Taranee hurried as fast as she could to get to their meeting place. Normally being a late wouldn't be a problem but that didn't extend to being late every time the team was going to meet up and especially her excuses for why she kept being late. She actually coming from being with her boyfriend, Lucas, as usual. She had met him back at a dance class and the two clicked right off the bat. Ever since then, the two were practically inseparable. It got to the point where Taranee was nearly abandoning her friends to hang out with the guy. Will had approached her about this and the fire guardian promised to balance friends and her boyfriend. Taranee was trying her best to do so but found herself running late to meet up with her friends. She never tried to be late as the two of them would be having too much fun together and end up forgetting to check the time.

'I really need to stop being so late,' frowned Taranee as she neared the location. 'I've been late for missions and for just hanging out. I know the others are sick of it, but I am trying. It's not like none of them have never been late because of a boy.'

Once Taranee had arrived, the others were there looking pissed as usual. At least Irma and Cornelia were while Hay Lin had her back turned to the other two and was using her wind powers to create a small swirlwind. Crap. "Sorry, I'm late. I got caught up in..."

"...Lucas again," interrupted Cornelia. "You're 13 minutes late, Taranee."

"I know. I'm sorry. Lucas brought over this new CD from..."

"I really don't care," Cornelia rubbed her temple. "We're supposed to be practicing and we don't have all the time in the world to wait for you. You're always so late these days and it's all because of that stupid Lucas."

Taranee frowned at Cornelia's words and wished Will was the one giving the lecture. Cornelia wasn't the type to be completely gentle with her thoughts and said just about whatever she wanted unlike Will who knew just what to say. Taranee didn't wish to fight with any of her fellow guardians, but at the moment she felt like the older woman was being way out of line.

"First off, Lucas isn't stupid," said Taranee crossing her arms. "And secondly, who put you in charge? Last time I checked it was Will."

"Will's sick and she put me in charge since some of us actually know how to be on time."

The fire guardian was surprised by this revelation as Cornelia would often question Will's leadership skills which irritated Will. Cornelia could often be a little too eager to do things her way and would sometimes do things without thinking it through. Why Will would put Cornelia in charge? She couldn't help but to think she'd be more suited as the most rational one of the group besides Will. Then again her being late probably had something to do with it.

"Well I'm here now and I'm only..."

"You're still late," she held up a hand. "Just go practice with Hay Lin. She has a good idea for something dealing with fire and wind. Maybe you two can handle how to work it. Make sure you start small and work your way up."

Taranee just headed over to Hay Lin who greeted her a little more nicely than Cornelia did. "Hey, Taranee. I was wondering when you would get here. I've been dying to try out this cool thing I thought up last night."

"Okay tell me how to do it or rather what you have in mind."

Hay Lin then began telling her about her idea to create a, for now, small whirlwind with fire spiraling around it sort of like a tornado with fire instead of wind and eventually they could make it bigger someday. As Hay Lin was explaining how they would do this, the fire guardian felt her phone vibrating in her back pocket. Her fingers instantly flew to it and found that Lucas had texted her. She could heard the wind guardian clear her throat.

"Are you listening, Taranee?"

"Yeah, keep going," she said waving her hand. "I'm still listening."

Hay Lin kept going and had barely said more than one sentence when the older female started giggling. She said she was listening, but she didn't seem to be. When she asked about what she had just said, Taranee would repeat it but it still didn't make her feel any better. She still felt as if whatever Lucas had to say was more important than what she had to say. She cleared her throat even louder but this Taranee didn't even answer her or look at her. Irritated, she grabbed the phone from the guardian and tossed it.

"Hey!"

"Don't hey me! Stay off that dumb phone!" She yelled uncharacteristically. "I'm sorry. It's just that you keep giggling and not looking at me!"

"I was paying attention!" Taranee went to go retrieve her cell phone and examined it. Good it wasn't broken.

"No you weren't. You were looking at your stupid phone! Don't you know how important this is?"

"I know team building is important, but I'm telling. I was listening to what you were saying the whole time."

"Then what's the last thing I said then?" She asked crossing her arms.

"You said I had to make sure the fire wouldn't burn."

"No. That's what I said 5 minutes ago! I was talking about when we ever decide to make it bigger it has to..." Hay Lin scowled when she noticed that the older female was back on her phone. She threw her hand up in the air. "You know what? Never mind! I give up! Why did you come if you didn't want to do anything in the first place?"

Taranee ignored her and continued to text well into it was time for the girls to head home. Cornelia tried getting her attention by using a vine to crawl around her like a snake to scare her, but she ignored the feeling completely. It wasn't until Irma used water was when it snapped the young woman out of her trace.

"What was that for?!" She got no answer as the rest of them went home. Great now she had to dry off and on her own as well. She used her fire powers to quickly dry herself before going back home. They didn't have to wet her in order to get her attention. Taranee just quickly shrugged it off questioning why they did so as soon as Lucas sent her another text message.


"...and then she completely ignored Hay Lin!" complained Cornelia. The earth guardian was speaking to Will over the phone and was telling Will everything that happened. "Can you believe her?"

"As of late, yeah," Will had noticed as of late that Taranee's borderline obsession with the guy. She was always texting him and barely trying to participate in conversations. She would always talk about him, she was always late to missions, meet ups, or anything else she was supposed to show up for. None of them could see what was so great about him that she'd be so obsessed with him and either skip meet ups or was incredibly late. As a matter of fact, none of them had ever seen the guy before.

"She's getting really bad with getting late, Will," said Cornelia. "You really need to be more strict with her."

"What do you want me to do? Take away her powers temporarily?"

"You should," said the blonde woman.

"You know I can't do that. At least I don't think I can. Oh and Cornelia? You're doing again."

"What?"

"I'm the leader remember?"

"I know that but maybe..."

"Look I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." Will hung up the phone. She was really tired of Cornelia constantly either questioning her leadership skills or trying to tell her how to run things. None of them even sounded like suggestions. They sounded like orders. At the end of the day, she was the one who lead the group not her.

She knew Taranee's being late was annoying and odd for her and she didn't need Cornelia telling her that. She often wondered why the blue haired woman would put a guy over her friends for. It didn't seem like Taranee to do this. Irma might but even then she wouldn't be as bad as Taranee was going at the moment. She had already spoken to the taller female about it before and she had promised to start trying to be less late, but it didn't seem to work. Taranee was still late, though only by a little less though even then there were times where she was extremely late or didn't show up. Will was concerned about her best friend. It wasn't like her to show up late or not come at all. There was only one thing to do now. As soon as she was feeling better, she'd meet this Lucas guy and talk with him about Taranee.