Toxic, Part 8

Toxic, Part 8

By Smokedawg (aka JbouleyJdog)

Blog: http://betterwithsmoke.wordpress.com

E-mail: pseudojeff@msn.com

All DC Comics characters used for entertainment purposes only, and remain the
copyright of DC Comics and its affiliate and/or parent companies.

NOTE 1: This story is inspired by an idea presented to me by Blackbladder,
the author of many memorable smoking fetish tales, including the Buffy the
Vampire Slayer fan fiction story, "Demon Weed."

NOTE 2: If you find the mention of Superman's harsh actions toward Nick
O'Teen in this story and its follow-up chapters to be out of character, I
should mention that in one of the early 1980s anti-smoking campaign
commercials featuring Nick O'Teen, Superman is indeed depicted as ruthlessly
flinging the man into the sky toward some buildings.

NOTE 3: The more this story goes on, the more I am, of course, messing with
DC continuity. Although most of this takes place in a relatively recent part
of DC superhero history (late 2009/early 2010), I've picked some things from
earlier points in the timelines and mixed and matched a bit. We'll just call
it artistic license instead of laziness, shall we?

----------------------------------------------

"Wonder Woman poses potential challenges," Beth noted over a light dinner
with Nicoletta, as they reviewed plans and strategies - the first time they'd
had dinner alone in the past week, as her mistress kept at Green Lantern's
heart and loins. "I know you've considered some of them, but we don't have
the same advantages with her that we did with Superman, and all the knowledge
you were able to access on Kryptonian physiology. Granted, she's also not as
powerful, but she's a conundrum. We know from our debriefings of Superman
that while she seems mortal in some ways, she is supernatural in so many
others."

"Yes, a gift from the gods to her mother, quite literally," Nicoletta noted.
"And, like the other Amazons of Themyscira, she is immortal for all practical
purposes, though not entirely invulnerable. We cannot even be entirely
certain any of my chemicals will affect her sufficiently, if at all, and the
studies of the purloined samples of her genetic material cannot be fully
trusted as she may have mystical defenses that won't show up on genetic
examinations."

"Yes," Beth said, "and so I propose some slight alterations to your plans, if
you like."

"You of all people can speak freely to me; you, and one day the two whom I
intend to join you as equal partners for my affections, and companions to
each other as well."

"You should add another, I think. One man and two women to be your innermost
circle seems inherently unbalanced," Beth said. As much as she loved both
Nicoletta and the idea of being naked with Wonder Woman down the line, Hal
Jordan wasn't entirely her type. He was certainly good enough to take the
edge off at times, she suspected, and he was handsome, but had it been her
choice, she would have picked a different hero than him. Then again, it
wasn't about her needs; it was about Nicoletta's, and much joy was to be
found in making her mistress happy.

"Three is a good balance for me, Beth, and stable as a good solid tripod. To
juggle more than that would leave someone wanting.  Plus, with my level of
aggressiveness and arrogance, I'm man enough for any of you, particularly
when I strap on a penis - and Lord knows we have some awfully advanced dildos
thanks to our robotics and cybernetics teams."

Beth blushed at that, then laughed.

"Enough of that, though; you're distracting me from the core topic. What are
your suggestions, Beth?"

"I think we should lure Wonder Woman into some conflicts that will allow us
to give her some exposure to our smoke. At first, something that will simply
tag her so we can track her, and give us some data about distribution. Give
us an idea of whether her body can simply reject any chemicals or nanos we
may introduce."

"How will we maintain a steady follow-up?"

"Small drones, possibly disguised as small birds or large insects. If her
body doesn't somehow reject the tags, we can follow her anywhere and keep her
on an almost constant scan. Get her into one or two other encounters, with
exposure to drugged smoke, and monitor her vitals to see if the proper
physiological effects are in play. If it works, it might even soften her up
for when we go after her officially."

"And how, Beth, will these encounters introduce her to the smoke without us
having to show our entire team as the cause of these heroic disappearances
lately?"

