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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Apr 1, 2013 16:33:52 GMT -5
At no point were elemental classes ever a walk in the park. Caitlyn was a Junior, which meant that she had a fairly good grasp of most things concerning her element, but that didn't make it any easier. No, in fact, things tended to get harder as time went on, and some days she really questioned her choice to pursue post-secondary anything at the Academy. In the end, though, it was really one of those unique, one in a million things that she hadn't been able to pass up, because anyone could go to any school, but only this one offered her a chance to learn more and practice her powers. There were never times when she thought that it wasn't worth it, because Cait was no stranger to hard work, but there were many times when she had to just grit her teeth and get down to things because it really wasn't easy at all. Today was one of those days.
She was running low on sleep, which was just actually fairly normal for her, but for some reason today it made Cait more irritable than usual. She was normally adept with dealing with this kind of thing, really, but today... today was just one particular exception. She'd gone to bed far later than she would have preferred, and woken up a little bit late as a result, which meant that getting out the door and to class on time had been a bit of a scramble. That was unfortunate. That had just been this morning, and she had another class now, and unfortunately for Caitlyn, this was really not a good class to be in when she was feeling exhausted. Part of it was that she just wanted to crawl home and sleep, yes, but that was a part of her that would be perfectly alright. As for the rest of it, the exhaustion was taking a toll on her actual strength, and that wasn't good at all.
Worse was her teacher's news that they would now be partnering up with someone from another element. "Learn more about your own strengths and weaknesses," said the professor, an old man who was just a little bent with age, but she wouldn't have been surprised if he were able to do some serious damage on all of them with just a swish of the hand. The elemental professors did tend to know what they were doing. "Your partners have been chosen for you." Caitlyn checked the list to discover that her professor had stuck true to his spiel about strengths and weaknesses; most of the partnerships were set up with one of the elements being in an advantageous position over the other. She found her own name and tried not to groan and fall over -- in her exhaustion, of course, but it was further enhanced by the sudden irritation. Caitlyn was generally very nice, even -- but tiredness made her very irritable. Michael Barton.
The rest of the classtime was for them to talk and work out a plan of attack for this -- a written assignment and brief presentation for the class about the dynamic of the two elements together. At least Earth had something of an advantage over Thunder, but that certainly didn't mean that he couldn't be stronger individually. Luckily the assignment said nothing specifically about fighting. She collected her things and found Michael first, walking over and wishing instead that she could go home and fall asleep, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. She couldn't even remember, quite honestly, what it was that Michael Barton had done to bother her so much in her early years of high school, but she did know that to this day it set her on edge. "I guess we're partners," she said when she got there, tone polite but not nice. "Do you have any ideas for what to do?" Schoolwork was very important to Caitlyn and she figured, since they weren't exactly friends, there was no point in beating around the bush. They should just get down to it.
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Post by MICHAEL CONNER BARTON on Apr 8, 2013 21:51:34 GMT -5
 --- i'll be there when you close your eyes ,. [/color][/size][/font] ( HOLD YOU TIGHT, SAY GOODNIGHT )[/center]
Nothing could put a damper on Michael's mood when he was on a roll. Elemental Studies was his favorite class, one that he gave his undivided attention to. Sometimes he even came to class early just to make sure he got a front row seat. Like today he had rushed over from his early morning run and coffee pick up. The coffee he had on his student desk had given him the extra boost to make it through even the lulls of class. Quite the turn around for the boy who use to find excuses to avoid classes and homework. The class was both a mental a physical challenge, something a regular public school could never offer. The professor certainly had a way of stressing the danger of what they could do while allowing them to fully explore every avenue. In true fashion the Professor had one-upped herself dishing out the assignments.
So his new assignment was geared towards the pros and cons of elemental strength. Perfect. Michael’s gaze turned towards the rest of his classmates, quickly trying to scope out his perfect lab partner. Meeting one of his friend’s gaze, the Thunder smirked in the silent agreement of partnership. ”So, I’ve already set up partners…” The grin dropped at that moment. ’Well, that’s not how I wanted this to go.’ The Professor rattled off names, some students groaning or silently cheering when they heard their pairs. Michael’s ideal partner was snatched up by another Thunder student, but Mike still had hope. ”Michael Barton and…Caitlyn Sommerlot” Well, hope gone. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t be sure if he should start cheering or crying. Before getting the chance to find this Caitlyn, she had come to him. It took everything in his power to not pinch the bridge of his nose in disbelief.
