Looking determined, Clang rose from his seat and walked past me and Miss Toontastic.

"Where are you going?" I said.

Clang stopped by the doorway but didn't turn around.

"Training," he said, "You guys get some sleep."

And without waiting for a response Clang continued on his way out to the back of The Shops pub.

"He's not happy with how things went," said Miss Toontastic.

She had her arms folded, and one of her legs crossed over the other.

I didn't try to play dumb about what Miss Toontastic meant.

"He didn't get to beat any of the Sub-Divisioners himself," I said.

Miss Toontastic snapped her clawed fingers and made a gun gesture at me.

"Yep," she said.

"Not that we should be keeping score," said Miss Toontastic, "But if it were a competition, you've got him beat three-to-nothing."

I grinned.

"I guess I do, don't I?" I said.

Miss Toontastic playfully kicked my shin.

"At least act like you're not chuffed with yourself about it," she said.

"Hey look," I said, as I took a moment to stretch out the ache in my arms, "The Sub-Divisioners got a deserved ass-kicking. It's not my fault if I happened to take all three of them down. It's not like I'm saying I did it single handedly or anything. I'd be dead if you two weren't with me."

"Yeah," said Miss Toontastic, "But you got the KO's, and Clang's not going to forget that. If you haven't noticed, he doesn't like to be upstaged."

"Are you sure?" I said, genuinely considering what she just said about Clang, "As far as I can see he's just chasing his dream of becoming a hero. He's not the first super driven teenager with the power I've met. For some people good enough is never good enough. They want to be the best."

"And you?" said Miss Toontastic.

I smiled as I started to give my answer. But then I quickly second-guessed myself.

My smile faded.

"I don't mean anything by it," said Miss Toontastic.

"No, no," I said, "I'm just in my own head about things as usual. There's a lot to think about."

"Well," said Miss Toontastic.

She stood up.

"I'll get some sleep here," she said, "If you want there's a comfy looking armchair in the office upstairs? The computer's in there too. It doesn't have internet but it's got a huge library of music to choose from."

"Okay," I said.

I forced a smile despite how tired and uneasy I felt. The future was a big black hole promising nothing but death and danger. Already I had come close to death more times than any person should in a single lifetime.

"Slip," said Miss Toontastic.

She was standing closer to me to the point all I could see was her pretty face, large toon-ish eyes, raccoon-ish nose, and pointed ears; all framed by her long curled-at-the-tips black hair.

I felt her knuckles against the top of my head. In rhythm with the tapping she said, "Stop-Over-Thinking-Every-Thing."

I gave her a thumbs up and a lackadaisical expression.

"Alright," I said.

I could feel the tension between Miss Toontastic and me. There was a danger to that tension. Emotional. Physical. Something explosive. Part of me wanted it but at the same time another, saner part of me knew that to play into that tension any more than I already had was going to add fuel to its fire. And Miss Toontastic was looking at me like she wanted nothing more in the whole world than for me to strike the match.

"Goodnight," I said.

She flinched.

"Just goodnight?" she said.

This was a different kind of Miss Toontastic – a different kind of Xandra – to the one I had known before. It was a side of her I was sure she had never shown to anyone else.

She then forced a fanged smile, and said, "Well, goodnight then."

Later, sitting resting in the pub office armchair in the dark, I cringed at the memory of how I had robotically walked out of the lounge room.

And, going against what Miss Toontastic had said about not overthinking, I spent an hour replaying the conversation we had just had in my head.

It was a testament to how tired my body and mind still was because, sometime after the first hour of sitting with my uneasy thoughts in the dark, I fell asleep.

The following morning I made my way down to the ground floor of the pub having what I wanted to say to Miss Toontastic set in my mind. When I approached the lounge room however I saw that she was fast asleep.

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In an effort to not wake her up,I tapped into the Slip-body's power to make my steps near soundless, like I had done before when at the mansion.

The sun hadn't yet risen, and for a moment I thought the light coming from the back of the pub was the sun's first light peeking against the window panes.

Upon drawing closer however I saw this wasn't the case.

It was Clang.

I approached the window pane and peered out to the back of the pub. There was a large wooden deck, and lots of tables and chairs, with several huge umbrellas set into several of the tables.

Clang was standing in the middle of the deck. His left hand was gripping his right wrist. And his right hand was open as if about to catch something dropped into it.

The light I had first mistaken for sunlight was coming from a small marble-sized orb resting on his palm. Even from the window I could feel the heat radiating off the little orb.

The intensity of the orb light built, and with it so did the grimace on Clang's face.

The light from the orb peaked, looking like a little sun.

Then, suddenly, the light burst upwards, and was gone.

The sun was close enough to rising I hardly needed to rely on heightening my vision to see what had happened.

In place of an orb of light in Clang's palm, there were three metallic spikes in the vague shape of an uneven trident head.

Clang grunted in frustration, and threw his hand downwards. The length of metal stabbed into the wooden decking, lodging there.

Clang noticed me then.

"Slip?" he said.

"Hey," I said, "Mind if I join you?"

"Yeah, sure," said Clang.

The frustration in his voice was clear however. I approached the closed back door, opened it, stepped through, and closed it as quietly as I could behind me again.

"How's the training going?" I said.

"Ah," Clang rasped, throwing up his hand in annoyance.

"Not good?" I said.

"It's not working," said Clang.

I squatted down and looked at the metal spike lodged in the decking.

"What is it you were trying to do? Metal-bending?" I said.

"Nah," said Clang.

