Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Present Day

The sky tore itself open above the abandoned complex, spilling lightning like blood from an old wound. The air was thick with the unnatural screech of something. A quirk unraveling. A body was lying limp on the ground in front of a metal chamber with a busted door when Katsuki Bakugo made it to the lab, with a newly formed hole in the ceiling.

His gauntlets were scorched, his body covered in ash and dust. His knees hit the floor once he got close to check on vitals. His fingers were quick to turn her head and put them on her pulse. It was weak, but it’s there. He put his ear near her mouth and heard her shallow breathing and one word.

“Kats…?”

“Minerva, stay with me,” he growled as he checked the rest of her. Clothes singed, holes burned from the forced pull of lightning out of her body, and sweat dripping for the experience itself.

Outside, something roared as rain started to hit the floor through the hole he made.

It wasn’t a villain, not exactly. It was a manifestation of her quirk. It was born from the extraction process she went through, desperate to return to its host. A raging, spectral beast, bear-like in shape, with lightning for a spine and claws made of metal debris that it attracted to itself. It shimmered blue and white against the wreckage of what had once been a van, blown to pieces and part of a power plant as it absorbed what was left to get to a hulking size to cause serious damage.

Minerva finally opens her eyes to look at Bakugo.

“Help…me get there…”

He just looks at her like she’s crazy, with another roar rumbling not too far.

“Please…Katsuki,” Minerva rasped.

Bakugo radios for backup before picking her up, fireman’s carry, to get safely outside. He refused to slow down.

“You know… it just wants to come back to me,” Her voice was thinner now. “It can’t live without me.”

Minerva feels a warm tingle on her wrist, but his grip on her didn’t falter for even a second.

“And I can’t live without you, so you’re not dying here, damn it!”

She smiles faintly before passing out once again.

13 years ago

Her father’s voice had echoed from the porch in his rocking chair, deep and steady, “Mini! Come in now, baby!”

It was the tail end of a summer storm on the family farm in rural Georgia. Her siblings had gone inside, but this eight-year-old was still out chasing a rabbit between the thickets barefoot. The wind whipped her black braids around her face. She’d never been afraid of storms; in fact, she liked them. They made the world feel vibrant, full of secrets just waiting to be told.

That day, the storm gave her exclusive access to one of those secrets.

Her scream tore through the rain.

Electricity danced across her swarthy skin and shot into the earth. The bolt had carved a smoking path into the center of her back, though to her right arm and across the yard. Minerva didn’t remember collapsing. Only the feeling before. The hum under her ribs, a taste of metal, the way the sky seemed to be watching.

Then her father was there, chest heaving.

Henry Bearblood, a tall man with arms carved from decades of boxing and a voice low enough to silence others. His knees hit the mud as he picked her up off the ground and pulled her close to his heart, repeating her name like a prayer. Behind him came Rosalyn, also known as Maw, moving so fast that it wouldn’t surprise anyone if her shadow didn’t catch up to her form. She almost had to pry Minerva from her father’s hands to assess her daughter's body with the efficiency of a black belt turned full-time mother.

“Take her inside,” she ordered. No panic. Just action.

Henry shakily gets up from the ground. Rosalyn moved quickly back to the house to call the town doctor. She made Silas got blankets, Brenna got towels and cold water into a basin and Micah, being three, crying tears from the tension growing in the room.

Henry stomps into the living room when Silas sees his little sister giving off smoke from her exposed skin. His heart races as he looks up to their dad and asks a silent question before handing over the blanket. They wrapped her up in blankets and silence.

Brenna came after with the water basin sloshing in her hurry to help. She finally gets a look at Minerva. She puts the basin down and reaches for Minerva’s cheek, and it feels hot. She replaces her hand with a cold hand towel. Minerva leans into it before waking up.
When Minerva woke up, she was in her father’s arms, wrapped in her favorite blanket, the smell of singed cotton and her back aching with something she didn’t quite understand. Her mother was pressing a cool cloth to her head instead of Brenna, and her older siblings, Silas and Brenna, hovered nearby, somewhat scared and confused.

The town doctor came in like a flurry of snow. He checked her vitals and the scars from the event.

“Well, now, it looks like a miracle!”

Both parents look at the doctor while Minerva fights sleep to keep hearing the conversation.
“It seems that her quirk finally expressed itself and saved her. I can’t give you a name for this quirk, but we’ll figure that out later!” The doctor pats Minerva on the head which aids in getting her to fall asleep.

The doctor leaves, telling them to keep her body cool for the night, if nothing changes, then call him again, and not to worry themselves. He gives a two-finger salute and heads back to town. Meanwhile, Henry and Rosalyn stare at each other with worry, then look down at their half-asleep baby girl. Micah comes marching up to them after Brenna tried to put him to bed, gripping the blanket, wanting to see his big sister himself. Rosalyn picks him up.

“Is she okay?” Micah says.

Another moment of silence.

“Yes, she’s a Bearblood, sweetheart. She’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

That calmed Micah enough for Rosalyn to get up and take him to bed. Henry followed behind and asked Brenna to help Minerva into her bedclothes before leaving the house.

What they didn’t see, and what Minerva would never forget, was that something changed inside her that day.

Chapter Text

The air was fresh as Henry wandered the homestead. His heart still raced when he reached the creek just past where his little girl had been struck. He sat on the nearby tree stump, the one she liked to stand on and shout her name into the woods like it was a spell.

He inhaled slowly. Counted to five. Let it go.

Storms like that didn’t leave when they were over. They lingered, the same way the smell of ozone clung to the skin. His girl, his Minerva, had been changed. For better or for worse, he didn’t know, but what he did know was the way her fingers twitched in her sleep now, the way her breath caught like her lungs weren’t sure if they still belonged to her.

He looked out across the water and the overgrown grass, and something caught his eye. Half-buried in the mud was a shard of something gleaming—white-gray, smoothed by the creek, but he could see how it was shaped like a lightning bolt.

He stood and walked slowly towards it, not quite sure why his chest tightened with each step. When he pulled it from the earth, it fit perfectly in the center of his palm. Not sharp, but solid. Grounded.

A sign.

Henry stared at it for a long time.

He didn’t believe in omens, not like Rosalyn did. But he believed in meanings. And this? This had meaning.

He stayed by the creek with the stone in hand until Rosalyn came to look for him.

She found him easily, her steps soft as always, like the earth told her where he was. She didn’t say anything right away. Just stepped close and rested her hands on his shoulders, then leaned forward to press her cheek gently against his broad back.

“You've been out here a while,” she murmured.

“Didn’t notice.”

“I did.” She let the quiet hang between them. “You find something?”

He turned the stone over in his hand, thumb running the length of the curve. “She didn’t call it,” he said. “But it came anyway.”

Rosalyn tilted her head. “Storms got their own rules.”

“She’s ours, Roz. And I couldn’t do anything when it hit her.”

“You held her after,” she said softly. “That counts.”

They stayed there a while longer, the only sound was the slow current threading past their feet. Then Rosalyn straightened, her fingers brushing his bicep as she stepped back.

“If you’re gonna give it to her,” she said, nodding at the stone, “wrap it first. That thing’s full of memory. She’ll need to hold it for a while.”

Henry gave the faintest nod.

Rosalyn smiled and turned, but not before adding, “We’ll raise her right, Henry. She’s not broken. She’s blooming.”

Back at the house, morning light spilled through the half-open blinds, soft and golden. It cast long lines across the shared room where Minerva lay, wrapped in blankets that still smelled faintly of smoke and rosemary salve.

Her body ached in places she didn’t know had names. Dull, thudding aches beneath her ribs, a strange tingle in her right palm, and a slow heat that pulsed along the scar on her back like her quirk was whispering to her in its sleep.

She blinked up at the ceiling. Her hair was frizzed and tangled, stuck to her cheek in wild little curls that defied every attempt at calm. She reached up to push it back—and winced.

“Mornin’, frizzlehead.”

The voice came from below. Brenna was curled up on the floor next to her bed, a worn copy of The Lightning Thief still open on her lap. She sat up on her knees and put her head on Minerva’s lap.

“You back?” she asked.

Minerva nodded, lips dry. “Been back.”

Brenna sat up. Looked at her. And then—without warning—started to cry.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic. Just a soft, hitching sound, like her heart had been holding its breath all night and finally let go.

Minerva frowned, brow scrunching. “Hey—hey, what are you crying for? I’m the one that got zapped.”

“You didn’t move for hours,” Brenna choked out, wiping her cheeks with the back of her arm. “I tried annoying you, talking to you and you didn’t answer.”

Minerva reached down weakly and flicked the cover of the book. “Bet that didn’t stop you from reading to me, though.”

“Shut up,” Brenna mumbled, but her voice cracked around the grin breaking through. “You love that story.”

Minerva smiled faintly. “You’re a mess.”

“You’re alive.”

Before either could say anything more, the door creaked open and Rosalyn entered, carrying a tray full of food that smelled like fried eggs, cheese grits, and an extra helping of leftover biscuits.

“Well, good morning, my cubs,” she said gently, setting the tray down on the edge of Minerva’s nightstand. “One crying, one barely sitting up. That’s how I know I raised you right.”

Brenna wiped her eyes again. “She’s okay, Mama.”

“I know,” Rosalyn said, smoothing her hand over Minerva’s forehead and checking the bandage with a nurse’s ease. “You slept like the dead, baby girl. But your body needed it. You had a conversation with a storm and lived to tell the tale.”

“I don’t remember most of it,” Minerva murmured.

“That’s how storms work. They show up loud and leave you wondering what just happened.”

A knock came at the open doorframe—more a courtesy than anything—and Henry’s broad silhouette filled the space. He stepped in slowly, carrying something wrapped in a soft hand towel, worn and blue from years of use.

“I got somethin’ for you,” he said simply.

Minerva attempted to sit up a little straighter.

Henry knelt beside the bed, just like he used to when she was smaller, when she scraped her knees or got stung by bees or woke from bad dreams.

He unfolded the towel and placed the lightning bolt-shaped stone into her hand.

“I found it by the creek,” he said. “Where it happened.”

Minerva stared at it. Turned it over in her palm. It was heavier than it looked. Cold, too. But solid. Real. Familiar in a way that made her heart slow down just a little.

“It’s mine,” she whispered.

“It is now,” Henry said. “You don’t have to keep it. But I figured… maybe it’d help.”

She nodded. Clutched it to her chest.

Henry stood, then rubbed a hand over his beard. “Now. That brings us to the other part.”

Rosalyn raised an eyebrow. “You starting the plan without me?”

“Figured we were already late,” he said with a small smirk. “This girl’s gonna need a training schedule.”

Brenna perked up immediately. “Wait. Already?”

“I’m not sayin’ we throw her into sparring right now,” Henry said, “but we’re not gonna treat her like she’s broken. Power’s like a new colt—it kicks harder when you ignore it. So we’ll teach her to handle it.”

Minerva’s brow furrowed. “You’re not scared of it?”

“I’d be a fool if I weren’t,” he said. “But I’m not scared of you .” He ruffles her already fizzed hair,” Never have been.”

Rosalyn leaned in, brushing Minerva’s wild curls off her face. “That goes double for me, my wild child. You were born from muscle and love. That’s a rare recipe, baby.”

Minerva laughed, the sound catching in her sore ribs.

She was still tired. Still sore.

The lightning inside her was still whispering again.

Chapter Text

Healing didn’t come all at once.

It came slowly, like sap from a tree. Like rain after drought.

The lightning scar on Minerva’s back didn’t scab the way cuts did. It glowed faintly at night, a branching shape of silver and shadow that crawled up towards her right shoulder blade. The tendrils of it spread out like roots, curling around her spine. Her skin itched constantly, as if something was trying to crawl out.

Rosalyn kept a pot of salve on the bedside table, one that smelled like smoke, honey, and ash bark. Every morning and night, she dabbed it gently along the wound with a soft cloth while Minerva gritted her teeth and Brenna held her hand.

Her back healed slower than the rest of her. That back scar flared hot when she was upset. It hummed when she got too excited. Sometimes, it sparked.

Literally.

On the third night, Minerva reached for a glass of water, and her fingertips crackled with static strong enough to shock the metal pitcher clean off the table.

Rosalyn didn’t flinch. She picked up the pitcher and simply said, “Alright then.”

That became the phrase in the house for a while: Alright then. Whenever Minerva’s arm sparked while brushing her hair, or her toes left faint scorch marks on the porch when she got mad about chores, or the lights flickered when she sneezed.

She began to feel it—not just in her skin, but deeper.

In her blood.

Like a current, coiled and waiting.

She didn’t always understand it. Sometimes it made her dizzy, or too hot, or unbearably jittery in the last week. Henry noticed.

“You’re humming,” he said one morning while she tried to sweep the porch and he was sitting on the porch swing.

Minerva frowned. “What?”

“Your body. It’s vibrating.” He tapped the broom handle. “Like you’re full of bees.”

She blinked, then realized her fingertips were gripping the wood too tightly. The straw bristles were frayed and smoking slightly at the ends.

“Oh,” she said quietly, head down.

Her voice was small. Barely a thread. Like the breeze might carry it away if she spoke any louder.

Henry’s brows furrowed. He noticed the way her hands clenched onto the broom, the subtle rise of her shoulders like she was trying to disappear inside herself. The sparks from her fingertips fizzled out—not from control, but from shame.

Warm tears prickled her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, voice cracking.

Henry hadn’t spoken yet. He waited.

“I—I just touched it,” she said, gesturing to the scorched broomstick now lying half-splintered on the porch. “I wasn’t even mad or anything. It just happened. Again.”

It took all of Henry’s strength not to pull her into a hug right then and there. But instead, he crouched slowly, bringing himself eye level with her, steady and solid as the earth.

She turned her head away when he reached for her face, but he gently coaxed her chin up and wiped the tear threatening to fall with the rough pad of his thumb.

“I don’t want it anymore,” she blurted, sudden and harsh like a splinter under skin. “I want to be normal.”

Henry’s gaze didn’t shift. “Define normal for me, Mini.”

She blinked, angry now. Angry at herself, at the porch, at the scar crawling down her back. “Like you,” she said, the words brittle and sharp. “You don’t have a quirk. You’re fine. Strong. Respected. Everyone listens to you. No one expects you to accidentally break things just by breathing wrong.”

Henry tilted his head. “That so?”

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to glow in the dark or shock everything I touch or feel like my body’s a bomb with a faulty timer. I just want to be quiet again. I want to sweep the porch without setting it on fire.”

He didn’t look away. Didn’t even blink.

“I see,” he said slowly, voice low. “So you want to throw away the thing that’s part of you just because it feels heavy right now?”

“It’s not just heavy,” she hissed. “It’s too much. I feel like I’m carrying something that wants to eat me alive. I didn’t want it. It just happened, and now everyone’s looking at me like I’m supposed to do something amazing with it and all I’ve done is mess up and burn things and make Brenna cry and—”

“Minerva.”

The sound of her name silenced her, but the tears didn’t stop.

His hand was still gentle beneath her chin, but his voice had changed—firmer now. Not angry. Not disappointed.

Just rooted.

“You think I’ve never carried something heavy?” he asked. “You think being quirkless made me lighter?”

She didn’t answer.

“You think I don’t remember the way people looked at me when I walked into a ring with no spark, no fire, no flash—just hands and my wits?”

Minerva’s lips trembled.

“I built this body,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “Brick by brick. And you know what else I built? This family. With your mama. With your siblings. You know what your brother can do? Split the air with his fists. You know what Brenna can do? Root herself to the earth and break the bones of grown men twice her size.”

“I know,” she mumbled.

“And I love them for it. But I love them not because of what they can do, Mini. I love them for who they are while they’re doing it. You hear me?”

Minerva nodded, but her shoulders shook.

“And you? You were born with lightning in your bones. You got touched by something raw, ancient, and wild. That’s not a mistake. That’s not a curse. That’s a legacy.”

She finally looked up, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“I didn’t want to be that,” she whispered.

Henry nodded once. “Tough. You are.”

She hiccup-laughed. He smiled.

“But listen,” he added, voice softening. “That doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone. You got me. You got your mama. Your sister, your brothers, your aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, even that cranky rooster who won’t shut up.”

Minerva snorted.

“Don’t pretend like I didn’t see you try to shock the rooster this morning when getting them eggs.”

“He deserved it. Wily ol’ thing…”

“Sure did.”

Henry pulled a towel from his pocket and gently wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks.

“You lived through it,” he said quietly. “You took the hit and stayed standing. That means something.”

Minerva didn’t answer. She just launched herself into him, arms wrapping tight around his middle in a hug that nearly knocked the wind from his lungs. Henry let out a small “Oof,” but held her just as tightly, one hand cupping the back of her wild head.

“And you’ll turn it into something more,” he murmured into her hair. “Bit by bit.”

She nodded into his chest, not ready to speak, not needing to.

When she finally pulled back, he met her gaze and smiled.

Chapter Text

Unseen from the doorway, Silas leaned against the hallway wall, arms folded tight across his chest. He hadn’t meant to stop walking—he’d just come in from checking the back fence—but the sound of Henry’s voice had drawn him in.

He stayed silent.

He heard Minerva say it, raw and jagged:

“I don’t want it anymore. I want to be normal.”

The weight of it punched him low in the gut. Not because he didn’t understand it—he did—but because hearing his little sister say it out loud, with that tremble in her voice, made something twist sharply behind his ribs.

He didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound.

Just stayed in the shadows and listened while Henry answered her with the steadiness only their father could give. He watched as Minerva practically crumpled into him and felt a familiar burn rise in the back of his throat.

He didn’t cry. That wasn’t his way.

Instead, when he finally stepped away, he didn’t go far.

He waited and he thought.

Every storm has a beginning. 

Hers started with buckets.

Every morning, like clockwork, Henry sent Minerva out with two half-filled pails. Twenty steps to the barn. Twenty back. She counted them aloud.

“One... two... three...”

The handles bit into her fingers. Her arms still trembled when she overcorrected for the buzz creeping along her elbows. If she tilted even slightly, the water would slosh against her thighs—and worse, make her skin prickle. Electricity and water didn’t mix.

“Storms don’t just crash in all wild,” Henry reminded her from the porch, arms folded, coffee in hand. “They build. Pressure. Heat. Stillness before the strike. Learn that.”

The rule was simple: spill, and you start over.

Slosh too hard, and the water tingles on her skin. If she got too still, her quirk buzzed like it was pacing behind her ribs, looking for a way out. So she walked smoothly and focused, rain boots heavy against the gravel, the wet grass brushing her ankles. When she made it the full forty steps without shocking herself or the buckets, Henry gave a nod that meant good enough for now.

By the end of the first week, her shoulders ached and her hands smelled like iron.

By the second, she could carry the buckets and hum a tune without tripping once.

After chores came the rhythm drills with Rosalyn.

They used everything—spoons, tin cups, metal ladles, even old copper pans. Minerva would lay her hands on them, close her eyes, and listen for the spark inside her.

“Hold it like you always do, don’t grip the thing,” Rosalyn coached. “Feel it before you flare up.”

She tapped out patterns on the kitchen counter with a spoon—1, 2-3, pause—then made Minerva mimic the beat while holding a fork or ladle. If the metal stayed cool, she’d pass. If it warmed up or vibrated, they’d start again.

Rosalyn’s face never showed disappointment. Just a tilt of the head and, “Try again, baby.”

“Every power’s got a beat,” she said often. “If you don’t learn, it’ll teach itself.”

At first, Minerva resented the simplicity of it—tapping metal like the rhythm games Brenna would play when she had better things to do. But as the days passed, she realized she could feel when the charge in her chest began to build, how it curled around her lungs and traced her spine. She could hold that awareness just a little longer each day, like riding a horse without falling off.

One afternoon, she held a tin cup for a full minute without it heating up. Rosalyn said nothing—just gave her a fresh cookie from the windowsill and kissed her forehead.

Brenna’s chaos came in the afternoons.

The second Minerva dropped her guard, Brenna was there like a shark to blood.

She’d clap behind her while she was filling feed buckets. She’d whisper “Duck!” in the middle of a conversation or drop an egg on purpose near her head. It was relentless.

The first week, Minerva scorched her sleeve. The second, she sparked so hard she made one of the barn cats’ fur puff up and bolt for the rafters.

“You trying to kill me?” Minerva hissed after one particularly sharp yell, and her hair frizzed at the ends.

Brenna grinned, unbothered. “Nah. Just making sure you're up.”

But slowly, as the weeks turned into months, it helped. Her reflexes sharpened. Her body began to recognize the earliest flutter of a surge before it could climb. She learned how to breathe the charge down into her toes, how to shake it out through her fingers without sparking.

Brenna eventually added “weapons” to the game, rubber balls thrown low, or sticks tapped against her legs to test awareness. Though Minerva did catch one of these sticks on fire.

“You’re gettin’ quicker,” Brenna said one evening, balancing a bucket on her head. “Might be real dangerous one day.”

Minerva stuck her tongue out. “You wish.”

Silas came in during the evenings.

Where Rosalyn soothed and Brenna startled, Silas challenged. He didn’t run her through drills—he ran her through scenarios.

“The barn door’s jammed. Weather’s coming in fast. Hay bales need stacking. You’ve got five minutes and one hand.”

He gave her gloves that didn’t fit. Tools that were slightly warped. Conditions that forced her to think before she surged in frustration.

When she bent a fence post by accident one day, he didn’t scold her. Just handed her another and said, “Try not tryin’ harder.”

Sometimes he pushed her too far, on purpose. One night, she overcharged a water bucket while picking it up, and the shock pushed her into a stumble. Her butt hit the dirt hard. He didn’t move to help.

“You good?”

Minerva spat grit and nodded.

“Good, go again.”

She didn’t argue.

Silas wasn’t cruel. But he wasn’t soft, either. She could feel it in the way he watched her, not like a child in need of coddling, but a fighter in need of sharpening.

Halfway into autumn, and each night, she ended the day the same way, with a grounding trick that her mother had shown her.

Minerva rolled the stone between her palms, the scar pulsing steadily with the beat she’d come to know by heart.

Breathe in.
Minerva pulled the air through her nose slowly and deep, filling her lungs like she was winding a coil inside her chest. It wasn’t just breathing—it was listening . Feeling the quirk awaken like heat under her ribs, a subtle hum in her blood. The beat wasn’t a sound but a pulse—her heartbeat aligning with the current. One steady thump. A warning. A promise.

Breathe out.
The second breath came like a shift in pressure. Her chest loosened, the tightness behind her collarbones easing just slightly as the energy settled lower. She imagined it moving down like water through a funnel, shoulders, arms, fingertips. Another pulse. This one is quieter, gentler, like the quirk was waiting for her to decide.

Touch.
Fingers to copper. Skin to stone. Whatever she touched, she did so with care now, on purpose. 

Channel. Her focus narrowed to a pinpoint behind her breastbone where the energy lived, and from there. 

Release. She sent it outward. Not all of it. Just enough. Just enough to keep it from building up. Just enough to let it move through her, not against her.

Some days, it felt like a wave rolling down a wire. Other days, like peeling heat from her palms. But when she got it right, the air around her stilled. No sparks. No panic. Just a clean exhale and a small shimmer of metal under her touch.

She could knock a tin cup sideways now without frying it. Could pick up a wet tool without surging. She could feel her power without so much fear behind it.

Just once, as a test, she touched her fingers to the porch railing and let the current slither up, controlled, measured, until the metal glowed faintly, then dimmed.

It was the first time she’d used her quirk on purpose without hurting anything.

She breathed a sigh of relief that she was holding in.

The current no longer felt wild.
It felt alive.
A lot more responsive.

She glanced toward the porch railing, faint scorch marks still rimmed the metal from her first, frantic attempt at control. That girl hadn’t known what to call what lived inside her.

Rosalyn, leaning in the doorway, finally spoke. “So... have you given it a name yet?”

Henry set down his broom on the porch step and smiled when he said. “Can’t just call it ‘that thing she does,’ now, can we? It sounds like a rash.”

Minerva looked from her mother to the horizon where the clouds lingered, midnight blue at twilight. She closed her eyes, pressing the stone into her palm, feeling the buzz move from her back through to her arms.

“Lightning Surge,” she whispered.

Rosalyn smiles slowly, pride soft in her eyes.

Henry chuckled, giving her a side hug. “That sounds just like you.”

Chapter Text

11 years ago

Late December light fell soft over the Bearblood homestead, painting the snow-tipped fields in pale gold. Minerva, now ten years old and at five feet and 1 inch, stood on the porch rubbing her gloves together, the stone tucked safely in her inside coat pocket. The winter air was crisp, her breath steaming in front of her, and she felt the familiar tickle of anticipation. Christmas in town meant cinnamon doughnuts from Mrs. Delgado’s stand, new wool socks from Mr. Arroyo’s stall, and most important of all, Spanish flashcards from Arturo.

Inside, the family bustled. Brenna chased Micah around the barn, silencing his squeals about missing “sparky sparkles,” while Silas loaded their sleigh with firewood. Rosalyn called out from the kitchen, “Leaving in five, Mini!”

Minerva slid the door shut and bounded inside, where the rich aroma of spiced oatmeal and fruit greeted her. Henry sat at the head of the table—coffee in hand, a gentle smile on his face. He ruffled her damp hair. “Ready for town?”

She nodded, spoon halfway to her mouth. “I’ve got my list.”

Rosalyn slipped a red scarf around Minerva’s neck. “And your gloves. No exceptions.”

