Aphrodite City: Epilogue

By Psion

An Aphrodite City Story

All Rights Reserved

Immediately after the events of All Things Must End...

In most superhero stories, the demise of the villain generally concludes the story. The bad guy dies or is hauled off to prison and everyone else gets to live happily ever after. If only reality was quite as neat and tidy as it was in the comics. But no, the hand that had been dealt to Aphrodite City was not something that could be easily washed away with a few happy words or a scene transition. No, the end of the crisis was merely the beginning of an arguably more difficult process, healing... Both the city and its people had been dealt a horrific blow over four long months, removing that constant threat to their existence only allowed them to absorb the full extent of the damage. Industry was gone, infrastructure was in ruins, and the people left were either too few or too broken themselves to simply put things back together the way they were and carry on as if nothing had happened. What was once a glistening jewel of upstate New York had become little more then a shattered husk and a grim testament to the dark side of the Metabeing Age.

Faced with a situation regarded as hopeless by many of the survivors, most simply left the city. As the citizens departed in groups of all shapes and sizes, no one paid any attention to five seemingly random females that had been bound together by fate. By the time specialists within the FBI taskforce had pieced together profiles for Shield, Amp, Express Panda, Pvt. Doll, and Wrench Wench, the girls had quit their jobs, packed their bags, tied up remaining personal loose ends, and crowded their depowered bodies together in a clunky pick-up truck with an old camper trailer. It wasn't the last time the world would hear of any of them but it was the last time the world would see the Aphrodite Five as the Brothers had made them...

Gonzales, two months after the Aphrodite City Crisis...

Gonzales was running as fast as his short rodent legs could carry through the back alleys of St. Louis. He thought that by taking a detour and laying low in the city, he could avoid pursuit and wait things out until it was safe to cross the border back into Mexico. Yet as soon as he started asking around and making waves, she found him. Not Mentalrix despite this being "her" city; no this was someone else, someone new; someone vaguely female weasel/ferret person with a bulky metal chest plate, a hockey mask, a meaty sledgehammer, and a seemingly unrelenting vendetta against him.

Lost in the unfamiliar city, the Latino mouse took a wrong turn and found himself staring down a dead end. Saucer-like ears quivered as he picked up the steady "clang-clang-clang" of metal boots walking across the pavement. Damn it, she wasn't even running. It was like that bad cartoon with the frantic cat and the patient skunk between the two of them.

As the mask-clad visage of his mysterious assailant turned the corner and stared at him with an unfeeling gaze, the polished steel of her head. The masked mustelid took one measured step towards him, then another, and then swung. Cold metal slammed into his side of his head; blacking out his vision as the warmth of life began to slip away from his body. So cold, why was everything suddenly so cold...

Panzer Beast...

"And now for our latest update on the country-wide manhunt for the supervillains responsible for nearly four months of chaos in Aphrodite City, St. Louis police have found and successfully identified the body of Ernesto De Calor, also known as the pyrokinetic Gonzales, last night. A fastfood clerk on his way to work found Ernesto early yesterday morning; a still unknown individual had apparently beaten the male to death with a sledgehammer. More on this story as it develops but for now Lucas has our seven-day forecast." The anchorwoman reported; her audience could almost see the smile that was fighting to break through her stoic delivery.

Ralph Casing did his best to not appear worried at the news. Gonzales murdered, Crimson Screamer seemingly disappearing off the face of the earth, Venom dying in prison only for his body to vanish from the morgue, the Brothers' old gang was falling apart like a house of cards. Red Storm seemed to have the best idea at first, disappear in Silicon City, but when the bovine bull formerly known as Panzer Beast saw what became of the ex-leader of their gang... Well in a sense Ralph shouldn't have been surprised, the immigrant baker was always whining on and on about what they were doing so it shouldn't have been a surprise to find that Boris had volunteered for the Peace Corps, putting his Townes-enhanced strength to work building homes, schools, and hospitals in the metabeing-scarred ruins of former North Korea. Blegh, like hell Ralph was going to leave the country to be a goodie-goodie overseas, that never got anyone anything. Besides, one good thing about losing his powers was that hardly anyone was going to recognize him as Panzer Beast...

