The next several days were hell. Nobody said it, but I had the inkling suspicion everyone back at base wasn't happy that I’d chosen to up and leave one night and not tell anyone. It started with thinner smiles, tapping fingers, crossed arms and silent glances every single time I entered a room. Daily briefings were kicked up by an hour, so I had to wake up even earlier, go through an even more painful physio session, shower, then sit on a hard plastic chair and listen to all the wonderful ways Valor and the rest of her team were planning on torturing me that day. I’d crack a joke. They’d all stare at me, silent, and then Blue Angel would clear her throat and get back to handing out the itinerary.
Well, I heard that’s what the grown ups called it. I just think it’s a very detailed way of making everyday harder than the last, kinda like a school timetable, except this somehow managed to suck even more.
I kept those thoughts to myself, clenched my jaw, and got on with it.
Day-in, day-out, same shit, worse pain, stiffer joints, more complex mental exercises, and then came the quizzes and the tests and these long, dreary hours I spent in front of a flickering laptop with no internet access, trying to memorize flight patterns and strike-team combinations until it became a second language to me.
And every day, I just couldn’t hit the goals set by Kincaid or Valor or Bulldog or Founder or Blue Angel or anyone. Faster, Rylee. Push more, Rylee. Jesus, Rylee, that’s not the route I asked you to memorize, what've we spent the last few days even learning? Again. Better this time.
“Try again until you get it right, because we’ve got all night, so let’s get at it, soldier,” Blue always said.
Just today, I’d been punched in the face by a sledgehammer twice my size, passed out going three-hundred miles an hour in the sky and left a scar in Oregon’s countryside, learnt and forgotten half of the routes I sat down and scribbled about in the morning, and had my bad shoulder popped back in place three times after Bulldog hit me with a shoulder-check so nasty I could barely get up again. If it wasn’t for Founder flicking his wrist and snatching my limp body off the ground and putting me back on my shaky legs, I probably would’ve stayed right there, too.
Because the ground and I were starting to get pretty close. I might even ask it out for dinner soon.
After the Alps, I thought I’d cracked…something. Some kind of mental barrier that would finally let me go out there and get back to doing what I always did best. But that wasn’t the case. I hated this, more and more every single day. I hated it so badly I’d stare at the ceiling at night and find myself silently cursing out the entire Earth.
I’d argue that it wasn’t Earth’s fault they didn’t have anyone capable of standing up against the Empire. Cleopatra might have stood a chance, but that was when she was younger. That was when everyone was younger. And the problem with my generation of Capes was that nobody had any real experience with big-time villains anymore. Thugs. Superhumans with crazy ideas. The occasional gangster who gets a little too big for his own good.
In essence, nobody knew how to fight supervillains anymore, which was bad. Very fucking bad.
And they used to call me a problem for doing it the old-fashioned way.
Now I’m the one who's got to fix this shit.
“Quicker, Rylee,” Valor said. I spat blood. Knuckled it off my lips. I heaved and ended up vomiting on the ground, but that didn’t mean she stopped circling me, her bare feet smacking against the airstrip’s asphalt. Bulldog wasn’t far away, crouched and ready, waiting for his turn, knuckle tape nice and bloody. Founder leaned on his old silver cane, watching me with narrow gray eyes. Blue, in the air above me, arms folded, watching with that weird look on her face, a mix of frustration and urgency trapped behind her tight lips. And as I straightened, I found Ivan waiting in the wings, hammer on his shoulder, sweat glistening on his boulder-like shoulders. SurfStorm’s hum of his watery lower body made the ground softly shake every time he slid closer to get a better look. I spat again, then straightened, hurting in places I didn’t think could hurt. I rolled my right shoulder and felt shards of cold pain tear through it. Fuck me, when’s my body ever going to fix this thing? I usually felt better in a couple of days max.
I’d even been sleeping more than I used to! Which wasn’t an accomplishment, I know, but still.
Now wasn’t the time for my body to stop working on all cylinders.
“Shoulder’s still bothering her,” I heard a voice mutter. I glanced behind me, far away into the hangar that most of the eggheads usually watched from with their satellite laptops and clipboards. I heard one of them click their tongue and scribble something down. “We might need to have another look at it. Maybe another restructure.”
