Danny Fisher, age 21, adventurer and superheroine also known as Farad, for her ability to manipulate the electro-magnetic spectrum. The usual partner of fellow superheroine Tigress, a mutant with incredible regeneration powers, cat like abilities, and even the fabled nine lives of a cat, eight still left intact. The two of them were all that was left of the hero team The Vanguard, a team of late teens and young adults who had banded together to fight evil and all that. Most of the team had left a few years ago when one of their number, a mutant named Forsaken turned evil, renaming himself Pathos and defeating most of the team by himself. As can no doubt be noticed he was not the nicest of them, seen in the public eye as the loose cannon of the team, having on a few occassions Killed supervillians and common criminals. In the battle where he turned he killed Tigress, whether intentional or not, it left her with only eight lives left.
Pathos has the ability to absorb, detect, manipulate and rechannel emotional energies, typically hatred or fear were his favorites, though he could absorb any emotions whatsoever. A very powerful mutant that normally wasn't that effective with his powers, having a near fear of them himself, though he was the best trained at mundane things like driving, flying their jet, rigging up bombs, computer hacking, speaking fourteen languages, etc... so he was useful in other ways, but when he turned evil he began to use his powers expertly, like there had never been a problem before, in addittion to his immense level of training. The fight was over quickly and he had fled into the night, they had fought with him occassionally since then, usually to a stand still or he escaped. Within two years after that The Vanguard crumbled apart.
Danny and Tigress however stayed together as a duo, patrolling the more dangerous parts of Bayside City, Tonight they were patrolling in different areas, miles apart. Farad had taken the area down by the docks, a place filled with metallic objects, giving her a nearly limitless arsenal. Tigress was patrolling the parks tonight, where her feline nature gave her the edge. So far it was fairly quiet, a mugger and two carjackers, fairly quiet, which had Farad nervous, she didn't like it this quiet, always made her paranoid that some super villain was plotting to destroy the city.
Floating through the air her costume consisted of baggy jungle camo pants, white tank-top with a green sports bra underneath, and a domino mask over her eyes. Her boots touched down on top of a warehouse as she surveyed her domain, hands on her hips she looked around as she sighed, bored out of her mind, she craved action, some sort of fight. She didn't even hear the pair of boots land behind her until she heard him speak.
"So…Danny, it's been a long time since you've all come looking for me," The raspy voice cooed out from a few feet behind her. Danny spun around and backed up a few feet, panic stitched across her face, it was Pathos. His skin had gotten paler in the last year, almost sheet white, his hair was black as night, and his eyes were their usual blood red, and glowing slightly, which meant he had just fed and was at, or very near, a full charge. Sweat beaded across her neck, the whole team couldn't beat him, she was as good as dead
"P..Pa…Pathos…" She asked with fear in her voice, trying to get it together and calm herself down as he took a step closer, his eyes seemed to glow brighter.
"Don't tell me you're afraid of me Danny? That hurts my feelings," He taunted as he laughed, his lithe frame quivering with restrained laughter and untold amounts of energy. He had definitely gotten taller, Danny noted, filled out a little more too since the last battle, but hell he was only 20! He still had some ways to go before he stopped growing completely. In an odd punk vampire way he was cute, if one didn't know that he was a ruthless super villain who'd defeated some of the best superheroes on the west coast already. Normally she'd of already started fighting him, but she knew he was vastly more powerful and more deadly than she ever hoped to be, and Tigress was on the other side of the city.
"Come now Danny…after all we've been through you're not going to trust me?" He smiled like a hungry animal as he started to circle around her, cocking his head to one side as he spoke. "If I was going to kill you I would've done it already," His tone mocking and cruel as he looked her over, sizing her up for what she assumed was a fight.
"Look Pathos… I don't want to fight y," She started to say before he cut her off. "Don't want to fight me! You mean you don't want to fight me all alone…too bad, Tigress at least put up a fight before I took her down…surprised you didn't hear any of it…" That rocked Farad to her core, he'd already taken down Tigress tonight?!?! That wasn't good, it meant she was completely alone tonight. Swallowing down the rage consuming her as she picked up some of the roofing and sent it flying at him with her powers.
"Alright!" He yelled excitedly as he flung out a flurry of energy blasts to take down the oncoming metal shards. His black trench-coat took a few slices threw it's hemming as he dodged to side and sent a blast flying at her. Throwing up her force field it almost buckled under the force of the blast. She expected the next blast to be stronger, but it wasn't, it was much weaker, he was toying with her, making her afraid, sending out a pulse of her own ionized energy towards him. She watched the blast smash into him, sending electrical arcs all across his body before he flung a full powered blast into her field, collapsing it and slamming her across the roof and skidding towards the edge before she caught herself.
