by R. J. Ross
I see Morgan and Vinny grin at each other before Carla steps in front of me, grinning widely.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” I say, grinning back.
“Can we play Dance Dance Revolution?” she asks.
“Absolutely,” I say. I blink as a tiny girl separates from the group, slipping in behind Carla and grabbing her hand. She’s practically hiding behind the black girl, but she’s watching me with slanted ice blue eyes that gleam. She’s actually shorter than anyone else in the room, probably barely over three feet, but she’s got to be at least thirteen, right? I think she would qualify as a “Little Person” right?
“Malina?” Carla says, looking shocked as she turns to the girl. “Are you sure?” she asks. The girl nods, smiling slightly. “Awesome!” Carla says, hugging her tightly before she can actually say something aloud. I’ve never seen Malina before, except in classes. She’s also one of the guarded ones--one of the ones that hardly ever come out of their rooms. I have no idea what powers she has, now that I think about it.
She flinches slightly as Trent walks over, standing next to me, towering over her by almost three feet. I hesitate, wondering if he makes her nervous, but then Rocco steps up to the group, just as tall as Trent. “Mind if I join?” he asks, scratching his head and grinning a bit sheepishly at me.
Rocco is a bi-racial teenager--I think he’s about Max’s age, actually, but that’s about all I know. He doesn’t seem mean or anything, but I’m a bit worried about the dorm kids. I look at them, chewing on my bottom lip until I notice that they aren’t running away yet.
“Sure,” I say, pointing at him, “but you’ve got to behave, got it?”
Lance lets out a little snicker, covering it with his hand. Rocco looked at him, a curious expression on his face. “Hey,” he says, nudging Lance, “you gotta do it, too, you know.” His tone is gentle and I wonder if he’s already made a few friends in the dorm as Lance starts laughing out loud.
“Yeah, but I’m not the guy that broke into Fort Knox!” Lance says, laughing his head off, “Twice!”
“Fort Knox?” Trent asks curiously.
“It’s a long story,” Rocco mutters, “and I still say the second time was absolutely Firefly’s fault--”
“Dude, shhhhh,” Lance says, his eyes widening as he shoots a look at me.
“It was! She brought in Mari--” he grunts as Lance elbows him hard in the gut.
“I said shhh! Firefly’s her MOM,” Lance hisses.
I lose it, starting to laugh. Oh man, you should SEE the look on Rocco’s face! He looks like someone just pulled the ground out from under his feet! Now he’s stuttering, trying to take it back--
“Emily,” Trent says with a nudge, “at least tell them why you’re laughing.”
I force myself to stop, grinning still. “You should totally see your face right now,” I tell Rocco shamelessly. “Liz is my foster mom,” I go on, shrugging my shoulders, “and if she caught you breaking into Fort Knox, well, that’s her job, right?”
“Alright, let’s go in,” Nico calls out, leading the group inside. My group moves to the back, where Trent casually takes place behind everyone else without a word.
“No, that’s not what happened--” Rocco says as we head into the pizza place. It looks like a bar in front, but to the right are games and those standing rides that you put a quarter in. Nico heads to the bar, leaning against it and turning to us to take pizza orders.
“Meat lovers okay with everyone?” I ask my group. They nod and I pass it on before Rocco can explain what happened with Liz. Somehow I get the feeling that this story will take a bit of time. There’s other people in here, not many, but enough to send a slight feeling of hesitation through the crowd. To my surprise, Malina and Carla move closer to me instead of one of the guys. There’s a strange look on Rocco’s face as he looks at them, as if confused.
I feel Carla’s hand slip into mine and I shoot her a grin. “So,” I say, getting their minds off of the norms, “you and Trent went on a date, huh?”
She turns bright red. I can’t help the evil grin that pulls on my lips as her eyes widen in surprise and she shoots Trent a look that says he clearly ratted her out. “I want to see your pony! I still haven’t gotten over there to make my own, you know, I’m jealous.”
“Pony?” Rocco repeats.
