Jon went through the rest of that first week, learning about how to be a proper sidekick, yearning for Josie, and gradually getting to know his band of fellow sidekick-misfits.

"So, you have to learn that when your hero is being interviewed after catching a bad-guy…" Bitters stopped lecturing to take a sip of his coffee, "You gotta learn, even if you helped out through most of it, that the press wants to interview them, not you. The press doesn't have much use for a sidekick's interview unless you happen to do something immaculate. Like,I don't know…saving the president's life after a villain conks your hero out or something."

"So even if we do most of the work the hero reaps all the fame and glory?" Jon raised his hand and asked, not seeing the justice or fairness in that concept at all.

"Bingo!" Bitters pointed at him like a gun and winked.

"BITTERS!" they heard a growl from the classroom doorway. Everyone initially jumped because there was no prior hint he was there. Vice Principal Cardiano stood there with a surprised brow and a threatening glare.

"Whatcha need Cardiano?"

"Please step out in the hallway for a moment."

Jon and Medulla exchanged looks, thinking their teacher was in for it—he was instilling resent in their minds for their eventual partners-in-crime.

After the door closed the class began to chatter to one another. Some talked of the unfairness of the hero-sidekick system.

"Bitters laces his coffee with vodka," Sue leaned over and told them—she was sitting behind Medulla. Her statement attracted other students' attention.

"What?"

"That's why he's so off-balance, he's constantly intoxicated."

"Nuh uh! Get out of here!"

"How would you know?" Jon asked.

"I saw him sneak a flask into his jacket in the teacher's lounge, I saw him do it Tuesday morning."

"Wait, what were you doing over there?"

"Yeah, students aren't allowed in the teacher's lounge!"

Sue huffed and wiped her bangs from in front of her glasses, "Bitters asked me to fix the coffee machine—its wiring was fried."

The students believed that, because the man looked like he would fall asleep all day if he didn't constantly have an endless supply of Folgers. Sue gave them all a 'so there' glare and then the door to the classroom opened back up.

Bitters trudged in, looking more worse for wear, "Okay, so as I was saying…"

He laid off any more resentful tones towards heroes for the rest of the day. They learned about the different types of bad guys and were told to expect a pop quiz within the next two weeks.

"I wonder what we're going to do in Phys-ed today?" Jon wondered to a classmate—Phil Ramirez. Phil was a sophomore sidekick, and a bit overweight but that was because he couldn't control his eating urges. It didn't help that his power involved food.

"I don't know but I could sure go for Mars Bar!" Phil rubbed his hands together, and then all of a sudden there was a Mars Bar hovering in front of his face from out of thin air. Well, at least Phil would never go hungry with his power. Phil plucked the candy bar out of the air and started wolfing it down.

Jon didn't even warn Phil that it was a bad idea to eat sweets before Coach split had them run laps or something else physically draining. They suited out and Jon reminded himself it was his favorite time of day, the time he got to see Josie for a whole fifty minutes.

Jon wore an old pair of red shorts and a t-shirt that looked too big on him because he was so skinny—but it met the phys-ed. uniform requirement. Medulla actually found a sweatband big enough to fit around his head and wore that despite all the jeers of the upperclassmen heroes.

Lance, the kid with gravity control, was the only hero their age not to go to the other side of the hallway when the sidekicks passed. Lance was just a friendly kid and was clueless to the fact that he would be a whole lot cooler if he didn't over-associate with sidekicks.

"Hey, Lance," Medulla gave him a low-five as he exited the locker room.

"Hey buddy!" Lance gladly received it. Lance was a little late getting to the locker room from his last class, so he opened his messy locker and pulled his gym clothes out. They didn't fall, but floated out as if they were in outer-space. It was easy as pie to slip out of his clothes in zero-gravity, and just as easy to get dressed.

They made it out to the gymnasium floor in time to start Split-D's warm up exercises. They had to do a hundred push-ups, which was the norm for Jon as he had practiced all summer—but most of the rest of the sidekicks struggled.

"Dodge ball! Heroes versus tha sidekicks!" O-Split shouted and pulled a blue lever in the wall. Parts of the ceiling opened up and many balls dropped to the outreached hands of the students.

The midline that crossed the gym was the boundary of which the kids were not to cross. The bleacher side was Hero territory and the wall side was meant to be the sidekicks' domain.

Jon went into fast reaction mode immediately, dodging any ball that was thrown at him.

Medulla was hit immediately, for his head was a perfect target.

Jon had played dodge ball in junior high, right after he got his powers and found that winning dodge ball was easy—but dodge ball in a super-high school was different. Students were allowed to use their powers.

