Five minutes before the bell, students began surreptitiously packing up their pens, notebooks and shoving their books in their bags; ignoring the teacher's rules that no one was to pack up until after the bell had rung.

At the sound of the bell those who had taken the time to pack away their items leapt from their seats and rushed for the door. The rest of the students frantically packed away their stuff, eager to make it to the lunch room before the line got too long.

Layla and Magenta almost always brought their lunch, for different reasons of course. Layla brought hers because she could guarantee that anything she brought from home was vegetarian. Magenta brought hers because she had enough run ins with the school bullies demanding her lunch money. Having brought their lunch, they were in no rush to make it to the lunch room. Being the friends of the son of some of the greatest super heroes as well as considered "friend" material to one of the most feared students in the whole school pretty much made their table untouchable. Layla managed to get a quick "See you at lunch" out before Zack and Ethan rushed out the door. They didn't bring their lunches.

So it was that the two friends took their time in exiting the classroom, as neither of them relished being trampled or mauled. It was during their leisurely exit of their classroom that Magenta decided it was an appropriate time to bring up a certain topic of conversation. "So…how'd it go last night." She asked.

"He was a perfect gentleman." Layla said.

"You care to elaborate any?" Magenta asked.

Layla rolled her eyes at her friend. "He took me for ice cream after he got off work. There is nothing to tell."

Magenta gave her the "Oh come ON! You are so unbelievably naive" look. "There is always something to tell." She said, "Did he hold your hand? Did he walk you to your door? Did he kiss you goodnight? Details girl! Details!"

"There are no details." Layla told her. "Like I said he was a perfect gentleman."

This time Magenta gave her the "You have got to be kidding me/I know you aren't telling me the whole story" look.

Layla shook her head and rolled her eyes, gave a sigh of acquiescence and said; "I held his hand, yes he walked me to the door, I kissed him on the cheek and he ran for his car. Mage you know how he is with physical contact. He just doesn't initiate it and he barely accepts it."

"Yah, but he let you." Magenta said with a knowing smirk. "You guys doing anything tonight?" she asked.

"Mage!" Layla said exasperatedly. Magenta looked at her expectantly.

"He has to work again, and he said something about a paper due tomorrow that he still hasn't written. So, no, I'm not going to give him any more excuses to avoid homework." Layla finally answered.

"That's just so weird." Magenta said.

Layla looked over at her friend, unsure of how to take that comment. Before she could say anything Magenta continued.

"I mean, it's just so normal. He's pretty much a fire breathing dragon, you control plants, Zack glows, Ethan turns into a puddle of goop, Will flies, and for heaven's sake I can turn into a Ginny pig. Our parents all have super powers. Heck we go to school on a flying saucer!" She elaborated, "And he has an after school job as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant."

Layla thought for a minute as they continued down the hall. "When you put it like that, it does seem a little ridiculous."

"There is something wrong with the world when a normal after school job is the weirdest part of your life." Magenta commented.

"Yah." Layla agreed with her friend.

There was a minute pause as both friends contemplated that statement.

"So...what are you two doing this weekend?" Magenta asked suggestively.

Layla was about to respond when she found their path blocked by a group of girls. This group of 15 to 20 girls quickly surrounded the two friends in the practically empty hall. The group consisted of villainess wannabes, heroes, sidekicks, blonds, brunets and fake-n-bakes, Goth to Goody-too-shoes. All of them wore looks of hostile possessiveness.

Magenta and Layla glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. "Can we help you?" Magenta asked in her usual deadpan.

The ring-leader, a villainess wannabe, stepped forward. She had done her best to make herself look the part of the stereotypical druggy/punk/goth. She was dressed in black and red leather, her outfit accented with torn fishnets, platform boots, spiked wrist bands, black nail polish and a spiked dog collar. Oh yes, and let's not forget the over the top black eye makeup, black lipstick, and numerous piercings on her face and ears.

"You." She pointed at Layla, "You were seen eating ice cream with Warren last night."

Ah yes, it clicked for both girls, the Warren Peace fan club. They were very possessive, or should I say obsessive, and just a tad bit nuts. They had banded together over their mutual lust for the hottest boy in school, and that's not referring to his core temperature. They had become a bit more forward in their advances toward him in the recent months, as they saw the semi successful attempt of the freshmen five to assimilate him into their social circle. The group of girls saw themselves as the only ones with the right to interact with him, and did just about anything to deter any girl that wasn't a fully pledged member of their group from getting near him.

Warren, in one of his rarer moments of talkativeness, had confided in both Will and Layla that the group annoyed the hell out of him, but as long as they kept most of the other rabid fan girls away from him he could tolerate their presence. Which is to be interpreted; I won't turn any of them into crispy critters as long as they don't come within 10 feet of me.

