A/N: Well now that I'm officially done with formal education, at least until September 2007 I should be able to update far more frequently and hopefully win back some readers and reviewers! So if you read this please review it – it would make me very happy indeed!
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No one moved. Barron stared at Warren; Black stared at his daughter and Creon, Kass and Thorn faced off on their opponents.
'Don't just stand there men, show these kids what you're made of! They may be children but don't let that put you -.'
Barron was stopped mid-speech by a blow to the stomach. Warren, seeing an opportunity had launched himself at his father, knocking him to the ground.
'Move!' yelled Warren to his friends as he struggled with his father, 'don't let them get the upper hand!'
Suddenly the room sprung into action. Barron and Warren seemed to have forgotten they had powers and instead were involved in a hand to hand brawl in the middle of the floor. Warren rained the blows down on his father, feeling all the hate and rage and hurt of the past eleven years flow through him, channelling itself into his fists.
On the other side of the room, Crystal fought her father too. She was hiding behind a pillar. She was frightened, her legs were shaking and she didn't want to hurt her father but he didn't seem to feel the same way. She could tell that he was approaching. The air was getting colder and the pillar at her back felt icy. She whimpered, feeling that this was the moment in which she was going to die.
She went to put her head in her hands in despair but her fingers brushed something. The necklace her mom had given her and then all the pain she felt, that she'd bottled up inside came rushing back. She remembered how angry she'd been at her dad - he'd killed her mom and here she was whimpering behind a stone pillar. This was cowardly and that was not something her mother had brought her up to be. She knew what she had to do.
Remembering somehow a lesson of P.E they'd once had she dived to the side of the pillar, just as it shattered and shot beams of light from her hands at her father. They almost grazed his arm but it wasn't enough to even make him blink. He'd been caught off guard when he hadn't found her behind the pillar but all that was about to change. She had nowhere to hide and her little beams of light were no match for him.
'Crystal, darling, what use are beams of light? You can save money on the electric bill, sure, but they're no good against me. I'm surprised you're even in Hero class!'
'You left us when I was ten. It was light then but five years have passed. So you wouldn't know that they now do this!'
And with all her courage she ran towards her father and shot at him, wildly, with her heat-emitting light beams. One hit his left shoulder and another his abdomen but as she reached him he grabbed hold of her and flung her over his head.
Meanwhile on the other side of the hall, three more fights were taking place. Creon and Dara were trading blows in one corner of the room while Will was guarding the open window to stop Kass flying out of it. The two were involved in what looked like a dogfight as the two opponents flew around each other landing hits occasionally and trying to knock each other out of the air.
That left Layla and Thorn, complete opposites, on the floor creating a jungle around themselves. As Thorn lived up to his name, Layla attempted to counter his attacks by surrounding herself with foliage.
Although his thorns couldn't get in, the snaking vines Thorn sent after her could and as she peered out, watching him, two wrapped themselves around her ankles and yanked her to the floor. As they started to drag her out of the jungle she had created, she had an idea. She had no idea if it would work but anything was worth a shot in this situation. Concentrating harder than she ever had before, she focused her attention on the vines around her ankles and slowly they turned from black and spiky to green and sprouting blossoms. The vines released Layla who scrambled back into her hiding spot, a small smile spreading across her face as she heard Thorn's cry of anger.
However, soon he started to make a different noise. It started off as a wail but soon changed into a gargling sound. Layla parted the branches and shuffled quietly towards the edge of her den. It appeared as though Thorn's own vines were attacking him.
The purity and good intentions with which Layla's plants were filled were attacking the darkness and evil within Thorn. Making the best of the situation and with Thorn already occupied, Layla sent more vines out towards him, which bound him tightly. He couldn't move his hands, the source of his powers, and so he was stuck. He fell down and immediately Layla took this opportunity to tie him to one of the pillars near her.
Layla found that she was tired. She had never used her power so much in one go. Usually she revived plants, grew new little ones but today she had created a jungle and done things she had never thought possible but there was no time to think about that now. She had to find Ethan.
When everything had kicked off, Ethan had run. He knew he was no good in a fight but he did know that he was good with electronics. He had known from a very young age that electronics, robotics, technology basically, were going to be the future of crime and crime fighting. This had given him the drive to learn as much as he could about technology and now he was something of a whizz-kid at it.
He was no Gwen Grayson, or rather Sue Tenny, he wasn't a technopath. He just knew how things worked and he was going to use the opportunity while the bad guys were distracted to figure out either how to de-cloak the school or find its location and transmit it to Hero Command Central. For some reason, Barron hadn't thought to disable communications between Sky High and the ground but this was no good if no one knew where they were!
