Super Frost: Confessions of a Teenage Superhero
Chapter 15

When we were both in range of the school, I tried focusing on Tom’s thoughts to replace out what his plan was. I stopped mid air at the entrance of the pier that connected to the school grounds and closed my eyes. I maintained a hover while I searched for Tom’s thoughts. Finally, I got a lock on him. This is what I saw.

The room Tom stood in was dimly lit, and it had tanks and pipes running through it. It must have been the boiler room of the school, located next to the gym. It was also where the turbine chambers were. Those chambers were meant to keep the school afloat, but Tom had done something to it, for when I came to the bridge, the school was on the verge of flying above the city. Falcon High wasn’t meant to be a flying school, but it was specially cloaked from average civilians. Nobody would be able to see Metrocosma’s impending doom, the big educational building crashing down on the city.

What was much worse was where Tom’s allies were placing Jeremy. He was tied from the shoulders down to his ankles in titanium cords, and Jordan Hughes had a strong grip on him, placing him inside the airtight turbine chamber. The turbine chambers created airtight vortexes inside, which meant they would start sucking away oxygen when they turned on. Remy tried to say something, but his mouth was full, because of the bandanna someone gagged him with.

With him standing over the turbine and the chamber still open, Jordan stood back and Tom strode to him. When they were at eye level, Tom said, “I guess now we’re even.”

Remy said something, but it was muffled with the gag.

“I’m sorry, what?” Tom said. He untied and removed the gag so Jeremy could speak.

“We are not even,” Remy said. “You’re not even close. You lied to her anyway.”

“I just omitted a couple things,” Tom said.

“Like the time you grabbed a girl’s ass with your stretchy arm and pointed at me, acting like I did it when she turned around?” Jeremy said. “Or how about the time when you ruined my chance at asking Ashley to the dance when you stole her from me and I nearly burned the place down?”

“The key word was nearly,” Tom said. “Besides, it was only a small fire. You put it out just in time for the principal to see you. And man, did we laugh. But the good news is, we won’t be tormented by your firepower any longer. From inside this chamber, you won’t be able to control anything because all you’ll be thinking about is how much you’re going to miss your girlfriend and how you’re going to have your soul sucked out of you, literally.”

“I could break you in half if I wanted,” Remy said coldly. “Whatever you do, don’t hurt Violet or I will end you.”

“Oh, Remy,” Tom said. “I’ll end you first. And then I’ll kick Violet’s ass and make her bleed snow.”

A chill went up my spine when I heard Tom say it. Trying to hurt the boy I loved was one thing. But making me bleed snow? Oh, you will regret that, you monster.

Jeremy spat in his face after that comment. Tom wiped his face with a napkin someone handed him as he said, “Shut the door and start her up.”

Jordan shut the door on Remy as Wanda turned on the vortex. Remy tried holding his breath as the turbines turned on, but it was no use. He was suffocating. His arms couldn’t make fire to burn away anything because there was no oxygen. He tilted his head up and tried to take deep breaths, but he started gagging. It was only a short time until there was no more air to breathe in that container.

“Sweet dreams, Solar Fury,” Tom said. “Come on, let’s go back to the party and start the show, Mylana.”

My mouth fell open when I saw Tom taking Mylana’s hand and kissing her on her dark manicured fingers. She gave an evil smile. Then he put an arm around her and showed her out, with Jordan and Wanda following close behind.

“Keep a close watch on the room, would you?” Tom said to the other two kids. They stood on the outside of the boiler room as Remy choked.

At that moment, I came back to the pier where I was still hovering. The visions I saw in Tom’s mind stung my eyes as I yelled, “Son of a-!”

“You ok?” Alice said, still floating beside me.

My eyes were still stinging, but I concentrated on Alice to focus. “Mylana betrayed me,” I said. “That little slut, she’s gonna pay.”

“Mylana?” Alice repeated. “She’s the girl you were friends with in middle school, right? And you both go to Falcon together?”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’re gonna meet her soon. You’ll know when you see her.”

