Turtles' Big Sister

Ninjas in Time

AN: Dudes, I swear, I have the worst luck in the world. I had this entire chapter typed out on Friday, ready to publish and everything. Until the power went out. Right as I hit the update button, the power went out and took the WiFi connection with it, so instead of publishing, the entire chapter deleted itself. 22 freaking hours. That's how long my area (and by that I mean like 680-some people) was without power. Could've done it on literally any other day of the year, but NO! Had to do it on the one day when it's freaking negative degrees outside. My grandma's house was freezing! Seriously, it was like 30 degrees in there. I could see my breath, dude! We had like every single blanket available on our beds along with a propane heater in the living room. And, to make matters worse, I felt like shit Saturday morning when I woke up. My stomach was cramping, my head hurt like crazy, I was dizzy and felt like I was gonna pass out just from standing up, I was incredibly nauseous. Because, sure, universe, why not make life harder? You already knocked out the power, why not just go ahead and make me sick on Christmas Eve! Because why the hell not? Swear to God, my limits were tested.

Sorry for the rant, just needed to yell at the world for a minute. And Happy Holidays! (Even though Christmas and Hanukkah are already over.)

Pepper inhaled deeply through her nose and let out the breath through her mouth. She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, legs crossed and hands in her lap, not exactly meditating so much as focusing. Ever since the incident with Karai poisoning Pepper's siblings and Sensei telling her about water being held in high regard as far as healing went, she'd been trying to master that magic. She'd taken to reaching for her ice magic during meditation, trying to bypass whatever barrier blocked her from summoning water. She'd even attempted to contact Alejandro and question him about whether or not Mother had been able to manipulate water for healing. Attempted being the operative word there. Every single call had rung and rung before finally telling her to leave a message. Not once had Alejandro picked up. She didn't know how to take that. She knew he was still busy hiding out as a Foot Soldier under Shredder, but what if he'd gotten caught? What if he couldn't answer because he'd been captured and thrown in the dungeon? But wouldn't Shredder destroy his phone if he caught Alejandro? In that case, Pepper's call wouldn't go through in the first place. And if Shredder caught and recognized Alejandro, wouldn't he kill him? Not take him prisoner? Maybe Alejandro just wasn't answering her because he hadn't had an opportunity to. If he was busy, he couldn't exactly stop and drop everything to have a chat with Pepper.

She really wanted to talk to him, though. Both so that she could yell at him for being an idiot and going undercover thinking he'd be safe, and to ask him if Mother had been able to use healing magic. If Mother had been able to bypass her ice magic to manipulate water and use it for healing, then that would at least let Pepper know it was possible.

She took another deep breath, cupping her hands. I told Lucian that I summon my magic by focusing on the feeling of the elements. Maybe that's my problem. I'm trying to summon water through my ice magic, but I summon my ice magic by focusing on a cold, solid feeling. I want the cold, not the solid.

Pepper reached for her ice magic. The familiar cold flooded her palms, but it felt less somehow, warmer. She felt something settle in her palms and opened her eyes, met with the disappointing sight of a chunk of ice. But she was heartened to see that it wasn't totally solid like usual, it looked like it was melting. That was a good sign. She was getting closer.

She summoned her fire magic's heat, melting the ice in seconds. Then she connected to the cold feeling again, staring intently at her black-gloved palms. The cold feeling felt even warmer than the last time, a heat that didn't accompany her ice magic. Slowly, droplets of water began to coalesce on her gloves until she was cupping a bunch of water in her palms.