Here's the next chapter.
Disclaimer: same as last time.
The next morning, Lori awoke to the beeping of her alarm clock, flicking her fingers at it, it silenced again. Lori rose silently, this time her aunt didn't try to wake her.
Probably upset from yesterday, good. Thought Lori as she rubbed her temples to ease away the headache she had. The noise of the neighbour's thoughts filled her mind, once again she closed her eyes to fight back the noise. When she had accomplished in constructing walls around her mind, she reached into her closet and pulled out a pair of black pants, and a black halter-top. Today she braided her curls back off her face and pinned them up. When she put the finishing touches on her makeup, she walked downstairs and into the kitchen. Her uncle shot her a look over his paper, Lori ignored him and went to the fridge, pulling out a carton of juice and grabbing a glass, when the back door opened and Layla walked in.
"Good morning Mr. Stronghold, good morning Lori." She greeted, Lori almost choked on her juice at her sincerely nice tone. She didn't say anything, just but the carton back in the fridge and walked out of the door, grabbing her bag as she went.
Leaving the house so early meant that she was early for the bus. Sitting on the bench to wait, she closed her eyes and listened to the conversations that went on in people's heads around her. A few thoughts were directed her way, but nothing too serious, Lori remembered her old school, she hadn't been the only Telepathic student there, in fact, she learned from an older student named Sarah about how to block people out, and the best way to ignore peoples thoughts, especially the conversations people didn't want you to hear. As it was, the people at Hero High learned how to sensor their thoughts, a good trick to learn where telepathy was involved. It had been an incident where she had accidentally lost control of her powers when she had accidentally destroyed the school gym. The teachers had agreed that she should be expelled and that was that. Instead her mother had taught her from home for two months. Except almost two weeks ago, her mother received a call from an old friend, when she hadn't returned and Lori had started to worry, she called her aunt and uncle, the only real relatives she had. All she had wanted to know was wether they knew where her mother was, instead they had forced her to stay with them, enrolled her in school and tried to make her part of their little family.
Lori should have been grateful, but the only family she had wanted to be a part of was her own, the one where her father hadn't been sent to jail by her uncle Steve, aka the Commander. She never let on, but she envied her cousin Will, he wasn't the child of two feared super villains, nor was his mother missing. Wrapped up in her own thoughts, Lori didn't hear Layla approach the bench she sat on.
"Can I sit down?" she asked mildly. Lori didn't say anything, just moved along the bench to make room.
"Will wasn't feeling to good, so he's staying home today, not real good on the second day back huh?" Layla asked, trying to lighten the mood. "Are you reading my thoughts?" she asked, dropping her voice a bit.
"No, I'm tying to black them out." Lori said in a dry tone.
"Is it hard?" she asked.
"Very." Said Lori, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers.
"Will it help if I move away?" she asked.
"No, it's not just your thoughts, it's everyone else's." Lori said, looking around, across the road, a man was mowing his lawn, next door a lady was getting a newspaper off the lawn, another woman was walking her two little children to school, they cried out excitedly when they past a man walking a dog.
"I'm sorry." Said Layla. Lori looked over at her, confused. "If I wasn't very nice." Continued Layla. "I just thought that you were lucky, getting to live with the Commander and Jetstream, you seemed so ungrateful about it."
"My mom disappeared two weeks ago, I haven't seen my Dad in God knows how long, forgive me if I seem a little unhappy." Lori muttered. "But, I'm sorry too, I was being ungrateful." She said, shelving her pride.
"That's okay, so are we friends?" she asked.
"Yeah, I guess, but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear happy colours and smile a lot." Lori said, standing up as the bus approached.
"It didn't work with Warren either, he still doesn't wear happy colours or smile." Layla commented as they stepped onto the bus.
Lori sat up the back again, pulling on her headphones and selecting an Evanescence album to listen to as the bus drove off and then took to the air.
