Tigra poked her head into the room she thought would be the faculty office. She spotted a young woman typing away at a desk, and she seemed none too pleased to be here. Probably not the person to ask for assistance.
"What do you need?" She suddenly barked out at her. She jumped in surprise but she stepped into the room.
"Sorry to bother you, Miss…" Tigra glanced at the name plate, "Hill?" Maria Hill? Where did she hear that name before?
"That's alright," she flexed her fingers at her desk, happy to have a break. "How can I help you?"
"Well, uh," she started, "Mr. Rhodes decided to make me the Field Leader of our class, and…"
"You don't want the job," Miss Hill guessed.
"No," Tigra admitted, "I don't, but I've thought it over and I thought I should…well, try to be a good role model while I'm labelled as one. I just…I don't know where to start."
"Well," Hill shrugged, "there's no real way to be prepared for it. Being a good leader comes with experience, and the realization that whatever you decide, whatever decision you make, will affect other people. Both your immediate team, and the civilians who depend on you."
"Now I really don't want this job," Tigra muttered under her breath.
"Well," Hill sat up, "I can give you some files we've made on each of you. They can give you details on where each of your stories when you were abducted, and what each of your…assets, are. They're just printed copies of what you told us when we found you."
"Okay," Tigra nodded, "That would help." And it would fit well in her antisocial train wreck of a life.
"I'll have these delivered to your room," Hill told her. "Is there anything else you need ma'am?" She was being totally facetious, but Tigra welcomed the humor. Then her eyebrows knit together. "Wait, isn't this your lunch period?"
"Um," Tigra took a step back, "Yes? I'll just get back to that…"
She hurried out of the office and speed-walked her way back to her room.
Lunch period? That's a laugh. Like she wants to talk to anybody else while looking like this. She can go out and buy her own-
Oh wait, no she can't. There weren't any rules about leaving the campus (at least, none that she's heard) but she couldn't exactly walk down to Chipotle while swishing her tail around. She could see a mother pulling her child close as she walked by. Plus, she had no money. That was another issue.
Great… Well, her options are to A) skip lunch and social contact with everybody here as long as physically possible, or B) face the fact that she was going to have to talk with somebody about her new, furry hide.
She curled up into a ball and let out a disgusted breath. Option A it is.
She had to leave to attend her other classes, but when she returned, a vanilla envelope sat on her bed.
"Awesome," She breathed a sigh of relief. "Now I can start being a leader."
"What's that?" Jennifer asked behind her.
"Files on our fellow classmates," Tigra answered happily. "With this, I'll be a better leader, and I can make better calls on the battle field."
Jennifer just stared at her like she was crazy. "…Or you could have just talked to them," She waved her arms to the door. "They're not all that bad, really."
Tigra just hugged the papers closer, not answering.
"You're afraid of…" Jennifer seemed to realize, "Okay, look. I spent the whole day with those weirdos, and let me tell you; most of them are weirder than us."
Tigra sat at the center of her bed, legs crossed and opening the envelope. "I'm... not ready to face them. I'd feel better if I just… knew a little more."
She paused, her fingers on the papers inside, ready to slide them out, she didn't know why she was waiting on She-Hulk's approval.
Finally, the green woman sighed. "Okay," she said, "You're the boss, boss. Let's learn about our teammates."
She then flopped herself next to Tigra, leaning in eagerly. "I want to know if they got any secrets…" she said jokingly.
"Okay…" Tigra pulled the papers out and laid them out in front of her. "Let's see… Jamison "Jamie" Madrox, a-k-a the Multiple Man. Ability to generate an aura that divides his physical self and his clothes in an unknown number. No immediate limits of his abilities are in sight."
"Ugh," Jennifer said next to her. "An inifinite number of Madrox's invading my personal space. No thank you."
"Though he does seem to have difficulty keeping his "Dupes-""
"It says dupes?!" Jen said excitedly.
"Yes," Tigra continued, "-his dupes around for longer than an hour at a time. They grow weak afterwards and only continue to do so. Possible death for the dupe is possible if not re-acclimated to the host. It is possible that this can be extended with training."
"What do you think happens if he absorbed a dupe that died?"
Tigra shook her head. "I'd rather not think about it."
She pulled out another paper. "Hercules."
"Yeesh," Jen rolled her eyes. "This guy would not shut up. What's his real name?"
"Doesn't say."
"Seriously?"
"Claims to be the actual god of Olympus banished to earth. No evidence to support this claim. Hercules does however possess super human strength, and studies suggest that he is skilled in Greek styled wrestling, sword play, and archery. DNA does not match with any identified person in any world database."
"The only thing I know about Greek mythology is that nobody could keep it in their pants, and a lot of people died because of it."
Tigra nodded, moving on.
"Athena," She read, "often called "Minnie" by Hercules, who claims to be her younger brother. True identities of both subjects is being called into question."
