Arriving at the third underground fighting arena Lucy had ever visited was more anticlimactic than she had been expecting. Barely anybody was outside. The only person Lucy saw to indicate any kind of activity was a displaced homeless person peeking down from the shadows of a fire escape. The scattered remains of the cardboard that used to be his sleeping area was in the alley around from the door Charles led her to.

It was similar to what Lucy had seen when she left her first underground fight. There were the traces of a gathering, with all the litter and trampled grass, though the latter was lesser even in the fringes of downtown. The girl’s shoe had a mostly soft sole, and didn’t protect her toe when she kicked an errant soda can from her path at an awkward angle. Not that the pain was worth noting anymore.

The journey to the fighting arena was anticlimactic as well. Since Lucy was constantly thinking of ways that the group of young men she encountered could screw her over, she had kept an eye and ear out for sirens, but had heard and seen nothing the entire time. The walk was twenty or so minutes long, so they arrived just before seven in the evening.

She had been more worried about the guys calling any gang mates they might have had, who would have been far more subtle in their approach. Although when Lucy thought about it, the prospect of getting jumped by half a dozen gangers was oddly exciting. It was a thought the girl shoved far into her mind as she kicked a glass bottle off of the sidewalk and came to the conclusion that they had arrived.

“That’s enough.” Lucy as they approached the door. “Thank you Charles. I hope you don’t follow your friend’s example.”

The older boy slowed to a stop. The tension had drained from his shoulders over the twenty minutes, but he remained wary of the crowbar wielding girl. “You’re not inside yet.”

Lucy fixed her gaze on him. “And?”

Charles licked his lips. “Was just checking if you cared.” Then he turned around and started walking away.

He is careful, not scared. That is not how to leave an impression.

“Wait.” Lucy said, a sudden harshness in her voice causing Charles to halt and hunch his shoulders. “What are you going to do now?”

He looked back over his shoulder, briefly meeting Lucy’s eyes. “I was supposed to be the sober driver today. Now I want to get drunk.” One hand landed on his back pocket. “Feels like a good use of my payday.”

Charles waited for Lucy to comment, and started moving away again when she didn’t.

“Sober driver.” Lucy repeated. “Then why did we walk?”

She didn’t receive an answer. Then Charles broke into a run and fled around a corner. Lucy didn’t give chase, though she did consider it. That was all she really intended to do there anyway. She had an underground arena to infiltrate, and no time to chase down someone that had already done what she wanted. He’ll probably be back, anyway.

The building that hid the entrance Lucy was looking for was a four story office building. Wooden double doors barred the way in, but when Lucy gripped the handles, they turned easily, and the doors glided open. From there it was a wide corridor with a staircase leading up on one side, and elevator doors further down. Lucy was interested in neither, since what she was looking for would give her access underground. Fortunately, there were three other doors for Lucy to investigate.

After carefully checking to see if there were cameras in the lobby and only finding holes in the ceiling where she would’ve expected them, Lucy took off her mask and stored her crowbar in her bag once more. “Hopefully this goes better.” She said when she saw the frame of Jumpspark’s crossbow.

No words hissed back into her ear.

Zipping the bag back up, Lucy went and checked each of the doors. The second opened, but led to a parking area that was full of cars, but only led to a back alley. The third held what Lucy was looking for, a staircase leading down from where it shouldn’t. It also held two men similar to what Lucy had seen at Pistolwhip’s arena. Guards carrying guns.

They were playing cards when Lucy walked in, though they were quickly on their feet with a hand on their guns and towering over the teenage girl.

“Hello.” Lucy said, eyes flicking between the two of them. Their eyes and their weapons.

“What are you here for?” One of them demanded.

“The fights.” Lucy answered carefully, deciding to keep her eyes on theirs. “I didn’t miss out, did I?”

The two guards shared a look. “Wait here.” The same guard said as the other disappeared down the staircase. The other one stepped to the side to better block the stairs down with his body.

Lucy looked up and met his eyes. A vivid fantasy where she used a kick to push him down the stairs before watching him slide to the bottom played in her mind, but it remained unreal as the guard crossed his arms and Lucy averted her eyes. “Do you…” Lucy swallowed. “Get latecomers often?”

“Yes.”

“Do they get in?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Wires.”

Lucy thought back to her first visit to a place like this. “Why would- oh.”

“You stupid or something?” The guard asked, causing a little color to flush Lucy's cheeks. “Pigs want in so they can bust it. Hardly ever works, but they always try.”

“I didn't realise.” Lucy said as two figures came to the top of the staircase. She was going to continue making conversation, but the second person with the returning guard caught her eye and made her breath catch.

