Tolerable Cruelty - Chapter 26 (Patreon)

Chapter 26

“No! Stop! I didn’t do nothing!” Maria struggled weakly against her shackles. She felt none of the power she’d demonstrated at the nightclub. The drugs they were injecting her with made her weak and clammy. Vulnerable. She cried in despair.

“You wanna know the truth?” Carter hissed sinisterly. She was alone with Maria in her special restraining cell. The video cameras were off. “We know now that you had nothing to do with it. I’m just here for my own personal gratification.”

Carter’s teeth gleamed as she smiled wide.

“What… what are you going to do…”

“Why don’t we see just how tough that beautiful body of yours is, hmm? And it is beautiful. And amazing as you are…” Carter fondled Maria’s extended leg as she walked her way up Maria’s prone body, “...what I’m most interested in is that power. That power that you have, the power that Piper Paloma has that could break down someone as strong and built as Peter Paloma without even trying…”

Carter grabbed Maria’s fingers and gently stroked them. Maria struggled, but her wrists were bound too tightly.

“So pretty, even now. You know we’re using enough to sedate an elephant right now? It’s amazing that you’re even conscious!”

“N-no…” Maria moaned.

Carter grabbed Maria’s index finger and yanked as hard as she could. A loud crack echoed in the room.

Maria screamed in pain.

---

Vince Harris visited Peter again, alone this time. He didn’t approve of Carter’s methods or her twisted fantasies, but he wasn’t about to file any complaints against his partner. That was a good way to get shot if your partner decided to be a little bit lackadaisical in watching your back. And besides, it had proven an effective method in the past. Carter breaks, Harris intimidates by showcasing the results.

He brought in pictures of a twisted and bruised Maria, lying in her cell.

Peter sobbed at the sight of his tortured employee, dragged into all of this nonsense because of his short-sightedness.

“Why are you doing this to her?!” he wailed.

“National security issue. Research. If you don’t help us recreate whatever you did to her, we’ll figure it out on our own. It’ll take longer, yes. But we will crack it, with your help or without. It’ll just cost a little more. I’m sure Martinez’s autopsy will be very revealing,” he continued to rotate photos on the table before them.

Peter continued to stare helplessly at pictures of a wounded Maria.

“Of course, we’ve visited your company as well. One of your co-workers, a Mr. Rick Lister, was more than happy to show us your workstation. We’re busy confiscating every last piece of your equipment and notes. All you have to do is help us out, and all of this goes away. Of course, the terms won’t be as favorable as when we first offered it. The price of being difficult, you understand?”

Peter still said nothing.

“Come. Walk with me.”

Harris took Peter through their remote office, walking past Maria’s holding cell on the way. His gaze lingered on her unconscious body. His stomach twisted in pain.

Finally, they made it to a larger room. Filled with Peter’s lab equipment and materials. He gasped.

“So you understand, you little prick,” Carter marched into the room from out of view. “You help us out, and I don’t kill your little Hispanic side bitch. Otherwise, we dissect her, lock you up forever, and figure it all out without you. So what’ll it be, hotshot?”

Peter sighed. Maybe he could delay and hold out long enough until Piper found him… if she were even looking for him.

---

A Piper wrapped in a short black trenchcoat drove the FBI surveillance team’s van with her captive agent in the passenger seat guiding her. It could do little to conceal her new voluptuous curves. He quivered in fear every time Piper turned her gaze to him. She could hear his heartbeat pounding rapidly every time he directed her through an intersection. She suspected he was lying to her, but wasn’t experienced enough to be sure. What confirmed it for her was him surreptitiously tapping into his phone. Her sensitive ears had picked up the slow and cautious sound immediately.

So unsurprisingly, they pulled up to an abandoned building with actual agents in it. Many of the windows were missing or broken. Her eyes glowed as she surveyed the scene. About twenty men, all armed and geared up in tactical. Piper licked her ruby lips in anticipation. If this was what it took to get her point across, she would relish it.

“Your husband is in here…” the agent said nervously as she cut the engine.

“Thanks! Guess I won’t be needing a liar like you anymore.”

“What!? No, wait!” he yelled nervously.

“Hmm. Yeah, there might be one more thing you can do for me…”

The agent sighed in misguided relief. Piper reached over to the passenger seat and flicked his head with a single index finger. The force snapped his head at an unnatural angle while causing enough brain trauma to kill him instantly.

She kicked off the driver side door and effortlessly tugged his corpse out. Then, she spun in a single circle on the spot with his limp body supported by her outstretched arm and released it toward the large building’s shuttered door.

The dead agent’s body smushed into the metal sheeting. Piper had thrown his comparatively fragile body so hard that it left a huge, misshapen dent in the warehouse door. Her perfect nose wrinkled in mild disgust. It would have been cartoonish, except for the smell.

The anonymously threatening building responded by firing a hail of bullets her way. Piper watched as they lazily floated toward her in slow motion. She’d wondered how powerful and tough she actually was before that fateful bolt of lightning; could she really withstand being hit by a car or something similarly fatal like that? But seeing the barrage of metal pellets moving as though they were stuck in molasses removed all doubt.

She was fucking unstoppable. And Peter, wherever he was, was going to have to accept his deepest fantasy had come to life. If she didn’t rip his head off for unfaithfulness first.

