Sky High 2:
Sidekicks
Quincy, a powerless freshman, arrives at Sky High. Will and Layla are ready to graduate while bullies, super-tournaments and a world destroying plot are all in play! New students! New powers! New Teachers! New Adventures! Sky High 2!
Area 51
1995
Over the hot desert of midday Nevada, a large military transport chopper soars. It's forward and rear rotors whipping up dust as it makes its low approach towards a distant bunker on the horizon. Hanging out the side of the open doors The Commander, in his trademark red white and blue narrows his eyes, pulling himself back inside with a sigh. He faces a group of six powerful individuals standing with him. Friends and heroes all.
"We're making our final approach, Commander, the General says things are getting hot down there." The pilot calls over his shoulder flicking some switches.
Commander nods and looks over his group. His dear wife, Jetstream, with matching costume always ready to soar into action. Miss Peace, in her soft flowing white and pink garments with her powerful healing abilities may be necessary on this dangerous mission. Paragon, the mighty telekinetic in his black and green body armor and his wife, Isis, a beautiful diety summoner wears a green and jade Egyptian garnment. Finally, Dr. Feelgood, a sarcastic empath dresses in what appears to be clothes from the 70s, afro included.. "We're ready." Commander said with finality.
Dr. Feelgood peered at the crew over his thick rose-colored glasses. "So who else feels forced into this by our freedom-loving government?"
Miss Peace spoke quietly. "Remember, we're here to save the world. The government's just our ride. No pressure."
Paragon laughs a hearty laugh. "Saving the world? No pressure at all… we've done that before a couple times, right, Steve?" Paragon, in his bold green and black suit steps to the edge of the helicopter next to The Commander, watching soldiers and military scatter out of a hidden bunker.
The Commander laughs with a nod. "This is Area 51, Justin. None of us know what we're going to face down there."
"This is Area 51 Commander." Isis says with a sad smile. "I think we ALL know exactly what we're going to be facing down there.
The Commander turns with a grim look before he feels Jetstream's reassuring hand on his shoulder. He turns to look his wife in the eye as the military transport chopper comes to a hover above the entrance.
"Paragon and I will blaze a trail. Dr. Feelgood, Miss Peace, you take care of any survivors and help get those people out. Isis, Jetstream. Cover our tails. Alright Superteam! Engage!" The six heroes leap from the helicopter, landing in crouches rolls and some gliding softly to rest. Commander grabs one large door as Paragon reaches out and the other door is encased in green and both a ripped off. They dash into the secured facility, with sirens blazing, its stark metallic walls bathed in pulsating red lights.
The crew meets up in a hallway, having easily accomplished their goals. "Everyone's out." Miss Peace calls. Paragon gestures towards Dr. Feelgood "Where is this coming from? Can you pinpoint it?"
"Hold your horses, cowboy…" Dr. Feelgood touches his temples "Hmmmm…" he spins suddenly, towards a hallway and points. "This way… dear god it's powerful…"
The Commander surges forward, followed closely by Paragon as the come to a large sealed door. The two large men instantly grab ahold of it, but it simply will not budge. Jetstream, kneeling examines the door. "It's as though it were meant to hold an army."
"…but not a god…" Isis steps forward, her green tassles flowing and dangling. She places her palms together, and then into a series of hand signals as she closes her eyes and whispers. "Come, Set."
Suddenly, a large black translucent cat-man arises from her back in a purring roar, stepping free the being steps forward and through the metal door, as though it were nothing. Moments later, the doors open. Instantly, Dr. Feelgood begins grabbing his head. "Armageddon! It's name is Armageddon!" He calls.
The Commander turns to see his friend fall, but is suddenly distracted by the purple bursts of energy emanating from the frail gray alien in it's tube, it's tentacles flailing against the cracking glass. It screeches an unearthly screech. The Commander's jaw drops. He recovers his composure after a moment, when the Alien's tentacle bursts through the glass and hurls a car-sized computer console at the group. "Move!" He yells.
Paragon stretches his hands forth and catches the console, tossing it aside, and just as quickly a tentacle backhands him against the wall. The Commander catches the tentacle as it whips back towards him. "Josie! Distract it!"
Jetstream, complying, soars into the air, deftly dodging gray oily tentacles as they burst through the containing glass the alien hides behind. Before she knows it, a tentacle grabs her by the leg and begins to flail her around.
"He's hurt… " Miss Peace whispers as she helps Paragon to his feet. "He's vulnerable."
Dr. Feelgood steps up, coughing, as though hurt by the creatures very thoughts. "And he's going to do his best to take all of us out with him. He's very angry for being stuck here."
Dr. Feelgood looks at Paragon for a long time. He glances at the others. "Something has to be done, Justin."
Paragon gets up slowly. He looks over the beast. He realizes how terrible things have become. How little choice is left. How easily this creature will escape if left to its own devices. He feels… ready to die. "Retreat. I'll hold him off."
Miss Peace gasps. "Paragon, no, you…"
Paragon turns to give Miss Peace a deep glare. "Overheal me… I want hormones and adrenaline. Now. Make it count…"
Miss Peace, slowly… tentatively at first, puts her hands on Paragon… they glow white and the man takes a deep fulfilling breath. He opens his eyes. They're glowing green, he surges forwards in a burst of greenness. "Let my team go!" Green bolts of energy fly at tentacles, freeing Commander, Jetstream and Isis. "Commander, pull everyone else out! I'll hold him off!"
"Paragon…" Commander's voice hesitates.
"Do it!" Paragon turns for a second still blocking the alien's attacks with green tentacles of his own. "Now!" He yells as he turns back forwards.
Dr. Feelgood and Miss Peace help Commander off the ground. "He's right, Steve, we have to get out of here."
There is a long moment as The Commander looks around at what's going on, the direness of the situation. "… Fall back! Jetstream, the door!"
Almost before he finishes, Jetstream is at the controls of the door, typing away like mad. "Almost… got it!" The large doors begin to close as the crew rushes out of the central containment area, Paragon, airborne, pushing back and forth with the alien. Isis stops at the edge of the doorway, just inside the room as the doors still shut.
Miss Peace turns around, seeing her friend is still inside. "Alicia! No!"
Isis just hangs her head and smiles, while doing her hand signals. "If it were your husband… you'd do the same thing."
"No!" Miss Peace slams into the door just as it shuts her friend, Isis, inside with her husband and the alien Armageddon. "No!" She slides to the ground crying. "I… no… I wouldn't…" she weeps as Dr. Feelgood grabs her by the arm.
"Ra." Isis says, against the just shut door. "Help me now." She turns and leaps into the air, carried by large rays of light that soar towards the alien, bursting his containment finally before forming into large white hands that hold him down by the neck. Paragon whips his hands out frantically, grabbing tentacles like loose cords and binding them together before hovering next to his wife.
Paragon holds Isis with one hand. "You… came back…"
"Of course. I love you." Her eyes met his. The alien continued to flail in the background, convulsing more and more rapidly.
Paragon smiled genuinely. "What about Quincy…"
Isis' eyes saddened. She reached up with a hand to Paragon's cheek. "He is strong… like his father. He'll be fine." There was a pause… room for doubt. "Besides, there's not much on this planet some telekinesis and Egyptian gods can't take care of."
Wry smiles went back and forth. "I love you, Alicia Knight."
Isis beamed as she leaned into her husband, embracing him. "And I love you… Paragon."
And then, Armageddon exploded. The room was whited out.
Outside the military transport chopper flew off with the remainder of the superteam, four dejected individuals. They were all intently looking backwards, waiting for Paragon and Isis to emerge from the bunker despite the impossibility, like the superheroes they were. All they saw was a white mushroom cloud burst forth from the sand where the bunker had once been. Tears fell from each face save the almost comatose Dr. Feelgood. Jetstream wrapped her arms around her husband. "We will never speak of this again. Agreed."
