She was born with this special hair and whenever someone touched it, it would drain them of their life force. And while she learned to live with this and take advantage of the dangers it posed to her peers and the world around her, it wasn’t until she connected with Mr. Lockhart that she was able to see the true extent of her mane’s terrible and frightening abilities. The evil mastermind took her to a special lab at Universal Intelligence (the tech company he owned) and introduced her to Dr. DeMarco Scienza who proceeded to enhance the potency of her hair’s powers.

It grew to extraordinary lengths! Furthermore, Balayage’s hair became weaponized! She could wield it like a whip, wrap people up, and even use it to squeeze her adversaries to death. The most useful and valuable asset her massive black mane provided, however, was the ability to extract certain metaphysical properties from hyper-beings, including, but not limited to, powers, spirits, souls and most importantly, their conscious minds.

It was strands of Balayage’s hair that allowed Dr. Scienza to extract the conscious minds of 21 brilliant children. And it was strands of her hair that enabled him to infuse those conscious minds into a single cell that would eventually grow and morph into the hyper-being known as Virtuosa. Balayage’s hair, however, could not stop Virtuosa from developing a sense of morality, as she turned on her creators and became a force for good.

But that was all in the past. Now Balayage had a new assignment – to extract the conscious minds of telepathic hyper-beings for the purpose of creating the most advanced artificial intelligence-based products on the planet for Edgar Lockhart’s company. This procedure was, of course illegal, and eventually Crystal Spears, a.k.a Cybernetica, and the other members of the heroine team known as the Sista Clique found out about it and vowed to stop them.

Edgar, in response, unleashed his army of supervillains against the heroes, and for nearly six months the two sides had numerous battles. In the midst of the latest battle the Sista Clique’s leader, Kharma Lucky, had been captured by the villains and brought to a secret lab at Universal Intelligence World Headquarters. And this was significant, because Kharma just happened to possess a powerful telepathic mind.

After a few days of being tested and experimented on, Kharma was introduced to Balayage. But before the black-headed menace could do her thing, the lab was attacked! The other members of the Sista Clique (Cybernetica, Girl Six, Ember Brook and Madam Deadhead) along with Ms. Six’s fiance, Torpedo Jones, launched a full scale assault! Edgar’s goons, of course, were on the scene to intercept them. RC Allen, Diabla Diaz, Slasher, Annihilator and Chaos Kao Kwan of the Blue Zone Killers as well as Jessica Dash, Courtney Quick, Zipporah Zing and Swinn Swift of the Speed Demons engaged the heroes. They all clashed in an incredibly epic showdown!

With Edgar’s goons sufficiently holding the Sista Clique at bay, he ordered Balayage to initiate the extraction procedure. She whipped her hair and wrapped Kharma Lucky up, but as she began to extract her consciousness, the black-headed villain encountered great resistance… Kharma was fighting back! Balyage struggled and pressed harder, but so did her adversary. It was a meeting of the minds which literally shook the entire 37-story building to its foundation. Edgar and the scientists in the room had to take cover as a thunderstorm of mental energy filled the air!

Meanwhile, the battle from outside spilled into the building and eventually made its way to the lab as the Sista Clique had finally broken through the defenses of the hyper-villains! The war was far from over, but at least they had found their kidnapped friend.

Upon seeing her sisters enter the lab, Kharma unleashed a massive blast of mental energy that absolutely wrecked Balayage! The villain fell to the ground, lifeless. Kharma was free! But she was also exhausted. They were all exhausted. And that didn’t bode well, because the hyper-villains were still coming at them with all sorts of attacks!

Just then, Edgar got a call from his security team informing him that dozens of police cars, FBI vans, military vehicles, and even the government’s #1 hero-for-hire, Captain Noble, had surrounded the building. Several of the hyper-villains had already been taken into custody and the authorities were pouring into the facility.

Thinking fast, Kharma Lucky used her telepathic abilities to take control of the villain RC Allen and mind-manipulated him into creating a teleportation vortex. The Sista Clique and Torpedo Jones jumped through the portal and landed safely back at Cybernetica’s home.

Edgar quickly ordered RC to create a second vortex. As the remaining villains leapt through the portal, Edgar looked down at Balayage’s ravaged body. Quickly, he instructed Dr. Scienza to salvage as much of Balayage as he could. The doctor sliced off a large portion of her hair, then rigged it in a fashion that would allow him to extract her consciousness and upload it into a meta-drive (a small device that stores metaphysical information). The process took about three minutes, then they jumped into the vortex and made their escape.

When Captain Noble busted down the door, all he found was Balayage’s body. But there was no time to grieve, as he soon realized a particle bomb had been set. He grabbed the lifeless woman and flew out of the lab. Seconds later the particle bomb exploded! The entire lab was completely destroyed, leaving no evidence of Universal Intelligence’s wrongdoings.

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