Chris always dreamed of being the kind of superhero who could inspire people. But between fighting crime as Prodigious Girl and then having to dress as a girl in his off hours, he wasn’t exactly living the dream. Even less so when his latest thrilling escapade was to babysit his little cousin for a weekend. But when a cunning body-swapping villain sets his eyes on our young hero(ine), Chris finds himself in far more danger than he expects! (A tale of Faraday City.)

Identity Crisis: Adventures in Babysitting

By Jenny North

The trick to immortality, Xenos had discovered, was not dying.

An observation like that might seem obvious to some, but considering that he'd managed to survive for centuries, he was doing better than most. Though it seemed that the group of furious Revenant cultists who were pursuing him were intent on bringing that span to a painful and abrupt end.

"Spread out! She's in here somewhere!" the leader of the Revenants yelled. Xenos didn't know the man's name, but then of course it had been a very recent promotion considering that Xenos had only just assassinated Archmagister Ithor, the former head of the organization. Though it didn't appear that this new leader was inclined to do Xenos any favors for the service.

Xenos's eyes adjusted to the darkness of the catacombs, which were dimly lit since many of the passages were illuminated only with magical torchlight. Few people even knew these passages existed beneath the shining metropolis of Faraday City above, and fewer still knew the secrets of those who dwelled here. As far as most people were concerned, the Revenants were little more than a street gang, one of several that plagued the residents of the modern city above and kept in check by the numerous superheroes who made their home there. Others assumed that the Revenants were merely a cult, running around in magical robes with deep hoods and dangerous curved blades. However, Xenos knew them for the scourge that they were, practitioners of death magic.

He edged away from his pursuers down one of the curving mazelike corridors that had been hewn from the very rock itself, careful to tread softly in his feminine body...his latest "mount," a vigilante known as Bloodraven. Xenos grumbled quietly to himself. All this fighting would have been much easier as a man, but circumstances dictated this minor concession. And unfortunately, since Bloodraven's magical abilities were learned and not innate, they were unavailable to him in this stolen body. However, her form was still athletic and nimble, and she had other ways of defending herself.

The sounds of angry guards and patrols echoed all around him as he pressed deeper into the catacombs. It seemed that his actions had worked the Revenants into a particularly homicidal furor.

Xenos pressed on, but as he turned the corner, he ran into three Revenants, all of them with their weapons out.

The closest one moved in for the quick kill. "You'll die for your trespass, witch!" he spat as he jabbed his blade at Xenos in a forceful thrust.

There was a loud clang of metal on metal as Xenos parried the blade with his own. Bloodraven's sword was a masterfully crafted weapon of both ethereal beauty and deadly precision, and from the startled looks on their faces, the Revenants clearly recognized it. The weapon was both elegant and sleek in its design, with a slender yet strong blade that shimmered with a faint crimson glow that hinted at the potent magic woven into its very essence.

Bloodraven's body was smaller and not as strong as these opponents, but centuries of experience told Xenos he could easily dispatch his attackers. However, his greater concern was how long it would require since reinforcements were already on the way, and timing would be critical for his plan to succeed. Moving quickly, he raked his sword across the first Revenant's arm...it was little more than a scratch, but the sword practically sprang to life, having tasted blood.

Meanwhile, one of the Revenants cast a spell that launched a lethal blast directly at Xenos, which he nimbly dodged. Furthermore, the dexterous maneuver also revealed the third attacker, who had been standing immediately behind the space that Xenos just vacated, as he had been moving in for a sneak attack. However, the unlucky Revenant caught the deadly blast fully in the chest, killing him instantly.

Xenos pressed his lips into a self-satisfied smirk. That right there was one of the reasons he preferred to work alone.

The Revenant who'd just shot his ally was so shocked at his mistake that he hesitated momentarily. It was a vulnerability that Xenos immediately capitalized on as he ran the man through with his sword.

The final Revenant, now standing alone, readied his weapon, but other searchers had no doubt heard the sound of combat, and Xenos knew that it was time to finish this. He parried a strong but clumsy swing by the Revenant, and then jabbed the man with a vicious stab to the abdomen that not only went through the Revenant, but straight into the stone wall behind him. The ferocity of the blow killed the man and pinned his body upright in place.

Xenos could hear that the others were nearly on top of him, and he pulled at the hilt of the sword. It didn't budge. Leaving him unarmed, defenseless, and trapped in a stronghold of enemies who were bent on his utter destruction.

The plan was proceeding perfectly.

Xenos took off running and navigated the warren of tunnels with surprising adeptness before he came to a heavy wooden door. He opened it to reveal that it was a storage room filled with various racks and chests. It was also a dead end.

In the corner of the room was an unconscious metahuman, a man dressed in high-tech black-and-white body armor that had a bright red metallic mask just visible under a deep hood. Xenos bent over the man and pulled back the hood to reveal a neuroweb dampener, a device resembling an intricate skullcap. He turned it off and removed it, watching as the man on the floor began to stir.

Xenos had only one power of his own, but it was a good one—the ability to swap bodies with another. He used this power right at this moment as the other regained consciousness. However, while this sensation was all too familiar to Xenos, his targets tended to find it highly disorienting.

"Wait... What...?" Bloodraven murmured, suddenly back in her own body. She then looked up at Xenos. "You! You—"

Unfortunately, Xenos had used the time she'd spent re-orienting herself to retrieve his multiplex energy rifle, which was now trained directly on her. Her words were cut short by the sound of a stun blast as he shot her, knocking her to the ground and leaving her dizzy and disoriented.

"Kill... you..." she muttered.

"You have more pressing problems, I'm afraid," Xenos informed her. "You just murdered Archmagister Ithor. It's all quite dramatic...the leader of the Zealot witches assassinating the leader of the Revenants, right in his seat of power. Your followers will deny your involvement, but it's well known that you've used your blood magic to bond your sword so that only you can use it. It was the murder weapon, and it's being recovered by the Revenants as we speak. Lovely blade, by the way."

"But... war..." murmured the dazed woman.

Xenos nodded. "Most assuredly. With any luck, the Revenants and Zealots will annihilate each other. And when the conflict inevitably bubbles over into the city, the chaos and death they sow among the citizenry will bring them to the attention of the so-called heroes."

"Why...?"

"You're a mage, that's reason enough. Good luck. I doubt you'll survive the night."

With that, Xenos activated his cloaking field and vanished. Bloodraven stumbled out into the hall after him, but there was nobody there. But from just around the corner, she heard the raised voices of the Revenants drawing closer and looking for vengeance...

The trick to immortality, Xenos had discovered, was not dying. But since death eventually came to everyone, the real secret was getting someone else to pay that price for you.

Xenos was a master of that.

Later that evening, Xenos settled in at his mansion and removed his armor as he tended to some minor wounds. Escaping the Revenants had taken a bit more effort than he'd anticipated, but he'd left none alive who could identify his involvement. He paused for a moment to examine his reflection, a handsome gray-haired man with somber blue eyes and rugged features. This man, Carson Beaumont, had been a good mount, and his body had served Xenos well these many years. He'd been doubly useful given his vigilante alter ego, Chimera. Unfortunately, age was settling in, and a new mount would soon be needed. As ever, Xenos looked to the future.

Especially now. Now, at a time when humanity was visited by gods.

Metahumans, people called them in this age. "Superheroes." "Supervillains." Xenos smiled at the human proclivity to attempt to assign morality with those labels. Did it give them comfort, he wondered? To believe that if a supervillain threatened the masses, surely a superhero would rise to meet the challenge?

Xenos harbored no illusions which label people would assign to him. If anybody knew he existed.

That, of course, was his dilemma. This new age of miracles brought with it new perils. New technologies. New ways of being detected. A century ago, he might have stolen a new mount and slipped away overseas, out of the reach of any who might pursue him. The world, however, had become smaller. So, like a stage magician whose tricks no longer fooled people, it was time to develop a new trick.

Or perhaps in this case, a very old one.

It was not in Xenos's nature to barter. It was far easier and more satisfying to take what he wanted. Nevertheless, this time the price of failure was too high. And the man who stood in the path of what Xenos wanted was...complicated.

Prodigy.

