xp_logs | Crystal and Kyle - Revelations, backdated

Yes, it is another backdated log from me. After waiting to see if Crystal will say anything on her own, Kyle seeks her out to discover what exactly happened between Crystal and Logan in the gym. Kyle gets the full story and even more than he bargained for.

Kyle figured he'd had very nearly the best few weeks of his life. New workout partner, funny dinners, he got to be the subject of a bet, and then, on top of everything else, he got to be a hero. Twice over, if he counted the emergency donation to Marius.

It wasn't that nothing could go wrong, it's that if it did, he wasn't going to be upset. So, he felt brave enough to ask questions, because even if Crystal took it badly, it wouldn't ruin the good week he'd already had.

Besides, he was pretty sure she was reasonable, even if she was pretty quiet, and a kind of polite he didn't quite understand. Maybe, he thought, he could get -that- cleared up too.

Crystal sat under a tree, leaning against it, reading from a textbook she was holding on her knees. At first, she hadn't been a fan of jeans, but Crystal had quickly discovered that they were useful for sitting on the ground. Plus, she could sit with her knees pulled up, something quite unproper to do when one was wearing a short skirt.

It wasn't hard to find Crystal, once Kyle put his mind to it. Just some grounds walking, and he never really minded that anyway. Once he caught sight of her, he slowed his pace, trying to figure out how best to approach the question.

He had the definite idea that his usual tactic of bursting in with random questions would go over badly. He finally decided that explaining why he wanted to know was safest. At worst, he'd get rained on. That wasn't so bad, right?

"Hi..." he started, as he got close enough to be heard. "Um." Kyle ran a hand through his hair, and tried to not look half as stupid as he felt. "Can I ask you, um, what might be a stupid or annoying question? I mean, you can totally say 'I don't want to talk about it' or something..."

Crystal turned to face Kyle, wondering what his question could be. Although she hadn't done so for a few weeks, she had paid occasional visits to play videogames in his suite, and they had spoken before, but he had never seemed the type to request permission to ask a question. "Yes, Kyle, you may ask me," she said in a friendly tone, leaving out the part about "of course you can ask me anything."

Kyle sat down, mostly in order to keep from digging his toes in the ground. "Um. Okay, so, Ms. Munroe had to tell me about the thing, you know, with Logan?" He explained. "Because Logan and I had a teacher, mentor, like, Obi Wan and Luke thing going, only with more growls and less lightsabers, and I was just, you know, what the heck happened? Because all she said was that something happened."

"I am not sure what Ms. Munroe told you," she said in a calm voice, "but if you are speaking with me about it, surely you know that the gym doors were damaged because Logan was thrown through them, and surely you know that I was the one who caused that to happen. What exactly did she tell you?"

"Not a whole heck of a lot." Kyle said. "Which is why I'm asking. She said that you guys had some kind of.. I think she used the word altercation." He shrugged, and shook his head. He'd been so focused on the Logan part of the conversation with Ms. Munroe that he hadn't quite paid attention to the part about Crystal. "I knew it was Logan. The whole hallway smelled like pissed off angry Logan."

Crystal took a deep breath, considering what to say. "You say that Logan was your mentor," she said carefully. "You were able to work well with him then, I assume. He was able to treat someone in a proper manner."

Kyle gave Crystal a long skeptical look. "Well, sometimes. Sometimes he was decent and I learned stuff. Sometimes he went on about honor and dignity and crap that I don't -get- his reasons behind, and sometimes he called me pup and just spent a day assuming I was too stupid for words." He let out a frustrated almost-growling sigh. "And then there were the days he was convinced I had the same issues he did. Only, hey, you know, I don't -have- metal knives in my hands and I don't have amnesia."

Crystal continued looking at Kyle, trying to make sense of what he had just said. "So... sometimes he was nice to you and other times he was not. Well, he was nice to me maybe two times since I have been here. The rest of the time, he was... well, I am sure you know how he is." She let out a small sigh. "He insulted me, Kyle. He was rude to my sister and he said rather horrid things to her about me in a horrid way. I went to speak with him about it, he was nasty to me, and I did things I should not have done."

