The potential to manifest superpowers began at some point after a person’s thirteenth birthday, at which time one’s body started giving off a signal that no scientist had ever been able to reproduce.

Believe me, they’d tried.

Countless experiments and studies had been run on the phenomenon, with very little to show for their efforts. The signal resisted all attempts to manipulate or change it, let alone reproduce it artificially. Even recording and logging its unique pattern at all was hard work. There wasn’t even a consensus on what part of the body the signal originated from, or if it originated from us at all.

Measuring its strength, however, was as simple as waving a magnet over someone’s body and seeing how much it was repulsed.

(Accurate readings were more complicated than that, but followed the same basic principle.)

Teachers tended to do it in Science class for fun. Like measuring the students' height progress on a door jamb.

Just as no one on earth had ever manifested the exact same power as another, no two people’s signals were the same. As far as anyone could tell, the strength of the signal was arbitrary, and it helpfully corresponded to the strength of the ability that person could bring to bear, regardless of how many Levels they had—Levels were another matter entirely and far more frustrating to the scientists.

A cryokinetic power ranked F on the Shimada Scale would break a sweat creating a snowflake. Justin “Ice Age” Pinkerton, a British villain who’d been S-rank at the time of his imprisonment, had been a natural disaster truly worthy of his name; the pictures of the frozen town left behind after his rampage had been harrowing.

If not for the fact it was universally agreed that power level could grow from use and with age, if not for the example set by countless heroes out there that one could do good even without an ability that could move mountains or cure plagues, if not for the sure knowledge that there was nothing else I could imagine doing with my life, I might have given in to despair at the ranking that had burdened me for the last few months.

It had been the second worst day of my life, and nearly three years on it hadn’t lost its spot. People had been asking questions already—it was exceptionally rare for an individual’s signal to have failed to manifest nine months after their thirteenth birthday, and it was especially strange for the progeny of two people with powerful abilities to be such a late bloomer.

I’d been telling myself it was okay, refusing to worry. Even if my ranking turned out to be low, I was determined to make do. The path of the hero was the only one in front of me, no matter what.

They’d taken me to an experimental facility, giving me a more refined Shimada Scale test just to be sure, and they’d found that my signal was already there after all, it was just so weak they hadn’t been able to measure it without the new equipment.

I was below F-rank. An existence almost unheard of, a statistical anomaly. I became a curiosity for scientists to poke at, a freak show for the other kids, and the shame of my extended family all at once.

It hit me hard. I’m not sure how many weeks I went without speaking a word to anyone after the incident. Taunts and insults washed over me. I was numb, hollowed out.

Then Ashika had punched me in the face hard enough to shock me out of my self-pity and asked me if I was going to give up that quickly.

The answer was easy:

“Hell fucking no!” I had roared at her.

If I was going to be starting with a handicap, I’d just have to work harder. Be better.

If I was weak, I’d get stronger. If I was slow, I’d get faster. If I was frail, I’d get tougher.

If I didn’t know something, I’d learn it. I’d think harder, read every article I could get my hands on, research every aspect of cape life until I knew it all like the back of my hand.

I was at a disadvantage, but I’d do whatever it took to close the gap. If there was one thing Dad had taught me, it was the value of working a thousand times harder than everyone else.

Maybe I didn’t have a power that would let me roll over Slash with ease.

That didn’t mean there was nothing I could do.

I watched from my vantage point atop the luggage rack, drinking in every bit of information I could, barely daring to blink as four young prospective heroes circled the murderous villain.

“Let her go,” Ashika said, moving into Slash’s supposed blind spot. Her power was building momentum, growing with her every movement. My heart lurched, but thankfully she didn’t attack. Not yet.

Slash had evidently shown enough to instil caution in his opponents. Gouges scored the floor, metal bars split like bamboo, and cracks spider-webbed every window in range. Taking in the damage, the debris, the bloody footprints, and combining it all with my best guesses of what superpowers were on display here, I was forming a mental picture of how things had gone down so far.

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I figured the boy with blue fire dancing over his skin had moved to attack first. The fury in his eyes burning as hot as his flames spoke of a quick temper, and people ruled by anger were very rarely given to restraint. His power burned to my senses, an inferno. Judging by the patterns of the scorch-marks on the ground, the shallow gouges on the boy’s arms, and the criss-crossing tears on his grey hoodie, he probably lacked the ability to use his flames at range, and had quickly learned that getting close to Slash was a losing strategy.

Presumably, the next assault had come from the pudgy blond boy with metal ball-bearings orbiting about an inch out from his head. His power felt like crackling electricity. Looking closer, I could see more ball-bearings on the floor that had been sliced neatly down the middle, but none of them were burned. There were little dents in the walls and I was starting to think the cracked windows were his doing, so evidently he could accelerate his projectiles to a decent clip. Fast enough to bruise.

