Content Warning: Mentions of hurt children

On Saturday morning, Amélia received a call from the Santa Minerva Nursing Home for the Empowered Elderly. They didn’t use to call except for urgent matters. It could only mean one thing: Vovó had passed away.

Luckily, Elvira Chagas was pretty much alive.

“Ms. Chagas, your grandmother keeps freezing a resident’s door with her powers. We need you to come over as soon as you can.”

~~~

The first time Amélia visited Vovó after she moved to the nursing home, she’d found Vovó binge-reading a new fantasy series, lounging on a chair in the garden with a glass of passionfruit juice partially forgotten over a side table. Serene had been the word that came to mind on the occasion. It’d warmed Amélia’s heart to see her grandmother relaxing after a life of turbulent struggles, vendettas, mass fights, and tragedies.

Now things were substantially different. Chaotic.

“He got what he deserves!” Elvira shouted, her voice rough, her curly, disheveled hair a wad of profound white around her dark complexion. The same white it had been since the day she got her powers, more than 60 years before. Amélia recalled reading the headline snippets from the time Rio was finding out about its new superhero. Her mother had kept them neatly organized in a binder labeled Mom on the News, along with QR codes pointing to print screens with lots of stuff that only appeared online.

Young woman flashes white hair and becomes ice!

Who is the Girl of Ice that arrested forty burglars in Rio?

Ten makeup tips that will make you look like the Arctic Lady.

“No! No!” Elvira continued, staring at the frozen door in front of her. “He only got a fourth of what he truly deserves.” Amélia grabbed her hand. Vovó was panting, slightly shaking, her pajamas—a cotton dress with daisies that Vovó kept for years for the sake of loving its comfiness—were wet in the parts her ice had touched it.

“It’s been like this almost every day now,” nurse Paulo whispered to Amélia. Jaime Machiavelli’s door was a sheet of ice full of pronged edges like the relief model of a mountainous region. Vapor wafted out of it, cooling the hallway. At the end that led to the nursing home’s wide living room, nurse Ilana prevented the other residents from getting close. “We’ve been relocating Mr. Machiavelli but soon we’ll be out of rooms with doors.”

“I hope so!” Elvira grinned. “Then you’ll have to move him out of here!”

“Vovó…” Amélia took both of Elvira’s hands in hers and squeezed them. Her fingers were still enveloped in thin layers of ice, her palm all brittle and damp as the ice broke in thin slabs. “Jaime is a man who already served his sentence years ago. More than that, he’s—”

“Don’t you dare call him a hero!” Vovó grimaced and tightened her hands around Amélia’s, who recoiled with the pain. Vovó quickly softened her touch in regret, arching her brows. “Sorry… I—”

“A reformed man…” Amélia said, sighing. Yes, “hero” was the word she’d use if it didn’t touch Vovó so painfully. “He has the same rights of living here as you.”

Elvira opened her mouth to disagree, but Amélia embraced her. Vovó started crying the way she always did, her chest heaving, her chin tight on Amélia’s shoulder, but no sound whatsoever. And no tears. When Amélia let go of her and stepped back, Elvira’s eyes had become pearls locked tight behind a glass of ice. She always despised crying—it’s not something the empowered should be seen doing—and froze her tears, but for Amélia it only made her crying even more obvious.

Paulo touched her elbow. “Ms. Chagas, we should get Elvira to her room…”

“Why—”

But Amélia quickly understood. Something thumped on the ice door. One… two… three times. It crackled and, in seconds, everything collapsed. Instinctively, Elvira raised an ice shield behind Amélia and Paulo. Beams of white energy peeled off her wrinkled fingers to form a rough ice slab.

“This is getting tiresome, Elvira…” Jaime’s voice was still the same—soft, low, seemingly exceeding in patience. It had haunted Amélia when she was a girl who clung to the TV and consumed all things about the empowered.

Jaime punched the remainder of the broken door and carefully walked out of his room, wheezing softly. “We need to talk.”

Vovó broke her shield into shards of ice, not exactly directed toward Jaime but also not avoiding him. He raised a hand over his face, but despite the sharpness of some of the pieces, none of it damaged him. His skin was harder than steel. Jaime Machiavelli was once known as the Urban Legion, Brazil’s most infamous supervillain—though he’s also been known as the hero Thickskin after serving his twelve-year sentence.

“I won’t talk with the likes of you,” Elvira grumbled. “I tried and tried to get some sense into your head years ago and never could. You were always punching before talking. And now you want to talk…”

“Vovó…” Amélia grabbed her wrist. Now there were gloves of ice all the way up to her elbows. “Stop…”

Amélia had been briefed by the staff before meeting Vovó. Jaime Machiavelli, aka the Urban Legion, had arrived at the Santa Minerva Nursing Home three months before. They had actually thought about the risks of putting the former supervillain in the same house as his archenemy, but Santa Minerva was the only place devoted to the elderly empowered in Brazil. Since the first ones were reaching old age, there wasn’t still much interest and understanding of the complexities of housing and caring for old people with powers. Santa Minerva was the exception because it was founded by an empowered: Bloodfangs, a 150-year-old man cured from vampirism (who was shocked at finding out what growing old meant).

“I’ll just walk to the gardens,” Jaime said, raising his hands in a sign of surrender, shards of ice still hanging from his sleeveless shirt. Muscles still bulged on his brown arms and legs, though his back was hunched and his head completely hairless. “I’m not into fighting anymore, Elvira.”

Before Vovó could speak again, Amélia pulled her toward her room. Paulo let out a deep sigh and kneeled, warming his hands to completely melt Vovó’s ice and avoid any incidents. Of course, Santa Minerva nurses were all empowered themselves.

Vovó’s room was strategically located in the most distant wing from where Jaime was settled. Santa Minerva was a mansion comprised of five wings, each with six to ten rooms, most still unoccupied. Vovó’s room had two areas, one that worked as an office and the other, the bedroom itself. Amélia smiled every time she saw the pictures on the desk. They were the pride of her grandmother, something she had to cling to and extend her failing memory of the times when she saved Rio from wrongdoers. There she was, back in Olavo Bilac Public School with a lot of children around her and the cracked walls completely frozen. The children were still frightened, but some were smiling at her presence. Vovó’s face, though, was a frown of worry, exhaustion, and anger. In another one, she stood smiling alongside the People Guardians, the team of empowered she’d been part of for years. The biggest frame, though, belonged to a pic of Vovó kissing Amélia’s cheek. Little pockmarks of ice dotted Vovó’s lips like glittered lipstick. Amélia was three at the time, still pretty sure that all grandmothers exuded ice and love.

“I can’t stay here if he does,” Vovó said, going to the bedroom and sitting on her bed’s feet. Amélia followed her. “I can’t sleep with the enemy right next door.”

“He’s in another wing, Vovó…” Amélia sat beside her.

“Well…” Vovó shrugged. “A few doors away, then.”

“The staff is monitoring everything. And Jaime, he—he doesn’t hurt anyone for many years.”

Amélia expected a reprimand. None came.

“And what will happen during Gratitude?” Vovó’s head was down as she played with bubbles of ice. Every time one sprouted from her index finger, she broke it with her thumb. It was something Amélia saw her doing when she was thinking, often stressed, on the verge of going out and finding some bad guy to freeze.

“What’s Gratitude?”

“Oh… It’s silly, anyway…” She waved a hand, and Amélia knew it was everything but silly to Vovó. “It’s this celebration the nurses are arranging to honor the elderly empowered. Gratitude for Our Protectors. There’ll be food, younger empowered, and… children.”

“That’s great, Vovó!” Amélia reached for Vovó’s hand so she’d stop popping the bubbles of ice. Though her skin was fairly resistant to anything related to ice, lately her nails had been breaking due to the manipulation.

“Families…” Vovó said. “Families of people we saved a long time ago. They’ll come too. Those brats now have jobs and kids and wear suits, can you believe? Oh, I’m so old, Amelinha!”

“Well, the alternative would be to die young.” Amélia grinned. “I’m glad you’re old.”

Vovó sulked. She smelled like the sweetness and tenderness of a fabric softener. It made Amélia want to rest her head on Vovó’s shoulder and watch something on TV until both of them dozed off.

“Why are—” Amélia’s hand touched something wet on the bed. She rolled her eyes. “Vovó, haven’t you been taking your urinary incontinence medications?”

“Oh, relax…” Vovó stood and walked to the window. “I’m taking the medications, Amelinha…” Outside, Jaime was a distant figure moving around Santa Minerva’s gardens. He was pacing about holding a cane, but propping it on his shoulder instead of using it to walk. It was an eccentric trait of the Urban Legion the man had never abandoned, even after he served his time.

Amélia nodded. “Sorry… It’s not pee. It’s just water. Must be your ice.”

Vovó nodded but her eyes and thoughts were transfixed at the man in the garden. Amélia stood and pulled the blinders, softly pulling Vovó away from her past.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Either he will leave the house… or I will.” Vovó walked to her room’s office area and grabbed a book on a shelf. A cue that she wanted to be left alone. “And, Amelinha, I’m really not in the mood of leaving a place like this, won by those who fought on the good side.” She sank on the couch, rubbing her brows. Her fingers left a thin trail of ice.

“Who are you writing letters to?” Amélia pointed with her chin to a folder with envelopes neatly set behind the picture frames.

“The Empowered Association,” Vovó blurted out. “I’ve been paying the membership though I don’t need to anymore. Perks of the old, right?”

Amélia ignored Vovó’s outright lie, kissed her cold cheeks and left. There would be time to talk her out of pursuing Jaime Machiavelli. Amélia knew she wouldn’t kill him or hurt him badly, but she also knew Elvira Chagas, aka the Icebergirl, never rested before catching a supervillain.

