Skin Deep

by Kristen Bealer

Daria scratched at her belly button, willing the newly-added navel ring to stop itching. She briefly considered just taking it out, but then shook her head and left it alone.

Axl told me to leave it in for six months, she reminded herself. While I wouldn't trust him to put together a two-piece jigsaw puzzle, I assume he knows a few things about piercings. She frowned. Because if I don't assume that, then my decision to let him poke a hole in my skin would seem pretty dumb in hindsight.

And with that pleasant thought, she went to bed.

Daria came home the next evening with Mystik Spiral's latest masterpiece, "Little Sister," still ringing in her ears. Scratching her stomach, she went into the house and ran immediately into an interrogation.

"We want to see your belly button, young lady, and we want to see it now!" Jake demanded.

Quinn, looking disheveled in a wrinkled blue evening gown identical to Helen's, stood smugly behind them.

Daria quickly stopped scratching, trying to avoid drawing attention to her hidden accessory. "What are you talking about?"

Helen glared at her. "Out with it!"

There was no avoiding it. Daria lifted the hem of her shirt to show her navel ring, now surrounded by faint pink welts where she'd been scratching it all day.

"Oh, my God!" Jake screamed, his face turning red from scalp to chin. "Noooooooooo!" The sound of the word eventually trailed off, but his mouth stayed open in a frozen "O" as he stared in horror at his daughter's belly button.

Helen stepped forward and grabbed Daria in a crushing hug. "My baby is growing up," she said tearfully. "I'm so proud!"

"What?!" both Daria and Quinn yelled. Jake only turned his petrified mask of shock and dismay toward his wife, still unable to speak.

Helen smiled and patted Daria maternally on the shoulder. "I was right around your age when I got my first piercing," she said, her eyes becoming unfocused as she reminisced. "Of course, I didn't pierce my navel. No, I pierced my--"

"HELEN!!!" Jake found his voice just in time.

Helen snapped back to the present. "Oh! I mean, that's not important. What's important is that my little girl is finally coming out of her shell and trying new things! That's just wonderful!"

"It is?" Jake asked weakly.

"It is," Helen told him firmly.

Jake looked at her, and then at Daria's navel, and then at Helen again. "But...won't this start her on a life of drugs and crime and--"

"--serial puppy kicking--" Quinn helpfully interjected.

"--and sex and jaywalking?" Jake finished.

"What do you mean, 'start'?" Daria said.

Helen crossed her arms. "Well, Jake," she said. "If you're concerned about a breakdown in discipline then I suppose we could discuss sending Daria to military school--"

"Never!" Jake screamed. He swept Daria into a fierce embrace that left her fighting for oxygen. "You can get as many piercings as you want, Kiddo! I won't stand in your way!"

Daria squirmed free and caught her breath. "One is plenty," she assured him, scratching her stomach again. "I don't think my skin could take any more."

"Something wrong, Sweetie?" Helen asked, pride turning instantly to concern.

"Lots of things," Daria replied. "In this particular instance, it's a super itchy belly button."

All thoughts of vengeance and petty sibling rivalry vanished from Quinn's thoughts. "A skin condition? That's my specialty!" She grabbed Daria's hand and dragged her upstairs. "Okay," Quinn said once they were in her room. "Let's see what I've got."

"Didn't we already establish that you can't help me?" Daria asked as Quinn rummaged through an entire department store's worth of bottles, tubes, and sprays. "Back when I had that rash?"

Quinn dismissed Daria's comment with a flick of her wrist. "Yeah, we both know that you're beyond help."

"Ha."

"But that was at school. I only had a fraction of the supplies I have here at home." She yanked a small tub out of the pile with a flourish. "Perfect! One time Stacy had a bad reaction to a new facial scrub and it itched like crazy until she tried this. Cleared it right up." Without asking permission, she tugged Daria's shirt up and began applying a pale pink cream to her belly button.

"Hey!" Daria said, startled by the invasion of her personal space. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and hissed in a long breath. "Ow! That really stings! Did it fix Stacy's face by burning it off completely?"

"Gawd, Daria, you really are a pain wimp." Quinn stepped back and put the lid back on the tub. "Well?"

Daria opened her eyes. The initial sting had faded, leaving...nothing. No itch. Not even a mild one. "Huh," she said, surprised.

"I'll take that as an overflowing display of gratitude and glowing praise for my skills," Quinn said, crossing her arms with satisfaction.

"Exactly as it was intended, I'm sure," Daria said, then sighed. "Uh, thanks," she mumbled.

"You're welcome." Quinn waved her sister toward the door. "Now, shoo. I have to put the pieces of my shattered dreams back together, and the healing process starts with a manicure."

Daria spent most of the weekend at home, occasionally sneaking into Quinn's room to apply more of the miracle cream to her navel. By Monday she felt much better about the piercing, especially since she was no longer in danger of scratching her own skin off.

She had in fact forgotten about it entirely until Mr. DeMartino's class, when she felt an odd by familiar warm sensation on her stomach. Lifting the hem of her shirt very slightly, she glanced down to see the unwelcome sight of a rash surrounding her belly button.

Suppressing a groan, she raised her hand. "Daria," Mr. DeMartino said, acknowledging her.

"May I be excused?"

He stared at her in consternation for a moment before saying, "No, what Nathan Hale said before he was hanged was not 'May I be excused?' It was 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.' Then, the teacher was executed, a fate many of his future colleagues would one day envy."

"No," Daria said, pressing a self-conscious hand against her abdomen. "I mean I would like to be excused to the restroom, please. Right now."

Mr. DeMartino looked relieved that his star student had not actually lost her mind. "Fine," he said, holding out the hall pass.

Daria darted to the front of the room and snatched it on her way out the door. She reached the bathroom and was grateful to find it empty. She lifted her shirt again to check the rash and found it spreading before her eyes. Angry, red, and growing.

"Great," she moaned. "Another trip to the nurse." She turned to go, but then stopped. The last time I went to her with a rash, she squealed in disgust and then offered to perform an exorcism. No, thanks.

Daria considered her options for a few minutes before walking out of the bathroom, down the hall, and through the exit. She didn't stop walking until she got to Degas Street.

"Be right with ya," Axl called from the back room when she entered his stop. "Unless yer the health inspector, in which case we're closed."

"Well, that's reassuring," Daria snapped.

Axl came in. "Oh, s'you," he said, unconcerned by her remark. "How can I help ya, luv?"

Daria revealed her belly button. "You can start by undoing the damage you caused," she told him accusingly.

"Yuck," was Axl's professional opinion, but he crouched down to study the problem. "Lemme think," he told her. "Did ya use the antiseptic?"

"Yes."

"Notice any mucus?"

"No."

"Did ya take zinc supplements? It was zinc, right?"

"You weren't very specific about which metal to take, so I settled on lead."

Axl ignored her. "Hmmm. Well, it don't look like an allergic reaction or anyfing like that, so...I dunno. Go see a doctor, I guess."

Daria reached for the ring. "Would it help if I remove it?"

"No!" Axl shouted, shaking his head frantically.

Pulling her hand away again, Daria stared at him with wide eyes. "Why not? What will happen if I take it out?"

"Ya might ask for a refund," Axl explained, then pointed at the door. "Off ya go, then."

The next day found Daria sitting on an exam table in Dr. Phillips office wearing a patient gown and an impatient expression. "I'm afraid I still don't have any answers about your rash," the doctor was explaining, "but the first thing you want to do it take out that navel ring before it gets any worse."

"So it is an allergic reaction?" Daria asked. "Axl said--"

"Axl?" Dr. Phillips asked incredulously. "I can't believe he's still in business. Half of my hepatitis cases came straight from his parlor."

"So his advice to not remove the ring...?"

"Was bullshit," he confirmed. "Take it out."

As Daria fumbled with the ring, Dr. Phillips got out a scope and began examining the rash more closely with it.

"That's...wow," he said as soon as Daria removed the piercing.

"You doctors and your medical jargon," Daria said, slightly annoyed. "What's the big deal?"

Dr. Phillips lowered the scope and stared at Daria, his face pale. "The hole closed up instantly, right before my eyes. I have never seen a piercing heal that quickly."

Daria peered at her belly button like she was afraid it would bite her. "Never?" she asked quietly.

"It's the most bizarre thing I've seen in my entire career," he confirmed, still staring at her. "This is...well, it's medically impossible." He turned and opened the door to the examination room. "Wait right here. I'm going to go make a call to--"

At that moment he was knocked backward by a small teenage girl barreling past him out of the room in a state of complete and utter panic.

Daria was only vaguely aware of what direction she was running in. Everything was dim and fuzzy, disconnected from her thoughts as she fled in terror.

I'mafreakI'mafreakI'mafreakI'mafreakI'mafreak her brain chanted over and over again. She'd always felt like an outcast, but the idea that everyone around her had actually been right and there was something wrong with her was just too much for her to handle.

Habit overcame fear, so when she finally stopped running she found herself panting in front of Pizza Prince. The familiar smell of grease and processed cheese brought her back to her senses and she decided to go in.

The moment the door closed behind her she noticed most of the customers staring at her and holding whispered conversations with each other.

No, she told herself. It's just your imagination. You just think everyone's looking at you like you're abnormal, but it's not--

Then she realized that she was still wearing the patient gown from the doctor's office. Oh, goddammit. She ducked quickly into the nearest empty booth and buried her face in her arms on the tabletop.

"Hiiii! Can I take your order?" Daria peeked out and saw Artie's pimply face grinning happily at her, with no trace of scorn or amusement at her awkward entrance.

"Don't you want to know why I'm wearing this?" she asked, tugging self-consciously at the flimsy fabric.

Artie shrugged. "I've shown up in public places wearing weirder stuff than that."

"Hmm." Daria rearranged her gown around herself to ensure her modesty, and as she did so it brushed against her abdomen.

"So are you going to order anything?" Artie asked.

"Do you have any skin rash remedies?" Daria joked weakly, staring at the table in front of her. "Apparently my supernatural healing abilities have their limits."

She heard the faint thud of an order pad falling to the floor, and the next thing she knew Artie was sliding into the booth across from her. "Rash?" he asked in a low, urgent whisper. "You have a mysterious rash?"

Daria was taken aback at his sudden intensity. "I'm pretty sure it's not contagious."

"And super-fast healing?"

"Um...yes."

Artie leaned forward so far that he was practically lying on top of the table. Daria sat back, trying to keep his wild eyes and greasy hair at a distance. "Since when?"

Now Daria was tempted to just leave Pizza Prince and the nutjob cross-examining her, but glanced at her patient gown and decided the annoyance wasn't severe enough to counter the potential embarrassment. "I don't know," she said, trying to sound unconcerned. "The rash first showed up a few weeks ago, but it went away on its own."

"And the super-fast healing?"

"Look," Daria said irritably. "My belly button piercing closed up. That's all." Saying it out loud made her realize that she had overreacted at the doctor's office. It had just been a stressful week; that was all. Now she should just go home and--

"Do you have issues with motion sickness? Frequent vivid nightmares? Low pain tolerance?" Artie leaned so far over the table that even with Daria sitting back they were nose-to-nose. "Lifelong feelings of alienation from your peer group?"

Daria's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How did you know all of that?"

Artie sat back down and nodded knowingly. "It's very common among people like us," he explained.

"'People like us'?" Daria said. "Excuse me, but we have absolutely nothing in common!"

