All recognizable Sky High characters, places, and events belong to Disney and its affiliates. I am making no money from this endeavor. As for any original content: Any likeness, similarities, and resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places, and events are unintentional and purely coincidental.

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Lash still had no clue as to what to do. Was he supposed to stand up and shake her hand? She was a junior class rep, not an actual elected official. All in all she was his glorified babysitter. He pretty much expected her to be like all the other student council members he's ever encountered: Overachievers who all but took their coffee intravenously; they were just so eager to help and be good members of society.

The female didn't seem to care about his silent treatment and went on without a reply from him.

"Well, as you know you're here because the school board has deemed you fit to rejoin the general population…"

Lash started to tune her out because it was all he heard before. He's so tired of hearing how fortunate he was to be let back in. He fucked up, he got it! What was the point of doing juvie if he had to pay for his mistake for the rest of his life? Lash then slumped a bit and turned his head in a fit of petulance.

Emma noticed Lash's posture and she knew he wasn't listening to her. That frustrated her to no end, because she could be doing much more productive things than over looking some ungrateful hood. So she forcefully put down the binder she was holding and it made a loud bang.

The sound was enough to jostle Lash out of his stupor and he was surprised at the sudden action. He looked at the junior class president and her cordial smile was no longer there; in its place was a raised eyebrow and slight show of teeth.

Lash had the sudden feeling he was in trouble and that was not the way he wanted to start off his senior year…his second senior year. He smiled and shrunk his head into his shoulders as a gesture of submission. He knew he had to, at the very least, lay low and pissing off the student body was not part of that.

Emma saw that Lash was superficially apologetic and he had cute puppy dog eyes. She's a sucker for the eyes so she eased up her stare.

"Listen Lash, I don't want to be here as much as you don't. Believe it or not, I have better things to do than look after you. So I have a proposition." Her last sentence said in a quieter conspiratorial tone and she leaned in closer. "How 'bout you and I make this as painless as possible? After this initial visit, you promise me now that you aren't going to try to take over the school, meet once a week as required by the state for like five mins, and then I'll sign off on all your papers. Deal?"

Lash was very surprised at the calculating plan Emma just came up with. Normally the student council was full of white hats, the exception being Royal Pain, which were sticklers for the rules. He was a bit skeptical at first because the last pact he made landed him in juvie but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was offering him a reprieve from what he imagined would be painfully boring get-togethers. She didn't want to talk about his progress through the year and neither did he. All he wanted was to get through this and get his hero degree to make his mother happy.

With that, he shook his head in agreement.

Emma wondered for a moment if he was mute or just being a typical teenage boy. Either way she didn't really care because she wanted to get out of there and do her other, more important, council duties.

Such as make plans on how to gather supporters and keep her position of power for the next year. Emma believed it was never too early to plot the demise of one's competitor. But, said plans can't be planned if she had to take the time to check in on Lash. So hopefully he values his time as much as she values hers and takes the deal. The school had a guideline on how to deal with the recently paroled and while she wanted to appear helpful, she also didn't want to waste time if she didn't have to. She really wasn't licensed to talk to him in any real therapeutic capacity so she deduced that the school board just wanted to keep a close eye on him. Emma had ways to figuring out if he was up to no good, so she wasn't overly concerned with being caught slacking off.

"Alright, here's your class schedule, our meeting schedule, locker and lock combo…" Emma rattled off, "…and your instructions for the volunteer mentoring program for the influx of transfer students."

"Wait, what? Volunteer? When did I volunteer for anything?" Lash asked as he heard the obvious misnomer of the assignment. He did not want to get into any kind of club or project. His goal was to lay low, and getting into things was the exact opposite of that.

"You 'volunteered' when you signed the Honor Code, Code of Conduct, and Exemplary Student Agreement. You really ought to read things before you sign your life away."

Lash knew she had a point as he didn't read any of the aforementioned documents. He was impatient to get things over with, with Principal Powers, so he signed whatever was in front of him to get him back into school. He vaguely remembered something from his sophomore year; about a new program that was supposed to get good recommendations from teachers and standing in the community. The Exemplary Student Program was basically a pool of students who wanted to do volunteer work to make their Hero Degrees shine more. Only the super white hats ever did the extra work and Lash never paid a lot of attention to them. His life compromised mostly of hanging with Speed, terrorizing sidekicks, and trying to avoid any responsibility. Now it seems like he'd unwittingly joined the ranks of the people had no interest in even socializing with. He supposed the school administration thought if he was too busy doing lapdog work for the student council, then he wouldn't have time to become a villain. He could see the logic in it but it did not mean he had to like it.

"I don't suppose there's a way I could get out of this?"

Emma has had enough of his whiney antics and threw up her hands and flicked them as if she was shaking off water.

Suddenly the entire library had frozen. Lash was in mid-whining head shake, the shy girl in the corner was unmoving as she put away a book, even the dust stood still in the air; all things had stopped in time while Emma collected her thoughts.

She was the junior class president, so it would never be acceptable for people to see her lose her cool. While the black girl in the corner was a friend and the senior was basically nobody, Emma was not one to ever let her guard down.