Xenos picked up a data pad and scanned over the hero's dossier. Over the long years, Xenos had developed a knack for seeing through pretense and artifice, and Prodigy reeked of it. Prodigy played at being an older man, but he was neither as old nor as infirm as he appeared. The hero was well-prepared for a variety of contingencies, and he had a suspicious mind. Under different circumstances, Xenos might have enjoyed matching wits with him and perhaps even taking him as a new mount, plundering his wealth and leaving the man to be the latest in an endless string of people left behind to pay the price for Xenos's immortality.

Confronting Prodigy head-on was dangerous. And Xenos had not lived this long by being reckless. Fortunately, in this case, it was unnecessary.

He swiped the data pad and looked at the next image. It was Prodigy alongside his latest sidekick, "Prodigious Girl." Interesting.

She, too, was dangerous. Strong, invulnerable, able to fly. It was a curious assemblage of powers, especially among metahumans, who tended to be more thematically linked, with a single core power that might be used to different ends. But not in this case. Xenos guessed that there was something more to this one.

He zoomed in on the picture, that of a teenage girl playing at being a superhero. At first glance, her costume was typical for a younger heroine, and also done up in dark blues and purples to match her mentor. Tights and a miniskirt, long boots and gloves. But also with odd choices. Long black hair, impractical in combat. And her domino mask that would do little to hide her identity.

And then, of course, there was her figure. She had a bosom of impressive—one might even say prodigious—size for a girl her age. And with her cleavage visible in an open "boob window" on display, no less.

Xenos stroked his chin thoughtfully. This girl wasn't merely showing off, she was desperately trying to divert attention from something.

"Well, well, well. And just what secrets are you hiding, Prodigious Girl?" he mused.

One thing that I'd noticed even in my relatively short career as a superhero is that different people react to crises differently.

Faraday City was no stranger to catastrophe. Though even in a city where supervillain attacks were practically mundane, there were still the occasional events that would manage to get everybody's attention. "Natural" disasters such as earthquakes and tidal waves induced by mad scientists were certainly fan favorites, but occasionally we'd get a really juicy alien invasion, or large parts of the city might submerge into the Terror Dimension as the veil between worlds thinned to dangerous levels.

I mean, I don't know where you live, and I'm not trying to be competitive or anything, but let's just say that when we here in Faraday City celebrated Shark Week, we weren't sitting on our couches watching the Discovery Channel. It was a little more intense.

The thing is, for those of us who chose to make Faraday City our home (and especially for those such as myself who'd chosen to become its protectors), a lot of these kinda blur together. Just the same, even though I like to kid around, I nevertheless knew to meet such calamity with the appropriate level of gravitas and grim resolve befitting the danger to the city and the lives of the people who made Faraday City their home.

The reason I go out of my way to mention all of this is that to see a fellow superhero and comrade in arms meet such a cataclysmic event with giddy delight was...unusual.

"C'mon, hurry, we're going to miss it!" Enchantrix gleefully called over my iComm communicator, which I'd linked to the mic on my helmet. I was pacing her pretty well on the ground riding my motorcycle as I threaded through downtown traffic, as up in the sky I could see flashes of her magic as she teleported in jumps.

Trixie pulled ahead of me as she dropped into another glowing mystic portal and popped out of the next, her dark cape and long platinum blonde hair whipping dramatically in the wind with every jump. I had to admit, she wasn't normally quite this animated. Like me, she was a teenage superheroine and she was no stranger to the occasional quip or dry retort, and her English accent always seemed to me to class things up.

"Kronos's exalted taint, Prodigious Girl, why are you stopping?" she complained as I pulled my bike over. (Which, y'know, still classy with the accent.)

"I got a signal, I need a sec," I told her as I tapped at my iComm. A very annoyed Trixie teleported next to me, looking very polished and sleek in her dark blousy top and dark red tights and boots, along with her long flowing cape.

Trixie turned to look in the direction of the action, practically fidgeting in anticipation. We were close enough to see the large energy shield that had enveloped that part of the city for several blocks.

"They say nobody can get through that shield," I said absently as I tapped on the device. "Whoever's inside there is on their own."

"I can port us through," Trixie said confidently. She then peevishly glowered at my bike. "Ugh, I can't believe you chose today to ride that stupid thing! We're in a hurry! I mean, you are aware that you personally can fly in three dimensions faster than that thing can drive in two dimensions, right?"

I cleared my throat uncomfortably. "Prodigy still won't let me drive his car. Besides, this is...cool," I said weakly.

She gestured to my helmet. "Also, why are you wearing that? Your stupid invulnerable head is tougher than the helmet."

"I...want to be a good role model," I said. "I don't want people seeing me riding around without a helmet and think that's okay."

"I see. Or—and hear me out on this one—maybe don't ride the bloody thing in the first place?" She made an overdramatic huff of annoyance and again turned in the direction of the energy shield, craning her neck to see. We were too far to make out details, but I could hear some deep booming sounds and a lot of energy blasts. It sounded like quite a fracas.

I sighed and glanced over at her. "Trixie, what's the big deal?"

"Peej, it's a demonic invasion. Actual demons from the netherworld! This is my thing, girl. Dark magic is my jam!"

I can't say that her answer filled me with a lot of joy. It wasn't that long ago that we'd learned that Trixie used to be a villain until a heroine named Demetria basically brainwashed her into becoming a hero. Trixie took the news pretty hard at first, having thought that her change of heart had been her own idea. But lately she seemed more okay with it. Though behavior like this made me wonder how close that other version of her might be hiding beneath the surface.

She checked her iComm. "Transmissions are still jammed, but last I heard, that new corporate supergroup Team Dynamic was on the scene. But the Liberty Squadron is off-planet or gods only knows where. We could really kick some butt in there."

"And save people," I retorted dryly.

"Yes, fine. Save people and kick demonic butt." She groaned as I continued to fuss at my iComm. "Peej, c'mon, we're missing it! Just imagine if it was an invasion of big-boobed aliens or something," she teased.

Being teased for my figure was hardly new to me. It came with the territory with a figure like mine, especially with a name like Prodigious Girl. It was embarrassing, but it was...useful. I figured that if people were fixated on what I looked like, they wouldn't think to look beneath the surface. So far, that seemed to be working gangbusters. After all, Prodigious Girl the teenage hottie was so different from Chris Patterson the underdeveloped male teenager that people weren't likely to make the connection.

Of course, being a superheroine had never been 'Plan A,' but I was adjusting. Back when my friend Caleb helped me to craft my Prodigious Girl identity using my nascent shape changing abilities, I thought it'd be for a few weeks, tops. Though to my surprise, I'd found myself settling in to the role. And it did prove useful to throw people off the scent that I was actually a guy.

Although given what I had to wear in my free time these days, that was debatable. For a teenage guy, I'd lately been spending a lot of time in skirts.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Of course, I hadn't mentioned any of this to Trixie. As far as she was concerned, I was just another superheroine. I had a bad feeling that the truth would come out eventually, but I wasn't sure how she'd react. So, in true heroic fashion, I avoided the problem.

"Wait, I've got it locked in now. It's a mayday signal three blocks from here," I said, pointing. Which naturally was directly away from the glowing energy shield and the horde of invading demons. From the look on Trixie's face, you'd think I'd canceled Christmas.

To her credit, Trixie didn't complain—at least not out loud—but I could see her face contorting through some uncomfortable mental gymnastics as she came to the only reasonable conclusion. Mayday signals from other heroes were always to be taken seriously. Furthermore, since this one happened to be removed from the big city-threatening event, it was a good bet that other help wasn't likely to be coming to their aid anytime soon.

"All right. Although I'm going to remember this the next time an armada of big-boobed aliens attacks the city and you're all like, 'But this is something I want to do,'" Trixie warned as she teleported off in that direction.

As I surveyed the scene, it appeared that we'd arrived too late, but there had definitely been a scrap here. I couldn't see any wounded heroes (or civilians, thank goodness), but the street was pretty torn up with various half-destroyed and up-ended cars, smashed pavement, and a good deal of random debris scattered around. There were also a number of scorch marks on the pavement and the walls of the surrounding buildings, suggesting that someone had been shooting some energy blasts, too.

