Gar and Jubes, backdated to 9/18/17
Sep. 18th, 2017 07:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainJubilee gets greeted by a green dog, and then Gar makes a proper introduction, and they talk about protests, rollerblades, and shopping.
Gar was outside, enjoying the last bits of summer air he could get before autumn really started. Today he was soaring around the school as an eagle, enjoying a particularly good thermal updraft when his eagle-eyes spotted a girl he hadn't seen before.
Rollerblading. She was rollerblading. He could see the little wheels spinning and everything. Make out every little detail. Man, eagle eyes were cool, but so was this! Rollerblades!
Holy crap, people actually rollerbladed? He'd only seen it on TV and movies, never in real life. But holy crap, she was doing it, and it looked fun. He didn't want to spook her, though, so he swooped down a fair distance, the green eagle shape turning into a green Labrador retriever, with a full on doggy-smile as he ran after her, excited to meet someone new and see someone rollerblading up-close.
Jubilee, for her part, was enjoying the fact that, on top of the whole idea that she was at an actual boarding school for mutants, the drive of Xavier's school was long, flat, and perfectly surfaced for blading. Oh, eventually it'd probably get dull and she'd go looking for more interesting venues, but for now - speed. The speed was the thing (she was pretty sure that was a quote from somewhere, but she'd Google it later if she remembered).
She was moving at a pretty good clip - not top speed, but climbing towards it - her earbuds pumping Katy Perry's latest release into her ears, when a sixth sense developed by roller blading at a shopping mall warned her that there was someone else on the drive. She slowed enough to spin safely, and caught sight of - a green dog?
Even the dogs here were mutants? Jubilee crouched down and held out her hand. "You're a good green dog, right? You wanta go for a run with me?"
Gar caught up, tail wagging, and he gave a happy, affirmative "arf!" in response, sniffing her hand and giving her a puppy smile as he sat down. Hey, if she wanted to run, he would run. Running was fun, especially as a dog. So many smells!
"Awesome! Just stay away from my wheels, kay?" Jubilee ruffled the dog's head, then got back to her feet carefully. "Beat you to the end of the drive," she said, knowing the dog wouldn't understand, then took off.
Except the dog did understand, and took off running, doing his best to both stay away from her wheels and beat her to the end of the drive. Without changing into something faster, because that would be cheating.
Jubilee reached the end of the drive just a split second before the dog, slowed, and plopped down on the grass, reaching back into her string backpack to pull out a bottle of water. "Whoa, good race," she observed. She took a swig from the bottle and gave the dog an apologetic look. "I'd share, but nothing to pour it into, and eww, dog slobber on the bottle? Not good. If you follow me back, I'll find you a bowl or something."
The dog sat down next to her, and then suddenly it wasn't a dog, but a boy with green skin and hair, panting a little. "No bowl needed," he said, laughing a little.
"Whoa!" Jubilee recoiled a bit, staring at the new transformation. The green dog was now a green kid About her age, if she had to guess, which duh, yeah, she pretty much did, right? "Seriously, dude, a little warning?" she requested, a grin spreading across her face as she held out the water bottle.
"Kinda hard to do when I'm in dog form," he chuckled. "I could've turned into a monkey, first? Done... I dunno, sign language?" He graciously accepted the water bottle, though.
"Well yeah, that would've probably given me a heads up." She grinned and stretched out her legs, leaning back on her hands. "Jubilation Lee, firecracker extraordinaire," she said by way of introduction. "Just in yesterday, via Bahamanian girl express portal. But Jubes is cool and a lot less of a mouthful."
"Garfield Logan," he returned in introduction, then taking a drink from her bottle before handing it back. "Animal shapeshifting... uh... expert," he said, chuckling a little. "I got in pretty close to when this place opened up. Not via Clarice. But I met her, which was fun. And Jubes is a nice nickname," he said. "Most people call me Gar. Less of a mouthful and reminds people less of a certain lasagna-eating cat."
