Alec was surprised at how much he had enjoyed his first day back. Though it had gotten off to a fairly bad start, he had to admit that everything started coming together during their Gym lesson. Irritating though it had been to deal with Professor Elliott's large number of diverse and dangerous traps, his personal band of Snipers, and finally the hassle of rescuing the hostage from the pool of cryogenic fluid, looking back, Alec now thought it was a rather fun experience.

Not only had it driven the memories of the deeply unpleasant experiences of the previous day completely out of his mind, it had been most pleasing being rewarded as the second team to complete the task, as well as seeing Professor Elliott chew out the members of the squads that had decided to attack their competitors in an attempt to lower their own chances of failure.

The rest of the day had flowed quite smoothly after that. Health Class, as usual, had been a short reprieve from the excitement of the day. Their first task of the lesson was to concoct an antidote for a simple virus that would generate mild symptoms in the willing volunteers before the end of the lesson. Maddison and Javon had come together, sharing their knowledge of the medicinal arts (of which Javon was surprisingly profound, despite his apparent dislike of the idea of being the team healer), and managed to create the bright lilac fluid detailed in the textbook illustrations with five minutes to go before the bell, restoring Alec and Ethan to perfect health and earning them full marks.

Several other students, however, had had to go to the Medical Wing for cough tablets, their noses running like leaky pipes. During Lunch, they dined once again with Katrina, Charlie, and Reya in a private classroom, then finished off their day with a class spent mostly taking notes for Computer Science.

Alec awoke on the second day still feeling quite proud of their achievements in Gym and Health Class. After showering and breakfast, he proceeded with the rest of the class to the Armoury for their first lesson: Weapons and Equipment.

They were finished with the vehicles for now, and were due to begin the rough drafts for whatever items they were going to design for their term-long course work project. Professor Sheilds, tall, plump, and mad-looking, with his shock of untidy silver hair, had returned with his crates of old parts lined up along the front of the room. He ushered them in with a genial welcome, took the register, and he indicated the crates. Professor Sheilds quickly explained that the items inside the crates were all available to be used for their projects, then went around making notes of what the students were planning to do.

Maddison had opted to work on a miniature cloaking device, which Alec had a sneaking feeling had more to do with a mischievous desire to sneak around unnoticed rather than the complexity of the assignment. Javon had decided upon a shrink ray, but Professor Sheilds, when Javon announced it, made a face that told them quite clearly he was disappointed by how generic his choice was.

Ethan had chosen a service drone, like the ones Professor Elliott sometimes used during classes, which couldn't possibly end well for anyone, but, frighteningly yet not at all unsurprisingly, Professor Sheilds was quite pleased to hear. But Alec, on the other hand, was still undecided.

It was all very fun using these trinkets, but actually making one from scratch seemed a much more daunting challenge, so he informed Professor Sheilds that he still needed more time to think. While the teacher went around the classroom asking the other students what their projects would be, Alec flipped dispiritedly through his textbooks, hoping he would land on a page bearing the image of an exciting-looking gadget that would invoke some inspiration inside him.

"I suppose I could always try a lightsaber," he sighed.

"Aren't those copyrighted?" Javon asked absently.

"What about this one?" Ethan said, pointing at a page of a small traveling box which could distort the size of its interior to fit much larger objects like beds or even mini fridges. "Could be useful when you're hiking across the world looking for ancient goddesses."

"Or when you're trying to get rid of a body," Alec said, shooting a pointed look at Ethan, who retracted his hands.

"Hey, just trying to help."

"How about this one? Short-distance teleporter pad?" Javon said in an appraising voice.

"Which only goes up to ten feet. It'd be faster to just walk the distance," Alec said dismissively, slamming the book shut. "I don't think I'll find anything I like in these books."

"You can always try the Library," said Maddison, who was rummaging through her own crate. She pulled out a huge circuit board with a glass-like emerald eye in the center, glanced it over, then added it to the pile of parts she was going to use. "They have an entire section about some of the most notable Villains in the past. As much as the Hero League would hate to admit it, some of them made some very cool stuff. Dangerous and violent — but still cool."

"Like the Particle Re-Puzzler," Javon said matter-of-factly, tossing aside a large, metallic thumb.

"The what?" asked Alec.

"It's a matter manipulation gun. It's able to completely change one material into another. Rose Noire used it to turn a door into a brick wall when Mercury was trying to rush out a few hostages from a burning building. His nose was broken for a week. It was hilarious. Tragic, because Rose got away, but still hilarious."

