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Sophie trudged through the rain, blood washing off her knuckles as rainwater soaked into her costume. She spat a loose tooth into a gurgling drainpipe and felt the meaty gap it left behind with the tip of her tongue. Fuck, Sophie thought, stopping when soft agony spread through her ribs. One deep breath was all it took to stop her dead, and now she's got to lean against the slick brick wall beside her, waiting for her ribs to set back into place. Healing was great until her bones felt like they were shattering twice over just to mend themselves. She ended up wheezing and screwing her eyes shut until she could keep staggering down the sidewalk. People shoved past her, quick to get out of the rain and into whatever shelter they could get. She took her time. Her body wouldn't allow it any other way.

Stupid fucking city, she thought, wiping blood off her split bottom lip. Smells like crap and the weather suddenly sucks and now thugs are snorting lines of Ambrosia. She froze and nearly doubled over as something shifted in her foot with a grungy crunch. She cursed and swore and very nearly started yelling at the sky and the dark rolling clouds spitting all over her—but she reeled herself back in, maybe not voluntarily, but because that was how the telepaths made sure her mind dealt with that kind of anger. Like some junkyard dog wearing a muzzle.

Sophie gave up walking and decided to crouch on the sidewalk. Not like anyone would care, anyway. Not in Lower Olympus. She spat more blood. Cracks in the pavement swept it away. She stared at herself in the puddle below her, busted up and bleeding, and she'd probably get a black eye if she didn't get some ice on that nasty little bruise under her right eye. The past few days had been hell, ever since finding that…thing. It lived with them now, her and Gold-Star, like some sentient pet that, for whatever reason, loved pickle juice and hot sauce to no end. It didn't eat it. No, because that would be too simple, it would make too much sense. It smeared it all over its tiny pale body and made this weird, chirping, flutey sound, which made her skin crawl and her nose shrivel with disgust.

It had been one arm's dealer, one drug smuggler, one gangster after the next. That 'team' of hers hadn't even checked in on her. Or whatever. Not like she cared about them, either. Like she said, they were probably dead by now. Kids like that don't make it too far, not in this kind of city, not alone, and definitely not that powerless.

Except for Witch-Girl and her weird book of spells. Why she hung with those losers, who even knew?

The only thing that mattered to Sophie right now was that she just got mugged.

All she had wanted was a chili dog. A hot, greasy, abomination of food that would probably ruin her gut, but she needed to get away from that thing inside of their apartment and its weird sounds and smells and its stupid insistence of wanting to be inside her head some more so it could learn how to speak English properly. God. She slammed her fist against the pavement. The puddle rippled. Concrete cracked. Fuck. Fuck! Her phone. Her wallet. Her stupid ear piece, too. They'd jumped her right as she'd stepped out of the crappy little diner, smacked the dog out of her hands, grabbed her wrists, and slammed a brick into the side of her skull. That hadn't done anything. It didn't have to. Addicts, the superhuman kind, didn't think logically. Not until they got a good look at her face.

They'd thought she was Olympia. They'd even let go and backed off and started apologizing.

And then one of them squinted at her, tilted his head, and said, "Hey, that's not Zeus' kid."

There was this feeling inside of her stomach, something sick and hot and simmering the longer she spent remembering the look on their pulled, rain-soaked faces. Greasy hair. Yellow teeth. Ambrosia's stench in their throats and sparkling like golden crust on their upper lips. Frustration. Pure, hot frustration. Because how! How the fuck did she— She's a billion dollars worth of superhuman evolution and— GODDAMIT! She spat more blood. Bit her tongue so hard that blood surged into her mouth. She smashed apart the concrete once, and then twice. On her knees, both hands on the asphalt, fingers burrowing through stone. Sophie shuddered, breathed so hard she shook.

Steam rolled off her fingers and face. Her entire body felt like she was on fire.

She biologically couldn't cry. Not properly. Or feel sadness. Or extreme anger.

So this felt…new. Disgusting.

But good.

Because this was hate. She disliked Olympia. She pitied Adam.

"But I hate this stupid fucking city," she said through her teeth.

It was the one thing she could feel, and feel so thoroughly flowing through her veins. Liquid fire, pumped by her racing heart, making her skin crackle with heat that tightened her jaw the longer she stayed on the ground.

