Disclaimer: I do not own any of the ideas or characters from Sky High or from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novel series. But I do own my original characters: Aroura, Ally, Euan, Mikey…
By the way, sorry about the confusion with the name changes. I was rereading a few chapters for some information and I found out that I really didn't like the name Mikey for my evil character. So I changed it to Gideon. But he is called Mick by Aroura and family for awhile because they don't know who he is yet. Hope that clears some things up.
It all worked out great until Mick knocked at the door.
"Can I help you?" I asked the man standing at the door. It had started to rain and he was standing with his briefcase over his head and his suitcase in the other hand. It was a rather large suitcase and it was stuffed to the point where the seams were strained with what it looked like as clothes.
He smiled and started to walk into the house. I stood my ground and didn't let him past the front door.
He sighed and smiled his fake smile. "May I please come in to get out of this rain?" he asked.
"Once you tell me who you are and why you are here with a suitcase," I snapped at him. I could feel my temper rising, but I didn't care. For some reason I didn't trust this guy no matter how fake his smile was.
"Who's at the door Aroura?" I heard Ally call from the kitchen.
"Don't know. He hasn't told me his name," I called back at her without taking my eyes off of this man who was now invading my doorway.
Ally walked from the kitchen to come and stand next to me by the door.
"Can we help you?" she asked.
"Yes ma'am. My name is Mick Woods and I believe that you are in need of some service while you recover from the loss of your husband," he said.
"How do you know that I recently lost my husband?" she asked in unbelievable calmness.
"I am from the Hero Headquarters and my job is to help ones who have lost their family members with superpowers. Its just so we are able to cover some things up, fill out some paper work for file and to help the family recover in whatever way possible."
"Oh yes. I am so sorry. I forgot that you were coming today. My mind has been everywhere and I haven't been able to think clearly," Ally said, her face breaking into a smile.
"Quiet understandable. Now not to be a bother, but it is starting to rain pretty hard now. Do you mind if I come inside and dry off?" he asked.
"Sure, sure," Ally said and moved out of the way so Mick could come inside. I really didn't want to move. I had a really strange feeling about this guy and I knew that he shouldn't be inside the house. He shouldn't be anywhere in the city if it was up to me. But I moved, reluctantly as possible. While he and Ally went into the den, I stalked back into the kitchen where Warren, Will and Layla were standing around the small island, holding onto mugs of hot chocolate.
"What's up Aroura?" Will asked.
"Strange guy from Hero Headquarters. Have you ever heard of a Mick Woods?" I asked him. Will's parents knew almost everyone important in the headquarters and because he was their son, so did Will.
He thought about it for a second.
"Not that I recall, no. But I can have my dad check on it if you would like me too," he added.
"Sure, that would be great Will, thanks." I truly was grateful for his offer, but I still wanted this guy out of our house.
"What is he here for?" Layla asked.
"He says that he is here to help with "loss of family member within the hero family"," I said, using finger quotes.
"Yeah, I've heard of their department. Haven't heard of Mick though. They supposedly come and stay with the family for the time that it needs to sort things, out, emotionally and financially, that sort of thing. Sometimes they stay for months at a time. Really good pay, but these people never have any family time. I kind of feel bad for them," Will explained.
Great, a few months????? We didn't need him here for a few days!
I put my head in my hands and slumped forward on the table.
"This really sucks. We don't need another person in this house, especially one that we don't know. He may think that he is going to be able to help us, but from where I am standing, Ally seems pretty content at the moment. She hasn't broken down in a few days and all of the bills are getting paid. Why do we need somebody else to help us when we are doing fine with everything now?"
"Have you asked Ally how she feels?" Warren asked. This was the first thing he had said in the past fifteen minutes, so I had almost forgotten that he was here.
"Of course I have asked her how she feels, Warren. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No. But have you really asked her? Like, have you sat down with her and just talked? She might say that she's okay, but she may really be torn up on the inside."
"Wow Warren. Since when have you become such an empath?" Will asked, jokingly. Warren just shrugged and went back to drinking his hot chocolate.
"Anyways, Aroura. I'm sure this guy will be fine. Hopefully Ally is as well as you say she is, so he will be gone within a few days," Layla said, trying desperately to be convincing.
"Yeah, I hope so," I said and put my head back on the table.
The next day was Monday and it passed like a normal day. Got on the bus; went to school; went to first period; went to second period; had break; went to third; went to fourth; had lunch; went to fifth. I didn't really remember what happened in any of my classes. My mind was on Mick and how Ally is allowing him to live with us for a few weeks. It just bothered me.
The last period of the day was gym. No, it wasn't like normal gym where you had to play dodge ball and climb the big rope in front of everyone and make a fool of yourself.
This gym was where you and a partner had to go up against two other people and try and save the citizen, hence the title Save the Citizen. It was an exercise supposedly made to help us learn how to work together to save citizens against villains.
I think it was a pointless game made to humiliate kids.
But they didn't ask my opinion when the school was founded, so there was nothing I could do about it. Except participate.
"McGraw, you're up next," Coach Boomer yelled over the cheering as another "citizen" was destroyed by the rotating spikes in the middle of arena.
I was paired with a psychic girl who looked terrified at the thought of doing anything in front of a crowd. Her name was Lillian and she was a freshman. After we put on our armour, which was pathetic pieces of plastic, I pulled her aside.
"Lillian, don't be frightened. That's what they want you to be. Even though they may be bigger and stronger and faster than you, you have one thing they don't. You can control things with your mind. All you need to do is focus."
