Before I got my hands dirty fighting supervillains in Lower Olympus, I used to hunt down cat burglars almost every night. Humans were clumsy, with their sweaty bodies and hammering heartbeats, and when you caught them trying to break inside an apartment building, they only ever had two responses: run like hell, or stupidly try and fight me. It’s safe to say that break-ins weren’t that frequent anymore in Lower Olympus because of me, simply because you wouldn’t want to end up as a stain on someone’s carpet and a half-assed article written about you in a tabloid.
But sneaking into places wasn’t something I was used to myself. I had told Ava that I needed to grab something from my apartment before we left. “We don’t have the time,” she argued, but I was about a block away before she realized she was speaking to thin air. Now, I was climbing up the fire escape on the side of the building, its rusty rungs protesting against my weight. I passed empty rooms and shuttered windows. A kid sneaked a glance behind a curtain and swiftly pulled it close when I stuck my tongue out at him. I smiled to myself and slipped into my room, passing the same black cat now perched on the window sill beside my own. It slept, unfazed by the distant echo of sporadic gunfire that always seemed to ring through the Lower Olympus nights.
I had always wanted a pet when I was a kid, but animals seemingly hated being around me. Ronnie was allergic to every stray dog I sneaked home, and a part of me figured having a black cat encroaching on my apartment wasn’t so terrible. I didn’t believe in human omens, anyway.
Its ear flicked as I shut the window, one eye opening before it turned away from me.
As superheroes do, we left the mess of clothes in our backpacks spilled on the floor. I’d deal with it when I came back. For now, I pulled out my Olympia gear, holding it lightly in my hands. I hadn’t put on the black dye and face mask yet, and in all honesty, a part of me didn’t want to. The weight of the suit in my hand almost anchored me down, stopping me from moving at all. The soft glint of the lightning bolt on the chest, the familiar coarseness of the worn-in spandex. It was all so familiar, something I could slip inside of without feeling like it wasn’t me in the mirror.
Hiding behind a mask just wasn’t my thing anymore. I’d already dealt with that years ago.
It would be so easy to tip the police and the SDU right about now. Get this nonsense over with and get back to finishing my comic book for the meeting in the morning, which was in… I cursed—it was midnight, and I had about a dozen pages to get through. I had convinced myself I could do this the clean way, maybe use my advance to fund my way into the Olympiad training program. And sure, I could tell them I was Zeus’ daughter, probably get right in and skip the waiting list and the tests, the screenings and having to pay thousands of dollars for this course.
But then Veronica would be in danger, because the entire world would know who I was. Denny, Bianca, and Em would become alien to me because they would be nothing but entities I had to protect instead of my friends and the people I sorta cared about. As for Ronnie… Well, I doubted she’d be mad about having people knock on her door every day. Before I got my powers, my school bully’s parents made sure to visit every so often to ‘clear the air,’ and ‘make sure our daughters are all just friends.’ Safe to say, we got used to the visits, and very, very tired of them.
All she would be is disappointed that, in her words, I hadn’t grown up yet. That I was still playing this stupid little superhero game I should’ve left behind like every kid my age already had.
But maybe if I can show her my Cape License, she’ll finally let me come home, I thought bitterly, dropping my backpack on my squeaky bed. I tossed my Olympia gear into my closet, pausing for a moment before tensing my jaw and shutting the wardrobe. Whatever. I’m fine on my own, anyway. She probably wouldn’t even give a shit that I’m helping a supervillain tonight.
I doubted she would even care about me trying to get into the Olympiad. “You, a superhero?” she would say. “Your father was a superhero; what you’re doing is playing pretend.”
Pursing my lips, I shook my head. She wouldn’t say that, I knew, but it was easier to tell myself she would when I had a leash around my neck and a supervillains’ hand on the other end.
A knock on my door startled me. It wasn’t easy to sneak up on me, but sometimes I got too focused on one thought, one task or action, that my other senses took a back seat for a moment.
“Ry?” Denny said hoarsely. “Mind if I stop by for a second? Won’t be too long, kid.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, opening the door for him. He stood in the hallway, slightly hunched and leaning on a scarred wooden cane. I lived above his coffee shop—a former comic book store that shut down because anti-supers idiots kept smashing up the place every night. You could see the wear of what that kind of stress did to him on his face, around his sunken eyes and tilted smile. “Aren’t you meant to be asleep, gramps? If you’re skipping on your meds again I’ll tell the doc.”
Denny waved a bony hand through the air, then gestured if he could come in. I moved aside, briefly checking the darkness behind him to see if anyone was listening. I’d find Ava’s shadow soon enough. For now, though, I pulled the seat at my desk for him to sit down. Instead, he snorted and picked up a half finished drawing of Olympia I had started before the robbery. For whatever reason, my palms began to sweat as he hummed under his breath, reading through the notes I’d made for each panel, and the character sheets I had pinned up on the wall beside my desk. As someone who used to run to his store every day to buy comics, this was an honor.
