Chapter 3

Vengeance and Heroic Algebra

Laney awoke, her head pounded. It was 7:30, 'Great,' She thought. She overslept. Laney looked down at herself. She had the same clothes on that she had for the party and a little bit of chunks on the front of them from the night before. 'Disgusting.' She walked from her bed to her bathroom. She undressed and got into the shower and then soon came out. Laney had her hair wrapped up in a towel. Laney slipped on a pair of tight jeans with holes along them, if the holes weren't in different parts they would like the same ones she wore yesterday. She then slipped on a AC/DC shirt.

"Laney, your running late, again!" A feminine voice yelled from downstairs.

"I know mother." Laney replied. "I overslept."

"I know you shouldn't have stayed out that late studying." Her mom yelled. Little did she know studying involved getting drunk after the first day of school. "Your gonna miss your bus."

"Yes, Mother." Laney said as she charged down the stairs coming her hair.

"I made you a pop tart for the run. Go, go, go." Her mother pointed towards the door. Laney ran out and started to walk down the sidewalk. She walked towards a stop sign where her usual stop is. The yellow bus stopped and picked her up.

"Good morinin' Ms. Stronghold." The bus driver said. The bus driver was the epitome of a bus driver. He had salt and pepper hair with a long mustache, sun glasses, a ponytail, and a left tatoo from being in the army.

"Good morning Mr. Sandago." Laney said. She walked to the back of the bus and sat next to her friend, Olivia. Olivia was blond and had a couple of freckles on her face.

"Hey, Laney." Olivia said.

"Missed you on the first day of school, Liv." Laney said.

"Oh, I missed the bus, someone didn't inform me that school started fifteen minutes earlier this year." Olivia said. "So how was your summer?"

"It wasn't the best, but I met this really cool guy and I think I made out with him last night, but like they say, if your too drunk to remember it, it never happened."

"What is his name?" Olivia inquired.

"Shem, I mean Kronos, he likes being called Kronos." Laney said.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Laney brushed to comment off.

"Change the subject. Everyone in the community knows what happened to your father. Why don't you try opening out." Olivia said.

"I tried that Liv, it didn't work, I just broke down. Okay!" Laney said.

"Lane, I didn't see you all summer because of your father's situation, now I think I need you to tell me what happened." Olivia demanded.

"Fine." When Laney said that the bus wrapped its safety belts around them and took off. As it took off she said, "I'll have to tell you later." Then she thought about what had happened over the summer.

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Three months ago. Laney arrived home on the last day of school. Tears strolled down her face. She didn't remember ever being any sadder in her life. She opened up her door to see her mom with a bottle of alchohol with her head in her forearm sobbing. Laney couldn't handle it anymore than she could. She bursted into more tears. "Why?" Laney cried.

"They sai-said, he would get the." Her mother paused between her words to weep some more. "He'll get the death sentence for this."

"He deserves it." Laney said as tears dropped down from her chin. "He deserves it!" Laney walked over to the T.V. about to turn it on but then remembered what had happened when it was on in school. Every station was talking about her father. A pain she couldn't bare. Her father was a good man, he paid his taxes, he was a great father, and a great hero. He didn't deserve to die, not at all. The worse was that he was betrayed, betrayed by one of the men he trusted the most. Berrick Mosely, aka Moses. He had the power to make craters so it was a suiting name. He had killed her father in cold blood. They were about to stop Exo once again from stealing from the Maxville City Bank. Her father, Mr. Alec Stronghold was walking towards the building when all of the roads around him swallowed him up.

The pain thinking about that killed her. The police say that they will give him life, that's if they catch him she thought. She wanted revenge, not just from Berrick but from Exo also. This was something that wasn't dealt with well in the Stronghold family. She knew that she could get help from Will and Steve if anything.

Two weeks later was the funeral for her father. She looked up from her black skirt. Her eye liner was running down her cheek as she stared at Will. He smiled, which made her smile, Will was good at cheering her up. After the funeral Will walked up to Laney. "Laney." She didn't answer. "Lannet." He then said louder. "Lannet Summer Stronghold!" He yelled. She finnaly turned around.

