O Most Wonderful!
Five
Slowly, painfully, Jess became aware of the darkness surrounding her. Her head throbbed, and her arms ached. She tried to move, but found herself restricted. The realisation dawned that her wrists were manacled to a wall.
Something moved against her back.
No… not a wall… some sort of wooden pillar or post. And there was something manacled behind her.
Something that shifted again, irritably, tugging against its bonds, feeling the strength of the steel around its wrists, then slumped, despondently, then threw itself into a brief, violent fit, thrashing its tall, thin frame desperately if vainly against the chains, then stopped again, exhausted.
Jess waited a while for the furious breaths behind her to calm a little before she spoke.
'You OK, Eric?'
Eric sighed. 'Thought that was you, Blondie. They got you too, huh?'
'I couldn't just leave you,' replied Jess, ignoring the nickname.
There was a brief awkward pause, and then they both spoke at the same time.
'Sorry I couldn't protect you,' they apologised in unison.
'Yeah, but I'm the Cavalier,' added Eric. 'It's kinda my job.'
'I'm the leader,' retorted Jess, 'so it's my job, too.'
'Touche. But you didn't have your weapon.'
'Neither did you, so I guess we're even.'
They fell into a silence again, punctuated by metallic clanks as Eric fidgeted against his chains.
'Jess,' he muttered, eventually.
'Hmm?'
'Did I imagine it, or just before we got knocked out… was there a woman?'
Jess couldn't help but smile a little at the concern in the Cavalier's voice.
'A woman,' he continued, 'who looked an awful lot like…'
'You mean Venger?' teased Jess.
'That wasn't Venger.'
'In my universe it is.'
'But those creatures said they'd got her "The Boy".'
'Guess they meant you.' Jess tried to look over her shoulder at Eric. 'You are a boy, aren't you?'
'That's not the point,' scowled Eric. 'The point is, that when Venger… my Venger… tells a minion to "Bring him The Girl"… well…' Eric began to trail off, perturbed. 'It has Connotations…'
Jess was about to answer when their whispered conversation was disturbed by the loud crunch of a large, elderly lock being opened. Torchlight streamed through the open door, cutting through the darkness. Both captives squinted in the uncustomary light. There were three figures framed in the doorway, the middle one far taller than the two flanking it. The tall figure stepped towards them, and the flames of the torches picked up the steel plates and platinum locks of Jess' Nemesis.
'Need I ask what we're doing here?' growled the Ranger, but Venger, for once, ignored her. She stopped next to them, side-on, so that they could both turn their heads enough to see her.
'I imagine,' purred the armoured female, 'that you are already aware of what I should like you to tell me. However, in the interest of fairness, I shall make the information I desire clear to you now…'
'This hasn't got anything to do with "fairness"!' Jess spat. 'You're just toying with us!'
'Firstly,' continued Venger, 'I want to know where your weapons are. Secondly, I want to know where the others, and their weapons are. And thirdly, as I'm sure you can guess…' she lashed out a pale arm, quick as a snake, catching Eric's face with a strong hand and holding his eyeline to hers, 'I want to know exactly how it is that the pair of you keep… changing yourselves, the way you have tonight.'
'What are you doing?' hissed Jess, 'keep your hands off him.'
Venger continued to ignore the Ranger, but grinned at Eric.
'What…' whispered Eric, '…what are you gonna do to us?'
'Nothing,' smiled Venger, finally letting go of the young man's chin, 'I just thought you might like to know. In case anything should… happen to you…'
The two wolfmen in the doorway exchanged leers.
'Anything that might resemble torture,' added Venger. 'You should do well to remember the information that I want.'
'You wouldn't dare…' began Jess, but trailed off when Venger reached out to the Cavalier again and picked a loose eyelash from his cheek.
Eric, shocked, could say nothing, but Jess lurched at Venger with a sudden wave of rage.
'Leave him alone, Venger!' she cried. 'It's me that you want!'
Venger blinked, and gave Jess a brief, emotionless stare, still holding the eyelash between thumb and forefinger, for the Ranger to see. Then, without a word, she turned from them both and strode towards the door.
'Leave them until morning,' she murmured to the wolfmen as she passed. 'A sleepless night should make them a little more… pliable.'
Sullenly, the wolfmen left with her, locking the door behind them and plunging the cell back into darkness.
Eric waited for the clunking of key in lock to turn to silence before he hurled himself into another rage, struggling against his manacles in the blackness.
'It's not gonna work, Eric,' sighed Jess.
'And you can shut up, too!' blurted Eric.
'What now?'
'"Keep your hands off him, Venger", "Let go of him, Venger"…'
'What's wrong with that?' Despaired Jess.
'Like I'm some sorta Damsel in Distress,' continued Eric. 'Don't you ever take an Off Day from your heroics, Van Walwyk?'
Jess just shrugged. 'I just figured you were probably right after all.'
'Right?' Eric calmed down a little. 'About what?'
'About the Connotations,' replied Jess.
'Connotations..?' Eric attempted to put a laugh into his voice to drown out the panic. 'What, with Venger? Me and… and Her?' He scoffed a little. 'That's the stupidest thing I ever heard.'
'Maybe it is,' soothed Jess, raising a small smile. 'After all, it's not like you have a track record of Trysts with Evil Tyrants of the Opposite Sex now, is it?'
Eric blinked, then slumped. 'Oh God. I'm Boned, aren't I?'
-x-
'You're not "Boned",' replied Hank.
'Yes I am,' wailed Bella. 'It's OK for you, he's only gonna torture you to death. I'm the one that's gonna end up married to an eight foot high evil transvestite, fetching his slippers and comfortable helmet after a tough day out Oppressing The Masses…'
'No you're not.'
