A/N: I would just like to apologise for the late update. I've been getting my first new driving lessons and I've been busy with other important events lately. I was hoping to get a chapter out each day and finish my the end of the month, but that doesn't look likely anymore since I can only work on this when the library is open. Hopefully I'll be able to get the next few chapters out a day or two in between. Wish me luck!
IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ! For those of you who read this story before this chapter was posted I want you to know that I have changed Alex Hamilton's character and he is no longer the guy with six arms but rather a boy with the power to control gravity. His father is now Lance Hamilton. This is kind of important to the story, but not overly so. Thank you for reading this and I hope it doesn't confuse you too much. On with the story! :D
Chapter Four - Opposite Day
I hope waking up in the morning and fearing the day doesn't turn into an endless routine for me. Three days in a row is a new record; with Luci and the rest of Sky High scared of me, it's looking likely. At least I still have Will and Layla on my side and possibly the ever handsome Warren Peace, if I'm lucky. Now, if only this sick feeling of dread could leave my system, maybe getting up and walking down stairs to greet the former two and my parents wouldn't feel so impossible. The sound of soft footsteps, either my mom or Layla, on the stairs wakes me from my moping enough for me to glance at the clock next to my bed and realise that I'm running late. If I don't get up now I'll miss the bus, but the thought of getting onto that death trap makes me even more reluctant to get up. Unfortunately for the self preservating side of me, my mom slams open the door and barges in, picking up my bag and throwing it at me. It lands heavily on my lap, jolting me to attention.
"Hurry up, Jamie! You are not going to be late for your second day of Sky High! Now get up and catch up with Will and Layla. I sent them ahead to hold the bus for you." Mom lectures me while forcefully pulling me up and dragging me out of my room with my jacket in her hand. She hands me a slice of toast and a glass of milk that I scull, before shoving me out the door, throwing my jacket at me where it lands over my face, temporarily blinding me. Thankfully, I move the piece of toast out of the way in time for it to not mess up my jacket.
Knowing I have no choice now, I wave goodbye to Mom and run off towards the bus stop, praying that I somehow manage to not make it in time. I have no such luck, arriving on time just as Ron pulls up to the stop. Once the doors open, Will and Layla willingly jump on board, but I don't move, too scared to do anything.
"Are you getting on, Stronghold?" Ron asks once he notices me standing there. His words causing Will and Layla to turn around and see me still on the curb. I don't move hoping that somehow, if I just stand here they will go on without me. But my stupid hopes are useless as Will grabs me by the wrist and yanks me on board. I stumble on the steps, but Will pays no heed, instead pulling me to an empty seat and forcing me to sit on it. My strongest glare doing nothing to stop him in his tracks. Thankfully my one saving grace is that Layla is the one to sit next to me, after Zack calls Will over to sit on the other side of the bus. Layla and I don't talk much other than the traditional 'how are you?' and 'are you looking forward to today?' both of which I give noncommittal replies. Layla catches onto my mood and grabs a hold of my hand, startling me.
"It'll be alright, Jamie. You'll see." She simply says, giving my hand a small squeeze before letting go and turning to talk to Will and Zack. I'm lost in thought until seat belts strap themselves around me and a metal bar appears in front of us, the bus suddenly plummeting to the ground, making my stomach sink. All thoughts fly out of my mind as my vocal cords make themselves known to the inhabitants of the death machine. While everyone else seems to be enjoying the ride, my knuckles are turning white from the unrelenting grip I have on the bar.
As we land, I am the first one to stand and run out of there, jumping over a shocked Layla in the process. Unlike yesterday, the contents of my stomach find their way onto the ground. I'm not proud to admit that it made me feel better. Somehow, during the emptying of my stomach, the bag I yet again left on the 'bus' found it's way to my side, but as I look up, no one is in sight. Even Will, Layla and Zack can be found walking up the stairs towards school. Confusion racks my brain, but I leave it be, standing up and wiping my mouth, I slowly walk to my locker, bag on my shoulder.
Closing my locker, I storm towards my first class, trying to ignore the watching eyes and the way everyone moves out of my way, as though I'm carrying a deadly, contagious disease. It hurts knowing my power is the cause of this stigma. Too lost in my thoughts, I don't notice the hand that reaches out to grab me until it's too late. The hand pulls me backwards into a dark classroom and shuts the door behind me, blanketing the room in darkness before I have the chance to see who my captor is. They push me back into the door with a brutal force, scaring me senseless while a hand clamps down over my mouth, cutting off my scream before I can even take a breath. Fear seizes my heart, taking over my senses, making it difficult to breathe. But as I do, the scent of burning wood and a strange mix of spices hits me making me want to melt. As my eyes get used to the light, I begin to make out the silhouette of a man.
