The Good Villain

Chapter 12

"Failure is just part of the process of creating."
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The next day, Nicholas and I were in the cafeteria having lunch when Brendan King and a couple of his friends came up to us again.

"Hey bro! You wanna sit with us for lunch?" Brendan asked, giving Nicholas a hard slap on the back. "You're friend can come too if you want." He added, winking at me.

Wait a minute... am I dreaming? Did a jock actually just acknowledge my presence and actually invited me to have lunch with them? Although I knew he was flirting with me ( since I was the last girl in school he hasn't dated yet ) I still felt pretty honored.

"Sure." Nicholas replied. "C'mon Jupiter."

As we moved to the jocks and cheerleader's table ( the highest popularity group in school ), I couldn't help but notice Ally gaping in disbelief as her two minions glared at me.

As we sat down, I noticed the three cheerleaders seated beside the jocks giving me huge welcoming smiles. Since they were always at cheer practice, they seemed to be the only girls who weren't completely mean to me.

"Hey Nick, whose your friend?" One of the blonde haired jocks asked.

"I'm Jupiter Morano, nice to meet you." I replied, extending my hand towards him. There was a moment of awkwardness as the jock stared at my hand, as though he wasn't sure what to do with it. However, the cheerleader with hazel eyes and blonde hair sitting beside him saved me from major embarrassment.

"I'm Kate, nice to meet you too!" Kate, warmly taking my hand. "Please excuse Daniel's terrible manners, my boyfriend can never seem to understand what a handshake is." She added, rolling her eyes.

Kate then proceeded to introduce everyone in the group. "So that's Macy." She gestured to the black haired girl with stunning sea green eyes who gave me a friendly wave. "And that's Veronica." Gesturing to the other brown haired girl, who had olive skin and a splash of freckles on her face.

Veronica looked to my Coldplay shirt and gave me an approving nod. "A Coldplay fan? I like her already!"

The four of us spent the whole of lunch getting to know each other. I found out that the cheerleaders weren't like the other girls who only cared about looks, but instead were hardworking people who had to make sure they did well academically as well to stay on the cheerleading team. It was the first time in my whole high school life that I actually felt welcomed. Kate, Macy and Veronica didn't seem to care about my glasses or so called popularity status but instead, they cared more about my interests and personality.

As the bell rang signaling the end of lunch, Kate put a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, the we're planning to go to a party together this Saturday...wanna come with?"

Omg... was I being invited to a party?!

" We'd love to!" I replied. We exchanged number and Nicholas and I headed to class as I had a permanent grin plastered to my face.

That afternoon after school, I started to work on Fortis's computer. I sat there staring at the screen for hours, hacking and breaking apart one firewall after another. I then had to solve a series of encrypted codes before finally reaching... another firewall. I glanced at my clock.

7.30pm

I've been working on this for 5 hours already. I took off my glasses and rubbed my sore eyes. This computer seemed totally hack proof. All I saw was a tiring pattern, firewall then codes then firewall again. All the system seemed to do was create a repeated cycle of codes and firewalls to prevent anyone other than Dr Hyde himself. What the heck was he a scientist for? Repeated boring patterns?

Wait a minute... repeated boring patterns... no way, you've got to be kidding me....

I immediately looked through all the codes I had broken. What seemed to appear in every coding? I took an hour checking and before writing down all the letters from first to last.

E, L, Y, L, K

I then went back to the account login and typed in the letters. However, it didn't work. Just as I I rested my forehead on the edge of the table in exhaustion and total frustration, my phone began to ring.

'No Caller ID' was what it showed.

"Who's this?" I asked annoyed.

"Hey, Banshee?" MS's voice came from the other end of the line.

"Do I want to know how you got my number?" I asked rhetorically.

"Probably not," MS admitted. "Anyways, how's the computer coming along?"

"If you think making absolutely no progress is good, then yea, it's coming along great!" I replied sarcastically.

"What happened to being 'being able to access it within a day'?" MS whined

"Hey! It's not like you're any better at it." I said pointedly. "Anyways, any better luck with the Hyde's?"

"Nothing much. Apparently Dr Hyde was caught cheating on his wife by his daughter, Kelly. They didn't seem to know much about his disappearance and as a matter a fact, didn't seem to really care. "

" So, that was the big mistake that he was talking about in his letter..." I replied, my shoulders slumping in disappointment. I stared at the letters I had written down.

E, L , Y, L , K

Wait a minute...

"MS... what was the name of Fortis's daughter again?"

"Um... Kelly...why?"

All the letters made sense now.

E, L , Y, L , K
K, E, L , L , Y
KELLY

"MS, I think I just found the password to Fortis's laptop..."

"Really? How?"

"Let's just say your visit to the Hyde's wasn't a complete waste of time after all..." I grinned, hanging up.

I typed KELLY in as the password and sure enough, I was able to access his account. I saw at least 30 files on his desktop. This was going to be a long night...