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James looked around the park as the sun was setting. Already he could see trick-or-treaters, kids in costume out on their jaunt for candy. They were looking for fun and sugar; for them the evening had limitless promise. Back at school, he was certain his friends were getting ready or already at the party. James sincerely would have like to be among them. But it was not to be. He was doing his best not to get antsy, knowing what was coming. He’d chosen his ground, planned as best he could. At least if he fell, he would be gone forever. Dead for good. While that would really suck and certainly wasn’t his plan, it would at least prevent his father from using him and keep James from fulfilling his ‘destiny’. He watched, just waiting and enjoying the moment as the sun set. As the last ray of sun disappeared, James stood up. Anytime now, they’d be coming. He walked over and passed through the gate to the cemetery. While the whole thing wasn’t holy ground, there were places inside that were. It would do. He took up his position and waited.

James waited for everyone to exit the bus, not saying anything until the entire group had gathered. He’d put the word out he was springing for a trip to the Ocean Heights Amusement Park for his seventeenth birthday, making sure people knew it was free for them to get in at the least. (He didn’t expect gifts, indeed had said to the few people who’d asked that there were to be none.) Since it was only a short drive from their school to the place, he had made sure a bus was provided in case some people needed it. He’d headed over in his own car earlier, making sure things were in order, and was now just waiting. He wasn’t sharing or talking about this until he was ready. Once everyone was gathered, he spoke up. “Ok, I’ve got your all-inclusive cards here. They included passes to the various paid rides so you’re good there too. As a happy birthday bonus, I’ve included a little gift. Each card doubles as a prepaid card you can use in there for various things. Toys, clothes, whatever. Even after you use it, it’ll still get you food and access to the rides. The numbers won’t be bad today, so waiting in lines should be pretty short as well. Basically, just have fun. Everything’s covered.†He quickly handed out the card for people, complete with clips and neckloops. “Alright, get in there.†He really did want everyone to have a good time. He had a few ulterior motives of course, but this was the main focus after all. He'd originally not planned to celebrate this at all but that didn't quite work out. He was part of this group now. With responsibilities to them. Least he do was make sure they had some fun. For as long as he could.

Date: August 5th, 2009 (Continued from Daikaiju Days, Morning in America, and Team Science!) When all was said and done, the return to Earth-Prime took the space of only an hour or two. First came the triumphant return of the Young Freedom stranded in Japan, and the happy reunion of the two teams. Then came the quick trip back to the Resistance base with their stolen hardware, leaving behind the smashed Nazi base that never did explode behind them. Everyone had a chance to see the grim horror that was Erde and understand the magnitude of the struggle the Resistance was facing there. Agent H chose to return with her friends from Young Freedom back to Earth Prime, leaving behind her world with a tearful farewell and a sharp, precise salute to the Resistance and the fallen heroes there. Lilith was delighted to hear of the twin victories on both Kaiju Island and over the robot fortress near Freedom City, and left all the teen heroes with a salute of her own and a job well-done. They'd done a lot of good that day, even if they could tell how much help these people might need in the future. And with that, they were gone in a flash, reappearing on the teleport pad recently retrofitted by Dr. Archeville and his two trusty assistants. It had been a very good day to be a hero...even if they were going to have quite a story to tell Mr. Summers.

Halloween Night Erin looked out the window of her dorm room as the sky outside grew steadily darker, casting the lights of the city into sharp relief. From this side of the building, she wasn't going to see any Trick-or-Treaters, since her room faced the campus, but she could see the occasional student dressed in a costume and hurrying towards the main building for the party. She'd wondered if anyone would go in their practice uniform or hero costume, just to be a smartass, but so far she hadn't seen anyone sporting the blue and gold. It was going to be a cold night tonight, from the weather reports. Anyone going out for candy had better be dressed warmly. Turning away from the window, she went over to her bunk and sat down, picking up her bag of candy. She'd conscientiously poured half the mini candy bars into her emergency stash under the bed, but that left quite a bit of chocolate to be eaten. If she could get sick at all, she could get herself halfway there on candy without knocking on a single door, she reflected as she unwrapped and ate a Mr. Goodbar. But it was boring to do it that way. She was, in fact, entirely bored, and perilously close to getting lonely and feeling sorry for herself. If she let that happen, it would be hard to stop feeling that way. If it were any other night, she'd go and take the Chevette for another spin. That had been more than entertaining. Thinking about the car made her think about James, and his personal business. Why had he given her the keys, anyway? Was it just to cheer her up? She wouldn't put that past him, he was pretty sneaky. Or could he have been really worried about whatever business he was going on tonight? Whatever it was, he should be back by now, surely. Or maybe he hadn't left yet, if it was family business. Either way, it might be a good idea to talk to him again, and it would get her out of her room. Pocketing the car keys and rolling the bag of candy to take with her, Erin headed downstairs to James' room, keeping an eye out for nosy RAs. Surely they'd all be at the party by now.

