Chapter 2
"So I'm supposed to be the family friend who's staying with you and your mother because of an ongoing custody battle right?"
"Right." He answered, watching Evelyn carefully. She was calm personified but Warren could see the hand clutching the strap of the backpack clenching then unclenching over and over again as they stood at the bus stop, the only visible sign of distress. Even when his mother had told her about Sky High yesterday she had simply nodded and complied, a blank expression on her face. "Mom pulled some strings so you're in all my classes, at least there'll be a familiar face."
"That's funny." She commented with a wry smile. "At this point yours is a more familiar face to me than my own. Memory loss is a bitch."
"You're taking it better than expected."
"Well the other option is to burst in hysterics and be shipped off to a sanatorium. I'm going to stick with gallows humour as a coping mechanism for now thank you."
"Well at least you haven't forgotten your vocabulary."
"No I just forgot my name and my entire existence. But the vocabulary bit totally makes up for all of that." She said sarcastically. "And now I have to go to a floating school where all the kids have superpowers and joy of all joys, I still get to be the odd one out."
She was slowly growing agitated with each word, by the end of her rant Evelyn was breathing heavily but Warren was saved from having to comfort her as the bus pulled in to the stop and the doors opened with a whoosh.
"Morning." Ron Wilson said as the two clambered into the bus but put his hand up to stop her."Whoa there kid, this isn't the freshman bus, juniors only." He said sternly and she stuttered feeling flustered before turning to Warren for help.
"She's the transfer kid Ron." Warren answered for her in a meaningful tone and Ron backed off and gave her a sad smile, clearly aware of her status as the 'special student'.
"Oh joy, the pity looks have started already. Are all the teachers going to be doing that too?" She asked Warren who had kindly allowed her the window seat unaware of his blonde ex-girlfriend who was watching them with hawk eyes the entire time.
"They don't look at students with anything other than dislike so you're safe there."
Evelyn waved goodbye to Ron as she got off the bus and onto floating land. In front of the school were a variety of students that were all engaged in a blatant misuse of their powers. It was amazing to watch as some students landed on the school flying with wings and jetpacks and others drove modified cars. Then there was even a pair of students who were using X-ray vision to check out the hot girls. 'Lucky I don't count as one of them', she thought to herself slowing down to take in the sights and sounds that made up Sky High.
"Hey Warren!" Layla said brightly as Will nodded in greeting. "Who's this?"
"Hi I'm Evelyn." She said with a wave. She couldn't depend upon Warren to speak for her every single time now could she?
"Hey, I'm Layla and this is Will. So how do you know Warren?"
"Family friends and all that stuff."
"She's going to be living with us for some time." He said by way of an explanation.
"What's it like bunking with Warren?" Will asked with a twinkle in his eye, taking in the announcement in a stride even as Luna who'd been eavesdropping on their conversation from behind one of the gigantic topiaries Layla was in charge of maintaining, dropped her jaw in shock.
"I've only been staying there for a day so I can't really judge. Ask me again in a week, I'm guessing I'll have a lot to talk about by then." Evelyn shot him a small smile and before Will could say anything the bell rang.
"See you at lunch." The four split into two groups, Warren and Evelyn heading towards the Mad Science lab while Will and Layla headed to Apocalypse 101.
"So what exactly is this Mad Science?" She asked, almost running after the taller teen to keep up with him, the old backpack Vivian had lent her bouncing with each step.
"It's like every other science class, only with ray guns and toxic wastes as an added bonus."
"Lovely."
"Elixirs and serums, from the basic Truth Serum to the more complex SuperSoldier Elixir, all these 'potions' work as per the same concept as baking, measure everything and follow the instructions precisely. This semester will be all about studying –" Evelyn really was trying to concentrate on what he was saying, but her eyes kept on straying to Professor Medulla's head, it was so big and round and bulbous. Soon the head began moving closer to her and she looked away to see Professor Medulla handing out a set of sheets to each table.
