26Bones
By Mandya1313
Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High
Summary: Grace's element wasn't fire, water, earth, or air. It wasn't being the center of attention or having none at all. He element was around her friends and with her stepbrother. But this all gets thrown out of whack when she loses her hair tie.
Chapter 1: Meet the Archers, the Friends, and the Neighbors
If asked about my family I would just groan. See the history of my birth isn't that complicated. My mother, Annabelle Carver at the time, had a one night stand with my father, the super villain Skull. At that same time she was dating a recently divorced Mark Archer who had his own son from the marriage, Brian. Mark over looked my mother's one slip up and married her shortly after I was born.
But when you add all the titles it becomes more complicated then it really is. Mark is my stepfather. Brian is my stepbrother. Steven is my twelve-year-old half brother. Skull is my birth father. Then you add in the complication that my mother is a civilian who some how dated/fucked two supers. Of course add in the drama of my mother getting disowned by her living father while being cursed at by him saying her mother would roll in her grave is she knew of Annabelle's dating of a super. And I can't forget the fact that Mark's sister Lyn has tried to kill our family before, reasons unknown to me and irrelevant to this current story. Oh yeah, I almost forget to mention the drama Mark's ex-wife caused along with his parents at the wedding.
Needless to say I don't like going into the politics that created my family or my home life.
But with it being near midnight and my powers keeping me awake I don't have anything else to distract me from my thoughts of Arson. So I begin to think about my family, my ex-boyfriend that no one else knew about, and myself.
Mark is a tall, thin, lanky redheaded man with strong features and a strait nose who was gifted with super-reflexes. Personally I like his middle sister's powers better, since she can talk to animals. Linda Williams is one of the few members of Mark's family that still talk to us the only other members being her daughter and husband.
Brian takes after his dad in the way of looks except he keeps his flame red hair pulled back in a low pony tail since it reaches his mid back where as Mark's is short and showing a few grays in his sideburns. Brian is also the same height as his father, standing at six foot flat. Build though is also a difference. Brian is well muscled since both of us practice free running on a regular basis. In the way of powers though Brian has his Aunt's powers to a T.
Steven is twelve and an attention whore. He is good at getting attention and holding it. So far he has yet to develop powers that I know of but some reason I think he is going to take after Jean, Mark's mother, and control air currents. Why I'm not sure but it just seems that way. On another note by little brother and I have a strange relationship: I hate him and he hates me yet I'd take a built for him and he always comes to me for advice on anything.
The there is my mom. Annabelle Archer is the civilian and not so average housewife of the family. My mom was born in England and moved to Cobalt after she graduated from collage. Sometime after she met Markus and the rest is history. But my mother is the only one in our family with a real degree on either side. To top it off it is a degree in Architecture. My mother first met Mark when she designed his first house when he lived with his ex-wife. Somehow love blossomed and then Mark divorced her and married my mom. My mother retired from building houses for people with powers to being a housewife living on the support of her lawyer husband. Needless to say my family has a good amount of money tucked under our belts.
Lastly there is me. Do to mixed traits from my dark blonde father and light brown haired mother I have disgusting dark dirty blonde hair. My eyes are a very light blue, just like my fathers, so I wear dark blue contacts to even out the light intake through my eyes. Unlike the rest of my family who has either tan (Mom and Steven) or pale (Brian and Mark) skin I have cream skin, (hate being repetitive) again like my father. To add to my list of things that make me look like my father I'm tall for my age standing at 5'8" where as my mother's family consist of short people, I have a birthmark on the back of my right hand shaped like a rose cross, and unlike the rest of my family I do not have freckles on my body. I hate my father if you're wondering.
With out further distractions I begin to drift backwards in my memories, back towards Arson. Letting a low growl escape my throat I left the window ceil and sat at my computer desk. My room was small and right next to my parents' room but I didn't care much, I was always awake anyway.
See my power is bone manipulation. I can bend, reshape, and torture my skeletal structure. My favorite things that I can do are using the bones in my fingers as bullets and pulling out my spinal column and using it as a staff. Yes, I rip my bones out of my body; No, it does not hurt. The reason behind the whole 'not hurting' part would be the same chemicals in my body that keep me awake twenty-four seven. Adrenalin is one of these chemicals along with several others that I can't remember off the top of my head.
The 'not sleeping' and 'not hurting' are two side effect powers/abilities that happened because of my original power of manipulating my bone structure. Another extra thing that was added because of ripping my bones from my body was my healing effect. My body heals overly fast to the extent that two broken legs can heal in five minutes and I wouldn't of felt a thing. Because of this I can't get sick either. There are a few other odd things that my power(s) allow me to do but those are the most obvious ones.
Don't get me wrong I can die. Not easily but I can. Acid can eat away my skin and organs faster then I can heal unless I can get the substance off. A bullet to my brain (if it can penetrate my steal hard skull) could kill me. Fire can, sometimes, burn me faster then I can heal. And I can die of blood loss, starvation, dehydration, and a few other natural means. These aren't all the ways to kill me but just ones that I know of off the top of my head.
Looking at the clock on my computer desk I groaned again. It was only three a.m. on a Saturday morning. One week before Brian and I will have to attend our first day at Sky High. Brian would attend the floating school as a senior and myself as a sophomore.
Dismissing the thought I opened my email.
…You left us. I read what the first message that was from my friend Jason. Do you realize how much of a pain it is to go through out the day not touching anyone? I have to constantly be careful now. And to top it off they're trying to get us to let a physic wipe our minds of you guys.
