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| Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast; 5/23 - Morning - (Nezh, Kitty & Quentin) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 17 2013, 06:54 PM (597 Views) | |
| Gentle | Nov 17 2013, 06:54 PM Post #1 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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He’d thought his life had become surreal when he’d woken up from nightmare of excruciating pain into the Wakandan royal palace’s infirmary, (in what had admittedly been still quite a lot of pain, but considerably less), and had then proceeded to meet not only the King, the Queen, but Kitty Pryde, just as alive (and even better looking) as she’d ever been. But two days later, Nezhno Abidemi was realizing that though that had, admittedly, been at least somewhat surreal, his life had only just been getting started with him. Because he’d woken up today, at 5am, in one of the middle decks of SHIELD’s own Helicarrier, in only a really pretty small amount of pain, to get to a research lab. A research lab he’d been invited to, to meet Reed Richards. Who’d wanted to offer him suggestions about how to work with unstable molecules. If it was a dream - and it did still feel a little like one, off and on, though pinching himself hadn’t done anything so far except cause two-days ago levels of pain - it was a good one, and Nezhno wasn’t sure he’d really want to wake up. He definitely didn’t want to pinch himself any more, either. So... ...so here he was, limbs carefully arranged so he could bend over a lab bench with minimal amounts of surface contact, carefully adjusting the tension of a electromagnetic vise that was holding a small square of black unstable molecules a few inches off the benchtop. While he did that, he was still trying to get his brain to cohere everything that Dr Richards had been pouring out in a constant stream of words before he’d left again (that had been about an hour ago) on the subject of unstable molecules, and see where the couple of sentences of terse direction the Maker had offered when he’d stopped by half an hour later. The blue, slightly viscous liquid the other, older man had presented him with when he’d first arrived was still lying on the bench beside his set-up, just where he’d left it. Dr Richards had eyed it with what had seemed like at least a little trepidation, when he’d asked about it, but on the other hand, the Maker had seemed like he thought he should drink it, or chew it (or whatever it was he was supposed to do with it). Which probably meant he should do it. But given how surreal this morning had already been, Nezhno couldn’t quite get the image from that book they’d read in English class in middle school out of his mind, every time he risked a glance over at the mostly unprepossessing blue pouch. The book had been about a girl, and the rabbit, and the caterpillar who’d smoked, and some playing cards and flamingos. Something like that, anyway - it hadn’t made much sense at the time, and it seemed to make even less now, when the Wakandan tried to think back over it - but the part that was sticking in his mind? That was the part with the bottle that said ‘Drink Me’, and made her grow larger (or was it smaller?) . And... well, and Nezhno was pretty sure that he’d had enough of his body doing odd, uncontrollable things for at least this week, so the risk - even if it probably was very small - was kind of preying on his mind a little. And he was almost half sure that the liquid had moved a couple of centimeters, all on its own, without anyone touching it. But that was probably just part of the general feeling of surreality of the morning, right? He really kind of hoped so. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Nov 19 2013, 08:07 PM Post #2 |
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Unphased
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[Cont'd from That's What Friends Are For] Late. She was late. Or Kitty was pretty sure she was late as she hurried down the hall toward the lab, reaching back behind her to pull her hair back and wrap the elastic hair holder thing (one day, she was really gonna have to find out the official name for those things). She and Doug had...well, she didn't think she'd broken him and the TO virus hadn't eaten him and she was thinking this thing had a pretty good chance of working. Still, she'd rather Doug just get the TO virus out of his system (god, still couldn't believe he had the means to do that and hadn't), but with any luck, once this was done and if it worked, maybe he'd be willing to let it go then. It wasn't even that she didn't get why he didn't want to but...yeah. At this point, with the way he was using it to push himself more and more, it wasn't worth risking himself like that. Something to think about again later, though, because she was definitely late, the brunette decided, spotting the lab door and picking up the pace. A few seconds later, she slipped through the door, an apology already spilling out. "Sorry, sorry," she began as she hurried in, glancing around and spotting Nezhno over on the bench doing...well, she couldn't tell what he was doing from this angle. But it was probably something really interesting that she'd missed. "Sorry I'm late, Nezh," Kitty added again, heading over that way to peer over his shoulder, "Doug wanted me to help with a program thing and it took longer than I thought." Then, realizing she was shooting all that out at him pretty rapid fire, she slowed herself down, grinned and added, "Also, hi! What'd I miss?" He had a square of the unstable molecule fabric in the electromagnetic vise. Possibly trying to look it into doing what he wanted. Or maybe coerce it with his mind. Hey, it wasn't like she'd never tried that. Hopefully it'd work better for him. Going around to his other side, she eased herself down onto the bench, trying to be careful to not to jostle him too much. He was doing a lot better, but jostling him around a whole lot still probably wouldn't be fun for him. Facing forward, she found herself almost face to face with some familiar blue goo. "I see you met Nemesis already," the brunette added with a slightly lopsided, knowing smile. "And he left you a present. He must like you." Which maybe should scare him a little, really. |
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| Gentle | Nov 21 2013, 08:41 PM Post #3 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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"Sorry, sorry," came a voice from the door, and Nezhno looked up to see Kitty slipping inside, and felt himself breaking into a wide grin before he’d even managed to stop to think about whether that was okay, and why on earth Kitty Pryde would be apologizing to him. "Sorry I'm late, Nezh," Kitty added again, which sort of cleared up at least part of the Wakandan boy’s confusion, except that it didn’t really, because although she had mentioned that she’d see him ‘tomorrow morning, in the lab‘ last night, he hadn’t... well... that was the kind of polite thing people said, wasn’t it? Apparently not, because as Kitty crossed over to him, with the same sparking expression she’d had off and on in Wakanda that he’d come to associate with her being intrigued, she was still continuing to make excuses that he really couldn’t have imagined were necessary, at all. Ever. "Doug wanted me to help with a program thing and it took longer than I thought." “Oh... no,” Nezhno assured her, stumbling over the words through a combination of lingering surprise and stubborn awkwardness that the last couple of days hadn’t really managed to put entirely to rest where it came to Kitty Pryde. “I mean...” he tried again, wishing his tongue didn’t feel about as clumsy as his arms and legs had on the very first day back in Wakanda, and that he could find a good way to assure her he hadn’t been expecting her without that sounding totally wrong, “...do you-” Need some more time with Doug, he’d been trying to say, but she was already really close, leaning over the bench to peer at the fabric-vise contraption he’d set up, and grinning in a way that had melted all the assurances and questions right out of Nezhno’s head before he’d managed to figure out what was happening. "Also, hi! What'd I miss?" How was anyone supposed to really answer a question like that? To answer it properly, and carefully, and not to bore the questioner with too many details, and in any case where would you start? “Um...” said Nezhno, well and truly lost in the possibilities. The thing was that there had been almost too many things happening in the hours he’d been awake this morning, and he wanted to tell Kitty Pryde about all of them. That would be too much, wouldn’t it, though? “There was...” he began, but trailed off, shaking his head uncomfortably when he realized he couldn’t even think of how to start talking, and even less whether he’d be able to stop if he did. Luckily though, Kitty was already taking the initiative like she seemed to always be able to, moving around to his other side with a really thoughtful wide berth and a complete absence of jostling. That was the side of the blue goo that she was on now though, and... it really did look like it had moved. Should he warn her? No need, because she seemed to notice it right away, before Nezhno had corralled his tongue into actually functioning. "I see you met Nemesis already," the brunette added with a slightly lopsided, knowing smile. "And he left you a present. He must like you." Nezhno smiled wryly back at her, wrinkling his nose a little into a not-quite conflicted expression. “I think his actual words were: ‘your unaccountable x-gene-fail is finally scientific proof that miscegenation is bad for the species’, but I suppose he did seem rather pleased about that,” the Wakandan explained mildly, with something of a smile still on his face, even with relaying what was probably at least partly intentionally insulting. It was okay - and he was only failing to shrug it off because he’d learned over the last few days that the particular form of pain that came along with shrugs was choosing to be difficult about subsiding the way most of the rest of it had. “Or at least he was smiling.” In an odd way, discussing the acerbic, and ill-tempered white haired scientist actually managed to be relaxing. At least it was a definite point and topic that he could find words to answer, relatively easy. Even if they weren’t actually his own. “But I think it’s the Maker that he likes,” Nezhno added a moment later, giving the matter a thoughtful expression that was mostly directed on the pouch of blue goo lying - apparently dormant, at least for the moment - on the benchtop. “He complained a lot about bumbling tinkerers with erratic trains of thought, but I got the impression there’s not too many other people who’ve been willing to drink the things he makes.” A second thoughtful pause, and this time Nezhno turned his expression on Kitty, who probably knew the man an awful lot better than he did, having known and lived with him as long as she had. “And that he... appreciated that?” he suggested, or maybe straight out queried. Now that he’d put it into words, that sounded very very strange. But... it was the impression he’d got somehow, all the same. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Nov 23 2013, 02:39 PM Post #4 |