For the uninitiated, Denny Heart was a legend of the superhero game. He was the reason the comic industry blossomed the way it did during the Golden Age. Hell, he was the one who wrote issue number one of Zeus: The Mightiest Olympian. And when I found out he had a place to stay above his coffee shop, it had softened the blow of being homeless for a few weeks at the start of spring break. Deep down, I owed a lot to him, but we were partners more than anything now. Not to brag, but being the only superhero around meant that, even though he acted nonchalant, I still caught him reading the occasional newspaper article about Olympia and her adventures.
It was a far cry from the days when he used to stand in the face of superheroes and villains alike, pen wedged behind his ear, pad of paper in his hand, and run them down for answers.
He was old, tired, and I didn’t know where most of his wealth had gone. He refused to tell me why he shuffled around at night, or where most of his comics went or who he sold the rights to. In some ways, he was just as filled with secrets as I was, but he still had an eye for superheroes.
That’s why I flinched when he said, “Jesus, kid, ain’t you supposed to be good at this?”
I glanced over his shoulder at the one page I’d finished—a page that showed Olympia splitting a criminal in two. “It’s not even finished yet,” I said. “I still need to shade it and—”
“Not the art, Bucky,” he said. I hated that nickname—younger me did, too, on account I used to have buck teeth that poked out whenever I smiled. “The part where you inspire people.”
I frowned. “She just saved a family from being robbed. What’s not inspiring about that?”
“I don’t know, kid. Maybe the part where she spread him over their dinner table?”
I shrugged, then said, “He broke into their house, and he was dangerous, so she dealt with the threat right there and then. Sure, Olympia could have waited and taken this outside, but—”
Denny put down the piece of paper, shaking his head. “Shouldn’t be a ‘but,’ Rylee. The readers won’t know why she didn’t wait—you don’t have the page space to talk about it. You use the panels to tell a story they’ll understand, and sending a message in each will add up to a broader picture. What you just did right here? That just shows she’s careless, powerful, and a bit of an ass.”
I folded my arms, a little defensive. “The family was grateful that she saved them.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What kinda person would be grateful they just saw another man’s guts get spread over his roast turkey? I’d be damned furious, I tell you! And they should, too.”
“Was she meant to let them get robbed first?” I asked.
“She’s a superhero. Her priority is making sure they’re safe, not traumatizing them.”
“There was a threat, and she dealt with that threat,” I said. “So what if they’re scared? They’re still alive at the end of the day. Look, that little kid is cheering her on back there.”
He tilted his head at me. “What kinda kid would cheer on a murderer, Bucky?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. The kind who knows they’re safe now, I guess?”
“Crazier than a beaver in a chair factory,” he muttered.
“That doesn’t even make sense, D,” I said. “Maybe you should pack it up for the night.”
He walked toward me, something that took nearly a minute. It was deliberate, a part of me guessed, that he kept me waiting as he neared. Maybe to give me time to cool off for a moment.
Denny looked up at me, mouth pressed into that smile he gave before giving bad news. “I understand that you want people to love Olympia as much as you do. I know more than anyone how it feels to want the world to know how much these people should mean to them. But there’s a difference, Buck, between showing them why they should love them, and giving them a reason. You made Olympia powerful and fearless, but that doesn’t mean she’s gentle and caring. What’s she going to do after she killed that man in that house, Ry? Stay and clean up? Call the police?”
I shifted a little, uncomfortable with the heat prickling my skin. “How the hell should I know? Olympia saved them, and wasting time playing house maid won’t lower the crime rate.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “No, you’re right. She should just kiss ‘em goodbye. I bet her flying right out of their house, leaving them to clean up her mess, will sell the comic to Normals.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I gritted my teeth, tapped my finger against my bicep. I had somewhere to be, I know, but defending Olympia was part of the game. Defending myself had always been part of the game.
“This comic isn’t for the Normals,” I said. “It’s for the kids who grew up like me.”
Denny sucked air through his teeth, then walked past me and looked over the posters I had on my walls. “Superheroes save the world, and saving the world means saving everybody.”
I snorted. “A friggin’ comic isn’t going to save the entire world.”
“No, it won’t, but someone’s entire world can be saved because of a comic book.” He glanced over his shoulder. “At least, the girl who used to steal my comics would have thought.”
Picking up the piece of paper, I said, “But things changed, D. I want Olympia to be realistic, to show other superhumans that it might be hard sometimes but it’ll get easier eventually.”
“By ‘get easier,’ I suppose you mean when they kill whoever they don’t like?”
Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong. I shrugged. “Sometimes bad people deserve to die.”
“Is Olympia any better than the criminals she kills?” he asked quietly. “Ain’t murder bad?”
