Disclaimer: Ditto. Blah.
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Normal POVRory snorted as she looked up at Sky High. From what she'd heard, it was the greatest school of all great schools and she should be proud to attend. Quoted, of course, from her mother. But, in her very experienced eyes, it was just high school. Sure, it was a bit glossier and neater and all those detailed necessities, but it was school. And school sucked. Everyone knew that.
"I can see you're not very happy with the arrangements," Jake Daniels remarked as he walked up to stand next to her.
"Go away, you stalker," Rory snapped. "I'm not in the mood to listen to you." She elapsed into thought for a moment, then added, "I'm never in the mood to listen to you, so shove off."
Daniels snorted; did the guy just live to mimic everything she did? "Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh," Rory agreed, rolling her eyes. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than hang around with you all day, as hurt as you may get by this comment. So can you shove off now?"
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"YES!"
"Fine!" And he shoved off.
Surprised slightly yet definitely pleased by Daniels' 'shoving off', Rory strided toward the doors, seemingly gliding across the school grounds as she did so. A girl with freaky snot-green hair was handing out schedules and lecturing them on the rules, the first of them being not to fall off the school.
"I thought that'd be pretty obvious," she said loudly, and the comment was met by various snorting and laughter from the rest of the freshmen.
The green-haired girl's head whipped around to face her. "Name, freshman."
"First of all, how come almost everyone I meet asks me that?" Rory wondered out loud, rolling her eyes. "And for your info, it's Auroria…or Rory, because if you call me Auroria I'll personally smash my fist into your face, and you really don't want that, do you?"
"Auroria what?" the girl inquired immediately.
"Geez, you people are really nosy," Rory remarked. "Auroria Hale. Or Peace. Either way I'm going to punch you."
The girl didn't even flinch. Instead, she smiled rather confidently, though it was more of a smirk than a smile. "Oh, really?" she said in a superior tone that made Rory want to gag. "Well, Rory, the name's Jeanette Williams." As if I care, the younger girl thought rebelliously. "I'm your brother's girlfriend."
Rory did a double take. "My who's whatta?" she sputtered, dark blue eyes bulging out of their sockets. "Sorry, what I meant to say was WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!"
"You don't know?" Jeanette asked, faking surprise with the sappy smile still on her face. "You mean you seriously don't know?"
"Oh, cut the drama and get on with it!" Rory cried, her voice rising to a shout so that everyone in the vicinity paused to watch the scene.
Jeanette rolled her eyes. "Your brother – " Here Rory stared, still not over the shock of the words. " – is my boyfriend."
"I heard that part, but tell me…just who is this brother of mine? And if you're joking – which you probably are, since no one in their right mind would go out with you – who're you trying to kid?" Rory demanded, eyes blazing.
"Your brother. You know, Gareth Peace," Jeanette said slowly.
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"You mean, no one's told you?"
"Yep."
"You mean your mother hasn't told you?"
"Yep."
"You mean you never knew?"
"Yep."
"Wow."
"You betcha."
The day's events were really starting to freak Rory out. First with the whole repetition thing going on with introducing herself to everyone and them freaking out over her name, which freaked her out. Then there was the green-haired thing going on with Jeanette. What was up with that? And now there was this whole 'your brother's my boyfriend' thing she was getting from the same girl. If she even had a brother, she was sure he couldn't be as stupid as to go out with someone like Jeanette – look at her hair!
"Okay, so now that this very interesting conversation has reached its end, can we please go back to the Student Orientation thing?" This came from Nat Stronghold, who, despite his words, looked amused, as did the rest of the crowd. Rory glowered at him, which he, in turn, returned with a full-blast smirk.
"Gladly," Jeanette answered, turning to the fifteen-year-old with a bright smile. Nat looked like he was in heaven. Rory simply made a face. "So, as I was saying, schedules…"
Rory tuned the girl off after turning her MP3 on again, deciding that there were much better things to do than listen to the annoying green-haired girl at the moment. And, as proof, she could name a lot of things on the top of her head. One: listen to music. Two: think of ways to get detention. Three: keep glaring daggers at Stronghold. Four: watch that nerd – Zacharias or something like that – pick his nose. Five: Die of boredom.
"Peace…Peace…PEACE!"
Jeanette's loud and irritatingly bossy voice interrupted Kelly Clarkson's 'Because of You' – which was playing on the FM radio – and reached Rory's ears, causing the girl to wince as she switched the music off.
"What? Do you have like, supersonic voice or something?" she exclaimed, fingers replacing the earphones as they clamped tight around her ears.
"No, I just glow," Jeanette replied, rolling her eyes. "And I've been calling you for like, the last five minutes. Come up and get your schedule." It was Rory's turn to roll her eyes as she strolled upto the sophomore and snatched the papers, held together neatly with a paperclip, from her hands.
"Oh, and my so-called 'brother'…what's his name again? Well, whatever his name is, tell him he's the greatest git ever and that I never thought anyone related to me could stoop as low as to go out with someone like you." She smirked. "And that flashing of the eyes thing really doesn't work for you, though it really demonstrates that 'glowing' thing you were talking about." The word 'thing' dominated over her vocabulary, since she usually couldn't find a better word to place in her languid remarks. Unless she felt like using very, um, colorful language. That happened when she got pissed off, which was very often.
"And it's Gareth," Jeanette hissed behind Rory as said girl headed toward the doors. The bell rang.
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Rory's POV
Gym. Principal. Comets. Speech. Boredom.
Those five words practically summed up the whole sucky time we freshmen had when we entered the oh-so-beloved walls of the school. Well, for me, anyway. Everyone kept glancing at me as if they were afraid I would blow up any minute, but I don't blow up…not, at least, when I'm dead bored.
