I had finally started to heal from getting my ass beat. The bruises on my face and body were incredibly nasty looking, and looked exceptionally painful, however, they didn't hurt much at all. Some of the bruises had even gotten yellow around the edges. The swelling in my face had finally gone down, and I was able to start taking off the bandages, except for the one around my torso. Everyday, Gill and Clair made comments about how much better I was looking. I think they might have thought that i was self conscious of how busted up my face was, but, honestly, it didn't bother me a lot.

"So, are you going to do it again?" Gill asked me as we ate lunch one day.

"Do what again?" I asked in response.

"Stop another mugger."

"If I see one."

"You're gonna get yourself killed one of these days." Gill chuckled.

"One can only hope." I replied with a smirk.

"You're going to become a superhero or something." Gill smiled at me. I smiled back at him, and that was the end of the conversation.

Later that day, I held true to what I had said to Gill. I was skateboarding home, since my friends had finally started letting me get home alone. I was happily skating along, when I heard a shout from beside me. I looked over, and found a large man pulling on a young girl. She was fighting him, screaming, as he tried to get her into his car. I glared at him, and skateboarding over to him as fast as I could. I kicked up my skateboard and held it in both of my hands as I raised it up, and brought it down hard on the man's head. My skateboard snapped in half, and the man let go of the little girl to grip his head. I ran around the man and went up to the little girl, who looked terrified.

"Are you ok?" I asked her hurriedly. The little girl just shook her head.

"Where do you live?" I asked. The girl pointed down the street, letting me know which direction she needed to go. I nodded at her. "Ok, I'll get you there safely ok?"

As the girl nodded, I felt an arm wrap around my waist. The little girl screamed as I was ripped backwards. I found myself being held very tightly by the man who I had attacked. I fought against him, but I couldn't get free.

"You made a big mistake bitch." The man hissed in my ear.

"Not as big as the one you made." I growled back, trying to sound intimidating. I threw one of my elbows back as hard as I could into the man's chest. He dropped me, and I fell to the ground.

I stood up quickly and turned around, ready to fight the man. He was a lot bigger, scarier, and meaner than me, but I wasn't going to back down. The man lunged at me, and tackled me to the ground. I was wrestling against him, struggling to keep his fists away from my face. I growled angrily, and pushed against the man as hard as I could, and managed to push the man off of me enough to wiggle out from underneath him. I jumped to my feet, and kicked the man right in the nose. I heard a nasty crunch as I broke the man's nose with my foot, but I didn't stop there.

I kicked the man in the face again, but he began to get up. The man grabbed me by my arm, and threw me against his car. He pinned me against the car, and tried to open the door to his car to throw me in. I guess he decided that if I wasn't going to let him take the little girl, he was going to just take me instead. I pushed him off of me, and kicked him in one of his knees. The man sank to the ground in pain, and I kicked him in the head as hard as I possibly could, hurting myself in the process. On the bright side, the kick was enough to knock the man out.

I breathed heavily as I looked down at the unconscious man. I then looked over to the little girl who looked horrified beyond belief. I walked over to her, and knelt down so that I was eye level with her. She looked terrified of me, and I didn't blame her.

"What's your name?" I asked her gently.

"Marissa." The girl told me quietly.

"Well Marissa, my name is Tyler. Why were you out here by yourself?" I asked her.

"I was walking home from my friends house." She told me.

"Ok, well, I'll get you to your house safely ok? But first we need to call the cops so they can come take this man away, alright?" Marissa nodded. Her and I sat on the curb, waiting for the police to arrive. When the police did arrive, and got out of the car, one of them recognized me right away. It was the same cop who spoke to me about the mugging.

"You again?" He asked, walking over to Marissa and I. I stood up to talk to him.

"Yes. This man was trying to kidnap this girl. I tried to stop him, and he and I got into a fight. I ended up knocking him out." I informed the cop.

"Is this going to be a regular thing for yu. Am I going to be dispatched next week and find you outside a bank with a known robber tied up beside you?"

"No, I don't like banks. i would just let him rob it." I joked. The cop didn't look incredibly amused. I sighed. "Look, I don't go outside everyday, walking around, looking for someone to beat up. I was just on my way home from school both of these times. I heard this girl screaming for help, saw him trying to get her into his car, and rushed over to help."

"You keep doing stuff like this, and the entire world is going to know your name Tanya." The cop said.

