Gemma smiled as she checked out her daughter, who was checking herself out in the full-length mirror.  “This is getting to be a habit,” the mother said to Kellie.

“What do you mean, Mom?” Kellie asked.

“It’s not that long ago I was looking at you here inspecting your outfit for what turned out to be your first date with Dakota,” Gemma said.  Even though Kellie couldn’t see her mother, she could hear the smile in her voice.  “Now I’m watching you get ready for your second, and both times you were dressed as Elevator Girl.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference,” Kellie said.  “The last time I was Elevator Girl in a nice dress for a dance.  This time I’m going as Kellie who’s dressing as Elevator Girl … kind of.”

Gemma smiled.  “But it’s the same dress, just tweaked to look a bit different, with a few different accessories.”

“That’s the beauty of this as a party costume,” Kellie said.  “It’s a public look of Elevator Girl, but not one of the well-known ones, so I can play with it.  My normal mission costumes are too well-known, and we don’t have the money for me to get new variant ones just for one night.”

“From what I hear, there’ll be a lot of ‘Elevator Girls’ there,” Gemma said.

Kellie turned to look at her mother, smiling an embarrassed smile.  The daughter shrugged.  “I guess so,” she said.  “But Kota said he wanted me to dress as Elevator Girl or some other size-changer, and this was the easiest way to do that while protecting my identity.”

Just then the doorbell rang.  “I’ll get it,” said Gemma.  “You finish primping.”

Gemma was ready to hug Dakota when she opened the door; after all, he had been a friend of Kellie’s since childhood and was now not only her boyfriend, but the only person besides Gemma who had figured out Kellie’s secret identity.  But her plan was interrupted when she actually opened the door and saw Dakota in his costume.  Her hand came up to her mouth and her eyes widened, then filled with tears.  She practically fell into him, wrapping her arms around him.

“I take it the costume’s OK?” Dakota said.

Gemma stepped back, wiping the tears from her cheeks.  She nodded and said, “It’s perfect.  I don’t know how many of your classmates will get the reference, but it’s perfect.”

Just then Kellie came down the stairs.  She froze halfway down as she saw Dakota, who was gazing up at her, smiling.

Dakota was wearing a hunter’s jacket and jodhpur pants, along with boots like someone would wear to a foxhunt.  Many people would have thought he was just supposed to be some kind of hunter, except for the wide belt he wore with the central buckle dominated by arrows at the top and bottom.  Kellie knew the costume immediately.  It was based on her grandfather’s when he had operated as Elevator Man.

Dakota grinned as Kellie’s heart melted.  “Wow,” he said, “That dress, huh?  What a great choice.  I love y-- the way you look in that dress.”

Kellie was so caught up in her reaction to Dakota’s costume that she missed his slip of the tongue.  She ran over and hugged him.  “It’s perfect,” she said.  “Grandpa would be so proud, and it’s a great surprise.”

“I’m glad,” he said.  “Are you ready?”

Kellie nodded.  “Um, now, remember, Elevator Girl never called Elevator Man a family member.  She said he was her mentor, so don’t let the relationship slip.”

Dakota nodded, smiling.  “I’ll remember,” he said.  He turned to Gemma.  “Is it always this hard knowing a superheroine’s secret, Mrs. Ross?”

“This is the easy part,” Gemma said.  “There aren’t a lot of times when that kind of information enters into it.  The hard part’s when she’s fighting for her life, waiting for her to come home.”

Dakota looked at Kellie earnestly.  “I haven’t had that part yet,” he said.

Kellie took Dakota’s arm.  “We’ll worry about that later.  Let’s go dancing.”

As they left she looked up at Dakota.  “Man, I hope you don’t dance like my grandpa,” she said.

Dakota shook his head.  “I won’t kiss you like he did, either.”

“You’d better not,” Kellie said.

They arrived at the dance a short time later.  Dakota proved right.  About a quarter of the girls at the dance were in one of Elevator Girl’s two costumes.  Most wore her pink leotard outfit, the one many of them had seen firsthand on one or both of the occasions when she defended the school against super-powered menaces.  A few had been more daring, and wore efforts at approximating her leather costume, although some of those were actually made of latex.

Kellie looked for her friend, Jenna.  She frowned.  Jenna wasn’t there.  Maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise, since Jenna didn’t have a steady boyfriend, but Kellie was still disappointed.  Neither was Dakota’s twin sister, Lakota.

Kellie and Dakota had a good time at the dance for the first couple of hours, but it then became apparent he was tiring due to his battle with his cancer.  They slipped out and started toward the car for the trip home.

Then Dakota stopped in his tracks.  “What is that?” he asked.

Kellie looked.  “Aw, frack!” she said.  “It’s a monster, and it’s heading this way.”

Dakota looked at her, a troubled expression on his face.  “Attacking the school again?”

