Nightfall (Trixie x Iron & Wine)

[Trixie]

... any cars in the area, we have a code 4-1-5; disturbance reported anonymously in the vicinity of the corner of 8th and Oak, be advised."

The police scanner -- a Frankenstein of a machine made of a traditional scanner, a stolen police radio, a homemade antenna and more than a few bells and whistles to obscure tracing -- went off in the center of Safehouse B.

A figure was on it in a heartbeat, grabbing at the receiver and running a finger along the side, feeling the various voice modulation settings. Who to be... ah. Officer Whitaker tonight.

"This is Whitaker; I'll check it out, over," the figure said. Dispatch would only ever hear the grizzled tones of a 15 year veteran on the force. Which would come as quite a surprise to anyone who saw Nora Argent, stripped down to nothing but a bra and a pair of fatigues, skin glistening with the sweat of a workout in Safehouse B's workout room, filled with weights, a practice dummy, and a few other fitness-preserving goodies.

"Roger," came the reply from Dispatch, but Nora was already hanging up and jogging over to the corner of her safehouse.

On came the usual costume, a skintight catsuit, mask, and nightvision goggles that rode astride her head. A Tec-9 (silenced) was swiftly strapped to her lower back, and it wasn't but a moment later that she was out to a motorcycle, a svelte black machine that started with a little more than a dull roar and flew along the streets of the city with a purr.

There had been a lot of "disturbances" recently, and they followed a disturbing pattern. They were always in an out-of-the-way-place, closer to her than they were to any beat cop's patrol route, and the "disturbances" were always reported anonymously. And she would always be late to the scene, to find a girl with running mascara, panties stuffed into her mouth, and a ravaged pussy or ass. There had been three so far, nothing connecting the poor girls but their circumstances; last time, she was sure she'd seen a figure on a nearby roof afterward, but it had been gone long before she'd ever even managed to get close.

It was starting to wear on her; usually, crimes weren't so organized. Even serial killers were rarely so fast and so brazen, and she'd faced a handful during her career as Nightshade, the city's most successful (and really only constant) vigilante.

The lights were out in this part of the city as sunlight faded into the darkness, and she came to a rolling stop in an alleyway, not even a block away from where the disturbance was. "Alright. Let's see here," Nora said, flicking on her goggles which set the world alight with an unnatural green.

 

[Iron and Wine]

Even though she'd run the ruse before, it always took the boys in blue a while to catch on; anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours could go by before anyone would realize that there was no Officer Whitaker. Then Detective Delaney leading up the Vigilante Investigations Unit (VIU) would be on it and things would get a lot more efficient from there on out. Evaline Delaney had been a thorn in Nora's father's side, and it look like she had inherited being on the receiving end of the detective's obsession. The watch read 45:00 and counting. Better safe than sorry when it came to the cops.

The location - dilapidated tenement housing on the corner of 8th and Oak - was on the east side of the city, closer to her hideout than the main precinct. Folks called it the Lower East Dive. It was one of those parts of the City that never got back on its feet since the Navy pulled its base out, and the predominantly African American community was steadily moving away as more Hmong immigrants moved into the poorer areas and the areas closest to the port were being gentrified in the Mayor's campaign to redevelop the forgotten parts of the City, the places that society had let fall thru the cracks. From the looks of it, the tenement building certainly qualified as one of those places.

Her green night vision picked up four hoodlums on the opposite side of the street from the tenement housing, milling about and joking with each other, but clearly keeping an eye on the front door. Look-outs, probably. A large black suburban was parked in front of the closed diner a few buildings down, with it's engine still running. A trio of hookers and their pimp were down Oak a ways, chatting with a John in a black sedan. It seemed like just another night in the Lower East Dive. Except for the flickering light on the sixth floor of the tenement building. Nora had enough experience to trust her instincts that the flickering wasn't just some faulty wiring in the old poorly maintained building. Besides, *he* had used it before to mark his crime scenes. Whoever he was. The police were describing him as Serial Rapist 0, whiipch stood for zero tolerance, a code word among police for don't go to great lengths to keep the perp alive if encountered. The media didn't have a name for him yet, but it was only a matter of time. Four rapes in a month.

Getting inside the housing unnoticed would prove easy enough. It was what she would find that made the pit of Nora's stomach queasy. They had a game of cat and mouse, this rapist and Nora; every time she felt like she was getting closer to pinning him down, and every time he'd evaded her, as if the crimes were pieces on some twisted chessboard for him, clues he was leaving behind to spur Nightshade on. On some level, it was working to get under her skin. Nightshade could handle it, of course, but the training never prepared her for the visceral terror of those crime scenes. The fire escape got her to the sixth floor unseen. Stopping outside the door to apartment 608, she noticed the flickering of the lights from within 608 coming from under the door and muffled sobs of a woman from within. At least she was alive. The first of these rapes, the victim was killed, her carotid artery cut, suggesting that the perp wanted to kill her quickly but with maximum blood loss, perhaps as a form of intimidation or interrogation. Now, however, he was leaving the girls alive. They'd all been too terrified to consent to rape kits, meaning there was no biological evidence gathered.

The door was unlocked. Slipping in, Nora saw a spartan room with a single bed, a chair, and a rather expensive looking monitor and tripod-mounted video camera that looked out of place. A young African American woman was handcuffed to the bed with panties stuffed in her mouth and duct tape around her ankles; her pink nightgown was hiked up to her waist. Soft sobs came from her, and judging by the streaking of her mascara... odd that she was wearing mascara before bed. The window was cracked open; the perp may have fled that way like last time.