“Got it, Maw,” Minerva said, looping the scarf and tugging her brown gloves tight. She felt safe in their weight, like old friends lending her strength.

Two hours later, the family sleigh clattered along the icy lane toward town. Minerva sat between Rosalyn and Brenna, Micah on Rosalyn’s lap, wrapped in a puffed winter coat and the cutest blue mittens for a five year old, and Henry guiding the horse. The world blurred past: white fields, frozen ponds, and distant pines bowed under snow. Minerva’s mind danced between chores completed, her morning meditation session, and the promise of cinnamon doughnuts.

They arrived at the market just as the bells over the general store jingled at noon. Townsfolk bustled through streets lined with wreaths of fir and holly; vendor stalls glittered with tinsel. Minerva inhaled the scent of roasting chestnuts and spiced cider even before she climbed down from the sleigh.

Rosalyn took Micah’s hand. “We’ll split up. You two take the north side; Brenna and I will handle the south. Meet back here in an hour.”

“Sí, mamá,” Minerva said, having practiced Spanish all week with Arturo’s new flashcards. She waved and hustled off with Brenna.

Their first stop was Mrs. Delgado’s doughnuts. As they waited, Minerva flipped through vocabulary cards: árbol , estrella , libro . Brenna elbowed her. “Quit studying, you’re borin’ me.”

Minerva grinned. “Then be bored.”

Soon, sugar‐dusted pastries in hand, they wandered toward the feed store. Minerva’s gloves carried just enough warmth to keep her fingers nimble. She was proud: every morning routine, every meditation session, every card recited had built her confidence.

At Arturo’s stall—a small wooden booth draped in colorful banners—she found her favorite vendor sorting his baskets of homemade tamales.

“Arturo!” she called, switching to Spanish mid‐sentence. “Buenos días.”

Arturo looked up, eyes crinkling. “¡Minerva! ¡Qué sorpresa!” He set down his tamales. “Estás mejor que nunca. ¿Lista para más tarjetas?”

Minerva beamed and pulled out her notebook of flashcards. They traded new words, estrella fugaz , nieve suave , amigo verdadero, laughing at tricky pronunciations.

Behind them, Brenna tapped on a tin bucket. Minerva shook her head, smiling. “We’ll get you some cocoa, sheesh.”

They wrapped up with extra cards tucked into Minerva’s coat, and she waved goodbye. “Gracias, Arturo. ¡Felices fiestas!”

Arturo raised a tamale in farewell. “¡Felices fiestas, Chispa!”

Buoyed by success, Minerva and Brenna turned toward the main street where the old lampposts stood—tall iron arches crowned with glass globes. Decorations hung between them: strings of lights, paper snowflakes, hung by volunteers. Minerva’s heart jumped. She loved the way the streetlights glowed at night, soft halos guiding residents home.

“Let’s go get socks from Mr. Arroyo’s,” Brenna said, pulling her on. They threaded their way through the crowd, Minerva being careful to keep her gloves on. The market was bustling now, voices rising in laughter and chatter, as merchants called out last-minute specials.

Minerva kept her head high, letting herself enjoy the festive bustle. That old streetlamp was at the corner—she recognized it from memory. A jolt of nerves pulsed through her ribs as she neared, recalling the incident from two years ago when her quirk, still wild, had leapt into a lamppost and crashed the bulb.

They’d fixed it, but Minerva still remembered the gasp of the toddlers and the shifting stares. She glanced up at the glass sphere as she walked by now, determination in her chest.

Rosalyn and Micah emerged from the bakery across the street, each clutching sweet rolls coated in sugar.

“Over here!” Rosalyn called, waving the sugary treats like a flag. Micah’s eyes lit up at the sight of his sister, and immediately he darted toward her, doughnut in one hand, the other tugging at Minerva’s coat sleeve. Rosalyn nods to Minerva and talks with Brenna about the shopping list.

Minerva smiled at Maw and at Micah before pocketing her flashcards and following along, weaving through clusters of straw-filled stalls and strings of twinkling lights. The crowd thinned as they moved past the produce stands, replaced by rows of wooden booths decked in painted signs and colorful bunting.

“Look, Min!” Micah yanked her toward a sign painted in bright blue script: Toys & Trinkets. He raced ahead, small boots crunching on the gravel, leading her down the narrow aisle where wind‑up soldiers stood ready for battle and shelves of tin lanterns waited to glow at her touch.

As they walk down the narrow aisle of toy booths, where wood‑grained shelves held so many versions of wind‑up soldiers, cards, dusty books, rubber balls of varying sizes, tin cars, and a row of small quirk training lanterns. Each was no larger than Micah’s fist: a silver cylinder patterned with star‑cutouts, a tiny LED behind each hole, and a latching base that clicked open to reveal a miniature super‑capacitor inside.

Micah’s eyes went wide. “Lantern?”

Minerva knelt beside him. “It’s not just a lantern,” she explained softly, flipping up a clasp to expose the guts. 

She drew the little lantern close to Micah’s wide eyes. “This isn’t real fire,” Minerva said, voice soft. “Inside is a tiny battery called a capacitor—it’s like a cup for electricity. When I press here,” she tapped the flat metal plate, “I pour just enough of my quirk into it. That lights the bulb without smoke or flames, so it’s safe.”

The vendor smiled behind them, folding her arms. “Perfect for kids learning to be precise with their quirks.”

“Yeah, I read about these in a magazine from the feed store.”

Micah tilted his head and squinted his eyes in thought. “Hm, I wanna see!”

Minerva’s eyes light up a little. “Okay, you got it!”

Minerva closed her eyes and placed her gloved palm on the lantern’s base.

She drew air deep into her lungs, feeling the cold winter wind swirl past her cheeks. Inside her ribs, there was the familiar hum. She let the hum settle around her heart, listening for the soft echo of her quirk waiting to move.

Her pulse thumped under her glove, steady and sure. Minerva felt that the throb synced with the tiny electrical field at her fingertips. It was the first anchor point: power ready, but contained. She held that moment, knowing it would guide the rest of the flow.

She exhaled slowly, loosening the tension in her chest. The current shifted lower, pooling around her diaphragm. It wasn’t panic or rush—it was purpose, like water finding its level. She could almost taste the gentle warmth in her lungs.

Her heart ticked again, quieter this time. The quirk’s murmur followed, winding through her veins toward her palm. It was a subtle call: the signal to move energy, but only a drop, just enough for the little lantern.

A soft zzzt hummed under her glove, just enough current to flow into the capacitor’s terminals. Through the star‑holes, a warm golden glow blossomed. Micah gasped, the lantern’s light painting tiny patterns on his cheeks.

“Woah…magic…”

“It’s not magic,” Minerva said, pulling back her glove slightly to show him the circuit. “It’ll shine for a while, then gently go dark.”

Micah reached for it, marveling at the glow that would last for minutes before fading, enough for bedtime stories or late‑night adventures.

The vendor winked. “Our quirk training aids like these are all the rage. They teach control.”

He hugged the lantern like a puppy and skipped off to show Brenna.

Minerva stood and dusted snow from her knees. She follows after paying for the lantern, and around her, the market’s bustle swelled back to life—vendors calling out, children chasing one another, the sweet scent of cider and pine. She glanced up at the tall streetlamps overhead, their globes holding light the same way her little lantern had.

No grand explosions tonight. Just a quiet, steady glow.

A thrill ran through her. She slipped her gloves back on and tucked this moment deep inside her heart.

Minerva was finally seeing the gentle side of this quirk.

Chapter Text

Spring came early to the Bearblood homestead that year. The sun spilled soft and steady across the fields, bringing warmth to the red clay and coaxing stubborn new grass to peek through the earth. Minerva crouched near a half-buried post at the edge of the pasture, gripping the smoothed wood as her father shoveled soil around its base. The old fence line had taken damage during the last winter storm, and she was helping him reinforce it. The post wasn’t metal—just a stripped pine trunk, cut to length and sanded. They’d learned not to use metal near her hands when she was still figuring things out.

Her gloves lay nearby on the ground. She breathed evenly, slow and intentional. Sparks no longer danced uncontrolled on her skin. Instead, she concentrated—one finger gently resting along the grain of the post—feeling the vibrations of the earth beneath her and the low hum of energy just beneath her skin.

Meditation with Rosalyn had helped. After months of daily sessions, she had developed a technique that allowed her to summon a faint static, enough to hold objects to her skin. She had practiced it first on paper, then on spoons, and now on nails. She could stick three or four small items to her forearm, move, crouch, even jog a little, and they wouldn’t fall. She hadn’t mastered the full application in combat, but she could feel her control growing.

Henry pressed the final scoop of dirt around the post and leaned his weight into it with a grunt. “Solid,” he said. “You’re getting stronger.”

Minerva crouched beside the last fence post, nails stuck neatly along her forearm in a perfect row like shiny beetles. Her fingers crackled with a low buzz as she pinched one between her thumb and forefinger and pressed it into place. The static hummed gently from her skin, just enough to keep the others clinging while she worked.

Henry stood a few paces away, tamping the red clay down around the post base with his boot. “You’re gettin’ quicker,” he noted, not looking up. “That trick with the nails is real clever. Ain’t seen anyone use their quirk like that.”

Minerva grinned, brushing a curl off her damp forehead. “Maw’s drills are paying off. I can stick 'em in rows now. Even jogged across the porch earlier without dropping one.”

She reached for another nail, but it slipped from her grasp. Before she could catch it, the last spark from her palm snapped—and the nail zipped off her arm and thunked into the wood about a foot away.

She blinked. “Huh.”

Henry looked over. “You throw that one with your mind, girl?”

“No, I—” She reached for the next one. Held it. Let the current slip under the surface of her skin and push. It flinched again. Not a lot. But enough.

Curious now, she picked up a nail that had fallen and flattened her hand. She focused on the familiar hum, but this time she didn’t grip the charge tight. She loosened it. Guided it outward. Let her palm hum just above the post.

The nail lifted from her hand and flung into the dirt, skipping like a skipped stone.

She froze. Her breath caught.

Henry’s eyebrows raised just slightly as he watched her figure out what she had just done.

She stood slowly and brushed off her hands. She stepped back from the fence line and reached for the tin scoop where they kept the rest of the nails. She took a single one, flat and thin, and laid it in her palm again. Then, with the other hand, she flicked her fingers against her wrist—not hard, just enough to jumpstart the charge.

This time, the nail flew from her hand like a dart, clattering against the post with a clear metal ping.

Henry let out a low whistle. “Looks like someone’s got more than just stickiness in them bones.”

Minerva’s eyes were wide, but not in fear. “It’s like—I reversed it,” she murmured. “Like flipping a magnet around.”

She stared at her hands. “I didn’t think I could push things away from me like that. Not without hurting them.” She remembers how she used to make things fly from her when she was still learning to get her quirk mostly under control.

Henry crouched nearby, running a callused thumb along the fence post. “Might be time to test that out further. You’ve been stickin' for weeks—now you’re learnin' what happens when that goes the other way.”

Minerva grinned, still shaken but thrilled. “Do you think I could use it on... myself?”

Henry stood, brushing his jeans off. “Don’t see why not. Every force has an opposite, right? But maybe let's not try launching ourselves into the barn ‘til we figure out how high that current wants you to go.”

She laughed—half nervous, half eager.

Minerva smiled, cheeks warm but not from the sun.

Rosalyn watched from the shade of the porch, arms crossed, the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth. She really sees the growth in her eleven year old daughter now, sees it in the way Minerva moved, in how she didn’t flinch at her own sparks anymore. How her quirk buzzed just beneath her skin, but her composure held longer each passing day.

By midday, a call came through the radio from a neighbor down the ridge. A freak windstorm had ripped the roof off the Bearbloods’ grain-prep outpost next county over. Supplies were scattered, and there were individuals with light injuries in need of first aid. Bearbloods were requested for quick relief, muscle and coordination, maybe a few clean burns to seal damaged metal. Minerva was allowed to tag along, wearing her training gi, gloves tucked into her belt, and climbed into the back of the truck with Brenna and Silas.

They weren’t the only ones arriving.

They arrived as the sun dipped low, dyeing the torn barn timbers copper. Volunteers and trainees moved in organized flurries. The rumble of a sleek SUV rolled in. The SUV bore an insignia known to anyone who kept up with foreign pro heroes—a stylized silver star over navy blue. Out stepped Starline, the American hero famous for their calming presence and remarkable quirk finesse. Starline exited with calm authority: navy-blue uniform, chrome gauntlets gleaming, starburst insignia catching every ray. She spoke into a headset, then to two medics, and finally to a pair of Georgia farmhands in Spanish— “Por favor, mantengan el perímetro” —all in a single breath.

Minerva stared, her heart pounding.

This was not some television figure. Starline was here—in her backyard—moving with that cool command she’d only seen in magazines from Brenna’s bookcase, video clips, and overseas broadcasts. 

She watched as they stepped into the chaos of the destroyed outpost, and within minutes, redirected panicking workers, patched two fractures with strips of polymer thread, and sealed a live conduit with a deft press of her gloved fingers. They switched languages without pause, issuing quick safety instructions in Spanish to the volunteers from neighboring counties, then offering a dry joke in French to a reporter snapping pictures from a safe distance.

Minerva hadn’t realized she was following at a distance until her mother tapped her shoulder. “Go on then.”

“Go where?” she squeaked, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

Rosalyn nodded toward the barn where Starline was kneeling to inspect a cracked beam. The site had paused for supplies. 

Minerva adjusted her gloves nervously. Her boots felt too big. Her hair had come loose from its tie. She smoothed her training gi, took a breath, and crossed the distance before her courage cracked.

Starline noticed her hovering and smiled—a beacon of reassurance.

“Hm? You’re one of the Bearbloods, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, but how’d you know?” Minerva answered, voice steadier than she expected. “Minerva. I—I’ve followed your work.”

“Minerva,” Starline repeated, standing tall. Their eyes were kind, serious. Minerva can feel the sparks dancing loosely around her fingers due to the nerves. “You’ve got sparks on your fingers. Quirk?” Starline raised an eyebrow in interest.

Minerva held her breath. Then, quiet and sure: “Lightning Surge.”

Starline raised a brow. “Good name. Sounds like something that doesn’t just strike—it builds.”

Minerva swallowed. “I’ve been learning how to keep it steady. And… to use it for more than just blasting things.”

“I saw you helping out,” Starline said, tone knowing. 

Minerva’s throat tightened. She hadn’t noticed they were watching.

“Do you know what I like about names like Lightning Surge?” Starline asked. “They tell you something about the power—but also about the person carrying it.”

Minerva exhaled. “Thank you. I’ve watched you use your quirk to stabilize power lines and redirect current. It’s… amazing.” She scrunched her nose, her nervous tick, as words tumbled free. “My quirk still feels a little raw. I’m still learning when to let it flow.”

Starline laughed gently, a warm sound that eased Minerva’s anxiety. “Raw is good. It means your power is alive. Precision comes with practice. I’ve heard your family trains heroes from newborns to pros.”

Minerva felt her ears go hot.“They do push me hard.”

Starline stood and beckoned Minerva to walk with her to the damaged outpost. Together, they approached the sparking power box. Volunteers had assembled barriers, but the line sputtered unevenly. Starline leaned close, speaking low so only Minerva could hear. “Watch how I do it once, then tell me what you see.”

She placed a gauntleted hand on the box’s edge. A soft glow pulsed at her fingertips as she guided the current down an insulated cable into the earth. The sputtering ceased, replaced by a steady hum. The volunteers cheered.

Minerva swallowed, the evidence of control lighting her courage. “You…you synced your quirk with the circuit, redirecting the load?” she whispered, eyes wide.

“I treat my quirk like a colleague, not a weapon. Now you try.”

Minerva squared her shoulders, knelt, and placed her gloved palm to the metal casing. The familiar tingle raced along her veins—her quirk reaching out, tentative at first, then bolder. She funneled a thin ribbon of electricity into the cable, humming a tune she’d drilled herself a thousand times on. The box glowed, ran smoothly, and the hum steadied. Starline’s soft laughter flitted in the air. “Look at you,” she said, patting the top of her head.

Minerva exhaled, nerves settling into triumph. “I did it,” she breathed, scrunching her nose in that telltale tick when she was both proud and embarrassed.

Starline knelt beside her, voice gentle. “You’re ready for more than these fields. Remember what you felt just now—how it listened to you. That’s your gift.”

Minerva’s heart thundered. “Do you think—one day—I could do this anywhere? Not just here?”

Starline’s gaze was kind but unwavering. “I’ve seen your kind of spark light up cities. You’ll go far, Minerva. Just keep guiding it and you’ll be there before you know it.”

Minerva nodded, absorbing each word. Starline rose, offering her hand. “Come on. Let’s check the silo wall next.”

As they walked back into the din of the relief site, Minerva felt her world expand. The raw power inside her wasn’t something to fear, but a promise, one she was ready to chase, beyond every horizon she could name.

Minerva’s heart kicked against her ribs.

The drive home was quiet.

Rosalyn glanced at Minerva in the rearview mirror. “You alright, baby?”

“Yeah, what’s gotten into you?” Brenna elbows her gently, just wanting to be nosy.

Silas tells Brenna to leave her alone, as she has a lot on her mind. He could tell due to Minerva not reacting to anything. Minerva stared out the window. The world outside looked bigger. Sharper.

“I think I’m ready,” she whispered to herself, fingers brushing the gloves in her lap.

She didn’t know where yet—but she knew she could go anywhere.

She didn’t notice Rosalyn watching her from the rearview mirror—smiling at the way her daughter’s eyes were pointed at the horizon, not the ground.

The world had met Minerva Bearblood, and she's starting to listen.

Chapter Text

The sun had barely crested the horizon when Minerva rolled out of bed, her hair a wild halo of curls catching the morning light. She yanked her new boots on from her twelfth birthday a couple of weeks ago, tucked the ends of her sleep shirt into a faded pair of denim shorts, and shouldered open the screen door. The air still smelled like wet dirt from the storm the night before, and dew clung to the edges of the tall grass like tiny stars.

Micah was already out front with the chickens, pretending to be a hero rescuing them from invisible villains. He puffed up his chest when he saw her. "You’re late, sis! The feathered citizens needed your help hours ago."

"Hours ago, huh? So, like… fifteen minutes?" she drawled, swatting his hat down over his eyes as she passed.

Brenna, holding a bucket of feed with one hip, raised a brow. "Your hair’s brushed. Who you tryin’ to impress today?"

Minerva rolled her eyes. "Nobody. Maybe I jus’ like looking decent."

"Uh-huh," Brenna said, smirking as she turned away. "Tell that to the poor fool waitin’ in town with flowers and expectations."

Minerva didn't respond. The teasing was familiar, even comforting, but her heart tapped faster at the thought of Nolan. They hadn’t seen each other in days—longer than usual—and today felt like something unspoken hovered between them. She hadn’t decided what yet.

As she loaded up the old wheelbarrow with bags of seed, Maw stepped out onto the porch, arms folded. Her sharp eyes landed on Minerva and stayed there. "Don’t forget," she said, voice soft but firm. "A strong tether ain’t the same thing as a chain."

Minerva huffed, tossing her head like she’d just been handed the world’s most obvious wisdom. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

She spotted Nolan.

Nolan Dyer had sandy curls and kind eyes, and a quiet patience that most folks in town admired. He liked art, played acoustic guitar, and never once flinched when she sparked by accident. They started dating after the spring festival last year. It wasn’t some grand romance, just late walks, long talks, and small comforts. But he liked her.

And she liked him.

Or, at least, she had before everything started slipping sideways, since this wasn't the first time she had forgotten about their dates.

There he was, though leaning against the side of the general store with one boot braced behind him. He looked up just as she approached, his face breaking into a crooked grin.

"Hey, stranger," he said.

She offered a lopsided smile, not catching the bittersweet undertone.

"You look like you've been standing there rehearsing something."

"I was. Forgot it the second I saw you."

They wandered together through the town market, sharing boiled peanuts from a paper bag and pausing to watch a dog chase its tail near the well. He asked her about her training and she told him about the new rope technique she was trying to master. He didn’t pretend to understand it all, but he listened.

Before they parted, Nolan asked if she’d meet him at the creek before sundown. "Just us," he said. "No chores, no drills. Just for a bit."

"Alright," she said. "I’ll be there."

He kissed her cheek before turning away, and her hand lingered at the spot long after he was gone.

A summer afternoon in Georgia was heat and haze, heavy with cicadas humming and the scent of pine sap baking in the sun. Minerva had her newly braided rope in her hands, sweat on her brow, and a stubborn spark in her blood. She stood barefoot in the red dirt behind the barn, swinging the long coil of specialized wrangling rope in practiced arcs. Each motion cracked with purpose—a dance of control.

The rope was heavier than it looked. Not in weight, but in demand. This was no ordinary rope. After weeks of trial and error, she’d learned to channel her quirk through it, charging the copper fibers woven in, snapping arcs between knots, and lashing targets without leaving scorch marks. It was her new focus, and she was determined to master it.

She stood behind the barn, the long, coiled rope held like a lifeline. Her father, Henry, towered beside her with his arms crossed, observing.

"Don’t force it," he said. "Guide the energy like water through a stream. It doesn’t take shouting to move a river."

Minerva exhaled. Sparks gathered along her palm, dancing like fireflies. She coaxed them into the threads, letting them slide through the copper fibers that lined the inside of the rope. A faint crackle lit the coil’s edge.

The rope glowed for a moment—then smoked, singed along one side. The muscles in her arm twitched as she cursed.

"Relax, girl," Henry said. "You’re thinking too hard. Let it flow."

So she did it again. And again. Until the sun fell low in the sky.

Minerva wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm, watching the length of rope writhe faintly with leftover charge at her feet. The copper threads inside were still warm. Her palms tingled—not with strain, but with something sharper. Brighter.

She crouched low and took a breath.

Relax, she reminded herself. Like Mama taught.

 One hand pressed to the packed dirt to be ready to discharge any leftover electricity. The other gripped the coil of rope near its midpoint.

Then something happened.

Not inside the rope. Inside her.

A slow, strange thrum climbed her spine with no warning, no build. Just presence. She felt it pooling behind her ribs. Without thinking, she closed her eyes, shifted her weight slightly, and released it downward. The energy moved to the bottoms of her feet. She felt the familiar tingle leaving her body instead of holding like she usually does.

Her boots left the ground.

It wasn’t high—maybe a few inches. But she felt it: that lift, that separation, that beautiful click of resistance reversing. For a breathless moment, she hovered, her eyes opened, and then gravity reasserted itself in the same moment, and she landed with a jolt and a grunt, falling backward onto her elbows in the dirt.

The rope fizzed nearby. A single ember leapt off the copper and vanished into the air.

Minerva stared at the sky, heart hammering.

"What the hell was that?"

She sat up slowly, brushing soil from her arms and checking the heel of her boot for burns. Nothing. Her heart, though, thudded in her ears like it was trying to warn her of something she didn’t yet understand.

She tried to replay the feeling—not the lift, but what came before it. That pulse behind her ribs. The way the hum had shifted from her fingertips to her feet. A downward surge, not an outward one.

A push.

Repulsion.

She grinned, just a little.

It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t graceful.

But it had been hers.

"Minerva!"

She turned to see Brenna marching toward the barn, arms folded, mouth tight.

"You forget somethin'?"

Minerva blinked. "What?"

"The boy at the creek, dumbass. It’s near sundown."

Minerva’s stomach dropped. "Shit."

She dropped the rope and sprinted, feet barely touching the earth.

The path to the creek was familiar, but that day it felt too long, too winding. The trees cast long shadows across the dirt trail, and fireflies had started blinking to life. Her lungs burned by the time she reached the clearing.

Empty.

She searched the rocks, the water’s edge, and called his name twice. Only frogs and the wind answered back.

Near the base of the oak tree, she saw the heart he'd carved weeks ago, still etched into the bark. She touched it. The bark felt cold. So did her chest.

She waited. Five minutes. Then ten. But he didn’t come.

She cursed under her breath, sat down on a boulder, and put her head in her hands. She now knew...that she fucked up.

He found her the next day at the edge of the woods, near the pasture fence. She didn’t see him approach. Didn’t hear his steps.

"You forgot," he said quietly.

She spun. "Nolan, I—I didn’t mean to. I lost track of time, I—"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I figured."

Minerva stepped toward him. "I swear, I was training, and it just—" Her stomach started to turn with each word spoken.

He raised a hand, halting her. “It’s always training lately, Min. I get it, I do. You’re incredible, and this is important," Nolan runs a hand through his hair down to his neck, "But I’m not trying to be some afterthought you circle back to whenever you remember.”

His voice didn’t hold anger. Just hurt. And that was worse.

Minerva’s mouth opened, but no words came. Nolan shook his head gently.

“I’m not mad,” he said, looking directly at her, “Just...I need someone who makes space for me, not someone I gotta chase to feel seen.”

He looked at her for a long moment. "Maybe one day you’ll figure it out. Maybe you won’t. But I can’t stand here waitin’ to be squeezed in around everything else. So…I’ll see you around."

And just like that, he walked away.

Minerva stood in the silence that followed, rope still in hand, crackling faintly.

Later, when Brenna found her by the split woodpile, Minerva didn’t say much. Just kept twirling the rope, lightning flickering with every twist.

“You alright?” Brenna asked, nudging her shoulder.

“Broke up with Nolan,” she replied flatly, thumping her forehead on her knees.

