“Class is starting soon,” the emerald-eyed girl remarked. She regarded the situation with pursed lips and an overall demeanor that said nothing was worth taking seriously. “Yeesh, this is a serious-looking discussion.”

“It is,” the girl who was supposed to be guarding the door said. “You ought to get to class.” She placed a hand on the intruder’s shoulder, tightening into an uncordial grip.

The emerald-eyed girl’s response was to bend over and sneeze.

“Oh… I’m sorry, excuse me,” she said. She sneezed again.

The others in the washroom glanced at each other in confusion. Then they too felt that tickle in their noses. Their eyes began to water. The washroom soon filled with the sounds of sneezing. Half-blinded by tears that felt like the touch of onions, Amelia was led away by the pull of her hand. When she managed to blink away the moisture she had been far removed from that dreadful place.

“Don’t worry, it’s just spores. It’s not really toxic.”

“Who are you?” Amelia asked apprehensively. She pulled her hand away.

“I’m Penny Ficus. I’m in your class.”

“Right, well, your subtlety was unnecessary. I did not need help in that situation.”

Penny placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “Did you not see the pretentious name on the front door? This is a ‘collegiate’, ‘cuz ‘middle school’ doesn’t sound good enough. Policy here is appropriately austere. If you get into one kerfuffle you’re out.” She mouthed the word ‘expelled’ silently, then added, “Unless your parents are rich and from here, that is.”

Amelia simply turned away and began to leave.

“But you knew that,” Penny said, keeping pace. “You seem like a diligent girl who’d know the rules.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Okay, but it’s really obvious so you might as well get it off your chest eventually…” The voice trailed away from distance; Penny had indeed stopped following at the request.

Amelia hated it here. The people were hypocritical, mean-spirited. Now add strange to the list. Specifically, nosy. She carried on with her day, arriving to class a minute late and receiving a stern ‘tut-tut’ from the teacher that lasted longer than her absence. She continued her studies normally: reciting heroic history better than the natives, holding her indomitable place in the martial arts period, achieving high rankings in mathematics despite the wildly illogical measurement system, et cetera. Life as usual. It would not be until the weekend—as she laid on her bed removed from that constricting school uniform—that she realized she had not thought about engineering an escape in several days.

She replayed how that washroom fight would have gone. One of those girls would throw a punch—a bad one. Amelia would fight back, and the evidence would clearly put her out to be the villain. It would have been their word against hers. They would be removed of her, and she would be forced to return home. Win-win. But that would not have made the family proud.

Amelia sighed.

The following Monday noon she found that gregarious girl lunching by herself atop a grassy knoll on the school’s land. Amelia found herself staring. What was her name? Penny. Right. The girl was as sullen as night when alone. In moments such as those there was a nobility about the way she carried herself that was not obvious under her words and mannerisms. Perhaps the veneer was on purpose.

Maybe that was what Amelia had been missing. She walked up and sat down.

“My name is Amelia,” she said, “and… thank you.”

Penny turned her head and smiled knowingly.

“No prob.”

--

The shattered superstructure creaked. Trails of dust fell like heavy sand. Amelia leaned into the supports they had created so her full strength could be used. Thick vines intertwined white silk stronger than carbon steel formed a ceiling, while her four arms formed the pillars. Above, roughly forty floors of rubble bore down on their blister of air, a transient pocket in the pile of destruction.

“That whoreson,” Amelia uttered through grit teeth. That blasted telekinetic tore down the building they were in as an attack against that living glacier woman.

“We really do just get in their way.”

“Do not talk,” Amelia said. “Stop empowering your vines. Save your strength.”

Penny coughed into her hand. The air was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. The burn was worse in Amelia’s arms. She adjusted her stance, only to feel the weight above shift, loosening more dust into their chamber. Penny coughed again, harder this time.

“It has stopped, right?” Amelia asked. “Just nod.”

Penny nodded and patted the patch of plant matter she had fused with her stomach.

“They will know,” Amelia said. “They must know we are under here. M.A.G.E would never allow casualties to occur.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Shut up. I am serious.”

“Remember when we went to the mall all those years ago? Days after we met?”

“Stop.”

“Same day the sky fell.”

“Penny…”

The more Penny talked, the quieter she became. Not that her voice did not remain perfectly audible.

“Here we are again. Guess that’s the danger of living in the big city-” A cough. “-Not even earthquakes are that big of a deal in the countryside.”

“Penny, please, quiet.”

“Ever wonder if our way of life just creates a bunch of problems for ourselves? And then we congratulate the next generation when they solve it for us. Must be nice to be a hero where you’re from. Fighting monsters and easy to understand villains.”

Creaks sounded all around them. But not from Amelia’s chitin. She did not know what could break her skin. She could probably have let go and dug herself out. That however was not an option.

“We will get out of this,” Amelia said. “We will not be beat by this ridiculous game.”

“Do you ever wonder how this is supposed to be make us better heroes?” Penny asked. Then she said nothing else.

Amelia glared. Time beached and crawled. Upon inspection, she saw the slow rising and falling of Penny’s chest. Amelia breathed. The seconds could flow again.

“Any moment now,” she said to herself.

--

Lyssa ran. Her gifts, she used them all. Anything to get her closer to the action. She entered the city in a blur of motion, only stopping when her heart threatened to seize. Nearing her limit, her muscles locked, the force-fire abated and the pressure manipulating dark mist of her twitchwalk vanished. She fell to her knees in the middle of a main road. Empty buildings flanked her, convincingly real structures that look as though they were once occupied. The only occupants here now where the giants who had revealed themselves. Further down the road, mountains of ice shot up in tectonic magnitudes, only to be shattered by warbling waves of invisible force. Cold air wafted towards her, chilling the entire street. The announcers watching above cheered from their unreachable seats.

From down below, all Lyssa could see was destruction. When ice met telekinetic blast again, a huge wave of white froth exploded forth. It crashed down onto the roads, spreading in all directions, as if God had decided to begin another flood at the exact location. Except this was not water, but a sleet of liquid nitrogen and dry ice flakes. The wave rushed towards her as the voices within screamed for control.