Once upon a time before the Brothers turned him into the brutish, muscular Panzer Beast, Casing was a scrawny bull struggling to become a bodybuilder. Nothing he tried ever worked; not helping the matter was the fact that he kept getting kicked out of every gym he applied for a membership to, god females could be so damn finicky. Sexual harassment his bony ass, they wanted him or at least they would once he finally got his training regime in order... And then the Brothers appeared and offered him everything he wanted. Losing it all when Red Storm turned on the two foxes like a rat bastard was a setback but the overall experience opened his eyes to a wider world of possibilities. So what if his clothes currently hung on him like a baggy "thug" even with a belt? This was Silicon City, while most supers got their powers the "normal ways," there was also a small black market for things like budget power armors, "surplus" super soldier serums, magic talismans, and the like. It was a Paper Shop for anyone that wanted superpowers. You just had to know where to look...

Sitting in the dismal Lucky Strike diner with only a cup of coffee for company, Ralph watched the world go by as he waited for a message that suddenly buzzed on his phone. The text was brief, all it said was a time, an address, and a confirmation for his meeting with the black market bio-technician Michael Goldstem, responsible for no less then three of the last champions of the local underground metabeing pit fights. Yep, if there anyone who could help him recapture Panzer Beast's lost glory, it would be Michael...

For someone who used mind-numbingly advanced biological science to turn people into elite, prize-winning killing machines, Michael turned out to be a surprisingly unassuming red fox male. Average build, average height, looked to be in his early thirties, blue eyes, and short-cropped black hair; nothing about this guy would have stood out at the local supermarket or hardware store. Which, the mentally slow bull eventually realized, must have been the point as he looked at the freelance mad scientist meeting with him in front of the old theater downtown after dark. Police were probably pulling their hair out trying to find a "perfectly average" red fox male that only looked like half a dozen different people.

"Mr. Casing?" Black asked politely, his voice as smooth as bourbon.

"Yep, you Goldstem?"

"That would be my name. So tell me Mr. Casing, what motivates you to seek out my services? Fame, fortune, or revenge?"

"All the above. Let's just say I had it all once; power, money, and hot chicks. But then things happened and I was no longer on top because I made one mistake, I let myself depend on someone else for my powers. This time I'm going to do it right and make sure the strength is my own, which is why I want to talk to someone like you. You make guys strong."

The fox crossed his arms and smiled. "Yep, that's what I do alright. I just got one question I need to get out of the way though. By any chance would you happen to be one of the guys from Aphrodite City everyone's looking for?"

Ralph hesitated for a second then returned with a question of his own. "So what if I am? My money's still good for the down payment isn't it? Beside, you're the male behind Omega Predator, you should be one to talk."

"Ah yes, Omega... God I outdid myself with him. Okay fair point, I'll accept your offer... Panzer Beast?" Michael affirmed; his last two words as much a question as they were a statement.

"Hell yeah! Look out Silicon City, Panzer Beast is making a comeback!" Ralph replied enthusiastically, fighting to keep his voice down as he was soon led to the fox's secret laboratory.

Goldstem's laboratory turned out to be an old factory in the industrial district. The abandoned metal fabrication plant had been converted over into one part gymnasium and fighting arena, and one part mad scientist's genetics laboratory. Inside what the fox referred to as the "consultation room," posters of the geneticist's three greatest successes. There was Bruno, an utterly enormous "warhorse" of an equine positively ripped with muscle. Jack Rabbit, an ungodly agile lapine kickboxer. And of course, the infamous Omega Predator, legendary in the most brutal arenas for how he savagely finished his opponents... by introducing them to his digestive tract. Ralph couldn't help but feel a sudden chill as he stared at the picture of the fat porcine brute, the gruesome glutton staring back at him with a hungry glint. Guess it was true what they said, pigs would eat their own mothers if given half a chance.

"Changing your mind about Omega Predator are we?" Goldstem asked with a sly smirk.

"What? Oh no, fuck that fatty. Just that... is he just as freaky in person?"

"Surprisingly no. He's actually quite nice outside of the ring, likes pets, chess, and his husband... the latter being the cause of much disappointment in a pair of new fans he picked up over the last few months. But enough about him, what about the other two? Do you want to be swift like Jack, strong like Bruno, or perhaps we could-"

"Bruno, Bruno all the way. I mean just look at those guns. When I was Panzer Beast back in Aphrodite City, I wasn't even half as ripped as that awesome monster and I still tore vault doors off their hinges when I was robbing banks. I can't imagine how strong he must be. To say nothing about what a hit with the ladies he must be with that damn male cannon." Ralph replied, becoming increasingly laidback with a fellow he had only just met.

