘N
ot a Number’.
This void, or null space, allowed for sick and twisted things to occur to the code that represented an attendee’s avatar. It could be that some sadistic fusion of western and Asian fantasy was played out. Here, a con-goer could have the extreme happen without the connected world finding out. This was how the infected were able to hide and spread their villainy within the SubSpace. It was only when they made it to the real world that we were able to catch them.
As the BoNaNzai code loaded, we watched the desolate streets fill with sky-scraping buildings along the horizon as far as the eye could see. Chicago came to mind in similarity, but this was all a front and didn’t matter as much as the plain looking warehouse that began to fill in front of us. Grey, cement walls absent of any signs were connected to a parking lot full of stacked shipping containers. It looked like the dock of any average port city in the USA.
Tessa’s Acolytes gathered in front of us. Blitzkrieg seemed to salivate more than usual as she looked to Aeropounder while she prodded her large hammer into her hand. They both looked like rejected ‘roid-raging female wrestlers ready to flop us on a mat.
Aulani stepped out in front of them, along with Slipstream, holding a small device I did not recognize. She was a ‘scrambler’ — a hacker architect who had trained in the code, learning how to alter the SubSpace to their whim. They had been running rampant ever since Iconoclast had lifted the limiting firewalls.
“We will need to disguise you,” Slipstream said, her untrusting eyes darting over my massive, metallic body as if disgusted by my presence. “Only supervillains are allowed. One whiff of your light side, and the hunt will be over. That goes for everyone.”
“But he is ‘the grey’,” Jess said, placing her hand over my hardened stomach. I could feel my heart grow when she touched me.
“It’s obvious he has both light and dark, but too many stories have been told of this…boogieman,” Blitzkrieg said. “One look at his frame, and the jig will be up.”
Aeropounder extended a large spike from her hammer, sharper than a razor. “We could do it the old-fashioned way. I would infect you quicker than you can say ‘SubSpace’.”
“You wish,” I said with a chuckle, knowing they could only infect females.
I nodded and took a headcount.
Gem hadn’t converted; she was still wounded, but she was taking Hera’s injections. Crystal was already experiencing the change from villain to hero, due to our hookup the night before. It would still take a full session with Hera for the diamond girl to become fully good. That would have to wait for now. That left Jess and Hera. Both were good. They would need the scramble along with me.
We’re so close. This could be our chance of ridding the world of villainy for good.
“Jess, you stay behind with Gem and monitor her condition. Fry any mind that steps into the vicinity,” I said. “Hera, Crystal and I will search the inside.”
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Jess yelled out, pointing to Aulani. “You need me to protect you from her.”
“Corset,” I said with a commanding tone. She weakened her posture when she heard that name. “I need you here with Gem.”
Slipstream smiled at Aulani and stepped up to Hera, slapping on a series of electrodes to her temples and wrists. The cyberpunk looking villainess closed her eyes, and Hera’s body began to scramble. Hundreds of parts of different superhero avatars interchanged with each other by the millisecond. As each part eventually locked into position, we were left with what Hera’s version of a villainess would be.
Dark purple striations ran over her thick thighs and around her rock-hard abdomen to a ‘V’ cut tank top, which was shredded and looked like something from an eighties music video. Her medium-sized breasts were barely covered by the tattered shirt. Her hair was fluffed out, and her eyes were painted in thick black eyeliner and bright green eyeshadow that extended out to her temples and up to her green highlighted mohawk. She looked like a twisted sister, ready to infect.
“This is terrible,” Hera said, looking at me in disappointment. “I don’t want to hear a word about this later.”
I smiled and put up my hands like I had nothing to hide. “Hey, your secret is safe with me.”
Slipstream went up to Jess and scrambled her avatar. She looked like she did the day at San Diego Comic Con. A spitting image of what Tessa used to wear.
“Who’s choosing these getups?” Hera asked, rubbing her hands over the sheer material on her Greek goddess-like body.
“They come from the residual self-image from your consciousness,” Slipstream told her. Then she reached over, manhandling me. “Now for you…”
She ran her fingers along my arms and stuck the sticky pads to them, then made her way up my chest and to my temples. She had to hop a bit to reach, but was finally able to stick them on. I couldn’t help but notice her gorgeous breasts as they jiggled about inside her tight-fitting bra. Only when I caught myself staring did I see her small nips trying to burst out.
Might as well be bullseyes, I thought.
She pressed on the device on her forehead, and I felt a slight tingle in my genitals, which was odd, since there was not an electrode connected down there.
