This commission contains bondage, webbing, and kidnapping/damsel-in-distress. I recommend you turn away if that does not interest you.

—--

Looking down upon the utterly destroyed Z-City, Tatsumaki couldn’t help but smile as she flew over the toppled buildings and rubble with ease. Tracking down a monster in this kind of landscape was something only she was capable of doing, but she’d certainly pay to see any of the grounded heroes try. It was one of two reasons why she was an obvious choice for this mission: the other being that this monster was supposedly Dragon-level.

…Supposedly it was, but she’d done at least three laps of the city and had yet to see a thing! The Dragon-level threats she was usually called out for were giant monsters that an idiot with a sword or a bat wouldn’t be able to put a dent in, and with how flat the horizon was, a single gaze made it obvious that there was no sign of that. Tatsumaki growled, resigning herself to one more lap around the city before throwing the towel in.

If the Hero Association expected her to search under every piece of rubble for an enemy, then they could shove it and call her back when they realized that her time was more valuable than all of theirs combined. Surely they could at least scan the damn city first to give her a bit of information, and inform her where this “monster” was?

Honestly, she was beginning to think this might be some idiotic joke by the association. Her telekinetic powers couldn’t sense any creature in the vicinity of the city, with the absolute closest living thing holed up in some base miles away from the city. And that was just a bunch of humans, preparing for reconstruction! Apparently, it was part of the reason why it was so urgent for her to “make the city safe”, but Tatsumaki didn't particularly care if they had to wait so that she could do her job properly.

Minutes dragged on as she continued flying aimlessly around the city, growing tired of straining her eyes–both physical and telepathic–to look for something that obviously didn’t exist. Tatsumaki began considering all the names she’d call the association heads when she returned from this “mission”... senseless, idiotic, dense, simple–

She’d finally decided to personally give each and every one of those suited morons a complete verbal assault only for her to finally notice some kind of movement in the corner of her eye. All the way down on the ground, slightly concealed by a fallen skyscraper, did Tatsumaki notice some movement. She lowered herself down closer, trying to make out what exactly that was while remaining high up in the sky.

Robots..? The machine–no machines, she corrected as another two or three entered her vision, were fairly small and no bigger than a person her size. In design, however, they almost resembled an arachnid: multiple legs, a central, circular body, and by the looks of things, they seemed fairly advanced. The sleek gray and black metal which coated them reminded her of something Metal Knight would create…

T-That damn doctor! He probably sent his robots out all this way, dealt with the monster, and had a few of them stick around to do whatever boring “research” he does whenever something goes wrong. And he didn’t even have the decency to contact her, or the Hero Association, or… or..!

“Hah!” Tatsumaki let out, as she picked up one of the robots from afar with her power. It rose into the air before suddenly twisting onto itself–robotic legs popping off before its metal crumbled into nothing more than a lifeless ball. To Tatsumaki, the cracks and beeps it let out were gratifying. She chuckled softly as she flung the thing away with a flick of a finger, watching it sail past her in the air as its trajectory led it straight into and through a building. After all, if the doctor doesn’t want to communicate with the other heroes, then he can’t exactly get mad when other heroes perceive his things as threats, can he? She picked up a couple more, squinting at them as she could just barely make out a red dot pointed at her. It was probably just the eye for those things, but she had no qualms with them watching her destroy them.

There were quite a few more of them than Tatsumaki expected, however. Spiderbots continued to pop out from hiding spots, pushing rubble up to reach the surface or simply exiting from the shadows. Such a sight entertained the woman gleefully tossing their companions aside… more machines just meant more fun for her, after all!

She’d just picked one up and was about to twist it until it popped when she noticed some kind of attachment just exit out of its top. From her altitude, she could barely make it out… somewhat circular and concave, like a bowl pointed at her. What, a speaker? Was it going to playback a pre-recorded message politely asking her to not destroy them? Like she cared.

As Tatsumaki began to crush the thing under her telepathic grip, she realized that she was exactly right. It was a speaker. But it was not asking her for anything.

