Fox Hunt Ch. 05

"PLASMA?" prodded Jade, concern written in her deep black eyes. "PLASMA, are you alright? Is something wrong?"

"No" said the crystalline woman, breathlessly "No I...I'm fine. It's just...she's gone -- Silver. She's gone...it's just me now." Raising her head up, she let her pink hand fall away to reveal tears streaming down her smiling face. "It's me; PLASMA."

Adulation and praise were heaped upon the newborn villainess as the assembled Foxes rushed to her side, swooning over their new sister they embraced her. Overcome with pride, the new being's delighted mother stood back and took in the heartwarming scene, allowing her girls their moment of felicitation before stepping into the fray. Parting her loyal Foxes, Vanessa hugged her "child", overjoyed both that her creation was now fully alive, and that the world would no longer suffer the existence of Silver Fox.

Warmly holding her creation's face in her gloved hands, Vanessa smiled lovingly with teary eyes. "No" she said "Not 'PLASMA' -- not anymore. You are not some experiment; you are a living breathing person, and you deserve your own name. From now on, you will be...Crystal. Crystal Fox!"

The name was whispered and cooed affectionately by all those surrounding her, inciting another round of praise from the congregation. The celebration would be short lived however as one by one, the villains noticed Butterscotch Fox struggling to pull herself to her feet -- so carried away were they by the festivities that they nearly forgot she was there. Scaling the steel pedestal, Butter leaned on the heavy structure, shakily propping herself up with her elbows on the slab. Trembling, she arduously raised her heavy head to behold Dr. Vanessa Payne looming over her, her latex-clad arms sternly crossed, her disciples flanking her on either side.

"Please..." begged the fallen heroine, her eyes filled with shame "Please let Regan go...I-I'll do anything you want -- anything!"

The sadistic Brit purred as her icy glare swept over her prey. Butterscotch Fox -- the high and mighty superheroine - now groveled before her, and it was everything she hoped it would be. "Backpedalling already, are we? What did I tell you, silly girl? If you want something, you're going to have to pay for it."

Fighting to stay erect, Butter furrowed her brow as she looked sheepishly up at the Englishwoman. "Anything..." she sighed, knowing full well that Vanessa would get her way with or without consent "Anything you want."

Pleased with her prisoner's compliance, Vanessa slid her right hand into her jacket pocket and removed a small device in the style of a pistol. The handle and trigger were the same, but instead of a barrel the nose of the gun featured a short hypodermic needle, with a small vial of green fluid in place of the hammer. "Allow me to present my coup de grâce; a little something I call 'Fox Bane.' When administered to a Monsduggian, this serum will rewrite the patient's genetic code, sterilizing the genes which give you superheoines your fantastic powers. One shot of this, and you'll be as fragile as any mundane human being; no strength, no flight, no healing factor -- and I assure you, it's permanent, and irreversible. So here's the bargain; you be my patient zero, and Regan goes scott free." A grin splitting her face from ear to ear, Vanessa extended her hand, offering the injector gun to Butter. "So...what's it going to be?"

Painfully aware that it made little difference how she answered, Butter understood that Vanessa had this entire ordeal planned down to the last detail. The Doctor wanted her to take the serum, and so it would inevitably come to pass -- there was no question any more. She would take the serum as surely as the sun rose in the east. Accepting the injector with her right hand, the defeated amazon grudgingly brought the tip on the needle to her left arm. With a gulp she pushed the syringe into her skin and pressed the trigger, emptying the vial into her bloodstream.

Shock immediately took hold as Butter doubled over in agony, blinding pain stabbing her eyes as her muscles spasmed uncontrollably. Her skin burned as if on fire and her nervous system seized as if a lighting storm raged inside her. The beleaguered heroine's mind rended as her DNA forcibly unzipped, pressure building in her head so tremendously that she feared it would explode. Her anguish at its apex, Butterscotch Fox slipped into blackness, silently grateful for the mercy of a blackout.