"What William?" She said.

"Why didn't you answer me?" Will asked.

"I was thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

"How I'm going to kill Berrick." Laney yelled.

"Whoa, Laney you can't just do that, I mean your-"

"What Will?" She paused, "a girl? I'm a freakin' Stronghold just like you. I was going to help for your help, but I can clearly see that I'm not going to get it from you."

"Laney I didn't mean th-" Laney ran off into her mother's car. As soon as she got home she picked up all of her Abercrombie and Fitch, her Hollister and threw it into a garbage bag. Then she screamed. She took out her new clothes her rebellious clothes. She was ready to kill Berrick, with or without her parents help. The only problem was that the next day Berrick was caught. And while he was being marched through the court house he was murdered by a civilian.

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The bus landed at Sky high. She walked over to her first period. "Liv, meat me at my locker, 1572 and let's see if we have any classes together."

"Okay, Lane."

"Oh, yea, Liv, I'm sorry I snapped at you this morning, I'll tell you what happened over summer, later." Laney said as she walked towards her first class. She looked and saw Shem walking to school then he was confronted by three boys.

"Hey, your Spieler, right?" One of the boys said. Laney recognized him it was Clive the boy with six arms. Alongside him was, Jackson and Jacob.

"What do you want?" Shem asked.

"Oh nothing, but we'll be seeing you in gym today, trust us. We'll see what Ballas High has. Not that your not a sad misrepresentation of it." Jacob said.

"What? Excuse me." Shem said. "Hey, I don't take no threats and I don't go for bullies so watch who your talking to."

'Wow, good words Shem.' Kronos said. 'Not only did you just lose an arguement, you made yourself look more stupid. Great, Laney just saw you great job, stud.'

'Shut up Kronos.' Shem yelled in his mind. Shem looked at the kids as they walked away.

"Don't mind them," Laney said. "They just don't like you because you are from a rival school."

"Yea, but that shouldn't make any difference, I hated Ballas High." Shem said.

"Kronos, Sky High is a good school, don't make a bad expierience make you hate it." Laney said.

"What were kids from Ballas High doing at the party last night?" Shem asked as they sooned started to walk towards Mad Science class.

"They come by, to crash our parties. Thats why we hate them so much. By the way did I do anything crazy last night?" Laney asked rubbing her aching head. "I can't remember anything."

"Yea, you pranced around naked like a ravinous chimpanzee." Shem said.

"Hah, funny Kronos."

"You think I'm joking!" Shem laughed. Then it suddenly faded. "Why did you call me Kronos?" He opened the door for her and then followed her into Mr. Medula's classroom.

"What are you talking about, I was drunk but not drunk enough to know that you told me to call you Kronos." Laney said.

"Whoa, I can't believe he told you that." Shem said as he sat down.

"Him, what are you talking about, you don't have a twin that I made out with do you?" Laney yelled. "Is that why you told me to call you, or him, Kronos?"

"It's not that easy Laney." Shem said. 'Good goin' Kronos' Shem said.

'Sorry,' Kronos replied.

Shem looked at her. He could see why Kronos was attracted to her. She had deep brown eyes and beautiful locks of brown hair. "See I, uh, have two personalities. You met both of them yesterday."

"So, your crazy?" She asked. The bell rang for the beginning of first period and then they started class with Mr. Medula giving some stupid Alessandro guy lecture.

"No, when I told you powers I left out one. I have alternate personalities. Shem during the day, who your talking to right now. Also, there's Kronos, the one you kissed and drank with last night at the party. While one is out the other one can here and see everything the other is doing, but rests his body in the meantime."

Laney stared at him in amazement. "Whoa, that's weird."

"So I haven't slept since I adapted that power when I was eight. I have always been awake." Shem explained.

"So, do you guys think differently also?" Laney asked.

"There's only three things we agree on." Shem said.

"What are they?" Laney whispered after Medula took a stare at them which felt like a knife aimed at them.

"Shenos is an awesome superhero name, Jessica Alba is hot, and the Invisible Woman is hot." Shem said laughing.

"Nice, who came up with Shenos?" She asked.

