“I don’t believe it,” someone groaned. “Asleep for her own party. Can you believe that?”

“Portal Man or whatever his name is must’ve really given her a work out,” another responded. Neither voice belonged to people I knew.

I pried my eyes open, momentarily forgetting that I was being held upright within a wheel of hurt. Gods, I must have passed out, and right in the middle of the action. I was probably lucky I wasn’t dead, especially while being so vulnerable in the presence of an honest to gods supervillain!

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”

Scratch what I said before. Supervillains, plural.

Something big, blurry and red crossed my vision. It took a moment to recognize the boxing glove, the pale skin and painted face it was connected to. Crap! I knew immediately who it was, and I was completely at her mercy!

“Ha! I think she recognizes you,” the bald headed meta-criminal cackled from behind his mouthguard. Him I didn’t know, but I could guarantee that his being there wasn’t good news either.

Punching Judy grinned wickedly as she cracked the knuckles of her one good arm underneath her shoulder. Apparently I was responsible for the opposing limb resting comfortably in a sling and she was looking for some payback.

“This is better than Christmas! All we need is a pretty little bow around ya,” she laughed and wound her fist back in a way that I thought only animated characters could.

Trapped inside the clamps there was nothing I could do except flinch and wait for her crushing blow. Without my powers to shield me from its full force I was as good as done for.

With the mass of a bullet train her arm jolted forward and bounced back with a flurry of blue sparks. It was sent flying through the air and across the rubble, dragging the wicked clown with it.

Having flinched at the last second I opened my eyes to find that I wasn’t dead. Punching Judy on the other hand was left sprawled out in the grey, dusty rubble at the end of the room. That was at least fifty yards away. I almost wondered, did I do that, or was it the shimmering girl protecting me?

“A force field! Are you #%&$ing kidding me!?” the clown protested. I guessed it wasn’t me after all, but Dr. Vortex’s elaborate trap that had saved my life. Lucky much?

The second bad guy, the one with the overcoat, shook his head and turned in my direction. He didn’t seem at all concerned by the barrier between us and lowered the covering on the bottom half of his face. Double crap! This wasn’t going to be good.

“No problem, Jude. Sometimes you just gotta IMMMMMPRRRROOOOOVVVVVIIIIIIIIIISEEEEEE!”

Waves of sound erupted from his throat at a volume that could shatter windows, strip paint and shatter the couplings holding my shackled in place. The heavy pieces fell clumsily to the ground, shorting out the force field and leaving me to crash against the cold, hard floor. The din of metal against concrete was still drowned out by the villain’s cry, and so was every other thing save the ringing in my ears after he stopped.

Aching, weak and unable to bring myself up from my knees I could only watch them laugh at my pained efforts. At least I couldn’t hear their taunts anymore. The last thing I needed was their cackling to haunt me in the grave.

They walked slowly closer. Even if I tried to run they knew they would catch me. That didn’t stop my instincts from screaming at me to go.

‘Run,’ it hissed internally. I pushed on my leg but forced by knee to buckle. It burned like a hot knife. Broken? Bruised? Sprained? Whatever it was it still couldn’t carry me despite the voice in my head screaming again and again for me to ‘run!’

I watched as Punching Judy and her companion drew closer like lions to a wounded gazelle. Why did it have to end this way? There had to be something… anything!

All of a sudden there came a saving grace. A warm blanket wrapped around me as the shimmering girl emerged. The power from within propelled our body high into the air, shooting through the feeble warehouse ceiling like a comet through tissue paper. From one moment to the next I had jumped the length of ten football fields from ground level to the starry sky above.

Overwhelmed by fear I hung above the earth shaking and panicking. Were my hard light body able to cry it would have. All of these close encounters with death were too much! How was I supposed to keep going on like this? I was just some kid! I didn’t want any of this!

“You brought them here,” a voice whispered. I could barely hear it over the ringing.

Up above the world so high I turned to find that I was not alone. Against all reason and the laws of physics themselves Dr. Theordore Fellows lingered with only the wind beneath his feet to support him. Somehow he managed to remain stationary while the overcoat concealing his tech suit flapped against the sobering chill of the air currents.

