I want to give special thanks to the people who offered suggestions for what to name Aisling (the real Violet Parr, Maculata, marco2050, and RockSunner). The names I had thought of myself were "Flexibelle" and "Climactica", but I eliminated those in favor of one of the names that was suggested.

A few days after the arrival of her super-suit, Aisling was lounging on the couch in the living room of the apartment. It was Friday, which meant that she didn't have any homework to do (her own or others peoples'), and she was watching TV contentedly until, much to her surprise, there was a knock at the door. Not bothering to turn the TV off, she got up and walked over to the door, scrutinizing it momentarily before opening it.

She opened the door a few inches and peered out, but as soon as she saw who was standing there she smiled and opened the door all the way.

"Hey! Come on in," she said, standing back from the doorway and ushering the guest inside.

The woman who stepped through the door had two names. One of them was Melissa Morgan, and the other was Cirrusoar. As Aisling closed the door and scurried over to the TV to turn it off, Melissa glanced around and said, a bit confusedly,

"So, Stephanie's not here?"

"Well, no," Aisling said, sounding just as confused as Melissa had. She looked at the clock; it was a few minutes past four. Melissa was Mom's closest friend, and knew perfectly well that Mom didn't come home until about five fifteen, so why was she even asking?

Melissa knitted her brow. "She called me yesterday and told me that she would come home early today. Hmm. . ." She shook herself a little, and then adopted a completely different facial affect, this one excited instead of perplexed. "So, you got your suit in the mail?"

Aisling smiled. "Yeah. You want to see?" Melissa nodded brightly.

As Melissa pulled off her coat and hat, Aisling made her way to the room she shared with Janie. Janie was sitting on her bed, as she always did in the afternoons, thoroughly engrossed in a book that Aisling couldn't see the title of. Janie looked up when Aisling came into the room.

"Who's here?" she asked.

"It's just Melissa," Aisling said as she retrieved the brown box from its perch on top of her chest of drawers.

"Is she here to see Mom?" Janie asked, the confusion that Aisling had felt evident in her voice.

Aisling shrugged her shoulders and carried the cardboard box back into the main area of the apartment, where Melissa was seated at the small dining table, twirling a strand of her hair. Her bright smile came back when Aisling placed the box on the table and pulled back the cardboard lips. Slipping her hand under the layer of tissue that obscured the contents of the box, Aisling withdrew her super-suit and laid it out on the table for Melissa to admire.

"Oh, what a beautiful color!" Melissa exclaimed, leaning forward and stroking the cloth of the suit. The color was beautiful, an intense shade of cerulean that would look good when Aisling wore it while standing next to Stephanie, whose costume was an equally intense purple.

Aisling pulled out the smaller items from the bottom of the box and laid them out also. The accessories for her super-suit were all white, and like the bright blue body suit, they were accented with little gold curlicues.

"Have you tried it on yet?" Melissa asked, her fingers lingering over one of the small white gloves.

"Yeah. It looks pretty good on me."

Melissa turned her head and looked at the clock; it was four sixteen. "I wonder what's keeping her," she said, her puzzled expression returning.

"Did she say why she was coming home early?" Aisling asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not supposed to tell—"

Melissa was interrupted as the door flew open and Stephanie herself rushed in. She looked fairly frazzled, her face flushed and her hair a bit disorderly.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, addressing Melissa. "The traffic was bad. Hi, Doll," she said to Aisling.

"Mom, why are you home early?" Aisling asked, feeling vaguely as though she were being conspired against.

"I'll tell you in a minute. Just let me change my clothes," she looked at Melissa and raised one eyebrow, as if to ask a question.

"I changed already," she said in response to the unspoken question, smiling in a way that Aisling thought was clearly conspiratorial.

Stephanie went to her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Aisling to beg hints from Melissa.

"I don't get it. What's going on?"

