I sit down next to Orin and pull out my books. He must sense that something is off, because he nudges me with his elbow. I was about to answer, but our teacher walked in to the classroom and called for our attention.

"Are you ok?" He mouthed. I open my notebook and scribbled down an answer.

Yeah, I told John about the rumour and he said that he was going to talk to the headmaster. I think it's a bad idea. He read it from the corner of his eyes and wrote and answer back beneath mine.

No, it's a good idea. Could you imagine what would happen if this rumour reached any of the parents? The police could get involved.

Doesn’t acknowledging it just make it seem more suspicious?

Any rumours about a teacher being involved with an underage student is enough to drown this school in a sea’s worth of lawsuits. Not to mentions everyone in here has a phone you think they won’t tweet pictures of both of you?

Crap, I hadn't consider that. I slumped and laid my forehead on my desk and I let out a long breath. This wasn't going to help with me keeping a low profile. I know I sounded like a broken record, but having such attention grabbing parents, growing up in that environment was stressful for a kid.

Although now that I think about it, this isn’t a normal school. We always have the press or online bloggers outside of our walls waiting for statements, even something small in here is considered big news. Most of our students are moving onwards to become heroes and some of the seniors have contracts with companies in the works, any bad press that they can get their hands on is used to destroy their image in the future. One of the seniors had been grumbling about his contract conditions and how he had to have his online presents monitored in case they did something stupid and as a way to protect their future identities.

While both Mum and Dad did a really good job keeping their identities secret we always had a busy household. It’s a hero taboo to tell another hero your secret identity considering the track record heroes have with turning on each other.

The hero database, each new powered hero or non-powered has to register. It has every bit of information about our lives, I mean they had to, being a hero is a paid job. The majority of our money came from random bounties Mum and Dad managed to catch and the rest believe it or not back in the day was considered a government job so they received a monthly salary. The funniest part was that I found out that heroes pay taxes too.

I don’t know why, both of them said I have to be registered on the hero database. I outright refused to, but my Mum insists. That hurt since she always says how being on that database is a crime against our rights so she should understand. We were assigned numbers like animals. It’s not like an individual id, sometimes it feels like were are being monitored.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Lea, please raise your head.” I hear Mrs. Dolly’s chastise. I lift my head sluggishly and she raises her perfect pencilled eyebrow at me. “I haven’t even been in the class for a minute and I am already boring you.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Dolly.” I apologise sitting up.

“Since you need something to entertain you why don’t you start off by reading page 110?” She flashes me a tight smile and I bit my lip trying to hide the scowl that was tugging at my mouth.

“Yes Ma’am.”

Two hours later and a migraine later.

“You look like you want to kill someone.” Orin joked.

“Nah, I just feel a bit lost today.”

“It’s probably just a bad day.”

“Or maybe I am the problem.” I grip my bag and I take a deep breath.

We walk to our lockers and next to us there is a bunch of kids huddled together. I raise my eyebrow quizzically at Orin and he shrugs. I heard a few of the take sharps breaths and some of they were holding onto each other for comfort.

I heard muffled screaming and voices that sounded like they were coming from a phone. We walk closer wondering what they were doing and in the middle was a guy holding his phone up so they could all see. He had the news on and all of them were watching was unfolding on the screen.

“What’s happening?” Orin asks one of the girls standing next to him.

“It’s Wizard. He attached another hero, its Harmony this time.”

Harmony was a new female hero and she had done a pretty good job so far. She was more popular for her music, but she had the power to control people with her voice. She was quickly rising up the list into the top twenty, but that is both a blessing and a death wish, because…of him. Wizard.

“Oh no.” We all watched in horror as the group around us got larger a very familiar man lifted Harmony off the ground and smashed her back down to the ground. We all hold our breath silently hoping she got back up and so was the newscaster, but it was in vain. She didn’t get back up they never did when he was involved. He flew away smiling leaving the body behind.

The paramedics rushed to her side and the camera never moved from them as they ripped open her clothes and started to attempt to resuscitate her. It felt like an eternity, but at some point the paramedics called time of death and the camera switched off leaving us all feeling sad and shivering from terror.

“I can’t believe he got another one.” The guy holding the phone said and a few kids wiped away fallen tears.

“They’re going to up our security now.” Orin said holding me close.

“Wizard is sadistic he’s not stupid. This school is full of retired heroes he might like the spotlight, he doesn’t have a death wish.”

“You sound pretty confident.” He notes.

“It’s just a hunch.”

“They’re going to call an assembly like they did last week.”

“As long as they ask that we stay in school overnight like last time I am fine with anything else.”

“I envied the kids that could teleport home.”

“If they were nice they would have taken us all home.”

“I’m pretty sure, that would kill them.” Orin joked.

“It would have been for the greater good.” I say sadly.

“Isn’t Reed scared seeing stuff like that?” I didn’t mean to worry Orin, but he held himself.

“I think he is, but he’s hero obsessed. If a powered hero are getting killed then what chance to non-powered have?”

“Hey, it can be argued that Batman is the most powerful hero in the DCU and he is human.” Orin smiles holding onto my hand.

“Yeah, but we aren’t as rich as he was and both our parents are alive and they better stay that way.”

“Tell him to aim for a badass original story.” I poke him.

“Ech those are so cliché.”