Soliloquy

This is what it’s like to be Gaseous Girl, right now.

You’re a flying brick. You can also breath fire.

That should be impressive.

You survived a car thrown at your head. It was a tiny little green smartcar but it still counts. You walked away. The car? Scrap.

That should be impressive.

You can fly, so traffic jams mean nothing for you. You can wave at planes from the outside. You’re Peter Pan in a cape.

That should be impressive.

It isn’t.

No one takes you seriously.

Everyone’s a comedian, and everyone’s riffing off the same thing. Gas jokes. Always.

The Walking Whoopie Cushion, they call you. Super Stinker. She Who Dealt It.

You explain that your power isn’t just limited to gastric emissions, that it means you could, if you wanted, manipulate one of the four fundamental states of matter. You’re a walking chemical weapon, you could explain.

They never get it.

What really harrows your soul is that the villains don’t respect you. 

Not Thunderdomestic. Not the Malevolent Med-Student. Not Titanium Walrus. Not even Crudmuffin, and that hurts. The man makes exploding baked goods, but he doesn’t respect you. That. Hurts. 

So you’ve got something to prove. You will make them take you seriously. 

You take risks you shouldn’t, push yourself too far, because even too far isn’t quite enough yet. 

And so, when you could go to a quiet cemetery to track down an elderly ghost who may know about the missing person case you’re on…you put that off. 

Instead, you respond to an emergency call to attack the Shrieking Tree Demon.

It’s taken down better heroes then you. You’re a flying brick, but you’re not invulnerable. Some things still hurt.  

Natalie is invulnerable, and she’s on the way. You could wait for her. 

But really, you can’t. 

Because Natalie gets respect. Gaseous Girl doesn’t. 

So you throw yourself at the Shrieking Tree Demon, breathing fire. It smacks you away into the stratosphere like a Ping-Pong ball. 

Still, you think, finally, as ice forms over your boots, as you pass out from lack of air, maybe they’ll respect you. 

They don’t.