"Yeah, he's not exactly.. yeah. And .. " Kyle shrugged again. "So, basically he was an ass. Yeah, why am I not surprised?" He wasn't, not really. Logan was exactly the opposite of a patient person. "So, basically, he said something totally rude and stupid, and you got mad at him and chucked him through the doors?"

Crystal shook her head. "No, what happened was much more than that on both counts. It was not just that he said something 'totally rude and stupid', he went above that and has been behaving in an inappropriate manner for quite some time...and although I have considered making a post about my involvement, I am not quite sure of how the students would react to the course of action I chose to take. I am not stupid, Kyle, I know that rumors spread quite fast here. Do not worry, by the end of the day, everyone will know that I was involved."

Now he was offended. Like he couldn't keep a secret. "Uh. If you mean that you think I'm gonna say anything, you totally need to think about that again." She didn't even have a good reason to think that, except lame assumptions, Kyle thought. "I don't rat people out. I'd, you know, explain but that would mean spilling, and that's like, totally the opposite of proving my point. If you don't want me to talk, I don't talk."

"People hear things, Kyle," Crystal responded, keeping her voice calm. "I am sorry for implying that you would say anything. I know that you knew about the fact that Jennie was missing but the other students remained unaware of the situation. How am I to know whether or not Ms. Munroe will choose to tell anyone else about what I did?"

"I knew Jennie was missing, but that's different.. Just about everyone more or less knew, because.. well, just, because." Kyle explained, trying to keep his voice low. He could be discreet. He knew he could. And now it was important. He had to. "I don't think she told anyone else, but I bet you could ask her. Odds are, she told me because she figured it was important for me to know so I wouldn't think they'd canned Logan for no good reason."

Crystal decided to drop the subject of Jennie's disappearance. There was missing and then there was missing, and she had taken what Kyle had said in one of his emails to her to mean that he had known more than the other students had known. "Still, I do not see why she had to mention my name in conjunction with the fact that Logan was fired," she said, making sure to keep her voice in a calm, steady tone.

Crystal glanced away for a moment, then sighed and looked back at Kyle. "Logan should have been fired before. As far as I am concerned, what happened between us in the gym was not the reason he was fired, it simply brought the reasons he was fired to the attention of the staff. He should not have treated students or guests the way that he did."

Kyle did not have nearly the grasp on calm that Crystal did, and stifled back a growl, biting his tongue in the process. "For the love of God, do you just not -get- that they're adults, we're kids, and you don't get to know the reason for everything?" He covered his face with his hand. "God, no wonder Forge got all huffy whenever someone brought you up. Maybe she thinks people have a right to know, and that you don't have a right to get to say if they don't. Maybe she wanted me to know. Who cares? You're my age, Ms. Munroe's like, twice that, and she's seen a lot of crap then either of us put together."

Twisting, Kyle pointed down in the direction of the boathouse. "You know Nate, right? Works his ass off to save people's lives. Saved mine, for no good reason other than it needed saving. Hell, twice even. Mr. Marko too, and Sam, and Shiro, and Mr. Summers. And Logan too, if I remember right." Now he was starting to snap and snarl a bit, and he gritted his teeth, and curled his hands into tight fists.

"Yeah, Logan shouldn't have been teaching anyone, except maybe me, and maybe not even that. You know what? A bunch of people who put their asses on the line to save asses like mine get to fuck up sometimes and as long as nobody gets dead we shut up and deal, because you know what? They saved an entire goddamn city."

As Crystal spoke, continuing to maintain her calm, collected demeanor, she slowly rose from the ground until her eyes were level with Kyle's. "Do you really believe that I am unaware that the staff members here continually go out and save people? That I do not realize that they constantly risk their own lives for others?

