Monday afternon, lunch. The first week of school had gone by fast, consisting of nothig really but filling of papers and getting to know the class and students. I still sat alone and I was still O.K. with it. Everyone had pretty much fallen into a click or group of some sort. Even Tammy had found a gaggle of sidekicks to play leader to. A few good looking, empty-headed boys joined together to form the Furure Jerks of Ameica. Another group of similar girls followed them around looking for attention that the boys so willingly provided. Sidekicks went ingored except by other sidekicks. Lunch was like watching a foreign T.V. show. It's entertaining cause everyone's different than you but you're not quite sure what's going on. I always got a good laugh out of it but by the end I couldn't help think I was missing out on something. I tried to not let it get to me, even though it was always the last thing I though of before I went to bed at night. So I sat alone, listening to my music, eating my lunch. I had started to form the pecking order of the groups in my head but the one that caught my eye was the boys. Normally, it's the biggest, strongest, best looking dude that runs the pack and gets all the pretty girls. But the leader of the freshmen boys was way outside those bounrdy lines. Oh, he was big alright. But that did not look like muscle. And he was most certainly not the best looking. His name was Eric Dalton. His power was toxikinesis and acid and super endurence. I'd seen him around and definatly heard his loud-ass mouth in class before. He was annoying and cockey but tolerable. But today, I guess he was trying to show off a little something extra for some of his little hommies and girlfriends. He pushed a couple kids out of way and laughed about it. I felt a bubble of anger inside me. Just cause he was the size of a house didn't mean he could push around kids smaller than him. But, I kept to myself. If he got to rowdy, I would just make him sorry for it in gym. Sky High was the only school for super powered kids around and I couldn't afford any problems. So, against my better instincts, I watched him push kids around, trip them, and make crude jokes. I started to pack up the trash from my lunch and got up to throw it away. Eric and his friends sat at a table at the front of the room with the girls sitting behind them. I threw my trash and started to walk back to my table. I walked past a small table only built for a few people. There were two boys and one girl sitting there. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I say something hit the girl in the back of her head. She turned around and faced Eric and his friends and they broke out laughing. One of the boys sitting by her turned and said something to Eric which made them laugh harder. I turned off my iPod so I could hear and stopped where I was.

"Dude, I just saw you throw that! So knock it off, cool?" The boy sitting next to the girl yelled back at Eric. He had black hair and his arm was around the back of the girl's chair.

Eric smiled and shook his head. "You're retarded," he said and turned back to his friends. The boy turned back around to face the two others and it looked like everything returned to normal so I headed back to my table. Until I heard someone scream. It was a loud, painful scream, not one the stupid girls let loose when they felt they weren't recieving enough attention. I turned to see the source and saw the girl Eric chucked the piece of food at, clutching the back of her head and screaming. The black haired boy was trying to calm her down and while other boy tried to get her to remove her hands away from her head. Eric was doubled over laughing, his friends following his example. This pissed me off. I walked over to Eric, pushing people out of my way as I went. When I got up to him, I pushed him hard as I could. This shut him up. Now the only sound was coming from the girl crying and the two boys talking softly to her. Eric glared down at me, angry I'd ruined his fun. He was a few inches taller than me but I stood tall in front of him. He couldn't intimidate me.

"What did you do?" I growled. He smirked and started to turn away. I caught his arm and swung him around to face me again. His friends chuckled at me and a wave of whispers went around. "I said, what did you do?"

He scoffed and pulled out of my grasp. "None of your damn business. Back off." He turned to walk away, his friends behind him. I jumped up and slammed my feet down hard on the floor, causing a wave on earth to knock them all down. Eric was the first to rise and face me. He gave me a little shove. "Do you have a problem?"

I smiled and pushed him back. "Yeah. I have a problem with you and your troop of idiots. Tell me what you did to her, then go apologize."

He got up so close to me, I could smell the sweat on his ugly face. "Make me."