It let out a screech–a rapid soundwave tearing through the air between it and Tatsumaki, and though Tatsumaki was fast, she was hardly prepared to dodge it. The attack was pointed straight at her head, and physically, it had no effect. The soundwaves simply passed through her, not even pushing her back, but what it did cause–

“AH!” Tatsumaki’s hands went directly to her ears as the shrill screams that the machine had let out entered her body. Though the sound was only upon her from the outside for a moment, from the inside, it felt as though those waves were reverberating inside her head, infuriatingly distracting as her vision began to spiral. She tried to upright herself, finding the strength to drag her hands away from her head and down towards the ground to push her up…

N-No! Her powers… w-what had happened to her powers?! She couldn’t even concentrate on trying to figure out what was going on–the ringing in her head was too much for her mind to handle! L-Like this was exactly what it was meant to do: disorient an ESPer and render their powers useless. What was going on..?

She had more pressing concerns than reasons or sources, however, given the fact that she was currently in freefall to a very hard landing against solid concrete. The sight of spinning ground was just enough of an adrenaline kick to muster up whatever focus and power she could in a panic to push back just moments before she collided with the ground.

It was enough to break her fall, but it was by no means a comfortable descent nor landing. At the very least, she landed on her feet, though her heels dug into the ground as residual dizziness caused her to fall to her knees. Breathing heavily for a moment as she eventually pushed herself back up, the general disorientation and confusion had finally begun to fade from her mind, but she was left with a headache, reverberating through her body in pulsating pain, almost parallel to what those soundwaves had initially felt like.

Something in the back of Tatsumaki’s head–an emotion that she hadn’t felt in a long time, made her almost nervous to test it, but she tried using her powers again as she eyed the half-destroyed robot which had attacked her in particular. She clenched her fist… and it with the rest of her arm shook slightly a couple seconds later.

Nothing happened to the robot.

T-This can’t be… no, what is this?! The silenced psychic thought to herself. She hadn’t been without her powers in years–decades, at that, and n-now they were simply gone! Tatsumaki knew that damage to the head could inhibit a telepath’s abilities, b-but this was a lingering, ranged, and calculated assault. This couldn’t be an accident or a coincidence. W-Were these even the doctor’s toys?

She had no more time to think, however. These robots, mechanically programmed and emotionless, wasted no time to gloat or taunt the grounded woman. Her eyes widened as one of them pointed at her, clearly locking onto her petite body as it prepared something. A second later, and a long, white string exited the machine’s body at a surprising force, aimed with pinpoint precision directly on her right wrist. Her eyes dropped to what had stuck to her hand–a long, white string straight out of the robot’s body. The string began to pull, easily staggering her short frame forward as she snapped out of her surprise and realized what was happening.

But that realization was a second too late. There wasn’t just one robot, there were at least half a dozen surrounding her, and the sounds of more whirring closer entered her ringing ears. And three more strings shot out at the rest of her limbs, again fast and precise enough that someone like Tatsumaki stood no chance of dodging them.

It was instinctive for her to just use her mind, to envision the strings being ripped apart at the seams, and watch it happen before her. But the ache in her head intensified as she tried, and once more, nothing happened.

Her heartbeat accelerated as she looked back and forth between the strings, which suddenly began to tug and pull out her arms so that more of the sticky string could be shot out at them. Each one that connected with her increased their grip over her, the tension growing stronger as she began to feel herself losing control of her own limbs! Even without the distraction of her aching head, she was at a complete loss of what to do without her powers. It took her a few more seconds to even remember that she could struggle as anyone else would. Like a normal person would.

She gave her right arm a sharp tug first, and it barely moved more than a few inches. With heavy breaths, she tried again… and again… soon switching to the other arm out of frustration before her anger boiled over and she began pulling against both of them with little strategy or rational thought.

“You have to—STOP!” She commanded, with her voice at a high enough pitch that it would send chills down the spines of even S-Class heroes who recognized its source.