~~~

Meet the Arctic Lady!

January 8th, 1999

Scientists say the empowered young woman might carry ancestral genes that enabled her powers. Others say she was part of an experiment as a kid. The Arctic Lady herself, in her white, skintight suit and her snowflake-shaped helmet says she has no idea of what she become. More on page 13.

Arctic Lady. Girl of Ice. Whitestar. Southern Cold. Antartiqueta. Elvira Chagas was known by a hundred different names when she started prowling the streets of Rio de Janeiro battling crime in 1999. The name that stuck was Icebergirl. At the time, everyone saw her as a freak, a spawn of Lucifer, even an alien. Until she prevented ten police armored vehicles from driving up the favelas and arbitrarily shooting people in an illegal operation. That was when her fame began, when people started seeing her as a force of good. But Amélia’s origin story had been different.

Amélia never wanted to be a superhero, contrary to the common enthusiasm of kids after the empowered dominated the news. It was 2042 and Amélia was ten years old. At the time, the family—Amélia, Vovó, and Mom—was living in Nova Iguaçu, and the days were scorchingly hot as usual in the summer. She was playing with two action figures in the front yard. Mom was at the back, quietly knitting. It was when Vovó came hobbling across the street, bleeding, a frozen hand pressed on a deep cut on the left side of her torso.

Vovó said nothing as she entered the front yard but didn’t forget to blow a kiss to Amélia, who promptly followed her. If Vovó said something or asked not to be followed, Amélia didn’t listen. Vovó tiptoed into the house as if to not call Mom’s attention. She went to the bathroom, leaving droplets of blood on her way, exuding a brute scent of burning and iron. She opened the shower. When she realized the water was naturally hot, she closed it. Then, she laid down in the empty bathtub. Moaning, quirking up her lips in a grimace of pain, Vovó summoned plaques of ice over herself and let the Nova Iguaçu heat melt it.

Vovó fell into a deep and seemingly peaceful sleep. Amélia only watched, poking the melting and reddening ice floes to keep them away from Vovó’s mouth and eyes. It was only years later that she realized that’d been the moment she discovered what meant to be an empowered.

~~~

Amélia called or texted Paulo every day. There hadn’t been another episode of frozen doors so far, but Vovó had been in a bad mood, refusing to engage in any communal activities or even to take a walk in the gardens. She’d also been eating less than usual, often giving even her favorite dish—Parmesan-stuffed zucchini—to Roberto Teixeira, the Unseen Man. Mariana, the psychotherapist who could make people relax with her touch, didn’t have any success in talking with Elvira either. She was closing herself as Gratitude approached.

But at 5 AM on the celebration’s day, Amélia got the call.

“She did it again,” said Paulo. “But worse. Far worse.”

~~~

Santa Minerva Nursing Home was a historical mansion in the neighborhood of Campo Grande. A long time ago, it probably served as the home of a baron who exploited workers. It remained abandoned for decades until Bloodfangs bought it and revamped it into the gigantic five-wing nursing home for the empowered. It was an architectural wonder: all in light grey marble, the building’s windows and gates were arched and decorated with trefoils. Its pitched roof was painted in dark green, and its main tower—where the nursing home’s board of directors was installed—had seven stories, imposing above the five wings which had only three. People said it looked like some European vampiric cliché, but Bloodfangs would deny it forever.

And now, the entire north wing of the Santa Minerva had turned into a jagged palace of ice. Amélia rushed along the main road that led to the nursing home’s main entrance, gently elbowing the pack of nurses and residents chitchatting about what had happened.

“Where’s Elvira?” she asked no one in particular, knowing almost anyone would have the answer.

“She’s in her room.” Paulo grabbed her arm. “Mariana was with her, but now she asked for you and we left her there.”

“Is Jaime—”

Paulo shook his head. “He’s fine, just stuck inside the…” He gazed at the frozen building. Amélia sighed, rubbing her temples. The fact that “far worse” didn’t mean Vovó had killed Jaime was a relief. The staff had called the Mineral Man, who flew above the nursing home wearing nothing but swimming trunks. His marbly skin shone against the sun as salt exuded from it, raining on the ice below to help melting it faster.

“Is Jaime alone in there?”

Paulo nodded. Amélia sighed. Jaime’s skin was enough to resist Vovó’s ice, as extensively proved in dozens of past battles, but other people could not survive that much cold.

