[Author's Note: This is the 9th story featuring Stupendous Girl. This story contains some gore, particularly in the opening scene.]
Randall Dixon slept fitfully. As dangerous as it was to sleep next to a woman who could snap him in two with a casual flick of her wrist, he had gotten used to the presence of Stupendous Girl at night. She had been away for two weeks and hugging a soft pillow was no substitute for the warm, steely embrace of his super-powered lover.
He had a lot of things on his mind. Stupendous Girl had returned to Supremis for the Queen's funeral and to challenge her mother's claim to the throne. Randall did not know if she would return, or whether another supergirl would be sent in her place.
While Stupendous Girl was away, the job of protecting Earth fell onto the inexperienced shoulders of Randall's sister, Iona, who was liable to kill, by accident, as many people as she saved. Before Stupendous Girl had returned to Supremis, she and Iona had spent a lot of time together, both socially and professionally. Randall could not help but be a little jealous of his sister having such a close relationship with his girlfriend.
In addition, there was a super-powered Stupendous Girl impostor on the loose. The impostor had first appeared on Halloween, when she had massacred hundreds in Salem, Oregon. Since then, she had sunk a cruise ship in Norway, had destroyed the Moscow subway system, and had killed thousands of people in random attacks around the world. She appeared identical to Stupendous Girl and she claimed to be Stupendous Girl. So far, she had moved fast enough to avoid interception by the real Stupendous Girl. The impostor had been laying low while Stupendous Girl was away, but there was no telling what she might be up to behind the scenes.
On top of all of this, Randall was still coming to terms with the discovery that he was half-Supremis, on his father's side. That could explain why he had never been romantically inclined until he had met Stupendous Girl; his brain was simply not wired to find humans attractive. He wondered if that was also the case with the mysterious Susan MacIntyre, the other person in the State Department who had scored as low as Randall on the emotional tests that they had been given. If she was half-Supremis, like his sister Iona, then a shot from a Supremis power ray was all that it would have taken to turn her into a superwoman.
Randall tried to think if he had ever encountered Susan MacIntyre while the two of them had worked at the State Department; the woman was nowhere to be found now and her file had been completely scrubbed. He could not remember her at all. If she really were half-Supremis, then he might have been attracted to her, had they ever met. She could have undertaken plastic surgery to appear more like Stupendous Girl and then used Stupendous Girl's power ray, which had gone missing for an undetermined period of time, to gain superpowers. It was plausible, but inexplicable; even if the impostor was MacIntyre, why was she so determined to destroy Stupendous Girl's good name?
All of these matters weighed on Randall's subconscious mind as he tossed and turned in his cold, lonely bed. In the pre-dawn night outside the penthouse apartment that served as Stupendous Girl's home and base of operations, the streets were covered in ice and a heavy layer of snow. When Stupendous Girl was sleeping next to him, Randall kept the windows open, because the slender supergirl's incredible metabolism generated more than enough heat to keep him warm against the worst of the elements. With Stupendous Girl away on Supremis, the windows were closed.
There was a loud tapping on the window that woke Randall from his shallow slumber. He maneuvered himself out of bed and pulled aside the curtains. Floating in the air outside the window was Stupendous Girl, looking as unbelievably gorgeous as always in a short blue skirt and red cropped top. She smiled at him and mimed blowing him a kiss.
Randall opened the window. "Stupendous Girl!" he cried. "You're back!"
"Actually," said the woman outside the window, her smile turning to a sneer in the space of a moment, "I'm the impostor."
Randall barely had time to register what she was saying before the supervillain was on him. She burst into the room at the speed of sound, wrapped her arms around Randall, and pushed him to the ground, breaking several ribs in the process. Randall lay on his back and she straddled him; her steely legs pinned the lower half of his body and the unbreakable grasp of her hands pushed his shoulders into the floor.
