Enhancegirl 2-2: Lissom Lasses Kidnapped

Just as Sophie Scott was getting out of the bank, Mariko Asakura was getting out of an expensive car, outside her luxurious home. A pair of long legs, longer even than Sophie's, came into view first, appearing to be lengthened even more by a pair of very high black heels. As the rest of Mariko's body emerged, it could be seen that she was dressed in a short, black cocktail dress. It hung from her narrow shoulders by a pair of thin straps, hugging gently against her slender, feminine figure. Even when capturing and humiliating her rivals, Mariko dressed to impress.

Her plan had been to humiliate Sophie by sending pictures of her to the Herald. But now, disgusted with herself, she hastily deleted the photographs she'd taken. She was supposed to be on the side of right, a hero. She felt guilty, and angry that she was guilty. But, right or wrong, Mariko's thoughts distracted her. She didn't notice the three pairs of eyes watching her from the shadows, ogling the sylphlike model's figure. As she put the keys in the lock, Mariko felt a thick cloth being pulled between her pretty, rouged lips.

"NNYRRRMMPHH!" she cried out. Cleave gagged, Mariko felt a pair of strong hands pulling the cloth at both ends, keeping it firmly within her mouth. "NNYYRRMMPPHH-HHMMMPPHH!!" Mariko lifted her arms to fight the man gagging her off, but she found her thin wrists each grabbed by two gloved hands, which was far more than was necessary to overpower the tall, but slender maiden. Both arms pulled behind her back, she felt them being forced into a box tie, her forearms parallel to each other. While one pair of hands kept her arms in this position, the other pair began to wind white, nylon rope around Mariko's seized limbs. She couldn't see them at any rate, but Mariko's assailants were clad all in black, with masks over their faces. Unfortunately for Mariko, the street was deserted at the late hour, and no-one was around to see her being snatched.

"Nnnngggghhhpphh!!" Mariko protested, being trussed up by the masked men, as her forearms were pulled tighter and tighter in by the ropes, until it became impossible for her to move one without the other. "Who are these men? Why are they here? Why am I being captured?!" The possibility occurred to the raven-haired young woman that her secret identity had been discovered, and she had been targeted by her enemies.

"Don't fight, Miss Asakura," one of her assailants said. "There's three of us, and one of you. Just make this easy on yourself." It seemed that the speaker was the one who had gagged Mariko, as he tightened the gag, knotting it behind Mariko's head. As Mariko felt rope being wound under her relatively small but perky breasts pulling her upper arms against her back, she wriggled her narrow shoulders, dislodging one of the straps of her dress. As it slipped down her arm it, as well as the bound maiden's wiggling, caused one side of her low cut dress to slip down a little, just enough to reveal the top of Mariko's strapless black bra. She noticed this, the shame of her exposure only adding to her distress.

"Llmmm mpphhh ggggpphh!" Mariko insisted, but she was hardly in a position to make demands. She kicked out with one of her high heeled feet, but didn't accomplish much. She did, unfortunately, remind one of the men that her long legs were still free. Her gag secure, the man who had silenced her (more or less) moved round, grabbing Mariko by her slim ankles, lifting her immaculately smooth, kicking legs into the air. Her phone slipped out of her pocket, clattering on the ground. "Dnnnph tffhh mmpphh!" Mariko protested, feeling the man's gloved hands on her delicate ankles. Holding them together, Mariko's captor nodded at the other two men. One took her by the shoulders, while the other came round to slip his arms under Mariko's soft thighs.

"Nnnnpphh!" Mariko felt the leather of the crook's gloves pressing against the soft, tan skin of her much-admired thighs. Her legs made up significantly more than half the length of her body, so the thug holding her thighs and the one holding her ankles were still quite far apart. With the bound, oriental beauty in their grip, the three men began carrying her back towards the road, to a large, black SUV, her high-heeled feet dangling in the air.

"Heh heh," the man holding Mariko's thighs chuckled. "Y'know, maybe if this crew ran more jobs like this - y'know, kidnapping leggy, Japanese supermodels in mini-dresses - I don't think there'd be so many complaints about pay."

"Would you shut up?" said the man holding Mariko's shoulders. But even he found capturing and manhandling the tall, dark-haired maiden a very alluring prospect.

"Yrrrll pmmmpphh frrr thmmmmppphh!" Mariko said, her arresting green eyes glaring at them. But at that moment, Mariko was not particularly threatening. It seemed as if her capture had nothing to do with her superheroine identity: they had targeted her because she was a catwalk model. The three men, bearing Mariko in their arms, came up to the SUV, its back door already open. Relaying her willowy body from one to the other, they placed Mariko across the back seats.

