Author's Note:
Just a few things! First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who's reviewed so far. I'm glad you're all giving this fic a chance! Things will start picking up these next few chapters. To answer OwlLegendary000's question, "en passant" is a chess move that translates to "in passing" in French, I believe.
…which leads me to the other thing I wanted to address, since this is the chapter that the chess theme first comes into play! The idea of a hero and villain sitting down to a game of chess is a very intriguing one that I've liked for a long while now… for a decade, at the very least! It was about a decade ago that the author The Illustrious Crackpot wrote a Powerpuff Girls Mojo/Blossom fic called "Checkmate" that I was very inspired by. I hope I didn't pull too much from it and kept it at "inspired by" and not "lifted from", lol. Anyway, I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Enemies engaged in a (relatively) friendly bout of chess is a very old idea of course, but I definitely had that story specifically in my mind when I was writing this. That fic's in my favorites if you want to check it out.
Thanks again to everyone for your interest in this fic! Here's chapter three! :)
…
The next day, Amaya was the first of the six science fair students to report to the library at the assigned time, and she immediately moved to the science section of the non-fiction wings, directing all of her concentration on researching a possible topic. Here are the books on weather patterns… is that too obvious? Should I go for chemistry instead? Or geology… what about the tectonic plates? Or something else? She sighed to herself, feeling a bit overwhelmed. There's too much to choose from…
Chatter interrupted her thoughts. The three oldest kids—Emily, Brody, and Isaac—walked in the library and past Amaya, engaged in an important sounding conversation. Once again, Adrian was bounding after Emily faithfully. Upon seeing Amaya, he grinned and announced to her, "That's my big sister!"
"That explains that," Amaya murmured to herself.
Romeo entered right behind Adrian. He shot a smirk in Amaya's direction. "Hello, Amaya."
Amaya stiffened uncomfortably. "Hello, Romeo," she said, keeping her voice level.
"Hey, you two!" Emily said, addressing Amaya and Romeo. Brody and Isaac redirected their focus on them as well. "The three of us have been talking about the group report we're all supposed to work on together. We were thinking we could use it to tie all of our individual projects together and show how they all interweave in the grand tapestry of science."
Romeo rolled his eyes. "Where did you come up with that cheesy metaphor?"
"That sounds like a great idea," Amaya said, talking over Romeo.
"I'm glad you think so!" said Emily. "So we've already told my little brother that he'll do a vinegar and baking soda volcano. You, girl, you'll do stuff with static electricity and balloons, and for you, boy, you'll do—"
"Excuse me!" Romeo interrupted, quite offended. "I'll be deciding my own project, thank you very much!"
Amaya was also taken aback and a bit insulted, although she tried to keep that out of her voice. "I want to come up with the idea of what I do for my project myself. It wouldn't really feel like my project if I didn't get to even decide what it is."
Isaac snorted at the two younger students impatiently. "We need for the report to be coherent, and the only way to do that is to—"
"Save your breath!" Romeo snapped. "You're not going to boss me around. Come on, Amaya!" He dramatically turned and marched away, as Amaya, very confused, followed him.
"How insulting!" he fumed after they were a distance away, in the study corner of the library. "No one tells me what to do! Especially if they're going to tell me to do some condescendingly easy little science project like make a bottle rocket or something. They don't even know who they're talking to!"
Amaya was no longer able to hold back her ire, either. "Yeah, that was messed up. Just because we're younger than them doesn't mean they can just order us around like that! These are supposed to be our projects, not theirs!"
"They'll be eating their words when they see how awesome my project of—" Romeo stopped himself, partly because he was still mulling between a few different ideas, and partly because he didn't want to give Amaya any ideas. Despite the fact that they were temporarily united against the older kids, they were still competitors. And archenemies.
"Your project of…" Amaya prodded.
"None of your business," Romeo countered, crossing his arms. "It's better than yours, that's all you need to know."
"You don't know that," Amaya said angrily.
"Oh really? What is yours?"
Amaya faltered.
Romeo laughed at her. "I knew it! You don't even have one yet."
"Well, excuse me for being a little busy last night and not having the time to think about it!"
