A super villain? Nah I'd win.

Okay, okay, calm down Rogue, you got this. You just have to fight your first supervillain and put into practice what you've trained for, basically half of your entire second life. It's no big deal.

Still…priorities. I won't make the same mistake I made on my first outing again, underestimating the normal bullies, no sir, this superheroine learns from her failures.

I immediately turned on Dispatch and created a field around me at maximum power and range.

During that week off, I wasn't just going back and forth to the University. I took that time to properly familiarize myself with my powers by doing small, easy-to-do power tests in my dorm with the subtler powers. One of the powers I was able to test the most was Dispatch.

An hour inside the bubble equals 10 seconds outside. A pretty convenient ratio, it makes the math pretty easy. What I found was that given the average processing speed of the human eye, there is a certain amount of time where I can create a bubble, move around, remove the bubble, and immediately open another one to move around again, and people outside would just see me blinking back and forth.

36 seconds.

I have 36 seconds to basically do whatever I want within a time bubble and no one will even notice there was a time bubble.

With that in mind, I quickly started blinking through bubbles and before anyone could react, I already had the first thug locked in with me.

"What?!-Urgh"

His cry of surprise was cut off by my fist basically going through his solar plexus and a quick punch to the jaw, knocking him out for good.

And I have 30 seconds left.

You'd think that being as strong as the strongest (normal) man wouldn't give me that much of an advantage, but that's just my raw strength. I'm way faster, more agile, and more skilled. Combining all of my body's agility with all of that strength that definitely doesn't match up with my body? I may not be a super soldier, but I pack a punch like a drunk stepdad.

In the 30 seconds I have left I search all his clothes for weapons and knives and find them. I throw the knife as far away as I can (not too far considering the barrier) and leave his only pistol without the charger.

As I said, I learn from my mistakes.

Shortly after I move to the edge of the bubble near another thug before deactivating it.

I spawn in normal time less than a second before activating it with another thug inside.

From there it's just a matter of repeating the process with the remaining five thugs. Spawn, bubble, hit, disarm, spawn, bubble, hit, disarm.

However, as I disarmed the last thug I realized something.

The supervillain was looking at me.

Not exactly towards me or towards my eyes, that was a bit impossible, more towards my general direction or would it be correct to say towards the general direction of the thug I was disarming.

That means that in the few half-seconds it took me to reappear, he realized what I was doing and managed to roughly deduce where I was going next. While it's true that he didn't seem to be able to do much to stop it, I have to give him credit, he has very good reflexes. Super reflexes perhaps?

Again I used another bubble this time to scout for more thugs, but it seems that was all, one less thing to worry about.

Now…to deal with this guy.

While I'm inside this bubble I basically have a whole hour to think about what to do, but that would end up giving away the nature of my powers. I have no problem doing that later, but it's my first day and a little mystery is always appealing.

With that in mind, deactivate the bubble for another half second before activating it again.

Right, now I have another 36 seconds to think about how to defeat this guy.

Considering his armor and body type he looks like some sort of Brute, but this is Marvel, they're all muscled for what I know he maybe shoots lasers out of his eyes.

The most efficient thing to do is probably to use Moonsong, I doubt he's a very strong Brute if he's out here stealing jewels with these little chips and the power of gravity is pretty strong.

But…I want to see what he can do.

Sure, it sounds silly, but leaving aside my desire to have a proper fight, if I were to defeat him instantly without properly knowing his powers, maybe one day he'll get out of prison and take me by surprise with powers I don't know about. What I want to do is gather information, it's something completely logical, yes sir.

Taking that into account, I used the bubbles to quickly move into the air while still riding my sword. I was at a safe distance from the supervillain, but still close enough to talk a little.

With that I canceled the bubble and this time let time pass normally.

The supervillain (I really need his name at some point) was looking at me warily, his hands placed in a strange position as if he was preparing to do a dap or something.

It doesn't look like he's going to try to escape, great that would be boring.

