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xp_logsBeing totally normal teenage boys, Match and Shatterstar try to make small talk, then show each other their powers.
Match looked up from his phone as he'd been doing periodically, brow furrowed at what he'd been reading before he confirmed that, yes, that figure was Shatterstar and, yes, he was approaching him. Immediately, his phone was shoved back into his pockets as he raised his free hand to wave at the redhead. "Yo, what's up?"
Shatterstar's own phone had "Normal conversation topics" pulled up before he had put it in his pocket when he had seen Match. He really likes the other boy, and didn't want to scare him off. That meant having to talk to him. "Uh," he said eloquently. "I started shooting lessons?" He said, trying to remember if the "conversations for teens" guides mentioned anything like that. Did this count as an after school activity?
The dark haired boy's own phone had been used to scroll through a list titled "25 Tips to Help Your Teen Make Friends," before the other's arrival. He could do this. He just had to follow tip #10. "Wow, I'm still sitting on the Danger Room, that's cool as hell. I didn't know your power like shot stuff. I've been trying to learn to do fire knives but-" Damn, he'd brought his stuff up, that didn't seem like being a good listener. Roll it back. "Is it hard to learn?"
"The shooting is just to practice aim, not very related to my powers," Shatterstar brushed off Match's question because he had just found out something much more interesting. "You can do fire knives?" Shatterstar said, leaning forward a little to show that he was actively listening. It didn't help that he was still standing and Match was sitting. "That's so good. Can I see sometime?"
Internally, Match had blue screened at the question. Yes, he could, but not on command and not in front of anyone else, it seemed. But that sounded fake, even to himself, so instead he shrugged, opting to play it off. "Yeah, I can." Looking up at Shatterstar, he scooted over and patted the seat beside him. "I can't, uh, do it right now, because I just got done training and that kinda takes it outta me, but I can make fire again." Yeah, so cool, he'd definitely pulled it off.
Shatterstar sat next to Match, maybe a little too close. He nodded. "I completely get that. I've fainted after training before," he said, hoping that he wasn't drawing too much attention to himself. "The fire knives should be really useful. Maybe we can fight sometime?" He tapped his foot a little.
"Oh, sure." He nodded along. Was that something people did? Something friends did? Match could learn to fight, sure. He'd just have to ask Kyle or maybe he could get Alex to do it. "So, it's not, like, a lot, right now, but I'd rather not start a big fire... again." With that said, he held up a hand, focusing his attention. Small flames flickered in existence at the tip of each of his fingers, blown by the breeze, before growing and becoming one.
Shatterstar was pretty sure that fighting wasn't a normal teenager thing, but it was what all of the teenagers he was sort of friends with before liked to do. He leaned forward a little with interest to watch the knife form on Match's hand with interest, clearly delighted by the sight. "Madin does something like that too. Your control is really good. You haven't almost accidentally stabbed me."
"Yeah, I’ll try not to do that, though it’s not, like, as solid or anything, because it’s just fire.” At least hypothetically it wasn’t as solid. He’d have to actually think on that in the future. He didn’t think he could make his flames solid, er… more solid. Oh god, he was looking off into space like an idiot. “Madin’s cool, I didn’t know their power was knives, just that they were purple and we left Chicago together. You training with them too?”
"Just once. They were pretty discomforted by almost stabbing me even though I was fine," Shatterstar couldn't help but roll his eyes a little at the thought of bodily harm. He doubted he would have died even if they had hit him. "I didn't know you two knew each other before."
The flame dispersed as Match shook his hand, popping the knuckles after a moment to return its regular mobility after being held in place. He shrugged, kicking the ground as he thought back to it. “They worked with the Underground. We got food from them right before everything went south and Eve fucked it up for everyone. Then they tagged along and came here too. Which, like, I hope it’s better than it was there.”
"Is that why you carry around canned goods?" Shatterstar asked before realizing that asking about another person's food insecurity was probably not a good idea. He tried to surreptitiously google "fixing in conversation" but what he ended up typing was more like "fixing mjsgake on convosatoon". He decided to barrel through it. "Which is a good idea. You never know when you might be trapped somewhere or need to run suddenly."
"Huh? What? No." He did nothing to hide his utter confusion at the connection, mouth supplying immediate responses before he fumbled responding to the next part. Oh, god, now he just seemed like a jerk. "I don't, like, taste anymore. It's just, I don't know, like different mouth feels? I think that's a thing? So, it's all the same to me, and, well, that's, like, the one thing I remembered from school and living with the Morlocks hammered home. Things don't have to be like homecooked to be nutritious, canned's fine."
