xp_logs | Shiro & Alison and Scott

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Earlier this afternoon, Shiro speaks with Alison about becoming a trainee. Mostly, he tries to convince her that just because he disobeyed orders in January and could have gotten everyone killed, that's no reason to bar him from joining.

Not for the first time today, Shiro thanked whoever was in charge of doling out mutant powers that none of the leaders of the X-Men were psis. He had no problem controlling his posture and disposition, but his thoughts were another story. And he knew that he'd have to keep some thing to himself today if he wanted to get what he desired.

Knocking on the door to Alison's office, Shiro waited for a response. Thoughts of Muir Island and that Proteus monster floated through his head, but he ignored them, focusing instead on his successes in Asgard and with those cyborg things.

"Come in," was the response, a touch distracted - the reason for which was easily understandable once Shiro opened to door and stepped inside. Files littered Alison's desk, and both her office computer and the portable were open and running, churning away on something, though what was unclear. "Shiro." She blinked at him, then moved the portable from the center of the desk, half closing the screen in the process. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Hello." Shutting the door, he walked halfway into the room. "I was hoping that you could spare me a moment of your time," he said, waiting to sit down until he got an invitation to do so. "There is something that I would briefly like to speak to you about."

After gesturing for him to sit down, Alison leaned back in her chair, nudging a few files away - carefully, as they'd developed a habit of leaping off the desk at the slightest provocation of late. "All right. You have my entire attention. What would you like to talk to me about?"

Offering Alison a nod, he approached her desk and took a seat, making sure to sit upright and maintain good posture. Nothing ruined a professional conversation like bad posture. "It is about the team. More specifically, my desire to join the ranks of the trainees and one day become an X-Man." He hated speaking so formally to Alison, but after what happened on Muir, Shiro felt that being casual would be seen as flippant, and damned if he wasn't serious about this.

Well. Surprised or not, Alison didn't let it show, watching him intently for a moment. He was (literally) at pains to seem proper and mature. It made the earnestness come through probably far more than he intended it to. "Why?" She had other questions she'd be asking, but it seemed like the one which might make things as clear as possible, right from the start.

For a brief moment, Shiro wanted to tell the truth and say to Alison: "To be a superhero!" But he knew as well as the next person that that would not go very far. So he instead replied with a carefully constructed response, one he had spent quite a while developing. "There are many reasons. Not the least of which is that I have tremendous power at my command. There are those who would use my power for their own if given the opportunity. There are those who use their own for selfish, if not downright evil deeds. Baseline humans are not suited to stop them, but I am. I have heard much about Magneto, and what he endeavors to accomplish disgusts me. I am designed to be a warrior, so I ought to fight against madmen like him. The X-Men give me an opportunity to do so."

That was - the canned reply. A good one, but the obvious one as well. Alison nodded slowly at that, watching him without a word for a rather long time. Finally, her lips quirked, just a touch. It didn't matter if that wasn't the whole of it, just yet. She had no doubt Shiro wanted this, and the whole "have a normal life" speech wasn't going to go far here. Besides - being a trainee, as she's told Scott, did not automatically mean one became an X-Man. Be it by revision of choice by the trainee later on, or because suitability was... not there.

"Okay." Response accepted. Though Alison planned to ask why again later. "So what would you like to talk about with me, specifically, in terms of you becoming a trainee?"

"Mr. al Rashid told me to" wasn't going to fly well, either. "I know that we have had our differences of late," Shiro put it lightly, "So before I speak with Mr. Summers, I just wanted you to know that I am serious about this, and that I am not going to disappoint anyone." Especially himself.

"Being a trainee isn't about disappointing us," Alison said mildly. "It's about what you want." The unspoken words being - making sure of what you want, and then sticking to it as long as need be. Finally, she leaned forward, elbows on her desk and hands clasped. "Shiro. Anyone wanting to apply to be a trainee, can. If they're sure, which you seem to be. There's just no guarantees on anything else, after that. There's none any of us can give."

Shiro nodded. "The only guarantee that I ask for is that past actions and past behavior that may have suggested that I am less than I prove myself to be will not be held against me. And I was assuming that would be the case, anyway." His posture relaxed slightly but visibly.

