Disclaimer: I own nothing. I don't even have the Sky High movie on DVD. All I have is a Netflix account (...checking...), and you can't even watch the movie on that! So, once again: I own nothing but this crazed imagination of mine. And as Tim Burton puts it, "all the best people are [mad]."

Ignore my blabbering now and, please, enjoy.

RueLin

Three

Alaura walked down the cold halls littered with idle students as they took a break between classes. She was on her way to her P.E. class, and as usual, her eyes were shut. It has been three and a half months since her transfer to Sky High. The student body was no longer intrigued with her strange habit or her social life with Warren Peace. After all, Sky High is a school that trains future supers and villains. Strange happenings should be expected.

With still four minutes left before the bell, Alaura quietly slipped into the girls' locker room to change before the crowd would come. She entered the gymnasium and sat in her usual place at the top of the bleachers and waited for the sound of the bell.

Then people started to fill up the rooms, shaking up the gym with the sounds of their conversations. Girls sat down to chat while some boys decided to act cool and rough each other up, it was after all just another period of Save-the-Citizen. There was no harm in trying to make sure their heads were in the game, since it the arena would probably be hogged by Lash and Speed.

Amidst all the people in the room, Warren climbed from the side up to the top seats opposite of Alaura, as usual. His eyes followed the linear line of the seats and found her quickly, as if they honed in on her. Though her head faced straight ahead of her, she waved slightly to her right at where he sat.

The bell rang and class started. At once, Lash and Speed entered the arena with their gear on challenging different pairs of students to be their opponents and, as usual, their evil schemes took down their enemies within minutes.

Several pointless matches passed, unnoticed by Alaura. She kept her mind busy trying to figure out a problem that occurred to her in the last class. She made a mental note to ask Warren while at lunch.

She scanned at the audience. There was the usual students and Coach Boomer. Professor Medulla, Mr. Boy, and Principle Powers were standing on the upper level watching. Professor Medulla and Mr. Boy were laughing and chatting, while Principle Powers was looking very intently at the matches, analyzing each one.

Her attention traced back to the rowdy arena as she heard Warren's name being called. His elbows were propped up on his knees, which were set far apart, marking an invisible barrier that no one dared to even breathe upon. His chin rested on his fists, which were balled up tightly. His eyes glared at the two troublemakers hollering in the walled ring.

"We choose Peace and the blind girl!" Lash called.

"Yeah! This is payback, Peace!" Speed yelled. "Prepare to be served!"

"Hey guys!" Coach Boomer shouted to call the class into order. "I don't think Alaura should participate. She's blind," he reasoned out of sympathy for her. She was after all only in Hero Support.

"Its fine, sir," Alaura declared from where she sat. She spoke loudly, which surprised just about everyone who were used to her sounding relatively silent. "If Warren doesn't mind, then I will participate in the next round."

"Hot-head?" Coach Boomer inquired Warren.

Warren stood up from his seat, smoke searing from his skin. "Yeah, sure. I feel like a little action coming on," he said. He hasn't involved himself in Save-the-Citizen since his freshman days with Will Stronghold, and being forced down only made him feel even more irritated.

He walked down the bleachers and waited for Alaura to float down gracefully. At the entrance he handed her the safety gear and slipped his own over his head. They entered the ring simultaneously. He touched up on his gear as Alaura struggled with hers.

After he was finished securing his own, Warren knelt down behind Alaura on one knee to help with the back straps she couldn't reach.

"Do you feel like fighting today?" Alaura asked him, sending her soft voice down to his ears.

"No," Warren replied quickly, tightening the last strap.

"Then do you want to set a new record?" Alaura asked as a surprisingly playful look appeared on her face.

Amused at what this delicate young lady could mean, Warren said, "Yeah, sure. I just want to end this quickly."

"Alright then," Aluara said. "In that case, just go for the citizen at whatever speed you feel necessary. Take it easy and let me handle the 'villains.'"

Warren eyed Alaura suspiciously as he positioned himself, getting ready to do battle. He had never seen such an expression come from Alaura.

Coach Boomer shouted down at the arena, "Decem, Hot-head, you kids ready yet?"

Alaura smiled and gave him a "thumbs up". "Okay, Coach, we're ready."

"Hurry up already, blind girl!" Lash whipped out from the other side of the room.

Alaura frowned at them. She turned to face the audience. "Everyone," she said, sending her voice all throughout the room collecting the attention of all the students. "I'm very sorry for what's going to happen next." While still facing her audience she said to Coach Boomer, "Please resume."

As confused as everyone else he started the match. "Start!" he shouted and blew his whistle.