“What's this?” Cerberus demanded, the red silhouettes of dog heads on her shoulders flickering.

“She was late.” The first guard said.

“No shit. What I was really asking you fuck heads is why you decided to come and get me? Just pat her down and be done with it.”

Lucy shifted uncomfortably, not entirely liking the idea of either of the guards doing that, to say nothing of having Cerberus do it. From the looks of things, neither of the guards were enthusiastic about it either.

The supervillain rolled her eyes. “Oh for fuck's sake. You, lift your arms.” Lucy found herself doing exactly that before registering she was being spoken to. “Now stay still.”

Cerberus started with Lucy's arms, gripping the first for a moment before moving on to the other. The girl felt awkward as her body was swiftly patted all over, the villain avoiding the overly awkward places, and ending at her shins.

“There.” Cerberus said as she stood up again. “Did that really look so hard?”

“You should really hire more women.” A guard said after sharing a look with his partner. “Or one. After last time…”

That earned him a flat stare. Lucy cleared her throat when she couldn't deal with the tension anymore.

“So can I go in?” She asked, then added. “I really wanted to see blood fly today.”

“If you want women guards, take that up with Tyr.” Cerberus told the guard as she flexed her power, forming a rough outline of a spike in red energy. In the next moment, the object burst into life and speared down into the pack of cards they had been using, which began to burn. “Now back to work.”

“Yes ma'am.” The guards said quietly as the super villain turned back to Lucy. One was looking at the burning cards with a pissed off expression, while the other was directing his not so subtly at Cerberus.

Lucy was expecting more sharp words, but the stake of energy just erupted in a small burst that scattered the cards, and the super villain jerked her head towards the stairs. The girl went, the villain following two steps behind her. It was almost exactly what Pistolwhip had done.

“What's in the bag?” Cerberus asked as the sound of a roaring crowd became audible.

Lucy grimaced, and waited for Jumpspark to give some advice. When none came, she realised she was alone for this one.

Project not uncertainty, oh vessel mine, for your enemies will prey upon the weakness.

For this one, boldness will blind them.

“A crowbar and a mask.” Lucy said, deciding to be honest in case Cerberus demanded to check. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction as she committed to her story. Even if the supervillain found out about the crossbow, she'd need to pull it out to realise how strange it was. Somehow, being alone like that was strangely reassuring.

“Uh huh.” When Lucy glanced back, she could see hints of a questioningly raised eyebrow behind the crackling red of Cerberus' mask, telling her to go on.

“I beat someone up before coming here.” Lucy said. She considered elaborating,but didn't get the chance.

“Shit, and you came here looking for even more blood?”

“... Yes.” Lucy said at length, and only after catching a glimpse of Cerberus' wide smile. Then she lied. “I don't have a power, so this is different.”

“All the lights and colours do nothing to change the fact that it's a cutthroat sport.” Cerberus said happily. “Not even been two weeks since our last death. But he was Aagni, so who gives a shit?”

Lucy frowned. “Probably the Aatma.”

“More to the slaughter.” Cerberus’ uncaring shrug was practically audible. She didn’t even sound eager or disgusted by the idea of more killing, it didn’t seem to matter to her. “Though…”

Lucy staggered forward when she was suddenly shoved from behind. She only caught a glimpse of Cerberus preparing to do it, and she was only moved two steps before managing to stop. It surprised the girl. Cerberus was weaker than she had been expecting.

You have been challenged, oh vessel mine.

In the next few moments, Lucy turned to face her opponent, clenched her fist and swung at their face, all while closing the distance between her and the weaker fighter, only to realise that Cerberus was grinning and there weren’t any of her power made dogs heeling. She stopped, her fist halfway to the villain’s nose. Then Lucy realised she’d almost attacked a villain, when she had never meant to be noticed, or even be here at all just an hour ago.

“Sorry.” Lucy muttered, dropping her arm and making to hurry away.

“Wait.” Cerberus called after her. Two spears of crackling red growing from the floor and crossing in front of Lucy made sure that she wasn’t ignored. “Do you like fighting?” She asked. “Actually fighting. Not watching.”

“N-” Lucy started to say.

Self deception will undermine your strength. Do not practice it.

Indecision grappled with the girl, who ultimately turned around and met Cerberus’ eye. “Yes.”

Laying out her molester had been satisfying. That was all there really was to it. The memories of his ribs giving and the blood flowing after the skin on his hand had parted should have been disturbing, and they were, just not as much as Lucy would have expected. When she looked at it objectively though, there was definitely no guilt.