I winced in pain. I had never used my telepathic abilities at that great of a distance over a period of time before. The eye strain mixed with my headache centered around my eyebrows while also hitting me in the back of my head, ricocheting back to behind my eyebrows. I bent over and started sinking lower in the air.

“Are you ok?” Alice said, matching my height above the ground.

“I haven’t done that for a prolonged period of time,” I said, shaking my head. I blinked and looked back at her. “I’m all right. I just need to get closer to the school. We need to get into the building and signal the guys that something’s up at the ball, and it’s not good.”

“What do you think we should do?” Alice said.

I stood straight and launched myself higher. “I have an idea. Come on.”

When we got there, I could hear the dee jay talking to the crowd as everyone danced. “And now, for all you lovers to start this party off right, as we do with every year at the September Ball… Here’s good ol’ Jeff.”

I heard the opening guitar chords of a song my parents used to play all the time, for it reminded dad of his golden days at school. The song was actually older than me, as a matter of fact, my dad told me one time. The song was on an old album from the 1990s, with a British guy from Birmingham singing. He used to be in an old disco/ rock band from the 70s called Electric Light Orchestra, and he sang like a little old man and an almost Beatle. He had a very operatic voice when he sang. But the first words of the song fit well with the dance, days going shorter when September gets here. Good old Jeff from Birmingham.

We were standing outside the ballroom where we had just broke free from the ventilation system coming from the roof. The floor started to rumble because I knew that somehow, the school was going for a ride. No one paid it any mind and thought it was just a minor tremor from any submarines or construction work from outside. It was a slow transition to fly, but I knew this place wasn’t stable enough for flight. But no matter, I had to replace Glitch and the others.

Over by the punch at the buffet table, I spotted him. So I said telepathically, Glitch, it’s me. You guys are in danger. Tom’s planning something awful in the next few minutes.

Then I saw him turn around, going, “Wh-wh-who said that?”

It’s Violet, Glitch, I transmitted again. Turn around towards the door.

“W-what?” Glitch said as he whirled around. Then he saw me, still in my pajamas, peeking in through the doorway.

There you go, I said telepathically.

He got closer to the door, drink in hand. “What a-are y-you doing here?” he said.

I’m rescuing you, I thought. Listen, I don’t have much time, but I need you to replace Andy and Pat and try to evacuate everybody before it’s too late.

“W-why sh-should I listen to you?” he said.

Because you trust me, I said. And you know that Jeremy is also in mortal danger.

Glitch paused for a moment when he realized that he hadn’t heard from Jeremy since Friday night. It was kind of weird of him, he thought. I wanted to show him what Tom did to him, but I didn’t have that power or strength to show him what I saw. So he said, “F-fine, what do you want me to do?”

Get Andy and Pat together, I transmitted. And evacuate the school. You’ll replace Jeremy in the boiler room, inside one of the turbine vortex chambers keeping the school afloat. And replace a way to turn it off or turn it down before the school goes too high in the air when Tom prepares to crash it. I’ll create a distraction. Hurry.

Glitch then ran off in search of the other guys as I turned to Alice and said, “Can you help me do this?”

“Do what?” Alice said.

“We need a diversion for Tom when he gets up there to make his entrance,” I said. “We’ve got to distract him so he doesn’t think something’s up and we’re planning to save Jeremy. I need you to get in there when I signal you.”

“Wait, what signal?” she said.

“You’ll know it when you hear it,” I said. “Now, are you ready?”

“I don’t even know how to use my powers correctly. And I’m not even dressed for a dance like this! I don’t even go to this school!”

“Well, I spent the first week of school at Generic before I came here, and I turned out fine. Pretty soon, you’ll be joining me. So, on my signal, give him hell for me. Got it?”

Alice nodded.

“Now go.”

