Who Is Yuki Dainichi?

The sun was just coming up behind the building she was laying on as the first cars began to roll down the street. Any other day, that would have happened hours ago, but not that day. All of the traffic up to that point had been on foot, and most of that hadn't gotten any further than the sidewalks.

There were all manner of chairs set up, though very few of them were occupied once the parade started. The chattering which had been the woman's constant companion for what felt like forever died down for a hushed moment, then arose again in the form of cheers.

She wondered how many of them really knew what they were cheering for, really understood. Most likely, the majority of them were just happy to be celebrating anything, and she couldn't blame them for that. Ignorance was bliss; knowledge, then, must be torture. Certainly, she wished she could be down there, mindlessly celebrating with everyone else.

But she -knew-. She knew, and, try as she might, she couldn't turn her back on that fact. She was doing this for her nephews, she told herself, making the world a better place for them to grow up in. She didn't really qualify to be the black sheep of her family, but she had also never really done anything of consequence, never found anything she could really apply herself to.

This wouldn't change any of that, she knew, not with her family. After all, they couldn't know the truth, not ever. She would know, however. She would be making a difference, changing things for the better. And, in the end, wasn't that the most anyone could ask for?

The volume of the noise below escalated again, drawing her eyes to the street. He was almost there.

Her hands sweated only a little when she flipped the guard off the sight, just a little more as she started to aim. Hitting someone in a moving car wasn't going to be easy, she knew, and wasn't like she'd had a lot of practice.

It wouldn't be worth doing if it wasn't difficult, she told herself.

The gun seemed to come alive when she pulled the trigger, a dragon writhing in her hands. She almost dropped it with a curse, before making herself put her eye to the sight again, to make sure it was done.

Her tiny circle of vision swept across the crowd towards the street, taking in the spectators, all shocked, wide eyes staring off in the direction her own were heading towards.

Her progress stopped dead towards the edge of the crowd, froze for a reason she could never find the words for afterwards, no matter how hard she tried.

It was, on the other hand, quite easy for her to remember what she saw there, the tiny girl staring right back up at her, eyes large seemingly not with horror, but with wonder. And, perhaps, a touch of joy.


---- 4 Years Earlier ----


The girl stopped her pacing long enough to gaze down the hall, where the nurses had taken her mama what felt like hours ago. Mika, her oldest sister, had also vanished, only a slightly after that, claiming she was going to get a present for their mother in the gift shop, though, really, she was just going outside to smoke. She'd seen this all before.

They all had, actually, but Kiyoshi, the next oldest child - and only boy - had been drafted into watching his siblings when Mika left, and he had, in turn, told the next oldest, Haruko, to watch their youngest sister while he flipped through the old magazines strewn about the room. He would glance over at his sisters every few minutes, though, and always had a smile for the girl when she was pacing in his direction. He probably would have done the same for Haruko, but her eyes had yet to leave the television since their father had abandoned them here, following their mother down the hall.

They'd all seen it before. Except for the girl.

There was just something about it that made her blood pump a little faster, made her want to jump up and down - until Kiyoshi had told her to stop it, this is a hospital - or, if not that, to wear a hole in the floor by walking back and forth, waiting for news. Before they'd actually arrived, her excitement had been nearly trampled into the dust by her siblings' countless, bored recitations of what it was always like.

But once they'd actually gotten to the hospital, it had resurrected itself, bigger and brighter than ever, so that not even her brother and sisters could ruin it with their rampant apathy. In a way, she almost liked it better this way. This way, it was sort of like she had it all to herself - quite the luxury in a family of almost seven plus, on a good day, two goldfish.

Sure, she had been a little sad to have to give up the role of youngest, but there was always the possibility that would mean her family would start treating her more like a grown up. A faint possibility, and likely to only happen when she -didn't- want it, but it was better than nothing, anyway.

