Shem the Penman
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MS. FOUND ON THE _CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS_ CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
another one of those stories
IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, YOU'RE PROBABLY TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER THE CRISIS ANYWAY, SO DON'T READ THIS STORY -- IT'LL ONLY CONFUSE YOU.
Pop. One moment Kara Zor-El -- Supergirl -- was flying high over Metropolis.
Pop. One moment, Karen Starr -- Power Girl -- was pulling the door off a wrecked car to help the woman inside crawl out.
Pop. One moment, several worlds away, Mary Marvel had finished knocking out a gang of art thieves.
Pop. The next moment, they were all elsewhere.
Kara found herself in a large cylindrical room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all perfect mirrors. She was pinned, arms spread and legs together, to a vertical slab of metal like a balloon held by static electricity. When she strained to move her limbs, there was a faint crackle of energy; she could move her torso, turn her head, and flex her hands and feet, but could not move anything else.
In the mirrors, she could see that the slab she was fastened to was actually a three-sided pillar. On one side, she could see a blonde woman in a white costume -- Power Girl. On the other was a brunette in red, whom after a moment she recognized as Mary Marvel.
"What's going on?" Mary asked.
"I don't know," Karen responded, "but some jerk stole my boots -- and he's cut holes in my costume, too!"
Kara realized that she, too, was barefoot, and that slits had been cut down the sides of her costume, revealing the flesh beneath. A look in the mirror confirmed that Mary was in a similar plight.
"Well, hello, ladies! I trust you like the accommodations?"
It took Kara a moment to place the voice, and when she did, she wished she hadn't. "_Ambush Bug?!_"
"None other! I suppose you're wondering why I called you here today. Gosh, I _always_ wanted to say that!"
"Get to the point," snapped Karen.
"Righty-ho. As you probably don't know but I'm not going to let that stop me, the DC Universe continuity is being cleaned up. And the Powers That Are -- I'd say the Powers That Be, but I'm not black -- have asked me to oversee the reorganization."
"What does that have to do with us?" Mary asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" the Bug asked. "You all fly, you're real strong and tough, you're related to guys with similar powers, two of you are blondes even. Re. Dun. Dant. The Powers That Are have told me to get rid of two of you."
The three heroines received that news with wide eyes as the Bug went on, "The problem is deciding who gets the booby prize. But I've come up with a surefire way! Survival of the fittest! Oh, gimme that old-time evolution, that old-time evolution, it was good enough for the trilobites and it's good enough for me ... "
"What. Are. You. Babbling. About." Karen bit off the words one by one.
"Well, I've decided, completely arbitrarily of course, that the big sign of fitness in this case will be resistance to a good solid tickling, to be administered by one of the other contestants ... " As he spoke, three more figures appeared in the room. A duplicate of Mary Marvel, complete in every detail, popped in in front of Kara; a second Kara appeared to stand by Karen; and a duplicate Karen appeared at Mary's side, completing the circle.
"How can you -- ?" Kara demanded. The duplicate Mary winked at her and gave her an unnerving grin.
"Hey, with great power comes the great responsibility of thoroughly abusing it for your own amusement. Or something like that. Ladies, start your engines ... "
Kara swallowed hard and said, "There's no point in putting us through this. If one of us has to go, let it be me."
"No way!" Karen snapped. "You two are more important than me. I'll go."
"Well, the other Marvels have pretty much retired by now," Mary said. "I don't think anyone will miss me ... "
"Gee, that's noble," the Bug said in a tone of profound disinterest. "Not to mention unhelpful. Hey, did I mention that the Powers That Are said they'd let me keep the ones I decided to cull? I think I'll have them tickled through eternity, just so I can have something to look in on whenever I get bored ... "
"I was here first," Kara said firmly. "Plus I had a movie."
"Your movie tanked, you bleach-blond liar!" shouted Mary.
"You're not even a DC character! They bought you!"
"You two are boring '50s relics, pale imitations of male heroes!" shouted Karen. "I'm only one modern readers have any interest in!"
