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Subject: {ASSM} [NEW] Paragon vs. Plastica  9/15  (M/F, F/F, superhero, bondage, D/s, mc, statue)
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 21:10:02 -0400
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Paragon vs. Plastica

by Cobalt Jade (cobaltjade@aol.com)


This work is copyrighted 2002-2003 by Cobalt Jade (Cobaltjade@aol.com). This 
work may be be freely distributed over electronic media provided no fee is 
charged for its use. This work may be archived only with the author's 
permission.  Charging a fee for this story, or publishing without author 
credit or this notice violates my copyright.

The complete story may be read at my websites: 

http://members.aol.com/cobaltjade

OR

http://www.asstr-mirror.org/~cobaltjade




Chapter 9:  Dim Sum and Diamonds


Lori and Darlene sat down to afternoon dim sum at the Dragon Pearl, the 
largest restaurant in Chinatown. Waitresses wheeled heavy metal carts up and 
down the aisles, announcing in sing-song voices the names of their treats: 
sho mai, ban gow, dumplings, noodles, soups. Darlene looked at everything 
with amazement. She'd clearly never eaten dim sum before. "What's that?" she 
kept asking. "And that? And that?" 

Lori finally warned her off when over a dozen dishes had accumulated in front 
of her. "You don't have to eat everything they offer you, you know," she said 
gently. "I don't think you'd like the deep-fried chicken feet."

"Chicken feet? Yuck!"

But as Lori hoped the meal gave them time to relax and get to know each other 
better. She found out the Fem-Fantastique team operated in a way similar to 
her own, save their equipment was more high-tech. Besides Darlene, there were 
four others: Flamestar, Shadow Lady, the Crimson Sorceress, and Transparency 
Girl. Darlene had received her superhuman strength and stamina on a space 
flight with Transparency Girl.

"You mean you were on the space shuttle together?" Lori asked.

"Well, no, it was a bit more complicated," Darlene said evasively, nibbling 
on a barbecued rib. "Anyway, we made a good team. We all enjoyed working 
together. Until recently, that is..."

"What happened?" Lori said.

"It all began three years ago, when we came into contact with a race of 
reptilian aliens called the Mok'tn." She lowered her voice, though it was 
doubtful the other diners would be able to understand the fantastic things 
they were talking about. "Think of the creature from the black lagoon crossed 
with a spitting cobra on a three-day bender, and you have the Mok'tn. They 
had a device called the molecular transformer with them that allowed them to 
transmute any substance into any other substance, including living matter. 
They used it on us," she said matter-of-factly. "Shadow Lady got turned into 
a platinum statue."

"That's horrible!" Lori said.

"Actually  --  no," Darlene said with a secret smile. "But we  --  I  --  
didn't find that out until later. Eventually we escaped, taking the device 
with us back to earth. We kept it at HQ to study, thinking we'd eventually be 
able to duplicate it. Imagine all the good it could do. We discovered that it 
operated by thought waves, and that the interspecial differences between 
human and Mok'tn were not too great for a human to learn how to use it. But 
we never completely understood how it worked. "

"A device like that could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands," 
Lori remarked.

"That's what we found out later," Darlene said ruefully. "I don't know why we 
were so naive in thinking we could protect such a thing from ever being used 
for evil."

"Do you think it could help Cinnabar?" Lori asked.

"I don't know; that's part of the reason I'm here. The device works on a 
different principle than Plastica's chemical-based formulas, but they may be 
similar on a molecular level. We'll have to do some experimenting."

Relieved, Lori poured herself another cup of tea. As long as Cinnabar could 
be freed... "You said that you've had some trouble," she said 
conversationally. "With your teammates, I remember."

"Yes," Darlene said. Many shades of hurt were in her voice. She glanced down 
at her placemat, her dark brown eyes hooded. "It happened about six months 
ago, I began to... well, realize that I was gay, or bisexual. Working with my 
friends and living with them the way I did made it very hard to hide it. They 
were all straight, they had no idea what was going on with me. That was the 
first bombshell. There was another. " She paused.

"In the Fem-Fantastique team we've fought more than our fair share of 
villains who, like Plastica, are... fetishists, for want of a better word, 
about transforming people into stone or gold or other substances. During our 
crimefighting activities we were frequently transformed, and I... oh, this is 
hard to admit... I found that I liked it. It was like a powerful drug rush. 
After a while, I began to use the Mok'tn transforming device to do it in 
private."

"Why?" Lori gasped. That someone could actually enjoy what Plastica did to 
her victims surprised her so much she forgot to curb her shock.  