She nodded and looked less frightened than before, but not much. Looked like I was going to have to do most of this myself.
Our part was to play heroes against another psychic, who looked much more experienced then Lillian and someone who could control balls of energy. He was a kind of psychic but his powers were more focused. He was sort of telekinetic too, so he could throw energy. It was kind of a nifty power.
We stood on opposite sides of the arena and waited for Boomer to blow the whistle and start the timer.
"You know the rules. Heroes, you have three minutes to save the citizen and disable your opponents. Villians, try and disable your opponents and keep them from saving your victim. Very simple, almost a monkey can do this. Ready? BATTLE!" he screamed suddenly and the game started.
Lillian started to fight mind to mind against the other psychic, so I was left to deal with the telekinetic psychic. He threw an invisible ball of energy towards me and I dodged it and ran behind him. I then threw a fireball at him and he was knocked into the wall. He slumped against it and seemed to be unconscious. I didn't stop and check; Lillian was being overpowered by the stronger psychic and she needed help. I ran over, checking the time to see that we still had two minutes left. I stopped right behind the other psychic and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, breaking his connection with Lillian, causing her to collapse. I smiled at him and then glanced at his feet. He looked down to see that his shoes were on fire. He screamed and hopped up and down trying to put the flames out. I watched him for a second, then ran over to Lillian, where she was slowly getting up.
"Are you alright?" I asked, pulling her to her feet. She nodded and then her eyes looked to the time. One minute was left. I let go of her arm and started towards the hanging citizen, when someone in the crowds caught my eye. He was wearing a black suit and was carrying a briefcase and was sitting in the stands amongst the students. I recognized him at once.
"What the hell?" I asked out loud. That bastard that was living in our house was now FOLLOWING ME TO SCHOOL??????
I stared for another second, when I heard Lillian yell at me. I turned, slowly for me to barely see a large ball of energy being thrown towards me. My reflects had suddenly turned off, because I didn't move. I let the energy hit me and I flew towards the spinning spikes. I could hear people scream as my body hit the sharp, rotating pieces of metal.
Then I did something I hadn't done in 300 years. I passed out.
It was the annoying beeping noise that finally forced me to open my eyes. It just kept beeping and beeping. I looked at the ceiling and then glanced at my surroundings.
Shit, I'm in the nurses office. This office was like a small hospital room. If someone from Sky High were to get seriously injured, they couldn't be taken to a normal hospital and the hero hospital had a lot of security and was hard to admit a student when they have no hero identification. So Sky High had their own little hospital just in case something like this happened. What I was confused about was why I was here.
My arms had tape wrapped around my wrists which tubes ran from, connected to the machines. This struck me as odd, because my skin was unbreakable and no needle could be inserted into my veins. I also had some wires taped to my chest, over my heart that ran to the heart monitor. I was still confused about how that was working, because the last time I checked, my heart didn't work.
I sat up and felt a tube coming out of my nose, supposedly to help me breath. Okay, this is REALLY strange. Doesn't Nurse Spex know that I am technically dead? Right on cue, she walked in the door and shut the curtains around my bed.
"Good, you are awake," she said and placed her hand on my head.
"Umm, I am really confused. You do know that I am-well dead? That I have no heart beat, no blood and I really don't need to breath?"
"Yes, yes of course. I just had to make it look like you are alive and in need of all of these instruments to help you stay alive. What happened should have killed you, but under the circumstances, you didn't die. The whole school saw your body hit those dreadful spikes and they should have tore you up. Luckily the machine was destroyed once you stopped the spikes. You are very lucky that your body is as hard as marble," she explained to me as she started to remove the tape that held the tubes to my body as props.
"Alright, I understand that. But how did you get the heart monitor to work?" I asked helping her remove the wires from my chest and take the tube out of my nose.
"Easy. I just set it to test and rigged it to beep at a slow beat. That way, if any of your friends were to look in they would see that you weren't dead. I am assuming that you haven't told any of them?"
"I've told Layla. That's all. Why do you ask?"
"Because they are all waiting anxiously outside for me to come tell them what happened. Or for you to wake up. They are really very worried about you."
"Really?" I suppose that I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I had friends that cared. It was kind of nice.
"Yes. They are all frantic. They tried to see you right as we brought you in, but I wouldn't let them in. For secret purposes. Although now, you may want to explain to them who you really are just in case something like this ever happens again."
"Maybe, I'm not sure yet." I didn't know how I felt about everyone else knowing about me. Layla was really nice to have somebody to talk to without having to curve my story all the time. But I wasn't sure how everyone else would handle it.
"You should. They deserve it you know," she said and handed me my clothes. I got dressed and then she nodded towards the closed blinds. I peeked out and looked at my friends. Ethan was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth; Zach was slumped in a chair with Magenta at his shoulder. She looked very distraught. Will was also sitting in a chair with Layla in his lap. He looked sad and worried and he was comforting Layla who was looking less worried then she should have been, but that's because she knows that I can't die. She was still huddled in his chest. I thought it was very cute. Warren was sitting in a chair, slightly away from the others, but he was leaning forwards with his head in his hands and was rocking slightly back and forth. At that moment, after seeing my friends I knew that I should tell them the truth. It was only right that they should know.
"Okay. I think I'll tell them."
Okay here's the next chapter. Sorry if it is really random. And that it is so late. I had sort of a writers block and I got a new guitar and have spent my time practicing that.
Please read and review. Happy Holidays!!!!!
