Penny didn’t mind the stares anymore. If people weren’t okay with a masculine-presenting person working in a women’s boutique, then fine. It didn’t even matter to Penny anymore. She loved this job and was grateful just to be at Raquel’s. Fuck the rest of them for thinking of her as some kind of invader. She knew how much they loved her when they saw who she really was.

When Penny had finished ringing up another customer, she took a moment to run her hands through her hair. It was getting kind of long. That was good news for her, but her mom and dad would both be pestering her to get it cut very soon. Maybe she could use an illusion to make it look shorter than it was?

“Tobias,” her boss Rachel said, walking up, “I’ll take over the register. See if the customers need any help.”

Penny nodded and stepped away. There weren’t a lot of customers today, fortunately. It didn’t take long for Penny to spot her: Gabriela had come in and was looking at tops.

“Hey there,” she said, walking up. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, hello. Do you know anything about fashion? I’m looking for something that I can wear for the rest of summer and fall. My family had a big windfall recently and I want to splurge.”

She blushed, as if feeling a little guilty. Penny grinned. Gabriela was cute, even if it felt weird to think that about a woman who was older than her. Not that Penny was looking for a relationship, anyway. She wasn’t likely to find a girlfriend in a small town like this.

“Yeah, I’d love to help,” Penny insisted, getting away from that last thought before it could consume her. “Let’s find a color that works well with you.”

Penny probably should not have been ignoring the other customers for the sake of one person who wasn’t even really a friend, but Gabriela was her favorite customer. And Rachel wasn’t really watching them. Besides, nobody else who shopped here was going to want a “guy’s” help anyway.

“I think that this is what you’re looking for,” Penny concluded, holding up a nice blouse. “It’s a little on the expensive side—”

“It’s perfect,” Gabriela insisted, taking the blouse from Penny. “Thank you. Are you really big into fashion?”

“Not too big, no. I thought briefly about studying it in college, but it’s probably not going to happen.”

“Oh? What do you want to study in college, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t think I’m going to go,” Penny admitted quietly.

“Oh, why not?”

Penny shrugged.

After a moment, Gabriela asked, “What’s your name again?”

“Penny,” she replied without thinking, before her eyes went wide.

“Alright… Penny,” Gabriela said. “If you want my advice, it’s worth going. A college degree is just too useful to give up, even if it isn’t necessarily a ticket to success.” A pained look crossed her face. “And the opportunities you’ll experience are worth the struggle of four more years at school. If you can reasonably afford it, I’d really recommend you go. Get out of this town for a while and see a bit of the world; it’ll help you figure out who you are.”

“I… I’ll think about it,” Penny said in the smallest voice she could. She didn’t want to look Gabriela in the eye after that slip-up with her name. “T-Thank you.”

“And thank you, Penny,” Gabriela said, patting her on the shoulder before walking toward the cash register.

When Penny’s shift ended and she walked out of the store, she decided that she was just going to head home. Penny fished the earpiece communicator out of her glove compartment and stuck it in her ear, tapping it to turn it on. She wasn’t going out “on patrol” today, but she wanted to be there if Isabelle needed her.

There was, thankfully, nobody else at home when Penny arrived. As Penny got out of the car, she snapped her fingers and cast her illusory body. There were enough trees between Penny’s home and her neighbors that nobody was going to see her enter the house. Still, once she was inside, Penny locked the door and closed the blinds just in case.

“I think I need a break,” she mumbled, walking into the kitchen to get herself a snack.

Once she was properly equipped with popcorn and chocolate, Penny collapsed onto the couch and picked up the remote. She just needed to turn off her brain for a while. Penny was still reeling from what had happened with Gabriela earlier.

When Penny finally heard the lock on the front door start to turn, Penny dispelled her illusion. But it was her dad who walked through the front door. Penny sighed in relief and summoned her illusory body again.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, sitting up and stretching.

“What are you doing?” her father asked. “Stop that, right now.”

“Stop what? Watching TV?”

“You know what I mean,” her father said, gritting his teeth. “Go back to looking like yourself.”

“No,” Penny said. She was shaking, though. “You know that I can look like this, so there’s no reason to hide it. There’s no point in pretending that I have to look like a boy anymore. So I’m not going to just because you’re around.”

