Well the votes say that for this chapter's setting it's gonna be at…drum roll plz…

Wayne Manor! Thanks so much for the votes/reviews.

But honestly, I was originally thinking of having it take place in the West household, to give you readers a new setting. But if this is what you guys want, who am I to deny you?

So enjoy!

*Disclaimer: I do not own JL, just the teens in this fanfic

O~O~O

Chapter Sixteen: Our Little Secret

"OK, one more time, ready? Rock, paper, scissors, say…shoot!" Billy called as he and Ophelia have been playing their 'Best of Seven' series of Rock, Paper, and Scissors. The teens just couldn't make up their minds as to where to hang out that Friday. They had all voted to go to Billy and Lilly's place but Billy wasn't having it. Lilly, on the other hand, didn't mind at all.

They threw down their hands, Ophelia's fingers stuck out like 'scissors' and Billy's fingers spread out like 'paper'.

"Ha! Scissors cut paper. I win!" she rejoices.

"Aw c'mon! Best out of nine?" Billy asks, trying to weasel out of being the host for the evening.

"No way! I won fair and square," Ophelia replies getting annoyed. They've been playing for fifteen minutes already and the entire campus was practically empty. The entire gang was there, except for Rex and Maddox. Maddox was apparently still held up by Penelope King and her cheerleading clique. However, he was trying to get away, praying that his friends wouldn't leave him behind.

"Why can't we all just go to Valen's house, then?" Billy questions, acting like a child.

"Billy, just cut it out! You already know Valen is grounded. We'd be lucky if his parents even let him hang with us. Besides, how many times have you bummed out at someone else's house?" Lilly chided. She was getting fed up with her brother's childish whining.

"Guys, c'mon. Grandpa Alfred has been waiting in the limo for a while and if we're not going anywhere soon, he'll just take me home," Evangelia stated.

"Alright, fine. So why not go to your house again. I don't think your parents will mind," Billy proposes.

"Well…I don't know," she says unsure.

"I'll make you guys an agreement. If we go to Angie's home this week, next week we'll go to our place and I won't complain," Billy promises as he literally crosses his heart.

"Oh alright, fine!" Evangelia caves. She thought that it was probably better this way since Grandpa Alfred was already anxious to get home.

"So have we reached a decision?" Valen asks as he walks up to the group. For the last few minutes, he had been on the phone with his parents trying to convince them to let him hang out.

"Yeah, we're going over to Angie's place," Lilly informs. "Are you coming too?"

"Yup. Turns out my mom was able to talk to my dad into easing up my punishment. They took a week off my grounding and say that I can hang out on Fridays. I doubt they'd let me out on Saturday, though," he states.

"Just be glad they cut you some slack. We'll take what we've got," Lilly encourages.

"Well I'll tell Grandpa Alfred we're heading over to our manor. Somebody call Rexie and let him know where we're rendezvousing," Evangelia calls out as she walks towards the limousine.

"Already ahead of you on that, Angie," Valen volunteers, whipping out his cell phone again.

"Speaking of informing people about our whereabouts, did anyone tell Ox where we're going?" Billy points out.

"Hmph. Who cares?" Ophelia remarks as she crosses her arms and takes on a defiant stance.

"Phee, that's not nice," Lilly says as if she were talking to a child.

"Well, I've already called T-Rex. He says he's on his way. I called Maddox, too, but I got his voicemail. I just left him a message," Valen states.

"Why bother? He doesn't care apparently," Ophelia blurts out, sounding annoyed and upset.

"Don't say that Phee. I'm sure he's trying to meet up with us, he is just a little late," Valen says, attempting to pacify her.

"Whatever. Anyways, I am going to get gas. I'll meet you guys there," she walks off in a huff, clearly pissed off with the fact that after avoiding him for the last few days, she was going to see him face to face.

"So does that mean we have to wait for Maddie?" Evangelia asks as she rejoins the group.

"I guess so. I'm just glad that she was too upset to remember to drag someone along with her to 'get gas'. Otherwise, it'd be hours before we're all together at our place," Billy says relieved.

