Mintz — Roleplayer Guild

UOU Presents: The UNBEATABLE Squirrel Girl!ISSUE #2: Not-So-Secret Identity 
Forest Hills ♦ New York  ♦ Midtown High School

The dead sprint from the neighborhood of Forest Hills to Midtown High was...Well, actually, the running part wasn't much of an issue for the Unbeatable (enough) Squirrel Girl; in any other circumstance, she'd probably enjoy her high-speed romp from rooftop to rooftop, hopping to and fro, free as could be. Sadly, she was on quite the time crunch, and even that was build upon the assumption that the bell she'd managed to hear wasn't heralding the start of class, but rather, that it would soon. Otherwise, she was already screwed. 

It had hardly taken Doreen any time at all to clear the three-block distance from her neighborly rumble with the Hippo all the way to her high school. It honestly surprised even her, given that hardly a minute ago she felt like she'd gotten sent flying off a tilt-a-whirl. Though now, the true test came to be shown. "Okay, um...Now where could I...?" Her sharp gaze narrowed to the schoolgrounds from across the street, perched on a rooftop shared only by a few noisy pigeons. She could change up here, probably, but even if she was well out of sight of most normal people, imagining changing out her clothes in the wide open like this was a complete no-go. Besides, she'd still have to cross the road to get into the school in that case, and at normal person paces no less! Nope, out of the question. It'd have to be somewhere at Midtown, where no one could see her change, no one would see her leave (or at least she may have plausible excuse for leaving said space), and that it wouldn't arouse suspicion if a student popped out from there. 

Her first thought was the school's own roof, but she shot that out just as quickly. It had the same problems as this one, and even more, there wasn't a guarantee that the rooftop doorway would be unlocked, and she wasn't eager to have to bust down a door just to get to school...The back of the school might work, but she knew some other kids would definitely hang out there, even if class was already started. Wait! 

Her attention to the task at hand was shot when Doreen realized this was a golden opportunity to see what the situation at the school actually was, and...Judging by the student traffic still at the front, it looked like classes hadn't fully started yet. Most people were getting a move-on though, which bode poorly for her. Her Chemistry class was on the second floor, too...Maybe there was a spot where she could undress and quickly hop to one of the windows and slip in? Without...Anyone noticing...On the ground or wherever she 'slipped in' to.

...

"Doreen? Are you okay? You've been quiet for a bit."

"...Tip, I think I really stink at planning."

Tippy-Toe chittered to herself a bit, upset about Doreen's quickly declining mood, until an idea of their own struck them. "Well, when you can't come up with anything, you usually just handle things like we squirrels do. Maybe that can help? At that, Doreen tore her gaze from the school to her shoulder-bound companion with an incredulous look. "What? Okay, Tippy-Toe, I know that can apply for a lotta stuff, but I don't see...How... As she spoke, her attention returned to the school, and gears began to shift in her head as her natural exuberance seemed to be returning with an equally giddy grin. Nuzzling her face to her dear companion's, she spoke with joy in every word. "Tip, you're a genius! I know what I can do, and it's really stupid, and that's exactly how I operate! Still... If only for a brief moment, her expression went downcast once more, but it was pushed aside by a shrug from Tippy-Toe. 

"It's fine! I know that if people saw you talking with me, you'd get weird looks. Humans aren't ready to learn about the other smartest mammal in the room yet. Central Park, like usual?

She grinned. "'Course! I'll meetcha there!"

With that, the pair went their separate ways for now, however temporary it was. As for Doreen, she had an incredibly stupid stunt to pull off. 

Patiently waiting for most of the students milling about the front of Midtown High to filter through, she bounded from the rooftop and into a particularly foliage-dense tree that decorated the front of the schoolgrounds. From there, she got to work. Changing outfits inside a treetop was a...New experience, but she managed it as fast she could, and even more importantly if there were still lingering students, as quietly as she could. Now the next part? That would be the real stupid part. 

Peeking her head from the leafy fortress she'd landed herself in, she made sure there was no one immediately around, and then zeroed in on her target; second from the far left window, her Chemistry class. She shifted her body, tensed her muscles, and envisioned every frame of the movement, then made the deft leap to the bottom of the windowsill. She could only pray no one had noticed her do that, because she at least had a very dumb cover story ready for the rest of this. 

