531/Perversion

Perversion
Date of Scene:	21 May 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Star Sapphire, 300

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Star Sapphire has posed:
    It started at a bar, because of course it did. Specifically, the hotel bar; the Atlantis, an upscale hotel with an "under the sea" theme that only barely manages to avoid being cheesy by spending a lot of money on its own premise. Carol Ferris was staying there while on a short-but-not-that-short business trip, and getting a drink down in the bar, alone but less alone than if she'd been up in her room drinking, so there's that. She spotted the prostitute the moment she walked in wearing her crushed velvet cocktail dress with its too-short skirt, but didn't say anything: it's not her place to judge. Carol did keep a casual eye on her, though. Even a high-end prostitute's in a dangerous job, and it never hurts to keep an eye out on your vulnerable citizens.
    And that's when she started noticing something was strange. The prostitute wasn't acting like she was hunting for a john. She was scanning the room mechanically (the slow way her head turned from left to right definitely reminded Carol of Arnold's first turn as the Terminator), and started walking with purpose but without pattern to several women in the room, bumping into them as if by accident or brushing her fingers against their elbows or just generally making a seemingly random contact. In each woman touched, Carol observed a stiffening of the spine, and watched each woman one by one offer some excuse to leave.
    Carol isn't stupid. She knows weird when she sees it, so she excused herself as well (to the degree you can excuse yourself when you're alone at a hotel bar), and slipped out the front door to tail one of the last women to leave, who was walking quickly and without much seeming awareness toward an alley in which was parked an eighteen-wheeler with its loading ramp extended. Ten women were walking in almost perfect lockstep up the ramp into the back of the truck.
    Two minds, Carol Ferris's and Queen Aga'po's, spoke up in their own unison at this: "NO." Star Sapphire would not let this stand. She reached into her blouse for the ring hidden there on her necklace, waiting in the shadows for the truck to pull out so she could put on the ring and make her transformation, Carol Ferris's silk business outfit vanishing beneath the constricting yet freeing latex of Star Sapphire's outfit. The transformation only took a second, and only another three to be airborne, but by the time it was done, the truck was already on the freeway. No eighteen-wheeler should have that kind of handling or acceleration profile, and Star Sapphire knows it as she flies eighty feet above the trailer it carries. What is going on down there?

Sassa (300) has posed:
    The touch came, and the lapse in control came shortly after it. She had been walking in to sit at the bar, and would have made it to join Star as one of the only women sitting there with a drink in hand. Though, Sassa never made it there, instead turning on heel and following with the other women in lockstep in to the truck. Something should have been noticed, that this young woman is nearly six feet tall in boots, emerald eyes, auburn hair, and dressed like she had money and taste. She wears a grey, long sleeved, turtle-neck shirt, that itself is tucked inside a pair of black, boot cut, slacks that wrap around the black leather boots that boost her height a few inches.

            It is that woman, that walks out of the back of the truck, the ramp opening to let her out. What comes next though, is that woman shooting in to the sky and stopping directly in Star Sapphires path. Hovering there, looking with dead pan eyes and a thousand yard stare, she floats. A message, no doubt, from Psimon. He's taken a super, and found out, and his new pet will deal with the tail.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    "A turtleneck? Well, at least you're not flying in a button-down shirt; that can only end in tragedy," Star Sapphire banters lightly, a smile on her face. Oh, there's nothing funny about what's going on, but she isn't out to hurt anyone, and a little joke might diffuse some tension, or even get through to the woman beneath the man (because it's almost certainly a man) controlling her. Humor can trigger deep biological responses. It's worth a shot!

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Humor would reach were it not for Psimon's deep control over her. Sadly, it does not reach through and in to her mind. There's some body language though, to show some resistance, but only for a moment before the resistance fades and Sassa's head lowers, her eyes showing nothing but a warrior's intent to engage in combat.

