Okay, I had to scrap Broomsticks and Lockers, I just… it was going bad, and I couldn't think of a single way to salvage it. So here's my redundancy, or replacement if you will.
I don't own Sky High, or any songs I mention/use.
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When Freeze-girl (though he had had the displeasure of dancing with her, she had opted to wear needle, literally, thin stilettos and had a bad habit of stepping on toes that evening, he had never found out her name, and was perfectly simply referring to her as Freeze girl when bragging about the dirty details his homecoming night entailed in her company) had flounced up to him, announced that she was not carrying his child (Warren, who had only been partially listening to his surroundings only caught the "Carrying your child" part and started to hyperventilate till Zack told him to calm down, she wasn't with his brat) and that she wasn't beholden to him, and had found someone who treated her better he was undeniably confused, and to her embarrassment he said, loudly, that he wasn't aware they were dating. When she, understandably, got upset over this, he tried to get her to calm-down, but not having ever known her name, which she screeched was Bethany after it was let known publicly, he, needlessly to say, ended up sitting there scratching his head while she ran out crying with a trail of people laughing at her expense. Which was what lead to the rather frantic conversation where Warren, vainly, tried to get information from his own not chuckling comrades.
"Okay, since when was I dating anyone?!" He asked, his book forgotten on the greasy table surface.
"Since homecoming." Layla and Magenta both replied, neither of them finding the situation particularly humorous in anyway.
"You know dude, you could have at least played along, you know, for her sake." Zack said seriously, trying his best to give Warren a patronizing look.
"One, don't ever try to patronize me. Two, I wasn't even aware I asked her out! In fact I fucking know I didn't!"
"Language." Layla admonished coolly while tossing her salad. Warren glared at her a bit but let it go in pursuit of how this started about.
"Look, I just want to know what the hel-heck just happened back there!" He growled out glaring at the group sitting at the table, unfortunately no one seemed effected by it.
"Well, don't look at me! Layla's the one who knows all about it, I'm just as surprised as you!" Will said holding up his hands in a gesture of compliance. Layla fixed her boyfriend with a petulant glare at being ratted out.
"Spill." Warren threatened; smoke curling up from his tightly clenched fists.
"Well, I don't see why I should tell you anything, it didn't seem to bother you about her feelings when you were bragging about what a-a-a-a- a good Kisser she is!" Warren almost felt the slight urge to laugh at Layla's inability to say sex.
"Well, she hadn't spread in the first place, there'd be nothing to talk about now would there?" He snapped, feeling more than a little waspish.
"Well, maybe she thought you honestly liked her?" Layla shot back, her voice rising.
"Why would she think that? I didn't say a freaking word to her!" He shouted, glad the rest of the cafeteria had left with the distraught heroine-to-be.
"Love doesn't take words Warren!" Unable to come up with a come-back for that silly bit of preteen fluff-fantasy she has just, so unselfconsciously, shouted, he sank into his seat staring at her incredulously. And for a few moments Layla was basking in her victorious glow. Warren finally managed a swallow down his dry throat before croaking.
"Stronghold, your chick's nuts."
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"I don't practice Santeria
I ain't got no crystal ball
I had a million dollars, but I
I spent it all." Warren hummed under his breath as he climbed the stairs to the roof top were Power Training took place. Power Training, much like gym, was a class designed around using one's powers. Mostly these classes were held inside the gym, but powers that could be potentially dangerous, like Pyrokinesis, where held outside in a large open area and since Medulla just finished reinforcing the roof, his class, at least, was going to be held there for the rest of year. Though it was under the guise of a serious class, it was really more of a fuck-around-with-your-powers-until-you-find-something-cool sort of deal.
Fortunately, his class was fairly small, being as very few people truly had "dangerous" powers that could possibly at any point in time improved upon.
Warren dropped his stuff on a bench and went to stretch, having already changed into his gym clothes. Off to his right was Erin. Having never actually talked to her in great detail, Warren couldn't begin to guess what she was like, but she seemed nice enough. It was obvious she really didn't care what others thought from her messy completely functional low ponytail, and bare-face. Unlike most girls, she wore the guys' uniform pants, medium with the draw strings tied and a medium women's shirt, white and blue colors. The bell rang and no one else appeared.
"Think they got lost?" Erin called out jokingly to the Arsonist. He paused, mid stretch before finishing and walking over to her.