"Since you can't agree, we'll just have to go ahead with the test ... " the Bug said happily.
And with those words, the duplicates, smiling gently, reached for their victims. Bare microseconds separated Kara, Mary, and Karen's yells.
"You can't do thiiii -- !" Kara would have gone through the ceiling if she hadn't been held firmly in place. The Mary duplicate had knelt to rake fingernails slowly down the soles of her feet. Kara's leg muscles tautened and her toes splayed involuntarily, and "Mary" swiftly grabbed a handful of toes, forcing them back while the nails of her other hand trickled over the taut, sensitive skin under and between them. Kara squealed with helpless laughter, her feet flexing wildly but unable to break "Mary"'s iron grip.
"Don't tire yourself out," the duplicate suggested sweetly, taking hold of Kara's other foot and pushing the toes back to receive their share of torment. "This is only the beginning ... "
"You sick green -- !" Karen gritted her teeth as the imitation Kara held up a hand, fingers wiggling teasingly.
"Where do you think I should start?" "Kara" purred, her soft blue eyes alight with a mischief the real Kara had seldom displayed. "I know you're ticklish all over -- the tough act doesn't fool me. Should I start here -- or here -- or here?" Her fingers leaped from Karen's exposed underarm to her ribs to her waist, delivering a quick tickle at each spot that made Karen flinch despite her best efforts to stay still. "Ooh, I know -- your belly-button!" Karen barely had time to take a breath before "Kara" pounced, both clawed hands digging deep into the soft flesh around the navel. Karen's skintight costume provided absolutely no tickle protection. She strained against her invisible bonds, her teeth bared and her crimson face a study in agony. "Come on, sweetie," urged "Kara," tickling away mercilessly. "Let it out. Give me a laugh. You can't hold it in forever -- I'm gonna get you ... " A strained giggle forced its way through Karen's jaws, then another and another, and then she gave a great howl of laughter, her midsection working like a belly dancer's as "Kara," grinning in triumph, continued the torture unabated.
"Please, please don't -- !" Mary wailed as the false Karen drove fingertips into her ribcage, kneading the tender flesh.
"Don't be a wimp," "Karen" told Mary, fingers slipping to the hypersensitive spots just under her wildly bouncing breasts as if drawn there by homing instinct. Mary shrieked and tried to burrow backward, but the pillar afforded no escape from the excrucriating touch. "Whine all you want, but I'm going to give you the worst tickling you ever had, or ever will have." She slid an arm around Mary's back and pulled her torso forward, holding the World's Mightiest Girl absolutely immobile as her free hand roamed up and down Mary's side, pressing all the right spots. "DON'T!" was the only coherent thing the brunette Marvel got out before she dissolved into hysterics.
From his secret sanctum, the Bug watched the proceedings on several screens with pleasure. He adjusted a control, weakening the restraining field around Karen slightly, and watched as she wrenched a leg free with a supreme effort of will -- and then he zoomed in on her expression of horror as "Kara" seized the stray ankle, tucked it under her arm in an unbreakable grip, and began kitchy-kooing a particular spot in the very center of the arch, driving Karen mad with laughter. Crystal tracks of laughter-tears marked Kara's face, and her body was bent in a broad curve as "Mary" worked on her right underarm and the right side of her ribcage with both hands; at last, "Mary" stopped and skipped gaily to Kara's other side to begin the process again there, producing a torrent of fresh mirth. Mary, her normally carefully coiffed hair a frizzy mess, was desperately begging "Karen" to leave her feet alone; her pleas were broken by frequent frantic giggles, for the imitation Power Girl was circling a single fingernail around each sole while she listened mock-thoughtfully to Mary's babbling. Finally, "Karen" nodded and said, "Okay, no feet." Mary heaved a shuddering sigh that abruptly became an outraged shriek as "Karen"'s fingers scrabbled up and down her soles mercilessly. "Sucker," "Karen" said. "Wisdom of Athena, my butt."
