Meeting in the Top 10s private conference room, Alex and Jacob sit. "What'd you mean before our spar?" Alex asks to Jacobs dismay, "It's a Friday morning, cant this wait?"
"I duel Valentina on Monday." Alex responds stiffly. Laying his elbow on the table and his hand on his cheek, Jacob gives in. "There's not much to misinterpret, I meant what I said. Don't take it to heart like Freya or Jack, it just makes things awkward."
"How are we not the same, Jacob?" Persisting despite Jacobs best efforts to brush her off.
Jacob lets out a sigh as he rolls his eyes, "Does it matter?" Just a glance at her face, not a word having to be said, tells him that it matters to her at the very least. Relenting he sits normally, "We're not the same. You're to me what everyone else is to you, rich." Before Alex can object he continues, "You never went without, wanted for nothing. Nice house? Nice family car? You may not see them, out of sight out of mind, but people who actually struggle come here. Shocker. I'm here because I have promise, not because one of the school board members enjoys my dads spaghetti. Hell all I ever had was luck and a hermit grandfather, thank god for Principal Cage or I'd still be living like them. Its insulting being lumped in with you by everyone else, can you at least be self aware enough not to do it yourself?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Honestly, I thought we were in the same kind of situation. I'm not that much of an idiot, if I had known.." Alex's apology genuine even through the embarrassment. Jacob waves it away, "Don't bother, nobody knows really... While we're here, what's the plan against Valentina?"
"Worried?" Alex asks, the two of them cracking a smile for different reasons. "No, she'll never make it to me in the first place." "The plan was beating you if we're being frank. It still is." Alex says accompanied by awkward laughter.
"Even if Valentina wins?" Jacob asks; his curiosity piqued. "Especially if she wins. I can't resolve myself to mediocrity forever."
Jacob smiles and nods, pleasantly surprised. "You're not mediocre. Your power is."
"Thanks, Jacob. That hurts more than just calling me mediocre but I'll try and take it as a compliment regardless."
"How so?" Jacob asks, not having the slightest clue as to how that could be the case.
"If its my spikes and not me than there's no chance, no matter what I'm stuck like this. But I know deep down that's not true. My spikes have potential, real potential. It needs someone to help realize it but I know its there. Hopefully I'll be the one to show the world but anyone will do I guess."
"Something wrong?" Mark asks Valentina who's sat with a sour look on her face as she holds a book in front of her but is noticeably not reading.
Side eyeing him fiercely, Valentina allows her eyes to respond for her but Mark gets the wrong message, reasonably so. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Things are frustrating. I awakened again but it feels like I can never use my power, I've been waiting weeks for my father to approve a Lightning Manipulation tutor but have heard nothing. I cannot train it alone without the basics. The training room is a zoo full of fools, I can't bring myself to even start and that's not mentioning my next opponent. She glares at me, a nasty look in her eyes. I did nothing to her." Valentina, airing her grievances aloud for the first time abandoning the façade of reading.
"Practice a little here if you'd like, I'd cover my eyes but that'd just be ridiculous." Valentina hesitates momentarily, deciding to go ahead with it anyway for a borderline unexplainable reason to her. "Without my weapons as a way to channel it I'm not that confident so don't expect much." A nervous smile cracking her lips.
Both hands held inches from one another slowly thick, bright blue lightning forms connecting from both halves and meeting in the middle, crackling relentlessly. Leaning over slightly, Mark watches her lightning as if its a priceless piece of art; "Beautiful." He mutters to himself not even realizing Valentina could hear him, her nervous smile widening into a more embarrassed one and her cheeks suddenly feeling flushed.
"It's usually yellowish, gold like if anything but hers is blue just like her Conjured Weapon. That's so weird." Mark thinks to himself as he gently separates her hands further using two fingers on the inside of her wrist, "Use as little strands as possible to keep it functional."
Little by little the lightning thins until only a few remaining. "This is trickier than I'd imagined." Valentina thinks as she fights both the urge to let it go and wanting to return more power to it.
"There you go, that'll help you with control at the very least." Mark says almost too casually as she releases the lightning. "Is this how you train your control?" Valentina asks, leaning back on the bench in an attempt to get comfortable, her eyes still locked onto his face. Nodding slightly Mark says, "It may not be up to par with whatever tutors are selling but I find it useful."
