[identity profile] x-toplasm.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] xp_logs
Renee ventures outside for the first time and meets Kyle, who is a very good ambassador to this new student.

Ever since she'd set foot in the mansion, Renee'd found herself looking out the windows. She promised herself she wasn't just going to run again, because there was a chance for help here, a chance to understand what she could do and who she was. So she wasn't going to run. Or at least, not far. As soon as she was cleared to move around the facility on her own, she was out the door. A pit stop in the kitchen netted her a bottle of water, then she crossed the porch and headed north toward the woods. Even if it was just trees, they were new trees. Interesting trees. Outside trees.

Outside trees that occasionally were full of people - in this case, a tall blond man whose favorite reading spot (because reading was best done in private where the only interruption was text messages from the girlfriend) was a tree limb fifteen feet up. Even with ear buds and an iPod, he could make out the noises of someone heading his way -there were only a handful of people who could move quietly enough to not be heard by him, and anticipating Angelica or Laurie or even Marius, he dropped down off the branch, only to see a unfamiliar teenager, rather than one of his friends. It didn't wreck his landing - he still hit the ground in a crouch, but with substantially less grace than he might have.

People in trees was not always a surprising thing, but when you weren't expecting it and you were in a brand new place full of people who, you'd been told, had abilities like you'd never seen before, then people leaping out of trees proved to be a very surprising thing. Renee yelped and flinched just hard enough to send water flying out of the bottle and right into her face. Normally she'd have been mortified but it gave her just the shock she needed to get over the other shock and see the person in front of her more clearly. Or at least she thought she was seeing more clearly. She blinked a couple of times, trying to be sure, because... those ears... "Hi," she ventured cautiously.

Definitively not any of the people he was expecting, and Kyle was pretty sure he'd probably just scared a year's growth off one of the new kids. He stood up, and dusted off his hands and then stuck one out offering a handshake. "Sorry 'bout that. I was expecting someone else. I, uh, really didn't mean to scare you. You're Renee, right? Just arrived? I'm Kyle. I... well, this is embarrassing now that I've been an idiot at you. I'm probably gonna be your English teacher."

Renee took a moment while he was speaking to collect herself. Back straight, chin level again. She wasn't scared then. Nope. Total... not scaredness here. "No worries." After a beat--his teeth looked kind of like a vampire's--she reacted to the outstretched hand, reaching out to shake. "Yeah, Renee. You weren't an idiot, though, it's cool. I'm the one running around with no clue where I'm going." Wait, that sounded like she was clueless. Recover! Recover! "It's nice to meet you."

"It's cool, I know better than to throw myself out of trees when I know there's new people just arrived." Kyle said, grinning despite the mild self-deprecation. "One of these days we're gonna give you new peeps a map of the grounds and a map of the buildings, but that probably means, you know, mapping the entire grounds. But in general, so you know there's a treehouse over that way." He pointed over his shoulder. "And a couple of jogging paths that kinda wander around a bit, and don't climb anything with a red or black tape on it, it's due for cutting, and trees falling over while you're in them? So epicly not cool."

Teeth and claws, yeah, and he was a teacher, but this guy seemed pretty cool. He wasn't trying to stop her running around the grounds, anyway, and that alone scored huge points. Her posture started to relax a little, but then her jaw dropped and eyebrows shot up. "Treehouse?" COOL. "I think I'd be OK in a falling tree, though." Challenge, possibly accepted.

Kyle's head tilted sideways, assessing her. "Okay, strong, agile, can't get hurt, flier, or something else I haven't like, considered?" Not that regular people couldn't sometimes -not- get hurt in a falling tree, but that kind of confidence, he was pretty sure she meant the mutant powers. "For the record, agile and I heal fast, on top of the teen wolf package." He grinned, flashing the full set of teeth, pointy and regular.

Oooh, he wanted to know about her friends. Sweet. "Oh, pretty sure you haven't considered this," she said, shoulders lifting with pride. "Maybe not as cool as yours, but it's still pretty cool." She paused, thoughtful for a moment, then frowned. "Am I allowed to use them here, like, outside?" Obviously he couldn't help it what with the teeth and all, but even a school for mutants had to have some kinds of rules about this stuff.

"What, your powers? As long as you're not using them to like, I dunno, beat people up, you're probably safe, unless they're -super- dangerous." Kyle answered. "And by super dangerous I mean like, would hurt someone standing next to you, not like, what Fox News thinks is dangerous."

A brief shadow passed over her face at the mention of powers hurting someone standing next to her, but a blink of her eyes and it was gone. "Nah. I mean, I could, but, nah." Important to mention she could, though. She set her water bottle down and crossed her arms over her chest then, smirking and with eyes closed, fell back into a trust fall.

