So, in writing this, I ended up running into a lot of questions about what precisely resulted from Gwen's victory and how precisely she got to that point... but I'm just going to run with a simple explanation.
As with all my omakes, not my best work, sorry, but here it is anyway.
Also, free internet cookie to whoever guesses what the title is in reference to. Looking it up will probably not help.
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More than Sidekicks, Less than Heroes
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In a world that was constantly changing, there are some things that, paradoxically, are constant. Unmoving, unchanging, seemingly unending. For example, when the companies took over, many places in the United States of America changed with them - but in several areas, the quality of life for the average human did not change. When Roger Rabbit murdered multiple people, Toons in general took the fall - but the biggest names remained stars, and their old shorts remained well loved. And even though Sky High had been through large amounts of upheaval, Sky High was still around - and while it was under new management and with new classes, it still taught the next generation of super powered beings.
And it still employed Ron Wilson, Bus Driver.
Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, took great pride in his job. To many, this was a sign of resignation against the world - even before he started working for, well, supervillains, it was well known that he was one of the few people without powers who knew of the existence of Sky High. What even less people knew, but what reinforced this view, was that he was actually born to two individuals who had superpowers, and was simply a rare case of the child of super-powered individuals not developing their own. That he had, himself, gone to Sky High once as a child.
That was all true. However, Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, liked his job for one, simple reason - even if no Hero had picked him as a Sidekick, the former Principal, Powers, had chosen him while he was down on his luck to take command of the next generation of Heroes' lives, a job that she would trust to only a small number of people. Him! Poor powerless Ron Wilson, beaten up on by children half his age, but she trusted him to handle one of the most actively dangerous parts of their day.
...also, his bus was cool. He couldn't really overlook that.
He also couldn't overlook, however, that this years crop of children seemed especially... unheroic. Now, Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, was well known for his borderline harassment of freshmen on their first day trip to school through his insane driving... but typically, within two or three weeks, the students he was taking would change from yells of horror and fear to yells of adrenaline and happiness, like the world's greatest roller coaster ride. A quick run through some of the potential rigors and G-Forces (and an entirely safe one! He had no crashes on his record, and was never going to have them!) expected of heroes, and most of them responded as most teenagers do - with enthusiasm once they realized that they were actually safe.
This current year, though...
He swerved in midair, and he heard a few shrieks from the back. Someone cursed at him, some kid that Ron Wilson, Bus Driver hadn't bothered memorizing the name of.
...well, they were wimpy! Sidekick-level! No, that was an insult - most sidekicks never had issues like this! Heck, some of the sidekicks on the bus were the ones who were handling this best! Ron Wilson, Bus Driver knew he was getting on in years, but darnit he knew the kids in years past had been far less superficial and far more willing to be adventurous! It couldn't be a simple case of him being out of touch, not this quickly.
He sighed, pulling up to the school. "Alright, kids, here's your stop." He closed his eyes and braced himself as he opened the door...
...and someone zipped in, ripping his hat off his face. He stepped off the bus first. "Speed, please stop stealing my hat. It's not going to wash out right if you keep doing that."
The obnoxiously overweight speedster, who had uncreatively named himself 'Speed', laughed. "Come on, old man! You can fight back, I'm sure! Come on, grab it back."
Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, knew why Speed was trying to do this. Speed and his skinny, stretchy friend Lash had been messing with him since they were students, and Ron Wilson, Bus Driver knew they had been there the night that Royal Pain had attacked, and while he had managed to escape that day - he even knocked out a supervillain on his own! It had been a proud night - he knew they couldn't have. Which meant they were working for the villain. But the school had employed the duo after the incident, which implied that the school was also being run by Royal Pain now.
Which meant that there was an outside chance that his continued employment was some manner of protracted revenge against him. That, or it was just Speed and Lash being cowards, bullies, cads, and thieves, like an unfortunate amount of the students they were raising. "You know I can't do that, Speed."
The bully laughed. "Oh, can't you? Well, that's too bad. Yo, Lash!"
