As promised, I got this out before the end of 2021, at least for those of us in America.
Now to answer some questions people have asked since I can't directly reply to guests' reviews. 1: yes we will find out who killed Ray, eventually. It'll be a process. 2: I created the title picture in Procreate. 3. I would love if people want to translate this into other languages for me; I'd do it on my own but that is not a talent I posses.
Thank you for all your reviews. I love hearing from you. Tell me what you think. Keep asking questions. Enjoy episode 10.
Danger S1E10: New Normal
August 23, 2021
Henry smiles at his phone as he reads the incoming text. The rose was a nice surprise when I got back. Thanks. -Babe DG
Glad you liked it. I really did mean what the note said. I miss you already. -HD3 He responds to her.
I miss you too. -Babe DG
How goes week 1 of college? -HD3
Amazing! And Crazy! There's so much to do. But Kenzie and I are having a great time. And we love sharing a room. -Babe DG
For now… What about your classes? What're you taking? -HD3
While he's waiting for her response, Miles suddenly teleports into the room with an air of urgency about him. "Hey Henry!" he says as he runs to Danger Force's lockers and begins pushing buttons at Shoutout's.
"Uh, hey, Dude. What's up? Why're you messing with your sister's stuff? You know she won't like that." Henry inquires.
"Nothing! It's nothing! Ahh!" Miles vehement insistences are cut off as Mika's chair rises out of the floor at his feet and knocks him backwards onto the floor.
"Nice try, Miles. But you're not gonna stop me!" Mika asserts climbing over her brother. "Henry!" she greets loudly and with clear purpose "We need to…"
"No Mika!" Miles yells and tackles her.
"What the?" Henry says, jumping to his feet. "Miles? Why're you…?" His attempts at questions don't even make it out of his mouth, let alone into their ears as they grapple on the floor. Miles punches his fist above his head and they vanish in the usual flash of yellow light, leaving Henry utterly baffled. "What?" he mutters to himself.
Then another chair is rising into the Man's Nest and Chapa is rushing in looking furious. "Is she here? What's she said?"
"What're you talking about?" Henry asks as a third chair ascends.
"Where's Mika? Did she tell him?" Bose asks alarmed.
"Tell who what?" Henry asks.
"I don't think so." Chapa responds to Bose, ignoring Henry. "She's not here."
"Phew." Bose sighs. "That's good."
"What's good? Why are you looking for Mika?" Henry asks.
"Nothing!" Bose cries.
"Is she alright? Is something wrong with her?" Henry asks with concern.
"Uh, no." Bose responds.
"Yes, something is definitely wrong with her." Chapa jibes, "But there's no reason for you to worry about it."
Henry frowns at the pair of them. "Really?" he asks suspiciously. "There's no reason you've both dashed in here in a panic wondering if she was here? And it has nothing to do with why Miles tried to keep her from getting up here and then tackled her and teleported away?"
They share a dubious look and say together, "Nope."
Their behavior seeming more mischievous than serious, Henry's worry lessons but his glare deepens at the blatant lie. "Bose? Chapa? What's going on?" they remain silent, glancing shiftily around. "Did something happen I should know about?" he presses.
"Nope." Bose says at the same time Chapa says, "All good here."
Henry eyes them fiercely. "Guys…" he attempts to continue interrogating them but is interrupted as Mika bursts back into the room through the glass door from outside. Miles can be heard screaming after her, but she sends a sonic scream out behind her and then locks the door.
"Henry!" she calls turning towards him and her friends, whom upon seeing she takes a defensive position towards. "You won't stop me!" she tells them.
"Stop you from what?" Henry asks. The three ignore him as Chapa and Bose rush at Mika.
Complete chaos ensues as Mika and the other three members of Danger Force fight with and yell at each other; Miles having rejoined them after running headlong into the locked door, trying and failing to open it, realizing it is locked and teleporting himself inside. Blue the monkey jumping and screeching on the fringes like a cheerleader. Mika does quite well on her own against the three of them, but Henry can only stand idly by for a moment in his bewilderment. He seizes a chance to pull Mika out of the clamor and activates his forcefield around the two of them.
The three outside the force field scream in frustration as Mika becomes unreachable. Mika jeers a "Ha!" back at them.
"I'm done with this. Somebody, tell me what's going on." Henry commands.
"Gladly." Mika says.
"No!" Bose cries.
"Don't do this to us!" Miles begs.
"C'mon girl, don't be a snitch." Chapa threatens.
Mika gives them a nasty sassy look and says, "School" in a strong and clear tone.
The responding complaint of "No!" and stomping feet are so immediate Henry hasn't even had time to process the word. "Um, school?" he asks, looking between Mika and the others
"Don't remind him!" Miles' complaint mingles in with Chapa's "What is wrong with you?" and Bose's "Why would you say that?" They go on whining over each other at her with "We were having an extra long summer!", "We could've gone on pretending it didn't exist!", "I don't wanna go back to school!" and many other things Henry can't distinguish.
Mika stands with her hands on her hips and stares them all down until they're done. "It's time to start the new school year. We are going back to school."