She had been more than a bit annoyed at the prospect of having a third person in her and Haruko's room, which was already pushing the boundaries of the descriptor "crowded". That might never happen, though, since the baby would be staying in their parents' room to start with, and by the time it was ready to move, perhaps Mika would be ready to do the same, and they could all do a bit of shifting. She'd probably still end up with the baby, but maybe they'd be the only two there, and then she'd be sure to have her little sister all to herself, at least sometimes. Her siblings were probably tired of little sisters by now anyway, but just in case they weren't, it would be nice to have a little guaranteed alone time. And surely she wouldn't need much closet space for a while.

Everyone had told her this could take a long time, so, when she saw the figure coming down the hall towards her, she had to blink a couple times, just to make sure her eyes weren't lying to her. But every time she did, the person got closer, and she became even more certain it was her father.

For all their collective sloth of only a few moments before, her siblings scrambled to their feet rather quickly at the sound of their father's voice. Kiyoshi volunteered to go find Mika, and, after making sure he knew the room number to look for on his return, hurried away, his departure appearing even faster because of the girl's own movement, following her father, slow as ever, with Haruko trailing behind, even slower.

The girl didn't let herself think too hard as she walked, listening to her shoes squeaking on the hospital floor. If she did, she would have wondered at what kind of a person her sister was going to turn out to be, whether the two of them would get along. She and Haruko weren't exactly close, despite sharing a room - probably she resented having someone steal her spotlight as the youngest. Mika had never had much time for her, either, but then, the only one she really spent any time talking to was Kiyoshi. By the time the girl had come around, Mika seemed to have grown tired of her own role as the oldest, and decided to pass it on to her brother while she withdrew into herself, and did her best to ignore the rest of her family.

Would the girl be like that, too? She wanted to be a good big sister, to teach her all the stuff she'd learned about the world, to help her out... Or so she would have liked to think.

In reality? She simply wasn't sure what kind of an older sister she'd be like. She kinda hoped she'd figure that out once she saw the baby, like an instinct or something. And, as it turned out, she was right.

Her first look at the little thing, all pink and squirming, hardly even recognizable as human, or at least any kind of human she'd seen before, had elicited a shrug, and very nearly made her ask where the real thing was, and why would they kid around about something like this?

A glance at Kiyoshi's face told her it wasn't a joke, however.

A disappointed sigh escaped from the girl's lips, and her eyes drifted slowly over to the window of her mama's room, as she wondered when they were going to get something to eat.


----------------- 17 Years Later -----------------


"She's just a publicity stunt," his sister sniffed disdainfully. "I mean, come on, what kind of a lame power is slowing people down a little bit?"

"She can like... freeze water, too," he shrugged. "Plus - bow and arrow."

His sister rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because all bad guys are deathly afraid of antiquated weaponry."

"Whatever," he sighed, flipping to the next poster, this one for some rock band he'd never heard of. "Bows are harder to shoot than guns any day. And she's still cute."

"She wouldn't be there if she wasn't," she said, finally agreeing with him, kind of. "They don't want people to think the whole team's full of big, scary guys. They need some kind of public face... Who else are they gonna use, the dude with all the tattoos?"

"It's not like she's the only chick on the team."

"The only young one," she was all too eager to point out. "At least the only normal looking young one."

"I don't know," he said with a smile. "That lizard-looking chick is kinda hot."

"You are such a freak." She shoved him into the display of posters, but she was chuckling. "Come on, we still have need to get shampoo. It's not like you're gonna buy any of those anyway."

"Yeah, yeah," he shrugged, starting to follow her away. He turned back for one last look, but they had already flipped back to the first poster and some weird butterfly-themed metahuman was staring back at him, rather than the pair of blue eyes he'd been hoping for. Probably from some little kid show, he thought, rolling his eyes as he walked away.


----------- 11 Years Earlier -----------


"<Let's all quiet down now!>" the teacher exclaimed, clapping his hands and switching back to Japanese to make sure they all understood him. Not that it mattered - firstly, since most of his students already knew at least -that- phrase in English just fine, and secondly, because he hardly expected them to do so, no matter what language he used.

Sure enough, despite the few obedient ones who always shut their mouths, faced the front of the classroom, and sat straight up at the sound of those words, the chattering subsided only slightly. Some days, he wished he could go back to the first day of school, when the kids were all still too nervous to talk to each other. But after that initial ice got broken, it seemed to melt, so that there were no longer even any pieces to try to put back together.

