=== CURT ===

Cindi and I sat at a huge conference table, surrounded by guards and Marcelli's goons. Marcelli walked through the door. He was so big that he had to come in sideways. I watched him. A quarter of a second to teleport to him, another to open a portal inside his body, throw in a knife or grenade, and this would be all over. And Cindi would be dead. We were late a few days ago. Not by much. Five or ten minutes. I had lied about my range. He threatened to kill her; I threatened him back. I opened a portal and prepared to throw his fat ass through it into the ocean, where he would swim and drown. And that's when I learned two things. One: Marcelli isn't fat. He's strong as hell, and most of his weight is muscle. He threw me across the room with ease. I was pretty good at Judo, but leverage couldn't always make up the difference between a few hundred pounds. The second thing I learned was that if he died, the explosive tied around Cherry's spine would go off. One of several fail-safes that he had put into the device.

  He also brought someone in who he claimed was the bomb-maker and killed him in front of me. I had no way of verifying whether that was true, but it was a sign. The only way to keep her alive was to work for this man. Since then, we had done several jobs. Small things, mostly. Moving stuff before the cops got to it, hiding stuff. Today was the day we did our first real job for him. He had brought in all of these guys for whatever it was. And probably to shoot me if I decided to kill him anyway. Which was smart.

  "Gentlemen, ladies. I'd thank you for coming, but it's not like you had a choice." The man laughed at his own statement. I couldn't call it a joke. "You're here to make me richer. And you will all get richer in the process. . . . Well, most of you."

  He met my eyes for a moment, his grin only growing. Especially as he looked past me. There was a thirstiness about his gaze at Cindi. I recognized it because many people wore it. I knew I did sometimes. She was . . . Well, she was Cindi. And that meant people wanted her. My stomach turned. I clenched my fist and started to lean forward, but Cindi pushed her leg against mine. I froze.

  "Today, your job is to take what is rightfully mine from the Dominguez cartel. You will take their drugs. You will do it quietly and quickly. If anyone sees you, kill them. You know how this goes."

  "E-excuse me, Mister Marcelli. But how are we supposed to get in without being seen?" One of the goons asked. He was a nervous-looking guy, covered in flop-sweat.

  "I have procured an asset that can get you in and out with relative ease. Two actually. Meet Esvanir and Buck Cherry." He gestured to us; every eye was now on us. I scanned the room; Cindi scanned her nails. There were murmurs about us filling the room. Marcelli raised his hand, and the room fell silent. "These two are our secret weapons. They'll help you. But if they do anything to fuck up this mission, if they step out of line or disappear for any amount of time, kill Esvanir. Call me and tell me. And I'll take care of the lovely Miss Cherry. Now get ready. Gather your things. You leave in thirty minutes."

  Everyone except for Marcelli, Cherry, and I moved. Once they had cleared the room, Marcelli looked up, pretending to just have noticed we hadn't moved. "Oh? You're still here. Is there a problem, Miss Drei? Mister Reese?"

  "I'm not robbing the Dominguezes. It's not happening."

  "Oh, but it is," Marcelli countered. "Otherwise, boom. Your girlfriend is gone."

  "And you will be dead in the next instant." There was no hesitation in my voice. No room for argument. Marcelli didn't flinch.

  "Mister Reese, come now. Be reasonable. They're a cartel. They kill people."

  "They provide medicine to places that need that medicine. You're stealing that medicine so that those people die. So that you can leverage their ability to live. I'm not doing this." Marcelli slammed his palm on the table, and it cracked. I stared impassively at him.

  "You will do whatever I fucking say. I own you!" He screamed, crossing over to us. He loomed over me, at least a foot taller than I was. Cherry didn't move. Neither did I. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. He grabbed me, lifted me by my shirt, and held me aloft until we were at eye level. "You have no choice. I don't give a damn about your conscience or your morals. You do this, or she dies."

