Danny and Diana, Those Meddling Kids

The other day, the school's football team played a match. Now, American football was a very North American thing, and Diana didn't really understand what was happening except that their school was losing. She was sipping her chunky-monkey smoothie, waving the mandatory fan flag and wearing the team hat and shirt down near the field, when the team coach called for a time out on the sidelines. When their boys came back to the field, Diana could feel murder in their eyes as they simply plowed through the opposition, howling with testosterone... and something else, to winning the game. Diana was still sipping an empty plastic cup in surprise, then she remembered to throw it in the right trash can because we have to take care of the earth.

That something else led to a positive drug test, suspending the school from playing until a comprehensive drug test among the student athletic body.

Today Diana, by virtue of her archery club membership, was sitting on a bench outside the school clinic, with the varsity members of other sports teams. The girls stuck to talking only to their fellows club members or friends, talking about the game the other day, and how stupid it was that every athlete in school was now going to be tested.

Diana looked around for familiar company when her name was called. "Princess Diana Mendoza." Called the nurse, getting snickers from some of the students. Diana let out a tired sigh, let's get this over with, and headed in, whereupon she was met by the school nurse, Helga Klein, RN, MN.

"Guten morgen miss Mendoza. I trust you ate a good breakfast today?" She asked with the accent.

"I'm fine. I had six eggs and some oatmeal. And then I had breakfast." Diana said with a smirk, taking a seat and offering her arm up to be poked with a needle.

"Ha! You make Helga laugh. Now zis will only hurt for a second." Helga expertly finds a vein and plunges a large needle to extract blood.

OW. Diana looked away as the needle plunged into her spindly arm and extracted blood. Then Helga wiped with with some cotton and applied gauze.

"NEEEXT!" She called, making Diana wonder why she bothered with the name.

A text reminder woke Danny up sooner than she wanted to awake. Her last few nights all followed the path of find trouble, fight trouble, escape trouble, defeat trouble. Nothing about her agenda wanted to fit in a drug test, but rules needed to be followed. Even the dumb ones. No wonder villains all moved over to a life of crime.

Danny slipped her camaro between the lines outside of the gym. Her uniform stayed perfectly pressed with the vest fitting just over the waist of her skirt with no peak of her shirt. Even at a time Danny assumed would be late, it still put her about fifteen minutes ahead of the rest of the school. Unfortunately, evil rose early in the morning, and it waited at the door.

"Ew, Danny, you look super tired. And bad." A straight arm barred Danny from making her way into the hall. Perfectly falling locks of golden hair cascaded around Veronica's shoulders. She made bad look good.

Danny bit her arm. "Move."

"Ew. Danny! Are you still in pre-school?" A fight with Danny in the hall would most likely favor the more powered fighter whom always wore her magic bracelet, but Veronica could play at that game too. As Danny walked out of Veronica's view, the captain of the cheerleaders sent out a text message. Be ready to switch Danny's results. No way am I giving that snob my title. She'd probably make us do community service or something. "Always bringing powers into this. Well, two can play at that."

Danny stepped into the nurse's office and lifted the sleeve on her shirt. The quick surge of blood and the sting of the anti clotting agent reminded her of why she disliked doctors, but it filed her more with a reason to despise the persons responsible for making Danny get drug tested in the first place. "Have fun seeing my results as clear, afterall, I am class president, #1 in my class, and oh yeah- a freaking super hero." Tact was for people after ten AM. For now, Danny just needed to get to homeroom and try not to fall asleep during lecture.

Diana greeted her team leader Danny as she exited the clinic, but so far there was nothing unusual yet to interest the Prodigy girls that required their ability to kick ass and chew bubble gum. "They'll probably find awesome in the results." Diana said, jokingly.

Until the next day when the results came back. Almost a quarter of the student athlete body were being implicated as drug users, naming the best players who won games for the school. Half of those people were on the football team. And due to the school's reputation for winning state games, and the football team's star player having been found positive, the school board was serving sports suspensions like pancakes. They really didn't need media frenzy, until they could get to the bottom of things. Alot of kids screamed, "I'm getting my lawyer!"

To be fair, both Danny AND Veronica were on the hitlist. "WHAT's GOING ON HERE?! I'm a cheerleader! WHY WOULD THEY THINK WE USE DRUGS?!" The blondie totally valley girl'd it up in the hallway.

The sensible advice the school gave was to have the students verify blood tests independently with laboratories and submit them again, which would take days. The whole thing reeked of conspiracy and defamation against ol' Lady of Too Many Sorrows.

