Grandma Thalia brought Pip straight to the Tower of Unity at the heart of New Denver. It was far from the first of the towers, but it was one of the largest, in part because it was the first built in a brand new city, after old Denver was destroyed. Pip had been to the tower hundreds of times throughout her childhood, and it never quite got old.

  Walking in there with Thalia was a whole new experience, however.

  The bustling, busy lobby of the Tower of Unity froze, eyes going wide as Thalia strode through the front doors. Not every super went public with their identity, but Thalia was known by everyone, looking every bit the same as she had the past sixty years. Even the hero currently attending the lobby, helping people out and ensuring peace, stopped, mouth dropping open.

  Of course, this was the reason Thalia had walked through the front door rather than going in the back. She loved making an entrance.

  “The kid and I are going down,” Thalia said, nodding at Pip at her side, standing awkwardly beside her like a small child at a family reunion.

  “Oh, yes, of course ma’am. Uh, hero. Uh.”

  “Sir is fine,” Thalia said, brushing past him. “Want to let us down?”

  “Yes sir,” he said, rushing past her to get to the elevator first, opening it up and allowing them inside. It didn’t matter that Thalia could have opened up the elevator herself. It was the principle of the thing.

  Left alone in the elevator, Thalia pressed a button and began their descent. Gears whirred and buttons blinked as they went down, down, down, deep into the earth. Unable to hold still, Pip shifted from her toes to her heels and back again, waiting for them to reach the bottom.

  Unable to take it any longer, the question came bursting out of Pip. “Who am I fighting?” Would Thalia give her a hint? If she knew who she was fighting, she’d be able to make a plan for how to deal with them. Perhaps that defeated the point, but it was always so fun to be able to go through a dozen different possibilities and choose the best possible route for a fight. And it had been so long since she’d had a good fight.

  “The kid of a friend of mine,” Thalia said, glancing down at her as the elevator came to a halt. They moved out into a long, high ceiling hallway, Pip practically sprinting to keep up with her grandmother’s lengthy stride. “Looking to go into the program next year, like you. Depending on where you end up, you could be classmates.”

  “What’s their power?” Pip asked. The further they walked, the more her energy grew, ready to tear apart the aspiring hero. In a good way, of course. In the way they surely wanted to do the same to her. Battle and see who was stronger, smarter, faster. See who could come out victorious. “How good are they? What’s their style? Control? Summons? Close combat? Ranged? I want to know what type of fight I’m getting into!”

  Casting her a bemused glance, Thalia answered. “A pyrokinetic,” she said. “And he already knows you’re a glasskinetic-summoner, so this isn’t a leg up on your end. You’ll fight each other on the same footing.”

  “Well, that’s fair,” Pip said, though she couldn’t help but think that her grandmother should have given her a hint or two. They were family, after all. Pip was her granddaughter! Didn’t she want her to succeed?

  “Don’t sulk,” Thalia said sharply. “This is meant to be a challenge, Pip. Get in there and kick his ass.” She pushed open a door and stepped aside, forcing Pip to take the first step.

  The training arenas in the Tower were familiar, much like the training ground at home, though with heat-resistant rubber flooring instead of sand. A marked circle, more like an oval, was painted across the floor, incrementally smaller circles stacked inside. Depending on what parameters you chose for the training session, monitors throughout the room would watch the white lines and count you as out if you crossed them.

  Standing in the smallest circle, barely more than six feet in length, was a boy. Tall and lithe, narrow from hip to shoulders and even down to his face, with a long nose and sharp eyebrows, eyes illuminated by the circlet of fire he manipulated between his hands.

  The fire vanished as Thalia closed the door with a solid clunk. His eyes flitted between Thalia and Pip, standing just outside the widest white border, before a smile flickered across his face. One corner of his lips curled upward, turning the smile into a smirk.

  “Aren’t you just adorable? You must be my adversary.” He stepped out of the smallest circle with a long stride, reaching out a hand. “Florence.”