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Unphased
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Uggh, she hated being late, but at least it was for a good cause. Still, the stuff with Doug had taken longer than she'd thought and she'd lost track of time. So yeah, all the apologies. “Oh... no,” Nezhno assured her as she kinda peered around him to see what he was up to and how far he'd gotten, smiling his way in the process. He almost looked a little surprised, but that was maybe from the fact she'd descended on him out of the blue with a bunch of sorry-ing. Which Nezh was, of course, too nice to do anything but try to deflect. “I mean...” he tried again and her smile widened a little. Man, she may have totally broken him with all the apologies. “...do you-” Before he could finish that, or try to start it a different way again, Kitty remembered at least some of her manners. Or, you know, to say hi. Finally. And to ask what she'd missed, because she was sure she'd missed stuff. Probably interesting stuff, too. “Um...” said Nezhno, who looked like he was trying to come up with the still mysterious 'stuff' she might've missed. Okay, maybe not so much with the interesting stuff after all. “There was...” he began then trailed off again without finishing that, shaking his head instead and looking a little ill at ease. Well, no big if there wasn't anything all that interesting that she'd missed, or if he was having trouble coming up with whatever it was. Actually, that was good. She wouldn't have to derail things too much to try to catch up to where he was now. Which seemed to be having a piece of unstable molecule fabric in an electromagnetic vice, she noted, as she moved from behind him to go sit on his other side on the bench. Remembering that, yeah, he'd just got out of the hospital after all those tattoos and was still pretty tender even if he was also a lot better, the brunette made sure to give him plenty of space and not jostle any more than she could help as she slid onto the bench. And came face to face with disturbingly familiar blue goo. That may have been moving. Apparently that was one thing she'd missed; Nezh had obviously met Nemesis and the crazy old Nazi-hunter had taken a liking to him and left him a present. Or a man eating blob. Nezh smiled back wryly, which was a pretty typical reaction to meeting Nemesis, nose wrinkling like he wasn't sure exactly how to feel about that. “I think his actual words were: ‘your unaccountable x-gene-fail is finally scientific proof that miscegenation is bad for the species’, but I suppose he did seem rather pleased about that,” the Wakandan explained mildly as Kitty let out a small, amused laugh. “Or at least he was smiling.” Yeah, there was a surprise. "Pointing out everybody else's shortcomings is his favorite hobby," the brunette replied, "And you get bonus points if he actually gets to do it to your face." Of course, it was probably better if they didn't make a habit of making Nemesis happy. Happy Nemesis was a dangerous Nemesis, and a little scary. “But I think it’s the Maker that he likes,” Nezhno added a moment later, expression thoughtful as he contemplated what she assumed was his new gift of shifty blue goo. Yeah, okay she could see that. “He complained a lot about bumbling tinkerers with erratic trains of thought, but I got the impression there’s not too many other people who’ve been willing to drink the things he makes.” Kitty kinda...blinked a little at that. Forge actually drank the goo?? “And that he... appreciated that?” he suggested which, yeah, she guessed he would wouldn't he? After a second's thought, and not sure she completely wanted to take her eyes off the goo, Kitty nodded. "I'll bet, since I don't remember anybody ever doing that before." Would it be rude to ask if Forge had grown another head, or extra limbs or a third eye in his forehead or something? Maybe? Probably? "Erm...did he drink it on his own? Or under some kinda duress?" she asked hesitantly, giving the goo a dubious look. "And, uh, does he seem okay since then?" That was kinda delicate, right? Though she guessed Nezh might've mentioned it if Forge had suddenly started speaking in a German accent or something. |
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| Gentle | Nov 24 2013, 11:53 PM Post #5 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Did the man who they called - or maybe who called himself - ‘Dr Nemesis’ actually like him? Nezhno wasn’t sure he could go that far, given what the actual words the white-haired man had directed him had been, but at least he’d seemed to be pleased at the idea of someone being evidence against hybrid vigour in humans? He had been smiling, anyway. Explaining as much made Kitty laugh, though, and that had a way of making all of it seem not only okay, but absolutely worth it. "Pointing out everybody else's shortcomings is his favorite hobby," the brunette replied, "And you get bonus points if he actually gets to do it to your face." Well, that much, he supposed he definitely had. “Good?” Nezhno guessed, smiling back at her. Though any bonus points he might or might not have earned aside, the pouch of bluish, possibly moving goo almost certainly wasn’t due to anything that Nemesis might feel about him, so much as how he seemed to like the Maker. Though there had still been a lot of complaints about him that were only thinly veiled, Nezhno had definitely received the impression that the doctor... well, that he ‘appreciated’ the Maker’s willingness to drink his concoctions? Appreciate seemed an odd choice of words, now that he’d said it aloud, and was comparing it back to the actual things Nemesis had been saying. But... no, he was still left with that impression all the same. Kitty had looked surprised, at least when he’d mentioned the Maker drinking that stuff, but where it came to what had ended up being mostly a half-question about the potential appreciation, for some reason she seemed to be treating that as far more normal, going so far as to nod. "I'll bet, since I don't remember anybody ever doing that before." Somehow, that wasn’t at all hard to believe. Especially when coupled to the way that Kitty, too, seemed almost unable to stop looking at the blue semi-liquid, as if she suspected it of making a bolt for freedom at any moment. "Erm...did he drink it on his own? Or under some kinda duress?" she asked hesitantly, giving the goo a dubious look. A glance of his own in the direction of the vaguely pulsating pouch didn’t reveal any sudden movements on its part, but Nezhno still wasn’t sure he trusted it. Still, that question, at least, he was mostly sure he had the answers too. “I... I don’t know. On his own, I think?” Alright, he was somewhat sure he mostly had that right, interpolating from the Maker’s actions and what little he’d said about the matter, to nod in the affirmative. Plus there was another piece of evidence in favour of that, which Nezhno added conscientiously a moment later. “He had Julian drinking it too.” Right, so that didn’t really seem to have made Kitty feel any better about the story, did it? She looked a little like she might have been trying to pick her way around an awkward obstacle as she followed up by asking, "And, uh, does he seem okay since then?" “Uhh...” said Nezhno, which even he knew was probably not very encouraging at all, though he had actually intended to reassure her when he’d opened his mouth, “Julian?” Though maybe she’d been asking about the Maker, but... well, it was easier to start with Julian. “He seems mostly... the same as ever. Okay might be relative, depending on your definition,” the Wakandan boy managed, which - given that he wasn’t sure that Kitty had really got a chance to meet Julian yet, aside from the brief encounter with the rest of the Dance on the deck last night - hopefully combined tact about a friend and explanatory value into something approximating an answer. Julian did seem the same, though ordinary for Julian might have been unpleasant (or ‘crocodile with toothache’) on anyone else. But if it was the other member of the two that he’d mentioned that Kitty had been talking about? That was a little harder, and the Wakandan boy had to stop and consider his words - and whether to say them - a moment before he spoke. “The Maker seems... different,” he said, deciding that there couldn’t be anything wrong with saying that to Kitty, who had known him for longer than he had, and might have some perspective about it that he couldn’t find. “Not like he was in the Camp.” It seemed like maybe, that was bothering the rest of the Dance less than it was for him, with what little of he’d seen of the Maker last night and this morning, but Nezhno didn’t quite know how to put that into words, or whether - even if he could - that would have been something to share with someone outside of the Dance, even someone like Kitty. Maybe there had been something in those three days he’d missed, that would have explained it all? Or maybe - like any number of other things, that the others would probably all have been willing to point out to him, if he had mentioned it - he was thinking too much again. “I suppose that might not be a bad thing,” Nezhno added, only slightly belatedly, attempting to shrug all of it off before it became a ‘thing’ that he probably shouldn’t be talking about. Kitty had known the Maker, both in and out of the Camp, after all. And however different it might seem now, coming in late - as it were - to see him, probably, it wasn’t really anything at all, except for not being in the Camp any longer. Which was quite a big thing, but an understandable one, at least. |
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| Quentin Quire | Nov 27 2013, 11:16 PM Post #6 |
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That's MR. Arrogant Shit Stirring Asshole, thank you!
