Welcome to McLean.
Sharpay sighed and leaned her head against the cool glass of the black Range Rover she was seated in the backseat of. Her skinny jean-clad legs were folded up on the black leather. She didn't care if she got her mother's car dirty. She was the one who was to blame for she and her brother's arrival in this town. Well, hers and... theirs. She wasn't supposed to talk about them. She wasn't even supposed to think about them, especially when there were people like her brother around.
"Stop thinking about it, Shar."
She lifted her head from the window and turned her brown eyes to stare at the back of her twin brother, Ryan's, seat. "Stay out of my brain, loser," she commanded mentally.
"Make me. I dare you." He shot back, sending a silent message into her ears for only her to hear. She narrowed her eyes, knowing that Ryan was up there smirking. Telepathy. That was the logical term for it. Ability to read thoughts and mentally communicate with others. Out of all the powers a person could be born- or chemically fused- with, it was one of the more common. It was also one of the more common powers for pop culture to play with. Case in point: That's So Raven. But Sharpay had something different. Something less Disney Channel approved.
"OW, SHARPAY." Ryan exclaimed, leaning forward in the passenger's seat while grabbing his blonde head. Sharpay bit back her smile, feeling less than ashamed as her brother cradled away his throbbing headache. She looked back out of the window and saw an array of large houses, probably belonging to the family of some government official or another. Couldn't the CIA have picked a more interesting state to be located in than Virginia? They were the CIA, for crying out loud. Would sunny Florida have been too much to ask? "Mom, she's blasting!"
"Am not." Sharpay retaliated weakly. It was no use arguing something with someone who could tell when someone was lying by the slightest inflection in their voice. Their mom didn't have any super powers like they did, or like any of the kids would in the school she was taking them to would- but being a secret agent helped.
"Sharpay, you know how I feel about you using that particular gift." Lidia scolded, making eye contact via the rearview mirror. She preferred calling their powers 'gifts'. Like they were given to them wrapped in a bow one holiday. She said the phrase 'super power' sounded too Marvel Comics.
"Sure, yell at me when he's the one who provoked me in the first place."
"One- stay out of your sister's mind, Ryan. And two- you have the power to keep him out, Sharpay. Think of that next time you're tempted to go psionic."
Sharpay rolled her eyes and resumed her position of staring out the window. She did have the power to keep him out. She was aware of that. It was called power negation. She just much preferred to use her psionic blast. It was much more fun... in a sick, twisted way. According to a doctor at the Training Institute back in Albuquerque, with her blasts, she had the ability to cause pain, memory loss, unconsciousness, vegetative states, and even death. Not that she ever planned to kill anyone... but... it was there... She hadn't even practiced that specific ability at the Institute. Still, she didn't exactly think of herself as Superman.
/
Ryan opened his eyes once the headache his sister had blasted him with fully receded. They were at the front of a large gate and his mother was rolling down the window to speak to the security guard. He almost scoffed at the idea of a security guard for a place with students who could probably sense a threat coming from a mile away. "Wow, she's hot. I wonder if she's married... damn... wedding ring... maybe she'd still-"
Ryan made a face and tuned out of the security guard's mind, shaking his head. The downside of being telepathic was that you always seemed to come across thoughts that you'd wish had been kept inside of their mind. Hearing guys thoughts about picturing your sister naked were not easy to ignore. The gate opened slowly, disappearing into a random segment of brick wall, and the Range Rover drove up a small hill, around a few curves, and he could hear Sharpay mentally ticking off reasons why this school was going to suck.
As far as he knew, it was the first day of the school year at East High School for Extraordinary Young Minds- East High for short. But the Evans black truck was the only car in the driveway. He looked at the clock. 10:34 AM. Were they late or something? His mom turned off the ignition and unbuckled her seat belt. She looked back at Sharpay and then over at him. "Role call started four minutes ago. The security guard told me it takes place in the Student Center. I'm going to go park the car so I can find the Headmaster's office. "
"Role call? What is this, a prison?" Sharpay thought, opening the door and pushing it shut loudly behind her. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a silver chain. She took the small, triangular, ruby ring off of her finger and laced the chain through it before locking it around her neck. She fluffed her long blonde hair and looked around. "Gee, I wonder which of these identical brick buildings that could be."
"Probably the one with with the big 'Student Center' sign on it." Ryan answered, shutting his own door and nodding at the brick building located two away from the one they were parked in front of. As their mom drove towards the parking lot on the far side of campus, she simply glared at him, clearly irritated with both him and having to be here at this school. She had never been a morning person. "I'll give you another headache," she warned in the open now that there was no adult around to stop her. As she started walking past him, their shoulders brushed, and she added, "and I won't feel bad about it."
