Anne closed her locker carefully. Not that anyone would try to interfere with it - not after Andrew’s little performance.

The rest of her classmates were still giving her a wide berth.

No matter. It wasn’t like she had any friends left.

Avra and Shyam had been her best friends. Until they vanished in a blast of green light.

She sighed. Fortunately, there had been one more survivor of their group.

Marty Kimmel had been the fourth of their band. Unlike Avra and Shyam, whom she’d known since kindergarten, Marty had only transferred in a month ago. He’d fast bonded with Shyam, his neighbour, over their shared allergies to pollen. Marty loved to joke that flowers would one day kill him.

On the day of the attack, he’d had an allergy attack - one which had kept him home. And alive.

“I’m telling you,” Marty Kimmel said, “shifters are the best.”

“Marty, nobody cares what type of ultras are the best,” she grumbled. “And not all of us want to debate ultra versus ultra.”

“But seriously! It’s the coolest topic ever.”

“It’s a topic for middle-schoolers. We’re in high school now.”

Marty made a puppy-dog face.

Marty would not give up when he made that face. Either you gave in or the waterworks would start.

She gave in. “All right, we’ll play your stupid game.”

Marty’s expression brightened. “So, we’ll do it old school. You pick the villain, I’ll pick a hero, and we figure out who’d beat who and why.”

She frowned. “Any villain?”

“Any villain.”

“Okay then. Agni.”

“Agni. Elemental, controls fire, named after the Hindu goddess thereof. Hmm. Good choice.” He smiled. “Lafayette.”

“Who’s Lafayette?”

“Summoner. She’s this hero in Lyon who can create a bunch of soldiers from water.”

“Wouldn’t she be an elemental?”

“An elemental controls a particular material or element. A summoner brings creations into existence. You gotta keep the difference straight, Anne.”

Anne sighed. “Agni’s an elemental because she controls fire, right? She can make it go anywhere. Lafayette controls water and can make it flow into shapes.”

“No, she’s a summoner. She can’t make water into any other shape than nineteenth-century Napoleonic soldiers. That means they’re constructs, which means she’s a summoner.”

“Okay. Agni would win because she’d set the entire city on fire.”

“No, Lafayette’s soldiers would douse it in water. Well, they’d basically jump on the fires and douse them.”

“All right then. Lafayette wins.”

“You give in too easily… okay, my turn to pick the next. Vorsai.”

“Who’s Vorsai?”

“Russian villain. Herculean.”

She shrugged. “Morrowstar.”

“Morrowstar?”

“She’s a hero in Scotland. Flyer and ranger.”

“Wait. I’m checking.” Marty flicked through his tablet. “Hey, she can only fly at, like, thirty kilometres per hour. And nothing about her being a ranger.”

“She hurls balls of compressed air at her enemies from a distance. Hits at range, so she’s a ranger.”

“That won’t help against Vorsai. He’s strong enough to stop a train in its tracks. And he can throw stuff at her.”

“Thirty is fast enough to dodge.” She recalled Andrew’s bitter comments about trying to hit moving targets. “The stuff will never hit her. Ergo, it doesn’t matter how much force Vorsai brings to bear - unless it hits she’s fine. And since she can fly, he can’t do anything to her.”

“Yeah, but she can’t do anything to him either. Draw.”

“She can climb up five hundred feet and drop an anvil on his head. At the rate it hits, it’ll make quite an impact.”

“Guided anvils? He’ll dodge.”

“It’ll hit him in six seconds. And she doesn’t need to warn him.”

“Sneak attack! I like. All right, your turn. Villain.”

Anne thought for a moment. “Kesselthear.”

“The African Master?”

“Yeah.”

“Ohh, that’s a tough one. Mind control is hard to beat….. Hmm. Can’t use a flyer or a herculean, inventors with mind-control protection are… limited. Rangers… well, a master would have scouts so a ranger would still get spotted. Ah!” He brightened. “Quintana.”

“Our Quintana?”

“Yep. Shifter. Can change into an invisible form.”

“I know what Quintana’s power is, Marty. She doesn’t have protection against mind control.”

“She doesn’t need it. All she needs is to not be seen. Then she sneaks up to Kesselthear and stabs him in the back.”

“Enough, Marty. My brother’s waiting for me.”

“One last one. Tigerstrike.”

Anne winced. “Difficult.”

“He’s just a shifter, right?”

“He’s a shifter who moves way too fast. There’s people who say he might also be a temporal.”

“Wait, I get that he has wicked tiger claws, but how does that help him make time move faster?”

“Well, that’s the only option that explains how quickly he moves. Or he might be a cognitive and able to predict what his opponent will do in mid-battle.” She thought for a moment. “Gravitic. The way he bends and twists gravity, he could hurl a hundred rocks at Tigerstrike before the man can get out of the way.”

Marty nodded. “Elemental versus shifter - good combo. Think they’d ever fight it out?”

“They don’t usually. Gravitic has his weakness - let Serpentor get close to him and he’s finished.”

Marty winced. “That’s another dangerous shifter. Poison claws is just cheating.”

“And having the head of a cobra makes it worse. Say, Marty, what’s the most dangerous villain for an inventor-cum-herculean to fight?”

“Huh? Which ultra do you know that’s both?”

“Never mind,” Anne shook her head. “It was a stupid question.”

“Umm, no it wasn’t. It’s a pretty good question actually… An inventor is weakest without his equipment, strongest if given time to prepare. Inventors and Masters are the most vulnerable to being surprised. A herculean is strong all the time, so surprising him doesn’t work.” He frowned. “Flyer or ranger - inventors generally have some ranged options. Summoner and shifter are out, either an inventor or a herculean would beat ‘em. Hmm… I guess it would need to be either an Elemental or a Master.”

“Why those two?” asked Anne.

“Herculeans and inventors still follow the laws of physics. An elemental basically makes the laws of physics his playthings. Gravitic just tells gravity what to do, Agni makes fire follow her rules, and the Flying Storm turns the ground you’re standing on into a tornado. That’s what would be hardest for an inventor or a herculean to fight.”

“Okay. And a Master because nobody can resist mind control?”

“Masters don’t just control human minds, you know. Pets. Stray dogs. Cats. Birds. All of these can be used to spy on them. To attack them.”

Anne shivered. “So a master would control birds and send them to follow the inventor or the herculean? Discover their secrets?”

“And then set a trap. If you know what your enemy’s doing, you can set some awesome traps. Wow, that was a good question.”

“What about the other categories? Savants, travellers?”

“No threat to your inventor-herculean. A savant could be the biggest genius on the planet, but all that’s no good if you’re being punched in the face by a giant fighting robot. A traveller can run away from your ultra, but not actually fight them.”

That made sense, thought Anne. Travellers could generate portals between points in space, and transfer people - and objects - instantaneously through them; but it was a really difficult ability to weaponize. Savants were super-smart, but unlike inventors, they gained no futuristic technology advantages. “What about precogs?”

“Precogs are bullshit. You can’t really beat someone who can see the future. Unless you’re strong enough to beat them in every possible future. Hey, do you think Mrs. Harris is a precog?”

“She doesn’t need to be a precog to figure out you aren’t paying attention in class.”