William Trey, Water Elemental

  Cool and calm. That's what water is. Cool and calm until disturbed, that is. Selena disturbed the water. We sit inside the treehouse, the three of us, and Selena is wilting under my glare.“Please don't be mad at her. It's not her fault." Lily insists after a moment's hesitation. I turn my frown on her before eventually sighing.

  “It's fine. I'm annoyed you'd tattle on me the first chance you get, Selena, but besides that I guess it's fine. I'd planned to tell you anyway, depending on my opinion, and you're a good judge of character.”

  Selena perks up for a moment. “Yeah, I-”

  “Doesn't mean I'm not gonna be annoyed tho.” I cut her off. I then turn to Lily. “So. You're earth, I'm guessing?”

  “Um… yes.” she agrees with a nod. “And you're… water?”

  “Right on the money.” I chuckle. “Wanna trade notes or something?”

  “I, uh… I'm not good with notes.” She admits sheepishly. “I have a diary, but sorry to say nobody's touching that.”

  “I wouldn't dare.” I say with a kind smile. I pull out my own notes and hand them to her. “How about we see how our powers work in relation to each other?"

  “Um… ok.” she nods. “Let's go to the ground then.” She gets up, and we both follow her out of the treehouse. She pauses at the entrance, looking down at the ground, then just shrugs and decided to bring the ground up to her. A pillar of earth comes up and she steps on it. The ground sinks down to, well, the rest of the ground.

  “Neat trick.” I compliment, just hopping down. It's the kind of fall that'd break someone's legs, but I'm totally fine. I feel a ripple of force through my body that flows through me as if I were made of actual water.

  I pause at that thought. Made of water.

  “Thanks.” she says with a smile, then pauses as she sees me flipping my notebook open and going through it rapidly. I write down my thoughts.

  Question: Am I actually fully made of water?

  “What are you writing?” Selena asks as she takes the ladder(the boring way) down.

  “I had a thought when I landed. The force of hitting the ground moved through me as if I was made of water. So now I'm wondering if I'm actually 100% water or something.”

  “Uh… I'm made of minerals.” Lily offers. “My blood is solid too.”

  “Everyone's made of water and minerals.” Selena says sarcastically, leaning against the ladder as she stands on the ground. “I'm made of water and… wait, can you both… you know?”

  “You already know I can.” I say, flipping through my notes.

  “Can what?” Lily asks, confused,

  “I can control the water inside people.” I say. “People are 70% water.”“Y-you can?!” Lily gasps in shock. “So you’re saying I could probably, like… you know… control the iron in someone's blood or the minerals in the water they drink or the food they eat and stuff? That's… horrifying.”

  “I know.” I say, my expression turning more serious. “I hope I never have to. Though, it's given me ideas.”

  “Ideas? Like what?” Lily asks, turning somewhat suspicious.

  “Like ripping myself to shreds in the name of strength!” I say cheerily, making Lily pause.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, how does working out make you stronger?” I ask her, prompting her to take a moment to think.

  “It's microtears in the muscles, right? Wait… are you saying you can control the water in you to cause those microtears and force regeneration stronger?”

  “Yep, I am.” I say with a nod and a grin. “Although, it makes me as red as a potato.”“Why?” She asks, confused.

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  “Blood rushing through my body.” I say simply. “Also, it fucking hurts.”

  “I could imagine…” She agrees with a nod. “Maybe I could do that too…”

  “You've gotta be completely sure you understand your body intimately.” I can't help but stress. “You don't want to shred something you shouldn't. I almost shredded a few veins and blood vessels because I was tired and not paying much attention.”

  Lily nods and considers for a moment. “Well, lets show our powers.”“I have an idea. let's each make a wall and try to smash through each others.” I offer. She considers for a moment, then nods. “I'll smash your ice.” She says, a small grin forming as she begins making her wall. As she does, I also focus on mine. I start by gripping onto some of the moisture in the air. Not too much, I don't want to deprive the area of water and kill everything off. I then reach a small distance away, around 120 meters, to the stream I can feel. It runs through the forest most of the year, connected to the reservoir a few miles off. pulling as much water as I can from the stream I start condensing it as I go. After it reaches the density I want I freeze it into some of the most dense ice I've ever made. A solid 5 inch thick, 4 foot wide, 7 foot tall wall, 6 times as dense as ice is supposed to be.