Amélia stared at the icicles jutting out of the building. Even when younger, Vovó had to deplete herself to produce that amount of ice. Over the years, Amélia learned something about Vovó’s power that even Vovó herself refused to accept. The more stressed she was, the more icicles and rough edges her power tended to produce. And the north wing had become a frosty materialization of Vovó’s anguish.

Amélia rushed inside, splashing her feet on puddles of melted ice, slightly shivering at the cold, a sensation not unusual around Vovó. She found her laying on the room’s floor, arms around her knees, head lowered. A thin mist swirled out of her. Her left arm was entirely wrapped in a block of ice and crackly chunks of ice broke in patches off her face onto her legs . Her eyes, that often looked like a thin sheet of glass when she was crying, now were completely covered by a white layer. From her shoulders, arms, and legs, small icicles bulged out like the skin of a hedgehog. She’d seen a video of Vovó like this once. It’d happened just after her last fight against the Urban Legion in the Olavo Bilac Public School.

“Vovó.” Amélia didn’t question what she did or showed surprise at her state. Vovó had her reasons and it wasn’t the time to convince her that she was doing the wrong thing. Besides, Jaime wasn’t entirely innocent. Even if a reformed, perhaps redeemed man, he still had a lot of blame to carry for everything he did, including making Vovó feel that way. “Are you hungry?”

“I—I…” Vovó stared at Amélia, her eyebrows crackling as shards of ice loosened around her white eyes. “I’d eat a fruit or something.”

Amélia went to a small fridge that stood in the corner of Vovó’s room and picked an apple. On her way back, she grabbed one of Vovó’s coats, one stylized with a symbol Vovó never liked—a fist-shaped iceberg coming out of the water—and put it on.

“It’s colder here than in the fridge.” Amélia smiled, giving the apple to Vovó and finding a dry spot to sit beside her.

“Oh, dear…” Vovó raised her head and the ice in her neck snapped. She wiped it off. “I wish I wasn’t a cold woman.”

“You’re not cold, c’mon! You’re the hottest empowered lady I know about.”

Vovó laughed, wisps of icy vapor drizzling out of her mouth. Then the laugh faded, the apple slowly freezing between her fingers. After a minute, she finally spoke, her voice breaking the ice stuck on her lips.

“The fact that he would be here today, with all the kids, all the families, the people I saved a long time ago… That terrified me, Amelinha.”

“That he could do something to hurt them?”

“No.” Vovó shook her head and that surprised Amélia. “I know he wouldn’t.”

“Then what?”

“He just—He’s not one of us. He doesn’t deserve to be thanked for anything, no matter what he did after his sentence.”

Amélia nodded but wanted to disagree. Instead, she remained in silence. She was there to listen.

“And look at what I did.” Vovó covered her face with her hands. “I’m gonna scare those kids, Amelinha. I’m going to be the White Witch from those Narnia novels, remember?”

“Don’t worry, Vovó…” Amélia passed an arm around Vovó’s shoulders. “They postponed the celebration and no one will come. No one is mad at you. This place is for people like you.”

“Unhinged?”

Amélia shook her head and pressed tight against her grandmother. She felt warmer now. “You never hurt a soul, only to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. You’re a hero, Icebergirl. You should never forget that.”

“How is he?” she asked, and Amélia didn’t know whether she was genuinely worried about Jaime or chewing on the guilt that she’d have to bear if she had killed him after all those years.

“He’s alive.”

It was far from the first time Vovó had frozen Jaime. The last time was when she finally arrested him, days after she arrived home bleeding from the Olavo Bilac Public School fight and slept in the bathtub. She’d caught him alone on the beach, but always refused to say anything about those last days. It was something that she wanted—needed—to keep to herself. Every superhero had a coda. That fight, her peaceful sleep in the bathtub as her ice melted, and Jaime’s final fate had been hers. Vovó still took another eight years to retire, but in those days she never found anyone so powerful as the Urban Legion, no one capable of stirring her, of waking her up at night just to find and fight him. After the Urban Legion, Vovó never had the same energy and intensity. In a way, they were nothing without each other. When he left prison and started fighting crime as the Thickskin for another two years, Vovó refused to accept it was the same man. And though he never wore a mask, she insisted it was only someone who looked like Jaime.

“You’re freezing your pee, Vovó.” Amélia sighed, staring at the yellow puddle around Vovó’s legs. “It can hurt you, you know.”

Vovó shrugged. “We do what we can with the power we have, don’t we?”

“As if you’re unable of erecting an entire frozen palace these days…”

They laughed, and the white scales of ice finished falling off from Vovó’s eyes, freeing a shine Amélia didn’t see for a long time. Amélia frowned at it. Vovó was utterly afraid. The uneaten apple, now encased in a small cube of ice, dropped from her hand and clinked on the floor.

“What’s up, Vovó?” Amélia swiveled her body to face her eye to eye. She squeezed her hands, flaking off the remaining chunks around her fingers.

“I’ve been thinking of death, Amelinha…”

“It’s natural in your age, but—”

“Not me dying, no.” Vovó vigorously shook her head. “But of me killing.”

Amélia opened her mouth but there wasn’t anything to say. She shivered at the cold, a sensation she learned to associate with protection and kindness. She tucked her head against Vovó’s shoulder as the last of her ice melted and soaked them. After Amélia’s first heartbreak in high school, Vovó had erected an igloo for her, and they stood there in almost complete darkness while Amélia discovered the new ways her heart could beat. She slept in the utmost peace. When she woke up, Vovó was outside sculpting ice stars in the garden. White energy swished out of her fingers in streams as she molded each of them slightly different from each other.

“You know what they say about the empowered?” Vovó had said without taking her eyes of her creation. “Each of us can decide between becoming artists and crimefighters. But no matter what we pick, we’re somehow saving someone.”