"I'd hope not ma'am… everything that just happened is XS Classified." The pilot chimed in.
The heroes seemed to ignore him, belaguredly chiming in. "Agreed."
"What will we tell their son?" The Commander winced, gripping the edge of the chopper door and crushing it unintentionally.
"The truth…" Dr. Feelgood chimed in. "His parents died as heroes."
--
Maxville
Present Day
We are treated to a aerial view of Maxville, we find ourselves centering on a relatively downtrodden area, similar to Suicide Slum in Metropolis or Crime Alley in Gotham City. Life appears relatively normal on the bright afternoon as we center in on a specific apartment building.
MALCOLM DAVID KELLEY
Inside a young man punches on a punching bag, shifting back forth in his little workout gear before backing up to kick at it a few times then switch sides. Very upbeat intense classical music plays, perhaps with a heavy urban beat under it as he continues his work out.
MICHAEL ANGORANO
The boy switches to doing pushups, and he challenges himself to do more with more weight and elevation in different shots. While he continues his workout we get to look around his walls, there's newspaper clippings about the exploits of Paragon and Isis, even photo about their large public wedding.
TIM CURRY
There's also clippings from events of Sky High 1, including the "The Sky is Falling." "Colossal Man, new hero, larger than life." And "Rumors of Superhero training school in the clouds" are all there, leading into the graphic title marquee.
SKY HIGH 2
With the two being scattered on stylistically after the school logo is shown against the open window of the room. We come back to the young man who is at this point getting out of the shower and has his scrawny toned look as he puts on a black undershirt and a silver-and-black tribal styled open shirt on top of it. He laces up his tennis shoes and looks in the mirror, putting on his glasses.
"QUINCY! GET READY FOR SCHOOL!"
Quincy sighs. "Coming Auntie." Quicy grabs a sleek black backpack and struts downstairs.
TAYLOR DOOLEY
ALYSON STONER
A little girl, about 6, her hair in pigtails meets him at the bottom of the stairs. She is clutching on to her Bratz doll for dear life. "You can take me to the bus today, Quinny?"
Quincy sighs. "Yeah, get your shoes on Vanessa…"
From the kitchen area, a woman in nurse's scrubs comes strutting around the living room, tidying things up and tossing Quincy his PSP. "I get a half hour lunchbreak from the hospital, and you two have already managed to dirty up the house… look at you! You're not even awake yet! Get your shoes on, Vanessa."
STEVEN STRAIT
DANIELLE PANABAKER
J.R. VILLARREAL
"Yes Mommy…"
The little girl finally complies as the woman stands face to face with Quincy. "I know it's your first day of high school, Quincy, I know it feels like a lot of pressure, but please, don't worry so much about all the superhero stuff and just make some friends… okay?"
Quincy looks his aunt directly in the eyes. "I don't have any powers, Aunt Keisha. I can't worry about it much can I?"
Keisha Grimes, as her badge says, laughs and kisses him on the forehead. "You don't listen to me much do you? Just like your mother…" She smiles and walks off back towards the kitchen area.
LYNDA CARTER
BRUCE CAMPBELL
DAVE FOLEY
Quincy grimaces deep inside, he whispers, almost to himself. "I bet you if I did have powers, I'd be at least a sidekick… not some… hospital flunkie…" satisfied and turning around towards the front door, Quincy finds Aunt Keisha with her finger in his face.
"Are you mocking my profession, boy? The same profession that puts food on your table and clothes on your back? Is that what you're mocking, big man?" Keisha leans forward, her lithe movements all bubbling to the surface again. It had been a long time since Aunt Keisha had done any heroing, but Quincy knew he wasn't going to test her.
"N-n-no… no, ma'am." Quincy backed up a bit, genuinely intimidated.
