“Nice of you two to finally decide to join us,” Olympia said, arms folded as we landed in the clearing we’d found them in. Pillars of stone, old skyscrapers missing their windows with nothing except old rebar and bent piping and loose wires, trucks, cars, the lot of it littering the large, dusty space. It was a warzone, almost a garbage dump of carnage and rot from years of the Conquest being fought and nearly lost in this reality. The group was all sat on piles of cinder blocks and cars, sweating and wet, exhausted to the point that none of them could look upward.

  The sun hung in the sky above us, like some god wanting to check out how Earth had been doing lately, doing nobody at all any favors. My skin prickled just being here, using my powers. I itched all over, with my shoulders beginning to peel after I’d made a vest out of my t-shirt. Actress, the poor girl, was having the hardest time of it. She’d finished everything she could puke and was now busy spitting saliva and smearing her lipstick on the back of her hand, wiping it away. Her hair was a mess. The products in it crackling and hardening her thick hair.

  At least Quarterback was there rubbing her back, giving her the most encouragement.

  And for someone who supposedly fought monsters in her reality almost every day, she was ridiculously unfit. She reminded me of myself when I was starting out, exhausted on a whim and nearly passing out in minutes.

  Maybe all those villains she fights are paid actors, too, I thought.

  “Got lost,” I said, shrugging as I landed softly on the dirt. “Plus it’s damn hot today, too. Slowed us.”

  “It tends to get this hot when you buckle to the demands of the Arkathian Empire,” she said, coolly. “Which I’m trying to make sure doesn’t happen, because that’s the easy way out, and none of us does ‘easy.’”

  Quarterback spat saliva onto the dirt, then knuckled his chin. He’d removed his costume today, and was down to his jeans, with his white band t-shirt around his neck instead. “I feel like my body is gonna catch fire.”

  “I feel like I’m gonna die,” Actress moaned quietly, head hanging and her leather jacket around her waist. “Does anybody have some ice water they’d want to give me? I swear, the one time I need that intern to do her job.”

  Glasses remained silent, standing with her hands clasped in front of her. No sweat. No panting. Just a slight redness in her cheeks, as if she was embarrassed that the rest of us were sounding like dying dogs in summer heat.

  “That,” Olympia said, “is exactly what I wanted you to feel. That stinging sensation on your skin is your body trying to generate more, in very, very simple terms, bio-electricity, or the golden stuff we emit. The more that happens, the more powerful we become. Right now, your senses are more acute than they’ve probably ever been for some of you.” She looked at me. “For others, your body is just about getting used to this kind of abuse, because it’s not the first time it’s been pushed that hard. But it’s not about the impact of the workout, but the duration of it. We build strength through endurance, not the one-hit fights we usually get ourselves into. Scraps with supervillains for our bodies are like a light jog for a human. Good, sure, but if you want to get better, you need to start sprinting.”

  “So,” Suits said, shooing Actress so she could sit on the same stack of bricks. “We’re stronger now?”

  “For the next few minutes, yes. That’s why if you’ve ever been in a tight spot, it quite literally feels like you’re able to do more than you previously could in any situation. You won’t notice it at the time, because you’re pretty busy trying not to die, but the feats you perform are more than what you’re normally capable of doing. You’ll be faster, stronger, your brains will process things to an infinitely more finite degree than it usually can. The pay off is usually that, since we’re not full blooded Arkathians, we’re gonna shut down eventually. We need the rest to let our bodies stop from advancing. We go at it for too long, and our body starts to break down, fighting against our more human cells, and the genes that mom passed down to us. So yes, eat that pizza and watch that tv show at least once in a blue moon. You’ll be better off for it. If you just keep pushing yourself, you’ll one day just keel over.”

  “Question,” Quarterback said, wiping sweat off his face. “So we’re all gonna chill out now, right?”

  “Wrong,” she said, grinning. “Here comes the hand-to-hand scenarios that build muscle memory.”

  We all groaned.

  “Quit your whining and focus on why you’re doing this in the first place.” She gestured around us at the nearly two kilometer wide expanse of destruction. “This is going to be your playground for the next two days.”

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  “Two days, as in, with breaks in between, right?” I asked her. The others nodded for an answer.

  “No,” she said. “Two days, as in, that’s your time limit. No breaks. No rest. Only if you win.”