Medulla trudged across the territory line and took a seat in the bleachers—the place you were to go when you were tagged out by the ball.

Lance threw a ball from the hero side, but instead of arcing downward, it floated over head and when it was over a sidekick's head, would drop immediately. Lance tried to high five Boomer but Boomer pushed him away and aimed a ball at Jon. Jon ducked naturally, missing it of course. It was Boomer's personal mission to tag Jon out in dodge ball—he had been trying for many years to accomplish it but never succeeded.

Balls were whizzing past Jon's face, and he had to be extra careful just in case Portman teleported from the far back to the boundary line and suddenly chucked a ball at him. Lightfoot was a tricky opponent too because she would change size to dodge any balls that were thrown her way.

Phil got hit in his portly stomach and started moaning about being sick. Split-D sent him to the Nurse Spex's office with a few belittling words about how he shouldn't eat so much. Split was in two, patrolling the backs of both boundaries and blowing his whistles when he someone tagged.

Jon looked around to see who was left. Dave Grayson, Sue, and a handful of others were doing their best at dodging. He noticed there were far more heroes left in the game and it was because they weren't dodging, they were doing most if all of the throwing. Jon quickly picked up a ball, twisted his arm back and hurled it at the heroes. It was though they had never seen a dodge ball come at them before, and when Jon's ball hit the other side, it tagged Shaun Wilson, student body president, out of the game.

Suddenly, all of the heroes' eyes—even Josie's—were on Jon. Boomer smirked and threw another ball, but Jon sidestepped it.

"We need to play an offense!" he shouted back to the few sidekicks left, trying not to be distracted by the fact Josie's attention was on him for once.

They nodded and tried to find balls to throw and still not get hit. Sue threw one and it tagged Lynda out. Dave's ball tagged Lance. With the sidekicks being the ones to throw the balls, the heroes were a little rusty at dodging them. O-Split was encouraging the heroes on as Split-D mocked their loss and lack of dodge skill.

"I'm gonna get you Jonnyboy!" Boomer sonic screamed and threw a ball at Jon's head. Jon was knocked out of the way by Sue as she hurled a ball at Boomer, who was laughing. Sue successfully dodged Boomer's ball by falling to the ground—her ball hit Boomer in his nose. O-Split blew his whistle and jerked his thumb towards the bleachers for Boomer. Boomer scowled and stalked off the floor to join the fallen heroes.

"Thanks, are you okay?" Jon asked as he helped Sue stand.

"Yea—" she smiled, looked like she was having the time of her life, but an incoming ball knocked her hard in the side of her head.

"OW!" she screamed as the jerk of her head sent her glasses falling off, skittering across the hardwood floor. Jon reacted fast, first by pulling her out of the way from another ball. He grabbed her hand and led her to her glasses.

She fumbled to put them back on and before Jon could warn her, another ball from the hero's side hit her in the back. She shouted again but the whistle of Split-D was the overriding sound—she was finally out of the game.

Jon watched as more heroes fell, but at the cost of his remaining teammates. It was finally down to him and Portman. Portman found dodging easy, for he just teleported away from it. Jon tied predicting where his arrivals would be and aim towards the other side of the gym so the ball would hit Portman as he reappeared.

The game was at a standstill. The bell rang and Jon sighed relieved looking to his fallen teammates who were giving him thumbs-up and nods of approval. Unfortunately Portman was a dirty player and teleported right in front of Jon, slamming him with a ball so fast, he couldn't dodge it—no matter how fast of reflexes he had.

The heroes shot up from their seats with happy screams and cheers. Apparently the Splits would let that dirty move slide and the heroes did officially win the game for the day.

"Well, you did a good job," Medulla slapped Jon on the back and headed toward the showers.

Jon nodded, knowing it was true, but was still disheartened at the fact he had lost. The heroes would never let a sidekick win it seemed, because they could never live it down.

Not that all heroes were mean, or aloof. Lance was a good example of an every-friend. Shaun Wilson was cordial enough but Jon never really had much exposure to him as Shaun and his friends were seniors. Baron, Steve, and Lynda basically pretended sidekicks didn't exist.

Boomer tried to cause grief whenever he could, but that was because he was…well Boomer.

As for his beloved Josie, Jon knew she was a nice girl and would not pretend he didn't exist if he ever got courage to talk to her. But his problem was that he never talked to her so he never knew what would happen there.

He stood in the middle of the gymnasium as students hit the showers. Phil finally came back and asked what had happened.

"We lost," Jon told the truth.