Saint Joseph School

Michael checked the contents of his wallet for the twelfth time in five minutes. Yep, it was all still there. He was going to have to hold back on his weekly trip to the power enhancement labs at Deimos, but Michael figured it was worth it. Or, at least he hoped.

"Ok, this isn't hard. You've faced some of the toughest villains in the city. You can do this."

He straightened his clothes again, and paused, closed hand poised in front of the door to Quad One. He held his breath, looked left and right to make sure the hall was empty, and rapped on the door lightly with the back of his fist.

Francis looked up from her book. The knocking had almost been too soft to hear but she was waiting...and waiting for a long time always makes everything louder.

She got up, smoothed her skirt, tucked back a few stray locks, and strode to the door.

The door swung open.

"Hi Mis!"

For once, the cheer was not forced.

He paused, then the first thing he said rolled out of his mouth.

"I'm here?"

Genius. Michael Corde, you are a genius. She never could have figured that out for herself. He absently blamed it on the Monkey Gas from last night's missions. Damn Rikti.

"Are you sure?" she replied, with a laugh. Frankie retucked that errant strand of hair again.

"Well...yeah, I'm sure." He allowed himself a smile, as he craned an arm backwards to massage his neck. Michael felt as though he were completely in over his head. Laugh in the face of danger, flee in the face of a lunch date!

Frankie looked at him expectantly; he realized he'd been standing there for awhile. He broke the awkward moment with a smile-punctuated sigh.

"Let's start over. So...do you know of a nice place to eat? Because I was supposed to meet this really hot girl here, right? Her name's Frankie. have you seen her?"

"Franky? Hmm...nope...never heard of her. But say, you're cute..you can take me out." She smiled, Misericorde's nervousness made her feel a little less self-conscious.

"So, there's this really great place that does Indian food in Steel Canyon. Sound ok to you? The Chicken Tikka Masala is absolutely to die for."

She toyed with her hair again.

Michael grabs her hand, leading her downstairs to the common area, as he talks.

"Indian would be great, I went there once, when I was a kid, right? We were hunting this mas...well, anyway."

He slows down for moment, realizing he's practically dragging Frankie along to the tram station. So used to the time constraints of missions...get there, now! Hurry, save the hostages! Don't let them escape! He waits carefully, slowly measuring out his steps so that she can catch up.

"I like Vindaloo, that stuff with the potatoes in it? And that "naan" bread or whatever it's called is awesome..."

Frankie smiles, nodding in agreement. Nothing false about that smile, and he's certainly not used to it. He just feels that he is so bad at...at...being normal.

She gives his hand a quick squeeze, and Michael realizes that he hadn't released hers yet. The sun is out today, and there are so many birds... a million dandelions have sprung up in the lawn of the School, despite Scruffy's best efforts.

Maybe today, just for today, Michael Corde can be a teenager, just this once? He begs silently for just this one afternoon, and he'll give up all the rest, if this one piece of the world could be his for one afternon.

He catches her looking at him, and smiles.

"Thanks for giving me a chance, Francis."

"Heh...no problem, Mis. Besides, by the sounds of the rumors I hear flying around this school, I need to get out more. That, and hopefully I can get over to one of those tech stores and get a new part for Annie's translator. I think she went from 80's last week to somewhere around late 90's chat speak. If I hear her actually say LOL one more time I'm going to personally break that thing."

She suddenly looked nervous. She hadn't mentioned to Mis that she hadn't been on a real date. She'd been to the school dances alright, but she felt out of place and unsure of herself. The fact that she actually liked Misericorde and he seemed to actually be paying attention to her did little to calm her teenage nerves. Damn it all....being the withdrawn goth with creepy magic tendencies hadn't prepared her for this!

"So ummm....what's been up with you lately? And where in creation did you get the idea for that cheer routine?"

"Sounds good...Cooke's is having a sale today, I heard. Plus, I've got some decent salvage to trade in anyway."

He stops, thinking for a moment, absently tapping at his pursed lips with a finger.

"As for what I've been up to...huh. School and fighting crime, really. Not really much in the way of a social life, but working on it...slowly. I head over to Pocket D sometimes, with some of the other kids." He offers a smile, cautiously.

"Also, Stasi and I practiced on that cheer a bit. I did a lot of research on it, because I thought everyone else was gonna do something similar! It's just an old cheer from before the Rikti Invasion. Found it tucked inside an old yearbook, actually."

Franky smiled. "So what's the deal with you and Stasi, anyway?" She hand't really meant to ask that; it just sort of came out there. Franky figured she might've just ended the afternoon right there, but Michael laughed, instead.

