Isaiah shrugged.
"I can fit in wherever. Not very familiar with how the whole clubbing thing works, though."
"Don't worry, Isaiah. If I could get Shin to look dashing out there, you should be able to blend in just fine." She flashed a teasing smile at Shin before continuing, "It'll be good to see you relax too."
"Are food and dancing anything like how you're used to spending downtime?"
"Let's put it this way; when 90% of the population doesn't need to eat, and the folks next door might weigh twenty tons, food and dancing didn't exactly play a huge role in socializing."
"Needs are one thing, but experiences are quite another. You're here to learn about us, right? Well, this can be something you learn from us instead."
Delight, confusion, embarrassment and frustration come off of Shin from Kylie's teasing comment. He straightens out his bow tie before turning to address Holly and Kayla.
"I'd like to try this school function. I want to try and get a sense of how people my age act - normal people, not awesome celebrity superheroines," He points out.
When it's clear that folks won't be disguising their hero identities, Ness decides to go in costume. She cleans up and puts on a spare, plus a short skirt she'd sewn herself to compliment it.
As they're getting ready to leave she turns to Isaiah. "Hey, I'm sure Le Chattlier doesn't allow dogs (crazy as that might sound). Can Bear stay in Inquiry while we're out?"
As they look the menu over, Ness's eyes go wide behind her mask. "I might need to borrow a little money." she mutters.
...and find myself a new job, so I can pay you back, now that the museum got smashed.
Ness tries to hide her sigh.
Ness is relishing the crab cakes and wondering about the rest of the menu--How would 'Fresh ricotta raviolini with chanterelles and gremolata' taste? How about 'Local fish and shellfish tagine cooked in the fireplace with charmoula, tomatoes, peppers, preserved lemon, and couscous'? And what is a 'Strawberry île flottante'?--when Praetoria suggests leaving.
Torn between relief at avoiding these prices and regret at not tasting an île flottante, Ness shrugs. "Dancing sounds great. I'll go wherever. Are you...wanting to go before we order?"
"I promise we'll be back, Ness - my treat. But for now we should let Kayla get some space from the Infini-Corp bad-guys, right?"
When ness asks to borrow some money, holly puts on a mock-offended look. And who the heck said you guys were paying. and she pulls out her card quickly dinner is on me.
I agree with Shin. clubs seems a little too... lively for me. I think the scool plus, mom will probably have some strong words for me if i Go to JAN, even now
The student recreation area at HPA is really nice. Big, comfy couches, air hockey and foosball tables, large-screen TVs, and a big open area with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling does a pretty good job of keeping the students entertained.
"Yeah, I suppose Bear could stay on Inquiry if you want to handle it that way. As long as he doesn't make a mess or anything. We should probably look into sorting out a regular solution for places that don't permit dogs."
"The real question is who should Holly invite as her new teammates. Kayla is recognizable enough that there's no real avoiding that option for her, but if you're looking for a more normal experience, Shin, you should probably just go as yourself. I'd be happy to 'invite' one of you as Kylie's companion for the evening if you'd prefer to attend sans-cape."
Kylie will swing by her dorm to scrub off her Psyche-accented makeup, in favor of a more traditional smokey look, grab her glasses, and change into a strapless cut-out dress in a vivid blue, her essentially bared midriff pulling attention from her long modest skirts.
She still plans to dress to impress, but wearing the same gown as Psyche is asking a bit much of her identity-fuzzing subliminal suggestions.
Shin removes his visor and opts for the pair of black plastic framed glasses that he had Isaiah make for him. He looks neatly chic in them, with his bow tie and the way Kylie had him put his hair up.
"So, just a heads up," He says to the group. "I registered under an alias here as Alton Edgar. I dont mind if people think that Alton Edgar is Horizon. I don't want them to think that Shin Akebono is Horizon, so, uh if you can't remember my alias, just call me Horizon, okay?" He requests of them, pressing a finger to his lips.
"Though, I'm kind of interested in those table games now..." He admits, wandering over to the air hockey table with a sense of wonder, watching the puck fly back and forth. Such a marvel of future engineering.
”Rory, I think you and Mattie ought to try and keep your identities secret and go as guests. Just to be safe. I don’t have a choice in the matter, and I don’t think there is a limit on the number of guests one can bring, so between the three of them the rest of us should be okay to go too,” Kayla says.
She makes her way inside, an eye out for familiar faces from her previous enrollment here, but also eagerly looki at the dance floor and other social opportunities.
"Rory, you ARE still going to ask Kayla to dance, right?"
Isaiah easily blends in with the crowd, subtly tweaking his outfit to match whatever seemed to be the local fad. He keeps off the floor, at least for now, wanting to see how the others would act in this relatively unfamiliar setting.