I honestly wouldn't blame him though. From his point of view, I appeared and disappeared for half a second or less and each time one of his supposed companions fell to the ground beaten and without weapons. In less than 5 seconds they were all completely beaten, disarmed and with ties on their arms and legs, an efficient and well done job if I do say so myself.

I could have tried to do the same with Mr. Supervillain here too, but I don't know what powers he has and locking me in an unbreakable cage with an unknown supervillain seems like a recipe for disaster.

The supervillain also seems to think that or at least think that I have some limitation of use since he relaxed a little when he noticed that I did not start teleporting like a drunk fly nor that he had suddenly fallen hit.

"You don't know the mess you're getting yourself into, girl…"

"Pff, I don't want to hear about a discount Doctor Doom, Mr. Villain"

"I am Whirlwind! And I won't fall for your tricks. You may have been able to take down those useless Maggia bastards, but you can't do the same to me, can you? That means you can't win!"

Well that was an unexpectedly informative monologue. So his name is Whirlwind huh. I wonder why? Can he create tornadoes or something? That can be pretty dangerous, plus what is the Maggia? I can save those questions for later though.

"Oh yeah? And what will you do from down there, Mr. Whirlwind?"

"You'll see!"

At that moment Whirlwind pointed his arms at me as if he was going to shoot something. A Blaster? I guess it makes sense from the name.

I quickly opened another bubble just in case it was some kind of laser and what I saw surprised me quite a bit. I could see his arms spinning rapidly even inside the time bubble.

How fast can he move his arms if he looks fast even in here? Is he a speedster? That would explain his reflexes, though considering only his arms move that fast and he wasn't doing anything while I was knocking out his friends I doubt he's like Flash or something.

I continued to watch for a while longer as air currents formed as he moved his arms until a small mini tornado formed. So that's why Whirlwind, is a Blaster that throws tornadoes? That doesn't sound right, his reflexes tell me he can use it somehow to move faster. Does he aim them towards the ground?

Theorizing here won't help me much, it's better if I continue with the fight.

I used the bubble move to get out of the way and as expected he tried to swing his arms in my direction as I moved, enhanced reflexes indeed.

Let's see how you react to this?

Inside a bubble I summoned Lionwing's sword for a second before summoning all the swords at once.

This time when I came out of the bubble from Whirlwind's point of view I came out with hundreds of swords surrounding me and pointing in his direction from many angles. He tried to hit some of them with his tornado hands, but the different angles made it impossible.

I wasn't too worried about doing much damage with the swords, they were surprisingly dull. They cut about the same as a butter knife.

Then Whirlwind made a move that I should have seen coming, he started spinning his entire body literally turning into a tornado and deflecting all the swords that collide with him.

Sure, the swords were dull, but a metal stick coming at you at 80 kilometers per hour can do a lot of damage. His tornado form is pretty impressive. After the swords stopped coming his way, his entire body stopped spinning, this time he is only spinning at his legs while his upper torso and arms were normal.

…How does that work?

My powers are weird, but just imagining how he can move and rotate his legs while the rest of his body is static is definitely another level. I think I've got the hang of it though.

He can spin his limbs or his entire body at high speeds, although it seems that spinning his entire body has some limitation, he seems to be fully able to see and sense everything around him even while spinning.

It's not bad, but there's another trick to it.

"That's all? Come on Mr. Whirlwind, for having such a pretentious name, you're still not much better than a spinning top."

"A spinning top? A spinning top?!"

Oh, he looks pretty angry.

"That's it now I'm going to tear you apart!"

With that shout his lower half seems to spin even faster than before and he suddenly launches himself into the air at full speed directly towards me in the air.

This guy can fly! And really fast too!

Halfway through I quickly activated Dispatch (What a reliable power) once again and everything stopped.

There was Whirlwind with a very angry face ready to tear me apart, approaching very slowly in my direction. Okay, the ability to fly was something unexpected, although a bit obvious in retrospect. The good thing is that he doesn't seem to be able to fly in full Tornado mode or at least not all the time, otherwise he would have done it before. He also doesn't seem to be able to move more than one type of limb at a time or is angry enough to forget to throw tornadoes at me with his arms while flying.