"That freeze bitch was bad enough." The ring leader continued, "what the hell makes you think you can touch him?" She managed to say 'you' with such disgust in her voice, it almost came out as an insult. For the most part, the majority of the girls were miffed, rather than actually angry and hateful. They just couldn't understand how the petit red headed flower girl, peace preacher, equal rights activist, and vegetarian could catch the epitome of hunkness' eye and they couldn't.

"Uh…he's my boyfriend." Layla said. They hadn't actually discussed the particulars. It had taken time on both their parts, as well as some hefty shoves from Will, for either of them to broach the subject. But the truth was, neither of them could deny the attraction. In truth, saying the word out loud in reference to Warren sent shivers down her spine like it never had when said in reference to Will. She smiled slightly when both her mind and heart agreed that the term fit.

"Bull!" someone shrieked.

"No way he'd go for a weak, prissy flower chick like you." Another exclaimed in protest.

"Well, it's true." Magenta really had no earthly idea why she said that without confirming with the reclusive pyro, but for some reason, it just made sense.

Her statement caused murmurs of outrage to flow through the group.

"Prove it." The leader said, knowing full well that the object of the group's desire didn't let anyone touch him and letting them walk away without a minimum of a second degree burn.

"How would you like me to prove it?" Layla asked, managing to not roll her eyes.

The ring leader stuck her nose in the air as if she knew that she would be winning. "Kiss him at lunch. Not a peck on the cheek, a full on lip lock." She demanded.

Magenta watched as a rather disturbing smile spread across her friend's face.

"Fine." She said almost too cheerily.

The ring leader was taken aback at Layla's lack of intimidation.

"I kiss him and he doesn't fry me proves that I'm his girlfriend." She said, "And…"

The ring leader narrowed her eyes in anticipation of something she surely wouldn't like.

"If I kiss him and he doesn't fry me, you agree to leave him and me alone for…" she paused to think of an appropriate length of time, "ever."

Magenta almost laughed out loud when the ring leader's eyes went wide and her nostrils flared in her surprise at Layla's demand.

But Layla wasn't finished. "That means you disband this ridiculous club of yours and stop stalking him."

Magenta looked sideways at her friend with approval; approval for her demand and for her demeanor. Layla had always been outspoken, standing up for what she thought was right. But lately, she had been standing up for herself more, forging her own path.

The group of girls surrounding them looked at each other, unsure of what to do. The two that they had surrounded not only refused to be intimidated by them, but they were demanding that they forget about their object of desire. Their leader was open mouthed and furious, but it was apparent that Layla was not going to back down. She took a step back; the motion drew her oldest and most trusted followers to her. They deliberated in harsh whispers, the others in their group looked on nervously.

Remembering an incident near the beginning of school, before homecoming when the red head had been seen trying to hold his hand and being burned for it; the group made their decision. The leader stepped back up to Layla's face with a smug expression on her face, confident that they would win this round.

"Great!" Layla chirped, not at all fazed by the older girl's demeanor. "If you will follow us to the lunch room, we can get this out of the way and enjoy the rest of our day."

The other girl stepped out of the way, only slightly weirded out by Layla's cheery acceptance of quite possibly the one of the most dangerous dares a school for super kids could present.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Magenta asked in a light whisper as they resumed their journey toward the lunch room.

Layla just looked at her best female friend. The look was correctly interpreted as; "Trust me", "I know something you don't know", "Oh ye of little faith", and "You ain't seen nothin' yet" all at the same time.

Magenta responded to her friend with a shake of the head and a roll of the eyes. This was meant to be interpreted as; "Ok, your funeral." But Layla just smiled and kept walking.

The entered the lunch room. The little confrontation had not taken as much time as they had thought. The typical cacophony of mixed conversations assaulted their ears. There was still a line at the lunch counter, but it was dwindling. Layla paused at the door to scan the room for her target. Magenta could only describe Layla's smile as predatory when she spotted the tall, dark, and handsome young man they were looking for. Layla nodded once to herself as if reaffirming her course of action, and then started off after the well built young man.

From the view of an objective observer, what happened next could only be described as hysterically comical. For all intents and purposes, there were only three objective observers present in the lunch room. But that was only because they were able to overcome their shock more quickly than the rest of the student body, which they were only able to do because they had been expecting something like this to happen, though admittedly not quite like this.

Several students nearly chocked, one or two had slight panic attacks, and the rest of the lunch room went completely silent; everyone frozen in place when Layla's sing song voice was heard.

"Oh Warren, my cutie-pie sweet heart."

