Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High, or any of the associated characters.

Summary: See Previous Chapters

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my twin, Sally, who died December 26, 2005


Chapter Eleven

The first thing to do was set up something to delay any escape by Gwendoline and her minion.

A thin layer of black ice over the steps, and a hanging snare at the base of the steps, using some invisible rope from the mad science lab, would do for that. Then, it was back inside to try and get the others to safety, while avoiding Gwen, Speed, Lash and Penny.


There were half a dozen babies on the floor, crawling around in vastly oversized clothes, and Royal Pain's minion was cackling and spouting off lame one-liners. Mr Medulla walked back in just in time to step into a shot meant for Principal Powers. "What did I miss? Argh!"

Principal Powers obviously realised that she was the next target, and that there was no way to dodge without running over someone, and no way of telling what would happen if she got Pacified while in her comet form. "Boomer, get the kids out of here!"

Coach Boomer spotted first the barred doors, then Warren, standing in front of Alara and Evanna with ignited fists, and waiting for a clear shot. Stronghold's sidekicks were fighting their way toward him, and the coach took a combative stance. "Hothead, find an exit! Get as many people out as you can, I'll slow her dow..."

Warren didn't bother to watch as Gwen's minion hit the coach, but glanced at the girls behind him. "Either of you two know the nearest exit?"

That was another thing that the Pied Piper insisted every low-powered super should know: at least two exits from any room they spent more than a minute in. Evanna pointed off to the side, where there was a grate just big enough for average-to-small-sized teenagers to crawl through. Warren blew it open with a fireball, as Alara threw a barrage of water bottles at Royal Pain and the minion to distract them.

As the largest, and with the most offensive power, Warren led the way in, followed by his friends, and then Stronghold's Sidekicks, trying to match the chute to his mental map of the school. It wasn't helped by the comments from behind him. "Where are we?"

"Hey, Warren, how about a light?"

Evanna twisted as much as she could to stare incredulously. "We are in a metal pipe."

Alara chipped in, "Metal is a heat conductor."

Warren elaborated for those who obviously didn't get it. "Only if you want to get barbecued."

Second from the back, Zach started to glow green. "If you ladies will excuse me..."

Said ladies pressed themselves as tightly to the side as possible, glad that he was very much on the thin side. Magenta couldn't let it go without comment. "Then all the reindeer loved him..."

Alara growled under her breath as Ethan chipped in, "Way to glow, Zach!"

Evanna sighed, "Can we stop with the lame puns, please? I can feel my braincells committing suicide."


Melissa and Roisin were quietly making their way down a corridor when Will Stronghold almost barrelled into them, not bothering with stealth. The two girls exchanged exasperated looks. Heroes with strength-based powers never seemed to have any plan beyond 'Charge-in-and-hope-for-the-best'. "Do you want Gwen and her buddies to hear us half-way across the school?"

Stronghold skidded to a stop. "Good, you guys got out. Do you know what's happened to everyone else?"

Melissa shook her head as they started to run again, turning a corner and skidding to a halt when a ventilation shaft started glowing with a light that wasn't normally seen outside the Mad Science lab. Stronghold yanked the cover off, and Zach poked his head out. "'Sup, kid?"

The others piled out, Warren and Alara pulling Roisin into a brief hug as Stronghold practically bounced in place with agitation. "Guys, you're never going to believe this. Gwen – "

Layla cut him off, " – is Royal Pain's daughter."

Stronghold deflated slightly. "Right, and she – "

Warren let go of the twins and broke in, " – stole the Pacifier."

Roisin gripped his hand, "And recruited some backup. Give me a stupid villain any day."

Will nodded, "Yeah, and – "

Zach and Magenta moved in closer, " – and she turned everyone at Homecoming into babies, including your parents, dude."

Will blanched dramatically. "OK, that I didn't know."

Rare sarcasm coloured Layla's tone. "I think that this is more than even the great Will Stronghold can handle."

A blind person probably wouldn't have missed the way Stronghold winced, looking around at the small group. "She's right. It's going to take all of us."

Magenta sounded far less confident than usual, though the note that suggested amazement that the person she was addressing could walk and breathe at the same time was still very much present. "All of who? You and Warren? Ice and Shadows over there? The rest of us are only sidekicks."

Alara scowled at her. "Speak for yourself, hamster-girl."

Stronghold intervened before a fight could break out. "Having powers doesn't make you a Hero. Sometimes it just makes you a jerk. Makes me a jerk. I guess what I'm trying to say is – "

Layla looked like all her dreams were coming true at once as she stopped him from falling over himself any further. "We get it: you've been a jerk."

Warren stared at the two of them incredulously. The others collectively rolled their eyes as the Commander's son finally did something about the bleeding obvious. "Layla, in case my Homecoming date ends up killing me tonight, I just want you to know…"

Melissa and Evanna exchanged a long glance as the twins merely looked bored, all expecting a dramatic speech. Instead, Will just pulled Layla close and kissed her. Warren was about to break into sarcastic applause when Penny's voice interrupted them. "Isn't that sweet? I hate sweet!"

She stood at the end of the hall, flanked by Lash and Speed. Will sighed. "You guys are a part of this too? Why am I not surprised."

Warren pulled off his jacket to free up his arms, moving into a flanking position as the others spread out across the hall. "Go take care of Gwen. Roisin, stay with him. We'll handle these clowns."

Will didn't waste time with doors or walls, but simply barged right through them, Roisin close on his heels. Zach ushered Alara and Magenta back into the ventilation shaft. Warren ran to a junction that would give him a better chance against Speed, followed by Melissa. Penny created several clones and chased after Layla, while Lash grabbed Ethan and Evanna.

Evanna changed into a ball and was kicked down the hall, bouncing off a locker and zig-zagging down toward the cafeteria, where the last of Penny's clones was disappearing through the door. Changing back and rolling to her feet, Evanna tackled one and put them in a choke-hold, trying to sound as threatening as possible. "All right, bitch, what's the end-game?"


They could hear Gwen's villainous monologue two corridors away, though thankfully they were spared the opening melodramatics. "…She hatched a plan so daring, so visionar- ack!"

Gwen's dramatic parade down the steps came to an abrupt end as she hit Melissa's black ice, her strut becoming a very undignified skid, complete with flailing arms. A swirl of shadows caught the Commander before he could hit the ground, moving him out of the way to safety.

Regaining her balance, Gwen's took another step and sustained a nasty bang to the head as her legs were caught in an invisible snare and she found herself hanging upside down, spinning slowly to spot an angry Will Stronghold and a smirking Rose twin. The Villainess's daughter laughed. "I'll leave you to deal with her, shall I? Try not to get distracted."

The girl, the Hero twin, if she was using shadows, but whose name Gwen had never bothered to learn, tossed off a mocking salute and used the shadows to boost catapult herself through an open window, leaving the ex-couple to face off against each other.

As attempting to talk Gwen down failed spectacularly and he was tackled through about ten walls, Will could only think that this was not going to be pretty.


Warren and Ethan high-fived as Speed went flying into a plaster fresco, before Warren ducked into the toilets to tie Lash into the most complicated knot he could think of before the bully managed to extract his head and neck from the pipes. Getting his head out would take longer without leverage, and the knot would buy them at least ten minutes.

He walked out in time to catch Roisin, who was muttering darkly about needing more practice at running in heels. She knelt next to Melissa, who Speed had picked out as the bigger threat and shoved into a row of lockers at nearly a hundred miles per hour. Melissa had managed to form a protective shell of ice around her head, stopping her from having her skull split like an egg, but it wasn't enough to stop her from being knocked unconscious.

Roisin closed her eyes and focused on sensing the shadows in Melissa's body, similar to how Melissa and Warren could sense people in the dark through body heat. There was no permanent damage, and head-wounds were tricky things, but Roisin managed to shrink the shadows that indicated bone-deep bruises. They needed everyone awake and focused if they were to hold out until re-enforcements arrived.


The clone that Evanna was choking into submission was even dumber than Penny herself; a very difficult thing to accomplish. That, or the clones were simply as useless with details as the original copy. "Destroy school, start new supervillain academy with the pacified ones."

