The Raven Takes Wing by Duet "Black Hills Beast" - Raven meets the man responsible for her condition/mutation. Kate's plane landed in Rapid City, SD after a long and bumpy flight from Denver. She was relieved to have gotten out of Dallas, away from the Garza boys, from Gash's gang. She needed time to think, to regain her resolve to be a "super heroine". HAH! After that night with the Garza boys, "super slut" was a more apt term for her, she thought, dejectedly. Maybe this Dr. Trimble could help her understand her powers, who she had become? He said he knew her parents and her background. After retrieving her bag from the airline, she followed Dr. Trimble's instructions and took a cab into the Black Hills, away from the city. After an hour-long drive, the cab pulled into a long gravel driveway, finally depositing the girl at the door of a large split-level ranch house. No other houses were in sight; as the cab left, and only the weak porch light broke the Stygian dark of a cloudy night in the Black Hills. Kate could sense that a storm was brewing off to the west, further into the mountains. After a brief rap on the door, the opening door revealed to Kate a small, old man with a few wisps of hair and coke-bottle glasses. "Hello, my dear," the geezer began, his deep voice inconsistent with his small stature, "I'm Dr. Trimble, Steve! Come in, come in!" Warmed by the man's friendliness, Kate entered his house, dropping her bag on the floor. "I didn't know the plane would land so late, or it would take so long to get here. Maybe I should go find a hotel, return in the morning for our discussion?" "No, no, my dear!" Trimble replied, "I have a spare room for your use. You can stay here. We can talk in the morning. It's late, let me show you to your room, and then I'll see you in the morning!" The doctor led the girl upstairs, into a room with an adjoining bathroom. After bidding her good night, he left, closing the door behind him. Kate walked around the bedroom, noting its spare furnishings. She dropped her bag on the bed, took out her overnight kit, and headed into the bathroom to "wash up". When she closed the bathroom door, she heard a loud click. Turning quickly, she was shocked to see there was no doorknob inside the bathroom! The room had no other doors, and no windows, either. Suddenly, a hissing sound heralded the arrival of a beige gas, pumping into the room from the floor vents. Kate began to kick, and throw her shoulder against the door, desperate to get out of the room, which was quickly filling with gas. Coughing, she looked for any way to get out of the room. A mighty kick, then a second, only rattled the door in its frame. Panic began to set in when Kate realized that she was trapped in this room. Coughing more intensely, now, she dropped to her knees, and began to lose consciousness. Finally, after one last, futile hit by her fist on the door, Kate sagged downward, sitting on her heels, her head falling against the door. ******************* Some time later, Kate regained consciousness and slowly began to become aware of her surroundings. She was obviously in the basement of the house - she could see outside through a casement window high on one wall. The room had been fixed like a laboratory, apparently, with glass cases, and lab equipment on shelves. Kate also realized that she was securely fastened to a table of some sort, with manacles or something on her wrists, ankles, and even around her throat. She could turn her head, but that was the extent of her freedom. She struggled, but was unable to get enough leverage to break any of the bonds. She heard a door open behind her, and soon Dr. Trimble was beside her. "I trust you're not too uncomfortable, my dear," he began. "I've been trying to find you for fifteen years, and I didn't want to risk losing you so soon after having finally found you." "Wh ... what do you want ... with me?" Kate asked, her tongue thick with residual effects of the gas. "Ah, the typical response of a female in trouble. Well, I guess this IS a classic, no, a stereotypical, situation, isn't it?" Trimble replied, laughing. "I guess, as the 'villain', I should tell you my plans, to continue this little scene we have, eh, my dear?" "I don't care what you want to do, just let me go and PLEASE STOP CALLING ME YOUR DEAR!" Kate screamed at the man, straining against her restraints. Trimble laughed, then slowly ran a finger along the girl's leg. She was only wearing a T-shirt and under pants; apparently the old fart had undressed her after gassing her. "You see, about twenty-five years ago," Trimble began, "I got a grant from the Air Force. I was a young doctor at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, and got a grant to study hematology - blood - using Air Force enlisted personnel. This was still during the Vietnam War, and Nixon's White House was always looking for tools to help win the war. I sold them on the idea of improving a person's "defenses" by changing their blood, making it a source of power for repairs, more strength, and so on." "So you're a Frankenstein," his captive replied, a slight tremor in his voice, "what's that got to do with me?" "THINK, GIRL!" Trimble shouted. "Your parents were stationed here at Ellsworth AFB back then, and I was sent here to use airmen as 'test subjects'!" "No!" "Ah, yes, my de . . . , ah, that