We joined up with the two girls we had danced with and claimed a table as our sovereign Queen-dom and I went with one of them, a cute blonde named Heather, to get us drinks. She had been fibbing a bit to get into the club, given that she was nineteen and a student at the local college but the other girl, Joy, was eighteen and went there as well, so I saw now harm. Not that they had told me, but I had an excellent wingwoman in Galatea, who had once again demonstrated that the amount of information people allowed to float around on the internet was dangerous. With a little, semi-aggressive digging by her, I had their full names, birthdates, major, a good idea of their circle of friends, relationship-status and even dorm-number. All before we had made our way back to the table with our drinks.

What made me a bit apprehensive was that Joy was, according to her social media, dating some guy in their mutual circle of friends, which made me wonder a little. They had danced quite intimately and looked very much like a couple. Oh, well, it was just one of those things that were not my circus, not my monkeys, but it might explain why they were at a decidedly not-college party.

At the table, I managed to get a drop of both, Sophia’s and my own drink and used them to run a quick test, an idea I had stolen from a company and refined a little for my own use. My version could detect a few more drugs and also indicated alcohol content, just so I knew the score. Neither of our drinks had been tampered with, relaxing me a bit, there were far too many ways for bad things to happen.

When I looked up, Joy was looking at me a bit strangely and leaned over.

“What did you do to her drink?” she asked in a rather accusing tone. With a flip of my wrist, I produced another quick-test, thankfully looking very much like the commercial version, and showed her. She blushed a little and apologised but I waved it off. I did not mind that she was looking out for someone she did not know, especially if that someone was Sophia.

Conversation was almost impossible, beyond the odd shouted sentence, so we just rested for a bit before heading back out onto the floor. At first, we danced together as four, then we split a bit by pairs, dancing close together to a slow song, before joining together as four for another fast song. Over time, I got more and more into it, less minding the chaotic nature of the dancing and simply moving with the music. While it was simplistic, it gave me enough of a structure to work in and the years of yoga gave me enough flexibility and proprioception to keep up with the more talented girls.

For the fun of it, we switched around a bit, Sophia dancing with Joy while I danced with Heather. I enjoyed it, but at the same time, felt it was lacking something. With Heather, it was fun, plain and simple, but with Sophia, there was something more in it, making it better.

Finally, we left the floor, sweaty and happy. Nature was calling to me, so I started to make my way towards the facilities, only to be joined by Joy.

Once we left the dance-area, the volume quickly dropped off, allowing for conversation to happen.

“Something is worrying Sophia.” Joy said as an almost opening statement. “She seems… desperate to have fun tonight.”

“Thank you for caring.” I answered her non-question. I had noticed the same thing and felt that I had a good idea for the reason, but there was no way I would get into that with a stranger, no matter how good she was at reading people.

“Watch out for her. You know, a friend in need is a friend in deed and all that stuff. And Sophia definitely needs a friend tonight, and not a friend with weed.” Joy said, with a small smile on her face.

“Well, I do have a leather-jacket outside, so that would work.” I answered while looking down to my chest, causing her to blink for a moment, before laughing, when she realised I had picked up on her joke.

There was a bit of a queue and neither Joy nor I were willing to use the Men’s facilities, so we had to wait. We made a bit of small talk, with neither of us saying very much, mostly because I did not want to hint at my life in a bunker and she was likely avoiding the topic of being older and at college, to keep me from asking questions. That made the whole thing a bit surreal, but we found common ground on a quite unlikely topic, video games. It turned out that we both had a few in common and planned a gaming session at an indeterminate time later. Finally, we got to the facilities and the less said about them the better. Both of us survived, but maybe only just.

When we got back to the dance-area, our sovereign Queen-dom had been invaded by the Douchedom of the Frat-House. Or maybe it was a douchy, who knows. I idly wondered if there was some sort of mold that they used to create identical copies of the prime-douche, as all three males at our tables could have been cut from the same cloth. Each of them was gym-fit, clean-shaven, dressed in jeans and a polo-shirt and sporting the same arrogant grin. One of them had separated Heather from Sophia and the other two had somehow managed to take a drink from them and drink.

Seeing that, I went from vigilant paranoia to combat ready in about a second flat. I believed to hear an expletive from Joy behind me, but with the music and my focus on them, I was unsure. It did not matter anyway.

Making a tactical decision to not instantly strike but first to try and extract Sophia, I simply cut between them, so I stood directly in front of her, fully in her personal space. Up close, I could smell the booze and her glassy eyes gave me pause. Joy and I had been gone for maybe ten, fifteen minutes, far too fast for alcohol to work, no matter how much was drunk. It also demonstrated that her powered constitution did not protect her against drugs and poison, something I had suspected after operating on her, but never conclusively tested.

Ignoring them did not seem to work, as one of them made some crass and leering comment that I was welcome to join them but I kept my focus on Sophia. A cold anger was festering in my gut, mixed with a desire to put those guys into their place.

Not quite knowing where the idea came from, my hand went to Sophia’s chin, pulling it up so she looked directly into my eyes, leaning forward so our foreheads almost touched and asking in a clear, possessive voice, “Who do you belong to, Soph?”

She blinked once or twice and I saw her pupils widen with a flush spreading on her cheeks. Her answer was not as forceful as my question, but that was just fine. “To you, Cat.”

With those words, I claimed her mouth in an angry, hungry kiss, both for the two of us and for the frat-boys behind us. Sophia was still in a daze, so I felt that we should cut our visit to this wonderful establishment short. I turned to pull Sophia after me, only to get stopped by the two frat-boys.

“Now, where are you going? We were just having fun here.” Frat-Douche one said.

A short assessment gave me an order to take them down, if I had to and my body readied itself for combat. I would have to use equipment and risk killing them, but if they started anything, I would finish it.

“I will say this once. Let us leave, or I will feed you your own balls.” My voice sounded almost foreign to me, clipped, precise and so very angry.

For a second, nothing happened. But after that second, they stepped back, clearing the way for us. Joy looked a little worried, but had joined up with Heather and followed us towards the exit.

Outside, I took stock of Sophia, who was getting the full dose of whatever drug they had used to spike the drink and the alcohol, making her barely coherent. Going to the hospital was out, they would try to take blood and instantly realise that she was Powered and not registered. Officially they were not allowed to say anything, it was in the hippocratic oath after all, but I was not in a trusting mood.

“Are you alright?” Heather asked in an almost hysteric manner. “I tried to get them to leave, but they wouldn’t listen. And when Sophia took that drink, it was as if they smelled weakness.”

Joy stood back a little, looking a bit concerned. She had seen my actions to their full extent and might have realised what I was about to do inside. I tried to calm both of them, telling them I would take care of Sophia, when I heard strangely sounding footsteps behind me. More by luck and instinct than anything, I shifted my head so the something that smacked into me hit the side of my skull, instead of the softer back of my head. It hurt like hell but I was not knocked out.

By reflex, I raised an arm in direction of the movement and emptied the container of pepper spray in my armelet and by luck, the attacker got a good dose, judging by the startled coughing.

Looking up, I would have started laughing, if the situation was not so problematic. One point of problem was that I had used rather interesting tech in front of civilians, which might raise questions. A bigger problem was that we had been attacked and the attacker seemed to be from a similar mold as the frat-boys had been.

But the biggest problem was that the attacker was Powered and more or less randomly speeding up, like a tape on fast forward. That was also the source of my amusement. A man trying to cough up his lungs and stumbling all over the place, while randomly shifting into high-speed movement was a sight to see.