Professor Why's Academy for Extraordinary Youngsters

Heroics 106: Interrogation and cake

Even professional heroes have to do paperwork. Whenever a villain is defeated and brought into custody, the real battle is getting sufficient witness testimony to convict the guilty party of their crime. Typically, investigators will be brought to the scene to speak with the career heroes and onlookers to piece together a less biased story of what happened, which will then be presented to the court. For instance, when Galactic Mask fought Hot Glueman, his version of the story was "A perpetrator brought injustice upon our fair city, and I righted his wrongs with my Galactic Might!" which, while heroic, doesn't actually say anything admissible in court. The onlookers' admissions that Hot Glueman spread hot glue all over the floor of a bank to try to rob it while everyone else was stuck, however, did hold up, and Hot Glueman wound up with a several year jail sentence.

We learned this story in Mr. Dr. Fluffybuns' class very early on as a cautionary tale about what happens when faulty or incomplete testimony is presented by a hero. None of us took it to heart, and considering no less than five of us had encountered villains yesterday, our accounts varied wildly. This is a rare situation where my account of events is not off memory, but rather off recording, which is fantastic since, through the magic of begging and crying for the archives, I was able to procure all of me and my classmates' interviews. These were a lovely walk down memory lane, and also a testament to the value of reliable testimony.

We were all taken on a private jet to a secure facility in Fairbanks, far away from the small town we were used to. I came from Los Vegas, so it's not like I was unfamiliar with big cities, but I hadn't seen anything resembling a city in months. Combining that with the ego I had developed from defeating a major villain and surviving another, and I was feeling nothing but confident coming into this interview. We drove through the city in a car with tinted windows, and were lead into a small, grey building. There was a waiting room with a few couches and a shrubbery, and a door leading into what appeared to be an interview room.

I didn't notice everyone at the time, but I was able to look at the recordings to find the entire group. I was there, of course, proud and confident as I had ever been. Situ showed up, thoughtful and irritable. Summer stumbled in, hair a mess, wearing two different coats that she seemed to have borrowed from others. Ivan also showed up, hair a mess, wearing two different coats, but he seemed distinctly more confident in his choices. Guy was there, being about as uninteresting as usual, juggling, playing the bagpipes, all that uninteresting stuff. Even in the recording I could hardly focus on him long enough to give a decent description. We were also told that Rob, the missing student would arrive at some point, but none of us had met him yet.

We were invited into the small interview room one at a time to discuss what had happened. Inside, I found professor Why along with Allycard sitting in the room. The professor seemed pretty relaxed, with his feet up on the interview table. I never noticed his shoes before, or more accurately the lack thereof. Did this guy manage to become principal of a superhero school without ever wearing shoes? He gave me a happy grin and a wave when I entered. Allycard, meanwhile, was obviously here out of obligation. She had her nice suit on, but her arms were crossed and she wasn't looking at me.

"Sit." She said, pointing to my chair. I did. Allycard pulled out a AAA battery and started sucking on it. She claimed to have kicked that habit years ago, so something was definitely bothering her.

"Alright. I guess congratulations. You beat a d list villain." She said, never looking me in the eyes. "My problem is the more obvious issues."

"That a new hero has sprung up and might steal your job, right?" the professor snarked.

"Please. Take it from me. Take it from my cold, unliving, vampiric hands while I go live in Bangkok, eat Pad Thai, and get Thai massages on the massive fortune I've amassed as a superhero. I'd love that. But since we're fantasizing, let's say you have information about our villains, shall we?" She groaned. My ego shriveled up a bit in the coldness of her remarks.