[CENTER][H3][B][COLOR=darkslateblue][hr]L I S A  M A R I E  W A L K E  R[/COLOR][/B][/H3][sub][i]Conquistador University[/i], Paradise Hills, [b]Los Paradiso[/b] | 11:00PM [/sub][/CENTER][hr]

	[color=darkslateblue][i]Tonight is the night[/i][/color]. The night that all the pieces were going to start falling into place, and the puzzle would become a picture. The picture, of course, was going to be of Lisa finally making this whole ‘vigilante’ shtick work. Tonight was the night.

	Some part of her, the part of her brain that had always insisted on being a negative Nancy, was telling her not to get her hopes up, saying that [color=Darkslateblue][i]‘Lisa, you’ve been wearing a mask and beating these streets for almost two weeks now, and you haven’t seen a single crook yet. Haven’t even spotted anybody so much as jay-walking, littering even. Why should tonight be any different?’[/i][/color] [i]“Nancy’s”[/i] logic was compelling, and the fact that it was probably true that Lisa’s bad luck would hold, and all she was in for was another night of getting soaked to the bone mixed in with a healthy bout of mind numbing boredom should have conspired to make her realise that her new interest in  extra-curricular activities was a terrible idea, but the truth was it all had very little effect on Lisa’s optimism. She was going to do this, didn’t matter how hard, how boring, how illogical it might be. 

	She waited until she could hear Vronnie’s snoring from the room next door – the walls in their dorm were paper thin – before grabbing the duffle bag she kept stashed at the bottom of her closet, and pulled the costume out from within it. The dark material was still damp from the night before, eliciting an involuntarily shiver from her when she slipped them on, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Maybe she should have tried to sneak them into the drier earlier. At the time she had worried someone might have seen her and asked uncomfortable questions about why she was spin-drying ballistic vests and combat trousers, but now she wondered if that wouldn’t have been a small price to pay for a dry t-shirt.

	She cracked her window open, driving rain near instantly gusting into her small room. [color=Darkslateblue][i]T-shirt wouldn’t have been dry for long anyway,[/i][/color] she consoled herself. She clambered out the window and onto the fire escape, pulled the shutter down behind her, and set off on her now nightly patrols. She was soaked, cold and bored within ten minutes.

	[color=Darkslateblue][i]Tonight better be the night.[/i][/color]

[hr]
	An alarm broke the monotony of the night, cutting through the constant patter of rain hitting concrete, and electrical hum of old street lights. It was so sudden and unexpected that Lisa nearly jumped in surprise. [color=Darkslateblue][i]Got to work on that. You never see Daredevil jumping at car alarms. He’s got nerves of steel, not nerves of … copper, or whatever inferior metal it is my nerves are made from.[/i][/color]

	Fright aside, it may actually be a blessing in disguise. Alarms meant trouble, and trouble was just what she was looking for. She knew that if she wandered Downtown long enough, she’d eventually get lucky. Knowing that it was best to strike the iron while it was hot, she took off running in the direction of the alarm.

	The closer she got, the louder the commotion got, raised male voices beginning to mingle with the blaring sirens. Angry voices. And lots of them. That negative Nancy voice struggled to make itself heard again, trying to warn her of how bad an idea this was. Nice girls like her really shouldn’t be getting themselves involved in what she was no doubt about to get involved in. By that point it was too late though. Lisa was at full tilt, with adrenaline and excitement coursing through her veins. The time for common sense was long over, it was all instinct now, and even if there was a cold, forbidding knot forming in her guts, she couldn’t stop her legs pumping forwards even if she wanted them to.

	She turned a corner onto a wide street that looked like it was playing host to a ‘Warriors’ re-enactment. There was over two dozen young men and women involved in a chaotic rumble, every single one doing their level best to kill the others. Rocks were flung, bats were brandished, bottles smashed. There didn’t seem to be any sides to the brawl, or at least if there were sides they’d long lost any semblance of order. 

	She’d never seen a fight before, or not a real one at least. She’d seen plenty fight-scenes in movies – Her dad had made her watch every Chuck Norris movie out there – and she’d played enough video games that she’d thought she had a pretty good idea of what a fight should look like, but in her mind she’d pictured it flowing, like a beautiful dance or a well-choreographed street performance, moving from one perfectly planned form to another like an award winning ballerina who had been rehearsing her moves for months. 

	This … wasn’t that. It was dirty, and quick, and all so confusing that she had to take a moment to try and pull some sense from it, try to figure out the narrative here, figure out who was who, which guys were the bad guys and which the good. Then she watched one man stick a switch blade into another’s arm, and the severity of the situation hit her. There weren’t good guys or bad here. Just stupid people trying to hurt each other, maybe even kill one another. And if she didn’t do something, then they might just get their way.

	[color=Darkslateblue][i]Tonight is the night.[/i][/color] She reminded herself. A small part of her wished it wasn’t. This could end very badly. Very, very badly. And not just for her, but for everyone involved. 

	Lisa took a great deep breath, set her feet apart, and –

	[color=Darkslateblue][B]“STOP FIGHTING”[/B][/color] She bellowed, her voice coming out firm and strong, surprising herself with the volume and commanding tone. She had no idea she had that in her! To say she was pleased with the effort would have been an understatement. To say she was pleased with the effect on the brawlers would have been the opposite. Whether they didn’t hear her, or just plain ignored her, not one ceased their efforts in trying to brain the others. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t pay that much attention to her, they did have their own stuff going on after all, but it was still rude all the same, and Lisa was more than a little miffed.

	[color=Darkslateblue][B]“Hey! I’m speaking to you!”[/B][/color] That rod of iron that had seemed to strengthen her voice last time was gone now, replaced by the weedy tones of a petulant child not used to being ignored. It got the same results her last effort did. She took a few steps forward, berated the group again, got ignored for her efforts again. Now she was getting plain angry, and so she bent over to pick up a stray rock, and hurled it at the back of the nearest scrapper. The throw was beautiful, the aim sublime, and it cracked against the man’s bald dome, driving him from his feet and throwing him to the ground. His opponent, a teenager who had just been biting his arm like a rabid dog, and the combatants nearest too him, all looked up to see Lisa standing there, feeling quite sheepish now that she had their attentions. 

	“Who the hell is that?” Demanded a burly tattooed pugilist. 

	“Fuck knows, thought they were one of your guys.” Responded a tall, skinny woman with a crew cut, wearing shorts that showed off far too much of her pasty flesh, especially in this weather.

	“Like Hell! Look how shitting tiny they are. No way we’d let them in the Crew. That’s Thirds material if I’ve ever seen it.” Tattoos retorted, before turning to Lisa and pointing a finger at her. “Hey! Cunt! Who’d the fuck you think you are?”

	Lisa, quite taken aback by the exchange, and the profanity displayed, struggled to find a suitable response, eventually settling for a confused [color=Darkslateblue][B]“Uhhh…”[/B][/color] Before she had a chance to improve on that unforgettable introduction the skinny woman piped up once more.

	“Fuck it, let’s just splatter the fucker, then I can get back to fucking you Crew-Bastards up.” There were several nods of approval to this, and before Lisa really knew what was happening, five gang-members were advancing on her, intent on making her vigilante career a remarkably short affair. She took a back step, all of a sudden regretting the recent life decisions that had brought her to this place immensely.

	[color=Darkslateblue][i]Why did tonight have to be the night?[/i][/color]