Yep, I'm at it again! This story idea has been bouncing around in my head for quite a while. Updates won't be as quick as they are for "Violet Mage." You'll see why when you read it.

It was a good day. A quiet day. A peaceful day. You know the type: late spring, Sunday, a week or two after the AP tests. Classes are winding down, there's no homework, you can taste the summer approaching.

I was feeling miserable.

It's not as if I don't like perfect days. I usually love perfect days. But when it's four in the afternoon and nothing's happened yet, I start to get nervous, because I know something big is coming.

A superhero doesn't need to spend too much time in the hero business to develop a sense of schedule. You face off against the same guys time and time again, so you start noticing their preferences. Who's left-handed, who has particularly sharp reflexes. You know what moves will be particularly effective. And you know when they like to strike.

If something happens before ten in the morning, you'll wrap it up quick, but you know it'll keep popping up all day. Don't expect to be done before sundown.

Between ten and noon, there's usually a lull. Someone might take the opportunity to strike at lunchtime, but those are rarely worth mentioning.

Noon to four is the golden zone. That's when just about everything happens. If you hear an alarm, know to expect something relatively challenging, and to be done with the day.

But once the clock strikes four, you know whatever happens next is going to be huge. It's like the universe has been setting the stage for a massive drama. Your energy hasn't been depleted at all, and you're gonna put up a huge fight. You'll win, but it'll wear you out, and you'll probably lose something. These kinds of fights only usually happen once or twice a season, and they make you seriously question your life as a superhero. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to drop the secret identity, you think. But the longer a secret keeps, the harder it becomes to finally cast it away.

"Mom, I'm going out." Maybe a good fly above town would help my nerves.

"Oh, can you take your brother with you? He asked me about half an hour ago…" I guess not.

We set out the door, and I became acutely aware of the awkwardness. When you're younger, you can spend lots of time with your family, but as time goes by… life happens, I suppose.

I tried to break the tension.

"If you wanted to go out half an hour ago, why didn't you just go out? I've been going out on my own since I was younger than you are now."

"First, you always had Bob," said TJ, indicating the monkey who always accompanied me.

"He's quite a companion," I said as I ruffled the fur on top of his head.

"And second, you're the oldest."

"Huh?"

Trust me, it makes quite a difference, said the Narrator.

"Wait a second. I thought this story was being told through my internal monologue."

Oh, it is. But "the Narrator" doesn't have anything to do with my role in the story. It's just my name.

"O-kayyy…" This seemed an odd place for him to show up. It's not like the Narrator to keep quiet for so long.

I have my chatty days and my taciturn days…

It's pretty characteristic of the Narrator to sulk like that, so I said nothing in response to that. Anticipating TJ's question, I sighed.

"Taciturn means not very talkative."

"Oh, like Bob?"

"Nah, Bob talks a lot. He just doesn't speak English."

"Huh."

We walked some more in silence. I didn't speak until we reached the first intersection.

"So… still got your sights on WordGirl?""

"Becky, do you pay zero attention to my life?"

"Hey, I went to your school play!"

"True. But I stopped… pursuing her… oh, last year, I'd say."

That was a massive relief. Trust me, when your little brother has a crush on someone he doesn't know is actually you, it's incredibly awkward.

"Huh, well, is there anyone new?"

TJ looked away. I doubted he would have been more obvious if he had been trying to be obvious about it.

"What's she like?"

"Her name's Rachel, and I met her backstage. She was on the stage crew, and she needed me to hold a doorframe while she screwed it together. I helped her with a lot of jobs, and she helped me with my makeup. At the cast party, she paid for my meal."

"Wait, what?"

"Well, technically we pooled our money to pay for both our meals. But she had a twenty, and I only had a ten."

"So, you're after the rich girls, eh?" I elbowed him with a grin. He shot a glare at me. "Oh, for crying out loud, I'm just teasing!"

"While we're on the subject of romantic interests, when are you finally gonna hook up with that Theodore kid?"

I spun around, accidentally knocking Huggy over. "Sorry," I said as I helped him to his feet. "But what in the world gave you that idea?"

"Oh, come on, Becky. I live in the same house as you. I eat dinner with you. You never shut up about him!"

"What? I —"

"Becky. You're a rambler. Half the time I don't think you're paying attention to the words coming out of your mouth. At dinner, you talk about two people outside the family: him, and that history teacher who hates you."

"Whatever, TJ. I think you're being ridiculous."

"Suit yourself," was the singsong reply.

"Shut up."

Neither of us said anything until we got to the park.

"So, did you want to do anything in particular?"

"Nah, I just wanted to get out of the house."

"Same."

We sat on opposite sides of an old, towering tree, gazing up at its newest leaves.

