The Monday after next was swap week, and after Natasha had called her own temporary protege for the week away, a second-year woman called out for Iris in the arena. She had some tattoos, mostly of the goth variety, and was wearing a pentagram-strapped dress. She once had a septum piercing and spiked choker, but stopped after her mentor advised her against them for fights. Iris noticed how she wore a tight dress to make more prominent her breasts, then continued on.
"Hey, Iris... Valentine, right?" She smiled. "I'm Olivia Blackwell: hero name Lucifer."
Iris nodded. "Yes, I'm Iris. But I have to, er, immediately ask: isn't Lucifer male?"
"I figured you'd ask, but nah, not really. Punished for being too ambitious, hated by evangelicals, gets blamed for all of men's problems? Sounds like a woman to me."
"I suppose so."
"Yep. I know it makes me look a bit edgy, but once I started getting complaints every week from Christians 'cuz of my Revenant, I just like getting under their skin. They're way too easy to rile up. President Kate almost didn't let it go through."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I chose Lucifer in my first-year, and once Kate became president... Oh, if you haven't met her, she's that type of snooty asshole who measures how far your garbage can is from the road. She looks at everyone's hero name and changes it if it doesn't *represent* Urasaria properly. The only reason I got away with it is 'cuz Naomi is my mentor." She smiled. "Alright, let's get started. Show me your Revenant."
"Phantom." Phantom crawled onto Iris's chest. "It's manipulation of time. Accelerating, rewinding, slowing, no pausing. I can heat up molecules by a localized acceleration, or excite them." Iris spread her hands and white lightning arced between them.
Olivia looked like she was about to say something, then reconsidered it. "Cool. Alright, mine is Baal." She tapped a pentagram tattoo on her right arm, and a demonic maw & tongue burst out of it. "Lemme show you how it's registered..."
[Baal: Demonic maw & tongue. Eats objects and copies their properties into its spit, vomit, and saliva. Can destroy instantly what it has 'equipped'.]
"You'll understand it better once you see it in fights. Speaking of, have you been in a fight?"
"Seven of them."
"Aww, nice." Olivia smiled. "Feel confident?"
"I do."
"Nice. Okay, lemme test your durability and strength. Give me a regular attack for you."
"Should I make it hurt?"
"I like pain."
Iris thought of saying something but reconsidered. They tested each other for a bit, until Olivia's tablet vibrated and she checked it.
"...some local farm." muttered Olivia. "Okay. Do you feel safe going out?"
"Yes."
"Baal's not usually the best with rural fights, but if it gets too hot, we can burrow out."
Iris nodded and went out of Urasaria with Olivia; it was about ten minutes of host-running away. Olivia relayed the typical information students receive on their tablets: a picture and audio clip describing both host & Revenant ability if applicable. (Objective descriptions are preferred rather than the civilian's own hypothesis, always incorrect and usually over-exaggerated.)
Olivia mentioned the civilian who called it was currently in a hidden shelter under his home; he had supposedly pissed some confrontational host off a day ago and just received a call from the man.
They came up to the end of a dirt road; a farmhouse was up ahead and a truck was parked beside the road. Iris noted that the truck's windows had been blasted out, and the remaining shards frosted over; both presumed an angry ice Revenant as she tentatively melted them.
"One sec. Baal." Baal's demonic maw burst out of Olivia's pentagram tattoo and tore through the front half of the truck, leaving nothing. "Metal, glass, gasoline."
Baal chewed with its maw open until Olivia pinched it shut with her other hand. They were about 100ft from the house; timber was stored in bulk beside the front door, and in the next instant -
- the front door blasted open and shot towards them; Baal's maw opened as a table & broken cabinet followed -
- and chewed away all of the wood; its tongue caught the cabinet and threw it back to sender, but another wind blasted it back and Phantom accelerated the cabinet to rot it away. Their foe was standing in the open doorframe, shouting to them: "Students?!"
"No, and if you don't believe us you can come about ten feet closer and check." said Iris.
Olivia snickered.
