FSE

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By Psion

An Aphrodite City Story

All Rights Reserve

Aphrodite City, once a bustling city in western New York State, now a metropolis in a slow, painful decline into silent oblivion. Miraculously isolated from the wonders as well as the horrors of the metabeing age, this sleepy burg managed to avoid having a population of capes and cowls to call its own for virtually all of its long history. Unfortunately this completely blank canvas had left the city vulnerable to arguably the most horrifying kind of supervillain, the Brothers. Twin perverts with the power to imbue seemingly random citizens of the city with fantastic powers, rather then use their powers to assemble a team of do-gooders to fight evil both great and small, they chose to squander their gift by arranging the most elaborate live-action superheroine bondage porno any being had ever conceived of; malevolent male super villains, reluctant female heroines, a horrible pornography that would make most heterosexual males ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately the Brothers were shameless... and completely unconcerned with the carnage and collateral damage their "staged" metabeing clashes caused upon the city...

One Hour After First Encounter...

Stanley Dewpond was sitting in the local Veteran Affairs office, filling out forms for his benefits when the police officer walked into the waiting room. The blond-haired bear felt a chill run down his spine as he saw he look on the cop's face, it was the look he had seen on military officers back in Eastern Europe when they had Bad News to report. And the blue uniformed fox was heading straight for him...

"Are you Stanley Dewpond?" The police todd asked without emotion.

"I am..." The grizzly bear replied, his stomach starting to twist itself into knots.

"Mr. Dewpond..." The ACPD officer began then stopped to suck in his breath. "There was an explosion downtown about an hour ago on Twelfth and Main. We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened but your wife was caught in the blast. She's currently in intensive care at Saint Mary's. I'm sorry for your-"

"Just get out of my way, she's not dead." The muscular bear growled furiously, quickly rising to his full six-foot-two height as he handed his half-finished paperwork to a nearby secretary unfortunate enough to hear everything. "I'm sorry but I'm going to have come back later for these." He handed them to her and ran out the door without waiting for her reply...

The drive to the hospital and the walk to their room in Saint Mary's Intensive Care Unit had been a numbing flood of information. The attack downtown was the city's very first supervillain; not a bomb or something equally mundane. That would have almost been reassuring. The mayor and the chief of police both issued a statement promising answers and swift retribution yet more telling was what they didn't say, the identity of the attacker beyond being some pyrokinetic with a horribly cliché sense of fashion. Meaning whomever this guy was, Aphrodite City was his first appearance anywhere. While never involved in the tactical planning while he was in the service, Stan still knew enough to recognize when the men upstairs had no idea what was going on. Not a good realization to have as he walked through the bright and clean hospital hallways to the ICU.

Somehow, despite mentally preparing himself for it, the sight of Kimberly, his wife, in that hospital bed, second and third degree burns all over her body, all those tubes and IV needles... he still nearly lost it. She was conscious but the look in their eyes... there was no recognition there, he could have been part of the cleaning staff for all she knew. That almost hurt as much as seeing them in here.

"Mr. Dewpond?" A voice asked. The bear turned to see one of Saint Mary's doctors standing right next to him.

"What is it, is she going to be alright right?" For a fellow that fought in the Eastern European micro nation of Igoroth, Stanley found it hard to keep the uncertainty out of his voice.

"She will be alright... we think." The raccoon doctor began before gesturing for the other male to follow him into a private meeting room tucked away in the side of the ICU.

Surrounded by comfortable furniture, motivational posters offering hollow encouragement, a message board with half a dozen flyers for grief counseling services, and four windowless walls painted with cheerful, pastel colors; Stan was ready for bad news. "What do you mean, you think?"

"Well Mr. Dewpond, barring unforeseen complications she should both make a full recovery in a couple months. However, your wife has an unusual blood type and there have been problems contacting the state blood bank."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Mr. Dewpond... this is not a major hospital in one of the bigger cities, especially not in one with a large population of capes causing all manner of chaos. We barely have the supplies to deal with the causalities coming in from today, forget about what might happen tomorrow or next week. Normally this wouldn't be a problem except... we're having trouble contacting other hospitals in the state."

"What?"