"I am sorry, Kyle, but that does not give them the right to mistreat others." She shook her head slowly. "Honestly, Kyle, I entered this school full of trust and respect for the people here. I assumed that the way Logan chose to run his class and his attitude towards me and other students was accepted by the school. Therefore, I did not say anything about what was happening until it was too late. Now, people want to know why I did not say anything sooner. Which is it, Kyle? Am I wrong for not questioning or am I wrong for questioning?"

"Logan was wrong. Totally, if he was treating you like crap." Kyle agreed, though his words were still tight and he tone just a little angry. "I'm saying, maybe they were too busy doing other things to go and review the gym tapes, or that they trusted him." He help up a hand, and shut his eyes, trying to calm down. Now was not the time, he thought, to go all grr-grr-argh on someone who'd already gotten the double-dose of it from Logan. "The funny thing is, at least here, they listen if you say anything. Back home, nobody ever did. But public schools where I came from, nobody cares."

"Kyle, I have never attended a public school," Crystal told him. "In fact, before I came here, I had never attended a school at all. I was taught by tutors, at home, so just this " with a sweeping motion, she indicated the mansion and the school grounds "is all new for me. School. Classes. Classmates. Roommates. The dining hall." Not to mention pirates and clowns and meatloafapillers. "My experiences here gave no indication that the staff members here would listen if I said anything. Now I have been informed otherwise." Repeatedly. "I did not mean to upset you; I am sorry for doing so."

Kyle looked sheepish, if not entirely embarassed. "Sorry. I .. have a bad habit of saying stuff before I think about it. " He rubbed the back of his neck, and tried to remember exactly what all he had said. "I think sometimes that it's easy for most of us, because we've all had to deal with public schools, or at least schools where you've got thirty other kids just like you in the same place." He shrugged, and pointed a thumb back at himself. "Before here, I was maybe getting C's, if I was lucky. Because when you're the loud annoying kid, the teachers don't have time to settle you down and make sure you understand how to figure out quadratic equations or whatever. So it's easy to forget when people aren't looking at this as how the classes are way smaller, but are totally not used to having any classmates at
all."

Crystal nodded and gave Kyle a small smile, relieved that he seemed to be calming down. She was not about to get into a fight with anyone else in any way, shape, or form...especially Kyle. That was all she needed, right? to be known as the girl who attacked ferals. "Yes, I know that most of the students here consider Xavier's to be a welcome change from their previous ways of life," Crystal said. "I am glad that the school is able to provide a better situation for them."

Kyle's outburst, and the change in subject had confused him briefly, and he scratched his head. "How did we end up talking about... oh, right. Logan was stupid, and Ms. Munroe told me you were involved." He said, expression changing from slightly confused to a slight frown. "And you're all worried about it. Seriously, if you're worried about what people would think? You'd probably get cookies from some people. I'm surprised Mr. Marko hasn't offered you a cake or sent you a card yet. That whole people talk thing? Everybody knows how much they don't
get along."

Crystal let out a small sigh. "Actually, I was already planning on making an announcement. I am sure that people are already talking somewhat, and I should let the students know something." The problem was, what should she tell? Everything? Just some? And how to word it? "However, I should not receive cookies, cakes, and cards for using my powers against a teacher."

"You know we have a journal community thingy for that, that the teachers can't read, right?" Kyle said. "And you shouldn't maybe, but you know, Logan's a hard guy to like, and an easy guy to hate. If you were standing up for yourself, teacher or not, some people might think you did the right thing."

"Yes, I am aware of the student journal community," Crystal told Kyle. "I read your post about noticing the gym doors and the" keeping a straight face here was quite hard but she managed to do it "Logan smell. I did not have to do what I did. At the time, I believed that it was the right course of action to take." She frowned slightly, considering what she should say. "Kyle, do you really want to know what I did?"

