When the sudden glare had finally died down, Alec looked around, blinking furiously as his eyes adjusted to the abrupt dimness. He was now standing in what appeared to be a grassy, deserted countrylane, bordered on the right by a stretch of redwoods, on the left by a high, wooden fence that trailed past them and out of sight. Before him lay Dusty and Wildfire, still prone on the dirt-lined floor. Dusty rose slowly, his light blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on Alec, his mouth agape; but Alec was staring at Wildfire, who was once again trying to push himself to his feet, though clearly still struggling under the influence of Ryu’s venom.

His arms began to wobble and he crashed to the ground once more, retching and sputtering. Alec looked down and saw scarlet spatters peppering the ground, glittering unpleasantly in the silvery-white light.

Ignoring Dusty, who was still gawking at him, he rushed over to the hero's side. “Are you okay?” he said.

“My — pocket!” Wildfire choked, blood streaming from the corner of his mouth. “In — my pocket — device —”

Alec obliged at once, plunging his hand into the folds of the superhero’s suit as instructed, and a small, solid, rectangular object that felt rather like a cell phone presented itself to his touch. His fingers clasped around it and he withdrew his arm, holding the object up to the bright moonlight illuminating the countrylane. It was not a phone, as he had initially thought, but a black smart-device with a single large H adorning the screen. Wildfire slowly raised his left hand and tapped the H, which lit up at once with a bright, golden glow.

“Headquarters, this is Patron 100-3A,” he rasped. “I'm somewhere in the vicinity of Deleroy Lane, I have two civilian kids with me, and the villain Shadow Shifter is lying unconscious in downtown Vulhaney Street, near the site of an accident. I've been hit with a kind of degrading toxin — require assistance, immediately!”

There was a moment's silence, and for one heart-stopping second, Alec thought that there was no one listening on the other end. Then —

“Roger that, Patron. Additional units being dispatched to both locations as we speak,” a cool male voice issued from the device. Wildfire’s finger slid from the screen and the H fell dull as the hero collapsed again.

“Can't you do something about this?” Alec said desperately. He hated the sight of the hero, powerless and broken on the ground. “What about your heat powers? Can't you use them on yourself to purge the poison?”

But Wildfire shook his head. “No! That would leave me — vulnerable. I — I have to stay awake — in case something else happens —”

“We're in the middle of nowhere,” Dusty said firmly, advancing on the pair, “Shadow Shifter’s lying unconscious somewhere, and the only people who know where we are are your allies, who are on their way towards us right now to help. We'll be fine, but you need to take care of yourself. You'll die if you don't.”

The superhero stared at Dusty, then glanced up at Alec, as though seeking his approval, and Alec nodded. Wildfire closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. A moment later, his entire body began to glow with a deep orange light. Heat rose from his bulky form in waves, rolling over the two youths, and Alec and Dusty actually had to take several steps back from him. Then he fell still, no longer convulsing, but apparently unconscious now.

Alec sighed in relief, but before he could do anything further, Dusty seized his arm for the second time that night and wheeled him around to face him, looking both nervous and eager.

“You never told me you could do that!” he said hoarsely. Alec knew exactly what he was referring to, and he had clearly been bursting to say this since the moment they had landed here.

“I didn't even know I could do that!” Alec protested.

“You're a superhero!”

“What? No, of course I'm not!”

“Then explain how you just did that!”

“Well . . . I . . . I just — I don't know!” Alec said. “He was going to attack you and, I don't know, I didn't want him to hurt you and then next second — poof! That happened — whatever that was.”

Dusty released him at last, though he continued to gaze intently at Alec for a moment. Then his face cracked into a wide grin. “Oh, this is gonna be great! I can't believe it — you have powers! Think of all the stuff we could do —”

“Woah, woah, time out!” Alec said hastily. “If I really do have powers, if that was really me and not some freakish earthquake that just happened to have hit at that moment, then I'm not going to do anything with them. You saw how dangerous these abilities are. I could kill someone!”

“Not if you learn how to control them,” Dusty said earnestly.

Alec rolled his eyes; some of the shock that had been weighing on him since Shadow Shifter had appeared before them had leavened his expression, replaced by his earlier exasperation. “Yeah, and who's going to teach me? As far as I know, there isn't a Hogwarts for heroes.”

But Dusty, to Alec’s slight surprise, did not look disappointed. On the contrary, he appeared suddenly uncomfortable.

Alec eyed him suspiciously. “What?”

“Well, it's just that . . . you have powers.”

“Yeah, maybe. So?”

“So, you had to have gotten them from somewhere, don't you think?” Dusty said pointedly. Alec stared at him, bemused, and then he understood what Dusty was trying to say.

“Wait, you think my parents —?”

But his words were drowned by a sudden loud, whooshing noise. He looked up, nonplussed, and a moment later gasped as a figure came soaring out of the darkness and landed before them, her long, white cape billowing behind her in the updraft. She was wearing a violet suit rather like the still-glowing Wildfire’s, but patterned differently, her hair was drawn back into a high, shining ponytail, and her large, vivid green eyes surveyed them from beneath a thin, magenta-coloured mask. Almost as soon as she straightened up, there was a faint sound like chalk snapping, and a tall, thin man wearing a blue costume lined with white trimming, donning an emblem of a large grasshopper on his chest, appeared beside the first woman.

