Brakes squealed as Athena slammed down on them, tires burning as they stopped suddenly on the highway, sliding to a halt in front of the massive beast.

Pip lurched forward, catching herself against the seat in front of her, seatbelt trying to slam her back into her own seat. She unbuckled quickly, rising to her feet as she leaned toward the windshield.

A beaver the size of a truck stood in the middle of the highway, blocking the lanes in both directions with a full sized tree in its mouth. Teeth the size of tires held onto it, gouging into the rough bark.

"Woah," Dyiona gasped. She grabbed onto Pip's arms, nailing digging into her skin. "Is that a meta beaver?"

"No," Theo said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "They all get that big."

Mai turned to Athena in the driver's seat, gripping her seatbelt with white knuckles. "Can we go around it?"

Pip sat back, peering out the window. The highway dipped down a steep hill into fields full of cows on one side, and into a forest on the other. Athena spoke before she could say what they were all thinking.

"Unfortunately not," Athena said. She unbuckled, turning on the emergency lights before reaching for the door handle.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Mai demanded, grabbing Athena's arm.

"She has to get the beaver out of the road," Pip said, leaning back into the middle console. There was nobody behind them at the moment, and as far as she could tell, no one going in the other direction. But how long would that last?

She popped open the passenger door, hopping out onto the asphalt. "I'm helping," she said, slamming the door behind her.

"Hey!" Mai shouted from inside the car, the word muffled. The window rolled down, and her mum leaned out to yell at her. "Get back in the car."

Pip peered over the hood, making eye contact with Athena and waiting for her to make a decision. If Athena told her to get back in the car, she would, but Pip wanted to help. What were the odds she'd be able to do anything like this anytime soon? Athena was more than powerful enough to deal with metafauna, but that didn't a little help wouldn't be useful.

Metafauna were still animals, and that's what made them the most dangerous. They couldn't be reasoned with like people. They lived on animal instinct, driven by something written into their DNA. And this one happened to be carrying a giant tree in its mouth.

"Theo, get in the driver's seat," Athena said, stepping away from the door. She nodded at Pip, who took the cue and sprinted around the car while Mai shouted at both of them for being foolish. She switched over to Chinese, and Pip winced, but kept moving, staying on her mom's heel. Mai just didn't understand why they had to be the ones to deal with this. Anyone else would be seriously injured, trying to manage a monster like this, but at least they had a chance.

They slowed as they approached the beaver, watching it lock eyes on them.

"I'm trying to contact the nearest tower," Athena said, eyes darting between the giant beaver and the watch on her wrist. "Letting them know what's going on."

"You think someone will come to deal with this?" Pip asked. She reached into her core, ready to summon her armor if needed. It wasn't perfect, but it should do well enough to protect her against this thing.

"Maybe," Athena said. "Not fast, though. Low priority."

"Is there a river nearby?" Pip asked. Maybe they could drive the beaver to a river, which was where it wanted to go anyway, right? Then, just leave it for someone else to clean up.

Athena tilted her head to the side, listening to something. Dispatch must have gotten back to her already. Then she shook her head. "There is, but it runs parallel to a town. Driving the beaver there would be too dangerous, the risk of flooding too high."

Pip nodded. That was reasonable; she'd read stories of the sort of natural disasters these things were able to incite.

"What do you think its power is?" she asked, bouncing up on her toes. The beaver shifted on the road, claws digging into the concrete and pulling up hunks of stone. She winced, watching as it destroyed the road. Hopefully they'd still be able to get past it.

"We're about to find out," Athena said. Sand flowed from nothing around her, appearing and clothing her in the centurion armor she always wore as a hero. She wouldn't be nearly as strong without a natural source of sand, but this would still do. She finished with her signature spear, and a shield on top. "We're gonna let you take the lead, okay?"

A smile exploded across Pip's face, the excitement welling up inside so fast she thought she might explode. "Okay!"

Pip mirrored her mother's actions, summoning her own shield, and a long staff made of glass. The glass immediately began to warm against her skin, sweat slick across her palms. This was easily the most exciting, and terrifying, thing she'd ever dealt with. "Florence isn't going to believe this."

