Leah woke up slowly, a small ray of sun peeking through the crack at the bottom of her window. She moaned quietly and rolled over, away from the sun. Half a minute later, the alarm clock started beeping, and Leah moaned again.
"Must I get up?" she mumbled to herself. A long pause, and then, "Yes, I must." Leah sat up quickly, turned off the alarm clock, and tossed back the covers. She stretched, hands laced together behind her head as she bent backwards. Her back cracked slightly as she twisted to one side. Leah yawned through a smile, the smile remaining when the yawn was gone.
It was her first real day at Sky High. She was a sidekick, sure, but she'd always known she'd be one, so it wasn't too disappointing. Besides, being a sidekick could be fun. And she could always quit, she didn't have to take orders from some snobby hero if she didn't want to.
Leah opened her bureau and pulled out a blue spaghetti tank top that matched her eyes and a jean skirt. She slipped into them quickly, tossing her large tee shirt and boxers, what she wore for pajamas, on her bed.
The skirt came to just above her knees, and the tee shirt showed a small bit of her stomach. Leah grimaced and pulled the spaghetti strap shirt off, replacing it with a less revealing but slightly more form fitting scooped neck tee shirt. Satisfied with that, Leah opened her sock drawer and pulled out above knee socks the same light, almost white blue color as her shirt.
Leah bounced out of her bedroom and burst into the bathroom she shared with Lainei, grinning at the mirror as she squeezed toothpaste on her brush and started brushing her teeth. Foam dripped down the brush and into the sink, and Leah giggled at herself. She looked like she had rabies.
"Oh my God," Lainei said distastefully from the doorway. "You are so freaky. Thank God my friends aren't over, or I might die of mortification!"
Leah rolled her eyes, making sure Lainei could see, and pulled the tooth brush out of her mouth, blowing air out of her mouth and spitting toothpaste everywhere on purpose. "Ew!" Lainei wrinkled her nose and turned around grandly, leaving the doorway. "I am not related to you!" she called back.
Leah nodded to her mirror self and grabbed her comb, brushing her hair quickly. "Done!" she called once her hair was pulled back in the usual pony tail. Lainei sniffed and brushed past her into the bathroom, and Leah grinned as she walked to the kitchen.
It was a sort of joke for Leah, and she suspected that Lainei saw it the same way. They never had heart to heart talks, and Lainei mocked Leah for her next to useless power when she was angry, but they understood each other. They really did care about each other, in a twisted way, and it was the reason Lainei didn't really care about things like the toothpaste drool.
"Hey mom!" Leah said, surprised to see her mother. She was usually at work by the time Leah was up and about, mostly because Leah woke up only twenty minutes before the bus came. She dressed quickly, didn't wear makeup on a regular basis, and usually had just coffee or toast for breakfast, so she could and did get up twenty minutes later than Lainei and her mom.
"You sound surprised to see me," Adele said, sounding amused.
Leah grinned cheekily at her. "I am. Usually you're on your way to work by now. Or did I wake up earlier than usual? My alarm is set to the same time as yesterday... Or at least I didn't change it."
"Oh, no. Well, my boss said I should have a little extra time to get ready. I'm usually one of the first ones to arrive at work, and he noticed and told me to take my time. Isn't that nice of him? So, what do you want for breakfast? You've only got ten- make that five- minutes, so French toast is probably the best I can do for you."
Leah shrugged. "I'm not really hungry to be honest. I usually just have toast." She leaned over and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Thanks for offering, though. Still, if I don't want to be late, I'd better run."
"Oh, surely you have time for a glass of juice! You need the calcium." Adele protested.
Leah shrugged. "I guess it wouldn't kill me," she said with a smile. Adele smiled back and poured her a glass of juice, watching as Leah downed it quickly. "Thanks!" Leah repeated. "Time to go." She grabbed her bag and swung it over her shoulder and took a deep breath.
"Lainei!" she yelled. Adele barely flinched, and shook her head in amusement. "We're going to be late for your bus in about two minutes, so I suggest you get down here!" Leah listened for the sound of feet thumping down the stairs, and nodded to herself, heading for the door.
"Oh!" Leah paused. "You look really nice, by the way. You should wear that suit more often."
Adele smiled and smoothed her skirt suit. "You really think so?" she asked almost shyly.
Leah nodded. "Definitely." It was true. The dark charcoal of the suit brought out the flecks of gray in Adele's chocolate brown eyes and made her blackish brown hair seem nicer somehow. Her mother was pretty at her worst, and when she tried she looked truly beautiful and younger than she was.