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The old guy with the German accent was an ass, Quentin decided as he made his way down the hallway, glancing at the signs on the walls to make sure he was going the right way. There was a lab around here somewhere. He knew there was a lab; he'd heard enough about it from one person's thought or another's over the past few days. The asshat could've just told him where it was, but no. Instead the ass had shared a whole spiel on his obvious lack of IQ, his freakish choice in hair color, and the inadequacies of his mental abilities before informing him he'd liked "the other one" better. Damned if he could pick out anything from Nate's memories about that, but he had a feeling even his other personality would've blocked it out. The former Nazi was freaky as hell, and only his promise to Rachel earlier had kept him from dumping one of his mom's more inane 80's songs into the guy's head. Safety Dance had definitely come to mind. Whatever, though. Who cared what the freak meant by any of it, anyway? He had a sister - well, kind of, anyway - and some actual peace and quiet inside his head for the first time since they'd taken off his collar. Life was good, and he could find the lab without resorting to pumping someone's brain for the info. It was on this floor, he knew that much. Humming a little (damn, he should not have thought of that song, it was going to be stuck in his head the rest of the day), he made his way down the hallway. Now that his brain was his own, he might as well put it to use. Everyone knew SHIELD had the top of the line shit you couldn't get your hands on anywhere else, and he wanted to see just what they had. If he happened to run into Reed Richards there, well... Just how did you start a conversation with someone over something you'd heard them thinking about two nights earlier? He frowned a little, considering that. It wasn't like he'd been deliberately eavesdropping, but...well, okay, he had. But not at first. Maybe he should just... “Not like he was in the Camp.” Accustomed as he was growing to hearing bits of people's conversations in his head, it took Quentin a moment to realize he was actually hearing this one, and another to put a name to the accent. Nezh, definitely. He hadn't realized he was back; last he'd heard, the guy had been off to Genosha or Wakanda or something, where they were trying to patch him back together after something that'd happened at the camp. He wasn't sure what, though he probably should've made some kind of effort to find out. Well, better late than never, right? Focusing, he managed to skim the gist of the conversation from the other guy's surface thoughts - he was talking with someone about the Maker - and stepped into the lab just as he was finishing. “I suppose that might not be a bad thing,” Quentin let out a soft snort. "Well, not unless you liked watching him do his act and then faceplant at breakfast," he tossed in, ignoring the fact that he was pretty sure Forge had done that to keep "Nate" from getting his ass in a sling. Or maybe from getting Forge's ass in a sling - the details were kind of vague, and he liked them that way. In any case, however disconcerting he himself might find the change in the man he'd known as the Maker, he wasn't about to admit that. Not right now, anyway, so he smirked and added, "Personally, I'm betting it has something to do with getting laid regularly." He turned to look at Nezh's companion, and blinked as he recognized her as the not-dead girlfriend he'd been talking to Rachel about earlier. "Hey, Uncle Bobby's girlfriend, right?" he asked, eyebrows climbing a little. Not his type, really, but yeah, definitely cute. Apparently his frozen brained uncle had decent taste. He held out his hand and grinned. "Quentin Quire. Do I call you Aunt, or can we just go with first names?" |
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| Kitty Pryde | Nov 29 2013, 04:23 PM Post #7 |
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Unphased
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Yeah, good was definitely subjective when it came to Dr. Nemesis, but at least he was predictable in some ways. One, his favorite thing was finding fault with everybody else. Two, you got a bonus if he could do it to your face. “Good?” Nezhno guessed, smiling back at her which, yeah, sounded about right. No one was sure if that was actually good or not and nobody was actually sure they wanted to know. Both options could possibly backfire. Kinda like actually drinking that blue stuff that the former Nazi/Nazi hunter was always trying to give to people and kept stashing places it should never be, like the fridge. Which was, apparently, something Forge had actually done, impressing Nemesis. Not an easy thing to do under any circumstance and it was understandable why Nezh didn't seem to know what to make of it. As far as she knew, nobody had ever done that before and she had to wonder, and figure out how to ask, how that'd happened? Was it voluntary or, erm, maybe under compulsion or duress or weird Nazi hypnosis? That goo hadn't moved, had it? God, she hated when it did that. “I... I don’t know. On his own, I think?” Wow. Just wow. Though Forge wasn't stupid, so he'd have to know what he was doing and not just walking around, drinking whatever blue goo somebody handed him, right? “He had Julian drinking it too.” Okay, also wow. "And he was okay with that?" she wondered aloud more than asked. It wasn't like she knew Julian all that well, but he didn't seem like the type to just quietly drink any random stuff someone gave him, either. At all. So, uh, maybe she should check that Forge was acting like normal after all that? As opposed to what, Kitty wasn't entirely sure, but the words 'pod aliens from space' came to mind. Or that could just be lingering trauma from Invasion of the Body Snatchers when she was nine. “Uhh...” said Nezhno, which didn't really sound promising. Or maybe it was just confusion, “Julian?” Kitty started to shake her head, then stopped. Since he'd been drinking the stuff, too, might as well let Nezh finish, since 'snarky teen boy with bionic arms maybe runs amok' would probably be a good thing to see coming. “He seems mostly... the same as ever. Okay might be relative, depending on your definition,” Nezhno answered and she grinned a little again. Yeah, she could see that, even if she hadn't spent more than a few minutes or so with the guy so far. The Wakandan boy seemed to pause for thought, then, before adding, “The Maker seems... different,” he said, and Kitty frowned a little. Uh-oh, that maybe didn't sound quite so good. Maybe she should let Rogue or Remy know that Nemesis was wandering around, convincing people to drink that blue crap and- “Not like he was in the Camp.” oh. Ohhhh, that kind of different. Yeah, Nezh wouldn't get that. Would any of the Ghost Dance? Kitty wasn't sure they would, even if they knew that he'd been Forge of the X-Men, before. They'd never really known him as anyone but the Maker. Wordlessly, because she wasn't quite sure what to say to that yet, she nodded. Yeah, didn't think this was Nemesis related 'different'. More like 'I'm out of there and can have something like my life back' different. The Forge she'd talked to since she got back was more like the Forge she remembered from the Mansion and a little less like the Maker she remembered from the Camp. “I suppose that might not be a bad thing,” Nezhno added, only slightly belatedly trying to shrug off something that was obviously bothering him. Yeah, he'd missed the start of the transition. They all had their own 'fitting back into their lives'. She'd had hers (and now was kinda having another one), but Forge more than most she was guessing. "No, it's normal, I think," she answered with a shake of her head and as much of a reassuring smile as she could possibly manage as she tried to figure out how to maybe explain it without seeming to disrespect Forge's role as the Maker and the good he'd managed to do for Nezh and the rest of the Dance, even in that place, "It's just-" There was a soft snort from over near the door, accompanied by, "Well, not unless you liked watching him do his act and then faceplant at breakfast," The Quentin or Nate or whoever he was now guy tossed in as he randomly appeared in the lab. Smirking. "Personally, I'm