By Friday, I just wanted to go lay down in my bed and stay there for the rest of the day. School had been rocky, to put it simply. Physics was simple since we're just playing get to know you games before the real work starts, but everything else up until band seventh hour has been rough. Nobody really wants to go near me except for Callum, so it's mainly been me alone for four hours, and then me and Callum sitting next to each other and making awkward small talk when we aren't doing any work for our afternoon classes we forgot to do the night before.

"It'll get easier." Callum said on Thursday during lunch. "Most people here come from money. Like... children of superheroes money. They... Most people here think that anyone new is an enemy. Once they realize that you don't mean any harm, you'll have plenty of friends."

If only he realized just how much harm I could cause if I wasn't careful.

After school, Callum and I hung out in the band room since we had our first home game that night and neither of us felt like it would be a good idea to just go home since we'd have to return here two hours later.

"Here's your pizza, kids!" Mom said cheerfully, pushing her dark brown hair out of her face as she teleported into the band room holding a large cheese pizza for Callum and I to eat before the game.

"Thanks, Mom." I said, grabbing the pizza and sitting down in the first row of chairs, flipping one of the stands into a small table.

"Your mom can teleport?" Callum asked, an expression of awe on his face.

"Yeah."

"Do you have anyone in your family who has powers, Callum?" Mom asked kindly, biting her lip a bit. She needed to get back to work.

"My aunt. She's Unicorn." Callum said casually, opening up the pizza box and grabbing a slice of pizza.

Unicorn's power is summoning a vicious army of unicorns to stampede on her enemies and to summon bright bursts of rainbows to take down her enemies or trap them. She was basically the embodiment of all things feminine. Not saying that guys can't like her either, but for people like my mother, who always dreamed of being a princess, it should come as no shock that Unicorn was her favorite superhero. "No way...I have to meet her at some point! She's been an idol of mine since she hit the scene during my college years!"

"But then again, so has Barbie." I said, grabbing a slice of pizza and taking a bite.

"Oh hush Anneliese. Well, I have to get back to work. Your father and I will be there, I promise." Mom said, quickly teleporting away in a burst of green light.

Once she was gone, Callum raised an eyebrow. "Barbie?"

I sighed heavily. "I was named after Princess Anneliese from Barbie's The Princess and the Pauper. She expects me to act like her occasionally, and it gets on my nerves."

"How so?"

"Oh, like fall in love with my math tutor from freshman year, or save my family from a crisis using my brain. It really doesn't help that my mother thinks that I'm the real life version of Anneliese."

Callum laughed a bit. "Yeah... No offense, but you are the last person I would expect to run around a castle singing. Like... When did that movie even come out?"

"2004."

"Okay... Since the current year is 2134... Subtract the ten, carry the one... That movie came out 130 years ago! The animation must look ancient!"

"It does. She forced me to watch it when I was younger." I said, taking another bite of my pizza. "The character I was named after... She's just a big ole plot convenience."

"What's that mean?"

"Well, she gets kidnapped because she's the princess, and yes, she does outwit her kidnappers, but then she gets stuck in a mine and only makes it out alive because of the animals or something. And she saves her kingdom because she knows what fools gold looks like. Something about her... Everything that happened just felt like it needed to happen because of the plot. I never liked Anneliese. She's... Too predictable."

"Understandable." Callum said, taking another cautious bite of pizza.

"So... Unicorn is your aunt."

"Yup. We call her Crazy Aunt Beth as a joke." Callum explained cautiously. "My mother... She kinda resents Aunt Beth. She was the first one in our family to get superpowers, and since my mother never got them... Let's just say that I'm the only one in my family who talks to her."

"That sucks..."

"Speaking of superpowers, and I know that this is kind of off topic, but what do you think would happen if someone manifested too early?"

I inhaled quickly, thankful I didn't have pizza in my mouth. "What?"

"Like... Manifested their superpower too early. I mean... The law states that you aren't supposed to use your powers unless you’re a part of an organization that specifically allows you to use your powers, but you don’t start getting access to organizations until you’re in college. What happens if someone manifests too early and you can’t use your powers until college."

"There have to be some exceptions, right?" I asked cautiously. "I mean, let's look at the facts. The two ways you manifest a power are if you were born with it, which, like you mentioned, doesn't typically start showing up until college anyway, or by having something tragic happen to you. You can't really control when the something tragic happens. You need to use your powers in order to learn how to control them."