He held up his hand, which was coated in some of the liquid metal which had solidified there.

"I was trying to create an energy blast," he said.

I whipped round to look at him, excitement beaming on my face.

"Like in Mega Fighter's M?" I said.

"Yeah," said Clang, "But this power isn't just gonna let me create an energy blast easy. I tried making just light and heat but it was just like shining a hot torch. I tried imagining an energy blast but its like the power inside my head doesn't know how to make it happen."

"So what's with the metal?" I said.

"Well," said Clang, "I guessed maybe having the metal to heat up first might create something to build off. Start with heated metal, then build into an energy blast. But there's so many problems with doing it that way."

I stood up and moved over to one of the chairs, pulling one out from one of the tables. I sat down. My arms and legs were fully healed, and all the aches and pains from before were gone.

Clang sat against one of the tables.

"What're the problems?" I asked.

Clang made a thumbs up gesture.

"One," he said, "The metal when it's heated up sticks to my hand. So I can't just throw it."

"You make the metal?" I said.

"Yeah," said Clang, "When I heat up my palm enough it makes the metal form out of it. The metal is me – my skin and blood, I think. I can feel the drain on me each time I do it."

"Right," I said.

"Two," said Clang, "When the metal heats up to a certain point, it becomes unstable."

It was as Clang said this I noticed a half dozen more metal spikes lodged into the decking near the rear banister. Presumably Clang had yanked them out of where he had been standing when he first made them, then stabbed them into a row to get them out of the way.

"Three," said Clang, showing another finger, "When I'm concentrating on the orb, I can hardly move my legs. It's like all the power in my body is being channelled into the orb."

"There's more reasons but you get it," said Clang.

I nodded.

"Well," I said, "When I use the power to make my arm vibrate – it really adds to the power of the punch – my whole body goes rigid. So I've experienced something similar with the lack of mobility."

Then with a wry smile I said, "Why do you want to do an energy blast?"

Clang grinned.

"Because it's the ultimate attack," he said, "And it's cool, init?"

Clang heated up his hand again, and this time the metallic residue which had solidified in place there dripped from his palm onto the decking.

"Four – it makes a mess," said Clang.

He rubbed the last of the extra metallic residue off his hands, and looked at me.

"When are you going to train?" he said.

"Give me a minute, mate," I said, "I was fighting for my life yesterday."

Clang gave me an indignant look.

I felt like explaining to Clang then that it wasn't because I was tired that I didn't feel like training first thing in the morning – if that was what he meant. Although I had slept well, my dream had been a terribly vivid nightmare. In the nightmare I had witnessed with perfect clarity what had happened when Xandra had returned to the World War Two bunker and murdered the Pied Piper officer. I had woken with my face sweating, hair damp, and my head and mind tormented from the vicarious experience of seeing and feeling everything Xandra had gone through – including throwing herself down into oncoming motorway traffic to stop the utter despair which had gripped her.

"Slip?" said Clang.

I'd lost myself in thought again. Clang was looking at me like I was a puzzle he was having a problem solving.

"You need to stop being distracted," he said, "Don't overthink everything."

I smiled mirthlessly.

"Xa-, I mean, Miss Toontastic said the same thing," I said.

"Well she's right," said Clang.

"Wow," I said, playfully, "You both actually agree on something for once."

Clang put his hands together and cracked his knuckles, which sounded like bolts popping loose from a steel boat in rapid succession.

"I've got a question," said Clang.

"Yeah?" I said.

"Who's the strongest powered person you know?" he asked.

I had the answer to mind right away.

"Blain," I said, "I can only imagine how freakishly strong he must be now."

"So he was just strong?" said Clang.

"No," I said, "He was a professional boxer. You should have seen him fight. He turned his hands into hard bones - like boxing gloves - and he fought a were-lion one-on-one. Beat the were-lion unconscious like it was nothing."

"And he's part of the PUNCH program now?" said Clang.

There was an extra glint in his gold-and-silver-tinged eyes.

"Yeah," I said, "If he was that strong back when our power was just emerging, who knows what he's capable of now."

"I'm glad he joined the PUNCH program," said Clang, "Because I'm going to fight him one day. And I'm going to win."

I stifled a chuckle. Clang's enthusiasm faltered.

"You think I'd lose?" he said.

"I don't know," I said, "All I know is, rather you than me. I wouldn't want to fight him."

"Well you should want to," said Clang in an aggressive tone.

I didn't ask why. I didn't have to.

Clang's unflinching gaze on me held and didn't break.

"This is about being heroes, isn't it?" I said, "Not who's the strongest, right?"

"The world's greatest hero is also the strongest," said Clang.

"I never said I wanted to be the greatest hero," I said, "That's your thing. I just want to be a hero. Period."

Clang still continued to look at me unflinchingly, like I had seriously ticked him off.

"What's your problem?" I said.

And it was then Clang looked not just away, but inward. My question stirred something inside him.

Then, when he had figured out what he intended to say, he fixed me with a focused gaze.

"I consider you a rival now, Slip," he said, "I don't want to overtake you because you're not trying."

That, out of everything Clang had said, hit home the most.

"Okay, man," I said, "I hear you."

Clang nodded. And then his intense look changed to the cheerful smile that usually came so easy to him.

"Anyway," he said, "You hungry? I'm hungry."

I breathed a tempered sigh of relief.

"Yeah," I said, "You done out here?"

"Yeah," said Clang, "I'll train some more after I've eaten."

"Great," I said.

I stood up and said, "Guess I will too."

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