“Y’all were cute.”

“Cuteness doesn’t hold up when I choose training over people.”

Brenna didn’t argue. Instead, she glanced at the scorched post behind them and then up at the hill where Silas had once nearly felled a tree with his quirk.

“You remember when Sil chopped that pine down by accident?” she asked.

Minerva gave a dry laugh. “Papa was ready to ground him ‘til he gets married.”

“Yeah, but he fixed it. Used Break Line again to split the fallen trunk clean, reshaped the force of the break, then wedged it upright with braces ‘til roots could regrow. Took days.”

“He owned up to it, though,” Minerva said quietly. “Didn’t try to blame the tree.”

Brenna bumped her elbow. “I'm just sayin’. You can train and still leave space for people. You do it all the time for us.”

Minerva huffed, tossing her head when she remembered what Maw told her about tethers, not chains, and hearing this from her sister. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, rolling her eyes as she felt the prickle of tears.

That evening, instead of practicing more, she went to the porch where her cousin Marcelle was visiting.

Marcelle was a translator, sharp-tongued and stylish, with gold hoops and a stack of flashcards in her tote bag. She traveled constantly—Senegal, France, Belgium—and brought back candies, perfume samples, and stories that sounded like fairy tales dipped in real dust.

“You’ve already got flow,” Marcelle said, thumbing through the flashcards. “French is like a current. Don’t just memorize it. Feel it.”

Minerva was following along for the most part. Her mind has been so focused on her quirk that always been about taking control of it. Or maybe because for the first time that week, she wasn’t trying to prove anything, not even to herself.

She was just listening now. Something she should've been doing in the first place.

That night, as the living room light spilled across the porch and Marcelle read aloud from a book of French poetry, Minerva leaned back against the wall and let the words settle over her. Her rope lay coiled at her feet.

She didn’t need it right now.

For once, the tether shouldn't be to her quirk.

It should be to herself.

And she’d needed that reminder more than she thought.

Chapter Text

Minerva had outgrown her boots again.

Rosalyn sighed when the soles came loose, and Brenna cackled when the left heel folded sideways during morning drills. Minerva cursed under her breath and kept walking. She wasn’t about to let anyone think she’d trip over bad leather, not when she’d worked all winter to tighten her footwork.

“Don’t look at me,” Brenna said through a grin, leaning against the coop wall. “You’ve got the smallest feet in the family. That’s not a fault—it’s a legacy.”

Minerva narrowed her eyes and flicked a static zap at Brenna’s shoulder. Brenna barely flinched. “Legacy of being short, maybe,” Minerva muttered, watching Micah run past her like a gangly deer in a growth spurt. He was eight now, shooting up in little jumps like a weed after rain. At this rate, she was going to be the shortest Bearblood—forever.

Minerva didn’t mind being strong. She didn’t even mind the scars anymore. But short?

“Unfair,” she grumbled as she yanked her boots off that afternoon to let them dry near the fire. Micah skidded into the room a moment later, arms full of muddy rocks and a grin three sizes too wide.

The rest of that afternoon, she sat on the porch trying not to feel small as she practiced her Japanese kanji, French past participles, and feeling just peachy about her new rope technique. Her static cling technique allows her to magnetize one end of the rope to her skin. She spent weeks braiding this special rope with strands of copper. When she gave it just the right pulse, the rope wound around her arm with a graceful flick. She grinned to herself.

It was flashy but controlled. Henry had said so. Rosalyn had made her tea in quiet approval.

That night, while the others dozed off one by one—Micah mid-sentence on the couch, Brenna face-down in a textbook, and Maw humming softly in the kitchen—Minerva tiptoed out to the back porch with her boots in one hand and her rope in the other.

The air was warm but restless. Humid.

A low roll of thunder grumbled somewhere in the distance, far off toward the ridge, like the storm was practicing.

She dropped to the boards of the porch with a quiet thud, peeled her socks off, and flexed her bare toes against the cool wood.

Let’s see what else you can do, she thought.

Minerva coiled the copper-threaded rope loosely around one forearm and pressed her other palm to the floor. A flicker of charge curled around her knuckles. Familiar. Easy now.

She’d been controlling how her quirk left her. Through her hands. Through the rope. Through tools.

But what if she didn’t direct it out, but under?

What if she could push?

Minerva squatted low and drew a long, steady breath through her nose. She grounded herself like Mama taught her—Feel it before you flare up. The scar on her back thrummed once. A gentle tap.

Then, deliberately, she shifted her center of gravity and channeled the pulse downward through both soles of her feet.

It wasn’t a big jolt.

More like a hiccup of force.

But it lifted her slightly. She felt it in her arches first, then in her knees, and just for a heartbeat—her heels didn’t touch the wood.

She gasped.

Then it was gone, and she landed again with a soft thump.

Her eyes went wide.

“I did it,” she whispered.

She did it again.

Another push. More focused this time. She held the rope steady with one hand, almost as a grounding weight, while the other channeled just a thin stream of charge to keep balance. Her feet skidded half an inch across the boards—but she didn’t fall.

This was new.

Not a surge.

Not a spark.

A shift.

She tried a third time—pulse, pulse—and this time it felt like the porch was sliding under her, not the other way around.

When she stopped, her breath came fast, but light.

She dropped into a seated crouch, arms resting on her knees.

That wasn’t a weapon move. That was movement.

It didn’t feel like gravity ruled her the same way anymore.

She scrunched her nose and let her pulse slow back to normal. She quietly goes back inside to her bedroom with all her things and a new bits of knowledge.

“I forgot to tell you what I found in the creek!” Micah screamed as he looked for her after waking up, holding up what looked like...a slightly shinier rock. He makes it to her bedroom, “This one looks like Brenna’s elbow!”

“Everything looks like Brenna’s elbow if you squint hard enough,” Minerva muttered. Then she paused, raised a brow, and tilted her head. “Okay… maybe that one actually does.”

He plopped beside her on the bed and pointed at her study notes. “Are you still learning Japanese?”

“Trying,” she said. “Got my Spanish down, almost fluent in French—now this one's kicking my behind.”

Micah leaned over and squinted at her sloppy kana. “You spelled this one wrong. You wrote ‘eat cloud’ instead of ‘storm pulse.’”

Minerva gawked. “How the hell would you—”

“I listen when you talk, dummy.”

She blinked. “Okay, one, language, young man. Two, don’t call your sister a dummy. Three, since when do you correct me?”

Micah just shrugged, that smug little smile creeping in like he knew something she didn’t. And maybe he did. He was getting smarter, faster, even funnier. And taller, if she was honest with herself.

She rubbed her temples. “I swear if you grow taller than me by next spring, I’m putting bricks in your shoes.”

Micah looked way too pleased by that.

That weekend, Minerva returned to town for bread, books, and a quiet afternoon of Spanish flashcards with Arturo. The old baker greeted her with his usual gentle clap on the shoulder and a cup of warm horchata.

“You roll your Rs too hard,” he teased. “You sound like a goat coughing.”

Minerva groaned. “That’s what my last letter said, too!”

He laughed from deep in his chest. “Ay, but at least you’re reading fast now. You’re too smart for your own good.”

They sat near the window while the bakery warmed with fresh sugar loaves. Minerva wrote out new vocabulary in a pocket notebook, alternating between her cards and conversational drills. Arturo corrected her gently, patient even when she slipped and used French conjugations by mistake.

“You’re mixing your tongues, niña,” he said, nudging her hand. “That means your brain is working too hard. Time for a break.”

She leaned back in her chair, tapping her pencil against her forehead. “What if I’m not working hard enough?”

Arturo raised a brow. “Why would you say that?”

Minerva hesitated. “There’s a summit next month. For international internships. They’re asking for regional reps… and Maw says I’m ready.”

Arturo paused, then smiled slowly. “You think you’re not?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’m good at training. At home, I know how everything works. But… out there?”

“You’ve been out there your whole life,” he said. “It just didn’t feel like it yet.”

Minerva chewed her bottom lip. “And if I mess it up?”

Arturo leaned in, voice gentle. “Then you’ll do what all heroes do, niña. You’ll fix it.”

The summit came in the blink of an eye.

Minerva stood at the edge of the field, one gloved hand resting against her rope coil, the other pressed to her side. A crowd was gathering behind the barn—family, neighbors, a few from town, and a few instructors from nearby agencies.

Maw and Paw were right behind her.

Maw offered her a firm nod. “They’ll see what we’ve always known.”

Henry clapped her once on the back and whispered in a joking way, “Don’t smile too much. It’ll give away your secrets.”

That did break her composure just a little bit.

It was the regional summer summit—a kind of informal showcase where trained kids and teen hopefuls could demonstrate their skills.

She’d been nominated quietly by Rosalyn and Henry. At thirteen, she was on the younger side of the presenters, but no one questioned it after her last two local demos.

The morning air hummed with heat as she stepped into the clearing, dust shifting beneath her boots. Rosalyn and Henry stood on the sidelines. Silas leaned on the fence with his arms crossed. Micah sat on the railing, waving and screaming wildly.

Minerva’s heartbeat had settled into something calm. Not quiet. Just contained.

She stepped into the open and gave a short bow to the adjudicators. A timer buzzed. Her showcase began.

She pulled her gloves off slowly, then wound her rope through her hands in a spiral. With a flick of her wrist, she sent it sailing forward—and halfway through the arc, she sparked a charge through it. The current leapt like a ribbon of light, skipping down the length of the cord and snapping the edge around a set of wooden training dummies.

The crowd leaned forward. She tugged—fast, sharp—and the current anchored the rope against the outermost dummy. With her other hand, she sparked again, this time grounding it into the earth. The lightning jumped between her and the wood, crackling outward in a pattern like spiderweb cracks.

She didn’t burn anything this time. Just lit it. Dazzling. Controlled.

She moved through the rest of her set like wind running across stone—unforgiving but balanced. Her final move, a short-range ground pulse, knocked the middle dummy off its base entirely. It thudded into the earth.

Minerva straightened, panting lightly. The crowd applauded. Henry whistled through two fingers. Rosalyn beamed.

She bowed again.

She didn’t notice that Rosalyn had wiped her eyes. Henry, clutching his heart, Brenna gushing and squeeing as quietly as she could as she videoed Minerva’s section or that Silas, standing by the railing, had crossed his arms and said nothing—but looked proud anyway.

After, as the summit crowd mingled around the snack tables and back near the results board, the numbers were posted. Minerva made the top six in technique and the top three in control. Not first—but close.

As the crowd thinned, she found herself next to the two teens she’d seen earlier in the day.

“Hey," Minerva turns to see a dark-skinned boy with what felt like a dusty film over him like an old western in a red plaid shirt, "I’m Isaiah,” His voice steady and warm, with that Memphis drawl. “From Tennessee. Didja see my Whipwind out there?” With a single finger, she felt a flick of wind brush her cheek and ear.

"That was pretty cool to save the procter from stray paper planes." Minerva holds in a small giggle. 

Next to him, the girl leaned down to be seen as she flipped down the hood of her camo-blended jacket. Cropped black curls framed sharp eyes and a grin that said she’d already sized up the whole field twice over.

“Keiko. From Miami. Shadow Displacement, mostly short-range. You’re Lightning Surge, right?”

Minerva nodded, caught slightly off guard but not unpleasantly.

“You’re good,” Keiko said. “Have you tried for the international circuit yet?”

“Not yet,” Minerva admitted. “Still working on local certs, first.”

“Mm-hm,” Keiko said with a smirk. “Well, maybe you should. I need a rival.”

They ended up grabbing lunch together, three trays of Summit cafeteria food balanced between them on a sun-warmed bench. Between bites, they traded quick coaching tips, roasted each other’s quirks, saying things like “You’re just store-brand thunder,” Keiko teased, earning a mock glare. Surprisingly, shared their bigger dreams. Isaiah talked about wanting to join a disaster-relief unit overseas. Keiko wanted to work covert ops for an international hero agency. Minerva admitted that she wanted to see the world, but still be able to come home when she needed.

By the time they finished eating, they’d swapped numbers and created a group chat. The conversation kept rolling even as they walked back toward the arena, pinging each other with half-serious challenges and terrible jokes.

Minerva didn’t expect to make friends like this at a summit, but she was thrilled and a little sad. Keiko and Isaiah were only here for the showcase, passing through with their families before heading in different directions. Still, the chat made it feel like they’d be just a text away.

Back near the entrance to the summit, Arturo met her at the doors. His apron was still dusted with flour.

“Mi rayo,” he said warmly. “Very sharp.”

Minerva’s cheeks warmed. “Gracias.”

“You’ve improved. But you forget to lead with your left sometimes.”

“I know.” She laughed. “I was nervous.”

“It didn’t show.”

Arturo handed her a small, wrapped package—her usual Spanish flash cards, updated.

That night, back on the porch, she sat under the stars with her notebook open on her knees, Micah leaning on her shoulder and pretending to snore. She replayed the showcase in her head—her own moves, the way Keiko blended into a shadow during her performance, how Isaiah’s wind redirected another kid’s projectile to stop it from hitting a judge.

Micah opened his eyes, stealing half her blanket and settling in again with a sigh. He didn’t speak. Just looked up at the sky, chewing on a cinnamon candy that he happened to have in his back pocket.

Minerva whispered, “What if I leave?”

Micah blinked. “Leave-leave?”

“For training. Maybe longer.”

He frowned. “You’ll still come back, though.”

She looked out toward the trees. “I want to.”

Micah leaned into her arm to look up at her. “Then I’ll just wait here. And be taller than you when you come home.”

Minerva groaned. “That is not motivation.”

He grinned. “It is for me.”

She chuckled, tucking her head against his. She didn’t say it aloud, but the truth swelled in her chest like storm pressure: She wanted to see more. Not to run away, but to become something stronger, smarter, maybe even better. Someone who could carry the family name into places they’d never been.

The sky overhead stretched wide, dark, and endless.

She looked at the results again. Then at the stars.

The sky felt wider than ever.

Chapter Text

The dust from the summit had barely settled when Minerva found herself back in the Bearblood kitchen.

 Minerva turned fourteen on a bright May morning with sticky fingers and the surprise jar of peanut brittle crumbs still stuck to her lips. The breakfast table was crowded when she came downstairs: Rosalyn was brewing fresh tea and coffee into two pots, Brenna was quietly calculating how many power drills she could rig into her daily workout, and Silas was reading a battered training manual. Micah, now taller than last year, had taken it upon himself to decorate the dining room with a banner made from torn bed sheets and colorful ribbons he’d found in the sewing basket. When Minerva entered, the banner drooped at one end, but she didn’t mind.

The kitchen smelled faintly of Maw’s spiced bread cooling on the windowsill plus coffee, but her mind was still in the arena, replaying every moment of the showcase.

Silas slid a small, neatly wrapped box across the table. “Happy birthday, lightning girl,” he said before Minerva could even pull the chair out.

Minerva unwrapped the light blue striped box to reveal a custom-fit pair of dark green gloves. Silas had talked to Leah, the weapons specialist of their family business, to have them reinforced with conductive filaments and lined with breathable fabric. Her chest warmed at the surprise; she walked over to give Silas a tight side hug after putting the gloves on.

“Thanks,” she said, flexing her fingers. The gloves fit like a second skin.

Rosalyn smiled gently as she poured coffee when Henry walked in with a folded sheet of paper in his hand. “Got something for you,” he said, sliding it across the counter.

Minerva blinked, suspicious. “Not another chore list?”

He shook his head, the corner of his mouth quirking. “Nope. An invitation.”

The page bears the letterhead of a smaller international hero unit based in Madrid. They had been watching the summit and were offering her a spot as a short-term intern the following summer, hands-on experience in rescue coordination and quirk-assisted logistics.

She stared. “They want… me?”

Henry leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “They saw what you did. You earned it.”

Rosalyn set her coffee down. “It’s an opportunity. But it’s also a choice. This will test you harder than anything so far.”

Minerva folded the letter and tucked it into her notebook. “I’ll think about it.”

Minerva trained harder than ever. She was already in the yard helping Henry shift hay bales stacked taller than she was. Each one was scratchy against her arms, heavy enough that most kids her age wouldn’t even get them off the ground—but Minerva hoisted them onto her shoulder and carried them across the barn with a grunt and a smirk. Henry stood back, arms folded, a proud grin breaking through his mustache.

“You don’t know when to quit, girl,” he said. “Workin’ like a mule before breakfast.”

Rosalyn, walking past with laundry, only shook her head. “Not a mule.” It almost sounded like she was scolding him, “A Bearblood. Stubborn enough to keep at it, I’ll tell you what.”

Minerva grinned, sweat already dampening the collar of her shirt. It wasn’t quirk-work. It was just her, her strength, and years of chores. She liked that. No flash, no lightning, just proof that she could carry her weight and then some.

Later, when she practiced her new technique, the static tether, she thought about those hay bales. About fence posts dragged down muddy fields, and gates so heavy she had to lean her whole body to swing them shut. The tether was the same: no rushing, no snapping. Grip and pull. Easier said than done.

The first attempts had been awkward. She’d generate a bolt from her palm toward a target, but instead of dissipating, she would try to hold the energy in place, like a glowing rope. Sometimes it fizzled instantly. Other times, it snapped back to her like a live wire.

She launched a filament of current toward a row of suspended metal rings strung across the training yard. The first few fizzled, snapping short with a sting in her fingertips. On the fourth, the current wrapped a ring in a faint corona of light. She tugged, and it came flying toward her hand…a little too fast… and toward her head. She had barely dodged it to hit the dirt with a thud. A flash of satisfaction lit her face.

“Yes!” She whooped, startling a pair of crows into flight.

At least the concept works!

The technique that had been brewing in her mind for months—a way to extend her lightning outward in a controlled tether—was starting to take shape. She called it a “static tether,” though she hadn’t told anyone the name yet.

In her excitement about this, she texts the group chat during lunch: Got a tether today! Nearly hit me in the head, but it’s good! :D

Keiko replied instantly: Girl, you better not hurt yourself. Or do. Then at least I’d have a story to tell.

Isaiah followed up: Let it sit before pulling. You’re rushing.

Her thumbs tapped fast: I’m not rushing, I’m efficient. :)

Isaiah: Sure. And I’m a ballerina. >_>

Keiko: I’d pay to see that.

Minerva laughed out loud, earning a curious glance from Micah, who was practicing his slingshot shots nearby.

She wasn’t the only one busy, though. Keiko had sent her a postcard from Miami not too long ago, the back covered in messy handwriting about her placement with a disaster-prep hero team along the coast. Isaiah’s text came a few days later from Oklahoma, where he was shadowing a wind manipulation specialist.

Don’t fry yourself before I get back, Isaiah texted.

Don’t let Keiko talk you into bad ideas, she wrote back.

The three kept up a steady trickle of texts, postcards, and quick phone calls when they could manage. They traded tips, vented about tough drills, and quietly measured themselves against each other’s progress.

During one group exercise at a regional training site, Minerva lined up with a handful of other recruits, ready to demonstrate her tether technique. The idea was to snag a moving target before it crossed the boundary line.

Her first attempt was cleaner, lightning arced and wrapped the rolling practice dummy like a snare, halting it just short of the painted stripe. A few impressed murmurs rose from the sidelines.

And then someone behind her, just loud enough for her to hear, said, “Guess even a country farm girl can get lucky once.”

It wasn’t the words alone; it was the smug tone, the way they dripped with the assumption that her family’s name meant less here, that her place was in the dirt.

She didn’t turn around. Her nose scrunched, right eye narrowing—a tick she’d picked up when irritated.

Next round, she didn’t just stop the dummy; she jimmied it slightly off track, the tether sparking with a sharp crack before she released it. Her technique is still not fully refined. The instructors called the set early, muttering about “unnecessary force,” but Minerva caught the flicker of surprise in the corner of her opponent’s eyes.

That evening, she sat at her desk by the window, lantern light pooling over her notes. The offer letter from Madrid lay beside her, its edges softening from being read so often.

Her phone buzzed for her attention. The group chat lit up.

Keiko: LOOK at this dude. Japan’s going wild. [photo attached]

The image was out of focus—a magazine cover with bold Japanese kanji splashed across the front. The headline was unreadable to Minerva, but the picture wasn’t: a blond boy with a wild scowl, hand half-raised mid-explosion, standing triumphant in some arena.

Minerva squinted. Who the heck is this? =_= she typed.

Isaiah: Some hotshot. Sports Festival winner, I think. Folks are saying he’s the next big thing.

Keiko: Looks like he chews losers for breakfast. C:< Anyway, the whole world’s buzzing about him. Bet he’s gonna be a pain in the ass if he’s that good.

Minerva stared at the slightly grainy photo a little longer than she meant to. He looked to be about her age, maybe a year older, but the way he stood, the way the crowd behind him blurred into nothing compared to his presence, it sent a strange flicker through her chest. Jealousy, maybe? No, that ain’t it, right?

She set the phone down beside her worry stone. She thought about the insult earlier, echoing in her mind. If they thought she’d fold, they had no idea what kind of fire she had on the back burner.

Her fingers hovered over the phone again before she finally typed back: If he’s the best Japan’s got, then I guess I’ll just have to get good enough to meet him one day.

Keiko: THAT’S the spirit! ;D
Isaiah: Just don’t let it get to your head, country girl.

Minerva smirked. “Too late.”

The following week brought her first official feedback session from the summit committee. Henry came with her, standing quietly in the back as a senior coordinator ran through her scores. Her control rating had climbed. Her tactical awareness was marked as “emerging, promising.”

When they dismissed her, the coordinator added, “You’ve got eyes on you now. Keep it up, Bearblood.”

Outside, Henry clapped a hand to her shoulder. “So. Madrid?”

Minerva glanced toward the horizon with pure, unfiltered determination. The sun was setting behind the pines, and the air was still warm from the day. “Madrid.”

By the end of the next month, her static tether could hold for six seconds. She’s gotten better at varying the charge. So far, she’d made it soft enough to carry one of her dropped gloves back to her hand, or strong enough to halt a metal medicine ball in motion.

Micah watched her practice one afternoon, his eyes wide. “It looks like one of those fancy lassos they use at rodeos.”

She laughed, flicking the glove toward him with a snap of light. “Maybe. But this lasso won’t miss.”

She didn’t say it out loud, but she felt something had shifted, and in the back of her mind, she was already thinking of how she’d use it next summer, far from home, with people who didn’t yet know the name Minerva Bearblood.

Chapter Text

The streets was chaos—smoke curling from shattered windows, glittering shards of glass crunching under their boots. The air burned her nose with the tang of ozone, hot metal, and scorched asphalt, the acrid sting coating the back of her throat. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, half-drowned by the panicked shouts of civilians scattering through the narrow lanes.

Minerva kept pace behind the Madrid unit she was shadowing, her rope coiled tight at her hip, fingers brushing its frayed copper threads as if for reassurance. Her eyes locked on the unit’s formation. They moved with soldierly precision—two pushing forward with shields of light, another sweeping the flank with steady, measured bursts of wind suppression. At the rear, her mentor, Captain Alvarez, was a wall of calm control, one hand raised in silent commands that snapped the team into place. His other hand angled Minerva behind him, where “the observer” belonged.

She hated that word. It itched at her skin worse than the grit of glass dust clinging to her jacket.

Up ahead, the fight was spilling into the street. A League cell, slippery and brazen, had broken loose through the city’s defenses. Their clash tore through the neighborhood—light against shadow, quirks detonating against the pale walls of old apartments. Each blast sent shutters rattling and civilians screaming as they bolted for cover, their footsteps a drumbeat of fear on the uneven stone.

A sudden blast struck too close. A cart of fruit exploded into pulp, wooden slats raining down like shrapnel. Minerva’s ears rang from the concussion, her heart thudding double-time in her chest, whether through fear or excitement, she couldn’t tell in the moment.“Observer, stay back,” Alvarez barked, almost an instinct for dealing with newbies, thrusting a hand in front of her.

But the word “observer” barely landed. The civilians weren’t moving. The League brawler’s next swing of energy was arcing toward them—too fast, too close. The unit was still locked against the main threat, their formation tight, their eyes forward. No one was breaking ranks.

Through the haze, she saw them—two civilians huddled against a crumbling wall, frozen in place as debris fell, one clutching a child who couldn’t have been just a little younger than Micah.

Her breath caught. The world tunneled, noise collapsing into a dull roar. The unit’s shouts became muffled, distant, like she was underwater. All she could see were the civilians—their wide, helpless eyes locked on the oncoming blast.

Something hot prickled along her lower back, just beneath the fabric of her jacket. The scar there, faint but always present, burned with a sharp pulse. She inhaled sharply as a thin glow rippled along it, her skin buzzing with static. It wasn’t pain—more like her body was giving her a command her mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

Her quirk surged. Lightning pooled in her chest like a second heartbeat, thundering in her veins. It sank into her legs, burning through her thighs and calves, so alive it felt like every tendon might snap from the pressure. The air around her filled with the metallic tang of ozone, a sharp crackle that raised the hairs along her arms.

Her vision sharpened, every detail too vivid—the cracks racing through the wall, the glint of glass in the child’s hair, the white-hot arc of the villain’s quirk streaking closer.

Move.

Her muscles obeyed before second thoughts could interfere.

The ground split beneath her first step, a spiderweb fracture echoing with the force she unleashed. She shot forward in a blur of heat and light, air tearing past her ears, her lungs searing as if she’d swallowed fire. The world around her smeared into streaks of gray and pale colors, her focus locked solely on the civilians.

