Carrie had been worried sick. First, the disturbance on school grounds, next she was being turned away from the infirmary by M.A.G.E’s security. The students didn’t talk about them often, those armed men and women in M.A.G.E blue. Their existence clashed with the hopeful, cheery feel of being a costumed hero. The guards always glared, as if they were hunting, waiting for a reason to use their weapons.

Not that they would be able to clip her with them. She would freeze their stun rounds in midair.

But they wouldn’t give her a reason.

“Ma’am, rest assured, no one was seriously injured,” the tall one said. There was always a tall and a short one.

“My friend is in there,” Carrie said again.

“You have to return to the fair,” the short one said.

“If the situation is under control, what needs to be contained?” Carrie asked.

They gave her no answer. Frustrated, she left the entrance of the building and headed back to the dorms. She was in no mood to keep connecting with the representatives in the fair.

“Good bye! Stay safe!” The great voice of Giantsbane spoke over the clamor. “This has been a wonderful break, but I must return to my duties.”

The ground shuddered once. A brief breeze rustled the tents and flags of the fair. His figure soared over the crowd and dwindled into the sky.

“Good riddance,” someone said quietly by the side of the path.

That had always been the case for number two. He worked hard to save lives and make appearances, pining for that number one popularity spot that Victory seemed to hold with an iron grip despite doing the bare minimum PR. People either loved or hated a social performer.

Carrie had rarely thought too deeply about that side of heroism. She liked the way heroes looked on TV. Their confident smiles, their waving capes. The narrative they represented. She wanted to become one, and her extended family cheered her on. This wave of anti-hero sentiment had brought contradicting thoughts to the forefront of her focus.

She rushed back to the dorm blocks, frustrated in more ways than one. Along the way she was interrupted by a familiar face.

“Penny? Didn’t you know left,” Carrie said.

Before saying anything first, Penny wormed her arm around Carrie’s and with more strength than Carrie would have known she had, the exuberant girl began pulling them the other way.

“Carrie, we don’t hang out enough, let’s go,” Penny said.

“Uh okay.”

They left the blocks and headed for the entrance of the campus grounds.

“So, where’s-” Carrie did not finish. A gust of wind blew her hair onto her face. Above, a V-shaped blur sliced through the air, leaving behind a teeth-shaking wake. Windows rattled. Ears were deafened. It seemed to have come from the school grounds.

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“Geez, I hope that person gets arrested,” Carrie said as her hearing returned, “going supersonic at such low altitude.”

“Somehow I doubt anyone would be allowed to,” Penny said.

“What?”

“What’s up? How was the fair?”

“I think I got typecasted into coastal guard teams,” Carrie said. “I mean I know my gift is water manipulation but come on.”

“Yeah I got talked to by the Little Green Women.”

“A pun and gendered marketing,” Carrie said, amused.

“We’re deep in the 21st century now,” Penny said. “Their goals are good though, save the trees and all that. I might sign up. It’s not like I wanted to be a hero just to punch people anyway. The climate is a bigger threat than any villain.”

Carrie had forgotten the reason Penny was even here at all. A psychic hurricane had forced her remaining family to move away from the coast. She could hardly imagine the concern, the pressure that must have been laden on Penny’s shoulders when the Awakening happened. Well-meaning parents, traumatized by loss, suffocating what remained of their blood out of fear of the continuation of that terrible pattern.

Carrie talked about her own family briefly, how carefree they were by comparison. They’ve only ever stopped her from going on the most dangerous, extreme ventures.

“Maybe I’m missing what it takes to be a decent hero,” Carrie said as they wandered together through the city.

“Why do you say that?”

“Everyone’s so driven. Everybody’s compelled to be a hero. I just wanted to be one. Like it was some dream job to be worked towards. What if that’s not enough?”

Penny smiled.

“You’re wondering if you have a good enough backstory,” she said.

“God I hate the way you posed it,” Carrie said. “But yes.”

“It’s a staple of this culture I suppose. Heroes trying to evoke support and empathy from their fans with powerful backstories. I think a ton of them just use it to make themselves seem more interesting. Maybe that’s the problem right now. Heroes becoming more story than function. I think we should worry about the latter first.”

“I hope Lyssa’s okay,” Carrie said.

“Now she has a backstory,” Penny remarked. “Maybe she’d make a great hero. Where is she, by the way?”

“At the school, last I checked,” Carrie said. She wanted to say she wasn’t worried about Lyssa herself, but the forces around her. But she did not know how to word what she meant. The school was their home, after all. The central tenet of their ideology and a standard of heroism. It was the city’s true heart. And it had sustained enough doubt over the past few weeks.

“Let’s go this way,” Penny said.

Carrie saw why. The street ahead was becoming crowded with anti-gifters.

“Don’t they have jobs?” Penny said, annoyed. “It’s been weeks already.”

“The mayor has been holding council meetings about the next step,” Carrie said. “I think they’re frustrated it’s taking so long.”

“Yeah well people voted for Howard because they knew him, not because he’s fast, or good at his job,” Penny said. “I mean it’s ridiculous. People barge into a school with high caliber firearms—a school!—and Howard is still debating. Debating what? Whether ungifted should be allowed to buy military grade hardware?”

Carrie kept her thoughts unspoken. Of course the argument is whether or not gifts and firearms should be thought of as a similar thing. This issue was born before them, and would likely outlive them all. Issues where two sides talked past each other weren’t looking to be resolved.

“Damn it,” Penny said.

Pedestrians were backing away as a loose but nervous crowd from another front of activists. There was more of them than ever before.

“Let’s go back to the school,” Penny said. “Maybe they’re done talking.”

Carrie did not ask what she meant. She squinted, frowning.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, pointing at the horde. “Their eyes.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“They’re unfocused, glazed over. Like…”

“How do you see that far?”

“This is mind control,” Carrie said. “We need to go back. Now.”

They hurried, but there was nowhere to go. The horde had closed in. Cars were stopped in their tracks. Horns blared to no avail, unable to scatter the shambling wave inexorably moving towards the school. This was another attack, another Awakening, except this time it was with the fragile ungifted.