Once he had returned the borrowed phone to its original place in the main office, Alec wheeled around and began to stride through the school once more, moving with a new purpose. Disheartening though it was to have been dismissed so easily by Dusty, Alec had gotten rather sound advice from his father, and he was going to put it to good use. He turned onto the path that Hartley had led him down on his very first day, passing the many superb, gleaming statues of past superheroes, and a group of Poseidon students who were sitting around a table underneath the shade of the large gazebo, talking merrily, their blue-and-silver uniforms glittering in the brilliant sunlight.

As he walked, he kept his eyes trained ahead of him, looking out for his new target. He found him quite soon, sitting alone on a bench upon a grassy slope staring out at the forest and telekinetically spinning three stones above his hand as he twirled his fingers.

“What are you doing?” Alec asked curiously as he approached.

“What does it look like?” Ethan said, without turning around. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, well, I need to talk to you. I wanted to —”

“Bring us all in the common area and talk to us about working together as a team.” Ethan’s tone was bored as he spoke.

“How did you —?”

“Are you kidding? I don't think a single telepath anywhere on this whole island could somehow not pick up what you especially were thinking.” Ethan wheeled around to face him, still fiddling with the stones, and pointed at Alec’s head with his free hand. “It's like a hurricane in there.”

“Stay out of my head!” Alec snapped. “That's part of the problem, too. My mind isn't some stupid book that you can just sift through any time you're bored — nobody's is!”

Ethan shrugged, then flung the stones away. “Okay, fine. So, you want us to work together? What's your plan?”

“Just come with me.”

Ethan rose and followed Alec back down to the Hades Dorm, where the others were still seated around their usual table.

“What are you doing with him?” Javon asked curiously as they approached the table, where they were still playing.

“King of Hearts,” Ethan said carelessly.

“What?”

“Never mind that,” Alec said hastily. “I want to talk to you, but first I need to find Maddison.” He peered around the room, looking not for their dark-haired teammate, for he knew she was still sulking in her room, but for a female he could recognize from their year. Finally he found one. “Ah.” He made to move away from the table, but at that precise moment Javon played. Of the two cards in his hands, he produced the Ace of Spades. Jonah, with whom he was playing, let out a great whoop of delight, then set down his last card, the 3 of Spades, concluding the game with his triumph.

“Told you you should've played the King of Hearts,” Ethan said, as Javon let out a growl of frustration and threw down his last card.

“I said, stop that!” Alec said fiercely. Then, when Ethan shrugged and turned back to the match with an amused expression, Alec strode towards the girl he had picked out of the crowd earlier. “Hi. Katy, right?”

“Yeah, and you're Alec, the one who came just before term started?” she said.

“That's me,” Alec said, grinning in a falsely cheery way. “Listen, could you do me a favour? Would you mind going up to the dorms and telling Maddison Smith that I need to see her, urgently?”

Katy agreed, her blond locks bouncing behind her as she swept up the stairs. Minutes later she returned, Maddison in tow with her usual scowl in place.

“What?” she said aggressively, before Alec could speak.

“Over here.” He gestured to a table near the far right corner of the palatial room, and before she could respond he had strode off, giving her no time to protest. He beckoned Ethan and Javon over to the table as well, then waited until they had all sat down and, still standing, he began, “About Wildfire —” and all around the table they stiffened. “Look, he wasn't wrong,” Alec plowed on remorselessly. “Everything he said was true. I did feel insecure about being here — I still do, a little. Can you blame me? You've all known what you can do and that you were coming here for what — days? Weeks? Months?

“I was just walking home with my best friend last week when two superhumans appear on the street in front of us, start fighting, nearly kill us, and then boom! Powers. Then we got home and five minutes later there's the Headmaster telling me about Helix, and telling me that I had to make my decision right then and there, and I did. The very next day I had to leave everything I knew and loved behind to come to some weird island in the middle of the sea full of people like you, who were obviously going to be ahead of me just by knowing about this place beforehand. So yeah, it's not completely comfortable yet, but I'm working on it. Which is more than I can say for you three,” he added sharply.

