Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! This story is the second in a series focusing on Nikki and her friends, and while it's meant to be a self-contained adventure, the characters will make some references to the events and developments of previous entry, "The Love Fairy's Apprentice". If you're a Tiffany fan, or just want a fuller context for some of the characters' decisions, be sure to check it out; otherwise, read on for some gamer girl goodness!

The Bounty Hunter's Escort

by Cypher DS

Four words.

Four words that should have released her from an unbearable silence, freed her from expectations weighing her down like prisoner's chains. Four words that should have made life and all of Nikki's relationships so much easier.

"Mom, Dad … I'm gay."

So why did the voices on the other end of the telephone pause for so long?

Her mother was the first to recover. "That's … interesting, dear." To her husband, a harsh whisper. "Emmet, say something to your daughter."

"She tells us this over the phone?" It was a private aside but her father was still close enough to the speaker that he practically hissed it in her face. Her mother cleared her throat and resumed command.

"Nikki? Your father and I want to thank you for sharing … that with us. You know we love you very much, sweet bean. No matter what." A pregnant pause. "So… when will we be meeting your girlfriend?"

Thanks, mom. Kick me while I'm down, why don't you. "Mom, I … don't have a girlfriend. I've never had one."

"Oh." Was that relief in her voice? "But, Nikki, how can you be sure you're … that way? I mean, if you've never been in a relationship isn't it difficult to know that's what you want? "

"You're frustrated," her father chimed in. "Nikki, you're only eighteen. Little premature to be making big decisions, isn't it?"

Oh, but moving out and living on my own is all right? "Mom, dad, I can't explain it." Or perhaps explaining would be inappropriate for this audience. The collection of lingerie models populating her DeviantArt favorites list; the way she played male avatars in RPGs so she could rescue and romance the opposite-sex NPCs. The flush of heat she felt glancing at the smooth, bare legs of her summertime customers. The thrill as they sat carelessly at the bar stools and let their sundresses slide up their thighs…

Nikki searched for some polite summary but came up wanting.

"I mean, I just … I like girls."

Her mother's heavy sigh again. "Sweet bean, this really isn't a conversation for over the phone."

"I know that," she growled, but saying it face-to-face …She couldn't go through that again. Not after Tiffany and Audrey.

Three months she'd sat in her friends' presence suffering the guilt of a liar. Café nights, fun outings; hell, Tiffany had even invited her for Christmas dinner at her mom's and she'd said nothing. It was practically torture when Miss Jessie, her secret keeper, looked at her with that expectant smile - "so hon, any exciting news?" - and Nikki could only hide her cowardly face and deliver the gift of disappointment. Even after that hasty New Year's resolution it had taken two weeks of practice in front of her bathroom mirror before she'd felt ready to sit the girls down at the Nutmeg café and stutter out her secret.

And, like everything else in her life, it all went horribly wrong.

Tiffany had released a girlish squeal and clapped her hands like she was a cute dog that had performed a successful trick. "Yay! Oh Nikki, I'm so excited for you!" Something about the eagerness of her smile and the swiftness of her reaction – like she'd been hiding and waiting to yell 'surprise!' – felt so off-putting. Not for the first time, Nikki felt her blonde friend had been anticipating this conversation.

Her enthusiasm jabbed at Nikki with patronizing little needles. Was I that obvious?

Then Audrey. Eyes wide but pupils retreating into little black specks; her back digging into the plush booth in a startled 'flight' response. When the platinum-blonde diva found her tongue it was venom that spewed.

"You're a dyke? You?"

"Audrey…"

"Don't Audrey me, Tiff! She tells us this now? After we showered with her at the hot springs? After we stayed over at her place and she ogled us in our pajamas and underwear?" A revelation. "You were taking pictures of me! That's why you had your phone out all that night!"

