xp_logs | Grad School Girl Squad

xp_dazzler posting in

The Grad School Girl Squad gets some lunch.

It's a good time.

“I can’t believe it’s almost the end of school already,” said Nica as she dipped a fry in the container of mayonnaise she’d managed to get instead of ketchup. “It feels like it was December like five minutes ago.”

“You say that like I’m not soft considering a Master’s now that I’ve got my feet a little more under me,” April replied with a grin. Her spicy chicken sandwich was still wrapped, ignored in favor of dipping fries into her Frosty. “Time passes extremely fast until it’s going extremely slow, and then it rubberbands into fast again.”

“I get to start looking for a job,” Maya noted with a groan as she stole a fry from April’s plate with a grin. “Or just volunteer maybe?”

Alison picked the top nugget off her little pyramid of chicken nuggets she’d made. “If you need an assist there, don’t hesitate to hit me up. I know a guy who knows a guy,” she said, as if that was just a totally normal thing to say while gesturing with a chicken nugget.

“Those are mine and I’ve been kissing Forge. Do you really want our germs?” April asked, lightly smacking Maya’s hand with the back of her frosty spoon. She dropped a few more fries on Maya’s tray, then turned to Alani. “How go classes, Lady of the Not Sleeping Gotta Study? Going mad yet?”

Maya crinkled her nose at April and poked out her tongue in a totally adult and not at all juvenile fashion. (Just ask her)

“Nah, I got melatonin with CBD, my ability to get as much rest outta what hours I can actually sleep are second to none.” Alani snorted a laugh as she unwrapped her burger, before offering Maya some of her own extra fries. “Time flies when you’re buried under work. Oh, Nica, are you doing more or thinking of jobs? I’m happy to be a personal reference for anyone who needs one.”

Maya happily munched on both the extra fries from April and the ones from Alani. She was equal opportunity fry, it was a whole thing.

“Don’t even think about it,” Nica warned Maya, who seemed to be the resident fry moocher. “Or I’ll pour all of this mayo over mine and you’ll have to deal with it.” Then she shrugged and replied to Alani. “Job, probably, tho’ I don’t know how I’m going to manage it with team training and DX and stuff. Plus making sure HeliX doesn’t die off during the vacation. I figured I’d give myself a couple of weeks’ time off to figure it out?” She reached for her Coke and grinned at Alison. “You can always teach me how to do special light effects and I can hire myself out for kids’ parties?”

“Not the mayo!” Maya gasped, making choking sounds like she was dying but went back to mooching Alani’s fries between sips of her milkshake. “Don’t even joke unless that’s garlic mayo.”

“Wait, isn’t garlic mayo just aioli?” Alison asked, looking up from where she was trying (and failing) to restack her remaining nuggets. “Also double wait, what’s wrong with mayo?”

“No idea,” Alani shrugged to Alison. “People are so weird about food here, I just put it into their food notes and don’t even question it.” And because it suddenly occurred to her, she beamed at Nica and Alison. “I will say, if you girls want some community hours I know some kid classes we could use light shows.”

“I was kidding, but it would beat being locked up in an office all summer," Nica replied. Alison nodded agreement beside her. "What about you, Maya? Any plans for the summer?"

“All the DR training, and weight training and swimming,” Maya noted, taking a moment to flex her biceps to show off the muscle she’d been building for the past year. “Mostly just building on agility as well as strength, maybe do some CrossFit stuff. There’s a new mutant CrossFit place opening in District X I want to check out. April?”

"Working, mostly. Lot of team DR training, get the rest of you used to working with me." She pointed a fry at Alani. "Is there a tumbling for tots class or anything? I could make time to help once or twice a week at one. I'd offer free running help too, but I can cheat there a way I can't really with tumbling. It comes easier and I'm less likely to get twisties, but I can help teach fundamentals and spot."

"You say that like some of the kids can't also cheat." Alani stuck her tongue out with a wink, of course then she lapsed into silence as she looked through her calendar at the planned classes. "That could be really good, I'm gonna text you the teacher's contact information and let him know you'll be reaching out. Most of the teachers can always use a little help, so even when I don't know shit, I just like being around there in case we need more hands. As we all know I have heaps of free time outside of volunteering, classes, and the chapel."

"Oh man, I don't think I've done gymnastics since like, the first year I was an idol," Alison said. There was a beat pause. "...the management really did have some weird expectations for me the first few months, thinking back on it. It was fun though. Can I get in on this sometime maybe?"

"'Lani gives Gen Z slackers a bad name," Nica teased. "Since we're supposed to be couch potatoes terminally attached to our screens or something." She nodded at Alison. "Gymnastics sounds like a good team bonding exercise, actually. Like, trust falls except actually useful? Maybe we can set up a regular DR session, April, that you could oversee with us? You and Kurt can tie us into pretzels in the name of training."