Slowly, though, she could feel it coming—like fingers probing through her skull, picking away the pieces of emotion it didn't like and flicking them away. Sophie massaged her temples, pressing her fingertips into the sides of her skull until the feeling vanished. And then she was there, sitting on the curb, staring at the drain below her, feeling neutral, feeling average, and not feeling anything at all except for the ache of a broken nose and a swollen eye. She shut her eyes and reached for her headphones, then paused. Right. Broken, too. She dropped her hands.

And swallowed a sigh that would've shuddered its way up her throat.

The thugs would be dead by now. All of them had been on the brink of heart attacks.

Whatever gutter they washed up in, all it would do was worsen this place's smell. She'd learnt that the rain wasn't the reason this place always stank. It was the buildup under the asphalt, in the drains and the sewer and the alleyways filled with garbage and bodies and the homeless looking for something reasonably warm. Tomorrow morning, when the sun came up, it would turn the leftover rainwater into a stew, and this entire city would smell even worse. Fog usually sat on the streets, filling vacant buildings and burnt out shells, smelling like old sulfur.

Sophie… Sophie wanted to leave. She wanted to fly straight up and go somewhere far away.

But that hand inside her skull was back, picking away at those thoughts, until there wasn't any meat on the bones that could've fed her aching belly with ideas of seeing the world. She barely remembered what she'd been thinking, anyway. She barely remembered why she was so angry in the first place. All she was now, was very hungry.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Cold, too, but she couldn't go to the apartment and tell Gold-Star she'd just been mugged.

That was an Adam situation, and some things were just way too embarrassing to admit.

Suddenly, the rain stopped falling on her shoulders. Sophie frowned and looked around, watching the downpour pelt the street around her. Above was an umbrella, new and black, and held by a woman in a black coat and black boots and tight black leather gloves. She had short brown hair and bright green eyes, the kind that looked at you and gutted you and knew everything about you before you could even say a single thing. Cassie had those eyes. But these were different. They had crow's feet and exhaustion surrounding them. She looked familiar.

A dead ringer for someone she once saw in some case file she didn't care to fully read about.

No, not just some case file. Something else. Last year, at the prison, when Olympia killed—-

"Superhumans catch colds, too," she said. British accent. A touch of it, playing on the tip of her tongue. Sophie narrowed her eyes. Who the hell are you? "And it's usually pretty bad news for every other person around them, because that might be a coma for a Normal. C'mon, love, let's get you warm and indoors. Want some coffee?"

Sophie stayed sat, staring at the lady through tongues of blonde hair that had fallen over her face.

"Tough cookie," the woman sighed. "Glum because of the bad weather? Or just had a bad day?"

"No," Sophie said dryly. "I bit the curb for fun because the concrete tastes like cake."

"Tell you what, then, that would go great with said coffee. It'll be on me."

"Who are you?" Sophie said, getting off the ground. She was tall, taller than she expected. Slightly rigid, but somewhat at ease, like being in the rain as night fell over Lower Olympus didn't frighten her. And she was carrying. Sophie could smell the gunpowder coming off her body. And the blood. "You want something from me? My phone got stolen and I've got no cash, and no—I'm not fucking Olympia. You can start leaving right now."

Because that's what everyone did once they found out who she wasn't.

Which made no sense at all to her. She'd been in PR meetings before, and according to the eggheads, Olympia tracked so badly in most states across the country that it was damn nearly a crime to say her name in a few of them up North. For some reason, these people adored her. For some reason, these people were aching for her.

Pretty funny, considering not once did they like her when she was around.

And the data wouldn't lie to her, nor would the market research. Sophie's merch sold in the hundreds of thousands. Olympia's merch got stolen and pawned off for a couple of bucks off the side of the street like rags.

If they really cared, they wouldn't steal them off the shelves. They'd pay, like they do for hers.

Heck, the influencers loved her merch. Loved it so much that it was everywhere online.

But…right, this was Lower Olympus. The Internet was now like safety here—rare, almost mystical.

But ultimately not here.

Like what this woman should be, and get out of her face.

The woman pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and gestured for Sophie to take it. She only did to blow the blood out of her nose and wipe it off her lips, and then she handed it back and gave her a small smile.

She started walking away, fighting the need, almost the urge, to limp.

