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Chapter Three: Meetings and Greetings

Nora Frost, the girl notoriously known as the “ice queen” of campus, glared daggers as cold as icicles at the girl she saw sitting across the cafeteria. She didn’t fail to notice the looks of appraisal given to her by the sidekick clique. Frowning thinly, She felt the bone-chilling element of ice and rage surge across the veins of her hands, but kept them pinned heavily down against her sides.

‘Evelyn Elektra,’ she heard whispered around her.

She scrunched her nose up with utter contempt and disgust. All the students around the campus were staring and gawking at her with a look of awe set on their faces when she walked by. It made her absolutely sick! And it made her ever the more enraged when they uttered her name in a whisper like she was some fucking god walking the Earth.

She glanced again over at the sidekick table, seething in silence as she caught a brief glimpse of Warren Peace staring at the girl with a faint look of curiosity.

Bitterness struck her as she sat rigid in her chair. They had broken up a year ago, being a couple for only a month. She hated him, but still had feelings for the campus bad boy even today. And yet, he had dumped her like she was yesterday’s newspaper, stating that they had nothing in common and she was too “controlling”.

This new girl was nothing to her and she would continue to try and win him back. That, Nora was certain of.

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Ethan cringed as he felt hands grab him maliciously around his arms with bruising force. He had thought he could out run him. But, unfortunately, his method of escape proved futile, especially when one could stretch effortlessly around the campus and not break a single drop of sweat.

He was hauled and flung viciously down the Sky High hallway, screaming and trembling in fright with his arms flailing wildly in protest. Seconds flew by and eyes of other students followed his blurred form down the narrow school before he felt himself crash solidly into a massively hard chest.

Gulping in fear, Ethan looked up to see Speed peering down at him in gleeful delight. “Hey four eyes… ready to have some fun…?” he taunted.

“Um…no?” he squeaked.

Speed laughed sadistically as Lash hauled him up. He squeezed his eyes shut in utter defeat as he found himself suspended upside down and grabbed by either side of his arms. They had promised Will to desist in dunking his head into the toilet… now they just dropped him head-first into school trashcans.

“Don’t have Stronghold to defend ya now, do ya?”

“Please guys,” Ethan whimpered, “just let me go.”

“Fat chance, little wimp.” Lash cackled, carrying him alongside his partner.

“Yeah,” Speed snickered. “Did you forget today is trash day?”

Ethan opened his eyes as he felt them stop all movement, his gaze moving below him to find himself suspended and hovered over a rusty, circular can. “Please, guys…”

“HAHAHA!”

Their scathing laughter burned and blistered his ears as he trembled in fearful trepidation. He shut his eyes again, wanting to be spared the visual experience of his head dropping through a smelly, cluttered hole-

“Why don’t you two idiots put the kid down and find a new outlet of pathetic amusement,” a new voice interrupted sharply.

The snide laughter ceased as their gazes fell silently toward the intruder behind them. Opening his eyes, Ethan’s mouth gaped open in pure shock. There he saw Evelyn Elektra, starring the two bullies down with a deep frown and a scathing stare of contempt.

Speed gazed at her in astonishment while Lash smirked slyly. “Put him down, man,” he ordered his partner.

“On the ground and not the can.” She stated.

“Well, I suppose,” Lash spoke, “Milady, but, now that we have lost our source of amusement, how about we just have some fun with you. I’m sure you’d make an even better replacement than the sidekick.”

Raising an eyebrow skeptically, Evelyn watched as they put the boy flat on his feet toward the ground. The boy, small and dark skinned, scampered away at a safe distance.

Lash smirked with sly enjoyment as he stalked in her direction, unknowing of the nature his newest victim was capable of. Speed, however, hesitated.

The boy didn’t even know what had hit him as his intended swiftly, as if having the same abilities as his partner, materialized from behind him.

He turned around quickly. “What the-“

Evelyn smirked. He didn’t realize his mistake as she blew onto the flat, upturned surface of her palm, the wind from her breath conjuring itself into a giant, circular ball.

As if struck by a powerful gust, Lash was blown clear down across the hallway, cursing and screaming in flight.

Turning her gaze from his partner’s shrieking form, Evelyn stared with vacant and calm interest at Speed. “Are you in agreement with your friend down there?” she asked coolly.

Speed sputtered in fear. “N-n-no, Ma’am.”

“Good. That’s what I thought.”