"What's going on?" She whispered to Warren who was thankfully one of the three others she was sharing the table with. The two of them occupied one side of the workstation while on the other side a blonde who kept on glaring at her and a long limbed, freckled redheaded guy who was nice enough to smile at her when their eyes met accidentally.
"We have to make the liquid according to the recipe and show how well we can follow directions."
"But it doesn't have a title, what exactly are we making."
"That's supposed to be a surprise. Medulla usually tests the final product on the students themselves so if we haven't managed to make it right-"
"We're screwed."
"Exactly." He said as he lit the Bunsen burner with his pointer finger.
"How did you do that?!" She asked eyes widening to a point that should have been dangerous.
"That's my power, along with invincibility."
"How do you not know what his powers are, you're supposed to be living with him!" The blonde hissed at her from across the table, apparently having heard everything Evelyn had just said. The ginger dude next to her bobbed his thumb at the blonde and twirled his finger next to his forehead in the universal gesture for 'She's crazy' and Evelyn cracked a grin.
"Miss Frost, kindly pay more attention to your flask before it manages to spew toxic liquids into the bench." Professor Medulla's jab was all the motivation the four needed to go back to their respective chemical solutions and the rest of the class was spent in silent concentration until Professor Medulla came by their table once the liquid had been brewed.
"Miss Evelyn if you would please take a sip of your babbling serum."
"Babbling serum?"
"Well if it's been made correctly then what you should have ended up with is a Babbling serum. I would ask Mr Peace to do the honours but the lab still bears a mark of the explosion from last time." Medulla said glaring at Warren who shrugged. Reluctantly she took a small sip of the strangely lemony tasting solution and shivered as it took effect.
"Ah yes, I do believe it's started working-" He was cut off by Evelyn beginning to talk loudly and very fast.
"Is your spinal column physiologically different from others to support the weight of your brain? Does it make it difficult to balance or the same? Does your nervous system differ considering there are more parts of the brain to connect? Actually is there a brain there at all or is it just that the cranium is larger and you have a normal brain but you're just really smart? Does invincibility cause physiological differences too, are those changes on an endoskeleton level or is purely on the surface? If you have to cremate a pyrokinetic would that work or would the body retain its invincibility/resistance to fire even after death? Actually while on the matter of invincibility, does it mean that you never get sick, is the immune system invincible as well and if it is, would studying invincibility lead to a cure to ..." She came to a stop after rambling every single thought of hers in a space of thirty seconds without stopping to take a breath.
"Ah it's has worn off. Excellent work you two. Now if only Ms Frost here had followed your lead and not boiled over her solution in the early stages." He said and walked away.
"Your potion, I mean, serum went wrong?" She asked the girl politely in hopes of reaching a civil agreement with the girl who had not stopped glaring at her all day.
"It was supposed to be a shrinking serum but instead it just made her tongue swell." The ginger answered her when the blonde refused to answer her instead glaring at Warren who had decided to take advantage of the free time to take a nap. "I'm Brian by the way."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Evelyn."
"So Evelyn, I hope you have some wine." He said leaning closer to her over the counter while she just looked at him in confusion. Why would she possibly have wine?
"Why?"
"Because I'm about to get real cheesy." He said and waggled his eyebrows at her and she smothered a smile, putting on a blank face instead.
"That was a bad pun and now I really wish I had some wine, I need to be drunk for this." It wasn't particularly funny but the newly found camaraderie had them both laughing.
"So why does Medulla call you Evelyn?" Brian asked once they'd calmed down a bit.
"What do you mean?"
"Well he doesn't call anyone else by their first name."
"Oh that, well there's been some back and forth about what my surname is going to be in the custody battle, so I'm registered in school as just plain Evelyn, no last name for now."
"Yeah, parents turn into completely different people when they're divorcing."
"My tongue's not swollen anymore!" The exclamation woke up Warren and as if by magic, the bell rang just as the blonde opened her mouth to talk.
"Saved by the bell." Warren muttered as he practically ran out the door tugging Evelyn by her arm with him while Luna watched in anger.