"Hire some minor villains through third parties," Beth said, "and have
bystanders introduce the smoke. Perhaps a pretty, helpless-looking young
woman in our employ who can light up nervously after the horrible encounter,
while crying on Wonder Woman's shoulder. Or, once a conflict is over, have
someone nearby who can simply pass near her while smoking one of our
products. All of this might add a few days  to our schedule, but I think we
can keep Toxine from losing her cool entirely. If we coordinate things right,
we might not even lose any time, and perhaps we can even get to Flash early
if we can get better intelligence on Wonder Woman."

"Good ideas, Beth, though admittedly I had already thought of 80% of them,"
Nicoletta said with a smile, lighting up one of Beth's favorite cigarettes,
and exhaling a thick cloud toward the blonde.

"Sorry, Nicoletta. Wasting your time isn't on my priority list."

"You didn't waste it at all; in fact, you've shown me how insightful a
strategist you are. It would have been hard to out-think me, my dear,"
Nicoletta said, with smoke in her words and smoke in the air between them.
"To keep up with me, more or less, and add some new twists to what I had
already considered, is ample proof of your worth... and evidence that my
affections for you aren't misplaced."

With that, Nicoletta motioned Beth to her side, and then between her legs,
and set her on more pleasurable, and less wordy, pursuits.

* * *

Nicoletta Teena was lounging on a sumptuous Queen Anne chair before Hal
Jordan, his green power ring sitting on a mahogany side table to her right.
She had ordered his apartment here in the Teena International headquarters
redecorated a couple days earlier, and it reflected 40% of his preferences
and 60% of hers, but he had to admit she had good taste.

As he looked at that side table, Hal was reasonably certain he had a 50-50
chance of being able to grab that ring, and make an escape.

He was convinced that Nicotina had roughly the same odds in mind.

There was also little doubt that she knew that the Green Lantern was doing
the mental calculations.

But while there might be even odds for success, the man known as one of the
most famous and most powerful members of the Green Lantern Corps had only a
miniscule interest in making the attempt.

Certainly, he still had doubts about Nicotina's intentions and plans. Hal
still worried about whether a huge conflict of interest was about to occur
between his ideals and her desires. He knew also that while much of his
willingness to listen to her and consider her views was intellectual, much of
it was also due to her influence on his mind with the ever-present smoke -
whether from her or one of her associates.

Having had sex with her three different nights, as fantastic as it was,
didn't change his reservations. 

But he did know that he couldn't challenge her directly. The notion was
fundamentally absurd to him, and he knew she must be responsible for that
somehow. He wanted to make sure the Earth -and the sector of space he
patrolled - remained safe, and wanted to avoid any entanglements with his
comrades-in-arms, but he knew that he would be unable to lift a finger
against Nicoletta, whether in her civilian garb or as Nicotina. He might be
able to fight her team, though he wasn't even certain he could do that.

He wouldn't obey her blindly, though. He wasn't under her total control. If
he were to snatch up his ring he could try to escape, even though he would
not try to capture her. He probably couldn't even bring himself to reveal her
whereabouts to anyone else, he realized.

But he couldn't fight her. He didn't want to.

"You know, it would be a lot easier for both of us if you just subjugated me,
Nicoletta," Hal Jordan said, mostly - but not entirely - joking.

"Much less interesting, too, Hal," she responded, then took a deep drag on
her cigarette and blew a huge, perfect cone-shaped cloud toward him, making
his lungs tingle and his cock begin to throb before she continued. "Life is
about decisions. It's about giving up some things, and demanding others. Even
I know about having to give things up, or delaying gratification."

"You certainly expedited your seduction of me with a little chemical help,
and who knows what else. I'm so thoroughly handled, I don't even know how
much of my feelings are real, and more to the point, I don't care," Hal said.
"That hardly indicates patience on your part."