"School? Right. Ray created SW.A.G. to cover for your superhero training and it is time for schools to be starting up again so we should probably do that too." Henry says, letting his force field down as the tension in the room evaporates.
"No!" "Why!" the three moan, flopping onto the couch or floor, kicking nothing in tantrums.
Henry chuckles, "C'mon guys. School isn't that bad."
"Yes it is." Bose groans from the floor.
"You can't talk." Chapa adds, "You stopped going years ago."
Henry presses his lips together irritably and grumbles, "Yes, thank you for that reminder. I am well aware of the fact that I didn't graduate."
"Exactly. So why do we have to bother? We don't need a diploma to be superheroes." Miles complains.
His sister adopts a most offended expression. "Our education still matters." She insists, "We can't just forego it because we're superheroes."
"Why not?" Chapa whines, flopped face first across the couch.
"Because being well educated is important." Mika criticizes. "What about our futures? What if we ever want to do anything else besides crime fighting?"
Her friends roll their eyes at her. Henry sighs, running a hand over his hair. "You guys have no idea how much you sound like Ray right now." He comments, effectively quieting them with the mention of Ray's name. "This is exactly the argument we had when I quit."
Varied responses: from avoidant guilt to sheer sadness, flash across the four faces at the subject. Bose scrunches his brow contemplatively as he frowns, "No, it's not. That argument was like: 'Maybe you should take the Neighborville job, Henry.', 'No, I don't want the job.', 'Really cause you're not very committed to me.', 'I'm not graduating because of how committed I am.'…" he says, mocking Henry's and Ray's voices as he does.
"Bose, I don't need a recap. I was there." Henry cuts off. "And that was only the actual yelling at each other part. The disagreement was about the fact that he didn't care about me graduating, and I wanted to. You might think it's silly and yeah, maybe it wasn't necessary because I'll be fighting crime forever, but it mattered to me. And I'm sure you'll all hit a day where it matters to you, so you're going back to school."
They groan some more, with the remaining exception of Mika. "Yes!" she claps once, decisively. "Okay. We should get started now." The other three groan again.
"Now? Uh, sure, but how exactly do we do this?" Henry hesitates.
"We go downstairs and you give us textbooks and lectures on boring stuff like grammar and history." Miles grumbles, sitting now instead of laying as he works his way up from the floor.
"Or you teach us more about fighting crime." Bose adds, a note of hope in his voice. He too is getting back to his feet.
Henry hums awkwardly. "Um, well, I know I agreed to train and lead you in the superhero stuff" he says, "but when it comes to school stuff, I can't do anything. As we just discussed, I never graduated from high school so I can't start teaching it."
"Why not?" Miles asks. "Ray stopped going to school when he was like eight, right? If he could teach us, you definitely can."
"You are less immature." Chapa comments helpfully. All five of them stand as a group, the four youngers looking inquisitorially at their elder.
"Thanks for that. Good to know I'm not more mature, just less immature."
"It's more accurate." Chapa says brazenly.
"Yeah, it is." Henry shrugs and agrees honestly. "But that doesn't mean I can be a good teacher. Or that Ray was. How could he have been? He couldn't spell and kept Schwoz around to do the science and math stuff. What did you actually learn from him? You all know the Earth is a sphere, right? And that spaghetti isn't a vegetable?" he asks.
"Of course, we know that." Miles says.
"Wait the Earth is a sphere?" Bose questions. "I thought it was round!"
They all look at him disbelieving. "Honey, a sphere is round." Mika tells him.
"Oh."
"If you're not going to do it, who is?" Chapa asks Henry, ignoring Bose and Mika. "We didn't have other teachers last year, just Ray."
"Schwoz did science." Miles corrects.
"Whatever." Chapa sparks.
"She's right though. We don't have anyone else who can do it." Mika expounds, "It's our school, but it is also a cover. We can't bring someone in without explaining to them who we are and what's going on."
"Which is obviously a huge risk." Miles completes her thought.
Henry nods, "Yeah, but I can't do it. We're going to have to think of something. Maybe somebody who already knows us?"
His suggestion is met with scrutiny. "That's a pretty small group." Mika comments, "You know more people like that than we do; do you know if any of them could?"
Henry shakes his head unconfidently, "Maybe. There were several employees who worked in the Mancave, plus some other friends and superheroes. Maybe…SCHWOZ!" Henry shouts abruptly, startling the kids.
"Woah!" Chapa hollers back as Bose literally falls over with a shriek of surprise.
"That was louder than me." Mika complains, hands over her ears.
"Sorry." Henry says.
Schwoz walks in through the metal door to the rest of the Man's Nest, looking over something on a tablet. "What's up, buttercup?"
"We have a small problem: we need to find a new teacher for SW.A.G." Henry says. "Is there anyone you can think of, who already knows our secrets, that could possibly do that?"
Schwoz looks quite stumped for a minute. "Umm… no. Not off toop of my head."
"The top of your head." Mika corrects, hands still over her ringing ears.
