The Elite

Mark Twain once said that quitting smoking was the easiest thing in the world to do, speaking from the personal experience of quitting the improbable number of a thousand times.

Spitfire could appreciate sarcasm like that.

She stuck another piece of gum into her mouth and chewed as she crossed her arms over her chest, watching as her team completed their morning exercises. She had completed hers an hour ago, before everyone else was awake.

She had started smoking when she was thirteen in a misguided attempt to deal with the stress in her life. Now, at eighteen, she hadn't had a cigarette in two months. She was pretty proud of that, but it didn't mean she didn't want one now.

Smoking was too hard on her body, what with her career and all. The Wonderbolts Elite were expected to be in top physical condition. Their job, and the media, demanded it.

Scrutinized as they were, they had to keep themselves at their best. Everybody from politicians and activists to armchair psychologists and Jane Busybody wanted a piece of them. She supposed it was expected. The Elite used their talents to rescue the victims of disaster. Essentially, they were children running headlong into danger and some people had an issue with that.

But that didn't mean they didn't have the training and the talent to complete each mission successfully.

Soarin was negotiating the Salmon Run. Using a long metal bar, he would lodge it against each pair of rungs before slinging himself up to the next pair. It was strenuous and required a great deal of upper body strength.

About three quarters of the way up, he lost his grip and fell back to the blue mats. Laying on his back, he laughed at his own misfortune.

Spitfire grimaced. She demanded the best from her team, especially Soarin. She had named him her Second because he was the best and he always delivered, but, sometimes, she wished he'd take his job a little more seriously.

Fleetfoot worked her way along the Spider Wall. This was a difficult obstacle, requiring that she keep her arms and legs braced against the opposing walls to keep herself from falling. As there wouldn't always be mats below, falling was discouraged.

While Fleet publicly presented herself as a congenial girl with a conservative sense of humor, privately, she was as prone to backstabbing and attitude as any teenager and more than most. She tended to treat anyone who she felt was inferior with contempt. Unfortunately, she felt everyone was inferior to her.

She had serious issues with other women in authority, which meant she and Spitfire were at constant odds. Fleet wasn't stupid enough to directly call Spitfire out, but she wasn't above spreading rumors and making snide remarks behind her captain's back. Spitfire did her best to ignore the girl, certain she was just jealous of the attention Spitfire regularly received.

Surprise was climbing the wall, literally. The energetic girl was the youngest of the Wonderbolt Elite at only fifteen. She flirted with everybody incessantly and was absolutely loved by the media and the fans for her bubbly personality. However, her antics would test the patience of a saint. As Spitfire was far from saintly, it often put them at odds. It was all she could do to keep from tying the girl up, gagging her with a sock, and stuffing her in a locker somewhere. She only refrained from doing that because she was sure Surprise would find it great fun.

From the top of the wall, Icarus reached down to help her up. Being the most recent addition to the team, he had to work in tandem with another member while his talents and his placement on the team were assessed. It was a chore that everyone else tried to avoid, but Spitfire had come up with an arbitrary method to assure everyone got equal time to train the newbie.

Namely, she arbitrarily picked somebody and, today, that somebody was Surprise.

Icarus was always building something that he thought would help the team. She preferred that he'd train more, but she had enough battles to fight. Still, the boy had a lot of very good ideas. He was the one who came up with the Heart Monitors they used. The monitors read the Electromagnetic field around a beating heart, showing the location of any nearby person, even through dense rubble. Unfortunately, the monitor had a range of only a few meters, but they had still managed to be useful.

Straddling the top of the wall, Surprise embraced Icarus in a tight hug, causing the poor boy to blush radiantly.

Spitfire let out a chuckle at his expression. He still didn't know how to take any affection and usually misread it all, which led to some pretty funny misunderstandings. He had once tried to flirt with Fleetfoot, which had resulted in her putting a verbal foot up his ass.

As the newest member of the Elite, Icarus had the delightful task of doing anything that the veterans didn't want to do. Everything from cleaning out the apartments to washing the uniforms and scheduling appointments. Basically, he was the Elite's bitch.

She pulled off her blue and gold uniform jacket and ran a hand through her ginger and blonde locks, which were already damp with sweat. The summer days here in France could get quite warm, unlike her native Ireland, and she was surprised at how quickly the air heated up.

To keep herself occupied while the rest of the team finished their exercises, she crouched down and opened Surprise's bag. She retrieved the outlandishly pink notebook within and opened it to the girl's arithmetic work.

Wonderbolt's academy was a school, where children were prepared for life. Granted, all of these children were athletic, but even athletic children needed to be taught the basics. Icarus and Surprise hadn't graduated yet and were still saddled with homework every night.

Part of the school's policy was that any student who failed to meet academic standards would not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities and Elite was, technically, an extracurricular activity. Now, as their numbers were so small and they could be called upon at any time to go and save the day, it wouldn't do to have two of their members down due to poor grades. Therefore, she flexed some of her muscle and implemented her own policy: Every team member willing had the responsibility of checking over the homework of their younger teammates. As Fleetfoot was a horse's ass, it boiled down to her and Soarin dividing subjects between them. She handled Arithmetic, History, and Sciences. He was responsible for Literature, Economics, and Government.

This way, each member of the Elite was a key part of their success as a team in every sense. Icarus and Surprise saw Spitfire and Soarin less as superiors and more as older siblings. There were pros and cons to this type of relationship, but she found it satisfactory for the most part. Whenever the kids, as she referred to them, started to forget their place, she would remind them that she was captain and could make their lives miserable for quite some time. There would be some grumblings, but peace would be restored.