When it landed at Sky High, Lori mentally prepared herself for another day with the buzzing thoughts of the people around her. She walked up the steps to the school, only to be stopped again by Lash and Speed.
"Well, if it isn't Noodle and Crispy Cream, what do you want?" she asked as politely as she could.
"That was an interesting display in the cafeteria yesterday." Lash said approvingly.
"Thank you, but I don't take requests." Lori said, walking past them.
"Wait just a second." Said Speed, zooming in front of her.
"We just want to know-" Said Lash.
"If you want to hang out with us?" Finished Speed.
"Thank you, but no, I have my own thoughts to deal with, let alone yours." Said Lori, pushing her past them and into the school. Finding the locker she had been given yesterday, she pulled out her schedule as she used her telekinesis to spin the dial on her locker. It popped open and Lori pulled out the books she would need for Hero history, before walking down the hall to the classroom, just in time as the bell went. Lori took the same seat as yesterday as the students began to enter the classroom, followed by Miss Resins.
"This seat taken?" Came a voice from next to Lori. She looked up to see Warren Peace standing there. Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down.
"Don't think because you know who I am that we're going to be buddies from now on." She whispered as the teacher started the lesson.
"Of course not, you've got Layla for that." He whispered back, apparently having heard of there little truce. Lori flicked her fingers slightly under the desk, and Warrens bag upended itself all over the floor, spilling books and pencils everywhere.
He shot Lori a glare as he bent down to pick them up, the teacher also glared at Lori, who smirked and waited for her to continue the lesson. Lori desk suddenly caught on fire, she waved her hands and the desk flew away from her, preventing the chances of her getting caught on fire.
"That's it." Yelled Ms. Resins, "Mr. Peace and Miss Taylor go to detention."
Lori picked up her bag and walked out, happy with this verdict. She walked inside the detention room, followed by Warren, when the door shut, Lori was left with the blissful silence that came with the neutralisation of her powers.
Warren walked over to a desk and sat down, pulling out another book to read. Having learnt from yesterday's boredom, Lori too, pulled out a book to read. She was almost halfway through 'the Fellowship Of The Ring' when the door slid open and Principal Powers walked in.
"Mr. Peace and Miss Taylor, the two of you have a bad habit of ending up in here." She said. "Don't let it happen for at least another two days." She said, walking out and letting them follow. By this time, it was lunch, meaning Warren and Lori had missed out on three lessons. She walked over to the table she had sat at yesterday, noting that the lights had been fixed and no signs of the damage she had incurred yesterday remained.
Warren sat at the end of the table like yesterday, but they ignored each other and returned to their nooks, only to be interrupted by Layla and all her friends sitting down.
"Lori." Said Layla enthusiastically. "This is Zach, Ethan, Magenta and I see you've already met Warren."
"Hey." Said the girl with Purple streaked hair.
"Um, why are you sitting here?" asked Lori.
"We're being friendly." Said Layla as she swapped food with Ethan.
"You have telekinesis, don't you?" asked Ethan, looking at her through enormous glasses.
"Yes." Lori said, looking down at her book.
"Wow, I melt." He said.
"Thrilling." Lori muttered.
"I turn into a guinea pig." Offered Magenta.
"I glow." Said Zach enthusiastically.
"I'll think of you if I ever lose my keys in the darkness." Lori muttered, more to her book than to Zach.
"Hungry?" asked Layla, offering Lori a granola bar.
"No." she said, not looking up form her book.
"Do you ever eat?" she asked.
"She stuffed her face last night." Warren muttered as he turned a page.
"Last night?" asked Layla.
"She came to the restaurant for food." He said, Lori kicked him under the table.
"Really? The Paper Lantern has great food." Layla started to say. Lori grabbed her bag and walked out of the cafeteria.
"Was it something I said?" she asked, watching Lori leave.
"Probably." Said Warren, also grabbing his bag and walking from the cafeteria.
"Those two would make a great couple." Commented Magenta.