"Except for our synthetic skin," Artie replied matter-of-factly.

"Oh, come on." Daria stood up, no longer caring about the gown. "Save it for the next UFO convention, all right? I've had enough crazy for one day."

Artie glanced at the gown and raised his eyebrows. "You had a doctor check it out, right? And they couldn't figure out the cause? Found no earthly explanation for your symptoms?"

Against her better judgment, Daria nodded.

"That's because there is no earthly explanation," Artie told her in a low voice. "Only an unearthly one."

"But...but...." Daria was desperately trying to keep herself grounded in practicality, which was very difficult when she was standing in the middle of a pizza place wearing a flimsy robe and talking to a wild-eyed conspiracy nut. "Aliens aren't real."

"How do you know?" Artie's voice had lost its usual nasal quality, and he was staring at her with quiet intensity.

"Because...they aren't," Daria said weakly. She realized she had sat back down without noticing.

Artie only shook his head sadly. "You're wrong," he said. "Aliens are real, but very good at covering their tracks. Now, do you want to argue about supernatural phenomena or do you want some answers to your questions?"

Daria glanced down at her abdomen for a moment before shoving aside logic entirely. "Answers."

Artie nodded and stood up. "Let's go somewhere we can talk privately."

"What you need to understand," the boy told her, "is that everything you think you know about aliens is wrong. Science fiction would have us believe that they're some kind of conquering race bent on destroying or enslaving less advanced civilizations like our own. That's just false."

"Yeah," the girl replied. "Earth already has that market cornered, anyway."

The boy didn't even crack a smile. "You need to take this seriously."

"How can I?" the girl demanded. "You're trying to tell me that aliens took my skin and replaced it with some kind of synthetic version that's practically indistinguishable from the real thing aside from a mysterious rash that comes and goes for no obvious reason and a near-instantaneous healing ability."

"And greater susceptibility to humidity," the boy added. "That's why it feels tight around your head in the summer."

"I haven't had that problem," the girl said, "but that might be because I don't like to go outside in the summer. Or winter. Or spring. Or fall."

The boy nodded thoughtfully. "There are bound to be individual variations," he explained. "But the cause remains the same."

The girl massaged her temples with her fingertips. "Fake skin."

"Fake skin," the boy repeated with a solemn nod. "Capable of sensations you can't even imagine."

"Look, can we just skip to the part where you tell me why these hypothetical aliens would steal my skin? What's the point?"

"I'm not sure," the boy admitted, "but I do know that our skin remembers what it feels, and that must be the key to their secret plan."

"'Our skin remembers what it feels'?" the girl asked, glaring at him. "What the hell does that mean, and can you back it up scientifically?"

The boy straightened his back, stared down his nose at her, and took a deep breath. "No. Not in the slightest," he said, then shrugged. "It just sounds really cool, doesn't it?"

"It does not."

"Look, the point is that the aliens chose us for their mysterious experiments, so we need to work together to find out what their plan is and stop them."

"What if their plan is to remove all navel piercings from the planet?"

The boy narrowed his eyes. "Okay, if you're not going to take this seriously--"

"--which I'm not--"

"Then we'll just have to...."

"Have to what?"

The boy held up a pack of cards. "Play Go Fish?"

Daria crumpled up the paper and threw it away. She wasn't worried about Mr. O'Neill suspecting that the story was more than fiction; the story just lacked "moral dimensions," unless you counted Artie's bizarre rants and thirst for vengeance against a race of alien beings who probably didn't even exist.

Definitely don't exist, Daria corrected herself quickly. She glanced at the scrap of paper Artie had scribbled his phone number onto and shoved into her hand and wondered again why she hadn't just thrown it away. A nagging corner of her brain told her that it was because he was the only person who had offered her any kind of explanation for the weird things that had happened to her.

She reached out to grab the piece of paper and let it join her rejected story, but then put her other hand on her stomach. Right on the place where the rash had disappeared earlier that day. One moment it was there, and the next it was gone. You're just a fast healer, she told herself. Really fast. Super-duper-crazy-miraculously fast.

Still, she left the paper with Artie's number where it was. Just for the time being.

"All right, Daria," Helen was saying as Daria drove haltingly down the road in the SUV. "Don't start your turn until your front wheels are past the corner."

Daria clumsily made the turn, trying not to think about that day's science class. They'd been dissecting frogs when Daria's hand had slipped and driven the scalpel right into the side of her finger. Or rather, she should have stabbed herself in the finger. Instead, she'd pulled the scalpel away to find the blade slightly bent and her skin completely unharmed.

"Now, accelerate as you start to straighten."

She followed Helen's directions on autopilot, still wondering if that shadow on Jane's face had been concern over her friend's near-injury or suspicion. She hadn't been able to bring herself to tell Jane any of what was going on, if only because saying the words out loud would make them seem more real. It was much easier to pretend everything was fine, even if on some level she knew it wasn't.

"Watch out for the dog. Watch out, Daria!"

Daria snapped out of her distracted thoughts and hit the brakes, but it was too late. She felt the impact of the car against the dog. She shifted the car into park and was out the door in an instant.

The dog lay motionless on the pavement, its body contorted at an unnatural angle. Oh, God, Daria thought. I killed him! I'm a dog killer! She reached out her hand to touch the animal, willing it to still be alive. The moment her hand made contact, she felt a jolt run from her fingertips all the way up her arm.

"Woof!" The dog sprang up and licked Daria's face, then trotted away without even limping.

"Daria? What happened?" Helen was standing in front of the car, staring at the place where the dog had been.

"I...I don't know." Daria turned her head to watch the dog as it left. She was certain it had been dead. There was no way it could have survived. And yet....

"I could have sworn we hit it," Helen was saying. "It must have been my imagination. Try to be more careful, okay, Daria?"

Daria stared at her hand, still tingling from the earlier jolt. There's no way I could have...no. It's just not possible. "Mom?" she said quietly. "Could you drive the rest of the way home?"

A knock on the door roused Daria from her thoughts as she lay on her bed. "What?" she called out, annoyed at the interruption.

Helen opened the door and came in. "Daria?"

"I sure hope so." It was meant as a joke, but it felt flat even for her.

"You know, I was thinking about your peripheral vision."

"Why?" Daria asked, feeling immediately defensive. "Is there something weird about that, too?"

"What?" Helen asked, perplexed. "No! I just wanted to talk to you about the idea of getting contact lenses."

"Contacts?" Daria still felt defensive, but this time for different reasons. "What's wrong with my glasses?"

"Nothing at all," Helen assured her soothingly. "It's just that...after that near-miss with the dog today...."

Memories of the dog's limp body exploded in Daria's mind and she felt her anger pushed aside to make way for guilt and shame. "I really didn't mean to hurt him," she said weakly.

"Oh, I know, sweetie." Helen sat down next to her on the bed. "And you didn't, which is very lucky. But what if it happens again?"

Then I'll bring it back to life with my miracle touch. The words almost spilled out in a brief fit of hysteria. Clamping her mouth shut, she shrugged.

Helen went on. "I think that contacts would enhance your field of vision, not only preventing accidents but also giving you more opportunities."

Daria finally trusted herself to speak. "I'll think about it," she said, hoping to end the conversation early.

"Thank you," Helen said, standing up and kissing Daria on the top of the head. "You know, I was a little afraid that you'd think I was trying to use contact lenses to get you to fit in better or something like that."

Fit in better. For the first time in her life, Daria thought that sounded like a good idea. "You know what?" she told her mother. "I'll give it a try."

A few days later, Daria was rubbing her eyes as she walked down the hall with Jane.

"Yo, what's going on?" Jane asked.

"These contacts are itching the hell out of me," Daria said. "I've got to take them out, but I don't have my glasses."

Jane shrugged. "Well, there's only two periods left. Can you hold out?"

"Guess I have to." She ducked into the nearest bathroom and pulled her lens case out of her backpack. So much for my superhuman healing, she thought. Maybe whatever weird stuff was going on with me has run its course like some kind of alien flu bug. She gingerly removed each contact lens, plopped them into the case, and blinked her eyes a few times in relief.

"Better?" Jane asked, sticking her head into the bathroom to check on her friend.

Daria didn't reply; she was staring intently at her reflection in the mirror.

"Amiga?"

Slowly Daria turned her head to look at her. "My eyes...." she whispered.

"Are itchy, yes," Jane said impatiently. "Hence the contact lens removal."

"No." Daria looked at the contact lenses in the still-open case, then at Jane again with eyes that were sharply focused. "I can see."

Daria and Jane decided to spend the rest of the school day on the roof, where Daria spent the better part of an hour catching Jane up on all of the strange things she'd been going through.

"Let me get this straight," Jane said at last. "You have superhuman healing abilities, unbreakable skin, the power to bring dogs back to life, and magically correcting vision...and you didn't let me in on it so I could exploit your gifts for profit?"

"Yeah, it's like my priorities are all out of whack," Daria said, the joke relieving some of her tension.

"So what other surprises can I expect from my otherworldly best friend?"

"I don't know," Daria said wearily, "and the only person who might know is hardly a reliable source."

"Ah, yes," Jane said. "Artie. The Mr. Miyagi to your Daniel-san, the Mickey to your Rocky Balboa, the Mr. Peabody to your Sherman...."

"...the pain in my ass...." Daria added grumpily.

"But why haven't you just called him?" Jane asked, sounding genuinely curious. "He might be annoying, but at least he has some idea of what's going on."

"If he isn't just making it all up as he goes along," Daria pointed out. "And besides, I'm still not convinced that there isn't some kind of non-alien explanation."

"Such as...?"

Daria sighed. "I have no goddamn idea."

Daria walked into the carnival funhouse, finding nothing but mirrors inside everywhere she looked. At first it was mildly amusing to see her features stretched out in odd shapes, but suddenly the reflections showed something far more disturbing. In one, she was purple and had five eyes. In another, she was green with flippers for hands. In another, she had two heads and scales all over her body.

In every direction, she saw another version of herself with only one thing in common: she was unmistakably an alien.

Frightened by the sight, she felt for her glasses only to find she wasn't wearing them. She reached into her pocket and found them there, and quickly put them on. Instantly her vision blurred, and she could no longer see the reflections.

Her relief was short-lived, however, when she was viciously attacked by a zombie dog.

Daria sat up in bed, gasping in horror at the nightmare. Then she gasped again at the sight of metal glinting near her open bedroom window. It was gone in an instant, but she was certain she'd seen some kind of giant tube with a large funnel on the end.

She pinched herself, hard. It wasn't part of her dream and, even worse, the bruise she caused was gone moments after it appeared.

Her gaze fell on the scrap of paper, still sitting on her desk. "I give up," she muttered, climbing out of bed. It was the middle of the night, but somehow she doubted Artie would mind a phone call from her at any hour.

"...and he actually had an explanation for it?" Jane asked in surprise on the way to school the next morning.

Daria nodded. "According to him, aliens regularly visit people at night to steal their dreams with a big suction device."

"Golly," Jane remarked. "That doesn't sound made up at all."

"I'd agree with you...if I hadn't seen the damn thing with my own eyes."

"And considering your newfound 20/20 vision, that's saying something," Jane added.

The girls reached the school, where Daria led the way straight to the restroom. Once inside, she pulled her glasses out of her backpack. Jane reached into her pocket to pull out a tiny screwdriver. She handed it to her friend, who began painstakingly removing the screws from the glasses frames.