  I spat in his face. He reeled back and threw me against the wall. I slammed against it and bounced slightly off the floor, groaning. He whipped something out of his jacket and held it aloft. It was the detonator. His finger was on the button that would kill her. In the corner of my eye, I could see her shake. I gritted my teeth and got to my feet. He looked between the two of us. "I am sick of you testing my patience, Mister Reese. Fall in line, or she'll fall in pieces."

  "The pr-problem with that threat," Cindi began, getting to her feet. Her hands were shaking, and her voice was quavering. But her face was made of stone. "is that once you do it, you no longer have any leverage over him. So, unless you kill him immediately afterwards, he remains a threat. And he's surprisingly hard to kill, Mister Marcelli. And what's worse is he has these fucking ethics that get in the way of everything. Do you know why he isn't rich, sipping Mai Tais somewhere? Because he gives all of the things he steals away. All the money, all the technology, everything except what he strictly needs to function."

  "I don't give a damn if he wants to pretend to be Saint fucking Theresa. He works for me now." His chest was heaving, and his hands were shaking. I watched his thumb twitch on the button and had to focus on not holding my breath. "You both belong to me now!"

  "Until when?" I asked. "How long do you think you can force me to do things that I hate? Work for some bastard that I hate?"

  "As long as I fucking like, you gnat!" He screamed and smacked me. I went flying. It wasn't a hit from Smash Gal, but it still hurt. I dragged myself to my feet and spat out a bloody tooth. "You're going to do this and anything else I demand. If I ask you to scrub my god damn shit stains out of my fucking drawers, you will do it and do it happily because you know that your bitch will live if you do."

  "Curt!" Cindi screamed as I started to charge. I stopped at the sound of her voice. "It's n-not f-forever. It's just for now, okay? Let's just do this job."

  "Listen to her. Between the two of you, she's the only one with sense."

=== KARI ===

With my face out there, I couldn't visit the city in any form without people flocking to me, without apps tracking my every movement. I had ditched the mask. There was no point in it anymore. I'd been asked to do a lot of appearances. People offered me all kinds of things to come to their events. I had gotten so many gift baskets. Unfortunately, mom and dad usually got to them before I did. I'm the one with super speed, but when dad found chocolate oranges in one of the baskets, there was nothing I could do to stop him from eating all of them. And then having an upset tummy. Mom was no better. She had used up a ton of the shampoos and conditioners. To be fair, her hair did look great afterwards.

  As I flew casually through the city, I took my phone out and checked Twitter. I gained so many followers on both my civilian account and my @Smash_Gal account; I had hundreds of notifications, tags, memes, and pictures of me flying through the city. But there was only one thing I cared about. I went to my messages, scrolled down to one, and tapped it.

Curt Reese

@curtreese418

Sure. If you want. What do you want to do?

U live in the city. U decide

Starburst Cafe. 15th and Madison. 8?

Sounds Great! I'll be there!

We need to talk

Let's meet up somewhere.

Cee. You know I'll find you. You should just turn yourself in

He had read the messages; he had seen them. There had been no activity from Esvanir since the day of the Grignau invasion. I found out where he worked, and he quit the next day without notice. His former boss just said that he had found another job and that he needed to start immediately. I got an email; it was the background check I ordered on him. I had his address. I flew towards it. One of the complications of flying so fast that no one would ever realize is that there are no GPS programs that can keep up with you. Everything is always lagging behind.

  When I arrived at his apartment, I thought about going down and asking to be let in. But I don't imagine that would look very good. A superheroine asking to be let into some random man's apartment. It's not like anyone knows he's Esvanir. I saw him teleport away, and even I have a hard time believing it. I found his apartment and tried the windows; one of them was unlocked. So I let myself in. I walked through it; His apartment was sparse. There was a couch and a table, some books, and a tablet. I went into the bedroom. There was a computer desk with some papers strewn about, but no computer. The bed was unmade. Well, some things never change. I walked into the bathroom and checked it. There were two toothbrushes, a plain white one and then one that was cherry red. Jealousy stretched out in my stomach. That's not fair; he's allowed to have relationships, I thought, clenching my fist. After he's out of prison, he can date whoever he likes. Even Buck Cherry.

