Maria

The phone on the desk was a relic from the 1940s: solid bakelite, black and dull from decades of use, now a forgotten inconvenience. As it crunched into the back of her skull, Lois Lane was lucky it didn't shatter it like an eggshell. The reporter was still dimly aware, as she hit the carpet tits-first. She lay there, unable to move as the familiar hands of her guide prised the ruby from her grasp...and Lois lay there, bleeding from an open scalp wound, as the darkness closed in. The last sight she had before the darkness claimed her was Maria heading out the door.

Water splashed onto the reporter's face. Numb coldness soothed the terrible ache at the back of Lois Lane's skull. Her eyes opened into bare slits, her head felt like it was stuffed with rocks, and there was an uncomfortable weight on her chest...

Lois looked down past her nose and saw the gentle hills of her expanded bosom.

Oh, right.

She was on her back, on the carpet. Women were standing over her. One had an ice pack pressed against the back of the reporter's skull, another had a jug of water she had splashed into her face, and leaning against the desk, dressed in a crimson power suit with wide shoulders and lapels the black of her long, dark hair was a lean, severe-looking woman of indeterminate race or age. Her demean conveyed boredom, frustration, and casual dominance. Lois knew a boss when she saw one.

"Hello, Lois Lane. I take it you found what you came for?" The voice was husky, breathy, with an accent totally unfamiliar to Lois.

"I was looking for some women that had gone missing," Lois said with a wince. She levered herself into a sitting position, the woman with the ice pack keeping it pressed against the wound. "I found one of them. Strangely altered."

"Except that's not all you found, is it?" the boss said. The pointed toe of her shoe swung forward to touch the nipple of Lois Lane's right breast, pressed into the fabric. "You didn't have these when you came in."

Lois licked her lips. "I don't have the gem."

The dark eyes met Lois Lane's. "I know. Who does?"

"Who's asking?" Lois said, not sure why she was playing coy...but then, she had very few cards to play right now. If they wanted to kill her, they could have done it while she was ****...but maybe they held off because Lois knew something they didn't.

"My name is Blaze," the woman said. "And you, Lois Lane, are going to help me get back my gem...or else."

"Or else what?" Lois said, almost before she could stop herself.