"Finally!" Speed exclaimed, running full force toward Warren.

"Before he was able to even get near Warren, Alaura, out of thin air, intercepted him and kicked him square in the face with a quick, flawless, snap of her legs. Recoiling, Speed flew back, crashing in to Lash, whose body stretched agonizingly at the force.

"You're opponent for this round is me!" Alaura said, her calm and collected pose was completely shattered and replaced by a powerful fighting stance.

"You! You're going to regret that!" Speed threatened, pointing his blunt finger at her.

Alaura beamed a malicious grin on her innocent face. She stood straight up, breaking out her fighting stance, as if the rest of the match was of no importance to her. When the two goons were just a few feet away from her, Alaura unleashed the fullness of her mighty power that no one had expected.

Lash and Speed stopped in mid-charge and fell to the ground covering their ears. Everybody in the audience crouched down, cringing in a feeble position, also covering their ears. Even the students and teachers in nearby classes stopped in the middle of class and covered their ears in pain as Alaura pulse an intensely high frequency through the school. The students and teachers and especially Lash and Speed screamed at the pain that threatened to implode their brains. Some even felt so pushed towards the edge of insanity and started to tug at their own ears.

Only Alaura and Warren were unaffected. Alaura stood erect; rendering her opponents useless while using every bit of energy she had left to concentrate a barrier of peace around Warren from her forceful blast. At last, Warren made it to the citizen and saved the doll within thirty seconds from the start of the battle.

When Alice heard the bell indicating the victory of the heroes, the erratically disturbing sound waves stopped and everyone collapsed. Every muscle in their body limp as their brain fried in their heads.

Warren looked over at Alaura, suspecting she did something. During his leisurely walk toward the doll he heard nothing. There was absolutely no sound around him. Now that Alaura had let down the barrier around him, he noticed his fellow schoolmates all wincing with pain.

He shifted his attention at the score board as Alaura stomped over to him. "Thirty point zero-four seconds. That's not bad," Warren commented.

"Took you long enough," Alaura complained for the first time. "It took me five seconds to walk over."

Warren glanced down at Alaura now standing next to him, with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her sudden remark about him being too slow astonished him. He looked around. "What happened here? What did you do, Alaura?"

"Well, you were lucky. At the force I spent I could only prevent you from the attack. Everyone else was affected. Those two especially, since the attack was targeted towards them," she said, pointing at Lash and Speed, their bodies stiff and still on the ground. "If they are lucky, they might recover."

Coach Boomer's head finally felt right on his head, except for the spinning of the room and the incurable ringing in his ears. Out of habit, he felt the need to get his class back in order and opened his mouth to shout out a command. But with his hearing impaired he unleashed a booming sound through the school. He closed his mouth as he realized he was deafening his students and the rest of the faculty even further.

It took well over the next two periods for those heavily affected by Alaura's pulsated wave to recover. Principal Powers declared the rest of the school day off and students that felt well enough to walk left for home. She, Coach Boomer, and Professor Medulla left unnoticed once they had their own hearing back. Nurse Spex and Alaura checked the students' ears to make sure that their eardrums hadn't ripped out.

Soon all the students have evacuated the school, leaving their daytime nightmare behind. Warren waited patiently at the exit of the auditorium where Alaura checked on another large batch of students as Nurse Spex covered the students and teachers in the gym. When she had finally finished and the room had cleared out, she hopped to where he stood.

"Thanks for waiting. Do you feel better now that you are the new holder of the fastest record ever in the history of Save-the-Citizen?"

"Not really. I didn't get any glory," he joked. Since there was no one around, he lowered his angry guard and lowered his head so that he looked eye-to-eye with Alaura at a familiar distance.

"But you can thoroughly say that you've tortured your classmates."

"No," he said softly. "You did that."

"Yes, but you're the one that had to take his merry time walking over to the citizen."

Warren pushed her head to the side teasingly, and smiled his strikingly beautiful smile. "Let's go," he said, prepared to lead the way when Principal Powers stopped them.

"Miss Decem, please come with me," she said just a little too loud. "If you would like, Mr. Peace may come along."

Alaura shifted her head towards Warren knowing what this was about.

"It's fine. I'm in no hurry anyways," he said and followed after Alaura as Principal Powers led the way to her spacious office.

The Coach and Professor Medulla were waiting patiently there. Professor Medulla sat down at a chair watching Alaura warily as she walked to Principal Powers' desk. Coach Boomer paced around the room with his pinky stuck in his ear trying to stop the ringing.

Alaura stood at the center of the wide room that smelled like orchids with Warren only a few steps away. She apologized again for the trouble she had caused.