“W-what?” I stammered.

“I said you brought them here,” he repeated. “You were tagged with a radioactive substance during your encounter with Lady Snow. Once you were in range of one of their agents it wasn’t hard for them to track you.”

I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand I wanted to be thankful: if the Society of Sin hadn’t come I would surely be dead, but on the other…

From my vantage I could see the carnage they’d rought. Buildings blazed with fire, roads had been upturned, homes had been smashed and lives ruined, all because a group of maniacs were so damn determined to get to me. Survivor’s guilt never tasted so bitter.

“There’s no need to delay this any further,” he continued. “Let’s go.”

“You tried to kill me!”

The doctor laughed, but didn’t so much as smile. “Nonsense. You’re a being of energy and cannot be made or destroyed, only adapted and retranslated. If you come with me now we can still salvage the situation.”

I froze, fearful of another attack. “I’m not going anywhere,” I muttered defiantly. “I’m NOT! GOING! ANYWHERE!”

“Let’s be reasonable about this,” he pressed on most un-reasonably. “They’re not just going to let you live your life, you know. Someone somewhere is going to lock you in a cage and prod you until they blow themselves up, or worse. At least with me you know that you can help not just this planet, but all of life-kind. You are a core element straight from the heart of the multiverse: primatter in its purest form.”

Going back over the words I was pretty certain I didn’t understand anything he’d said. All I knew was that I needed to be more terrified.

“What are you talking about? Primatter? I…” I gasped, inching away further into the clouds. Dr Vortex followed without hesitation.

“Think about it like this,” he began. “Do you know what stem cells are, Justin? If utilized at a key stage of biological development they can form most anything they are programmed to be. Eyes, organs, flesh, and of course spinal tissue. Primatter works much the same but on a quantum level. As it spews out from the central core of all realities it takes shape, giving birth to whole universes. If utilized in its base state… there are no limitations.”

I shot further into the air. Anything to get away from his rambling. “You’re talking about becoming God,” I spat.

Shifting time and space around him Dr. Vortex blinked away and reappeared before me. “Yes, Justin. The right kind of God. With your powers at my disposal I can set right what the first creator got wrong. A universal rebirth with no suffering or evil, forever ignorant of the aches, pains and sins of man.”

Was that what this was all about? That was his mad ambition!? There was only one way to put it: “You’re a gods-damned lunatic!”

“Actually I would prefer the term ‘theonaut’: the very first, in fact, probing the cracks of existence in a way that scientists and philosophers have only ever dreamed about. You don’t know it yet, but I am the visionary of a new era, and it’s all thanks to you.”

So that’s all I was: a cog in the machine of a psychotic despot. He would stop at nothing to get to me: I knew that. It didn’t even matter if what he said was true or not, he believed it with all of his heart and that made him dangerous.

“Why do you run?” he asked, easily able to match my velocity as I streaked through the air. “Are you really so attached to this diseased world full of human frailty that you would fight to live in it? Then again I wouldn’t expect a small minded individual such as yourself would be able to envision anything else.”

I screamed at him and zoomed further toward the stars. “Shut up! I’m not any of these things! I’m just a scared, stupid faggot kid who wants to be left the hell alone!”

“Your mood, intelligence, orientation and age are all completely irrelevant.”

Yeah, and so was everything else that made me human. I continued to flee. There was no negotiating with a zealot.

* * * *

Meanwhile on the ground below there stepped a man from the rubble and ash, sore and disappointed by the carnage that he and his militia had wrought. He loosened his tie and lept from one fragment of shattered pavement to the next, skipping about and looking for an empty patch of sky through the smoke.

“What’s the matter with heroes these days?” the Red Wraith railed against the heavens. “Do they now make them with spines sold seperately? Never have I seen such an act of cowardice from a protector! Never! Why back in the day she’d be laughed out of a career, never able to show her mask again!”

Stopping in the middle of the cracked asphalt he roared and kicked again, scattering a pathetic number of pebbles into their new homes beneath the cracks. The dozen or so villains following were anxious about getting too close, knowing that each of them were a potential target if they even slightly offended their boss’ fragile sensibilities.