Because of the chamber's mirrored walls, wherever any of the three looked, she saw only the other two's agonies -- if she had enough attention to spare from her own, that was. Three reddened faces were visible in the mirrors, as were three crazily squirming forms -- Mary's red, Kara's blue, Karen's white, like a pornographic patriotic display. The heroines' squeals of laughter echoed off the walls, seeming to blend into one voice, as did the duplicates' taunts and teasing whispers. And though all three heroines seemed to be bearing up under the torment equally well (or equally badly), the Bug could guess that each of them was convinced that she was getting the worst of it. As it should be. But who was winning, who was losing? The Bug would have been glad to stretch out the fun indefinitely, but the Powers That Are had given him a schedule to keep. Time to change the rules, then. He started flipping switches.
In the mirrored room, the three duplicates faded away -- and a moment later, so did the restraint field, dumping the tickle victims to the ground in heaps of limp, quivering flesh. Kara was the first to struggle to her feet, followed by Karen and Mary.
"Well, _that_ didn't work," came the Bug's voice. "And I've still got to get rid of a couple of you. So it's time for a good old-fashioned tickle fight, like Grandma used to make! Who'll be the last one standing?"
The heroines looked at one another uneasily. "We don't have to play his game," Karen said. But she was studying Mary, considering the distance between them.
"He can't be powerful enough to hold all of us here," Mary agreed, wrapping her arms around her to protect her ribs.
"If we look around, maybe we'll find a way out." Kara's toes curled as Mary's gaze swept across her bare feet.
They traded glances for another few seconds, each waiting for one of the others to look away. Then, as one, all of them took a step back and half-turned -- and turned back, lunging, landing in a struggling heap in the center of the room. Cloth shredded like cobwebs as super-strong hands flailed, seized. And once again the room echoed with the sound of squeals and giggles, but now it was hard to tell whose.
Mary got the worst of it at first. The two blondes attacked her in unison, as if they had agreed on a plan. Each got hold of one wrist and pulled, exposing the entire length of her body -- in particular, the supersensitive ribs both had noted -- to their probing hands. Mary, yelling with desperate mirth, tried to curl up into a ball, but all that unfortunate maneuver did was bring her feet within reach of her tormentors; they swiftly traded wrists for ankles, and Mary's soles were subjected to another unending, merciless tickling. The World's Mightiest Girl flopped and bucked like a dying fish, but no dying fish ever screamed quite so loud. Confident that she would soon be eliminated, Kara and Karen abandoned wild scrabbling for a more slow and exquisite tour of the most sensitive spots on Mary's feet, displaying an enjoyment of her suffering that would normally have been foreign to them. But Mary's torture ended abruptly as Karen, believing her beaten, dropped her ankle and launched herself at Kara.
Karen was at a bad disadvantage: though she might match the other two in strength, she couldn't equal their speed. Before she quite knew what was happening, Kara had landed on top of her, seized one wrist and forced it over her head, and was tickling her exposed side from armpit to hip and back again, with rapid detours over her ribs and tummy. Karen howled and rolled back and forth on the floor, trying to grab one of Kara's vulnerable spots with her free hand, but Kara fended her off and managed to plant a knee in her stomach, partially immobilizing her and letting Kara deliver more precise, more devastating tickling. Most of the fight went out of Karen as her laughter doubled in volume and her free hand and feet pounded helplessly on the floor. "No! No!" she yelped. "Not me! Not me, pleeeeeeeeeeease!"
Mary, bereft of strength, could only lie where she was and giggle feebly as Kara tormented Karen to new heights of hysteria. But Kara's hold was slipping; the violence of Karen's thrashing threatened to pull her loose, and if Kara paused to take a new hold, she risked being tickled herself. She glanced over her shoulder at the limp Mary. "Come on!" she urged. "Get her feet, and let's take her out!"
