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Mondays were officially the worst.
First period was Parahuman Studies, and after the Friday I had just had, that was not ideal. Last Friday, I had had my first day of school, and subsequently my first patrol of the city as Morningstar. Now, unfortunately, that patrol had ended up being pretty eventful, and I fought Hookwolf, eventually bringing him into PRT custody.
Now I can hear you all think, 'But Sam, that doesn't sound bad at all. In fact, it's great that you managed to bring a villain like that to justice.' And normally, you would be right. But in this case, after spending my whole weekend cooped up in the hospital, I spent the whole day being gawked at in school. And the worst part, Mr. Goodman, who gave Parahuman studies, decided to use today's class to analyze the footage of my fight.
"So, class. Here you see Morningstar engaging Hookwolf directly, taking him away from Laserdream, but in doing so he brings the villain closer to some of the only civilians still left in the area."
Heat flushed my face and as I opened my mouth to defend my actions, Mr. Goodman continued. "Something which he couldn't have known. But, when he did see the threat Hookwolf posed to the people, he risked and even did take some injuries to defend them." The man said giving me a smile from the front of the class. "Now what could Mr. Palmer have done differently here, working off of the information he had at the time?"
All eyes in the class snapped to me, again, and I was getting a little sick of all the attention I was getting. I ignored the little voice in the back of my head, telling me how to use that admiration to bend them to my will.
"He could have stayed with Laserdream and kept Hookwolf there so they could have worked together." It was the Latino boy with the letterman jacket, Diego something, who spoke up first.
"But how well do they work together, though. Morningstar is new to the city and to New Wave. Wouldn't Hookwolf and Stormtiger have better synergy, having known each other longer?" Dean cut in, looking to me for clarification.
"Uhm, yeah. Crystal and I hadn't trained together before. I mostly trained with Manpower and Lady Photon, but we didn't expect to have that big of a fight on my first day." I said, and the class went on, speculating and criticizing everything that had happened that day. Occasionally, they asked me why I did or didn't do certain things, often at the urging of Mr. Goodman.
'It's not often that you can ask exactly what was going through a hero's head when they were in a fight with a villain.' He had said.
"Why didn't you just drag him in into the bay at the start of the fight?" Dennis asked from his seat next to me.
"I hadn't thought of it until the end of the fight. I didn't have anything else that would work, and I was losing too much blood to fight for much longer."
"See class, this is why it's important for capes to evaluate their fights after the fact. Knowing this, Mr. Palmer is now less likely to make similar mistakes, allowing him to be safer out there. For homework, I want you all to find a video of a cape fight and write a 1000-word analysis on it by next Monday." Mr. Goodman told us, causing a wave of groans to ring out through the class.
As everyone started to pack up their things, Mr. Goodman called out. "Mr. Palmer, can you stay behind for a moment?"
"I'll see you in math, okay?" I said to Dennis as he walked out of the class with the others and made my way to the front of the class. Mr. Goodman, with his perpetually messy hair and slightly wrinkled suit sat behind his desk which held a stack of essays that needed grading.
"Ah, take a seat." He said, shoving the stack off to the side. "I just wanted to let you know why I give this kind of class when big cape fights happen in the city, despite it not really being in the curriculum." The teacher pushed his glasses up his nose, and I caught another glimpse of his eyes, which betrayed a sharpness that his rumpled appearance wouldn't suggest.
"You yourself, the rest of New Wave's younger members and some of the Wards all attend this school. Now I might not be able to help you out there, but with classes like these, I can make sure that you don't make the same mistakes twice, and that you have a higher chance of living when you are out there."
"That, uh, that makes sense." I told him, nodding along.
"Now I can imagine that without a hidden identity, that bringing attention to you in your day-to-day life might not feel great. But I think I would rather see you annoyed in my classes than not see you because you are six feet under in a cemetery somewhere."