"Yeah." Agreed Layla, taking a bite of her muesli bar.
Outside, Lori sat on the edge of the school and dangled her feet over the side, watching the clouds go drifting below.
"Hey." Came a voice from behind her, she turned around to see Warren there.
"Hey yourself." She said.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I have a headache that's ripping my head apart, all I can hear is this buzzing in my head, but everything's fine." Lori said, digging through her bag and producing Panadol and a bottle of water.
"That bad huh?" he asked.
"At my old school, kids learnt how to hide their thoughts, here, everything forcing its way in my head." She commented. They heard the bell chiming in the distance. Climbing to her feet, she followed Warren inside. Lori walked to her locker and pulled out the books she needed for her next class, Power Control, she wasn't looking forward to it.
As soon as she walked into the classroom, a sense of dread filled her, not only was the hero class in here, so was the sidekick class. Lori walked up to sit down at the back of the room, hoping Layla and her friends wouldn't notice her, she wasn't that lucky.
"Hi Lori." She called. Lori braced herself as they all came over, their thoughts tried to push their way through the mental barriers that Lori had constructed, Lori closed her eyes for a moment to work on strengthening her mental shields. It came to a point where they thoughts of the other faded to the background and the notice became bearable. Lori opened her eyes to see Warren looking at her, concerned.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked.
"You haven't been answering us for five minutes." He told her.
"Lost in thought." She commented, the teacher walked into the room, everyone drifted back to their seats, except for Warren who sat next to her.
Lori thought that the lesson was much better than she thought it would be, the teacher Mr. Torrent, who controlled water, was polite and friendly. The point of Power Control was to learn how to control your powers, but it also focussed on how powers react with each other, it came to a point where he was talking about how water conducted electricity, when he asked if anyone on the room could use electricity. Without thinking, Lori raised her hand and everyone turned to look at her.
"Can you give us a demonstration?" asked the teacher,
"I can't control it that well." She admitted.
"Maybe another time then." The teacher said before moving onto ice and fire. Lori looked up to see Magenta looking at her curiously.
When the class ended, Lori was walking towards the gym when Magenta caught up with her.
"I thought you were telekinetic and telepathic." She said quietly.
"I am." Said Lori. "I can make lights flicker, that's about it." She said.
"Are you going to participate in Save the Citizen?" asked Layla coming up behind them.
"I played it at my old school, and people were generally too afraid to challenge me." Lori admitted. "I could read what their next move would be."
"We do it in pairs here." Magenta said, "And I don't think people quite have the measure on you yet."
"We'll see." Lori said, in the change room, she changed into the horribly bright gym clothes and walked out into the gym, where an arena had been build for the purposes of Save the Citizen, a large grinder with metal teeth was in the middle of the room, above it hung a wooden dummy. The time ran out and a buzzer went off as the dummy was ground into splinters. The two people in the middle of the ring were none other than Speed and Lash.
"Why did they let them come back here?" asked Magenta, annoyed.
"Apparently they weren't seen as that much of a threat." Layla said.
"What happened?" asked Lori, trying not to sound to interested.
"Royal Pain tried to destroy the school, Lash and Speed helped, so did some other students, but Lash and Speed were allowed to return to the school." Said Layla in an irritated tone.
"Great, they sound real nice." Lori commented. Everyone suddenly covered their ears as Boomer suddenly yelled for attention. Softening his voice he turned to Lash and Speed.
"Hero's or Villains?" he asked them.
"Villains." They smirked.
"Big surprise, pick your opponents." He said loudly, Lash and Speed conferred for a moment.
"We want Peace." They said, Warren rolled his eyes and stood up. "And Taylor." They said, Lori took a breath and tried to remain in focus and ignore the voices around her. They quickly padded up and walked into the arena.
"You take Speed, I'll take Lash. "he said quietly to her.
"Right." She said, not bothering to point out that she could take the both of them alone. The timer went off and the game began.