is, 'Kate'", the doctor stammered. "I had a test group of fifty airmen and fifty women, who I injected with two different experimental compounds. Nothing resulted from my study, unfortunately. Their blood did not develop any special characteristics. I thought my work was a failure. Then I heard that two of my volunteers - your parents - married and had a child (and guess who that was, my dear)?" he said, tickling her under her chin. "I was able to get a blood sample from you shortly after you left the hospital. I told your parents it was a precaution because they had been in my study." "At first, your blood seemed normal. Then, a few years later, I looked at the samples again and noticed some small particles in your blood. I also noticed that they had some kind of glow, or shimmer. When I tried to open them, under an electron microscope, I was shocked to learn that nothing, NOTHING could open them! I believe somehow, time, or mixing the two chemicals, or your parents' genetic background, or even a combination, caused these particles to be made by your body. I needed more blood, or even you, to study this, to learn more about these particles. By the way, my dear, I call them 'Trimblers'." "Well, obviously, I needed to do more studies. However, your parents had, by then, transferred to another base, and left the service. I finally tracked them down, only to learn that they had died in an auto accident. My detective didn't know if you had died in the accident, but reported that he couldn't find you." "I recently was able, under the Freedom of Information Act, to get copies of your parents' records, which had been turned over to the government upon completion of my study. I found out the locations of "next of kin", and had a new detective check them, all of them, to try and find you. Once we found that your aunt and uncle, the Dempseys in Chicago had you, we ultimately managed to track you down in Dallas." "But why do you need me?" Kate asked. "Why, to study the particles in your blood, of course!" Trimble replied, laughing. With that said, he picked up a hypodermic needle and a swab, cleansed the skin near her elbow, and jabbed the needle into her vein. Or at least tried to do so. The needle stopped at her skin. A second, harder jab only resulted in the needle breaking! Kate laughed, and said "You might as well let me go, doctor. I'm invulnerable! You'll never get a copy of my blood." "This is AMAZING," the bewildered doctor replied. "Now I have GOT to get some of your blood!" He turned to one cabinet, and began rummaging around inside, jostling tools. "AHA!" he shouted, "Now we'll get some blood!" He returned to the girl's side and revealed the largest syringe Kate had ever seen. The needle looked like a fucking horse needle! This, too, however, failed to penetrate the girl's arm. The doctor shifted to other parts of her body: her stomach, the inside of her thigh, even her vagina, but nowhere did he find a way to break her skin, to draw blood. In desperation, he even tried to poke the needle into her eye, but even that avenue was closed to the doctor. In disgust, he turned and left the room. ******************* Several BORING hours later, the doctor returned to the room and Kate. "If I can't get a sample of your blood, I'll settle for the next best thing, I guess," the doctor said, approaching the table and Kate. In his arms were several packages, containing a variety of sex toys. "Other bodily fluids will contain enough information for me to start to understand you. Maybe even give me hints on how to get 'under your skin', tee hee, tee hee," he giggled. "First, we need to give me some operating room!" he said. He picked up a scalpel and deftly cut off the girl's panties and T-shirt, leaving the bits of fabric under her body, but her front wide open. Next, he pulled out a large vibrator ("at least this one isn't a 'Bitch Tamer'", Kate thought, wryly), smeared some K-Y jelly on the end ("thoughtful," Kate thought), then VIOLENTLY RAMMED the tool into the girl and used its attached cords to tie it to the girl's waist. A flick of the switch and it started thrumming inside Kate, starting to give her some 'good vibrations'. Next, Trimble took a pair of teat clips and affixed one to each of the girl's nipples, noting that the 'alligator jaws' did not phase the girl in the least as they clamped her flesh in their serrated edges. Finally, the doctor took a can of massage talc, and began to rub it into the girl's torso and legs, using long, slow, almost tender strokes on her inner thighs, across her stomach, and around her breasts. Although Kate struggled, both against her bonds and against the pleasure sensations she was feeling, her body's reactions to the doctor's treatments were weakening her resolve. Also, the more she struggled to escape his manacles, the more she seemed to be turning herself on?!? This went on for several minutes, her libido moving her to higher and higher levels of pleasure. The old man, while stroking the girl, leaned down and blew soft warm air on her clitoris, and tongued it, drawing circles around it with his tongue. The long slow strokes on her stomach and inner thigh continued. Kate quickly began to rise toward a peak, and suddenly, had a massive orgasm wrack her body, then another, while the doctor continued to pleasure the girl. Some minutes later, the doctor