Disclaimer: After being brutally murdered by Doomsday, months and months later, I have triumphantly returned from the dead to post this chapter. And they still won't give me Sky High! What's it take, Disney!?
Going Out on a Limb
"I'm nervous."
"Don't be nervous, man."
"Easy for you to say. We're not using your phone."
"No, because I follow the rules and don't bring mine to school, you delinquent."
"Ha ha. I just don't think this plan is gonna work, is all."
"Shh! Shut-up, it's ringing."
Ethan and Zach were crouched facing each other behind a green cot turned on its side in one of Nurse Spex's offices, experiencing severe charley horses. At least, that's what they told Mr. Boy and Nurse Spex. She'd come in to check in on them a few minutes before, but they'd hidden so that she would assume that they'd recovered and gone back to class. They needed a quiet space where they wouldn't be disturbed, and an empty room in the nurse's office was the perfect spot.
It was half an hour until school's out, and Zach and Ethan were completing the mission that Magenta had assigned to them. Using Ethan's cell phone (which got amazing reception considering the high altitude), they were going to call one of the many facilities where evildoers were detained and try to schedule a meeting with The Stronghold Three's most diabolical arch-nemesis. The legendary one that got thrown in jail. No, the other one that got thrown in jail... Gwen Grayson.
After three rings, someone finally answered the phone.
"Tragic Villain Rehabilitation Center for Youths, my name is Eric, how can I help you?"
Zach, cupping the cell phone to his ear, cleared his throat operatically, and said in a high-pitched, nasally voice:
"Hello, Eric. My name is Will Stronghold. I possess the Superpowers of Super-strength and Flight, and my parents are The Commander, who is my father, and Jetstream, who is my mother. I am sixteen years old, stocky, and a somewhat dour brunette."
Ethan was waving his hands emphatically at him with a stricken look on his face, but Zach waved him off, and continued.
"... Alright. And how may I help you, Mr. Stronghold?"
Zach laughed exaggeratedly into the phone. "Please, Eric, Mr. Stronghold is my father's name. Just call me Will."
"Okay, Will, how can I-"
"Actually, call me William. I like that better," corrected Zach, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Ethan smacked himself on the forehead with his palm.
"... Is there a reason for your call today, sir?"
Zach scowled down at the phone, then put it back up to his ear. "Dude, Eric, I just told you to call me -"
Ethan reached over and quickly flicked him on the nose with his middle finger. Zach blinked once in confusion, then immediately continued with the original plan.
" - Will is fine. It's fine. And, yeah, actually I called to talk to one of your criminals." Zach gave Ethan a thumbs up, and Ethan only shook his head in exasperation. "Can Gwen come to the phone?"
"Last name, please?"
"Stronghold."
"Gwen Stronghold?"
"No, Gwen Grayson. There's a Gwen Stronghold in there?"
Ethan narrowly resisted the urge to tear out his own hair. And then move on to Zach's.
"Um, let me check the computer for Gwen Grayson, sir- Will- William - whatever... It'll just be a moment... Wait, is true that you're the one who finally detained Royal Pain?!"
Zach became enthused by the excitement in Eric's voice when he asked the question. "Ha! Yeah, you know it! Me and my peeps put that biz-nitch behind bars, yo!"
Ethan grabbed Zach by the shoulders and shook him. "What are you doing?! You're supposed to be Will, remember? Will doesn't talk like that! Nobody talks like that!" he whispered in panic. "Magenta's gonna freak if we screw this up!"
Zack brushed Ethan's arms off him in agitation, then dusted off imaginary flecks of dirt. "Chill, man. Let a master do his work, homie," he whispered back.
"Hmm... We don't seem to have any Gwen Graysons listed in our database as being in custody, Will. Can I help you with anything else?"
"What? You mean she isn't there!? But Magenta said this was the place!" Zach put his hand over the phone and turned to Ethan, his eyes wide. "Oh my God! She's escaped! Eric said she ain't there, man!"
"What?" Ethan asked, almost afraid to hear Zach's explanation.
"Gwen's not there! She could be anywhere! She could be here, at the school! She could be right behind you!"
Ethan whipped around, and saw nothing but the Eye Examination chart on the wall. When he turned back around to witness Zach grinning cheerfully at him, something inside snapped.
"That's it! Gimme the phone!" Ethan commanded, and started to wrestle it away from Zach.
