MvDC MVFBB - Diamond Lil vs. Knockout

Talented text and Marvelous music by the Avant-garde Aron Orson
Impressive inks and Captivating colors by the Magnificent MuscleGirlsArt

Backstage…

KSK [looking ‘appreciatively’ at her fellow competitors]: “Sigh I don’t know what to think—on the one hand, I resent being taken from my loves, but on the other…I wish they’d been brought with me, just so they could enjoy the scenery as much I am…”

L-Crawley [walking up to KSK]: “You talking to yourself? What’re you looking at?”

KSK [looking at L-Crawley]: “Oh, nothing really—just all the others in the same boat we are, you included. And enjoying every minute of it.”

L-Crawley [confused at first]: “Huh?...Oh. You’re…”

KSK [nodding with a small frown]: “And proud. Got a problem with that?”

L-Crawley [hands up defensively, shakes her head]: “No, no, not at all. One of my teammates back home ‘bats left-handed’ too.”

KSK: “All good, I know I can come on a bit strong sometimes.”

L-Crawley: “Got another teammate like that as well. Go figure. Name’s Lil, Lil Crawley.”

KSK: “I go by Kay—Kay Fury-Savage-Kerzner.”

L-Crawley: “Huh. I’m guessing you’ve been married a couple of times?”

KSK: “No, just one, and very happily married to my two poppets at that.”

L-Crawley [blinks a bit in disbelief]: “…I stand corrected. No offense, but it’s not everyday you meet a polyamorous lesbian who’s somehow making it work for them. (Then again, no matter which universe, I’m betting on either Earth polyamory in this day and age is still a rarity.)”

KSK: “Yes, it’d be a sure bet. (Almost a pity, really.) You married yourself?”

L-Crawley [nodding]: “Uh-huh—got a husband. Met him on the same team I hinted at. He’s a bit of a gearhead, but we still manage.” [Looks over towards Artemis, Titania and Thundra briefly.] “Funny how we’re not exactly starving for redheaded amazons in our bunch. Wonder if it was by our ‘hosts’’ design…”

KSK [smirking a bit]: “I don’t know about that—don’t mean to brag (oh wait, I do), but those three don’t have anything on me. Being a New God helps, to start.”

L-Crawley [arching one eyebrow]: “New God? I’ve heard of the ‘Young Gods’ in my world, but—”

KSK: “Different thing altogether in mine. It’s a term some humans have applied to us. We come from two halves of what used to be a single planet that got split by a major cataclysm. The more peace-minded of us inhabit New Genesis, while those like me…were born on Apokolips.”

L-Crawley: “Apokolips? First I’ve heard of it, and already it doesn’t sound like a tourist destination.”

KSK: “Unless you’re into pain and suffering on a planet-wide scale, 24/7.” [Motions towards another competitor.] “It’s that kind of hellscape Barda and I grew up in. We both clawed our way out of the ranks of the lowlies to find ourselves picked by Granny Goodness, and got trained to become members of her strike force, the Female Furies; we were one of the elite squadrons serving the will of Apokolips’ ruler, Darkseid. (Trust me when I say, he is someone you do NOT want to meet anytime soon.) Me and my fellow Furies, for the longest time, thought this was going to be our lot in life on a permanent basis. And then…Barda met her future husband, who happened to be from New Genesis. He inspired her to abandon her post as field leader of the Female Furies, and the two fled to Earth; it was one of the rare occasions where anyone successfully escaped Apokolips. While my ‘comrades’ were content to still serve Granny, Barda actually inspired me to want more out of life. I decided I’d had enough of life with the Furies.

I found a chance to bust loose when I got punished for a bit of insubordination. They chained me up on one of the walls of a Fire Pit, but when no one was looking, I broke the chains and leapt into one of the fires; while people assumed I’d died, I actually managed to get a Boom Tube open before any flames licked me. (Boom Tubes are what we use to get around the universe, if you must know.) I managed to land on Earth, specifically in the human settlement called Hawaii. I knew that in spite of my figure, I could blend in with the rest of the populace. Just so I could hide out, I found a place where I could put my getup, and my looks, to use.”

L-Crawley: “What’d you end up doing?”

KSK: “I became an exotic dancer at a local club called the BoomBoom Room.”

L-Crawley [surprised]: “You were a stripper?”