”Uh yeah,” Michael’s hand went to scratch the nape of his neck. This was beyond awkward. Not only was he paired off with the element he was weak against, it had to be Caitlyn Sommerlot. Just one of the many Earth students he just had to screw over back in high school. Caitlyn was probably a nice enough girl like all Earth students were labeled as around school. That in itself was annoying enough. The details were hazy on his part on what he actually did to Caitlyn, but she was one of many who had crossed paths with the former bad boy. ”You can sit if you want,” his tone matching hers. Cordial, but not overly friendly. Was she the one he knocked her books out or her hands, or the one who had the unfortunate fate of having that nasty rumor spread around?
Tapping his pen a few times on his open notebook, Mike leaned back in his chair. ”Well, books are only going to get us so far. We could always go for the first hand experience to really get a better understanding.” This was one of the few classes Michael really shined in. Rightfully so for a guy who wanted to teach the subject to others. ”Probably some easy little experiments and we could get some real field data.” Of course this whole project would just be a great way for Mike to get embarrassed. He was praying for a Water and got the complete opposite. A Wind would have been better, and a challenge. Michael would have loved to explore how his powers worked against a Wind student. ”For you at least. Unless you have any better ideas.”
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on Apr 16, 2013 15:02:24 GMT -5
It was interesting how grudges could be held. Truthfully, that kind of thing was generally reserved for the Thunders -- Earths weren't too well-known for holding a grudge. It was incredible how long Cait had held onto some of them, though -- she couldn't even remember the exact offense, but something Michael had done in the past had very severely bothered her. She hardly knew him, really, had lost track of him over the years except for a very mild irritation when she happened to see him. This was worse because she realized they were going to have to work together. She didn't even know a thing about what he was like in a class setting, actually, but Caitlyn only hoped that it was better than what she expected. "Thank you," she said, voice oddly quiet in the more awkward, stiff sense, but she figured that someone could just as easily imagine that it was out of shyness. She hoped that it didn't come across to him as shyness -- that would probably not be any good. Earths were generally already considered the ones easiest to pick on.
Most elemental education was, for obvious reasons, not done out of a textbook, so his words weren't at all surprising. She sat and opened her notebook as well, getting out a pen so that she could go ahead and take notes. Her opinions of him weren't high going in as it was and she wasn't sure she could expect much from him. Then again, maybe he was some kind of genius. She didn't really know, honestly. "First hand experience would probably be a good idea," she acknowledged, since she assumed that this was what their professor had intended from the beginning. That would explain the total mess of partnerships there were -- a few people with their own elements, some with those they were either weak or strong against... Then there were the Winds, who she figured had been the most difficult pairs, but it didn't seem to have made a difference to their professor, who was turning a bored face away back to some marking or something or other of that nature. "Right." She made a neat note of what he said, then turned her attention back to him.
At least he had ideas. It was better than leaving her to do the work herself -- though she had no idea that this was actually his major. That would certainly make most anyone try at least a little harder than usual. She also didn't know, of course, anything else about his study habits -- and perhaps it was bad to assume, except that all she knew about him was the odd time their paths had crossed in high school (and none of that had ever ended well). "What kinds of experiments were you thinking?" she asked, not sure she had any ideas of her own yet -- she had also arrived at the conclusion of doing experiments, but as for what kind... She wanted to sigh. Given a few minutes by herself, this would have been much easier, but as it was, she wanted to keep conversation going if only because sitting there silently doing work would have been much more awkward. Cait just tried to train her eyes on Michael, and the notebook, rather than glancing wistfully over at her friend across the room. "What do you mean, for me?" she asked after a second, able to put it together but not being sure. "I mean, are the experiments actually that, like... competitive?" She knew about the weaknesses and strengths of some elements against others, but she wasn't too sure it was really a relevant point.