“Carla went down to Texas with Trent,” Lance says quietly, “to help Vinny a little while ago. She talked him into all sorts of stupid stuff.” He looks pointedly at Trent, who shrugs shamelessly, “which is bad enough, but he’s dating her,” Lance finishes, pointing at me.
“You two get along really well,” Trent says, moving slightly as two biker type guys walk in, stepping past us. “Does that mean you’re getting used to strangers?” he asks Lance and Carla.
“Well we’ve got Justin and Jimmi, too,” Carla says, looking around curiously. “Although Ward still doesn’t like them, and Brandon’s still stuck in hiding mode.”
“Hiding mode?” I ask.
“He’s here,” she says, her expression changing as she starts searching the crowd of kids. “See that empty spot over there?” she says, pointing. “There’s a good chance that’s him. Or maybe there...”
“Wait, what?” Trent says.
“Brandon can go invisible,” Malina says quietly--almost too quietly to hear.
The door behind us slams shut so loudly that Lance literally jumps, changing shape into a small lizard with huge eyes that look shocked. Carla grabs him while he’s still mid-air. She’s so fast that the norms walking past us don’t even notice what happened. They’re laughing loudly and heading for the bar, bumping into Trent as he casually moves between them and our group.
“Ow,” the guy that bumped him says, sounding surprised as he rubs his arm. “What the hell?”
He turns, looking at Trent curiously, confusion showing as he takes in the clean cut looking teen. “Excuse me,” Trent says with an easy smile. “We’re a little packed in here,” he adds blandly.
“Uh... yeah, sure,” the man says, frowning slightly as he moves on.
“Alright, here are your numbers,” Nico says, moving through the crowd and handing out the plastic pieces. He walks around the area that Carla motioned to earlier, so I can only assume she was right about Brandon. “We’ll head to the back, there’s more tables there, keep to the group, if you want to play games your entire team has to go with you,” he adds looking straight at me. “Set up a guard to watch the younger ones,” he adds. “Trent, take him to the restroom, would you?”
Carla holds out Lance to Trent, who scoops him up and slips him onto his shoulder before walking away.
“Hey, aren’t there two of you?” Rocco asks, looking at me. “Like a twin?”
“Ditto’s over there in Max’s group,” I say, pointing over to where Ditto’s chatting happily with Zoe.
“So you’re twins?”
“Nope.” We start for the back, heading for one of the long tables next to another group, where we put down the number and I motion to Ditto. “Watch our number, ‘kay?”
“Sure!” she says.
“Let’s go play some games,” I say to everyone, grabbing Carla and Malina’s hands to pull them along. I glance back at Nico, wondering if he’s got something planned--the door opens and Jack walks into the restaurant, followed by Falconess and her mini-me.
“The shield’s up, Nico,” he calls. There’s no illusion hiding who he is, and I see the norms look freaked out as they realize it. “Sorry, man, but you’re not getting any new customers until we leave,” Jack tells the guy at the front. “So switch the sign to closed, would you?”
“Are you robbing us?” the guy asks.
“Nah, we’re throwing a school pizza party,” Jack tells him, grinning to show gleaming metal teeth. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure Max leaves a tip.”
There’s a worried look on the norms’ faces, and I look over at Nico to see what he’s going to do. “If your job r
equires you to be back within a half an hour,” he says, his mask in place, “please come and talk to me--I’ll get you out with no fuss.”
“Emily?” Carla asks. “Did we just kidnap a building full of norms?”
“Yep, we sure did,” I say, trying to wrap my mind around it and promptly giving up. “Eh, he’ll let the ones that need to go go,” I tell her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and grinning.
“You sure?” she asks.
“Yep, it’ll be fine,” I declare. Have I mentioned that Nico just happens to be an ex super villain? He does some of the craziest things without blinking--and Jack just totally goes along with it. Then again, Jack’s a super villain, too. “Let me grab some money and we’ll go hit the games,” I tell her, letting go and heading for the richest kid in the class--Max.
Max is sitting at a table next to Zoe, drawing on a napkin. He’s got a few of the zoo kids watching curiously, but it’s Ace that’s right in front of him, leaned over the paper with a thoughtful expression. “Yeah, what we need are some massive speakers,” Ace says, pointing at the picture. “Here, here, and here. That way we can get the whole echo thing going on--”
“Kind of hard to do when it’s the Super Bowl,” Max says.
