Oh! That’s gotta hurt!

You’re telling me. I can almost see the white poking the skin of her elbow.

The things these kids do to get back in the Annual.

“In case you’ve all forgotten, it’s almost time for game three,” Tobias, the gift instructor said. There was cheer in his usual severe tone, which Lyssa instinctively knew to be a bad sign. “The next three weekdays will be spent sharpening your combat skills, including finding out what special electives you might want to take. If you’re physically strong, there are several superhuman martial arts courses that would make you very useful for suppression. If you’re fast, there’s hypervelocity EOD and projectile evasion courses. So pay attention to your strengths and weaknesses, unless you want to fight in the arena.”

He pointed to the large screen by the corner of the biome gym. Students who had failed the first game of the M.A.G.E Annual fought each other for a second chance.

The rest of the students seemed more nervous than usual. It took a few moments for Lyssa to realize she was the object of many a wayward glance. Despite her best efforts, she had failed in one thing: keeping her head low. Then again, she had not had much input as to her own choices and actions, an excuse she had grown tired of.

As the students were called away to spar with the various TA’s, Lyssa approached the instructor.

“Excuse me sir.”

“Hm?”

“What do you recommend for me?”

“Well, Samantha’s pretty good. She goes by the Pretzel Maker. Thinks she’s funny.”

“I meant courses.”

“By the Lama, I think you’d do well with incense and prayer beads from what I’ve seen of you on TV.”

Lyssa was torn between getting frustrated or smiling, among too many other emotions.

“How about all your TA’s at once,” she said. Which was strange, because Lyssa knew, even as she said it, that she would never have suggested such a thing. The words just kind of blurted out.

“You made it through one game, student,” Tobias said sternly, though he failed to hide his intrigue. “I applaud gumption, not overconfidence.”

“How about just me?” Someone suggested a few steps away.

Lyssa turned her head to face a male classmate. He seemed vaguely familiar, not so much from his seemingly frail features, but from the way he strutted. He had a face prone to smiling, complimented by short, slicked hair.

“Students can spar each other,” Tobias said. “Have fun, kids.”

“Let’s head over to the ruins biome,” the male classmate said with a tilt of his head.

“Do I know you?” Lyssa asked.

He made a knowing expression. “That’s the thing about college. You meet a lot of new people. You network and trade rehearsed life stories. And then you forget about them, because conversation is more convention than practical for most people.” He chuckled. “Me? My skillset necessitates I pay attention and have a good memory.”

When they arrived at an empty plot, he raised his fist towards Lyssa, waiting.

“When you’re ready,” he said.

Lyssa tapped her knuckles against his. Then they both took a few steps back.

“On three,” he said. “Three, two, one-”

Lyssa formed Sethlana’s armor on pure reflex. She was embedded in a pile of rubble about thirty feet away when she became aware of what had happening. Her opponent flicked his hands to cool his palms, wisps of force-fire still smoking from them.

“Ohh I quite like this one,” he said.

“I… remember you,” Lyssa said. She stood to her feet. “You’re-”

“Johnny Frauss.”

“The gift stealer.”

“There you go.”

Lyssa let that annoyance build into anger. The more that fire grew, the louder Sethlana became.

“I don’t like his smug face! I want to sink my claws into…”

“Calm,” Lyssa uttered. Her armor grew denser, accruing like crocodilian cuticles over her Mimicrine suit. Now she was untouchable. She charged forward, flaming claws extended. She did not have time to react to the sound behind her. By the time she identified it as shifting rubble, a bent I-beam had struck her in the back, flattening her on the asphalt.

She screamed, tearing the metal apart like a wolverine. Pieces of half-molten metal were tossed from her claws in all directions.

“It’s like you become a different person when you fight,” Johnny said. “That is pretty wack.”

“I thought you could only hold one gift in memory,” Lyssa hissed.

“Genetic memory. I can use one gift at a time.” He tapped his forehead. “Up here is a different story.”

Lyssa was upon him. She swung her claws. But her fire met black armor, harmlessly drawing faint glowing lines on the scales. She jumped back. Johnny had switched to Sethlana’s gift, though when expressed using his genes the scales came out thicker, clumsier.

“This one I don’t enjoy as much,” he said. “Too sweaty.”

