SCI Stories, Chapter 1

(Author note: Small oopsie. Realized I'd put the wrong name in a couple chapters. This has been fixed in previous chapters, and the Amazon version of book 2 should be getting updated to reflect it.)

Chapter 1 – Aftermath

Times Square was the site of a massive, apparently spontaneous, orgy. Of course, while it might be spontaneous, it was far from unplanned, that much was obvious to anyone watching the area with an eye to spotting mental powers at work. The Succubus Queen chuckled as she watched a pair of police officers who had gotten caught up in her web spit roasting a teenage girl who had just stepped out of one of the office buildings with some other teenagers, probably visiting the MTV studios. All around Times Square, people were giving in as their inhibitions fell away and their lust rose. Here a street performer in cowboy boots and his underwear had put aside his guitar as a little old lady rode him like a pro. Over there, a businesswoman was on her hands and knees, getting done doggy style by a homeless man. All of it raw, no one considering the implications or consequences in the primal animal lust that overcame them.

Ever since she’d discovered her powers, she’d dreamed of using them in this way, but could never afford the attention that it would draw. She was powerful, in her own way, but she knew that she was no match for the Defenders’ Psyonique if it came to a straight up fight of mental powers. Sure, she would win in a street fight, but Psyonique knew her weakness, and never traveled without physical backup, meaning she would always be on the losing side of that equation. Now, her Master required her to cause a disturbance that would draw out Psyonique, and cause her to lose focus on other things long enough for his plan to take effect.

Her phone rang, with the tone she had selected precisely for her Master. In a rush she picked it up. “Master! Everything is going perfectly! The normies are fucking like little horny rabbits, and even the cops are getting involved.”

“Well done, my dear. You’ve been a very good girl.” The Succubus Queen moaned loudly as the trigger made her climax from those two words alone. So good! “Now, however, it is time to make your getaway. Drop the field and make your way back to the warehouse. My new toy is being delivered, but there’s an extra. I want her prepared to make the rounds. The other gangs deserve a gift for their hard work, don’t you think? Who better than a police detective to give it to them?”

“Oh, Master, that is delicious! I’ll be there, waiting!” This wouldn’t be the first person she had ‘converted’ to the sex trade. But a cop? That was perfect! She’d never gotten to target a cop before. They tended to get all upset over such things, so it was never worth the risk. But Master was changing things. She’d already seen his power, as he brought a peace between the gangs, and even subdued two of the Defenders, turning them into his loving pets! Part of her realized that he had probably done the same thing to her, but she didn’t care about that. She lived to serve the Master now.

With a thought, she withdrew the energy she was feeding into the auras that inhibited inhibitions and fueled lust. Of course, the enflamed passions of her ‘victims’ were not simply turned off like flipping a switch, and boring sanity did not return in an instant. However, as individuals in the throes of passionate lovemaking reached completion, either alone or with their partner (or even partners!), they began to come down from that high. With lust no longer being propped up, and their inhibitions returned, people began coming to their senses as they realized they were riding, or being ridden by, a stranger, and the moans of sex became the screams of panic.

Slipping away, as the police entered the scene and did what they could to contain the situation, was child’s play. Even if Psyonique was looking for her, she had reeled in her mental influence, so the trail was cold. And Master’s plans ensured that she would be far from focused on the Succubus Queen.

(Elsewhere)

Her heart dropped the moment Psyonique’s eyes turned away from the orgy in Times Square and locked in the direction of Central Park. When her friend exclaimed a simple ‘oh no’, Thunderstruck knew that something terrible had happened. Nothing short of that would have caused her to stop dealing with the Succubus Queen’s abuse of mental powers like she had.

For a few moments, it looked like Psyonique was going to go comatose from whatever she had witnessed, her body going rigid in shock, and forcing Thunderstruck to catch her before she could fall to the ground and hurt herself. It felt like an hour, but her watch said it was only thirty seconds, before she began to stir. Breathing deeply, she leaned against Thunderstruck, seemingly not trusting herself to remain upright otherwise. Her eyes turned until they found the police lieutenant in charge of the scene. When she spoke, her voice was like shattered glass.

“Lieutenant, contact dispatch. They need to get cars down to Central Park, now. Coordinate with the Gang Crimes task force. One of their detectives was leading two of the Defenders to speak to an informant in the park. Tell them that the meeting was a trap. And… and have them send out the coroner. There’s at least one body on the ground.”

The Lieutenant looked askance at her, and said, “I’ll pass it up the line, but they’ll need more than ‘the psychic said so’.”

Psyonique’s eyes flared in a rare show of untamed anger. When she spoke, her voice was yelling in the minds of all the police officers around them. “MY FRIEND IS DEAD! I FELT HIM DIE THROUGH A MENTAL LINK. DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOW YOU WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE, OR WILL YOU CALL THE DAMN DISPATCHER AND GET PEOPLE OVER THERE?”

