(Untitled)

[foreverbouncing]

WHO: Misfit and OPEN.
WHERE: Xavier Institute
WHEN: Let's say..late afternoon on Wednesday.
WARNINGS: Charlie is kind of a snoop.
SUMMARY: If Oracle is going to make her go to school, Charlie's going to go check it out first, dang it! And set off lots of silent alarms.
FORMAT: Whatever works.

Comments

[more_surreal]

Calvin wasn't supposed to be there that late either, but according to the teacher he wasn't supposed to do a lot of things, which was why he was now writing out 'the contents of the supply closet are not fortress construction materials' one hundred times on the blackboard. For the fourth time since apparently using stupendous speed to complete it in seconds was cheating or something. At this rate he was never going to get to go home and watch TV! It just wasn't fair.

He looked over his shoulder and saw someone he didn't recognize. At least she wasn't a teacher, whoever she was. "Hey, are you in detention too?"

Dude, Calvin!

[foreverbouncing]

Oh man, how had she missed the short kid? She just sort of blinked at him a couple of times, and then ran with it. "Yes?" Okay, so that probably wasn't going to hold water. "I mean, no, I just am..." Okay, what was a good reason to be here. "Exploring?"

Wait, crap, that totally wasn't a valid reason for an actual student to be walking around. "Or, no, I'm just...taking a walk. Right." Yeah, that would totally work better.

Yep! Hi :3

[more_surreal]

Calvin just stared at her. "I don't know who you are, lady, but boy have you got a lot to learn about lying." At least she was giving him something to do that didn't involve a chalkboard. "What are you doing here? Are you a bad guy? Is the school being attacked again?" Probably not. Emplate had been way noisier. And scarier.

Is his hero identity Spaceman Spiff?

[foreverbouncing]

"Huh? I'm not lying..." She paused, okay, so that wasn't gonna work. "Well, I'm not a bad guy, at least?" That was true!

She grinned her winningest grin at him. "I'm just, you know, lookin' around. At your...school."

Nope. Stupendous Man \o/

[more_surreal]

"You better not be, because the last guy got his butt kicked!" Calvin frowned his most skeptical frown at her. "Why would you want to look at it? It's cooler than most schools, I guess, but that's just because of all the superpowers." He wiped chalk off his hand and onto his pants, ignoring the streaks it left. "It's still school."

That's even better.

[foreverbouncing]

Well! Here was a kid that obviously shared her opinion of school. "Yeah, I guess that's kind of a crummy reason, huh? School is pretty awful."

She leaned down slightly. "Look, uh...Don't tell anybody but I'm just kinda...seeing what it's like. I hated all my other schools."

[more_surreal]

"Yeah, me too." Technically Calvin had only ever had one school besides Xavier's, but as far as he was concerned that was all the experience he needed to make him an expert. "If there's someone making you go, you should probably pick this one, I guess. It's exciting."

Looking around, he walked over to her, leaned in, and stage-whispered from behind his hand: "For example: you can't tell anyone because it's a secret, but the Principal? Mr. Summers? He's a cyborg. A cyborg with laser eyes."

[foreverbouncing]

"My last school was weird. The nerds ran everything and the jocks were second class citizens," she offered an example of the most non-exciting school she could think of in response to his saying this one was exciting. "I guess I don't have anywhere to go but up..."

She just sort of blinked at the kid a few times at his whisper. "A cyborg? Really? That's awesome! I've met..." She frowned. "I think I've met two of those. Or three if you count Gizmo but I think he was actually a zombie..."

[more_surreal]

"You've met three cyborgs?" After this much time in the City Calvin had probably met more than three, but that was still pretty impressive. "Hey, you're from one of those places that's filled with cool stuff, aren't you? Man, I'm jealous. My world's much less thrilling than its interdimensional competition, I've found."

[foreverbouncing]

"Well, Cyborg was a Cyborg obviously," she ticked off one of her fingers. "And...Actually, it might only be two cause I think Blue Beetle was magic he just looked like a cyborg. Plus Gizmo. Except he was also a zombie." She paused. "And a midget."

"What do you mean, cool stuff? Your home wasn't?" It was hard to imagine a world where stuff like that didn't go on, honestly...

[more_surreal]

"Nothing exciting ever happened to me at home," Calvin frowned. Aside from the Noodle Incident but that never happened. "No alien invasions, no superpowers, no car chases! I'm glad I got taken here, it's so much more like TV!"

[foreverbouncing]

"Crazy stuff happened all the time back home...but some of it was pretty scary too. I mean...lots and lots of people can die when stuff is really, you know, 'exciting.'" Not that Misfit minded, exactly, but...adventure could be extremely dangerous.

"So...nothing like that happened where you come from? A whole planet and nobody with superpowers?"

That was pretty weird, right?

[more_surreal]

Calvin shrugged. "Yeah, but there was lots of scary stuff where I come from too. It was just all boring, like burglars and bullies and monsters under the bed. If I have to be terrified, I'd rather be terrified of something amazing." He walked away from her and hopped up to sit on a desk, swinging his legs. "I'm sure there were lots of amazing things back home! Maybe there were even people with powers hiding somewhere! But I never got to see or do any of it. Not like I do here."

Is Calvin still six?

[foreverbouncing]

"Well," Charlie wasn't sure what to say to sort of get him off the home bashing thing, so she decided to just run with a different idea entirely.

"Some people like, they get extra powers here right? Did you get anything?"

Always and forever

[more_surreal]

That cheered Calvin right up. "Yeah! I got the best powers! Hold on, I'll show you!" He ran out of the classroom towards his locker, completely forgetting that he was still supposed to be in detention. A few minutes, clangs, and grunts later someone re-entered. Someone wearing a dark red cowl and cape, humming his own theme music ("Bum ba da da BUM...bumba da da BUM!"), and flying a few feet off the ground.

"BEHOLD!" He yelled, hovering in front of Charlie. "The Crimson Bolt of Courage known as STUPENDOUS MAN!"

And like, three feet tall?

[foreverbouncing]

Charlie raised an eyebrow as the kid went running off, and moved to peer out the door as she listened to the bangs and clangs as he...changed in his locker? That certainly seemed like a cramped way to do it.

She stepped back quickly when he came shooting into the room, and couldn't help but grin seeing him. "Dude, you can fly!"

There were only a couple powers Charlie was genuinely jealous of, but flight was definitely one of them.