The following morning
Monday, May 16th

Glenview

It was another morning on Planet Lizewski.

I came awake and looked over at the clock beside the bed.

05:59:57 . . . 05:59:58 . . . 05:59:59 . . . 06:00:00

It was time to move. I threw back the duvet and swung my legs out of the otherwise empty bed. I made my way over to the bathroom where the shower was raging. I studied the silhouette through the steamed up glass.

"Morning, sexy wife!" I called out as I emptied my bladder.

"Morning, stud!" came the reply from the shower.

As my naked wife slipped out of the shower, I slipped in – with a brief kiss on the lips and a gentle touch of her soft, damp skin.

..._...

By the time I returned to the bedroom, Mindy was dressed and putting her hair up into her customary ponytail. I preferred her blonde hair down, but I knew that Mindy hated it like that and it often got in the way.

"I'm off to sort out the mutts," Mindy said as she headed out the door.

Within a minute, I heard excited yapping, plus a booming bark from Sophia as Mindy entered the basement.

Once dressed, I headed upstairs where my first stop was the 'British Sector'.

As I descended into the basement, I was met by several barks and excited yaps.

Sophia added her own deep-bass bark to the others. I was really pleased to be back around the dogs; I loved them all very much. When we got back from Europe, we discovered that we had gained a lodger. Marcus had tried to explain it, but I gather the conversation between Marcus and Paige had gone something like this:

...+...

"So, what do we do with it?"

"Not much we can do – Sophia will tear apart anybody who goes near it."

"It is kinda funny?"

"Marcus, what will Mindy say?"

"Mindy's nuts enough to go along with it."

"I have to agree with that – it looks so sweet..."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"We have no idea as Sophia is being so overprotective."

"Let me try..."

Tentatively, Marcus reached out and patted Sophia on the head. Sophia licked his hand. Marcus moved his hand towards the new acquisition that lay curled up between Sophia's front legs. There was a tense moment when Sophia moved her snout down and sniffed at both the fur ball and Marcus's hand. Marcus continued to move his hand until it touched the soft, ginger fur and a head appeared. Two yellow eyes looked up at Marcus and the small mouth opened as a small mew was emitted.

"It's a boy," Marcus commented as he turned the kitten belly up.

The tiny feline had appeared a week or so previously. Sophia had taken custody of the little kitten and if a pup or a human went anywhere near it, they were growled at. The pups were mystified by the little ball of ginger fluff that their mother was apparently protecting from them. The kitten was only a few weeks old but it had learnt that nothing could hurt it – it seemed to enjoy hissing at the pups as they walked past.

"Bet he'll be given some ridiculous name..." Marcus groused as the kitten hissed at him and he placed it back down on the ground where Sophia proceeded to lick the kitten. "...Wildcat is taken, obviously..."

"...And so is Lynx..." Paige added with a grin. "Anyhow, did I hear you call Mindy a nut?"

"Well, she is a nut – and so is Megan."

"I have to agree with you there; Megan and Mindy are both nutty as a fruitcake with extra nuts!"

...+...

So, yeah, we had a kitten to look after.

I would also like to go on record as stating that I am not nutty as a fruitcake – and neither is my little sister. We may have a slightly different outlook on life to other people, but that just makes us unique. Marcus has other ideas about our 'differing outlook', but let's not go there.

Anyway, back to the kitten. Stephanie and Anne-Marie had instantly fallen in love with it. Even Danny had admitted it was cute. We had finally agreed on a name, after many appalling choices. Nobody liked my first choice: Shotgun. I had shot down any name that was related, even remotely, to a Disney Princess, or a Star Wars character. I knelt down to gently stroke the ginger kitten and the pair of yellow beacons looked up at me.

"Morning, Horatio, hungry?"

I poured out a good measure of kitty milk and Horatio dived into action. The pups knew not to touch the kitten's milk – Razor had already experienced the displeasure of his mother and he had served as a ready example to the others.

I carefully pushed open the door – no trip wires, I was pleased to see. My eldest daughter had been known to rig up an M81 Claymore when she was in a bad mood...

It was just possible to make out the spread of blonde hair on the pillow but very little else. Now, just like my wife, I was very careful about waking a psychotic killer. Waking either Mindy or Stephanie from a deep sleep and finding a knife, gun, or both shoved in my face, was getting a little bit old. Instead, I just yanked off the duvet and stood well back.

