Shamrock Girl 

by GeekSeven with thanks to Argonaut

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DOWNLOADED FROM
http://www.superwomenmania.com/storybank
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Randall Dixon was in a living hell. A tall, blonde, incredibly beautiful
supergirl was driving him insane.

He had been given the job that nobody else in the State Department or the
United Nations wanted to do and within a month he was ready to slash his
wrists. It was a huge promotion; officially he was "Special Liaison Between the
Peoples of Earth and the Representative from the Planet Supremis", but
unofficially he was Stupendous Girl's minder. His job was to talk her out of
crazy schemes that would inevitably lead to death and destruction; that meant
sticking close to her and close to Stupendous Girl was not always the safest
place to be. That was why such an important job had been given to a relatively
junior civil servant.

He had successfully avoided serious physical injury, which was no mean feat
when he spent most of his waking hours with a girl who could send him flying
half a mile with a sneeze, but his mental health was another matter altogether.
He had not realized the effect that being in close proximity to a woman who was
a paragon of both beauty and power would have on him. She was intoxicating. The
way she looked, the way she smelled, the way she walked, the way she flew, the
way bullets bounced off her chest, the way she could break a man in two without
even noticing he was there in the first place; everything she did left another
dent in his mind and put him deeper under her spell.

Even when she was not around, he could not get her out of his mind. He could
hardly sleep from thinking about her and when he did sleep his powerfully
erotic dreams were filled with Stupendous Girl doing the most incredible things
to him. Despite himself, he was infatuated with her and he hated it.

Trying to talk her out of things was like trying to steer a supertanker. You
had to anticipate the way her mind would jump and start trying to steer her the
other way before she even thought of a plan; this would have been hard enough
if she was human, but she was from another planet. He never knew when she would
become fascinated by a little quirk of human culture and try to take part in
it, leading to death, destruction or severe embarrassment.

His greatest failure had come on his second day on the job when Stupendous
Girl had seen an item on the morning news about the "Miss Galaxy" beauty
pageant being held in Las Vegas that day. Before Randall realized what was
happening, Stupendous Girl was on her way across the country, reasoning that a
pageant named "Miss Galaxy" really ought to have at least one entrant from
off-planet. Las Vegas was still cleaning up the mess from that chaotic day, the
story of which had yet to be fully told.

His greatest success had been to talk her out of her original plan for Mardis
Gras in New Orleans, where she had been planning to throw strings of beads to
people in the crowd. The beads in question were gemstones from her home planet
which were not only highly radioactive, but which were ten times denser than
lead. At the speeds Stupendous Girl could throw something, each string would
have killed dozens in the initial impact and many more from radiation
poisoning.

Being so far from home, she wanted nothing more than to fit in with human
culture and she was a voracious student of Earth traditions. The problem was
that she came from a world that had no concepts of myth, fiction, lies or even
advertising. She gave equal weight to what she learned from reading a
peer-reviewed journal, a Wikipedia article or the back of a cereal box.

The last two days had been spent trying to manage Stupendous Girl's
participation in the city's annual St. Patrick's Day festivities.

He had talked her out of hunting down all of the snakes in the city and frying
them with her laser vision, in honor of St. Patrick's supposed feat of driving
snakes out of Ireland. She had done her research and discovered that although
the climate was not ideal for snakes, there were plenty in the reptile house at
the zoo and being kept as pets. Randall had persuaded her that people were
attached to their pets and that the snakes at the zoo were not hurting anyone.

Then she had come up with a plan to use a chemical from her home planet to dye
the river green, as she had discovered this was done in other cities. When
pressed she had admitted that the effect would last for nearly a century, would
wipe out every living thing in the river and that the green water would react
with sunlight to product "harmless" cyanide gas. The fact that humans had an
adverse reaction to cyanide was a surprise to her; she was always surprised at
the fragility of humans.

Her plan to fill a large pot with gold coins and then use her laser vision to
create a "rainbow" in the sky that people could follow to claim the gold had
gone as far as a test of her ability to make a rainbow. The 213 people on the
airliner that her "rainbow" had blown to pieces never knew what hit them.

