Aurelia doesn’t take the shortcut through the park.

She wants the walk to last.

She needs it, honestly. If she goes straight back to the Vanguard Collective headquarters, there’s nothing waiting for her except the mounting weight of her own failure. And the elevator ride with its shaming mirrored walls, and the cold, glass-walled conference room where she’s supposed to be leading the future.

She’s never felt less like a hero.

Five more minutes. Ten. Eventually, though, the steel and glass monolith of the VC headquarters looms before her, inescapable as gravity.

“Welcome back, Aurelia.”

The lobby bustles with activity. Junior heroes in training, administrative staff, and tech personnel move with purpose. Several nod or wave in her direction. A few offer congratulations on this morning’s intercept—the bank robbery she’d stopped downtown. Textbook stuff. Flash of light, display of power, criminals on their knees. No casualties, minimal property damage. The kind of thing that makes for good press releases.

“Nice work with those Syndicate goons,” says Cade as he falls into step beside her. His costume is still singed from whatever fire he’s been putting out today. “Three armed men and you didn’t even break a sweat.”

“Thanks,” she says, jabbing the elevator button harder than necessary.

“Something wrong?”

“Project meeting in five minutes.”

“Ah.” Cade’s enthusiasm deflates. He knows better than to ask more.

The elevator arrives and Aurelia steps inside, grateful when Cade doesn’t follow. The doors slide closed, and she’s alone with her reflection. The gold and white uniform looks immaculate as always, not a single sign of this morning’s exertion. The mask hides the dark circles under her eyes, but nothing conceals the tight line of her mouth or the tension in her shoulders.

Fourteen floors up, the doors open to the Special Projects level. Aurelia’s access badge gets her through three more security checkpoints before she reaches the Catalyst wing.

An entire wing, named after her flagship project. Her flagship failure.

And why not?

She’d pitched it with such pure confidence at the time. The supreme self-assuredness of someone who’s never been wrong, someone whose photograph might as well be in the dictionary next to the word hero. When the marketing department of the Vanguard Collective stuck the mother of all heroes moniker on her, it stuck, and despite her best efforts to stay sober… she drank some of her own kool-aid, ultimately.

On that height of confidence, she pitched Project Catalyst—a revolutionary programme to rehabilitate superpowered villains.

She swipes her keycard at the final checkpoint and steps onto the Observation Deck.

The one-way glass stretches before her, partitioning the deck into three viewing sections—one for each of her charges.

Three specialized containment cells, three extraordinary women who hate her with every fiber of their being.

In the left cell, Vesper floats cross-legged a foot above her bed, midnight hair cascading around her shoulders like spilled ink. Her slender fingers dance in the air, trailing wisps of dark energy that collect and disperse like phantom smoke. The gravity manipulator wears standard-issue gray sweats, but somehow makes them look elegant, dangerous. Her eyes—deep violet and unnaturally bright—stare at nothing and everything, contemplating escape routes Aurelia has already anticipated and blocked.

A princess, or a perfect statue. Calm, composed. Except for the way she toys with the darkness.

Vesper’s fingers move minutely, and the shadows crawl. A pen on the table rolls in lazy circles, defying both gravity and purpose. Sometimes a rivulet of her hair will float free, trailing up and away from her scalp, as if she’s living underwater.

“Bored again?” Aurelia asks to herself, watching Vesper’s fingers sketch complex patterns. The woman had once used those same delicate gestures to create gravitational fields that pinned her victims against walls, floors, ceilings…

The file says it in clinical terms: “Subject has used paragravitational force to restrain and disempower targets for sexual gratification.” She knows the real meaning. Vesper has raped more people than she’s killed, and she’s killed quite a few.

Vesper is beautiful in a way that seems deliberately weaponized. Her eyes flick up to the glass, and Aurelia wonders, for the thousandth time, whether she somehow knows she’s being watched.

She shudders, and turns away.

Second cell: Pyra.

There’s never any question which room belongs to Pyra. The air inside wavers with heat, blurring her figure at the edges, making everything shimmer like a fever dream. Pyra is sprawled across her bunk in the laziest possible pose, one bare foot propped on the wall, the other dangling off the mattress. She’s almost naked, as always. The jumpsuit issued to her at intake lasted ninety minutes before she burned it off her own body. They tried heat-resistant fabric. No luck. Now she just gets a sports bra and a pair of black briefs, which she wears like a taunt.

Her skin is flawless, glowing gold, sweat pearling every curve. Red hair fans across the pillow, shining like a warning. Pyra’s lips are full, parted in a crooked smile, as if she’s waiting for an audience. Even alone, she’s never alone.