Jane watched as she removed the lenses and reattached the screws, then put the glasses back on. "So you're going to have all of the fun of looking like a brain with none of the vision correction benefits?"

"I have to maintain my secret identity somehow," Daria said, dropping the lenses into the trash.

"About these dreams," Jane said as they left the restroom. "Are they really so exciting that aliens would cross the vast expanse of space just to steal them? And if so, please do share. Unless they involve my brother, in which case forget I asked."

Daria shook her head. "Nothing particularly memorable. Once I had a nightmare that I had turned into my sister and while I was in the hospital I dreamed I died and went to hell."

"One dream where you suffer eternal agonies behind mortal understanding and one where you died. I can see why aliens would be eager for front-row seats."

"Hey, Daria!" Kevin Thompson saw them and sauntered over. "Check out the new glasses!" He held up a pair of empty frames, then grinned. "When you told me glasses make you smarter, I decided to give it a try, too. Only I got a pair without any lenses, because I don't want to be, like, too smart." The bell rang, and he waved. "See you later!"

Daria stood unmoving. "Did...did Kevin and I just have basically the same idea?"

Jane shivered. "I know. I'm scared, too."

"Hello," the nurse greeted Daria when she arrived at the Better Days Nursing Home. "You must be from the high school. Come on in!" The nurse escorted Daria inside to begin her not-entirely-voluntary volunteer work.

"Hey, Daria!" Brittany and Kevin were already inside, and approached her in spite of the GO AWAY message she was frantically trying to telepathically transmit. I guess repelling idiots isn't one of my alien superpowers. Thanks for nothing, E.T.

"Did you know there aren't any high school seniors here?" Kevin asked her indignantly. "They're old people and we have to read to them!"

"That's not right," Daria commented.

"Yeah!" Brittany said, excited by Daria's quick agreement.

Daria raised an eyebrow at them. "Haven't you explained to these people that neither of you can read?"

"You'll be reading to Mrs. Patterson," the nurse said later, leading Daria into one of the rooms. "I think you two will really hit it off."

Daria sat down and opened her book to read, belatedly wishing she'd brought something a little lighter than Howl. Then again, her personal library wasn't exactly full of cheerful reading material. She was just getting to her favorite part when Mrs. Patterson began frantically jabbing the call button.

"Mrs. Patterson, can I get you something?" the nurse asked, entering.

Daria went on. "...the soul is innocent and immortal. It should never die ungodly, in an armed madhouse...."

"Get my...my...." Mrs. Patterson trailed off, her face melting into a mask of sorrow. "Oh, what's the point? There's nothing you can get me that will fix the emptiness that dwells inside me."

The nurse began crying. "It's true," she wept. "I can't do anything to help you. I'm completely useless!"

Confused, Daria stopped reading and looked at them in surprised silence. After a few moments both the nurse and Mrs. Patterson shook themselves slightly and looked back at her. "I'm sorry," Mrs. Patterson said. "All of a sudden I just felt...sad."

"Me too," the nurse confirmed. "Like a tidal wave of depression. I feel better now, though."

"Are you both okay?" Daria asked, closing the book.

Both the nurse and Mrs. Patterson burst into tears at the sound of her voice.

Daria put a hand to her lips, already feeling a sense of foreboding. As she expected, the two women recovered again the instant she stopped talking. It's my voice, she realized. My voice is causing people to feel depressed. She sighed. I mean, more than usual. She stood up and waved at them, afraid to even utter the word "Bye."

She darted out of the room and dashed for the exit, only to feel something latch onto her hand and stop her. She looked down to see a woman in a rocking chair, staring up at her with a slightly vacant expression.

"Let go of me!" Daria snapped, then covered her mouth in horror. However, the woman didn't react at all, as if she hadn't heard.

An old man was shuffling by with a walker. "Don't waste your time with Mrs. Blaine," he wheezed. "She's so deaf a meteor could crash right next to her and she wouldn't even notice!"

"She might smile if it landed on you," Daria said irritably, but the words weren't even out of her mouth before the man crumpled over his walker, sobbing. I've got to get out of here before a mass suicide breaks out. She tried to shake Mrs. Blaine off but the old woman only tightened her grip and pulled Daria in close.

"They will return," she murmured into Daria's ear. "The ones who bestowed your gifts upon you will return from the heavens and your questions will finally be answered."

"What do you mean?" Daria asked. Mrs. Blaine only nodded and gave her a vacant smile before letting go of her hand and turning away.

Daria wanted to shake the woman until she explained her remark, but knew there was no point. Mrs. Blaine wouldn't be able to hear her questions and, anyway, her meaning was clear enough: the aliens, which Daria had finally come to accept as the cause of the weird phenomena, were eventually going to return for her.

And then what?

"Well, obviously the aliens will take you back to their home planet and make you their queen," Jane suggested when Daria told her about it a few days later. To Daria's relief, her voice had stopped causing massive bouts of depression by the time she'd gotten home from the nursing home. If she concentrated, she could find just the right pitch to recreate the effect, but she'd promised herself to only use it on Quinn. Five times a day, six tops.

"What kind of alien species would want a queen who can depress them with a single word?" Daria asked, watching Sick, Sad World on Jane's TV. A mall manager was talking about nativity scenes, but the show had lost some of its appeal for Daria once her life had started out-weirding anything they could come up with.

"One that's tired of being happy?" Jane guessed. "On the bright side, now you're the Misery Chick in more than just name."

"That's the bright side?" Daria repeated, incredulous. "What kind of optimist are you?"

"The pessimistic kind, who's listened to too much of your Misery Shtick?" Jane suggested, using her nickname for Daria's newest ability. Then she took note of her friend's lack of amusement and chuckled. "Relax, amiga. You know you couldn't depress me if you tried."

"Because you have such a sunny outlook on life?"

"Because real life has already done the job."

Daria finally cracked a smile. "You win." She stood up. "I'm going to head home. See you tomorrow?"

"Unless the mothership nabs you first."

Daria just shook her head and left the Lane house. She was halfway to her house when an Irish accent spoke up behind her. "Not another step, lassie."

She turned around to see an unusually short man dressed all in green and a stocky man with wings and a combination diaper/toga. Before either of them could say anything else, she hauled back and punched them in the face, one after the other.

"Ow!" cried the winged man, one hand on his bruised face.

"Bloody 'ell, what was that for?" the Irishman demanded.

"I don't know what you alien bastards did to me, but I'm not going anywhere with you!" Daria's hand hurt like a bitch, but she went into the closest thing she knew to a fighting stance. If she'd been able to see herself at that moment, she would have recognized the pose as a cross between a sumo wrestler and a penguin.

"Aliens?" The two men looked at each other in confusion, then back at Daria. "We're not aliens," the winged man said in a soothing voice.

"You're not?" Daria lowered her fists slightly but remained wary.

"Not at all," said the Irishman. "I'm the St. Patrick's Day leprechaun and he's Cupid. We're on a secret mission, and we need your help to locate Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Day so we can bring them back to Holiday Island through the dimensional wormhole behind the Good Time Chinese Restaurant."

Daria looked at them both for a very long time. Finally, she spoke.

"Fuck off."

Daria and Jane were in Daria's room discussing whether or not the welcome absence of sexy everything-from-Twinkies-to-lawnmowers costumes would make up for the loss of discounted post-Halloween candy when Quinn came in with a stack of money.

"Need someone to count it for you?" Daria asked.

"A hundred dollars," Quinn said. "It's yours. All you have to do is be my dance committee."

Daria held out her hand for the money. "Deal. Spoiler alert: it turns out the real school dance was in our hearts the whole time."

Quinn sighed in disgust and turned to go.

"Hold on." Jane stood up. "What's the budget? You know, for food, music...." She glanced at Daria with a small wink. "Decorations?"

"A thousand dollars," Quinn replied, then waved the money. "Well, minus this discretionary fund."

Quinn wasted no time in dumping all of the work on Jane, then leaving as abruptly as she'd entered.

"Does this have any connection with that big art piece you want to do?" Daria asked her friend.

"A thousand dollars can buy a lot of paint," Jane pointed out.

"But what about our dancing classmates?"

Jane shrugged and peeled off one of the bills. "Eh, put this aside for a bag of chips and a boom box."

"Seriously," Daria said. "Since when does Jane Lane, artiste extraordinaire, stoop to using her talents to decorate a school dance?"

"Since Jane Lane, artiste extraordinaire, decided she wanted to take on a project that's worthy of her skills. A project that's as big as her own ambitions. A project that's...out of this world."

Daria narrowed her eyes. "I don't think I like where this is going."

For the rest of the week, Daria saw little of Jane, who was spending all of her free time preparing for the dance. The big day finally came, and Daria grudgingly agreed to make an appearance. If nothing else, she wanted to satisfy her curiosity: Jane had refused to reveal even a hint about what her plans were.

The mystery was solved the moment she walked into the gym. Gigantic flying saucers were painted on every wall, complete with alien Greys and tractor beams. Instead of a disco ball, a replica of the UFO from Close Encounters of the Third Kind hung over the dance floor, flashing the sequence of lights from the movie. Black monoliths were scattered around the room, and Jane was leaning against one of them and sipping a mug of coffee.

Daria walked over, impressed at Jane's work but also annoyed by the theme itself. "You couldn't resist, could you?"

Jane shrugged sleepily. "What can I say? I wanted to boldly go where no artist has gone before."

"I'll tell you where you can go," Daria grumbled, but Jane hushed her with a raised hand.

"Hold on, I think the band's finally here."

"You got a live band for this?" Daria asked in surprise.

"Yup. My first choice was letting Upchuck be the DJ, but he backed out over a prior commitment and I didn't want to ask questions. Fortunately, I found a group that owed me a favor, so they agreed to do the gig for free."

"Let me guess...."

Just as she'd suspected, Trent ambled into the gym, followed by Jesse, Nick, Max, and a handful of people Daria had never seen before. They set up quickly and soon Trent was speaking into a microphone. "Hello. We're Mystik Spiral, featuring the Holidays."

"School dances are for tossers," muttered one of the new bandmates, just loud enough to be picked up by the microphone.

Trent shot him a mildly annoyed glance. "Anyway, let's get started."

The band began playing, and the surly bandmate began singing. "So I'm a bleeding holiday; there's more to my life than that. I say I got normal dreams, normal desires, want to drive a normal car with normal tires, yeah! I'm a teen holiday and it sucks!"

The song went on like that, so Daria tuned it out and went back to her conversation with Jane. "Who are the new recruits?"

"No idea. They've been hanging around the house a lot, but I've been so busy with prepping for the dance that I never got around to asking about them."

"It's just that something about them seems somehow...." Daria tapped her foot in time to the music as she tried to figure out why she was being overwhelmed with deja vu. Her tapping was soon replaced by swaying, and before she realized what she was doing she was dancing.

"Daria?" For once Jane was at a loss for a joke. She stared in astonishment, not only because of Daria's uncharacteristic display but also because she was good. Very good. Professional-level good.

"What's going on?" Daria asked in alarm, finding that she couldn't stop herself. Her arms were swinging gracefully, her feet were stepping in perfect time, and her whole body was moving with impeccable rhythm. It was the most terrifying experience of her life.

The teenagers near them all stopped their own dancing to gawk, and before long Daria was a lone dancer surrounded by a gymnasium full of spectators. When the band played its last chord, Daria finally dropped in an exhausted heap and the whole room exploded with applause.