He had persuaded her to just take part in the parade; she would wave at the
crowd, maybe sign a few autographs. Under no circumstances was she to do any
tricks, no matter how much the kids in the crowd asked her to. The "juggling
SUVs" trick that she had performed last year would have been more well-received
if the drivers had not still been in the vehicles or if they had lived through
it.

"So you're all set for tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes, Randall! I am prepared for the parade. I also read that the consumption
of beer is traditional. I took the liberty of arranging the delivery of some
Supremis beer. I thought you and I could share some after the parade. It is
very different to Earth beer, but I am sure you would find it delicious."

Randall tried to choose his words carefully; he was always afraid that
disappointing Stupendous Girl could have dire consequences. "Maybe we can do
that another time, after the lab has had a chance to examine it? I'm taking St.
Patrick's Day as a vacation day. My brother is in town, visiting."

"Oh say no more! Family is very important. I will save the Supremis Beer for
another occasion. It increases in potency with time; my mother says that it is
not worth drinking before it is ten years old at least! I am disappointed that
you will not be there to guide me, though."

"I'm leaving you in good hands. One of the interns from my office, Gregor,
will be covering for me. Talk to him if you have any questions."

Randall was relieved. He had been on-call with Stupendous Girl every day for
the last month and he badly needed a break. Everything seemed to be set for a
quiet St. Patrick's Day, so he could spend the afternoon and evening in the pub
with his brother and his friends, drinking Guinness. He would not be able to
talk about his new job, since everything about Stupendous Girl's habit of
massacring the innocent by accident was highly classified, but there were
plenty of other things to catch up on.

*****

Randall was halfway through his second pint and had just begun to put
Stupendous Girl out of his mind when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He
immediately knew it was her. The first clue was that his brother Bradley and
his friend Mike, were staring at something behind him with a mixture of
open-mouthed shock and barely disguised lust that he recognized all too well.
The other clue was that the hand Stupendous Girl had lightly placed on him had
landed with the force of a sledgehammer and had nearly dislocated his shoulder.

"Hello, Randall!" she said, cheerily. He turned to look at her. She was not
wearing her usual Stupendous Girl outfit; obviously she had decided to put
together something that she thought would be more in keeping for St. Patrick's
day. The result looked like an explosion in a leprechaun factory. She wore a
pair of tight Kelly green shorts that hugged her figure and a white halter top
that showed a generous amount of her stupendous cleavage; there was a Kelly
green shamrock emblazoned over each breast. Over her long, blonde hair she wore
a huge green leprechaun hat that looked like it had come straight off a box of
Lucky Charms. At her waist, secured by a thin strap of leather, was a leather
pouch. She twirled slowly in place, giving Randall and the rest of the bar a
good look at the outfit; he had to stifle a groan of lust when he saw how the
fabric of the shorts clung to her amazing behind.

"Do you mind if I join you for some servings of Guinness Stout Beer, brewed
since 1759?" she asked. "I understand that it is traditional for today!"

Randall sighed. He should have known that she would not be satisfied with just
the parade. "Of course not. Please have a seat." He rose from his chair and
pulled out a chair for her. "How did you know where to find me?" he asked.

"Oh, I overheard you making plans to meet your brother here. I hope you don't
mind, but it is so hard to avoid eavesdropping."

Hard for her, maybe. During the conversation in question Randall had been
whispering into his cell phone from half a mile away while Stupendous Girl was
disarming a group of bank robbers. He tried to think of a believable lie that
he could tell Bradley and Mark - maybe something about her being a foreign
exchange student - but Stupendous Girl let the cat out of the bag before he was
able to articulate it.

"Hello," she said, "You must be Randall's brother Bradley and his friend Mark!
I am Stupendous Girl. Randall and I work together very closely. You probably do
not recognize me in this hat." She took the leprechaun hat off and laid it on
the table. The two men looked at her like she was insane. She shook her long
blonde hair, sending its sweet aroma wafting over to Randall. As was often the
case when he was around Stupendous Girl, he had to hide his arousal.