With great apprehension one of their number stepped forward. She clasped a radio to her ear and walked with the same stutter that plagued her speech. “S-s-sir… we h-have a TASK s-strikeforce on… on it’s way here!”

The mastermind turned, baffled. “The feds? Not Ramirez and his goons? This is an unpleasant turn. Alright, we’d best finish here then move on. Agreed?”

Considering his surroundings for a moment the Red Wraith found himself captivated by a single structure, unmarked and unmolested, standing erect from the burning trail left behind by his society. The significance of the elevated steel platform was made abundantly clearer with the loud honk that cried out from the distance.

“Does anybody else see a problem with this picture?” he growled. “We’ll leave them with one last final parting gift. Destroy that platform!”

* * * *

I did as I’d been trained to do over recent weeks: fly, aim, shoot, fly, aim, shoot. It might have worked with anyone else but Dr. Fellows: the beams passed right through him! So much for having god-like powers.

“As I said there’s no point in running,” he taunted from point to point. “I’m everywhere at once. Wherever you go I’m already there, waiting. Your cat and mouse game is futile because you’re already in my claws.”

Inside every cloud and around every sharp bend there he was, plaguing me with that impatient frown of his like I was a petulant child in need of correcting. It was as though wanting to escape endless torture and what was probably going to be a gruesome death was somehow a bad thing and that I should have known better.

Suddenly there was an explosion on the ground loud enough that I could almost sort of hear it from so far away. Probably the Society of Sin’s work, but I had no time to worry about it.

A force inside wrenched me to the ground. I had to worry about it. I was a hero, or at least pretending to be, and someone might have really been hurt. It didn’t matter that turning my back on Dr. Vortex and his whacked out voodoo might have been a really bad idea: there were more important things than saving my own skin.

Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t believe me either.

“B-r-b,” I told him and darted back toward the city. The flames drew me in like a moth and as I closed in I began to make out familiar shapes within the destruction. Through the smoke I could barely make shape of the carnage and the mangled steel that made up the night train when it collided with the street.

Shooting into the smoke without a second thought I listened for a signs of life. The uncertain “hello!” I threw out had no immediately reply, but soon enough I could make out a faint groan from the rubble.

“I can’t… feel my legs…” the driver gasped. His anguished face was already heavy with soot.

Gods, what kind of maniac would do this? I feared the worst, but tried to be comforting all the same. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get you out of here in one piece. I promise.”

Okay. I had to go back to my training. No fear. I had to share my powers with the driver and get him to safety. That would keep him alive and out of pain for a few seconds at least. Step by step I’d done as I’d been instructed during my time with TASK, back before Dr. Fellows turned homicidal nutjob on me.

“Relax,” I told him calmly. “We’re nearly out of here.”

No matter how many times I tried to shush him he kept wasting his strength trying to tell me something. He pointed weakly to the power lines above: the few strands that had come loose from the teetering frame were threatening to collapse on the remaining carriages.

“Don’t worry. I got it.” With the driver safely out of the picture I could push the electrified structure out of the way and then worry about the other passengers. At least that was the plan.

A sudden jolt ran up my side forcing my arm to lash out like a whip. I’d lost all control of my hard light body as various parts of my body either shot out or dripped into the dirt like molten gold. A few seconds later and with all the force of my will I managed to pull back into a coherent shape and snapped back to my normal mortal self.

I heard the heavy boots coming towards me. “I told you I’d… be right back,” I winced painfully. The aching ribs, the ripe bruises, all of it came searing back as I rolled onto the cracked asphalt. “It’s not like I could… ignore you… even if I wanted to! Least you… could do is help!”

Dr. Vortex was the lone body still standing in a sea of destruction. In his hand he cradled a stone which, and I know this is going to sound weird, was glowing black.

“Don’t tell me that’s… kryptonite or something,” I groaned. Just what I needed: a hidden weakness.

“Close. It’s called obsidianite,” he mused dryly. “It a piece of a higher universe that died long ago and has congealed into hard matter. At the beginning of time there were countless fragments just like this that rained down on our world. At first glance they would appear to be inert and to have little density, but when you apply a charge…”

“Nice time for a science lesson, doc. Can’t you see there are people about to die around here!?”

