Queen of Hearts is defeated (and a certain backstabber gets what's coming to him)! You reconcile with Nightingale! ...kinda

A voice comes through on your earpiece - a woman with no superpowers who has, nonetheless, been a far better and more useful teammeate than anyone on the ill-fated Weather Watch (including Dr. Rainbow, if you're being honest): Julia. "Looks like it worked. Shear thickening fluid-core fiber cable."

Queen of Hearts looks down and sees that her legs are tied together - and her arms have been bound up as as well. She has thick black lenths of cable wrapped all around her body, with the free end trailing down the hall...

...and into the hand of a man in a revealing green leotard and cowl, wearing a cocky smirk.

"Green Streak!" Nightingale gasps in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I got in touch with Nightingale's gal friday, Julia. She hooked me up with a material she'd been keeping an eye on for a while, which might be able to hold Queen of Hearts without her breaking free."

"GAAAHHHH! I'll **** you! I'll **** your whole family! I'll play a rousing game of CROQUET WITH YOUR SEVERED HEADS!" Queen of Hearts spits maniacally as she flexes and tries to burst the cables wrapping her up with her telekinesis. But the more **** she exerts, the more they stiffen up - she only succeeds in squeezing herself.

"I thought that might be Queen of Hearts' weakness. Though to be fair, it was my good friend Rikki who suggested the concept first in an email a few weeks ago." Julia says proudly. You smirk at Molly, who averts her eyes - you KNOW she is eavesdropping on your radio and heard all that.

"Yeah - see, Queen there doesn't actually have any more strength or toughness than the skinny, out-of-shape girl she appears to be. It's all her using telekinesis on her own body. So if you wrap her up in something that tightens and squeezes when **** is applied, but has enough elasticity that she can't focus on making a single point of it crack... she can't do a thing about it." you say, feeling quite proud of yourself.

"Nightingale! Why did you make me worry like that?" Dr. Rainbow pouts. "If you had a technique that would work against Queen of Hearts, why didn't you say so earlier?"

"Excuse me?" Molly says, glancing at Doc - who then blushes and looks guilty. "Uh, I meant... Thunderbird... Oh, poop. That was an autonomic reflex from my mouth, I guess."

"Because," you say, "I wouldn't have had a prayer of pulling it off without Green Streak over there. That's why I had to let Hot-Cross Bunny open the door. I couldn't trust Elliot or Red Balloon to tell the truth about whatever hidden exit they used to get out of here. Streak moved so fast that Bunny probably didn't notice him slipping past her while the portal door was open.

"Don't worry, Nightie." Green Streak winks and grins at your mother as she stands there, the dumbstruck instead of the dumb-striking for once in her life. "I kept my promise to you from a few years ago about Thunderbird over there. I absolutely did not give her a ride on the high-speed D-train."

A feeling of relief and triumph is running through you. "Not for lack of trying! And I mean on my part, not his. Can you blame me, mom?"

A blush is filling Molly's cheeks as she looks down and shakes her head. But she can't help but smile when she looks back and forth between you and Green Streak. "You're... incorrigible."

You reach back and grab Dr. Rainbow's hand. "So, yeah, the good news is that the cable worked. Wanna tell Nightingale the bad news, Green Streak?"

The cocky speedster tugs the enraged, Queen of Hearts closer. Her telekinesis doesn't work on living targets (for some reason you're sure Petite Mort could bore you to **** explaining) so there's nothing she can do except pick up chunks of column and throw them at Green Streak - which he casually catches in mid air and then pitches towards you, allowing you to sonically blast and shatter each of them into pieces of gravel too tiny for Queen to weaponize.

"Heh heh. Yeah - the bad news, Nightie, is that I didn't have a lot of time so I sorta... ahem. 'Borrowed' that cable from an experimental laboratory. Gonna have to hope asking forgiveness is easier than permission. Looks like I'm gonna get booted off the Big Seven again. And that means... both you and Thunderbird owe me a big favor." The last part of that sentence comes out as a lascivious growl.

