And here was her small class...

* Two Latina girls with hairless tails and rounded, animal-like ears, whispering to each other.

* A remarkably handsome young man-- pretty, even-- with huge green eyes and red hair, and an absolutely perfect complexion.

* An awkward looking asian young woman with glasses.  She was quite small.

* A young woman of mixed ethnicity with no arms at all, but at least a dozen drones of some kind sitting on the desk in front of her.

* And a bored looking young woman with rather large eyes with red irises and... no pupils at all.  Also, she was entirely, almost monochromatically, an odd grey-green color.  Even her clothes.

DC 12 Investigation check

...the green-grey young woman was, to be blunt, a supervillain.  Well, one of the team of children with superpowers that the minor crimelord Fagin had lead before his abrupt disappearance.

She'd been called "The Vicious Kid," and was a shapeshifter.

"Good morning, class," Diana said as she entered the room, looking to see their reactions.

The Vicious Kid was following her every move with those huge eyes, saying nothing, showing no expression at all.  Just staring.

The girl with the drones raised an eyebrow, gave a nod of respect, and waited.

The Asian girl looked at her nervously.

The pretty boy looked a bit surprised, but gave her a smile.

The Latina girls... sniffed the air, exchanged a look, and watched her to see what she'd do.

"I'll be your homeroom teacher. You can call me Ms. Angelos," Diana said. "how about we go around the room and you can introduce yourselves?"

"Trinity Davis," said the young woman with the drones.  "Save everyone the trouble of asking, never had 'em, designed these things to handle things I can't do with my feet."

"Um, hello everyone," said the Asian girl.  "I'm Marume Oyama.  Um, pleased to meet all of you?"

"I'm called Dave Thorn," said the ridiculously pretty young man.  His voice was like honey and rough velvet.  Of course it was.

"I'm Lupe Ximinez," said one of the girls.  She had a distinctly Mexican accent.  "And I'm Maria Ximinez," said the other.  "Hi, everyone!"

The Vicious Kid looked at each person as they spoke, then turned her head to Diana.  And her fingers and arms moved at lighting speed in what might have been ASL, but at those speeds, who could say?
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:59, Sun 01 Jan 2023.

"I'm sorry, that was a little too fast for me," Diana said.

The Kid scowled.

"Come on, dude," said Dave.  "Be fair to the rest of us."

The Kid glared at him and then sighed.

"Buzz buzz click click stupid buzzing and clicking takes forever to say anything... Fine.  Fine.  I am Kelly Lee.  I am not 'dude.'  Teacher knows who else I am."

"Yes, but I do know things about everyone," Artemis said. "Thank you for the effort."

"...fine," said Kelly.  "Now what?  Questions about who we are?  Show off to class?  Or teach?"

"I thought we'd spend some time getting to know each other, since we're all in a unique situation," Diana said.

Kelly looked at Artemis.

"You first?" she asked.

"I suppose the biggest thing those of you who didn't recognize me is that I'm the active superhero called Artemis," Diana said.

The class looked suitably impressed.

"Can we see the suit?" Trinity asked.

Diana took out a hair tie and tied her hair back before she called out the suit.

There were various sounds of respect and awe from the students.  (Well, all but one.)

"So who's going next?" Trinity asked.

"Any volunteers?" Diana asked.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:29, Fri 30 Dec 2022.

"Well, I brought it up," said Trinity.  "I'm a genius with technology.  Unfortunately, I was born without arms.  Fortunately, I'm a technological genius, and while I had to work with my feet for a long time, I was able to design and build these little guys to be my hands."

"Why didn't you just make arms?" Dave asked.

"I never had arms," Trinity said.  "I never developed my brain in a way to have phantom limbs, so I can't use prosthetic arms either.  But by crew, here, they do what they need to.  So... who's next?"

She looked to Artemis for guidance.

"Mayumi next then," Diana said.

"I'm Marume Oyama," she said, and she awkwardly tried to stand up.  She put her hand on her desk-- and it broke instantly.  She cringed and looked at the desk.

"Um, I'm super-strong," she said.  "Very, very strong.  Um, but sometimes... it's kind of hard to not break things."

"That's okay, it does take practice," Diana said.

"...I hope I get there," said Marume.

The class awaited her indicating the next student.

"Lupe? How about you go next?" Diana asked.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:15, Sun 01 Jan 2023.

"My sister and I, um... we're..."  She looked at Maria.

Maria stepped in.  "We're, um, genetically altered.  Not by accident.  Our father was super worried about nuclear war.  He engineered us to have the characteristics of species he thought would survive, so we have rodent properties."

"We're otherwise pretty normal," Lupe added.

"I'm sorry, but could you explain the 'rodent properties' a bit? What abilities do you have?" Diana asked.

"Well, we're super-healthy and tough," said Maria.  "We've got really good senses, especially smell and hearing, but basically all of them.  We've got tails, but those mostly look cool and help us balance.  And we've got really impressive teeth that just keep growing and come back if they get broken."

"Interesting. David, you're up next," Diana said.

"Well, hi," said Dave.  "I'm called 'Dave Thorn.'  I'm not the human being born to my parents they named 'David John Thorn.'  I was very sick and weak when I was born, I'm told, so they decided to swap me for a human baby they spotted.  Luckily, modern medicine came through for me and I'm healthy.  I hope the original Dave Thorn's doing okay in the Fey realms, but to be honest, I think my bio-parents are jerks for doing this to us."

"You're a changeling?" Artemis asked. "That's different."

Dave shrugged.

