Xenon scanned the darkness ahead of her, but saw only old cranes, tubing, vats, and other industrial detritus. She flipped her visor over her eyes, which let her scan the area with its infravision capabilities. Nothing. Still, she had to cautious. Plastica--the former Dr. Polly Mehr, a resin and plastics expert--was known for her tricks.
She'd found only that morning about the connections between the villainess and Sexateria, Inc., the largest chain of adult novelty stores on the West Coast. Tracing a series of dummy companies, Xenon also discovered the Plastica owned this abandoned mannequin factory. Whatever she was up to, it was clearly no good. Xenon would give her positronic suspensor ray and monomolecular lasso to put her behind bars.
She spotted a round trapdoor in the floor sealed by a metal cover. She used her halesium torch to cut it open. Waving the smoke from the fumes away, she stared down into a long, eerily lit shaft. Thousands of green LED lights striped the walls, disappearing into the gloom below. It looked the tunnel straight to hell.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she quipped, and started to descend.
Ten feet, twenty, then thirty. At the bottom she turned and got her bearings. She was in a tunnel with an low arched roof and a flat floor covered with cross-treaded metal. Tracks to carry a rail car of some sort lay in the floor to her right and left. Again, the walls were lit with stripes of green light. Quite different from the wreck of the former factory mannequin factory above. Whatever the tunnel was used for, it had been used recently.
She started to walk, all her senses on red alert. The high stiletto heels of her ankle-length boots made sharp tapping noises against the floor. As with most superheroines her feminine features were exagerrated to the point of parody: tiny waist, 38 DD breasts, long shapely legs, and a rock-hard, sculpted ass. Her costume consisted of a sheer white body stocking with two white leather triangles over each breast. Another triangle covered her crotch, extending in a thong between her taut, muscular buttocks. Her utility belt rode low on her hips, and on her arms she wore long gold gloves. A short, voluminous cape flared from her shoulders; it looked like gold lame, but was actually a variant of kevlar designed to stop even assault rifles. To top all that, she had the face of a goddess--full, sensuous lips, sapphire eyes, and curly platinum-blonde hair that spiraled over her shoulders, a color enhanced by the silver spangles that glittered in her bodysuit.
She was a sight, and she knew it. Even when unobserved, it was second nature to her to move with allure. Her muscles stretched, contracted, stretched as she walked in a half-crouch, the firm globes of her ass rubbing tautly together. Her nipples inflated with tension, pressing against the leather that cupped her ample breasts.
Ahead of her she saw a frame-like structure shaped like a five-pointed star. It filled the whole tunnel, and she would have to step through it to go any further. Odd, she thought, but nothing about it looked like anything more than a metal frame. She stepped through.
Too late! Thin metal tentacles shot out from each point of the star and wrapped around her wrists and ankles. They pulled her taut, suspending her in the center of the star like an insect caught in a spiderweb. A feeble gasp escaped from her lips. Then the frame shot into motion, speeding her along the tracks through what remained of the tunnel, and she jerked to a stop in a dark, high-ceiling room. A bank of spotlights immediately snapped on before her, so she was forced to turn her head away and blink.
As her eyes adjusted she realized she was in a laboratory of sorts, sterile, with stainless steel walls. She fought in futile habit against her bonds.
"Welcome to LA, Xenon." She knew that voice. It belonged to Plastica.
The lights in front of her dimmed enough to reveal a tall slim woman who walked slowly towards her. Whereas Xenon's figure was lush and athletic, Plastica had gone the opposite, opting for a supermodel's poise and litheness. She wore a white lab coat over her trademark clear vinyl catsuit and her long hair--electric blue, in this incarnation--was swept up in a chignon on her head. A pair of sexy harlequin-framed glasses perched on her nose. "I'm so happy you found the time to drop in."
"Cut the chit-chat, Plastica," Xenon said. "I know all about you and Sexateria."
"Then you should know you've also been trespassing on private property, something you superheroes never seem to understand. I'm a free citizen with all rights due under the law."
Xenon only gave an angry toss off her head and pulled on her wrists and ankles, but she remained spread-eagled inside the star.
Plastica chuckled at the sight. "How long did it take you to find out about my operation?"
"Not long. The computer records were very clear--to one who knows how to look. Whatever it is you're planning, you won't get away with it."
"Will I?" Plastica asked rhetorically. She produced a portable scanner and ran it down the length of Xenon's struggling form. Its sensor lights shifted color and intensity, emitting a series of teeping sounds. "This says you're in excellent health, which means an excellent candidate for my process. Perfect." Plastica wrote a note on the clipboard she carried, looking briefly like the MIT grad she'd once been.
"What 'process?' " Xenon said with a growing trepidation.