Athena stepped forward, the ground vibrating beneath her feet, shockwaves moving through the ground around her. The beaver startled, hopping backward as she advanced, shifting its feet uncomfortably. She lifted her spear. "Stay calm," Athena said, urging Pip forward. "You want to direct it off of the road without startling it or causing it to become aggressive. Smooth, confident movements."

Pip glanced around for a moment before nodding, sidestepping to the left. She kept in eyesight of Athena, moving slowly toward the edge of the highway to force it toward the forest on the other side. It stopped after three steps, eyes darting around toward them.

Pip banged her sword against her shield. The noise splintered off around them, and the beaver's eyes went wide.

"Oh fuck."

The beaver leapt forward, dropping the tree in his mouth.

Pip darted backward as both the tree and the beaver came at her.

Athena shouted, and a pillar of sand erupted from the side of the road, slamming into the monster like a waterspout. It turned toward her, huge tail sliding across the asphalt.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The tree kept rolling, picking up speed as it caught the slight downward angle.

"Back!" Pip shouted as she retreated, waving at the car. The engine revved loudly before it began to reverse wildly across the highway, Mai's shouting drifting from the open window.

Gritting her teeth, Pip stopped retreating. She ducked low, planting the shield in front of her, and reached out, straining to summon a type of glass she'd never tried before. Spikes of glass formed across the road, stabbing into tree. Some crunched and shattered, leaving a trial of glass shards across the road.

The rolling slowed, but didn't stop.

Grabbing onto every shard of glass and still intact spike, Pip pushed, feeling herself waver as she struggled to maintain control of each piece of glass. The weight of the tree slammed against her own force of will moments before the tree itself hit her shield.

The weight of it buckled her knees and she fell, feeling skin cut open against the road as she shouted and forced the tree to stop moving. It sat against her, held in place by her glass, shoulder pressed firmly against the shield.

Grunting, Pip pulled herself to her feet again and summoned more glass. Her concentration split, she could barely pay attention to Athena's ploy with the monster, distracting it away from her. At least she didn't have to deal with the beaver too.

The summoned glass wedged itself beneath the tree, shifting the weight off her shield as she lifted the glass panes. The tree rolled backward, gradually inching toward the top of the rise once more. Pip stumbled after it, her staff forgotten, lifting the shield in front of her as she advanced.

Resting the tree against the road again, Pip turned her attention back to the beaver. Athena had managed to drive it to the edge of the road, retreating down the hill toward the forest. It stood in her mom's path back to the highway, its tail resting across the opposite lane.

They needed to get it down into that forest and away from the road.

Highlights split the distance, driving up the incline at breakneck speeds. Did it not see the huge shadow blocking its path?

Lifting the pieces of glass once more, Pip turned her attention toward the beaver.

"Mom, watch out!" she shouted, projecting her voice with as much force as she could. The beaver turned toward her, whipping its head over his shoulder. Light caught across its beady black eyes.

Before the beaver could move, Pip pivoted the glass spiked tree in the air, and thrust her arms forward. Her arms trembled and sweat beaded along her brow as she struggled with the weight of it before it jerked forward at an uneven speed. The tree flew at the beaver, her glass vanishing back into nothing moments before it hit.

The tree slammed into the beaver, sending them both tipping off the edge of the road and tumbling toward the forest below.

The car raced past, only cutting on the brakes at the last minute, too late to stop if the monster had still stood in its way.

Gasping for air, Pip stumbled toward the edge of the road, looking for Athena. She hadn't hit her mother with the tree too, had she?

Athena appeared as she reached the edge of the highway, slipping off the sloped concrete into the gravel along the side. She grabbed Pip by the shoulder, stopping her before she reached the torn and ruined railing, the metal split inward from the beaver's initial hike onto the highway.

"Good job," Athena said, beaming at her.

Thunder split through the coming dusk, billowing toward them out of the valley below. It took Pip a moment to realize the noise wasn't thunder, but dozens of trees splitting and half and splintering as power flared around the beaver.