"Could we put out some feelers?" Henry asks. "See if anyone could do it?"
Schwoz nods. "I could make some calls."
"Thanks!" Henry says. Schwoz nods and walks back out, typing on his tablet again.
(Theme Song:Henry's Voice dubbed over the image of Captain Man's bronze statue. "It all just kinda happened. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He shouldn't have died. But now here I am, doing his job." Cut scene to Man's Nest in chaos as the members of Danger Force and Schwoz run around reacting to an emergency alert blaring through the base. "I'm not sure I'm ready for this." Henry states and the music of the theme song begins to play...)
August 25, 2021
In the SW.A.G. classroom two days later a line of prospective teachers waits, having answered Schwoz and Henry's plea for help. All are old friends of the team who have full knowledge of their identities and the nature of the school. None are particularly promising options. One by one they take a turn to teach a lesson with the six current residents of the school judging them on their ability.
Gooch gives a strange lecture of proverbs and parables that leave the four students more confused than when they began. Miles, in particular is left in a state of utter disorientation, having tried to take it all in. He falls to the ground to mutter about the twisting vines of time.
Bork stands in front of the class and grunts angrily at them as he gestures emphatically to the open textbook he's holding. He is quickly dismissed as a candidate.
Boris, who Henry hadn't seen since his job interview to become Kid Danger, makes a real effort to teach them a math lesson but it is an utter disaster as he miscalculates half the problems and has to retract his answers as Mika corrects him.
Leilani's lesson is a lot of fun as she teaches them to dance the hula, and the kids all seem to love her, but she admits to not knowing how to teach anything out of her limited subjects. They do consider keeping here as a part time teacher anyway, she'll come to give them Hawaiian Language lessons and music on occasion.
After they've all gone through, Henry, Schwoz, Mika, Miles, Chapa and Bose sit together in the Man's Nest. "That did not go well." Schwoz says.
"Nope." Henry agrees.
"Not a one of them can become our new teacher." Miles comments.
"Nope." Henry says.
"Then what do we do? Who else can we turn to?" Mika asks.
"Who could we hire who'll know why we have to ditch school multiple times a day when that alarm goes off?" Chapa says gesturing irritably to the computer.
The alarm goes off. They all jump and look towards it in surprise for several long seconds before realizing that it's real. "Emergency?" they say surprised as they get up off the couch.
"Yes, finally!" Chapa cheers and grabs her gum, "We haven't had a villain to beat up in weeks."
"Yeah, guess the crime drought is over." Miles says. "You jinxed us out of it."
"I didn't jinx us!" She protests.
"It was bound to happen soon." Mika assists her. "It has been quite a long time."
"Let's go guys." Henry instructs, chewing his gum.
The team, now garbed in their uniforms, arrive at the Swellview Food Bank, where Schwoz had informed them a robbery was taking place, in only a few short minutes. "Who would rob a food bank?" Volt questions as they walk into the building.
They all stop abruptly as they see the familiar large criminal rummaging through the shelves. Danger groans loudly and shouts a complaint, "Jeff!"
"Of course, it is." AWOL bemoans. "No one else is stupid enough to rob free food."
Jeff Bilsky turns to look at them. "Oh hey. Do you guys know where they keep the money?"
Danger whines with extreme irritation. "There's no money here, Jeff. It's a food bank."
"Yeah, and banks have money." Jeff says with a gesture like he's the one explaining the obvious.
"NO! That's not…" Danger responds. He rolls his eyes back irritably.
"Not all banks have money." Shoutout corrects at the same time. "Banks are places to deposit and store things for use when required. Only financial banks store money. Food banks store food."
"It's in the name." Brainstorm points out.
"Oh. Well then why isn't the food in a vault. This bank's security is terrible, anyone can just walk in here and take this food off the shelves." Jeff comments.
"The food is free." AWOL says. "It's here to help poor people."
"No one else is dumb enough to want to rob it." Volt says.
"Well, their loss!" Jeff says and scoops up an armful of snack foods from the shelf. "Free chips!" He makes a break down the aisle, but Danger zaps him with his laser remote, shaking his head irritably, before the dumb criminal can get far. "Ow!" Jeff complains as he belly flops onto the floor.
The team come up to him with unconcerned slowness as he rolls over and sits back up. Danger pulls out a pair of handcuffs. "I'll call the police to come pick him up." Shoutout volunteers.
"This was a huge waste of time." Volt complains.
"Yep." Danger agrees.
"I was really looking forward to pummeling someone." She goes on, clenching her fists.
"We know." AWOL says, looking bored down at Jeff.
"Hey, you're Kid Danger!" Jeff notices after Danger's put the handcuffs on him.
"It's just Danger," Danger corrects, "but yes."
"Dude, I was at your funeral." Jeff says excitedly as Danger leads him through the building. "I gave a speech after Captain Man ran out crying."
"I know." Danger says tersely. "I was there too."
"You were!?" Jeff asks completely baffled.
"Yes." Danger says with a head shake.
"The police are here!" Shoutout calls from the front doorway.