Lyssa withdrew her armor and aimed her force-fire beams at his head. It must have struck something; a great plume of smoke was stirred up. But Johnny was nowhere to be seen. Lyssa was prepared however, when another hunk of metal flew from somewhere in the biome they were in, aimed right for her. She stopped it with her own metallokinesis, planting one end of it into the ground.

“That’s one of mine too,” she shouted.

“You have a very interesting body, Lyssa.”

The voice sounded disembodied. Lyssa looked around her, eyeing the assorted carcasses of buildings and debris around them. She could not track where he was.

“Almost sounds like you’re coming onto me,” she said.

“My mistake. I have a passive charm. Hard to turn off.”

By the general store with the wall missing? No. “Can’t imagine it turns anyone on either,” she said.

“Cute. I like this. Zip, rebuttal, zing. We won’t get to do this when we fight real bad guys.”

By the Derrin’s Uptown Dressery? Lyssa twitchwalked in front of the building and reached out, gripping onto its steel supports. What remained of the place came tumbling down. The dust settled. No one climbed out of it. She had missed again.

“I’m sure you’d find time to put in a quip or two,” Lyssa said.

“Quipping? While fighting a real villain? Prime time for a henchman to put a supersonic bullet to the back of your head while you’re cracking wise for the camera drones. Any ungifted human could kill a hero like that.”

A shard of stone struck Lyssa in the back of her neck. She fell forward onto the broken road. She touched her neck tentatively with a hand. There was blood. The stone had been sharp, cutting through the air silently.

This time she took to the air, floating there with Eury’s force-fire. She surveyed the ruins, but without sensory abilities it was all grey to her. She thought about giving in to her impulse and simply bombarding the entire area with force-fire beams. Good sense told her that would just wear her thin. If she let Eury take over however…

More shards of stone flew her way. When they came close enough, pale light enveloped them, slowing them down to a crawl. Lyssa moved out of the way, then disengaged the stasis field, letting the projectiles fly past her.

“Are we sparring or skipping pebbles?” She said. Her delivery had been awkward. Though quipping wasn’t a useful skill anyway.

An immense cascade of sounds erupted behind her. She turned around fast enough to see an entire four-storey building being tossed at her. It fell apart in transit, splintering into a hundred-ton shotgun shell. The pieces closed the distance far too fast. She thought about twitchwalking away, but the gift gave her bursts of speed, not teleportation. She could kill herself if she twitched into a steel pipe. Izanami’s metal moving? No, most of it was concrete. Force-fire? Too many targets. Stasis only delayed objects, the jigsaw bullets would simply splatter her after the pale bubble popped, and she could sustain those fields no longer than a few seconds anyhow.

She made a decision and covered herself in Sethlana’s armor. Then she waited the remaining few fractions of a second she had left. The building blotted out the ceiling lights and dragged her back onto the ground. She had wanted to use that time to think. She found that her mind had gone blank. It was the smell of dust, the feeling of insurmountable weight on top of her. Her panic rose. Bad memories returned. And all her plans dissolved. She clawed her way towards the light like a drowning animal, gasping for air when she broke through the pile of construction material.

There he stood, his arms rippling with muscle, a fire hydrant resting on his back like a mighty sledgehammer.

“I shook hands with Colossi a couple days ago,” Johnny said. “I still remember some of it, if you feel like testing your armor against a fraction of his strength.”

“I… I yield,” Lyssa said, breathing heavily.

Johnny dropped the hydrant and helped her out of the pile.

“Jeez, you alright?” He asked.

“I’m… I just need to get away for a minute.” Lyssa leaned against a wall for support. Her mouth was thick with saliva, but her throat was dry and ragged. She breathed quickly, but still felt starved for air. “I am my own master,” she whispered. “I am my own master.”

“Was five seconds all you could take?” Izanami’s voice said from somewhere deep in Lyssa’s mind.

Lyssa raised her head and bashed it once against the wall.

“I’m about to call the medic,” Johnny said loudly.

“No. No. I’m fine. It’s nothing,” Lyssa said. She retreated from the wall. The voice subsided. She was under control again.

“Oh that was definitely something. But if you say so.” He reached out with a hand. “Good match.”

“No,” Lyssa said with a laugh. She waved his hand away. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t touch me.”

“You’re learning,” he said, smiling.