“I am your father,” he replied, starting to turn a little red. “You will show me the appropriate amount of respect. If you insist on keeping up the charade, there will be consequences.”

Penny curled her hands into fists and looked away. He was telling the truth; her father would absolutely follow through with that. So she let the illusion dissipate and closed her eyes, feeling tears well up.

“You’re a bastard,” she mumbled, getting up and storming off to her room.

She made sure to lock the door behind her. Penny didn’t cast the illusion again. All she did was collapse onto bed and start crying. It wasn’t fair. She was a girl! Why couldn’t her father see that?! Even after all these months, he refused to even acknowledge that she was trans!

Eventually, Penny was done crying. With a thought, she cast the illusion again and could go back to being herself. Her father couldn’t take this away from her, no matter how hard he tried.

“If I get a full-time job,” she mumbled, “I might be able to get a place of my own, and I can live how I’m supposed to all the time. Unless I’m at work, I guess. But I can start taking hormones and actually transitioning properly.”

Gabriela’s words crawled their way out of the back of her mind, but Penny pushed them away. She didn’t want to deal with that right now. Penny sighed and buried her face into her pillow. What was she going to do?

When Penny heard the front door open and close again, she knew that she’d been sulking for long enough. She took a deep breath and pulled herself into a sitting position. Moping wasn’t going to make the situation any better for her.

Penny pulled out her phone—her regular phone—and checked for messages. There were a couple, but only from Michael. He was asking where she was and why she wouldn’t respond to his messages. More than once, Michael mentioned a meeting that he wanted to take Penny to. Again, it was that Warriors group that he was so obsessed with. Penny wished he’d just shut up about it already.

She couldn’t talk to him after what had happened. Now that she’d seen his true colors, Penny wanted nothing to do with him. He certainly wasn’t her best friend anymore. Penny shivered at the thought that they were still a linked pair because of their powers.

“I’m fucked on that front, aren’t I?”

Or was she? Penny didn’t actually know all that much about how a linked pair worked, just that the people involved always ended up as partners of some kind. Was there a way around that or was it inevitable? She had to find out.

Penny got out of bed and sat down at her laptop, turning it on and waiting for it to boot up. She needed as much information on the Sun and Moon heroes as she could possibly find. There was no way she’d allow her destiny to be intertwined with Michael’s, of all people.

The very first recorded presence of the Stellar Orb Heroes, as they were officially called, dated back to the Victorian era, as it turned out. Superheroes and superhero names as they were now known didn’t really show up until the mid-twentieth century with the rise of the Association of Heroes. Before that, almost everyone used their powers for personal gain, and records of who had what power had to be pieced back together after the fact. From the nineteen forties onward, there were twelve confirmed cases of people being visited by the Sun and Moon Orbs, and a speculated five or six more that had never revealed themselves to the public.

“Come on,” she muttered, “There has to be something.”

The first pair of heroes to be on the Association were Skyborn and Moonlight. They had already been married when they got their powers. After them were Solar Flare and Nightwalker; Nightwalker was a minor when she got her powers, but it was later discovered that they were father and daughter. Sunlight and Moon Mistress had apparently been pen pals before being chosen and eventually moved to the same town together, living next door to each other and raising their own families.

Penny kept searching. The most interesting pair was probably Sunscar and Lunar Witch, who had become the only known pair of Stellar Orb villains. They had organized a supervillain team known as the Cursed Warriors and were active until Sunscar was killed in a fight with the Association of Heroes. After that, Lunar Witch retired and eventually wrote an autobiography. Penny thought she might want to pick that up; it seemed interesting.

Two cases in particular stood out, though. The first happened in nineteen sixty-four, where Moon Pool had been fatally injured in a fight with a supervillain. Her partner, Lightweaver, ended up taking Moon Pool’s power from her and passing it on to a new person, who then became his partner. A similar incident occurred in nineteen ninety-six, when Tidal Lock’s partner Solar Surfer was dying of cancer. Tidal Lock had taken his powers and passed them on to a new person, who took up the mantle of Solar Surfer as well.

“What did I accomplish?” Penny asked herself as she checked the clock.