"What's up Captain Danger?" Officer Lacy calls as he brings Jeff out to the police car. "You wants us to take him off yo' hands?"
"It's just Danger. No Captain. No Kid. And yes, please, take him away." Danger says. "I do not want to deal with his stupidity right now."
"Hey!" Jeff complains. Hen turns back to look at them with a frown. "I'm not stupid, you're stupid."
"Shut up, Jeff." Danger orders, forcing him into the backseat of the cop car.
"We're not the ones who tried to rob a food bank." Volt points out.
"And you did it when there hasn't been any other crimes in weeks, so it's literally the only crime happening in all of Swellview at the moment." Shoutout adds irritabley.
"We had to get off the couch for you!" AWOL shrills.
"You were on the floor." Volt corrects him with an amused smirk.
"Not the point!" AWOL gripes.
The officers laugh at this complaint. "So, you've enjoyed having some time off while crime has been low?" Officer Walnut asks.
"Yes." AWOL moans, sinking to his knees, a frown on his face.
"Eh, I'd rather be out here than dealing with our current issue back at HQ." Volt says.
"What issue?" Officer Walnut asks.
"An issue that just got worse." Schwoz's voice comments.
"What's wrong?" Danger asks the man at base, ignoring Officer Walnut.
"The Shapey lady just knocked on our door." Schwoz says. "I'll go stall her. You should get back quick. But make sure you come as yourselves, not as Danger Force."
"Shapey lady?" Henry questions but Schwoz has left the comm-line.
(Commercial Break)
"If you don't have a proper teacher by the end of the week, I'm shutting you down!" Ms. Shapen decrees as she walks out the doors of SW.A.G. "And I'll be checking your claims of Henry's graduation status. If I find out you really have hired a drop out…" Chapa shuts the door on her sentence and her face. A muffled, "Ow! Hey!" is the last they hear of her.
There is a long moment of relief that washes over them all, except Henry who is staring at Schwoz anxiously. "Quick thinking, Schwoz. That'll buy us a little time, but now, how do we keep her from finding out I wasn't actually a student here last year?" He asks.
"We do nothing. You were a student here last year." Schwoz says.
"Hmm?" Henry questions.
"You were a student here last year." Schwoz repeats, "Everything I told her was true."
"Um… what?" Henry asks, blinking confused. "No, I wasn't. I was in Dystopia, I sort of dropped out of school, never went to my senior year. Ray and I had a huge fight about it. Remember that?"
"I thought Ray told you about how we forged all the paperwork necessary to have you enrolled here and to make your time in Dystopia be a 'for-in ex-chain-ja' program you were doing through SW.A.G. to make up all the credits you needed to graduate." Schwoz says.
Henry looks about wide eyed, as if searching for a sign of illusion, "He never told me anything of the sort."
"Oh, well, we did." Schwoz says, "You fulfilled all the requirements for graduation at the end of the last school year. He made sure everything was set up so that you would."
Henry sighs and nods while turning in a short pace. Upon turning back to Schwoz, with his hands pressed to his lips, he asks, "Schwoz? Did I graduate high school three months ago and nobody bothered to tell me?"
"Uh… yes. Yes." Schwoz says with a mischievous smile.
"How…? Why…?" Henry gushes incoherently.
"Ray knew it was important to you, and he wanted to make things right after your argument, so he set it all up to get you to graduate." Schwoz explains.
"He did? He fixed things for me? But, I thought, we were both moving on: I left and he bought this school to take the four of them on as new sidekicks." Henry says, pacing again.
Schwoz frowns at him. "Henry, Ray didn't buy SW.A.G. for Danger Force, he bought it for you."
"What?" Henry asks softly, stopping in his tracks.
"Ray thought if he got you a diploma then you wouldn't be mad at him anymore after your fight and you'd come back to being Kid Danger. That's why he bought the school." Schwoz goes on. "It was only after the battle with Drex and when he accepted that you were leaving that he decided to make it into a superhero school for them."
"Aw. That's so nice." Bose says. "Ray did all of that for Henry?"
"Yep, we've always just been the replacements. Getting the Henry hand-me-downs after he was done with them." Chapa grumbles.
"Don't ruin it." Bose protests.
"He bought me a school because I was upset about not graduating?" Henry marvels and shakes his head. "He made it so I could graduate?" Henry almost can't speak for the way his throat constricts.
"Yes, and he got all the paperwork ready so that you did graduate, last June." Schwoz says.
Henry's wide-eyed and smiling astonished. "I- I graduated." He says like it's his greatest dream-come-true. His laughter is almost hysterical, weighted down by the flurry of emotions which fuel it. He runs his hands through his hair. "I graduated."
There is a long moment of quiet as he takes this in. "Dude, are you okay?" Miles eventually asks.
"I graduated!" Henry says by way of explanation. "I have to tell everyone. Charlotte and Jasper aren't going to believe it! And Babe! And my parents will be so happy."
"We were going to have a graduation ceremony after you came back." Schwoz goes on, becoming subdued as he continues. "Which I forgot about when Ray died."