"Are you kidding?" Romeo rolled his eyes at her. "You can't blame me for that. I took up maybe twenty minutes of your night, tops. You owe me a new flash drive, by the way!"
"I do not. It's your fault for trying to use it to steal information." Amaya gritted her teeth. Her anger from the older kids' condescending tone was only burning brighter thanks to Romeo. Her earlier focus had evaporated; she was in no mood to do research at the moment. Turning away from him, she huffed her way over to the game corner, where a few cases of dominoes and a chessboard sat on a table pushed against the wall, the chess pieces scattered across it and onto the floor. The disorder wouldn't normally have bothered Amaya, but at that moment it called to her anger, and grumbling harshly to herself, she quickly began gathering up the pieces and placing them back on the board.
Of course, the chessboard itself was a bit of a sad reminder to her that after learning how to play chess a few months ago from her older sister (and enjoying it immensely), she hadn't had the chance to play at all since then. Her sister was in the seventh grade and very busy, as she liked to remind Amaya constantly. Her parents hadn't had the time to learn how to play, either. Connor and Greg had the time if they had wanted to, but they hadn't seemed interested, so Amaya hadn't pushed the issue. Still, though, she did miss playing. Lining up the pawns on the correct rows, she found herself pondering the possibility of somehow incorporating chess into her project. It would give her an excuse to play again, at least.
"What are you doing?" Romeo asked her, half scoffing but also half curious.
"Picking the chess pieces up and putting them back on the board," Amaya answered matter-of-factly, placing the last black piece on the board and moving over to the other side to continue with the white pieces.
"Hmph!" Romeo snorted at her. "As if you know how to play chess."
"Of course I know how to play chess!" Amaya snapped at him. "It's been a few months since my sister taught me, but I still remember how!" She quickly placed the rest of the white pieces on the board and gave Romeo a challenging look, daring him to acknowledge that she'd set up the board correctly.
Romeo, however, just smirked at her tauntingly. "Oh yeah?" He plopped down in the chair across from her. "Prove it!"
Amaya threw a wild smile back at him, all of her previous negative emotions washed away with joy that she'd finally found a chess partner… that is, until she remembered the reason why she was in the library in the first place. Her smile faded. "As much as I'd like to, we really should be working on our science projects."
"Oh please." Romeo flicked a hand in the air dismissively. "I'll be able to complete my project in my sleep." He leaned over to pick up one of the black pawns in front of him.
"Wait a minute!" Amaya cried out, stopping Romeo in his tracks. "White always gets the first move in chess!"
Romeo stared at her, annoyed and a bit taken aback.
Amaya smirked, a chuckle in her voice. "What's the matter? Do you know how to play chess?"
"Of course I do!" Romeo snapped.
Amaya swiftly grabbed a pawn and placed it two spaces ahead with more conviction than anything else she'd done that day.
"Then prove it!"
…
Upon reporting to the library after school the next day (and again being the first one to arrive), Amaya was determined to not let anything—anger, chess, Romeo, her competitive spirit, or any combination of the above—get in her way of research this time. She moved through the nonfiction shelves of the library, pulling out all of the weather books she could find. Settling on doing another weather-based project had been a rather quick decision once she had taken the time to adequately weigh her options. Her ability to fly through the sky as Owlette gave her a definite advantage in that field, and, well, with pushy older kids, a suck-up kindergartener, and her mad scientist archnemesis as her competition, she needed all the advantages she could get.
Having amassed a rather large collection of reading material, she made her way up to the front desk to check them out, the other kids now with her in the library but paying her no attention. Pointedly so, Amaya feared.
She shook her head to herself as the librarian scanned her books and her student ID card, pushing the idea out of her mind. That was silly. They didn't hate her just for refusing to do the project they'd assigned her, did they? They weren't ignoring her on purpose.
"Sheesh, do you have enough books?"
And one of them wasn't ignoring her at all.
Amaya rolled her eyes at Romeo, taking her books and ID card back from the librarian. "It's better to have too much information than not enough."
"That's still not going to help you win against me!"
"Whatever," Amaya said wearily, walking to one of the study tables and plopping her sizable stack down, selecting the largest one and beginning to read it.