In a blink, she was there. She grabbed the woman’s arm, pulled the mother onto her back as she clutched onto Minerva with her legs and the child tight against her chest, and surged sideways as the blast tore through the wall where they had stood. The heat of the impact was felt by all, hot and biting, like the lick of an open furnace. Shards of stone screamed through the air, but none touched them.

When she skidded behind an overturned car, the charge fizzled from her legs in painful sparks. The civilians clung to her, trembling. The child sobbed into her jacket, the woman’s gasps of “Gracias, gracias—” muffled against her shoulder.

Minerva’s hands shook, lightning still snapping between her fingertips. She’d done it. Broken rank. Risked it all. And as the afterimage of that blast burned in her mind, she knew Alvarez had seen every second.

“Stay low,” she told them, setting them both down gently.

The woman clutched her child tighter, whispering prayers in Spanish through broken sobs. The little boy buried his face, his fists gripping the fabric like he never meant to let go.

Minerva just knelt there, lungs burning, every nerve thrumming with leftover current. The crackling silence after her surge felt louder than the chaos beyond the car. The ozone hung thick in her nose, bitter and metallic, her tongue stinging like she’d licked copper.

She should have been terrified. She should have frozen. But instead, a shiver of exhilaration slid down her spine. Her scar still glowed faintly beneath her jacket, the last of the charge fading slowly.

For the first time, she realized—she hadn’t just reacted. She made a choice.

And it paid off.

Minerva barely had time to steady her breath before a shadow loomed over her.

“¡Carajo, Bearblood!” Captain Alvarez’s voice cracked like a whip. He strode forward, boots scattering glass, eyes blazing hotter than the wreckage around them. “What the hell was that?”

Minerva froze.

“You broke rank. You disobeyed formation. You could have been killed—worse, you could have cost us control of the entire thing.” His words were clipped, sharp, cutting through the haze of ozone. “You’re here to observe, not play hero.”

Her throat tightened. The exhilaration was still there, humming beneath her skin, but now it curdled under the weight of his fury.

“I… I saw them,” she stammered, gesturing faintly to the woman and child. “If I hadn’t—”

“If you hadn’t, we would have adjusted. We had a plan.” Alvarez’s tone softened only enough to acknowledge the civilians. “Yes, you saved them. But don’t confuse luck for judgment.”

The civilians were ushered away by another officer, leaving Minerva kneeling in the broken street with her hands curled into fists.

Alvarez crouched slightly, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “You’ve got the power, niña. But power without proper training? That makes you dangerous. To them. To us. To yourself.”

The words stung deeper than the lingering ache in her scar.

She swallowed hard and nodded, eyes down.

“Good. Then learn from it,” Alvarez said, straightening. “Because next time? There won’t be room for mistakes.”

He turned on his heel, rallying the squad back into motion.

Minerva stayed where she was for a moment, the weight of his words pressing down as heavy as the smoke above them. The rush was still there, clawing at her ribs, but so was the truth: she wasn’t invincible. She was only fifteen.

And she had just been reminded of it.

The unit pressed forward, the rhythm of their boots snapping her out of her daze. Minerva scrambled to her feet, falling back into the rear slot Alvarez had shoved her into at the start.

The fight itself was short-lived after that. The League cell, already scattered and disorganized, was driven back into the alleys under the squad’s coordinated strikes. Smoke grenades hissed, shouts echoed, and by the time Minerva blinked the grit out of her eyes, two villains were face-down in the street with their hands bound in cuffs.

Her part in it was nothing. She stood at the perimeter, rope coiled but unused, watching medics swarm the wounded and officers push gawkers away from the barricades. Alvarez gave orders like each word was steel: curt, sharp, and unquestionable. No one disobeyed him.

Minerva wanted to feel proud that she’d helped—that she’d done something. But the way the other unit members glanced at her as they passed made her chest tighten. Half appraisal, half warning.

As she lingered near the transport van, notebook in hand, she caught two of the unit members muttering in Spanish: “Demasiado joven… como ese chico en Japón… Bakugo.” She only caught the name clearly, but the tone was unmistakable—disdain and awe twisted together. Her chest tightened. Some kid across the ocean was already being measured like a soldier, while she was just the “reckless observer.” 

Her chest tightened as one of them scoffed. Later, in her notebook, she scrawled it in the margin with a scowl: Bakugo. Control before glory. Bet he doesn’t even spell ‘discipline.’

By the time the scene was cleared, the civilians she’d pulled clear were already gone, swallowed into the crowd of evacuees. No thank-yous, no recognition—just gone.

“Unit Mamba, move,” Alvarez barked, motioning them toward the transport van idling at the end of the block.

The door slammed shut behind them. Engines rumbled, carrying them back toward headquarters. Minerva stared out the window, the scorched streetlights blurring into streaks of orange. Her reflection looked pale in the glass and the first time she noticed that her high ponytail frizzed out. The ends of her still sparking between each other.

She pressed her palm over her chest. That rush—the way everything had narrowed to a single decision, a single need to move—still sang in her bones.

For the rest of the day, she was benched. Heroes continued without her. She could still hear the clash of quirks and the bark of orders, and every nerve in her body screamed to follow behind. But she stayed where she was told. Her role had been stripped away with a single order.

At the end of the day, Alvarez approached her at her small desk littered with books and combs in the office. He puts his gloves in his back pocket before sitting down in front of her. His tone softened, but his gaze didn’t waver.

“You’re talented, Bearblood. No one’s denying that. But talent without proper discipline is dangerous. You’re not eighteen and you’re not licensed yet.”

The reminder hit harder now that she had time to settle down. She’d never felt like a child in her own home—between chores, drills, and standing up to the wilds of her home, she thought she’d long since crossed that line. But sitting there, hearing it spoken aloud, she suddenly felt tiny against the weight of the world pressing on her.

Alvarez leaned forward. “Your instincts saved those civilians. But if you’d gone down in the process, we’d be writing letters to your family instead of a mission report. You understand?”

Minerva’s throat was dry. She nodded, not looking at him.

“Good. Then we’ll keep working on this. Speed is your gift. Let’s teach you when to use it.”

That night, the barracks were quieter than usual. The heroes had split off to file reports, clean gear, or collapse into bunks, leaving Minerva alone at the small desk in the corner of her shared room. A lamp buzzed faintly overhead, its yellow glow casting long shadows over her notebook.

Her thighs still tingled faintly from the maneuver. She rubbed them, watching the skin twitch, then reached for her pencil. The page filled quickly—sketches of how the current had concentrated in her calves, arrows to show the release, little notes in the margins: faster than using my rope to move … but burned out quick … vision blurred after 3 sec.

She paused, pressing the eraser against the paper as her thoughts drifted.

She could still see the boy’s face—wide-eyed, clinging to her shirt until his mother pulled him back. That rush, that heat in her chest when she realized she had been fast enough, strong enough, to that matter—it was addicting.

But then Alvarez’s words replayed, blunt and heavy: You’re not licensed.

Her shoulders slumped. She wasn’t just tired in her muscles; she felt the weight in her bones, like the reminder had cut deeper than the ache in her calves. Back home, no one ever told her she was “just” a kid. She worked as hard as any grown hand. Hauled hay bales. Ran drills until the sweat stung her eyes. Sparred until she collapsed. Being young never felt like an excuse.

But here? It mattered.

She tapped her pencil against the notebook, torn between pride and shame. One voice inside whispered: You saved them. No one else noticed. You did. The other voice—Alvarez’s voice—countered: And if you’d gone down, someone else would’ve had to save you.

Minerva pushed back from the desk with a sigh. She thought about picking up her phone, typing out the moment to Keiko and Isaiah—something like: Used a new move today. Got chewed out for it, too. She imagined Keiko lighting up her screen with fast-typed encouragement and Isaiah sending back a plain, pointed line about patience.

But she didn’t type it. Not yet. She needed to sit with the feeling for a while.

Instead, she closed the notebook and stared at the ceiling, the hum of the light filling the silence. She wanted to believe Alvarez was wrong—that she was ready for more than “observe and follow.” But tonight, she wasn’t so sure.

Still, her chest warmed faintly at the memory of the mother’s whispered gracias as she hugged her son tighter. That small proof—that she had made a difference—was enough to keep her from collapsing under the weight of the lecture.

Minerva lay on her bunk, staring at the phone in her hand. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long time before she finally opened the group chat. The cursor blinked at her, waiting.

She typed: Here's a list of the shit I did today: 1 Used a new move today 2 broke off from my team 3 saved some civilians and 4 got yelled at for it. yippee

She stared at the message, almost deleted it, then hit send before she could lose her nerve.

The typing bubbles appeared immediately.

Keiko: ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
Keiko: What did you do?? Lightning dive? Rope throw?
Keiko: Girl, you’re CRAZY. And kinda amazing. But CRAZY.
Keiko: Send DETAILS.

Minerva couldn’t help but smile. That was Keiko, always exploding first, questions tumbling out like popcorn in a skillet.

Okay but in my defense, I looked awesome for like three whole seconds.

Isaiah: Meme ≠ medal.

Minerva: Harsh. Fine, no medal, but I demand a participation trophy at least.

Keiko immediately fired back: Oh hush, Isaiah. She saved people. Don’t downplay it.

Isaiah: Didn’t say she didn’t. Just saying next time she might not get up. She knows it too.

Minerva stared at the words, her chest tightening. He wasn’t wrong.

She typed slowly: I couldn’t just stand there. Not when I could do something.

A pause stretched before Keiko replied again: That’s what makes you you. And why you’re gonna make one hell of a hero.

Isaiah’s final message was shorter, but it lingered with her the longest:
Isaiah: Then train harder. So the next time you move, no one can say a damn thing about it.

Minerva set the phone down, a small smile tugging at her lips after she replied:

Yeah, that's something I can definitely do  (^_^)9

Chapter Text

The Georgia heat was different after Spain.

The Madrid summer had been dry and relentless, the air humming with the echo of city streets and sirens, but here it clung damp to her skin. Minerva pulled her duffel from the truck bed and stood still for a long moment, staring at the Bearblood homestead. The porch boards were chipped in all the same places. The old pecan tree still leaned like it wanted to kiss the roof. Even the smell, hay, red dirt, and Maw’s cornbread cooling in the window—made her throat tighten.

She was home. Just…not the same.

Madrid lingered in her muscles. Every morning since May, Captain Alvarez had snapped her awake with his clipped voice and stricter schedule: running formation drills until her calves shook, her rope banging against her side as the team wove sharp corners through cobblestone alleys. Afternoons were worse. Weighted dummies dragged through smoke-thick halls, her gloves slipping with sweat as she tried to heave them over collapsed beams. Evenings meant sparring in the old courtyard—Alvarez circling her like a wolf, cane in hand, eyes cutting sharper than his strikes. Alvarez never went easy.

“You’re fast, niña,” he told her after sweeping her onto her back for the fifth time, his boot planted near her ribs. “But you’re sloppy. A storm that can’t aim just ruins the field.”

It had stung, the way he said it—like he already knew the exact pressure points to find the doubts in her chest. But Minerva learned, and she got up every time. She learned to count her breaths, to ground her footwork in the stone cracks, to pulse her quirk instead of letting it flare wild. She’s learning when not to spark, even when adrenaline begged for it.

By August, she could loop her tether around a rung without singeing the wall. She could carry half her bodyweight in haybales across the courtyard without breaking stride—strength honed from the farm, sharpened in the city. The training felt like another language in her bones. She could run the alleys of Madrid with her eyes closed, rope in hand, tethering metal rungs without hesitation. Yet Alvarez’s voice still followed her: Control before power. Discipline before glory.

But when she stepped onto the porch, the first thing she felt was not pride. It was guilt.

She weighed it all on the long flight home, the drills, the bruises, the sharp lessons Alvarez had pressed into her bones. What had she gained, and what had it cost? Madrid had opened her eyes to the standards of what was outside the farm and her family. The ache of not being home for this long followed her more than the soreness in her muscles. And so, when she stepped back into the Bearblood homestead, she carried both: the pride of progress and the sting of what she’d missed.

Micah’s birthday had passed while she was gone, the first one she’d ever missed.

He was waiting for her in the yard, already taller than she remembered. He’d shot up over the summer, legs all coltish angles, hair sticking in every direction like he hadn’t seen a comb in weeks. He didn’t run to her right away. Just stood there with his arms crossed, chin jutting out.

“You missed it,” he said flatly.

Minerva set down her bag, heart tugging. “I know.”

“You always made the cake. Even when it was lopsided.”

She winced. “I’m sorry, Mikey. I wanted to be here.”

He stared at her for another long beat, then shrugged in that stubborn Bearblood way. “You better bring me something cool, then.”

Relief softened her chest. She pulled the little wrapped parcel from her pocket—an old Spanish coin she’d picked up at a market, drilled with a tiny hole so it could be worn on a chain. “Good thing, I did,” Her smile gentle, “Thought you might like this.”

His eyes lit up despite himself. He tried to hide it, but the grin cracked through. He opens it a little too fast. “Okay… that’s pretty cool.”

“Guess you’ll forgive, huh?”

Micah huffed, slipping the coin into his pocket like it was treasure. “Maybe. If you make the next cake.”

She ruffled his hair, and he didn’t shove her hand away, which was answer enough.

That night, when the house settled into the quiet of the night, Minerva couldn’t settle into it. She sat cross-legged at her bed, notebooks spread wide on the worn blanket, and her bed lamp the only other light in the room. Pages covered in Madrid drills, sketches of tether arcs, notes on breathing patterns. Alvarez’s critiques pressed against her skull like weights: Think faster. Move cleaner. Don’t waste motion. Don’t waste power. She leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

She closed her eyes and saw smoke drills—sweat stinging her eyes as she hauled a dummy out of a collapsed stairwell, lungs choking on ash. She saw Alvarez yanking her rope mid-swing, barking, “Again. You tangle; you die.” She saw the sparring courtyard, stone under her back, his voice cutting like flint: “Get up. Again.”

She had gotten up. Every time. And it had changed her.

But was it enough?

Her phone buzzed on the bedside table. Her group chat. She smiled automatically—Keiko and Isaiah. Their messages were a constant thread that had followed her through the summer, little lifelines of banter and encouragement.

Scrolling back, her eyes caught on the image Keiko had sent weeks ago. A magazine cover. Text in bold Japanese she couldn’t read—most of it, anyway. But her Japanese lessons hadn’t vanished entirely. Her eyes locked on the one word she knew: Bakugo.

The photo showed a boy mid-shout, face fierce, fist raised like he could tear the sky down by will alone. She tilted her head. “He looks like he just found out somebody stole his lunch,” she muttered, smirking despite herself. Even she understood that was the look of someone undeniable.

Her Japanese had slipped—she’d spent so much time on Spanish, French and drills that she’d let it slide. She couldn’t make out the whole caption. But she could read the name. And that was enough.

She didn’t know him. Didn’t know why his face carried so much heat on the page. But the look in his eyes sparked something sharp in her chest. She flicked back to the chat, thumbs moving before she thought:

Minerva: Looking at that magazine again. =_= New rival spotted.

Keiko’s reply popped fast:

Keiko: LOL girl, you really got goals

Isaiah’s message came slower:

Isaiah: It don’t matter are u gonna walk the walk to be that??

Minerva stared at the screen, then at the magazine photo saved in her gallery. She traced the bold letters of his name with her fingertip.

Suddenly leaning forward, she flipped open her notebook. She found a blank page, a black marker, and wrote at the top in bold ink:

OUTPACE

Her marker lingered a second, pressing hard enough that the paper almost tore. She didn’t even know that she was holding her breath. She meant what she wrote. Every drill in Madrid, every sparring bruise, every person who looked at her like she didn't belong. She was done proving she belonged. She was going to go beyond that. She was—

A soft knock came at her door before it creaked open.

Micah slipped in, already wearing the Spanish coin on a string around his neck. He shut the door behind him; his shoulders hunched in a way that made him look smaller than him being ten years old.

“What’s up, Mikey?” Minerva asked, setting her phone face down on the desk.

He came over and sat on the edge of her bed. One of her notebooks slid down her quilt and tapped against his knee. He didn’t shove it away, just stared at the cover, then at her.

“Is everything okay?” Her tone softened. He wasn’t his usual chatterbox self, and that made her chest tighten.

Finally, he whispered, “What was it like out there?”

The question landed heavier than she expected. She leaned back into the headboard with eyes flicking between her desk, cluttered with more notes, and the page on her bed that still screamed in ink.

“It was hard,” she admitted. “Hot, loud, and scary sometimes… They push you until you feel like you can’t get back up.”

Micah’s mouth twitched. “Did you get back up?”

“Every single time.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, “And that’s why I know… I’m not just gonna keep up with the rest of them, Mikey. I’m going to outpace them all. I gotta, ya know.”

He blinked at her, wide-eyed. Then a little grin broke through. “Then I guess I don’t have to worry about you folding like a pair of Levi’s, huh?”

She laughed, ruffling his hair. “Not a chance. Besides…” she nudged him with her hand, playful spark in her eye, “Next time when I go international, I’ll bring you an autograph from that explosive Japanese guy.”

Micah snorted. “Yeah, right. He’d probably blow it up before you got close.”

“Guess I’ll just have to be faster than his fuse.”

For a long moment, they sat together laughing, the cicadas buzzing outside, the weight of Madrid fading into the Georgia night. Micah moved to sit next to her on the bed, making comments on things she wrote in her notebooks.

Her conviction was still burning bright, but it wasn’t just hers anymore.

Chapter Text

The morning air on the Bearblood farm was thick with dust, warm hay, and the faint metallic tang that came whenever Minerva practiced too hard. The clay yard where they drilled was dry and packed from years of training, rimmed by fence posts and weather-beaten boards. Brenna stood at the far end with her boots dug into the dirt, stance low, fists loose at her sides. Minerva flexed her hands, rope coiled tight against her wrist, sparks already twitching across her knuckles.

“Ready?” Brenna asked, a smirk tugging at her lips.

“Born ready,” Minerva shot back.

The match began fast. Minerva darted in with a crackle of static, her boots pounding the dirt. She lashed her rope in a sweeping arc, sparks snapping as it hooked toward Brenna’s shoulder. Brenna let it coil, then dug her heel in — her quirk flared, a ripple through the earth that pinned her in place. The rope went taut, humming with electricity, and then snapped off Brenna’s body like it had hit a wall.

“Not bad,” Brenna said, shrugging off the heat with a grin. “But you’re still fighting too wily!”

The words landed sharper than Minerva wanted to admit. She grit her teeth, trying again, this time using a burst of speed she’d drilled in Madrid — a quick blitz, nearly a blur. She darted low, rope trailing like a whip, and went for Brenna’s knees. For half a heartbeat, it worked — Brenna staggered. But then her weight doubled, tripled, as she slammed her heel down again. Earth Anchor. Minerva’s momentum collapsed against her like running headlong into a tree.

“Too slow,” Brenna said, tapping Minerva’s forehead before she could scramble back. “Madrid got you all fancy, but fancy doesn’t mean squat here.”

Minerva scowled, static flickering off her gloves. She dusted herself off with a dramatic sigh. “Congrats, you’ve unlocked the achievement: Kick Little Sis’s Butt for the Fiftieth Time. Don’t spend the bragging rights all at once.”

Brenna smirked. “Please. I’m saving that for when you actually land a hit.”

“Cold-blooded, sis.” But Minerva was grinning even though her knees still ached from the dirt.

By the time they called it quits, sweat was running down Minerva’s temples, dust caking her knees. Her lungs burned, and Brenna was still grinning like she’d been out for a stroll.

Later, Minerva slumped onto the porch steps with her rope unwound in her lap, staring out across the field. The rope felt heavier than it had in Madrid, heavier than it had during her last drills with Alvarez. Precision before flash, Alvarez’s voice echoed. You don’t win battles with sparks. You win them with control.

The screen door creaked open behind her.

Micah perched on the step with her, fiddling with the coin at his neck in one hand while holding something else in the other. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he held it up with a shy grin.

It was a beat-up tablet, the kind Henry kept around for farm records but Micah clearly used for everything else. On the screen, paused mid-motion, was a shaky clip of her in Madrid — a civilian had filmed the exact moment she’d blitzed across the asphalt, lightning trailing her heels as she dragged two people out of harm’s way. The sound quality was awful, the camera tilted, but she could still hear the gasps of the crowd in the background.

“I watched it, like, a hundred times,” Micah admitted, his voice quiet but glowing. He glanced at her, then back at the frozen frame where she looked like someone out of a comic book. “You looked cooler in Madrid than you do here.”

The words weren’t cruel — not the way he meant them. But they still landed sharply.

Minerva stared at the screen, her stomach twisting. All she could think of was Alvarez’s bark in her ear, the lecture about recklessness, the sting of nearly burning out her legs. Cool? She remembered the burn, the mistakes. She remembered almost failing.

But to Micah? To him, it was proof his sister could be more than the girl tripping over boots at the homestead.

She ruffled his hair and forced a smile. “Guess I’ll just have to keep proving you right, huh?”

Micah got up, coin flashing in the morning sun as it swung from the cord around his neck. He puffed out his chest. “I have the coolest family in the whole world,” before spotting Silas.

Silas came walking up the trail to see the two of them. He clocked Minerva's posture before anything else. Micah gave him a hug when he finally made it to the porch steps.

"Did you finish feeding them horses today?" Silas squinted at his little brother with little malice, if any.

Micah stiffened before letting go and leaving in a run to take care of it. Silas looks down at Minerva with a hand on his hip.

"What's the problem now?" The brotherly concerned gaze almost crushing her willpower.

She stares up at him with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

"Just somethin' Mikey said..."

"Which was...?" She already knew he wouldn't leave, no matter what. A true stone in the creek of a brother, he was.

"He said that I looked cooler in Madrid than here at home."

"How's that bad?"

She bristled thinking about today with Brenna and the video.

"I dunno...I just don't think I felt cool at all..." Her face scrunched up when thinking about it.

"I didn't know you had to be cool to be a hero," As Silas squats down in front of the steps, putting a hand on her arm, "Now this is comin' from your big brotha who watched you grow up doin' all kinds of silly things...and this is the silliest thing I've evah see you do."

Minvera's face took on a look of confusion, eyes squinting, mouth open, but no retort to give him, even as Silas held in a chuckle. He squeezes her arm in comfort.

"I dunno why you're worryin' 'bout it. Whatever you did is done. Learn from it and keep a pushin'."

Minerva stares with tears wanting to well up, but Silas takes his hand off her arm to put the palm of his hand on her head to ruffle it.

A tiny, "Hey!" came out as her hands shot up to try and stop him.

He also pushes her down because his heart can't take seeing her like this at all. He climbs the steps before removing his hand and going inside the house, boots clicking all the way.

Minerva huffs, taking on a more indignant look. Her quirk flickered lightly across where her brother's hand was in her hair. After a few minutes, her shoulders loosened, and the buzzy feeling faded when Henry came out of the house, drying his hands on a rag. His eyes landed on Minerva.

"Lunch's ready, sweetheart, pulled pork sandwiches, ifin' you're hungry."

Minerva didn’t move.

"Alright, what's gotten into ya?" Minerva wanted to roll her eyes. She really didn't want to repeat herself, even if it was Paw.

"Nothin'."

Henry knew better than to take that for an answer. He moved to sit on the porch chair with the rag slung over his shoulder.

"Does this have somethin' to do with what happened this morning?"

Her shoulders slumped even further down.

"Maybe...Partly...?"

Henry's dad instincts kicked in a little, wanting to hug his little girl, but he knew she needed to get this off her chest on her own.

"Do you want me to talk to Bre?"

Minvera turned her head.

"No...it's just that...ugh!" She rolled her head back in frustration.

Henry pushed again.

"Is this about your time in Madrid?"

Minvera wanted to ball up like she used to as a child in that moment, but she flinched instead. That was when he got out of the chair to sit with her. His frame was almost taking over the entire stoop.

“What exactly happened over there?”

Minerva leaned into his side. “A lot.”

“Come on now,” Henry said in a gentle tone. “You gotta give me more than that.”

She swallowed, throat tight. She couldn't joke about this even when she wanted to.

“I was being stupid...I was told in Madrid that I needed a little more self-control," She pinched her fingers to emphasize this, "but then today with Bre and Mikey...ugh...I think they might be right..."

Henry studied her for a long moment before nodding and giving her a side hug.

"I know it's hard to hear that from someone who's not family, but I'm so proud of you for starting to see what you need to work on."

"I don't like this at all..."

“Good, "Henry stood up from his spot on the stairs, "Keep that feeling." This confused her more than Silas did earlier.

"You and mother will have a lot to talk about very soon.”

The porch door clicked shut behind Henry. Minerva sat there a beat longer, the rope heavy at her side, Alvarez’s voice gnawing at her edges: Self-control. She rubbed the ache out of her knees, then stood and slipped off the steps, cutting across the yard toward the far fenceline where the dirt baked hard and the boards leaned like tired shoulders.

No audience. Just her.

She set her coil of rope on a fence post, rolled her ankles, and drew a slow breath the way Rosalyn drilled into her—feel first, move second. Madrid hadn’t left her muscles; it lived there now, in the way her calves tensed at the thought of a sprint, in the way her hands steadied instead of shook.

“Okay,” she murmured to the empty field. “Not a strike. Not a tether. Just move.”