Every time Amélia felt hopeless, she closed her eyes and counted those ice stars. There were eleven of them. She wished she was able to make stars for her grandmother too.

~~~

Public School Chaos

June 19th, 2042

A fight that involved three empowered—the Icebergirl, the Urban Legion, and the Bengué—ended with the Olavo Bilac Public School wrecked. Three teachers and seven kids were hurt. Luckily and thanks to the Icebergirl, there were no fatalities. The Bengué is hospitalized and the Urban Legion whereabouts is unknown. Subscribe for full story.

There was something painful about being the last of anything. Amélia had been the last to be saved in the Del Castilho subway siege. At the time, Vovó had been in Ceará and couldn’t battle the Razor Soldier and his crew, who were demanding the existence of only one political party—their favorite—in the country. Only after the Tentacloid arrived and fought the Razor Soldier—opening up portals to a realm full of tentacled creatures—he took the commuters out of the subway trains. Amélia had been the last to be hoisted by a black and gooey tentacle.

She remembered the anguish in her chest while she waited. It made her believe there wouldn’t be much else in her life after that day. Vovó must’ve felt that way too when she became the last one alive in her polyamory marriage with three other empowered; and the last original member of the People Guardians. All around her, the world was becoming unrecognizable. And of all the things—good and bad—that gravitated around her during her life, the one closest to her right now was the man she’d most dreaded and despised: Jaime Machiavelli.

But whether Vovó realized it or not, the presence of Jaime in the nursing home made her, at least, no longer the last in something.

Jaime Machiavelli had been relocated to a new room while the staff defrosted part of the building with the Mineral Man’s help. This time, each hallway leading to Jaime had been properly sealed with fingerprint readers for the staff (not that she couldn’t reach him if she really wanted). For someone who spent twelve years in prison because of Elvira Chagas, Jaime inadvertently ended up in another one because of her again.

Amélia knocked on his door. He’d already been informed she was coming. For an instant, she despised him more than anything. She should just turn back and leave things as they were, let them escalate until Vovó was angry enough to get rid of this man once and for all. She sighed and shook the thought away. How easy it was to hate someone. She didn’t want to take that road.

The door opened.

“Oh, Amélia!” Jaime Machiavelli said with his soft voice, raising his eyebrows and propping his cane against his shoulder. He wore checkered trousers and a sleeveless black shirt. “I’ve been expecting you but I thought you’d—that you—well, that you’d give up. People don’t like talking to me.”

He propped his cane on the floor and beckoned her in.

“Come in. That is… If you want to,” he said. For a man who terrified so many people—and even some aliens—Jaime Machiavelli was very polite. His voice failed to hide hints of insecurity. Perhaps that was the effect of being rescued from the entrails of a frozen palace. “We can talk elsewhere.”

“Here’s fine.”

She entered his room. The place was divided in two areas like Vovó’s, but it had a smaller window than most rooms in the nursing home, with a view to a cloistered area in the building’s interior. Jaime had recently shaved and the flowery fragrance of his cologne clung to the place like part of the wallpaper. Perhaps Jaime was tired of all the ice Vovó had forced him to endure lately because the room was warm and stuffy, with the window closed and the air conditioner turned off. His things were mostly piled in a corner as the nurses must’ve moved them a few times already. His desk was empty but for a cup of water, a syringe, and a bunch of drawings with the faces of men, women, and children.

“I draw them,” he said, seeing Amélia frowning at them. “They don’t exist.”

“They’re… good.” Amélia found them skillfully drawn, but she wasn’t at ease praising something created by the man that inflicted so much pain to her grandmother. She wondered if Vovó knew her nemesis had an artistic vein in him. “Didn’t know you draw.”

“It’s mostly what I do these days,” he said. Then, with one hand, he raised a suitcase filled with clothes from a chair, put it in the corner, and positioned the chair in front of the desk. His other hand simply held his cane against his shoulder.

Amélia got dizzy with that show of strength. It was easy to forget that, like Vovó, he retained his powers even after eighty. And even though she’d seen his breaking through a wall of ice recently, it was impressive to see this show of power doing something as simple as raising something heavy in front of her.

“Please, sit down,” he said.

Amélia shook her head. “I’ll be brief. Thanks.”

Jaime nodded.

“What do you think of Elvira?” she said, suddenly. She came to ask him not to come to the Gratitude for Our Protectors celebration. Yet, she was now trying to understand the man whose name filled the headlines for so many years.

“Oh.” He turned his gaze to the window. In the cloistered area, the Unseen Man was in his visible form, playing chess against himself. “She did a good thing for me, can you believe?”

“Don’t be condescending, okay?” She immediately regretted her tone. She closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn’t talking to a criminal. She was talking to an old man that needed the same care Vovó did. But before she could say she was sorry, Jaime was staring seriously at her, lifting his shirt.

“Do you see this?” He slid a finger over a scar on the left side of his belly. His skin seemed smoother than a non-empowered’s skin, with lines that reminded her of a knitwork. Jaime grabbed the syringe from the table, removed its cap and pulled its plunger. “It’s almost time anyway.”

He opened a drawer and took a vial from there. Amélia gaped at him, slowly understanding what was happening. The first thing she recalled was a video of the Juggler throwing knives at the Urban Legion in a rooftop fight. All it’d done was cut Jaime’s clothes. His thick skin had remained unscathed. Jaime pushed the needle into the vial. When he was done, he tapped it to check for air bubbles and injected it on his scar.

“I have type 2 diabetes,” he said, soft, as if telling a secret. “Your grandmother cut me deeply with a very sharp icicle many years ago. It was the only time she could hurt me this way. Often we were only throwing each other all around, right?”

He removed the needle and disposed of the syringe in an appropriate container.

“Does Elvira know about this?” Amélia asked, but only for the lack of anything else to say.

“About the diabetes? Probably not. About the scar? Oh, yes. We used to talk a lot.”

“You… talked?”

“What do you think we did when we both defeated each other to exhaustion?” He guffawed. “We lay on the ground staring at the skies and talking about anything that came to mind. Until we were ready to fight again or walk away.”

Amélia stood in silence. She could only depict two good friends with many things to say to each other after a busy day at work.

“I understand her hard feelings for me,” Jaime said, sitting on the chair Amélia had refused. He groaned. “Back pain, can you believe? I can lift a car but somehow something in my back finds a way to hurt.”

“What do you mean about her hard feelings?”

“The Olavo Bilac fight. Our last fight. It’s when Elvira shifted from wanting to arrest a stubborn criminal to profoundly hating me.”

“Well, you picked a school, man!” Amélia shrugged. “I never understood what you wanted in a school. You stole secrets from companies, robbed jewelry stores, broke into houses… I remember you once left 300 people unconscious in a cargo ship just to rob a state secret. But a school?”

There was a smile on Jaime’s face, not one of provocation. He was staring absently-minded at the Unseen Man and his solitary pieces of chess.

“I wasn’t committing a crime that day and didn’t plan to.”

“How so?”

“I was there looking for my grandkid.” He swiveled on the chair and started flipping through his drawings. “I heard he studied there, but I never saw him.”

“And the Bengué saw you there…”

“Yes! The Bengué.” He shook a finger in the air. “I had forgotten his name. Man with green suit who caused severe rashes in the people he touched. His little brother studied there and he was picking him up. Amazingly, his rash powers worked on my skin. I remember fighting him and having to stop to scratch all my body. It was horrible. Anyway… he saw me, we fought, he lost, but I inadvertently damaged a lot of the school in the process.”

Both the Bengué and the Urban Legion had super-strength and hard skin, meaning their bodies were basically boulders flying around a school full of children. The fact that Jaime admitted the blame for the destruction didn’t come unnoticed, even though he was attacked first. He knew what he was, what he represented, and the Bengué couldn’t be blamed for trying to keep him away from children.

“When the Icebergirl arrived,” Jaime continued, “she was filled with an anger I never saw in her. I remember she was crying too, with her icy eyes shining. Then… you know the rest.”

Amélia nodded. She’d heard and read about the Olavo Bilac Public School fight so many times. Not often from the mouth of Vovó. Vovó didn’t like to remember that day, except for the picture frame she kept on her desk. It was like she was selecting which memories she wanted. But Amélia recalled that some kids got hurt. Not badly, fortunately. Most of them shook in horror as the walls and the upper floors of their school cracked and started to collapse. The Icebergirl had to patch everything with ice and, against all odds, badly hurt from the fight, she managed to keep the school standing until the ice started melting an hour later. It was enough time to save everyone, but also gave an opportunity for a defeated Urban Legion to flee.

“I’d done enough,” Jaime said, selecting two of the drawings. Two boys. “I had amassed an illegal fortune and it meant nothing to me.”

He eyed the two selected drawings on his hand but said nothing. He remained still for a few minutes. Outside, the lampposts lit up with the nightfall, casting a fiery glow on the Unseen Man. His skin flickered. When a nurse walked by, he disappeared completely until the man entered a door.

“I only killed once, Amélia,” Jaime said, and his low voice seemed loud in the silence. He tucked his cane between his legs and lowered his head. Was it shame?

“I thought you didn’t kill…”

“I killed many people indirectly.” It was shame, yes, but it was also the recollection of forcing oneself to remember things better left suppressed. “I used to convince myself the indirect deaths were collateral damages of my trade. But this man… I wanted to kill him. Do you know my… I think we can call it an origin story, right? This man… I didn’t know him personally. But I found out he tortured a kid.”

He grimaced at that, then shook his head to wave the recollections away.

“So I chased him and… choked him. I still didn’t know what I was and what my super-strength meant. I called myself a freak day after day. And I was a single father with two kids to feed and no money on my bank account. So I killed this man because of what he did, but I took his money to feed my boys. And money leaves a trail. I was caught, spent two days in prison. I escaped by breaking the bars and the walls. And well… my career started then. I became a fugitive. I started robbing people, shoppings, jewelry stores, houses… I found black markets for the things I stole. I did it all because it was an easy way to feed my kids. I was astonished by how easy I could do those things, hence how easy I could bring meat and beans and rice and fries to my boys. But not only that, but toys, English classes, swimming classes, days out in empty places where I could go disguised… Happiness. Smiles. Woo-hoos. I saw my skin and my strength as means to bring my boys happiness.”

Amélia stood with her back against the wall and her arms crossed. She realized she was crying. Along the years, the media had written many stories about the origin of the Urban Legion. But they never wrote anything about the origin of Jaime Machiavelli. They also had lots of things to say about the feats of the young and vigorous Icebergirl, of the People Guardians, almost superstars, kids of century, and of the crimes of a muscular, horrible man called Urban Legion. But once they got old, they were forgotten, as if they were unworthy unless they were filling up the popular imagination with stories, memes, and content every week.

“Then my kids left. I never knew with whom, maybe an aunt or my cousins. But I always knew why. And in the end it was better for them to keep their distance from their supervillain father. They kept a low profile, perhaps they were adopted and someone changed their names… I never found them, not even on the internet. And I kept committing crimes and fleeing the law. I convinced myself I needed more and more resources for when my family came back, but I also didn’t want to leave the headlines. I needed to be there so my kids would always know where to find me. Besides, I was too engulfed in this life to leave it. It sucked you in like quicksand.”

“Vovó often said something like that about waking up to fight crime every day.”

Jaime grinned. Only now she noticed he was missing a few teeth. “Probably I told her something like that in our confabulations. At the school fight day, I’d learned through a source that a boy with thick skin was studying at the Olavo Bilac Public School. And I went there to see if I could spot him. To see if he looked like me or like some of my boys… but, well—I—I’m sorry. I think I need to get some rest.”

“Who are they?” Amélia nodded toward the the drawings.

“People that don’t exist.” He covered the faces with his hands as if he didn’t want to look at them anymore. He set them aside on his desk and stood. “Faces I imagine for my grandkids, for my sons, nieces, nephews. Everyone that came after me. The part of the tree that pruned itself when they realized how rotten I was.”

Amélia turned to leave, wiping the tears of her face. Vovó and Jaime weren’t that different from each other. Both had their ways of dealing with the injustices of Rio. Bisa Eugênia, Elvira’s mother, had a home, a stable family, means to feed everyone. If Elvira had been raised in the same circumstances as Jaime, could the Icebergirl be the villain instead of the hero?

“Did Vovó know about your family?”

“Bits and pieces, never the whole story.” Jaime was at the window now, cane propped on his shoulder. By the way he wheezed, he was probably crying too. “I wanted to tell her everything and say that I would travel around Brazil, or even the world, to find my kids and grandkids. I invited her for a chat in the Flamengo Beach…”

Amélia gulped. That story was famous, and Jaime knew that, so he didn’t continue. Had he the opportunity to tell his story to Vovó, would things be different between them?

Outside, chess pieces floated, painted by amber lights.

