Empanadillazul

All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.

The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.

The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out). The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.

Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.

I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in. I also have Business Cards!

See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back". So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".

Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)

It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.

I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit. You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is. Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?

It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.

I'll report back later Tonight🫡

Absolutely NOBODY questioned why the hell I was out spraying weeds.

- In a Hazmat Suit (technically it's a coverall for painting rooms, which is much more breathable, but looks the part) - In a Residential Area - After Dark - On a Federal Holiday

Like I'm glad I didn't get into a fight or something, but like. I was Ready. I had that conversation locked and loaded. I MADE BUSINESS CARDS.

...But instead of Very Reasonably asking What The Fuck I Was Doing, the crowds at these parties saw me (5'0" flat, potato-shaped, sweating profusely) trundling up on the slowest and least-intimidating motor vehicle in the county*, hanging a bit out the side to spray thistles and bindweed on the streets and sidewalks**, and instead of raising a rival stink, I was instead greeted by some derisive muttering and a couple of "OH COME ON!"s, but the groups dispersed and retreated indoors or at least away from the general direction of my home. *Like genuinely, I think Barbie's Dream Car has more horsepower than this golf cart. This thing doesn't have horsepower. It doesn't even have ponypower. It's running on duckpower. It waddles, something I didn't know a wheeled vehicle could do.

**Actually completely legal and a welcome community service in my city. Thank you Neighbor Barbara for telling me the exact part of city code that details what civilians are allowed to do about weeds on public roads, which is apparently "LOTS". Theoretically I could bill the city for my time tonight.

Do people not know how to Make A Scene anymore?

I was absolutely sure I was going to get filmed and shit thrown at me, or someone would call the cops. My beloved was terrified I was going to get shot. I at least had ONE woman shout "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" at me, which isn't quite as good as being told I'm ruining Christmas, but she said it with a genuinely heartwarming anguish while gesturing to a homemade "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!" banner, with an attempt at rendering The Evil Orange that as so enthusiastically yet talentlessly executed I almost stopped to get a picture of it. He looked like he'd been put in a wafflemaker.

I promised my beloved that I would turn around and come home at midnight, and I did, having eliminated every fireworks party and Scottish thistle in a five-block radius despite the lackadaisical maximum speed of my Steel Steed.

The complete lack of protest is honestly shocking to me. My flabbers are completely gasted. I waddled home on the golf cart in a sort of stunned silence that this HAS worked so well. The whole world is almost eerily quiet, and reeking of vinegar.

...Which is maybe why I didn't notice the cop pulling up beside me at a red light until he rolled down his window and leaned out at me.

"WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?" He asked, in a voice that could be used as a foghorn in emergencies.

I probably would have jumped were I not currently melting into a semblance of the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot in the heat, which was the first thing that saved me. The second was the voice of my Grandfather, coming to my aid through decades of generational memory, to tell me his words of wisdom, usually spoken right before doing something wildly inadvisable:

The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over.

"Weed Mitigation!" I called back. "CHRIST ON A BIKE, THEY GOT YOU GUYS WORKING THE HOLIDAY TOO?" He said, in the same fontissimo as before. Apparently Officer Foghorn just talks like this.

"Yep." I nodded.

"SHIT." He blared in solidarity. "WHEN DO YOU GET OFF?"

"Just finished."

"MOTHERFUCKER. THEY GOT ME OUT HERE UNTIL GODDAMN 5 AM." Officer Foghorn whined in THX.

"Shit." I commiserated.

The light turned green.

"ALRIGHT YOU GET HOME SAFE! GOD BLESS!" He waved, and drove off at something significantly above the speed limit, and I trundled on home.

I must have still looked shocked when I came in, because My Beloved immediately got up to hug me and ask if I was alright.

"The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over." I nodded slowly as the animals all battered me about the legs for attention. "...For real though, absolutely nothing happened."

"What?" he squints, wobbling slightly as Charlie tries to shove him aside for better access to me. "That's... Is it weird to say I'm almost disappointed?"

"I mean, I confirmed that I inherited my Grandfather's supernatural ability to get out of trouble for no good reason, but we knew that from the code enforcement people." I shrugged. Selene finally noticed the smell of vinegar and retched in disapproval.

"How about a shower and some Ice cream?" My Beloved suggests.

So now it is July the 5th. - My house is not ablaze - There are four medium-sized carnivores sleeping on me - I am freshly bathed - and I have a pint of Americone Dream all to myself

Here's to you, your health and your happiness, and a reminder to go make good trouble. Goodnight all.

---

Lady Azrael (aka Yasha): The chosen wielder of a weapon that grants its user incredible strength and power over darkness (which includes shadow control, turning invisible, creating shadow portals, and manifesting a pair of badass shadow dragon wings), Lady Azrael---or "Azzie," as the others call her---grew up in a religious cult that told her she was meant to bring divine justice to the wicked. This led to her killing quite a lot of people for a cause she believed to be just, and it took her falling in love with an outsider to realize she was in the wrong and to leave the cult behind. Yasha retired for a few years, even marrying the outsider that she fell for, but after her wife died of cancer, she decided she still had some fight left in her, and signed up for the Phoenix Program in order to put her sword to use---for good, this time. Of course, there may be more to this story than she lets on, and she can't explain the two-year gap in between her wife's death and when she turned herself in...