The four remaining teens look at each other, realizing the silver lining in Ophelia's sour mood.

O~O~O

Once again the teens are hanging out at in the Wayne Manor den; however, everybody wasn't in their normal 'hang out' mode. Rex had arrived little after the limousine pulled up into the manor. He and Valen were now playing a silent game of pool. Lilly and Evangelia were sitting on the sofa reading fashion magazines, once in a while making a comment about how ugly or pretty the dress was. Billy was sitting in the armchair next to them, hogging the bowl of popcorn. No one seemed to care and neither did he.

Maddox and Ophelia were still M.I.A. The group waited another 5 min. for Maddox but he didn't show. Ophelia was still apparently 'getting gas.'

"Ugghhh, this is sooo boring! Why are we so quiet?! We're supposed to chillin' and having fun. I've seen senior citizen bingo places with more life than this!" Billy complains, throwing his hands into the air to emphasize his point.

"Look Billy, first you didn't want to have our friends hang out at our house. Now you're at Angie's house complaining about how boring it is. Talk about ungrateful," Lilly says without looking up from her magazine.

Billy turns his head and looks directly at Evangelia. He realized that what his sister said was right and he had felt bad. After all, he practically shoved everybody into her home without even asking.

"Hey Angie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that really. It's just that-"

"It's alright, Billy," Angie replies, giving him a small smile of assurance. "I totally get what you mean though. It is pretty lame here. Trust me I wish something interesting would happen right about now."

Just then, Maddox comes huffing and puffing through the door. His collar and messed up, the first few buttons undone, and his tie loosened. His usually neatly arranged hair was windblown and his face was covered in light pink lipstick marks.

"Sorry, I'm late you guys. Penelope held me up," he huffs out.

"Oh she definitely held you up," Billy teases referring to the lipstick marks on his face. "You poor, poor, thing. It must've been hard for you." Billy says sarcastically and breaks into a burst of chuckles. Lilly ribs him for being a nuisance.

"Sorry I'm late everybody. You wouldn't believe the amount of cute things I got on sale," a feminine voice drifts into the room. Half a second later, Ophelia appears with shopping bags hung around her wrists. She looked like she was in a better mood until she saw Maddox. Her face switches from initial shock into anger.

'How dare he show up here! How dare he show up looking like that!' she thought furiously.

Ophelia drops her bags on the sofa and turns to look at Maddox, her hands on her hips, ready to go for the kill.

"Look what that alley cat tramp dragged in," she says, giving him a disapproving once-over look.

"Hello to you too, Ophelia," Maddox replies softly, trying to keep his cool. He knew that she has been deliberately avoiding him in school. He was tired of her cold shoulder treatment on him.

"This is about to get interesting," Billy whispers into Evangelia's ear.

"So when did you find time to hang out with your real friends? Or did Penelope tell you something otherwise?"

"Hello! Of course you guys are my real friends. I didn't take two buses and walk up a quarter of a mile up the manor's drive if you guys weren't my friends!" Maddox says exasperated. He was losing his cool.

"Well you surely haven't seemed like our friend ever since you saved Penelope. You think you're too cool for us now?" she blurts out venomously.

"I was just getting to know the Penny and the girls. I already spend enough time with you guys. I just want to have more friends and they seem like nice people. I don't know why you hate them so much!"

Rex, Valen, Evangelia, Billy, and Lilly just kept turning their heads at Maddox and Ophelia, watching the volley of words going back and forth.

"You think that she actually likes you? She's just with you so that she could spend time with you and she does this to bug me. Penelope is just dangling you in my face!"

Maddox was about to say something but she had said something that clicked in his head.

His lips twitched at the corners and he smirked. "You're jealous…"

Ophelia guffawed at his blatant statement. "No I'm not!" she blushes.

The dimple in his chin showed as his grin grew wider. "You're lying…and I think you like me."

"Shut up! You think that you know all, Maddox, but you don't. I'd hate to burst your pretty little bubble but as if I'd be jealous of you and her. And as if I'd like you. I-I don't! While you're at it, I think you were jealous of Damien in the first place. I don't blame you though, you'll never be as half as cool as him…"

Her words had hit a nerve in Maddox and he had lost his cool. He couldn't even detect that Ophelia was lying.