Melissa didn't stop smiling. "Here's a hint. Go put on your suit," she said, nodding toward the pieces of clothing that were spread all over the table.

Aisling still didn't understand, but she didn't say anything. She gathered up the scattered bits of the suit and carried them back to the room where Janie was still sitting. Again, she looked up from her book when Aisling came in.

"What are you doing?" she asked as Aisling began to peel off her clothes.

"I'm putting on my suit," she answered, stepping into the shockingly blue garment.

"Why?"

"Melissa told me to."

"Oh."

Aisling sat on her own bed and pulled on the short boots, and then slipped the gloves on. Neither the gloves nor the boots followed the style that Aisling had seen other superheroines wear; they were shorter, with the boots coming only to the bottom of her calf muscles and the gloves coming only halfway to her elbows. She picked an elastic hair tie from her nightstand and gathered her hair in it, then put on the final piece of the suit, the white Zorro-type mask, and took a moment to admire herself in the long mirror on the back of the door. She grinned at her shiny-suited, glittery-accented self. Bell-Bell grinned too.

"It's cool," she said.

Aisling struck a heroic pose. "Yep," she said, then opened the door again and went back to the dining table, where Mom and Melissa were standing side-by-side, both wearing full-length coats, gloves, and tall boots. Aisling stared at them confusedly.

"I still don't get it," she said, desperate for a hint of what was going on.

"Just get your coat, Sweetie, and your boots and gloves. And you don't need the mask quite yet," Mom said, still wearing her cryptic smile.

Aisling did as she was asked, still thoroughly befogged (thanks, KungPowKitty). She stashed her sparkly mask in the pocket of her coat, then Mom declared that they were ready and went to talk to Bella-Jane. Aisling drifted along behind her. Janie was obviously just as confused as Aisling, because the first thing she said when Mom entered the room was,

"Mom, what's going on?"

Mom continued to smile conspiratorially and avoided the question. "We'll be back before dinnertime, okay, Sweetheart? You can stay by yourself that long, right?"

Bella-Jane nodded and said, "Yeah, but what's going on?"

"You'll find out pretty soon, Doll. Just sit tight, okay?"

"Okay."

"Alright, I guess we're ready," Melissa said from behind Aisling.

"Ready for what?" Aisling asked, a tiny edge of her agitation slipping into her voice.

"Come on, it's time to go," Mom said, ushering her adopted daughter and her friend out of the apartment. She locked the door, and then the three descended the four flights of stairs to the building's underground garage. Aisling was dying to know what was going on, but she decided not to ask again, lest she risk sounding whiny. She climbed into the back seat of Mom's car, and the two adults took their seats in the front. Nobody spoke as Mom guided the car out of the garage and into the busy street above, then drove a few blocks before parking the car in a shady alley. After stopping the car, Mom turned her head to look at Aisling, who had finally gotten an inkling of what was happening.

"You ready?" Mom asked, her eyebrows high on her forehead. Aisling swallowed nervously and nodded. Mom smiled more broadly. "Okay, let's do this."

Aisling stepped out of the car, and was surprised to find that, except for her face, she didn't feel at all cold. Perhaps the material of the super-suit was insulated somehow. Mom and Melissa were taking off their coats, boots, and gloves to reveal their own super-suits, so Aisling did the same. She also followed suit as they put their masks on and tossed their coats into the car. Mom then shut the car door without locking it.

"Wait, you're just going to leave it unlocked?" Aisling asked, somewhat alarmed. Mom shrugged.

"Well, no one's tried to steal the car before. It's fairly safe." Aisling wasn't convinced, but she kept her mouth shut.

"So. . . now what?" she asked.

"We fight crime," Melissa, or rather, Cirrusoar said. "But first we have to find some. It's not hard."

"To find it or to fight it?"

Melissa chose not to answer the question. "I'll be scanning the city from up there," she said, gesturing toward the sky.

"And we'll be down here," Mom said.