"Wow, I had no idea you could dance like that, Daria!" Brittany said.

"Neither...did I...." Daria panted. "Never...want to...do it...again."

"Let's go," Jane said, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. "Take a bow, Fred Astaire."

Jane dragged an unresisting Daria out to the parking lot, where Daria finally caught her breath out of earshot of the music.

"Another gift from your alien admirers?" Jane asked.

"Obviously," Daria snapped. "And keep your voice down. The rumors flying around school about me will be bad enough without throwing in any supernatural elements."

"Did you say supernatural?" The girls looked over to see two identical young men with brown hair and worried expressions standing nearby.

"Maybe," Daria said, feeling instantly guarded. "Why?"

The boys looked at each other for a while, as though they were carrying on an inaudible conversation. Finally, one of them spoke. "We're helping our cousin Chuck look for these, um...people."

The other boy interrupted. "We might as well be honest, Brad." To Jane and Daria he said, "They're personifications of holidays. To be precise, Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Day. Apparently St. Patrick's Day and Cupid--"

"That's why this sounds familiar!" Daria shouted, then remembered she was trying to keep a low profile. More quietly, she said, "I've met them."

"Which ones?" Brad asked eagerly.

Daria glanced back toward the gym. "All of them. You'll find Christmas, Halloween, and Guy Fawkes Day inside, playing music."

"Can you show us?" Brad's brother asked.

Daria shuddered. "I'm not going back in there. No way."

Jane sighed. "Look, if you need a way to motivate them, just tell them that if they want to crash at my house, they'll have to start chipping in on the mortgage." She looked at Daria. "That's how we got rid of two of Wind's ex-wives. Never fails."

The two boys ran into the gym and Daria turned to go in the opposite direction. "I'm going home," she declared.

Jane fell into step next to her. "So is that why you don't like school dances?" she asked teasingly. "All this time I thought you were just anti-social, but it turns out you're secretly a dancing queen."

"Don't you dare start singing ABBA," Daria warned her in a growl.

"The thought never crossed my mind," Jane replied innocently. The girls walked in silence for a few minutes before Jane cleared her throat. "She's a maniac, maniac on the floor," she sang, excruciatingly off-key, "and she's dancing like she's never danced before!"

As Daria felt her body automatically begin to move in time to Jane's singing, she snarled, "Your death will be slow and painful, Lane."

"What?" Jane protested. "It's not ABBA!"

"Daria!" Mr. O'Neill called out, stopping Daria in the school hallway. "You'll never guess who's waiting by the phone to hear from you!"

"If it's Marvin the Martian, hang up."

"What?"

Daria sighed. "Never mind."

Mr. O'Neill continued as though she hadn't spoken at all. "It's--oh, my gosh! This is much too public. Sorry, Jane, but I'm sworn to secrecy."

He pulled Daria away to the teacher's lounge, leaving Jane to call out, "Tell Mr. Spock I said hi!"

"Okay, I'll tell you who we're calling," Mr. O'Neill said once they were out of hearing. "It's Val!" To Daria's blank look he added, "You know, the Val. As in, Val." He spoke into the phone. "Val, please. This is Timothy O'Neill, Daria Morgendorffer's writing mentor. Of course I'll hold!" He turned back to Daria. "Val is coming to Lawndale High to spend a whole day with you!" Now he finally seemed to register that Daria understood even less of what he was talking about than usual. "Daria, haven't you heard of Val?"

Daria sighed. "Are we talking about the vapid magazine editor?"

"Yes!" Mr. O'Neill cheered. "She loved your essay, 'Process of Alienation.'"

"How did she see it?" Daria asked suspiciously.

"I sent it to her and it won the 'Spend a Day With Val' contest!"

"I'd rather spend a day with a Xenomorph," Daria replied weakly, feeling a sinking feeling as she realized she wasn't likely to get out of this. So much for that low profile I'm trying to keep.

"...and then I said, 'Do you think it's easy being a wunderkind?' and Leo was like, 'Yeah, I know,' and we just sort of soul-bonded and head-clicked right away, and I gave Fiona my lyrics and she was like, 'Val, you are so wise. I am so glad to know you,' and Nonie and Drew said, 'The magazine has to be you so everyone can know you like we do,' and that's how I started Val. We're young, but wise; edgy, but full of heart. Like me, Val!"

It turned out that Val (as in Valueless) was even worse in person than Daria had expected. At first Daria felt a vague kinship with the shallow woman, but then realized she was just reacting to her skin, which was at least as synthetic as Daria's was. By about the tenth dropped name, she'd had enough. "Val?" she interrupted the monologue. "Can I talk to you in private for a minute?"

Val looked briefly annoyed at being forced to stop talking about her favorite subject, but pushed herself back from the dining room table and followed Daria into the living room. "What's up, Dar?" she asked brightly.

Daria took a deep breath and summoned the right pitch to use her Misery Shtick. "It's time for you to go."

Val's eyes went wide and she let out a shudder. In a shaky voice, she began chanting, "I am Val, as in Val. I am Val, as in Val. I am Val, as in Val."

"Don't make me ask you again." This time Daria put everything she had into her Misery Shtick and opened the door.

"Eep!" Val, tears streaming down her cheeks, whirled around and ran outside as fast as she could. Daria shut the door behind her, just in time to hear a muffled wail from outside. "I'm such a fraud! I've never even met half the people I pretend to be best friends with! It's only a matter of time before people figure out that I'm forty-seven years old!"

Daria returned to the dinner table and faced her family's questioning looks. "She had to leave early. It was an edginess emergency," she explained, sitting down.

"A what emergency?" Jake asked.

Because Daria assumed she'd seen the last of Val, it came as a surprise when the doorbell rang the next morning and she opened the door to find her waiting. "Hi, um, Dar," Val said, still looking shaky but trying to smile. "Sorry about last night, but I promise that this morning I am, like, beyond psyched."

"Psyched or psyched out?" Daria asked. Only the entrance of her parents stopped her from using the Misery Shtick again, but she was severely tempted.

"This is totally going to be fun. I think. No, I'm sure. Are you just so jiggy with this?" The question sounded lighthearted, but Val pierced her with a suspicious look that made Daria wonder whether the woman's cluelessness was at least partially an act.

"Um...yeah," Daria replied. "Let's go."

Despite Daria's best efforts, Val continued to follow her around at school. By lunchtime, Daria would even have been willing to get beamed up by aliens to get away from her.

"So listen, Dar," Val was saying, "I've been getting like, this vibe around here. Am I to understand that you're not popular at all?"

"Very insightful," Daria muttered into her lunch.

"But...it's not just that," Val continued in a low voice. "I've been hearing these...rumors."

"Damn that paparazzi," Jane remarked. "They found out about her torrid affair with Regis Philbin, didn't they?"

Daria, however, was now on high alert. "What kind of rumors?"

"Some of the buzz is that you're not just unpopular, but weird."

Daria forced a laugh. "Yeah, people have been calling me weird for years. Definitely old news."

Val instantly looked relieved. "Oh, thank goodness. I was scared for a minute there, especially after that freaky stuff last night!" She idly crushed a nearby fly with her lunch tray, wrinkling her nose at it.

Hmmm. Daria considered her options: continue suffering through the rest of her day with Val or...take drastic measures. "You know, Val, I know you see yourself as a real big shot in show business, but I know you're actually completely harmless."

"What?" Val's cheeks turned pink. "How dare you? I've ended more Hollywood careers than Joe McCarthy!"

"For example, you couldn't even hurt a fly." As she spoke, Daria reached out a finger and touched the dead fly. An instant later, it was up and buzzing around Val's stunned face.

"How...how did you...?" Then Val shook her head. "Ha, ha. Nice trick, Dar."

"It's no trick." She turned to see Brittany at a nearby table. "Can I borrow a nail file?" she asked the cheerleader.

"Sure! Oooh, I'm so proud of you. Let me know if you need any makeover tips, 'kay?" Brittany handed over a metal nail file with a pointed tip.

Daria maintained eye contact with Val as she pressed the sharp end of the nail file as hard as she could into the back of her own hand. She then held up the nail file to show that it had been bent and her hand was fine.

"So you're strong enough to bend a nail file?" Val scoffed. "Big deal. One time Gwynnie--"

With a frustrated groan, Daria grabbed her finger and bent it sharply. There was no mistaking the "crack" of the bone breaking. Then she reached out the misshapen hand for Val to watch.

"Oh my God, Dar! Are you all--" Val trailed off as she watched the finger realign and heal before her eyes. "Okay, this isn't funny anymore," she said sternly.

"That's what I told the aliens who gave me these abilities," Daria said, still quiet but with an edge that made Val shiver.

"You're lying," Val said, sounding very unsure of herself.

"Keep going," Jane urged quietly. "Prove it by showing her your dance moves!"

"I'm not that desperate," Daria shot back. To Val she said, "No, now I think I'll try out my laser beams."

A wide-eyed Val said, barely over a whisper, "You can shoot laser beams?"

Daria nodded. "Out of my ears. Wanna see? Just hold still for a second...." She tilted her head so one of her ears faced Val. In the time it took to move, Val was gone.

"Wow," Jane commented, hearing the panicked shriek as it slowly faded into the distance. "I never knew a middle-aged woman could move that fast."

Daria smirked. "You've never seen my mother when Eric calls her into work on a Saturday."

"Hey, Daria, did you see the latest Val?" Jodie asked a few weeks later.

Jane took the magazine from her and read it out loud. "'My Day With D.: A disturbing true-life look at America's underground alien culture.' Wonder what this could be about."

"It gets worse," Jodie warned her.

Jane flipped through the pages. "Aliens are real, and I met one! She had all kinds of creepy superpowers and she even tried to kill me! Don't trust anyone, especially if they're really weird and unpopular! Also, I don't care what anyone else says, I dumped him and not the other way around. Beware the alien takeover! It's totally not jiggy!" She looked up. "Hey, it's more coherent than her usual stuff!"

Jodie shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid she's lost her mind."

"What little she had to begin with," Daria corrected.

Jane was still paging through the magazine. "Hey, check out this quiz: 'Are You from Mars or Venus? If So, Drop Dead.'"

Jodie peeked over her shoulder. "'Hot or Not! The Alien Edition,'" she read. "Huh. Apparently ALF is hot and The Great Gazoo is not."

"Daria, did you take a career aptitude test?" Helen asked, tearing her attention away from Quinn's ramblings about becoming a neck model.

"Um...sort of." Daria weighed her options, decided it was best to just get the whole thing over with, and handed the paper over to her mother.

Helen scanned the page quickly. "Daria, this is wonderful!"

Daria groaned. "I was afraid you'd say that."

Helen leaned across the table with a wide grin. "Now, why shouldn't I be pleased that my daughter has a promising career at NASA ahead of her?" She looked back down at the paper and began reading out loud. "'Your natural curiosity and interest in extraterrestrial subjects make you an ideal candidate for a career in the space industry." She skimmed through the list of suggested jobs. "Aerospace engineer, technical writer, avionics technician...the field is full of exciting choices!"

"Space and excitement are no longer compatible for me," Daria muttered, lowering her head until her forehead rested on the tabletop in front of her.

"Look at this--public relations specialist! Wouldn't that be fun?"

Daria didn't look up. "Outer space: come for the anal probes, stay for the mortifying superpowers."