"You ready?" Erin stood in the doorway of the dorm room she shared with Alex, doing a few light stretching exercises while she waited for her roommate. She was already dressed in her workout uniform, hair held back by the blue and gold headband, and wearing her rapidly-wearing-down tennis shoes. Training in the Doom Room was certainly no new thing for her, but today was a little different. She had trouble thinking of Alex as a combatant at all, despite her impressive mental powers. Things in the combat simulator could get very rough. Erin couldn't help feeling just a little bit worried.

Late at night in the girls lavatory, there was no one to hear as Alex blew her nose on the toilet paper and let out a sad little hiccup. With her pink backpack hanging on the inside of the door and her sneakers drawn up under her ontop of the toilet, it would be nearly impossible to tell she was even in there. Except of course for the occasional sniffle. As if the results might have changed since the last time she'd poured over them, Alex smoothed out the crumpled papers and ran her fingers over it again. She hadn't made a mistake. For the thousandth time, she hadn't. Mike was still sleeping soundly. She'd locked down her sheilds so tight that nothing would leak and Alex was glad for that small mercy. Otherwise he'd have been up here fretting and then she'd have told him and she could hardly do that. Really, there was only one person to reach out for at midnight on a school night. Her mental voice drifted out forlornly to her best friend. 'Erin? I need help. I don't know what I'm going to do!'

James was sitting around the table, phone in hand. "Yeah, yeah. Leave it on as a rider. Once I know we'll stick it on the list for the duration. I'll get your the numbers and id's as well when I find out. Standard coverage of course. It'll likely get donated so maybe a tax write-off or something? Find out for me. Later." He hung up the phone, putting it away. He grabbed his drink, taking a sip. He wasn't sure exactly what the plan was but at least he had covered his bases.

As this was the first birthday that Alex had more than one friend as well as being the last real teen-birthday, she'd been given a stack of invitations to hand out to 'all her new friends'. So, over the course of the week, she had dutifully passed the invitations on to the classmates she thought might be interested which was mostly the members of Young Freedom. Without real variation, each invitation had been handed out with, "If you're busy or anything, its really no big deal. We're probably just going to watch movies and stuff like that, I think. It's really low key." Then she'd spent the week arguing with her mom, ("No clowns, please!" "My baby's all grown up!" "Mom!") But each invitation invited the teens to a nice house in Hanover with a big yard and a pool for a summer sweet-sixteen party for their resident psychic.

The sky overhead was a gorgeous shade of impossibly clear blue, the sandy beach beneath their feet a gorgeous, luscious white that spoke of unspoiled beauty and splendor. From the incredibly lush tropical jungle behind them, the sound of tens of thousands of animals came in a symphony of natural wonders. Behind the trees, volcanic peaks rose high into the sky like hands of the Earth reaching up to touch the heavens themselves. It would all have been really wonderful if they'd arrived under other circumstances. "Oh God! Oh God!" Hope had gone for her pistol the second the beam of light had come crashing down from the ceiling, carrying them all away to this bizarre new place. Looking around, the Young Freedom members on the beach could see Agent H, Psyche, Breakdown, and Hellion, but there was no sign of any other members of their team. They'd taken with them only what they'd had in their hands or been carrying; the table and chairs they'd been sitting in having been left far behind. An exceedingly large crab scuttled by them, evidently attracted by the noise, a coconut in its weighty claws.

The morning after her date with Mike, Erin was up early, as usual. It was a weekend, so there was no class, and this was an off-weekend for group training, so it was practically a free day. She went out and exercised for a few hours, then came back to the room and did her homework. After that... she was bored. That was a weird sensation, given how busy she'd been all summer. She didn't like it. And though she could always go and do more training, or study ahead in one of her classes, that sounded even more dull. She was sitting on her bunk with her legs crossed, trying to decide what to do with herself for the rest of the day when Alex came in. "I'm bored," she told Alex, sounding a bit disbelieving about it. "What are you doing today?"