KSK [insistent]: “Exotic dancer. There is a distinction, thank you, and it was actually a job I enjoyed. Made my first real friends since landing on Earth, for one thing; no one asked questions, which made it even better. Things got more interesting once this little superpowered twerp named Superboy moved to the islands. We sometimes fought, and flirted, but it was all just for fun; some of the time I helped him if he ever got into any major trouble. He evenhelped me when the Female Furies came to try and drag me back to Apokolips. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding in the aftermath led me to go on the run with him. We had a falling out after I took out some guy that he wouldn’t; how’s the little man repay me after all I did for him? Gets me thrown in a max security facility. Meeting Superboy wound up bringing me more into contact with the rest of the world’s superhuman elements…and it more unsavory ones.”

L-Crawley: “I’m guessing your prison stint didn’t last that long.”

KSK: “Of course not—after a while, I broke loose and went underground. While hiding out, I met the first of my two loves, Scandal Savage.” [Sports a brief, wistful look.] “It was love at first sight. She was beautiful, smart, a great fighter, and damn hard to kill. The two of us wound up being brought together with four others as the ‘Secret Six’, hired to bring down another group of villains: the latest incarnation of the ‘Society’. (They used to call themselves the ‘Secret Society of Super-Villains’, but at some point, someone decided it was too much of a mouthful.) I was sent to be a mole in the Society, and my time to strike came when their leaders brought a bunch of us up against the Six; wound up knocking out Talia Al Ghul before she could get one over on my beloved. I rejoined the Six (as soon as they ditched a turncoat in their own ranks), and after we anonymously stopped some large-scale villain assault, we struck out on our own as mercenaries. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better outlet for my…violent tendencies, as one might say. Sure, Scandal and I had a tiff for a while after I slept with one of the guys in our group—it’s an old Apokoliptian warrior post-battle tradition—but we were really doing pretty well for ourselves. (Aside from the awkward meeting with Scandal’s father, an immortal sonovabitch named Vandal Savage.) Even got to have a real knock-down, drag-out brawl with Barda; we tied, if you’re curious. Sigh If only we knew what was coming next…”

L-Crawley: “That being…?”

KSK: “The Six disbanded after my fight with Barda. Scandal and me stayed together, but an accidental argument between us led me to head to Metropolis to have it out with Barda. When I got there, turned out I wasn’t the only one after her—I challenged them for the right to take down Barda, but in my zeal, I didn’t realize that the ‘stalker’ was a powerful New God from New Genesis called the Infinity-Man. Apparently, he’d been tracking down and killing all the New Gods, and stupid me, I made myself his next victim. Before he struck, I asked him to let me say goodbye to Scandal; needless to say, he didn’t grant my wish. Next thing I knew, I…died.” [A solemn look appears on her face.] “We may have been called ‘New Gods’, but we’re not immortal. (Believe it or not, through some truly convoluted chain of events, we all ‘got better’.)”

L-Crawley: “…Damn.”

KSK: “Heh. Fitting you’d say that, considering I wound up in the actual Hell. I used to think Apokolips was a terrible place, but my experience ‘down below’ taught me otherwise; I became a shell of my former self while there. In the land of the living, Scandal really took it hard; the Secret Six reformed as a way to help her move on, and that was how my second love came into the picture. For Scandal’s birthday, they hired a dancer to pop out of a cake…dressed as me. Aside from a little less muscle tone, Liana could’ve almost been my twin. From what I heard, the gig was a bust, but Liana got paid pretty well for her time, and the two ran into each other a while later. They started dating afterwards, and it got pretty serious, especially after Scandal and the Six rescued her from her abusive zealot of an ex-boyfriend. (Heard she really made him suffer for what he’d done to her.) At one point, the Six managed to steal a bauble called the “Get Out of Hell Free” card. I had a feeling Scandal was probably going to attempt to use it, but another member, Ragdoll, stole it first so he could try to revive his ‘only friend’ on the team, a stray Apokoliptian Parademon who’d bitten the dust early on in the team’s existence. Naturally, Scandal and the others followed him to Hell; he’d apparently decided to stay there, with me being promised as his bride. The Six managed to win my freedom after beating the demons Ragdoll commanded, which apparently convinced him of their loyalty and friendship. He let them use the card to revive me, and we were good to leave Hell without much trouble. I wound up meeting Liana in the hospital where she’d been recovering from her ordeal. She’d figured out who I was, and almost cried thinking Scandal was going to leave her. Thankfully, Scandal came in at that moment, not only to reassure her that they weren’t through…but to also propose to the both of us, right in front of her other visitors. One last battle between the Six and almost a whole army of heroes—which we managed to barely get out of alive—and the three of us have been in wedded bliss ever since.”

L-Crawley [letting out an astonished whistle]: “Talk about a love story—albeit a violent, and at times grisly love story. Mine’s practically tame.”

