Morning came, and our duo obviously could not sleep, but for entirely different reasons. Luke stayed awake looking through his old possessions, which were hidden under the floorboards under his dresser. He was going through a lot of things. Bags, boxes, a sheathed katana, some old clothes, and a small box. He lingered. He knew lots of things, how to fight, how to devise a plan, psychology, even "measly" things such as cooking, washing his clothes, first-aid. Some others but one thing he sure as hell didn't know was how to teach, especially how to teach her how to use her powers. He grabbed a picture with three people, one boy, one girl, and a man in the middle. The kids stood side by side of the man and they looked quite blank. However, the man in the middle looked extremely happy and proud. What could Luke do? He wondered. Something he could do right about now was make breakfast for Anna since it was already 5:23 in the morning. He texted Jesse.
Jesse, on the other hand, was quite ecstatic and couldn’t sleep for the life of her. She did try to sleep but she just couldn’t fall into it. She was practicing freezing with small objects. She could barely hold in her excitement. What was Luke going to show her? Flips? Breaking bones? How to see without her eyes? What could she do to pass the time? Millions of thoughts were going through her head each with its own sense of wonder and excitement. She even thought about texting Luke about the next day. Wait a second... when are they going to train? He never specified... was it even in the morning or in the night? She reached for her phone and was about to text him until she received a message. It was from Luke saying to meet him at the intersection around 6:00 a.m. That’s one question answered.
Luke was making quite the generic breakfast. One sunny side egg, two pieces of bacon, and one toast alongside orange juice. Luke heard Anna coming out of her room, she walked down the stairs still tired. She walked into the kitchen and saw Luke, who was not only completely dressed but also wearing her apron. They stared at each other and Anna was squinting and even wiped her eyes.
"Are you real?" She asked dazed
"No, this is a dream which is why you're in this nightmare" Luke responded with a smile, he placed the plate on the table
"So, why are you awake especially at this hour? And cooking"
"I'm heading out in a bit, and besides I owe you"
She sat down and started eating, "Wow, this is a lot better than I expected. So where are you going so early in the morning"
"I'm going to train Jesse"
"Right, right... Do you mind repeating that?"
"Jesse said she was getting fat, and that some guys always start shit whenever I'm not around so she's trying to be scary too"
"Hey! No bad words, so what does her dad have to say about this"
"Sorry, and you know how he is, he'd rather go to the school and threaten any kid that looks in her direction"
"Fine, just promise me a few things"
"What's that"
"Don't go to the hospital, don’t start issues, and if you do get into any funny business please call me the second after the police, and lastly, be careful"
"I'll be careful," he said smiling
"So what time do you have to get going?"
"6:00"
Without looking at him Anna simply said "It's 6:09 Luke"
Luke looked at his phone and she was right, he said bye and ran out the door. Anna looked after him and towards the coat rack. Where was his hoodie?
Jesse arrived a bit earlier ready to start training and she regretted it. He was late, she could not believe him. She was seriously started to get- oh wait there he is... walking.
He walked up to her nonchalantly. He was just standing in a long sleeve shirt and joggers, who the hell did he think he is.
"Alright let's go," Luke said before giving Jesse a chance to yell at him
"No, no, no! You are late you need to at least-" Jesse sputtered before being cut-off
"You know I don’t have to do this right?" He responded while walking forward
"SO!"
"The more time we spend dawdling the less time we can use to train"
Jesse decided to bite her tongue and just walk. Feeling a bit disgruntled she trudged on thinking about the way she might be fighting. She didn’t notice where they were walking to until they reached the edge of a forest. Luke smiled like an idiot just staring onwards. He continued and Jesse stayed back for a bit before Luke called back.
"What's wrong?"
"Why are we here?" Jesse asked confused yet again
"You asked the same thing in the ghetto"
She thought about it and continued to follow him through the thickenings of the woods. She had a bit more trust in him now than yesterday about sketchy areas.
"Oh look, a wolf," Luke said out of nowhere
Jesse lost it and started screaming and freezing everything until she was stopped by Luke.
"I'm kidding, please just chill"
She did not find that the least bit funny. She wasn't necessarily scared of wolves, but she knows they travel in packs and she doesn’t like to think about hurting animals. Now she was feeling pretty salty.
"Did you notice the pun back there?" Luke asked innocently
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" She asked quite annoyed
"You're nervous that'll screw you up, so I tried to liven up the mood"
"I'm sorry Mr. I have too many secrets, but after yesterday's gunshots you'd think I would be more careful"
"Alright, alright... we're here either way," he said looking forwards
They arrived in some sort of rundown park. There was a swing set that was missing a chain and the other chair completely. A slide that looked extremely unstable and possibly ready to collapse any second. As well as a jungle gym that looked a bit rusty but still looked alright. Finally, behind them was two basketball courts but there was only one hoop. The pavement looked cracked and pretty old.
"Woah" Jesse uttered, "So now we start training?"
She wasn’t paying attention but Luke already was in the middle of the basketball court with his hands in his pockets. He looked back as if saying, "What are you waiting for?"
Jesse ran up to him. Before they would start they needed to stretch and warm-up. They held their arms and even did a few pushups. After finishing their Jumping Jacks, Jesse became pumped.
"Alright, let's focus on your powers," Luke said
"Okay, what do I do?"
"Full power, freeze the ground"
Jesse did as she was told and froze the ground as much as she could in one go. The freeze easily reached a huge distance, she thought this was good.