"That's fine, but it's not why I called you here," their Principal said. She seemed slightly on edge. "When you took the Power Placement Test with Coach Boomer you were told to display your powers. I was standing there was witness. What you showed us today was nothing like what you displayed at that time."

"My instructions were to show my powers. I was never told to what extent," Alaura debated calmly.

"Well, that is true," Principal Powers admitted. "But we're not here to pick at past mistakes on anyone's part." She stood up from her seat. "Coach Boomer and Professor Medulla are here to say that you are to be moved to Hero Class."

"With all due respect, Prince Powers, Coach, and Professor, but I do not wish to be transferred to Hero Class. I like Hero Support and I think it's much too late for me to start now. I can never catch up to the current criteria."

"I'm sure Mr. Peace, here, wouldn't mind tutoring you. You two do get along exceptionally well, and he's one of the highest scoring honor students in Hero Class."

"I don' think Warren would be comfortable with those adjustments."

"Hot-head?" Coach Boomer asked a little too loudly still, "What about it? Would you like to help the little lady with her school work?"

"I don't mind," he said halfheartedly.

Alaura stood still, flabbergasted at his willingness.

"I just have one condition," Warren continued, stepping up to where Alaura stood.

"And what might that be?" Professor Medulla asked, half interested. Teenagers always came with conditions.

"Is it possible that we can share all our classes together? I think it'll help if I know exactly what was taught to her," he said with an air of professionalism he didn't think he could muster up.

"Fine then," Principal Powers said a little reluctant, never has she encountered a student with those conditions. Usually kids acted that their detentions are waived for the rest of the year, or something along those lines. "I'll make the adjustments. Now, as for the presence of Professor Medulla, I'm sure he would like to explain himself."

The mad science teacher stood up and started to pace and speak with his proud talk. "I'd like to study Miss Alaura Decem's power just a little more. It's nothing like I've ever seen. The power to see in the dark, see beyond the human eye, see within the human body. You're almost like a military weapon walking and living amongst us! I would like to study it – you, and maybe help you understand more of what your abilities are."

Upon hearing his words, Alaura made a pained face of disapproval. "Thank you for your considerations, but I know very well what my power is and how to control it. And I'm afraid that if I demonstrate my power anymore you might lose your hearing among other attributes of humanity that you may need." She added the last bit darkly as a threat to ward off anymore of the mad scientist's advances.

"Well, I didn't think of it like that," he said, fumbling over his words and touching his ears. "I'll immediately start to work on a sound proof experiment lab that should be able to contain your powers. Once I'm finished, I'll contact you again."

"So we're done here," Principal Powers wrapped it up, sensing the tense atmosphere her colleague managed to absentmindedly effectuate. "Miss Decem, you'll receive your new schedule tomorrow. Come to my office before class starts. Have a nice day."

"Thank you," Alaura said and left the room with Warren. Once they were on the other side of the closed door Alaura said quietly, "You didn't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Volunteer to help me. I liked Hero Support, and I still do," Alaura said, just a little angry.

Warren smirked. He had gotten to see many more emotions from Alaura than he would have seen otherwise. "What's wrong with Hero Class?"

Alaura didn't answer and just kept walking ahead.

"Come on," Warren said when they walked out the school building. "You hungry? I know this great place and we'll get good seats. You might have heard of it, the Paper Lantern?"

"I am very hungry," Alaura said, letting out a lethargic sigh, "but I'm not sure I feel comfortable in a crowded restaurant."

"Well, if you don't like the crowd we can eat in the kitchen," Warren told her while he opened her car door for her.

She slipped in awkwardly; it was her first time riding in a car. "Can you do that?"

"Sure," he said as he got in his side and started the engine. "Yeah, my family runs the restaurant. I actually live there too. So it's not a problem at all. I'll just say you're a friend and they'll let you in." He slowly pulled out of the parking lot and took off at the off ramp at the edge of the school.

The car transformed into a vehicle with wings and sailed effortlessly in the air.

"You never said anything about going to your home to tutor me. And how do you know I would need any tutoring at all? I'm not that dumb. I simply said that I couldn't keep up in Hero Class to avoid transfer."

"Oh, I'm sure you're going to need tutoring. Plus, it's a good thing you live on South Avenue. I can drop you off at your house if it gets too late."

"You can't get to my house with a car. Perhaps with a bicycle might it be possible."

Warren laughed. "You think I'm going to ride a bike?"

"Or we can just walk," Alaura said. "That seems much more agreeable to me. Wouldn't you say?"

As she went on describing the pros of walking, Warren couldn't help but smile.