"Good assumption." Paige had been a trainee for almost a year already. Shiro had more than enough time to prove himself. Be that as a fit X-Man, or not. She suspected Scott would take the hardline on this one, once things were made official - until then, it was up to Shiro to decide on what he wanted, and not up to her to go all fearsome about it.

"I do truly wish to be an X-Man, Dazzler." Ought to get used to the codenames when talking to the X-Men about the team, Shiro figured. "I know that some may not be too thrilled, but I am going to do it," he said resolutely.

"You are nothing if not a very stubborn and determined young man," Alison said. Somehow not adding muleheaded to the list. Still, even that could serve him well, depending on how he angled it. She wasn't sure he'd make it - but she was willing to be surprised, on that score. "Thank you for showing the courtesy of speaking about this to me. I do appreciate that." Reinforcing that communication was a Good Thing could never be started too early, after all.

"I prefer determined or persistent over stubborn," said Shiro, allowing himself to grin. "And courtesy is something that I have always offered to individuals whom I respect." Which is why there are so few who earn his courtesy. But he didn't say that out loud. The implication was certainly there, though. "If that is all, I will take my leave."

The underlying compliment was perhaps unwitting, perhaps not. Alison chose to take it at face value, smiling a touch in return. "Unless you had anything else you wanted to talk about..." she trailed off, nodding at him as he rose to his feet. "I'll see you later, then, Shiro."

Score. Point for Shiro. "Thank you for your time, Alison." As he stood, he gave her a short but polite bow, and then left the room. That wasn't too bad, he thought. Certainly could have been much worse. Now all that was left was finding Scott. He only hoped he could prepare himself enough for that.

And later, Shiro finally asks Scott, and manages to be less annoying and sound smarter than Jubilee. (As if that was difficult ;P)

All of the preliminary conversations were completed. Now came the important one. The one that mattered. Mentally boxing up his anxiety, Shiro knocked on the door to Scott's office, then shoved his hands into his Xavier's hoodie pocket. Waiting for a response, he silently went over everything he'd discussed with the others. Damned if he wasn't going to make a wonderful first impression.

"Come in," Scott called, realizing he'd been staring at the same spot of the same file for almost a half-hour as he raised his eyes from the computer screen and noticed the clock. Yeah. Being terribly productive this afternoon. As the door opened to reveal Shiro, wearing a very purposeful expression, Scott raised an eyebrow. "Hey," he said amiably enough. "Come on in and sit down - what's up?"

Scott was one of the staff whom Shiro respected a great deal, so he was not going to bullshit. And to Shiro, that included preamble. "Mr. Summers . . . Cyclops, rather. I would like to become an X-Man."

Scott managed to limit his reaction to a startled blink that was nicely covered by the glasses. He was rather glad he hadn't reached for his probably ice-cold coffee just then, though. His first verbal reaction was none too impressive, though. "Oh." Definitely not impressive. Shaking his head a little, Scott gave Shiro a semi-apologetic smile and went on. "Walk me through this, Shiro. What brought you to that decision?"

Scott's reaction was comical, and it brought an unbidden quirk to Shiro's lips. "I have been thinking about it for quite some time. And I have done many things that lead me to believe that I would make a great X-Man. I saved your brother from the Black Queen." Well, he'd helped the White Queen do it, but it still counted. "I went to Limbo to try to help Illyana." And had ended up injured. "I survived on my own for months in Asgard before we returned." It didn't matter that he had been living with goddesses who supported him. "I saved my sister from my mad cousin." The suicidal depression that followed was something else entirely. "I have used my powers for good time and again, and I want to do it more often."

"Which is a laudable goal," Scott said more steadily. "But are you sure the X-Men are the best way for you to do that?" He slouched in his chair a little, stretching out the bad leg a little farther under the desk. "A lot of what you've just recited to me are things that you did on your own. Being an X-Man is very different. It requires a very different sort of discipline in addition to what you've already learned."

Shiro nodded and offered a small sigh of resignation. "Working with others has never been one of my better skills, to be honest. But it is also something that I am willing to work on." Whether or not he would enjoy it was another matter, and one that didn't need to come into play. As a child, Shiro didn't like his slavemaster of an uncle either when it came to jujitsu, kendo, and kenjutsu, but Shiro would readily admit that it was for the best.