/
"-and the use of your powers while in role call is prohibited. Is that understood?"
The entire room voiced a unanimous "Yes ma'am" as Headmistress Darbus stood in front of all of them. Troy watched her eyes survey around the room, flickering as if she was able to sense who was reading her mind and who was using x-ray vision on her. She could, actually, he had learned last year, detect powers in other people. He wasn't sure how it worked exactly, though. Did a voice in her head tell her that the girl next to him was able to manipulate plants? A sort of useless power, but whatever, he wasn't one to judge. He was in the front of the room due to his last name being Bolton and there being a lack of students with 'A' last names. Her eyes landed on him and he imagined the voice inside of her mind: Troy Bolton, teleportation, intangibility, power mimicry.
Three powers. Two more than most of the students in the room. Having one power was special enough. Having two was extremely lucky. Having three was almost suspicious. It made people wonder if you were tested on by the government or some mad scientist. Which, who knows, he may have been. He could have been mutated when he was younger, had that part of his memory erased, and been sent on his merry way... Nah, his dad would definitely have told him about that. He adjusted his navy blue and silver striped tie, suddenly uncomfortable in his uniform.
Her eyes turned towards the back of the room and she stared for at least 20 seconds before the door to the Student Center opened. The seated students did a 180 to see who dared to walk into the role call ten minutes late. Troy resisted the urge to crane his neck and get a better look at the two figures awkwardly standing in front of the now-shut oak doors. He could tell that one was a boy and one was a girl.
"The Evans twins, am I correct?" Headmistress Darbus asked, probably already knowing the answer. She had the ability to see the future- that's obviously who she was waiting for while staring idly at the doors a moment ago.
"Correct." The Evans boy voiced, nudging his sister to start walking with him down the aisle in between the rows of students. When they were close enough to the front, Troy got a good look at them. Both blonde, both with a lightly golden-tan skin. The Evans girl was pretty. She has long wavy hair that stood out between the sun shining through the windows and the black shirt-dark jeans combo she was sporting. He wondered what her power was. She was thin and not very tall so that eliminated some of the more intense powers. Probably had pheromone manipulation or something.
"You're not in uniform."
"We haven't had time to visit the school store, Headmistress." The boy replied. What, didn't the girl talk? Maybe she had some sort of sonic scream, and whatever she said came out so high pitched that she could only use sign language... Troy rolled his eyes at himself. He was just throwing out nonsense now. Proving further that she knew the Evans twins would be arriving late, she walked over to an empty chair and picked up a few folded clothes. She turned and held them out to them. "Out that door and down the hallway you'll find bathrooms. Be quick. We're sorting out teams in five minutes."
Teams. Definitely one of the best parts of school. Students got split up into groups of ten or so by their power. No team could have more than one of the same power, in attempt to have a sort of balance. Since it didn't matter what grade you were in, Troy was hoping he wouldn't get stuck in a group with any freshman like last year. Maybe he'd get grouped with Evans girl... No... There was no way she had more than one power. Two at most. She was too innocent looking. The students moved to stack the chairs along the wall. After a few minutes of slow chair moving the twins reentered. He saw the girl had been given a plaid navy skirt, crisp white shirt and a matching vest, which she wore open, careless about the fact that she would most likely get reprimanded by the Headmistress. She stood on the outskirts, examining her surroundings while her brother stood next to her.
Troy felt a tug on his arm and turned to see his best friend Zeke Baylor at his side. He tilted his head towards the two. "Think we'll get stuck with one of the blonde noobs?"
"Be nice, Zeke, remember how you felt when you were new." Gabriella Montez interrupted, a small smile on her face as she looked up at Zeke. He noticeably softened at her brown-eyed gaze and he nodded, "You're right, Gabriella, that was rude of me. I should go introduce myself or something..."
Troy choked back a laugh as Zeke shook his head, realizing what had just happened. He narrowed his eyes teasingly, "Gabriella Montez, did you not hear what Darbus said about using powers in role call?"
"I don't know what powers you're referring to." The brunette shrugged her shoulders as she brushed invisible wrinkles off the sleeve of her blouse.
"No? Ever heard of empathy? Ability to control emotions and feelings? Well, it is a form of mind control and the use of such is frowned upon."
"Oh, quiet," Gabriella rolled her eyes, "Like you didn't use your x-ray vision to check out what the new girl had on underneath her jeans."
