"Sorry I'm late," Peter said, as he rushed into the Daily Bugle, "traffic."

"You're lucky that Mr. Jameson has been in a meeting for the last hour," Betty said, "he isn't in a good mood today."

"Is he ever?" Peter asked.

"Uhh," a new voice called out, "can you two keep it down? I'm trying to sleep off this hangover." The person who spoke had a strong Japanese accent, and he was laying down on one of the chairs in the entryway.

"Can I help you?" Peter asked, unsure what to make of him.

"You wouldn't happen to know any Su-" he cut off his words when he looked at Peter, "You're in high school right?"

"Yeah," he said hesitantly, "why do you want to know?"

"I have my reasons," he said, "what exactly do you do here?"

"You've seen our paper right?" Betty asked "Almost every front page features one of his pictures."

"You take pictures of Spider-Man?" the man asked, "Can anyone else do that?"

"I just kinda end up in the right place at the right time, you know?" Peter said nervously, "It's not really that impressive."

"Can I see some of them?" the man asked.

"Uh, sure," Peter said, pulling the pictures out of his backpack and handing them to the man.

"Interesting," the man said, sitting completely upright, "tell Jameson I've got it handled. You can have these back, um..."

"Peter," He said, "Peter Parker."

"Thank you for helping me out Peter," he said, handing the photos back, "I expect to see you again soon." He left the building with a slight stagger from his hangover.

"What was that about?" Peter asked.

"I don't know," Betty said, "he made an appointment a couple weeks ago over the phone, but I couldn't figure out what he was wanting, I think it had something to do with superheroes."

"Weird," Peter said.

"PARKER!" Jameson yelled.

"Uh, yes Mr. Jameson?" Peter dashed into Jameson's office just as the other person was leaving.

"You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago," Jameson said.

"What, but you were," Peter stuttered out.

"Don't sweat the details, just know that I know everything that goes on in this building," Jameson said, "now listen here, I need something good to print tomorrow, show me what you've got."

"Well," Peter nervously hands over the envelope.

"Nope, garbage, trash, maybe, terrible, nope, perfect!" Jameson pulls out one of the pictures. "Already got a headline for it. Try not to be late tomorrow."

"I'll try," Peter said, quickly leaving the room. "Could've gone worse." He walked out the door, ducked into a nearby alley, and changes into his Spider-Man outfit. "Now to go on patrol."

#

"Ah, nothing like a sandwich after a long day," Spider-Man said, as he was about to sit down on a roof for the first time in hours. He had started bringing a dinner with him after a few too many nights without eating.

"Enjoying your meal?" asked a voice. Spider-man turned around to see Nick Fury standing a short ways behind him.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he asked, as if he was not internally freaking out that the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. had come for a one on one meeting.

"If you don't already know then I have no need to tell you," Fury said, "but as far as it matters, I have a mission for you."

"I don't work for you," he said.

"It doesn't matter who you work for, I just have something you are one of a handful of people qualified to handle," Fury said, "we recently received a message from the future, that a high school student is going to bring about the end of the world."

"And how does this involve me?" he asked.

"We are sending every high school age superhero we can find off to different academies," Fury said, "we've narrowed it down to about a dozen locations around the world, and we need you to enroll in one of them. The requirements to get in are extremely high, and you meet all but one of them. With a little bit of persuasion, we've convinced them to accept you in anyways."

"Is it that I'm not a high school student?" the teenager said, "because I'm called Spider-MAN for a reason, and not Spider-kid."

"Cute," Fury said, "expect your letter in the mail in the next couple of days. You are going to have a lot of work to do." Fury walked to the edge of the roof they were standing on, and vanished over the side. Spider-Man rushed over, to see a S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle had caught him, and was carrying him away.

"I really should've asked for one of those," he said, as he was sitting back down. "Oh well, I wonder where he's sending me off to."

#

Several days later a letter arrives in the mail.

"From... what is that supposed to be? It doesn't look like it's in English," Peter said. He looked over the letter and realized that this is what Fury must have been talking about. He had received a letter from "Hope's Peak", as the name translated to, accepting him as the 66th classes Super High School Level Photo-journalist. He had about two months to learn Japanese, which is probably what the requirement he didn't meet was.

