By the time school finished on Friday, I was exhausted. I didn’t even bother to change back into my school uniform as I met Becky outside. Drum majors were leading the band in drills, so I was currently wearing a pair of dark blue exercise shorts, a black T-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes that had paint splotches all over them. Not exactly the most professional, but it could be worse.

Becky walked out of the school building, tying her long chocolate brown hair back into a low bun as she looked over at me as I messily tried to braid my hair. "Work out clothes?"

I shrugged. "Drum majors had to march today."

"What instrument do you even play?"

"A little alto sax, but I mainly do violin."

"Alto sax?"

"The tiny saxophone."

"You mean there’s more than one saxophone?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh."

"Okay, we ready to go?" Braylen asked, walking towards us, giving me a once over. "Aren’t you cold, Anna?"

"I’ve been colder." I said, shrugging. It wasn't a lie. I've had to march parades in nothing but a long sleeved shirt, leggings, band shirt, and basketball shorts with my band uniform over it all in the middle of winter after it had just snowed the previous night. This 60° weather was nothing. "Let’s just get going so we can meet Damian at the Treatorian Collective."

"Yeah." Becky agreed as the three of us walked over to her car and climbed in. I set my backpack in the backseat next to Braylen, grabbing my phone and sticking it into my pocket.

We all made random small talk about how weird the school week has been with the teachers practically refusing to teach us anything since after the original movie finished, they just found something else for us to watch. Damian was already waiting for us outside the building wearing a bright pink jacket, a pair of jeans, and a black long sleeved shirt. Guess his school didn't have a dress code like our school did. When he saw us walk up, Damian gave me a cautious look. "Shorts and a T-shirt at the end of September?"

"We were marching, okay?" I said exhaustedly. "Let’s just go inside. The archives are supposed to close soon, so we're burning daylight."

"Is anyone else nervous about what we’re gonna find down there?" Becky asked as we walked inside the building.

"Yeah." Damian said uneasily. "What if this Herbstreit guy actually is Sewage? Or Gigabyte? Or any of my father’s other villains? We’d be dealing with an actual supervillain."

"I’d be fine with that." Braylen said, eyes narrowing. "Gives me an excuse to beat the snot out of him."

"Why would you beat him up?" Damian asked cautiously.

"He attacked Anna yesterday."

"He what!"

"Yeah. He grabbed her and blamed her for us not having a meeting this week. Then she started coughing for some reason and Edward pinned him to the wall with his powers."

Damian widened his eyes, looking over at Braylen angrily. "You pinned him to the wall!"

"He hurt my friend." Braylen said, glancing over at me. After school yesterday, I explained to him what exactly happened and why I started coughing, and Braylen was so freaked out about it that he attempted to vow vengeance on Herbstreit for making me have that premonition. I managed to talk him out of it, but then we talked about how I got that seemingly random premonition from Herbstreit when I couldn’t even see him anywhere in it. "What was I gonna do, let him keep violently grabbing my... My friend like that?"

"He was being pretty threatening, in Edward’s defense." Becky said quickly. "Edward jumping to Anna’s aid was probably just the first thing he thought of."

Braylen and I looked at each other cautiously. We both knew at this point that him defending me wasn’t just instinctual. While that was part of it, we both knew that it was also because he didn’t want his first girlfriend to die, even though I could have shocked him and handled it myself if I wasn’t frozen in fear. Braylen looked over at me, elbowing me gently. "So where are we supposed to go?"

"Security desk." I asked, pointing to a desk in the corner of the giant lobby where a woman with red hair was sitting.

When we walked over, she gave me a concerned look. "I’m sorry kids, but guided tours are all done for the day."

"We’re not here for a guided tour. My dad said that my friends and I could go look in the archives today for a school project."

"And who is your dad?"

"Anthony Andrews, the head of security."

"You're Tony’s daughter." The woman said happily, grabbing her keys. "Your father told me that you were and your friends were coming. Come on kids, let’s go."

We followed her downstairs to the basement silently as she kept talking, listing off various rules. "You have three main rules. Number one, make sure that when you touch the files, you are wearing gloves since these are the only copies we have on file. Number two, no photography, period. These are all top secret. This information cannot, under any circumstances, be shared with the public. Number three, and this is probably the most important one, no writing in pen. It could damage the papers. Do I have myself clear?"

"Yes ma’am." Braylen said quickly.

"I’ll leave you four alone then." The woman said as she walked back upstairs.

"So who are we looking for?" Becky said, clapping her hands together.

"Damian, who did you say the main suspects were?" I asked.

"Starmole, Monarch, Gigabyte, and now officially Sewage."

"Okay… Becky, you start searching the G’s. Damian, you look in the M’s. Edward and I will take the S’s." I said, grabbing the box of rubber gloves and passing them out. I motioned to the table that I found the gloves at. "We’ll meet back here once we get our files."

"I’ll also check the B’s just in case the villains are lumped in with my father’s file." Damian said as we all split up.

"I’ll do Starmole." Braylen said, going further down the aisle.