"Then I'll use this as practice." Pausing to debate whether or not to even ask, Valentina decides to ignore all thoughts, for or against throwing caution to the wind, "I duel on Monday, are you going to come?"
"Yes. If you'd like me too." His initial yes feeling too fast for his liking for whatever reason. The two watch one another for a moment before Valentina breaks the silence, "I'm sure she's strong, my opponent, but I'll keep an eye out for you anyway."
Suddenly Valentina's phone rings out from her bag sitting on the opposite of the bench, "I'll let you get that. I've got Aptitude class." Seizing the opportunity Mark bolts out, more baffled than anything.
The connector door closing before she can even answer the phone, she holds it in front of her face and talks in her native tongue, "Mother? What's wrong?" Her tone not showing any panic having dealt with this kind of thing too many times by now, "My Little Star, the keeper has made Pelmani. They're terrible you should eat some."
"I'm at school, Mother. I'll try them when I get home." Valentina's mother mutters something she couldn't possibly make out, "Why have me sign papers for skipping classes if you can't come home."
"I'm going into class now, Mother see you later." The mother and daughter say quick goodbyes and Valentina hangs up before picking her book back up and flicking it open to the page she left off on.
Walking back into the Top 10s area, Valentina is instantly met with a scathing look from across the room, Freya locking onto her the moment her head poked inside.
"What'd I do to her?" Valentina mutters under her breath, her attention being quickly stolen by the door opening once again behind her.
Pausing for a moment Alex and Valentina exchange looks too, Valentina's being predominately confusion and Alex's more angry, "What'd I do to her?" Valentina mutters to herself once again before rationalizing it must be due to their upcoming duel.
Knocking on Anthony's room door, Mark pushes it open after a preoccupied sounding, "Who is it?"
"You're not meant to be doing that yet, right?" Mark asks Anthony who is sat cross legged on the floor moving water around a small cup using his newly awakened ability. "I can't just sit on my hands while I've got something like this at my fingertips!" Anthony exclaims, proud of himself.
"Didn't they tell you the risks of using your powers before you're ready down at the centre?" Mark asks as he lays his bag down and sits on Anthony's gaming chair.
"Yeah but it was a whole thing.. It got to the point where I felt like I was listening to some bot read me terms and conditions. Imagining watching paint dry was more entertaining. My mom said she's getting me a temp tutor so I'm not starting from scratch when I finally get to go school so I'm waiting for that but.."
"But that's not happening until you adjust." Mark pauses for a moment, doing his best to think up an analogy that'd make sense but gets nothing. "You cant really do anything until your body gets stronger. Your body is getting stronger naturally the longer strands soak into your tissue, bones, organs and all. Just be patient."
"I just don't know why I cant use my ability. If anything it should be making it stronger, right? Its an exterior ability anyway." Anthony says after sighing and leaning back against his bed.
"Imagine your body like a brittle fountain." Anthony quickly cuts in a mocking smile on his face, "A fountain?" Mark rolls his eyes, "I'm explaining this for you so you don't end up cracking your core and dying. So this fountain gets stronger the more water is pumped into it.."
"I don't think that's how it works, you should know that your dads in construction." Anthony says to Marks utter annoyance, "Alright, I'll stop." Anthony, raising his hand to show him he's got the stage.
"So the fountains foundation needs water to get stronger, but what happens when you pull out the little amount of water it's depending on to get stronger?" Scott opens his mouth, no resemblance of an answer even springing to mind, "Rhetorical. The fountain crumbles because the part of the fountain that recycles the water around isn't up and running yet. That part is the core by the way.. and the fountain recycler thing in this scenario would also be able to supply water.. That make sense?" Mark asks innocently, further thought about his analogy making it clear it wasn't a very good one.
"Yeah, the wording and all was terrible but the whole", Anthony pausing for a moment to air quote, "Your core will crumble and you will die part got through. I'll let it do its thing, no powers until I'm told otherwise."
A small twinge of guilt hits Mark, he didn't particularly like lying even if its for his friends own good, especially when using the lack of widespread knowledge about Awakeners to his advantage to do so. While prematurely using ones powers before the body has fully adjusted to and strengthened due to strands, produced by an awakeners core, can have negative effects on ones powers and future strand control alongside weaker physical attributes it does not make the core unstable enough to crack.