However, there were the two supervillains standing idly in front of an apartment building, next to a single tree that was planted out front.

"Are you seeing this?" I muttered over the communicator.

"Yeah, yeah. Make with the punching," Trixie responded from the nearby low rooftop, a location where she could survey the scene and provide support. Though I might have felt better if her enthusiasm was born out of concern for my safety and not FOMO on a demonic invasion.

I recognized these guys. My superhero mentor Prodigy was a stern taskmaster, but one useful thing he'd made me learn was a "who's who" manual for metahumans who frequented Faraday City. Although these two I would have known without coaching.

Their names were Vagabond and Echelon, and they made quite a pair. Vagabond was a dark magic user, and as his name suggested he might easily have been taken for a homeless person in his ragged pants and a peculiar dark tattered trench coat. As well as the elaborate spiral tattoos that covered his upper body.

Echelon could not have been more different. It was rumored he'd once been part of the cybernetic gang known as the Techrats, and now his entire body below the neck seemed to be a mismatched set of cyborg and metallic parts. He was a walking tank, and very likely even stronger than I was.

Really the only thing they appeared to have in common was that they were both wearing round goggles and bowler hats. I suppose the goggles might have been functional, but I could only assume that the hats were a fashion flourish. Although considering that I was a 16-year-old guy who was currently running around as a busty superheroine who showed off her assets in a boob window, I really wasn't in a position to be critical of anybody's fashion choices.

And at the moment, they seemed to be...standing there.

I flew in slowly and from the side, hoping to get some idea what their intent was.

"Vee, what are we waitin' for, again?" I overheard Echelon wonder.

"You already know," responded Vagabond.

"Oh. Sorry. I guess I shoulda asked myself 'fore I bothered you."

Vagabond then seemed to notice my approach as I hovered closer. I landed on the ground not too far from both of them.

"Afternoon, young 'un," he said as he tipped his hat, a gesture that Echelon repeated. "Never you mind us, we're just waitin'."

"Waiting for what?"

Vagabond nodded knowingly. "That is the real question, innit? My comrade and I were just musin' over that very same perplexity. To a mayfly, our task might seem a lifetime, but in the span of a redwood, it might surely feel as fleetin' as a summer breeze."

"It feels like it's already been a few mayflies," Echelon offered.

"Ooo-kay." I scanned around at the debris and rubble scattered about. "I'm here because a hero called for help."

The two villains looked at each other and then peered up and down the street. Seeing nobody, they merely shrugged.

Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light from way off in the distance. It had come from where the demonic invasion was taking place.

My iComm crackled with Trixie's voice. "Gods, now there's even a sky beam? Peej, what are you doing down there? Just hit them, already!"

I took a tentative step closer, but Vagabond and Echelon barely seemed to take notice. "Okay. Um, look, I'm on kind of a schedule here, so...I'm arresting you."

Vagabond nodded. "Oh, I see. Well, that do sound serious. And under what authority will you be conductin' said law enforcement endeavor?"

I was nonplussed. Nobody had ever asked me that before.

"I'm...a superhero," I said. I plucked at the edge of my cape and held it out like I was offering it as evidence.

"Yes, indeedy. That do explain the tight clothes."

"Which we appreciate," Echelon politely offered.

"We surely do. Though as I recall, you and your mentor Prodigy are both vigilantes. That'd make you a bit of an unsanctioned heroine. Or is that not bein' the case?"

"I...well, yes," I admitted. "Okay, then I guess I'm making a citizen's arrest."

Vagabond turned to Echelon with an air of wistfulness. "Ah, the citizen's arrest. Lolo, that right there is a practice with a rich and storied tradition. D'you know that the citizen's arrest can trace its roots back to medieval England?"

"I was not aware."

"All right, that's enough," I said firmly, trying to take command of this situation.

"Yes, yes," Vagabond said agreeably. "But y'see, for y'all to make a citizen's arrest, you require a felony in progress, or lackin' that, a breach o' the peace. And as you can see, my companion and I ain't troubling nobody."

I turned and looked at the devastation up and down the street. I was 99.99% positive that the scorch marks were from Vagabond's dark magic, and the flipped-over cars and smashed up items were Echelon's handiwork. In fact, as we were talking, I saw Echelon twist his mechanical wrist, and little bits of rubble fell out.

I straightened up and drew myself to my full height, trying my best to look commanding. "I have—darn it, what do they call that?" I snapped my fingers. "Probable cause."

Vagabond screwed his face into an apologetic frown. "Ah, no, honey, what y'all have is what's called 'reasonable suspicion,' which is in fact a lower standard. This here is what you'd call circumstantial evidence, and we are victims of said circumstance."

"Me, too," Echelon chimed in.

"Yes, I included you in that. Insofar as we are all of us victims of circumstance, if'n you think about it."

Echelon nodded sagely. "Nothing to be done."

I turned and looked up at the building where Trixie was watching all of this, and she was gesticulating madly. At the villains, at me, at the now-fading sky beam.

I beckoned for her to come closer.

A moment later, a magical portal opened right next to me, and an incredulous Trixie stepped through.

"Peej, what are you doing? Quit dicking around and punch them."

"It's just...they're not really doing anything right at the moment, so I'm feeling a bit like—"

Trixie flashed me an angry look, and I could tell that she was done messing around. Tendrils of glowing eldritch energy encircled her fists, and she stepped around me to blast the two miscreants herself. But as she did so, Vagabond's face lit up in recognition.

"Lady Blackwood?" he said breathlessly, stopping Trixie dead in her tracks. Echelon, meanwhile, straightened up with a visibly panicked expression on his face.

"What? Where?" the big man said, looking around nervously.

"No, no, you're thinkin' o' the other one. That's Rhiannon. This one here's her kid."

Echelon breathed a heavy sigh of relief and rested his hand on his metal chest. "Whew, you gimmie the willies there for a second."

"Now, now, don't be that way!" Vagabond chastised him. "This is still quite an honor! Renata Blackwood, my goodness. I must say I'm rather verklempt. Spellchild, Doomsoul, Dawn Scourge. Slayer of the Ethereal Dreamers. Princess of the Nightmare Dimension. An' may I say, I really love what you've done with your hair."

Vagabond removed his bowler hat and swept into a surprisingly courtly bow. Echelon, evidently not entirely sure about the proper etiquette, executed a surprisingly dainty curtsy for someone of his broad metallic girth.

Trixie's eyes darted about as she glanced around to see if anyone else might have overheard him, and she signaled for Vagabond to lower his voice. "Okay, just...listen. A few things. First, nobody ever actually calls it that. Also, I'm reformed, I don't do any of that stuff anymore. I go by Enchantrix now, okay?"

"Call yourself what you will, little miss, but y'all have an impressive resume for one of your tender years. Why, the bedlam and discord that you sowed in Amsterdam...truly, y'all did your malevolent momma proud." He brought his fingers to his lips and made an exaggerated chef's kiss of approval.

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but then I hadn't met Trixie until after she'd been "reformed" by Demetria's mind-whammy. I'd made a point to impress upon her that I supported her, and I never went back to look up the things that she'd done beforehand, but times like this made me wish I knew more than I did. It made me edgy to hear about her earlier villainous ways. Based on her awkwardness and distress in reaction to his words, Trixie clearly felt the same.

Still, we had to deal with these two. But a momentary reprieve came when I finally spotted the superhero who'd obviously sent out the mayday.

Euphoria.

Even from a distance, I recognized her immediately. I'd even teamed up with her once. Her signature long blonde hair was unmistakable, especially adorned as it was with the big trademark girlish bow she wore in the back. Although most guys never got that far, since her superhero costume was quite distracting. It was designed to resemble a form-fitting black lace leotard, and it flashed a scandalous amount of skin, giving the impression of something you might see at a high-end lingerie fashion show rather than in a superhero fight. In truth, she could have been wearing a burlap sack and she'd still turn heads...she was stunningly beautiful, and she knew it.

Sadly, she was also a complete nitwit.

"Oh, bloody hell," Trixie said as she saw who it was.

Euphoria had emerged from a nearby coffee shop carrying what appeared to be a grande latte of some sort, and as she spotted us, she gave us a friendly wave as she daintily stepped over some rubble.