"No way!" Zach wiggled around, trying to shake Ethan off, but managed to stay in a crouching position. To an outside observer, it would look like the two of them were acting out a game of Rock'em Sock'em Robots. "Magenta left me in charge of the phone, and you're supposed to be the back-up guy!"
"And you need back-up, because you suck at this! Your lights are on, Zach, but nobody's home! Nobody's home!"
After some more awkward tussling, in desperation, Ethan clasped his hands over Zach's and melted. He splashed in between Zach's fingers and onto the floor. Disgusted, Zach let go of the phone and Ethan instantly re-solidified himself, his cell phone gripped tightly in his hand.
"That's so nasty, man. Not okay, dude," whined Zach, his nose wrinkled in revulsion. He twisted his hand around by the wrist, trying to dispel any imaginary trace remains of Liqui-Ethan.
Ethan smirked, and put the phone to his ear.
"Will? William? Mr. Stronghold? Hello? Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm still here. The reception is bad out here at the sch... place where I am now." Ethan's "Will voice" was much closer to how Will sounded in person than Zach's was. Now that Ethan thought about it, Zach's "Will voice" actually struck quite a resemblance to his own...
"She's not there anyway, man. Eric told me. I tried to tell you. You're the one without any lights on, or whatever," grouched Zach, who petulantly sunk down to a cross-legged position.
"Is there anything else I can help you with, Will?"
"As a matter of fact, there is," replied Ethan, who pinned Zach with a challenging stare. "I'd like to schedule a meeting with Sue Tenney, please."
"Sue Tenney? You want to meet with Major Pain?"
"That's right. Since I am the one who brought her down. I'd like to see her this afternoon, if that's possible, Eric." Ethan did a goofy impersonation of the thumbs up that Zach had given him earlier.
Zach rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, chastised.
"Well... I can have someone check if she'll agree, but she's our highest security inhabitant. And the most hostile. I wouldn't get my hopes up."
"Oh, trust me, she'd love for me to pay her a visit. I'll have a guest, too. Tell Sue that Will and Layla wanna come by and have a chat."
Zach nodded his head at Ethan in begrudging respect.
"Okay, Will. Let me send out the request. I can have someone get a response within a few moments... So, does it feel strange to have your relationship splashed all over the news?"
Ethan's mind went blank for a second, then he remembered that Eric was asking about the girl that Will had been kissing on the news. "Um, no, I mean, yes, it does feel strange, but I'm not having a relationship with her or anything. I have a girlfriend back home."
Zach snapped his fingers in front of Ethan's face. "Tell him that Layla's hotter than the other chick! That way, Layla will think that Will said it!" he whispered, as though his idea would fix everything.
Ethan only frowned and shushed him.
"Oh... so how's that working out with all of the...?"
All of this talk of relationships was getting Ethan flustered, especially since he technically played no part in either scenario. He had no idea how Will might respond to this kind of interrogation, and it was making his palms sweaty scrambling for in-character answers.
"Actually, I don't really feel like talking about it. It's been pretty hard on everyone involved, and the whole thing's probably just a big misunderstanding, anyway."
"Probably? But weren't you there? You would know if it was a - oh! Hey, thanks - that was fast."
Eric seemed to be directing his comment to someone with him.
"Well, I'm sorry about your relationship troubles, Will, but I do have some good news for you! Ms. Tenney agreed to meet with you and your guest. How does 5:30 pm this afternoon work for you?"
Ethan covered the receiver with his thumb, and smiled triumphantly at Zach. "We're in! Gwen's got us booked for 5:30!"
"That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! You are da man, Ethan! Magenta's gonna think we rock!" Zach slapped Ethan an exuberant high five.
Ethan grinned and put the phone back to his mouth. "That's perfect, Eric. Thanks for all of your help."
"It's been my pleasure, Will. Just remember that as a security precaution, the T.V.R.C.Y. facility requires that all technological devices remain outside a twenty-foot radius of Sue Tenney's room. That means no cell phones, mp3 players, hand held gaming devices, or anything else that needs to be plugged in or uses a battery. Understand?"
"No problem. Heck, if I see anybody else near her with something like that, I'll tackle them myself. That's the last thing we need right now."
Zach snorted. "You're gonna tackle somebody?"
Ethan glared. "Will would," he whispered.
