Content Warnings:

  Spoileraccidental misgendering, dysphoria

  [colpse]Professor Panic

  It's been a little over six months since that fateful day. Approximately three months since the st of the Graem forces either retreated from the pnet, or were annihited by the surviving heroes. The Earth, it would seem, has been saved... not that I can bring myself to care. Why should I care? Earth's greatest hero, the Man of the Future, is dead. Captain Liberty, my eternal nemesis, is no more. Now, as a vilin, you might think that this should be a good thing. Under normal circumstances, it would be! I would stand triumphant over his lifeless body, and there would be no one left to oppose me on my path towards world domination! This, on the other hand... there is no triumph to be had in this situation. There is only disappointment. What else can I do, other than reminisce about days gone by and grieve for a victory I can no longer obtain?

  Yes, I know that the world is still very much in need of domination, but without that one crucial step, the process of triumph over a hated nemesis, what's even the point? Perhaps I'll still get around to global conquest... at some point... once another worthy foe appears. For now, I bide my time, hiding amongst the general popuce. Speaking of which, my rent is due tomorrow. While it is true that my evil ir is equipped with all the necessities, the unfortunate reality is that in order to function in modern society, I need an "official" address — even if that address is little more than a studio apartment in a building on the intersection of Johnson and Sanchez Street.

  I force myself to get out of bed, not bothering to change out of the t-shirt and sweatpants I slept in, and head for the bathroom. The first thing I do is grab a razor, spsh some water on my face, and painstakingly shave away every st bit of stubble I can manage. Once I've achieved the desired smooth texture (at the expense of only a few bleeding pores), I toss it into the trash bin next to the sink and sit down to relieve myself. My morning routine complete, I leave the bathroom, throw on my hoodie, and grab my wallet from the nightstand, shoving it in my front pocket and as I slip into my shoes and head out the door. I pointedly ignore my neighbors for the entire trip down the stairs and out to the sidewalk, at which point I call for a taxi.

  The ride is rgely uneventful. Along the way, the taxi passes a memorial statue of none other than my accursed nemesis, the man who dared to sacrifice himself and deny me my ultimate victory — truly, I can think of no greater insult. Did all of our battles mean NOTHING to him?! Bah, best not to think about it. Instead, I look to the skyline. Given that there was effectively nothing left of Phoenix after the Graem Invasion was repelled, the government (under the direction of president Robert Lando) decided to rebuild and rename it to Zero City, so named for being "ground zero" of the Invasion. Inaccurate and perhaps a bit narcissistic, given all of the other ndmarks that were targeted first, but Phoenix was admittedly one of the few pces to be devastated so utterly as to require starting from scratch. I take a moment to inspect and appreciate the most recent construction efforts — somewhat impressive, but I could do better, of course.

  I step out of the taxi and enter the bank, where I wait in line as though I were a good citizen. Pathetic. How the mighty have fallen. Thankfully, the line moves quickly, and soon I reach the counter. "H-hey, I uh, I'm here to make a withdrawal?"

  "Sure! Can I see your ID?" the teller asks.

  Mumbling to myself, I pull out my wallet and my ID card, not looking at the picture as I hand it over.

  "Alright, Mr. O'Bannon! Just a moment..." I grumble in irritation as she begins typing something into the computer. Truly, truly pathetic. A vilin of my stature should be robbing this pce, not making a withdrawal!

  "NOBODY MOVE! THIS IS A ROBBERY!" a raspy voice yells out, and I turn to look towards the source: a man in biker's leathers with a bald, scaly head, jet bck eyes, and an unhinged jaw with a massive tongue and entirely too many teeth. I recognize him immediately: Dartmouth. A second-stringer, barely even a vilin at all, more of a mutant mook for hire. I even hired him myself a few times, back before the Invasion. If someone of his level is robbing a bank without any backup, his financial situation must be getting fairly desperate.

  If I were a hero, I could easily handle him myself, but as we've established, I'm no hero. Instead, I line up against the wall with all the other sheeple and wait for a hero to arrive. As it turns out, we don't have to wait long, because-

  ...okay, I take it back. As it turns out, I CAN think of a greater insult.

  Captain Liberty

  When I awaken, I'm floating in the vacuum of space — somewhere in Earth's orbit, if the big blue sphere below me is any indication. I'm familiar with the sensations of being in orbit; I used to come up here to think, before I retired my secret identity and built the Crystal Fortress. So it turns out I'm still alive... damn it. I should've known this might happen. The thing about Paragon-type heroes — the official term for metahumans with my powerset — is that we have a direct connection to something called the Source. Now, the Source has had many names throughout history: the Lifestream, the Well of the Furies, the Fountain of Youth, just to name a few. What really matters is that it's a dimension of infinite life energy that leaks into our own universe. (Some scientists believe it may have caused the Big Bang? I don't know, I'm not a scientist.)