"Minnie?" Jennifer wondered next to her.
"Short for Minerva," Tigra explained, "It's the name Romans gave Athena." She turned back to the file. "Shown to have talent for strategy and hand-to-hand combat. Found with a shield that she refuses to part with, claiming it as a gift from her father (Zeus). The shield gives an unsettling feeling to those who see the face on the front."
"Come on," She-Hulk said incredulously, "Am I expected to believe that these two are actually-?"
"You saw Thor in person."
"Yeah, and I'm still in shock!" Her eyes were wide. "His arms were huge!"
Coming from her, Tigra had to bite her lip. "Moving on," she said, "Dane Whitman."
She-Hulk ogled his picture. "He's cute."
"Nephew of Nathan Garrett," Tigra read, to her horror. "Also known as…The Black Knight?"
The two girls made eye contact. They knew who the Black Knight was. As the story went, some psycho in England decided to build all of this equipment and weapons to fit the name he'd chosen. He claimed to be the descendant of Sir Percival; a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. The man was a genius mechanic having built armor, energy weapon, and a hovering craft that he could fly in. He dispensed "justice" all around the UK, before an officer with a lucky bullet took him down. The media ate it up, spreading the story around, until it became the number one story over here, in the US.
Tigra wasn't sure why so much attention was brought to it, she knew she felt horrible for all those people that died over there. But that was all before heroes like Ironman and the Avengers came along. That could never happen again… Right?
"It says he doesn't have any powers," Tigra informed her friend. "It just says he brought a sword here from his home."
"I saw him with it," Jennifer told her. "He's sitting there, at our lunch table, with a sword strapped to his back," She crossed her arms angrily, "Oh, and it's magic too."
Tigra turned to her. "What?"
"Yeah," She-Hulk shrugged, "You'd have to ask him about it. I didn't believe him."
Tigra decided to move on. "Okay. Please be someone less scary," she prayed, "Donald "Donny" Gill, coined as The Blizzard by the media."
"Who…?" Jen stopped her question to listen.
"Originally a student at the SHIELD Training Academy, Donny was an aspiring scientist, hoping to help reverse the effects of Global Warming on our planet."
"I don't like where this was going," Jen commented.
"Donny accepted unauthorized assistance from Hammer Industries on a project he had been working on, and was expelled. Allegedly, someone turned on the machine and blanketed the school in ice and snow for a week. Shortly after the machine activated, he vanished, having supposedly been kidnapped by Hydra."
"Allegedly? Supposedly?" Jen wondered.
"I guess Shield has their doubts," Tigra observed.
"Okay," She-Hulk put her hands up, "Not counting us; that's five out of six. The last one can't be that bad, right? What's-her-name? Jessica? Yeah, Jessica's nice. She's cool."
Tigra held up the last paper. "Jessica Drew, codenamed the Spider Woman. She has shown to have the ability to crawl on walls, generating pheromones, generating bio-electricity through her hands, as well as enhanced physical attributes and senses."
"She can do everything a spider can," She-Hulk cracked. "And maybe a little more."
"The only Hydra captive to be confirmed as an active field operative in Hydra priority missions. Claims that she no longer wishes to be associated with them, and wishes to come work for the Avengers."
Tigra set the paper down, while She-Hulk stood up to pace the room.
"This is…" She seemed so heartbroken. "I mean… Come on!"
She turned to Tigra. "Two criminals, two nut-jobs, and a former Hydra agent?! That's what we're working with here?!"
"Jen," Tigra climbed off her bed. "Jennifer, calm down!"
She finally grabbed her wrists. "We cannot freak out right now," she told her, "I know this is bad, okay? But we don't have the whole story. We have the Shield skeptic interview story, okay? They're world security, they're supposed to be skeptic. You talked with them today; do you really think that they're all bad people?"
"I…" She seemed to think it over. "I guess not. Hercules and Minnie were funny to watch. They argued a lot. Donny was quiet, but Jessica and Dane were good to talk to."
"Okay," Tigra sighed. "Well, at least we know why they brought all of us here."
"Why is that?"
"To make sure we're not Hydra sleeper agents," Tigra answered. "To make sure we don't go around killing people or sacrificing them to a cult. We'll just have to keep our eyes open, okay?"
Jennifer looked past her, back to the files splayed out on her bed.
Tigra marched over, stuffing the papers back into the envelope. "I'm putting these away. I've seen enough of them."
"Can I hold onto those?" Jennifer asked. For a woman over six feet tall, she knew how to sound small. "I just…I kind of want to see what they put down for us."
Tigra thought for a moment, wondering what they did in fact typed down for her file. Then she decided she didn't want to know.
"Go ahead," She handed the envelope over. "Try not to let it go to your head."
After handing the files over, Tigra changed into a nightshirt and tried to get as much sleep as she could, for all it was worth.