Their friends saw the red flush creeping up Maddox's face and they knew that he was clearly furious. 'Uh-oh he's the Mad Ox now…' they all thought.

"Well you know what?! You think that you're soo much better than them! Those girls have done nothing but be nice to me and you, my so called 'friend' treats me like dirt. 'They're so snobbish,' 'They think that they're better than us,' 'They're so judgmental.' Well right now you're acting like all of those things you've said about them and more!"

Maddox's outburst of words sent Ophelia over the edge. She picked up a ball from the billiards table and hurled it towards him. He managed to dodge the ball, narrowly missing his head. The ball continues to soar through the air, its destination…the plasma screen television above the fireplace.

"Nnnoooo!" Evangelia cries out, watching helplessly as the ball nearly penetrates the screen's surface.

Suddenly, before anyone could notice Billy appears out of nowhere catching the ball in his right hand midair. He lands on his feet, securing the ball so that it wouldn't cause any damage to anything else.

He stands, places the ball back on the billiards table, and looks to see his friends staring at him.

'Oh man, I guess I wasn't quick enough to catch the ball unnoticed. Or maybe I had moved too fast, and that's what made it noticeable,' he tries reasoning.

"What?" he shrugs, trying to brush off what had just happened.

"Dude, you were way over there by the armchair and within half a second you were midair, across the room," Valen explains. "Care to explain how all of this suddenly occurred?"

"Uh, I've gotten really good in track," Billy jokes. The serious expressions on his friends' faces gave him the clue that they weren't amused.

"Guys, it's been a few days since we've discovered that we can do some pretty…unreal things," Lilly speaks up as she walks over to her brother.

"We?" Ophelia questions suspiciously.

"Yeah. I can do something else as well," Lilly says quietly. She picked up a lamp with her left hand and began concentrating on her right hand. She then phased her right hand through the lamp and pulled it back out.

"And if you thought that was cool, there's something else we can both do," Billy says enthusiastically. "Don't blink…"

One second Billy and Lilly were standing in one spot next to each other and the next second they were gone. Instead there were two strong wisps of air blowing around the room scattering papers and other items around. Finally the two were able to slow down into a bur and then come to a complete stop.

"Amazing," Valen says, sounding astounded. "You guys were moving at the speed of light, probably even faster!"

"Hey Val, if we were moving at the speed of light how come you were able to track our movements?" Lilly points out.

Now all eyes were on Valen. He gives a sheepish smile and says, "Alright, maybe I shouldn't have been the first one to put Billy on the spot. Honestly, I've been able to do some pretty weird things too."

"Care to elaborate?" Evangelia asks.

"Well, I kinda have supervision and super hearing. I can see through solid objects and hear things from great distances," Valen begins.

"Prove it," Billy challenges

"Right now, I see Alfred in the kitchen making our sandwiches. I can hear Dick and Bab's conversation from upstairs, which I wish I didn't."

"Eww," Evangelia remarks childishly.

"Oh I can also do this," Valen says as he picks up the pool table with one hand and raises it above his head as if it were nothing. He demonstrates further by lightly tossing it up and down.

"Uh…please put my pool table down," Evangelia says in a mousy voice, too shocked and intimidated by her friend's super strength.

"Yeah I can put it down, but I can hold it up for hours without even breaking a sweat," he says cockily.

"Interesting," Maddox says as Valen places the pool table back in its right place. "X-ray vision, super hearing, superhuman strength and stamina."

"Well, I'm starting to suddenly grow," Evangelia speaks up. "Did anyone else grow?"

"I grew about an inch. I'm at least 5'9" now," Ophelia states.

"Same here, I'm at least 5'8" tall," Lilly says. "How about you Angie, I think you've grown a lot within a week. How tall are you now?"

"Um…5'7" at least," she admits.

"Whoa! Three inches in a week! That's insane, what are your parents feeding you?!" Billy asks shocked.

