Chapter 3: Placement

Richard walked with the other freshman to the gym and looked around. Is was a pretty ordinary looking room stands of to the side for spectators. He saw that there was a lot of people he didn't know from the bus was here which meant for him a better chance to change from middle school, but just in case he stayed close behind Kevin and Chris. He also saw a podium which to Richard meant one thing: they were going to have a presentation. In middle school all the assemblies were boring so he wasn't really looking forward to it. That was until a comet shot above their heads onto the stage where is changed into a older woman with dark hair. This lady then took a bow after her performance and went to the microphone.

"Ah, i love doing that. Good Morning, i am Principal Powers, and on behalf of the faculty and staff, welcome to Sky High. Soon you will go through power placement and your own hero journey will begin. Whether your placed in Hero or Hero Support, I'm sure you will be able to enjoy your learning and be ready to help the world someday. And remember, just because your labeled doesn't mean that your restricted to it. There is always the super team, as well. So good luck and good deeds.

Chris leaned close to Kevin and said something bout changes, but Richard wasn't really paying attention to anything except a new scent which meant, for him, that someone new had entered the room some where. He was about to turn around when the principal Miss Powers move away from the microphone and said to the class: "Now, COMETS AWAY!" Just as she said that she spun around and turned into a bunch of comets and flew to the door. Then Richard got to see who it was that the scent belong to.

It belonged to a big guy wearing a letterman jacket for Sky High, a ball cap on his head and he was also holding a clipboard standing on a platform that must of come up from the floor or something. Even though it was just the first Richard had ever saw the guy he didn't like him. It probably was his posture or his little smirk which basically said " I am better than you". It didn't really matter anyway sometimes you just don't like people. Then the coach said:

"Good morning, i am Coach Boomer. Some of you may know me a Sonic Boom, some of you may not. When i call your name you will come up here, and stand on this podium. You will then show me your power. I will either be placed in Hero or Sidekick. I will also note if you can make Super team potential. So far we have only had one team, but how they did it i don't know. But whatever i put you in, there will be no whiner-babies, understand?"

Richard didn't really want to answer this guy so he and most of the students just muttered "yeah"

Boomer apparently didn't like the response he was getting from the group. So he took a deep breath and yelled.

"I. Cant. HEAR YOU!" Causing the gym to rock a little.

Some of the students were not expecting the sonic boom, or were actually frightened by it, but they all in unison shouted "Sir, Yes, Sir!"

Boomer then started to go down the list on his clipboard and said. "Good, now, first up... Alandeen, Stephanie"

Then a skinny girl started to move from the crowd to the platform.

"Ok, show me your power.

"Ok, i am a... eww, your too old!" Stephanie exclaimed.

Richard along with the rest of the class instantly broke into laughter. Richard was just glad at how embarrassed Boomer must have been feeling right now.

"Your a... you're a telepathic?"

"Yeah"

"Alright, sidekick, now, please, uh, step down."

She walk down, then turned to Boomer and said "And i bet this Medulla felt the same way i do, too."

Again Chris leaned in close to Kevin, but this time Richard managed to hear exactly what was said.

"And so the fun begins."

"Alandeen, Tricia?"

To Richard it seemed that the same girl walked to the platform, but it was only her twin. Boomer was apparently try to shut his mind thinking the twins had the same power.

She noticed what he was doing and relived him of his task. "Uh, Coach Boomer, i don't have her power."

He took a sigh of relief and said. "Ok, show me yours."

"I can move objects with my mind."

"A telekinetic? Ok, then. CAR!"

From a trapdoor on the ceiling came a beat-up race car looking, straight down on Tricia. She looked up and made it stop in midair. It almost seemed as if the chain holding it stopped short, but the the chain started to slack up. It was easy to see that the coach was impressed as he wrote something down on his clipboard. Then she started to move down after he told her placement.

"Hero"

Her sister then moved up and told him. "Yeah it is a problem with splitting us up!"

"Stop that, please!"

Again the class broke into laughter once again.

