Last week I introduced you to
Lucky Shot. Today I present a bio on her. Coming next month I'll introduce one of my "universe's" villains! Enjoy!
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Michaela Saez started out life as the only child of her baby boomer parents. While her parents were very affluent, they were also status-seekers who spent little time tending to the upbringing of their daughter. Their inattentiveness was such that they weren’t aware that she had started running with local gangs at an early age when they were away at their jobs or their numerous social functions.
Unknown to Michaela, her power manifested itself early, although not in its current form of glowing eyes. Michaela had a knack for hitting distant objects with whatever nearby object that she could throw. She demonstrated this ability constantly, never missing whatever target she called out, and earned the name “Lucky Shot” by her fellow gang members, even though, as it turns out, luck had nothing to do with it. Her power also assisted in dice games, which earned her considerable sums of money. Despite many accusations of her using loaded dice, she demonstrated that she can win with whatever dice were given her. She could even take loaded dice and roll whatever number was called out.
During this time, Lucky – the name she was now calling herself – bonded with her fellow gang members in a family sense; perhaps subconsciously seeking the family life that didn’t exist among her real family members. Some gang members were true to her trust in them; others took advantage of it (which she would learn to her regret later). In any case, she had developed enough connections in the gang that she was able to move up the ranks to become a trusted lieutenant. During a party to celebrate her rise in rank, an event occurred afterwards that would change her life and attitudes towards being in a gang.
After the party, some of the gang members led the very intoxicated Lucky to one of their apartments. Once there and even while heavily inebriated, she realized that they were attempting to gang-rape her. Unknown to her, the eye-glowing aspect of her power manifested itself for the very first time. Suddenly, she knew where every one of them was in relation to each other and in relation to the room, like seeing the room in an x-ray.
One of them knocked her down, and as they were pulling her pants off, she grabbed a couple of beer bottles and instantly visualized the trajectory that she needed to ricochet the bottles around the room to hit two of her assailants in the back of the head to knock them out. She then managed to break free of her attackers’ grasp and grabbed two more beer bottles. She threw both of them at two more of her assailants, hitting both square in the nose, knocking both of them out instantly. She had one attacker remaining, a 6 foot 5 muscular gang member who served as the gang’s enforcer. Even drunk, he swung with such force that he knocked Lucky to the wall, stunning her.
He then tried to resume his plan to rape her. Lucky regained her senses, but not in time to prevent him from pinning her to the floor and putting his hand around her throat, almost suffocating her. As she put her hands around his wrist, her power instinctively scanned his body, reading it almost like reading a book. She instantly became aware of several actions that she could perform to stop him. She decided upon striking him in the throat to rob him of his breath, which she did by lunging a nearby beer bottle, using the spout to prompt a gag reflex. He released her and lurched backwards, grasping his throat, coughing and gagging.
She then jumped to her feet and grabbed a folded folding chair to swat him down and unconscious. Still unaware of her glowing eyes, she looked around the room and saw that no more attackers remained. Then her glowing eyes shut off, temporarily blinding her. She managed to find a pair of sunglasses and staggered out (because she was still intoxicated) of the apartment. Out of misplaced loyalty to the gang, she never reported their attack, but she never forgot it, either – nor did her attackers. Their attempts to retaliate never ceased until she turned herself in to the police the following year and submitted documentation of her gang and their activities.
In the time between the attack and her surrender to the police, she had borne a son from a former lover (he is not aware of his son). Because of the attack and because she was now a mother, Lucky began to have serious doubts about her association with the gang. However, it wasn’t until about 10 months later that she finally found the courage to leave, and that was a result of a battle with a crime-fighting vigilante nicknamed Shamrock (due to her Irish-themed costume), who managed to hand Lucky one of her rare defeats.
