Generic ‘Supa Suit’ training jumpsuits hung along the wall, patched at the joints, some missing their closures. Elsie had graduated onto custom clothing (thank God, two-piece all the way or all those crunches were for nothing) but she only had one set and she wanted it on display out and about. It was her supersuit, her calling card for people to remember who saved the day. You know, once she really got a chance to save the day. The training centre only sponsored one suit per graduated cadet and she couldn’t afford another. When it was being cleaned, her ego plummeted right back to cadet level as she squeezed into the ‘young and spotty’ uniform. At least Tam was in the same boat.

They changed together, facing away from the door. Even now, Tam had trouble keeping her eyes off the stain at the top of Elsie’s chest: her nemesis mark. The name of her number one adversary printed into her skin permanently. As long as Tam kept her mouth shut, Elsie could ignore her wandering eyes. There had been no incidents for years, there was no reason she had to address her mark if her nemesis was gone. How fortunate. Not as fortunate as she first thought she was when she woke up to realising she had a mark. She’d naively assumed first it was a soul mate mark. A flutter of excitement, a blush even, and then complete and utter horror when her pajama top was stretched all the way down from the collar.

Elsie and Tam strutted straight to the platform zone, caught a side-eye from Josi that reminded them warm-ups aren’t just for cadets and redirected their target to the slightly-singed crash mats that had been taken out of commission from the main training zones.

They stretched themselves and each other. They jogged around in circles. They did ten minutes of alternating hover planks: hover as long as you can, plank as long as you need. Tam was way better at flying, it was why her planking sucked these days. Elsie… was good at holding planks. She fought for every moment she could get in the air until the timer rang out. It was much easier to add a little bounce to your step, a little extended leap, than to fly straight and continuously. And that was why she needed the conditioning. If you didn’t practice, you didn’t get better.

Josi led the cadets through obstacle courses with her dull-yet-irritated expression permanently plastered on. She was tough, and it made her a good trainer for the young and the whiny. Elsie and Tam scooted past, hoping they looked suitably limber and flushed. She may not be their trainer any more but that didn’t make her any less intimidating. There were rumours of powers she kept hidden for the cadets that really got out of line.

Luckily, Elsie had found a fellow rule-follower in Tam. They had gotten along from day one and when they did get in trouble, on the very rare occasions, it was together.

“You’re training that thing to take your job,” called a squawky voice from well below Elsie’s leap path. She ducked and slid over the moving platforms, twisting out of the way of foam bullets shot at her by the computer running the simulation. It was supposed to learn from her (and the other heroes) in order to improve their training and become more and more realistic. There were sceptics that believed training centres were getting paid for the data to train super bots. Elsie… didn’t have the energy for conspiracy theories while avoiding fake bullets flying at her, but if she did, she’d be much more concerned about the villains pouring money into super bots because that was no secret – but where they were getting their data was. A soft pellet shot at intense force caught her lower back, not quite her kidney but painful enough to remind her to keep her concentration on her own butt. She wasn’t getting into a debate with her audience or herself. The machine gave her a damn good workout, and at their level – the kind where they didn’t see a whole lot of real action – that counted for something to her. There was a sudden stinging burst in her forearm where she was struck again.

“Fuck,” she groaned, throwing herself flat.

Incapable of restraint now she’d been shot twice, she peeked down to see who had decided to interrupt her training. On the ground, she spotted Tam shooing away a guy with her foot. He must be a transfer, she didn’t recognise him from their cadet cohort nor the reduced number that graduated together.

“You were doing great! Get back up!” Tam encouraged, cheerleading with pretend pom-poms in her hands.

Maybe it was getting to her head, the memory loss and the possibility something was wrong, but she just laid there for a few more seconds than she normally would. Taking a breather she didn’t usually need.

“Is that Emerald Eclipse down? Is she defeated?” Tam called like an announcer on one of those news shows that tracked minor super battles. They were so stupid. They treated real life like it was an old-timey TV show. Tune in next week to see an otherwise normal person catch a shoplifter. When the police did their job, it was treated like that – a job. Tackling the same issues with powers, targetting criminals who also have powers, and suddenly it’s a spectacle. Elsie wanted to be known for the big rescues, the massive supervillain battles that shook cities, not being overanalysed in how she stopped a mugging in an alley. The news reporters that covered the serious stuff never took on a silly persona to do so.

She clambered up, finished the course, and laid out like a starfish until Tam had had her turn. The sweatiness and the high heartbeat stayed with her, they weren’t from the work out… she was stressed. The doctor’s words popped back into her mind and she scrunched her face in denial. She hadn’t been stressed before today, before she lost her memory. It was the other way round.

For the rest of their training session, she opted for low-stress, high-rep activities. Let her body focus on itself, on improving her best power: telekinesis. She could give her special sight a go, pushing to get a clearer view through the denser materials… but that often gave her a headache when she practised and any head-related injuries might just send her into a panic at this point. Slinging around objects and upping the weight each time was simple, and kinda fun.

Tam took the time to work on her camouflaging. The goal being to eventually apply the power to all her accessories as well someday. Elsie tried not to look at her disappearing and re-appearing body, should it trigger something in her brain.

The time finally came for Elsie to get her blood test results back. She’d dawdled about after her post-training shower, just waiting for the clock to get close enough that she could justify turning up on the medical centre’s doorstep. She split from Tam, promising to meet back up for patrols right afterwards, and returned to the front desk where a nurse already had her results printed for her.

All clean. None of the tested drugs flagged. No alcohol. Even the toxins they checked for were negative.

It was weirdly disappointing as it was relieving.

∞

Hung from the back of the dorm door, freshly dry-cleaned and covered in a plastic baggy, was her custom suit, just in time for the patrol.

Black base, dark green ribbon-like detailing that followed her curves (and maybe exaggerated them a little), and an enormous rune-like symbol emblazoned on her back. Jules said it stood for peace and protection but the cadets suspected he’d scribbled it himself. More importantly, it was the logo of his training centre. Established, well-worn heroes could go without needing to claim their place of registration. Hell, no one asked Crossbeam for ID, why would he need a massive billboard on his back? Elsie paused, her trousers half-up, that reminded her, she had left her identification card under her bunk. She waddled and hopped to it, getting the lower half of her super suit up just in time for Tam to burst in, suited, booted and heavily accessorised.

“Did you oil up?” she teased, looking pointedly at Elsie’s stomach.

Elsie’s custom costume showed only enough back to reveal her venus dimples, and more than enough front to show off her hard-earned abs. If she had it, why not flaunt it?

“And outshine you? Never!”

“I’d love to see you try!” Tam snagged her own ID that was dangling from her bed with a bedazzled lanyard. “Let’s go, I already called command and control and told them we’re leaving.” As soon as they called in, until they called off, they were officially on-duty.

The evening patrol had better odds of an incident, although it was rarely anything that could bump their careers as heroes. It was a lot of plugging holes in the police’s community presence, being seen out on the streets to deter petty crime.

This was how all heroes started out, though, Elsie reminded herself. Start from the bottom and work your way up. She and Tam walked the route mapped out for them, the same route they’d taken many, many times. If they kept walking it, kept clocking in hours in patrols and training exercises and super support… they would get more real missions. Jules took them out with him sometimes, as he did for all graduates, to get some hands-on experience. Nice of him, helpful...

They dreamed of going out alone, though. They talked of it as they walked. Of being real heroes one day, the kind kids called for when they were scared of the dark.