#i coulda been abigail 'abby' normal

[pirate-queen-ali]

the reason i know time travel will never be invented in my lifetime is a million of me would have shown up to give early transition ali different name change ideas

[wordsmith-by-night]

Love Nikki Story Genre: Superhero fiction Word count: 2253

Abigail hated the publicity stunts her manager forced her to do. She loved her car and loved the thrill of the race, but being a public didn’t sit well with her. If it helped her gain her goals, however, she would do it, and so she did. Besides, being one of the few female race car drivers gave her quite the name, and so many young girls looked up to her that she felt it was worth it. Her manager tried to sell it as, “you don’t have to be in the kitchen or just look pretty, you can run with the boys too.”

And that was her image; the beautiful vixen that could compete with the boys. She did photoshoots as a warrior, as a boxer, as a mechanic, as an engineer… whatever most people associated with a male occupation, whether historically or not, she had been put in a photoshoot to challenge it. Part of her felt proud for it, but the other part of her thought that she shouldn’t have to do that. And then there was that little voice in the back of her head that told her how stupid it all was.

Because as much as she loved racing, she only did it for the thrills. They replaced what she called her real occupation, but she couldn’t share that one.

She smiled to a young girl no older than eight and handed a signed picture back to her. “I want to be a doctor one day,” the little girl stated. Abigail smiled brighter.

“Good for you. You can be anything you want these days, don’t be afraid to go for it,” she responded. The girl smiled at her even more, a glittering awe in her eyes. Her mother passed a quick thanks to Abigail and then walked off with the girl in hand. Abigail watched them retreat down the street before leaning back in her seat with a small sigh. She looked to her car, with its red and white and black paint, and longed for the asphalt beneath its wheels.

“Well, that’s it,” Jerry stated, stepping in front of the table Abigail sat behind. She looked up at him. “How’s an early dinner sound? The turnout was better than expected.” Abigail looked at the scenery around her. Mixed in with the buildings were those temporary metal fence-like barriers. They sectioned off where she and her car sat and created a small aisle where people had lined up to get autographs and close-up pictures of the car.

She was about to reply to her manager when the jingling ringtone of her phone went off. Pulling it from a pocket, she studied the face of it. A picture of her best friend filled the screen. “Sorry, Jerry, one sec,” she replied. She swiped the green phone icon across the screen. “Yello,” she answered.

“You’re needed,” her friend, Marissa, stated. Abigail frowned. At least whatever was happening had good timing.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Bank robbery, Second and Lomas. They’ve got some pretty nasty explosives by the sounds of it,” Marissa explained.

“Ok. I’ll get there ASAP,” Abigail replied. She hung up the phone and stood from the table, looking to Jerry. “Sorry, Jer. My friend’s mom kicked her out again in a drunken rage and she’s all torn up about it. I gotta get going.” Jerry let out a sigh.

“This friend seems to need you a lot, Abby,” he stated. She arched a brow as she grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Her shoulders rolled into a shrug.

“Isn’t that what friends are for? Maybe we can celebrate tomorrow,” she added. She pulled her keys out of her other pocket and walked toward her street car. The race car would get rolled into a trailer truck and carted off to the next location it needed to be at. She unlocked her personal car and slid into the driver’s seat before hitting the road.

Her radio crackled to life, relaying the conversation over the cop’s radio channel. A lot of curses came out of her speakers, followed by calls for backup and wondering where the SWAT team was. It seemed like a bank heist worse than the others. She mentally ran through a list of the banks in the area, trying to remember which one sat on Second and Lomas.

The whole downtown area just begged for the worst people. Every local bank branch headquarters seemed to be located in that area, surrounded by courthouses for everything anyone needed. Whenever a criminal got released from jail, they were released in that area, and they immediately went to the bank to cash out anything they needed, or cash in checks from the new jobs they sometimes got.

A picture of the main bank for the city flashed through her mind and she cursed: it sat on the corner of Second and Lomas.

Her car covered her with armor as she drove; reds and whites and blacks covered the dress she wore and covered her body. And then it came to a screeching halt in front of the bank and she stepped out, covering her mouth and nose with a mask. She moved closer to the crowd of cops, waiting to make another move as smoke covered the entrance to the bank.

“What’s going on?” she asked, stopping next to the police chief. The man looked to her with shock as she crossed her arms, keeping her attention on the bank front.

“Coulda used your help earlier,” he growled. She shrugged and glanced to him through the corner of her eyes.

“Thought you had it taken care of until just recently,” she lied. Marissa only called her when the cops got into a situation they couldn’t handle. Normal crime didn’t need the same response that Abigail gave. The cops could handle that. When it came to bigger jobs, or notorious criminals wearing masks like she did, she would step in. The cops were neither equipped nor a big enough force to take on the criminals, not since the city made so many budget cuts for other things.

They had always struggled, but it seemed the government wasn’t as concerned with citizen safety anymore.

The police chief sighed and shook his head. “They seemed like your average criminal. Covering their faces with bandannas, wearing hoodies, brandishing guns. But as soon as we got here and went to enter, the whole place just blew up. It was like it was booby trapped. And they won’t send SWAT. There are hostages in there and now they’re afraid the criminals will just kill them all and make an escape.”

“How many?” she asked.

“Criminals or hostages?”

