The Commander and Jet Stream: The World's Best Superheroes. Every family has heard of them at least once, and the duo has become almost a household name, like Band-Aids or Kleenex. The Superhero community also knows them as Steve and Josie Stronghold. Almost royalty amongst fellow supers because they get the job done whether it is saving the world or selling a house. They actually sold the house my family lives in now to my parents when we first moved to Maxville. Maxville, a large city in the center with a massive amount if suburbs surrounding it. Almost like a business filled crime center surrounded by a moat of plain and clone like houses where families flock to too grow up safe and productive members of society. But, my parents didn't move to the suburbs to live like every stereotypical American Dream family. My father, Damian Abernathy, needed quiet for writing his world famous Detective novels while my mother, Emma Anderson-Abernathy, is the infamous evil mastermind Techna. As Techna my mother was a supreme hacker and could build anything technical. She was a more powerful technopath and was called the 'evil mastermind of the net'. But now after her small amount of time in prison (and after meeting my dad) she works for the League of Heroes as the technical support on all missions, calls heroes into battle, and builds technology and weapons for Supers and Support alike.

I, like my mother, inherited a great dislike for the social workings of 'the law' and society as a whole and my mother said as long as I don't turn to villainy that I can join as many social movements as I want. It's actually how I met my best friends Arachnid and Roxie. We first met when I had found the local indie punk rock scene in Maxville Central. It's a somewhat secret place hidden in one of the unused tunnels in the subway. The guy who bought the place, Lockwood, got it for cheap from the government as they had made it by mistake, and it doesn't even have tracks leading into it. To those who go there, it is known as a safe haven for Supers (or mutants as they are known outside of superhero/sidekick life) and Normals alike. Known as 'The Den' it is a place where people can come and rock out no matter their life situation and often supply instruments for those who can't afford them on their own (Lockwood often has jobs set up for people who can play the instruments to teach others who go to The Den that can't. It's actually a part time job Arachnid, Roxie, and I have set up with Lockwood so we can play every Friday and Saturday night as opening or full night bands). The Den is not just used as a way to help kids learn music and off the streets; It is a place where people like me who dislike authority and social structures can meet up and talk about future protests and demonstrations. My friends and I often participate in these peaceful (and sometimes not) protests which brought us closer.

Arachnid, called that because of her powers (and would kill us for using her actual name: Anna-Beth Rosemary), has the powers akin to a spider. She can stick to walls and climb buildings, has super strength, and has six arms (which she uses to play rhythm, lead, and bass guitars). She's more boyish out of all of us, as her head is shaved on both sides and the rest is put up into a purple Mohawk. Her brown eyes are often framed with black mascara, her ears often have six piercings on each side, and her all black wardrobe makes her pale skin seem even paler. She is never without her leather jacket (which is somewhat too big for her) which she uses to hide her four extra arms. Roxie, her girlfriend, perhaps has the reddest hair I have ever seen. She often doesn't do anything with it because the curliness and natural strength of her hair has broken at least four brushes when she tries to do anything with it. Her eyes are like looking into a stormy green sea. Across her face and body she is covered in freckles that dot over her cream coloured skin, and are the most prominent on and around her nasal area. She has the power over different types of waves(like sound and shock waves) which makes her extremely good at playing the drums and keeping the beat (and doing very comedic voices as she can control the sound that comes out her throat. She can imitate Morgan Freeman and it is actually funny as hell to hear Morgan Freeman's deep voice coming out of a petite 5'0" redhead). As for myself, with my chocolate pixie cut hair with a few strands longer than the rest. Depending on the light, my eyes could be a blue with a little bit of brown around the pupil, or a greenish blue (I also have five facial piercings. There is one on my right eyebrow, a septum on my nose, snakebites on my lower lip, and on my upper lip I have a Monroe on the left). I got a power similar to my mom, yet the complete opposite. While she makes technology work with precision, I control electric current which often has me short circuit some of the modern day technical things if I'm not carful (such as computers and other tech my mom has around the house. I can't count how many times I've broken the toaster because I had a frustrating day. But a plus side is I can charge cell phones or other batteries now that I can control it).

In present day Arachnid, Roxie, and I were waiting at the supposed bus stop for the bus that would take us to a high school for people like us. "The Next Generation of Heroes" my mother had said this morning at breakfast.

"So what do you think they'll do to the freshmen?" Arachnid asked, arm around Roxie.

