Leah was sitting on the counter, watching the TV, when Lainei finally came downstairs. She'd been waiting for ten minutes, but she still didn't acknowledge her sister when she walked past her, blocking her view of the screen for a split second as she made her way to the refrigerator to get a glass of orange juice.
Leah's eyes weren't glued to a silly cartoon or a show with a hot guy in it- she was watching the news. No one else her age seemed half as interested as her in watching the news, something that intrigued her. Leah always wanted to know what was going on- she had an inquiring mind that needed to know. Of course, Lainei just said she was nosy.
The Commander and Jetstream had just showed up to defeat the giant robot that was terrorizing downtown Maxville, and Leah didn't want to miss a minute of it. The Commander punched the robot, and Leah watched in awe as it fell backwards with the Commander still standing on its' chest.
The camera man zoomed in on the Commander pulling out the robot's eye, and the reporter butted in with, "And he's plucking out a souvenir from yet another successful mission!" Leah rolled her eyes and waited a second longer, but nothing else happened, so she grabbed the remote, clicked the TV off, and jumped down off the counter.
"It doesn't make sense," Leah murmured to herself as she grabbed her backpack and walked to the door. She leaned against it and watched Lainei walk around the kitchen, eating a half a bagel with low-fat cream cheese and sipping at her orange juice.
She would never understand Lainei, Leah thought to herself. After they'd moved to California, Leah had changed her name from Lea Denver to Leah Travis. Lainei, however, had refused to change her name, and still went by Lainei Denver. Why, Leah would never know.
Their father was a villain, in jail for the next two lifetimes, and didn't have any chance of parole until halfway through his third lifetime. The fact that Lainei would willing keep his last name puzzled Leah.
Lea wasn't pronounced any differently than Leah, but she liked the way it was spelled better and she didn't want to be associated with her villain father, not that anyone would ever make the connection.
King Kamehamayhem had been put in jail five years ago, when Leah was nine, and it had all happened in Hawaii anyway. Only those closely associated with putting him away still remembered enough about him to know his Christian name, or that he had two daughters.
Leah shook her head, and went back to analyzing the robot attack. Having it attack downtown she could understand- there were more people there, heading to work or already working, but the seeming anonymity of it all? Villains were egomaniacs- that was why they were villains.
King Kamehamayhem had been one, Leah knew. He was her father, after all, and even before he'd become a villain he was a very proud man. Practically every single villain Leah could think of wanted to let the whole world know who they were, what they planned on doing to take it over, and why they wanted to do so.
It just didn't make sense. Was it all a distraction? Was there a villain out there, killing thousands of people, while the Commander and Jetstream fought their little robot? Or their giant robot, as it quite obviously was?
How did they even get beaten giant robots out of the middle of town, anyway? Did the Commander and Jetstream fly it to a giant robot junkyard? Leah laughed softly to herself and shook her head.
"What are you laughing at?" Lainei asked crossly.
Leah's smile faded slightly as she looked at her sister, and she shook her head. "Nothing. I was just thinking about what they do with giant robots after the heroes beat them..."
Lainei stared at her, uncomprehending, and then shook her head. "Whatever. Weirdo," she added under her breath, but Leah heard her anyway, and her smile dropped. Lainei could at least pretend they got along, couldn't she? Maybe then pretend would become reality, and Leah would get what she wanted- a whole family.
"Are you ready?" Lainei asked rudely. "I'm tired of waiting. God. I don't want to miss the bus on my first day because of you, so let's go." She grabbed her small bag and brushed past Leah, who was still leaning against the doorway.
Leah gave the kitchen one last look before she turned around and followed Lainei out the door, locking it on her way out. Their mother was already at work, having wished Lainei goodbye and telling Leah to behave like she always did.
Lainei walked to the bus stop swiftly with Leah tagging along behind her at a more leisurely pace, occasionally running to catch up. Lainei stopped abruptly, but Leah didn't see her, and, jumping over a crack in the sidewalk, bumped into her sister.
"Watch it!" Lainei snarled. Leah backed up and mumbled an apology, staring at her feet to make sure she didn't back up onto any cracks. She wasn't always so careful, but she needed something to distract herself from the slightly nervous feeling she got whenever she thought about going to a school for superheroes, and one her sister went to at that.
A normal looking yellow school bus screeched around the corner and skidded to a halt in front of Lainei and Leah. Lainei stepped forward, paused, and looked over her shoulder at Leah. "This is the sophomore bus," she said in a slightly nicer voice than before. "You'll have to wait five or ten minutes for the freshman bus, alright? And whatever you do, please don't embarrass me by telling anyone we're related."
