Years of work, carefully cultivating a specific reputation as a cool and powerful super. A Carter. A legacy. Someone who everyone knew would become a hero. Ruined by her mother, and the Laymont Official Super Exercise and Refined Studies.

  Or, the L.O.S.E.R.S club.

  The club was a joke.

  The acronym was everywhere. On the banner strung up for them. On the flyers on the table. On their goddamn t-shirts. Who made t-shirts for an after school club?

  Fortunately, it was her senior year, so it wasn’t as if she’d be stuck with these people for years. Only a few more months. Then she’d be able to escape her ruined reputation.

  She finished helping Mai setting up the food, people gathering close at the smell and crackle of chip bags, then quickly tried to escape. Mai, all seeing mother as she was, caught Pip by the arm and called the group together before Pip could wiggle free.

  “Come on, Pip,” she said, holding onto the sleeve of Pip’s cropped hoodie as she squirmed. Why did she have to do this? “Don’t you want to learn who your club-mates are?”

  “Sure,” Pip said, doing her best to avoid sounding defeated. I’m doing this for my future, she reminded herself. So I can train against talented supers. I just have to deal with these people first.

  “Why don’t you start?” Mai said, suggesting it as if Pip had any choice but to answer. The look her mother gave said exactly what she expected Pip to do, and she wasn’t getting out of it without getting in trouble.

  “Hi,” Pip said, waving a hand at the group surrounding the table. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, freshmen she passed in the hall but never interacted with. There was only one she did recognize, a senior she had English class with. Khione was a super? Now, that was interesting. She’d never given any hint that she was a super. “You can call me Pip. My power is glasskinesis.”

  Khione, goddess of English class, scoffed. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

  “What’s your power?” Pip asked, curious now. She’d paid attention to Khione before, of course. It was impossible not to. She was tall and gorgeous, with an awesome body and striking white hair that she’d always assumed was dyed. Was it actually a super feature?.

  “Ice princess,” one of the teens piped up, the one with the weirdly long arm.

  “Shut up,” Khione said, glaring at them. “It’s ice creation and manipulation.”

  “Oh, really? You’re a summoner and manipulator like me!”

  “Why do you sound so excited?”

  Pip cleared her throat, forcing the excitement down as she felt her mother swell with satisfaction beside her. “I’m not.”

  The rest of the group introduced themselves and their powers. Like Pip had suspected, they were all freshmen, making Khione and Pip the only two seniors in the bunch. Anyone with any sort of talent had either joined a gym or one of the superpowered sports teams by the time they hit senior year.

  Pip had never understood why so many supers would choose to do nothing when the Unity of Heroes offered resources to any super who asked for help.

  “Sounds like you are all set,” Mai said, stepping back. “I’ll be over there reading if you need anything from me.” She walked off, shouldering her bag and settling onto the bleachers, where she pulled out a pair of headphones and a book and settled in to read.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Ah, so that was why Mai had volunteered to supervise this club, despite none of her children being in it. Peace and quiet she never had at home.

  After watching her mother check out of the situation, Pip turned back to the group of teens in front of her and flashed a smile. “So. What now, guys? Do you have a training agenda?”

  Khione rolled her eyes and walked away, sprinting across the gym to escape. It took Pip a moment to realize that following her would make her look like a dumbass, and another moment to decide she already looked like a dumbass so she might as well. She didn’t have much to lose.

  Her sneakers squeaked against the wooden floor as she followed Khione, passing underneath a hanging basketball hoop. Khione twisted to look over her shoulder, frowning at her. “Why are you following me?”

  Pip shrugged, trying to be nonchalant despite how fast she walked to follow Khione. “You’re the only one in here I know?”

  Khione stopped in her tracks, planting hands on her hips with an exasperated sigh. Pip had never seen her out of her school uniform, and now she wore a pair of ripped jeans and an oversized T-shirt printed with art across the front. It looked vintage. “We’ve never spoken before.”

  “You’re in my English class?”

  She rolled her eyes, icy blue behind all the sarcasm. They had to be a super feature. Of course she’d known black people with lighter eyes, but they were so unnaturally blue they had to be caused by her power. Pip had always wanted a super feature like that; maybe her grandmother’s purple eyes. She’d always wanted purple eyes. “Yes, you are indeed the class clown in our English class.”

  “Hey! I’m actually taking school seriously now,” Pip protested, falling short as she realized that wasn’t as good a defense as she thought. She brushed past it was Khione tried to speak again. “And anyway, I want to know what you are doing here.” She motioned around at the gym. A few of the club members had dived into the food Mai brought, while others returned to their apathy or general uncoordinated fun.

  Khione shrugged. “Not everyone has the privilege of being able to go to a fancy gym like you.”

  “I don’t go to a gym,” Pip said, failing to mention the fact that her backyard had a full training arena, and due to Athena they could access Tower resources. It was different, however. That was because of her family, not any riches of her own.

  “Sure,” Khione said. Her eyes swept up and down Pip’s body, the judgment clear in her gaze. A shiver swept down Pip’s spine at the look, and she did her best to ignore the sensation.

  “Well.” Her mouth hung open, searching for words but unable to find any good retort. “It’s not like any of you are actually training your powers.”

  “We are.”

  It took a lot to keep from frowning, but she couldn’t help her eyebrows from creasing together. She’d seen a lot of different training types, but this didn’t look like any of them. Nobody actually appeared to be using their powers, aside from the kid with the long arm, and Pip had absolutely no clue what was going on there.

  Even her youngest siblings trained harder than this, and Dyiona had only had awakened core the past year. She doubted this group knew a single thing about training their core, strengthening it, or using it healthily. They could be at risk for straining their cores, if they used them wrong, or tried too hard without the proper knowledge, it could hurt them.

  It didn’t matter. This wasn’t her problem. She was just here to get her parents off her back and start training sooner.

  And yet it bothered her. Watching perfectly good supers—or maybe just decently okay supers—squander their powers made her wince. She couldn’t stand to see so much potential wasted.

  The percentage of supers to normal humans was relatively small, and the number of them who became heroes was even smaller. Heroes were constantly spread thin, concentrated in the Unity Towers in major cities but also trying to service every small town and out of the way stop in the United States and across the world. Competing against metafauna and villains and out of control supers and criminals and stray supertech, and countries that still didn’t want to accept supers as normal citizens.

  Pip couldn’t understand how anyone could know all that and sit back and do nothing.

  Someone shouted from across the gym, tossing an apple through the air. Another kid hovered off the ground, managing to catch the apple before slamming to the ground, hard enough to knock all the air from their lungs.

  He groaned, clutching his chest as he curled in on himself. Pip winced, watching him gasp for air. He couldn’t even hover using his flight power.

  “Aw, fuck,” Pip muttered, massaging her forehead. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this, and that Mai had almost certainly seen it coming. Why did her mum always have to be right? “Everyone, listen up. We’re going to train your powers.”