Scott decided to let that go for a moment. "Why now?" he pressed. "I know you've had the desire to do something worthwhile with your abilities for a long time. I remember that conversation we had about it. But what made you decide now that the X-Men were the way to fulfill it?

"Well, now I am eighteen years-old, so by American laws I am an adult and can legally make such a decision for myself." Shiro paused, taking a momentary breather to brush his hair away from his face and collect his thought. "I think that those cyborg invaders helped me come to this conclusion as well. They threatened not only this institution, but also my sister and my best friend. They were ready to kill Alex. But he, Kitty, and I stopped them from doing any more damage than they had already wrought. I, anoo, I enjoyed it. I felt good for what we had done."

"And again... that doesn't really have much to do with the X-Men." He hoped Shiro would realize why he was doing this, and not take it personally. "You and my brother and Kitty got cornered in a crisis situation and handled yourself well. It was a matter of self-defense. The X-Men have often defended the school, yes, but it's not our primary function." He gazed at Shiro steadily. "How many X-Men are walking around uninjured this week?"

Shiro knew where this was heading. "I could probably count them on one hand," he replied, returning Scott's gaze. "What you and the rest of the team did was simply amazing, Cyclops. What you managed to accomplish given the odds . . . It is astounding and impressive. Yes, I know there were casualties on both sides. But if that is the price of being an X-Man, of doing good . . . Let the eloquent ones like Forge and Jamie change the world through political and social channels. There are still those whom they cannot fight. But I can. I am built to be such a warrior."

"We're not warriors, Shiro," Scott said, a bit sharply. "We're not even soldiers, at least not by any conventional definition." He rubbed at his jaw, never breaking eye contact with the young man, and decided that a little information shared wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "A lot of the injuries that were suffered in Greece could have been avoided, you know."

Shiro mentally cursed himself for using that terminology. He wasn't scoring points by being so militaristic. "What are the X-Men, then? I suppose 'defenders' would be more apt? I know that you do not instigate conflict, and that you avoid confrontation whenever possible. But that does not eliminate the fact that the X-Men train for battle and often engage in violence. People may think that I am a sadist and enjoy hurting people, but I do not. I am prepared to do so if necessary, but I will hold back when it is not." He kept his eyes on Scott's through all this, not backing away from the silent challenge. "I have no doubt that many of the injuries could have been avoided. Had I been more careful, I would not have been nearly shot in the arm when Wisdom's old men attacked us fourteen months ago."

"It's got nothing to do with being careful," Scott said, more of an edge to the words than he really intended. He stopped, took a deep breath, and went on more moderately. "It's because of the choices we made in the middle of it all, out there. We were fighting people who had no choice about what they were doing, who'd been rendered... well, mindless killing machines wouldn't be too far off the mark. But they were victims, Shiro. And we chose to do our best not to meet lethal force with lethal force... which put us at an automatic disadvantage." He straightened in the chair, still not breaking eye contact. "Could you have done that? Set aside your pride, your natural instincts to defend yourself to the limit of your capabilities?"

Shiro was taken aback by Scott's fervor, but did not show it. He stayed in exactly the same position, his eyes still locked with Scott's. "I can," he replied simply, pausing briefly before continuing. "I believe that I can now, and I know that with the proper instruction, I can learn to do anything."

Saying all the right things. And yet... "And if you're given an order you don't agree with?" Scott asked, his voice level. "If you're told to do something, and you feel that another course of action would be more appropriate... which path do you choose?" Before Shiro could answer, he went on. "And yes, this has everything to do with what happened on Muir Island at New Year's. I got very detailed reports from the X-Men who were there." He smiled faintly. "On the subject of you, they ranged from saying that you handled yourself fairly well under the circumstances to two very scary pages of meticulous but rather venomous tactical analysis."

Shiro broke eye contact, looking at anywhere but Scott for a few seconds before steeling himself and looking up at him again. The compliment and the insult, which he assumed were from Haroun and Nathan respectively, went unnoticed. "I spoke with Mr. al Ra . . . with Jetstream about this. He made me realize that if I am to be part of a team such as the X-Men, then I must put aside my pride and follow orders, no matter how idiotic I may believe them to be. Even though that is not something that I can do particularly well now, I will get better at it." Shiro offered Scott a half-apologetic shrug.