Truth be told, he didn't mind all that much. If they weren't at least a bit rambunctious, there would be something wrong. Kids were supposed to be like that, not like little robots that just sat at their desks and did what they were told, even if it often seemed as if his fellow teachers thought that way.

"<Quiet now!>" he repeated, getting a somewhat better response, enough that he decided to keep going while he was ahead. "<We're going to be doing some coloring, so get out your crayons!>"

He turned to pick up the stack of drawings, just waiting to be given life, the clatter of a couple dozen bookbags being dug through starting up behind him. A butterfly stared up at him from the top, along with a caterpillar, and a chrysalis, hanging from a tree branch.

He kept circulating throughout the room after handing them out, just watching the energy of youth being shaped into sheer concentration. It had always amused him to see how seriously his students took something as simple and silly as coloring - sometimes, he wished he could go back to a time when his biggest concern was keeping his crayons from straying outside the lines.

He was just about to go back to his desk for a few minutes, when he noticed something a little odd. He changed his course slightly to get a better look, make sure he was seeing what he thought he was, and, as it turned out, he certainly was.

One of his students - one of the quiet, obedient ones - was intently watching the kid at the desk next to her. Once he had finished with a section, and had set his crayon down, the girl would snatch it up and quickly color the exact area she had just seen being done.

At first, the teacher thought she had forgotten to bring her own crayons, or perhaps she came from a poor family - her clothes looked like hand-me-downs - but as he got close again, he noted the box of crayons lying on her desk, still closed.

"<Having some trouble?>" he asked quietly, kneeling down next to her desk.

He had been expecting her to be a little nervous, as most of his students, especially the quiet ones, were when he approached them one on one. But no, she just turned and stared him in the eye. "<I'm doing fine>," she informed him. "<Thank you.>"

"<Then why are you copying?>" At times, it was best to be direct about it, and this seemed like one of those times.

The girl did squirm a little then, but not for any more than a second, maybe two. "<Because this is tough>," she admitted. "<You always like everyone else's more than mine.>"

He almost broke into his normal 'There's no wrong way to do this' speech. Something didn't seem right, however, so he held off, picking up her crayon box and taking one out a random. "<What color is this?>" he asked.

"<Forest green>," she answered matter-of-factly, and just slow enough to convince the teacher to try again, making sure the crayon's name was facing away from the girl. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, before emitting an unamused, "<That's cheating!>"

He apologized, gave the crayons back to her, headed back to his desk before the other students started to finish their coloring and wonder what was going on. He could still feel her eyes on him as he sat down, and began to write a note to her parents, digging through his papers to find the address of the optometrist the school had its teachers recommend, in cases like this.


--------- 9 Years Later ---------


The mother stared into the pair of brown eyes belonging to her youngest child, and for a moment, felt doubt.

Her daughter didn't repeat herself, simply sat back, folding her hands on her lap. Was she giving up? Or was she confident enough that she felt she didn't need to say anything more?

The mother should have known. She knew she should - she knew her other children well enough to be able to tell, or, with the older ones, had at one time. And with this one, she had once. Or so she'd have liked to think. There were times when she looked back and wondered if she had ever really known her at all. She certainly didn't anymore.

She'd have blamed it on him, if she could have. And she did, sometimes, even though she knew she had lost touch with her daughter long before he'd ever come into the picture.

The girl was the smallest of her children, the most fragile looking; it just didn't seem right that she was the biggest mystery. What was going on in her head? What did she see through those eyes?

What was it like, growing up in a world without color?

The mother had tried to imagine it, back when they had first found out, but couldn't wrap her mind around it. She'd always hated herself for that, deep down, for not being able to really talk to her daughter, to help her understand, even if she'd never really seemed to have a problem with it.

It was almost as baffling to the mother as the girl's obsession with America. Most of her other children had gone through that phase at one time or another, but it had never lasted this long.

But she was grateful for that, in a way, because at the very least, it was something she felt she -could- blame on him. Her daughter hadn't seemed interested in it until he came along, and then she was full of all sorts of strange ideas and stories about it that, yes, technically could have come off the Internet, but more probably came from him.

