Super Special Training (Asher)

"Alicia's our friend, and one of the only other spirit users we know," Elliot said. "She's like a surrogate big sister to us. Like, she helps train us, gives us really good advice, and is even teaching me how to cook! She can be kinda strict sometimes, but she's been in a really silly and fun mood lately. And she's always really sweet. I bet you two would get along really well! You've got a lot in common, after all." Then again, considering Elliot thought they were super compatible for each other, he may have been biased.

Of course, Asher seemed quite content with teasing Elliot instead. "N-no," he mumbled, blushing a little. What was he supposed to say? That Asher was way too hot no matter which form he was in? "But see? You're already swapping forms on a dime. That's great!" Elliot added, beaming. "Even though I think you're great just the way you are, its really helpful being able to just switch like this. And I knew you could do it."

He put Alien on, but he was far more interested in hearing what Elliot had to say than watching the opening credits. "Not sure, huh? That's okay. Its a really big world after all, and you've got a lot of time to explore it. Especially when you're already juggling so much, like school, and your job, and getting enough sleep. But its the kind of thing you should think about sometimes. It helps take the stress off," Elliot said.

Then the question was turned to him, and he found himself paling slightly. "Oh. Uh, honestly? I don't really know. I just kinda go around and see if people need help, I guess. Usually when I go its because we have a reason to be there. If we don't, a reason usually ends up finding us. So we're pretty busy a lot of the time, and don't get much chance to just relax. But that's just because we're always looking for trouble, I think. Usually its a lot more relaxed! The city's really great, if kinda way too big. There are some nice beaches I've been meaning to get to. There are a lot of cliffs with incredible views. I just need to make time for them, I guess." His voice quivered slightly from processing the stress of it all, but he tried to keep his smile bright.

"Yay! I knew you'd agree," Elliot said, his nerves easing a little from having a far better topic to discuss. It was a match made in heaven, really. They were both charming. They were both silly. They were both so talented that they left Ellioy near constantly inspired. Frankly, they were both really cute, too. And Alicia needed to get out of the house more, while Asher needed someone to keep an eye on him so he'd behave. "Should I call her up sometime soon? She's busy today, too, so you're just stuck with me for the time being. But I'm sure she'd love to meet you." Elliot's smile was just the slightest bit mischievous, as he tried to think how to make the perfect blind date. Would Alicia let him use her kitchen? Or would that just be tacky?

"I'm really glad," Elliot said, feeling the need to respond to Asher's interjection. "I try not to either. Always look in the bright side of life, right? Isaac usually handles all the worrying. Sometimes I feel bad about it, though. Like, he worries enough for both of us combined. Sometimes I wish I could take all of that off of his shoulders, but he always insists he's fine. I just think he doesn't want me worrying about him, though. He can be so stubborn sometimes.

Not letting him go to the Digital World without me, though. We're a team, and that's that." Elliot's statement was quite firm. It seemed Isaac wasn't the only worrier in the family, no matter how hard he tried to be.

Elliot's eyes widened a little at Asher's question, but he quickly recovered his composure. "Its really sweet of you to worry about me, but I'm fine. Honest! I mean, sure, there are some days where bad things happen-" Please don't ask about that. Please, please don't ask about that! "-but in the end, it'll always be okay. Isaac makes sure of that, and when he can't my friends do. But really! I'm fine today. Besides, this isn't about me, anyway. Today is your day, and I'm gonna do whatever I can to make sure its good for you." He paired his statement with a gentle pat on Asher's shoulder. Good lord, in his current form it was solid enough to build a house on! Upon the realization Elliot blushed a bit and retracted his hand.

"So! Enjoying the movie?" he asked, knowing darn well Asher wasn't watching. It was just as much a gentle reminder as it was a hopeful inquiry.

Yay! Asher was excited for this! "I'll work out a meeting," Elliot said, already flipping through pages of blind date ideas in his head. Yes, yes, using Alicia's kitchen really could be the best idea. After all, he didn't know how to navigate his own kitchen nearly as good as he could Alicia's. Also he'd have to worry way more about people walking into his own house. If mom got home and saw he had turned the place into a makeshift Italian restaurant, she probably wouldn't have been happy. "She's usually available most days. But just in case it's always good to check, right?"