“We don’t have time for another one,” someone else muttered. “She’d be out for a month, and—”
“—and we don’t have seconds to spare, yeah, Andy, I know what Kincaid said. I get it. It’s just…”
She can’t fight this way. He didn’t have to say it out loud—I knew what he was thinking.
Valor stopped circling, then faced me dead on, just a few meters away. No sword. She’d probably gut me in the state I was in. So all of this was down to hand-to-hand. She was quick, and she was violent, and she didn’t waste even a muscle twitch. Each of them was different. Each one of them didn’t know what ‘light sparring’ meant, either.
Because, according to mom, the Silver Age wasn’t about the glitz and the glamor like the Golden Age.
“Sometimes they would come back and quit,” she’d told me a few days ago over breakfast. “I heard enough stories about a couple of them burning their capes, and a lot more stories of their bodies quitting on them in the field. It got so bad at some point that Healers were going for millions, when that number still actually meant it.”
The Unsung Generation, is what a lot of the eggheads called them. The ones who never got their statues or avenues named after them; the guys and the girls who got a single one-page chapter in a history book before every single history teacher across the nation excitedly got to the meaty part that was the Pre-Golden Age and then Zeus.
“Wait,” I panted, wincing and grabbing my ribs. I leaned forward, my other hand on my thigh. “Just—”
Valor said, “Rylee, the Empire won’t give you a time out. They won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Warhammer folded his mighty arms and rested his hammer on the ground, shaking it. “Now fight.”
“My arm’s fucking killing me,” I said through my teeth, almost angry. “Just give me a sec, alright?”
Valor attacked me anyway, so light on her feet she was a flash of golden braces and a foot that quickly and violently found the side of my skull. The world blurred. I spun around and stumbled, tasting blood rush up my throat. I heard the skid of her feet on the asphalt, heard her muscles tense as she lunged toward me again. I tried to block. Got a shot in the gut for that. I tried not to double over, and for my troubles, got my legs swept from under me. I hit the ground hard. And rolled away fast before she could bring her foot down and crater the hot concrete.
“What the fuck was that?!” I snapped, gasping on my hands and knees. “You could’ve killed me!”
“Earth is going to die, Rylee,” Valor said loudly. Her voice echoed. Silence lingered. I listened to my heart, to the air rattling up and down a throat full of sticky blood. She waved around her and said, “And you chose to run away for some much needed me time, so whilst you were out there doing God knows fucking what, we were all here with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for you to come back.” She got closer, then crouched, blocking the sun from stinging my face, but now I had to look at her through the sweat flooding my eyes. I winced. She tensed her jaw and dropped her voice. “I know it’s hard. I know how it feels for the world to sit on your shoulders and for your knees to buckle. We all know that, because we’ve all saved the world before. But we can’t anymore, Rylee, because our time has come and gone, and it’s your turn to step up to the plate.” She panted a little, watching me carefully with those hard, impenetrable eyes. Then she stood, and offered me a hand. “I need you to keep trying, because if you don’t, Rylee, then we might as well all give up and wait for Earth to get conquered by people who see all of us as lesser. And trust me, I know what that feels like. I know how angry that can make you. But anger without discipline, anger without determination, is misguided hate masquerading as a just cause. So I need you to get up and focus, Rylee.”
I clenched my jaw, spat more saliva out of my mouth, then grabbed her hand to pull myself up.
“You’re capable of so much,” Valor said, hands on her hips, chest rising and falling, “so live up to it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I panted, stepping back from her. “Have you seen what an adult Arkathian can do?”
“Yeah,” Bulldog said, popping a sunflower seed into his mouth. “The bastards can kill you pretty easily.”
“Way to go for the words of encouragement,” I muttered.
SurfStorm nudged him. “Come on, man.”
“What?” he said quietly. “She asked a question and I answered it.”
“Again,” Valor said. I chewed my tongue and watched her step back. I didn’t move. I stared at her, and she stared at me, just like the rest of them did. The sun slowly dried the blood onto my lips. She straightened, and the tension building in her shoulders slipped away. She sighed and said, “Fuck. Fine. We’ll take the rest of the day off.”