With a whistle and a wave of her arm, she signaled the rest of her team. “Let's wrap it up. The kids have class in fifteen.”

Icarus trotted up. “But I haven't had breakfast yet.”

She shook her head. “Then you should have gotten up earlier. One half-hour of training, whether you need it or not.”

“I had a lot of homework last night.”

She gave him a wry look. “Is that why you didn't do it?” She snickered at the look he gave her. “Yeah, boyo. Soarin' told me about how you were up half the night tinkerin' with your toys. Ye know the policy here. Eccers come first. Period.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mother.”

“Oi. I'll thank you to not be givin' me any lip. Besides, I'm the closest thing to a mum you've got here.”

It was true. There were times when she was less of a captain and more of a mother in the way she kept them on schedule, helped with homework, made sure they went to bed and got up, and kept them out of trouble.

Icarus picked up his bag and started back towards the dorms to shower before his first class of the day. Spitfire couldn't resist rubbing it in. “Love you!” She called.

He flashed a rude gesture over his shoulder and broke into a jog.

The notebook she was holding was snatched out of her hand as a blonde blur darted past, sprinting after her training buddy. “See ya later, Spit!”

“Hey, Fleet! Ya want some breakfast?” She heard Soarin over her shoulder.

“I'm good. Gotta keep practicin' if I'm gonna make Captain one day!”

“Over my dead body.” Spitfire muttered.

She felt someone grab a fistful of her shirt and pull her to her feet. “How's my favorite partner this morning?” Soarin asked her.

“Not looking forward to what we're getting ready to do. Had I known that Elite held more paperwork than action, I would have told the judges to take that scholarship and blow it out their arses.”

“What? And risk losing out on all those great times with yours truly?”

“Okay, great times aside, this has got to be the worst part of the job.” She complained.

He laughed. “If I didn't know better, I'd say you hated paperwork.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” She deadpanned. “Why, I just love making training schedules and havin' a row with Sean over budgets and equipment. What is his job, anyway?” She asked, referring to their manager.

“Making it look like we have adult supervision?”

Spitfire shook her head. It wasn't fair that they mocked Sean like this. While she kept the peace within the team, he acted as a barrier between the rest of the world and the Elite. Their manager worked tirelessly to fend off reporters and activists and governments while trying to put his kids in the best light. It wasn't an easy job, especially when she took it upon herself to be a pain, but he did it with pride.

x----x

One of the perks of being an Elite was the on-campus housing. Each of the five Elite got their own apartments with private baths and kitchens. Though the rest of the team often ate with the other academy attendees, Spitfire liked her privacy. In the cafeteria, they were treated as celebrities and constantly bombarded with requests for autographs and tales of their adventures. She didn't particularly care for that kind of attention.

The main debate of that morning was which she would do first, shower or breakfast. She pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and began to chug it. It was actually the same bottle she had used for months, filled with water from the tap. It was one of the habits she had developed while growing up.

On the counter, her phone buzzed. She grabbed it, knowing exactly who was calling this early. Her brother only managed to have the time to call her once or twice a month and only before he started work at ten.

“Hiya, Levi.”

“Oi, coppertop!” Her brother barked. “How's the form?”

Whenever she spoke with Levi, she found herself slipping back into her original Dublin accent, something she tried to keep to a minimum at the academy. “Fair. 'Bout ye?”

“Doin' a line.” He replied.

Her eyes shot up. So, her brother had a girlfriend? That was news. “Me arse and Katty Berry, you do.”

“It's the truth, Coppertop. Me and this vixen, Lucy, have been steppin' out for a month now.”

“Ye ain't got the time, what with work and the wee ones.”

He chuckled. “No worries. I've got me a new gig runnin' post. Good pay and good hours. Shannon's old enough now to mind the babies and I've got some time now.”

“Aye, call me gobsmacked.” She replied before moving on to the reason behind her brother's call. “Here in a minute, I'll go ahead and transfer the money.”

Every month, she sent half of her pay back home. The money, collected from royalties, helped her family along.

“I've just got done tellin' ye, sis. We don't need it anymore. The money I make pays for everythin' we need these days.”

“Then put it in Shannon's university money.” She retorted. “I ain't gonna live the posh life here while my sister is a pauper. Mary may not have made anythin' of herself, but I'll be damned if my sister isn't gonna be somethin'.”

“Lay off Mum. She's been through enough and she ain't been right in ages.”

Spitfire felt her choler rise. “In case ye've forgotten, we went through the same thing. We struggled and fought and made it while she shut down and didn't give one rat's arse about us!”

Her brother sighed. “I know ye're still sore about what happened-”

“Bloody right, I am!” She snarled. “Absolute bollocks!”

“Stop eatin' my head and let me finish. We all miss you and wish ye'd come home. Yeah, I know ye're busy savin' the world and bein' famous, but that doesn't mean the only way we should see ye is in the papers.”

“Damn ye and yer guilt trips, Levi. I'll try to make it up there on the hollies, but I can't make any promises. Go to work, earn yer quid, and I'll see ye when I can.”

“Alright. I guess that'll have to do. See ye.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Aye. See ye. Give the babies a kiss for me.”

“Aye.”

She ended the call and rubbed at her face. Despite what that bitch Fate had flung merrily into her path, Spitfire soldiered forth and had managed success. She thought, upon learning that she was going to be an Elite, that life was going to be easy.

“Bollocks,” she muttered.