Elias brought his Meltdown sword up in front of his face in an attempt to slice the baseball in half. He had succeeded and then proceeded to bring the sword over to cut another one. He had been doing this for about 30 minutes and not a single one had hit him yet. Becca wasn’t around to watch him practice as it was boring after a little while. She decided to hang out with Aaron and Georgia instead. It was a week until the preliminary rounds would start. Most initiation rounds were already done now.

Becca was taking a walk around the school just having a conversation with Aaron and Georgia. Some other students would give a friendly wave and others would give a cold stare. Elias’ victory had caused some of the students to actually warm up to him, including Cole Price. Of course with some people warming up to him, some others started to despise him and his close friends even more.

“Alright it’s getting late. I should go grab Elias before he strains himself. Goodnight Aaron. Goodnight Georgia.” Becca said as she began to walk to where Elias was training.

She stepped onto the training yard and immediately froze as shock ran through her whole body. She watched as Cole launched a lightning bolt straight at Elias. Elias tried to defend himself by blocking it with his sword but was too slow and the bolt hit him straight in the chest. Elias collapsed on one knee. Cole ran over to where Elias was kneeling. Becca felt nothing but rage and sprinted towards Cole with flaming fists. Cole grabbed Elias’ hand and they both looked up just in time to see a fiery punch coming from Becca towards Cole’s face.

Cole took the brunt and landed on the pavement holding his cheek. Becca was about to unleash a fury on him. She raised her fist again but Elias quickly grabbed her.

“Becca don’t! Everything is fine.”

“He just attacked you! What do you mean everything is fine?”

“Becca it’s not what you think.” Elias let go of her and held his hands up defensively.

Cole groaned as he sat up. “Holy moly! For a small girl you can give a nasty punch!”

“What in the world are you attacking Elias for?!?”

“Calm down Becca. Everything is fi-“

“No it’s not Elias!”

“Becca let the kid explain please.” Cole pleaded the enraged girlfriend.

“Explain what? That you accidentally shot him?”

“Becca you need to listen. Cole wasn’t attacking me. Well he was but not like trying to hurt me or anything. The shot didn’t even hurt that much.”

“Huh?”

“He’s helping me. The baseballs are great for practice but compared to some powers they are nowhere near as fast. Cole’s is one of the fastest because he has lightning. If I can practice deflecting his attacks then I should do fine against other attacks.”

“Wait... that’s it?” Becca began to let her guard down.

“Yea. Cole is just helping with my training.”

“Oh...” Becca began to stare at the ground. “I’m sorry Cole. I acted before I fully understood what was going on.”

“Eh. It’s no biggy. You just owe me a little favor. I’ll call you up on it tomorrow.”

“What? A favor?”

“It’s nothing bad I promise. I was going to ask you about it at some point anyway.”

“Oh uh... ok.”

Cole had soon left the area leaving Becca and Elias alone in the training yard.

“I’m really sorry Elias. I thought he was trying to kill you.” Becca apologized once again.

Elias threw his arms around her. “It’s ok, Becca you’re just protective of me. If it was you I would be doing the same.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” Becca didn’t respond and slowly placed her arms around him too. “Now come on. We need to get to our room.” Elias stood up. Becca stood up with him but held tightly onto his arm. They slowly walked back to their room. Becca hadn’t let go of his arm at all and was practically glued to him. Even when they entered the room and sat on his bunk she still held onto his arm.

“Is everything ok?”

There was a long pause before she answered. “Yes.”

“So no.”

“...no...”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just still feel guilty about it.”

“Did something happen?”

Becca was silent. Not a word was uttered. She only leaned into Elias more. Elias took this as a yes. That something had happened in her past and doing what she did today had caused her to remember it.

“What happened?”

“...nothing...” Becca lied and knew Elias wouldn’t believe her.

“...ok...” Elias figured she would tell him when she was ready to. For now his job was to provide comfort for his guilt stricken girlfriend.

A few hours passed and Elias was getting tired. Becca still clung to his arm. However, she was asleep now. Elias knew he needed to get some sleep too. He adjusted and picked up her sleeping form bridal style. But there was a slight problem. She slept on the top bunk. Elias had no way to get her up there without waking her up and he didn’t want to do that. The best option was to lay her on his bunk. He would have to sleep on the floor... or on her bunk... Elias laid her down and put some blankets over her and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. He decided that he should sleep on her bunk.

Morning was soon upon them and Becca woke up realizing she was not in her regular bed. It sent a shock throughout her entire system and she sat up wondering what had happened. The events of the previous night flooded back into her mind. She quickly looked around for Elias and stood up to to find him. Then she found him asleep in her bed. A smile crept onto her face. Suddenly, she remembered the favor she owed Cole and left the room in a hurry to meet him.

Becca found him in the cafeteria sitting at a table that was somewhat distant from the rest of the students. She sat down at the table while greeting him. “Good morning Cole!” She said in her usual cheery voice.

“Morning.” He simply replied back.

“So what is the favor you wanted to ask me?”

“There’s this girl...”

“You want advice?”

“Y-Yea...”

“What kind of girl?”

“She’s a really nice girl but her ability requires her to be a bit of a jerk. Which makes her feel guilty at the end of her fights.”

“Anything else?”

“Uh... she’s really pretty.”

“Ok well those two things are pretty typical for someone you have a crush on so that doesn’t really narrow it down much at all.”

“R-right. Sorry.”

“How much have you hung out with her?”

“Not much at all. I’m kinda scared to talk to her.”

“Well I think you need to hang out with her and get to know her. Because from what you’re telling me is that you just like her because she’s pretty. Unless you know more about her?”

“No I don’t know much about her.”

“Ok. So like I said. Hang out with her before you decide how you feel about her. Right now she’s just a pretty face to you and that can hurt her if she knows more about you. And because you are quite popular already, I’m willing to bet she already knows a lot about you.” Becca warned but she wasn’t condescending about it at all.

“Ok. I’ll try getting to know her. Maybe that will make it easier anyway.”

“Good Cole! I think it will. Who is it by the way?”

“You’ve met her... I don’t think you two got off on the right foot because you fought each other...”

“I’ve fought with five people already and four of them were girls. So I need a name Cole.” Becca smiled sweetly with a giggle.

“Her name is Vera Graham. She was your first opponent.”

Becca thought back to her first battle. Vera seemed to have some kind of power that controlled other people. But first they needed to have really low confidence which would be why she needed to insult her opponent.

“Oh I remember her.” Becca was still a little bitter about their match. Vera threw very nasty insults at her.

“Yea... like I said you two didn’t exactly get off on th right foot.”

“Maybe not. But at that time a lot of people hated Elias and me because I stuck with him. Since he beat you he’s gotten some respect but most people think he got lucky or that you went easy on him.”

“I definitely didn’t go easy on him. I mean I didn’t want to kill the poor kid but he kept getting up and I was like crap I might have to kill him. Him getting lucky maybe. I’m not quite sure how he didn’t die. He doesn’t have like a super weak immortality right?”

“No he’s not immortal. The Ability Reader always comes up with Error for him.”

“Huh. I don’t want to say he got lucky because the kid has skill with a sword but I don’t know how he was able to survive all of those... Anyway I should probably talk to Vera and get to know her. I’ll also see what she thinks of Elias. Just so you can see if you can forgive her.”

“That would be much appreciated Cole.” Becca said looking down at the table. In truth she wasn’t sure if she could forgive Vera. She barely forgave Cole for what he did and after she walked into what she saw last night she was afraid her forgiveness was misplaced.