Edwin sat on a bench in the school’s main lobby, leafing through a packet of algebra work. Tabitha and Ashley were still in choir practice, and he knew he should spend his free time doing something productive. But the problems he had to solve weren’t making productivity easy.

Edwin sighed, looking away from the numbers to look down the hallways. To his surprise, a group was walking in his direction, but it wasn’t his friends. Sarah and a few of her fellow newspaper club members were slowly making their way to the lobby, laughing at something. They must have recently finished a meeting. Sarah adjusted the camera strap around her neck, careful not to disturb her scarf. Edwin was always surprised by how elegant she made her club duties seem. Photos were taken with a flourish of her wrist and friendly conversation. Although, he felt she should have been the subject of some of those photographs. It was plain to see that she was one of the most beautiful girls in the school. She always accessorized her uniform with some sort of scarf, and her long blond hair was routinely stunning. Edwin found himself entranced, watching as the group walked by him to the doors as if he was invisible.

“Looks like somebody’s in love.” Tabitha sang directly into Edwin’s ear, causing him to jump. Ashley and the girl had snuck up behind him, and Tabitha sat inches away from Edwin on the bench.

“What – no, I’m –“ Edwin stuttered, putting his homework away in his backpack. He could feel how warm his cheeks were becoming, and tried to keep his face away from his companions.

“Tabitha, stop it! He’s blushing!” Ashley said, putting a hand on her friends shoulder.

“Is it really that obvious?” Edwin mumbled, not making eye contact with either of them.

“Oh my god, I was right for once! Who is it?” Tabitha asked, eagerly. “Is it Emily? She’s in my photography class, and she’s super nice. Or could it be Ryder? I honestly know nothing about him-“

“It’s Sarah…” Edwin muttered, cutting Tabitha off.

“Eh?” Tabitha froze. “Edwin, stop messing with me. If you don’t have a crush on anyone, you could just say it.”

“I’m serious!”

Ashley put a hand over her face, sighing. “Here we go again…”

“You’re making a big mistake here, Edwin!” Tabitha began. “Sarah is a truly terrible human being, and I will not allow a friend of mine to have their heart sucked out by her wicked fangs! She hasn’t dated anyone for longer than a week, always breaking up with guys suddenly with no warning signs! Not to mention her photography is amateur quality and-“

“Tabitha!” Ashley groaned. “Just because you’ve declared this girl your rival doesn’t mean you have to subject Edwin to your ranting.”

“But her portfolio-“

“No buts! We have to go train with Mateo, remember?”

Tabitha groaned, and the trio stepped out into the chilly air. “I’ll let you know that today she was asking me if I knew anything about two super-powered show-offs from the park! And she had your picture!”

“God, I knew that was going to be a problem.” Ashley pinched the bridge of her nose. “But as long as she doesn’t push any information out of you, we should be fine.”

“Hah! My lips are sealed!” Tabitha boasted.

They walked around the side of the school building, setting off on the street that ran along the school’s sports fields. The wind had picked up since the morning, and the cold air stung their faces as they followed the sidewalk. To their left, the school’s backfield reflected the cooling weather, the grass turned a shade of light brown. Tall pines separated a row of homes from the school’s land, and a small forest stood leafless behind the baseball field on the far end of the lot. A small group of their fellow students playing with a soccer ball were the only other people out in the neighborhood, not counting the handful of cars driving by intermittently.

A sudden shriek caused the trio to stop in their tracks, turning to the source of the noise. The children in the field were running frantically towards the school, and it was obvious why. A giant creature was forcing its way out of the forest, breaking tree branches and even small saplings as it forced its body into the open field. It was covered in green armor like an insect, but walked on four legs and used it’s front limbs like arms, throwing wood out of its way.

Ashley and Edwin looked at one another, and knew what they had to do. They pulled out their key chains before announcing in unison, “Soul Armor, Activate!”

“Maybe I’m getting cocky, but I’d like to think we’re getting pretty good at this.” Ruby said as the pair ran towards the rampaging monster.