"No need to worry, it's probably just the telephone system overloading itself with people trying to contact love ones. We'll keep trying. If we have to contact them with smoke signals, we will. Meanwhile we'll keep you informed of any change of status. Is there anything else you need?" He asked, looking eager to get on with his rounds.

"No, not unless you have a miracle handy." Stan replied glumly.

The bear sat in the room for a few minutes after the doctor left, rising up to leave when a nurse brought in the next unlucky soul to sit down and give them the bad news. Dewpond left the crying female alone in her misery and turned to go visit his wife's room one more time...

There was no change in his wife's status since he last arrived. Running his fingers through her hair brought no response from her and no solace to his heart. Sighing, he left the hospital, dodging gurneys being raced into an operating room. Too many people were coming in. Hopefully the DSA would be in by the end of the week to help straighten things out...

One Week after First Encounter...

The DSA did not arrive nor was there any word of when they were to arrive officially announced. Meanwhile this communications blackout was starting to look oddly suspicious, Stanley couldn't contact any of his old Army buddies either by email or telephone. A few conversations with his neighbors revealed they were all having similar problems, any attempts to contact people outside of the city ended with either static or a mailer demon.

Meanwhile, a new normal started to form in Aphrodite City. Six villains, all male, and three heroes, all female, had been spotted in various locations around the city. The city was slowly starting to feel the effects of this abrupt explosion of metabeing activity. The police were worn down, suffering heavy losses in a bank robbery at one of the largest banks in the city. Gangs started appearing in places outside of the city's poorer neighborhoods, a mix of hooligans with more ethnic pride then sense and new "themed" gangs apparently inspired by their "heroes," the villains currently destroying the city. Everything was starting to look a lot like Igoroth...

Igoroth was a micro-nation, a country literally only one city in size, tucked away somewhere between Central and Eastern Europe. Stan didn't remember exactly where it was, just that he was sent there as part of a joint mission between America, Germany, Poland, and the UK. A merry band of supervillains decided to have a team-up and overthrew Igoroth's democratically elected government then started going about turning the little country into a haven for fugitives from the law. Since at least half a dozen countries weren't about to have any of that, pretty much every member of the UN Security Council either declared war on the country or promised aid.

When Dewpond arrived in the country with the rest of his unit, Igoroth was in utter chaos. Resistance fighters and NATO military units clashed with armies of robots and genetically engineered mutant... zombie... things. Sickened children and starved females huddled in bombed out buildings, desperate mobs crowding aid stations, the opposing force frequently breaking lines to raid rear positions like Stan's. It just wasn't right. And right now it felt like he just brought the war home with him...

Two weeks after First Encounter...

A new heroine emerged, the Marine-themed Private Doll, and rumors of some kind of cult worshipping the mysterious figure or figures suspected of being behind the sudden and strangely contrived explosion of superhero battles occurring right in front of him began to circulate. As a military man, Stan wasn't sure how he felt about Pvt. Doll. Yet he was also a fellow that had his priorities relatively straight, and a potentially threatening band of cultists ranked higher then figuring out how he felt about a GI Jane wannabe. Especially when said cultists started showing up in his neighborhood.

"Do you wish to join our leader Loco in embracing the glorious bosom?" The fox in purple robes asked Stanley as he handed out fliers to male pedestrians and only male ones the bear couldn't help but notice.

"No thank you." The ex-military male replied briskly as he continued to run his errands.

The cultist didn't take the hint, following after a "promising mark" while spewing some long-winded, sexist, pseudo-objectivist philosophy that basically translated to "we should enjoy the earthly pleasures provided by women because we have the right to." Or at least that was the impression Stan had gotten when he finally turned around and punched the hooded fox squarely in the face, sending his flyers scattering in a gentle breeze before turning back around and kept walking. Supermarket, hardware store, and looks like the gun store just got added to the list as well. It was moments like this where he missed his M4...

The parcel was set next to his front door when he returned, a sealed cardboard box with a note that said, "Read Me first" taped to the side. Setting his groceries down and picking up the box, he gave it a tentative sniff before holding it up to his ear. No chemical smell, no suspicious clicking noise. Guess it couldn't be too hazardous to his health, he decided as he picked his groceries back up and balanced them against the mysterious package. Once inside and set everything down on the kitchen counter, Stan detached the envelope and opened it, unfolding the letter inside and starting reading.