Quick to put on the facade of a girl who looked as if she were struggling for dear life, she rapped against the window, catching the attention of one of the students. It was Charles Weiderman - or, well, most people in school called him Charlie. Granted, 'most people' were also the sort who pretty much tormented the string bean of a boy. Doreen wagered that he might be the literal bottom of the social totem pole in Midtown High, and that was saying a lot. 

The skittish young man made his way to the window, staring down in abject horror and confusion at what he saw. "D-Doreen?!" Still feigning difficulty in her falsely compromising position, she grunted out a few words. "Hrrgh! Y-yup, that's me! Window...Please?" There was a moment of hesitation; probably from the fact that most of the class would've been undoubtedly staring by now, and that's before a girl drops in via window. However, biting down any of his doubt, Charles opened the window and gave her a hand. In all honestly, his 'assistance' was about as helpful as someone trying to wedge her through the window frame with a stick, but Doreen put a little extra elbow grease into her performance to make it look like his efforts helped bear fruit as she flopped herself out to the cold floor of the Chemistry classroom. 

By the time she stood up and dusted herself off, huffing and puffing a bit to still sell the moment, it was apparent that most of the class had now turned their attention on her. Worrying about that later! She immediately pivoted her gaze to the front of the classroom, and wasting not a moment, began reciting the last part of her plan. "Miss Chase, I'm so so SO sorry! I was late, and in a hurry, so I thought "Hey, Doreen! You've got some moves! Maybe we can climb faster than we can run!" So I just started climbing and climbing and then....And then you're not in the classroom."

It had taken most of her pre-planned dialogue to realize the titular Ms. Chase was, in fact, not currently in the room, much to the boisterous laughter of the rest of the class. Red with embarrassment, it was all Doreen could do to rattle off a hasty "Thanks, Charles." before she stalked her way over to her assigned seating, and hastily buried her face in their giant textbook with a groan of absolute shame and disappointment. 

"Wow. That happened. It's that serious you missed a class once?" 

Jumping up from her textbook wallowing, Doreen whipped her head around to her right; she'd recognize that slightly snarky monotone from anywhere. Well, given it was practically class time, it only made sense that Nancy was already here. Giving a much more forced smile than normal, she laughed in an equally stiff manner. The text she'd sent today was still all too fresh on Doreen's mind. 

"Ha! Yeah, yeah. My parents, well, they just care a whole lot about me, y'know? They don't want the school having any reason to crunch down on my lifestyle."

"Mmm. The very important lifestyle of Doreen Green." 

If her laugh from before was strained, this one ended up coming out more like a squeak. "Yup...Super-important Doreen Green lifestyle." At that, Nancy had a knowing smirk on her face, but didn't seem to want to push it any further than that. Thank goodness! Now she just had to get through an actual school day. 

School was absolutely MISERABLE!

So of course, Chemistry had already ended up super embarrassing, but what's worse was that it turned out Ms. Chase wasn't at the school at all today, and a sub was taking their place. One that didn't even bother to take their attendance...And they also got some cookie cutter handout crud to do for the hour which was a complete joke. On the one hand, definitely made things easier on her, but on the other, well...Doreen had been really prepped to tackle Chemistry seriously today, only to fall flat on her face. So yeah, fail #1. 

The second one came in a...Stranger way. By the time she'd made it to her PE Class about halfway through the day, the news of her climbing escapades into Chemistry had made the rounds, and it resulted in bar none one of the weirdest interactions she'd ever had to chew through. Some of the jocks had gotten to her while the class was hitting the track, and were doing their darnedest to convince her to put some of her 'secret talents' into some of Midtown's sports teams. Of course, with each team she shot down, they quickly pivoted back into acting like they were too good for her anyhow. Didn't exactly surprise her, when most of these peoples were best buds with the biggest bully in the school, Flash Thompson. Man, was that nickname tacky...Though with the news of someone off in Central City going by 'The Flash', it somehow seemed even sillier. 

....Granted, she was calling herself Squirrel Girl. She didn't have a lot of ground to snark at the superhero naming stuff. 

So point is, fail #2 was having to deal with harassment for a whole gosh-darn class by people she'd hardly even interacted with beforehand. She seriously hoped this talk of her being some closet athlete would die before the week was over, or else she might be dealing with this for a long while...