"What? No, I just couldn't sleep –"

"Don't talk to me! You fucking stay away from me!" To Tiffany. "Don't you get it? She's been eye-fucking us this whole time! Now she's just waiting to get us back home with her so she can get us drunk and then she can –"

Audrey never finished that thought. Her body wouldn't allow her to finish, freezing up like a faulty computer; eyes blank and lungs hyperventilating. Is she having a seizure? Tiffany had to squeeze the diva's hand and shake her back to life and, when Audrey rebooted from her panic attack, her eyes glared sharp and cruel as daggers.

"Not this time," Audrey whispered to herself. "I'm not getting fooled by another nasty, two-faced, lying little cunt! Didn't I tell you, Tiff? Everybody's always after something! Well I know what this little lezzie wants and the buck stop here. Come on, we're getting out of here before this carpet-munching little slut gets any more ideas!" Audrey stormed to her feet and, when the slack-jawed cheerleader didn't follow, she issued her ultimatum.

"It's her or me, Tiffany. If you stay, don't think I'll ever speak to you again."

Tiffany's reaction was crueler than any verbal spear Audrey could toss: she hesitated. With horror in her eyes, the blonde looked at them both, weighing her options as though there were some twisted logic to Audrey's homophobic ranting. It was too much. If you can't make up your mind, I can! Tears in her eyes, Nikki snatched up her coat and ran for the door…

"Nikki? Sweet bean, are you still there?"

The hesitancy in that voice. The woman who was supposed to love her no matter what and she was squirming over the idea of having a gay daughter. Her parents were no better than Tiffany.

"You were right, mom. Calling was a mistake. I'm just one big, dumb gay mistake, so sorry for existing!"

She cut the call and toggled her phone over to airplane mode before whipping the device across the room. The world had made it abundantly clear that it had nothing but cruelty to share and she had no desire to open her wounds further.

Nikki wrapped her blankets around her like a tourniquet and scooted to the warm glow of her TV and video game consoles. A world where she was a hero and saviour, where no problem was beyond the skills of her rapid-fire fingers. No rampaging dragon could withstand her might; no world-conquering empire or evil corporation could outmaneuver her strategies; no deluge of falling blocks was beyond her ability to stack and sort. This was where she belonged.

Working through tear-stained lenses, Nikki dusted off her PS1 and booted up her dearest comfort food: her Final Fantasy VII 'Golden Saucer' files; adventures that were saved just before the player character was invited on an amusement park date by a female party member. She had a file for each possible girl – fearless Tifa, spunky Yuffie; hell, she'd even grinded through the obscure route that allowed her to go out with burly muscleman Barret (such was the life of a completionist). Tonight, though, she wanted Aerith, the flower girl. She needed someone gentle and kind.

Nikki remembered her surprise and delight during that first childhood play-through: a midnight knock at your hotel door, a pretty girl inviting you to sneak away with her. Running side by side through a carnival world of games and wonders and, finally, a gondola ride for two under a sky lit with fireworks. How utterly romantic!

Looking back, maybe that game had been the first inkling that she'd been … different. She, Nikki Ann-Marie, who'd always told herself she was above the dopey crushes of those gossipy girls who fawned over boy band posters, found herself daydreaming and doodling pictures of a polygonal brunette in a pink dress. She remembered her younger self rationalizing the oddity - I just want to look like her when I grow up; I just want to have a friend like her – but whenever she stole away to her video game haven, she never projected herself into the role of the "hero's girlfriend"; never imagined herself being courted by Cloud Strife or Squall Leonhart or Locke Cole. Secretly, she was the hero, and she was being asked out by a girl.

Tonight, playing through these treasured sequences left her numb. It isn't me, she realized. Even with her character christened 'Nikki', it wasn't her being asked on a date, it wasn't her receiving a clumsy confession of love; it wasn't her on that gondola ride for two. Nikki switched off her TV and let the darkness of her room drape her like a second blanket.

Maybe she needed some fresh air.