Blue Angel sighed from her nose and vanished into the sky, heading back to Washington with a soft sonic boom that shot a hole through the clouds above us. Warhammer shook his head and picked up the large block of concrete with a grunt and a tight frown, followed by SurfStorm dissipating into a misty puddle that sunk through the cracks in the ground. The last to leave were Founder and Bulldog, who only moved when Valor jerked her chin. Founder, as usual, dipped his red bowler hat at me, followed by Bulldog, who heavily patted me on the back and gave me a fistful of sunflower seeds to apologize for the shoulder he popped out of my socket barely an hour ago.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
And, finally, it was just Valor and I on the blazingly hot runway, staring at one another.
“What?” I asked her, almost spitting the word. “Am I not good enough for you?”
She massaged her brow, then said, “I never said that, Rylee.”
“Olympia,” I said. “We’re not close enough for you to call me that.”
“I’m trying to help you,” she said flatly.
“You’re kicking the shit out of me because you’re mad I left without reporting back to you, as if I need to tell everyone where I’m going to be every single time I go to the bathroom. So just get off my ass, why don’t you?”
“Because you’ve got a responsibility, not just to yourself, but to everyone on this planet.”
“I know that!” I snapped. Pain. I flinched and held my ribs. I cursed quietly. “I know that. But would it kill you guys to just give me a second to breathe? You don’t even let me send emails or texts back to Rebecca and Bianca. I’m not even allowed to watch the news. I’ve got no freaking clue what’s going on in New Olympus right now, so I’m sorry if I’m a little distracted Valor, but my shoulder’s really fucked and I’m starting to lose my shit.”
She put up her hands and said, “Alright, alright, you know that I’m not here to be your enemy. I’m sorry.”
A warm gust of wind. More blood crusting on my lips. I massaged my shoulder and muttered, “Whatever.”
“Is that what’s on your mind?” she asked me, getting closer. “New Olympus and that girl?”
“I’ve been saving New Olympus longer than I’ve been saving the world,” I said quietly. “And Bianca cared about me way before the world even started to look at me twice. So…yeah. I guess so. I’m just distracted right now.”
She folded her arms, sweat glistening along her toned biceps. “It’s protocol to keep everything here—”
“Gods, I fucking know that,” I said hotly. “It doesn’t make it any more fun to stomach, does it?”
Valor quietly sighed. “No,” she breathed. “I guess it doesn’t.”
She let the silence sit between us so long that sweat built up along my brow and slid down the back of my neck. I glanced at the hangar, where a bunch of people in loose lab coats and the Silver Age Capes were having a hushed debrief. I tensed my jaw and dropped my hand from my shoulder, then kicked gravel away and turned to walk. I didn’t know where I was going, or who I was going to see, but I figured it would be a little easier to cool off.
But before I could leave, Valor said, “You know, Olympia, I was your age when the government told me I didn’t look like a superhero.” I stopped several feet away from her and glanced over my shoulder. “I was eighteen, maybe nineteen, I can’t really remember, but we had this event in Washington to sell war bonds and advertise the United Hero Program to everyone who wanted to join, and…” She sighed, tensed her jaw, and it took a moment for her to continue, and when she finally did, it came out clipped. “Some White House rep tapped my shoulder and said, ‘We think you’ll be better off on the front lines,’ and I thought hell, sure, they’re probably right. I hated the speeches and the interviews and those stupid talk shows. I was an action girl first, just like my dad always said. Except they brought some blonde chick out dressed up in my costume, and they clapped for her. They cheered and they whistled, and I stood there and I watched them call her my name.” She unfolded her arms. “I hate this country sometimes, Olympia. I really do. They threw medals at me and sealed my lips with contracts, and the day my dad died, he spat on my Medal of Honor and told me I should know my worth. So let me ask you something, what’s your worth, kid?”
I couldn’t meet those eyes. Too hard, too staring, too sharp. I shrugged, a tiny movement. “I dunno.”
Valor stared at me, chewed her tongue, then said, “Behind Peacemaker, Patriot, Blue Angel and Zeus, I’m the most decorated Cape in this country, and I melted each one of those medals, sold them for scrap, and drank myself into a hole. You know where I’ve been for the past twenty odd years, Olympia?” I shook my head, still gently massaging my ribs. “Drunk. Stupidly drunk. Bouncing from one motel to the next, looking for something to give me worth again. I’m hard on you because I needed someone to be hard on me, but I never listened, because I won. I won and I got all of the applause, so I thought everything was great.” She pointed at you. “I won’t let you squander your talent and your grit and your goddamned superpowers. I’ll ask this again before I get violent, what’s your worth, Olympia?”