"But Will wouldn't go splat all over them on contact. Look, hurry it up, huh, man? School's out in a few minutes, and we gotta give Magenta time to think of a way to get Layla outta bed before they can go over there. Tell Eric you gotta get off the phone," suggested Zach, keen on proving himself competent to a certain dark haired girl.
"Alright then, you have a nice day, Will. This place is going to be buzzing when I tell them a member of the Stronghold Three called. Wait. How are you going to be here this afternoon when you're over there on your tour?"
Ethan grit his teeth in frustration. "I'll just have to work something out. We'll see what happens. You have a nice day, too, Eric." Without waiting for a response, Ethan hit the end call button.
"So?" asked Zach, gingerly standing up from his crouch.
"So, we're good to go. We just let Magenta know, and she and Layla can keep the appointment instead of Will." Ethan stood as well, and stumbled over the cot towards the door.
Zach followed him. "Sweet! And you were worried that this wasn't going to work."
The door opened and Nurse Spex entered and stopped, noticing them standing there. "Worried that what wasn't going to work?" she asked in surprise.
The two boys froze. Nurse Spex peered into the room behind them, and caught sight of the toppled over cot.
"Is that where you boys were earlier when I came in to check up on you?" She moved aside from the doorway, and motioned for them to leave. "Next time, I'll be sure to X-Ray the room for refugee students before assuming they returned to class."
Abashed, both boys exited the room with their heads down in the proper expression of shame.
"Let's go, William," Nurse Spex heard the shorter boy say as they left her office and shut the door.
She sighed fondly, and went to rearrange the cot that the boys had abused. Right when she reached down and grabbed it, something soft but firm slammed into her side, knocking the wind out of her and sending her sprawling. The force of her momentum spun her along with the cot, and she landed hard on her back on top the green tarp. Her eyes wide, she was amazed to witness the door fly back open on its own from across the room. Nurse Spex activated her X-Ray vision, and spotted a skeletal arm and leg for only an instant before the figure slipped out of the office and her line of sight.
Breathing hard, she let her head fall back down onto the cot, and clutched at her chest, feeling her labored heartbeat. "This school had better have one heck of a retirement package."
Convincing Layla to emerge from the cocoon of blankets she was tangled up in on her bed had been an uphill battle. Suggesting she get up, get dressed and leave the house was harder than beating Will at thumb wrestling. And recruiting her to accompany Magenta on a trip to visit her old friend Gwen Grayson had been downright perilous.
But by the time Magenta was finished explaining Warren's predicament to her, Layla was up, dressed, and out the door, driven on by a searing sense of righteous indignation at the unbelievable injustice of Warren's situation.
Magenta's dad dropped them off at the Tragic Villain Rehabilitation Center for Youths without suspicion, since he was under the impression that Layla and Magenta were going there to volunteer for a class project. Magenta had already told him of Layla's humanitarian impulses in the past, so it was an easy tale to spin. The two girls watched him drive away, well aware that they only had a half hour to convince Gwen to tell them who she was helping to destroy Warren until Magenta's dad came back to get them.
The Center was fairly modern in design; from outside, it was a two story gray stone building comprised of sleek metal and spotless aquamarine-tinted glass. The parking lot held only a few vehicles, and when the two walked through the electronic glass doors, a loud buzzing heralded them into the empty lobby. Two perpendicular rows of uncomfortable chairs placed on the glaring white floor framed a television set mounted on the wall, and the bathrooms were in the corner with a water fountain. There were two small windows in the lobby with metal sliding trays under them and small speakers located at eye level where visitors could speak with employees. Magenta and Layla approached one of the windows, nervously eying the door to the right of them marked "Clearance Required for Entrance" in red.
"Hello," greeted a mousy young man sitting at a desk right behind the glass window. "How can I help you?"
Magenta saw that his name-tag read Eric. She pushed Layla forward by her shoulders. "She has an appointment with Gwe- Sue Tenney. Will Stronghold called earlier and scheduled it, but he won't be able to make it so I'm here in his place."
Layla smiled at him politely. "We're both old friends of Sue's. It shouldn't be a problem."
Eric's eyes lit up in recognition, and he pointed vaguely at Layla. "Okay, yeah. I kind of wondered how he was going to get here when he's so busy halfway across the globe."
