He asks for help

“Mom?!! Mom, please save me. This man is crazy. Use your powers!”

Elena shuddered in place, a full-body tremor that started at her shoulders and ran down to her knees. Nadia saw it. The same flinch she’d seen that morning outside the office, only sharper.

“Powers?” Elena whispered, more to herself than anyone.

She still rushed them. Instinct. Protect the kid. She closed the distance in four long strides, heels clicking, hand already reaching for the clown-masked man’s wrist.

He didn’t even move from his place. He just reached out and smacked her across the face.

The sound was flat and ugly. Elena’s head snapped to the side. She went down hard on her ass, skirt riding up her thighs, one heel twisting under her. She sat there on the carpet looking up at him with genuine surprise, like the idea that someone could put her on the floor hadn’t existed until that second. She was a powerful woman, tall, strong, used to being the one who made other people sit down. This naked idiot in a dollar-store mask had treated her like a ragdoll.

“Mom!!” Rick’s voice cracked. “The Mind Melter hypnotized you!! He’s made you forget who you are, which is why you cannot use your powers!”

Elena clutched her head with both hands. The headache that had been hovering all morning slammed down behind her eyes like a spike. What was her son talking about? She never had any powers. Did she? The thought felt slippery. Every time she tried to hold it, it slid away and left a dull throb.

Nadia stood frozen a few feet back, her own headache roaring back to life. Was this man doing it? The cheap mask, the cape, the way he just stood there naked and unashamed while two faculty members were present in the room with him, none of it made sense, and the pain in her skull got worse the longer she tried to make it make sense.

“You need to remember who you are, Mrs Moreno,” Zack called out, still buried in Mrs. Reed, still moving. “Fight his control!”

“Remember who you are, Madame Supremo!” Rick yelled.

The words hit both women at the same time.

Madame Supremo.

Elena’s breath caught. Something in her chest uncoiled. Her spine straightened even while she was still sitting on the floor. Strength flooded back into her limbs, not the ordinary strength of a woman who did yoga and stood on her feet all day, but something denser, heavier, like her body had been waiting for permission to stop pretending it was only human. Memories flickered inside her mind: black latex, silver chains, kneeling on this same carpet, a voice calling her Captain’s good whore. She was the powerful enforcer of the Mother’s Comic Book Club. That was her real identity. Madame Supremo. Crime-fighting. Serving. Protecting the club.

Was that right, or was it just a hallucination? Her head was killing her. The two versions of herself, stern principal and latex-clad slave-heroine kept slamming into each other behind her eyes.

Nadia felt it too. Flashes, not full memories: Elena in that black corset, tits spilling out, calling Zack “Captain” like it was the most normal thing in the world. Elena kneeling. Elena posing with her hands on her hips like a comic-book panel come to life. Superheroes weren’t real. They weren’t. But looking at Elena now, hair still in that severe bun, grey suit rumpled from the fall, it suddenly seemed obvious. How had she not seen it before? Wasn't Elena a superhero?

“Save me, Madame Supremo!” Rick yelled again, voice raw.

Nadia watched Elena get to her feet. No wobble. No hesitation. She reached up, shrugged the grey blazer off her shoulders, and let it fall to the carpet. Because she was facing away, Nadia couldn’t read her expression, only the set of her back.

“Elena?!”

The principal didn’t answer.

She grabbed the front of her black shirt with both hands and ripped. Buttons popped and scattered. The fabric tore down the middle. She yanked it open but left it tucked into the waistband of the pencil skirt so it hung off her like a ruined cape, framing what was underneath.

The same leather corset she had pulled out of her office closet an hour ago.

Black, boned, silver highlights. It cinched her waist and shoved her massive F-cup tits up and together until the cleavage looked obscene even for someone who was supposed to be a comic book character. Nadia’s mind stuttered. Elena had put that corset back in the closet. She had watched her do it. How was she wearing it right now?

Elena reached up and pulled the pins from her bun. Jet-black hair cascaded down her back in a heavy wave. She shook her head, hard, and the last of the principal fell away.

She turned toward Nadia.

The voice that came out of her was theatrical, projected, the same booming narrator tone Nadia thought she had heard many times before but never recognised before this.

“Stay back, citizen. Madame Supremo is here, and she will handle this evil-doer.”

Then she looked past Nadia to the two young men next.