A crooked grin appeared on Darlene's face. "Well, because it's arousing. You 
become the ultimate sex toy. Touching yourself, then freezing yourself just 
before you reach orgasm... it's fun, imagining what you look like in that 
position, imagining what other people would think if they saw you." Lori 
blushed. "Oh, come on. You have a cute boyfriend. Haven't you ever posed for 
him, pretended you were a lingerie model or whatever? The principle is the 
same." 

"I guess," stammered Lori.

"Each substance had its own flavor," Darlene continued. "Gold makes you feel 
heavy and sensual and languorous, while marble is smooth to the touch, but so 
hard and cold. Chrome is high-tech and wickedly sexy. Ice and crystal are 
beautiful, but so fragile. One push, and you shatter into a million pieces." 
She shook her head, sending her dark curls flying. "Yes... that was part of 
the appeal too, the vulnerability and danger gave me an *incredible* 
adrenaline rush. I became addicted. One of my teammates had a younger sister 
who found out about my experimentation. We began to use it together and 
became lovers. Around this time the Mok'tn came back into the picture."

Her voice became even lower, as if whatever she was going to say pained her 
incredibly. "The Mok'tn made an alliance with a villain who wanted a personal 
revenge on Fem-Fantastique... and especially on me. Together they pooled 
their technology and turned me into a mind-controlled slave who obeyed them 
completely. A slave with the same transformation powers the Mok'tn device 
had." She made a choppy motion with her hand. "Sue, Dee, Wanda, Angie  --  
all gone. I turned them into statues with my touch. By making love to them... 
in effect, raping them... on the command of my captors."

For the second time Lori gasped.

"I've never forgiven myself for that, that... that my secret desires would be 
brought out into the open, that I would put my friends in such danger because 
of them," Darlene continued quietly. "After I transformed the Team the Mok'tn 
ordered me to make love to myself... masturbate. I couldn't resist. I did, 
and turned myself into a white plaster statue while the Mok'tn took my 
friends away... after destroying the transformation device to make sure we 
all would remain statues forever. 

"That adventure cut very close for us. If Tiff and ARTIE hadn't managed to 
fix the transformation device I'd still be plaster and the others would be 
decorating a Mok'tn trophy chamber back on their homeworld.

"But Tiff and ARTIE were able to transform me back, and together we went to 
the Mok'tn moonbase to rescue the others. We blew up the place and escaped by 
the skin of our teeth. Everyone came out of it unharmed... except for me. The 
effects of my Mok'tn enslavement turned out to be permanent. I still have the 
power to transform others... but have no control over it." 

Darlene's voice broke, and she momentarily covered her face with her hands. 
"Even since then, I don't dare have a sexual thought, for fear of what I'll 
do to my partner. And while we still have a safety net in the Mok'tn device 
we can't rely on it completely, because what if it malfunctioned or was taken 
away? I could turn someone into plaster or... or... vanilla fudge and they 
could stay that way forever. 

"I decided then to take a sabbatical from the team, because I felt I was a 
danger to both to myself and to others. I felt an incredible guilt that my 
weird addiction had gotten so out of control. Even if it hadn't been my 
fault. What if someone found a way to control me again and forced me to turn 
everyone I cared about into statues? 

"The only way I can live a halfway normal life is to take a drug called 
Xangine  --  it's a sort of anti-Viagra  --  that keeps me from getting 
aroused and accidentally transforming people, but it makes everything feel so 
flat and lifeless. They give it to rapists, pedophiles. Pleasant company." 
She gave a bitter laugh. "I used to be a sensual person with a high sex 
drive, but now I feel like a drone." She wearily rubbed her eyes. "Sue 
suggested that I help you as a form of therapy, and I agreed. No one knows as 
much about these villains or their devices than I do."

Lori found herself touched by Darlene's courage and honesty. "I'm glad you 
decided to help us," she said. "I know it must have been a hard decision, 
being as you have such painful memories about it."

"That's why I want to see Plastica put away," Darlene said. "I don't want 
what happened to me and my friends happen to anyone else." She drained the 
last of her tea. "You know, some fantasies are better off staying fantasy."

#

It was almost midnight when they unloaded the trucks. The new mannequins made 
two long rows across the factory floor, one of women, the other of men. 
Plastica found herself admiring the male mannequins. There'd been some real 
studs in that batch. 

*Bet they'd look great bronzed,* she mused. *Like Greek statues.* She'd been 
experimenting with different finishes lately, displaying some of her gilded 
and pearlized creations in a Santa Monica art gallery. If they sold, they'd 
bring her ten times as much as a normal mannequin would. Perhaps she was in 
the wrong line of work.