Winded and bruised she wiped some blood from her lip that she'd bitten as she hit the hard metal. Panning around she didn't see him until she glanced up and narrowly dodged the elbow meant for her head, which was good because it dented a large section of the roof, forcing it to concave under the pressure. Parrying a kick meant for her head she received a blast to her unprotected stomach that doubled her over in pain. Crying out in pain before she felt him grab a hold of her hair and pulled her up to eye level and locked eyes with her, activating his ability to devour a persons mind, unbeknownst to her, he could control it and merely render someone unconscious for a few hours.
The last thing she saw was his cruel evil smile as he drained the will and life from her, crying softly as she believed she was in the final moments of her life. Chuckling to himself as he tossed her over his shoulder and flew a few miles off shore to his small island retreat, cleverly disguised as a private nature preserve where tourists and visitors were not allowed. Carrying her down into the dungeon he'd built, he didn't need one, but he liked the rustic medieval look, though all the metals were high end titanium and had built in power nullifiers. Smiling to himself as he sat her on a bench chained her wrists in the manacles above her head and made sure that the restraints across her lap were secured, he didn't want her standing up.
A few hours later Danny woke up, her head filled with a buzzing noise that quickly subsided as she looked out the medieval dungeon, confused for a minute as she slowly realized that this wasn't heaven, possibly not hell, most certainly not the after life. At first she tried to stand up only to realize that she was manacled and restrained down. Probably for torture…god help me she thought to herself, swallowing down her fear she shifted her feet, which were still in her shoes, laces loosened, though she didn't notice at the time.
"Ahh… you're up," She heard from her right side around a wall as she watched Pathos come out from another door wiping his hands clean on a towel that he tossed on the floor. He wasn't wearing his trench-coat anymore, only his black pants and black sleeveless shirt, his muscles were lean like a gymnasts and he moved like a wolf. Sitting on the bench next to her, maybe a little too close for her comfort, she swallowed, sweat beading up across her neck and forehead. "You know Danny you seem a bit tense…nervous perhaps, you should really lighten up some,"
"Yah…I wonder why? Perhaps it's because YOU KIDNAPPED ME YOU PSYCHO!" she yelled at him her face turning red, mad that she'd been captured, mad that she was powerless, and mad that she once had a massive crush on him. Her crush had died shortly after he'd killed her best friend Tigress, Tigress revived herself but had cost one of her lives. Ever since then, Danny had hated him with every ounce of her being. Pathos chuckled as he patted her knee, causing her to shiver before he stood up and looked at her coyly. "Well I guess I did kidnap you just a little…but it was so easy to get you worked up and think I took her out, hell I haven't even seen her in since last time we all tangled,"
Walking around a corner he drug back a set of stocks which caused Danny's eyes to bulge. "What…what is that for?!" She stammered out as he drug them in front of her. Grinning he grabbed her boots off her scrambling feet, revealing her pink socks. "Well well…Pink socks? Never imagined you'd wear those, too bad they're coming off too," Shaking her head frantically as she tried to keep her feet from his hands as they peeled off her socks and placed her squirming ankles into the stocks and locked them down.
"Now I think we can have some fun Danny," Pathos taunted as he ran a finger up her left sole causing a stifled giggle and a very red face. "Oh? I think you're ticklish," Grinning evilly as he tied her big toes back to the stocks and ran his nails across her soles slowly eliciting a series of shrill giggles from her "Nahahhaa No! snrrt," She blushed a bright crimson at the snort, she couldn't of snorted, she never ever made that noise. She was going to kill him once she got out of this, his head was going on a pike in her yard once she figured out what a pike was and how she was getting out of this.
He raked his nails across her pads and over her heel leaving her arch more or less unattended as his long nails assailed the rest of her feet causing her to thrash about begging him to stop, for mercy, for anything but this. Stopping his attack she sat there panting, looking at him with all the hatred in the world, her face bright red as she asked meekly, looking down at the ground. "Is…is it over please?" Grinning he walked off leaving her alone for a minute as he returned with a large duffel bag and pulling out a large feather. "Not yet," as he slid it down her soles one at a time.
Will she escape? Will she succumb to Pathos? Where is Tigress? Where the hell is Bayside? Find out next time on X-Tkl.