He didn’t look to the twisted remains of the nine o’clock train or to the bending frame leaning in its direction. The only thing he was worried about was the sound of sirens arching closer down the road ahead.

“People die every day. Their lives are irrelevant,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

I was too weak to resist in my battered condition. Funny: a minute beforehand I could blow holes through walls and then suddenly I couldn’t even raise an arm in defiance. I was completely helpless as he took my collar in preparation for transport.

Some hero I turned out to be, but I never said I was cut out for this kind of thing. The shimmering girl within, however, had other ideas.

A flash as bright as the sun burst into my eyes leaving me blinded save for the colored spots crawling across my retinas. Dr Vortex seemed just as confused as I was and blamed me for what I guessed was the auto-pilot kicking in.

“You little bastard,” he seethed, struck me hard across the cheek and knocked me painfully to the ground. The metal component on his gauntlet left a wide, burning gash. That kind of retaliation could only mean that I was doing something right.

“Stand up,” he ordered. Once the blurry haze began to clear I could see him lording over me still with that ‘obsidianite’ thing or whatever he called it. Did he really expect me to move in my condition?

“Can’t… get up…”

The sharp kick to my stomach wasn’t interested in my excuses. “I said stand up, Justin! Now!”

Why was he suddenly so angry? He had me right where he wanted me. I couldn’t feel the shimmering girl pushing to get out: I was a sitting duck, but still he wanted to beat me into submission. That was when I noticed the sparks and melted wires on his suit that weren’t there a minute before.

“Did… I do that…?”

Another impatient kick ordered me to “move!” With sirens closing in Fellows didn’t have much time to act, and he was far too driven to even think of leaving me behind.

The metal tower contorted painfully above them like a swinging axe about to fall. Something had to be done soon, and if not for that little black rock I’d be able to take it out in a second flat.

Gods, this is why I didn’t want to be a hero: for no win situations like this.

The tower groaned again. It wasn’t going to be upright for very much longer.

“Doc! You lunatic! Are you… really just going to let everyone stuck in that train die… or are you going to let me do something? Come on! Not even you can be that cold!”

Then in the blink of an eye everything turned. The rock in the doctor’s hand shattered into powder and before he had a chance to question what had happened I leapt up and clocked him across the jaw. Vortex stood, stunned, but was then taken out by a second, invisible force. Whatever it was he didn’t see that one coming, and neither did I.

“That felt way too good,” I gasped, and it did.

It wasn’t until the soldier’s cloaking tech phased into view that I realized what was going on. Artemis Crowe unmasked while keeping his automatic rifle trained on the downed villain. He barked at me from side on, “now, Glimmer Girl!”

Perfect. No more distractions. Without even thinking I turned to the tower… but nothing happened. I tried again to shoot into the air but again and again I couldn’t find the power to get up there.

“What are you waiting for!?” the spy demanded.

“I’m sorry. I think… I think my powers have been tapped out!”

“Great, and with no time for evac!”

There was even less time than he thought. Unable to support its own weight a second longer the structure leaned further down gaining gradual speed with each support twisting and snapping free. In half a second we would all be dead: crushed or electrocuted, we would be dead.

Time stopped. Somewhere buried beneath the fear and panic a voice spoke to me. It said “no.”

Glimmer Girl exploded from the ground and into the air, burning up the sky like it was the fourth of July, carrying me with her as she collided with the crashing frame. Sparks flew with a light so bright that I couldn’t make out the shapes. I didn’t know what was happening, but it was beautiful.

A few seconds later it was well and truly over. I lay on the path and absorbed the warmth of the earth. The only thing I could see as I rolled to my side was the train untouched by the falling power lines.

Delirious with pain I started to laugh. We did it. It was finished.

* * * *

By the time the rescue operation was done the blue morning haze was washing over the city. Low tide in the cosmic sunbath heralded a new day, new beginnings, and an end to the nights horrors I barely managed to outlive.

