It's All Been Done, open!

[Carrie Monroe]

A small explosion came from the other end of the gym, leaving Carrie smiling with satisfaction. She turned another playing card over in her fingers, watching a purplish static encompass it for several seconds before aiming in the same direction of the last one. The card shot towards a target that had been set up, hitting it a few inches from the center with a sound and force not unlike the last one. She wasn’t quite getting the power she wanted there. Perhaps if she held onto it for a little longer, letting it charge more.

Playing cards were supposed to be something she could handle with ease right now as well as make her feel all cool and Gambit-like but today she was just…off. Carrie pulled another card from the pack, attempting to charge it for longer this time around. It seemed to work, as the card nearly knocked the target over when it connected. Carrie wished that she had something just a little more social to do that afternoon. Cheer practice was already over and she had way too much time to kill before dinner. Booooring. Sure, there was homework, but that could be dealt with later. She was pretty good at keeping up with it, even if the whole concept bored her to tears.


There was yet another card in her hand, glowing faintly purple when a sound behind her made Carrie spin around, accidentally releasing the half-charged object. “OHMYGOD!” She squealed as the card hit the wall past their head. “I am so, so, soooo sorry. Are you okay? It didn’t hit you, did it?”

[Keegan Parhar]

The sheer size of Shady Grove Academy really had Keegan feeling tiny, tinier than she already was. In the few months which she had been there, she was still uncertain on where everything was located. Hidden nearly always in her back pocket of whatever jeans she was wearing was a copy of the school map, folded into a tiny square. She'd hate if someone saw her with it and laughed. Although, she was a freshman, so maybe that gave her an excuse for winding up utterly lost occasionally? At least she didn't need to know where absolutely everything in the school was. Honestly, all she cared about was where her academic classes were located and also where the gym was. However, it seemed as if the gym was kind of a neutral zone for Keegan since besides her dorm, that was the place she could find almost no matter what.

Curiously, the freshman had been wandering around the campus, trying locate some important buildings since she had some time to kill before dinner. Except she had an all too familiar longing to feel a hockey stick in her hand. One of the most important things to her which she wound up surrendering when she enrolled at her new school was ice hockey. It had made up about a third of her life since it was so incredibly dear and important to her. At the moment, most likely she would be gearing up for a practice session had she not left home. With this thought running through her mind, Keegan found herself turning around on her walk to seek out the gym. Surely there was a storage room where she could find some decent hockey sticks, right? Back at her middle and elementary schools they had some for when they played floor hockey in the gym. Keegan was simply hoping there were a few at the academy or else she'd be doomed.

Meandering on into the gym, the fourteen year old tugged at her scarf nervously as she felt quite odd searching for something alone that she wasn't even sure existed. She noticed another girl in the gym, but was at a loss when it came to what she was doing there. When she heard the noise of an explosion though, she found herself jumping out of pure instinct whenever she heard a loud bang. "What in the world..." Keegan murmured, rubbing the back of her neck as she observed the seemingly older girl. She momentarily forgot what she was doing there and just as she was about to turn to stop staring and find some equipment, her eyes widened and immediately ducked in an attempt to dodge the...playing card flying past her?

Straightening herself out, Keegan gave the other girl a small, reassuring smile. "Yeah, don't worry, I'm fine," she told her calmly. "No harm done." Although it had been a bit scary for a moment, at least it had missed her head or else that would have been fairly tragic. "Er, nice card trick there," she complimented kindly finding whatever the other student was doing to be quite intriguing. "Is that your gift?" she wondered aloud, curiously.

[Carrie Monroe]

This should probably be a lesson in paying attention while you were hurling kinetically charged objects around. Carrie had always avoided hurting someone and she really wasn’t too big on the idea of breaking that streak, especially not if that someone was an innocent by-stander. “Oh thank god…” Carrie breathed a sigh of relief, returning the girl’s smile. She wasn’t even going to wonder what the card had done to the wall of the gym. Hopefully just a dent or something, she kind of figured this place was built to withstand decades of kids with out of control abilities wandering around.