Suddenly the monitor snapped on, revealing white fuzz with the vague shape of a pixilated head. "So you are Nightshade. It took me a while to set this up. Mrs. Monroe over there isn't the one you should be worried about." The voice was electronically garbled, making it impossible to definitively tell that it was even a man. Then the video camera shifted to three teenage girls chained in a dungeon cell. "Stacy, Mindi, and Lauren...they need your help however. I am the man you've been looking for. Are you prepared to negotiate with me?"

 

[Trixie]

Nora surveyed the scene with a grimace; she hated places like this. She loved the city dearly... no, no that wasn't quite right. She didn't love it. But she was tied to it nevertheless, intrinsically linked in a way she couldn't describe, and carried on her father's obligation to protect the wretched dump. Protect it from people like SR-0, as he was known in her files and to the police that trailed far behind her in the chase. And she could see his handiwork, that flickering light high above.

Being 5'5" had its advantages, and she managed to cross the street in the cover of darkness, coming up close to the black Suburban with its running engine. Amateurs.

Rubber squealed against pavement as the Suburban took off down the street, negotiated into full throttle with the technologically advanced gadget known as a brick tied to the gas pedal. It jumped off the curb with the grace of a bull at full charge, and all the control of same, its ponderous mass smashing into the back of the sedan down the street, sending the hookers scattering, and the pimp went for his gun. The hoods were on the move as well -- at first running toward the Suburban to see what was the matter, and then away from a pissed off pimp with a Glock that echoed across the street with every shot.

That'll give Delaney something to chase, anyway, Nora thought as she oh-so-boldly strode straight through the door the rather busy hoods had been watching only moments before. Nightshade only followed her father's rulebook to an extent -- Nightmare had been as the name described, a phantasm only given shape and definition by the terror he left behind. Nightshade was not quite as subtle, though very few men had ever lived to tell what she actually looked like.

She took a detour once she was inside, circumventing the rest of the tenants by jumping out onto the fire escape on the second floor, racing up to the sixth to see what had been left behind for her this time. She needed to nail this fucker to a wall -- murder was one thing, and often was it quick and even painless. It wasn't so foul as the utter domination, terror and torture that was rape, and it turned her stomach to finally reach that unlocked room and see what had been left behind for her again.

"Hold on, sweetie," Nora murmured, kneeling down and withdrawing a small folded kit from her suit. The police weren't gathering rape kits, but Nora sure as hell was, extracting just a bit of left behind DNA with a swab and sticking it in a baggie. She'd help the poor girl out in a moment afterward, but not before she heard the crackling voice.

"Negotiate?" Nightshade asked, turning on her heel to face the screen. "Sure. We can negotiate. When I chop your cock off, we can negotiate what hole you want me to stuff it back through," she said, approaching the camera. This had to be a live feed, and she was sure that there'd be no way to trace it back to its point of origin... but even the way the signal was bounced could tell her something.

"What do you want, asshole?" she asked as she looked over the camera, wondering if she could lift prints from it...

 

[Iron and Wine]

Whimpering weakly, the young woman faintly opened her eyes which looked slightly dilated like the other girls had been; she was about Nora's age, maybe a year or two younger, her hazel eyes imploringly turning to Nora. The poor woman was too scared to do much of anything. Checking an old leather wallet, Nora found her name was Tressa. Judging by some of the clothes around, the makeshift pole in the corner of the room, and the young woman's thick booty and toned figure, Nora guessed she was a stripper. Thinking back to the last four victims, she recalled one of them had been a server at a club connected to a strip joint. Was it possible he was finding these girls at the same place? It seemed almost amateur-ish, but certainly the kind of simplistic plan a deranged mind like SR-0 would come up with.

Then that crackling voice came over the monitor. There was a man somewhere on the other side of the live feed on the camera set up in the room, watching her approach it with a hard look in her eyes. At last the snake had emerged; this was SR-0's first contact with anyone as par as Nora knew. Then again, Detective Delaney liked to play things close to the chest, so it was possible there'd been contact between him and the police force but it had been kept hush-hush. As Nightshade, that vicious look would have intimidated any lowlife scum, but the camera was objective, cold, calculating; it just stood there watching her, and she had no idea what the man on the other side was thinking, no way to gauge his reaction. "You do not disappoint, Nightshade." What was that breathy singsong quality to his voice? An accent? Him struggling with something in the background? A product of the voice modulation. "That smell of bleach you'll notice on the camera...yes, that smell..." It stung if she got her face too close, the entire camera drenched in bleach. So much for the fingertips. "...I don't need to explain to you what that's for. After all, we have commonalities. Neither of us wants to reveal our true identities."

There were multiple wires extending from the camera - more than were strictly necessary - so either there were redundant live feed lines, decoys, or perhaps booby traps. Two lines ran to phone jacks, one to a computer modem, two out the window, and one to the closet. Nora suspected that last line was a decoy or some kind of jury rigged trap, maybe hitched to the fusebox. This was the most effort she had seen from SR-0 since the rapes began. "What I want is simple. I would like to know you better. But words are so inferior when it comes to capturing another person's inner landscape." Whoever he was, there was a self-assurance mixed with an evolving commitment, something Nora could pick up even thru the static and voice modulation. This wasn't a man at the end of his crime spree, this was a man just getting warmed up, just realizing what he was truly capable of. "For each girl you wish to save I want you to do something for the camera I set up there for you. How about we start with.... You."