"That sounds really useful, to be honest." Maybe it was just because Shatterstar had sensitive senses, but not being able to taste and just being able to get your nutrition without worrying about taste didn't sound half bad. He hoped he didn't seem like a jerk for asking and, now that he thought about it, being deprived of a sense probably wasn't that great. He was messing this all up. In for a penny, in for a pound though. "Can you still, like, smell?" Was that too invasive?
"Nope. It's probably for the best, though, I mean, from the faces Postman and Trader made after Eve killed her old pimp, it was a bad, but I couldn't smell it at all." Match shrugged again. Why was he telling Shatterstar all of this? It had to be too much. He was going to think he was the weirdest person he'd ever met in his life. Oh well. He'd already told the kid he lived below Chicago. What could be weirder. "But, just a fun little quirk about my mutation."
Shatterstar shrugged. It wasn't like Match was the one who had killed someone. And even if he had, it wouldn't be the first kid who killed someone Shatterstar had met. There had been a good number of kids with manslaughter charges against them with juvie. Shatterstar had even fought some of them before. A good portion Shatterstar didn't think we're bad people, at the core of it. He'd process that his new friend had seen a violent death... Later, maybe. Maybe never. "Well. The guy probably deserved it if it was on purpose. And smells are over rated. There's so many bad ones."
A number of answers popped into Match's head, it was probably a good people thing to say that no one had deserved it, but 'Star had never known Eve and what she was like. Months after, he'd finally come to terms with the fact that she deserved to do what she did to her ex, he just wished he'd been able to see his grandma first. But if wishes were fishes and all that. So instead he focused on the latter point. "Yeah, makes it easier to go places where smells are bad for other people. ...You can smell right? You seem like you can smell, I mean. Fuck, that sounds weird, but I don't mean it in, like, a bad way, honest."
"Yes I can smell, but it's not one of my stronger senses," Shatterstar responded. "I don't think it's a weird question at all. Who knows with mutations and all that."
Nodding again, Match could hear the Jeopardy music, time counting down before he it dawned on him that this would be the perfect opportunity to ask 'Star about his powers. "So, uh, what do you do? Your mutation?"
"I make stuff explode, basically," Shatterstar said, turning his arms over in his lap. "I create a wave of vibration and then things break. Or that's what I'm told. And my senses are good, but I don't know if that's part of my powers or if I just got lucky, genes wise." He supposed mutation was a gene gamble, but he still didn't feel like his powers were a matter of mutation.
"Shatterstar...that's so fucking cool, can you explode stuff right now?" Match hadn't grabbed the other boy's shoulders, but he almost had, hands raising before stopping himself and instead looking imploringly at him.
"...Not inside," Shatterstar said, feeling a little giddy to show off. He still didn't like his powers for the pain they caused him but being told they were cool? Was really exciting. He stood, and offered Match a hand. "I don't want to accidentally break something I didn't mean to explode."
Assuming that the refusal to use his powers inside led to the belief that 'Star would not be showing him any explosion. He was genuinely surprised when the offer followed, and immediately a hand shot out to take 'Star's. "Alright, that makes sense!"
Shatterstar pulled Match up with considerable force, surprised that he was surprised at just how warm Match really was. He knew that the other boy was, well, like a match but the heat was still a shock. He led Match outside and got a good ways away from the front door. "See that rock?" Shatterstar said, deciding to target something that hopefully no one cared about the destruction of.
"Yup," he nodded affirmatively, following 'Star's direction with, well, glee wasn't right. But thinly disguised interest in what was about to happen. "Do you have to, like, focus, or, wait, my talking probably doesn't help at all, huh?"
"I do have to focus to force it," Shatterstar confirmed, looking for the power inside of himself, even starting to hum for the right resonance like Terry had shown him before. He felt the vibrations coming and was able to direct them to the rock, which exploded into a thousand pieces.
He looked pale and looked a little woozy after. Maybe he wasn't able to force it safely yet.
"That was awesome! Holy shit! Wha— Bro, are you-" He didn't want to assume, but the boy didn’t look well. Immediately Match swung his backpack around to dig through the food contained within. One bar from Sooraya remained. “Here,” he offered the protein bar with nuts and dried fruit to Shatterstar. “Good for ya, or well, if you gotta take your caloric intake into consideration to use your powers, they work for me.”
"I don't think it's a caloric intake thing," Shatterstar replied, though he took the proffered bar. "Apparently the force goes through my bones. At least that's the working theory, so it makes me dizzy sometimes." He finished the bar quickly. "Thank you."
Match made a face at the description but held himself back from uttering a word towards it, instead nodding in understanding. “‘Course. Your powers really fuckin’ cool, man. I’m jealous. Not for being dizzy, but mine just makes me hungry.” A laugh slipped out as he flashed a quick grin. “Thanks, uh, thank you for showin’ me. It was cool to see.”