I smiled wider, fully intent on doing so, when I heard another scream. The girl had tears streaming down her face but refused to let go of the back of her head. I looked at Eric, then back at her. I shook my head and walked over to her. I used thin streams of water to pull her hands off the back of her head and tried to ignore the laughter coming from behind me.

"Whimp. Don't start something unless you can finish it!" Eric and his friend thought I chickened out. I was gonna kick the crap out of him, out of all of them. But the girl was screaming Bloody Mary and I was afraid she might be seriously hurt. I held her hands out to her sides so she couldn't touch her head and I could get a look at what was wrong.

"Hey, get off her!" The black haired boy yelled. I glared at him.

"Do you want me to help her or do you want her to contiune being in pain?" He stepped back and I looked down at the girls head. No wonder she was screaming! She had a green spot a few inches wide burned through her hair and making her skin bubble. "Looks like acid," I muttered to myself.

The boy turned to the his friend and said, "Go get a teacher or something!"

The other boy started to run away when I looked up. "No, I can fix it."

They both watched me carefully. I let her arms go and she held them to her side on her own, still crying. The acid was burning the spot wider and deeper and it I didn't work fast, it could reach her skull. I held the water over her head, barely touching the spot so as not to hurt her. Slowly, I lowered it more and more over the spot, cleaning the acid out completley. Once it was all gone, my clear blue water had turned an ugly green color. The girl had stopped crying finally so the lunch room was completley silent. The skin where the acid had just been was pink and tender and the hair around it was completly gone leaving a pretty bald spot. The noise in the lunch room went back to it's normal level. I frowned at the ball of green liquid and flicked my wrist so it soared into a nearby drinking fountain drain.

The girl turned around, her eyes red from crying and reached a hand back to try and touch the spot on her head.

I caught her hand and shook my head. "Might not want to do that. It's gonna be a little tender for a while so try not to touch it. I think I got it all out but you might want to see a doctor after school, just to make sure." I turned to walk away before anyone could say anything. I headed back to my table and gathered my things as the bell was ringing. The girl and two boys were clearing their stuff off their table as I was walking out. I tried to not look at them,just continued on to my locker. I went down the hall and stopped at my locker, dialed the combo and started unpacking and repacking my bag.

"Hey," I turned to see the girl looking at me, her two frinds behind her. "I'm Charlotte. This is my boyfriend Brian," she pointed to the black haired boy that yelled at Eric. "And our friend Zane." Zane was the other boy that was sitting with them. He had dark curly brown hair that stuck up at odd angles and blue green eyes and he was a little taller than me. He was one of those guys whose jeans were tighter than yours. He was cute. Really cute. I looked at him for half a second longer than the other two, then turned back to Charlotte. She was smiling despite the fact that acid had just burned a chunk of her hair off. She looked to me like the kind of girl that smiled all the time. Her hair was dark brown, shoulder length with lighter brown streaks in it. Her eyes were a piercing ice blue and contrasted her kind smile. "I just wanted to thank you for what you did at lunch, standing up for me and all."

I shrugged. "No problem, it was nothing." I slammed my locker door shut and turned to walk away.

"Um, I noticed you eat alone everyday at lunch." I looked back at her. "Maybe you wanna eat with us tomorrow?"

I looked from her with her could-be-mean eyes and perfectly kind smile, to her boyfriend with his arm wrapped protectively around her waist, to the very attractive Zane standing next to Brian. They wanted me to sit with them? I shouldn't. Having me around would only cause them problems. But... A part of me was curious. "Sure," I answered. Charlotte's smile, if even possible, widened.

"Great!" She squealed. "See you in class!" She turned and hurried off, Brian walking along beside her. I watched them go. Zane followed slowly, then turned around. His eyes met mine and he gave me a little half smile.

"Better hurry, you'll be late to class." Then he walked to catch up with his friends.

I think I just made a friend.