  Bristling at his tone, Pip had to force herself to reach up and shake his hand. “Pip,” she said. His skin was unnaturally warm, prickling against her palm as she shook it. He pulled back, unphased, and looked across the room at Thalia.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

  “Ma’am is unnecessary,” Thalia said. “Wide circle set, no lethal blows. I will interfere if either of you go too far. Winner buys me a drink later.”

  “I’m not old enough to drink,” Pip said.

  At the same time, Florence spoke. “So long as you look the other way about my ID, you’ve got a deal.”

  Thalia walked across the room, where a control panel arched out from the wall. She sat down behind it, then looked up to lock eyes with the pair. “In the ring,” she ordered.

  Not needing to be told twice, Pip hopped into the ring, taking her stance near the edge of the ring. She dug her feet into the hard rubber flooring, checking her traction in the sneakers she’d worn to the soccer field. That was okay enough, she wouldn’t slip and fall.

  Across from her, Florence stepped back into the center ring. Why wasn’t he on the far end of the ring? He stretched up tall, but didn’t reposition his body, arms hanging long at his sides, feet close together. What was he doing?

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  Uncomfortable, Pip flexed her hands. She couldn’t summon yet, not until Thalia gave the cue. But she’d be ready the moment that cue went out. Something was off about Florence, and she wouldn’t get caught off guard by him.

  He was too confident. She could work with that.

  “Because I’m curious,” he called out, voice clear as day. “How long have you been training? It’s not often I get to fight a legacy like myself.”

  With a loud beep, the sensors came online, and the countdown began.

  “Since I was six,” Pip called out, leaning into a slight crouch. She needed to be ready to spring at a moment’s notice. “You?”

  Beat by beat, they came closer to the start.

  “Seven,” he said, shrugging his shoulders casually. “I was a late bloomer.”

  A gong rang through the sparring room.

  Glass knives formed in Pip’s hands the instant the countdown ended, twisting her body and throwing each knife in turn. Momentum carried down the length of her arm and into the knife as she released, sending them rocketing across the room at the super.

  Flames erupted in all directions, so hot Pip could barely see them, distorting the air. Her knives hit the wall of heat and melted before her eyes, her connection to them sundered.

  Pip took half a step backward, her eyes widening in shock before she realized the flames were moving in on her.

  Florence still hadn’t moved. Was this his tactic? Did he have to focus so much on his flames he couldn’t fight physically?

  I can use that.

  The shield formed in her hand, as easy as breathing. With the shield pressed against her shoulder, she barreled forward, diving through the wall of flames.

  She let out a yelp as the heat burned through her shoes, blistering across the bottom of her feet. Only the protections of the training arena kept her feet from being burnt worse.

  Gritting her teeth through the pain, she continued running, aiming straight for Florence.

  A bead of flame flashed and exploded. Light streaked across Pip’s eyes, the heat enough to make her eyes water. Fuck! She forced her eyes open, tears streaming from them as she fought to get Florence back in view.

  In the moments she’d closed her eyes, he’d vanished.

  She spun around, too slowly, the soles of her feet too sensitive, too hot. A burst of heat and force, like a pocket of built up steam, drove into her skull from behind, sending her staggering forward. She threw herself out of range, diving into a roll and leaving the shield behind. She picked it back up with her power, guarding her back as she cleared the last of the tears from her eyes.

  A burst of flames hit her forearm as she came out of her roll, evading the shield completely. She cried out in pain, pulling her fist up to her chest even as glass formed a protective shell around her arm.

  “If you can do that, why wouldn’t you do it from the beginning?” Florence’s voice came from behind, confusion evident. And that made it all the worse.

  With a shout, she spun to her feet, the length of a blade forming in her hands as she threw herself into a leap aimed at the pyro. Slicing through the air, the blade would cut through anything she connected with, unless she dulled the edge.

  Her eyes locked onto Florence’s as she moved, only she didn’t see fear. She saw elation.

  He lifted his hands to meet the sword.

  The edge of her blade melted as it sliced into Florence. A blow that could have cleaved him in two if she wanted didn’t leave a mark as heat wafted from Florence’s thin form, melting the blade faster than she could enforce it.