The blunt words took me aback, and I almost reeled back at how direct he was being. And while I understood where he was coming from, I couldn't help but be annoyed. He wasn't even asking for permission to continue or apologizing for giving the class in the first place, simply telling me why.
I could go to the principal, realistically, they couldn't let him give the class if I objected and brought someone like Carol into it. On the other hand, that would make an even bigger fuss than the classes themselves. And it wasn't like I hadn't been getting stares when I had walked into school today.
Looking back up at him, brow pulled into a frown, I realized that he had me. And judging by the look in his eyes, he knew it as well. Quietly, I grabbed my bag off the ground and walked out of the classroom.
I hate Mondays.
When our lunch break started, I pulled Dennis and Dean along and sped off towards the cafeteria. I wanted to grab a table in one of the corners before someone else got there first. I had spent the whole time in the halls and class being stared at like some kind of zoo animal, I was not doing that whole song and dance at lunch.
When we sat down, Dean and Dennis dropped their bags off at the table before they made to go stand in line for lunch. Instead of allowing them to go and grab whatever gruel the school was serving today, I dragged them back down onto their chairs. When they made to protest, I shushed them and produced 3 brown paper bags from my own backpack, placing one in front of each of them and one for myself.
"You guys are not eating that stuff they serve here. I won't allow it." I said with a sniff, turning my nose up at the thought. Okay, I was playing it up a little, but after the pizza-shaped monstrosity they had served on Friday, I wasn't going to allow my, dare I say it, friends to eat that crap.
"You know it really isn't that bad." Dean said, opening the lunch I had packed for him. Resigned to eating whatever I had made. I gave him a deadpan look before I dug into my own roast chicken sandwich.
"Thish ish really goodf." Dennis spoke, still half chewing on the sandwich he had shoved into his mouth. I tried to hold in my laugh, but I couldn't. Dean and I shared a slight chuckle at the ginger's horrible table manners before we dug into our own food. A few minutes later, I saw Carlos walk through the doors, and the Puerto Rican boy made his way over to our little table when he spotted us.
He got the same treatment as Dennis and Dean, and soon after, the four of us were enjoying some of my sandwiches together. I'd had a lot left over from yesterday's dinner, and I wasn't going to let any of it go to waste. And if it saved my new friends from the gruel that was a school lunch, well that was just a win-win.
"So, we reviewed your fight in Goodman's class today." Carlos said, he was a year above the rest of us, which meant that Goodman really was giving the whole damned school that class.
"Ugh, don't remind me, we had him first period. By the time the class was over, I was wondering if I should have just let Hookwolf do his thing instead." I joked, though some of the annoyance from my chat with Mr. Goodman seeped into it. And judging by the looks I was getting, they hadn't missed it.
"Hey, I think you did great!" Dennis said, trying to cheer me up. "That puppy needed a bath and a time-out anyways." His grin was infectious, and soon all four of us were laughing and joking again.
Maybe Mondays weren't so bad after all.
Okay, I was wrong. Monday was a day devised by the devil to punish us.
For the fourth time that afternoon, I was eating dirt. Apparently, if I was going to take stupid risks, Mark thought that I should also be stupid strong. So, instead of our normal hand to hand sessions, where I fought him without any powers and he did the same, I was fighting both him and Vicky at the same time. No holds barred.
I rolled to the side as another concussive blast made its way towards me, blasting me even further from where I had been laying on the ground, catching my breath. I beat of my wings had me hovering a few feet off the ground, stabilizing me. Just in time for a blonde missile to collide with me.
I wasn't stupid enough to try and take the hit, not after the first hit Vicky had scored on me almost snapped my arm in half. Instead, I rolled mid-air, sending her flying into the ground full speed. It wouldn't hurt her, but it would keep her busy for a moment. I formed a shield of light at my back as Mark lobbed another explosive orb at me. The residual shockwave left a fluttering feeling in my stomach, but the shield had saved me from another kiss with the dirt.
