Troy and the Captain of Ringdom

A couple of months later, Madonna returned to Seattle. Seattle Central High held an end of the session gathering to formally mark the passing of students into a higher grade level. The quadruple of talented heroes moved to the final grade of high school. Seattle Central High was more or less, the glue that held the team in one piece. Entering their final year at high school was disheartening for all of them, but they all determined to try as much as they could to keep the team in one piece, even after leaving high school. Cherry finished the session as the eleventh grade's best student. She was certain her intelligence didn't come from her late father. After watching her father die at the hands of Mason, Cherry felt this big empty hole in her heart that really needed filling. She understood the fact that Lord Naphtaloz died because he deserved to die - he was a callous malevolent warlord; an evil maestro who had numerous bad intentions. Cherry decided to switch her surname to her mother's maiden name - Davies. She wanted nothing to do with her demonic father but always refused to admit the fact that she missed knowing the fact that he was alive. Cherry would have loved to have a normal childhood without these life changing powers and heavy responsibilities. On a warm summer afternoon, Troy invited Cherry over for lunch. Surprised to receive an invite from a very unlikely source, Cherry had to phone Mason to get his thoughts on accepting Troy's unusual invite. Not that she had a problem with Catriona, she just considered it absurd for Troy to invite just her to the high rise Willows Mansion. Cherry got the go ahead from Mason, to go if she wanted to. Cherry's grandmother always gave her permission for her granddaughter to leave and see her friends whenever she needed to; all she wanted was for Cherry to carry her mobile phone along everywhere she went so she could always reach her. Old Mrs Davies loved talking to Cherry over the phone - who else would she speak to? All they had was each other! As Cherry walked towards the gate, a set of beweaponed guards stood in her way. One of them stepped forward to ask if she had an invitation from any of the house's major residents. Cherry wasn't given anything like that and so she was prohibited from passing through the gates. Cherry pulled out her phone and called Catriona, but she didn't answer. On each of the twelve times she called, it was Troy's voice message that played back. Just as Cherry turned back to probably head straight to The Riecke's apartment, she heard a voice calling her from behind. "Cherry! Cherry!! Wait up!" the voice which was now identified as Troy's said. Cherry turned back to meet Troy panting and running towards the gates and allow Cherry through. "Hey! What took you so long?" Cherry ranted after being allowed to get through. "I'm sorry Cher. I was a little busy with a couple of things when you came. I saw your eleven missed calls..." Troy was explaining before being cut by Cherry. "You mean twelve missed calls!" Cherry said. "Alright, Alright. I'm sorry" Troy said as she pulled out her tablet on which she appeared to be checking some social media feed. "So why'd you invite me over for lunch?" Cherry asked. "What do you mean why'd I invite you? What are friends for?" said Troy. "Yeah! I mean you can invite me but I was wondering why you didn't call Mase and Donnie over too" Cherry explained. "Well maybe there's a special reason why I brought you here" Troy hinted. "Maybe?" "Yeah Maybe" As they walked from the main gate to one of the entrances to the main building, Cherry was just stunned by the sights she'd been seeing. The Willows Mansion looked a lot smaller from just outside the gates. When Cherry entered, the house looked a lot different, with large expanses of land on either side of the main building. Mr Willows had his own golf court, swimming pool, arcade and table tennis board just to mention a few. He even had the statue of an Alaskan Polar Bear just in front of the building. "So what would you like to eat Cher?" Troy asked with a smirk. "I just really want to know what this special news is" "Just forget about that for now. I have to offer you something to eat. You can't just walk into the Willows mansion and walk out looking like a popsicle stick" "Alright. You got pizza?" Cherry asked. "No but they could make it and serve you in here in a couple of minutes" "Okay then. I think some strawberry ice cream would go well with that. What do you think?" "Sounds great". Troy then asked one of the chefs to get double Cherry's order so she could have some as well. The duo walked into the main building. Cherry felt like she was on a different planet, observing the relatively low temperature and the vast scenery all around her. The mansion looked like a big theatre. Cherry wondered why there were so many people wandering around the house staff when she only knew of Troy and her father. As a matter of fact, Mr Willows wasn't even in town - he was out for a conference being attended by a number of giants in the private sector and wouldn't be back for a long while. Mr Willows knew he couldn't leave his teenage daughter alone in such a large building - she'd probably invite her friends and wreck the property. Mr Willows was a very ambitious man. On a couple of occasions, he told his daughter that a man never had enough wealth or properties until he had enough