Chapter Three: Boiling Point

"Oh we're not gonna take it

No, we ain't gonna take it
Oh we're not gonna take it anymore"

-We're Not Gonna Take It, Twisted Sister

So Tenni may have been feeling a bit melodramatic after the argument. Dad had been stiff and awkward for all of five minutes the next morning before apologizing profusely to her and Will. Will had been too stunned to say anything. Tenni was stunned for several minutes before bursting into her own apologies. Mom had finally put a stop to it by tutting at all of them like they were five and ordering them to eat breakfast. All too willing to put it in the past with no hard feelings, they all dug in. Layla joined them not much later and the two red heads watched as the three of them ate enough to feed a starving village. Plates were then bussed, goodbyes were traded and then she and will were off like shots, Layla following them at a more sedate pace.

Sure, things were patched up now, but neither she nor Will were much for drawing out the make ups with Dad.

Things on the bus were better. The others were more than willing to forget the Stronghold family drama they'd played audience to the night before. For a moment, Tenni wondered if they'd actually heard round two. She was embarrassed at the thought of being overheard, and somewhat ashamed considering how bad it had been airing the family's dirty laundry the first time around.

Magenta didn't allow her much time to sit with her inner turmoil. She pestered the girl into conversation concerning boots and asking her whether or not she should considering branching out her wardrobe color scheme. For a moment, Tenni wondered if boarding the bus had been like walking through a trans-dimensional portal where the Magenta of that dimension actually wanted to wear colors other than purple and black, but shrugged it off. It was probably thanks to all the reading from hero handbook she'd been doing that had her thinking like this. There'd actually been a chapter on how to recognize if you'd been transported into a different dimension and what to do if you did. As bizarre as Magenta trying to introduce diversity to her clothing was, Tenni figured this was not a different dimension type of issue. Just the start to a very strange day.

"Tenni, we've landed. It's time to get off." Magenta prodded her impatiently.

Glancing out the window, she saw the school and all the people milling about. She flushed a little, realizing she was holding up Magenta since she was the aisle seat, as per their agreement to keep Tenni from getting too airsick sitting next to the window.

"Yeah, sorry," she apologized, quickly standing and moving out of the way.

The Goth girl rolled her eyes in a good natured way.

"Don't sweat it. I've gotten used to the fact you're the biggest space case ever. Don't think I didn't notice your eyes starting to glaze over during the bus ride."

Mortified at being caught, Tenni started to move to apologize again when she noticed the wicked smirk on the shifter's lips. Huffing, she turned her back on Magenta and headed for the front of the bus.

"Aww, don't pout!" she called after her teasingly chagrined.

Ignoring her, Tenni let herself off the steps and onto the lawn.

And almost immediately felt something was wrong.

With a yelp, both her hands went to the waistband of her skirt just as she felt it begin to slip downwards. Desperately, she tugged upwards to halt the descent, but the pull in the opposite direction proved persistent. She gave a distressed cry when she heard the sound of fabric tearing.

"Tenni!" Magenta yelled from on the bus, rushing out to her after hearing her cry.

A million things began to run through her mind in the minutes after. There was a building surge of humiliation and shame threatening to overflow the well of emotions in her head. Magenta was there at her side. Not far from them was Will, Layla and the rest, who'd been talking to Ron and were now turning back to see what was holding them up. Something moved just in her periphery, slithering like a snake. Striped. Black and white. She tracked the movement with detached interest until it went still. The snake became and arm and the head with the blue scrap of her skirt trapped in its fangs became a hand. Her eyes traveled up the arm to see the face of her tormentor.

Lash.

He just stood there, smirking at her and at his side, Speed was doubled over howling in laughter at her.

She wanted to cross the yard so she could claw his eyes out. She was sure she could reach that high if she tried. Or she could freeze him. That would work.

