The place I come from is filled with wild plants, bizarre animals and fantastic creatures that I had to face every single day to fulfill my one purpose. Appealia had magic and royalty and creatures of all shapes and intelligence. It was filled to the brim with castles ruins and small, quaint towns. It was always a large continent with adventure and new discoveries lurking around every corner.

But this wasn't Appealia. This wasn't even in the world of Appealia! This was America, on Earth. This was a strange, bizarre world that I had no clue how to navigate in.

Every place of this city was filled to the brim with things that overwhelmed me, even more so than the capital of Appealia.

My eyes constantly hurt from the array of brightly lit signs yelling at me to do stuff. I almost did, before. Then there were the people, most of them blended into the crowd, but some stuck out a lot. I didn't look at them, I was mostly staring at the bland people. Their clothes looked so soft! And clean! And fancy but also cozy at the same time!

But I didn't go up to them to check.

I swear.

There were sounds all around me, too, and they pressed into me. The chatter from the people, the roar of the moving vehicles, the people in bright orange tearing up the road... I put my hands over my ears, desperately hoping it would at least dampen the sound slightly.

But then, my nose caught something smelling sweet and tasty, and my mouth started to water. Yes! I grinned. All of this had been worth it.

Starting to hurry up, I hurried through the thread of people walking with me. Some of them gave me a double look, but not as much as I would have expected. It was weird... I looked so different from them.

Soon enough, I happened upon the source of the smell. It was like one of those stalls in marketplaces, except smaller and on wheels. I had no clue what they were selling and I didn't care. I walked right up.

The old man at the stall looked up, squinting at me. I didn't let it deter me.

"Hello!" I greeted. "So... what are you selling?"

The man was wearing a white button up shirt and glasses and a suspicious look on is face. That was a surprising first for me.

"I'm selling... hotdogs..." he said, warily. I grinned.

"Okay, I'll take two!" I said. "How much?"

And just like that, the merchant turned into a very different person. Suddenly, he was open and friendly, and grinning like he wasn't just looking suspiciously at me two seconds ago. It was almost scary.

"That'll be two dollars, my dear," he said cheerfully. "I apologize for being wary of you earlier. You must understand that I need to be careful."

I nodded, but I wasn't really listening. I was trying to figure out what a dollar was. "Yep. Obviously."

The old man nodded. "I'm glad you understand. What are you dressed up for, though, if I may ask?"

"Oh, you may," I said. This question didn't come out of complete nowhere. A couple of people already asked, including Sully. I wondered if this guy accepted my type of currency.

"...Are you a type of those dress up people?" the man continued. "Those ones that go to those big events! What are they called again...?"

"I'm not," I told him. "Hey, will you take Silver?"

"You aren't? Well, then- what?!" the old man's eyes went wide as I held out the silver coin to him. I'm pretty sure it'll work, I've heard that Silver is pretty valuable here.

"...Missy, with that you could practically buy my whole stand," the man took the silver coin from me. "As long as it's real... though this would be a rather odd scam..."

"It's not a scam," I told him. "And I'm not a girl. Or a boy. And I only want two hot dogs please."

The man handed me the hot dogs, looking over the coin greedily. "Yes, yes, there you go."

"Oh, thanks!" I took the hot dogs, and started on my way, waving goodbye to the man. As I walked, I bit into one. As I chewed it, I grimaced. Weird taste.

"Help! Lady!"

I wondered if Sully would like it. Maybe she could eat the rest of mine... I could frame it as a present! Well, I mean, I already bit into it...

"Lady! With the two hot dogs!"

Oh, so I'm who that man was yelling at. I sighed. I had been happy to find out I was non-binary, but I guess nobody else cared.

"Lady! My hot dog stand's been stolen!"

Reaching into the void, I called it. Reaching my hand out, I grabbed it. The sun seemed to shine down upon me as my sword appeared, and I swung it in a graceful arc, pointing towards the merchant, now without a cart/stall. The air around me seemed to shimmer as the short cape wrapped around me blew in a wind that wasn't there before. I grinned. This is why I hadn't taken off my armor yet, I loved this cool look.

"I'm not a lady," I told him cheerfully. "Now, where did the thief go?"

The man pointed to the right, down the street, and I immediately took off. Just because I wasn't in Appealia anymore doesn't mean I just stopped helping people. Besides, in a place like this... it was kind of fun.

You see, Earth had something very special about it. Instead of magic and wizards and knights, this place had what they called superheroes, people with special abilities that fought against other people with special abilities. Those people are called supervillains.

Of course, supervillains usually did a little more than steal hotdog stall-carts (from what I've seen, at least) but I wouldn't put it past them.

"Stop!" I ordered loudly. This never worked, but it was a real good way of saying 'Hey, people! Look out! There's a supervillain coming through!'. 

Or maybe this was just 'villain'. They didn't seem very super. "Stop! Now!"

The villain turned around, sticking his tongue out at me. I wondered what his deal was. He looked like a pretty average guy, just with some mask tied around his eyes. I wondered what the point of that was, considering I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd anyway.

I was nearly in arm's reach from the villain; I had him in my grasp. I would only need to reach out my hand to grab the collar of his shirt. But I didn't need to do all that. The thief had managed to trap himself without my help.

There was a screech as the villain stopped himself just moments from slamming the cart-stall into the alleyway wall. He looked around desperately, but there was nowhere for him to run.

He turned to me.

"Don't you heroes have bigger fish to fry?" he sighed.

I shrugged. "Not really, it's a slow day."

"I guess the End of the World ended last week."

"Pretty much."

"Humph," he shook his head, and suddenly shoved the cart-stall to me. I grabbed the cart with one hand, and raised my sword with the other, preparing for a second attack. But to my surprise, it didn't come. It must not have actually been an attack, I realized.

"Yeah, that was a stupid idea," he huffed. "It's not worth going to jail over."

"It sure isn't," I agreed. I shoved the cart back to him. "Now go return it."

"What?" he scoffed, shoving it back. "No way! I'd get arrested for sure!"

This time, I just held the cart. No use playing this game of throw all day. "Well, I'm sure if you apologized-."

"What?! What weird planet are you from?!"

"Hey, stop! ...Neo, what in the world are you doing?"

I lowered my sword as my friend came into view, coming from the street and framed in the dark alleyway. I waved at her. "Hey, Sully!" I yelled. "Look, I'm doing Superhero work!"

Sully didn't seem to appreciate that. "...It's too early for this, Neo..."

"Early eagle gets the worm," I told her cheerfully. "And it's not that early."

Sully groaned. I had always thought she looked kind of like an elf, and she told me that she was Taiwanese-American, whatever that meant. She was coming towards me and the thief in her wheelchair (I told her once that the word 'wheel-chair' was kind of on the nose. She told me to shut up).

"You'll have to leave the... Neo, is that...?" Sully squinted at the hotdog cart, but just continued on before I could tell her. "You'll have to leave the cart thing here."

"Huh?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because we have to evacuate," Sully sighed. "It's the End of the World again."

The thief whistled. "Wow," he said. "Doomsday Tuesday already?"