Tense quiet comes out to meet his last statement. Henry freezes in his giddy motions. "R-right." He says after a long moment.
Another muted time passes, shuffling all that is heard as Henry, Chapa and Bose takes seats at or on the nearest desks. "Have you found anything?" Bose asks, looking up from where he's contemplating his hands.
"No. I don't know." Schwoz says. "I've gone over the scans I did on his body. I went to Swellview Power Facility to get some readings of my own. I've been over every frame of the video the police got of that dark swirly thing. It doesn't make sense."
"You couldn't find anything more out about that dark stuff?" Henry asks. Fiddling his fingers, hoping for good news and fearing the 'no' he's sure he'll get.
"The CSIs at Swellview Power Facility said there that it couldn't have existed." Mika recalls, "It was undectectable by their machines and left no residue or evidence of any kind."
Schwoz nods, "Yes. From their results and my own investigation, I have concluded that the dark swirly had no physical substance and gave off no energy, so the CSIs couldn't detect it at all. It was some kind of nothing."
"It was nothing?" Bose asks. For once not the only one lost on the subject.
"The entire universe is made of matter and energy. How can it be nothing?" Mika wonders. "Even the vacuum of space isn't nothing."
Schwoz sighs irritably at their obvious lack of understanding and goes on, "There really is no such thing as nothing. But whatever this stuff is, it's not any kind of something ever discovered. Not matter, nor energy, nor vacuum. It was there but it wasn't, and it didn't displace the matter or energy that was there to begin with, but it almost seems to have put it out of phase with our dimension." Schwoz says, making his listeners loose what little grasp they still had on what he was saying. He sighs again. "It made the light seem lesser and the sound dampen. The best I can explain it is that it must have been from some other dimension. It was extra-physical: something that the science of this dimension can't explain."
"You're hurting my brain." Bose says it, but Schwoz finds all ten eyes looking at him holding an equal level of misunderstanding as him.
"Yes, I know. It's not something a human brain can comprehend; it literally goes beyond what we are and what the universe is in this dimension. It rejects the laws of physics." Schwoz says.
"How can something that doesn't exist in the universe and breaks the laws of physics be the answer?" Mika asks. Even she, the smart one, is not able to figure out what Schwoz is trying to say.
"It does exist in the universe, just not in the dimensions we know." He tries to explain.
"You mean Shadow Man came from another dimension?" Henry questions, "So we could use the interdimensional transporter we got from Bill Evil, we could find him?" Henry asks. His focus intent in his belief that he's thought of something that might help.
"The what from who?" Miles asks.
"Didn't that blow up in the Mancave?" Mika asks.
Henry looks around realizing, "Oh yeah. Dang it! We lost a lot of our tech that night."
"More than just our tech. Everything we had blew up with the Mancave." Schwoz says.
"But, if we could get in and out of there safely, we could gather the old parts and build a new one. Couldn't we?" Miles asks.
Henry shakes his head, rubbing at the strap of the wiz-watch on his wrist absentmindedly. "No. There's not much of use left down there and getting in and out is not very possible."
"But you went down there," Mika steps in, trying to be helpful, "after you revealed yourself as Kid Danger."
"Yeah." Henry says still shaking his head denyingly. "Which is why I know it's not a good or safe idea. There's nothing left down there for us."
Schwoz waves his hands to regain everyone's attention. "It doesn't matter anyway because that's not what I mean. Those places Bill Evil was accessing are parallel universes, alternate realities, not other dimensions; those universes have the same basic physics and science as we do. The dark swirly stuff and the Shadow Man could have come from them, but my theory is that they also came from another dimension. Meaning, a different plane of existence, that exists in this and those other realities, only theorize-able to us in this dimension through math."
Henry looks more confused than before. Mouth agape to ask a question but with no knowledge of what he should or could even be asking. Bose has a downright brain-melted expression and says, "I give up." Speaking the idea most of the others seem to share.
Mika, however, snaps her fingers as something clearly clicks for her. "You mean spacetime dimensions and the theories of relativity." She says.
"Yes." Schwoz says.
"What?" Miles asks, looking at her.
"Einstein's theories." She says, "He showed that time is a dimension in the universe just like space. We're three-dimensional beings; we move through the space around us in three ways: up and down, forward and back, and side to side. And we move through time linearly, in one direction, past to future. Time is the fourth dimension, see, but we are only three dimensional, so we only perceive it one moment at a time. It's a dimension higher than we exist in naturally. Schwoz is saying that Shadow Man is from or has access to higher dimensions like time."
"Yes. Yes." Schwoz nods along with her excited explanations.
"So, Shadow Man is a time traveler?" Miles asks, "But isn't that how my visions work? By moving through time? That hasn't given me the power go make dark swirly stuff of nothing."
"And Ray and I have time traveled several times." Henry adds, "We never saw anything like this stuff."
"Time is the fourth dimension." Schwoz reiterates. "We exist in it and can access it in small ways, but it takes a lot of power. Like the energy source of the Omega weapon that gave Miles his power, or the ziridium and electric power we used to send you- Henry, and Ray through the Time Jerker's time machine. This hypothesis is that the dark swirly substance is from a dimension beyond the four of spacetime."