Cerberus moved closer, purposefully stepping up to Lucy, and taking her time to do it. “See when I first saw you I thought you were a little bitch.”

“Um.”

“Take offence or don’t. I don’t give a shit.” Cerberus dismissed quickly. “But then I grabbed your arm. You’re no enhanced, they huff steel and it goes directly to their muscles, like fat to the boobs of stacked bitches. But you were firm and you weren’t even flexing. And your story, it’s true. I can smell the iron on you.”

“Um.” Lucy repeated, trying and failing to stop herself from shuffling her feet. She wasn’t meeting the villain’s eye anymore. How could she smell something like that?

“So where is that guy?” Cerberus pressed. “He six feet under? Emergency ward in hospital? The waiting room? Or just… home.”

“Should be hospital.” Lucy answered, still not meeting Cerberus’ eye.

“Hm.” Cerberus let a moment drag out. “You wanna fight more and get paid for it?”

That caused Lucy to finally meet the supervillain’s eyes again. “I’m sorry?”

“You wanna fight and get paid for it?” The villain repeated, injecting irritation into her words. “We’ll put you in with the younger ones, since Tyr isn’t a complete sycophant like Mikhael was. There will be an overwhelming amount of testosterone though. Too many girls look at the sport and cringe.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes, trying to find any ulterior motive in the villain. “Why?”

“‘Cause you look new and fuckface upstairs was right. Need more women in the pack. Come,” Cerberus’ flickering spears erupted into flame and burnt away. Lucy was invited along as the villain stalked on ahead. “Plus, I’ll bet you aren’t getting anything from what you were doing earlier ‘cept satisfaction.”

Lucy nodded slowly, then said “yes,” when she realised Cerberus hadn’t seen it.

“So we do a whatsit pro quo.” The villain continued. “You come to me and mine once a week and beat the shit out of someone, and we give you hundreds of dollars for doing it, even if they turn the tables and beat the shit out of you.” Cerberus looked back over her shoulder. “Sound fine?”

This time Lucy just nodded.

Cerberus grinned, showing teeth. “Follow me then.”

She led Lucy to where the viewing booth was, and this time it was in use. The room was surprisingly cramped, with the six seats being taken up by four people and more paper. One of the stools had a tripod set up over it, and two people were operating the camera on top. Another camera was set up by the wall, but only had one person. The rest of the space was dedicated to computers and things Lucy assumed were to keep track of bets.

Cerberus swept into the room without a care for anything already moving and all of those things just swerved to avoid her, the red silhouettes on the villain’s shoulders making it easy to keep track of her. Lucy lingered by the door watching the eight other people in the room, mostly the one man by the door who was also watching her, one hand lingering by the holster openly hanging from his hip. She didn’t stay distracted for long though, the gaze watching her wasn’t accusatory, or even wary. Likely because she was following Cerberus, and Cerberus had a reputation for a reason.

But it was the scene she could see through the window that pulled Lucy’s attention. Three people were in the cage, only two of which were in a costume. The clear referee was on his knees and attending to a knocked out fighter, so Lucy could only make out the one that was still standing. They were dressed in something like a baseball uniform ready to bat, but the helmet was shaped so they were looking through the mouth of a growling dog and the purple and blue costume wasn’t one accepted in any league Lucy knew about.

They were tossing their bat up and catching it repeatedly as they waited for something. From the lack of noise coming from the crowd and the feeling of the room Lucy was in, she got the feeling that the fight was already over and that she was looking at the winner. Even though the fight was over, the victor was still displaying their power by tossing the bat, which left a trail of black and gave a sense of weight from just looking at it, enough that Lucy winced the first time she saw it being caught.

From the hushed conversation coming from the betting managers, and the muffled sound of the commentator, the winner of this fight was Bingle, from the second of the three fights. There was still another fight to come. Between Kara and Popstop, Lucy remembered. She hadn’t missed everything.

“Hey!” Cerberus shouted at her from across the relatively quiet room and jerked her head to beckon Lucy over. When Lucy got close she found a piece of A4 paper shoved in her face. “Fill that out and you’re in.”

Lucy blinked as she took the paper. It was a form, kind of like a worksheet from school, but reading through it she was only supposed to fill out some stuff at the bottom, like her name and phone number. She gave Cerberus a frown, not quite believing that this was how fighters signed up, but she was ignored by the villain who was already arguing with one of the betting managers.

