A/N: This is not canon compliant with my other story 'Bedroom Talks'. Thank you and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 'A Little Recon'

"Go take care of Gwen. We'll handle these clowns"

"Go,"

With Warren and Layla's urging, Will went off to stop Royal Pain. The rest of them were left behind facing the three assholes that had been making their freshman year hell. Lash already stepped forward with that shit-eating grin and the only sounds that echoed through the hallway was Speed's hearty, obnoxious laugh.

Zach clenched his fist, ready to show these punks just how he-

Magenta all of the sudden shoved him lightly in the direction of the vent they just popped out of, and she slipped inside. What the fuck?, he wanted to yell at her. Like, the others are gonna face off against three of the most powerful seniors at Sky High, why should he run? Then he quickly remembered he was wearing his dad's shoes and they were old and had a slippery sole. Yup, not good for combat. Also, the sudden realization that the combination of his and Magenta's powers were the equivalent of what you might find in a 5th grader's bedroom on Halloween just finally washed over him.

They could kill him.

So Zack went in after her. But that didn't mean he was a coward.

Magenta waited until Zach put the grate back before they crawled back towards the gym. Green light emanated behind her. Dammit, she should have let Zach go first.

"Maj," his voice was uneven but kept at low whisper, "Why did we escape danger just to go back into even worse danger?"

"It's because we have to make a break for it. Most likely we're the only ones unpacified." She felt bad, even though Warren only had enough time to get the group away to safety. Plus, the more

people they could have ushered out, the more noticeable their escape might have been. It was a... calculated risk, if she were to put it logistically, as if that were to quell the guilt turning over in her stomach.

"So no one called for help. Got my cell right here," Zach sent a silent thank you to his stepmom who made him input the number of the Super Federation crisis line in his phone. He flipped it open, "How long do you think the call would take because my parents are gonna have to pay for the minutes-"

"They'll forgive you, but," she stopped before they reached the gym's ventilation grate, "Maybe not now. How do you feel about doing a little recon?"

He grinned, "I'm down."

"Great. Can you get in front?"

"Yep, Rudolph comin through,"

"You might wanna dim down. They could see," Zach got rid of his glow just as they pressed their faces against the grate, still singed from Warren blasting at it earlier. It seemed as though the Pacifying itself had ceased. The polished gym floor was scattered with infants laying atop what used to be their formal wear. There were too many babies to count, some were crawling out of their dresses and tuxes. The only figures walking about the place were Royal Pain and the weird court jester minion and they looked to be bickering over something.

"Thank god they're not dead," Zach whispered in relief.

"Do you think she would have turned them all to babies just to kill them?"

"Babies don't put up much of a fight," Magenta's face contorted in disgust at the thought. Gwen wouldn't stoop so low as to murder babies. But Zach made a point. It would be fairly easy to snuff them out now when they were defenseless. What a morbid thought.

"I have a feeling if she wanted to kill everybody in that gym, she would have done it already,"

Then all of the sudden, groups of people, all donned in black, even wearing black face coverings and maybe even black spandex underneath, marched in columns of two through the gym doors, each carrying a box. The one upfront, set down his box and went to speak with Royal Pain. Zach pressed his ear against the grate, straining to hear the words exchanged but couldn't discern anything given their distance. Meanwhile, Magenta scanned around the room and saw boxes had already been brought to the gym and have been piling up near the bleachers.

They watched as each of the black-clad goons were opening up the boxes to reveal parts of some kind. Then all of the sudden, Royal Pain, in a fit of rage lifted a contraption in the air, shaking it in the direction of the goons. Upon closer inspection, Zach furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Is that… a car seat?" He nearly stifled a laugh when the goons began unpacking the rest of the boxes, its contents revealing to be parts for said baby car seat. He had to clamp his hand over his mouth when the court jester-looking dude waved the instructions on how to assemble the chairs and Royal Pain's frustrated groans echoing through the gym, "Are they seriously fighting over how to put together a car seat?"

"They are pretty tricky," Magenta noted, calling back to the years when her younger brother had been a baby in need of being strapped in. Then, it appeared Royal Pain gave an order and about half of the goons, about 10 or so, headed back into the hallway.

From what they witnessed, Royal Pain was planning on moving the babies. But where?

"We gotta follow the goons," Magenta suggested. They needed more information.

Zach was hesitant. It was fun doing recon for a bit, but now knowing that the babies were being taken somewhere, they needed backup, "Are you sure? We should call for help. Maybe if we find a hallway-"

"But what can we tell them?"

"That Royal Pain is back and turned everyone at the homecoming dance into babies including the two best superheroes on the fuckin' planet. And she's planning on kidnapping them somewhere?"

Her eyes widened and nodded, "Now that I hear it coming out of your mouth, yeah. That sounds really urgent and really important," she conceded but still made the point that they should follow the goons so they know where they need to go to make the call.

Zach lit the way, apparently he was a gifted navigator, able to figure out where they were going now knowing where the main hallway was from the gym. He was able to make a couple of turns to the hallway they knew the goons had walked in. Now, it was all about hearing for the footsteps, the sound of marching clicking on the floor tiles, but Zach can't, for the life of him, hear it, not amidst all the shuffling and breathing the two of them were doing.

And just to not think about the fact that him and his friends were spared by being turned into babies and those same friends fighting some pretty heavy hitters in the Sky High Senior class, Zach was in an absolute predicament.

He was in an enclosed space with Magenta, the girl he had been trying to win over since the first week of school.

He could admit there was this rush, teaming up with her, getting some Hero (Support) work done and spying on the enemy for intel. But he didn't want to bring that up right now, knowing that Magenta would probably treat this as a serious scenario. And it was, definitely. He was super stressed out.

