“Reee! Reee! Reee!” An alarm like a screeching red alert jolted Erika out of a surprisingly pleasant dream. Her eyes snapped open to see the shadows of her apartment in the predawn light. Groaning, Erika reached for the phone sitting on her nightstand, her shoulders aching with the movement as she tapped at her screen and turned the alarm off. With the blaring alarm silenced, she could hear the faint rush of traffic as the first cars of the morning rush hour sped down the freeway as she settled her head back against her pillow and closed her eyes again.

  In what felt like only a few seconds, her phone jolted her awake in her dark apartment again, but it wasn’t her alarm. Someone was calling her. Monster. Everything ached. Her legs ached. Her arms ached. She swore even her hair seemed to ache. Moving her arm to shut off the alarm on her phone once was already too much effort for her. She didn’t want to answer whatever asshole thought calling while it was still dark was a good idea. Turning over away from her phone, Erika ignored her phone as it continued to ring. After a few seconds, the ringing stopped and Erika felt a rush of relief flood through her. Slowly, her consciousness started to sink back down into sleep.

  Only for her phone to start ringing again, dragging her back into the waking realm against her will. Fucking really?! She all but screamed in her head as she tried to pull her blanket tighter around her, like grabbing onto it would help her escape back to dream land. Sadly, it did not. Time seemed to drag by as her phone rang, before it finally stopped and automatically sent whatever psychopath thought calling her was a good idea to her voicemail. A few seconds passed before she heard the soft chime of a new voicemail she’d never check arriving, and then blessed silence. Disturbance done, she felt herself drifting off again. For all of five seconds before her phone started ringing again. And again. And again.

  Finally, Erika’s anger overcame her fatigue and sore muscles as she turned back around and fumbled for her phone. The ringing finally stopped as she answered, and without checking to see who dared call her, she held the phone to her ear. “Stop fucking calling,” she yelled. Or at least tried to. All that came out of her mouth was a pitiful mumble that got interrupted halfway by a loud yawn.

  “About time you picked up,” Pinpoint’s voice came from her phone. “Get ready, we’re picking you up in five.”

  “No.” Erika hung up on the hero, her brain demanding more sleep and telling her doing so seemed like a good idea. It was not a good idea. Her phone, still resting on the side of her face, started to ring again, the loud noise sending a muted spike of pain through her head before she could answer.

  “Get dressed or I’ll drag you out in whatever you’re wearing.”

  Erika ignored the threat as she hung up without responding, confident that Pinpoint wouldn’t break into her apartment. After all, the woman apparently paid whoever it was that came and fixed her door yesterday. Sleep took her again as she drifted back into unconsciousness.

  ***

  A chill sliced through the thin t-shirt Erika slept in, waking her up as goosebumps rose across her arms and legs. Her nipples went hard as the cold stabbed into her chest, moments before a searing light stabbed her in the eyes, blinding even with her eyes closed.

  “Huh, black, how mature,” Pinpoint’s voice said from above, and finally, Erika was wide awake.

  Her eyes snapped open as she started to push herself upright, ignoring her protesting body as she tried to process what was going on, only for the world to flip upside down as Pinpoint scooped her up and threw her over her shoulder. It took a second for her to process that she was watching her bed get further and further away as her sponsor easily carried her on her shoulder. “How did you get in here? What’s going on?!” She tried to flail and rip herself out of Pinpoint’s grip, but the woman was far stronger than her, as she learned the hard way the day before.

  “I warned you to get dressed. Now you’ll have to train in your panties. Hope you’re not shy.”

  ***

  Erika’s face was hot with a mix of shame, embarrassment, and exertion as sweat dripped down her face. Her loose t-shirt clung indecently to her body, soaked in sweat as she sagged against the wall of the warehouse gym again, the plastic of the thick tumbling mats that lined the floor sticking to the bare skin of her thighs.

  Pinpoint was a hero. It would’ve made sense for her to at least give her some pants or something, but as she learned the hard way once again, Pinpoint didn’t bluff. Not only had the woman gotten into her apartment somehow and pulled her out of bed, she’d casually carried her over her shoulder to another of the black SUVs she used to get around, unconcerned as Erika’s ass hung out for anyone to see. The only bright side was that no one had been in the elevator or lobby to see her as the so-called hero all but kidnapped her and forced her to train all day again.

  “You could’ve given me some pants at least,” she grumbled quietly. Just not quietly enough.

  “Sounds like you caught your breath and you’re ready for more sparring! Catch!”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Looking up at her sponsor/kidnapper, she barely caught the sparring gear that the woman threw at her. Despite her body and mind all but threatening to rebel, Erika started to put the headgear and gloves on. The first day’s sparring had quickly shown her that the dream of punching Pinpoint was just that, a dream. She didn’t think she’d have any more luck today. Not with how tired she was after another full day’s working out. But she had a feeling refusing to fight wouldn’t go well for her. Forcing her protesting body to move, Erika put on the gear and pushed herself into a sloppy fighting stance, her thighs stinging as they were ripped away from the plastic mat. Eyeing Pinpoint, she started to close the distance as she moved to punch the woman, even as a pit opened up in her stomach telling her she’d fail.