“You’re really going to crash the super bowl?” a zoo kid girl asks, looking shocked that she spoke up. She covers her mouth with her hand, squeaking slightly.
“Sure,” Max and Ace say, as if it’s perfectly normal.
“Max, can I borrow some money?” I ask, holding out a hand with a wide grin. “My group wants to play some games, but I’ve got no cash.”
“Shouldn’t you be borrowing from your boyfriend?” Max asks, digging out his wallet and handing over a couple of twenties.
“I will when we’ve finished with yours!” He shakes his head as I run off for the quarter machine, then goes back to plotting the next super bowl. I call the others over to scoop up all the quarters and we head into the games, joined soon by Trent and a sheepish looking Lance.
“Did you hit up Max again?” Trent asks as he moves to my side, watching as Carla and I do a round of DDR. She’s kicking my butt thoroughly, by the way.
“Yep,” I say shamelessly as the game ends.
“You could have waited until I got back, you know,” he says quietly, only to turn as Jack approaches us.
“Do we know anything new about Mega?” Jack asks him, moving so he’s casually standing at the entrance of the game room next to Trent.
“Not yet, but Aubrey healed him, right?” Trent says. “Think we should call Dad when we get a chance? He’s probably heard by now.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
I pop another couple of quarters into the game and let Carla pick the next song, not saying a word. Somehow that quiet statement about waiting for him makes me feel extremely guilty. I just don’t know why.
***
“So what you’re saying,” Mastermental says, leaning back in his chair casually as he stares at the large Texan standing on the other side of his desk, “is that one of your capes--the super villain side, but regardless--got stood up and is taking it out on my team, and it just happens to be my fault.”
“Yes,” Century says bluntly. “Skystep was never informed that Flame was coming up here--she’s hard enough to handle when her favorite sparring buddy is on call twenty-four seven. You take him away and she takes out half of my team before someone finally gets the chance to tell her!”
“Who told her?”
“Voltdrain bought her a smoothie,” Century mutters, shaking his head as he recalls the embarrassing scene on television. “It calmed her down long enough to listen--but if you’d followed the proper procedures, we wouldn’t be having this problem!”
“So, before we go passing the blame on this, why don’t you make a list of villains that interact with Flameblaster on a regular basis,” Mastermental says, “along with what powers they have, so I can give my team a heads up?”
“The rest of them are willing to go from hero to hero,” Century says a bit reluctantly, “I’ve already passed on the news to them. It’s just Skystep that’s unreasonable.” There’s a hint of frustration in his normally calm southern tone. “She’s not completely stable, y’see. She’s a good enough girl when everything’s going like she wants, but the moment we change things up...”
“What, exactly, is the personal relationship between the two?” Mastermental asks. He’d have never thought to ask before he found out that Technico and Lady Rose had teenage twins.
“I... honestly have no idea,” Century admits. “Now in exchange for the trouble you caused me, I think it’s only reasonable that you loan me that little healer of yours for a few days. You know, the one they call Life Light.”
Mastermental twitches. “You’ll have to talk to Technico about that one,” he says.
***
Twenty minutes of DDR with me and Malina taking turns stops when Ditto walks over with a grin on her face. “Pizza’s here!” she announces as the game finishes--with me losing again. “Want me to get Trent?” she asks as I step off the game.
“Nah, I’ll get him. You should go back to your team,” I tell her, heading for the two brothers playing a fighting game. “Hey, guys, pizza’s here,” I say, glancing over at where Rocco and Lance are playing air hockey. I grab Jack’s arm, trying to mess up his game, but he doesn’t even budge with it. “Aww, c’mon, die already,” I mutter, peering at the game. “How long have you two been playing this one round, anyway?”
“Since the start,” Trent says, tapping away at the controls.
“Dad got us an ancient game station and this game to teach us how to not break the controllers,” Jack says, not looking at me. “So we got good at it after replacing the controllers a few dozen times.”