"Alright, now that we have outlined what everyone is going to be doing," Professor Sheilds called, looking around, "or almost everyone, rather — we will be watching a short video on weapon construction. The do's and don'ts, safety precautions, and how to properly follow methods. I will be leaving the Armoury door unlocked during the evenings for those who want to start working on their projects at this time. The safe, of course, will remain sealed and any and all objects within it completely restricted during those periods, so I suggest everyone takes everything they think they will need from now."

There was another great rummaging as everyone else began to comb through the crates again, making sure they had everything they needed. Alec, his face in his hands, both bored and frustrated that he was one of the few who wasn't doing anything, looked around, and something interesting caught his eye.

One of the few Zeus children who shared this class with them was staring, not at the model of his project illustrated in his textbook, or at the inside of a crate, but at the gigantic silver safe itself. Professor Sheilds was standing in front of it, tapping away at a tablet in his hands, completely distracted. Behind him, the safe was wide open.

Towers upon towers of crates were inside, lining almost every wall and stretching towards the ceiling, no doubt stocked with countless other wondrous items the school had collected over the years. The intensity with which the boy was gazing into the interior was intriguing. It was as if he was trying to will one of the boxes out with his mind. His partner, who was working beside him, accidentally nudged his arm and he seemed to come back to earth. The girl, however, locked eyes with Alec, a clash of steel blue and onyx brown, and she took a half-glance at the boy, then seemed to understand the situation in an instant. Alec quickly looked away, but he could feel the girl's eyes still on him, boring into his neck.

When finally she had looked away, now frowning, Alec turned to his friends. "What kind of things are in the safe?"

Maddison, Javon, and Ethan froze. They exchanged looks among each other, then Maddison said, rather suspiciously, "Why?"

"Humour me."

"All sorts of things." Javon shrugged. "Vehicles, ray guns —"

"Yeah, I know about all the kiddie stuff," Alec said, waving his hand impatiently. "I meant anything along the lines of . . . I don't know, doomsday weapons?"

This statement served only to alarm them even more.

"Is there something you want to tell us?" Ethan said, squinting at him suspiciously. "I thought you were enjoying your time at Helix; I don't see why you'd be considering blowing it up."

"I'm not planning to blow anything up," Alec said, exasperated. "I just — I want to know if there's anything valuable in there. Not the classroom-approved stuff we get to use, but something an outsider would really want to grab if they had the chance."

"Definitely," said Maddison. "I don't know of anything in particular, but obviously there would be a lot more dangerous items inside that would be reserved for older school students, or in case of an emergency. Most of the items were built by past Heroes, or confiscated from Villains. I suppose the League keeps the really dangerous stuff, and everything else they ship off to the schools. And once again I ask, why?"

Before Alec could come up with an excuse not to answer, the bell rang.

"Well, time for C&J. I'll meet you there, need to grab something from my room." And he rushed away before they could inquire further.

In truth, he was not actually headed to his room. On the contrary, the Dormitories were quite distant from his true destination. He strode swiftly along the corridors, in which students of all age groups were now walking, spilling out from their own classes. He waded through the multicoloured tide, then emerged outside into the brilliant sunshine and began to walk past the Zeus Dorm, to the section of the building just beyond the canteens, where the Medical Wing was nestled.

Despite being the head of staff, Nurse Alloway was rarely to be seen in the Medical Wing. Instead there were two young female nurses and one male, who, like Javon, possessed healing powers. They were very kind, which was more than Alec could say for the lone nurse who worked at his old high school, but they insisted that patients got plenty of rest and little disturbance, so visits were to be kept short and quiet.

After signing his name on the visitor's records, they permitted him inside and he found his target at once. Anthony was lying on the third bed down the ward, a thick wad of bandages wrapped around his chest. His platinum-blonde hair was tousled and his skin rather pale, but he seemed okay, though extremely bored.

Lying down, he was throwing a ball at the opposite wall, but just before it could hit the stone he would open up a tiny portal that it would phase through, then the portal would reappear and the ball would soar back towards him as if it had bounced from the wall.

The sound of Alec's footsteps across the gleaming tiles reached his ears and he looked around. When he saw who was approaching, his face lit up.

"Finally!" he said, forgetting to open another portal; the ball collided with the wall and bounced back onto his chest, causing him to yelp in pain.

