Doing My Best Mole Imitation

[Demi Smith]

Demi could technically burrow, and she'd been working on her personal tunnel for a while. Admittedly, things had gotten better since she'd started it, but now it was just something that she sort of wanted to do. And part of what she wanted was to have a few potential exits to it, and she couldn't think of a better way to set them up besides what she was doing now.

Demi paused, nestled on all sides by cold, hard soil. Each breath meant sucking in more stale, dirt-clogged air, and the tunnel seemed likely to collapse at any moment, save for the fact that it had been packed as tight as terrakinesis could get it. The girl grinned though, poking her fingers into the dirt above her head, letting dirt fall into her hair and pool around the tunnel.

Satisfied that she was in a good position, Demi curled up. She braced herself, and then began literally punching her way to the surface. Great bursts of dirt would come up from a section of the courtyard, and soon a dirty, filthy head would poke free, blinking dirt as she blearily looked at the world around her.

[Olivia Chance]

Olivia was just sitting in a corner of the courtyard eating a snack. She took a bite of her granola bar and then started coughing as it went down the wrong pipe. Mostly because she suddenly saw dirt start shooting in the air followed by a head.

"WHAT THE HELL?" She prided herself on being calm, but she couldn't be calm at the weird sight. She'd seen some very odd things since waking up from her coma to the interesting place that was Bellefonte Academy. But just because this wasn't the first weird occurrence she'd seen didn't mean she was by any means used to it by now. She took a sip of her strawberry banana juicebox to try to get the granola bar down. Then she shook her head.

"So much for the courtyard being neat, and quiet, and normal!"

[Demi Smith]

Demi heard the yell, but, as she so often did, she more or less ignored it. Instead she tilted her head to the side, knocking it a few times to dislodge some loose dirt, which she then sent flying. She smoothed the circle out a bit more, using her power and squirming as she did. Moving this much dirt was definitely doable, if somewhat tiring, especially because Demi couldn't really move her arms and work more.

At least she managed to get her arms up. Then it was time to start pushing earth around, quite literally. Meanwhile, Demi turned and looked, trying to see if anyone spotted her and if there was something around that she could use to cover up this particular entrance. A smooth cover of dirt and earth usually worked, but she did like to have something else, just in case.

[Olivia Chance]

Olivia continued watching. She couldn't help but shake her head. She put her juice box and granola bar back in the snack bag before standing up and walking over to look down at the young woman.

"Weird you are. Graceful, you're not." She'd know. Even though she normally had zero athletic ability, she'd been studying up on the movements of water just in case she ever got her powers under control. Water was powerful, but it was also graceful in all movements.

[Demi Smith]

Someone approached, and Demi turned to look up at them. A student, one slightly older than Demi, came up to her, looking down at her. Demi looked up, glaring up at the person. Weird?

"I'm not the idiot who's watching people dig holes," Demi pointed out. She twisted again, pulling herself up and out of the hole, letting the dirt and dust fall back into it. A fairly heavy covering still clung to Demi's body, but that didn't seem to bother her. She didn't even shake it off as she looked up at the other student.

"And how do you know I'm not graceful, huh?" Demi challenged, smirking and rolling an arm. The dirt and dust moved along with the motion, flowing together. "I'm way more graceful than most of the idiots here, that's for sure." Demi snorted and turned back to her hole, finding that far more important. She stared, then waved a hand, moving some of the dirt and dust around, adjusting it to start forming a filmy lid over the top.

[Olivia Chance]

"You interrupted my snack. Was I just supposed to ignore the odd sight of someone burrowing up from underground?" She arched an eyebrow.

"And maybe you are more graceful than a lot of the people here. But that really doesn't say much. Have you actually SEEN some of the morons around? They'd trip over their own powers if they could." She smirked and put a hand on her hip.

"Besides, most of those morons are at least cleaner than you are."

[Demi Smith]

Demi rolled her eyes. "Uh, yeah? People are doing stuff like this all the time," she insisted. It didn't seem to be that much of an occurrence, but in Demi's opinion, it definitely should be. They were mutants, after all: using their abilities was the fun part about being special and different. Most of the idiots here didn't seem to get that.

Though she did have to give it to this specific idiot for figuring that out. She let out a snort. Before she could say anything else though, the girl brought up the cleanliness thing. That had Demi rolling her eyes again.

"You idiots all think that dirt's, like, bad or something. I'm a terrakinetic, it's my thing. Watch," and Demi took a step back. She took a deep breath and rolling her arms forward, moving them in careful waves, following the patterns she'd had worked into her muscles since she'd been able to walk upright. Within a few waves, she had the dirt and dust undulating along her body. Then Demi turned, thrusting a hand out. The dirt and dust gathered up into that arm, clearing off her body. It took some straining, especially given the burrowing, and Demi could feel her body and head yelling at her, but she could still hold it and smile cockily at Olivia. "See? Awesome. And clean."

[Olivia Chance]

"People don't do stuff like this very often. A lot of us don't have as much control over our powers so it makes it pretty close to impossible." When she demonstrated her powers, Olivia's eyes widened with glee.

"Terrakinesis! I haven't seen it in action before." She'd been reading a whole section on it in her current book, Mutant Powers Explained, though. Clean huh? She arched an eyebrow and smirked.