"Ha, yeah. We're friends, you know? I asked her to help me out, and she did; because I didn't know anyone else, really. She tried really hard, even though her heart wasn't into it, so...yeah. That was very cool of her."

Michael paused, uncertainly, then grinned, cautiously placing a hand in the small of Franky's back for a moment to steer her towards the tram again. "We better keep walking, or we'll never get there!"

He was still completely out of his element; certainly not used to getting all the attention that he had been in the past several weeks. Michael usually didn't know how to respond; more importantly, he wasn't sure how to say, "not interested."

Even worse, he wasn't sure how to tell Franky he was interested.

He quickly derailed his own train of thought. "So, everyone seems to be making a big deal about the whole cheerleading thing...what's the deal?"

Francis couldn't remember a day when she had smiled so much as this breezy, innocuous, afternoon. She started up the tram walkway and replied, " Oh yeah, great story that one. It all started when I transferred here as a Sophomore from my old school. No matter what I did the only friend I seemed to be able to hang on to was Jasmine, the really freaky Hell's Angel who was chewing gum and calling upon demonic powers next me to at try-outs. Well, anyway, she and I kinda started hanging out and getting in trouble and all that when Conrads came along to give us the "ole speech". Unfortunately, he ended the little talk with Jas and I with something about getting involved with the School Spirit of SJS."

Francis chuckled nervously, "And, well, that's when Jas got the idea we should, ummm...torch all the popular girls. You know, to preserve the 'real' school spirit and somehow that devolved into planning a complete coup against the giggly cheersquad."

She glanced down and Misericorde. " So against all that is right and correct in this world, I became head cheerleader....and so the SJS Flying Cheerleaders has begun....although I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into. I'm glad you guys tried out though...it was a great routine and I've never seen Jasmine laugh so hard in my life....except maybe that time when...."

Francis cut herself off. "Oh look, the tram's early today!"

Michael waited for the tram doors to open, absently, after they spent a couple of seconds deciding the best station to make their stop at. Any hero in Paragon City learned the tram system map pretty quickly.

"Mr. Conrads? I think I end up meeting with him more than any kid here at Saint Joe's. Not really his decision; the state is very strict about counseling for juveniles. Every time I go up a Security Level, he has to counsel me! That's like...well...almost once a day? Every other day?"

He gives Franky a quick nudge in the ribs with his elbow.

"He even told me to work on my social interactions with other students. Guess he must be an alright counselor, if his advice gets me a date with the...head cheerleader," Michael finishes with a chuckle.

Franky punches him in the shoulder, then sticks out her tongue, making a sour face. "Hush, you jerk. All aboard!" The tram had arrived, and he hadn't even noticed. Michael allowed her to select the seats, inevitably near the back of the tram.

As they sit, he stares at the floor for a moment. It is impeccably clean. How do they do that? Franky looks down at the floor, puzzled, then out the window of the tram, as they speed along towards the war wall.

"So," he begins, "where did you transfer from? I'm from Cincinnati...uh..well, most recently, anyway. After the incident and all."

Francis shifts in the uncomfortable plastic seat.

"Ummm, Salamanca actually. I was going to Upper Croatoa Academy when the whole superhero thing hit. My folks decided to ship me off and then well, Croatoa kinda went to hell in a handbasket after that. I try to get back there every now and again to try and get a handle on things but wow...the place is a mess."

Francis eyed Misericorde cautiously. She was used to people not taking to her appearance all that well...then again...the whole goth thing was supposed to do that. People were afraid of goths, thought they were evil and practiced witchcraft...ok, so the last part was right, still. However, Francis imagined that Mis had seen worse out there than a pink haired cheerleader with a magic induced social complex.

"Cincinnati huh? Heh...so what did you do to get transferred to SJS? I mean, *whispers* I burnt down the house. How about you? Any embarrassing stories about super powers to tell?"

"Me? I'm surprised you hadn't heard." He lowered his voice, and leaned in conspiratorially. "I, uh...well. Simplified story, I'm a ward of the state. I...uh...I...uh, kind of unwillingly belonged to a group who hunted down supernatural critters, mostly serial killers and slashers, monsters and stuff."

He stared at the floor for a few seconds, wondering if he could sink any lower in the plastic seat. Perhaps sink through it and hide. Michael needed to get it out, now, so that she knew who..no, what she was dealing with. He chewed his lip absently, then quickly muttered. "Of course, we uh...we didn't arrest them. We killed them."

He let out a long sigh, then glanced over to her, studying her face.