abruptly stopped his stroking. He untied the vibrator and retracted it from the girl's vagina. Then he used a scalpel to scrape juices from her vagina, depositing them onto several slides, and into Petri dishes. As the girl writhed in afterglow, the doctor left her and the room. Kate soon fell asleep, exhausted from her long day, and this new assault on her body. ***************** Some time later - the same night, based on the view through the sole window glass, darkly, in the basement, Kate awoke and saw a major storm raging outside. Lightning seemed to pulse every other second, and thunder roared through the room. "Now I seem to be in some cheap, Troma Pictures horror flick" she mused. The doctor was not visible, so Kate again began working on her bonds, trying to get free. She was able to sense that her wrists were held by handcuffs. She found that she could almost start to pull her hand through, only a bone on her wrist seemed to stop her. Gritting her teeth, the girl exerted a mighty effort and yanked her hand through the handcuff's loop. Anyone else would have suffered severe damage from this, but Kate's invulnerability and above-normal strength gave her the ability to free her hand. Turning slightly, she exerted the same effort and managed to free her other hand. Her wrists were sore, but unbroken. She found that the throat collar just had a simple pin holding it in place, so she quickly released that and was soon completely freed. The only serious restraint had been the handcuffs. The now-naked heroine slid off the examination table and began tiptoeing toward the one door out of the room. She slowly opened the door and went up the steps behind it. Opening a second door at the top of the stairs, Kate found that she was in the house's kitchen. She quickly crossed the few feet of tile and went out the back door of the house. "Storm's gotta be better than THAT place!" she thought, as she ran, naked, into the raging thunderstorm. "Gotta be able to find a ride on the highway - who wouldn't stop for a naked chick?" the girl reasoned. As she headed down the driveway, her feet slipping on the wet gravel, she slid to a stop at the foot of the driveway and rested a hand on the mailbox, trying to remember which way led to Rapid City. Suddenly, a lightning bolt lanced downward and hit the girl and the metal mailbox. The mailbox exploded in a shower of sparks, the girl was thrown ten feet, landing in a ditch beside the driveway. Thin wisps of smoke drifted out of the unconscious girl's ears, mouth and other orifices as she settled into the rushing water at the bottom of the ditch. She'd taken a MAJOR hit from the lightning. Only her invulnerable body had allowed her to survive, but the shock still rendered her senseless. Fortunately, there was only a few inches of water in the ditch. ************* The doctor had gone to the kitchen for something and noticed the cellar door was ajar. He quickly ducked downstairs and, upon seeing the empty table, ran slowly up the steps and outside. He could just about see Kate's footprints in the mud behind the house, leading toward the driveway. Ignoring the rain, Dr. Trimble pulled his white lab coat tighter and followed the footsteps, turning onto the driveway. He suddenly jerked to a stop when he saw the sky light up, and a shaft of lightning hit the ground not 100 feet before his face! In the glare, he saw his mailbox explode and he saw Kate flung sideways into the ditch! The skin on his face sizzled from the back blast of the lightning strike! The old doctor carefully walked, hunched over, in fear of lightning 'striking twice', to the end of the driveway and saw the nude girl, who had recovered somewhat, and was lying, moaning, one hand pressed to her forehead. Trimble carefully stepped into the ditch and helped the girl to her feet. Together, they climbed out of the ditch and limped back toward the house. ************** Kate recovered her senses slowly, lying in the ditch. She was very groggy and felt like her insides were on fire (well, DUH! she HAD been near a lightning strike!). She laid in the bottom of the ditch, waiting for the world to stop swaying around her, and put one hand to her forehead, trying to stabilize reality. Water coursed through the ditch, over her body. Kate, with great effort, managed to sit up when a shadowy figure in white stepped into the ditch. "My guardian angel!" the befogged girl thought, smiling. Kate reached up to a hand held out to her ("like God in that Italian chapel's painting" she thought) and was able to regain her footing, swaying once on her feet. Together, she and "her angel" (a surprisingly short angel) managed to climb out of the ditch and started walking back toward the house. Part of Kate's brain screamed "NO, DON'T GO BACK!" but she was still too groggy to do more than limp along, one side resting on her "angel". The pair entered the back door of the house, and started down the stairs, and Kate began to regain enough of her senses to realize the danger she faced. She started to struggle with her "angel", who she now saw was the "mad doctor". Trimble grabbed the girl's wrist in his bony hand and tried to drag her down the steps. Weaving, eyes still not focused, Kate tried to pull backward, but only succeeded in slipping, her muddy feet flying forward, depositing the girl on her bare butt. A yank