Dear Mr. Dewpond:

_ Let me begin by saying that no, this is not a bomb or anything cliché like that. My real name is not particularly important though if you ever were out on the West Coast you might have heard the story about the "Gunrunner." If you haven't, it's no big deal. Short version, I'm a gunsmith that manufactures weapons for vigilantes and people that have no one else to turn to but themselves. I arrived here shortly before everything was turned on its head, I know what a beautiful place Aphrodite City was and still can be if a few brave heroes rise up. Real heroes, not the puppets on strings that someone has running around._

_ Enclosed in this package is a new weapon I'm working on. I wish I could say the design was mine, as it is fiendishly brilliant, but the truth is that I got the idea for this weapon from a friend who heard of a supervillain that made a name for himself with a similar contraption. Basically the weapon is an air compressor designed to shoot a "bullet" of air through a long-barreled pneumatic rifle, essentially an enhanced battle rifle with nearly infinite ammunition and the ability to pierce steel. It's pretty much as illegal as you can get so if it turns out you're not interested, there is a safe way you can return it to me outlined below and no one will be the wiser; you have my word as someone else opposed to this sort of atrocity._

_ - Gunrunner_

Stanley put aside the instructions for operating and if necessary, returning his present should he decide it was not worth the trouble he could get into with it, and turned to examine the contents of the package. On top was a beautifully assembled "rifle" made out of pneumatic pipes and valves painted gunmetal gray. The bear spent a moment holding the wonder weapon in his hands without plugging it into its companion compressor tank, getting a feel for the heft and ergonomics of his new gift. The ex-soldier held the butt of the compression gun against his shoulder and tried to picture the recoil as he aimed at an imaginary target on the kitchen wall and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. If the gun was strong enough to punch steel, then this guy got it wrong, this wasn't an EBR, this was an anti-material rifle; a long-range weapon used for disabling IFVs and armored cars. A potentially military-grade gun capable of one-shot killing almost all of those caped freaks terrorizing the city, in the right hands this could be the one thing that tips the scale back in favor of regular people. The question remained, were his hands the right ones?

Putting those thoughts aside for the moment, he looked at the "ammo pack" that was supposed to go with the rifle. Again, it was obvious this was hand-assembled by someone that knew what they were doing. The pack was a fifteen-pound contraption consisting of air compressors and something that looked suspiciously like an oxygen tank meant for senior citizens. The whole thing could be worn from a shoulder strap and plugged into the rifle at his side.

"An air gun that can punch through steel with four nine volt batteries. Either this guy is a genius or I'm getting set up for one of the biggest pranks of the year." Dewpond mused, still fairly lost in his thoughts. Take on the Big Five dressed in urban camouflage and a black balaclava? Well if he did it once before in Igoroth, he could do it once again in Aphrodite City... Still, better make sure he was prepared for the possibility that this could end really, really badly for him.

Kimberly had been slowly getting better, she was still fairly weak and still remained unconscious, but she looked much healthier then when he first saw her. The doctors were still holding off on surgery until they could get more blood for a transfusion. Apparently they still were unable to contact any other hospitals in the state. Stanley couldn't imagine what the trouble was, it wasn't like some entity was actively blacking out communications wasn't it?

Kimberly was still asleep when he walked in, bright brown eyes closed and her long crimson locks poetically draped on her pillow as she slumbered peacefully in bed. Stanley didn't dare wake her, pausing only long enough to kiss her on the forehead and drop off a rose. Standing there, watching her rest, he felt himself fill with a singular purpose. That moment, he made his decision. "Don't worry honey, I'll make it all better." He whispered to her unresponsive ears, his voice filled with a intention that would have been dark were his surroundings not already so grim...

Four Weeks after First Encounter...

Apparently classic comic book supervillains are quite stupid. This was one thing that crossed Stanley's mind as he looked down from a rooftop across the street from one the city's lower end jewelry stores, getting comfortable in his chosen perch after studying his opponents for the better part of three weeks, practicing with his new rifle, and assembling a "good enough" disguise out of a trench coat, sunglasses, and a baseball cap. The store below him was not quite mall-store quality but definitely not quite as pricey as the big name places that had already been robbed. Still, there was enough in there that the bear's targets saw fit to take it slow, allowing him plenty of time to get set up on top of the office building across the street as the wind blew at the trench coat that helped conceal his rifle.