Lainei ran right through the room and was almost at the door when she paused. "Nice suit," she commented. "Leah's right. You should wear it more often." Adele positively beamed, glowing at the praise from both her daughters. Lainei smiled back, and Leah sighed enviously.
They looked so much alike- there were a few small differences, like in their noses, but Adele and Lainei were, with out a doubt, mother and daughter. They had the same dark hair, tan skin, height, body shape, and facial structure. Lainei's eyes were much grayer than Adele's, but that was the only really noticeable difference.
Leah, on the other hand, was a spitting image of her father. Taller than average but about a half inch shorter than Lainei, less delicate looking than her mother and sister, and a bit more muscular, although she was hardly a body builder. She had the same ocean blue eyes and golden brown hair, maybe a shade darker than her father's because of her mother's genes, and the same acne free, tanned cream complexion.
"Oh shit!" Leah blurted, seeing the clock. "Lainei, your bus is going to be at the stop in seconds!" She grabbed the handle of Lainei's backpack and pulled her out the door, waving to her mother hastily. She let go as soon as they were out the door, and the girls raced to the stop.
"Cutting it close there, Leah," Liam said as Leah and Lainei skidded to a stop in front of him and Natasha.
"Oh, shut up," Leah retorted, but she smiled afterwards to show she was just kidding. "Oh, guys, meet my sister. Lainei, this is Natasha, and this idiot is Liam McMoron-"
"It's McAllister!" Liam protested loudly.
"Oops, my mistake!" Leah said innocently. Lainei rolled her eyes and waved half heartedly at Leah's friends, moving to stand a few feet away from them. The bus pulled up a second later and Lainei got on it quickly, not looking back or waving.
"She seems nice," Natasha said, a touch annoyed at Lainei's rudeness.
"Yeah, sorry about that. She's not real keen on being seen with me in public. I mean, she won't deny our relation, but she won't really acknowledge it either. She doesn't want people ragging on her 'cause her sister's a sidekick, and we don't always agree on some things."
Liam frowned. "Some things like what?"
Leah shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. She didn't particularly like Liam's interest in Lainei. Sure, Lainei was her sister, but there was a possibility that Liam might like Michelle, and Leah would much rather have him date her than pine after her sister, who would never give him a second glance on account of him being younger and a sidekick.
"Things like my father," Leah said shortly. She wasn't going to lie to her friends, or keep things from them, aside from who her dad really was. She'd learned early on that that was a bad idea. If you wanted friends who would stick with you through thick and thin, you had to give them reason to trust you.
"Oh," Liam said. Leah nodded, and they didn't speak any more until their bus came.
"So when is your birthday?" Natasha asked Leah after she sat down next to Michelle. Leah wondered briefly why Natasha sat next to Michelle- did she know her? She had obviously known Liam for a long time, so why not sit next to him?
"It's February sixteenth," Leah admitted.
"Oh, that's so cool! Two days after Valentine's Day, huh?" Natasha grinned, and Leah had to grin back.
"Yeah. My sister's birthday is on Valentine's, actually, and my mom's is the eighteenth. It's really cool, because we always have three parties in a row- Lainei's, mine, and then mom's." Leah leaned her head against the back of the seat and smiled at the ceiling of the bus, happy and relaxed.
"Why not have just one?" Michelle asked, sounding faintly puzzled. "It would be easier for once. Less organizing and all that, not to mention cheaper. Just have one big cake, and have it on your birthday since it's in the middle of the three."
Leah blinked. Wow. Michelle was talking more and more as she got to know her, wasn't she? Even though she still didn't know much about her. "Well, we used to do that back in Hawaii, but here it just wouldn't work. That was when dad was still around, and he and mom organized it all."
Natasha, Liam, and Michelle all listened intently, and Leah shrugged. "Back then I used to hang out with mostly the same kids as Lainei, since there weren't that many kids in the area. It was a pretty small town. Now though, Lainei would die of embarrassment if she had to share a party with me, and mom usually keeps her low key, so it's just us three most of the time."
"What about your party?" Natasha asked curiously, cocking her head to the side.
Leah shrugged again. "What about it?" she asked uncomfortably. "I usually have a couple friends sleep over, have a cake, and then we just do whatever we feel like."
"I didn't know you used to live in Hawaii," Liam piped up. "What was it like? Can you speak Hawaiian?"