“I’m a superhero,” I said, body tense, tongue flat. “And my responsibility is to save the world.”
“But a part of you hates the world, doesn’t it? You loathe almost everyone on it, right?”
I clenched my jaw but said nothing.
She spread her arms. “Then either you’re going to fight the Empire out of spite, or you’re doing this hoping to get something from the same people who sometimes want you dead, and trust me, they’ll whistle and they’ll cheer, and they’ll build floats of you and drag them through every city on the planet, and for just a brief second, Rylee, you will be immortal. Until the applause stops, and they ship out someone else who they'll like more than you. But…right, they already did that, didn’t they? They cloned you. They cloned your dad. They cloned Cleopatra and they’ll make so many more of them to replace you, so know your fucking worth and fight like you’re worth something to someone, even if it's just to yourself. You deserve it, kid.”
“Then why did you fight?” I asked, almost bitterly. “Why did you even bother when they replaced you?”
“Because my dad was watching, and so were my sisters, my mom, and the airman I fell in love with. I fooled myself into thinking they’d put me on posters eventually, that they’d actually let me speak up for once in meetings. That, someday, I’d get my very own statue, just like Peacemaker, just like Patriot, that they’d see me for once. They didn’t.” She fixed me with a hard, unblinking look. “Please don’t waste your potential chasing approval from people who think you’re nothing more than a cog in their machine, some tool they can use to defeat their evils. You’re more than that. So much more. So I am begging, please, just keep sparring with me for five more minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I can’t keep up with you,” I muttered, then spread my arms. “You’ve got me beat, and I’m tired.”
“Kayana and I don’t talk much anymore, and she told me that you were stubborn, but also driven.” She rolled her shoulders, then bounced on her feet. “I want to see what Zeus’ kid is made of, so c’mon, humor me, Goldie.”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Or I can just walk out of here.”
“Get me onto one knee, and I’ll twist Kincaid into letting you call Bianca.”
I paused, then pointed at her. “That’s not fair. You know what you’re doing.”
She smiled. “Is it working?”
I spat saliva, knowing very well I should be above this by now, but…I was unfortunately not above the idea of hearing Bianca’s voice again, so my fists went up, my shoulders got rolled, and I clenched my jaw tight.
Valor darted forward. I stepped back and blocked a fake, then felt her fist slam into my gut. I coughed and back peddaled, fighting dizziness and a sprite of vomit in my mouth. I breathed hard, watched her move and step and try to catch onto whatever rhythm she was moving at—but she wouldn’t let me, because she swept my legs from under me with a hook to my ankles. I dropped, then used my flight to flip off the ground and into a crouch.
When I looked up, Valor was standing above me, making a finger gun in my face. She had one eye closed, and made a quiet bang sound with her mouth. “Dead,” she said, then offered me a hand. I grunted and stood up on my own. “You’re heavy on your feet when you’re on the ground. I guess you’re used to barreling through anyone in your way, but that won’t work anymore, not at this level. Watch my feet.” She bounced up and down, her thick braids bouncing against her spine and toned shoulders. Balls of her feet, then the tips of her toes. She moved easily, swiftly, feet skidding on the asphalt. She rolled her hand. “Up and down, c’mon. Toes. Heels. Move. Heels. Toes. Move.” I tried. Failed miserably when I was off rhythm. She laughed and urged me to try again. And again. Until I was hopping beside her, panting lightly as I shadowed her up and down and left and right darting movements. “Good,” she breathed, still moving. “Now, this is a question I need you to get right: why are you bad at defence?”
Pfft. Easy. “Because the best kind of defence is a really good—”
She swiped my legs out from under me. I hit the ground. Again. I grunted and cursed quietly.
“Wrong,” Valor said, still bouncing on her toes. “Save that shit for the movies. There's no difference in offence and defence except excuses. Fighting is dynamic. I strike, you dodge, and at least you know you’re meant to keep moving, but you don’t read me. You’re static. Your first thought is, I’ve gotta hit her, and not, What’s the best way to do it?” She stopped moving, then offered me a hand. I took it grudgingly this time. “Watch my hips and my feet, not my hands, because fists never tell you anything until they’re in your jaw. Fighting stance, your default, let’s see it.”
