Her warning snapped Sam’s mind back into gear. He quickly placed his hands over the hole in her stomach.

“Healing Hand!” he yelled.

As Sam coaxed his life force into the tips of his fingers, he saw something familiar in his mind’s eye: a green HP bar similar to the one in old-school RPG games. He wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination at work or if Triple-A was helping him visualize his life force, but Sam noticed this HP bar diminished with each second he attempted to heal Thunder.

If that wasn’t worrying enough, Sam was also distinctly aware of how cold it had gotten. In fact, a sheet of ice was already accumulating on the asphalt beneath him.

“It’s right on top of us...” Thunder warned.

He didn’t need her to tell him that, for Sam could sense the Terror standing over him now. It was like an ice cube was dripping down his back.

“Just a little more,” Sam urged.

He could see that it was working. The hole in the side of Thunder’s stomach was already beginning to stitch itself back together. Even more fascinating, Sam wasn’t feeling the drain as much as he thought he would. Perhaps putting all his points in Constitution had been the right choice.

The memory of his past failure flitted across the surface of his mind, but it had no room to linger. Sam’s focus remained on the HP bar that was dwindling down with each second he continued to heal Thunder.

There was a piercing screech that made his ears rattle.

“C-come on,” Sam whispered.

He could see Thunder’s eyes glued to the spot behind his shoulders. He watched as those two sky blue irises widened in alarm.

“Dodge, Sam!” she exclaimed.

But leaving would cancel all the effort he’d made to heal her and he was so close to stitching up her wound.

“Apollo, give me the strength to endure,” Sam prayed.

He felt several sharp things rake across his back. The pain that followed was so intense that it forced a mighty scream out of him.

“Sam!” Thunder yelled.

The fresh wounds on Sam’s back grew cold—the kind of paradoxical cold that made his back feel like it was on fire. However, despite this intense pain, his laser-like focus remained on the healing process.

It was more than simple heroism that goaded Sam onward. It was the feeling in his fingers, how his life force flowed out of him so effortlessly without causing him more pain than he was already in. To Sam, this was proof that he was no longer useless, and he reveled in it.

Thunder placed her hands on his shoulders to prop him up. Her eyes locked onto his, and once again he felt like he could be super, too.

Then Sam felt something pierce him in the sides, forcing him to gasp in pain. He couldn’t bear to look, but he imagined the Terror had just wrapped its long-fingered hand around him.

“Just…a little…more,” he gasped through gritted teeth.

Sam felt himself being lifted upward, and it was only Thunder’s hands grasping tightly onto his shoulders that held him in place. She was quietly looking up at him with a face that showed only determination. It was as if she was promising Sam that the Terror was going to pay for hurting him.

He felt woozy. His ears were buzzing. Blood dripped from him onto Thunder’s chest.

And then, finally, just as the terror lifted him off into the air, Sam caught sight of the pink patch of scar tissue around Thunder’s stomach.

Blood trickled to the corner of his mouth. But he grinned.

He knew death had grasped him by the throat. There was no escape. But, strangely enough, he wasn’t afraid. He was no longer his old self, the one who had run away from failure. This euphoria existed because he’d done what he couldn’t do before. He’d become a hero in his last moments. He’d saved the girl, and maybe she would save the world.

Weariness forced his eyes shut, but just as he expected the Terror to bite his head off or something equally horrific, Sam instead heard Thunder’s booming voice.

“Thunderstrike!” she screamed.

Sam felt all the hair in his body rise just before his ears popped. He forced his weary eyes open to watch the blinding flash of light strike the raised fist of the hero he’d healed just enough to rise back to her feet.

The force of the energies that converged on Thunder unleashed a shockwave that was so strong it freed Sam from the Terror’s grip and sent him flying.

Death by free-fall would have been a lame end for Sam if it wasn’t for the arm that wrapped around his waist. Seconds later, Thunder dropped him on the asphalt a good twenty yards away from where the Terror was kneeling.

As Sam watched the horror struggling against the crackling energy crisscrossing its wounded body—its long, battered limbs flailing wildly while its sucker of a mouth dripped dark ichor down on the asphalt—he wondered what kind of unbearable pain it must have experienced to cause such devastation to this part of the city.

Because that’s what horrors were, monsters born from the unimaginable grief, pain, and suffering of a broken mind that belonged to a gifted who’d been blessed by the gods. Their shattered psyches gave form to horrors whose first instinct was to spread their pain to others.

“My Static Cage won’t hold it for long,” Thunder said.

Thunder wore a new costume, one Sam hadn’t seen before. It was a white, sleeveless one-piece suit with a high collar. She’d paired the suit with golden bangles on her arms and golden Amazonian sandals on her feet. Part of the suit had been ripped open around the waist, revealing a stomach with pale flesh and rock hard abs. Several electric lines zipped across her well-toned arms and legs.

“Whoa,” Sam repeated.

Thunder glanced down at him with eyes alight with power and a smile playing on her lips.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” she teased. “It’s time for round two.”