text: “You literally have a superpower,” TJ argued. “That’s cool!” “But it’s not a cool superpower. It’s not like I can fly or shoot lasers from my eyes or something,” Chloe sighed. She was walking home from school with her best friend. They were very different, she and TJ. She was tall and blond with the awkward gait of someone who grew too fast and didn't quite know what to do with their body. She was bookish and introverted, not much into sports and preferred the company of butterflies to humans. TJ, on the other hand, was athletic and gregarious. He loved to be outside and a sport had a ball, he was good it. He made friends easily and loved people. They were friends because their parents were friends and they’d grown up together. Chloe was a faithful fan whenever TJ was in a soccer match or baseball game and cheered like she knew what was happening on the field. TJ was willing to go on solo hikes and seek out blooming wildflowers or sit for hours staring through a pair of binoculars for an elusive species of butterfly. That was their biggest difference though. Their biggest difference wasn’t discovered until just last week. They’d been on a hike, it being the season for the wildflowers to bloom, and Chloe had wanted to get some new photos. TJ went with her and good naturedly complained about sunburns and mosquitoes. He’d been goofing around on a rather precarious part of the trail when his foot slipped and she’d watched in horror as he tumbled over the cliff. Chloe remembered feeling a warm tingly feeling in her hands, wishing she could reach out and catch his fall when he was suddenly plopped gently back on the trail by a windswept ponderosa pine. “You can command plants. I mean, that’s cool. Hey, can you make the grass grow and trip the other team at my soccer game tomorrow?” he asked. He had a baseball in his hand and was tossing it back and forth. “TJ! That’s cheating!” she admonished. TJ laughed and chucked the ball toward her. She waggled her hands uselessly in the air and the ball sailed past her left ear and landed with a soft pfft in a trumpet vine. The vine reared back, tossed the ball in a perfect arc back to TJ’s waiting hands. “Nice!” he exclaimed. Chloe sighed. The trumpet vine was more coordinated than she was. “Stop it,” she hissed. She wanted to keep her newfound power a secret. If people knew, she’d have to go to the Superhero Academy and leave her books, her butterflies, her hikes, and her best friend behind. Students at the Superhero Academy lived up to literal superhero expectations. They solved crimes, saved hundreds from certain death, and generally kept society functioning. Chloe didn’t think she could deal with that sort of pressure. Plus, they had to wear crazy spandex suits that flattered the type of body she didn’t have. “Chloe, you’re being ridiculous. You know you got an awesome power. You, like, command nature. That’s way better than some stupid laser eyes any day.” At that moment one of the Academy students with said laser eyes came by them on a hoverboard casually zapping bits of trash along the street, turning litter into ash. His hoverboard hit a bump and he tumbled forward accidentally zapping a newly planted maple. “Oh no!” Chloe yelped and held out an arm. The laser sight bounced off the tree and was scattered harmlessly in the air. She could sense the tree’s great relief. “Whoa!” TJ said, his mouth forming an “Oh” of admiration. ***** Chloe often thought of that day, the day she was discovered and ripped from her quiet life and thrust into the busy world of the Superhero Academy. Over the past few years, she’d grown a bit taller, cut her hair, but still didn’t fill out the suit quite the way the girl who could command water did. She missed TJ terribly. She’d been taking final exams when he played in the state finals for baseball, but she’d heard from Sal (the boy who could had some kind of telescopic vision and could see for miles) that TJ hit a homerun and won the game. Sal didn’t give her this information out of kindness. He gave it to her so he could tease her about her love of the “normies.” That’s what they called people like TJ, normies. Sometimes they called her a normie too or a normie lover. She didn’t have any friends and was so busy with the demands of the academy that she hadn’t seen a butterfly or a wildflower in months. Okay, that’s not entirely true. She’d seen them, but for practice only. Poor things, subjected to her clumsy attempts at manipulating them. The flowers virtually screamed at her yesterday when she’d accidentally made a daisy drop all it’s petals. Do you want me to be naked! This is an embarrassment! The day after TJ hit the homerun she’d decided she’d had enough. She was dropping out of the academy. She went to the headmaster to declare her intentions, destined to live her life as a mediocre normie and being totally fine with it. Chloe marched down a long gray hallway. The floor virtually shimmered and she could see her reflection looking as frightened as she felt staring back at her. Chloe paused in front of the headmaster’s door and took a deep breath. The headmaster terrified her. He was a huge man of imposing strength who could tear