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Post by alexander on Mar 25, 2012 18:03:52 GMT -5
It was a late summer evening. August was hot as hell, as usual. Lex didn't mind it so much. He only disliked the fact that people seemed to complain whenever he went around without his shirt in order to cool down (or, so he claimed, but really he just liked to show off his tattoos). If they didn't like that merchandise, then they could move on, goddamn. But no, all this bullshit about public decency and la-de-da. It pissed him off, but Lex couldn't argue with the administration, so he ground his teeth and put his clothes back on. Instead of sitting around outside in the sweltering heat, while the mosquitoes did a number on his skin, he decided it was time for a timely retreat into the interior of the Acadamy grounds. How one kept the heating stable in a castle of this size, he didn't know, and it didn't always work in the first place. Being a fire elemental, he was never cold, and could live in the hottest places in the castle without too much discomfort, but even he liked a breeze every now and then.
That was how he found himself here, in the lower levels. Closer to the dungeons. He always thought that was seriously badass, how his own dormitory was where they medieval types supposedly kept their prisoners before they went and executed them. He wasn't sure it really happened here, though. This was Canada, after all. It was hard to imagine that sort of brutality being associated with Canada, what with all the stereotypes of how nice everyone was supposed to be here. But then again, one only needed to point at Lex to show there was always an exception, a black sheep that ran right into the face of everything everyone claimed to know. And it just tickled him pink to kick everyone's presumptions in the teeth. They thought they had it all figured out, but here comes Alexander Mercer to show rub their noses in the truth. Ignorant bastards. He smiled with relish at the thought.
The dungeons were insulated and some of the lower hallways were cool and dark. With a thought he could conjure a small ball of flame to light the way of particularly dark areas. Lex, noting himself alone, could have removed his shirt now. However, the satisfaction was greatly diminished when he did not have anyone to admire his muscles and the scars from his fights. His vanity unappeased, he nonetheless stubbornly remained in the darker areas, walking in quiet places where his footsteps echoed. It was the sort of place the ninth graders might avoid out of sheer unease and fear of the unknown, the dark places where creepy things crawled out of the earth and swallowed up little fourteen-year-olds. In other words, the place that Lex would go just to prove he was better than any sort of primal, animal terror. He looked with disdain at the gloomy walls, and gave an indifferent haughtiness to the deep, impenetrable silence.
It was quite the perfect place for things to go wrong, overall. He thought how wonderfully one could hide here, do the most elicit of things. Especially since the castle was so large, one could never discover a young man up to no good in one of the out of the way classrooms that become moldy and dusty from neglect. It certain inspired all sorts of ideas, but Lex couldn't really think of having the time to implement them. It almost hurt him a little, to imagine that he might actually be responsible for once and focus on his studies instead of sitting around smoking weed and plotting with a conspirator or two or something of the sort. When did he become a responsible boring type? Certainly it wasn't overnight, and it was definitely not something that permeated him in his entirety. His actions against those turncoats among his own kind were proof enough that he rushed headlong into things without thinking of the work he had all the time.
However, even Lex was old enough to realize that he wasn't exactly at an advantage in life here. His greatest wish was practically unattainable; how many people actually become successful in a band, after all? He didn't even have anyone he could be in one with, since he knew no one of musical talent who would be able to tolerate his presence. While he thought he might die if he became a white collar worker, instead of a rockstar in a mansion with a hot wife and a flashy sports car, what choice did a burnout like Lex truly have? It was either sink or swim. He didn't want to think about it, however. It truly depressed him, to be point where he only wanted to punch things half the time instead of all of it.
So why think about that sort of thing? Worrying wasn't Lex's style. Instead, when the stress started getting to him, he just lit up a cigarette. Which was what he almost always did anyways. He was going to likely die of lung cancer, and he honestly could care less. He smiled with great pleasure as he lit up a cigarette, slipping it between his lips and exhaling as if to a lover's touch. Sweet lady cigarette, the only woman he crawled back to every time for more. He would always bend to her will. Besides, it was in everyone's best interest that Lex avoid anything resembling nicotine withdrawal. Everyone knew he was already temperamental enough without having anything else add onto it. It was why Lex would never expect anyone to ever pull a fast one on him unless cornered. People just did not go out of their way to antagonize a bear; it was totally unheard of. Right?