"I think I'm starting to slow down though. But there's something else that's so totally…well, I'll have to show you but don't freak, okay?" She reaches into her book bag and pulls out a sharp razor scissor. She pulls out her arm and slashes the blade through her skin. Blood begins to ooze from the gash.

"Angie, are you crazy?!" Rex yells. He had been silent the entire time from the shock of his friends' secrets but he didn't think that Angie of all people would go insane.

"Wait for it," she says unfazed by the wound. Rex and the friends look back down at her arm, realizing that there were no traces of the wound, only the blood that had been released. Evangelia took a napkin and wiped off the blood and showed them her unscarred arm. "See…"

"I guess we all have got some explaining to do," Valen says aloud.

'I guess I'm no longer the lone wolf in this type of situation,' Rex thought as he saw his friends gather around to sofa to talk. 'But then again, none of them have to live with something so…noticeable.'

O~O~O

"And so that's how it happened…" Maddox concludes his story on how he had first begun to realize his unnatural abilities.

For the last half hour, the group had been going around talking about how they've first come to figure their powers and abilities.

"Ha! That explains it. I knew that you couldn't have beaten me fair and square in a game of Bullshit," Billy says, pointing a finger at Maddox accusingly.

"It also explains how he knew what was going to happen to Penelope King and how he had gotten to her in time," Lilly says, trying to get her brother to see the point.

Maddox nods a confirmation. "That still doesn't mean that you have to be all hung up on her, though," Ophelia huffs.

Maddox gives a small smile. 'She's still jealous…' he thought amusedly.

"So I suppose the small explosion from the jewel was what caused us to get these powers in the first place," Valen wisely says.

"Then how come nothing really happened to me?" Ophelia asks.

"Something probably did," Maddox explains. "You seem to have a supervision that isn't at the same caliber as Val but is still above an average human's. Otherwise how else can you explain though accurate shots? Your senses also seemed to have gotten sharper too."

"How about you, Rexie?" Evangelia asks her quiet friend. "Has something happened to you?"

"No," he answers slowly with his eyes closed and arms crossed.

"You're lying," Maddox states matter-of-factly.

"Phee's right, you do think you're a 'know-it-all' Ox," Rex replies gruffly. "And that thing you do is getting really annoying."

He opens his eyes to see his friends staring intently at him, waiting for an explanation as well. He lets out a deep sigh, and decides that maybe now was the time to get this off his chest.

"Ok, but I think that this one takes the cake for the evening." He stands up, removes his trench coat and removes the harness from his wings. He sees their entire jaws drop as he spreads his wings out wider.

"It was a few days after I had turned sixteen," Rex begins his tale. "I was at football practice. We were going over defensive maneuvers and coach asked me to help the guys practice their tackles. I was able to take it, since most of the guys weren't as big as I was but one guy managed to take me down. My back had hurt for the rest of the practice, so coach allowed me to sit it out and go home. When I got home and took a shower I noticed some tufts of feathers on my back. I thought it was from my shoulder pads. But when I pulled on it hurt. I spent the next two days absent from school, painfully pulling out my feathers. But it was no success. They always grew back…"

Everyone was silent after that. They didn't know what to say. Maddox, sensing the groups' discomfort, tried to break the ice.

"So this happened way before the incident last Saturday?" he asks.

Rex simply nods his head. He had nothing more to say as well.

"Well," Valen starts off following Maddox's lead, "has anybody told their parents yet?"

Everybody shook their heads. None of them knew how to explain to their parents what was going on. The only reason they confessed to each other was because Billy had accidentally blown his cover.

"We're going to have to continue with our lives as if nothing happened," Valen continues. "We don't know why or how we got these powers but maybe it's just fate. It's best that we keep this to ourselves and not let anyone know about this."

"You mean like how the alter ego of Superman has to keep his powers under wraps?" Billy asks, excited about the thought of being compared to a super hero.

"Exactly!" Valen agrees. "This will be our little secret…"

O~O~O

Pheww! This was the longest chapter I've ever written! I hope you readers are satisfied.

Anyways let me know what you think. Read & review plz [: