A/N: I haven't written in a long long time so I thought I'd start by rewriting an old story of mine, please review!
Chapter 1
The ticking of the clock filled the quiet room. On the bed next to the desk where it stood, a man lay sprawled out on a deep red bedspread tousled black hair with a red streak running through fanned around a face buried into a pillow.
Slowly the seconds hand turned bit by bit and when it reached the number twelve a loud sound went through the place. With a groan a tanned arm shot out hitting the clock blindly smashing it into pieces.
When no one yelled at him for breaking another alarm clock he looked up blearily. He sighed pulling a grey shirt over his head before making his way downstairs.
On the fridge he found a note pinned by a magnet. 'Warren. The league called, there's been an emergency. Don't know how long it will take. Love, Mom.'
His brow furrowed as he made his way out onto the street. Mondays were never good.
He stepped into the cafeteria only to see a crowd surrounding Luna who was animatedly talking to them all. 'Probably discussing her dress for the Homecoming dance', Warren thought with derision. It was only when he went to the usual table that he realised that Layla and Magenta were there listening to whatever it was that Luna was talking about along with the rest of the gang. It struck him as odd considering that they usually kept as far away from Luna as possible seeing as how she was, in Magenta's words, 'The ultimate ice bitch'.
Warren groaned as he realised that Luna had caught sight of him and the smile on her face became even wider as she swung her blonde hair around in a flurry and went back to her audience all the while sending him coy glances that he steadfastly ignored. His friends noticed his arrival and soon left the Ice Queen's side to join him.
"Hey Warren, did you hear the good news?" Layla said the very second she sat down. "That super villain Cerberus was caught last night! Luna was just telling a heavily embellished tale of how her father and the rest of the Justice League found and raided his secret hideout. Apparently he made a full confession of all his crimes and admitted to all the murders."
Cerberus, a shadow manipulator, had gone psycho and turned from Hero to serial killer. He had been picking off teenagers from the street and dropping off their bodies at the headquarters of the Justice League after torturing them. Nothing about him was known and the Justice League had been working around the clock with the BAU trying to find him. His mother was called in time and time again to supervise the autopsy of the victims considering that she was the only healer in Maxville who was trained in the Forensic Sciences.
"That's probably why my mom was called." Warren said telling the rest about the note she had left.
"But there hasn't been any report of a new victim so far." Magenta said thoughtfully. "Maybe one of them got hurt and needed healing?"
Now that he thought about it, the note did say 'emergency', surely an autopsy wouldn't count as an emergency?
"He must have hurt them in the struggle." Will shrugged distractedly."I mean what else could it be?"
"Cerberus has the highest body count of all Super Villains with twenty five victims the last Super Villain with a body count that even came close to that number is the NeoNecroMancer who blew up a lab killing ten civilians and five Superheroes." Ethan chimed in, stating the factoids he was known to remember."Most Super Villains don't kill, it's pointless to try to take over the world if everyone in it is dead."
And that one statement summarized the entire Super Villain community, Warren realised, they were narcissistic megalomaniacs but Cerberus was just a psychopath, just like any other serial killer out there.
He was distracted from his thoughts as a pie flew through the air and landed on Zack's shirt.
"FOOD FIGHT!"
Pandemonium prevailed.
"Mom?" Warren said as he entered the house his face scrunched up in effort to inhale less of the rancid cheese smell his shirt was giving off. He hated Mac n Cheese day.
His mother's car was in the driveway but the house was suspiciously lacking in the usual bustle and noise she usually created. Even as she came out into the living room looking incredibly flustered he didn't relax, sensing that something was not quite right, there had only been a few other times that he had come home to a quiet Vivian Peace and each time had been related to his father. She was by nature loud, rambunctious and utterly cheery, something that had shocked his friends when they'd first met her. Nothing quite beat Layla asking him if she could keep his mom one hour into the stay-over.
"Oh Warren there you are, we were wondering when you'd show up."
