Granny Goodness

Somewhere, back in their ancestry, homo erectus had learned to fear certain sounds on a genetic level. The sudden low purr of a sabertooth cat. The deep motherly growl of a cave bear that sees the stupid hominid between her and her cub. The not-quite-distant-enough howl of a wolf, long before they had been domesticated. There were sounds that reached right past the ears and tweaked levers in the brain, and the body would just react. Some school teachers and old women had a bit of it, in voices that could peel paint from the walls. But no-one on Earth had mastered it. No-one human could do it. But...

"Good girls have nothing to fear from Granny Goodness, deary." Lois found her body reacting before she could consciously think, spine straightening, eyes straight ahead. "Good girls go into their rooms." And Lois' had started to lift her feet before she could command them to stop.

SWAT.

Pain flared in Lois' ass, right across her buttocks, to harsh and sudden to even yelp.

"Move."

Lois did, ass still smarting, moving straight ahead—into the cage. Once she heard the door clang shut, she dared to turn around, massaging her sore ass. The reporter had never been paddled like that in her life.

Granny smiled at Lois through the bars, a stout warrior-dominatrix garbed in exotic armor that did not hide her pendulous breasts or wide hips...and she had the face of a kindly grandmother. Lois had read the Daily Planet's files on her: she was a New God, one of the servants of Darkseid on Apokalips, who trained and indoctrinated generations of the planet in a Kafkaesque combination of orphanage and boot camp, the kind of thing Charles Dickens would have come up with if told to write Oliver Twist after reading The Story of O and Full Metal Jacket while on a constant methamphetamine feed. Her smile, kindly as a televangelist's wife, spoke of untold horrors to come.

"Now, Lois Lane. Are you going to be a good girl?" Granny held up a metal rod, which crackled and snapped with strange energy. "Or is Granny Goodness going to have to show you some tough love?"