She turned her attention to the Chrystar mannequin, which she had placed in 
the center of the floor. Iza, Phanxine, and Tiger had gone back to the agency 
to clean it out, giving her the privacy to play with her newest prize. She 
moved Chrystar's left leg forward and placed one hand on her hip, then bent 
her slightly forward at the waist in a classic 'come hither' pose. She then 
placed Chrystar's other hand on the back of her neck so her arm was bent. 

"Perfect," she chuckled. She walked around the nude superheroine, assuring 
herself the pose looked good from all angles, then tapped her fingernail 
against one of those massive tits. "Now, what finish should I spray you with? 
This requires thought." She had treated both Xenon and Blue Cymbidium as puns 
on their identities: Xenon posed in the shape of an X, Blue Cymbidium painted 
blue. Chrystar deserved no less.  "I know. A clear acrylic lacquer with 
glitter in it." She turned her back to mix the paint.

"I don't think so."

Plastica froze, then turned to see what she thought was a lifeless mannequin 
come to life and walk toward her, the even pink tone of her plastic flesh 
slowly fading until she was nearly transparent, and hard as the diamond of 
her namesake.

"How  --  ?" Plastica blurted.

"Your gas didn't work on me because I turned *myself* into a mannequin," the 
superheroine said. "With practice, I can imitate substances other than 
crystalline ones."

There was a gun lying on the paint table. Plastica grabbed it and fired.

"Ouch. Ouch. Ouch," Chrystar said, grinning, as the bullets flattened 
themselves on her torso and pinged to the floor. "Come on, Plastica. You can 
do better than that." 

Plastica threw the empty gun at her and ran. Though she was no stranger when 
it came to fighting, she could never prevail against a being of solid 
diamond. And the mannequin gas was no use at all against someone who had 
their own way of transforming themselves. How could she have been so stupid! 
Her heels clicked rapidly on the floor as she fled, a staccato pace echoed by 
the heavier thuds of Chrystar's feet. "I want your formulas, Plastica," 
Chrystar shouted. "Including the one to break down the cube you trapped 
Cinnabar in. You're going to turn all those people back to normal, and Xenon 
and Blue Cymbidium too!"

*Like hell I will,* Plastica thought. She kicked open the double doors that 
led to her lab. A desperate plan took hold in her mind.

A bank of computers lined one wall, set five feet above the floor on a metal 
platform. Plastica bounded up the stairs and posed herself by the keyboard as 
Chrystar burst into the room.

"Stop!" Plastica shouted. "I have the antidotes right here." She tapped the 
computer. "They're all yours  --  but only if Team Paragons guarantees me 
immunity."

Chystar folded her arms. She was a startling sight in the lab's powerful 
worklights, which gleamed marvelously off her bald, transparent head and 
melon-sized breasts. "No way," she laughed. "Who do you think we are?"

"Then I'm going to erase them," Plastica said, moving her hand towards the 
keyboard.

Chrystar reacted with superhuman speed, taking the direct route across the 
laboratory floor  --  which cut across a square silver plate embedded in the 
tiles.

The mechanism reacted with blinding speed. Steel rang out as the metal plates 
sprang out of the floor and clashed together, forming a many-sided pyramid 
that trapped the superheroine inside. There was a loud hiss, then the plates 
unfolded like the petals of a flower. 

Inside was revealed a multifaceted crystal that sparkled with all the colors 
of the rainbow. Inside that, entombed, was Chrystar.

The process was a faster and more sophisticated one than the one that trapped 
Cinnabar, but the chrysteel medium was the same. Chrystar had been caught in 
mid-stride, an action pose that showed off her body to good advantage. Her 
face was determined, her arms pumping like a runner's as she sprinted ahead 
on the toes of one foot, her other leg raised before her. Being nearly 
transparent herself she was only visible at certain angles, which added an 
intriguing element of hide-and-seek to the piece... the perfect complement to 
her name and nature.

*Nice,* Plastica thought. Chrystar may have been invulnerable as a diamond, 
but trapped inside a diamond-hard prism-shaped prison, she was helpless. 

She went to fetch a forklift, adding another check to the mental talley in 
her head. Team Paragon: Three down, two to go.

#

Allison didn't know what to expect from talking to Cosmic Girl on the phone, 
but Cosmic Girl in person wasn't it. Darlene was younger than she thought and 
looked more like a co-ed than a hardened crimefighter. She wore a short dress 
with a tight spandex t-shirt underneath and a pair of black vinyl platform 
shoes that only lengthened her long, tanned legs. She was bubbly and 
enthusiastic about settling in and putting her things away, but when she saw 
what had been done to Cinnabar she grew very quiet.