But there were no heroes besides her nearby, and the robots were not even close to being as fazed by her voice as she was by theirs. Her eyes darted between the robots once more, as her arms began to shake more than struggle.

“S-Stop!” She shouted once more, but even she could tell it came out rattled. Tatsumaki glanced down, seeing for herself how her legs were being wrenched together, threatening to tie them into one useless lump that would stand no chance of escaping these robots. She kicked and pulled at the silk in all directions, but being completely unable to target the long, sturdy string that ran from robot to ankle made it impossible to free herself like this. Inch by inch, the gap between her smooth, slender legs was closing, and no amount of physical force she could muster up made it possible for her to resist.

“I-I’ll kill you! Each and every one of you! I’ll rip your shiny legs off and turn your bodies into bowling balls if you don’t let me free this instant–a-and your creator, I-I’ll tear his head off too and throw it around like a… a… gah… s-stop…”

No. 

NonononononoNO! Her mind tried to think of something–push past this throbbing ache and use it for something if not her powers! S-Something had to come loose if she kept pulling! The string would fray under enough tension, a-and then she could free one of her arms, use it to pull the other one free, and then… then…

It was difficult to conceptualize anything past that when even the first step felt entirely impossible. I-It’s just a stupid, sticky bit of webbing. Just p-pull harder, Tatsumaki! 

Nothing would loosen despite her internal pleas, and the impending fate which awaited her if she failed seemed all the more likely. It’d already dawned on her what could happen if she was successfully restrained.

Anything.

These emotionless husks of enemies gave no reason as to why they were doing this, and the fact that she had to fill in the gaps herself on what that could be made it all the more frightening.

She couldn’t give up. Not yet. Not ever. Tatsumaki flexed her muscles–as underdeveloped and unremarkable as they were–in resistance, trying to find any sort of tension she could manage to break.

“H-Hey! Didn’t you hear me, y-you mindless tin cans!? Release me, or face the unimpeded wrath of e-everything that the Rank 2 S-Class hero can d-mm-MMPHF!”

A shot of string was aimed directly at her mouth, and just like every other one, it hit the mark precisely. If those machines could hear Tatsumaki, then her threats clearly meant nothing. Or they’d simply grown tired of her voice.

“Mmphhff!” She tried moving around her lips, but the webbing plastered against them made coherent speech impossible. Reduced to nothing more than mere growls and moans in resistance, her speech was merely one of her freedoms that was tightly taken away.

More strings were shot out against her, and a few sharp tugs against her arms finally showed that the robots were using their advantage. Tatsumaki could feel her arms being wrenched behind her, the threat of them being pinned behind her and secured looming in her mind. They’d already been forced parallel to one another, with only a few inches of space between them! Failing to find any more strength inside her to resist…

Her heart sank as she felt her arms touch each other, and the immediate sensation of coils wrapping them together like ribbons around a present. The webbing that lingered on each of her individual arms was already enough to stick to one another, and she found herself unable to pull them away from one another when it was just that. The fact that the robots saw it fit to add an outer layer–to wrap her arms up all the way from wrists to shoulders in one inhibiting, inescapable sleeve…

“MMM! LFFM MF GFHH!” The gag against her lips hadn’t loosened in the slightest, but Tatsumaki tried to scream through it anyways, desperation truly setting in at her predicament. T-This couldn’t be happening, to her of all people! She was the strongest of the active heroes, the one every monster feared… and yet here she was, helpless to a bunch of robots.

Her legs met the same fate as her arms, with an even smaller amount of resistance available given that her ankles and feet had already been pinned together and covered. She could do nothing but watch as the strands of silk coiled up and up, tightening around her knees and thighs which had the side effect of forcing her black dress to her sides. The strands didn’t stop there, however, and Tatsumaki realized that they were going to cover her entire body in silk. The robots which had secured her arms worked downwards from her shoulders, slightly squeezing her small breasts as the string coiled around them, while the other robots worked up from her hips until every inch of her below the neck was covered in the white material.