It really seemed like all the Stellar Orb Heroes ended up as partners of some kind. Unless Penny convinced Michael to give up his powers, she might be stuck with him. And Michael was not the kind of person to give up something this cool.

“Maybe he’ll grow out of it,” she mumbled, standing up and stretching. “People change. He’s not going to be a dick forever.”

Still, she didn’t really want to wait for that to happen. Was it possible that she could just avoid him until then, however long it took? Or was she going to have to spend time with him to teach him the error of his ways. It wasn’t really her responsibility.

Penny sighed and dispelled her illusion. She was hungry. Hopefully dinner was almost ready.

The next day, after work, Penny parked her car and put her costume back on. She wasn’t planning to do much, but needed her superhero identity for this. Penny floated upward to the flat roofs of the buildings lining Main Street. Once she got close enough to see what was going on, she turned herself invisible and sat down on the edge of the roof to watch.

Transvection and Snap-trap were down there, standing in front of the fountain on one end of Main Street. They were surrounded by people, most of them probably tourists, who were shaking their hands and putting money into a collection box. The two were gathering donations for the town’s historical preservation program, which paid to keep as many of the old buildings standing and in good condition. It was mostly to promote tourism, but it did help keep the town’s sense of identity alive.

 Mirage heard her communicator beep, so tapped it to answer.

“Hey, Isabelle,” she said. “Do you need me?”

“Well, it’s just that I’ve noticed you’re not helping out your colleagues with collecting donations. What’s up?”

“Yeah, Transvection invited me, but I just don’t think it’s really my thing.”

“Oh? This is a good opportunity to get to know the locals and let them see ‘the real you,’ as it were. It helps them feel closer to you, so you’re not just this mysterious imposing figure running around in a mask.”

Mirage shrugged.

“Not my thing,” she repeated.

“Can I ask why?”

“I just…” Mirage was struggling to find the words. “I’m not comfortable being the center of attention, you know?”

“I understand, Mirage. Better than you might think. But there’s nothing to fear. People want to get to know you. You’re popular right now.”

“How?” Mirage asked.

“You’re kind of a mystery right now. People eat that up. Trust me, anyone who shakes your hand is going to be bragging about it for days, if not weeks.”

Mirage nodded slowly.

“Alright. If they won’t eat me alive, I’ll do it.”

“Go get ‘em, kiddo,” Isabelle said, ending the call.

Mirage took a deep breath and kicked off from the roof, flying over slowly and landing, still invisible, on the edge of the fountain. She allowed herself to become visible again and there was a gasp from the audience. Transvection and Snap-trap turned to look at her. Snap-trap grinned.

“I was hoping you’d make it,” she said.

“Glad to help,” Mirage said quietly, before steeling herself and turning to face the crowd.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as Mirage had thought it would be. She ended up shaking a lot of hands and assuring people that it was nice to meet them. A lot of time was spent generating illusions for people, and by the time she was done, Mirage was actually a little tired.

Mirage, Snap-trap, and Transvection ended up retiring to the ice cream parlor in full costume afterward to get a snack. Mirage could still feel the eyes on her the entire time, but her companions didn’t seem bothered. After a few minutes, Mirage was able to relax and focus on her rocky road. She wasn’t even shaking that bad.

“I’m glad you came,” Transvection said. “Part of being a hero is getting to know the community, after all. And I know you don’t like crowds.”

Snap-trap agreed, “Yeah, it was pretty brave of you.”

Mirage blushed into her ice cream. They continued to chat for a while, but it was getting late. When she was finished, Mirage stood up and dispelled her outfit.

“Oh, wow,” Snap-trap said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Your costume is an illusion too?” Transvection asked.

“Yeah, it is,” Penny confirmed.

“Well, if you want,” Transvection continued, “I could make you a real one instead.”

“That’s kind,” Penny said, genuinely touched. “But having an illusory costume is actually really convenient.”

“If you insist,” he replied, returning to his ice cream.

Penny said goodbye and walked out into the early evening. Instead of heading straight to her car, though, Penny took a detour through the park. She ended up sitting down at one of the picnic tables.

Superpowers hadn’t fixed her life. Penny still had problems with her parents at home, she was still a bit of a nervous wreck in crowds, and she had no idea what to do about Michael. But all things considered, she was so grateful for her new life.