"Superpowers?" Jake asked, delighted. "First you're going to be an astronaut and now superpowers? Oh, I wish Mad Dog were still alive so I could rub his face in this!"

"Jake, she's obviously joking about the superpowers," Helen scolded.

"Wait, they're going to send Daria into outer space?" Quinn asked, suddenly interested. "How soon can she get there?"

A few mornings later, Daria went downstairs looking for breakfast and heard odd noises as she came into the kitchen. She wasn't sure which was stranger: that Quinn was singing, or that her song seemed to be about science.

She decided that both were probably delusions from her not-fully-awake brain and set off for school without giving it another thought...until later that day, while she and Jane sat on the school roof in order to avoid the pep rally going on inside.

"Huh," Daria commented, flipping through the newspaper.

"What?" Jane looked up from her book.

"The newspaper says that there's a big storm coming later today."

"Cool," Jane said, sounding not very concerned at all.

"Okay, but we should probably get off the roof," Daria pointed out.

"Why?"

Jane's casual attitude toward the situation was starting to bother Daria. "Because big storms and outdoor high-elevation locations don't mix well?"

"Hey!" Jane exclaimed abruptly, standing up and holding her arms out wide. "What if the town blew away?"

Three things startled Daria at the same time. The first was that Jane actually seemed excited about being annihilated by a hurricane. The second was that she was singing instead of speaking. The third was that, because of Jane's singing, Daria had begun involuntarily dancing. Since the school dance she had mostly been able to keep her compulsive dancing in check when she heard music, but the shock of Jane breaking out into song for no obvious reason had temporarily overridden her self-control.

"The hell?" she demanded, twirling and gyrating along with Jane's barely-on-key voice.

Jane just grinned and continued singing. "The mall would be gone, and that's okay. Down on your knees and begin to pray that the town blows away!"

Daria finally got ahold of herself and stopped. Jane, meanwhile, had reached her big finale and the song was over. Daria looked at her friend. "What was that about?"

"What?" Jane said, as though she hadn't just broken out into song out of nowhere. "Anyway, we should probably go find shelter, right?"

"That's what I was trying to say before you turned into a one-woman flash mob." Daria turned around just in time to see that Brittany and Kevin were blocking the exit, having also decided to seek privacy on the roof. "Excuse me, some of us still have a will to live."

"At this school?" Jane asked in an undertone.

"Hiii!" Brittany greeted them cheerfully, breaking away from Kevin.

"What's up?" Kevin added.

Daria replied, "For one thing, my friend here is now pursuing a career in musical theater. In other news, a hurricane is coming and those of us without a death wish need to get off the damn roof already."

"Wait, that's real?" Kevin asked in surprise. "Ms. Li didn't make it up?"

"For once, yes," Daria said. "Our principal actually managed to tell the truth about something."

"Wow, we'd better go somewhere safe!" Brittany squeaked nervously.

"Gosh, if only someone had thought of that. Multiple times," Daria grumbled, moving to push past Kevin to get to the exit.

"Oh! Yeah, go right ahead," Kevin said, sweeping his arm graciously to let Daria pass. Unfortunately, in his chivalry he accidentally knocked away the wedge that was holding the door open.

"No!" Daria shouted as the door slammed shut, then stared in mute horror as the realization dawned. She was trapped on the roof with two of her least favorite people and a deadly storm was heading in their direction.

This day can't possibly get any worse, she thought.

"But I didn't think I'd die there quite so soon," Jane sang, finishing a thought no one started. This time, Daria was able to keep herself still with some effort.

"Hey, this is like that video, 'When Scary Storms Kill!'" Kevin sang along.

Brittany joined in, "Will being dead wreck my afternoon?"

"If the town blows awaaaay?" everyone except Daria finished.

I have no one but myself to blame for that one, Daria told herself, shaking with the effort of not dancing as thunder rumbled in the distance.

It turned out that Daria's day could get even worse yet, as she soon found herself crammed into a water tank shack with all three of her companions. Space was limited, but Daria reassured herself that at least they had the illusion of safety. And no one has belted out any lyrics recently.

"Our families and friends," Jane crooned.

"Oh, God," Daria groaned. Her arms and legs twitched, eager to dance.

Jane continued, ignoring her. "May have overlooked an absent teen or two."

"Please don't." Now Daria was hugging herself to keep her body still.

"But by now they're catching on," Kevin chimed in, "that two well-liked kids are gone!"

"I'm begging you."

"And I'll bet that someone's even missing you!" Brittany added.

"I will give you anything you want; just stop."

Kevin and Brittany joined together in a duet. "So, while the wind does blow on our loved ones down below, we wish that we could tell them we're okay."

"I'm not ruling out violence as an option here."

"And I'd say I'm on the roof with a bimbo and a goof," Jane warbled, "but I'm due to come back down most any day."

"They must be worried," Brittany sang, clearly starting to build up steam.

"That's it!" Daria exploded. The storm howling outside the shack was nothing compared to her raging desperation to get away from the insane choir she was trapped with. She tried to open the door, but it was stuck tight. Unwilling to give up, she gave a holler or a roar, made some stupid football noise, and busted through the door of the shack.

It took a moment for her to realize that there was no way she should have been strong enough to break down the door, but it was clearly not just open but hanging off its hinges. I did that, she thought in shock. Then she looked down at herself. No. The synthetic alien skin did it.

The others were still singing about their hypothetically misty-eyed loved ones behind her, and Daria actually found it some small comfort. At least I'm not the only one acting weird lately, she reflected. Then she frowned. But if I'm the only one not singing, does that still make me the weird one?

She didn't have time for any further consideration, though, because at that moment the weather abruptly cleared. She looked up at the sky to see a rainbow...and a cone-shaped craft about fifteen feet long flying away at a high speed. It was unmistakably a UFO, and it was gone almost as soon as she looked at it.

"Did anyone else see that?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"See what?" Brittany asked.

"See you ram through that door like you were Joe freaking Montana?" Kevin said. "Yeah! It was awesome!"

"No, I mean the space...." She trailed off, deciding that the last thing she wanted to do was give the two most popular kids at school any cause to spread rumors about her mental state. "Never mind."

"Seriously, Daria," Kevin continued. "If you wanna try out for the team, I'll totally talk to the coach for you. Just promise you won't take my spot, okay? I've gotta be QB!"

Daria leaned in to speak into Jane's ear. "I need to talk to you about something really important--"

"The big, wet rainstorm's over!" Jane sang at full volume, joined by Kevin and Brittany. "We're happy we're still here. The big, wet rainstorm's over! The end came very near!"

"Forget it," Daria said, burying her face in both hands.

It turned out that all of Lawndale was breaking out in song, but by the end of the day everyone was back to speaking normally. In fact, when Daria asked anyone about it they just looked at her in confusion. She quickly let the topic go, and decided not to bring up either the UFO or her newfound super strength to anyone, either. Maybe the whole thing was a hallucination. Hell, maybe the past few months have been a hallucination. I should be so lucky.

About a week later, Daria was reading a book and trying not to think about how she'd accidentally picked the refrigerator up off the floor while rummaging for a snack. It was a surge of adrenaline, spurred on by mild hunger pains, she told herself. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a convincing explanation.

Fortunately for her, the doorbell interrupted any further contemplations. "Who could that be?" Jake asked, shaking himself awake from his nap.

Daria opened the door to find Jane holding a suitcase and an easel. "I'm not picky," she said. "The airlock will be fine."

"You must be desperate," Daria said as she moved aside to let her in. "Is Mystik Spiral experimenting with the theremin again?"

"Worse," Jane said, setting her stuff down in the living room. "Mom, Dad, Wind, and Penny all came home. It's gotten surreal."

"So you decided the best way to restore a normal life was to bunk with the alien girl?" Daria asked her in a low voice, even though Jake had already fallen back asleep.

Jane shrugged. "You'd have to meet them. Which I don't recommend."

"They are all from Earth, though, right?" Daria pointed out.

"Hmmm. I'm not sure about all of Wind's ex-wives, and I know my mom is generally in orbit even when her feet are on the ground, but otherwise I think the only thing alien about them is Penny's status in Central America."

It wasn't long before Trent had joined his sister at the Morgendorffer house. What started as a pleasant surprise for Daria soon turned into a major headache when she realized she had to hide her strange abilities from not only her family but her crush as well. After hours of avoiding all music and pretending not to know how the kitchen faucet got bent sideways, she retreated into her room with Jane for a relaxing game of Scrabble.

"Ha!" Jane crowed, placing her tiles. "Triple word score on 'saucer'!" She looked up to see Daria's pained expression. "Oh. Sorry."

Daria raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I believed you were sorry when you played 'planet,' 'cosmos,' 'galaxy,' and 'rocket.' I'm officially not accepting this apology."

"Hey, I withdrew 'Martian'!"

"Only because proper nouns aren't allowed."

"Hmph."

Daria was just about to play 'human' when her door opened and Quinn swept in, babbling about art and color and eyelid contouring. Before Daria could stop her, Quinn grabbed Jane and yanked her away.

"Well, that was awkward," Daria muttered to herself, just before someone knocked on the door. It opened, revealing Trent. "And it continues," she sighed, feeling the warmth of a slight blush creeping over her face. At least, I hope I'm blushing. For all I know, my skin has chosen turning green as its next trick.

"Hey, Daria?" Trent asked. "Seen Janey? I need to borrow her toothbrush."

"She'll be back in a minute," Daria said, standing up. "She was abducted by hostile forces bent on involving her in their sinister experiments."

"Huh?"

"My sister wanted her to help choose eyeshadow colors."

"Oh. Guess I'll wait." He gave Daria an odd look. "For a second I thought it sounded like you were saying Janey had been kidnapped by aliens or something. Weird, huh?"

"Uh, yeah. Weird."

Trent lay down on Daria's bed, and suddenly Daria was keenly aware that she was only wearing a nightshirt. The warm flush of her face turned into a tingle, which quickly grew into an intense rush that set her entire body on fire.

A skin capable of sensations you can't even imagine, Artie said. He wasn't kidding. Daria sat down abruptly on the floor and tried to think about something other than the scruffy young man stretched out on her bed.

Garden gnomes. Burnt pizza. Quinn whining about a broken fingernail. None of it was working, and she felt like her skin was going to explode. Trent was saying something about Huckleberry Finn or Huckleberry Hound or some damn thing that Daria couldn't focus on if her life depended on it.

"Whoops!" Jane had just come back. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

"Please do," Daria croaked weakly.

"What?" both Trent and Jane asked.

Daria's skin was finally starting to feel normal again. "Um, I said 'These two.' These two letters." She reached out and picked up two of her tiles. "Which I'm going to set down on the board. Right here." She picked up another tile. "And this one, as well."

Jane looked at the board. "'Hot,' huh? Interesting choice." She glanced at her brother, then back at Daria with a knowing smirk.

Trent got up. "Anyway, Janey, I need to borrow your toothbrush."

Jane found it and handed it to him. "It's all yours."

"Cool," Trent said, then left.

"So what was that all about?" Jane asked Daria playfully. "A brief but passionate affair while my back was turned?"

Daria hugged herself tightly, taking deep breaths as the flood of sensations finally faded away completely. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, fine," Jane said. "Just as long as anal probes weren't involved."