Probably not the best place for him to hide in hindsight but he still wasn't sure what the weapon's maximum effective range was so it would have to do. Regardless, if it worked as advertised and all his initial practice with it suggested that it did, he was definitely going to take down one or two of these psychos before they even realized what was happening.

He had just settled into a crouch and peered down the weapon's scope when the four of them walked out onto the street like they owned it. Panzer Beast, Crimson Screamer, Hypothermia, and Venom. The brick, the energy controllers, and the battlesuit "hero-hunter," all of them bunched nice and tight...

Down below, the four villains moved at a lazy pace, bags of jewelry slung over their shoulders as they sauntered along. Oblivious to the looming danger, Crimson Screamer chattered idly, unintentionally letting his powers carry his words much further then they would have normally. Carrying them into the ears of a concealed gunman that was about to have another reason to begin his personal crusade against them...

"Oi, this communications blackout the bosses have set up is really something now that the police cannot put up a fight anymore. No National Guard, no FBI, no DSA, and no visiting vigilantes. Only way this could be better is if we could mind wipe all the people leaving the city. Ah well, by the time the outside puts it all together; we'll be long gone. Still wish I could bag some spandex pussy before we go though. Think they'll bring the girls along when they take this act to other cities?" He asked his cohorts; unaware of the assailant currently trying to decide which villain was the most dangerous target.

"Sure they will eh. Maybe even make entirely new heroines with the exact same powers and costumes so we can bang two police ladies at once." Hypothermia replied, the snow leopard's feline tail flicking mischievously. "Besides, with the police almost gone there's plenty of other pussy you can bury your big Aussie dick in."

"Crikey, I never thought of it that way. Perhaps I could raid that hospital and help myself to all the women in recov- OH GOD IT HURTS!" The Australian wolf screamed in horrific agony as the unseen marksman took his first shot, hitting the self-styled super-powered playboy squarely in the crotch. Male urinary organs exploded in a small eruption of blood and gore as the projectile went through his manhood and carved a large gash directly below his rectum. Like hell Stanley was going to let this narcissistic little fuck help himself to his wife. Something told him that dog was long overdue to get neutered anyway...

Screamer's villainous cohorts stood frozen in horror for a few precious seconds, watching the masked wolf disappear in a puff of oozing black smoke before reality finished setting in. "SNIPER!" The Canadian screamed and tried to dive for cover as the undetected sharpshooter zeroed in on Venom, landing multiple "rounds" on the armored bat to try and crack his helmet.

Nervously, arguably the first time he felt as such since arriving in Aphrodite City, the cryokinetic snow leopard peered from out behind the mailbox, raised his cryo-amp rifle, and scanned the skyline for his unseen assailant, locating Dewpond's vantage point seconds before the ursine sent a bolt of compressed air right through the scope on the spotted cat's rifle... and the eye socket behind it.

As the second member of their team went down in a puff of smoke, whisked away back to the Brothers' hideout to be put back together like a broken action figure, Venom and Panzer Beast promptly dropped their loot bags. The bull almost immediately panicked while his partner did his best to salvage the situation. That changed when Stanley finally found a weak point in the gadget-wielding hero-hunter's armor and brought him down. Alone with a brutal sniper somewhere Out There, Panzer lost any remaining decorum he had and ran away screaming. Seeing roughly four hundred pounds of bovine muscle run away screaming like a little girl brought a smile to the bear's face. He could have easily capped the mighty Hamburger Beast once in the head but he spent too much of his pressure reserves trying to crack Venom open. Oh well, perhaps it was better this way. One of them was still alive to tell the story of the Castigator... or whatever the masked freaks decided on calling him. Either way, he made his point; the people of this city won't be bullied by whoever was calling the shots for this "entertainment."

The five costumed heroines had just arrived on the scene after he left his perch and started climbing down the fire escape. By the time any of them thought to check the roofs, he had concealed his weapon beneath his trench coat and finished casually walked back to his car. After hiding the compressor rifle in his trunk, he started his car and began to drive home as calmly and as casually as if he had just finished an ordinary eight-hour shift at one of the office complexes. There was nothing to mark him out as the mysterious vigilante that just cancelled another episode in this twisted drama. Granted, one successful battle did not win the war but damn did it make him feel good...

