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If he had noticed the girl's immediate stand-offish attitude, it didn't seem to bother the guardian much - at least not how one would expect it to annoy most people. His smile only grew slightly, his expression looking all the more tired. "I've heard a lot about you," He said simply, walking over the where the girl laid back plopped on the couch, offering her a hand to shake. "If you don't mind, I'd like to - well..." The words seemed to have left Taylor then for a moment, and he near stumbled to find them again. "Come outside, please. I want to start your training right away." It wouldn't be anything to excessive, but it'd give him a good idea of where they stood.

Heard a lot about her... right. She didn't doubt that. Kayla had to admit that she didn't know the first thing about Preston's dad. He never really mentioned him much outside a few passing comments, and she had never bothered to ask about him. She knew better at this point than to be nosy about people's parents.

But knowing Pres, somehow she'd expected somebody a little... fiercer? The proper aloof neglectful type. This guy was nothing like what she'd imagined, looking over him up close. Kayla stared down his hand as he stretched it out to her and clasped it in a death-grip, electricity coursing from her palm into his hand.

... just what she expected. They were the same then. This would be fun. Kayla stood to her feet, slipping her hand back into her pocket, and glanced back at Mr. Wright before turning to Taylor again. Her eyes bore into him, dark and dangerous, before ambling toward the door. "And what training is that?" she called behind her shoulder.

He shouldn't have been thrown off by her sudden tight grip, but he was, even less so when she sent a small volt of electricity running up his arm. This girl picked up on things fast, man thought to himself, or at least in his opinion. He was never really an expert in these kinds of things. He'd only helped his children before with anything and well, that had to be different right? In everything outside of his home, he always worked alone. It was quiet and a bit lonely, but he liked it that way.

Once the headmaster had asked him for his favor to help train this girl, he'd nearly said no - not because he he had anything against helping, he could deal with a teenage girl ... probably, but because he didn't feel as if he were the right man for the job. Why not have Lynn train her? Or Irene? Sure, he shared the same gift as this girl, but that didn't mean he was a good teacher. He could barely manage being a father...

Taylor had found himself wrapped up in his own thoughts when he realized the girl had already let go of his hand and was heading out the door. He tried to hide his uneasiness, giving Nathaniel a small wave and heading off after her.

The headmaster said nothing as they left, waiting until they were gone to pick up the pictures off the table again, looking through the others; a woman with burnt red hair, a bland, dark looking man, and another with bubblegum pink hair. He glanced at the writings on the back before making sure they were all locked safely away again.

"I want to see how strong your gift is myself," Taylor explained as he caught up to her, walking ahead and leading her out of the building, towards and behind the main buildings. "And see how much juice you have..." Would she get that...? "You know, like a battery?" Now he was just making himself feel more awkward.

He moved before he rambled much more, picking up a slick rod that he'd left on the ground. There was nothing special about it. It was an ordinary metal pipe. He held one end, offering the other to her. "Give me all you've got."

... That sounded weird too, didn't it?

Kayla followed at a short distance behind him, with her hands stuffed inside her pockets, her gaze focused between his shoulder blades. She wondered if she should say anything, about Preston or Verona or Florence, or if she should just keep quiet about it until she got back to her dorm. With a spark zapping above her head, she wondered how her roommate would feel about her getting private tutoring from his dad. He'd probably react boringly, she thought with a resigned tilt of her head. He always ruins my fun.

Guardian training, huh?

Her mind wandered back to the woman with frost blue eyes. Taylor Andrews. Would he know anything? He seemed less... stubborn than Mr. Wright, anyways.

Before she could open her mouth to speak, they were here. There wasn't some grand secret training area, or any sort of training area in general. They were just standing behind a couple of buildings, and her wondrous tutor was just picking a regular old pipe off the ground.

She stared it down as he held it out to her. "How much juice I have..." Kayla turned the words over in her mouth, and the hint of a grin appeared at the corner of her lips.