Mary heaved herself up to her hands and knees, staring at the two struggling blondes. The Wisdom of Athena was finally kicking in, somewhat belatedly. She realized that while it would indeed be easy to eliminate Karen, that would leave her facing a stronger and faster Kara -- while, on the other hand, if Kara could be eliminated, she could probably deal with Karen herself, even while exhausted. All that passed through her mind in a fraction of a second, and she lunged -- at Kara's ankles. Kara gave a yelp of surprise as Mary's nails scraped down her sole, involuntarily releasing Karen's wrist and pausing her tickling. The yelp was followed by a second, louder yelp as Karen seized her ribs, tickling with a savagery born of desperation.
The three rolled over and over and ended up with Kara on the bottom, face pressed into the floor. Karen straddled her, knees pinning her biceps and fingernails dancing under her arms, while Mary knelt on her calves, taking a full and exhaustive revenge for her earlier tickling on Kara's helpless feet. The once-proud Maid of Steel writhed, but she was well and truly held; all she could do was shriek into the cold mirror of the floor. "NO! NOOOOOHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU CAAAAAAAAAAN'T! PLEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEE -- STOPSTOPSTOP!"
The Bug watched the tableau with pleasure until it was quite obvious Kara wasn't going to escape. "One down, one to go," he announced, turning a dial; Kara vanished from beneath her tormentors and reappeared in her old position on the pillar, hanging limply. Mary and Karen were on one another in the blink of an eye. They chased around the room, Mary skipping, running, even flying, trying to stay out of Karen's reach while darting in to convulse her with swift tickles she never saw coming, Karen trying to shrug off Mary's attacks while looking to get a grip on some vulnerable spot -- preferably those ribs -- she could use to bear Mary down into helpless hysteria again.
Finally, Mary managed to hook a foot around Karen's calf, sending her sprawling; in a flash, she had locked her legs around Karen's ankles and was giving her the double-handed treatment on both feet. Karen, without leverage in her awkward position, strained and struggled to break loose, but the awful tickling was already sapping her ability to resist; her legs pistoned futilely.
Mary giggled happily, a counterpoint to Karen's bellows of laughter. "I'm going to win, I'm going to win, tickle-tickle-tickle," singsonged the World's Mightiest Girl. "I'm going to win, and you'll be tickled forever."
"Um, ladies?" said the Bug.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! I -- HAHAHAHAHAHA! MERCY! MERCY!"
"Ladies?"
"Sorry, darling, no mercy for you ever again -- just more tickles, tickles, tickles, especially here under your -- "
"LADIES!"
Mary stopped tickling, startled; Karen slumped, in no shape to put up any resistance. "I just got a message from the Powers That Are," said the Bug. "They say they've got their own plans for the Marvel Family. You shouldn't have been included in this experiment, Ms. Mar -- uh, no, that's the other company. You know who I mean. Sorry." He decided not to mention that he had received the message half an hour ago. "Um, if you want to continue with what you're doing, that's all right by me -- we might as well decide who's the Women's Tickling Champion of the DC Universe, right? That's the sort of thing they'll want for _Who's Who_ ... "
"Forget it!" snapped Mary, climbing to her feet. Karen also did so, a bit shakier. "Just send me back home."
"Me too," gasped Karen. Then she indicated Kara's limp form. "What about her?"
"Hey, that's right! At least I get to keep Supergirl!" The Bug sounded more cheerful. "We'll put out some story about her dying, and you can take her place in continuity.; we'll just fix your backstory a bit." As he spoke, the Mary and Karen duplicates materialized on either side of the pillar, grinning expectantly; "Mary" twirled a brace of long feathers, while "Karen" had a fistful of artist's paintbrushes.
"You're not _really_ going to tickle her forever?" asked Mary nervously, feeling a few pangs of conscience now the ordeal was past.
