The League of Obscurities

[3RD PERSON—BAXTONVILLE HIGH]

All of them crouched under the stadium, trying their best to not catch the attention of the several types of officers surrounding the building. But Talia couldn't help the sobs that escape her lips. They give Trevor some space so he can calm down his sister. There's nobody in the world who can calm her down best except her brother. Whenever she gets stuck in situations she finds to be stressful, she starts crying.

"Tals, what's the matter?" He asks as he pulls her into a comforting embrace.

"Are we gonna get in trouble? Or worse, are they going to kill us?" She looks up at him, sobbing quietly in between words.

"Talia, I will never let that happen. We'll push through like we always do." He reassures her in a quiet tone.

Her shaky hands start to glow again, brighter this time. The luminescent lights are sure to catch someone's attention. Trevor keeps talking to her and reassuring her, but Natalie starts to hear something in her head. The thoughts of someone besides her friends. It throws her brain activity far off and gives her a heavy migraine, even some radio chatter going on in her head. It's a piercing noise, and it feels like someone has shoved a hot stake through her head.

"Guys, there's a guard coming close, I can hear him." Natalie whispers.

"What are you hearing?" Melanie asks.

"His thoughts." Natalie replies, holding her shaking hand near her temples.

"Talia, I really need you to tone down the lights." Trevor says.

"I-I'm sorry, I c-can't," Talia tries her best to calm down but all of her efforts fail.

The worst part is the fact that she doesn't know how to control it. While that's happening, Melanie looks down at her hands. She takes a deep breath and focuses as hard as she can. The rest of the noises in the background fade away and when Melanie flips over her hands, they disappear. She focuses and takes a deep breath, all background noises fading. When she flips her hands back over, they reappear.

And suddenly, an idea pops into her head. "Everyone hold onto each other."

"Uhm, what?" They all reply to her in unison.

"I think I can counteract Talia's powers with mine..." She says. "And I can also sneak us out of here."

"And you didn't wanna mention this before?" Chris asks as he looks over at her.

"Just shut up and hold onto each other." Melanie hisses at them.

Everyone grabs onto each other, although Talia hesitates at first. She doesn't know what her powers do, and she doesn't wanna hurt her friends or her brother. A bunch of thoughts runs through her mind, and the longer she hesitates the more likely they are to get caught.

Melanie looks at Talia and it's almost like they have a conversation with their eyes. After they exchange glances, Talia holds onto the rest of them. Melanie lets out a stressed exhale, then she shuts her eyes to fully focus. All the noises in the background fade away, and she slowly starts to turn invisible.

"Holy shit, Mels," Trevor says quietly.

They all get up and continue to hold onto each other as they sneak back into the building. Melanie can't hold it forever, forcing them to run into the nearest empty room. And that room just so happens to be the girl's locker room. Before stepping in, Melanie peaks into the room to make sure that for sure nobody is in there.

Once the coast is clear, they all scurry into the locker room. They let go of each other, causing them all to reappear. Now Melanie can finally rest. She sits down and takes a few deep breaths as her mind attempts to process what just happened. She just saved her friends with her very own powers.

The locker room smells heavily of perfume and shower gels. Fancy ones. The boys inhale the smell and make a weird face because they didn't know locker rooms could smell good. The boy's locker room usually smells like sweat and B.O that's slightly covered by the smell of cologne. It's a good change of pace in their opinions.

"So, can anyone else do what Melanie can? I mean, I can." Trevor sighs, crossing his arms.

"What he means is does anybody else have superpowers." Chris says.

"Is that what were calling it?" Melanie asks.

"I'm just calling it as it is, you guys." Chris replies in defense.

"What the hell are we gonna do about the fact that people saw us? Someone saw me, I don't know about you guys." Penny blurts out.

Chris taps on his chin, stirring up grand thoughts in his noggin. Chris is known to be the resident superhero genius. He can recite any comic book you ask, tell you any superhero's superpowers, tell you the comic book a quote came from, explain every superpower imaginable, the list could honestly go on. He is an absolute geek for superheroes.

So naturally, they all turn to him for a solution. He holds his thinking pose for a good few minutes, then he finally lifts his head, looking around at the rest of his friends. He doesn't say anything but just looks at each one of them. After a few moments, Natalie gasps angrily.

