When I was a little kid, the only way I could get close to my dad was through comic books. I remembered running home in a cloud of dust and sweat, quite literally screeching to a halt outside of Ronnie’s house because my sneakers were nothing but smoking, squelching rubber. Free from the tedium of middle school, with a comic in my hand, I felt invincible. Unbound. I was the weird little girl next door, the one with a room full of superhero posters, and bed sheets plastered with tiny cartoon Olympians chasing goofy looking Nocturne members until I was in high school.

Veronica wouldn’t be home till late, so I’d indulge in my dirty little spree of climbing onto the roof and reading until my eyes hurt. Reading until I could float around inside my bedroom and reenact every panel and every scene and every piece of dialogue I got my grubby hands on. I was the secret member of the Olympians, the one who would one day lead them against the villains.

In my head all those years ago, I was the greatest superhero the universe had ever seen.

And then my father died fighting Titan, the last Olympian to join the team. I watched from the streets like everyone else had, a kid a little too short to see over the heads of people standing in front of screens behind storefront glass. The girl who started crying when the world went quiet.

I had been powerless, then, feeling like I’d betrayed him by not being by his side. But what would I have fucking helped with? I had thought that night. You can’t even fly for five minutes.

Zeus’ daughter. The heir to the Olympians. And a worthless, weak, crying little girl. I tried to fly, to build my strength, but stopping thugs and gangbangers was like riding a bike with stabilizers when you’re an adult. How could I take them seriously when dad’s shadow loomed over me, this cold, constant presence that whispered in the back of my head, That’s all you are?

Ever since then, I had a policy: hit first without pause, no matter what I could do. And maybe, if dad was watching from wherever he was, he’d see I was different. Not the same. It was true, as I watched Ava slip from my grasp, that my stomach was a tight, burning knot, and my head was a pounding mess. I needed to eat, to sustain myself before I fell through the air just like her.

But weak or not, I wasn’t going to let the daughter of a villain goad me into doing whatever it was she wanted just because she knew who I was. I couldn’t kill Lucifer four years ago, and I stopped myself from letting that kind of fear take over my body, but I could kill her.

No, I’d pick her apart and sprinkle whatever was left on his fucking doorstep.

Ava screamed as she fell, the sound ripe and loud in my ears. I watched as she windmilled through the air, her tie loose and her black trenchcoat flapping against her wildly turning body.

Warmth built in my gut, spreading throughout my body as more tiny arcs of electricity sparked and spat around my hands. The air warped around me, heating just like my body.

Then I shot toward her, a bullet slicing through the wind. I was on her in seconds. Past her in just more than that. I spun, grabbed her face before she slammed into the tarmac, then threw her higher into the air and across several blocks. Through rickety wooden support structures and flimsy windows she went, then into the open air. Appearing in the sky before she got there, I smashed my fist into her gut, feeling her stomach rupture as I planted my knuckles into her belly. She gasped. Blood burst from her mouth. Before she could think, I straightened my fingers, grabbed her neck, held her at arm’s length, and cut through her torso in one swooping slice across her midsection.

Her legs fell away, twigs snapping as they fell dozens of feet through the air and onto an abandoned play area slated for demolition. Her guts were next, sloppy and wet, scarlet and gray and blue masses that oozed out of her body and splattered down the slide, slipping into a steaming heap at the bottom. I took a moment to look into her empty eyes. At the spattering of blood that dotted her large circular glasses. I flicked them off and forced my thumbs into her skull until they popped and poured out past my fingers. Splitting her skull came easily, like cracking a walnut.

Then came the silence that beat past my racing heart, a drum in the quiet night.

I let her body fall to the weed-strewn gravel of the play area, cracking more bones. Floating to the ground, I staggered on impact, leaning against the slides as my vision flickered. I held the side of my head, trying fruitlessly to stop my heart from punching a hole right through my temples.

Used a lot of energy doing that. A lot more than I should have. Still, I smiled, wiping the blood off my face with the back of my even bloodier hand. She wanted to keep her secrets? Play coy with what she knew about me and what she really wanted? Fine, I made her spill her guts.

The joke was lost on me, though, as I doubled up in pain and vomited.

Blood. My saliva and half-digested lunch tasted like hot liquid iron on my tongue.