  I turn to Lily to find she's made a thick, solid wall of dirt and stone. Felling through the slight moisture I can detect inside the dirt, I determine it's extremely durable. Not more durable than theoretically possible or anything like mine is, but still more durable than mine. Turns out that thick stone beats out thick ice most of the time. I'll have to make up for it with firepower to wow her.

  Though apparently I don't need to do that to wow her. She's staring at the ice with a slack jaw, likely feeling through the trace minerals inside how dense it is.

  “That's not- that's denser than ice is supposed to be.” She says after picking up her jaw. “How do you do that?”

  “I guess I just tried a bunch.” I shrug. “I wanted to try to use my powers creatively. One idea I had is making water do stuff water doesn't do. So I condensed it. The first time I nearly passed out, but after 2 months it's well near effortless.”“So you practice all the time for months?” She whistles. “I'm a month behind. I spent… a long time procrastinating.” She chuckles in nerves.

  “Swap?” I suggest, and she nods. We swap positions to be facing each other's walls. Selena takes a few steps back, thinks for a second then takes a few more. I raise a hand up and liquid from the surrounding area gathers in my hand. I form a simple small ball of water. Then I start condensing it. A ball of water the size of my hand turns into one the size of a marble. When I froze the condensed wall I forced it to be stable, meaning I could let go of control and it'd stay that way. But this ball? The moment I let go it'll explode in all directions. However, I don't want it doing that. Kinetic energy gathers within the little ball of roiling liquid, pressure begging for a release.

  I wait, instead turning to watch Lily. She's formed a giant javelin of stone, carved like a drill and forced to spin faster and faster and faster. Then she chucks it full force at my wall. Ultimately, my dense ice is no match for brute stone force, and it goes right through it.

  “Hows that?” She asks after a moment, turning to me. I smile.

  “Impressive. I doubt I could block something like that as I am now.” I say, then turn to her wall. “but can you block this?”

  I point the ball and force it forward with all my will, letting it expand at the same time, but only in one direction. The resulting force shoots far faster than a bullet, going clean through the stone wall and creating a marble sized hole through the stone. Mind you, the stone wall was far denser than my ice one. Perhaps 4 feet thick. Cracks spread out from the hole, causing the wall to look like a spiderweb. I grin.

  “I call it the pressure washer.” Selena comments, now feeling comfortable enough to approach. She stops beside Lily and grins. “You get it, right?”

  “No car would survive that wash.” Lily says, making her way over to the wall. She looks it over and nods. “I can feel how brittle the stone went from that impact. The inside is a lot more destabilized than the outside appears.

  “So, who's stronger?” I ask, grinning as I step to her. I wave a hand and the ice chunks turn to normal water, resulting in a giant bubble large enough to fill a few bathtubs floating beside us, which I then pull apart and distribute into the moisture of the air, the plants, and the stream in the distance.

  “Wait, it was a competition?” She asks, looking a little flustered all of a sudden. “I wasn't trying to compete or anything.”

  “Nah, I'm joking. Though I still think I'd win.” I say with a grin. She just nods, not contesting the point. I think she realizes its a joke. I hope so, at least.

  “So, anything you wanna show off?” I ask her, and hse perks up slightly.

  “Sure.” She nods, pulling some dirt and stone up off the ground and forming a ball of each. “I can fuse stuff together.” She presses each ball into eachother, and what comes out is something new. It seems to have the texture of dirt, but the durability of stone.

  “Whoa.” I say, looking at the little blob in her hand. “How'd you do that?”“I don't know.” She shrugs. “I just can.”

  “Maybe different elements have different perks?” Selena suggests. “Because I think that’s a new element.”

  “I can change elements into other elements so long as they're earth related. But that's chemistry, and I'm bad at chemistry.” Lily admits. She waves a hand towards the ground, and with a rumble of the earth a chair rises up out of the dirt, formed of stone, which she sits down on. I whistle at the display of power.

  “Showoff.”“Says you.” she sticks her tongue out at me, ang I give her a flat look. Selena grins and sits on the arm of the chair.

  “Can I adopt you? You're, like, practically my sister already.”

  “Uh… what?” She blinks in confusion.“People don't stick their tongues out as Will enough. You should do it more.” Selena says wisely. I snort, which devolves into laughter as Selena realizes what she said.

  “Oh, shut up you dirty-mind little puddle!”