In any case, I think I have everything I can do so I can officially defeat him now.

Taking my time was worth it, it was unexpectedly fun informative.

Still inside the bubble, I quickly summoned Lionwing's swords and created a shield of swords in front of Whirlwind's face, I could add sharp spikes to the shield, but I didn't want to impale the guy either.

I removed the time bubble and from Whirlwind's point of view a wall of swords appeared out of nowhere right in his path, he has fast reflexes, but at that speed there wasn't much he could do other than slow down a bit, even so.

In the middle of the night in New York, the dull thud of metal against metal rang out like a bell. Whirlwind's helmet collided at almost full speed against the wall of swords. The wall dented a little, but the clear loser was Whirlwind's head as he quickly began to fall to the ground.

He would almost certainly have survived the fall even if he was unconscious, but I still helped him a bit by slowing down his fall with Moonsong, to avoid a possible spinal break, I'm not Batman.

I approached Whirlwind's unconscious body who probably had a concussion and put some zip ties on his legs and arms to prevent him from escaping.

This time I looked properly at Whirlwind's costume and noticed that he had blades on his arms. Probably high-tech blades and considering how fast he spins I better understand his statement about ripping me apart, I doubt anything less hard than steel wouldn't be cut like butter.

I just felt like breaking his limbs at the thought, but I restrained myself, the concussion should be punishment enough. In fact, I should probably call an ambulance, I know the police are on the way (or so I hope), but they might not be prepared to deal with this guy, before his blow turns into something serious.

I picked up my flip phone exclusively for these calls and dialed the emergency number.

"911 What is your emergency?"

"Yeah, my name is Rogue, the world's next greatest hero. Seven morons, one with superpowers named Whirlwind or something, decided to rob a jewelry store. Naturally I stopped them and now there are six thugs knocked out with a blow to the solar plexus and jaw and one supervillain with a concussion and possible injuries from a 15-20 foot fall or so."

The line went silent for a second, but as expected from an emergency services worker she quickly started with questions.

"Is the jewelry store QA Jewels by any chance?"

A quick glance at the store sign then I answered.

"Yes, that one."

"Right, the police are already on their way to the scene, I assume the thugs you mentioned were the ones who set off the alarm. We will send an emergency team to check who is fit to go to the police station or the hospital. Please stay on the line until the police arrive."

With that the call went silent.

That was surprisingly efficient. I was thinking about whether I should just leave and leave the phone, but I didn't want a backup or something to come and take these morons away before the police arrived. I also didn't think that would win me any favors from the police and I didn't want to get on bad terms with them, I'm sure most Vigilantes don't have a good reputation and I didn't want to make mine worse on my first day.

With that thought over I put the call on speaker just in case and tucked the flip phone into my tool belt. After a while I started looking around as I waited.

The alarm in the Jewelry store was still ringing. All the thugs were on the floor unconscious with a bad bruise on their jaw and duly trapped.

Whirlwind didn't seem able to get up any time soon and was also duly trapped. Ready to be handed over to a police force that would probably let him escape within a month.

Still… I won my first fight with a supervillain!

And not only did I win, tch, tch, No, winning is only for newbies (definitely not like me) I completely destroyed them! I came out completely unscathed and the fight itself didn't even last five minutes.

I knew it would be amazing as time went on, but to be this strong so soon is beyond amazing!

And my power agreed with me as another star was quickly stored in my superpower pantry. That makes six. A bit stingy considering he gave me 10 in a single day last time and I only have three today, and this is my first fight, I was hoping for more powers to commemorate that fact, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Well, if my power doesn't want to reward me properly then I'll do it myself.

Dragging the thugs and Whirlwind a little closer to each other, I pulled out my other superhero phone, this one a Stark Smartphone with all the letters.

"Say jail!"