“Thanks…it is. Sort of.” Carrie’s smile widened a little. “I can do it with pretty much anything, but cards are smaller, easier and honestly, they look a whole lot cooler when they’re charged that anything else.” She shrugged a little, deciding to keep her whole aspiration to be an X-man to herself. There was something distinctly unladylike about the whole thing. “I’m Carrie, by the way. I don’t think I’ve met you before…?” She trailed off into a question, looking the other girl over. Nope, didn’t look particularly familiar, but then again, she couldn’t be expected to know the whole student body, something that she would sure as hell try to remedy. “Sorry again for almost knocking your head off. I really should have been paying more attention.”

[Keegan Parhar]

Glancing over her shoulder, Keegan examined the gym wall which had luckily been behind her and not another students. Well, ouch. It would have definitely hurt like hell if it had hit her head. Stuffing her gloved hands in her jean pockets, the freshman stood kind of awkwardly as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. She felt sort of bad seeing as how she had interrupted what appeared to be this girl's practice session. If she hadn't wandered inside the gym, probably she wouldn't have been distracted. Somehow, she doubted she was going to have time to find a hockey stick, but oh well.

"Oh, really? They do look really cool. Er, what's your gift? If you don't mind me asking," Keegan said in a soft voice. Despite having a family full of gifted individuals, she still didn't know much about other gifts. Only those which her family had. Though she figured picking up a book about all the gifts sometime soon would be a good idea, she also believed working on controlling her gift was even more important. She always hated it when she accidentally froze her drinks or soup, that was always a bummer. Sometimes it just happened out of the blue and she ended up not eating until the next meal since she felt sort of embarrassed for having so little control of her gift.

"Oh, um, nice to meet you Carrie," Keegan replied, giving the other girl a bit of a warmer, wider smile. She seemed quite friendly which made the fourteen year old have an easier time with talking to her. "No, I-I can't say I've met you before either; might be because I'm a freshman. I'm Keegan," she introduced herself, holding out a hand since, well, that's what you did when meeting people right? You shook hands? "Ah, it's really no problem," she reassured, waving a hand as if to dismiss the topic. "I mean...we're here for exactly that reason, right? To get control over our gift and use it in a safe manner?" Hopefully Carrie wouldn't think that she was implying she didn't have control over her gift, but Keegan was pretty sure that no student had full control.

[Carrie Monroe]

Oooh, wasn’t this a little awkward. Carrie was just going to have to fix that. “Molecular acceleration.” She replied with a small nod. It was always kind of hard to explain the whole concept. Sometimes even she had to question if she had a full grasp of it all beyond ’make card glow, hit things’. Eh, she could still try, right? “I can convert potential energy into kinetic…” Carrie shrugged. That seemed to cover it.. “What’s yours?” Was it rude to just up and ask? Ack, she didn’t think so, but then again Carrie had a way of just saying whatever was on her mind without thinking about it.

“It’s awesome to meet you, Keegan.” Carrie grinned at the younger girl and shook her hand. Such a pretty name, really she was just pretty in general. Maybe she should mention that. Well, after they were further into the conversation. There was a line between complimentary and random, a line which Carrie didn’t quite feel like crossing. “Do you like the school so far? I mean, it’s kinda big but soooo nice once you get used to it. There’s so much cool stuff, like this horse in the stable who I swear talks back when you ask it questions.” She stopped to take a breath. “But not actually talks…you know, like the way horses… I’m talking way too much, I’m so sorry.” Carrie cut herself off, feeling a blush rising up in her cheeks. “But…er…yeah, SGA is a great place to learn about gifts and stuff.”