  I don't think he had been here in a while. He had gone underground now that he knew who I was. What I was. I found a piece of paper, wrote him a note, and then left. I had other things to do: a meeting with a toy company and a photoshoot. And I had to talk to Energy Bomb, the energy drink company I had done that shoot for the first day I was in Avalare. They had been claiming that they were "the Official Energy Drink of Smash Gal". I had found a lawyer to help me talk to them, and we were meeting with them later today.

  I stopped off at a restaurant and got a seat. People were staring. I was in full costume, but I hadn't felt like changing. Besides, there was a TV with some news about me in the background. Even if I was wearing street clothes, they'd recognize me. I scrunched up small into the booth, though; I wasn't used to always being so seen; It was exhausting. Sometime after I had ordered, a man walked up and sat across from me.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Uh, hi?" I asked, genuinely baffled that someone would just sit across from a perfect stranger. Actually, he does look kind of familiar.

  "Hey, Smashy. Good to see ya again, girl," he said. "We never got properly introduced. I'm Harold."

  I took the hand he was holding out and shook it. It finally clicked. It was the guy the cops tried to arrest for that bank robbery. "Oh, yeah. Hi. Call me Kari, though."

  "I just wanted to thank you. Those cops were fucked up, trying to arrest me for walking down the street like that."

  "Yeah," I said, staring at my hands. I still hadn't figured out how I felt about that. I wonder how many other people hadn't been so lucky. I met his eyes and smiled. "Well, it's nice to see you. What are you doing here?"

  He laughed. "I work here. You dropped me off, remember?"

  "Oh, I thought this place looked familiar."

  "I had a question for you, though. Is it worth it?"

  "Is what worth it?"

  "This whole hero gig? I've been thinking since you talked about it. I do have powers. They're not like yours. But I never used them for anything but getting myself out of trouble. And sometimes into trouble." He paused for a moment. "So, is it worth it?"

  "I . . . It's complicated." He waited for me to elaborate. "I love doing this. I do. I love trying to help people when I can. I like the attention . . . But there are some downsides."

  "Well, spill it. I need to make an informed decision," he said frankly.

  "Well, things will just . . . change your perspective. You changed my perspective. Or, well, what happened to you anyway." He nodded solemnly. "But I have to do something. What if I hadn't done something during the Invasion?"

  "Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I went out and tried, too! Those Grignau mother fuckers are tough sons of bitches."

  "You did?"

  "Yeah, well, you can't be everywhere, and Bion and his boys were more focused on uptown. Heroes don't usually come down to my neighborhood." He took out his phone, selected a video, and slid it across the table. I pressed play. It was shaky and hard to see exactly what was going on, but I could hear a voice screaming.

  "You go, Harold! Get those fuckers!" There was a spark of lightning that illuminated the street and slammed into one of the Grignau. Another swung on the figure that must've been Harold, and he went flying. He caught himself mid-air with a whip of lightning, landed heavily, and then blasted the Grignau again.

  "That's really impressive!" I said, pushing his phone back. "I think you have what it takes."

  "I know I have what it takes. I've been practicing since I was a kid with them. Hard not to. I just don't know if America is ready."

  I took a moment to gather my thoughts. There had been some hateful comments on my recording of the live-stream afterwards. Not a lot. More than I ever wanted to see. "I don't know if my opinion matters . . . But I don't think the world will ever be ready until someone has already stepped up and done it."

  "Yeah, you're probably right. Where'd you get that costume?"

  "Oh, my mom made it."

  "That . . . Makes sense." I frowned and looked down at it.

  "I like it. Is it bad?"