Aurelia knows that look. The one that says: I’m impossible. I’m untouchable.

Pyra is infamous for what she did with her powers. Victims found delirious, clothes half-melted off their bodies, describing a pleasure so intense it bordered on torture. Her heat didn’t just burn; it infected, crawled beneath the skin, turned blood to molten desire. Made people beg for relief only she could provide.

Aurelia’s mouth is suddenly dry. She swallows, and moves on.

Kallas is a wall of presence. She fills the cell just by existing, muscles straining against the cut of her modified uniform. She’s sitting on the floor with her back against the far wall, knees up, arms draped careless across them. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, intelligent, and completely unimpressed by the world.

Kallas is a woman that can bend steel with one hand. And she loves nothing more than to bend human flesh instead.

hese women are criminals. Rapists. Murderers in Kallas’s case. Yet something about their raw physicality, their absolute comfort in their own bodies and abilities, draws her gaze in a most uncomfortable way.

They move without self-consciousness. Without the rigid control she maintains every waking moment. Without fear of their own power.

“They’re not getting better,” she whispers to the empty observation deck. “They’re getting worse.”

She wants to leave.

But if she does… the only thing that will change is how fast Project Catalyst is shut down.

She can almost see the conference room already: the board members, every one of them so polished, so cutting. “Aurelia, we gave you full latitude to try things your way. The program is now a liability. Project Catalyst is terminated.”

It’s impossible to shake the feeling that her legacy hangs by a thread. Which is ridiculous. She’s the mother of all heroes. Her legacy is the lives and property she saves. So what if she tries something noble and it doesn’t work? It would just mean that she’s, well…

Still human.

Not perfect.

Fallible.

She shouldn’t flinch at the mere idea, and yet she does. No, she’s going to make this work. She just has no other option. The alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.

She heads down towards the Catalyst wing common room, then triggers the automated lockdown releases on the three cells, one by one.

The common room is a stark space. Padded furniture in neutral colors, designed to be both comfortable and indestructible. No corners sharp enough to weaponize. No objects heavy enough to throw with deadly force. The lighting is calibrated to a soothing warm white that supposedly encourages calm.

It doesn’t work.

Aurelia stands in the center of the room, shoulders squared, feet planted. Waiting. She’s arranged three meditation cushions in a semicircle facing her own.

Vesper is the first to arrive. She glides into the common room, feet not touching the ground, hair trailing behind her. Fucking theatrical, always. She doesn’t look at Aurelia, not properly. Her eyes slide away, dismissing. But there’s a little twist to her mouth, sharp and contemptuous. She chooses the cushion at the far left, and the way she sits is just… calculated effortlessness. Legs crossed, posture regal, hands folded delicately in her lap.

Not a word. Not a greeting. Just silent, simmering challenge.

Pyra is next. She doesn’t walk so much as swagger, hips rolling, crowned in a shimmering aura of heat. The temperature in the room rises a full five degrees just from her presence.

“What’s all this?” she says, eyeing the cushions with obvious disdain. “Arts and crafts hour?”

At least, thankfully, she does sprawl on her cushion, stretching her calves, rolling her shoulders. Then she deliberately leans back, propping herself up on both palms, chest thrust out.

Aurelia feels suddenly flustered. Is Pyra putting up a show for her? Her smile is crooked, lazy, daring Aurelia to look away first. Daring anyone to admit that she’s impossible to ignore.

Aurelia tries for even, calm. “We’re having a group meditation session. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. That’s all.”

“How fascinating,” Vesper says. “The mighty Aurelia wants to play guru.”

Before Aurelia can answer, Kallas fills the doorway. The big woman takes in the scene with one sweep of her eyes, focusing on Aurelia with the intensity of a predator assessing prey—or competition.

Aurelia nods towards her in greeting, gesturing to the cushions. “Please, sit.”

Kallas crosses her arms. “No.”

Aurelia feels it, the moment they’re all assembled—the pressure. Four women, all dangerous, all used to being in control, all shoved together in a small space. It’s not going to be easy, or civil, or anything remotely close to therapeutic.

“That wasn’t a request.”

Kallas laughs. “Or what? You’ll put us back in our cages? We’re already in prison, Mother.” She spits the title like venom.

Aurelia forces herself to breathe evenly. “The sooner you cooperate, the sooner we can make progress.”

“Progress toward what?” Kallas says, taking a heavy step forward. “Turning us into good little heroes like you?”

“Toward controlling your abilities without harming others.”

