Thunderclaps 2: Chapter 4 - X-Rated Agenda

“A mysterious metal woman rescued Hoshiyama Industry’s president from the terrorist group.”

(1965, from Sun Sports News)

The armored hero Comet Hawk was later revealed to be the president’s wife, Hoshiyama Azusa.

 

“Ozora Miki, move out.”

An announcement rang through the announcer division. The voice belonged to Sakuma Masateru, well-known as a skilled producer at Peace TV.

A key station like Peace TV had a lot of employees, but the only one told to “move out” was Ozora Miki.

Miki had just been returning from the break room with tea for the more experienced announcers. She looked over to see another new announcer, Matsuya Naoko, reaching out and taking the tray from her.

“Sakuma-san is calling for you, so go get changed already.”

Miki bowed apologetically.

“Sorry, Naoko. You always get stuck serving the tea.”

“I don’t mind, really. I mean, you’re keeping us all safe. And you still get paid the same as a newcomer like me even though you’re getting better ratings than anyone else.”

Miki nodded and rushed to the announcer division’s clothing room. The small room contained all of the company’s announcer clothing. The announcers would cleverly combine their own clothing with what was in here to give them the clean and subdued look of an announcer while still looking nice on TV.

But there was something else here for Miki.

The suits lined up in the closet were so short they only came down to her solar plexus.

A series of identical clothing were lined up alongside those tiny suits. They were all sky blue bodysuits meant to be reminiscent of Captain Sky’s costume.

Miki sighed because she was still not used to wearing this. She had never questioned how all the famous female superheroes around the world wore formfitting costumes that showed off their proportions, but she had also never considered that she might have to dress like that in front of people.

Once she was done sighing, she stripped off her blouse and skirt. She also had to remove her underwear. The Justice Circus had provided the bodysuits and they were made of a special material that made them flexible but powerful, but they were so skintight the lines of her underwear would show through. That forced her to wear special chest pads and a skimpy thong.

After putting a sky blue bodysuit on over her bare skin, she put on one of the mini-suits and put her shoes back on. When she left the clothing room, the other announcers all wished her luck and gave their support.

“Thank you. See you soon.”

She descended the stairs and left through Peace TV’s front entrance. A team was already waiting aboard a news van. Her personal producer, Sakuma Masateru, was waiting in front of the van.

Once she had donned a headband equipped with a miniature camera and attached a lapel mic to her suit collar, Sakuma made a lively announcement.

“Now: Snow Wing, move out!”

“Yes, this is Snow Wing heading out.”

White wings passed through her suit to spread wide form her back. With a single flap, she was soaring toward the blue sky above.

“God,” grumbled Sakuma as he watched her go. “She still flies out without giving the camera a proper show.”

He spun around and boarded the van with the nimbleness he had built up playing rugby in his youth.

“Take us straight to the scene!”

 

A month had passed since the Natural Law Incident in Shibuya.

After their trial, Stonemason and the other three had been sent to the new-and-improved Ogasawara Super Maximum Security Prison.

The inappropriate language shouted live on air had been overlooked during all the confusion. Instead, the president and the rest of the Peace TV executives had made a crucial decision the day after the incident.

Now that Ozora Miki had inherited Captain Sky’s power (they were very careful to never say she had “stolen” them), they would provide their full support as she worked as both a Peace TV announcer and a superhero.

The upshot was Peace TV now had their very own superhero.

Miki had never even considered quitting her announcer job, so she had accepted the company’s decision.

A few days later, Peace TV and the Justice Circus had worked together to hold a hero retirement ceremony for Captain Sky now that he had lost his Offbeat powers. The ceremony had been used to introduce Ozora Miki to the world as a new hero inheriting his powers.

The Captain had granted her the costume and the hero name of Snow Wing during the gorgeous ceremony. Although both the costume and the name had come from the TV station.

Ozora Miki, aka Snow Wing, had become decently popular for announcing the news on TV and then appearing as a superhero to save people and stop crimes.

It helped that her battles were all broadcast live across Japan.

 

Snow Wing adjusted the direction of her white wings to eliminate the lift supporting her and to drop toward the ground with quite a lot of speed.

At about 3m from the ground, she spread her wings again for a rapid stop. In a move that defied ordinary aerodynamics, she came to a gentle stop. This strange effect was thanks to the energy lifeform fused with her.

After alighting on the ground, she adjusted the position of the headband-like mini-camera and complained silently.

(I wanted to follow in the Captain’s footsteps, but not like this.)