"Oh," Pip said, letting out a small giggle. "I guess that's its power."

Athena looked down at her watch, letting out a small sigh. "Support is on their way, but still a bit out," she said, stepping off the road again and into the gravel. "Want to go down there and make sure it stays put until they arrive?"

Exhausted and covered in gravel and bits of glass, Pip nodded. She straightened herself up, sucked in a deep breath, and looked up at her mom with a smile. "Absolutely."

"That's my girl," Athena said, and summoned a tide of sand beneath their feet to carry them down the hill.

Pip held onto Athena as the ground rushed past them, balancing precariously on what was basically a surfboard made of sand. Or maybe sled would be better, cutting through undergrowth and hopping over stones and stumps like it was nothing. How Athena did this all the time, she had no idea, her stomach flipped over on itself by the time they reached the bottom.

The sand ride stopped before they reached the edge of the forest, perched on the hill above the beaver as it tore trees from their roots, chittering angrily.

"What do we do?" Pip asked, looking up at Athena.

"Can you make a glass wall?" Athena asked, speaking as she began forming walls of her own, mounds of sand to surround the beaver. "Keep it down in the valley until support arrives."

Pip nodded, jumping in to assist her mother without another word, crafting huge panels of glass to top the mounds of sand, rooting them in place.

A tree limb slammed against one of her walls and she jumped, watching the glass fracture outward from the impact point. Just how strong was this thing? How was it throwing them around so easily?

A splitting headache formed in her temple, throbbing in time with her core as she continued to summon and strengthen the glass, refusing to let the beaver get away. If it got away, it would cause more harm and possibly hurt people or even destroy entire towns if it reached the river. She couldn't let that happen.

She may not be a hero yet, but that was only for a few more days. She had to stand her ground.

Pip had no idea how long she stood in place, entirely unaware of her body and how she still remained standing. She barely noticed as the hero support arrived, not until Athena tapped her on the shoulder.

"You can stop now," she said.

Pip nodded, letting the glass vanish, and then dropped to the ground. She gasped for air, somehow out of breath despite not moving a muscle for the past… however long that had taken.

"Good job," Athena said, kneeling into the sand beside her. "No one at school is going to believe you, though."

Pip couldn't help but laugh. "I know. It's not fair."

"It's really not," one of the newly arrived heroes said. "What school are you headed to?"

"New York," Pip said, forcing herself to stand. Her knees shook, gravel digging into her skin where they'd been split open. "For hero training."

"Nice," the hero said, nodding appreciatively. He glanced back down at the beaver, now sedated and resting amid the pile of trees it had shattered. "Do you wanna picture with it?"

All the exhaustion vanished at the prospect of taking a picture with it and having proof of what exactly she'd helped accomplish. "Yes!"

"Hurry," the hero said, motioning them down toward the super beaver. "Before removal arrives to relocate it."

Pip raced to the bottom of the hill, Athena joining her as they posed in front of the beaver in the growing dark. The hero snapped a few pictures before thanking them both for their help, and apologizing for the inconvenience before letting them go.

They made their way up the hill, finding the car waiting at the top once again, flashers on. Mai hopped out of the car the moment they appeared, racing over to them.

"You can't just do something like that!" Mai exploded, eyes wide as she took in her wife and daughter. "You could have been killed."

"We have pictures," Pip said, not sure what else to do. Mum couldn't have expected her to just sit back and let the beaver run wild, could she? "And we're going to be late for orientation."

"It's all okay," Athena said, guiding Mai back toward the car. "Pip did great, and nobody got hurt. Let's get back on the road."

Pip climbed back into the car, slumping against the seat. Her body ached, cuts on her legs already scabbing over, dirt and sand coating her legs. Luckily all the glass was gone, easy enough to get rid of.

"Did you kill it?" Dyiona asked quietly as everyone got back into their places.

"No."

"Good. Can we keep it?"

Mai slammed the passenger door shut, her words following shortly after. "Absolutely not."

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