She planted both feet, shoulder-width, knees soft. Let the current rise in her chest, slide down the spine, split at her hips. On purpose, she pushed the charge down through the soles of her boots—not to fry, not to crack the earth—just enough to make the ground push back.

Snap. A blue-white flick at her heels.

Minerva lurched backward half a foot, boots skidding, arms pinwheeling until she sat down hard in the dust. A puff of red clay answered like laughter.

She blinked. Then she laughed too, wanting to do more, but her stomach growled in protest. That was more than enough for today.

That evening, Minerva sprawled on her bed, notebook open. Her rope hung over the back of the chair. She stared at the half-finished sketch of her static tether, lines circling where the filaments burned out. She flicked open her phone.

Minerva: Got dragged in the dirt by my sister today. Madrid lessons didn’t do jack squat. :P

Keiko: lol sisters don’t count. they’re like mini-boss fights.

Isaiah: Maybe Madrid made you flashier, not stronger?

Keiko: ouch but he might be right. don’t tell him I said that.

Minerva: …rude, first of all.

Keiko sent a sticker of a cartoon wolf howling. Isaiah followed with a photo of a weighted barbell, captioned: real training tool. Minerva rolled her eyes, but warmth pricked at her chest anyway. They weren’t here, but they felt close.

Two days later, a neighbor stopped by the homestead with a folded newspaper tucked under his arm. He handed it to Rosalyn.

“Figured you’d want to see this,” he said.

She read it before her eyes hardened. Minerva strode up to welcome the neighbor with her basket of eggs. Rosalyn glanced at Minerva before handing her the newspaper with the article clear as day.

“American Trainee Intervenes in Madrid League Skirmish — Reckless or Rising Star?”

Her stomach flipped. It was official now. The photo was grainy, but it was her. Rope trailing sparks, face set, civilians scattering. Pride tangled with shame. She cautiously looks at Maw to gauge her reaction to this. Since she never mentioned it to Maw or Paw at any point, and Alvarez made sure not to say much in his report, but Maw had already left to take care of other business before she could ask anything.

Heat surged to her cheeks. Pride, yes — she’d saved them. But shame and anxiety because she remembered Alvarez’s furious voice. She broke formation. She risked herself and them, and now she's worried about what Maw's gonna do.

She cut out that section later and kept it in her room for later use.

That evening, the library’s fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead as Minerva slid coins into the printer. The old computer sputtered, finally spitting out a colored image: the magazine cover that she kept in her phone. Bakugo standing victorious at the Japanese Sports Festival — explosions still clinging to his hands, expression fierce, headline blazing across the page.

She carried it home, tucked under her arm like contraband.

At her desk, she opened her journal and laid out three things:

The crisp Madrid envelope, her first official offer.

The crumpled newspaper clipping, headline branding her reckless.

The printed magazine image, proof of another young hero already setting the world on fire.

She glued them down carefully, one after the other, hands steady.

She stared at the two headlines side by side, using her Japanese to English book she borrowed from the library.

Reckless or Rising Star?
Explosion Crowned King.

She snorted, shaking her head. “So he gets a crown, and I get called reckless? Figures.” 

For a long while, she stared at the page. Her fingertip traced the edge of the magazine, but her grin hardened into resolve.

“I can do this...I won’t just keep up anymore.”

The words felt like a vow as she closed her notebook.

Chapter Text

Henry didn’t even ask why she was packed when her found her. He just leaned against the porch post, watching her adjust the strap on her bag like she was preparing for a long hike. The air smelled of hay and woodsmoke, cicadas giving up their last songs as September slid toward fall.

“Paw,” Minerva said, chin set like a fence post, “drive me to the city?”

He studied her a beat, the scuffed knuckles, the chewed lip, the way she’d gripped her frayed and dirtied journal like she did when she was nervous. Then he took the keys off the hook.

“All right, Mini. Let’s go.”

They didn’t talk much on the road. Pines blurred into billboards, billboards into brick. Henry’s old truck hummed like a steady bassline beneath the quiet, and Minerva let her breath match it—inhale to the dashed white lines, exhale to the beat of the wipers. When the skyline rose and the air changed from pasture to pavement, she sat up straighter and rubbed her palms on her jeans.

“I’m askin’ her,” she said, as if he hadn’t already guessed.

Henry grinned faintly, eyes still on the road. “That’s my girl.”

He pulled up to Rosalyn Jackson-Bearblood’s Hero Training & Conditioning—the building with the green tin roof and the big windows that always sweated in summer. Martial flags hung along the entry corridor. Someone inside kiai’d; the sound cracked like a switch through hot air.

“You want me to come in?”

Minerva shook her head. “I got it.”

He kissed her temple anyway, thumb rough on her cheek. “Yes, you do.”

The gym smelled like effort: pine cleaner and old wood, canvas, a hint of liniment that stuck to the back of the tongue. Bare feet whispered across tatami. Pads thumped, mitts popped. Rosalyn stood near the heavy bags in a black gi, belt wrapped twice and tied perfectly. A halo of frizz had broken free from her bun—evidence she’d been working just as hard as her students.

Maw clocked Minerva at the door, took in the bag, the set of her shoulders, the way she didn’t flinch under the noise.

“You visiting?” Rosalyn said.

“I’m asking,” Minerva answered, not hedging. “I want more lessons. Not just drills from the kitchen or the yard. I need… I need to learn what I don’t know. Proper. Before anything else.”

Rosalyn didn’t smile. She didn’t rush her either. She just turned her whole body toward her the way she did when something mattered.

“You want to be taught,” she said. “Which is different from wanting practice.”

“Yes.” Minerva said before her nerves got the better of her especially since she didn't know what else she could do. Minerva knew she could matched anyone in raw muscle, but the lightning under her skin was a different story. Her family could spar, push, teach her to fight, but not one of them knew what it felt like to carry lightning in their chest and being scared to truely let it loose. She was surrounded by strength sure, but still felt like she was walking by herself. Even with her own practice where one misstep could do more harm than good...she still wanted to be a hero, but the thought of letting go sat in her gut like a weight.

She thought:

I've been holding it in this long...maybe I don't really need to use my quirk all that much...right?

It's because of that, she been holding back for this long. She'd practice her techniques using the bare minimum to keep the buzz in check.

Rosalyn stares for a moment, checking for any hesitation which Minerva hid well enough

“Shoes off. Bag down. Bow in. If you’re asking me as a student, you’ll do it right.”

Minerva’s throat tightened at the formality, but it settled her, too. She took her boots off, lined them with the others. Bowed at the threshold. The air felt cooler two steps in—like crossing into a church where the prayers sounded like breath and footsteps. 

“Six months,” Rosalyn said, as Minerva came onto the mat. “Your father told me you were thinking ahead. Good. We’ll use them. I’ll put you with my senior students. You’ll hate it. You’ll thank me later.”

Minerva swallowed. “Thanking you early, then.”

“Don’t get cute,” Rosalyn said, but the corner of her mouth tipped up.

She clapped. “Break for water,” she called to the class, “then circle up.”

This month started with standing still.

It sounded easy and turned out to be the hardest thing Minerva had done in weeks. Horse stance, thighs on fire, big toes pressing the floor like anchors, breath dragged low into the abdomen until her ribs had no choice but to expand. Rosalyn paced around her with a metronome app ticking on the phone—tap, tap, tap—guiding breath to rhythm until Minerva felt the sound moving inside her chest.

“Where’s your weight?” Rosalyn asked.

“Heels,” Minerva panted.

“Then you’ll always be late. Mid-foot. Find it. When you move, the floor should feel you coming.”

A senior, named Cam, with a long reach, soft eyes, merciless form, tapped her knee with a rattan stick when it drifted. “Knee out,” he murmured. “Don’t let it cave.”

“Don’t talk to her like she’s made of sugar,” another senior, Priya, said, grinning, sweat slicking her temple. She had the kind of timing that made pad holders curse. “She’s a Bearblood. She’ll bite you.”

“I do bite,” Minerva allowed, jaw tight, and they laughed, but not unkindly.

They held stances until the metronome crawled across her skin like ants. Then, footwork lines. Tape on tatami: forward, back, thirty degrees, ninety, pivot, recover. Minerva learned to carry her center like a bowl she refused to spill. To place her foot instead of throwing it. To feel the floor as if it were an ally, not dead weight.

“Your quirk is a current,” Rosalyn said as she adjusted Minerva’s hip, fingers authoritative but gentle. “It will always look for a path. If your body provides a sloppy one, it will choose chaos. If you provide a clean outlet, it will listen.”

“Feels like wiring a house,” Minerva muttered.

“Exactly like wiring a house.”

By the second week, Minerva could breathe on the count without losing the line. By the third, she could step and exhale at the same moment, pressure dropping through her heel like a stamp. Her thighs never stopped complaining. She kept coming anyway.

Henry dropped her off twice a week and picked her up smelling like cedar shavings and sweat. He said little and handed her cooled tea in a mason jar as if he’d been planning for this version of his daughter since she was born.

“How’s Maw?” he asked one night.

“Deadly,” Minerva said, and then—unable to help herself—grinned. “Perfect.”

October was all about pads, mitts, and breakfalls.

The month tasted like leather and canvas, and mouthguard rubber, which made her tongue clumsy.

“Again,” Rosalyn said whenever Minerva’s hand flew before her foot. “You lead with grounded parts. Then the rest.”

Cam held pads while she jab-crossed and learned to keep her shoulder down. Priya made her stop every third combo to shoot a level change into a knee tap. “You’re strong, but you’re telegraphing. If I can read you, you’re already late,” Priya said, popping Minerva lightly on the forehead with the mitt. “Smaller wind-up, more intent.”

Between striking rounds, Rosalyn slid in the first layer of quirk work. Not blasting. Not even sparking.

“Charge your skin,” Rosalyn said, tapping Minerva’s forearm. “No more than a glow. Touch the pad without burning it.”

Minerva exhaled to the metronome, pulled charge up like a ripple, and tempered it to a hum under her skin. Though it gave her a slight headache, she shook it off. When her forearm brushed leather, the pad shivered but didn’t sizzle.

“That,” Rosalyn said. “Hold it through movement.”

It was like learning to sing while running. She could keep the hum steady while standing, then while stepping, then while stepping and punching. Minerva pulled her charge back before it could spark across Cam’s pads. The air prickled anyway, hairs lifting on his arm.

He gave her a look, and she muttered, “Sorry. Still can’t always stop it from reaching.”

He shook his hand out and grinned. “She really does bite.”

She wanted to laugh with him, but staggered when a headache cracked sharply behind her eyes; this was the first time she kept her quirk humming under her skin for this long. 

“You dehydrated?” Cam asked, worried as he stopped midstep.

“No,” Minerva muttered, rubbing her temple.

Rosalyn clocked it immediately. “Log it. Everyone, take a break,” she ordered. Rosalyn follows Minerva to her bag, “If your body protests, it’s not weakness. It’s data. Treat it like you would a sparring partner.”

Minerva sat down and scribbled in her blue journal: Headache after three minutes hum. Behind the eyes. Dull, then sharp.

She told herself they were random, but deep down she knew it came from pushing her quirk too long. The longer she held the charge, the faster her thoughts sharpened, until the world moved like a reel. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. A moment of recklessness...then she’d yank herself back down before it carried her too far.

Minerva winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Rosalyn said. “Be precise.”

It was November with leaves scattered across the entryway, tracked in on shoes. The dojo grew drafty, windows frosting at the corners. Space heaters clicked alive, but the mats stayed cold underfoot until sparring warmed them.

Breakfalls came next. Minerva learned to meet the mat with intention: chin tucked, arm slapping the floor to spread impact. Forward rolls without posting her hand. It happened once, and that was more than enough for her.

Hip escapes, bridges, and how to make space when someone heavier decides the space wasn’t hers. Priya mounted, settled her weight like a sack of grain.

“Talk to your body,” Priya murmured near her ear. “It wants to help you. Give it cues.”

She learned that if she kept current steady in her arms, her reactions sharpened. When attempting to escape from Cam as his jab twitched forward, she saw it half a beat sooner, slipping before his glove made contact.

But the headaches grew sharper, too. Migraine flashes stung her vision, leaving silver behind her eyes. After one particularly long drill, she stumbled mid-roll, stomach turning.

“Sit,” Rosalyn barked.

“I can keep—”

“Sit, Minerva.” Rosalyn's eyes are squinting just slightly.

Minerva obeyed, fury curling in her chest. Rosalyn crouched beside her, voice calm. “Your nervous system is sprinting. It will cramp like any other muscle. Learn to work with it. Or it will chew you out.”

Minerva pressed her forehead to her knees, panting through the ache, and scribbled later: Flashes after six minutes. Reset needed. Don’t be stubborn.

Minerva burned these phrases into the notebook she kept in her bag: floor is friend; breath is a lever; hum not hiss and reset.

By December, nights fell fast. Henry’s old truck as it rattled down the roads, defroster humming, Maw’s facility glowing like a furnace against the dark.

Maw has been watching Minerva practice repelling things around the farm and decided to focus on this in her training this month.

They moved to the back room, where the ceiling hung low.

“Boundary work,” Rosalyn said. “Not walls. Not cages. You don’t have those. You have edges you can set, then move.”

They started with a square of tape on the floor. Minerva stood in the center of it. She felt weirdly vulnerable. Her stomach tensed up and it got slightly worse when Cam and Priya start to circle slowly around her.

"Put your palms up. Feel the air."

She does what she is told, though it did feel awkward all things considered.

“When they breach the tape,” Rosalyn said, “you push. Not them, the space.”

It sounded like nonsense until Minerva let the hum rise in her arms and treated the square like a porch she refused to surrender. When Cam’s toe crossed the line, she exhaled and sent a controlled pulse, not a strike, outward. The air tremored with a slight sparkle skirting the edge of the pulse. Cam blinked, rocked back half a step.

“There it is,” Rosalyn said, smiling faintly.

Minerva laughed, then winced as a headache flared immediately after.

Rosalyn’s answer: “You’ll learn to do this in bursts.

They played like that for ten minutes, creeping, testing. Every time Minerva overcooked it, Rosalyn cleared her throat; every time she undercooked it, Priya waggled her fingers, beckoning closer.

“Your intent matters,” Rosalyn said sternly. “Intent is an instruction. Tell the current what the edge is.”

“What’s an edge if not a wall?” Minerva asked, sweaty hair sticking to her neck.

Minerva swears she saw a twinkle in her Maw's eyes as she said. “A line you can move with you.”

The pulse clicked once—just once—like two magnets kissing and repelling at the same time. Minerva laughed out loud at the clean feel of it, at how it didn’t fry anything, at how it obeyed because she’d asked well. Minerva felt the headache come back, but it came as fast as it went. It made her eye twitch.

“Again,” Rosalyn said, smiling now. “Before your brain gets cute and ruins it.”

It was during break

They stayed until the hum under Minerva’s skin is starting to feel like a purr she could raise or lower at command. In her blue journal, although battered, she wrote: Starting to see movements faster. Pulsing is better. Headaches not so much.

Silas drove her back from the dojo some evenings, one hand on the wheel, the other flicking his coin at red lights. He didn’t fill the cab with chatter—just the low hum of some scratchy country station.

“You’re quiet,” Minerva said once, head leaning against the cold glass.

“You’re sore,” Silas countered, smirk tugging. “Different kind of quiet.”

She huffed a laugh. The pressure behind her eyes throbbed, dull but steady. “Feels like I got my skull run through a thresher.”

“You asked for hard, Mini. Don’t cry about the price.” He tossed the coin, caught it, and glanced at her. “And don’t you dare quit. You’re too much Bearblood for that.”

Minerva smiled despite the ache. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“Good.” He nudged her shoulder with his knuckles as the light changed. “Then sit there and be proud, even if it hurts. Pain’s just proof you worked.”

She let her eyes close, the rumble of the truck and Silas’s steady driving settling her bones. For once, the headache didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like progress.

January, the coldest month. Frost crawled the glass, heaters struggling. Exhales fogged like ghosts, but the tatami stayed cold under bare feet. The air hung still before sparring warmed it, every sound sharp in the brittle quiet.

Rosalyn started using her students as moving lessons.

“Cam, give her feints. Three to one. Priya, take her base every time she leaves it loose. Derrick, hand-fight. Evan, pace-control—make her chase and punish her for it.”

They cycle-spared. One minute each. No breaks. Every new partner brought a different problem. Minerva learned to read the shift of a shoulder, the micro-stutter of a knee that meant a kick, the way Priya’s weight rotated a fraction of a second before her hips followed.

Her head throbbed after the fourth partner. The steady current she kept under her skin to sharpen her reflexes began to feel like a drum against her temples. She shook it off, gritting through the ache.

“Your face does this,” Priya said, imitating Minerva’s grimace. “Like you’re chewing a lemon while doing math.”

“I am doing math,” Minerva said, panting, hands on knees. “And it tastes like lemon.”

“Make it taste like cinnamon,” Cam offered, chuckling, and Rosalyn pointed with the stick as if to say Exactly: you’re the cook, season it.

Minerva snorted, headache easing just enough when she remembered to pulse the current instead of running it nonstop.

They added a drill, Rosalyn called Catch and Send. Pads pressed on Minerva’s shoulders from both sides—pressure in, pressure out. She had to receive without collapsing, redirect without blasting.

“Take it into the frame, then send it,” Rosalyn coached, tapping the sternum. “Think hinge, not hammer. You are not pushing people—stop making them your focus. You’re organizing force. That’s different. Same as thoughts. Catch them, place them, send them.”

When Minerva managed a sequence—receive, step, pulse—clean enough to move Cam two steps without popping his collarbone, she whooped and clapped her own hands. The class clapped with her, not sarcastically. It felt like music.

Rosalyn put a broomstick in her hands and made her practice sliding her grip while keeping the hum even. No spinning tricks. No flourish. Just tone control through a shifting lever—the beginning of something she didn’t have a name for yet.

At night she fell asleep to a new sensation: not buzzing, not jangling, more like a wire warm with current running exactly where she’d set it. Quiet. Useful. Available. The headache dulled to pressure instead of spikes. Manageable.

February was when it got frustrating. Maw dedicated a whole week to losing.

Every round started from a bad position. Mounted. Back taken. Arm trapped under a knee. Eyes half-closed while a partner shook a focus mitt near her ear to simulate noise. If Minerva escaped, the next round started worse.

“Heroes don’t start on their feet in bright lights,” Rosalyn said, voice level, stopwatch relentless. “They start in holes.”

Minerva’s chest scuffed the mat enough to burn, cheek pressed into canvas until she smelled dust and sweat. Panic leaned over the edge of her ribcage like a nosy neighbor. She breathed in sets of four and recited the footwork lines in her head like psalms.

The floor is a friend. Breath is a lever. Hum, not hiss. Reset as needed.

When Derrick flattened her with a cross-face and she felt her eyes sting, Priya’s voice came through: “Count your exits. One. Two. Three. Pick one and go.”

She picked wrong twice and got choked for it. The third time she found an angle, pulsed sharp enough to buy herself half a breath without splitting her skull, posted on an elbow, and made just enough space to turn. The escape wasn’t pretty, but it was honest. Rosalyn nodded once like a clock striking.

They mixed in live-scenario rounds with a light quirk layer. An “office hallway” taped with choke points. Foam furniture for cover. Cam tossed a rubber ball at her head mid-step; she repulsed it away without looking and kept moving. Priya darted in with a fake knife; Minerva redirected the wrist with her left, pulse-sent with her right, then slid to an exit. It felt like threading a needle with her whole body.

On the worst day, she lost five rounds in a row and heard her own breath turn ragged enough to scare her. The headache flared hot, stabbing behind her eyes. She ripped her mouthguard out and crouched near the wall, elbows to knees, head down.

Rosalyn crouched too, not touching, not crowding.

“You asked me for this,” she said, voice gentler than it had been all month.

Rosalyn looks out to her students who are still working on their techniques without them.

“Teaching is not about giving you success. It’s giving you worthy failures until you can write a better answer.”

Minerva swallowed hard. “I know.”

“Then you don’t quit.”

Rosalyn could hear the sniffle that her daughter tried to hide, but Minerva nodded. She lifts her head and put her mouthguard back in. Stood up when back to the center and bowed. Took another hard round and lost. Took the next and escaped.

On the drive home, Henry didn’t ask how it went. He just handed her a cold towel he’d packed in a little cooler and turned the radio low. She watched brakelights smear red on wet asphalt and thought, not for the first time, that sometimes love sounded like a truck that doesn’t break down and a towel that smells like laundry line.

By mid-February, the ice had started to melt in patches outside, leaving wet earth scents sneaking into the dojo when doors opened. Rosalyn called for a full-floor circuit: striking, clinch, ground, boundary, rope work, breath ladders, then a quiet corner for quirk tone alone. Fifteen stations. Two minutes each. No talking between.

“Life will not ask you if you’re ready to switch gears,” Rosalyn said.

Minerva did her combinations smoother now, shoulder low, hip turning like a hinge. She ate a knee in the clinch because she got cute; she corrected on the next pass. On the ground she framed early and recovered guard. On the boundary square she adjusted pulse strength to match partner and space, not ego. On rope work, she learned to keep a charge in her feet so the fibers gripped without burning. On breath ladders, she found, for the first time, that she could drop her heart rate on command.

At the quirk station—a taped rectangle and a single metal pole—Rosalyn stood with a stopwatch.

“Instruction?” she asked.

Minerva closed her eyes. Let the hum rise. Opened them. “I set the edge at my forearms, three feet out. Keep the tone low enough to tickle but not rattle," Another breath, "If they breach, I pulse the space. I step before I push. I test before release.”

“Proceed.”

Cam moved first, smiling like a sibling trying to steal the last cookie. Minerva adjusted her elbow a fraction; his grin crooked as the pulse met his hand without biting. Priya tried to out-time her; Minerva let the other woman in a foot, then slid and pulsed and watched the surprise bloom into approval.

“Now me,” Rosalyn said.

Maw stepped in wearing the face she wore when no one was looking at her, soft around the eyes, strict around the mouth. She moved like a sentence without extra words. She breached. Minerva stepped. Rosalyn loomed again, and Minerva felt her own back flirt with the edge of panic—and then she breathed, sent the instruction to the current the way she’d trained, and pulsed the square clean without slamming her mother.

It landed like the click of a well-fitted drawer.

Rosalyn’s teeth flashed, rare and white. “There.”

They sparred then, mother and daughter. No drama, no audience, just the sound of feet and the slow, pleasant pain of effort. Minerva threw four clean combinations in two minutes and didn’t lose her base once. Rosalyn tripped her anyway because that’s what Rosalyn did, and Minerva laughed on the way down because that’s what Minerva had learned to do.

After class, while the seniors mopped and put pads back on the rack, Rosalyn sat beside her on the bench and handed her a bottle of coconut water.

“You have six months of work in you,” Rosalyn said. “You used my people well. You listened. You've been asking the current the right questions. I am so proud.”

Minerva blinked fast and took a long drink so her voice wouldn’t come out sideways and shaky; not from her quirk, but from the uneasiness in her chest. “Thank you for saying it plain.”

“We’re not done by a long shot," Rosalyn bumped her shoulder,"But what you’ve built now—that’s a practice you can trust. Hold on to that.”

Minerva nodded. The ache in her head was still there, but not sharp—just steady pressure she knew how to ride. For the first time, it felt less like punishment and more like rhythm.

“Feels like I’ve been walking barefoot on gravel and finally stepped onto a path that fits,” she said.

“Good,” Rosalyn said. “Keep your feet awake.”

The last night of February, Rosalyn asked Henry to come in and watch the final round. He stood by the door in his work jeans, hands in pockets, smiling like a field at sunrise.

Minerva bowed to the mat, to Rosalyn, to the class that had adopted her as one of their own. She ran the circuit one last time, not trying to impress—just making it honest. On the boundary square, she set her edges and moved them with her like the perimeter of a campfire. In the clinch, she used her hips instead of her arms and was rewarded with space. On the ground, she escaped without hurrying, the way you pull a splinter that breaks if you yank.

At the quirk station, Rosalyn changed the drill.

“Instruction,” she said.

Minerva looked at the pole, at the taped square, at the fans chopping air overhead. She thought of how the mat always felt colder than it looked, of how silence in the room could press louder than noise. She thought of the past months of Cam’s feints, Priya’s weight, Derrick’s grip, Evan’s pace, and how each had forced her to find a steadier rhythm. She thought of her mother’s voice, even now: set the edge, step with it, keep the current true.

She set her hands a hand-width apart and said.

“I keep it in my back so I don’t scare myself. Edge at two feet. Step with it. If someone touches me, I give just enough push, no more.”

Rosalyn’s eyes warmed. “Proceed.”

Minerva did. When she finished, small applause lifted from the doorway; Henry had gotten himself caught clapping without permission. Rosalyn pointed at him. “You can clap, Paw. She earned some noise tonight.”

Henry whooped properly then, and Minerva laughed so hard she had to bend at the waist. When she straightened, Rosalyn was there with a small, red, battered spiral notebook. The cover had sweat stains and coffee rings. On the first page, in Rosalyn’s handwriting: Practice Log

“Write what works,” Rosalyn said. “Write what doesn’t. Write what you think before you try, and what you learned after you fail. Six months down. License on deck.”

Minerva held the notebook the way you hold something both fragile and made to be used. “I’ll keep it full.”

“You better,” Rosalyn said, and then pulled her into a hug that pressed Minerva’s face into the clean cotton of her gi, sweat and soap and something like eucalyptus. For a second Minerva remembered being eight and furious at a tin cup, and the same arms around her then, too.

