As I look through the convenience store, part of me wonders if there’s going to be a point where I stop bothering to buy food. I’ve not felt hungry at all.

  It doesn’t matter; food is part of what makes me human, and creepy eyes or not, I don’t want to lose that yet.

  Chips, cookies, candies. The three C’s for a night to myself. That and something to drink, but unfortunately I’m not really a fan of Coke, so there won’t be a fourth C.

  I do pause at the ice cream because it would go a long way for my enjoyment of the night. But I resist moving to the checkout instead.

  “Got everything you were looking for?” The cashier asks, his voice raspy, either from talking a lot from being at this counter all day or perhaps he’s been smoking a lot.

  Either ?of those options is a good guess.

  “Yeah, I was able to find everything alright,” I say, handing over all of my desired purchases as he scans each one.

  “Do you want this in a bag?” he asks, gesturing to one of the bottles as he puts the remaining bottles and snacks into various plastic bags.

  “Yeah, just put it all in.” I say after a second of thought. Flipping through my wallet, I pull out my card, putting it into the reader and punch in my pin.

  “What’s that crab doing to that car?” A small voice asks as I finish paying for my libations.

  I turn towards the windows of the gas station to see what looks to be a giant crab man who’s stomping towards a beat-up car.

  I can’t decide which is more distracting. The fact that there’s a giant crab man heading towards a car or that I am looking for something I can clearly see with my eyes, but to my mind map magic, it’s completely out of my perception range.

  The crab man raises his pincers in the air, and I watch in fascination as the shell covering his upper body seems to crack and expand, inflating like a balloon.

  It’s fascinating, yet grotesque as parts of his body seem to explode as he swells bigger and bigger. I’m not sure how tall he is, but looks like he’s approaching twice my height.

  What is an almost twelve foot tall crabman supposed to be doing?

  As the car gets crushed, I realize I might be looking at a criminal trying to do something.

  A super criminal.

  One I could stop.

  At that moment, I swear that the crab turns to face the store, locking eyes with me and everyone else in the store.

  Dashing forward, I run through the automatic doors, putting myself ?between the crab and the store.

  I don’t know why I’m running, but I know that I can’t stay still.

  Crushing a car is one thing, but hurting people isn’t okay.

  So here I am, doing my best to stop a giant crab-man from attacking any civilians.

  “Hey what’s your name, man?” I ask, stepping to the giant crab-human mutant trying to pacify the situation. Yes, my brilliance knows no bounds for things to say.

  “Buzz off, shades.” The crab man says, unfortunately I am not in the mood to move around in the slightest.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this.” I warn him, getting between him and the store. “You are already going to be in deep shit for busting up someone’s car. You don’t need to attack a store and hurt civilians.” I say.

  “What do you know? I’m stuck like this; they’ll see a monster anyway,” he snarls, stomping forward and leaving foot-shaped craters in the street.

  “Because I’m a super too, dumbass, and all doing shit like this does is make things worse.” I say, taking a swing at being comforting, and taking off my sunglasses. “Just because we look different doesn’t mean that the world is over. One incident doesn’t a monster make.”

  “So what? Your eyes are creepy. I’ve gone through cancerization and look like a giant crab man. And I’m not going to stop cause some freak eyes tells me it’s not over.” Crabby snarls, swinging his fist at me.

  Stepping forward, I duck underneath the fist as I tilt to the side.

  Twisting my torso to wind up the punch, I slam my fist into the side of this guy, getting a satisfying creaking sound.

  I revel in that feeling of badassdom for the all of half of a second I have before I’m with? his arm and sent tumbling across the ground.

  Thudding onto the sidewalk to stop, I groan, pulling myself up to my feet.

  That hurt.

  Not as much as some of the stuff I’ve done, sure, but it definitely hurt like and he just casually backhanded me.

  And while I was rolling, Mr. Crabs has already begun walking towards the convenience store again.

  “Hey Gas Station Sushi!” I call out, saying the first thing that came to mind. “You ready for round two?” I ask, shadowboxing the air in a way that I hope is intimidating.

  The sewer is beneath us and is pretty huge here. I think that I’m going to have enough space to just knock him out with what I’m going to patent as my special move if it works.

  Crabman does not like the nickname I gave him as he turns to me.

  Actually, I’m not sure hard to read the expression of a crab man.

  He is charging forward, though. “You should have stayed down pest!” he roars.

  I scramble forward to meet him, while I’m pretty sure I can beat him. I don’t want to cause more damage than necessary.

  Slipping under a swipe of his mighty pincers, I slam my hand against his back; the shell poking my palm enough that it stings.

  Flexing my power, I force my ability through my hand to phase the crab to drop him down into the sewer so he can cool off.

  Power rushes through me more than I have ever tried to draw on at once, and the torrent rips out of my control, tendrils of darkness flying into the sky and through my opponent, doing no damage as pain wracks my mind.

  I don’t even catch the blow as fly back, slamming into the ground still reeling.

  I grumble to myself. Figures trying something I’ve never practiced before went poorly, standing up though this time the Crab is watching me.