She reached out for it, electricity snaking down her arm, and clasped it tight, meeting Taylor's eyes. There was something feverous in the way she was looking at him, just then. It wasn't often she could go all out on something as mundane as a metal pipe, especially with an adult's permission.

There were over one billion volts in a lightning bolt, but Kayla had never been able to put an exact number on how much she could put out. There wasn't any way to measure it without destroying any electric equipment, and even then, you would have to use a dampener like a pool to prevent her from blowing a crater into the floor. All she had? Every second of every day, it felt like her gift was threatening to spill over, like a cup that'd been filled too high. Overflowing was the only way to describe it. It coursed through her body like blood, and the smallest movement, the smallest thought, the smallest emotion would send sparks zapping over her head or electric currents running down her arm. Trying to contain it, mentally, physically, whatever, just turned it into a concentrated laser of power.

Everything she had, huh? Into a pipe?

Kayla grinned. Electricity flared around her like fire, first blue, then a burning white, as she poured every ounce of that energy into that pipe and into his hand. One and a half seconds in, and a split formed in the pipe down the middle, but she never let it go. Wild snakes of electricity leaped out, blindly, snapping out at anything and everything that could be considered a conductor. The grass beneath her sneakers started to turn a charred black, and the lights inside the nearby building flickered before exploding in a shower of glass and orange sparks.

Three seconds in, and the pipe was starting to burn red.

Even seeing her performances before, the girl's power was still far more than Taylor had been expecting, especially for someone of her age. The large bolts snaked through the area in a large circumference, reaching out and licking anything that attracted them and were possibly in reach, including Taylor himself. It was hard to take in everything that had happened in that instant. (If he did, he'd feel rather bad for whoever happened to be working in those buildings at the time.) Instead, he stared down at the pipe between them, watching as it split open and even began to melt in his grasp.

'Maybe I should've grabbed a bigger one.' He thought to himself with little humor, quickly tossing the broken piece of metal away from the two of them and quickly reaching out, getting a hold of her hand instead. Taylor looked down at her with a small, sudden surge of determination. "Don't stop," He shouted, louder than he would've liked, but it was necessary for her to hear him over the cracking sounds of Kayla's man made thunder. "Is that all you've got?" He put on his best stern face. A little challenge like that would've given his son the drive he needed.

Taylor focused absorbing what he could then and pushing it through his feet into the ground, making her lightning in the air around them visibly smaller by far. He wanted to run her gift into dust, so to speak, to push her until she could be pushed no further - to see if she even had a limit. With her attitude and past performances, it left him uncertain if one even existed.

When he tossed it away, with more than a bit of smug self-satisfaction, she thought that maybe he'd had enough. The thought didn't last long though. Mr. Andrews' hand flashed out to grab hers and Kayla blinked in surprise. Is that all she had...?

If she was being honest with herself, that was almost the full extent of her power. If. That word was always the key, wasn't it? The simple fact was, Kayla was way too fucking stubborn to accept defeat that easily. She bared her teeth in a wolfish grin and yanked him forward, pulling him close enough to kiss, squeezing his hand like she was trying to crush it. Her foot stepped on his toes so he couldn't move away. With that small challenge presented to her, she put every single fucking fiber of her body into the task.

Right that minute, she was trying her hardest to incinerate him.

Using her power was as easy as just moving. It wasn't something you really consciously thought about, you just did it, like flexing a muscle. You waved your arm through the air, and a building went up in flames. You snapped your fingers, and you could blast truck-sized hole through a brick wall. But right now, she was putting every muscle, every thought, every feeling in her body into burning through his hand.

A hot bead of sweat rolled down her face, and a dark speck formed in the sky above them, growing until it was the size of a dinner plate, before turning into a slow, swirling mass of black cloud.

Thunder rumbled as loud as a jet engine. Kayla wasn't watching. Her face was turning red, and after a minute or two, she was breathing through her mouth. Panting. A deep ache filled her muscles, her bones, but Kayla just ground her heel into the blackened grass, determined not to give in so quickly. Come on... With a start, she realized she'd never pushed it this hard before. Come on!

