Author's Note: In the event you, my audience, have either missed or forgotten the note at the beginning, I am placing this reminder here that this story is both a prequel to "These Tights" and a tragedy in how it ends.

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Chapter 33
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The days passed before Judy and her mother returned home, and it wasn’t long before it was time for her to return to school. Judy was changing her clothes in the locker room on Wednesday, and down to her undies, when she was suddenly grabbed from behind.

“Welcome back!” shouted Denise.

“There you are,” Judy uttered.

“You never call, never write.”

“You’re not going to steal my bra again, are you?”

“Now, why would I do a thing like that?”

When Judy looked over to their witnesses, the other girls all suddenly looked away, feigning innocence. A few of them giggled.

She felt an unusual draft, and saw why once she looked down.

“How?”

Denise was swinging her panties around on a finger. Luckily, the other girls only saw her butt, but Judy was still growing livid. Denise handed the panties back with her usual cheery attitude.

“Don’t ever do that again,” said Judy.

“Someone’s edgy,” Denise said.

Judy didn’t respond to her. In fact, she put on her underwear, doing her best not to bend over and show everyone her lower lips, and then her gym clothes without a word.

“Sorry,” Denise said to her. “I’ll be more mindful of your feelings in the future. I just missed you, you know?”

Judy said, “There are better ways of showing it.”

“Like stealing your father’s keys or wallet?”

“So, what happened over your vacation?” Denise asked when they had a chance to talk during Lunch.

Judy told her about the better part of the trip through the American northeast. She’d slept on the train most nights, at a cabin for one, and at an inn by the Great Lakes for another. A woman had tried to kill her in Maine, but Judy’s mom saved her. Around the Great Lakes, the superpowers were few and far between, and the culture was really tame by comparison to Paragon City.

“Why would anyone try to kill you?” said Denise.

“She apparently thought that I was some chosen sacrifice, or something like that. She might have associates here in Paragon who’d come after me,” Judy said.

“Oh. Oh, Judy, I had no idea. I probably shouldn't have grabbed you from behind like I did earlier, huh? I promise to be more careful. I’m serious. I’ll even beat up anyone who comes after you.”

Pixeletta entered the League’s base on Thursday. It was hard to believe that it had already been a week since she was last here.

“Hey there, sweety,” said Princess Undercut as soon as Pixeletta entered the meeting room.

A few other members were present, and they were less clear in their welcomes.

“Hi, everyone,” said Pixeletta with her usual cheer and charm, though it felt more empty this time than it usually did.

“Psi Wizard got back late last night and had to deal with a work emergency almost as soon as he entered his apartment,” said Princess Undercut. “But he did tell me what happened.”

“Everything?”

“Most of it. Walter and Mortar are out gathering information now. Meanwhile, the rest of us were going to split up into pairs and go patrolling. Walter wants us pairing up at all times until stated otherwise.”

“Oh. Who am I pairing up with?”

“Whoever you like, sweety.”

“I take it the same invitation went to everyone else?”

“No, you’re just spoiled.”

Pixeletta had no idea how it had happened, but she was facing a villain one-on-one inside of a bouncy castle. She battled the unknown villain while Princess Undercut and the party goers—they were at a birthday party—looked on and cheered.

She jumped and punched, dodged, and bounced off of more surfaces than she could count.

In fact, she was sure that the bouncy castle somehow had more than five or six sides while she bounced around and tried to keep focus on the villain. When she’d seen the castle in the distance only moments earlier, there were only the three sides plus the floor. Added to the fact that the villain’s power was the ability to bounce off of things, the fight got interesting, for a lack of a better word.

Her electric powers went into a series of punches, more than half of which she wasn’t even sure hit the villain. When the villain hit the floor of the bouncy castle, and recoiled off of it face-first, Pixeletta heard the kids cheer in unison outside. Birthday clowns, who needed them?

“Good afternoon, Judy,” said War Lagoon.

“Jeffers, hey! I haven’t seen you in a while. And hi, Wyatt.”

Pixeletta joined them at the meeting table. Mortar Mage was entering information into the computer’s auxiliary console that controlled the projector.

“I heard you had a ball yesterday,” said Psi Wizard.

“Do you spend your nights just coming up with these?” she asked.

Psi Wizard opened his mouth as though ready with a witty response, and then he closed it with a rapid shake of his head.

War Lagoon said, “I’m more surprised that Tatiana hasn’t given him a concussion yet.”

“Who says she hasn’t?” Pixeletta countered. “Maybe that’s where most of the puns come from.”

“I’m not sure I like where this conversation is headed,” Psi Wizard remarked.

“Alas poor Wyatt, his brain taken from us before his time.”

“Maybe we’re going to need a doctor, or a psychic,” said War Lagoon.

“Haha. So, Warren, how’s the search going? Did you find any new information about those kids who were abducted?”

