It takes us nearly twenty minutes to find the Liberty Commons, mostly because anyone who asked for directions would look at us, snicker, and tell us to fuck off. One of the first things mom ever taught me when I was still a kid was restraint, because the last thing anyone wants is to see a little girl pet a dog too hard and turn it into mush, and right now, trudging around under this painfully bright sunlight, hungry and confused, I am literally at my wits end with these fucking people. Do they know who they’re pushing aside right now? Do they know I can quite literally stick my hands inside their guts, through their mouths, and turn them into a puppet and make them apologize? But I don’t, because that’ll look bad, or whatever. Smile, superhero, they’re watching! That’s what my first agent used to say, then he’d hand me a lollipop, pat my back, and keep trying to hook up with my mom. He quickly went missing.

  Finally, after most of us (except Jordan, who apparently doesn’t sweat because it’s gross, according to her) had sweated most of our patience into our t-shirts, we finally found the Liberty Commons, and Clipboard-Girl was right—it’s pretty damn hard to miss. Pantheon U is a massive campus. The largest in New America. And it shows. The Commons are tucked between a curved brick building with ivy crawling up the side of it, and a grassy quad full of superhumans hovering in the air, tossing footballs, making out above the trees, not-so-discreetly getting handjobs behind odd stone pillars that jutted out of the grassy hillside, and Speedsters tearing across the lawns and the Commons. The Commons itself is a bustling mess of restaurants, bakeries, tiny convenience stores and merch stores selling, well, PU merch, obviously. A massive Hydro-Man fountain stood tall and proud in the center of the Commons, spitting water from his mouth as he raised his bronze trident over his head. Wow there are lots of them.

  Humans, I mean. Not statues. Well, there’s plenty of those all over the place, like PU had so much extra cash lying around they decided, what the heck? They dotted the pavilion, almost in random places, some posing, some without heads and most with broken capes. Spray paint streaked their bases. Stickers had been put on their chests. Just now, I watch a Speedster slide to a stop, slap a Vote Ashley for Student Rep sticker on a short statue of Liberty, then vanish in a sudden gust of wind. My skin feels itchy the longer I stand here. My throat drier. I don’t get nervous in front of these people, it’s just… It sounds weird, but my skin gets tingly, almost painfully tingly.

  It’s not like Crawler’s weird bug-thing he has going on. This one hurts.

  Like someone’s stabbing a fork into my flesh and twisting.

  “Suddenly,” I mutter, “I’m not that hungry anymore.” I look at the others. “Wanna bounce?”

  “We’ll get in trouble if we just leave,” Summer says, fiddling with her fingers.

  “Trouble?” I say. “Dude, like Clipboard-Girl said, we’re not in high school anymore. Who’s gonna snitch on a bunch of freshmen, anyway? And besides, I’ve got pretty good eyes, and I can’t see a single freshman down there right now, so…” I nudge Jordan. She almost looks annoyed that my sweaty skin just touched her. “Let’s go.”

  Summer zips in front of us, hands out. “Wait. But, what if everyone already left? And we don’t have—”

  I groan. “Cut it out with the group stuff! We’re free until we start classes next week.”

  Red folds her arms. “Since when were you the rebellious kind? I always thought it was, ‘brush your teeth, eat your veggies, don’t forget to look twice when you’re crossing the street,’ with you.” I try not to glare. Smile, Sam. Smile. “Let’s just grab some food and walk around. We’ll probably find a teacher or whatever that’ll help.”

  I slowly lift off the ground. “Or we go and explore, which sounds a lot more fun than that.”

  “Hey!” someone shouts. I flinch and turn around, then spot a hulking dark-skinned guy in a scarlet PU vest, very short shorts, and a pair of sunglasses resting on his forehead bounding up the hill toward us. He comes to a panting stop, his chest threatening his vest. He points at me and says, “What’re you doing? Get down from there.”

  I look around, then also point at myself. “What do you mean get down from there? I’m a foot off the—”

  “Down!” he barks, then blows the whistle hanging around his neck, and holy shit that hurts! I cringe and cup my ears, then grit my teeth and fight the urge to turn his skull into a pot of boiling brains. “Campus rules!”

  “Campus rules?” I say, maybe too loudly, but that’s on him for blowing out my eardrums. “But—”

  “Down,” he says, then threatens me with the whistle again, like I’m some kind of mutt.

  Me. An animal.

  The nerve of this species, I swear.

  Jason steps in and says, “C’mon, man. Chill out. Everyone else is flying around, too.”

