ax_main | Kitty and Shinobi | Backdated to 09/26

Shinobi makes good on his promise to make a point of getting to know the school's other phasing mutant better. It is even more wonderful than he imagined.

Shinobi was still attempting to orient himself to the mansion-turned-school-for-genetic-oddities. It was far from the largest school--or the largest mansion, for that matter--he'd encountered, but these sorts of things still took time. And his curiosity--or perhaps nosiness--knew no limits. So he flitted through the halls in his robe, peeking into rooms as he passed, gathering a basic sense of the layout of this ... Institute where he was to spend the next few years of his life.

In one such room ... a converted space, he suspected, but set aside for student recreation, he spied a petite, vaguely familiar figure, crouched over a very singular portable computer arrangement. It was curious enough to halt his forward momentum altogether.

"Ohayou," he said, waving from just inside the door frame. "You look as though you're up to something of unusually weighty import."

"Ohay-" Kitty started to answer, then paused, realizing she might suddenly be giving away her secret love of anime. Veeeeerrrry slowly she raised her head to look at the unfamiliar person. "-ou," she finished, frowning in confusion.

That unanticipated familiarity had Shinobi all but beaming with pleasure. He supposed it shouldn't be much of a surprise to have such common phrases crossing the Pacific ... but still. Little things. "Hajimemashite. Shinobi Shaw, at your service. I think I may have spied you at that party the other night, neh? Though I didn't have a chance to properly make your acquaintance." He stepped across the threshold. "May I? I don't wish to intrude, if you're busy, but I've only recently arrived and I can't deny a certain eagerness to meet my fellow students."

We're not in an anime, Kitty had to remind herself, though it kind of felt like that. Heck, she could probably write this one herself. "Um. Sure," she told him, closing the laptop. "I'm Kitty. Kitty Pryde."

"Pleasure to meet you, Kitty." Ye gods, she even had a tiny, adorable name. "A genuine pleasure. Oh, but I seem to have left my manners in Tokyo! We shake hands when greeting others in this hemisphere, don't we? Allow me to correct that oversight." And with that, he walked through the intervening couch, hand outstretched ... and perhaps grinning just a touch triumphantly.

Kitty watched him quietly, her child-like giddiness quieting in the face of someone with her power. It wasn't jealousy, really, but uncertainty. Until now, she'd been the only known mutant with quantum tunneling. But now, she was presented with the fact that her power wasn't unique at all. And, it was possible that this other mutant could use the power in a less than moral way.

His hand was outstretched. And he looked proud of himself. And his power. She sighed. She was proud of it too. Reaching out, she squeezed his hand with her own. "Handshakes are generally considered formal introductions here," she told him. "Students don't usually bother, unless they're kind of stuck up."

"Oh, I can absolutely do the haughty thing," he assured her. "I took lessons, and everything--real, actual lessons. They called it 'etiquette', of course, since it sounds nicer, but I know stuck up when I see it. But, actually, I was a being a little disingenuous with you, just now. You see, Bobby and Warren pointed you out to me at that little soiree the other evening, and I've been simply dying to meet you ever since. For as much as I treasure being the special-est little snowflake, it seems it would be nice to chat with someone else who has seen the drywall from the other side."

"It's super gross, right? Wait until you find that possum skeleton in the walls of the laundry room," Kitty made a face.

"Ew ew ew!" exclaimed Shinobi, scrunching his face and flapping his hands ineffectually. "Why would you tell me that? Unless it's revenge for my earlier attempt at cleverness. In which case, good for you."

Kitty quirked a little grin. "What, you reward revenge?"

"Of course!" he agreed readily. "I always make a point of rewarding bad behavior whenever possible, and what is more satisfying than a well-crafted and successful revenge? Even when it's against me, I can still appreciate the artistry." Shinobi gestured toward one of the occupied seats. "May I?"

Kitty waved toward one of the seats with a small smile. "Of course."

"Arigatou," he hummed, flopping down bonelessly into the armchair she'd indicated. "So!" he went on. "As one of the older hands, what's your impression of the school so far? I can hardly rely on Warren for an unbiased assessment; he means well, but throw enough pretty at him, and he loses all perspective. Which I say with the deepest possible affection, mind you."

"That's a broad request," Kitty pointed out, flopping back down onto the couch. "I mean, you could be asking about the building itself, or the students, or the teachers, or the classes, or recreational activities..."

"Call it all of the above," Shinobi replied, grinning. "Feel free to start with whatever's most interesting to you, but I exaggerate only slightly when I say I want to hear it all."

"Okay - we're gonna be here awhile," she huffed, pushing her laptop away. "First - the building. It's big, and old, and it's got its share of secret passages. I'm not even sure I've found them all, but there're also new passages that I think the Prof has set up for us, but hasn't told us about yet. They don't have all the cobwebs and gross that the rest do."