Randall struggled, fruitlessly. The woman felt as powerful as Stupendous Girl herself and there was no hope of Randall's relatively weak muscles ever being able to free him from the grip of a woman who could juggle asteroids.
The woman laughed at Randall's feeble squirming. "I'm really enjoying how pathetic you are," she said. "It's quite the turn on. Unfortunately, I don't have time to torture you as much as you deserve."
In spite of the peril he was in, Randall was unable to prevent his body from responding to the powerfully erotic presence of the fake Stupendous Girl. Her lithe body pressed down on his, her perfect breasts were directly in his line of sight. A firm erection began to grow in his pajama pants.
The fake Stupendous Girl laughed again when she felt what was happening. She rubbed herself against Randall, crushing the bones in his pelvis into a hundred shards of bone. "You just can't help yourself, can you? Now I'll have to teach you a real lesson."
The woman's eyes glowed red and twin beams of powerful laser light burst from her perfect green orbs and into Randall's head. He screamed as his brain boiled inside his skull.
Randall woke from his nightmare, screaming and sweating. The sensation of having the inside of his skull burned out by the impostor's laser vision was incredibly vivid. It was the fourth time that he had dreamed of being surprised and murdered by the fake Stupendous Girl; he was starting to get sick of dying in his dreams.
There was a tap at the window.
Nervously, Randall lifted himself out of bed and pulled aside the curtains. Stupendous Girl, or somebody who looked exactly like her, was floating in the air outside the window.
"I hope this isn't a double-dream fake-out," said Randall to himself. "I really hate those."
The woman outside the window blew him a kiss, just as the murderous impostor in his dream had. Randall examined her closely. She looked exactly like Stupendous Girl, although her costume was slightly different; in place of the short skirt and cropped top, she wore a red mini dress, cinched with a blue belt, and a blue cape.
Randall slowly opened the window. "Chrissy?" he asked, "Is that you? Your costume is different"
Stupendous Girl smiled, her face lighting up like a supernova. "Of course it is me, silly!" she exclaimed. "Who else would it be?"
She launched herself at Randall, almost as fast as the impostor had in his dream; the impact was far more gentle, though. The two lovers collapsed to the floor and rolled around in each others arms. They kissed and embraced, eagerly, leaving Randall bruised, but happy.
"Do you like my new costume?" asked Stupendous Girl. "I thought that if I wore a different outfit every day then it would make it harder for the impostor to keep up with me!"
"You look as gorgeous as always; I can't believe you're really here," said Randall. "How did things go on Supremis? Are you back for good?"
Stupendous Girl sighed. "Things went better than I expected, but not as well as I had hoped they would," she said.
"They didn't make you Queen, then?" asked Randall. Although the logical part of his brain knew that Stupendous Girl becoming Queen would be for the best, the emotional part of his brain did not want to see her leave Earth to rule on Supremis.
"They did not," replied Stupendous Girl. "They did not make my mother Queen, either. My mother will rule as Regent for a year, at which time the Royal Council will revisit the matter. In the meantime, I am to continue my duties on Earth."
With that, Stupendous Girl leaped to her feet. "That is all very boring," she said. "I do not want to talk about politics when we could be out dancing! It is New Year's Eve!"
"It's 6 in the morning!" said Randall.
Stupendous Girl laughed; Randall sensed an edge to her laughter that told him that she was putting a brave face on something that was troubling her. Maybe dancing would be the best thing for her, but right now he needed pancakes.
"Take a shower!" said Stupendous Girl. "Get dressed!"
As Randall rushed to obey, Stupendous Girl starting barking out orders to the machine that she used to create clothing from advanced Supremis materials that were far stronger than their Earth equivalents. "I need one orbital protection suit for a size..." she paused and ran her green eyes up and down Randall's back, "...seven male. I need dresses in the following colors and styles..."
As her clothes came out of the machine, Stupendous Girl folded them up and placed them into a small silver backpack.