  “The difference is that you’re freshmen,” he says, fingers still curled around his whistle. “Campus rules say that no freshmen are allowed to fly, not until their sophomore year, or you’ve gotten special permission from Vale.”

  A smile crawls across my lips. He glares behind his sports sunglasses. “That’s bullshit.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “You think campus law is bullshit?”

  “Yeah,” I say, flying a little closer. “I’m Sentry. You know, Guardian’s daughter? Highest ranked Junior Cape in the entire nation.” I stop above him, look down. “I’ve been flying since I was born. Literally. I can’t just stop doing what’s as natural as walking to me for an entire year, dude. So just drop the whistle and go back to chewing metal, or whatever it is you were doing.” I turn around and jerk my thumb over my shoulder at the guy, then say to everyone else, “Can you believe this bozo? What’s he gonna do, glare me to death? Ha. C’mon, let’s—”

  “Congratulations,” he says. “You’ve just earned yourself an entire semester worth of sidekicking.”

  I pause, then glance over my shoulder. “Side-whating?”

  Red barks out some laughter. “I think he just made you his sidekick!”

  I fully spin around. “What the hell does that even mean?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “It means,” he says, “that you’re now going to help every senior who asks for it without fail. Sidekicking. Section forty-three, chapter seven of the Pantheon U student handbook. Your phone number, email, and location will be shared amongst all the seniors, and if they need help doing their homework, finishing their projects, or heck, doing their laundry, washing their cars, or fluffing their costumes, then you’re going to be at their beck and call.”

  I stare at him, almost smile. “You…you think I’m gonna do any of that? Willingly?”

  I’ve only ever been a sidekick once, but mom treated it more like she was taking her daughter to work every other day than us actually being an officially recognized duo. I won’t be counting my summer internship last year with Cosmica over in the West Coast as a sidekick gig, because I’ve never seen an adult so pathetic in my life. She won Rookie Cape of the Year nearly a decade ago, graduated top of her class and even got drafted into the WCL right out of college. Hell, she got a starting spot just three weeks into her rookie deal. Saved California. Saved Vegas and New Nevada, Even helped out Booster Blitz taking down a Class Two Kaiju. And then she got injured. Benched. Reserved. Cut from the team. She’s been in superhero limbo for years now. Minor magazines. The occasional day-time talkshow segment promoting a new self-help book. Her agency thought it would be a good idea if I tagged along, mostly because the hottest thing this decade would make last decade’s waste of talent look better. All I did was go from the fridge to the couch, almost like a glorified servant in a little gold and blue costume.

  The one time I begged her to go out, she took me to an alleyway to watch homeless people fight. She threw five bucks at one guy and ended up losing it because he got stabbed in the throat. I had to tackle the guy and…

  Well, we all know what happened next.

  Long story short, I am not sidekick material. Never. Capes email me with offers all the time, some of them even offer tens of thousands of dollars every month. But I’d rather laser off my own foot than prance around in someone else’s shadow, much less a human’s. As far as I know, you only become a sidekick if you fail at this shit.

  And I’ve only been here for a couple of hours—I can’t have failed this shit already.

  “You’re refusing?” he asks me.

  I fold my arms. “Of course I’m refusing. I’m not gonna be anyone’s sidekick. That’s insane.”

  He grunts, then pulls a paper pad out of his back pocket, scribbles something down, and hands it to me. I frown and take it, slowly read it and… What the hell? “This is an official notice of misconduct,” I quietly read, “and because of this violation of campus law, you are now being charged with a breach of conduct, and will therefore be given the honor of working alongside PUs seniors.” I look up from the note, then rip it in half and let the wind carry it off my hands. “Yeah, cute, but that’s not happening. Besides, do you know who my mom is?”

  My phone buzzes in my back pocket. Speak of the devil.

  I expect mom to have sent me a text, or my agent to tell me about how I did in front of the cameras. It’ll be pointers and notes, and a list of checkmark cities that responded the best, as well as how the internet is taking to it.

  Instead, I find an email telling me I’ve got to go and see some lady called Heather Lively.

  Head of Student Affairs, because I received a note of misconduct.

  I massage my eyes and nod to myself, trying my very, very best not to crush my phone. I slowly lower my feet back onto the ground, then look up at the Bruiser standing over me. I rest my hands on my hips, bite the edge of my lip, and swallow the urge to send him halfway across the Commons, because maybe then he’ll get some kind of fucking misconduct email. Asshole, I think, stuffing my phone into my pants and shoving past the large Bruiser.