~~~

The Last Attack of the Urban Legion

June 25th, 2042

The infamous criminal known as the Urban Legion has been found inside a giant block of ice in the Flamengo Beach. Spectators say the Icebergirl frustrated one of his robbery attempts. Two street hawkers said the icy superhero found the man eating alone after midnight, gazing silently at the cloudless sky. Whatever he was doing, the citizens of Rio won’t have to worry anymore: the Urban Legion has been taken to the Vassouras Maximum Security Prison. Let’s pray it was the last time he gazed at our night sky. His prison comes as a satisfying conclusion to the battle of the Olavo Bilac Public School. Click here for full story.

In three months, both the ice palace enveloping the nursing home’s north wing and the frozen anger of the Icebergirl had melted. Whenever Amélia visited, Vovó was either reading or doing some activity in the gardens, sometimes even venturing into the swimming pool with other residents, perhaps because she knew Jaime wasn’t fond of the pool. There had been a silent agreement between Amélia and Jaime, after all. He let Elvira pick the places where she wanted to go or stay. And whenever they were in close distance of each other, he’d quickly get away, avoiding all kinds of contact. That and Vovó’s frequent sessions with Mariana must’ve helped Santa Minerva to dwindle back into its sense of normalcy. During that time, Amélia tried to broach the subject of Jaime’s past with Vovó in the hope that she’d change her mind about his presence in the nursing home. But whenever they talked about it, Vovó’s levels of stress ramped up, so she decided not to bring it up again for the sake of her health.

Gratitude arrived, and the fact Amélia didn’t receive a call from Santa Minerva early in the morning was a relief. As she entered through the estate’s main gates, the first thing she heard was Vovó’s laughter. She was talking to the Unseen Man—whose lower half was completely invisible, and the Meteorite—her pitch, rocky skin shimmering with tiny eruptions that popped from time to time, exhuming a thick, ashen liquid that quickly dissolved. They were sitting around a white plastic table—except the Meteorite, who was on a rock chair—drinking beer and sharing a bowl of fried cod balls. It was reassuring to see Vovó like that, as if it was just one of the breaks she found to relax between her fights. When Amélia was at school, it wasn’t rare that Vovó and other People Guardians reunited at their yard to discuss their plans to topple a villain or to protect a place. Amélia used to wore noise cancelling headphones so she could study but not lose sight of Vovó and her friends. Somehow, their routine—eating slices of cheese with olive, fries, and onion rings, drinking beer that Vovó herself kept at 3°C, and fiercely arguing about anything—calmed her and helped her focus.