“Is there some reason you always look like you're trying to murder us with your eyes when you see us?” he asked Maddison.

She did not answer, she merely continued to glower. “Excellent, proving my point for me. And you” — he turned to Ethan — “you said you don't care about anything as long as you don't have to go back home. I don't know why that is, or what happened with you, and I don't care, but it's obvious that you do care, otherwise you wouldn't be so determined to stay here. So how about you put some of that resolution to use and actually contribute something?”

For the first time so far, Ethan’s cool, indifferent demeanor seemed to shatter away; he looked remarkably like Maddison in that moment. Alec turned away from him, resting his eyes on Javon, who looked rather like Dusty always did when he was trying to avoid being called upon by a teacher to answer a question he did not know the answer to.

“And you, what are you hiding? I know it's something to do with your powers because you get really tense and weird whenever the conversation goes in that direction. What's going on?”

Javon hesitated, looking around hopelessly, as though pleading for someone to intervene. Nobody did, however; the other two were staring at him as well. Apparently, they seemed to feel that if Alec had attacked them, he should suffer as well. Finally, he was forced to concede.

“Okay,” Javon sighed. “Fine. Can you, um — a knife, please?” he said to Maddison. She glared suspiciously at him, but apparently her curiosity got the better of her. She pulled yet another large bone knife from her wrist and handed it to him, very slowly and with obvious reluctance. Watching curiously, Alec saw him lean back in his chair, take a deep breath, and then, with surprising speed, he swiped the blade above his wrist. Blood spurted from the wound, peppering the table and their clothes.

“What the hell!” Ethan said in outrage, wiping the scarlet splatters from his face.

“Why did you do that?” Alec demanded.

Acting as though he could not hear either of them, Javon set the bloodstained knife down upon the table, then raised his right hand above his slit wrist, and something began to pour from his palm. It was a bright orange light, but oddly wispy, as though it were some kind of luminous smoke. A moment later, the light died down, Javon wiped his wrist on his sleeve, and they saw that the wound had disappeared.

"Woah," Alec said.

"Happy?" said Javon. He looked most displeased, but Alec couldn't see why.

"You have healing powers!" he said excitedly.

"Yes, and I wish I didn't," Javon said bitterly.

"But . . . why?" Maddison said, a genuine note of concern in her voice. She seemed to notice her momentary display of emotion, and at once rearranged her features into the cold, hard look that seemed to be her default appearance.

"My brothers," Javon said, "all have amazing abilities — flight, super strength, teleportation, the like. They didn't get their education at Helix, they learned from my parents, retired superheroes. They were incredible, real prodigies. The future of the Thomas bloodline. And then there's me. Almost no talent, and the only powers I have are abilities that could work against me in the field. What am I going to do, heal my enemies into submission? They knew perfectly well that I'd only end up as some sidekick, or in some random hospital wing as some random healer. None of them had any time for me. So they sent me here, where I'd be a disappointment to my teachers instead."

There was a slight pause.

"That's awful," Alec said.

"Yeah, well, my parents are pretty crap too," Ethan said. "I couldn't wait to get away from them."

At these words, an idea suddenly formed in Alec's mind. "Well in that case, don't you think you should try to do better at Helix?"

"What?"

"Think about it, if you don't pull your weight at school, then your parents will likely get involved. Probably pull you, if you don't get some home first. You think you'd want that?"

A look of dawning comprehension crept over Ethan's face, and his mouth fell open in horror. Again, Alec took advantage of their silence. "See, we all want the same thing: to do some good here. What Wildfire said sucks, but we can't deny that it was true. What we can do, is go back down there and try to work as a team so that we can move forward."

Another silence. Then Maddison stood up. "Fine," she said. "If it means I get to move on the way I had planned — or, as close to that as it can get — then I'll do it."

"Me too," Javon said quietly, a small smile breaking across his face.

"Why not?" Ethan said.

"Well, that's settled then," Alec said happily, clapping his hands together. "Tomorrow, we go back down to see Wildfire, and tell him the good news."