"The Sexateria stores carry the fullest range of adult novelties in America, except for one thing--sex dolls and mannequins. It is simply impossible to find products in this line that meet the high standards I have set for my other merchandise. Therefore, I had to invent a means to make them myself. And you, Xenon, will be my first subject."
A large silver globe descended from the ceiling and hung above Xenon's head. Depending from it were dozens of wires, flexible tubes, nozzles, and jointed arms that gave it an insectoid appearance. "You'll never get away with this," Xenon said.
"I already have," Plastica said, manipulating a set of switches. She pressed a row of five buttons and the plastification process began.
Four robot arms snicked out of the globe, unfolding joint by joint like the legs of a spider. Each sported a pair of blunt-nosed scissors at its tip. Without much ado, they began to cut off Xenon's superhero costume.
Xenon thrashed wildly as the electric scissors hummed against her skin, but it was to no use. Her costume fell to floor in shreds. First her tights fell, then her panties and sleeves, then her cape. Her tits came last, bouncing free from the underbra that supported them. Her struggles made them heave most impressively, the nipples wobbling back and forth like two corks stuck in jello. Plastica grinned unabashedly at the sight. "You were born to be a sex doll, babe." Xenon flushed with humiliation, tinting her creamy white flesh a pale bubblegum pink. She gritted her teeth and continued to struggle.
Plastica touched a second button and the spider legs retreated into dark slots in the globe. "I'm videotaping the whole thing you know, to show my investors," she said conversationally. "They're very interested in the concept of bio-based sex toys."
"I suppose you will kidnap your poor victims like some common criminal?" Xenon said, amazingly confidant for being nude and spead-legged.
"This is LA, sugar-nips. There's an endless supply of fresh, healthy pussy, easily lured by the promise of acting or modeling jobs. There are always runaways, too, and men looking to get of their wives. Or their troublesome girlfriends. Whatever way we go, there will always be plenty of dollies on the shelf. Some for toys, some for display, some for art collections." She laughed, touching another button.
Eight hoses snaked out of the globe and positioned themselves equidistantly around the still-writhing superheroine. They began to spray her with a fine, cool mist that dissolved into a thick white foam. They continued to spray her until she was liberally coated with the stuff, looking like a cake covered with creamy icing. Her skin tingled and began to burn as the chemical penetrated her pores. A few seconds later, a shower of warm water washed the foam away. To her mortification, Xenon saw she had been rendered completely hairless from her scalp to her pussy.
"You silicon-titted bitch!" she spat, strong words for her, as the International League of Superheroes limited profanity to hell and the occasional damn. Xenon was doubly embarassed as her hairless pubes now showcased the gold clit ring she had taken to wearing, which was also against League regulations. It had added greatly to the sensual enjoyment she received from the Flash and Green Lantern.
"Naughty, naughty," Plastica giggled. Xenon glared at her defiantly, but she knew she looked ridiculous without her visor and mane of pale gold hair. Her skin looked too pale, her scalp too shiny. She had lost her eyebrows and eyelashes too, so only her tits and pussy now marked her as female. She flushed again at the thought of being reduced to two sets of organs.
"A messy step, but necessary," Plastica explained. She had doffed her lab coat and glasses and now stood revealed in all her transparant glory. Her own nipples were stiff and pink beneath the clear vinyl catsuit, while her pussy--as bald as Xenon's now was--steamed up her crotch region with a thick film of condensation. "And now, my dear, it's showtime."
She clicked over to a lever in her high-heeled transparent plastic sandals, and pulled it down. Four thin metal poles lowered from the orb, two in front of Xenon, two behind. Each pole was pierced with a series of holes.
"Goodbye forever, Xenon." Plastica's words nearly glinted. "It was *so* nice to know you. I've never had an opponent with quite your sense of...style. But it's over now. Take one last look at yourself...if you can."
*She can't do this to me,* Xenon thought. *I 'm a superheroine...a member of Team Paragon! I can't be turned into a mannequin! *But her thoughts were drowned out as a loud hissing noise came from the poles. They began to spray her with a thick, pink gas.
"No!" Xenon cried. She threw every ounce of her strength into fighting the bonds that held her.
But the gas continued to hiss, surrounding her in warm, soft pinkness. It had a sweet, cloying smell reminescent of flesh. She felt it dissolve on her skin, enter into her pores. She breathed it in before she knew what she was doing. The effects were immediate. With a shock, she realized she was growing sexually excited. Her nipples protruded, her clit swelled. Her head grew light. Waves of modulated warmth passed through skin into her muscles, and more waves spread outward from her pussy and clit through her inner body.
