The hollow echo of jet engines receded. Lyssa followed Vortex and the others out of the cave. They looked out onto the red landscape. Painted craters juxtaposed with granite grays and yellows. They were not the only ones. Other students slowly resurfaced. From what desperate nooks and crannies were available or behind the few pockets of trees that sprouted here.

“They’re not going to do that again, are they?” Burnout said. His weak chuckle veiled his apprehension.

“We should keep moving,” Vortex said.

Lyssa was by no means particularly emotionally intelligent, but she noticed Vortex’s distress.

“What is it?” Lyssa asked. She received a look sharpened by angled eyebrows.

“It’s complicated,” Vortex said, softening after a moment. “My… parents aren’t heroes. But they are gifted. They work with the military. They’ve been matter-of-fact about why I shouldn’t have joined M.A.G.E.”

“This is a little elaborate for a game,” Ecto said. She made a face at the tiny outline of a drone passing overheard. “The things we do for entertainment.”

“It’s not entertainment,” Vortex said. “We’re surrounded by mountains. The paint is simulating the effectiveness of their bombs. This was always a two-sided exercise remember? The military doesn’t lend their planes out for a Superbowl.”

“How exactly is this data useful, huh?” Ironhog said. “I mean come on. This entire area is all rock.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about whatever this is,” Lyssa said. The bombing run over, the drones had returned in droves, tiny dots that were almost invisible against the blue backdrop.

The medical helicopters came in as well to collect any injured or students with no ‘health’ left. There were a few. Lyssa saw a bladed aircraft touch down several hundred feet away. The students corralled towards it walked with their heads down, their bodies smeared with paint. She could not see the others, but she could hear the air pulsate with their arrival.

“We got lucky, didn’t we?” Lyssa said.

“Luck has always been a part of the games,” Vortex said. But Lyssa could tell this particular instance of luck bothered her. Still, dwelling on it accomplished nothing. They continued up and down the shattered landscape, albeit with a keener eye on the skies. There would not be another bombing run.

It was a while before anyone talked again. Ironhog broke the ice.

“So…” He said. Lyssa realized she was the one being addressed and turned her head to face him. “Why’d you join M.A.G.E.?”

The ‘how’s the weather?’ of superheroes. Lyssa wondered if she ought to begin rehearsing an answer.

“I’m gifted, and I want to do good,” she said. “I’ve been on both sides of disaster, manmade or madman-made.”

“That’s an alright reason. I joined ‘cuz I don’t think I’m cut out for anything else.”

“You think so?”

“I’m a giant porcupine. I can flip a tank and the worst bruise I ever got was getting hit by one. I don’t fit in enough doorways to work menial jobs.” He took a deep breath. “But whadya gonna do, right? Life. Lemons. Yada yada. Might as well take some pride in it.”

Lyssa smiled. Before, she had been too intimidated to really look at the man. He was too big. Too loud. Too… prickly.

“I like that,” she said. Pride. She understand the concept well enough. She wondered if she might feel it one day. Knowing Ironhog did made him seem less brute force and more human. Lyssa looked up to him, noting his sheer bulk, and the blinking light by his collar.

She frowned. She felt something touch her cheek. She wiped a finger across her skin. It was a thin streak of red paint. There was a large splash of the exact same color on Ironhog’s chest.

“Get down!” She shouted.

It took a moment for her meaning to register. Ironhog turned around in a rapid twist, just in time to catch the next few projectiles to his quills.

“Sniper,” Vortex said.

The winds began to pick up, twisting around them. Several more shots came, but were whisked away by the defensive wall of air. The paint left tiny, red streaks in the wind. Lyssa peered to see where the shots were coming from. At first it was impossible. There quickly became too many to track. Hundreds of bullets popped against the wall, turning into red ribbons swirling around them. They were coming from all directions.

“I’m at two health,” Ironhog said. “Damn it. Didn’t even feel that hit. That’s the price of being too tough. Thanks shorty.”

“They can still see us,” Vortex said. “There’s no cloud for me to pull down.”

“Smoke, coming up,” Burnout said. Jets of flame shot out of his hands, incinerating the stone and dirt around them. Black smoke traced the outline of the twisting winds. Vortex grimaced as she exerted.

“Do we know where they are?” She shouted.

“What?!” Ecto asked.

The tornado was growing stronger, larger. Vortex was showing no signs of reducing her power.

“Find a body of water!” Vortex said at the top of her voice. “I’ll going to fling all of us there!”

“I can’t hear anything!” Ecto shouted.

“Uh should I stop?” Burnout asked.

Ironhog stuck a finger out to touch the walls of the wind. He immediately recoiled, his hand batted away from the force.

“I’m just going to wait for you guys to sort this out,” he said.

There was something Lyssa could do. She grasped onto the dregs of her telepathy, and was immediately thrust onto the metaphorical floor of her mind. The shadow stood before her. It was the first time she had seen Bildungsroman in a corporeal avatar.

It was a long dress made of black or white scales—depending on where one looked—with a generous v-neck. She had her face, as they all did, but twisted with a casual hatred, as if all things other than the self were beneath her. Lyssa knew why she thought that. She also couldn’t afford to let that get in the way.

“I need you,” Lyssa said.

“Then let me in.”

“I don’t need you running my life. I need your gift. Our gift.”

“…No.”

“You think you’re trying to prove a point. But all you’re doing is perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can’t move on if we don’t help people when they help us.”

Bil bared her teeth with palpable scorn. The clouds above the sunroof darkened, bearing over Lyssa’s mansion with thunder.

“They don’t care about you. Nobody does,” she said.

“I know. Nobody has had a chance to yet,” Lyssa said.

She blinked.

Winds howled. Her teammates shouted over the buffeting. She could feel their emotions, their minds move. She focused her telepathy on their foremost words, the spoken words, without invading their minds.

“Vortex needs a body of water,” she ‘pathed to Ecto. “She’s going to use her gift to get us out of here.”

“You are psychic,” Ecto thought the words. She dove into the rock.

Agonizing minutes passed. Lyssa could hear the sounds of boulders being lifted off the ground and trees being uprooted. The tornado was immense. She watched a single bead of sweat crawl down Vortex’s temple.

How long could she keep going? They were truly committed now. The smoke made it hard for the enemy to see them, but they could not see the enemy. And Lyssa did not command enough of her telepathy to feel any soldiers nearby. The enemy could be anywhere outside the wall. So they had to wait. Ecto could easily abandon them and make it on her own. The thought had crossed Lyssa’s mind. She wondered if Vortex planned for that possibility.

A body hovered out of the rock and solidified.

“I found a pond,” Ecto said. She whispered the coordinates to Lyssa, who projected them straight into Vortex’s head. Vortex did not seem bothered. She knelt down and slammed her hand on the rock. The tornado constricted, ripping the entire team into the air.