Her legs were momentarily free, and she tried to kick - her pointed stilettos certainly would have packed a nasty punch - but this move was anticipated. Both her ankles were caught, and pushed down against the car seat, as well as being held together. While one of the kidnappers held her ankles, another leaned into the car, and began binding them. Soft, but tough nylon cord encircled Mariko's ankles in a flash, looped four times to make sure the damsel had as little room to manoeuvre as possible.

Reaching further in, the man who had bound Mariko's ankles overbalanced a little, leaning on the oriental beauty's silky thighs.

"Whoops," he said, grinning at the helpless heroine, giving her legs a playful squeeze for good measure.

"Hwwph DRRRPHH YMMMPPHH?!" Mariko roared through her gag, aghast that she had been groped so openly, but once again powerless to do anything about it. She felt not only the man's hands on her thighs though, but nylon ropes, wrapped in two circuits above her knees, binding her legs.

If Mariko had thought that, being bound hand and foot, as well as gagged, made her so helpless that the crooks would not bother restraining her further, she was sadly wrong. They took the seatbelts from the three backseats, and began winding them around Mariko's slender body, around her midriff, just beneath her shoulders, and around her calves. They then fitted the metal flaps into their buckles, pressing Mariko down tightly.

"Nyrrmmphh? Hmmpphh?" Mariko whimpered, feeling her body pulled against the leather seats, scarcely able to wriggle in the tight, improvised bindings that she had been wrapped in. "How did this happen to me? I've been rendered completely helpless! I - Spectra - captured so quickly... I can't move an inch!"

"There you go, Miss Captive-san," one of Mariko's captors laughed. "We take road safety very seriously you know." The three laughed, and hopped into the car. One of them sat down next to Mariko, the seatbelts binding her giving her ankles just enough slack for him to lift them up, resting them on his lap. Mariko felt vibrations beneath her, as the car's engine started. The SUV promptly sped off, taking Mariko with it.

"We got a long drive ahead of us, darlin'," the thug said, running his hands along the whole length of Mariko's naked legs. "I hope you enjoy it. I know I'm going to."

"Mmmmmppphhh! NNNMMMPPPHHH!!" Mariko moaned, as the strapped-down damsel was driven off into the night: bound, gagged, and thoroughly kidnapped.

The following morning, Sophie was still chafing from her ordeal atop the Acton Heights, and still mystified as to who had subjected her to it. Her dorm room-mate was still asleep, but Sophie had been up for a while. She was dressed in a short, tartan skirt, translucent, flesh-tone stockings, and a thin, green shirt, the top four buttons left undone. She was buried in a volume of commentaries on Supreme Court rulings from the 1970s and, though she was more than intelligent enough to understand its contents, she was nonetheless finding it more than a little dull.

Putting the book down out of frustration, she switched on the television, and immediately sat up.

"Renowned catwalk model Mariko Asakura has been kidnapped," read a news summary on the bottom of the screen, while the anchor droned on about the police's lack of leads, Sophie having tuned in mid-sentence. Though the news would certainly have drawn her attention in either case, it was the image in the top right hand corner of the screen that had made Sophie sit up so fast.

"Spectra!" She was not wearing her mask, but the beautiful young woman who looked indignantly, yet forlornly out of the screen was unquestionably the heroine that Sophie had encountered before. Perhaps an ordinary person wouldn't have recognised her, but Sophie never forgot even the smallest detail of a face. "Damn, for someone who's so stuck up about it, she sure gets captured a lot." Sophie said. Thinking fast, she dialled a number in her phone, connecting to her to a spunky young journalist at the Seacouver Herald.

"Well if it isn't my favourite rookie heroine!" said May, a twenty-seven year old feature columnist at her paper, and one of only two people who knew Sophie's secret identity. "How you doin'?"

"May, would you, like, keep your voice down?" Sophie hissed back. "If someone else in your dingy little press room heard that, I swear to god..." The two had befriended each other fairly recently, just after Sophie's encounter with Madam Black, when May had managed to find the hideout of a gang of art thieves, information Sophie had used to great effect. Still inexperienced, she had transformed back to her civilian attire in full view of the journalist, whom she had by ill luck met once before, when the journalist had given a speech at Sophie's university. The redhead had, to her later chagrin, made an impression.

Still, feeling she owed Sophie a debt of gratitude, May had entered into a working relationship with the heroine, feeding information to her, and more often than not getting a good scoop in return.