"Possibly. I wouldn't put it past any of them. Who's our teacher this quarter?" She dug through her pocket and pulled out her folded schedule.
"Mr. Boy. You know, they're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel here." From this distance, Warren could see her eyes were a nice light grey color, almost blue.
"Isn't he the sidekick teacher?"
"Yeah." She nodded.
"Oh there you two are!" The two turned their heads sharply to look at the new comer. It was Mr. Boy, decked out in his old Hero-suit leading the rest of the class.
"Well it looks like we're all here. So uhm, Hi, I'm All American Boy! Former sidekick to The Commander. Uhm You can call me Mr. Boy, and for those of you wondering, yes Boy is my real last name." Everyone just kinda shifted around awkwardly before he clapped his hands together with a loud cheer.
"Okay! Um, how about you guys pair off and work together on your powers?" Erin caught Warren's eye and shrugged. He nodded briefly and the pair went off to find a quiet place.
After rounding the dome to the astronomy room the two came across a small Gazebo in the middle of a garden, complete with a mini man-made river that continuously flowed in a small wobbly circle around the small garden thanks to a silent water pump.
"Medulla has way too much time on his hands." Warren grumbled staring at the strangely inviting little garden. Erin nodded in his peripheral.
Erin, as it turned out, could make these rather cool bubbles with her mind. Actually they were projections of her consciousness manifested in physical form, quite often taking the appearance of a bubble. But most people, including herself, simply called them bubbles.
"So, this thing is literally a thought?" Warren said poking it. Erin grinned.
"Yeah, it's weird. But what's even better is that I have almost complete control within the bubble. Say for instance, going with power abuse here, I want a cold soda, I grab a soda, put a "bubble" around it, and lower the temperature within the bubble and viola instant fridge action, hold the electric bill." Warren grinned. "I can even change the outward appearance of the bubble." She spoke after sending the larger one away and conjuring up a much smaller one in the palm of her hand. "I can make the bubble any color I so choose." The bubble shimmered an array of different colors before going back to clear. "And I can change the density of the outside, I can make it as thin as air, or as hard as a diamond. But that's about it." The bubble disappeared and she sagged slightly onto the stone benching in the shaded half of the small gazebo.
"Take a lot out of you?" Warren asked as she took a couple of deep breaths.
"Yeah, gives off one hell of a headache too. The abstract of it is it's a portion of my brain, forced outside my head and subjected to whim. So in a way, I feel everything happening to it." Warren gave a slight grimace to the mental image he was presented.
"That's… kinda," he paused for a moment trying to think up an adequate adjective "gross." His fingers twitched to wipe themselves of his pant-leg. He had poked it… Erin shrugged.
"What about your powers?" She pulled the tie out of her light brown hair shook it out a bit and retied it.
"Well, you know what a fire is right? Rapidly moving air particles." They said the last two words together; she nodded for him to move on. "Well, pyrokenisis is the excitement of air particles in a specific pattern." He held up his hand and his joints made the familiar clicking sound, most associate with a lighter being turned on. In his hand a small flame flared into a small figurine of vague person-shape, jumping up and down.
"Wow, you have a lot of control to be able to shape the fire. One question though, what's with the clicking sound?" Warren extinguished the flame and scratched the back of his head.
"Ah, broke my wrist in seven different places. Developed ligamentus laxit in the joint. Clicks every time I move it." He said, wishing the topic to be dropped. It was a story he really hated telling people. She seemed to understand and just commented.
"If you're not careful with that, it'll turn into arthritis." Warren nodded, already knowing that, and sat down on the bench across from her. The Bell for Gym rang, causing both super-powered teens to grumble.
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Since they both were heading to the same class, Gym, they continued on with their conversation about powers, and use, or misuse.
"Yes, I have used my powers to feed my grilled-cheese addiction." Warren choked out, still laughing from her confession using her powers to silence her little sister. She burst out into fresh gales of laughter before wiping her eyes.
"Okay, okay… let's see… I once used my powers to…"
"Warren! There you are!" Layla's voice interrupted. Quickly she latched onto him, shooting a quick smile at Erin, she dragged him off.
"Layla?! What the hell?!"
"Warren, Bethany Drake's on the warpath. It's all over the school! You and that girl vanished off for an entire hour! Bethany heard from Stacy, who heard from Kelly G., who heard from Ivan, who heard from… ahem, well anyways, she's all bent out of shape about it, and looking for… Erin was it? Well anyways, she looking for her and it was best if you're not seen around her kay?" Warren couldn't make heads or tails about it, partially because Layla was panting heavily, mostly because she was doing her mock-five jabber. Also her grip on his arm was cutting off circulation.
