ICE CUBE PHASES

I woke up on life support as usual, but was still angry.

I removed the mask from my face and got off the bed, leaving my roommates behind.

I didn't know where I was going and didn't care.

I walked and sensed someone behind the next curve with a trench coat on.

I had an idea of who it might've been and didn't want to meet him, and it didn't seem like he wanted to meet me either as he was walking away.

I got into my room and climbed onto my bed, shedding tears of rage and sorrow.

I sensed my roommates outside the door and heard them talking, but they didn't walk in, I didn't want them to, I wanted to be alone.

I didn't know how long I was there for, mostly because I fell asleep.

I woke up and saw Jason scrolling on his phone, he still didn't leave me.

I got off my bed and walked towards him then said,"Umm Jason?"

He looked at me then I continued,"I'm sorry I tried to run away."

"Don't worry about it, you were emotional."He said.

"But I wanted to be emotional, I wanted to leave and I'm sorry. I wanted to go back to my family without realizing they were already all around me, you, Cody, Junior, the principal and everyone in Bright Academy who cares about me, you are my family."

He smiled as I hugged him then he said,"Well I know you're over leaving the school, but I can't help telling you that Adrian Johnson has been taken to his family, he's done."

I widened my eyes. I knew he was at level 9, and if he was allowed to go to his family, that gave me a new ray of hope.

I said,"Thank you."

Then I sat on his lap and placed my head on his chest.

I continued training after that, but under supervision as I didn't want to sleepwalk again.

I was reading a novel by my favourite author, Felix Kunjan, (partly because we shared the same name) when Jason walked to me and said,"I have a question."

I smiled at him and said he should ask, hoping it wasn't far past my level. He then asked,"Can you make any type of ice you want or you're restricted to one?"

"Oh, I can make any shape I want, ice spheres, icicles, ice stalag..."I began.

"No, I mean types as in ice I, ice III, amorphous ice I, or any of the seventeen others."He said.

I had never heard of any of those terms before and since he knew what I was thinking, he showed me his tablet screen which had a kind of Cartesian plane like kind of thing, with several divisions on it.

I looked at him, confused till he said,"This is the phase diagram of water. It shows what form water will take under different temperatures and pressures."

I was still confused till he said,"I mean if you cool the water to at least -100 ° C, it will become much harder and change its crystal lattice shape."

I was beginning to understand then he said,"All the types of ice have either slightly different or drastically different properties. Having all of them in your arsenal will be really helpful."

I started getting excited then said,"Cool, pun intended, can you teach me?"

He chuckled then said,"Fine."

He wanted to teach me something simple first, so he went for ice III.

He showed me a diagram of its complicated structure and after I got it in my memory, I began.

I knew that the water will crystallize by itself if I made just one crystal, so I compressed it and made the shape, but there was one problem, the water formed hydrogen disorder ice, as he called it, aka, ice I h, aka, fridge ice.

Neither of us understood why.

It should have frozen like how I told it to.

It took about a week for us to figure out the problem.

He was looking at the phase diagram the next Monday, after classes then widened his eyes and spoke telepathically to me, saying,"I know what you were doing wrong..."

We were on the sports field and he said,"You were squeezing the water to make it regelate and freeze, right?"

I nodded then he said,"But that just makes ice I h which forms at 1 atmosphere of pressure and lower. You should be squeezing it even harder."

I widened my eyes then chuckled and said,"Making ice whatever its called is hard enough, how will I squeeze it harder?"

"You can strengthen yourself right?"He asked.

I hadn't thought about that. I said,"Yes, I can."

"So try it."He said.

I nodded then made some water appear between my hands, took a deep breath then started compressing it.

I strengthened my arms and squeezed it harder.

I made the seed crystal(as I liked to call the first crystal of the desired shape), then it froze into ice I h, then a cracking sound was heard as great pressure was induced on it from every direction, then I widened my eyes as I sensed its shape had changed.

I looked at him and said,"I did it."

He smiled at me then ruffled my hair.

Next, he helped me reach the temperature and pressure suitable for the triple point of water, after that, I worked on ice V.

I didn't work on ice I c since it formed at much colder temperatures and they would be a lot harder for me to achieve, but thanks to Jason, I had invented a new sub skill which we wanted to call, Ice Cube Phases.

I continued studying the shapes and properties of the other types of ice and other stuff water could do at different pressures, before tackling the three amorphous ices.

I had to freeze the water crazy fast in order to achieve those as the water had to freeze too fast to form a crystalline structure, but after four months, I was an expert in everything.

I had stopped accepting duels as I didn't want the extra stress, but I kept training with my roommates.

Francois and I kept in touch though, and Franklin was still my student.

A year passed and of course I let my hair grow as I decided to so long ago.

I made it shoulder length and straight at the top, falling down my neck in waves.

Everyone who wasn't ogling over my looks before was definitely doing it now.

I also started writing a book, on the skills and sub skills I had unlocked, to teach them to future H 2 Orders who would have wanted to be like me.