I spat, wiped my mouth. “Home,” I told myself. “Go home and eat before someone calls the SDU for superhuman activity.” I stood, then staggered, taking a dozen steps before I buckled.

I’d deal with the fallout right afterward. Her shadow couldn’t be far; they’d be next.

Then I heard the noise of flesh squelching against itself, like wet leather being beaten together. I swore, turning my head to watch as her upper body jerked, twisted, and her skull snapped back into place, her guts crawled back inside her chest, and her legs shoved themselves back against her dangling spinal column. I watched, horrified, interested, as Ava sat up, groaning as she held her head as if she’d just whacked it against the wall waking up from a nightmare.

“What the hell?” I whispered, holding my stomach as I stood. “What are you?”

“A little put off that you ruined my favorite shirt. Blood doesn’t wash out easily.”

I had to buy myself some time. Give my body several minutes to stop aching so badly. “I can’t sense your powers,” I said around a surge of nausea. “You’re not human. A kaiju?”

Ava stood, holding her stomach. I could hear her intestines finding their place behind her torn open shirt, and could see them squirming underneath her skin. She waved her hand through the air as she said, “You’ve got your secrets, and I’ve got mine. There’s no gain in telling you everything that I am, just like how you don’t explain how you’ve got more than one power.”

I narrowed my eyes, gritting my teeth to concentrate on her. “Like I said a lot earlier, I’m not like you people, and you’ve got no right to any kind of answer to what I really am.”

Ava nodded, then winced as she took a step forward. “See? Not so different.”

No, not a kaiju. I couldn’t smell that familiar animalistic stench that came from that skin crawling blend of human body parts and animal hide. She was something else. Just like her father.

“Now, where was I before you murdered me?” Ava said, then snapped her fingers. “Ah, I was getting to my main point. Our fathers weren’t enemies, you know. In fact, they were allies.”

I spat at her feet. “You really think Zeus of all people would shake a supervillain's hand?”

She nodded, picking up her splintered glasses. “Yes, quite a few times actually.” Ava paused, then looked at me curiously. “I’m… surprised you didn’t know that. You’d think—”

“Of course I freaking knew that,” I said quickly, cutting her off. “But a couple of years have passed since I last spoke to my old man, so a few things slipped through the cracks.”

She’s lying, I told myself. Dad would never have made a deal with a fucking villain.

And not the one who almost killed me and had my body sent back to the Olympiad, a heap of rags and bloodied skin so scarred and torn they told me I looked like the devil’s roadkill.

“Mmm,” Ava hummed thoughtfully, folding the glasses and stuffing them into her pocket. “Interesting. Then I suppose you also understand that, without an alliance between us, Lower Olympus will continue to decompose to an even worse state than what it currently is, yes?”

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I straightened, my stomach settling. I flexed my fingers, testing out just how much juice I had left in the tank before I passed out. “Yeah, well, I’m not anything like my dad. Sorry.”

“But you could be,” she said. “Or possibly so, so much more than what he was.” Ava waved her hand at her torso, at the torn shirt and her blood smattered over the plastic slide. “All of this happened within a tenth of a second to me. I fell through the air, then I was here, sitting up, quite literally with the worst stomach ache I’ve had in months. What you’re capable of is more than what anyone on earth could ever hope to achieve.” Her voice was growing ecstatic, her eyes electric. I clenched my quaking hands, forcing them to stop. “You’re the second most powerful superhuman in existence right now, and all of that without any training or guidance whatsoever.”

“Second?” I said, spitting a part of her skin that had gotten into my mouth—it had begun wriggling around my teeth, like an anxiety riddled worm. “I am the most powerful. Period.”

Ava held up her finger, walking toward me. “And you’re right. You’re number one and two on the planet, but you can only really be number one with training. S-Grade facilities that would push you to your absolute limits and more. Nutritionists. Physical therapists. Capes who’ve got more experience than you who’ll be there to guide you, teach you how to be more powerful.”

What was she playing at? I glanced around us, at the darkness she didn’t seem to mind. Was her shadow with us, waiting for her signal? She said she needed my help, but at the end of the day, she was Lucian’s daughter, who could have easily sent her here to catch me and drag me to him. I wasn’t taking that chance. Not again, and not in the weakened state I was in right now.