Evanna dug her knee into the clone's spine. "Details, you insipid twit! How is she going to destroy the school?"

Breaking glass and an explosion of vines inside the cafeteria distracted them, and the clone slumped over, unconscious. Luckily, the clones that Layla had tied up were far more knowledgeable and talkative. "Don't leave us here to die!"

"Royal Pain sabotaged the anti-gravity device!"

"The whole school is going to fall out of the sky!"

"We only have ten minutes!"

Evanna and Layla exchanged panicked looks and ran to find the others.


Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, knocked Stitches flying off the bus in a Superhero physical combat move that had taken hours upon hours to perfect. Royal Pain's minion rolled to a halt at the feet of four adults, who simply trampled over him on their way into the school. Fortunately, Royal Pain had left scratch marks on the black ice, letting them avoid it, or their charge could have ended badly.

The Cryptographer and Mecha-Girl reached into the School computer system. Mecha-Girl found the controls for the cages in the Senior Mad Science lab, releasing the various rodents. Some of them had been genetically modified, but all of them listened to the Pied Piper.

The Cryptographer had read enough reports of Royal Pain's actions to recognise the effects of the Pacifier, even if the abundance of babies hadn't been enough of a clue. It was the work of a moment to find the student records and send a collective notification to the parents, informing them of what had happened and warning them to come up with a plan before they charged in.

Melissa's father, the Peacebringer, stayed behind to help unload the babies, while the other three took off toward the school and the sound of combat.


Layla and Evanna spotted the others as Melissa sat up and Speed extracted himself from the wall, joined by Lash, still un-knotting his arms and trying to look menacing while soaking wet and smelling like a sewer. Whatever they had planned failed utterly as they were knocked off their feet and borne away by a small horde of rats and other rodents.

The genetically modified rats broke away to gather around the Pied Piper and Cryptographer, both of whom were doing a far better job of looking menacing than any of the teenage wannabe villains. The Cryptographer blinked at the rest of the rodents that rushed past them. "Dear, are there lemmings in that wave?"

The Pied Piper smirked coldly. "Hanging off the edge of the school will keep them out of the way and teach them that being a schoolyard bully doesn't mean you're ready to face the big guns."

Zach, Ethan and Magenta edged away nervously as Alara and Warren grinned. The smiles faded as Layla and Evanna sprinted up. "Royal Pain is planning to sabotage the anti-gravity device. Is there a room that will have building schematics?"

The Cryptographer pulled out a tablet that expanded to the size of a small display board. He tapped a few times on the screen, focusing on what he needed to see. The building schematics might have been stored in the SuperBuildings Ltd main computer halfway across the country, but distance only added a few seconds for the semi-retired Technopath.

Layla swiftly spotted the only way that wouldn't take them at least twenty minutes, but started from the beginning. "Here's the anti-gravity room."

Magenta glanced at the various paths leading to it, calculating time and distance. "But didn't Royal Pain seal off every route?"

Ethan spotted something potentially useful. "Hey, what about this conduit?"

Zach disagreed. "No, you'd have to be the size of a rat to fit in there."

Warren, Evanna, Melissa and the twins looked at the Pied Piper, who frowned: rats, even genetically modified ones, were not always good with directions, and they didn't have time for mistakes. Everyone else looked at Magenta, whose shapeshifting form wasn't much bigger than a rat. The purple-clad girl sighed. "Oh, great."

Nevertheless, she shifted, Zach carrying her as they ran to the conduit access point. The Hero students branched off to the Gym, where loud crashes and the sound of things blowing up suggested the location of Will and Gwen.

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A/N: Yes, I know that this has taken way too long to update, and that it was a cliff-hanger.

On the bright side, I'm currently on holiday and should have more writing time soon. Check out my other stories 'Cinderella Grows a Spine', 'Not What You Expected' and 'A SCA Girl in Middle-Earth' if you want something to read in the meantime that will be updated in the near future, and don't forget to review!

Really, 58 follows and only 2 of them bothered to say anything about the last chapter? Not very encouraging.

Thanks,

Nat