"Well that just sounds like extreme yoga," April replied with a grin. "And yeah, I know some of the kids can cheat too. If you get any that can stick to the wall, I'm happy to help them learn to take advantage. And yeah, more helpers are good in classes designed for under-10s, Alison. They have so much energy. Puppies that take fewer naps."

“That’s why you take them running,” Maya noted, taking another sip before continuing. “Kids love running, and if you make it a game it tires them the hell out so they’ll sit still for more than two seconds.”

"Kids and puppies, the exact same thing." Alani laughed, setting down her milkshake so she didn't snort any ice cream into her nose. Once she made sure she didn't have any food on her face with a napkin dab, she nodded eagerly. "Any kids class is happy to have volunteers or even the daycares if you're ready for that drama. And, Nica, you're so right, love, I oughta take a vacation to get a chaise lounge and lay prettily while I scroll through my phone. You're welcome to join me or take it for yourselves if you need to faint or be dramatic of course."

“Aww man,” Alison pouted around a fry. “I’m gonna have to do this around an inducer aren’t I?” She tugged at the open air near her head, where the inducer had covered up her actual hair with an image about a foot shorter.

“I’m gonna need to tweak settings in this stupid thing again. Not worth getting strangled may my own invisible hair.”

Beat.

“Again.”

April let out a snort of laughter that turned into a cough as her Frosty went down wrong. "How... how did you manage this? Storytime Ali, pleaaaaaaaaaaaase." She nudged Maya in the side lightly as she said it in an unsubtle attempt to get her on board with storytime as well.

Maya raised a questioning eyebrow, but nodded along with April’s pleading.

“You could just give in and tell us now. Saves you from April following you around for the rest of the day giving you sad puppy eyes,”

Alison laughed. "You say that like April's puppy dog eyes are strong enough to overcome my own. I promise you, the story isn't nearly as interesting as you think it is," she said with a grin.

Alani's laugh echoed Alison's, eyes watching the girl amusedly. "Your puppy eyes are all very lovely, but you don't gotta share if you really don't wanna. I'm well aware of the woes of image inducers." Though she was equally happy for the vague anonymity it gave her when running around the city.

Nica joined in the pouting. "C'mon, former roomie, spill. You can't drop a hint like that without giving us the full story."

"Alright, alright," Alison laughed, throwing a fry at her. "Geeze, all of you need to get a hobby or something."

"Okay, so, the thing with the image inducer is that it drops a full-blown cloaking field over you, and then fills that space in with whatever you tell it to. It's in the name after all, right? "Image Inducer." It induces an image. So far, so obvious.

"It was, in fact, so obvious that nobody bothered to tell me that when they gave me the damn thing."

At the explanation a firm grin had set itself onto Alani's face though she didn't want to interrupt.

Alison knocked a knuckle against the 'watch' face. "Yeah, you can see where I'm going with this. So it's like, the second day or something since I'd been given it, and I'm only just barely starting to figure out how it works, right? Thing is, I'm burnt out from having cancelled all my remaining tours like, three days earlier, and just absolutely exhausted." She pantomimed flopping limp in her chair.

"So I'm putting the thing through its paces, y'know? I've worked out a new appearance for myself that I'm hoping is going to give me enough visual difference that I can go places without being mobbed, and I'm just walking around, new skin, feelin' cute. You know how it is. And as I'm walking through that park nearby with the big-ass fountain, working off some excess energy with some of my stage dance routines while I'm there, and then next thing I know it feels like someone's got their hands around my neck!

"I swear to god I threw like 5 or 6 random punches and kicks all around me when it happened. Nobody's ever gonna believe that kid who saw, and I retired that look like a month later so it's fine.

"Of course I've already kinda spoiled it, but what had actually happened was that I didn't think about the fact that my hair was still at my 'stage length' back then." She mimed a cutoff just slightly higher than her bellybutton. "The image I'd made had this like, medium-length shag cut thing that I always wished I was capable of pulling off that stopped just above my ears, and it never occurred to me that the rest of my hair was still there, just invisible. Normally when I do those dances I have to either be in a high pony or some other tie-back to prevent exactly what happened, but it turns out it's kinda hard when you can't see it!" She laughed again.

She shrugged good-naturedly. "So yeah, that's the story."

"Oh noooooooooo." April was half wide-eyed, half trying to smother her laughter behind the hand over her mouth. "Didn't make that mistake twice, I imagine. My tendrils have never trieed to suffocate me. Other people, maybe."

"So what you're saying is you played yourself, but, there was some, let's call it, accidental oversight. God, I can't believe no one explained it to you. We had to do a whole speech with me and then came the 'please don't whitewash me." Alani was doing her best not to cackle though she was obviously amused by Alison's story. "Very glad you lived, dear."

Alison responded with the most mature response she could think of. She threw her fry at Alani. The events that spiraled from there ended with all of them being asked to leave because their laughter was getting distracting.