Hopelessly Heroic (Rewritten)

twelve

Before she could even get her key in the door, June's phone was dinging. She couldn't help but groan when she read the text from Lily. 

need help on parkwood drive!!!

It wasn't far from her house, but she was so tired that for a split second she debated pretending she hadn't seen the message and just going to sleep. It wasn't really an option, though, so she unlocked her door, stepped inside, and changed into her costume. She left through the back door and ran for a couple minutes until she was sure nobody could see her before she took off into the air, trying to force herself to be energised for the ensuing fight. 

From the air, June could see Lily, Zypher, and Mind Mania facing off against a villain each. She didn't really understand why she had been called to help until she saw a couple more villains show up, including Flame. 

June landed slightly behind her allies, looking over the situation before getting involved. She knew what she was supposed to do; she had lost count of how many times she had been told she was the perfect one to fight Flame. Now that she knew her, though, she didn't want to have to fight her. 

As soon as she thought that, Mind Mania glanced back at her, sending her a sharp look. It was clear she had heard that thought. June moved forward quickly, trying to find a way to avoid fighting Flame without making it obvious that's what she was doing. The closest villain to her was Flux, a guy with telekinesis. She knew her water would be pretty useless against that, so she had to distract him with physical combat so he couldn't use his powers. 

He grinned as he saw June approaching, raising one hand to surely move some boulder or tree or something else that would do some serious damage to her. She used her flight to propel her forward, catching him off guard, and threw a punch at his jaw. It connected hard, but he recovered quickly and swung back, hitting her in the cheek. It was strong enough that she stumbled back a few steps, which gave him an advantage. He lunged forward to attack, and she blasted him in the face with some water, blinding and choking him at the same time. As she used her other arm to hit him in the ribs, she heard Lily yelling at her.

"Tide, focus on Flame!"

Dodging a hit, she yelled back, "I'm a little busy right now," 

She figured her best bet was pretending she had intended on getting to Flame, but Flux had intercepted. Unfortunately, Mind Mania knew the truth, and was getting agitated. 

"Tide!" June chanced a glance at her, and saw her nod off to something in front of them. When she looked, she just saw fire. Flame was shooting a stream of fire in front of her and walking toward Lily, who was focused on using vines to tie up the girl she was fighting. She didn't even notice the fire. 

June cursed under her breath as she was punched again, and flew straight up in the air, causing Flux to stumble forward in his attempt to hit her. From above, she put out the fire and then dropped in between Flame and Lily, who had just noticed she was moments away from burning to death. 

"Jesus," June heard Lily say from behind her, but she just kept looking at Flame, who had stopped burning everything and was just looking back.

"Tidal!" Mind Mania shouted, suddenly sounding very much like an angry mother, and June whipped around to look at her. Whatever Mind Mania was going to say next died on her tongue as she stared at June and Flame, three feet apart and not fighting. Lily had also seemed to take notice of what was happening. Even the villain Mind Mania was fighting paused to glance at them before taking the opportunity to attack the stunned hero in front of him. 

In seconds, a million thoughts raced through June's head. She knew if she didn't fight Flame, everybody would know they weren't enemies. They would think they were working together. All of her allies would turn on her. She'd probably get thrown in jail. But she didn't want to hurt Flame, and she didn't even want to think that because she knew Mind Mania was listening. On top of that, she didn't want to think it because it made her feel like a shitty hero. She was supposed to want to fight villains, to apprehend them. Not put out the fires in their houses, and make sure they had a place to sleep, and talk to them on a roof after giving some other villain to the cops.

"Hit me," She mouthed to Flame, who didn't look like she was having any inner turmoil at all. June wondered if Flame cared if the other villains knew they were kind of friends. She wondered if the other villains did know.

Before she could process it, Flame was stepping forward and punching June in the face, almost spinning her around with the force. For some reason, despite just asking for it, she wasn't expecting the hit. Or, at least, she wasn't expecting to be hit that hard. 

She planted her right foot and focused on the pulsing in her cheek, on the taste of blood, on the smell of burnt hair. When she hit Flame, she made sure she was going to feel it in the morning.