“Someone’s figured out I go here,” Kellie said.  “I’ve got a plan that I hope will throw them off a bit.  Let me climb onto your antenna, then drive me out about three blocks west.  I’ll hop off at the stop sign and come into the school from a different angle.”

Dakota nodded.  “What do I do then?” he asked.

Kellie glanced at the monster, which was still several minutes away.  This one was big, and light was diffusing through it.

Then she looked back at Dakota.  “Then, you go home,” she said.  “And don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine.”

“You’d better be,” he said.

Kellie got on tiptoe and kissed Dakota, who kissed back, hard and passionately.  When they stopped, she was breathing hard.  “Definitely not like kissing my grandpa,” she said, smiling.  She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, said, “I had a great time!” then leapt into the air and shrank to insect size.

Dakota’s car was old enough it still had an old-style telescoping metal radio antenna.  As Kellie had planned, when he stopped at the stop sign, it whipped a bit, allowing her to glide off it on air currents due to her tiny size.  Once she was sure she was at an angle of approach that didn’t look like she’s been at the school, she hit the control on her bracelet and grew, dropping off her dress to reveal the pink leotard underneath as she did.

Kellie, now 80 feet tall, sprinted as best she could toward the monster, being careful not to step on buildings, vehicles or people.  Soon she was standing in the park, northwest of the school.

“Hey, Shiny!”  Kellie shouted at the monster.  “Looking for me?”

Kellie had to admit to herself as the creature turned toward her that it was beautiful.  It appeared to be made of some form of crystal, and the lights from houses, the school and some nearby businesses all sparkled through it in a manner that reminded her or Christmas lights.

As the monster turned toward her, if flung shards of itself at her.  Kellie heard them whizzing through the trees and saw them slicing through leaves.  They were razor sharp.  She found herself wishing she’d been able to wear her leather armor, like she usually would on a patrol night.

A simple duck allowed Kellie to dodge the shards.  She hit the control and grew to 220 feet, swinging a punch at the creature.  She assumed it would shatter on contact, like the delicate creature it appeared to be.

As soon as her exposed hand hit the creature, Kellie yelped briefly with pain.  The monster was diamond hard, and so cold it had given her hand a bad freezer burn.  It actually stuck to her skin for a moment, but then released itself.

So, it’s super-cold, Kellie thought.  That kind of temperature can’t be maintained for long.

Then Kellie realized the monster was aligning its body parts to use the lights of a cell phone tower to project a beam through it.  Kellie rolled to dodge before the beam hit her.  It left the ground smoldering.

Great, thought Kellie.  Its surfaces are so polished that it can shoot laser beams from available light.  Well, I can take care of that.

Tripling her height, Kellie spat down on the monster.  The colossal loogy had its desired effect;  The monster’s lens couldn’t focus its laser power properly.

Kellie looked around.  She scooped up the dress she’d worn for her date, now tiny to her, and used it as a sling to catch the monster.  Then she carried it out to a metal treatment plant on the edge of town.

Kellie hollered down to the building.  “This is Elevator Girl.  I need you to open the doors to your big heat-treating machine, please.”

Remembering a local newspaper article she’d read online, Kellie knew there was a garage-style door by the machine in question that allowed it to slide out.  The ambient heat alone should help defeat the monster.

As the door opened, Kellie could feel the monster squirming.  She knew intellectually that it wasn’t really alive, but it didn’t help.  It was fighting for whatever semblance of life it had, and she felt sorry for it for a fraction of a second.

Then Kellie remembered what the monster had apparently been sent to do:  to menace, and possibly harm or even kill, her fellow students.  If she didn’t destroy it, it would return to that effort.  It had to be taken out.

Kellie let loose of one side of the dress, allowing the monster to fall to its destruction.  It screeched like metal grinding on metal as it was exposed to the heat, then rapidly melted away.

Kellie paused long enough to look at her dress.  The creature had ripped it in too many places.  She sighed.  There would be no third date in this dress.  Still, there was nothing to be done for it.  She thanked the business’ manager, who had come out to see her, and went home.

Once she was in and got through with her mom’s questions, Kellie headed for her room.  She was about to call Dakota when he called her.  She reassured him that she was all right.

“But I’m afraid that dress you like got ruined defeating the monster,” Kellie said.

“It helped save your life, right?” Dakota said.

“Yeah,” Kellie said.

“Then it was worth it,” he said.  “I had a really, really good time tonight, Kel, and the best part is that you’re OK.”

“I had a great time, too,” said Kellie.  “We going out again?”

“Yeah,” said Dakota.  “We’ll figure something out.  But the chemo’s catching up to me tonight.  G’night, Kel.”

“G’night, Kota,” Kellie said.

After they had ended the call, Dakota whispered, “I love you.”

At the same time, Kellie was frowning.  She couldn’t be sure that she’d done enough to throw off whoever was behind the monsters and the Planner’s attack.  Her very existence appeared to be endangering her classmates, and Dakota and Jenna.  She had to figure out who was behind the attacks, and why they were making them.  But how could she even begin to do that?