“Stop right there,” I commanded. She halted several steps away. “What do you want?”

Ava smiled, large and wide. “For you to realize your potential. For both of us to do so.”

“And I’m supposed to do that by, what, coming to your place like a fuckin’ idiot?”

“I understand why you’d be apprehensive, but no.” Her eyes glinted with something enticing, something that somewhat caught my attention. “You want to be like your father; as powerful and as beloved, as renowned and as feared. But that can only happen in one way.”

It clicked in my mind, the coin dropping into the slot. “By joining the Olympiad,” I said what, presumably, she was going to say next. “I thought you were a villain. But you want me to enroll in the largest Cape training program on the planet to become even better at what I do?”

“Well, it’s only fair, isn’t it?” she said. “But if you could join it, you would have already.”

I tensed my jaw. How much did she know about me? “I’ve been busy lately.”

“With your Olympia comic, I know. The drafts were rough and the violence gratuitous, but comics have never really been my cup of tea,” she said, waving it away. “You haven’t signed up because you don’t have the money to do so, right? You’re broke. After all, that’s what the comic is for, to maybe scrape enough together to apply next month? Am I in the ballpark, Rylee?”

I said nothing, choosing to bite my tongue. She knew everything. At least, I hoped not everything. How long had she been watching me for? Did she know about Veronica?

Does she know everything about dad? I thought, skeptical. Fearful. About what he was?

Ava nodded, smiling. “Of course I am. And here’s where we come to an agreement: I need your help in establishing order in Lower Olympus, and I’ll pay for you to become the best superhero of our generation. Or, possibly, the best superhero the world has ever seen.”

I glared at her, hovering again. “You think I’d help you get more ground again?”

“I think you’re smart enough to understand that the balance of power in Lower Olympus has shifted away from my family,” she said plainly, taking a step forward. “Crime is at an all time high. There are more drugs on the streets. More murderers and thugs. I mean, a curfew was put into action in only this part of the city because of how abysmal it’s all become. Our city is rotting. Our birthright is falling apart day-by-day, and establishing control would lower the crime rate drastically. It would pull investors back into this half of the city, lower the violence, and—”

“Give your family back all the power they let slip through the cracks,” I said flatly.

“Well, of course, I’ve got to benefit somehow, but I’m worried about this city more than my reputation,” Ava said. Her voice was… desperate, hinged on pleading. She’d been cordial, straight shooting. Talking to me in a way nobody had in a long time. But now she wanted me to help her take control over half the city again, and if I helped her, then… “What’s meant to be ours has fallen away from us. Our fathers built this state to what it is, and now their children have left it to ruin. But history can be rewritten. Right now, tonight, here in this playground. You can clean the streets, do what your father couldn’t, and join the Olympiad, climb the world rankings. Be a hero.”

She panted, sweat glistening on her forehead. I watched as she spread her arms, her heart thumping against her chest, half of her body still drenched in her own wet blood.

A hero, she had said. Not a vigilante, but a licensed operator. It’s true that superheroes were no more, the costumes and the smiles, the cryptic hideouts and the dynamic teams all over the globe were things of the past. Capes were what replaced them—government agents, dressed in black and white, with badges in their pockets and a right to act with lethal force if necessary whenever the leash around their necks was let go of and they could descend onto any villain or terrorist or cartel that reared its ugly head. You never saw them until it was your time to go.

The Olympiad wasn’t what it used to be, but… she was right. How much longer could I keep going independently? I swore I’d never take Emelia’s path, simply because it would be the final nail in the coffin, the blunt knife I plunged into my father’s legacy. But becoming a licensed and paid Cape, one with actual training facilities that could push me instead of just pulling apart some gangster who thought his stupid 50. cal could punch a hole through me. No more tedium. I’d get info on the big villains, where they were hiding, how I could deal with them like dad used to.

My name would climb the world rankings, meaning I’d get sent out around the globe, not just New Olympus, to clean up criminals and terrorists and whoever else. Zues’ daughter, they’d say. Just like her father. And, maybe years from now, they would put a statue up in my name. Right there in the bay, where his stood watch over the vastness of the city he once protected.