Peter was so excited about this, because even in New York City he had heard tales about Hope's Peak,that he didn't notice a separate letter, from Horizon High School, as it slipped off of the kitchen counter, and into the trashcan.

#

"Alright, first day of class," Peter said to himself, "and no Flash anywhere in sight, this is already starting off a good year.

"Wa-ah,"a girl wearing a surgeons mask slipped on a puddle. Before she could hit the ground, Peter reached out and caught her.

<Are you okay?> Peter asked. The girl stared at him for a moment. "Oh, right, sorry. I was asking if you were okay? Sorry, I used the wrong language there."

"I-I'm fine," she said, "uh, what language were you speaking? English?"

"Yeah," he said, "how'd you know?"

"I'm a pharmacist," she said, "I don't speak it myself, but several people I learned from used it."

"Pharmacist?" Peter asked, "you look, uh"

"I-I'm still in high school," she said, "I-I should introduce myself, Seiko Kimura the Super High School Level Pharmacist."

"Will this be your first year going there?" Peter said, "Because I'm Peter Parker, the Super High School Level Photojournalist. I was hoping to meet someone before classes started, but I haven't seen anyone around here."

"Y-yes," she said, "M-my friends are also going, if you'd like to meet them."

"Sounds like fun," Peter said, "are you going to meet them now?" She nodded. "Great, lead the way."

#

Peter followed Seiko to a small cafe, where he saw several people in strange outfits, but no one who looked like they would be Seiko's friends.

"Seiko!" a girl in pink coat called, "who's your new friend?"

Seiko walked over to her, with Peter following close behind. Once they got closer Peter could see a boy in a large red coat sitting next to her.

"This is Parker," she said quietly, "he's going to be in our class."

"Really?" the pink girl asked, "What's you're talent?"

"I'm the Super High School Level Photojournalist," he said hesitantly. Turning to Seiko, he said "You can call me Peter, I don't think we need to be that formal."

"Oh, right," she said, as she took a seat at the table.

"Don't be so down," the pink girl said, "he just wants to be friends, right?"

"Really?" Seiko instantly brightened up.

"Um, yeah," Peter said, as he sat down with them, "I was only friends with Harry and... my Aunt May, and I was kinda hoping we could be friends."

"Well I'm Ruruka," the pink girl said, "the Super High School Level Confectioner. And this is Sonosuke, the Super High School Level Blacksmith." The boy in the red coat nodded politely.

"So how long have you all known each other?" Peter asked.

"We've been friends forever," Ruruka said.

"And you all got accepted into the same class? That must be so exciting!" Peter turned to see Seiko smiling, something easily seen even through her mask.

"Yeah," Ruruka said, "well, have you been to the dorms yet? I know they're small, but they'll do."

"Um, yeah," Peter said, not wanting to admit they were about a third of the size of his house. "So, what do you all do for fun?"

"I bake, Yoi works on his blacksmithing, and Seiko tries not to die," Ruruka said as if the last two were completely normal.

"I get sick easily, so I have to take a bunch of medication," she said.

"That's not great," Peter said, and Yoi nodded in agreement. Peter thought for a moment before saying, "I wanted to take a look around on my own for a little bit longer, but I'll see you all at the dorms later?"

"Yes," Seiko said.

"Ok," Peter said, "see you around." And he left the building.

#

"They were fun," Spider-man said, swinging from a web. "Sonosuke was quiet, but he might open up more later." He swung around a corner, almost missing the next building.

"Need to get used to a new city," he said, "the buildings aren't where I expect them to be," He swung around, and grabbed onto the nearest building.

"Seiko was a bit too excited whenever Ruruka said I was going to be her friend," he said, turning before switching to running along the side of the building, "but would I really be any different?" At the end of the building he launched another web, and continued his earlier swinging.

"As far as Ruruka goes," he said, "something about her reminds me of Flash, I just hope that I'm wrong about that, specifically for Seiko's sake." He kept swinging until he eventually landed on top of the Hope's Peak Academy building.

"Just an average day for your Friendly..." he paused, "no, that won't work. If I'm going to be traveling around I'm going to need a new title. I'm sure I'll think of something."