Emma calmed herself down by taking deep soothing breaths. In…and…out…

"OK, Emma. No need to freak out. You're hungry and when you're hungry you get grumpy. Being grumpy is unbecoming so you have to calm down. This guy's an idiot and you just have to let him know how things work." she told herself.

She took her hair out of the tight ponytail, to ease the oncoming headache. She shook her head and long pitch black hair tumbled out. She felt calm enough to unfreeze time and get on with this stupid meeting. She wished she didn't have to subtly come to power with campaigns and elections; a hostile takeover and direct aggression was a lot quicker not to mention less frustrating. It's unfortunate that this new school did not value such qualities as ambition and cunning. Sky High did not groom heroes in such a manner. Here, Emma was forced to use her political chops and sway the masses. Good thing she had tools at her ready to do as such.

With another flick of her hands, Emma unfroze time and calmly stated, "No, Lash. You can't get out of it…unless you want to drop out of Sky High altogether."

Emma slightly hoped he would, as it would be a lot easier on her if he did.

Lash had to blink a few times because he could have sworn her hair was in a ponytail when they were talking. Now it was obviously loose around her shoulders and Lash had no idea when she put her hair down. He shook off the confusion; he must have been paying less attention than he thought. He pushed the puzzling notion from his head because he had other things to worry about. Such as, he had to do volunteer work for the school.

"So, uh, what exactly am I supposed to do?"

"You are to take one of the new transfer students, show them around, and generally guide them in the ways of Sky High."

"What for? Why not let them find their way like the freshmen do?"

Emma tensed a bit at what she saw as too many questions and wondered why he was so dense. A thought occurred to her though.

"Are you not aware of what happened to Valhalla?"

"Valhalla?" It took a moment but the name was familiar to Lash. It was one of the other super schools in the U.S.; the other being the Academy of Heroes. A while back, Penny was in talks with the other school to have some sort of competition. Mostly she wanted the cheerleading "team" to be relevant.

By Lash's questioning tone, Emma assumed that he didn't know.

"Do you not watch the news?"

Lash grunted at the question and shook his head in the negative.

"Jeez, another high and mighty white hat that thinks because they watch CNN it makes them the queen of all knowledge," Lash thought irritated, at the female's tone. "I've been a little busy trying to get out of prison."

Emma snorted at his attempt at a snide comment. "Prison? Don't give yourself so much credit, you're not that badass."

Lash was tempted to get up and get in her face but he remembered all the sessions with Dr. Sweets. Anger doesn't get anyone anywhere, so the grown up thing to do is just let it go. And that is what Lash did. He let it go because it wasn't worth it. He was sure if he kept saying it to himself, it'd be true.

Emma grinned a little at her slight victory over the elastic boy.

"Anyway, Valhalla has been compromised and all students had to vacate. So they either went to AoH or here while they build a new school somewhere else. Lucky me, I chose to go here."

Lash was a bit surprised at the revelation, but he supposed that was the reason why he didn't recognize her as she was a junior. While he wasn't here for the last year and wouldn't know any freshmen from that year, he did know most of the juniors because they were freshmen when he was a senior...the first time. Sky High was a small school; the entire student body could fit into their gym. Lash should know as he trapped them all there for Royal Pain's insidious plan.

"Wow, compromised eh? That sucks."

It wasn't the most brilliant thing ever, but at least Lash was trying to be part of the conversation now.

"Indeed. So now all the Val kids that chose to go here have to adapt because the rules are very….different."

The way Emma said "different" made Lash think she was trying to be civil and didn't actually like the new school.

Something then occurred to Lash, "If you're from a different school and new, how are you the junior class rep? Don't they usually pick those at the end of the school year?"

The question caught Emma off guard and had to take a moment before answering.

"Yes, it turns out that the previously elected rep had to drop out for…personal reasons, so I was able to step in. I don't really know what happened myself."

Lash got that feeling again that she wasn't being quite honest, but what did he know about school politics?

"Anyway," she quickly changed the subject "here is the paper saying that I met with you and did all the required steps, and that you agree to abide by all the requirements stated henceforth for all meetings."

Emma brandished a piece of paper with a grid; boxes for their names, times and date of their future meetings. Oh fun.

"I don't have a pen, do you have one?"

Lash didn't think anything of it and he immediately went to his pocket and grabbed one of the pens he always carried around.

He signed his box and handed her his pen. She grabbed it with a tissue and signed off. Lash felt a little insulted by this, what did she think was going to happen if she touched something of his? Was she some kind of germ freak?

"Thanks Lash, our next meeting doesn't have to be 'till school actually starts, so it'll be a while. I've got your info and I'll email you the directions for the first day of school."

"I've been to school before; I think I know how to show up."

"No, smartass. Directions for your Val kid and how to show them around."

"Oh, right. Whatever."

With that, Emma rolled her eyes and exited the library. She gave a wave to the black girl he had seen before and wondered if she too was a transfer from Valhalla. The girl in question turned and made eye contact with him again, and once again she didn't even bother with a greeting. Lash could only hope that she wasn't one of the students he was paired up with.

Lash gathered his things to go home, hoping the Sky High Bus was still there and that Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, wouldn't hold any grudges. Lash did not think he could deal with a confrontation with the adult and his acquired power. As he got up to leave, he noticed that Emma had taken his pen.

"Damn, that was my favorite one."