Bloody Molly (aka... uh, Molly): Probably the most famous ex-villain of the group, Molly used to be the charismatic, cruel, and shadowy crime boss known only as Nonogan---but due to a series of incidents involving deal gone wrong, a vengeful sorceress, and their powers working in mysterious ways, they woke up in a hospital one day with their memory completely wiped. Once she was informed of her criminal past, she waltzed right into SDN and requested, in her words, "another go-round at this whole superpowered-individual thing." His powers are pretty body-horror themed---he can track people through their blood, form weapons out of his own blood, flesh, and bone, and even has some mild shapeshifting stuff involving some visceral reshaping of flesh---but Molly's also got a series of eye tattoos on his body that seem to have their own thing going on, and he's still figuring out how it works. Also, even though they don't really care to look into their past, it keeps on catching up with them in increasingly infuriating ways.

Salem (aka Caleb): A sorcerer whose magic comes from a spiritual bond to a family grimoire, Salem may be the only member of the team with a darker past than Lady Azrael's. From what little SDN and the Z-Team have been able to piece together of his backstory, he's a former henchman to a very powerful supervillain in Germany named The Volstrucker, and he fled to America and entered into the Phoenix Program in order to escape his influence. Being able to carve out his own identity as a superhero is new for Caleb---he didn't even have a proper alias, as he was just one of many sorcerers recruited to work in The Volstrucker's henchman army---and though he's slow to trust and even slower to tell people about his past, he genuinely loves being able to do hero work, to the point where he'll occasionally self-assign himself to more high-risk calls. That being said, he does harbor a bit of disdain for Cobalt, both due to her leaving the hero life behind... and because of an incident that occurred prior to him entering the Program, when he was still living on the streets.

Goblinoid (aka Veth): Biochemist, wife, and mother of two, Goblinoid quit her job at a high-profile science lab after she wound up being the unwitting test subject for an experimental serum. It's not clear what the serum was supposed to do, but it gave her the ability to transform into a feral goblin creature whenever she got overwhelmed---and considering she's got both anger issues and anxiety, that happens a lot more often than she'd like. While Veth retains her mind when she transforms, she's got less control of her instincts, and her inopportune transformations have caused her to get into a lot of trouble, mostly involving fights and public intoxication. SDN's giving her the fresh start she desperately needs, both in terms of getting her powers under control and giving her the chance to be more than just a soccer mom, and she's actually gelling pretty well with the team. Even if she's a little too eager to throw hands sometimes.

Void (aka Essek): An Earth-born member of a spacefaring alien race, Void possesses the standard powers of the majority of his species---the ability to manipulate the gravity of objects, usually restricted to anything lighter than oneself---with one notable exception: he is what is known to his kind as a Singularity, whose powers theoretically have no limit to what they can accomplish. Outside of making himself float and creating the occasional gravity well, though, Essek doesn't use his abilities very often, as he believes his real strength lies in his mind... and in the past, he's used that mind to aid the goals of supervillains, only really caring about the scientific knowledge that could be gleaned from their inventions and his expertise. He's in the Phoenix Program as a form of witness protection more than anything, having turned over a lot of his clients's secrets in exchange for a lighter sentence, but working with an actual team seems to be rubbing off on him.

Princess Pixie (aka Jester): A stereotypical magical girl on the surface, Princess Pixie's fairy theme goes beyond just wings, glitter, and powers themed around light---she's a fey magical girl, with all the trickery and mischief that comes with it. Though Jester has consumed a lot of magical girl media in her life, and she's always wanted to be some sort of hero, the being who blessed her with her powers pushed her to be more chaotic for chaos's sake, making her do a lot of reckless things even if she was targeting corrupt higher-ups in the process. Of course, both her moral compass and the consequences of her actions got up with her eventually, and she wound up quitting being a superhero for a while to focus on college... but a magical girl's call to adventure can never be ignored, so Jester signed up for the Phoenix program after graduating, both for a chance to start over with a clean slate and to actually work for a team. She and her mentor are still on good terms, though. He occasionally shows up during a shift to give Jester a hand.

Fathomless (aka Fjord): Probably the one with the weirdest origin story, Fathomless is a marine biologist and the former host of a deep-sea parasite that tried and failed to make him summon and release an ancient sea god... and left him with some powers that he's still not entirely sure how to control. While under the parasite's control, he wound up committing a lot of crimes---mostly theft and breaking-and-entering, though there was some grevious bodily harm involved---and aside from learning how to use his abilities properly, Fjord sees the Phoenix Program as a way for him to rehabilitate into society and get his life back. His powers range from being able to manifest gills to being able to control water to even summoning extradimensional tentacles, the latter of which is the result of some very crass jokes made by some of the other team members. Fjord's always the guy in the group who gets teased, regardless of the setting.