Squatter's Rights

(Based on the story published in Action Comics 584. Told now without any damn censoring.)

Gundersen rejoiced. It had all been so simple, in the end. Even the grueling work of building his magnificent machine had come easy to his advanced intellect. And then it’d been simplicity itself to trick that trusting sap into ‘assisting with his experiment’.

Ha! Experiment indeed, when he’d known without any need of testing that it would swap the minds of him and Superman. Put the most sophisticated brain on Earth into a properly mighty body and thrust Superman’s paltry wits into the crippled body that his gullibility deserved.

That had been necessary. He could almost regret it—Superman had done nothing to him—but the man’s naiveté spoke to a lack of any of the suffering that Gundersen had endured. The world had made things so difficult for him, while Superman had lived a charmed life. So it was an apt punishment for him to lose what he had never learned to value.

Now, Gundersen would punish the rest of the world. After all, he could’ve become anyone with the brain-swapping technology he’d developed—why not become the Superman? And now that he had Superman’s powers, why not use them? It wasn’t as if anyone could stop him and it wasn’t as if they didn’t deserve it…

Already, he had destroyed several buildings and cars, not because they elicited his rage, but merely because he was exulting in the sheer power that was now his. Then, just as he’d really been enjoying himself, the Teen Titan Cyborg had challenged him.

Even though the youth’s prowess was far beyond the average man—the average score of men—Gundersen had easily trounced him, reducing the boy to little more than his component parts. Others of Cyborg’s group had challenged him, to the same delectably inevitable result. Changeling had been KOed, despite transforming into some of the most powerful animals on Earth. And even Wonder Girl’s Amazon lasso wasn’t able to save her.

Now Gundersen relished having the beautiful, beaten woman—not at all a girl, despite the sobriquet—in his hands. Superman’s hands.

Her unconscious body was surely as magnificently constructed… and as impervious… as any skyscraper in Metropolis. He wondered if he had yet gained enough proficiency at controlling the Kryptonian’s supreme strength to be as gentle as this tender morsel deserved—or if he could only rend her limb from limb, the same way he’d turned so many buildings into loose brick! One would surely be easier than the other. But, oh, the rewards he might have with a little effort…

“Foolish, foolish girl! How easy it would be to snuff out your life now. But… but perhaps I won’t kill you. Not just yet, at least. You’re very beautiful, Wonder Girl. There are other things we can do before you die. We can learn if a beautiful woman can suffer. Suffer as I have suffered, scoffed at by all the world’s beautiful women.”

Gundersen barely recognized his own voice. Not just because it was Superman’s baritone now delivering his words, but because he’d rarely voiced the resentment currently running rampant through not only him, but whatever was in his path.

Well, what good would it have done to speak his cynicism earlier? And why not now, when he had the power to do something about all his bitterness? And something to do, yes, this lovely, lovely woman… lovelier by far than any of the women who had ever scorned him… like all their deliciousness melted down and pooled into one impossible attraction, as if to symbolize that now they were all his…

“Oh? Is that what this is about? You’ve been scorned? You’ve suffered?”

Gundersen could not bear looking at Wonder Girl without being overtaken with lasciviousness, but this new arrival absolutely stunned him with her beauty. It was not that she was prettier than Wonder Girl. They were both an extreme of loveliness, at such a zenith of desire that there was little difference in the degree of their feminine perfection.

But Wonder Girl was exquisitely ladylike, full of poise and manners, even in the form-fitting costume that revealed almost every curve of her womanly figure, contrasted in the creamy skin of her bare, muscular arms and the classical beauty of her unmasked face. Only her star-shaped earrings served to embellish the beauty offered plainly, and that was all she needed.

Whereas with Starfire, everything was offered up so freely, so readily, that she had a potent sexuality without the slightest note of body language, without a single facial expression, without even a word from her chiming voice.

