ax_main | Jubilee and Lil

Lil and Jubilee start out on shaky ground, but by the grace of shared stories and nail polish, manage to end their convo on a good note.

It seemed that everyone was talking about the old guy who'd taken over the newscast and for Lil, who didn't really give a shit about what crazy Americans did, it was nothing but a bother. She couldn't get near the TV and any place with a few comfy chairs seemed to have been taken over by people losing their shit over this. Well, there was one place she didn't bother with much and hoped that no one else did too, so she trudged upstairs to the study area.

It was blessedly empty except for the fireworks girl, so Lil pulled out her phone, picked a nice chair, and sat down to waste some time in peace.

"Dude, are they replaying it again?" Jubilee asked excitedly, tugging one earbud out of her ear. They had been, over and over, but she'd finally gotten tired of watching it (because seriously, who needed to watch an old white guy with a bucket on his head that many times, even if he was declaring war on non-mutants) and had taken to the study area to paint Xs on her nails. Which was proving harder than expected, but whatever. She had time and polish, life was good!

Except now there was someone to talk to while she did it. Which was even better.

Lil looked over and held up her phone so the other girl could see what was on the screen - Candy Crush Saga. "If they're replaying it somewhere, I'm not watching it."

"Oooh! What level are you on?" Jubilee asked, easily recognizing the game. "And I totally don't blame you. I mean, how many times can you listen to someone being that stupid anyway? I'm just trying to figure out why we're still here and not going to, y'know, take him out or something."

"Because we're kids maybe?" said Lil, ignoring the question about the game even as she went back to it. "This is a school, not the army. Let the adults go after that idiot."

"Oh please. Like, what are they going to be able to do?" Jubilee rolled her eyes. "The cops couldn't even keep me from living in a shopping mall, and they're going to take on a guy who can bend metal around with his head? Besides, we're kids who can do stuff about things like this. Which means we totally have the obligation to." She couldn't remember where she'd gotten that quote from (or near quote, she wasn't sure she'd gotten it quite right), but it was true, anyway.

"Why? I knew a kid who was a great shot with a rifle - could hit a fucking fox on the horizon - but he didn't have any obligation to go be a sniper in the armed forces." Joe Kavluk, hunter extraordinaire before he was 15 and the one kid from Yellowknife Lil halfway missed. "We're kids. This is a school. End of story."

"Are you even for real? Do you think people are gonna care that we're kids, with the kind of hate that guy is preaching?" Jubilee stared at her, incredulously. "They're gonna figure we're with him, because all mutants are crazy assholes with omg deadly abilities, right? And then they're going to come after us. So, we totally need to take that guy down first, to prove we can do good stuff with our powers, and that we're not all like ol'buckethead.."

"Some crazy dude goes on TV and you guys are all shitting your pants. 'Time to get out the guns, George. There's killin' to do!'" Her spaghetti-western accent was awful, but she didn't care. Lil turned the screen off on her phone and stuffed it in a pocket. "You don't think just being normal people living normal lives'll show people that?"

"Dude. Do you seriously think we're going to get to be normal people?" Jubilee stared at her. "I mean, first, who'd want to be normal anyway? But unless you're planning to hide who you are, which is totally lame, no one's going to just let you be normal. And also? Seriously, the accent sucks, give it up. I'm not even from the midwest and I'm kinda offended."

Lil's anger had been slowly building throughout Jubilee's little speech, but the complaint about her accent, coming from way out in left field, knocked the wind out of it. In fact, Lil started laughing. "Look, I'm from the fucking Northwest Territories. I don't even know what the midwest is exactly, so you can cut me a bit of slack on that at least."

Jubilee stared at her for a moment, then grinned. "Sorta the whole middle of the country, pretty much? I mean, there's the east coast, and there's California, and the rest is just like, there, but no one really much cares unless they live there." She made a gesture dismissing the middle of the country as uninteresting, because seriously, duh. "Where's the Northwest territories? Up by Washington? Because honestly, Geography is not my thing."

"Really?" Okay, she'd cut the yank some slack on that after the whole midwest thing, but really... "Up in Canada. Like, waaay up. It's a one of the Territories in the North, just below the arctic circle, so we have trees and no polar bears, but still. I'm from Yellowknife, the capital city of the NWT." Which made Yellowknife sound more impressive than it was with just 20,000 people, but hey, she was proud of her home town.

"Oh wow, dude, seriously? That's pretty awesome - well, except for the part about no polar bears, but c'mon. It'd be totally cool to look out your window and say, 'hey, check out that polar bear crossing the street', right?" Jubilee grinned. "I didn't realize people actually lived up there like, permanent. I mean, research facilities and stuff, sure, but not just regular people people."

"Um, can I direct your attention to Alaska? I mean, they're weird over there, but they're in the north too and their yours. And heck, we're not even the most northernly. Like, you could go to Inuvik, or... or fuck, Grise Fiord if you really wanted to see polar bears. I mean, you got to like the cold, but you do get bears." Lil hadn't thought geography was her thing either, but the North was laid out like a roadmap in her head. Up there, communities depended on each other in way she doubted happened in the South, so of course she knew every nook and cranny of the Territories.

"Yeeaaah, really not into the cold, y'know?" Jubilee shuddered. "I'm from SoCal. We don't do cold there. And I mean, I totally know people live in Alaska, thank you very much. But it sounded like you were talking way north from there." Granted, she wasn't exactly familiar with the details, but c'mon. Alaska had moose, not polar bears. She remembered that much from class. Or maybe from that old TV show that took place there, that had the moose walking through town. Come to think, that was more likely.

