Branch to the gut (open)

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

It was November and the leaves were mid way in their change from green to reds and oranges as rich as jewels from the most brilliant of stones with the help of some cooler days they'd recently had. It was a beautiful day. The sky was blue and the sun was shining, bouncing golden light off of the pond and onto the grounds around it. The air had a smell of autumn crispness with the hint of snow, a nod at the nippy days that were soon to come. Cold air was something Emmy never did seem to get used to. The fall was fine, but the moment the leaves were gone leaving the frail corpses of the trees that once loomed high and mighty during the summer months Emmanuelle tended to become depressed. But that time wasn't now. Now it was just the start of a beautiful autumn day and she was dead set on enjoying it.

The fallen leaves crunched under Emmy's feet as she walked to the pond just as she had every day. It was her favorite place on campus and tended to be on the quieter side. But it wasn't the quiet that drew her there. But instead the water. It wasn't the biggest body of water within walking distance and by far the quietest on campus. It wasn't her ocean, but it would do for now. Emmy sighed as she reached the pond. It was so flat, so still and undisturbed. Not a wave or a ripple. She wanted to step in it just to make it move. Make sure it was still alive. Will it to be the ocean she missed so badly. If only ponds had waves.

The best part about the pond was her tree. A big oak tree with strong branches, her favorite branch, a branch that reached over the water. The crook of it was the perfect place to write a letter or read a book or spy on the idiots who thought they were alone.

Emmanuelle hoisted herself up the trunk of the tree. Climbing higher and higher. Today she wanted a view of the trees. She wanted to look at them before they lost their remaining leaves and the beautiful landscape became dull and lifeless. It always did happen too fast...

She climbed, one branch and then the next like she had so many times before. Suddenly, she heard a noise she wasn't familiar with. The heart stopping cracking of a branch. Shit. fuck. fuck. fuckity fuck fuck shit shit shit! The branch snapped and Emmy slid quickly from it falling. Branches smacked into her until finally she caught herself on the lowest branch below, the one that reached over the water. She landed hard on her stomach, the branch knocking the wind out of it, the adrenaline the only thing keeping her holding on. Upon catching her breath she could start to feel the pain come in. Shit. She gasped for air. She could hear the sound of quick footsteps. Someone was coming towards her. They must have seen. She could hear them running fast but they were coming from the other way.

She wasn't sure if she wanted help or not. Her face was flushing with embarrassment. Her pride had been tarnished.

[Izzy James]

Izzy was on the way while Emmanuelle was still falling.

The pond had become one of Izzy's favorite places to practice. There weren't people around, so if his power accidentally went out of control or something. It took a lot of the stress off, which made actually learning to control his power easier. Which made stuff like this all the more, let's go with interesting.

Izzy even tried using his power, or at least, thought about using his power. Maybe he could slow the fall, or even stop it completely. His hand even went up, his concentration hardening. Then he recalled what usually happened whenever he tried to use his abilities: the exact opposite of what he needed or wanted to happen. The hand went down. The running started.

He stood over the girl, looking her over. She looked... kind of older for a student or something. Maybe a teacher? Didn't matter, because she also looked hurt.

"Hey, are you okay?" asked Izzy. Not the smartest question. He shook his head and dropped to his knees, looking her over. "You took a nasty fall there. You feeling okay? Is anything hurting?"

Man, he wished he knew some first aid. He really needed to take a class or something. What were you supposed to do? Look for wounds or something? Yeah, because that didn't look at all like he was checking her out...

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

Emmy groaned clutching her hands to her side as she rolled over on the grass gasping for air. The branch really took a good whack at her mid section and the fair girl was sure to bruise and it'd be nasty at that. Her breathing felt strained even as she started to catch her breath. Excellent. Just what she needed now that she was single again.

Emmanuelle looked up and saw the boy looking down at her and managed a half-assed smile. He was decent looking too which was the worst part. That's just what she wanted. The first attractive boy around her age seeing her fall flat on her face like an idiot. Lovely. truly wonderful. She had to remember that she'd laugh about this later. It was a pretty amazing site, the tall blonde girl falling from a tree. She had to keep herself from laughing that would hurt far too much.