At that point their server, Gina, who Bradley and Mark had unsuccessfully been
hitting on all evening, came by their table. "Another round for you lads? I'm
sorry Miss, but you really can't come in here dressed like that. I'm going to
have to ask you to..." Stupendous Girl turned to face her and Gina gasped. "Oh
my god! You're Stupendous Girl! I love you! You saved my sister's life last
year when that ferry capsized in the harbor."

Randall had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her that the ferry had
only capsized in the first place because Stupendous Girl had gone for a swim
and caused a small tidal wave.

"Don't worry about the dress code. I can make an exception for superheroes!
What would you like to drink?"

Stupendous Girl smiled. "I would like 16 fluid ounces of Guinness Stout Beer,
please. I believe that I have sufficient currency to cover this transaction and
more like it." She reached into the leather pouch at her waist and pulled out a
gold coin. The face value was $50, but as an ounce of 24-carat gold it was
worth far more than that. She handed the coin to Gina.

"I was going to say that your drinks are on the house."

Randall leaned over to her and whispered, "Take the gold. You'll earn it and
more before the night's done." If she survived the night, thought Randall.

Gina pocketed the coin and left to bring their drinks.

Bradley and Mark were still unbelieving. "Are you really Stupendous Girl?"
asked Mark.

"I can't believe my baby brother is working for a superhero and he didn't tell
me!" said Bradley.

"Of course I am Stupendous Girl, silly!" said Stupendous Girl. "I will prove
it."

She picked up a quarter that was lying on the table. She held it edgewise
between her thumb and forefinger and gently squeezed. The metal disk folded
over in half with no apparent effort on her part. She turned the coin edgewise
and folded it again. It now formed a rough cylinder of metal. She pushed the
palms of her hands together with the deformed coin between them; she started
rubbing her hands back and forth. Her hands moved faster and faster until they
were just a pink blur. When she stopped and held out the palm of one hand, the
metal was now a thin rod of metal, about four inches long, glowing red hot.

At that point, Gina brought them a round of Guinness. She placed Stupendous
Girl's pint in front of her.

Stupendous Girl took a deep breath, temporarily lowering the air pressure in
the bar and causing every ear in the place apart from hers to pop, then she
pursed her lips and blew on the red hot metal in the palm of her hand. It
almost immediately cooled down to below freezing. Frost formed along the length
of the rod. She then place the rod in her mouth and closed her lips. The men
could see her tongue moving inside her mouth. She opened her mouth and pulled
out the metal, which she had tied into the shape of a shamrock with just her
tongue.

"Do you believe me now?" she asked, smiling.

She reached for her pint and raised it to her lips to drink, but nothing came
out. She put the glass down and examined it. The beer had been caught in her
cooling blast of air and was now frozen solid.

"Oh dear," she said, "I will have to melt my beer!"

A couple of things happened almost simultaneously. The first was that an older
man, attracted by the scantily clad and impossibly gorgeous Stupendous Girl,
came up behind her and laid a lecherous hand on her shoulder. The second was
that Stupendous Girl fired her laser vision from her eyes and into her frozen
pint of Guinness. Instead of melting, the frozen beer immediately flashed to
steam. The steam cannoned out of the glass and towards Stupendous Girl's
shoulder. The super-heated vapor did not bother Stupendous Girl at all, but the
lech behind her was another matter. In less than a second, the top layer of
skin on his lower arm was stripped away, leaving a raw, blistered surface
underneath. He screamed in agony.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Stupendous Girl, "I am so sorry. Let me help."

She pursed her lips again and blew on the man's arm in an effort to cool it
down. She overshot the mark slightly and instead froze his arm completely solid
from the elbow all the way to the tips of his fingers.

The man screamed again and ran for the door. On the way, he hit the side of
the bar with his frozen arm. The glancing blow was enough to shatter his
brittle, frozen flesh and half of his lower arm flew into fragments, scattered
across the floor of the bar. He opened the door with his remaining hand and ran
out into the street, screaming all the while.

Gina came to the table with a replacement pint for Stupendous Girl. "Serves
him right, lecherous old sod," she said. "I wish I'd been able to do that all
the times he pinched my bum."