She tried to struggle. Tatsumaki shook her body back and forth, bending her knees and throwing her weight against the webbing which surrounded her. The woman’s mind raced with thoughts, emotions, and ideas spilling over one another as she tried to rationalize s-something! Anything to make this situation better for her. T-These robots weren’t actually spiders, so their silk had to be fake–merely a replica! T-The stickiness would eventually wear off and she’d be able to get free, right?

Such fanciful pleas did little to comfort her. The woman tugged one of her arms, which had been further restricted by the cocooning around her entire body, now sticking them to her back and giving them even less room to move. Her legs were… were only tied to each other, however. Tied like this, she could still bend her knees. And the tension from the robots had finally loosened, now that she was secured.

Tatsumaki shuffled her body to the side, turning to a direction where she saw no robots before attempting to jump. All the woman did was bend her knees before attempting a pop, getting herself perhaps an inch of height and slightly pushing herself forward–

Too much! Even such a small and simple effort became a big mistake, Tatsumaki realized, as she was not used to balancing without either her arms or legs in a functional state. She struggled to stop her momentum, feeling her body carry itself forward straight towards the ground.

“Mmm!” The fact that the silken cocoon she was stuck in happened to cushion her fall was of little comfort to the psychic. Trapped on the ground now, she shook her body back and forth, rolling, kicking her bound legs, and slowly realizing that there was little she could do to get back up. Her eyes turned up from the ground, her fierce scowl of frustration mixed with a hint of dismay, glanced back towards the robots. It was like they were celebrating–a ritualistic dance to commemorate their victory as their bodies bobbed up and down and indistinct noises escaped them. The reality of the situation was forced upon Tatsumaki: they’d won.

No… more accurately, and more distressingly, she’d lost. Without her powers, there was no way to turn this situation around and claim triumph as she’d always done. Her, of all people, was utterly defeated and at her foe’s mercy. I-It simply… couldn’t… be happening.

Tatsumaki reached out for her telekinesis once more, even though she knew it wasn’t available. She tried again… and again… frustration building as she began to kick the ground with her bound legs like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Her mind even began to bargain with itself, clawing against the ache in her mind which seemed to imprison her powers within her.

J-Just let me… t-throw a robot around! …No, just a-a cut! Cut through one of these strings around my wrists, and then I can s-slowly… wiggle free… P-Please… anything!

Not a single bit of her power returned to her. T-The effects of those damned soundwaves were completely overwhelming–and that was for her, of all people. If it could put her out for this long and counting, just how effective would it be against someone lesser, like Fubuki? Days?

The most concerning part was that for all Tatsumaki knew, her powers could be out of commission for exactly that long. She'd only know for sure whenever they return… if ever…

Who could even have created such a thing? Both that frequency of soundwaves meticulously designed to impair her–and these stupid, dancing robots! If this really was the doctor, then she would make sure that the Hero Association knew about the lunatics in their operation before taking care of him for good! A-And if it was someone else…

Unfortunately, her assailant being Metal Knight of all people seemed like the preferable option. Especially if it was a monst–

“Mff!” Her thoughts were interrupted by another spray of silk against her face, this one covering her eyes. Layer after layer was added, slowly blackening her vision until the only thing she could see was nothing at all. She felt the string spreading across the rest of her face: cheeks, forehead, nose…

“MMPHF!” She realized the latter of which would be extremely problematic. Tatsumaki shook back and forth vigorously, trying to prevent any more silk from covering her nostrils. Whether that was enough to convince them, or it’d simply been planned from the start, the robots thankfully didn’t add any further layers there. Her oxygen intake was hindered, and she felt the need to focus on breathing, but it was certainly better than the alternative.

Her hampered breaths served as stern reminders of her helplessness. How powerless she was in this situation, and not just literally as she’d dwelled on before. The dread of anything crept back into her mind, the uncertainty of what was going to happen to her neck. She got the smallest of comforts from the fact that if they were going to kill her, they probably would’ve done so earlier… but for what reason would any need a hero alive?