In the background was a muffled scream and the monitor showed a terrified blonde teenager in jean shorts and a tank top getting hauled to her feet by a brute of a man wearing a sugar skull mask. So there were two men, or perhaps the perpetrator just had cronies. "Please don't hurt me...please..." pleaded the teen. There was a shout, the brute grasped both her wrists and held her arms over her head so the monitor displayed a clear shot of her teary face; the girl was sobbing uncontrollably, finally gasping for air long enough to say, "L- Lauren."

"All you need to do, Nightshade, to rescue little Lauren here is to take off..." the voice paused dramatically, as if he was about to ask her to reveal her identity. "...the catsuit. If you comply, I will let Lauren go, and we can continue negotiating for the release of the other two girls. If you do not, Lauren's day is going to get a lot, lot worse." The monitor zoomed in close up on the teen girl's face which shook back and forth in terror, mouthing 'no' silently as she couldn't bring words to her throat. Whatever game this psychopath was playing at, Nora noted that she probably only bought herself 45 minutes with that stunt outside before the boys in blue showed.

 

[Trixie]

Nora had already dismissed the notion that SR-0 was a rank amateur. She took immense pride in her work, and if the man had been an amateur, she would have caught him after the very first rape, or the second. She was positive he was the one calling in the "disturbances", but with the voice manipulator he was using just now left her less than positive about the efficacy of tracing those calls. But he wasn't baiting the police, was he? No. He was baiting her, and this little setup seemed to be confirming her suspicions in that regard.

She listened to his little speech while she looked around the room, tracing each cable to its point of origin. She looked outside of the window to see if she couldn't find where the two cables disappeared, before making her way over to the closet. If he was hiding a trap anywhere, that'd be it -- enclosed space, a place he had access to, and no one else was like to run across it. She settled a hand on the doorknob, scowling down at the door. It wasn't likely to be anything too bad, since he had a camera set up, unless he wanted to see her dead.

The modem was transferring the feed, the cables outside of the window likely led to antennae that were primed to face the sky... which didn't lead a whole lot to be seen in the closet. "You're a sick bastard," Nora said without even facing the camera -- there was nothing for her there, for all that the feed was crap and she could hear him just fine otherwise. Nora stepped to the side of the door, and rather than pulling open the door itself, she kicked the handle of the door -- hard. She was surprisingly strong, leg strength enough to take the handle clear off, and she was already jumping back in the same motion. One could never be sure.

With that done, she turned back to the feed just in time to hear his bullshit about getting to know her... and then the teary face of a girl -- not unlike Tressa -- pained and pleading. Nora felt her blood boil, and about exploded when he got to his insane request. "... you've raped four girls. Four goddamn girls, and you have another three in your hands. What do I have other than a rapist's word that you're even going to let the girls go if I comply? You haven't done a whole lot to get any trust out of me," Nora said, settling her hands on her hips. She didn't have TIME for this. She had to get out of there and rescue the girls, and the last thing she was going to do was bare all for anything short of a guarantee.

She was a hero, not a stripper. She looked back over to Tressa with a scowl -- she'd seen what had happened to strippers.

 

[Iron and Wine]

There was a brief discharge of electricity form the handle, absorbed by the rubber sole on her boot. There as nothing in the closet but clothes, mostly stripper clothes in fact. Immediately, the lights flickered and went out. He'd rigged it to the fusebox, but even that would have only given her a mild shock. Why? Thinking back to the flickering of the lights she had seen from outside, Nora had to wonder if the lights out was a signal to someone? However, the video camera and monitor were still operating - he must have spliced into the building's main power or...she peeked out the window...the transformer box one story down.

"I am a sick bastard," agreed the sing-songy static voice behind the video camera, as if he were amused or half-asking a question. "But I am not an arbitrary bastard. It's time to say good-bye, Lauren." Suddenly the blonde girl got a terrified expression on her already frightened face, shaking her head as the camera approached her. The man who held the camera had a knife in one hand, a sleek butterfly knife without any discernible writing on it. Slipping it between Lauren's wrists, he cut the ropes from her. "Release her." The masked brute on the video looked surprised, and then did as he was instructed. Grasping her wrists, Lauren nervously looked back to the other girls and then to some exit that must have been off camera, as if uncertain whether this was a ruse. "Tell Delaney I send my regards. Go. Before I change my mind." The camera violently and there was a jolt of static. "Go!" He growled loudly and then the image showed the terrified blonde teen running down the hall and up concrete stairs. She was gone, and the other two teens began pleading to be let go until the brute glowered over them, brandishing his fist to shut them up.

"Satisfied? I was expecting something a bit less...traditional...from someone working outside the confines of this City's fine police force. But there you have it, one released in good faith." Even with the extreme voice modulation there was a certain cadence and style of speaking this man had, an ironic sense of humor that made her suspect he was someone with an education. For a moment the image on the monitor switched back to garbled static with only a hint of a figure in the background. "Now you know that I can respect the rules of negotiation. And...you already know what I'm capable of...don't you? I think Tressa knows." The poor handcuffed young woman on the bed whimpered and pulled her knees up into herself as the voice called her by name.

