Toxic had rapidly disappeared under the building. She could have followed him, but Galaxy Girl knew from past experiences that she did not do well in tight spaces; super strength, general klutziness, and old buildings were a bad combination.

The Superhero also suffered from claustrophobia, though she kept this affliction a tightly guarded secret to avoid it being exploited.
The hero was exhausted and sore, and she knew Toxic would be too. He wouldn't be wreaking any additional havoc tonight. Rubbing her shoulder, she took off, soaring out through the hole she had created on her way in.
She flew home, landing behind the dumpsters that concealed the entrance to the Galaxy family's hideaway.

After she glanced around cautiously to make certain of her solitude, she pressed her hand against a brick and the camouflaged secret door slid open. Once inside, the door automatically closed behind her and Galaxy Girl peeled off her mask to reveal the face of her alter ego, Andromeda Avis. She walked through the secret tunnel that connected her father's old base to her family's modest two story house.

The place was as empty and quiet as ever. Typical; Andromeda thought to herself, Grace Avis was a respected magazine journalist who was almost always chasing the latest story in one foreign country or the next. This week it was Brazil, and peeking into the living room Galaxy Girl saw that her mother hadn't yet arrived home. Her father wouldn't be back for a while either; he never arrived home until late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

Her body hurt as she trudged to her room, her back groaning as she bent over to pull off her boots. Next she peeled the skin tight baby blue suit off her body, careful not to trip over her cape. When she stepped out of her costume, she was surprised to find that her stomach had a boot shaped purple bruise clearly imprinted on it, a mark from where Toxic had kicked her. The Hero's arms and chest were covered in similar ugly purplish bruises.

She examined each one carefully, touching her shoulder just enough to confirm if there was that classic feeling of hurt that only battling Toxic gave her. Even after over a decade of battles with Toxic, feeling pain was still an unusual sensation. The girl felt suddenly grateful that she had avoided a blow to the face, and that luckily her bodysuit would conceal the rest of the evening's battle marks.

Galaxy Girl looked down at the few small scars that she had acquired fighting Toxic throughout her life as Stark City's protector. Though she was one of the youngest members of The Peace League, she had been on the hero path for much longer than most of its members. To the rest of the world, she had to appear as another indestructible protector. Toxic was the only one who absolutely knew she was not.
Slipping into simple white cotton pajamas, she fell into her bed, which like most of the things inside the superhero's room was made out of reinforced titanium. Being completely exhausted, she was out in seconds.

Andromeda was awoken by the sound of her silver communicator buzzing violently from the top of the dresser. She groaned like a dying animal as she fumbled to reach it. She loved her sleep and hated waking up earlier than absolutely necessary, especially as she still felt tired from the previous day's battle. Her blue eyes blinked at the bright screen. It was already 2:00 pm and her stomach had begun to rumble in protest. The message was from the Peace League, a private summons to headquarters.

"This can't be good", a worried little voice in her mind grumbled as she rolled out of bed and stretched, her muscles still aching from exertion. She hurriedly made her way to the shower, spent a few minutes getting some hot steam on her body. Upon stepping out of the hot water, a strange feeling washed over her, like the Hero was forgetting something very important. Wrapping herself in a towel, she walked over to her open closet and was delightfully surprised to find that her suit had been washed and hung up neatly.

Smiling, she reached out for the blue sleeve of her bulletproof costume, brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled as expected, like her mother's favorite detergent. She caught the scent of something else; food was cooking downstairs. After slipping into her super suit and pulling on her golden boots, she went down to the kitchen. The league needed her, but right now, she needed some food in her system.

"Good morning Annie. Or should I say, good afternoon." Her mother's soft voice greeted her by her pet name as she stepped into the room. Grace Avis, the reporter known to the world by her maiden name, Grace Genovese, was cheerfully frying strips of bacon, her long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, a bright pink apron tied at her waist.

"It's good to see you again, I've missed you honey." She set down her spatula and held out her arms for a hug. The half human, half superhuman teenager crossed the room, keeping her powerful hands clenched tightly by her sides, and allowed her mother to embrace her.

"I've missed you too Mom."
She mumbled into her mothers hair, keeping as still as possible to avoid hurting the fragile human. Something she had accidentally done far to many times.

As far as human contact went, this the best she could do, fearing that of she tried hugging her mother back, she could accidentally break bone.
This was the major drawback of her super strength, and as she was super strong from birth, Galaxy Girl had almost no measure over the amount she exerted. Her father Captain Galaxy on the other hand, was made into a hero when the meteor he had come in contact with him and given him his power. Since he had already spent two decades as a human, he had a guide to the amount of strength he was supposed to use, but this wasn't so for Galaxy Girl, she broke almost anything she touched.