The viper uncurled herself, stretched, and I saw an eye open, then she smiled – I was safe.

"Morning!" Stephanie exclaimed as she jumped out of bed.

"Morning to you too, Steph."

Before I had made it to the door, Stephanie had pulled off the overlarge t-shirt that she slept in and then completely naked, she had headed for her bathroom. I was annoyed to see the obvious bruising still readily visible on her body. The girl would heal, just as Mindy always did after a beating.

..._...

I headed across the hall to where I found Anne-Marie grinning at me from under her duvet.

"Time to get up, kiddo."

"Morning, Dad!"

"Morning, Dad!" came another voice and I turned to see Danny peer in from the bathroom.

"Morning to both of you – hurry up and get washed, breakfast will be ready soon."

With that, I headed back downstairs to start cooking.

Thirty minutes later

"How is it that you can talk non-stop from the moment you sit down to eat to the moment that you get up again, and somehow the food still gets inside you?" Stephanie demanded of her younger sister as she dug into a stack of pancakes.

"It's a gift..." was the muffled response.

"She's been doing it from an early age," Danny explained.

"Where does she put it all – there's more meat on a spare rib!"

"You're one to talk, Stephanie," Mindy interjected. "You eat almost as much as Dave does and you are thin as a rake."

"It's a gift..." Stephanie replied with a wink at her younger sibling.

Later that morning
North Park Elementary School

The place was buzzing about a certain show of force in the city, the evening before.

It made the morning immensely difficult, especially as four of us at the school had actually been a part of that 'show of force'. I had spent twenty minutes with Megan, Curtis and Tommy, mid-morning and they had all felt the same. At lunchtime, it only got worse...

"You saw those kids in that procession," Craig was saying. "It must be so awesome to be a vigilante on Hit Girl's crew – they're not much older than us..."

"It must be hard to keep something like that a secret," Ali mused. "Just think, it could be somebody in this lunch room..."

I grimaced at that...

"Take that Wildcat – she's awesome," Katy commented. "I'd do anything to be her..."

"You'd make a good vigilante, Steph," Jackson commented with a sly grin over towards me.

"Me?"

"Yeah – you have a fiery temper and I'd love to see you in a figure-hugging suit..."

There was general laughter and some giggles at that comment; I just felt my face warming up. Talk about being close to the mark!

"You just want to see Stephanie in skin-tight leather..." Katy giggled.

"So?" Jackson retorted innocently.

"I am so out of here!" I growled as I jumped up and ran out of the lunch room past a dour looking Lizzie Edwards.

I was worried about my big sister.

It had been almost six months since her kidnap and attack – I refused to say the true word for what had happened to her; it scared me. Lauren had cried most nights for over a week after it had happened. I had tried to help her but Lauren would hug me on some occasions and on others, she would push me away – sometimes violently.

I knew my sister was troubled. Mom just told me to give her space and to be there for when she needed me. I hated seeing and hearing her cry at night; that really hurt. Then, two weeks after the attack, she had suddenly seemed a lot happier. Strangely, she had stopped her pursuit of everything 'Fusion'. Maybe that had had something to do with the visit from Hit Girl, soon after the attack, Lauren would not elaborate on what happened when she had vanished that evening.

Lauren spent as much time as possible at D-JAK as well as time somewhere else with Mom. Neither of them would tell me where they went but Lauren had gained some extra bruises on her body, so I assumed that she had just been getting some extra time in at D-JAK.

Another problem was her change in character.

..._...

Lauren had always been outgoing and full of life. She always smiled and laughed. Since the attack, she had turned shy, especially around boys. I knew that she had faced torment from other kids at school about the attack – they blamed her for allowing herself to be raped. How they could do that, I had no idea. It was in no way my sister's fault and I could not comprehend what it must have felt like to be attacked like that.

The only people to have ever seen me naked were my Mom and my sister. I knew from Lauren's previous experience, back when she was kidnapped before Christmas, that she had been stripped to her underwear – she had told me that she had found that extremely embarrassing – but to be stripped naked by strange men and then...

I shuddered at the thought and I involuntarily squeezed my legs together.

Lake View High School

There was love in the air at the high school.