A translucent blue-green humanoid figure rose out of the ground and caught her by her shoulders. "Tada!" She stood up and, for dramatic effect, summoned a second friend so she had one on each side. "Don't worry, they don't bite unless I tell them to."

Kyle had taken a half-step back when the green person-thing appeared, and was pretty sure the yelp/bark noise was from his mouth, but once the ... "Okay, what -is- that?" He asked. Once it had simply caught the new kid, he had recovered from his instinctive startle reaction. "It doesn't smell like a person, or like anything, and I can see through it. So... weird telekinesis?"

He yelped. Success. His questions were going to be less successful, though. "I dunno, really." She looked over at one of the forms and gave a little shrug. "In California they said they're some kind of energy forms, no minds or anything, but I can't do anything without them, so I don't think it's really like telekinesis, either." Wait. That sounded lame. "I mean, I can do plenty of things without them, but none of the cool stuff." She tilted her head. "They just show up when I ask them to, or when I need them, and they help me."

"Oh, cool." Kyle said, nodding. "No minds, so ... they won't be trying to do your homework for you?" He grinned, and shrugged. "Teacher. Gotta ask. It's a law, or it should be."

"Nah. They have terrible handwriting." She grinned. "I might make them carry my books once in a while or something, though."

"Make 'em do your laundry. If I had creepy glowing people who did stuff for me, I'd make 'em do laundry." Kyle suggested. "If only because, okay, the teen wolf package came with super senses. You have no idea how bad old socks smell."

This man with the fangs and claws was clearly a kindred soul. Renee grinned and nodded. "I mean, if I have to do my own laundry here, then there's no way I'm going to actually do my own laundry." She tilted her head. "Maybe I can make something out of this. How many people with supersenses here might be interested in a glowing green laundry service?"

"Dude, you have no idea. You'd make bank." Kyle said, and then held up a hand. "They explain the whole super hero plane under the basketball court secret vigilantes don't tell anyone thing yet? Because that's like, a huge part of why half the population of the
mansion doesn't get laundry done until it's like a week overdue."

Renee blinked slowly. "I kind of had an idea but, uh..." Whoa. "There's a plane!?"

"Under the basketball courts. It's a volunteer thing, so it's not like -required-, but we do kinda go out and you know, save New York from psychos sometimes." Or liberate countries. Or fight zombies. He wasn't going to give her the -entire- list. Too much of it was disturbing. "Keeps a lot of people super busy. You'd probably get more than the supersenses people coughing up money to have laundry done."

"I can't believe nobody's gotten in on this yet." Maybe the superheroing didn't pay well, but she was sure she'd be able to get something for it, with the added bonus of not having to actually lift a finger herself. "When you say 'we,' though... are you a vigilante world saver like, after class is over?"

"Yep. Just wait until the first day you guys roll into class and I'm sporting two black eyes and fifty stitches and make you guys... I can't even, I'd probably just tell you to take a reading day or something." Kyle said, grinning. "I'm way more of a discussion-and-talking kind of teacher than a write a thousand essays kind of teacher. But yeah, totally vigilante illegal superhero, body armor and code name and everything."

Renee could only shake her head. "That's so bad ass. Do you teach us how to become superheroes, too? Like, I knew this place was different from a regular high school, but that'd be..." She just threw her hands up. Who had words for that!? "How would that even work?"

Kyle shook his head "It's not like, active recruitment for the X-Men, if that's what you're asking, but you guys'll get some powers training, and I have no idea how that works when your power is making glowing green people. You do get a super awesome gym uniform though. It's red. And yellow." He made a face, and shuddered a little theatrically. "Mostly we try to make sure you guys get as normal of a high school experience as you can." He grinned, and shook his head. "And geez, now I feel old, because it was like not that long ago I was getting the same talk. You get prom, and finals and this English teacher who is like seriously into making you guys read Shakeapeare. The whole high school experience."

"Is it used? We had these jersey things in gym back in California, they smelled like moth balls and other people's sweat because every class had to use the same ones." She made a face at the idea. The colors were bad enough, but used power training gym suits? Yikes. "If it wasn't that long ago you got this talk, wouldn't it make you not old? And Shakespeare's OK. Just not Romeo and Juliet. Can I get out of that if I already read it?"