But it didn't mean that whenever they would squeeze through the vent to make a corner that he couldn't help but feel his whole body starting to sweat. Good thing she was wearing her arm warmers, otherwise she would have definitely made a comment about how slippery the vents were getting as she crawled behind him.

Meanwhile, Magenta was busy concentrating on locating the goons. Stopping every now and then at an intersection to see if the new noise was either their friends fighting off Penny, Lash, and Speed or if it was just the sound of them moving within the vents. It wasn't until they were close to a grate overlooking another hallway that they both heard the marching. Quickly and without making too much noise, they inched towards the grate just in time to see the two of them rounding the corner. But unfortunately, unlike where they met up with Will, this vent was a bit higher up the wall, which made any attempts at quickly wiggling out and following after them infeasible.

Luckily, they stopped, appearing to answer an inquiry on their walkie-talkies.

"East Corridor on the 3rd Floor clear, over." Then two others emerged from the same corner the former came from. The one that had answered the walkie stopped the two, "You two are headed for the loading dock, right?"

"Yeah. Gotta make sure those buses are up and running,"

"Just confirming. Now go," Then those two proceeded to go down the hallway and disappear, maybe going up the stairs.

Magenta shared a look with Zach who was currently not glowing. She could see beads of sweat dripping down from his face, it made her reach for her own face. Seeing that they have been crawling for some minutes now in this enclosed space, it was just hitting her that it was getting real claustrophobic in here. It must be worse for him, using his powers too at the same time. Soon she tried to emote to him but then the two goons they were spying on began engaging in more informal conversation.

"How much time we got left, man?"

The one without the walkie checked their watch, "About 40 minutes,"

"Whew," he blew out a sputter compared to that of a horse, "Would not want to be here when the whole place hits ground level,"

The second laughed, "Ain't that the truth."

Zach grew panicked, mouthing a shocked What!? at Magenta, whose eyes grew wide and who had to cover her mouth from yelling out the same sentiment.

"Were we supposed to help build that conveyor belt thingy for the seats that RP was talking about?"

"No, you idiot. She's a technopath. She'll do it. We just gotta make sure the hallways leading from the gym to the buses are clear,"

Zach took at his cell phone and fiddled with the buttons until he got the timer going, counting down the minutes until the school somehow was rigged to fall out of the sky. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Magenta managed to pull herself out of the shock and was tapping Zach's shoulder and jerking her head towards the last intersection they passed through. Zach crawled ahead, nearly slipping from his own sweat and once they were a good distance away from that hallway, Zach peered out a passing vent grate and saw no goons dressed in black. In fact, they were directly over a classroom. He stopped and made Magenta circle back. She tried to jiggle the cover open.

Will's super strength would have been great right about now.

She decided fuck it, and lightly kicked it open.

"Shit!" Zach reached forward and caught the cover last minute all while Magenta smacked her hand on top of Zach's mouth for cussing so loud. They stared at each other for a minute, while Magenta felt the warm sensation of Zach basically breathing into her hand. They waited, making sure that nobody heard and decided to investigate the classroom.

Magenta was aware that the distance between her and the blonde was small now that she had leaned forward to grab at his face. She probably had never been this close to a boy before and she quickly retracted her arm and shimmied down through the opening before he could notice the small blush growing on her face.

Focus, Maj! She scolded herself, You and your friends could die.

Luckily there was a desk right underneath her when she hopped down. Otherwise it would have been a louder reentry into the real world. The nice, spacious, cool world.

Zach mentally berated himself for letting himself get so loud. And the fact that Magenta had to quiet him, now things were going to be awkward between them for sure. Although, they had a much pressing issue to deal with. Once he got out of the vents and onto the desk, Magenta was already pacing around the room in her slightly poofy purple dress.

He adjusted his tux before joining her, trying to relay what they know so far. Which they both would admit was… a lot , a lot to take in.

"So," Zach began nonchalantly before erupting in rapid arm movements, that Magenta could say looked eerily similar to his dancing earlier at Homecoming, and silently screaming while spinning around in circles, Like what the fuck? What the actual fuck?!

He righted himself in time for Magenta to try her best in being composed when inside she felt like doing the same thing Zach just did. She relayed what they learned, "Okay, so… they have buses waiting to," she made a sweeping motion, "to receive the babies?" Did not think I would say that sentence ever, she thought dryly.

"And Gwen must have tampered with the anti-gravity device that Ron was talking about. The one that

keeps the school up in the air," Zach followed up, "Only 40 minutes, we don't have much time!" he whisper-shouted, running his hand through his spiky blonde locks, "What do we do? What do we do?"

Magenta knew exactly what they needed to. Like Zach said. There wasn't much time. And Will was preoccupied, as well as Ethan, Layla, and Warren. They were the only other ones that pacified.

"First, we call the Fed. They won't know any of this is going on,"

Zach whipped out his cell, scrolling to find the number, "And then what?"

Maj winced, not entirely confident of the next part, "We… find where they have the anti-gravity device? Have you heard anything about where it is?"

"Nope. When do they actually tell us anything important in this place?"

Magenta managed a little laugh, 'That's for sure,"

Zach grinned, basking this moment where he made Magenta laugh amidst stressing circumstances. Until, an idea sparked.

"The library," he recalled, "It's got the archives. The archives got blueprints!"

"How do you know that?"

"We were snooping once. Me and Ethan. He's got that crazy theory that there's, like, a super secret senior bathroom that's, like, really loaded. I'm talking about nice hand soaps, warm towels, and a couch. Maj, a couch!"

The shapeshifter rolled her eyes, "They say that for every high school bathroom. There's no such thing as a senior-only bathroom," she sighed. She couldn't really judge how he came to this really useful piece of information. What was important was that they knew where to go from there. Even though the how to get there was a bit on the tricky side.

"I guess we're going to the library,"