Overpowered Amy

Amy gets what she wants.

...

Victoria Dallon glared at the Slaughterhouse Nine. "Foul villains! I'll never tell you the secret of Amy's power! Never!"

Jack Slash chuckled. "Good, good. You're getting into the spirit of things."

Victoria made a perfunctory attempt at loosening her bonds, but it was futile. Mannequin's superdense megamanacles didn't budge. "You'll never make me talk! Not in a million years!"

"So they say, so they say." mused Jack. "They all too often change their tune after a few minutes in Bonesaw's tender care."

Cherish rolled her eyes. "No need for the munchkin, Jack. Just let me zap her. She'll spill everything she knows, no deceptions or lies."

"Or a lick from Crawler's tongue." Jack continued. "Acid, digestive enzymes, poison...a single touch will leave you in excruciating agony."

"Why bother? Come on, just let me zap her." said Cherish.

"Shatterbird is another favorite. Have you ever imagined the feeling of a thousand shards of glass cutting into your-"

"What the hell is wrong with you! Just let me zap her!" cried Cherish.

"It's the principle of the thing." said Jack, as if that explained anything.

Cherish threw up her hands in frustration. "Morons! Always doing it the hard way. You're going to get us all killed." she said correctly.

"Help! Help! Someone save me!" cried Victoria.

The door to the warehouse slammed open, revealing the silhouette of a slim figure in a trenchcoat.

Amy Dallon, the most powerful hero in the world.

"The jig is up, villains." said the hero, her voice resolute and firm. "Unhand my sister or things get ugly."

"What?" cried Cherish. "How did you get so close without me sensing? Your emotional makeup, it's completely changed-"

"A word to the wise, Cherish." said Amy. "The Nine know you're playing them, and they've got a torture chamber with your name written on it. Back them up in this fight and you'll regret it."

"What?" cried Cherish. "How did you know-"

"Disappointing." sighed Jack. "But you're in the weaker position here, Amelia. If you make a move against us, your sister will pay the price."

"No. Not that." said Victoria, her voice flat and unconcerned."Anything but that. Save me Amy. Oh please save me."

Jack drew his knife. "Your sister won't save you this time, Victoria. We can take her."

Amy drew her guns. "Try me."

Jack slashed at Victoria's face. A gunshot rang out and Jack was left holding an empty knife handle. The knife's blade spun to the ground and embedded itself in the floor at his feet.

Jack frowned. He studied the empty handle, turning it over in his hands.

"Eek. Oh no. That was close." said Victoria blandly.

"Last chance, villains." said Amy.

Jack scowled and pointed at the hero, and the Slaughterhouse Nine charged.

...
...

Cherish stared at the aftermath in disbelief. She had known that Amy Dallon was powerful, but this was ridiculous.

Shatterbird and Burnscar were dead, their bodies pierced by a hail of bullets.

Mannequin and Crawler were dead, their brains annihilated by Siberian's errant attacks. Crawler's death had even stuck, a wounded Hack Job getting tangled in his wound long enough to disable his regeneration.

Bonesaw and Hack Job were dead, incinerated at six thousand degrees fahrenheit by the failsafe suicide bomb from Cherish's necklace. That had been a close one. She'd forgotten to reset the bomb timer, so the hero had actually saved her life when she severed the bomb from its cord and used it as a weapon.

Siberian had been the next to die, simply flickering out of existence for no apparent reason. What the hell?

Jack Slash had been the last to go. He had tripped on Shatterbird's corpse and stumbled to the ground, impaling himself through the eye on his own blade, the same blade the hero had broken off his knife before the battle.

Sixty seconds, and the Slaughterhouse Nine had been reduced to the Slaughterhouse One.

Cherish smirked. She had outlived the bastards after all. And she didn't sense any hostility from the Dallons, so she would survive this sordid affair. All she had to do was surrender like a good girl and avoid ticking off the invincible hero.

"I surrender." said Cherish. "I'm not a psycho like those guys, I only joined up to get away from my fucked up dad. I helped you out in the fight, too. Can we make a deal to take me alive? Maybe send me to the Birdcage?"

Amy gave her a dry look. "You didn't help me so much as hide in the corner and cower. So, no."

She shot Cherish in the eye, bypassing her augmentations and killing her instantly.

Amy stood still for a moment, as though she was listening to a voice that only she could hear.

Collect the key from Mannequin.

Amy fished in Mannequin's torso and pulled out a small black electromagnet.

Free Victoria.

Amy pressed the magnet against the back of Victoria's superdense megamanacles. They fell loosely to the floor.

Gloat.

"I have you now, my pretty." said Amy.

Push forward with right index finger.

Amy raised her right hand menacingly.

Victoria's eyes widened. She tried to dodge the incoming attack, but resistance was futile.

"Beep." said Amy, poking Victoria on the tip of her nose.

Victoria wrinkled her nose. "Thanks for the save, sis."

"Welcome as always, Victoria. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Yup."

"The PRT are en route to confirm the kills. We'll be a hundred million dollars richer by tonight. We can buy the vacation home in San Diego you wanted, the one with the high-tech jacuzzi."

"Swell."

"I don't get what happened to Siberian, though. I was seriously afraid for a minute, I thought she might be immune to my power. It must have been the Claymore mines I rigged up on Lord's Street that killed her, but that was a mile away. Huh."

"Huh."

Amy paused her exposition and studied her sister's face. Victoria was frazzled, her platinum-blonde locks untidy, a stray hair resting on her cheek.

Push forward with right index finger.

Amy raised her right hand...then put her hand back down to her side. Resisting her power. "You're not happy with me, Vicky. What's up?"

"Can't we fight crime another way? I'm tired of playing the damsel in distress."

"You know the rules, Vicky. You know how my power works."

"I know." Victoria folded her arms. "I'm saying, maybe we can try fighting crime with my power for a change."

"Your power? Hmm." Amy looked at Victoria, looked at the remains of nine S-class supervillains, then looked back at Victoria. She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, point taken, but listen. How about this one. Okay. Have you ever thought about how your power is harmful to women's rights?"

Amy laughed. "What the hell? Women's rights?"

"I'm dead serious, Amy. The trope of the distressed damsel is toxic to equality between men and women."

"But I'm not a guy."

"Aha, yes, but! Once the 'distressed damsel' trope has been established as an emblem of asymmetrical male-female inter-relationships, any instance of the trope inevitably perpetuates the oppressive stereotype. Deviations from the parent trope merely lessen its harmful impact, they do not abolish it. So there!"

Amy frowned. "Sounds like you looked that up on wikipedia."

"Well, yeah, but to be fair I only got to read half of the entry before Mannequin kidnapped me."

Amy shook her head. "We've been over this, Vicky. We have to get you kidnapped by Nilbog and Sleeper next before we take a break. You promised. Miss 'I'll do anything it takes to protect the world from the bad guys'."

"I was twelve years old! I didn't think I'd be in for a lifetime of throwing myself into the clutches of murderous psychos! Mannequin's hands were totally clammy, and I had to listen to Jack's ranting for an hour, and-"

Push forward with right index finger.

Amy poked Victoria on the nose. "Beep."

Victoria wrinkled her nose. "Knock it off, Ames. Look, what I'm saying is, you're paying for dinner tonight. Actually, make that the foreseeable future. Capisce?"

Amy sighed. Life was never easy for the wielder of the Path to Victoria.