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Post by MICHAEL CONNER BARTON on Apr 18, 2013 14:54:56 GMT -5
--- i'll be there when you close your eyes ,. [/color][/size][/font] ( HOLD YOU TIGHT, SAY GOODNIGHT )[/center]
As Caitlyn took a seat the finality of this unholy pair officially set in. Had he too much pride to ask the Professor for a switch at this point. It was how his stubborn streak came into play, most times it worked against him, but in this case it would save him face in front of one of the few Professor’s he enjoyed. If he couldn’t get through this then he couldn’t see himself fighting for the attention of twenty of so high schoolers in a classroom environment. From the Earth’s body language it was apparent that she wasn’t keen on the pairing. He was going to make a comment to her on that, but figured it was best to pick his battles wisely on this long haul of an assignment.
He could not stop himself from the small eye roll when she agreed that first hand experience was a good idea. Of course. ”It just makes sense,” he reiterated. It wasn’t like she was offering anything game changing herself. ”Unless you have a better idea.” Mike noticed Caitlyn’s gaze draw back to him from looking over at someone he didn’t recognize. Was she even paying attention to him?
Mike wrinkled his nose slightly at that. "Naturally it makes sense that you would have the upper hand in this," the Thunder retorted waspishly. He uncapped his pen and began to draw out some crude sketches of what was going on in his mind. ”There’s the less exciting way of going about this by doing everything in a contained environment,” he pushed his notebook doodles towards the girl and pointed at the small efforts at making drawings of test tube looking beakers. ”Subjecting our powers with different variables and controls would be safer.” But boring and much like a science experiments with tones of logging and stats.
Michael pulled his notebook back towards himself and tapped the pen against the metal spiral. ”Or we could always duke it out and make it competitive,” not joking about the idea. Normally Mike’s element would have been at a disadvantage, but he was confident in his own abilities. He had more than a few spats with students. Using his powers in a fight was just one of the few things he could do well. ”I’m sure a lot of people aren’t going to go that route.” Fighting didn’t seem like something the Earth female would go for. They were always the hardest to get a physically rouse out of. Good thing since they would overpower the more aggressive Thunders.
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Post by CAITLYN AUBREE SOMMERLOT on May 1, 2013 17:27:43 GMT -5
The roll of his eyes didn't go unnoticed, and Caitlyn's lips twitched a little to tighten for just a brief moment. "Yes," she agreed, keeping her tone relatively neutral. Luckily, the tone of weariness kept out of it, but really, Michael was quite possibly one of her least favourite people in the room right now, and she was sure she would have even rather been paired up with one of the Fires or something -- well, maybe not. Some of them were frightening. "No, I just said you had a good idea," she said, sounding tired but, at least so far, not annoyed or anything. She considered herself a fairly nice person, and like the rest of the Earths she was friendly -- but this was how things went.
Unless they were in an actual fight, she didn't see how she would have any sort of "upper hand" in the project -- and it wasn't that Cait was stupid, because she understood what he was driving at, but she couldn't say she approved, and she didn't much appreciate his tone of voice, either. "What is it?" she asked, rather than voicing any disagreement for now, looking at the doodle presented to her. She wasn't being rude, really -- just curious. She was sure it was his idea for the project, but she couldn't tell what this was. "Well, there's nothing wrong with doing things in a controlled environment," she pointed out, noting the way he called it "less exciting". School wasn't always supposed to be exciting, she would have said, but this was a battle she didn't want to pick. "I mean, I can always do the data part of it if you want." It was a way of getting her to agree with her, but it was a legitimate offer too -- being in Forensic Science did mean that she had to take a couple of science courses, and so she had gotten pretty decent at that kind of thing over the years.
He was serious about this fighting thing, apparently, and Caitlyn drew her lips together tightly, not answering for a second. "I don't know if that would be a good idea," she said after a brief pause. "It would be hard to control for variables, and do up a report for the final project." There was also the risk of either or both of them getting hurt, and this wasn't a risk that she was really willing to take. It wasn't just an aversion to being hurt, either; she also didn't like hurting other people. Admittedly, however, she did know that, from pure personal aggressiveness alone, Michael would probably win a fight regardless of the natural strengths and weaknesses of their elements.
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