She didn't get very far in it, though, for even though her nose was buried in the book, she could still feel she was being watched.
Annoyed, she dropped the book and glared at Romeo, who was indeed still hovering next to her. "What?"
Romeo didn't comment on her annoyance, merely looking pleased that he'd gotten her attention again. "Play with me already!"
"Play with you?" Amaya blinked in confusion. "Do you mean chess?"
"Of course I mean chess," Romeo grumbled. "What else would I mean? We didn't finish our game yesterday, and it's still set up."
"Find someone else to play with you," Amaya said, feeling a bit disappointed that she had to turn him down today. "Sorry, but I'm busy."
"There is no one else!" Romeo cried. "You're the only person who's ever played chess with me other than my robots."
Amaya was a bit surprised to hear this. "Well—look, Romeo, I'm sorry, but I want to focus on my science project today. Maybe you can get one of your robots to play with you if you really want to keep playing."
"No way," Romeo protested harshly. "You play way better than they do."
Now Amaya was very surprised. So surprised, in fact, that she was left momentarily speechless.
Realizing that he'd just given her a very sincere, generous compliment, Romeo fell into a mild panic, backtracking as quickly as he could. "Th-that's the only thing you do better than them, of course!" he spat out.
Amaya took only a few more seconds before finding her voice again, and with it a provocative smirk. "Then you should definitely play against them instead of me. That's the only way you'll win that match."
"Ha! In your dreams. I'll win either way; you just give me a challenge."
"Why, Romeo, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," said Amaya, still smirking.
"Chess is literally the only thing you're good at," Romeo said quickly, feeling a bit flustered over the direction this conversation was going. He had to find a way to turn it around somehow… "Okay, fine then. If you're just going to sit here and tell me you're sure to win but refuse to prove it, I'll just put that game away."
Amaya bristled, sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. "Wait!"
Romeo shrugged, although unable to hide his pleased smirk at getting the reaction he wanted out of her. "Why bother keeping it out if you're not going to finish what you started? Looks like you finally wised up and knew there was no way to beat me. What a pity. I guess I'll have to take back what I said about you being a challenge. Now I'll just have to find someone else who will be a worthy opponent—"
Amaya shot out of her chair, glaring at Romeo. "Chess. Now."
Romeo grinned at her with satisfaction as she quickly gathered up her books with an angry, slightly embarrassed twinge lighting up her cheeks. "You made that too easy!"
"Shut up," Amaya growled, storming over to the chessboard and dropping her stack of books on the floor, her ID card flopping off the top and landing on the floor. She reached over to grab it, but Romeo beat her to it.
"What's the J stand for?" he asked, reading her name complete with middle initial from the card.
"None of your business." Still feeling rattled over the dare she had just fallen for (and the subsequent revoking of her pledge to stay focused on her work), she sat down at the white side of the chessboard and gave Romeo a weary sigh. "Don't you think you know way too much about me by now, anyway?"
"What are you talking about?" Romeo protested. "I barely know anything about you. All I know is that your name is Amaya J. Devereaux, you're in the first grade, you turn into a goody-two-shoes bird at night, and you have a competitive streak a mile long."
Amaya irately leaned over the chess table and snatched her ID card from Romeo's hands. "Yeah, and that's way too much!"
"And you apparently want to be a meteorologist," Romeo added, glancing at her pile of books. "So, the little birdy's going to do her science project about the sky?"
"That's right," Amaya nodded, making herself focus more on the chessboard in front of her, pondering her next move. "Being able to do first-hand research seemed to be a good idea for this." Picking up a rook and moving it down the board, threatening his queen, she looked back up at him with a bit of a grumpy look etched on her face. "And see, there, you know something else about me. You know what my project's going to be about, even though you won't tell me anything about yours."
Romeo bristled defensively. "I'm not gonna tell you! You'd just steal my brilliant ideas!"
"I wouldn't steal anything," Amaya protested, giving Romeo a stern look. "I'm not like you. Besides, aren't we supposed to all be working together on the report, anyway?"
