Maggie sauntered into City Park, eyes roving over the multitude of people milling about. Parents pushing babies in strollers. Kids chasing each other around and tossing balls to one another. Elderly couples strolling hand in hand. She let her gaze roam to the benches positioned in the shade of the large oak trees planted around the edge of the grassy field, and that's where she spotted her. It had to be her. A girl, three or four years older than Maggie, sitting alone and glancing around with an air of expectation.

The girl didn't seem to have noticed Maggie yet—not like she would have recognized her if she had. It took all the way until Maggie was barely ten feet in front of her before the girl's eyes locked on hers. "Can I help you?"

"Are you Zoridel?" Maggie asked.

The girl blinked in surprise. "Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm Maggie."

Zoridel fixed her with a doubtful look. "You're Maggie? The one Kevin sent to talk to me about 'important business'?"

Maggie bristled. "For one, Kevin didn't send me. I asked him to contact you because you'd already met him and I figured you'd be more likely to answer if the message came from someone you already knew. For two, yes, I'm here for important business."

Zoridel shrugged. "All right, hey, I was just checking. You don't look quite like I expected."

"I'm older than I look," Maggie told her, leaving her actual age up to Zoridel's interpretation. She eyed Zoridel up and down. The girl had thick black hair, curling gently past her shoulders, and tan skin with a hint of freckles on her face. Her blouse and slacks were practical yet stylish, and looked new—a stark contrast to Maggie's secondhand T-shirt and jeans.

Zoridel didn't say anything in response, and Maggie sat down next to her. "First things first," Maggie said. "Kevin told me you guys were talking about the imbalance of power that still exists now, after the Supernova. What exactly are your thoughts on that?"

"On the Supernova?" Zoridel checked.

"On the problems it solved and created."

Zoridel leaned back, tilting her face to the sky. "Well, I guess I just don't really buy into the whole 'everyone is equal' thing. Just because everyone has a superpower doesn't mean everyone's happy. There will always be people who wish they had a better power than the one they had, and in time I can see it going the same way things were before. Except this time, instead of prodigies and non-prodigies, it'll be prodigies with 'cool' powers versus prodigies with 'not as cool' powers." She shrugged. "We used to see it all the time back when they held trials for people to get into the Renegades. People favor some powers over others. Society's stupid to think those kinds of mindsets are going to stop just because everyone has a power now."

It was Maggie's reasoning to a T. So far, so good. "Tell me about your powers. You weren't a prodigy before the Supernova?"

Zoridel shook her head. "I was having a sleepover with my friends at the time. Non-prodigies, all of us. All the sudden one of my friends sprouted wings, another one realized she could see through the wall, and the third started moving things around telekinetically. I was the only one who hadn't been changed at all. My friends pretty quickly figured out that something must have happened to turn them all into prodigies, and they were asking me what I could do. We tried all sorts of things that day, going through every superpower we'd ever heard of and seeing if I could do it, and I couldn't do any of them." She sighed heavily. "This went on for weeks. I went home and found that all my family members now had superpowers, and they were so excited. I was going to school at the time, and all my classmates had superpowers, all my teachers, everyone. Every time I learned of a new superpower, I tested to see if I had that power too. But I didn't have any of them. I started thinking I was the only person in the world who didn't have powers, and it made me feel so lonely."

Unbidden, an image of Max flashed across Maggie's mind. Max's grin as he told her he was happier without his superpower. His understanding face as he stated that for sure, he thought there were people who'd be unhappy with the powers they got.

She pushed the thoughts out of her head. "Did you ever find out what your powers were?" she asked Zoridel.

Zoridel nodded. "By accident. About a year or so after the Supernova, I went to the beach with my family. I was out pretty deep in the water, and this big wave came and knocked me under and I couldn't figure out which way was up. I sucked in a gobful of water, and that's how I realized it wasn't affecting me. I could breathe completely normally underwater." She smiled ever so slightly. "It was really cool, that first day. I was so happy to have figured out my superpower, and I was so excited about what I could do, I just spent the whole rest of that day underwater. I was ecstatic." Her smile faded. "But when we went home, I got sad again. Because I realized my power wasn't all that useful in everyday life. I mean, maybe if I wanted to devote my life to, I don't know, being a lifeguard or something, but I don't. I want to be an artist." She rolled her eyes. "But there's all this pressure from society these days, all this, 'use your powers to do great things' and 'be a hero!' and all that, so it makes me feel guilty sometimes, that I'm not using my powers for anything good. You know?"