"We?" The shields were up with that very word and she could see the tension building in him.
"We're going to have a guest living with us for some time."
She led him to the kitchen where a tiny girl who looked barely 15 sat at the table looking a bit dazed. Her brown hair was short and curled around her tiny face softly and hazel unblinking eyes were partially hidden behind black rimmed glasses.
"Evelyn, this is my son Warren. Warren, this is Evelyn. She's going to be staying with us for some time."
'Evelyn' waved at him politely and her mouth twitching into a mock smile it dropped back into it's default sulk.
"Hi."
"Hello."
"So what brings you to Maxville?"
"I don't know, I don't remember. That's why I'm staying here for now. I have memory loss.I believe it's called retrograde amnesia."
"You don't remember anything?" He said sceptically. It seemed like something out of the soap operas his mother liked to watch so much, memory loss didn't really seem like something that could happen in real life.
"Warren can I talk to you outside?" His mother said pulling him through the door before he could say something to upset the girl."Look this is a delicate situation and I don't want you poking around too much. She's not in the best state of mind and I need you to be civil, understand me?"
"But why is she-"
"It's...complicated." She wrung her hands nervously and Warren frowned.
"Does this have anything to do with that Cerberus guy?"
"How did you know about that?! It was just this morning that-"
"It was all over school." He said cutting her off and she relaxed.
"Of course school, I forgot how quickly news travels in high school."
"Well it has been a very long time since you were young."
Her only reply was to glare at him before shaking her head, suddenly nervous again. "Anyway you must have heard about the Justice League busting Cerberus?"
"Yeah so?"
"Well she's the last victim."
"What?!" He had yet to hear of anyone making it away from the supervillain unscathed and the girl in the kitchen seemed fine albeit a bit strangely quiet.
"That's why I was called because she was still alive when they..." she broke off looking at the ground. When she had reached the hideout they had led her to the place where the girl lay bleeding out onto the floor. They couldn't even move her from where she was because it might have aggravated the wounds. The image of the young girl splayed out on the stone table spread eagled with blood dripping slowly onto the floor from cuts and incisions all over her body while her head hung over the edge, eyes still wide open was one Vivian had been trying to get out of her mind for ages. It was a wonder that she was still alive. "We haven't got an ID on her yet and she can't remember anything, so for now she's going to be staying here with us where I can keep a watch on her and in the day she'll be attending Sky High with you."
"Wait, she has powers?"
"Not as far as I can tell, the gene test will take a while because the labs are working overtime right now, but she needs to be kept under surveillance until the case is settled in court. I'd keep her with me but the hospital might not be the best place for her considering her mental status."
"You know I can hear everything you say." Spoke a voice from the kitchen. "So you might as well as just talk in front of me." The little girl said, surprisingly calm.
Evelyn didn't remember anything about her life, who her parents were, where she lived, how she ended up in that dank lair or anything. But she remembered Cerberus. She remembered waking up in the dingy room strapped down. She remembered laying there for hours in pain. They had guessed her name to be Evelyn from the inscription on the pendant around her neck that he had left on and carefully carved around. She remembered the feel of the scalpel digging into her skin but nothing earlier than that.
She did remember being saved by a tall woman with hair shaded like fire and the greenest eyes who'd soothingly albeit chattily told her 'I'm Vivian Peace, just call me Vee, everyone else does, what's your name?' once she was done fixing the last of the cuts on her wrist and offered to take care of her when Evelyn couldn't recall her name. She remembered Vivian telling her how she loved Evelyn as a temporary name saying that it was one of the names she'd had picked out while pregnant before they'd found out about that the baby was going to be a 'he'. And now she had the additional memory of the son striding in with the suspicious looks and the horribly smelly shirt.
The mother and son duo re-entered the room both wearing grim expressions with pity mingling through. A big sarcastic smile found its way onto Evelyn's face and she turned to Warren.
"Congratulations, you are now stuck babysitting a fifteen year old."