PROLOGUE

DECEMBER 31,
16 years ago

"Honey, you just have to watch her today,” Grace Avis said, a firm, yet apologetic look on her face.
It was obvious that she had have her fair share of trouble, and needed some breathing space away from the child in the middle of what would be a heated conversation.   
“But why?”
her husband asked in a sulking tone.
“Why does it have to be today, of all days?”

“Because I just got my job back, and I'm lucky Burns even gave it to me."
She shook her head to show her exsausperation.
"Honestly, what normal woman takes a two and a half year maternity leave? I have to cover ball drop tonight, I can't get out of it,"
Captain Galaxy's flustered wife sighed; handing him the diaper bag which was draped over the cast of her broken arm.
Luckily, the broken arm was her left, she wondered how her life would have continued, especially since she needed her right hand for writing purposes.

"But Grace, I just know Mastermind is going to pull something tonight, and the league headquarters still needs more assembly!" the brawny blond father whined.  
"No excuses dear, I'm booked. You don’t get to have a choice in this matter.  Besides, Andromeda is getting too strong for me to handle; look what happened the last time she grabbed my hand!"
As Captain Galaxy opened his mouth to protest, Grace raised her arm, silencing him as she waved her white plaster cast around.

Adam Avis, the hero known as Captain Galaxy sighed. Accepting that he would have to get to take care of the child.
The hero stroked his chin as he glanced down at the baby girl who was asleep in her pink, titanium playpen.
With her left thumb tucked in her mouth and her soft, beautiful, golden curls caressing her face, she looked every bit like a little cherub.
So lovely a sight.

It was tragic but true, his daughter had broken her mother’s arm.
She hadn’t meant to cause any harm, and both her parents knew that.  Yet, that knowledge did nothing to cushion the effects of her strength.
Humans were just so fragile and Andromeda was a superbaby who didn't know any better; and as of now, wasn’t yet capable of handling her superhuman strength. 
Captain Galaxy hoped that with time, she would master it. Thinking to how nice it would when she didn’t rip the door off the refrigerator every time she wanted some juice.

"What if I have to battle him?”
Captain Galaxy asked out loud.
“What if she gets hurt?"
Grace laughed at his words.
"Hurt? Baby, she's indestructible! What could possibly hurt her?"  
This argument was a lost cause; and Adam Avis- a.k.a. Captain Galaxy should have known that all along. Never had he engaged in an argument with his wife that had resulted in him winning. This time was no different.

Just a few hours later, as predicted, Mastermind had ensued chaos, and a call for him had the captain flying to the scene of the crime with his 2-year-old firmly strapped to his back.
"Fwun fwun!!" Andromeda cooed excitedly, and Captain Galaxy smiled despite his awkward situation, glad that his baby girl was having a blast.

Just as the Captain had predicted, Mastermind had planned full scale New Year's Eve shenanigans. The evil genius was holding the innocent citizens of the annual Stark City New Year's Eve bash captive in the downtown area via a dozen 14 ft. tall terrifying robots, armed to the metallic teeth with the latest in Mastermind’s collection of lasers and death rays.
The musicians had stopped playing, and the usual cheers and noises of an excited crowd were gone, leaving the crowd filled square in an every quiet.

Once spotted in the sky, flying to the rescue in his dark blue suit and flowing white cape, people began to point to him, and a wave of hope and relief replaced the quiet fear.

Waving to the crowd, Stark City's hero spotted his wife in below as he flew over and he gave her a smug I-told-you-so look.
"Help me, Captain Galaxy!"
he heard a familiar voice cry out.
The Captain looked up to see that suspended 400 feet in the air above the city, and strapped to the side of the giant silver disco ball meant for partying, was a terrified Alfred Gregory, Stark City's newly elected Mayor.

The hero flew closer to examine the situation, noting that the disco ball was suspended from the browning bank skyscraper, and that the Mayor was attached to it with what seemed to be red and gold electric cables. He quickly realized that the whole ball was a bomb, and from his years of experience with battling Mastermind, he could bet his boots that if he did so much as touch one of those wires, he'd set it off.

Typical Mastermind, the platinum blond thought as he shook his head, the thick coating of hair spray he’d worn keeping his iconic hair in place as he did.

"I wouldn't try it; I'm assuming you've already figured out what will happen if you do," Mastermind’s voice boomed from 40 stories above the hero, amplified by the sound system on the stage in the center of town.
Captain Galaxy scanned the city skyline for his nemesis, and found the villain standing at the edge of the roof of the bank, his silver and white hooded long coat as starched and pristinely clean as ever, with a large cannon-shaped apparatus clutched tightly within his grasp.

"Or do you need me to explain it to you once again, Captain?” Mastermind asked with his classical, fiendish grin. “Brains were never your strong suit."  The caped protector made no response as he flew straight up until he was just a few yards away from his rival, Mastermind, the world's smartest man, and the terror of Stark City. As Captain Galaxy approached, he observed that the big cannon gun was connected by several big black cables to a large buzzing generator only 15 ft. away. Its design was so complicated that the hero figured he probably wouldn't be able to locate the on switch.

"I may not have brains like you,” Captain Galaxy said with a shrug,
“but at least I have hair."  
The crime fighter’s words took on its usual sarcastic tone as he blurted out those words. It was an old rhetoric, brains versus a head of perfect platinum blonde hair; it was nearly as old as their rivalry.
"Are you ready for permanent retirement, Captain?"
Mastermind asked, his villainous voice coming across as eerie and pompous.  

"Give me just one second,"
Captain Galaxy said, making a casual response  to the death threat before unstrapping the baby backpack from his body and quickly setting it about 20 feet away, out of the line of fire.  Mastermind’s gaze widened as Andromeda's big blue eyes peered at her father from over the top of the backpack.
"A child?” Mastermind asked in disbelief.
“You brought a child to our battle?"

Captain Galaxy quickly replied,
"Really sorry about this. I got stuck watching her tonight, this is my daughter..." he paused. grinning at the thought of finally announcing the title he had chosen for his daughter on the day she was born.
"Galaxy Girl!"
The Captain smiled proudly after the words left his mouth. He watched Mastermind’s face closely for a sign that he had been impressed by the choice of name.
“How terribly clever,” Mastermind smirked, nodding in approval.

At that moment, from behind a large pole attached to the generator, a small boy with raven black hair and big dark eyes, who couldn't have been older than three, peeped out and started staring curiously at Andromeda, almost as if he had never seen another kid before.

"Who's that?" Captain Galaxy asked, pointing at the toddler behind the generator.  Calmly, without blinking, Mastermind replied,
"That is my son, Toxic. I apologize for his presence here but he programmed his nannybot to disable the force field around his nursery, and snuck into my transporter."

Son? Mastermind has a son?!?
The Captain thought to himself, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull with suprise.  He had never even considered Mastermind as a possible father figure; the existence of this boy meant he had actually gotten out of his lab long enough to be with a woman, and a very pretty woman at that, considering how cute the boy was.
As Captain Galaxy stared at the boy, he intuitively saw a resemblance. The second half of the boy’s parentage, perhaps?  Those big dark eyes and that hair? He thought, giving the boy who was as pale as his father a once over.

At the thought, the Captain gasped in shock as a vision of the bronze-skinned gypsy villainess known as the Ghost Dancer twirled through his mind. He had known Mastermind and she to be close allies; but he’d never fathomed that they could be that close.
"You too, huh?" The Hero couldn't help but chuckle, crossing his arms.  Mastermind rolled his eyes at the hero's familiarity.
"Enough pleasantries."

With those words, he aimed his gun and fired a beam of silver energy straight at the chest of his archrival. When the beam struck the impervious superhuman, it felt as though the world had come to a standstill, but the battle-hardened crime fighter quickly realized that it was just him- only he had stopped moving. Apparently, he had been hit by Mastermind with a beam that slowed down time.
The silver clad figure of his nemesis darted towards The Captain in a blur, but in reality, it was just a leisurely stroll. Just a millisecond before Mastermind reached his target, the hero broke free, using all of his super strength and flight speed to thrust himself sideways, and out of the time beam's path. He zipped forward and ripped the gun out of the bad guy's hands, snapping it in two before grabbing him by the neck and holding him up against the wall.