Warren had come to a grudging acceptance that he was not going to get rid of the little group of freshmen that had decided to invade his life. Even though he had very recently come to the conclusion that Will and Layla could indeed be trusted with the title friend and all things pertaining to such; he was still very much unused to the attention that they practically lavished on him. It drove him nuts, but he could tolerate it. What he couldn't tolerate was being called pet names. He was surprisingly patient and forgiving, but his male ego just couldn't stand for the pet names; nick names possibly, but pet names…

Upon hearing his name and the ridiculously disgusting combination of pet names in the same sentence, he stopped dead in his tracks. Later, when asked about it, several students in the vicinity would swear that they felt the temperature in the room plummet; which is a rather interesting notation considering the person at the center of the phenomenon usually increases the temperature.

Several thoughts flashed through his mind as he turned around to face the culprit:

1. Layla, I like Layla…

2. Honeysuckle, Layla always smells like Honeysuckle

3. …

4. She did NOT just say that!

5. She DID!

6. What. The. Hell.

Rage was burning in his eyes.

"I thought I made it perfectly clear that you are NEVER to call me something like that!" he said in the most menacing way he could. Then he pushed past her, frying anyone and everyone who dared look at him. oh, and he torched the flowers in her locker on his way out of the building. Then he decided to pointedly ignore her for the next week, or at least until she apologized for publically humiliating him.

Or rather, that is what he pieced together several days after the fact as a "what I would have done if things had turned out differently" plan.

Now, what really happened…

Layla didn't give him the chance to act on the rage she saw in his eyes. Time seemed to come to a screeching halt as the petit red head launched herself at him and proceeded to kiss him for everything he was worth. Needless to say, his brain was very effectively short circuited.

By the time he was able to put together a coherent thought; one of the students, convinced that they were about to have a homicide on their hands, quickly scrambled out the door to fetch the principle.

The rest of the student population (minus the small group that called themselves friend to both people of interest) watched on in fascinated horror as he pushed her away from himself, bringing the rather involved kiss to an end.

"What the Hell!" he didn't quite shout. He was rather off balance at this point, and it was really the only thing his brain could get out.

"Well Snookums," Layla said as she batted her eyes at him, "Your little fan club dared me to kiss you."

"Snookums?!?" was all he could say, his voice was a mixture of horror and disbelief, the same emotions were plainly etched on his handsome face. She didn't give him a chance to fully process the situation before she kissed him again.

The student population gasped as one. One of the fan club members fainted.

It didn't take him quite as long this time to pull his brain back together and he pushed her away again. "If you thing that makes up for…" He didn't get to finish as she once again assaulted his lips.

This time he was able to think about the situation and what she had said before he pushed her away again. Holding her at arm's length he glanced behind her and saw a rather irate group of girls standing in the doorway to the lunch room. His cleverness and his ability to think quickly on his feet was something that Layla had told him she admired about him. Using those traits, he narrowed his eyes at the red head as put together a plausible explanation for her behavior.

"So…public displays of affection will keep them away?" he asked.

"Yup." She happily answered him.

He took a minute to roll that over in his mind. Finally coming to a conclusion he relaxed his suspicious gaze and shrugged. "I guess I can live with that."

Her answering smile was nothing but triumphant. Then before anyone could breathe, he pulled her to him and kissed her senseless.

The tables were turned.

To say that he was an excellent kisser would be the understatement of the century. The things he could do with his tongue…

Her legs turned to Jello. It was all she could do to wrap her arms around his neck…

Just as suddenly as he had turned her plot against her, he was hone; pushed her away and stalked out of the lunch room with nothing more than a "See you later Hippy."

Not even crickets dared to chirp in his wake.

Principle Powers expected to find her lunch room in a state of pandemonium (not unlike the time when she had asked a certain student to take the first opportunity to try and scare a certain other student into having his powers surface). What greeted her when she entered the lunch room was definitely not pandemonium. She involuntarily paused, quickly reevaluating the situation.

Instead of chaos and screaming and fire and cement dust she found astonished silence. Off to the side there was a group of girls fanning another girl, all of whom looked like they had just been notified that their favorite dog and been run over. There was a clear path through the crowd of stunned students. She followed the path as shortly came upon a table where her resident equality activist sat with the most ridiculous dazed and goofy grin plastered on her face, staring off into space. She looked beyond the stricken red head to where her usual group of friends was struggling to contain laughter. She raised on eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips in unspoken demand to know what was going on.

"Who would like to explain." She asked.

"Someone dared her to kiss Warren." Magenta said before moving toward her friend to try and bring her back to reality.

That really didn't explain why an obviously terrified student had come barging into her office babbling about murder, fire and brimstone. So she turned an expectant gaze to the rest of the group.

"He kissed her back." Will added helpfully.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. There was no carnage, so there was nothing she needed to do. She turned on her heel and gracefully returned to her office.

Once again seated behind her desk she smiled to herself. "I suppose I should be comforted." She mused to herself, "Even in the world of super heroes and super villains, where beyond strange was the normal; teenagers were still teenagers."