Word came down of those that had died in the crash. Many more were injured: a number of them severely. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the Society’s carnage, though the TASK personnel told me that I wasn’t the one to blame. Besides nobody would have made it out if I hadn’t obliterated the tower, and I supposed I could live with that. It would help me sleep again, for sure.

There also came word was that several members of the Society of Sin had been rounded up: people who’d been in hiding for months. Congratulations came from all around from men and women saying how the city needed a hero to flush the villains from their holes. Yeah…

Meanwhile my powers seemed to be slowly returning. I didn’t know if that was supposed to be a good thing.

TASK agents combed the area, sifting through debris, interviewing passengers, witnesses and securing a solid perimeter from ground and sky. Finally things felt like they were under control again. I could breath.

Artemis appeared and offered me a mug. “Here you go. Lots of cream, lots of sugar. Just how you like it.”

I smiled and accepted the beverage. What I really needed was a chai latte with a dash of cinammon, but coffee would do. Damn, I was picky about my drinks, even when the world around me seemed to be crumbling. Maybe I needed to re-sort my priorities.

“Between you and me we’ve never seen anything like it,” Artemis continued. “Fellows was always a genius, but that kind of tech is like something from straight out of a storybook, and he put it together in a matter of weeks. I wonder what happened to him that he should suddenly be able to do that.”

He looked to me as though I had some kind of answer. I told him “I don’t know. Whatever was in that weird dimension I didn’t see it.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure,” I grinned, “or else I’d be getting better than C’s in math.”

The agent smirked. In the several weeks we’d known each other I was finally warming to him and his bad boy charm, or maybe it was Stockholm syndrome. Either way I was entirely more comfortable around him than I was before.

“So,” I dared to ask, “what happens now?”

“Now? Teddy gets surgically interrogated and sent to the mad scientist wing in the Chamber. The captured Society members are put on public trial and will probably end up in the same place. You…” He paused. I didn’t like that. It was never a good sign.

“You, on the other hand, are a special case,” another person added.

Artemis stopped and was quick to his feet, snapping to attention and saluting his commanding officer with a sharp acknowledgement of “sir!”

When I turned around I saw a woman like something out of a politically correct pulp novel. Dressed in army fatigues she had her hair pulled back and a mean expression she used to chomp on the thick cigar gnashing between her teeth. She also had one visible eye that seemed to collapse onto you like a bag of sand.

“Glimmer Girl, right?” she grinned sarcastically. “Huh. You’re a strange one. Still, it’s good to meet you.”

“Uh,” I managed to get out before pushing an even weaker “thanks.”

“Director General Suzanne Striker, four stars,” she added with an extended hand. “I’m the administrative division head of TASK, meaning it’s my job to pull apart various bits of meta-science… and to keep brat heroes like you in line. Got that clear, son?”

That eye just kept getting heavier and heavier until I couldn’t keep my arm from shaking. It felt as though if I’d crossed her that I would never see the light of day again.

“You’re not going to arrest me… are you?”

Striker looked me over. I felt so naked under her probing stare. Even though we just met I couldn’t do anything but buckle under her air of authority and hope against hope that I hadn’t done anything to cross her.

“Not today,” she remarked, “but you’ve got a lot of power. That’s a concern. The costume makes things more complicated.”

“IpromiseI’llbegood” was what I’d meant to say. “Eep” was how it came out.

Striker laughed. Maybe this was how the Joint Chiefs got their kicks, I didn’t know. “You saved a lot of lives, Justin,” she went on to say. “How about you go on doing your civil duty and we worry about the rest of it? That’s a fair deal. Just remember, we’re always watching.”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered nervously and stood stiff as a board as she turned to leave.

When we were alone Artemis finally let his smile crack. “She’s quite something, isn’t she?”

“No offense to her, but I like you way better than I do your boss. Please don’t put that in your final report.”

“I’m not even sure I heard what you said,” he replied coyly. “Now go home, Justin. You’ve had a rough night. I’m sure you could use the rest. Get out of jail free cards like that don’t crop up all that often.”

There was no argument from me. Truth was I didn’t want anything to do with this mess, but I was glad to help all the same. Maybe with some luck I would never have to help again.

