Two Peas in a Pod (Gwen)

[Ashton Harper]

Being back at Hammel was...odd. Being back in Vermont was even more odd. It was reaching the month mark since he came back into Pilot Ridge and he still wasn't back into his old routine. Living above his mother's bakery on his own while she lives at the old house, a good 15 miles or so away from his father's new place was so different. The apartment complex above the bakery had always been a place for storage or whenever Flynn needed a place to crash. Now that Flynnie was gone and the storage wasn't quite as needed, Ash decided to make it his own. It was easier getting to work on time now, though he wasn't planning on working at the bakery forever. After all, that was why he was even visiting Hammel. He was in training to become a recruiter of sorts. But first, he needed to perfect his own ability.

Walking through the school grounds towards the main part of campus, it felt like he was back at the Institute as a young man still figuring out the path his life was taking. Things were different now though, what with him having fixed his mental health after the divorce and without the woman he had intended on marrying. It had been a mistake made by the boy he had been before, but he was fixing himself and growing in his maturity. Now he knew that he was too young for marriage and before he got into another serious relationship, he fully intended on getting his future sorted out.

Once he reached the wing of the building he was supposed to be in, he found himself reminiscing on all of the memories he had. Being back at his old school was far more nostalgic than he had expected. It wasn't as though he had many memories to go off of. There was the awkward run-ins with attractive girls in every part of the school and the memory was always the same, him stuttering and tripping over his words in front of them. One would think that after spending such a long time with Tae, he'd have gotten over that speech impediment problem. That person would be wrong. Ashton still had trouble speaking to people he didn't know or if he found them attractive in any way. It was sort of a problem when speaking in front of people in stressful situations, but he could handle taking orders at the bakery. Progress.

Ash passed by one of the training rooms, hands in his pockets and his power began acting up, prickling his skin when he felt the power of another nearby. He didn't pay much attention at first, thinking it was an official or maybe a rogue student roaming the halls. It wasn't until he looked into the training room that he saw it was someone actually using the room he was supposed to meet in. For a moment he just watched her, getting a feel for the power and before he knew it, he could feel the numbing feeling that passed through him as his power began working. From his point of view it appeared like a mist, slowly surrounding the girl and he couldn't quite pull it back before it reached her, so he stood there, hiding as best as he could but still watching her.

[Gwen Peyton]

Gwen had been in one of the vacant training rooms working on her power. She had already been there for an hour or so, enduring the migraines that came with her relentless attempts. Gwen still had not found a trainer that she did not have the urge to bite, yet she figured that she might as well work on her own while the search for a trainer that was compatible with, or at least tolerated her personality was on hiatus. She thought that all the other trainers assigned to her in the past were either airheads, or simply didn't care enough to help her overcome her limitations. While Gwen did well in her academics prior to graduating from Hammel's high school curriculum, she was a difficult student when it came to power training, and it didn't help that she did make things more difficult for the trainer assigned to her for the week, and so each one had given up. Finally, the faculty told her that they would have to reevaluate Gwen's needs to find a trainer suitable for her, only that it would take a while. Gwen was determined to make progress, even on her own. Perhaps, she figured, she didn't need one anyway. She would work on this on her own and finally get a move on from Hammel and get into a decent university. That was her plan for now, unless her future showed her otherwise. If she could see herself already.

Focus, Gwen told herself. You're almost there. She took a deep breath and tried again. As she closed her eyes, the images started to form in front of her, like a palette of colors slowly coming together and meshing into a picture. Only, the image was blurry, like there was a heavy fog clouding her vision. Gwen squinted harder to sustain the image.

Gwen did not hear or notice the blond boy pass by the training room, so what came next was a total surprise to her. The foggy vision in front of her was dissipating slowly, the image disintegrating back into the whirlwind of color that was being sucked into an unseen abyss. No! Gwen's mind protested, yelling back at the disappearing color, until all she saw was a blank white slate.

Gwen opened her eyes in a flash, and turned her head to the door, her eyes unflinching in a death glare at the likely source of her momentary powerlessness. Whoever was responsible for this did his or her best in hiding himself, which only annoyed Gwen all the more. She felt her rage slowly well up in her chest.

"Having fun back there, nerd?" Gwen called out in a low and shaky voice towards the direction of the door, her chest heaving, with the anger threatening to burst out any moment soon. The douchebag had to be there somewhere. Man, was she having one bitch of a migraine and clearly, this twerp--whoever he was--picked the worst day to mess with her. As it were, hell hath no fury like a psychic with a bad headache.

[Ashton Harper]

Being a power suppressor had its ups and downs. He didn't change in physical appearance, or have some strange affect outside of the typical migraine and the numbness and prickling as it worked. He supposed it could be worse though. The problem with it wasn't necessarily what he felt, more how others reacted when he used it, intentionally or otherwise. Some people were thankful for the reprieve and it even helped numb their affects sometimes. Others only felt their affects worse and hated his power. Typically, he ran into the ones who weren't too fond of the feeling. He made people feel just as any other normal person would, and those who were heated about the whole normal people vs. metas stuff really disliked what his power was. It wasn't like he chose it though.