Vesper drifts to one of the cushions and settles onto it with supernatural grace. “I control my abilities perfectly well. As it happens, I control others quite well, too,” she says. A small object—a button from her shirt—rises from her palm and orbits her fingertips. “It’s my choices you object to.”

Pyra shakes her head. “This is bullshit.”

Kallas remains standing.

“Please sit, Kallas.”

“Make me,” she says, a dangerous gleam in her eye.

It takes all of Aurelia’s willpower not to put her face in her hands. In a way, Pyra’s correct. It’s stupid. She knows it instinctively: they hate her guts, and worse, they hate the weakness she conjures inside themselves every time she walks into a room. She’s living proof of everything they’re not allowed to have. She’s the one who caught them. She’s the reason they wake up powerless, every day.

“Alright. Remain standing, Kallas, if you like. This is a simple voluntary exercise in relaxation,” she says. “Close your eyes, everyone9. Focus on your breathing.”

Vesper’s eyes slide shut, her lashes casting delicate shadows on her cheeks. But there’s a mocking curl to her lips.

“Breathe in for four counts,” Aurelia says. “Hold for seven. Out for eight.”

Pyra snorts. “Is this supposed to stop me from wanting to burn things?”

Kallas finally sits, dropping heavily onto the cushion. The floor vibrates slightly with the impact.

“Quiet, please,” Aurelia says. “Focus inward. Find the center of your power. Visualise it as a light inside you.”

“Mine’s more of a bonfire,” Pyra says. When Aurelia opens her eyes, she sees tendrils of flame dancing between Pyra’s fingertips.

“Put that out,” Aurelia says sharply.

“Make me,” Pyra echoes Kallas’s earlier challenge, the flames growing higher.

Vesper’s eyes are open now, violet and luminous. Objects around them—pens, cushions, a water bottle—begin to lift slightly off surfaces.

“Enough,” Aurelia says, her own power rising in response. Golden light spills from her skin, a reflexive defense.

“Ooh, the hero is getting angry,” Pyra says, giggling. The temperature spikes again.

Kallas stands, her massive frame tensing. “Your light doesn’t scare us,” she says. “We’ve all felt it before, haven’t we, girls? When she took us down.”

“This isn’t productive,” Aurelia says, struggling to maintain control. Her light pulses brighter.

“Neither is pretending we’re in a yoga studio,” Vesper says. The gravity in the room shifts subtly, creating a nauseating sense of vertigo. “You can’t meditate away what we are.”

Aurelia’s light flares in response, a solar flare of power that makes the others squint and shield their eyes. The meditation cushions scatter in the sudden energy burst.

“That’s enough!” she says, her voice ringing with authority.

But it’s too late. The feedback loop of power and antagonism has spiraled beyond control. Pyra hurls a fireball that Aurelia barely deflects. Vesper uses the distraction to create a gravity well that nearly brings Aurelia to her knees. Kallas charges forward.

The security alarms blare. Suppression systems activate, dousing the room in a fine mist that dampens powers—somewhat. It’s enough for Aurelia to regain her footing.

“Back to your rooms,” she says, shaking with anger. “Now.”

Guards appear at the doorway, armed with specialized containment equipment.

Pyra’s flames sputter in the mist. “This was fun,” she says with a wicked smile. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

As they’re escorted out, Vesper pauses beside Aurelia. “You can’t fix us,” she whispers. “Because we’re not broken. We’re just not like you.”

When they’re gone, Aurelia stands alone in the ruined common room, water dripping from her hair. The meditation cushions lie scattered and forgotten.

Another failure to add to the list.

She closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing the way she’d instructed the others to do. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Funny. As it turns out, meditation doesn’t help her either.

***

Eight minutes late to the executive conference room. Not an auspicious start.

Aurelia stands in the hallway outside, adjusting her uniform, jaw locked so tight her molars ache. She should have changed out of her costume, or at least swapped the mask for something less… theatrical. But there’s no time.

She hates this hallway. The way it leads directly to the Board’s domain, glass on both sides, no place to hide.

The final set of doors slides open, silent and ominous, and there they are: seven Board members. Three in person, four framed on screens like the heads of some digital hydra.

“Brigadier Aurelia. We’re glad you could join us.”

She’s not. But she steps forward, shoulders back, face betraying nothing.

She sits at her designated position: six feet of empty table between her and the first Board member. Not a single hand extended. Not a single smile.

“We understand you’ve just come from a session with the Catalyst cohort,” says Rhee, acting Chairman. Her voice is perfectly even. The voice of a person who has never risked herself for anyone but her own projections spreadsheet.

Aurelia nods. “Correct.”

“We received incident reports from the security system.”