But I would have to stop being Olympia for almost three years, though. It would feel like ripping myself in half, betraying her… myself, I mean, as I hung up the costume. But I didn’t have to give it up all together. I could sneak out, put my new skillset to the test whenever I wanted.

Efficient. Deadly. A warning to every supervillain that I was far more powerful now.

But to accomplish all that, I would first have to establish the Donovan family back into Lower Olympus. Although Lucian was one of the worst supervillains to ever exist, he did make sure rival gangs stopped filling the streets with violence and bloodshed, albeit with force. He never let the Nocturne operate in New Olympus, never let other crime families get a hold on the city, or even bothered playing ball with the Grand Order, a group of S-Grade supervillains that joined together to try to defeat the Olympians. And… and if dad shook his hand, what was stopping me?

I wanted to be just like him, didn’t I? So maybe this was one way of doing that. I would make up for it later, when I was finally fully trained, something I never thought I’d be able to do.

Landing in front of her, I said, “Fifty grand for each three training courses every year.”

“Money shouldn’t be a concern if we own half the city,” Ava explained.

I jabbed my finger into her chest. “Confidentiality, too. If anyone finds out that I’m agreeing to this, about who I am, then you know I can wipe you out in a heartbeat.”

Ava shrugged. “Your success is entirely attributed to my own, too. Seeing you become a superhero would fulfill my goals and, rather selfishly, I was always a fan of your father’s. And being the reason his daughter gets her own statue right alongside his would be a sight to see.”

She could be lying to you, half of me reasoned—Olympia. Goading you into crime.

But so what if she was? Ava might not be able to die, but I could very easily spread her body parts around America in half a day. I knew she felt pain pulling herself back together, and knew that she would probably still be in pain right now, so an eternal purgatory was also an option.

She was desperate for my help, too. Besides, I reasoned, I’d have a greater arsenal of my own powers if all of this worked out. I could always pull her out of the equation later on.

Ava stuck out her gloved hand, heartbeat slowing, eyes glimmering. I grudgingly took it.

“Fantastic!” she said, grinning. “First thing’s first, you need to eat. Get your energy. Then you’ll need to change out of your tights and crop top—they aren’t appropriate for the occasion.”

I folded my arms. “And what’s the occasion, exactly? It better not be a robbery.”

“We’ll discuss that when you meet everyone else,” she said, rolling up her sleeve and plunging her arm into a shadow at her feet. My eyebrows rose, surprised. Shadow manipulation. She must have sensed me tense, or heard as I took a cautious step into the air. “Oh, please, you’ve got plenty of your own secrets, and I’ve got mine as well. We’re natural enemies. It’s only normal to keep secrets from one another.” She stood, pulling a duffel bag out of the soupy blackness.

She handed me the hefty bag, and I zipped it open. Combat boots, heavy black cargo pants, a figure hugging black top; sleeveless, breathable, tensile, and durable, too, as I picked at it. There were also several energy drinks, packs of glucose, water bottles, black hair dye, and a black metal ski mask with straps that could go around my head stuffed inside. I looked at her curiously as I pulled out a sports bra a little too similar to the ones I wore when I was in full Olympia gear.

Ava shrugged again. “Out of precaution. Comfort comes first when doing crime.”

“How did you get all my sizes right?” I asked, checking the shoes and the pants.

She tapped her nose. “Like I said, I’ve been a big fan of Olympia’s for a very long time.”

I’ll need to deal with her shadow soon enough, I thought. But for now, I flew out of sight to get dressed, a part of me irked by the fact she knew Olympia was out of the question for any of this. The hair dye would remove any possible guesses of who it could be, and without the golden lightning bolt glistening on my chest, not a single soul would know who was behind the mask

Rylee was making the calls, a decision that could make or break my career. I could almost see Olympia from the watery reflection at my feet, her glaring eyes warped as I splashed through the puddle. I was helping New Olympus, anyway. The longer Lower Olympus spent writhing in its own filth, the greater chance that the residue would spill into the rest of the city. I was doing a good thing here, I reasoned. Sometimes you just had to strongarm peace. Force it to happen. Get knee deep amongst the humans and the worst of them and get your hands dirty for a good cause.

I picked up the black mask, catching my reflection and my glowing golden eyes. “It’s all to be a superhero,” I whispered to myself. “You’re doing the right thing, Ry. Just make him proud.”