She had lost count of how many times she had made the same complaint. She stored her folded wings inside her back and then noticed the tense-looking film crew behind her. Peace TV’s live broadcast combined their footage with the footage from the mini-camera that gave her first-person view.

(I thought superheroes were supposed to have secret identities, but everyone in Japan knows who Snow Wing is.)

“Sorry, but this could be dangerous, so please stay out here. I will go in on my own.”

She was facing a large derelict building that made her feel chills even at midday.

Producer Sakuma had explained the situation to her while she flew here. This creepy building on the outskirts of Hachioji had once been a hospital, but it had gone out of business over a decade ago and had sat empty ever since. However, it had become famous for ghost sightings at some point. Peace TV had even covered it two years ago in a program titled “Wednesday Ultra Special Hair-Raising Paranormal Investigation Files #3! Shocking Footage of a Real Ghost!!” But Sakuma had told her the entire show had been staged.

But based on some information sent to Snow Wing’s Nest on Peace TV’s website, the screams and moans of women had been heard coming from within of late. And these were not just bored trolls making stuff up; they were serious reports from actual nearby residents.

A lot of people came to Snow Wing with their problems because they felt like they could trust her after seeing her on TV every day. Sakuma would sift through those for something that would make a good show and then sent Snow Wing in. They had even captured some criminals based on that online information.

This time, there was a post by someone saying they had actually seen a woman being taken inside the abandoned hospital, so Snow Wing had been sent out right away.

(Oh, god, I hate this. I really don’t want to go into a haunted hospital. They should send these jobs to an occult hero like Madam Scroll.)

She was scared on the inside, but she gave quiet commentary like an announcer should.

“I am now entering the hospital that has recently featured in several unnerving rumors.”

She grabbed the shutter covering the main entrance. It was rusty and wouldn’t budge if a normal person tried to move it. The new superhero focused on her arms. She did not feel any stronger than before, but the heavy shutter creaked and rose.

This was apparently the energy being inside her at work. Captain Sky had said it reinforced her own body’s actions.

Over the past month, she had visited the Justice Circus HQ whenever she had some spare time and received training from Captain Sky. Both in using her Offbeat powers and how to fight in general. She was gradually gaining more muscle tone, which was actually bothering her recently.

“The inside is as creepy as you might expect, but I don’t see anything suspicious. I will venture further. Kyah!”

She heard a noise from behind something up ahead, which reminded her of a scary scene from a horror movie, so she immediately sent her wings from her back and around to the front of her body. It was nearly reflexive at this point, but that proved fortunate.

Several gunshots rang out and just as many bullets collided with her wings. The energy wings absorbed the bullets’ speed and they clattered to the dusty floor. She saw five or six suspicious people hiding behind walls and abandoned furniture.

“Yes, that was quite the hail of bullets.”

She provided a running commentary while sending energy coursing through her body and kicking off the floor. She moved a portion of her wings to propel herself through the air and land in front of a man who was still firing his pistol.

“Whoa, stay back!”

The “man” who shouted in shock and anger was still very young and wore a Hawaiian shirt depicting a hyena with a bone in its mouth. He looked like a brutal criminal, but he was clearly still in his teens.

Snow Wing reached out her right hand and grabbed the hand holding the gun. She squeezed just a bit and the boy’s face stiffened in agony before he dropped the gun. The others were still firing of course, but she defended herself and the boy with her wings.

“Excuse me, but what are you people doing here?”

“Sh-shut up! None of your business!”

The boy shouted at her and a bundle of polaroid photos fell from the breast pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. They scattered at her feet and she switched off her mini-camera the instant she saw them. The photos all showed graphic sexual scenes. Worse, they were all of a bound woman being raped by multiple boys. The tear-streaked face of the woman was more than enough to deduce this was not consensual SM.

Also, the person grinning and showing off how he was sticking his erect penis in the woman’s anus was the boy in front of her.

“H-how can you do things like this?”

The look of horror on Snow Wing’s face helped the boy regain his confidence. He recognized the look as the one women gave when begging for mercy. It was the one women gave when they succumbed and spread their legs for his group.

“Heh heh. My cock’ll have you crying like the rest of ‘em before lo- ugh!”

Snow Wing’s fist grazed the boy’s left ear and smashed wrist-deep in the marble wall behind him.

“Oh…oh, christ.”

“You won’t get away with this. None of you will!”

Her right knee sank into the boy’s gut.

“Gweh!”

He doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach. Of course, if she had used her full strength there, her knee would have ruptured his stomach, broken out through his spine, and embedded itself in the wall behind him. Her first and most important lesson from Captain Sky had been how to control her power so she never critically injured anyone.

“I hope you’re ready!”

She roared in anger and rushed into the flying bullets. The group of guns moved to follow the blue bodysuit and a boy in red sunglasses shouted in terror. He too was wearing the hyena Hawaiian shirt, so it may have been the group uniform.

“Don’t shoot! You’ll hit me! Eeek!”

Like a hawk swooping down to capture its prey, her fingers broke his red sunglasses and latched onto his face. The boy was larger than she was, but she lifted him with one hand and slammed him against the ceiling. The blow to his back knocked him out, so she threw him like a ball toward the bald boy hiding behind the reception desk. When the two villainous boys collided, they both slid limply to the floor.

The boys’ misdeeds had gone unnoticed until now, so they were terrified by their first run-in with a superhero. They had known intellectually that guns were useless against most heroes, but actually seeing their bullets deflected was something else entirely.

“It’s no use! We can’t win!”

“Let’s get outta here!”

The remaining three boys turned tail and tried to flee, but the winged announcer landed in front of them. She grabbed the boys on either side by the collar and slammed them against the middle boy’s head.

She breathed a heavy sigh while looking down at the boys holding their aching heads on the ground.

“Hm, I may have let my anger get the better of me there. These kids are ordinary humans.”

Feeling apologetic, she returned to her running commentary.

“The people who fired on me were in fact quite young. They may still be teenagers. Hard to believe these children had pistols. It really goes to show how much younger modern criminals are. The Peace TV film crew will have contacted the police, so I will check further inside.”

She walked deeper into the abandoned hospital and checked inside the examination rooms and patient rooms that were now home to insects and spiders.

(This isn’t good. If nothing more happens, the viewers will get bored. They’ll have to edit this when re-airing it.)

With that thought, she opened a door labeled radiology.

“Yikes!”

A woman of about 20 was bound spread eagle to an uncomfortable-looking bed in nothing but her glasses. It was hard to tell when she was naked, but she looked like an earnest sort of woman who would do well on an educational kids program.

“She’s the one from the photos.”

A digital video camera was set up on a tripod and aimed toward her forcibly-spread crotch to film her humiliating situation. She had a ball gag in her mouth and she started groaning incoherently when she saw Snow Wing.

Snow Wing frantically switched her mini-camera off again after seeing the gruesome scene.

“I’m here to save- kyah!”

Just as Snow Wing entered the room, a boy of about 10 rushed out from behind the door and grabbed at her hips. She noted a sweet scent, perhaps from some leftover hospital drugs.

“Miss Snow Wing! I was so scared.”

“What’s wrong, boy?”

The boy wiped away his tears and sniffled as he pleaded her.

“Some scary older boys trapped me and that lady in here.”

“It’s okay now. I took care of the bad…”

Snow Wing felt a sudden and intense drowsiness. She fainted before she even noticed it was happening. The new hero’s face landed on some small sneaker prints on the floor.

The sobbing boy was now cackling and stuck out his tongue.

“Dumb bitch. Some hero you are. You fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”’

He tore the lapel mic from Snow Wing’s costume and turned his seemingly pure eyes toward the bound woman. Intense fear appeared on her face.

“Snow Wing’s pretty popular, right? I bet people’d pay a lot for porn of her. I’m rich. First, how ‘bout I strip that costume off her and have her film a lesbian scene with you?”

“Hi, Perfume Rat. Your Scavenger Boys crossed a line this time. You attacked a friend of mine.”

When a female voice spoke without warning, the 10-year-old boss of the street gang spun to the right. The upper body of a girl in a black leather jacket and a black plastic bustier had grown from his small shadow on the floor.

“Cemetery! You’re goin’ to sleep too!”

The boy emitted a sweet scent from his small body. He was known as Perfume Rat because of this sleep-inducing body odor. Just one whiff and you were out cold.

But Nanjou Shino, aka Cemetery, did not look concerned while fully emerging from the shadow.

“Stupid kid. I already know about your BO problem. I’ve got cotton plugging my nose.”

“Fucking bi- geh!”

The boy turned tail and tried to run, but the right leg extending from Cemetery’s super-miniskirt caught his feet. He tripped and became airborne.

Before he could land again, Cemetery’s bare knee crashed into his face.

The child rolled on the floor with blood gushing from his nose and his broken front teeth falling from his mouth. Before long, he fainted and stopped moving.

“Rie, are you hurt?”