"I'm guessing you're calling about the abduction," May said, swiping her messy blonde hair out of her face.

"Yeah," Sophie said. "The news says all the local outlets and papers got sent the picture of Sp - I mean, Mariko Asakura."

"We did indeed," she said, "but I'm currently working on a lifestyle piece about Seacouver's emerging golf scene."

"Wow," Sophie said drily. "Thrilling." A groan from the other end let Sophie know May shared her sentiments.

"So why the interest in the case?" May said. "Think you know something the cops don't?"

"Not yet," Sophie said. "Kinda why I'm calling. I need you to send me that photo, the highest definition you can."

"Alright," May said. "Y'know, freckles, if you rescue her this is going to make you a real big name. Dibs on the first interview of the rising starlet."

"May, I promise, you'll get the first interview," Sophie said, intending to keep her promise by never giving an interview at all.

"You're a doll. I sent the snap, by the way," the journalist said. "I'm doing this under the assumption that you don't just want a picture of a gagged hottie for your viewing pleasure, freckles."

"I have no idea how someone like you became, like, a halfway senior journalist," Sophie said. "Oh wait! It's because you work for a paper even the Enquirer thinks is sensationalist."

"Which is why you need to let me interview you, freckles: you're a sensation!" May said.

"I'm hanging up."

"You just use me, girl! I've had enough! This marriage is over!" May yelled, eliciting quite a few confused stares from her colleagues in the bull pen.

"Ughhh..." Sophie sighed, ending the call.

"What?!" May barked, making her colleagues turn back to their work.

Sophie sat in front of her laptop, bringing up her e-mails (an anonymous account), and opening the picture that May had sent her. She realised that the journalist's joke about why Sophie wanted the photograph made a little more sense once one had seen the whole thing. It was steamy to say the least: Mariko was not just gagged, but tightly tied up in a skimpy black dress, a dress which had become even more dishevelled since her kidnapping. Her ponytail had been undone, leaving her short hair messy, but still somehow with a sense of elegance. Her legs were almost shiny, moist from the strain of her wriggling struggles, struggles that had only been intensified as her captor had stroked and fondled her calves and her soft thighs as she was driven to where they'd stashed her.

"Spectra..." Sophie said, feeling bad for her fellow heroine, despite the model's haughtiness. She got up, and locked her door. "Enhance," she said, as quietly as she could, hoping that the flash that accompanied her transformation would not be too conspicuous. Once changed, she peered as closely as she could at the photograph, looking intently for any detail that would be useful for Mariko's rescue with her superhuman vision.

"Those assholes," she muttered, able to perceive the faint traces of fingerprints on Mariko's long, tan legs, and her soft, mostly uncovered shoulders, which had been squeezed and felt up multiple times. She did see, however, a reflection in Mariko's eyes. There was the face of the photographer, still masked, but that did not interest. What caught Sophie's attention was a reflection of a reflection in the lens of the camera. It was a tiny window, barely large enough for a cat to squeeze through. Yet through the window, behind the glass, Sophie could make out with her superhuman abilities a short, squat statue, half covered in bird faeces. Unloved though this hideous piece of bronze was, Sophie knew it.

"Grosvenor Street..." she said. Enhancegirl had found a target.

"Hrrggppphhh...nyyrrmmmpphh..." Mariko moaned, lying on a torn mattress in a dingy room. One of the men who had kidnapped her stood watch, the others somewhere else in the two storey, vacant house they had appropriated.

"You know it's funny, I bet there's a hundred crooks who'd love to get their hands on you," the thug said, "and I ain't just talking about those sexy gams of yours."

"Shhhpphhh uuhhphh!" Mariko protested, sick of hearing the goons compliment her slender body.

"It was Vinnie who figured it out," he said. "He always was a canny piece of work. Shame the cops got him."

"Hhhrrmmphh?" Mariko didn't know what the man meant. Had 'Vinnie' worked out where she lived?

"He's the one who pieced together that you were Spectra. He recognised you when he caught you before."

"NNNMMPPHH!!" Mariko screamed through her gag, sitting up. Her identity had been revealed.

"Hey, settle down, geisha-girl," the thug said, pushing her back down. "Don't feel betrayed. He didn't even mean for us to know. He told his lawyer, and his lawyer told us...for a price."

"Nnnnmmmpphhh...nnnmmmpphhh..." Mariko whimpered, closing her sparkling eyes in shame. "They know who I am...they know my identity...what am I to do?"