And I took a selfie. It's 2010, no celebrity is making them fashionable yet, but I could be the first. And soon Instagram is very likely to be created. As the best superheroine in the world having social networks is natural. Although for now I will use Twitter, it's a dumping ground, but it's still better than Facebook. YouTube is also an option, but I won't use Myspace, who knows if due to my incredible fame it ends up being popular.

As I texted the photo to Maddy ("Lk wht I did 2day! :3" "Rogue, What The Fuck?") the police finally decided to arrive on the scene. I put away my superhero smartphone (which has a cute personalized keychain with my now personal logo on it). And tried to look cool and friendly as the police parked their cars around me.

As they began to come, I raised my hand to greet my new colleagues in our fight against evil.

"Hey guys, it's about time you got here! Do you need help?"

"Put your hands up!"

Or not.

One of the policemen brought his mouth to the radio on his shoulder.

"Suspected vigilante "Rogue" arrested at the scene, along with criminal mutant Whirlwind and 6 people detained with zip ties suspected of being the ones who caused the attack on the jeweler."

Some police officers searched the unconscious thugs, while taking the awake ones to their vehicles, this time with real handcuffs.

As they did so, they were setting up tape around the place, making calls, and looking at me nervously as if I might attack them at any moment, but they still carried out their work surprisingly efficiently.

I stood there watching the whole scene not really knowing what to do while two more police officers pointed their guns at me and watched me closely as the whole process took place.

Shortly afterwards the ambulance also arrived. The paramedics gave the go-ahead to forcibly wake up the other thugs with some water and they were also handcuffed and taken to the cars.

Whirlwind appeared to have some major injuries so he was handcuffed with huge cuffs made of what appeared to be black reinforced steel and loaded into the ambulance where he was quickly taken to what I assume is the hospital with two police officers keeping him company.

Finally, there was only one police car left and someone who appeared to be the area's police chief slowly approached in my direction.

She seemed relaxed, but I knew she was on guard and it may sound a little racist considering she looked to be of Asian ethnicity and had short hair (with those cheekbones… Japanese maybe?), but she clearly knew martial arts, maybe even an expert.

For a police chief, she didn't look like one from her "uniform," or at least she only looked like what a Hollywood movie thinks a police chief looks like.

Cigar in mouth, shirt, leather jacket, boots, skinny jeans. You know the "I'm so cool" Starter Pack, although I have to admit that it actually looks pretty cool.

"Guys, guys, all right, put your weapons down, this Rogue girl is one of those vigilantes that are popping up all over the city. A little violent, but clearly not that crazy guy from Manhattan."

They slowly lowered their weapons, though their suspicious gazes didn't change one bit.

That made me breathe a sigh of relief. I honestly didn't really know what to do in that situation, I'm kind of bulletproof, but I don't want to bet on it and if they suddenly fired things could get pretty dangerous.

"Oh thank God. Thanks for your help Chief…"

"Watanabe, Yuriko Watanabe."

"Chief Watanabe. Guns make me a little nervous."

"You're new to this, right?"

"That's right! I'm Rogue! New York's greatest hero and the world's next greatest hero!" I say that so much that at this point it's probably my catchphrase or something.

"Well well, world's next greatest hero (it's a little embarrassing when you say it like that…) you see I am the chief of police here in New York and you are far from the first vigilante we have to deal with and not all of them are as nice as you or the little spider."

That made me grimace, damn Punisher you're ruining us all.

"And while it's a good start that you at least have the decency to wait for the police and not leave villains hanging from nets that are practically impossible to break without heavy equipment, your actions don't exactly paint you as a peaceful person."

"Why?! I'd say I did a clean job!"

"Considering Whirlwind is headed straight to the hospital with a concussion and a healthy dose of broken ribs, I wouldn't say the same."

I grimaced, it's hard to contain someone like him without hitting him a little, you know?!, but I didn't say it out loud.

"Luckily we have plenty of evidence of the bastard's past crimes and his work for the Maggia won't help him in court either, so he won't be able to ask for much leniency using his injuries as an excuse, but if you did the same with a newer villain on the scene he'd be out on the streets the moment he got out of the hospital and could even press charges."