"Nah, that's probably impossible," the Bug said as the mirrored room began to fade around them. "I mean, after a couple years, there probably wouldn't be anything left of her but a big blob of jelly ... "
The last thing they heard was Kara's agonized laughter beginning again.
another one of those stories
IF YOU'RE UNDER 18, YOU'RE PROBABLY TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER THE CRISIS ANYWAY, SO DON'T READ THIS STORY -- IT'LL ONLY CONFUSE YOU.
Pop. One moment Kara Zor-El -- Supergirl -- was flying high over Metropolis.
Pop. One moment, Karen Starr -- Power Girl -- was pulling the door off a wrecked car to help the woman inside crawl out.
Pop. One moment, several worlds away, Mary Marvel had finished knocking out a gang of art thieves.
Pop. The next moment, they were all elsewhere.
Kara found herself in a large cylindrical room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were all perfect mirrors. She was pinned, arms spread and legs together, to a vertical slab of metal like a balloon held by static electricity. When she strained to move her limbs, there was a faint crackle of energy; she could move her torso, turn her head, and flex her hands and feet, but could not move anything else.
In the mirrors, she could see that the slab she was fastened to was actually a three-sided pillar. On one side, she could see a blonde woman in a white costume -- Power Girl. On the other was a brunette in red, whom after a moment she recognized as Mary Marvel.
"What's going on?" Mary asked.
"I don't know," Karen responded, "but some jerk stole my boots -- and he's cut holes in my costume, too!"
Kara realized that she, too, was barefoot, and that slits had been cut down the sides of her costume, revealing the flesh beneath. A look in the mirror confirmed that Mary was in a similar plight.
"Well, hello, ladies! I trust you like the accommodations?"
It took Kara a moment to place the voice, and when she did, she wished she hadn't. "_Ambush Bug?!_"
"None other! I suppose you're wondering why I called you here today. Gosh, I _always_ wanted to say that!"
"Get to the point," snapped Karen.
"Righty-ho. As you probably don't know but I'm not going to let that stop me, the DC Universe continuity is being cleaned up. And the Powers That Are -- I'd say the Powers That Be, but I'm not black -- have asked me to oversee the reorganization."
"What does that have to do with us?" Mary asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" the Bug asked. "You all fly, you're real strong and tough, you're related to guys with similar powers, two of you are blondes even. Re. Dun. Dant. The Powers That Are have told me to get rid of two of you."
The three heroines received that news with wide eyes as the Bug went on, "The problem is deciding who gets the booby prize. But I've come up with a surefire way! Survival of the fittest! Oh, gimme that old-time evolution, that old-time evolution, it was good enough for the trilobites and it's good enough for me ... "
"What. Are. You. Babbling. About." Karen bit off the words one by one.
"Well, I've decided, completely arbitrarily of course, that the big sign of fitness in this case will be resistance to a good solid tickling, to be administered by one of the other contestants ... " As he spoke, three more figures appeared in the room. A duplicate of Mary Marvel, complete in every detail, popped in in front of Kara; a second Kara appeared to stand by Karen; and a duplicate Karen appeared at Mary's side, completing the circle.
"How can you -- ?" Kara demanded. The duplicate Mary winked at her and gave her an unnerving grin.
"Hey, with great power comes the great responsibility of thoroughly abusing it for your own amusement. Or something like that. Ladies, start your engines ... "
Kara swallowed hard and said, "There's no point in putting us through this. If one of us has to go, let it be me."
"No way!" Karen snapped. "You two are more important than me. I'll go."
"Well, the other Marvels have pretty much retired by now," Mary said. "I don't think anyone will miss me ... "
"Gee, that's noble," the Bug said in a tone of profound disinterest. "Not to mention unhelpful. Hey, did I mention that the Powers That Are said they'd let me keep the ones I decided to cull? I think I'll have them tickled through eternity, just so I can have something to look in on whenever I get bored ... "
"I was here first," Kara said firmly. "Plus I had a movie."
"Your movie tanked, you bleach-blond liar!" shouted Mary.
"You're not even a DC character! They bought you!"
"You two are boring '50s relics, pale imitations of male heroes!" shouted Karen. "I'm only one modern readers have any interest in!"