Head spinning, muscles aching, Butter awoke face down on the floor unforgiving steel floor, her veins feeling like they just received a transfusion of diesel. Shuddering fiercely, her body felt chilled to the bone, as if some brilliant flame within her were extinguished. With great effort, she managed to slide one arm under her, her head lolling off the floor. One by one her senses slowly returned to her, her vision blurred, her touch numbed. Her hearing as well proved muted, but still functioned well enough to register a gruesome sound; laughter. Rolling her head she looked up to spy the collected villains still towering above her. She must have been out for only moments, although it could easily have been hours. Gingerly propping herself up to her elbows, Butter flinched at the wicked sport her enemies made of her. She had long been accustomed to the praise and affection of her peers, and despite the occasional petty jealousies, was not used to open mockery.

"Stop..." pleaded Butter, her matted hair obscuring her face, green eyes red from tears. "Please stop...stop it!" Her pleas seemed only to embolden the Evil Foxes as their laughter grew into a howl that echoed through the cavernous chamber. "Stop LAUGHING at me!" she wailed amid their mirth. Sobbing, Butter looked around at the spiteful faces, looking desperately for any measure of sympathy, but finding none. However, from among that pack of cackling hyenas Butter glimpsed a lone figure standing at the rear, apart from the rest. There, draped in the familiar red velvet cloak stood the faceless figure who had observed her in the weakest moments. At her wit's end, Butter's mind harkened back to something Vanessa had said to her over the course of her ordeals. Something about an...employer. Yes -- that was it; Vanessa's employer. Bringing all her emotions to bear, Butter unloaded on the figure with all she could muster. "You!" she sobbed, "You did this to me! Who are you? What did I do to deserve this? How can you hate me so much?!"

A girlish giggle escaped from beneath the hood as the figure stepped to the forefront. "Hate you?" came the reply in a familiar voice. The figure brought red-clad hands up to the velvet hood, pulling back the crimson shroud to allow a waterfall of fiery red hair to tumble down her shoulders. Baby-blue eyes glared jubilantly down at Butter, her proud angular features glowing in her moment of triumph. "Stacy darling, I've hated you since the day I was born..." grinned the woman through blood-red lips, "...dear sister!"

"REGAN!" screamed Butter incredulously, "I...I don't understand...!"

A malicious smirk twisted the corners Regan's sharp mouth, amused at her sister's naiveté. "I guess that's not too surprising, you never were that bright. You see Stacy, Vanessa never found me -- I found her! Do you understand now? Has it sunken into that thick head of yours? I did this to you Stacy...I took your whole life away!"

Just when Butter thought she had nothing left to lose, and that she could fall no further in life, the world kept showing her new depths for her to sink to. Her heart decimated, she lay on the floor speechless for long moments before she could manage to find the words. "But why?! Why would you do this?!"

A dark scowl grew over Regan's gorgeous face as it flushed beet red. "Why?!" she spat, "You have the gall to ask me that? How dare you, you little slut! Every ounce of pain in my life is because of you!" Seething with contempt, the beautiful redhead bared down on her sister with a lifetime of bitterness and rage. "Our father married a good woman, but couldn't resist when your whore of a mother flew in out of the sky one day and spread her legs for him. His wife was six months pregnant with me when that Monsduggian slut dropped in out of the blue to drop you off at his doorstep. From that moment on, you were the apple of his eye and the centre of his universe. He wasn't even there when I was born. Humiliated, my mother abandoned us -- unable to bear the shame of raising another woman's bastard! As time went on, Father made the most of you. He had always been an ambitious man, and having a Monsduggian daughter secured his standing with the Institute! You were his little princess - his golden goose, and you never had to lift a finger. Anyone who ever met you instantly fell head over heels for you. I on the other hand couldn't get the time of day. No matter how many awards I won, no matter how many degrees I earned, no matter how many millions I made it was never enough. Do you have any idea what it's like to be invisible, Stacy? Do you have any idea what it's like to work twice as hard only to get noticed half as much? Do you have any idea what it's like to find out that the boy you set your heart on only went out with you to get close to your sister?!"

Agog at Regan's revelation, Butter stuttered for words. "I...I'm sorry, Regan! I...I never knew!"

"Of course not!" snapped her indignant sibling, "You'd have to think of someone besides yourself for five fucking seconds! Well it's over, Stacy -- it's over! You're done leeching off the world like a fucking parasite!

