"Okay, that should be it," Mrs. Peace announced, standing up and the feeling of calm and coolness receding. "Don't do anything stupid, and you should be fine. I don't want to have to heal you anymore."

My dad stuck his head in the room and smiled. "Jennifer, I'm going to go get some lunch. Do you want to join me?"

Mrs. Peace smiled back. "Yes, that sounds nice." She looked back at me. "You'll be discharged in a little bit, but the Director and Principal Powers wanted to have a word with you beforehand."

I wondered why they would want to talk to me for a moment as my dad and Mrs. Peace walked off, laughing at something or other. I didn't have to wait long before Principal Powers and a man with brown hair, graying at the temples, and a scar over his left eye walked into the room, taking seats on either side of the foot of my bed.

After they just sat there and looked at me for a moment, I was beginning to get impatient. But they were the ones who wanted to talk to me, so I wasn't going to be the one to break the silence.

Another minute.

Principal Powers coughed.

The man with the scar shifted in his seat, but kept his eyes on me. It was an uncomfortable stare.

I snaked my tail out from underneath me and grabbed the sandwich on the tray, biting into it but not breaking eye contact. They wanted to talk to me, and I wasn't going to start it.

Another minute.

"Well," the man started, "I bet you want to know what we're doing here."

I tried to stop the comment, I really did. "Well actually, I was wondering who would break the awkward silence first, but the thought had crossed my mind."

I saw a flash of emotion cross the man's scarred face, but it was back it was back to a schooled mask of indifference just as quickly.

"We need to discuss the events of Homecoming with you," Principal Powers said.

"Wouldn't that have been a better idea to do before now? I mean, if you had asked me when I woke up, you probably would have gotten better information than what I give you know. More details, that type of thing."

Principal Powers smiled. "When you woke up, you weren't exactly…"

"Yeah, I was drugged loopy. But they lowered the dosage after I woke up. You could have asked me then." Even though my words might have been skewed that way, I wasn't angry with them. I was simply confused and wary.

"We wanted to make sure you were completely healed before we talked with you," the man offered.

"Okay, that makes sense." I looked the man square in the eye and took a bite of my sandwich. "What do you want to know?"

"How were you able to fight Will Stronghold and beat him?" he asked in a low, gravely voice.

I popped the last of the sandwich in my mouth and swallowed. "Beat him? If you think I beat him, you're crazy. I got the shit kicked out of me. Sorry," I added as an afterthought with a nod to Powers.

She waved it off. "I hear worse around the halls everyday, and it was an apt description of what happened."

"Yeah, I didn't beat him. I'll tease Will and say that I did to him, but only as a way to keep him from blaming himself. Really, I was just running and trying to slow him down as much as I could until someone either got there with reinforcements, or Wright was stopped."

"I still don't understand how you were able to stand up to him. It shouldn't be possible," the man growled, disbelief leaking into his words.

"Why is it so impossible?" I asked. "Why is it so impossible that I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it? Isn't that what Sky High is supposed to be teaching us?" I quirked an eyebrow and a scowl shot across the man's already marred face.

"Yes, it is," Powers said diplomatically. "We are supposed to be teaching those values. Though I am sad to say that you wouldn't be able to find that many people who would take the risk that you did, even at our school."

I shook my head. "I don't see the risk." At her confused look, I elaborated. "What I mean to say is that Wright had control over Will. Will was given a command to make me suffer for a little bit, then kill me. He was going to do exactly that unless I either got away or found a way to stop him. I either fought back or tried to run until he caught me and killed me. There aren't a lot of places to hide in there, not that I know of, and definitely none that can stand up to a beating from Will. Where was the risk in what I did? The other options were worse."

"You didn't understand what I meant when I said that it was impossible. You two are in completely different power groupings," the man said, though at this point it seemed that his normal voice was a growl.

"No, we're both in the Permanent Transformation family," I countered.

The man shot a look at Powers. "Dammit Vicki, you mean you aren't even teaching them the power classifications anymore?" He snorted. "There are five power levels for supers today. You're a mid Level Three. Will is a mid Level Four. There's no way you should have been able to hold out as long as you should have."

