xp_logs | Artie and Layla, Friday afternoon

Layla's objective for the rest of the week and weekend was to find her way around the mansion. She knew it wasn't exactly labyrinthine, but she couldn't help but think of it as being so anyway. There was something about the sheer size of the place that made her eyes cross when she thought about figuring out what was where. Xavier's Home for Wayward Mutants was bigger than any school she'd ever gone to. Fuck, it looked like a building on a college campus.

It hadn't really taken very long for Layla to give up on what room was where in there, really. She figured she'd think up a game plan to conquer that later. For now she was standing on the lip of the big fountain out in the backyard, if you could call this a "yard." No one was out here, probably all busy with being weird ass super secret heroes or some shit like that. That was never going to seem normal, was it? Layla looked up at the sky and took a deep breath. "God, this place is like perky cheerleader in so many ways," she muttered to herself, tone dry and sarcastic.

It was almost like clockwork. New person moves in and the next thing you know, you're finding them lost and confused in the quarry going "...but I just wanted to find the kitchen and have some toast." At least Layla seemed to have settled for someplace more convenient than the quarry. Artie clapped his hands to get Layla's attention and waved, heading across the lawn toward her.

"Lost?" he asked when he was close enough for her to hear his speech synthesiser.

Clapping his hands did its job and an uncannily well-placed foot allowed her to spin around on the balls of her feet without unbalancing herself and falling off the lip of the fountain. Was his phone talking to her? Weird. Maybe he had laryngitis. Or no tongue. Or no vocal chords. Or really bad scarring from burns...which somehow didn't burn him on the outside. Layla disregarded all that for now since she could just ask him afterward. "Nope, not lost. That's why I'm out here." She pointed to the mansion, "Big ass house-slash-school-slash-secret lair," then she pointed to the woods, "lots o' trees." She tried to spin around to point at the fountain but this time she misstepped and fell off. She was lucky enough to land on the cement rather than in the water, but she banged her knee, scraped up her tights a bit and landed on her ass. She pointed to the fountain with a grimace on her face anyway. "Fountain." She pointed to herself. "Klutz with annoyingly long legs. See? Totally know where I am. 'On my ass' is a super easy location to find."

He snickered and offered her a hand up. "you ok?" Artie asked, not bothering with more than a text box in the air this time. "so, what's ur deal, powerwise?"

Layla's eyes went a little wide with the floating words, but she managed to take his hand and stand up without getting too wrapped up in the combination of 'what the hell?' and 'dude, cool!' going on in her head. "Thanks. And yeah, I'm fine. It happens. I have no idea how spiders, who have eight legs that are all like ten times longer than their body, aren't super klutzes. They scamper in their creepy but graceful way and me? I've got two legs and they only cooperate like half the time." She sighed, dusting the dirt off her ass. "Oh, and I make zombies." She shrugged with a tilt of her head. "Eh...give life to dead things, make zombies....to-may-toe, to-mah-toe, y'know? Anyway, it's fucking creepy half the time when it happens and I dunno how to make it not happen so I landed here, Land of the Super Secret Superhero Lair!" She used her most dramatic voice for the last.

"What's up with the floating words? Can you make other stuff that's not really there show up like illusions and shit or just like words? And how come you don't talk? Was that rude? People claim I'm rude because I ask questions but it's not a rude thing, I just wanna know's all. 'Cause, y'know, there are hysterical mutes and people who are really mute but I don't know why and deaf people don't talk but I'm assuming you're not deaf since you seem to hear me just fine. Or someone could have stabbed you in the throat and fucked up your vocal chords or you could just have laryngitis." By now Layla's words were coming in a more rapid-fire succession, which was only slightly distracted as she turned her head and looked for a scar on the guy's throat.

"See how my mind runs away with things? Always better to just ask a question than make this shit up on my own. Otherwise you'd be like a former street kid who fell in with the mafia but decided down the road that you had some scruples and they didn't want to risk you talking so they tried to cut out your vocal chords and tongue and they thought you were retarded or something so they figured 'hey, kid can't write down what he knows anyway' and left you for dead only The Bald Guy found you with his brain and patched you up and took you in and if the mob comes looking for you he just sics the superheroes on 'em."

Artie just stood and stared at her, slightly taken aback by the flood of words. It was like talking to a four foot tall hyper blonde version of Wade. He settled for answering just some of what she'd said. "can't talk b/c my mutation fucked up my throat. And i try to avoid the mafia. people i know always said that was the smartest thing to do." Actually, they'd said anyone who plays with the mafia will probably end up dead, even if all they were doing was dealing crack for them but well, everyone knew someone, down in the tunnels, who knew someone who'd been killed by either the police or the mafia. Or both!

The rest of what she'd said sank in. "wait, what? ZOMBIES?!" He supplemented that with a picture and asked "those? what. the. fuck. man."

Layla shrugged. "Sorta. I don't think they try to eat your brains or gnaw off your arm or anything. But first they're dead and then they're not. Roadkill kinda looks like movie zombies sometimes. They don't last long with the bleeding and the screaming and usually the smooshed rib cage and shit. I never made a person come back to life so I might just make animals come back." She moved her hands as if spreading a banner through the air and said in a wistful tone of voice, "'Layla Miller, helping the life challenged since twenty-eleven.' It has a ring to it, right? I could totally have a future as one of those hack self-help gurus only I'll make like dead birds fly and shit as proof of my amazing healing power given to me by God or whatever."