from Trimble, one hand on her wrist, the other now holding an ankle, and the girl started bouncing down the steps, on her butt, toward the bottom. At the bottom of the stairs, Kate was able to shake free from Trimble's grip and stand upright, but as she focused her eyes on Trimble, she saw him pouring the contents of a jar onto a cloth. She turned to head back up the stairs when she felt his gnarly arm encircle her stomach, just below her breast line. Suddenly, the cloth was placed across her mouth. Kate instinctively reacted, inhaling deeply, and suddenly felt lightheaded. Focus became worse for Kate, her vision clouded as the fumes from the chloroform-soaked cloth filled her lungs. Trimble gave a strong pull with the arm around her body, forcing the girl to exhale, and suck in another breath. Within seconds, Kate dropped to her knees, then fell forward as Trimble released her waist and her forehead thudded against the steps. ************** Some time later - daylight, judging from the light streaming through the basement window - Kate groggily managed to regain consciousness. Tied down, AGAIN! She struggled, weakly, but found that she was again handcuffed and bound to the lab table. Although she still felt weak, groggy from the chloroform, she also felt her "inner fire" again, and it seemed even stronger than ever! "Must ... wait ..." she thought. She began taking slow, deep breaths, to clear her head. Moments later, Dr. Trimble returned to his "laboratory" in the basement and paused at the door to gaze upon his beautiful lab subject. Her tight breasts were slowly rising and falling as she inhaled and exhaled. Her little black bush was just barely visible, from the side. Before turning on the lab light, though, the doctor noticed a very faint glow coming from the woman's body. "In fact," he thought, "near the edges of her body, along her outline, there was almost a shimmer effect. How odd?" Trimble got some implements from one of his cabinets and approached the subject. Kate, hearing his approach, turned her head and glared at him. "How long are you going to keep me here!" she demanded. The doctor smiled at the girl, but said nothing as he began attaching alligator clips at the ends of a multi-meter onto the girl's nipples. He fiddled with the dials on the small instrument for a moment, sucked in his breath, then turned away. Moments later, he returned and connected a battery charger to the girl's nipples (positive on the left, negative on the right - or was it the other way around?). He gingerly stepped away from the girl and plugged the charger into a wall outlet, then examined the multi-meter again. "Good lord!" he said, "do you feel anything, my dear?" Although reluctant to talk to the pig, Kate knew the only way she would learn more about her body was to feed his ego, give him what he wanted. For now. "I feel warm, tingly, inside," she replied. "What's happening? What do you see?" "I checked your body a moment ago and found a slight indication of some kind of energy, or magnetism ... something, on the surface of your skin. When I connected you to the wall outlet, there was a slight, but steady increase in energy," Trimble replied, distracted by the need to record his findings. "It seems like ... hmmm." Trimble continued to perform experiments on his naked captive, attaching one instrument to her skin, then another. Still the battery charger hummed, pumping electricity directly from the 110 volt outlet into her body, through her nipples! Through all this, Kate felt herself getting slightly warmer inside, began feeling her "inner fires" rise. She also felt stronger now than she ever had before. While ready to test the strength of her restraints, she decided that to feign weakness might be wiser until the doctor left, although he was so distracted by his tests, she might as well not have been there. "This is amazing," Dr. Trimble said, more to himself than to Kate, several hours later. "Based on what I have observed, I believe that the 'Trimblers', the small entities in your blood, must be absorbing the electrical energy. I have never seen such a thing before! Even the samples I took from you when you first arrived here, yesterday, did not react like this! So what ... hmmm ... OF COURSE!! The lightning ..." Trimble said, as he turned and walked out of the cellar. As the man left the basement, Kate decided she'd like to end this farce, now! Struggling, with all her strength, she was able to pull both hands free from the handcuffs, much more easily than before! She found a small padlock held her neck collar closed, but was able to exert enough pull to snap it open! Phenomenal, it was like she had the strength of, what, 10 or 20 men?! After removing the battery charger's clips from her nipples, she quickly unfastened the leg restraints and got to her feet, feeling strength surge through her. Kate hopped off the exam table and headed, again, for the cellar door. The door opened just as Kate was about to reach for the knob. Trimble stood in the doorway, holding his equipment for his next 'experiment, a shotgun in his arms. He quickly reacted to the sight of Kate advancing toward him by firing a load of buckshot at the girl's stomach. Though the blast forced Kate back a few feet, she did not go down, the buckshot did nothing to her skin. While Kate expected (HOPED FOR!) this