[Keegan Parhar]

"It sure sounds pretty cool," said Keegan with a small grin. It also sounded quite scientific to her, not to mention a bit difficult to understand thanks to such a factor. Science had to be one of her only average subjects so she still had certain troubles in it. Then again, Carrie made it sound fairly simple with her short explanation. Nodding along, Keegan made sure it looked like she was following and understood it well, but she couldn't truly say that she did. All she knew was that she didn't want to be obnoxious by continuing to ask questions which could be answered if she looked it up in a book or even on the internet.

"Mine's cyrokinesis, or ice manipulation, whatever you want to call it," Keegan informed Carrie with a tiny smile. "I guess it doesn't need much of an explanation?" she assumed with a shrug. Basically, it was straightforward. She could control ice and turn other substances into it. Unfortunately she couldn't create it out of thin air though. That would have been incredibly helpful, especially in the summertime. Honestly she didn't use it much, but it was incredibly helpful when she found herself in a situation where it was useful.

"If you have...er, a water bottle or some liquid, I could show you," offered the freshman, wondering it that was an appealing offer at all. If Carrie was practicing, maybe it was like practicing sports? Exhausting due to the fact it took up energy? Maybe if it was then the other girl brought a drink to keep her hydrated like Keegan always did when playing a sport...except for now because she couldn't find her bottle currently. Maybe it rolled under her bed... Either way, she wouldn't mind at least trying to show Carrie her gift since she got to see her use molecular whatever...acceleration, yeah, that was it.

After shaking hands, Keegan stuffed hers back into her pockets again since she felt more comfortable doing that compared to letting them hang at her sides uselessly. "Yeah, I like it loads," Keegan chimed with a bright smile since she did. Of course she suffered the odd bout of homesickness, but she hoped that it would eventually disappear. Not to mention, the band program was pretty fantastic and definitely better than her old school's. "Wait...really?" Keegan wondered aloud, giving Carrie a fairly surprised look. A talking horse...? That sounded possible, had Carrie been a zoopath or something, but she wasn't so... "Ah, no, it's really fine, Carrie," she told the older girl with a shake of her head. Her talking didn't bother Keegan at all who had to deal with several siblings rambling on at the exact same time. It was nice to have just a one-on-one conversation with someone actually. Even if Keegan wasn't doing much of the talking.

[Carrie Monroe]

Carrie grinned a little at the younger girl. “It is kind of cool. That guy, Gambit, from X-Men had something like it…so that’s fun.” She laughed, thinking of all the comics her cousin Casey had and how awed he’d been when he found out. It really only made it that much better that Gambit was from New Orleans, very close to where she was from. She was glad that Keegan seemed to understand what she was talking about, because Carrie wasn’t really sure if she could explain it better.

“That is SO awesome.” Carrie proclaimed, bouncing a little excitedly. All of those element manipulations would be fun to have, in her opinion. The purest form of a kinesis and by far the most beautiful to watch…perhaps she needed to lay off the cartoons and whatnot. “A water?…hmm. I think I do!” She thought about what was in her backpack, which was lying out of harms way against a wall. She pounced on it, excited to see what Keegan could do. After a few moments of digging she retrieved a pink metal water bottle and handed it to the Freshman, smiling widely the whole time. A person would be hard pressed to find a time when Carrie wasn’t smiling. “Here you go.”

Maybe it would have been a good idea for her to have been a little more specific about the talking horse thing. She still wasn’t used to being in a place where weird thing routinely happened to the point where clarification about exaggerating was probably needed. “He doesn’t really talk…but he nods his head when you say things and whinnies.” Carrie replied with a small shrug. “The horsemaster can talk to him though. Have you seen Mr. Pennington. Ohmygod…he’s gorgeous. And BRITISH.” There where a considerable amount of men and boys around campus whom Carrie wouldn’t mind getting to know better. Including Mo, the groundskeeper. Man alive, was he…siiiiiigh. “Oh good. If I talk too much, just let me know. The cheer coach is always telling me to quit running my mouth. My dad too, actually…” She frowned momentarily at the memory.