  “I should’ve just stayed at home instead of gone to that freaking party,” Actress muttered. “This sucks.”

  “I’m sorry,” Suits said. “Win?”

  “Yep,” Olympia said. “Here are the rules. Somewhere behind me, I’ve hidden a strip of red cloth. It could be anywhere, so look very carefully, and work as a team.” Well, that sounds easy enough. “But in the meantime, I’ll be trying to stop you from finding it. The rules of engagement are nothing. No rules. Broken limbs will just have to heal in record time. Just no killing, that’s off limits. But when you do find the piece of cloth, and here’s my favorite part, you’re gonna have to take it to the other end of this crater, where you’ll have to find a blue strip of cloth. Once you do that, you win. But if you don’t do that in the span of two days, we’ll take an hour’s rest, and then try again.”

  She’s freaking insane if she thinks I’m doing that!

  “Sounds easy enough,” Suits muttered.

  I folded my arms. “Just don’t slow the rest of us down.”

  “We all clear on the rules?” Olympia asked.

  Glasses raised her hand timidly. Olympia waved at her to continue. “How, um, how do we defeat you?”

  “Easy,” she said, hands on hips and shrugging. “You either knock me out, tire me out, or make me yield.”

  “I feel like this is a little unfair,” Quarterback muttered.

  “Yeah, it is,” Olympia said. “One girl against all of you? It should be a cakewalk for you guys. Go team!”

  We all stared at her, most of us with chins resting on palms, the rest of us with folded arms.

  Actress put her hand up lazily. “Uh, question? I thought we’d be, like, fighting. This isn’t that.”

  “It’s training,” she explained. “This’ll be important for you guys in the next few months in your realities. But that’s if you don’t get pulled away by Thirteen any second now. We don’t have time to waste, not when we’re at his mercy. I’ve got to train you in a time span I don’t even know about, so the next two days have an asterisk to them. Try to get the flag. Hell, just focus on doing everything about getting the red flag and putting me down, even if it means you’ve got to be selfish and get some of you hurt just to make sure you get one piece of cloth to the next. I’m not gonna go easy on you, because the day you’re facing someone like me, it won’t be flags you’re trying to capture, and they won’t be holding back. I won’t kill you, but the person you’ll go up against will definitely try.” Her smile waned, then entirely vanished. “For some of you, he’s gonna succeed, and you’ll be as good as dead.”

  That made us all straighten up a little more. Mouths dry and back wet with sweat, but paying attention.

  “Good luck,” she said, smiling softly. “This might be the last time any of you see each other. Remember, this is all to protect Bianca, Ben, and the world. Defeat me here, and trust me, you’ll live to see your next b’day.”

  “What happens if we don’t defeat you?” Quarterback asked quietly.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “It’ll hurt. A lot.”

  “Mind telling us who exactly is gonna be gunning to kill us in a scenario like this?” Suits asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Olympia said. “Besides, telling you wouldn’t matter, because as I see it right now, you’re not ready, but you have to be at the end of these two days. If you vanish before that, make the most of this time that you have amongst people just like you. Fight hard. Don’t hold back. Believe in yourself.”

  Her words hung in the air as she smiled at each of us. Suits and I glanced at one another, at those bright blue eyes that burrowed into each one of our chests, as if she could see which one of us had the heart to do what was coming next. My mouth was dry. My heart had found its normal resting rhythm already. She’s being dead serious.

  Suits looked at me and tapped her nose, probably thinking what I was thinking.

  This was gonna be nearly impossible. She was built, gene by gene, to be better than all of us.

  But the others are gonna find that out by themse—

  It happens so quickly that it almost looks slow. She’s in front of Riley in a split second, her fist smashing into his mouth before he even gets the chance to say anything more. It warps, breaks, shoots several teeth right out of his maw and sends them ricocheting off metal and stone. Then he’s gone, spiralling through the sky like a bullet screaming into the wind. Suit stands. I stop leaning against an old car. Olympia flexes her fist, eyes arctic blue as she looks at the four of us. Her shadow is long against the dirt, a deep, jagged scar that moves as she makes a fist and stares us down. She rolled her shoulders and tensed her jaw, eyes moving over each of us until she focused on me and me alone. “Well,” she said, turning to face us. “Let’s see which one of you is cut out to save the world.”