"You think of me as a monster. Maybe I am. I don't recognize who looks back in the mirror anymore. But what I really am is a revealer. I can show this City what it really is. Predator and prey. And you know what we'd find? Maybe a handful like you, a handful worth saving. That's the truth. That's the truth." Even thru the live video feed, even with the static whitenoise, Nora could feel the figure staring at her, nodding his head as if he'd discovered the secret of life. She'd seen his proclivities - it was clear he was sick. After checking out his video rig - it was clear he had access to some top-shelf tech, possibly military grade voice modulation and line re-routing. But after hearing him talk - there was something she hadn't expected, a dark fire in Serial Rapist Zero's belly. 

She had heard her father Nightmare say it once: The petty criminals aren't the real threat. It's those politicians and kingpins who are the true believers, they're the ones tearing this City down. That's what she heard in SR-0's voice. A true believer.

"Now, the catsuit. Take it off or things go very badly for..." the video switched back to the terrorized teens. "...little Miss Mindi."

 

[Trixie]

Nightshade scowled at the door. That made sense with the flickering of the light, but part of this didn't make sense. Why go to so much trouble with all of this? What kind of masochistic freak would actually call down attention on themselves? The police could be circumvented with the law, skirted and avoided if you knew what you were doing. They had a code. Nightshade did, too, but it didn't involve warrants, the chain of command, or even the Constitution -- she had her gut feeling and more "murders" under her belt than most serial killers. She found it hard to feel bad for rapists, murderers of innocents, child molesters, and every other fun flavor of bastard out there.

SR-0 was looking like a special case.

A special case that was starting to really set her on end. Something about the situation stunk to her -- the lights, Tressa left behind, the camera... how he so easily let the girl go, and the way he spoke. All of it was adding up to something nasty. "You're hiding an awful lot for a 'revealer'. But this is your big plan? Raping teenaged girls to show what the city's like? I'm failing to see the chain of logic." Her father had said something else once -- once you saw people as something to be measured, they'd never measure up. Worthy and unworthy didn't matter to her -- preying on the innocent made you evil, and letting the evil persist made you complicit. Not evil yourself, but complicit. She didn't expect the ordinary Joes of the police force to wash away the true monsters with blood.

No. She -- like her father before her -- would be the dark defender in their place. The police had only to stay the hell out of her way.

"... fine. I'll do it. You have my word. But while I change, why don't you give me your end game. Tell me what you want from me for the other two?" Nora asked.

She... stuck to her word. Above all else, when she made a heartfelt promise, she kept it. It was hard to get that out of her, but she'd rather take a bullet if it meant saving some innocent girl's life. That was tempered by pragmatism -- she knew how many lives she had and could save -- and she wasn't about to die for no reason. There'd be no one to take her place. But... a promise was a promise.

She knelt, unzipping the backs of her tall boots, all the way down to her heel before stepping out of them -- for all that she wasn't particularly tall, her legs were long, shapely, and outlined wonderfully by the suit. Next came the belt, undoing the buckle before setting it on the bed. She didn't leave her pistol there, though, instead keeping that in hand with a knowing look to the camera -- she trusted none of this.

Finally... she settled both fingers on the zipper of the catsuit, and began to pull down the zipper. It was a remarkable technology -- a synthetic weave that gave the appearance of leather, but with a mix of synthetic polymers, only resembled such -- it was much more breathable and less noisy. And the inside of it was borderline reflective, a thin polymer composite layer run all the way over the inside of the suit, making it bulletproof but ultra lightweight... and it was likely stolen. But that wasn't the most interesting part, was it?

She sucked in a breath as the zipper crested her chest, sliding down smoothly onto her flat stomach. Her breasts were not entirely bared, the soft, creamy flesh held back only by a thin black bra that was more about containment than anything, binding her large tits to so small a space. Her skin was flawless, however, for all that he'd be able to see her stomach and arms, and as she settled her hands on her hips, she bared more as the catsuit slid down her legs. She had wide, shapely hips, her most sensitive areas likewise hidden by a thin black slip of underwear that rode high over her hips, outlining her lovely legs. At last, she stepped out of the suit, crossing her arms beneath her chest. She stood proud, hardly abashed in the least to be standing so bare, perhaps partially because she yet carried that machine pistol in one hand.

Her eyes and much of her face was yet hidden by the mask, her hair bound back as it always was beneath her headset/goggles.

"Happy?"

 

[Iron and Wine]

There was mock injury in that disembodied sing-song voice that was taunting her. "You and Delaney's task force, what is that handle you use for me? SR-0? It's a bit dehumanizing, don't you think, Nightshade?" He was goading her, she could tell by that smug quality behind the voice modulation, he was pitting his intelligence against hers, everyone's maybe. "No, some abused cunts is not the extent of my plan. What you fail to see is only because you're afraid to look." It was a non-answer, a riddle of some kind, but spoken with the assurance of someone who indeed did have a plan. When she did agree to the psychopath's request, Nightshade would see the monitor shift back to the black and white static with on the hint of a man's upper torso in the background. "We have an understanding then, Nightshade. You are quite similar to your mentor. Nightmare. It's obvious, really, to anyone who observes you and has read the police file on him. Frankly, I'm surprised the department made such a big deal when Delaney put two and two together. You know as well as I do that the police are pawns."

