This story is a rewrite of You Could Be My Hero, updated and reposted thanks to EliteofFalcon who PMd me out of the blue and requested I finish this story. I took it as an opportunity to retool and add some things and change the name that I always secretly hated. Hope you like it and thanks for reading.

Fang was getting pissed. She was standing in a smelly, crowded coffee shop watching some young punk roll his condescending eyes at her as he screwed up her order for the third time. She forcibly kept herself cool, even though on the inside she was aching to destroy him, and said in her most calm voice. "No, I said I don't want caramel."

"You don't have to be rude, ma'am."

She seethed, his tone made her want to hit him in the face and the snotty look on his face made her not want to stop. If this little bastard knew how close he was to getting his head torn off he would run home to his mother and never leave again. She wanted to deck him, she wanted to break him in front of everyone there, she wanted to fly him to the stratosphere and scream "DO YOU KNOW WHO I FUCKING AM!" as he choked to death in the vacuum. What she did was stand there as he finally got it right. What she did was pay for it, waiting for her change, which was also wrong. What she did was leave and swear never to set foot in this circle of hell again.

She stomped out of the coffee shop, almost ripping the doors off in her haste to leave, set the coffee in the cup holder of her car, a classic white chevelle SS with a red racing stripe, and drove away. She pulled out of her parking spot and managed to make it several feet before having to stop, traffic was backed up as it usually was and she now rued having come to this god forsaken coffee shop for her wife. She hated driving in downtown Bodhum, but once she cleared the downtown area, after nearly an hour of stop and go driving, it was smooth sailing to her house in the suburbs. She could have flown the distance in less than half the time, but she didn't want to draw more attention to herself than was necessary.

Not that she needed help in that regard. She was tall, at six foot three she towered over most of the people in Bodhum, her waist length dark hair and striking green eyes that always seemed to look for just a second longer than necessary only added to her allure. Her body, tanned and toned through years of training, was definitely an eye magnet, a fact that never bothered her but annoyed her wife. A wife that she was desperate to see.

The long drive helped to calm her nerves, the open land that surrounded Bodhum was always able to bring her a measure of peace. She and her wife, Claire Farron, had moved out to the suburbs after Claire became the professor of History at the University of Bodhum. Claire had wanted the peace and quiet that the suburbs offered and Fang needed the anonimity. She drove around her circular driveway and parked her car next to a cream colored Chrysler 300. She grabbed the latte out of the cupholder and headed inside expecting to see her lover sitting on the couch watching television. She usually took Sundays as her day off to relax and Fang was more than happy to help her with that. When she got inside, however, she found all the lights out and her wife nowhere to be found. "Claire?" She called out into the darkened house but received no answer. "Claire?" She walked into the kitchen and found it empty. A knot tightened in her stomach. "Claire, are you home?"

She turned a corner heading for their bedroom and noticed a light coming from Claire's study. She crept up slowly and peeked in to the room. Her pink haired goddess sat in her heavy office chair with a pair of headphones around her head, a massive pile of papers stacked on the desk in front of her, most likely student papers that she was grading. She was known around campus as a strict, no nonsense teacher and around their bedroom as the only teacher Fang ever liked. And she liked her a lot. A smirk crossed Fang's features when she realized that Claire had no way of knowing she was there.

She left the latte at the door and snuck across the room, quite unnecessarily considering that Claire was completely absorbed in her work. When she stood just behind the chair she wrapped her right arm around it and her, picking her up off the ground as if she weighed nothing. Claire's headphones came off and she struggled in Fang's arm. "Put me down!"

"Then say it."

"Never." Claire continued to struggle against Fang's super strength, knowing that she stood no chace of breaking the woman's hold but not wanting to give in. After several minutes of struggling Claire had had enough and finally gave in. "Alright, fine. Uncle. Now put me down." Fang put her down, a huge smirk crossed her face, she knew that she had won and could hold it over Claire's head for a week. "I don't like this game, anymore." Claire Farron stood, smoothed out her clothes and gave Fang a welcome home kiss. Fang returned to the door, picked up the latte she had gone through so much to acquire and took it back to her wife. "Is that for me?" Fang handed it to her and she held it up to her mouth to take a sip, but stopped. "No caramel, right?"