"C'mon," I said to Trixie as I started to move in Euphoria's direction. Trixie cast a suspicious look at the two villains and then hurried after me, peering over her shoulder to keep an eye on them.

"What makes you think those two aren't just going to shoot us in the back?" she hissed under her breath.

I waved a dismissive hand. "It's okay. I've got kind of a feeling about these sorts of things."

This is going to sound a little strange, and I didn't want to get into it with Trixie in the heat of the moment, but in my short career as a superhero, I'd discovered that I had kind of a knack for picking up on danger. It wasn't a superpower or anything like that, but I'd been in enough dangerous situations that I could get an intuitive read of a situation. I was confident that we weren't in any immediate danger.

Trixie shot me another disapproving look, but since the two loitering villains didn't seem keen on starting a fight at the moment, we headed over to talk to Euphoria. Trixie and I took position behind an up-ended car in order to give us some privacy to talk, and we waited interminably as Euphoria took delicate mincing steps in her high-heeled boots as she weaved carefully through the debris in the road.

"'Allo, girls! I am Euphoria. One of zee heroes of Faraday City," she said, introducing herself in her thick French accent.

"What the hell is going on here?" Trixie said.

"Oh, oui. I saw zee, 'ow you say, supervillains over there. Their presence frightened the poor citizens, so naturellement I jumped in to help. I used my super-powairs to try and distract them and get them to leave, but quelle horreur, my abilities, they were not very effective."

"This is my shocked face," Trixie deadpanned as she and I shared a glance. Euphoria's powers seemed to rely on a combination of pheromones and a level of mental control that allowed her to influence the behaviors of others, mostly men. And always using her feminine wiles to her best advantage, I'd noticed.

Trixie didn't have much use for her, but Euphoria wasn't completely useless. Her powers were subtle and involved a lot of misdirection and attraction, and her skimpy outfit certainly didn't hurt matters any. She really was gorgeous. My eyes drifted downwards to the curve of her hips where her flawless creamy bare skin was left uncovered by her lacy costume that clung to her supple physique. That gentle curve swept backwards into her magnificently rounded rear end, which was profoundly broad, looking like a—

Trixie snapped her fingers in front of my face. Euphoria had been sipping her coffee as she peered over the car towards the villains, and she apparently hadn't noticed that I'd been checking her out. Meanwhile, Trixie regarded me with a look somewhere between disgust and pity as she silently judged me for ogling her.

"I have la notion," Euphoria offered before I could say anything. "I will be—"

Trixie crossed her fingers as she muttered under her breath, "Bait, bait, bait..."

I smacked her on the shoulder. She then smacked me back as her eyes cut between Euphoria and myself, making an exaggeratedly vacant kissy face.

"I will move off to zee side while you get zheir attention," Euphoria said to me. "And then you"—she gave Enchantrix a disdainful look—"you do whatever thing it is that you do."

"Tres magnifique!" Trixie sniped back sarcastically, giving me another barbed glance. "Her joie de vivre is so avant-garde, don't you think, PG?" (Though of course she pronounced it more as "pee zhee," to properly ensure that I hadn't somehow missed her pokes at my expense.)

However, if Euphoria picked up on Trixie's sarcasm, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she turned to us and blithely asked, "But, oh, I am sorry, what are your names, again?"

"I'm...um, Prodigious Girl," I responded uncertainly. We'd only teamed up the one time, but I thought I'd made more of an impression.

"Enchantrix," Trixie said brusquely. "We've met. Several times."

"Oh, I know. I just wanted you to introduce yourselves for the benefit of my audience." She pointed at the side of her head, where she was wearing a headset microphone.

Euphoria casually started to move off, but Trixie grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

"Wait a second. Are you telling me you've been live streaming all of this? While we're making our battle plans?"

"Oui, c'est bon. My followairs, they love these peeks into zee life of a superhero."

Trixie's finger darted out as she pointed in the direction of the two villains. "How do you know they aren't listening?" she hissed.

"Oh, we are!" Vagabond called back.

"Big fan!" Echelon yelled.

I buried my face in my hand.

"I can actually feel my IQ dropping," Trixie declared. "Right, new plan. Allons-y!" she called out.

A split second later, one of her mystic portals opened up right below my feet, and I fell in. It took me a moment to realize that she'd put me in free fall immediately above Echelon, and I was going to slam right into him. Since I had little choice in the outcome, I figured it'd be better to commit fully, and I used my flight to increase my speed as I torpedoed towards him at breakneck velocity. I hoped that if I could catch him unawares, I could—

*CLANG*

—plow into him, and then rebound off of him harmlessly. This was not good.

I rolled back up onto my feet barely in time to catch his arm that was in a mighty downswing punch that would have slammed into me like a piledriver. As it was, I was barely able to arrest the movement of his arm as it brought me down to one knee, struggling against his superior strength.

"Hey, you're strong," Echelon said.

"Yep. Unnngh. Thanks."

"Not as strong as me, though."

"Yeah. Noticed."

I tried to use my flight to gain some leverage and maybe muscle him off of his feet, but he'd somehow managed to brace himself, and he wasn't going anywhere. Still, being able to defy gravity had its uses...as I held his arm in place, I was able to get myself off the ground for a moment so that I was able to spin into a surprise kick, straight to his solar plexus. Sadly, my attack didn't seem to bother him very much, but at least it staggered him back a bit, and I was able to get some fighting room.

In a blink, I pressed my attack, launching myself for a punch to his head, which unlike the rest of his hulking behemoth of a metal body, seemed to be mostly human. My fist connected with a metal bracer he had underneath his jaw, but I figured this would at least rattle him as my punch landed with a resounding clang.

He chuckled. "Sorry, kid. Mum always said I had a thick skull."

A thick skull reinforced with carbon titanium alloy, apparently.

This was not going well. I needed some support, but as I chanced a glance over to Trixie, it looked like her own fight against Vagabond wasn't going any better. He'd summoned three small eerie ghostly-looking creatures that floated above the ground and swirled around him, and they were so dark they practically seemed to absorb the light. They also appeared to be equally effective at absorbing Trixie's energy blasts and had a preternatural ability to block any shots she tried to make, even when she tried indirectly shooting through her portals trying to catch Vagabond unawares.

Unfortunately, the time I'd spent assessing Trixie's situation had given Echelon the time he needed to mount his own assault, and I quickly found myself desperately blocking his punches as he whaled on me.

"Stop!" I cried out, moderately surprised when he actually paused his attack. I blinked piteously and looked at him in disbelief. "You'd actually hit a girl?"

My answer came in the form of a haymaker with which he pummeled me that sent me sailing back 80 feet. As my butt hit the pavement, I careened into an out-of-control reverse tumbling somersault that only stopped when I slammed into a car that had been up-ended in the previous fight.

"It was worth a shot," I muttered as I pulled my butt out of the crumpled metal and clambered unsteadily to my feet.

As I straightened up, I heard a sizzle-choom of one of Vagabond's energy blasts, and I looked up just in time to see Trixie's limp body being knocked forcefully back! I rocketed over to her and managed to catch her in mid-flight, and the two of us sailed backwards. I managed to protect her from the worst of it as we hit the ground and skidded to a stop, and I was relieved to see that she was alive and conscious.

"I cannot believe we're losing to these morons," Trixie griped. Then she noticed that we'd come to a stop close to where Euphoria had taken cover behind a low brick wall.

"Hey! Ding-a-ling! Can't you do anything to help this?"

Euphoria stayed low and crept closer. "I am trying! Zee villains are too powerful! Also, I think they may be..." She made a fey, limp-wristed gesture.

Trixie shook her head as she stood up. "Zut alors," she said sarcastically as she gave me another reproving look. "I wanted to fight demons."

We squared off for another round when out of nowhere there came a sound like an egg timer going off. It took me a moment to realize that it had come from Echelon. Vagabond seemed to check the time, and before we could react, we saw that he'd formed a field of darkness that enveloped the two of them from behind.

"Fun scrappin' with you, kiddo!" he called as the pair of them vanished.

A strange quiet descended on the street as Trixie and I stood there, not entirely sure what had just happened. Slowly, Euphoria stood up from her hiding spot.

