Hirune sighed. Why did she have to stop and stare out into the ocean on that day?
Then suddenly, as they walked around. Clint turned around and pointed, "It's started up south! Let's hurry it up!" They all ran, besides Tundra and Hirune.
They looked at each other and stood in awkward silence for a while. She giggled nervously, "So, do you want to go first?" He just stood there. Unamused and waved his hand forward as of to signal her to go ahead.
'Dang it he can read me like a book! How did he know I'd try to run away again?' she thought as she walked slightly ahead of him.
Then they started running after the others, but she was pretty slow. When she looked behind her to see where Tundra was, he was just jogging and keeping up.
She raised an eyebrow and slowed down to run at the same pace as Tundra, looking at his form. Then her eyes widened a little, her mouth slightly agape. He was ice skating in the middle of a sunny day.
She looked at his feet, then back at him, "So... How are you doing that?" She asked with a curious expression.
Tundra looked at her, then he looked up ahead again while saying, "You're going to owe me a cup of coffee after this. So, in order to go as fast as me and the others, you have to attempt and force something out of your feet. Like how you made those nails come out but in a more abstract way. Something that feels both comfortable and flexible. Let me demonstrate."
He slid away a bit, then he raised the level of his ice a little higher to make it easier to see as he showed how he made cold air come out of his ankles around his feet. Then when that cold air froze both his feet (In this case shoes) and the ground he slid as if he was ice skating. It seemed smooth, and natural, like if he was born to do something like this.
Hirune nodded and looked at her own feet, she hopped once taking off her shoe, then hopped again taking off the other. Tundra raised an eyebrow at this but didn't comment on it and just watched as Hirune attempted to do what he was doing.
She focused up and tried to make her powers come out of her ankles, which they did... but they stabbed into the ground making her fall flat on her face. She slowly got up with a slight groan. "Who decided it was a good idea to put some pavement here?" She said as she started to run again, focusing on what Tundra told her to do again.
Then he went up to her and said, "Don't, do that. Don't try to directly copy me. As I said, try to do it in a way that's comfortable for you. You could also try to shift the way the nails come out. After all, I'm guessing that after seeing them come out sharp you imagined that they could only be sharp. Instead try to think of it like a chicken wing."
'A chicken wing?' Hirune thought while raising an eyebrow. 'Actually yeah, you've got my full attention chef.'
Tundra continued: "A chicken wing has many stages. The first being when it's still on the live chicken. At first, on a chicken it seems like something that's just used to help them with their little hops from tall pens and stuff. Then you kill the chicken and take the wings off. Now what are the chicken wings used for? Well, their used for cooking, but now there's two popular ways to cook it. You can either cook it with the bone in or debone it. Then you do all of the steps to cook it and make sure it turns out good; but, if you don't like either of these ways to eat your chicken wings, you can do your own thing."
Hirune nodded, it all made sense now. It was the circle of life, but with her powers. First, she would get them. Then they would start off seemingly only being able to take one shape, then she could use them in different ways in order to fit her needs.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a really good teacher?" She asked with a grin.
Tundra looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She somehow got a little smirk out of him, "Actually, I'm usually told that I make no sense."
She chuckled, then focused up. After a couple of hard failed attempts, she got the hang of it. Somehow, they still weren't even close to where they had to go as they kept on taking twists and turns. 'So, this is what it's like being in a big city? Well, I don't like it," She thought as she suddenly got a good run.
What she tried this time was making her powers bend like springs or pistons. Just something that would absorb pressure then use it to bounce. She took a couple of small hops with this, getting pretty high.
'I feel as though I have become one with the kangaroos,' Hirune thought as she broke the large bounces by landing weird, falling on her back.
Tundra helped her up, "Well that seems to have been it. You can keep up with me and the others now."
Tundra waited for Hirune to start running, as she took a couple of long hops, using one foot per hop. She was building up some momentum as she focused, trying to picture the springs in a way that would make them as bouncy as possible. Then she took a hop, and as she landed on her other made a spring appear on her heel, and she shot forwards as she did the same with her other foot. Her hair waving in the wind, eyes squinted as the wind ripped through her ears.