[Keegan Parhar]

At the mention of X-Men, Keegan perked up a little. Now that was something she knew about! Both from watching the movies sometime during one of the family movie-night Fridays and also borrowing a comic before when she was bored from Harvey's gigantic collection of them from his room. When her siblings had still lived at home of course. "Oh yeah! That's really neat," she said brightly. "Erm...I think there's someone in X-Men that has about the same power as me too...er, Bobby, the Iceman guy," she added on thoughtfully. Actually, probably lots of people were like real-life X-Men which was an interesting thought.

"Heh, thanks," murmured Keegan with a tiny grin. It wasn't all too amazing, really. It was just a simple, common elemental manipulation. It was always amusing though when she was around Dane, who was the exact opposite of her power-wise and had pyrokinesis. Her main method of training when she was at home was battling against her third eldest brother while she built up a shield of ice with whatever liquid she had on hand, usually water, while he tried melting it. Of course, Dane normally won though. "Thanks," she told Carrie when she handed over the water bottle. Pink...believe it or not, that was one of Keegan's favourite colours. However since that had no relevance to what she was attempting, she quickly shook the thought from her mind.

Unscrewing the lid, she held out one of her hands, cupped it, and poured a reasonable amount of water. Focusing mainly on the liquid in her palm and nothing else, Keegan's eyebrows furrowed with concentration. The usual tingling sensation she felt whenever she used her gift appeared which was always reassuring that things were working. The water began to turn a bit less transparent as it slowly turned into a solid. As it gradually formed ice, the freshman tried to be a bit more impressive and sent most of her concentration to build the ice into some sort of other formation. She imagined a sort of spiral in her mind, but what it turned out to be was nothing more than a disfigured lump. Grinning a bit sheepishly, she shrugged and held the water bottle and lid out towards Carrie again. Her other hand was sort of full, and cold, with a relatively large chunk ice.

"I'm not as skilled as you are though," she had to admit with a shrug before she casually went back to the conversation they were having before her short demo. Horses, right. "That's pretty interesting," she nodded along, not lying one bit. Perhaps they were called trusty steeds for a reason since they could listen and sort of communicate? "Ah..." Keegan rubbed the back of her neck, looking a bit awkward standing there as Carrie went on about the horsemaster. Alright, Keegan couldn't deny that she found a fair few boys cute and whatnot, but it didn't mean she was ready to talk about it with anybody. Heck, even her sister could barely get her to open up about boys. She blamed her brothers. "I might have seen him in passing, sure," she finally spoke since she really wasn't too sure who exactly this Mr. Pennington was. Though Carrie sure spoke highly of him.

"Don't worry about though Carrie, really," she reassured the cheery girl with a shake of her head. "There's nothing wrong with conversing with others...right?" There wasn't any problem from what she could see, but that didn't mean that one didn't exist.

[Carrie Monroe]

Comic books were a subject that Carrie loved to connect on, and this girl seemed to have at least a working knowledge of the best one. “Iceman! Right!” She grinned widely. “He was a badass…in the comics, at least. The movies made him out to be kind of a little bitch.” Funny how the movies did that to a lot of the characters…she stilled loved them, but good lord.

Carrie watched intently as Keegan demonstrated. “Duuuuude. That is awesome” She repeated, taking the water bottle and lid as she stared at the ice lump. “Oh! You don’t have to keep holding that…it must be cold.” Carrie screwed the lib back on her bottle and went to put it in her backpack, fishing out a plastic baggie in the process. “I know there’s cookie crumbs in it, but it’ll stop water from getting all over when it melts.” She explained, holding the open bag out for Keegan to drop the chunk of ice into.

“ Wouldn’t call it skilled.” Carrie laughed, pulling her blonde hair back into a ponytail and out of he eyes as she spoke, holding it in place with a silly band from her wrist. “I can’t do things much bigger than cards, not to the point of being able too cause damage like that at least.” She didn’t want to imagine what would happen if she could do that with bigger things. Mass destruction, man… “Heh…you’ll know when you see Mr. Pennington. Believe me.”