It was nighttime before Erin and Alex caught up with each other again, back in their room after evening training and homework sessions. Erin should still have been doing her homework but she was playing with her new toy instead, practicing collapsing and expanding her bat to its full impressive length. That wasn't new, she'd been doing that for a couple of days now, perhaps because it was the only toy she owned, or she just liked fidgets with violent applications. Right now, though, she was distracted by the conversations she'd had earlier. The Zoe thing was first on her mind, obviously, but she couldn't talk about that. Trying to imagine herself still alive in thirty years was really weird. Up to this point, she'd been planning month to month, maybe into next year if pushed, but not much beyond that. What would she do for all that time? To avoid that, she asked the other question that had nagged just a little lately. "Hey Alex, do you think Mike was acting a little weird this morning?"

It was, of course, Alex's turn to pick the location, which was how the kids ended up in the library in the first place. When one's cute boyfriend shows up on a Saturday and says, "So, where did you want to spend today?" and follows that up with a far too handsome grin, very few girls at Claremont would have promptly responded with "The library!" Alex really wasn't quite like any other girl, so not only did she want to go to the library, she had no ulterior motive of necking among the stacks. No, of course she wanted to trade in a truely large stack of books for a different and equally large stack of books. They were halfway down the stairs when Mike's somewhat desparate mental plea had come through. He'd come up with some reason - as yet unfathomable the motivation behind it - that he was bound and determined to ask Erin out. "On, like, a thing. A going out thing. With, you know, us." Alex's best guess was it had come out of some conversation that was probably all mangled with the other boys. But, being a dutiful friend, she'd agreed and then corralled Erin to help with books. Which is how they found themselves standing in front of the courthouse one sunny morning, in the very first place.

August 3 The room was half-dark when Alex stepped in, with the fluorescent overheads off and the desk lamp pointed towards Erin's bunk. Often at this hour, Erin was out and about, but tonight was a little bit different. Erin didn't precisely feel responsible for Alex, but she did want to make sure that everything had gone all right. She'd advocated going on the date, and if Mark had screwed it up and hurt Alex's feelings or worse, he would have to answer for that. Erin was a firm believer that determination and the cause of justice was more than a match for luck any day. Besides, whatever their personal differences at the moment, she knew Mike would help her on this one. One look at Alex's face as she came in, though, and Erin suspected that Mark probably wasn't going to need a beatdown today. "So, how'd it go?" she asked, smiling a little bit herself. "Did you have a good time?"

Alex's side of the room for once was a mess as she had pulled out all of her clothes and set them out to look at them. Actually, it looked something like a scene out of a fairy tale as she was perched on the edges of her desk and her telekinetic powers flew clothes back and forth in different combinations as she tried to figure out what exactly she was going to wear for her date with Mark. Alex wasn't a clothes-horse by any stretch of the imagination but her parents had always provided more than any child needed at birthdays and holidays. For all of her choices, Alex didn't have a clue what she was going to wear. "No, no, no..." She gestured and the most recent possibility landed gently back in her bed in a rather neat pile of discards and she lifted up a few more shirts and bottoms.

"...So, you can see how you might be able to help Erin. I mean, it won't do any good if you hold back and if she hurts you, she'll feel just awful. But no one's better at control than you," Alex reasoned out earnestly up at Mike, whom she had dragged down to the gym for sparring. She was clutching his gym bag and held it out with a pleading expression, "Please, you can teach her how to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone." As emotional blackmail went, it was pretty darn impressive if mitigated by the fact that Alex wasn't hiding the manipulation at all. She clearly wasn't going to let it go until Mike yielded on the matter.

Alex burst into her dorm room, an entirely new load of books clutched in her arms along with what looked like a dvd case or two. As a girl who'd just had her sixteenth birthday, there was one very important class to add to her list. Namely, Driver's Ed. And being the thoughtful friend she was, she'd signed Erin up as well. With a beaming smile she walked over to Erin and dropped the stack of books. "I signed us up for a new class!" The top book, 'Driving, the Law, and You' had a serious looking young man and a frantic parent inside a car on the cover. "Driver's Ed!"

Summer time was a relatively lazy time at Claremont, with a healthy mix of classes and extra-curricular activities for its unique student body. Today was no exception. For those students interested, the school was providing complementary tickets to a Freedom City Comets game at the Liberty Dome. Even a few students that were living at home for the summer were showing up for today's outing so the entrance to the school was busier than usual as students found their respective shuttles to the game. As the tickets were donations, there were broken up blocks of seats all over the stadium and kids were busy switching tickets with others so that they were sitting near their friends. This of course led to quite a bit of a headache for the few teachers trying to get everyone sorted out. Alex was out in the middle of the activity, blinking at the confusion and trying to search out her friends amongst the chaos.