"Scouts honor, no Romeo and Juliet, and no, they're not used. Too few people, too many people with clothing-destroying powers." Kyle said. "Not, uh, that I was every a Boy Scout, but, uh, close enough with the superheroing?" He held up two fingers in a ... sort of... attempt at the Scouts Honor gesture. The claws sort of ruined the effect. "No Romeo and Juliet, and I won't make you guys read anything out loud and do voices unless you all really wanted to because Jesus I hated that shit." He looked sheepish, and then passed a hand over his face. "Also sometimes I forgot I'm not supposed to drop swearwords when I'm like, an authority figure."

"OK, cool." She laughed and gave him a thumbs up for his attempt at the scout's honor. "I dunno, I kind of like reading it out loud but I'm not gonna be the only person in the room doing it. They," she pointed to the ground, hoping it indicated her 'friends' clearly enough, "don't talk, so I can't do it all myself. And I'll never tell! Your s-bomb's safe with me!"

"Damn, there goes my plan to have you do all of the Canterbury tales with your green posse." Kyle said. "It was gonna be a solid month of nothing but you and Chaucer." He gave a thumbs up in return, this gesture not ruined by the claws. "I actually try not to torture you guys too much. Hard enough being like, transplanted to the other side of the country or hell, world for some of you - last thing you need is some English teacher breathing down your neck going "You! Fifteen million essays about how Hemmingway blah blah something something Old Man and the Sea. Which you know, serious questions and all, you settled in okay? Getting dropped into big mansion full of mutants is sometimes like "holy crap what did I get myself into here?"

"I dodged a bullet there, I think." She didn't know Chaucer but she did know reading all by herself for a month would probably suck. Renee tilted her head and furrowed her brow. "I... I guess? It's kind of freaking me out just, like, not knowing what everyone can do. Not everybody's as obvious as you, you know? There must be people here who can... I dunno, cause earthquakes or explode or something, right?" Please tell her she's wrong.

"Most folks are pretty good about explaining - and the ones with powers that can hurt people will actually like, warn you." Kyle explained. "So, Yvette, she's pointy and red, she'll tell you up front first time you meet her not to touch. Most everyone else is pretty harmless unless you're a deer or you know, trying to take over New York or rob a bank or something. But yeah, on the explosions set, the librarian makes things blow up, I used to have a roommate who made earthquakes, but he's doing college in Mexico or something, and one of my total bee-eff-eff's sets things on fire. It's all good though, like I said, most people are totes safe."

"OK, that's good that they warn you. I guess a place like this can't really turn people away because they're dangerous, but it's still kinda scary not knowing who you're living with." She relaxed a little when he said the earthquake-roommate was in Mexico. Of course, there could be more than one mutant who made earthquakes... "Course, I figure I could be dangerous too, once I get better with my 'friends.'"

"Anybody can be dangerous." Kyle explained. "Dude, I know a dude whose entire power is that he speaks ever language ever. Mad skills with computers. Dude is also seriously like, wicked in a fight." He raked through his hair with one hand, and shrugged. "It's not like, what you do, it's who you are. Yvette, my friend who is like, pointy and red? Seriously, nicest person I know."

"Yeah, but he probably had to learn how to fight like that. Some stuff just happens, you know, with a power like his. Or mine, I guess, or other people's. Even if you don't mean for it to." She shrugged a little. "I'm totally sure Yvette's really nice and who you are has a lot to do with it too, but... I dunno. It's all kind of scary, not knowing if like, your roommate could have a bad day and set your bed on fire by accident, even if they're really nice."

Kyle waved a hand. "Pfft, no firebugs in your dorm this year." He paused to try to remember which of the girls had what powers. Telepath. Energy projector. Whatever the heck Layla was. No, no fire that he could recall. "Here, what I can do is give you the tour, and introduce you to as many people as we can dig up, and then you'll know who is most likely to set something on fire. And where all the fire extinguishers are. If somebody does catch on fire, you can send one of your green posse to get one for you, or have them stamp it out. Stop drop and roll or something."

"A tour would definitely be helpful," she replied with a nod. "Meeting people, too. Like, to help put a face with powers. That'll make it easier." He said no fire but even just knowing who did what would go a long way to put her mind at ease. "Did you wanna go in now?" It seemed like hours ago now but technically he had been up a tree doing... something... when she found him.

Kyle nodded, and then his stomach made a growling noise, and he looked up towards the trees, sheepishly. "Works for me. I think we'll start in the kitchen. You can pretty much get lost in the pantry and walk-in, and I can shut up my stomach and you can meet Lorna. She's awesome. Magnet powers, green hair, totally wicked awesome chef."

"I was kind of hoping for a better look at that when I came out. Sounds like an awesome idea." Renee nodded and started to turn back toward the house. "Any place boasting a kitchen this big and a wicked awesome chef sounds like a place I could get used to."

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