Think, Ethan, think! he'd thought as he'd run along the halls. Where would the internal controls to the school be?
Then it had hit him. The principal's office! It was right in the centre of the school and it made sense that Principal Powers would want to have control of her own school. Ethan turned and ran back towards the office. He tried the door handle but it was locked.
Dammit! How am I supposed to get in now? he had thought. He'd banged his fist against the door in frustration and sunk to the floor. He couldn't do anything if he couldn't even get to the controls! Then it struck him and he was so pleased no one had been around to see him be such an idiot. He melted and shimmied under the door. The gap was small but he was only liquid and managed it easily.
He looked around, searching for some clue as to where these controls might be. He sat in her chair and absent-mindedly tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought. Without warning the walnut inlay of the desk flipped over revealing a stainless steel panel covered with screens, buttons, switches and so on.
He thanked his lucky stars and quickly got to work figuring out what all the information on the screens meant and what each button did.
He was in the middle of his work when there was a small knock on the door. He was so shocked that he melted on the spot.
'Ethan, are you in there? It's me, Layla!'
On hearing the quiet but urgent whisper of his friend Ethan re-solidified and opened the door, locking it behind her as she slipped in.
'I'm so pleased you're alright! I had no idea where you were and then I thought about where the controls were likely to be so I came here!' she said very quickly, enveloping him in a giant hug.
'Yeah, I'm fine though you really scared me with that knock. I thought I was done for. What's going on?' he replied, anxious for news of his friends.
'Well I tied Thorn to a pillar; Will is flying around with Kass; Dara and Creon are doing more damage to the building than to each other; Crystal's fighting her dad, as is Warren. I just had to come and see how you were doing! How's it going up here?' she asked.
'Not great. I found a map of the stars, I can control the temperature of every room in the building, and I've found schematics of the water pipes, ventilation shafts, everything other than what will help us. I think the only way to decloak the school is from Barron's ship and there's no way we can reach it.'
Ethan held his head in his hands in despair. What good was knowing all this stuff if he couldn't use it to help his friends? He was useless!
'Ok, let's think about this logically,' said Layla not wanting to lose her head as well. She wandered around the room thinking. 'Now if I were a control panel showing the exact location of the school where would I be? I would have to be in this room, but where?'
She sat in a chair staring around the room before getting up and dragging Ethan to his feet as well.
'Well we are just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Come on!' she encouraged as she started pulling pictures off the wall.
Ethan joined in, glad to be doing something at last. They only exposed bits of wall, the pain faded by having been covered up for so long until Ethan reached one picture depicting the first principal of Sky High, Morpheus. He tried to lift it off but it wouldn't budge.
'Layla!' he cried excitedly. 'I think I've found something!'
The two of them tried to dislodge it but couldn't so Layla ran her fingers around the edge of the picture, trying to find a crack or something to help them get it off the wall.
'Wait,' said Ethan having thought of something. 'We should try pressing the frame, that always seems to work in the movies!'
Layla gave him a scornful look. They were in the middle of a battle with some extremely dangerous super villains and all he could think about were films!
'Well do you have a better idea?' he snapped.
She shook her head and both of them tried pressing the intricate wood carving around the edge of the picture when suddenly the picture retracted and another metal panel slid into view.
'Haha! What did I tell you?' cried Ethan before examining the screen in front of him.
'Well?' asked Layla anxiously, 'where are we?'
'According to this, and checking it with the astrological map over there,' he said gesturing to Principal Powers' desk, 'we appear to be hovering 10,000 feet over the giant lake, 20km away from the Maxville mountain range.'
-
Back on the ground, the parents of all the children except the Strongholds were stuck in Hero Command Central, anxiously waiting for news of their kids. James Stronghold, Will's grandfather, was marching up and down the office terrifying the poor employees as he shouted and ranted that nothing was being done to rectify the situation.
'And you don't even have a tracer on the school? What kind of people are you?' he shouted, making the light shades tremble.
'Sir, there is one but its being hidden by whatever is hiding the school. The technology that's being used is very advanced, we have nothing to combat it!' replied one very nervous member of staff named Ted
'Well what do we pay taxes for then?' he roared.
Ted whimpered and sat back down at his desk wishing he could turn invisible right about now instead of being able to turn into a cat.
Madeline, Will's grandmother, went to calm her husband for the fiftieth time that evening leaving Tullia Peace with the parents of Dara, Layla and Ethan. Tullia had tried to calm everyone down using her power but found that she was too nervous to use it and had accidentally sent someone into hysterics already.
She checked her watch and found it was almost 5am. The sun's rays started to peak over the horizon. Another day had come. Were Warren and Crystal still alive? She could only hope.