    It comes quickly as well, the woman has the ability to accelerate from a dead standstill to Mach 5 in but seconds. There's a sureal strength there to her, 25 tons of impact force from her fist traveling at many times the speed of sound. An attempt, to end the fight quickly, not doubt a demand from her new master.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    A Green Lantern using her ring makes a fist and punches out with it; an expression of her will, of her intent to defeat and dominate. A Star Sapphire isn't like that. She uses love, not will, and love doesn't punch. Star Sapphire reaches out her hand instead, as if to brush Sassa's cheek, but as she does, violet light flares around her and her body is encased in a protective energy construct: a boxing instructor's armor. A plated chestplate like an umpire's covers her torso; a her face is encircled in a padded headguard; her palms are filled with deep foam cushioning that she uses to catch the punch.
    If the outfit were real, it would have afforded no protection at all, but backed by a Star Sapphire's ring, much of the impact is harmlessly absorbed.
    Much. Not all. Carol soars backward thirty feet in the air before arresting her flight and stabilizing again, hands outstretched, one leg cocked (it's funny how much a woman has to think about what someone looking up at her from below might see), her protection already dissipating. "Okay," she murmurs. "I suppose it's too late to be friendly about this?" she asks charmingly as she conjures a small flower with her ring, a lovely little thornless rose that she tosses to Sassa...

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa slams in to that construct, the force is intense, but not enough to breach the power of that Ring. She recoils from it herself, sliding backwards in the air a dozen feet or so before also catching herself and stopping. She returns to the attack though almost intantly, but that blood Rose is there and she didn't expect it. It wraps her up, binds her, stops her dead in her tracks in the sky. This, is not ok. She tries to use all of her force of strength to break this construct apart.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    The truck is getting away. Star Sapphire can't afford to tussle with Sassa any longer, not least for the other women in the truck but also because taking out whoever or whatever is in there might free Sassa from this mind control. "I'm sorry, sister," she apologizes, briefly aware that she was kind of channeling Wonder Woman in that sentence (funny how your childhood heroes stick with you; her father still talks about George Brett's career with the Royals), and she zips away along the freeway to find the truck. Sassa may or may not be able to break out of the thick vines grappling her, particularly once Star's concentration is split, but that's a risk she'll just have to take.
    The truck is enhanced somehow, but it's no match for Star's speed. Ten seconds later she's above the truck again, a truck still on a big city freeway at night, and that can't be allowed to continue. Star Sapphire concentrates, and her ring creates the images of a pair of helicopters, rescue copters (the word EMERGENCY is written large on each machine's tail) that have thick chains hanging from the underside suspending wide strips of tarp that hook under the truck like slings and begin lifting the truck into the air, where all its power means nothing.
    It's taking a lot of concentration to maintain, and there's a counterattack coming any second. Star has no choice but to let the vines around Sassa lapse so her copters can lift the truck higher and hope whoever's inside isn't stupid enough to do something that will make this huge truck drop down to the ground.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    With her attention split, it's far easier for Sassa to snap the rose vines, and she does. No doubt bursting them apart in a shower of purple debris and rose mess. She turns about and shoots off after Star, because that is what she was commanded to do, and that is what she will do. Or rather, would be doing were it not for Star now having a hold of the vehicle that holds the potential of profit. Sassa stops dead in her tracks right as she approaches, only to latch on to her head with both hands and scream out in pain with closed eyes.

    It's pain, a lot of pain. Audible, palpable, and very real. To the point that she begins to fall from the sky, and then it comes, from Psimon, to Star. A message, "The vehicle, let it go and I'll not tear her mind apart."

Star Sapphire has posed:
    'We do not negotiate with terrorists,' Queen Aga'po hums inside Carol's mind. Carol has little enough use for Queen Aga'po, but if only for once, the AI is right: giving in is worse. "You sure you want to disrupt my concentration while your truck is seventy feet off the ground?" she asks back, a thin veneer of lightness over the steel in her voice. Seventy feet and rising. "How do you think that ends?"

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa's scream turns in to multiple screams of intense, unrelenting pain. They're shrill, and loud enough to be heard despite the low altitude above the busy road that, even at night, no doubt is full of vehicles swiring and moving about the incident as it unfolds.

    "It ends simply. I kill the woman, you drop the vehicle, the other women die. There are other women, in more vehicles, in more places. This is acceptable loss for me. This loss of life. Is it for you?" Psimon's threat is loud, and clear. A stand off perhaps, or a desire to test the resolve of /Love/. If one truly loves and believes in the power of love, would they allow innocents to be harmed and murdered?