I stilled, then said, “‘Course she is. She’s cleaning up the streets for everyone’s sake.”
Denny breathed for a moment, his back turned away from me. The faint moonlight coming through my window illuminated one side of his pock-marked face. He didn’t speak for several seconds, and I thought the conversation was over as I grabbed the duffel bag and walked toward my door. Olympia comics existed as sketches all over the internet, things that I sometimes liked to flick through because everyone always thought so differently about me. I wanted mine to stand out, and I figured that was easy enough because I was Olympia. At least, I sometimes was.
I was halfway through the door when Denny said, “A long time ago, Zeus told me something that stuck with me forever. It was the one sentence that inspired me to write about him.”
I froze, my heart leaping up my throat. Hearing about dad was always bittersweet, more so now with a bag full of lies hanging off my shoulder. I cleared my throat. “Yeah? What was it?”
Denny shrugged. “It was thirty years ago. Time took it from me.”
I sighed, then said, “You just told me it stuck with you forever, gramps.”
“Oh, it did,” he said, shuffling past me. “It’s the reason I understood why he died for everyone on the planet fighting against Titan. Not just for Supers or Normals, the good people or the bad people, but for everyone. I’m guessing you still never quite understood why yourself.”
I blinked, confused and slightly dumbstruck. “Of course I understood why he died.”
Denny opened his door, pausing to look at me. “Then write Olympia like you do.” He continued into his room, saying, “And not the kind of person he would have put six feet deep.”
I was nearly done dying my hair black when my phone began buzzing. Denny’s words had hit like a freight truck, and a part of me just couldn’t figure out why they had. Back in the day, dad always did have his detractors, the minority who said that having someone as powerful as him not be controlled was a danger to everyone around him. Especially for the un-powered majority of us, they would argue on the news. He needs a leash. That narrative died as soon as he did. As for me, well, some people liked that I saved the day and got the cops home safely, but other people wanted to see me locked up for breaking the law. “Just because she’s Zeus’ brat doesn’t mean she’s above the law,” the news always said. And sure, that’s why I followed most of the laws humans had.
But if Denny was saying that killing criminals was a bad idea, just because it made the humans feel uncomfortable watching from the sidelines, then he was dead wrong.
Dad died saving the world because that’s just what heroes did. And if I ever got the chance to save the world, be there at that crucial moment when everything hangs in the balance, then…
I turned off the tap and washed my hands clean of the black dye. The phone was getting to me, vibrating like an addict without their fix on the ceramic. I filed that thought away for now.
Not that I wouldn’t die for the humans. Of course I would. I’m Olympia. Why wouldn’t I risk my life for a species so squishy and malleable and frequently frustrating? I loved them.
Dad wouldn’t put me in the ground the same way I did criminals, anyway. I was picking up where he left off, and even though I wasn’t… quite like him, the humans needed me.
And maybe this is a news flash for Denny, but I’m not as strong as dad. I can’t waste time playing with supervillains that escape Olympus Pen every other day, I thought. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I pursed my lips and looked away. Phone, right—an unknown number was calling.
I picked up the phone and wedged it between my ear and shoulder as I pulled on the boots Ava got me. “Go for Rylee,” I said, again in mid-air as I forced my foot inside the thing.
“Kid,” Lucas said. I paused, heart leaping into my throat. “I need to talk to you.”
“Uhhh…” I covered the phone’s speaker and cursed quietly. I glanced around the bathroom, making sure both the window and door were shut. It didn’t matter—Ava might have someone tapped into my phone line for all I knew. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. What’s the sitch?”
“Sitch?” Lucas asked after a moment of prolonged, uncomfortable silence. “I’m calling to tell you about gang movement in the lower east end, and you refer to this mess as a sitch?”
“Sue me for not being able to read your mind, Lucas,” I said. “What’s the problem?”
He sighed quietly, then said, “We’ve got intel that there’s been a shift happening downtown. Rival gangs going after something of high possible value. You know how that goes.”
“Of course I do,” I said. “Shootings and massacres. The usual shebang. But I thought you don’t send your boys that deep into Lower Olympus anymore after the mayor kicked you out.”
Like the government licensed Capes in the Olympiad, the SDU were on an even tighter leash. Capes were rarely ever seen in the spotlight—if a problem large enough to warrant their attention reared its head, then that problem wouldn’t have a head a few moments later. They were government agents through and through. Silent. Deadly. Efficient. Never heard and never seen, but always felt, because they were always watching. There was no glory in it anymore, just superhuman terror suppression. The SDU, on the other hand, weren’t liked anywhere near as much as the mysterious men and women in black and white suits. If some six-foot-tall guy in full body armor was patrolling your neighborhood day and night, then you’d also start to get antsy.
“We need more police on our streets,” the CEO of Damage Control said last year. “More people like us who can protect people just like us. Who knows what hides behind those masks?”