Another grimace, damn justice system.

"I don't want to discourage you or anything, what you did was definitely a good thing, but be more careful next time, you can learn something from the little spider in that regard."

Her words brought me back to my senses. That's it! I may have gone a little overboard, but what I've done is definitely not bad. Although being compared to Spider-Man so quickly hurts my pride a little, it also makes me happy to know that I can compete with someone so legendary, even if he's not quite there yet.

"Thank you very much for your advice, Chief Watanabe."

Still, I know she's right, I just have to be better next time. My words made Chief Watanabe smile a little before she turned around to leave. Turning her back to me as she walked along with the other two police officers who were more relaxed now that Watanabe had a proper chat with me.

"You can call me Yuri, we'll let you off with a warning, but be more careful next time, something tells me you'll be great Rogue."

"Yes! Thanks for everything Yuri!"

She waved back one last time before getting in the car and driving away.

This time I was truly alone in the place. Without saying a word, I pulled one of the swords that were scattered all over the ground towards me and used it once again as a hoverboard to go above the clouds.

It was very cold up there at night in mid-autumn, but I couldn't care less.

"Woohoo!"

I was so excited! My first outing as a superhero was amazing!

"I have to tell Maddy everything!"

That night I flew at full speed to the bedroom where my best friend was waiting for me.

Yes, definitely a great day.

When I got to the bedroom, avoiding all eyes as best I could, the first thing I saw was Maddy pacing around the living room with a worried look on her face. When she heard the door open, she quickly approached me with a hug.

Wow, this is the first time Maddy has hugged me, it's nice to have my face buried in her shoulder for a while.

Suddenly the hug ends and Maddy grabs me by the shoulders before pushing me away to allow me to look at her face.

"You have to tell me everything!"

Her face was as expressionless as ever, but there was an excitement and a fire in her eyes that told me we would be talking for a while.

I pulled my hood down and removed my mask before responding to her excitement with my own.

"Of course!"

I started by telling her about the different people I helped that day, from the girl with the cat and Aunt May, to helping organize a liquor store and helping a guy move into his new apartment.

I was very excited to tell her everything that happened that day.

"So when I helped the man walk his dogs he gave me $5! It was the nicest money I ever made in my life! Of course I refused at first, but in the end I couldn't turn down that little face of an old man who was hurt."

Maddy just nodded constantly with a soft smile while asking questions here and there.

Until it was time for the fight. I told her about how I decided to last an extra hour looking for trouble instead of being some kind of emergency, the mood in the room changed.

Maddy was not happy.

"You can't just take an hour longer than we agreed upon during the planning and not tell anyone about it. I was worried, I thought something had happened to you, but I didn't want to call you in case you were in an infiltration or something. Before you sent me that photo I was seriously thinking if I should contact someone so I could look for you."

She had every reason to be upset. I had plenty of time to let her know and I didn't because I got carried away. I wanted to surprise Maddy with a big accomplishment on my first day, but even if it went well, it wasn't worth it if I left Maddy stewing in worry for almost an hour.

"It's not like I can stop you if you want to do it anyway…" Maddy said in a somewhat sad tone.

Those words pierced my chest like an arrow. It's kind of sad, because it's the truth. Even though Maddy has helped me more than she even realizes, our relationship isn't as equal as I like to pretend. I'm way more powerful in every sense of the word except for the financial one, but Maddy knows that money doesn't have much influence on me. That ends up making any power Maddy has in our relationship closer to something I give her than it is to being real.

"I'm sorry! Please forgive me, I won't do it again, I promise! I was a fool as always!"

I hugged her as I said it and I meant it. Maddy was very important to me and I wanted her to know that, I wanted her to know that power meant nothing to me.

I just want my best friend.

We stayed like that for a while. Before we broke the hug, Maddy's eyes were a little red, but I didn't dare mention it.

"You are grounded."