"Bruno once benched well over a thousand pounds... and broke the damn weight machine in the process. So even I have no idea how strong he really is." Mike replied nonchalantly. His eyebrow twitched ever so slightly when the topic of Aphrodite City came up but the movement was so minute the other male thought he was imagining things. "I must admit it's nice when the client wants to work with a template, you would be my fifth customer in the last two months to want a standardized inject plan." He mused idly as the telephone on his desk rang. His eyes went wide with joy as he recognized the number on the caller ID.

"Sorry, I have to take this." He apologized before picking up the phone. "Hey there! Still resting up from your last big fight? No, good because you will not believe who I have here in my office right now. Yep, he's here right now, your favorite idol. I don't know, I'll ask him." He chatted idly before cuffing the phone and turning back to Ralph. "It's one of my previous clients, he's a former Hedonist that always looked up to you, wanted me to make him as strong as you were. He wants to meet with you and get your autograph. Is that alright with you?"

Flattered to the point where his ego trumped his common sense, Ralph agreed wholeheartedly. The two then went back to discussing his augmentation schedule, possible complications, as well as business terms. The bull only half listened to what the freelance bio-technician was saying, all that mattered to him was that not only was he going to get his strength back, but he was going to end up even stronger then he was before. This was great, this was going to be so awesome that the excitement had almost made him forget that he was supposed to meet a fan before he left. Fortunately, Goldstem seemed more then happy to politely remind him, even lead him out into the arena where new gladiators would test themselves against the trainer in sparring bouts. Standing in the bleachers above the fighting pit, set almost a full story below the seats, Casing looked in front of him for the mysterious fanboy. He was so intent on looking forward, he didn't see Michael Goldstem, fight trainer and bio-technician without peer, run up and shoved him into the fighting pit below...

The bony redheaded bovine woke up with a minor headache, rising up to find himself in a steel cage in one corner of Goldstem's arena. Standing right outside of the metal pen, blocking the only exit that he could see, was a large, blond Afghan hound that gave the captive bull an unsettling sense of déjà vu. Standing at a mind-numbing six-foot-five with a plump, thunder-thigh figure squeezed into a set of biker's leathers and weighing in at around four hundred pounds if he had to take a guess, his captor watched him intently with a pair of familiar blue eyes. He remembered staring into those eyes once... when they were full of fear. From a wrought metal chair above them, Goldstem watched with rapt interest.

"Hey Mikey, what gives? I thought there was supposed to be a fan that wanted an autograph." The bull asked nervously, taking a step back and looking frantically for a way out of the fighting pit he had been thrown in.

"Why Ralphy, I'm giving you exactly what you wanted, a chance to be alone with Amp and get into her pants. Don't you still recognize her? Course, she goes by the name Valkyria now. As for the Hedonist, well there was none, I just needed an excuse to get you to stick around long enough for Valkyria to get here." The geneticist replied nonchalantly from his perch above the arena, like it should have been obvious what was going on.

"What did you do to her? Why are you doing this?" Casing shouted as Goldstem's hand hovered dangerously close to the lever that controlled the cage that kept him separate from Valkyria, the leather-clad female continuing to eye him like an animal at the zoo before feeding time.

"Oh you should have a rough idea what I did to her and why. Silicon City may be my stomping grounds but I planned on moving to Aphrodite City to retire from this business, even sent my wife and son ahead of me... about a week before your bastard benefactors made their debut. My family is still alive, thank God, but what they went through... I should have been there. So, I paid some people who make it their business to find things to quietly find out what happened to the Aphrodite Five." The fox began, his expression growing dark and brooding before a cruel smile crossed his lips and he continued with his spiel.

"When I finally encountered the girls formerly known as Amp, Express Panda, Shield, and Private Doll, we both had needs to fill. They needed to be made stronger to face a world they could no longer close their eyes to, I needed to do something to help me sleep better at night. I get my beauty rest knowing that I took four of your favorite Spandex Barbies and gave them teeth. As for Valkyria in particular... well, funny that we discussed Omega Predator, when I heard what repeatedly happened to this poor girl I figured that she deserved the best and Omega IS my masterpiece, even his husband Bruno thinks so. Heh... oh the challenge it was to weight-train her and teach her to fight. You would think that after you did such an excellent job making her batshit crazy she would be all for turning into a vorephilic sumo wrestler or something. But no, she was horribly squeamish when the conversation turned to Omega's infamous appetite. Fortunately your loser friend, the Scarlet Shriek or whatever his name was, did a good job jumpstarting the fire in her belly last night. He's another one that got his wish to get into her pants... and look how marvelously she fills them out now. But enough chitchat. Good-bye Ralph, bon appetite Valkyria." Michael concluded with a little wave as he gave the lever by his side a good yank.