"Claire, we've been married for eight years. I know you don't like caramel." She watched Claire take a sip before committing herself to drinking it. "The dunce behind the counter screwed it up three freaking times. I wanted to tear his pimply head off his shoulders."

"I don't know what you have against baristas but if you get us kicked out of another coffee shop I'm going to divorce you." Claire sat back down and took a long sip from her latte, savoring the aroma and the now luke warm texture. "How did it go last night?"

"Not even a peep." She had gone about the city by night, flying one of her usual routes, and the streets had been quiet. She didn't see so much as a mugging through the entire night, something that she found incredibly odd. There was always something.

"They must all be scared of you."

"Or else they're moving in the daytime now." Fang threw her arms around Claire's neck and leaned over her shoulder. She planted a soft kiss on Claire's neck and whispered in her ear with her smooth Pulsian accent. "I'm headed to bed. Care to join me?"

Claire flushed but there was an inordinately large stack of papers on her desk, papers that required her attention. Still, Claire wanted nothing more than to spend some quality time with her lover of the past decade. "I've got a lot of work to do here, but if you can convince me to ..."

Fang whined, she had been out all night and she wasn't fancying the work that she would have to put in to attract her caring, workaholic wife from her job. "Can't we skip that part, I'm tired."

"Then you're too tired to play with me."

Fang huffed and walked away. Instead of giving up, however, she pulled at her shirt until the top two buttons came undone, exposing a fair bit of cleavage, and unbuttoned her jeans. She leaned against the door jam in the most 'I want you to ravage me' pose she could strike. "Excuse me, Ms. Farron, I was wondering if I could get some extra credit." Claire spun around in her chair and started laughing. Fang pouted and she got up and walked over to her. "Now you're laughing at me."

"It's cute, that's all." She sauntered over and kissed Fang lightly on the cheek, leaving her hand on her waist for a bit longer than normal. "You get an A for effort, though."

"An A? I was kinda hoping for something else. Something a little sexier."

Claire patted her on the arm. "Alright, I guess I can take a break from work, but you had better make it worth my while."

Fang smirked as she wrapped her wife in an embrace that bent her backwards. "Don't I always?" She captured Claire's lips with hers, drawing the woman close enough to feel her skin beneath the t-shirt she was wearing. She lifted Claire's legs and carried her bridal style to the bedroom, their lips never parting except for air. Fang laid her partner on their bed, climbed atop her and started slowly taking off her shirt. Fang removed her own shirt and tossed it to the side, then attacked Claire's slender neck with her mouth and tongue.

Claire's breathing hastened, she arced her chest and pressed against Fang. Fang slipped a hand underneath her and undid her bra. She removed it and haphazardly tossed it to the side. She switched her attack to Claire's breasts, flicking and pinching them eliciting moans and sighs from her lover. "Fuck me, Fang."

Fang lifted her head from Claire's chest and looked deep into crystal blue eyes. "My pleasure."

She defly undid Claire's pants and slid them slowly down her body, tossing them off to the side of the bed then started kissing and licking up her silken thighs until she reached her panties. Taking them in her mouth she pulled them off with her teeth then rubbed at her exposed lips until Claire cried out. Fang slid slowly up her body, kissing every inch up to her mouth. At once she penetrated Claire's mouth with her tongue and her lips with two fingers.

Claire bucked and heaved against Fang as she slid those fingers into and out of her, adding one more and then the other. Fang let up on her mouth and moved to suckle her breast, Claire's cries and moans filled the room. Fang was knuckle deep in her wife, and Claire wanted more, still more. Fang returned to her legs and licked at her engorged clitoris, eliciting the reaction she wanted from her wife. She continued to push her fist into her wife while working her tongue and Claire's body responded, an orgasm hit her in waves and she rode them until she collapsed to the bed exhausted.