No matter how idiotic... What was this, his month for teenaged would-be X-Men who believed in the infallibility of their own judgment in tactical situations? "It would be a serious challenge for you," Scott said very bluntly. "Not just in and of itself, but because you've proven, in the field, that you can't be trusted to take orders." He raised a hand before Shiro could say anything. "I'm not disparaging your ability to learn better," he said steadily. "You have enough personal discipline that I do believe you could. But the events on Muir are a matter of public record for the team, and there would almost inevitably be people who would watch you very closely against the possibility of a repeat performance." Himself included, if this came about. "You need to be prepared for that, if you do this. None of the trainees start on a level playing field, admittedly - you all have issues and obstacles to overcome, but this particular one of yours hits very close to the areas that cannot, under any circumstances, be compromised." He took a deep breath, letting his hand fall. "And there's the issue of what happened in the summer."

"I would not have come to speak with you if I had not come to accept that stipulation," Shiro said slowly, feeling his own anger bubble up at what he perceived as a grievous insult. "August was a fluke, and I would prefer to simply put that behind me rather than discuss it further." Despite the apparent indifference in his voice, it was clear to one with any people-reading skills that Shiro was more embarrassed than anything. He just hoped that no one would call him out on it.

"You are missing my point entirely," Scott said, perhaps a little too forcefully. "I'm not doubting your decision to accept that 'stipulation'. I'm warning you that there may be people, potential teammates, who doubt you. Right from the get-go. Simply because of what happened on Muir." A little steel entered his voice as he went on. "As for what happened in August, you may not want to talk about it any further, but sweeping it under the carpet isn't an option. Not if you want to train for the team. You may not be aware of the fact that all team members go through psychological evaluations with the Professor. I won't judge whether or not you have dealt with this 'fluke' - that's not my job. He, however, will." He shook his head a little. "The stress we're under can be crippling at times," he said, his voice more moderate. "We need to make sure that we can handle it - or at least not snap, when we do snap, in a fashion that's harmful to those around us." He smiled very thinly. "Harm to ourselves is sometimes inevitable."

Shiro inhaled, and took the moment to regain the stoic calm he felt he'd had at the beginning of the conversation. This was not going as well as planned. "I know that it will be an uphill battle to gain the X-Men's trust. I know that I have alienated a number of people through my behavior. But I am here because it will be accomplished." Emphasis on the "will be." "What happened last August was the result of a temporary depression due to mourning the loss of my old self. I have come to accept what happened and I have been trying to move on. But if Professor Xavier wishes to speak more on the subject, then I suppose I will have to do it. Although, now that I think about it, the fact that I wish to join the X-Men should be testament to the fact that I have come to grips with my mutation and all of the responsibilities it entails."

"With your mutation... yes, I'll buy that. With yourself?" Scott gave him a very faint smile. "You'd be doing better than some of us already on the team if you've come to grips with yourself completely, Shiro. I think you'll find the training itself, let alone the job, tends to redefine who you believe yourself to be pretty quickly. And it's not always comfortable."

Shiro couldn't help but grin. "I am not the Buddha. Coming to fully accept every aspect of my self is not something I am ever likely to do. And I have come to learn, especially in August, that the process of self-realization is a difficult one. But the fact that it is daunting does not scare me."

Slightly more reassuring than Jubilee. Slightly. The answer, right now, would have to be the same, though. "I need to talk to the other two team leaders," Scott said. "I don't make these decisions on my own anymore. And I'll need to talk to the Professor, of course... in fact, you should too, most likely. Arrange to meet him for tea at some point soon and let me know when you have. I'll schedule my conversation with him for after that."

"The infamous conversation over tea?" Shiro had heard tales of Xavier and his Earl Grey. That would not be a pleasant talk. "Well, if that is what I must do." Nodding, Shiro rose from his seat and bent over to hold out his hand to Scott, knowing that Scott ought to stay off his knee. "Thank you for at least hearing me out, sir."

"It doesn't cost anything to listen," Scott said a bit cryptically, but shook Shiro's hand. "You're welcome. I'll get back to you about this when I can."

With a final nod, Shiro left Scott's office and found himself heading to the flyer's platform. His nerves were frayed, and he had to expend his energy somehow. Flying a few laps around the state felt like it would help.