"My dad said they have this thing called a 'Power Placement' where they decide whether or not your power is worthy of hero of sidekick." Roxie answered.

"That sounds backwards and quite unequal." I commented as I fiddled with my satchel strap.

"You would say that Luna." Arachnid said, a smirk on her face, "But it does kind of make sense. I mean, what if a kid's power is growing longer fingernails, or making paint dry faster. How could they save the world with that kind of power?"

"I can see that point, but what is that kid with growing fingernails has the dream of being a Hero and joining the League? Would you crush their dreams? They could always used gadgets like my mom makes that can be used by the growing fingernails only. To make them a sidekick right off makes the entire system selective and favoritest."

Roxie opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sudden appearance of a girl wearing almost all green clothes with an air about her that made her seem like a hippie and a boy who seemed to be a big fan of America with his red, white, and blue outfit.

"Hey! Are you going to Sky High too?" The hippie asked. She seemed to be the perky type that came with growing up in a suburb.

"Yeah, you both freshmen as well?" Roxie greeted the more polite out of the three of us.

The hippie nodded and stuck out her hand to shake, "I'm Layla, and this is Will."

Roxie smiled and shook Layla's hand, "I'm Roxie, and this is my girlfriend Arachnid and our friend Luna."

Will looked a little confused, "Why are you called Arachnid?"

"I prefer it over my real name. Call me my real name and you'll regret." Arachnid glared at Will, and I could almost see him running away out of fear. I suppose our choice of outfits with ripped jeans and well worn band shirts could be seen a bit unnerving.

The bus came by a few seconds later. Arachnid and Roxie got on first, Roxie pulling Arachnid behind her with connected hands. Will and Layla beat me to the punch to get on next, causing a blocking when Will asked "Is this the bus to Sky High?"

I got hit on the back when the bus driver slammed the doors of the bus shut, "Do you want every villain in the neighborhood to know where we are?" he asked angrily. Will stammered trying to get an answer out but before he could the bus driver said, "What's your name freshman?"

"Um… Will Stronghold." Will answered unsurely.

The bus driver visibly gulped, "The son of The Commander and Jet Stream?" Will smiled and nodded. The bus driver got up and stood will in front of everyone on the bus, "Everyone, it's Will Stronghold! Son of The Commander and Jet Stream!" Everyone looked forward. The bus driver took Will's hand and shook it, "The name's Ron Wilson, Sky High bus driver. If there is anything I can do to make your journey more comfortable let me know."

"You can let me on the bus so I can sit down after you almost took my ass off with the doors." I shouted as he tried to get Will to sit in the seat behind him.

When Will and Layla were finally able to sit down, I made my way to the back, sitting on bench seat in the back. Roxie and I discussed the next song we should write when seatbelts came out and pressed us into the seats.

"The fuck is this?" Arachnid said as the rollercoaster bar came down on our laps.

"Oh this can't be any-" was all Roxie could say before she began to scream the word 'good' as we drove off a bridge and started to plummet into the sky.

Arachnid took Roxie's hand into her own and held it in almost a vice grip. Arachnid may look tough, but when it comes to Roxie she is the biggest softie. I gripped the handle bar to make sure that my electricity wouldn't short out the bus as the rubber of the bar kept the little shock bolts from traveling. When we started to fly upwards screams kept filling the bus. Soon we found ourselves landing on a floating piece of large land that held the infamous Sky High; the school the trains the Heroes of tomorrow.

We got off the bus quickly, Roxie taking the lead as she ran off the bus and out of the way of the other people on the bus and proceeded to throw up. Arachnid ran off after her and as soon as she was at Roxie's side she held back the red mane and rubbed her back. I was off as soon as everyone realized what had happened and I stood next to them. Roxie stood up straight and fixed her hair.

"I cannot believe that they actually named the school Sky High when it is literally in the sky up high." Roxie glared at the bus like it had offended her entire family, "The pun is unbearable, and can easily be figured out by a villain with any brains who wanted to attack it."

I threw my head back and began to laugh uncontrollably. My laugh switched between pronounced 'HAs' and a high pitched kettle laugh. Arachnid chuckled and shook her head, "If you get anymore theories about the school please keep them to yourself Jazzy. I think you have broken our dear Luna here."

"Yeah well," Roxie said as she got a tone in her voice to point out she was mad at me, "She can stay broken for all I care. Less air for her and more for us." Roxie began to follow the rest of the freshmen.