Randall was relieved that the injured man's unpopularity and lecherous
reputation had defused the situation. He unclipped his BlackBerry and sent an
email to the Rapid Response Team, warning them to be on the lookout for a man
running around with a missing hand. He hoped that they found him before his arm
thawed and he bled to death. He also ordered the team to keep ambulances
standing by near the bar in case of further injuries.

There was an urgent email in his inbox that he read quickly. Gregor, the
intern that he had tasked with covering for him during the day, was in the
hospital. He sighed.

Stupendous Girl raised her pint glass to her lips. Randall realized that he
had never seen Stupendous Girl drink alcohol before and he had no idea what
kind of effect it would have on her alien physiology. He was pretty sure that
everything would be OK. The woman could survive extreme conditions that would
kill a human in a microsecond; she could ingest the deadliest poisons known to
man with no ill effects. The idea that something as simple as alcohol would
even be noticed by her body was ridiculous. She downed the pint of Guinness in
under a second, sucking the beer down her throat at super speed. She slammed
the glass down on the table, smashing it into a hundred pieces and sending
sharp fragments flying throughout the bar. Nobody appeared seriously injured,
but almost everyone had a cut or scrape.

"You're supposed to savor the beer, not chug it!" admonished Bradley.

Mike shook his head. "Savor this crap? You know the Guinness you get in
Ireland is far superior to the swill they sell to the Americans."

"That's a myth," said Randall, "it's all brewed to the same recipe." As he was
arguing with Mike, it took him a few seconds to notice that Stupendous Girl was
no longer sitting in her chair. The chair was wobbling slightly and the door to
the bar had been torn off its hinges.

"Where did she go?" asked Bradley.

"I have no idea," said Randall. He should have taken this time to evacuate the
civilians from the bar and get them out of the line of fire should Stupendous
Girl return. However, he was under orders to do no such thing. The powers that
be figured that it was easier to keep dead victims quiet than nervous evacuees.
Orders be damned, he thought, and stood to address the other customers in the
bar.

Before he could encourage them to leave, Stupendous Girl returned, only a few
minutes after she had left. She smashed through the ceiling of the bar and
landed on the floor with such force that her feet buried themselves six inches
down. Over her shoulder she was carrying an aluminium keg with the words
"Guinness Brewery - St. James Gate, Dublin" painted on the side.

She walked over to their table and slammed the keg down. Randall had trouble
believing his eyes, but it looked like Stupendous Girl was unsteady on her
feet. The beer was actually making her drunk!

"I had several pints of Guinness in Dublin and I could not detect any
difference. I brought a sample for the rest of you so you can try for
yourself."

She sat in her chair heavily, shattering the wood and sending splinters flying
throughout the bar. A ragged cheer went up from the patrons, who had turned
Stupendous Girl's shenanigans into a drinking game. Her butt hit the floor with
a thud and cracked a couple of floorboards.

"Oops," she said, "I broke my chair." Her words were slightly slurred. She got
back on her feet. "But I do not really need it." She leaned forward as if she
was about to tell Randall a secret. "I can fly!" she whispered.

She arranged herself sitting on thin air, hovering in the same position that
she had previously been sitting in, but without the need of a chair. This was
more amazing to Bradley and Mike than her demonstrations of strength had been.

Gina ran over with a worried look about her. "What did you do to the ceiling?
The manager is going to be mad!" she shouted.

Randall reached into his wallet and pulled out one of his business cards. He
handed it to Gina. "Tell your boss to call this number in the morning. We'll
cover the cost of any repairs in full."

Stupendous Girl picked up the keg and handed it to Gina, who collapsed under
the weight and fell to the floor. "Could you hook this up to all the tubes and
taps and things behind the bar?" asked Stupendous Girl, "I would like my
friends to try it."

Gina picked herself up and dusted herself down. "I'll see what I can do." She
ran back to the bar to get some help with the keg.

"More beers!" shouted Stupendous Girl after her. "Please." she added as an
afterthought.