But then she remembered her skirt. The tear was so big. Tenni could feel the cold metal surface of the bus against the back of her thigh. She pressed herself against it so no one could see her now partially exposed backside. As angry as she was, as much as she wanted to attack that filthy bastard that had humiliated her, she'd be further exposing herself to humiliation by showing her ass to the world. She was trapped. Magenta was tugging at her arm trying to get her to say what was wrong and the others were closing in, concern plain on their faces. Though that concern was rapidly shifting to panic for Will and Layla.

Just how bad did her face look to them, she wondered, to be getting that kind of response?

Suddenly, she was cut off from that thought when she felt something else looping around her waist. Desperately, she tried to shove away whatever it was, but she couldn't. Looking down, she saw a pair of arms tying a sweater around her waist. A pink sweater. Looking up again, she saw who the arms and the sweater belonged to.

"Gw-Gwen?"

"Don't worry, sweetie," Gwen said as she knotted the sleeves gently at her front, "This is just a temporary fix for now. I have a pair of sweat pants from P.E. you can borrow for the day. If we hurry, we can get you changed before Mr. Medulla's class starts."

"Tenni?"

Both she and Gwen stopped to look at the purple girl.

"You should head to class. I'll take care of her," Gwen kindly told her.

She hesitated; her desire to continue to hover near Tenni put not knowing what to do. It was different, considering Magenta was usually the type to be direct and act. Following Gwen's lead, she nodded at her friend to give her permission to leave her with the school president.

"I'll be all right."

After holding back a moment longer, Magenta nodded and walked over to intercept the others. Will and Layla didn't appear to be soothed by her explanation or happy with being dragged away. Again, Tenni thanked Magenta in her mind for trying to look out for her. She really was a good friend. Glancing shyly at Gwen, she noticed the older girl watching her with equal parts sympathy and compassion.

"Let's go."

She held a hand out to Tenni and Tenni, so overwhelmed and humbled by Gwen of all people coming to her rescue, took the hand without question and let Gwen lead her wherever it was she was going to take her.

Gwen Grayson was apparently a saint in pink wrapping. She'd hustled Tenni into the school and over to her locker where she'd produced a pair of sweatpants that while thick and lumpy as sweat pants tended to be, were comfortable. And not pink as she'd expected of Gwen but a soft blue that Tenni liked and found didn't clash with her lighter blue sweater. Not that she actually spent a lot of time thinking about color coordinating outfits or anything like most people she knew did or anything. She just liked avoiding wearing ugly color combinations like violet-purple and burnt orange or something like that. It was common sense.

To add to her much appreciated loaning of the sweat pants, Gwen derailed the scolding Medulla had prepared for Tenni for showing up late to class. Medulla typically showed no mercy to late arrivals. Something poor Dennis Hellman, idiot though he was, knew all too well considering he was perpetually late. It was no secret that mad scientist had a soft spot for his TA. Gwen had totally pressed her advantage to get Tenni off and it had been awesome. She felt like, Zach or something when he'd first met Steve in junior high school, with all of this dopey, incoherent fumbling over herself around Gwen.

And as if loaning her the sweat pants and getting her out of detention wasn't enough, Gwen had also invited the aquakinetic to be part of the Homecoming Committee. She hadn't been able to tell Gwen yes, part from being scared she wouldn't be able to handle that kind of responsibility and part because she was still overwhelmed that Gwen was talking to her like a friend. Inviting her to be a part of something. Not just the other day she'd been internally moaning about how lonely and unnoticed she was amongst her hero peers. She'd dismissed Gwen before for being too popular to ever take notice of her. Maybe she'd been too quick to judge the other girl?

In the end, she'd tabled Gwen's invitation with an "I'll think about it". She still wasn't sure that she was the right person for helping out with Homecoming preparations, but maybe she'd change her mind. Gwen was good company and she did kind of owe her now for helping her out with Lash.