"Speaking of which, if you talk to the news channel again about all of this, please let them know that my name is Tyler. Until yesterday, no one has called me Tanya sense the beginning of my freshman year. I like Tyler." I told the cop, hoping that would help stop people from calling me Tanya.

"Tyler is a boy's name." Marissa said quietly from beside me. She sounded like she was just stating a fact, not trying to be mean.

"Yes it is." I whispered quietly, and proudly.

The police arrested the man after getting him to wake up, and they wouldn't leave until I assured them that both Marissa and I would make it home safely. I grabbed the broken pieces of my skateboard and put them in my backpack. I then put my backpack on, and then picked up Marissa. She told me how to get to her house, and I walked all the way to her front door and rang the doorbell. A nice looking woman opened the door, and I set Marissa down. She ran to the woman, and hugged her tightly. The woman invited me inside, and poured me some coffee while her husband took care of Marissa, and I filled her in on what happened.

The woman began crying, and we sat in tense silence once I had finished. I awkwardly took a sip of my coffee. I hated the taste, but I didn't know what else to do. I was a complete stranger, and didn't know how to comfort this woman who was sobbing in front of me. She looked up at me, and reached across her dining table where we sat. The woman grabbed one of my hands in her own, looking at me gratefully. More tears pooled out of the woman's face as she began to thank me. Soon after that, I left, and went back to my own house.

***

"I need a new skateboard." I told my mom at dinner. She didn't say much about what I had done that day, but I knew that she wasn't happy about it.

"I'll see what I can do." Mom said. I nodded, and we ate the rest of our dinner in silence.

I slept easier that night. Hopefully, if I was going to be on the news again, they would get my name right so that way I wouldn't get called Tanya anymore. I would have to walk places for a little while, but I knew that that would be ok. The one thing that did concern me, was the fact that I had gotten my ass beat, yet again. I had no clue how to correctly fight someone, or how to win in a fight, or anything about fighting at all. Because of this, it was likely that Gill's prediction would come true, and I would get myself killed. So, I found myself falling asleep with a smile on my face, thinking about how i planned on taking self defense classes, to learn how to kick someone elses ass, while protecting my own. It was going to be perfect.

***

"I can't believe you!" Clair told me when she saw me at school the next day. "You did it again?" I opened my mouth to respond, but, before I could, I felt a pair of arms being wrapped around my waist, and I was lifted off of the ground, being spun in a circle.

"You're a freaking hero Ty!" Gill said excitedly as he spun me.

"Put me down." I laughed. Gill set me down, and the three of us talked.

"I don't know if I should be proud or worried. I mean, you stopped a man from kidnapping a little girl, but you could have gotten yourself killed. You were already hurt, and you could have died." Clair told me worridly. I rolled my eyes, but smiled.

"I'm fine. But you're right, which is why I'm going to be taking some self defense classes." I informed Clair.

"You're gonna learn how to punch people down, then you're gonna become a superhero!" Gill cheered.

"Don't be silly, of course Ty's not going to be a superhero." Clair scoffed.

"Well why not?" I asked.

"Because superheroes aren't real Ty, that's why. No one is stupid enough to dress up, sneak around at night, and get killed. Besides, superpowers aren't real, and I can promise you that there is no aliens, or evil mutants, or anything like that trying to kill us all. All we have is rapists and murderers, and we have police for people like that." Clair said. Gill looked at me, then back to Clair with a bit of a grin on his face.

"Where were the police when that girl was getting kidnapped yesterday?" He asked, trying to suppress a cocky grin. Clair just growled at him and walked away. Gill grinned at me, then he and I began chuckling as we started walking to go catch up with Clair.

I thought a lot about what Gill had said. I didn't see why i shouldn't become a superhero. I mean, part of me was saying that yeah, the idea of me becoming a a real life super hero was ridiculous and that Clair was right. But the other part of me asked the exact same question that I had asked earlier. Why not? Why shouldn't I become a superhero? What was so wrong about it? Yeah, no one had ever done it before, as far as I knew, but maybe that was because everyone was too afraid to be the first person to do it. Maybe if someone did it first, other people would too, and I didn't see any reason why I couldn't be the first person to do it.

I sighed and shook my head as I sat at my desk in my first class. I shook the thoughts of becoming a superhero out of my head, deciding that that would be a decision to make later, when I had more time to think it over.