Where Wonder Girl was soft and delicate, at least in appearance, Koriand’r was raw excess. Her glowing, golden skin. Her thick muscles and the luscious curves that framed them. Even her abundant mane, bright red, which fell down to her thighs, obscuring more of her than did her scant costume. The lingerie-like straps and accoutrements that seemed not so much intended to cover her as to accentuate her gorgeousness, as would make-up or jewelry. Her nipples and groin were, perhaps, hidden from view only by happy (or unhappy) accident—and that last, critically withheld inch of erotic reveal made all the difference.

For all her sensuality, there was no tawdriness to her at all. She seemed to delight in the attention she gleaned the same way others would bask in sunlight or a cool breeze. Even now, under these contentious circumstances, he didn’t think she held any resentment for how he—or rather, Superman, as she must be thinking of him—stared openly at her beauty.

And why shouldn’t he stare? If she were anything like her teammates, there was nothing she could deny him. The only thing that gave him pause to resume his line of rapine thought where he’d left off with Wonder Girl was how unconcerned she seemed to be with the threat of him… how she’d sounded so unexpectedly compassionate, warm and open, when she’d spoken.

“Suffered as the likes of you can scarcely imagine!” he told her. He held up Wonder Girl to Koriand’r’s all-green eyes, provoking at last a response of concern in her open, expressive face. “I see the company you keep. This one is attractive indeed. And the black one, damaged as he is, still has most of a handsome face to his credit. Even the boy, the green boy… how I would have loved to be colored that shade of green when I was his age.”

“Yes, many of my friends are most fortunate to have good looks that reflect the character they possess inside,” she said. Gundersen did not care to be mollified, but he appreciated holding the attention of this gorgeous creature. The spark of fear in her eyes was alluring indeed. Even now, he sensed her respect of his power, a curiosity with his cruelty that gentle words never would’ve gotten him.

“Indeed. I imagine a girl of your loveliness could have any of these men, anyone you desire! As they could have so many women… women like this!” He gave Wonder Girl’s limp form a shake. “Though I wouldn’t expect a woman as feminine as you to truly appreciate this Amazon’s beauty…”

“You may be surprised,” Koriand’r said under her breath. She raised her voice then: “But you sound so envious. Why then are you wasting time with this wanton destruction and pointless combat? If what you really want is pleasure, you just have to ask. I would happily give it.”

“So that I spare your friends—“ Gundersen tightened his grip on Donna’s throat. “The pathetic mortals they work to defend…”

“If you seek to harm innocents, then we must battle,” Koriand’r informed him, almost cheerfully, but with steel resolve behind her somehow innocent words. “Yet you’ve spoken far more of love… in your own way… than you have of blood and devastation. Is that what you want, or to indulge an anger at being rejected… when you are no longer rejected?”

She drew closer to him, her every step of symphony of the taut muscle and joyous curves making up her nearly-naked body. Koriand’r was as openly displayed as ever, but now he sensed her flaunting herself for him—him!—tempting him, but not in the cheap, sluttish way of the prostitutes who had serviced him but not sated him. No, she seemed to be looking forward to what she offered; she expected to enjoy his body as he enjoyed hers.

Gundersen didn’t know whether to be affronted or flattered. He had never felt the pure, simple desire that Koriand’r gave to him. It was utterly alien to him. As incomprehensible as his invention would be to a normal man.

Like a man ignoring the sight of his own nose in his field of vision, Gundersen was instinctively suppressing Superman’s hypersenses, refusing the sensation of things that would overwhelm his mortal mind. But Koriand’r called through his blindness. He looked at her and was unable not to see her, his gaze drawn to her and pulled in on her and soaking in her as desert ground would drink up rain.

Sensing his eyes’ focus on her, his attention entirely delving into the sight of her body, Kory took another step closer. Her hands went to the straps that hid her cleavage and Gundersen felt like crying out at her covering herself even slightly more than she already was, but what she was doing was pulling them aside, allowing her breasts to free themselves from the straitjacket of their embrace.