* * * *

In no time at all I was back home and in my room without anyone being the wiser. It was finally over! From then on there would be no more TASK, no more supervillains and no more nearly getting myself killed. My duty to the superhero fantasy was finished, meaning I could finally get back to being a normal kid, or at least whatever it was I was supposed to be.

I stripped out of the costume and filed it away, planning a myriad of ways I could dispose of it as my head struck the soft, cool pillow on my bed. Sinking into the covers and drawing long, soothing breaths I could feel the tension melt away, pooling onto the floor and seeping between the cracks in the floorboards.

“Goodbye forever, Glimmer Girl,” I yawned. “It’s been surreal.”

“Oh no. I’m not done with you yet.”

Suddenly the fear and tension snapped back. A rush of adrenaline forced me into the vertical where I turned and saw the unexplainable.

“You!” I cried out, clasping for my heart which was fighting to escape from my mouth. Gods, I wanted to cry. Hadn’t this night gone on long enough? To think I’d had my share of my share of freaky, bizarre, mind-blowing oddity only to have her show up: it was too much!

“Yeah, me,” Glimmer Girl remarked slyly from inside the mirror’s frame. “You and I need to have a serious talk, JC.”

My brain bounced around inside its case in search of a sane answer. Hell, even an insane answer would have been better than having the actual bright, golden superhero I was supposed to be standing across from my bed talking to me as if I was someone else. I could only conclude that “I’m dreaming.”

“I’ll give you a moment to pinch yourself,” the avatar groaned before collapsing into the reflected computer chair.

“You’re me,” I stated obviously as though that was supposed to explain everything wrong with the current scenario.

Glimmer Girl nodded. “Mhm-hmm. And I’m the shimmering girl. Remember? Incandescent shape-shifting thing, we met in a sewer, went jutting around a higher dimension together for a couple of months, even if you did sleep for most of it.”

“I don’t… what?”

“It’s vexing, I know,” she agreed, “but it’ll make sense after a while. How do you think it feels for me, knowing that you’re the same but different at the same time? Two entities made into one, thinking they’re still two. It’ll blow your mind.”

“Speak English!” I demanded and crawled out of bed to the mirror.

Seeing her sit there so calm, cool and collected was what bothered me the most. If it wasn’t a dream then I was seeing and hearing things, because I knew she wasn’t there. As hard as I stared I couldn’t see through her, or wish her away into the imaginary ghost at the back of my head she should have been. Nothing was working!

“It would make it so much easier, wouldn’t it, if I were to just vanish. Then you’d never have to confront yourself. You could just carry on being a victim your whole life.”

“What would you know?” I hissed. The mirror in my hands shook as I continued to fight the vision, but Glimmer Girl retained her composure.

“Just as much as you,” she laughed. “I’ve always been here, you know. It just took an alien life form to bring me out of our shell.”

I grunted furiously and accepted I was stuck with her, whatever she was. Probably better if I made better use of my time. If the shimmering girl was going to stay I figured I’d at least get the answers I’d been chasing all this time.

“What are you?” I asked flatly.

Glimmer Girl thought about it for a moment. “You want the simple answer? Fine. Apart from being an upper-dimensional multi-form I’m also you.”

As if, I thought. “You’re nothing like me.”

“You’re right, because I’m better than you.”

I was stunned. Was this any way to talk to myself? “Quit being a bitch,” I told her, becoming ever more aware of the differences between us.

“During the fight with Dr. Vortex you called yourself a ‘scared, stupid faggot kid.’ Is that really how you see yourself?”

“Blow me.”

The superhero pouted curiously for a moment then broke out into a chuckle. “Really? You’re blasting me? It’s not my fault, JC. You made me this way.”

“I didn’t make you at all!”

“Deny! Deny! Deny!” she reasoned coyly. “You really want to know what I am, Justin? I’m you without the pessimism. I’m the person you desperately wished you were: the one who is able to stand up for her damn self and has the courage to do what is good, and I’m right here. We’re really not so different, you know. All you need to do is step up and we can bridge this gap. What do you say?”