"You were the one that stole my gold glitter pen?!" Natalie shouts out all of a sudden, scrunching up her face and crossing her arms.

"Bingo." Chris smiles, pointing at Natalie.

"I'm so confused right now," Melanie says, scrunching up her face.

"I really liked that pen, Chris." Natalie points at him angrily, furrowing her dark blonde brows.

"She's a telepath, meaning she can hear our thoughts!" Chris says excitedly, clapping together his hands out of pure excitement.

"And?" Penny asks.

"She can probably manipulate people's thoughts too!" He says.

"Oh my god, she can make everyone forget about it!!" Talia exclaims, gasping a bit as she starts walking up to Chris and grabbing his shoulders.

"Exactly my friend!" Chris shouts and grabs Talia's shoulders as well, then he and Talia begin to jump around with each other.

"Yeah, let's all just volunteer me," Natalie complains flatly.

Talin and Chris stop, sighing at their less-than-enthusiastic friend. She cares for them, but she also is the type to call someone out when they're being dumb, and she's not shy about it. But that's only sometimes, other times she's the most caring woman in the world, always having everything on her to help out her friends or people around her. So it surprised Chris when she wasn't willing.

"Natie, you'd do anything for friends. What's wrong now?" Chris asks, suspecting something is going on.

He's right. She's scared. Scared to use her powers after how she felt when they first awoke. She stares at her feet as she hugged herself, then finally looked back up at her friends. A heavy sigh exited her mouth before she opened her mouth to speak. Suddenly, everyone starts talking over Natalie, causing Penny to get upset.

Without thinking, she slams her fist into one of the lockers near her, and she ended up denting the entire door. When she removed her hand, the entire locker door fell and the whole wall of lockers fell back. She and her stunned friends all looked around the room and then at each other.

"I-I didn't even know I could do that," Penny states.

"Okay, we're gonna have a meeting after school at our spot, but for now we're gonna try to get everyone to forget we did anything," Chris says before turning to Natalie. "Now tell us, why won't you do it, what's stopping you?

"I'm scared, okay? The last time I used my powers, they hurt people. And I lost control of them. I-" She sighs. "I don't wanna lose any of you."

"Natalie, we are all here to help you calm down if things get overwhelming, we're your best friends. We know how to calm you down." Chris says, putting his arm on her shoulder.

Penny grabs Natalie's hand, threading their fingers together. "We're here for you."

Natalie takes a deep breath. "Okay. I'll do it."

All of them give their support and appreciation to her with their words. She sits down wearily and grips the bench to ground herself in case something happens. She inhales and exhales slowly, trying to keep her breathing pattern at a regular rhythm. God knows what will happen if she even so much as fails to keep a steady breathing pattern. After a few minutes of focusing on her breathing, she opens her eyes.

"Woah.." Melanie says, and the rest of them look at her all wide-eyed.

Her eyes glow blue, a bright and magical color that you could just drown in. Then suddenly blue energy surrounds her hands, looking as enchanting as her eyes. There isn't a way you could describe how she feels at this moment. She can hear everyone, every thought they are thinking. Every single one. Everyone begins to hear an eerie whisper, and the room lighting turns blue due to her powers.

She almost feels like she's about to drown. Like her head is going to go underneath the water and snap. The snapping point is when she'll lose control. But she's able to keep her head above the metaphorical water when she feels Penny's hand grab hers.

"Chris, w-what do I do now?" She asks.

"Okay first don't say my name or you'll end up making me forget too." He says.

"Sorry," Natalie replies.

"Think of the memory that you want to erase from people's heads, and when you've got a clear thought say uhm, one word clearly. L-Like a command," Chris says.

She manages to keep her focus and clear out her mind to only what she wants. And with that, she mutters one word, but in French instead of English. "Oubliez." She whispers.

The magical blue glow coming from her hand intensifies when those words exit her mouth. Inside of her body, she can feel her powers growing stronger at the moment. The room begins shaking, and it lasts for a solid 3 minutes. But once the shaking stops, soon after, the glow in her eyes slowly fades away and she exhales deeply. They all look at her in anticipation, hoping that it worked.

"Did it work?" Wes asks.

"It did," Natalie replies, smiling a bit.

"How can you tell?" Melanie asks.

"I don't hear anyone thinking about it." She answers.

