DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sky High. I would greatly appreciate both negative and positive comments or flames or… You get the idea.
Even as an infant, Pelefina Peace was beautiful. The nurses and orderlies stopped to stare at her sweet face and her dark eyes as she lay in her little hospital bed. Her mother was an ordinary human being, her only gifts being extraordinary beauty and a kind soul. Her father, on the other hand, was a superhero gifted with the ability to control and create fire. Most superheroes' powers come to be during childhood, adolescence more specifically, but Pelefina was a strange case. The moment she'd burst into tears after being torn from her mother's body, little Pelefina also burst into flames. Her father quickly came to the aid of the nurse who had held her, catching his baby daughter in arms that had become immune to fire over many years of exposure.
Her name came from two separate names from two separate cultures. Pele was the Polynesian goddess of fire and volcanoes, her name itself meaning 'molten lava'. Fina was a Irish Gaelic name meaning 'fair' or 'beautiful'. Needless to say, little Pelefina's name suited her perfectly.
Over the years, Pelefina became a lovely young lady. Unlike other girls in junior high, she possessed both beauty and a kind soul. It would be ridiculous to say that she was perfect because no one can ever truly be without any flaws, but she was close to it. She didn't have many friends in grade school because she was unable to play the popularity game. She loathed gossip and wasn't one to develop shameless crushes on the athletes she attended school with. Instead of spending hours on the phone putting down less-attractive girls, Pelefina practiced ballet and martial arts, knowing that those skills would come in handy as a super heroine.
It was when she first attended Sky High that Pelefina was truly in her element and that is where we begin.
"Sidekick," Sighed the resigned Coach Driver. She scribbled down a name on the paper pinned to her clipboard, looking to the students who had yet to demonstrate their powers. They had already lumped together in cliques and groups, choosing their friends or meeting up with those they had already been friends with. Pelefina looked sort of helpless out there on her own without a friend to talk to, but she remained composed and confident.
"You," Coach Driver pointed to Pelefina with her pen. "You're next."
Pelefina sighed, not exactly thrilled to be going through power placement but knowing that it was a necessary step she had to take towards becoming a heroine. She walked up the small ladder, standing next to Coach Driver. After only a second or two, she produced a large ball of fire and held it with her hands.
"Car," The coach cued a car which dropped from the ceiling. Before it even hit the floor, Pelefina incinerated it. It was no longer a car, but rather a glowing orange hunk of heated metal.
"Nice," Coach Driver muttered, having seen so many powers over her career at Sky High that not even a pyrokinetic of Pelefina's caliber could impress her. "Hero."
Pelefina was relieved that she hadn't been set on the Hero Support track at Sky High. Her father had told her stories about how the sidekicks were often made fun of and thought of as being inferior in comparison to the heroes.
"Stronghold," The coach pointed to a muscular young man who seemed to be the center of a popular clique. He seemed a bit cocky, but Pelefina tried not to judge him so quickly. The Stronghold boy made his way to the center of the gym and whispered something in Coach Driver's ear, prompting her to cue a car to fall on him.
But it didn't fall on him. He caught it, smiling and radiating pride as he held the mammoth automobile in his arms. Soon, he tossed it out of the gymnasium, shattering a window on its way out. Those he had been standing with cheered him on, applauding loudly. Pelefina smiled, amused with their behavior.
"Baron Battle," Coach Driver pointed to a lonely looking boy in the back of the group of students. His hair was a bit long and frizzy, obviously being naturally curly and untamed. Although Pelefina didn't like sticking labels on people without even getting to know them first, Baron Battle looked like a bit of a nerd. She decided to find out in class if that label suited him or not.
"Car," Coach Driver shouted, causing Pelefina to wonder how much money Sky High invested in old, junker cars. There certainly seemed to be an abundance of them dropping from the ceiling.
Baron did what Pelefina had done, heating the frame of the car so much that it warped its shape into a ball of glowing orange scrap metal. Instead of feeling like she wasn't as special because she wasn't the only pyrokinetic, she was delighted that she wasn't alone and that she had something in common with a fellow student.
A bell rang, signaling that it was lunch time at the school.
"We'll pick up where we left off after lunch." The coach looked as unenthusiastic as ever, making her way to the faculty lounge with a long face.
"Hey there," Pelefina turned to see the Stronghold boy speaking to her. She smiled warmly, looking at his nametag. Steven Stronghold. She knew of his family.
"Hi," She smiled and held out a hand to be shaken. "I'm--"
"Pelefina." He filled in the blank for her, reading off of her nametag. "That's a beautiful name."