While a crack in ones core is not immediately fatal it can lead to debilitating repercussions leading to it becoming fatal. A core being cracked wide open is as good as it being destroyed in its entirety, death.
The slight guilt still nagging at him, Mark thinks of what to change the subject to and his thoughts immediately jump to Valentina, "It's a shame you're not in on Monday, Valentina is duelling."
Anthony groans dramatically, "Who?!" Mark shrugs lazily, "A girl in the Top 10 probably."
"Then it can only be Alex or Freya. It'll be Alex." Anthony looks at the clueless Mark and sighs once more, "Alex's power is meh, Spikes. You'd like Freya though, she's a telekinetic like you but not really. Her power is crazy strong, she also looks like she'd bully whoever shes with.." Anthony says smiling his widest smile at Mark, "Alicia was a bit like that too, right?" Instantly the smile vanishes from Anthony's face and he launches a pillow directly at Marks face. "Don't bring her up!"
On his walk home, Mark thinks about the upcoming duel and Valentina's opponent. "I like Spikes, personally. It's under appreciated for how versatile it is. If this girl is good she could get hurt.. If she's in the Top 10 surely there's a reason for her being there." Suddenly, for some strange reason, Monday could take all the time in the world to come and he wouldn't mind in the slightest.
Opening the door, Mark is quickly hounded by his mother who seemed to have been patiently awaiting his arrival.
"What's wrong?" Mark asks as he awkwardly takes off his jacket and hangs it up. "Your teacher, Mrs Haymath rang. She wants us to help you rethink your decision on college which is a surprise because we didn't know anything about a decision."
Mark frustratingly rolls his eyes, "I'm not doing college, there's nothing for me there."
"So? What the hell are you going to do other than college? What about the money we've saved for it? We have enough to send you to an Ivy league school if you wanted to."
"There's two of us, y'know? He's smarter too." Mark, referring to Scott. His mother quickly making her counter argument, "That money isn't for Scott. It's yours." Her voice straining slightly as she's reminded of what happened.
Realization reinforces his already made decision, not that he was already entirely unaware in the first place, "Then let it rot in an account I'll never touch." Moving away from her and towards the stairs he stops on the first step as his dad now stands in the doorway at the bottom of the hall.
"You never said what you're planning to do after school ends." He states, walking up behind his wife. "I'm not sure. Maybe working some construction with y--?" Before he could even finish his sentence his dad laughs out loud bordering hysterically, "You? Working construction?"
Shaking his head, Mark climbs a few steps before he's stopped once more by a hand meeting his on the banister, "Come and speak to us, please. We want our son back, sometimes it feels you're a million miles away."
"Which one do you miss, before or after I came home?" She takes a moment before answering and that gives Mark his answer, only exhaling in response before continuing to make his way up the stairs without appeal.
Valentina's driver pulls up to one of the most luxurious, prestigious hotels in the city, a worker opening the door for her before she can even think to do so herself.
Stepping out of the street and inside, the once bustling hotel lobby is barren only two receptionists who stand as soon as Valentina enters remain.
Gliding across the lobby, the silence unnerving, only interrupted by her shoes clattering against the flooring. It wasn't like this at all when she and her mother had first visited but it all changed when they officially made this place their home for the year.
Of course the two had taken the penthouse suite but Valentina saw little point in doing so when practically only they were taking residence in the entire building, only the obnoxiously longer elevator ride.
"What took you so long?" Her tipsy mother calls out as she approaches Valentina, interlocking their arms.
"I wanted longer with the tutor so I could use some lightning." Valentina responds raggedly, dropping her bag at the door entrance.
"I found us a movie, I've watched it already but you'll like it." Valentina pulls herself back lightly, "I can't, I need rest for my duel on Monday." The image of Mark watching flashing in her head in place of any worries about Alex.
"You rest, just on the couch with a movie." Her mother pulling her towards the couch with their interlocked arms.
Valentina cracks a smile and allows herself to be dragged along to the couch, it was rare her mother was ever in a good mood in the first place. Who'd know when her next chance would come?