"Once again, zee forces of light emerge victorious, and justice prevails!" she declared.

"What in the name of the Spirits of the Silent Death are you talking about?" Trixie shot back. "The only reason they left is because they got bored of kicking our— You... You're not... You're not actually talking to us, are you?" she realized as Euphoria continued to narrate the 'victory' for the benefit of her streaming audience.

By that point, I could hear the sound of sirens getting closer. I took a quick glance around, and although there was a fair bit of property damage, fortunately nobody seemed to be injured. Also, Vagabond had been right about one thing—I was a vigilante, and after having been unjustly framed by a well-known and much-beloved hero, I was not entirely simpatico with law enforcement these days.

I started to edge slowly backwards in the direction of my motorcycle and chucked my thumb over my shoulder. Trixie did an agitated double-take as she noticed me starting to make my exit.

"No...no!" she hissed as she stole a glance over at Euphoria. "Peej, don't you dare leave me with this little—!"

I spun around and flew off to get my bike. Yeah, she'd be fine.

Newton's Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. (I've never entirely figured out how that works when I'm able to fly and still lift a car or throw a punch, but Newton was a smarter guy than me, so I figured I'd let him skate on that one.) However, I'd personally come to suspect that when it came to luck—particularly my own luck—the same could not be said. In my experience, whenever something good happened, it was usually followed by something worse. Thus, instead of merely maintaining the status quo, it injected energy into the system as I invariably was forced to scramble around to overcome the new adversity.

I've taken to calling it "Patterson's Law of Karmic Imbalance," or PLoKI for short.

Give it time, it'll catch on.

A fine example of PLoKI would be...me, for instance. I had been an otherwise normal teenage goofball who out of the blue got amazing superpowers. Karmic balance was then restored as said goofball later finds himself fighting crime as a buxom superheroine in a miniskirt. But the karmic imbalance was then created after my parents discovered a stash of girls' clothes that I'd been wearing as said heroine. Then, to keep them from learning that I'd been sneaking off to fight crime as a teenage superheroine, I had to suggest that I'd been secretly dressing up in the clothes. This led them to conclude that the big secret that I'd been keeping from them was that I was maybe transgender. Which is why I now had to wake up early every morning to put on my makeup and dress up as an equally buxom girl in a cute blonde wig and pretend like I'm living the dream.

Some interested observers with whom I have shared this theory will occasionally point out that in breezing over some of the relevant details, I'm also conveniently omitting some of my own culpability in these matters. For instance, some point out that the only reason I was Prodigious Girl in the first place was because I'd originally tried to scam Prodigy out of his superhero name because I wanted a cool name for myself. Or others might observe that the reason that I was having to crossdress as a girl every day was because I'd point-blank lied to my parents and didn't want to come clean and face their (likely reasonable) fears about how I was charging off and risking my life as a secret superhero behind their backs. So, y'know, maybe I was getting what I deserved.

To those well-meaning and interested observers, I will usually say, "Yeah, but here's the thing...shut up." Because clearly, they didn't understand the subtle nuances of PLoKI.

By way of another example, the end of the school year had in many ways been a blessing. Because while my parents were content for me to continue to dress as a guy at school, it took about a microsecond for my classmates to discover that I was dressing as a girl in my off hours. Which made my high school experience that much more...colorful.

As you can imagine, being out of my classmates' teasing eyes for a few months over the summer was welcome. However, my superhero mentor Prodigy had offered me an internship position at AGON, the company he ran in his own secret identity as Marty Maddox, tech entrepreneur and former superhero sidekick. And since my crossdressing edict had been extended by my parents full-time through the summer, that meant that Christie Patterson was swishing her skirts off to work every morning.

PLoKI is once again validated.

My one small bit of consolation was that my parents were often as befuddled by the situation as I was...

"No, no, the most recent presentation is on the other server," I said as I marched downstairs with my cell phone glued to my ear. My purse and my work bag were slung over my shoulder even as I fumbled to get my earring into my other ear.

As I briskly headed into the kitchen, I ran into my parents. My mom was casually dressed for the day and seated at the kitchen table typing away at her laptop as she checked some numbers in a spreadsheet. Meanwhile, my dad was dressed in a dark blue suit and was leaning against the counter drinking some coffee as he checked his phone.

I smiled at them as I entered.

"No, that's the old one. Check your email. She made some changes to it last night, but she uploaded it to the wrong place. I don't know why. Oh, my God, is that coffee? Yes, please," I said to my dad, handing him an insulated bottle from my bag.

I was obviously a bit distracted, but I wasn't too oblivious to notice the look that my parents shared as my dad poured the coffee for me. After all, it was only several weeks earlier when they'd likely thought that maybe they'd finally gotten their hands around handling a teenage son. Now, however, that selfsame son was breezing into their kitchen looking for all the world like a career-driven and overworked twentysomething woman from the beginning of a romantic comedy.

"Thanks," I mouthed to my dad as he handed me the bottle, and I took a quick sip of the hot liquid.

My dad was normally pretty unflappable, but I'd noticed that even he was having trouble adjusting to my changed appearance. He didn't want to interrupt my call, but he furrowed his brow slightly as he pointed at my hair. Or, more accurately, my wig.

"Chris...?" he offered, gesturing indistinctly. Then he turned to my mom. "Heather?"

My mom looked up from her laptop and then at me, apparently having spotted the problem. She stood up and walked over to me, and while I continued talking on my cell, she tugged on my wig and I felt as she tucked a stray lock of my natural black hair up under the cap.

"Thanks," I whispered as she smiled back. "No, that's the production server. You want the other one," I said. "I'll see you guys later."

Before I could make a move, I saw my mom's eyes widen as she clearly wanted to add something. My parents then shared a peculiar glance before looking back at me.

"Hang on a second," I said into the phone. "Something else?" I asked, slightly concerned. It wasn't like my parents to be quite so guarded.

They shared another glance, and evidently they both came to the same conclusion.

"It'll wait until tonight," my mom said. "You have a good day at work," she said as she gave me a kiss on the cheek, still clearly a little thrown by how her lackadaisical teenage son had turned seemingly overnight into a hectic and bustling office girl.

Truthfully, I could relate.

I managed to get through the morning, but I didn't have a lot of time for lunch, so I hustled on down to HeroBurger. It was a well-known Faraday City original whose menu items were named after famous superheroes. It was also an opportunity for me to drop in on my best friend Caleb, who'd gotten a job working there that summer. However, as the line dragged on, I found myself eyeing the currently vacant line for superheroes, since HeroBurger honored the unofficial Faraday City policy for letting registered superheroes jump the line.

I have to confess that was a bit of notoriety that I probably would have enjoyed. After all, a lot of out-of-towners made a point to drop by HeroBurger on the chance of spotting a hero in person.

However, as my mentor Prodigy frequently liked to remind me, it was also a well-known haunt for supervillains who would take up position in the neighboring buildings to get a jump on an unwary hero as they emerged. The price for skipping the line was that people then knew of a place that said hero liked to frequent. Predictable patterns usually made for superheroes with short life spans.

I sighed and listened in as the couple in front of me—obviously first-timers—placed their order. Caleb was working the register, and even his usual laid-back personality seemed to be stretched pretty thin. He was looking pretty haggard.

The guy squinted at the menu. "Let's see...I'll have a Promethean Burger with a side of the Tinsel Tots and a chocolate Tundra milk shake. Honey, what do you want?"

His female companion peered uncertainly at the menu long enough that I began to wonder if she was attempting to decipher hidden messages left behind by a long-forgotten civilization.

"Hmm. The Spire kebob sounds pretty good, but I'm not sure. What's the Euphoria?"

"That's a French dip," Caleb informed her.

I snorted loudly. When they turned to look at me, I cleared my throat and looked away, pretending to look at the menu.

"Yeah, I think I'll have a cup of the Calm Clam Clan chowder, a small Wildflower salad, and a blueberry Ragamuffin. And a soda."

Caleb dutifully rang up the order, but his disaffected attitude drew the attention of his manager, who was standing nearby. The man raised his eyebrows at Caleb meaningfully.