"Stronghold." The sound of Warren's deep voice growling my last name makes me flinch back into the wood of the door. Pure hatred is all I can feel other than the heat radiating off of him in waves. "So it's true." He states, his voice sending a shiver down my spine. Silence stretches out between us with neither of us moving a muscle until he suddenly pulls his hand away from my mouth. I don't move or say a thing, simply looking into the eyes I can barely make out. "Why did you lie to me?" The question asked no louder than a whisper. His words laced in hurt and betrayal making my heart quake. Somehow I'm close to tears and it confuses me so much. How can one person that I've only known no longer than two days make my heart react like this?
"I didn't lie! I just didn't tell you my last name. I didn't think it was important." The last of my words dying off in a whisper and losing conviction.
"Wasn't important? So the fact that your dad locked mine up in solitary confinement isn't important?!" What started off as a disbelieving question turns into a yell of rage. I flinch back as he slams his hand against the door right next to my head. The loud sound causing my ear to ring.
"No!" I call out in desperation, begging him to understand. "That's not what I-" But he cuts me off.
"Enough! Lie to me again and I'll roast you." He growls into my left ear, igniting his hand on my right side for emphasis. The flame lighting up his angered features for a brief moment. Shoving me out of the way, he opens the door behind me and storms out of the room, leaving me alone as I try to fight back tears.
Taking a deep breath, I step outside the room in time to see Warren's retreating form turn the corner. I tell myself that I can do this as I turn to continue on my way to class, trying my hardest to ignore everyone's judging eyes. It's just one step in front of the other. Nothing too hard about it except for the ten tonnes of weight weighing down my heart at the moment and the sheer build up of tears trying to force their way through. Before I can really make much notable progress, I'm being dragged back into the very same room where my last real hope of a normal high school life just abandoned me. Not bothering to fight back or scream this time, I'm completely taken off guard when two thin arms wrap around me. I stand there in shock, my bag dropping to the floor, not registering what is happening until a distinctly feminine and slightly familiar voice speaks up.
"Are you alright?" It asks and I look up in bewilderment at Luci's face where I can faintly make out the concern in her features.
"What do you care?" I ask after a few moments of silence, completely confused and slightly believing that I have lost my mind.
"I'm sorry," She says honestly, looking into my eyes, or at least what she believes are my eyes with the non existent lighting in this room, "I just got these powers that introduced me to a whole new world and I didn't want to lose them. But my powers got me you and I realised I don't deserve them if I turn my back on the first person to welcome me into this new world," I almost get lost in her rapid rambling, but thankfully she stops to take a breath before saying her last four words that bring all of my emotions flooding out, "Can you forgive me?"
The dam holding my tears back, bursts and I collapse into Luci's awaiting arms. My emotions forcing their way out through my tear ducts and clamping down on my vocal cords, so I do the only thing I can. I reach out and hug her with everything I have. 'I haven't lost her!' Is all I can think as I cling onto Luci and let all the stress and drama of the last day or so wash out of me. I feel her smile against me and tighten her hold on me as she lets out a relieved laugh. We suddenly break apart at the ringing of the final warning bell and it's now that I realise we are both late for our first lesson of Hero class. Cursing, we open the door and rush out, Luci surprisingly carrying my bag that I dropped earlier.
Running towards our class, I see Will and his friends entering into the class next to ours. Looking over, he spots Luci behind me and gives me a small smile that I return before he enters into his classroom. Luci and I stop to regain our breath, as we stand outside our Mad Science classroom. Taking one last deep breath, I stand up straight and push the door open to see the class already seated and a man in a lab coat with an enormous head, standing at the front of our class, sending us a disapproving stare. My face turns red in embarrassment as all eyes turn to us.
"I see that we have a few late comers who don't believe they should arrive on time like the rest of the class." The man says, crossing his arms.
"I'm so sorry. We lost track of time." Luci apologises as we both duck our heads in shame.
"It won't happen again." I promise looking up into his eyes in time to see him roll them.
"See to it that it doesn't." He gives us a pointed stare. "There are two empty seats at the back. Go take them." He says pointing towards them. We nod our heads and quickly rush over to them. Taking out seats, Luci dumps my bag in front of me and I send her a grateful smile.
"What would you do without me?" She whispers back with a smile as the teacher begins to speak to the class again.
"Now that everyone is here, I would like to start off by introducing myself. I am Mr. Medula and I will be your teacher for Mad Science this year. This class is here to prepare and inform you about everything that is out there to harm you, what each of them can do and what you can do to protect yourself and others from them along with how to use some of them to your advantage. This will be a dangerous class and I ask that you take it seriously."
Although Luci and I take his warning seriously, it doesn't look as though many others do. My thoughts are proven true when someone in our class fires off a ray gun that Mr. Medula is passing around to the class and hits an important looking machine. A loud explosion rattles the building causing all the lights to flicker off and cast us into darkness. Several screams escape from our classmates including one from Luci who ducks under the table with me.
"Calm down. No need to panic." Mr. Medula says to pacify the class. Grabbing a torch and moving over to the boy I recognise as Alex Hamilton, the boy from yesterday with gravity manipulation, Mr. Medula grabs the ray gun out of his shaking hands and turns on him. "That was very foolish Mr..." He leaves blank for Alex to fill in.
"Alex Hamilton." He stutters out.
