Paulo and Henry exited the vehicle for the last stop of the day. The sun poured white-gold rays through the patchwork of clouds, casting blocky shadows from the rows of apartments. Travel here had been slow. The speed limit was forty, but the constant presence of children and balls bouncing on the road reduced their speed further. They had travelled far today, all the way to the far edges of New Langshir. This neighborhood used to be the center of the city. Then progress happened. And New Langshir had begun to shift its mass like an amoeba, moving farther and farther away from places such as this.

The walls were made of red brick. Every other stop sign was canted, and always seemed to have a little rust marring one or more of its letters. Street curbs have been made forcefully into ramps and left in that state of disrepair. There were stores without label and vendors loitering in alleyways, offering goods through quiet exchange. Paulo looked with morbid disgust at the work of talented anarchists who had produced a modern masterpiece of sprayed paint on street underpasses and the sides of unoccupied buildings. Many of them depicted caricatures of famous heroes doing obscene things to each other.

“Don’t you people have the resources to deal with places such as this?” He asked.

“The mayor gave incentives for businesses to come set up shop in these neighborhoods,” Henry explained. “Helena Industries had tried to invest here once. She was ‘chased out’ by protestors who feared gentrification.”

“Chased out? Her?”

“If a dog bit your offering hand, you leave. In the dog’s mind, you were no match for its ferocity. In Helena’s mind, well, she’s an experienced magnate. One need not speculate as to what she thought of this place.”

“Little.”

“Not at all,” Henry said.

“Focus,” the man the both of them were escorting snapped. “You’re here to protect me, not to worsen my headache with your gen S sociocultural insights.”

Paulo had learned that the old man was named Oscar Landry. The ‘boss’ had set them as his guardian angels. If Paulo understood things correctly, Oscar had been working with a group of inexperienced vigilantes who were assaulted by a powerful psychic. It was only recently that they were rescued from the clutches of M.A.G.E’s containment facility. The boss had planned a whole bank robbery just to distract the infamous Whitworth’s telepathic attention.

Paulo led the way into an old apartment. It looked just as run-down as any other. Even the address numbers were incomplete.

“This is the place?” He asked.

“Yes,” Oscar said impatiently. Or painfully. He had not yet fully recovered from whoever had assaulted his mind.

They arrived at a solid wood door. Paulo could hear muffled voices behind it. The heat of discussion was palpable even through the thick wood. He knocked. A pile of something fell inside the apartment. Several clicks sounded. The door swung open a sliver, restrained by a steel chain. A woman peered out at them.

“What do you want?” She said.

“Your husband Chris ordered something from our service,” Oscar said.

“Ain’t ever heard a delivery company needing three of you.”

Another set of footsteps approached the door.

“Get out of the way, Dany!” A gruff male voice said. The door was fully unlocked and swung open, revealing a comfortably dressed, rotund man. “Come in, come in.”

The three of them entered. The room was an ordered chaos. Piles of newspapers and empty bottles formed walls where feet did not tread. The dining table was covered in used plates with half-finished meals on them. Coils of fly catcher hung from the ceiling.

The man named Chris sat heavily in a lived-in couch facing an ancient plasma TV. A small child played with old wooden blocks by his feet. Paulo’s eyes wandered to the program playing on the screen. A swath of the screen had nothing but lines of color, but the events happening were clear. He watched hundreds of young men and women soar and sprint down a wide street. They were more demigods than man. The volume had been turned low, but the announcers were poignant and articulate. Within seconds of listening, even Paulo wanted the contestants to win. He didn’t even know who they were.

“You like the games, young man?” Chris said.

“He’s more boy than man,” Oscar quipped, “’course he’s captivated by a screen.”

“I grew up watching superhero media,” Paulo said, taking the jab in stride.

“Didn’t we all,” Chris said. “My dad grew up when Americans and the Soviets were competing. In tech, in space exploration, in gifted sports. He was there for Nixon’s speech. ‘If they send the nukes, our boys will catch it right out of the sky’.” He laughed. His face became serious. “Heroes are everything now. Aren’t they, Junior?”

The child by his feet beamed.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Oscar said. It was theater of course. Paulo knew there was no saying ‘no’.

“My mind is made up,” Chris said. “My boy needs a better life. He needs to make it big. Then he could drag us all out. If hard work guaranteed a living, I wouldn’t have been laid off when they found out an average speedster was worth fifty of us.” He ruffled his son’s hair.

“Alright, then.” Oscar grunted as he got on his knee. “Your arm, Junior.”

Junior obeyed. The boy did not question, likely because he did not know.

“Are you scared of needles, Junior?” Oscar asked.

The boy shook his head. “Heroes aren’t scared by anything,” he said.

“Brave boy,” Oscar said. He retrieved a small case from his suit pocket. He swabbed the boy’s shoulder. Then he pulled the cap off a needle and gave it a quick press. In a practiced movement, Oscar gave the injection. Then he put a hand on the boy’s head and closed his eyes.

While Oscar worked, Paulo turned to the father.

“Is your son not gifted?” He asked.

“He is,” Chris said. “We want to the doctor’s a while back. The mutation is still happening, but those eggheads can project how powerful the gift is going to be.” He shook his head. “Whatever my son’s power is, it ain’t squat. Only got my loins to blame, I guess.”