Oiled gears lifted the gate up to point where the ravenous Afghan hound could squeeze in to get at her archnemesis. Ralph turned and tried to dodge, but Sonya Winters made sure to keep her huge, ponderous figure between her opponent and the open gateway. Azure eyes glistened with a mad mix of anger and hunger, this was her vengeance and she was not going to be denied.

Once she had him cornered, the female warrior elbowed him in the ribs. Bones cracked as the scrawny bull was thrown back against the wall. Ralph floundered in the melee that ensued, even when he was outmatched as Panzer Beast the odds were never stacked this badly against him. The towering mountain of a vengeful canine female beat on him like a cheap microwave. Knee bash to the crotch, haymaker to the back of the head, then hoisting the bull up by his collar just to punch him in the face repeatedly. At some point the blows shifted from his face to his lower abdomen, sending sharp jolts of pain through his liver and pancreas, before she threw him against the concrete wall and knelt down to pick him up again.

Pushing his tormentor away and staggering back, Ralph did his best to get into a fighting stance just as Goldstem decided it would be really funny if there were some appropriate music playing in the background. Soon the arena started to echo with the sound of the Mortal Kombat soundtrack as bull and canine squared off and got ready to begin again. This time Casing was determined to get a few good attacks in... and might as well have been hitting her with a feather duster for all it was doing him. Blows to the head were either swatted aside or shrugged off by a woman with pure rage flowing through her veins, punches and kicks to the gut discovered just enough belly fat to absorb the kinetic impact. Meanwhile she kept beating him with those beefy arms of hers; landing blows on both his skull and abdomen that hurt like he was hit by a truck.

Coughing blood and fighting through the sharp, throbbing pain of having his head beaten like a drum, the male bovine looked up at his opponent and was disheartened to find that she was barely winded. Indeed, if he didn't know better he'd have said she looked almost bored... and disappointed to discover Ralph wasn't all he was cracked up to be without his powers. From his cobbled-together throne above the arena, Michael Goldstem uttered the only two words anyone said once the fists started flying, "Finish him!"

Bull rushing and pinning her prey against the arena wall, Sonya slammed her fists down towards his skull and broke both of his horns clean off. As the bony protrusions clattered on the floor like fine china, the canine lifted her meal above her head. Stretching her mouth wide like some kind of mutant python, the Afghan hound proceeded to swallow her defeated foe feet first. Bruised, battered, and beaten, Ralph Casing's resistance was as weak as it was short-lived but Valkyria was determined to take her time, savoring every second he rubbed against her tongue and making a big show of letting her meal slowly slide down into her greedy gullet. From his perch above, Mike smiled as he recorded the final moments of the fight on a camcorder. Val would want this saved for posterity and to show her friends the foul evil imprisoned within her girth. By the time she began to close her mouth around his head and consign him to oblivion with one last gulp, Ralph had just enough strength to realize the poetic justice of his fate. He was always fighting to get into Amp's pants, now he was about to become a permanent resident...

As the bull turned into a squirming bulge inside the canine's gut, Valkyria declared victory with a loud belch and a proud belly slap. Finally, it was over. The nightmare was cornered, beaten, and sentenced to a leisurely digestion. Come Friday night's battle of the bands he would be gone, a casualty of that old adage "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." Until then she was going to just kick back and let her stomach pound him into submission. Thanking Michael for his help, the Afghan hound headed home to her studio apartment in Silicon City with her bloated belly riding up her long-suffering t-shirt.

Home in Silicon City wasn't much, especially not on a club musician's pay, but it had everything she needed. A working TV, small bathroom, small kitchen, and most of the remaining space given over to a Californian King mattress and reinforced steel frame, her one true indulgence. Laying down and looking not unlike a beached whale, the rising dome of her belly towering above her like a small mountain, Sonya smiled and rested a hand on her groaning stomach and listened to Ralph's occasional, gradually weakening struggles in between the labored sounds of digestion.