So, because of the mayor and her CEO daughter, I took up the slack on this side of town, because the police weren’t much help against someone who could turn them into paste with a snap of their fingers. Lucas might not be chummy with me, but in some ways, we needed each other. I wasn’t going to deal with some petty superhuman break-in all the way in the upper west side. An actress losing her precious pearls wasn’t as important to me as, you know, some kid getting gutted in the alley beside his mom’s apartment building by a gangster with something to prove.
In all honesty, the city was going to shit, which made dressing up as this other person feel a little more justified. Stability is what the city needs. I couldn’t kill a hydra with a million heads.
But I can definitely kill it if the rest of the heads aren’t there to take its place, I thought.
“Salt in the wounds, kid,” he replied. “That’s why I need your eyes there. I’m wrapped up in a meeting tonight, so you’ll have to do something you’re not very good at: stay discreet.”
I snorted. “I’m the most discreet person I know. Have you heard me fly?”
“The point I’m making is that I need you to be my eyes and ears,” he said, lowering his voice. I heard chatter in the background, as well as the ruffle of papers. “This is important—”
I sat on the edge of the bathtub, paused for a moment. “What’s the meeting for?”
“It doesn’t matter what it’s for, kid. I just need you to follow orders for once.”
“Lucas,” I said. Camera clicks in the background. More indistinguishable chatter. Was he inside of a boardroom? “What’s going on? When do you ever say you need me anywhere?”
He covered the microphone and spoke to someone briefly. “Remember what I told you about using those powers for more than just public terrorism? Well, use ‘em tonight.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “You sound weird tonight. You told me a few hours ago to fuck off, and now you want me to be your little lap dog? How about you pick what you want from me? One day you want me to be the superhero for your boys, then you don’t want—”
“The Alps incident. Remember that?” he asked. My blood chilled. I tensed my jaw. “I thought so. We agreed you’ll be on call whenever I need you. You did that through high school. You did that and missed your graduation to take down A-Grade kaiju. Now I need you to do something simple and just gather intel so, for the love of God, don’t fuck with my patience, Rylee.”
My saliva soured. “I don’t like being spoken to like a fucking child.”
“So grow up and do what you’re being asked to for the betterment of the city,” he said. A beat of silence passed between us. My heart hammered against my ribs, racing. Finally, he added, “They’re thinking of making a task force to stop you. Cassie Blackwood came, and she brought the Damage Control board with her. You screwed yourself with the bank robbery, and not everyone’s happy about you flying around all the time. I’m trying to help you. So get down there, do a good job, and actually clean up this city. Otherwise, it’s not gonna be easy to defend you.”
The CEO of Damage Control was here? She’d been one of the biggest pains in my side ever since I introduced myself to the world. She was a two-for-one deal, heading both Blackwood Pharma and one of the largest private security firms in the States. Saying she was powerful was like saying the sun was a flashlight. But, I’ll admit, fourteen-year-old me found it kinda cool that someone like her only ever spoke about me on the news. But as the years went on, the novelty wore off as Damage Control made sure I understood that I wasn’t welcome anywhere near their operators. Cassie wasn’t an anti-super, just like her company told everyone every single year.
But she did want more Normals in the Olympiad. She wanted more Normals in the police force and, from what I learned from Denny, tried to get her mother to pass a stop-and search law for superhumans. It didn’t go through, of course, but she’d made her stance very, very clear.
And now she wanted to create a task force dedicated to my capture. If I stopped operating, then Damage Control would just pick up where I left off. The media that supported them would trip over themselves turning the masses against me, making it seem like I was the problem as Damage Control swept up the heaps of human trash in Lower Olympus. “Why need superheroes when humans are just as capable?” she always said. “Let humanity be the heroes of their story”
If I was any less vane, I would have taken that as a compliment. But I stayed out of human politics. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me, and I wasn’t planning on getting my hands that dirty.
So, I stood up, kicking the toes of my boots against the ceramic floor. “Yeah, alright.”
“‘Yeah, alright’ what?” he asked. “You better not be blowing me off right now, Ry.”
“I’d love to, just so I can see a few more gray hairs on your face.” I picked up the ski mask on the sink. “But I’m on my way down there already. I’ll help, but only ‘cause you asked nicely.”
“Freeman,” a voice in the background said. “Meeting starts in two. Get in here.”
Lucas sighed, then said, “Never ends in the Shining City, does it?”
“It did for the rest of your Olympian buddies.”
Silence. Then he quietly said, “That’s a low blow, kid. Even for you.”
Shrugging, I said, “I guess that’s what you get for using the Alps incident against me.”
He laughed bitterly, short and sharp. “Hell of an asshole, kid. Just like your old man.”
I smiled a little. “Thanks for the compliment, Freeman. Means the world to be anything like him.”