'Of course I am! This sort of thing always happens to me!'
'Well it's not this time.'
'Why?' demanded Bella, sceptically.
Hank cleared his throat a little, and then replied, as confidently as he could, 'because I'm going to rescue you.'
Then he waited a couple of minutes for the sarcastic laughter to die down.
'You're gonna Rescue Me?' Bella sneered through her mocking hysterics. 'Blondie, what did I just say about treating me like a Damsel in Distress?'
'Damsel – definitely not,' retorted Hank, 'as for Distress… listen, if I know Venger you could be in a lot of distress pretty soon. And I'm not gonna let that happen to any member of my gang.'
'How noble,' humphed Bella, 'but do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?'
'Shoot.'
Bella craned her head around to meet Hank's eye, with difficulty. 'One – if this was all happening to the Guy version of me, would you still be so intent on saving me?'
'Thanks for the icky mental picture of that, Bella. But yes. Yes, I would.' Hank frowned to himself, unsure.
'And two,' Bella still strained to see Hank's expression, 'how exactly do you, weaponless and chained to a post in a locked, guarded cell in the middle of God Knows Where, intend to rescue me?'
'I didn't say I knew how I was going to do it yet,' replied Hank. 'I just know that I will.'
'Great. Super.' Bella turned back to her own side of the post. 'I think his Brain Cell must a' finally died.'
-x-
Hank was just closing his eyes when the door was opened and the firelight came bursting through again.
'Wha...?' he mumbled, 'it's not… what time is it?'
The Wolfmen approaching didn't answer, but grinned toothsomely at him.
'I don't know about you,' muttered Bella as a Wolfman began unlocking her manacles, 'but I get a funny feeling that it might be Torture Time.'
Freed from her bonds, Bella yelped as she was grabbed by the arms by two Wolfman guards and dragged around to the other side of the cell to face Hank, still restrained.
'What are you gonna do?' she asked her captors.
A third Wolfman answered her by punching Hank full in the face.
Hank smelled the blood before he felt the pain. He heard Bella's scream, and then there it was – the searing agony in his left cheekbone where the creature had struck and where the back of his head had been slammed back against the post. He blinked, dazed again, but there was no way those beasts were going to let him pass out this time.
A girl's voice cried out 'No!' and he was struck again, on the side of the face this time, sharp claws tearing at his skin.
'Stop!' screamed Bella from the Wolfmen's clutches. 'Stop it! I'll talk!'
'No…' mumbled Hank through the blood, but the Wolfman had already stopped hitting him and turned to the Cavalier.
'Take me to Venger,' gasped Bella. 'I'll talk. I'll do whatever he says.'
The beast that had been beating the Ranger leaned in close to Bella. 'Caving so soon?' he snarled. 'We was expecting more from you. Much more. We was looking forward to it.'
'Carry on for a while,' added the creature holding Bella's right arm. 'Lord Venger was expecting them to withstand at least an hour. He'll never know the difference.'
The first Wolfman nodded, and stalked over to the door to pick up an iron rod.
Bella struggled in grip of the monsters as the torturer brought the rod back to Hank's post.
'I'll tell him you touched me!' cried Bella.
The first Wolfman stopped in his tracks, and turned again to the Cavalier.
'He told you I was to be brought to him unharmed, didn't he?' challenged Bella. 'Trust me, I know Venger as well as you do. Well, I can tell him that you just couldn't control yourselves. He wouldn't be very happy about that, would he? I wonder what he'd do to somebody who'd…'
'He'd never believe you,' growled the Wolfman.
Bella hooked a finger over the hem of her skirt, with difficulty, and raised it up to show a nasty, deep, jagged scratch at the top of her thigh, barely clotted and surrounded with the purple-blue hue of a fresh bruise. Despite the pain in his own face, Hank winced at the wound.
'I did this when I fell through a bramble patch last night,' said Bella, 'but He doesn't know that, does he? Now, if you don't do what I say, I swear, I'm gonna…'
The first Wolfman snarled. 'What do you want?'
'Well, you could start by telling your hairy friends to get their filthy paws off me.' She shot the Wolfman at her left a brief, cold smile. 'No offence.'
'We are not going to let a captive simply walk free…' began the third Wolfman.
Before he could finish, the Cavalier drew a deep breath, and let out a long, loud scream.
'RAAAAAAAAAPE!'
The two monsters flanking her let go of her arms instantly, as though they were scorching hot.
'Thank you,' gasped Bella, and swiftly kicked a steel boot out at the smallest Wolfman's crotch.
The creature howled in anguish, folding neatly to the floor as the Cavalier, in the confusion, grabbed the first Wolfman's rod and brought it down on the second beast's head.
'What?' The first monster made a grab at Bella, but she span around quickly, sweeping the rod beneath his feet and sending him crashing to the floor. The beast's head hit the ground hard, but the girl still hit him several times before she could be sure enough of his unconsciousness to rifle through his belt for his keychain.
'Gee, Blondie,' muttered Bella as she leapt up to Hank and started trying keys for his manacles, 'is this how you usually rescue your maidens fair?'
Hank flashed her a bloodied grin. 'Who's idea was it? Who got beaten up?'
'Hey,' tutted Bella, 'I had to do all the acting…'
'You're a natural, by the way…'
'And all the fighting!'
'You're good at that too,' added Hank, 'when you want to be.'
'What if it had backfired?'
'It was a Hank Plan,' beamed Hank. 'It wasn't going to backfire…' the lock of his manacles clicked. 'There we go!'
But Bella didn't answer. Bella couldn't answer. The Wolfman whose genitals she had so cruelly kicked had sprung up behind her and had a pawfull of razor sharp claws pressed against her throat.