Sitting forward with his chin resting in his palm, Shinobi listened with rapt attention as Kitty began her maybe just a tiny bit grudging breakdown of the school. But she was barely three sentences in, and his face sank into the palm of his hand in abject despair.

"No, no, no!" he chided. "I mean, yes, that's amazing and fascinating and I will absolutely go snooping at the earliest possible opportunity. But I didn't mean for you to tell me the secret stuff. Secrets drop in value proportional to the number of people who know them! And half the fun of meeting someone new and interesting is trying to puzzle out for yourself the things they hold back, isn't it? It makes the game interesting!"

Kitty stared at him. "But I don't hold anything back."

Shinobi considered his previous experiences with Shen. His previous experiences with Tamara. And, as a result, was very careful as he spoke again. "That's ... not in itself a bad thing, of course. It's only that sometimes there are things that need to be held back, if not for simple amusement, then because you can't be entirely sure what other people will do with all these interesting facts you throw in their direction. Thinking the best of others isn't a flaw," he went on, waving a hand vaguely, "it's only that sometimes the people we trust and for whom we feel the most fondness make incredibly poor decisions. And when they do, they know everything we know."

If Shinobi had met her before the party, Kitty might have said something like 'she wasn't interesting' or 'she didn't care about poor decisions'. But now...what with Yana going off with Pyro, and Kitty herself juggling a whole hoard of secrets about the Brotherhood, she suddenly realized that she couldn't say that she was totally honest anymore. And it made her frown. Yeah. She was one of those people - with the secrets and the weight of the world on their shoulders, and hard decisions.

"I won't ask," Shinobi told her thoughtfully. He believed he recognized that look, had seen it more than once before in the past, worn by executives and security personnel and his father's closest hangers-on. "Which you should not take to mean I'm not curious--not at all! But I think this may be something of much greater significance than a few hidden passageways in the wall." His smile was radiant, when it came again. "Besides, that's the best part of making friends, isn't it? Sharing secrets."

"I guess so," Kitty agreed. "So what do you want me to share?"

"Gossip, of course! The idlest kind, preferably. They'll be plenty of time for weightier topics when we're less young and beautiful."

Kitty's lips twitched in amusement. "Well I guess you probably already know about Warren and Jean-Paul."

"Oh, please," said Shinobi, waving a hand and rolling his eyes playfully. "I'd have to be even denser than I can manage with my powers at their best to have missed that. The darling elf practically oozed proprietary ownership, during the party. It was cute."

Kitty frowned. "Denser? What do you mean?"

"Denser!" Shinobi repeated, as if that should explain everything. "You know, molecular density? Mine can get solid enough to deflect bullets. Not that I'd really want to have to, a second time."

She pursed her lips, a really thoughtful look crossing her features. "So our powers aren't really the same at all."

"They're not?" he cocked his head to one side curiously. It had never occurred to him that there might be more than one kind of walking through solid objects.

"Both involving the molecular level, sure," Kitty hummed. "But my power uses quantum tunneling."

"Sou desu ka," said Shinobi thoughtfully, tapping his chin. He then offered a helpless shrug. "I have no idea what that is."

Kitty couldn't help but crack a little smile. "But you know what molecular density is?"

"I'm very good at retaining information related to me," he acknowledged ruefully. "Less so with extraneous, quantum things. Gomen."

"Okay so, basically, you stretch your molecules apart so that you're capable of passing through things, like a gas," Kitty told him. "Me, I simply move my atoms around the atoms of the wall, merging with it briefly, then escaping out the other side."

"Sou ka," he repeated, sitting back in his chair with a contemplative look. "No offense intended, Kitty-san, but that sounds absolutely harrowing. I mean, I suspect the process is mostly automatic, but I'd always entertain the fear in the back of my mind that one day all of my molecules might not make the leap, as it were. I'd be a nervous wreck. I think I might have been better off in the bliss of ignorance."

She stared at him, then hid her eyes for a moment. "Oh god, now I'm trying not to think about flying apart..."

"I know, right?" he said despairingly, clutching his hands to the sides of his head. "This is the danger of mixing a tiny bit of knowledge with a vast and lurid imagination! I'm so indescribably sorry."

And she didn't know why she did it. Maybe it was just his playful demeanor. But without warning, she picked up a pillow off of the couch and tossed it at him, laughing softly.

"Oof!" came his indignant huff, as, against all plausible physics, the pillow appeared to knock him completely onto his back. He raised an accusing finger toward the sky as he said, voice muffled by Kitty's improvised projectile, "Of course you know, this means war."

"I wonder how that's going to turn out," Kitty grinned at him. "With both of us able to phase through everything."

"You make a fair point," he conceded, as he rose finally from beneath the pillow which had felled him. "I have little use for 'fair' under most circumstances, but facts are facts." His grin was devilish as he added, "I'll just have to modify my timing to ensure you don't see the return pillow coming, neh?"