"Hey." She finally croaked out. Lovely Emmy, just lovely. She was getting more charming with every breath, word, and movement. He kept talking and she was having trouble letting his words even register through her brain. Was she okay? Did she look okay? She wanted to smack him but then remembered her manners.

"I'm... fine..." She said through gasps daring to take her hand away from her side and propping herself up on her elbow. "Just terribly clumsy." She blushed. Her fair face was flushed rosy with embarrassment. She wasn't alright though. Her breaths were strained she definitely at least bruised a rib. "I don't suppose you don't have healing powers or something useful?" She joked rather rudely. "I'm sorry... That wasn't... very nice..." She corrected. She was having a hard time containing herself today.

[Izzy James]

She totally sounded okay, and not at all like someone who was in a lot of pain or something. Izzy finally noticed that her side seemed to be bothering her the most, he tried shifting, seeing if he could see what was going on there. She'd probably hit a branch or something like that. At least he didn't see any blood, and she was talking. Those were good signs, right? Again, Izzy was kicking himself for not knowing more about first aid.

"Yeah, you don't look so fine. Do you need help getting to the infirmary or something? I, uh, know where it is," the last bit came out as more of a mumble than anything. The main reason Izzy knew this information was because he'd technically put a girl there shortly after his arrival. Not exactly the kind of information you want to share with someone when you were trying to help them.

Izzy tried extending his hands over her, wanting her to mostly stay put. He knew that you were supposed to do that much, at least until they figured out what exactly was wrong with her.

"Don't move, and, uh, don't worry about the power thing. I'd be doing the same thing. I actually have this time power. It's kinda dodgy though," Izzy nearly shrugged. He could probably use it to help the wound, but he wasn't sure what would happen. A reversal, and she'd be perfectly alright, no side effects. A jump forward, and she'd probably heal. Trick was, Izzy had never used that part of his power on a person. An iPod, sure, but a person?

"Kinda useful. What about you? No, wait, if you could do something, you totally would. Never mind," Izzy muttered the last bit. He took a deep breath, focusing. He could do... something, that much he knew. But he wasn't sure he really should be trying his power on someone he just met. "I'm Izzy, by the way. Uh, did you want me to try and, uh, time work you or something? We could probably get you to the infirmary if you'd rather..."

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

The infirmary. Not exactly a place that Emmy fancied herself being. Lord only knew how clean they really were and she'd volunteered in a hospital before and she knew exactly what patients did in those beds. Bed pans. She shuttered at the thought. The infirmary at a school was surely less well taken care of then a full sized hospital in Georgia. The germs that manifested on the beds were probably ones that could rival the deadliest of diseases. She'd die here, on the grass, by the pond, with the jewel toned leaves dead laying around her. It'd be a kind of pretty site wouldn't it? Dead girl among the dead and dying leaves. Almost poetic.

Emmy listened to the boy bustle and fuss. He didn't seem to know what to do. It made her smile watching him so unsure, confused, seeming to have an idea but not the confidence to follow through. It made her feel comfortable. She liked being the one in control and her falling from a tree had made her lose it but his frazzled unknowingness has put her right back in the pilot seat. She could work with this.

"I'm Emmanuelle" She giggled listening to him. It hurt to laugh but she couldn't help it. Plus laughter was the best medicine wasn't it? That's what she'd always been told at least. "I'm just a hydrokinesis." She told him. "I manipulate water..." She knew there weren't many of her type around here. She hadn't met any others at least. "I trust you though." She told him though she didn't but people liked to hear that sort of thing when they weren't sure of themselves. "nothing worse can happen and you manipulate time?" She smiled "that's amazing i'd love to see... and i'm also kind of not... a fan of the infirmary... it really freaks me out."

[Izzy James]

"That's a pretty name,' replied Izzy, half out of politeness and half because it was true. You couldn't look at a girl like Emmanuelle and not think that she was pretty. At least, not if you appreciated that sort of thing. Izzy did; a lot.

Trust you though; yeah, because that wasn't going to backfire or anything. No pressure. Izzy took a deep breath, focusing, remembering what his trainer told him. Usually his power at least did something, and since moving either direction in time would definitely help here, it seemed like an easy enough decision. Just the whole fact that Fate always seemed all too willing to mess with Izzy whenever he used his power... no, focus.