Ten wide eyes stare at him. "Huh?" is all Henry can manage to ask.
"That doesn't sound good." Miles says.
"Or helpful." Chapa frowns, "How are we supposed to find Shadow Man if he has power beyond our comprehension? How can we get revenge against something extra-dimensional?"
Schwoz sighs, defeated this time. "I don't know. I don't know how to catch him or if this idea is even true. It's just the best guess I have."
"Then why even bring it up?" Chapa fumes, standing up again to pace. "What's the use of all this extradimensional mumbo-jumbo if you don't know if it's right and you can't properly explain it?"
Schwoz frowns uncertainly at her. "I… I'm just trying to figure out what happened." He says, voice downtrodden. "You wanted to know, and this is the only thing I've come up with. Unless I can get more evidence, this is the only lead I have to go on."
Chapa paces in emotional silence. Henry frowns but says, "It's good Schwoz. We'll follow any lead we have until we figure it out. Even if they're leads most of us can't understand at all. We're not going to stop until we've caught the Shadow Man."
Schwoz nods, eyes full of tears. "I hope this is not the answer. If it is, then Chapa's right, we'll not be able to stop him. We may never see him again."
"We're not going to give up." Henry swears. He pauses, all five of his companions watching him dutifully. The trust and deference they direct towards him both lifts and stresses him. He swallows and goes on, "This is our mission. We'll still go out to stop crimes and we'll do school and normal life stuff; but finding out what happened to Ray, avenging his death, is going to remain a priority."
Miles has one fist wrapped around the other with a committed expression on his face. Chapa's own hands are clenched tightly in a more determined and heated way. Mika nods shallowly along with Henry's words. Bose stares unblinking, fully attentive and resolute in his has heartbroken but hopeful tears in his eyes. All six share a moment of purpose and agreement.
(Commercial break)
August 26, 2021
Thursday comes with no change in their prospects. After a miserable afternoon of one minor crime and no idea what to do about SW.A.G. or finding Shadow Man, Henry waits on the couch at home for his parents, who he's surprised to find aren't there.
It's evening before either of them shows up. Jake Hart comes in totting a large sack of colorful rubber bands. "Oh, Henry! I wasn't expecting you to be here." He greets.
"Hey, Dad." Henry returns, "What's with the rubberbands?"
"I signed up for Battle of the bands." Jake Hart says, "So, I've been collecting every rubber band I can. No one is going to have more than me."
"Dad…" Henry says but changes his mind about correcting his dad, "whatever. That's great."
"Thanks! So, how goes superheroing, Danger?" he asks with an exaggerated wink and an arm nudge.
"It's fine." Henry says with an eyeroll. His dad nods merrily as he places his sack of elastics down on the coffee table. "That's actually the most normal thing right now."
Jake Hart's attention is pulled from his son by the paper he'd just set his sack down next to. "What's this?" he asks picking it up, "This looks like a graduation certificate."
"Yeah, I came to show you and Mom. It's my diploma." Henry says with a slight upward quirk of his lips. His dad looks shocked at him. "My high school diploma."
Jake stares another long moment then suddenly and loudly cheers "HA! You're not a failure! My son is not a failure!" He seizes Henry and lifts him a few inches off the floor as he jumps excitedly around.
"Ahh! Oh my… Dad!" Henry complains. Jake doesn't stop or even seem to hear. "Dad! Please put me down. I know you're excited. Dad! Dad!" It goes on for a few minutes until Henry can't take it anymore. The expansion of his force field gets his dad off him.
"Woah!" Jake Hart shouts, splayed on the ground.
"Woah!" Another voice, Kris Hart, echoes from the door as she walks in. "What is going on? Henry?"
"Hi Mom." Henry says, "Sorry, Dad."
"What's going on?" Kris Hart repeats.
"I was just trying to get him off me." Henry says.
"He's not a failure!" Jake cheers, getting back to his feet with triumph.
Kris looks confused between her husband and son, "What?"
Henry picks up his diploma from the floor where his dad had dropped it amidst his celebrations. "I graduated." He explains, handing the document to his mom.
She looks at it in awe. A grin of delight to rival her husband's lights her face and she hugs Henry just as tight, though thankfully without the overexuberant dancing around and she lets him go much more quickly. "I'm so proud of you, Baby!" she says and kisses his cheek.
"Thanks, Mom." Henry says, with a small smile.
"How did you get this?" She marvels. He does his best to sum up the story for the two of them quickly. As he tells them, they move to sit on the couch. Kris puts down her purse, which is full of dozens of papers. Once he's done, she pulls her son into another hug, "That's amazing! We need to celebrate!"
"Yes! I'll order us a wheel of ribs!" Jake volunteers, "And find us some brightly colored sodas!" He leaves the couch in a hurry to do thus.
"Sure, sounds good." Henry says, smirking flatly. He leans forward arms on his legs trying to forget his troubles for a while.