Not a question.

Aurelia waits for an opportunity to respond but none is given. Next comes the slide deck. It materialises on the wall-to-wall display—the first page an absolute obituary for hope:

INTERIM STATUS: PROJECT CATALYST

Failure Rate: 88.5%
Projected Recidivism: 99%
Public Sentiment: -34 Sentiment Points
Incidents of Noncompliance: See Appendix A
Program Cost Overrun: 107%

Her mouth is dry. She swallows.

Rhee doesn’t bother looking at Aurelia, just keeps her eyes on the data. “We’ve seen no measurable gains in psychological stability, impulse control, or valuation of civilian life. The subjects remain, by all metrics, unfit for social reintegration.”

Another Board member—a man named Dr. Hanley, skin tight as wax on his skull, smiles even tighter. “Aurelia, your approach is innovative, but we must be clear-eyed. These are not ordinary criminals. They are, as you yourself described in your initial proposal, biological hazards to public morality.”

The phrase rings out, horrifyingly bureaucratic.

Biological hazards to public morality.

“The language I use in official reports is one thing,” Aurelia says, hands gripping the edges of the desk. Her knuckles are going white. “But we are talking about people. These women—”

“These women,” interrupts Miranda Chen, head of non-powered security, “are not misguided teenagers. Vesper killed nineteen people. Kallas broke a man’s spine on live television. Let’s not even get into the sexual assaults, the arson, the property damage, the robberies—”

“I’m aware of their crimes,” Aurelia says, primly.

“Are you? Because you seem more interested in coddling them than protecting the public.”

“That’s not fair! I designed Catalyst to be more effective than our current methods. Neural dampening is—”

“Proven,” Rhee says, softly, so softly. “Effective. And profitable.”

Aurelia lowers her eyes. Yes, profitable. The government pays a hefty sum for every dampened villain, and the technology is proprietary to Vanguard Collective. Plus, the supermax prison comes with generous ongoing containment fees.

They move on before she can marshal another argument.

The marketing director, a sleek woman named Talia, speaks up. “The PR angle isn’t working either. The public doesn’t want to see villains in therapy. They want to see justice served.”

“And how is lobotomy justice?” The words escape before Aurelia can stop them.

Silence falls across the table. Mercifully, Aurelia thinks, no one points out that she’s never had a problem with the procedure before.

Rhee again. “What we need from you, Aurelia, is measurable change. Not at some distant point in the future, but now. We are giving you thirty days to demonstrate an improvement of at least point-three on the composite mental stability index. That is… generous, given current trendlines.”

Thirty days.

“If improvement is not observed,” says Hanley, “The subjects will be remanded to Supermax custody and subjected to neural dampening protocol.”

There’s a pause. The phrase just hangs there, like the threat it is. Neural dampening protocol. The Board’s favorite euphemism. A lobotomy for powered villains.

Rhee folds her hands, unadorned fingers perfectly still. “We want to be clear about the consequences of failure. This program was an indulgence, and it has come at significant expense. If your cohort cannot be stabilised, they will be processed through official channels.”

The Board just stares at her, waiting to see if she’s going to be difficult.

She isn’t.

Aurelia walks out of the conference room in a daze.

She walks, because she can’t stop walking. If she stops, the pressure will catch up.

Thirty days.

It’s laughable. It’s cruel. It’s exactly what she should have expected.

She can’t even muster the energy to be angry about it. The truth is… she understands the Board’s perspective completely. They are, in a way, the most honest humans in this building, soulless as they are. They look at the numbers—all the hemorrhaging money, all the bad press, all the liability risk—and they do exactly what the world trained them to do.

They pull the plug. They go for the elegant solution. They do what is profitable and safe, and they make it sound like there could never be an alternative.

She can hardly claim the moral high ground. Yes, neural dampening is a monstrous procedure. And? How many times has she been the instrument of that fate? How many times has she captured and dragged a villain or villainess (a person, a woman, someone’s daughter) into custody, handed her off to the system, knowing exactly what would happen next?

She’d be a hypocrite to object. The only difference is, this time, she had hope. She was betting on herself. She was betting she could do better than the system. That she could win at something impossible, just by being… Aurelia.

But she’s losing. And she’s not used to that.

Thirty days. How the hell is she going to turn this around in thirty days?

***

Thirty days. Thirty days. Thirty days.

Aurelia repeats it to herself like a mantra as she retreats to her office, closing the door with a quiet click.