Diana messaged Danny on the Prodigy chat room at around 6pm, nearing the end of sports practice. "Wanna play detective after class? Let's meet outside the football team's lockers."

She followed it up a few seconds later. "You didn't really take anything, did you?"

The parts of this incident failing to make sense made perfect sense through a certain lens. "I'm going to hurt someone real soon."

"Ew, Danny. Roid rage." Veronica failed to even look up from her phone screen as she walked passed her archnemesis.

"You tested positive, too!" Danny let the last word hit her in the ear. "Yeah, that probably sums up why she is happy." While blaming everything on Veronica would be great, it did not make sense why she would incriminate herself. Something more sinister laid under the skin on this one.

No call from the administration had come from the higher offices, but it looked like firings would start coming down pretty soon. It always sucked to work a high paying job at a school where none of the parents would ever consider your salary even livable, mainly because they could always easily get rid of you. Even Danny's parents got angry over this debacle and they were literally living in a cave- possibly on Mars. Whether anyone in the higher ups would even have a job in a week still needed to be seen, but for now, a weird combination of a really sad friendliness overtook most administrators as they walked past Danny. Most likely they just wanted a good word with Danny so they could work for her one day. It would be nice when she could help people out on that level.

Then her phone signaled an alert.

Practice went by quickly with the release of the news causing an upstart among coaches. In fact, none of the sanctioned sports could even meet for scheduled practices, so Danny rallied the cheerleaders loyal to her for their own practice without Veronica and her mindless plastics. Everything went fine enough, but the sweet release of 5:45 PM could not come soon enough. But, it did come.

Danny tossed her bag over her shoulder and made her way towards the back of the boys locker room. She had come her before, but never for anything good. However, this too would probably be upsetting, but for far worse reasons. "No, I didn't take anything, so let's get down to business. Where do we start looking and who do we start cornering for questioning. I would like to beat Veronica, but that may or may not have anything to do with this case."

Diana was in her P.E. tank top and pants. Diana almost always seemed to be in P.E. attire that no one else wore. She looked around to make doubly sure no one would see them, that no one followed Danny for some reason. Especially not that Spock guy.

"You didn't see that... guy... the nickelback... at the american football game the other day? Mason, I think his name was. Pretty sure that was stepping into our territory of weird. He sent the other guy flying 10 feet into the air." Diana wouldn't know that Americans called American Football just Football, while everyone else called soccer football and... Diana sighed and walked towards a dumpster, to help her reach the locker room's elevated awning window.

She wiggles through and lands, the second her feet were on the floor she was now a rule breaker. She helps Danny inside, and Diana begins looking around... except the lockers only had numbers, not names. The lockers also had electronic keypads.  "Okay... I didn't think that far." Diana remarked. Being an investigator was alot harder than it sounded. The failure of a ninja wondered how to deal with this. Punching did not solve anything in this situation.


A few minutes later, the jocks were coming into the lockers. And they were quite upset over the results of the test, resulting in everyone being benched.  "Quick... hide!" Diana scampered up into the ceiling, hanging on for dear life to the various pipes and vents there.

"That wide receiver was undersized, but a shot from the third best defensive back does look a little suspicious. I didn't take anything, so I don't know why I would come up as positive though." Danny jumped and grabbed the ledge of the window with both hands, pulling herself up to press her stomach against the edge, giving her enough room to tumble into the boy's room. The boy's locker room looked identical to the girl's with the type of lockers and the same placement. In actuality, there were only so many ways to set up a locker room, but it did give Danny a good enough guess at where she needed to go.

"There's a trick to it." The problems facing Diana offered little resistance to Danny. "All you have to do..." Danny pushed the * button once and let up. "...One. Two..." She pushed it down again. "One. Two..." She pushed it one more time. Her finely polished nail hit the 'one' button four times and the locker popped open. "The lockers all have a reset code in them. If you know about it, you can get anywhere at this school with a reset code." The contents of the locker held most of the muscle supplements Danny would expect as well as shower necessities, but one unmarked canister looked more suspicious to Danny than anything else. "Good enough. Now let's-"

Keeping this secret would require a bit of stealth and knowledge, and Danny knew just where to hide. The boys and girls locker rooms both shared a dual office where the athletic director and the head boys and girls coaches were located. No windows to look into and a nice, solid wood door gave Danny a good place to hide. The door closed gently behind Danny as she put her ear against the door to listen in.

A few choice members of the racially diverse football team came into the locker, alongside a suit wearing, goatee sporting, Xanatos-looking coach. Diana watched and listened intently, not making a sound.

"...Yo coach what up with them blood results huh? how come all of us get positives? now we can't play!" The african-american gentleman in the team jacket made a complaint to their Coach.