"Do you want to Brobdingagian-size any of that?" Caleb asked, affecting a forced-cheerful tone.

By the time they got it all sorted out, paid, and received their order number, I was starting to wish I had super speed. Then I realized that to a super speedster, probably every interaction they had with another person must feel like this. I shuddered at the thought. It made me wonder if all superpowers had some weird price to pay in order to balance out the cosmic scales, and who got to make that decision. Like if there was some cosmic arbiter who decided the price you had to pay. However, as I attempted to make a discreet adjustment to an errant brassiere strap and brushed the long blonde hairs of my wig out of my face, I knew what my penance was. I quietly resolved to squarely kick that individual in the nads if ever our paths should cross.

Finally, it was my turn.

"Still no Prodigious Girl on the menu?" I joked to Caleb.

He gave me a sardonic grin. "I'll ask."

"Just the usual. And four black coffees," I told him as he dutifully rang me up. Normally he'd have some funny comment to make, but I could tell that the lunchtime rush was obviously starting to wear on him, so I gave him a supportive smile.

I'd just paid for my order and Caleb had handed me my order number when a heavyset woman barged to the front of the line.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" she said insistently as she waved a plastic cup in Caleb's face.

"What?" he snapped. Then, getting a warning look from his manager, he forced his expression into a toothy grimace that was a loose approximation of a smile. "I mean, welcome to HeroBurger, how may I help you today?"

"There's something wrong with your cups," the woman said indignantly.

"I would be delighted to help you with that," Caleb said through gritted teeth.

"This cup is leaking," she told him, holding up the plastic tumbler.

"Oh," he replied, clearly relieved to be faced with a problem that seemed to be both genuine and one that he could easily solve. "Cool, I'll get you another one."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Another one won't help! This is my third cup! They're all leaking!" she said, exasperated.

Caleb gave her a discerning look. "You think they're leaking...why?" he asked slowly.

"Look, here," the woman said in a patronizing tone as she held out the cup for inspection. "It's all wet!"

"Right," Caleb agreed neutrally as he carefully eyed the woman. "I suppose you put ice in the cup?"

"Of course!"

"Uh huh. Then you put the soda in? Then, a couple minutes later, the outside of the cup was wet?"

"That's right!"

Caleb took a slow, shaky breath and forced a pleasant smile. When he spoke, it was in an artificially patient tone of voice that personally I'd only had cause to adopt as Prodigious Girl when I was attempting to negotiate with armed lunatics.

"Madam, what you are experiencing is called condensation. It's what happens when a cool surface is exposed to warm air. It causes the water in the air to condense."

The woman gaped at him like he'd grown a second head. "What are you talking about, 'water in the air'? There's water on the outside of my cup! What are you, simple? I want a cup that isn't broken! These are all...sweaty!"

Caleb's eyes cut briefly to the side to confirm that his manager was still watching him like a hawk. "Lady, it's not the cup's fault. It's simple physics. Every cup does this."

"My cups at home don't do this! And when I was in here last week, these cups didn't do this!"

Caleb fixed her with a look. "Yes, they did. Of course they did."

"No, they didn't! Now, I want you to fix this! Haven't you ever heard that the customer is always right?"

Caleb looked like he was about to climb over the counter and inflict a lesson in applied kinetic physics of his own when his manager hurried over to intervene. The guy quickly apologized to the woman and pulled Caleb aside, where the two of them engaged in a hushed but intense conversation. It culminated with Caleb hissing, "I can't change the laws of thermodynamics!"

The manager left Caleb standing there seething, and I watched as the guy eased his way over to deal with the irate woman.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, he's new. These are the new promotional cups for the upcoming AquaVengers movie. It enhances the flavor of the drinks and provides cooling moisture to beat the summertime heat. They're collectible."

The woman was nonplussed but maintained her haughty attitude. "Collectible, huh? Well...I guess I'll take three more, then."

The manager nodded agreeably as he rung up the sale while the woman gave the stink eye to Caleb, who was standing there slack-jawed.

"I can't believe he didn't know that. I swear the people who work here get stupider every year."

"Yes, at HeroBurger we make a point to provide work opportunities for the developmentally challenged."

"That's nice," the woman said nodding as she accepted her three new cups. Then she looked directly at Caleb and over-enunciated in a loud voice, "You're really lucky to have this job! You should be very grateful!"

As she walked away, Caleb looked helplessly to his boss, but the guy flatly announced, "Shapiro, you're on fryer duty. Conrad, you're up!"

A clattering noise of metal on metal came from somewhere deep in the kitchen, and a sweaty and haggard-looking teen sped out from in back with his arms raised in praise.

"Deliverance at last! Praise be to mighty Hephaestus, god keeper of the fire!" Nearly delirious, he shucked off his apron and threw it to Caleb. He then took his place at the register with the relieved and crazed look of one who had gazed too long into the pits of madness.

Caleb looked down at the apron in his hands in disbelief and then stared at me with a haunted expression.

"I'm in hell," he mouthed silently to me.

With his manager's permission, Caleb seized the opportunity to take his break, and he headed over to talk to me while I waited for my order.

"Y'know, all of a sudden, my job doesn't seem so bad," I joked.

"That'd be the job working for a billionaire industrialist?" Caleb countered.

"Hey, I'm sorry your work isn't more fulfilling, but don't take it out on me. Besides, you're acting like the job was a gift. I earn my pay. It's not easy!"

Caleb gave me a deadpan look. "You're a secretary."

I looked at him, aghast. "I am— you think— with my— that is—" I sputtered.

"Uh huh," Caleb said with a smug look.

Over behind the counter, a young HeroBurger employee with a goatee brought forward a tray of food, and checked the number on the receipt. "Fifty-eight!" he yelled loudly.

I returned my attention to Caleb and held up my ID badge as I tapped on it with my manicured finger. "See what it says here? 'Administrative Synergistic Coordinator.' That's what it says!"

"It says that, but I'm still hearing 'secretary.' It also says your name is Christie Patterson."

"That's...a cover. Kind of," I said as he stared at me dubiously. "Hey, I have four bosses! Five, if you count Marty! I manage schedules, review documents—"

I felt myself getting worked up, but he simply nodded along in an easygoing way that I was starting to find particularly aggravating.

"...Pick up coffee for your bosses..." he dryly interjected.

"Ye—well, not as part of my regular assigned duties."

"Didn't you just now order a bunch of coffee?"

I scoffed nervously. "I was coming here for lunch, anyway! I was just being friendly! I am a very friendly person!"

"Your bosses ever ask you to get them coffee?"

I stared him in the face for a long moment. "They know that I am a very friendly person."

"Easy on the eyes, too," he joked.

"Hey!"

He leaned close and tapped my ID badge, which was perched on my protruding breast. "Secretary."

"That is not—"

The HeroBurger employee at the counter scanned the faces of the crowd in front of him suspiciously. "FIFTY-EIGHT!" he yelled again, this time almost loud enough to hurt my ears.

I decided to drop it. "Hey, sorry I couldn't make it to gaming last night, Trixie and I had a...thing," I said, careful not to be too specific with people around.

Caleb looked puzzled and lowered his voice. "You did? That's weird. I follow PG on HeroTracker, but I didn't see anything." He pulled out his phone and shook his head. "Yeah. I saw Trixie had something with Euphoria, but that's it." He smiled. "That Euphoria sure is a hot little—"

"Is she? I hadn't noticed," I said, cutting him off. I sighed heavily. "It figures nobody would bother to tag me. I feel like I've been basically invisible to everybody anyway."

"I wouldn't sweat it. You free this weekend?"

"I dunno. Maybe? I, uh, thought I might try and ask Leah Paredes out for a date."

"The girl from your study group? I totally thought you'd chickened out on that."

Now it was my turn to lower my voice. "Yeah, it turns out that it's a little awkward for a guy to ask a girl out on a date when his boobs are bigger than hers."

He glanced down at my jutting bosom. "Well, I mean, technically those are just falsies, right?"

"I'll be sure to mention the distinction."

The HeroBurger employee behind the counter took a very deep breath. For a third time, he called for order number 58, which is what he said out loud. But the volume and tone of his voice very clearly communicated the implied message, "I will murder every single last one of you wretched motherfuckers if this asshole doesn't pick up his goddamn hamburger."