"Students. Attention." Troy was always amazed at how quiet a room could get when Headmistress Darbus was in the room. She stood in the front of the mass of students with a strong poise. "I will call these teams in no particular order... When you hear your name, find one another and wait silently until the rest of your team is called. I will hand your the name of your team on a piece of paper. Please do not announce the team until you have left the room. First team: Vanessa Smith, Zachary Davids, Ashley..."
After every name that was unfamiliar, Troy held his breathe, hoping that his name was next. If he heard a name that he recognized was synonymous with a not-so-exciting power, he crossed his fingers that he wouldn't be stuck in the Omega Team again. Sure, Darbus said that there was no particular order. But there was obviously a sort of hierarchy system in place. As in the least respected team was normally the Omega Team, the Theta Team was sort of average, and the Alpha Team was the team everyone respected. Simply because it was known that those placed in that team were chosen because their powers complimented each other perfectly. Plus, it was also the team that the CIA called if there was ever a problem that needed solving. It was a position of, for lack of a better word, power.
"Next team: Taylor McKessie, Martha Cox, Jason Cross, Chad Danforth-" Troy watched as the four seniors walked up front towards the Headmistress. They were the group of seniors that he, Zeke, and Gabriella were closest too. Mainly because they were the only ones at the school who possessed three powers. They were the ultimate. It was obvious they would be placed together. Probably Beta team. "-Gabriella Montez, Zeke Baylor, Troy Bolton, Ryan Evans and Sharpay Evans."
Being as Sharpay was the last one called, Darbus had handed her the folded paper off which she had read their names. The paper that sealed their fate for the rest of the school year. Troy was tempted to go up to her and introduce himself right then just so that he could see the team name. If Gabriella hadn't been there to calm his anxiousness with a hand on his arm. After the groups had been called, role call was dismissed and the students of East High were able to talk freely without fear of being lashed by Darbus. Troy looked around, listening and looking for reactions to decipher who could be on the Alpha Team.
"Shall we go outside for the big unveiling, then?" Martha, one of the seniors asked. She grabbed her friend Taylor by the arm and glided towards the door. Gabriella let loose Troy's arm and hurried to catch up to them, and Troy found himself nearest Sharpay, who, for the first time was at a distance from her brother, if only by a couple feet. He figured it would be an appropriate time to introduce himself. "Hi,"
Oh, yeah, real conversation starter.
Sharpay turned her head towards him, looking him up and down in a millisecond before answering with an almost curious, "Hi."
"You're new then?" He asked, continuing with his parade of interesting talking points. She blinked, "Nothing gets past you, does it?"
In that moment Troy wished he was a telepath, just so that he could figure out what was going through her mind. He hoped she couldn't read his, and was hearing these thoughts right now. But that could have been the case. She was quiet and mysterious. Normally people turned into butter around him. She was a change of pace. She wasn't like the other girls around here with powers. And she was even prettier up close. "What I mean is- You're like- Did you just get your power?"
She looked away from him as they reached the door, and she flashed an almost unnoticed thank-you smile as he held the door open for her. "No, I've had them since I was eight."
"Huh." Troy acknowledged, taking into account the fact that she said 'them' and not 'it'. She had more than one power. He wanted to know which and how many.
"Come on, Evans, let's see the paper." Chad said, excited by the look on his face. Taylor smacked his chest with the back of her palm. "Chad, calm down. Headmistress gave her the paper, so let her read it."
"Couldn't you just see through the paper?" Troy asked as he stopped in between Zeke and Gabriella, who was watching Ryan intently as he stood beside his sister. Ryan had a small smirk on his face before Sharpay had even begun to open the folded paper. Zeke shook his head. "You know Darbus uses special paper around campus for crap like this so that our powers can't work through it. I see through the brick walls better."
"That's almost a waste." Troy pat his shoulder, before looking back at Sharpay, who had the paper open in front of her. Her brown eyes were scanning the paper left to right. He couldn't take the suspense any longer, "Well? Which team?"
Sharpay blinked up to look directly into his eyes. And for a moment Troy was distracted from his excitement of knowing the team. How did she do that? She lowered the paper slightly, and Troy felt the anticipation about to boil over.
"Alpha Team."
Okay, now if you hadn't figured it out, in the beginning when there are separate quotes of italics, that's what Ryan is hearing or saying via telepathy. I don't think its that hard to figure out, but I thought I might as well clear it up just in case when there's more dialogue like that in future chapters.
I'm not sure if there's going to be a lot of interest in this story, actually. Just because there's no trailer and my summary sucks. But if it gets more than three or four reviews showing that it will be read, I'll keep it going. Thanks, and hoped you did like it. (: