Every other evening for the next several weeks, Chuck and Meg practiced vocabulary. While she was incapacitated, they actually made good progress. Then the doctor took off her cast and she became distracted.

“Surreptitious,” Chuck said one evening, as they sat in his treehouse. He held up a flashcard.

“Filled with… syrup?” Meg said.

Chuck turned the card so that she could see the back. Done, made, or acquired by stealth. Clandestine.

“Clandestine,” Meg said, as she reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes. “Country in the Middle East. Lots of suicide bombers. I’m very against that.”

Chuck dropped the cards on the desk. “Come on, Meg,” he said.

“I’m distracted,” Meg said, lighting a cigarette. She leaned against the wall and blew a stream of smoke toward the open door. “You saw the news.”

“News?”

“About the vigilante? She struck again.”

“She?” he said. “Show me.”

Chuck sat down at his desk and Meg pulled up the video. As she leaned over him, he couldn't help but notice the way her more... robust assets hung over his shoulder, or the scent of her coconut shampoo. He tried to focus on the computer screen, ignoring the thrill that ran through him. Then the video started, and it really did grab his attention.

The video had been taken by a surveillance camera in the parking lot of a local gas station. Because of this, the video was grainy and the camera angle was fixed, but Chuck could clearly see what was happening. The time stamp on the video marked it as being taken at 2:01 AM, a time when the gas station should've been empty. But a woman pulled into the lot, stopping beside one of the pumps to fill up her tank.

The woman had only been at the pump for a few seconds before a green sedan pulled into the lot. Instead of stopping beside one of the pumps, it stopped at an angle in front of the woman's car, blocking her in. A stocky man got out of the driver's seat and came around the car. The poor woman filling up her tank had only seconds to realize what was happening before the man grabbed her wrist.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"This is terrible," Chuck said. "I don't want to watch this!"

He tried to turn away, but Meg stopped him. "Not yet," she said. "Wait."

On the screen, the stocky man wrestled the woman toward the back door of his sedan, which he'd pulled open. For a moment, they tussled, and then another woman stepped onto the screen, appearing as if from nowhere. This woman wore black motorcycle pants, a black T-shirt, and a black ski mask. A hunting slingshot and a burlap sack hung from her waist. She approached the stocky man from behind and swung a brass-knuckled fist into the side of his head. Even though the video didn't have sound, Chuck swore he heard the crack as the knuckles connected with the man's skull. He dropped instantly, knocked unconscious by the force of the blow. Chuck had always heard that using brass knuckles was a great way to break your own knuckles, but if that were true, it didn't seem like the woman with the slingshot had heard about that. She kicked the downed man once in the chest. Then, she took a cellphone out of her pocket, dialed something, set the phone on the hood of a nearby car, and ran away.

“Oh my goodness,” Chuck said, as he rewound the video and started it again. “You think she’s the one beating up those sex traffickers?”

Meg rolled her eyes as she took a drag from her cigarette. “No, I think it’s probably another person who runs around Pittsburgh with a slingshot."

Chuck sat back in his chair, his flash cards forgotten. Something else had occurred to him--this is everything I've been waiting for, he thought. He'd spent so much of his life being weak and bullied, praying he could be as strong as a superhero, and now someone was living his dream... and not just anyone, but someone in his own town! He knew the gas station where the action had taken place. It was less than a mile from his treehouse.

Chuck tapped the schematics on his desk. “If I got behind this vigilante, she’d become something,” he said.

“What do you mean by that?” Meg asked.

“Not that she’s not something already,” Chuck said as his cheeks turned red. “I mean, obviously, she’s something. But with weapons like these, she could hit prime time. I’d hook her up with some branding. An Instagram account. A live-feed chest camera so people could watch her missions in real time. Give her a color scheme. Green and purple. Green and purple arrows, masquerade mask with green and purple feathers. Man, with gear like that, she could start a movement.”

Meg nodded at the bookshelf, overflowing with graphic novels: Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Sandman, Sin City, Preacher, The Walking Dead. “You’ve been reading too many comic books."

Chuck scarcely heard her; he was lost in his vision. Although he'd always wanted to be the hero, he knew it wasn't in the cards for him. He was simply too short. Too weak. Too... not a superhero. But a sidekick? That just might be possible.

“Feathered Justice,” Chuck said, lost in his vision. “What do you think of that?”

“As a name?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s terrible. But I like the branding ideas. You want… Jaybird.”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, nodding slowly. “Jaybird. That sounds good.” He looked at the cards on his desk and sighed. “But we gotta take care of this, Meg. You need to study.”