And maybe it could turn out to be one of those experiences Steve and Josie and even Rhonda a long time ago, had told her were key experiences in the social life of a teenager. Tenni had never put much stock into what they said. That was because she considered herself part of the minority (set leagues apart from normal people) of teenagers with powers, and even further isolated by her unconventional early childhood upbringing with her real parents. Why should she expect any experience to be normal? Though she desperately sought some normality, she'd resigned herself to the thought there were certain aspects of normality she'd never achieve.

That was probably why Josie (Mom) always told her she was too jaded for fourteen year-old going on fifteen.

Maybe she really did need to start putting the past behind her. She couldn't let her trauma continue to limit her options in life, even if one of those options involved giving the vapid teenage girl experience a chance.

However, that was easier said than done.

Especially considering she still refused to talk to anyone, even Will, about her life before his family. Then there were her obsessive behaviors concerning one Warren Peace. It had been bad enough when he was just the random focus of her people watching, which was already kind of creepy by some people's standards. It was a heavy denial she'd sunk herself into regarding him. Her motives toward picking him apart were becoming less innocently motivated and more selfishly driven. How did Warren Peace cope with the legacy his parents left him with? Or maybe he wasn't coping. If he wasn't coping, what did she need to do differently to seem like a normal person who seemed like they were coping?

How did you succeed at being a normal person?

Mr. Reynolds's class was as engaging as usual. He was as much of an egomaniac as Coach Boomer was but at least he knew how to do his job without trying to kill his students every class. His class was Heroes History, which wasn't quite her favorite subject, but at least not the worst as long as he kept his boasting about his own career to a minimum. Her success (survival) in the class might've had to do with the fact the Stronghold family name was deeply entwined with the history of heroes. Her knowledge of the family history thanks to Mom and Dad gave her an edge in class. While Will had sat at dinners with eyes glazed over, Tenni had listened to them talk about all of their battles and diplomatic missions. Even if the other kids thought she was a nerd, she liked it when Mr. Reynolds was stunned by her ability to answer questions he must've thought up strictly for the purpose of stumping the entire class.

Still, as tolerable as the class was, nothing could settle the dread she was feeling about the day they started breaching topics of a more sensitive nature.

There was no way they weren't dodging covering the infamous fight between Baron Battle and the Commander. While that would be an uncomfortable topic, it paled in comparison to the possibility of the fight that had resulted in her parent's deaths. The only relief was that very few people knew enough (thanks to extensive government cover ups) to tie her, or Aunt Josie, to that incident.

She wondered vaguely how much worse Warren had than her.

Class was beginning to wind down. Most of the lessons so far had been very general, since this was a freshman level class meant to be an introduction to heroism in history. So far, they'd gone over topics like how history defined a hero and what impact a hero had on history. They were starting to cover the origins of heroes, dating back to the proto-heroes of the distant past all the way up to the Age of Superheroes, starting with Major Victory *. Major Victory was better known to her as Joseph Stronghold, first generation of the superhero Strongholds and Steve Stronghold's father.

To most, Joseph "Major Victory" Stronghold was a relic of the past, his son being the more prolific superhero these days.

(Joseph Stronghold was actually still alive, retired, and suffering from Alzheimer's, which made him easy to keep convinced she really was his biological granddaughter.)

Once the bell rang, she stood quietly and began to pack her bag. There was no one to say bye to, or to make plans to sit with at lunch since she wasn't friends with anyone in this class. She was almost done when she noticed Mr. Reynolds gesturing for her to come up and speak to him. She nodded and hastened to shove the rest of her belongings into her bag. A couple of stragglers held her up on the way to his desk, just standing there taking up the space she needed to pass through. Glowering balefully when they wouldn't move when she politely asked them to once and then louder the second time, she eventually resorted to just pushing past them.

"How rude!" one of the displaced girls snorted.

She frowned. They were the rude ones. She'd asked them to move and they'd ignored her. As if making some room for her to pass them or even acknowledging someone was talking at them was too much for them to do. It bothered her, but she shook it off and focused on Mr. Reynolds who was still waiting on her. He smiled when she finally made it to his desk.

"Tenni, glad you could hang back to talk. You're usually out of here like a shot the minute my class is over. I can't be that horrible, can I?"

"No, not at all," Tenni was quick to deny, "History's really one of my favorite subjects so far. I just get really... hungry you know? So that's why I try to get to lunch so quick."

I just get really hungry? Could that have sounded any worse as an excuse? Usually she was a better liar than this. The truth was that she liked to be first out the door so she could be the one to pick the table for her and her friends at lunch. A table that had a good view of Warren Peace's table. God, it sounded pathetic just to think that even in the privacy of her own mind. As it was, she was internally groaning in disappointment over the fact that because she had to stay back and talk to Mr. Reynolds, it was likely that her friends would be picking a table far far away from the pyrotechnic.

She tried to sigh as unobtrusively as possible.

"I see. I work up a hell of an appetite myself during class too," Mr. Reynolds said, as if that atrocity Tenni tried to pass off as an explanation was worth believing, "Anyway, I assume you must want to know why I asked you to stay back?"

"Yes."

Yes, she really did want to know why he wanted to speak with her. She was mostly confident it couldn't be anything bad. What little homework assignments they'd already been assigned, she'd turned in on time with correct answers. Mom had even checked her papers as per her request. In class, she participated in discussions but made sure not to step on anyone's toes during debates. If anything, the minute someone with a dissenting opinion spoke up, she was quick to bow out and let other students fight over their points. So what was it Mr. Reynolds wanted? Tenni fought to keep any overt emotion off her face beyond mild curiosity, but he seemed to see through that in a way he hadn't been able to tell she'd been lying before.

"Now now. There's no need to be nervous. You're not in trouble. I'm not keeping you here to talk to you about anything bad. Just talk to you about something I found interesting."

He pulled something out of his desk drawer and placed in on the desktop between the two of them.

There, sitting on his desk, was the first assignment he'd given them, their introductory essay. His prompt had been for them to introduce themselves to him the way they'd want the world to know them. Tenni frowned. Why was he showing her the essay? She'd done the assignment and felt very sure she'd done it right. So why was he bring it up now?

"By the look on your face, I can tell that you don't understand why I want to talk to you about it. Why don't you look it over again one more time so you can refresh your memory on what you wrote?"

She did as he told her. It was one and a half pages, the minimum amount he'd expected doubled spaced. There were no corrections on her spelling or grammar. There were no notes on what she'd written. And there was no grade. She frowned again.

"I'm done."

"So can you tell me what you wrote?"

What she really wanted was to say no and tell him to just cut to the chase and tell her what he thought was wrong about her essay. But she swallowed down her frustration and impatience with his inability to get to the point and did as he said.

"I wrote that my name was Tenille Stronghold, age 14, daughter of Steve and Josie Stronghold, and sister of William Stronghold. My power is aquakinesis and I intend to be a responsible and upstanding hero. When my required time to spend as a hero is up, I intend to retire from the hero business and become a civilian," she paraphrased from her essay.

"You know what I found interesting about that?" he finally asked after a long silence.

"What?" Tenni said, letting out the breath she'd been holding since she'd finished telling him what her essay had been about.

Finally he was done beating around the bush.

"Nothing."

"Huh?" She blinked, her mouth almost falling open. "What?"

"I said nothing."

"Nothing?" she repeated, "What is nothing? What do you mean, nothing?"

"Nothing about what you just told me from your essay was interesting in the slightest. What interested me about your essay was that nothing about it was interesting. I could have looked up your profile in the school's student profile cabinet and learned as much."

"Aren't those supposed to be private?" she asked him, the beginnings of anger muted behind a wall of disbelief.

"Sure, but the point is that if I wanted to know that stuff about you, I could have just done that. What I really wanted was for my students to tell me who they thought they really were and who they wanted to be. All of your classmates managed to tell me who they were beyond what I could find in a profile. Some of them have dreams of being big league heroes, some want to follow in the footsteps of their parents," Tenni almost winced, "Some want to save the world a couple times. Now either the boring basic profile information really is who you are and want to be. Or maybe there's more to Tenille Stronghold than that. So tell me, which one is it? Who are you really Tenni?"

If she weren't so gob smacked, she'd probably be yelling at him for wasting her time. Really, who are you? What kind of question was that? She'd fulfilled the parameters of the assignment. Why did it matter that it wasn't interesting? He'd been teaching how long? After so many years of reading these pointless papers, how could any student be interesting to him unless they said they were an alien who'd been adopted by PETA members and raised to champion the animals of the world? (Okay, she'd been hanging out with both Layla and Ethan too much lately if that was any indicator.) Frankly, she didn't want some superhero high school teacher knowing anything more about her than what she'd written. He didn't need to know and she wasn't obligated to tell any more than she had. Pressing her lips together she let her eyes meet his head on.

"I don't think there's anything extra to add," she answered him, her tone even, "I'm exactly who I described in the report. I'm sorry you think I'm such a boring, uninteresting person."

Mr. Reynolds sighed disappointed, as if he'd been expecting her to answer differently. Tenni couldn't pinpoint why exactly the sound of his disappointment suddenly made her feel so upset but it did.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, I suppose so," the teacher answered her, "You can keep your paper. You got an A, since you did the assignment and managed to string together intelligent sentences."

"Thank you," she said politely, her grip on the paper tightening a fraction, "I'll see you in class tomorrow."

With that she turned to leave. Just as she touched the doorknob, she heard him speak.

"I want you to try and think about what I asked Tenni. Maybe you don't want me to know who you are, but I think you should at least know yourself. There's nothing wrong with who you said you were and what you plan to do with your life, but there's a whole lot more out there for you. I just want you to know that."

What he was saying felt like an apology for being so intrusive earlier, but she was still too bothered everything to accept that. She turned the doorknob and walked out the door without saying anything or turning back.

Though not having to look at Mr. Reynolds or being faced with his bothersome questions anymore eased some of the tension that had built within her, last his words still chased her thoughts. Her paper was still clutched in her hand. She hadn't yet stopped to do something with it, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the teacher as she could. The girl couldn't understand why what he'd said was getting to her so bad. It all sounded like some mumbo jumbo cosmic wisdom about "knowing who she was" that he'd been trying to shove down her throat. It's not like he understood that being boring was exactly who she wanted to be and being interesting was the exact opposite.

The paper was still in her hand and now that her attention had landed on it again, she was debating whether to put it away in her backpack or wad it up and throw it away. It wasn't like she needed to hold onto it. And she didn't want to ever read it ever again. The teacher's entire reason to talk to her had been because of this stupid paper. Maybe she could just get rid of it so she didn't have to think about it again. It would show him. Show him not to try and force her to think about what he'd said.

She stopped.

And then with a sigh, she slipped the bag off her shoulder, unzipped it and shoved the offending piece of paper inside it.

Damn him.

Zipping the bag back up, she hefted it back onto her shoulder and continued heading for the cafeteria. She hadn't planned on getting held up by Mr. Reynolds and their little talk had lasted longer than expected. Knowing Will and Layla, they were probably having heart attacks in unison, imagining all the horrible things that could be happening to her while they weren't there to look out for her. They could be so silly sometimes.

Her thoughts were derailed when she thought about what had happened earlier with Lash.

Maybe their worry was valid sometimes.

Pushing it away, she focused on getting to the cafeteria. She saw more people the closer she got, and even spotted Gwen and the girl who usually hung around the student body president near Gwen's locker. The girl in pink had noticed her too and waved at her. It took her a moment to figure out that she was actually beckoning her over. Immediately, Tenni felt nervous. Maybe Gwen wanted her answer about joining the Homecoming Committee. She wasn't sure she was ready to make a decision yet.

