by Skiye Brant
Chapter 5
"Wake up," I heard Robyn say. I opened my eyes to see her leaning over me. "You invite me over and you're asleep when I get here. What kind of host are you?"
"The tired kind," I said. I went into the kitchen and fixed me a bowl of cereal. "So you came here early." I looked at my watch and it was six in the morning. I usually didn't get up till eight on the weekends.
"I'm an early riser," she said.
"How'd you get in?" I asked.
"Your brothers," she said. She was wearing a tank top and knit shorts.
Nate and Nick came down. Nate said, "Glad to see you up Sleeping Beauty. You ready to start the fights?"
"Yeah, I'll be the ref first," I said rinsing my dishes. We went upstairs. I saw Lily standing off to the side. Last night, Nick had decided to tell her the truth so I figured that it went well since she was still here. She came over and joined me and Robyn. I waited for Nate and Nick to get in position. "You guys ready?" I asked. They both nodded their heads. I blew on the whistle and the match started.
"What are they doing?" Robyn asked.
"They're going to fight. We have two different types of fights. One where can use all of our abilities and one where no extra abilities can be used, like speed, electricity, mental taunting, or making stuff move on you," I explained. "We always start out with the limited ones first, as a warm-up. As referee, I watch their form and to make sure the rules are followed. At the end, the winner gets to go up against the next available opponent or whoever they want. With the three of us we just fight each other, but today we have more variety. At the end, I tell them where they went wrong and it helps us improve and take out a little frustration."
"So, I will be allowed to fight too, right?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, if you want," I said, keeping my eyes on the fight.
"I would have to move at normal speed?" Robyn asked.
"Yeah," I said. "It helps even the playing field between us. When you fight Nate in a free for all, it can become very disorienting because he can place thoughts in your head and make you do stuff." I watched as Nick landed the final blow and Nate fell. Nick helped Nate up and Nate happily went over to the bench.
"Come on, Sky," Nick said.
"Oh no, sweetheart," Lily said getting up. "I wanna fight."
"Ok, sure," he said. We didn't see it as wrong to fight with a girl for practice in self-defense, especially if she had warning and saw what could happen. But if it wasn't, then yeah, it was wrong to.
"You better not go easy on me," she said walking up. When they were ready I blew on the whistle. Lily was 5' 2" compared to Nick's height of 5'11", he towered almost a foot above her. It was kind of funny. Lily had bleach blonde hair naturally, with bright green eyes. She started throwing out lightning fast punches and kicks. Nick started landing some of his own, but his height made it awkward. Nate and I laughed as we watched Nick get beat up. He fell and Lily won.
Lily leaned down and kissed him and said, "No hard feelings, right babe?"
"Right," Nick said getting up.
"Come on, cuz,” Lily said. "It's your turn." Robyn got up and smiled.
"It'd be my honor," she said. I blew on the whistle and watched the two of them fight.
"I didn't know that our girlfriends were cousins, did you?" Nick asked me.
"Nope, and I didn't realize how deadly they were," I replied. They were vicious. They didn't do any hair pulling, but fought with fists and kicking and were fast. I had earned a respect for them. Now, would I admit that, probably not. They had a good stance and solid defense. Robyn landed the winning blow. Lily fell down and got up. She sat down and took the whistle from me.
"Come on Sky," Robyn said. "Your turn." I sighed as I got up.
I got into position. I heard the whistle blow. Robyn was offensive, which worked for me. She came at me with a right hook. I caught it in my hand and flipped her. I pinned her down. "I win."
"Rematch," she screamed.
"After lunch," I said getting up. We ate leftover Chinese and tended to each other's cuts and put ice on places that would swell like crazy. I was lucky and didn't have any. Everyone else was not so lucky.
"Alright, who’s up first?" I asked when we got back to our fights.
"I am," Robyn said.
"You're glutton for punishment, aren't you?" I asked.
"Only you are," she said as we took our stances. We heard the whistle blow. She took no time in attacking me. I amped up my electricity, so that every hit I took, she also got a little shock as well. She moved so fast that I could hardly land a punch.
"Come on, gave me a fair chance," I said.
"I did, now it's my turn," she said punching me in my jaw. I attempted to grab her arm but I couldn't. I fell down onto my back. "I know you can do better than that."
"Yeah, if I could actually grab or land a punch on you," I said getting back up. "And I'm not one to shock to you into submission."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said as she landed the final blow.
"I give," I said getting back up. "I give." Nate and Nick laughed. I was sure they were going to break a rib.
"I think that's the first time he's given up and lost," Nate said. When I sat down, I gave him an electrified punch to the shoulder.
"Nate it's your turn," Robyn said. Nate got up and once they were ready, Lily blew hard on the whistle. Nate dodged every punch and even made Robyn miss him. He punched her a couple of time to get her to back down and he won that match. Robyn sat down next to me. "Stupid inner voice. Telling me where to punch," Robyn mumbled to herself.
"I told you so," I said. She punched me and I chuckled. Nate decided to fight Nick. Nick won by pulling Nate's shoes out from under him.
"I guess it's us again," Lily said. "Let's go." Robyn blew the whistle.
"This is going to be good," Nate said under his breath. I saw what he meant immediately. Lily produced these whips made out of water and caught Nick at his ankle. She pulled his feet out from under him. She then pinned him down with ice around his ankles and wrists.
"We still on for tonight?" she asked.
"Yeah, as soon as you release me," he said. The ice melted and Nick got up. I made sure to keep my distance from Lily, only so she wouldn't get shocked.
"Good job," I said. "I didn't know you could control water."
"Yeah," she said. "I've been able to since I was twelve." I will be honest, I hate water. It scares me. I can handle rain and drinking it, but anything else freaks me out. I can't swim and also if I touch it, other people can get hurt real bad. "Is something wrong?"
"No. Nothing's wrong," I said.
Nate smiled and said, "He's scared. Water freaks him out."
"His one weakness," Nick said. "Can stand up to God if he had to, but put him in the same room with a pool, he melts." The two of them laughed at Nick's corny joke.
"I have really good reasons to be scared of large quantities of water," I said. "One I could drown and I could kill off people and marine life." They fell down and laughed at me. I punched the wall and stormed out. I sat down on the front steps.
"So, you have a fear of water," Robyn said sitting down next to me.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm fine with bathing and for drinking, but other than that it's mostly a fear for what'll happen to everyone else. Even when I was younger, I hated water. I guess some part of me knew that I would develop them, so I never bothered learning."
"Still, it's kind of funny," she said. "You can give yourself stitches five times over, climb down a ferris wheel to rescue a kid and jump off of it, face a three story lizard, and yet you’re scared of one of the most common things, water."
"I have more fears than that, but water is the biggest," I said. "I'm scared that someone will get hurt and I could have done something. That someone will discover my identity and my parents will get hurt, or the kids at school."
"What if I help you with your fear? Teach you to swim and then we practice you not releasing electricity," Robyn
said.
"No, I'm good," I said getting up. "I'll learn to live with it. I'll just fight Lily in our free-for-alls."
"Sure, you will," she said. She got up stared at me. "So, if you don't, I can call you a chicken?"
"If you want," I said shrugging, hoping that this conversation would end.
"Alright, then you're going to fight her, now," she said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the training room and said, "Lil, Sky what's to do a fight with you, a free-for-all."
Lily smiled a wicked smile and said, "Let's go."
