Epilogue 2 – Deepening Shadow
“I have my doubts, certainly; it’s almost as if she’s given up on really being a hero already,” Marceline said, cell phone pressed to her ear as she walked slowly back and forth on the catwalk above the gym floor. She paused for a few moments. “Yes, quite embarrassing really…”
That was all Shadow Lynx managed to catch as she leaped from the top of the uneven bars and disappeared into the shadows, re-emerging on the other side of the large room. She heard the words, felt the shame and anger, but pushed it away; she had to focus. She felt as if she were made of lead, and as she grabbed at the next bar, suspended a good fifteen feet above the floor, gravity tended to agree, the weights attached to her body pulling her downward, threatening to cause her grip to falter on the bar as she swung around it. Somehow, she managed to complete the swing, released at just the right moment, and landed on the ‘X’ on the floor below, grunting as her heels thumped onto the padding, heavy with all the extra weight upon her torso and limbs.
Shadow Lynx panted, sweat pouring over her mostly naked form, wiping her eyes before taking up a bottle of water, gulping it down in a few short seconds. Marceline had been livid when Shadow Lynx had returned from her failed attempt to stop that doll-faced woman, especially when she had finally forced the details of what exactly had happened out of Shadow Lynx. Getting into another bottle of water, Shadow Lynx shifted uncomfortably in the tight harness, her skin still tingling from whatever it was that latex catgirl had hit her with…well, that or Marceline’s earlier tongue-lashing.
“Get that gas mask on! Begin the routine from the beginning again!” Marceline called from overhead, not bothering to remove the phone from her ear. With her other hand, she raised a small remote, aiming it at Shadow Lynx.
Around her neck, Shadow Lynx felt the inflatable collar expand another couple of millimeters, forcing her to gasp, some of the water dribbling down her chin. She swayed on her feet, using the table to support herself. “Please, Marceline, can’t I just have a few minutes to rest?”
“You’ve taken the night off already, it seems to me!” Marceline snapped, glowering down at Shadow Lynx, her eyes hidden by the light reflecting off her glasses. “You were supposed to clean up that situation and bring in this ‘Dollface’, but you bungled that up and decided to enjoy a BDSM show instead! Is that what you’d rather be doing, Lynx? Tell me, I can start the rebranding campaign right now; I have contacts in the adult entertainment field! How does Submissive Lynx sound? No? How about Slutty Lynx?”
“Madre de dios, no! Calm down, Marceline!” Shadow Lynx gasped. She hadn’t heard her manager quite this angry before. “Fine, fine, I’ll do as you say. I want to be a heroine, Marceline, nothing like what you’re suggesting, okay? I’m only human, you know?”
“But you have to be better than that, Lynx,” Marceline said, her voice more of a cold fire now. “You have to be the best there is. You have to surpass Pink Pussy and all those newcomers that have shown up the last few days. You must be on the very top of the mountain. Understood? I won’t accept anything but the best, and you’ve fallen far from that much too quickly.”
“I won’t fail again, Marceline,” Shadow Lynx said, picking up the gas mask from the table, her breathing already strained, but strangely she was becoming used to it in the few training sessions she had already gone through with the gear. As she worked the straps free of the tangle they had gotten themselves into, Shadow Lynx had to admit that she felt a strange desire for the mask that hadn’t been there before. It had to have been whatever that latex-clad catgirl had used on her; the leather weight harness rubbed her body in ways it hadn’t before, and the moisture on her skin between her legs wasn’t all from sweat. Frowning, Shadow Lynx worked the gas mask over her head, brought it over her face, and then tugged the straps tight until her restricted breathing required even more effort. She breathed in as deeply as she could manage, letting it out slowly in her newly narrowed and dimmed field of vision.
A faintly flowery scent came through the mask’s filters, mixing with the normal rubber aroma she had expected. That was new. Maybe Marceline had actually listened to one of Shadow Lynx’s earlier complaints, about how she didn’t care for the rubber and sweat smell that constantly intensified throughout her workouts.