"Okay, what?" Layla stopped, took a deep breathe and clarified.
"Bethany's hunting that Erin-girl, because the entire school now thinks you two are dating and that's why you rejected her. Apparently this afternoon's display was all some elaborate scheme to get you to notice her. And when you didn't play game, in fact you quite rudely blew that plan to shreds; she got all huffy and stormed out. Then someone texted Sheila last period, and the chain went from there, that you were "standing really close" to Erin McDaniel, and that "the two of you vanished really quickly" for the better part of an hour and that she "seemed tired" when you both came back, and that the two of you were "acting couple-y talking and laughing with each other"." Warren closed his eyes in frustration, suddenly the days of having no friends and no love-life, seemed a by-gone bliss.
"And of course they all assumed we were screwing. The truth is, the class was Power Training, and she was testing her powers ability to with-stand incredible temperatures, she had asked me before the class started. We were off away from everyone else so I didn't accidently barbeque someone by mistake. And afterwards we got on the subject of stupid things we've used our powers for." He lied, perhaps a little too easily, and made a mental note to inform Erin about the lie. It wouldn't do for her to go running around with a different story.
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In the beginning of gym, he tried to catch her attention as they walked past her, but she was surrounded by her friends. Later, however, into the fourth match, as he sat there listening to Layla plot to how to salvage his reputation, Magenta elbowed him the ribs. He turned sharply to her, about to breath fire, figuratively, at her for infringing his personal space, she pointed to a bubble hovering in front of him. Quickly, before Layla saw it, he grabbed it, and felt it pop in his hand.
"What was that?" Layla snapped, turning around and pinning Warren with a suspicious glare. Next to him, Magenta blew a bubble with the gum she had been chewing on and popped it loudly and visibly. Layla sent them one more glare and turned back to her boyfriend, ranting and raving about Warren and his lack of caring about his reputation.
Inside the bubble a folded up piece of paper with a phone number written on it. Before Warren could even dig out his phone out of his pocket, The Guinea-pig girl grabbed the paper, and whipped out her own phone and started rapidly pushing buttons.
"Hey."
"Shh, if Layla sees her digits on your phone she'll flip." And Warren sank into a petulant sulk. Though he had tried many times, Warren had failed to get Layla to stop riffling through his personal belongings whenever the whim struck her. Will had failed to get his girlfriend to lay off snooping through his best friend's personal belongings, hell Layla's parents have tried to get it through her head that he was getting tired of her "charming little grins" and then going ahead and going through his phone list, or other more embarrassing things. Once, he had caught her going through his underwear drawer… though she didn't know he had caught her. Warren still tossed and turned at night wondering what he should do about that.
"Tell her, that I told Layla, that we were doing power training with heat." Warren said, grimacing over how close that sounded to gossip.
"Right, figured as much. She says we need to meet somewhere impartial. I suggest someplace, like the Zoo, or McDonalds." Warren arched an eyebrow at those suggestions, though, to be frank, he has been hankering for a Big Mac. So he wasn't going to question her logic, or lack-there-of.
"McD's sounds great."
"What are you two chattering?" Layla asked, interrupting Magenta.
"The chances of the fighters, He's saying Eddy's got the edge on Kevin." Magenta lied, not missing a beat. It was by some small coincidence, Warren was mildly surprised to note, that Edward McDowell and Kevin Peterson were doing singles grudge-matches against each other. Or maybe it was just her weird female-ability to pay attention to three different things at the same time. Whatever it was, Warren was glad to have it working for him for once. Once again Layla had no reason to doubt this and turned back to her Boyfriend.
"Hey, why are you inviting yourself along?" Why was she getting involved in this?
"Because, you can't take a popularity power-house like Freeze-girl down with yourself and Erin's connections, though she does have some rather influential contacts in high and low places within this school." Warren couldn't help but envision Erin as a 1930's Gangster Moll. "We really don't want anymore people knowing the truth, than there already is." Warren could agree with that. "Remember this, for every person that knows the truth, there are going to be thirty more rumors too close to the false then comfortable, and the truth isn't too great a thing to be let out either." Magenta paused to let a loud roaring cheer from the crowd interrupt the hushed conversation.