She tried to calm herself down, but taking deep breaths to do so was not an easy task in her state. Her attention was suddenly grabbed by the scraping of her fully bound body against the ground, the tension near the top of her head tightening as she felt herself being moved…

T-They’re dragging me! It occurred to the psychic just how problematic it would be if she was moved to another location. The creator of these robots could be there, awaiting her arrival with vicious plans to do something to her! She wouldn’t–couldn’t be experimented on again, a-and she certainly would not accept anything else that they had in mind!

“Ffhk… MMM! Lfm mff gfh!” She demanded, but even if the robots could understand her normally, the gag made her desires impossible to decipher. Her struggles, however, made them clear, as she shook back and forth in the silken cocoon. The full coverage of her bindings only increased her anxiety, unable to see, listen, feel… d-do anything properly in a state like this!

Her bound form jerked against its own captivity as it was pulled away, with Tatumaki’s own grunts and moans being the only sound to accompany her besides the monotonous clacking of the robots’ steps against cement. The woman’s body would tense up, arcing slightly before falling into a series of wild shakes and struggles with little purpose behind any of them. If there was an onlooker, even they’d be able to tell they were the struggles of a desperate girl.

Of course, nothing alive accompanied Tatsumaki as she was dragged through the ruined city. Her breaths became more ragged as she continued to struggle, soon realizing just how difficult keeping this up would be. She could feel her body already beginning to sore, and it was of little surprise. A psychic such as herself was hardly familiar with prolonged physical activity, and her body was simply not made to struggle in vain with all her strength for more than a couple of minutes. Gasps of increasing intensity escaped her covered nose and mouth as her efforts at escape began to slow, soon failing to muster up the energy or the willpower to try any further.

Even if she could do anything more with her frail body, throwing her weight against the cocoon clearly wasn’t getting her anywhere. She was loath to admit it, but without her powers, she stood little chance against most threats, let alone one that prevented her from escaping so easily. Being forced to rest like this was perhaps a blessing in disguise if it allowed her to get her thoughts together and come up with something… a-anything to escape!

Tatsumaki tried to push away the panic seeping into her mind, ignoring the world outside of her cocoon and focusing entirely on herself… though the sensation that the incline had been changed and that she was being dragged downwards almost ruined that plan immediately. The psychic took the deep breaths that she could, sinking into her own mind as she brainstormed to herself, trying to ignore wasting any time on wondering where exactly she might be taken.

Minutes dragged on just like she was, the sound of silk rubbing against soil having grown awfully old.

Maybe if I..?

She tried pulling her arms a different way, parallel to her back to see if perhaps she could loosen that. Obviously, nothing came of it. But it just felt wrong to give up–to let herself be taken like an obedient girl which she certainly wasn’t.

N-No... then...

Regardless of how far she tried to stretch out her petite body, her cocoon never came into contact with anything sharp enough to cut through it. It felt like nothing she would do made a difference. A-All she needed was a stray blade or a pointed stick and she couldn't get either of those!

Tatsumaki sighed from within her bindings, resting her body in its physical defeat once more.

In the end, everything came back to her abilities, no matter whatever other angle she tried to look at things. If she got them back, then it would be easy to escape safely and forget all about this incident… and she would certainly make no mention of this to any other hero or the association.

If they didn’t come back…

Before she could dwell on that possibility, Tatsumaki was interrupted by a new sensation: being lifted into the air. The psychic was reminded of her freefall many minutes ago–perhaps an hour at this point, with how long she’d been bound, but as her body was flipped upside down, the woman could feel some tension in the cocoon by her feet. I-It was… holding her up?

The clacking of the robotic legs began to wane, and soon enough, it was nothing more than a dull echo in her ears. The robots had left her… t-they’d strung her up and gone someplace else! Not being surrounded by those things was probably a good outcome, but the fact that they’d gotten her to a place where they were comfortable enough to leave her alone was not a good sign either. She began to test her new predicament, her preliminary struggles unable to loosen herself from this new position, nor move an inch in any direction. The swaddle of silk around her was attached firmly to the ceiling of… wherever she was.

