This is just a little experiment I've been working on. Enjoy!

OoOoOo

~Celeste Wayne~

Perfection.

It had always been expected from her. Ever since she could remember, she needed to look nice, act pleasant, and speak only when spoken to at all times. She, of course, had to have the best grades, join the most clubs, and play the most sports in school. It went without saying, it always did. She never questioned or argued with her parents, only did as she was told.

Perfection. Oh, how she despised the word. Everything in her parents' little world was perfect. But it was forced. They controlled people with fear. They demanded loyalty and obedience from everyone on the Earth. Anyone who broke one of their laws, no matter how small, were either punished severely or executed. Life was bleak, for lack of a better term.

Her mother and father were hardly ever home, which meant she almost never saw them. But that was okay, she didn't need either them. Because she had a secret. A secret she's kept since she was five. A secret that only one other person knew about.

Whenever her parents would leave the house, she would sneak down to the Batcave and hack into her father's files. She would watch all of his recorded footage of their old fights (on and off the Justice Lords) when crime used to be a regular thing and she would study them. She would study both of their fighting styles and their techniques and practice them on her own.

It wasn't just her parents either. She would study her father's old protégés (two Robins and a Batgirl) and do her best to master their unique styles of fighting as well. She could feel it in her muscles, she was becoming stronger everyday. She thought that one day she would follow in her parents' footsteps and do the great things that they did.

Looking back, she wondered how she could have been so naïve.

She was around nine when she had made a horrible discovery. There had been a third Robin. He had come before Tim Drake, but after Richard Grayson. His name was Jason Todd, all of his files being hidden in a tougher encryption code than the others. He had been killed by a rather gruesome enemy, The Joker, only to be brought back by the late Ra's al Ghul. He had then taken up the mantle "Red Hood" shortly after, quickly taking over Gotham's drug selling businesses and killing criminals.

She looked on in horror as, years after, her own father, the man she had looked up to all her life, cornered him one day, her mother and uncle flanked behind him. Tears streamed down her face as she watched him fling a bat-a-raang into Red Hood's chest and simply looked on as his body fell to the ground and he bled out until he died.

She had paused the video and abruptly stood up, not being able to watch anymore. She wanted desperately to punch a wall in, but restrained herself. Losing her head would do her no good in this situation. Yet these thoughts didn't stop the anger that swelled in her. Jason Todd didn't do anything that any of the Justice Lords didn't do, so why had he been killed? More importantly, how could he do that to his protégé, his own son?

A terrifying thought came to her. If she ever acted out, if they found out what she had been doing for the past four years, would her parents kill her as well with as little remorse?

Her eyes narrowed as she decided that she would never give them the chance to. She would work herself harder, make herself stronger, faster. She would learn to properly control her powers and use them to her advantage. One day, she would be strong enough to face her parents.

And when that time came, she would end their rain of tyranny once and for all, no matter what the cost.

OoOoOo

~Rex Stewart~

It wasn't always like this. Well, he didn't think it was. He vaguely remembered a time that not everything was so restraining. His parents and the rest of the Justice Lords weren't so hostile or controlling. And...there wasn't always six of them. There used to be seven, he thinks. He vaguely remembered a red and yellow flash whirling around in front of him, but he couldn't remember who exactly that was.

His own parents weren't as strict as his friend's; he got less than stellar grades and he sometimes slipped up and talked back, something that she never did because she knew the consequences of doing so. Either way, he knew his parents loved him as they weren't afraid to tell him. It wasn't very often that they did, but it was enough.

He played sports to make up for his grades, hoping that he would get a scholarship to college that way. Though, who really needs a scholarship when your parents are two of the most feared people on the planet? All in all, he life was decent. Which was more than he could say for his friend.

He was the only one who knew her secret. That she wasn't as perfect as she had fooled the public, other Justice Lord's, and her own parents into thinking. She harbored strong emotions that people would never think lied behind her collected face. She had been training, pushing herself to her limits and he knew why.

He wasn't stupid, contrary to popular belief. He knew how his parents and the other Justice Lords kept everything so "perfect." They used forced, brutality when they had to. Fear wasn't a foreign method either. The six of them did whatever was necessary to keep the peace, no matter what it took. He hadn't noticed just how wrong it was until she and her mother had visited him and his mother.

While the two women talked, the nine and eleven year old respectively had gone off on their own to his room. She had been noticeably off that day and it wasn't until he asked her what was the matter that he found out why.

She had confessed to what she had been doing since she was in kindergarten and what she had seen in the Batcave. He too was horrified at what her father had done to his protégé. He felt a pang in his heart at the fear she must have been feeling when she saw the footage. Surely, she must fear for being found out or even defying her parents in anyway.

But to his shock she wasn't afraid. No, the girl in front of him was determined. She was determined to master fighting and get a handle on her powers. And she was determined to stop her parents and the other Lords once and for all. Somehow, he found himself right there with her.

Besides, perfection was overrated anyway.

OoOoOo

That's my little prologue. Please be sure to review.