Stripping off her clothes and shifting her position to better watch television while she lazed about like a couch potato in her underwear, the Afghan hound picked up her remote and turned on the news. Time to see if there were any new updates to the manhunt before she channel surfed and lost herself in trash television.

"Now for the latest on the Aphrodite manhunt. The SCPD are confirming initial sightings of Ralph 'Panzer Beast' Casing, Jonathan 'Crimson Screamer' McQuinn, and Alexander 'Hypothermia' Sharps. As of right now, local authorities are collaborating with members of the FBI and DSA but I am told there have been no further sightings of Casing or McQuinn. Police are still investigating reports that Sharps is in the area."

"Mmmmmm." Sonya contemplated darkly with a lick of her lips as she gave her belly a quick slap. The mound quivered in protest, was that movement just basic inertia or was the bull still alive in there in spite of dwindling oxygen and a harsh acid bath? The canine found that ultimately she didn't care, Winters was more interested in debating whether she should go out on the hunt one more time to try and complete the set or let someone else have the pleasure.

Shaking her head, the engorged musician decided to go to sleep and let someone else have the glory of slaying the "Last Villain of Aphrodite City." She had already proved she could finally pull her own weight, two meatheads down wasn't anything to sneer at especially given how damn hard to kill they used to be. Arm draped lazily over her slowly shrinking abdomen, Sonya fell into a wonderful dream where she was eating the world's largest hamburger....

Meanwhile, the Scarlet Countess ...

He was late, the turkey hen concluded with a shake of her head. Ever since the loss of her palace in Aphrodite City, the Scarlet Countess had been doing her best to lay low and try to slowly rebuild her empire. At first she thought her chance encounter with the Canadian mercenary Hypothermia was an incredible stroke of luck. Eventually she realized the snow leopard was too unstable to be reliable. Not to mention all the attention that still surrounded him, associating herself with him was probably going to turn into a mistake.

After waiting another ten minutes for him in the alley they had agreed to meet in, the brown-feathered turkey hen returned back to her new pleasure palace. It was hardly the grand opulence she had back in Aphrodite City, a refurbished Victorian home still undergoing renovations in the city's historical district, but all great empires had to start somewhere. Walking in and nodding approvingly to her surviving lieutenant as the chicken hen "saw" to new acquisitions in the kitchen, the two plump slavers talked between themselves for a moment, discussing plans for expanding their Silicon City operations before the Countess retired to her room for the night.

Walking into her lavish bedroom, a strong arm quietly shut the sturdy oaken door behind her as the concealed intruder pressed something sharp and metallic up against the avian's throat. "Scream and I kill you." A vaguely familiar voice threatened ominously.

Turning slowly, the Scarlet Countess found herself squeezed belly to belly with a female Doberman with her black hair styled in a sharp bob and clad in an unfamiliar costume. There was only one person it could be but at the same time...

"Shield?" The round villain asked softly as the fallen Aphrodite City heroine continued to glare at her with a look that sent chills down the hen's spine. It wasn't just hatred, there was something else in there. Hunger? Psychotic insanity? Regardless, it was obvious the canine bitch had something broken inside. Meaning...

"What did you do to Hypothermia?"

The former cop belched and smiled wickedly. "It was hard being the one the others looked up to for support." She began absently. "Between having my own demons thanks to people like you and fighting to keep the others from falling apart. I just couldn't take the idea of any of you escaping to cause trouble anyone else. So I started hunting..."

The Countess's blood ran cold as she finally felt something squirm helplessly inside Shield's swollen abdomen. For a brief moment, she could just make out the impression of a feline face pressed against the canine's stretched gut. Then Shield's stomach audibly churned and the image faded, but not before a muffled cry for help could be heard from within the distended intruder.

"I started hunting... and found I worked up quite an appetite in the process. Guess I can't fault Goldstem for making me into a monster; he only gave me what I wanted. And all I wanted was to be the thing that destroyed you and the others utterly." She explained with a cruel grin, licking her prey's feathered cheek with a predatory hunger.

The Countess opened her mouth in a short-lived attempt to scream. An ultimately futile gesture as her attacker promptly stabbed her twice in the chest and stretched her canine jaw over the avian's head, first stab was with the knife that was held against her throat then with a sharp-pronged implement the turkey's mind didn't immediately register until her blackened surroundings became slimy... Fork, she had just been stabbed with a knife and fork on her way down into a lunatic ex-heroine's seemingly bottomless gullet.