"Yes, ma'am…"

"You have to tell me when you're going to change plans. I don't care if you want to stay out a little longer or until dawn if you want, but I want you to tell me."

"Yes, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, I forgive you, just don't do it again."

I won't do it.

I continued with the story shortly after. Maddy was a little surprised by what I discovered with Dispatch, but not too much, although considering the scare she had the other time, I'm not surprised that she realized my "Teleportation" trick was possible.

When I told her about how I quickly knocked out 6 thugs she wasn't too surprised either, she has seen my trophies after all and was proud of me as she lightly clapped her hands when I told her about checking the surroundings after disarming the thugs.

It was a little embarrassing to be applauded like a 5-year-old saying the alphabet for the first time, but it still tickled my tummy.

Before I could continue, Maddy interrupted me.

"I understand that you're stronger than normal and you have training and all that, but before you came here you didn't have any powers right? How exactly do you have so many different martial arts trophies? Isn't it quite complicated to even learn just one?"

It's a reasonable question.

"Mmn talent and genetics," I replied simply.

"Aren't they all like that?"

"How to explain it… I've always been an energetic girl (or after I was reincarnated at 4, although I didn't say that) and I lived in a somewhat remote town. I was a bit of a tomboy jumping and running around. When I moved to Jackson at twelve with my adoptive parents we discovered that my muscles are much more compacted than normal and my strength, although my weight says otherwise, was closer to that of a man than a woman."

That surprised Maddy. Go on.

"So when I signed up for regular martial arts classes I was quite a bit stronger than the women I was up against. Even though I was fighting men in practice, the tournaments are split by gender, so I had a bit of an unfair advantage there. Add to that the fact that I'm actually pretty good at martial arts, and you have someone who can pass for a black belt (albeit just barely), while having significantly less skill than your average black belt."

"To sum it up, although I am indeed a master in mixed martial arts and could compete with professional men, a man who is a master in Tae Kwon Do, Karate or Judo would kick my ass even if we both have black belts. Although that is only if I use only those martial arts, if I used MMA I would almost certainly win."

"Is that why you went out on your first day because you are so good at martial arts?"

"Well… a little bit, but I was also kind of desperate. I can't say why, but I felt like I was running out of time and I had to do something. It was stupid, I know, but I had to prove to myself that I could do it, but I guess that wasn't the case."

I also had examples of people without powers who made pretty good as Vigilantes, I figured if I had even half of their talents I could do decently even without powers.

"I see…"

With that topic closed I continued with my story. I finished telling her about how I ended up fighting and explaining my actions. The questions about how I could have used my other powers to win were definitely the most interesting.

With Contender, it would have become a knife fight to the death. I don't know how skilled Whirlwind is without his powers, but I had an Adamantium knife, so I think I would have won with the element of surprise. I wouldn't use Contender though, because unless I kill him, my secret weapon would have come to light.

I wouldn't have used Full Counter. Or at least not in retrospect now that I know he uses blades, I think I would have cut him in half.

Golem wouldn't do much I think, I doubt he can't cut through concrete like butter and I would have lost my aerial advantage, I might need to buy some plates like the original Golem, but I don't like how they would look on my costume. Yeah, it's stupid, but I like my style.

Flashpoint would have been overkill, plus I didn't have any water to throw. Something else to add to my costume.

Moonsong would have ended the fight instantly, though I think it would have broken his knees. I could have made him float, but now that I know he can fly that sounds like a bad idea (Good thing I did that information gathering fight).

Bastard Son…no. I would have to touch him, but even without that it's basically an instant death touch. I wouldn't do that, at least not to someone who isn't an absolute bastard (heh).

After that fun segment, she applauded me for always maintaining the aerial advantage ("It's over Anakin! I have the High Ground" "What?" "…We need to have a movie night sooner rather than later."), and after some back and forth, two hours had already passed.

We each went to our rooms and, aside from my previous blunder of not calling Maddy, it was a good day.

Today was a good day, right Power?

Another star stored was my only answer. That's seven.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep with a satisfied smile.