It wasn't a bad thing, exactly, but after all that build-up, there was no way it could ever live up to her expectations. She saw only the good, assumed anything negative was exaggerated or just a lie. She wasn't even discouraged by all those super-people who kept popping up ever there, even that ice-man who went crazy and destroyed half a city in less than a day. It could have happened anywhere, she said, and would probably have been worse there. There was no middle ground with her.

And that was why, a moment later, the mother nodded, accepted the happy, yet restrained, kiss on the forehead as thanks. She finally recognized the look in her eyes as resolve, and knew that, no matter what she said, her daughter would be leaving her.

As her daughter walked away, she got the strangest feeling that something about the girl's story wasn't quite true, and that she was never going to see her daughter again, but she shook her head, told herself it was just normal parental paranoia. It was a school trip, after all - what could go wrong?


-- 2 Years Later --


"You're not afraid of needles, are you?"

She'd never worked on the girl before, but from the stories the other scientists told, she wasn't surprised to see a shake of the head, though she could have sworn she saw a hint of fear behind her eyes anyway. She had a niece about the girl's age, always obsessed with some boy at her school - a different one every time she visited, it seemed. She didn't have a clue what her aunt did for a living, and didn't seem to care to change that.

She'd heard stories about the girl, had even seen her doing her target practice a few times, out with the other team members, but it was still a little eerie for her to be laying in front of her, all serene, businesslike. If it hadn't been for that flash of fear, the scientist might have wondered if her co-workers hadn't ironed out all the problems with their cybernetic implants after all, and the girl's had malfunctioned.

Too bad. It might have been easier to do her job if that were the case.

"Good. Now, I want you to stay very relaxed, okay?"

"All right," the girl nodded, and, either very bravely or very stupidly, waited until the IV had been put into her arm before asking, "What is that?"

She was glancing over at the tank of blood sitting beside her bed, and, by then, connected to her arm. It gave off a faint glow, mostly from the enhancers they'd added, though even by itself, you could tell something wasn't normal about it.

"It's something we made here," the scientist lied, brushing back one of the few strands of hair that had escaped from the girl's tight ponytail. The girl didn't need to know the truth... It wouldn't help her do whatever the government had planned for her when this was all over.

And the scientist didn't want her to know. It was a gift, in a way, or so she told herself. She didn't want to burden the girl with the truth. It made her feel a little better as she prepped the second needle.

"Now, this might feel a little cold..."


---- 4 Years Earlier ----


"<No, I don't!>" the girl insisted again, brown eyes flashing defiantly. Outside the window, a bolt of lightning was doing the same, off in the distance.

"<The police would disagree with you, I think>," the man told her with a slight smile, glancing quickly over at the mirror and adjusting the high collar on his shirt, making sure the highest of his tattoos were still covered up.

Usually he wouldn't need to worry about the police, but this case might well be an exception. The girl's parents would be worried about her soon enough, whether the girl thought so or not, and it might not be the best idea to give them any reason to think he'd kidnapped her.

If anything, -she- had kidnapped -him-. Ever since she ran into him, out there on the street, and glared up at him as if wordlessly demanding how he dare even think to walk in her way, she had been holding him hostage. Normally, he would have apologized - or just brushed her off without one - and kept walking but he made the mistake of looking into her eyes first.

What he found there, he wasn't sure, and yet there was something strangely familiar about it, something that had overrode his instincts and made him ask, "<Are you okay?>" instead of not getting involved.

And the next thing he'd known, they were in his apartment, arguing over whether they should call her parents or not. Though it wasn't much of an argument, as the girl's mind was already made up, had been before he'd even brought it up, as they were walking in, and she was admiring the American flag hanging on his wall.

"< I don't have to stay here long>," she assured him, "<The sun was just starting to hurt my eyes. I should be fine in a few minutes.>"

"<No, it's fine. Just let me call your house and tell them you're all right, then you can stay as long as you like.>"

She ignored him, turning her attention to his bookcase, her eyes naturally attracted to the most out of place piece, a large children's book about Greek mythology, nestled in between several larger texts on the same subject.

