xp_logs | Forge & Angelo: Moving out (Wednesday afternoon)

Backdated to Wednesday afternoon

Forge finishes moving out of his shared suite, and reminisces a bit with his soon-to-be-former roommate.

Forge folded another shirt over his arm, making a halfhearted attempt to smooth out wrinkled before just shrugging and dropping it into a box with others just like it. He glanced down and snapped his fingers twice, and the mechanical platform that the box was resting on buzzed and puffed out jets of compressed air, rising up to his eye level to allow him to tape the box shut and mark "SHIRTS" on the side. Two more snaps and a gesture of his thumb, and the platform hovered past him and out into the common area, depositing the box on a larger platform. All in all, it looked more like an automated factory assembly line than moving day.

"Only you would make hovercraft to move out with", came a dryly amused voice from behind him, where Angelo was leaning against the door frame, watching this process.

Forge jumped slightly, then calmed himself and looked over to Angelo. "Oh, hey," he said sheepishly. "Yeah, I'd lug boxes around, but Amelia's still got me on this whole 'no lifting stuff' profile. Being one of the, like, five people here without some kind of healing factor sucks at times."

While the outward signs of Forge's injuries of the previous month had faded, save for the barely-perceptible stitches along his left side under his shirt, he was still moving slowly and occasionally wincing when he'd twist or bend the wrong way. "Yeah, um..." he slowly said as he scratched his hand through his hair. "Crystal and I have kind of, well, moved in together and... you know how it is..."

"Yeah, I kind of figured", he said easily. "When you didn't show up back here an' all, it made sense. 's a proper actual livin' together thing, then?"

Forge gave a one-armed shrug to match his look of slight perplexity. "I'm not even sure. It started with her coming back here after I got hurt to take care of me, and then she started the Red X training, and things just kind of..." he broke off with a goofy grin. "Oh, who am I trying to kid? It's pretty awesome."

Angelo could only laugh at him for that expression. "Yeah, awesome's the word. An' she's got the royal teleporter, for goin' back an' forth... wonder if she's told Medusa yet", he finished mischievously.

"Don't remind me," Forge groaned. "The Queen seems to know everything. The spy network between royal siblings would put Pete's to shame, I tell you. But I haven't received the Royal Talking-To since January, so all is well on that score. I hope." He paused, looking worried for a moment. "I don't think Blackagar can challenge me to a duel for his sister-in-law's honor. He's a scary dude, even without the kingliness."

"I don't think he'd do that if Medusa didn't want him to", Angelo tried to reassure him, possibly not too effectively. "Wouldn't want to make her mad."

Forge nodded. "You'd think the guy who can blow up Everest with a belch would be more frightening, especially when compared to the lamest mutant power ever - oh god, never tell her I said that - but I've seen Medusa do her Queen thing. It's scary. Like, Cable stopping a tsunami scary."

"She's very good at it", came the solemn agreement. "An' her mutant power's actually surprisin'ly versatile."

"Unique at least," Forge agreed, taping another box shut and marking it "TECHNICAL MANUALS: Aa-Ah" and sliding it onto another hovering platform. "Never seen record of another trichokinetic manifestation, although I'm not ruling out Monet as a passive case. That girl's hair is genuinely terrifying."

Looking around at his now-empty room, Forge walked over and smirked at the Texas flag hanging on the wall. Casually he took it down and folded it, revealing a hinged metal panel on the wall. "This used to be a laundry chute," he explained, pulling the door open with a hiss of escaping gas and reaching inside to produce two bottles of beer, slightly frosted with ice. "I remodeled a tad," he said as he tossed one to Angelo.

Angelo caught it easily, if helped by his own mutation, and raised an eyebrow. "I might just have t'steal this room before anyone else moves in. They can have the other one. Anythin' else I should know about, or is it just how to keep that workin'?"

"Peltier cooler, runs off the house current. How do you think I kept myself in a constant supply of Red Bull all this time?" Forge replied with a smile and a raising of his bottle to his soon-to-be-former roommate. "Now the challenge is just to hide it from Crystal. God save us all from a hyperactive aerokinetic."

Angelo toasted him back with a grin, then drank with relish. "Good luck with that."