Taylor tried not too seem too shocked heh when the young woman yanked him forward, practically pinning him down in place and nearly breaking his hand in her tight grasp - or at least it felt like it could've at any moment. He had to shut his eyes tightly for some time, noticing the sheer power this girl was able to get off; if he ever anyone else, he'd been lost since fried alive where he stood, and had to actively keep that from happening at that point, natural resistance aside.

But she was wearing down, he could see it, once he opened his eyes and focused again. He wasn't sure if he felt excited or relieved in that moment, starting to squeeze her hand back tighter in return and staring her down again, forcing himself to pull away some and stand a little taller as her own body was rapidly growing weaker.

Damn it... She grit her teeth. Kayla could hear the blood roaring in her ears, feel her energy get sapped away from her body. It was like running a marathon, but she wasn't getting anywhere with this. Damn it!

After a few minutes, she couldn't take it anymore. Kayla buckled and fell to one knee. Her back, her legs, her arms were aching. It was all she could do to keep her arm from falling to her side. He was pulling away, standing tall and proud, and for half a heartbeat, from down here, he looked just like his son.

Without thinking, Kayla twisted his wrist.

The electricity around her grew fainter and fainter, until it was just a blue-white afterimage imprinted on the air around him. Lightheaded and drenched in sweat, her hand slipped out of his and she toppled to the ground, panting. Fucker...

Whatever Taylor was feeling in that moment, weather he was impressed or surprised, it was soon forgotten. He'd been watching carefully as the student fell to her knees, using what energy she'd had left after the constant barage of lightning. The last thing he'd expected was her to fight back further than that, holding back a slight yelp and biting his tingue after she'd twisted his wrist. Awkwardly, he bent back down a little closer to her level until she finally gave out and let go, collapsing into the dirt.

The Guardian rubbed at his wrist, glancing around and admiring Kayla's handwork. An ugly field of burnt earth surrounded them, and he heard a few people shouting from the nearby buildings. He let out an uneasy sigh. Next time they definitely had to go somewhere more remote.

He glanced at his hand, red and chaffed ugly from where she'd been holding him. He knew what he was working with now, for sure... Christ.

Taylor's gaze traveled to the girl again, struggling to get her breath, and squatted down beside her. He clenched his raw fist and held it out for her to bump... Kids still did that, right? "You did good." That all-too-innocent smile appeared again. "How do you feel?"

Kayla just laid there in the grass, panting and watching him from the corner of her eye. When he curled his fingers into a fist, she flinched, expecting him for half a heartbeat to smash her across the face for twisting his wrist, but he just held it out with an all-too-friendly smile. Jesus Christ... Was this guy really Preston's dad? He had a kid-like innocence and awkwardness to him. She ignored the hand and shakily pushed herself into a sitting position. Kayla wasn't sure if she could stand up right now even if she wanted to. "Never better..." she breathed, an uncertain quality to her voice. Part of her wanted to bash her head against a brick wall for only lasting, what, five or six minutes? Another part of her wanted to bash his head against a wall for making her do it, not even mentioning the other reasons. But at the same time...

We have a lot of work to do, don't we? She brushed her thumb over her hand, sending up weak blue sparks like a lighter.

Between the panting and the small shudders of exhaustion the girl was giving off, he couldn't tell if she'd actually flinched at his gesture. For a split second, he held a suspicion, but it was quickly dismissed as nothing more than his imagination. Instead, Taylor's smile turned lame. Perhaps fist-bumps weren't exactly the "in" thing anymore. Oh, well. He straightened himself up again. If she rejected his awkward impromptu fist-bump, he supposed she was too proud to accept help unto her feet again either.

"Thank you," was all Taylor said. "I'll need at least a week to plan out your training and set up the stuff that's needed... So, you can relax in your dorm for now. I'll tell the teachers to excuse you from class tomorrow so you have time to recover." He gave the Autumn a small wave and a nod before walking back towards the buildings. To help fix all those lightbulbs because he was feeling pretty bad about that. ;A;