  As a result of this connection, Paragon-types have an unlimited supply of power to draw on in times of duress... theoretically, anyway. In practice, it takes skill and practice to draw more energy from the Source, and some heroes are better at it than others. When a Paragon overtaxes their powers, they enter what's known as a "healing coma", in which their body goes into a sort of stasis while their mind draws on the power of the Source to heal any injuries. Eventually — sometimes in as little as a week, sometimes as much as a year — they awaken, body and mind fully refreshed. I've never experienced a healing coma before, what with having a more stable connection to the Source than any other known Paragon, but it's the only expnation that makes sense.

  No sign of the alien fleet; I must've been out for a while. At least I accomplished something, even if I'm still trapped in my own-

  Wait a minute.

  Did I shrink?

  I look down at my arms; still toned, but not nearly as muscur, no longer bulging out from within my skin-tight blue costume. My hands look almost... dainty. Blinking, I realize that I have a strand of brown hair in my eyes. My hair was not that long when I lost consciousness. I look down further to confirm that... yep, those are definitely breasts.

  A mirror. I need a mirror. Looking off into the horizon, I see the moon orbiting into view, and zip towards it. I fly over the surface until I find an old nding site, and more importantly, one of the mirrors that astronauts left behind to mark their progress. It still works, after all these years. I look into it.

  A young woman stares back at me. She has straight brown hair that falls gently down to her shoulders, soft blue eyes with long eyeshes, and full pouting lips — a far cry from the stoic expression I'd become known for. Her body is athletic without being overly muscur, visibly feminine without being overly curvaceous. She's wearing my bright blue jumpsuit, complete with the bright red accents and cape; most notably, the bulge in my shorts that I'd grown to hate is gone.

  She's beautiful.

  I'm beautiful.

  I ugh, my soft and airy voice still managing to carry through what little atmosphere clings to the moon, and I cry, tears of joy streaming down my face. I haven't cried since I was a child. I don't know how this happened, and right now, I don't care. I just float there, twirling in pce, enjoying the moment.

  The moment can't st forever, though; sooner or ter, I have to come back down to Earth, both figuratively and literally. First, though, I need some new clothes. I fly up and away from the moon, then down into the pnet's atmosphere, my powers protecting me from most of the effects of re-entry. I angle my descent towards the continent of Antarctica, flying over the frozen ndscape until I spot it, a gleaming spire of solid white carbon with all the hardness of diamonds and all the durability of nanotubes. On a satellite feed, it would be easy to mistake the tower for just another snow-covered mountain, but to my super-senses, it's unmistakably the pce I've called home for the past two decades and counting: the Crystal Fortress.

  I fly up to an unremarkable section of wall that I know is actually the front door. Briefly, I wonder if the security systems will even recognize me like this, but my worries are dispelled when the hidden door slides open, allowing me inside. The interior is just as I left it; the inner walls are shiny and chrome, like something out of an old sci-fi movie (I've always been a sucker for the cssics), with blinking lights of every color providing illumination. The desk with a sleek silver monitor and keyboard built into it, the high-tech sleeping chamber that I was using to keep away the nightmares, the replicator for making food and supplies, and on the far wall, a massive viewscreen and loudspeaker to alert me of disaster.

  For now, I float over to the replicator and get to work making some clothes to fit my new body. I wind up getting a bit carried away, and then needing to replicate a suitcase to keep all of them in as well. I change out of my super-suit and into a soft blue dress with a floral pattern, and a pair of low heels. Using the main viewscreen as a mirror, I take a moment to admire my new self, unable to resist the deep-seated, primal urge to make the dress go spinny. After a moment, I stop myself; I'll have time for that ter. For now, I need to figure out how long I was floating unconscious in space.

  I walk over to the desk and sit down, crossing my legs (and silently appreciating the ck of obstruction between them) and accessing the database. The first thing I check is the date: April 20th, 2021. There's a joke in there, somewhere, but I ignore it for now. The important part is that I've been missing — and presumed dead, if the news coverage is any indication — for just over six months. I wonder if Damien Bckheart got re-elected. I certainly hope not, but thankfully I don't have to worry for long, because apparently he was arrested for mass murder; human sacrifice, according to all publicly avaible sources, allegedly to "bolster national defense" during the Invasion.