"Canis, Richard"

A shiver went up Richard spine. What and i going to do? He thought. Should i change directly turn into a werewolf? Or should i be regular wolf first? These questions plagued him as he walked up to the platform.

"Show me your power." the coach said.

Richard barely heard the question but managed to blurt out, "I'm a shapeshifter."

"Into what?"

Richard was confused. What should i say? What should i be? All he was able to say was; "Uh..."

"Richard!"

"A wolf, but I'm a lot stronger, uh, and stuff." That wasn't what Richard wanted to say, but he had to say something.

Boomer was apparently unconvinced nor impressed. "Oh really, then shift!"

Richard did as he always did and slowly got lower and he's skeletional structure transformed into that of a great gray wolf. Boomer didn't give him one min before he called; " Car!" Richard lifted his wolf head to see the doors open releasing the the car it had hidden. It seem to go slower than before as it dropped to his head. He knew what he should do, what he had to do. So he changed into a werewolf and with one hand grab it car. Then he decided to put it back where it belonged. Richard leaped into the air and did a back flip kicking the car back through the trapdoors as they automatically closed before is could drop again. He finally did a perfect landing on his feet and looked around the class. What he saw shocked him to the bone. He didn't see amazed students and a impressed coach. Instead he saw the faces of those kids back in middle school and the frighten woman he saved the night before. He changed quickly into his human form and slowly walked down to from the platform, as he was about to cry. He never wanted to scare anybody.

As he walked down Coach Boomer said something that stopped him from running to hide.

"Definitely hero"

Richard was about to head to the back of the class when Kevin stopped him.

"What do you want?"

"Wow, that was amazing! I didn't know a shapeshifter could change his shift to a stronger version," said Chris.

Kevin also liked it. "Yeah, that was cool." Then he offered his hand for a high-five.

The funny part to Richard was that they would never know what this conversation would do to him. He almost smiled and accepted Kevin's gesture. "Thanks"For more than you know.

Richard decided not to retreat to the rear and instead stay with Kevin and Chris.

"Mercer, Haven"

The person that walked up to the platform was a boy who had dark blue hair with short bangs, green eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a long sleeved hooded black shirt under a fitting green t-shirt, fitting blue jeans with green chucks. Also a pair of dog tags around his neck. When he got their he stopped as if waiting for an introduction.

"Well what are u waiting for?Show me your power"

"Excuse me but what is the point of all this? I mean, why have all the hero/sidekick crap? I thought that was abolished two years ago?

"Oh, great another pacifist, what the hell did that girl start? Power or no?"

Haven then sighed and spat on the ground, but instead of its landing he caught it as an icicle. He manipulated it for a little then let it evaporate in the air.

"See was that so hard" Coach Boomer said in a sarcastic kind of way. "Hero. Now Quit staring at me and go!"

Haven left the stage, but not before he stuck up he two middle fingers and increasing their size with ice.

After that Boomer slowly when down the list marking down notes and yelling "Hero" or "Sidekick"

Then he said the name of someone Richard as interested in finding out the power of.

"Gutiarra, Christopher."

Chris went up to the platform with his guitar in hand. The coach was again unimpressed. "What's your power, playing music?

"No."

"Then put it down and show me your power!"

the look on Chris' face clearly said the he didn't want to part with it, but he did as he was told.

"Uh, i manipulate sound waves."

"And what do you do with those?"

"Destroy stuff."

Boomer didn't believe him. "Yeah, right."

Chris tried to explain himself. "It's kinda hard to explain, and i don't know how to show it-."

"Sidekick."

Then Chris got an idea. "What?'

A little louder coach said, "Sidekick"

"What?"

Coach Boomer was now pissed so he use his power and hollered. "Are you deaf I said. SIDEKICK!"

Chris then moved his hands and arms channeling the sound waves into a concentrated power. Then sent it to a near by pillar with cause a hole to appear on the pillar.

"Nice, now i see why you wanted that damn guitar." Said Boomer as he marked some notes on the clipboard. "Hero"

Then Coach Boomer noticed he missed a name. "Oh, I forgot a name. Cane Kevin"

Richard thought that Kevin didn't need to do this test after what he did in middle school, but he went anyway.