"Well, I'm patiently awaiting my chance to snare another of your comrades for
my personal needs, to be my special lover along with you and Beth," Nicoletta
said. "I have patiently used the most subtle and least mind-blowing ways of
wooing you, when I could have simply blasted your will. But that wouldn't be
gratifying, and that is something I reserve for those heroes I must quickly
bend to my needs, and not to my heart."

"As much as I'd like to think otherwise, Nicoletta, with talk of `your
heart,' you will bore of me. You want to subjugate the powerful, I think, but
the novelty will wear off, and I'll be left with my desire while you toy with
someone new. Who knows how many, after you start replacing me with this
comrade of mine whom you won't name."

Nicoletta released a huge cloud of smoke, and pointed the tip of her
cigarette at him. "It's a surprise whom I am hunting, Hal. But in the end,
it's a very good surprise, and I'll tell you very soon," she said. "And I
won't bore of you, most likely, Hal, nor your comrade. The thing you still
don't understand is that I very much admire your nobility, your dedication,
your willpower and your imagination, which are all things needed to use this
power ring well. I am attracted to what you stand for and who you are, not to
your power itself, believe it or not. To be honest, the more I get to know
you in person and not simply through publicity and private intelligence I
have on you, the more I want you. I hope you can say the same of me."

She got up, handed him his power ring, smoke swirling about them both, and
then she retreated back to her chair and leaned back a little, drawing
attention to her breasts in their corset-like top, and blew a long,
cone-shaped stream of smoke into the air above her.

Hal Jordan considered the ring in his palm, then put it on his finger, and
leaned back into his own chair.

A minute or two passed in silence.

"I know you're not against me, Hal," Nicoletta said, "but are you with me?"

"Nicoletta, I don't think it's possible, or even my choice, to be with you,"
Green Lantern answered. "Remember that there is at least one other Green
Lantern based here on Earth and patrolling this sector of space: John
Stewart. Kyle Rayner could conceivably be brought back into the game as well.
The moment I start trying to help you in any obvious way, even though your
aims aren't overtly and devastatingly evil, the Green Lantern Corps
throughout the galaxy will be against me, and the heroes of Earth, too."

Nicoletta let smoke spill slowly from her lips, and blew him a smoky kiss,
but said nothing.

"I can agree with much of what you've presented, but it still means that
you're coercing people and forcing your agenda," Green Lantern continued.
"Even if you're not trying to destroy anything and even if your idea of
conquering is somewhat benign, you are still an aggressor. To side with you
means that I will likely be relieved of my power ring in due time, unless you
seriously think you can take down every Green Lantern in service to Oa, and
every hero of this planet too. You might be able to, but that means you'd
have to cross a line, Nicoletta, that would make me have to abandon you, even
if I would be unable to fight you." 

"I'm not crossing any such line, and no one is going to try to take your
ring, Hal," Nicoletta said, "The Guardians of Oa will have no reason to be
displeased with your work."

"How can you be so confident of that?" Green Lantern asked. "I care for you
deeply, Nicoletta, and I want you badly, and I may even be capable of falling
in love with you over time, but let me just say that your arrogance is going
to be your undoing."

"I'm not arrogant, Hal," she said, then laughed in the midst of her next
inhale, coughing out a bit of smoke. "Oh, all right, I'm very arrogant, but
not foolish or foolhardy. Hal, my plans are very carefully orchestrated. I
might fail, but where I am not wrong is in the matter of you and your ring.
No one will challenge you, because you are going to go back out and continue
to do what you did before."

"And I'm to believe you won't call on me?"

"If I think I need you, I will ask for your help," she said, moving over to
his chair, sitting in his lap and feeling his hardness press against her ass.
She stroked the side of his face, and then gave him a slow, searing,
bittersweet kiss. "But I already know if I ask you to help capture one of
your friends, you will refuse, at least in the near term. I know that if I
ask you to defend me against them, you will either refuse or hold back much
of your power. But the truth is, I have Superman to achieve those kinds of
ends, and I doubt you'll be able to bring yourself to intervene in my plans.
I've assured that."