"It's Sophie, right?" She freezed several steps away. How does she know my name? "I don't like your second name that much, but I'm not sure anyone down here likes Cassie either." Sophie turned around, squared her shoulders and watched the woman unwrap a piece of candy and pop it into her mouth. "Sorry, trying to stop an old habit. I always thought some supervillain would kill me, but turns out smokes are just as deadly, who woulda thought?" Sophie looked around, strained to listen beyond the rainfall. "There's nothing to be worried about. If you really wanted, you would've neutralized me by now. A part of you is curious, maybe a little scared?" She smiled at Sophie, tight, thin-lipped, moving the mint around her mouth. "So?" she said. "How about that coffee, superhero?"

And then she could see it, the resemblance. It was in the squareness of her shoulders, the rigidness of her posture. She held the umbrella tight, the same way Lucas would hold his sidearm—so tight the tendons in their hands would strain. They smelt the same: metal. Iron. Blood. It didn't matter with them, because it was all the same.

The name came to Sophie from the dredges of her memory. Person of Interest #983-B.

Wanted in the Middle East. Barred from China and Japan. An international flight risk. Eight million dollar bounty on her head, and thirty if she was alive. Two dead presidents, one gutted Prime Minister—a princess in Africa left without a family, three coups, five rebel forces, all of them on her hands, a smell under those fingernails tucked inside those black leather gloves. And superhumans. So, so many superhumans. She was a graveyard. Sophie could almost see the flies clinging to the stench coming off her. Rebecca Freeman's file was on the president's desk the day she stepped foot into the same country that bank rolled her…for a while, until a document so blacked out it might as well be useless found its way into Sophie's hands. The only reason the government hadn't tried to nab her was one, they weren't all suicidal, two, she was still useful, and three—she lived with Olympia, did they want to send armed forces marching through her front door and expect Rylee to shrug and go about minding her business?

Sophie's job was to protect America. That was the first ever thing they'd told her, it was the first ever thing that had been pumped into her brain—You are this county's property, and you will always be this country's sword.

Rebecca was a criminal that needed to get put in a very deep hole and forgotten about.

She almost made her brother look like a deranged freak in a weird black costume.

"I see that look in your eyes," Rebecca said, getting closer. "I'm clean. Just know that I'm carrying for my own safety. This place is a right mess, and I'd hate to find myself in a situation where I can't protect my head."

"Your head's worth a lot of money."

"Yeah? To whom?"

"The government," Sophie said.

To me.

Cassie could make a better Shrike clown with her DNA. She'd probably be so happy that she'd wrap her arms around her and squeeze the life out of Sophie. She could imagine it, the warmth and the grin and the laughter.

Opportunity, right there in front of her, and maybe…

Maybe it would mean Cassie wouldn't be mad at her anymore. She'd apologized for losing the fight against Olympia so many times that she could still recite her letters. She'd been sent here—sent away—for a reason. She had to be a good girl and deal with small-time smugglers and gangbangers, or she could bring Cassie in, too.

Rebecca pulled the sidearm from the holster under her coat in one quick, fluid motion.

Sophie ducked so fast the rain seemed to freeze in place.

The gun didn't bark. Powder didn't ignite and explode.

Rain fell again. The world caught up to her ears.

The gun in Rebecca's hand shook. Slightly. But enough. Just enough to make a sound. Just enough to shake the water off its silencer and just enough to make it glimmer in the soft headlights that idled down the street.

The tendons all the way up her arm tightened hard enough to echo in Sophie's ears, and so did her jaw.

But not her face, and definitely not her eyes.

She was staring past Sophie. Staring, wide-eyed, at a figure standing a few meters away.

A figure in black and deep purple…no, not spandex, something else. Something living. Sophie could hear it whispering and hissing. She could feel it rubbing against her skin, making it itch. Her mouth tasted like blood as she stood. The person was slim, athletic, taller than Sophie, but leaner. A hood was up, covering their head, barely so much as a glimpse at their eyes. But they were staring at Sophie. Staring so hard that it made the back of her neck crawl. They didn't blink. They quietly breathed. And then, slowly, they raised one hand over their head, and pulled the large, sleek violet bow off their back. The bowstring was silky white. The arrow they notched was a deep black.

Not the arrowhead, though. That was purple. Sharp.

And stank like those fleshy purple worms that had pulled the alien back together.

The bow quaked with power as they pulled the string, back muscles tensing, shoulders squared and tight.

Sophie stood in front of the arrow, Rebecca behind her, heavy rainfall pounding the asphalt around her.

She swallowed blood and somehow found it in herself to hate this city even more.

"No," Rebecca whispered. Sophie glanced at her. The gun was lowered, and so was the umbrella. "Bianca?"

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