“Be gentle,” I said in a more comedic tone.
Flashes of white obscured my vision. My eardrums pulsed with pressure, and I could feel the volume of my body begin to change. What had been overly sized, hardened steel muscle was now a softer version of the organic metal. My vision returned, and I could see that I was the same height as Slipstream. My chest felt heavy and enormous in size. I looked down to see a pair of hardened steel breasts on my chest, held in by my large ‘M’ logo.
What the fuck?
I looked at Hera; her mouth was agape. In fact, all of my girls, and even Ari, were befuddled at the sight of me. I felt my thighs. Hardened steel, but curvaceous in places they shouldn’t have been. I watched Aulani’s eyes narrow and then twist with a surprised smile. And right then and there, I knew this had been her plan all along. I quickly felt my cock still neatly tucked away under the high, thigh cut spandex. It was there in all its large glory.
I ’ma fucking futanari. A woman’s body beholding a cock and balls. A goddamn hermaphrodite.
I looked at Aulani. Her expression was somewhat more innocent than the others’. I pulled her close, examining my face in her golden, metal skin. My eyebrows were high arches, my lips were beesting thick, and my face was framed by shoulder-length brown hair. I felt my thighs and ass, looking down at my female form in all its perfection.
I’m gorgeous.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked. “This is not my consciousness coming through.”
My beauty didn’t hide my anger. I furrowed my eyebrows and ignited my eyes in a fury deadset on Slipstream.
“You fucking planned this, didn’t you?” I yelled.
She smiled and extracted her long whips, which ignited in bright yellow energy.
“Careful, Manty. One whip from me, and you’ll be infected all over again.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I told her.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Blitzkrieg laughed out, her saliva flinging about carelessly. “With dick like that, he will never pass as a woman.”
“You didn’t think we would let you into our secret world without leverage, did you?” Slipstream asked, scissoring the arcing whips together. “One step out of line, and it’s back to villainy for you.”
I extinguished the fire in my eyes. She had me by the balls…. At least I still had those.
Aulani blushed as she looked me up and down.
“You’ll have to work with that for now, Mantium,” she said, walking up to me and pushing in on my bulge to reduce its presence. “Perhaps you find that being a villainess is more…rewarding than what you expected.”
I looked at Ari with hesitation. My old friend. I wasn’t used to not recognizing the good in his sharp slitted eyes. He held an inoculation of Hera’s virus in his hand, and injected
it into himself. Then he opened his coat, revealing multiple doses of the anti-virus.
“I say let’s do this, and if they try any shit, we’ll just start turning them into heroes.”
Crystal, Hera, Ari and I stepped onto what looked like a revealed delivery elevator for vendors to use with the four Acolytes. Aulani, Slipstream, Aeropounder and Blitzkrieg were less than thrilled to have me helping them, but there wasn’t a second I didn’t feel like I was being eyeball fucked by at least one of them. I was now food for the taking, but right now, the only objectives I was concerned with was finding these necrotic fucks, getting the fuck out of the SubSpace in my male form, and then ending Tessa once and for all.
Aulani flipped a large lever, and the grating below us lowered in a shaft, my heels nearly slipping through.
Goddamn stilettos.
As we descended, I watched Jess— er, Corset — hold Gem up in a meditative pose with her mind. She formed a purple forcefield surrounding both of them. They would be safe in there, constrained, like in a corset of the mind.
She picked a good name, I realized.
When the metal, grated elevator stopped, two large doors swung open to a long hallway marked with bright yellow cautionary stripes. We walked a few feet to another set of doors, the Acolytes turning back to eye us ever so skeptically. Aulani revealed a coded cipher algorithm, which she typed into the mainframe.
Aeropounder smacked her hammer into her hand. “Listen up, all of you goodie-two-shoes. You may look like us, but you ain’t one of us. There’s gonna be some sinister shit in here, so don’t get any ideas about stopping what you see.”
Aulani and Slipstream walked up to Hera and Crystal, giving them a mean mug, and hastily sprayed a mist around them. Blitzkrieg then walked over to me and smashed a glass bottle full of liquid against my chest. I didn’t feel the pain, and I couldn’t help but watch the liquid run between my steely breasts.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked.
“Villainess pheromones,” Aulani answered, pulling her dark hair back away from her golden skin and clipping it behind. “Harvested from my Tessa’s very own pheromones. This way, any villainess infected with the necro strain will find us much quicker.”