Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High, or any of the associated characters, and no money is being made from the publication of this fic.

Summary: See Previous Chapters.

Chapter Fourteen

The first day back at Sky High was… odd.

Classes hadn't changed yet, since it took more than three days to design a whole new curriculum, and no announcement had been made, but the Hero Support remained cautiously optimistic. Warren and Roisin weren't so sure, but held their silence.

The odd part was stepping out of the flying car (the school buses were being inspected to make sure Royal Pain hadn't left any booby-traps, which meant a lot more air-traffic than usual) and having half the quad burst into applause. It probably said a lot about their low expectations that Warren and the Twins were actually surprised by the reaction.

Will and his friends, arriving less than a minute later, grinned broadly when they were applauded, but they were far more on the 'sunshine and rainbows' side of things. Will and Warren exchanged weirded-out looks when a bunch of senior girls, who had never given either of them the time of day before, asked to walk to class together.

Layla growled, the grass on the school lawn rippling dangerously. Maybe the fight had been good for her in terms of assertiveness. The twins laughed and rolled their eyes, before taking one of Warren's arms each and gliding away, ignoring the seniors.

There was a special school assembly straight after home-room; another oddity, as normally those only happened at the beginning and end of the school year.

Sitting down in a group, Roisin leaning against Warren and Will and Layla holding hands, they kept their voices low and tried to ignore the whispers around them, knowing that everyone was discussing the same topic: What was the special assembly about?

From the row behind them, Zach leaned over. "Do you think it's about what happened at Homecoming?"

Evanna shrugged. "I can't think of anything else it would be about. My question is, is this a lecture about how turning evil isn't the only option, a generic bullying seminar, or an announcement about things actually changing as a result?"

Melissa created several tiny bits of ice, sending them down the shirt of a Junior several rows down, who was harassing a Sophomore sidekick, smiling briefly when he jumped and nearly fell off his seat. "Probably the first. Can you actually see the Superhero Council being willing to break such 'time-honoured' traditions?"

The automatic scoff from everyone within earshot who wasn't a First-Generation super went un-noticed as Principal Powers stepped up to the Microphone. "Good morning, students. I hope you enjoyed your time off while the school was being re-built."

A ripple of combined laughter and agreement rippled through the audience at the principal's joke, before the tone grew serious. "To lose students in such a way, to see their unique talents wasted, is a terrible tragedy. An even more terrible one, however, would be if we failed to learn from them. We learned that being powerful doesn't make you perfect, or even superior. We learned that Hero Support can be a greater asset than we ever dreamed. Most importantly, we learned that we need to change the way we do things, or we will stagnate, while our enemies advance."

Scattered applause and murmuring ran through the students, some pleased, some angry, all waiting to hear what would come next. Roisin blinked. "How much authority does the Superhero council have over the school curriculum, and can they afford the bad press from the Supers with kids at Sky High?"

A nearby Senior leaned over, "Their influence is more over what happens after Sky High, the school curriculum is still mostly in the hands of the Bureau of Education, I think. The council does have some input, though more in the form of 'expert consultation' than any real decision-making."

They all quietened down as Principal Powers continued. "Over the next few days, you will be receiving new timetables, reflecting these changes. There will also be harsher punishments for harassing or bullying of your fellow students. Likewise, you are expected to take problems to the school authorities, rather than dealing with it yourselves. We realise that no system is perfect, and that High School is never easy, but as future Superheros, you are held to a higher standard than most. It is time to live up to that. Dismissed."

Huh.

Maybe the Commander and Jetstream hadn't just been blowing hot air, after all.

Integration and co-operation between Heroes and Sidekicks sounded great, but of course it was never going to be that simple. Even only a few months into the school year, the Sidekicks were miles behind, because, as Sidekicks, they had been expected to leave the thinking up to the Heroes. All of a sudden, that had changed, and they were scrambling to catch up.

