“Faster, Elise, they’re gaining on us!” I urged as my tree ogre friend tore up the distance between the last few streets to the Heroes Guild tower.

“You didn’t buy a helmet, I can’t go any faster,” she said between leaps over the decorative boulders in the park.

“My horns will protect my skull if I fall! Just don’t trip over me and I’ll be fine.” I gripped her bandolier tighter as one of my legs almost jostled out of her grip.

“What about the top of your head, or the back? Or your spine? No, Claire, I will not risk splattering your brains on the concrete for a bit more amusement.”

“No fun, what kind of helmet would fit my head anyway?”

We leaned into the turn together and I kicked off the building, as if it would give Elise a boost. I glanced over my shoulder, Elise’s long dreads whipping me in the face as I searched for Norah or Piper.

There was Norah, her fox tail whipping behind her as the little scooter maxed out at forty five. The speed limit here was forty, but she was always charmed her way out of the consequences. Human Norah was not as bold, but Foxian Norah knew she was hot, and could weasel out of just about anything with a whimper or a wink.

“Come on, Elise! We’ve got this!” I cheered her on.

“The gyoza is mine!” Norah cackled as she zoomed past, her fox fangs glinting in the street lamps light.

“You can have whichever of the two rewards you want, just run Elise!” At my urging, she leaned forward and stepped into the bike lane on the street. Her strides became long and bouncy, like we were running on the moon, but we were catching Norah.

The massive, glowing SoL sign lit up the black asphalt with gold. The sun iconography was really clever, in my opinion, but Norah thought it was a cheap play at the acronym. The lights behind the sign pulsed to give off the illusion of a brazier, making the logo look ten times cooler.

There was a stoplight ahead, but Elise wasn’t slowing down. “Dude, it’s red.”

“Three, two,” she counted as we reached the intersection. Shit, I should've bought a helmet. At what would’ve been one, the light turned green.

We zoomed past Norah as she growled, “Cheaters!”

Elise slowed to a jog, then to a walk, as we reached the headquarters. “I want the first shower,” she said as she knelt to let me down.

“Deal.” I slipped off her back and adjusted the lace-up vest of my dress that had wiggled up to expose my pants underneath.

Norah puttered up to the building and jumped the scooter into the sidewalk to park. “Running in the bike lane, cheap shot.”

“Not illegal for heroes with high running speeds, therefore, not cheating.” Elise pointed out.

“Where’s Piper?” I looked around at the few cars that passed by, searching for the coral scooter.

Norah sucked her teeth. “She saw a sign for free iced coffee and stopped.”

Elise tsked. “At nine thirty? I hope she’ll be able to get to sleep.”

“You know Piper.” Norah tilted her head back, eyes closed, as she snored loudly. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was true, Piper could sleep anytime, anywhere. I was surprised it wasn’t listed among her hero abilities.

The coral scooter sputtered into view. Piper’s mask was pulled down under her chin as she sucked creamy coffee through two conjoined straws from the cup stuffed between her thighs. She waved, pointing down at the cup and mouthing “free” exuberantly. Maybe she wasn’t as good at the delayed reward as I’d thought, or maybe free coffee was worth losing the first shower.

She pulled the scooter up to the side of the road, but didn’t park it. “You guys can turn it in without me, right? I’m want to head back and clean up. I’ll even go get the thai as penance.”

Norah groaned as she picked at the dried garbage goop in her tail. “I want to go home too.”

I looked up at Elise and she smiled, showing off the two inch pointy tusks on the bottom row of her teeth. I nodded to the others. “You guys go on ahead, we’ll collect the payment.”

“You’re the best,” Norah moaned the words and we laughed.

Elise pointed a big tree-bark finger at the two of them. “No more speeding, Norah, and Piper, stay on target.”

“Sure thing, mom,” the girls chimed together sickly sweet as they pulled away into the night toward our apartment just off campus.

Elise grumbled, the sound like a tree bending in the wind. “I hate it when they do that.”

