xp_logs | Miles and Xavin - yeah, there are other high school students here

Miles was sitting on the ground against a lamp post as he waited for the bus to arrive at Bayville and take him and his fellow mutant peers back to Xavier's. He was resisting the urge to climb up the pole and hang upside-down from the lamp; as much as it pained him to do so when he had the freedom at Xavier's, he'd chosen to keep his mutation a secret out in public. He was trying to read the night's assignment in Their Eyes Were Watching God while he waited instead, but that was the opposite of stimulating. He had no idea what was going on underneath that pear tree, but something told him he didn't want to know.

Another student soon joined him at the bus stop. He'd seen him on the bus this morning but was still mostly asleep and so hadn't greeted the newcomer. Time to rectify that. "You waiting for the Xavier's bus, too?" he asked. "Should be here soon. I'm Miles."

Xavin's phone was out and the teen had started playing tetris, trying to relax after the day of classes - so far, things were pretty much horrible, unexplored, uncovered territory in Spanish while Global History and Geography had been a case of 'I know I saw something about this on the History Channel this one time,' all head down, frantically reading the chapter in the textbook. Math had been "There should be a textbook in a day or two... Here's a handout for today" and that had been fine while Cooking was a quiz about the last month's work. Of course it was.

School kind of sucked here in New York and even with that, he had a headache throbbing between his eyes and an ache between his shoulders and across his back and upper arms, strain from not shifting all day, except in toilets at lunch. "Hey. Yeah. I'm Xavin."

"Mucho gusto." Miles stuffed the book into his bag and stood up so he could offer Xavin his hand. "Where you from? Liking it here so far?"

Was it a handshake or a fistbump or what? Boys were complicated like that. Xavin kind of flailed his hand around. Yeah. Smooooth. "LA. It seems okay so far but I've only been here like three days so far. Freaking cold, though."

Miles offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile and stuffed his hands into his hoodie's pockets. It wasn't so long since he was the number one noobie. "Yeah, it's been real cold this winter. At least the snow's finally melted, mostly. What grade you in?"

Xavin looked around dubiously. "uhuh. I'm a junior. Are you a... you know?" There was a hand wiggle, in case any of the town kids were close enough to overhear. "What do you do?"

"Sophomore. And yeah. I, uh . . . it's complicated, but the easiest way to put it is that I zap people." Miles glanced around, too, to check for intruders. His spider-sense wasn't tingling, but one couldn't be too careful. "There's other things that come with it, too, but mostly, I poke you and zap! How 'bout you?"

You electrocute people and... metal conducts electricity.... "Wow. Do you think you could zap a thing that someone was holding and zap them that way? I mean, electrocuting people is bad but you know, metal, like, conducts electricity." Xavin pointed to themself. "I'm uh. I'm a shapeshifter." There was a pause. "Everyone at the mansion is, like, a mutant, right? I never even met another mutant before this. I mean, except for that orange lady who gave us a diversity talk at school and all she did was go around being orange and she wasn't even all that orange. My friend's sister was way more orange when she overdosed on carrots that time."

"I did accidentally break a friend's iPhone when I zapped him. Long story," Miles added to head off any questions. It wasn't really Matt's fault that Miles had surprised him and ended up on the blunt end of his fists, and a venom blast was the quickest way to disengage. "Shapeshifting, huh? So you can look like anyone you want? That's sweet. You'll fit right in. I do think everyone there's a mutant. All sorts of abilities. My roommate freezes things."

"You broke his iphone?" Xavin whistled. "Dude. Dude." There was a headshake. "Not quite. I... shapeshift into someone who looks like me, more or less." I turn into a girl. Or maybe I'm a girl and I turn into a boy. I don't know...

"So can you grow, like, wings and stuff? One of my friends at the mansion has wings. There's a guy with blue fur and a tail, too."

"Oh my god. Are you serious? No." Xavin took a deep breath. This was going to go down like... Like the Titanic, after it hit the iceberg. "I turn into a boy, okay?"

Miles furrowed his brow as he mentally went over what Xavin just said. "Buuuut aren't you a guy? I mean." He made a vague motion with his hands to try to indicate Xavin's current presentation. "Or are you shapeshifted right now?"

Xavin shrugged, trying to look cool about it all and not like this conversation was maybe three minutes away from a really ugly end. "Yeah. Cool, huh?"

"That is cool," Miles agreed, although his sincerity was directed more at the fact of the ability itself than the personal implications it might have held for Xavin. "If I could do that, I'd come into school every day with different hair just to screw with people."

There was a headshake. "No. It never freaking changes. if I shapeshift, my hair comes with me. I got ripped off."

"Lame," Miles agreed, "but maybe that's just for now. They're always saying that the point of the place is to learn the full extent of your abilities. Maybe you are more . . . shiftable?" That probably wasn't a real word, but it sounded as good as any. "Yeah, more shiftable than you think you are."

"That would be pretty cool. I mean, I could be go around, pretending to be Rihanna or something..." Xavin said, enjoying the idea.

Miles laughed heartily. "Ay, that would be so freaking cool. All sorts of celebs! You could get into all the clubs. And you could do Vine and YouTube and make so much bank. I call being your manager if you do that. That was my idea."

"Long as you promise to deal with their lawyers, too."

"Yo, I gotchu a lawyer. That guy whose phone I said I broke by accident? He's a big-time fancy-pants lawyer for Worthington Industries. Comes over to the mansion on the weekends for mutant stuff. We gotchu covered."

"Mr Murdock? Yeah, I know him. Seems okay."

"Yeah, him. He's cool. Definitely more than you'd expect by looking at him." The shuttle chose that moment to arrive, and the Xavierites lined up to file inside. "Yo, you wanna grab dinner with me and Bobby tonight?"

"Sure. I don't know anyone else here yet, really, other than Mr Murdock and Dr Grey and Jean-Phillipe," Xavin replied, climbing onto the bus.

"I don't know who Doctor Grey or Jean-Phillipe are, but I'm about 97% sure I'm cooler."