DISTRESSED DAMSELS: A $20-tier art request pitting EMPOWERED against THE PINT-SIZE(D) NINJA PLATOON!

So!

A recent-ish art request from the $20 tier referenced an Empowered vol. 7 montage of DiD imagery that, in the lower left corner, featured our heroine laid low by wee ninjas:

These fellas were "The Pint-Size(d) Ninja Platoon," originally seen seen in the following set of late-90s Dirty Pair con sketches:

Okay, maybe these were already Rose & Lily and not the Dirty Pair proper, as my versions of OG Kei & Y**i wouldn't be quite so vulnerable:

The Platoon recurred briefly in another incomplete Lily sketch set...

...before bring featured in a proto-Empowered-format commissioned DP "story" in the early 2000s, which lurks deep in this Patreon's archives:

...which rolled on for 20-odd pages or so of DP distress, which you'll note was rife with Empowered's oft-mentioned Mysteriously Intermittent Post-Millennial Torso Glitch as seen with Kei's wonkily wasp-waisted frame above.

Anyhoo, back to the modern era, when a Biggest Spender Patron asked for a larger image of Empowered bedeviled by the Pint-Size(d) Ninjas, and the shockingly elaborate and time-consuming CSP (iOS) sketch below was the result:

Note that unmasking is a big no-no in the Empverse and is considered a violently punishable violation of the so-called "Unwritten Rules" but, ehh, I just felt like drawing Emp without her mask; besides, the Platoon's Ninjas are quite possibly too dumb to know otherwise, thanks no doubt to their tiny brain sizes.

Anyhoo, I sank enough worktime into this reasonably successful piece that I thought it worthy of putting up as a Distressed Damsels post all its own. Yay?

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?