She left for the exit to the school as I sneaked into the ballroom when Tom pushed the dee jay aside and the record scratched. That was when the whole school started trembling and we started feeling the whole building coming apart from the pier and getting higher in the sky. As soon as people panicked, Tom grabbed a microphone and made his speech in front of the whole crowd, him standing on the platform next to the gym window.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Tom announced on the mic. “Please don’t leave, and don’t be afraid… I have a little announcement to make. You’re probably wondering why there’s a little bit of an ‘earthquake’ on the school grounds. But as the senior class president, I would like to announce that I’ve made a few changes to the school staff and its students. You see… I’ve lived my life as a happy child for the first few years of my life, until my parents were placed on a quadruple life sentence by some cheap ass heroes that punished them. I was left with no home at all. So when I was placed under foster care, I made it my mission… for revenge against all super advanced humans like me.”

The school rumbled again. Principal Rushman made her way to the platform to try to handle the situation, but instead, one of Tom’s friends, the kid with the power to climb walls, jumped up, grabbed the principal, and pinned her to the wall, spreading her arms and legs out on the wall with his super strong hands. The other kids gasped at this, looking at what Tom did to one of their chaperons. Some of the other popular kids also cornered the other teachers there, including the counselor Steven Crow, and pushed them against the wall.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Principal Rushman,” Tom said. “Now we can really get this party started… You see, I’ve lived among some really nasty kids when I was in foster care, and I didn’t learn about what my parents had been through until I was older. No one ever gave me what I wanted, which was a loving home with a good mom and dad, and now I have a plan to take down those who want to put people like us behind bars. This isn’t a punishment for what you have done, it’s mercy for those of you who’ve been through as much pain as I have. And now, my plan is almost complete. If you remember when Glitch disappeared and reappeared outside the school, I was only distracting everyone with the lockdown alarm and a teleporter in synch with Glitch’s powers, so I could make my adjustments to the turbine room. I have altered the turbines to go faster, so this school will go for a little trip into the atmosphere. When it comes down, everyone in Metrocosma, as well as all the superheroes in this school, will be obliterated. And then, here’s the best part, the only people left on this planet will be normal, average civilians. I somehow feel that you never gave any of these civilians a chance to see what they will become, but I’ll tell you, they should get a second chance… to be raised as villains.”

People shuddered and whispered in worried voices at the mention of this evil plan. So that’s what he was doing all this time. The party Tom held at Fiona’s house was a secret operation for all the popular kids to get together and take down the school. That’s why Mylana wanted to stay. It was all staged for me. This was not good.

“When I was experimented on by a secret organization that I signed up for when I was in middle school,” Tom continued. “I found that ordinary human beings can become extraordinary and do amazing things. So I ask all of you, if you wish to join me, then I’ll cut you a little slack and we’ll get off this flying rock together. I will spare your lives if you join me in our journey to create our league of villains and take down all the heroes. Who’s with me?”

No one stepped forward. I waited to give Alice the signal. But first, I needed to do something about the music. So I sent a message to the dee jay telepathically. I basically told him that on my signal, he needs to play some 90s music, but only when I told him to. I also looked around and found Glitch talking to Andy and Pat very quietly. I also gave them a telepathic message to go with my plan. They heard me loud and clear about what I was about to do. At that moment, when Tom wasn’t looking at the wall where our principal was chained to the wall by the “frog” guy, Glitch squatted down and disappeared, then reappeared on the wall, smacking the guy to the ground. A second later, Glitch had escaped with the principal in his arms, poof-ing in an instant. I knew then that my plan to stop Tom and his clique of popular bad guys was going to work wonders.

So I gave the dee jay the signal. Now, I shouted with my mind.

“No one wants to volunteer?” Tom said. “How disappointing.”

The dee jay silently put a record on, and got ready to interrupt Tom’s speech.

“Well now, ladies and gentlemen,” Tom continued. “I am going to have to kill every last one of you!”

At that moment, the record scratched and the speakers started playing one of my favorite songs from the 90s. Tom stopped and looked up and around, looking for the culprit who changed the music. He looked to his left and saw the deejay just standing there, crouched and terrified of what he was going to do to him.