After things had settled down and the group had a fresh round of beers,
Bradley said, "Stupendous Girl can't be your real name. What's your real name."

Before Stupendous Girl could answer, Randall jumped in. "DON'T SAY IT!" he
shouted.

Stupendous Girl swayed slightly and made an exaggerated zipping motion over
her lips.

Randall turned to Bradley and Mike. "Her real name is over half a million
letters long in her native alphabet and is pronounced as a highly compressed
half-second squawk that would blow out the eardrums of everyone in a mile
radius if she said it." That was how the Vice-President and several leading
members of Congress had lost their hearing.

"Oh. I forgot that." said Stupendous Girl. She was drinking her current pint a
lot slower and now had a line of Guinness foam above her upper lip. "Sorry."

"OK," said Mike, "but do you have a nickname or something that won't hurt us?"

Stupendous Girl crossed her eyes and thought for a moment. "In school they
called me 'Kkklabjo'. It is the name of a flower on my home world. It looks a
little like a chrysarthe... chrysatheum... chryssythemeneum? It is an Earth
flower that has a name like the sounds I just made."

"Do you mean chrysanthemum? Can we call you 'Chrissy', then?" asked Bradley.

"I would love that!" Stupendous Girl shouted, slamming her fists on the table
for emphasis. Her fists smashed straight through the thick oak surface, leaving
a pair of fist shaped holes in the wood. "Chrissy, Chrissy, Chrysanthe... what
you just said! Little Princess Chrissy.." she trailed off, sadly.

"Princess?" asked Randall. This was new information.

"My aunt is the Queen of the whole planet. One day I will be Queen after..."
Stupendous Girl counted numbers off on her fingers, "...four people die. I do
not think I will like it."

"Do you have a boyfriend back home?" asked Mike.

"No," slurred Stupendous Girl, "Boys are rare on Supremis. Only for special
occasions."

Gina had just arrived with a fresh round of drinks and overheard this last
comment. "What about girlfriends?" she asked, and winked.

Stupendous Girl blushed and giggled. "A few. No-one special, though."

Bradley leaned towards her. "How about on Earth? Anyone special here?" he
asked.

Stupendous Girl looked sad. "It is... difficult."

Randall thought she was understating the matter somewhat. His mind flashed to
the pictures he had seen of what had been left of Stupendous Girl's lovers when
she was through with them. Normally she was very careful, but when she was
caught up in the excitement of something, or out of her head on alien
aphrodisiacs, she threw caution to the wind with fatal consequences.

Bradley and Mike excused themselves to go to the bathroom. Randall took the
opportunity to talk to Stupendous Girl alone. "What happened to Gregor? I got a
message saying that he was in the hospital."

Stupendous Girl frowned. "He was... inappropriate. I was showing him some
possible outfits for the parade. There was a nice one piece with white
stockings and this really cute white and green bikini that was this teeny." She
made a gesture with her thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the skimpiness of
the bikini.

Randall knew from experience that Stupendous Girl had very loose standards of
modesty. He had sat through a number of impromptu fashion shows put on by the
impossibly beautiful woman, desperately trying to hide his arousal as she
modelled outfit after outfit designed to show off her perfect, toned body.

"I was showing him how the bikini top accentuates my stupendous cleavage when
all of a sudden he grabbed my left buttock! I pushed him away, but I pushed him
a little hard. His arm sort of came off. Humans cannot grow arms back, can
they?"

"No," replied Randall, "we cannot." He was disappointed that Gregor had been
unable to control himself.

Stupendous Girl leaned close to Randall and whispered in his ear. "He was not
like you. You are very polite."

Randall swallowed. "What do you mean?"

"I know how I make you feel." She placed her hand on his cheek and stroked it
gently. There would be a nasty bruise in the morning, but it felt so good. "I
know that you are aroused by me. When you look at me and your heart starts
beating faster, I can hear it. Like now. When I touched you, your heart rate
went up. You try to hide your arousal, but I can see it. Blood rushes to your
sexual organ and I can hear that as well. Chemicals are released into your
bloodstream and pheromones flood out of you and I can smell how aroused you
are. But you are polite; you control yourself. You do not try to touch me
without my permission. You are so very good. Maybe one day I will reward you.
Maybe today." She smiled.

