Villains wear Masks *sequel to Heroes Wear Capes

Chapter 9 - Troubles in Paradise

"Voldemort is my past, present, and future!"

~ Tom Marvolo Riddle (Voldemort)

School was no longer as boring as it used to be for Xander Mendez. Dating the arguably the most popular girl in school definitely had huge perks. For instance, he wasn't as much of a loner as he once was. There was no real hierarchy at Oakland of real popular kids, but there were the kids that you heard about all the time because they did something worth noting. Xander was glad to know that people now knew him because of Mera, a beautiful kind girl, not because he was a Satanist who ate chicken tenders out of the trashcan while screaming, "Metal as fuck!"

(Yes, this kid existed.)

Xander would hang around with her friends in class and at lunch, and because he was dating Mera, they made an effort to include him. Xander would also drag John along, because John was still his best friend. It turned out some of Mera's friends even liked Silver Streak as much as John did.

John didn't really ask about the Taylor Hale incident like Xander thought he would. In fact, John seemed to stop asking about the suspicious activity Xander did entirely. It seemed he had just given up trying to make sense of his best friend's strange behavior.

It was a perfect situation.

". . .weekend he got out of the car and started pushing it just to prove he could." Mera exclaimed. "I didn't think he could do it."

One of her friends, Harrison, laughed and held up his arms in defense, "hey, just because I'm amazing doesn't mean you guys have to make fun of me."

"Why did you even think to do it?" Xander asked.

Harrison shrugged. "You can never know what this mind can come up with when presented with a challenge."

The conversations went on like this usually. Most of Mera's friends were really cool with amazing stories of times that they were hanging out, just being stupid. It hadn't taken long for Xander to notice that Mera never starred in any of them. It was like she was on the outskirts. A sun too bright to be associated too closely with.

He figured most of those times when they'd been hanging out, she'd been helping Wild Fire save people. To think how much life she gave away to fight crime from a computer.

On the way to lunch, John made to go down a hallway opposite to the cafeteria. Xander, confused, stopped him. "Hey, where are you going? Lunch is the other way."

John shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm thinking about going to eat in the theater room today."

Xander furrowed his eyebrows. "Theater? Who do you know in theater?"

"Just a couple of guys from my environmental science class, they're pretty cool."

And why hadn't Xander ever heard anything about them until now? But he didn't ask that. "What about the cafeteria with me? We always eat together in the cafeteria."

John mumbled under his breath.

"What?"

He sighed and looked Xander in the eye. "What I'm saying is that we don't ever eat lunch together anymore."

"Of course we do," Xander replied, now extremely confused, "we've eaten together every day since forever."

John clenched his hands, frustrated. "Okay, yeah, I'm sitting next to you, but I'm not really there. It's like I'm just observing the Mera and Friends show."