Renevere Mars: Part Three

Episode 18: Master's Orders

"Ah, fuck!" Ren bellowed, slapping and stomping her leg, set ablaze, as the heat started to burn her skin under her pants. It was only an instant of her dancing around before a blast of water soaked her, extinguishing the flames. Now her sinuses burned from the water shooting up her nose. She stood, squeezing her eyes closed and spat out a gulp of water with a resonating splat to the cement floor of the training room. "Thanks," she said flatly, though she was thankful.

"Come on, Ren!" Trish said, exasperated.

Ren, now soaking wet, hair stuck to her neck and dripping on the floor, stood between Trish and Heath, who had fired the obligatory water blast at her when Trish had set her ablaze. Or more, when Ren had failed to disallow Trish from setting her ablaze.

"I'm trying! I told you both, I suck!"

"You do," Heath agreed, tilting his head to one side, "but you have gotten better."

She wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. It was honestly shocking she had managed to dry out from the last time he'd doused her in water that session. They'd been at it for a solid week  now, and Ren had managed to redirect Trish's flame most of the time, and create and control her own flame in very small, very pathetic proportions half the time. Still, it was progress from the match-flame she had been able to produce before.

"Why do you suck so bad?" Trish asked. Ren laughed, making Trish laugh too. "No, seriously," she said through chuckles, "it's weird."

"I don't know," Ren said, shrugging. "I've never been able to do any elemental cha, even though almost everyone I knew could at least do a little, even as kids!"

"Yeah, because everyone can do something, that's the basis of all warrior arts," Trish explained. "It all started in the elements ages and ages ago."

Ren made a large shrug, slapping her hands to her sides. "I don't know! Just unlucky I guess."

"And yet," Trish continued, "you have some other abilities that are, admittedly, really impressive." She almost sounded like she really didn't want to admit it, but that was just Trish. Now it was her who was shrugging, though in a much more graceful and small motion, "You're really a mystery I guess."

Heath belched, then, loudly.

"Ew!" said Trish.

"Gross," chuckled Ren.

"Sorry," Heath said, making a face of mild embarrassment. "Hunger burps. We should get Titchi's before tonight."

"You want Tichi's now?" Trish said.

"What's tonight?" Ren interjected.

"Oh, my birthday. You should come!" Heath said.

"Oh shit! It's your birthday today?" Ren asked, a little disappointed she hadn't known that before. They had been training together consistently for the past week, she would have thought she'd gotten an invite before now. "You shoulda told me!"

"I thought I did, but I—"

"You did," Trish cut him off, "but that was when you were all meh about the Sam and Cara stuff," Trish said to Ren, making an overly sad face as she said meh to demonstrate what seemed to be some comedized depressive state.

Heath shot Trish a disappointed, stern look.

"Oh," Ren said, a bit deflated, "right." She hadn't been herself right away, she supposed. She hadn't realized others had noticed.

"It doesn't matter," Heath recovered quickly, "if you're free tonight, you should come."

And she was free tonight, so she would go, which was marked improvement from the pile of useless tears and mush she had been a week ago for certain. She looked herself over in the mirror before she left her apartment that night, thinking for the first time in a while that she looked pretty damn good. She wore a mid-thigh length, tight but stretchy black skirt, and a white cropped top that showed off her now nearly muscular waistline. She even put on a little makeup that she'd been more recently exploring, mostly thanks to Trish. Duren be damned, she thought, somebody better want me.