Last Year's Heroes

"Mum, you're on the TV!" Sally yelled into the kitchen as she stared, rapt, at the screen which showed a rapid-fire sequence of her mother as a teenage hero, obliterating huge monsters with her magical pink laserbeams.

In the next room, Tessa slumped into a seat and covered her face, her back to her daughter. The show, recorded last month, had not been an easy one.

"It wan't all plain sailing, was it, Tessa?" the interviewer said, the shot returning to the studio. "There was, of course that incident." Sally gasped as the screen showed a slow pan of a street: the cobbles broken and bowed in four bloodstained places. "When you stayed at home."

"Then there was the other incident... Please give a warm welcome to Undine Wells!"

The camera pulled back to show a woman, about Tessa's age, entering the studio, the prosthetic right leg not quite matching her dark skin. She carried a small, magenta urn, which she placed on the table so Tessa could see the marking "HP".

"Hi, Tess," she said, "it's been a while."