Exhaustion was already creeping back to her, however, and trying to lift herself up at all exacerbated that, barely able to get more than a few inches before her core began to burn. She let herself fall limp, taking another few battered breaths as she recomposed herself.

Tatsumaki tried to focus. She thought about her powers, tried to hunt them down within her own mind, and push through that lingering aching which she was sure was sealing them. The psychic played a scene in her mind, visualizing herself cutting through the silk binding her arms together over…

P-Please!

and over…

I need...

and over… and–

A rip echoed throughout the room as Tatsumaki’s arms suddenly popped out of the cocoon. Beneath the woman’s covered face, a smile grew, as she felt her powers flicker back to life. Her hands immediately began clawing at the rest of the silk in conjunction with her psychokinesis, slowly but surely dragging her body out of its imprisonment with no hesitation. The lingering webs clung to her body and clothing, forcing a few pieces of its fabric to rip before she was finally loosened completely.

She caught herself with her powers before falling against the ground, reorienting herself in the air before landing softly on the ground with her own two feet. Tatsumaki rubbed her forehead with one hand before using it to rip off all the spider webs plastered over her eyes, nose, and mouth. When her vision returned, she immediately flickered her eyes around her surroundings, ensuring that none of those robots were still lingering in the area.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned towards the nearest wall. Pathways crawled out into practically every direction, but Tatsumaki was not interested in wandering around whatever this dank mix of a cavern and base was supposed to be. She pressed both her palms against it, before splitting it apar–

Splitting it… c’mon..!

“AH!” Sharp, sudden pain in her head caught her off-guard and forced Tatsumaki down to her knees. Though her powers had finally come back to her, it was not nearly at full strength. A mere fraction was all she had to work with, and while it was enough to split apart silk, the solid rock turned out to be far more resilient. The room would barely even shake when mustering up all she could in this state.

Tatsumaki let out a deep breath, not taking the freedom of it for granted, as she turned towards the rest of the room. There was no way she was going to sit around here and wait for a horde of those robots to return. She had to pick one of the pathways in front of her, and move.

She picked the centermost one, though, of course, she wouldn’t be running through it. Her legs were weak from all the struggling, but she still had enough power to lift herself a few feet above the ground and fly through the tunnels. The paths were fairly large, at least ten feet high, yet again bringing in the question of what they were made for…

The farther Tatsumaki traveled, however, the more clearly the purpose of this place dawned on her: It was a labyrinth. One pathway split off into five more, and the escapee soon began to run into dead ends, loops that she could swear she’d been down before, making it all the more frustrating to try and find her way out of here. I-If she could just remember the way she came..! Of course, that was hardly an easy task with how she was put into this place. She stopped in the middle of one particularly obnoxious room: with eight pathways, all in different directions. Her eyes bounced between them, honestly beginning to consider if she would just have to wait for her powers to return.

A line of white that Tatsumaki caught in the corner of her eye made her wish that her full powers returned immediately. The trajectory of it was changed by her mind at the last moment to just barely miss her right arm, sticking to a wall behind her instead. Her body instinctively floated higher up into the air as she stared down the tunnel, shaken for just a moment as a single red dot stared back at her.

That second almost spelled her doom once more, as a string shot at her from another one of the tunnels. She pulled herself out of the way just in time, before staring down at it and straining her powers to crush it from afar.

…D-Did she just feel… genuine fear at the sight of one of those? N-No, she was just momentarily surprised. She threw the other one against one of the tunnel walls to remind herself of her superiority, but she hadn’t time to watch it crumble underneath itself. Tatsumaki could hear the echoes of their tiny, metal legs coming towards her.

Several were coming, at all angles, and some of them fast! They flooded into the large room, and Tatsumaki immediately tried to deal with them before they could get a good shot off. Close enough to the ceiling, she noticed the rocks hanging from above: sharp stalactites that she was powerful enough to rip off and send straight through the body of those robots. The pointed stone would be enough at that moment to break them apart into bits–

Unless they dodged?! Tatsumaki realized that she’d only ever destroyed those things with attacks impossible to avoid: crushing or throwing them. The fact that they were nimble with those eight legs came as a shock, and it took a surge of strength to force herself out of the way of the robot’s retaliatory string attack.