The Hero regrettably heard Mastermind's shoulder dislocate as he clasped the villain’s throat in one of his white gloved hands. Mastermind suddenly, and rather unusually, ceased struggling, and the hero noticed that his archrival wasn't looking at him anymore.
"Look!" Mastermind nodded excitedly to a place in space behind Captain Galaxy, who just laughed in his face.
"You think I'm going to fall for the oldest trick in the book?” The Captain asked. “I might be blond, but I'm not that blond!"

"No really, LOOK!" Mastermind cried, shaking his head vigorously.
His voice, packed with much more sincerity than he’d heard the villain use in all of the years they’d been at loggerheads,  made the Captain, still with his hand pinning Mastermind to the wall, turn his head to look at what the villain was so emotional about.  Captain Galaxy saw that little Andromeda was crawling as fast as she could after Mastermind’s spawn and the little boy looked absolutely terrified.
"Stay away!"
Toddler Toxic cried fearfully.
"I'll make you sick. Don't touch me; I'll make you go away!"  The small boy said the words loudly and there was no mistaking the terror in his little voice, but Andromeda paid no heed. She kept laughing and chasing him close on his heels, but the little boy was fast.

Intrigued, Captain Galaxy set Mastermind on the ground, but without releasing his hand from his neck, ready to drop him in an instant to save the boy if needed. The older tot was out-running her, so she stopped and pouted angrily. Suddenly, her little body shot off the ground, flying   straight in his direction.

"She flies?!" Her father exclaimed, his jaw dropping, he became overwhelmed with pride, watching as Andromeda tackled Toxic to the ground, laughing herself silly.

"Fwun!" Andromeda cheered, sitting on top of him.
"Oh no!"
At the sight, Captain Galaxy's stomach dropped.
"She's going to break him!"
He tensed, ready to save the boy, but Mastermind's menacing chuckle somehow made him stop.
"Oh contraire, nemesis. My son will be just fine.”
Mastermind smirked.
“Say goodbye to your precious daughter though, for Toxic isn't just his name!"

The hero looked closer at the boy and saw something he hadn't noticed before; he glowed, ever so slightly, and it was the exact same color of the meteor that Captain Galaxy had found in the woods when he was out jogging many years ago.
His daughter’s massive strength didn’t worry him as much as the trouble she was about to get into.
He tightened his grip on Mastermind’s throat, trying so hard not to kill him.

"What are you talking about?"  
There was a villain-worthy darkness in Mastermind’s voice as he said,
"Enjoy the show!"
Mastermind smiled, but not for long, his eyebrows beginning to furrow.
"Wait, that's not right!”
Captain Galaxy looked back once more and saw to his utter amazement that the kids had actually begun to wrestle one another.  

"She should be dead!"
Mastermind exclaimed, utterly confused, and as he continued to watch the little boy who was simply beaming, like he'd never had so much fun in his life.  
"Touch, touch, touch!" he giggled happily, as he smacked her on the shoulder, and began attempting to wrestle her back.
Each time he touched her, his glow would disappear, as if she were absorbing it.
"Aww..." Captain Galaxy said with a proud smile.
"But he's... he's deadly!" Mastermind tried to argue.
"Not so deadly, it seems," the hero shrugged with a twinkle in his already sparkling blue eyes.
"This isn't over!"
Mastermind warned, using the hero's distraction to free himself, and pressing a button on his belt.  

Before Captain Galaxy could react, Mastermind and his son were instantly teleported to his stealth cruiser and they instantly began to make a getaway. Seeing the robots still below and all the terrified people huddled together in fear, the Hero made a decision against chasing Mastermind this time. He flew over to help the people and after smashing the metal makers of mayhem into tiny pieces and helping the bomb squad untie the terrified young mayor, he picked up his daughter, and strapped her once again to his back.

"Justice," Andromeda said clearly, and Captain Galaxy beamed widely at her. In his state of happiness, something strange went unnoticed: there was a tiny cut on her usually indestructible thumb.

______________________

A/N: Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of my first ever finished book. The full, edited and complete book will be available for purchase 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 on wattpad. :)

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