"We have a lot to work on..." Luke mumbled
"What?" Jesse was genuinely confused, "Come on that was amazing"
"It's strong yeah, but you lack control"
"Pfft, it's fine, I can catch any bad guy like this"
Luke stared into her eyes, now that he had his eyes wide opened, it was so much more unsettling. "Yeah what about the bad guys standing next to civilians? What about hostages? What about overdoing it?"
"Okay, then what do I do?" She said looking away
"I want you to freeze the inner circle of the court, start with something simple"
Jesse went up to the circle on the other court and froze all of it.
"You failed"
"What? WHY!?" Jesse stared in disbelief, "I filled it in!"
"You went over the line," he said crossing his arms calmly
"BUT B-" She groaned quickly after that, "Okay, but how can we try again, it's all covered"
Luke thought for a minute, proceeded with a chuckle and walked back into the forest. He came back several minutes later with a shovel and a duffle bag covered in dirt. He dropped the bag between them and asked her to open it. She obliged and proceeded to take out several small disks, small balls, and what appears to be some sort of tube.
"Another part of training is knowing your equipment," Luke said while grabbing one of the small disks and proceeded to press a button and threw it at the ice. After three seconds, a huge ball of flame combusted out of the small disk.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" Jesse said scared
Luke chuckled looking down on Jesse since she stumbled down. As the flame started to die down Jesse got back up and looked back at the duffle bag. She took a small step back.
"That was quite the show wasn’t it," Luke asked
"Why do you have that? what do the balls do?"
"Just small nukes..." He says casually
Jesse stared at him.
"kidding," he said with sarcastic jazz hands, "smoke bombs"
"Okay so, we're going to be ninjas?"
"How about instead of talking you get to practicing"
Jesse groaned but went back to the circle to try again. In her second attempt, she came up too short. After using another disk, she tried yet again but heavily freezing one side of the circle and less on the other. This went on for a while. Two hours after they started she was extremely frustrated. Luke just sat back and watched her throw disk after disk after disk until.
"There's no more," Jesse said looking into the bag
"Damn, you suck" Luke responded
"LOOK JERKOFF THIS IS HARD OKAY!" Jesse screamed angrily
"Calm down"
"HOW? How am I supposed to do this, huh?"
Luke looked concerned, in all honesty, he didn’t know what to do. He knew that he had one last disk in his back pocket but it would hurt Jesse's confidence for the future if she messed it up. He thought, what would sensei do? An idea popped into his head.
"Come here," Luke said walking towards a bench, he sat down right alongside Jesse. She was slumped with her arms on her legs. "I'm sorry"
"Don’t be sorry, it's my fault I suck"
"I'm sorry I can't be a better teacher, here let's try something else."
"Try what?"
"Talk to me"
"Repeat that for me"
"Talk to me about all of it"
"Like what?"
"When you're trying to do it, what are you trying to accomplish?"
"To fill the inside of the stupid circle like you said"
"Okay, how about we focus on something else then"
"What"
"Instead of trying to fill the inside of the circle, how about you focus on the outer circle instead"
"How? We ran out of those disks"
Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out his last disk. He threw it and it erupted into flames melting the ice. They got up but Luke knew Jay had a bit of despair on her mind. Jay had gotten on her knee.
"Wai-wai-wai-wait" Luke stopped her
"What's wrong this time?" She asked
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"What are you talking about?"
"This life isn't for everyone, are you sure you can do this"
She stared at the ground in front of her before stating determinedly, "If I don't... who will"
Jesse proceeded to touch the ground, she needed to do this. She closed her eyes and formed the ice. After a few seconds, she waited for a reaction. When she got none, she opened her eyes to see a cylinder foggy hut, that still passed the circle's lines... She failed. Luke was walking around precariously, looking at this cylinder. Jay stared at him waiting for him to tell her the harsh reality. After about a minute, Luke placed his hand on the hut. He took a deep breath, pulled his arm back, and using his full-body strength, he struck the ice with incredible force. This caught Jessie off-guard. Luke managed to create a hole into the hut, which he climbed into. Jesse quickly followed him in. The inside was hollow. It was quite chilly and small, sort of an icy house. Luke was scratching his chin while looking around.
"Congrats, you've exceeded my expectations," he said smirking
"What? But I failed I-I-I" she stammered
"Oh sure, you fucked up the instruction, but honestly, the whole point was to get you to be more precise while making the ice," he said studying parts of the debris of ice, "besides looks like you've got another hidden power"
"What do you mean?" Jesse said while still trying to wrap her head around this
Luke tossed the piece of ice he was holding to Jesse which she caught. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"
Luke walked out and Jesse followed.
"What's different overall?" He asked
Jesse just stared blankly.
"It's giving off the fog" he answered blatantly
It quickly clicked with Jesse, that hadn't happened before. "Yeah, but what does that mean?"
"You made dry ice, you moron, do you feel a bit light-headed? It's because that’s Co2"
"Wait I can make dry ice, that’s awesome!"
"I wonder if that’s all you can make" he was thinking about random news he's read on his phone, "Can you make glacier ice? I heard that it’s a lot thicker and stronger than regular ice"
"I don’t know," Jesse said staring at her hands
"Guess we'll worry about it a different day," he said looking at Jesse, "It's only going to hurt from here on out"
Jesse looked back at him, she kept on avoiding eye contact before now, but now. Luke was ready to give it his all, and so was she. She was no longer having doubts, no longer scared. She stared at him and said, "Ready when you are"
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