"It's just a marketing ploy, Tyrone. You'll be back Can't have just one school dominating the region. We have to find more customers who need that Edge."

"But I got singled out! Everybody is looking at me like I'm some kinda roid head!" One student was quite unhappy with the ploy's effect on his career. Rex Mason, the... star player, Diana guessed? Must be. She recognized Mason as dating the cheerleaders. Almost all of them, like they had appointments with him.

"You need to calm down Mason. I'll talk to the labs and have them make a clean report later... and you'll be compensated-" The coach calmly explained his plans, but the young white man's temper was short and unstable.

"Money? MONEY?! THIS IS MY REPUTATION! MY FUTURE! YOU BETTER FIX IT!" Mason punched one of the lockers with inhuman strength, and caused the metal door to crumple. His teammates back off from him.

"You should probably lay off the Edge, Mason. You're starting to... show symptoms. Once the social media sensationalism dies down, you'll be able to play again... but you need to be clean until then." Again, this chessmaster of a coach was making plays outside the sport as well.

Diana studied Mason's face, becoming pale and sullen, some black veins showing in his neck. His voice was also louder, more aggressive. She was a bit shocked at how Meta-grade substances were now falling into the hands of kids... she also wished they'd leave soon, seeing as she was starting to perspire.

"Which reminds me, your share for the month is in the office." Coach Xanatos (not really his name) headed to the office Danny was in, to get something from his table.

The dialogue from the locker room struck Danny as more unnerving than the incident she currently needed to investigate. Tyrone was an honor roll student and nationally ranked in debate, so why was he talking like a bad mixture of eighteen hundreds caricatures with some urban lingo? "Good to see Rex handling adversity so well." The rest of the office offered little to no hiding places, but at least it could offer Danny a few doors to choose from.

A share existed within this room? Well, now Danny needed to find out what the 'share' actually was. A check? A sample? If Danny could find it she could hope to nail down some kind of clue linking this incident to a culprit. A few roster reports and grade checks sprawled out across the desk, but none of it would help Danny get to the bottom of this mystery. Anything of substance would probably be in the deck itself, but time did not appear to favor Danny.

Resorting to powers, a turquoise bar would appear to bar the door from the inside. It would buy her a few seconds to pry through some drawers. Pens and office supplies dominated one drawer, while a laptop took up the rest of a middle drawer. The bottom drawer stayed locked. Suspicious. The signal let Danny know she needed the contents of this drawer badly enough to form a turquoise lock pick, rub her bracelet to summon the spirit of a long dead cat burglar, and get to work popping the lock.

Nothing but a box. Cut down on the time she would need to spend pilfering, but if she wanted in, she would need to pick it again, and the entire football team now seemed like they were assisting with knocking down the door. Thinking back to those earlier choices, Danny headed for the side door to lead into the outside hall closest to the girl's locker room. Once she procured a little more privacy, and met up with her partner, she could start lock picking some answers.

Diana took a very slow, very deep breathe, keeping herself calm. The bead of sweat fell not an inch from the Coach's shoe when he went to the office's barred door.

"That's odd." The Coach remarked, turning the handle but unable to open the door. then turned to the football boys. "Gentlemen, please call custodian Willie. Seems this door's stuck."

"Yeah, sure Coach." The boys said, leaving the locker rooms readily enough. Rex didn't bother looking in his pilfered locker, though taking a deep breath to calm himself.

"What about our share?" The athlete said, sniffing, his face pale.

"I don't think the school appreciates any more destruction of property, mister Mason." He said coolly, with a hint of sarcasm, staring at the locker.

Danny must have barred the door. Diana thought, but that left her with Coach goatee over here. The man stood there for a few more minutes, before deciding to just up and leave. Diana's arms felt like wrung towels when she finally left the ceiling, no time to give them a rub. She knocks before finding the door unbarred.

"Um, Danny, Coach is gone. You found... anything..." She said to no one when finds the office empty. She closes the door and heads through the girls' locker door, to find Danny on the other side. She finds Danny discreetly carrying two new items she didn't have on her before.

"Hope they're not gonna miss those. Here, I got a bigger bag, no one'll notice it on me." Diana remarked, bringing out her bulkier shoulder bag from the locker they passed through. She was then looking around the hallway, making sure no one was watching. For a moment it felt like they were dealing with contraband. "Any idea what this Edge is? or where they get it from?" if she could simply beat the answers out of Mason or the Coach, Diana would, but alas, she couldn't, as superheroing on campus required a certain finesse.