KSK: “I’m all ears.”

L-Crawley: “Well…like you, I got recruited into a fighting force. I was one of a number of Canadian citizens brought together by Department H; the purpose was to put together Canada’s own government-sanctioned super-team. I got my codename ‘Diamond Lil’ from my mutant power, an indestructible ‘bio-aura’. While it made me a prime candidate for the Flight Program, admittedly…I wasn’t exactly much of a team player. When I was in the trainee squad Gamma Flight, I had a big chip on my shoulder back then, and I always got into it with my teammates often—except for one guy: Madison Jeffries. We had a fling for a while, but it wasn’t that serious, and after Department H closed down when the funding was cut, the two of us went our separate ways; Madison even went so far as to fake his death to give himself a fresh start. As for me, well…I didn’t have a job, and basically had no future, until these two folks named Jerry Jaxon and Delphine Courtney approached me. They’d been gathering a number of my former teammates, and put us all together as ‘Omega Flight’, as part of Jaxon’s plan to get revenge on his old rival James Hudson, the leader of the team we Gammas were training to be a part of in the first place: Alpha Flight. Once we were assembled, and thanks to Courtney’s ‘behavior-influencer’ gizmo, we were pretty much set to kill. I’d almost taken out one Alpha named Snowbird, but another, Shaman, managed to get the drop on me with a mental attack, my major weakness. Unfortunately, despite the Alphas’ efforts, Hudson’s Guardian suit got damaged, and he seemingly got killed by the ensuing explosion, which also took out Jaxon. Courtney managed to help us get away, and we were soon back for another round with the Alphas. We managed to beat them, but Courtney turning Shaman’s magic pouch inside-out ended up being our undoing when it made reality go haywire. We again had to make a break for it, but we got stopped in our tracks, thanks to the one Gamma Courtney hadn’t managed to recruit—Madison. He used his technopathy to easily dismantle Courtney, who turned out to be some kind of advanced robot. Any chance me and Maddie had of rekindling our romance got crushed when he told me and the others that we were still accomplices to Hudson’s murder. Me and my teammate Wild Child ended up being sent to prison, but a number of months later, when Alpha Flight severed ties to the Canadian government, a reformed Department H put together a new team to fill the void, a new Gamma Flight. I accepted their offer to join in exchange for a pardon; when I was freed, I immediately went to Maddie’s place to see if we could try again—even made an attempt at seducing him, despite learning he’d gotten engaged to Hudson’s widow, Heather, who was now wearing the Guardian suit and leading the Alphas.”

KSK [wincing a bit]: “Oof—almost like with me and that guy on the Six.”

L-Crawley: “Almost. Right around the same time, the Alphas were being targeted by some sorcerer, and I ended up getting caught with them when they were warped to another dimension. At first, I wanted to humiliate the team and leave them to die, but begrudgingly went along with them as they journeyed back to our own world. Things were tense between me and Heather for most of the way—we argued a lot, even fought. But over the course of our long journey, we realized we needed each other to survive, and we ended up saving one another on more than a few occasions. The whole experience wound up helping us settle our differences by the time we returned to Earth—where, to our surprise, three months had passed in our absence. Gamma Flight was formed without me, and without them needing me, I ended up deciding to stay with the Alphas. While most of them were recovering from the journey, that spark seemed to appear between me and Maddie again; I ended up moving in with him until the team got a new HQ. We kept this little affair a secret, since he was still hesitant to break up with Heather, who was under no small amount of pressure on her end. My time with them was pretty eventful—we had another go-around with that sorcerer, James Hudson was revealed to still be alive, and Alpha Flight got back in the government’s good graces again—it even got expanded with the addition of the Gammas. But, it wasn’t entirely sunshine and roses for me…”

KSK: “Go on…”

L-Crawley: “I…had a major health scare during this time—turns out I had a lump growing in my left breast, and it was getting bigger.”

KSK [sympathetic look on her face]: “Gods…”

L-Crawley: “I was so afraid—nothing on the outside could hurt me, but within? How could I fight something inside my own body? I couldn’t even get a biopsy done, with my powers preventing any doctors from using their gear.

After the official Alpha Flight roster got announced, with me and Maddie on it, I told the rest of the team everything, promising that I’d give my all for them. Weeks later, we were guarding this artificial woman simply named ‘Her’, when we were attacked by a bunch of alien mercs sent by this intergalactic group called the Consortium. In the middle of the fight, one of the aliens’ laser weapons actually cut my skin; I actually tracked the guy down and ripped that laser from him, since it was pretty much the solution to my problem. Maddie and Department H’s medical staff were able to modify the weapon so they could do a biopsy. Maddie was with me throughout the whole thing, and we both got serious about where we stood romantically—turned out that while he and Heather had loved each other, they weren’t ever in love.”