Leah, who wasn't sure if Lainei was joking or not, gave her a tentative smile and nodded. Lainei nodded in satisfaction and got on the bus. She was immediately greeted by most of the heroes and a handful of the braver sidekicks, and Leah sighed as the bus took off. Now to wait.
Two minutes later Leah couldn't take standing still any longer, and pulled a piece of chalk out of her pocket. She bent over and drew a square, then another, slowly forming a hopscotch path thingy on the ground.
Satisfied, Leah back away, jumped up once, and then tossed the chalk onto her drawing. Smiling happily to herself, she hopped over to the chalk, one foot, two feet, one foot, two feet, picked it up, spun around, and almost fell over.
Two people were standing in front of her, staring, and Leah slowly turned red. One of them was a brunette boy with a long sleeved white shirt on under a purple-blue button up shirt he hadn't bothered to open. The other was a tall, pretty black girl with her hair in a bunch of braids and flip-flops with little white flowers on the straps.
"I like your shoes," Leah announced, pointing at the black girls shoes. The girl looked down and then back up at Leah, and smiled. "I like yours, as well," she said. Leah grinned. Her shoes were exactly the same as the black girls, only they were blue rather than white.
"I'm Natasha," the black girl told her. "Do you go to Sky High?"
Leah nodded enthusiastically, and grinned. She had found her first friend. "My name's Leah. What's your power?"
The brunette boy butted in, glaring at Natasha. "You idiot! What if she didn't go to Sky High, huh? You know you're not supposed to just come out and ask that! What if someone heard you?"
Natasha rolled her eyes conspiratorially at Leah and jerked her thumb at the boy. "You'll have to forgive him. He's a little anxious, because his power sucks, and he doesn't want him mom on his case for making sidekick."
Leah grimaced in understanding. "I know what you mean. Well, my mom already knows I'm going to make sidekick, and she doesn't care anyway, but my dad was pretty disappointed I didn't develop any powers by the time I was eight."
Natasha cocked her head. "What happened that he hasn't been around since you did develop powers?" She asked curiously. The brunette boy, who Leah still didn't have a name for, watched her, also curious.
"My parents split up when I was nine, and then he died a couple years later." Leah explained emotionlessly. He wasn't dead, but that was the line they fed everyone, because it was easier. Only Lainei refused to say he was dead. She didn't tell anyone he was in jail, but she wouldn't say he was dead, either.
Natasha's hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she said. The brunette looked at her sympathetically, and Leah shrugged. It didn't really bother her that much anymore, because she'd had years to get used to it and accept the fact that her dad just didn't care.
"It's okay," she told Natasha. "It doesn't really bother me much anymore. So-" Another yellow bus pulled up to the stop in a much less volatile manner than the first, but still with some squealing of tires. Natasha looked over at the bus, and smiled eagerly. "This is it, guys!" she said, excited.
"She must have a pretty good power, if she's that eager to get to school," Leah commented to the boy as she walked past him, following Natasha onto the bus.
He shook his head and followed her. "Not really. She's going to be a sidekick, everyone knows it, but it doesn't really matter that much to her. She's just eager to get there. It doesn't matter to her if she's a sidekick or a hero, so long as she gets to go."
Leah shook her head admiringly, and looked at him sideways as he paused to give the bus driver his name. "Liam McAllister?" she asked. He looked back at her and nodded. "Nice to meet you, Liam," Leah said, sticking her hand out and smiling.
Liam looked into her eyes for a second before he stuck out his own hand and shook hers. He didn't smile, but he didn't look like the kind of guy that smiled a lot anyway, so Leah didn't take it personally.
Natasha sat down beside a blond girl wearing an outfit that reminded Leah strongly of a cheerleader's uniform, so Leah sat down in a window seat in front of her, and Liam sat beside her. The bus took off again, and Leah looked out the window for a minute before a tap on the shoulder made her turn around.
"This is Michelle," Natasha said, introducing the girl next to her. Leah looked over at her and smiled, nodding. "Michelle, this is Leah. So what are your powers, you two? I can talk to birds, isn't that cool? I love talking to them. I wish I could talk to other animals, but oh well. I don't really mind it that much. My brother's girlfriend's miniature poodle makes me glad I can't talk to it, actually. He's a total snob."
Leah raised her eyebrows and smiled. Natasha was really excited. "You'll have to wait for power placement to see my power," Michelle said, turning to look back out the window. Leah looked to Natasha, who was playing with one of her numerous braids, and Liam, who was looking back at her expectantly.
"Sounds like a plan to me," Leah said, shrugging. "It's not that great, really. What about you, Liam?"