"B-but sister!" sobbed Butter as she neared hysterics, Regan's every word a dagger in her wounded heart, "I-I-I love you! I...always looked out for you! Everything I endured, all of this -- this was for you! I tried to save you!"

Expecting this appeal, Regan's face turned as cold and hard as stone. "When Stacy? When did you try to save me? Was it when you gave me up? Was it when you wanted to cum so bad that you threw me under a bus? You don't love me, Stacy -- you love getting off. You love it so much you'd sacrifice your own family. You're sick, Stacy -- sick in the head! Sex has always been your drug of choice, and you sold me for a fix!

Butter searched desperately for some excuse, some defence as tears streamed down her face -- but she could find no justification for her deplorable weakness.

Her heart feasting on her sister's anguish, Regan allowed a satisfied grin to creep up her face. "You're a waste of a life, Stacy. But you're just a symptom of a larger problem, a problem we intend to rectify. From now on society will look up to real heroes, not a bunch of stupid, spoiled whores! You'll be recognised for the worthless trash you are, and your name will be spat as a curse! The people will forget you, sister, and a new breed of Foxes will take this world back from the pigs who think they own it! History will remember us, Stacy! They'll remember me..." Casting her heavy cloak aside, Regan stood proudly as Butter beheld her sister clad in a form-fitting outfit of black and red latex adorned with a Fox symbol on her ample chest -- a dark reflection of her own uniform. "They'll remember Scarlet Fox!"

Stunned, Butter looked up at her sister, no longer the wallflower she remembered. The former waif now boasted a strong, lean body, and full - her modest bust now generous, her hourglass figure a masterpiece of curves. As Butter's mind raced to explain this startling transformation, the solution presented itself as Dr. Vanessa Payne took her place at Regan's side, placing her hands affectionately on the Redhead's shoulders.

"I take it you're impressed" gloated the evil genius, "I'm always proud of my work, but I believe this may be my masterpiece. You see, aside from a solid cloning template, your milk also facilitated an unprecedented transplant. Normally such a thing would be impossible, but being sisters your genomes were just similar enough for me to graft your powers onto her."

"The pain was excruciating" hissed Regan, "But to hurt you like this, Stacy, I'd move mountains!"

"And so the world is set to rights" chimed Vanessa, "The heroic Scarlet Fox becomes a media darling when she brings her own murderous sister to justice. She inherits your fame and adulation, and you become a national disgrace!"

"Face it, Stacy" crowed Regan "I'm the hero of this story..." A smile split her face as she turned her attention to Vanessa, the redhead slipping her arm around the Englishwoman's waist, eyeing her hungrily. "...I even got the girl!" Bringing Vanessa's mouth to hers, the two women embraced passionately, their hands caressing the other's beautiful body as their tongues massaged each other lustfully.

Her very soul shattered by the image, Butter erupted into an inhuman shriek as she looked upon her own beloved sister in the arms of the monster who had made her last few weeks a living nightmare. Burying her head in her arms, Butter wept as she lay on the grated floor still wet and sticky from her lovemaking. They had made a ruin of her life and gleefully rubbed her face in the ashes. She had lost everything that made her life worth living -- and what good was life when everything else was taken away? Her back heaving, she struggled to pick her head up and beseech her tormentors for mercy.

"Finish it..." She begged, sobbing "Finish it...just kill me!"

"Kill you?" chuckled Regan, pulling herself away from her English lover, "Whoever said we were going to kill you? No no, sister dear -- you're not getting off that easily. No, Stacy. You will suffer, as I have suffered. But I am not without mercy, so there will be a place for you in our new world -- and it will be at the very bottom rung of the ladder!"

A sharp pain stabbed at Butter's scalp as Crystal Fox yanked the heroine off the floor by her hair, lifting her up and dumping her on the steel slab of the pedestal. Laying there on her back, Butter anxiously looked around at the faces smiling maliciously at her. What more could they take from her? She wondered. How could they drag her any lower? Accordingly, Ebon Fox slinked her way to the forefront of the group, the empty husk of American Fox crawling loyally behind at the end of her chain.

"You see Butter; we set out to destroy your entire life. We've already taken your present and your future, and now finally we'll take your past! We knew that no matter what deep dank hole we threw you into, you'd still cling to the idea that you're worth a damn -- and that's something we just couldn't allow. So instead, dear little Ebon will rewrite your entire life -- filling your head with abuse and neglect. You'll finally have the life you should've had...the life you deserve. But don't worry - we'll leave a little piece of you that still remembers. Brick by brick she'll wall you up in the back of your mind so that you see and hear and feel everything, but be unable to lift a finger to stop it...just conscious enough to perceive the bars of your cage. And when she's done, we'll drop you off in some cesspool to live out your life in misery -- we've already got a family set up for you in Arkansas. And there you'll stay, forever beating your fists against the inside of your skull -- screaming to get out!"

Supremely satisfied, Regan stepped back, curled up to Vanessa, and waited with baited breath for the show to commence. Taking her cue, Ebon descended upon Butter, the heroine trying feebly to push back the gothic villainess as she cradled her in her pale arms. Her dark figure blotted out the heavy overhead lights and stared deeply into Butters eyes as she spoke in a sweet melodious voice.

"Your mother was a junkie who got knocked up by her dealer. No sooner did she pop you out, than she dropped you with her deadbeat brother and fucked off to Las Vegas where she promptly OD'd in the back of a porno theatre."

"No!" refuted Butter, Ebon's voice reverberating inside her skull, "That's not true!"

"Your uncle resented being stuck with the responsibility, and told you that you were stupid and worthless, and you believed him. When you were nineteen your uncle married a woman named Gina, who had just gone from being 'good-looking' to 'looking good for her age.' She was always drunk and jealous of your youth and beauty -- and she wouldn't keep her hands to herself."

"No! Stop it!" Butter screamed as she began to literally lose herself in Ebon's deep green eyes "Stop! Somebody help me!"

"At twenty-one you'd had enough, and grabbed a bus to Los Angeles with only the clothes on your back. At the bus station you met a nice man named Tyler who bought you lunch and told you that you could stay with him until you got on your feet. He took you to his apartment where three other girls slept on a dirty mattress on the floor."

"Please, Regan -- don't hurt me like this!" Butter cried, feeling Ebon's lies become the truth. "Don't send me away!"

"Tyler was a drug dealer -- and one day the police raided his apartment while you were cutting his cocaine. You got sent up for three years in a maximum security prison where iron-pumping diesel dykes passed your ass around like currency. When you finally got out, you had no money and no place to go, so you went down on every trucker this side of the Mississippi in order to hitch-hike your way back to that hellhole you ran away from. Back to the uncle that put his cigarettes out on you, and the aunt whose kisses taste like stale beer -- because 'better the devil you know than the devil you don't.'"

"Liar...!" moaned Butter, her resolve fading as she felt Ebon's fingers creep into her mind. "That's a lie..."

"And there you'll stay, because you'll never let the big bad world get you ever again. The walls of that shithole will be your prison, and in time it will be your tomb as decades from now when your face is withered and your tits sag down to your knees, you'll die there -- ugly, fat and alone!"

The deed nearly done, Butter lay motionless in Ebon's arms, the psychic's haunting words sounding increasingly distant as the world around her seemed to slip farther and farther away. A thin pale finger brushed aside a lock of Butter's blonde hair as the petite goth smiled warmly down on her subject.

"Goodnight, Butterscotch Fox..." cooed Ebon as she leaned down to kiss her gently and sweetly with her black lips, "...Goodbye."

And with that, Butterscotch Fox closed her eyes for the last time.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

The evening was humid, and the air was filled with echoes of the bustling nightlife of Rio de Janeiro. A French window stood ajar, allowing a hot breeze to blow through the hotel suite while pouring moonlight over the rumpled clothes strewn across the floor. The luxurious bed was dressed with exquisite red satin sheets (now disheveled) beneath which laid the two architects of the Institute's demise; Regan - the newly minted Scarlet Fox - and Dr. Vanessa Payne.

The two women lay curled towards each other, their brows touching, their faces inches apart. This was to be their night of celebration, but now as the two lovers lay in the afterglow, Vanessa could tell by Regan's demeanor that something troubled her as the redhead refused to meet her eyes, her brow furrowing faintly.