"Oh, right. Duuuur." Kyle said, annoyed with himself. He'd -made- a post to it and she'd had to have seen it. "It's really up to you. I mean, I'm curious and all, but it's your thing. And if the teachers haven't said, like "Crystal you have to tell everyone exactly how you threw Logan through a door.", then it's, you know, it's -yours-." It was a hard thing to try to explain, he thought. He was totally curious, because he couldn't picture it, but at the same time, didn't want to go stomping all over Crystals territory.

Crystal took a deep breath. "I altered the air pressure around his
lungs, hit him with a bolt of lightning, and created an extremely
large gust of wind that sent him smashing through the gym doors. I
believe you already knew about that last part."

Kyle winced visibly, as if he had a good idea of how much that might
hurt. "Ow. Lightening." He was impressed, and intimidated a little.
"I, um, knew a guy once, with lightening powers, and ooh, that hurts.
I mean, it's a whole lot of ow. And stinky. Burning hair and, that
explains why the pissed-off Logan smell was also kinda crispy Logan
smell too." Not a lot of burning hair smell though, which in
hindsight, seemed a little weird, until he realized that Crystal had
blown Logan through the doors, and probably gotten most of the smell
away in the process. "Man, remind me to get like, the list of things I
should never do to you so I can avoid that. I mean, not that I think
you would.. or. " Kyle covered his face with his hand. "Ignore that? I
talk stupid sometimes."

Crystal let out a quite audible sigh. "That, Kyle, is why I have not
said anything yet. I do not want the students to think that I am going
to run around the school using my powers against them. I have no
intention of hurting you, Kyle, or of hurting anyone else here."

"I was making a stupid joke." Kyle explained. "It's .. I talk without
thinking. A lot. I'm working on it." He ran a hand through his hair.
"I know I'm nowhere even close to as cranky as Logan. I know I'm safe.
And besides," he said, now grinning. "I mean, if you were gonna zap
me, I'd have to earn it."

Kyle was certainly taking this a lot better than Crystal had thought
he would. "I cannot think of anything that you could do that would
result in having me 'zap' you," Crystal informed Kyle. Certainly the
boy had horrid taste in dinner entrees, but most people around here
had odd food preferences as well. The other ones were just commonly
accepted as acceptable, even if they seemed appalling to Crystal.

"Oh, I could." Kyle said. "I could think of three or four off the top
of my head. I'm good at that. I wouldn't say 'em, and I mean, anything
I could think of now I wouldn't mean anyway, so I wouldn't say it." He
grinned again. "America's funny like that. Other places, you learn
table manners and how to be extra super polite to everyone. Here, you
get table manners and maybe the extra super polite, but you also know
how to piss everyone within earshot off really fast."

People here knew how to be polite? Perhaps they knew but simply chose
to be impolite. "Trust me, Kyle," Crystal said with a hint of a smile.
"I know how. I simply choose to refrain from speaking to others
in such a manner."

Kyle shook his head. There was knowing how, and knowing -how-, and he
was certain that there were words he'd learned the meaning of at a
young age that Crystal had probably not even heard yet. And that
wasn't even touching on the stuff he'd heard in church as a kid.
"You'd be surprised..." He said. "Anyway. Seriously? People have done
worse. There's a reason there's a running joke about attacking a
teacher or arriving here and waking up in the infirmary. Nobody's
gonna be scared of you just for giving Logan a buttkicking."

Crystal nodded. "Perhaps you are right. I will think about what to
say. I do not want someone to think that I am hiding details about
what happened, but on the other hand I do not want to give out
information that nobody else wants to hear." She offered Kyle a smile.
"Thank you for speaking with me, Kyle. I am glad that you felt
comfortable coming to me with your questions. I can only hope that the
other students will feel the same way."

It was really hard, Kyle thought, to figure out how to react to
someone as formal as Crystal, when he tended to be as informal as
possible himself. "If everyone can live with knowing that Forge blew
himself up, that I bit Sam the first time I met him, and okay, that
doesn't really count because I was brainwashed, and that we've got the
guy who blew up San Diego as a student, I think that they'll be fine
with you." She worried way too much, he decided, about what other
people thought of her.