"Funny how, even though this tree is older than the two of us combined, its spring leaves are as young and fresh as any other's…"

"Becky. My Ramble Detector is practically on fire. Go do something else — I want some peace and quiet."

I stood up and stomped off, not caring about my hazardously deep footprints. Huggy followed after me.

You know, he wouldn't be so bratty if you didn't treat him like a little kid…

"Oh, be quiet! I know I'm being irrational, but this ridiculously peaceful day has got me tightly wound! I just want whatever disaster's coming to be over with, you know?"

Surprisingly few people were at the park; it was nearly deserted other than TJ, myself, and a small number of civilians I vaguely recognized from having saved their hides multiple times. There isn't a person in this city whom I haven't helped, I thought. This lifted my spirits considerably. Even though none of the townsfolk would recognize Becky the Average Teenage Girl, I waved at them all anyway as I passed them by. A few smiled back.

My thoughts turned, as they so often do, to my dual life. I could only think of one other person who had an experience that even approximated mine, and it wasn't really that close: Beatrice Bixby didn't always go around in her Lady Redundant Woman garb. But that was vastly different: I was pretty sure everyone knew they were one and the same.

Technically, Captain Huggy Face has a secret identity too. I didn't even bother making that one count. Huggy and I had been confidants for as long as I could remember.

Again I was filled with the urge to simply close my eyes and relax until my flight kicked in. I hadn't realized that my powers acted as a defense mechanism from time to time until the day I was so sick I passed out. Even though the experience was hazy, I could remember it clearly.

I woke up, and it felt like everything was squeezing me. The walls were closing in. My sheets were deliberately ensnaring me. The air itself was pushing against my skin. Veins in my forehead throbbed and pounded, and every sense was painfully intense. The colors were too bright. My hearing was like a radio tuned between stations, fluctuating between super and regular hearing. Dad was cooking something in the kitchen, and it felt like someone was grinding cayenne pepper into my nostrils.

"Ohh… I feel terrible…" I sat on the edge of the bed, clutching my head in both hands.

"Want me to —" began Huggy, but I cut him off.

"I can go to school. It's not that big of a deal to them: they've all been immunized, and these kinds of infections affect Lexiconians differently than they do Earthens."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

I'm sure your parents would under—

"Look, I'm fine!" I shouted. Neither Huggy nor the Narrator bothered pointing out how obvious the lie is.

Breakfast was awful. The walk to school was awful. Turning in last night's homework was awful. Tobey's obviously fake inquiries after my well-being were awful. Even Violet's attempted comfort was awful. All in all, it was going better than I had expected. If I could just live through lunch, I'd be home free.

We got up and began shuffling through the hall. People gave me my space, clearly sensing that I was ill and they didn't want whatever I'd come down with. I was almost to the lunchroom…

The world around me suddenly changed — the air was like cloudy water, and everything seemed distorted. The next thing I knew, Huggy's arms were around my neck, and he was propping me up.

"It was weird," said Huggy as everyone else rushed around, trying to find an adult's help. "You fainted like a normal person, but you fell a lot more slowly. Before you could hit the ground, your body leveled out and you floated six inches above the floor. I had to shake you so your feet would land on the ground and I could pretend I had caught you."

"How long —?" I began, but talking made me woozy. Oh dear.

"Thirty seconds, at most."

Now do you believe us?

"Yeah, yeah, you both were right. Can I go home now?"

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the floor. When I opened them again I was being carried on Dad's shoulders. Mom was holding my left hand, while the right one dangled. Captain Huggy Face was walking behind us, and when our eyes met, he sighed with relief.

That was the only day I can remember with no villainous shenanigans whatsoever.

I strolled along, and if I hadn't been lost in flashback sequence — er, memory — I'd've noticed the whistling noise gradually increasing in pitch and volume.

Since I hadn't been paying attention, I was caught completely off guard when a large mass coming from the sky pinned me to the ground, holding me close with stronger arms than were owned by anyone I knew.

"Andromeda!"

I didn't know what the speaker meant by "Andromeda," but I was able to figure out several things about him before looking: he was a tenor, he was ridiculously excited, and he had an accent that I was completely unable to place. He didn't seem to want to let me go, but he didn't try to stop me from getting up. Finally, he stopped holding me and spun me around so I was facing him.

It was almost like looking into a mirror. His eyes were the same unearthly golden amber as mine, his nose just as small and nubby, his jawline as smooth and round. I could see the differences, like his shaggy auburn hair and fuller lips, but I was overwhelmed by the high degree of similarity between myself and someone I'd never met.

"What on earth…?" I began, but it was kind of tricky to continue. I couldn't adequately describe my confusion, not even when I had an entire language at my disposal.