This was why he was back at Hammel, he couldn't control when his power responded to others. Sometimes he got lucky and it did nothing, other times, he had very little luck. This happened to be one of those times, and of course the person he was using it on unintentionally was taking it a little harder than he'd hoped. In fact, she was outright pissed and Ashton didn't respond well to confrontation. Least of all with girls. Most of the time when he was confronted with a problem, he took full blame and tucked his tail between his legs because he didn't like fighting. There would be once in a great while that he fought back, but it took a lot for him to get that spark. Name-calling wouldn't cut it.

What Ash thought was weird was how she automatically assumed him to be a nerd. It wasn't as if he dressed as such with his dark AE jeans and Aero button-up. In fact, he dressed more jock-like than nerdy. And he even acted closer to a jock than a nerd. Granted, he totally geeked out when pulling out his action figures, but people didn't really know about those. And he only took them out to keep them in such good condition. He wasn't a complete nerd...well, he didn't think. Her question had no effect on him though, he just shoved his hands in his pockets and felt the mist pull back. The way it worked was almost as if it had thoughts and feelings of its own, inching back from her because she was angry.

Gulping slightly, he rounded the corner and stood in the doorway, leaning against it with his arms crossed. Ashton wasn't trying to look cool and even if he had been, he'd look the same. Shy and hesitant to make any sudden moves for fear of her tackling him or something. Girls were scary and he didn't see how guys could treat them so bad sometimes when a girl could easily crush their manhood. That was one thing he always was afraid of, hence the reason he resisted confrontation. "L-look, I'm sorry. It just sort of happened, lack of control and whatnot, I didn't mean to," He said quietly.

[Gwen Peyton]

It was not easy to get on Gwen's good side, yet it was easy as hell to get on her bad side. At this moment, the douchebag made the list, and Gwen was seething with fury. Well, it was really more of an extreme annoyance, but with her temper, it was easy for things to get lost in translation.

"I am about three seconds away from marching to the door and dangling you by your feet if you don't show yourself", she called out, clenching her fists. Gwen was only five feet tall and so, the likelihood of this moron being taller than her was, well, pretty likely. Still, no one messed with her training, even if she didn't have a trainer, and she would find a way to lift him upside down if the coward didn't show himself. If he was too tall, well, there was always the telekinesis kid.

"Three..." She called out, her voice firm yet trailing off at the end, with the sound reverberating through the walls. How dare the twerp mess with her power! She took a few steps towards the door, her fists balled even harder. No sign of the culprit.

"Two..." The suppression of her power might have been an accident, Gwen realized, yet she felt like she was making progress until that happened. It was bad enough that she was still stuck at Hammel a year after graduation, with no sign whatsoever of her own future, which was ironic. She took a few more steps, now only about two feet from the door.

"One--"

A tall blond boy appeared in the doorway, arms crossed before she could finish her thought, and she had been face-to-face with him.

He wore a button-up shirt and dark jeans, and looked pretty relaxed, if not slightly sheepish. Gwen then thought that as far as stereotypes went, her earlier "nerd" comment was inappropriate for the guy. Still, Gwen never cared much for cliques or for the popular kids in particular, and to her, those who fucked with her or pissed her off were lame, hence, nerds, depending on Gwen's word choice for the day. He could have been dork or jackass or fucker for all she knew. In comparison, nerd seemed pretty tame.

Gwen was flustered by his sudden presence, loosening her fists unconsciously and caught her breath. As soon as the boy opened his mouth, Gwen fixed her eyes on the look on his face: hesitant, shy, a little scared, maybe?, and for a second, Gwen thought he was kinda cute. What the hell, he ruined your session, get it together Peyton, dammit! She blinked her eyes furiously, as if getting rid of the softened expression that briefly registered on her face and getting back into character.


"You can't control your power? Didn't you think of that before graduating from here?" Gwen screeched, her eyebrows furrowed. "You ruined my fucking training session, thanks a lot." Her eyeballs were threatening to pop out of their sockets anytime soon, and she was two seconds away from throwing something.

[Ashton Harper]

Ashton was so non-confrontational that the whole thing had him uncomfortable. Clearly she was pissed and with good reason, but it seemed like nothing he said would be good enough to keep them from quarreling. Well, at least if she had an offensive ability (along with the telepathy, such as mind control) he’d be able to counteract it with his defensive one. That would save him some trouble, but what if she resorted to trying to hit him? Of course he’d never hit a girl even if it was in self-defense, and he was sure he’d be able to hold her. She was tiny after all. Still, he didn’t particularly want it to get to that.

So he came out from hiding. Looks like Ashton would find out if that was a good idea or not.

And the way she looked made him think it wasn’t. At first she seemed like she was calming down and then that softness disappeared. He was on the defensive and his arms stayed crossed and close to his chest. If she came at him, he’d be ready to fend her off. He didn’t want to, but that was completely up to her. She was the one who was getting all bent out of shape for nothing. It wasn’t like he tried using his power on her. And he did have some control over it, it was just sporadic sometimes. He hadn’t used his power in eight months for crying out loud.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I can control my power. I just have some problems with it every once in a while. I haven’t even had to use it for over a half a year. So calm down,” He muttered, eyebrows pulling together. Jeez was she moody. Ashton’s eyes narrowed and he frowned, “Yeah well you clearly weren’t training all that well considering you weren’t interacting with another meta. That’s how training works, self-training does nothing.”