Keisha nodded, her face drawn into a satisfied calm. "Good. Now hurry up, your sister's bus will be here any minute. They're expecting me back at the hospital soon."
KEVIN MCDONALD
DEE JAY DANIELS
KELLY VITZ
"C'mon kid… you heard your mom." As Quincy turned, grabbing Vanessa's little hand and opening the door, Keisha turned into a cloud of pink swirling energy, which disappeared into thin air just a split second afterwards.
Out on the street, the neighborhood rolled on, a lot of people were just hanging around waiting for something to do. There seemed to be a mean looking set of young men at the store. After a little while Vanessa and Quincy stopped at a corner.
Vanessa, cute as a button with her crumpled golden brown hair and purple jacked looked up at Quincy. "Hey, Cuzin Quinny."
"Yeah…" Quincy looked around, generally disinterested.
"Are you going to be a superhero one day?"
Quincy laughed out loud. He looked down at his young cousin, who stared, awaiting an answer, oblivious to any comedy involved. This made Quincy laugh all the more, getting him crazy looks from all over. "Well, I promise, if I ever become a superhero, I'll take you flying one day, cool?"
NICHOLAS BRAUN
KURT RUSSELL
KELLY PRESTON
This made the little girl giddily happy, to the point of jumping up and down and clapping as her bus arrived. She hugged her cousin around the knees. "Thank you Quinny. You're cool." The bus door opened, the weary driver opened the door and Vanessa bounded up the stairs to join the other first graders in their seats. Quincy simply nodded to the driver, who grunted as he closed the door and pulled off.
Quincy Knight waited at the bus stop. His black, white capped Converse tied snugly beneath his loosely fit black jeans. He reached into his pocket and switched replay on his iPod while simultaneously pulling out his earphones and putting them in his ears.
Around his back a simple black and grey bookbag carried his textbooks and laptop computer. Quincy turned the page in the large novel he was reading. "Sherlock Holmes Anthology" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He ran his hands over his head, through a set of crisp black braided corn rows and looked up.
STEVE ZAHN
CARY-HIROYUKI TAGAWA
CHIAKI KURIYAMA
The corner was quiet and serene in it's own way. Some guys drove by playing their music. Quincy pulled out his iPod and put in his earphones. His own unique music started playing as a gleaming bus glided into view, bearing the marking Maxville City Schools, however it was obviously shinier and cleaner than anything else in the area.
A long slow whistle escaped from Quincy as the larger than life bus pulled up. As it opened and the stairs descended, he looked at the bus driver, a perky young woman who greeted him spiritedly as though she had drunk a large amount of caffeine.
"Hey!" She greeted with a wave. "Come on! Adventure awaits!" She gleefully invited him. Her overexcitedness making Quincy wary. Slowly he stepped towards the bus as she typed on her pad some.
JAY CHOU
MISSI PYLE
LUCY LAWLESS
"Quincy Knight, right?"
He slowly, fearfully nodded.
"Well, yeah, come on! Mustn't dawdle, now!"
As Quincy took a deep breath and pushed himself up onto the bus all of the kids stopped their yelling, throwing and chatting to look at him for a second, then as quickly as they had stopped, they returned to their goings on as though nothing had happened.
The stairs retracted. The bus driver called over her shoulder. "Go ahead and find a seat, hun… things'll get bumpy in a few minutes."
The bus was almost full. He walked to the third row and the older kid sitting there put his hand down. "I don't sit next to sidekick freshmen. Scram."
MUSIC BY RANDY JACKSON
Quincy stopped. The hair on the back of his neck straightened. Was he going to have to appear weak the moment he arrived? Quincy stopped. The boy stood up. He was about 6'1" and he appeared to be older. A senior and much better with his powers. Quincy's mind ran over this for another second and then Quincy turned to keep walking towards the back of the bus. The Senior sat down. "Scrub sidekick." He grimaced and began to tell his neighbors about 'That kid's' lesser qualities.