"I guess that goes to show what you can do when you don't know you aren't able to do something. I didn't know I couldn't, so I just went ahead and did it."

"That's obvious."

"So can you tell me what these power levels are?" I nodded at Powers. "I don't think she's at blame. I just really got into this side of the super world a month ago. I think that's the reason I don't know them."

Powers gave me a hidden smile and the scarred man scowled. Something told me they didn't get along very well. "And I still don't know your name. You seem to know a lot about me, but I don't know who you are. Do I get that privilege?"

The scowl deepened. "Name's Director Evans. Just call me Director."

"And the power levels you were talking about?"

"Like I said, there's five levels. Power level one, it's the most common, and makes up ninety-nine point five percent of the super community. Best part is pretty much everyone in that group doesn't know they're in it. Most of them don't know about their powers."

"How's that?"

"Most of them are little old ladies that have enough of precog in them to know when the phone's going to ring. Natural mental shields, but no projection abilities. Kids with slightly heightened senses. Enough to make them more than normal, but not enough to notice. Most think what happens is a coincidence. Just as well. They don't even make good sidekicks."

"So just how many supers are there?"

Director Evans' brow furrowed. "More than most realize. There's no exact figures on Level One. There's too damn many, and we don't have a way to track them, other than asking everyone, and I mean everyone the world over, to come in to see if they have any powers."

"And that would go over like a lead balloon," I snorted.

"Exactly. And it might make some people think that they're more powerful than they really are, and try doing the superhero thing. Then they'd die and it would be on our hands."

"That's a little cynical, but I can't see anything wrong with that reasoning." I sighed. "So what do the other levels consist of?"

"Level Two are sidekicks. Plain and simple. The powers in that group aren't strong enough to make them heroes."

"So they're automatically sidekicks because they're powers aren't good enough? What about other factors? Tactics, foresight, technical expertise, that type of thing."

Director Evans actually growled and bared his teeth at me. I flinched, more from trying not to laugh than fear. "Discounting all other factors other than powers, Level Two are all sidekicks. Most don't have the nuts to make it as heroes anyway."

"So what are Level Two powers?"

"Shapeshifting into a guinea pig for one," he said mockingly.

I glared at the man, snaking my tail out and over to the bedside table as quick as I could. I grabbed the flower vase and threw it against the wall. "Apologize," I snarled.

He blinked as the vase missed his head by half an inch and saw the look of rage on my face. I continued, "If you're a director, you must have some semblance of intelligence, and if you're in this meeting, you must know at least something about what happened at Homecoming. I don't intend to let anyone insult my friends, and you can't possibly think I'll let you get away with insulting the person who effectively saved my life. Now, apologize." My tail snaked around the glass I had been given with lunch, poised to throw it.

Director Evans glared. "Sorry."

"I don't care if you're a power snob or whatever, but keep those comments to yourself. So what were Level Two powers again?"

"Shapeshifters, at least the ones that don't turn in to lions or other things that could cause serious damage, usually fall here. The weaker energy producers are in here too. Your milder mental powers are Level Two."

"Level Three has the super strength, most fliers, your stronger and multiple shapeshifters, stronger mental powers, people like you, and the majority of energy producers. It's about half and half split between heroes and sidekicks, depends on who you're partnered with. Really, your level depends on how powerful you are. I'm not sure why you're asking what powers are in each level."

I waved him off. "Go on. What about Level Four?"

"Fine. Unlike Level Three, if you're in the field and a Four, you're a hero. Plain and simple, they're too powerful to be sidekicks. Your strongest of the strong, fastest of the fast, most mental of the psychics, etc. are Level Four. Why do you want to know?"

I could tell Evans was irritated. He had been getting more and more irritated throughout the conversation, though a large part of it probably had to do with me throwing things at him. Though I was impressed that he barely flinched when the vase flew.

"If the strongest of the strong are in Level Four, what's in Level Five?"