"<Make yourself at home>," he said, suppressing his sigh. She'd get bored soon enough, and calm down, and be ready to head home. He could wait her out, no problem - after all, kids that age aren't exactly known for their long attention spans.

She didn't pick up the book, or any of his others, but she did sit down, her hands resting on her lap, folded and, at least on the surface, calm. And yet he could almost see the energy rippling below the skin, manifesting itself every so often as a twitch of a finger. He'd seen lots of people like her; that was inevitable, in his line of work. He wasn't sure, however, if he had ever seen any that fit the role so perfectly, so effortlessly.

He reached up to his forehead reflexively, wiping away the sheen of sweat he'd just noticed had appeared there. Had he really let himself be tricked so easily, just letting her into his home without a second thought? Was he getting senile already?

But no... No, she had to be what she claimed. She didn't just look young, she -was- young. Wasn't she? Too young for anyone respectable to think of using her as he feared. She was too small, her face too childish, but her eyes... No matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise, those eyes kept him uncertain.

"<Are you hungry?>" he asked, moving casually towards his kitchen, keeping a watchful eye on the visitor.

"<No, I'm fine, thank you.>" Ever so quickly, her gaze moved towards the kitchen, then back towards the bookshelf, just as he was about to let himself relax slightly.

"<Just let me know if you change your mind.>" He opened the drawer, letting it make all the noise it wanted - he didn't want her to think he was trying to be stealthy, reached inside. "< I have some rather delicious ice cream.>"

The hesitation in her voice made his hand hesitate, halfway out, gun already cocked, crosshair blinking across his line of sight as his implant sprang into action, scanning the room for possible targets. "<Well, I really should be going soon, so I probably shouldn't...>"

"< It is getting close to dinner time>," he conceded. His hand tightened at the sound of the floorboards of his apartment squeaking, ever so softly. She was good; he hadn't even heard her get out of the chair. "<Wouldn't want you to ruin your appetite.>"

She didn't answer, didn't give him the chance to hear that her voice was closer to him now. His heart began to beat a little faster. It looked like he'd been right after all. Idiot.

He had the briefest of warnings, the sound of her breathing, still light, calm, on the other side of the kitchen door, giving him just enough time to pull the gun the rest of the way out. He winced as it scraped against the side of drawer, although he knew that by this point, it didn't really matter. He was either fast enough to get his shot off first, or he wasn't.

He wasn't, luckily enough. His arm swung around a moment or two after she was already in the door, giving his mind enough time to notice that the girl wasn't carrying any weapon of her own, even as he felt his arm adjust itself to match up with the crosshair, now centered on her heart.

She froze, eyes widening, looking, for once, undeniably childish. To her credit, she neither screamed nor wet her pants, as he might have expected somebody her age to do, only turned white as a sheet, which made her resemble one of those china dolls his mother had collected, years ago.

He lowered the gun quickly, setting it back inside the drawer, crosshair vanishing as his grip loosened, desperately searching for an explanation.

"<Are you going to shoot me?>" Her voice was quiet, barely a whisper, yet steady.

"<No>," he shook his head. "<God, no. I wouldn't... I'm so...>" But sorry wasn't adequate. He had almost shot her, almost killed this poor child. "< I think you should go>," he told her. Go, before he -did- get her hurt.

He shook his head, half stumbled past the girl into his living room to collapse onto the chair she'd been sitting on a few moments ago. He should have known better than to let her convince him to let her stay with him, should have just pushed past her. His life was no place for a child. Letting her fall onto the sidewalk was nothing compared to what would happen to her, or anyone, that got too close to him.

He didn't hear her move, but when he raised his head, she was standing in the doorway, the light from the kitchen shining around her, in a way that made her look, in some way he couldn't quite put his finger on, like an angel. He didn't see the gun in her hand until she lifted it.

His breath caught, muscles coiling, preparing for a leap across the room, to the small table beside the couch, until he realized she wasn't aiming it, simply turning it over in her hands, looking at it, as the storm clouds began to roll across the sun, bathing the living room in shadows.