"Hey, Garfield's the best," Jubes contradicted, having easily followed the subject changes. "And seriously, you could turn into a lasagna eating cat, right? So it'd be totally cool. But so is Gar. And yeah, Clarice and Shen were awesome about it, once they stopped talking over my head - I mean, as if, right? - about whether or not they had to send me back. But then I fired off a few pafs, just to get their attention," she held up her hand and set off a couple of sparks, just so he'd get the idea, "and Wham! Next thing I know, into the office with an old bald guy in a wheelchair giving a lecture on how considered action is better than impulsivity or something like that. How long ago did the place open?"
"A few months back," Gar said, more or less following the conversation. "I mean, wow, time kinda flies. It's crazy," he said, scratching his head. "Anyway, I know what you mean. But I just kinda wound up here. After like, well. Some stuff with my former adoptive dad. And before that, I was in Africa with my parents," he said. "Anyway. Long story," he said, waving a hand. "The fireworks thing is really cool. Can you make them different colors?" he asked.
"Well, duh. Fireworks have to come in different colors or they'd be totally boring." Jubilee stood up and grinned, then held both arms over her head and fired off an arc of them, fairly low, spinning on her blades to make the arc spin into a sparkling, popping dome.
Gar could barely resist the urge to applaud, and so he did, just because, well, it deserved it. "That's so cool!" he said, excitedly. "Man, I bet you throw the best parties," he said. "And the rollerblading? Totally cool," he added. "I've only ever seen people do it on TV and in movies," he said.
"Seriously, right? Total lost art. But they're the best." Jubes took a bow, then grinned and plopped back down in front of him. "Two shows a day, Beverly Hills mall, assuming the rent-a-cops weren't on the prowl. Made a haul - well, enough to keep me in Sugar Bombs and Panda Express, anyway," she amended.
"And hey, that's enough, right?" he said, grinning. "Just recognition is nice, sometimes." Besides, how cool was that? A mutant with a show-stopping power like that? People couldn't help but love that, he felt. "If it weren't for the shapeshifting, I'd totally get myself a pair of rollerblades," he said. "But I'll take running as a cheetah over falling over and skinning my knees any day," he chuckled.
"Pfft, you should totally try it anyway. You use knee pads when you're learning." Jubilee took off her helmet (because yeaaah, safety first, even if she didn't use the knee pads anymore) and fluffed out her pony tails. "Running as a cheetah sounds awesome, though. You can do any animal?"
"Yep! Dinosaurs, too. Just. Don't expect it to be anything other than shades of green. Even like, dark tiger stripes or anything like that is just really dark green, not black," he said, shrugging. "I dunno why."
"Because you're green, duh." Jubilee grinned at him and shrugged. "Anyway, who cares? It's still pretty amazing. I can't believe that like, everyone here can do stuff." The sweep of her arm encompassed the school grounds. "I mean, I saw mutants on TV? But I never figured I'd actually, y'know, meet any. And them Bam! Two walk right into my mall."
"And they're both awesome," he said, nodding his head. "Shen's great. Clarice is great, also," he said, if only because he didn't want to make it super-obvious that he had a crush on Shen. "And yeah, it's great. Everyone here is great. Pretty amazing bunch."
"Right? I mean, there are probably some assholes, because there are always some assholes, but everyone I've met so far - and okay, I haven't met that many people yet," she confessed. "But they've all been totally cool. And they gave me this," she pointed to her shirt, which was proudly sporting a giant X and a logo for the school, "which is maybe not a huge fashion statement, but which'll give me time to go shopping. Did you want to go shopping?"
"Maybe," Gar said, figuring he'd break out his image inducer for the trip. "And I mean, hey, it's like, the school shirt," he said, about the X-logo shirt. "It's a pride statement, right?"
"Kinda? Anyway, it's kinda cool. I mean, I figured at first it was just the PhyEd uniform? Which would've made it totally lame, because PhyEd uniforms are lame by definition," Jubes contributed as if it were undeniable fact. "Except from what the Prof said, it sounds like PhyEd here is more like jiu jitsu or something, which would be kinda cool to learn. And powers training, except really, mine's not so much with the physical exercise."
