xp_logs | Nathan and Forge, Sunday afternoon

Nathan happens upon Forge watching some of his fellow students practice their flying. Introductions, of a sort, are made. Forge decides that Nathan is a paranoid schizophrenic. And possibly a ninja. Nathan and the brain-sucking parasites find it entirely too amusing.

Forge kicked back in the chair, jacket tucked in tight around him, sunglasses over his eyes. Looking up into the midday sky, he watched the clouds float aimlessly by. The sun was hidden partially, giving a luminescent quality to some of the cloud cover, but Forge was more interested in what else was in the sky.

Two human beings, soaring above the sky, one following the other almost playfully. They were students, like him. Flying. A day couldn't go by without Forge being reminded of the amazing circumstances of the world he now found himself thrown into. Of course there was the whining, and the bickering, and the cliques. Those things were everywhere.

But not the flying.

Nathan had come outside with the vague idea of heading down to the dock and doing some more TK practice with the lake water. Checking on how he handled that sort of weight was probably one of the fastest and simplest ways to figure out whether any of the effects of the concussion were still lingering, and besides, he was in a vaguely creative mood today. Maybe he'd try some more architectural landmarks this time.

But when he spotted the kid watching the flyers, he paused thoughtfully, considering. He hadn't had the chance to introduce himself properly yet, and after what Forge had done for Alison, he really should. Wandering over, he donned an amiable smile as Forge looked up at his approach.

"Afternoon," he greeted lightly.

"Yep," Forge drawled, giving a halfhearted wave. This would be Dayspring, he figured. Teacher for those useless humanities courses he'd managed to avoid.

"The guy in the lead doesn't seem to have much control over his turning radius," Forge mentioned casually. "Putting too much force into thrust without balancing out his control." One of his first loves was aeronautics, after all. He understood thrust and drag, lift and gravity all before he was thirteen.

"The other guy, though," he pointed, tracing the flight path with his finger. "Turning on a dime, but he seems to have to really work at his lift." Winged flight would do that, Forge figured. He made a note to ask to watch Jay fly sometime.

"I'm supposed to be helping the Flight class out at some point this semester," Nathan said, intrigued by Forge's observations. "Telekinetic obstacle courses and the like."

"Telekinetics?" Forge was suddenly intrigued. Then he remembered the other thing about Dayspring. The telekinetic with the multiple concussions. There was something he was supposed to remember about that...

"That's an intriguing talent," he offered cautiously. "How much force can you generate, off hand?"

"Well," Nathan said a bit dryly, noting the edge of wariness, "I lifted an SR-71 Blackbird a while ago. Much less difficult than I thought it would be."

"A Blackbird..." Forge's words caught in his throat. First off, what would a history teacher, even a mutant one, be doing around one of the most sophisticated aircraft ever created? And second...

"Out of curiosity," he asked, folding his sunglasses into his pocket as the sun vanished behind a cloud. "since that's almost, oh, thirty tons of very expensive metal and radar-dampening electronics - you can actually control that amount of force?" Why wasn't he remembering the name? It was in the MIT journals a few years back, the telekinetic kid who... the name slipped Forge's mind again.

Interesting reaction. "I can," Nathan said. "Quite easily, actually, which surprised me..." Of course, he hadn't done quite so well at catching it without damage when it had been falling out of the sky, but he'd made his peace with that, and he wasn't about to get into that with Forge anyway. "Just a question of proper visualization."

"Lone!" That was the guy's name. Seeing Nathan's look of puzzlement, Forge explained. "A few years back, MIT was doing research on a telekinetic guy named Ted Lone. He lifted a sunken barge out of Boston Harbor, and died a week later from a brain aneurism." Forge shrugged. "You obviously have a better handle on your power than he did."

Nathan frowned, making a mental note to look up this Lone person. Of course, he wouldn't be surprised if Moira already knew all about the case. "I had some very... rigorous initial training. But I wouldn't say that I've got that much better a handle on my powers," he confessed. "I have--well, it's the equivalent of a psychic circuit breaker installed at the moment. Had a bit of a training accident this summer and started to manipulate below the microscopic level. It was causing physiological damage, so the Professor helped me install the breaker."