The couple who had ordered in front of me finally looked down at their ticket. "Oh, that's us," the woman said.

"I'd better get back to work," Caleb sighed.

"Yeah, same."

I emerged with my order a few minutes later. I still had a little time for lunch—plus a few extra minutes if I shaved some time off by flying back as Prodigious Girl—so I discreetly retrieved my phone, which I'd linked to my iComm communicator. I noticed that there was a trouble spot very close by calling for heroes, and when I saw that Frosty Joe was involved in a robbery, my eyes lit up.

"Oh, yes," I said, as I looked for a quiet spot to change. For weeks, that stupid jerk and I had been crossing swords, and every time, he'd somehow managed to get the better of me. It was time to get some payback!

An awkward amount of time later, I exited the executive elevator at the top level of the AGON building, looking rather frazzled. I clutched my notebook and papers to my chest as I held a cup of coffee in my other hand. As I got off the elevator, the chipper, fresh-faced receptionist smiled when she saw me.

"Hi, Christie! Looks like they're keeping you busy, huh?"

I brushed an errant blonde hair out of my face and nearly dropped my papers. "Hey, Grace. This gets easier, right? Tell me it gets easier."

She looked like she was about to say something but then changed her mind and gave me a tight smile. "You looking for Marty?"

It was funny to me to hear people at the company refer to him in such a casual way as opposed to "Mr. Maddox," but apparently he'd gone to lengths to seem approachable, despite the fact that he owned the place. Personally, I thought that was particularly rich since in his heroic identity as Prodigy he seemed to go to far greater lengths to be prickly and unsociable. After I'd first learned of his dual identity, I'd hoped that his gruff and demanding demeanor as Prodigy had actually been an affectation that he'd adopted to cover for his friendly and gregarious personality as Marty. Unfortunately, it turned out it was the other way around.

"Yeah," I said. "His calendar was blocked out, but it didn't say with what. I need to get him these files before the 1:00 meeting."

Grace smiled knowingly. "He's at lunch," she said, flashing her eyes upwards.

"Oh," I said flatly.

"I think it's really cool how he goes out of his way to do what he does. Not many people would take the time."

I forced a smile. "Yeah, he's something else, all right."

Grace's eyes cut over towards the door to the roof stairwell, so I thanked her and opened the door and clambered up the metal steps. When I got to the top, I heard muffled voices and quietly opened up the heavy metal door to the roof. It was a bright sunny day, and I squinted as the wind whipped through the long blonde hairs of my wig as I clutched my papers against my chest. I then silently closed the door behind me and paused as I heard the distinct sound of someone crying. It was a young woman, and she appeared to be talking to someone.

Although I couldn't make out her words, I knew exactly what she was saying.

I edged closer and discreetly peered around the corner to see Marty standing there near the edge of the roof. He was a balding and pudgy man with a slightly stooped posture that discreetly shaved an inch or two from his height and distracted from his otherwise toned and muscular form that was artfully disguised by the fat-suit padding hidden beneath his outerwear. His business suit appeared to be slightly ill-fitting, but even that was a carefully tailored illusion designed to suggest a doughy and overweight physique. It galled me that everything about him was false.

It galled me even more that before I was aware of that truth, I'd bought his act just like everybody else. Hook, line, and sinker.

Of course, I was in no position to be critical of anybody else's attempts to misdirect their identity. I was, after all, a guy who was crossdressed as a blonde girl, and one who regularly shapeshifted into a superheroine. Every time I walked into a public restroom, I had to stop and look down to remind myself who I was supposed to be so I could choose the right door.

As I watched, Marty gave a supportive hug to a superheroine who I couldn't quite make out at first. But after a moment, she broke the embrace and sniffled audibly. I immediately stiffened up and set my jaw as I realized what had just transpired. Then there was a sudden bright flash as she whirled into a vortex-like energy tornado and flew off into the sky.

I stood there stunned for a moment, struck speechless. Marty, however, calmly bent over to pick up the paper bag that held the remains of his lunch. Without even turning to look at me he said, "Spare me the teenage condescension."

I blinked in surprise as my eyes tracked the flight path of the retreating heroine. "W-was that Fidget Spinner?" I asked. She was a teenage superhero just a bit older than me with energy control powers that let her throw around energized tornadoes. I'd teamed up with her a few times as Prodigious Girl, and she was good people...a little moody and distracted, but a solid young hero, I thought.

"Not anymore," Marty said as he took a carefree bite from his apple. He pulled something out of his lunch bag and offered it to me. "Brownie?" he asked.

"You fucking asshole."

He shrugged and held the apple in his mouth for a moment as he dropped the brownie back into his paper lunch sack. Then he took another bite of the apple and said, "Suit yourself. You girls and your diets."

I blocked his path to the access door. "You just convinced her to quit being a hero, didn't you?"

"I didn't have to convince her of anything. She came to me," he said. "You all came to me."

"She could have been a great hero, and you know it!"

He looked me in the face. "Do I know that? Because what I do know is that after only three times chatting with her for a grand total of less than an hour, she gave up on her own. If her commitment can be shaken that easily, then she's not ready for this. She did herself a favor."

"That's bull! You should be out here mentoring and inspiring new heroes!"

His face darkened. "You've got some nerve telling other people how to live their lives, Miss Patterson," he taunted. "I wouldn't have expected someone with all the answers to be stuffing his bra with falsies the size of cantaloupes."

We glared at each other for a long moment but—as usual—I was the one to blink first.

I made a decidedly unfeminine growl of displeasure. "I don't know what pisses me off more, the fact that you do this, or the fact that it actually seems to work."

"Damn near worked on you."

"Once upon a time," I retorted. "I am committed." Then the wind blew the long blonde hairs of my wig into my face and I brushed them back awkwardly. Flustered, I tugged at the earring that had gotten tangled up in my wig and glanced down at the girlish outfit I was wearing. "I'm deeply committed."

Then, determined to retake the moral high ground, I added, "It's still crap. Fidget was—is!—a great hero. She loves being a hero. She helped me fight the Vector Enforcers last week!"

"You could have handled those losers on your own."

At first I was thrown that he even knew about that fight since I hadn't mentioned it to him, but as always he seemed surprisingly well-informed.

"That's not the point!" I insisted, my tone whinier than I'd intended.

Marty made a throaty grumble that was a noise that I was far more used to coming out of him as Prodigy. He moved to put his hand on the door handle.

"Drop it," he warned.

I interposed myself again. "I'm not going to drop it!"

"Now I'm not sure what's more annoying, the rebellious teenager act or the sanctimonious attitude. I'd lock you up here on the roof to stew on that question overnight, except that you can fly, so it wouldn't do me any good."

"Fidget is a good hero! What makes me so different from her?"

Marty made an equivocal expression, and he shrugged. "You got heart."

I stood there for a moment waiting for more of an explanation than that, but none was forthcoming.

"That's it? I got heart?"

He checked his watch, sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Kid, I don't know what to tell you. I've been in this business long enough to know that not everybody has it in them to go the distance, and those that don't usually end up getting killed, getting somebody else killed, or both. Meanwhile, the rest of us all stand somberly around their casket—usually in the rain, 'cause we really need to stop inviting the bereaved weather controllers to those things—and cluck about what a shame it is, and how unexpected it was, and then wax philosophical about all the good they could have done, and yammer on about the tragedy of a life cut short. But it's all bullshit, because it's totally preventable. Not everyone is cut out for this."

"But you can tell?"

"Actually, yeah. Even so, I didn't convince her to quit. I didn't have to. She came to that conclusion on her own. Now if you want, I could tell you about how your little friend's father is out of the picture, and her mother is working two jobs, and her kid brother has leukemia. Then I could tell you about how she's had to drop out of high school to take a job to help cover the bills. Then, you and I could argue at length whether with all that going on, if going out and fighting crime is really the best use of her limited time and resources. But then after that, I'd point out to you that her confiding all that in me was a blindingly stupid thing to do because she's basically all but told her secret identity to a near stranger, and she's even thoughtfully drawn targets on all of the important people in her life. But all of that—all of that—is totally beside the point, because what it really comes down to is that when the chips are down, she doesn't draw strength from all that. It's dragging her down like a T-Rex in a tar pit."

