In moments like this, a single thought would cross my mind: what the hell would dad do?

From the movies I watched and the comics I read, the interviews I devoured and the street talk I overheard, dad wasn’t the kind of guy who would even bother breaking a sweat in a fight against most—if not all—superhumans. What kind of situation would someone like him be in, anyway, if he had to raise his hand to someone else? Zeus was power. He was this towering, overbearing, embodiment of everything a human couldn’t even hope to be, and picturing it, seeing him standing over you, a solid mass of muscle with gold emblazoned on his chest, and his almost white eyes gouging through your innards with his glare, you would feel powerless. Completely and utterly powerless. Your throat would dry. Your knees would buckle. And sure, maybe I was over exaggerating, but there was a reason only he got a statue that dominated the bay instead of all the Olympians who died fighting Titan. He was a symbol. A shield. More than what was possible.

He made the rest of us feel small, Lucas had told me, even though he never said it.

And I’ll admit, right here, in this humid, hellish boiler room, staring down Dominion almost made me feel the same way. It had been a long time since fear had knocked against my ribs, but my heart was doing a great job bruising them with each knock. I was used to punching my way through problems. Kicking and throwing, flipping and twisting. My body was my superpower.

But Dominion’s powers went way, way past anything I knew about the world. I sucked at physics and I sucked at math, and I was out of my depth fighting an S-Grade Olympiad agent.

Could be easier if you were Olympia, Ry. Just fly right through the ceiling and vanish.

But I’d gotten punched around too many times tonight to do anything except stand my ground. Flying would be a drain on whatever I had left in the reserves, meaning escape would be nearly impossible, and if I was planning on flying, it would have to be quick, quicker than I could muster, just to escape. I couldn’t screw up. Couldn’t hesitate one bit. Fuck. How the hell do I get out of here? Dominion was watching me, silent and stoic, his eyes playfully dark, shaded by the red glow surrounding us. Above me were the drugs and the rifles—the tickets to what I wanted.

In front of me was everything that would put a stop to that if I dared move an inch.

“Well, kid?” he said. “How about you give me a dance and show me what you can do?”

What other option did I have but to accept?

Call it an informal application, because sometimes the only way through was through.

I wrenched a scathingly hot metal pipe free from the boiler it was connected to, then turned it in my hands. Steam spewed out in a high pitched whistle, a shriek that sliced through the silence and blew over my skin. I was never great with any kind of weapon in my hands, something Lucas and I found out the hard way, but Dominion didn’t know that, and his training kicked into gear the moment I gripped the jagged steel pipe. He tensed, raised his hand toward me, and waited with the stiff experience that fighting superhumans gave you. His eyes narrowed, and I could almost see the gears rotating inside his head, clicking and whirring, trying to figure out how to react next.

I stepped forward, and Dominion flicked his fingers. A force slammed into my back, forcing me to my hands and knees. The floor cratered. I bit down hard on my tongue, tasting hot blood. The boiler beside me buckled and bent, too, sending its archaic bolts shooting into the concrete like bullets fired from a gun. Several passed through him, impaling the pipes behind him. The grotesque arrangement of boilers in this room was overbearing, cramped and packed together. It was a powder keg waiting to happen. An inch away from going up, but also a few more degrees of heat from lighting. The more I strained my body, my muscles, the hotter I would become.

The idea I got was stupid, maybe deadly, but I was all out of options. Nobody was here to watch my back, so pulling myself out of this mess was the only way I saw myself going home tonight. I’d have to trust that Dominion was more of a superhero than he was letting on right now if this plan somehow worked, because I struggled to hear anything through the whistle of boilers around us, and I figured that was on purpose. Poseidon must be above us, with Bellatrix and Velocity waiting in the wings, maybe with a few more Capes handling the cargo, too. I had to remind myself, even as Dominion stepped forward, forced his hand down, which doubled the pressure on my back, that these guys were the heroes. The actual superheroes by state law.

And they were going to earn their paychecks tonight.

Let’s see how hot you can run, Ry.