"So, I go fight evil, and ignore your schemes," he said, and his brow
furrowed at that. "You certainly know how to create cognitive dissonance,
Nicoletta."

"The world will be skewed to my needs, Hal," Nicoletta said, kissing him
again, feeding him smoke. "That is the way it must be. If you need to work
out some of your confusion and frustrations on some nasty villains, you just
go ahead and do that."

She kissed him again, long and deep and wetly, and ground her ass into his
lap, her fingers in his brown hair and white smoke wrapping around them. Then
she disengaged slowly from his mouth and blew a cone of smoke above his head. 

"Isn't it going to be rather awkward to explain to everyone where I've been?
I do know where you live, and it is possible for my mind to be read or the
truth to be pulled out of me."

"I know, and that's why I want you to go do your good works far away from
Earth. You have a whole sector to patrol, my dear. Stay away from anyone who
might ask questions, at least until after I have my second special prize, and
the one for my cousin. After that, you can come out of the closet, so to
speak, and with a new name and costume, I think."

"So go fight evil, and be sneaky about it," Hal said, and had to laugh, both
at the absurdity of all of this and the fact that none of it bothered him.
Was that a sign that he had been corrupted more by Parallax than he knew all
those months ago? Or that Nicoletta controlled him more than he thought? Or
was it a sign that Nicoletta was more honest than he thought, and it just
made sense to let her carry out her plans?

"Yes, go fight evil stealthily, but only after you and I have a little fun. I
want to see how you can use that power ring to enhance our lovemaking,"
Nicoletta said. "I want to see that imagination in action, and then you go
off to work. Just make sure that your ass is back here every night to warm my
bed should I so desire."

* * *

Toxine looked at the dead man on the bed, and sighed. "Yet another," she
said.

"I'll have him removed," Nicoletta said. "Like the others, he went with a
smile, though."

"We wouldn't have such a string of corpses if you'd get me Flash now," Toxine
pointed out.

"True, but he's the fastest man alive, Justine," Nicoletta countered. "I need
you to help Sarina secure that second side project, and then I need to get
Wonder Woman in my clutches. Then we'll have three of the most powerful
heroes in our service, one or two of whom can help with Flash, along with
Zatanna and Black Canary, assuming that you and Sarina can get her. If we try
to get Flash now without all that help and he escapes, which is entirely
likely, everyone will be on guard, and everyone will know who to watch for."

"Sounds like a justification, Nicoletta."

"Yes, but it's also the truth. I don't get any pleasure from making you wait,
Justine. I know you crave living flesh for your sexual gratification too much
to settle for anything else, and I know you'd rather have someone you can
love and have to love you, for decades to come. But..."

"...my needs continue and my desire grows without a partner..."

"...and your toxins grow and build with that unspent desire," Nicoletta
finished. "I am almost certain I can modify Flash so that his physiology,
along with our technology, will allow him to satisfy you, bleed off your
toxins, and do so for the duration. He'll be your lover and your filter. In
the meantime, others like this man will have to fill the gaps."

"If you're so confident that you can make the Flash sturdy enough to serve
all my needs, why not just keep me sealed away from everyone until we catch
him?"

"I'm confident, not foolhardy," Nicoletta said. "I can make it so that Flash
will be able to serve you over the normal course of things. If I let toxins
build up in you for weeks and then give him to you, you might burn him out
just like this latest lover."

Toxine sighed. "All right, then, but I'd prefer to stop piling up corpses, no
matter how enjoyable I can make their fates. I'm not so certain that your new
heroes, with the exception of Superman maybe - since you've bent his will so
much - will stand by you as allies or lovers if they know what we're doing.
Beth might even abandon you."

