End: Lois Gets Mad

Righteous indignation rose up in Lois Lane. She had felt the tension winding itself up with each new discovery, each new woman she found degraded and degrading themselves. Now, faced with the architect of all that she had seen, the reporter knew she was ready to burst.

"What did you do to them?" Lois said, barely able to restrain herself from simply launching forward and punching Blaze in the head.

The half-smile on the lips died. The pure white eyes began to glow from within.

"I have given them what they wanted. Happiness. Contentment. Peace. I have taken away their pain, their insecurities, their sexual hangups—all the secret fears that held them back from being the worthless sluts they always were," she leaned closer to Lois, intruding on the reporter's personal space. "Which is exactly what they asked for."

"Bullshit," Lois said, not backing down an inch, refusing to flinch, or even blink as she stared into those burning eyes. "Why? What do you get out of it?"

"What price would make sense to you? You think I wanted their tarnished little souls? Their paltry shadows? The money they bring in, selling their bodies?" Blaze's lips twisted into a sneer. "I did it because it amused me to. Because those pathetic cunts wanted so badly to be someone else than who they were, that they were willing to let me do anything to them, just to take away the banality of their existence."

The eyes began to radiate a dry heat. Lois could feel her own eyes itch, **** to blink. It was like having a staring contest with an oven.

Then Blaze turned away. It was so sudden that Lois staggered, and Maria caught her. The reporter blinked, after-images floating across her vision.

"Now, I've answered your questions. Sated that terrible curiosity of yours. You have found what you were searching for. Maria will escort you out." Blaze said.

The reporter shook her head, trying to clear her vision.

"Wait! You can't just...you've done something to those women! Corrupted them, brainwashed them..." Lois said.

"Can you prove it?" Blaze said. "Oh, call the police. Call those superheroes you know. Let them come and investigate. I will be gone...and these women? The happiness they've found? Shattered. The most you could do would be to turn them into what they were before...unhappy, unfulfilled, unfucked. Do so if you wish. What happens to them matters little to me. Take away these playthings, and I will find more."

"What..." Lois said, trying to process what Blaze was saying, to formulate counterarguments.

"That's what cunts like you don't understand. There is always someone willing to give everything they have, everything that makes them who they are, to someone else. Who just wants to let go of it all live out those fantasies they read about in the letter pages of their adult magazines, or watch getting pounded hard and fast in the adult videos on the internet. Try to save these whores if you wish, Lois Lane," Blaze reached forward and booped the reporter on the tip of her nose. "There will always be more where those came from."

With an inarticulate scream of rage, Lois Lane's fist lashed out...but Blaze faded away, and the reporter, overbalanced, collapsed onto the floor. Maria was there, kneeling beside her, pulling Lois back onto her feet...and warm tears leaked from the reporter's eyes at Blaze's haunting words.

She would do just that, she knew. Call the Justice League. Zatanna, Doctor Fate, and all the rest...they could help these women go back to being their old selves. Lois was sure of it. Yet the words of Blaze ate at her, like acid in her soul. She wondered how many of these women would be back to this club, in a month or a year, looking for a familiar pair of bright white eyes...how many women would debase themselves, just to stop having to be who they were...and Lois Lane felt empty inside as Maria guided her back the way they had come.