Reeves finally moved.
She stood up from the desk and walked toward the center of the room.
"Interesting perspectives. Both of you."
She looked at Nolan.
"You believe in moral absolutes. In doing the right thing regardless of outco."
Then at .
"And you believe in pragmatism. In results over intention."
I shrugged.
"I believe in not dying."
A few students laughed again.
Reeves smiled.
"Fair enough. Does anyone else have a different opinion?"
A girl at the far table raised her hand. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Small fra.
"I think both of you are right. And both of you are wrong."
Reeves gestured for her to continue.
"Being a hero is about doing what you can with what you have. Sotis that ans winning. Sotis it ans surviving long enough for soone else to win. But it always ans trying."
Nolan nodded.
"Exactly."
I kept my mouth shut.
She’s not wrong.
But she’s also never been in a fight where trying wasn’t enough.
Reeves walked back to her desk.
"This is the kind of debate we’ll be having all sester. What it ans to be a hero. What the job actually requires. And how to reconcile what you believe with what the world demands from you."
She picked up a tablet from her desk.
"For now, Mr. D’Angelo, please take the open seat at table three."
I walked over.
Nolan smiled as I approached, his expression open and without a trace of the earlier tension. The argunt was already ancient history to him.
"Hey. Ro, right?"
"Yeah."
"Nolan Traore. This is Aurora Fitzgerald."
Aurora gave a small wave.
Her cheeks were still slightly pink.
The purple-haired girl didn’t introduce herself. Just looked at with narrowed eyes.
I sat down.
"You got a na?"
She hesitated.
"You should know my na already, idiot."
"Should I?"
The purple-haired girl leaned forward, a retort on her lips, but a sharp tap from Reeves’s tablet on the podium cut her off.
"Enough introductions. Today we’re examining the Two-Star incident at Eastport last month."
Last month? I had no idea what she was talking about. The novel I’d skimd had major arcs about the Sports Festival and so big third-act battle, but nothing about Eastport.
Reeves brought up footage on the projector screen. Grainy security cara video showed a shipping container area with smoke rising from multiple points.
"The Syndicate Five," she said. "A villain group that hit the Eastport cargo terminal four weeks ago. They’d been tracked by the FBH for months but managed to stay just under the threshold for hero dispatch until this particular operation."
The footage changed to show five figures moving through the smoke. One massive guy with rock-like skin. A woman shooting what looked like purple electricity. A guy who kept vanishing and reappearing. A fourth who seed to be controlling water from the harbor. And a leader in a red mask.
"Fortunately, Sentinel Shield Agency was able to respond within minutes," Reeves continued. "Latitude and his sidekicks were already patrolling nearby."
The next clip showed a hero in blue and white, flying above the scene. A distinctive star-shaped emblem on his chest.
"Three-star hero Latitude," Reeves explained. "Known for gravity manipulation that allows him to fly and create localized gravity wells."
I vaguely rembered him from top hero lists. Not top twenty, but definitely respected.
"What should have been a textbook containnt operation turned into a disaster," Reeves said, voice hardening. "Resulting in three sidekicks hospitalized with serious injuries and over twelve million in property damage."
The footage showed shipping containers being hurled through the air. The water villain created a wave that knocked down one of the sidekicks. The teleporter appeared behind another, knife in hand.
"Can anyone tell what went wrong here?" Reeves asked.
The room was silent.
I spoke without thinking. "They underestimated the threat."
Reeves nodded. "Elaborate."
"Sentinel Shield sent one full hero and three sidekicks against five unknown villains. That’s overconfidence. They assud Two-Star ant predictable. It didn’t."
The purple-haired girl beside snorted. "So Mr. Results has opinions on proper tactics now?"
"I have opinions on not dying," I replied without looking at her.
"Mr. D’Angelo is correct," Reeves said. "Latitude assud that because the Syndicate Five were rated as Two-Star threats individually, they wouldn’t pose a significant challenge as a group."
She changed the footage to a clip of Latitude barely dodging a shipping container.
"What he failed to account for was their coordination. The teleporter, Blink, would position the victims. The electrokinetic, Surge, would stun them. The rock-man, Bedrock, would deliver the impact, while Tidecaller kept the battlefield chaotic with water manipulation."
Reeves paused the video on an image of the masked leader.
"And Red Mask coordinated it all through a previously unknown ability to amplify the powers of anyone near him."
Nolan raised his hand. "But Latitude still won, right? The report said all five were captured."
"At what cost?" Reeves asked. "Three sidekicks in the hospital. Two civilians injured by debris. Twelve million in damages. And the only reason Latitude wasn’t killed is because Photon arrived as backup after the first ten minutes."
She turned off the projector.
"Now, I want you to break into your groups and analyze what you would have done differently with your groups powerset."
She tapped the tablet.
"I’m sending the incident report to your school emails now. You have an hour to discuss. Then we’ll present findings as a class."
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