"Since you can't agree, we'll just have to go ahead with the test ... " the Bug said happily.
And with those words, the duplicates, smiling gently, reached for their victims. Bare microseconds separated Kara, Mary, and Karen's yells.
"You can't do thiiii -- !" Kara would have gone through the ceiling if she hadn't been held firmly in place. The Mary duplicate had knelt to rake fingernails slowly down the soles of her feet. Kara's leg muscles tautened and her toes splayed involuntarily, and "Mary" swiftly grabbed a handful of toes, forcing them back while the nails of her other hand trickled over the taut, sensitive skin under and between them. Kara squealed with helpless laughter, her feet flexing wildly but unable to break "Mary"'s iron grip.
"Don't tire yourself out," the duplicate suggested sweetly, taking hold of Kara's other foot and pushing the toes back to receive their share of torment. "This is only the beginning ... "
"You sick green -- !" Karen gritted her teeth as the imitation Kara held up a hand, fingers wiggling teasingly.
"Where do you think I should start?" "Kara" purred, her soft blue eyes alight with a mischief the real Kara had seldom displayed. "I know you're ticklish all over -- the tough act doesn't fool me. Should I start here -- or here -- or here?" Her fingers leaped from Karen's exposed underarm to her ribs to her waist, delivering a quick tickle at each spot that made Karen flinch despite her best efforts to stay still. "Ooh, I know -- your belly-button!" Karen barely had time to take a breath before "Kara" pounced, both clawed hands digging deep into the soft flesh around the navel. Karen's skintight costume provided absolutely no tickle protection. She strained against her invisible bonds, her teeth bared and her crimson face a study in agony. "Come on, sweetie," urged "Kara," tickling away mercilessly. "Let it out. Give me a laugh. You can't hold it in forever -- I'm gonna get you ... " A strained giggle forced its way through Karen's jaws, then another and another, and then she gave a great howl of laughter, her midsection working like a belly dancer's as "Kara," grinning in triumph, continued the torture unabated.
"Please, please don't -- !" Mary wailed as the false Karen drove fingertips into her ribcage, kneading the tender flesh.
"Don't be a wimp," "Karen" told Mary, fingers slipping to the hypersensitive spots just under her wildly bouncing breasts as if drawn there by homing instinct. Mary shrieked and tried to burrow backward, but the pillar afforded no escape from the excrucriating touch. "Whine all you want, but I'm going to give you the worst tickling you ever had, or ever will have." She slid an arm around Mary's back and pulled her torso forward, holding the World's Mightiest Girl absolutely immobile as her free hand roamed up and down Mary's side, pressing all the right spots. "DON'T!" was the only coherent thing the brunette Marvel got out before she dissolved into hysterics.
From his secret sanctum, the Bug watched the proceedings on several screens with pleasure. He adjusted a control, weakening the restraining field around Karen slightly, and watched as she wrenched a leg free with a supreme effort of will -- and then he zoomed in on her expression of horror as "Kara" seized the stray ankle, tucked it under her arm in an unbreakable grip, and began kitchy-kooing a particular spot in the very center of the arch, driving Karen mad with laughter. Crystal tracks of laughter-tears marked Kara's face, and her body was bent in a broad curve as "Mary" worked on her right underarm and the right side of her ribcage with both hands; at last, "Mary" stopped and skipped gaily to Kara's other side to begin the process again there, producing a torrent of fresh mirth. Mary, her normally carefully coiffed hair a frizzy mess, was desperately begging "Karen" to leave her feet alone; her pleas were broken by frequent frantic giggles, for the imitation Power Girl was circling a single fingernail around each sole while she listened mock-thoughtfully to Mary's babbling. Finally, "Karen" nodded and said, "Okay, no feet." Mary heaved a shuddering sigh that abruptly became an outraged shriek as "Karen"'s fingers scrabbled up and down her soles mercilessly. "Sucker," "Karen" said. "Wisdom of Athena, my butt."