"Mine is, kinda," Gar said, nodding along with her statements. "And the self-defense stuff is... I mean, I'd rather not have to learn it. But it's... something that's good to know," he said.
"Definitely," Jubilee agreed. "Did you see that thing on the news, with the mutants at the park and the whole protest thing? I mean, seriously, there was no way those jerks were in the right, whatever the newslady said. Self-defense is pretty much mandatory."
"Yeah, I was, uh, kind of there," Gar said, scratching the side of his head. He didn't like it. He really, really didn't like it. He still felt like they'd done the wrong thing, but what Tommy had said was getting under his skin.
"Seriously?" Jubilee gaped and leaned forward. "You have to tell me about it! Was it really intense? And did the media totally twist it? Because it seemed like it was totally one-sided."
"I... I wasn't there for all of it," Gar admitted. "It was intense. I was... kinda scared, to be honest. And, I mean..." He didn't want to talk about it, and his poise kind of shrank. "I still don't know if we did the right thing. But those people were wrong."
"Well, duh, I'd be totally scared," Jubilee replied. An entire mob of protestors? Definitely scary. Not that she wouldn't have been up to it, but still. "But what happened?"
"They were protesting. Tommy... started grabbing signs. And Tamara lit them on fire, apparently." He had come back to that. "That's what happened."
Jubes rolled her eyes. "You're leaving all the cool stuff out."
Which was frustrating, because it wasn't cool. There wasn't any cool stuff. "It was scary," Gar said, again. "I don't... really think it was cool. It was happening really fast, and I just wanted to get away."
Jubilee's face fell. So yeah, it was one of those cool if you were watching but genuinely scary if you were actually there things. "Sorry dude," she said genuinely. "My mouth runs away with me sometimes. Pretty awful then, huh? That sucks."
Her understanding was appreciated, and he half-forced a smile. "It was pretty bad. But I learned a lot from it," he said. He'd felt awful, being pushed aside by Tommy to go with Jeanne-Marie. But he hoped that him being with her had helped keep her calm, and someone had to let Stevie know what was happening, so... Still. He wasn't sure where he sat with the whole thing, and it made him feel like squirming.
"Yeah? Like what?" Jubes dug in her pocket, pulled out a pack of gum and grabbed a piece, holding the pack out to Gar in case he wanted some.
Gar politely waved a hand, declining the gum. "Like people have different views about how we should act in the face of that sort of thing," Gar said. "And that maybe my view of it wasn't ... wasn't realistic." He settled on that. "I dunno. I'm still learning from it. It's a tough situation. People don't like us because we're different. I thought maybe if we gave them reasons to love us, they wouldn't hate or fear us," he said, shrugging. "But some of us think that some people always will hate us. And maybe that's true. And that sucks hard if it is."
Wow. That was a lot of lessons. Jubes popped her gum in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, trying to figure out where she stood on it. "Yeah, well, some people are haters," she decided finally. "Like, it's not us they hate? Just like, anything that isn't them. But that doesn't mean that everybody is like that, just that there are some who are going to be assholes, no matter what." She threw out her hands in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "You can't make morons not be morons, am I right?"
"I mean, that's what school's supposed to be for," he remarked, chuckling. "But no, I know what you mean. And it sucks." He sighed. "I ... guess I just hoped that I could make the world totally peaceful. But I'm still gonna try to make it as peaceful as I can. Somehow."
"Sounds like an awesome goal," Jubilee said decisively, then grinned and started to get to her feet. "More 'now' goal, though? We need to find you some blades. Which means shopping. You up for it?"
"Sure," he said, springing up after her. "I'll definitely need your help, after all. Being the resident rollerblading expert."
Jubilee put her helmet back on, fastened the strap, and grinned. "If you think I'm good at blading? Just wait until you see me shop." And with that said, took off back toward the school. It wasn't like Gar couldn't keep up, even if running wasn't anywhere near as cool.