Turtle Bay Beach was closed to the public. A seasonal jellyfish infestation blanketed the shore with scores of the mucousy pink blobs, but that suited Nikki just fine. More than anything she wanted some place devoid of other people, and at this late hour even the boardwalk food stalls were locked up. Slumping down the steps of the concrete pier that guarded the sands, she curled up on one of the public beach chairs and looked to the stars.

The cloud-like glow of the Milky Way was on full display tonight, embracing the sky in its cosmic swirls. Nikki had always found comfort and awe in stargazing; knowing she was part of grander universe made bullies and trolls and nagging parents seem so much smaller. Tonight, though, the celestial glow left her miserable.

Billions of stars like our sun, millions orbited by habitable worlds. All those possibilities and I'm stuck here. A nowhere city on a nowhere planet; friends that despised or belittled her; family that were ashamed of her and no one who understood her. There was no flower girl to fall in love with. Even the sight of comets shooting across the sky failed to cheer her spirits. Just rocks and hunks of ice burning up in the atmosphere. Wasn't that a wonderful analogy for life on Earth? Everything unique and special that came close to this dumb world got dragged down in a fiery wreck. Way to go, planet.

Even if she did indulge that childhood pastime of wish-making, what would she dare to hope for? A big asteroid to come and smash this town to smithereens? Audrey and all her tormenters to get run over by a truck?

I wish … Whoa! Nikki hit the pause button on that thought. A new light had appeared in the heavens. What is that? Shooting stars normally lanced across the sky in "blink and you'll miss it" moments, but this comet was taking its sweet time to burn through the starry twilight and had grown a sizable tail to go with its nickel-sized head. Nikki sat up and centered the fiery ball in the crosshairs of her phone camera. Space debris? A satellite burning up in the atmosphere? Whatever it was, the chance was too rare to pass up.

I wish …

I wish I had someone to talk to.

Love was too far-fetched, even for a wish upon a star, but someone who would listen to her, understand her? She closed her eyes and beamed those meager hopes at the earthbound messenger. I know you're just gonna disintegrate in a couple seconds but it'd be really, really nice if you'd give me a chance.

Nikki parted her eyelids and – big surprise – nothing changed. Nothing ever really changed…

Then something strange happened: a second, tinier comet – a proper, zippy little fellow – winked across the sky and bopped into her wishing star. The big rock froze. It literally stopped, let its tail spool into its burning head and then it changed direction.

What the -? The oddity repeated before her eyes: a second mini-comet shot into the big meteor. The meteor froze in place and reversed its course.

Nikki dropped her phone and wiped her glasses clean. It's not pausing, she realized. The canopy of stars appeared as a flat canvas from Earth but you had to account for three dimensions. The big meteor was swerving: banking hard rights and lefts as it moved to avoid the incoming sparklers. It was dodging the little lights!

Another sparkler raced at the meteor and this time the big rock spat out a firework of its own. The two tiny lights flashed on impact and, in the burst of starlight, Nikki saw the source of the pesky shooting stars: a second burning meteor.

This one was smaller – a pinprick to its nickel-sized cousin – and it danced around the larger flame like a horsefly nipping at a lumbering cow. The big star popped off volleys of sparklers – an irritated swish of its tail – but the tiny fly juked and dodged with ease before retaliating with counter-fire. Blooms of light flared around the bumbling cow-meteor.

Nikki had enough presence of mind to raise her phone and keep recording. Whatever this was, it wasn't natural. Her mind pulled up memories of conspiracy blogs and classified government aircraft, but these lights, these vessels, were beyond the altitude of any atmospheric planes, and the sizes didn't match up either. They're spacecraft! They had to be! And they kept growing bigger; they kept dropping closer to the planet.

She could see them clearly now: black shadows blocking the starry canvas, their bellies coated with the red fire of atmospheric entry. The lead ship was big and blocky like a semi-truck with wings; its pursuer round and elegant and saucer shaped. The truck ship swivelled a top-mounted turret and sprayed its pursuer with green laser fire. Lasers! Actual beams of deadly light! The saucer ship glided through the storm of lights and replied with a volley of arcing missiles into the cruiser's backside.

