[ WP ] Every aspiring superhero must become a sidekick for a few years before being granted full time hero status . You are the strongest superhero in your age group , but believe you have been assigned to the weakest hero . You learn a lot more than you originally thought you would .

Tar. They assigned me to Tar. I take down Hansel, The Jump, and Guerilla, all together, just to get The Council's attention, and they assign me Tar. 
 
 They say Mindreader is never wrong, that she assigns the perfect fit for every new sidekick. There's no way. Tar is a mid-table Tier Three on his best day. The Jump, the weakest of the three I took on? High Two, on his worst. Tar is a Tier Five – THE LOWEST TIER – hero, and they assign me to him. I'm a god, and I get him. 
 
 What can he even do? He turns liquids into tar and back, right? The scientific side of me says that that sounds real powerful – after all, the body is 70 % liquid, or so my teacher says. But his powers do n't work like that, else he'd be a Tier Two, maybe Tier One. 
 
 So here I am, sitting in this empty lobby, waiting for him. What kind of a hero has a lobby anyways? No secret cave, no tower, no other-dimensional world? Just an office building downtown. 
 
 Tar walks out. He's not even in costume, not that it means anything. He's got a business suit and slacks, and a nice grey tie. The epitome of boring. I stand up, and pretend to look excited to see him. I can see the boredom in his eyes, the emptiness. I have to remind myself that this is a superhero, not some middle aged accountant with nothing in his life. 
 
 Tar walks over to me, introducing himself as Howard MacDonald. He mentions, as a side point, that he's more known as Tar. As if that is n't the center of a superhero's life. It's just a casual mention, you know, nothing important. This man could theoretically kill dozens of people ( on his best day ), but he's Howard MacDonald. God. 
 
 I introduce myself as Zeus. Normally, a superhero will go through nearly half a dozen nicknames before deciding, but I knew what I was calling myself the second I realized the extent of my powers. I was a god. 
 
 Tar smiles, a weird smile hinting towards something – fatigue, maybe. I remember a friend telling me that supposedly Tar gets a lot of sidekicks. I wonder why, briefly. He starts talking again. 
 
 `` So, you're my new sidekick, then?'' 
 
 `` Yes, sir.'' 
 `` Is there anything that was left out of your file that you want to let me know now?'' 
 
 The file stems from a three-part interview. First, they go around to your friends and family, spending a week or so interviewing and interrogating them about me, about them. Then, I'm put through a four hour test and interview. Finally, and most annoyingly, I'm handed over to an anonymous hero, if you could call them that, for a day's worth of torture. Nobody, not even the people in charge, like the concept, but ever since Tenton's defection as soon as he received full access to the information and resources of the Superhero's Guild, they implemented a more rigorous testing system. There's been no breaches since. 
 
 `` No, nothing comes to mind, sir.'' 
 
 `` Please, call me Howard, or Mr. MacDonald, or Tar, or whatever you so please. None of this formal stuff – I can tell it's offputting to you.'' 
 
 `` Thank you, Tar.'' 
 
 He gave me a half-smile and invited me into the backroom. It was n't much, though I'll admit the supercomputer was quite a sight. 
 
 Tar and I both sat down, and I looked around the room, lost for what to do. A hand on my shoulder grabbed my attention, and Tar motioned to the computer. A search engine of unknown origin was opened. It read `` Knowledge''. I vaguely remembered an old superhero that went by that name. 
 
 The first thing that Tar typed into it was `` Google''. My eye twitched, truly a hero with a supercomputer could n't have been this technologically illiterate. 
 
 He opened up the first result in a new tab, and then went back to the main page for the Knowledge search engine. He switched back to the now-open Google tab, and typed in, `` what happened to Connery?'' Enter. 
 
 Connery was an old superhero who had disappeared. He was wildly popular… for the two weeks he was around. Then, he disappeared. Public opinion was he made some sorta rookie mistake, or perhaps overestimated himself and died due to overheating, freezing, radiation, something like that. The Google results, leading to places like SuperheroNews, BBC, Fox, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, all corroborated those assumptions. 
 
 Tar switched back to Knowledge. `` what happened to Connery?'' The results immediately popped up, leading to websites I did n't recognize. SuperNet, Karl's Corner, The Library, and other sites that seemed vaguely related to various superheroes, or heroes as a whole. He clicked on the SuperNet one. 
 
 It was some kind of forum, obviously limited to superheroes. It was a single thread, under the subforum `` Preservation and Records'', with the first post being by Mindreader, on the 24th of April, 2017. About a year ago. 
 
 `` To those it may concern, 
 
 Connery is no longer with us. As some of you predicted, his overzealousness got the best of him, and he took it upon himself to storm The Glade's base, all by himself. We were sent the ashes last week, 17/4/2017. He has since been buried, as his overzealousness, once again, meant he left no post-mortem requests. 
 
 -Mindreader'' 
 
 I swallowed. 
 
 `` You're lucky. Normally, I do n't tell my sidekicks why they were assigned to me until months later. I was asked by the Council, specifically Mindreader, to just spell it out for you. She did n't say if it was for a good reason or for a bad one. I suppose we'll both find out over the next few years, eh?'' 
 
 Zeus suddenly did n't sound too awesome of a name. 

