She sat alone in the corner, not even sure why she was at the tryouts. It’s not like she even stood a chance at making the team. She tapped her phone.

“I could go rogue.” Send. Wait for a reply.

Notification. “what would ur father say” A low blow.

Notification. “no rogue keep trying u will find ur team”

Sigh.

“I don’t want to do this.” Pause. Sigh. “The metals are snobs.” Send.

She looked around the room. It was full. No surprise. The Precious Metals were an elite training team. Everyone who had ever joined them had earned their S-Name within three years. Getting on the Precious Metals was a fast track to fame and fortune.

Check the phone. No reply. She was on her own. No surprise. It wasn’t her first tryout. Or even her tenth. She’d been rejected from seventeen teams since graduating. Seventeen rejections in five years. She was the only one in her class who hadn’t found a team to join or been recruited as a skick. Skick jobs were even harder to come by than team jobs. One-on-one training with an S-Name hero and direct action with villains came with skick jobs, as well as the chance to inherit when your S-Name retired. Team jobs paid, but only The Precious Metals paid really well. Being a superhero was expensive.

Notification. “Raina b nice i had 2 pull a lot of strings 2 get u this”

Sigh. Drogan was a pro at guilt trips. Even through text.

“OK.” Send.

“Candidate 37,” called out by a perky blonde receptionist. One of the candidates stood. Bubblegum pink hair and a matching metallic bodysuit. Of course. Floated through the door. A flyer even. She was a sure pick to make the next round of tryouts.

Tap the phone. “37 just went in. I’m 72.” Send.

Notification. “lucky number”

Another low blow. She wondered if he was doing it on purpose. Drogan could be oblivious about things like that though. He was probably trying to cheer her up.

“Ass.” Send.

Notification. “sorry just want u 2 know i have faith in u”

“Glad someone does.” Send. “My powers suck.” Send.

“Candidate 38.” That was fast.

Candidate 37 slinking out of the tryout room smelling like burnt hair.

Smirk. Tap the camera. Click. Send. “Bubblegum got burned.” Send. “How am I supposed to face fire?” Send.

“Candidate 38.” The receptionist again. Looking around. No one stood.

“Last call for candidate 38.” Still no one.

“Candidate 39.” It was like being at the DMV only worse. The DMV wouldn’t scorch your ass. Usually.

One of the thirty or so candidates stood. Green hair. Black bodysuit. Walking. And then gone. And then at the door. In a blink. A teleporter. What’s with the hair today?

Notification. “ur mostly invincible”

“Fire still hurts.” Send.

Notification. “at least u won’t burn to death”

Sigh. He was right. Of course. At least she’d inherited something from her mother.

“They’re going through them fast.” Send.

Notification. “any dead? someone died at Metal tryouts ten years ago”

“You could have told me that BEFORE you sent me to my doom.” Send.

Notification. “ur invincible remember and u have more powers than anyone in that room”

“Powers I can barely use.” Send.

Notification. “weakness is all in ur head u can do this”

“Don’t you have some computers to fix?” Send. Now she was delivering the low blow, and she instantly regretted it. Drogan wasn’t a bad guy. He’d been her father’s skick. He’d lost his chance to take an S-Name and Raina always half suspected he pushed her because of that.

The Hero Council was strict. S-Names could only be earned through participation in a training team or from being a skick to an S-Name, after a rigorous apprenticeship and training period. If you’re a skick and your S-Name dies, you can transfer to a team or another S-Name, but when you’re the skick for the Lucky Legend and the Lucky Legend dies in a most unlucky way, no team or S-Name wants you.

She supposed that’s why he’d fostered her after her mother bailed when she was ten. The Lucky Legend, her father, had died the day she’d been born. As a legacy, Raina was granted automatic admission to the Council schools, but she still had to get on a team or be picked up as a skick, and no one wanted anything to do with her. Why would they? If her father was the luckiest man alive that must mean she was the unluckiest woman ever. He’d died the minute she was born. Hit by a bus.

“Candidate 42.” The receptionist was calling names faster now. They must have ordered the candidates so the best were first. Now they were going through the rest out of formality. There hadn’t been anyone leaving the tryouts happy since candidate 22.

Candidate 42 was a tall, lanky younger guy. Maybe late teens, early 20s. Close-cropped hair. Red beard. Raina wondered what his power was. He walked into the tryout room, the door closing behind him. Moments later, he came back out with a bloody nose. Tryouts were tough. They had to be sure you could handle anything that came at you.

Tap the phone. “I’m bored.” Send.