Star Sapphire has posed:
    Love is self-sacrifice, but it's also understanding. Star Sapphire raises her right hand to the sky, and the helicopters with their lifting chains begin to fade...but the tarps holding the truck ninety feet in the air don't. Instead, they spread liquidly, expanding and thickening until they've become a platform made of rough wooden planks slightly shorter than the length of the truck it holds: the cab jumps and dips suddenly as its front wheels hang over the abyss below. Then, as if Star's point hasn't been made firmly enough, an immense guillotine appears over the truck's "neck," where the cab hooks up to the trailer behind it.
    An object falls to the Earth at a rate of almost ten meters per second. That means once the guillotine falls, whoever's in the cab has approximately two and a half seconds to live before the impact liquifies him.
    "I can think of one life I'm willing to lose," Star Sapphire informs Sassa, and before a counterthreat can be issued, the guillotine falls. The truck cab falls to the ground. Psimon (not that Star Sapphire knows it's him) has two and a half seconds to command Sassa to catch the cab before he dies; closer to six if she means to slow the fall enough to not give him whiplash by catching the truck, and probably ten to find a place to set the truck where it won't be creamed by oncoming traffic. Those are seconds Star means to use to set the trailer down far away, hopefully out of their controllers' range.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Lucky enough for Psimon, Sassa is capable of extreme acceleration from a point of hover to roughly three thousand, and eight hundred miles per hour. The hold Psimon has on Sassa, is intense, enough to force her to do something that she would never, ever, do. Not this low to the ground.

    The sound is intense, and would deafen most. The shockwave caused by her instantaneous breach of the sound barrier, as well as that thundering and echoing boom, causes a cascade.

    Vehicles swirve and slam in to one another, not that there are dozens as it is late, but this is just outside the city and there are cars on the road. People who had stopped, to get out of their cars and gawk for whatever reason, are suddenly slamed in to the ground by the sheer wave of pressure caused by shuch sheer speed and acceleration.

    She does it however, Sassa catches the Cab and has just enough strength to keep a fifteen ton vehicle suspended in mid air, danling by her hands.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    Ten seconds, and the trailer is a quarter of a mile away, deposited in what looks like from here the parking lot of a bank. So, a deserted parking lot with lots of lights and cameras. Excellent. Star's violet aura protected her from the sonic boom--her ring constantly generates its own atmospheric pressure--but she does recognize it for what it is, and has time to marvel at the absolute stupidity it takes to do such a thing. The person in the cab had to be affected by that shockwave! What are the odds he's even conscious right now? Probably not good, to judge by the way Sassa seems to just be hovering in mid-air, hanging on to the cab without taking any visible effort to lower it to the ground. It suggests the source of the mind control is at least stunned.
    Well, good. Great, even. It gives Star Sapphire time to work on the cars below. She creates a half dozen giant spatulas (it's goofy, but it's what she can conjure on short notice) to scoop any errant vehicles off to the side of the road, and then she's soaring toward the truck cab to finish this off.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Stunned enough that all Sassa is doing is holding the Cab in mid air. She doesn't move it, drop it, seek to place it anywhere else. No, she just hovers there, with yet another completely dead pan, no one's home/ stare. Not in pain, not in any control, not realizing the ammount of damage that such speed this close to the ground can cause. Not realizing that she's not capable of sustaining that speed for more than a few hours and if he'd intended for her to fly off, it'd be quite a bit slower. Still, there she is, dazed and confused and still not in control. Though, there's no more smart quips from mister Psimon, signaling no doubt that he is more than likely unconcious. THough, unconcious is better than dead for most.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    There's a chance this is all a ruse, but love takes risks. Star Sapphire flies close to Sassa, close enough to be standing directly behind her (in the air, admittedly), close enough to curl her latex-covered fingers around Sassa's shoulders and whisper in her ear, "Let go of the truck. It's alright." No idea whether Sassa can even hear after going supersonic there, let alone whether she'll take to suggestion, but it seems like the second smartest thing to try. The actual smartest is the one that follows, the one in which her ring creates a titanic oyster in mid-air, its shell spread wide and the pillowy muscles inside ready to the truck in a cushioning embrace.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    She's not all there, even still, but there's something. Something that seeks to fight out of the muck and mire and the depth of the void one's mind must be placed in to in order to have it so fully controlled. The whisper, seems to reach Sassa though, as her head turns ever slowly and slightly, craning her neck to attempt to see Star behind her. When she can't she turns her head back slowly and looks down to the construct. For a moment, hesitation, before she opens her hands and lets it fall.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    It's only a fall of six inches or so--well, okay, more than that for the back end Sassa was holding up--but the truck lands reasonably gently, and the oyster shell slams closed on it. This psychic seemed to spread his power through a contagious physical touch, so imprisoning him like this ought to do the job. Star smiles at Sassa and strokes her shoulders (it's lucky for Sassa she's wearing a turtleneck; thick latex like Star's gloves would make skin contact feel kind of gross) as she murmurs, "Good, that's very good. Now, why don't you wake up? We need to go see to the other women."