She was quiet for a few long minutes, until at last she glanced up at him. It was hard to tell, but he thought he saw a smile before she asked, "<Will you teach me how to use this?>"

As sudden as the thunder clap that preceeded it, the rain came, beating out a rythym against the window, as steady and unrelenting as the drums of fate.


--- 3 Years Later ---


He glanced down at the folder again before closing it, laying it down on his desk. He already knew everything the file inside said, but it was always best to double check. That, and it gave whoever he was interviewing enough time to either get more comfortable, or let their tension build. It was always interesting to see which route they took. Told him a lot about them, especially with a project like this.

"<You need not take,>" he started, wishing he had brushed up on his Japanese a little more before this. The subject spoke English, at least according to his file, but he didn't know that his interviewer knew that. Perhaps he preferred to keep it a secret.

And that would tell him a lot, as well.

The girl's lips twitched, but she didn't giggle, only smiled slightly when the man glanced over at her. He had refused to come along without her - or she had refused to let him leave her behind, depending on which of the field agents told the tale. Could be a problem, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with, if it came to that.

"I would be happy to be of service." Not only did he speak English, he spoke it well. He had an accent, sure, but his emotion came through clear enough regardless.

"I'm glad to hear that," the interviewer nodded. "Now, there's just the matter of..."

The girl leaned over, began to whisper into the man's ear. The interviewer leaned back in his chair, letting them have their privacy, at least until they left and he could replay the recording of this conversation. It was probably for the best, really. If he was really lucky, he'd be able to figure out what was going on between those two. The man had to be at least three times her age, and he didn't have any children, as far as his file was concerned.

The interviewer wasn't concerned with the man's tastes, personally. Still, he would need to know if their relationship was... unsavory... before the team went public, because the public -would- be concerned. They could always feign ignorance if some reporter somehow dug up that particular bit of dirt, but there were only so many times that excuse would work before people stopped believing it, or people started believing they were all severely incompetent.

"I want to help, too," the girl spoke up, drawing herself up as much as she could, which still left her dwarfed by the chair she was sitting in. The chair which had originally been offered to her... companion... who, like any good gentleman, had in turn offered it to her. She might have been a little easier to take seriously if she had been sitting in the smaller, wooden chair that had been dragged in from the office of someone who obviously didn't value comfort as much as the interviewer.

Even if that had been the case, he didn't think he could have hidden his amusement, though he may have done a slightly better job of it. "This is a government project, young lady. It's no place for children."

"I can be useful, too," she insisted. "Please. I can prove it!"

"It's going to be dangerous work," the interviewer told her.

"I don't care." The man did, though, reached out a hand to touch the girl's shoulder, sleeve pulling up enough for the tip of one of his tattoos to be seen. The girl brushed him off. "Our first day here, we saw two muggings, in the middle of the day, and nobody helped those people. Every night, I hear gunshots, and ambulances, sometimes so many that I can't get to sleep. The news, it's always full of murders, and rape, and every other horrible thing you could think of. This isn't how it's supposed to be."

"How what's supposed to be?" the interviewer leaned forward over his desk.

"America," she said simply. The man, even more entranced by her words than the interviewer, gave a nod, a little thing, but every bit as important as anything he could have said.

The interviewer was a bit slow to answer, picking his words carefully. "I simply don't know if there would be a space for you here. The kinds of things the team would be doing..."

The girl turned to the man, and the interviewer could practically feel the heat of her glare. The man hesitated, followed it up with, "I'm afraid if she doesn't get accepted, I can't work with you, either."

It wouldn't be a crippling loss, but it would certainly set the project back. There were others out there with the sort of cybernetics he had, though few that could be trusted to remain loyal, and even fewer who could be considered "stable". And be willing to let the scientists poke around, to figure out what they were doing wrong with their version of the hardware. 

But he had a good feeling about this, and he had learned to trust his feelings. This was the man for the team, and if they had to find somewhere to stick the kid, it was a small price to pay. Who knew? Maybe she would come in handy after all. You never could tell what the scientists would come up with next.

"I'll see what I can do." He stood up, shook their hands, and watched them leave before picking up his phone. "Sir," he started, already steeling himself. "I've got some good news, and some not-so-great..."