  All that remained in her hands was a hilt and the stub of a blade.

  “H-how?”

  Florence gave a big, theatrical wink. “I’m simply hotter than you.”

  “Damn that was a good one,” Pip muttered. It wasn’t fair that he could melt her glass like that, and have whittier lines than her.

  Wait, how was he melting her glass?

  “How are you—” An explosion slammed into her jaw like a fist, solid and connecting perfectly to send pain radiating through her teeth and up across her cheekbone. She dropped back, off balance and disoriented, stumbling to the ground.

  Florence stepped over her, flames dancing around his fists as he prepared for the next strike. “The fight isn’t over until it’s over.”

  “Fuck.”

  A gong sounded through the room as Pip let her head drop back against the floor, letting out a pitiful groan. She pressed her hands over her eyes, burning throbbing across her body, but that wasn’t the worst of it. She’d lost. And not even by the skin of her teeth either. She hadn’t been able to touch him. Hadn’t so much as come close.

  How could she be so far off from him?

  She’d started training before he did. She’d pushed and scrapped and fought, and this was where she ended up? Lying on the floor as her skin burned, unable to touch him, her glass melting before it ever came in contact with him.

  Just how hot did he burn?

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to focus around the pain and the raging fury at herself for falling so far beyond the pack. With an effort, she sent out a soothing energy from her core to the burns, easing them enough to be bearable. She couldn’t heal, not to the extent some could, but she had enough control over her core to sustain herself until she could get to a healer.

  She just didn’t have enough to beat him.

  Opening her eyes, she found Florence still staring at her. He reached down a hand, palm open for her to take it. She ought to smack it away, tell him she didn’t need the help.

  With a sigh, she slapped her hand into his and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Pip stared at him, eyes watering once more as she fought against the screaming rage building up in her chest. She’d lost. She hadn’t lost in years. Not to anyone but her mother, but Athena was a hero, so it was different, wasn’t it? She shouldn’t be so far behind the pack, she shouldn’t be unable to touch him, unable to land a single blow.

  It wasn’t right.

  It wasn’t fair.

  She was better than this. She needed to go again. She would be more prepared this time. That’s all it was, she wasn’t prepared enough.

  “Go again?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  He shook his head. “You’re in pretty rough shape right now, shortstack. And I don’t think it’d do much good either way. You just don’t pose much of a threat.”

  Something inside Pip snapped.

  They were so close. It took nothing for her to grab him by the arm, throwing him into a toss and slamming him back first into the ground. She leapt over him, fist pulled back, glass knuckles forming over her own.

  Let him say she wasn’t a threat now.

  A gauntleted purple hand closed around her arm, hauling her backwards and out of the ring. She whipped around, coming face to face with her grandmother as Thalia moved her effortlessly across the room.

  “Wrong move,” Thalia warned, her voice low. “Is that how you react to losing? You’re going to start throwing punches because you lost a fair fight?”

  “It wasn’t fair—”

  “Yes, it was. As fair as fights amongst our kind get. Strongest wins, smartest wins. That’s fair, Pip. You don’t learn anything by denying that.”

  She glared up at her grandmother, mouth open to protest even as those purple eyes bore into her. They were hard, hard as stone. She’d seen horrors beyond Pip’s comprehension, fought more people than Pip ever would, perhaps more than any hero in the world. There was nothing Pip could say that would mean anything at all to a woman like that.

  Pip’s eyes dropped, staring at the burnt toes of her shoes. Her favorite shoes. Goddamnit, she needed to be better.

  “I need to be stronger.” Pip forced the words out around her teeth, fighting past the lump in the back of her throat.

  “Yes,” Thalia agreed. “You do.”

  The words hit like a slap to the face and she recoiled, unable to stop herself. Had her grandmother just agreed with her?

  “I…”

  “You start by going back out there and talking to that boy,” Thalia ordered, pointing a purple energy finger across the room. “I didn’t bring him here just to look pretty. That boy is the son of one of the smartest tactical minds I’ve ever seen in action. And maybe if you stop throwing a fit, you would learn a thing or two.”

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