The odd exception of heroism came with Danny the lockpicker. Maybe just locksmith would sound a little better when explaining what exactly her skill set would be made up of. A slender sliver of turquoise form began to seep from her bracelet into the box. The locking mechanism felt fairly flimsy, filling Danny with enough confidence to think the box would be open in a few seconds. She felt her feelings dissolve when she felt a snap. "They can stage a criminal enterprise to pull in loads of money, but can't afford a quality lockbox."

A few steps began to make their way towards the locker room in an expedited manner. The turquoise pick would slowly fade away as Danny tried to push the box behind her back. A friendly face popped through, pulling a breath of relief out of her lungs. "I found a bottle of Edge and it isn't shaving gel. Also, I picked up this box and was trying to pick the lock but-" A more concentrated bar grew from her bracelet in order to merely wedge the top off. "I think I'll just get rid of subtlety."

Danny tossed the box into Diana's bag along with the can of Edge. The bag of cash followed next. "Can't get clues off cash. A check would be nice, but I don't think criminals are really working in documents that can be followed, but this-" A manila folder remained in Danny's hands. A quick flip through the pages brought more of a notion to what Danny's next plans would need to be. "I don't know where it comes from, but I know where we can find people who do." Danny threw the folder into Diana's bag and walked over to her locker, opening it, and pulling out her cheerleading uniform. "I think Terra is your size..."

Star. One. Two. Star. One. Two. Star. One. Two. And the locker opened. Danny pulled out a second cheerleading uniform and put it in Diana's bag. "They've already got the meat with football players, now they need finesse and gymnastics with cheerleaders. We're going to Las Vegas for the Nevada Regional Competition tomorrow and finding who is behind this."

"Las Vegas? I'll bring sun screen then. Wait, aren't we going to analyze what's in Edge or something?" Diana asked, clearly having watched a few detective shows here and there. Her eyes went to the cash as well. Since she was no longer doing the Blood Sword thing, it had been awhile since she'd seen such fat wads of cash.

"You know... I bet that cash basically doesn't exist in any paperwork. We could... you know..." The temptation of phat loot reared its ugly head, tugging at Diana's mercenary heart strings.

After grabbing some cheer uniforms, but before they'd have their stock footage of a plane landing in Las Vegas , the two girls run into authorities in the hallway just as they departed.

Helga Klein, their not-a-nazi German nurse, and the Coach. They walked down the hall and just so happen to run into the girls.

"Hello Princess, Danny. You girls are still on campus?" The Coach said, putting on the concerned mentor type, despite sporting a red blazer and a reddish goatee. His hair almost seemed to taper into horns from an angle. Diana felt like her heart tried to leap out of her chest.

"We were just leaving, Coach. Miss Klein..." Diana said, taking a deep breath and speaking calmly.

Helga was visibly distraught and upset. The results did not sit well with her at all. "Oh! Zis is such dreadful news! zat laboratory we work vit is out of zeir minds! Girls, If you have ze time I'd like to you two to visit ze clinic I used to work at. Zey von't doctor ze results!" She hands Danny and Diana a business card for a different clinic, and she pockets it absent-mindedly.

"Yes. It is quite strange. Perhaps Rex Mason using some substance does not come as a surprise, but that many students is... improbable." The Coach was unflappable, stroking his goatee.

"Yeah, it sure is crazy. What were the people at that lab thinking?" Diana tried to keep up the talk, keeping her body language to a bare minimum. She looked at Danny, trying her best to keep calm. An awkward silence fell on the four of them.

"...A lot of reading tonight, miss Mendoza?" The Coach said, his shifty eyes on Diana's big shoulder bag.

"Analyze it? Sure. What do you think it is?" Danny stopped and looked at the can. "I don't know either. We'll drop it off on the way, but looking this stuff over takes some time and even then it most likely won't point any quick fingers. Also, the smartest person I know is Bliss, so if you want to talk to her, go for it. I haven't found a way to shut her up short of duct tape, but I'm pretty sure that would be for after she gives us the information we need."

Soon enough the hallway doubled in population. "Yes, Nurse Klein, I'm sure your lab will be fully staffed by people who have been completely accounted for since 1945." Running into anyone right now did not set well with Danny, but they needed to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Unfortunately, the bag Diana threw over her shoulder drew the coach's attention. "Diana is trying out for cheerleading so she can get in the school spirit." Danny reached in and pulled the uniform to the edge of the bag. "With no practices, it's perfect time to practice, and unlike the football team, the cheerleaders have a certain reputation for success to uphold. If only they could bottle greatness coach."