"Level Five are dangerous. They are too strong for their own good and can't control their powers. Most end up overwhelmed by their powers and burn out or kill themselves. Those that don't are too powerful to be around the general public."

"Okay, so you said yourself that it's really just how much power you have that separates the groups. It doesn't really matter what power it is. Now my next question is, who decides what's powerful and what's not?"

A glare appeared on the Director's face and I was glad my face didn't falter. The man was intimidating, no matter how confident I seemed. "There's a panel designated to deal with rating everyone we know about. I'm not on it. For security reasons, I can't tell you who is. And it's not just how powerful you are, it's how effective your powers are in battle."

I leaned back against the inclined bed, and laughed. It wasn't a full laugh, but it wasn't a hollow or mocking laugh either. "Tell me, what power level was Will again?"

"A mid Level Four."

"And me?"

"A mid Level Three."

"What about Wright? He did have the entire school and most of the teachers under his thrall, if I remember correctly. That has to be pretty powerful."

"Wright was an upper mid Level Four. Get to your point."

"One more thing. What was Magenta's power level?"

"Miss Brisso is an upper Level Two, based on her performance in the field."

"One more thing. Based on power levels, I wasn't supposed to be able to hold my own against Will, right?"

"I've said that already. Make your damn point already!"

"Why are you so concerned that I was able to beat Will when Magenta, a level two, was able to beat Wright, someone who was a higher level than Will?

Evans looked startled at that question for a moment only, but quickly regained his composure. "Your doctors didn't want me to talk to you until you were healed. I didn't have to wait to talk to Miss Brisso. What makes you think that I haven't done so already?"

"The fact that you haven't said that you have yet."

"What?"

"You haven't said that you've talked to her yet. You asked me what made me think that you haven't talked with her yet. That's not anything that says that you've talked to her already. And really, the look on you face when I asked if you had gave you away."

In order to keep from opening and closing his mouth like a fish, Evans settled for glaring at me for a full minute before speaking again. "I personally haven't talked with Miss Brisso, but one of my agents has. We haven't neglected her."

"Well, you have." Evans opened his mouth to protest, but I ploughed on. "I'm not going to lie to you. I don't like you. You think too highly of yourself, and too little of others. You seem to be a power bigot, and only want to deal with the strong. You don't seem to like sidekicks at all. But there's one major problem with what you did. You came and talked with the sidekick. That's me."

"What are you going on about?"

"I'm the sidekick. I'm not the one who took out the villain, Magenta did that. I occupied the minion while the hero and the villain fought. That seems like a sidekick thing to do. Wouldn't you agree Principal Powers?"

"Traditionally, sidekicks serve as a distraction for reinforcements, while the hero takes out the major villain. Yes, in this situation, you're the sidekick." Powers had a smile on her face that clearly stated that she was enjoying the way I was dealing with Evans. Evidently, she approved of the way I was handling things. I expected she was here to make sure one of her students wasn't being harassed, and moderate the meeting. It was nice to know that she was on my side. Maybe she just didn't like Director Evans.

"So, if you wanted to talk to the hero, you've come to the wrong spot. Sorry."

"I resent your implications that I'm anything but fair regardless of power level, I don't deserve to be talked to like this. I came here to get answers about a serious incident, and I get insulted."

Before he built up a full rant, I interrupted him. "With all due respect, which right now isn't a lot, you came in here, talked down at me, insulted someone I hold in high respect, and insult my friends. Based on what I've seen so far, my implications that you have been anything but fair are completely true, and you do deserve to be talked to like this. Not only do you deserve to be talked to like this, you need to be talked to like this. You are an asshole, and you need to be told so. You may have come here for answers, but you didn't have the control necessary to stop yourself from filling your words with your own unwelcome emotions. I think that you should grow up a little and if you still need some answers, come to me then. If you can't do that, get someone with a better head on their shoulders to talk to me. Until then, get out of my sight, you stupid bastard."