Cemetery undid the bed’s restraints and hugged the older woman tight.

“Shino, thank you for coming.”

“It’s fine. This is what I do.”

Cemetery kissed Rie’s teary cheek and the adult woman’s face melted with joy.

“Seeing you pushed all that unpleasantness from my mind.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll destroy the videos and deal with the Scavenger Boys. Hiroko and the others are waiting in a car out behind the hospital. They’ll take you home.”

“Thank you. Oh, and save her too.”

Rie gave her a powerful smile and looked toward Snow Wing asleep on the floor.

Cemetery sighed.

“Really? Her again?”

Once she had dressed, Rie gave unconscious Perfume Rat a few solid kicks in the side before leaving. Cemetery pulled a small plastic vial of smelling salts from her jacket pocket, opened the lid, and held it below Snow Wing’s nose. Snow Wing’s nose twitched and then she groaned.

“Good, you’re awake.”
That was all Cemetery said before turning her back and searching through a brand-new bag found in the room. It contained various sizes and shapes of vibrators and anal beads as well as some digital video disks.

Snow Wing looked around and she cried out when she saw the boy collapsed with a bloody face.

“What!? What happened here?”
“That brat’s Perfume Rat, leader of the worst gang in Shibuya, the Scavenger Boys. You can’t let your guard down around an Offbeat, even if they’re a kid. I’d heard the rumors of him abducting women and making illegal porn, but looks like it’s true.”

Meanwhile, Cemetery inserted the disks into the camera to check the footage. They were all rape videos that made her want to cover her eyes.

“I’ll destroy all the videos, so you get back to your TV station.”

“Wait. I want to talk with you, Nanjou-san. You’ve inherited Mister Shadow’s powers, haven’t you?”
“Just call him Mister Unfair. It’s what everyone knows him as.”

“But Captain Sky called him Mister Shadow.”

Snow Wing thought back to what Captain Sky had told her in between her training in the Justice Circus HQ training room.

After Captain Sky became Japan’s first superhero in 1962, superheroes appeared in a few different cities, influenced by his heroic feats.

That was the first generation of heroes who fought during the 60s and 70s, which became known the world over as the Golden Age of heroes. Most of those had retired due to aging and injuries, or they had bravely lost their lives in the pursuit of peace and justice. Until a month ago, Captain Sky had been one of the few first generation heroes still active.

“Mister Shadow was a Golden Age hero with the Offbeat power to teleport from shadow to shadow like you do. He was also Captain Sky’s partner. I have seen Peace TV’s archived footage. An older company VIP told me people used to call them Sky & Shadow.”

“But Mister Shadow betrayed Captain Sky. Shortly before Captain Sky called the other Japanese heroes together to form the Justice Circus, Shadow disappeared and reappeared half a year later with a new name and costume.”

Cemetery’s icy voice reminded Snow Wing of the archived news footage she had seen at the station.

He had been a tall, muscular man in a gray suit and a black mask that seemed to fade into the darkness. The head of a wanted robber and murderer was sticking up out of the concrete at his feet. The unconscious criminal’s face was colored only by one emotion: pure terror.

Just seeing that face had been enough for Snow Wing to feel the same terror he must have experienced, sending a chill down her spine. He had been a fearless criminal who had ruled over all the inmates at a prison full of violent criminals, yet he had fainted from pure terror, without a single scratch on him.

But the man’s horrifying face was not what Miki remembered most about the footage.

The word written on the stomach of the supposed hero’s gray costume still stuck in her mind.

It said “unfair”, which was terribly inappropriate for a superhero.

That was when Mister Unfair became known as a superhero who was not afraid to let people know he did not play by the rules.

Cemetery made a blunt comment while viewing the videos.

“I bet Captain Sky still holds a grudge. I mean, his former partner became a blot on their legacy.”

“Not at all. The Captain blamed himself.”

“Himself?”
“When Captain Sky had only just started as a hero, he provoked a criminal to show off and that led to the hostage dying. But Mister Shadow was such a kind soul he blamed himself for the mistake and chose a different path for himself. He chose to blend into the shadows and get as close to evil as he could while using whatever dirty methods it took to ensure victory over that evil. The Captain said that was why he became Mister Unfair.”

“Geez, how good natured is Captain Sky?”

“Please do meet with him. He wants to know where Mister Shadow is now.”

“You work for a TV station, so you should know there hasn’t been any news about Mister Unfair for over a decade now.”

“True.”