I gritted my teeth, curled my hands into shaking fists. My knuckles dug into the concrete, and I shoved the floor off my chest and inch by painful inch further away from me. Dominion only increased the pressure, then pressed his ear and said something I couldn’t hear. My arms quaked. I swear I could feel my guts trying their hardest to burst from my torso. It took all I had not to get pushed halfway into the concrete, and the jagged pipe in my hand only bit into my palm. The boilers surrounding me buckled, too, but he didn’t care. He could stop an explosion. Snap his fingers and dissipate the steam or the heat or whatever. And that’s exactly what I was counting on.

I forced my knees underneath me, getting into a crouch. Then I launched myself forward, using my flight and his force to shoot toward Dominion. He swore and dodged, rolling away. I spun in midair and threw the pipe at him, a dart that whistled through his chest and punctured the boiler he slammed into. He stumbled, staggered, then reared away from the heat that seared his palm. Distracted. I rolled, stood, then flew toward him, feeling my skin getting hotter, feeling my muscles getting worked up as I threw a jab and a hook to his body, both passing through him.

Dominion fazed through me, walking past as if I wasn’t there, and my fists slammed into the boiler. Now it buckled, bulging like some over-expanding balloon. I spun around, a hint of a smile on my face, and pressed my hand against it. The burn was instant, and I was so out of it—admittedly a little light-headed, hungry, dehydrated, and tired—that I almost laughed at the look on his face. Shock. Surprise. Whatever you wanted to call it, they flashed across his thin eyebrows and pale skin so quickly you’d think he was a speedster as he watched the boiler suddenly expand.

Remember how I said my body gets hot when I use my powers? As Olympia, I got hot enough to maybe get the water in the bay into a boiling broth if I took a swim in it. But without my powers, my body had to compensate for what it didn’t have—I used more energy this way, felt more exhausted faster, and I figured this out the hard way when I almost burned my track gear clean off my body in middle school before I fully got my powers. And now, in this boiler room?

I might as well have been ripping heat right out of the earth’s core.

At least, it felt that way when the explosion happened.

It wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t colorful, but it was loud, and it was hot, and it was all kinds of fucking awful. A sudden, explosive force punched me forward, sending me careening into another boiler. The air got sucked out of my lungs. Shrapnel ripped through the air, impaling the concrete and the walls, other boilers, too, and shredding pipes. They were old (being in Lower Olympus, what else did you expect), and the safety systems probably didn’t work. I realized that a second after I got the wind kicked out of me by the second explosion. Then the third. I was lost in a storm of metal and shrieking air, blazing winds that rushed over me like this never ending wave of cascading heat. I tried to find my bearings, but the sound of the thing, this explosion, rang so deeply into my mind that I could hardly concentrate. I blinked hard. Cupped my ears. Focused.

And I saw Dominion in the center of the room, focusing hard on containing the explosions, sweat beading on his brow as he spread his arms around him, trying his damndest to keep himself from getting cut up whilst simultaneously containing the blast. Great. Great. I flew toward him, clattered into by steel and brick, dust and debris, and he saw me before he could stop me from wrapping my arms around his waist and launching both of us straight up, up, up toward the ceiling. I clutched onto him, and I was moving too fast, taking advantage of the explosion, too, for him to concentrate completely on offense. The ceiling neared. The blast followed, propelling me closer.

At the last second (as I had totally planned), we passed right through the ceiling. The feeling was cold and distant, scrambling my brain as if tiny icy fingers were probing through it. Another floor, followed by empty room fat with shadows and spiderwebs, a broom closet that blew apart as I blasted through them. Dominion was clutching onto me now, desperate, angry, swearing like he’d just learnt the words a second ago and now his tongue was firing them out of his mouth. We passed through each floor of the apartment complex, some empty, others not so much.