There was a certain comfort in the isolation of the mask, but Shadow Lynx couldn’t decide whether that had been there before the events at the warehouse or not. What was there, though, was her hatred of Pink Pussy, and now a hatred of that catgirl in the black latex outfit. Spinning on her heel, she returned to the beginning of the course, took another long, strained breath through the mask, savoring the new floral scent, and let it out slowly, and finally took up a runner’s starting pose. Her vision was already blurred through the fogged lenses, but she didn’t really need her vision; she had run the course in pitch dark before, remembered every inch of it.
“I really do hope that you mean what you say, Lynx. I’m having my doubts, and so are some of your backers,” Marceline said at last, her gaze cold. “But, if you are serious about this, I will do everything I can to make sure you succeed. I’m considering some modifications to your costume, but we’ll have to see what the designer thinks. Anyway, start!”
Costume changes? Again? The one now was already tighter and a bit more revealing. As Shadow Lynx surged forward from the start, she heard Marceline’s heels clacking on the walkway, heard her return to speaking with the person on the phone. “No, no, she’s properly motivated, she just needs to stop being so lazy. Hmmm…yes, I agree, a proper win would do wonders for her…do you have anyone in mind?”
Then Shadow Lynx vanished, Marceline’s words going in one ear and out the other without thinking on them overmuch. She vanished as soon as she hit the well of shadows at the end of the sprint, appearing a good fifty feet away, in the center of the gym, snatching a hanging bar, swinging off it, flipping in midair before disappearing again, coming out on the far end of the gym. She kicked off a padded section of wall near the roof, then snatched another bar and dove toward the center of the floor, vanishing moments from impact, catching another bar back near where she had just leapt from. She ran across a narrow beam high above the floor, her lungs burning as she struggled to breathe.
Shadow Lynx had only one thing in mind as she performed the ridiculous routine, diving off the end of the suspended balance beam: getting her claws into that catgirl who had humiliated her, giving her a taste of her own medicine! She had surpassed Pink Pussy on the list of people that needed to be brought down a notch with that horrid torture she’d forced the shadowy heroine into, at least for the moment! Shadow Lynx’s lips curled into a twisted grin inside the mask as she snapped her whip free, caught a vertical support, swung around it, images of her delivering a humiliating defeat to that woman, of having her naked and bound in front of her. Oh, she’d have to deal with that robot too, and whoever the goth girl hero was; they seemed to be friendly with one another. And maybe even that wannabe hero bunny girl she’d met atop the crane, though that one she might be able to forgive to some extent; she had kept one of those doll masks off of Shadow Lynx, after all.
She vanished into the shadows, reappearing in a run across the floor, leaping over several hurdles on the track in front of her. But that would all be practice for her real target. No matter how the new catgirl had humiliated her, it was just the first, and if Shadow Lynx could help it, the only time it would happen. Pink Pussy had caused her so much more suffering! Whether it was to her public image or the training she now suffered through, it was Pink Pussy’s fault in the end. “I’ll make you pay for making me do all this humiliating crap, Pink Pussy!” Shadow Lynx hissed, the heat of the gas mask sweltering over her face, all vision gone through the fogged lenses. Her sight mattered little, her body going through the twists and turns of the obstacle course by memory and instinct. Even with all the added weight and ridiculous restrictions on her breathing, she could handle this. Shadow Lynx dove through the opening of a wide tube, vanishing into the shade within.
“…couldn’t handle a partner; she works alone.” Marceline said as Shadow Lynx passed overhead. “A sidekick? If it was sold to her properly, maybe, but I don’t think…”
But then Shadow Lynx teleported again, her whip snatching a ring in the ceiling as she reappeared, and she swung to another suspended balance beam, lungs burning, vision blurring. She had to keep moving! She had to become better! She had to make Pink Pussy and the others learn that she was the number one heroine in Sentinel City, and that nothing they could do to her could stop her from holding that title! They were going to learn their places, one way or another!
Oh my, it seems Shadow Lynx is a bit worked up after that experience in the warehouse, but can you blame her really? With someone as bossy as Marceline in charge, she’s got it rough! But what will that mean for her future as Sentinel City’s #1 heroine? Time will tell!
Thanks for reading, everyone! Three more epilogues to go! Stay tuned!
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Until next time! Urban, out!