  “Good.” He says, watching me stand up. “If you’re going to be one of those filthy heroes, you need to keep standing so I can break you! With your good looks and anime eyes, you understand nothing!”

  I never really considered myself all that good-looking, but, you know, if my comparison is a giant crab man, I suppose it’s not a high bar.

  “You don’t need to fight. I get what it’s like to be a super. And I can’t imagine how much worse it is when you can’t hide as easily.” I say, trying to console him. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. Well, he’s definitely an asshole, but…

  Getting powers puts a lot of things in perspective. I once wondered why more supers didn’t do things with their powers that made them money.

  And now I wonder why so many go out in public? It’s terrifying.

  And for the folks like the crab, well, there’s nothing he can do about his appearance?

  Doesn’t mean that’s an excuse to be an asshole.

  My words seem to fall on deaf ears. Do crabs even have ears? Besides the point, the crab is trundling towards me, slowly beginning to pick up speed.

  Discarding the first thought of phasing, I instead do my best to trip him. He’s already knocked me down twice, so I figure it’s only proper that I return the favor to knock him on his ass.

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  Slamming my leg into his, I can in fact hit with enough force to knock this guy down; however, it hurts.

  Endlessly grateful for Travis showing me what it felt like to go full force these past few lessons, I keep ?going as hard as I can, not wanting to stop for a moment.

  Fighting is a lot easier when I’m willing to let myself phase. I can phase through his attacks and solidify when I go to punch. At least I hope.

  Am I only ever going to practice ?my powers while fighting random supervillains?

  Is this guy a supervillain?

  Slipping out of his reach, I revel in the sensation of power flowing through me. I felt this way with Travis, but right now, I feel even better.

  Though crab man is way stronger than me, and if he wasn’t so awkward in swinging his body around, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to dodge anything.

  With the swing incoming, I jump up in the air, slightly phasing my body. “Will you let me hit you!” The crab snarls as I pass through his arm.

  Come on, Jason, think, think. I tell myself, trying to take everything I can in stride to figure out what I can do here.

  The crab is a lot stronger than me, and he’s at least probably more durable than a normal human. Though he’s reacting to my hits, ?he’s not so durable I can’t hurt him.

  He can also enlarge himself. Though he hasn’t done that since the fight started, so maybe he can only do that ?once and is at his limit.

  I’m faster than him. And I’m not a giant crab man. I think those are my only advantages here.

  That and phasing.

  Partial phasing is something I’m going to try.

  I’ve had a good amount of success doing it when I was jumping around.

  Though I was able to always plan how everything was going to go.

  My reflexive skills are probably significantly worse.

  Okay, plan.

  I’ll keep my feet and my hands solid since I need to use those to hit people.

  But for the rest of my body, I’m thinking I don’t need to think about it at all. I’m just going to keep most of my body phased.

  Walking through his outstretched arm, I punch him in the face.

  The look on his face as I walk through his arm as I slam my fist into his face is brilliant.

  It also hurt.

  Punching hard shell isn’t all that enjoyable, and punching things as hard as I can also isn’t a very pleasant experience either.

  “Is that all you got?” I mock, jumping through the swing of a pincer to strike him in the ribs again.

  The fight slowly beginning to turn in my favor is the moment where everything comes crashing down.

  As the crab catches my fist, he throws me towards the ground.

  Not knowing if I can catch myself, I solidify fully, slamming into the ground with a thud before folding like a pretzel as a pincer slams into my stomach.

  “Not so tough now, are you?” He laughs, grabbing me with his claw and raising me up into the air. “A flighty fairy like you is never going to understand.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I rasp, trying to come up with an idea. Come on, there’s got to be a good way for me to use my head.

  “I said that already, dumbass.” The crab says, tightening his grip on my torso.

  While it stings, I keep my concentration intact, mostly because I know that I can escape whenever I want.

  I just don’t want to. I want to win. I want to stop this crab, and I’m going to come up with a way to do it. Somehow.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want revenge because it’s unfair you got turned into a giant crab.” I retort, trying to egg him on.

  “You won’t distract me!” The crab says, pulling me close to his face so that his screaming spit can hit me.

  Quite rude of him.

  “Caught my breath, didn’t I?” I ask before using my head.

  Slamming my head into his, I phase through his body, using the momentum to stumble to my feet behind him.

  Scampering back towards the middle of the street, I pull my hands up, trying to remember everything I can from the almost two weeks of lessons I’ve gotten so far.

  “You’re not much of a supervillain if you can’t even manage to take me out, are you?” I taunt, keeping the crab man in front of me.

  “Why do you care so much?” He says, stalking towards me.

  “Not sure.” I admit rushing him.

  Whether it’s my brutal honesty or my brutal stupidity, the Crab doesn’t react the fastest, and I’m able to strike him thrice before he can swing another meaty paw at me.

  While I’m no anime god of control here, able to hit exactly the same spot every time. I try to keep hitting the parts I’ve hit before.

  My aiming becomes easier the longer the fight goes on as well turns out it’s way easier to hit a spot when there’s a bunch of visible cracks to aim for.

  As a leg kicks through me, I vow to look up some ways phasers have fought before I need some better moves.