Sassa (300) has posed:
    It takes a few moments, but Sassa does, in fact, snap out of it. The strong, tough, capable woman she is, bursts in to tears through gritted teeth and clenched fists. She looks down to the truck, inside the oyster, that has this /thing/ held prisoner in it. Then comes the scream, the blood curtling scream. Pure rage and fury welled up inside her that someone would DARE to do that to her. "I'll KILL HIM!!" she snaps out, the words riding on yet another warriors cry for vengence. "YOU HEAR ME!! I'll KILL YOU!!" she adds yet a second set of threats to Psimon. Though, despite this, she fights to maintain her control. Digging her nails in to her hands, hard enough to cause them to bleed. White knuckled, bloody hands and gritted teeth, are now all taht remain outside the rivers of tears flowing from her eyes.

    She takes a moment to look around, and it dawns on her what he made her do, and the damage it caused, and it causes her to lock up right there. Shocked by her own power and what it's done.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    Still floating behind Sassa, still rubbing the woman's shoulders, Star suggests, "Hey, hey. Be angry later. Help the others now." Carol's always found that diverting her own attention from inside her head to the outside world has a calming, centering effect; it provides perspective. Here's hoping it it works for Sassa as well.
    But whether it does or doesn't, Star doesn't have much time to coddle anyone. She flies away fairly slowly, letting Sassa watch her arc and follow it if she wants to. The giant oyster keeps pace with Star Sapphire as she makes her way to the bank parking lot. She doesn't approach the trailer just yet, though. She can open it if she needs to, but she wants to give Sassa that chance.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa sighs, and manages to grab control of herself enough to brush her tears away with her hand. She takes another deep breath and slowly floats over behind Star. Following in that arc, as was no doubt intended. She lands softly, touching down on the ground and walks up to the back of the trailer. With that done, she reaches out, snatches on to the trailer, and rips the doors off, tossing them behind her. As they land with a thud and a clang she turns and looks to Star, no doubt wanting her help dealing with the now terrified and confused women in said trailer.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    Star shakes her head, smiling. "You've got this," she soothes. "And they don't want to see me dressed like this, after what they've been through. They need you." She perches atop the trailer, lightly, feet only partially touching its roof, as she concentrates on the oyster. The truck's inhabitant won't stay out cold forever. It's time to wrap him in the crystal and let him sleep, and as soon as Sassa steps into the trailer, that's what Star gets to work on. She lowers the oyster to the ground, lets it dissipate, and peers inside the cab to see...a man with a glass dome where the top of his head should be, and a massive, elongated brain. Yeah, seems like a likely suspect.
    Star Sapphire reaches out to him, and a violet gemstone begins to grow around him, encasing him in its mostly-opaque depths. The stasis the crystal brings will keep him harmless until she can transport him to an appropriate prison.

Sassa (300) has posed:
    Sassa nods to Star and heads inside, and with that goes about trying to console all the other women that were taken with her. She's in there for quite some time before she walks out with the others in tow, trying to console them all. No doubt the MPD is on their way, sirens and the like echoing in the distance as the news of this whole ordeal reaches their dispatchers. Sassa seems but only a moment before she floats up to Star and asks, "What do we do?" With the police no doubt enroute, she's asking if they leave or stay.

Star Sapphire has posed:
    Star Sapphire drifts down from the truck after Sassa has done her work consoling the women, and she takes the hands of the two nearest woman while smiling encouragingly at them. "Ladies, you're all safe," she promises. "I'll stay here to watch over you until the police arrive. Until they get here, please know you did everything right: you survived, and I'm very proud of you for it." She releases the women's hands to knuckle a tear from her eye, and with a wave of her hand conjures a series of warm, soft blankets draped around everyone woman's shoulders. There's one for Sassa too, but it's not on Sassa's shoulders, it's in Star Sapphire's hands as she looks inquisitively over at the other meta. "If you want to hide your identity, you might leave now," she suggests. "My light probably blinded the banks cameras too much to capture your face, but the police...it's up to you."