I dodged what Normals I could, and the rest of them simply fazed through me. I was just about starting to get the hang of it when the chill early morning air of New Olympus washed over us as I exploded into the sky. I gasped, breathing in, and dropped Dominion the first chance I got. It felt like resurfacing, breathing in air that wasn’t thick with anything but the ocean’s musk. I stopped for a moment on the rooftop, leaning against a rattling air conditioning unit as I coughed and wiped spittle from my mouth. I heard Dominion swear. Watched as he tried to get up. He was a mess of limbs and tousled hair. His skin was hot red in places, burnt by the heat of the boilers. Almost down and out. Weak enough to stay in one spot, breathing ruggedly through his mouth.

But I wasn’t going to stick around and find out what else he had up his sleeve.

I jogged to the other side of the roof, then leapt onto the lip of the building. I looked down, and almost collapsed with relief when I saw the cargo still spread across the street. We must not have gone for long, or else they would have taken it all away. Still, where the hell were the rest of my apparent crew? Seems like I’ve got to do freaking everything myself tonight. No, not tonight. Today. I shook my head and leaped down the side of the building, hoping to catch Velocity by—

“Alternate Realm: Dungeon.”

The world froze for a beat of a second, the words echoing through my mind.

I hung suspended in midair, not falling, but stuck in a molasses I couldn’t force myself through. My thoughts blurred and slowed. I could feel each pellet of blood rushing through my veins. Then came the darkness, quick and eternal and so painfully cold I gasped with shock.

Then it felt like I was in space, or low earth orbit. Spinning aimlessly. Weightless. Surrounded by blackness and empty sound. Sounds that echoed and vanished. Noises that resonated into my bones and rattled my marrow. I searched around me, pulse quickening. Where the fuck am I? Each breath came out as coils of steam, spewing through my clenched teeth.

Frightening, isn’t it, the abyss? a voice said. Dominion.

“Where am I?” I yelled, but I might as well have whispered. “Let me go!”

See, that’s the thing—you’re not supposed to leave this place, nobody is, and I don’t pull this card unless I’m in dear need of winning a fight that’s taking too long. His words came from everywhere and nowhere. They seeped through my skin and into my blood, like ice oozing into a gaping wound. I felt sick, almost puked, as my hairs rose in tandem. Something was with me in the darkness. Something I couldn’t hear or smell or see or feel, but just knew was there. I tensed, scared, balling my fists, but I felt weak as my hands shook with the effort. Oh, don’t fight. There’s no point wasting your energy. I’ll give you enough time to reconsider your actions before, well, it doesn’t matter what comes before, because you’re either going to tell me what I want, or die.

What the hell is this place? I thought. He said dungeon, but, like, the old kind? Lucas never prepared me for this. I didn’t even know where to start. Was Dominion here with me? Was this some kind of hallucination he was forcing into my mind? Maybe. But your guess was as good as mine. I could swing my fists for all I cared, but I wasn’t going to touch him. Hell, he might not even be here with me in this darkness. Or maybe I wasn’t wherever he was anymore.

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“I told you before,” I shouted. “I’ve got no clue about the rifles or the drugs.”

“I’m not interested in the mundane.” A noise, a deep, bone shaking reverberation, shook through my body. Something was getting closer. More restless. “I’m interested in who you are.”

“I’m the idiot who made a stupid decision,” I replied. “I learnt my lesson, now let me—”

“You’re not human,” he said quietly. I clenched my jaw, narrowed my eyes.

“Pretty judgemental to call a villain that, don’t you think?”

Again a deep rumble. I was certain I saw something shift through the dark, this snaking mass of something even darker. I heard… sounds, like leather shoving against dead flesh.

“He’s scared,” Dominion whispered, sounding… astonished, amazed, as if he’d just been told his greatest secret. “He’s frightened of you. Humans don’t last long here. But you…”

“Like you said,” I muttered, turning in a slow circle, trying to follow the shuffling noises. “I’ve got gold in my blood, and like I said: I’m not your average supervillain. I’m a little different.”

Silence, then he said, “Maybe, but fears are overcome, and you still bleed like the rest.”