It would be useless to argue with him, to point out what he had just
said. He had been brainwashed, Julio had been forced. She had known
that such occurances where normal around here and had not been so
concerned until various staff members had launched into their "bad
Crystal" speeches upon her return to the mansion. Lorna
tried to hide it, but Crystal knew that her Geology teacher was
keeping a close eye on her in class.

"I did not know that you had bit anyone or that you had been
brainwashed," Crystal told Kyle. She supposed it made sense, though.
Again, wouldn't that have just been a normal day in the school's
history. "Did these events occur before or after you came to the
school?"

"Before. They're, actually how I got here." Kyle said. "It's kind of
a long story, but, basically, there were some government people, who
were trying to use mutants as weapons. They got Nate when he was a
kid, and tried to get me, only by then, Nate had escaped like, ages
before, and so he was trying to shut them down and got me out." He
looked entirely sheepish about the whole explanation. "I was, um,
kinda freaked out, and ended up biting Sam, and clawing him up a bit."

"Oh, I see." Yes, that explained it. He was one of the
numerous students who had been personally saved by the X-Men, or an
X-Man, something like that. It was like a club, a club to which she
did not belong, and she intended to keep it that way. Crystal wasn't
quite sure what else to say about this. Apparently, yes, she was only
the most recent student to attack a staff member. How wonderful. "I am
sorry to hear that. That does not sound like a pleasant experience for
either you or Mr. Dayspring."

"It, yeah, kinda sucked a lot." Kyle said. "For a while there it
seemed like Nate was pulling my fat out of the frying pan a lot. Or
Sam. Or Mr. Marko." He grinned sheepishly. "You'd think they'd hold
grudges or something, but not really."

Crystal nodded, giving Kyle a small smile. "That is good to hear.
Given the situation, it does not seem like they should have held
anything against you, so it is good to know that they do not."

"No one holds much in the way of grudges here." Kyle said. "Trust me.
There's been -way- worse then just getting mad at Logan." He was
pretty sure Crystal wasn't beliving him, but wasn't sure how to
convince her.

Crystal sighed inwardly. Did they have to go
through this again? "I am not so sure that Logan will decide to
keep from bearing a grudge, but I also doubt that he will attempt to
come near me. Also, I am sorry that you lost your mentor." Although
it sounds to me as you are not very distraught about it.

"Logan doesn't count." Kyle said, leaning in just a little, as if to
make like he was telling a secret. "Logan is crazy." He said, in a
obviously faked whisper. "And, it's okay about the mentor thing. I
don't hate the guy, but seriously, if he's going to be all asstastic
to my classmates, then he shouldn't be teaching anyone. And obviously,
he was a giant jerkwad. And now I'm repeating myself again, and
talking too much. Which, I totally do."

Crystal couldn't help herself: she laughed. And then realized that
she was still floating in the air. Lowering herself to the ground, she
said, "Yes, Kyle, that is what I said earlier. Logan should not be
teaching students. Now, he is now longer acting in a teaching
capacity. I, too, find myself repeating things that I have previously
stated." And the students are much safer. And you do talk a
lot.

Kyle held up a finger, and then his thumb, and joined them together
in a circle. "We could totally go around like this all day, you know?
Logan is crazy, shouldn't be teaching, people won't get mad at you,
except him, because..." He paused, for the sake of dramatic effect.
"Logan? Is crazy." He finished. "And then we'll be crazy, and that's
not only not any fun, it's totally murder on grades. So, totally
abrupt topic shift without trying to make something not make any
sense, what in the heck do you do on Attilan for fun? I mean, is there
like, the Official Attilan Olympic Ping Pong Team? Do you guys -have-
an Olympic team? That'd have be awesome. I mean, in theory, because
you'd get a chance to go, and most people don't." There, he decided.
If that didn't manage to get them off the subject of Logan, nothing
would.

Crystal let out a mental sigh of relief. The topic had been changed,
and she had not been forced into doing so. "I do not know what
everyone else does for fun. I like to dance, ride horses, play musical
instruments, study, and practice using my powers. What do you like to
do for fun? I believe you mentioned something about bowling in an
email."