Amazing, not a fan of the infirmary; "Me either," admitted Izzy. Not since he's essentially puked his guts out when he was there last time. For a while there, he'd been nearly a regular visitor; all with that exact, same condition. Loads of fun. Back to focusing.

Izzy took a deep breath, picturing the time bubble, and tried to picture things going backward. It looked like his power might work, because there was a distinct shifting in the general area. Unless you looked closely, you couldn't exactly see time being altered, but when you did, it was noticeable. Air moved oddly, anything within (like, say, a wound) reacted differently. A nudge, and it should be moving back.

But, as stated earlier, Fate likes to screw with Izzy's power. Time took a few steps backward for Emmanuelle's side, then did a sudden leap forward. Still heal, as naturally as it would with that much rest in that exact position, but it was sure to feel more than a little weird, not to mention stiff.

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

"Thanks" She answered as she watched him move his hands. She wondered if he'd ever tried to go back in time with a wound. She didn't really understand time travel. It was one of the mutations that she really didn't see the black and white of how it could work. Hers was easy. If it had to do with water and it wasn't to great she could probably manipulate it. There were only a set amount of things she could possibly do. With time travel it seemed to be infinite. And he was talking about effecting just a part of her. How could he turn back time on one part of her but not the rest? How could he just put her back in time and not the whole world? The whole idea was giving her a headache.

Emmy could feel a sort of funny feeling. Some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing happening around her ribs. She could feel it start to get better, the bruise start to heal and her poor sure to be fractured rib start to mend. But right when it was starting to get better she felt it get suddenly worse, and then somewhat better again. It was strange. She could feel her bruise bigger than it was a moment ago but better than originally.

"You're abilities confuse me to no end." She chuckled. "It feels better... but you're no healer." She shrugged. "I guess it isn't surprising though and it was a very good try." She chuckled but was accepting the fact that she'd most likely have to go to the infirmary. How embarrassing.

Emmy shifted a bit and winced feeling her rib. She hadn't tried to do much moving and now was seeing the magnitude of her fall. "How does your ability work?" She asked half because she truly wanted to know and half to keep her mind off her ribs. She wasn't trying to be a bitch, she was just feeling uncomfortable and the sparkle and shine of a new boy to impress was wearing off quickly with her war wounds still fresh.

[Izzy James]

"You're welcome," muttered Izzy. Though, again, he couldn't help but wish that he could do something more than this. His hands were still held out, the focus coming shortly thereafter. At least some of the healing process had been accelerated; they probably still needed to get Emmanuelle to the infirmary. Izzy was likely to insist it anyway.

His abilities confused her? "Tell me about it," muttered Izzy. "I don't even know what I'm doing half the time."

Again, not exactly what you told someone you just used your abilities on, but, well, she had asked. Plus, everything seemed to be doing alright. Though she was likely to get wrinkles on that patch of skin first or something; Izzy wasn't quite certain how that worked out. It was a puzzle for someone else to figure out.

"Not very well," muttered Izzy. "I, uh, move time, sort of. Like, I can slow down time for a while or speed it up. It's in small areas though, like," Izzy waved his hands around the wounded side. "It's pretty strong too, really. I just, uh, don't have a lot of control of it yet."

And he wasn't likely to for a while yet, despite the intensive training sessions. Izzy sighed, rubbing at his face and looking over Emmanuelle again. Yeah, they definitely needed to get her to the infirmary or something. Why couldn't he have a more useful power? Or at least, a power he had more usable control over...

"Do you think you can walk? We should probably get you to the infirmary pretty soon."

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

She chuckled. She didn't think he was alone being not able to control his powers at least he had the sense to admit it. She'd seen more than enough dim whited egotistical students think they could take on far more than they could chew in order to show off. She wasn't exactly out of that pool though. She shuttered thinking back to the day of the accident. She knew it wasn't her fault, she knew it couldn't have been but it still haunted her. She still blamed herself... but that wasn't a memory to deal with now. So she did what she always did and pushed it to the back of her mind where she'd address it later.... she loved later. It never did really come.