Fang and Claire intertwined around each other, Fang took her wife's mouth with her own and kissed her until she couldn't breathe. "Is it my turn, honey?" Claire treated Fang much the same way, removing her pants while running her hands up and down Fang's legs and up to her crotch. Claire gripped hard and Fang arced her back. Claire took her breast in her mouth and bit down almost hard enough to draw blood. Fang shuddered and Claire ripped her panties off with one hand. Claire dove in face first and used a combination of her tongue and teeth to work Fang until she shuddered in a violent orgasm that left her collapsed on the bed.

Afterwards they laid together in each others arms. Fang held Claire close to her and thought about the evening's events. She had been running a thought in her head all night and decided to confide in the one stable person she had in her life. "I think I want to quit, Claire."

"Oh?" Claire seemed taken aback, she certainly hadn't expected this talk after they had just finished having sex. Claire looked up from Fang's chest into her eyes so that she understood how serious she was being. "Fang, I would love nothing more than to go to sleep with you every night and wake up next to you in the morning. I would love not worrying if you're coming back, knowing that you'll be here when I get home but it wouldn't be enough for you. You need to be out there using your power and I don't want to be what keeps you from doing that."

Fang sighed, she had obviously been thinking about this a lot. "It's got nothing to do with you, baby. I'm just losing my faith, I guess. When I first started this I could look around me and see the good in people trying to get out. Now I just see animals huddling together for warmth, trying to destroy each other and I don't care enough to stop them anymore."

Claire rubbed Fang's back in a way she knew the woman liked. "You're tired, honey. Get some sleep and see if you feel better tonight."

Fang closed her eyes and before long she had drifted off to sleep. Claire lay beside her for a few minutes before reluctantly sliding out of bed, finding her clothes and returning to her study. Never once had she heard her wife talk about quitting her night job and it disturbed her somewhat. Her night persona was something she had come to love about Fang, she wouldn't love her less if she quit but she feared that Fang might start to loathe her for it. She returned to her work with this thought in the back of her mind.

-HERO-

Fang walks into the Broken Bat, a small bar on the outskirts of town, and sits in her usual booth in the darkest corner of the joint. The Broken Bat is known around the underworld as an information center, anything worth knowing can be found here. For the right price. Fang orders herself a whiskey sour and drinks it nearly down before a man sits across from her. He is a thick man, broad shouldered and muscular with tattoos running down both of his arms, hard to see against his dark skin. His voice is deep and cracked, as are the dark bags under his eyes. "I think I've got something for you."

Fang perks up at this. She is getting tired of quiet nights and is itching for a fight. "Good, I'm ready for some action."

"Things have been slow for you, I heard." The man pulls out a cellphone and hands it to Fang. On it are pictures of a warehouse and a black van. "This van is supposed to move human product around town. The drops are made weekly, tonight is a warehouse downtown. It's well hidden so you won't be bothered by the cops and these guys are scum so you shouldn't have a problem taking them down."

Fang browses through the pictures on the phone, pleased at what she is seeing. She has been trying to bring down one of the local crime syndicates, the Talon family, who have moved from drugs into trafficking slaves from Pulse. Being a Pulsian this strikes her hard and this attack would strike them back harder. She pulls a manilla envelope from her pocket and slides it across the table to the man who checks it's contents and smiles at her. "As always, a pleasure doing business."

He leaves and Fang finishes another drink before leaving the Bat and heading around the corner, where she has stashed her outfit. She changes quickly, donning the dragon shaped helmet that has become her trademark, then makes her way to the warehouse that the man was speaking of earlier, waiting on a rooftop for a sign of her quarry. She spots a black, windowless van driving slowly down a back alley and knows this is what she's been waiting for. The van stops and a thin man exits wearing a ski mask and black clothing. Suspicious.