"There might be others out there that no one knows about," he said.  "But it's what I am."

"Okay. Kelly, how about you?" Artemis asked.

"Kelly Lee," she said.  "What human parents named me.  Not from here.  'Parents' somehow got egg-me.  Raised human.  Not human.  Learned how to look human.  Sometimes pretend to act human.  Finally learned 'ears' last month.  Learned how to buzz buzz click click stupid slow talk last week."

Her head whipped around the room looking at the other students.

"Hi," she said.  "Don't worry.  Won't eat you.  Not eat live things.  Human rule.  Stupid human rule."

"And with that, we'll move on to math class," Diana said. "Please take out your text books."

The students did so.  Dave, surprisingly, seemed to cause the most distractions-- when he stretched, many of the girls couldn't help but look in his direction.

"Eyes front please," Diana said, not calling anyone out.

Soon enough, homeroom was over.

"Have a good first day, class," Diana said.

Kelly hung back.

"...Did not tell them," she said.  "YOU.  Did not tell them.  Implied pronoun.  Why?"

"About what? That you were a 'supervillain'? I didn't think they needed any kind of bias against you. If that is what you mean," Diana said.

"Didn't think--" she gestured in the direction the other students had left-- "should be warned?  Vicious Kid was dangerous."

"Are you still a danger? Don't you deserve a second chance?" Diana asked.

Kelly gave her an odd look.

"...most heroes don't trust," she said.  "Unexpected.  Emotions."

"I didn't get a chance either. I mean, the suit bonded with me, it's not something I could have ignored," Artemis said. "Since you're trying to change I thought you deserved a chance."

"...was taken by Fagin," said Kelly.  "Other children, too.  Thought he would help.  Wanted to help other children.  He did not.  He hurt."

She suddenly grinned, an impossibly-wide grin that somehow suggested teeth despite the lack of hard parts to her body.

"Was stopped," she said.  "Never again."

"Good. I hope we can have a great year together as student and teacher," Diana said.

"Will try to be better human," said Kelly, leaving.  "Like Dave.  But dads knew what I was."

"All I can ask is you to do your best," Diana said.

"...But is best me what you want best me to be?" she asked, but then she slithered out of the room without waiting for an answer.

Diana sighed.

"Kids..."

She had a little free time to plan her next step.  Assuming, of course, that nothing went wrong.

Diana decided to get ready for the next class.

The rest of her class load looked pretty simple-- dependents of heroes with families.  With any luck, she'd be back to taking class notes and working on a lesson plan and--

Nope, there was an emergency alert.  Some kind of trouble in the city the cops couldn't handle.

That couldn't be helped. She headed out.

Kelly and Diana returned to the school.

"Okay. We'll talk more tomorrow. Stay out of trouble," Diana said.

Kelly nodded...

...Diana got to see her eat.  It was mercifully brief.  Being unconstrained by the limits of human mouth sizes saw to that.  She apparently did her chewing inside her stomach, which Diana could hear.

But now the teacher was free... more or less.  So what would she do?

Diana decided to head home for some relaxation and a bit of work on her teaching plans.

Diana arrived at school...

Diana headed to her class to get things ready.

The students arrived... Kelly smiled at her in a way that was entirely different from the way that Dave smiled at her, but both were positive.  (One was more... charming and sexy, though.)

There was another student present, an athletic young woman wearing gothic clothes and a hostile attitude.

"You must be our new student," Diana said.

The look she gave Diana wasn't exactly inviting.

"Yeah, I guess," she said, taking a seat.

"How about you tell the class about yourself?" Diana asked.

"Fiiiine," she sighed.  "Hi.  I'm Mary Winthrop.  My idiot parents are forcing me to be in this class exactly like they did the last four places I went."

"Do you have any powers?" Diana asked.

She groaned.

"No," she said. "I'm in good shape because my parents insist that I exercise constantly and train constantly, but I don't have super-strength, or super-speed, or super-stamina, and I can't fly, either.  Period."

"Fair enough," Diana said, as she looked over the rest of the students to make sure everyone was here.

They were, indeed, all there.  Dave appeared to be focusing his attention on Mary.  Kelly was paying more attention to Diana, but she was keeping an eye on the interplay between Dave and Mary... literally.

Shapeshifters.  Go figure.

"Since everyone's here, we'll go on to math class," Diana said. "Everyone take out your books."

The settled in to do math.  There was a chime of a message on Diana's phone...

Diana set them to work on some problems before sitting at her desk and checking her phone.

Apparently, they wanted her to help in gym class today.  She'd heard that it was often hectic.

That was a tad annoying. She didn't have any exercise clothes here. Armour it was then.

It sounded like she might have to come up with activities on her own, though...

That shouldn't be too bad, she would need to see what kind of facilities they had.

Surprisingly advanced.  Weightlifting for superhuman strength, treadmills and wind tunnels for speedsters and fliers, and so on.  They didn't appear to have an actual combat simulator, however.

"Have you guys done any combat training in gym class?" Diana asked.

Most of the students looked surprised; Mary groaned, and Kelly grinned.

"No," she said.  "Should study.  Weak.  Vulnerable."

Despite her lack of grammar, it was fairly clear that Kelly meant the other students.

"We can do some basics in gym," Diana said.

"Um, all right," said Marume.  "But I need to be careful so that I don't hurt anyone..."

"We'll just be doing the basics," Diana said. "Don't worry."

"...all right," said Marume, uncertainly.  But they left, and Diana had a couple of hours to prepare.

Diana headed to the gym to see the facilities first hand.