Part 2- Burdens

[Jaygo Jones]

Sister Mary stood at the front of the class reading a passage from 'The Taming of the Shrew' by Shakespeare. The room was mostly filled with upperclassmen, and a few of the more advanced sophomores. Jaygo yawned, trying to focus on the words in front of him. sleep was sparse last night, so much had been wrong at school the last few days, sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford. something was wrong. Someone had placed a letter on his bed, telling of his parents kidnapping. In a school filled with 'superheroes' that should never have happened. Andrew was clueless to anything as of late, his head filled with a certain green haired bug. His usual attentive classroom structure broken to sneak glances at Cricket, seated one row over and two chairs back.


Giggles in the back of the room stopped Sister Mary, ' Francis, Jasmine, is there something funny about this chapter that you should share with the class?' All heads turned to the back of the class, where two girls slunk down in their chairs under the weight of the nun's cold stare. 'No, sister.' Francis replied. ' Good, then maybe you two won't mind remaining to discuss Mr. Shakespeare's work after class.' Several of the other kids hid smiles, knowing that Sister Mary was likely to have them cleaning erasers. The small phone on the desk at the front of the class rang, again distracting the nun, who had just returned to her page. Sister Mary stood with the phone to her ear for a second, nodding and whispering a reply before placing the phone back on it's cradle. ' Jaygo, Mr. Conrads wants to talk you in his office.'


Closing his book, Jaygo stands and gathers his notepad and pen. He shoots Jasmine and Franky a smile. ' Enjoy detention ladies.' he whispers. ' I don't think Mr Conrads wanted you to stop and talk to every student you passed along the way, Mr. Jones.' Jaygo stiffens and walks out quickly before he can attract any more attention from ole 'molten toe'. The faculty offices were on the bottom floor of the administration building overlooking the courtyard. Conrads office was at the back of the building, a corner office with windows on two sides. None of the other staff members questioned him as he walked down the hall, it was a normal thing for Conrads to have students coming and going from his office. Today was different though outside Conrads office door were two Freedom Corp. security agents. Jaygo stopped for a second, remembering the last time he saw agents, when they took him back to jail. His approach slowed, the confident strut gone, replaced by uncertainty. 'Ah Jaygo, please come in.' Mr Conrads, his usual warm smile plastered across his face, motioned to an empty chair in his office. Once inside Jaygo noticed a rather stuffy looking man in a gray suit sitting in the corner, who, closing a folder rose and extended his hand to Jaygo.

'Jaygo, my name is Jim Ruthers, I'm a specialist with Freedom Corp.' Jaygo looked down at the offered hand as if it were a snake and, ignoring the outrage in Mr Ruthers face, sat in the empty chair. 'Jaygo, being rude isn't going to make this any easier.' Conrads says taking his seat behind the desk. ' Mr Ruthers is here on official business, and would like to ask you a few questions.' Jaygo shrugged, he didn't care about anything they had to tell him, besides, he was pretty sure he knew the reason as it was.

Ruthers clears his throat and leans forward ' Right, Jaygo I have some bad news for you. Your parents have gone missing.' He stopped for a second to let the news settle in. Seeing no reaction he continued. ' They were working for us on a very sensitive matter and were on the verge of a breakthrough when we stopped hearing from them' Jaygo's laugh stopped Ruthers, who didn't see the humor in the situation. ' So they are ignoring you now. Welcome to my life Mr. Ruthers.' Jaygo said, trying not to sound too jaded. 'Jaygo,' Ruthers presses on ' your parents have been kidnapped. their house was ransacked, we have no idea what might be missing. We need your help. we need to know who might want to harm your parents in any way.'

Jaygo's expression was serious for the first time ' Mr. Ruthers ,you've wasted your time coming to talk to me. I don't know who would want to hurt my parents, and honestly i don't care. I hate them. they have done nothing but make my life hell.' Ruthers face was flush with anger, this boy was the key to finding his parents and he didn't care. He stood, snatching his briefcase off the floor. ' Well Mr.Jones I wish you could be more reasonable, but I guess family ties mean nothing to you.' He flings the door open and storms out. ' Can you believe that guy.' Jaygo says turning back to Conrads.