He turned and rushed inside the home, and the two ran in pursuit as they felt the temperature drop inside the home; Phantom sped up the air within and raised the heat, but Olivia paused her before they went in. Baal's tongue wagging, it tapped the outer walls of the home -
- and all the wood disappeared, leaving a bare home inside with the man 50ft away, stumbling for a second as a chilled wind blasted more chairs at them -
- but Baal vomited a glob of gooey dirt into the chairs and they hit the ground, skidding slightly as they landed. He groaned, rushed out the back of the scaffolding and the two chased him through the back; a field of wheat was soon at his left, and as he veered into it -
" - Phantom!" shouted Iris; the wheat grew into his path and curled around his ankles, gripping him in their hyper-growth; another reversion and they shrivelled to pull him back in -
- but a swift wind sliced apart the crop; Iris saw him make his way deeper in the field, setting his hand to the ground -
- and a chill wind sliced a chunk of flesh out of Iris's leg that staggered her to the side, groaning with a wince; she heard the same happen to Olivia and set her staggering the other way. Another wind came at Olivia and Baal's maw devoured it, but she was too far to do the same for Iris; Iris rolled underneath the next one.
Ahead, she saw him come to the end of the field and turned back. She was still on the ground, her left leg still wounded with ice on the edges of her blood; another icy wind blasted several crops of wheat into her face, blinding her temporarily as she reached in the dirt and felt an irrigation pipe there; if she hadn't kept rolling the next wind shooting out of it would've taken her right hand.
She was further from Olivia, who shouted: "Focus on yourself!"
"One time Natasha isn't here..." muttered Iris, relevantly.
Pressing herself up with some effort, Iris juked the next wind and felt her left leg remind her why she shouldn't; Phantom's strand felt the irrigation pipe leading up the field, and the base near the man's crouched hands; she rotted the piece closest to her as an icy tornado was blasted her way -
" - Phantom!" she shouted, accelerating the molecules around herself for a heated counter-tornado of her own -
- and it dulled the damage as the icy tornado passed over her, feeling her skin temperature lower a bit but with no damage done yet. Ahead, her foe was at the base of the irrigation system and flicked one of the switches; water spurted out and an icy wind froze & throw them at Iris, but she swept her right hand out and a superheated cutter went out of it that sliced through the first batch -
- but only barely melted the second; she took some damage & stabs in her skin and hit the ground before the third one came.
A fourth one was heading towards her, but she heard a rumbling below herself; in the next instant a hole opened in the ground and she fell into it, beside Olivia and Baal's churning maw that saved her from another icy volley. Baal was chewing with its maw open and dirt-colored spittle was flickening about.
"God damnit, stop that." Olivia smacked Baal and it closed its mouth while it ate.
Another wind sent a volley of frozen shards above their heads, then sent them hailing down -
- but an enormous glob of dirt-vomit caught it and sent it off to the side.
"He's sending winds through the irrigation." winced Iris, then stifled it. "Can deal with the system."
Olivia nodded, and they swept up & out of the hole; the man was at the base of the irrigation system and throwing another icy wind into the pipes -
- but the next scene was instant. Phantom felt the water moving within the pipes and chilled them frozen; 1ft deep into the base, she melted the pipe and closed it up as the icy wind hit the sudden barrier -
- and a rain of shards blasted back into the man and shot through his eyes & head; he staggered back in anguish as Iris & Olivia rushed into range, his eyes cut from their sockets as his hand clutched his temples, throwing a blind wind at them that sleep their advance but couldn't stop them.
A few seconds separated them now, and as a wind of his own tried to launch himself away -
- a vomit of molten metal spewed onto him and covered him alive; he screamed, then tried to chill it with another wind -
- solidifying his own tomb as he turned & writhed, encased within the metal sarcophagus -
"-thanks for turning!" shouted Olivia as Baal vomited again -
- and another glob of molten metal encased him as he stopped, dropped, rolled and -
- a bolt of white lightning hit his tomb and blood & entrails shot out of both ends like a microwaved hotdog.
Olivia laughed, then had Baal vomit on him once more. "Good job. Jeez, you're already pretty good at this."
Iris smiled. "Thank you."
"Your registration said you're 20. Did you use your Revenant before this? You can tell me."
"I did, but mostly in my head to resolve imaginary arguments." lied Iris.
Olivia grinned and crouched down to scan.
[Cold Wind Coming: Icy winds.]