"You seem pretty glum for someone who just had a surprise graduation." His mother says with a concerned frown. "What's wrong, Baby?"
"It's just been a long week." Henry dismisses.
"What's happened? Anything you want to tell me about?" She asks, running a hand of comfort over his hair.
"Just superhero problems." He puts off again, eyes closing tiredly at her comforting ministrations.
"Tell me. I can keep your secrets." She promises. He leans into her, drowsy in the relaxed atmosphere of his childhood home, where his problems seem less. "Is it about Ray?" she presses.
He sighs, "A bit. We're trying to find his killer." He admits smally. "It's not going well."
"I'm sorry." She says, continuing to caress his hair and face.
"It's nothing on you." he says.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" she offers.
He shakes his head against her shoulder. "I just needed to get away from the Man's Nest for a while. All I've got there right now is problems."
"What else is wrong?"
He breathes slowly against her, debating how to answer to satisfy her and avoid the whole of it. "I've just got a lot on my plate. Things have been hard without him. I've had to take over a lot. He always made his job seem so easy but taking care of the city and the sidekicks is not… not easy."
Henry's mom kisses his head sympathetically. "I know you miss him. But if you need help, let me know. You can come to me with anything you need." She makes him promise.
He nods but denies, "There's nothing you can do. I just need a little break, so I came to show you guys my diploma."
"Well, I'm glad. I'm so proud of you. And it was so kind of him to set it up for you; you deserve it after all you've done for this city." She says.
His small smile returns, "I'm glad too. I wish I could thank him. Schwoz said Ray bought SW.A.G. just so he could get it for me."
"That's wonderful." She smiles. "It is a real school tough, right? This is a real diploma, not a forgery to make it seem like you graduated?"
"Yes. It's a real school, with a license and all. They did it all right so that Danger Force won't have to go through what I did to be a student and a superhero. At least that was the plan." He says, only letting a bit of fear touch his tone as he concludes, not wanting to worry her over something she can't fix.
"Good." She smiles. "I'm glad somethings are going well for you.
"What's up with you?" he asks, changing the subject before she can press anymore.
"Not much." She says, cuddling down onto him and tells "I go to work. I meet up with Darrius afterward for my tennis lessons. I come home to have dinner with your father and grade papers while we watch a movie. Sometimes I go out with my girlfriends on the weekends."
"Grading papers?" Henry asks, sitting up from her shoulder enough for her to see his confused look.
"Yes. Grading my students; homework." She says, "I teach at Swellview Junior High now."
"What? Since when?" He asks, sitting up fully.
"I started during the end of last school year. After you and Piper both moved out of the house, I found I had a lot of extra time. I decided to finally put my creative writing degree to use. I got my teaching license and have been teaching a couple elective classes part time."
Henry gapes in awe. She takes his hands. His gaze drops to watch her worrying for a moment over his still red, scarring fingers. An idea, an answer, striking him with the hope of its possibility. "You're a teacher?"
"Yes." She answers. "I had to find something to do without you around.
"Right. Um…Mom? There is actually something you could do for me." Henry says nervously looking her in the eyes
"Of course, Baby. What do you need?" She responds lovingly.
"Well, it's kind of a huge, huge favor. How attached are you to your job?" he leads. She raises a curious eyebrow at him.
"Ribs are here!" Jake calls as the doorbell is rung by the delivery guy.
August 27, 2021
Friday morning dawns with Henry Hart opening the doors of SW.A.G. to let his mother in. "You are the greatest mother in the world! I love you so much!" he says, hugging her exuberantly.
"Oh my! I love you too." She laughs, "I told you I'd do anything to help you. Swellview Junior High was just a job. Helping you is more important to me, so I'm glad to be here. Especially if it means I get to see you more often."
He leads her into the school and says, "Well, I am your TA so I'll be around. You can put your bag down here, this is the 'teacher's desk', which you can have completely since Schwoz and I live upstairs. Though of course during the superhero training parts of school it'll be moved back."
"So how exactly is this school going to work with the part superhero training, part regular classes?" She asks, setting her purse down and surveying the classroom.
"We made a sort of schedule for us to try to stick to. But everything depends on when and if we get called out each day, so it'll probably just be a mess." Henry says. "But we'll figure it out. And today we'll be putting off any emergency calls while Ms. Shapen is here so it should seem like an almost normal day at a normal school. At least that's the goal."
"Okay." She says a bit perplexed. "I'll do my best."
He nods, "Good. Thank you."
A small knock comes on the front doors and four anxious looking faces peek in. "Is it even worth coming today?" Mika asks nervously.
"Or are we just gonna end up being taken to a new school?" Miles finishes for her.
Henry smiles mischievously, leaving his mother looking through the curriculum on a SW.A.G. tablet to join Danger Force as they trudge drearily into the room. "Really Miles? I thought you didn't like putting that kind of energy into the universe. Be positive; we're not doomed yet."
"But we never found a teacher." Bose frowns. "We're going to fail the school check up thing with Ms. Shapen."
