When I said Capes, I mean that in the loosest possible way. These people aren’t your local friendly neighborhood superheroes. In fact, if my mom found out I’m on River St., she’d probably ground me until I’m in a casket. This isn’t a place where two teenage girls go for fun. Not the ones we’re frequently around in school with, anyway. But this is where the most fun happens, down an old boulevard that’s seemingly always under some kind of renovation as the city helplessly tries to stop the ever creeping rot of old concrete and broken glass from spreading too far in.

I don’t trust myself enough to fly with Phoebe in my arms, so I pay for our bus tickets and slide the driver an extra ten bucks to drop us off as far as he’s willing to go down the street. The rest is up to us. The bits of glass we step on and the rusted nails littering the sidewalk blend in with the weeds spilling through long, dreary cracks. We walk with our hands in our pockets, ‘cause you’d just be asking for it from the little kids who run around these parts all day long, chasing after one another with sticks. The adults won’t care about you. Not until you look at them, and then you’re a problem. So me and Phoebe, being smart and all, walk until we come across an old ice cream shop.

The place is a burned out dump surrounded by even worse-looking apartment buildings. Boarded up windows and police tape, but that’s not what we came here for. The midday sun is coming down hard, making the few cicadas alive in the brush along the street chirp and buzz. We walk around the ice cream store, through an alleyway filled with drunks and junkies, until we reach a chain link fence that leads into an opening of beaten down yellow grass, construction equipment overrun with weeds, old tires, and most importantly, a half-sized crowd.

Welcome, whoever’s reading this, to Supe Fights—the greatest fighting league in all of New America.

“Five bucks entry,” a guy grunts, fanning himself with a porn magazine, sitting in the shade of the building not too far away from the fence’s gate. Then he opens an eye, sits up, and flashes a yellow grin. “Ain’t it the dynamic duo. Just the girls I was hoping to come across today. Hey, slide me a ten and I’ll get you into VIP.”

“I’ve heard that one before from the old lady down the street,” Phoebe says. “No means no, Freddy.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t be like that.” He gets off the short stack of bricks he’d been sitting on, seemingly for the entire day so far, and stumbles his way toward us. Freddy is your local know-it-all, and that’s why he’s got half his left ear and a few missing fingers on his right hand. He rolls up the magazine and stuff it down the back of his pants. “Fine. Eight bucks, and I’ll even throw in a premium bag of snacks and VIP seats right next to the fighters.”

“Depends,” I tell him. “Who’s down in the dirt pit today?”

“Iron Mouse and…” He sucks air through his weak teeth, then snaps his fingers. “Jezzabelle.”

I weigh my options. “Sounds like a prelim.”

His eye twinkles. His one good eye, that is. The other is looking somewhere at the alleyway on his left. “Good catch, kid. Big Ben and Skipper are next. Really big fight.” He looks around, then leans in and lowers his voice, meaning that he’s spiked both our interests. “Word is that Big Ben’s got massive money betting on him.”

Massive money, on some back alley Supe fighting championship that not even the cops care to stop?

“What’s the pay out?” Phoebe asks.

Freddy shrugs his bony shoulders. “Nothing for your kinda cash, silver. You’d get peanuts. Bet on Skip.”

I rummage through my pockets and give the guy ten bucks, slowly realizing that my allowance for the week is quickly becoming something of the past. “We’d have better luck betting that Patriot's coming back.”

“Now wouldn’t that be a hell of a gamble.” He unlocks the heavy padlock with a flick of his hand, letting us into the grassy area. We didn’t come with our bags—no point, and too big of a target. But there’s only about a dozen people here right now. Tiny compared to the biggest fights we’ve seen. This place is hallowed ground for Supes who’ve got nothing left to lose except their dignity and their homemade costumes, and we just about catch the end of the Iron Mouse fight when one of his other whacky pieces of low-level toaster-inspired blasters ends up electrocuting him unconscious. There’s a spattering of applause as Jezzabelle puts her heels on the back of his tin foil helmet, fist raised and saggy cheeks puffing in the wind from exhaustion. We find our places on a stack of old cinder blocks, getting a better view over taller people’s heads as a man in a greasy purple suit enters the faint pit.

“What a fight, huh?!” he says. No microphone. There’s, like, fifteen people here. Some of them drunk out of their minds and beaten by the sun into a sleepy daze, just here for the blood sport. “Jezzabelle keeps this up, and she’ll be our women’s champion by the end of the month! Let’s just hope she can keep her clothes on next time.”

She grumbles under her breath as she walks away, following the two guys dragging Iron Mouse out.

“Now!” he says. “We’ve got big talent coming your way to-day! Our men’s heavyweight Bruiser champ is going up against a guy who looks like he sits in the corner and watches his wife…well, there’s kids here, so let’s keep it PG, whaddya say?” There are more than enough kids here. Some younger. Some our age. Doesn’t matter. I’m starting to get goose bumps, and when I look at Phoebe, she looks at me, and there’s this faint smile on her face. Not enough. I know it’s not enough, but we’ll start here and end at her place—I’ve got enough cash to buy her lunch. “In the tire corner, we’ve got five-hundred pounds of British excellence, His Majesty, Big Ben!” Ben is a monster of

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

a dude with forearms nearly as thick as my entire body, and a chest so fuzzy with hair he’s like a grizzly bear. It’s his thing to look like a strongman from a circus, British leotard and thick moustache for the part. He says nothing. Only grins, showing off a line of teeth from just beneath his thick ‘stache. “And now, the other guy! Uh, Skipper, right!”