betting it has something to do with getting laid regularly." Oh jeez, yeah. There was the answer everyone was looking for. Glancing over to Nezh, she rolled her eyes, because what else could you do with that? "I'm guessing that's your theoretical instead of empirical experience speaking there, huh?," she replied dryly to the teen boy with the amazingly pink hair. Was this a trend now? Because he was like the fourth person she'd seen with hair that color so far. "Hey, Uncle Bobby's girlfriend, right?" he asked, eyebrows climbing a little as the brunette sighed internally and frowned in his direction. What was it with the 'must identify Kitty by her connection to Bobby' thing? Uncle Bobby's Girlfriend (yeah, not touching the Uncle Bobby thing, the hell?), Bobby Drake's underage girlfriend, etc. Was there a memo she didn't know about? Did she have an ownership stamp somewhere she couldn't see? Not that she didn't love Bobby, but she had a name of her own, even a codename of her own, and everything. "Quentin Quire. Do I call you Aunt, or can we just go with first names?" Was it too early to roll her eyes again? It felt like it probably was, but it was still a near thing. Instead, she gave him a pointed look, one brow inching up. "If you like all your important parts not phased off and hidden around the room, yeah. You should definitely go with Kitty," she informed him, lips twitching up momentarily in a smirk of her own as she reached over to give his hand a shake. "I guess you know Nezhno already. And when, exactly, did we adopt you?" Glancing over to the boy in question next to her, she shrugged apologetically. Hopefully they could pick up the rest of the conversation later, since she was pretty sure he wouldn't really want to discuss Forge's faceplanting or whatever with Quentin. |
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| Gentle | Nov 30 2013, 08:11 PM Post #8 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Maybe talking about this was a bad idea. Probably it was, in fact, particularly since the reply he was giving right now wasn’t really an answer for the question that Kitty had actually asked, so much as one for an entirely different question which only happened to be made from the same words. But even though he did stop to consider what answer he should give, and whether he should be giving it at all, somehow Nezhno still found himself telling Kitty Pryde about how the Maker seemed... well, different. He’d upgrade that to ‘definitely a bad idea’, in fact, given the expression his words had put on her face, which was somewhere between a frown and a good measure of confusion. Hurriedly adding on an addendum to explain his meaning a little better, Nezhno specified that he was meaning compared to the camp, and that seemed to clear up at least one, maybe both of the parts of her expression. So that was good, although it didn’t really do anything to help with that awkward feeling that he probably shouldn’t have tried talking about this with anyone, especially anyone who wasn’t part of the Dance (but even there, there were lots of good reasons to not have this conversation with many of them), even if it was Kitty Pryde, who’d known the Maker before he was the Maker. But she nodded, and didn’t immediately say anything, which was good, because it gave him a chance to catch his brain together and find more words for himself. He had to suppose that a change from the Camp might not really be a bad thing, for anyone. It was understandable, and it was... "No, it's normal, I think," [Kitty] answered with a shake of her head, and a smile that went even further toward relieving a little part of that particular piece of awkward thinking than the words themselves. Lifting his eyes to hers, and smiling slightly back at her in spite of himself, Nezhno nodded as she continued, "It's just-" Exactly what was ‘just’ something wasn’t going to be found out any time soon though, because Kitty’s was abruptly overwhelmed mid-sentence by a loud snort from the doorway. "Well, not unless you liked watching him do his act and then faceplant at breakfast, said the boy who was standing there - a boy about his own age, with a short but very pink mohawk - and he tossed the observation off like he’d not only been there on Saturday morning, but had been one of the guards and inmates laughing. "Personally, I'm betting it has something to do with getting laid regularly." Frowning very slightly, both at the words and the fact that he was having a hard time placing this boy at all, Nezhno compressed his lips a little but kept his silence. The boy with the pink mohawk was speaking like he knew the Maker, both in and out of the camp, but who was he? Had he been there last night with the rest of the Dance, dancing on the Helicarrier deck? Maybe, but most of that was enough of a blur to the Wakandan mixed in with memories of a flurry of hugs and an accompanying flurry of quite a lot of hug-related pain that he couldn’t immediately remember. And there was something a little familiar... "I'm guessing that's your theoretical instead of empirical experience speaking there, huh?," Kitty was replying drily meanwhile, and it was then that the feeling of familiarity he couldn’t quite figure out finally fell into place for Nezhno, eyes widening for a moment, then drawing down again into a confused frown, then widening again as he asked, “...Nate?” It was Nate, wasn’t it? Or... wait, there had been something important about Nate, buried amongst the mile-a-minute run down of everything that had happened to them in the last few days that Veil and Molly had both been trying to fit in last night after he’d arrived. He was... a different person now? He certainly looked like an entirely different person now. Though even as he thought that, Nezhno found himself glancing down at his own arms, rid of their thick ridged pattern of scars and covered instead with wide silvery tattoos. Okay, he did have to admit - to himself at least - that the person who was no longer Nate wasn’t really alone there. He was never going to look like someone like Brian, or even like a normal person, but he wasn’t a version of Dr Frankenstein’s any more, at least. So Nate wasn’t Nate anymore, and he had pink hair. Like Kitty had said, it was normal to be different, out of the camp. It was Kitty, however, that seemed to have seemed to have most surprised the other boy, who blinked when he looked at her. "Hey, Uncle Bobby's girlfriend, right?" he asked, eyebrows climbing a little. Features rearranging themselves into a frown to hear Kitty Pryde dismissed as an addition to someone else, Nezhno opened his mouth to correct the other boy on her name, realized that was stupid, shut his mouth again, and only then noticed that Kitty was doing a milder version of the same thing herself. And the boy formerly known as Nate was heading over and putting his hand out as though to shake hers, introducing himself as, "Quentin Quire. Do I call you Aunt, or can we just go with first names?" ‘Quentin’ and his question were met by a look from Kitty that Nezhno was privately but extremely thankful wasn’t being pointed in his direction. "If you like all your important parts not phased off and hidden around the room, yeah. You should definitely go with Kitty," she informed him, lips twitching up momentarily in a smirk of her own. Turning his head back to the bench to avoid displaying the smirk of his own he couldn’t quite arrest in time, Nezhno did his best to look absorbed in the admittedly rather simple task of retrieving the blue goo from the bench and into his hand, looking back only when Kitty named him again with a guess that Quentin probably knew him. "And when, exactly, did we adopt you?" “You’re related to Iceman?” Nezhno added curiously but rather quietly. He was still frowning a little, but mostly out of only semi-resolved confusion by this point. It could be perfectly possible, he supposed. At any rate, it wasn’t that much stranger than Gloria having a cousin she’d never actually met (which hadn’t stopped her being angry a lot on his account) who’d been part of Kitty’s team that had all seemed to die outside the camp. |
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| Quentin Quire | Dec 1 2013, 08:12 PM Post #9 |
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That's MR. Arrogant Shit Stirring Asshole, thank you!