Explosions blossomed over the ocean.

The dance, the dogfight, had reached its finale. Black smoke howled from the blocky cruiser, its pilot no longer dodging; its path a direct line for the shore. It's coming this way, Nikki gaped. It was growing bigger every second; she could see the individual hazard lights blinking on its charred hull! The ship was coming straight at h-

Oh, said a little, rational part of her mind. The ship was coming in for a crash landing. Towards her.

Oh, her mind repeated, a mental cue for her legs to move. Oh no, no, no!

Nikki sprinted up the boardwalk, cursing the doughy sand and her fumbling feet while the whine of a crashing plane snapped at her heels. Up the stairs, two at a time. Quick scan for cover. An ice cream stand! Nikki dived behind her impromptu bomb shelter just as a tsunami of sand exploded over the boardwalk.

When the ground (and her brain) stopped rattling, Nikki ventured a peek. The ship – and it was a ship! A twisted, mangled, not-of-this-Earth ship with wings and jet thrusters and foreign markings – had slammed all the way into the concrete barrier, its front cockpit crumpled like a car in a trash compactor. Nikki would have spent an eternity staring in wonder but the approaching howl of jet engines jostled her attention to the encore performance.

The pursuer – the saucer ship that had danced nimbly as a hummingbird – now sputtered like a reverse Icarus flying too far from the sun, too fast to pull up. Nikki watched the small craft skip and skid over the ocean as the pilot fought for control. It tried to nose up hard but its rear engines caught the waves and the craft spun like an out-of-control Frisbee, plowing to a stop in the sandy shore only meters from its downed quarry. This time, the sand wave hit her right in the face. While Nikki coughed up granules and shook her clothes clean, the second ship's engines sputtered feebly before powering down in a slow decrescendo.

Lesser women would have screamed and ran; more still would have called 911 and washed their hands of this accident scene. Nikki Ann-Marie considered herself anything but ordinary, and she gazed upon the beautiful wreckage like it was an art gallery masterpiece. She savoured the smell of burning oil and glassy sand like a fine wine. Two crashed ships. Two crashed alien ships, one crumpled and licked with flames, the other silent and half-buried in sand.

"Thank you," Nikki whispered to the heavens. It wasn't the comfort of a friend, but when it came to consolation prizes she wasn't about to gripe over a front row seat to first contact with aliens.

Time to cut loose! Nikki took the boardwalk steps three at a time to get a closer look. Her rubber soles hissed and melted in the wreckage-scorched sand but she couldn't care less.

"My name is Nikki Ann-Marie," she panted into her phone. "It's January 15th and I am recording live from Turtle Bay Beach at the site of an actual alien crash-landing! A double landing! Two ships!"

She waved her phone over the cruiser first, spellbound by the claw-like tears gouged into its hull by enemy missiles. There were noises coming from inside. The growl of machinery? The pad-pad drip of oil on metal? Or was there something alive in there emitting canine snarls and tiptoeing on padded feet?

Nikki aimed her camera at the closest gouge and pinched her screen to zoom in…

A metallic groan erupted from the saucer ship and she turned to catch its rounded nose rising from the sand. No, not rising, but being pushed upwards. A gangplank like a long mouth was opening from its underside; on a proper landing it would have dropped on controlled pistons, but in its half-buried state it forced the ship up like a lever. Steam and a blast of icy air plowed Nikki off her feet as the pilot disembarked.

Nikki heard the figure first. The deliberate, angry stamp of boots on the plank. The ragged heaving of lungs scraping in air and spewing out rage. The rhythmic hammering down the metal path: clomp-drag, clomp-drag. The figure was injured, and she was enraged.