"Oh, for God's sake..." Molly shakes her head. "I... I thought I was breaking in here to save you. That you really were going to... get your life ruined or ended with your carelessness this time." A note of sadness enters her voice. "But I was the one who was being careless. You had a plan the entire time, Rik... Thunderbird, just like I always taught you to. And here I am, coming out of retirement for the sake of my ego to try and pretend I'm still the heroine I was... I... I'm sorry. I'm very sorry."

You pull off the mask part of your costume, figuring you don't need to enhance your powers at this point, so you can smile at her. "Does that mean I can be Nightingale again?"

"Absolutely not." Molly says flatly.

"WHAT?!" Your smile suddenly disappears and you bring your foot down on the floor, making the sound of your stomp reverberate to a deafening degree. "WHY THE HELL NOT?"

"I am rescinding the part of my ultimatum from several months ago where I said you and I would never speak of our costumed identities to one another again." Molly says, brushing her sweaty hair back into place and folding her arms. "Not the part where I won't allow you to wear the Nightingale costume unless you can promise NOT to have public sex with anyone while wearing it."

"Hey, Thunder-buns, calm down," Green Streak chuckles. "I gotta say - I'm siding with original-recipe Nightingale on this one. That retirement was too early. She's absolutely still got it. And that costume! You know, it's not what I would have made, but sometimes 'less is more' when it comes to showing skin. It's a little like a carefully wrapped Christmas present you just wanna tear open."

"Green Streak I appreciate your assist and all, especially after I originally told you exactly where to shove it when you offered to help me out," you say, glaring darkly at him, "but in case you aren't in the loop and have the world's worst inference skills, THAT'S MY FUCKING MOM, YOU PERVERT."

"Ohhhhhhh," Nightingale!Molly 'ooohs' with Olympic-medal-worthy sarcasm, "so him implying those things makes you feel uncomfortable, does it Rikki? Puts some unwelcome mental images in your head? I hope you could appreciate that it could be worse. You could, for example, be treated to video footage of an immediate family member of yours servicing a gang member with her mouth while riding a second one's lap, in a position ideally suited for allowing the camera to see absolutely everything as she does her honest best to turn you into a grandmother, on her very first night wearing the costume. I'm just giving hypothetical examples, here."

"I.... ick." you gulp loudly and purse your lips. "...you saw that one too?"

"It was being screened in the League Headquarters." Molly says. "And when I tried to put a stop to it the rowdy costumed men viewing it said, and I quote, 'It's already on all the video websites, we could've watched it anywhere'."

"AHEM!" you clear your throat and put your hands on your hips. "Green Streak!! The Weather Watch thanks you for your assistance! We'll take it from here! I think Nightingale has been affected by one of Queen of Hearts' psychic attacks, she's talking in some kind of glossolalia. Could you please grab her and take her somewhere nice and safe?"

"Yes, that's what I thought." Nightingale says as Green Streek zips over and sweeps her up into his arms, into the classic 'rescuing the damsel in distress' pose. Surprisingly, she doesn't object at all. In fact you think you see a smirk as he carries her off.

It's only after he's gone again that you realize two things.

1) The portal door is now closed, since that dimwit Green Streak didn't think to wedge it open, which means you need ot find your own way out of here or wait for Julia to get some precise coordinates to Hole Glory so he can give you an exit portal.

2) Molly was able to mute you with her powers, which shouldn't really be possible considering that your abilities have been supercharged by Raven Woman's magic potion. Unless... your mom got a power boost of her own. Such as from that very same potion. And you recall Raven Woman telling you, when you confronted her in her office-lair, that she knows your mother well.

You roll your eyes and groan, for the first time experiencing the icky, intrusive mental images and feeling of helplessness to prevent them from becoming reality that your mother has surely been experiencing since the first night you put on a much sluttier version of her costume.

"Oh my!" you hear Dr. Rainbow gasp in dismay. At first you think some more dangerous villains showed up - but actually, she is holding the immobilized Queen of Hearts' mouth open and examining the awful state of her dental hygiene. "This is an **** case of periodonitis! Miss 'of Hearts', I knew your mental health was not in good condition, but your physical health is almost as bad! This isn't my specialty but I'm going to need to perform some emergency treatment before I bring you to the authorities!"

...

