More Sleepy Adventures - Part Three
Sara
Adhesive Assault)
While the Gadgeteer might have been justified in her annoyance over
being considered anyone's minion, the same could not be said for the
third member of the villain's gang. The Adherer, was a small-time
supervillainess, whose only remarkable feature was her bizarre affinity
with glue and all other adhesives. The problem for the young villainess
was that she was totally unaware of just how "expendable" her
fellow evil-doers considered her.
A slight women of slightly more than average height, The Adherer cut an
attractive and curvaceous figure, especially in the improved outfit
which The Gadgeteer had been only too happy to furnish her with. A
blonde firebrand, in a tight silver vest with a high collar, miniskirt
and boots, she certainly looked the part. But unfortunately, unless she
was following someone else's plan, she had a tendency to favour the
"rush in and deal with whatever pops up" school of supervillainy
and as result she frequently got into situations she was ill equipped
to deal with.
The mission was different to the others, rather than kidnapping an
individual, she had been tasked with retrieving a specific item. So it
was that while The Gadgeteer was preparing her shot and The
Anaesthetist was arranging for a very special sauna, The Adherer was
entering the so-called "Black Museum" of the Crescent City Police
Department. A special gadget had allowed her to easily bypass security,
and bolstered with confidence she was heading towards the display
cabinets.
The villainess was here to collect a very special artefact. Some time
before her arrival in the city, the resident supervillain had been
defeated by an annoying heroine with the ridiculous name of Ampere.
No-one knew what had become of the villain, but his laboratory had been
raided by the police shortly afterwards. Stored in the museum, for the
delectation of visitors, were collected some of the evil-genius'
fascinating toys. There was one particular toy which The Anaesthetist
wanted recovered, but he had also told The Adherer to pick up anything
else which looked "interesting"....
The plan of course had been for a stealthy approach where the
villainess avoided anyone who might be in the museum so late at night.
Unfortunately, The Adherer enjoyed grandstanding too much, she wanted
to use her powers and would take any opportunity to show off. So,
instead of merely evading the two policemen who manned the small
security room, she chose instead to incapacitate them before searching
the museum itself.
Sneaking, and The Gadgeteer's technology got her to the security room
undetected. Preparing her powers, the villainess threw the door open,
and plunged inside. The two men were momentarily stunned by the sudden
entrance, and there stood frozen, goggling at the scantly-clad
villainess for vital seconds. Then, like a paused picture suddenly
playing again, they leapt into action. Of course, The Adherer had not
been idle herself as soon became clear.
One policeman was already standing, he yelled a challenge as his hand
dropped to his holstered weapon. In that instant, a stream of clear
fluid shot from the villainess' outstretched hand and engulfed his
lower arm. While this happened, the second cop was struggling
unsuccessfully to prise himself out of his chair, to which he suddenly
appeared to have been glued. The Adherer laughed gleefully and fired a
second bolt which splashed into the standing man's chest and hurled
him into the wall.
The first policeman was now trapped, stuck fast against the far wall,
his hand and gun sealed in rapidly hardening resin. The villainess
turned her attention to his seated colleague. He had just succeeded in
reaching the emergency alarm button, and now looked up at her with
triumph on his face. Sadly the villainess shook her head, before
pushing his chair into the corner of the room and gluing him in place
with a well-aimed bolt. Wiping her finger across each cop's lips
effectively gagged them both and once she had exerted her powers again
she was confident that neither would be going anywhere in the near
future.
Pulling out another of The Gadgeteer's toys, she quickly checked that
any alarm signal had been blocked. Everything appeared fine and
whistling happily the villainess headed into the museum floor. What the
tiny monitor couldn't tell her was that a signal did manage to leave
the building, a signal that even The Gadgeteer's technology
couldn't stop. This signal didn't head to the nearest police
station, but instead alerted Crescent City's superheroines. With her
control of electricity it had been easy for Ampere to install similar
signals in all of the City's major alarm systems.
The heroine patrolling that night was a relatively inexperienced girl
known only as Geist. A shy person by nature, her powers enhanced her
natural tendency to remain unnoticed. Even electronic devices had a
hard time noticing the young woman, and people frequently walked right
past her without even realising. She was average height and could
probably been quite attractive if she had made any effort. Her costume
consisted of loose grey trousers and a fairly baggy shirt. She had
matching gloves, as well as a hood which further concealed her
features. Although not ostentatious, the outfit was comfortable,
unobtrusive and allowed her completely free movement. The fact that the
material would probably be able to stop or at least slow a bullet was
also a bonus.
