Following her second futile battle against MegaWoman in a single day, Becca once again came to in the same ordinary looking room. As her mind began to clear, Becca expected a replay of her previous occupancy. But.....to her dismay.....she was powerless!
Her superpowers were gone or if not gone, horribly diminished. Becca felt weak and helpless. Even worse, as she tried to rise she found arms spread above her head and her hands bound to the bed rail. Her feet were tied together and then bound to the foot of the bed with a single rope. The rope dug into Becca's ankles; the tall, black, high heeled boots having been removed. The rather plain black and white costume remained though it seemed much less snug now as Becca's muscles, lacking their super power, no longer swelled beneath its fabric. How Becca longed for the reassurance she always received from her blue and red Supergirl costume with it's bold "S" logo upon her chest. Now she had no super power, no familiar costume, nothing.
Becca strained against the bonds but found that she was far too weak to break them. So weak, in fact, that she doubted she could have gotten off of the bed even if she hadn't been tied down. She doubted that she had ever felt weaker, even after exposure to Kryptonite and the green stuff had never, ever hurt like this. Every square inch of Becca's once proud super body ached from the beating. "How could this have happened?" thought Becca to herself fighting back a tear. "I'm ..... I'm S...supergirl. No one can beat me up like this ..... I..I thought. Can't give .... up. Sure can't start ....SNIFFFF.... crying! What's wrong with me????? S...supergirl dosen't cave in like this. Gotta rest .... see if I can regain some super power!"
Exhausted, Becca stopped her useless straining against her bonds and tried to relax her muscles giving them precious time to heal and her energy reserves time to rebuild. "I...I don't know why I felt OK when I came to after the first battle," thought Becca, "and feel so helpless this time. Never felt so weak before...but then I never fought so hard before. Never faced anyone that I couldn't beat at full power! Don't know how I'm gonna get outta this mess.....my best didn't hardly make her blink. She's just too powerful and I'm too weak...... Gotta get my powers back!
Although Becca's normally indominable spirit had almost been smothered by the despair that came from back-to-back crushing back-to-back defeats, she was still a Kryptonian and she was still Supergirl! Faster than her horribly weakened state had allowed her to believe possible, her strength began to return. Soon Becca was feeling at least a little bit like her old super self. With the return of her super strength came some of her courage which had appeared to have abandoned her earlier.
Becca strained once more aganist her bonds and, while hardly with the ease she would have normally expected, Becca snapped the restraints which held her captive. Feeling more super by the minute, Becca removed the ropes from her wirsts and her sore ankles and stood up from the bed.
Standing, Becca flexed her muscles. Though she hurt worse than ever before in her life, she was again feeling sort of like Supergirl! Every part of her body was sore, especially her poor battered breasts. Even a Supergirl was more vulnerable in certain spots than others and MegaWoman had taken advantage of this fact. As her powers returned, Becca's accelerated healing began to improve the situation. She felt like crap ... but that was an improvement!
Slowly returning to true SuperBecca form, Becca sat on the floor and put on the black boots which had been tossed by the bed when she had been brought back there. The boots fit more loosely than they had before - Becca's muscles had shrunk in the absence of her powers. Becca looked herself in a mirror which hung on the wall as the only furnishing in the room other than the bed. She looked nearly as bad as she felt! The makeshift outfit fit as loosely as the boots as her body was not fortified by her super powers. Her hair was matted with the sweat of the earlier battle and blood stained the white tights from what felt like a nasty injury on her left thigh. "First thing to do is find my Supergirl outfit," thought Becca. Then I've gotta escape. Can't afford to run into whoever that woman is again. Not sure my superbody can withstand another round against her. Gotta get away and figure out how to beat her!"
Becca left behind the room in which she had been bound and again entered the hallway. Last time, Becca had turned left but found only the large empty room, MegaWoman and humiliating defeat! Her only choice this time was to turn right. "There has to be a way outta here," thought Becca, "I've gotta find it!"
Becca moved slowly down the corridor. By her own standards, she was still horribly weak and occasional waves of even more intense weakness and woozyness came over her, threatening to topple her off the high heels of her boots and send her toppling onto the floor. "These heels would be great for partyin' as 'Rebecca'," she thought, "but as SuperBecca, they're a liability. I'd do anything to trade 'em for my safe, flat, red Supergirl boots! Only advantage is they give me some height against MegaWoman ..... but if I topple onto my face that won't be worth too much!" The pain in her thigh didn't help matters either. Though the wound had stopped bleeding, it hurt.....bad. "I'm not used to pain," thought Becca. "This hurts and it's weakened one of my largest and most important muscles. Even if I get my full powers back, I'll be less than 100% as long as my thigh is injured. I don't even know if my super powers will heal it quickly. Gotta get home.....get stronger and get well!"