Because of the chamber's mirrored walls, wherever any of the three looked, she saw only the other two's agonies -- if she had enough attention to spare from her own, that was. Three reddened faces were visible in the mirrors, as were three crazily squirming forms -- Mary's red, Kara's blue, Karen's white, like a pornographic patriotic display. The heroines' squeals of laughter echoed off the walls, seeming to blend into one voice, as did the duplicates' taunts and teasing whispers. And though all three heroines seemed to be bearing up under the torment equally well (or equally badly), the Bug could guess that each of them was convinced that she was getting the worst of it. As it should be. But who was winning, who was losing? The Bug would have been glad to stretch out the fun indefinitely, but the Powers That Are had given him a schedule to keep. Time to change the rules, then. He started flipping switches.
In the mirrored room, the three duplicates faded away -- and a moment later, so did the restraint field, dumping the tickle victims to the ground in heaps of limp, quivering flesh. Kara was the first to struggle to her feet, followed by Karen and Mary.
"Well, _that_ didn't work," came the Bug's voice. "And I've still got to get rid of a couple of you. So it's time for a good old-fashioned tickle fight, like Grandma used to make! Who'll be the last one standing?"
The heroines looked at one another uneasily. "We don't have to play his game," Karen said. But she was studying Mary, considering the distance between them.
"He can't be powerful enough to hold all of us here," Mary agreed, wrapping her arms around her to protect her ribs.
"If we look around, maybe we'll find a way out." Kara's toes curled as Mary's gaze swept across her bare feet.
They traded glances for another few seconds, each waiting for one of the others to look away. Then, as one, all of them took a step back and half-turned -- and turned back, lunging, landing in a struggling heap in the center of the room. Cloth shredded like cobwebs as super-strong hands flailed, seized. And once again the room echoed with the sound of squeals and giggles, but now it was hard to tell whose.
Mary got the worst of it at first. The two blondes attacked her in unison, as if they had agreed on a plan. Each got hold of one wrist and pulled, exposing the entire length of her body -- in particular, the supersensitive ribs both had noted -- to their probing hands. Mary, yelling with desperate mirth, tried to curl up into a ball, but all that unfortunate maneuver did was bring her feet within reach of her tormentors; they swiftly traded wrists for ankles, and Mary's soles were subjected to another unending, merciless tickling. The World's Mightiest Girl flopped and bucked like a dying fish, but no dying fish ever screamed quite so loud. Confident that she would soon be eliminated, Kara and Karen abandoned wild scrabbling for a more slow and exquisite tour of the most sensitive spots on Mary's feet, displaying an enjoyment of her suffering that would normally have been foreign to them. But Mary's torture ended abruptly as Karen, believing her beaten, dropped her ankle and launched herself at Kara.
Karen was at a bad disadvantage: though she might match the other two in strength, she couldn't equal their speed. Before she quite knew what was happening, Kara had landed on top of her, seized one wrist and forced it over her head, and was tickling her exposed side from armpit to hip and back again, with rapid detours over her ribs and tummy. Karen howled and rolled back and forth on the floor, trying to grab one of Kara's vulnerable spots with her free hand, but Kara fended her off and managed to plant a knee in her stomach, partially immobilizing her and letting Kara deliver more precise, more devastating tickling. Most of the fight went out of Karen as her laughter doubled in volume and her free hand and feet pounded helplessly on the floor. "No! No!" she yelped. "Not me! Not me, pleeeeeeeeeeease!"
Mary, bereft of strength, could only lie where she was and giggle feebly as Kara tormented Karen to new heights of hysteria. But Kara's hold was slipping; the violence of Karen's thrashing threatened to pull her loose, and if Kara paused to take a new hold, she risked being tickled herself. She glanced over her shoulder at the limp Mary. "Come on!" she urged. "Get her feet, and let's take her out!"
