Disclaimer: I own Peyton, Phoenix, and their parents and family, that's it, also the plot.
Summary: Peyton Lynn Hamilton is daughter to Penelope; granddaughter to Tessa; Phoenix Trinity Hamilton is daughter to Melinda, granddaughter to Annie. They're powerful supers, and very close friends. Together, they're the most obnoxious yet endearing force that the kids at Sky High have ever encountered.
Phoenix Trinity Hamilton has the square jaw of her Grandma Annie, the light green eyes of her father Wyatt, the dark hair of all Hamilton women, and the passionate rebellion that was all her own. She hated being a Hamilton. She hated being the good guy but most of all she hated being alone.
Black Converse-encased feet pounded the asphalt beneath. Muscular arms pumped next to an equally muscular, yet soft body, and a passionate, brilliant brain pounded with adrenaline and blood. Phoenix often danced around with law enforcement, and it wasn't the first time that she had to run from the cops. It wouldn't be the last either, not if she had anything to say about it. But hopefully, it would be the last time she got caught.
She knew that she couldn't outrun a police cruiser; she knew that she couldn't fly; she knew that she couldn't do gymnastics, but knowing that she couldn't didn't stop her from trying all the same. So that was the reason that her feet were still pounding asphalt and her arms were still pumping. She liked to push the envelope, push the rules, push herself. She lived for it.
"Damn!" she swore as she hit a fence, wooden, not chain link. She couldn't get herself over it without a little super oomph. So she cheated. She used her levitation, but only got halfway, her hands just barely on the top of the fence when a pair of hands grasped her ankles.
"Ugh!" She hit the asphalt with a vengeance and heard rather than felt the skin on her palms rip open with a combination of asphalt and splinters.
"Nice try, Phoenix," came a masculine voice as her ripped palms were taken and shoved into handcuffs.
"Oh c'mon Rick," she complained to the familiar officer as he read her the rights entitled to her by law and put her in the back of his cruiser.
"Sorry Phoenix, you know I can't let this one go," he told her with a soft smile. Rick had been a little bit of a hood rat himself and while he never said it, it was obvious that he had a soft spot for the rebellious girl.
"C'mon Rick, it was just a little B and E, no worries," she smiled, wishing that she had learned how to get out of handcuffs, but she had never had to, because they had never put her in them before. She hated new tricks.
"Major worries, P. H. You know I can't let you get out of this. Besides Mr. Hue is out of his mind with kids breaking into his store."
Phoenix rolled her eyes. Mr. Hue was the crazy Japanese man who lived above and owned a Chinese food restaurant. He didn't even realize that the food he was peddling and the nationality that he was were different, but somehow, he always managed to realize that it was she and her best buddies breaking into his store. It was really nothing more than a few dollars lifted from his cash register, or the tip jar. They never broke anything, and they never hurt anyone.
"C'mon, kid." They were at the police station, "You know the drill." Rick let her out of the car and led her up the steps. He put her in the holding cell and undid her handcuffs. She sent him a soft smile that he returned before stepping across the six by nine and sitting on a bench against the wall. She pushed her feet out in front of her, and tried to decide on whether or not she wanted to bust out.
"Phoenix, hey babe, what you back in for?" Joanne, probably the most permanent fixture in the Juvenile Detention Hall asked as she came to Phoenix's side of the cell, sitting next to her friend and brushing her bangs from her eyes.
"Another B and E, what you in for Jo? I thought your dad went wild on you?" Phoenix asked as she threw an arm around her friend.
"Yeah he did, totally went Rambo on my ass, but whatever, I mean, I'm good at what I do, so who cares?" Joanne replied.
"If you're so good, why the hell are you back in here?" asked Kendall, the third of the trio of rule breakers, as she was let into the cell and let out of her cuffs. Her red hair was cropped close to her head and her grey eyes narrowed at the pair on the bench. While the three girls often were thrown into a cell together they had never committed a crime together; they ran in different circles except when incarcerated.
"What is this, repeat offender day?" asked Phoenix as she reached out and slapped hands with Kendall, who just sent her a happy smile.
"Hey my sisters from other misters, how you doin'?" asked the third member as she sat on the floor by the identical pairs of Converse sneakers.
"Bored as hell man, I mean, can you believe this? I hate this holder, just take my picture and let me out." Joanne replied and Phoenix laughed.
"You are so stereotypical, Jo. I mean, a teenager without boundaries always in jail, you need to stop conforming," she teased and Joanne laughed.
"Yeah, yeah, and look at you, a troubled little rich girl, get over yourself, man. The only non-stereotypical chick in here is Kendall."
The three girls laughed as Rick reappeared.
"All right, Phoenix, lets go." He opened the cell door and Phoenix sighed as she stood up, leaving her jailbird friends with a smile as Rick lead her down the adjoining hallway and into the photo booth.
"You know the drill, P.H.," he called to her as she held up her placard in front of her, to the left, to the right. She rolled her eyes the entire time.
--
"One call," Rick told her, giving her a quarter for the payphone. Phoenix sighed and resisted the urge to pocket the quarter and pretend that she couldn't get through, but she couldn't stay all night, not again; she just got in more trouble for fighting when behind bars.
She put the quarter in with a sigh and dialed. She waited as the phone rang twice before someone finally picked it up.
"Hello?"
Great, it was her sister.
"Hey Persephone, uh, it's me…"
"Phoenix?" was the fake blonde's reply and Phoenix resisted the urge to verbally slap her sister.
