Professor Why's Academy for Extraordinary Youngsters

Heroics 111: Take your daughter to work day II

The goal was set. I wasn't going to come close to Galactic Mask's power, but I needed to prove myself more competent than everyone else if I would stand a chance of becoming his daughter for the day. Luckily, my scariest competition was already selected. I wouldn't stand a chance compared to titans like Rob, Summer, Arthur, or Claudia, but I could hold my own against Situ at this point. I was significantly more acrobatic and I didn't get cold as easily. Two solid bonuses, right there! Ivan was harder. I knew next to nothing about what he was capable of, and we were friends but he seemed to have a much chummier relationship with Galactic Mask than I believed. I would have to prove my value over Ivan some way or another.

Then my mind flashed back to the world of comic books, a treasure trove of superhero knowledge written before superheroes actually existed. What a boon! How did Dick Grayson impress Batman? By having a similar tragic backstory. Not a winner. But there were other Robins. Jason Todd tried to steal the Batmobile's hub caps. Maybe not something I wanted to imitate either. That whole precautionary tale ended poorly. Damien Wayne was related, and if I could get in through nepotism, I wouldn't be going stag to take your daughter to work day.

The last Robin was kind of forgettable and sort of got written out of significance. Some loser nerd named Tim Drake who... wasn't as good at crime fighting as Batman... but enjoyed detective work... one of Batman's other specialties...

"I GOTTA GO!" I screamed to Situ as I ran back to my lair (or as the uneducated would call it, my dorm). I had to do some detective work of my own.

I rummaged through my backpack to find every bit of Galactic Mask memorabilia I had. Pictures of fights, of ceremonies, of events... Most significantly, his leisure time. Honestly, I'd mostly collected pictures of him fighting, but there was a ceremony in front of a new observatory. Therefore, he must be a big astrology fan! I had maybe 5-10 minutes tops to cram as much information as I could about stars and stuff, so I went online and searched "astrology" and got started!

Eight minutes later, I emerged from my lair a new man, prepared to spill my knowledge to the greatest hero of all time. I ran around looking for him, and found him in the same spot I last saw him. I ran up and jumped between him and Ivan.

"EXCUSE ME SIR!" I interjected.

"Wh-why hello there!" Galactic Mask replied.

"I am a Pisces, which is a star sign associated with water and it's shaped like a fish, and I'm sorry sir I respect you so much but I can't begin to believe that I'm born under some water sign given my superpower and hero name. I think you should march back to your observatory and demand that February become a fire fish like it was always meant to be I'm so sorry!" I shouted. He was going to hate me forever, but I just couldn't get behind whatever they were teaching in those observatories.

"Weirdo." Ivan said, insulting me in front of my greatest hero. "Do you introduce yourself to everyone by yelling? Have you ever had a single calm conversation?"

"But Galactic Mask is like right there and I want to impress him and I know he comes from space so I studied some super weird looking website about astrology and"-

"Astronomy." Galactic Mask interjected.

"Come again?" I asked.

"The suffix -logy means "to read", while -nomy means "to understand the laws of something". You accidentally searched the wrong Greek word origin. He said, looking into the distance. "Ancient cultures are fascinating."

I screwed up. So bad. I was researching stars to impress a history nerd. An earth history nerd. And he was just revving up the engine for the tangent that I'm sure Ivan was absolutely on track with.