Our usual group of eight had grown to ten as we all gathered for lunch. As well as Josh and Chloe, there was Abby and Kyle, Ethan and Mike and then Riley and me. We had, over the past month, gained two more girls: Morgan and Saoirse – a weird name with an appalling spelling! I had begun to notice something: while Josh and Chloe were busy running their hands over each other's bodies, Ethan and Saoirse were busy eyeing each other up. No real issue, only Saoirse was a freshman, while the rest of us were sophomores although I had to admit that the girl had a very full figure and she looked older than she actually was.

Me? I was simply content to spend my time with Riley... I snapped out of my thoughts as somebody called my name.

"Avery!"

"Yeah? Sorry, Chloe..."

"You coming over for our girl's night on Friday?"

"Yeah, course."

I liked Chloe; she had been my best friend, other than Riley of course, for as long as she had been in Chicago. The girl was a bit of an enigma to be honest. I really liked her and we had enjoyed some stimulating sleep-overs over the past couple of years. Chloe was not scared about experimenting and neither was I for that matter...

Chloe had been upset for many months about losing her boyfriend, who had then miraculously reappeared out of thin air, alive, about eighteen months ago. He was every bit as hot as Chloe had described him to be. That had also been around the time that Chloe had been mysteriously wounded. Her explanation had been that she was mugged – bullshit! I would love to see the mugger that could better Chloe Bennett.

That girl could fight!

That night

South Kedzie Avenue

Maybe it was not really the best way for Nightmare to be exposed to the nastier side of Chicago.

We were out cruising on my new wheels. Mindy had given me free reign to get any machine that I wanted and after it had spent a couple of weeks in Gotham, it had arrived only the previous afternoon. Apparently, I had been a complete pain in the arse until tonight as I was so excited!

The Aprilia Caponord 1200 Rally motorcycle was painted in a colour-shifting paint that shifted between brown and orange depending on the light and point of view. The nose and tail of the machine was painted with a chrome-effect. At the back, on either side, were a pair of black and chrome-effect panniers which carried a strategic collection of equipment.

Most importantly, at the back, was the licence plate, which read: FOXTAIL.

Earlier that evening

Safehouse F

"Will you, please, calm down?"

"I'm sorry, SD – I'm just so nervous."

"That's to be expected, Lauren – let me do your hair; you're making a hash of it..."

Lauren was way beyond nervous – not her fault but it was about to be her first night out as Nightmare. She was so nervous that she was unable to put her long, light brown hair up so that it would fit under her mask.

"Thank you, SD..."

"Lauren, if I didn't help you, it would be sometime next week before we were actually ready..."

The thirteen-year-old girl grinned sheepishly as she grabbed her mask and we headed downstairs to the armoury. There, the young vigilante drew a SIG Sauer P239 Tactical pistol in 9-millimetre calibre and a 7-inch combat knife. After checking the weapons over, she picked up her utility belt and inserted the pistol into the holster on her right hip and the knife into the scabbard on her left thigh.

I double-checked every pouch on her belt, including her communications equipment. Lauren had spent a couple of hours that afternoon ensuring that her equipment worked and that it was all accounted for.

Finally, the mask was pulled on and Nightmare stood in all her glory. Her combat suit was of an urban camouflage design, with a tiger-stripe design in teal and dark grey.

Southern Chicago

Foxtail with Nightmare

It was just the two of us.

Mindy and I had discussed where might be best – Mindy had suggested dropping Nightmare in at the deep end. We had to know how Nightmare would react to what usually went on in Chicago after dark – if she could not hack it, then she would be finished as a vigilante before she even got started. It was cruel but I could see where Mindy was coming from; it was pointless putting effort into training somebody who could not get over what had happened to her.

Therefore, I was searching for a certain type of criminal...

..._...

We headed north and then in an easterly direction where my thoughts were interrupted by a voice in my ear.

"You cum all over your new wheels, yet?"

"Go fuck yourself, Psyche!"

"Now, what could I use?" Psyche mused. "What about that shiny new dildo in your locker with extra-strength batteries?"

"Stay out of my fucking locker, you Phase 2 reject!"

"Well, you could have set a more difficult combination than your Predator identification number."

"Where the fuck did you get that from?"

"From your CIA ID card."

"Same question."

"Found it."

"It was in my fucking locker!"

There was a pause as the ten-year-old considered the rather fucked-up circular argument that she had just created for herself.

"I'm gonna have to get back to you on that, Foxtail..."

"When we get back, I am going to take you into a very dark room..."