“No.”

“No?” she queried. “Don’t make me give you the ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ spiel.”

“What about my responsibility to make sure nobody dies because of me?” I blasted.

“You’re scared.”

“Damn right I’m scared! You’d be scared too if you were possessed by an alien and told to save the world!”

“It did happen to me, and I was scared, but I rose above it.”

I was confused. “What the hell are you talking about? When did it happen to you?”

“Right now, as you’re living it,” she said. “You and I, same person remember? I know everything about you. You know everything about me. This conversation is just a manifestation-“

“-of my own internal conflict. Yeah, yeah.”

Glimmer Girl stared at me seriously and inched closer towards the frame. “Well, JC? What do you say?”

Given the choice I’d say that she’d only accomplished making my life a living hell, but she probably already knew that being inside my head and all. As it turns out crazy dilusions know the turns in your logic and are really hard to argue with.

“So what you’re saying is that… you’re my power fantasy brought to life.”

“That’s what superheroes are,” she said. “Didn’t you always want to be Wonder Woman?”

“Actually I wanted to be Green Lantern or the Fl… no! I’m not having a conversation about superheroes with you! You’re not me! You’re nothing like me! Even if I did dream about being a superhero, which yeah, I do, you’re still a…!”

My tongue froze and so did her knowing gaze. She really thought she had my number just because I was too ashamed to say the word.

“A what, JC?”

Blinded by fury I pushed it to one side. Screw her, I thought. She wasn’t that great. “A girl,” came the words thickly dripping with vitriol.

Glimmer Girl didn’t even flinch. “You mean you aren’t?”

“Not unless my crotch disappeared overnight, which by the way it didn’t.”

The hero in the mirror leaned closer so that we were practically face to face. “Girls have crotches too, dumbass,” she chided sternly. Okay, yeah, they did, but my point was still the same.

She continued. “Okay, pop quiz. Remember the time you put on your mom’s make-up and covered it up by saying the Red Ranger was going undercover to a hairdresser? Or what about the time you cried all afternoon when you were told you couldn’t wear that beautiful blue dress for your first communion?”

“Shut up.”

“Or what about all those sleepovers at Tanya’s house where you would just happen to start playing dress-up? It kind of became an unspoken ritual, didn’t it? Coincidence?”

“I’m not a girl,” I protested. “Stop trying to humiliate me.”

“I’m not trying to humiliate you, JC,” she said, her tone suddenly gentle. “Believe it or not I want to help. I want to save you from this pit of despair you’ve dug yourself into.”

My knees buckled under the weight of my body. Even with a hollow chest I couldn’t carry myself against the lead in my gut. I was tired and had been for years. It was only when I thought about these things that I wanted so very much that I remembered how strong I wasn’t. So I tried to block it out, put it behind me, and maybe then I wouldn’t have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. It never worked though.

“Yeah, well… you can’t. Nobody can. I’m not a girl. Nothing can ever change that.”

“Are you sure?”

Through the stinging salt running down my cheeks I looked up to Glimmer Girl who was suddenly standing above me. Licks of light washed over the room rippling on the walls and ceiling warming everything they touched. I could only sit there stunned and silent as she beamed at me and offered a helping hand.

“Now’s the time, JC,” she told me. “Make or break.”

“What… what do you mean?”

“It means you get to choose,” she explained. “Are you going to go on living like this, wishing you were nothing, or are you going to stand up and be everything you can be?”

I blinked again and again just to make sure it was real. I didn’t want it to be, at least on the outside, but the more she spoke the more she drew something anchored deep inside of me out into the open.

“You’re… really going to make me a girl?” I asked in disbelief.

Glimmer Girl frowned slightly, perhaps because she was unsure how to answer. “Yes, but this isn’t like those stories you read on the internet. Nobody’s going to dress you up and force you to do it. There are no magical transformations. You do it because you need to take responsibility for who you are. I know it sounds hard, but it’s worth it. Trust me.”

Those eyes. I could never forget those eyes. They were so strong and sure, and fixed on me with hard determination. They told me that they could endure anything, that somehow she would be strong enough, while the smile said something else: that as hard as things would be in the end… it would be okay.