“Paw’s waitin’,” Rosalyn murmured against her hair.

Henry drove slower, leaving the city, like he wanted the red lights to last. Minerva sat cross-legged in the passenger seat, notebook open, writing in cramped lines that soaked ink fast.

“What’s it say?” Henry asked, eyes still on the road.

She read aloud, surprised at how steady she sounded. “Notes: Breath sits like ballast; edges travel with me; hum belongs in the back not the teeth; floor is not an enemy; if I lose, I am not lost; if I win, I am not done.”

Henry sniffed, which for Henry passed as emotion. “Sounds like your mama,” he said.

“Sounds like me,” Minerva said, and smiled at how right that felt.

They drove in comfortable hush and let the fields take them back. When the porch light finally found them and the night insects tuned themselves to the key of home, Minerva slid the notebook into her bag and flexed her hands.

They felt different. Not buzzing. Not shaky. Ready.

She stepped out of the truck and the gravel answered under her boots like it knew her name. She looked up at the sky and thought not of tempests or fireworks, not of drama or noise, but of a clean line of power running from the base of her spine to the ground and back again, available the way breath is available when you remember to ask for it.

Six months ago, she’d come to her mother and said: teach me.

Now the request lived in her bones as an instruction she could give herself:

Stand. Breathe. Set the edge. Move it with you.

She had her directions. She had her people. She had the kind of work inside her that did not need an audience to be real. She felt like she could really push her to do anything now.

“Night, Paw,” she said, circling the truck to kiss Henry’s cheek.

“Night, Mini,” he said, thumb smoothing an errant curl to the side. “Proud of you.”

She went inside straight to her room with a thought in her head:

What am I gonna do now?

Chapter Text

That thought stuck with her.

The house had that late-evening hush where everything familiar sounded louder: the tick of the wall clock, the dry whisper of heat through the vents, the clink of mugs on wood. Maw’s tea steamed between them, lemon and honey rising into the kitchen light. Paw had kicked his boots off but left them side-by-side by the door. Minerva sat with her practice notebook open, a country map spread beneath it, and flyers from everywhere in the country wanting her to take their provisional exam. She sifted through most of the flyers already, with her focus on unique locations. She narrowed it down to four states stacked neatly in front of her.

“Alright,” Rosalyn said, palms flat on the table like a referee calling the start. “You’ve got six months of work in your legs and good sense in your hands from me. Time to choose where you test.”

Henry leaned back, chair creaking, eyes on Minerva. “Ain’t our job to pick for ya. We’re just here to keep ya from jumpin' where you don’t mean to.”

"I know, Paw," Minerva rubs her hands together in thought, "I jus' nice to have different thoughts on this, ya know?"

Silas wandered in last, flipping a coin he found earlier and taking the far chair sideways so one knee hit the cabinet. Brenna dried a pan and pretended she wasn’t listening from where she was at the stove. Micah parked himself in the chair opposite Minerva with his chin on his arms, close enough to see the map.

Rosalyn grabbed the sheets Minerva set aside. State options, dates, blurbs that sounded like recruitment flyers and warnings all at once.

"So you're lookin' at...Texas, New York, Colorado, and....Cali?" That kind of surprised Rosalyn as she announced Minerva's current choices.

“Well...Texas has range,” she said. “from Tornado paths to wildfires. You’d do a little of everything.”

“New York’s dense,” Brenna offered from the stove. “Crowd control, vertical rescues, the nonstop sirens. You’d learn to move through people like water moves through rock.”

“Colorado’s mean,” Silas said, coin still moving. “Heard from some about the high dropout. They don’t clap for pretty.”

“I know that California runs on joint ops with the Coast Guard,” Henry added. “Mudslides and quakes are the norm. Situation changes every hour.” Chimed Henry.

Minerva wrote the names down the side of her notebook and made four crooked columns: terrain, people, what scares me, and what fits. Her handwriting slanted like it was in a hurry to be understood.

“What do you want out of this?” Rosalyn asked, neither soft nor sharp. “Not the poster answer, an honest one.”

The words clogged her throat. The easy answer—to pass—sat there, but what she really wanted was to be free of the knot in her chest every time she felt the demanding rise of her quirk and then forced it back down. She wants to stop being afraid of her own hands, but who could she turn to, really?

“It’s not just the work,” Minerva admitted, twisting her pencil. “Lightning heroes are rare. Nobody here really knows how to train me past the basics. Y’all gave me grit and strength, but… what if that’s not enough?”

Rosalyn’s eyes softened, but didn’t waver. “Then you’ll use what you do have until the rest makes sense. Discipline carries when knowledge runs out.”

Minerva nodded, but the tightness in her chest stayed. She wanted to believe it, wanted to think control could come from sheer stubbornness. But every time the lightning begged to run wild, part of her feared liking it too much.

Rosalyn’s mouth tipped: approval disguised as a straight line. “That's my girl.”

Micah scooted closer; his hands moving before he even spoke. “Which one lets you use your quirk in a cool way? Like the… pushy thing?”

“You mean repulsion,” Minerva said, smiling despite herself. “Texas, New York, and California all want tight bursts in bad crowds. Colorado’s more about endurance and terrain.”

“So...New York?” Brenna said, drying tin faster now. “You’ll get your precision in a hurry.”

Silas shrugged. “Or you could freeze in place because ten thousand eyes are on ya while some examiner with a pencil is counting how many seconds ya spent making a plan.”

“That pencil’s everywhere,” Rosalyn said, waving Silas off. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking only one state writes you into a box.”

Henry reached across and spun the pepper relish jar three degrees, lining its label with the map’s north arrow as if that mattered.

She thought about the months in the dojo, the hiss of the heaters, the metallic taste of effort, the headaches that slid in between it all. She heard Rosalyn’s voice in her head, counting breath, cutting nonsense. She saw the tape square on the floor and her hands setting an edge, moving it with her. She pictured a crowded platform, the push and pull of bodies, and knew she could make sense of that now. She pictured thin air and a long climb and knew she could, too, but the cost would come for her head before her legs.

Silas flicked the coin, caught it without looking. “So you pick it anyway and call me from the top with your little ‘I suffered on purpose’ voice.”

Rosalyn slid one of the brightly colored papers over, this one with scribbled notes in her block print. “Colorado’s test is honest. Ugly, but honest. If you want that, choose it with purpose and plan how to answer before it asks.”

Brenna leaned against the counter at last. “New York’s honest, too, ya know. It's just a bit different, is all.”

“California’s got water,” Henry said, steady as fence posts. “You grew up reading clouds like a calendar. You’d learn to move lightning where it won’t bite a pump or a line.”

“Texas’ll hand you every problem and dare you to stand down,” Silas said. “You'd like that type of game.”

Minerva rolled her eyes after drawing four dots in her columns, like targets. She added small notes:

TX — range, pace changes, heat. NY — crowds, vertical, nerves. CO — lungs, endurance, quiet work. CA — coordination, water, aftershocks.

“Find what fits you,” Rosalyn asked, tapping Minerva’s notebook where the six months of ink pressed the pages fat. “Not your pride.”

“The pulsing,” Minerva said, almost to herself. “That fits New York. The cycling I learned suits me well if I commit to it. Using my rope—it’s California all over. The situation changes from station to station—that’s Texas.”

Henry chuckled, low. “Sounds like every road looks right if you lean at it.”

“So lean at one,” Silas said. “Pick the road that makes your shoulders pull back and your teeth set. That’s how I choose hills to run.”

Rosalyn went quiet, studying Minerva like she studied a student’s stance. “There’s no wrong way here,” she said finally. “Only different corners of yourself you’ll meet sooner or later.”

The clock ticked loudly as a metronome. Outside, a truck passed, headlights sliding across the ceiling like a hand brushing a page. Minerva ran her fingertip along the Colorado line, then the New York edge, then the long coast of California. Her chest pulled two ways at once: the part of her that loved clean, mean tests tugged toward altitude; the part of her that wanted to thread crowds and speak to dozens of moving pieces tugged toward a city that didn’t pause for anyone.

She looked at Henry. He lifted his brows as if to say I’ll drive you wherever the road starts. She looked at Rosalyn. She didn’t offer mercy, not tonight; she offered her belief. Brenna’s mouth was crooked like she already had jokes queued up for whichever coast Minerva picked. Micah’s eyes were wet with excitement. Silas spun his coin once more and let it smack the table; the sound rang like a tiny bell.

Minerva exhaled, not realizing that she was holding her breath in thought. Wrote one sentence in her notebook, small and precise:

Pick the place that asks for discipline first and grit second.

She closed the cover.

“I don’t want easy,” she said. “I want the honest version of hard.”

Rosalyn nodded once, no smile, no lecture. “Then you already know.”

Henry stood and kissed the top of Minerva’s head.

“You tell me what to put in the thermos, and I’ll make sure it’s hot when you land.”

“Black coffee...with salt,” Minerva said, grinning because the decision had settled into her bones like weight in the right place. “And… maybe the pepper relish for luck.”

Brenna laughed. “Please don’t get arrested in an airport for smuggling relish.”

Silas pocketed his coin and clapped her shoulder, the hit just shy of too hard. “Wherever you choose to go? Call me. I want to hear how it goes.”

“I will.”

Rosalyn reached across the table and flipped the map so the whole country looked strange for a second, edges where coasts used to be. “One more thing,” she said. “When you get there, don’t try to prove you’re special. Prove you’re reliable, first.”

Minerva nodded, throat tight. “Yes, Maw.”

The tea had gone warm. The clock ticked on. She gathered the papers, folded the map along new creases, and slipped the notebook into her bag. Somewhere above the roofline, a plane traced a thin sound over the fields. For the first time all night, she wasn’t thinking about states or rankings or reputations.

In her room

“Any place I pick,” Minerva whispers, “I gotta learn how not to hold back now. The risks are there, I could hurt somebody, but if I never push, I’ll never know what I can really do.” Her thumb rubbed the notebook margin until the paper grew soft. She curled in on herself.

“Alright,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, as lightning pulsed under her skin. “I think I’m ready for anything and everything.”

Chapter Text

Days later, after mulling through the flyers, her research, and notes. Minerva finally concluded where she wanted to go.

The Bearblood kitchen had seen its share of noise from boots clumping, spoons clattering, siblings trading jabs, but this morning it held a quiet hum. The map on the table had been folded shut, notebooks stacked on top like the matter was already decided. Minerva’s pencil rested in the crease, idle, as she rolled her shoulders and tried to breathe past the knot in her chest.

Rosalyn sat with her tea cooling, eyes steady. Henry leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. Brenna pretended to scrub at a counter that was already clean. Micah is more focused on finishing his pancakes, but was halfway listening. Silas sprawled on the bench by the porch door.

Rosalyn broke the silence. “Well?”

Minerva pressed her lips together, then said, “Texas.”

Silas barked a laugh. “Ha! Knew it. You’d always pick a rodeo.”

Brenna smirked. “You’ll melt in that kinda heat.”

“Oh, you wish,” Minerva said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll learn to work with it anyway. They'll throw everything at me. If I can manage there, maybe I’ll finally learn how to use all of what I’ve got.”

The words stuck in her throat as soon as they left, because they all knew what she meant.

Brenna raised a brow. “You mean actually use it, instead of sparking around the edges?”

Heat crept into Minerva’s cheeks. She didn’t argue. Her family had quirks, gravitational weight, splitting force, echoes of sound, but none of them were lightning. They could spar her to exhaustion, correct her stance all day, drill her only discipline. But none of them could tell her how to handle the way her power pulled, how it begged to run wild until her skin prickled and her breath raced.

Henry rumbled low in his chest. “Texas will test you fair. They don’t hand out favors easily, baby girl.”

Rosalyn’s eyes softened a fraction. “Discipline will carry you further than bravado. Remember what we built in my dojo.”

Minerva nodded. “I will.”

Micah piped up, wide-eyed. “You’ll call me, right? Even if you’re in the middle of a flood?”

“Especially then.” She reached to ruffle his hair, earning a squawk.

Silas flicked her forehead, coin clinking against his palm. “Don’t make me come drag you home after day one.”

She shoved him back, but couldn’t hide her smile.

The anticipation made the days move a bit faster than she expected as the truck rattled toward the airport under a low ceiling of dawn fog. Silas drove one-handed, coin flashing between his fingers with the same ease as shifting gears in Paw's old pickup.

“You pack the whole farm in that bag?” he asked, eyes forward.

“Just the good parts,” Minerva shot back, clinging to the strap as the duffel lay on the floor.

“Hope you left some for us.”

The silence between quips stretched easily, though her chest felt tight with the weight of the unknown. When Silas pulled into the drop-off lane, he cut the engine and came around to her side.

“C’mere,” he said, and before she could brace, he scooped her clean off the ground.

“Silas!” she yelped, her black slides kicking uselessly in the air. She wasn’t light—her stocky frame built thick with farm-earned muscle—but he hefted her with wiry strength and big-brother stubbornness.

“Still my kid sister,” he said, setting her down with a grin. “Don’t let Texas forget it.”

She shoved his arm, laughing, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t ease.

Then his voice dropped, low and serious. “Don’t be afraid of it, Mini. The lightning’s a part of ya. Don’t treat it like some dog that’ll bite every time you let it loose. You got this. I know ya do.”

Her breath caught. Silas didn’t know how it felt when the charge built too high or how it whispered sweet and dangerous in her bones, how good it felt to let go for a moment. He couldn’t understand that. None of them could. But the words still struck home.

She nodded once. “Got it.”

He ruffled her hair and then waved her toward the sliding doors. “Plane won’t wait.”

She hugged him hard, bag slung over her shoulder, and walked into the terminal. She didn’t look back until she was past security. When she did, he was still there, coin flashing one last time before he climbed into the truck.

The gate area smelled of coffee and floor polish. Minerva sat with her notebook open, doodling circuits in the margin. The headaches had been worse lately—sharp, random flashes behind her eyes whenever she pushed her quirk too long. Rosalyn had said it was just her brain adapting. Minerva wasn’t so sure.

A ripple of sound swept the terminal, drawing heads toward the mounted TV above the bar.

BREAKING NEWS.

Sirens wailed through shaky footage from Japan. Smoke poured from fractured buildings. The chyron screamed:

LEAGUE OF VILLAINS STRIKE AGAIN— MULTIPLE CITIES HIT. PROVISIONAL HEROES DEPLOYED.

The video caught chaos—heroes dashing into rubble, provisional license trainees in bright vests following at their heels. The camera jerked, then caught him.

Blond hair wild. Gauntlets smoking. Explosions are tearing the air apart with precision.

Caption: BAKUGO KATSUKI — PROVISIONAL LICENSE HOLDER, U.A. HIGH.

Minerva’s stomach flipped. She’d seen his name before—headlines calling him volatile, classmates describing him as a powder keg. The people around didn't really stop to look like she did. It wasn't their problem to worry about.

The anchors volleyed commentary. “Reckless.” “Unstable.” “Prodigy.” “Should kids this young be deployed?”

But Minerva wasn’t hearing the words. She was watching his feet. The way he braced before each blast, pivoted sharply but not sloppily. How his eyes cut the field, counting exits, reading threats. The explosions weren’t chaos—they were precise.

The ticker scrolled beneath: CIVILIAN INJURIES — DOWN.

A man at the bar muttered, “They’ll burn out. Can’t keep that pace.”

Minerva clenched her jaw. He’s not holding back, though. He’s my age, and he’s not afraid. And me? I can’t even trust myself not to hurt the people next to me.

She gripped her pen, scrawling into the margin:

Don’t you dare fall before I meet you. You don’t get to lose to anyone but me.

The screen flickered to another disaster, another debate. The terminal noise swelled back with boarding calls, footsteps, and the grind of wheels. But her pulse stayed sharp, steady, thrumming in her ribs like a caged animal.

The Texas heat slammed her the second she stepped off the plane.

"Geez! I thought Georgia was hot enough!"

The air was thick, buzzing, alive with mosquitoes even near the runway. One of those bugs attempted to land on her wrist, but was met with a lick of lightning. She felt so glad that bugs never bothered her since she got her quirk; it kills them on contact. Minerva sees the exam facility rise at the edge of the city, hangars and fencing gleaming under high sun. Candidates gathered in clusters, some sleek in polished gear, while others were already sweating through their shirts.

Minerva clenched her fists as she looked at the future candidates as they started to be herded into a line after check-in. The hum built at the base of her spine, steady but restrained with anticipation. She swallowed down the temptation to release that tension. She gets in line right along with them, duffel bag in hand. When she made it to the front of the line, a laminated tag was given to her to mark those for the exam.

A proctor in a slate-gray vest raised her clipboard and barked, “Eyes front.” Her voice carried with that clipped rhythm of someone used to shouting over crowds of teens. They marched past the outer gates. The asphalt shimmered under the sun, soft with heat, and Minerva’s boots stuck faintly with each step.

Beyond the chain-link fence, modular walls loomed like giant building blocks, their paint chipped from past drills. A row of sedans had been half-crushed for “urban rescue practice,” glass glittering in the light. Somewhere farther off, a siren wailed as a training alarm, metallic and sharp enough to make a few heads twitch.

“This facility was designed for versatility,” the woman explained, voice carrying over the group. “Urban blocks, flood zones, firebreaks. You’ll see everything before you face it. Don’t get comfortable, though! Configurations can change without warning to simulate actual emergencies as our future heroes.”

Minerva craned her neck. Beyond the chain-link fence, hangars yawned open, filled with modular walls and collapsed cars stacked for rescues. A row of water tanks gleamed under the sun, tall as silos. At the far end, a square of concrete was scorched black from past combat drills. Inside, cots lined one wall in neat rows, bleach and stale sweat faint in the air. Medical drills. Across the tarmac, scaffolding towered three stories high, wooden planks shifting under a test group’s weight. A trainee slipped on the top level and cursed, the sound carrying; the proctor didn’t even glance up.

The boy beside her whispered, “Looks like a movie set.”

Minerva smirked. “Then let’s hope we’re not extras.”

A few chuckled nervously. One girl scowled, unimpressed. Which only made Minerva duck her grin deeper. Silas’s warning echoed in her head: Don’t let your mouth get the better of you. She'll attempt, but made no promises.

They moved on, touring dormitories she wouldn’t be sleeping in, cafeterias reeked faintly of disinfectant, trays stacked with military precision, a medical wing lined with cots. A storage bay clanged as someone dropped a chain, the sound echoing down the corridor. Beyond, a courtyard stretched open, scorched patches of black marking where quirks had misfired. Everything was efficient, practical, and no frills. No one here cared if you felt at home; they cared if you held up.

“This is not a school,” the proctor snapped. “This is a crucible. Fail here, and you won’t be trusted in the field.”

Minerva’s pulse ticked faster, but her spine stayed straight. She caught glances from other trainees, some pale and nervous, some too polished in slick uniforms, already posturing. She rolled her shoulders.

By the time the proctor dismissed them toward buses and shuttles, Minerva’s shirt clung with sweat, and her notebook itched in her bag. She already knew what she’d write down: Not a stage. Not a farm. A crucible.

The hotel room overlooked a freeway, headlights streaking like veins of light across blacktop. Minerva sat cross-legged on the bed, notebook balanced on her knees.

April. Ticket punched. Texas will throw storms, heat, crowds, and fire. I picked it because I can’t hide there. I can't hold back now... If I do, I’ll fail. But what if I go too far? What if I break something or someone? But... I’m tired of standing halfway in my own skin.

Minerva rubs her arm absentmindedly.

Bakugo was on the news. He's got his license already. No question why. Not afraid. They called him reckless. I know what I saw. THAT was control in the most annoying way possible.

Her thoughts sketched the shape of it anyway: what it would feel like to finally let go in front of someone who wouldn’t flinch. How might he step into her current instead of dodging it? How it would feel to be on the receiving end of those blasts, those kicks—ugly, relentless, honest?

He’s not holding anything back, she admitted to herself. I can’t keep pretending it’s safer to cage myself. Don’t fall before I can catch up to you.

Her pen stilled. The ache behind her eyes throbbed again, sharp, then faded. Just thinking about working alongside him made her mind race and lightning flare. She rubbed her temples, breathing slowly. 

Tomorrow, the trial will begin. Tonight, she let herself smirk—crooked, stubborn, her own. Trouble was about to meet a Bearblood.

Chapter Text

Call time was six am, and the air already felt like wet wool. Houston’s humidity sat on the skin and stayed there; even the chain-link around the training grounds sweated in beads. Floodlights rimmed the perimeter like watchful eyes. Inside, the provisional exam site looked like a tidy disaster: taped corridors spray-painted on pavement, prefab “rooms” built out of plywood and steel scaffolding, numbered zones stenciled in neon. “Civilians” in orange vests milled around practicing panic. Sirens warbled in soft loops. It was all theater until it wouldn’t be.

Minerva stood in Squad B’s line, gloves velcroed, rope coiled at her hip. Her boots were broken in and unpretty. Plenty of examinees had slick gear: carbon-fiber arm braces, custom masks, purpose-built drones. She had a farm girl’s kit and six months of discipline baked into her stance. A strong, compact as a fence post core—you could lean a whole problem against her and it wouldn’t fall easily.

A proctor in a navy cap paced in front of them with a tablet. “Listen up. This exam is a disaster response under load. You’ll be scored on: time to extraction, triage accuracy, evac flow, comms discipline, collateral, and whether or not you make a scene about yourself instead of stabilizing the scene.”

A few kids coughed in contained laughter. The proctor did not. “No grandstanding. No hero speeches. You are here to carry weight and make good choices.”

He held up a laminated map split into colored rectangles. “Zones A through F. Muster points Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.” He tapped a corridor on the map—a long rectangle with little hash marks along one side.

“Evac Corridor B. Structural marker K-12 is your watchpoint.” He walked their line, pinning each trainee with a stare. “You stay in your lane until you’re redirected. If you leave your position without comms authorization, it’s a penalty. If you improvise structural supports without a proctor, it’s a heavier penalty. If you engage a simulated hostile, it’s an automatic fail. Provisional is about restraint.”

The tablet chimed. “Call signs are on your wristbands.”

Minerva glanced down. Her band lit: B-3 BEARBLOOD. Heat and nerves climbed her spine in the same slow way; she lifted her shoulders, set them down, kept the hum in her back where it belonged. Not in her hands. Not in her teeth.

Another proctor, this one with silver at his temples and bandages already on his knuckles like he’d been doing real work before sunrise, stepped up with a box of earpieces. “Red tone is a staged hazard. Yellow tone is escalation.” He paused, gaze sharp as he played each sound. “Orange tone and flashing blue lights along the perimeter mean it is no longer a drill. If you hear that and you are not a licensed responder, you fall back to the nearest muster and take direction. You do not turn into a vigilante. You do not get clever. Clear?”

A chorus of “Yes, sir.”

“Bearblood.” Silver-temples pointed the chin at her rope. “You’re on corridor control. K-12. You’ll keep evac moving and call the structural team. Your job is boring if you do it right.”

“Understood,” she said, because she did. Boring saved people.

They were marched through a quick orientation jog—where the fake stairs buckled, where the “smoke” machines vented, and how the “actors” would signal real distress versus playacting. Her squad was given two minutes at the triage tent to review the tags and learn how to mark them as “move,” “hold,” or “urgent.” She rubbed the laminated card with her thumb and tried to memorize the layout as if her skin could hold the map.

They deployed.

Evac Corridor B was a taped lane between a plywood “office” and a scaffolding “garage.” A column painted K-12 had a bright orange strap buckled around it. Minerva took her spot at the strap, shoulders squared, eyes on the corridor mouth. Two other examinees—Rae (B-2) and Jenson (B-4)—fanned left and right. Behind her, “civilians” in vests clustered, practicing looking frantic. They were high school volunteers, real enough to run but not real enough to bleed.

The first hour tasted like hot plastic and stale coffee. Staged debris fell in preplanned intervals. Smoke machines burped gray that smelled faintly of glycerin. Minerva did the work: waved people down the lane, kept the flow wide and smooth, redirected anyone who jammed the middle, barked “Hold!” when a prop ceiling panel “collapsed,” and sent “Move!” when the path cleared. She pulsed the hum in her back now and then to sharpen her reaction time, then let it drop before the headache could bloom. Pulse, reset. She let the rhythm of it settle her body.

“B-3, status,” came Silver-temples over the channel.

“Evac Corridor B is flowing. K-12 stable. Minor obstructions cleared. Two ‘civilians’ moved to triage,” Minerva answered, clean and even.

“Good, copy.”

At the edge of her hearing, another siren layer came up. Two tones. The red hazard strobes above the “garage” blinked twice and settled into a slow pulse. Rae glanced at her. Minerva nodded. Escalation—more props, more pressure, faster “injuries.” Still, the game they’d been told to play.

A group of “civilians” poured into her lane at once, eyes too wide, acting too hard. Minerva split them into two file lines with her hands and her body like a wedge.

“You’re doing great, keep moving, keep hands on the rail,” she said, low and steady, the way Rosalyn had taught in the dojo: organize force; don’t push people.

On the corner of the “office,” two proctors conferred, hands moving quickly. One laughed at something, then sobered and spoke into his mic, eyes jumping to the fence line. Minerva catalogued it without thinking. Not mine unless they say so. She kept the corridor open by angles and presence, not shouts. The work was boring, like it was supposed to be. Her shoulders loosened.

The second siren layer changed pitch.