Gar was outside, enjoying the last bits of summer air he could get before autumn really started. Today he was soaring around the school as an eagle, enjoying a particularly good thermal updraft when his eagle-eyes spotted a girl he hadn't seen before.
Rollerblading. She was rollerblading. He could see the little wheels spinning and everything. Make out every little detail. Man, eagle eyes were cool, but so was this! Rollerblades!
Holy crap, people actually rollerbladed? He'd only seen it on TV and movies, never in real life. But holy crap, she was doing it, and it looked fun. He didn't want to spook her, though, so he swooped down a fair distance, the green eagle shape turning into a green Labrador retriever, with a full on doggy-smile as he ran after her, excited to meet someone new and see someone rollerblading up-close.
Jubilee, for her part, was enjoying the fact that, on top of the whole idea that she was at an actual boarding school for mutants, the drive of Xavier's school was long, flat, and perfectly surfaced for blading. Oh, eventually it'd probably get dull and she'd go looking for more interesting venues, but for now - speed. The speed was the thing (she was pretty sure that was a quote from somewhere, but she'd Google it later if she remembered).
She was moving at a pretty good clip - not top speed, but climbing towards it - her earbuds pumping Katy Perry's latest release into her ears, when a sixth sense developed by roller blading at a shopping mall warned her that there was someone else on the drive. She slowed enough to spin safely, and caught sight of - a green dog?
Even the dogs here were mutants? Jubilee crouched down and held out her hand. "You're a good green dog, right? You wanta go for a run with me?"
Gar caught up, tail wagging, and he gave a happy, affirmative "arf!" in response, sniffing her hand and giving her a puppy smile as he sat down. Hey, if she wanted to run, he would run. Running was fun, especially as a dog. So many smells!
"Awesome! Just stay away from my wheels, kay?" Jubilee ruffled the dog's head, then got back to her feet carefully. "Beat you to the end of the drive," she said, knowing the dog wouldn't understand, then took off.
Except the dog did understand, and took off running, doing his best to both stay away from her wheels and beat her to the end of the drive. Without changing into something faster, because that would be cheating.
Jubilee reached the end of the drive just a split second before the dog, slowed, and plopped down on the grass, reaching back into her string backpack to pull out a bottle of water. "Whoa, good race," she observed. She took a swig from the bottle and gave the dog an apologetic look. "I'd share, but nothing to pour it into, and eww, dog slobber on the bottle? Not good. If you follow me back, I'll find you a bowl or something."
The dog sat down next to her, and then suddenly it wasn't a dog, but a boy with green skin and hair, panting a little. "No bowl needed," he said, laughing a little.
"Whoa!" Jubilee recoiled a bit, staring at the new transformation. The green dog was now a green kid About her age, if she had to guess, which duh, yeah, she pretty much did, right? "Seriously, dude, a little warning?" she requested, a grin spreading across her face as she held out the water bottle.
"Kinda hard to do when I'm in dog form," he chuckled. "I could've turned into a monkey, first? Done... I dunno, sign language?" He graciously accepted the water bottle, though.
"Well yeah, that would've probably given me a heads up." She grinned and stretched out her legs, leaning back on her hands. "Jubilation Lee, firecracker extraordinaire," she said by way of introduction. "Just in yesterday, via Bahamanian girl express portal. But Jubes is cool and a lot less of a mouthful."
"Garfield Logan," he returned in introduction, then taking a drink from her bottle before handing it back. "Animal shapeshifting... uh... expert," he said, chuckling a little. "I got in pretty close to when this place opened up. Not via Clarice. But I met her, which was fun. And Jubes is a nice nickname," he said. "Most people call me Gar. Less of a mouthful and reminds people less of a certain lasagna-eating cat."