Deborah Autumns smiled as the slaver finished sliding down into the oblivion of her gut. Kidnapping people off the streets... selling them like livestock... feeling the Countess succumb to the biological forces of digestion was satisfying for more reasons beyond simple sustenance. As her belly happily groaned and churned, the blimp-like Doberman licked her lips and smiled as she imagined her foe writhing in pain, fighting for breath, until either suffocation or harsh stomach acids claimed the villainous hen. Her nose twitched with the scent of chicken as the Countess's loyal henchwoman came upstairs after forcing the thralls into the basement for the night, completely unaware of the lurking danger. The sound of heavy footfalls was music to Deborah's ears, a nice fat hen for a third course and her without a deep fryer. Oh well, time to improvise....

The SCPD had investigated many cases since the city's founding but this was definitely one of the more unusual ones. Typically when they stumble upon a flesh peddler's lair, the captives are the ones missing. In this case however, the owner of the house and her "secretary" were nowhere to be found. Once they were freed from the basement; the prisoners all described hearing a struggle upstairs, the chicken hen screaming for mercy from some unidentified attacker, then something heavy stomping across the floor on its way out the backdoor. Examining the upstairs revealed a kitchen in turmoil and a back door that looked as if it had something far too large for its meager dimensions forcibly smashed through it.

Standing in the middle of the mess in the kitchen, the SCPD detective did his best to try and make sense of the scene. If he was following the series of events correctly, the fight upstairs had come down into the kitchen. The slaver's assistant had been dragged down, her head beaten against the polished granite countertop a few times judging by the traces of blood on the counter edge, and then things started becoming muddled. A massive stewpot, presumably used to cook some kind of gruel for the slaves, had been put on the stove. The faint scent of poultry broth lingering in the pot brought more questions then answers, what assailant found time in the middle of a beating to start cooking? Something was very wrong here and the detective wasn't sure what...

Waddling to the home of someone she knew wouldn't turn her away; an almost impossibly "pregnant" Deborah couldn't help but smile as she rested a hand against her enormous belly. Haru was back home in Japan, she wasn't exactly 'well' but she was finding a peace of sorts as a masked street avenger. Samantha Summers was a similar story, after having Goldstem augment her body and commissioning a suit of power armor from Rachel, the she-bear took off to go look for trouble and lose herself in visiting some senseless violence upon the kind of people the Brothers would look up to. Every so often she would send the others a post card from places like Mexico, Central Africa, and parts of Asia.

As for their old foes, if it weren't truly over now, it would be soon. Gonzales was murdered in a back alley in St. Louis, possibly by Rachel, Venom was stabbed to death in prison, Red Storm had been left to his own devices after the girls found out he had volunteered for the Peace Corps, Hypothermia and the Countess were soon going to be turned into padding for the mother of all doughnut bellies, all that was left was Panzer Beast and the Crimson Screamer. Time to check on Sonya Winters and see if there was a story there.

Slowly walking through the hallways of Sonya's apartment building, the Doberman stopped in front the other canine's studio flat and knocked on the door. At first there was no answer but as Autumns knocked a second time, someone audibly groaned from within. "Alright, I'm coming. I'm coming." Sonya grumbled as the sound of many chains and locks being undone echoed from within the sturdy barrier.

Seeing who it was at the door, the Afghan hound's mood immediately changed. Her face promptly shifted from grumpy that she had been abruptly awaken to genuinely happy to see Debby before settling on embarrassed as she eyed her guest's battleship proportions before looking down at her own. Neither of them had to say anything, they both knew the other had privately asked for something "special" from Goldstem in addition the augmentations they openly shared with Samantha and Haru.

The rotund rocker stepped back a few feet to let her friend squeeze through the apartment door, the other zeppelin-like female bumping the door shut then reaching behind her to redo the locks as both canines looked at one another. Not a word was exchanged between them at first; the two survivors of Aphrodite City were both perfectly content to just stand and take in each other's scent. Panzer Beast and Crimson Screamer's scents filled the room as the violent chemical reactions within Sonya's stomach forced a bubble of gas out of her mouth in a sinister-sounding belch. And like a macabre yawn, smelling the half-digested remains of the Afghan Hound's two reoccurring nightmares incited a similar reaction in Deborah, unleashing a breath that stank with the scents of feline, turkey, and chicken.