"You've put her in a stasis field?" she said. She reached out her hand as if 
she wanted to touch the shimmering bands, but drew it back at the last 
minute. 

"ALOSH -- the American League of Superheroes -- lent it to us," Allison said. 
"We had to use it. It's the only way to keep her alive."

Lori lifted the sheet from the Aubrey mannequin. She had dressed the 
unfortunate model in an old leotard of hers and sat her in a chair, not 
wanting to humiliate her by keeping her impaled on the mannequin stand. 
Sadly, Aubrey was beyond caring what anyone thought of her. "Plastica zapped 
her three days ago," Lori said. "We rescued her from the display floor, but 
we couldn't analyze this kind of plastic."

"This looks like a job for ARTIE," Darlene said. She opened the heavy crate 
she had brought in with her.

"Ar-what?" Allison said.

"ARTIE," Darlene repeated. She lifted a child-sized robot from the foam 
cradle. "Or RT-10, rather. Our robot assistant." 

The little droid looked like a cross between a turtle and a crab, with two 
optic lenses at the end of a flexible gooseneck. They were covered by metal 
shades that flicked up and down, making them look disconcertingly like eyes 
with eyelashes. "Good-afternoon-mistress. 
What-would-you-like-me-to-do-for-you?"

"What's he saying?" Lori said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Darlene said. "We're used to him talking this way." She 
flipped a switch on the robot's back. "There, is that better?"

"Thank you mistress," ARTIE said in a more normal tone.

"He also acts as a portable chem lab," Darlene said. "Do you have a sample of 
the material?"

Allison gave her a piece of the plastic Dr. C'sungh had managed to chip off 
the cube, and Lori pared off a thin shaving from the sole of Aubrey's foot, 
where the skin was the thickest. Darlene fed them both into a slot in ARTIE's 
back. "This will take a few hours. In the meantime, can he borrow one of your 
phone jacks? He'll have to swap information with our main computer and 
database on the east coast. We have an alien molecular transformation device 
there -- long story, I'll tell you later -- that may be of use in 
unplastifying your friends."

They made the necessary connections, then there was nothing to do but wait.

Lori excused herself and went back into the apartment to answer the phone. 
Allison knew she was probably talking to that boyfriend of hers. Indeed, a 
few minutes later she came back with a dress and makeup on, mentioning 
something about a movie. Allison let her go. There wasn't anything more she 
could do here, and she was young and vulnerable enough that she needed the 
diversion.

The thought reminded her of Noelani. Where was she? She still hadn't called 
in, and the calls to her apartment went unanswered. "Lori didn't have any 
news about Blue Cee, did she?" Allison asked, wishing she had asked her 
teammate about it earlier.

"No," Darlene said, engrossed in a printout that was now spooling out of 
ARTIE's back. She looked up. "You really care about your teammates, don't 
you?"

"The same way you do, I'm sure," Allison said. 

"Yes," Darlene said, looking down and biting her lip. "Especially Tiff. 
Heatwave. We were, um, lovers," she added, her shoulders hunching as if she 
thought Allison was going to deride her.

But Allison only laughed. "Why are you so embarrassed?"

"I -- I'm not embarrassed," Darlene said, her blush betraying her. "Our 
teammates don't know about it, that's all. We were trying to keep it a 
secret."

"Because -- ?" Allison said, arching an eyebrow.

"You know," Darlene said helplessly. "Come on, we all live together!"

"Cinnabar and I were lovers," Allison said. "The Team thought no less of us."

Darlene looked very surprised. Allison guessed that the girl thought she 
didn't fit the lesbian  --  or rather bisexual  --  mold. But then neither 
did she. "Of course, we didn't live together," she said with a laugh. "And in 
no way did we let it affect our performance on the team."

"Lucky for you," Darlene muttered. "What happened? Are you still -- ?"

"No," Allison said, though she couldn't keep a note of sadness out of her 
voice. "We both decided we preferred men, and ended it. Though, to be frank, 
I was hoping it would go on longer than it did. It happened eight years ago, 
after Cinn nearly died in a rough mission we'd had. It was her way of seeking 
reassurance, I guess. The Team would tease us about it sometimes. But they 
couldn't say anything more, because we kept our private lives private." A red 
light began to blink on ARTIE's back. "What's that?"

"It means the analysis is done," Darlene said. They both turned to the 
monitors to see the results.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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