"Cool." I said, pulling on my gloves as I scanned the shelves, looking at the giant binders, looking for the name. I quickly found the file I was looking for, Braylen walking towards me holding a file.

"You got it?"

"Yeah."

"How are you doing?" Braylen asked as we walked back.

"Neck still kinda feels weird, but besides that, I’m good." I said, smiling uncertainly at Braylen. I was feeling better, but the fact that this premonition felt more real than they normally do made me not get any sleep last night because every time I closed my eyes I saw the figure choking me.

Braylen seemed to understand this as he touched my arm. "You look absolutely wrecked."

"Do I really look that bad?" I asked exhaustedly.

"You look like you’re living off of coffee and other types of caffeine. Only reason why I know this is because I have been in that situation before."

"That’s because I am." I said, rubbing my eyes as I tried to wake up. "I was up late reading because I couldn’t sleep."

"The premonition?"

"Yeah." I said honestly. "My brain just didn’t want to stop thinking about it."

"Why didn’t you call me? I would have stayed up with you."

"I didn’t want to bother you because I was up until five in the morning."

"So you really are operating on caffeine."

"Yeah..."

"Next time, call me." Braylen said, reaching over and grabbing my gloved hand. "I’d be happy to stay up with you."

I smiled sheepishly at Braylen as Becky walked up. The two of us quickly separated as she slammed a file onto the table. "Okay, I got my shit. We still waiting on Damian?"

"Nope." Damian said, setting down his files on the table as he walked up behind us. "Let’s investigate this shit."

"Okay..." I said hesitantly, grabbing one of Damian’s files and reading at the weathered paper. It was the one on his father, and when I got to the list of villains he faced, every single one said to look at the corresponding file. Closing the head, I sighed exhaustedly. I looked at the others. "Okay. This file is strictly on Brain Dump. Who do we want to look at now?"

"Monarch?" Becky guessed, opening the file herself and looking inside and silently read the paper.

"And what does it say?" Braylen asked exhaustedly.

"Oh. Right. I was supposed to be reading this out loud." Becky said, laughing a bit. "Um… It says here that Monarch’s given name is Hailey Harvey, but that his chosen name is Harry Harvey. Originally born a girl, Mr. Harvey was thrown out of his house at age thirteen when he came out as transgender to his parents. Once he got his power, mind control, he started making his mark on villainy by becoming Monarch, controlling citizens to fight against Brain Dump with an iron fist."

"Pretty sure that’s not Herbstreit." Braylen said confidently. "I mean, we’re positive that he’s biologically a male, right? Monarch can’t be Herbstreit if Herbstreit’s biologically a guy."

"I think we can trust that." Damian said, grabbing another file. "I don’t think he knew that Monarch was born a girl. Just to make sure though, does it say where he ended up, Becky?"

"Yeah..." Becky said, squinting her eyes at the paper. "State prison a couple years ago. Never tried to break out."

"Most definitely not him." Damian said, opening his file and skimming the pages. "This one says that Starmole, that guy who can turn into that giant monster mole, was actually a white guy named Winston Wayne, so that can’t be your teacher."

"Most definitely." Braylen said, grabbing a file in front of him and opened it up, his eyes widening at the page. "Oh my God..."

"What?" I asked, walking over to Braylen and looked at the page.

"Gigabyte’s name is Calvin Clark."

Becky’s eyes widened too. "Keisha’s last name is Clark."

"You guys really don’t think-" Damian started to ask.

"It’s her father." I said quickly. "Trayvon talked to me about it yesterday. He said that Keisha’s father and his older sister had a history together. He told me to text him about what we find after we leave here, probably so that he could warn Keisha about it."

"And obviously, Keisha would know if Herbstreit was Gigabyte because Gigabyte is her father."

"Okay, but what about Sewage? We haven’t been entertaining the notion that maybe, just maybe, one of these guys has been pretending to be Sewage and that he’s the leader of F.E.R.R.E.T." Damian suggested.

"Let’s think about this logically. Monarch is in jail, Starmole is a white guy, and Keisha mentioned at the last Y.A.K.S. meeting that her family has a family game night every Friday night, so that can’t be Keisha’s father. Sewage seems to be the only logical choice right now." I said, grabbing and opening up the file, reading the first paper on top. "And I think we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen."

"Why? What does it say?" Damian asked cautiously.

"Says here that his full name is Alessandro Sherbertit."

"Jesus Christ, that’s a name." Becky said exhaustedly.

"Says here that his power is being able to make the waste of human desires become reality. After his last battle with Brain Dump, which destroyed most of historic downtown Megatropolis, the only part of his body that was found was his right leg."

"And Herbstreit has a prosthetic right leg!" Braylen said happily.

"But here it says that Sewage’s full name is Alessandro Sherbertit." Damian said cautiously. "Isn’t your teacher’s full name Alexander Herbstreit?"

"Why are all the evil people named Alexander?" Braylen muttered to himself. I started laughing.

"He could be going by a fake name, though the first part is really bad." Becky said cautiously.

"What do you mean?" I asked, typing the name into the notes section of my phone.