Match looked up from his phone as he'd been doing periodically, brow furrowed at what he'd been reading before he confirmed that, yes, that figure was Shatterstar and, yes, he was approaching him. Immediately, his phone was shoved back into his pockets as he raised his free hand to wave at the redhead. "Yo, what's up?"
Shatterstar's own phone had "Normal conversation topics" pulled up before he had put it in his pocket when he had seen Match. He really likes the other boy, and didn't want to scare him off. That meant having to talk to him. "Uh," he said eloquently. "I started shooting lessons?" He said, trying to remember if the "conversations for teens" guides mentioned anything like that. Did this count as an after school activity?
The dark haired boy's own phone had been used to scroll through a list titled "25 Tips to Help Your Teen Make Friends," before the other's arrival. He could do this. He just had to follow tip #10. "Wow, I'm still sitting on the Danger Room, that's cool as hell. I didn't know your power like shot stuff. I've been trying to learn to do fire knives but-" Damn, he'd brought his stuff up, that didn't seem like being a good listener. Roll it back. "Is it hard to learn?"
"The shooting is just to practice aim, not very related to my powers," Shatterstar brushed off Match's question because he had just found out something much more interesting. "You can do fire knives?" Shatterstar said, leaning forward a little to show that he was actively listening. It didn't help that he was still standing and Match was sitting. "That's so good. Can I see sometime?"
Internally, Match had blue screened at the question. Yes, he could, but not on command and not in front of anyone else, it seemed. But that sounded fake, even to himself, so instead he shrugged, opting to play it off. "Yeah, I can." Looking up at Shatterstar, he scooted over and patted the seat beside him. "I can't, uh, do it right now, because I just got done training and that kinda takes it outta me, but I can make fire again." Yeah, so cool, he'd definitely pulled it off.
Shatterstar sat next to Match, maybe a little too close. He nodded. "I completely get that. I've fainted after training before," he said, hoping that he wasn't drawing too much attention to himself. "The fire knives should be really useful. Maybe we can fight sometime?" He tapped his foot a little.
"Oh, sure." He nodded along. Was that something people did? Something friends did? Match could learn to fight, sure. He'd just have to ask Kyle or maybe he could get Alex to do it. "So, it's not, like, a lot, right now, but I'd rather not start a big fire... again." With that said, he held up a hand, focusing his attention. Small flames flickered in existence at the tip of each of his fingers, blown by the breeze, before growing and becoming one.
Shatterstar was pretty sure that fighting wasn't a normal teenager thing, but it was what all of the teenagers he was sort of friends with before liked to do. He leaned forward a little with interest to watch the knife form on Match's hand with interest, clearly delighted by the sight. "Madin does something like that too. Your control is really good. You haven't almost accidentally stabbed me."
"Yeah, I’ll try not to do that, though it’s not, like, as solid or anything, because it’s just fire.” At least hypothetically it wasn’t as solid. He’d have to actually think on that in the future. He didn’t think he could make his flames solid, er… more solid. Oh god, he was looking off into space like an idiot. “Madin’s cool, I didn’t know their power was knives, just that they were purple and we left Chicago together. You training with them too?”
"Just once. They were pretty discomforted by almost stabbing me even though I was fine," Shatterstar couldn't help but roll his eyes a little at the thought of bodily harm. He doubted he would have died even if they had hit him. "I didn't know you two knew each other before."
The flame dispersed as Match shook his hand, popping the knuckles after a moment to return its regular mobility after being held in place. He shrugged, kicking the ground as he thought back to it. “They worked with the Underground. We got food from them right before everything went south and Eve fucked it up for everyone. Then they tagged along and came here too. Which, like, I hope it’s better than it was there.”
"Is that why you carry around canned goods?" Shatterstar asked before realizing that asking about another person's food insecurity was probably not a good idea. He tried to surreptitiously google "fixing in conversation" but what he ended up typing was more like "fixing mjsgake on convosatoon". He decided to barrel through it. "Which is a good idea. You never know when you might be trapped somewhere or need to run suddenly."
"Huh? What? No." He did nothing to hide his utter confusion at the connection, mouth supplying immediate responses before he fumbled responding to the next part. Oh, god, now he just seemed like a jerk. "I don't, like, taste anymore. It's just, I don't know, like different mouth feels? I think that's a thing? So, it's all the same to me, and, well, that's, like, the one thing I remembered from school and living with the Morlocks hammered home. Things don't have to be like homecooked to be nutritious, canned's fine."