The last of Midtown's transgressions for the day were less about Doreen, and more about, well...Still Doreen, in a sense. By the end of the day, there was some talk around the school about the fight she'd had this morning, having gone public from the videos being streamed by the three students she'd saved. Most of what she was hearing, and regrettably, many of the articles she read in the spare moments at school against her better judgment, were not very kind to her performance. They lamented the extensive property damage, cried havoc over the rampant vigilantism in the Big Apple (like she was somehow the cause of that!), and many people were enraged that the Hippo-monster-man thing got away. Sheesh, and that wasn't even getting into the anti-Mutant rhetoric being spouted about it as well. She wasn't even a Mutant! I mean, the hippo guy could be, but she sure as heck didn't know, and she doubted he'd be up for a check-up for some power-suppressing drugs.

It was...Definitely disheartening. She wasn't even sure why she'd read these when she knew how they'd react, but it still hurt her all the same to be ridiculed for trying to do what was right. Still, even among the mass of negativity, there were small handfuls of people who retorted in her defense. People she'd personally helped, or those who simply placed their faith in her as another brave individual willing to use their gifts to defend the people and places they love. She even saw a post from one of the people she'd directly saved in that fight, apologizing for the harsh media it drummed up, and thanking her. Now that was enough to light her back up. 

So, yep. Third strike, and definitely feeling out, Doreen was certainly in a more downtrodden mood than usual as she left the noisy mess that was Midtown behind for the day. Still, there was one massive hurdle waiting for her today...As she made her way to Central Park, she whipped out her phone and opened her messages once more, faced down with that menacing question all over again. She gulped, but gathered the courage to write something out. 

'hihi! dunno why u ask, but we can talk at CP?'

'That works for me. Isn't that pretty public if we're gonna talk about that?'

'pfft. nah! I got nothing to hide!'

'If you say so. I'll see you there.'

'yeppers! seeya there! '

Okay, that was handled. Though, Nancy might've had a point...Still, she had to go pick up Tippy-Toe, and being out in the open made her calmer, generally. And she'd need all the calm she could get with a situation like this! Unfortunately, though, the trip all the way from Midtown to Central Park was no small feat, and she didn't exactly want to risk sprinting about on rooftops right about now, not with all the mental fatigue school had dropped on her. So, Doreen took a very mundane and slow route from Queens to Manhattan, and eventually made it to her favorite place on Earth. 

Central Park was quite literally the reason her family had moved. Back in California, or at least the part of the state her family used to live in, there weren't many squirrels around, and the few that were there were treated like pests. Needless to say, given her connection to them, that kind of environment wasn't very conducive for her (that, and she couldn't even enjoy the beach without outing herself as some weird pseudo-Mutant or whatever she was, which was extra annoying). So, her parents did their research and got themselves a nice little home in Yorkville.

...Okay, 'nice little home' was a bit of stretch with how much of a squeeze Manhattan in general was, but it was good for her, and being so close to Central Park definitely helped Doreen out. It had even been where she met Tippy-Toe! Speaking of...

After arriving at the glorious natural beauty of her beloved park, Doreen wasted no time booking it through the greenery towards the Lake, and stopping herself underneath the shade of one of the biggest trees in the park. Before long, a familiar friend made their presence known by swiftly dropping on her shoulder. "Doreen! Was school okay? Did your plan turn out fine?

"Woof." Doreen wasted no time immediately deflating at the question, sliding down to sit at the base of the tree. "None of the above, honestly. I mean, the plan kinda went off fine? But it had some...Unforeseen consequences. Oh! And the darn teacher wasn't even there today! It was just a sub, and we did some work so easy half the class coulda done it blindfolded!....I'm not a part of that half, but still! Doreen huffed, arms crossed in (mostly) mock irritation. It honestly didn't bug her that much!....But, yeah, it still definitely bugged her at least a bit. 

"Aw. Well, there's always next time! You know, hopefully with less interruptions in the morning in the form of super-sized bad guys."Hah! You can say that again! Oh jeez, I wonder where the heck he is now? I'm totally gonna have to find a way to handle him next time...

Her musings were cut short alongside Tippy-Toe when she felt the distinct feeling of someone staring at her. Looking up, she saw...Nancy. Staring directly at her and Tippy-Toe. As they were talking by chittering at each other. The arched brow she gave left Doreen giving a struggling-to-exist smile and nervous, shifty eyes as she coughed out some kind of response. 

"Oh, um. Would...Wouldja believe that I just like chittering with squirrels?"
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