Notification. “I’m fixing computers.”

Fuck. He was mad. Drogan didn’t fix computers. Drogan was a technokine. He could mentally control electronics, and so even though he could never get another gig as a skick or a spot on a team, he was in high demand as backup for major missions and for corporate contracts. He even had an archnemesis, of sorts. A hacker-villain, possibly another technokine, although he’d been evading capture for over a decade, so no one was really sure. Drogan was often called in to repair the damage done by “Kode,” as the hacker-villain called himself.

“Sorry.” Send.

Notification. “ur fine play a game or something ur driving urself crazy”

He was right, of course. Waiting was the worst. Waiting meant she could think about all the different ways that things could go wrong.

When she was in the tech room at the house she and Drogan called home, she really was invincible. And she could fly. And teleport. And pretty much anything that any other Powered Human could do, as long as she’d ever been anywhere near someone with that power, and since she’d gone to council schools her whole life, she’d been around a whole lot of powers.

But when she was nervous, everything went wonky. Flying turned into hovering an inch above the floor. She once teleported only her hair during a tryout. That was embarassing, and it had taken forever for it to grow back. Once you teleport your hair off your head, you can’t teleport it back on. And she had tried several times. Even worse, the skick tryout where she accidentally made herself bald had been filmed. And then put on YouTube. She hadn’t been to a tryout since. Until this one.

“Why am I here again?” Send.

Notification. “because u want an S-Name.”

No. You want me to have an S-Name. But she didn’t send that. Drogan had done so much for her over the years, the least she could do was keep trying for him.

But who wants a fat hero with wonky powers and anxiety issues?

She shifted in her seat. The seats at tryouts were never comfortable. They weren’t made for anyone over 200 pounds. Raina had been under 200 in high school. Then she went to college and the Freshman 15 had turned into the Freshman 25, then the Sophomore 25, then the Junior 25, and by the time she’d graduated from college with a degree in Powered Human Psychodynamics, she was pushing 250.

She didn’t really want to be an S-Name. She’d gotten her degree with the hopes of being a therapist for non-hero Powers. There were millions of people with Powers all over the world, and most of them just wanted average lives. She wanted to help them with that. Probably because that’s what she wanted for herself. Not that her life had ever been average. Her father had been the first Power. The first S-Name. The Founder of the Council. The Lucky Legend. She had big shoes to fill, not that anyone actually expected her to fill them. Except maybe Drogan.

“I can’t do this.” Send. “I’m missing work for this.” Tryouts were an automatic excused absence for any Power in any job, especially if it was a Council job like hers was. So it’s not like her complaint was valid. But she’d rather be at work, with her patients, than here in a half-ass superhero costume that barely fit, ready to fail at yet another tryout.

Notification. “just don’t teleport ur hair and u will b fine”

“Haha.” Send.

“Candidate 57,” the perky blonde again. They were really speeding things up now.

Notification. “Raina, i believe in u i know u won’t let me down”

Sigh. There was the guilt trip again.

“Candidate 58.” A short brunette, wearing a black skirt with flames rolling around the edges. Actual flames. The skirt must be fireproof. A pyro. Maybe she’d make it. Fireproof gear was expensive.

BOOM. An explosion. Okay, black skirted pyro wasn’t going to make the team after all. She came out on a stretcher.

When the medics cleared with the pyro, the receptionist came into the waiting room again. “Candidate 59.”

The litany of candidates continued, one after the other, each quickly being sent out with varying injuries. The Precious Metals was a training team of 15, each with varying Powers. Tryouts usually only required you to face one or two at a time per round, and if you made it through all the rounds, against all 15 Metals, you would make it to the next phase. One-on-one interviews with each team member.

This was essentially the same procedure for every S-Team, regardless of size. Council mandated that they hold tryouts every five years, or if a member died, S-Named out, or retired. The Precious Metals were elite, and most of the S-Names of the last decade had trained with them. They had tryouts annually, because so many S-Named out. S-Naming took a LOT of money, and the Precious Metals were so in demand for missions that they made a lot of money. Two or three years on the team, and you could afford your S-Name fees without a sponsor. Everyone wanted on that team.

Everyone but Raina. Raina just wanted some chocolate ice cream.

“Candidate 72.”

“Fuck. I’m up.” Send.

Raina stood and walked towards the door for the tryout room. “I really don’t want to do this.” Send.

Notification. “u got this kiddo”

Sigh. Open the door. FUCK. All 15 Precious Metals were there, and right in the middle was Pink Platinum. “We couldn’t wait to see the Power who teleported her own hair off.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.