"Good luck, Aisling. I'm off!" Melissa said, and with a small leap she was in the air, gliding speedily toward the tops of the buildings, her arms thrust forward and her long, flax-colored hair streaming out behind her. She disappeared very quickly, obscured by the tall buildings.

"Come on, Darling, let's get started." Aisling gulped apprehensively.

"What if I completely mess this up?" she asked. Mom smiled warmly and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"That won't happen, Sweetheart. I'll be right beside you the whole time."

Aisling felt her spirits lift a little. "Okay."

After exiting the alley by way of a very inconspicuous passage, the two emerged into a neglected courtyard, and from that courtyard they made their way into another alley, and then into another alley, and another, and another, until Aisling felt hopelessly lost. There were no signs of criminals or evildoers of any kind.

"Hmm, this place is quiet today. On a normal day, there are people hiding out in this labyrinth, trying to sell illegal goods."

"What kind of illegal goods?"

"Oh, you know, like—"

Before Mom could say what kind of illegal goods, Aisling heard a shriek that rose above all of the noise in the street that their current alley led into. It was a woman's shriek:

"He's got my purse!"

A split second later, a figure sped past the mouth of the alley; a figure with a balaclava over its head, gripping a green handbag.

Aisling didn't pause to think. She sprinted out of the alley and into the street, in fast pursuit the handbag thief. The man was fast, but every stride Aisling took was powered by her rubber-like bones, propelling her forward with speed that increased every moment. In a matter of seconds, she had caught up with the thief, rotated her right arm clockwise, and gotten a hold on the man's left forearm. The moment she caught hold of him, she whipped her arm back to its natural position. What happened next occurred so rapidly that it was scarcely detectable by the human eye. When Aisling rotated her arm counter-clockwise, the object of her grip rotated with it. That is, the man did a sort of involuntary summersault in midair, dropping the green purse in the process. He landed heavily on his stomach, let out a muffled "oof", and scrambled back onto his feet, but Aisling wasn't finished with him yet. As he started to run again, Aisling threw herself forward, propelled again by the spring-loaded nature of her rubber bones, and pounced on the man from behind, shoving him down. As he landed, he reached back to grab Aisling, but she got hold of his wrists in her own hands, and twisted her ultra-flexible arms around each other numerous times, taking the not-so-flexible arms of the thief with them. Having his limbs contorted in such a fashion was obviously painful, and as he screamed in agony Aisling heard the blare of sirens.

She turned her head unnaturally far to the left, just as two police cars stopped at the curb, their red and blue lights flashing. Two officers got out of each car, and one came forward with a pair of handcuffs. Aisling loosened her hold on the captive, unwinding her own arms so that the wrists of the thief were crossed only once. The officer clapped the handcuffs onto the man, and Aisling straightened up. The thief was forced into one of the cars, and the officer with the most medals of the bunch approached Aisling after studying her for a brief moment.

"So, who are you, anyway?" he asked, his long mustache flapping as he spoke.

"I'm Flexibend," she answered.

"She's my new sidekick," said a voice from behind Aisling. It was Mom, who gave Aisling a one-armed squeeze and a huge beaming smile. The officer raised his eyebrows and seemed to smile beneath his huge mustache.

"Well, how do you do?" he said, extending his hand. Aisling shook the proffered hand, and as she did, she heard applause. She let go of the officer's hand and glanced around. A fair-sized crowd had gathered, and among the onlookers was a middle-aged lady holding the green handbag that had been snatched by the thief. She, too, was beaming at Aisling.

"Thank you so much, young lady," she said.

"You're very welcome," Aisling replied, unable to think of something wittier to say.

"Well, welcome to Chicago's crime-fighting force, Miss Flexibend" said the mustached officer, giving Aisling a small salute before stepping into his patrol car.

Pivoting to face the crowd again, Aisling heard a few scattered cheers and approving whistles. She grinned and looked up at Mom.

"That was fantastic, Darling."