"Mr. Olsen!" said one of the nurses reprovingly, appearing to investigate the disturbance. "I told you, no balls in the ward! Put that away, please."

"Sorry, Nurse M." Grinning weakly, still clutching his chest, Tony picked up the ball and opened another fist-sized portal. He thrust his hand inside and when he withdrew it, the ball was gone.

"Where did you send it?" Alec asked curiously, when Nurse Miriam had left.

"Professor Elliott's office," he said casually, leaning back on his pillows. "He doesn't know how they keep getting in there because he locks his office all the time. Drives him nuts. So . . . to what do I owe the honour of this visit? Seems like you all forgot about me until now." He glared halfheartedly at Alec.

"Sorry about that," Alec told him quietly. "We thought it would be better if we just let Trina visit you for now, so we wouldn't draw any more attention to you in here."

"Well, no offense but you've done a pretty sucky job. I get about ten visitors every break period. Always coming to the windows to see if they can get a glimpse of me. The Nurses started drawing the curtains to keep them out. Then the kids started faking injuries to get inside. We've had about six of them in the past two days. Some of them aren't very convincing, either," he added loudly, turning his head towards the bed to their left. "Don't you think so, Jared?"

A long, pained moan came from the occupant of the bed. Anthony shook his head. "See? Forget Criminal Justice, we'd do better with an acting class. Anyway, what'd you want to talk to me about?"

"Well, it's kind of a weird question."

"My favourite kind," Anthony said brightly. "Go on."

"I saw something in class just now. It was a bit odd but I'm not sure if it's really a cause for concern. It's just that — given everything that's been happening recently, I don't want to end up with another emergency springing up on us out of the blue. So I want to know, what kind of things do you think are in the Armoury safe?"

The question seemed to take Tony aback. "The safe?"

"Yeah, is there anything in there you think someone would try to take? I'm assuming that you of all people would have ended up in there at some point."

"Actually, no."

It was Alec's turn to be surprised.

"Really? You've never Portaled in there? Or you can't?"

"It's difficult, but not impossible. But that's not the problem. The safe is one of the most heavily guarded places in the entire school. Back in our first year Trina and I heard a story about a group of fourth years who tried to do it. None of them managed it, all of them were caught in minutes, and they were expelled from the school by the very next day. There's rumours that there are a whole lot of traps in there, things even I couldn't get out of. So I never bothered to try."

"But then that confirms it, doesn't it? There must be something important in there that would make them go to these lengths to protect it."

"Maybe. But, as delightfully mischievous as I pride myself on being, this is one thing I can't help with."

Alec exhaled, his gaze unfocused. "Yeah. Thanks anyway. See you soon."

"Hopefully." Tony held out a fist, Alec clumsily bumped his own against it, his mind still elsewhere, and then went to his next class.

Criminal Justice was, as it always had been, grievously boring. Their teacher, Professor Harding, tried his best to make it sound exciting, but as valiant as his efforts were there simply wasn't much you could do to make endless paragraphs of legal matters involving the destruction of property and Villain rights sound appealing. After that was Clothing and Textiles, where, similar to Weapons and Equipment, Alec had developed something of a block.

Their first major project was to put forth a design for the uniforms they would use in their second and third year for physical activities. But again, Alec could think of nothing he wanted in regards to the final product.

Resolving himself once again to suffer the disappointment of yet another teacher, he told Mrs. Wright the same thing he told Professor Sheilds. Her disappointment, however, was far more pronounced. With the end of the day now in sight, Alec had to admit that the second day of term had been far more disappointing than the first. While he walked back through the crowded corridors, he breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that they had only a single session left — their first squad meeting since the term had resumed.

Alec stashed his bag and his other belongings back in his Dorm room, where he met Javon doing the same thing, and they ventured down to the playfield together. Ethan and Maddison soon joined them. But the last person to arrive, to their surprise, was Wildfire.

He looked much healthier than he had done in all their time at Helix, a fact Maddison had also noticed.

"You look better."

"I feel better," Wildfire said heartily. "The damage that poison and the prolonged pyrostasis did to my body was even more extensive than the doctors at Medici initially thought, but even so, I'm apparently well on my way to full health!"

"And out of the school," Javon said quietly. This one sentence changed the entire atmosphere of their discussion so drastically it was almost astonishing.