"I know," Nicoletta said. "Everyone thinks that we've stopped giving you men
after our previous attempts to protect your lovers failed. But on the bright
side, you've helped give some otherwise terminally ill men a nice exit who
didn't want to linger and waste away anyway, and you've given a few die-hard
killers and sexually abusive creeps a much nicer end than the executions they
deserved."

"I wonder if such distinctions would be appreciated by these heroes of yours,
without you needing to completely subvert their wills," Toxine noted.

"Probably not," Nicoletta said, "which is why it will stay our little secret.
Because I want my two favorites to be as much themselves as I can leave them
while still binding them to me, and not have to wipe their wills clean."

* * *

Once Nicoletta had left, and the latest body was gone, Toxine got herself
into a nice, meditative lotus position and focused her thoughts.

It took a while. She was agitated still, and impatient. She already knew all
the things that Nicoletta had told her about the difficulties with netting
Flash, of course, and she agreed with them mostly. Also, she would never let
slip what they were doing right now and undermine her cousin's plans. But at
the same time, Nicoletta could forget other people's needs, and so reminders
were often in order. 

I won't allow her to wallow in pleasures with Green Lantern and then Wonder
Woman and delay getting my Flash, Toxine thought. Everyone needs to get what
they want, as soon as feasible.

Of course, part of the problem was going to be making Flash want what she
wanted, Toxine considered. In some ways, though Nicoletta's plans were
complex and tricky, she had an advantage in leaning more toward seduction and
love with her two prizes so that she could keep their real personalities
mostly intact. She could work with the kinds of things those two heroes
probably already valued, by twisting those values slightly. 

Toxine, on the other hand, had to not only secure Flash's devotion, but also
make him solely fixated on her, and make sure he would desire sex as often as
she did. Essentially, she had to make him comfortable with having what
amounted to a full-time job as her sex toy.

Oh, he will love me, and unlike Nicoletta, it doesn't matter to me if that
love is from his soul or a result of totally enthralled neuroreceptors,
Toxine thought. Such distinctions don't really matter to me, and I have no
problem being in total control. I don't want a mindless automaton - he's got
to keep his personality - but I couldn't care less whether he truly wants to
be with me or simply thinks he does.

But that posed a challenge for her. Nicoletta's drugs, in relatively small
doses, would work well for Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, but the Flash
would cycle them through his system too fast. Nicoletta was also making
subtle genetic changes to those in her thrall to ensure that her heroes
couldn't turn against her. But Nicoletta couldn't make those kinds of genetic
modifications to Flash because of the many other genetic changes she was
going to have to make to allow him to survive Toxine's embrace for more than
a few days or weeks.

Nicoletta would provide Toxine with enough drugged Steampunks and other
special cigarettes and cigarillos to do the job of arousing and controlling
Flash, but as much as Toxine liked to smoke, she wanted her hands to be free
for something other than constant chain-smoking - even if it was
theoretically possible for her to make some extra arms for herself - and she
didn't want to have to work that hard just to keep Flash loyal.

I had assured Nicoletta that I could keep him under control, and I wasn't
sure how to do that, but now I am, Toxine mused. Now I can make my little
pets. I understand my new body better. I've also figured out enough about my
mind control chemicals now - and new ones I didn't even know I could make -
thanks to all these men sacrificed to my needs. No one died in vain. I now
know exactly what to do.

The problem had always been what to do when she wasn't going to be around
Flash. Once she was stable, emotionally and physically, she'd probably need
to get back to work in the labs. As much as she liked sex - adored it in
fact, even more so than before since she mutated - even she didn't want to
spend every hour of every day in such activities. Five to eight hours was
quite enough.

Certainly, she could have Flash kept in a room being constantly pumped with
one or more of Nicoletta's chemicals, but as a long-term measure, that didn't
sit well with Toxine. Her lover needed to have her chemicals in him. She
needed to be inside him at all times, even when she wasn't around.

Meditation and relaxation were always difficult for her, but at least with
her having sated herself on this latest man, and purging herself of her most
noxious toxins, she had some calmness of mind. It took Toxine an hour to get
the right frame of mind, though. It took two more hours to extrude and
reshape those parts of her body she needed for this task.