Mary heaved herself up to her hands and knees, staring at the two struggling blondes. The Wisdom of Athena was finally kicking in, somewhat belatedly. She realized that while it would indeed be easy to eliminate Karen, that would leave her facing a stronger and faster Kara -- while, on the other hand, if Kara could be eliminated, she could probably deal with Karen herself, even while exhausted. All that passed through her mind in a fraction of a second, and she lunged -- at Kara's ankles. Kara gave a yelp of surprise as Mary's nails scraped down her sole, involuntarily releasing Karen's wrist and pausing her tickling. The yelp was followed by a second, louder yelp as Karen seized her ribs, tickling with a savagery born of desperation.
The three rolled over and over and ended up with Kara on the bottom, face pressed into the floor. Karen straddled her, knees pinning her biceps and fingernails dancing under her arms, while Mary knelt on her calves, taking a full and exhaustive revenge for her earlier tickling on Kara's helpless feet. The once-proud Maid of Steel writhed, but she was well and truly held; all she could do was shriek into the cold mirror of the floor. "NO! NOOOOOHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU CAAAAAAAAAAN'T! PLEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEE -- STOPSTOPSTOP!"
The Bug watched the tableau with pleasure until it was quite obvious Kara wasn't going to escape. "One down, one to go," he announced, turning a dial; Kara vanished from beneath her tormentors and reappeared in her old position on the pillar, hanging limply. Mary and Karen were on one another in the blink of an eye. They chased around the room, Mary skipping, running, even flying, trying to stay out of Karen's reach while darting in to convulse her with swift tickles she never saw coming, Karen trying to shrug off Mary's attacks while looking to get a grip on some vulnerable spot -- preferably those ribs -- she could use to bear Mary down into helpless hysteria again.
Finally, Mary managed to hook a foot around Karen's calf, sending her sprawling; in a flash, she had locked her legs around Karen's ankles and was giving her the double-handed treatment on both feet. Karen, without leverage in her awkward position, strained and struggled to break loose, but the awful tickling was already sapping her ability to resist; her legs pistoned futilely.
Mary giggled happily, a counterpoint to Karen's bellows of laughter. "I'm going to win, I'm going to win, tickle-tickle-tickle," singsonged the World's Mightiest Girl. "I'm going to win, and you'll be tickled forever."
"Um, ladies?" said the Bug.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! I -- HAHAHAHAHAHA! MERCY! MERCY!"
"Ladies?"
"Sorry, darling, no mercy for you ever again -- just more tickles, tickles, tickles, especially here under your -- "
"LADIES!"
Mary stopped tickling, startled; Karen slumped, in no shape to put up any resistance. "I just got a message from the Powers That Are," said the Bug. "They say they've got their own plans for the Marvel Family. You shouldn't have been included in this experiment, Ms. Mar -- uh, no, that's the other company. You know who I mean. Sorry." He decided not to mention that he had received the message half an hour ago. "Um, if you want to continue with what you're doing, that's all right by me -- we might as well decide who's the Women's Tickling Champion of the DC Universe, right? That's the sort of thing they'll want for _Who's Who_ ... "
"Forget it!" snapped Mary, climbing to her feet. Karen also did so, a bit shakier. "Just send me back home."
"Me too," gasped Karen. Then she indicated Kara's limp form. "What about her?"
"Hey, that's right! At least I get to keep Supergirl!" The Bug sounded more cheerful. "We'll put out some story about her dying, and you can take her place in continuity.; we'll just fix your backstory a bit." As he spoke, the Mary and Karen duplicates materialized on either side of the pillar, grinning expectantly; "Mary" twirled a brace of long feathers, while "Karen" had a fistful of artist's paintbrushes.
"You're not _really_ going to tickle her forever?" asked Mary nervously, feeling a few pangs of conscience now the ordeal was past.
"Nah, that's probably impossible," the Bug said as the mirrored room began to fade around them. "I mean, after a couple years, there probably wouldn't be anything left of her but a big blob of jelly ... "
The last thing they heard was Kara's agonized laughter beginning again.
