A/N: This is basically a prologue to the story. Just as a warning, chapters will be slow since I am working on this with another writer. We are each writing this story from a different person’s point of view. I will say who the other author is at the end of the chapter. Now, the prologue.

I was surprised to get mail from home. My letters from my parents were rare at best. I came to the school when I was 5, but by the time I was 7, I was only getting one letter per month. I double checked the name just to make sure it was for me. I guess that was pointless since I don’t think anyone else in the school is named James. I opened the letter and saw that it was in messy handwriting, not at all like the neat, clear writing of my mother. My brother, Michael, had written me a letter. He told me his new e-mail address so we could keep in touch better and he wished me a happy birthday.

I didn’t want today to be my birthday. Turning 13 on Friday, July 13. My birthdays were never good and today was Friday the thirteenth. Some of the parents of the kids at the school don’t want their kids anymore or can’t keep them at home, so those kids don’t even go home during the breaks. There are only a few of us, but we get special things like computers.

This school is unusual because it is for kids that have special powers. Most people who don’t have special powers aren’t allowed to know about the powers, but my family is an exception. Since I was so young when they found out about my powers, they had to tell my parents about my powers to get them to let me come to the school. They might have still not let me go if it wasn’t for my other abnormality. This other thing is also the reason that I don’t really have any friends in the school. I have another person living inside of me.

Well, it’s not really a person so much as just another entity. He calls himself Jimmy. He sometimes takes control of my body and he can make me do things I wouldn’t normally do. He is, for lack of a more appropriate term, very mean. He seems to enjoy tormenting me. He always acts angry and is mean to everyone whenever he is in control. He is the reason I have no friends here.

After I read the letter, I decided to send Mike an e-mail to tell him that I got the letter and we could keep in touch. I also asked him how his summer was. I also told him what I had been doing over the summer, although it wasn’t much. Mike is very interested in what goes on here at the school. I don’t tell him everything, but he knows enough to get the gist of what I do. He also knows that he has to keep everything a secret. According to the rare letters I used to get from my parents, he doesn’t even talk about me to anyone. It’s probably easier for him to keep the secret that way. After I sent the email, I decided to go to the training rooms.

The school is huge, so it has many different sections. There are places for the people who live here permanently, for the people that go home for the breaks, there is a cafeteria, classrooms for regular classes, rooms for training with powers, training rooms for using powers or for physical fighting without powers, fighting rooms for one-on-one fights or for group fights, game rooms, community rooms, and places to play almost every sport imaginable. Did I miss anything?

When I got to the training room Mr. Matthews was there. He is my favorite teacher. He seems to be assigned to me. It’s not that he doesn’t teach any other students, but he seems to spend more time with me than anyone else. Nobody except the principal of the school knows what his power is. He told me that he didn’t feel the need to use it after he found out what it was. He is strong, but it is natural strength. His power definitely isn’t super strength. He is a good training partner for physical training. He even lets me use my powers against him to give me an advantage. I never beat him, but he says that I am getting better. I am also trying not to use my powers as much when I fight him. It helps me get more actual strength rather than having to rely on my powers. If I used my powers to the full extent, I could probably beat him as long as he doesn’t use his powers. Of course, I might lose control and Jimmy might take over. I don’t want that to happen.

Mr. Matthews doesn’t seem worried about Jimmy. Jimmy can control fire. This is one of the more confusing things, since it is a different power from mine, but we are in the same body. Jimmy is really good at using his powers. Mr. Matthews’ powers must be really good to not be afraid of him at all. Even though I have gotten better at controlling Jimmy, he still takes control sometimes.

Mr. Matthews saw me enter the training room and said, “Hey, James. Do you want to try to face me again?”

“Why not?” I replied. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

We went to one of the fighting rooms. Nobody else was in any of the fighting rooms since most of the kids were at home for the summer, so we got to choose one with no extra objects, just a circular space to fight. This time I decided to see how far I would get without my powers. I lost, but not as horribly as I thought I would. I actually lasted for a few minutes.

“That was good,” Mr. Matthews said after the fight was over. “You didn’t use your powers at all, did you?”

“Nope,” I replied with a big grin on my face. Mr. Matthews is probably the only person in this school who can really make me smile. We started talking and we came to the subject of the new school year starting soon.

“You know that the new school year is starting soon,” he told me. “You’ll be in the 9th grade. There will be a lot of new kids coming into the same grade as you. You should try to make some friends. It would do you a lot of good to have some friends your own age. Just make sure you get to them before they hear the stories.”

“I’m not even sure that’s possible. The stories travel really fast. Maybe they won’t recognize me. As long as nobody points me out, I should be fine. Of course, I have about as much of a chance of that happening as pigs flying.”

“What are you talking about?” he said. “You can make pigs fly.”

We were laughing all the way to the cafeteria.

A/N: That’s the end of the prologue. Review and tell me what you think. Oh, the other author I’m working on this with is Blazinfox555. Blazinfox555 and I have the same pen names on as we do here. If that website I just typed in didn’t come up, tell me in the review and I’ll try to fix it. Remember, I warned you that updates would be slow, so please don’t continually bug the other author about updating. You can annoy me instead.

Well, that’s it. I hope you’ll still be reading when we post the first actual chapter. Blazinfox555 should be posting the other prologue soon if it isn’t already up. Go and read hers to get an idea of what another character’s thoughts are in the story.