The second bully pulled up. "Got it, got it." He grabbed the hat from Speed, and stretched up to the top of a flagpole, setting it there. "Go on, old man, grab it!"
He shook his head, walking back to the bus to move it to storage. Lash and Speed continued to taunt Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, but he had no ears for it. Their material was about as lame as their bullying was - the fact that they still hadn't realized that the winds would blow his hat down within the hour baffled him.
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After a long day's work, Ron Wilson, Bus Driver pulled home. The students had been fortunately rather quiet on the way home (doubtless one of the professors had done something horrifying while he was cleaning his bus), allowing him to quickly drop them all off and pull the bus into its storage, where he would pick it up tomorrow. Unfortunately, his salary had been rather cut down by the new administration, so he couldn't properly afford the upkeep of a car while he went home.
The news had been decent, at least. With Syndrome firmly out of the picture - and wasn't that a relief? The grandstanding "hero" had besmirched the name of heroes everywhere with his actions long before he had started taking territory - there was starting to be talk again about repealing the Superhuman Relocation Program. He hoped it would finally go through this time, although given how much time had passed since the Golden Days and how many unofficial incidents had taken the lives of superheroes since then - especially those perpetuated by that fool of a "cape", Syndrome himself - he wasn't even sure if there were any old heroes left.
Well, it was fine by Ron Wilson, Bus Driver. He already knew where a new age of heroics was starting.
Even before he reached his house he could hear voices coming from it, but he didn't quicken or slow his pace, even after he got in. After he locked the door, though, he yelled. "You're being a bit loud, you know! I could hear you outside!"
One of the voices yelled back. "We've been trying to quiet them down, it's not our fault they can't tell us what they need!"
Ron sighed, walking up the stairs. "It's not that they need fed, or something to drink, or to go to the bathroom?"
"We tried all that, they won't be quiet!"
Ron slowly finished walking up the stairs, taking a look in the room. "When did they start?"
In the room, there were three teens-young adults, rather. The one girl of the three shrugged. "Maybe ten minutes ago? They were sleeping before then."
The younger man of the two looked at them. "I'm telling you, they're having nightmares. It's gotta be it."
The older guy shrugged. "I dunno, man... aren't they still a little young for that?"
"We don't know how that de-aging device worked. For all we know, they could remember everything."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Which is just a theory, and we've had this argument before."
Ron moved into the room. "Maj, Ethan, Zach, this isn't the time for that." He crouched down, looking at the two cradles. "Hey, hey, are you two ok? Come on, it's fine now, I'm here. You'll be safe."
And so he picked the two babies up out of the cradle, holding them. "You three, did you finish that coursework I gave you?"
Maj shrugged. "I think we've put together everything from the old curriculum Sky High was using, and some of the new curriculum too. If they know it, we know it."
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Some things in this world are constant. Heroes are heroes, villains are villains, sidekicks are sidekicks. But every so often, even among things that never change, change happens anyway. Ron Wilson had been Bus Driver for many, many years, entirely without powers. Not even a hero, not even a sidekick, he had instead passed the buck onto the next generation. But when Royal Pain attacked, even he had to step up. He only had his bus, but he evacuated the few students he could, and saved what he could.
Ethan Bank. Magenta Lewis. Zachary Braun. These were the names of sidekicks, the lowest of the low. But when Royal Pain attacked, they managed to pool their abilities together to escape just in time to get out of their reach, and had even temporarily stopped Lash and Speed. But it had been the last thing they did before they left that proved that they were heroes the most, they thought. For even if Will Stronghold and Layla Williams had been significantly inconvenienced, they had, still, saved their friends from a worse fate.
And now, even with the whole world against them, they prepared to strike out once more. Even if they were scorned, spat at, and hated, they would prove that they were true heroes.
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(A/N: yes, Gwen somehow missed that they got away. She was too busy stopping her own bomb from going off to notice, which is a thing I assume happen given that the school's name is still "Sky High" and not, uh, "Smoking Crater." And really, would she have even paid attention to them?)