"So she's your ex-girlfriend and she dislikes me and any girl you come into contact with because she still wants you?" Evelyn asked Warren as they made their way through the cafeteria. Somewhere in between Mad Science and Lunch period he had filled her in on why the blonde girl kept on glaring at her.
"Pretty much." He said dropping his bag onto the table with a thud.
"Who's the new girl?" Magenta asked as the two older students sat down.
"Oh hey, Evelyn was it?"Layla said brightly, continuing once Evelyn nodded in confirmation ,"This is Magenta, Zack and Ethan, they're sophomores like Will and me."
"Hi, I'm Evelyn."
Greetings were exchanged around the table and to his surprise the gang accepted the newest addition to their group without any fuss. Although perhaps it wasn't that surprising after all, Warren often forgot that unlike him his friends had a tendency to actually want to socialise with people. Normalcy was soon resumed only to be shattered when a discussion began about Cerberus' incarceration.
"I hear Luna's doing a project on him using all the insider info that her father gave her." It struck him as ironic that they were all talking about different accounts of Cerberus that had gone through a million channels and yet the one person at this table who had firsthand knowledge of the infamous supervillain was the only one who was staying quiet on the topic.
"Why is he called Cerberus anyway?" Will asked.
"It's his favourite form to take, he manipulates the shadows into a giant three headed hellhound like in the Greek myths. Back when he was a Superhero, you know, before he switched sides, he used to help interrogate the bad guys and get information out of criminals by convincing them they were in hell."Ethan said informatively and Evelyn tried to remember if she'd seen any three headed dog like figures when she was held captive.
"He used to be a superhero?"Evelyn asked, the only person on the table who knew less about Superheroes than Will who was surprisingly clueless for a third generation hero. Warren was convinced that if Will hadn't gotten his superpowers in freshman year he would have been more than happy to live life as a normal citizen.
"Yup, but there was this lab accident or something and after that he began...killing people instead of saving them." Ethan answered.
"Speaking of killing people, why is that boy throwing a pie at the-"
"FOOD FIGHT!" A pie went sailing in the air over Will's shoulder landing on Larry and slid it's way down his rock face and Warren sighed before ducking under the table with the rest.
"Every fucking day." He grumbled and Layla glared. After all there was never a good reason to use profanity.
The smell of takeout grabbed Vivian Peace's attention as she entered the house. The day had been longer than usual made even worse considering the bad news she'd have to give to her new amnesiac ward. Her son was sitting on the couch, hair damp from a shower flicking through channels before settling on the news, watching footage of the latest killer giant robot on mute.
"Oh Warren, you're back, where's Evelyn?" His mother asked only to be rewarded with a distracted bob of the thumb pointed towards the stairs."Is it that difficult to say the word 'upstairs'?"
"Yes."
"What am I going to do with you?" She said before settling in next to him.
"Long day?"
"That's a major understatement. So how's Evelyn holding up?"
"She had a minor panic attack at the bus stop in the morning but after that she was fine."
"Panic attack?"
"I guess it was first day of school jitters. Nothing too bad."
"So you don't mind watching over her for a- Evelyn, there you are!" Said girl waved awkwardly before joining them on the sofa. Warren almost grinned at the awkward way she was sitting, prim and proper, back straight, ankles tucked to the side daintily all while she refused to take her eyes off the flower pattern on the nightdress his mum had lent her. "So how was your first day at Sky High?"
"It was...interesting, but in a good way I guess."
"Oh good, did you meet Warren's friends?"
"Yes but I think I might have offended Magenta when I asked her what her real name was."
"I'm sure she's used to that." Vivian smiled before, "Listen I have some news for you."
"Good or bad?"
"Both actually, the bad news is that Cerberus, you know the man who..."
"Tried to perform a vivisection on me? Yeah, I remember him." She said the words so casually, it was hard for Vivian to believe it had only been forty eight hours since she had restored Evelyn back to life.
"Well... he's escaped."