When Randall was showered and dressed, Stupendous Girl told him to put the blue orbital protection suit on over his regular clothes; she showed him how to press a button on the collar that projected a hemispherical force field over his head.
"You will need the suit to survive," she explained. "If we want to get there in time and without causing any tornadoes, then we will have to go orbital."
"Get where in time?" asked Randall.
"New Zealand!" said Stupendous Girl.
She grabbed Randall around the waist and held him close. She flew into the air, carrying her powerless lover aloft, and headed straight up. She kept her acceleration relatively low so as not to do any permanent damage to Randall, but soon they were high enough above the Earth that Randall could make out the continents.
It was the first time that Randall had been into space. He could not decide which was more amazing: the view, or the fact that he had been carried into orbit by a beautiful young woman who needed no protection against the harsh vacuum. Randall admired the view, as Stupendous Girl flew them around to the other side of the planet. He could make out Australia and then the islands of New Zealand.
They began to descend. Stupendous Girl positioned herself beneath Randall as the heat of re-entry began to burn; her invulnerable body took the brunt of the intense heat and Randall's environment suit protected him from the rest. Without Stupendous Girl there to protect him, such a rapid descent through the atmosphere would have burned him to a crisp in moments.
As they approached the surface, Stupendous Girl gently slowed their descent; rapid deceleration would have caused as much damage to Randall as a rapid acceleration. After more than a year on Earth, Stupendous Girl finally appreciated how little it took to injure a human being.
They arrived in Auckland just before midnight. Stupendous Girl pressed the button on Randall's collar to turn off the force helmet. They floated in the air high above the harbor bridge. Stupendous Girl could clearly hear the crowds in the city counting down the seconds to the new year. She repeated the numbers, softly. "Five, four, three, two, one... Happy New Year!"
"Happy New Year!" said Randall.
They kissed as the impressive display of fireworks began below them. The white, red, blue and green lights illuminated the two lovers as they floated in the air, entwined. They paused their kissing and watched the fireworks. Randall had never before seen fireworks from above; in some ways they were more impressive than when seen from below. The finale was a cacophony of light and sound that sent shock waves rippling through the air.
Stupendous Girl smiled and kissed Randall one more time. "Time to dance!" she said.
She landed them in an alley behind a nightclub. Randall slipped off his blue jumpsuit, revealing his clothes underneath. Stupendous Girl slipped out of her costume and put on a short black cocktail dress; unfortunately she moved so fast with her super-speed that Randall was denied much of a view of her naked body.
They placed their unused clothes into Stupendous Girl's backpack, which they stowed behind a fire escape. They exited the alley, hand in hand. The main street was packed with drunken youths, who paused briefly in their drinking and vomiting when they caught sight of Stupendous Girl. Men and women alike stared, slack-jawed, at the vision of perfection in a little black dress.
"Excuse me," said Stupendous Girl, "coming through!"
The crowd parted to make way for her. She and Randall approached the door of the nightclub; the line of people waiting to get in moved aside to let Stupendous Girl and her companion through. A pair of enormous bouncers stood in front of the door with the arms crossed. They were not immune to the charms of Stupendous Girl, but they were still bouncers and the club was still full.
"You can come in, Miss," said one of them, "but your friend will have to stay out here." He managed to say the word "friend" in a tone that conveyed a mixture of jealousy and contempt.
Stupendous Girl smiled and shook her head; her hair bounced from side to side as if she was in a shampoo commercial. "Both of us or none of us!" she said. "If you do not let us in, you do not get to see me dancing!"
The bouncers considered this for a moment and opened the doors for them. "Enjoy your evening, Miss," said one of them. "Don't trip and hurt your face, Sir!" As Randall entered, one of the bouncers gave him a hard shove in the back, causing him to trip and fall towards the ground.
Stupendous Girl reacted faster than the eye could follow, catching Randall and gently helping him to his feet. She approached the bouncer who had pushed Randall and looked him straight in the eye, fixing him with her cold, green eyes. She reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist; his arms were so muscular that her hand barely went halfway around his wrist. She squeezed, very, very gently. The bouncer whimpered quietly in pain, clearly trying to avoid losing face by screaming out loud.
"Do not touch my consort," said Stupendous Girl. She squeezed a fraction harder, evoking a gasp of pain from the enormous man. "Do I make myself understood?"
The bouncer nodded, quickly. "Yes, Miss," he said. "I'm very sorry, Miss."
Stupendous Girl released the man. A livid bruise in the shape of her grasp was already forming on the man's wrist. She rejoined Randall.
"That was very restrained of you," said Randall. "You didn't even break his arm."
Stupendous Girl laughed, giddily. "I know!" she said. "I am getting much better at applying force which is proportionate to the situation. Unless I have been drinking, of course. Ooh, they have Guinness!"
"Maybe later," said Randall, nervously, remembering how Guinness had a tendency to go straight to Stupendous Girl's head. "Didn't you say you wanted to dance?"
They danced. Randall was a terrible dancer, but being with Stupendous Girl he didn't care. Stupendous Girl looked divine when she was in motion; soon there were more people watching them than there were people dancing. The only problems with being Stupendous Girl's dance partner were that she was enthusiastic, expected the same from her partner, and she never needed to take a break. After forty five minutes, Randall was exhausted and dead on his feet, but he was damned if he was going to let anybody else dance with her.
"Oh!" said Stupendous Girl, suddenly. "We have to go!"
Randall was relieved; he was beginning to lose feeling in his feet. "Are we going home?"
"No, silly!" said Stupendous Girl. "The night is still young. Next stop: Melbourne!"
On the other side of the planet, Iona Dixon was being given a briefing by a NASA technician.
"There are some sensitive pieces of equipment in the container," said the nervous young man, "so take it easy with the acceleration when you head into orbit."
"I thought the problem was that the space station toilet was broken," said Iona.
The technician's facial muscles twitched a couple of times. He was clearly a little out of his element talking to Iona. She had always been attractive, but since becoming becoming super-powered, she had blossomed into an exotic beauty. She had yet to settle on a costume, so every day she dressed a little bit differently. Today she wore a black corset with purple lacing and a puffy black and silver skirt. Under the skirt she wore a pair of black workout shorts to avoid giving anybody a show when she flew overhead.
"The toilet is the most sensitive piece of equipment," he said.
NASA had asked for Iona's help in ferrying supplies and replacement equipment to the International Space Station. Unlike the Space Shuttle, she could fly into orbit in any weather at a moment's notice.
"No problem," said Iona. "I'll fly her up nice and smooth."
The other advantage that Iona had over the Space Shuttle was that she had a much greater lift capacity. NASA had taken advantage of this to load her up like a little donkey. They had filled steel freight container with supplies, spare parts and an expansion module for the Space Station; one lift into orbit from Iona would put the project two years ahead of schedule.
Iona gently lifted one corner of the freight container, taking care not to crush the fragile steel in her powerful hand. She scooted underneath the container until she was positioned under the center of gravity, which NASA had very thoughtfully marked with a large 'X'. She lifted the massive container as if it weighed no more than a beach ball and launched herself into the air.
The International Space Station orbited at a height of between 181 and 189 nautical miles. Iona had reached 175 miles above the Earth when she blacked out for two minutes. When she returned to consciousness, the container was half a mile away, spinning and beginning to descend back to Earth. She shook her head and flew to retrieve it. Iona had no idea what had just happened, but she assumed it was some effect of the low gravity or vacuum. She made a note to ask Stupendous Girl about it later.
Iona got back to work unloading the cargo container and ferrying the supplies and equipment over to the space station. At first, the astronauts were shocked by the sight of a young woman without a space suit flying around their space station, but eventually they relaxed enough to start fighting each other over who would get to talk to her first. By the time Iona was done, droplets of blood were floating in microgravity between the astronauts' broken noses.