The bullets drifted toward Piper from both ground level and above. They traveled so slowly that she grew impatient with waiting. Her deliciously perfect body blurred and in a few strides, she’d covered the distance to the first so-called deadly projectile. She extended her bare index finger and reached out to tap it gently—it returned the way it came, at much higher than its original velocity.

While it returned to sender fast enough for even Piper’s super senses to register movement, she still had an entire wall of bullets to deal with. Pursing her lips, Piper exhaled gently at the wall of bullets approaching her, turning her head left to right in one sweeping motion. The fierce whoosh redirected all of the bullets as well, albeit much less accurately that the one she’d flicked with her fingertip.

Hitting the “play” button on the world once again, Piper ceased her superspeed processing and let the scene unfold. Her single targeted bullet found its mark, tearing through its original shooter by striking him right between the eyes and exploding out the back of his head in a greasy pink spray. The rest of the bullets that she’d blown a little puff at staccatoed and embedded themselves in the concrete structure.

“Anyone else who fires on me again is dead!” Piper shouted. “But if you take me to where you’ve kidnapped my husband, I might even let you get out of this with the same number of bones you started with…”

“FIRE!” a voice commanded through all of their radios.

Piper smiled. If they were going to try and kill her, then she wouldn’t hold back too much.

She only needed one alive, after all.

As they continued to empty their magazines, Piper tested out her new destructive electric vision. A thick, white, opaque beam of pure energy blazed from her eyes with a crackling screech as it crashed into that metal sliding door where she’d tossed her agent passenger’s corpse. The building material atomized and disintegrated under Piper’s beautiful, focused gaze. The corpse that she’d thrown and a few of the agents standing by the door sizzled into ash.

“Oh fuck! Fuck! What is this!?!” One of the agents from the second floor screamed.

“The first one we captured was nothing like this!” another agent shouted.

Piper’s sensitive hearing picked up their conversation despite the thundering bangs of gunshots. Other woman confirmed.

She narrowed her eyes in anger.

Piper pushed off the floor with her heeled boots, carving through the air with her new speed and grace. She let the bullets pepper her face, ignoring them as it pinged off her invulnerable skin.

Piper crashed through the window of the second floor in a shower of debris, right in between two agents. They were both blown backwards from her dramatic entrance. Piper exhaled fiercely as she brushed off her outfit and boots, clearing the smoky concrete dust out of the way.

“She can… fly?!” one of the agents who recovered first exclaimed.

Piper gave the prone agent an intimidating glare before her visage softened. Smiling brightly, she blew him a little kiss. It pushed him into the floor and sent him skidding along the rough concrete. The agent screamed as he was pushed helplessly at incredible speed, sliding back to crush into paste against the far wall.

“You’re trying to murder me!?” Piper yelled at the other one.

“Wha…? All units, re—”

The newly re-empowered goddess became a red and black blur, reappearing before the agent about to send out a warning call. She was squatting down and smiling at his terrified eyes, one hand covering his mouth to prevent him from making any noise.

And the noise he was trying to make was a scream. His hand was no longer holding his radio. It was a mess of broken plastic and circuitry in Piper’s closed palm. He flailed with his now empty hand, which Piper grabbed and squeezed gently to inflict hideous pain.

He looked in horror as her fingers interlaced and tightened around his. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was Piper’s eyes, radiating bright with power. A little tighter squeeze around his neck, and everything went black.

Piper dropped his lifeless body to the floor. A slight smile fought to lift the corners of her full lips, but she crushed it with a thought. These people had attacked her with murderous intent. Attacked her family. Attacked her Peter. The ones here were never going to do that again.

The rest of the affair was short lived. Before the remaining agents could coordinate and regain their wits (not that it would have mattered), Piper streaked through the entire two floor complex in a minute, lightly knocking out every agent with a little tap of her index finger. They all slumped to the floor, concussed but still breathing. Piper took their guns, radios, and car keys and squeezed them in the palm of her hand, rendering it all into a fused blob. The rage she’d felt was turning into indifference. The carnage had been easy, not fun. These pathetic agents with their little toy guns, following orders, were totally helpless against her.

When she was done, only one agent remained. He wore his protective vest poorly, had a different gun, and some strange ammunition that contained liquid in them. A tranquilizer, perhaps?

“Wh-who-wh-what did you do…” the final agent stammered.

“Were you trying to tranquilize me?” Piper asked.

He gasped when he realized that she was holding one of the weaponized cartridges in her hand. When had she done that!? They were attached to his body!

“Y-y-yes… like that other woman… the reports said they managed to do it after a few rounds of gunfire. Please don’t kill me! I’m just a trained medic! I don’t even know how to use my gun!”

“You mean this gun?” Piper blurred on the spot before reappearing in the same exact pose. With his gun.

He gasped again.

“I just want to know where you’ve taken my husband. You do have my husband, don’t you? And I want you to tell me about this other woman. I’m not some psychopathic cold-blooded murderer. But some people… they just deserve to die.”

Piper’s eyes crackled with power as she stared down her little informant.

“Aieeeeeee I’ll tell you everything!” he squealed. Her extraordinary senses caught the sharp tang of urine. It seemed agents pissing themselves around her was becoming a bit of a habit.