She. Nikki could assume nothing less from the hourglass shadow that cut through the mists, silver hair flapping off her shoulders and sickle-hooked horns curling above her ears. Black, syrupy liquid smeared from her hair into her eyes - blood? A head wound? - and square teeth champed in her jaw with a force that would bite through iron. Pain wracked her face but she mastered it, dominated it; gripped it like a hot coal that would fuel the engine of her body so she could move forward and finish her work.

One arm applied pressure over an injured shoulder; the other gripped a long and dangerous rifle.

Nikki's heart palpitated with a cocktail mixture of terror and wonder as she drank in the space-woman's battle-scarred splendor: blue skin smeared with blood, angry lips snorting hot steam, breasts rippling with beads of sweat; a warrior goddess, a Valkyrie from the stars. The blue-toned alien scanned the beach and locked eyes with the pale-faced little girl toppled on her backside.

"Um… hi. … Are you oka- ?"

A loading trigger clicked and Nikki stared down the humming barrel of her electric gun.

"Cho te nai," the Valkyrie barked, limping forward. Nikki scrabbled backwards in the sand.

"Oh god, don't shoot!"

"Cho te nai!" she repeated, her pace quickening.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry; please don't kill me! Nikki dropped her jaw to plead but a guttural, animal growl interrupted her speech. Hot breath hissed down the back of her neck and Nikki felt the unmistakable presence of body heat behind her. Turning, Nikki stared into the jaws of a monster like a skinless dog, muscles and veins twitching through translucent flesh. Teeth like ivory spikes parted, offering a glimpse into the abyss of its throat.

The dog-monster reared on its hind legs. The Valkyrie screamed. "Te Nai!" Get down, Nikki realized, and she flopped into the sand. An electric hum, a pulse of blue plasma and the dog-beast exploded into hot, green slime that drenched Nikki in a bath of alien guts.

Fire crackled under the night sky. Ocean waves lapped steadily at the shoreline, oblivious to the carnage collected on the golden sands. For a long while Nikki was like the ocean: consumed in a mindless rhythm – breathe in, breathe out – while her higher functions tried to make sense of the last thirty seconds.

She was at the beach. She hated the beach, all that crappy sand and sunburn. She was also in the middle of two crashed spaceships. She liked that; spaceships were good. She'd almost been devoured by some alien monster. One point for 'traumatic memory'. She'd been saved by a breathtakingly beautiful alien warrior. Return point for 'dream come true'. Now to tally up the tie-breaker: there was sand up her nose, a banging sledgehammer where her heart should've been. She'd probably scared three years off her lifespan, provided she didn't catch some space disease from the green alien guts soaking into her hair and skin. All evidence recommended she emit one final lunatic scream before retreating into a vegetative coma for the rest of her days.

She raised a baggy, oversized sleeve and regarded the neon goo dripping down its length. And yet…

Nikki's lips cracked in a half-mad grin. I am never washing this sweater so long as I live! BEST DAY EVER!

The clunk of metal on sand interrupted her fangirl moment. The blue warrior's rifle lay on the beach; the fierceness in her face, the rage in her eyes fell with it. Only exhaustion remained, coming out in deep, relieved pants of air.

Nikki stared at her saviour and the alien goddess returned the look. Her breath caught. Golden eyes took a deep, long drink of Nikki's face. Shock. Recognition. Incredulity.

"Cel … ara?"

Then the blood loss overtook her senses and she crumpled in the sand.

Police sirens raced through the night. At her back, Nikki heard the scamper of padded feet through the sand and turned in time to see a pack of four-legged monsters galloping across the beach. Towards the city.

Nikki shook the blue alien's shoulder. "Hey, wake up!" Armored cars approaching, weird monsters escaping; this was no time for sleeping on the job!

No response. This is all wrong! She'd wished for a friend, not … Nikki surveyed the fiery wreckage on the beach and her bones shook with the mother of all bad feelings, envisioning the alien devastation consuming all of Glenberry, her family; her friends!

What am I supposed to do?