“Wow,” Ethan breathed, watching in awe as she walked away. ‘I was just saved by Elektra’s daughter…wait till Zack hears about this…’

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It was her last class of the day, one called, “Power Studies”. How utterly typical for a superhero academy…

A woman, well-rounded and dressed in a huge, unflattering floral dress stood in front to look impassively over at her students. “Welcome to power studies,” she spoke, “This is an introductory course into the knowledge and understanding of various possessed powers and abilities of students. I am your teacher, Ms. Wendell, and for the next couple of months I will be pairing you into teams of two with similar natures as your own.”

She quietly stalked over toward her desk, her chubby fingers moving to pick up a clipboard with a thin stack of papers attached atop of it.

“Now,” she began tiredly, “I want you all to stand up and wait for your name to be called. This will be your final seating arrangement for this semester and I expect all of you to get to know your partners. You’re gonna need to. The lab participation for this class is required in order to pass.”

Evelyn zoned out during most of the name call and stood in unperturbed silence against the classroom wall. She didn’t fail to notice that Lash was present in her class. She could feel his eyes lingering on her, no doubt, in rage.

Half the class was seated when she finally had her name called. “Evelyn Elektra and… Warren Peace.”

Evelyn ignored the eyes that followed her and sat down at the table. Her new partner did the same. He was young; Evelyn noticed, probably around her own age with dark, lustrous black hair clinging and reaching toward broad shoulders. His heart-shaped face was partially covered by the black and red-streaked curtain of his hair, hiding his eyes and well-chiseled features. He didn’t seem to pay her any mind. And for that, Evelyn was grateful.

Fifteen minutes passed and everyone had been carefully seated. Evelyn noticed with extreme aggravation that ‘Lash’ was sitting behind her. She could feel his eyes seething and practically burning imaginary holes into her backside. The feeling was mutual.

“Now,” Ms. Wendell began, “I want you to begin introductions with the person beside you. You will have to fill out this worksheet that I am about to hand you and turn it in by the end of this period. This is a questionnaire about you and your new partner.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and looked impassively beside her. Warren did the same.

They remained silent and looked down at their worksheets as it was given to them. The questions seemed easy enough to ask.

“So,” Warren spoke gruffly, his voice snapping her out of her thoughts. “What are your powers?”

Well, it was a classroom. Therefore, in order to pass, she couldn’t exactly stay silent the whole time in it. “I can manipulate and strengthen elements,” Evelyn answered quietly.

“Elements?”

His brown eyes gazed up from his paper in interest.

“Fire, Air, Earth, Water. Elements of life. You?”

“I’m a pyrokinetic. I can conjure fire.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Looking down at her paper, Evelyn looked at the questions, power similarities and power differences…? “So, I guess each of us have a power relating to that element, only you can manifest it and I can only manipulate it?”

Warren shrugged, his face impassive. “I guess.”

They both scribbled and wrote in silence on their pages.

A man of few words, Evelyn mused, her favorite type to be partnered up with. That meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about him yakking her ear off the entire period.

Some of the questions for this particular pair were easily assessed through observation and what little words were exchanged from one to another. Silence reigned between them, but more of a companionable silence.

“Power weaknesses…?” Warren asked.

Evelyn shrugged. “Each can knock out the other easily. I suppose the weakness comes in the fact that I can’t manifest it… for yours, I guess I’ll assume water, ice, and wind?“

“Only if it’s strong enough.”

Feeling eyes on her, Evelyn turned around briefly in her chair, raising a mocking eyebrow at the boy behind her. Lash glared back, anger radiating from his eyes, before grudgingly turning his attention back to his paper.

Noticing the exchange, Warren simply asked sardonically, “Friend of yours?”

“Not particularly. He’s some asshole I came across in the halls.”

“Ah.” For some reason, Warren couldn’t help but be curious about the situation. Yet, he kept his questions to himself. From the look of it, and the bump Lash was sporting on the backside of his head, he must have done something to provoke her.

“What is the lab for this class suppose to be, anyway?” Evelyn asked, changing the subject.

“From what I’ve heard, we will have to go through a joint physical education class with Boomer for “Save the Citizen”. Partners are teamed against another group of partners, sometimes with abilities opposite of yours.”

“Oh.”

Evelyn merely nodded and looked back down at her paper awkwardly. She had finished up the last of the questions and right at present, she couldn’t figure out why she was actually beginning to get comfortable actually speaking with this guy…

“You don’t talk this often or much to people, do you?” Warren asked suddenly, his eyes studying her.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I’m the same way, so of course it is.”

Evelyn nodded and smiled in wry amusement despite herself. “What a fine, conversational pair of partners the two of us will make then.”

“Think they planned it?”

“Yep.”