"That sounds really useful, to be honest." Maybe it was just because Shatterstar had sensitive senses, but not being able to taste and just being able to get your nutrition without worrying about taste didn't sound half bad. He hoped he didn't seem like a jerk for asking and, now that he thought about it, being deprived of a sense probably wasn't that great. He was messing this all up. In for a penny, in for a pound though. "Can you still, like, smell?" Was that too invasive?
"Nope. It's probably for the best, though, I mean, from the faces Postman and Trader made after Eve killed her old pimp, it was a bad, but I couldn't smell it at all." Match shrugged again. Why was he telling Shatterstar all of this? It had to be too much. He was going to think he was the weirdest person he'd ever met in his life. Oh well. He'd already told the kid he lived below Chicago. What could be weirder. "But, just a fun little quirk about my mutation."
Shatterstar shrugged. It wasn't like Match was the one who had killed someone. And even if he had, it wouldn't be the first kid who killed someone Shatterstar had met. There had been a good number of kids with manslaughter charges against them with juvie. Shatterstar had even fought some of them before. A good portion Shatterstar didn't think we're bad people, at the core of it. He'd process that his new friend had seen a violent death... Later, maybe. Maybe never. "Well. The guy probably deserved it if it was on purpose. And smells are over rated. There's so many bad ones."
A number of answers popped into Match's head, it was probably a good people thing to say that no one had deserved it, but 'Star had never known Eve and what she was like. Months after, he'd finally come to terms with the fact that she deserved to do what she did to her ex, he just wished he'd been able to see his grandma first. But if wishes were fishes and all that. So instead he focused on the latter point. "Yeah, makes it easier to go places where smells are bad for other people. ...You can smell right? You seem like you can smell, I mean. Fuck, that sounds weird, but I don't mean it in, like, a bad way, honest."
"Yes I can smell, but it's not one of my stronger senses," Shatterstar responded. "I don't think it's a weird question at all. Who knows with mutations and all that."
Nodding again, Match could hear the Jeopardy music, time counting down before he it dawned on him that this would be the perfect opportunity to ask 'Star about his powers. "So, uh, what do you do? Your mutation?"
"I make stuff explode, basically," Shatterstar said, turning his arms over in his lap. "I create a wave of vibration and then things break. Or that's what I'm told. And my senses are good, but I don't know if that's part of my powers or if I just got lucky, genes wise." He supposed mutation was a gene gamble, but he still didn't feel like his powers were a matter of mutation.
"Shatterstar...that's so fucking cool, can you explode stuff right now?" Match hadn't grabbed the other boy's shoulders, but he almost had, hands raising before stopping himself and instead looking imploringly at him.
"...Not inside," Shatterstar said, feeling a little giddy to show off. He still didn't like his powers for the pain they caused him but being told they were cool? Was really exciting. He stood, and offered Match a hand. "I don't want to accidentally break something I didn't mean to explode."
Assuming that the refusal to use his powers inside led to the belief that 'Star would not be showing him any explosion. He was genuinely surprised when the offer followed, and immediately a hand shot out to take 'Star's. "Alright, that makes sense!"
Shatterstar pulled Match up with considerable force, surprised that he was surprised at just how warm Match really was. He knew that the other boy was, well, like a match but the heat was still a shock. He led Match outside and got a good ways away from the front door. "See that rock?" Shatterstar said, deciding to target something that hopefully no one cared about the destruction of.
"Yup," he nodded affirmatively, following 'Star's direction with, well, glee wasn't right. But thinly disguised interest in what was about to happen. "Do you have to, like, focus, or, wait, my talking probably doesn't help at all, huh?"
"I do have to focus to force it," Shatterstar confirmed, looking for the power inside of himself, even starting to hum for the right resonance like Terry had shown him before. He felt the vibrations coming and was able to direct them to the rock, which exploded into a thousand pieces.
He looked pale and looked a little woozy after. Maybe he wasn't able to force it safely yet.
"That was awesome! Holy shit! Wha— Bro, are you-" He didn't want to assume, but the boy didn’t look well. Immediately Match swung his backpack around to dig through the food contained within. One bar from Sooraya remained. “Here,” he offered the protein bar with nuts and dried fruit to Shatterstar. “Good for ya, or well, if you gotta take your caloric intake into consideration to use your powers, they work for me.”
"I don't think it's a caloric intake thing," Shatterstar replied, though he took the proffered bar. "Apparently the force goes through my bones. At least that's the working theory, so it makes me dizzy sometimes." He finished the bar quickly. "Thank you."
Match made a face at the description but held himself back from uttering a word towards it, instead nodding in understanding. “‘Course. Your powers really fuckin’ cool, man. I’m jealous. Not for being dizzy, but mine just makes me hungry.” A laugh slipped out as he flashed a quick grin. “Thanks, uh, thank you for showin’ me. It was cool to see.”