--- 3 Years Later ---


"This is a nightmare," he shook his head, resisting the urge to throw the remote control through the screen playing his failure for him on an infinite loop, or at his assistant, or anything else nearby. "Please tell me we can spin this."

But his P.R. man had no hope to offer. "They have recordings of two of our operatives acting in defiance to the Metahuman Act. If it was just one, maybe we could say he was in violation of orders, but two..."

"Were they both naturals?"

His assistant, the person who remembered all that sort of thing for him, shook her head. "Just one."

"The public doesn't know the difference anyway," the P.R. man interrupted. "You tell them there are artificially created metahumans out there, that's just going to open a whole new barrel of snakes. Especially if we tell them -we're- the ones who made them."

"Well, then how do you propose we get out of this, then?"

"We're going to have to shut down, at least publically. Kiss some serious ass. We can't afford to let any metas with official ties get seen outside the country, not without risking retaliation, or even a full out war."

"A total nightmare," he sighed, turning to his assistant as the figure on the screen's hands began to glow and crackle, about to take out the surveilance camera for the fifth time in a row, and too late every time. "Execute Plan 28. Lets put our tail between our legs and run, people."


- 1 Day Later -


It had been a day very similar to the one happening outside the window when she'd first got her powers. Rain pouring down in sheets, thunder crashing every few seconds, as soon as she managed to get herself calmed down from the one before.

The first lightning bolt had hurt like a bitch, knocked her flat on her ass. Before she could catch her breath and fully appreciate just how insanely lucky she was to have survived that, the second came, bowling her over, head and heels all mixed up, no idea which was supposed to go where.

At some point all of the hair had gotten fried off of her body, but she had no idea if it had been on the third strike, or the thirteenth. It had never grown back, though she often wondered if it would have, if she'd moved out to the country, into a little house with no electricity, and made sure to always stay indoors when it looked like stormy weather.

But that wasn't how her life had turned out, for better or worse. Instead, she'd found herself recruited by the government, who seemed to think her powers were much more impressive than she did. They'd built her launchers that let her release the electricity that collected inside of her, then filled her so full of "ammunition" for them that she began to wonder if her body could really hold it all, as her skin began to dry up and crack.

Still, there was just something about throwing lightning bolts around like some ancient god that made her think that maybe, just maybe, it was worth it. It might have been fun to have "Zeus" as a codename, too, but the team had already had one member whose name was snatched from that pantheon. That, and she wasn't a guy, much less an old one with a beard.

And now that was over. Dismantled, as quick as one of the flashes of lightning outside the window. She had never cared too much about most of the other members of the team - the other "naturals", as they had taken to calling themselves, always seemed to look down on her for needing so much help to really be able to use her powers, and the ones who'd gotten their powers there didn't trust her any more than any of the other naturals - but it was a job.

What was she supposed to do now, run around on her own? There were people who did that, but it wasn't like that sort of thing paid the bills, and for all the danger she'd be putting herself in, she'd want to get -something- out of it. There wasn't even any guarantee she wouldn't get locked up for it, like some common vigilante. She'd never thought of herself as being one of those people, even after finding out she was a metahuman. But then, she'd never really had any practical way to -use- her power.

Now that she did, and she didn't take her orders from the government anymore... Well, maybe it was worth looking into. Some people had gotten pretty famous that way, endorsed some cereals, cameoed in some movies, that sort of thing. She had kinda been a celebrity right after the team went public, but nothing like those guys. P.R. had always pushed that Japanese girl to be the face of the team, and had -her- stay near the back of the group unless she was throwing lightning at a test dummy.

She didn't blame them, not really. She had never expected them to want to let the public focus on her too much, not when they had some cute kid to parade around. But honestly, who did they think they were kidding? Everyone knew that was the only reason the kid was even there. Sure, she was pretty good with her bow, but that was kind of expected when you had a few million dollars worth of circuitry doing most of the aiming for you. Whenever they went on assignment, she spent most of her time standing on the sidelines while the rest of the team did the real work.

She almost felt sorry for her, really. It had always been obvious that she wanted to do more, to actually help take down whatever super-charged freak was threatening some big city that week. She'd been stuck with a low-key power, just to get shoved out in front whenever there were cameras nearby, otherwise relegated to the shadows.