Artie made a face in reply and, because there was a finite number of words he ever really wanted to string together, asked the next question in images. Layla touched a steak, followed by an equals sign and then tiny, screaming steak zombie, with arms and legs and a question mark and then the same series of images, with a half-water melon replacing the steak. Finally Lalya and another equals sign and an image of Tatiana, captioned "former student", followed by Tatiana touching a steak and a werecowmonster. "similar?"

There was a decent amount of time that passed while Layla was left standing there really, really confused about what was going on. She was working her way through what the hell he was talking about when she suddenly burst out laughing. "I think it has to still be an animal with like a heart and shit. I don't think I'm gonna make your dinner come back to life." But damn did she want to now. Terrorizing the residents with tiny little steak zombies running around. "And I don't hafta touch it. It's like, um...like I have a really bad day, right? And I'm all pissed off and shit and then I walk by a dead bird that like flew into a window or something. And then the bird breathes and gets up and flies away. And, um, I'm definitely never going to make your watermelon come to life.

"Can you draw? 'Cause you should so draw comics."

He was deeply relieved about the lack of impending steak zombies. "wow. that sucks if u don't even need to touch them. and yeah. i can draw or..." Artie flashed up an image of himself taking a picture of one of his images.

Layla pointed to the spot where Artie's image of himself photographing his projection was now fading. "That is cheating. You could trace your image thingums. That's still cheating but not as bad." She rubbed at her ass where it was a little sore from her fall and frowned. "Okay, so seriously, how 'bout you tell me what they put in the KoolAid around here? 'Cause everyone is really...enthusiastic and that's cool and all but if they're just all drugged I'd rather know now. 'Cause I'm sure the happy pills make for an awesome existence and all, but my parents weren't flower children and I don't wanna be a hippie, y'know?"

"not cheating!" he exclaimed and frowned. "boredom and insanity, i think." He held up an image of the X-Men in the danger room and on comms, following it with one of Kyle and Lex with bleeding head wounds and then them with crazy eyes. "join the X-Men. get shot at lots. go crazy."

She reached over and patted Artie on the head. "Fine, fine, it's not cheating. It's just skipping steps and jumping the curb. Which is like cheating, but more badass and dignified and shit." Layla grinned at him. "Dude, that makes so much sense. You couldn't keep trying to be a superhero unless you were nuts. But I dunno if they count as superheroes anyway. I mean, do they wear capes? Everyone knows you need a cape to be a superhero. Like Superman. Only without the tighty whities on the outside of your pants. That just gets you locked in the drunk tank or a straight jacket because who else decides red underwear over their pants is a good idea?"

He couldn't punch her. So Artie settled for stepping back and glaring. "mind the hands."

Layla had a personal bubble issue herself, but it had more to do with hugging and prolonged contact than things like people touching her occasionally. Occasionally being the key there. Instead of voicing her sympathy, however, she said, "Aw, do you have a short complex? It's cool, I know some people dig short guys."

"You know what? Screw you, Layla. And I'm not interested in some people who 'dig short guys', either," Artie said and glared some more. He got that he was short. You didn't need to rub it in with the head pats and condescending remarks.

She held up a finger, "A, you need to grow a fucking sense of humor." She held up another, "B, if you're so damn sensitive about your height then you're gonna get shit for it all your life. And C," a third finger went up, "no thanks on the screwing. I've got nothin' against guys who're shorter than me, you're just not my type. So, D, if you can't laugh at yourself everyone else will do it for you and you're gonna be a real fucking drag for anyone to hang out with so I hope you enjoy your life of solitude, dude. It's one thing when you have no control over whether or not you've got friends but something entirely different if you just ask like a douche for essentially no reason."

Artie just stared. "u got all that from..." and he flashed up an image of one stick figure patting another on their head, both crossed out by a red circle with a line through it. "Jeeze."

"Nope, I got that from you going straight to 'dick response' when I made a joke about you having a short complex, which pretty much reinforced me being right." She stopped, thought about it for a second, then frowned. "But that could've been my bad since there's kind of a lack of vocal tone with the floaty words and shit. But the 'screw you' really doesn't help your case for me overreacting." She tapped her chin thoughtfully and shrugged. "Whatever, you have issues with being short and touched, I don't wanna cuddle and am guaranteed not to hit on you. So our bases are covered and we can move on without you deciding I need to be screwed, deal?"

Artie gave her an image of a 'you started it!' gif Doug had once posted (he'd about hit his limit on words and could feel the headache building) before nodding and showing one of them shaking hands. "deal."

"Awesome, c'mon." She gestured vaguely in the direction of...well, she wasn't sure what it was but it was off in the distance and near what looked like water from here. "I'm gonna hijack you and pretend you're showing me around when really you're probably going to make half of it up or say nothing while I make it up and you rate my version." Layla grinned and made like she was gonna poke him in the side to get him walking though her finger came nowhere near making contact.

Artie nodded and gave a thumbs up. That sounded like a plan.