'Lickety-Split Lynn', an all-too-average rookie heroine

2001

With this being the first year of the new millennium, the League of Propriety has launched what it calls "The American Millennium Challenge", bringing in prospective new supers - specifically superheroines - from all over the nation in far greater numbers than normal, a full 100, with the expectation that they'd spend a year working from the headquarters in Acropolis city without abandoning their home cities or territory. At the end of it they'd go back with new knowledge and connections. This meant a much greater opportunity than usual for young costumed would-be warriors for justice to get into the most prestigious of institutions - and for the few who truly distinguished themselves, a permanent spot once they'd proved themselves. It was, after all, expected that countless villains had been saving up their best scheme material to ring in the 2000s, so there would be plenty of need.

That being said, even with enough of the forces of evil that no one would be sitting idly by for this whole year, so many fresh young faces (and bodies) would make it hard to stand out... especially for those without unique and novel natural gifts to distinguish them.

You are currently standing in front of a mirror with a cardboard mockup of an interstate highway background representing your native Arizona behind you, practicing your poses in front of a fancy new digital camera on a tripod. 'Natural gifts', you had. 'Novelty', perhaps not so much. So, as you'd often felt about many things in your life, it seems best to be straightforward.

Standing at 5'9", you are definitely what they would call a 'tall drink of water' back home, with long, smooth pale legs fitting into a pair of cowboy boots. The only thing you're wearing above them is an extremely tight one-piece white swimsuit. Although the fabric goes all the way up to a collar around your neck, the clingy material does admirably in supporting your very large bosom - the low-hanging heft of their shape testifying to their authenticity and a lack of any silicone, surgical or super-science enhancement. As you strike a glancing-over-the-shoulder pose for the camera, it captures the sharply tapering bottom of your outfit wedging tightly between your firm, prominent buns, leaving about two-thirds of your butt invitingly uncovered. Your soft blue eyes nicely compliment the dirty blonde hair which you keep trimmed very short in a simple, practical, rounded-off cut that serves the hard-working farmgirl or farmboy equally well.

Overall, you note with a chin wag of pride, an absolute dynamite body that you're rather proud of. You have left most civilians, reporters and small-time crooks alike wide-eyed and at a loss for words since your crime-fighting debut shortly after you turned 19 a couple of years ago - and drawn more than your share of veiled and not-so-veiled condemnations in the newspapers, usually stopping just short of calling you a stripper or something similar.

Now, this Acropolis City - this place is a whole different animal. The so-called 'Millennium Girls' are being featured in press releases by the League of Propriety 10 at a time, and from what you've seen so far, even 'exceptional' like you is only above average.

Above avearage... there's the rub. You're one of those born with superpowers - you're six times faster, six times stronger, can jump six times higher than an Olympic athlete in your weight class, which is all you need to be the most amazing thing on God's green earth back in your home territory, but here, the jaded unspoken rejoinder to a list of your powers is "What, that's it? No laser eyes, no telekinesis, no super-ventriloquism?"

The reactions when you first visited the League HQ weren't "Wow, she's the hottest thing I've ever seen!" or "Wow, she's damn fast!" The only sign that you'd stood out at all to any of the established capes you'd met was when they made fun of your accent.

"Well I'm gonna change all that. All these city-slickers ain't gonna know what hit 'em. I'll climb all them ranks Lickety Split, just like I always said I would." you say to yourself as you send in your photos. You have an edge some of those other girls in the A.M.C. cohort don't - a little quid pro quo arrangement with one of the League's greatest scientists and fastest rising stars. In exchange for keeping quiet about certain elements of her background, a certain selectively diminutive young woman was going to give you the most exclusive leads and best law enforcement, military and government contacts, all in exchange for a few little 'favors' to her.

You tear out of your secret headquarters (read: apartment) to your first important meeting... not yet knowing that your real talent is not so much running fast as getting yourself into the kind of trouble that pretty country girls coming into the big city chasing ambitious dreams have been landing themselves in since long before Maiden America was a twinkle in John Adams' eye...