It might have been somewhat amusing to the woman, sitting and watching the storm rage outside, to know that, as she was thinking that, the very object of her thoughts was stepping out of the shadows at the opposite corner of the room. Then again, she would probably have found it less entertaining when she saw the girl's arm, still blinking in and out of sight within the shadow, slowly start to raise, her fingers starting to tighten around the trigger.

--- 3 Years Earlier ---


"They're just about ready, sir."

He nodded without glancing up from his desk, waving the messenger off when he didn't hear feet leaving. Once his door had closed again, he pulled open his schedule on his computer to find out who 'they' were supposed to be. Running a project like this was a lot of work - there were always people waiting to see him for one thing or another.

"Oh. Her," he couldn't quite keep himself from saying out loud, for once not having to hide the disdain in his voice. He still wasn't convinced that letting himself get talked into accepting her wasn't the biggest mistake he'd made so far, even if it did get him some working cybernetic implants to keep his scientists happy.

At least now she could come in handy. If she survived the procedure, anyway. Solved his problem either way.

He debated staying in his office, and just letting someone tell him how everything went, but in the end, he found himself getting up, heading over to the lab. He was surprised that the only person waiting outside the door was a guard, and not the girl's guardian, or whatever he was. That had been the hardest part, convincing him to let them go forward. The girl had been fine with it, and it had been her who had ultimately convinced him to let her do it - and how she did it was certainly none of his business.

He also wasn't in the lab, which felt quite large and empty with only two other people inside. The scientist was smiling at the girl, who looked quite small beside him in a white bathrobe. "Everything's going to be fine, sweetie," the scientist was saying, as if coddling her was going to help.

But he didn't say anything about it, not now. Much as he hated to admit it, the girl really was being quite brave. He often thought this was just a game to her - especially when she'd suggested that codename. The determined look in her eyes as she stared up at him, shivering slightly beneath the robe, made him wonder if he was mistaken.

"Good afternoon, sir." She gave a sloppy, if well-intentioned, salute.

"Good afternoon," he replied, already turning to the scientist. "Is everything ready?"

"I believe so," the scientist checked a few more dials on the machine, which looked eerily like an upright coffin surrounded by various tanks, and a control box. "But, like I've mentioned, I'd really prefer to do more tests..."

"We can't afford to waste any more time, doctor," he said sternly. "Now, are you ready or not?"

"I'm ready," the scientist huffed. They were all like that, always wanting more time, more money. That was fine for the most part, but he needed this done before any of the other team members moved to the compound and met the girl.

The scientist pressed a button on the control box and the lid of the coffin swung open. The girl stepped forward timidly, hands going to the belt of the robe before they froze, and her eyes twitched from the scientist to him and back.

"There's nothing there I'm interested in seeing," he told her, perhaps a little more gruffly than he had intended, but he had no time for the modesty of children.

The robe slid to the floor, and she stepped inside the machine. She managed a nervous smile before the lid shut again, and the sound of machinery filled the lab.

--- 3 Years Later ---


She had never seen a gun like it before, small and sleek, almost like a quarter of a circle, and perfectly silent as it sent its ammunition straight through the launchers on both of her wrists. She had felt things like it, though, could practically see the electromagnet in the barrel, even if she couldn't drain the power from it at this distance.

The aim was perfect, like a computer, and if her wrists hadn't been in the way of whatever was being fired - it certainly wasn't bullets, the holes they'd made were too small for that, she noted, in an odd, detached way. They had passed right through her flesh and bone, and either buried themselves in her wall, or kept going through even that.

"What's going on?" she managed to ask through her fear.

"We're shutting down," came the reply, short, simple. There was barely a trace of her accent anymore, and her voice was cold, so different from the serious, yet sweet, one she'd always used for the press. So different... Could it really be her?!

"Who are you?" she asked.

A pair of ice blue eyes glittered in the shadows for a moment, and then a smile as she answered.

The gun was perfectly silent, leaving the final thing to reach her ears to be an echo of that single word.

"Artemis."