"Oh relax, lady," the crook said. "It's not you we're interested in."

"Go on guard duty...that's so important..." one of the thugs, the one who had carried Mariko by her shoulders, said. "How come Reggie always gets to look after the damsel in distress, and I'm always stuck on the door? Lousy...no good..." As he grumbled, the other of the three came in, with two more men who had been keeping watch on their safehouse while Mariko was being captured.

"Anything yet, Ken?" said the man who had gagged Mariko, a man named Brandon.

"Nothing," he said. "Just as quiet as a...hey wait." He looked more closely at a small security screen in front of him, which was hooked up to a security camera the criminals had rigged outside the door. Something was moving outside. Something was moving fast.

"Ken?" Brandon said. "Is that my..." Suddenly, there was a loud boom, as Brandon's SUV crashed into the front of the house.

"What the hell?!" Ken cried out, leaping to his feet. The house's thick walls held firm, but the formerly locked door almost flew off the hinges. It held on by a thread, a thread that was broken when the door flew open, revealing Enhancegirl standing in the doorway.

"So we can either make this easy, or we can make it difficult," Sophie said, cracking her knuckles threateningly.

"Get her!" Brandon cried, seeking to avenge his car. His goons rushed forward.

"Looks like you've gone for 'easy'," Sophie said. She ducked under the first punch which, it had to be said, did not require superpowers to avoid. She scanned her attacker in an instant, seeing his centre of mass was high on his body from his lunge. She capitalised on this, kicking at his heel, sending him into the wall which had been hard enough to take the impact of a car.

"C'mon, it's just one dame!" Ken said, charging at her. Had Vinnie been there, he would have scolded Ken for his foolhardiness. As it was, Ken learned his lesson the painful way, as his forehead was marked with a bootprint. Enhancegirl noticed that, despite the fact that her assailants were going for her in a serious way, none of them were trying to use the guns at their waists. This certainly made things easier, but Sophie was suspicious.

"You selfish jerk, aren't you gonna help?" Ken said, half conscious, crawling along the floor towards Brandon.

"Not yet," he said. "Just let our red-haired friend tire herself out a bit first."

From the looks of things, though, that would have taken some time. However, just as the lovely heroine was about to send another of Brandon's men hurtling into a wall, she felt the aerial tremors of something being thrown towards her. She avoided it without even turning to look, but as it sailed past her, she realised that she should have caught it. As the vial of chloroform cracked against the concrete wall, Enhancegirl cursed herself.

It smashed, spilling its contents over the floor. As the scent reached her nostrils, Enhancegirl was already beginning to feel dizzy.

"They're the ones who knocked me out on the roof of the bank! It was some kind of practise run to make sure my weakness was what they thought it was!" Her rational, though mistaken, conclusion would have done her little good if she'd been exposed to more of the chloroform. However, this time Enhancegirl was more quick witted.

"Downgrade!" she said, transforming back into her civilian attire. Though she'd robbed herself of her powers, she'd also eliminated her extreme sensitivity to chloroform.

"Huh?" Brandon hadn't been expecting that. Nor was he expecting Sophie to leap forward and sock him in the jaw. "Ow!" he exclaimed, knocked back, but not exactly knocked for six either. Without her powers, though she was no physically weaker, Sophie was less accurate and her fighting techniques much less effective. Still, it gave Sophie the opening she needed and, now clad in her tartan skirt and shirt, she ran through the door to the next room.

All she had to do, as her red kitten heels tacked against the ground, was get far enough away from the spilled jar of chloroform that its contents would not affect her in her transformed state. Brandon, recovered, ran after her. As she reached another door, he grabbed for her, but missed, as she pushed the door open, and slammed it in his face once she was through.

"Aarrghh! God damn it!" he cried, nursing his nose.

"Spectra!" she cried, coming upon the bound, oriental beauty as she went into another adjoining room.

"Nyyrrrmmmpphhh! Hmmmpppphhh bmmhmmpphh yyhhph!" Mariko yelled through her thick cleave gag, as she saw the pretty redhead enter. Sophie hadn't expected such an extreme reaction as that from the cool, haughty young woman. She must have been desperate to be freed after her ordeal.

"Don't worry," Sophie said, "I'll get you out of here. Enha - HHMMMPPPHHH!!" Sophie felt a piece of thick, red cloth being pulled over her mouth and nose, gagging her instantly, and preventing her from using the change-word she needed to utilise her powers.