"But what about being born with a power? What if you start showing those signs earlier than college?"

"Then you hide it until college, I guess." I said, taking a smaller bite of pizza.

"What do you think about superheroes?"

"What?"

"I mean... What do you think about this kind of thing?"

"It shouldn't exist."

Callum almost choked on his pizza. He gave me a flabbergasted look, his eyes looking like they were about to burst out of his head. "I beg your pardon?"

"I mean... Look at those Marvel movies everyone worships. Peter Parker got bit by a radioactive spider in high school, Uncle Ben died, and he had to protect who he loved all while his friends and family kept getting put in dangerous situations because of him. Steve Rogers got wrapped up in a super soldier program because he was a good man, and look at all the trouble he went through! His first love grew old without him, his best friend got brainwashed to forget him, and he got into a fight with his other best friend and their relationship never fully healed before Steve made the stupid decision to go back in time to the 1940's at the end of Avengers: Endgame."

"Yeah, but that's in the movies."

"Take your family for example, then. Your mother hates your aunt because your aunt developed superpowers and your mother didn't. If your aunt didn't have super powers, or if your mother even developed powers, your family would probably still be together. It's unnatural. If nobody had powers... Then maybe the world would be better off."

"Okay, but what about 9/11? Those people didn't have super powers, and they still hurt a lot of people."

"I'm not saying that the danger wouldn't still be there. Of course the danger would still be there! Bad can come from anywhere. But... Maybe nobody would be in as much danger as there is now if these super powers didn't develop out of nowhere. Sure, these powers have been around for a hundred years, but America just got their rights when it came to having powers about thirty years ago. I think that the world was much simpler when super powers were just a work of fiction." I said, shaking my head. "Just forget I said anything. It really doesn't matter."

Callum nodded nervously. Something was up. "Yeah. It doesn't."

I decided not to press the issue. There was an awkward silence between me and Callum for the rest of the evening. We barely talked while we got dressed for band in the blue and red uniforms. Shortly after pregame, I went to the water fountain to go get a drink of water, and in the back corner I saw a group of boys crowded around another kid.

"Will you knock off that stupid accent?" One of the boys asked, punching the boy in the center. "We all know you aren't really from England."

"I am!" The boy in the center argued, his voice thick with a British accent. He wiped some blood coming from his mouth as he continued talking. "I just moved here at the end of last school year!"

"Like we're gonna believe that shit." A shorter boy argued. "Nobody moves here! Our superhero laws are so wack that nobody bothers to move out here to America anymore!"

"Just drop the accent!" The last boy yelled.

"Hey!" I yelled. The four boys turned towards me. The three in the circle started giggling.

"Oh, are you gonna try and play hero, nerd?" One of the guys asked, pushing me back by shoving my shoulder.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." I suggested, crossing my arms and keeping my hands close to my body. I could already feel the sparks trying to fight their way out of my hands.

"And why not? What are you gonna do, go tell your band director on us?"

"Leave. Him. Alone." I said, glaring at the three.

The third quickly jumped back. "Woah... Check it! Her eyes!"

Electricity arced from my hands, stunning the three boys as they all collapsed to the ground. The boy they were mocking, the one with the British accent, stared at me with bewilderment. I looked down at my gloves, now fingerless with singed holes. I glanced over at the boy. "Please don't tell anyone what you saw."

He nodded sharply as I quickly turned around. Once I was out of the back corner area, there was Callum, his mouth wide open. I dropped my head. "Shit."

"You have powers."

"Callum-"

"You have powers and you didn't tell me! You literally just zapped those three guys!" Callum said excitedly. "When did you develop?"

"I didn't."

Callum gave me a confused look. "You mean... Something tragic happened?"

"You tell me, because I don't remember."

"You don't remember what happened?"

"No! One minute, I'm walking back home with my best friend, and the next I'm laying on the ground and my hair is... Well... Like this. That lightning thing showed up days later."

"Your hair?"

"Yeah. You met my mother. She has brown hair. So does my father. Before... Whatever happened, I had bone straight dirty blonde hair. Now... It's frizzy platinum blonde."

"What'd you tell your parents?"

"That my best friend dared me to dye it."

"And they actually believed that?"

"They have for the last year or so."

"We better get back to the band." Callum said, smiling from ear to ear. "And next week on Tuesday, you're coming with me."

"With you where?"

"To a club. You'll see. Right now, though, our main problem is making it through half time."