Moments after Ampere informed her of a suspected break-in at the
"Black Museum", Geist was driving in that direction. She shut down
the earpiece phone, knowing that despite her powers, things like that
could still be traced. The heroine was slightly concerned, her
abilities were not really offensive in nature, but she knew that she
would have to do what she could. Given time, Ampere herself would
arrive, but she'd need to make sure that this wasn't some sort of
false alarm before calling in the "big guns".
Meanwhile, The Adherer was searching the display cabinets, searching
for something which matched the picture displayed on her PDA. After
several false starts, she finally found what she was looking for, a
large cabinet filled with what looked like brightly coloured sweets.
Ignoring the plan again, the villainess smashed her elbow through the
thin glass, trusting on The Gadgeteer's gizmos to silence any alarms.
She quickly picked up the three bright green gob-stoppers she was
suppose to collect and dropped them into her satchel, then she set
about looting as much of the other items as she could cram into it.
Geist had effortlessly snuck into the museum, taking the same route The
Adherer had used. She could hear muffled sounds coming from the
security room as she passed, and a quick glance inside confirmed her
worst fears. The two policemen were helplessly mired in place, thick
blobs of resin holding them fast. Knowing that freeing them would take
too long, the heroine reluctantly let the door swing shut. Neither man
had even noticed her brief presence. Once again she cursed the fact
that she couldn't safely use her communicator, given what had
happened to the two men, she could really have used Ampere's help
here.
Gritting her teeth, the heroine walked soundlessly into the museum. She
could hear soft sounds ahead, as well as the occasional crunch as
someone stood on broken glass. Across the museum floor, she could see a
silver-clad woman emptying a display. With a sense of foreboding, she
realised that she recognised which case the woman was looting. What on
earth did she want with The Confectioner's twisted toys? Whatever it
was, this could not be good, especially considering the state of the
two policemen in the security room.
Geist decided that she had two options, firstly she could confront the
villainess here and try to discover what she had planned, or secondly
she could tail the unsuspecting woman back to whatever lair she had.
Although the second option seemed the most safe, the heroine realised
that she would run the risk of losing her quarry and allowing her to
carry out whatever plan she had for the evil artefacts she was
stealing.
"No", thought the heroine, "I have to stop her here and I have to
do it now!"
Padding forwards, Geist rapidly closed on the oblivious villainess. The
Adherer had just finished emptying the display case and was turning to
leave when the superheroine greeted her with a quick punch to the solar
plexus. The villainess staggered back clutching her chest and stared in
disbelief at the strange figure who seemed to have appeared from
nowhere.
"You're not going anywhere!" shouted Geist, trying to muster as
much confidence as she could.
The villainess sucked in great gulps of air as she tried to catch her
breath, "That's exactly what I was going to say to you sweetie",
she managed.
The heroine prepared to deliver a coup-de-grace to the stunned woman,
but as she tensed to kick it suddenly became clear that her shoe had
somehow adhered to the museum carpet. Shocked, she fought to free
herself as the villainess pulled herself shakily to her feet. The
Adherer pointed her fist at Geist's chest and fired a gout of clear
glue directly at her.
The heroine fell backwards, kicking free from her shoes and landing
flat on her back as the bolt flew through the space she had occupied
only a second before. She kicked herself back onto her feet, performing
a slightly shaky "kip-up" manoeuvre. To her horror, there was a
loud ripping noise as the back of her costume tore free. The villainess
laughed as the pale girl before her struggled to cover her modesty with
what remained of her clothes.
Geist knew that she had miscalculated, her first blow hadn't knocked
out her foe and in a straight fight she was no match for the sticky
supervillainess. Of course, she didn't need to give her a straight,
or even a fair fight and with that thought, she faded instantly from
view. Not a moment too soon, because the next moment another bolt of
glue nearly struck her, despite being aimed blind. The heroine ducked
low, and quickly scuttled behind one of the cabinets. Meanwhile The
Adherer was launching bolt after bolt, screaming incoherently.
Eventually it became clear that she was not hitting anything except air
and with an angry snarl, the villainess headed towards the exit. Geist
didn't dare confront the supervillainess, but she kept pace with her,
using the cabinets for additional cover. The Adherer didn't break
stride, she walked quickly to the entrance and into a waiting van.
Geist had to rush, and was barely able to reach her own car and begin
to tail the escaping woman just catching her before she disappeared out
of sight.
The heroine followed at a discrete distance, contacting Ampere to
explain what was happening, and somewhat embarrassed asking her to
bring another costume with her when she had finally tracked the
villainess to her lair. Geist wasn't entirely surprised to find the
villainess heading into the industrial district. Eventually the van
came to a halt outside what looked like an abandoned factory of some
kind....