"I.. climb, and watch wrestling, and read, and beat the pants off
Forge in basketball, and play video games, and ... " He scrunched up
his face, trying to think. "A lot of stuff, and, yeah I bowl, but good
Lord do I ever stink at it." Kyle said. "It's fun, but I am -so- bad
at it. These hands were not for bowling balls made." And the dawn of
what was probably a really bad idea, but he was going to do it anyway
crept out of his brain. "We should go bowling. I mean, you know,
sometime. Because it's fun."

Crystal wasn't so sure that it would be fun, but then again she
hadn't been so sure that video games would be fun, and they really
weren't all that bad. Sure, playing them all of the time was a waste
of time, but playing them every so often wasn't so bad.

"I am restricted to campus for the next two weeks," Crystal told
Kyle, "but if you want to show me the fun of bowling after that, that
would be fine." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Does bowling come
in a portable version? We could have it brought here."

I think I just asked her out. Crap. I totally just did. Now what
do I do? Kyle thought. "No worries. I don't have any -money- for
the next two weeks, so it's all good." Besides, that would give him
two weeks to figure out how to seriously introduce bowling to someone
who'd grown up with catered birthday parties. "Part, of, the whole
bowling thing is going to the bowling alley." He paused, looking
honestly thoughtful. "And we should find, um, I guess the word is
upscale, so, um, an upscale one, because the ones where I grew up?
Pizza that tastes like cardboard with tomato sauce is not cool. No one
likes that." He had some idea of where a decent one might be, in
theory. He just had to ask Forge.

Well, of course they should go to an upscale one, shouldn't they?
Wait... there were upscale and non-upscale bowling alleys?
Interesting. "I know that there is some sort of taboo against field
trips, but students do go off campus so I suppose this should be fine.
I take it that Julio and Angel will come, too? We can see who else
wants to come, but I know that the three of you always do everything
together."

Saved. Thank God. Kyle nodded, relived. Even if it was
-maybe- like a date, it wasn't exactly like one, and he didn't have to
worry about as much. "Well, not quite everything, but yeah, we do a
lot together. Marius and Jennie might want to too. And I dunno if
Marius has ever been bowling." He couldn't remember if Marius had gone
the last time or not. "The field trip thing's just a goofy joke. We
had a bunch of bad luck with them. But stuff like this isn't any
different from the trips out to the city."

"Actually, I believe that the trips into the city are even more like
a field trip than this would be. In fact, they are field trips
of a sort, but I do not think that it would be wise to point this out
to Amanda," Crystal said.

Kyle waved his hands frantically, in a mock-panic. "Don't say the
f-t-words. It invokes the curse." His words were ruined by his
inability to keep a straight face, however, exposing it as a joke
before he even got the first sentence done. "Man, I can't -even- do a
decent Shaggy impression." He sulked. "Okay. So. Bowling, once you're
ungrounded. Which means I have time to find the place we went with
Catseye and her brother. They had pretty decent food, actually. And
didn't give me crazy looks about the feet."

A decent what impression? And that was supposed to be a joke?
Both of them had already said the words "field trip." Crystal wasn't
so sure how decent the food would actually be, but she wasn't going
for the food. She was going to experience new things, to find out what
bowling was like and if it really was fun. "Yes, once I
am...ungrounded. I believe that leaving campus before said ungrounding
would not be a wise course of action for me take."

Kyle nodded, unfolding his legs and standing up. "I can ask Julio and
Angel, definitely. Do you want to ask Jennie? And whichever of us gets
to him first can ask Marius. If you ask Jennie, Marius is pretty
likely to be around." This was likely to end up being one of those
everyone-goes-along outings, but that was okay, he thought. Bowling
was more fun in a group anyway. "Or we can just do some kind of post
to the journals, and see who wants to go. I bet Sooraya's never been
bowling either, or Amara.."