It is snowing in the city when the students come back from winter break, but Sky High sits above the clouds, and thus above the weather; not even the cold of the air reaches here now. The buses pass through the school's protective shielding - the only things that can - and frost suddenly turns to dew. Inside the bubble, the air is warm - not hot, but well above freezing, like a cool spring day - and relatively still, free of the freezing winds that whip outside.

There have been many changes over the past several months. The shields, obviously. Also the students; many students have been withdrawn from school, others transferred to the LA campus, and of course there is the spillover from Chicago. Sometime over the break, a new dorm was constructed (from scratch over a period of a few weeks; superpowers were likely responsible for the speed), and everyone gets a new dorm assignment - mostly upperclassmen. The Freshmen dorms remain relatively unaffected.

Classes have changed a little. The focus on combat training has relaxed, as the attacks have stopped; either the new shielding has been an effective deterrent, or the villains have been arrested. Either way, the schedule returns to normal when the new semester starts. The sidekick classes remain as they were, though the sidekicks no longer train in the gym, but rather in Mr. Powers larger sidekick classroom.

The campus is closed; no travel in or out is allowed except in the most drastic circumstances. A few emergency vehicles remain secured on-site, but once the students have debarked, the buses return to the city to discourage teenage shenanigans. Given the automated defences constructed by Dr. Drew and the Mad Science staff from Chicago, the campus is probably the safest place for many of the students anyway. Certainly that is the opinion of Alison's parents, as well as many others, as she steps off the bus and looks through the crowd for her roommate and her friends.

A girl with long red hair steps off the bus, holding a lock of her hair and comparing it to a photograph she's holding (of someone who looks very similar to, but not the same as, her).

Her hair is quite a bit more orange than the hair in the photo.

Al mutters something under her breath, and shifts - ears move slightly backwards, nose changes shape subtly, all the freckles move to different places, Al gains half a centimetre in height - and now Al's hair is not oranger, but is rather noticeably darker than the photograph.

"...never going to get this right..." mutters Al.

"You'll get the hang of it eventually," Adam laughs, hopping off the bus behind Al and generously slapping him a couple times on the back in a manner that can only loosely be defined as camaraderie. Noticing Alison, Adam waves.

From behind Adam and Al there comes a complaining. It is not a new complaining. This is one long, breathless, unceasing gripe since the bus lifted off at it's last stop in the city below.

"So Goddamned stupid. I can't believe that they couldn't give me a damn RFID tag to wear so that I could get through. I woulda turned it back in to them once I got up here. Just don't see why they make a guy who can fly ride a flying bus. Not that I'd call this flying, because I've seen balloons that have more lift than these hunks of junk."

Jimmy shoves his way off of the bus carrying the small bag he took home at the end of the last Semester. He slips both arms through the straps and launches himself into the air as soon as he clears the bus and begins circling the inside of the shield-bubble.

He lands by the others and frowns.

"I don't like it."

"Maybe they wanted you there to hold the bus up if it stopped lifting." suggests Al, quietly, still concentrating on the photo. She shifts again, losing a few millimetres of height, gaining longer fingers, smaller ears, a more upturned nose, greener eyes and hair that's now several shades lighter than the hair in the picture. She sighs in frustration.

"Don't blow smoke up my ass, Al."

Jimmy turns and snatches the picture out of Al's fingers, and peers at it, and then at Al again.

"Halfway back the way you came on the hair..."

He peers at the phot again, and then looks AL in the eyes, squinting.

"And just a little bit of brown around the irises."

He hands the photo back with a snort, and looks around for the others. Complaints notwithstanding, Jimmy has no problem floating up two feet to see over the crowd.

Kate hops off the bus and, after emitting a squeal of happiness that only a high school-aged girl can, pushes past Adam with a friendly shove and makes a beeline for Alison. She grabs her roommate in a tight bear-hug and noogies her head affectionately. "Missed you, roomie!"

Callie sets down her book bag and stretches, smiling at the relatively balmy temperatures inside the shield.

"Now that's more like it."

She waves at the others as she sees them gathered outside the bus.

"Hey! Glad to see you made it back."

Adam smiles and steps aside so Kate can move past him.

Adam takes a moment to look over the schoolyard at all the new additions and gives a low and long whistle. "I like all the shiny new toys. We expecting a siege, maybe?" His voice sounds a touch hopeful.

Alison turns red, then green, then blue. "I thought I missed you too, but now I'm not so sure!" She laughs, slipping out of Kate's grasp and then hugging her back. Then she goes back to looking around, while fading back into a more normal shade (albeit with bright pink hair). "How was your break? Was Tim on your bus?"

Al has another go at matching the photo.

The pattern of freckles changes again, the ears get a touch bigger, the nose gets a touch smaller, the mouth narrows, the eyes turn completely brown, the fingers lose some length but the arms get a touch longer. And now her hair is about the right darkness, but not orange enough.

She snorts in irritation. "Maybe I'm just too frustrated." she says, tucking the photo into a pocket. "Dad says it's all just practice practice practice but -"

Al, finally looking away from the photo, notices Alison standing a short distance away.

"...um... there's probably a welcoming assembly or something, right? Might as well head straight there." says Al, turning away and walking very rapidly.

Martín climbs out the back of the bus, standing up straight and making his way around to the group. Over the break, he grew another foot, and gained several hundred pounds, but he still looks essentially the same. He approaches the gathering group of super freshmen. "Good Christmases, everyone? I had so much turkey and ham, I can't even keep track!"

Gary steps off the bus with his new Team Evil Geniuses jacket gleaming. Coming back from vacation one should be rested, but after his third successive tournament he's wiped. He wanders over and says hi to everyone. "Al, looking good. you're getting better."

Taichi appears out of no where in a green hoodie with a yellow lightning bolt design on the front.
"You guys get anything cool for Christmas? I got this sweatshirt that gives me a defense bonus. At least, that's what the guy at the store told my mom. It could do jack poop for all I care. Looks cool."

Gary's shirt slows Al's precipitous retreat slightly. "Team Evil Geniuses?" she asks, walking slowly backwards towards the main hall. "What's that all about?"