METROCITY
Superheroine Battle Arena
Siren was on a rampage. She had just finished tearing the head off of her fourth SparBot in the ring, when finally a voice over the speaker interrupted her sparring session. “That’s enough! You’re done!” Dr. Mukta Sanji was looking down at the ring from the control booth with her hands on her hips.
“I still have 20 minutes of ring time, Sanji.” Siren was irritated at the petite Indian woman trying to look imposing. “Turn the damn robots back on.”
“That’s Doctor Sanji, princess.” she answered calmly. “And you’ve done enough damage here today. These SparBots can self-repair but not if you tear them to pieces.”
Siren growled and hurled the pieces of the SparBot out of the ring. Which was an incredible feat of strength considering the Graviton Compression field was still active. Mukta sighed, thinking of the extra week of repairs she would be doing on her SparBots. But she was also worried about Tiyura. She was always so serene, so noble. And Mukta was very attracted to the turquoise-skinned heroine. But this feral hatred inside her was… ugly.
“Tiyura…” Mukta’s voice softened. “Look, why don’t you take a break and let’s talk.”
Siren ignored her and jumped out of the ring–again, something that defied physics. She landed heavily on the ground in a three-point stance and stormed out of the arena. She knew she was acting childish. She knew that she would apologize to Mukta later. But right now all she thought about was that there was an Atlantean here in the arena. She wanted to destroy Ms. Blitzen. But the Commissioner would not let her fight her. And that denial was driving her mad with rage.
Minutes later she entered her suite. All the interior walls and furniture were stripped out except for a single desk against the far wall. The room was nearly filled with an enormous sphere of water which Siren immediately dove into. She floated there with her eyes closed and drifted off to sleep, exhausted from her anger more than her workout.
She woke to a chirping noise echoing through the water. She flicked her legs and propelled herself out of the water sphere towards her desk and saw an incoming holo-comm.
“Channel open.” The console clicked to life and an image of an elderly Lemurian woman appeared in the room. “Hello, mother.” Tiyura said.
“Daughter…” there was hesitation in the Queen’s voice. And the image was unstable. Not surprising considering the entire Lemurian holo-network had been destroyed by the Atlantean tsunami less than a year ago. “…heard… there is an Atlantean… is with you.”
“Yes…” Tiyura hissed. “Some Atlantean bottom feeder showed up in the arena. I know what you are going to say. That she is not responsible for what her people did. That I cannot hate all of-”
“NO!” interrupted the queen. She stared intently at Siren. “She is… responsible. She is… of the royal line. You must break her.”
Siren was surprised at her mother’s ferocity. She held up her hands, “Charles won’t let us fight. If you talk to him…”
“You must… make her fight. Break her. Break!” The holo-image disappeared. Siren’s shock faded away leaving behind a focused determination to crush Ms. Blitzen with her bare hands on behalf of her people.
METROCITY
Warehouse District
In an abandoned warehouse, Queen Mirisaya stood in front of a barely functioning holo-transceiver. Once it powered down, her features melted away into that of the orange-skinned snake woman. She hissed and smiled.