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Mar 25, 2012 20:03:35 GMT -5
 Nell blew a bubble with her gum, clicking it back between her teeth as her friend spoke. "It feels like we're entering an evil lair," Matt said lowly as they walked through the halls, gallons of water in both hands. It wasn't suspicious at all, and even though he was in college, it was handy.. They could practically sense the heat coming from the dungeons. If they went far enough, Nell thought they may be able to find the Minotaur. She didn't like coming down this way, but they had a purpose. She'd be lying to say that the enemy alliance frightened her. Nothing much frightened her, except the dungeons themselves for a reason that didn't have to do with the Fires and Thunders. Still, she stayed away from them, especially now that she had gotten into trouble with her element. Isn't this just looking for trouble? Nell knew that it was, but a different kind of trouble, not the kind of trouble that would get Ashton on her ass. Or maybe it would. She was prone to reckless and idiotic behavior, it was like something she subscribed to.
She tugged at her t-shirt, pulled the collar away from her neck as she felt the heat swallow her up. Earth elemental bent in the heat, cracked and withered. Sure, there were a lot of flowers that could survive the climate, but they weren't flowers. She didn't mind too much, or complain. If anything bothered her, only she knew about it. "Shit, stop, someone's down the hall." Matt pulled her back behind a corner, and they pulled a Scooby Doo maneuver to see around it without being caught. She recognized him, he was a Fire elmental, Lex. Her features split into a wide grin. "Change of plans. Play along." she suggested deviously. Their plan had been to go down to the dungeons, but they had a Fire right here. Matt nodded, also smiling, and tried to see if Lex would turn any corners. Didn't look like it.
First, Nell built up as much underbrush as she could at the end of the hall, behind Lexy. She pressed her hand against the wall so she could give the place the ivy to grow along, spreading up across the ceiling like veins, branching off, reforming, until they came out how she liked. It felt nice now that she didn't feel the immediate drain. As a college student she'd been building up stamina in these matters, something she used to have a bit of difficulty with. Still, she made sure to be careful, no movement wasted, no length unneeded. Two of the leafy appendages dropped down as a vine, and that began to pull at her in terms of energy. She still managed to wrap them around both his arms, and feared for a moment they wouldn't support the Fire graduate's weight. When she succeeded, Matt poured out the water from his supply, splashed it across the floor. As the Water began to rise, her barricade prevented it from going too far down the hall.
She hopped out, her calves getting wet. Waving pleasantly with a grin, she said, "You can try burn the vines, Lexy, but..." she glanced down at the water. "It'll be a hard and wet fall." Nell tilted her head, as if wondering which option he would choose. She wasn't doing this out of cruelty, she wasn't like that. She just enjoyed messing with the Fire graduate because he liked messing with her. Nell had some bite, even if it was only a little and in the form of a rather juvenile prank with a Water student. Matt stayed hidden, apparently not wanting the graduate to kick his ass.
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Post by alexander on Mar 25, 2012 23:31:54 GMT -5
There was a frank sense of disbelief that occurred in those next few moments of Lex's life. He was simply smoking a cigarette, enjoying himself as much as any young man could, when the most bizarre of interruptions occurred. At first, he didn't quite comprehend what was happening when his arms were suddenly seized from behind. Instinctively he kicked backwards, as if there were an assailant whose shins he could damage. But he simply hit empty space, for this was not a natural attacker. There was a strain in his upper arms as thin tendrils dug into the skin and muscle beneath, and he was bodily lifted from the floor. He gaped in shock as he stared down at the ground below, his lower body flailing, causing him to sway back and forth. "What the fuck?!" There was no other appropriate response that sprain to mind at this turn of events.
The sound of liquid caused him to look down. Water was filling the hallway beneath him. This could only be the work of some sort of elemental, invading the heated and private domain of the reclusive fires. He finally got a good look at what was on his arms and grunted with anger. Vines as well. It seems the old alliance was well and strong, and they'd decided that he was the prime target for the day. Dammit all. He looked back down at the water as it began to settle down. Floating at the top was a sad little cigarette. Christ, couldn't people like a man have a smoke in peace, or did it always have to end in an ambush? A female voice hit his ears, and he realized that his assailant had not just decided to hassle him and run like cowards - or, at least, one of them didn't. He felt quite ridiculous craning his head to try and get a view of the girl below him, strung up like a marionette as he was.
God. Damn. It all. It was Nell, that arrogant little shit. He knew who she was. She was the one who had converted Josh. She was someone who was already on Lex's shit list. And she just kept going up and up. He might have to name her public enemy number one, except his old "friend" Josh had already claimed that seat in Lex's mind. Her taunts made him tense up. He so dearly wanted to flail in the vines, but he realized it would make him look like even more of an idiot. He was certainly in an ultimatum. It seemed he could either hang here until someone came along and got him down safely, or he could take the express way down. In Lex's head, of course, there was only one true option. No way in hell was he going to end up relying on someone else, and letting them see him in such a horribly embarrassing situation. It would completely destroy his reputation, and Lex hated people laughing at him.