"I have an uncle named Alessandro. It’s a name of Greek origin, but a lot of Mexican people use it as a different version of Alexander." Becky explained. "Doesn’t change how weird the name is, but he probably just found the more tame version of the first name and used it as his fake name."

"Okay, then how do you explain that wacky last name? Sherberit doesn’t even sound like it should be a real name." Braylen said, studying the name with intent focus.

I studied the last name I typed on my phone screen, slowly realizing something. "Anybody got a pencil and paper?"

"I got a mechanical pencil." Damian said, grabbing a pencil out of his pocket.

"I carry a small sketchbook on me." Becky said uneasily as she dug into her blazer pocket and grabbed a small leatherbound book. "I use it for my sketches when I think of stuff."

"I didn’t know you knew how to draw." Braylen said as I grabbed the book, flipping to the back of the book as I started writing down the last names and drawing lines.

"I doodle. It’s not anything big."

"Aha!" I said quickly.

Damian whipped his head towards me. "What?"

"It is Herbstreit!" I said excitedly.

"What do you mean? This guy’s last name Sherbertit." Damian asked.

"It’s an anagram."

"An ana-what?" Becky asked.

Braylen smiled excitedly. "Like Voldemort!"

"Exactly like Voldemort!"

"Who exactly is Voldemort?" Becky asked cautiously.

Braylen and I looked at each other with shock, then sighed heavily. I shook my head at Becky. "I am so going to have to force you to watch the Harry Potter movies."

"Potter? Like your last name?" Becky asked, looking at Braylen with some suspicion.

"Happy coincidence."

"Anyway, what were you saying about that whatchamacallit?" Damian asked exhaustedly.

"Anagram?" I asked exhaustedly.

"Yeah. That. What is an anagram?"

"It’s a jumble of letters that you can form to make a new word." Braylen explained. "It’s like you can have ‘Tea is hit’ and reform the letters into ‘I eat shit’."

I looked over at Braylen nervously, biting my lip. "That’s a… Messy explanation, but sure. Look at this."

I turned around the small notebook, Becky’s eyes widening when she saw my scribbles on the paper. "Well I’ll be damned. Herbstreit is an anagram of Sherbertit."

"So it’s official. Herbstreit is Sewage." Damian said cautiously. "And he’s also the son of a bitch who’s pretending to be my father. Super."

"Do you think that we’re a part of F.E.R.R.E.T." Braylen asked cautiously.

"What do you mean? Of course we aren’t." Becky said, shrugging.

"But he said that he was training a bunch of kids to fight back. Would we be considered part of the bad guys? Are we the bad guys?" Braylen asked anxiously.

"I don’t think we are." I said confidently. "We got out of there before he could get us to officially join. We aren’t the bad guys."

"But he knows just about everything about the SNL." Becky said, sitting down on a chair and collapsing into herself, staring at the ceiling. "Every trade secret, every superhero, everything. He played us like fiddles."

"Oh please." Damian said, rolling his eyes. "He didn’t play you guys like a fiddle. He played you like the cheap kazoos we all are."

"Enough talk about playing us." I said exhaustedly. "We’re gonna figure this out as a group, okay?"

I heard some scattering behind us. I looked at everyone else’s faces. They heard the same thing. Becky hesitantly stood up. "I thought that we were the only people down here."

"Then who’s down here with us?" Damian asked cautiously.

"Let’s figure that out then." I said, quickly dropping the notebook and running towards the noise.

When I got to the end of the hall, I saw a guy with metal tipped boots standing at the beginning of the hallway. The guy held out his hand and water exploded to the wall. I ducked out of the way, falling to the ground to try and avoid the water.

As I was on the ground, I noticed that the ground was covered in metal plating covering the floor, the metal on this guy’s boots clacking on the ground.

Panicking, I slammed my hand onto the ground, electricity sparking out as it attacked the guy’s shoe and caused him to fall to the ground. Braylen came running forward, giving me a confused look. "What the bloody hell happened?"

"He attacked me."

"The hallway is soaked."

"He attacked me with water, so I shocked him through the floor." I answered, standing back up to see Becky and Damian running down the hall.

"Girl, what did you do?" Becky asked exhaustedly. "Drop kick him into oblivion?"

"I just shocked him, good God." I said, rolling my eyes as the woman who led us down here came running over to us, looking at the boy I shocked.

"What happened?" She asked, looking at us curiously.

"He hit his head after he slipped on some water." I lied, motioning to the puddle near him from his bursted segment of wall.

"You kids better get out of here while I deal with this guy." The woman said quickly. The four of us quickly ran upstairs and out of the building.

"That… Was a close one." Damian said exhaustedly.

We all nodded in agreement as Dad walked out of the building, smiling once he saw us. "Hey kids. How was your trip down to the archives?"

"Great." Becky said, smiling uneasily.

"I’ll fill you in later." I said, waving my hand at Dad. "I’ll meet you at home. We need to talk this over."

"Okay." Dad said, smiling warmly. "I’ll see you at home then."

Once Dad was gone, I pulled out my phone and texted Trayvon the information. His only response was "Shit." which I think sums up how finding out the truth went.