“And here they are, the winners of this year’s Varsity cheerleader competition!” On stage, the squad of gorgeous young women in bright uniforms rushed out, leaping for joy, clapping and hugging one another as the audience applauded. Many had looks of surprise and disbelief on their faces. While they were certainly one of the top teams in contention, few had thought they’d be able to go all the way, but when several of the other top teams had arrived, missing their star cheerleaders to unexplained absence, the winners had found it smooth sailing all the way to first place.

After the trophy was handed out with much pomp and ceremony, speeches had been given, hands shaken, the team, accompanied by their coaches and assistants filed back aboard the charter bus, first back to their hotel for one final night of celebration, then back to the airport and home again. Or so they thought…

Twenty minutes after they left, the driver of the bus reached into a bag by his side and drew out a metal cylinder and a folded up cloth. Struggling a bit one-handed, keeping his other hand on the wheel to steady the bus, he turned a valve on the cylinder, letting out a quiet hiss of compressed gas. Holding his breath, he set it aside, still hissing away and held the cloth up to his mouth. He took a cautious breath through it, tasting harsh chemicals. Theoretically, those soaked into the cloth would neutralize those slowly filling the air of the bus. When his head remained clear, his vision bright, he assumed it was working.

The passengers of the bus, however, had no such protection. The knockout gas worked fast. By the time the first girls started to notice the effects, they were too weak to say anything. The rest merely assumed they were tired after a long and eventful day… until they too started to succumb. Within ten minutes, everyone aboard the bus, save the driver, was out cold.

He kept driving, keeping an eye on the road signs they flickered past in the headlights of the bus. When he saw one that had recently been graffitied with a pair of stylized ‘P’s, he slowed down, pulling the bus over to the side of the road.

As soon as the driver opened the doors, half a dozen men swarmed aboard, dressed all in black with black gasmasks on their faces. The driver nodded to them, hurrying to get into the fresh air. Meanwhile, they went to work, lifting the limp passengers from their seats and carrying them off. Not far away, hidden in the shadows on the side of the road, were several large utility vans to which they were brought.

“Leave the uniforms on.” One of the men told his team. “And work fast, they’ll start coming to in the fresh air.”

His men hurried to obey. Each girl was laid out on the floor of one of the vans, rolled over onto her belly. Her hands were pulled behind her back and secured with a plastic zip tie. Another went around her ankles and then a third was used to join both together, pulling them back into a strict hogtie. “Don’t worry about being gentle...” One of the men said. “They’re flexible...”

Padded blindfolds and ballgags completed the process, then the captives were slid to the front of the space, to make room for the next girl off the bus. Within the span of twenty minutes, all of them: cheerleaders, coaches and assistants were unloaded and hogtied. Muffled whimpers of shock and distress filled them as the girls started coming to to discover their predicament. Their captors paid them little attention, sweeping the bus one last time before piling into the vans as well.

“You know your routes.” The leader told his men over a radio. “We’ll rendezvous at base in half an hour, and an hour after that begin the auction.” With brief acknowledgements from the rest of them, the slavers pulled their vans onto the highway and took off.

“I still don’t get it...” The other slaver, sitting in the passenger’s seat said. “We could have grabbed them before the competition, nice and quiet, if we wanted to. Why go to the whole trouble of snatching the other girls, fixing the competition?”

“Little marketing trick...” His boss said. “There’s plenty who’d pay handsomely for a hot young cheerleader sure...but they’ll pay even more for a member of a competition winning cheer leading squad.”

“And the losers?”

“Oh, we’ll sell them to, like I said, people will still pay for them anyway.”

In the back, the half dozen hogtied cheerleaders sobbed in fright as they were driven away...