  "A little Barbie Dreamhouse, you know?" He said, shrugging. "But if you like it, then it's fire. I will have to find something a bit different, though. What do you think about secret identities?"

  "I thought they were really important until mine was out."

  "And how's that going?"

  "Can't even sit down at a restaurant without a fan bugging me," I said, grinning at him.

  "Oh, is that how it is?"

  "Little bit. Don't do the secret identity thing."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, lying to people is going to complicate things. And if you're already afraid of how people and how the police are going to react, then I think a secret identity might do more harm than good. Besides, merchandising is kind of fun. Give me your number. I'll have Jenny call you and talk to you about options."

  "Become a superhero, and girls just all over you," he said, grinning back at me. He wrote his number on a napkin. "I gotta get back to work. Catch you later, Smashy."

=== CURT ===

The Dominguez job was an absolute fucking nightmare. After my talk with the big man, I met up with the mission leader and opened a portal into the warehouse. Marcelli's crew all rushed through, with Cherry and I going through last. And as soon as we were in, someone opened fire on us. Gunfire, especially from automatic machine guns, is deafening, especially in an echo-y warehouse. They kept firing. One guy to my left went down. To Cherry's right, another. The rest spread out, finding as much cover as possible. After a moment, the firing stopped, and people started moving in. Marcelli's crew was running light on weapons because this was supposed to be a quick in-and-out job. I counted Dominguez's guys. There were ten of them, all with guns and what looked like grenades, and God only knows what else. They were practically a fucking SEAL team, and I was sitting here with a naked woman and a bunch of guys with pistols taking potshots when they could and hadn't hit anything but the wall.

  "Stop firing!" I yelled out. The guys I could see looked at me like I was crazy and continued firing. After a moment, I muttered under my breath, "God damn it. Cher, you ready?"

  "Always, Essy." I grabbed her hand and snapped my finger. I appeared behind the farthest guy with her in hand. She let go and grabbed the guy's throat, and he went down, convulsing. His gun fired erratically and struck one of the other ones in the leg, who collapsed. They turned around and started firing on us. Cherry jumped back, looped an arm around me, and we both went insubstantial. Bullets passed through us. It was weird. When things went that fast in and out of us, it made our forms kind of wobbly and distorted. What was worse was I couldn't teleport while they were firing. One of Marcelli's men took the opportunity to fell one of Dominguez's guys, but the rest were still just doing cover fire. Cherry and I charged forward, and I spun and threw her at one of the guys, lining up my next teleport right when she left me. She landed on another guy and incapacitated him instantly. I snapped up behind one, grabbed him by the throat, put my leg behind his, and pulled him over, opening a portal and throwing him through it. He'd have an excellent time in Florida for a while.

  But unfortunately, I was hit. From multiple ends. One of Marcelli's men shot me, and Dominguez's men opened fire when they realized where I was. Bullets tore through me, and I almost passed out from the pain. I could feel the warm lifeblood leaking out from multiple sources. I had to finish this quickly. Cherry had jumped from victim to victim and taken them out, but there were still so many. And now I was probably bleeding out. I ran for cover, dove, and slammed hard into the ground. Another shot blasted just past my foot. It was from one of Marcelli's men. The same one who had hit me before. He was aiming for me. Fucking Christ. He leaned out from his hiding spot and lined up a shot again. I watched him fire at me. As the bullet left the gun, I opened a portal in front of it and sent it into the ocean. It's not bad enough that someone leaked the plan, but now one of the people I'm working with is trying to kill me. Wonder if he's the leak. One way to find out, I guess. But first, I've got to deal with this.

  I grunted as I got to my feet and looked back. Cherry was dancing around five of them. There were eight left. She could probably take them, but then I might take more fire, and I had lost enough blood for a lifetime. I tracked the enemies' movements, and after a moment, I opened a portal underneath all of them. Cherry almost fell into one of my holes but caught herself, flying up. I limped over to the crew and marked the boxes for transport. The man who had shot me puffed up his chest as I approached and said, "Why the fuck didn't you just do that from the start!?"

