Unwanted Power

All Tied Up

Heather landed forcefully, using all her new body's mass, on the fleeing perpetrator's back. She may not know how to fight, but she had a pretty good idea of how to use momentum and weight to her advantage.

The ski-masked man yelled as he went down. "Let me go! God damn it! You can't do this! I didn't do anything!"

"Right." She said in her baritone voice, in a tone that indicated her utter contempt and disbelief. The knife he had similarly 'not been doing anything' with lay on the trail nearby. It was well out of his reach. He had dropped it to protect his face as he went down.

Heather used her ability to fly, headed down to the ground, not up. She forced herself down harder onto his struggling back. She was already twice his weight, but this crushed the wind out of him.

"Hold still, put your hands behind your head, or I am going to sit here until you lose consciousness. I can sit here all night."

He struggled feebly, then complied. He felt like a car was sitting atop him. The heavy body 'accelerating' toward the ground felt like a ton of bricks in the most literal way.

Heather was more prepared for criminal detention this time around. Last time she had been lucky to have a clerk who was ex-military. This time Heather had taped some large and thick nylon zip ties to the small of her back. They were hidden by her cape. The zip ties are the same kind police use in mass arrests, but these are over-the-counter from the hardware store. Heather wanted nothing pointing back at Bill.

Heather bound the almost crushed man's wrists.

"Do not move." She instructed the bound man sternly.

Heather floated up, flipped around. She sank back onto him, landing to bind his feet.

With the man trussed, Heather got off him and rolled him over with her booted toe. Heather was going to leave the mask in place. She did not care who this is and doubted she would know him. It would be better for the authorities to do the unmasking. More evidence to go with the nearby knife. The deadly sharp knife which had cut the woman's clothing.

Heather bent easily over and looked the dark-clad man on the ground in the eyes. "Listen to me very closely. Do I have your full attention?"

He nodded. Blood was running out of his nose from where it had intersected the ground. Heather could see it around the mouth opening of the mask.

Heather felt zero pity for him. If this is the serial rapist, he already ruined lives. If he was a first-timer, he still had been planning to ruin one woman's life tonight. A bloody nose was nothing.

She felt no pity, but at the same time, Heather was determined not to be tempted by her power to be the thing she despised. A thug. 'Absolute Power Corrupting Absolutely' is more than a saying to Heather. She had thought upon that at length.

That did not mean the man on the ground had to know that.

"So far, this has gone pretty easy on you. Do you have any doubt that I could have hurt you far worse than this?" Heather pointed up. "I could have taken you up. As high as I wanted to go. 100 meters is the same as 10,000 meters to me. I could have dropped you from the sky. I could have dropped you from orbit had had you burn up on re-entry. Human bodies don't do well at Mach 17. Do you understand?".

He shook his head in the 'yes' direction. "Who are you?" he asked plaintively.

"I am the variable you did not plan on when you went to hurt his woman. I'm the guy that just caught your rapist ass."

Heather almost said she was the 'woman' that caught him. "That is all you need to know."

Heather stood erect, letting her height over the grounded man have its full effect. "I am going to go back and check on your intended victim. Right over there. I saw you from the sky. I can see you through the trees. If you get up. Do anything other than lay here quietly? I will come back here and pound your head onto the ground until I am assured you will not move. I have an intense dislike for rapists: feel free to let me show my distaste to you. Do you understand?"