Chapter One: Homecoming
Chapter Two: The Party
Nicolette looked down from her window at the garden below. The weather was perfect, a nicer spring evening you couldn't ask for. The guests were arriving or had arrived and it was just about time for the hostess to make her entrance. She checked herself in the full length mirror once more, remembering how many times she had seen her mother do the same thing in this very mirror.
She sighed, the makeup was perfect, her hair, up with a single soft ringlet down the left side of her face looked professional yet feminine. The long gown was a black sparkly material that accentuated rather than concealed her curves while still looking conservative. A slit up the left side to nearly mid-thigh allowed for freedom of movement. She ran her fingers over the sash at her waist, the carefully concealed light, the explosives, the smoke pellets. The tools that had become so much a part of her life, like her training. Momentarily distracted, her mind drifted…
* * *
The sixteen year old girl crept through the moonless night, moving when the wind moved, stopping when it didn't. She knew her adversary well, knew how he thought, knew how he moved, knew how he smelled.
Smell, with her hyper acute senses, she should be able to smell him. Since she couldn't, he must be downwind of her position. She altered her course, moving silently and swiftly towards her quarry. A sound caught her attention, she looked towards the sound with the corner of her eye, waiting for and locating the next movement. Turning towards the movement, her acute vision picked out the moving man easily. She moved to intercept, a smile on her lips. She had taken only three steps when the huge figure was suddenly behind her and she found herself on the ground, wondering how she got there. Then she looked up into the dirt smeared face of....
* * *
“Besnik!”
“Yes Miss LaCroix?”
She hadn't realized she had spoken aloud.
“Um, nothing, just checking the radio.”
“Very good, Miss LaCroix.”
He was always so formal whenever someone might overhear them, like on the radio. She much preferred when he called her Niki as he had since she was a little girl. When she was Niki she didn’t have to be…
She sighed, refocused on the present, and looked around again. Being here in this house was dredging up old memories, both good and bad. Her parents had used this very room, slept in this bed. This was where she had received comfort for all her nightmares. All of them except the one that wouldn't go away.
She closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts on now. Today was the celebration of her homecoming. A celebration and more: A challenge. She opened her eyes, smiling now as she made a final check in the mirror.
A few minutes later she was sweeping down the staircase, her fingers pausing to run over the finial before she stepped down off the last step and made her way to the patio overlooking the garden. Her special guests noticed her arrival and began, as previously instructed, to make their way to a point behind where she would be speaking.
She did not have to look at them, having made certain she got to know them as well as the last few days had allowed. Antaeus, the tall Greek, his black pants tucked into shiny boots, a common enough look with heroes. The leather muscle looking armour covering his torso, however, was definitely Greek inspired. Liberty, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a stern expression on her face, (have to work on that, she thought) red pants tucked into black no nonsense riding boots, a blue top with stars down one side left that left her abs and arms bare. Lazer, hair done up tight to her head so that it would not interfere with her ability to site on a target would be smiling broadly. Her light blue skirted costume with a white belt and single holster that held the weapon for which she was named. There would be others, but so far only the three had arrived.
The people grew hushed with expectation as they saw her. They were not to be disappointed.
“It is good to be home, I have been away far too long. My parents were both avid believers that Galaxy City could be a great place to live instead of the cesspool of filth it had become. This reception tonight has two purposes. The first… ”
she stepped to one side,
“to reacquaint myself with all of you. The second,”
she made a broad sweeping gesture behind her,
“to introduce you to some of those who will help me in eliminating evil whenever and wherever in our fair city that it should appear.”
It was almost like someone was waiting for those very words, for at that very moment the back garden wall caved inwards.
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