They cheer quietly, trying not to draw any attention to them if they yell too loudly. To them, this is a huge victory. So don't tell them that they're practically stuck in the school. But then they stop because they don't know what they're supposed to do now. So each of them let out an annoyed sigh. Because they realize they're stuck in the school.

"Crap." They all whisper in unison.

After that they're all silent, trying to think of ideas yet again. It's like when they solve one problem, another one comes up. Which is very inconvenient for them.

"I have an idea," Donatello says.

"Okay, spill," Natalie replies.

"So you know how the students were instructed not to evacuate until 20 minutes later, to make sure that the coast is clear of the 'threat'?" He asks, using air quotes to emphasize.

"Yeah? What about it?" Trevor asks, shrugging.

"Since it's been 18 minutes, evacuation time will start in 2 minutes so we can slip out with the other students!" He shouts, obviously upset his friends don't know what he's talking about as he aggressively points at his watch.

"Ohh, I thought you were going nowhere with that pal." Trevor says in his usual sarcastic manner as he pats Donatello's back.

"Do you wanna be punched?" Donatello looks at Trevor who just puts his hands up in surrender.

When Donatello finishes talking, the room falls silent, and another noise soon follows. The sound of people running out of the building frantically. If they're frantic, then that means they won't notice the fact that a huge group of people is exiting the girls' locker room at once. So they all do it, filing out of the cramped locker room at once. And they run to the exit, stopping at the field where everyone else is. Frantic people are calling their parents, so they become one of the frantic people too. Just so they don't look suspicious. They all need a way to get home anyways.

[WES—BAXTONVILLE HIGH]

I shove my phone into my pocket after I text my mom, then I look around for my blonde-haired brother. He's never met any of my friends, but now is not any time for introductions. I just need to make sure he's okay. He is my only brother after all.

"Steven!" I shout frantically.

And with those words, I hear heavy footsteps running toward me. I turn around and come face to face with my brother. He looks worried and panicked, so I immediately place my hand on his shoulder. He looks at me with an extremely confused look on his face, so I shoot him back the look. He looks confused and slightly uncomfortable at the same time.

"Wes, your hand is very cold." He says.

"Yeah I just... Am cold..." I blurt out and he seems to believe it.

"Oh alright. Did you text mom?" He asks.

"Yeah I did," I reply, patting his shoulder.

My friends walk up to us all of a sudden, and I notice Chris. He has a cut on his forehead that I never noticed earlier. Out of instinct, I run up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, gently touching the skin around his wound.

"Does it hurt?" I ask.

He shakes his head, "No, I'm okay, Wes."

"Oh, good." I reply.

I turn to the rest of them, flashing a smile at my brother. He looks at me and quirks his brows, looking as confused as someone can look. Chris looks less than pleased with me, but I'm not out to my brother. I'm not out to anyone actually, it was something that my friends just knew. I've never actually said the words out loud. But I don't know how my brother would react, so I'd rather he know in a less public space.

"Wes, is this your brother?" Trevor asks me, pointing to Steven.

"Yes, his name is Steven. Steven, say hi to them." I say.

"What's up everyone?" Steven says as he puts up a quick peace sign.

All of them wave and say their hellos to my younger brother. I introduce them to him one by one. I forgot that despite how long I've been friends with all of them, I'm the only one who hasn't hosted a sleepover. Meaning none of them have met anyone in my family. Especially my father. They can't meet him now because he left when I was a child and I have no clue what he's up to in the present day. Suddenly I start to hear Natalie's voice in my head, and she's telling me to talk to them without Steven.

"Hey Steven, why don't you go wait by the curb and tell me when Mom gets here." I say.

"Alright, see you bro." He salutes me before jogging off to sit at the curb.

I wave goodbye to him, then turn back to the others. "What are we gonna do? I mean about our powers or whatever."

"You guys can come to my house." Donatello suggests.

"Do you have a secret room or something?" Trevor asks.

"I want you guys to meet my parents." He replies.

"What do they do?" Penny asks.

Donatello opened his mouth to speak but before he could get anything out, he was interrupted by the sound of his parents calling him. He looked over and waved goodbye to all of us, then he rushed over to his parents.

"Why couldn't he have just told us?" Penny asked.

"I mean, he did seem in a hurry." Natalie shrugs.

"You know, I don't appreciate the weird shit that's been happening to us." Trevor says. "I just wish I knew where it all came from."