Iris glanced over, pretending she was reading it while in actuality looking elsewhere down Olivia. She figured so long as Olivia didn't notice then it wouldn't discomfort her; despite her perversion, she did feel a sense of obligation to not make others uncomfortable.
Her sexuality was usually overcompensated in this sense.
After patrolling with her, she went home to Natasha, who was on the couch curling a 200lb dumbbell. It was typical to see Natasha watching television, reading a book on lifting, and curling for hundreds of reps or doing some sort of abdominal exercise, all at the same time. Her physique was a representation not only of her work in the gym but how she generally lived.
"Who did you get assigned to?"
"I got assigned Olivia."
Natasha almost imperceptibly winced. "Oh, her? She's fine. Uh, lemme tell you who I got assigned to..."
She had been assigned Bruce, who was a short man in Iris's year without any of the typical complexes accompanying that. He was rather reserved and shy, almost a bit fearful around lesbians. Iris did not listen to Natasha's story much, though she gathered it much like a typical Urasaria one.
She was still thinking of Olivia. She was a gorgeous woman and very sexy; when she bent over, her limbs and breasts hung in a way that Iris desired to string around herself. She nursed a fantasy that Olivia would take her hand at the end of their week and tell her it was time for special training, in that alleyway over there.
By next morning her fingers had dispelled these feelings. She was herself again. Horniness and its army of consequent followers lacked permanency.
Olivia glared at someone across campus, who Iris realized was Viktoria. Of late she had mostly managed to avoid her via Natasha's guidance; she had shown up randomly, much like what has already been shown. Yet Viktoria seemed almost worried over Iris being assigned to Olivia. Iris could not understand why: Olivia had an almost-sterile level of professionalism past their first conversation.
"You know her?" said Iris.
"I do. Why?"
"I saw you glaring at her."
"Oh. That's Viktoria. She's a third-year, and a huge prude who likes to call anyone who drinks or has sex a slut. I happen to like fun, so she just despises me."
"She's not coming over here, is she?"
"Eh, I doubt it. She just enjoys saying shit to get a rise out of people, but I don't care. She's just sucking up to morals society's set up for her so that she can try to control people who don't follow them. Very religious of her, y'know."
Iris thought to play stupid and see if she could glean any more about Viktoria from her, but no flood of information came after. Olivia had her own sense of privacy, and Iris respected that, at least; she had rarely spoken without intelligence or humor. The rumors Iris had heard that she was promiscuous and might indeed be able to parlay some special training from her seemed mostly that: rumors.
What she had noticed was that Olivia was rather sociable around campus; it was rare they had made it out of Urasaria without her stopping to speak with someone. Having nursed a distrust of strangers for much of her life, Iris had difficulty understanding this extroversion; she did not even necessarily trust Natasha yet, although what proportion of that was her own issues with allowing attachment is for others to deem.
A few days later, they watched as a man burst through the glass of a store, and here was the scene presented; his head entered and the glass shattered, and Phantom reverted it into his skull. He could not stop his momentum and his torso entered, shattering the glass that Phantom reverted. His legs also entered and Phantom reverted the glass, ending with his ankles and his boots as he was sliced into thin...
…slices.
Iris looked to Olivia. "Er, you don't mind the violence, do you?"
Olivia shrugged. "No, it's fine. Don't make them suffer too much: my mentor would get angry at me if I let you. Quick and vi- quick is good."
Iris realized the almost-completed catchphrase above, and rubbed the back of her neck as Olivia crouched down to scan. She worked up a bit of nerve as they were walking back. "Olivia, mind if I ask you something?"
"Sure thing. What's up?"
"Do you know my mentor, Natasha?"
For a moment there seemed to crumble the facade of professionalism Olivia had been wearing prior.
Iris continued: "I mentioned you to her, and she withdrew some from me. It didn't seem hateful or anything like that. Just odd."
"Well, that doesn't surprise me." Olivia shrugged. "I could tell you what it was, and why we're like that with each other, but what the hell would be the point? What happened happened."
There seemed an element of regret to how she stated it, however, and for the rest of the week she was noticeably gentler to Iris. Was it a sort of restitution for whatever had occurred between the two, or had she thought Iris kind for asking about this rift so that she might bridge it? Whatever the provenance of it all, Iris did not bring Olivia up to Natasha again, and it would be the last time Olivia was before her eyes for a few months more.