Dusty let out a shrill noise of excitement at the arrival of the two heroes. The man looked around at Wildfire; they saw his expression tighten for a fleeting moment beneath his own mask. But then he turned again, his eyes settling beadily onto Alec and Dusty.

“So you're the civvis, eh?” he said, in a surprisingly deep voice. “The name's Jumper, this is Meta-Martian. The Hero League sent us here in response to Wildfire’s request. Don't worry, you're safe now.”

Behind his back, Meta-Martian seized hold of Wildfire, ignoring the heat radiating from his body, nodded to Jumper, and soared off.

“Now then,” Jumper said, turning back to them. “You mind telling me what exactly happened here?”

Alec and Dusty promptly launched into a quick explanation of everything they had seen minutes before, starting with the sudden appearance of Shadow Shifter, the emergence of Wildfire from the sewers, the poisoning of the hero, and (with some trepidation) how Alec had somehow caused the disruption that saved them and defeated Shadow Shifter, finishing with how Wildfire brought them to this place and activated his abilities in order to stave off the effects of the venom.

Jumper looked taken aback. He stared at them for a few seconds, an expression of complete shock on what was visible of his face. Then he shook his head and pulled out an object very like the one Wildfire had carried from his own pocket. He tapped the H on the screen and muttered, “Tell me you got all that?”

“I did,” said a woman's voice.

“Good. Just get him there quickly while I take care of these.”

“Understood.”

Jumper stowed the device back into his suit and turned back to Dusty and Alec. “Okay, boys, time to bring you back home.”

“Hold on!” Alec said quickly. “What's going to happen to Wildfire?”

“He’ll be fine,” Jumper said gently. “He isn't the first person to have ever been hit by Ryu’s venom, we have a cure back at Headquarters, all Meta-Martian has to do is deliver him there. No, the real problem is his pyrostasis. Using his powers for such a prolonged period, especially in his condition . . . it's bound to take a toll. But again, he's in the best hands!” he added hastily, seeing Dusty and Alec exchange grim looks. “They can handle him. Your priority should be heading home. Your parents must be extremely worried.”

Alec and Dusty exchanged yet another look. Then Alec sighed. “Okay, fine.”

They informed the hero of their respective addresses, then Jumper extended both his arms towards them and instructed them to grab hold. Each of them seized an arm, and with another sound like snapping chalk, they vanished, heading first for Alec’s house. A moment later, or so it felt to Alec, they appeared along the deserted, lamp-lit street winding through Alec’s neighborhood, Caledonia Crescent. It was the first time that he had ever teleported, and it left an odd tingling feeling running all through his body. He didn't much like it.

Alec wheeled around, spotted the door to his own home, and received quite a jolt to see that two people were standing there, gazing out at them. His parents.

For a second, Mrs. Michaels stared at them, evidently dumbstruck. Then she let out a loud shriek and came hurtling towards them, her feet halfway out of her slippers, her nightgown swishing in the wind. She flung her arms around Alec’s neck and let out a stream of babble in which Alec caught a few reprimands and some words of relief. Then she straightened up and looked at Jumper, her face tear-soaked and confused.

“But — I don't understand. What happened?”

“I think you know quite well what happened, ma'am,” Jumper said slowly. “Or at least, you can guess.”

Mrs. Michaels’ face was quite blank for a few seconds, then she turned and nodded towards the door, where Alec’s father was still standing, his face hidden in shadow. “Let's — let's go inside, shall we? And you — you can explain to us. No, no, it’s all right, he can come too,” she added swiftly, as Jumper turned to Dusty.

The procession swept off towards the door and Alec’s father, a kind-faced but weary-looking man, patted Alec’s back when he reached him and entered the house along with them. Mr. Michaels then ushered Jumper into the sitting room while Mrs. Michaels bustled around in the kitchen making hot chocolate for Alec and Dusty. She passed the mugs to them with a rather grim look on her face and strode into the sitting room with a tray of three more cups, her curtain of dark hair dancing around her head as she walked.

Dusty and Alec drank their chocolate in silence, trying very hard to listen to what was being said in the other room. Every now and then they caught snatches of sound, hushed, anguished voices, but the words were indistinguishable. Once or twice, Alec even thought he heard the soft, snapping noise he had heard when Jumper teleported earlier as well. After half an hour, however, they stopped trying to eavesdrop as Mr. Michaels appeared at the doorway to the kitchen and beckoned them wordlessly into the sitting room.

Mrs. Michaels and Jumper were standing to one side of the room, accompanied now by two others. A tall, bald, hulking figure of a man wearing dark shade glasses, standing beside a rather austere-looking woman in a pale blue pantsuit, wearing jewel-studded spectacles. Her reddish-blonde hair was caught up in a neat bun, and long, sapphire earrings fell over her shoulders.

She looked up at Alec’s entrance; she did not smile, but her jaw tightened at the sight of Dusty. Recovering her poise, she took a seat on the couch and gestured Alec to do the same opposite her.

“Good night, Mr. Michaels,” she said. “My name is Mrs. Lewis — Headmistress Lewis, that is.”

“Headmistress?” Alec looked around, bemused. “Of — of what, exactly?”

For the first time, the woman smiled. “Of Helix Academy of Superhuman Development. In other words, your new school, should you accept my proposal.”