“Call you mom?” I asked as I patted her on the back to guide her toward the building.

She crossed her beefy arms. “No, lie.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine. Let’s get paid.” I grinned and felt her relax a bit with the lessening of pain in my chest.

Elise had an aura ability that activated when she was angry, even just a little bit, called [Berserker's Rage]. It felt like hot bee stings all over my chest, depending on the severity of her emotions, and gave her a crazy bonus to strength. I know she hated being Groff, but he was so cool.

We walked up the concrete steps to the reflective revolving doors. Elise had to dip her head to get in, shuffling awkwardly as we moved through the door. The wind whooshed with cool air conditioning as we exited into the short, blacked out hall. The second door into the building had second-to-none identity scanning technology built into it, and I could see a faint pinkish aura as the detector scanned us.

The door beeped at our approach and swung open. Chatter, loud and quiet like an airport or a shopping mall, filled up the space around us. Elise ducked again to enter into the main hall, where heroes of all rank hung out. The main hall resembled the center of a shopping mall, too. There was a cafe, sandwich joint, and little shops of different kinds all around the outside. Seating areas with tables, couches, T.V.s, and holoscreen terminals, clustered together in the middle. This gave heroes a place to watch for trouble while enjoying comforts not available on other levels of the headquarters.

We walked toward the elevators at the back, getting all manner of glares along the way. Embergrace, an A Ranker who was pretty well known for her fire fighting abilities, covered her nose and mouth as we walked by, retching loudly.

“Here comes the scum off my boot,” she taunted and I fought back a snear.

“Sorry about this,” Elise said to the others with a wince.

I pressed the button for the elevator and glanced around, trying not to be too self conscious about the smell. “Maybe we should’ve gone home first,” I whispered to Elise as someone bolted for the toilets, their hand over their mouth.

“I don’t think we smell that bad,” Elise shrugged.

“Yeah, but your Groff…”

She glared and the elevator bell dinged as the doors opened. The two people inside wrinkled up their noses as they sped past us, heads down.

“Sorry,” Elise called after them as we stepped into the spacious lift. The doors closed without the previous occupants looking back, and Elise dropped her head in defeat.

I pressed the button for level five: Jobs and Evidence Processing. “Don’t feel bad about it, E. It happens to even the best heroes.”

She was silent as we lifted up into the heart of the headquarters. There were several layers between the bottom floor and where the actual headquarters began that didn’t have a stop on the elevator, but with my [Scan] ability, I could see there were definitely rooms of some kind.

The elevator slowed and dinged again as it deposited us on the fifth floor. The level was large and fairly open, like the bottom floor, but it was clearly divided into six sections. Recruits, C Rank, B Rank, A Rank, S Rank, Z Rank. Z Rank was reserved for only ten heroes. They were the best of the best. S had between twenty and forty heroes in it at a given time, all of them clamoring for Z. A was near a hundred, B about two hundred, and C three hundred. We were all sorted and scored on a weekly scheduled based on our rescue reports and how many Core Fragments we turned in. Once a quarter there were hero tests that would allow someone to graduate from rank to rank, if they’d improved and done well with their weekly scores.

It was all very bureaucratic.

We walked toward the C section, earning more repulsed glances. Edgar was standing at the intake station, which reminded me of an old bank teller window. We could drop items into a slotted box at knee height that would perform a similar worth determining process as my own ability, and he had a little desk where he could write up reports.

Edgar didn’t look up as we approached, but flicked a bit of blond hair away from this thin rimmed glasses. “You two. Again.” He sighed and he scribbled something on a note, then turned to his glowing holoscreen monitor.

“We’ve got a Core Fragment to turn in!” I dropped the rocky orb into the box and it booped to signify it recognized the input.

Edgar pushed the glasses up his nose, then cringed, finally turning his gaze to us. “You do know that you stink, right?” He was never one to hold back an honest comment. So young in years, but old in crotchety cynicism.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it was a Garbage Pronicle.”

He blinked slowly. “Ever heard of dodging?”