He approaches a nearby door and a large man in a suit answers, they chat for a minute then heads to the van. Bahamut readies up. The freedom of being a vigilante is that she doesn't have any rules to follow, namely she doesn't have to announce her presence. She lets herself fall straight down and lands behind the van. She makes sure they hear her. They spin on her; they're unarmed. She hits the closest one with a haymaker. He slams into the van and crumples to the floor. The second she grabs by the throat and slams into the ground hard enough to render him unconscious. All in a matter of seconds.

She rips the door off the van and inside are three young women bound and gagged. She sets them free then turns her attention to the door. She hears a thick metal bolt lock the door and laughs aloud. They must not know who she is. She rips the door from the wall and throws it behind her. Behind the door is a man with a pistol, a little piece of shit that couldn't kill a squirrel much less a superhuman. Bahamut takes the weapon and crumples it in her hand. "Run and tell then I'm coming." The mask she wears distorts her voice, making it sound hellish. The man panics; and from the combination of the dragon's head mask that she wears, the steel door that now lay in the alley and the two unconscious thugs outside who could blame him.

He does what she wanted him to do. He tears through the building and out into a warehouse-like space where several armed men wait. He runs up to them, "She's here. She's here." He's hysterical. "Bahamut is here."

Before the men can raise their weapons a dark blur smashes through the wall and closes the distance. The lead man manages to fire a shot but it misses wide. She grabs him by the throat and tosses him backwards into another man. A third tries to dive behind a large crate for cover but she smashes through it and kicks him in the head.

The last drops his gun and falls to his knees. "P-please, please let me go." She rips the side of a box away and out falls what was once a young woman but is now a dehydrated mass of flesh, her dark skin tells Fang that she is Pulsian. Behind the mask she seethes. "I didn't know anything about this. Please, I have a family."

She grabs him by the face and throws him to the ground. His face bleeds from several places. She puts her foot on his face. "You're grunts. I want the boss. Where is he?" The man struggles so she kicks him in the ribs. "Who am I kidding? You don't know shit." She kicks him in the head and knocks him out.

She grabs the men she's knocked unconscious and ties them up in a corner of the warehouse with some ropes she finds lying around. She calls the police then opens every crate and releases seven more women, some of whom are close to dying. When the police show up she presents all that she found as evidence and they have more than enough to indict.

Lead Inspector Sikes shakes her hand and thanks her. He is an older man, balding and with a body that had at one point been fit but was now overweight and under toned. "Thanks again, Bahamut. We're getting closer to catching the guys behind this."

"I'm getting closer. Just stay out of my way." He balks, never before had she spoken like that to him. He doesn't know what to do. She flies away before he can say anything to her.

She lands in a dark alley many miles away from the warehouse. She strips out of her uniform and puts on her street clothes, a leather jacket and jeans. She lets her dark hair fall, hating the way it felt in the mask. Fang walks out onto the street and passes several alleys when she hears the sounds of a struggle. She stops at the entrance to an alley where a man and woman are being held at knife point and mugged. Fang watches for a full minute before she continues walking towards the garage where her car is parked. "Animals."

-HERO-

Fang got home as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon. She was tired from the fight, tired from caring, hell she was tired of being a hero. She walked through the house until she found Claire still asleep in their bedroom. She took sat down beside her on the bed and stroked her hair. "Hey, aren't you going to be late, sweetheart."

Claire's eyes snapped open and she looked at the clock. "Oh shit, I forgot to set the alarm. She hopped out of bed and headed straight for the shower. If the circumstances were different she would have joined her, but as it was she was too tired and Claire was in too much of a hurry.

She lay down on her side of the bed and started to drift away. She felt a hand on her arm and smelled that sweet smell that Claire always had after she showered. "I guess I won't see you tonight." A gentle kiss on her forehead.

"I'll be here."

"Fang." Claire's voice was chiding.

"I'll be here, Claire." Fang's voice was sure.

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Fang drifted off to sleep, into dreams where she was fighting a dark menace that she couldn't defeat. It was all around her, too numerous to count, and when she cut a head off two more grew in it's place. I don't care enough to stop them anymore.