Liam sighed deeply and sucked further down in his seat as he did it, slouching and looking at the seat in front of him bad temperedly. "I can turn into a salt shaker," he said, depressed. "Or a pepper grinder. Or anything little, really, just nothing useful. Or not useful unless you want to sneak me through customs."
Leah giggled, and Liam gave her a dirty look. "Sorry," she said. "It's just, that's kinda funny, that's all. I could have you turn into a little china cat and bring you with me to Europe or something." Liam gave her another dirty look and went back to staring at the back of the seat in front of him.
Leah looked back out the window just in time to watch the bus come to a stop and let on a couple more kids- another brunette boy wearing similar clothing to what Liam was wearing, only his button up shirt was blue plaid rather purple-blue plaid, and a red headed girl wearing a green shirt.
"Is this the bus to Sky High?" The boy asked once he'd gotten on the bus. The bus driver slammed the doors shut and started in on the kid.
Leah couldn't hear what the bus driver said, but a minute later he was holding the kid by the shoulders and calling everyone's attention to him. "-Will Stronghold, son of the Commander and Jetstream." He was saying when Leah finally paid attention. He turned to the two kids in the seat behind him and tried to kick them out, but Will said he didn't need to.
After a second's debate, Will and the girl walked past to a seat where an unusually tall kid wearing white and yellow greeted him. Leah stopped paying attention after that until the driver announced that they were going off road. She looked around, puzzled. She didn't recognize wherever it was they were, and neither did anyone else, apparently.
Straps shot down over her shoulders and crossed over her body, clicking into place, and a bar popped up in front of her and Liam. Leah grabbed it with one hand, trying to stand up enough to see out the front of the bus, but she couldn't. She was slightly above medium height at 5'5 ½'', but all she could see was sky.
Leah let out a small 'eek' of surprise when she finally thought to look out the window and saw that they were heading strait for the end of a bridge that was still in construction. The eek turned into possibly the third scream Leah had let out in her entire life as the bus rocketed off the edge and did a few heart stopping loops in mid-air.
Five minutes later, a small, thin cloud moved out of the way to reveal a school floating among several other small, thin clouds, thousands of feet above Maxville. The bus driver, whose name Leah still wasn't sure of, gave them all an introduction to the school, and they pulled forward slowly, making to land on the spot obviously made for just that purpose.
The landing was bumpier than some of the back roads Leah remembered going down in Hawaii, and she grabbed at the straps holding her down, more thankful of them now that she had been when they were flying. Everyone filed off the bus after the driver, who had claimed to be Ron Wilson, Bus Driver, gave Will Stronghold a card with his name on it and made vaguely disturbing call me movements.
Leah couldn't help but think that he looked like he was trying to pick Will up, and she snickered to herself as she climbed down the steps. As soon as she saw all the people, though, Leah stopped dead. Half of them were sidekicks, she reminded herself.
But there were so many... She never would have thought that there were that many heroes. Of course, Maxville was crawling with heroes, it was one of the most heavily hero populated cities in the world, but still...
Leah followed the rest of the freshman towards the school, feeling apprehensive. Just before they got to the stairs, a blur came out of nowhere and raced around the freshman. They all clumped together instinctively, and Leah rolled her eyes and squirmed uncomfortably at the closeness of so many people.
The blue stopped moving and showed itself to be a fat boy, standing next to a taller, thinner boy dressed in the same color scheme of black and white. The taller one started talking, then let the fat one talk, and then took up the thread again to demand fifteen dollars. Leah rolled her eyes. How stupid did they think they were?
A pretty girl in a stupid looking pink jacket came up and took over. Leah's attention had drifted again for the millionth time, and she stared out at the sky dreamily, wishing she was at the beach, surfing. She was shaken out of her daze when Michelle tapped her on the shoulder. "You'd better follow us," she said, and Leah did, still daydreaming.
Leah walked into the gym and looked around, unimpressed. A bright white comet flew past, and Leah ducked along with everyone else to avoid getting hit. It turned into the principal, who gave the typical speech, welcoming them to Sky High and saying how wonderful it would be. Leah rolled her eyes, but watched in fascination as the comet flew away. It really was cool looking...
As she turned to watch it go, her eye caught on a platform that hadn't been there when they had walked in, and Leah turned around all the way to look at it. Out of the center rose a man with dark brown hair, a blue jacket, and short white shorts. He was the gym teacher, obviously.
"Okay, listen up. My name is Coach Boomer. You may know me as Sonic Boom, you may not. Here's how this is going to work. You will step up in here, and yes you will do so in front of the entire class." Leah swallowed and once again, zoned out. In front of the entire class? She had to humiliate herself in front of the entire class?