As Becca moved cautiously down the cooridor, she found several doorways branching off the otherwise featureless hall. Unfortunately, none of the doorways had any obvious ways of opening the door and they refused to respond to Becca's presence. What lay behind the doors - perhaps the way out - remained a mystery.
Finally Becca came to one of the doorways which was open - the room beyond dark. "A great place to get ambushed!" thought Becca, "but it's the only thing I've found off this corridor and I can't afford to pass it by. Gotta be careful. " The Becca added in her thoughts ".....Didn't I say that just moments before running into MegaWoman last time?"
As Becca cautiously entered the dark room, the lights inside suddenly came on. Acting on instinct, Becca assumed her Power Stance though she appeared far less intimidating than when she was her full super self. Her injured thigh ached and quivered as she tried desparately to hold her bold pose. Fortunately there was no movement, no MegaWoman, no nothing. Becca allowed herself to relax ... a little .... as she surveyed the large room. It was long and fairly narrow - lined on both sides with columns which appeared to be made of the darkest, blackest material Becca had ever seen. The columns seemed to suck in all the light that struck them, reflecting absolutely nothing.
Becca approached one of the columns. As she did, her ankle twisted atop the heels of her boots and Becca lurched forward, her hand striking the column before her. Triggered by Becca's touch, light within the column slowly rose from the darkness, revealing the interior of the column. A perfectly clear form was contained within the now transparent cylinder and was bathed in the soft light. The form was obvioulsy a crystaline statue of some form of being but was also more alien looking than anything Becca had ever seen before. Three legs supported a bizarrely shaped body cast in whatever the clear material was. The body ... if that indeed was what the form was .... looked almost insect like. One thing was obvious, it was heavily muscled and looked formidable, even to SuperBecca. A number of equally strange objects were draped over the clear form ..... clothing of some sort was Becca's best guess. At the bottom of the cylinder was what must have been an identification tag yet the writing upon it was in symbols that were as alien as the form inside and was totally unintelligable even with Becca's experience in alien cultures and superior intelect.
Becca moved to the next column and upon cautiously touching it, was met with the same response as the first column. Moving down the row of columns, Becca found that each of over a dozen columns contained a crystal clear form which became more and more humaniod looking as she progressed. Each form was accompanied by articles which became more and more familiar as the forms became more human. It only took a few of the columns for Becca to realize that these forms were indeed beings of great power and the garments were superhero costumes! It also eventually became obvious that regardless of race, each form was female. Superheroines obviousy, but why?
Having examined over a dozen of the columns and their crystalline statues, Becca looked across to the similar row of silent black pillers lining the opposite wall of the room. Almost snickering to herslef Becca thought, "I wonder if they keep the girls over here and the boys over there!?!" Becca crossed the room and as she had done with the other cylinders touched one gently. Nothing! She increased the pressure but the object remained as dark as ever. "Maybe no one's home," she thought, returning to the next column in the original row. As Becca touched it, the familiar illumination process began. It was quite theatrical Becca thought. Becca had noted that the statues in the cylinders had become more and more humanoid looking. As the light within overcame the cloak of darkness this cylinder revealed it's contents to be perfectly humanoid. In fact, as perfect as Becca herself.
The transparent figure within was a tall, powerfully built but well proportioned human female dressed in what left no doubt to be a superheroine costume. Tall, white, platform soled-high heeled boots hugged her long legs and stretched to mid thigh. Bands of blue stretched across her upper thigh before the legs finally ended in high-cut bodysuit of blue and white. A section of the costume across the torso was cut out revealing what even in trnsparent crystal were unmistakably rippling abs. The bodysuit clung to every curve as Becca's gaze move upward over the statue's magnificent chest - as fabulous as SuperBecca's own - and to its broad, powerful shoulders. The costume left those shouders and back bare while circling the base of the neck. Other bands of blue circled mid-neck as a choker and across awesome biceps before the statue's arms entered long, white gloves. The face was not distinguishable in the clear crystal but the long cascading mane of hair that fell to it's shoulders with tendrils reaching into the pronounced cleavage made visible by another cutout in the body suit was quite pronounced. The statue obviously was a beautiful and formidable heroine. Becca's gaze lowered to the position on the cylinder where on others the label with the strange characters had been present. She expected to see yet another alien label as she had certainly never encountered this being on Earth. Yet she was stunned when she read the plate: MIGHTY MELINDA!