a car in half with his bare hands. Superstrength. She knocked timidly. The door was gray like the hall and shiny. It had been cleaned recently, and not well, for Chloe could see the streaks on the surface. They marred her reflection, making her look wavy and noncorporeal, like a phantom. There was no answer. She checked her watch. She was well within his office hours so she knocked again, louder and braver than she thought her hand could be. “Come in!” the headmaster called. Stealing herself, Chloe went inside. The headmaster was speaking to a woman with purple hair. Chloe recognized her as a previous graduate. She’d been a senior when Chloe entered the academy for the first time. Telekinesis was her thing, Chloe thought. As if confirming, the girl twirled her fingers and sent the pens on the headmaster’s desk spinning in a complex dance. “Alexandra!” he barked. Alexandra smirked and let the pens drop. He turned his attention to Chloe. “Yes Cleo,” he said looking disappointed that his next appointment was the girl with the plant thing. “I’ve come to declare my intention for next year,” Chloe said. It was supposed to be her senior year. If she completed it, she’d be employed by the International Squad of Superheros or if she wished to further her studies, would be granted permission to attend the Superhero School for Advanced Heroics. She’d never been told of a third option. She knew if you got kicked out, you got sent to some sort of facility where they would rid you of your power before dropping you back into society. She’d heard it was quite painful but was willing to endure a few hours pain in exchange for a life she was happy leading. “I’m going back. To Newland High School,” she said. “That’s not an option,” the headmaster said silkily, carefully arranging the pens Alexandra had deposited. “You want to be a normie?” she said with a laugh. “Yes,” Chloe said, definitely thrusting her chin forward. “Not an option,” the headmaster growled. “We keep our own with us. Once you’re with us, you don’t go back to them.” “What about the expelled students. You send them back,” Chloe argued. She noticed a ficus tree in the corner cheering her on. Alexandra and the headmaster looked at one another and laughed. “Oh I forgot how naive we all were,” Alexandra said. She turned to Chloe. “They don’t go back.” “What do you mean? Where do they go?” Chloe asked. Only one student had been expelled in the past five years. It happened before Chloe arrived so she’d only heard rumors. Some boy who could fly but who kept invading foreign airspace and almost starting at least two world wars. “They’re dead,” Alexandra said matter of factly. She waved her hands gracefully in the air and spun the headmaster’s photos of his wife and kids in the air. “Alexandra!” he yelped, plucking the picture of his wife on a beach in Bermuda out of the sky. “Knock it off!” She shrugged again and gently set the one with the kids fishing in Lake Tahoe back on the shelf. “You have them murdered!” Chloe said, the familiar tingly feeling rushing into her arms. Behind the headmaster, the ficus stirred. “Not really murdered. I mean, it isn’t malicious. They aren’t cut out to be superheroes and it’s too dangerous to let someone with powers run around in society unchecked. They must be disposed of,” the headmaster explained. “Now tell me again Cleo” “It’s Chloe,” Alexandra corrected. “Cleo’s the one who can shrink remember?” “Right. Chloe. Anyway, Chloe, let’s try again. You’re not our strongest student, but you haven’t royally screwed up international relations yet either. I think you'd be better suited for a career at one of our outposts. How’s the Amazon? Lots of plants?” he grinned. Chloe wavered. The Amazon didn’t sound so bad. It was teeming with life. She could protect it, turn the trees against the people aiming to chop them down. “I could protect the trees?” she asked. The headmaster laughed. “Protect the trees? You foolish girl. Trees don’t need protecting. No. There’s an issue with the natives sabotaging the logging company. We need someone to take care of that. You could be our gal?” he said this like he was offering a rare treat. Chloe stared at him, horrified. She’d have to protect the ones destroying the forests, use her powers to oust the native people and watch the beauty of nature burn. She felt a rise of anger in her chest she’d never summoned before. “No,” she said menacingly. She thrust her hands forward and before the headmaster or Alexandra could react, the fics had locked them both in its leafy branches. Alexandra summoned all manner of office supplies, knocking the ficus with a stapler, stabbing it pointlessly with a mechanical pencil and finally smashing the headmaster’s expensive (and heavy) desk chair against the trunk. Chloe raised an eyebrow. Trees were pretty impervious to being hit with stuff, though it did tend to upset them. “You’re just making it mad you know.” She inclined her head toward the ficus as a way of thanks and marched out the headmaster’s door. “Where are you going!” the headmaster shouted trying to stop ficus leaves from being shoved up his nose. Chloe peered over her shoulder. “The Amazon,” she said with a smirk.