Director Evans snorted in disgust and picked up his coat, stopping at the door. "Listen to me. I heard your little tantrum out, but I'm not going to put up with your crap further than this room. I heard you out because you're in a hospital bed, that's the only reason. If you think you can go out and undermine my authority, you have another thing coming. I can make your life harder than you can imagine, and if you mess with me, you will lose. Trust me on that."

The door slammed on his way out, and Principal Powers' face twisting between laughing and grimacing.

"I take it you don't like him either," I asked with a smile.

My facial expression must have been the final straw, because Principal Powers opened her mouth in a great belly laugh. It continued for quite a while before she wound down and wiped the tears of laughter from her face.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for someone to tell that man off. Most are too intimidated by his position to do anything."

"Well, he never told me what his position was. He just called himself a director. That could be a director on the board to get cheese changed to the national food of Micronesia for all I know. Though I expect it's something that carries a little bit more weight, isn't it? Something that ruffles you feathers perhaps?"

"He is the Director of the ISA for this region. And unfortunately, he's high enough on the chain internationally that he can cause problems for people who upset him. And as an added bonus, he's my ex-husband." The last was said with a grumble that clearly stated that she regretted her choice now that she could look back on it.

She shook her head. "You don't need to hear about my problems with him. He enjoys holding his head above others, especially if they're not able to do anything about it. Your defiance of him probably wasn't the smartest thing you could have done if you plan on becoming a major hero in this area. I suppose you could move out to the other coast if you really wanted to…" She drifted off, her thoughts no longer being vocalized.

"I don't care about being a major hero," I said confidently.

Principal Powers jerked out of her thoughts at my statement. I held up my hand, telling her to wait before exploding at me. "I really don't. I want to help people, but if I'm not a major hero, it's not important. It's actually preferable."

"What do you mean?"

"I look at it this way. My uncle owns a bar. I know you know this, I've told you. He's had people come in depressed, and looking to drown their sorrows in a bottle, but he doesn't like that. He usually brings people out of their funk, and they say he helps them get over their problems a lot better than any shrink they'd been to see. Does that make him a hero? Maybe not. Not by that guy's definition, but by a less constricting person, maybe. He helps people. He makes their day better. He gets them drunk. Two of those are classic hero definitions. Why isn't he considered a hero?"

I pressed on, waiting long enough to see that Powers was still with me, but not long enough for her to respond. "And not to speak ill of a place that I almost destroyed, but there are problems with Sky High, and not ones that people always see. Really, how many high schools do you know of that allow their science teachers to routinely blow up the lab and stay on staff? And that speaks nothing of the fact that he keeps knocking us out with those freaking rocks of his. Doesn't tell us what they're for, just watches us fall down and laughs. And gym class has us beating each other into the ground. So why do you keep trying to make us seem like something that we aren't. I understand that we aren't a normal high school, but I see you as having three choices, because what's there right now isn't working. You can make us into a normal high school, doing away with most of the stuff that's necessary to prepare us for hero life, or you can stop pretending we're normal, and put us on the fast track. But I see the third option as best. Actually talk to people. See if they want to become heroes or not. I know of at least three people in the upper level classes that don't want to become heroes. That's not to say that they don't want to help people, but they don't want fight supervillains. And from what I've seen, some of them aren't cut out for it."

"What are you talking about? Everyone in the school knows they can come talk to me if they have any problems, my door is always open."

"Maybe so, but people don't want to do that. You don't exactly paint a perfect picture of openness."

Powers just rolled her hand, motioning for me to elaborate, and that I wasn't necessarily doing the best that I could have been convincing her.

"On the first day of school, even before everyone has a chance to be placed, you make an entrance that, conscious or not, intimidates the students, and establishes your place as one where you aren't afraid of using your power in front of students. You welcome the freshmen to Sky High, and then hand them over to Boomer, of all people, the most abrasive person at the school. I won't deny that the man knows his stuff, but he doesn't have the people skills needed to ease their fears and make them feel like they belong."

"Many people in the hero community are tough to get along with. Whether it's a good idea or not, Boomer does a good job of preparing them for the real world."