“Where is that music coming from?” he bellowed at the dee jay.

That was where I came in.

“Yeeeeeah, here I go, here I go, here I go again, girls what’s my weakness? MEN!” I rapped with the song. “Ok, then, chillin, chillin! Mindin my business! You saw me look around and couldn’t believe this! I swear! I stared! My niece, my witness! The brother had it goin and it was somethin kinda… Ooh, wicked! Wicked! Had to kick it!”

“What the hell are you… DOING?!” Tom shouted.

“It’s a rap battle!” I said. I started dancing to the music like Salt N Pepa would do, while Glitch focused on getting those people out of there. The more I danced and rapped, the more Glitch popped in here and there, getting more people evacuated from the gym in twos. “Don’t know how you do that voodoo that you do so well! Cast a spell, hell, make me wanna shoop, shoop, shoop!”

“What the hell is this?” Tom shouted again.

“It’s a diversion!” I said. “What’s it look like to you? I’m distracting you, you dingbat!”

And right when Tom turned around, Alice came smashing through the top window of the gym, soaring through the air and punching him in the nose before landing next to me. By this point, Glitch had gotten just about everyone out of the room so we could fight this one together.

“What the hell?” Tom said as he got to his feet. He massaged his face from the punch before he added, “Your civilian girlfriend can fly?”

“And so can I,” I said, hovering, using my frost powers in my hands and feet. “Surprised? So are we.”

“Well, I guess this will be fun,” Tom said. “Be right back.”

When he ran away, Alice and I stopped hovering and looked at each other. “Ok, so he’s a coward,” I said.

“What was he running away for?” Alice said. “I thought he said he was going to blow up the school.”

“I know. But maybe that’s what he wants us to think. He’s probably going to distract us from disarming the bomb.”

“But how? He wouldn’t pick a fight with you; he’s your boyfriend.”

“Ex. Ex-boyfriend. And he wasn’t very nice to me or you on the phone when he hung up. He’s going to kill Jeremy just like he’ll do to the others, that’s what he said.”

“Ok, but I don’t see why he would try to kill you for that.”

Then out the window, Tom was running towards us, carrying something big.

“He’s running towards us,” I said. “He’s got something that would squash us both.”

“You don’t know that,” Alice said.

“No, look out the window that you just smashed!” I yelped.

Alice turned. Tom was carrying a school bus. A bus. Alice screamed, “He’s going to kill us!”

“Not if I can help it!” I said. “Put your arms up!”

“This is your idea?”

“We’ll take it together. Ready?”

Alice held her arms over her head. “No! I just got these powers!”

“Shut up! Do as I do! When it comes down, jump!”

Tom ran in through the broken window and threw the bus at us. The big yellow bus came rolling at us from his long, outstretched arms.

“NOW!” I screamed.

The bus was right over our heads when we both jumped. With our combined flight powers, the bus pushed off our hands and landed behind us where the entrance to the gym was. It wrecked part of the infrastructure. Thank god there were two doors to the gym. I was sure I would try to pay back the school with detention, if my teachers saw this.

Tom staggered in the room, broken pieces of glass scattered on the floor. “Well, I guess this is how it’s going to go. Just me versus you guys.”

“That’s exactly how it is,” I said. “See you in detention.”

“I’ll see you in hell,” Tom growled with his eyes darting up at me.

But before any of that could happen, I held my hand up and said, “Hey dee jay, give me a phat beat to beat my ex-boyfriend’s ass to!”

The dee jay, who was still there at his post, quivered and gave me a silent thumbs up. And then he played my favorite song, “Ooh La La” by Goldfrapp. First was the keyboard synth, then Alison Goldfrapp’s husky voice flooded the hall. God bless you, Alison and Will Gregory, you Brit pop duo you.

“Good song,” I said.

That was when the battle ensued, me and Alice charging ourselves at him.