"Yes. He's up to all kinds of things over there, I'm sure," mumbled Layla, clenching and un-clenching her fists as she spoke.
Sensing danger, Magenta tapped Layla on the shoulder. "You should probably show him your ID, Layla, so that we can get in there and get this over with."
Eric must have had good hearing, because he slid the silver metal tray forward, his eyebrows raised. "You can just put it in here, along with all of your electronic devices, and I can give you two some guest passes. I'd hate for you to arrive late to meet with Ms. Tenney."
"Hmph. Antsy, is she? I'm surprised that she even agreed," admitted Layla, shooting an impressed glance at Magenta beside her as they placed their belongings in the tray.
Magenta shrugged sardonically. "I'm just that good," she joked.
A buzzer beside the Clearance doors went off, and the sound of an airlock being released echoed through the deserted lobby. Eric slid two clip on plastic passes back through the tray, and the girls fastened them to their shirts.
"You're good to go. Sue Tenney is located in the second underground chamber. Just go through those doors, " Eric pointed to the Clearance entrance, "and take the stairs at the end of the hall two stories down. Ms. Tenney's cell is in the far right corner of the level, the last room on the floor. She's waiting."
"Thanks," said Layla, leading the way to the door.
"Wish us luck," Magenta muttered, before catching up with her.
"Forget luck, I wish you nerves of steel!" they heard Eric call out, just as the Clearance doors swung closed behind them.
The narrow hallway was lit with sickly green fluorescent lights and lined with several reinforced doors that had round porthole-like windows to look in through at inhabitants. Magenta and Layla quickly passed by the first few without incident, but the closer they got to the staircase at the end of the hallway, the more their trepidation rose.
"Hey!"
Both girls jumped, painfully slamming their backs into the wall on the other side of the cell doors.
A heavy-set boy peered through the porthole in the door across from them. He was upside down in a bright orange jumpsuit and his face was tinged pink with anger.
"You!" shouted Speed, his face shifting around slightly, framed by the porthole. It appeared that he was floating. "What are you two doing here!?"
"We just came to see the blimp," retorted Magenta, pointing at his red, bloated visage.
A vein popped out in his forehead and his body shifted again until he was glaring at them sideways, his head floating horizontally in the window. "Just shut your pie-hole, Sidekick. If they didn't have me locked up in this Anti-Gravity Zero Friction Zone I'd come out there and spin you 'til you threw up."
"If I have to keep looking at your face for much longer, I might just hurl anyway," snarked Magenta. Speed tried to punch the window, but it only glanced off the glass and sent him slowly floating end-over-end farther back into his cell, flailing his arms futilely. He softly hit the far wall and bounced off of it, yelling in rage.
"Think he could make it around the world in 80 days?" asked Magenta, smirking at Layla.
Layla smiled, then grabbed her arm and drug the both of them further down the hall.
"Hey, it's-"
"Isn't that-"
"Crap, that's-
"Look! It's-"
"Oh no, there's-"
"I can't believe it's-
"What are they-"
"You've got to be kidding me!" exclaimed Penny.
The door three cells down from Speed's held a dark-skinned girl wearing an orange jump-suit behind it, staring accusingly out the porthole at Magenta, and especially Layla.
"How dare you show your face here?!" echoed the single Penny from the other side of the door.
Magenta raised her eyebrows at Layla, who pointed to herself mockingly.
"Who, me?" Layla asked with false innocence.
"Yes, you!" Penny screamed in a furious cacophony of voices.
Layla decided that it was eerie speaking to only one Penny at a time. Especially when all of the hatred of an entire cheer-leading squad's worth was directed from a single source.
"What's that thing you have on there?" asked Magenta, noticing the red harness wrapped around Penny's waist and shoulders. The red harness, made of cable, stretched to the back of the cell, where the end was fixed into an electronic looking device embedded into the wall.
"It's a restraint device that they invented just for self-replicators like us. Not that we even owe an explanation to a Sidekick like you," sniped Penny, attempting to toss her hair haughtily but ending up with an unnatural jerking of her neck, as though not all of her muscles were obeying her.
"Us?" asked Layla, her eyebrows raised.
"We?" questioned Magenta, just as skeptical.
Penny awkwardly stepped towards them, taking her time as if making any motion required all of her energy and concentration. "We all live here now. Together," said Penny, her voices intermingled. The girls could see her eyes now and a shiver passed through them when they noted how her pupils were quickly dilating and un-dilating in constant succession like ripples expanding in a lake.