"C'mon give me more credit than that." Henry complains ushering them inside. "Superheroes always find a way. So, get in your seats and wait for class to start."
"You found us a teacher?" Mika asks hopefully, glancing around him to where they've all just noticed Kris Hart at the teacher's desk.
"You got us your mom?" Chapa asks.
"He did indeed. And I believe as your new teacher you should be calling me Mrs. Hart." Mrs. Hart says.
Mika cheers and hugs her. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
"Oh!" Mrs. Hart exclaims.
"Mika." Henry chastises laughing.
She hugs him exuberantly too. "You did it! You fixed it! We get to stay here! You saved our school."
"Oh god Mika." Miles shakes his head.
"Why you gotta be such an embarrassment?" Chapa says concurrently.
Mika scowls at them but Mrs. Hart smiles. "I, for one, appreciate the enthusiasm, Mika." She says kindly, putting note on the young girl's real name. She can't be calling them by their superhero names all the time. "This must be your twin, Miles." She says seeking confirmation. He nods with a peace sign. she turns to the other two, asking, "And you are Chapa?"
Chapa smirks, "Yeah."
"And I'm Bose!" Bose says cheerily before Mrs. Hart can ask. She smiles at him. "And this is my monkey, Blue!" he introduces, holding the little creature up for her to see.
"Who should probably stay upstairs during school." Henry notes, making the younger boy frown. "I'll take him; I need a quick word with Schwoz." Henry says and takes his leave as his mother begins the class.
"It's great to meet you all." Mrs. Hart says pleasantly. Then in a more authoritative voice she speaks loud enough to hold all their attention. "Now, all of you, class is starting so please take your seats." They look to each other curiously as Mrs. Hart walks up to the smartboard. By the time they've sat down at their desks she's pulled up a lesson page. "Let's start by seeing what you remember from last year's curriculum." Mrs. Hart says.
"Schwoz!" Henry calls upon entering the Man's Nest, releasing Blue to run around the room.
"Henry!" Schwoz calls back dropping from the ceiling. "Did you mom really come to be the new teacher?"
"Yes." Henry says.
"Oh, Ray would be so jealous to know she's here!" Schwoz laughs.
Henry too chuckles and nods. "Yeah. He would."
"Why didn't you tell me about her being a teacher until this morning?"
"I only found out she was last night; and by the time I got back here, you were fast asleep." Henry responds. "Even then I wasn't sure she'd be able to quit and come here on such short notice."
"That is so lucky." Schwoz says.
"Yeah," Henry agrees, "but it's not the only idea I got while talking to her last night."
"What do you mean?" Schwoz asks.
Henry holds up his injured fingers. Schwoz looks at the hand confused for a moment. "I touched the dark swirl thing, and unlike the others there who also did, it burned me."
"Oh! I'm stupid! Henry, your fingers!" Schwoz exclaims with delight."I should've thought of it earlier. The stuff reacted to you, it interacted with you!" he goes on, moving to his chest of gadgets. "If there's going to be evidence to prove or disprove my theory it'll be in your fingers!"
Henry looks at his own fingers. "That was my idea. You think there could be something to learn from my burns?" he asks hopefully.
"Yes! Ah! Here it is!" Schwoz cheers. He pulls out a strange needle like device. "I just need a sample of your burned flesh." Schwoz says.
"With that?" Henry asks, staring with as much horror at the gadget. "That's a bit big. But does it have to be so big?" Henry complains.
"Yes. This device will be able to tell if there's any extra-physical residue in your wounds." Schwoz answers with an optimistic grin on his face. "It might be able to give us a definite answer on what the dark swirly stuff was. Which help us find out how Shadow Man killed Ray."
Despite his trepidation of the device, the guilt squirming inside resigns him to it "Okay. This is for Ray. Do it." He says, closing his eyes tightly as Schwoz uses the machine to take some of the burned flesh from his fingers. It hurts. "I hate being the subject of your science experiments." He complains.
Schwoz grins and chuckles as he takes the sample. "I'll let you all know as soon as I've found something."
"Good." Henry says. "Maybe in a little bit, though. Ms. Shapen is at the door." He directs Schwoz's attention to the computer screen showing their doorstep camera's feed and the expensively dressed school inspector.
Ms. Shapen walks into SW.A.G. with her bad attitude and proclamation of "Ready to be shut down?" she is surprised to find the school running smoothly. She watches on in surprise as the students work hard and Mrs. Hart, Schwoz and Henry teach well. She finally leaves after lunch with a somewhat miffed look and a statement of "You pass."
Then she's out the door and the school is near silent for a moment as they all take it in before erupting simultaneously into cheers and laughter. A moment later the emergency alert goes off. "Time to go!" Henry calls.
"This doesn't mean we're not going to finish that chapter of Fahrenheit 451." Mrs. Hart calls after them as they take their chairs upstairs. The last thing she hears from most of them is groans.
Mika calls back a chipper, "Of course Mrs. Hart."
And Henry chuckles and says, "We'll be back soon."
Next Episode S1E11: Of a Different Kind