"Clean. Not as clean as my power. I'm a hydrokinetic. Don't ask me to demonstrate it though. I'm jealous you're so good with your power. I'm useless with mine. I just keep blowing up water fountains and water bottles. And floating snow sometimes."

[Demi Smith]

Demi nearly snorted at the mention of the lack of control. Yeah, they did suck at that: they'd be a lot better if they actually did any training or anything. That was why Demi was as good as she was: she spent pretty well all her time doing this, well, that and she'd been raised knowing the Truth and all. Kind of gave her a decided edge on this aspect of life.

"There's a few of us around," Demi said, shrugging, "but I'm one of the best," she folded the dust back into herself, taking a few steps backward. She nearly hit her hole and had to jump and wiggled to avoid falling in. As she did, she heard Olivia's explanation and she looked at the girl. "Well, that's because you aren't practicing or something. I've been working on the Flow since I could walk, because that's how it should be," Demi snorted and looked around. "And hydrokinetics suck."

Mostly because they could douse Demi, and she couldn't work with mud nearly as well as she could dust and dirt. Maybe some day she'd be able to work with it as smoothly, and she was certainly training and trying.

[Olivia Chance]

"Well, aren't you soooo modest." She crossed her arms and chuckled.

"And excuse me for only starting to train with my powers a couple of months ago. I only got them when I was fourteen, and I didn't exactly get a ton of practice while I was laid up in my coma." She shrugged.

"Oh, and the only reason you think hydrokinetics suck is that we can literally make your name Mud." She smirked.

[Demi Smith]

Demi just chuckled as Olivia mentioned the whole modest thing. "When you're good, you don't need to be modest," she insisted. Though some part of her could hear someone else saying the same thing while Demi looked up at the sky. But Ceres wasn't here right now, and there certainly wasn't anyone nearby who would "put Demi in her place."

Especially not someone with hardly any training. "So you were unconscious for years? And I trained before I got my powers: because I'm that good," Demi insisted. She looked up at the girl as she smirked. She raised a hand up to her ear, leaning forward. "What's that? you want to get your butt kicked? Because I so know someone who can do that."

Demi moved around her hole then, scraping her foot, kicking up dirt and dust. As more of the material knocked loose, Demi focused on it, pulling it up. Soon dirt and bits of earth started crawling up Demi. She seemed to be dancing, moving in practiced, precise movements as she gathered more, all the while looking at Olivia with that cocky smirk.

[Olivia Chance]

"No way. No. I'm not asking for a fight. I can't control my powers at all. I'm still blowing up water fountains. If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it. After all, you control one of the other elements so you might have a different viewpoint." She shrugged.

"As for training before getting powers...that wasn't possible. I didn't know I'd get powers. Plus...I was kind of busy getting my butt kicked by my brother. And the rest of me." She had no problem stating it. She was emotionless when she said it, as she'd locked her emotions away at this point.

[Demi Smith]

Demi paused as Olivia insisted she wasn't asking for a fight. She looked up and studied the other girl, reading her face, her posture. No, nothing there said that Olivia was going to fight, that she was even ready for it. The bit about blowing up fountains actually had Demi barking out a laugh...

...and was Olivia asking for advice?

That actually made Demi stop. No one asked her for advice or training, despite the fact that she was obviously better than nearly everyone here. She did hear the rest: Olivia complaining that she couldn't really train or something, and something about getting her butt kicked.

"Well, yeah, if you weren't training of course you got your butt kicked," Demi said. She snorted, eying Olivia again. Demi had stopped moving. "You know you can, like, do both at once, right? Nobody's gonna kick your butt if you're Flowing all over them." Okay, not entirely true: Demi got her butt kicked all the time. Wasn't going to stop her though. She stepped forward, looking Olivia over. The girl looked lanky, really, and she probably couldn't do anything...

...but if she actually wanted advice...

[Olivia Chance]

She was laughing. Oh good. Laughs were always good. Especially when the girl looked like she could totally kick Olivia's butt.

"Well...my brother was an asshole actually. I was just a little kid and I shouldn't have needed to defend myself. But that's besides the point. I...didn't know you could do both at once. I have to make motions to direct my powers, so I don't know if it would work the same. But I haven't really gotten in a fight or a sparring match yet because I'm too pathetic at power control to try that yet." She sighed.

[Demi Smith]

Gah, this girl really looked like a strong breeze would blow her over. Was everyone here pathetic? Well, Demi knew that wasn't strictly true: she worked with a few that weren't on the Squad, and she'd fought a handful that could hold their own against her, even some that could lay Demi flat. Those latter were the most exciting ones.

Though there was something to be said for someone who sounded kind of desperate. Even if they did have an asshole of a brother. "Yeah, I'm smaller than pretty well everyone here," Demi pointed out, gesturing around her. She was technically older than at least a few of the students, the new arrivals at the very least, but even most of them were larger than her. "But I kick everyone's butt," she paused again, studying Olivia.

"There's this thing, it's called Flow," she said, talking slowly. "it's a sort of martial art training thing that the Inherited... my people train in. I started learning it really young," she paused again. "It works really well for water bending types... do you really need motions?" Demi's eyes flicked up to Olivia's, studying her more closely. It would be kind of cool to have a disciple, especially someone older than her.