"Me and Kron-"

"Excuse me, Mr. Spieler, but I'm trying to teach." Medula said. The class stared at him like he was a monkey that could walk straight. "If you want to talk to Lannet you can after class. But right now it's my time."

"Sorry, Sir." Shem said.

'Tell the old fart to mind his business.' Kronos said.

'Why don't you?' Shem muttered.

'I would if I were in control right now!' Kronos laughed.

About fifteen minutes later the bell rang and they were off to Algebra. Shem didn't have this class with Laney, in fact he didn't know anyone in this class, he hated math. "I'll see you later." Shem said to Laney as she waved heading to her next class. 'What does math have to do with being a superhero?' Shem asked Kronos.

'Don't know and frankly I don't care, Shem.' Kronos snickered. 'I'm just glad I don't have to do it.'

'I should just watch T.V. and make you do my homework.'

'Yea, the problem with that is that I wouldn't do it and you would have to be the one to deal with it, Shem.'

Shem entered the Algebra room. It was taught by some mathmatician. He wasn't even a super powered man just an ordinary person to teach math. His assigned seat was next to this one kid who thought that the girls fell down at his feet. Pathetic. The only friend he had in that class was Louis. Louis stood about five foot seven. Not the tallest boy but he was built. Louis had the power of being able to control all plastics he was alot like Magneto just in a plastic sense. Louis hated the kid in front of Shem as much as Shem did.

The kid in front, Shem couldn't ever remember his name. Jeremy Hines, thats it. Thats what it was. The teacher sat down at his desk to enter the homework grades for last nights homework. Louis sat right by his desk. Jeremy got up and snickered at Shem and walked towards the teacher's desk. He knew Louis hate him and having them both in one class was bad news. They wanted to kill each other so it wasn't a good idea. He nudged into Louis' desk as he passed by knocking it over, with Louis in it.

Louis lifted himself up. He stood up and got into Jeremy's face and started swearing and shouting at him. "Why the hell did you do that?" Louis yelled.

"Cause I can Magneto wannabe." Jeremey yelled.

"Go to hell." At that Louis went to punch Jeremey the only problem was that Jeremy could control glass, figures. Jeremey also was a lot bigger than Louis. Jeremy stopped his punch and struck Louis in the chin. Louis fell to the floor and Jeremey jumped on him and started hitting him again and again. Shem ran out of his chair and nailed Jeremey in the face throwing him off of Louis.

"What the hell?" Jeremey yelled. The teacher didn't even get involved. He didn't have any super powers he couldn't stop them. All he did was call the principal to get down to the room to stop the fight.

"You proved your point douche bag. You proved you could take down Louis but you raised it when you punched him more." Shem ordered. "You can't keep hitting him!"

"Fine." Jeremey went to hit Shem also. Shem ducked but was still hit by Jeremey's left hand. It hurt just as bad. Shem thought.

"I'm not fighting, that got me kicked out of my old school."

"Oh, right your the queer from Ballas High right?" Jeremey laughed.

"Does it matter what I use to be, I go to Sky High just like you."

"I won't even get in trouble for kicking your ass."

"I don't think so." Shem said. The school wouldn't stand for that a kid that use to go to a rival school doesn't mean that he could get beat up, could it? If so this should be on Maury or somthing like that showing unfairness. Jeremey went to hit Shem again. It clicked Shem went flying into the desks behind him. At that Principal Powers whipped open the door.

"Finnaly your here." The teacher said.

"Who is it that's fighting?" She asked.

"Jeremey and Louis." The teacher said.

"So it wasn't the trouble maker from Ballas?" They both looked at Shem.

"No, Powers he tried breaking it up but he didn't hit Jeremey once."

"Okay thank you James." She grabbed Louis and Jeremey into the hallway and led them down the hall. The bell rang.

'Great, it hurts just to get up.' Shem said to himself.

'I wonder what happens if one of us dies, would the other one survive?' Kronos asked.

'I don't know you should try killing yourself so I could live in peace.'

'Go burn, Shem said.'

'Well, my body feels like its on fire.' Shem said. He walked out of the damaged classroom holding his back.