Wildfire's smile faltered and eventually faded. Where seconds ago he had been filled to bursting with happiness, now he looked completely deflated. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yes, well. . . . The medical staff still want me to take it easy for a while, so we still have some time before that happy moment comes. But even so, we all knew this was never a permanent arrangement. Squad leaders are changed at the beginning of every year, and as I made very clear this September I'm only here because I had to be. I know that's disappointing to you —"

"To say the least," Maddison said, her words laced with her usual brand of sarcasm.

Wildfire pretended as if he had not heard her, though a muscle twitched in his jaw and he cast her a swift, irritated side glance. "But that was the truth, and it made no sense to dodge around it. I was never cut out to be a teacher."

You're telling us, Alec thought.

"And once this is all over, I can get back to doing my job, and you guys can have your studies taken into the hands of someone more qualified."

At these words, Alec's thoughts drifted towards Proxima Venus. He shook his head quickly, trying to dispel the image of the Heroine.

"So." Wildfire clapped his hands together, his earlier jauntiness returning abruptly. "What to do today? Since it's your second day back, maybe we can take a breather, do something simple —"

"So you want to extend their holiday, then?"

A new voice, rough and deep and crude, cut across him. Wildfire, unlike the other four, who were looking around for the source of the voice, simply pulled an expression of mingled annoyance and exasperation. Then he looked upwards, his eyes on the trees behind them. And there he was.

He was a slender man, seated atop the higher branches of the trees, his stark white and crystal-blue suit standing out vividly against the green of the trees. Alec wondered how they hadn't noticed him before. Unlike Wildfire, his face was not unconvered. He wore a long mask all over his face like a helmet, the only bare parts the slits for his eyes and mouth.

"They already got an unscheduled three day break, what is the point in giving them yet another day free, other than laziness?"

Wildfire exhaled through his nose. The man in the trees leapt down, landing gracefully in front of them, his prominent nose bulging out of his mask.

"Zero," Wildfire said, clearly displeased.

"Wildfire," the man responded.

They were standing face to face, staring directly into each other's eyes. There was a very small, almost negligible height difference between them, but Wildfire had a much greater build. Crystal Zero wore a regal expression, cool and formal, but there was a hint of a smirk on his blue-tinged lips. Wildfire, on the other hand, was obviously enraged. While his counterpart stood at complete ease with his hands behind his back, his fingers were curled into fists at his side and his expression displayed overt dislike.

"I didn't realize you'd be one of the Sentinels," he said.

"Yes, well. The decision was made rather late, unfortunately. I was just returning from a long-term mission to the Himalayas when I heard the news. Obviously I accepted their offer at once. We must protect our future Heros at all costs," he said, sounding completely bored.

"We must indeed," said Wildfire, with a pained smile.

Crystal Zero looked around at the watching students, eyeing them with interest.

"Ms. Smith," he said, inclining his head in a little bow. "I've heard quite a bit about you, of course. It is a pleasure."

Maddison looked back at him, obviously unimpressed. She did not return the greeting. But Crystal Zero did not seem to mind. Still smiling, his eyes flitted onto Javon, then Ethan, and, predictably, came to rest on Alec.

"Ah yes. Mr. Michaels. Your reputation precedes you. I've heard so many things." He extended his hand. Alec wasn't sure whether to return the handshake; Wildfire looked as if he were about to go supernova. But before Alec could respond, Wildfire interrupted.

He cleared his throat loudly and said irritably, "We're in the middle of a class, Zero. I'm sure you have other things to do than bother my students."

The Hero withdrew his hand without a hint of embarrassment, turning to face his peer with a wide smile. "Alas! Indeed, I do! Quite a bit, actually. A shame, I imagine you would be quite as busy as I if not for your . . . incident. . . ."

The blood drained from Wildfire's face. Crystal Zero waved cheerily, then jumped, landing atop a sleek line of ice that he conjured in midair, and he took off towards the school. The trail of frost dissolved behind him, leaving glittering snowflakes scattering on the grass. It was oddly beautiful. Alec and the others watched him go, and when he disappeared among the tall buildings, they turned back to their squad leader. Wildfire's face was twisted with rage. Flames were dancing on his shoulders.

Maddison cleared her throat and Wildfire seemed to come back to himself. He brushed the flames aside impatiently, then continued as if nothing had happened. "Change of plans," he said. "Midterms are coming up soon, and of course there will be a practical evaluation. No time to waste on relaxation. Assume your positions, we'll start with Formation Delta."