I never really had much of a maternal streak, anyway, Toxine considered.
There is no way that any fetus could survive in my body - or if it did, I
don't want to know what kind of creature it would turn out to be. If I find
myself wanting to raise a kid someday, I can adopt. 

Toxine and Flash, sitting in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G... first comes his
corruption, then comes marriage. Then comes super-kiddo in a super-carriage.

She giggled to herself at the ludicrous train of thought, wondering not for
the first time how much of her sanity she had left behind in the chemical vat
that had shaped both her and Vitriol, then looked down at the parts of her
that she needed to work with, still attached to her by tiny umbilical
strings, but not for much longer.

She pulled out a Steampunk cigarette, and heated up her fingertip to light
it, then drew thick smoke through the faux-wooden filter, admiring the
bronze-colored metallic-looking shaft, and blew the smoke - thick with extra
nicotine and other chemicals for her pleasure - over the extruded tissue
before her.

Ovaries and uterus and all the other stuff that men couldn't boast in their
reproductive systems, plus a few other tissues she could always regrow later,
just to round things out. She willed the tissues together, homogenized their
cellular structure as much as possible, then willed them into two separate
little globes.

She smoked as she did it, to calm herself and center herself some more. In
many ways, the hard part was over. She had removed the parts she needed, and
prepared them. The next stage, programming and loading them, would be the
easy part, actually, drawing on her powers more directly and on her thorough
scientific knowledge of biology and chemistry.

Both masses of tissue would become her "pets." Not thinking creatures,
really, but alive in many senses, and ambulatory - something more than
remote-controlled biological toys, but something less than animals. They
would be her tools, to attach to Flash and feed him tiny but constant doses
of her most potent mind control drugs to keep him hers forever; to keep him
in the right state of mind both when he was with her and not. All she would
have to do is have one of them take the "day shift" and one take the "night
shift" and keep them healthy and loaded with her chemicals.

So much easier than trying to keep tabs on Flash constantly, she considered.
And there will always be a little part of me with him, even when I'm not.

In the end, she smiled at her final results. She stroked them as if they were
little house pets, then fed them each a long, tight stream of smoke from her
Steampunk. She very much liked the modifications Nicoletta had made to the
cigarettes at her suggestion.

She was so proud of her designs, too. One of her little minions had eight
soft, warm, spider-like legs and a tubular body. She'd call it Thing One.
During the day and early evening, it would hug Flash's balls gently, and
massage them, while its body entered his anus and fed him her biochemical
drugs like a suppository. And she could make it do other delicious things in
there too to make his passions run hot. Then the other minion, Thing Two,
which was a flatter, more oblong shape, with four little limbs and a
needle-like proboscis. It would take the later nighttime and early morning
shift, hugging the back of Flash's neck and feeding Toxine's essences to him
while he slept, so that he could wake as in love with her as he had been when
he lay down.

She'd test them first, of course, on whatever men Nicoletta would bring her
between now and when the Flash was hers.

Toxine breathed deep of smoke, and then two more times before she exhaled a
thick cloud across her bed. She slipped several fingers inside herself, and
let them spread deep inside her, and as she rode her altered digits, she
mentally started counting down the days to when Flash would be hers - even if
she didn't really know the exact number it would be.

* * *

"I have a surprise for you, Nicoletta," Annabeth Shields said as she entered
her mistress' office and closed the door behind her, locking it. "The kind of
surprise that may just make you want to let me be on top tonight, over you
and Hal Jordan."

Nicoletta grinned wickedly, thinking to herself how nice it was that Beth was
warming up to Hal, and she lit up a cigarette, leaning back in her leather
office chair and crooking one finger in a "come hither" motion. Beth came
over, and sat in Nicoletta's lap, breathing deeply of the smoke blown her
way. 