Forge nodded. He understood the concept from what he'd read about psionics. That much power generated by the human brain could just get staggering at times. If Mr. Dayspring had that level at his disposal that he needed a failsafe put into his head...

"You know," he mentioned, "no one's ever been able to replicate that with machines. Telekinesis, I mean. Sure, Carl Walker's made advances with repulsor technology over at Stark, and then you've got your magnetic stuff - but straight-up manipulation of potential and kinetic energy? Only a human brain can do that." He paused, then looked at Nathan with a smile.

"For the moment, anyway."

Nathan gave him a brief grin. "Hell, if you have ambitions of duplicating it technologically, may I just wish you the best of luck right here and now. Telekinesis is possibly one of the most useful mutant abilities around, and being treated like a commodity wore thin years ago."

At that, Forge merely shrugged with a grin. "We have these abilities, we ought to use them as we see fit. 'Those who deny their inherent advantage to themselves will find themselves oft denied by others', you know. You ever thought of going into business with your abilities? From what you said, you could replace an entire engineer crew. Manipulate objects in hazardous conditions, that sort of thing."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Teaching was not precisely my first career," he said with a certain amount of amusement, and decided that being open wouldn't hurt. It wasn't as if the rest of the student body didn't know. "Up until February of this year I was manipulating objects in hazardous conditions for a living. Although those objects were usually bullets. Tanks. Fighter jets. Things like that."

For a moment, Forge just gaped. Looking closely, he wondered just where Dayspring had come from. To his knowledge, no major military action had ever involved mutants. No open one that would have made the news, anyway. Suddenly, the things he'd read on a number of conspiracy websites seemed less outlandish.

"Bit of a career change, then?" he asked, trying to not sound utterly intimidated.

Nathan very carefully did not smile. "Necessary career change," he explained. "My secondary mutation was killing me. I came here for medical help, and stayed."

"Secondary mutation?" Now THAT sounded interesting. While secondary mutation was a new concept in genetics, one on which Dr. McCoy had written books about, Forge wasn't completely familiar with it. "Telekinetics often develop telepathic abilities, but that's usually just considered an offshoot of the brain's psionic ability. You have another non-psi mutation?"

"Oh, I've had the telepathy all along," Nathan said. "It's a good deal weaker than my TK, but they emerged together. My secondary mutation showed up in my late teens. A form of precognition." He waved a hand aimlessly. "Lived with it just fine for years, but then it started doing not-fun things like stopping my heart on a regular basis."

Forge sucked in a deep breath, holding it for a while. An honest-to-god precognitive. Right in front of him. "You're certain it's precognition?" he had to ask. "You see things that actually happen?"

Precognition had been verified for years, in scientific circles. It was merely a form of clairvoyant perception through temporal distance instead of physical distance. Most people's brains, however, weren't geared to handle that kind of sensory input. Thus, the vast majority of precognitives ended up in asylums. Or suicides. Suddenly the concept of Dayspring's numerous head injuries became a LOT more ominous.

"Not quite," Nathan temporized, surprised that no one had mentioned the Askani to Forge yet. Okay, how to do this without sounding like a total lunatic... What was he saying? Not precisely possible, was it? He tried very hard to ignore the snickering at the back of his head.

"It is--was," Nathan corrected himself, "extremely long-range. I was seeing things that will happen two thousand years from now."

THAT raised a barking laugh from Forge, more like that of a scared puppy than a derisive display of sarcasm. That cinched it. The man was most likely a paranoid schizophrenic.

"That's a bit improbable, don't you think?" he asked, trying to gingerly avoid phrasing his doubts in any manner that could set off the time bomb masquerading as a history professor. "I mean, shouldn't long-range stuff like that be impossible to pin down, what with temporal uncertainty? They proved that precognitives can't accurately interpret events the farther ahead they are. It's why none of them have cracked the lottery yet." Forge left his final thought unspoken, You're obviously a complete loony.