“Both.”

“About five criminals, and thirty hostages.”

She turned to face him; how did so few men keep so many hostages at bay? Something didn’t sound right to her. “And they just walked in, guns blazing. What kind of gun?”

The chief shrugged. “Regular handguns by the looks of it.”

She turned to face the building again. “How does such a small group keep so many people at bay?” she asked.

“Security footage confirms what he says,” Marissa whispered into her ear through a Bluetooth feed. “I checked the blueprints of the building and it looks they have the entrances and exits barricaded, but how they did it in under thirty minutes, I don’t know. I also don’t know why they didn’t just run with the cash before the police came. Took them like twenty minutes to get there.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” the chief told Abigail. She shook her head.

“It sounds like they were looking for a fight, bunkering in for something. Do you have communication with them, Randall?” she asked. The older man shook his head. “So we have no idea what they actually want.”

“I don’t care what they really want! I want them arrested,” the chief responded. She laughed a little, a genuine smile lighting up her eyes.

“I’ll get them for you,” she stated. Without another word, she stepped forward, walking straight into the smoke. In the cover of the tainted air, she lifted her arm and lifted a holographic screen in front of her. As she moved, it scanned over the area, searching for any heat signatures. A thin wire ran from one side of the door to the other side. Her eyes narrowed.

“They’ve set up traps,” she stated. “Can you tap me into the audio inside?” she asked Marissa.

“Hmmm… looks like they’ve disabled the audio feed. I’ll see if I can get back into it.”

“Keep me updated,” Abigail replied. She pulled out a grappling hook from her belt. With the simple click of a button, the hook shot out and latched onto the top of a window. She let it pull her up halfway before swinging full force at the window. It shattered as she crashed into it and she landed with a roll.

“The hell?!” one of the criminals shouted. They all turned to see Abigail, fully suited in her armor, standing in front of the broken window as smoke crept into the room. She tapped a button on her arm, spikes embedded into the floor from the bottom of her shoes. The men opened fire on her. She ran to the wall, scaling it with the spikes from her shoes before launching off of it. The spikes retracted and she landed a swift kick to one of the criminals. He dropped his gun, which slid across the floor, and then he toppled over.

The sprinklers and fire alarms went off as smoke began to fill the room further.

One of the men raised his gun to aim at her. She flicked her wrist; a compartment slid open from her wrist, releasing a long, rope-like substance. She wrapped her fingers around it and dropped to the floor. Bullets narrowly passed above her and she used the rope like a whip, wrapping it around the man’s leg and pulling. He fell onto his back and slid across the wet floor to her. She knocked him out with a single hit.

She got back up, scanning through the smoke. With a flick of her other wrist, she threw two shurikens. They each hit their mark, causing two more of the criminals to drop their guns. A large ball of light tore through the smoke, hitting Abigail in the stomach. It threw her against the wall. She crumpled to the floor with a cough and a gasp as she tried to regain her breath.

“Fuck. Abby? You ok?” Marissa’s worried voice crackled through the Bluetooth.

“Yeah…” Abigail grunted. She pushed herself to her feet, her legs shaking and her brain in a half panic after the hit. “I’m fine���”

“We’ve been waiting for you, pretty girl,” a man said, stepping through the waning smoke. Abigail straightened, noticing a large contraption in his hands that reminded her of a miniature battering ram, except it had a large opening in the front. “This is our city now.” It began to purr, something inside spinning almost like a fan as it began to glow.

“Marissa, what is that?” she asked, a tinge of fear on her tone.

“I… I don’t know. I’ve never seen something like that. It’ll take me a few minutes to find out,” Marissa responded.

“Well hurry!” Abigail shouted. She jumped to the side as another ball shot out of the opening. She barely avoided it as it crashed into the wall behind her. Cracks tore up the side of the building.

“It’s… uh… it’s…” Marissa rambled, trying to find the information as quickly as she could while Abigail continued to dodge the things it shot out. “It looks like it pulls in the air and turns it into energy before spitting it back out. I don’t know how to stop it.”

The word energy caught Abigail’s attention. “I do,” she responded. She waited for another ball to fly her way before she jumped up and aimed a kick at it. She cringed as her foot made contact, a burning pushing through her foot. It reversed course, heading straight for the machine that launched it. The fan sucked it back in. A string of curses flooded from the criminal’s lips before the contraption exploded in his hands.

He took the brunt of the force, getting slammed into the wall. Abigail raised an armored hand in front of her face for protection and braced against the force. She waited until things settled down and the sound of cops approaching the building could be heard before moving to one of the barricaded doors as Marissa guided her. She moved the barricades, slipped out and around the cops, before getting into her car and driving away.

“That… didn’t seem fun,” Marissa muttered.

“It never is…” Abigail replied. “Get the medical supplies out.”

“Already ahead of you,” her friend answered. “You just get home and then we’ll look into things. Doesn’t seem like they’re your average criminal.”

“No… it doesn’t,” Abigail stated. “But at least the hostages are saved and I didn’t have to explain damages to Randall today.”

Marissa laughed. “He needs to chill out.”

Abigail laughed some as well. “I told him, he’ll have an early death at this rate.” She shrugged to herself and continued down the road. They always took things one day at a time, and though there would be research to do, she had other things to take care of later.