He swallowed thickly thought, before he acted. The water was fairly shallow, but a part of him still fluttered nervously. He remembered when he was very small, the water flooding through his nostrils, everything murky, blinding, oppressive - he screamed. "You goddamn piece of shit cunt!" Fire exploded into his palm and he awkwardly flailed as he tried to control it, flinging it towards her head. A small part of him hoped her hair caught on fire. It would serve the bitch right, losing all of her hair. But, of course, the sudden increase in heat caused the vines with blacken and shrivel, coiling away from his arms. He allowed his whole body to erupt into flames, and found himself wildly pinwheeling his arms as he fell in a dead drop towards the ground. Impact was painful, for the water was still fairly shallow. He fell on his side, his arm smashing the floor.
A great splash occurred, and a great, angry hissing, like a serpent recoiling in pain. The water enveloped the fire consuming him, and steam rose where the flames had been. Lex awkwardly crawled to his hands and knees and stood up. His shoulder ached, as well as his hip, but he thought it was only massively bruised and aching. The fall had not been quite high enough to have an impact that would shatter bones. But that wasn't the point. The point was that someone had to pay for this.
Soaking wet, he turned to face Nell, his eyes wild and angry. Normally, Lex didn't hit girls. He felt very uncomfortable afterwards; even he realized that there was something taboo in striking women. Besides, he remembered from his childhood that his father hadn't always kept his hands off of his mother in his fits of drunkenness. It made him hate the bastard all the more that he was the one who left, when his mother was so much more wronged. Lex never wanted to be associated with Michael, in any way. He set his jaw when he looked at Nell, however. If anyone deserved to get her ass handed to her, it was this bitch. He was wet, however, his powers were weaker now. His clothes still steamed in fits. He didn't care, however. He would rip her hair out with his bare hands if he had to.
"You'll pay, fucking whore!" He charged forward. Or, rather, charged as much as anyone could while wading through water. He didn't care what he was going to do. Something, even if he didn't physically smash his fists into her. But no way he wasn't going to get revenge, that was for sure.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Mar 26, 2012 16:48:51 GMT -5
It felt like a test of her powers, keeping Lex elevated. She'd never be top of her class, she understood that. It was what happened when one traipsed across the Canadian border illegally just a little too late. Last year had been filled with make-up work and supplementary classes. Now she could breathe a little easier even though she was thrust into college, not even having time to adjust to high school life. Nell felt a little bad for him, hanging there helplessly. She wasn't a mean-hearted person, she just enjoyed messing around. Of course, she realized that Lex wouldn't enjoy this quite as much.
She hadn't been expecting the attack, so it took her a moment to hop back, the flame gliding past her hand like the burning grip of Satan himself. She hissed and waved out her hand, thankful that she at least had a high-pain threshold that didn't allow her to cry over little things like this. "Jeez, name-calling and violence," she said, keeping a wary eye on him until he dropped down from the vines. She snorted, cupping her mouth immediately after with her unburnt hand. Nell shouldn't have been encouraging him in this, but her mouth liked to run away without her. She would have liked to kneel down and sink her hand in the water, but she didn't want to risk it. This guy was older than her and a Fire elemental. Sometimes she didn't recognize how much of a threat someone could be against her. She tended to imagine that she was invincible.
Canting her head, she waited for him to make a move. He looked like a kitty cat who fell into a bathtub. She should have run. That would be a wise idea. She'd run from Fires before, it was what she was best at. Got it from her father, according to Jane. But now she felt pretty cocky that this had all gone down so well. When he did make a move for her, she did run however. "Gotta catch me first, Lexy baby," she said, wishing she was a Water elemental herself. Matt had disappeared, apparently not wanting to get into trouble with an incensed Fire graduate. She got to the corner and built up a wall of brambles behind her. Not afraid, not afraid.
She sighed. "Don't get so mad, it's just a little water...and vines..." Her voice was almost childish in the way she told him not to be mad. To her enemies, she could be a force to reckon with. But she had few enemies, and the ones she did have she liked to avoid. It was just a chance meeting with Lex. She knew he could just burn down the wall of brambles, but she said, "Forgive and forget?"