"Shouldn't we tell the others then?" Warren didn't want to let the others in on it, but, it was rather suspicious that the normally "stick together" Magenta was so anxious to omit the rest.
"They would complicate things, Zack can't keep a secret to save his life, and Ethan, Will, and Layla are way too "the truth shall set you free"." Warren, whose head was spinning from all this espionage secrecy bull-shit, was not stupid, confused and coming down with a soon-to-be migraine from: trying to concentrate on Magenta's quiet talking over the cheering crowd, making sure no one else was over hearing them and sorting out all the details as to how, within the timeframe of four hours, his life degraded into one of those extra episodes of The Real Life you get on the DVD that was cut from airing because it was so confusing and high-school-drama-stupid, he was. And while with various synapses rapidly misfiring on his nerve cells because of the over swelling of blood caused by high blood pressure impeding thought-process, he knew, though he couldn't figure out why, there was a reason why Magenta didn't want Will Layla Zach and Ethan in on this. But with the now pulsing pain in between his eyes, the Pyro decided to call it a day, and go rest in Nurses office. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd get an aneurism and be excused from school for the next month.
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"Gotta love super high. By the time I walked out of Mad Sciences fifth period, some random kid asked me if I already knew what gender my "love child with Peace'-direct quote by the way- was." With a loud groan Warren slumped forward and smacked his head onto the table surface.
"Listen, I am a seventeen year old male, the fastest way to make me panic is to say the B-word, or any of its synonyms, around me. So for future reference, refrain from using them in this or any other conversations we might have." He moaned. His headache back with a vengeance, voice muffled by the table. Magenta merely rolled her eyes at his melodrama and dipped her fries in the little paper cup filled with ketchup.
"Well, frankly, I say we encourage them, hell, maybe even stage a few ourselves. Keep people talking so much crap that no one will know what's going on." The purple loving girl bit out between munching fries. Right as Warren was about to protest, this was his life they were subjecting to public inquiry, Erin kicked him in the shin and sent him a "Can it!" glare. The grunge donned boy rubbed his shin and mentally grumbled about evil girls.
"Warren, I need your number, we're going to have to keep in contact through this." Erin said, busying herself with her fruit and yogurt parfait.
"Uh, no can do. Layla would flip if she caught your number in his phone. She's practically forbidden Warren from having any contact with you." Erin frowned and pointed with her spoon.
"Okay, now that pisses me off."
"Yeah, no shit! Layla doesn't fucking own me. I mean I'm not her goddamned boyfriend, why does she think I'm just going to nod and bend-over like Will?" Erin watched as the thoughts formed in the sidekicks head. She was covering something. Erin understood why she wanted to get involved with this, but not why she wanted complete control over their interactions. Mentally, Erin made a note to keep an eye on this group, something was going down. Her Venus buzzed in her jacket pocket. She pulled it out, making sure to keep an ear on the conversation.
OMG girl, u no what icy just sent evry1 bout u? she said that u seduced peace and it's not his kid. n that u r a big slut n a bunch of other shit. The Junior actually had a decent laugh at this.
Tell her that shes just jealous becuz she didnt think of it 1st She replied, not even fazed at being called untrue things. High School really was funny when one thought about it.
"Hey do you have your phone with you?" She asked Warren after re-pocketing hers. He dug his own Vcast and handed it over to her.
"Most models nowadays have locking features on them." She said as she flipped through his menus till she found the option. She handed it back to him "Just type in your four digit code and then she can't get into your phone." Magenta looked impressed, but not entirely happy, which confirmed Erin's suspicion of something not being quite right with things in the group. But it wasn't her place to stick her nose in.
"We done here? 'Cause I got a ton of homework from Heroic History to do, and while this is so much fun, I can't afford to not do this." Magenta and Warren got up with her and piled their respective trash on their respective trays before leaving the table and dumping their garbage in the trash bins.
On their way out, after Magenta, being that she had to go pick up her boyfriend from his part time job, had already left. Erin called over Warren from his own car.
"Here's my house and cell number, we need to talk, Magenta's not always going to be trustworthy in this ordeal." She handed him a similar scrap of paper to the one she tried to give him in gym and left in her own car. He wondered the meaning behind that particularly cryptic bit of information, but put it in the back of his mind for the time being. And he too pulled out of the parking lot, determined to call her after his own homework was finished.
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Well review if you liked it please.