“Penelope blew it up.” Elise added.

His lip curled back as the box beeped again to tell us it had finished its scan. “Lovely. Let’s see what you’ve got here. C rank, level eight,” he went on, mumbling to himself and typing away on his loud keyboard. He was the only intake engineer I knew who still used a physical keyboard. When I’d asked him why, he said he just liked the noise.

He sucked his teeth. “A hundred and thirty. Deposited into the same account?”

“That’s it?” I grabbed the Fragment from the box and focused on using [Determined Worth] again. The readout reported it at a hundred and forty two credits. Shit, I underestimated the value the essence would take away when we absorbed it.

The market for Fragment Essence was still young, since using it as an energy source was being tested for safety. We all hoped when something was finally released to the public that the fragment values would go up. Then we’d be faced with new problems like deciding if we needed the money or the XP more.

I looked back to Edgar with a defeated sigh and dropped the Fragment into the box. “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

“Thank you for not throwing a fit.” Edgar turned back to his screen and typed away.

My phone buzzed in the pocket on my thigh and I whipped it out.

Piper:

Whatchu want?

I unlocked the screen and thumbed away a reply.

“Ahem,” Edgar cleared his throat and my head jerked up, causing the little teeth and beads decorating my horns to clank together. “Signature, if you would.”

I grimaced and stuffed the phone back in my pocket. “Sorry, thai food order…”

“Yeah, don’t care.” He slid the pen and tablet across the table and I snatched them up, scribbling a quick, “Raven Gressahla.” I pushed it back toward him and my phone buzzed again at the transfer of funds to our group hero account.

“Have a good night, Edgar,” Elise smiled and gave him a cute little wave.

“Not likely.” He smiled back sarcastically and shooed us away.

We wound our way back to the elevators and I whipped the phone out again. “You should come back later, after a shower and some food, not in Groff form.”

“What?” She asked, horrified. “Why?”

I smirked. “I know you know why.”

Her muscled cheek bones glowed a soft green. “You think he’d want to talk to me?”

I shrugged. “It’s at least worth a shot. If he says no thanks, you don’t ever have to see him again, in E form, I mean. Just don’t tell him your Groff.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he could like someone like me…” She looked at her feet.

I scowled. “What do you mean? You’re smart, beautiful, kind, loving, you pick up after my socks I leave lying around… you’re like perfect.”

She shuffled, her cheeks glowing. “I have flaws. I spend too much time studying, I’m sort of a downer, I don’t like to do a lot of dangerous stuff—

“Don’t you lie, you love doing fast piggyback rides.”

She smirked. “Yeah that’s true. But, Claire, I’m a hero…”

“Why does that matter?” I put my hands on my hips.

She shrugged. “He has to deal with heroes every day. It would be like coming home from work to more work.”

“Heroes are great people, why would that matter?”

“Because heroes like Megaton exist…”

I sighed, feigning defeat, then patted her on the shoulder. “Yeah, that’s true. You should definitely let the fear of rejection prevent you from possibly having a wonderful couple of months, or years, or hell… lifetime.”

Her eyes became the size of dinner plates, glistening with the mist of tears. I made a stupid face at her and she chuckled.

“Don’t be a dummy, dummy. You’re wonderful and if he can’t handle the fact that your alter-ego is a giant tree ogre named Groff, then he’s a freakin’ jerk who doesn’t deserve you.”

Her lips turned up in a tiny smile and her eyes went distant as we stepped into the elevator. The walk out was as disgraceful as the walk in, but I tried to keep my eyes on my phone as I transferred money to Piper, and checked our daily ranking. No change. Well, at least it hadn’t gone down.

Elise ran us both home, slower than before, and stopped a block shy of the apartment building. We stepped into the alley with the chronically burnt out lamp, and I pulled her spare shirt from the pouch at my hip.

“Monsters slain,”

“Turn around!” Elise declared, cutting me off.

I groaned and turned my back. “Monsters slain and evil vanquished, the heroes of Terra slumber victorious.”