I stood there stunned as he told me all this. I'd fought alongside Fidget Spinner a few times and we'd chatted a bit, but I had no idea all the things that were going on in her life.

Marty shoved past me and opened the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for the review session." He paused for a moment to look at me and plucked away the papers I was holding against my chest. "I'm guessing these are for me." Then he took the coffee out of my hand. "And this. I'd thank you for it, but truthfully, this stuff is swill."

I followed him down the metal staircase. My head was still reeling, but his comment caught my attention. "Then why do you drink it?"

"Because I'm the great Marty Maddox, superhero groupie and the original kid sidekick to the Liberty Squadron. People expect me to be into this HeroBurger crap."

"Then why not just put coffee that you like into a HeroBurger cup?"

He stopped on the stairs and turned to look at me. "Why does Prodigious Girl wear a mask?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You wear a mask. This, despite the fact that you've shapeshifted into a girl who looks absolutely nothing like you." His eyes cut down to my chest. "Mostly nothing like you," he amended. "You're literally wearing a mask on a mask. Why bother?"

I shrugged. "People expect me to. Anybody trying to figure out who I really am will assume that I must look like her in my secret identity. If I didn't wear a mask, they'd get suspicious. They might stop to wonder if I'm hiding my identity some other way."

Marty gave me a sarcastic grin and held up his coffee. "Cheers."

He took a sip and made a disgusted face. "I don't believe I ordered iced coffee."

"It wasn't. Originally," I said quietly, glancing away with a guilty expression.

"Jesus, is that twerp still giving you trouble? He's a nut job with a freeze ray. How have you not taken him down already?" He shook his head and continued down the staircase.

"Frosty Joe is a lot tougher than he looks," I contended, hurrying along behind him. "He's really— That is, he's very—" I sputtered. "He's very...spry."

Marty looked at me with an expression of pity and disgust, shook his head again, and continued on. I actually got a lot of practice reading disdainful expressions.

I clutched my hands into fists. "He had three freeze ray pistols! Three! Who even carries three pistols? God, I hate that guy!" I grumbled.

Marty pushed the door open from the private stairwell into the main office, signaling that the time for shop talk was over. As he crossed the threshold, my taciturn mentor transformed before my eyes. As he made his way towards his office, he was all smiles, waving at people as they passed, presenting himself as the gregarious and approachable 'Marty.' His assistant Grace was up out of her chair to meet him as we approached his office door.

"I think it's so inspiring how you always take time out of your day to help encourage a new generation of heroes," she offered brightly.

He gave a modest smile. "I'm glad to do it. It's time well spent. Sometimes just the right word at the right time is all it takes."

"Especially if they got heart," I said flatly.

When Grace looked at me strangely, I flashed a bright grin. However, while her back was turned, Marty shot me a dark look.

Grace ran through Marty's afternoon activities as well as some key meetings and decisions, and then excused herself. I watched her move towards the exit as I gave my own report.

"Mr. Barnes had to cancel the 2:00 meeting, but I reviewed your itinerary and saw that you had an opening next Tuesday at 3:30. I also got the latest versions of those specifications for the new non-lethal interdiction devices that R&D has been working on, and I uploaded them to your private cloud drive."

"Thank you, Ms. Patterson. Anything else?" Marty said as he sat down behind his desk.

My eyes cut over to track Grace as she headed towards the door. "There was one other thing, sir..." I began as she exited. Then, as the door clicked shut, I turned to Marty desperately. "Am I a secretary?"

He shook his head. "No, no. I'd say you're more of a glorified secretary," he said with a dismissive shrug as he typed away at his computer. Then he blinked in realization. "Oh, wait, no. You're a—" He snapped his fingers twice and waggled his fingers in my direction, trying to remember.

"Level 1 Administrative Synergistic Coordinator?" I said dryly.

He chuckled. "Heh. Yeah, the girls didn't like being called secretaries, so we changed the name. It gives them the illusion of a career path."

"And you thought this would be perfect for me?"

"Kid, you're a sixteen-year-old girl—or a reasonable facsimile thereof—" he said as I shot him a petulant look, "—with literally zero qualifications. Count your blessings."

I folded my arms defensively. "I have qualifications."

He leaned back in his chair. "Right, sorry. I forgot about your five weeks last summer working the snack shack at the community pool. Remind me again how you lost that job?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "I caught my boss embezzling. He overcharged for the snacks and was pocketing the difference."

"Thank God, another criminal empire shattered. Chris Patterson, social justice warrior to the rescue. It really wasn't a big step from that to fighting crime in a miniskirt, was it?"

"Or being an overworked secretary, apparently."

"Are you still bellyaching about that? At least you're qualified. Minimally."

"Plus, I'm easy on the eyes," I said sarcastically.

Marty's eyes narrowed as he regarded me. "It's fascinating to me how a pretty girl who's fishing for a compliment is indistinguishable from a woman who's laying the groundwork for a sexual harassment lawsuit. I honestly can't tell the difference anymore."

I pursed my lips and gave him my best "you think you're funny but you're not" face.

His eyes skimmed over his computer screen in a distracted fashion. "You're lucky, I had to do some arm twisting to get all four of those other managers to agree to take you on."

"Exactly how is having five bosses a good thing?"

"Kid, having lots of bosses means that whenever you're unavailable, they'll assume you're doing something important for someone else. You're the ultimate messenger girl, which means you're a teenage girl who gets to meet with the CEO without raising any eyebrows. Plus, you get to skate by on unexplained absences. Does that sound like something conducive to your other extracurricular activities?"

Wow, when he put it like that, that actually made a lot of sense.

"So...I can mostly do nothing and everybody will assume I'm helping someone else," I realized. "Wait, what happens on a day when more than one of them hits me with an assignment I can't dodge?"

"Heh, yeah, those days are gonna suck," he chortled. Then he snapped his fingers. "Which reminds me. Just in case you need to be, ah, 'unavailable' during work hours, I wrote a computer program that can cover for you."

I was impressed. "You created an artificial intelligence to fill in for me?"

"Oh, Jesus, no. It's more of a basic rules engine. It's designed to randomly send out inquiries to people with questions that you should already know the answers to, respond to any taskings with weak excuses, and reflexively respond to any memes people send you with 'ROFL' followed by two exclamation points and one of four different emojis."

"Amazing."

"By the way, I'm going to be off-world the next couple days, so try not to set the place on fire while I'm gone."

For a moment I wondered if by 'the place' he was referring to the AGON building, our secret mechanic's shop superhero hideout, or the entirety of planet Earth. I figured it was probably the latter.

"What's going on, is it important? Should I come?" I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. I'd never been off-world before.

"Implying that you wouldn't want to come if it wasn't important?" Marty questioned, arching an eyebrow. "No, no need. I'm mostly just going to keep an eye on that asshole Arcturus."

"Asshole," I dutifully chimed in along with Marty. Prodigy had a standing rule that if you ever mentioned Arcturus's name, you had to use the word 'asshole' twice in the same sentence to make it clear that's how big an asshole he was.

He wagged a knowing finger at me. "You're catching on."

"What's your beef with him, anyway?"

He sniffed indignantly as he obviously recalled some unpleasant memory and shook his head. "He wants to save the world."

I shrugged. "So? I want to save the world."

"Which is only mildly less annoying," he countered. "No, the difference is that he wants it saved, but only if he's the one to save it. Assholes like that, you keep an eye on."

"What will you be doing?"

"Ah, some nimrod set off a gang war between the Revenants and the Zealots. Meanwhile, since our resident asshole has a connection to the Revenants, he thinks he can broker a truce if he travels to this other world to take a leak in some sacred puddle or some shit like that. He claims that'll confer upon him the right to act as an arbiter and get them all to settle the fuck down. But I'm going because I don't trust that he's not going to twist all that around and somehow get both groups to swear allegiance to him or something."

"You think that's likely?" I asked.

He shrugged. "That's what I'd do."

It was always interesting to talk to my mentor, because the longer any given conversation went on, the more likely it would end with me learning something horrifying.

"Enjoy your weekend," I offered.