Gods, I felt an inch high. How could I live up to such huge promises? That wasn’t me at all! I was just… just…

She laughed. I don’t know why I affected me that much, or even how. Words can’t explain that kind of moment when a single ray of sun breaks a cloudy sky.

“Come on, JC,” she grinned broadly. “You’ve got a destiny to keep up with. If I can do it then so can you.”

Lifting myself from the ground I clasped onto Glimmer Girl’s hand. The heat of her body flowed into my arm like water down a river, filling me, empowering me and making the two of us one. Suddenly my eyes were opened and the future seemed bright. For a brief moment and for the first time I dared to believe that anything was possible.

Things had changed a lot over the past several months, but it wasn’t until then that I was fully transformed. A smile crossed my usually pouty lips. Things were never going to be the same again.

* * * *

Now:

Years later the words still shook me. ‘Now’s the time, JC. Make or break.’ They echoed during the dark times, when aliens invaded or dimensions cracked, when mad scientists held the city at ransom or rampaging monsters annihilated buildings: or when I stood face to face with my Mom and Dad, delivering the one piece of news that would forever change the way the world saw me.

“The truth is…” I nervously began.

They sat poised, knowing that I was holding onto something serious. Never in a million years would they have guessed what I was about to reveal to them.

Mom more than anything wore the same kind of concern she did when warning me off about alone time with Tanya. She was going to take this the hardest, I knew. Whether she would have wanted the news she was predicting over what I was going to say I don’t really know.

“The truth is,” I began again. Damn my shaking knees! It reached up like a cold torrent, sapping my courage and making my voice quiver, but still I pushed on. Gods, I hated being so weak. Even more I hated the way that such a simple truth could require so much damn inner strength.

It’s like I was that adolescent all over again, too ashamed to say out loud what I knew was the truth because saying made me a monster. It made me a liar, a freak and a weirdo. It meant that I would never live up to their expectations and be seen as nothing more than a failed human no matter how much I screamed against that. I didn’t want it to be that way.

I could still hear her voice. ‘You’ve got a destiny to keep up with,’ she echoed insistantly. ‘All you need to do is step up and we can bridge this gap. What do you say?’

Glimmer Girl had high expectations, but that was okay. Somehow I always managed to keep up. All I had to do was push on and remember to be strong, especially during the times I felt like I had nothing left, like right there under the dim spotlight in the middle of the living room.

And there I go talking about her like she’s somebody else again. I really need to stop doing that.

One last push, I told myself. An eager audience was waiting to hear the words come spilling from my lips. There was no way I could back down after this, and even if I did they would still know that something was up. At least this way I could take care of it in one foul swoop and that hair-pullingly frustrating gender identity crisis would never – be a problem – AGAIN.

Yeah, I know. I didn’t believe it either.

“The truth is,” I began for the ultimate time, ignoring the thick air filling inside my lungs. Just three more words and I would be done.

They paused. I paused. Somewhere in China a pin dropped, and then…

“I’m a girl.”

At first I wasn’t sure if I’d actually said it. Suddenly it was out there and for at least those first few moments nothing had changed. Maybe I had said something but it came out wrong, like it was in Spanish or something. Reviewing events in my head between the heavy thuds jutting from my ribs I realized that yes, I had said it, and that yes, I was their daughter in such a cunning disguise that not even they knew about it. Surprise!

“I don’t understand,” Dad said slowly.

My Mom on the other hand remarked drunkenly “don’t be stupid, Justin. We’ve both seen you naked, and unless it’s grown inwards since you were five years old…”

Not sure whether to scream, laugh or cry I collapsed backwards into the recliner and sighed. Somehow that didn’t go as expected. I locked myself in ready for a long conversation. It was going to be a very long night.

* * * *

NEXT ISSUE: Things go awry for the Milestone Meta-Crimes Division when a prison transport is attacked by the daughters of Betty Bruiser! Meanwhile, Kaira deals with the fallout of coming out to her parents. There’s no going back now. This and more in the next Shimmer, “Thicker than Blood”…

STAY TUNED…