"I bet you'll be really impressive once you get a handle on your power." She said with a flirty smile. He seemed like he was a little younger than her. She liked that. Maybe she could make him into a little puppy for her. She always did like it when she had a couple of those floating around to flirt with and entertain her. But he seemed far too sweet for that. She didn't want to corrupt him. But it'd be so fun....

"The infirmary?" She asked again raising a brow. She so didn't want to go there. "I think I'll be fine... it's just a little bruise." She insisted as she started to pick herself up. It hurt so bad to move but she was determined not to have to go to that damn medical hell. So unsanitary. "Ice... ice will fix it." She insisted wishing she had some more energy. If she was at her fullest she could easily take some of the water from the pond and make herself a small ice block but that would take far too much energy right now. She really needed to spend more time training.

Still though, it was worth the try. Emmy looked over at the pond that was only a few feet away and reached out her hand willing a small stream of water to come to her. So far so good. Ok. Now if she could just manipulate the molecules. She closed her eyes trying to concentrate and for a moment the water froze before unfreezing and splashing to the ground. "I could use more practice too." She sighed and picked herself up the rest of the way.

The pain forced her to keep hunched over, her arms crossed tight over her side. "Okay... maybe the infirmary is needed...."

[Izzy James]

"Maybe; let's hope so," said Izzy, smiling nervously. He'd wondered about that himself, since his power was superloaded and all. He was far more worried about getting through the now though, instead of focusing on the future; unless that focus happened to be about his burgeoning musical career, then he was all over that.

The now seemed to include bruising though. "If you're sure," said Izzy. He watched carefully nonetheless, holding out hands to help steady if needed. "I could always try using my power again. It's not really a healing thing though."

He wasn't even entirely certain what his power had done to her. He'd accelerated that section of her body, but apparently not far enough to fully heal her, judging by how much complaining she did. Which meant that she was probably in that awkward stage, and that her bruising should be a lot worse than it would be normally. Or something. For not the first time, Izzy seriously considered getting some real training.

Speaking of training, it seemed like Izzy wasn't the only one who needed it. He watched as Emmanuelle drew water over, working it around her. He thought about holding up his hands, seeing if his power could help at all. Sometimes these things mixed well. But he didn't want to interrupt what she was doing, not without asking first or something.

"I figured," said Izzy. He looked over at her. "What were you trying to do? Wash out the wound or something?"

He hadn't seen any blood, but he couldn't figure out what someone who moved water would be doing. Regardless of the answer, Izzy was already moving to help support Emmanuelle, more than a little glad that he knew exactly where he was going this time.

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

She sighed. "I was going to try and freeze it but right now that takes more concentration than i can give." She chuckled. "Oh well, here's to battle wounds." She said trying to find the light in the situation. "I just am embarrassed that i fell out of a tree and now a total stranger basically has to bring me back."

She didn't know where this wave of chatter came from. Probably from her being embarrassed. She didn't much like being out of control and being helped back to the infirmary, the ultimate place of defeat in her eyes, by a younger boy after falling out of a tree? Well that was lack of control if she'd ever seen it before and she was having a really hard time not getting really upset in front of Izzy. But she wouldn't let that happen. She was going to handle this with grace. She was going to channel her inner Grace Kelly if it was the last damn thing she did.

"So you know where the infirmary is?" She asked changing the subject back to him. If she could keep the focus of the conversation mostly on him she'd be in good shape. She'd surely find some insecurity or something to zero in on and then either use it against him later or adopt him and fix it. She did quite like the guy though. He seemed genuinely sweet as far as she could tell and she valued that. She'd met too many assholes before in her life. And he was really cute too. He had to be younger than her though, he looked it. It was a shame but perhaps she could match him up with one of her younger girl pals. Em was more interested in older men now anyway.

[Izzy James]

Freeze the water? "Oh, that sounds cool," said Izzy. He hadn't seen anyone do that, but he didn't see why it couldn't be done. In Izzy's limited experience, nearly anything was possible, especially here at Hammel. Besides, she had moved the water, so why couldn't she freeze it?

All that, she was embarrassed? "Hey, don't worry about it. Not like this sort of thing doesn't happen pretty often. I mean, I seem to help people like every week or so."