"Some parts of the NWT are, not where I'm from. Still gets pretty cold though." Lil pulled her chair a little closer to where Jubilee was sitting. "The mutant thing was never big news up there either. Like, I had to keep quiet about it, but other people seemed to think it was a southerner thing I guess."

"It's like, been big news here for about as long as I can remember." Jubilee made a face. "I've never been much for keeping quiet, though - used to do firework shows for donations outside the mall. Most people thought it was totally some kinda trick, y'know? Like I had some tech they'd never heard of. The others -" she shrugged. "Some thought it was cool? And some made with the threats, and some called me a freak, and one particularly fun asshole pushed me off the ledge I was standing on, which was totally uncalled for."

"Jesus. I think I would 'a put one of your firecrackers right up his ass." Lil didn't miss the bit about donations, but asking about that was way too heavy for a first conversation.

"Totally tempting," Jubilee admitted. "'Cept you can't really go around blowing up all the assholes in the universe. I mean, it's kinda cool in theory, but I don't think it'd work too well overall, because people have different ideas on what makes someone an asshole, y'know? And besides, there were a lot of people there, and some of them were cool. I got a bunch of sympathy change."

"If it worked out in the end I guess, but I still would have kicked his ass. But then, when I kicked someone's ass at home, people just thought I was a normal freak, not like, a mutant or anything."

"Yeah. Most of these already knew I was a mutant - or, y'know, a lot of them? Because some people are stupid, but seriously, I'm throwing fireworks out of my fingertips, people. Pretty clear sign? Besides, I'm not so much with the ass kicking." Jubilee grinned a little, gesturing at herself. She wasn't short, she maintained - 5'2 was totally a normal height, thank you very much - but compared to Lil, yeah. On the short side. "I'd rather talk them to death."

"You seem like you'd be good at that." Lil couldn't resist, but she smiled to let Jubilee know she was teasing. "But sometimes that sort of thing hurts more, or changes things more anyway."

"Right? I mean, that's the general idea." Jubilee grinned more and brushed her knuckles on her shoulder. "Plus yeah. I'm waaaay better at that. And people need to know why they're being total assholes, because most of the assholes aren't smart enough to figure it out on their own."

"That's what Tamara does, sort of, talk to people with her videos. And that's all that the Magneto dude has done so far, right?" Lil began to realize that maybe she was walking around with her head in the sand on this. Maybe it was time to hit the internet. That didn't mean she'd end up agreeing with Jubilee, but she did need to understand things better. "Has Magneto hurt people?"

"Well, there was that whole Friends of Humanity rally thing. I'm guessing people got hurt?" Jubilee wasn't entirely sure, but it stood to reason, right? "But hello, big picture. He just declared war on normal humans, pretty much. I'm thinking this isn't going to be good for the average mutant. Which, okay, we're not? But I pretty much was, and seriously, my donations would've been waaaaaay down. Big difference between being the mall's pet mutant kid and a threat, y'know?" Jubilee grinned. "Tamara's videos are totally awesome, though. He shoulda done that instead."

Lill gave a distracted nod and put her chin on her hands. "You know, I think I might get on board a bit more if everybody wasn't just talkin' about mutants. Like you said, he did declare war on normal people. Like, that's my mom."

"Right? I mean, okay, I didn't know that, cuz duh, I don't know your mom. But...that's like, the lady who owns the thrift shop in town. And the cute guy who works at McDonalds there, who always gives me extra fries, which is totally cool of him. And," she paused, thinking. "All the girls I was in gymnastics class with back home, and Cynjen from the mall, and...yeah. Like, everyone who isn't right here." Jubilee looked annoyed. "And in five minutes? He made all of them look at us like threats. I'm not cool with that."

"And if he does hurt them... " What if he did, and Lil just sat back doing algebra and history homework? That didn't sound like her... Except it did. "Aw fuck. I knew this girl back home. Hung around with her all the time and she was a goddamn bitch but," Lil shrugged. But there wasn't anyone else interested in hanging around with her, so Cherry it was. "Anyway, we'd go to a party, she'd get drunk and then drive us home. I didn't care. I mean, I can't get hurt so nothin' was going to happen to me, right? Besides, she was bitch. Then she hit a tree one night. And I was fine." She hoped Jubilee got what happened to Cherry, because Lil didn't want to say it out loud.

Jubilee did, and made a face. "Dude, I'm sorry." Granted, it'd been mega-incredibly stupid to let someone drunk drive a car, but Lil probably realized that already, even if she hadn't before. "But yeah. I mean, we'll probably make it through whatever he can throw our way? But there's a ton of people out there," she gestured broadly, "who maybe aren't gonna. And even if we don't know them, they're like, someone else's mom or brother or best friend or whatever, y'know?"

"Man, I should have stayed far away from you, because now you've got me thinking about this. Like, I still think it's sort of sleazy to use kids like this, but, I don't know. I'm gonna have to think about this more." Another thing to worry over.

"It's probably sleazy," Jubilee admitted. Because yeah, pretty much. "But I think I'd be doing it anyway, y'know? At least this way I've got people to do it with, and that's a million times cooler and safer than doing it by myself. Even if I am pretty awesome." She grinned to let Lil know she was joking, then waved it all aside. "Enough thinking though, yeah, cuz uggh, thinking overkill. Want me to paint your nails when I finish mine?"

Lil wrinkled her nose at the idea, but if Tamara had gotten her into a halter top, maybe painted nails weren't so bad. "Alright, but no crazy colours, eh?"

"No crazy colors," Jubilee promised as she turned her attention back to finishing the X's on her nails. After all, yellow was a totally awesome color. And Lil seemed like someone who needed some yellow in her life.