It took more energy to manipulate the robots directly, but right now, it was the only way Tatsumaki could efficiently deal with them. She picked one up before throwing it straight at another, ensuring that she guided its path all the way through so that the other couldn’t dodge. They exploded into a metallic mess, but it gave her a chance to look across the room. To see just how many were beginning to enter…

She began focusing on the defensive, deflecting strings towards one another to hopefully stall out some of the robots for a few moments while giving herself more room to breathe. There were six–no, eight, she corrected, in this room with her, and more soon approaching. She just had to take them all out before the difference in numbers completely overwhelmed her!

Tatsumaki focused on each and every one of them, ignoring the throbbing in her head as she strained her mind and body. They began to rise in the air, and slowly, Tatsumaki began to pull them together, planning on–

It didn’t matter what she had planned, because it failed before she could even try it. Her grip on the robots loosened as pain spiked in her head, almost causing her to lose her flight as she barely kept balance. The drop of a couple of feet was not nearly enough to deal with any of the robots, and the only advantage she’d gained from the attack was that they were all in front of her now.

Something  which the robots seemed to realize as well. They immediately spread out once more, leaving no room for the psychic’s attention to falter as strings shot towards her from all directions once more. It took a perfect balance of her attention to defend herself from every angle, while still finding opportunities to attack and try to thin their never-ending numbers.

A balance… which would break inevitably. She didn’t know whether it was the ache in her head finally serving as enough of a distraction for her to miss it, or simply a perfect shot, but Tatsumaki’s heart sank regardless as she felt a familiar stickiness suddenly sprout on her wrists. She immediately tore it apart with her powers, but it required focus–effort taken away from the robots. The machines sent out more attacks that she simply could not handle.

Silk began to cover her faster than she could remove it. Worst of all, she wasn’t even pulling it off her body: she was simply cutting the strings when they attached to her so that the robots couldn’t begin to pull and grapple with her once attached. That meant that the residue remained on her body, not immediately a problem for the psychic, but as it began to build on her wrists, arms, and just below her chest…

It began to become a nuisance. An unfortunate movement of her left arm, and suddenly it was sticking to the side of her body, requiring Tatsumaki to wrench it free just for it to take another string to it. She tried to stay calm as the familiar sensations of restraint began to build on her body, images of her helplessness a mere hour or so ago flickering in her mind. Reduced from the most talented of the heroes to a mere damsel in distress just like that.

I-It wouldn’t happen again! It couldn’t! Frantically, she tried to focus all her efforts on removing what’d already been applied to her, but it was far too late for that. Pulling strings off of her with her powers was the weakest form of defense, with how quickly it was applied back onto her now vulnerable body, but something that had festered deep within Tatsumaki in these last few hours simply refused to be bound like that again, the consequences damned.

N-No, she had to think clearly! She had to be smart about this, or else her defeat was guaranteed. Eyeing one of the robots, she picked it up and threw it across the path of many of the strings currently connected to her, buying herself some time to reorient herself. The problem wasn’t being bound–that never was the main issue. It was the fact that she didn’t have her powers then. So long as she did, it didn’t matter how much silk was on her when she could still destroy these things with her mind.

Tatsumaki made a desperate gambit in her mind, a decision that would either save her or cost her. With the way things were going now, she’d likely lose the war of attrition, being slowly brought down by these robots and tired out until she could fight back no longer. What she opted for instead, however, was destroying as many as she could, holding back nothing for her own defense. She began tossing multiple spider bots around at once, crushing them into walls and each other, picking up the ones that continued to flood in next.

Multiple shots of silk connected just below her chest, attaching and catching her arms in the process, pinning them to her sides. They suddenly began to pull, trying to wrench her down as she instinctively held herself up in the air..!

