The Junior Super-Criminals: A Bit of a Mouthful

Most neighborhoods in Gotham City were completely starless at night, multicolored lights from towering billboards and speeding headlights completely flooding them out. But if you ventured out to the slums, where the darkness had a greasy quality that seemed to seep into every crevice and alleyway, you could just make out the faint sparkle of starlight beneath the inky smog.

Although the stars twinkled prettily, they offered little warmth to the shivering girl as she wandered the streets of Gotham’s East End. She was a tiny thing, with pale skin that prickled in the chill and the sharp point of tapered ears peeking out from beneath her golden strands of hair. The emerald green spandex of her costume did little to protect her against the elements, and its bright hue made her stand out amongst the bums and drug dealers loitering the streets. As she felt the eyes of the vagrants running up and down the length of her body, she decided to hug her shoulders tighter and quicken her pace.

She felt a wave of discomfort as the leering gazes followed her every move. Why must these costumes be so clingy? The thought loomed miserably in her mind as she attempted to block out the lascivious stares.

The East End was notorious for being unsafe to travel through at night, but Nymph wasn't from Gotham. She wasn't even truly from Earth. She was from a land of twilight and magic known as Faerie and understood little about how dangerous it was for a young girl like her to be traveling alone in the slums at such a late hour.

Her gaze was sternly set ahead as her boots clacked against the concrete sidewalk, each step growing closer to the looming alley many paces away. Her focus was so intense that she missed the boney arm emerging from the darkness of the alleyway, fingers twitching in anticipation of grabbing her. With a sudden jolt, she was yanked into the dimly lit alley; a filthy hand clamping down over her mouth as she tried to scream.

Her eyes darted back and forth as she surveyed the alley, quickly assessing her surroundings like her mistress has taught her. She counted six or seven men surrounding her, all of them wearing dark, hungry expressions that sent a shiver running down her spine. Her assailants had likely sought to hide their numbers under the cover of darkness, but her keen elven eyesight could make out details in the shadows just as well as it could in the light.

"Shhh! Shhh, little mama! Me and my friends just wanted to show you something fun," the man who had seized her whispered hotly into her ear through a mouth of foul, rotting teeth.

The “fun” the man seemed to be referring to was a syringe, dripping with a black sticky substance that she did not recognize. But she had spent enough time on earth to know that human drugs weren't nearly as fun and whimsical as the hallucinogenic mushrooms or pixie dust sprinkles back in Faerie.

"Lemme go! I don't want any!" Nymph shouted, though the sound was muffled by the large hand covering her lower face.

"We won't even make you pay for it if you play nice," the man sniggered while tugging at the waistband of his trousers.

In a panic, she clamped down hard on the man's grimy hand and felt her teeth break through his skin. His bellow of agony reverberated off the alley walls as he rocked her with a powerful shove that sent her crashing into the brickwork. Pain shot through her little body as she collapsed onto the ground.

"The little bitch bit me!" the man growled, sucking at his lacerated hand.

"You don't want to do this. Just let me go and you can all make it home," Nymph warned the man as she struggled to pick herself up off the ground. Her head was swimming and her legs felt unsteady underneath her.

This warning elicited a series of cruel, mocking laughter from the men in the alley. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

"I asked nicely, but you didn't want nice. Now you're getting it rough," the man who had grabbed her sneered as he finally freed himself from his pants.

"Please stop!" Nymph wailed, her hands instinctively pushing against the man's chest to try and distance herself from him, "I can't control it when I get scared!"

Unfortunately, the man kept advancing and Nymph suddenly felt a familiar surge of angry energy welling up inside of her.

A green light shot out from her hands, exploding into a dazzling shower of emerald sparkles as it collided with the vagrant. The man began shrinking and changing, his body emitting a series of sickening cracking sounds as his bones snapped and reformed themselves. His flailing became more and more frantic as he tried to understand what was happening to him. His gargled screams sounded wet and pitiful as his throat twisted, but the sound quickly quieted as he lost the ability to communicate with human words. When the green light finally dissipated, the man was no longer a man at all, but a tiny newt curled up beneath the girl's green boots.

"Why couldn't you just leave me alone!" Nymph screamed and stomped down on the defenseless creature with her boot, reducing it to a frothy red smear on the ground. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she shot an evil look at the other men in the alleyway.

A voice cried out from the depths of the alley, "She's one of them damn metahumans! Run!!" In a surge of panic, the men scattered in all directions. Nymph watched them flee with a sorrowful look on her face.

Turning her attention back to the mangled remains of the newt laying lifelessly beneath her feet, she screamed out in frustration, "Why did you make me do that?!"

The rest of her journey through the slums of Gotham City was relatively uneventful. People seemed to be giving her a wide berth, either because of the fresh gore covering her left boot or the angry, tear-streaked expression on her tiny face. Before she knew it, her destination appeared on the horizon like a gleaming beacon of hope, but little did she know that it was actually a den of sin and suffering.