Layla watched her, willing the pity rising up in her gut to recede. "Why don't you just separate?"
Penny jerkily pointed behind her to the electric panel in the wall that she was hooked up to. "If we try to get out, that thing electrocutes us. We're trapped here..." Then, Penny's face twisted into a hideous snarl and her voices raised again. "Thanks to you!"
Before Layla could reply, Magenta stepped up to the porthole and cocked her head at the Penny. "Self-replicator restraints, huh? It looks kind of like those leashes that people use to walk multiple dogs at once. No surprise that you guys inspired them to create it."
"Ugh!" Penny scoffed. She tried to throw out several streams of insults simultaneously, but her mingled voices rendered them half-finished and incomprehensible. The only word recognizable was "sidekick."
Layla rolled her eyes, and she and Magenta continued uncomfortably on towards the staircase.
"She's a perfect example of why drones require an adequate hive brain in order to function," Magenta muttered, sparing a glance behind her before the two girls descended the staircase at the end of the hall. "It's freaky. I half-expected her to blurt out "My name is Legion, for we are many," you know?" Her barb, however, lacked her usual venom.
They could still hear Penny yelling down the hall, but now it sounded as if she were arguing with herself. Every once in a while a broken sob would reach their ears as if one of the Pennies were crying but couldn't express it fully before another made her case.
"That's so creepy, though. How does that harness thing even work? Why can't they just let her replicants recede back into her mind, like normal?" Layla wondered softly.
"Come on, Layla. This place isn't really a rehab center. It's a prison complex. Where's the punishment in sanity?" Magenta replied darkly, leading them deeper into the facility.
Once they reached the first underground level (B1, a sign posted next to their heads read), eerie noises began to filter through the cell walls. Groaning and sighing, and in a few cases, yelling and screaming emanated from behind the locked double doors on the stairwell, where a blacked-out porthole served for a window. Magenta and Layla quickly stumbled down the stairs to the next level, where they immediately noticed the lack of the horrific sounds of human suffering. There was, in fact, no human noise at all. Just the nearly indecipherable buzzing of the flickering fluorescent lights and the subdued hush that lurked like a wild feline about to pounce. The sign near the door read B2. This was it.
They quickly passed the first few doors, power-walking side-by-side without even a glance at the dreaded occupants of the cells. When they got to about halfway down the hall, a muffled voice called out to them.
"SHINEPICHZ!"
Both girls squealed and then quickly turned away from each other, embarrassed. Inside a porthole to their right was a wall of orange. The voice came from inside.
"EERP MEE!"
"What the...?" Magenta murmured, and warily approached the door. "Hello?"
Layla followed closely behind her. When the were a few feet away from the porthole, both girls were alarmed to notice that the solid wall of orange was not so much a solid wall of anything, but instead resembled a writhing mass of giant cloth-like orange worms wrapped over and around each other until they filled the view of the porthole and probably the entirety of the room on the other side.
"EEH MEE OWWHU EERE!"
Magenta and Layla exchanged concerned glances, and pressed their faces against the porthole, trying to peer past and inside the spider-web like barrier in the cell. "Do we know you?" Layla asked, hesitantly.
"Are you a person?" Magenta put forward bluntly.
"YESH! OH AWD AH EET OOH SO MUUH!"
"Did that thing just say it hated us?" guessed Magenta, bemusement written on her features.
"So much. I think I know what we're looking at here, now." Layla knocked on the porthole and some of the "worms" jumped, then slid around, seeming to tighten. A muffled scream erupted from deep inside the orange bundle. "Lash? Is that you in there?"
"YESH! REEZ! EEH MEE OWWT!"
"Dude, reel 'em in. We can hardly understand you," advised Magenta, referring to Lash's arms, which formed the chaotic mass of orange knots masking him from their view.
"AHHH CAAAAHHHT!" There was an hysterical edge to Lash's cry that made Layla's heart beat faster.
"Why not? What did they do to you?" Layla shouted against the glass, peering her eyes around to catch a glimpse of anything but orange.
"WHEN AH MOOF, DAY HEH LONHER!" sounded Lash's muffled voice. Layla turned to Magenta, horror etched on her features.