The snickering had turned into full-out laughter. #I'm glad you're finding this all entertaining,# Nathan sent wryly. #Any suggestions? Or shall I just consign him to the 'Nathan's a lunatic' school of thought?#

#We wouldn't want to discourage you from making the effort, little brother,~# the composite voice giggled.

"Thoroughly improbable," he said aloud, when he realized that the silence had gone on for a little too long and Forge was starting to look alarmed. "Like something out of a bad science fiction novel. It wouldn't have happened in the first place if there hadn't been a telepath who was also a precognitive in that time period who decided to make a connection with me."

He's a schizophrenic, Forge decided, and what's worse, be BELIEVES the voices in his head.

"So..." he looked for anything to change the subject, "can you fly?"

Not going to laugh. Really, really not going to laugh. "Flying is... a little conspicuous," he said, hoping Forge couldn't hear the amusement in his voice. "I can do it. Easily. But Matrix-esque defying gravity-type stunts are a lot more useful in the type of situations I generally found myself. I was doing the 'jump' trick fifteen years before that movie came out."

"Awesome..." the boy proclaimed, an edge of wondrous envy creeping into his voice. "I'll bet that comes in handy... well, came in handy." Suddenly it all came together. Dayspring was a ninja. Or something like that. Someone who used to flip out and kill people. Because voices from the future told him to. And he could lift jet airplanes and jump over buildings.

Forge made a mental note to avoid history class.

He was going to have to find someplace very, very quiet. Someplace he could laugh for a solid hour and not be disturbed. "Forge," Nathan said, very calmly. "You do realize I can hear just about everything you're thinking? Telepath, remember?"

Immediately, Forge bolted to his feet. "I'm sorry!" he blurted, trying to figure out just WHAT he'd been thinking that Dayspring overheard. "I didn't mean it! I mean, um, you're just - it's all - it doesn't..." he sighed deeply, staring down at the ground. "It's fucking scary, that's what it is."

Nathan raised both hands, palms up. Classic 'I come unarmed' gesture, only both of them knew that wasn't precisely true. "Look," he said more gently. "Charles wouldn't have me here if I was dangerous. I'm not asking you to believe in the Askani - those would be the ghosts from the future that now live in my head, by the way - but you should know that most of the rest of your classmates accept them as real. As much as ghosts from the future can be real. Some of them have met them. We have weekly classes in their language and culture."

"In their language and culture," Forge let the sarcasm become evident in his voice. Dayspring would hear it in his thoughts anyway, he figured. "The ghosts that live in your head. From two thousand years in the future."

Might as well say it, you're thinking it. "Do you actually listen when you say that out loud?"

"Mmm-hmm. And then I occasionally pinch myself. Six months hasn't been quite long enough to get used to it all." Okay, so the jocular tone wasn't going over all that well. Nathan shook his head. "I could point you in the Professor's direction," he said, "given that he's worked with me and them often enough to be able to tell you that they are, in fact, separate psionic entities and not just delusions."

Forge nodded. "I'll do that." Self-consciously, he jammed his hands in his pockets and scanned the skies for the fliers, who had doubtlessly headed elsewhere to escape the oncoming storm.

"Can't you turn it off?" he asked innocently. "I mean, you know what they say about people who only think they hear voices."

Nathan stiffened instinctively, but took a deep breath, telling himself to relax. Forge wasn't threatening the Askani. "Someone else did, once," he said briskly. "As an incidental thing, while they were busy rewriting my mind. You might say the cure was worse than the disease."

Forge's mind reeled. Where in the HELL did Dayspring come from?

"Okay, maybe this is just me not being all wise in the ways of the super-secret deep-cover James Bond shit of the world. In five minutes, you've gone from being the history teacher to a guy who can catch planes, hears voices from the future, and has had people try to rewrite your mind?" Forge ticked off the points on his fingers. "I'm sorry, sir, there's a lot I've been asked to accept since I've been here. Dragons. Adventures in other dimensions, ectoplasmic duplication, purple-haired catgirls, crazy punk sex witches, more purple girls who teleport, someone who controls the weather - don't get me STARTED there - and a music teacher who can't hear music or she'll die." He threw his hands up in frustration. "And people out there would want to string ME up for having a quirk of genetics. That's it, the world's gone mad, and I'm the only sane one left."