Then she saw Clint pointing towards the top of a 5-story building as the group suddenly stopped. She tried to quickly put a foot down, not thinking about how she wouldn't magically lose her momentum. As she passed the group by a little, her foot put all of the pressure from the momentum she'd built up and launched her up just the perfect angle to get launched into a window on the fifth floor. Luckily this building was one of the few not made out of wood, so the damage would be kept to a minimum.
She crashed into the room and landed onto someone. 'What did I do to deserve this?' Hirune thought as she looked around. Not realizing she landed on someone. Her surroundings were anything but a normal room as she saw a bunch of gas canisters. She then looked down to see who she landed on and smiled vaguely as she saw that she landed on someone holding flamethrowers.
She quickly got off of him and took three steps back, and got into a fighting stance, her body facing towards the right, her left arm raised slightly closer to her face defensively, her right hand stretched across her body, both of them slightly opened to counter at any time. Biting her lower lip a little to keep it from quivering, not wanting to show any signs of fear.
"Ugh! who the hell are you?!"The pyromaniac said standing up. "Doesn't matter anyways, you're going to be my hostage." He then started shooting his flamethrowers at her.
She panicked for a second, then remembered panic never helps and took a deep breath. If she wanted to avoid death, then she'd need to stop panicking and use her fear to her advantage. Which was hard considering this was life or death, but she was used to having to use her fear to her advantage often back in Triste.
She rolled out of the way, then she was blown forwards as a gas canister behind her lit up, blowing up the rest of them as the room collapsed to the floor beneath them. She slowly got up with a moan as she held her head in pain. She tapped around the half that was silver as that's the part that hurt the most, then when she removed her hand and looked at it to see if there was any blood, it was completely red. Her vision blurring a bit from the blood loss in her head as she felt nauseas from a pounding headache.
She looked around noticing she was in the left corner of the room. She took a in a sharp breath and coughed. 'I probably have a collapsed lung too. What a pain,' she thought while making sure she was safe. Then she saw a surge of fire in a piece of ruble nearby to her right. She quickly covered herself with her arms, then took a peek.
The guy with the flamethrowers was now ablaze, laughing maniacally. Seeing this, Hirune couldn't help but join him in laughter, completely hopeless. Not only had he survived, but his flamethrowers hadn't blown up on him from his entire body being ablaze. Now she was sure to die.
As he shot a wave of warm soothing flames at Hirune, she put her hands in front of her, as she made the nails come out of her palms. Hoping that this would do something, anything to help her. It was a desperate and meaningless attempt at survival, yet when Hirune opened her eyes, she teared up as all of the muscles in her body eased up.
She looked at her hands, and she saw a pair of jaws made out of the same thing as her nails coming out of her left hands palm that were devouring the flames being shot at her. Then she felt a wave of something wash over her as she gritted her teeth. Her muscles that were at ease a couple seconds ago tensing up as she shot daggers at the pyromaniac.
She got rid of the nails on her right hand, making the springs come out of her left foot as she took a hard, forceful step towards him, the pressure on the spring closing the gap as she bounced at him. She swung her left arm with the jaws as she planted her right foot on the ground. Getting rid of the spring on her left foot getting a good stance as the jaws shredded the pyromaniacs arms off, then with all of that rage built up in her, she made the nails appear in her right hand as she uppercut him in the jaw.
The nails stabbing into his jaw and coming out of the other end of his head. A loud cracking sound echoing through the room as chunks of his brain and trails of blood shot out of his head. As Hirune calmed down and looked at what she did, her eyes widened, staring at the body as her nails went away. The body dropping right in front of her as she suddenly heard the windows to her left shatter.
She looked towards the windows, her eyes wide and shaky, the silver half of her hair stained in a red crimson moon tint, her left hand, even though it was supposed to have been protected by the jaws she had just made mere moments ago scorched to the muscular layer. It was Tundra.
He walked towards her, took a glance at the mangled body on the floor, then back at Hirune and held her head on his shoulder. "It's okay, you'll be fine. I'm here for you," he said hiding the discomfort in his voice while at the same time reading her like a book. Knowing exactly how to comfort her and understanding why it was so needed. He then froze the body in a sharp beam of ice to make it seem as though he did it.
***
Hirune couldn't stop crying, Tundra now sitting against a wall while Hirune cling to the spot on his shirt she'd been crying on for the past hour. 'How long is it going to take those idiots to get up here?' Tundra thought as he sighed, rubbing Hirune's back.