"Hey, Garfield's the best," Jubes contradicted, having easily followed the subject changes. "And seriously, you could turn into a lasagna eating cat, right? So it'd be totally cool. But so is Gar. And yeah, Clarice and Shen were awesome about it, once they stopped talking over my head - I mean, as if, right? - about whether or not they had to send me back. But then I fired off a few pafs, just to get their attention," she held up her hand and set off a couple of sparks, just so he'd get the idea, "and Wham! Next thing I know, into the office with an old bald guy in a wheelchair giving a lecture on how considered action is better than impulsivity or something like that. How long ago did the place open?"
"A few months back," Gar said, more or less following the conversation. "I mean, wow, time kinda flies. It's crazy," he said, scratching his head. "Anyway, I know what you mean. But I just kinda wound up here. After like, well. Some stuff with my former adoptive dad. And before that, I was in Africa with my parents," he said. "Anyway. Long story," he said, waving a hand. "The fireworks thing is really cool. Can you make them different colors?" he asked.
"Well, duh. Fireworks have to come in different colors or they'd be totally boring." Jubilee stood up and grinned, then held both arms over her head and fired off an arc of them, fairly low, spinning on her blades to make the arc spin into a sparkling, popping dome.
Gar could barely resist the urge to applaud, and so he did, just because, well, it deserved it. "That's so cool!" he said, excitedly. "Man, I bet you throw the best parties," he said. "And the rollerblading? Totally cool," he added. "I've only ever seen people do it on TV and in movies," he said.
"Seriously, right? Total lost art. But they're the best." Jubes took a bow, then grinned and plopped back down in front of him. "Two shows a day, Beverly Hills mall, assuming the rent-a-cops weren't on the prowl. Made a haul - well, enough to keep me in Sugar Bombs and Panda Express, anyway," she amended.
"And hey, that's enough, right?" he said, grinning. "Just recognition is nice, sometimes." Besides, how cool was that? A mutant with a show-stopping power like that? People couldn't help but love that, he felt. "If it weren't for the shapeshifting, I'd totally get myself a pair of rollerblades," he said. "But I'll take running as a cheetah over falling over and skinning my knees any day," he chuckled.
"Pfft, you should totally try it anyway. You use knee pads when you're learning." Jubilee took off her helmet (because yeaaah, safety first, even if she didn't use the knee pads anymore) and fluffed out her pony tails. "Running as a cheetah sounds awesome, though. You can do any animal?"
"Yep! Dinosaurs, too. Just. Don't expect it to be anything other than shades of green. Even like, dark tiger stripes or anything like that is just really dark green, not black," he said, shrugging. "I dunno why."
"Because you're green, duh." Jubilee grinned at him and shrugged. "Anyway, who cares? It's still pretty amazing. I can't believe that like, everyone here can do stuff." The sweep of her arm encompassed the school grounds. "I mean, I saw mutants on TV? But I never figured I'd actually, y'know, meet any. And them Bam! Two walk right into my mall."
"And they're both awesome," he said, nodding his head. "Shen's great. Clarice is great, also," he said, if only because he didn't want to make it super-obvious that he had a crush on Shen. "And yeah, it's great. Everyone here is great. Pretty amazing bunch."
"Right? I mean, there are probably some assholes, because there are always some assholes, but everyone I've met so far - and okay, I haven't met that many people yet," she confessed. "But they've all been totally cool. And they gave me this," she pointed to her shirt, which was proudly sporting a giant X and a logo for the school, "which is maybe not a huge fashion statement, but which'll give me time to go shopping. Did you want to go shopping?"
"Maybe," Gar said, figuring he'd break out his image inducer for the trip. "And I mean, hey, it's like, the school shirt," he said, about the X-logo shirt. "It's a pride statement, right?"
"Kinda? Anyway, it's kinda cool. I mean, I figured at first it was just the PhyEd uniform? Which would've made it totally lame, because PhyEd uniforms are lame by definition," Jubes contributed as if it were undeniable fact. "Except from what the Prof said, it sounds like PhyEd here is more like jiu jitsu or something, which would be kinda cool to learn. And powers training, except really, mine's not so much with the physical exercise."