"I think he said that every time he moves, his arms get longer..." Her eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Wow..." Magenta uttered, staring in shock at the window. "That's... just..." She stopped suddenly. "I was gonna say "twisted," but I was afraid that you would think I was being insensitive." She shook her head pityingly. "But geez... It seems kind of messed up."
"It is messed up," immediately agreed Layla, darkly. "Just because they're superhuman doesn't mean they don't merit humane treatment."
Lash had either given up on communication, or his voice no longer carried through the mess of his own limbs, because his cell had gone silent.
"That's just it though. What might be super-inhumane for one of us can still be classified as humane treatment by civilian standards. After all, it's not normal for people's cells to duplicate or their arms to still grow once they've reached a certain age, you know?" Magenta said, awkwardly avoiding Layla's eyes. She knew that at any other time the two of them could easily fall into some pseudo-intellectual discussion about citizen/Superhero relations and where the law fit in, but right now they had Gwen to worry about. And this place did not sit right with her – they could talk about how fundamentally flawed and worthy of being picketed and burnt to the ground the T.V.R.C.Y. facility was once they were out of it.
Layla, however, had a hard time letting go once she saw injustice in practice. "It's a loophole. Something that the Superhero Registration Bill doesn't account for. What's torture for one of us could be harmless to someone who doesn't develop powers..."
"Yeah, I know, Layla. You've told me about it. The SRB is archaic, unfair, shortsighted and begging for exploitation," she listed off. "But right now, some Bill isn't what's sabotaging the school and framing Warren for it," Magenta reasoned, a bit more harshly than she meant to.
"...Yeah." Layla whispered, her eyes sightlessly watching the cell window. She let out a sigh, then turned to look at the end of the hall, where their destination awaited. "Let's go," she said with a conviction in her tone that Magenta hadn't heard since Will left.
The short walk to Royal Pain's cell revealed that the closer they got, the smaller the cells became, and the several on the very end of the hall didn't even bother with a door and window. They were simply constructed of three stone walls with a fourth wall made entirely of a clear, no doubt super-strong plexiglass with holes drilled in it that allowed visitors to have conversations with the inhabitants.
When Gwen Grayson came into view, she was standing ram-rod straight in her cell, arms folded tightly behind her back. Her eyes wide, she watched the two of them approach with an eerie, wavering kind of calm that betrayed the barely restrained rage boiling just under the surface. It was obvious that she had been waiting.
"Oh, God..." Layla uttered, taking in the sight of who had once been the most fearsome enemy that Sky High had ever encountered. Gwen was pale with dark rings under her alarmingly bright brown eyes, and was completely bald. Her once perfect smile was now marred by quite a few missing teeth and violently chapped lips. She was wearing a dusty white jumpsuit and her room only held a bed chained to the wall, a small metal table and chair, and a toilet in the corner. Layla knew her bare feet must be cold on the stone floor.
"Hello Layla... and ... whoever you are. Decidedly not Will," rasped Gwen, hardly sounding like the proud megalomaniac that they remembered.
"My name is-"
"Forget it, I don't care," stated Gwen bluntly, interrupting Magenta. "Why did you come?" She only addressed her question to Layla. Magenta rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.
"You oughta know," drawled Magenta.
"We came because of your virus," Layla answered accusingly.
Gwen took a cautious step closer to them, and the two girls couldn't help but feel a touch of pity when they noticed the slight wobble to her stance. "How did you find out?" Gwen's voice came out a husky whisper, carrying a confusing tinge of hope.
Magenta narrowed her eyes at the girl on the other side of the glass. "Kinda hard not to notice the school trying to collapse with us in it. Don't you ever get bored of playing that game, Gwen?"
"What? What are you talking-" Gwen abruptly let out a short, disbelieving bark of laughter. "Oh. You think I did it."
"Because you did," Layla said coolly, not missing a beat.
Gwen, breathing heavy now, stumbled to the glass and leaned her forehead against it, with eyes boring into theirs and breath fogging the glass around her mouth. "If you don't want me to get you kicked out of here – right now – you have to make me a promise. And keep it. 'Cause that's what sidekicks do, isn't it? Eat their breakfast, help little old ladies cross the street, and keep their promises?" Her voice was weak, but the malicious glimmer in her eyes revealed that the threat was valid.
