• [M] An Anniversary of Sorts, Open

[Nadezhda Akhmatova]

Nadia's telekinetic attack, paired with a shield, managed to deflect most of the rubber bullets, the only one hitting leaving a poor, pathetic bruise on her shoulder. She began synchronising her mind with Jake as he was still ducking, knowing that she couldn't keep up the blasts unless she wanted the whole kitchen to collapse on them and end up looking like Stalingrad.

No matter what Jake had done, such a thing was guaranteed to make her face expulsion, and if not that, growing suspicion from other students as to the real extent of her powers. She had traditionally faked results during class so as she would be underestimated, but she needed to be careful even in occasions such as this.

When the Spetsnaz was grabbed by her own shadow, she let out a spiteful hiss and prepared to unleash a mental blast against Jake's head, hoping to knock him out as Hayley was pinning him, right now, right there.

She was sent flying before she could release her attack, however; a giant hand coming from her shadow grabbed her from the waist and soon sent her flying towards a cupboard. She had foreseen this a mere second before it happened, only because of the telepathic sync between Jake and herself.

To avoid serious physical damage, she would have to enlist all of her eight-year-long military and power training in order to land as softly as possible. No need to even bother fighting the shadows just as of yet; they were simply too many to work against.

Using her telekinesis she stopped herself just short of slamming into the cupboard, and decided to land a few feet ahead of the cupboards. But even without physical injury, Nadia had just lost the opportunity to attack Jake and possibly end this sooner; this was why she was still learning about tactical stratagems which could help her improve her performance against other mutants.

She had to resort to other means if she wanted to maintain the initiative; means made available through Hayley's sudden physical attack.

Deciding to exploit Hayley's sneak attack and make do without direct mental attacks, Nadia maintained her mental sync with Jake and charged ahead, preparing to drive a fist into Jake's injured nose before slamming a second in his stomach a second later. If the two attacks connected, it might as well put an end to the battle "very soon" - if she was right, of course.

[Hayley Tonin]

Knowing that Jake's powers was disabled or at least stunted for a few minutes at least, Hayley quickly backed away once more trying to put ground between them. When she reached the far side of the kitchen once more she leaned up against a cupboard. It was an unusual feeling she was having, she had enough adrenaline in her to give a blue whale a heart attack but at the same time she was emotionally exhausted. She wanted to just curl up into a ball and bawl her eyes out, but at the same time she wanted to rip Jake's head from his body and spit down his neck.

As she slid to a seated position against the cupboard she gave herself a 'hormonal reset' breaking down all the additional hormones till they were back at their normal levels. It was a weird ability cause it meant that she had to unconsciously remember a persons hormones before manipulations so she knew how much to break down. The first time she had tried it she had drained herself of all her serotonin and melatonin. Whilst her physiology allowed these extremes it had rendered her unconscious for two days in the medlab at the school.

With the adrenaline and other boosted hormones quickly flushing their way out her system Hayley held onto her stomach. Jake's shadowball to her stomach had done more damage than she had expected. Whilst it would have been difficult to break her ribs now, it was still quite easy to cause internal damage, and that shadow ball had had enough force to make her fly the length of a table, who knows what damage it had caused internally. She just hoped it was bruised organs rather than the more dangerous stuff. This was one of the worst things about a hormonal reset, it disabled her ability to manipulate her own hormones until they were back to the 'reset' levels. Which meant that until her hormones had been flushed she would be feeling all the pain from the fight and it would take five minutes for the pain relieving hormones to reach a level that would block out the pain.

She was emotionally drained and in pain, effectively taking her out of the fight, but with Nadia there she knew she was safe. She had been on the receiving end of a mental assault from Nadia, Jake wouldn't be able to get near Hayley with Nadia here. Plus the fact the three had practically destroyed the kitchen at this time of the morning meant that someone would be on their way at least. Hayley would just wait here, holding her stomach and crying to herself.