She felt mired in a luxuriant warmth, swimming in it, simultaneously heavy yet light...like an orgasm without all the excitement. Lethargy crept over limbs, but her mind was oddly detached from the sensations of her body. Breathing became unimportant, as did the beating of her heart. Her body ceased to move as well. Spine, limbs, muscles--all ceased the minute rhythms of life, becoming rigid and compact. Tendons stiffened, bones locked. She could no longer turn her head. She could not blink, and her mouth went dry. Her skin hardened, taking on a slightly glossy finish. Her pores vanished and her coloration became an even pink-ivory tone, a darker blush on her nipples and pussy. Her eyes remained an icy blue, though she could no longer move them in their sockets. All this she saw in the video moniter. She was turning into plastic. She was becoming a mannequin.
With this realization came an allover tightening, a sensation of her skin stretching tautly over her bones, or whatever substance now made up her body. Tightening, stretching, firming--rock-hard, then diamond-hard, and finally beyond hardness at all, as she became numb all over. The pent-up energy inside her rushed through her like a wave, causing her the most intense orgasm she'd had in her life. It was also her last.
The gas dissolved, sucked back into the globe by a high-speed exhaust fan. The remnants of Xenon's personality dissipated as well. She was a mannequin. Only a mannequin. Her wide blank eyes stared with neither anger nor despair into the bleak tedium of her future. Only the most rudimentary state of consciousness was left to her; she no longer thought, she only *was.* Though a tiny part of her mind remembered what had been done to her, and that part *screamed...*
The silver orb retreated into the ceiling. Plastica walked over to inspect her work.
Xenon stared blankly at the air before her, body frozen in silent tension. Her flesh was hard and unyeilding, her tits shapely rigid domes. Her nipples were stiff as plastic fingers, rigid with fear or adrenaline. All the other niceties had been rendered in crisp, clean detail--the tiny bumps of her areolae, the crease of her pussy. Her clit was a pea-sized knob just visible through the lips, the ring a wink of gold. She was marvelously lifelike, but still a mannequin, trapped forever in a shell of unfeeling plastic.
"Perfect," Plastica whispered. Her experiment was a success.
Xenon continued to stare. She looked like she'd been captured at the moment of orgasm--eyes vacant, lips frozen in a sexy purse as if emitting a surprised, feminine "oh." Though she was forever beyond speech, now.
"So," Plastica giggled, "How do you like being a mannequin?" She wasn't sure if Xenon could hear her, but figured it wouldn't hurt to try. "As you're our very first doll, you'll be a display model for the flagship store. Enjoy it, Xenon. You'll be on the floor for a long, long time...or at least until Sexateria goes out of business. Then you may find yourself discounted at a closeout sale. Or scrap. You're recyclable, you know. I was very careful to write that into the formula. Why harm the environment more than it has been hurt already?"
She pinched the mannequin's amazingly lifelike nipples, and couldn't resist giving each rigid knob a swab with her tongue. She gave them each a nip, too, which left no toothmarks on the hard, shiny plastic. Xenon's blank stare remained blank.
Humming to herself, Plastica detached her new mannequin from the frame. The plastification process had reduced her weight to twenty pounds, making her handling a snap. Xenon remained in a spreadeagled position, arms and legs stretched wide, as Plastica carried her to the wheeled stand that awaited her. She propped Xenon against the wall as she coated the end of the pole with a liberal amount of superglue. Then she picked up the superheroine by the waist and impaled her upon it, twisting her to work her pussy--or rather the smooth plastic channel that used to be her pussy--further down upon the pole to keep her upright.
She stood back to admire her work. Xenon looked like an erotic vanilla-flavored lollipop. Minus her costume and hair, she could be any anonymous sex toy. No one would ever know she was the one who destroyed the meteor eight months ago. Or found that hydrogen bomb before it exploded in Anarctica. Or captured the terrorists who tried to gas the Paris subway system. No, no one would know her at all.
It gave Plastica an odd satisfaction. She unzipped the plastic at her crotch enough to finger herself. She wondered what it felt like to be a rigid plastic mannequin that was helpless to act, able only to be acted upon. She stared into Xenon's blank eyes as her orgasm built. The spasms surprised her with their depth and intensity.
She zipped herself up. Xenon was still staring. Nothing had changed on her face, which wasn't surprising. Was her mind still intact? Plastica realized she'd never know, short of administering an antidote. Which she hadn't invented as yet, and, frankly, might never bother to.
She grabbed a wide-tipped magic marker from her desk. Across Xenon's shiny bald scalp she wrote, in indelible black ink: EXP. SUBJECT #1. A good scientist always kept records of her successes so she could duplicate them.
Then she wheeled the former superheroine upstairs to the van that would take her to the store.