WE NEED TO FIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW

Elias Florencio Almeida Ventura

Uh, did I step in a puddle or something? All of a sudden, his feet felt inexplicably chilly, which was exponentially weird considering it was summer. Looking down, Elias saw his feet had become popsicles. The entire area around him, actually was now frozen solid. Just this field of shimmering white. Experimentally, Elias tried jerking his feet out of the ice and was met with strong resistance. He looked back at the Asian student as his mind made the connection.

"Oh my God, you have ice powers!" Elias said with a happy laugh. "That's co- I mean amazing!" He wasn't going to make a pun, he was not. Nope, nope, nope. That was one of the things that his godmother had drilled into him. No puns. Because of language barriers, Elias was inclined to agree with that.

Since it didn't seem like he was going to get out just by tugging, he took out a box cutter that he had in his pocket, sat down awkwardly, and began to chisel away at the ice. Looking up at his opponent with a bright grin, he said, "You know, this is way better than my lousy power! I don't know why you didn't do this to start with! I wouldn't have stood a chance!"

Actually, now that he thought about it. What was he doing? Dumb powers wouldn't let the box cutter work on the ice anyways. Pausing a moment to stare at the still pristine ice, Elias scratched his head sheepishly. "Oh yeah. Forgot about that." So he just put the thing away, took off his gloves, and began punching the ice instead.

Elias Florencio Almeida Ventura

"Eh? Is that what it looks like?" Now it was Elias's turn to be confused. To his credit, though, he didn't even what he was doing as he turned back to the other student. Elias was good at multi-tasking like that, just not in academics.

Tilting his head to the side, he thought about it for a moment. The thing that came immediately to his mind was the extremely helpful Ow, this ice is kind of hard and maybe I should stop punching it. But for the actual situation, his mind was drawing up a blank.

"I mean, I did give you a choice," Elias pointed out thoughtfully, examining the red marks on his knuckles. It would probably bruise but people told him that rubbing ginger on it would help. Or maybe that was for something else? He wasn't that great on remembering things like that. "You just chose the harder option, which makes things more interesting in my opinion."

He frowned a bit. "Oh, maybe I should be clearer about that?" His godmother had said a few times how it would great if he could stop assuming things. But this seemed so clear cut to him. "I mean, if I really wanted to hurt people, I guess I wouldn't announce it. That seems kind of silly and I'm sure that there's a few points on the Evil Overlord List that strongly suggest against it." So obviously, in Elias's mind, it was clear that he didn't want to hurt anybody.

"Hm, if I spit on the ice, do you think it'll eventually melt? No, wait. That's silly. I would get tired of it pretty fast and apparently that wouldn't be polite. Sorry, forget I asked."

Elias Florencio Almeida Ventura

Really, in his opinion, elemental manipulation was a way cooler power. Elias watched wistfully as the other student made the ice first melt and then return to nothingness. The fact that it took a while for it to work meant little to him. After all, they were at school to learn how to control their powers, right? And Elias in particular knew how hard that could be so any display of control was impressive to him.

"Oh, I'm Elias something something Ventura!" The Australian introduced himself blithely, tilting his head as he stared quizzically at the ground where the ice had been. Actually, that's pretty good if he can jump straight from water in the air to solid water. "The middle part isn't too important. Just Elias is fine! It's nice to meet you! Thanks for thawing me out, too! That could have ended badly." The last part was accompanied by a self conscious laugh.

Briefly, he wondered what kind of fairy godparent this Lei guy might have, if any. Because as much as Elias was kind of fond of his own, it would be nice to kill spiders without using his bare hands. But then, he supposed that it was nice having somebody to commiserate over video games with.

The spider problem still stood, though. Also the fact that he was like Jesus walking on water all the time, only on grass blades. And he really hoped that wasn't blasphemy.

"Well, it's nice being able to understand people and fighting them is a pretty good way of building understanding," Elias began to explain. "And by seeing the different ways that different people use to fight, then I can see all of the different sources of strength that people have. It's pretty interesting, actually!"

Elias Florencio Almeida Ventura

As Lei sat down, Elias did, too. Literally on top of the grass blades. He thought, vaguely, that he remembered his godmother saying something about how it was impolite to be standing while somebody else was sitting. Or maybe it was the other way around. Or one of those conditional rules. Social niceties were strange, strange things.

"You can't really fight younger kids, that would just be silly!" Elias said with a laugh. He thought it was a bit strange that Lei would ask something like that. But then again, the other boy was clearly Asian so maybe that was how life typically was for him back at home. If that was the case, then Elias wasn't sure whether he should be envious or not. "I just watch how they punch things and teach them how to do better. You know, just in case. It's really awful not being able to defend yourself and it's much better to teach somebody when they're young so they can get stronger more easily."

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh, yeah. My powers suck, man. It's not even a healing punch sort of deal. I just can't damage anything with anything else. Except for my bare hands. The healing part is kind of hit and miss. But even if it hadn't kicked in, it wouldn't have hurt as long as I had that glove on."

Elias Florencio Almeida Ventura

He looked at Lei and laughed. "Man, you have no idea." There were just about an infinite things Elias could say about the situation because every time he thought he was done finding out how badly his own powers could troll him, they went ahead and moved the goal posts another mile.

"Okay, here's a list of basic life tasks that I auto fail at. One," Elias raised a finger and started counting. "Can't cut food. Have to ask people to do that for me. Can't even use the fork properly so chopsticks have become my best friend. Two, can't use staplers. Obvious enough there. Three, can't use erasers. Apparently it counts as "harming" whatever it is I'm trying to erase. At least I can use whiteout, though, so that's not entirely awful yet."

He continued. "Four, no lawnmowers. Lawns everywhere and I have a pact. I don't bother them and they just reap the benefits. Five, it's really hard opening packages." Elias shrugged. "And, that's just the basics. It applies to things I throw, too."

"You, you probably need more practice," he told the Asian boy honestly. "What you did with the ice was neat but it didn't look like you were actually trying to call it up when it happened. But I guess that's what we're both at the Academy for, right?"