  I fucking called it. The dude was very obviously a supervilin, but nobody could prove anything... until now, apparently. Now he's being held under maximum security, in somewhere called "Zero City Penitentiary". I've never heard of anywhere called Zero City, so I look it up, and — huh, interesting, apparently they rebuilt and resettled the ruins of Phoenix into a brand new city. I'll have to check that out.

  I change back into my super-suit, head outside the Fortress, and take off into the sky, suitcase in hand. Along the way, with my head literally in the clouds, it's easy to lose myself in my thoughts. How am I going to expin my sudden return? Do I just tell the truth? "Hey everybody, I'm back from the dead, and also a girl now, but actually I've secretly been a girl this whole time?" Would it be better to roll out a whole new superhero identity instead?

  Maybe I should focus on establishing a new secret identity, before I worry about that. The first name is easy; I've given it a lot of thought, and I really like the idea of being called Menie. The st name is a bit trickier; I could stick with my old one and be Menie Marcus, but what if somebody makes the connection between that and my deadname? Then again, "Steven" died a while ago; maybe I could cim to be "his" long-lost daughter or something.

  My musings are interrupted by my arrival in Zero City. Scanning the yout, I see a multitude of conveniently-pced alleyways in which to change in and out of costume, which makes me wonder if somebody pnned for this pce to be some kind of city of heroes. I carefully nd in an unoccupied alleyway and set down my suitcase, but before I can open it, I hear a raspy voice yell out from inside a nearby building: "NOBODY MOVE! THIS IS A ROBBERY!"

  Well okay then. Change of pns. I stash my suitcase in an inconspicuous alcove and look through the wall into the building — a bank, from the looks of it. In the front lobby, a familiar vilin is forcing everybody to line up against the far wall. Activating my super-speed, I rush into the building to confront him.

  Professor Panic

  A mysterious woman wearing the costume of my dead nemesis bursts through the front door, stopping in mid-air, right in front of the robber. "...You're Dartmouth, right? I'm going to have to ask you to stand down."

  Dartmouth does a double-take before ughing at the absurdity of the situation. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!"

  The woman smirks at him. "What, don't you recognize the costume? I'm Captain Liberty." Impossible.

  Dartmouth lets out a low growl before shing out with his tongue, hurling a series of bony, acid-coated spines at her. Every single one of them bounces off of her with no effect whatsoever.

  The impersonator — this woman who would DARE y cim to the title of my te archenemy — tilts her head at him. "I'll give you one more chance to stand down."

  With a guttural roar, Dartmouth turns towards me and the rest of the gathered crowd before unleashing another volley of acidic spikes, this time directed at us. In a blur of motion too fast for the human eye to follow (but not too fast for my advanced sensor suite to track), the pretender snatches them all out of the air and tosses them at the feet of the malevolent mutant. "IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE?!" he screams at her.

  She rushes at Dartmouth for a quick jab to throw him off bance. "This stopped being funny when you put people in danger." Before he can recover, she whirls around him with a series of punches cleverly calcuted to wear down his defenses. She seems to know exactly where to hit him to get through his mutant hide without causing any long-term damage; if I didn't know any better, I would wonder if she's fought him before.

  Dartmouth colpses to the floor, utterly unconscious. The pretender pulls off his jacket and wraps it around his face as a makeshift gag before carefully pinning him to the wall using his thick leather gloves, his boots, and some of his own spikes. Then, she turns to the crowd and asks us one question: "Is everyone okay?"

  She's immediately bombarded with questions, which I can only halfway bring myself to pay attention to as I seethe with rage.

  Captain Liberty

  "Does this mean the old Captain Liberty is gone for good?" one of them asks.

  Ah, crap, I guess I didn't really think this through. I saw a good deed in need of doing, and then I just sort of... reacted. I am not prepared for an interview. "...Yes," I answer, hoping nobody noticed my hesitation.

  "How did you know him?" another person asks.

  I bite back the urge to answer with of course I know him, he's me and instead say, "I'm his daughter."

  "So his powers are hereditary?" another asks.

  "Apparently," I shrug.

  "Can I get your autograph?" One of them offers me a pen and a sheet of paper.

  Ah. Really should've seen that coming. "Sure!"

  Professor Panic

  As this new pretender to the title continues to sign autographs for her adoring fans, I sit in the corner and brood. She thinks she's worthy of carrying his title just by virtue of being his alleged daughter? She expects everyone to just believe her story, with no evidence whatsoever? She would desecrate the memory of my eternal nemesis?! THIS WILL NOT STAND! If she believes she can be a worthy nemesis of the great Professor Panic... well, we shall see about that!

  Doing my best to ignore the sinking feeling I get whenever I look directly at her, I slink off into the shadows before the cops can arrive to arrest Dartmouth.