  The pit was right.

  ***

  A full week of training passed by in a blink. She quickly learned that if she tried to turn off her alarm or phone, or ignore Pinpoint’s calls, the hero would just break in and kidnap her again before dragging her to that warehouse gym for a full day, only to drop her off back at her building late in the evening. It only took one more day of the hero dragging her out of bed in her underwear and carrying her over her shoulder for Erika to adapt. Instead of her normal sleepwear, she began to sleep in a sports bra and leggings, just in case she “forgot” to keep her phone on through the night.

  Despite getting dragged out of bed half of the days that week and being forced to train with the hero for hours on end, Erika found herself enjoying the time with Pinpoint, even though she nursed a desire to punch her in her stupid mouth for all the pain. Something she tried to do every time they sparred. Unfortunately, even though she felt herself improving under Pinpoint’s tutelage, she never came close to landing a hit on her.

  “Stay still,” Erika growled as Pinpoint danced back, easily avoiding her jab. Stepping forward, she threw a quick sweeping kick at the hero’s ankles, only for her to easily step over the attack, only for her to slip slightly as she brought her foot back down on a patch of sweat on the mats. An opening! As Pinpoint stumbled trying to regain her balance, Erika’s eyes locked in on the faint frown on the woman’s lips and closed in, throwing a brutal uppercut at her target. That concentration meant she saw that frown flip as her punch started to close. Fuck, not again.

  The world turned upside down as gravity gave up its grip on her for a moment before it reasserted its dominance, assisted by Pinpoint’s throw as she landed painfully on her back. Saliva sprayed out of her mouth as the impact drove the air from her lungs, her eyes reflexively closing for a moment. In the space of a blink she felt a soft poke on her nose and opened her eyes to see Pinpoint looking down at her with a smile, her finger lightly touching her nose.

  “Nicely done pouncing on a perceived opening, but you focused too much where you were trying to hit and missed the signs that I made the opening for you. Focusing on your target is important, but in a fight it’s what you don’t see that often gets you. Don’t fall into the trap of dropping your awareness of the overall situation just to hit your target. Better to miss and survive than to hit and die.” Finishing her latest lecture, Pinpoint bent down to offer Erika her hand.

  With a groan, Erika took the proffered help and let the stronger hero pull her to her feet. “Fuck, I’m never going to touch you am I?”

  “Eventually, maybe, but I’m still three classes above you. Jumping ranks in a fight is doable, but not easy, and every class above you is a step up in power. Right now, you’re little better than a particularly fit baseline human. With the right equipment or situation, you’ll be able to jump ranks.”

  Erika thought back to last week when a random D Class villain grabbed her. Something about what Pinpoint said didn’t make sense. “But I beat a D Classer before I awakened...”

  “Oh? When was this?”

  “The day we met. Before the portal appeared, some weird mongoose guy grabbed me and…”

  “You’re that girl!” Pinpoint said with a burst of laughter. “I saw the police body cams of that incident. You did well, but that goes to the right situation.”

  “Right situation?”

  “Yup,” Pinpoint nodded as she started to walk towards the door of the warehouse-gym. “You weren’t in a good position there. Any baseline would’ve been at a massive disadvantage physically, akin to a toddler fighting an adult. But, Mongrease isn’t exactly competent. He dropped his guard against you, thinking a random baseline civilian couldn’t possibly threaten him, but you managed to get free and proceeded to kick the groin multiple times. It doesn’t matter what Class someone is, a blow to the groin is going to hurt.”

  Erika thought about some of the truly powerful metas out there. The world famous ones who seemed unstoppable. X Class titans like Rampage, Guan Yu, and Valkyrie. Videos and images of those three tearing through alien ships and city swallowing monsters always went ultra-viral. Tanking missiles and fists the size of buildings like they were nothing. Even A Class powerhouses seemed to defy what Pinpoint was saying. Practically everyone saw the video of Brickhouse flying face first into a tank barrel as it fired, only for the tank to get ripped apart while the hero came out of it without a hair out of place. Centurion taking Legionnaire’s kick to the balls without flinching after they broke up was practically a meme. She and everyone else in the world had seen plenty of proof that powerful metas were not nearly as vulnerable as Pinpoint seemed to say they were. Erika even said as much.

  “Well, you’re not wrong that those are some truly powerful heroes, but what you’ve seen is a mix of things. Class General Enhancement might make you stronger and more durable than normal, to the point that most D Classers can shrug off weaker gunfire, but that doesn’t mean your sensitive bits aren’t any less vulnerable relative to the rest of your body,” Pinpoint said, pulling open the warehouse door to reveal Keoni and his silent partner standing at attention beside their black SUV. As soon as they saw the two women, the suited men opened the back doors for them. “Get in.”

  Erika glanced between the warehouse and the late afternoon sky. It was the first time in a week she’d even seen the afternoon sunlight as Pinpoint pushed her hard. She didn’t mind finishing early, in fact her body could use the rest, but alarm bells were ringing in her head. “It’s still early, you giving up on me already?” she asked with false bravado, even as a pit opened up in her stomach.

  “Today’s special. We have someplace to go.”