The shuffling halted, a full stop in the silence. I waited, counted the seconds, but could barely focus as my heart raced and my gut twisted into a knot. My saliva was bitter, my tongue raw, as a gurgling, rumbling, ancient sound echoed through the dark. I probably wouldn’t have heard it without my super hearing, was how low it was. So low I could feel it shake through me, as if it was trying to check what I was inside and out. Pick me apart, see what it liked most to devour.

And then I saw… it. This thing. It was yellow and threaded with pulsating veins, like some glassy polished surface that reflected the fear painted over my face. I hovered backward, trying to get a better look, but for as far as I could see, up and down, far above and far below, the puke-yellow wall was all I could stare at. I wanted to reach out, to touch it, see if it really was just this pulsating wall of yellow flesh that I could hurt, maybe force my way through and kill.

Until thick black flesh rushed from beneath and above me, meeting together with a quiet slap of skin. Sleek clear fluid spread over the yellow, pulled over it by the thick fleshy veils.

Then it clicked a second later.

It was an eye. A fucking eye.

I shrieked and backpedaled, twisting around and shooting away. It didn’t feel like flying through air, but more like forcing my way through earth’s orbit. Stiff, resistant, and when I glanced over my shoulder, the orb was still staring at me, not moving, not blinking anymore, as if it was simply waiting for me to realize that no matter how far I flew or how fast, I was trapped here with it. I wasn’t going anywhere. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. It could watch as I tired, and it would watch as I floated helplessly in the darkness when my body eventually gave into tiredness.

I was out of options. I didn’t know what to do. My gut told me to fight. To kill.

To protect myself. Because if I died here, wherever here is, then who’d save the world?

And a very, very small (but painfully, painfully hot) feeling in my chest drove home the venomous picture of mom wandering around the house at night, undoubtedly finding her way into my old bedroom eventually, angry with herself that she even let me storm out. Bitter about so many things she couldn’t say because only the versions of me in old picture frames around the house would be there to listen to her if I died. Pictures of the little girl who still dreamt of being a superhero—Just like dad someday!—but would leave the house every night, worrying her sick.

I told her I would be fine, and we argued about it until I inevitably smashed the front door into wooden shrapnel when I left, or… well, when she kicked me out. I knew she called. I knew she might want to talk, to clear the air and figure things out before too much time got between our emotions and our words. But gods above, I was doing just fine, and I was going to make sure she knew that. Ego? Yeah, it was, just because I hated losing, even if it meant trying to kill this thing.

It registered that killing it might just be impossible, but I’d been there and done that.

Before I knew it, I was flying back toward it. The yellow rushed closer into view. My nails dug into the skin of my palm, getting deeper and deeper as I shot directly into its path.

I was inches away from it. My fist was close enough to graze the visceral liquid coating its large, glossy eyeball, when a voice popped into my head. A voice I had hated a few hours ago.

But a voice I almost cried out for when I heard Witchling say: Shatter.

And quite literally, cracks appeared around me, like seams in a tapestry, splintering and fracturing, spreading like crooked fingers, and finally smashing apart the darkness and the overbearing, impossibly large eye. Suddenly I was back in the air, falling like I had never left. I cartwheeled through the sky, grabbing hold of a ledge and swinging myself onto it in a low crouch. I shook my head, grabbed hold of my bearings. I glanced above me. Dominion wasn’t there, but I could hear him on the rooftop, groaning, shuffling around, maybe writhing in some kind of pain.

Below me, the rest of the supervillains had arrived. Knuckles was going toe-to-toe with Bellatrix, dodging her warhammer and planting punches so hard into the woman’s stomach that the impact rattled the window behind me. Velocity was trying to get close to the cargo, but all she got in return were these pulsing explosions that sent her skidding away. Small EMP blasts, changing her magnetic pull. She wasn’t a speedster by right, just by proxy—she used magnetism to run, or something like that, meaning she pushed herself along rather than actually running around.

Damsel was popping in and out of existence, covered by a bandaged O’Reiley. They all looked beaten up, a little bruised and bleeding from cuts and scrapes. The mercs that were here could only offer cover fire, ensuring that Poseidon stayed far enough away from the cargo to give Damsel the precious seconds she needed to gas herself up again and go for another round.

