Welcome to the new world.

After that, there was nothing left to do but the cleaning. She had to make it so no one even suspected what she had done, or she was sure that she would die of embarrassment. Not to mention that she had to put on the new clothes she had already laid out for the day. If Lyra was one thing, she was organised. She was the sort of person who liked to know where everything was, and to make sure that her plans were updated to the minute.

She washed down the chair, then took care of the bathroom. She swept up her hair and dumped it into a bin, the shredded clothes were taken into her room to be disposed off when her own bin was emptied, and her sex toys were hidden away again until they were needed next. Now, as she knew that no one would be home for some time yet, she did all of this naked. She had her clothes prepared of course, but decided not to don them just yet. She enjoyed the feeling of the cold air against her skin, especially between her legs because of how bare it was there now. With her vulva shaved, every time she took a step or exposed herself it brought a new flood of embarrassment that made her cheeks burn out.

Lyra liked to be embarrassed, in case this wasn't clear enough already. Being humiliated or tormented was a turn on for her like nothing else. She sometimes wondered what would happen if people found out about it, and she figured she would probably die of shame. She was such an orderly person otherwise. No one could see her and say that she didn't know how to take charge or control a situation. You tended to get that when your father was technically the descendent of a shadow god and your mother was a superhero who had fought him. Lyra was used to situations that would baffle an average person, and she could take things in stride that few others could.

Take for example Stripes. Stripes was a tiger. he was also their house pet, and allowed to roam more or less as he choose. Because whether big or small, a cat is still a cat, this was typically kept to places which were sunny and warm, small and enclosed, or shadowed and dark so that you would never see him coming. He'd scared away plenty of housekeepers that way. But he really was a big softie.

Or, well, he was to her anyway. Lyra didn't exactly know how it worked, but he'd never threatened her in her life. She knew that keeping tigers wasn't exactly normal. or even that safe, but her father assured her that he was absolutely safe as a house pet and would never lay a paw on her or any of her friends. When he did this, he had a sort of smug aura that any child will come to know. it was clearly because he had Done Something. But Lyra had never been able to figure out what it was, and the way that her mother crossed her arms and sighed when he acted that way told her that neither had she.

There was also the fact that the aforementioned tiger was now well over twenty years old, and yet was still as young and strong as it had been in its prime. Probably another sign that someone had stepped in somewhere. For the life of her, Lyra couldn't figure out what her father had done to it, though. He had no powers related to biology or immortality. he had what she had, but better. Her mother was strong, could fly, had fire manipulation when she was angry. Nothing there to explain an immortal tiger either.

Alexi had once joked that Stripes was an ancient tiger god, but Lyra was pretty sure that this was untrue owing to the fact that her mother had smacked him over the head gently and rolled her eyes.

Reasonably sure, anyway.

Once she was done tidying, Lyra moved back to her room. it was a large room, just like the house. large and well furnished, with a bed set against the far wall. A computer against the nearest one. A window which looked over the courtyard, and a series of shelves as well as a small table for working on when she felt the need. when she'd been younger, the walls had been plastered with posters of heroes from the past, but she was past that now. She'd taken them down last year, and instead decided to focus on her future career. She was studying hard, trying to get a proper education which she would use to live her own life. You see, Lyra lived a good life but there was one thing which had always bothered. She was the daughter of two famous supers. She lived in their shadow constantly. Money was no problem because they were rich - Redwing was well paid as one of the foremost heroes in the city, and as for Alexi, he had money going back generations. if she'd wanted a house of her own, she could have just asked and it would be given. But she wanted to earn her way. she wanted to be seen as a person in her own right, not just someone tagging along with their famous parents.

That was why she worked so hard at college. Nearly burning herself out several times. She did good work, and the other students called her gifted. Even if their words were tinged with jealousy, they made her smile for it was an acknowledgment of her hard work. The truth was that she was no genius. She was just someone who had set herself a goal and strove for it with everything she had.

Admittedly, she had tutors, and teachers who would come to spend extra time with her. She had been prepared for education long before actually embracing it. She felt a bit guilty about that sometimes, when she thought about it. It felt unfair and it was. Because her parents had money and power, she was starting well above many others. But there wasn't much she could do about it, and she had promised herself that she would stand on her own two feet one day.

The door closed behind her and she sighed. She was still naked. Her fresh clothes were laid out on the bed, but she didn't put them on just yet. She wanted to linger like this for a little while more. She looked towards her computer, sitting down as a tendril of shadows flicked it on. The screen blinked, and then flashed into life. She looked to the left, where a web cam was set up. A tiny little tingle ran down her spine. What if someone was watching her right now? It was off, she knew that for sure. It wasn't even plugged in, but the idea made her breath hitch. Then, she shook her head with a half smile.

"You've already had your fun," she told herself. "You don't have time for anymore."

She had work to do. Classes to finish. Even so, the first thing she did on the computer was check out the latest news stories. There wasn't much there. For the last five years, New Ember City had been experiencing a downturn of crime. Common crimes were still going on, but super villains were almost stamped out. It was to do, as so many things were, with the war. Twenty years ago, the world had gone crazy. Nations had collapsed, their had been a great war. Nuclear weapons and worse had been used. She didn't understand it fully - she'd been born two years after it concluded. The war had been brief, but furious. By the end, there wasn't much left of the previous order. It had been a war not only of weapons like guns and missiles and nuclear armaments, but also of heroes and villains. There had been grand alliances, factions formed out of the collapsing chaos of the old world. Not all of them were from the same origin. Sometimes, they were simply made of stitched together survivors. Heroes, villains, remnants of a dozen countries. Men and women just trying to stay alive.

After the war, there had not been nations. There had been scattered, surviving cities and towns. Over time, those had grown, becoming city states. The strongest of the city states were those who had both strong weapons and powerful supers, as well as easy access to food, technology and medicine. Not everyone was so lucky.

But New Ember City was. It had been the home of the League of Heroes before the war. It had been the domain of Avatar, the strongest hero in known history. It had weathered the war, if not easily, at least without the horrible bloodshed that had inflicted other places. And afterwards, it had been well placed to rebuild.

The new world was run by city states, and New Ember City was one of the biggest and most advanced of those City States. it was like going from a minor city to a super power in less than thirty years. After the war, villains had largely been lured to the side of the heroes. usually with offers of money. Those who had been too nasty to bring back, or who had refused had been hunted down or **** to ground. Suddenly reduced to a single city instead of a nation, no one was willing to play the old game of cops and robbers. It was serious, the stability and survival of the city were at stake.

So one by one, villains were picked off. Sent to jail or released with the understanding that their super days were done. Sometimes, the worst of them simply vanished into the night. Some said that the city had gotten too hot for them and they'd left to find somewhere else. Others mused that they had vanished very suddenly for that.

In any event, a lack of villains was good for most people. Heroes and police kept the city functional, farm lands surrounding it provided food and water was filtered and carefully preserved. It was a more precarious life than they had had before, but it was all that Lyra really knew.

With such thoughts playing through her mind, she opened the latest coursework she had been sent and got to work.

The fact that she was still naked didn't even cross her mind.

Totally.