"Yeah, listen, tell Mom that I need some bail money."
"Again, Phoenix?" asked Persephone, her voice transforming perfectly into the disappointment that Phoenix expected, maybe even looked for.
"Yeah, are you gonna help me out or not?" she asked and there was a silence on the other end of the line and just when she was about to hang up, thinking that her sister had abandoned her yet again, there was an answer.
"I'll be there, but you owe me." The line went dead and Phoenix sent Rick a grim smile.
"She comin'?" he asked her and she nodded.
"Yeah, unfortunately."
--
Phoenix slammed her gym bag down on the foyer floor to her parent's manor and wished that she had just pocketed that quarter; she could already hear her mother's footsteps down the hall.
"Phoenix Trinity Hamilton!"
Phoenix rolled her eyes and opened the fridge. She reached down to the second shelf just as her mother's expensive heels appeared at the base of the refrigerator and she could just feel the bile rise in her throat.
"What?" the teenager sighed as she pulled a soda from the fridge and looked over her shoulder at her mother.
"I refuse to get another call from the police station saying that you've vandalized another store!"
Phoenix rolled her eyes and opened the freezer, blocking her mother's face from view.
"Whoa, dream big!" she remarked as she just stood in front of the freezer, letting all the cold air out, not looking for anything to eat, just doing it to up the bill.
"Phoenix, I don't know what to do with you. You are risking exposure to us all."
"Exposure?" thundered Phoenix, slamming the freezer door shut. "I never once used my powers to help me do anything! I don't even use them when you want me to! I have never risked exposure to anybody!"
"Do not raise your voice to me, young lady," her mother replied, anger to her tone.
"Whatever." Phoenix rolled her eyes and grabbed a hold of her gym bag before thundering up the stairs, leaving her mother still in the kitchen, seething.
"God I hate her," the teenager groaned as she opened the door to her bedroom, aptly decorated with police tape and signs to keep out. She threw her bag to the floor, just under the window on the opposite side of the room and flopped dramatically onto her black covered bed.
"Talking to the walls?"
Phoenix looked over her shoulder at the teenage girl in her room and rolled her eyes, not answering before turning back and closing her eyes once more.
"So, how'd it go?" asked Peyton, Phoenix's cousin and best friend. Phoenix opened one eye to look at her friend and sighed, tossing her arm over her eyes.
"Better than usual, this fight was shorter, it was kinda like the Cliffs Notes version," she explained and Peyton nodded.
"And don't worry, I didn't name names," Phoenix answered before her cousin could even ask the question. Peyton flopped onto the queen-sized bed next to her cousin and hugged her tight.
"Oh thank God, my mom would murder me."
"Yeah, yeah, you can let go now," Phoenix growled, rolling away from her cousin and standing up, grabbing her gym bag and opening it up, pulling a wad of money from its depths and tossing it to her cousin.
"There's your cut," she told her and Peyton gasped.
"How did you get away with this?" she asked her cousin in awe. Phoenix just shrugged.
"Don't worry about it," she said, and at her cousin's disbelieving look she sighed and explained further, "I tossed the bag before the cops caught me, they didn't see me drop it, so I made Persephone take me back and I picked it up."
"Thank you." Peyton leaped up and hugged her. Phoenix rolled her eyes but hugged her back.
"Yeah whatever. Any idea on my punishment?"
"No, your ma hasn't called my ma yet, but maybe I'll know by tonight." Peyton shrugged and Phoenix sighed.
"If you do, call me, okay?"
"Deal," nodded Peyton as the pair bumped fists before she flew out the window. A power inherited from her father.
Phoenix watched Peyton go with a small twinge of sadness. She got along with Peyton so much better than anyone else in her family and she always hated it when she had to be away from her.
--
"Phoenix, come down here please!"
That was her father, finally home from a "business meeting" in Ireland and in no mood to be particularly forgiving. More often than not Wyatt Hamilton did nothing to encourage or discourage his daughter's behavior, but her latest stint in jail had shortened his temper.
"What's up?" Phoenix asked as she came downstairs and both her parents were waiting for her in the dining room, sitting on the same side of the table, their hands entwined. Phoenix opted to stay standing on the other side of the room.
"Sit down," her dad offered.
She didn't move.
"Phoenix we need to talk to you," her mother started, but stopped when she saw Phoenix's face.
"What is this, an intervention?" the teenager asked, a bit bored with the situation.
"Phoenix, we can't keep fixing everything for you, you need to understand that your decisions have consequences, and that's why we had to resort to this," her father told her, sounding almost upset and Phoenix got a large knot in the pit of her stomach.
"What?"
"You have to make a choice, Phoenix, it's jail, or one last chance at probation."
"What's the catch?" she asked, knowing that "probation" was a word that her father had chosen to make the second choice sound a little better than the first.
"Sky High. It's a high school in Maxville."
"That's a school for supers, not for delinquents," Phoenix replied, unsure of exactly what was happening to her.
"We know, but the judge on your case is a friend of your Cousin Courtney, and she convinced him to give you that as a second option. If you graduate then you can come back here and you'll be on a six-month probation period. After that, if you make any more mistakes like the last few you've made, then you will go to jail and we won't be able to help you."
"You really think that you can save me, don't you?" Phoenix asked, disbelief in her voice.
"Phoenix, you're our daughter, and we love you, don't ever forget that," her mother spoke and it was like a knife in Phoenix's gut.
"I know all that. Am I really getting a choice in this?"
"No."
"Great, another high school."
--