Samantha made her her way down the hall, and, when she came to the door marked 'Mad Science', she turned the knob and pulled it open. She was greeted by a man in a white lab coat with an exceptionally large head. "Yes," the man said, "they told me you were coming. Unfortunately, the only student without a lab partner is Mr. Peace, so you'll have to work with him." He pointed over to the boy that had sat beside her on the bus, and she started to walk that way. As she passed him, she heard the man mutter, "though by the look of you, you two will get along famously." Mantha made a mental note to get even with him one day. As she took her seat by the boy, who was glaring daggers at her, another student raised his hand.
"Mr. Medulla, I don't understand..." Mantha tuned out the rest of the question because she really didn't care. She looked over at 'Mr. Peace,' who was still glaring at her, and she rolled her eyes. At least he wasn't trying to talk her head off. She heard Mr. Medulla yelling at someone who'd apparently gotten the project wrong, and she decided that this teacher was a major jerk-off. She also decided that for his safety, she had better figure out what to do, because if he started yelling at her, she might just figure out exactly what his power was. She had only used the power she got from her mother a few times, when she was really angry. It was weird, really. She sucked the life-force out of the person she touched, but if the person she was touching had a superpower, then she would get that, too. She could control it, of course, but when she was angry...well, it wasn't pretty. And if she held on too long, that person could die. Mantha had never killed anyone, but she knocked her father out once when she was little because he had sent her to her room. She hadn't meant to, of course, but she knew that it could be really powerful. That day had also been the only time she had ever had ice power.
Coming out of her thoughts and back to the real world, she looked over at 'Mr. Peace,' again and noticed that he was working on something on the desk, his hair hiding his face. "So what is this?" she asked, trying to care at least a little bit. The boy glared at her, but finally answered.
"It's a freeze ray," he grunted, moving it over a bit so that she could see. Noticing that she had no clue, he sighed heavily and began to explain about the trigger and the different parts. Uninterested, but wanting to pass, she listened closely. Once he had explained it, she thought she understood, but she still couldn't care less. At long last, the bell rang, and the students were released for their next class. She looked down at her schedule and groaned. Gym with that stupid Coach Boomer.
When she got to the gym, she noticed that the entire 'hero' class was there. She sat up in the stands, away from everyone else, and watched as four students entered the arena. The arena was kind of like a hockey rink, except with wood like a basketball court, and at the center was a large machine with sharp-looking teeth in it. If Mantha was wondering what those teeth were for, she soon found out. The four students divided into two teams for a game called 'Save the Citizen.' A plastic dummy was tied to a rope and lowered over the sharp teeth, and teh machine turned on, causing the teeth to rotate and a large bar with spikes on it inside of them to start turning. The two 'heroes' started battling the two 'villains,' trying to keep the dummy from being turned into mulch by the machine.
After watching a few rounds, Mantha was starting to get bored. The two 'villains' had won every time, and it didn't look like that was about to change. They had decided to be villains again, and they were picking who they were going to go against. One of them looked around, and said, "we want Peace."
"Who else?" the coach asked. The other villain looked around, and his eyes hit Mantha.
"Goth Chick," he said, with a cocky smirk on his face. Glaring at him, Mantha made her way down to the arena, and suited up in some really dorky looking armor. The coach called time and the game began. Mantha watched the boy run toward the center, then get thrown back by a large gust of wind issued forth from one of the villains. He got back up and started running again, only to be thrown down again, this time by a bolt of lightning from the other villain. Almost smiling despite herself, Mantha began to make her way over to lightning boy, as Peace got up and tried to take on the wind guy again. Lighting boy turned and look at Mantha, apparently not thinking of her as much of a threat since she was walking toward him, and not toward the citizen.
Grinning to himself, lightning boy gathered some sparks in his hand, and waited to see what she would do. Mantha merely walked up to him, and did the last thing he expected her to do. She punched him right in the face and knocked him out cold. Looking over to see how Peace was coming along, she let out a gasp of surprise when she saw his arms suddenly engulfed in flames. His flames soon died down, however, as the wind guy created a tornado-like vortex around him, sucking all the oxygen out. Seeing that Peace was beginning to struggle to breathe, she decided to help him. After all, she couldn't just let him die. Get beat up or hurt, maybe, but not die.
She ran over to the wind guy, who had his back to her, and grabbed his bare arm. The wind guy's veins started popping out as the vortex around Peace diminished into nothing. Judging that she had touched him long enough to have enough of his power for just a few seconds, she let him go and created a gust of wind so strong that it carried her over the machine, let her grab the dummy, and then set her down gently on the other side. She looked over at Peace, who actually looked at her without glaring. In fact, he actually looked a little impressed. Everyone else, however, just looked scared. 'Oh well,' she thought, 'it's not like I was trying to win any popularity contests anyway.'