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Elena POV

The next day, I sat on my bed, staring at the lit lamp in front of me on the bedside table. The lampshade was removed, leaving the lightbulb exposed and shining.

"Come on, you can do this." I muttered quietly to myself. "You're Elena Grace Freeman, the badass babe with superpowers. Brightening a lightbulb should be a walk in the park."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, before touching the bulb with the tips of my fingers. As I opened my brown eyes, I tried to imagine the lightbulb brightening.

A large grin grew on my face as the bulb got rapidly brighter. However, that grin was quickly replaced with a wide eyed and panicked expression as I realized that the bulb didn't stop brightening.

I let out a surprised shriek, when the lightbulb suddenly burnt out and exploded. Pieces of broken glass scattered across my floor, nightstand, and bed.

Suddenly, my bedroom door swung open and two nearly identical teenagers rushed in, startled and trying to catch their breaths.

"Hey, guys....." I greeted the twins in a pathetic attempt at acting natural. "So.....What's up?"

"What the hell, Ellie?!" Hope exclaimed, her blue eyes wide in surprise and worry.

"Why did you scream? And what happened to your lamp?" Hope's twin brother, Trevor, asked with the same shocked and concerned expression as his sister.

Hope and Trevor were my foster mom, Teresa's, biological kids from her first marriage. They were also the only ones (who were civilians) that knew about my powers.

They had witnessed me using my powers to stop a robbery and recognized my voice. When I'd gotten home from patrol, the twins confronted me about my nighttime activities.

After threatening to tell our moms about Hope skipping cheer practice every once in a while to go make out with her boyfriend in the girl's locker room, and Trevor skipping school to watch basketball practices at the local college, I finally managed to swear them to secrecy.

"You were practicing using your powers, weren't you?" The blonde girl asked rhetorically, having already knowing the answer.

"El, what happened to only practicing your powers at the warehouse, because it was too dangerous to use them around the house?" Trevor scolded with a quirked eyebrow and arms crossed over his chest. "Your words, not mine, Elena."

I rolled my brown eyes at the twins and let out a groan. "Well, Zatanna and the others told me to practice doing little things with my powers more often, to help with keeping them under control."

A week after my accident at the lab, Zatanna Zatara and her fiancé, Richard Grayson, tracked me down and started training me to control my powers.

"Let's just clean all of this glass up, before any of the others walk in and start to get suspicious." Trevor stated, before we all started clearing out the broken glass and throwing it into my garbage bin.

"Thanks, you guys." I told the twins with a grateful smile, as I screwed the new lightbulb into the lamp and placed the lampshade over it.

"Anytime." The two blondes replied in unison with amused smiles.

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"I honestly can't believe that Tyler just straight up called Mrs. Luka a 'sorry excuse for a teacher' to her face!"

"Right? Everyone knows that you're supposed to wait until you're in the hallway to trash talk teachers." I chuckled as my best friends, Shelly Dawson and Nick Masters, and I approached our lockers.

"Dude was practically begging for a detention." I continued, finishing up my combo and opening my locker.

"I'm pretty sure there's a chair in the principal's office that has a plaque with his name on it." Nick joked, shoving his Algebra II stuff into his own locker.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised." Shelly stated with an amused snort.

"Hey, did you guys get that AP Bio homework done last night? I'm completely lost on number fourteen and number twenty-three." I started, but trailed off at the sight of my little brother limping even more than usual with the leg of his pants and shirt sleeve all torn up.

Without another word to my friends, I started to make my way towards Freddy. His brown eyes grew considerably in size when he saw me quickly approaching.

"Freds, are you okay? What the hell happened? Was it Brett and Burke? Oh, I bet it was! I'm gonna pummel those pricks into the concrete!" I rambled at lightning speed, my anger at a light simmer.

"They literally hit him with their truck." Mary informed, coming to stand at my left.

"Almost hit, keyword: almost."

My dark brows shot up in disbelief, mouth gaping as my brown eyes filled with a fury that a handful of people have seen.

My temper was now at a boiling point, due to the new information that my little brother could have been seriously injured, or worse, killed.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down, before pulling out my phone and turning Freddy so that his injuries were facing me.

"Elle, what are you doing?" Freddy asked, brow scrunched in confusion, as I snapped pictures of the concrete skid marks on my brother's body.

"Getting evidence to show the principle, so that I can finally get these dickheads expelled." I told them rather bluntly, before putting my phone away. "They're still parked in front of the school right? Still halfway on top of the grass?"

My little brother nodded and I grabbed Mary's wrist, before starting to drag my classmate towards the exit.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Freds asked loudly, trying to catch up with us.

"That sidewalk is technically on school property, and they've been not only tearing it up, but also destroying that poor tree for months now. Which counts as vandalism and obstruction of public property. Also they're front right tire is technically in a no parking zone."

"Plus, they've been picking on you and physically injuring you for months, which is harassment and assault. With all the photo evidence that I've gathered over the past couple months and hopefully all the witness testimonies that I can gather from our peers, we might just be able to do it."

"Do what?" Mary asked as I brought the three of us to a halt and Freddy caught up to us.

"Get the shitmobile towed, Brett and Burke expelled (or at the least suspended) and maybe arrested with a very hefty fine." I stated with a grin, mischief glinting in my brown eyes.

"So, are you guys in or not? Because I'm gonna need some help." I asked giving the two a wicked smirk.

"Let's take those assholes down." Freddy grinned, before the two of us turned to Mary.

"Legally, right?" She asked, eyeing us both warily. "I don't want to loose my chance at Cal Tech, because you're dumbasses got me arrested."

"Of course." I chuckled, rolling my eyes at the girl. "Who do you think I am? An amateur?"

"That's not comforting, Elena." My classmate groaned, rubbing her temples.

"It's really not." My little brother agreed, making me give them both a feigned look of hurt.

"I'm wounded, truly." I stated sarcastically, placing a hand over my heart. "You're really going to let the two of us do this without your supervision?"

"Okay, fine!" Mary sighed, after realizing how bad of an idea it was to leave Freddy and I to do this plan alone.

"Yay!" I exclaimed in sarcastic cheer with a clap of my hands. "Mary you get everyone who videotaped this morning's incident and as many other similar occurrences as you can."

"Freddy, I need you to tell me on tape, every thing that happened this morning and every other occurrence that we can prove." They both nodded and started to follow me outside, but I stopped them again.

"Freddy, I need you to stay here because I can excuse Mary and I to leave the building without looking suspicious." I told my brother, who immediately got an offended look on his face.

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, Bubba, but with Mary I can use an excuse that I forgot our History presentation in my car and that I needed help carrying it inside." I explained, my excuse actually being 100% true.

"And you have this look that you get that makes you look like a hyperactive crackhead that's trying to sneak illegal fireworks into the school."

"I do not! I don't have a look!" He argued, once again looking offended.

"There's definitely a look, buddy." Mary admitted with a nod and a shrug, as she gave the curly haired boy an apologetic look.

"Wow, I'm definitely feeling all the love and support guys, really." The smaller boy said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes.

"We don't have enough time, for anymore bickering, Mary and I will go get the pictures, while you hang tight and go to your next class. I have a free period during your lunch, so we can record your testimony then."

"Alright, let's do this." I stated, before placing my hand out in front of me. "Hands in."

With grins on their faces, Mary and Freddy followed suit, stacking their hands on top of mine.

"Operation Pest Control is go."