The doorbell distracted Jane from Daria's flustered reaction. "Who could that be?" Jane wondered out loud. Curious, both girls went to Quinn's room to look out the window. There, they saw Monique standing outside, then leaving with Trent's arm around her waist.

"Don't worry, you're twice the woman she is," Jane consoled her. "You can do things she could never dream of."

Quinn tilted her head. "Like what?"

"Nothing," Daria and Jane said at the same time.

Quinn shrugged this off as yet another example of how weird her sister and her friend were, then displayed a rare moment of compassion by trying to help. She started by offering Daria some convoluted advice about boyfriend stealing that Daria couldn't imagine ever needing to worry about, then moved on to visualization exercises. "Just use your imagination and picture your dream exactly the way it will be," she instructed.

"Trent? There's something I need to tell you."

He smiled at her, his eyes full of warmth and affection. "What is it, Daria?"

"I don't know how to say this but, well, I'm not entirely human."

"Really?" Trent looked interested but not, as Daria had feared, frightened or disgusted.

"It's my skin. It's synthetic, given to me by aliens, and it gives me superpowers."

Trent was unfazed by the revelation. "That's actually kind of cool." He took a step closer. He was standing near enough for Daria to touch him if she wanted to...and she did want to.

"That's not all, Trent."

"Oh?"

"No. I'm also...." Daria ripped off her outfit to reveal a bronze-and-silver metallic outfit complete with thigh-high boots, a chain-mail skirt, and conical bra. "...an alien love goddess."

"Whoa." A doorbell rang as Trent leaned in and pointed at Daria. "That's for me!" he cried in Quinn's voice.

The arrival of Quinn's date jerked Daria out of her fantasy, and she realized with a start that the whole thing had been a very, very bad idea. Quinn left, but Jane looked at her with concern. "Are you okay? You look a little...flushed."

"Gotta-go-be-back-later!" Daria squeaked, racing to the bathroom to take the coldest shower of her life.

"Well, it was fun," Trent said as he followed Jane out the door the next morning. Their house was now empty of annoying family members and they were free to return home.

"Yeah," Daria replied, trying not to think about just how fun. "Uh, sorry your date didn't work out."

Trent shrugged. "Janey's right; Monique and I just aren't meant to be." He smiled at her. "Too bad you're not a few years older, huh? I could take you out." He laughed and coughed, not noticing the startled look on Daria's face. "See you," he finally said, walking away.

Daria leaned against the doorframe, her imagination taking over.

"Oh, Trent," Daria murmured, nuzzling happily against his chest. "This moment is everything I ever dreamed of and more." She stood up on tiptoe to kiss him, and he wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped her tentacles around him and squeezed tightly.

"Daria?" Trent asked warily. "Is something wrong with your arms?" He opened his eyes and looked down to see not only tentacles, but green scaly skin as well. He screamed and struggled to free himself from her grasp.

"Now, just relax," Daria soothed, her antennae bobbing with excitement as she overpowered her one true love. "This will only take a second." Opening her mandibles wide, she let out an inhuman screech of pleasure. Trent's cries for help were abruptly cut off when Daria crammed her ovipositor down his throat, laying her eggs and then retracting again. "See?" she purred, caressing him gently with all four of her webbed hands.

"What...what have you done?" Trent gasped in horror, just before he started convulsing. After a minute or two of agony, a slimy creature exploded from his chest.

"Oh, how cute!" Daria cooed, cradling the creature. All seven of her eyes craned forward on their stalks to gaze adoringly at it. "Look, honey! He has your nose and my gills!"

Trent's only reply was a faint death rattle.

Daria paid no attention. "I think I'll name him Trent Junior."

"Gah!!!" Daria shouted. She saw Trent and Jane, still in earshot, turn to look curiously in her direction. Quickly she ducked into the house and slammed the door behind her. Leaning against it, she closed her eyes and took deep breaths until she calmed down. Who knew one's love life could get worse than nonexistent?

"I just think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective," Jane pointed out at school a few days later. "You could really benefit from all of these alien superpowers. Give me one of your abilities that isn't potentially lucrative."

Daria sighed. "Misery Shtick."

"People pay you to go away."

"Compulsive dancing."

"Go-go dancers make some good money."

"Oversexed skin." Daria raised a challenging eyebrow, but her serious look was ruined by a sudden hiccup.

Jane smirked. "Oh, I'll bet I could come up with--"

Daria hiccupped again, interrupting her friend, and then hiccupped twice more in quick succession.

"You okay?" Jane said, half-amused and half-concerned.

"I-hic-don't-hic-know."

Both girls were momentarily distracted by a garishly-painted van blasting "Welcome to the Jungle" at full volume. Daria's limbs spasmed involuntarily, but she managed to stop herself from busting a move.

"Hey, Lawndale High!" someone shouted over a loudspeaker. "Are you ready to par-tay crazy?"

"What the hell is that?" Jane asked.

"My cue to leave," Daria said with a final hiccup, then ran as fast as she could to get out of earshot of the music.

Daria managed to get the details from Quinn at dinner that night. Z-93, a local radio station, had sent Bing and the Spatula Man to Lawndale High. Daria had not yet determined whether they were there in exchange for a kickback to Ms. Li or as punishment to the students for some as-yet-unrevealed crime.

"Daddy!" Quinn exclaimed. "You're using all the cheese!"

Daria just took another bite of her taco, then almost spat it out with a massive hiccup. More followed in quick succession.

Helen briefly tore her attention away from her phone call to glare at Jake. "Hey! What did the doctor tell you about cheese?" Then she resumed talking to Eric, which was increasingly difficult because Daria's loud hiccups were starting to drown out the conversation.

"'What did the doctor tell you about cheese, Jake?'" Jake mimicked angrily. "'What did the doctor tell you about cheese, Jake?' Why can't a man come home from a hard day's work and enjoy a lousy taco without it turning into...hey, you know, it's the darnedest thing! I can't feel my arm!"

Daria was now hiccupping madly, unable to stop them no matter how hard she tried. She forgot all about them, however, when her father collapsed face first into the guacamole. The sight must have been enough of a scare to stop her hiccups, and next thing she knew they were all at the hospital.

"A very mild heart attack," the doctor was reassuring her, Quinn, and Helen.

Daria opened her mouth to ask a question, but what came out was another hiccup.

"Jeez, Daria," Quinn said. "This isn't the time, okay?"

"It's not-hic-like I'm-hic-doing it on-hic-purpose!" Daria shot back, then noticed Dr. Phillips walking down the hall in her direction. She remembered the last time she'd seen him--running away in terror right after her belly button piercing had healed abnormally quickly--and decided she didn't want to face any unpleasant follow-up questions. She mumbled an excuse about needing the restroom and scurried away.

"So, once I emerged from hiding I found out that my grandmother Ruth will be staying with us while my dad recovers," Daria told Jane the next day at school.

Jane smirked. "Is this the grandmother who--"

"HIC!"

"Did you develop a drinking problem and forget to invite me?" Jane asked.

"No, I don't know-hic-why this keeps-hic-happening."

"Spatula Man, I see a couple of ladies here who I bet know how to par-tay!" shouted a man--Daria guessed he was the infamous "Bing"--shoving a microphone in their direction.

Daria's only comeback was another loud hiccup.

Spatula Man didn't seem to notice. "Girls, we've got a treasure chest full of Z-93 prizes here, and all you have to do for the key is tell us, on the air, where you love to get mental in the morning!"

"No-hic-thanks."

"Come on, girls!" Spatula Man persisted. "Nothing to fear but winning! Just tell us which station plays the hits high-schoolers love to hear!"

Annoyed and still hiccupping, Daria snatched the microphone and snapped it in half with one hand as easily as she might have broken a toothpick. She tossed it on the ground at the DJs feet as she and Jane walked on.

"That should make them think twice before bothering you again," Jane remarked.

"Let's hope," Daria replied, pleased to find that her hiccups were gone.

Grandma Ruth arrived that evening. "Daria," she said, fake smile plastered on. "You look...you haven't changed a bit."

"Actually," Daria said stoically, "I've had my skin replaced with a synthetic version and now possess a variety of supernatural abilities."

Ruth shrugged it off. "Well, I don't know what that means, but as long as you don't get a tattoo, I'll be happy."

"I'm pretty sure a tattoo would go the same way as my navel piercing, thanks to the ultra-fast healing."

As expected, the comment flew right over Ruth's head as she turned her attention to Quinn instead.

The next day Daria found her mother trying to cook from scratch and Quinn studying a book with polysyllabic words. Maybe I'm not the only one the aliens have impacted, she reflected. Maybe they replaced my family with pod people while they were at it.

She made her way to her parents' room to visit her father. In spite of the insanity that had been her life lately, the health scare had shaken her up quite a bit and while she would never admit it she was eager for a heart-to-heart with Jake. Grandma Ruth, fortunately, left them alone shortly after she walked in.

"Daria," Jake said affectionately. "My eldest...my heir!"

"If this is about inheriting your John Wayne collectable coins, I'll pass."

"This is serious, Daria," he insisted. "I may not be long for this Earth!"

An image of tractor beams and returning aliens flashed through Daria's mind. "You and me both, Dad," she admitted.

Jake was soon in tears, and in spite of his ramblings Daria felt a little frightened at the thought of losing him. She looked down at her hands, remembering the dog she'd hit with the car. I wonder...could I? Should I? Daria shook off the thought. He's not dead. He's not even dying. And if you bring one person back to life the next thing you know everyone's going to want you to do it for them, too.

Daria thought about that. Maybe Jane had a point about these powers being lucrative.

Daria was trying to sneak through the crowd while Bing and the Spatula Man tried to achieve the impossible dream by getting Upchuck a date. She was just moments away from a successful escape when another dreaded hiccup escaped her mouth. She covered her mouth, but everyone in the vicinity heard it clearly and turned her way.

"Hey!" Spatula Man called out. "How about you? Up for a date with our Don Juan de Lawndale?"

"Over his-hic-dead body," Daria replied.

"Don't you want to hear your voice on the radio?" Spatula Man coaxed. "Come on, you look like you could use a date!"

Daria had been willing to just keep walking, but the insult changed her mind. "You want to hear my voice?" she asked quietly, pushing away the microphone but leaning in to make sure both Bing and the Spatula Man could hear her clearly. She cleared her throat and found just the right pitch. "Are you sure you want to hear my voice?"

At first the Misery Shtick seemed to have done the trick. Spatula Man's face fell and he swayed slightly on the spot. Tears streamed from behind Bing's sunglasses. Then Spatula Man raised the microphone to his mouth again. "All right, guys and gals! Who wants to tell Spatula Man what a terrible failure he is as a human being?"

"Crush my fragile ego and win a freeeeee T-shirt!" Bing crowed.

Daria sighed. So much for useful superpowers. She slipped through the crowd and made her way to class.

By the next day, Daria had reached her breaking point. Her mother was trying to remake the entire household in Ruth's image, Quinn was two steps away from turning into Doctor Barbie, her grandmother was keeling over from an excess of mother-son bonding, the Z-93 DJs would not let up on her, and she could not get a handle on those goddamn hiccups!

The hiccups had overtaken her once again, shortly before Bing and the Spatula Man accosted her at school. "Why not come up here and tell us why Z-93 makes you mental in the morning?" Spatula Man demanded.

Finally, Daria decided she'd had enough. "Fine," she said, irritation overcoming all reason and logic. She climbed up on the stage and was surprised to hear her fellow students cheering her on. She looked at the DJs and took a deep breath.