"Christ, it's like talking to the Governors again," I muttered, just loud enough for her to hear me. "I just said that Boomer does know his stuff. Though you may want to be careful with that real world stuff. For most people, real world doesn't mean breaking the laws of physics on a regular basis. Now if you'll recall, I just said that a lot of people don't want to become heroes. That doesn't mean that they want to become villains either. Take Sarah Davis for example. Great girl. A little too perky for my tastes. One of the top in her class. Do you know what she wants to do after she graduates?"

Powers did an excellent imitation of a fish, opening and closing her mouth as she realized she didn't know the answer.

"One of your finest, and you don't know. I don't hold it against you, because you never thought about it, but there are those who aren't happy about it at all. Sue Tenny for one."

"That was low, Mr. Danes."

Her voice was like a slap in the face, but I was trying to make a point. "Yes, it was low, but it needed to be said. So do you have a guess as to what Sarah wants to do after she gets out?" Powers just shook her head. "She wants to become a doctor. I think she plans on working with ISA, helping kids with powers, and those just coming in to theirs. I think she'll be good at that, but does she need a class in advanced subterfuge for that? Unless we're manipulating kids a lot more than we used to, I think not. As I understand it, she was placed there based off her powers and abilities, not her desires."

"She is one of the best there is for sneaking around, especially with her ability to phase through solid objects."

"How good is she at Save the Citizen?"

"She doesn't play often, and she usually gets placed with someone strong enough to hold their opponents while she gets the citizen. What's your point?"

"You just said it yourself. She saves the citizen while her partner holds the others. She doesn't do the fighting. I've heard her say she doesn't like fighting. She's not that good. Why do you keep training her for something she doesn't want to do?"

"What would you propose we do?"

"I told you. The third option. Talk to your students. See what they want to do. Teach everyone how to control their powers, and how not to go down the street without blowing something up, but save the more advanced instruction for those who want to do it, those who will put forth the effort to actually work at it. I mean really, if you have two people both with the same qualifications, one who likes the work and one who doesn't, which is going to work out better? Look at Magenta. She turns into a guinea pig. That's not a hero power, not by convention. But she's also saved the school twice, and that's a mark of a hero. She enjoys it, no matter how much she may deny it. Why do assholes like the Director there treat her worse, while people with stronger powers and no drive are raised as gods? It doesn't make sense."

"I agree. And you knew I would, didn't you?" I smiled a little and a touch of pink reached my cheeks. "However, what you didn't know was that you aren't the first person to bring these concepts up. There have been several attempts to bring Sky High's policies forward, but it has been decided that we're better off as it stands right now. Sky High is an institute where we train people to be superheroes first and foremost. If our students want to train for something else, they can transfer to another school." She said this with a degree of finality, and I knew that the topic was closed.

I nodded, promising myself that I would come back to this later, and asked the question that had been bugging me for a while. "Why was Magenta the only one able to block out Wright's mind control? I know that I was left out of the mind control because I pissed him off and he wanted to beat me while I was fully coherent, but I still haven't got a clear answer as to why she was left out."

Powers sighed. "Understand that this is to be kept quiet. No one should know about this. Your friends know, but they were instructed not to say anything until I could talk to you about it. Miss Brisso has unusually strong natural mental defenses, though no projection abilities. They seem to block out almost all telepathy, which is what Mr. Wright uses, a bastardized version that forces his will onto other people. Her defenses also seem to block out most other mental abilities, but not the extent that they do telepathy. For instance, Mrs. Peace said that while she was able to sense Magenta's emotions, they were muffled and muted."

I nodded and Powers left me alone to get dressed. I threw my pile of clothes on a chair and made sure the door was shut and the blinds were closed. When I looked back, there was a note on top of my clothes.

Keith—

You did a good job.

Both with helping the school and Director Evans just now. But as a warning, you may want to watch out for him in the future. He can and probably will make you life hard in more way than one.

I hope we can meet someday, even if it might not be soon. And this time, don't show anyone the note.

A Helping Hand

"Who the hell is this guy?"