Her skin was a luscious cinnamon color, like a lighter shade of her flaming red hair, amply displayed. And most abundantly on her plump breasts—swelling mounds of creamy perfection. Perched lovingly on top of each satin-smooth hill was a nipple like a budding flower, long and stiff with her arousal, an artist’s signature on twin masterpieces.

His gaze moved down over the sleek slenderness of her stomach, dimpled between her wide hips and voluptuous breasts. For an instant his eyes pushed in on the sensual well of her belly button. Then—as Kory detached the straps from her collar, uncoupling the bottoms which they held up on her womanly hips—Gundersen’s eyes moved lower still, pushed onward and onward by the feeling of heated tightness in his groin.

Kory skimmed her unmoored costume down off her potent hips and along her tall, slender legs—high boots clinking against the also-metallic fibers of her clothing as she totally bared herself to him. Between her soft-looking thighs was a thick red thatch of her hair, silky strands shining like copper in the light. And though he could barely see it, Gundersen looked onto the shadowed slit of her womanhood, hidden under her pubic hairs like her adorable face was mired in her tangle of sweaty hair. All she wore now were her boots, her bracers, and the collar.

Wonder Girl thudded to the ground—Gundersen realized abruptly that his hold on her had lessened until her insensate form had slipped right through his fingers. Kory glanced at the Amazon, seeing that she was unharmed, then her attention was back on Gundersen.

“I feel much more comfortable now,” she said, running her hands through her hair, flicking a few locks over her shoulder so that they slid down the front of her body. That only accentuated the curvaceous sculpting of her naked body—she wore her own hair better than other women wore lingerie. “Should I help you get comfortable?”

***

Jimmy Olsen ducked and dodged through the rubble-strewn streets that the fight between the Titans and Superman had left in its wake. The first responders were still holding back, afraid the rumble might continue, or that one of the damaged buildings might totally give way and collapse. He had to stay light on his feet, keep his head on swivel, because danger might come from anywhere.

And while he was watching out for danger, he found some great shots to snap with the Canon EOS hanging around his neck. Good, ‘fires raging unchecked’ stuff for the Chief. Superman’s rampage hadn’t lasted long before he’d been attacked by the Titans: there were holes in a couple skyscrapers, another one set on fire by his heatvision. The fire department was risking getting close to the fight to put that one out.

After the Titans had stepped in, the fight had been confined to about a block. Jimmy hoped to get a shot of a downed Titan; he knew from the news choppers that at least Cyborg and Changeling were out. But if they were still there, he didn’t see them. He kept going, quick and quiet, into the lobby of the office building where it seemed like the damage led. The place was deserted, emptied out by evacuations the moment the fight had started, but the tone of the silence seemed off to Jimmy. He could tell there was some energy at work here. Something that belonged on his camera roll.

He didn’t worry about why Superman had gone on a senseless rampage. He knew the guy. It was all a big misunderstanding, had to be. Lex Luthor had cloned him or made a robot—something like that. Mr. Kent and Ms. Lane would sort it out. He just had to get pictures. No matter how good the explanation of all this was, it wouldn’t move papers without some snaps of all the explosions and fighting. Not to mention that Wonder Girl. God… now there was a dish! Maybe he could ask her about posing for him or something. He’d heard that she was a photographer in her uncostumed time. Maybe she’d take pity on an amateur and give him some tips. While he shot her, though. He couldn’t make it to the end of the day with nothing in his camera but shots of crumbling concrete. As the chief would say, there was no human interest.

The floor of the building had caved in, a great big hole dropping down into the subbasement. That’s where he found Superman and another of the Teen Titans—Starfire. Only they weren’t fighting. Not even a little bit. Jimmy knew what they were doing, but he couldn’t quite believe it. His camera could, though, he knew. Without thinking, Jimmy raised the viewfinder to his eye, adjusted the lens, and snapped picture after picture. This sure made even less sense to him than Superman trying to destroy the city, but Jimmy knew he wanted proof of it. All the proof he could get.