Arachnid grabbed my arm, "Come on Chuckles, time to follow fellow freshies." She pulled me behind her and, me still laughing had us join the group of freshmen heading to the gym.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by a fast fat kid as he ran around us and started to herd us up. A stretchy kid stretched down from the stairs up to the building and stood in front of us. The fatish kid came to a stop next to his stripped companion. "I'm Lash," Stripes said, and gesturing to the kid next to him, "And this is Speed. We're here to collect the fifteen dollar student fee." Lash stretched his hand out in front of this orange kid, who looked both afraid and appalled at the two of them.

"I don't remember reading about that in the student handbook." Orange said.

Lash got this crossed look on his face but before he could do anything I pushed my way to the front and glared at him, "Why don't you and Speedy Gonzales there go find some more interesting things to do, like figure out which one of you will succeed at nothing the rest of your life?"

Lash took a step forward and looked down at me from his lengthy height, "Oh, and are you going to stop us little miss Jesus of Suburbia?"

I locked eyes with him and glared, "If I have too I'll take you out, don't even test me Stretch."

What seemed like minutes that had probably only a few seconds passing in real time, the schools Queen Bee appeared and shooed off Stretch and the Oxymoron. I made my way back to Roxie and Arachnid, and soon we were headed to the gym.

One fight with the secretary about how Arachnid's name was Arachnid and not Anna-Beth later we were all fresh with nametags and slowly and unsurely shuffling our way into the gym. Principal Powers flew into the gym with all her comet like glory. She gave a speech that was pretty much the same as every high school welcome speech that was ever given and then zoomed off again. Turning around had us facing what appeared to be the gym teacher, if we were to go by the length of his shorts and the whistle around his neck. Roxie hopped from foot to foot nervously. Arachnid looked at Roxie with concern, but once Coach Boomer began talking about whinerbabies it all made sense. This was the Power Placement that we were talking about this morning. After we found out the nerd could turn into a golem, and this guy Zach 'glowed', Boomer called on one of us.

"You, Mohawk! Up here, now!"

Arachnid rolled her eyes and made her way up to the platform. Boomer eyed her up and down then asked, "Name?"

"Arachnid."

"That isn't a name that is a fricken spider. What's your name?"

"Arachnid."

"No it isn't! That isn't a real name!"

"It's on my name tag, isn't it?" Arachnid turned to faced Boomer, pointing at the nametag that was stuck to her leather jacket.

Boomer sighed and wrote that down on his clipboard, "Power?"

"Watch this." Arachnid smirked and unzipped her jacket. Underneath she revealed two pairs of crossed arms. Adjusting her now revealed six arms, she shrugged all six shoulders, and moved her neck from side to side, "Car." was all she needed to say as Boomer pressed the button and the car came falling down on top of her. With ease, she held the car up in the air. Boomer then pressed the button and the car was raised. Before Boomer could shout his answer, Arachnid spoke "Now use the spring thing and shoot me against the wall." Boomer shrugged and did as he was told. Arachnid flew through the air and went right into the wall. She stuck to the wall with her six hands and maneuvered her way around to face Boomer down on the platform. "Hey Boomer how was that?" She shouted down at him.

Coach Boomer sighed "Hero."

As Arachnid made her way down to the ground floor, he called a few more people up to the platform. By the time Arachnid had made her way down and was once again next to Roxie, it was Roxie's turn to make her way up to the platform.

"Alright Red. Let's see what you got. Name?"

"Roxie Heart." Roxie seemed somewhat petrified at the fact she was standing in front of everyone.

"Alright Heart show us your power." There was a small pause before Boomer sighed and turned his head toward Roxie, "Ms. Heart. Is there a problem?"

"Well," Roxie said hesitantly, "My power at full can level four square blocks. I don't want to harm the students."

"Well at least show us SOMETHING." On the 'something', Boomer used his power of speech to emphasize what he wanted, but Roxie held up a hand in defense, and turned the sound waves against him. Boomer flew off the platform and onto the gym floor. He looked up from where he was and shouted, "Hero!"

Once Roxie had finished with her placement, Boomer called on Layla. I had wondered what her power was, and was excited to see what she coud do. But she refused to show her powers as she didn't think it was right to sort us into hero or sidekick. Which was actually what I had planned to do, but seeing Boomer just put her in Sidekick had me rather try to at least get Hero if he was a thick headed as I had thought. The bell rang, and saved Will from showing his power to the group. But he was first after lunch, and like him I still had to show my power.