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Was how the Maker was acting normal? Quentin didn't know. On the one hand, the part of him that was Nate was confused as all hell, so he could kind of see where Nezhno (that was Nezh, right? He looked different, even if he sounded the same) was puzzled. The whole "mystic thing" was gone, replaced by something he couldn't quite reconcile. On the other hand, he was kind of relieved to not see The Maker faceplanting in the middle of breakfast, or waving his cane around and spouting out a bunch of gibberish. Whatever had caused the change, he didn't figure Forge was complaining. Personally, his money was on the guy getting laid on a regular basis. The girl - oh yeah, that was the not-dead girlfriend, right? - didn't seem impressed with his logic, but whatever. He'd been hearing enough of it the last few days to be confident that it factored in there, somewhere. Nezhno, though, was looking at him as if he wasn't quite sure he'd ever seen him before, and Quentin frowned a little before remembering that yeah, that'd been the idea behind the makeover. At least he knew it'd worked. “...Nate?” the Wakandan guy asked. Quentin's grinned and peered at him over the top of his glasses. "More or less," he shrugged, leaving it at that. "New looks all around, huh?" he added, eyeing what he'd initially taken for some kind of silver medicinal-related type paint critically. Definitely better than the scars, but why the hell the guy'd gone with silver full body tattooing just to cover them up was beyond him. Had to hurt like hell. On the other hand, so did his eyebrow whenever he thought about it, so who was he to talk? That established, he turned to the other person in the room, asking for confirmation that she was, in fact, his not-quite-met Uncle Bobby's not-quite-dead girlfriend. Which he'd maybe pegged wrong, given her frown, but he pushed on with intros anyway. If it was the other one (he'd heard there were two, but he hadn't really run into the other either) she'd correct him soon enough. In the meantime, clearing up the whole "aunt" thing took priority. She didn't look all that impressed with that either, and gave him a look that suggested that Ray's idea of family might not be all that universal. "If you like all your important parts not phased off and hidden around the room, yeah. You should definitely go with Kitty," she said, but she grinned and shook his hand anyway. "I guess you know Nezhno already. And when, exactly, did we adopt you?" Umm, yeah. That was a good question, but at least it gave him a chance to try out the whole family relationship thing before doing it with the real thing, so to speak. "Yeah, about that," he began, but Nezh chimed in with, “You’re related to Iceman?” before he got rolling. "Yeah," he confirmed, then paused to consider that for a moment and shrugged. "And no. It's complicated." Turning back to Kitty, he shrugged again, trying to look casual. This couldn't be that hard - it wasn't like he hadn't been running it through his head pretty much since Rachel'd given him the idea in the first place, right? Crossing mental fingers, he said, "Rachel - you know Rachel, right? Anyway, she says she's my sister, and that the Ice Guy is her uncle, so that makes him my uncle, so..." Yeah, that definitely explained it. Giving up, he waved it aside. Not like he cared anyway, and he was feeling like a complete idiot - might as well just give it up. "Forget it, it's stupid. You guys just hanging out, or working on something?" Because yeah, this was the lab he'd been looking for, wasn't it? Over which he was definitely not going to geek out with both of them standing there watching. But it was taking a lot of effort not to. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Dec 2 2013, 04:20 PM Post #10 |
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Unphased
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Yeaaah, Forge getting laid, whether or not it was related to this 'different' that was happening with him now? Not something she wanted to talk about and she didn't even have to guess to know it wouldn't be something Nezh would want to talk about. He was definitely frowning, though part of that looked like it could've been confusion. Possibly also over the pink hair that kept popping up everywhere she looked. Either way, this guy didn't exactly have the best timing in the world, and she was betting that opinion on the changes with Forge were based more on theoretical experience than practical. But then Nezh's eyes went kind of wide and he had one of those 'I just figured it out' looks as he asked, “...Nate?” Which had her a little confused herself, since she wasn't exactly sure what name was actually his. Nate? Quentin? She'd heard both, and parts of some story about him being a former Hound. Which she'd have never believed in a million years if she hadn't met someone else who'd also been a former hound and had managed to come out of it a relatively normal person, albeit without the pink hair. The guy just grinned and did that looking over the top rim of his glasses thing that she remembered Hank doing a lot. Though he didn't really look a thing like Hank and it didn't quite have the same effect. "More or less," he shrugged, leaving it at that. "New looks all around, huh?" Oh, yeah, guess he hadn't seen Nezh's new tattoos, huh? And he'd been in the Camp with the Dance and Forge and Kurt and Calvin briefly, right? That seemed to be how she remembered it all, but man. Seriously. Die for a couple of days/years/whatever, take a couple day detour to Wakanda, and she had no idea what was going on anywhere. And she was still trying to figure some of this out when Nate? Quentin? Whoever the hell he was turned to her and identified her as 'Uncle Bobby's Girlfriend'. Which, okay was a little weird, and probably better than Bobby Drake's Underage Girlfriend, or a few others she'd heard, but yeah. 'Aunt' was out since he was probably all of three years younger than her and she had no clue when the hell they'd adopted him. So obligatory threatening of body part removal and handshake it was for 'Quentin Quire', which at least cleared up what they should be calling him. Though, personally? She might've stuck with Nate instead of that. "Yeah, about that," Quentin began as Nezh, added a quietly curious (and still confused looking, so she at least wasn't alone there), “You’re related to Iceman?” "Yeah," he confirmed, which definitely upped the confusion level. Maybe from Bobby's mom's side? But then the pink haired guy seemed to feel like he should think about that a second before shrugging and adding, "And no. It's complicated." Yeah, obviously, she decided with a confused half smile as he turned and shrugged her way this time. "Rachel - you know Rachel, right? And Kitty was nodded and welcoming in even more confusion. Yeah, knew Rachel Leighton, and that absolutely explained the pink hair, kinda, but...she was related to Bobby? "Anyway, she says she's my sister, and that the Ice Guy is her uncle, so that makes him my uncle, so..." Face trying to screw itself into more of a confused expression than it already had (which apparently wasn't physically possible at this point), Kitty looked over at Nezh, to see if he was making any better sense of this. Rachel Leighton was his sister, and Bobby was her uncle somehow (was Leighton Jewish? It sounded Jewish, so it would've had to have been his mom's side, right?), despite them being the same age? And the fact that Bobby didn't have any sisters, unless you counted- Oh! Oh! Jeez, no wonder she was confused. "You mean Rachel Summers," Kitty pronounced, finally putting the pieces together in a way that made a whole lot more sense. Except for why Rachel had decided to adopt Quentin, but okay he was a Hound and a telepath and that at least kinda made sense, and she'd said she was coming. And she considered the Bobby there her 'uncle' so that probably translated interdimensionallly and- Oh god, her brain was going to leak out any minute now. "Forget it, it's stupid. You guys just hanging out, or working on something?" Quentin sorta pushed that aside and her brain was grateful and it latched right onto the opportunity to move to something else that actually made sense. God, how did those people in that other universe deal with this multidimensional travel thing all the time and stay sane? "Kind of both?" Kitty ventured, grinning over at Nezh, "I'm late, so I just got here, but Nezh has been working on his idea for Veil a new uniform. You know, one that'll actually stay on her when she uses her powers." It was a good idea, too, and one she was looking forward to diving into to help with what she could. And to help keep an eye on that blue stuff of Nemesis, so it didn't escape and try to take over the world. |