Leah laughed. "Of course I can! And-" she sighed mournfully. "It was nice there. Hot. We used to go to the beach every day, dad and me, and we'd surf for hours. Mom says I spent so much time in the water that I knew how to doggy paddle before I knew how to walk properly, because dad would carry me to the beach, but I had to swim on my own. I could surf before I was old enough to have my own board, and I can hold my breath for almost a minute."
"Wow," Liam said, impressed. "I wish I could do that. Do you still surf now that you live here? I mean, we're only about five minutes away by car, although it takes a lot longer if you walk."
Leah shrugged. She had no intention of telling them that she went surfing every weekend, that she went there so often that the guy who owned the small store there kept her board in his shop so that she wouldn't have to carry it back and forth every day.
They talked about other trivial things for the rest of the ride to school, with Leah only half paying attention. When they got off the bus Leah waited until everyone else was off to get up and follow them.
Will Stronghold was the first off the bus, and Leah wondered about him, and what Natasha had said about him not having any powers. Where his parents like her dad? No, they couldn't be. The Commander and Jetstream were good guys. They might be disappointed, but surely they would treat him the same as they would if he had powers.
Leah followed right behind Michelle, not wanting to have to navigate Sky High on her own. Liam and Natasha were walking a bit ahead of Michelle, so Leah sped up a bit to walk beside Michelle.
"How long have you guys known each other?" Leah asked casually. "It seems like Natasha's known you both for a while, but I wasn't sure. She never really said."
Michelle glanced at Leah and shrugged, looking ahead at Liam and Natasha. Leah followed her glance and examined them. Natasha was wearing an orange sweater and a pink plaid skirt with matching pink plaid platform shoes. She looked funny next to Liam, who was wearing jeans, the same hat, and only a slightly different white shirt under blue and purple button up as the day before.
Leah looked back at Michelle, who looked much she did the day before, only with a white skirt and green, white, and red long sleeved shirt rather than her cheerleader uniform. Michelle noticed and gave her a small smile. "Natasha's known Liam since they were in diapers, practically," she said finally. "And I met Natasha in fifth grade. We've been friends ever since, although I don't talk to Liam as much as I do Natasha."
"Hmm," Leah said thoughtfully. "I guess I'm sort of the intruder here, aren't I?" It made her kind of sad, thinking how they'd been friends since they were little, and here she was butting in. No wonder Michelle didn't say much- she probably didn't want her disrupting their little group.
"No, not really," Michelle disagreed. "I was the one butting in in fifth grade. Actually, Liam didn't like me for a while because of that, but when Natasha finally said that she could like two people just as much as she liked one, he finally got over it. You're still on probation, of course, but I think you'll do fine."
Leah's eyebrows shut up, and then a giant smile broke out on her face. "You really think so?" she asked hopefully. She wanted to be accepted to their group, and if Michelle thought she would be, she probably had a very good chance. Michelle was the most withdrawn of them all, after all, so if she liked Leah the others probably did too.
Michelle nodded, but she didn't say anything else. Leah didn't mind- she was just happy she would finally have some friends she could keep. It was hard staying friends with people who didn't know about your power, your past, or your future.
Natasha and Liam walked into a classroom, and Michelle and Leah followed. Leah looked around the room, grinning happily. There was a chalkboard hanging on the wall behind the teacher's desk and another standing up next to it.
Leah headed to a seat right next to the wall and sat down. Michelle, Liam and Natasha all sat in the front row, Liam and Michelle next to each other and Natasha in front of Leah, with an Asian girl between Liam and Natasha. Leah tapped Natasha on the shoulder and wiggled her eyebrows. "Prime note passing seats," she whispered.
The teacher, a middle aged man with graying red hair and blue eyes walked into the room in a suit. "Good morning class, and welcome to hero support. My name is," the teacher disappeared behind the standing up chalk board for a half a second, only to jump out in a rather stupid looking red, white, and blue costume. "All American Boy!"
Somebody in the class coughed, no doubt trying to hide a laugh, and Leah tried her best to hide her smirk by biting her lips. "But these days I just go by Mr. Boy." Leah let out a small sigh of relief. Thank God. She didn't think she could deal with a delusional old guy who still thought he was in any condition to fight crime.
The class was boring. Mr. Boy turned out to be the Commander's old sidekick, or hero support, as they were supposed to say. Will embarrassed him by saying that he couldn't recall either of his parents mentioning him, but Mr. Boy explained that all away, even if he did sound a little pained to do it.