Mortar Mage said, “We’re still trying to find a link, if any, but it’s looking like there was a failed attempt on a third kidnapping back on the 27th. The young lady ended up in a short-term coma and recovered while you were out of town. Her parents required heavier care, but remained conscious. They said that they didn’t recognize the attackers.”

“Attackers, plural?”

“Yes. The police, however, dug a body out of the rubble and found an agent of the Arachne Regime. Now the whole family is being watched in case they’re being targeted personally. Blaze and Rampart are taking turns checking in with the police during their patrols.”

“So now it’s looking more like the kidnappings and the attack on that family are all related to our mission as a task force,” said Pixeletta.

“As a supergroup, but yes. Now, if we can only find out what they’re doing to the other girls who aren’t turning up anywhere, and who they mean to find, we can finally jump ahead of the curve and beat the Arachne Regime.”

Pixeletta gazed around the room in a casual nod, and found Psi Wizard nodding her way. She was unsure how much he had told everyone. She felt like there was something that the others weren’t telling her, honestly. However, she shrugged it off, and life went on.

Mortar Mage then said, “I need to do something about installing a power scanner for the city. Until then I’m going to have to rely on daily visits to a couple science labs to keep track of anyone trying to tunnel beneath the city. It’ll help unless we’re dealing with a mutant with tunneling powers. Seismographs tend to miss a lot of that.”

Every once in a while through Judy’s life, including back when she was Julian, she would get a mild tingling sensation in the back of her neck when something bad was bound to happen that was going to impact her. It usually never lasted long. Since her hair had started to grow out a little—it was shoulder length these days—she often tied up her hair the moment it felt like it was tickling her neck. The last thing she needed to do was freak out over her own hair rubbing her skin.

Monday morning, it tickled a second time, and she frustratingly reached back to tie her hair, only to find that she had already done so earlier.

Go away, bad news, whatever you are.

She kept an eye out all day at school, hoping that she could catch whatever was going to happen so that she could act and avert the crisis.

The first thing that happened was really minor, but it gave her pause. Judy ran into the teacher who had seen her submerge into the school’s computer system during the mass invasion. They nodded to one another and sidestepped in an awkward manner. For the first couple sidesteps, the teacher mirrored her own. Only then did he extend a hand to let her by him.

Still hoping that she’d been imagining things that morning, Judy walked to her third period class, during which time her neck tingled again.

“That sounds weird to me,” said Denise. “You’re not a psychic or anything like that now, are you?”

“Of course not,” said Judy.

“Just checking.” Denise smirked, and curiously took a deep breath. She seemed to be deep in thought more often lately.

“What’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“Yes. I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’m trying to figure something out. That’s all. You don’t need to worry.”

Judy didn’t feel any more tingling through the rest of the day, so she hoped that Denise’s assurance that things were fine was enough. She met up with Denise after their final classes for the day so they could walk together to the parking lot.

Not two steps later, the principal’s voice came over the intercom speaker:

“Miss Grandt? Miss Denise Grant, could you come to the office, please? We need you to pick up something for your parents.”

“Odd that he’d ask for me now over the intercom,” said Denise.

“That sounds really weird,” said Judy. “Let me come with you.”

“Promise?”

“What?”

Denise giggled. “I’ll be fine. You just head along; I’ll catch up in a minute or two. Look, you have nothing to worry about. You’d think a team of poorly dressed supervillains were waiting around the office in broad daylight for me, or something.”

“Denise.”

“Oh, will you just go? I’ll be right there. Besides, I think I finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

Her friend merely brushed a finger down her nose and ran off before Judy could get an answer. She shook her head and started walking.

Denise was right. It was broad daylight. The teachers and staff were capable adults.

She reached the parking lot and found Denise’s parents and their car towards the front of the school rather than by the back where they normally parked.

“Hey, Judy,” they called.

“How are you doing?”

“Did Denise tell you the big news yet?”

“Where is Denise?”

Judy brought up her hands. There was too much going on through her head, questions or otherwise. The tingling sensation came and went again.

“She’s inside the office,” said Judy.

Henry said, “What’s she doing there?”

“The principal said they had something for her to give to you.”

Henry and Robin gave one another a confused glance and a shrug.

That was when everything finally hit Judy. The neck tingle, the odd circumstances for Denise heading to the office, the abductions.

“No.”

Judy dropped her backpack on the backseat of the car, and ran back inside the campus. She vaguely heard people calling for her from behind, but no one’s voice mattered. She ran until she had good reason to stop. She ran until she could see her friend’s face and know that Denise was safe.

She ran until she got inside the office.

There, the collective staff was unconscious and injured.

She swallowed hard and walked to the principal’s office where the unconscious bodies stopped, as did Judy’s heart.

There was a gaping, singed hole in the middle of the principal’s floor.