"Oh," She blushed just a little bit. What had happened to her confidence? All of the sudden she was a bit timid, which was very unlike her. "Thank you." She smiled appreciatively.
"That was some display you put on in power placement." As he spoke, Steve Stronghold's friends walked over to join him.
"You're pretty great yourself. I imagine that super strength is much more useful than pyrokinesis." She smiled, looking over to the small crowd that had formed around the two of them. "Hi," Pelefina smiled at each of them.
"Hey," One of them, another guy, waved a hello to Pelefina. "Name's Jerry. Nice to meet you, Pelefina."
"So, you can sit with us at lunch, if you'd like." Steve suggested, walking towards the gymnasium's exit and out into the hallway. Pelefina cast a glance in the direction of the scruffy-looking Baron Battle before answering.
"That would be great." She smiled. "I don't really have many friends here."
"Well, you do now." Jerry looked at her with a smile on his face. "You're welcome to hang out with me n' Steve."
There was the sound of someone clearing their throat but the source of the noise was nowhere to be seen.
"And Sigrid." Jerry added, smiling at the invisible girl or at least where he assumed she stood.
"Hello," Sigrid waved a hello even though Pelefina couldn't see it.
"Wow. Invisibility." Pelefina nodded, impressed with Sigrid's super-talent.
"And Royce, Jorge, and Tommy-boy." Jerry pointed to the three boys whose names Pelefina had yet to learn. She smiled, trying to commit their names to her memory.
"It's very nice to meet all of you." She nodded a greeting to each individual.
Their group of five newly-made friends breezed into the cafeteria. The smell of really horrendous food greeted them as they passed through the doors. A few of them winced at the scent, but hunger got the best of them as they piled various preservative-packed foods onto their trays. They made their way over to an empty table and took their seats.
"So, did you guys--" Pelefina jumped back to her feet the moment she realized that she had sat on Sigrid's invisible lap. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry." There was the sound of laughter, presumably Sigrid's.
"It happens all the time. Don't sweat it." Still, Pelefina blushed a rosy pink and scooted so that she sat not on the girl but beside her.
"As I was saying, did you guys know each other before you came here?" She took a bite of a French fry.
"Eh, we were either friends or friend-of-a-friends, so no, not all of us were acquainted but, yeah, for the most part we knew each other." Steve answered, biting into his hamburger. "Don't you have any friends with powers?" He looked up, still chewing, at Pelefina.
"Oh, not really." She shrugged. "Now I have you guys, though, so that problem's fixed."
"Got a boyfriend…?" Jerry asked quite tactlessly. Pelefina just laughed.
"Are you kidding? Me?" She smiled faintly. "No, I don't really have the time for boyfriends."
"That's a pity." Jorge joked with a grin. "I think I can hear the sound of every guy's heart breaking right now." Pelefina laughed louder, shaking her head. The laughter slowly died down as the group dug into their lunches.
"What's his deal?" Pelefina nodded in the direction of Baron Battle who was sitting all by himself, looking like he was mad at the world.
"Oh, that's just Baron. He's always like that." Steve looked over at the brooding loner. "We went to grade school together." He explained.
"And you're not friends?" She tilted her head, looking at Steve curiously.
"Not anymore." Steve chuckled to himself. "No, not me and Baron."
"Hmm." Pelefina wasn't sure what to make of what he'd said. Had Steve and Baron parted on a bad note? Were they rivals? She didn't press for details, fearing that she'd expose an ugly truth.
"You don't want to hang out with a guy like him." Jorge assured her. "You're from two different worlds." She only shrugged.
"I don't know. I think I'd like to have a diverse pool of friends." She sipped at her chocolate milk.
"If you want to go far in this line of work, you've got to watch who you're friends with." Sigrid cautioned.
"Well, then I guess I won't go very far." Pelefina smiled at the space she assumed Sigrid occupied. There was an awkward silence after her statement, but soon their table had burst into nervous laughter. Pelefina was aware that they'd taken her statement as a joke, but she let it go, not wanting to start any trouble on their first day of school with her new friends.
"He looks so lonely over there…" Pelefina trailed off, the others not saying anything only because they assumed she was talking to herself. Baron was indeed alone but he didn't exactly look sad about it. He looked quite content to be on his lonesome. She wondered what happened to Baron to make him detest human company.
Then the bell rang, ending lunch and signaling that it was time for the freshman class to return to the gymnasium. Pelefina hurried to her feet, dumping her unfinished lunch into the trash and waiting up for her newly made friends.