The Doberman smiled sinisterly as they finished soaking in the aroma of each other's half-digested meal. "I guess this means it's finally over." She declared, finding the words didn't give her quite as much comfort as she thought they would. Sonya's face fell as well, both females clearly thinking the same thing but trying hard to not let it show. For a moment neither spoke. Then, as their stomachs briefly groaned in stereo, the Afghan hound gestured to her bed with a wry grin. Deborah smiled sheepishly and nodded; joining the other female for an intimate night curled up against one another, beginning the slow process of turning seven into two. There would be plenty of time to figure out what to do with their lives in the weeks to come... and if nothing else they had both proven to be quite gluttonous when it came to taking care of vermin of the more sapient variety.

Wrench Wench...

The TIG welder buzzed like an angry insect as the white-furred mink toiled away in her new workshop in one of the rougher parts of Silicon City, fusing shaped pieces of metal together in her latest project. One would think a female living by herself in a neighborhood with a higher then average instance of break-ins and robberies wouldn't be a particularly intelligent move but Rachel Arsenel found that she couldn't function any other way anymore. Besides, after the first few failed assaults on her person, she had started to acquire a reputation as someone that tended to only call 911 when her attacker needs an ambulance.

Since Aphrodite City, things had changed for the raven-haired mink mechanic. Try as she might, she could not escape the nightmares. Flashbacks to close calls, desperate battles, and victories snatched away at the last second by malicious man-children with god-like powers. Even with the Brothers destroyed and the villains that served them slain... some days it was a fight to keep from pulling the blankets over her head and pretend the world outside her window didn't exist.

Mentalrix was a great help in introducing Rachel to the local vigilante community, a group of people who may not understand what was going through the mink's head but provided an unquenchable need for her technical expertise that helped keep her busy. And helped keep her in more ideas then she could possibly find the materials for. Such as her latest project...

Pausing long enough to scarf down her fourth donut in that hour, oh how hard she had fallen into that bad habit, Arsenel took a weighted step back to appreciate her masterpiece. It seemed like ages ago she tried making a suit of power armor to try and stop the evil plaguing Aphrodite City. Now, here in Silicon City, she decided to try again. Unlike Aphrodite City, there was enough of an active high-tech industry here that she had no trouble finding appropriate parts for her latest creation... Fix-It.

Fix-It was a large, heavy-duty exoskeleton, built not unlike her creator after she discovered the Dough Girls and how easily their pastries made her troubles briefly go away when chased down with a nice bottle of scotch. Designed after a lot of thinking about what happened in Aphrodite City, Fix-It was effectively a civil engineering suit. While it had things that could be used as weapons and certainly had the strength to use her old Wrench Wench hammer, it was meant to address something that always weighed heavily on her mind; a lot of people in Aphrodite City died from simple overexposure to the cold. Not gang violence or supervillain attacks, just simple cases of getting too goddamn cold because they had no heat or even basic shelter after their homes had been turned into rubble. Ironic when she thought about it, of all the things she had trouble letting go of, it was the time she found someone that had frozen to death in Aphrodite City on her watch....

Stanley Dewpond...

Stanley Dewpond tapped his fingers against the oaken chair as he sat down for his appointment with the court appointed therapist. A purse-snatcher, of all the things it had to be, it was one little punk stealing something that didn't belong to him bellyaching when because the brown bear had broken his nose. It should have been an open-shut case but no, someone saw an opportunity to push an agenda. Next thing he knew the incident had turned into "disturbed survivor of Aphrodite City almost goes postal." Stanley silently swore right there, if he ever found out who started this waste of time, he'd show them what it REALLY meant to go postal.

Which is why he was here, at the Lakeview Home for the Disturbed, having a meeting with the psychiatrist Dr. Honeycomb. To say he was surprised to see a short Shetland mare walk in when he was expecting another bear was an understatement.

"Ah good, that is the normal first reaction when people see me. Mr. Dewpond?" The petite equine asked with a friendly smile.

"Hello Dr. Honeycomb, you'll forgive me if I don't say what a pleasure this is." The bear deadpanned.

"Humorless, frustrated, probably wondering if I will ever stop monologuing my observations. Sounds perfectly reasonable so far." Honeycomb mused as she took a seat across from Stanley. "So, why do you think you're here?"