As Nora sucked in a breath and took down the zipper on her catsuit, she could feel SR-0 watching her, enjoying this silently behind the wall of static anonymity. She could feel those invisible eyes, the eyes of the nameless rapist, tracing over her curves and her ample breasts, finding the pebbles of her nipples and the vague hint of her slit beneath the thin black mesh bra and thong. Certainly Nora knew she had the kind of figure men lusted for, and she may have used it once or twice as a distraction to lower the guard of low-life scum, but to bear it this way was humiliating. "End game? This is far from an end game." There was a throaty crackling chuckle that came across the white noise on the monitor. "Very well, what I want for the release of ripe little Mindi here is for you to remove your surprisingly sexy lingerie, sit in that chair, and play with yourself until you climax. You can save her, no one has to get hurt. Simple enough, isn't it Nightshade? Do I have your...word?" It was hard to tell when he was deliberately taunting her or when his voice was just reaching those fever pitches of a fervent madman. At least, it would be easier to ascribe all of this to someone who was utterly insane, yet SR-0 had a very deliberate way to him. He was something else she had never encountered before. "Start with the bra..."

Yet that was only for one of the girls. The request was horribly objectifying, yet she knew all too well that SR-0 could follow thru on his threats. If either of the girls he had captive were abused, however, that would mark terrible new Lund in SR-0's portfolio, raping teens below the age of 18. That, at least, was a line he hadn't crossed, though there was every sign that he'd be willing to if she didn't do as his crackling modulated voice wanted. "For Stacy's freedom I will need something a little more...risky. I'll be sending a officer of the law your way in ten minutes, someone you'll no doubt recognize from the task force that was made to track vigilantes." What was his game? This was all so carefully orchestrated, there had to be more than met the eye, if only she could figure it out. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to kill him. On the contrary, you're going to help him save his daughter."

The image on the monitor shook slightly as the power in the old building spiked for a moment. So he hadn't installed them with a separate power source, that meant that there might be clues at the hard line connection point...maybe...it was a longshot but it was one of the only ones she had left. He had to be bluffing. If he was targeting police officer's families that could draw down heat from the FBI. Given beat cops in the City didn't have a particularly close working relationship with the Feds, but why risk the possibility? Then again, if he did have leverage over a cop and had set this all up, then he could very well have told the cop where to be and when. "Your bra, then your panties. Do it nice and slow. Then take a seat and give me a little show. I'm waiting." In the background of the live feed, Nora could here the muffled frightened cries of the two girls who were surely being menaced by the brute.

Nora kept an eye on the watch, nearly 10 minutes had passed since she'd entered the tenement apartment. Whatever SR-0's game was, she had to be gone when the police showed up; there was the fire escape but they'd probably guard that. There were also a bundle of wires and pipes running along the exterior facade; she might be able to use those to get to the ground or the roof if need be. What he was asking was humiliating in the extreme, but it might buy her time to learn more about him or put together her own plan; at the very least she could save one more of the girls from whatever fate awaited them.

 

[Trixie]

"Tell you what, tell me your name and we can get right on to humanizing you," Nora said. The police were pawns? Okay, well, Nora knew that. They were, for the most part, men who had joined a system to try and do some good, or just to be able to run around with a badge and a gun as the long and not particularly bright arm of the law. Most were ordinary men.... but dogs at the end of a leash held by an evil man could do great evil, even if the dogs were loyal, loving creatures. It was sad to see, but...

"... then tell me this plan of yours. I'm not afraid of you," Nightshade said, staring right into the camera when she said it -- for a moment, he might even feel it. The gaze of another true believer, whose mind worked in not dissimilar ways but arrived with utter conviction at the other side. She was a protector for all that darkness lurked in her actions.

As he laid out his final request, Nora felt a stirring in her stomach -- one of nausea. She knew that this was going to get broadcasted, but she was doing it to save someone's life. Had it only been a rape... perhaps she might have been more hesitant to do so. But he had kiled the first victim, and she knew he would do so again given the chance and the reason. She wasn't going to give him that -- she wasn't going to let those girls get killed for nothing.

She set that gun down for a moment, reaching up behind her to start working the clasp off. The pressure was released on her chest, soft mounds of flawless flesh slowly sliding free of their confinement. They were perkier than one would expect, perfectly shaped and sized with soft pink nipples that hardened just slightly in the chill of the room. Next, her hands slid over her hips, fingers sliding underneath the material of her panties and pulling them down over her hips and down her long legs, baring all for the camera. She was heavenly, bare of any hair except that which was on her head, and she reached out behind her for the chair.

Her mind was racing throughout all this, figuring out how to deal with this situation. She was going to need to get rid of Delaney when the time came; fortunately, the circumstances outside would be a little more pressing than what was going on here, so she'd likely have another five to ten minutes before they could really get this building surrounded. On top of the original forty-five, plus time spent in there, she likely had upwards of half an hour... except that he was about to send someone her way. And he was a cop, and he saw cops as pawns.. why would he do all of this? He had to know that eventually, the Feds would come after him. Either he had no reason to fear them, or he was too crazy to.

She took in a deep breath, bringing her heels up on to the edge of the chair so that her legs were spread some, her soft breasts resting against the backs of her legs as she dipped a hand between her thighs.

"... just shut up while I do this," Nora said, as she pressed two fingers to her soft, bare pussy.

She started out slow, one pale finger pressing through the light pink petals of her womanhood, sliding up her snatch until she found her clit. She began to stimulate it softly, little semi-circles that caused her skin to flush and her lips to part as slowly, her finger glistened with her wetness. She continued to rub and tweak her clit for a solid minute, her eyes closing a she focused on the act of self-indulgence. Her toes curled as she slid one finger into her hole, the slide smooth and slow, before a second finger was added a moment later.