"You think so, eh?" Nicoletta said. "What kind of prize could you be offering
that would make you think that?"

Before Beth could answer, Nicoletta's fingers dipped under the woman's skirt,
gratified to find that no panties were in her way, and began to massage the
blonde-fringed vulva.

Beth moaned a little, but squared her shoulders and looked at Nicoletta with
a mix of girlish innocence and supreme haughtiness. "Why, mistress, I bring
you news of Captain Marvel's secret identity."

"Oh, my," Nicoletta said, and let one finger press just beyond the lips of
Beth's cunt, to begin massaging the damper, softer flesh there. "That is good
news."

Captain Marvel had been one of the stickiest problems facing Nicoletta.
Probably as powerful as Superman, maybe more so in some ways, but Clark
didn't know who Captain Marvel was, and it seemed no one really did.
Furthermore, Captain Marvel boasted not only tremendous power - and from an
apparently mystical source, no less - but also possessed a maddeningly
goody-goody optimistic streak that seemed even more Boy Scout-like than
Superman's.

Having a hero like that still loose and not under her control was
unacceptable. There were already enough problems posed by such powerful
heroes as Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, Plastic Man, and Captain Atom without
having to worry about Captain Marvel. But at least Nicoletta had discovered
the secret identities of those other four through Lois and Clark, and would
figure out how to neutralize their threats or at least minimize them.

"I just got back from my lunchtime reprogramming of our lovely
fishnet-wearing sorceress Zatanna, and in doing some mild debriefing of her
at the same time, I tripped across the fact that she, like a few other
mystical heroes, knew who Captain Marvel was, though they didn't share that
knowledge with the other heroes," Beth said proudly, but with a gasping
little hitch in her voice as Nicoletta filled the air around her with smoke,
and her pussy with three nimble, sticky fingers.

"And who is the Big Red Cheese, then?" Nicoletta asked.

"Ahhhh... Mmmmm... Billy Batson, mistress."

"Billy? Not the most manly name."

"Billy Batson... oooohhhh... is a teen-age boy. Fourteen years old, give or
take."

"Really?" said Nicoletta, craning her neck to give Beth a smoky kiss, and
adding a fourth finger to the digital fucking of her lover. "That's odd."

"He says... oooooo... um... he says a magic word, `Shazam,' and that turns
him into a full-grown, super-powered man... ummmm... ahhh... although he
still has the idealistic principles of the good boy he really is."

For several minutes, Nicoletta was silent, as she smoked and diddled Beth.
Beth tried to keep her moans subdued, knowing that her mistress was thinking.

"Oh, I have a most wicked little idea, Beth."

"Please, mistress, tell it to me to make me come harder. Please... and then
I'll lick out your dripping pussy in this smoky office while you tell me
again."

"Why not, dear Beth? Why not?"

* * *

Two days after the revelation about Captain Marvel, Nicoletta Teena had her
15-year-old niece, Alexandra, in her office, fresh off a plane from France.
After about 10 minutes or so of small talk, the younger Teena decided to cut
to that chase.

"OK, I love you, I'm glad to be here, blah blah blah," Alexandra said,
rolling her eyes. "We both know you're not all emotionally gooey and you
haven't missed me that much and you were really fucking mysterious on the
phone about why you wanted me to visit the old company HQ all of a sudden."

"A little mystery is good in life," Nicoletta said, pointedly not
contradicting her niece, and quietly proud that she was already shaping up to
be a credit to the family, unlike her father, Nicoletta's brother, who
publicly shunned the family business while privately benefitting from its
wealth.

"A little smoke is good in life, too, and they don't let you do it on
airplanes anymore, and I can get the good cigarettes in Europe. May I?"

"It's family tradition, your father being one of the few exceptions. Please,"
Nicoletta said, taking out a cigarette of her own and lighting up. "But
please don't denigrate your own family's cigarettes by suggesting those
pretentious European ones are any better."