She liked this girl, without a doubt. “You’re right.” Carrie smiled brightly as she replied. “Speaking of cheer…do you play any sports?” She kind of wished that the squad cheered for the girl’s sports as well so she could, you know, watch them. Oh well…tradition kind of took over there.

[Keegan Parhar]

"Er, yeah, I guess you could say that about him," Keegan nodded in agreement about the whole Iceman bit. However, she hadn't read too many issues of the X-Men comics, maybe only a bit more than a dozen, but that was because she preferred her videogames than reading, even when it came to simple comics to be honest. Perhaps that was why she never really exceeded anything more than ever so slightly above average grades in English because she really didn't like reading. If anything was hands on or something she could watch or listen to, it was much better than reading. Not that Keegan didn't have favourite books or anything of the sort, she did, but there weren't too many of them.

Managing to give a small, somewhat proud looking smile, Keegan looked down at her disfigured chunk of ice and really wondered what her potential could be one day. Perhaps she would be able to make some really beautiful ice sculptures or something. Except, the only problem with that was that Keegan wasn't naturally artistic. Unless music counted that was, she was sort of disabled when it came to making things look pretty. Organizing was different from making things look appealing, it was meant to make things easier to access and cleaner. Hm, maybe she would be able to find something else useful to do with her gift then. "Um, thank you," she mumbled yet again when Carrie repeated her comment.

Glancing at the plastic bag, Keegan suddenly realized that yes, as a matter of fact, her hand was cold as well as wet. "Yeah, that may be a good idea, thanks," she chuckled lightly as she slipped the ice into the open bag. Wiping her somewhat wet hand on her pant leg, the freshman didn't really care too much that her hand was a bit numb. After practicing creating ice for so long, she had gained a bit of an immunity to it in a way. No longer did she find it too painfully, extremely cold even if she held chilly ice for a fairly long while. Plus, she was a hockey player. She played on the ice all the time! Of course she would've loved it if it snowed in California so she could try some other outdoor winter sports, but she'd just have to move up to Canada or somewhere else when she was older so she could try an try an outdoor skating rink! Perhaps she could even make one by herself.

"Well, if you aren't skilled...my gift's not that awesome," the fourteen year old shrugged. Carrie sure appeared to have a good control from what she could see. It wasn't as if the cards were flying everywhere. The only reason it almost hit her head had to be because she had surprised the blonde. Then again, she didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but that didn't matter a whole bunch. "Eh, well, I'm pretty sure more destructive things have occurred here, so I wouldn't be worried too much," informed Keegan, quite positive that with the vast variety of gifts at the school that some more dangerous ones have probably caused more harm than Carrie's card. The worst Keegan could probably do? Possibly freeze a puddle and cause someone to slip. Terrifying, right?

Blushing ever so slightly at the talk of the horsemaster, which was technically boy talk, the dark-haired girl managed a small smile. "Alright..." she murmured, not quite sure she'd be able to figure out who this man was. Or did she even want to? "Or, you know...maybe you could point him out to me or something?" she suggested, not only because she knew she'd have troubles pinpointing who it was. Rather, it was also because she liked Carrie and it would be nice to talk with her some more at other times. Eventually they could become friends if she was lucky.

"Sports?" Keegan perked up at the very mention of this topic. "Yeah, I sure do," she nodded, seeming a tad bit more enthusiastic about this subject. "Or, well, at least I did before coming here and having to drop it..." she then murmured thoughtfully. "I've played ice hockey for, well, forever," she informed Carrie. "But I guess I can't play it unless, er, there's an ice rink in town which I sort of doubt there is," heavily she sighed. Knowing her luck, there probably wouldn't be one for several towns over. "Uh, but, I'm a field hockey fan too, plus rugby's cool, and...I'm considering joining some sort of sport team here even though I don't play many different types," she chatted on, this being one subject she could always talk about and feel at ease doing so. "What about you?" she asked in return.