"Your father is at HQ, he left early this morning." Grace informed her daughter when the hug was over.
After she'd eating, she then headed back to the hideaway and stepped into the shuttle pod, a transportation module that her father had his friend and fellow Peace League member Cybervore built for her when she turned 5, and it was discovered that her flight speed would never even come close to matching her fathers. It took off down the tunnel at high speed, taking her outside the city limits within minutes. Emerging from a trap door built underneath a hill, she felt the flight thrusters powering up, and soon the pod was off the ground; headed in the direction of The Peace League Headquarters.

PLHQ was a large, moving space station with its current location somewhere above Australia. The pod docked into the landing bay, and with a hiss, the door slid open. The bay was empty, but several other pods were parked already. Galaxy Girl was late, but that was nothing new. Exiting the pod, she stepped out onto the white tile floor and walked towards the meeting room, the clicking sound of her boots resonating through the walkway. When she arrived at the entrance of the meeting room, the giant oak doors automatically swung open. The seats around the long wooden table were relatively empty, with only four heroes gathered up near the head: her father, Cybervor, Kaharina, and Dauntless.

"Well, look who finally decided to grace us with her presence." The annoyance that was the 21 year old English superhero Dauntless, called out. Her father looked at her sternly as she quietly made her way to the seat next to him, which unfortunately, was also beside Dauntless.

The hero could practically feel his gaze leering on her rear as she passed him by. Galaxy Girl simply rolled her eyes. To think that this was the douchebag her father had trained. His red hair was styled straight up, his costume red and silver, with a cape that matched her father's cut identically. His muscle-bound physique wasn't the least bit impressive to Galaxy Girl. This was the moron all the earth girls swooned over, and she found it disgusting.

"Galaxy..." Her father addressed her, and she noticed that a piece of his blond hair was out of place. "I saw what happened yesterday." He told her. Not to worry, she was sure he would fix that strand the instant he looked in a mirror, which was something he did a lot. Without saying another word, he pressed a button on his remote and a video was projected in front of them. It was a video captured by a satellite of her carrying Toxic's bomb. In the video, Galaxy Girl was clearly gasping for air as she lifted the giant metal cylinder higher and higher.

"First off, Galaxy you know better than to fly that high!" The Captain scolded.
"Love, you should leave the flying in space to those of us who can actually do it." Dauntless whispered to her in mockery. What a jerk! She thought to herself in annoyance.

"I may not be able to fly in space, but we both know that down on earth, I can still kick your ass all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific!" She retorted, her eyes flashing with anger.
"Pay attention!"
Captain Galaxy snapped at them.
"You should also know better than to throw bombs into space! Why did you do that?"

She bit her lip. "But dad, you've done it loads of times!"
He swiveled his chair to look Galaxy Girl in the eyes. "Yeah, ages ago; before I could ring up Cybervore and have him walk me through defusing them."
The Captain shook his head.
"This isn't the 80s anymore honey, bomb tech has improved loads since then. One bomb in space nowadays is worth 50 on the ground, and Toxic used you as a pack mule to get it up there!" He slammed his palm against the table.

"What..." She gasped.
"It's a good thing Cybervor sensed it. I had to go out there and find it myself, before Mastermind Junior could activate it." Cybervor nodded to her, confirming her fathers words.
"I still haven't deactivated it, but it can't harm anyone now. It was a device that would place his nerve gas into the atmosphere to be absorbed by the world's rain clouds."
The hero who could control machinery at will explained to her.
"The perfect distribution system." Agreed Kahrina, the purple-skinned teleporter.

Her pride felt like it had just received a severe whipping as her eyebrows furrowed and her face contorted into a frown.
"And you let Toxic get away, again?" Her father's voice filled with disappointment. The girl's heart was pounding and she felt like such a complete failure.
"I'm sorry dad..."
She managed to get out.

"Sorry isn't good enough!" He snapped. "You've only had one villain your entire life, and you've still not yet managed to permanently defeat him!"
Her father was angry with her, so she guessed that right now would not be the best time to bring up the fact that Mastermind was still very much alive, well, and wreaking havoc! On the flip side however, her father had already defeated dozens of other major baddies, on earth and off.

"I'll try to do better." She promised.
He didn't even catch her eyes as he spoke next. "You are dismissed."
On the way back to her pod, the saddened hero realized what she, and apparently everyone else had forgotten. Today was her birthday.

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading. The full, edited and complete book will be launching on Amazon starting December 1st.
To celebrate its official amazon release, for its first week, it will be available for purchase for only $0.99.
Otherwise, a new chapter will be posted here every Saturday until the full story is available on wattpad. :)

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