"Mine is, kinda," Gar said, nodding along with her statements. "And the self-defense stuff is... I mean, I'd rather not have to learn it. But it's... something that's good to know," he said.
"Definitely," Jubilee agreed. "Did you see that thing on the news, with the mutants at the park and the whole protest thing? I mean, seriously, there was no way those jerks were in the right, whatever the newslady said. Self-defense is pretty much mandatory."
"Yeah, I was, uh, kind of there," Gar said, scratching the side of his head. He didn't like it. He really, really didn't like it. He still felt like they'd done the wrong thing, but what Tommy had said was getting under his skin.
"Seriously?" Jubilee gaped and leaned forward. "You have to tell me about it! Was it really intense? And did the media totally twist it? Because it seemed like it was totally one-sided."
"I... I wasn't there for all of it," Gar admitted. "It was intense. I was... kinda scared, to be honest. And, I mean..." He didn't want to talk about it, and his poise kind of shrank. "I still don't know if we did the right thing. But those people were wrong."
"Well, duh, I'd be totally scared," Jubilee replied. An entire mob of protestors? Definitely scary. Not that she wouldn't have been up to it, but still. "But what happened?"
"They were protesting. Tommy... started grabbing signs. And Tamara lit them on fire, apparently." He had come back to that. "That's what happened."
Jubes rolled her eyes. "You're leaving all the cool stuff out."
Which was frustrating, because it wasn't cool. There wasn't any cool stuff. "It was scary," Gar said, again. "I don't... really think it was cool. It was happening really fast, and I just wanted to get away."
Jubilee's face fell. So yeah, it was one of those cool if you were watching but genuinely scary if you were actually there things. "Sorry dude," she said genuinely. "My mouth runs away with me sometimes. Pretty awful then, huh? That sucks."
Her understanding was appreciated, and he half-forced a smile. "It was pretty bad. But I learned a lot from it," he said. He'd felt awful, being pushed aside by Tommy to go with Jeanne-Marie. But he hoped that him being with her had helped keep her calm, and someone had to let Stevie know what was happening, so... Still. He wasn't sure where he sat with the whole thing, and it made him feel like squirming.
"Yeah? Like what?" Jubes dug in her pocket, pulled out a pack of gum and grabbed a piece, holding the pack out to Gar in case he wanted some.
Gar politely waved a hand, declining the gum. "Like people have different views about how we should act in the face of that sort of thing," Gar said. "And that maybe my view of it wasn't ... wasn't realistic." He settled on that. "I dunno. I'm still learning from it. It's a tough situation. People don't like us because we're different. I thought maybe if we gave them reasons to love us, they wouldn't hate or fear us," he said, shrugging. "But some of us think that some people always will hate us. And maybe that's true. And that sucks hard if it is."
Wow. That was a lot of lessons. Jubes popped her gum in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, trying to figure out where she stood on it. "Yeah, well, some people are haters," she decided finally. "Like, it's not us they hate? Just like, anything that isn't them. But that doesn't mean that everybody is like that, just that there are some who are going to be assholes, no matter what." She threw out her hands in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "You can't make morons not be morons, am I right?"
"I mean, that's what school's supposed to be for," he remarked, chuckling. "But no, I know what you mean. And it sucks." He sighed. "I ... guess I just hoped that I could make the world totally peaceful. But I'm still gonna try to make it as peaceful as I can. Somehow."
"Sounds like an awesome goal," Jubilee said decisively, then grinned and started to get to her feet. "More 'now' goal, though? We need to find you some blades. Which means shopping. You up for it?"
"Sure," he said, springing up after her. "I'll definitely need your help, after all. Being the resident rollerblading expert."
Jubilee put her helmet back on, fastened the strap, and grinned. "If you think I'm good at blading? Just wait until you see me shop." And with that said, took off back toward the school. It wasn't like Gar couldn't keep up, even if running wasn't anywhere near as cool.