"Congratulations, Mr. Hellmen. You just managed to kill all the single cell organisms in the school. Detention after class. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check if anyone is injured in the next class over." Mr. Medula lectures, ignoring Alex's futile attempts to correct his name and walks out the door. A few silent seconds pass and Luci cracks up laughing, cueing in the class which erupts in chatter.
"I'm really starting to not like that Alex guy. He's too much like my last ex." Luci grumbles to me making me laugh.
"You've had a boyfriend?" I ask, considering I've never had one, I'm curious. She holds up two fingers and my eyes widen. Leaning in, I whisper, "What's it like?" My question causing us to go into full on girl mode, talking about boys. Luckily before the conversation can move onto Warren, Mr. Medula walks back into the classroom with the lights back on now.
Now, with the lesson back on track, Mr. Medula locks away all forms of weapons and instead gets four others, along with Luci and I to help him carry six different large glowing rocks in glass containers to the table out front. Upon sitting down, I notice that all six rocks are different colors. Purple, gold, green, red, blue and white, in order from left to right.
He soon explains that each kind of rock, most commonly known as Kryptonite, reacts differently to the different kind of powers we each hold. For instance the green Kryptonite reacts to powers that alter the chemical makeup of our body. He lifts up the glass, revealing the rock and I witness as almost half the class passes out. My first reaction is to worry about them and go see if anyone is hurt, but the sound of Luci's laughter beside me and the smile on the teacher's face stops me from doing so. After he covers the Kryptonite back up, many students begin to regain consciousness. He then explains the others, the one affecting me most being the blue Kryptonite.
When he lifts up the glass case my head starts spinning and the ground beneath me shifts making me feel weightless. Before I know what's going on, everything goes white and I can no longer feel my body, but it doesn't bother me. It's as though having no control over my body no longer matters. It's not until the light vanishes and I hear Luci's voice calling me that I notice I'm on the floor along with three others. Apparently Mr. Medula made us all sit down and suck our thumbs. He later explains that normally it would simply make us pass out like the green Kryptonite, but since he has minor telepathic abilities he could control our actions to an extent. A scary thought if I'm honest to myself.
We found out that the white Kryptonite affects Luci's control over the elements and someone with strong telepathic abilities could possibly turn them against her. Needless to say, by the end of the lesson all of us now look at the class in a new light. All in all, it was a great first lesson and the fact that Luci is now my lab partner made it even better.
Walking into the cafeteria after Mad Science, even Luci notices how people part like the Red Sea for us. Yet strangely she isn't annoyed or freaked out by it like I am, instead finding the perks such as not constantly bumping into people and even getting an entire table to ourselves. Hilarious.
"Being friends with you may just turn out to be the best decision I've ever made if things keep up like this. It feels a little like I'm royalty or something." She comments, brightening my mood.
"That's definitely one way of looking at it," I say while picking at my food, "Honestly, I didn't think you would ever speak to me again when I woke up this morning. It's like it's Opposite Day or something for me. I woke up thinking that you would hate me and Warren would be the only person on my side, but as it turns out, everything's reversed." Luci looks at me as though just remembering the events of this morning, and for all I know, she possibly is.
"What happened with him anyway? Last I knew, you two were eyeing each other like no ones business." Her words cause me to blush for a moment upon remembering the frantic racing of my heart yesterday when I was speaking to Warren at his locker, but it suddenly drops when I see him sitting behind Luci, glaring ferociously at me. She notices and quickly glances behind her to see him, and although I know he can see her doing so, he never takes his eyes off of me. Personally, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing since he's still glaring. Turning back around, she gives me a pointed look. "Spill."
"He found out who I really am." I say, not taking my eyes off of his.
"That's it?" Her deadpan words shake me out of my staring contest with Warren to glance at her in confusion. "That's seriously the reason for Mr. Hotpants over there glaring at you like you killed his grandmother?" She gives me an incredulous look before standing up suddenly. "I'm going over there and knocking some sense into him."
Thanking my quick reflexes, I manage to grab her arm and yank her back down before she can do anything stupid, like embarrass me for the rest of my life and make Warren hate me even more, if that's even possible. "Luci, stop! You're just going to make things worse." I whisper harshly to her while unsuccessfully trying to avoid Warren's curious gaze.
"Fine, but if this isn't sorted out by the end of the week, I'm doing it, no matter what you say." The seriousness in Luci's voice making me not doubt her one bit that she will follow through with her threat, as that's what it is and she knows it. Compared to the beginning of today, the rest of the day is quite uneventful. With introductions to Hero History and Hero Tactics being pretty self explanatory the only notable event being the horrid trip home, where thankfully Luci and I sit together while I scream my lungs out. I really have chosen an interesting friend for my time here at Sky High. I just hope I made the right choice.
A/N: Thank you for reading and a large thank you to my beta av23! Next chapter will involve Jamie's first week at Sky High along with an awkward talk between Luci, Warren and Jamie most likely. If I can figure out how to write it. Please review and let me know what you think. :)