Slumdog Hero

Fii returned to her task, digging deeper into the sand. The soil grew damper the further down she went, until finally her fingers brushed against something hard and fibrous—a root. Following it, she traced its path to a cluster of plants that had appeared dead at first glance.

"Found it," she said, leaning back on her heels. "There's water here, but it's deep. We'll need to dig down at least a meter."

"That'll take hours," Serena complained.

"We don't have hours," Luke said, glancing at the merciless sun. "Not in this heat."

"Then we'd better get creative." Fii looked around, assessing their resources. "One still won't be enough for three people. We'll need at least three if we want to stay standing by nightfall."

"Three?" Serena repeated. "You really think we can build that many?"

"We need to," Fii said firmly. "One still might give us half a liter in a day—barely enough for one person. Three gives us a fighting chance."

"Stand back," Luke said suddenly, stepping toward the spot Fii had been digging.

"What are you doing?" Serena asked.

Luke rolled his shoulders, the undersuit material shifting like a second skin. "Making myself useful."

Fii watched him take position, the stance triggering memories of grainy footage that occasionally made it to the slum feeds. Diamond Ace, the Ultimate Guardians' enforcer—stopping runaway vehicles with a single palm, shattering reinforced walls without breaking stride. The gang kids on Neon Alley called him "One-Punch Wonder," their eyes wide with a respect they'd never admit out loud.

He settled into a balanced stance over the dampest part of the soil, the muscles in his arms tensing beneath the undersuit. The material around his knuckles began to shimmer with a faint blue energy field, air distorting around his fist like heat waves.

With a controlled motion that belied its force, he drove his fist straight down. The impact sent a ripple through the ground, more than simple percussion—the sand flowed outward like water disturbed by a stone. Where his fist connected, a perfect depression formed, nearly half a meter deep with sides so smooth they might have been carved.

The ground vibrated under Fii's feet, gravity shifts dancing in patterns her senses registered as clearly as sound or sight. Not chaotic—focused, channeled, precise.

Luke straightened, inspecting his handiwork without a hint of strain. "Kinetic manipulation," he said, catching Fii's expression. "I absorb impact energy, store it, redirect it. Or amplify it if needed."

Fii crouched beside the hole, running her fingers along the rim. Smooth, almost glassy where the sand had partially fused from concentrated force. "Fancy party trick."

"You've only seen the demolition footage," Luke noted, moving toward the second marked location. "The Guardians prefer marketing the flashier applications."

He demonstrated again, this time with an almost casual efficiency. A light stomp to gather energy, then both palms pressed against the earth. The ground simply... parted, compressing outward to form another perfect cavity.

Nothing like the videos Fii had seen—Diamond Ace throwing criminals through walls, stopping a bus by grabbing its chassis. This was surgical, controlled. Like watching a master craftsman rather than a weapon.

"You feel the weight shift," Fii observed, sensing the subtle gravitational changes his power created. Not simply redistribution of force—he was momentarily altering the mass of the earth itself.

Luke glanced at her, a flicker of surprise crossing his features. "Most people don't notice that."

"Most people aren't gravity-sensitive." Fii gestured toward the third marked spot. "Got enough juice for one more?"

"I'm not running on batteries," Luke said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "The absorption limit's about stopping a speeding truck, but there's no count on how many times I can redirect." He shifted toward the third location, adjusting his stance slightly. "The precision work is actually harder than the big hits."

He worked with focused efficiency, opening the third depression with the same controlled power. The undersuit's energy field flared brighter this time, channeling the force exactly where he intended it.

"Useful trick," Fii said, genuinely impressed despite herself. "Beats the hell out of digging by hand."

"The Ultimate Guardians don't just train us to break things," Luke replied, straightening.

"Could've fooled me," Fii muttered, but there was less bite in it than she'd intended.

"You're lucky I minored in multitasking," Serena muttered, golden light flowing from her fingertips to form a transparent dome over the newly created depression. "Because maintaining multiple constructs is going to be a pain."

For the next hour, they worked as a team—Luke using controlled kinetic bursts to create three separate depressions in the dampest areas, Fii arranging leaves and plant material to maximize water collection, and Serena maintaining hard-light domes over each pit.

By midday, they had three solar stills set up in a rough triangle, each glowing softly with Serena's golden energy.

"Now we wait," Fii said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"How long?" Luke asked, kneeling beside one of the stills to examine the condensation already forming on the inside of Serena's dome.

"A few hours at least," Fii replied. "The sun does the work, heating the soil and plants. Water evaporates, hits the dome, condenses, and drips into our collection points."

"Like a mini water cycle," Serena mused, looking proud of her contribution.

Fii nodded. "Exactly. Nature's own distillery."

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Luke gathered his discarded armor pieces and arranged them in a makeshift shelter, creating a small patch of shade. They huddled within it, grateful for even the slightest respite from the heat.

"So," Serena said eventually, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "Kurigali survival tricks. What else did they teach you?"

Fii shrugged, drawing patterns in the sand with her finger. "How to read the land. Where to find food. Which plants are safe, which will kill you." She glanced up. "How to move without leaving tracks. How to hide in plain sight."

"Useful skills," Luke acknowledged. "Not typically included in Metropolis education."

"No, I imagine your schools focus more on which fork to use at dinner," Fii said, only half-joking.

Serena laughed. "You'd be surprised. Diamond Academy's survival course is legendary for its brutality."

"Really?" Fii raised an eyebrow. "They drop you in the middle of nowhere with nothing but your wits?"

"Not quite. It's a simulation dome with programmed challenges." Serena hugged her knees to her chest. "Still tough, but... controlled. Safe."

"Of course it is," Fii murmured. The Metropolis version of 'roughing it' probably included emergency extraction teams and daily health monitoring.