But Franklin wasn’t focused on the bullets; he was focused on Witchling.

She stood in front of him, arms slightly raised, crimson hair billowing. Neither moved, but tendrils of water were snaking around Poseidon’s trident, jerking and twisting like vipers.

Tempest, she said in my mind. Are you alright? Can you fight?

What the fuck was that back there? I asked. Was that some kind of illusion?

Your questions will be answered, trust me, but our priorities lie elsewhere for now.

I figured that they were pretty big freaking questions, but she was right: eldritch monsters later, drugs and rifles right now. So I leaped down onto the street, caught in the early morning sunlight glow, and landed behind Bellatrix. She bellowed, swung her fist around, and I ducked underneath it. Knuckles lunged, slamming her shoulder into the woman’s ribs. A stumble. A chance for me to slam my fist into her gut. It felt like punching a brick wall, but she felt it. Bellatrix gasped as spit burst from her mouth. She swung her hammer on instinct, catching my shoulder.

“On the ground, through the air, she’ll look upward and go from there!” Ace shouted. It came like a shock, hearing his voice, but I couldn’t spot him for now. What the hell was he—

“Goddamit, kid, just listen to me!”

I growled in frustration and did what he asked, dropping to all fours, narrowly missing a hammer blow that would have caught me across the head. Knuckles tried to punch her spine, but got caught in the full swing of the hammer. She went flying, slamming into a food stall on the boardwalk. I shot into the air, and just like Ace said, Bellatrix looked up right away. She held her hammer tight in her fist, knuckles whitening. She wouldn’t swing fast enough, not as I came down hard, smashing my heel into the bridge of her nose. Blood burst from her face, poured down her lips. She reeled, put a meaty hand to her face as she cursed, and when I landed, I bounded toward her, barely stopping my momentum as I slammed my knee directly into her forehead with a crunch.

Bellatrix toppled backward, shaking the tarmac when she fell.

I wasn’t going to give Ace credit for that, but I internally thanked him just a little.

But that was just about the only good thing happening on the street. Witchling wasn’t where I had last seen her. She was now far away from Franklin, drenched and furious, creating a batter around the last few large containers. Damsel was taking longer to teleport, coming back after a handful of seconds and staggering against Ace. Sweat matted her blonde hair, turning it dark. Franklin was advancing, with torrents of water zipping through the air like javelins. Witchling stopped the first and the second. The third ripped across her shoulder, spitting blood onto the tarmac. They were warning shots, because if he wanted to, the ocean was right there.

Warning shots or not, Wtichling was still staggering back every few steps. She deflected most of them, sending them far into the sky, only for Franklin to send them shooting into the small army of mercenaries. He wasn’t killing them, no—because Capes didn’t kill, remember?—but getting hit with that kind of force would knock anyone right off their rocker, Super or otherwise.

Someone was going to have to bite the bullet and take him on, to distract him as Damsel tried to take away the three remaining crates. She would vibrate, shake to the subatomic level, but then stagger and vomit and lean against the crates. She needed a cool down period, and we didn’t have that kind of time. Velocity was picking apart the mercs at the rear, having exhausted their charges. She was pissed, and the second long shrieks of pain, then a sudden missing soldier was all I needed to figure that out. I swore to myself, then pushed my hair back and nodded.

I figured it was only fair that a superhero would fight another superhero. Besides, it would mean that Ava wouldn’t be breathing down my neck if we fucked up. I’d get a few days off.

If you don’t get pummeled into the ocean by your best friend’s dad.

Knuckles, ever silent, ever resilient, was beside me. “We drag this out any longer—”

“Get to the others, help Damsel however you can,” I said. “Fr… Poseidon’s my problem.”

She looked at me for the first time tonight as if I was crazy. She almost objected, but she was cold, logical, and knew just as well as I did that I didn’t have to win. I just had to pause him.