Randall thought that he would die of sexual frustration then and there.
Bradley and Mike returned at that point. "Hey lovebirds!" said Mike.

They took their seats. "Chrissy, how come you haven't been to the bathroom
once? Where do you put all the beer?"

Stupendous Girl arched her back and patted her perfect, flat stomach. "All
gets burned up in here!"

"What do you mean, burned up?" asked Randall.

"My tummy is a biological fusion furnace! It destroys matter and turns it into
energy. E equals MC squared!" she replied.

"Are you serious?" asked Mike.

"Oh yes. Look, suppose I am lifting an oil tanker above my head."

"You can do that?" asked Mike, shocked.

"It is easy. The hard part is remembering to push gently or I might punch
holes in the hull and get covered in oil. Randall! Where can I find an oil
tanker? I want to go lifting oil tankers! They do not believe me!"

Randall shook his head. "I don't really know where we can find a tanker," he
lied. "Weren't you making a point? I'm sure the lads believe you."

"Oh yes." Stupendous Girl shook her head as if trying to focus her thoughts.
She started writing out calculations on the table, cutting through the wood
with her diamond-hard fingernails. "So the tanker is maybe 500,000 tonnes,
which is 500,000,000 kilos. Lifting that by 2 metres increases the tanker's
potential energy by 1 billion Joules. If I were to obtain my energy by
metabolizing carbohydrates as humans do, I would need to consume 1,000
doughnuts just for that single lift. Randall! We should go find doughnuts!
Where can we get doughnuts?"

Randall shook his head again. "Doughnut Palace won't be open until tomorrow
morning. Maybe we can get some then."

Stupendous Girl looked crestfallen. "I guess. Anyway, If I were to throw the
tanker at a mere 50 meters per second, I would expend the equivalent of 625,000
doughnuts. However, the annihilation of a single doughnut at 99% efficiency
would produce almost 4.5 trillion Joules of energy. If I am to be stupendous, I
require stupendous amounts of energy!"

The three men stared at her with their mouths gaping open. This was
information that not even Randall's superiors knew about. That the slender girl
at their table was producing more energy inside her every second than the rest
of the world put together was incredible to contemplate.

Gina the server returned. Behind her were two bartenders carrying the keg of
Guinness. "I'm sorry," she said, "the manager wouldn't let us hook up the keg."
They dropped the keg on the table.

"Do not worry," said Stupendous Girl, "I believe I can release the beer inside
the vessel." She held out a finger and poked a hole in the side of the keg.
Beer immediately spurted out of the keg and sprayed all over the bar. "Oh
dear!" said Stupendous Girl. She picked up the keg and placed her mouth over
the hole. She sucked the beer out of the keg in less than a second; the keg
collapsed in on itself. "That was good!" she shouted. She threw the imploded
keg over her shoulder; it hit one of the bartenders in the stomach. The keg and
the bartender flew across the room and hit a wall. The man slumped down,
leaving a streak of blood on the wall behind him.

"OK, that's it!" said Gina. "You all have to leave!"

The three men and Stupendous Girl headed for the door. Stupendous Girl
remembered to pick up her leprechaun hat and she placed it firmly on her head.
Gina came up to Stupendous Girl before she left. "I still think you're
awesome," she said. She handed a scrap of paper to the alien girl. "Call me if
you want to hang out."

When they were out on the street, Randall called the Rapid Response Team and
told them to go into the bar and secure the location. They would make sure that
nobody in the media heard about the events of the night.

"Where shall we go now?" asked Mike.

"I think we should call it a night," said Randall. He hoped that Bradley and
Mike would pick up on his tone and take the hint.

"Nonsense," shouted Stupendous Girl. She was now quite clearly drunk and she
swayed from side to side. "The night is young and I am soooo beautiful!" She
struck a pose that left none of the men in any doubt that she was the most
gorgeous woman alive.

"We could go to the Chieftain, over on Hawthorne," suggested Bradley.