"I never knew you liked me in that way, Foxy..."

I was getting seriously pissed and Nightmare's giggling was not helping. But before I could respond, I heard a muffled slap and...

"That fucking hurt!" Psyche growled and then another voice came up on the circuit.

"Problem taken care of, Foxtail."

It was Mist, and she must have just slapped Psyche. I refocussed on where I was riding and Nightmare soon calmed down. I had to admit, Psyche had broken the tension for Nightmare – at my expense!

I had no idea where Foxtail was taking me, but the scenery did not look very appealing.

Maybe they were testing me. You know, see how I reacted to whatever we might come across. I should have known that Hit Girl could be devious. In fact, I knew she was. Foxtail was too. I knew some of her background and what I had heard, scared me. However, I trusted her.

I was dragged from my thoughts as we came to a very rapid stop beside a large expanse of open and very dark waste ground. I thought that it must have been a factory at some stage. Foxtail pulled off her helmet and brought up one finger of her left hand to her lips. I kept silent as I pulled off my own helmet and carefully slipped off the motorcycle. Foxtail followed, leaning her machine onto its stand. If I had not been armed and wearing body-armour, I might have started to panic. Foxtail headed off into the darkness and then she paused. She tapped her left ear and then drew her beautiful swords. I listened and I heard a voice. It was a man and he was goading somebody. I braced up as I heard a weak scream.

We moved forwards carefully as the ground was uneven and there was plenty of rubble strewn around. It felt weird, being out in my combat suit. I had a feeling of being invincible. I knew that was wrong but I felt so alive as we headed into the darkness, into the unknown.

..._...

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could make out a shape on the ground. As we came closer, I saw that it was more than one shape. One shape was on top of the other. I instantly knew what was happening.

I froze.

Nothing I tried could make my limbs move.

I shook my head – it was to be expected.

The man had not noticed our approach, nor the frozen vigilante, I thought dryly. I moved forwards and the first the man knew of our presence was the feel of cold steel beneath his throat. He began to move.

"Don't..." I growled. "Nightmare!"

There was no response. She had to handle this or...

"Nightmare!"

"Right, yes . . . I'm here, Foxtail."

I heard her boots on the concrete as she approached.

"Take out your knife."

The young girl did so. I pushed up gently on my sword and the man began to stand. His pants were around his ankles and his cock stuck out, still partially erect. The woman beneath him had passed out, but she was still breathing. She also had her pants around her ankles and with her knees spread wide apart, it was obvious where the man had stuck his cock.

I saw Nightmare stare down at the man's waist and what stuck out there. I saw her shoulders begin to heave as the anger built within her. She was overcoming her initial horror at the scene before her. She took a step back and returned her blade to its scabbard. Oh, dear, she was bottling it.

But I was wrong.

She pulled her SIG Sauer P320 Compact pistol from her holster and stepped towards the man.

I felt anger like I had never felt before.

Initially, I had felt horror at the sight before me. Horrible visions flashed through my mind. I had been in that poor woman's position. I had felt that man force himself into me. I had... I pushed the thoughts out of mind – well, most of them. I saw the man's dick, drooping. He had to be punished. I could not let him do such a thing again. I could not let the fucking animal even breed. I pulled back the slide on my pistol and I then walked right up to the man.

"You sicken me. You will never hurt another woman as long as I walk on this earth. Your line will end here and now. You have a family?"

The man slowly shook his head.

"Good."

"Holy shit!"

After the crack of the pistol shot came the scream as the man tried to stem the blood which poured from his crotch. I could not believe it. Nightmare just blew the fucking cunt's cock off! One second, cock, the next second, no cock. The man sagged to his knees and he fell backwards while his unearthly scream echoed around the area.

The woman was beginning to stir. I called in a request for an ambulance and we waited for them to arrive. The man passed out quite quickly from loss of blood. By the time the ambulance arrived, the woman was sitting up and I had helped her pull her panties and pants back up.

The Paramedic approached and looked at the man, then at the sobbing woman.

"Was it him?" She asked simply.

I nodded.

"We will see to the woman first – he bleeds out before we get to him, tough," she told her subordinate.

We left the scene but hung about for a few minutes until the CPD arrived to secure the area.

Before we moved off, I spoke with Nightmare.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"We can call it a night..."

"No. I have to do this."

"Good girl."