A few minutes later, Queen of Hearts is strapped helplessly into a dental chair that Dr. Rainbow magically conjured up, having long since exhausted her capacity to telekinetically struggle, making gurgled, muffled screaming sounds as Dr. Rainbow performs an impromptu root canal.

At first you were worried that Queen's mental, hallucinatory attacks might be a problem, as they were for you when you fought her the first time. But apparently, bizarre giant flowers and garish imagery appearing out of nowhere in her field of vision doesn't bother Dr. Rainbow much at all, and certainly doesn't distract her caring for a patient.

"I'm sorry, I can't give you any more anesthesia! You're clearly anemic and malnourished, and I can't in good consciense provide a higher dosage." Dr. Rainbow says sympathetically as the tools in her hands whirr away. Queen of Hearts is actually crying and pouting for mercy like a child. If she weren't a murderous, psychopathic terrorist who ordered her henchman to "brutally ****" you and your teammates an hour ago, in those exact words, you might feel sorry for her.

"Alright." Dr. Rainbow pulls off some messy gloves. "That's the best I can do for the abcesses. I hope you appreciate, Miss 'of Hearts', that I may have just saved your life! Now, my prognosis also includes the fact that you might have insulin resistance. I can only imagine how bad your diet is if you're getting that at such a young age. I'll need to draw some of your blood now, so-"

"NOOOO! Thunderbird! THUNDERBIRD!" Queen of Hearts struggles furiously in the seat. "Call off your torturer! I yield, I YIELD! My crown is yours! Take it!"

You smirk unsympathetically. "Well, as it happens, we can't afford to stick around here forever anyway. I don't think I can take on all the rest of your subordinates if they find out I'm here. So if you want me to pull rank and order Doc to give your treatment a rest for now - I have a few important questions I need to ask you about your old partners, the Full House Gang."

"Those useless scum and their old, washed-up excuse for a Queen? What about them?" Queen of Hearts wrinkles her nose.

"Hold on a sec." you say. "This conversation is only for those in the know."

With no explanation, you walk over to a nearby, unassuming section of wall, and suddenly punch it with your power glove at full sonic power, shattering the hinges and allowing a metal panel to drop down and fall away. A familiar dark haired man in a spade-themed jumpsuit falls out onto the floor, clutching his head as his ears ring.

It's Isaac, of course. "Wha...?! H-how? That panel... it was soundproof. I'm sure it was! Bunny herself ordered it installed for ambushes!" Isaac sputters helplessly.

"Yeah, you don't think ONE particular spot of complete quiet while that stomp I did on the floor fifteen minutes ago was reverberating through the walls might've been suspicious?" you say.

"Then... why did you wait for so long, if you knew I was hiding in there the whole time?" the aptly-surnamed Mr. Wormer looks at you with wide eyes.

"Two reasons: One, because I wanted you to sweat out the question of whether you were off the hook or not for as long as possible." You turn around and give Dr. Rainbow an 'ok' symbol with your fingers. "'off the hook'. Get it?"

"Oh. Oh! Yes! That was a lovely pun, Thunderbird!" Dr. Rainbow gives you a giddly little round of applause.

"...and two," you say, turning back to Isaac and examining the knuckles on your fist, "I was winded after dealing with those goons you slowed me down with and I wanted to make sure I have plenty of energy for you. Alright: Eardrums, nose, fingers, testicles."

"Wha...?" Isaac blinks in disbelief.

"I'll let you keep one of the things on that list un-broken. Choose quickly or I'll pick one at random to start." you say as you walk forward, your shadow falling over him as he squirms on the floor...

...

A minute later Dr. Rainbow is crouched over Isaac trying to provide first aid with her wand as he rolls around retching, eyes rolled back in pain and blood trickling down the front and sides of his face.

"Huh. Y'know, I was sure he was gonna pick 'balls' by reflex and not realize that fingers would actually be more painful and take longer to heal. I guess he was clever enough to be worth making a lieutenant in your gang, huh Queen?" you say to Queen of Hearts. "Now that we've got some privacy... why don't you tell me what I asked and maybe I won't have time to make sure you get what's coming to you, too..."