A light spear formed in my hand, and I lunged forward, stabbing it towards the girl who was once again coming straight at me. The spear struck her forcefield like a battering ram, stopping her cold as the protective barrier blocked my blow. Before she could recover, I pushed with my right hand, sending the butt of the spear right into her stomach, sending her right back into the dirt.
I blocked another light orb with a shield behind me, but I didn't catch the glowing orb that Mark had launched into the air above me. It exploded, and before I knew what was happening, I was down in the dirt right next to Vicky. A groan escaped me as Mark made his way over, offering me a hand.
"You did well, but you need to pay better attention to your surroundings when you are out in the field. Can't hit a civilian because you didn't see them or get hit because you were focused on one villain." The older man told me as he hauled me to my feet.
"Yeah, I'll work on it." I grumbled, not all that happy about being beaten into the dirt again.
"No, we'll work on it." Mark said, winking at me as he delivered the corny line. Vicky, somehow completely fine after the rather brutal exchange, floated over to us. That forcefield was really quite unfair.
"Just don't go bleeding out on us before we can whip you into shape." The blonde told me, a frown still playing across her brow. She had been like this all weekend, happy to see me one moment, and grumpy the next. Mark had said she was just worried because I got hurt, but I couldn't help but feel like it was more than that.
She hadn't said anything, though, so I would leave it for now. It might even just be what Mark said, he probably knew his daughter better than I did after all. I would just have to make her another batch of cookies. Crystal and Amy probably wouldn't mind that either.
"Don't get too cocky, young lady. If I hadn't blasted him, Sam would have had you on the ropes more than once. You need to be more careful about charging in like that, if a villain gets lucky and hits you when your forcefield goes down, you'll be in real trouble." Mark admonished.
Quietly, I began gathering up our stuff.
"Yeah yeah, I'll be more careful." Vicky said dismissively, and I didn't miss the frown that formed on Mark's face.
"I'm serious Vicky. I don't want to see you hurt any more than Sam, and if you keep fighting like that, some of the stronger villains in the Bay really can hurt you."
For a moment, I thought that Vicky would argue, but her expressions softened after a moment of thought. "I – I'll be more careful dad. That's why we're doing these sessions, right?"
"Yeah. I just don't want to see you guys get hurt, either of you." Mark said with a smile as he grabbed his water bottle from behind a little copse of trees on the field we were using to train. It was a couple of miles out from town, remote enough that we wouldn't accidentally hit any bystanders. Apparently, New Wave had some kind of deal with the city that we were allowed to use this place to train stuff that might be too destructive for regular use in the city.
"Oh, when we get back, you guys are going to be analyzing the fight with your aunt Sarah." Mark said as we were about to take off.
"But we did that in class today!" "We already did that!" Vicky and I did not whine, definitely not.
"Well, then you'll have plenty to tell your aunt, won't you." Mark said with an amused little smile dancing on his lips.
Mondays really were the worst.
A/N: Funnily enough, I always hated Tuesdays more than Mondays. Don't know why, but I just do.
Okay, on a more serious note, the first chapter of ARC II is out. It's a bit later than expected, partly because of Outsider, which unexpectedly joined the rotation of stories, but also because I completely rewrote the outline for this ARC. I wasn't really happy with it, and I felt like I had written myself into a corner and lost sight of the main themes.
It took me a couple of days, but I'm ready to tackle this ARC now and chapters uploads should be coming up a little more regularly. Expect a chapter every 6 or so days. I'm planning to upload a chapter every other day, rotating between the 3 stories I'm working on right now.
Anyways, as always, if you guys have any feedback for me, feel free to leave a review. If you left reviews in the past and it had questions or feedback beyond 'nice story bro', make sure to check your PMs on the website, since apparently those don't sync with the app. I make sure to reply to all relevant reviews, though I might miss some.
Anyways, have a good one, and I'll see you all next time!