KSK: “Sounds good and all, but don’t keep me in suspense—how’d the biopsy turn out?”

L-Crawley [smiling with relief]: “Better than I’d hoped—turned out the lump in my breast was just an infected cyst full of clotted blood. No cancer at all.”

KSK [matching her grin]: “That’s more like it.”

L-Crawley [smile vanishing]: “We were so relieved—later, during an incident with some wizard named Diablo, Maddie and I were nearly annihilated by the guy’s flame monsters. Maddie asked me to marry him if we made it out alive; sure enough, the rest of our team beat Diablo, and the two of us got hitched months later, as well as retired from active duty. Unfortunately, our married life was very rocky—Maddie missed the superhero life more than either of us thought. Got to the point where I’d threatened to call it quits if he wouldn’t make our relationship a priority. Things managed to calm down for a bit, until they didn’t. Maddie went missing for a time, and I found myself captured and experimented on by corrupt elements within Department H. Later, I wound up in a concentration camp for mutants built by the bastards of Weapon X, and then saw 90% of my fellow mutants the world over lose their powers; they wouldn’t regain them for nearly a half a decade. (That was a really dark time for us, as a species.) Eventually, Maddie and I reunited when we joined up with the X-Men for a while; we decided to really work on our issues, to try and make it work between us—and make it last.” [A small smile returns to her lips.] “Not even an army of undead mutants could drive us apart again; I almost bit the big one in that fight. We’ve been taking it day-by- day ever since.”

KSK [nodding]: “Good story—seems we both fought long and hard for the ones we love, and didn’t let a thing like death keep us from them.” [Looks up in thought briefly.] “Y’know, Scandal, Liana and I have been thinking of a second honeymoon, and this Canada sounds like an interesting place to visit.”

L-Crawley [holds out her hand]: “Tell you what, we get out of this thing in one piece, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about the Great White North—yours probably isn’t any different from my Earth’s (unless Quebec managed to gain independence).”

KSK [shaking L-Crawley’s hand]: “I can neither confirm nor deny, but I’ll take you up on that.”

L-Crawley: “You good working with Barda in helping us get out our ‘hosts’’ clutches?”

KSK [nodding]: “Anything to get back to my loves. And besides, this whole ‘female bodybuilding competition’ doesn’t sound too awful—I get out there, pose as I show my stuff, make the male contingent of the audience drool with lust…Just like a typical day at the BoomBoom Room, minus the stripping.”

L-Crawley: “Odd way of putting it, but whatever works.” [Hears audience applauding.] “And that’s our cue.”

KSK [putting on her mask]: “That it is. Might as well go knock ‘em dead, eh?”

L-Crawley [frowning a bit]: “Hey, not all Canadians talk like that!”

Main stage…

Promoter: Ladies and gents, we’re on to our next pair of contestants! First up, from Multiverse-A, comes one of two ladies straight from one of the worst places in the universe, the world of Apokolips! Trained as a member of the infamous Female Furies, she wound up following another gal’s example and went AWOL to Earth, and certainly picked quite a destination to lay low when taking up a job as a dancer in Hawaii! (And I’m not talking hula dancing, mind you.) She’s tangled with everyone from Superboy to the Birds of Prey, on her own and as part of such ‘illustrious’ groups as the Suicide Squad, the Society, and most notably the Secret Six! She’s even literally gone to Hell and back, which is no easy feat for anyone in this life! So please, make some noise, and make it LOUD for our next competitor who more than lives up to her name—KNOCKOUT!

[Needle-drop: Let the Bodies Get Off by ‘Drowning Fox’.]

Promoter: Knockout, everyone! Now, let’s meet her Multiverse-B challenger…Hailing from America’s neighbor to the north, this Canadian brawny beauty has had what you might call a unique ‘Flight path’, going from Gamma to Omega to eventually the big leagues in Alpha Flight! Her type’s been found to be on the ‘techie’ side of things, and a body like hers isn’t just hard, but rock-, no, diamond-solid! Unless you’re a psychic, good luck trying to make even so much as a ding in this mighty mutant maiden! ‘Cause there’s no getting in the way of this competitor, the one and only DIAMOND LIL!

[Needle-drop: Hate Myself for Loving You Oughta Know, an Alanis Morissette/Joan Jett mashup by DJ Cummerbund.]