“He’s already retired, so leave him alone. Geh, the hell is this?”
Some actual emotion suddenly filled Cemetery’s icy voice. Curious, Snow Wing looked to the digital camera monitor.

“Wh-what is this!?”
The monitor was still playing explicit footage of sex. Two naked women were down on all fours with fat, activated vibrators penetrating them while they wiggled their butts and used their lips and tongues to pleasure a man’s cock and balls.

It was not an unusual scene for SM porn, but the women demonstrating their oral technique were not porn stars.

Snow Wing and Cemetery spoke the women’s names out loud.

“Lily Dynamo!”

“Silver Bullet!”

They exchanged a glance like they were old friends.

“What does this mean?”

“It can’t be real. Famous superheroes wouldn’t be doing porn. These must be lookalikes. …Oh, but she has the moles on her side!”

When training with Silver Bullet at the Justice Circus HQ, Snow Wing had joined her in the bath afterwards on several occasions. She had noticed two moles lined up on the woman’s side then. Those would not be public knowledge, so she doubted they could be faked for a lookalike porn video.

“Let’s visit Justice Circus HQ. We can’t let anyone know about this, so we have to ask her directly. You come with me, Nanjou-san.”

“Aren’t you on the job right now?”

“When working as Snow Wing, I can take on other tasks at my own discretion. It’s fine as long as I contact them afterwards.”

“Fine, then you go alone. I don’t know those heroes. I’ll get rid of these while I’m at it.”

Cemetery picked up the video camera and the bag of disks and she started to sink down into her own shadow.

“No.”

Snow Wing spread her wings and the bright light emitted by the feathers eliminated every shadow in the room.

“Geez, really!?”

With no shadows to teleport with, Cemetery was thrown down onto the floor.

 

Snow Wing flew across Tokyo while holding Cemetery who was in turn holding the video camera and bag of disks. Once in Ginza, she dove through the window to Silver Bullet’s room in the Justice Circus HQ.

“Whoa!”
Silver Bullet was wearing a white track suit and she dropped her video game controller in surprise.

The TV showed a CG Silver Bullet getting pummeled by a hairy monster until the game over screen appeared. That was an officially licensed Justice Circus fighting game. The licensing fees for the heroes were all donated to a volunteer group. Of course, Smilodon (the monster currently shown on the victory screen) and the other imprisoned criminals who were made into enemy characters had also been paid for their likeness rights.

“Arrrrgh! And I was so close to the secret bonus stage!”

Silver Bullet’s ponytail snapped around as she turned toward the intruders. She always had a powerful face for a woman, but it was even harsher than normal after this unexpected game over.

“You really scared me there, Miki-chan. Wait, isn’t that Cemetery, the girl the Captain was looking for?”
True to her role as a speedster, her anger cooled in an instant and curiosity replaced it. She had originally been studying archaeology in college, so she was drawn to mysteries and the unknown more than most people.

“That’s a TV station for you, I guess. Hey, did you get help from the team on Rainbow Life Land, where they search out family members who were separated at birth?”

“No, this isn’t about that. Um, Silver-san, uh…how do I even bring this up?”

Snow Wing blushed and fidgeted.

“What’s wrong, Miki-chan?”

“Um, uhh…well…uh…”

“Ahhh, I can’t stand this. I’ll tell her!”

Cemetery had been sulking next to her, but her annoyance finally got the better of her. She rapidly explained what had happened at the abandoned hospital and pulled the disk in question from the bag.

“This disk contains a porn video of you and the late Lily Dynamo.”

Blushing Snow Wing started waving her hands and wings wildly.

“U-um, it of course isn’t really you. It must be a lookalike, or a shapeshifter, or an android, or something.”

“Let me see it.”

Cemetery held out the disk and Silver Bullet vanished. Before the other two’s windblown bangs could settle back down, Silver Bullet reappeared in a corner of the room. She had moved too quickly for human vision to keep up. Moving that quickly in such a small room should have blasted everything in the room into the air, but some special power restricted her influence on her surroundings.

Japan’s fastest speedster then made a casual comment with the disk still held in her lips.

“Madam, you’re up.”

“Understood.”

Ancient paper scrolls extended from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. Snow Wing and Cemetery were soon enveloped by paper covered with cursed words and patterns.

Snow Wing tried to fight the scrolls by radiating the unknown energy contained within her.

Cemetery tried to escape into her own shadow.

But the paper covered in wisdom predating Ancient Egypt fully sealed the two Offbeats’ powers.

The last thing they saw before falling unconscious were Silver Bullet and Madam Scroll’s satisfied smiles.