The fireworks in Melbourne were far more spectacular than the ones in Auckland. Where Auckland was a small city in a small country, Melbourne was a teeming metropolis in a country that was large in both area and attitude.
After enjoying the view from half a mile above the harbor, Stupendous Girl flew Randall down to the city, where she carried out another quick change. This time she wore a blue dress with a halter top that exposed all of her back.
The crowds in Melbourne were larger, more boisterous, a lot drunker, and more aggressively focused on prying Stupendous Girl loose from her male companion. While tiring out Randall with more dancing, Stupendous Girl nearly had to break the limbs of several men and one woman trying to push Randall aside in order to get close to the impossibly beautiful supergirl.
Off the coast of a small Scottish island, Iona examined the scene of the oil spill with a sinking feeling in her stomach. An oil spill on New Year's Eve? Right next to a wildlife sanctuary? Could this day get any worse?
Repairing the damage to the tanker was the easy part; she used her laser vision to weld the crack in the hull back together, taking care not to ignite the thick oil. The next step was to pull the tanker away from the rocks on which it had originally foundered. The vessel was too large for her to lift; it would simply snap in two if she tried. She wrapped a steel hawser around the front of the hull and gently tried to pull the giant ship out to sea. Her gentle pull was too much for the cable, which snapped almost immediately.
While the crew were trying to find larger, stronger cables for her to tow their ship with, Iona turned her attention to where the oil was floating on the water; the oil slick was moving ever closer to a group of endangered birds and seals who were watching with suicidal curiosity. She could think of one sure way to clear the mess up, but it was disgusting.
Iona's super metabolism acted as a kind of biological fusion furnace. Anything that she swallowed was burned up and turned into energy to fuel her incredible powers. The process was so efficient that she could fuel a day's worth of strenuous super-heroics on nothing more than a half dozen doughnuts, but she could throw as much into her stomach's furnace as she wanted. Any excess energy could be vented through her laser vision.
With a groan, Iona swooped down to the oil slick and began hoovering it up into her mouth. The mixture of seawater and crude oil tasted disgusting, but it went down smoothly and disintegrated inside her. Every few minutes she had to stop and fire her laser vision up into the air to vent the excess energy.
After a quarter of an hour, she had cleared up the loose oil and flew back to the ship to find out if they had managed to find a chain that could stand up to the enormous forces involved in her towing the ship back out to sea. A crewman intercepted her on the deck. "Why didn't you just freeze the water and oil with your super breath and lift it out into space?" he asked. "I saw Stupendous Girl do that on the news once."
Iona slapped her forehead. She could still taste the crude oil on her tongue. She was going to need a stiff drink when she was done with this. "I didn't think of that," she said. "I'm still pretty new at this superheroing."
Iona belched; a mixture of exotic hydrocarbons produced by her digestion of several hundred tons of crude oil spewed into the air and ignited, burning the poor crewman's head off. The headless corpse toppled to the ground. "Son of a bitch!" swore Iona.
In Tokyo, Randall's feet got a rest from dancing as he and a captivated crowd of Karaoke bar clientele watched Stupendous Girl perform a pitch perfect rendition of 'Superwoman' by Alicia Keys. They refused to let her leave the stage, watching the beautiful superwoman belt out female power anthems until it was time for her and Randall to move on to the next city in their whistle-stop tour of the world.
The Gla'nax raiding squadron dropped out of hyperspace dangerously close to Earth's gravity well; two of the six ships were immediately destroyed by gravitational eddies caused by their risky maneuver. The other four ships dove towards the planet, intent on plundering as much delicious human meat as they could; the Gla'nax regarded humans as a prized culinary delicacy.
Iona Dixon was lying on her back, taking a relaxing float through the clouds, when she saw the iridescent vortex of the hyperspace tunnel opening, a thousand miles away. She focused her super vision on the tunnel's exit point and saw explosions from the ships that did not survive the transit. She then saw the other four ships heading straight for the planet.