What Izzy left off was how about one third of the time he was doing that, it was fixing a mess he'd caused in the first place. Fate wasn't exactly kind to him, for some reason. It was as if Izzy was a toy for Fate's amusement. That was just too creepy to think about, so he wasn't going to dwell. Especially not when he was helping a hot, older woman.

Yeah, that was starting to sink in, now that the major problems had passed.

"I know where the infirmary is," said Izzy. He swallowed. "I, uh, I've been there before. A few times. Remember what I said about not being really in control of my power?"

There had been the whole incident with his power colliding with Adrianna's, which had been the worst. Then there had been the speeding ball incident. The bird peck-wound incident, the double-check after pulling someone from water incident (hey, at least that one wasn't his fault), and the flat out "I'm throwing up from my power" things. So, yeah, he'd been there.

Just a few times.

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

Emmy nodded. "Yeah, my power is more with the molecular structure than anything else." She explained. "There are a couple other things i'm able to do pretty well but really just changing the structure of the atom is my strong point so like temperature control." She said. "I can also do some things like draw the water from a place and i'm a great swimmer, can hold my breath for days." She laughed but quickly regretted it now that they were moving and walking towards the infirmary. She'd been laying on the ground for a while and now moving, and laughing, and talking, and breathing, and all her muscles feeling as if they'd been beaten with a metal bat wanted to scream at her.

"I know where it is too but i try to avoid it." She said bitterly, thoughts of bedpans and disgusting things flooding back into her head from the place she'd tucked them away in the very back hidden behind everything else. It made her want to vomit. She really hated this idea. She half wanted to let Izzy try his hand again at either speeding up the time in that area or slowing it down but she was starting to think that was a bad idea judging by how he talked about his power.

"You seem like you've been there way more than me though." She noted. She didn't want to talk about the infirmary anymore though. If she thought about it too much she was sure to get sick and that was just not something she was prepared to deal with. She didn't do well with mess and vomit was one of the worst kinds. She couldn't think about it.

"So......." Small talk, she'd revert to small talk. "how old are you? No wait let me guess." She usually had a good eye for ages. "15... 16 tops." She said then looked for him for validation.

[Izzy James]

It sounded like Emma had a better handle on what her power did and how it worked than Izzy. He didn't even want to think about how time manipulation worked in science-y terms. It was disturbing enough to think about generally. Still, he had to work hard to hold back his envy at her knowing so much about the way her gift worked.

As for the infirmary and avoiding it: "I try too," he said, "but I'm not very good at it."

Meaning that he might as well rent a bed there.

Needless to say, Izzy wasn't exactly itching to keep talking about the infirmary and his experiences there. He was very nearly to the point of bringing up his standard, meaning music, when Emma started talking instead. Izzy glanced over at her while she talked, nodding along to her assessment, before laughing.

"You got it on the first guess. I'm fifteen," he said. "I know better than to ask your age, but I'm betting you're older than me. I don't think I've seen you in classes or around campus. Then again," he chuckled, "I haven't been here very long. Just moved from Colorado," which was usually something else he could bring up to discuss and distract. "What about you? Where you from?"

He kept moving them toward the infirmary, though the pace was slow, leisurely. Neither was in a particular hurry to get there.

[Emmanuelle LaBeau]

She could thank her teachers for what she knew about her abilities. She wasn't a particularly science oriented person. She wasn't a particularly school driven person at all. But her abilities were definitely far more easy to decode and crack than some of the others. It was straight forward. She could make water get cold and hot and then a few other things. Far more easy to pin point than time. She was thankful for that.

Em smiled when she found out she got his age right. "The master!" She bragged and laughed. "Yeah, I'm older. 18." she told him and then listened to him talk about just getting here. "Colorado? I've never been out there but i hear it's beautiful." She said with a smile then shrugged. "I'm from Georgia. It's alright." She wasn't a huge fan of Georgia. It was boring and the people were annoying.

"So you just got here?" She asked again turning the subject back to him. "Seems like you got a late start to Hammel then compared to a lot of other students." She herself got there fairly young. But then again she was almost fourteen so not too much younger than him. It felt like so long ago though.