Luke's expression darkened. "The Guardian program is different. Less controlled. More consequences."

"That where you learned to punch dirt effectively?"

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Among other things."

They lapsed into silence again, the heat pressing down on them like a physical weight. Serena closed her eyes, her face screwed up in concentration as she maintained the hard-light domes. Tiny beads of sweat formed at her temples, evidence of the mental strain.

One of the domes shimmered, its edge warping slightly before Serena clenched her jaw and steadied it. "Focus," she whispered to herself, breath ragged.

"You okay?" Fii asked.

"Fine," Serena grunted. "Just... harder than it looks. Especially when they're different shapes and distances."

"Take a break if you need to. We can rotate."

Serena shook her head stubbornly. "I've got it. Just... talk to me. Distraction helps."

"About what?"

Anything. The slums. Your powers. Why you decided to become Axion."

Fii hesitated, unused to sharing her story with strangers—especially ones who had been hunting her not too long ago. But the desert had a way of stripping away pretenses, leaving only the raw essentials of human connection.

"I didn't decide to become Axion," she said finally. "It just... happened."

Luke glanced up, his interest piqued despite himself. "How so?"

Fii traced patterns in the sand, weighing how much she could safely share. "I was working delivery runs in the slums. Nothing special. Then one day, I started feeling... different. Things around me would shift when I got angry or scared." She shrugged, keeping it deliberately vague. "Took me a while to figure out what was happening."

"Must have been disorienting," Serena commented. "Waking up one day with gravity at your fingertips."

"Yeah. One minute I'm dodging gangs in the slums, the next I'm pulling down drones with my mind." Fii flexed her fingers, feeling the familiar pull of gravity around them. "Not exactly something they prepare you for."

Luke studied her with a calculating gaze. "Most metahumans manifest during puberty. You manifested late."

Fii kept her expression carefully neutral. "Guess I'm a late bloomer."

"When did you decide to put on the mask?" Serena asked. "Go full hero?"

"Didn't have much choice," Fii admitted, which was at least partially true. "The slums are rough. People needed help. I had the power to give it." She glanced up at Serena. "Not everyone gets a marketing team and PR campaign when their powers show up."

"Join the club," Serena muttered. "The ink was drying on my powers before Paragon shoved a contract under my nose."

"That why you stream everything?" Fii asked. "Part of the deal?"

Serena nodded. "In the Metropolis, if you're not seen, you don't exist."

"In the slums," Fii said, "being seen gets you killed."

Luke checked one of the solar stills, nodding with satisfaction at the water collecting in the hard-light cup Serena had formed at the center. "It's working," he reported. "All three of them."

"Told you it would," Fii said, though relief flooded through her. Despite her confident front, she'd been worried. Theory was one thing; practicing survival skills in the actual Wastes was another entirely.

"How'd you learn all this?" Luke asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. "You said the Kurigali taught you, but..."

"They're good people," Fii said firmly. "They taught me everything they knew. Said I had to earn their respect." She grinned at the memory. "Tough teachers, but fair."

"And they know you're... metahuman?"

Fii met his gaze steadily. "They do. They call people like us 'Zürukalu', which means bearers of strength and light. Metahumans aren't something to fear to them. We're forces of nature, just like the rains and the winds. Part of the world, not outside of it."

"Seems nice," Serena commented wistfully. "In the Metropolis, it's all branding and marketability."

"Is that how you feel?" Luke asked her, his question pointed. "Just another commodity for Paragon?"

Serena opened her mouth to respond but seemed to reconsider. She shook her head. "No, I—there's more to it than that. But it's easy to get caught up in the public persona sometimes."

"You're not alone in that," Luke replied. "When you're trained from a young age to be the perfect soldier, the perfect hero... sometimes it's hard to know where the mask ends and you begin."

"You guys are depressing the shit out of me," Fii said, leaning back. "I mean, at least you had choices. The slums never gave me any."

Luke didn't argue the point, which surprised her. Maybe the heat was getting to him.

By late afternoon, the solar stills had produced nearly a liter of water collectively—not abundant, but enough to stave off immediate dehydration. They drank sparingly, saving most of it for the journey ahead.

As the sun began its slow descent, they dismantled their makeshift camp. Luke carefully packed the most essential components of his armor—the power cell, communication array, and targeting system—into a bundle he could carry.

The rest, he buried beneath the sand.

"Won't you need that?" Fii asked, watching him cover the metal plates.

He shook his head. "Dead weight. The undersuit has basic protection and temperature regulation. The rest is..." He trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Shedding armor you don't need anymore?"

"Something like that." Luke straightened, brushing sand from his hands. Without the bulk of his exoskeleton, his movements were more fluid, less machine and more man. "Sometimes you have to shed your armor to find your strength."

Fii blinked, startled by the unexpected philosophy. "That was almost profound, tin man."

"I have my moments." The corner of his mouth quirked upward in what might have been a smile.

Serena rejoined them, her constructs now dismissed, looking drained but determined. "I spotted some rock formations about two kilometers north. Might be better shelter for tonight."

"Good eye," Fii acknowledged. "Let's head that way before we lose the light."

They set off across the sand, their shadows stretching long behind them. The temperature was already beginning to drop, the desert's extreme swings making themselves known.

As they walked, she found herself studying her unlikely companions with new eyes. Luke, stripped of his armor yet somehow more balanced without it. Serena, her camera-ready persona cracking to reveal someone with unexpected depth and resilience.

Three enemies forced together by circumstance, finding common ground in the most barren of places.

The irony wasn't lost on her.

Fii paused, brushing sweat from her eyes. For a heartbeat, she thought she heard something again—like a dry whisper skimming across the rocks. But when she turned, there was only sand.