  I slam my knee into his leg, wishing I wasn’t fighting a giant crab-man twice my height. Why couldn’t it have been a crab man who is my height wouldn’t that be so much easier?

  So that I have more bits to hit him with I try to trust my reflexes and my mind map to phase when I need to so I can’t hit him with everything instead of just my hands while I use my feet to stay on the ground.

  It goes well.

  For about two dodges and phases.

  Catching the next pincer with my sternum sends me to the ground, where a waiting foot slams into me.

  Groaning in pain, I look at the crab, who seems to have taken this glorious moment to monologue.

  “And this is why crabs are the greatest race on the earth! Everyone should be like me!” He says, clacking his pincers together as if he’s made the greatest comment of all time.

  “I thought you were crabby about being a cancer?” I retort snorting.

  “I’m always crabby.” He says with a shrug.

  I gently place my hands underneath me to get ready to stand up once more while I watch in horror as the crab continues to march towards the grocery store.

  Where are the police?

  Aren’t there supposed to be people here that could come and stop this?

  “You can’t stop me. You can’t do anything.” The crab says, twisting an eye around to give me one more look.

  I growl in rage as I try to muster the energy again. He’s injured too, there's tons of cracks crisscrossing his body.

  I have a chance. I have to believe that. If I don’t give up, at least there’ll be a moment to take him down.

  We aren’t in different tiers. I just need to get up.

  “What’s the point of you even trying to get up again?” The crab says, giving me the pincer.

  “At least I have hands to flip people the bird.” I taunt, demonstrating the wonderful power of having middle fingers.

  Crab man does not take well to my well put together argument and kicks me again.

  I really need to get better at this whole phasing thing.

  “Supers like you are the problem. Content to stay with the status quo. Willing to hide and do nothing while supers like me are stuck suffering because you all aren’t willing to change things.” The crab says taunting back.

  In that moment, I see the child I left behind, small and delicate.

  “Fuck off, bitch.” I snarl, getting up again and beginning to move forward again. “People like you are the problem.” I say, stepping into the range of the crab only to phase through his pincer as I kick his leg as hard as I can.

  “Get off me!” he shrieks, trying to bring his hands down in an overhand smash.

  Letting myself drop through the ground, I catch myself with my hands, swinging as if the asphalt is a trapeze to launch myself above the surface feet first into the crab’s stomach.

  Finally, he falls to the ground, and I waste no time in getting on top of him and start to beat into his skull with my annoyance.

  “You could be so many goddamn motherfucking things!” I bellow, punching where a throat should be, but there’s just a shell.

  “You and I are strong as hell. We could do construction!” I roar, punching him in the sternum.

  “Stop! Stop!” the crab yells.

  “You could be a porn star for everyone who’s into crab people and makes thousands!” I rant, punching him in the face this time.

  The crab isn’t making any words now, just whimpering in pain as I keep beating him.

  “But no. You have to hurt people. You have to scare them. You have to be a monster! People like you are the reason I wear sunglasses. People like you are the reason kids with powers are murdered every year by human supremacists. And people like you are why there are kidnapping rings to make or find supers, all because they want, they need someone to be their monster!” I shriek, punching repeatedly until my hands come away stained blue.

  Looking down at the crab, I’m glad that he’s still breathing. I can hear it even if it sounds strained.

  What did I do?

  Gently, I move off of his body and shakily stand up, trying to take some steadying breaths.

  I should not have lost control like that. I need to stay stable because if I don’t, I’ll do something like that again.

  “Thank you.” A soft voice says.

  Looking behind me, I see the other folks that were in the convenience store with me earlier looking at me with hope? Why?

  I started beating a person up until he couldn’t fight anymore? Why look at me with hope?

  I—

  I should answer whoever is speaking to me.

  Turns out the most fearless of the lot of the civilians is a small child who’s holding up the plastic bag with my purchases I had dropped when I decided to go fight.

  “Thank you.” I say, taking the bag gingerly from the kid. “Are you okay?” I ask, making sure to not accidentally get any of the blood on the kid.

  With that in mind, I quickly tie the bag shut, hoping none of the food I put in there is stained already.

  The kid gives me a nod, and I decide to move closer to the store, though I don’t enter it in case I accidentally scare anyone with my presence after such a brutal display.

  Where are my sunglasses I can’t find them?

  Oh, I dropped them after I got knocked away by the crab man, so they’re on the ground over there, which means that everyone here might have a chance to look at my eyes.

  Not wanting to deal with that, I scurry over to the lenses, happy to see they haven’t broken, meaning I don’t think I lost any of my stuff. It all survived my help with the crabby man.

  I feel a lot better about wearing my sunglasses and return to the store to make sure that everyone’s okay.

  And to see if anybody knows whose car it is that just got crushed by the crab guy.

  Nobody seems to know, though the cashier says she hadn’t seen that car move in the entire time that she’s been working here, so maybe it’s something we won’t have to worry about.

  Beyond the rounds of thank yous and hero accusations I get, I breathe a sigh of relief when one of the store goers tells me they called 822 for a superhuman emergency.

  I’m not sticking around, though. I don’t want to ask questions, so I quickly make some excuses before I begin to run home.

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