Whether Lucky was defeated because the Shamrock was a better fighter or because Lucky was now having serious doubts about the cause she was fighting for (and thus wasn’t putting out her best effort), Lucky had then finally had enough of the gang, because she realized that this assignment she was on was a set-up for her to either be killed by her fellow gang members or by the police. It was only because the Shamrock intervened that this plan didn’t bear out.
Mainly thinking out loud, she told the Shamrock that she was leaving the gang. The Shamrock was about to leave the scene, but overheard this statement, and stayed to talk to her. After a brief discussion, The Shamrock managed to talk her into turning herself in to the police and to come clean; if for no other reason than to set a good example for her son. Lucky never saw her again, but she never forgot her, and it was their conversation that gave her strength for the coming months in which she had to deal with being incarcerated and putting up with the police and their many, many questions about her gang and their activities.
By this time, Lucky had gotten the attention of the Department of Superhuman Studies (DSS), a federal agency that deals exclusively with superhumans and matters and issues related to them; especially in the obtaining and incarceration of destructive superhumans. Agents who go through police reports to find possible superhuman activity found the reports of her battles and had strong suspicions that she was a superhuman. Once this was confirmed, agents for the DSS went to the police with transfer papers for Lucky to go from the city police to U.S. Homeland Security (The DSS is a department of USHS). Despite many protests from various city officials and law enforcement, Lucky was declared a federal matter and removed from their jurisdiction. She was made available to the police for further questioning if necessary, but now they have to go through federal red tape in order to do this.
Lucky went from a jail cell to living quarters that included a day care center for her son. The DSS also provided tutoring for both her and her son. She was offered a deal: Clear her record by working for the DSS and using her powers to serve her country, or clear her record the longer way by going back to incarceration in the city jail, the police and their interrogations. It wasn’t much of a choice for her, and discovering that she was superhuman was another matter entirely for her to deal with. She finally agreed to join once she was told that the DSS had scientists and medical doctors that would help her to learn about her power. She was assigned to Andromeda, another superhuman, to help her with the transitional phase from leading a life of crime to one of law enforcement, and to help her deal with her powers.
Things did not start out smoothly for them, particularly because they are of opposite political ideologies. And yet, after a few missions together, both developed a begrudging respect for each other, even if they still didn’t like each other. Lucky saw that Andromeda was a true fighter and dedicated to protecting the innocent while Andromeda saw that Lucky was quite skilled in battle tactics and strategy, and she was impressed enough to recommend that she help coordinate some of the battles and skirmishes that they get into. Despite the fact that they still have words, they still work together when needed.
Lucky is now working towards getting a law degree with a specialty in defending superhumans. She was motivated to this vocation once she saw how some of the superhumans that are incarcerated by the DSS are treated, with virtually no rights. While superhumans are officially recognized by the federal government, the matter of their freedom was made dependent upon the kind of power they had and how much self control they had when it came to their powers.
Since some superhumans are capable of a lot more destruction than regular humans, a lot of leeway was given to the federal government in their incarceration and the methods they used to incarcerate them. In the one court case involving a superhuman, the landmark Burgenstein vs. United States (landmark because it officially gave federal recognition of the existence of superhumans), the decision laid down stated that in order to best facilitate the rights of superhumans, they would be dealt on a case-by-case basis by the federal government alone. This decision was the basis by which the DSS had obtained Lucky from the city police. While the DSS had existed for decades before the federal government had officially recognized the existence of superhumans, it was not until this landmark case that the existence of the DSS was made public.
Lucky stays with the DSS because of the help they provide for her and her son, and because she feels the need to make amends for all the problems she caused while a member of a gang. However, the more she learns about the mistreatment of some incarcerated superhumans, the more it weighs on her conscience. Andromeda’s suggestion of Lucky pursuing a law degree has helped her to focus her outrage over the treatment of her “race” (that is, superhumans) instead of lashing out blindly and possibly counterproductively to her progress while with the DSS. Time will tell if Lucky succeeds in getting her law degree first before leading a “rebellion” as she suggested doing one previous time.
