So You Wanna Be a Hero, Kid?

[Gifted]

"I am in charge, you don't tell me what I can and can't do. Twenty. Push ups."

[Raven]

"Fuck you," Awhina said, leaving the room. Ryan was studying his plate, while Lynn's eyes were wide and flicking between Xander and Awhina. Cassie's face was impossible to read, and she was continuing with her meal like nothing had happened.

[Gifted]

Xander dumped Awhina's food into the trash and went off to speak to the cafeteria staff.
"What the hell," Jason was a bit horrified at what Xander had done in pursuit of this pointless power struggle. Stephanie was ore concerned about how Lynn was taking this, and put a hand on the little girls shoulder.

[Raven]

Lynn jumped, and Ryan looked at her, putting an arm around his sister. "Hey, it's alright."

[Gifted]

"He's just strict with us. You don't need to worry about him." Stephanie tried to comfort her.

[Raven]

"To be fair, she was pushing it," Cassie said.

[Gifted]

"He has been warning us since the beginning something like this might happen." Jason acknowledged, but he was still shocked.
"She should have done her pushups and been done with it." Stephanie nodded.

[Raven]

"We'll see how it plays out. It'll work out in the end, Lynn, don't worry," Ryan assured her.

[Gifted]

Stephanie nodded. "You think we're going to see Awhina again at all today?" She said, to change the subject.

[Raven]

"I don't know," Ryan said. "She might burn quick and fast, or she could isolate herself for the night, at least. Also probably depends on what we're doing."

[Gifted]

"I was thinking we should train together considering that's how we'll be fighting, but if we're a person down, there may not be a point." Stephanie admitted.

[Raven]

"There's always a point. We can learn how to account for each other and factor Awhina in later. We'll need to learn to fight without her, as well. Danielle could take her out."

[Gifted]

"But if we're training for that we'd still need her." Stephanie pointed out. "Because Danielle wouldn't just take her out of the picture she'd use her against us. So we'd need to train against her if we're preparing for that."

[Raven]

"Even small amounts of progress is progress. Most of us have never even been in a pretend fight before," Ryan pointed out.

[Gifted]

"Yes but we wouldn't need to be in a big group for that." But Stephanie realized she was outnumbered and coming off as pushy, so she looked down and didn't say anything afterwords. So much for them all being equals, now the best way forward was going to be to be quiet and agree with the others. Which she could deal with bu it made her sad to be on the bottom.