Now, at Gratitude, before going to Vovó’s table, Amélia scanned the gravel path that led to the central fountain and those leading to the building’s main wing. Then, she peeked at lakeside, where food stalls festooned with colorful flags had been placed, serving from hot dogs, acarajé, and popcorn to feijoada, drumsticks, and sandwiches. There was no sign of Jaime. Amélia imagined he’d kept his distance—or Vovó wouldn’t be laughing—but it was best to be sure.

In a bandstand at the garden’s other end, the Starstrikers were already taking pictures with some kids, the five of them getting creative with their poses that would be translated to holo-simulations later. A new sensation in the internet, the Starstrikers were a team of young empowered famous for battling the bad guys while posting their daily lives in all kinds of social media. People around Amélia’s age were arriving as well, and a nurse pinned a brooch on some of them: those whom the Icebergirl and the other residents had saved at some point in their lives, including survivors from the Olavo Bilac Public School fight—and their kids and families, who would never be there if not for those elderly heroes. Amélia saw how Vovó’s eyes twinkled and dropped the conversation momentarily whenever someone arrived. If she recognized them, Amélia didn’t know. But there was certainly delight, perhaps a brief realization that because one day she thought their life mattered, now her life mattered. At least Amélia wanted Vovó to be thinking in those terms.

But there was something else too. Amélia gritted her teeth as a nurse smiled and pinned a brooch on her blouse to indicate she was a relative. There was a feeling lingering in the air. Not entirely unexpected, sadly. But one that hurt. And it would hurt even more when Vovó perceived it. It was the sensation that everything gravitated out of the old and into the new like moons striving to find new orbits.

As soon as the children noticed the Starstrikers, they dashed to them. The unbalance between the residents and the younger generation was evident and disturbing. Their flashy and colorful uniforms, their cool powers, and their internet fame were enough to sequester the kids. Amélia wondered if it was a good call of the administration to have the younger heroes there at the same time. Now it was too late to advise them.

The feeling waned a bit as the protected—as the nurses called those saved by the Santa Minerva’s empowered—flocked around the residents to take pictures and talk. Even Bloodfangs came from the nursing home’s basement where he spent most of his time. His pale and weary expression–worn under sunglasses–and a pitch, black cloak, were reminiscent of his glory days as a crime-fighting, gloomy vampire, but his smile couldn’t hide the pleasant man he always had been.

After three people took pictures with Vovó, Amélia came from behind and grabbed her fingers.

“My frozen beauty,” Amélia said and kissed her cheek. “Hey.” She nodded at the Unseen Man and the Meteorite, who smiled at her.

“Grab a bite, Amélia,” said the Meteorite, extending the fried cod balls bowl.

“I’m fine.”

Vovó was beautiful. She was wearing a yellow frock shirt with brown ruffles that made her resemble a cute, unperturbed sunflower bathing in the sun.

Some kid yelped. She was caressing Vovó’s shoulder, so she felt when Vovó tensed up. Yes, she’d realized what was happening. Amélia squeezed Vovó’s shoulder and positioned herself in a way that prevented her from seeing that one of the Starstrikers—Alberon—was stretching his super-elastic hands to tickle a boy.

“One moment,” Amélia said, hopping back as Paulo rushed by. She grabbed his hand and glared at him. “Don’t you have activities centered on the elderly?” She nodded at the Starstrikers, arching her brows.

Paulo pinched his lips. “In an hour, yes. We’re kind of understaffed today, Amélia, and there’s a lot going on! Sorry!”

Amélia rolled her eyes. In the weeks since Vovó erected a palace of ice in the north wing, Amélia didn’t talk to her about the Gratitude for Our Protectors. But she didn’t need to. Vovó would find a reason to mention the celebration. Which clothes would she wear? Should she pick the red earrings or those imitating cubes of ice? Should she change her hair? Would there be many kids? Would the kids know who she was? Would them ask her for igloos?

“It seems the kids don’t like wrinkles!” The Unseen Man said, joking. Bad timing. “Better hide mine.” His entire body vanished, except for his green eyes and his mouth, which remained like extraneous particles floating between Vovó and the Meteorite.

Vovó immediately glanced at the bandstand and started popping ice bubbles with her fingers. Amélia pressed the digits between her own hands, feeling their icy, chapped tips and roughened nails.

“Why don’t you—” Amélia stuttered. Vovó didn’t need that day to be ruined by a band of internet-addicted heroes. “Why don’t you create an ice-skating ring for the kids? Remember when you did that years ago? I bet Paulo—Paulo! Paulo! Come here!” She waved to Paulo, who now came back on the path warming a pan of cookies with his hands. “Do you have ice skates in the building?”

“I think we do, but why—”

“Go fetch them! The celebration is starting!”

“But—”

“Please, Paulo!” She scowled at him. He got the point, nodded, and treaded toward the main entrance without delivering the cookies.

The idea injected some liveliness into Vovó. She found a spot on the grass, froze her arms, and started discharging ice with her hands, producing a thin and smooth layer. She’d done that before a few times, with less effort and quicker, but the result was pretty much the same. They both knew what Vovó would get with it: the laughter and joy of children. There was a curl on her lips as she did it, ranging between concentration and the hint of a smile. And it became a grin when the kids lost interest in the Starstrikers and came whooping to the new ice-skating ring. Their parents and older siblings came along as well, and even two of the Starstrikers wanted to watch. Paulo arrived, followed by three nurses, all of them carrying bags filled with ice skates of all sizes.

“Hey, kids!” Amélia yelled. “Get your ice skates. This was made by the one and only Icebergirl! Do you know who she is?”

The kids applauded and whooped and giggled, but none of them were really interested in the ancient, well-dressed lady who just froze her own arms. Not when the Alberon could stretch his body and become a goofy, funny rubber ball, or when the Seeder could instantly sprout trees from the soil, even creating treehouses for the kids. Not when they were available all the time on the internet, when the shops sold their action figures, and when they could be actually seen speeding through a downtown street after a criminal. The old lady in the garden was just someone who could make an ice-skating ring.

And Vovó noticed that. As soon as the kids wore their skates and got on the ring, they didn’t even look at her anymore. And though some of their parents—some of whom had been saved by the Icebergirl back in the day—stopped to chat with Elvira for a bit, most of them were just taking pictures and laughing with their children sliding across the ice. Not one of them asked to take a picture with the Icebergirl or any of the other residents nearby. After all, they weren’t the same as the superheroes they saw so many times on the news. Why take a picture with someone who barely resembled your hero? People liked symbols, not the faces behind them.

That hit Amélia hard. It could’ve been a great celebration had the administration planned it properly. But even then, it would’ve been a facade. The Santa Minerva staff wasn’t to be blamed. It was the way society treated their eldest. If a woman who’d saved the city so many times could be forgotten like that, what of all of the other people who got old and forgotten like fruits at the end of a street market?

“No Starstrikers next time.” Bloodfangs was at her side, hands deep in his coat’s pockets, his incisors pressing down his lower lip. A drop of blood beaded on it. “I told them that would happen but they said their presence would attract donations to the institution.” He shrugged.

