Sam sat in the cafeteria while scrolling through his phone, unlike him, his friends were eating.

But that didn't stop them from staring at Sam with worry laced in their eyes.

"Sam." Paul called first after taking a bite out of his vegetable sandwich. He wasn't shocked to see that his friend didn't even flinch yet continued to scroll through his phone.

The light from said phone screen reflected from his eyes. Blake recognised the colour from it, its the background Sam set for his Twitter feed.

Uh oh.

"Sam, stop it." Ordered Blake. This isn't good, ever since what happened on the news, ever since that night, he's been in some sort of trance, he stopped talking often.

"That's it!" Jaime leaned over from the other side of the table and snatched his phone, both Blake and Sam warned him not to immediately as he already committed the action. His curiosity got the best of him and he let his eyes slide onto the screen, to which, his grin dropped to a frozen shock.

"#ChampionsAreOver"

"#ThanksKamala"

He whipped his head up to the group and waved the phone. "Sam, why are you hurting yourself with all these!?"

They all turned to the said hero, who let a tear run down his cheeks. "Because what they say matters to me! The Champions means everything to me! You don't get it! We let them hijack the story again!"

Confused faces were spread from one face to another as Sam stared down at his full plate in sorrow. 

"Story?" Blake asked first.

"Again?" Then went Jaime.

"This has happened to me before, last time I was able to solve it, but this time... It's really over. We built something. Something important. It was so awesome to see people around the world unite behind our symbol to fight. Now it's all gone because I was being stupid." He let out a shaky sigh. "I've fought monsters bigger than whatever that was before, maybe if I just didn't hold back, Viv would still be alive." His tone softened.

Paul rubbed his hand over Sam's shoulder. "It isn't easy losing everything, is it?" He smiled when he noticed a small nod coming from his unfortunate friend. "But it's not the end, Sam." He tilted his head towards the two who understood what Paul was trying to say.

"He's right, Sam." Agreed Jaime in a soft voice. "When you've lost everything, the world  lies to you."

"Because you can still breath. You can make new memories. You can't just stop because the government tell you to. Since when did you give up?" Finished Blake, who slid closer to Sam to rest a hand on the other shoulder. "Nova's can't give up, remember?"

There was another nod. Then silence. The school bell rang, but they didn't move. Not until the cafeteria was completely empty. That was when he slammed his two hands on the table and stood up, of course, he startled the three, but right now it didn't matter. His green eyes blared with fire. "You're right."

They all broke from their shock and smiled together, all stepping behind Sam.

"I'm sorry for starting a pity party, guys." His tone was smug. "I ain't normally this grim." He grabbed his backpack and tugged the zip close. "But you're right, the others are probably going through the same thing, and I'm Nova!-" He turned around and swung the bag to his back before finishing his sentence. "-I have to step up."

"There's our superhero!" Jaime patted his back and took out a small badge that was pinned on his gym bag. He strutted to Sam's right shoulder and pinned the said badge perfectly in place.

"What's this?" He tugged his shoulder to check it out, a yellow "C" was printed on it, the background was light blue with a bold dark blue outline.

"It's you." Jaime simply stated while stepping back. "A Champion."

"The last of the Nova Corps. The first of the Champions." Blake crossed his arms with a big grin.

Sam couldn't help but grin too. This Kamalas Law may have taken away his rights to protect the people of this planet, but there is only one thing that can take away who he is.

And that one thing is himself.

Which is not gonna happen on his watch.