On the screen, an enormous explosion knocked the students back. The announcers went silent. Then their low voices screamed through the speakers as they verbally observed the emergence of a legendary figure, arguably the icon of the current age.

Paulo bit his tongue. He asked nothing else. They finished their work, packed up, and left without a trace. Oscar had wiped the family’s memory of meeting them.

“Something on your mind, kid?” Oscar asked when they returned to the privacy of their car.

“…No,” Paulo said. “It’s nothing.” It was too late to say anything anyhow. The final pieces were in place.

--

I cannot believe this is happening!

What a treat! I thought Giantsbane showing up was the highlight of the games.

I can’t believe she even has the free time!

Looks like our number two hero gets shown up again.

There was a moment of silence after the dust cleared. The students simply stared. Either in awe of the sight before them or in fear knowing who their final obstacle was.

“Well?” Victory’s voice boomed. She spoke with natural showmanship, gaudy and exaggerated.

A wave of ice engulfed the number one hero like a collapsing glacier. Selazane rode on top of the freezing fall. She spoke, seemingly for the first time since the game began.

“I won’t let anyone get in my way, not even you, Victory,” she shouted.

A volcano of frigid white erupted as the ice was eviscerated in an instant, throwing the cryomancer back. Lyssa blasted the ground with force-fire, rising above the cold mist. Nothing remained of the ice prison. Victory withdrew her fist, crossing her arms again.

“Wouldn’t be the first time someone said that,” she said. “Anyone else?”

Colossi produced a war cry and charged directly at her. She did not move from her position nor change her stance. A second before impact however, he swerved away from her.

“Run!” He shouted behind him. “She can’t catch all-”

He was shoved once in the chest. The impact threw him all the way back to square one, forming a new indent in the sloped ground in the shape of his back. He stood unsteadily and inspected his chest. There was a handprint-shaped bruise already forming.

More students were showing up.

“I didn’t see her move,” Colossi said to them. “Do we have a speedster?”

“Let me try,” someone offered. He disappeared in a sonic boom. An instant later the sound of another impact drew the students’ attentions. The speedster had reappeared in a heap a hundred steps away. A couple of students had to peel him out of the ground.

“I can see your heartbeat beneath your skin,” Victory said. “I can feel the atmosphere ahead of your feet move before you finish your gait. Don’t try harder. Try smarter.”

Students were gathering in a huddle with Colossi at the helm, formulating a strategy. Many other students simply orbited the group, however, content to let them try. Maybe their attempts would wear Victory out, though anyone who had bothered to study superhero history would know that was unlikely. Lyssa did not even consider joining them. She stayed away, glaring at Victory, who stood statuesque at the center of the crater, a symbol of all that Lyssa hated.

How dare victory stand there, proud and playful, when she had ultimately failed to defend the city from the meteors? Someone with so much power can’t be flawed. They couldn’t afford to be. Every mistake they made, every action not taken, had too much consequence. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

The huddle scattered and about thirty students made their play. A mountain of earth formed over Victory. It was instantly destroyed. But that had been a distraction, a way to cut off her field of view. Another student created a flash of light directly in front of Victory’s eyes so those with fast feet could run circles around her with black, carbon-fiber rope in their hands. It had been freshly created by students with transmutation gifts. Their role finished, students with electric gifts poured every volt they had through the conductive rope. Seeing the opening, other students joined in, piling their gifts into the fray. Stone and fire and lightning poured down like an apocalypse trained on a single target.

The shock was but a tickle, the rope was snapped by a movement of the arms, the stone was swatted aside, and the fire fizzled out. None of the gifts slowed Victory down. She met with each and every student who bothered to try, and gently tossed them back where they had started. Then she returned to the spot where she had landed. The only indication she had moved was the ravines her running had carved into the already punished playing field, and the students groaning as they nursed injuries that would surely swell later.

But the failure was not total. A small number of students waved from the finish line. Lyssa recognized Ecto among them. When they crossed, a horn blew and confetti was shot into the air.

Victory scoffed. “Anyone else with a coward’s gift?” She said.

The students stalled. There were complaints as well, citing the unfairness of the matchup.

Lyssa turned elsewhere. She had her own team of sorts.

“We’re not fast enough,” said Mercurial.

“No combination of any gift we have can speed us up or slow her down enough,” said Eury.

“We can’t fight her, not head on. So frustrating!” said Sethlana.

Izanami remained silent.

“What about internally?” Lyssa thought. The other Selves quieted, reluctant, but unable to dispute it.

“When are you not going to need me…?” Bil’s voice filled the mind mansion.

Lyssa stood her ground.

“We need to work together,” she thought. “Victory is unbeatable in the real world. But if we attack her with our minds…”

“She is a trained hero. Even non-psychics may have formidable mental defenses,” Bil said.

“Then we’ll think together.”

“You might not be able to separate from me if we fuse our perspectives, Lyssa. I know how much your ego matters to you all of a sudden.”

“I will be able to. That’s not your concern.”

“Let’s see.”

Lyssa fell to her knees on real, hard earth, clutching her head. She grit her teeth as unspeakably dense waves of hate, resentment, and cynicism poisoned her every memory. But along with it came undiluted telepathic might. She took a deep breath and trained her gaze on her target.