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| Gentle | Dec 4 2013, 10:09 PM Post #11 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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Nate? That was Nate, wasn’t it? Or... someone like Nate, or someone Nate had been, or some other rearrangement of the words Nezhno wasn’t quite sure he’d remembered properly from Veil and Molly’s highspeed rundowns of everything that had happened in the last few days. Now that he’d figured out how to look past the hair and the glasses, it did look like Nate, and the pink-haired boy did grin. "More or less," he shrugged, leaving it at that. "New looks all around, huh?" he added, clearly meaning the tattoos from the look he was giving them. Nezhno looked down at his own arms, and shrugged a little uncomfortably (in the literal sense, as well as the other). “It’s more like an old one, really,” he said simply, and left it at that. Nate - or rather, More-or-Less-Nate - seemed content to do the same, moving on to identify Kitty by her association with her boyfriend, and even more inexplicably referring to them as uncle... and aunt as he introduced himself as ‘Quentin Quire’. Maybe he’d just focus quite hard on the mostly basic task of retrieving his possibly-moving pouch of blue goo from the bench, Nezhno decided. It seemed like the easiest way of avoiding the potential of giving offense by smirking at Kitty’s suggestions about the circumstances under which ‘Quentin’ might want to try calling her Aunt. Though the question of when someone - she and her boyfriend, perhaps? - had adopted the ex-Hound did seem like an important one. One even Quentin himself seemed maybe... less than sure... about too? "Yeah, about that," he began, not quite early enough to let Nezhno stop the automatic question that had popped into his head as he’d tried to fit both sides of the conversation into a framework that made even a little sense. Quentin - he was related to Iceman? "Yeah," he confirmed, then paused to consider that for a moment and shrugged. "And no. It's complicated." Though he was still wearing a puzzled frown, Nezhno nodded all the same, ready to accept that as an answer. ‘It’s complicated’ seemed to cover any number of things in a relationship, the way he’d understood it, from Gloria and Jimmy and the thing they’d kept insisting wasn’t a relationship, to whatever had been going on with Terry and Illyana and the shortish brown-haired man from the Maker’s barracks, to the ins and outs of the multiply divorced and remarried parents that Julian very occasionally made reference to. So no doubt there was some version of something that would explain how the pink-haired boy with the glasses was related to Kitty’s boyfriend without her knowing about it too, and in fact, it seemed like he was ready to explain it all to her. "Rachel - you know Rachel, right? Anyway, she says she's my sister, and that the Ice Guy is her uncle, so that makes him my uncle, so..." Dividing his attention between watching the confusion mount on Kitty’s face and glancing and reglancing at the blue goo (had it moved in his hand? He thought maybe it had) and wondering again about how much of a mistake it could be to drink it, Nezhno listened to this, and understood very little of it, even when Kitty finally seemed to catch onto something and clarify about whether they were talking about someone called ‘Rachel Summers’, which seemed to be a lot more comprehensible to them than it did to Nezhno. Though even Nate seemed to have had second thoughts now about trying to explain his ‘its complicated’. That did seem to be the way of those sorts of things, in Nezhno’s fairly limited experience of them, though maybe that was still the remembered trauma of being stuck listening to Gloria’s ‘explanations’ of why Jimmy wasn’t her boyfriend too many times making him wary). In any case, the other boy waved it off with one hand, as though he’d decided it wasn’t important. "Forget it, it's stupid. You guys just hanging out, or working on something?" "Kind of both?" Kitty ventured, grinning over at Nezh, who stopped awkwardly juggling the oddly warm blue goo he was holding long enough to grin back at her. So pretty when she smiled. He really needed to stop thinking about that every time she did, but... really, really pretty. And still talking, so he should probably stop grinning at her now, shouldn’t he? Right. "...but Nezh has been working on his idea for Veil a new uniform. You know, one that'll actually stay on her when she uses her powers." “Unstable molecules don’t seem to be enough by themselves,” Nezhno explained for Quentin’s benefit, gesturing with his free hand toward the small square of unstable molecule fragment he had set up in the electromagnetic vise, before turning back to Kitty and continuing rather more quickly, “I talked to Dr Nemesis a little about what he did to your boyfriend’s uniform to let it reassemble, but we were right in Wakanda - I don’t think it will work for her as is.” There had been some more there, and a lot of details in the physics and nano-engineering aspects of that she’d probably be interested in, plus the Maker’s suggestions, but it would probably be rude to go into those now, when it would probably only bore Quentin to tears, or at least the kind of glazed over eyes that the rest of the Dance had gotten every time he’d started talking too much about that kind of thign. They could wait, anyway, and the Wakandan turned back to the third member of the group, shrugging - then wincing, then completing the shrug before explaining again. “So the hope is to combine them with Pym particles, to get around the major mass and gravity issues,” he concluded, gesturing with the blue goo to nothing much in particular. Or was that too much boring detail already? He’d never been very good at judging that, or whether other people really wanted to hear about this sort of thing. “Um. Were you looking for someone here?” Nezhno asked a moment later, after a quick querying glance to Kitty to see if he could find anything to follow from her. It wasn’t exactly on the main thoroughfares of the Helicarrier - at least not the ones he’d been shown so far, so that seemed like the most likely reason the other boy might have shown up. “The Maker only left a little while ago, though he did say he was going to be gone most of the rest of the day.” Where, he hadn’t said, and in that at least he was much the same as he’d ever been. Though there had been the brief words he’d exchanged with Reed Richards on the subject of Calvin Rankin that had sounded important, so that might have had something to do with it? |
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| Quentin Quire | Dec 9 2013, 09:52 PM Post #12 |
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That's MR. Arrogant Shit Stirring Asshole, thank you!
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So...being tattooed head to toe (or at least, anywhere visible; he supposed it could've stopped well before Nezh's feet) was some kind of old look. Huh. The guards must've had a serious issue with tattooing if they'd gone to all the effort of scraping or burning them off before. Personally, he couldn't imagine sitting through all that once, let alone twice, but hey. To each their own, right? If nothing else, it looked a hell of a lot better than the scars had. However hard it was to understand why anyone would want that much art, he was willing to place bets that his "relationship" with Uncle Bobby was even harder to explain, especially considering that he wasn't sure Rachel's logic tracked for anyone other than Rachel. She'd made it pretty clear her not-quite-dad wasn't going to buy into it, anyway, and given Kitty's confused expression it didn't seem likely his same-dimensional'd uncle was likely to, either. Suddenly, though, she stopped looking around to Nezhno for an explanation (he didn't seem to have one either, near as Quentin could tell) and turned back to him. "You mean Rachel Summers," she said, and it was Quentin's turn to blink. There was more than one Rachel? A quick peek at her thoughts (which were slippery somehow, weird) provided the mental image of a pink haired woman who...oh! Okay, he knew her from Veil's head; he'd just never bothered to ind out her name. In any case, he nodded confirmation. Rachel Summers was definitely the one in question. Except...despite her reassurances, explaining this shit was a real pain in the ass, and it obviously wasn't going well. Tabling it for now, he asked what they were doing. Nezh was some kind of tech geek, he knew that much (which almost made Nate's memories of him tolerable, especially compared to the other male members of the Dance), but what was Kitty doing here, then? Just visiting, probably. She looked more the cheerleader type than she did anyone who'd actually be doing anything in a lab. Much to his surprise, she was the one who answered first. "Kind of both?" Kitty ventured, grinning over at Nezh, "I'm late, so I just got here, but Nezh has been working on his idea for Veil a new uniform. You know, one that'll actually stay on her when she uses her powers." Quentin smirked. Okay, that he definitely remembered from Florida, though she'd gotten covered up before he'd gotten much of a look. "Any progress?" he asked curiously, genuinely interested. “Unstable molecules don’t seem to be enough by themselves,” Nezhno replied, gesturing towards the swatch of fabric he had setup to study, then turned to Kitty. “I talked to Dr Nemesis a little about what he did to your boyfriend’s uniform to let it reassemble, but we were right in Wakanda - I don’t think it will work for her as is.” Nodding thoughtfully, Quentin considered that. It would be different, based on what little he knew of each of their powers, which admittedly wasn't much in the case of his possible uncle. Still... “So the hope is to combine them with Pym particles, to get around the major mass and gravity issues,” he concluded, waving around a container of some kind of blue stuff that didn't look like any Pym particles he'd ever heard of. “Um. Were you looking for someone here?” he added, almost as an afterthought, and Quentin's eyebrows went up. Was this a polite brush off, or what? “The Maker only left a little while ago, though he did say he was going to be gone most of the rest of the day.” "Mmmm," Quentin replied noncommittally, having at least some small idea where the Maker had gone and not wanting to go there. Besides, there were more interesting questions to consider. "How do you plan to compensate for the varying molecular weight when she turns into different types of gases?" he asked, glasses sliding a little down the bridge of his nose as he peered down at the electromagnetic vice. Granted, he hadn't done much more than skim enough of Pym's research to ace the report he'd written on him (not hard, and he'd had to dumb it down anyway so his science teacher could understand it), but he didn't remember seeing anything that would suggest they'd autocompensate to that extent. Besides, he had the feeling the former Dancer was trying the "I'm going to be a condescending asshole so you go away" ploy. Which might've worked with Nate, considering he was pretty sure his alter-ego had never heard of Pym particles, but wouldn't work with him considering he was pretty sure he'd invented it. The guy could flirt with his "aunt" some other time. |