Quincy moved towards the next open seat. "Taken." A girl scowled at him. Quincy's brow furrowed as he moved on.
"Sorry, dude, this seat's reserved." Was the next reply.
Apparently this thing caught on because Quincy soon found himself at the back of the bus in the last empty seat. He turned as he sat down. He contemplated. He was a freshman. He had, truth be told, no powers to speak of. He was smart. He was agile. He was not the most powerful. He whispered to the person in front of him. "Hey, that guy in the front of the bus... who was he?"
SCREENPLAY BY D.J. COMICBOOK
The girl glanced over her shoulder. "That's Allen. His mom was a super... he's got regenerative capabilities. He heals from anything." She turned to look at him for a second for emphasis. "Anything."
Quincy smiled to himself. Allen could be hurt but not killed. Perfect. Quincy noticed the bus driver turn down what he knew to be a dead end street. Quincy's face drew into resolve he popped up and stalked forward. "Allen." Quincy spoke up curtly.
The senior, Allen stood up and turned around with his hands clenched. "What?" He was more shocked and angry that this scrub freshman was speaking to him than anything else.
PRODUCED BY ANDREW GUNN
Quincy gritted his teeth and forced out a tense tone. "Do you know who I am?"
Allen's eyes went wide and his teeth clenched. "You're nobody with a capital N."
"No fighting! No powers!" The bus driver chimed in a sing-songy voice...
Quincy nodded. "I'm the guy that's going to take my seat from you. And I don't want you to ever sit there again." Quincy couldn't help a slight smile from crossing his face, fortunately, it was able to come off as thingyy rather than goofy.
Allen laughed. He grabbed Quincy by the shirt. Alarmed, Quincy flailed a little bit. He hadn't been expecting such a tight grip.
DIRECTED BY MIKE MITCHELL
"And what are you gonna do about it little boy?" Allen's grip tightened.
"Buckle up, now kiddies!" The bus driver yelped. "We're going SKY! HIGH!" She held one of her
Quincy couldn't repress a wide smile. "Just remember, all the cool kids sit at the back of the bus anyway." Quincy grabbed a pressure point on Allen's hand and twisted it to force Allen to let him go. With a deft spin, Quincy ducked around Allen and slid into his seat just the seat belts locked on.
Outside the bus roaredAllen turned to see Quincy smiling wide before the bus' rockets hurled it from the ground.
"Aaaaaaahhhh!!!" The bus screamed as Allen went flying to the back of the bus, slamming against the back door.
The bus rocketed into the air, finding its way through the clouds and soaring over the pristine hovercampus of Sky High. It's convex underside of the campus hovered perfectly still, it's glowing lights pulsating with the kind of energy one suspect would be able to hold up several buildings and a lush green campus.
The bus driver smiled in spite of herself with a giddy chuckle. "To your right we have Sky High, kept aloft by the latest in antigravity propulsion, with redundant systems. It's constantly moving about the city, it's location disclosed to specific individuals. Teachers, Bus Drivers..."
"Whooo!" A yelling voice screamed by the bus, spreading his arms as he spiraled towards the airborne campus.
The bus driver sighed, amused. "… and select students."
The bus glided to a stop in front of the school, with a line of other buses. The door opened and students began stepping off. A few moments later Quincy Knight stepped off of the bus. "Welcome to Sky High Quincy!" The excited driver giggled. . Quincy nodded and took a deep breath as he looked across the field. He noticed Allen glaring at him, waiting his turn to get off of the bus and Quincy decided it would be wise to head to this power placement.
He stepped around the bus and was amazed. Kids flying and landing, powers being used. An impromptu skating rink had been formed on the side. A sign was being held up for Freshmen to convene at. It was all so surreal. So much to take in…
CONTINUED IN PART 2
Meet Quincy's new friends… and enemies! Find out what Layla has been up to. Sky High 2!