Whether it was advanced techniques in Gym, logistics in Maths, the amount of detail expected in History or the material covered in English, it was harder than any of the Sidekicks had anticipated. Mad Science was about the only thing that remained the same, purely because Mr Medulla flat-out stated that science was a bad subject to overwhelm people in, and he intended to wait until they were caught up in other areas. He did let anyone who was interested work on individual projects in their free time, though.

On the bright side, impromptu study groups were springing up all over the place, nearly all of them mixed combinations of Hero and Hero Support. That was an encouraging step towards working together as equals, though in Roisin's overly-skeptical mind, she wondered if some of the Heroes weren't trying just a bit too hard, and what actions or prior activities they were trying to draw attention away from.

Maybe it was the result of being raised by a supervillain, but the twins never trusted anything blindly, and after Royal Pain, it would take a while before they stopped looking for hidden motivations in everyone.

Still, it marked an increase in the number of people inviting them to their house, or willing to brave the Pied Piper's "lair" for study sessions, even if those numbers didn't include anyone with immediate family who were either on the Superhero Council, or had lost a court case against the Pied Piper. While she would never admit it, the twins' mother would put up with a lot worse than a small invasion of talkative teens, if it meant that Warren and her daughters finally gained some social acceptance.

Evanna was not pleased that despite the classes becoming a bit more integrated, at least in terms of material covered, Sidekick Mad Science was still limited, at least when compared to Hero Mad Science.

Admittedly, that was partly because the Sidekicks were still catching up to the level of the Hero Class, and Mr Medulla didn't want dangerous mistakes due to inexperience. Luckily, Mr Medulla liked her, and didn't mind allowing her to experiment in the lab during study hall.

Those sessions turned out to be… interesting. Evanna had known from a very young age that if she survived long enough to make a name for herself as a Hero, she would need to be one who relied on fancy tricks and gadgets. To that extent, nearly all of her Mad Science experiments were part of long-term projects that would be useful when she graduated.

Some, like her current project, where the result of whim, mischief or 'what will happen if I…?'.

One of the popular bullies that had hung around Royal Pain was still managing to coast under the radar due to family connections and lack of hard evidence, since she never did the legwork herself. She was also working on a project that had something to do with silkworms – the bully had been chattering about it with her friends while encouraging a few jocks to stuff Evanna into her locker - and was the biggest arachnophobe in the school, if not the city.

Evanna intended to create a cross-breed that looked like a silkworm until it spun its cocoon, and emerged as a big, hairy spider.

So far, Evanna had managed to create a spider whose eggs hatched into a mix of silkworms and baby spiders, a silkworm who fed on insects instead of maple leaves and whose silk was even stronger and more energy-resistant than spider-silk, and a spider with four legs and a long, straight body. Evanna had put the 'spiderworm', as she named the insect-eating silkworm, to the side, thinking of the possibilities when it came to creating a superhero costume and as an alibi if she got caught in her prank, and went back to work.

This time, she was sure she had it. Well, not quite, but she had a silkworm that spontaneously turned into a large, non-venomous spider for a few seconds, and that would serve her purpose well enough.

It was all very well to say 'let the school administration deal with it', but when that failed, sometimes you needed to take your own measures.

Evanna had helped save the lives of everyone in the school. She deserved more than to go back to being their punching bag when they needed to feel good about themselves.

.

.

.

.

A/N: Yeah, I know it's been way too long since I updated.

Unfortunately, life happened, other projects got in the way, my computer deleted the nearly-finished chapter without the back-up, and so on. I'm also branching out into territory where I have much less source material to work off, so updates may be either slower or shorter. There's also the possibility of me having to get a second job to make ends meet, and that will also cut down on the amount of time I have available to spend on writing.

As always, reviews and constructive criticism are very much appreciated. I can't tell you how depressing it is to work so hard on a chapter… and rely on a hit counter to see if people are even reading the story, never mind if they like it or not.

Thanks,

Nat