Without a moment's hesitation, she launched herself into space to intercept the alien raiders. Her violent passage through the air caused the clouds behind her to bunch up and swirl into a tornado-shaped funnel that almost completely wiped a small French town off the map.
The Gla'nax ships were armed to the teeth. The fact that Earth was protected by a Supremis warrior was known to the Gla'nax Culinary Commission; they hoped that Stupendous Girl was otherwise engaged, but they were prepared to fight her if necessary.
The impact of a Gla'nax disruptor cannon proved a rude awakening to Iona, who had begun to take her invulnerability for granted. The weapon would have disintegrated an aircraft carrier in a fraction of a microsecond and it sent Iona tumbling through the air, screaming in pain.
Iona spat a gobbet of blood and saliva out of her mouth. Her ears were still ringing from the weapon's impact. "Not cool, alien dudes," she said. "Not cool, AT ALL!"
She launched herself towards them at hypersonic speed. The targeting AIs on board the ships were good, but they weren't quite good enough to keep up with Iona's rage-fuelled flight. She smashed through each of the ships in turn with her hands stretched out in front of her. The shielding on the vessels was tough - her knuckles were bleeding by the time she was done - but not tough enough to stop a woman of near-Supremis power.
In Mumbai, India, Stupendous Girl wore an exquisite, colorful Sari made from a fabric that resembled silk, but which was more than bulletproof. She danced with Randall on the roof of an ancient castle with India's old and new aristocracy.
Iona carefully examined the warning symbols on the side of a tanker trailer that had overturned on the motorway a few miles outside of Brussels, Belgium. The viscous green liquid that was oozing out of the vehicle was toxic, highly flammable, radioactive, and caustic; and that was just according the symbols that she recognized. She tentatively touched the goo with an outstretched finger to confirm that it could not hurt her; she felt a slight tingling, but there was no pain or damage.
Firefighters and a hazardous materials cleanup crew were holding back on a perimeter about a hundred yards back from the overturned truck.
"What should I do with it?" shouted Iona. Her shout shook the tanker trailer and widened the crack, allowing the green goo to ooze out even faster. "I'm not eating this stuff."
"Can you freeze it?" shouted one of the cleanup specialists.
Iona pursed her lips and gently blew on the ghastly chemical spill. The top layer of liquid blew off and vaporized into a highly toxic gas. Iona's breath blew the newly formed cloud of gas into a group of firemen, who immediately began to vomit; a few seconds later the men keeled over, dead.
"Fuck!" shouted Iona. "This stuff is pissing me off. Everybody stand back!"
She fired a sustained burst of laser vision at the toxic spill. The liquid on the ground ignited and began to burn off, releasing a cloud of noxious, toxic smoke. The fire quickly raised the temperature of the chemicals remaining inside the tanker trailer, which exploded in a massive fireball, scattering liquid, gas and smoke over a large radius.
Iona widened the beam of her laser vision and played it over the toxic mushroom cloud that she had set off; disintegrating the individual particles of chemical ooze into nothingness. When she was finished, the danger was over, but most of the gathered firemen and cleanup specialists were dead or dying.
In a Moscow nightclub, Randall and Stupendous girl drank vodka and danced with Russia's new, wealthy elite. The women were pale, willowy and vacuous; the men moved like sharks in suits that cost more than a small car.
Stupendous Girl enjoyed herself, in spite of the terrible techno music, until a petroleum magnate offered to pay her a million rubles to spend the night with him. Her inhibitions were loosened by the vodka and she slapped him firmly across the cheek, shattering his jaw so completely that no amount of reconstructive surgery would ever be able to make him whole again.
When Randall told her that a million rubles was only worth around $32,000, Stupendous Girl went back and slapped the man again.
The crowd in Times Square counted down the seconds until the giant crystal ball dropped to signify the start of the new year. "Five... Four... Three... Two..."