Nathan gave Forge a very direct look. "Ask one of your classmates about an art exhibit in August. Or the attack at Columbia University at the end of July." He smiled very faintly. "Unlike the ghosts from the future, that's all a matter of public record. As for the rest of it..." He shrugged helplessly. "Is this where I say welcome to Xavier's? Since I don't think I did, when you first arrived..."

Stunned by the blase acceptance Dayspring seemed to have at all this, Forge just dropped back into the chair. Closing his eyes, he tried counting prime numbers. Anything to try and deny everything he'd been deluged with in the past month.

"We're different, aren't we, sir?" he asked. Opening his eyes, he laced his fingers together under his chin and looked at Nathan. "I don't mean our genetics. I mean," he nodded to Nathan, then over to the building. "All of this. I can't even wrap my brain around it, but I'm going to have to. This is normal?"

"It may not be normal," Nathan said, with some sympathy for the young man's difficulties, "but it is real." He paused, his gaze flickering back to the mansion. "I can't tell you the craziness isn't nearly continual," he said, "but there's a lot that's worthwhile, between the crises. I was..." He paused, a faintly wistful smile tugging at his lips. "I wandered the halls in shock my first few weeks here, to be honest. I'd never seen a place where mutant kids had this much freedom to explore who they were."

Forge thought. He'd indeed been given that freedom. A place where he could be himself. No one ridiculing him for his gifts, or expecting him to confom to some preset ideal. He was, of course, still waiting for the shoe to drop on that last one. It still creeped him out, the overbearing... niceness... of some of the other students. That more than anything else wasn't normal by any means.

With a shrug, he nodded to Nathan. "It'll take some time, sir. But I'll get used to it."

"I don't doubt that you will." Unless of course trying to make sense of it all drove the kid insane. Attempting to apply too much logic to this place could do that. Nathan glanced up at the sky critically. "I was going to get some practice in down by the lake," he mused. "Water being nice and heavy, and thus a good way to see if I've fully recovered from my concussion... but this is not looking promising."

Glancing upwards, Forge felt the first drop of rain on his face. Despite the almost surety of the skies opening into a downpour, he began to slowly feel more comfortable. "I'm not too sure about that part, sir," he said slowly. "You ask me, it's the most promising thing I've been offered yet."

Interesting comment. A little enigmatic, but interesting. "I suppose I won't melt," Nathan said with another brief smile. "Especially since telekinetic umbrellas are easy." He started to visualize one, but rather than turning away just yet lingered for a moment, remembering what he'd been planning to say to Forge. "Thank you for what you did for Alison," he said seriously. "She's a very dear friend."

At that, Forge smiled genuinely. People here appreciated his genius. That cinched it for him. Despite the crazy people, and the occasional threat of doom - Xavier's would be a place where he could make the best of himself.

"It was what was needed, and I could do it." He was as surprised as anyone to hear a tone of humility in his voice. Maybe he was picking that up from the two lady doctors. They weren't superpowered mutants, but they held the power of life and death in their hands, and were as humble as churchmice about it. Forge wondered if that was rubbing off on him, and suppressed a shudder. After all, no one ever made it to the top on humility.

"That's all we can do," Nathan said as the rain started to fall harder. It slid around his 'umbrella', and he smiled at the intent look Forge was giving him. "I should show you my coin tricks sometime," he said, turning away. "Good to meet you finally."

"Yep," Forge repeated, putting his sunglassed back on and looking up to let the rain fall on his face. He'd go in shortly, and he tried to think that loud enough for the teacher to hear. For the moment, though, he just let the rain fall on him and soak in.

Osmosis, he thought. The transfer of a liquid through a membrane from an area of high to low pressure. Just like the rain, this place was going to work its way into him, he knew.

He was still going to avoid history class at all costs, though.