Thunderstruck took command in that moment. “Lieutenant, call dispatch, inform them that there’s been a reported shooting in Central Park, officer undercover, possible fatality.” The stunned officer looked at her, and she said in a voice of command, “NOW!” As he turned to talk to his dispatcher, she pulled out a communicator of her own, and spoke to her dispatcher. “Dispatch, Thunderstruck. Psyonique reports that Torchlight and Adonis are under attack. Scramble Rubbermaid immediately, and see if Lady Victory is able to get free from that wreck scene yet. Advise them on maximum caution. The meeting was an ambush. Psyonique says one fatality already, not identified.”

People began moving as she commanded, allowing Thunderstruck to turn and look at the distraught psionic. “Psyonique, I need you to focus. I know it hurts, but you have to focus past the pain. We need to deal with this mess here, so we can get to the park and help our friends. Now, do you have a fix on the person behind this?”

Psyonique looked at her with rage-filled eyes for half a second, before deflating. “No, I had barely started searching for the Succubus Queen, trying to be subtle so I wouldn’t alert her that we were after her, but she’s cut the aura entirely. I can’t sense any mental powers in use at all in the area. It is almost like…”

Thunderstruck finished for her. “Almost like she was doing this specifically as a distraction to get you out of position, so you couldn’t monitor our friends as closely? Yes, that thought had crossed my mind. Two events happening simultaneously with the meeting, making it so you had to leave your post? I would be a fool not to consider the possibility of a trap.”

Psyonique nodded glumly. “Whoever was behind this, they knew exactly how to hit us. I don’t know what they used, but one second Adonis was there, and I got a flare of concern from the link, and then he was just gone. He’s dead, Thunder. Dead, and I don’t think he even knew what hit him. And now I can’t feel Torchlight, either!”

The leader of the Defenders put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Start with little things. Breathe in. Breathe out. Again. Now, when can we expect these people to start waking up from this… trance, or whatever it is? Will we need to keep an eye on them to prevent anything further from happening, or are they good to go about their days? And then, once you’ve gone through that, is Torchlight dead, or just unconscious or being blocked from your powers?”

Psyonique began breathing slowly, trying to regain control. “The first of them should already be working their way out of it. Without the field keeping them aroused, when they finish their current ‘activities’, they should start coming out of it. I don’t think there will be need for observation in terms of brainwashing or other such things, but some of them may want to seek out a therapist, especially if they are more… strict in their moral outlooks. And general medical precautions, such as Plan B, and testing for STDs would be a good idea.”

She paused, and then said, “Tell the police that I can feel the first people coming out of it. You can expect some panicked people, but it should be fine for the cops to move in and get some crowd control now. With the mental field down, that is the best I can do unless I get intrusive, or send a mental bitchslap to everyone in the square. That would probably result in more problems, though.”

Thunderstruck nodded, and repeated all of this to the police on the scene, before looking back at the psionic. “Now, what about Torchlight? You say you can’t reach her. Is she dead, unconscious, or blocked somehow?”

“I… I think she is one of the others. Either unconscious or blocked. I didn’t feel her die, not like I did with Adonis. With him, it was a sharp severing of the connection. I could feel that it was cut, and wasn’t going to come back. With this, it feels like it is being suppressed somehow, like when someone is sleeping. But what could knock out someone like Torchlight so quickly, and not kill her? She isn’t exactly as sturdy as Adonis is… was after all.”

Thunderstruck shook her head. “Too many possibilities. The most likely cause, however, is multiple attackers. Whoever or whatever hit Adonis wasn’t the same one that hit Torchlight. Multiple attackers would allow them to take on both at once. It is what I would do if I was going to try and ambush a group of supers. And if they knew enough about us to set up this ambush, they probably know our weaknesses.”

Psyonique blinked. “Our weaknesses? But we don’t tell anyone about those, except SCI! Are you saying that SCI is behind this somehow?”

A sigh escaped Thunderstruck’s lips. “No, but there is a leak somewhere. This was clear the moment Tigress spotted the gang members watching Adonis’s meeting. The fact that they were able to capture her means they are either incredibly powerful, or they had knowledge about how to take her down. Since it is clear there are superpowers involved, we have to assume that the NYPD, the local SCI, and even our own support staff have been compromised. If someone with legitimate access to SCI files was compromised, then the mastermind behind this would have access to, well, everything.”

Psyonique scowled at that thought. “So, we’re dealing with some kind of spymaster situation, where they don’t have to be more powerful than any one of us individually, so long as they can pick us off one by one, playing to our weaknesses? If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a fucking lousy job of it, Amelia.”

Thunderstruck sighed. “Would you rather I lied to you? But, if you’re looking for something to get excited about, well, the fact that they pulled an operation to get everyone, but especially you, out of position means that they are probably scared of you, and what you can do if you can catch them in the open with your powers.”

“That helps. Not much, but it helps. Finding these bastards and getting them in the open will help a lot more, though.”

Thunderstruck chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”