Of course, Asher seemed way more focused on Elliot than Alicia. If Asher was looking to distract the boy and make him stop inquiring any further, it worked. The boy blushed gently, looking down at his feet. Stupid impossible crush! You made productivity nearly impossible. "O-oh. That's really sweet of you," he said, stumbling over his words a bit. "I'm good, though. Really. I promise. Besides, today's about pampering you, right? After all, that's what training is. Pampering your mind and your muscles." Oh god, did he have to say pampering his muscles? That was way too embarrassing! He moved away from that train of thought as soon as possible, as if hoping Asher would just forget about that awkward statement.

Even Elliot could tell that Asher's mention of the movie was forced, though. It really wasn't a big surprise, considering they were talking through it long enough to get right past the opening scenes. Although at least Elliot was trying to keep his eyes on the screen, whereas Asher's were focused on the boy basically the whole time. He sighed a little, picking up the remote and turning to Asher. "This isn't working, is it?" he said, trying to keep his smile up. "Well, don't worry, I've got an even better idea! I'll be right back."

Before Asher could even say anything Elliot dashed off, returning with a small box of fine china. He set it down on the table, taking out a little tea set. "I'm out of surprise and focus ideas, so how about power mediation? It's important to regulate how much energy you're putting out at once, after all, which can be really hard without how tough some Digimon are. Back when I started using Strikedramon, I almost broke the handles off of the door at Terminus Mall!" he said, continuing to set the tea set up. "So how 'bout we try this? Try to pick up these tea cups up as gently as possible. It might seem hard, with those clawed gauntlets and all, but you'd be surprised how dexterous you can be if you put your mind to it."

"F-forget I said that," Elliot responded, blushing a bit more at Asher actually calling him out on it. "I was trying to do the thing where I take what you say, and make it relevant to the conversation but put a twist on it, and- ah, you know what. Forget it." Full ramble mode, activate! If anything, Elliot was the more nervous of these two participants by a country mile. It shouldn't have been that the trainer was more nervous than the trainee, and yet here they were. After some consideration he still kept Alien on, at least, but left the remote nearby just in case.

"I mean, yeah," Elliot said. "That's why we gotta train you to be gentle with 'em! What if someone tosses you a weapon in the middle of battle and you crush it into splinters? Or some really mean guy tries to put a hostage between you and him? Or you're trying to restrain a guy, because the fight's over and he doesn't want to stop? I know teacups are a really hard starting point, but half the reason why I'm doing this is to give you a sense of how much grip we're dealing with here. That way we can adjust from there."

Suddenly, inspiration! He hit a button on his Digivice, and flames wreathed around him. Now as Strikedramon he gingerly reached out, picking the cup up and happily showing it to Asher. "See? I don't even have proper hands, and I can do it!" Seriously, what were Strikedramon's hands? Weird talon things? How did he even beat Ginkakumon without opposable thumbs? Oh well, he tried his best, that's how. "I'd let you use my door for a warmup instead, but mom'd be really mad if she came home and the door to my room was busted. Also, then you'd be in my room," he added. Elliot did not like people going into his room!

"Oh, these? They aren't mom's. Truth be told, I bought 'em for Isaac," Elliot said. "He wanted help practicing with his maid cafe stuff, so I picked these up to give him some stuff to practice on. I bought extras in case he dropped one, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you dropped one. He was actually talking about giving you a hand sometime, too, so I'm sure he'd understand if I explained why."

Elliot tried his hardest not to blush. It was super ineffective. But darnit, he couldn't give Asher any more ammo! Why did he have to be so dumb, and sweet, and hunky, and okay Elliot was just gonna stop there before his not-blushing got even worse. This was a nightmare! But at least Asher's tease came with a built in topic change, and Elliot was . . .

Okay. He was similarly uncomfortable with this one. But it was a discomfort he knew plenty about.

"I don't know why it happens either," he said, frowning. "I wish I knew why people wanted to do bad things to each otherm. Then it would be so much easier to stop, or keep away from. But when it happens, its up to the people who can do something to stop it, right? So I have to. I mean, what'd happen if I just didn't? I don't think I could live with that. He looked up at Asher, eyes shimmering with a little bit of sorrow and so much hope. "I'm really glad someone as good as you got one."

Not that Asher was perfect. Having a grudge so vicious it destroyed teacups was probably a bad sign. Nevertheless, Elliot didn't seem to notice how coincidental the timing was. He simply got on his hands and knees and started dusting the shards up, like a good little househusband. "No, no, you did great!" Elliot said. "That was at least, like, a few seconds. Way better than my first try, and those were metal door handles. You're a natural about this!