Danny grabbed Diana by the arm and began to break from the conversation. "Why is Klein with the coach?" The only solution would come from seeking out the help of Bliss. It would not be easy. It would not be kind. But, sacrifices had to be made. "I doubt you've ever dealt with someone like Bliss before, so I'll just fill you in. She sucks, but is smart."

Most of the parking lot cleared out with almost all extra curricular activities removed from the docket. A few keystrokes across the screen of her smartphone sent a message out to Bliss. Living in NorCal at least put her in close proximity to Bliss, but it also badly put her in close proximity to Bliss. "We can see if Bliss can make a copy and then when we run it by Klein's people, we can see if they are trustworthy or not."

The Coach seemed to accept Danny's story.

"I see. well then. Miss Mendoza does have an excellent athletic record... but the athletic committee will want to have a word with your grades. At another time. Take care, girls." The Coach gives them a final parting glance, and they then go their separate ways. Diana had a bad feeling they'd see the Coach again real soon.

Amnesia ensured that Diana did not remember her failed ventures with Bliss. "Sounds like a helpful person to know. We'll visit her, then catch up to the cheer event... though I don't see how cheerleaders could use Edge. unless they started a brawl with the other teams."

After some footage of a plane landing in Vegas, the girls were now in Vegas. Diana switched to her touristy outfit to deal with the heat- a nice long sleeved white blouse and shorts, and a bag. Also, lip balm, polarized glasses and a hat. How they got the Edge through is a complete mystery.

Diana was always quick with Uber. She should be like an endorser by now. A fancy car comes into the airport's driveway for Uber, the private transit company getting alot of angry glances from the taxis one lane over.  

"Eyyy mama. Welcome to Las Vegas. Where we going today?" The driver turns out to be one of those Elvis impersonators. The novelty was lost on the millenial.

"Does everyone in Vegas dress like that? also, where is Bliss staying at here in Vegas?" Diana said, the driver's celebrity tribute lost on this Babymetal listening teenage hero. She holds the door open for Danny, deciding she didn't want to ride shotgun with the driver.

Diana crossed a cardinal border with Danny. "I'm pretty sure you don't know why you're wrong about why cheerleaders would need a strength enhancer, but I'm pretty sure you'll know when it becomes important." A more important message began to formulate itself on the touch screen of Danny's camaro. "Bliss should get back to us. We might meet with her tonight, before heading out tomorrow."

Bliss never answers. Even when she is the answer. Going straight to voicemail was probably just as good though. Getting a call back from Ashley to explain Bliss would meet them there ranked up there with Metatron explaining why God was about to inflict boils upon you, but at least you did not have to put up with how bitchy God was. "We're meeting Bliss in Vegas. She'll help us get to the bottom of this."

Most of the terminal walk passed by without much insight into the whereabouts of Bliss or the problem at hand. Danny took out her phone and sent a quick text message to Bliss. No message would come back. Danny knew it and like Nostradamus, Danny's vague prediction came true. "It might take her a minute." An hour passed and no message came.

However, an Uber driver did come. While Danny checked her phone again, Diana held the door open for her. "Thanks. We should head to the competition before we- holy diver." The inside of the car took Danny for a different ride than Elvis would be moving for. "Yeah, I guess this is what I should expect." Danny sat back with her phone in her hand. No message came again. Bliss knew where they would meet, so maybe she would show up and meet them there. Or maybe she did not wake up yet, because she conducted a business meeting with the mini bar. Either or.

Danny stepped out of the Uber with her gym bag in hand. "Let's get into our infiltration suits and get ready." Calling a cheerleader outfit an infiltration made perfect sense to the Prodigy operative. Just like using an empty lockerroom as a staging area also made little sense to the world outside of Danny's head. But, Danny kept a pretty level head, so maybe the world just needed to get on her level.

Elvis brought the duo to the big convention center where the Cheer meet was happening. With so many bright and colorful uniforms about, it was not not hard to find. Diana thanked their driver and they went in, just another two faces among many.

Cheerleader Diana was apparently now a thing as they emerged from the nearest girls' room. She cracked her knuckles and tightened her shoe laces, wondering if they were going to have trouble.

"So how are we going to find Bliss in this huge crowd?" Diana asked, looking around. With this many people, snacks and refreshments were only natural, and alcohol was available at a portable bar. The owner of the portable bar was sad though, since he couldn't sell liquor to the kids.

Elsewhere, clandestine meetings with the most competitive teams were going underway, far and away from prying eyes. After the demonstration with Rex Mason, the most desperate teams were slowly beginning to entertain the idea of metahuman grade strength boosters for sporting events.