“Wow,” Phoebe mutters. “Freddy wasn’t wrong. Someone wants Ben winning this.”

“Yeah, but look at the guy he’s facing. Of course he’s gonna win.” No offence to Skipper, but for a guy who looks like a string bean with limbs in a costume straight out of some bad 80s superhero flick, flimsy cowl draping over his eyes and all, he doesn’t stand a chance. His record is a perfect 0-13. He’s meant to be the warm up bout. The guy you beat to get a notch on your record. Him fighting Big Ben feels like a murder just waiting to happen. “But hey, I’m all for an underdog, so—” I call for the guy taking bets, and put another ten on him, then realize that’s all the money I’ve got left. Nuts. Phoebe doesn’t notice, though, and for the better, ‘cause her lunch depends on Skip.

So please, Skipper, I know what I just said about you, but do this for her. I could have held onto that cash and gotten her something for sure, but we’re winners around here, and we live off the adrenaline in our bloodstream.

Get with the times and live a little.

“Gentlemen,” Announcer Guy says. “This is a title bout. So that means anything goes, except for murder, because that’s a can of worms we don’t need dealing with, cool? Awesome. Stay in the ring. Don’t mix in with the crowd, and for the love of God, keep it sanitary! We’re looking at you, sleazy.” He points a finger at Skipper, and the crowd laughs a little as he shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, tugging at his costume where it doesn’t fit too well on his body. Again he adjusts his mask, and again he pulls at his collar. His sweat, though, kinda smells sweet. “Enough chit-chat. We’ve got other stuff to do today! So let’s get this shit going and get the blood flowing!”

The man in the red suit vanishes in a puff of red smoke, and then the action begins.

Well, it would have, if either of them gets a move on.

“Is he pissing himself scared?” Phoebe asks loudly, pointing at Skipper. “Who let this guy into the ring?”

She unknowingly starts a chant, and then people start throwing beer cans at the poor guy. He flinches and tries to use his flimsy cape to shield himself from the abuse, cowering so much that Big Ben barks out laughter.

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout. “Go get ‘im, Skip!”

People look at me like I’m crazy, but he peaks over the brim of his cape at me like I’m his hero.

I flash him a thumbs up, and the guy gives me a timid smile in return.

Ben, in a second, is a shadow looming over him. I watch in real-time as his fist, the size of Skipper’s entire head, slams into the side of his skull. Then everything speeds up the same second that he puts Skip into the soil.

Silence erupts through the air like the cloud of dust that comes raining down on all of us.

Ben slowly rises from the small crater he’s made, his fist a steaming mess of bloody meat. We all stare at his hand, at the snapped bone and the fingers dangling from torn skin. Someone pukes. A little girl shrieks. Then he stumbles backward, his heavy footstep shaking the ground as he stares at the remains of his hand. Holy shit. I try to stand taller, and so does Phoebe as she swears under her breath. The dust settles, and there in the hole, is Skipper.

Not dead, just goofily laying in a pile of his own long limbs. He awkwardly stands up again, his mask askew and slipping off the side of his head as he looks around, then discovers the blood leading away from him. Finally, he stares up at Big Ben, whose eyes are burning hot, and whose smile has turned into a downward grin.

The big guy doesn’t stand a chance when Skipper suddenly sneezes from the dust around him. A hellish gust of wind rips through the air, taking half of Ben with it, and when I mean half, I mean the guy’s upper body is all over the soil and the debris and the far wall of the apartment building a stone throw away from the pit. Ben’s legs stand stock still, one in front of the other, still wanting to run, even if most of him is a snaking gory, bloody trail on the dirt behind him. We’re all silent. The wind picks up the stench of blood, making me ill, making too fresh memories leap back into my mind from just a few days ago. Then someone raises a bottle and bellows out a cheer.

He’s the only person celebrating this. Everyone else is dead quiet.

“We need to run,” Phoebe whispers.

I step down from the bricks, because I’ve just noticed the guys furthest away from the crowd. Guys in suits who don’t look like they’re meant to be here. Rounded hats low, shading their eyes. Cufflinks in a place like this? Hard jaws, clean shaven. Not the police, but angry that, I’m guessing, the guy they were betting on is now dead.

I don’t know Skipper, but I also don’t want them putting their hands on him. But other people take my movement as something else. Maybe they’re mad they just lost their money. Or their biggest draw just got killed.

Either way, a lot of drunken, sweaty, very rugged men and women are looking for a fight.

And I kinda don’t want to see a man get beaten to death, or a crowd get mowed down. Phoebe grabs my shoulder, stopping me from getting into the angry crowd. The men in suits slow down and stand back from them. But I can’t stand and let this happen, because the look in Skip’s eyes—this unbridled panic as he waves his hands and shakes his head and stumbles over his feet—and Ben’s—trying to escape the mob gunning for him is what I had just gone through trying to save someone. Fuck sake, who have I saved with these powers? Not a single person.

So let’s start with a superhero, or I would have, if I didn’t just jump into the air and go absolutely nowhere. What the— I hear a scream. Look up, and a strong-backed woman just tried to punch Skipper in the face and ended up leaving her fist in bloody, bony tatters. Dammit, Kacey, come on! I jump again, trying to get into the air and land in front of the crowd between them and Skipper, but once more, my sneakers land back down into the dead grass.

I flex my fingers, staring at them. What’s happened to my powers?

And why the hell am I bleeding from my nose?