Her feet pressed against the chair as she braced herself against the chair, a soft moan coming between her lips as she rode her fingers. Her other hand came up between her knee and flat stomach, gently taking one large breast in hand and tweaking its pink nipple, stretching it just slightly until it distended, before that hand moved over to her opposite tit.

Breathing grew ragged as a third finger slid into her pussy, with every thrust of her fingers her palm coming down to grind into her clit, her wrist twisting in a circle as she attacked her sex with wild abandon. Seconds dripped into minutes, her eyes shutting tight as she tried to block out everything but the touch of her hand on her pussy... seven and a half minutes passed, before her toes curled tight on the surface of the chair, she sucked her lower lip between her teeth, and her thighs closed tight as she came around her fingers, her body shuddering from head to toe.

 

[Iron and Wine]

From somewhere behind the wall of static, Nora - Nightshade - could feel him watching her in that most intimate of moments in the dingy tenement apartment. She was totally exposed for the camera, her heels on the chair, her bare smooth pussy utterly visible. Even if the video was posted online, Nora could take comfort that this was saving the teenager Mindi from rape and possibly death. It should have been hard to arouse herself given the grim situation, but for Nora it was surprisingly easy, and though she tried to be quiet, soft moans inevitably escaped her lips as an unexpectedly powerful orgasm crashed over her. As her ragged breathing came back under control, she heard that crackly sing-song voice over the feed, "Impressive display. You've got a lovely little pussy; I wouldn't mind paying her a visit sometime. Congratulations, Nightshade, you've just saved Mindi here..."

The video shifted to the sugar skull masked brute unlocking the terrified curly black-haired plump teen Mindi. Her and the other girl, a slender athletic brunette, recoiled from the brute as he approached. Undoing Mindi's hands from the chain restraints, the brute grasped her by the cuff of her neck dragging her out of what appeared to be some kind of prison cell. Mindi whimpered, pleading not to be hurt. It was clar her wrists were rubbed raw from her captivity. "You're free Mindi. Go." Ordered the modulated voice of SR-0 behind the camera. Incredulous, Mindi began backing away, then stumbled over her own feet as she ran for the stairs up. It occurred to Nora that SR-0 was working on a tight timeframe just as she was. Once the first girl...Lauren...who'd been released got help, police would be at his location within half an hour, an hour tops.

Something creaked out in the hallway, and Nora's trained ears marked it as someone approaching the apartment she was in. Meanwhile the monitor displayed the last teen...Stacy...an athletic brunette who quietly watched the camera, perhaps too frightened to protest, or secretly hoping her chance at escape would come like the other two. "Just one more girl left, Nightshade, then you can be the heroine, but this one I've grown fond of. She's my favorite, aren't you Stacy?" The girl shook her head as the camera approached her. "You'll have to do more than just touch yourself on camera if you want Stacy released unsullied..." A black gloved hand stroked the side of the teen's face, and she tried to recoil but had nowhere to go, and so resorted to crying quietly.

Whoever was outside was pausing on the opposite side of the door, the distinctive click of a safety switch being flicked on a semiautomatic handgun. It was enough time for the nude-save-for-her-mask Nora to grab and aim her Tek-9 machine pistol. "Police! I'm coming in!" The man whirled into the room, and was utterly taken aback by the scene. A woman crumpled on the bed, the nude masked vigilante Nightshade propped on a chair with her gun trained at him, and a complex video rig displaying a sobbing teen on the monitor. Right away, Nora recognized him as Detective Elliot Sykes, partner to Delaney; he'd come in plain clothes far ahead of the rest of the police force, so that meant he was alone. "Where's the suspect?" He kept his pistol trained on Nightshade, totally unsure what to think. "Who-- what the fu-- Stacy, baby, it's me, it's your daddy." He called to the scene on the monitor. This was what SR-0 had meant when he said he was sending a cop.

Detective Sykes' gut told him Nightshade wasn't the threat, but she still had a weapon trained on him. The girl Stacy become hysteric and called out to her father to save her. SR-0 gave some command that wasn't audible over the teen's hysterics, but the sugar skull wearing thug approached her, reaching under her jean miniskirt to grab her panties and brutally rip them off to a sharp cry, roll them in a bundle, and stuff them in Stacy's mouth. "You son of a bitch!" Cursed Sykes, keeping one eye on Nightshade and the other on the monitor. He was just at the cusp of middle-age, a sharp detective who had been a pain in Nora's ass time and again, but she always managed to outsmart him. Unlike Delaney who was a bit obsessed with the vigilante, Sykes remembered Nightmare for saving several of his buddies in a firefight. Some thugs might suffer more than due process would allow, but then again the City's justice system was broken; how many of Sykes' arrests got to walk thanks to a dirty DA and cash under the table? 

"Just, lower the weapon. I'm holstering my firearm, alright, just lower the weapon." He tentatively made a move to holster, watching Nightshade closely to make sure she followed suit. They knew Nightshade was a woman, but with her body bared like that, Sykes guessed she was in her mid-twenties, far younger than the Vigilante Task Force expected.

Again the monitor turned to white and black grains of static, with only the hint of a figure behind them. "Detective Sykes, you came as promised, and I will release your daughter unharmed as promised. It's very simple. All you and the vigilante Nightshade have to do is fuck for the camera here. If you refuse, then my helper there starts taking more articles of clothing from your pretty teen daughter until I can't hold back and just have to try her out for size." It was a dark joke referencing the fact that all the rape victims had vaginal micro-tears on account of the perpetrator having a heavily-endowed cock.