My shoulder was on fire and the tarmac was vomiting heat, and now Em and Grant and Michael were also in the hangar, watching from afar. I ignored them and pulled my hair into a ponytail, then squared my feet and put up my fists. Valor walked slowly around me, then stopped in front of me. “Jab,” she said, and I threw two. She folded her arms and said, “Right hook, left uppercut.” Done. Basic drills that Lucas forced into my head years ago.
Valor stepped back and said, “Jab, right hook, jab, kidney shot. Give it to me.”
I frowned. Her guard wasn’t up. “Right now? You do know I can put my fist through you, right?”
She shrugged. “If the alcohol didn't get me, I doubt you will either. Throw ‘em.”
So I did, and didn’t even get close to touching her.
Valor darted to my right and shook her head. “Too slow, too rigid, too focused on hurting me. You want someone to feel pain? Make everything count. You twist your hips too much, throw yourself too energetically into each swing, like you’re trying to take a chunk out of someone any chance you can get.” She mirrored me, hands up, feet squared, then slowly ran through each jab, right hook, jab and kidney shot I’d just tried to attack her with. “See?” she asked me. “My core is tight, my hips are loose, and my feet follow the rhythm that is you. Your feet in a fight have one goal: move around your opponent, get to them, get away from them. Easy. Your hips decide what you’re going to throw. Your shoulders shouldn’t over-extend. Your shoulders and your back give you either the win, or they’re going to be the reason older Arkathians see every single thing you’re going to throw two days before you ever do. We’re superhumans, we think faster, our adrenaline dumps are more potent. Use it.” She paused, then grinned at me, almost wolfishly. “I’ve just had an amazing idea, one that you are very much going to hate.”
I put my arms down, sweat streaking down my spine. “Should I be worried that you’re excited?”
She swung her arm around my shoulders and leaned in close. “Definitely, because you’re about to learn how to meditate.” I groaned and tried to pull away. She kept me in place with a soft twist of her knuckles in my ribs. “Oh, cheer up. Besides, you’ve got too much pent up emotion for your own good. You’re a jagged sword, and I’m going to sharpen you into something even more gorgeous. Kayana was the same, except she went off and almost conquered a sub-content at your age, and that’s my fault for focusing all of her emotions into one, hate-filled place.” I stared at her. She stared at me, then put on a smile and patted my back. “I hope you’re ready for what might just be the toughest part of your young superhero life yet: coming to terms with who you really are as a person.”
“I want to opt-out, can I do that?”
“No, you cannot.”
“And what about my phone call? Do I still get that?”
“No, you do not.”
I tried to take a cheap shot at her kidney. She spun me around and quickly swiped my legs out from underneath me. I sprawled on the ground, exhausted, sweaty, panting and aching. Valor stood over me, hands on her hips as she shook her head. I winced as I looked up, the sun shining bright above her head. “Cozy down there?”
I spat saliva and flipped her off, then let my cheek rest on the asphalt. “You’re an asshole.”
Valor crouched and helped me up. “Heard it all before, Goldie. Kayana used to call me fuck-face.”
Slowly, painfully slowly, she helped me shuffle toward the hangar, but that felt like miles away.
“Cleopatra used to call you that?” I asked her. I can’t even imagine her swearing.
“Like I said.” Valor shrugged. “Angry, vengeful kid. Reminds me of someone.”
“Yeah, I wonder who,” I muttered. “She must’ve turned out to be a pretty great superhero, huh?”
Valor smiled. “Trust me, Goldie. Saving the world is a piece of cake. Waking up everyday so you’re ready to do it? Not so much.” We stopped walking. She looked down at me. “Give us a chance to help you, and we won’t let you down, because the world’s already done that to us plenty. From one Silver Age hero to the next, kiddo, this won’t be fun, but hey, when you’re old and in my shoes some day, you, too, can also inflict pain on the next generation in the name of hard love.” She patted my bad shoulder. I flinched. “Woops! Sorry. I forgot. Lunch is on me today.”
“Lunch is free down here.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” she said. “Now let’s get you ready for your afternoon session.”
“It just never ends, does it?” I sighed, struggling to stay on my feet.
“That’s the price of being a superhero,” Valor said. “It never ends until it does.”
“What does that even mean? Of course it ends when it does.”
She shook her head. “You’ll get it when you’re older. Now stop dragging your feet and get moving, we’ve got a world to save and a pain in the neck to get into universe-saving shape. Onward and upward, Olympia.”
Hip-hip-fucking-hurrah.