“And it’s true, anyway,” said the Unseen Man. He was somewhere beside Bloodfangs, completely invisible but easily recognizable by his floral cologne.

“But then the celebration becomes all about youth, doesn’t it?” Amélia said. There was poison in her words, which she didn’t regret. “And they never did it to become famous or for recognition. You don’t come back home all bloodied and beaten for recognition.”

Her memories reeled back to the day she watched Vovó sleeping at the reddening bath tub, floes of ice calmly navigating around her. She pushed back the thoughts before she cried.

“She truly likes the children.” Bloodfangs nodded, smiling, a red thread swiftly running from his lip to his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand. “I know Elvira. Every time she saved a child, she tried to find them days later to ask if everything was okay.”

Amélia nodded. “Vovó used to say there were elderly villains and middle-aged villains, and even teenagers doing bad stuff. But she never saw a child doing anything nasty.”

“And she’s perfectly right,” said Bloodfangs.

“And when you save a child…” Amélia’s eyes teared up now. She couldn’t avoid it. “You save the adult.”

Vovó was trying to create something in a desperate attempt to gain back the children’s attention. She was crouched near the ring. A thin flow of ice discharged from her fingers as she twiddled them. The Meteorite spoke something in her ears, but Vovó shooed her away. Amélia approached.

“What are you doing, beauty?” She tried to sound casual, but she knew she didn’t.

“Stars…” she mumbled.

Amélia grimaced. She never thought she’d see those stars, once symbols of solace for her, as signs of despair, of someone striving not to be blanked out. Each shape Vovó created didn’t even resemble a star this time, but mere lumps of raw ice like leftovers from a hailstorm. Her eyes were glazed in thin sheets of ice.

“Vovó, let’s get inside for a while.”

“No. I’ll make a star for each of them.” She moved forward and slipped on her own ice. The Meteorite grabbed her arm before she fell. Amélia hugged Vovó to prevent her from slipping again. There was something between her grandmother’s legs. From underneath Elvira’s dress, a slightly yellowed icicle jutted out like a thorn. Amélia snatched it and broke it off.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Vovó,” Amélia whispered, leading her to the building. “The kids love you. Tell me, did they talk with you when you fought for them years ago?”

“They did.” Vovó mumbled, barely able to steady herself on the way. She was all wet and icy, slippery, slabs bristling and cracking on her back and shoulders. It left a breadcrumb of ice behind them on the path.

“So now let them talk with those young folks. They all envy you because you did so much in your time. Now let them at least try to have the same meaning as you did to the kids of your time. They’re also giving their blood to the city.”

“I need to fight, Amelinha.” She squeezed Amélia’s hand. It prickled and hurt, as her palms were crusted in ice, but Amélia didn’t complain, didn’t even wince. “I need to get back on the streets and fight again. I’m not over.”

“You’re not over. I couldn’t agree more. But you already fought so much, Vovó. No bad guy in existence today justifies your presence in the streets. You’re so much more.”

 When they arrived in the building, a nurse came to aid them, but Amélia waved them away. They stopped in an unoccupied bedroom on the way and Amélia locked the door so they wouldn’t be bothered. The place had a window to the garden, and she could see the kids were still sliding on the ring, giggling and laughing as the ice melted. Bloodfangs and the Unseen Man were talking with three of the Starstrikers, hopefully asking their help to shift the focus of the celebration.

Vovó sat on a chair and Amélia used a hair dryer on her. It helped to melt the remainder of ice still encrusted on her skin and clothes. Elvira herself helped thawing it naturally with her powers as soon as she realized what Amélia was doing, but her eyes remained unfocused by a thin layer of ice, transfixed at the garden. Ice vapor swirled out of her body in thin fillets, billowing out across the bedroom. When most of the ice had melted, Amélia dried her with two towels, then helped her into clean shorts and a smock with a white shirt in the bedroom’s wardrobe kept by the staff. At last, she grabbed a kerchief in a drawer and rubbed on Vovó’s cheeks to remove the excess of ice still clinging to her wrinkles.

“You look like a cotton candy.” Amélia grinned but it waned soon.

The layers of ice on Vovó’s eyes split. Her face was quickly painted by fury. Almost instantly, hundreds of icicles swelled on her body, coming out of all parts, even from her ears, mouth, and hair. Amélia toppled back. Elvira bit a lump of ice. It shattered between her teeth, cutting the corner of her lips. She moaned. The chair broke, a thorn of ice shattering the seat to meet with the ice emerging underneath it. The carpet quickly humidified, and thin stretches of ice began to bud on it. It all looked like a hastened allergic reaction that affected not only Vovó, but her surroundings.

Then Amélia saw. Near the lake, a girl had stopped Jaime Machiavelli to take a picture. He was smiling, holding his cane against his shoulder. He must’ve seen that Elvira wasn’t around anymore and left the building, perhaps to grab a snack or just to enjoy a bit of the celebration that also pertained to him.

Elvira threw herself through the window, exploding the glass. Amélia closed her eyes and raised a hand over her face, shards pouring against her skin, producing several micro-cuts. When she was able to look outside again, Vovó was already arriving in front of Jaime, a raging, spiky, iceberg. An alarm uselessly blared along the building.

Amélia didn’t think twice. She leapt over the broken window, almost slipping on a flake of ice, and panted along the path to the lakeside area where Elvira was. Jaime patted the girl on the shoulder, and she scooted away to her father. The grim lines around his cheeks showed that he knew damn well what was about to happen. Either way, he raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Vovó! Stop!” Amélia shouted.

“Elvira!” Paulo echoed from somewhere behind her.

Something left a trail of fire in the air.

Melina Gonçalves was an empowered known as the Fake Robot. Her skin was completely covered in steel and her eyes the colors of peaches, which made she look like a robot. Santa Minerva had hired her exactly for situations like this, as a way of balancing the shift of power that could happen in a place where several empowered dealing with personal issues could escalate into dangerous situations. Melina landed, then, activating thrusters on her feet, razed through the grass.. She stopped between Jaime and Elvira.

“Please, back off,” she said.

But if there was someone Amélia knew pretty well was the Icebergirl. No one ever confirmed it, but many had conjectured it in the past: Elvira Chagas was the most powerful known empowered. Raising a hand, Elvira blasted a ball of ice into Melina. She flew back. Jaime dodged her. Before Melina could even stop thumping on the grass, Elvira rained icicles on Jaime. He gritted his teeth but kept his hands raised as it cut through his clothes and scratched his skin. Elvira knew he wasn’t totally invincible, so she kept throwing icicles at him until a line of blood frothed on his cheek.

The guests and nurses surrounded the fighting duo. This time, the kids were intently looking at the Icebergirl. Not amazed, but frightened. The Starstrikers exchanged looks with each other, probably deciding whether they should intervene. Amélia caught Alberon’s eye and shook her head, and he assented. They would only get hurt and Rio would have to spend a week without its celebrity heroes.