The orange tone starts to blare in their earpieces.

Blue strobes snapped to life on the fence. For a beat, everybody kept doing the motions they’d been trained to do—like a reflex. Then the sound under the sound hit: a thrum from the perimeter that registered in bone, not ear. The fence along Zone D flexed inward like something huge had leaned on it. Shouts didn’t sound like acting anymore. The smoke from the “garage” crawled wrong, heavier, a color that didn’t look like glycerin. Minerva’s nose knew before her eyes did. Ozone. Burning insulation. Real.

“Breach! Breach at Gate Two!” someone screamed.

Her earpiece crackled, voices stepping on each other. “All squads hold position—no—fall back to—” static— “Zone C we’ve got—” static— “Proctors are licensed, do not—”

At the far end of the corridor, a proctor stumbled into view with blood painting one temple and an expression so flat it made Minerva’s stomach drop. “This is not part of the exam,” he barked over his loudhailer. “You will fall back to your assigned muster and take direction. Civilians first.”

Rae’s face bleached. “That’s real, right?”

Minerva swallowed. “Move them,” she said, already walking backward down the lane, hands up, palms helping the flow. “Bravo, muster. Go, go, go.”

The orange-vest civilians turned wild with the shift from pretend panic to honest fear. They clotted, tried to cram the middle. The proctor leading the way. Minerva cut them into lanes again with her shoulders and hips. She set a soft edge, two feet out, low tone, and let it tickle hair, not rattle teeth. People shifted without knowing why.

Past the “garage,” something boomed, and a lick of actual flame dragged along the roofline. A boy in spiked boots sprinted through Zone E, ricocheting off people, a speedster, too fast and messy to be a plant. Somewhere deeper, a woman screamed, and the sound had no theater in it. Proctors were yelling markers and numbers that Minerva hadn’t seen on the laminated sheet. Two heroes in heavy gear ghosted past the fence toward Zone D, comms clipped, moving in a rhythm that made examinees look like kids.

Jenson tugged Minerva’s sleeve, eyes blown wide. “We need to go. They said fall back; we’re not licensed.”

Minerva nodded, pulse climbing. “We're going.” She kept walking backward, pushing the flow.

The ground moved.

It wasn’t a tremor, nothing soft about it. The taped lane jolted like a rug yanked under their feet. K-12’s orange strap creaked. The air tasted stale. Rae squeaked and grabbed Minerva’s arm. “What—”

A wedge of pavement broke the surface thirty yards ahead and stood up. Not a slab tossed, the floor itself folding into a jagged plate. Rebar rose with it like ribs. He rose with it.

He was massive, at least 6’6”, with shoulders like a demolition rig. Gray-brown skin dusted in chalk, thick cords of muscle visible beneath a sleeveless utility vest torn at the seams. His hair was a jagged black coil bound in a short tie, and scars ran white along his forearms where rebar must’ve bitten him before.

He climbed out of the seam with his hands set in the concrete like a swimmer hauling himself from a pool. His boots glinted metal in the sunlight, each step sparking faintly against the broken asphalt. The plates weren’t fashion; they were conduits. His eyes were too pleased.

“Exams,” he rumbled, voice a low grind. “Hero factories. Let’s see what the factory makes when a wrench goes in.”

A woman in a proctor’s jacket sprinted in from Zone C with a baton of crackling light. “All examinees FALL BACK—” He flicked his wrist; the ground at her feet bulged; she tripped and hit the deck hard, skidding. Minerva saw that her arm didn’t catch her because she was holding her head. Blood darkened her hairline. No actor would take that.

Rae sobbed, “He’s real, he’s real, he’s real—”

Minerva’s comm spat, “B-Squad—Bravo muster now, do not engage, this is not—” Then a wash of static like metal grinding over teeth.

“Go,” Minerva told Rae and Jenson. “Take them.” She shoved the flow with her body, not her hands. She could feel the examinees’ fear like wind trying to change direction.

The grounder dragged a slab up by the veins of rebar and let it fall. The taped lane… wasn’t. K-12’s painted “column” was scaffolding and plywood hiding a real steel post underneath; the whole assembly moaned.

“Minerva,” Rae begged. “Please.”

Minerva opened her mouth, closed it. Obey. Fall back. She kept the civilians moving with her presence—edges low, breath in fours. The headache came like a slow nail behind her eyes. She let it be a warning.

The villain saw her doing the work and smiled with his teeth. “They teach you to walk away, little bulb?”

Minerva didn’t answer, more caught off guard by how he knew what her quirk was. Her hum thrummed low, steady as her pulse, fingers twitching at her sides.

He sank both hands into the concrete, fingers vanishing like they’d found water. The pavement heaved. Current of energy rippled outward—not lightning, but a vibration, deep and hungry, rolling under the pavement. The air vibrated against Minerva’s ribs like an earthquake trying to crawl out of her bones.

Minerva didn’t think. She shoved her hum down into her heels and barked, “MOVE!” The civilians stumbled into her soft edge and let it guide them; she threw her weight into opening the lane.

“B-3,” came a proctor over the PA, voice tight with pain. “Hold your corridor—do not—” static chew— “restrict your engagement to—”

K-12 groaned again. Dust hissed down. The vibration wasn’t stopping. The evac line would break, and civilians would get badly injured.

Restraint warred with the math. She could feel the drill in her shoulders like a leash: Do not improvise. Leave K-12. She could feel the people at her back like a hand on her spine. It wasn’t pride to stay; it was stubbornness to go.

“Rae!” Minerva snapped, making a decision. “You have the lane. Take Jenson and push them to Bravo. Don’t stop for anything. If the lane clots, shove.”

Rae blinked tears off her lashes. “What about—”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Minerva lied smoothly, because there wasn’t time for comfort and truth at the same moment. “Go.”

Rae went, voice rising: “Keep moving! Keep your hands on the rail!”

The grounder rolled his shoulders. “Good. Fewer witnesses, little light.”

Minerva flexed her hand. The hum woke under her skin under a new direction with that slippery, hungry eagerness she had spent months learning not to fear. The exhilaration came with it, sweet as a sin. She remembered Madrid—not the headlines, not the shaky video her little brother had replayed until the battery died—the feeling of speed, the self-disgust after because she’d loved it too much.

The two feelings looked at each other in her chest and nodded.

“Bearblood, B-3,” she said into her comm, voice low and even. “K-12 is unstable. Corridor breach advancing. Civilians are flowing to Bravo under B-2 and B-4. I’m taking structural countermeasures—”

“Negative, B-3—do not—” static— “do not improvise structural without—” static— “fall back—”

“…Copy,” she said, because she had to say something. She stepped sideways anyway, leaving K-12’s painted strap and the safety of doing what she was told. Positioning directive disobeyed, the part of her brain that catalogued mistakes noted primly. Penalty. Another part, older, Bearblood-mean and determined said, Make the penalty worth it.

She walked toward the grounder, and the vibrations almost disappeared.

“Hey,” she called, keeping her voice light, threaded with the sly edge that had learned when to show up and when to sit down. “You got a permit for that remodel?”

He looked delighted that she’d stayed. "I can't wait to watch you burn out."

Minerva says nothing, but immediately goes into a stance.

Then he hurled a hunk of debris—half a wall, jagged and rebar-laced.

Minerva inhaled and balled her fist, pulling charge into her arm. Sparks coiled tight, and she swung—palm open, grabbing the magnetic threads inside the rebar. The lightning tethered outward like a lasso of pure current, hooking the metal midair.

She yanked.

The debris veered, the rebar screeching against her will, then she released—hand snapping open to repulse it back. The slab slammed into the dirt ten feet away, skidding through a puff of gray dust.

Another slab ripped from the ground. Minerva sidestepped, baling her other fist this time. Lightning coiled around her forearm, brighter, wilder. She hooked the slab with a crackling lasso of current, twisted her hips, and flung it back. This time, her rope of lightning didn’t just catch; it whipped, snapping hard enough to leave a faint afterimage in the air.

The villain staggered, laughter booming through the broken corridor. “Oh, I like you.”

He rolled his wrist with one hand on the ground, sending a quake under her feet that rattled her teeth. She stumbled, boots sliding, but recovered with a quick pulse of static to steady her stance, a tether under her soles, anchoring her to the metal framework beneath the pavement.

He smirked. “You think lightning beats ground? You’re just feeding me.”

The villain crouched low and pulled. The rebar in the ground bent toward him like iron filings toward a magnet. The pavement buckled, sucking her current down into the earth until it fizzled uselessly.

Minerva’s hum stuttered. Sparks licked her fingertips and fizzled into the ground. The air vibrated. The fear returned, tight and sharp behind her ribs. He’s grounding me out.

Her body screamed. Minerva’s charge vanished, drained. Her lightning died out of her limbs, leaving her hollow.

For the first time in months, she truly felt weak.

She tried to relight her current, but it sputtered uselessly, bleeding straight into the ground. The tremors under her boots swallowed everything she made.

Her knees trembled. Fear crawled up the back of her skull.

But then, over the roar in her skull, she heard the civilians behind her shouting, still trying to crawl toward safety. Her fear had a new direction. They need me more.

“What’s wrong? Can't light up? You burn bright, you die fast.” His tone was mocking.

He hurled a chunk of broken concrete studded with rebar. Minerva ducked; it exploded against the wall behind her, sparks showering the evac corridor.

Another slab tore free. She reached for it out of instinct, baling her fist, reaching for the magnetism inside the steel. But nothing came. The air stayed dead.

Her chest tightened. Every nerve screamed for current and got none.

Then something deeper stirred, a hot ache under her ribs, the kind that came when she’d trained too long without food. Her whole body felt suddenly hungry. Not for food, not exactly, but for power.

Her muscles spasmed. The lightning flickered back to life, faint and gold-tinged this time, crawling over her skin like wildfire. The heat wasn’t external; it came from within, a furnace stoked by panic and stubborn will.

She didn’t understand it. She only knew it hurt.

Her stomach knotted. The inside of her mouth tasted metallic and sweet.

She balled her fist again and threw it out. The spark caught this time, violent and uncontrolled. Lightning roared from her hand in a thick coil, bright enough to turn dust into glass where it struck.

The lasso of current hooked the rebar midair and ripped it sideways. Sparks snapped like a whip. She opened her hand, and the debris shot back toward him. It clipped his arm and shattered against his chest plate.

“B-3, fall back,” somebody begged in her earpiece. She barely heard them over the buzz under her skin. Not a hiss anymore. The headache pressed like a brick, but she didn't care. She breathed once, twice.

“Make me,” she said, and sprinted.

She ran along the taped edge, then up the scaffolding’s cross-brace, tethering her boots to metal with a static stitch that let her treat a vertical like a floor. The villain’s eyes widened the way people’s eyes widen when gravity loses its number. He tore another slab and hurled it, intercepting her path.

Minerva’s pulse hammered. Every heartbeat burned calories like gasoline. Sweat poured down her spine; her hands shook, but her lightning held steady as she unhooks her rope.

“Come on,” she hissed through her teeth.

She hit the scaffolding’s top rail, threw her rope, and looped it around a climbing rebar spike she’d already marked. Her rope sang tight as she yanked, and the chunk of concrete he’d just hauled became a clothesline that caught him instead. He ducked too late; it smacked his jaw and made him taste his own teeth.

He bellowed, “You—”

“Yeah, me.” She didn’t wait. She reeled the rope back, spun, and lashed again.

The villain slammed his fists down. The ground convulsed, cracks radiating like spiderwebs. The shockwave stole her footing from the scaffolding, and the connection to her tether sputtered out. The moment the current drained, weakness rushed in—an emptiness so sharp her vision blurred badly as she fell.

No! Not now! Please!

Fury sharpened his face. He planted both palms and shoved. The ground shook toward the last cluster of evacuees that Rae and Jenson hadn’t reached yet: two teenagers hauling a man with an arm gone slack, a woman with a baby strapped to her chest, making them fall to the ground.

"Minerva!"

Pain flared even worse than before behind her eyes. Lightning erupted from her again, brighter, hotter, threaded with gold. Her hair lifted, haloed in static. Her skin prickled.

Minerva flips and repulses under her to break the falling momentum, but the moment her feet touch the ground.

The grounder raised both hands to smash.

Lightning poured into her legs. She blitzed along the scaffolding and ductwork, every contact a stitched spark that cheated angles. The grounder swung at where she’d been; she wasn’t there. She was already on his flank upside down on the scaffolding, rope snaking, the metal responded, lurching under her command.

The villain turned just in time for the beam to swing like a battering ram. It smashed his shoulder, making him grunt in pain. Now that's been knocked out of place, one knee hitting the cracked floor. The ground stopped shaking.

They saw the display and continued to move even faster than before. Rae took them and ran, Jenson pushing the man with the dead arm like the wheel of a plow.

The impact thundered through the space.

He went down on one knee, growling. The tremors ceased. The ground stilled.

Minerva hit the floor hard, sliding on her boots, lungs searing. She released the rope and let the current die. Her vision swam. She feels that she's running on fumes at this point.

For a second, the world tilted sideways, edges blurring, sound distant. Her body felt hollowed out, scraped clean. The lightning still danced faintly under her skin, but it was faint, lazy, like a cat curling up after a hunt.

She blinked, throat dry. Her stomach clenched so tight it almost cramped. She could smell herself burning—sweat and ozone and the faint sweetness of spent sugar.

The villain tried to rise again, but the metal around his boots sparked and fused; she’d magnetized the rebar without realizing it. He roared, pulling and failing.

“Stay...down,” she rasped.

He sneered, straining. “What are you, girl?”

She met his glare with tired eyes and a shaky grin. “Hungry.”

And then he collapsed, drained of fight, filled with pain, and the ground humming silently against him.

Dust hung thick in the humid air. The sound of sirens wavered between nearby blocks where other examinees were still fighting to hold ground.

He slumped against a cracked barrier, wrists sparking weakly where her current had fused the rebar. His head lolled, the metal plates on his boots still twitching as residual charge tried and failed to wake the ground again.

Minerva stood there swaying, rope dangling loose from her hand. Her breath came in shallow pulls, each one scraping her throat. The ozone sting in the air mixed with the metallic taste on her tongue. Her vision was rimmed in gold static.

She tried to take a step forward to the line. The world tilted.

A shape dropped beside her—a proctor in red rescue gear. Then another. Voices buzzed around her, words swallowed by the ringing in her ears.

“Candidate B-3, stand down! You’re done, kid, you did good—sit down before you—”

The floor vanished. Someone caught her under the arms, easing her onto her side.

Her muscles were trembling violently now; every nerve was misfiring. The hum inside her was gone, replaced by a hollow ache that reached from her stomach to her spine. She realized distantly that she hadn’t eaten since dawn.

Hands rolled her gently onto a stretcher. Cool plastic pressed against the back of her neck. Someone was calling for medics; another was talking fast into a headset.

“She’s in quirk shock,” a woman’s voice said above her. “Severe metabolic depletion—get a line in now.”

Something sharp pricked her arm. She flinched. She barely hears tape torn. Cold rushed through her veins.

Her thoughts scattered. For a second, she imagined she was back home, the hum of Maw’s old box fan, the smell of training grounds. She wanted to tell someone she passed, that she really did it, that she didn’t lose anyone.

But the words wouldn’t form.

Her stomach clenched again, harder this time, like her insides were trying to curl up. Her body was screaming to feed itself, but her jaw wouldn’t move. The IV drip hissed quietly beside her.

The medic nearest her leaned closer, checking her pulse. “She’s burning through it faster than we can feed it in,” he muttered. “Hang in there!”

She tried to smile, or at least to breathe an answer, but all that came out was a shudder.

The sky above her blurred into blue-white streaks.

Her last clear thought before everything went black was a strange one: Silas's right. It ain’t a dog to fear, but a beast you learn to run with...and trustin’ it won’t turn on ya.

Her chest eased for the first time all day and then the dark swept her under.

She didn’t feel the ambulance doors close. She didn’t feel the hum return.

Only the cool rush of the IV and silence.

Chapter Text

At first, there’s nothing.

Then — sound, faint and wrong.

Like static pretending to be rain.

Minerva floats somewhere between a heartbeat and silence. Her breath comes out soft, hanging in the dark like smoke. The air buzzes, not loud, but constant, like the world humming through her bones.

When her eyes open, she’s not sure if she’s standing or dreaming; she is. The sky above her folds in on itself, purple bleeding into gold, clouds pulsing faintly. Her hospital wristband glows when she moves her arm, light catching the dust that hangs in the air like bits of glass.

The ground under her bare feet feels both soft and electric, each step releasing a faint crackle. The horizon shimmers in every direction, empty except for one shape moving against the light.

A bark breaks the static.

It’s small, sharp, and reverberating through the still scenery. 

An Australian cattle dog stands a short distance away, fur painted in streaks of blue-gray and white fire, eyes burning amber like struck copper. Its tail flicks once, and lightning ripples under its skin in lazy arcs. The air around it ripples with the smell of rain hitting hot concrete, sharp enough to sting her nose.

Minerva blinks, squinting. “Hey… you lost?”

The dog tilts its head, seemingly confused. One ear is twitching as the light flickers through it. Minerva carefully approaches the dog in an attempt not to spook it. The spark began to rise from her chest the closer she got. It was barely noticeable at first, but the spark is being pulled from her.

She crouches, holding her hand out. “It’s okay. I don’t bite.”

The dog just stares, tilting their head as if assessing what Minerva’s next move might be, but every step closer thickens the hum in her chest. It’s not fear exactly, it’s recognition of what she doesn't know yet. The hum creeps up her arms like goosebumps. Her fingers tingle. Her heart beats too loudly, matching the rhythm of the ground.

When she finally reaches the dog, the air pops like a snapped wire. She touches its head, soft fur alive with flickers of static dancing up her fingertips, bright and biting.

Then—snap.

A leash of pure current flashes into existence between her palm and its collar, humming with dangerous beauty. It’s warm, alive, and aware. The pulse thrums through her entire arm.

“Whoa, whoa—” Unsure of what's happening. 

The Heeler barks once, almost as a warning, then bolts.

Minerva’s yanked forward, feet skidding through the glowing grass that bends but never breaks. Sparks explode underfoot. The leash hums so loud it drowns the background noise. She could feel her heartbeat syncing with its pull.

Her laugh breaks somewhere between thrill and terror. “Slow down, girl!”

But the dog runs faster, a streak of blue fire tearing through the field. Every step burns a trail that dissolves seconds later. Her hair whips back, full of lightning arcing through it. The sound of her own breath fracturing like static on the wind.

Every time she digs her heels in, the leash pulls tighter until her wrist burned until. “You’re gonna—!”

The dog stops.

The leash flickers, vanishes.

Momentum hurls Minerva forward. She tumbles hard, rolling until she slides to a halt, dust and sparks coating her skin. She looks up to find the Heeler standing over her, chest rising steadily, eyes calm and knowing.

The hum softens. The wind moves slowly across the grass.

The dog leans closer. Minerva reaches out, expecting another shock, but when her palm rests against the dog’s fur this time, the static smooths out. Warmth spreads through her hand, her arm, her heart. The current hums at her frequency now.

“You’re not tryna hurt me,” she murmurs. “You just want to run?”

The Heeler blinks, then presses its forehead against her knuckles.

Minerva lets out a shaky breath, staring into the eyes of the Heeler. “You’re me, huh?."

A soft rumble echoes underfoot, approval. The dog turns its head, pointing toward the endless horizon, which glows white-blue at the edges.

"I've been draggin’ you around on a leash so long you forgot how to run free.”

She laughs as she stares up into the wild yonder, breathless but sure. “Alright, ya got me. You got my trust.”

The Heeler turns and trots ahead, glancing back only once. Minerva gets up quickly to take a step, then another, until they’re running side by side. Light gathers at their heels, sparks racing up from the earth like fireflies. The world melts around them, sky, field, and light folding together until everything is a single rush of motion.

And just before it all breaks apart, she catches a glimpse of herself reflected in the dog’s eyes as they run together.

Bright. Unafraid and electric.

The morning news hit before the coffee finished brewing.

Static popped through the TV stationed in the den, which could be seen from the kitchen, the anchor’s voice too calm for the footage onscreen.

“Breaking news out of Houston — the National Hero Provisional Exam was abruptly halted after a coordinated villain strike. No fatalities have been confirmed. Several examinees remain hospitalized after performing emergency rescues—”

The feed jumped—smoke, debris, sirens. A handheld camera caught flashes of lightning between the wreckage, bright, searing, and too wild to follow.

Rosalyn stood frozen by the sink, her coffee untouched as she stared at the TV. Brenna leaned forward over the table, breath shallow.

The reporter’s voice rolled on:

“Officials have confirmed one trainee, sixteen-year-old Minerva Bearblood from Georgia, was instrumental in shielding civilians from the epicenter of the attack before collapsing—”

The room went dead still.

Henry’s hand tightened around his mug until it cracked along the handle. Micah’s spoon clinked softly against the cereal bowl. Silas put the newspaper he had down with wide eyes at the TV.

Then the screen flickered again, showing a silhouette of lightning tearing through falling beams, a flash of brown skin and blue sparks before the feed cut back to static.

Rosalyn pressed her knuckles to her lips. “That’s her...”

The landline suddenly rang.

Henry crossed the room in two strides, answering on the first ring. “Bearblood.”

A voice crackled through the speaker, clipped and professional. Henry’s jaw tightened as he listened, eyes flicking toward Rosalyn. Her expression shifted from stone to sharp worry in the space of a heartbeat.

“...Yes, this is her father,” he said, voice low. “She’s where?”

Pause.

“She’s alive?”

He closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose, and the air in the house deflated with him.

When he hung up, no one spoke for a moment. The quiet wasn’t relief—it was the kind that comes before relief.

Rosalyn finally asked, “Condition?”

“Stable,” Henry said. “Severe exhaustion. Quirk shock. They’ve got her under watch in the Houston Recovery Wing. The Commission is keeping her under evaluation.”

Rosalyn steadied herself on the sink. Brenna’s breath came out in a shaky rush. Silas clasped his hands and put them on his forehead to hide from reality and disbelief.

“Thank God,” Rosalyn breaths as leaves to get her jacket, "We're getting on the next flight.”

Brenna shoved her phone into her pocket, grabbing Micah’s arm.

“Pack light,” Henry said, reaching for the truck keys.

Everyone moved except for Silas.

Brenna stopped short when she saw his face. “You comin’?”

He shook his head once, jaw tight. “No. Someone’s gotta stay, make sure the house don’t go dark. Animals still need feedin’.”

“Are ya sure, Sil? We can get one of the neighbors—”

He raised a hand to stop her, but his eyes were glassy. “No, it’s fine.”

Even if Brenna could hear it, the tears he was holding back, the mix of anger and pride knotting in his throat, she didn’t call him on it.

“I’ll send pictures,” she said softly.

He nodded once, then turned toward the window, staring out at the frost on the pasture. “Tell her…” His voice cracked, but he didn’t finish. “Just… tell her to wake up, okay?”

Henry paused at the entrance of the kitchen, looked at his son, then moved to clap a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “We’ll bring her home.”

Silas nodded, but didn’t move much.

The plane ride to Houston wasn't bad. Nauseating for Micah, but he powered through for his big sister. They rented a car as soon as they could and drove. 

The building looked more like a courthouse than a hero agency—gray stone, mirrored windows, the flag snapping in the dry wind. The Bearbloods walked the halls together, boots heavy against the marble.

Director Miranda Clarke met them in a glass-walled conference room, her expression composed but softened by empathy.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bearblood,” she began, her voice smooth and deliberate. “Your daughter is stable. She experienced what we call full-body quirk shock, complete depletion of stored energy reserves, including metabolic stores. We’ve stabilized her and she’s under round-the-clock monitoring.”

Rosalyn sat stiffly, hands clasped so tight her knuckles blanched. Henry stood behind her, his jaw set. Brenna shifted in her seat, still pale from the flight. Micah sat beside her, eyes down.

Henry exhaled through his nose, the sound half relief, half frustration. “And the villains?”

“Contained,” Clarke said. “The perpetrators were caught on-site. Your daughter neutralized the leader, Tremorplate, a long-time mercenary. Her actions directly prevented additional casualties, and her ability to adapt likely prevented a collapse that would have buried the southern wing.”

Brenna’s breath caught. “She actually fought him?”

“She did,” Clarke replied. “And won. But it came at a cost. She burned through nearly all available reserves to keep going.”

The word burned made Rosalyn flinch.

Clarke softened her tone. “She’s young. Her body’s resilient. With rest, she’ll recover. You can see her now, just fifteen minutes, please.”

Henry stood first. “That’s all we need.”

When the family walked into the room, the machines hummed in an almost soothing rhythm. Minerva looked impossibly small under the white sheets, IV lines branching from both arms, faint shadows under her eyes. Her hair, usually full and wild, was limp from sweat and hospital antiseptic.

Brenna covered her mouth with one hand. Micah took two hesitant steps forward and touched his sister’s wrist.

Rosalyn sank into the chair beside the bed and brushed a hand over Minerva’s temple, careful not to disturb the IV line. “We’re here.”

Henry stood near the foot of the bed, silent, wanting so badly to hold her in his arms.

“She’s a fighter,” he murmured.

“She always was,” Rosalyn replied softly with a slight chuckle.

They stayed until the nurse warned that visiting hours were ending. Before they left, Brenna took a picture to send to Silas. She leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t make me come down here again, ya big dummy.”