result, Trimble was stunned, and let the gun sag in his arms. Kate quickly dived forward, landing on her hands, and did a somersault, ending with one foot hitting the doctor in his knee. The impact shattered the doctor's leg and threw him backward onto the steps, screaming in pain and dropping the gun. Kate scrambled to her knees and reached forward, grabbing the doctor by his coat lapels. "Now, you sick old fuck," she hissed at the moaning man, "if you want to get out of this basement alive, you're going to give me some information!" "Unnnhh," Trimble moaned, "get me ... morphine ... that cabinet ..." Kate lifted the man (he seemed surprisingly light) and carried him to the exam table, where she fastened him down with his own ankle restraints, then (after finding the key in Trimble's lab coat), handcuffed the man. A moment later, with Trimble's help, she found his sedative and gave him a shot. As the painkiller took effect, and the agony from his leg eased, the doctor settled back on the lab table, his breathing began to slow. "Start talking, Doc," Kate said, running one hand over the doctor's broken leg, causing him to jerk and moan in pain. "NNNNhhhhh," he cried, "STOP IT!" A moment later, after a few deep breaths, the doctor began talking, slowly, to the girl. "I need some of your blood to be sure," he began, "but I believe you are a mutant. When your parents' blood mixed to form you, my two test serums created a new hybrid product, what I told you I call Trimblers." "Yeah, yeah, you said that last night," Kate snarled, anxious to leave this insane asylum. "Skip the commercial and get to the point, ass hole!" "Yessss, well, my dear," he continued, then recoiled at the glare he got from the girl, "er, Kate, yes. The quick report is that the Trimblers collect and hold energy, like small batteries. They slowly emit energy, and they seem to give you some kind of invulnerability. Maybe more energy, too, based on the leap you just did. Obviously, more strength, too, else how would you get free from my restraints?" "You can feel things ("Don't I know THAT!" Kate thought) ," he continued, tiredly, "but nothing can penetrate the outside of your skin. This is like a 'force field'. Last night it was just very close to your skin. Since the lightning hit you, though, the force field seems to have expanded. It seems to include not just your skin, but apparently anything within a few centimeters ... say 1/8th to 3/16th of an inch, of your skin. You could wear clothes and your clothes would appear to be indestructible." "Go on," Kate said, interested in hearing more. "Well," Trimble continued, "I guess you could 'recharge' your Trimblers with a battery charger, like I did to you, or let lightning hit you. Both seem to increase the density of the force field, but do not extend it further away from your skin. You become, er, ah, 'more invulnerable', but do not protect other things ... you understand?" "Yes", Kate replied. "Well, I don't know if there is a limit to this power, or a limit to how fast you can absorb energy, or how much you can absorb. Obviously, though, until you 'run out of energy', you remain invulnerable." "And have increased strength and agility," Kate thought. Thinking quickly, she asked, "Can I be grounded? Like a short circuit?" "Hmmm, interesting," Trimble thought, "yes, perhaps, but I would need to, ah, conduct more tests. But in theory, if the Trimblers can receive energy, and store it, there must be a way to discharge the energy from them. Why, what have you experienced?" "I think I've heard enough, and you've learned enough, you sick fuck," Kate said to the doctor. "I have learned all I need, I think. I should kill you, but that's not my way. I'm going to leave, but I'm going to call the cops when I get to Rapid City. If I ever see or hear of you near me, again, though, I won't be so free with your life. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?" "Yes, yes," a shaken Trimble cried, thankful to be alive. "Just give me another shot before you leave, okay?" Kate turned to the cabinet for more medicine. Not thinking, she put the handcuff key on the lab table, and as her back turned to the doctor, he palmed the key. Kate returned to the table and gave the doc another shot of morphine, then left the bottle and syringe near him. She turned and sprinted up the stairs, up to the bedroom (leaving the bedroom door open, a chair in the threshold) and started to get dressed. Her clothes, her bag, were still on the bed where she'd dropped them last night. Except for a quick trip to the bathroom for a shower and to use the toilet (another chair in the doorway), she quickly got dressed and gathered her belongings. Going downstairs, she checked again on the doctor, and he seemed to be sleeping from the morphine. A quick search upstairs revealed some money and the keys to the doctor's old van. Kate hopped into the van and found her way back to the airport. After calling the Rapid City police department, she was able to grab a standby seat to Denver, where she caught another plane back to Dallas-Fort Worth International, and home. It was late, after eleven, when she arrived at D-FW, and she nearly fell asleep on the way home. At one point, though, she overheard the cab's radio, announcing the play-by-play of a basketball game at SMU. "Shit," Kate mused, "I know what THAT means!"