"I could tell you all about my father's recent heart attack, or the friction developing in my family due to the presence of my overbearing grandmother. I could talk about how pitiful it is to watch my mother and sister cope with the trauma by trying to change everything about themselves. I could even discuss how unbelievably annoying it is to be constantly harassed by two morning DJs with nothing better to do than maintain a constant stream of mindless chatter. However, that's not why I'm mental in the morning. The real reason that I'm mental in the morning, and at every other time of the day is that I, Daria Morgendorffer...am part alien."

There was a stunned silence, and then a few chuckles that grew into louder and louder laughter. A few students clapped. They think I'm kidding. Or, if not, then my generation really is hard to faze.

Daria turned to look at the DJs. "Are we done?" Bing and the Spatula Man had started to grin when the students began laughing, but the intense glare Daria was giving them turned their smiles to frightened grimaces. "Or would you like me to prove it?"

The two DJs shared a glance, just long enough for each to confirm to the other that they had no desire whatsoever to see Daria prove anything.

They were gone faster than Quinn after a date asked if she wanted to go halfsies on the check.

"...and so it turns out one passive-aggressive comment was all it took to run Grandma out of town."

"You beat her at her own game," Jane observed over her pizza. "Nicely done. So Grandma Ruth just took off?"

"She finally realized she was doing more harm than good," Daria explained, relaxing in their usual booth at Pizza Prince.

Jane smirked. "And did you, perhaps, help her realize that?"

Daria shrugged. "It didn't seem sporting to use my Misery Shtick on a feeble old woman. So it was either that or challenge her to a dance-off."

"Which you would have won by default after she fell and broke her hip," Jane said. "With the Party Van gone, I guess your life is back to normal at school and at home?"

Daria snorted. "I don't even remember what 'normal' is any-hic-more." She let out a few more hiccups. "Dammit! These things seem to crop up every time...every time...." Her eyes widened. "We've got to leave. Now." She snatched Jane's hand and dragged her out of the pizza place, getting clear just as the Z-93 van pulled up in front.

Jane looked back and forth between the van to Daria a few times, then took a bite of the pizza she'd been quick enough to grab before they left. "How did you know they were coming?"

Daria's hiccups had stopped. "It finally clicked. I've been getting the hiccups every time something bad is about to happen. The DJs, dad's heart attack, my close call with Dr. Phillips, and so forth."

"Wow! You've got your very own early warning system for danger!"

"Or at least for annoyance," Daria said. "But why hiccups?"

"I don't know of anything that could be more annoying than Danger Hiccups," Jane pointed out, then thought about it. "Well, maybe flatulence."

"Danger Hiccups are fine!" Daria exclaimed to whatever Murphy's Law-following aliens might have been eavesdropping.

Daria sat at the wheel, staring straight ahead as Mike asked her to parallel park. No hiccups, she noted. So nothing bad is about to happen. I'm finally going to pass my driver's test! She took a deep breath, drove the car into position, and shifted it into reverse so she could slowly ease into the space. Then she slammed the accelerator almost through the floor of the car.

Her super-strength had chosen the moment absolute worst moment to strike.

CRASH! Daria didn't have to look to know that she'd backed into a car at full speed. "So, um, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that's a fail?" she asked Mike.

Mike's only reply was to lean his head against the window and weep.

"But what about your Danger Hiccups?" Jane asked, pouring herself a glass of water in the Lane kitchen. "Why didn't they warn you?"

Daria sighed. "I can only assume that the aliens think I shouldn't be driving. I'm beginning to agree with them."

"You'll show us all once you get behind the wheel of a flying saucer," Jane consoled her. She opened the freezer to get out some ice cubes.

"Is that a cake?" Daria asked, leaning around her friend to see inside.

Jane slammed the freezer door shut. "No! I mean, yes! But it's...uh...for Mystik Spiral."

"Uh huh." Daria crossed her arms. "Really."

Jane nodded much too eagerly. "Yeah, to celebrate their gig in Fremont." She took a nervous sip of her water. "I told you about that, remember? I'm driving them there." She nudged Daria. "See? Having a driver's license has its drawbacks, too."

"Yeah, like a hidden congratulatory cake," Daria suggested.

"What? I didn't--that's not--okay, you've got me." Jane shrugged. "So, are you sure you don't want to ditch your housesitting duties and tag along?"

Daria shook her head. "I would, but if I leave Quinn in the house alone then I'll probably come back to find out she's turned my room into a walk-in closet."

Helen and Jake had left for their marriage seminar and the Fashion Club had invaded Daria's quiet time, so Daria was pleasantly surprised when Jane called. Right up until Jane told her why she was calling.

"You're where?" Daria asked, incredulous.

"Jail!" Jane replied, sounding much too excited about the whole thing. "You gotta come get us out."

"How?" Daria asked. "I can't drive, remember?"

"Well, I can't spend the rest of my life in jail. I'll miss the Sick, Sad World marathon next month." Jane filled her in on the convoluted story of how a simple traffic ticket led to Jane and Mystik Spiral getting locked up like the criminales Max insisted they were. She finished by asking Daria to fetch the hundred dollars they'd need from the Lane house, along with Trent's song notebook.

"But how am I supposed to get it to you?"

"I don't know. Hitch a ride from one of your interstellar buddies?"

"Not amusing."

"Neither is the creepy guy staring at us from the cell in the corner. Just figure something out, okay? Please?"

Daria sighed. "I'll do what I can."

"Thanks. I mean it."

Daria hung up and walked to Jane's house, where she easily found the money and the notebook. Not so easy was the decision that awaited her when she got back home. The Lexus sat innocently in the driveway, and Daria stood next to the driver's side door while she tried to make up her mind.

I don't have a license.

But Jane needs me.

If I get pulled over, I'm doomed.

So don't get pulled over.

And then there's the superpowers. What if something goes wrong?

I've got them under control.

Tell that to the owner of the Honda you demolished.

I can't abandon Jane. I just can't.

Resigned, Daria reached out to open the car door.

"Oooooh, road trip! Let's go!"

Daria turned around and saw Quinn standing behind her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not gonna just sit here while you drive off to some far, unknown land to get your friends out of jail!"

"You do know that I don't have a license, right? I'm about to commit a crime."

"Duh. That's what's so exciting! My boring, timid sister is finally breaking the rules!"

"I'm not timid." And I'm not boring, either, but you don't need to know about that part.

"You are so timid, Daria," Quinn laughed.

Daria was starting to get angry. "Excuse me, but I don't think being reluctant to join my friend in jail makes me 'timid.'" She was leaning over Quinn now, glaring at her.

"OhmygodDaria!" Quinn's eyes went wide. "How are you doing that?"

"Doing what?" Daria looked down and realized she was hovering at least a foot off the driveway. "Oh...crap." Concentrating hard, she willed herself to land. After moving sideways, then turning briefly upside-down, she managed to get both feet back on the ground. Once she was sure they were firmly planted, she looked at Quinn. Quinn was standing completely still, her face frozen in an expression of open-mouthed horror. "I don't suppose I could convince you that that was just a hallucination brought on by too much exposure to nail polish remover?"

Still unable to speak or even close her mouth, Quinn shook her head from side to side.

Daria let out an annoyed groan. "Well, the good news is that I've worked out a way to get to Fremont without driving."

"And the bad news?" Quinn squeaked, eyes still round with shock.

"This." Daria grabbed her sister around the waist and, without any warning, took off into the sky. She took a moment to orient herself, then figured out which way Fremont was and headed in that direction. Or rather, headed in that direction after a few false starts and wobbly course changes. "Fortunately, since I don't have to wind around the highway, we can just cut straight across the desert. Keep an eye out in case we get close to a populated area, okay?"

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Look, I wasn't eager to bring you along, either, but it was this or let you stay at home and tell all three of your fellow gossips about me. Got it?"

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Fortunately, Quinn eventually either calmed down or lost her voice, and no one noticed two girls flying overhead. There was one point that Daria thought they might have been spotted by a man with a cowboy hat and a guitar, but with any luck anyone he told would just assume he was lying. It helped that the bulk of the trip took place over uninhabited desert, and they only drifted near a populated area one time--a bar called "Mad Dawg's." Daria began hiccupping before they got too close, though, and thanks to the warning was able to avoid it easily.

At last they got to the Fremont sheriff's office, only to be told that Jane and the band were at the VFW hall. They arrived to find Mystik Spiral playing children's music with a stocky guy with long hair. Daria was pleased to find that the sound of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" did not trigger an automatic dance response, which she considered a major victory.

Before they went to collect the others, Daria pulled Quinn aside. "Listen, I know you saw...what you saw. I'm not going to get into the details right now, but just know that if you tell anyone about it you will regret it."

Quinn gulped. "You mean you'll use your freaky superpowers to hurt me?"

Daria shook her head. "No. I mean that if word gets around that your "cousin" is even weirder than anyone imagined, you'll become a total outcast."

Quinn considered Daria's words. Her eyes widened. "I won't tell."

"...and I've been keeping those abilities secret from just about everyone for months now." Daria and Quinn had opted to get a ride home in the Tank rather than risk another flight. The moment the door closed behind them at home, Quinn had demanded--and received--an explanation.

"But why?" Quinn asked.

"Because I don't want to end up getting vivisected in some government laboratory!"

"Vivi-what?" Quinn shook her head. "No, I mean why did the aliens or whatever give you superpowers?"

Daria shrugged. "To make my life complicated, I guess."

Quinn tilted her head and smiled. "If I had superpowers...."

"Stop right there," Daria said, holding up a hand. "My nightmares are bad enough, especially since I have to share them with the aliens and their suction device."

The phone rang, and Daria went to answer it. "If Jane's in jail again, she can bail herself out this time." Picking up the receiver, she said, "Hello?"

"Hello, sweetie!" Helen said. "How are things going? Not that I'm checking up on you, of course."

"Of course. Quinn and I are still alive, and the house is mostly still intact. We hardly ever used that second bathroom anyway, right?"

Helen sighed. "Can I talk to Quinn, please?"

Daria handed the phone to her sister. "Hi, Mom! Yes, we're fine. No, I'm not going to stay out late. Yes, I got my homework done. Uh huh. Mmmm." Quinn sat down on the couch. "Nothing much. I watched some TV, spent time with the Fashion Club, and went to Fremont with Daria." Her eyes widened as she realized that in focusing on one secret, she'd let out another. Daria fought the urge to grab the phone away, but Quinn waved her off. "It was an emergency, okay? No, everything is fine now. I promise, it won't happen again."

Quinn gave Daria a big thumb's-up sign and Daria relaxed. I guess if she had to spill the beans, that's the lesser of two secrets.

"Don't worry, Mom," Quinn continued, using her best "soothing ruffled parental feathers" voice. "I know...you're right...I'm soooo sorry." She sat up. "No, it's okay. We didn't take the car! I swear, we didn't!" Quinn frowned. "I'm not lying!" She rolled her eyes, getting angry. "Jeez, we flew, okay? No, not by airplane. Daria can fly since her skin got replaced by aliens...oops." She yanked the phone away from her ear at the sudden shouting that emitted from it. When the noise level fell below that of a jet taking off, she listened again for a moment and then held it out to her dumbstruck sister. "Um, Mom wants to talk to you again."