"I call `em like I see `em, Aunt Nicky," Alexandra said, cigarette bouncing
between her lips as she spoke, and then she lit her own, exhaled a cloud into
Nicoletta's own, and slumped in the chair in a most unladylike fashion.

"That's terrible for your posture, dear," Nicoletta said.

"And yet you encourage me to smoke," Alexandra said with a little chuckle.
"Ironic or hypocritical? Oh, how you corrupt the morals of young folk."

"Only the ones I like, Alex," Nicoletta responded with a smile, "and I was
hoping I might enlist you to corrupt the morals of another youth."

That got Alexandra to sit up straight, as she took another drag of her
cigarette and gave her aunt a long, lingering gaze. "Oh? Really?"

"Your father may not know it... or at least not want to admit it," Nicoletta
said, "but you know I'm grooming you to have a place in the company once you
get through university."

"Jesus, that's like... what? Six years away? Can't you fast-track me or
something? Blood being thicker than water and all that jazz."

"More like eight years, Alex. I think a master's degree would serve you well.
But I do have something you can do for me, and the company, now that would
get you a nice little allowance and bank account that your father wouldn't
know about."

"OK, that's even better than a fast-track to a cushy job," Alexandra
admitted. "What do you have in mind?"

"I've trusted you with a lot of secrets, Alex, and this is a big one. I need
you to keep it," Nicoletta said. In truth, she wasn't worried. While she
tended not to mess with the minds of family members much, she really did see
a lot of potential in Alexandra, and had taken her under her wing. But at the
same time, she knew that teen-agers weren't always good at controlling
themselves or holding their tongues, and so she'd planted plenty of
post-hypnotic triggers in the girl's mind that would keep her lips sealed
about certain things.

"You can trust me, Aunt Nicky," Alexandra said earnestly, almost
breathlessly. "What do you need me to do?"

"Help take down one of the most powerful superheroes around."

Alexandra's eyes widened at that. "Well, I heard Superman is already missing
in action, and why do you need a superhero taken down?"

"I'm talking about Captain Marvel, dearest, and I need more than one
superhero taken down, as I'm trying to reshape the world."

"That's a big favor to ask of a teen girl," Alexandra said, smoking almost
furiously now in a combination of excitement and fear. "And I thought LexCorp
was the company that tries to take over the world."

"I said reshape the world, Alex, and in some rather specific ways. As for the
favor, you know all too well the kinds of chemicals I can put into
cigarettes, and the kinds of ways I can ensure that you're protected from
their effects, but your quarry isn't."

"Captain Marvel? Shit!" Alexandra put out her cigarette, lit another, and
smoked for a minute more before she asked, "How much of an allowance? And for
how long?"

Nicoletta wrote a number on a Post-It note, held it up and said, "This much,
and for the next eight years, give or take, until you finish all your
schooling and come work for me for even more money."

The teen whistled sharply and took a deep breath. "What do I need to do?"

"You need to transfer to a nice private school in Fawcett City, my dear, and
get to know a nice, wholesome young teen-ager named Billy Batson who doesn't
live far from it. You need to smoke for him, Alex. You need to seduce him.
You need to make him wholly yours, make sure he never says the word `Shazam'
ever again and never wants to. And you need to make me and your father proud
by getting very good grades at school."

Nicoletta paused, blew smoked toward Alexandra, and smiled. Her niece smiled
back.

"Daddy?"

"Don't worry about him. You'll be watched over by someone he knows is very
wholesome and trustworthy at our Fawcett City offices. Fortunately for you
and I, this very wholesome and trustworthy person can be put into a fugue
state with a special codeword, so that you can come and go as you please.
You'll have to be prim and proper around him most of the time, though,  so
that your father doesn't pull the plug on your new plans for schooling."

Alexandra took a nice, calm, slow drag on her cigarette, looked at her aunt
slyly through the haze of smoke between them, and said, "I'm thinking I'm
going to like Fawcett City even better than Paris."

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