Just as Gwen was about to say something, she was interrupted by a commotion coming from farther down the hall.

"Principal Powers! Principal Powers! Principal Powers!" yelled a teacher as he went running through the hall, skidding into a wall.

Tenni recognized him as Mr. Boy, Will's Hero Support teacher (and lesser known as All American Boy, Steve's sidekick before he'd met Aunt Josie and they'd become unbeatable team, The Commander and Jetstream). She watched him recover from his unfortunate run in with the wall and disappear around the corner, still calling for Principal Powers. Confused, the aquakinetic looked at Gwen, who then looked at the other girl, who then looked down the hall in the direction Mr. Boy had come from.

"Let's go check it out," the cheerleader girl suggested to Gwen, "I bet it's a fight."

"If it is, I should break it up," Gwen said with a frown, though she followed the other girl's lead. She paused and then glanced back at Tenni who hadn't moved. "You coming Tenni?"

Jolted out of her uncertainty about whether to follow, Tenni scuttled after her. The sound of yelling and chanting was coming from up ahead, and Tenni was starting to get nervous. This was way to the cafeteria. Like the dark skinned girl had predicted, it sounded like a fight. If it was a fight, Will and her friends could be caught up in it. What if they got injured? She bit her lip and followed closely behind Gwen and the cheerleader. It was a smart move, since the cheerleader girl apparently had the ability to multiply herself and used her clones to aggressively push them through the crowd, into the cafeteria.

Tenni's heart started to jackhammer in her chest.

The first thing she saw the minute she entered the cafeteria was Warren's tall leathered form lobbing fireball after fireball at whoever had pissed him off. And by the look on his face, he was DEFCON Level 1 angry. Though she knew it was futile to hope, she really hoped that his unfortunate victim wasn't who she thought it was. Turning her head, she wanted to cry at the sight of who she saw there.

It was Will, arms up and cowering as he tried to dodge the fiery assault on him.

Suddenly, that anger she'd felt at Lash for humiliating her, the fury she'd stifled when Mr. Reynolds had criticized her paper, it all came rushing back. Any pre-existing thoughts or feelings she had about Warren were drowned in the roiling sea of rage sweeping through her. All she saw was her helpless little brother being attacked by some huge asshole.

And that asshole was going down.

Pushing past Gwen and the cheerleader, she made a mad dash at Warren, whose sole focus was Will at the moment. She realized she'd acted before thinking and tried to formulate a plan quickly. Warren was big. And Tenni was small, small even for a girl. She wouldn't hit him full blast with her powers; she preferred using those as little as possible for defensive purposes, like Layla did. So what did she do?

It was easy to not think though, and let her body do the rest of the work for her. Keeping her palms open, she used them to push Warren's wildly wind milling arms up sending the fire he'd been in the middle of throwing flying harmlessly into the air. With his arms up and his body unguarded, she planted her left foot, lifted her right as she pivoted on the left, and delivered a powerful kick to his solar plexus. The blow was reinforced the slightest by a blast of water released from her right foot upon contact with him. It sent him flying, crashing into the far wall.

He slid down it and didn't look like he was getting back up.

Guess those training sessions with Mom really were working out, she thought to herself.

The entire cafeteria went silent.

"Tenni!" she suddenly heard several people cry at once.

She turned and saw all of her friends and Will rushing to her, all smiles. But then they stopped, all of them except Will, who kept running at her, screaming her name. That's when she felt the sudden heat and pain burst on her shoulder. It threw her to her knees. Will was at her side in the next moment, crouching as he held her. Shaking from the pain, she put her hand on her injured shoulder, throwing cold off of it to soothe the burn she felt there. Though it hurt, she turned her head the entire way around to see what had happened.

And there Warren stood, looking completely unharmed and somehow even angrier than he had been earlier.

"Can't even fight your own battles, you have to get a girl to fight them for you?" the pyrokinetic jeered at her and Will, "Pathetic. You're both pathetic. It'll take more than that to keep me down."