"Tell that to the other kids," Romeo muttered, studying the chessboard. He could take the rook with his queen but that would put it right in the path to be taken out on Amaya's next turn by a measly pawn. Irritated, he instead retreated his queen back down the board. "They won't even talk to us."
"I thought I was just imagining that," Amaya sighed unhappily. "Are they really ignoring us just because—"
"Just because we won't play into their hands like little babies eager to be bossed around?!" Romeo dramatically and angrily slammed a fist into the table, some of his pieces of the chessboard nearly toppling over. "Sure seems that way, doesn't it?"
"It's not fair that they're treating us that way just because we're younger than them. That doesn't mean that we can't come up with good ideas."
"Yeah, we'll show them!" Romeo stopped suddenly, realizing what he'd just said. "I mean, I'll show them." Amaya continued to give him that look that was a weird mix of surprised and amused, and Romeo didn't like how that made him feel. Sighing huffily, he said to her, "I really, really hate to have to say this, but… you'd better get second place! If we both beat them, that'll really show them!"
"Oh, I'm not going to get second place," Amaya said lightly, moving a pawn a space ahead. "I'm going to get first place. You can have second place."
"I'm really going to enjoy crushing your hopes and dreams!"
"Worry about making your next move first." Amaya sat back in her chair, giving Romeo a smug look.
Romeo scowled back at her. "I know something else about you, Amaya J. Devereaux. You're insufferable!"
"Well, so are you, Romeo… uh…" Amaya faltered, realizing that she didn't even know Romeo's last name, let alone middle initial.
Romeo finally smirked again, knowing the reason behind her sudden lack of steam. "Ha!"
"You know way more about me than I know about you," Amaya admitted quietly.
Her tone caught Romeo a bit off guard. Was she fishing for more personal information from him? Amaya's earlier protest that he knew too much about her was again ringing through his head, but now it was reversed, now his sentiment regarding her. Getting close like this to anyone suddenly seemed like an awful idea… and especially getting this close to one of his enemies.
"I'm not going to offer up more information to bridge that gap, if that's what you're getting at," he finally said firmly.
"Yeah, I know." Amaya sat up a bit straighter. "Look… maybe we can come to some sort of… arrangement."
"Arrangement?" Romeo raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah." Amaya sighed. "I wasn't meaning to reveal anything else to you, but here goes… before yesterday, I had no one to play chess with, either. My sister's too busy, and everyone else just doesn't want to learn. And that did kind of depress me, because I really wanted to keep playing. You wouldn't have been my first choice—"
"Oh please, save it," Romeo snapped. "You weren't mine, either."
"I know," Amaya quickly said. "But, well, here we are, and… I'd like to keep doing this with you. But," she added sternly, "this isn't going to get in the way of my science project."
There was a rather long pause, one that Romeo wasn't anticipating. "Or our nighttime exploits?" he finally prodded.
"Oh! Yeah!" Amaya almost looked like she had forgotten all about that, much to Romeo's shock. "Yeah, of course, this doesn't change anything there, I'm still a superhero and you're still a supervillain and… yeah. All that." She quickly and awkwardly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But for now, during the daytime, I'm fine with agreeing to this… the two of us just being chess partners. Nothing more, nothing less… we can just be normal kids for once."
Romeo crossed his arms. "Normal is so overrated. Who wants to be normal? But," he quickly said, cutting off Amaya before she could speak up again, "other than that, then sure. We can arrange that. Just stop asking me about what I'm working on!"
"Deal." Amaya leaned over towards Romeo with an outstretched hand.
"I'm not shaking your hand again," Romeo scoffed.
"You're kind of terrible at making deals," Amaya muttered.
"There you go! You learned something else about me!" Romeo smirked at her in what he thought was a mocking way, but surprisingly, Amaya smirked right back. A faint thought that he needed to work harder to antagonize her flittered through his mind for only a second or two before fading away. He couldn't pin that thought over the startlingly larger thought that he liked the pleased, confident way she'd smiled back at him, and trying to figure out why made him uncomfortable and, more than anything, confused.
Forcibly pushing every thought that wasn't chess related aside, Romeo swiftly moved his knight to take the pawn Amaya had just advanced.
"Check!"