They think that ya'll are in danger. I don't understand. Grace you need to come back to Cobalt and explain what the Hell is going on. Katie is in tears. Ryan and Chris haven't been seen since we found out you and Brian had left. I hate you. I FUCKIN' HATE YOU!
The message was pretty clear. My friends were scared and Jason was knee deep in major emotional shit. I guess I should explain them as well. Starting with Jason. Jason Onyx was (is?) my best friend and if I had not been dating Arson (I can't think about him!) possible boyfriend material. He has powers like Brian and I but his are more dangerouse then either one of ours. Have you ever heard of Wither, from the X-men comic book series? Well both Jason and the fictional Kevin Ford have the same powers. Anything they touch decays.
Yes, Jason wears a power dampener but he has to wait two more years until he is eighteen so that he can have his powers shut off. I honestly think that there should be exceptions to the Shut Off Decree. The decree given by the USBS (United States Board of Supers) states that no one under the age eight teen can have their powers shut off. Jason is only sixteen. Sometimes Jason would take the power dampener off he would describe the feeling as 'something restraining part of your mind.' During this time he could touch me because my skin would heal in seconds.
Not all of my friends are supers though. Just Jason and Katie are. Katie is actually Brian's girlfriend he had to break up with on short notice. She controls pheromones and according to my old group of friend's resident writer 'an unwilling marry-sue' whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. See Katie is the shy bookish brunet that you rarely notice in your math class with the small chest and 'cute' appearance.
Ryan and Chris are twins and non-supers who Brian and I grew up down the street from. They were two years younger then Brian and a year older then me but the Hutchinson boys were better then no playmates. Ryan actually was the one who stole my first kiss when I was seven; I've got a picture to prove it. Against common sense both Brian and I stayed friends with the boys until we were in high school.
It was just the four of us at the beginning of my freshmen year. Brian was already a junior, Ryan and Chris were sophomores, and I was a freshmen. Then I met another junior, Katie, in my PE class. She and Brian hit it off right quick and when she found out about Brian's powers she began to show her powers a little. By that time the black haired devil twins had found out about our powers. At first both males had been mad since they had known us for years and we had not told them about us being supers but eventually they got over it.
Until about halfway through last year it was the five of us. Katie and Brian dating while Ryan, Chris, and I entertained ourselves. Of course I got into a fight with a fellow freshman transfer student. This student would have been Jason Onyx. I destroyed his power dampener in the fight and his powers reacted when I pouched him. There were a lot of memories modified to erase the decomposed flesh of my hand fixing itself from the minds of the student body.
The next day Jason sat beside me at our lunch table.
I smiled at the memory while I deleted the message. Quickly the smiled fell after I pressed the left mouse key. I was not aloud to keep in contact with any of my friends, Arson, or anyone…
…
…
"I hate my life," I groaned out before deleting the email address entirely and creating a new one. would be what I was giving out to whoever became my new 'friends.' I spent the rest of the morning creating new accounts on sites that I was a member of and transferring my photo album from my flash drive to my computer.
Later that day Brian and I were running around Maxville trying to find something interesting.
We had gone out and got hair cuts earlier and had been seeking a source of entertainment. Where Brian just got a trim I was going to completely whack my shoulder length mess of hair off. I needed a new identity so to say, after I lost my hair tie a week ago. My dirty blonde hair was now dyed black, cut, and spiked in a pixy cut fashion. Arson would probably shout something along the lines of 'What the hell?!' if he were to see it.
"I really don't like this place," Brian said looking around at all of the houses. "It is too peaceful. Anyone of these houses could contain someone like us and we would never know it."
"And Cobalt was any different?" I questioned before I began running. With a second nature instinct my brother fallowed my example in the same heartbeat. "We lived next to the NightWing remember? What about Jason, hmmm? His dad was a super-villain remember? Katie's mother was an empath too remember?"
Brian scowled at the ground, "That's different."
Before long we were running down our street towards our house. Fate would have it that I would win the race home but fate also forgets that I have a conscious. My thankfulness toward my healing effect is proof of this fact. So when Brian ran headlong into some short brown haired dude I stopped running.
My eyes narrowed when I saw the kid wasn't very dazed while my brother was on his back. "Super strength or invulnerability," I muttered looking at the back of the brown haired male. The boy was my age and a few inches shorter then me. "Stronghold," I said in acknowledgement. "It's been awhile."
"Brian, Grace?" Will Stronghold looked back between my brother and me before he pulled Brian to his feet. "What are you two doing here- I mean um…"
I laughed slightly. Will was odd from what I had seen, "We moved in down the road. Forgot you live around here."
"Oh yeah, you're dating my cousin now aren't you?" Brian gave Will 'the eye'. It was a known fact that Brian was protective of Layla since he spent many vacations with her family. I was there too of course since Layla and I had been babies together and my mother and hers had become good friends.
"Umm…"
And I just laughed. I knew full well why Mom and Mark had moved us here. With the Commander, Jetstream, and Whisper just down the road and then who knows what else my father was less likely to make a move in broad daylight.
This didn't make me any happier though. I missed Arson, Jason, Katie, and everyone else too much.
A/n: I have the family tree drawn out now. It isn't complicated at all. God simple… I love it. - Pulse the house layout is done and actually good for once. Yes I am very happy with how this story is turning out. Thank you to The Sand Demon's Fire Deomn and Fade to Blue for reviewing.