"Not Earth. Lexicon."

I boggled. His statement put me immediately on the defensive.

"I — uh, I don't know what you're talking about! Heh heh heh…"

"Oh no! You don't know anything!" He looked worried. He bit his lip before placing his hands firmly on my shoulders.

"So. You might think you were born here on this planet, but your entire life is basically a lie. You're actually Lexiconian, and you disappeared from home when you were a baby on a Lexicon Starfleet Class E ship piloted by the great Huggenfäss. Now, I know you're going to have a hard time believing this, but trust me, no ordinary Earthen would be able to take that rocket hug I gave you. They're just not strong en—"

"Wait!" I put a hand over his mouth. "Did you just say 'Huggenfäss'?"

"Yeah, he's one of the best pilots this side of the —"

"I've been calling him 'Huggy Face' this whole time! Oh, he's going to be so ticked…"

"Um… so you knew you were Lexiconian this whole time? What was with the act at the beginning?"

"It's a long story… wanna walk with me?"

For the first time since this Lexiconian boy crashed into me, Huggy — well, Huggen, I guess, spoke up.
"It's all right. You can call me whatever you want." He seemed remarkably at ease with this stranger. Maybe it was because of the compliments.

We started walking around the perimeter of the park again. Nobody seemed to notice that Huggy and I were accompanied by someone new now.

"So, I don't really remember arriving here, but Huggy's told me the story plenty of times. Anyway, I remember the first moment I realized my powers were special. I had been noticing some things, like how I'd hear something nobody else could, or when I'd squeeze something just a little too hard. But the real moment came when we were watching this show where the main character got stuck in a slot canyon. And I asked my parents why he didn't just fly out. Most awkward pause of my life, let me tell you that!

"Well, I eventually accumulated a pretty good list of things I could do but humans couldn't. I had superior hearing, strength, and speed, flight, and an excellent vocabulary."

The stranger laughed.

"Hey, it's true! I know every word in the English language. Stev— a friend tested me once, with a dictionary."

"No, I believe you… it's just… you think that your power is vocabulary?"

"Yeah. I named myself after it: I'm also a superhero known as WordGirl."

"Oh? A superhero? When did that happen?"

"About six months after my tenth birthday. Huggy told me he had something important to show me. He ran out into the spaceship and brought back a package wrapped in paper. He had me tell my parents that I was going to the library. We walked out into the city and hid behind a dumpster, then Huggy told me to fly high enough that nobody would recognize me. He instructed me to carry him to this rocky outcrop miles away from the city. There, he let me unwrap the present. It was one of the suits on display in the ship. He turned around as I changed clothes. Then he told me about the city we lived in.

"Up until the time I was about six, there was this superhero who lived here called Cold Front. He had flight, invisibility, and ice vision. But he retired after an accident with a vat of warm vinegar caused him to lose his powers. After the accident, he could hover, turn translucent, and give a pretty good death glare, but that was about it. The city gave him a huge medal and he moved in with his former archenemy. Things calmed down for a few years.

"Huggy told me that he had decided the city was ready for a new hero: me. I was nervous about the responsibility, but just then I heard a scream: someone's house was on fire! As I flew at top speed to the source, I fretted. This seemed more up Cold Front's alley, right? But I rescued everyone in the building and put out the fire.

"Everyone was thrilled, of course. They yelled about how a new superhero had 'estingished' the fire. I was quick to correct them, of course. 'You mean extinguished,' I said. 'You know, put out.' 'Hey, you're good with words!' someone said. 'Let's call you WordGirl!' The name stuck."

The boy whistled. "Nice story."

"Thanks! Can you tell me yours?"

"Of course, of course… where to begin?"

"Why not your name?"

"That's a good idea. My name's Orion, and… well, I'll get to that."

He cleared his throat. "The first thing I should probably tell you is that you've been woefully misunderstanding the full potential power for many years."

"Excuse me?"

"The main Lexiconian gift isn't vocabulary. It's the gift of tongues."

"Aren't… aren't those the same thing?"

"No, they're not. You make it sound like you've memorized an entire language. But the gift of tongues is far more wondrous: if a Lexiconian hears a native speaker of any language speak, that Lexiconian is instantly able to speak that language perfectly."

"Uh… do you mean 'fluently'?"

"No, perfectly. You know every word, every grammar rule, and every idiom."

I reeled. This was quite the revelation. I was about to speak up when I heard TJ's voice behind me.

"Becky, who's that? And why're you two talking so funny?"

Yeah, I'm shameless enough that I end every chapter with a cliffhanger. I'll grow out of that habit eventually, I hope. Whenever I update next, I'll describe the continuities of my "WordGirl" fanfiction in more detail.