"Not gonna be enhancing anything today, girlie," Reggie said. Mariko's guard had snuck up on Sophie from behind and gagged her, and without her powers her relative physical weakness was making it impossible for her to overpower him. The door opened again, Brandon standing in its doorway, red-nosed, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Good job, Reg," he said. "Get her in here."

"Sure thing, boss-man," Reggie said, pulling Sophie through the doorway by the cloth gagging her.

"NNMMMPPHH!!" she cried, pulled backwards, agonised by the thought that with one phoneme more she'd have been able to transform.

Pulled into the next room, Sophie found Brandon's hands seizing hers, pulling them behind her back.

"That was pretty clever, turning off your powers like that," Brandon said, as he bent his arm, locking Sophie's wrists between his bicep and his forearm. "I can't say we caught you because you were stupid. We were just prepared for you, girl."

"Mmmphh! Nnmmphh!" Sophie felt Reggie tie the cloth gag in place, pressing her shoulder length red hair against her head, as well as securing her muzzle. Meanwhile, Brandon began trussing Sophie's wrists in the same nylon ropes that he had used to bind Mariko, pulling them against each other. "Nyyrrmmpphh!!" Sophie protested, as she felt her arms being bound, feeling the ropes constricting her through her thin shirt. Brandon wound the same length of rope binding her wrists around and around Sophie's chest, pressing her arms against her back tighter with each circuit, tying her arms against her back, and covering her midriff in coil after coil of rope, until her shirt was only visible from her breasts to her neck.

Her arms thoroughly tied, Reggie knelt down by Sophie's stocking clad legs, holding them together at the knees.

"How come all these super-dames have got such great gams?" Reggie said, as he began twisting rope around Sophie's ankles, pressing into her soft skin through the thin stockings.

"Guess being a hottie is a job requirement," Brandon said, giving Sophie's ass a squeeze through her tartan skirt.

"Ymmmphh pmm-hrrmmpphh!" Sophie protested, wriggling in her bonds. But the captured girl was too tightly tied up to put up much of a fight. Two circuits of rope were tied above her knees, and Sophie gave a yelp as the cords were pulled tight, snapping her long legs together inextricably.

"That's got her," Brandon said. "Get her in there with the other one."

"You got it, boss," Reggie said, grinning, grabbing Sophie by the waist, and tossing the red-haired damsel over his shoulder. "Alley-oop, sweetheart."

"MMMPPHHH!!" Sophie loudly protested, as the outwitted heroine was draped over her captive's shoulder. Her body was too tightly bound for her to do much to stop this from happening. "No way!" she thought, as she became aware of her mini-skirt revealing her ass in her pose. "This was supposed to be a rescue mission...now I've been captured too! Damn it, why do people keep tying me up?!"

Carrying her into the room where Mariko was being kept, Reggie held onto Sophie with some relish, gripping the uncovered parts of her thighs which her stockings did not reach, before laying her down next to the dark-haired model the others had captured the previous night.

"Mmmmpphh!" The two damsels complained, writhing next to each other on the mattress, their lissom bodies rubbing together in their sinuous, bound struggles.

"You're not the one who needs to worry, geisha-girl," Reggie said. "You ain't seen our faces, and you're hot product. Too hot to move right now, no matter how much every villain in the country would love to get their hands on those thighs of yours."

"Stmmmpphh tmmpphh-mmpphh a-mmphh hmpphh lmmmpphh!" Mariko protested, her gag preventing her from being understood.

"We only caught you 'cause the Herald said you two were partners. Your red-haired friend is the one we were after."

"Whhmphh?" Sophie was taken aback to say the least. This whole thing had been a plot to capture her.

"How do you think we knew about your little Achilles heel?" Brandon said, walking in. "We got a tip off from someone who's paying good money for you. Someone who used to have a nice set up round here until you walked in." Sophie went pale. She realised who Brandon meant. The only person outside that room to know her weakness: Madam Black.

"She's sending a guy to pick you up in a couple hours," Brandon said. "So sit tight, girlie. Reggie, watch them."

"You got it, boss-man!" Reggie said, as Brandon walked out.

"It can't be...not her...oh, gawd, not her..." Sophie felt hopeless. Her bold rescue mission had been a trap, her body was bound, and she was about to be sold into Madam Black's clutches. "I'll probably have a drug-soaked rag over my face for the rest of my life..." Mariko saw her would-be rescuer despondent, and couldn't help but feel ashamed of what she'd done to her before. In tracking her down and coming after her, Sophie had shown intelligence, skill and selflessness.

