True Sidekick - *Sequel to Hero by Day

Chapter 19 - The Showdown

"There is no good and evil. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it."

~ Tom Marvolo Riddle (Lord Voldemort)

:Oliver:

The last day of testing is almost over and I'm starting to feel the effects.

I mean – normally someone in my position would be happy about finishing school. You get two and a half weeks off of unnaturally difficult tests and homework that are so hard that an astrophysicist couldn't do it, but there was more than that.

Aden's bully, Dylan Danvers, just turned out to be Inferno, the super villain hired to kill us both. Andromeda hadn't been seen in months and is apparently planning something big according to Agent Argent and Calico. Plus, Elise told me all about how Mary and her had a falling out. Something was seriously wrong with our friend, and we had no way of helping her.

I had a sinking suspicion that Elise thought Mary was under the influence of Andromeda, but that couldn't be possible, right? Andromeda had to be close to someone for that to happen, and we would know if Mary was hanging around a super villain, right?

It was all so confusing and I had no idea what to do. Weeks off of school meant time away from this drama, but it also meant spending time with my mother, who was becoming closer and closer to Chad Hunter, my new boss and proud Remedist.

I could barely be in a room with the guy anymore without wanting to blast him to pieces. He was rubbing off on my mom, making her believe that the supers were bad and that they should all be hoarded into concentration camps. Without his influence, she would still be my caring, hardworking mother, right?

The only good thing that Chad has brought is my mother's happiness. She may be a Remedist now, but she was finally happy with a guy. It made me feel horrible how I wanted them to break it off just so she could go back to how she was before, but even I remembered how she used to cry at night about missing dad. How could I let her go back to that?

Like I said before, it was all so confusing for me to sort through.

I had American History as my last period of the day, with Heather and Mary. I was done with my exam early, per usual. Heather was nervously biting the edge of her eraser, scrunching her eyebrows at a question on her paper. Mary was . . . not herself.

Normally Mary would flourish during exam week, baking cookies for nervous students and charming teachers. But, now? She looked like a wreck. She looked even worse than she has been usually. In fact, I was pretty sure she only answered a couple of questions on her exam before she gave up to put her head down. The old Mary would've finished faster than me, acing the test and getting all the extra credit right just to prove she could, not that she needed it.

I had been staring at the clock for thirty minutes when something finally happened. The fire alarm went off for a full five seconds before staying silent again. It was enough to knock Mary out of her slumber, and scare a couple of concentrated students.

Mrs. Lore looked up from her book, as confused as the rest of us. The fire alarms only went off on the first Wednesday of every month during third period for fire drills, never on testing week and never that short.

"Keep working, kids. Let me go check that out." Mrs. Lore said, zipping out of the room to go find an administrator to tell her what to do.

I knew that the short alarm meant someone had pulled the fire alarm and someone up at the office had called it off. But, for some reason, I had a feeling it wasn't just some scoundrel looking for a way to get out of his or her test.