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon when Mike came back just in time to see his new roommate on the phone. With the exception of his interest in Alex, Mark was certainly a model roommate by most standards. He'd filled his desktop bookshelf with books that on closer inspection turned out to be the assigned and suggested reading for the summer history classes as well as various other books on the history of Freedom City's superheroes, and usually left his top-of-the-line laptop sitting on his desk when he wasn't out doing things. His half of the walls had a couple of posters up, a retro B&W shot of the old Liberty League and a more recent Alex Ross painting of the League active in the late 1960s. As Mike came in, Mark was sitting in his desk chair, flipping a silver dollar over and over again as he listened intently to whoever he was talking to on his cell. "Yes! Yes, I am here!" Just as he started speaking, a white-toothed grin on his handsome face, the coin he'd been flipping landed perfectly on its edge dead center of his desk. "Yes! All right, I'll print the tickets off pronto. And I love The Entity for all my alternative rock! Woo!" Grinning, he hung up the phone and jumped up, grabbing the coin off his desk and slipping it into his pocket. "Hey Mike, guess what?" He grinned at his roommate, who he'd started treating as his best buddy the minute he walked in. "I was caller number eleven at WNTT, and so I got six free tickets to the Madman Finale concert tonight at FCU! You want to go rock out with the college kids? It'll be great!"

It was Breakdown's second day in the city. He had spent the entire first day helping his parents move stuff into their new home. (They sure were glad he could teleport now that he had powers! Otherwise they would have had to hire a mover. And wouldn't you know it, they would not let him hear the end of it!) Eddie loved his parents, but sometimes he couldn't stand them either. By the end of the day, he had to get out of the house. He had left after dinner (take out) and walked to Claremont (where he would be going to school in the fall). No one had been around, but he had assumed that it was simply because it had been getting late. He had left soon after sunset and gone back home. He had decided he would try again today. He just hoped he would run into somebody...

Even in summertime, the Claremont Academy kept its students pretty busy, so it was the rare afternoon when Erin and Alex ended up in their dorm room together before bedtime. This was one of those days, though, when someone’s mucked-up powers training meant the gym and the library were both closed for a few hours for repairs. As Alex came into the room with her ever-present bag of books, she found Erin cross-legged on the floor near the bed, idly winding up her music box and watching the plastic Disney Princess spin in place to the tinkling music. Erin nodded to her in greeting, but seemed lost in thought. Alex set down her bag and opened her mouth to say something, when suddenly a weird urge seemed to possess her. Instead of the greeting she’d intended, instead a song began pouring from her mouth. (To the tune of Love Story, by Taylor Swift) “We were both young when I first saw you Crackers and alphabet blocks I'm standing there In a circle of platic chairs See the light See the party, the people I see you make your way from the crowd Please don't go, don't you know That you're my Romeo, you were throwing pebbles But you can't see I'm your Juliette And I was crying on your jacket Begging you please don't go, and I said Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess It's a love story, baby, just say yes So I help with homework, just to see you I keep quiet 'cause I'd die if you knew I close my eyes And I dream for a little while†Erin stared at Alex while she was singing, startled for a minute at the outburst of song. Somehow this sounded a little more personal than just a song from the radio. Then the music from her music box seemed to get louder, more insistent, and in a moment she was singing along with the dreamy, romantic tune. She never sang in public, and she wasn’t a great singer, but that wasn’t stopping her right now. (To the tune of So This is Love, from Disney’s Cinderella) “And here I am So far away Inside a world that never can be mine Sometimes I feel It isn't real But everyone around me thinks it's fine Easy for them, They'll never know Sometimes I hate them so Don't understand that life is just a sham And here I am…†As Erin started singing, the adagio of her song threaded through the upbeat allegro of Alex’s, creating a weird sort of duet. Their eyes met as both of them realized the complete oddity of the situation, but neither could stop. Something more powerful than either of them was directing this concert. Alex leaned against the edge of the desk and just kept singing. “You're my Romeo; I'm just your best friend You still can't see I'm your Juliette But you are everything to me I was begging you please don't go and I said Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone I'll be waiting all there's left to do is run You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess It's a love story, baby, just say yes Romeo, save me, I can't help how I feel Its so painful, I know its real Without you, I can't make it out of this mess Its a love story, baby, just say yes Oh, oh I get tired of waiting, Wondering if you are ever coming 'round My faith in you is fading I've got to find the courage to stand and say, Romeo, save me, I've been feeling so alone I keep waiting for you but you never know Is this in my head? I don't know what to do I don't think I'm more than a friend to you Don't worry, I'll be with you You'll never have to be alone I love you and that's all I really know I'll always give your friendship my best Its a love story, baby, just say yes†Erin slammed the music box shut when it reached the end of another repetition of its song, as though that might stop the urge to sing along. Instead, it just meant she was singing a capella for the next verse. “I wish I knew What’s coming next And if I’ll ever find myself a home Will someone care If I’m not there Or is this just a struggle on my own? No one to ask, No way to know Sometimes I hate them so Don’t think I can get with their program And here I am…†Abruptly, the impulse to sing trailed off, as though someone had shut a faucet. The room went completely quiet, leaving the two girls staring at each other.