Leah couldn't help thinking that Mr. Boy had a bit of a crush on Jetstream, but maybe that was her imagination. People starved for romance tended to imagine those kinds of things, as one of her old friends had proved to her multiple times.
English was only mildly interesting- they talked about code for telling your hero what the situation was, filled in the blanks in sentences, and other exercises Leah found both easy and boring.
Hero Support Technology was slightly better- Mr. Boy actually let them use belts with all kinds of gizmos on them. They had inflatable rafts, little hooks you shot at the ceiling to pull yourself up with, nets, and other useful things.
Leah put her hands together as if she was praying and said 'Thank God," when the bell rang for lunch. Hero Support was mildly interesting, but watching Will Stronghold correctly use a grappling hook to pull himself off the ground was not going to help her learn to save the world.
"Why can't we do anything interesting?" Leah complained at lunch as she poked her salad sulkily with her spork. "I mean, I don't mind being a sidekick, but really. Saving the world has to be more than just wearing stupid belts and using the correct grammar!"
"It is," Liam said gloomily. "But heroes save the world, not hero support. Anyway, we've got Medulla for Mad Science, and then we're polishing our quick change technique. That should liven up the day a little, huh?"
Michelle snorted. She seemed in a better mood than before, and she was actually smiling a little at everyone during class. "His head is huge, it's so creepy. I heard he's a total genius, though, and he's amazing at Mad Science, so maybe we'll actually learn something about it from him. I like Mr. Boy, but he's really not an exceptional teacher."
Natasha shrugged. "I liked him. Yeah, he's not the best teacher out there, but he's far from the worst, and that's good enough for me. Besides, I also heard Medulla's got a bit of a cruel streak. Apparently he hates pretty much anybody that can't perfectly assemble one of his rays, and they're hard as hell to make if you haven't had previous experience."
Leah sighed. "Whatever. Let's talk about something else, okay? I don't really feel like talking about school right now. Or ever, really."
Liam laughed. "Tell me about it. God, I was right about my mother. She almost died of disappointment when I told her I was a sidekick. I don't know why- it's not like she didn't expect it- but still, I guess she hoped." He shrugged, and Leah sighed.
"Liam, when I said let's not talk about school, I meant let's not talk about anything even remotely related to school, alright? Let's talk about- people or something." Leah rolled her eyes and looked around. "Who is he?" She pointed to a guy with long, brown-black hair hunched over in his seat. He was looking at Will Stronghold, and it wasn't with a very pleasant look on his face.
"Who is he?" Liam asked disbelievingly. "Who is he? Oh, no one special, just Warren Peace!"
Leah blinked. "Warren Peace?" she asked. She had absolutely no idea who he was. "I have absolutely no idea who he is."
Liam gaped at her, seemingly unable to say anything, so Natasha spoke. "His mom is a hero and his dad is a villain," she explained. "Barron Battle, one of the worst super villains of our time."
"Wow," breathed Leah. Her eyes were wide and she stared at Warren, entranced. She hadn't known that there were other villain's kids going to Sky High. "So what's his beef with Will?" she asked, breaking out of her trance and turned away from Warren to look back at Natasha.
Natasha shrugged. "Will's dad is the one that put Barron Battle in jail, so I guess he figures if he can't take it out on the Commander, why not his son?"
Leah frowned. "So you think he'll be a villain when he graduates?" It wasn't really a question- it was pretty obvious from the faces of all three of her new friends, although Michelle was eating and looked less into the conversation than Liam and Natasha.
"Yes," Liam said bluntly. "I mean, is there any doubt? His dad's a villain, and his mom may be a hero, but it obviously hasn't rubbed off. Bad blood shows," Liam glanced at Warren one more time and then turned away.
Leah's mouth tightened and she looked down at her plate, not wanting them to see her scowl. Bad blood. Ha! They knew nothing about bad blood. "You're wrong," she said tightly. "Just because his dad is a villain doesn't mean he is, too."
Liam snorted, and Natasha just shrugged, obviously not wanting to get into it. "I don't really care, to be honest," Michelle said finally, setting down her food and looking at all three of them. "If he turns out to be a villain, well, the Commander and Jetstream can take care of one jumped up little teenage villain, and if he doesn't, good for him."
She looked back down at her food and started eating again, and everybody else followed her example. Leah glared at her food, though, and kept sneaking looks at Warren. Did he know what they thought of him? Did he care? Leah decided that he probably didn't, and a small smile curved her lips. Good for him.