The space is designed for the “modern executive superhero,” a phrase she’s always privately hated. Sparse and minimally decorated—no personal photos, no mementos. Every surface is glass, chrome, or some soft, soundless polymer. A holographic display drifts above the main table, ready to project her schedule, her meetings, and emergency summons for deployments. Other than that, a few tactical maps, and a wall of screens monitoring activity throughout the facility.

She sinks into her chair, pressing her palms against her eyes until she sees stars. Thirty days. Thirty days to accomplish what she couldn’t in months.

“Computer, display Project Catalyst files. All sessions, chronological order.”

The screens flicker to life. Hours of footage—meditation attempts, cognitive behavioral therapy, power control exercises. All failures.

She watches herself on screen, earnest and determined, while Vesper rolls her eyes, Pyra flirts inappropriately, and Kallas stares with naked hatred. The pattern is unmistakable. Every time Aurelia enters the room, the energy shifts. Hostility spikes. Defenses rise.

“Because they hate me,” she whispers.

She sits forward.

They hate me!

The realisation is so simple it feels stupid. They hate her. Of course! She’s been focusing on the wrong thing. Not the method, but the messenger.

“They need someone they don’t fear,” she says to the empty room. “Someone who isn’t a threat. A non-powered mediator.”

She pulls up the Vanguard personnel database. “Filter: psychology credentials. Filter: zero power rating.”

The list narrows dramatically. Most Vanguard employees have at least minor abilities—it’s practically a prerequisite for working with powered individuals. She scrolls through the remaining profiles, scanning qualifications. Most are administrative staff with basic or no psych training. Not what she needs.

“Expand search: recent applicants, psychology background, zero power rating.”

A new set of profiles appears. She skims past several until one catches her eye.

Twenty-eight year old man. Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a focus on trauma recovery. Power rating: absolute zero.

His application is recent—submitted just last week. She reads his personal statement, something about wanting to help bridge the gap between powered and non-powered communities through empathic understanding.

His photograph shows a man of average height and build. Brown hair, glasses, neutral expression. There’s nothing remarkable about him. He looks… normal. Forgettable, even.

Perfect. Perfect!

***

Julian stares at the pile of unpaid bills on his makeshift coffee table—actually just a wooden crate he found behind the corner bodega. The red FINAL NOTICE stamps seem to glow in the dim light filtering through his grimy studio window. Outside, the constant drone of the city provides a fitting soundtrack to his misery.

His laptop wheezes when he opens it. The thing is ancient, but it’s all he’s got left.

“Another rejection,” he says, scrolling through his inbox. Another company telling him he’s overqualified, which is corporate-speak for “we don’t want to pay you what you’re worth.” He laughs bitterly. What is he worth these days, anyway?

He glances at the framed diploma on the wall—the only thing he’s bothered to hang up. Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Fat lot of good that’s done him. Every professor had the same refrain: “Julian, you’re brilliant. Your insights on trauma recovery are revolutionary.” Yet here he is, eating instant ramen for the fifth night in a row.

Julian rubs his eyes and continues scrolling through his email, deleting spam without really looking at it. In a world where people can fly or shoot lasers from their eyes, who cares about some normal guy with a fancy degree? The heroes get all the glory, the villains get all the attention, and regular people like him just try not to get crushed when buildings collapse during the epic battles.

He pauses, finger hovering over the delete button. A new message catches his eye, not because of the subject line, but because of the sender: recruitment@vanguardcollective.com.

“No way,” he says, clicking on it despite himself. He’d sent a job application there, but it was for the hell of it. When even the coffee shop down the street turned him down, surely the planet’s largest megacorp wouldn’t… they wouldn’t just…

The email loads, and the gold-and-white seal of the Vanguard Collective fills his screen, impossibly bright against the dinginess of his apartment.

Julian blinks, then reads the message again, certain he’s hallucinating from malnutrition.

“Dear Dr. Julian Villa,” it begins. “Following review of your recent application, we are pleased to invite you to a personal interview for a specialized position within our Rehabilitation Division. Due to the sensitive nature of this role, your interview will be conducted by Brigadier Aurelia herself.”

“Holy shit,” he whispers, nearly knocking over his lukewarm coffee.

“Brigadier Aurelia herself.” He says the words aloud, testing their reality.

The Mother of all Heroes wants to interview him? The woman whose face is on half the billboards in the city? The one who stopped the Liberty Bridge collapse last year, saving thousands of lives? That Aurelia?

“Don’t screw this up,” he tells himself, already digging through his closet for his one good shirt. “This might be your last chance.”

Outside, a hero streaks across the sky, leaving a trail of golden light. Julian watches through his window, wondering if it’s her—Aurelia—and what she could possibly want with someone like him.

TO BE CONTINUED…