“Agreed, but I’d rather call it confidence.” Sapphire replied. With their closer vantage point, they could see that the monster had a face like a cat and a mouth full of teeth it had no problem showing off, hissing at the duo as they arrived. Sharp claws shined on the ends of its six paws. The creature ran towards the two with its front paws ready to strike. Sapphire materialized his guns as he ran to the side of the monster, and Ruby stood her ground, producing a wall of fire in front of her as protection from the charging beast. Sapphire shot the animal in its abdomen multiple times, but the monster’s armor dispersed the attack. Instead, it turned to face its new attacker. Ruby took the opening to strike one of the monster’s legs, but her sword didn’t make a dent in the armor. The pair jumped back to avoid the monster’s frenzied swipes.

“How are we supposed to kill it if we can’t even touch it?!” Ruby yelled at her partner.

“It has to have some sort of weakness.” Sapphire replied. “If only Mateo was here, maybe he could be useful for once.”

The monster continued to charge, so the pair split up, each running to one side of the creature. Sapphire continued to fire at the monster as a distraction, and Ruby tried to cut the beast’s armor once more, aiming for one of its knee joints. Jamming her now flaming sword into the space where two pieces of the armor met, Ruby used all of her strength to start prying off the piece protecting the monster’s lower leg. Sapphire’s shots couldn’t keep the monster’s attention as it turned its large head to find its magical attacker. Reaching out, Sapphire produced two tendrils of water, holding back the monster’s front paws and allowing Ruby the time needed to rip off the piece of armor and free her sword. Sticky gray flesh was revealed to the duo, and Ruby quickly jumped out of the way as Edwin’s magical restraints broke.

The monster continued after Ruby, allowing Sapphire to begin shooting at the newly revealed flesh. This time, the attacks were appearing to have an effect, as holes could be seen in the gray muscle as Sapphire’s shots made contact. The leg was breaking up, held together by a few last sinewy strands of muscle. Ruby took her chances, charging at the creature’s leg and making one final swipe, amputating the paw from the monster. Upon its removal, the paw exploded into a puff of smoke, which Ruby used as cover to move a distance away from the monster.

Down to five paws, the monster seemed unfazed. It continued to scuttle about on its remaining back three paws at the same speed as before, wildly swiping at the youths and hissing loudly, spittle erupting from its mouth. The pair reconvened thirty feet behind the monster to reconsider their strategy.

“Do you think it will stop attacking if we take of its other leg on the same side?” Ruby asked. “I can’t imagine it will be able to keep up this pace with two legs on the same side of its body.”

“I think I might have an even faster way to end this fight.” Sapphire replied. “When I grabbed its arms, some of my water was able to get inside the armor. I’m not sure how I could tell, but it was like I could feel what the water was touching. If you can distract it for a while, I could summon enough water to fill a good amount of its armor.”

“And?” Ruby interrupted.

“How do you cook an animal in a shell?”

“What?”

“Like a crab or a clam! You steam them! Remember last time, when we combined our attacks to make steam? If you heat up the monster from the outside, we can flash-boil the water inside the armor to directly attack the weak gray parts inside, all at once.”

Ruby grinned, taking in Sapphire’s plan. “This just might be crazy enough to work.” Nodding at Sapphire, she ran back towards the monster, which had gotten much closer to the pair during their talk. She waved her flaming sword at the monster, catching its eye. “Come and get me, big guy!” Running backwards, she led the monster away from Sapphire, who was intensely concentrating on creating a large ball of water. The monster continued to swat at the flickering sword, flashing its teeth at Ruby.

The chase was ended a minute later, as Sapphire had produced a floating orb of water three feet in diameter. Ruby led the monster back towards her partner, and Sapphire hurled the orb at the monster, hitting it in the abdomen. The sizeable amount of water quickly disappeared, seeping between the organic plates of armor. “Light ‘em up, Ruby!”

Ruby started a roaring blaze beneath the monster, and a hissing noise could be heard from within the monster’s body. It flailed frantically, screeching, but Sapphire maintained control of the water, holding the monster in place. Moments later, loud pops came from the monster, and the entire creature burst into a tremendous cloud of smoke and hot vapor. Sapphire and Ruby ran towards one another, embracing each other in an excited hug.