"Settle down, young people!" Ms. Li announced. "Now, before the varsity interpretive dance team begins its performance, 'History, We Are You,' we have a brief announcement from some special guests, agents--"

The agents shoved past Ms. Li to speak into the microphone. "No names," said the man.

"No credentials," added the woman.

"Students, we'll be brief," the man continued. "We've received some disturbing reports from this school, and we're asking for your cooperation."

"Keep your eyes open," the woman said. "Watch for people who are different. They know who they are."

"And with your help, kids, so will we," finished the man.

As their fellow students began talking excitedly amongst themselves, Jane smirked. "Different, eh? Hmm. I wonder what I get if I turn you in?" She turned to look at Daria, and her amusement faltered at Daria's pale face and frightened expression. "You okay?"

Daria slowly turned her head to look at her friend. "Not even a little bit."

Later, at Jane's house, Daria let everything out. Her fears that her superpowers might attract the wrong kind of attention and lead to her being locked up in a government laboratory, her frustration at becoming ever weirder by the day, and her suspicion that the aliens would one day return and take her away. ("Not that I'd complain, exactly, but I wouldn't mind a few minutes' notice so I can pack a few books for the ride.")

"It's pretty rough," Jane agreed sympathetically. "But at least you don't have to keep it all a secret from your family anymore. How'd your parents take it, by the way?"

"I'll let you know when I'm brave enough to be in the same room with them."

Jane put a comforting arm around Daria's shoulders. "Listen, I wish I could help. I'm worried, too, but I don't have any advice. I'm sorry, amiga."

Daria nodded. "I know. Thanks for listening to me, even if neither of us has any answers."

"Although...." Jane said thoughtfully.

"Nothing good ever started with that tone," Daria said.

"You forgot about Artie."

"And I was very happy about it, thank you very much. Why'd you have to ruin it?"

Jane persisted. "He might be able to help you, right? Isn't a little annoyance a fair exchange for putting your darkest fears to rest?"

"At least my darkest fears don't speak with a squeaky voice." Seeing Jane's mild glare, she sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll give him a call as soon as I get home."

Artie was both delighted to hear from Daria and terrified to find out about the mysterious agents that had shown up at her school. He agreed to meet her at the high school the following afternoon, as soon as she got out of class.

"See you tomorrow," Artie told her before he hung up. "Watch out for any strange behavior. It could be a sign of danger."

"Or it could be a sign that I live in Lawndale," Daria pointed out to the dial tone.

"Daria, have some more breakfast," Helen told her daughter in an affectionate voice. "Would you like another piece of toast? Growing girls need extra energy!"

"Does she, though?" Jake asked curiously. "Or do aliens even need food?"

"Jake!" Helen snapped.

"Too late," Daria said. "He already spilled the beans, and now I know I'm an alien."

"You're not an alien," Helen argued firmly. "You just have...unusual skin." Brightly, she added, "and we're just so proud of you for it!"

"Proud of what?" Daria asked, confused. "I didn't actually do anything."

"Well...maybe not, but it turns out you're even more special than we ever dreamed of, and that's nothing to scoff at."

"Yeah!" Jake chimed in. "You hear that, old man? My daughter is special! And I bet she could beat up you and Corporal Ellenbogen with one arm tied behind her back!" He looked at Daria. "Aliens have arms, right?"

Daria let out a frustrated grunt and stood up. "I'm going to school," she informed her parents. Why can't they just be horrified and disown me like normal parents? Daria wondered as she left the house.

The school day was mercifully uneventful, and by the time Daria walked out of the high school and saw Artie waiting on the sidewalk she felt almost embarrassed at her fears from the day before.

Then the doors burst open and the mysterious agents dragged Mr. DeMartino outside, struggling and screaming in his handcuffs. "Remove these restraints! Governmental thugs! This isn't Stalingrad!"

Daria watched in horror as the male agent replied, "No, it's Earth. Stop fighting us!"

"You can't do this," Mr. DeMartino protested. "I'm an educator!"

"Oh, we think you're much more than that," the female agent replied.

"Stop!" It took a few seconds before Daria realized that she was the one who had spoken. "Leave him alone!"

The agents stopped and looked at her, their expressions unreadable behind their sunglasses.

Still struggling, Mr. DeMartino nodded his thanks to Daria. "While I appreciate your assistance, Ms. Morgendorffer, I'm afraid fascism triumphs again!"

"Morgendorffer?" The agents let go of Mr. DeMartino and looked at each other. "I'm afraid there's been a mistake," the male agent said to the teacher, unlocking the handcuffs and setting him free.

"Er...thank you," Mr. DeMartino said, puzzled by the sudden change but happy to be free.

"Get her!" the female agent said, and she and the male agent pounced on Daria. Before she could react, the handcuffs were on her wrists and she was being ushered toward a waiting van.

"Hey!" Artie was at Daria's side in an instant. "What do you think you're doing?"

"We had the wrong person," the male agent said.

"In our defense, we forgot the exact last name. We just knew it had four syllables and that the person we were looking for would be behaving in unusual ways."

"Unusual?" Mr. DeMartino cried, insulted. "What's so unusual about me, may I ask?" His eye nearly popped out of his socket as he spoke.

Daria finally recovered enough to realize what was happening. She strained at the handcuffs, but for some reason not even her super strength was enough to break them.

"If you take her, you have to take me, too!" Artie screamed, latching onto Daria's arm with a surprising display of either chivalry or morbid curiosity.

The male agent took a closer look at Artie, then said something quietly into the female agent's ear. She nodded, and they bundled both Daria and Artie into the van. The female agent got into the driver's seat while the male agent sat in the back with them.

"All right," Daria said, resigned to her fate. "All I ask is that you kill me before you cut me open. I really don't need to see what my own spleen looks like."

"Why would we cut you open?" the agent asked.

"To learn about my alien skin," Daria replied.

"We already know everything we need to know about that," he replied with a strange-sounding chuckle.

"What?" both Daria and Artie said.

"Human, we gave you that skin." The agent corrected himself. "That is, our leader did."

"So that means that you're...you're...." Artie couldn't even finish the sentence.

"Aliens," the agent confirmed with an unearthly smile. He removed his sunglasses to reveal large, almond-shaped eyes that were completely yellow, with no pupils.

"Oh, no!" Artie wailed. "They've come back for me!"

"Hey, you asked to come along," the agent pointed out, annoyed.

"Wait a minute," Daria said, trying to catch up with all the new developments coming at her at the same time. "Why didn't my Danger Hiccups kick in to warn me I was about to get snatched by aliens?"

The agent leaned forward and removed her handcuffs. "Because you weren't actually in danger. We just wanted to bring you in and debrief you."

Artie screamed.

"That just means they're going to--finally--explain what the hell is going on," Daria told him. Then she looked at the agent. "Unless 'debrief' is actually alien for something unspeakably horrible."

"Nope. Just some intelligent conversation with mature beings who can be rational."

Artie screamed again.

"Okay then," Daria said, sitting back. "Just promise me I don't have to say anything stupid like 'take me to your leader.'"

"You don't have to," the female agent called out from the front. "We're already here."

"Take me to your leader!" Artie exclaimed, unable to contain himself.

"So we're clear," Daria said, "I'm not actually with him."

"Come with us," the male agent said, escorting them out of the van. Daria stepped out and looked up at the imposing shape of...the Big Strawberry.

"This is your headquarters?" Daria asked.

The female agent nodded. " It's easy to come and go unnoticed. Tourism in this town is virtually nonexistent."

"Unless you count out-of-planet tourists," Daria said. "At least the chamber of commerce would be pleased." She and Artie followed the agents inside the strawberry, where they came face-to-face with the alien leader. "Oh, come on," Daria groaned.

"Hiiiii, honey!" the leader greeted Daria in a thick Southern accent.

"You know each other?" Artie asked, incredulous.

"Unfortunately, yes. Artie, meet Dr. Shar."

"Now, sweetie, you know I wasn't really the hack doctor I was pretending to be at the plastic surgery clinic, right?"

Daria pressed her fingertips to the side of her forehead. "So, you're telling me you're really an alien?" Then she looked at Dr. Shar's face, her unnerving grin, and her glassy stare. "Okay, on second thought I guess I should have seen that one coming."

"Don't be scared," the male agent assured her.

"We're actually quite benevolent," the female agent added.

"Benevolent?!" Artie shouted. "You kidnapped me, stripped me, and scrutinized my helpless body!"

"And we pressed your pants before we returned you home," Dr. Shar argued. "It was a goodwill gesture!"

"'Goodwill gesture'?" Daria repeated, incredulous. "You replaced my skin and gave me powers that have turned my life into a living hell!"

Dr. Shar clucked her tongue sadly. "And I'm so sorry about that, hon. We shoulda been upfront with you on what we were doing, but we weren't sure how y'all would react to it."

"How do you think I'd react?" Daria exploded. "You turned me into a freak!"

"Not a freak," Dr. Shar argued soothingly. "Our intention was to create a superhuman, someone who could act as Earth's champion and protect the planet from intergalactic threats."

Daria struggled to calm herself down. "All right, that explains the strength and flight and stuff like that, but what's the deal with the compulsive dancing?"

"The what?" the female agent asked in confusion. "We didn't give you any dance powers."

"Then why does my body automatically start busting a move every time I hear music?"

Dr. Shar slowly shook her head. "That's all you, sugar. We had nothin' to do with it."

"Huh. That's both embarrassing and unexpected. Remind me never to admit that part to Jane." Daria waved the thought away. "But why were you monitoring my dreams?"

"We did that as a precaution," the male agent explained. "To be sure the subject of our experiment wasn't mentally unstable... Artie."

"What?" Artie asked, pressing a hand against his chest in amazement. "I'm as sane as they come!" Then he bounced up and down eagerly. "Hey, why did you use two test subjects, anyway?" He gasped. "Ooooh, was it for mating purposes?"

"Ewwww!" Dr. Shar exclaimed. "God, no! You were just a test, like our first guinea pig, and you turned out to be unsuitable for our purposes. Fortunately," she continued, turning to Daria with a huge smile, "we found Morgendorffer here soon after, and she turned out to be the ideal specimen."

"Me?" Daria asked, less surprised by the idea of aliens turning her into a superhero than the idea of being considered "ideal" in any context.

"Oh, absolutely! You're intelligent, honest, focused on justice...."

Daria couldn't resist a small smile at the praise. "Well, I suppose that's true."

"...compassionate, ethical, courageous...."

"Um, if you say so."

"...inspirational, outgoing, popular...."

"Now wait a minute." Daria frowned. "This is starting to sound not at all like me."

"Now don't be so modest, Quinn!"

"Quinn?!"

Dr. Shar's bright smile dimmed. "Aw, shoot. Did I make a mistake?"

"I'm Daria."

"No, that can't be right." Dr. Shar reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled printout. Holding it up, she revealed an image of a girl with red hair and flawless skin. "This is Daria."

Daria recognized the photo. "No, that's the picture of me that you turned into a picture of Quinn."

Dr. Shar looked at the picture, then at Daria. "Well, don't that beat all." She looked at the picture again and shrugged. "You know, all you humans look alike to me, anyway."

"Are you telling me that all this time...all the humiliations I've endured...all the insane crap I've had to put up with... all of it...could have been Quinn's problem instead?"

"Uh-huh." Dr. Shar gave her an apologetic smile. "My mistake, sweetie."

Daria groaned. "I should have just taken that damn belly button ring out when it started itching."