His arm lifted, fireball ready, and he threw it with perfect aim at them. Will pushed her one way and threw himself in the other direction. Tenni tried to land steadily, but the minute she put pressure on her injured arm, it gave and she face planted into the cafeteria floor. Her head swam as she used her other arm to push herself up again. She looked forward and saw Warren storming at her arms over head, a massive fireball formed between them.

"No so tough now that you don't have the element of surprise anymore, are you?"

Shit.

Whether Warren deemed her a bigger threat and was moving to take out as quickly as possible or just saw her as weak, easy pickings, he was coming for her first. Her pain was making control over her power hard to grasp. Still she tried, throwing up her good arm, hoping it would summon up a decent ice shield in time.

She needn't have worried about that though.

"LEAVE HER ALONE!"

From her left, she saw Will charge Warren. He got the taller boy around his midsection and heaved him up. Tenni could barely believe her eyes as her Will, who had trouble lifting even her sometimes, held the struggling pyrokinetic over his head like he weighed nothing and threw him into the wall Tenni had just kicked the hothead into earlier. Only this time, Warren went through that wall.

"Tenni, you okay back there?" Will called to her, though he didn't turn his back on the hole in the wall Warren had gone through.

The "yeah" she was about to say got caught on her tongue as she felt a wave of dizziness crash over her again.

"Not really," she finally slurred out.

She didn't think that she'd hit her head hard enough for a concussion, but her shoulder was starting to hurt like a bitch now that the adrenaline was wearing off. This was something else. Shock. This is shock, she thought to herself.

Will glanced back for a second, his eyes crazed with worry

"Layla!"

"On it!" Tenni heard her respond.

Then she heard footsteps and saw Ethan on one side of her and Zach on the other. She felt them put arms under her own and begin to lift her. The movement hurt her shoulder.

"Don't worry Tenni," she heard someone, Magenta, say to her, "We're here. We're taking you to the nurse's office. Warren won't be able to get you there."

"Warren...?" Tenni said, her brain feeling so wooly, it was hard to make sense of what the other girl was saying to her, "Will... Will..."

"Don't worry about Will. You protected him and now it's his turn to protect you. Try to stay with me Tenni. You could be concussed."

She wanted to correct her. She was in shock. Not concussed.

"Will..."

Her head lolled onto Ethan's shoulder.

"Come on Tenni! Stay awake. You gotta stay awake!"

"Yo Ten, now's not the time to be sleepin'! Ten!"

"Tenni! Tenni! Tenni!"

"Will…"

Chapter Three: Boiling Point - End

Nana: Some discussion on how this chapter is similar and different from the way the original story handled this stuff. The defending Ron was swapped with plain old harassment of Tenni by Lash. It was tough for me to write (any harassment, especially harassment that is borderline or full on sexually driven, drives me crazy, I hate it). But I felt I needed more going on between Tenni and Lash, and it created a reason for Gwen to reach out to her. The shitty dream sequence stuff was thrown out and replaced with a talk with Mr. Reynolds, who is a vastly different character and more important plotwise in this rewrite compared to his PULaI counterpart. You'll see how important farther down the road. And the fight was different too. I mentioned in the last story how Josie trained Tenni in hand-to-hand combat but never worked it into the story. This time, I wanted to give you guys a little taste of tough kick ass Tenni, though as you see, she makes the biggest mistake anyone ever does in a fight: turning your back on an opponent who you're not 100 percent sure is down. Being arrogant and distracted cost her the fight. I feel confident about this chapter. Thanks for reading! And please, please, review. I love them.

And like I asked last chapter: HELP. BETA PLS?

*Disclaimer: I don't own the name "Major Victory". I borrowed it from DR. COFFIN's story "Namesake". I thought it was a very fitting name for the first generation hero of the Stronghold family.

Next Installment:

Chapter Four: Cold War