Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
Sapphire Angel's attacker seized the element of surprise, jabbing a blow toward her face. As she bobbed to the side, avoiding the strike, she noticed a small object, no bigger than a television remote, in his fist. His punch slammed into the elevator control panel over her shoulder, and she responded with a leg sweep, taking the man's legs out from under him. He tumbled back, going into a backward roll and springing to his feet.
The two opponents charged one another, and, in a repeat of their first fight, parried and swung, blocking one another's blows as they stood toe to toe. Like in their first fight, she held back, desperate to keep him conscious so she could question him about Eric's location.
The man had no such reservations. He moved as fast as anyone the heroine had ever fought, swinging, jabbing, and blocking. But he also did so out of necessity, trying to hang on against a woman with superhuman strength and speed. She blocked every blow and broke past his defenses, countering with restrained strikes to his sides and chest. She needed him awake and talking. He winced as each subdued blow hit, but he kept going.
As he swung an uppercut, she seized his arm and halted his progress, and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, and she grabbed his shoulders and flung him across the wide hall, into the wall opposite the elevator doors. He bounced off the wall, dove into a roll, and launched at her, flicking his wrist. A small, dark object flew toward her, expanding until it was a human-sized net. She lunged to the side, avoiding the snare, but he had followed the net, and drove forward with a shoulder, enveloping her and slamming her slender frame into the wall next to the elevator door.
Her back hit the wall and she let out a grunt, before he came up with a knee. She was too fast, stopping his leg with her hands and flinging him backward. He rolled into another tumble and sprang to his feet. She rushed to him, launching a flurry of punches. He parried the best he could, but no man could withstand such a blinding assault, and she drove him back, away from the elevator. Before long, even her muted blows overwhelmed him, and he began to slow.
But he didn't give up. As his arm lashed up, and she blocked it, a powdery cloud flew from his sleeve toward her face. Sapphire Angel ducked to the side, avoiding the substance but leaning onto one leg. From her awkward position, she feinted with one fist and jabbed with the other. Instead of dodging or ducking, her opponent surged forward and rose off his toes. Her off-balance blow, aimed at his face, connected lower, grazing his shoulder.
He continued forward, bumping her with his chest and sending her stumbling back a step. Another puff of the powdery substance shot from his sleeve, this time flying at her face and clouding her vision.
She coughed and raised a hand to wave the cloud away, leaving her torso open. His arm lashed forward, faster than his other attacks, and the butt of his hand drove into the middle of her chest.
"Guhhh!"
Sapphire Angel cried out and flew back, air leaving her lungs, as the man's thumb jammed down on the device in his hand. She expected her back to collide with the elevator doors, but, to her surprise, they flew open, faster than should have been possible. She kept going, falling to her backside inside the elevator, sliding against the floor, and slamming against the far wall with a grunt. Her attacker's thumb moved again, and the doors slammed shut, just as impossibly fast as they had opened, trapping her inside.
The heroine leapt to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ribs, and darted to the control panel, tapping the button to open the doors and finish the fight. But the doors didn't open. Instead, a puff of vapor shot from a small opening in the panel, directly at her head. She inhaled a mouthful, coughed, and staggered back, waving a gloved hand in front of her face. The panel hissed, leaking a cloudy gas from every crack and vent, and filling the closed space with a tangy odor.
The surprised superheroine stumbled sideways to the elevator doors, grasping them where they met in the middle, ready to rip them open. As she griped the doors, though, another blast of gas shot out, this time from above the doors, enveloping her in a hazy cloud.
Startled, Sapphire Angel gasped and teetered to the back of the elevator, trying to get away from the gassy substance, but dizziness was already upon her. She had inhaled two direct mouthfuls of the foul vapor, and the murky cloud filled the elevator car, further flooding her lungs and clouding her vision. As panic surged within her, she dove to her knees in search of better air.
Her dizziness was only getting worse, though, and weakness and grogginess seeped over her. She looked up at what she thought might be a closed trapdoor in the ceiling, but it was hard to see through the fog and her mental haze. Sapphire Angel crouched and leapt, but in her dizzy and weakened state she barely made it halfway to the ceiling before she careened back to the ground, her short skirt twirling about her as she tumbled to the ground.
The elevator lights went out as she reached for the wall, trying to stabilize herself. She missed, falling to her stomach as the car seemed to spin around her. After taking a moment to gather herself, the dazed heroine rose to her hands and knees and inched forward toward the control panel. The gas continued to spill into the elevator, further buffeting her as she grasped at the metal panel in the darkness, finding it with her fingers.
Desperate, she wedged her fingertips into a narrow gap at the edge of the panel and pulled, bending the metal a few inches, as fumes continued to spew into the car. Perhaps there was still hope. If she could find the source of the fumes and stop it, she might recover before the man got into the elevator and hauled her away to whatever fate he had planned for her.
After one more pull on the metal of the panel, though, her fingers slipped free, and the overwhelmed superheroine sank onto her backside. She sat on the floor, dazed, with her long legs in front of her. She stared blankly ahead, her head lolling back and forth, as she tried to comprehend what this man had done to her.
The costumed woman swayed in a seated position, putting her palms on the floor to steady herself. Her head drooped and her blond hair dangled in front of her face, grazing against the front of her costume. A moment later she groaned, teetered to the side, and collapsed. As she lay on her side, with her arms stretched above her and her hair fanned out around her, her eyes blinked, unable to focus. She gulped for fresh air, but there was none to be had. She felt herself slipping away.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (this book - Book 3)
Another well laid trap for the heroine. I love the detail in the writing. You really left her with no escape here, once he got her in the elevator her fate (at least for the immediate future) was sealed. This is not the place a Superheroine wants to be captured, I am sure these scientists really want to go to work on her. Looking forward to seeing how she gets out of this situation.
WeII, you definiteIy ended it off on a cIiffhanger. Looks Iike I just have to pin this tab untiI next week to keep it open, haha!
That was.....a very decisive attack on Sapphire by Mantis. He made sure not to grappIe with her for TOO Iong, instead taking the first opportunity to push her into a trap the moment he got it. So it Iooks Iike gas---or at Ieast a certain type of it---is another one of Sapphire's weak points besides eIectricity. She may be effectiveIy immune to buIIets, but now I'm starting to reaIize that there's other ways to get to her. Yes, I'm coming to this concIusion whiIe I'm aIready a good chunk of the way through Book 3. I'm sIow, okay? xD
Hoping you have a wonderfuI hoIiday season! To be honest, running into you and discovering our shared Iove of writing femaIe superhero stories has been one of the highIights of the Iater part of 2022 for me. With aII the pressures of coIIege and whatnot, I find writing to be a rather caIming pastime. Sort of Iike an escape, you know? If even for just a few hours. I may not get a Iot of reads, but it's what I enjoy doing, so I keep pressing forward. Now.....I've got to go start preparing to entertain my cousin for 10 days (December 24 to January 4)......I think I've got a Iot of good activities pIanned, but who knows how it'II go?
See you next year! ;)
I can't imagine what Mantis and VaIik pIan on doing with her, but that'II be a story for the next week or so.