"Because I caught a little punk trying to take something that doesn't belong to him and broke his nose because he wouldn't stop struggling."

"Hmmm, perhaps a bit more violent then necessary but hardly inefficient. Why do you think this was a problem?"

"Because someone believes I'm a crazy lunatic after surviving what happened in Aphrodite City... stupid idiots, I just want to be left alone with my wife and my restaurant. Is that crazy?"

"No it's not. But I'm curious. The plaintiff referred to your service in Igoroth as to why you are unstable, not what happened in Aphrodite City. Why is it you focus on Aphrodite City and not Igoroth? To be fair, both of them were a particularly nasty business in their own ways."

Stanley scowled in contemplation for a moment. "I guess with Igoroth I was trained to expect it or at least could rationalize it. Either way, it's not like I saw much of it, spent most of my time cooking in an aid station kitchen while I was there."

"And yet in an aid station you would see wounded civilians arriving for medical attention or for the first hot meal they had in weeks. You made comfort food for people who needed all the comforting they could get. I also read the part about where you and your fellows in the 41st Quartermasters posted at Aid Station Zulu fought off a large mob of..." She doubled checked her notes. "Mutant zombies?"

"Yeah, but that was different."

"How so? Sounds pretty traumatic to me, genetically engineered horrors clamoring to break through the perimeter fence and none of you had the support weapons that could have easily wiped them all out."

"Because I guess it's easy to buy into the whole flag-waving 'American paladin' spiel when your enemy really does act like Satan's son. That's how I coped with it, because not only were we told that the Blackstone Syndicate was evil, they really WERE evil and we were keeping them from exporting their crap back home."

"So you rationalized it, better over there then strike here with a vengeance. Which in turn leads to what bothered you about Aphrodite City isn't it? Seeing the cruelty in Igoroth occurring in the States with no help from Blackstone? Sadly, cruelty is everywhere Mr. Dewpond."

Stanley wordlessly nodded in agreement, the wheels quietly turning in his head. Cruelty is everywhere. So will he and the other heroes of Aphrodite City then...

Rik-Tah Fortress City 21, overlooking the frigid Pennsylvanian wastes...

In one of many fortresses overlooking the latest obstinate front resisting the expansion of their multi-dimensional empire, the Rik-Tah managed an army of robots and alien mercenaries to solidify their conquest of this new world, soldiers of fortune ranging from "comic book-like" supervillains and amoral cyberfantasy adventurers to techno-organic dragons and evil wizards wielding digital sorcery. The human rebels had proven to be particularly stubborn on this world; possessing a particular talent for setting even the most carefully laid plans wildly awry. Such a problem required the Rik-Tah consider talent of all sorts including some they wouldn't otherwise... Hence the latest additions currently coming out of the stronghold's cloning laboratory.

Even inside his sensory depravation tank, the human slave telepath could still see him as the bat anthro was finally decanted from The Vats. Confused, likely violently recalling the final moments of his old body, his senses starting to return to him as he lay naked on the floor covered in embryonic slime; Venom, the hero-hunting technosavant. The first and hopefully the last of the Aphrodite City scum to cheat death. The others could be brought back as well, but the Rik-Tah overseers in charge of assessing the thugs that participated in that clusterfuck were unsure if the rest of them could be used for anything other then "tactically disposable assets" aka "meat shields."

Brandon White, the human psychic trapped in the depravation tank, could think of a few uses for assholes of Aphrodite City's caliber, most of those things involving giving them a cloned body with a sex change and a pair of double-D's before shoving them out to get a job as a go-go dancer. Still, at least the decision to resurrect the likes of Panzer Beast or Crimson Screamer hadn't been finalized, seeing Venom come out of the cloning vats was bad enough. An obsessed anarchist of some sorts, spewing anti-superhero gibberish that frankly made no sense to Brandon, and unfortunately a genius with technology; the fruit bat was an exceptionally dangerous fruitcake. The only two things really going against him besides his overinflated ego were his dependence on technology and his power armor, two things that prompted the psychic to check his files and... yep, default marching orders were to use Venom as a distraction to keep anti-armor and tech-warfare groups away from more valuable targets. Reading those directions, a smile crossed Brandon's lips. Perhaps allowing the villains of Aphrodite City to cheat death might be not so bad after all...