On the stroke of two, a streak of red and blue smashed through the ball and the pole, shattering it into countless sharp fragments that rained down onto the confused crowd. The streak slowed down and resolved to an attractive blonde woman who bore a striking resemblance to Stupendous Girl and who wore the costume that the blonde superheroine had made famous around the world.
"What's the matter, Earthlings?" asked the fake Stupendous Girl with a sneer, "You don't like me messing with your stuff? Well, too bad!"
Twin beams of laser light shot out of the woman's eyes into the crowd below. She sprayed vicious laser beams across the packed revelers like a fire hose of death. The noises of celebration from moments before were suddenly replaced with the screams of the dying and the sounds of panic, as the stench of cooked humanity filled the air.
Iona Dixon arrived in a flash of black, purple, silver and pink. "Oh no you don't!" she said, as she surprised the fake Stupendous Girl with a vicious left hook, sending her flying.
The small portion of the crowd that had been watching the terrifying blonde supergirl instead of running for their lives cheered when they saw the brunette bombshell arrive and send their attacker tumbling through the air.
Iona followed the blonde superwoman, firing short bursts of laser light from her eyes. "Who are you?" she screamed.
The blonde turned and fired back, her laser vision burning a hole in Iona's corset and painfully singing Iona's skin. "I'm Stupendous Girl, bitch!" she said.
Iona launched herself towards the blonde with a roar of anger. "I know Stupendous Girl," she said, loud enough for everybody in Times Square to hear what she was saying. "Stupendous Girl is a friend of mine. You are not Stupendous Girl, mega-bitch!"
Iona swung her fists at the blonde woman's head with a clumsy, two-fisted punch. The other superwoman easily dodged the attack and firmly struck Iona between the eyes, sending her flying.
"You must be a lover, Ms. Dixon," she said. "Because you're certainly not a fighter."
Iona was put off guard by the fact that the impostor knew her name. The fake Stupendous Girl pressed home her attack, peppering Iona with her laser vision and then slamming into her with her outstretched arms. Iona fell from the sky and into the ground, gouging a trench in the asphalt of Times Square.
"Kill you later, sweetie!" said the impostor Stupendous Girl as she flew away.
By the time Iona had gotten to her feet and dusted herself off, the Impostor was nowhere to be seen.
Randall and Stupendous Girl lay on a beach in Hawaii and watched the fireworks from faraway Honolulu. Randall was exhausted from their day-long party across the globe and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.
"I have one more surprise for you, sweety," said Stupendous Girl.
"What's that?" asked Randall, half asleep.
Stupendous Girl reached into her pack and pulled out a small black and silver collar. She snapped it around Randall's neck and pressed a small button on the side of the collar.
"This is a shock collar," said Stupendous Girl. She laughed when she saw Randall's eyes open in panic. "No, silly. It does not give you shocks, it protects you from shock. It projects a thin force field over your entire body that protects you from physical harm without affecting your ability to feel gentle sensations."
Randall's tired brain took a while to figure out exactly what this meant. "Does this mean we can..." he began to ask.
Stupendous Girl smiled. "Yes! We can make love without me crushing your bones into powder!"
Randall smiled. "That is awesome," he said. "I can't wait to test it out." He promptly fell fast asleep.
"Well, dang," said Stupendous Girl, "way to leave a girl hanging!" She tried to wake him, but there was nothing short of a nuclear explosion that would have disturbed the exhausted man.
She activated her communicator and contacted Iona. "Iona," she asked, "how are things going?"
"I've been better," said Iona. "Your impostor kicked my butt in New York. I killed almost as many people as I saved and my outfit is ruined. How was the big date?"
"It was a magical evening that has come to a premature end," said Stupendous Girl.
"I told you he wouldn't be able to keep up with you," said Iona.
"I know. Hey, I am sorry you had a rough day. Did I ever tell you what happened last Christmas...?" asked Stupendous Girl.