With her placement test finished, if not the way she would have liked, and her body and mind exhausted, coming back to the dorm was a welcome relief for Erin. The test had taken longer than she thought, into the dinner hour, and Alex was nowhere to be seen. Erin figured she'd probably gone off to eat, but the idea of heading out to the cafeteria was overwhelming. She crawled under the bed and pulled out the box of pilfered granola bars and fruit cups she'd been collecting. It was supposed to be for an emergency, but she would replenish it later. Erin ate two granola bars, then crawled into her bunk and pulled the covers over her head. Despite her exhaustion, sleep was a long time in coming, but eventually her busy mind shut down and she fell deeply asleep.

Bayview was a lovely neighborhood in the summertime, and the gorgeous rolling hills that sited the Claremont Academy was situated right in one of the most beautiful parts of the region. As the van carrying the three teenage superhumans headed up the drive to campus, the rolling hills they drove over on the way gave them occasional glimpses of the beautiful 19th century style campus. The big double gates were set in a big portico-style gate tower overrun by ivy made tired by the summer's heat, and the arriving students could just make out the burnished plaque that bore the school's name and motto on the outside wall. “The Claremont Academy for the Gifted, Scientia Potentia Est." Waiting for them at the security booth just inside the front gate was a a friendly-faced woman of middle age, wearing a sensible linen suit and a smile. "Hey folks!" she said after knocking on the window to get it rolled down. "I'm Mrs. Stephanie Harcourt, head science teacher around here. There's a snap faculty meeting been called, and what with the summer session and such that leaves just me and my science project to show you around the place for right now. Go on up and park in family parking," she said, pointing into the big lot that the gate opened up to. "I'll meet you up there..." As the van moved to pull up, she looked around and called in a teacher voice, "Hey, Mr. Koyama! What did I say about showing off?"

It had already been a very long day for Erin by the time she got off the plane, and the most difficult part hadn't even started yet. She'd taken the redeye out of Seattle at 8pm, standing with bleary-eyed commuters and vacationers still smelling of Memorial Day barbecue smoke as they all shuffled together through security. She supposed that it was a mark of Dr. Franklin's confidence in her that he'd let her travel coach this time, a sign of his faith that she could be squashed in with other people for seven hours of flight without losing her composure. And she'd done all right for herself, hadn't she? She'd read her magazines, looked out the window at the acres of lights below, eaten the wasabi peas she'd brought along, much to the disgust of her seatmate. The late-night plane was less crowded, at least, and most of the people spent most of their time sleeping. It would've been nice to have a discman or an iPod or something to distract her, but she wasn't going to cry about it. She'd be too busy for distractions soon, anyway. She picked up a midnight snack during the stopover in Cincinnati, some horrible thing that was masquerading as chili, but she ate it anyway, too pragmatic to waste food. By the time she'd crossed three time zones and touched down at eight in the morning in Freedom City, she wasn't exactly sure how long she'd been traveling. But she was very glad to be back on the ground. She ignored the announcements about baggage claim as they touched down, since everything she owned was in the duffle bag at her feet. She was traveling light, but at least she wasn't going to lose her luggage. With her bag slung over her shoulder, Erin made her way down the ramp to the terminal with everyone else, pausing as she disembarked. What was she supposed to be looking for now? She herself looked just like any number of high school or college travelers, her short hair rumpled from the trip, blue blouse and khakis a bit wrinkled, her face a little confused. Nothing about her suggested anything out of the ordinary, so how was anyone supposed to find her? She wished she'd double-checked all this ahead of time, but it was too late now. Nervously she looked around, automatically inventorying who was nearby, who was in reach and could hurt her, and what threats might be coming from every direction. With a frown, she shook it all off. This was an airport, and everything was fine. She just needed to find her ride.