Meanwhile, Shield and company...

"What just happened?" Amp asked as the group arrived to find splatters of blood and abandoned bags of jewelry. The Afghan hound was confused but reassured by the apparent fact that someone powerful just took out three villains and scared off her arch-nemesis.

Shield and Wrench Wench were silent as they did their best to mentally reconstruct the scene without touching anything. The four supervillains were moving out of the jewelry store, likely casually walking given how they've been acting now that they "owned the city" and police response being as horribly lengthy as it was now. Then one went down, hard to tell which one without a body, shot in somewhere with a lot of circulation based on the amount of fresh blood on the sidewalk before the projectile augured itself into the pavement about a foot away. Wrench Wench carefully probed the ridiculously diminutive bullet hole with an unsharpened pencil and removed it with a bewildered shake of her head.

No bullet. Given how the shooter had absolutely no time to clean up the crime scene before he escaped, the only logical explanation was that the lack of a projectile was a feature of his weapon. But what weapon left a bullet hole but no bullet? It couldn't be a laser or other directed energy weapon, judging by how fresh the blood was they would have had to seen a heat wave or other telltale sign of a energy weapon. So what was it?

Whatever it was, it was in very efficient hands; one villain taken out of action almost immediately, then the other, likely Hypothermia if Crimson Screamer was the first victim, taking down swiftly afterwards. Venom and Panzer Beast would have been the last to go, no matter how much punch the stranger and their weapon had, it still would have taken a bit of concentrated effort to take down the armored nightmare and the towering brute. Yet one question remained, one that the evidence in front of them couldn't answer. Was this mysterious stranger an ally? Or, just as plausible, were they a spiteful agent of vengeance, lashing out at anything that reminded them of their tortured existence in the city?

Meanwhile, Brothers...

"COCKBLOCKER!" Short screamed with an appropriately unsettling shower of spittle.

Tall, the marginally more levelheaded brother, at least compared to his shorter sibling, gritted his teeth and shook his head before turning to look at Red Storm. The Russian bear did his best to not smile at the sudden turn of events. If there was anyone on the villains side that needed a reality check, it was those four. The baker couldn't help but wonder who the mysterious marksman was. A disgruntled police officer, some tech-savvy vigilante, maybe an ex-special forces type upset that his quiet retirement had been rudely interrupted? Who knew, what was certain was that the Brothers were having trouble getting a bead on him.

"Having trouble with the reception are we?" He asked with a smirk.

"We can only track people we have seen or have shown up on the news. If he didn't show up on the camera, we can't track him."

"So you're saying that if Wrench Wench had attacked us with a scoped rifle instead of charging in with a pair of revolvers, you would still be looking for her?"

"Yes... unfortunately." Tall admitted begrudgingly, reluctant to expose his weaknesses to any of their "toys." But no matter, they would find this interloper and then they would deal with him in an appropriate manner. No one challenged their control of things, no one...

Beginning of Week Five of the Aphrodite City Crisis...

"As that one song went, something's got to go wrong because I'm feeling way too damn good." Stanley Dewpond said to no one in particular as he set up the stove in his new diner. His VA paperwork was filed and oddly enough, he was already receiving benefits for establishing a new business. Why his VA paperwork was processed when every other form of communication was stone dead was a mystery he didn't even begin to understand. Perhaps it had something to do with what he overheard Crimson Screamer talking about before the bear shot him. Whoever was running things was actively muddling in all channels they were aware of, it sounded like the Veteran Affairs was one they weren't familiar with. Which... could mean a whole number of things, the honorably discharged Army cook wasn't sure which, if any of them, held water.

Another thing that surprised him was how quickly and how cheaply he managed to outright buy, not lease, the space he was building his diner in and all the appliances and equipment he needed. Surprised and saddened him, the original landlord sold the property for a steal in order to liquidate all his assets and flee the city while he could. Most of the home improvement stores were either holding "going out of business" sales or running out of stock so fast they might as well be empty. Hardly anyone was staying which made him briefly wonder if now was a good time to be opening a restaurant.