'Jaygo, your parents are missing, this isn't a joke. you don't seem at all bothered by this. Is something going on I need to know about?' Conrads rubs the bridge of his nose, some of the students at St. Joseph School had had hard lives, and almost all of them seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. ' Something going on? you think? this school is falling apart. You would think a telepath would notice these things.' Jaygo's words were laced with venom, he might as well have hit Conrads, there was little worse he could have said. Conrads sat for a second. letting the welling anger subside before continuing. His heavy sigh loud in the quiet office. 'Jaygo, I know how you feel, I do. This is a tough time for everyone. Your life has been hard and it's going to get harder as you grow, but you really need to talk to someone that understands. I've seen some pretty bad things in my life too. I can help I know what your going through.

'WHAT!' Jaygo's outburst was sudden, he was on his feet in an instant. ' You know what it's like. How the hell could you possibly know what it's like to have this curse.' He lifted his hand and allowed the dark energies free, covering his clenching fist in swirling dark tendrils. ' This, you know this. I can put my hand through a solid steel door. I can tough the flames of hell with this and not get burned.' He allowed his hand to drift to the small flower pot on the window sill. He slowly caressed one of the budding flowers, while dark tendrils raced out and squeezed the unseen essence, wilting the flower away, leaving a withered husk behind. ' That. It's a constant fight to not let any of this power out. You understand though. I can stand in front of a bus and not get anything but dirty from the affair. But you understand. You don't know a damned thing. Mr Conrads, savior of refuse here at St. Joe's. I go out and try to make the world a better place. And you sit here asking me how i feel. If everything is OK. Why don't you go out and ask one of these gang bangers how they feel about killing some guy for the 2 dollars in his pocket. I'm sure they would love to stop and talk.You don't know anything.'

Jaygo strides to the door and looks back ' The time for talking is over Mr. Conrads. You had a chance to see things. Whatever may have happened, you missed it. Now it's time to do things my way. Heroes indeed. Maybe you should sit and redefine your job title Conrads, your not guiding a damn thing these days.' Jaygo slammed the door on the way out, leaving Conrads alone staring at the papers on his desk. He always hated when things got like that. it was hard enough to hold his powers in check as it was but when there was such an eruption of raw emotions it was almost impossible, Jaygo's outburst seeped anger and rage, while not the first time he had seen either, he was reminded of another problem. He opened a drawer on the desk and pulled out a work notebook. He opened it to a bookmarked page. Jaygo had no idea how right he was. there was defiantly something going on. picking up his pen he added Jaygo to a very short list of names. At the top of the page in scribbled writing were two words. 'Bell' and 'Boiler'


Jaygo opened the door to his room and stopped dead, the breath caught in his throat, neatly folded on his bed was another note. He stepped back for and looked around. Silence filled the halls. Everyone was in the city, as usual. The weekends were free time. Students were allowed to leave campus, provided they returned by curfew. Resolve returning Jaygo enters his room and continues with his preparations. Backpack, Camo pants, Dark green sweatshirt, boots, he had everything. Stuffing everything into the backpack he throws it over one shoulder and reached for the note, and shoves it into his pocket. Plenty of time to read it on the trams. He looks around one last time and smiles. This could reasonably be the last time he sees this room. He doesn't bother to close the door as he walks out.

[Jaygo Jones]

So a bit later than i wanted. it happens I guess. Bit dark at the end. drawing more of your stories into the web.This wasn't somthing I originally had intended to put into the story, but I had this scene in my head and I had to make it work. so a postponement of the things I wanted to write until part 3.

and for those included a bigger part.. time for some ensemble goodness

[Mimi]

I could use some ensemble goodness.

In fact, I could use a nice story about kittens or something. Man, we're getting dark.

Great story Jaygo, keep it coming!

[Thunder Cricket]

It's the servers....the server, I tell ya!

[November Bell]

I liked it.

[Annie Dromida]

Sorry I couldn't post my congrats sooner, but this last week has been all sorts of hectic, and the congratulations you deserve got lost in the shuffle.

Jaygo, this is wonderful work. You are doing such a great honor to all of us in this community for sharing this with us. You've done such a great job so far, and you've worked so hard to make sure that the characters are represented accurately.

Thank you for all the work you've done so far Jaygo. This adds so much to what we are doing here at St. Joes.