  I grabbed his throat and slammed him into the wall, holding my gut with the other hand. The others raised their guns at me, and I gulped. "Why the fuck did you shoot me?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about." I slammed his head into the wall, and there was a shot to the side of my head.

  "Let him go," one of the men behind me said. I looked at that one. Then at the rest of them. The one against the wall put his gun against my throat.

  "Yeah, let me go, freak." I did so, and he didn't remove the gun. "You heard Marcelli. One wrong move, and I get to redecorate this warehouse."

  I stared at him, my heart pounding. Fear coursed through my veins. But so did rage.

  "Then kill me. But know if you don't do it on the first shot, you're fucked. I'll kill you in an instant." The man grinned.

  "Doubt I'll miss from this distance." That's when Cherry came up from the ground and made him insubstantial. He tried to fire, but space was weird when you were insubstantial. The bullet came out, but I had enough time to get out of the way. The bullet grazed my throat, and I groaned. The other men opened fire. I teleported to my safe place. My apartment. It was the only place I could think to go. I took a few deep breaths and caught sight of a letter on the coffee table. I'll have to deal with whatever that is later.

  When I snapped back, it was chaos. The men were firing on a somersaulting Cherry, who alternated between corporeal and incorporeal at random. They didn't know I was back yet. Well, one realized it, but I opened a portal in front of his gun and back into the barrel, and when he fired, the damn thing exploded in his hand. "Stop firing!"

  They all turned. Cherry landed perfectly and observed. "I've marked all of you. If any of you fire your gun, I'll teleport you to the middle of the ocean. Where you will die slowly of dehydration or exhaustion from swimming. Or being eaten."

  One of them fired. Because, of course, they did. His gun also exploded, and I opened a portal under him. He fell through. He'd fall from about four hundred feet onto the open ocean. If he didn't land right, he'd break some bones. He would die if he didn't get help. I kept the portal open so they could watch. "Anyone else?"

=== KARI ===

"We own the rights to those pictures. You signed a contract that we get to use your name and your likeness to promote Energy Bomb however we like." I was sitting in a boardroom in a business skirt and blouse. I had spent so much time in that spandex-esque costume that anything else felt weird. I played with the dress clothes a bit as the lawyers and the Energy Bomb guys talked this out. I didn't even know why I was here. I didn't know anything about copyright law.

  "But you do not have the right to the Smash Gal brand," my lawyer, someone Jenny had hooked me up with, countered. She seemed really good at this. "You also have no right to her likeness as Smash Gal, only the pictures you took of her. The latest ads that you've been using have been her likeness as Smash Gal and photoshopping your product in her hand. Or photoshopping her costume onto the photos you took. You do not have the right to do this."

  They circled around and around these same talking points over and over again, and after the third time, I couldn't be bothered to listen. There were lots of people using my "likeness" whether or not I liked it. Like the "Smush Girl" lingerie costume that had been used in some weird porn parody of my life. The plot was . . . offensive. They had the not-quite-me sleep with the Grignau. And with "Doctor Brain". Okay, that doesn't bother me as much. But still. Apparently, there wasn't much we could do because they didn't technically use our names and the costumes were slightly different colors.

  The meeting ended eventually. And as I walked out of their building, someone walked up to me. "Kari Stewart?"

  "Yes?"

  "You've been served," the person said, handed me a bundle of papers, and walked away. I opened the envelope around them, and my lawyer peeked over my shoulder.

  "Destruction of property, huh? Being a hero is pretty complicated, huh?"

  "I guess?" I looked at her. "Is there anything we can do?"

  "Give it to me. I'll see what we can do about it."

  "Thanks, Carrie."

  "No problem, Kari." We smiled at each other. We had bonded a little over the other spelled her name wrong.