Brenna hears the hospital monitor spike. That worried her for a second til Minerva’s fingers twitched like she was trying to hold a leash.

Her voice, faint but sure, escapes on the next exhale:

“…trust.”

A faint spark jumped from Minerva’s hand to Brenna’s sleeve, barely visible. Brenna smiled through her oncoming tears when she really had to leave. 

The next day, Minerva's world returned in pieces after that.

First, the hum of machines, steady, slow. Then the cold press of an IV taped against her arm. Then the faint antiseptic smell that no amount of fresh flowers could mask.

Minerva blinked against the sterile light—ceiling tiles, blurred. A rhythm monitor beeped somewhere near her left ear. Her mouth felt dry enough to crack.

She tried to shift her hand; tubes tugged gently against her wrist.

Her body was weightless and heavy all at once. The dull ache in her gut wasn’t pain; it was emptiness, deep and honest. The kind that came from burning through more than she had to give.

She turned her head slightly.

The small jar of wild irises and bluebonnets sat on the table bright and stubborn, surrounded by the Houston skyline with a gleam of morning rain on the glass. A folded note leaned against it.

When she swallowed, her throat clicked.

Her mind, sluggish but piecing itself together, replayed fragments: The villain’s grin, the ground heaving under her, the civilians behind her screaming, and the impossible brightness before everything went black.

She remembered the hunger. The hollow pull, the taste of metal and sugar and ozone all at once. The need.

Now, even thinking about it made her stomach twist.

A knock came at the door.

She blinked toward it, voice too weak to answer. The door opened anyway, careful, deliberate.

A tall woman in a navy blazer entered, flanked by a clipboard-carrying aide. Her ID badge gleamed: Texas Hero Commission — Director Miranda Clarke.

The woman’s smile was polite but unreadable. “Miss Bearblood.”

Minerva swallowed again, forcing her voice to scrape up from somewhere low. “That’s me.”

Clarke stepped closer, stopping beside the bed. “You gave our medical team a scare. You burned through enough body fat to starve a grown man for three days.”

Minerva’s lips twitched. “Shouldn't have skipped breakfast, huh.”

The aide coughed quietly, scribbling notes.

Clarke studied her a moment longer. “You also saved sixteen lives in your sector before the proctors could intervene. The attack was real. The villains had inside help. You made a call that likely prevented the collapse of the west wing.”

Minerva blinked, absorbing it through the haze. “Then why’s everyone talkin’ like I broke a rule?”

“Because you did,” Clarke said evenly. “You disobeyed a positioning directive. You moved into a zone marked unstable.”

“Wasn’t any time to check the fine print.”

Clarke’s mouth curved slightly, not quite a smile. “No. There wasn’t.”

Silence stretched. Machines hummed. Rain tapped the window.

Minerva looked down at her arm, tracing the IV line with her eyes. “So what happens now?”

Clarke folded her hands behind her back. “First, you pass. Second, provisional license pending full debrief and recovery clearance. But you will be observed, Miss Bearblood. What you did out there was remarkable and dangerous.”

“I know.”

Clarke tilted her head. “Do you now?”

Minerva’s gaze drifted to the rain again, then at her hands, where faint static still tickled her fingertips. “I think I've found somethin’. Not sure what yet.”

Clarke considered her for a long moment. “Hm, that we can work with.”

She handed the aide the clipboard, turned, and paused at the door. “Rest. Your family’s here. We'll talk again tomorrow.”

When they left, the room felt too quiet.

Minerva lay there, watching the IV drip catch the light, her thoughts drifting between exhaustion and wonder.

Then, light footsteps, the door easing open again.

Brenna entered first. Micah followed, holding a paper bag of snacks. Henry and Rosalyn came last, looking exhausted but relieved.

“Mini?” Brenna whispered.

Minerva turned her head toward them, eyes glassy but awake. “Hey.”

Micah attempted the most awkward hug possible, almost hitting Minvera in the face with the snack bag in his hand. She felt tears on her neck and didn't complain.

Brenna laughed wetly and sat on the edge of the bed to hold her hand. 

“You scared the hell outta us.”

Henry placed a hand on her shoulder, the weight warm and steady. “Don’t ever do that again, ya hear?”

Minerva smiled weakly. “Can’t promise nothin’, Paw.”

Rosalyn leaned down and kissed her forehead from behind Brenna. “There’s my baby.”

The IV hummed softly beside her as she looked around at all of them. Her fingers flexed faintly, a spark of static jumping between them as though remembering the leash from her dream.

Somewhere inside, the lightning stirred, but this time, it waited.

Chapter Text

The few days she had been here, the antiseptic smell had practically become part of her now. The thought alone of smelling like this made her want to barf. It clung to the sheets, the IV tape on her arm, the thin air hissing through vents above her bed.

Minerva stared at the soft green line on the heart monitor, watching it rise and fall in rhythm with her breath. The dream was still fresh on her mind. The red dirt, the dog, the leash that burned and then loosened. She could almost hear its claws scratching against the earth before the world split back into light.

A knock came at the door.

“Miss Bearblood?”

The voice was smooth and practiced. Minerva blinked and straightened as Director Miranda Clarke stepped inside, flanked by two proctors in Commission gray. Their clipboards glinted faintly in the sterile light.

Miranda smiled as she approached, not the tight, political smile from TV briefings, but a quieter one—the kind people used when they didn’t want to startle something fragile.

“Good morning,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

Minerva’s voice sounded normal again. “A lot better. ”

The proctors breathed softly in relief before catching themselves. Miranda’s eyes crinkled. “Wonderful news.”

She nodded to one of the proctors. “Let’s get started on that debriefing, I promised you.”

They walked her through the exam report. The timeline, all the injuries, the rescue count. Minerva sat upright, fingers twitching against the blanket as numbers and phrases passed around her.

Sixteen civilians stabilized.
Two minor injuries among examinees.
Property damage: minimal.

Finally, Miranda folded her hands over the clipboard and looked directly at her. “Officially," Looking just peachy about the next part, "As you know, the Commission has reviewed your performance in Houston. You demonstrated initiative, adaptability, and moral clarity under duress.”

Minerva stared, her throat tight. “Did something change?” She remembers that she passed when Mrs. Clarke spoke to her last...right?

“Yes, but we'll get to that in a moment,” Miranda said, smiling. “You passed your provisional hero exam with high commendation.”

Minerva nods slowly as she waits for the other news to hit.

Miranda continued, tone warming. “As for your provisional identity, the Commission would like to recognize you under your chosen hero name. The one you submitted on your exam form.”

Minerva blinked, suddenly remembering. “I… I put that down as a joke...and I couldn’t think of anything else."

Miranda tilted her head in amusement. “Really now?”

The two proctors exchanged glances. Minerva groaned softly, covering her face with her good hand. “It was late. I was tired.”

Miranda chuckled. “Well, tired or not, it suits you.”

Minerva peeked between her fingers. “Seriously?”

Miranda’s smile softened. “Congratulations, Lightning Lass. Welcome to the registry.”

The title hung in the air for a moment. It felt so strange, so surreal, but heavy in a good way.

Lightning Lass.

Wow.

She wasn’t sure she was ready for it, but she’d learned lately that readiness had nothing to do with rising to meet it anyway.

Miranda flipped the page of her report. “That brings us to your mentorship assignment.”

Minerva’s eyebrows lifted in the middle of thinking of other things. “Mentorship?”

“The Commission requires new licensees who experience catastrophic events during testing to train under senior supervision for their first year. Additional years pending. You’re being paired with a specialist who understands your quirk classification better than most in the field.”

The door opened behind her.

“Miss Bearblood,” Miranda said, “this is Captain Aurora Vega, also known as Starline.”

The name hit her first, and then the hum.

Aurora Vega walked in with the quiet confidence of someone who’d spent a lifetime commanding storms. She wore her uniform coat open, a Commission badge clipped neatly to her breast pocket, and her braid hung low against her back, threaded with faint copper strands that caught the light.

The proctors straightened instinctively.

Minerva did too, but for a different reason.

There was something familiar in the cadence of her steps, in the way the air around her smelled faintly of something sharp and clean.

“Captain Vega,” Miranda said, “this is Minerva Bearblood, aka Lightning Lass. She’s one of the youngest candidates to pass the Houston evaluation on record.”

Aurora smiled faintly. “So I’ve read.” Her voice carried that same mix of warmth and precision.

Minerva stared longer than she meant to.

Miranda continued, “Captain Vega has been briefed on your condition and has agreed to oversee your recovery and rehabilitation. You’ll train under her supervision once cleared for physical activity.”

Aurora folded her arms lightly. “We’ll start slow, Bearblood.”

That cadence—steady, calm, familiar. Minerva’s pulse kicked.

“You sound like someone I know,” she murmured.

Aurora’s eyes flicked toward her, thoughtful. “We’ve met before, actually.”

The room tilted.

“You were just a kid,” Aurora continued softly. “Georgia flood, power lines down, barns torn open. You looked so nervous, but you got the power box working.”

Memory flashed: red mud, her father shouting, the air buzzing as a hero in a blue coat beside her.

“I’ve seen your kind of spark light up cities,” the woman had said. “You’ll go far.”

That was her.

Minerva’s voice cracked. “It's been such a long time."

Aurora's smile was quietly proud, almost nostalgic. “You had good instincts, even then.”

Miranda looked between them, clearly pleased. “Seems fate made my paperwork easy.”

The debrief wound down from there. All the boring background things, such as medical assessments, training timelines, and post-license evaluations. Miranda’s professionalism carried through, but her tone softened as she closed the file.

“You’ve proven yourself capable, Minerva,” she said. “Now we make sure you’re sustainable.”

Minerva nodded, exhausted but steady. “I can do that.”

“I know you can.”

Miranda stood, shaking her hand. “Rest up, Lightning Lass. You’ve got work waiting for you.”

The proctors gathered their clipboards and exited first, murmuring congratulations as they went. Miranda lingered at the door. “Captain Vega, I’ll leave her in your care.”

Aurora inclined her head. “Understood.”

When they were gone, the silence that followed felt heavy with something unspoken.

Aurora pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat. “How much do you remember from Houston?”

“Most of it,” Minerva said quietly. “Enough to not wanna repeat it.”

Aurora studied her face. “You learned the hard way about energy expenditure. I did too, once. That’s why I’ll be patient with you—and why I won’t let you coast.”

“I wasn’t plannin’ on coastin’.”

“Good.”

A faint smile touched Aurora’s lips. “That makes two of us.”

The next knock came softer.

“Sis?”

Brenna peeked through the doorway, holding a bag of flowers. Behind her stood Rosalyn, Henry, and Micah. All of them were tired, travel-worn, and eyes bright with relief.

Aurora rose immediately. She said politely. “I’ll give you a moment.”

But Brenna shook her head. “Stay. We’re not interruptin’—this is part of it, right?”

Henry nodded toward Aurora. “Ma’am, appreciate you lookin’ after our girl.”

Aurora smiled lightly. “She’s in good hands. Well, her own, mostly.”

Minerva laughed weakly. “Y’all can come in before she flatters me to death.”

Brenna hurried forward, setting the flowers on the stand. “I can't believe you got her as a mentor, sis.”

Rosalyn kissed Minerva’s forehead. “I would much rather you come home, but I know you well enough.”

Micah piped up from the doorway. “Silas wanted to be here, but he’s on the farm. We got him on speaker, though.”

Brenna pulled out her phone, tapped it, and Silas’s voice crackled through.

“Mini?”

Minerva’s throat tightened. “Hey, Sil.”

“Don’t ‘hey’ me. You had me pacing holes in the porch.”

“Sorry,” she said softly. “Didn’t mean to give you gray hair.”

“You think you’re funny,” he muttered, voice breaking just slightly. Then, quieter: “I’m proud of you, kid. You did what you had to.”

Minerva blinked hard, smiling. “Comin’ from you, that’s somethin’.”

Henry cleared his throat. “What happens now?”

Aurora stepped in smoothly. “She’ll stay here for the rest of the week to complete observation, then transfer to Dallas for rehabilitation. I’ll supervise her recovery directly—strength, balance, neural pacing. Once she stabilizes and get clearance, we’ll move into advanced field control.”

Rosalyn nodded slowly. “Sounds like she’s in good hands, then.”

“She is,” Aurora said. “But she’s also in new territory.”

Minerva snorted. "I'll run circles around it."

Brenna grinned. “See? You'd better watch yourself, Starline.”

Silas’s laughter came through the phone. “Don’t let her talk back too much, Captain. That one came outta the womb arguin’.”

Aurora smiled, unafraid. “I’ll take it as a challenge.”

After a while, the conversation softened. The family filled the room’s quiet spaces with easy chatter. Silas gives farm updates, Micah tells Minerva about a new hobby he found, and Brenna’s attempts to cook in the hotel using strange kitchen supplies after her shopping spree.

Minerva mostly listened, warmth spreading in her chest. The storm inside her had gone quiet—not gone, just resting.

Aurora lingered near the window, watching the light shift across the blinds. She didn’t interrupt.

When the family finally began to leave, Silas’s voice called through the speaker, rough but fond: “Don’t you forget to eat, Lightning Lass.”

The new name rolled off his tongue like it had always been hers.

Minerva smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Aurora met her gaze once they were gone. “Lightning Lass,” she said softly. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“Still feels strange.”

“All names do, until you live them long enough.”

Minerva looked down at her hand, flexing her fingers. A faint spark jumped between her knuckles.

She exhaled. “I guess.”

Aurora nodded. Then left quietly. 

The hum of the monitors faded into the rhythm of Minerva's heartbeat.

Chapter Text

The end of the week came so fast. The hospital cleared her for take off with all her things in the duffel bag she brought. Saying goodbye to her family was a bit harder than she anticipated as she boarded the bus heading for Dallas. Micah promised to send something for her birthday next month. A hug and a kiss from her parents then Brenna calling her a gremlin then ruffling up her hair even worse than what it already was. Her phone vibrated in the nauseating silence. A message from Isaiah scrolled across the screen. 

ISAIAH: You alive down there? You dropped off the map for weeks.

MINERVA: Being in the hospital was fun…

KEIKO: That explains your silence, but not the part where you almost got yourself cooked in Houston.

MINERVA: …Yea. I know…

ISAIAH: When we heard the broadcast. Everyone thought you…you know.

KEIKO: He means we’re worried. You don’t get to scare us like that and then ghost.

MINERVA: I didn’t mean to promise

ISAIAH: Typical >.>

KEIKO: At least tell us before you go radio silent next time.

MINERVA: Ffffffine. I’ll txt b4 my next near-death experience.

KEIKO: Thank u.

ISAIAH: And hydrate. Discipline and electros.

MINERVA: Y’all sound like my maw now.

KEIKO:  >:P

MINERVA: Geez

KEIKO: don’t get too cocky 

MINERVA: I thought life threatening would let me be >:p

ISAIAH: whatev but that was impressive ngl.

Minerva puts the phone away and looks out the window absentmindedly. Seeing Dallas hits differently. Bigger sky, thicker air, more metal than green. Minerva didn’t expect to stay in Texas, but she would never pass up an opportunity like this ever. Even when Silas protested a bit over the phone, the best brother she could ever want. The Texas Hero Commission facility sits on the edge of the city, polished glass and sandstone surrounded by training lots and power conduits.

Minerva’s met by a coordinator who talks like they’re both late. They lead her to the orientation deck, where Aurora Vega—Starline—waits by a rail overlooking the sparring yard.

Up close, Captain Vega is quieter than her legend. Her presence doesn’t fill the room so much as it calms it. She studies Minerva with eyes that seem to take measurements only she understands.

“You’re punctual,” Aurora says.

Minerva straightened. “Yes, ma’am— I mean, Captain.”

A faint smile appeared on Aurora’s mouth. “Good. We’ll begin with assessment drills this afternoon. Your mother’s files mention martial background and moderate neural strain.”

Minerva blinked, feeling embarrassment creeping up her face. “She—she sent you that?”

“She wants what’s best of you.” Aurora gestured toward the track lanes. “Out here, you’ll learn motion under pressure. Rescue training, current integration, team response. My job is to help you. Questions?”

“No, Captain.”

“Good. Drop your bag and stretch. Heat’s already trying to kill you.” A light chuckle at her own joke.

Aurora gestures toward the open yard. “We’ll start simple. You can take a break later.”

Minerva grins, half-wild already. “Simple sounds good.”

Just like that her birthday came and went. She never trained this hard, and it showed…a little.

Training burns fast and bright the first few days. The Commission’s yard is a maze of stations, dummy circuits, debris drills, obstacle courses, quirk regulation sensors. Minerva learns quickly that “simple” here means controlled chaos.

Her muscles ached before the end of the morning.

The rope she used wasn’t built for what she asked of it. It was an old farm line she’d modified herself—stiff and frayed— the copper braid showing in bright flashes whenever she charged it. Every strike made it hum like a generator on its last leg.

Minerva rolled her shoulders, the weight dragging against her palm. The heat off the wiring bit her skin, but she didn’t stop. She snapped the line once across the training field, no finesse, just force. Sparks scattered where it hit, and smoke curled from the dummy’s padding.

Too much charge. Always too much.

She cursed, shook her hand, and tried again. This time she looped the rope underhand, pulling from her hips the way her mother had drilled. The line arced clean, wrapped the dummy’s shoulder, and with one hard twist she tore it off its base.

Her chest heaved, breath catching with the aftershock. The current crawled through the copper, hot and restless, begging to jump. She kept her grip anyway. That was the trick, in her mind, just the refusal to let go.

Aurora moved through the drills like she was teaching a language. “Your stance is fine,” she said. “Your timing isn’t. Don’t rush the release. Listen before you act.”

Minerva wiped sweat from her brow. “It’s wrestling me.”

“If you force it, it fights you.” Aurora stepped closer, her gloved fingers catching Minerva’s wrist and tilting it just so. “Align. Focus.”

Minerva exhaled and tried again. The rope coiled, flicked, and struck. This time the current rolled through it smooth—less like a shout, more like a sentence finally spoken right.

Aurora let go and nodded once. “Better.”

Minerva flexed her hand, copper still hot against her palm. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t,” Aurora said, her voice calm, “But you’ll get there.”

That was the thing about Aurora Vega, she didn’t waste words. Every piece of advice she gave landed like a stepping stone Minerva hadn’t realized she’d been looking for.

When Captain Vega stepped back, Minerva coiled the rope again, pulling the slack tight. The old copper braid still hissed and sparked, but she felt something different in it now,

She struck once more, lighter this time. The rope hit its mark clean, the current holding steady.

It wasn’t perfect. But it listened, just long enough for her to feel the budding trust between her and quirk.

Minerva’s jaw tightens; left eye twitching slightly. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t. But you’ll get there.”

Aurora crouched beside the scorched mat, where the copper braid still smoked faintly. “May I?” she asked.

Minerva passed her the rope, wary—it still buzzed faintly from the last discharge.

Aurora turned the line over in her hands, fingertips brushing the exposed copper. A faint silver light pulsed beneath her gloves, each beat echoing through the metal like a heartbeat answering her own. The rope quieted almost instantly, its residual hum evening out to a steady thrum.

That was her quirk, Circuit Sync. She didn’t overpower the current; she met it, matched its wavelength until the charge settled.

“Most people try to control this part,” Aurora said. She lifted the rope slightly. The current danced between her fingers, soft and obedient. “But the current already knows where it wants to go. You guide the path, not the will.”

She gave the rope a small, almost lazy flick of her wrist. The movement looked wrong at first—too slight, too relaxed—but the copper line snapped outward and coiled itself neatly around a nearby dummy’s arm. Another twist, gentler this time, and the loop fell away, sliding across the floor without leaving a mark.

No smoke. No sparks. Just precision.

Minerva stared more bewildered than anything. “How did you—”

Silver sparks flitted between her knuckles as she passed the rope back. “You wrestle your lightning until it gets tired of you. Your power isn’t the problem. It’s your impatience.”

Minerva turned the rope in her hands. It felt lighter somehow, like it recognized the difference.

Aurora stood, brushing ash from her gloves. “Again.”

Minerva reset her stance. The rope uncoiled, crackled faintly, then settled. This time, she copied the motion she’d seen—smaller wrist rotation, less shoulder, let the current carry instead of forcing it.

The rope arced out in a clean loop, caught the dummy’s torso, and stopped exactly where she meant it to. No flare, no burn.

Aurora’s mouth curved, just a hint. “See? You don’t always have to shout to be heard.”

Minerva grinned, breathless from the sudden ease. “Guess it does listen a little better when I do.”

“Good,” Aurora said, stepping back toward the console. “Now let’s see if you can make it listen twice in a row.”

Minerva rolled her neck, the grin still there. “You’re enjoying this, aren't cha'?”

Captain Vega didn’t deny it. “A little. Go again.”

It was a late night in July; Minerva’s slipped out into the auxiliary yard alone. Street lights barely lighting the area. She still had her rope braided with copper wire from home, testing conductivity. The night air is thick and brimming with lingering electricity in the air. She coiled it around her wrist, exhaled, and began small pulses down its length. The air crackled faintly blue. She’s chasing a spark that won’t settle; no matter how hard she tries to meditate.

She gets the rope to lasso around a metal pole. A twitch her arm muscles sends lightning through the palm of her hand in hopes of grounding that annoying spark keeping her up. This is what she gets for not checking her gear thoroughly since the rope snaps unceremoniously in half through a pull, fizzing bright for a moment then looking like an angry fuse writhing for a moment after. Minerva’s shoulders slump in aggravation holding what was left of her rope.

“This is some horse hockey…” Minerva mutters.

“Whoa,” a voice says from behind her which did make her wince. “You trying to take out the building or what?”

Minerva spun around to see a short woman, no taller than Minerva’s shoulder. Her bronze skin, curls pulled into a hasty bun, safety goggles perched on her forehead and a coffee cup in hand jogged closer.

“Nia Ortiz,” she says, sticking out a hand still smudged with graphite and eyes wide. “Support division. And you must Bearblood, right? Read the file about you and I see what they mean.”

Minerva blinks somewhat concerned before shaking her hand. “You make it sound like I did it on purpose.”

Nia grins. “You didn’t?” She takes the frayed rope with her free hand from Minerva’s without so much as a please.

“Well, you’re either a miracle or a lawsuit in the making with this rope,” Nia squeezes and rubs the rope, “Hm, hand braided copper composite. You must’ve fell asleep making this cause it seems like you reversed the coil halfway though.” She cocks her head heading into a deep thought.

Minerva stares in disbelief of this person and reaches for the rope. How dare she talk about her rope making skills. Nia straightens back up like spring.

“BUT! You just made my night.”

“What…?” Minerva stops mid reach “Jus’ give me back my rope, please.”

Nia moves just out of reach with the rope tucked behind her now.

“Nope, you got my interest and now you’re stuck with me,” Nia's face scrunches into something cat-like as she smiles, then started muttering calculations under her breath, tracing the frayed end of the rope.

“Yeah… segmented carbon weave could handle that pulse load if you channel it right. Give me a minute, if the boys help this time.”

 “Just take all my things, why don’tcha.”

“Finally,” Nia says, “Someone who doesn’t argue with genius.”

Minerva can’t contain the laughter boiling over at this lady walking away, no, practically running with her prized possession.

The next morning, Captain Vega found the other end of the rope that Minerva completely forgot to grab.

“Midnight training, really?”

“Couldn’t sleep, captain.”

“Couldn’t follow rules, either.” Aurora sighed but not harshly. “You need to report to support. I was told they have something for you.”

Minerva blinked and remembered the lady from last night. “Already?”

Aurora waved Minerva off in the direction of the support building.

The lab smells faintly of oil when she opens the door. Nia’s workspace is a storm of schematics, bolts, and coffee mugs. She waves Minerva in without looking up.

Nia’s desk buzzed with light and noise. Schematics, bolts, coffee mugs, coils of wire, screens, toolboxes, and the faint hiss of solder filled the space. Nia was there, sleeves rolled to the elbow, humming along to music from a speaker clipped to her belt.

 Nia looks up at her when she got close and her grin split wide open. “Hey, farmgirl!"

Minerva rolls her eyes with shoulders sagging in annoyance.

"Please don't call me th-"

"Perfect timing. Hold this.”

Before Minerva could protest, Nia shoved a new rope—sleek, dark, segmented—across the table.

“This is Lariat.” Minerva picks it up anyway.

 “That’s a horse name,” Minerva says skeptical of Nia’s naming conventions.

Nia ignores it like a duck in the rain.

“One, exactly. Two, this is going to help you so much, and three, don’t sass me, Farmgirl.” Nia waggles all three fingers and puffs her chest like she’s giving a presentation.

“I re-did your disaster. Carbon joints, insulated core, dynamic pulse spread. Shouldn’t kill you. Probably.”

Minerva raised a brow. “Probably?”

“Hey, progress isn’t always safe.” Nia adjusted a gauge, eyes flicking up. “The first version cooked itself when I put electricity through it,” she says absentmindedly.

“That’s… comforting,” Minerva says squinting her eyes at the rope in hand.

As she holds the rope loosely in hand. It was lighter. Minerva pulses lightning though it. It absorbs the energy as it hums faintly in Minerva’s grip.

“It feels…interesting.”

Nia’s eyes light up in glee watching Minerva test it out in front of her.

“Then I did it right.” Clapping in excitement of the rope working better than anticipated.

For the first time since she arrived, Minerva doesn’t feel like she’s the only one chasing the impossible.