“If it helps me test my power…” Lucy mumbled to herself as she found a pen and started filling out the form. She started with the name, and wrote down Issey Hellmoore.

~~~

Silence. There was no sound. Darkness, but of another kind. There was nothing to see. The taste of air was gone from her tongue, and the familiar duality of clean and dirty clothing piles was gone from her nose. Her fingertips clenched into her palms, telling her that it was impossible to move further, but feeling nothing.

She’d been this way for longer than she cared to track. All she knew was that the thick black oobleck had gone down her throat like air, one by one her senses had shut off, and as each of the ways she knew the world had shut off, her mind had expanded more and more.

First her sense of touch had faded, and she had perceived the world. All of it. At once.

Then she breathed in, and her face twitched at the feeling of scentless air. At the same time, the world had changed. It was difficult to figure out what exactly had changed. Something about her field of genius?

Losing her taste was harder to track, but it happened. The world changed again. There weren’t any humans there now. But the world was still covered in life.

She could have sworn someone called her name, and it got cut off halfway through. This time when the world changed, it changed in a way she wanted. Most of it disappeared. She couldn’t care less about the starving animals in Africa.

What she felt in this narrow portion of the world was control. It was an abstract, invisible thing, but it was possible. Because when her sight finally went, she imagined the designs. Not so much as invisible, as put inside of other things, where whole feet of concrete did nothing to stop her power.

A mad genius. That was what she was becoming. One with a far reach indeed. Where she worked and invented, she could control the world. From there, she could pick a group and control their world. She could be nice if she wanted, or be a complete bitch. And they wouldn’t know unless she wanted them to.

It was a nice sentiment. Not what she wanted though. It was hard to pick a person when there were none anyway.

More of the world fell away, torn from the rest this time. Making the world a better place was not why this was happening. She didn’t want whatever came of this to be lost in that, and something may have been listening, because someone appeared. She drew inspiration from their presence, imagining things that could be used to inflict pain and suffering. The inspiration sprung to the forefront of her mind, both from her own imagination and something else, but before she could get anywhere, that single human looked around, flexed a power, and set all the rest aflame.

Somehow, when all of her senses had been turning off one by one, pain hadn’t been one of them.

Sitting bolt upright in her bed, Hanna was only able to cut off the scream that had started in her sleep. The sound had already begun by the time she was conscious enough to halt it, and by then it was too late to stop it from reaching the rest of the building. She was sweating even though it was a cold night and she’d only been using a thin sheet, not that throwing on the duvet would’ve changed anything.

Hanna blearily squinted at her dark room, keeping an ear out and tracking every sound she heard. Ever since she drank the Adept’s Oil, sleep had been fleeting and infrequent. Enhanced didn’t sleep that much in the first place, apparently able to get away with three hours a night, and able to go whole days without if they needed to. Hanna was pushing even that.

That would have been the third time she had slept since chugging down her power, counting the night of ‘rest’ that had come immediately after drinking it. That had been Thursday last week. After squinting at the clock on her phone’s too-bright screen, Hanna realised it was another school day. This time one she would have to go to.

The creaking of her door made the girl swear to herself as she rushed to turn her phone off and hide it under the pillow.

“Hanna.” A tired voice called out, not whispering even though Hanna was unmoving on her bed. “It’s the middle of the night. Keep it down.”

The door didn’t creak back, meaning he wouldn’t leave until he got an answer. “Yes. I will.” Hanna said. Her voice was too awake, she realised, not that it mattered when the door closed again.

As soon as the faint footsteps had faded away, Hanna sat back up and turned her phone on. She turned the torch on and looked at the mess that was her room. Last week the mess had mostly been the basket of clean clothes she was too lazy to put away, as well as the pile of dirty clothes she was too lazy to wash. That had changed when she got her power and her mind had become obsessed with space.

Empty space specifically. Places where things could be hidden. Hanna had obsessively dug through her clothing piles for two hours before realising she wasn’t finding whatever it was she was looking for. After tossing her dirty stuff in a basket outside and shoving the clean stuff in the closet, things had become clearer. She wanted to put things In the hidden places and the clothes had been too unstable, evey movement revealing something and concealing just as much. So her mind had searched for a solution and found none, ending up in an endless cycle when moving the clothes around failed to reveal the entire floor.

The mess now was mostly schoolbooks lying flat. Her empty bag was outside with the dirty clothes. Her desk’s drawers were lined up against the opposite wall, and her school laptop was now in pieces. Anything that her power thought up was half finished at best. Strewn about in indiscernible pieces, and hopefully indistinguishable.

She didn’t have enough things. Hanna needed money, and today she had to deal with school. The only mercy of today being the fact that she was technically rested.

A thought occurred to the tired genius as she turned her phone’s torch back off. Didn’t she know someone who would want to help with this?