Not fast enough to trouble Slash.

Ashika must have come in next, but the fight hadn’t gone on long enough for her to get going, and her charge had been reset as a consequence.

Ashika was a B-rank, which was really fucking impressive for a 16-year-old. Her power was strong enough to give her confidence, but flawed enough to make her vulnerable in the wrong circumstances. Her ability was all about momentum. Coming from a family of exercise nuts, her first revelation had been the abnormally complex “keep moving forward and get stronger” —they were usually basic shit like “I like running”—and her Aspects had built on that.

At this point, she started at three or four times stronger, faster, and tougher than a girl her size should physically be capable of, and her stats only went up the longer she was able to keep moving and charging an internal battery. She could throw around trucks like they were made of cardboard if you gave her ten minutes to ramp up.

Aside from the obvious weakness in her charge-up time, any interruption to her momentum reset her back to where she started. She had to keep building exponentially. Her potential was unimaginable, theoretically capable of going toe-to-toe with the very strongest given time, but vulnerable on her way there.

I was still working on hammering that into her brain. Results hadn’t been promising so far.

Looking at the way she was moving right now, limping a little, far slower than I knew she could be capable of, Slash was a better teacher than me.

The last girl left me puzzled. A young Latina in a crisp black trouser suit, her long hair immaculately straightened, she was pacing around him casually in time with her impromptu comrades, arms crossed. She looked unbothered, in no rush. Further, the only clue about what her powers might be was the faint red outline around her ears, nose, and eyes, and the feel of it was cold, neutral. Judging by how clean and unruffled she looked, I wondered if she’d even participated in the fight so far at all.

The carriage had almost emptied at this point, just a few stragglers trying to force themselves through the crush at the doorways at either end. The train itself hadn’t stopped moving despite the alarm going off, I noted with a frown.

The driverless trains in Foresight City were generally more reliable than the alternative, but they weren’t flawless. I’d seen a few reports of them missing stations or stopping way too far down the platform.

But failing to stop when the emergency alarm was going off? Unheard of.

A glitch, or something more sinister?

I was willing to bet we were dealing with the latter. Working theory: someone had messed with the AI that oversaw the railway network, making sure the train kept going even with the emergency alarm going off to ensure Slash’s target couldn’t escape.

With that in mind, I had the beginnings of a plan. It relied on an assumption born from very little evidence, and I could only cross my fingers and hope whoever had planned this out hadn’t looked as deep into the train’s systems as I had.

But I had to try.

“You’re out of your league, kids,” Slash said calmly, still turning on the spot, head swivelling from side to side, power still buzzing in my brain like a hornet. He held one hand out flat before him, the other behind his back like a fencer. His obsidian claws were splayed wide. “But none of you need to die today. Stand aside.”

“Fucking scum,” flame-boy ground out through clenched teeth. He was so tense that veins were standing out on his neck and forehead. His power blazed internally, and the flames on his outstretched hands were turning white. “You think you can do whatever you want and we’ll just let you?”

Slash’s only reply was a smirk, and the boy seethed. He didn’t attack, to my relief. Quite apart from my own hang-ups, I didn’t see how a pyrokinetic could strike the villain while avoiding the unconscious girl at his feet, especially if he didn’t have a ranged ability.

The Latina girl spoke next, casual and business-like. “You can’t seriously think you’ll get away with this? I recognise that girl you attacked.”

“Friends in high places don’t mean much when you’re this far down,” Slash said.

“Cute,” said the girl. “But killing the daughter of a major hero will earn you attention you’re not anywhere near strong enough to handle. You’re surely aware that more than just Tempest will come after you? No hero wants to set the precedent that villains can get away with targeting their family members. You’ll have the entire country out for your blood after this.”

“I can handle it, but I’m not planning on killing her.”

“Your plans don’t mean shit,” flame-boy cut in. “They’re gonna fail no matter what they are, shithead.”

“That’s right,” pudgy boy said with a tremor in his voice. His ball-bearings quivered in the air.

“Give her up,” Ashika said.

“Make me,” Slash said, and I winced.

Tension spiked.

I could see the impatience in the wannabe heroes, how they were all weighing their desire to confront the villain with their healthy fear of his razor-sharp appendages. With every second that passed, it became more and more likely that the former would win over the latter.

Knowing what I did, I couldn’t let them make that mistake.

I waited until Slash turned, putting me out of his line of sight, to make my move—everyone else had bought into his trick, and for now I needed to look like I’d done the same.

The Latina girl’s gaze snapped to me, but quickly returned to the villain. Everyone else gaped as I lowered myself down from the luggage rack and straightened up. I took a moment to take off my jacket and pat down my shirt and joggers. Resting my jacket over my shoulder, I moved to lean casually against the window.

“You’ve got one more chance to surrender,” I said.

It was going to be really awkward if this didn’t work.