(Perspective change) Arrowlette, captured!

This is only your 9th or 10th real patrol as a superheroine, and it isn't exactly going well. You are of average height, blue eyed and with your long blonde hair held back away from your face by your red mask and cowl. You had always thought your outfit was quite cute and sexy: a snugly-fitted red leather chest piece that left your fit midriff exposed, red thigh-high boots, and a very short white skirt. However, no matter how snugly fitted it is, there just isn't much for your chest-guard to show off; you are rather under-endowed even compared to the average girl on the street, never mind the average superheroine. You've always tried to console yourself by saying that if you'd developed more than an a-cup bust, your archery abilities would've suffered, so it's all for the best.

(Original panel art)

Your title is Arrowlette. After years of rigorous training and preparation, you have taken up your retired mother's superheroine identity. While many heroes and heroines rely on their natural abilities, you are one of those whose abilities come from esoteric training methods, talent, and good old fashioned practice. As a young teen, you'd already been a champion markswoman with the bow and arrow, and now, at 19, you decided you were ready to go for a spot in the League (which reserves a certain number of slots for 'normal' heroes, often rumored to be a diversity quota).

Unfortunately, although your skill with the bow is unmatched, going to confront a group of bad guys in a tight, confined space wasn't your greatest idea. You had sort of assumed that Magik Knight, the teleporting heroine who alerted you to the arson plot being hatched in this dingy tattoo parlor, would back you up if things got dicey, even though she didn't say so in as many words. However, you're laying bound and gagged in a corner and starting to think she isn't coming back.

A week ago, when you first met Magik Knight and went on an easy mission with her, she had seemed to like you. REALLY like you. In fact, at the end of it, she had invited you to 'come to the showers so [you and she] could help each other get cleaned up', in a tone that left no mistake as to her meaning. Flustered by something so direct and unexpected, you had laughed and brushed it off with a pun, telling her that you were 'straight like an arrow'. She laughed at your pun at the time. But now, you wonder if perhaps Magik Knight doesn't take rejection well. After only managing to incapacitate two of the criminals, the other four had rushed you and wrestled you into submission quite easily. If only the League didn't insist that you were only allowed to shoot people in the hand or the foot, or to pin their clothes to the wall with a trick shot, maybe you would've done better.

Your arms are bound up behind your back, and your legs are tied together, forcing you to kneel uncomfortably. Whoever the leader of these guys is, he really knows what he's doing with rope, as you are so securely tied you'll never wriggle free.

One of your captors walks in. Members of the local Yakuza, it would seem, these guys are a cut above the rest. They all look like they hit the gym religiously, and they seem to have some kind of a code against buttoning up the fronts of their shirts, showing off both their trained physiques and the elaborate tattoos they accumulate. This one is especially broad-shouldered and has a tattoo of some kind of fish monster on his shaved head. Without saying a word to you, he reaches down and wraps you in his arms, pulling you up and slinging you effortlessly over his shoulder. He puts one of his hands on the exposed creamy skin of your thigh, making you twitch. "Normally, carrying the loot would be the job of one of my underlings. But this time, I don't mind doing the job myself." The gag in your mouth muffles your shouts for assistance as you are carried right out of the shop, the rest of the thugs trailing behind him, including the one who needs to lean on one of his buddies to walk, on account of the arrow stuck in his knee. You are carried into a sporty Toyota Supra and tossed in the back seat while most of the rest get aboard motorcycles. Much to your annoyance, you can clearly see that several local store employees clearly saw these guys carrying a tied-up girl in a heroine costume, yet the gangsters don't look even remotely worried about them calling the police, and the civilians all pointedly avert their eyes. Before taking off in the car, one of them puts a blindfold over your eyes.

If Magik Knight had been planning to come rescue you there's no way she can reach you now. You can't even see where you're going until the car comes to a stop and you're manhandled out and slung over the goon's shoulder again, allowing the blindfold to slip out of place. You start worming from side to side, even though the most you might accomplish is making him drop you (at which point you'll still be helpless to move), but you cannot even manage that as you're carried inside a fancy estate house, with one of those bamboo fountains that goes "doink" every few minutes and a pretty garden next to the walkway.

In one of the main rooms, you're slung onto a dining table. Sitting at the other end of it, an elderly man in a business suit regards you coldly. Aside from the thugs, the only other one is an attractive older woman in a cream-colored blouse sitting at the side of the table doing her fingernails.

You gulp. It's one thing to memorize snappy comebacks and defiant one liners in front of a mirror. When you're actually tied up and helpless, surrounded by ruthless criminals and with no hope of rescue anytime soon, it's hard to come up with anything to say even when the gag is pulled out of your mouth.

The old man speaks. "My employee, Mr. Ogata, says that you are a talented archer. Is this true?"

"W-well," you say, trying to stop your voice from trembling, "they do call me Arrowlette. Maybe if-"

"Oooh," the woman leans forward and takes your cheek in your hand, turning your head towards her. "another Arrowlette. I was always a fan of the original, if you'd believe it. Which, I know is odd, considering the family business." she laughs softly. "Normally, the policy for my father here would be to take a finger from someone who tried to interfere in one of his operations. But I think I could convince him to choose an alternative, and even give you a chance to win your freedom, along with your safety." She squeezes your cheeks between her fingers.