Elvira took a deep breath and columns of ice emerged from the grass, which quickly changed from green to white. One of the columns hit Jaime, and he fell with a groan. His cane dropped from his hand. He tried to get on his knees, but his hands slipped on the ice. He fell facedown to the ground.

Elvira raised her hands, probably to invoke more columns, but she suddenly stopped and fell, propped only by her bulging body of ice.

“I can go away,” Jaime roared without raising his head from the ground. “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

Elvira raised her head, arms still slumped at her sides. Her knees were bent forward, but the icicles supported her from falling over completely. Amélia risked putting herself between Jaime and Elvira as two nurses tried not to slip so they could help Jaime. Amélia sat before her grandmother, legs crossed, crying. If there was something that would make Vovó think twice before attacking, that would be her.

“There’s an injured boy,” the Unseen Man appeared beside her.

“What happened?” Amélia asked, staring at the wailing boy.

“Nothing serious, just a cut on his arm.”

Paulo was kneeling next to the boy, fidgeting with a first aid kit. Ilana was pressing a cloth against the cut.

The Unseen Man shrugged, but Amélia saw the blade of ice melting at the boy’s feet. She didn’t want Vovó to see it, but it was too late. Elvira looked sideways and frowned. She resembled a ghost, eyes completely frozen, vapor curling out of her and vanishing in the warm air. Her mouth quivered, crusts of ice crackling on her lips. Her hair had turned into a bouquet of stalagmites.

“Amelinha…” she finally said, voice roughened and patchy. There was probably ice in her throat as well. “Would you come here?”

“Yes, Vovó?” Amélia sniffed, standing and toppling toward her grandmother.

“Bring me a coat, will you? I’m feeling cold.”

~~~

 The Winter of the Icebergirl

April 14th, 2061

A fight ensued in the Santa Minerva Nursing Home for the Empowered Elderly. During a celebration, guests and staff had to watch a brief but intense disagreement between the famous Icebergirl and the former supervillain known as the Urban Legion, aka Thickskin. The only person injured was the son of a man whom the Icebergirl herself saved in the Olavo Bilac Public School battle, nineteen years ago. Holo-simulation available. Click here.

Elvira Chagas was hospitalized with frostbite three days after Gratitude. She’d depleted herself to the point that her immune system couldn’t battle the effects of freezing for the first time in her life. The chances of recovery were significant, but Santa Minerva fell into bereavement anyway, not only for the Icebergirl, but also because the nurses and the administration thought they’d failed in their objectives: a place built for the empowered elderly where a kid and two elderly got hurt by superpowers.

In one month, Elvira was discharged from the hospital, fully healed, but tired. Bloodfangs had ordered a custom-made room for her in the nursing home, with four areas and a door directly to the gardens.

It was only a week after she returned that Amélia realized Vovó had lost her powers.

“Vovó, can you improve this soda for me?” Amélia had just arrived at Santa Minerva to spend a weekend with her. She extended a can to Elvira, something she used to do since she was a child—one of the obvious things you did when you had an ice-empowered grandmother.

“Not anymore, dear,” Vovó said, without taking her eyes off the novel she was reading.

Amélia opened her mouth to ask, but Vovó didn’t raise her head from the book. She didn’t want to be bothered. Amélia decided not to ask about her powers anymore. If she wanted to speak about it, she would. Amélia had never seen an empowered lose their skills before and she never found out the reason why Vovó lost hers.

Years later, after her grandmother had passed, Amélia woke up with a memory that had been bogged down in the depths of her mind. One day after Vovó created the ice stars for a broken-hearted Amélia, they’d talked about expectations and pain.

“If you don’t expect too much, you hurt less,” Vovó told her, speaking of Amélia’s aching heart, but with her gaze distant.

“You’ve been down this road, don’t you?” They were in the yard and Vovó was freezing a crate of beers for a barbecue Mom was planning for later.

“Oh, many times, Amelinha.”

“But… In your career? As the Icebergirl. Did you feel this way already?”

“In my career, I always have to expect too much. If I see a bus with 40 people in trouble, I expect to save them all. There’s no less. So when I can’t… and I sometimes don’t… then it hurts to the point of thinking about giving up my powers.”

Amélia spent some days thinking about those words, asking whether Vovó could choose if she didn’t want to be an empowered anymore. That answer, she would never have, at least not from her grandmother. So she decided to believe that Vovó surrendered her powers during Gratitude once she realized she’d hurt a kid.

~~~

Years after his retirement, Jaime Machiavelli made the headlines again. He wasn’t injured during the confrontation with the Icebergirl, but he decided to do what he should’ve done before: he left the nursing home. Bloodfangs rented a small house for Jaime and hired nurses to take care of him. But one month after his final battle, Jaime Machiavelli disappeared and was never seen again. Many theories sprouted about his final fate. Did the Icebergirl invaded his place and killed him? Was he kidnapped? For a man with his history, anything could’ve happened. Since he had no relatives, his belongings were sent back to Santa Minerva and kept in a warehouse with stuff that Bloodfangs was collecting to build a museum dedicated to the empowered.

It was there that Amélia found some of Jaime’s drawings. In one of them, that of a boy with bangs and prominent cheeks, she found the handwriting of a child penciled in the back.

I don’t look like that, Grandpa!

~~~

Heroes were never forgotten. The same couldn’t be said about the elderly. There are those who say that oblivion was a blessing, that when you grow old you must forget chunks of your life in order to survive. And when you didn’t, those chunks would haunt you forever. Amélia always wondered if that was what happened to Vovó. Elvira remembered too much of her days, of what she did, of all the times she had to give up part of herself so someone—a boy in a school, a girl locked in a car, a young man pedaling to his first day on a new job—could live another day. She had a cluster of memories and trauma iced within her, unable to be abandoned. Ice-covered memories of blood, pain, and despair, but also of hope, love, and relief, all intermingled in a mess of emotions that helped to build one of the weightiest expectations of old age: that life needed to have closure. Vovó hoped that her actions would lead to a world without villains and bad people. That evil couldn’t exist after she expired. But deep down, she always knew it couldn’t be further from the truth. And yet, she failed to realize how worse the world would’ve been without the decades she spent on it.

~~~

No frost in Rio today

September 2nd, 2050

The most famous heroine of Rio de Janeiro, the Icebergirl, has officially retired according to the Empowered Association. At 72 years old, the Icebergirl is famous not only for arresting the Urban Legion, but also for what she did in Olavo Bilac Public School, when she saved more than 80 kids from certain death. Rio is a bit hotter today but the Icebergirl’s legacy lives on. Click here for the special feature.

On her last week, Elvira Chagas finished the letter she was writing and handed it to Amélia. It was addressed to Jaime Machiavelli, even though no one knew his address. When Vovó passed, Amélia folded the letter into a plastic coating and pinned it to her tombstone. Days later, it vanished, but someone left a cane over the Icebergirl’s grave.

Urban legends say that in the hottest nights of summer, the Icebergirl’s grave freezes over. And in those nights, people say, the night sky of Rio de Janeiro becomes cloudless with white stars mottled against the darkness.

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Copyright 2026 Renan Bernardo