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Post by alexander on Mar 30, 2012 23:20:17 GMT -5
The girl was smaller and faster than him in the water. She scrambled with a swiftness towards the barrier at the end of the hall, and Lex made a hasty pursuit. He reached the brambles and peered up at her, his gaze ablaze with anger. She was trying to wuss out now, like a typical Earther. Running away as soon as stuff got too hot to handle, even though she was the one who started this whole confrontation. Well he wasn't about to just lay down and take that one, no matter her peaceful overtures. Being made a fool of called for a severe and swift punishment. In response to her coy question, he gave her a quick middle finger, revealing his knuckle tattoos in the process. It was fairly ironic that they espoused love and life on them. Perhaps there was some soft side Lex hid from the world. But on the outside, he was just as thorny as the bramble wall before him.
No choice but the burn right through it, it would seem. This was going to be more difficult after landing in water. He shook his wet hair slightly, and raised his hands. Steam still rolled off them as small flames darted forward, eating away at the brambles. He pushed himself harder, knowing that if he did not, she would be able to flee and escape him for sure. It was a strain within to encourage the blaze to take hold, when he himself was weakened, when the brambles were damp from the water below. Difficult, difficult. But he managed to burn a hole in the center, and that was all he figured he needed. He ran forward eagerly, without thinking and simply focusing on Nell, just contemplating with a shiver of glee how he would pull her hair until it crumbled into ashes in his fist, and left her humiliated. Funnily enough, Lex had never considered actually killing a person, or even mutilating them beyond recovery. He wasn't good, that was for certain, but he had his own limitations, set somewhere in his mind.
Unfortunately, one of those limitations including watching his feet. A half-burnt bramble caught upon the front of his boot. Off-balance from rushing forward, less toppled a bit sideways - face first into an ornery bush of brambles, that seemed to envelop him with a glee. There was something akin to a snarl of a trapped animal that came from his lips, though there was definitely a note of pain within it. The thorns dug into his clothes, as well as the skin of his arms and face. He felt them pulling long scratches on his cheeks, his forehead, one managing to dig heavily into his right eyelid. "FUCK!" he shouted, pulling himself with great brutality from his entrapment. It was at a good cost of clothing and skin however, in order to stagger a step away. Blood rolled into tiny riverlets down his face, and he was starting to look a lot worse for wear from this encounter. He was losing, losing a battle where not a punch was thrown! Lex, royally pissed, threw a fireball in anger at the slowly burning brambles, needing to exact some vengeance on the plant now, even if it wasn't exactly capable of malicious thought or action - or so he'd been told.
Desperately whirling, his gaze sought Nell, now, unsure if she had taken his embarrassing situation as an opportunity to escape. The thought of her spreading a tale about how Lex had been thoroughly trounced by an Earther who was two years younger than him (thought only one grade), would be humiliating. Lex could not stand the idea of being laughed at. It ground against the very grain of his soul, and he knew that Nell must be laughing at him, thinking it all quite hilarious how big bad Lex had gotten him ass handed to him by a couple of plants. He shivered in blind, cold anger.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Apr 1, 2012 0:23:27 GMT -5
If she were more of a bitch and more of a person to fan the flames of anger, she would have said something about him flipping the bird, flashing her the letters on his fingers. Either way, it didn't affect her much, just like his words. She believed that anyone could build mechanisms against insults if they came from the ones they loved before. She had one marring the skin in her stomach, a word that was slowly fading away only encouraged by time. Nothing touched her anymore. Maybe, months earlier, it might have been easier to defeat her. She'd been on Prozac (when she decided that she might as well get better) and her walls had pretty crumbled, leaving behind rubble like the burnt out remains of Kaiser Wilhelm in Berlin. It was different now.
She didn't even fear the graduate's Fire. Never did, and that would be quite a problem for her considering her fiance was a Fire elemental. Nell knew how her plants and earth bowed down to the near-uncontrollable force of flames, but even that wasn't enough to make her cower. And maybe she was being a coward in the way she ran, the one insult that had always bothered her coming from Jane when she used it to compare the girl to her father. But what was wrong with running? It was all she knew how to do, because she was never going to fight. Part of it was her personality, her element, but there were other reasons too. Element never accounted for everything. She couldn't attribute Lex's violence to the simple fact that he was a Fire.
Nell immediately regretted the bramble wall when he got caught it in it and fell over. Her stomach twisted whenever seeing someone else in pain, no matter who it was. Her bleeding heart wouldn't allow her to run away now that she saw he was hurt, and her voice held no wariness or fear when she spoke. "Jeez, you need to go to the medical wing or something." Despite the argument that common sense gave her, she threw down the wall that was protecting her from the Fire student. She felt the pull, her energy draining from her like water down a sink. "Look, I'm really sorry," she said, bending down to try and lift him up by his arm, almost wincing at the marks on his face. Definitely need to go to the medical wing, since she didn't know how to heal yet. It would be a wonderful ability she'd appreciate, but she had already come late as is, and she was just a freshman.
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