With their weapons out of the way, Sykes exchanged glances with Nightshade. "You sick son of a bitch! There's no way I'm- You're like 15 years younger than me! It's wrong, I am married. No, there's got to be-" The image on the monitor cut back to the terrified Stacy getting manhandled by the thug as the camera jostled slightly and SR-0 brought a thin butterfly knife up to the center of her halter top, cutting it open with one neat gesture to reveal her developing breasts in a pink bra. "Get that knife the fuck away from my daughter!" Yelled Sykes as SR-0 groped Stacy's breasts with his black gloved hand. Stacy sobbed, all she could say was 'Daddy, please...' "Damnit! Fuck, I'll do it, just don't hurt her. I'll do it, you son of a bitch. Please," he turned to Nightshade, "help me save my daughter. I know I've got no right to ask you. Please."

The modulated voice came thru, taunting her. "Let's make it a game. If you fuck and the Detective here cums inside you, then I let Stacy go. If you get him to cum three times, in your ass and mouth as well, I will tell you exactly where to find me. If he doesn't cum at all, I let Stacy here taste my cock before I let her go. We only have half an hour before the cops, well the *real* cops who can protect their daughters, show. I'd stop wasting time."

 

[Trixie]

It was a curse for Nora -- her body had always been very sensitive to the touch. She was not a lascivious woman by nature, but just the lightest of touches could send goosebumps all along her legs, and a little more could have her body priming for action. It was usually easy to ignore... but much to her shame, it made getting off even at a time like this relatively easy. She pulled sticky fingers away from her snatch, rubbing her thighs together once or twice before parting them and making to stand.

"Not even for someone else, motherfucker. There are lines I won't cross. It'll make it easier for everyone if you go ahead and remember that," Nora said. She would have done anything to save the city as a whole, but if it meant stripping herself to full vulnerability right in front of a man like him, in physical grasp... well, the worst could happen, and as long as she drew breath she could atone for any sins of hers. It was a very cold and very cruel logic, but a life like Nora's did strange things to the human brain. She had a will you could bend steel around.

She felt her heart hammer in her ears as she saw the last girl left in this asshole's grasp -- she was going to stop this, get those girls out... and then go after him. She knew that this was all going to go on the internet, that these tasks would become more outrageous as time went on... it would just get worse and worse, and she wasn't going to let that happen. But for now... for now she could do her best to save Stacy. Stacy deserved that much. She was about to ask what the next task was when she heard an all-too-familiar sound.

Nora nearly dived for the Tec-9, ducking to stabilize aim and minimize the target, body snapping around like a whip to aim straight at the head coming through the door. "... drop the fucking gun, Sykes," Nightshade said -- the safety was already off, and her finger hovered just gently over the trigger. She'd never killed a cop, but she had a long history of breaking arms and kneecaps of cops that tried to get in her way. A "friendly little reminder" that Nightshade worked outside the law.

Her eyes flitted to the screen for a moment before back to Sykes, watching him slowly lower his pistol. Her movement was languid and smooth as she lowered her own pistol, settling it on the edge of the bed. She wasn't about to lose it all on a shootout. She began to rise, looking almost unashamed of being so bare in the company of a man of the law and a man of doubtlessly countless psychoses.

"... you're a fucking monster," Nightshade said, turning entirely away from Sykes to address the camera. "I'll do it. Drop em," she said, glancing quickly to Sykes and glancing down to his pants, before turning back to the screen, "but how about this. You could tell me where you are," she said as Sykes got to removing his pants, "but I'm sure you won't be there for very long. Not after you let those girls go -- ASSUMING, of course, you don't have a guy waiting with a silenced gun for them outside," Nora said. She obviously wasn't putting anything past him. "... you tell me where you'll be in an hour or two, which I doubt you'll do since you're recording this... or you show me your face. Show me your face, and I'll do this for you," Nora said.

She turned back to Sykes -- he wasn't a bad-looking man. In an older sort of way, anyway. She didn't think she could get him to cum three times in such a short time, but she'd have to try. She worked her way around the bed, delving into the stripper's drawers, giving her a sympathetic look at the same time, to retrieve what she'd hoped to find: a tube of lube. It was flavored -- great.

She tossed it over to him, motioning for him to sit down on the chair. The moment she had him on the chair, she made her way over to him. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, settling her hands down on his shoulder as she threw her leg over his opposite hip, her pussy lips parting just slightly as she straddled his body. She wasn't a virgin in the technical sense, having torn through her virginal wall with strenuous exercise and... other things, but she'd never made love to a man before. However, she seemed somewhat unbothered as she slowly lowered herself down, until her hole was pressed to the top of his cock. Birth control was a necessity in this business... one could never be sure if one would be taken down and... taken advantage of.

Her lips parted slightly as she lowered herself down, wincing only slightly as the lubricated shaft slid into her depths.

 

[Iron and Wine]

Nightshade grimly accepted the terms of the man behind the wall of static on the video camera. This was becoming personal; not that fighting all sorts of scum and villainy wasn't personal for Nightshade - it was her father's legacy, and the same fire burned inside her - but SR-0 proved far more capable, mor devious, than any criminal she'd come up against with before. He was a rare sort of monster, one who'd acquired her full attention, and Nightshade's attention meant that a pale horse of bullets and fury wouldn't be far behind. As she and Detective Sykes prepared to do the unthinkable, the man behind the static smiled savagely. "You're a good negotiator, better than anyone on the police force. If you're not cut out for vigilante work, at least you have something to fall back on." He was taunting her again. This had never been about the three kidnapped girls. It had been about her. "Agreed. One time, inside you, and I'll let Stacy go. No hidden sniper, but i like how you think. Three times and I reveal my face to you...inside you, in your ass, and on your face. It's only fitting. Now Stacy, you're not going to want to watch this..." He wrapped a blindfold around Stacy's eyes, making sure the panties were firmly in the mouth of Sykes' daughter. It was a strange little courtesy, something Nightshade filed away for the moment to a later point when she had the chance to put together the pieces of SR-0's criminal psychology.