“Well, whatever,” I say, “I’d rather everyone else ate before you two came, anyway,” I add. “C’mon, guys, let’s leave them to their game otherwise everyone’ll starve!” Rocco hesitates before shrugging.
“You sure? I mean... missing a meal can really suck,” he says with a slightly vulnerable look on his face as he follows along.
“We’ll order them their own pizzas after we eat,” I tell him, looking at him for a moment. “You, too?” I ask quietly as the others race forward.
“Wh--what?” he asks, jerking away instinctively.
I hesitate. This isn’t the place to bring it up, is it? “Nothing,” I say simply, sliding into my spot at the table, a bit surprised that Lance is sitting across from me and already digging in. Other than the shape shifting surprise earlier, he doesn’t seem too worried, does he? He grins at me as he grabs another slice.
Now don’t get me wrong--I think Trent’s the best looking guy in the entire school, and I’m only slightly biased, right? But Lance is adorably cute. Like the kid you put in commercials, or something. That could be extremely useful in his future job. “Hey,” I say, grabbing a slice for myself, “is it true that you’re going to be part of Vinny’s team?”
“We both are,” Carla says, practically bouncing where she sits. She moves her hand and a blob of meat goes flying off of her slice towards the group next to us. “Whoops,” she says, flushing brightly as it hits Justin. “Sorry, Justin,” she says as he slowly reaches up and picks the piece of hamburger off of his shirt.
“Yeah,” he says, then gets up on one knee on his bench, looking around for a second before sending the piece flying again. It hits Ace smack dab in the middle of his forehead. “No problem,” he adds with a grin for Carla, slipping back into his seat as if nothing happened. I can’t help but watch Ace, who pulls the meat off of his face and looks at it for a long moment.
“FOOD FIGHT!” Ace yells, picking up a huge slice of pizza and throwing it. It comes flying straight at us, only to get grabbed out of the air by Trent.
“Don’t waste food, man,” Jack says--simply because Trent’s mouth is full. I will admit I’m a bit disappointed--a food fight sounds like a lot of fun! But when you’
ve got two Liberty boys around it never happens. All of the food ends up eaten.
Trent drops down next to me and grabs another slice of the nearest pizza. “So who won?” I ask.
“Me,” he mutters around a mouthful. Look, Trent’s a great boyfriend--unless he’s eating. Then you’re lucky to get even that one word out of him.
“Hey, Emily,” Carla says, jumping to her feet. “There’s music--wanna dance? Malina wants to dance, right?” she asks the girl sitting next to her. A hesitant look crosses Malina’s face before she nods.
“Hey,” I hear someone say as I’m about to reply. “Are you going to make any demands?” I look over at Nico, who’s lounging at a table across from Falconess and her daughter. There’s a group of norms surrounding them, looking a bit angry.
“Not planning on it,” Nico says. “If you’re ready to leave just hand over your phone and I’ll check it before giving it back. I can’t have pictures of my students getting out to the public, you see.”
“That’s against my rights to privacy,” the man snarls, his hands fisting.
“No, what would be against your rights is if I blew up your phone while it’s still in your pocket,” Nico says, taking a drink of his pop. “Do you know who I am?”
“Do I need to? You’re using us as hostages!”
“No, I’m just letting my kids have a pizza party--that you came in while we were here was just your bad luck.”
“Trent?” I say, only to groan as he holds up a finger. His other hand holds three slices stacked on top of one another. “Fine,” I say, letting out a sigh. “Let me do something real quick, first, girls.” I get up, heading across the room to sit down next to Nico. “Nico?” I ask.
“Yeah?”
“I figure it’s my duty as the girlfriend of a preacher’s son to say this. You can’t terrorize people just to eat pizza, y’know?” I tell him silently. “Ken’s gonna yell at you for it. So why don’t you check their phones without them knowing and let them go? Nobody’s done anything, after all.”
He looks at me, a tiny smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Fine,” he says, reaching up and patting me on the head. “You can go,” he says to the irate looking norm, “sorry for the inconvenience. Melissa, I’d like you to meet Emily Dreyton,” he says, turning to Falconess. “She’s the one I wanted to talk to you about.”