"I know where that is!" screamed Stupendous Girl. She gathered the three men
in her arms and soared into the sky. Under the influence of alcohol, she had
trouble keeping her grip on all three of them. She dropped Mike and he fell,
screaming. Stupendous Girl swooped down and caught him, but dropped Bradley in
the process. She repeated the swoop and grab, dropping Randall this time. Over
the next few minutes, they slowly made their way back to the ground as she
desperately juggled the three men.

They landed in a dark alley. Bradley and Mike were puking up their guts and
shaking. Randall figured that they probably would not argue with bringing the
night to a close now.

"Where are we?" asked Mike.

A new voice answered. "You're in the wrong place at the wrong time." Two large
men stood in the alley. One held a gun and the other held a large knife. "Now
you're going to give us all your money."

Stupendous Girl squealed with excitement. "Oh my goodness, Randall! They want
my gold. You said that nobody believed in leprechauns, but here I am with my
hat and they want my gold!" She reached into her leather pouch and pulled out a
gold coin. She tossed it towards the man with the gun. She misjudged the power
of her toss and the coin struck the man in the chin faster than a bullet; the
coin punched a ragged hole all the way through his head and he dropped to the
ground, dead.

"What the fuck did you do to him?" shouted the man with the knife. He lunged
at Stupendous Girl and tried to plunge the knife into her bare stomach. The
blade of the knife snapped off and the handle twisted out of his hand. A
stainless steel combat knife was no match for Stupendous Girl's invulnerable
midriff.

"Why did he do that?" Stupendous Girl asked Randall. "I do not remember this
being part of the tradition. Why did he try to stab me?"

Randall was freaked out and in no frame of mind to be diplomatic. "Because
he's a mugger! He was trying to kill you!"

"What?" shouted Stupendous Girl. She was angry now. She swung wildly at the
mugger and sent him flying into the air. He kept going up, further and further
until Randall lost sight of him. "I hit him pretty hard," she said. "Straight
to the moon!" She started giggling, uncontrollably.

They made their way out of the alley. Mike and Bradley made their excuses and
left before Stupendous Girl tried to carry them anywhere.

"OK, back to your apartment, I think," said Randall. "Walking this time."

Randall and Stupendous Girl made their way on foot to the building that housed
her penthouse apartment with relatively little incident. At one point, she
walked out into the street without looking and an SUV ploughed into the side of
her; the vehicle was totalled and the driver crushed beyond recognition, while
Stupendous Girl did not even notice the impact.

They made it back to the apartment and shared a few glasses of Supremis beer.
It turned out that the beer was non-toxic to humans, but very potent...

*****

The next morning, Randall awoke naked in Stupendous Girl's bed. He was lying
on his back. Stupendous Girl lay next to him, also naked, on her front. During
the night she had laid one arm over his chest, breaking a couple of his ribs.
The slender arm felt like a steel bar, pressing him into the bed. He had the
worst hangover imaginable.

He took stock of his situation. He was still alive and he could still feel his
legs, which meant that they had not made love; in her drunken state, there was
no way Stupendous Girl could have controlled herself enough to allow him to
live through sex with her. They had obviously made out, because his lips were
swollen and bruised and his tongue felt like somebody had taken a meat
tenderizer to it. One of his front teeth was missing; he had a vague
recollection of trying to bit down hard on one of her nipples.

Stupendous Girl stirred. She moved her arm back across his chest, breaking
another rib. She turned over, groaned and grabbed her head. "I think I am going
to die of head pain!" she said. "Oh there is so much noise! Can we go to the
moon now? It is very quiet there."

"I can't breathe on the moon, remember?" said Randall.

"Humans!" she snorted.

When she was fully awake she looked at Randall with a sad expression on her
face. "I suppose I have made a terrible mess of yet another Earth holiday," she
said.

"What do you mean?" asked Randall.

"I allowed myself to become intoxicated on Earth liquor and made a fool of
myself!"

Randall smiled and laid his hand on the side of her face. "I think you did St.
Patrick's Day just right. Welcome to Earth, Chrissy!"