Layla and Magenta exchanged a long, meaningful glance. Magenta nodded, once.
Layla stepped closer the the glass, almost close enough for her breath to fog too, and stared Gwen straight in the eye. "What's the promise?"
Gwen released a large, instantaneous exhale, and Layla and Magenta were taken-aback by the slack expression on her hollow face that could only be interpreted through the fog as relief.
Warren lightly traced a finger over the bent corner of the page that he was skimming, his anxiety preventing him from absorbing what he was reading. The dead silence of the detention room was off-putting to some, though not to him. He preferred the quiet and had been in the white room enough times to be unaffected by it. No, it was the false accusations and roaring sense of unfairness that drowned out any peace that he may have otherwise experienced during his incarceration. The fire that manifested itself through his hands seemed to react to its forced suffocation by instead igniting an internal struggle within him between cynical acceptance, furious betrayal, and aching hurt.
After all, who else but him would be black-hearted, puppy kicking evil enough to do something like this? He may as well burn a target into his forehead – everyone else but him was able to see it anyway. She had been right. But he hadn't wanted to believe her...
"They're always going to think of you like that, Warren. No matter what happens, no matter how much good you do – they're all just going to be waiting for you to fall on your face. I'll bet... that some of them hope you screw up so badly now, that they won't even have to worry about you after we graduate. They can make jokes about a heart-warming father-son reunion, and wash their hands of you. Why do you bother with these people?
Why did he? It was freaking painful. It hurt to care about people, to compromise himself to be close to another person. It killed him to be thought of badly by the same people whom he'd saved from the very thing they were accusing him of orchestrating now, less than a year ago. And yet... if they were too busy condemning him with their prejudiced judgments to find out who was truly responsible... they'd fall with him.
He was ashamed to admit to himself that a dark, poisonous piece of his heart was okay with that. That part of himself played a large role in fanning the flames of the anger burning inside of him, like a cold, reassuring hand on his shoulder. He knew that the only thing in his life that helped him find a balance between the rage that resulted from the brutal acknowledgment of life's chronic disappointments, and the satisfaction that others were suffering with him, was the love and care from the people close to him. When he suffered, they despaired for him, and it was the kind of comfort that he would never be able to feel if he didn't allow himself to care for other people. There was a pain in it, but the kind that could – and would – heal itself. But if they had to suffer with him because of who he was... Was it even fair for him to care about other people?
Knowing his friends, they'd taken it upon themselves to prove his innocence. It was embarrassing to admit that it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside to imagine those clueless idiots out there, striving to clear his name. And it was also a little scary to know that they had his back. There was no doubt in his mind that they would do everything short of moving the earth itself (unless Will had gotten wind of this and had eaten a big bowl of Wheaties this morning – in which case the earth was gonna move) to save him.
... At least his mom wasn't in the school. It was bad enough that she knew how he was perceived here... and blamed herself. If it came down to it, if everything went wrong and it all hit the fan, she would be safe. He could live with that... figuratively.
But his friends... they were going to hack through the brush to the dark heart of this whole ordeal, and he didn't know what they would find. Hayden? Gwen? Someone else? No matter what, his friends wouldn't be safe. They had enemies out there, living breathing villains who did not wish them well. And he couldn't do anything to help them – all he could do was sit here and allow them to risk their lives for him. It made him ill.
Warren began his sixth attempt to read the page he was on, but gave up when he couldn't even get through two straight sentences without a stray thought interrupting his mind. He flipped to the next page with a weary sigh.
Let them stay safe. Please.
Author's Notes: There! A new chapter! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed during the long hiatus between chapters. I'm SO SORRY - dang computer problems. I swear though, with each review, I got a little more written. A special thanks to Eva91, who left a review just a few days ago, after which I had a huge breakthrough only a few hours later. I don't know what happened, but I suddenly figured out how to end this in a way that satisfied me – and excited me enough to continue writing Sky High stories.
You'll notice a tonal shift here – it wasn't intentional, but it just sort of happened out of necessity. Blame the underlying corruption in a Superhero society where children's worth is judged by their destructive capabilities, and the government sanctions their segregation from normal people. Ehem... sorry, my inner Layla came out there for a minute... But that perspective definitely holds plenty of plot bunnies. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this chapter (yes YOU! Reading this right now!) and let me know what you think in a review! Thanks for sticking with me, guys!!