As with everyone else Boomer said, "Show me your power"

Kevin then took the sweat from everyone in the room and turned them into a cloud near his chest.

"Cane, huh. Your the middle school weather guy aren't you? It that all you can do?"

Kevin apparently had a hard time controlling what he had right know. "N-no, sir"

"I wanna see more."

"Y-yes, sir" Kevin replied. Richard could see Kevin was starting to get nervous, but he still had the small cloud go to the ceiling and made it grow. Soon it was starting to rain.

Boomer wasn't pleased. "Is that suppose to help you? Impress me!"

Kevin turned the rain harder with thunder and lighting.

":Impress me!"

Kevin turned it into harder rain and louder thunder.

"Impress me!"

The rain turned into hail.

"Impress me!

The cloud now was a large the whole gym and started to turn into a hurricane

"IMPRESS ME!"

Richard and Chris could tell Kevin was panicking. Chris backed away, Richard did as well, even though he didn't know what to expect.

\

And sure enough a tornado started to form at the eye of the storm hit land right in between Kevin and Coach Boomer. Then the twister start to move all around the room. Richard changed to a wolf to try to avoid it as it headed straight for the students. Other students used their power to help stop or avoid it, even though there was little they could do.

Boomer also started to panic, "ok, Kevin, you can stop."

"I'm trying i don't know how"

"Kevin-"

Just then Principal Powers burst into the room along with Will and Layla . Seeing what was happening Principal Powers screamed: "BOOMER, STOP THIS IMMIEDITAELY!" Then she ran over to Kevin just as he was about to pass out. As Kevin relaxed the storm started to dissipate and then vanished. When the storm was gone Richard changed back into a human and went with the rest of the class to the platform.

"Kevin? You ok? I am taking you to the nurse," said Miss Powers as Kevin passed out. "You two, help me with him. Make sure he gets there alright, I'll join you in a sec." Will and Layla can to Kevin and gently helped him up and over to the nurse's office. She then turn to the class "I want you all to know that what some of you were doing during the storm was an excellent use of your powers and i am very proud, but because of the condition of the gym. I say we all go to the lunch area and finish power placement there."

"As for you," she continued as she turned to Coach Boomer. "How dare you! What did you think you were doing? Are you trying to get us all killed? Not all of our students can fully control their powers."

Boomer tried to defend himself. " I was just trying to push him to he's full potential."

"He has a mutated hero gene. That tornado could have killed us all or left to destroy a city! If i ever find out you do that to a student again, your out of a job."

"Yes, Miss Powers."

As they all walked over to the lunch area Chris asked Boomer: "What does Kevin get, a hero or sidekick?"

"Sidekick" The coach said.

"After what you put him through? If you want to keep your job you better make him a Hero, Boomer!" Powers snapped.

"Ok, ok ...hero."

When they got there some people, including Tricia and Richard ( who was more confident to use his werewolf form again), volunteered to help move the tables to the wall. After they were done Miss Powers left to the nurse as Boomer returned to the clipboard.

"Maxwell, Red"

Then a hispanic boy walked to the center. He had shoulder length black hair with white highlights. Red was wearing dark blue jeans, a white sleeveless shirt with a black vest, a black bandanna, a tippless glove on his, and a chain around his neck. As he looked around the room, Richard noticed that is one eyes was total white and the other was completely black.

"Power."

"Why, so you can force me to destroy this building?"

"Just whats your power or i will put you as a sidekick."

"I can control shadows and moonlight, but my moonlight powers only look at nigh"

"Show me the shadow then"

Red looked around the room then waved his right hand calling all the shadows to it. Pretty soon it looked like a black ball in his hand which he through like a pitcher in a baseball at a a nearby table which exploded like a grenade.

"Hero"

Red went and sat with the other students as Coach Boomer continued to go through the list yelling and screaming as always. Soon Richard started talking about Kevin's condition with Chris, eventually Richard got bored and kept changing his hand to a paw and back. Finally the bell rang and Richard got his chance, his chance to be different from before, to finally not be... alone