Up until this point, Maggie had been becoming increasingly more convinced that Zoridel was right for their group. At the mention of feeling guilty for not doing something good, though, Maggie frowned. "What's your perspective on villains?" she asked.

"I think society's dumb for not acknowledging they still exist," Zoridel answered immediately. "It's like they're just waiting for someone to pop up and become the new Ace Anarchy."

Maggie hid her smile. "What would you do if someone actually did that?"

Zoridel laughed and rolled her eyes. "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I'd want to be on their side!" She sobered up, amending her statement. "I mean, not the killing-people and destroying-stuff part; I don't agree with any of that, but just… being on the side with the power… you know?"

Maggie did know. And she knew Zoridel would fit in just fine with her gang.

"Do you have any special skills?" Maggie asked her. "Anything other than your superpower, that makes you stand out?"

Zoridel placed a finger on her chin, clearly considering the question. "I'm not bad at hand-to-hand combat," she finally shared. "And I'm good with people. Reading them. Telling whether they're being truthful or lying."

Maggie hesitated before asking her next question. Did she really want someone who was good at reading people in close proximity to her? Maggie prided herself on being able to keep her feelings and opinions locked up tight in a box, not letting anyone know what was going on in her head unless she deigned to tell them.

"If you'd been a prodigy before the Supernova, who would you have sided with?" she asked. "The Renegades, or the Anarchists? Or one of the other villain gangs?"

Again, Zoridel seemed to think through the question carefully before answering. "I'm honestly not sure," she confessed. "As I said before, I admire power, and people who have power. At that time, the Council had all the power, so I might have wanted to side with them. However, if I'd known that the Anarchists were just biding their time, waiting to prop up Ace Anarchy again… I kind of like it when an underdog team comes out of nowhere and just takes the world by storm."

"Hmm." Maggie studied her nonchalant yet earnest expression. It would be helpful to have someone skilled at hand-to-hand combat on the team—someone other than Yasmin, whose idea of hand-to-hand combat was slicing people's arms and torsos until they pleaded with her to stop. "How much do you believe in everything you just said?" she asked. "If there was a group that believed the way you do, and wanted to do something about it, would you want to join?"

Zoridel gave her an appraising look. "You mean, the group you lead. That Kevin's a part of. Right?"

"Kevin told you?" Maggie exclaimed, anger flaring up. Her gang members knew they couldn't let anyone know what they were up to, not until Maggie had vetted them and determined them to be okay. They didn't even tell their allies the whole plan—though Maggie had long suspected the allies' leader had figured out the gist of it.

But Zoridel was shaking her head. "Your questions weren't exactly subtle."

Maggie flushed. "Well, all right, yeah. That's what we're doing. We're the new Gatlon City Villains, and we have a plan that'll establish us and prevent Superpower Classism before it happens. Well, before it really becomes a way of life, I should say."

Zoridel raised an eyebrow. "And this group is how many members strong?"

Maggie glanced down at her feet. "Ten," she admitted, including their four allies in the count to make the group seem at least a little bigger. "But trust me, with the plan we have, numbers won't matter."

"Oh?" Zoridel leaned forward, intrigued, but Maggie inched back.

"How dumb do you think I am?" she asked. "I'm not about to share the plan with you yet. You haven't even committed to our cause yet."

"How can I commit to something without even knowing what I'm committing to?" Zoridel countered.

Maggie scowled. It was a fair point, and yet this put them at a standstill. She'd had only the rudimentary foundation of her plan when she'd recruited the other gang members, and they'd all worked together to come up with the actual logistics. There'd never been any concern about betrayal or impostors, because they'd all been on the same page to begin with. Even with their allies, who Maggie was careful not to share all the details with, Maggie had seen them in action long enough to be convinced of their authenticity.

But Zoridel was an unknown. Maggie couldn't just trust her, right off the bat. What if she was secretly working for the Renegades? What if—her breath hitched as she remembered her suspicions from earlier—what if someone had somehow gotten wind of their plan, and Max and Zoridel were both spies sent to find out what Maggie and her gang were up to?

You're being paranoid, she told herself firmly. Max wasn't a spy. And neither was Zoridel. Zoridel was just someone who agreed with what Maggie's gang was doing and wanted to help. And they could use the help. As much as Maggie liked to do everything on her own, she'd long ago realized that to pull off something this big, she'd need as much assistance as she could get.

"All right," she conceded. "Come to our weekly meeting this Friday night, and we'll fill you in on everything."