And that's exactly what I was right then.
And – just great – guess who I had the greatest pleasure of standing next to? Yep, Nat Stronghold, bleeding idiot extraordinaire. Yay! Git. For some reason, he kept glancing at me with a calculating, sort-of-amused look every few seconds, which made me feel like some exotic animal on display. Well, I couldn't argue with the 'exotic' part, but for the rest, as if! I would have told him to shove off, like I did with Daniels (and boy did that relieve stress) if it hadn't been for the fact that Powers was looking straight at me. Yet again, for some reason. Everyone seemed to have some reason to either – a)
stare at, b) make fun of, c) (and yes, this was the most popular one, unfortunately for me) want to annoy to death, or d) all of the above – me. Rather annoying, really.
Again with the comets. God, this woman was obsessed with drama, wasn't she? 'Comets, away'? I couldn't think of anyone who'd say such a corny line. Except for Powers, that is.
Then this Coach Boomer dude – who looked like he was in his seventies or something – started using his supersonic vocal powers (hey, at least someone in the school had them) to lecture us about power placement and 'whiner babies'. This school was weird. But I wasn't going to survive it if I didn't have a power – which, as a matter of fact, I didn't. Surprise, surprise!
Boomer was going by backwards-alphabetical order. But hey, in these times, people can go way off their rocker. The example stood right in front of me…well, except he was standing on this huge platform thing. I blinked. Was that supposed to impress us, or was it just to make Boomer look taller?
I shrugged to myself and sighed dramatically, blatantly ignoring the amused smirks people were shooting at me. If this was entertainment, school life must be really boring. And going back to the backwards-alphabetical thing I mentioned about a minute ago in my brain, if they were going by Hale, phew – I'd be one of the last. If they were going by Peace…well, we'll get to that later.
When I'd finally tuned back into the power-placing, Boomer had called Jane Williams. Shape-shifter…into a guinea pig? I stifled a snort and sobered up immediately when I reminded myself I didn't even have any powers to laugh at. "SIDEKICK!" Ouch…forget about eye drops, I need another pair of ears!
A few names later, Stronghold was called up. Boomer seemed impressed by the dude. Snort…from whom else but moi? Stronghold flew, grew some weird-looking plants. Car came, he dodged it. Piano came, he wrapped it with some vine things. Yeah…very impressive. Sarcasm is dripping from the voice of my inner thoughts.
"HERO!" Now who couldn't have seen that coming?
After the hated Nat Stronghold were Katrina Sullivan, Tabitha Samuels, and Courtney Reynolds. Females dominate. Sullivan had electrical powers, Samuels was telekinetic, and Reynolds was a force field machine. There were no Q's, and since 'Peace' was the first last name in the P's in backwards-alphabetical order (so confusing – the idiot who created the backwards-alphabet should be turned into frog spawn), if he didn't call me now (and I had my hopes on that) my suffering would be ceased until the H's.
"Zacharias Parker."
I breathed a sigh of relief as Zacharias – the kid with the huge thick-lens glasses that had been picking his nose – stepped up onto the platform. Good…this would save me a lot of trouble. Until, that is, he reached 'Hale'. That I didn't want to think about. Ah, just look at me. Rory Hale/Peace, the never-frightened spunky girl known mostly for the sharp temper and dry comebacks, just shaking in her knees because of some stupid power placement. Oh, the irony.
"My mistake…Parker, step down." Boomer's voice boomed out, echoing across the gym. "Next person, get ready to power up. Auroria – " He paused there, his eyes widening as he gulped. " – Auroria Peace."
Heads turned, eyes stared, throats gulped, and Parker's nose was thoroughly picked. Disguising my utmost embarrassment behind another famous roll of the eyes, I walked upto Boomer and stared at him critically. A long pause hung in the air as Boomer nervously averted his eyes to the ground. Honestly, there was no reason for him to do that…sure, Dad was the most powerful pyrokinetic alive and Mom was the most powerful hydrokinetic alive, but I was a kid…with no powers.
But he didn't know that…yet.
The long pause was interrupted by a loud voice. "Well, shouldn't you be powering up, Peace?" This time the heads turned toward the doorway, where a group of older people were standing, watching the power assessment. I recognized Jake Daniels' smug smirk as he calmly returned the rolling-of-the-eyes thing I had shot at him. But arrogance will be arrogance, and Daniels was the incarnation of arrogance. I shot him a deadly glare. If looks could kill, the dude would be lying on the floor in a pool of blood with me standing triumphantly over him. But as it happened, I didn't kill people and never wanted to, either. But that didn't mean I couldn't be mad at the guy. He knew I didn't have any powers!
"Yes…POWER UP!" Boomer ordered, regaining his confidence and abnormally loud voice when he realized he'd been bettered – was that a word? – by a sixteen-year-old. I winced, being in close proximity of the snothead, tried in earnest to ignore the superior looks I was receiving from Daniels and his friends (which included snot-haired Williams), then faced the 'Sorting Hat'.
"Don't have any," I answered.
"Don't have any WHAT?" Boomer demanded. I rolled my eyes despite my awkward position and mumbled something about how thick people could get these days.
"I don't have any powers, you fricking retard."
Gasps filled the room, Boomer's face was contorted with something beyond fury, Daniels' smirk was unbearable now, and I didn't even bother looking at Jeanette Williams.
"You're wasting my time…SIIIIIIIIIDEKICK!" That was the loudest I'd heard anyone shout, even for Boomer. Rubbing my numb ears, I leaped back down onto the gym floor, still being able to maintain cool composure while doing it. Late bloomer…ha. Wait till Mom heard about this.