money to buy an entire planet. He was never going to sit back and relax until the very last dollar sat in his palm! Troy took her dear friend to 'one of her rooms' within the complex. Cherry was in complete awe of the structure of Catriona's room. Inside Troy's room, she had her own bathroom, her own fridge - stuffed with snacks, drinks and what not, her own book shelf and even her own computers; Troy was really living the life. Some minutes later, their food arrived and they ate to their satisfaction, while chatting about some things that had been trending on Instaflash. One of the trends they talked about was the story of a man who taught his dog how to hula dance! "So what's this news you have for me?" Cherry then asked to break a momentary period of silence. Troy responded by walking towards a desk on which her laptop was placed. She then signalled Cherry to come over. "Cherry...how would you feel if I told you that you had a brother all along?" Troy asked. "What? No! That can't be true. Is it true?" Cherry asked. "I don't know for sure, but last week, I was going through you, Mason and Madonna's files from the US database..." Troy was explaining before being interrupted by Cherry. "Why were you checking our files?" "You don't understand I was..." "...and how on earth did you get access to the United States database? I thought their firewall was super secure?" "One question at a time please" "Alright which of them do you want to answer first?" "I don't know. You tell me!" "Okay how did you get past the firewall?" "I downloaded this app called Subrepticio for three hundred bucks. The app allows me get past the toughest of firewalls which is why I have access to practically every bit of personal information there is" "Why would you waste that much money just to get a single app?! Anyway...Why were you going through our files?". Troy turned her right arm into a heavy duty fan and blew the breeze against Cherry's face causing her hair to scatter and her eyes to shut. "What are you doing Troy?" Cherry asked. "I'm hoping this'll make you forget about the subject" "Well if that's your plan, you're doing a bad job" "Look, do you want to hear what I found out or not?" "Alright, show me" Cherry said as Cherry turned her arm back to normal and opened a file on her computer. Cherry dragged a chair from the other end of the room to come and seat beside Troy. Apparently, the latter had made a groundbreaking discovery which she felt would interest Cherry. "I looked through all your details for siblings. When I opened up Mason's, I saw Max and Maddie and when I opened Madonna's I..." "Just go straight to the point " "Okay. My computer was able to match one person with a similar genetic origin to yours. Now, I thought it was some mistake like you might be thinking right now, but I checked and found out that this guy had the exact same surname and even hair color as you" Troy explained. "What's his name?" Cherry asked already beginning to believe. "His name is Ainsley Naphtaloz" Troy said reading from a grid on her device. "Naphtaloz?! That was my Dad's name!" Cherry exclaimed. "Oh and by the way, did you know that Maddison has the same name as the city where she lived in Wisconsin?" Troy asked. "Nobody cares about that Troy". Troy took some time to triangulate the exact location of Ainsley after Cherry made a request for her to do so. The lad didn't live in a precise location - he was a street urchin. The only detail Troy was able to extract showed that he lived in Warsaw - the Polish capital. How on earth did he get to Poland when Cherry remembered being born in America? Troy's discovery raised a lot of questions in Cherry's mind. She wondered if 'Ainsley' was the only other child Lord Naphtaloz kept a secret. Catriona walked her friend back to the gate. On their long way back out, Cherry kept asking Troy if there was anyway they could go and see what her mystery brother looked like. Troy said she would try work something out; all she needed was for Cherry to stay calm and not tell anyone else about their discovery. Cherry found her instructions strange, but she soon agreed to them. She'd do anything to see this brother of hers. Just as Troy was about to bid Cherry goodbye, the pair received an alert from Mason telling them that Maddison picked up a distress signal from Des Moines. A robbery was occurring at the Central Bank of Iowa. Troy gave a long sigh of disapproval, but Cherry told her to get out of the Mansion and pop a disc. They no  longer had to run into the closets to change into their superhero outfits anymore. The duo transformed into their costumes and jetted out to the scene to join in on the action. Troy was actually mapping out a plan for the 'fabulous four' to have an underground base. She wasn't short of the financial enablement required to create sophisticated underground caverns, but she required a governmental permit to do so - talking less about where she would site such an edifice. Cherry and Troy arrived at Maddison's laboratory through the inlet. They met Mason pacing around the room while Madonna played table tennis with Max. "Give me a status update Mase!" Troy said. "A bank in Iowa is being robbed!" Mason said knowing that they got the message on the communication lines. "Let's go then" Cherry said. Madonna then quit the game of ping pong and opened a portal that sent them straight to the source of the distress signal. They all walked across.