S-She couldn’t afford to keep herself afloat any longer. Tatsumaki allowed the robots to ground her, taking the energy that floating took to instead crush the machines who’d dared to do such a thing. Parts and mechanisms flew across the cavern, some of them intercepting the strings aimed at Tatsumaki while others still hit their mark, beginning to slither webbing up and down the rest of her body. Tatsumaki felt her legs pull together, her heart accelerating at the sensation of her movement being restricted once more as she tried to simply focus on crushing the robots.

…But doubt was beginning to fester in the psychic’s mind. She was destroying more than ever before, but they just kept coming! And the more tired she grew and the more her powers began to wane, the more terrifying the reality of being bound began to become once more. Her body instinctively began to struggle physically once more, unable to spare any effort mentally to free herself. Tatsumaki tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter so long as she had her powers and kept fighting back, but what if her weakened powers weren’t enough?

Webs sprayed across her feet and the cavern ground, planting her in place and making her an even easier target than before. It shouldn’t have mattered, but the second Tatsumaki saw the robot in front of her begin to shift, dread filled her mind. She had made a terrible mistake.

The spider bots had pushed her so far in this state that she’d forgotten about their ace in the hole. That very thing which had removed her powers before, that same speaker popped out of its head, pointed straight at Tatsumaki, who was now bound and held in place firmly, unable to wiggle away even an inch.

“D-Don’t! Please!” She’d previously demanded things from these robots, and now she was reduced to begging for it. All of her offense ceased as she focused entirely on avoiding that thing, escaping it, getting away from it as quickly as possible before it could take her powers away from her! Tatsumaki tried lifting herself up, struggling to pull herself free from the webs pinning her to the ground before she tried to rip them away with her mind. S-She had to avoid the sound, the terrible, straining screech that would echo over and over in her head… and…

It’d slipped her mind in her complete and utter panic that she could’ve simply destroyed the speaker. The realization dawned on her far too late, the soundwave already in the air and upon her in a fraction of a second. Her body immediately recoiled back, held upright only by the silk sticking her body to the ground, as she began to struggle in place helplessly.

Of course, there was no way she could free herself now. The dull ache that had persisted in her head immediately intensified once more, and it was all the more painful to feel her powers slip away when she was keenly aware that it was about to happen. She tossed and turned against her silk bindings, feeling all the more restrictive now that she couldn’t feel her telekinesis anymore..!

The soundwaves continued to blare, and not just as an echo in her head. T-The machine was still firing it off, building it up, as if it’d learned that a single wave of them was hardly enough to incapacitate the powerful esper as long as they needed her to be. The pressure was building, and Tatsumaki’s vision began to daze as intense dizziness was forced upon her.

W-Why is it..? N-No, it’s gonna keep going until I pass out! She realized, but the psychic was far too helpless to do anything about it now. The tugging at her feet was the least of her concerns, her mind hardly focused on the fact that the spiders were once again forcing her to the ground. All she could think about were the soundwaves–debilitating, overwhelming, unmanageable, screeching in her ear louder and louder! Her legs kicked uselessly against their tight, silk bindings, regrettably fastened so securely around her that she stood no chance at moving an inch.

It became hard to keep her eyes open, and she took one last look at the simple machines which had bested her with ease. The woman gripped onto her consciousness, desperate to stay awake, g-give herself some last chance!

The heaviness began to sink into her mind, luring her to sleep if she would not readily accept it. Tightness only continued to wrap around her, inhibiting her physical struggles further as her mental ones finally began to diminish.

T-This couldn’t be her fate! She was so much better than this, so much better than anyone else that it was simply impossible that she didn’t find a way out of this!

Her consciousness flickered, teetering on the edge of passing out entirely. Tatsumaki’s movements slowed, her struggles turning to little more than jolts of energy that were being drained away steadily.

Impossible… S-She was the Tornado of Terror! The hero at the top of the S-Class, t-the Terrible Tornado! 

The ringing and rumbling finally broke what little remained of her focus and concentration as her mind slipped away.

…n-no… She was… in terrible peril...

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