Francis' face was passive. "Wow."

Her face betrayed no disgust or anger, no fear or loathing. "When I was a sophomore I got messed up with this Vakzilok plot that ended up going down kinda badly. I think I spent almost a week in the infirmary after that. But it's good though, reminds you you're human."

She rested a relaxed hand on Misericorde's knee. "Hey Mis," she said, ducking her head; trying to make eye contact. "It's ok, I've seen enough stuff out there to know that there's alot worse I haven't seen. Just keep your head above water ok?"

"Monsters, huh.....anything cool?" Her nose wrinkled in a smile.

As quickly as the moment overtook him, it passed, with an infectious grin.

"Monsters! Oh, man. Uh...I went after a few slashers, you know? Once I went, uh...freelance, and all. Last year, there was this slasher who was offing Anime kids at some Sci-Fi convention! So I went undercover, and it turns out it was some crazy catgirl android thing that some perv had made in his basement!"

Michael starts giggling, resting his head on the seat in front of him. He's got the giggles bad, and Franky can't resist laughing along with him.

"She was...she went nuts, right in the main convention room, and we were duking it out! Claws everywhere, fur flying, she's hissing and spitting, and all these kids are down there clapping, like it's a show! So I tag her good, right? And she flees up an elevator shaft! And then..."

He pauses to catch his breath, "...then she ends up jumping on my shoulders, and tackling me out of like, a twentieth story window! We landed on top of a cop car, and of course, by then, the media was there...so it was me plummeting out of a hotel window with a catgirl on my head...I had to finish her off with a nightstick one of the cops threw me from the crowd!"

He shakes his head, smiling. "At least nothing like that has happened recently...hey, looks like we're coming up on our stop. Wanna hit Cooke's Electronics first?"

"Oh yeah, sure."

They stepped off the tram into Steel Canyon. The faded blue hues that normally permeated the area were still bright in the early afternoon sun. It wasn't far to the Tech Store but Francis found the short walk to be too short. In fact, she seemed to be losing all sense of time completely.

"I've never been to an anime convention, I think the closest I ever got to really watching it was somewhere between Vampire Hunter D and Demon City Shinjuku. After that it all seemed like big eyes, cat girls, and huge boobs. But the idea of actually fighting off an evil catgirl almost makes me want to drag Faster to the big one in Talos next year."

She laughed at the imagery. "I can see it now, Faster on one side of a pasteboard booth, anime fanboys on the other....let the horror ensue! He he he he...I could always say she's Nuku Nuku."

The stepped into the store followed by a hollow, metallic ding. The clerk looked at the two of them with mild disdain common among retail clerks. But tech store's were not Francis' specialty and the more time it took her to look for the part the more frusterated she got. Eventually, it ended with her announcing she was hungry and promptly leaving. They hit the streets of Steel Canyon again with the promise to return to the tech stores after lunch.

Francis smiled as she looked over at Misericorde. At first it was a sweet smile, then her eyebrows pinched, then the smiled faded into an expression of confusion.

"Hey Mis....what's that?"

"Hey Mis..what's that?"

Confused, he turns, his jaw dropping in amazement as the giant shadow passes over them.

"It looks like a...DUCK!"

It was a duck. A two hundred foot tall duck. "Duck Soup" (He'd heard the Pad Thai was pretty good there) was having it's grand opening, and had spent quite a bit of money on the event...to include a giant mylar Duck Balloon two hundred feet tall outside the venue. It had drawn a lot of attention, a lot of crowds...and some Outcasts, intending to make off with cash, valuables, and perhaps a few VIPs.

In an effort to make a grand entrance, one of the Scorchers had melted a hole in the balloon, causing it to fall across the street...and towards Franky and Michael. A bystander screamed.

Reacting quickly, Michael tackled Franky to the ground, shielding her with his body instinctively. The world went dark for a moment, and he braced himself. The balloon didn't look heavy, but there was a lot of material, and it could add up quickly, possibly smothering anyone trapped beneath. He screwed his eyes shut...

...and then the world was lit again, with an eerie blue light. Franky had encased them in one of her lightning cages; holding the heavy material with her will alone. The light illuminated their faces; the collapsed balloon and crackle of the tesla cage sealing them off from the world for a moment.

His heart sang in his ears as the adrenaline kicked him into overdrive. Tangled with Franky as he was, their eyes met. So close to her, he denied himself of the touch of another person for so long...the sweet scent of her was overwhelming. He could not lose this moment. Would not.

He kissed her, with the weight of the moment upon them.