I flew to the rescue of the local museum as it was being robbed. Someone was stealing its newest attraction, an old quilt that belonged to some queen during the middle Ages. I had no idea who would want some weird old blanket, but as long as they were stealing something it was up to me—and as much as I don't want to say it, Wordgirl (after all it is her town)—to stop them. I found the museum with no trouble at all and rushed inside to see some old lady holding the quilt and two police officers attempting to stop her. I don't know how an old lady would steal something, but I guess I'd soon find out.
"Stop right there!" I announced. Everyone turned to face me with confused looks on their faces.
"Who the blazes are you?" The old lady asked. I hovered just inches off the ground.
"My name is Animalia and I am here to stop you from robbing this museum!" I paused a moment, "That is to say, you are the one robbing this museum right? I've never had to stop an old lady before…" The old lady crossed her arms as if she was offended.
"Yes, I am robbing this museum! Don't doubt me!" Secretly, I pressed stop on the tape recorder behind my back. No one knew it yet, but I'd just played her like a violin. I'd learned a few things about the right and wrong way to catch a villain. It depended on how they portrayed themselves, what their theme was. All villains had some sort of theme. And that was usually a good thing to use against them when trying to jail them. That is to say, during a fight it's always best to pick out good evidence to use in the trial that would get them in the big house where they belonged.
"Hah! Gocha! Now hand over the blanket, uhhh…" I stopped because I didn't know her name.
"Oh, Granny May, dear." She explained politely.
"Thank you. Hand over the blanket, Granny May!" I announced. She hugged the blanket to herself a moment then set it aside and pulled out the chopstick-looking hair accessories from her gray bun. I stood in a readied pose for whatever she had to dish out. Soon enough, a purple yarn was shooting from her hair accessories and with razor sharp reflexes, I shot out my thorniest vines to counteract her move. The lines tangled and fell to the floor in a heap. She froze, shocked. I laughed at how awesome that just was. I'm pretty sure no one had seen that coming. They may have expected me to get wrapped in Granny May's purple yarn or something. Before I could pause long enough to allow her to get away, I tied her up with my super vines and let the police handle the rest. As I turned to tell everyone who had been watching the scene that they were welcome, Wordgirl was floating there, shocked. It was really awkward.
"Oh. Here to hog the attention?" I spat. She crossed her arms and straightened her face.
"No, I came to do my job, you know, being a superhero for MY town?" Wordgirl said.
"Yeah. I'd say you did a swell job of it considering once you showed up I was already done!" I said sarcastically.
"S-So? I got here as fast as I could! It's not my fault you got here first!" I could tell she didn't know what else to say.
"That's kind of pathetic, that's all you could come up with? You're calling yourself the town superhero and you can't even defend yourself against that?" She looked a bit mad now.
"Shutup!" She yelled.
"Make me, Molasses!" I yelled back.
"Why you—" Before she could charge at me, she was held back by Scoops, who had been at the scene to get the full report on it for The Daily Rag. She still really wanted to get at me, because she was squirming like a bug. I smiled smugly and watched her get towed away from me. It's not like she was no match for me—I could take her down in my sleep and I knew it. I just didn't want to make a scene and more importantly I don't fight people who aren't doing something illegal because as long as I know there's not a law against it I know that I shouldn't interfere unless I have a suspicion that it's a plot to disobey the law. I'm a devoted superhero, not some sordid wrestler.
As I flew higher in the air, I said one last thing before leaving. "Oh, and by the way, just because you're the superhero for this town doesn't mean it's your town."
~…~
April walked into the school, careful to avoid Becky. It's amazing, she thought, how ignorant these people can be. Isn't it so obvious that Becky is Wordgirl? I mean, both Becky and Wordgirl have a knack for words and both of them have the same face, hair, and monkey friend. April found her way to her classroom and found her desk. Her Fair City friends soon enough surrounded her with talk of how their weekends went. April was rather sad that she'd made all these friends, because she was planning on leaving sometime during the course of the week. She liked the people in Fair City, they were all so nice. Unlike the unforgiving, selfish stuck-up, please-act-your-age snobs that went to her school back in Bridgetown. She told everyone an obvious lie of her weekend—going to the fair with her aunt and uncle and cousins, having a great time, the next day having a fun day playing by the lake in the park.
She didn't like to lie, but it's what she did with everyone. She knew that every good superhero never revealed their secret identity to anyone (with the acception of if you had a sidekick, then you had to tell them). She didn't like the rule, either, but she had to follow the rules of being a good superhero until she found a good way around them. It wasn't looking bad to everyone else that she was trying to avoid, it was whether being a superhero would work if everyone knew her secret and was hounding her every minute of the day to the extent where she couldn't even stop common crime without being hounded by fans, or even go to school ever again. Not even her family knew, and she'd never lied to them in her life—and if she didn't have superpowers she would never lie to her family about anything. But she had no choice.
April had a normal-ish day at school all until it was time for recess. It started out normal—she put her books in her locker, went out to the playground with her friends, started swinging on the swing set alongside her friends—but then Becky came out with her friends, and April didn't like seeing her. It was made even worse for April when Becky walked over to the jungle gym across from the swings. Becky and her friends climbed it and sat atop it and started chatting amongst themselves, and that's when Becky spotted April. They didn't say anything or even bother to move, just shot long angry glares as each other for the longest time. Their friends seemed to be siding with whoever they were hanging out with, because they were either holding onto swing chains or hanging from metal jungle gym bars. Except Becky's friends seemed to be ignoring April and her friends being there, because they didn't seem to mind anyone being where they were.
The whole playground seemed to be silent. All the other classmates just stared in awe at the disagreeing girls. April had first come to this school glued to Becky's side, they'd been so close friends that no one had seen it coming: April and Becky were fighting. It was like the apocalypse. They never saw most things that happened coming—their thought process was "the odds of Becky and April fighting are like the odds of Becky being Wordgirl-impossible!" obviously it proved to be a feeble process of thought. They stared silently as they continued to stare at the girls' glares. April's friends seemed to be playing along with April's anger, but Becky's friends just blindly ignored Becky's anger and played on the jungle gym gladly.
"You know, you got a lot of nerve just sitting there. Don't you have some crime not to stop?" April said, not breaking her stare. Becky grunted.
"I'll have you know the citizens of this town were perfectly satisfied with me until you showed up." Becky shot back with a raised eyebrow. Although she made a point with that one, April would not take a loss as an answer.
"You're really asking for it, girlie!" April said, standing immediately. Becky stood angrily.
"Oh yeah? Bring it!" Becky threatened. April would have sent her fists flying if her friends hadn't held her back. Much to April's dismay, a teacher had seen this display and rushed out onto the playground to settle the matter. The teacher grabbed April and escorted her to the detention room. On her way back inside, April's rebuttal was:
"W-well Becky is-" But she was cut off by the austere teacher demanding silence upon punishment.
The last thing April saw as she was unfairly dragged away was Becky's smug smirk.
Well, that's that for this chapter. I posted an alternate chapter ending on deviantart, which is the idea I thought of posting on this chapter but decided against because of future events in the story. Well, that's just if you're interested. Review!