Jia knocked on the door and waited patiently for the door to open. The other boys walking down the hall watched her with interest and confusion. Not that she could blame them, it was the first time she was visiting her cousin at his school and she looked like an angry storm wraith what with the lightning flickering in her eyes and hair. When the door finally did open, she was faced with Mike in only a white towel tied around his waist. He swore out loud before taking a step back and grasping his towel awkwardly. "Jia?!"
Clearly, he was not expecting a girl to be knocking on the door, let alone the cousin sister of his teammate.
She glanced passed him to see Roy and Tristan in similar stages of undress. Roy froze and his eyes widened comically. Tristan arched a brow at her before giving her slight, close-lipped smile. Cole was standing near his closet, in the middle of taking off his shirt and his jaw dropped open.
"Jia! What you are- "Roy exclaimed as she walked into their room and slammed the door behind her with a flick of her wrist.
She gave Roy a tight smile, "I'm not here for you dearest cousin," She then turned to addressed the charcoal haired boy in the room," I`m here for Cole."
"Excuse me?" Cole asked.
She then sauntered up to him, "Cole, I`m sure neither of us need to beat about the bush of why I`m here."
"I have no idea what you mean."
"First of all, before I begin, I have a question for you," Jia said as she pulled her gloves off, one by one.
Roy swore and he took a step forward," Jia, don`t- "
Jia spoke loudly, making sure that her voice carried over her cousin's, "You know who I am so you must know who my mama was."
Cole nodded, "Yeah, Duchess Marina."
"Exactly," Jia gave him a saccharine smile," Did you know that my mama had inherited the Lightning magic from my great grandmother and that when she was growing up, she had difficulty controlling her lightning bursts so she accidently electrocuted people when she touched them?"
Cole gulped with a nod and Jia watched his Adam`s apple bob nervously. Good, he was afraid.
Jia continued as she stepped closer to Cole till she caged him against his own closet and leaned up to his face," She wore gloves to protect others from her hands and quite amazingly, I inherited her problem. Now, for example," She then held up her hands and the boys watched the lightning crackle over them," In my hands, I can generate what is up to 500 thousand volts of electricity that I can use to electrocute you should I choose to lay a single finger on you."
Cole sweat-dropped, "Why are you doing this?"
"I`m here to simply give you a gentle push. "Jia explained as her face turned serious," Take Zoey seriously or leave her alone."
Cole looked taken back, "Are you crazy?"
That`s when Jia burst, "I share a room with her, boy! When Zoey`s emotional or in recent cases, sad, her gravity magic goes haywire! She has been crying her eyes out since yesterday because some girls had the nerve to tell her that you were flirting with them yesterday at the Coco Connection so you were a free guy! She was so distraught and sad that her magic went haywire all of last night! Everything in our room is either too heavy to lift or so light that they are floating up to the ceiling and that includes me! I have fallen from my bed five times last night because she won`t stop crying. My blankets and towels weigh a ton now!"
"How`d you take a shower today?" Mike asked.
Jia sniffed, "I had to borrow Rose`s spare towel to take a shower."
Mike and Roy exchanged looks of horror. Sharing towels was a big no after the lecture they had received from Master Kale about body fluids. Clearly, the girls hadn`t received that lecture yet.
"Listen Cole, I know that dating girls is a sport to you so I`ll make this clear. Change for her or let her date someone who won`t make her cry."
Cole`s face hardened, as Jia smirked, "Did I hit a nerve? "
"No."
Jia leaned back away from him, "She`s like a sister to me. She deserves better and the both of us know that. Be her boyfriend or let her go because if you don`t, I will personally show you why they name storms after people. Are we clear?"
"Crystal." Cole bit out as and looked away from her.
"Good," Jia said. She then turned and walked towards the door while putting on her gloves," Lovely visit boys. Oh, and Roy, I'm coming this afternoon to watch Race Wars."
She then opened the door and strutted out. This was a first for her considering, she had just received strutting lessons from Fiona two days ago but she could tell, she was rocking it.
When she finally made her way back to the dorms at Viola, she found Zoey and Rose sitting outside on the steps with a bowl of chocolate ice cream between them.
"Hey, where were you this morning? I didn`t see you when I woke up?" Zoey asked her.
Jia saw Rose risk a glance at her but she kept her face blank," No-where important. How are you?"
Zoey shrugged," Okay, now thanks to Rose`s ice cream treat."
"I aim to impress," Rose said with a shoulder lift.
Jia put a hand on her hip, "Do you need anything else?"
"No I`ll be fine, in fact- "Zoey cut off in mid-sentence when her phone sang. Reaching into her pocket, she picked it up and frowned at the screen," It`s Cole."
"Answer it then," Rose urged her. Zoey nodded and stood before she clicked the answer button. An image of Cole appeared as she handed her spoon to Jia before walking away towards the gardens.
Once Rose was sure that their friend was out of ear-shot, she told Jia to sit and help her finish the ice cream. Rose didn`t try to question on what she did or where she went. Everyone except for Zoey knew where she went after last night`s fiasco. Zoey was in tears and felt so insecure about her looks after a group of girls came into the Combat Room to brag about their twenty minutes with Cole.
Clary and Kyra were practically shaking with anger and they wanted to teach those girls a lesson. Fiona stopped them while Rose and Jia held Zoey. Her crying stopped for a while but then it started again later in the night. Clary told Jia to expect tears in the night but what she didn`t expect was Zoey`s magic acting up. Halfway through the night, she kept on levitating and falling back onto her bed, when she questioned Zoey if she was alright. The poor girl would lie and say she was fine and tell her to go back to sleep only for the process to start again. It then affected her blankets so Jia was forced to sleep bare. Not that it bothered her, she never got cold.
In the morning, she couldn`t lift her towel because Zoey`s magic made it weigh about the same weight as a boulder. She was forced to retreat to the other girl's rooms to ask for assistance. Luckily, Rose had packed three extra towels in her suitcase. 'For Emergency' she said. Whatever the reason, it was heaven sent. After a quick shower, she changed and ate before flying over to Ashton Knights Academy.
The girls were tasked in watching over Zoey in the meantime so everything could go a bit smoothly. And it did.
After the events of the morning, Jia decided to go train in the Combat Room with Rose, Clary and Kyra. Their magic was very impressive, especially Kyra`s, whom they all discovered during their first Combat Magic class, had shadow magic. She could manipulate shadow, make them solid, create them and control them.
She could even control their shadows. Clary found it cool when she shook hands with her own shadow and Rose complimented hers. Jia could tell that Kyra was uncomfortable with it because her magic bordered black magic. It could control her if she wasn`t careful.
Until she came to Viola, she thought she had problems with her magic but even her friends had their problems too. Clary being scared to accidently petrify others, Kyra being afraid of her magic controlling her, Rose finding it hard to control her technology absorption (She could sometime absorb data from any technology she touched, even when she wasn`t meaning to), Zoey with her emotional gravity and Fiona. Well, Fiona was still a work in progress.
As far as she could tell, Fiona`s magic wasn`t on the fritz like the other girls but she didn`t like getting angry so she used humour to keep herself calm. All Jia could say was that getting angry and showing people that you were was healthy but she respected Fiona too much to say that to her face.