“I can’t believe that worked!” Ruby laughed, high on their success. “How did you ever think of that?” She placed her palms on Sapphire’s cheeks, squeezing them lightly.

“What can I say, I like cooking!” Sapphire laughed as well.

“Forgetting something?” The two turned around, ending their hug. Mateo sat on the ground next to a patch of dry grass that was still burning.

“Got it!” Sapphire said, materializing some water over the flames, extinguishing them.

“Sorry about that…” Ruby added.

“Excuse me, Ruby Fire! Sapphire Sea!” Once again sneaking up on the duo, Sarah Ortiz waved towards them as she ran up. “I’d like to thank you for protecting this school! This is actually where I go, Snapdragon Junior High! We at the newspaper club would like to do an article on you two, especially because of what you’ve done for our school. Are you two available for an interview?”

Ruby held her breath, knowing that the school newspaper had a new edition every Tuesday. If Sarah had already spoken with the club, they might already be preparing to spread an article about them tomorrow.

“Sorry, but the Soul Warriors are currently busy.” Mateo replied. “However, I have plenty of time to speak with you.”

“That would be perfect! Thank you!” Sarah cheerfully replied, as Mateo started to lead her away from where Ashley and Edwin had left their bags on the sidewalk. The two snuck off as Mateo distracted Sarah, running back to the cover of the school building. As they turned the corner of the school, they found Tabitha hiding with their backpacks.

“I followed the people playing soccer back here to make sure they were safe, since you put me on civilian duty last time.” Tabitha reported. “Oh, and I brought your bags, because I didn’t want them to get stolen or anything.” Seeing that the coast was clear, the two quickly untransformed, grabbing their bags from Tabitha.

“You are a life saver, Tabitha.” Edwin said. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“So, we’ve got another hour to burn before our halfway forms are done with. I don’t think we’re going to have to do more training today either. Want to chill at my house since it’s close?” Ashley offered.

“Will your family care?” Edwin asked.

“Tabitha comes over all the time, and since they’re in on the Soul Warrior thing, we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“In that case, lead the way.” Ashley and Edwin started walking, but Tabitha remained stationary in the bushes.

“Uh, guys? Don’t you want to, uh, swap clothes or something?” Tabitha gestured to her friends, and they looked down to realize they were wearing their highly gendered school uniforms. “Not like I care, but I know somebody, cough-Ashley-cough, is sensitive about this kind of thing.”

“Tabitha, you are a life saver.” Ashley quickly scooted back out of sight and gripped Tabitha’s hands in respect. “Edwin, how do you feel about a quick costume change?”

“We need to remember to bring a change of clothes to school.” Edwin sighed. Ashley led the trio back into the school building, lucky that it was still early enough in the day that the doors remained unlocked. Scampering to the nearest bathrooms, Ashley skittered to a halt outside the doors.

“What’s the hold up?” Tabitha asked.

“I… I don’t know which one we should go in.” Ashley muttered. Saying it out loud made it sound even more pathetic, she thought.

Tabitha groaned. “They’re both going to be gross. I’ll check if the girl’s room is clear, and then we can all go in there. Wait here.” The door smacked shut as Tabitha disappeared, leaving Edwin and Ashley alone in an empty hallway.

“So… guess you get to go in your first ladies’ room today.” Ashley smiled awkwardly.

“I was a child once, you know, with a mom. We don’t have to make this something special.” Edwin scoffed.

Ashley rolled her eyes, her efforts at conversation obviously not appreciated.

Tabitha popped back out of bathroom, calling them over with her hand. “Coast’s clear. Let’s roll out, people.”

One extremely awkward clothing swap later, Ashley and Edwin were confident they could walk home without being harassed by the neighborhood.

“I plan on laying down for thirty minutes minimum after all this stress. Entertain yourselves.” Ashley sighed as they left the school building for a second time.

Tabitha pulled on Edwin’s arm to get his attention. “Don’t worry, we don’t need her. I know where her family keeps the videogames and the snacks. What do you think of Guitar Hero?”