As Nighhtshade retrieved the lubricant, the handcuffed stripper pleaded with her to be released. "Don't let him use me again, please. He- he's untouchable, isn't he? If he can make you and a cop... Please don't let him use me again." She sobbed into the sheets.

Despite the horribly demeaning nature of what was unfolding, Sykes was struck both by the vigilante's arousing young body and by the grim professionalism with which she approached the situation, like a worldly hooker. Yet she couldnt have been older than 24 or 25. It was as if there was no question in Nightshade's mind about what had to happen. "Oh god, my wife," he whispered hoarsely to himself, freezing up for a moment, twisting his wedding ring. Finally, at Nightshade's bidding, Sykes got his act together, dropping his pants with a bitter curse of "I'll kill you, you son of a bitch" under his breath. It was her first time hearing a cop talk like that, like how she was accustomed to talking everyday. But talk and action were two different things. Sykes sat down in the chair, pantless and shoeless with only his undershirt on, using the lubricant to stroke himself to a semi-erection as best he could given the circumstances. As Nighsthade approached him she would notice despite him being about 40, his body was muscled like a weight lifter and there was a small tattoo on his shoulder that looked like it was from the Marines, some sort of military company emblem.

"Are we really going to...You're so young, I mean..." Sykes began to ask, but his wavering was met with Nightshade's steely determination as she grasped the base of his shaft and lowered herself onto him. Cussing under his breath at how tight she was, Sykes brought his hands gingerly up along Nightshade's thighs, cupping her ass from behind to support her as she planted down to his hilt. He saw the wince that passed along her face, and instinctively he knew. "Y-You're a virgin? Oh fuck...god this is so wrong..." Yet despite the wrongness, Sykes responded right away to being enveloped by Nora's tight untested cunt, his hips pulsing upward to bury his cherry vanilla lubricated cock in her, stretching her virgin passage. "Oh god...my wife can never know about this..."

The modulated voice on the other side of the monitor laughed scornfully, "Oh please, Detective. You and your wife have been rocky for months now, ever since you started banging your partner Delaney. Now turn the chair so the camera catches you in side profile - its so much sexier that way we can see Nightshade's masked face..."

Groaning and flushed with shame, Sykes adjusted the chair as instructed, his cock twitching inside Nightshade, pressing against her sensitive upper wall and pushing hard against her g-spot as she began to ride him. His caught breath, reddening face, and turn away from the camera could have happened for any number of reasons, but she would recognize that SR-0 had told the truth, that Sykes was having an affair with Delaney. "Damn it, what more do you want from me?" Growled Sykes, grasping Nora's hips and pulling her down hard on his cock with a burst of aggression, letting her resume her increasing pace in his lap.

"I've set an alarm for 30 minutes, so you're on the clock now. You know..." the voice took in an excite breath, breathing against the microphone for a second. "...Sykes, this means you'll have been inside both the vigilante and the detective pursuing her. Impressive. I'll give you a little hint about the good detective, Nightshade: he likes his sex on the kinky rough side, whether on the giving or receiving end."

 

[Trixie]

"He's not untouchable. Maybe the cops can't get at him, but I'm not a cop," Nora had murmured to the stripper before she'd gone back to Sykes.

She ignored SR-0 the best she could -- well, not ignored. Every word he said was filed away to be reviewed at a later date, but if she let him get under her skin...well, that was that. Things would go very poorly for her indeed if criminal scum were able to worm their ways into her head and actually affect her. She had to keep things serene... even if there were some small cracks in that facade due to the utter monster that was SR-0.

"Shut the fuck up," Nora hissed to Sykes as she slid down his cock, feeling him plumb depths that had never before been touched in such a way. Her eyes slid shut and her teeth bit down on her lower lip as she was stuffed full of his dick. He was inside of her all the way to the hilt, her tight pussy wrapped lovingly around every inch. Despite herself, there was more than lube that was making the slide slick -- if it had been possible, her legs would have been wrapped around his hips. It was a curse to have such a sensitive body, to feel him around and inside her.

As he grabbed her hips hard and pulled her down, her toes curled and she let out a moan in spite of herself, feeling the head of his cock grind against those sensitive spots, the position they were in putting pressure on her clit as well. "You better not be fucking diseased," Nora said at the revelation that he was a man given to cheating. Even if it was just his wife and that bitch Delaney...

Nora settled her hands on Sykes' shoulders, her toes pressing against the floor on either side as she began to ride him more fiercely. She was strong and had a quite lithe body, and she put that to work as she undulated on top of his cock, her hips grinding against his as his cock was pressed and ground against the slick walls of her pussy. Her breasts were bouncing with every thrust, the soft, rosy-tipped mounds jiggling with every movement, however gentle or rough.

That pace was growing faster and faster, Nora panting as she rode him like there was no tomorrow, soft white skin growing flushed as she was pleasured entirely despite herself.