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| Kitty Pryde | Dec 12 2013, 03:30 PM Post #13 |
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Unphased
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Okay. Rachel Summers, the Phoenix from that other universe (still so weird to think there was a Phoenix and nobody was freaking the hell out about it constantly). That was who Quentin meant, and not Rachel Leighton. Though still, with the hair, it was an honest mistake. So she supposed the whole 'Uncle Bobby' thing made more sense now, in a way that things could only seem to make sense when you were used to dealing with a whole lot of weird, unusual people with weird and unusual relationships. Which, apparently, made Quentin her pseudo-nephew now. Awesome. Yeah, right. Moving on. And why was Nezh holding the blue stuff now? Kitty eyed sidelong and not a little suspiciously as Quentin asked whether they were hanging out or actually working on something. Unsurprisingly, the answer to that wasn't exactly straight forward, either, since they were king of doing both and Nezh grinned back over at her as she tried to give the condensed explanation of the idea for a new uniform for Veil. One that would actually manage to stay on her when she used her powers. "Any progress?" Quentin asked, seeming actually interested instead of making polite conversation like most people did when she mentioned something like that. “Unstable molecules don’t seem to be enough by themselves,” Nezhno explained for Quentin’s benefit, gesturing with his free hand toward the small square of unstable molecule fragment he had set up in the electromagnetic vise, before turning back to Kitty and continuing rather more quickly, “I talked to Dr Nemesis a little about what he did to your boyfriend’s uniform to let it reassemble, but we were right in Wakanda - I don’t think it will work for her as is.” Lips pursed thoughtfully, Kitty nodded slowly. Yeah, that's what she'd figured. Sort of the same principle, definitely, but not quite a match. And Veil had no in-between form to use in case the uniform totally malfunctioned. It was actually closer to the issue she'd had when her own powers malfunctioned and, after a while, nothing really wanted to stay on her, either. Thank god that hadn't lasted long. Surprisingly enough, Quentin was doing the thoughtful nod, too, and his eyes weren't even starting to glaze over that she could see. Even when Nezh turned back to him and continued. “So the hope is to combine them with Pym particles, to get around the major mass and gravity issues,” Nez concluded, waving the disturbing Nemesis goo he was still holding. He...wasn't actually thinking of drinking that, was he? “Um. Were you looking for someone here?” Nezhno asked a moment later, after a quick querying glance to Kitty to see if he could find anything to follow from her, but she didn't really have a clue, either, as she lifted her shoulders in a light shrug. Unless Quentin was just lost. Really lost to have ended up down here, but then it'd taken her a good half hour to find the kitchen this morning, so who was she to talk? “The Maker only left a little while ago, though he did say he was going to be gone most of the rest of the day.” "Mmmm," Quentin replied noncommittally as Kitty eyed the goo Nezh was still holding and tried to decide if she should phase it away from him for his own good. "How do you plan to compensate for the varying molecular weight when she turns into different types of gases?" the pink-haired, mohawked boy asked, much to her surprise, instead of actually telling them who or what he was looking for. Kitty blinked and shot a surprised look at Nezh. Huh. Quentin knew about varying molecular weights of different gasses? There was another surprise. "Well, we don't know for sure she can turn into anything else yet, I don't think," Kitty explained with another thoughtful frown as she shot a questioning look to Nezh. He'd know better than she would. "She doesn't have a lot of practical experience with her powers yet, right?" Theoretically, yeah, it seemed like she should be able to learn to do other things and people were going to work with her today, she was pretty sure. So maybe they could help her figure that out for sure. But all Kitty had heard about so far was fog, mist, things like that. Looking back at Quentin, then, she shook her head, expression still thoughtful as she pulled what she knew and remembered about Hank Pym's invention out of her head. "Assuming she'll learn, though, Pym Particles should definitely be able to compensate for most any change in molecular weight and density. They pull matter out of, or shift it into, another dimension to do just that. It's a pretty amazing invention," she added, corners of her mouth lifting in a slightly rueful smile as she looked between the two boys. Guess it was a little ironic, or something, that they were still using and getting help from an invention that was made by a guy that had decided they should all either die or be locked up. |
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| Gentle | Dec 18 2013, 09:34 AM Post #14 |
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Who doesn't like Black Russians?
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There. That smirk, right there, the one that had crossed Quentin’s face the moment Kitty mentioned Veil’s powers, was for Nezhno reason all over again to think he’d done the right thing picking this as the project to keep himself occupied when Kitty had asked on Monday. It didn’t seem malicious, and it didn’t seem like it had any particular ill will to Veil behind it, but no one really needed to be the object of smiles like that unless they wanted to be. The smirk itself was gone in a second though, replaced by a look that Nezhno couldn’t quite place until the pink-haired boy spoke. "Any progress?" he asked curiously, more as if he cared about the process than if were anticipating (or bemoaning) the end result. That, at least, Nezhno could answer, though he’d barely gotten to the point of gesturing toward the scrap of fabric in the vise before some extraneous details that probably wouldn’t interest Quentin at all, but which he knew definitely would interest Kitty intervened. He’d got the basic gist of the point that Nemesis had been explaining to him earlier regarding her boyfriend’s uniform across, and only narrowly remembered to cut himself off and get back to the basic (and hopefully not too dry) outline of their plan for Veil’s for the other boy’s benefit before he’d launched into all the technical details of the white-haired American scientist’s explanation. No one (well, no one except Kitty) that he knew was going to be interested in that, so probably it would be more polite to get back to Quentin, and whether they could help him with whatever reason he’d happened to come down here. Looking for someone seemed like the most obvious explanation, but if it was the Maker, Nezhno felt obliged to relate what little he knew about their mentor’s whereabouts today. The sum of that being that he’d left here a little while ago, and was going to be ‘gone’ for most of the day, that didn’t take very long. Nor did it seem to register in any particular way with the pink-haired boy, who made some kind of noise like a "Mmmm," while Nezhno turned a hasty look toward Kitty, hoping that she’d have some sort of insight, but only managing to find her watching the pouch of goo in his hand with even more suspicion than Nezhno felt toward it himself. It was Quentin himself, in the end, who broke the silence. "How do you plan to compensate for the varying molecular weight when she turns into different types of gases?" he asked, glasses sliding a little down the bridge of his nose as he peered down at the electromagnetic vice The molecular weight...? This time when Nezhno shot another querying look toward Kitty, he found her actually doing the same, looking about as surprised as he felt. What had Quentin meant by that anyway? Aside from the fact that that degree of technical interest had come, if not entirely out of the blue, at least out of the solidly green, the question itself was turning itself into a mobius strip of a puzzle within the Wakandan boy’s head, for any number of reasons. "Well, we don't know for sure she can turn into anything else yet, I don't think," Kitty explained, recovering her voice first, though she still seemed to be frowning a little as she looked his way again, this time with a slight air of looking like she was looking for him for confirmation. "She doesn't have a lot of practical experience with her powers yet, right?" “She’d only ever used them once before she got taken to the camp,” Nezhno confirmed, his own brow furrowing and creasing the tattoos on his forehead a way that might still have been painful had he not been thinking carefully enough to ignore it, “She did say...” he continued, thinking back to the