Hob got up just in time to not be late and got moving. Public transport was as annoying as it was dreary, but he was too tired to care. His enhanced abilities - lessened in his human form, but still enhanced - meant that he needed less sleep and could deal with the side effects better, but he and Construct had been busier than usual. Although a mission was just one night, all the preparation and the recon and the deliberating took significantly longer. He didn’t get many full nights of sleep and they were starting to take their toll.

  East Carroway Super Sixth Form were closing their gates as Hob - now Marcus - arrived. He blundered past the school caretaker who tapped on his watch with a raised eyebrow. Marcus was glad he wasn’t late again. East Carroway Super took a serious approach to punctuality; if you couldn’t make it in time for school, how would you make it in time for a call out?

  Marcus thought this was a little silly. The scenarios were obviously different, although he understood the point they were making. But if you were a Super nowadays then you were on call and it was frowned upon to work longer than your regulations allowed. The days of Supers being expected to drop everything whenever a crime happened anywhere in the city were long gone. So it didn’t quite equate to him getting up late for school because he’d been sleeping poorly.

  More likely, they just didn’t want any of their students to be late and had made a good reason to back that up.

  Marcus got into his form room after everyone else, his usual routine, but froze as he walked through the doorway. Alabaster skin and flowing yellow hair stopped him in his tracks. Eleanor was sitting there at the front, as she always did. Of course she was. In his tiredness and his frustration with his schooling, he’d almost forgotten about the events of last night - and that he’d be seeing the perpetrators of those events today.

  “Mr. Cove, you’ve had plenty of time to stare at girls outside of school. Now is the time for learning,” joked Mr. Holloway as the class laughed. Eleanor scowled. “Please take your seat.”

  “Sorry sir.” Marcus mumbled as he broke his eye contact with Eleanor and shook his head, moving to the back of the class and taking his regular seat in the corner. Eleanor looked fine. What had he expected? Her to be all battered and bruised? But there she sat as if nothing at all had happened last night. Like she wasn’t out playing vigilante.

  “Thought you were gonna be late again,” hissed Charlie, the boy beside him. “Glad you weren’t. I bet Danny a homework that you wouldn’t be.”

  Marcus chuckled. He wouldn’t exactly call the two boys he sat with in form room friends but he liked them well enough. The truth was that he didn’t really have many friends in the school. All of his close friends had been in secondary school and they’d all gone to different sixth forms to him - most for regular people. The person he’d known for the longest was probably Cassie, followed by Eleanor. He and Cassie had fallen out a long time ago, and he’d probably said less than a hundred words to Eleanor in the nearly five years since he’d known her, much to his younger self’s torment. And now he’d made a scene staring at her first thing in the morning in front of everyone, which probably didn’t improve her opinion of him.

  He held back the urge to sigh. Lack of friends was a problem lots of Extrahuman students had, actually. Mostly they were burning themselves at both ends to meet their extracurricular requirements for a good university or mentorship program. So they made friendships within those extracurriculars. Marcus was busy as Hobgoblin most of his nights. Without a doubt, Construct was his closest friend.

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  So school was a slog. He wasn’t exactly close with anyone, but he had people he hung around with in classes. He liked them, but he knew he’d never be as close to them as he could be.

  “Alright!” announced Mr. Holloway. “We’re having an assembly today, so everyone line up.”

  That woke Marcus up a little. Assemblies weren’t normal in a sixth form. Super sixth forms functioned more like a regular school with stricter rules and punishments and formalities due to the fact that Extrahumans had a tighter leash around them, particularly the ones that were being trained by the state. Marcus was going through his second year of super sixth form and had recently turned eighteen. Lining up to go to an assembly felt grating.

  They all filed into a small hall. This building had been a pop-up hospital during the Great Chaos, assembled by teams of Extrahumans with construction based powers like super strength. It was a nice little area to remind them of what the world had been like before Cape and the Super League took control. Lots of people had lay dying here from the depravations of the many bursts of irrational violence in the period following the emergence of Extrahumans.

  It started off as a fairly standard assembly, congratulating certain people and giving updates for the school that Marcus phased out through. But when the headteacher, Mrs. Collins began talking about Extrahuman politics even he sat up straight to listen.

  “The Super League has announced today that due to the ongoing chaos currently gripping our cities, all Extrahumans using their powers without official sanction will find themselves branded as vigilantes and charged as such. Given that none of you have been recognised by the Super League as of yet, any use of your powers outside of school will be considered criminal action.”

  There was an uproar of muttering and outrage at that.

  “Settle down!” yelled Mrs. Collins, her enhanced voice passing through the room like a shockwave. She waited a second before continuing so that the students' ears had a chance to recover. “This is, in my opinion, undoubtedly due to the current actions that Spaceman is taking that the League does not approve of. While I understand this may seem frustrating to you, I am sure that it will all be over in a few months once the problem has been dealt with. Nevertheless, if you would like to make the most out of your powers, there are several after-school clubs that would be more than happy to take you in which would benefit your university applications immensely.”

  She waited for a minute for the news to sink in but there was no ruckus like last time.

  “And I hope I don’t need to remind any East Carroway students this, but we take vigilantism very seriously and will be working hand-in-hand with the Super League. If you or anyone you know starts becoming radicalised towards vigilantism it is imperative that you let us know immediately. Withholding such information may be held against you at a later date if you refuse to supply it.”

  The silence after that statement was deafening. Just what were the Super League thinking? Asking people to rat on their friends? They were seriously ramping up their restrictions. Marcus observed the crowd before him. He could see Cassie and Eleanor making quick eyes at each other. Not smart, not smart at all. Luckily the news did not go over well with the crowd. Cassie and Eleanor weren’t the only ones looking shocked or displeased. Not by a long shot.

  Marcus looked around a little more. He spotted Nameera and Frankie sitting together, Nameera gripping Frankie’s forearm. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and his metallic rainbow coloured skin was turning white under her grip. He looked fine though, despite the brutality Marcus as Hob had put him through last night. Marcus knew Frankie would pull back like a champ. If ever there was a man who could take a beating…

  With the assembly over the Extrahuman students left the hall row by row. While the topic may not have been open for discussion with the headteacher, it was all the students could talk about despite the warnings from any teacher within earshot.

  That’s why it was a surprise when in Marcus’ first class, history, the teacher did want to talk about it.