"You're a shrewd, shrewd guy, Shinobi-chan," Kitty grinned.

"And clearly you possess a uniquely penetrating insight, to have recognized that so quickly," Shinobi replied, preening just a bit for effect. "Perhaps you really are every bit the genius I've heard. Though Warren does have an occasional tendency to exaggerate the virtues of others, and I never trust boyfriends where assessing their significant others is concerned. But it's more fun to find these things out in person, anyway."

Learning that he'd been asking around about her, her smile dimmed slightly. Right. This was the guy who had given Nolan his start. She really wasn't sure how she felt about that. "Well, you found what you were looking for."

"Possibly. I've certainly found very interesting company--I knew you would be, given the quality of your other associations. Warren mentioned you in passing during one of his amateurish but still very endearing digs at Bobby when he was making our introductions, and curiosity got the better of me. Especially when they told me what you could do. I mean, being a unique snowflake is all well and good, but I think it would be pleasant to have a rapport with someone who understands. Even if it's not exactly the same." He pulled the pillow she'd thrown at him from behind his back, and placed it behind his head. "I'll try not to hold the fact that you're obviously quite a bit smarter than me against you. Too much."

Kitty sighed inwardly. Of course he hadn't been asking around about her. But that was a good thing, right? Right. "I admit it's kind of nice to know someone who understands the feeling of suddenly having no boundaries at all. I mean, everyone thinks it would be great, right? But then there are all the times I'm scaring people when I forget that normal people walk through doors, or when I think about how scared of me the US government would be if they knew what I could do."

"To be fair, I didn't have that many boundaries to begin with," Shinobi admitted. "And I kind of adore the freedom that comes from having practically no boundaries at all." He grinned at her again, his tone wheedling. "Tell the truth--one ghost-type to another--it's kind of funny to see their reactions when you walk through a wall, or a door, or pop down through the floor, isn't it? Just a little?"

That other point had him waving his hand dismissively. "The US government is afraid of women, people of color, single-payer healthcare, and professional athletes who refuse to kowtow to their ridiculous flag. Frankly, they're a hysterical mob of political opportunists and myopic blowhards whose opinions matter as much to me as the weather on the Moon. And, really, what are they going to do? Lock us up?"

Kitty shrugged. "But I don't like the idea of them like, deciding to dart me in my sleep or something and just keep me unconscious in some mental hospital somewhere."

"Ah, but that's what friends are for," Shinobi countered, resting his cheeks in his palms, elbows on his knees. "I'm the heir to one of the biggest industrial fortunes on the east coast. So is Warren. We can't just disappear without all kinds of people making a fuss about it. And that means you can't disappear without us making a fuss about it. Believe me, I'm more formidable than I look, when given sufficient motivation."

"Density control," Kitty nodded in understanding. "Whereas I only have phasing to rely on."

"There's that," he inclined his head agreeably. "There's also my vast wealth, and all the connections it brings." Shinobi made a face. "Well, technically it's my father's vast wealth, but the connections are mostly mine. And it's not as if he'll be with us forever."

"That's...a terrible thing to say," Kitty managed after a moment.

"He's a terrible person," Shinobi replied breezily. "Though I suppose I have my moments, too. Less nature and more nurture, however. Or, rather, the lack of it."

Kitty nodded, glancing down. Right. There were terrible people out there, and she had to remember that. Terrible. Terrible, people, she thought, thinking of the Right.

"I didn't mean to bring down the mood," he told her quickly, noting the abrupt change in ... well, her entire demeanor, really. "Désolé. Will it boost your spirits if I go back to speaking of fluff and unicorns and glitter? These are a few of my favorite things, you know. And I can pontificate upon them at length."

Kitty's lips twitched slightly. "Unicorns and glitter?"

"And fluff," he reiterated. "I suspect I may be fifteen to twenty percent fluff-by-volume. The rest is an even mix of glitter, unicorn-love, and very expensive vodka."

"So," Kitty hummed. "Basically, you're an Etsy store."

"A fabulous Etsy store. I feel that is an important distinction to make."

"The really expensive kind? The kind that are so expensive that you have to go out and buy cupcakes after browsing, just to make yourself feel better that you'll never be able to afford something that fabulous?" Kitty suggested.

"Precisely," Shinobi replied with a decisive nod. "Your perspicacity is simply astonishing, and if there were trophies given for such things, you would no doubt have earned one just then." His expression fell into a pout. "Although ... now I want cupcakes. So it's a bit of a qualified win."

"There's ice cream in the fridge. That's kind of like cupcakes made into snowy goodness?" she smiled.

"I have never found myself in such circumstances before ... but I am forced to admit that I am in no position to be choosy." He offered his most charming smile. "Lead the way?"

Kitty just grinned and stood, then winked and dove through the wall behind her. Shinobi was perfectly capable of following.