Following a brief bout with "writers license" to indulge my own fantasy, SuperBecca turned to the next cylinder in line.......
If SuperBecca had been surprised when she saw the human form of Mighty Melinda ,she was in for an even bigger shock! Becca had never heard of Mighty Melinda but as she turned her back on the fabulous looking humanoid and touched the next cylinder, the light within dawned on an altogether too familiar form ...... WONDER WOMAN!
Becca gasped as the sight ot the familiar red, white and blue costume sank in. The crystal sculpture had captured Diana's fabulous physique in every detail. Upon the sulpture were Diana's red boots, blue, star-spangled briefs and bustier top. But more alarming were the golden girdle, lasso, bracelets and tirara....Wonder Woman's weapons and the source of her Amazonian power! Becca was stunned but she was quickly brought back to reality by the voice that boomed though the room.
"Welcome to my temple of conquests, Supergirl!"
"Don't worry, Supergirl," said MegaWoman. "I don't take anything that is crucial to any of my ..... encounters. The girdle and her other trappings are fakes. Only the costume is real.....as are all the others. I let Diana take her pathetic doo-dads. She was really a dissapointment. I had heard so much about this "Wonder Woman" and I had so looked forward to testing myself against her in battle. Then I find she relies upon these toys for her powers......take away her belt and she's helpless. Not that it did her much good when I let her keep it. She was an easy thrashing! Not much of a challenge. Now, Mighty Melinda back there....she was a real challenge.... I was impressed by her but I think we fought too hard. It may have been too much for her. I know it was tough on me. I'd love to fight her again but she just disappeared."
Becca was amazed by what she was hearing. She had assumed her Power Stance as soon as she had heard MegaWoman's voice but as MegaWoman had talked on and on, Becca had slowly slumped into a position that was more consistent with her weakened state and disbelief at the revalation that Diana had evidently been devastatingly defeated by MegaWoman and had not warned Becca of the danger. Of course, MegaWoman could be lying or Diana could have just been too embarassed.
MegaWoman continued. "You might be interested in my next two trophies, Supergirl" Without Becca having to touch the next column in the row it's lights began to swell. Another familiar sight greeted Becca's wary gaze. POWERGIRL! "Kara......" wispered a dis-spirited SuperBecca, "Not you too......."
MegaWoman stepped out of the shadows and stood before SuperBecca and the crystal statue of Powergirl. PG's red white and blue costume molded to the statue just as it did to Kara's own fabulous, superhuman body. Although the statue seemed to capture Powergirl's fantastic form, it paled in comparsion to the owerwhealming presence of MegaWoman. "Now Powergirl was more of a challenge than that puny 'Wonder' Woman," said MegaWoman, exaggerating the word "wonder" with distain. "She was indeed worthy of her name because she was indeed powerful. She was an excellent opponent. A good workout! It felt especially good to put HER down ..... you know, she does have this attitude about her...."
Becca continued to be stunned. The mightest of Earth's heroines all had been defeated by MegaWoman who considered a battle with Powergirl to be nothing more than a WORKOUT! Becca herself had fought Powergirl and both women had barely survived the titanic struggle; neither able to overcome the other's superhuman capabilities. This woman though.....she'd handled Becca herself easily enough......was apparently superior to anyone Superbecca had ever encountered. As Becca watched MegaWoman take several steps backward towards the next darkened cylinder she felt a combination of fear and admiration. Admiration of MW's calm confidence, fabulous physique and obviously awesome strength. Fear in knowing that if even a fully powered Supergirl had been a poor match against her eariler, she stood no chance now in her still horribly weakened state.
Another chill went down Becca's spine as she sudenly realized what must be in the final cylinder which MeagWoman said would interest her and was not gently touching. As the illumination inside the tube burst forth, Becca's fears were confirmed. Though she tried to stifle yet another gasp, she could not help herslef as her own precious Supergirl costume came into view!
TO BE CONTNUED