  “Doctor Lively’s office is the other way.” I stop, slowly turn around, and shove past him again.

  “If we end up in the same dorm, I’ll save you a bed!” Summer says, cupping her hands around her mouth.

  “That’s if I don’t tear this entire fucking place apart first,” I mutter to myself, then grin and wave over my shoulder, before I turn back around and kick an empty soda can so hard it goes flat against the side of a light post. I can already read the headlines. Sentry: Superhero, Superstar…Sidekick? Fuck! I run my hands through my hair and try not to scowl, because the people I walk past look at me funny, some of them whip out their phones and take a picture without asking, then vanish into thin air. I don’t even know where I’m going right now. The stadium is all the way on the other side of school, and there’s a massive building here, there, and just about everywhere. Bricks. Ivy crawling up the side of them. High-tech, sleek-looking modern buildings with large blue windows and pale white stone. And then there are the towers. Just a few. Manned with black-clad, fatigue-wearing soldiers, guns on their hips, eyes scanning the grounds, maybe further than that. I spot one looking at me. He gives me a small nod.

  Which I don’t give back, because I bump into a tiny, pink-haired girl leaning inside a trash can.

  “What the—”

  “Sorry!” she says, voice muffled by the garbage she’s stuck her head inside. Roxy comes out, shakes her head, and a rotting banana peel refuses to come off the top of her head. She smiles at me and waves a slime-covered phone she just retrieved. “Found it! Oh, hey, Sentry. You look angry. Did someone throw away your phone too?”

  A bunch of guys in PU varsity jackets chuckle as they walk past. One of them throws a can over their shoulder and misses the trash can by a mile. Then, he says, “Hey, freshmen. Pick that up. Don’t litter on campus.”

  I’m about to go after him, when Roxy puts a hand on my shoulder. I scowl and look at her.

  She lets go, then shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s, like, hazing, right? Just making us feel like part of the family.”

  From this range, if I throw the can at the back of his head, it would sever his skull from his throat, and his head would roll far enough to make the girls he’s approaching scream… I don’t. I tense my jaw, weigh the can in my hands, then curl my fingers around it until it's barely any bigger than my fist. I dump it in the trash and quietly sigh.

  “Don’t let them bully you,” I say. “You’re a superhuman, too. Fight back if you’ve got to.”

  “Fight back? And then get my face smashed in?” She shakes her head. The banana peel wins this round. “God no. Besides, one day, we’ll be the seniors, and then we’ll be the ones doing the hazing, right? That’s just life.”

  “Yeah, well, life isn’t about sharing misery,” I say, about to pat her shoulder, then I think better of it. “And don’t go dumpster diving in front of them either. They’re just gonna keep picking on you. And get that banana peel off your head, too, before they come up with names for you.” I stop before I walk away, then say, “If you wanna know a secret, that guy who threw the soda can is wearing a thong under his jeans, and I’m pretty sure that chick he just tried to talk to saw them, too.” Roxy’s eyes go wide. She almost laughs, then I put my finger to my lips. “But you didn’t hear that from me. Everyone’s got their problems. Maybe that dude’s a jerk ‘cause he’s got a wedgie."

  Roxy grins and wipes down her phone. “Yeah. Totally. Um, hey, Sentry, do you wanna maybe hang—”

  “I’ll catch you later,” I say, already walking away, because no, thank you. My nose is sensitive as it is. Walking around with someone who smells like trash and super sweet candy is gonna make me vomit. “Later?”

  She pauses, swallows, the smile almost slips off her face, then quickly comes back. “Sure. Yeah. Later.”

  With that, I continue on my quest to become a sidekick.

  What a great day I’m having so far, I just can’t wait to see what else is in store!

  Being a superhero, I probably know nothing good is waiting for me, because the universe wouldn’t want it any other way for us costume-wearing freaks of nature. Besides, this’ll be a walk in the park. I’ll just tell this Lively woman to take me off of the sidekick list, or whatever they use to track us, because you can’t have me serving someone else, least of all a bunch of seniors who probably won’t make it to the Major Leagues. This is the Sentry we’re talking about. I’ve damn nearly got every single record a Junior Cape can have. I’ve been on Good Morning Liberty City three times, all before I was sixteen, too! And if this school knows what’s best for them, and they wanna avoid pissing off my mom, then Heather is gonna take me off sidekick duty and everything will be just fine, folks.

  God, it better be, or else I’m never going to hear the end of this from anyone.

  I can still hear Red laughing from across campus.