"Exactly the qualities of a true heroine..." Mariko thought. She looked at Reggie, who still ogled the two bound maidens, and she had a thought. "This is going to be exquisitely embarrassing..."

"Mmphh?" Sophie bleated, as she felt Mariko begin to rub her long, naked legs against her. This was no accident either, Mariko was caressing Sophie's legs with her own, slowly and deliberately.

"Mmmmpphhh..." she moaned sensuously, batting her eyes at her fellow captive.

"Gmmphh?" Sophie was completely confused. "What the hell is she doing?" The bound, oriental beauty gyrated slowly against Sophie, the redhead getting a good feeling of how supple Mariko's body was, whether she wanted to or not. "What, does getting trussed up turn you on, or something?" Mariko's eyes were fixed on Sophie's, but they darted over to Reggie for an instant, before looking back. Sophie cottoned on.

"Mmph..." she mewed, as kittenishly as she could, moving her own smooth legs against Mariko's. Reggie, amazed by the display of affection between the captive damsels, moved in closer. He wasn't quite close enough, though, and Sophie took matters into her own hands, so to speak. She leaned forward, and used her chin to move the remaining strap of Mariko's dress off her shoulder, leaving both shoulders bare, acres of Mariko's soft skin exposed on her upper and lower body.

"Hey, I knew you guys were partners, but I didn't realise you were...partners," Reggie said. "Heh! Guess you won't be seeing each other for a while. It'd be cruel of me to stop you." He moved closer still, but still not close enough.

"To myself, I swear now, this will never be spoken of again," Mariko thought, using her last remaining recourse. She leant in, brushing her nose against Sophie's. From genuine embarrassment, Sophie's freckled cheeks blushed.

"Nnhhmphh..." Mariko whimpered, before pressing her lips against Sophie's.

"Mmmmpphhh...mmmmppphhh..." Sophie bleated, closing her eyes to give plausibility to the deceit. She could feel Mariko's rouged lips through her thin cloth gag, and Mariko, whose gag did not actually cover her lips, could feel hers. As the two bound, long-legged beauties kissed through their gags, Reggie came in for a closer look. Again, if Vinnie had been there, this tactic would not have worked, but Vinnie's breed were rare in Brandon's line of work. Reggie was a fool, and once he got close enough, Mariko broke the kiss and thrust her stiletto heeled feet into his stomach.

"OOOFF!" he grunted, falling to his knees.

"Grrmmpphh!" Sophie delivered the finishing blow, kicking him in the head, knocking the idiot unconscious. Mariko immediately put her face to Sophie's hands, allowing the redhead to pull the cleave gag from between her lips.

"Spectrum is Green!" Mariko said, instantly transforming into Spectra, Lady of Light. She was still tied up, but this had suddenly become a much less serious concern. She used her powers to cut the bonds from her body with lasers, before doing the same for Sophie.

"Enhance!" the second heroine said, her tartan skirt replaced with her gold mini-dress, her super-senses restored. Brandon heard their battle-cries, and rushed back in, seeing Reggie unconscious, and the heroines loose.

"Oh...crap," he said simply.

From there it was a trifling matter for the two heroines to disable the thugs and, once they arrived, the two men who'd come on Madam Black's behalf. Later, as the cops led the criminals away, the two heroines stood next to each other, feeling just a little awkward.

"Thanks for cutting me loose," Enhancegirl said. "You totally saved my bacon."

"I..." Spectra paused. "I am...grateful that you elected to come to my aid. I apologise for my attitude towards you before. You are fairly capable after all."

"You too, I guess," Sophie said. "Probably the closest thing I'm gonna get to a compliment from her..." She swallowed her pride. "What are you going to do about your secret identity?"

"I hope that Mariko Asakura being Spectra will end up as little more than a rumour," she said. "After all, there is no concrete proof, and there are plenty of theories about who I really am."

"If you say so," Sophie said, wondering if the time would come when her secret identity would become a serious problem.

"Ah...Enhancegirl?"

"Mmm?"

"About the way we subdued the man guarding us...I would prefer if you did not speak of it."

"Don't worry about it!" she said quickly. Both young women blushed at the memory. "Look, I gotta go. I'll see you around, Spectra?"

"I hope not," the Japanese model said. Sophie frowned, hardly believing that she was still so standoffish. "I would hate for you to have to come to my rescue a third time." She was smiling slightly. "Nor I to yours."

"Amen to that," Sophie said. The two shook hands before parting. They parted as, perhaps not friends, but at the very least, two capable heroines, each with respect for the other's abilities.