All that was left was to put everything together. It was at this moment he really missed Kimberly. Not only was she good at handyman things but it was also a place where she was at her happiest. What a pair they were; the Army cook and the Peace Corps carpenter. Still, what he wouldn't give to see her again in those tight denim jeans of hers... or just see her up and out of her hospital bed period. God, if he was this depressed just by having her being in the hospital... He shook his head, refusing to go down that road. This was not a comic book, if whoever orchestrating this nightmare wanted to shove Kim's body in a refrigerator to piss him off... well then fuck that bullshit about heroes being too highbrow to off a mass murderer; when those villains see him it will not be "Oh there's Stanley," it will be "Wraith of God incoming." Then again, to be crass, there weren't a lot of places they could find a refrigerator big enough to hold all of Kimberly...

Lost in thought and the repetition of setting up appliances, Dewpond almost didn't notice the tiger in the two-piece suit tapping on his window until he happened to be looking in that direction. Stand outside was a fit and trim well-dressed male tiger; Dr. Alexander Townes, the CEO of Ambrosia Biotech. Out of all the people the ursine cook expected to see today, Townes was not one of them.

"Can I help you?" He asked the other male while opening the door.

"Perhaps, are you the husband of Kimberly Dewpond? I have an offer you might be interested in hearing." The striped feline answered as he carefully sat down on an unfastened chair.

"I am Stanley Dewpond, what do you want to ask me about?" The bear asked curiously

"Do you know what Ambrosia Biotech does?"

"Yeah, I heard of you. You're the cosmetic biotech firm where supermodels go when they aren't 'pretty' enough. The place where they get biotech injections for breast enlargements, ass reductions, height increases and whatever else those vain bimbos want." Stanley replied with a roll of his eyes, unable to hide his distaste for Townes' main business and the clients it attracts.

The well-dressed tiger brushed back his long mane of black hair and didn't say a single thing to refute the blond bear's accusations. "Indeed we do, it was either that or super-soldier serum research and after our first and last client in that market horribly misrepresented himself, providing biological alternatives to silicon implants and invasive cosmetic surgeries seemed like a more responsible way to fund medically beneficial research like organ cloning, skin and fur regenerations, and the like. As for what this has to do with you and your wife, I am personally going around, visiting the families of victims in... well, let's be honest, your wife is still in fairly critical condition. I'm here to ask for your permission to transfer her to Ambrosia's research hospital where my doctors can treat Kim more easily."

"Is it-"

"Safe? In all honesty I cannot say one way or another Mr. Dewpond. We have not been able to move onto furson testing so I cannot say with full certainty what will happen but based on the data I have... I would say the odds are strongly in Kimberly's favor."

The male bear shook his head. "This just seems too easy."

The tiger laughed and smiled. "Easy like I'm a cheap villain in a bad horror movie or worse, a comic book? I understand and honestly I would be more worried if you did jump on the opportunity. Though on that count you don't have to worry, I love this city too much to betray it."

"Weren't you the first businessman to come back during the recession five years ago?"

Dr. Townes laughed again at this. "Has it been almost that long? It seems like yesterday bankers were telling me Aphrodite City was a bad idea. I would be bankrupt in a year they said. Well it's almost year five and in the vulgar words of the great comedian David Chappell, I'm still here bitches! And I am not about to run off now, not when my city needs me the most."

Stanley thought about this. He still had his doubts but on the other hand, the doctor's sincerity seemed hard to fake. "I'll have to think about it for a bit, is there a way I can get in contact with you?"

Alexander Townes had a business card in his hand so fast Stanley almost believed it was there the whole time. "My card, feel free to call and leave a message when you have reached a decision."

Dewpond felt the cardstock in between his fingers before asking the one last question on his mind. "What about security, what are you doing to keep... them, away from the Ambrosia Biotech campus?"

The good doctor's response was framed with a look of grim determination that Stanley knew only too well. "Don't worry about them, I am taking... steps to make sure they will not threaten any of the patients trusted into my care." He answered with a tone that told the other male that there would be a nasty surprise in store for Panzer Beast, Red Storm, and all the other psychos terrorizing the city if they tried attacking his hospital. Stanley found himself liking this guy already; maybe Kimberly would be all right in his hands after all.