flurry of words Veil had been attempting to bury him under at one point the night before, “that you - sorry, the other you, I mean-” he clarified, with an apologetic look in Kitty’s direction for that gaffe, “was wondering if she could alter her atomic composition during the transition. But...” Forgetting to finish that thought out loud, Nezhno trailed back into his own thoughts, wondering in separate braided shingle streams of thought how Quentin had known about that, and what might have led him to be so confident that it might be a problem for Pym Particles, and what he himself was missing that he couldn’t see the answer for the second question, which had apparently been so clear. "Assuming she'll learn, though, Pym Particles should definitely be able to compensate for most any change in molecular weight and density. They pull matter out of, or shift it into, another dimension to do just that. It's a pretty amazing invention," Kitty said as he thought, though her voice held a note in it at the end that had Nezhno arresting his own thoughts to look up with a little concern. She was smiling though, even if it was a somewhat tempered one, and the tattooed boy returned it with a diffident one of his own, before taking up the explanation where she’d left it off. “And the way we’re intending to use them should be independent of precisely what happens to Veil herself,” he said, wishing (not for the first time) he could make his voice sound more interesting when he talked about things that interested him. As usual, it seemed to him to sound most like a colorless textbook read on tape. “The idea is for the Pym Particles to combine with the unstable molecules,” Nezhno continued, looking Kitty’s way and starting to smile in spite of himself, remembering the way she’d smiled when he’d first managed to conquer his tongue enough to explain the same thing to her on Monday, “so that they can be shrunk down to a sub-atomic scale when they’re aerosolized, and effectively hitch a ride in empty electron orbitals to go wherever she does.” Which was the basic gist of it, though there were a lot of technical ifs and buts and details of the actual engineering he still hadn’t got to work through yet. But Dr Richards had seemed like he was mostly good with the idea, the moreso since the Maker’s quiet suggestion earlier this morning had apparently quieted whatever major objection he had about the feasibility. So there was that, except even while he paused to take a thinking breath, Nezhno still couldn’t get his brain to sort out why Quentin had been so worried about the relative molecular weight of different compounds when used with a form of esoteric energy specifically designed to manage mass transitions across orders of magnitude. Had he... “Oh!” Nezhno said abruptly, as thoughts finally gave way to an inspiration that might not have been what the other boy had actually been thinking of, but was still interesting enough that Nezhno glanced his way and kept speaking all the same. “I suppose there might be some sort of issue when you get to elements with d-orbitals, given the shifts in the shape of the probability function. I’ve been working on the assumption that she transitions to compounds that can stay as vapor at normal atmospheric conditions without any exogenous anti-gravitational energy inputs. But if she were turning into transition metals, or anything heavier than that...” Once more, the Wakandan lapsed into a busy thought-filled silence, managing only one more “...hmmm,” as he considered the (admittedly extremely theoretical) possibility. |
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| Quentin Quire | Dec 26 2013, 02:55 PM Post #15 |
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That's MR. Arrogant Shit Stirring Asshole, thank you!
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It was a fascinating question, Quentin acknowledged as he gave some serious thought to the proposition of keeping Veil's uniform with her while she used her powers. Granted, he'd definitely been fond of the view of her without them, but he could see how that could be a problem. Damned if he'd want to end up buck naked in the middle of a fight. The engineering behind a solution, though - he might not know a ton about Pym particles, but he wasn't altogether sure how infusing unstable molecules with them was going to solve the problem. They'd still need to latch onto something, right? And if that something wasn't readily distinguishable from the air around it - well, it seemed as if it would need some way to distinguish between "her" and everything else. Definitely a potential problem if they couldn't specify any way to tune it to detect Veil, and given the possibility she could turn into gases of differing molecular weights... He mentioned as much, and catchig the glance that flicked between Kitty and Nezhno, grinned smugly. Nope, not Nate here. Can the condescending bullshit; he knew a few things himself. "Well, we don't know for sure she can turn into anything else yet, I don't think," his not-quite-aunt explained, frowning a little as she directed another glance at Nezh. Quentin frowned as well. He could've sworn he'd heard... "She doesn't have a lot of practical experience with her powers yet, right?" “She’d only ever used them once before she got taken to the camp,” Nezhno confirmed, his own brow furrowing and creasing the tattoos on his forehead a way that might still have been painful had he not been thinking carefully enough to ignore it, “She did say...” he continued, thinking back to the flurry of words Veil had been attempting to bury him under at one point the night before, “that you - sorry, the other you, I mean-” he clarified, with an apologetic look in Kitty’s direction for that gaffe, “was wondering if she could alter her atomic composition during the transition. But...” Ha! The frown on Quentin's face vanished. That was where he'd picked it up, then - part of one of the previous day's brain blasts. Veil must've been thinking about it at some point - he knew he'd gotten some kind of mental babble from her at some point. He still wasn't sure how it would work, but at least Nezhno'd pretty much quit the "you don't know shit" attitutde, and both of them seemed to have a clue, so he'd hear them out. "Assuming she'll learn, though, Pym Particles should definitely be able to compensate for most any change in molecular weight and density. They pull matter out of, or shift it into, another dimension to do just that. It's a pretty amazing invention," she added, looking awkward for some reason Quentin couldn't quite figure. Granted, the inventor had flipped his lid, but whatever. He'd still done good work before that. “And the way we’re intending to use them should be independent of precisely what happens to Veil herself,” Nezh added, sounding like he was going into full on lecture mode. “The idea is for the Pym Particles to combine with the unstable molecules,” He paused to smile at the brunette in a way that made Quentin's eyebrows rise up a little, and he took a quick peek inside the Wakandan kid's head just to confirm his suspicions. Hmm, yeah. Definitely a crush going there. Tucking that away just in case he needed some gossip to get on his "uncle's" good side, he listened as Nezh continued his explanation. “so that they can be shrunk down to a sub-atomic scale when they’re aerosolized, and effectively hitch a ride in empty electron orbitals to go wherever she does.” It was a good theory, Quentin admitted to himself. Oh, he could see a few flaws, but theoretically, it might work, and he was a little impressed despite himself. Still... “Oh!” Nezhno said abruptly, as thoughts finally gave way to an inspiration that might not have been what the other boy had actually been thinking of, but was still interesting enough that Nezhno glanced his way and kept speaking all the same. “I suppose there might be some sort of issue when you get to elements with d-orbitals, given the shifts in the shape of the probability function. I’ve been working on the assumption that she transitions to compounds that can stay as vapor at normal atmospheric conditions without any exogenous anti-gravitational energy inputs. But if she were turning into transition metals, or anything heavier than that...” Actually, he hadn't gotten that far in his theorizing, but Quentin nodded anyway as the Dancer settled into almost-silent contemplation of that possibility. He understood what he was saying at any rate, and that could be a problem. Not that it seemed likely, but still. It was something to keep in mind, and Nezhno's explanation had pretty much cleared up his confusion about "Veil" vs. "not-Veil" identification, so no reason to point it out. "Not that it's likely," he shrugged, admitting that much. "But if you don't know that she can't, it seems like a good idea to plan for it. He frowned a little, and added, "any potential problems during the initial transition if she should turn into anything caustic? Or should your super-fabric do its thing instantaneously?" It'd help, he mused, if he had more than a general idea of what "unstable molecules" could all do in and of themselves, but he'd never done a research report on those, and they hadn't been much covered beyond "invented by Reed Richards" in the middle school curriculum. Where the hell had Nezh and Kitty learned about them, anyway? Granted, she'd been an X-Man or something, but Nezh... Another peek inside his mind provided that answer. The Wakandan Design Group, huh? Damn, he'd have to check that out when all this shit was over. It sounded like a better education than he was likely to get at any college here. |
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7:19 PM Jul 10