. . . I only have so many cups, though. So please be, like, really natural about it next time. Just think happy thoughts. Like your friends. Or your cat. Or sleeping." As if to demonstrate, Elliot picked up an even smaller and dantier cup. What the heck was that? A mouse cup, for mice? Nevertheless, he balanced it perfectly between his talons. "Are you thirsty? I can get you some actual tea if you want. Maybe we'll be good enough at this to even drink some!"

Elliot was trying so hard to give Asher the world on a silver platterm. A shame he was so, so bad at it.

"I dunno. Its weird," Elliot said. "Its a big world, after all. And a lot of it's wilderness, even if more civilized than the types of wilderness we're used to. The cities are gonna be kept under tight watch usually, but it isn't like they can have the entire Network Plains surveyed." Of course they couldn't! That'd be weird! "So a lot of times, Isaac and I gotta just help out when we see something. Its not really the most scientific method of dealing with danger, but its really the best we've got," he admitted, sheepishly. Yes, he basically just confessed to Asher that his "heroism" was basically going into the woods until he stumbled into trouble. But really, what else could he do?

Speaking of thirsty, Elliot tried not to think how much he wished that teasing tone could be soothing him to sleep and instead tried to focus on the objective of teasing Asher. "Hey, if we can learn strength and balance at once? That'd be perfect," he mumbled, still blushing a little. Especially at the thirsty comment! Why did Asher insist on constantly doing this? "I-I mean, I am, kinda," he admitted, eyeing the tea cup he was currently carrying. "And tea's a really good drink for settling nerves. So I figure it's the perfect kind of drink for training, right?" Only one of this pair seemed to actually need their nerves calmed, of course! But despite it all, Elliot was still wearing his shy smile proudly.

Still, he took Asher's "unless" as an invitation to start getting some set up. He put a kettle of water on the stove to boil, then started putting a packet of tea leaves in his own cup. Once more he shot Asher a quick look, as if confirming to make sure the he didn't want any first before he started putting the tea packets away.

"Y'know, Isaac's been getting pretty good at helping with this kind of stuff lately," Elliot mused, continuing to keep an ear out for the sound of overly boiled water. "I'm still way better at making food, but he's able to do a lot with the presentation of it. We're starting to make a really good team in that regard! You trained him well, didn't you?"

That wording was enough to get Elliot blushing. Seriously, Asher, you needed to stop! Nevertheless, Elliot tried to roll with it, even with the blush creeping across his face. "W-well, at the same time, I wouldn't want to make you do anything you didn't want to do. I mean, its nice enough that you woke out of a sound sleep to come visit me," Elliot said. "The main thing I want you to do is be happy, okay?" This kid also needed to stop! Maybe it was the crush at work here, but its was still impressive how Elliot managed to keep being so sweet.

At Asher's semi-reaction, Elliot shrugged and put a tea bag in his cup. "I'll make sure this one's nice and good for you, okay? Until then, just, uh, just keep poking that one. Yeah. You're doing great," he added, a little uncertain about how Asher was "training" but figuring it was a better idea than risking breaking more teacups. Unless he could break them by poking them. Considering how buff Kinkakumon was, Elliot could easily see that being the case.

And then rather than continuing, Asher suddenly retracted his hand. That was weird. "Or stopping. Stopping works to," he said, more a nervous repetition to himself than a direct acknowledgment towards Asher. He still hadn't put 1 and 1 together to get 2 yet, but he had the feeling something was troubling Asher if he kept suddenly starting and stopping. Was he mad about something? No, that didn't seem to be the case. He was smiling! Although some of his word choice was a little weird.

Like Isaac being a natural. That got Elliot snickering a little, before he just plain started losing it. "Oh man, then you do not know my brother, he gasped between laughs. "He used to be a total trainwreck in the kitchen! Like, he didn't ever really go there much in the first place, but back when he did something used to always get knocked over. And back when we used to do a lot of coloring, he couldn't even draw a straight line. With a ruler!" That made it kind of funny that he was dating such an art nerd, huh?

"But he's really been trying his best. I mean, the job's already become important to him. Especially now that shopping season's almost here. He's been running himself ragged looking for the perfect gifts for Maia lately. And y'know, he can be really hard to motivate sometimes without lighting the right fire under his butt. So thanks for that," he added. Sure, Maia deserved most of the praise for that, but Asher was important too here!