"So now that we've been placed we just stand there?" She looked to Steve who, out of all of the kids in her clique, seemed like he knew what he was doing best.
"Yeah, you could do that." He shrugged. "Or you could skip out and hang outside with us." Steve smiled at Pelefina.
"Is that…" She leaned closer to him, hushing her voice. "Is that even allowed?"
"Not technically, but the teachers like me so when you're with me and mine you're practically adored by the teachers."
"Wow," She sighed. "It doesn't seem right." She shook her head.
"Aw, c'mon, you'll be missed." He tried to tempt her further. Just when it looked like Pelefina would hold out and resist temptation, though, she smiled mischievously. Instead of turning into the gymnasium she kept walking with her new friends outside of the school and onto the front staircase.
"God, I hope we don't get caught." She giggled a little, looking around uneasily.
"Like Steve said," Jorge took a seat on the stone staircase. "If you hang with us the teachers will love you. It's a family thing. You mess with us you're messing with a long line of superheroes." Pelefina nodded.
"You mean your family has been going to Sky High for a long time?" She raised an eyebrow curiously.
"My dad went here. Steve's dad went here. Sigrid's mom and dad went here. Tommy-boy and Royce's mother came here." He went down the list, shrugging at the super-lineage. Pelefina nodded again, slightly impressed.
"My dad was a superhero but he never went to Sky High." She slouched, sitting down next to Jorge.
"Do we know him?" Steve leaned up against a column looking at Pelefina.
"He spent most of his career out on the west coast, not really in Maxville, so I don't know. For a while he went by the name 'Pyroman' but now he's sort of…" She sighed. "Retired, I guess is the word I'm looking for. He's been living like a normal person with my mother for a while now."
"That's where the thrills are." Steve nodded. "Working as a superhero. Dad tells me that everything else is boring once you've saved your first person." The group nodded in agreement with Steve.
"I don't know. Ordinary life can be just exciting as living life as a superhero." The others were quiet, a few of them shrugging but all of them silently disagreeing with her statement.
"Really," Pelefina insisted. "If you live every day to the fullest--"
"Oh, cheesy!" Sigrid laughed. "You sound like my dad only on some kind of mellow-out drugs. Cheese." The others laughed, not cruelly, at the whole discussion. Pelefina just smiled. As if on cue to rescue her from her new friends, the bell rang signaling the end of the day. The gang of freshman slowly got to their feet.
"So, maybe once they start giving us actual work we could set up a study group or something." Pelefina suggested with a pleasant smile.
"Yeah, that'd be great." Steve nodded. "Or we could just get together for fun. I'm favoring the fun over studying, myself." He laughed softly to himself. The others nodded in agreement. Pelefina couldn't help but get the impression that she was the only one of the seven who put academics and her future career first, but she wasn't one to judge others' priorities.
"I guess I better go get my things from my locker before the bus leaves without me." She headed up the stairs and inside of the school, walking straight for her locker. With a few turns she unlocked the combination lock and swung the door open, grabbing a few folders and her purse before scurrying back down the hallway and out of the school. She boarded her bus home, a bit disappointed that none of her newly made friends shared the same bus route as her.
The bus was already crowded with students, catching her off-guard as that morning she had been the first to board and had gotten her pick of seats. Pelefina eyed the students as they paired up and sat on the bus. She made her way to the very back of the bus, sitting by none other than her fellow pyrokinetic Baron Battle.
"Hi," She smiled in his direction, trying to be friendly. "You're Baron, right?"
The brooding loner turned his head to look at her, nodding to affirm that she'd gotten his name right.
"I'm Pelefina. We have the same power." Her smile widened for a moment but then it practically vanished when she realized that Baron Battle was less-than-thrilled to be in her presence.
"You're Steve's friend, right?" He sighed.
"Yeah, I guess I am." She answered, unprepared for the long silence that followed her reply. "Well, you don't have to be rude." Pelefina huffed, crossing her arms as the bus took off into the air. Baron rolled his eyes and looked at her.
"It's an unsaid rule that if you're friends with people like Steven Stronghold you can't be friends with a person like me." As he explained, Pelefina's cross expression softened a bit. Having no realrelationships outside of familyover the years, she didn't have much experience when it came to things like friendship but she did know about cliques. One clique of friends clashed with another and it seemed that Steve's clique of friends clashed with Baron.
"I never did like rules very much." She uncrossed her arms, smiling at him once more. Now Baron returned the friendliness, albeit in a considerably more subtle way.