We both broke out into a sprint, her toward the group, and myself toward Poseidon. Damsel still had two more crates left, as well as about a dozen people to teleport. Time. Space. I didn’t know how much I had left in me, but it didn’t matter as I ran, splashing through tiny rivers snaking along the road, over chunks of rubble and tiny craters that Bellatrix’s hammer created.

I lunged at him, and got swiped away by a band of water. I skidded along the road, rubbing my skin raw. My head buzzed when I came to a stop. My tongue was fat, bloody, chewed up.

I spat, and tried to fly toward him. To shoot toward his back and get his attention.

But I was spent. Exhausted. It felt like hitting your limit whilst you sprinted. You wanted to go faster, push harder, but you simply physically couldn’t. Only option left was to leg it.

And that was made all the much harder when Franklin glanced over his shoulder at me, eyes narrowing, glare sharpening, turning the tiny rivers into lashing veins of water. They slapped against my skin and ankles, curling around my exposed toes and stopping me dead. He swiped his hand through the air, and another gushing torrent of water shoved me down. I gasped, tried to breathe, but just as I opened my mouth, more water rushed over me and into my throat.

I clawed at my throat. Hot panic beat against the side of my head. My lungs burnt, my throat ached. I writhed, tried reaching for the water, but it would simply pass through my fingers. The world flickered. Went hazy. Air, air, air, needed air, but my body felt like led. My muscles felt like liquid iron sloshing around underneath my skin. I grasped and writhed, shaking and trembling.

A snap! followed by a deafening shriek.

Collapsed on the ground, I blinked, peered through the water. Knuckles stood over Velocity, looking down at the speedster cradling a leg that was bent clean in two. She was yelling, screaming from the top of her lungs, as Knuckles picked her up by her black shirt collar and raised her fist. The air warped around her bloodied knuckles, and the look in her eyes wasn’t cold or savage, raging or spiteful, but purely predatory. Doing what she had to because the chance was there spasming in front of her. I’d seen her punch, what she could do, and she’d kill her.

No, she wouldn’t kill Velocity—she’d spray her torso across the entire freaking street.

The water rushed out of me, and I could finally breathe. I hacked up a lung trying to get myself onto my feet, watching as Franklin suddenly focused a gushing torrent of water ahead.

Knuckles’ fist got closer, inching toward Velocity. I knew what team I was on, and knew what cards I was playing with, but my gut took over, and so did instinct. My powers jumped across my fingers, tiny tendrils nobody but myself could see, just enough to blast forward, sprinting past Franklin as if he’d stopped moving. I almost tripped over myself, having my powers flood back in like this. My body ached, retaliating at the stress I was putting it under. I threw myself forward, tackling Knuckles, leaving my body useless and heavy as we crashed into the pavement and rolled.

And just in time, because it wasn’t Velocity I was saving (even though, yes, I would have regardless), but Knuckles. Water shredded the rubble where Knuckles had stood, creating a barrier between Velocity and everyone else. But there was more than just the water that had spooked me.

It was the guy that appeared milliseconds after I shoved into Knuckles, moving so fast that the blast of ferocious wind he brought right along with him only wavered because Witchling had a protective shield of stone surrounding the group. It smashed into both of us, pushing me back.

Windows shattered, spitting shards of glass down onto us. Dust blew into the sky, choking us in thick black-brown clouds. His presence was sudden, breathtaking, because the wind in my lungs was stolen by the sudden gust that lunged into my mouth and down my throat.

Then he stood from his crouch, tie whipping wildly in the wind. The ocean frothed and then settled, but boardwalk trembled. Then he looked down at me, a glinting smile on his face, his canines almost just as sharp as Dominion’s. His eyes were blue, a light blue so stark the sky could only dream of copying them as they glimmered. White hair flowed in the wind, not majestically, but frantically, as if every fiber of his being was alive and energized, so brimming with this need to fight, to win, that it was an assault on the senses. He was strong. You could feel it. See it. Hell, it was pretty hard to miss the power resonating off his toned body when he looked exactly like dad.