Mattie shrugs at Kayla’s suggestion ok, pretty sure someone’ll figure it out soon enough though. You were caught on camera.
Returning briefly to the base with Kylie, she changes into a short, black dress which she asks Isaiah to fabricate based on a picture in a magazine she has lying around. When the small group enter the venue she has a quick look around, not having been to the academy before turning to the other incognito heroes.
”oh god.” she says, indicating a group of three girls dancing on the stage at the far end of the room. “That’s Amber, Jade and Alexis from my old school. What’re they doing here? They were total b*%$$es when I was at school with them! You know the type - cheerleaders.” she shudders. ”What should I do if they see me? Do I look ok?”
Kylie looks Mattie levelly in the eye, "Mattie, you do whatever you want about them. Just do it with confidence. Shoulders back, chin up. They're just cheerleaders. You're Scorch. If you do that, even if you don't say two words to them, they'll leave tonight wondering where the hell you came from. And that's if you don't want to mess with them. We can do that too."
"Good evening," Shin introduces himself to the teenagers currently around the air hockey table. They were dressed far more casually than he was, but he pushed forward. "My name's Alton Edgar. Ah, I'm transferring into this school. Would you mind if I called the next game? I've never played air...disc...before," He said, guessing the name. "It seems quite fun."
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, giving an unassuming smile. "So, what's the word around school? As I'm coming in, I'm interested in knowing what's going on. Things I should be on the look out for, like the worst teacher to be assigned."
Her excitement unable to wait any longer, she reaches out and herds all the ladies she came with towards the dance floor, saying ”Come on!”
Once there, she begins to dance with the upbeat pop music playing, bouncing moment to moment from Holly to Ness to Mattie and Kylie. She figured if any of the guys wanted to dance with any of them, be they team members or students here, they’d make their move eventually.
Mattie let’s herself be led forward onto the dance floor and begins dancing with the other girls. Although she begins a bit nervously, shooting nervous looks at her old bullies, before long she has forgotten their presence as she spins between her team mates.
You survey the scene as you arrive. You instantly notice Gavin Dobbins, Malcolm Olsen, and Alphonse "A-Rob" Robinson doing the teenaged boy thing and joking it up on the dance floor. Most of the other students who want to dance are giving them a pretty wide berth, to avoid the "accidental" bumps and gropes the trio are bound to inflict.
You also recognize former acquaintances Pru Nivens and Joshua Haltiwanger in one of the couches wrapped around each other. It's not entirely surprising; Pru had confided with you about her secret crush on Joshua, but that was before she was allowed to date.
The scene definitely shifts once everyone starts to notice you. The dancers slow up and gawk, until you grab your new friends and retake the dance floor.
You draw the attention of most of the students as you enter, though several seem to more awed by Kayla's appearance. As Lacey jumps up to give her a big hug, a portion of your entourage reacts with similar squeals of delight. Sophia, Gracie and Ne'veah all wave you over to their corner of the rec area urgently.
The attention that is drawn by Mosaic and Praetoria's entrance allows you to enter without a similar fanfare. Psyche, your prompt to Rory isn't nearly as persuasive as you'd hoped. Isaiah, you're successful at making your look generic enough that no one is questioning your presence there.
The trio of cheerleaders that had made her old life a miserable experience seem to be distracted by Mosaic and Praetoria's presence. When you're coaxed to the dance floor, your surreptitious glances over to them spot some sour looks, but soon their presence is forgotten.
That is, until the middle of the third song when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You see the cheerleader trifecta standing before you. "I'm sorry, HPA doesn't allow trailer park trash here," Jade says cruelly.
"Now now, be nice," Alexis says condescendingly. "Didn't her trailer burn down?"
"Probably someone cooking meth," sneers Amber. "So why don't you get your cheap, double-wide, meth addict face off our dance floor?"
The students around the air hockey table burst into snarky chuckles as you ask to play. "Air [i]hockey,[i]" one of them corrects. With a confident grin, he slides you one of the paddles. "All right, Alton. Here you go, let's see how you do. My name's Jaden."
As Jaden starts sending the floating disk at Shin, he shrugs about the other questions. "I dunno. Mr. Thomas is pretty tough. So is Ms. Preston."
"Yeah, but it's worth it for those tight sweaters she wears!" one of the other boys interjects, drawing some crude gestures and laughs from the others.
Sticking close to Mosaic and Praetoria while staying in costume, you get to share in some of the awe when you all arrive. Holly and Kayla both have history in this school, and are greeted by several acquaintances. You're not greeted with quite as much enthusiasm, though a few students seem impressed with you.
A bigger student comes up to you, his arm draped around the shoulders of another youth to whom puberty has not been kind. "So, Arrow Lass, right? Could you shoot an apple off my friend's head, here?" The bigger student looks vastly amused, but the smaller one looks decidedly less enthusiastic about the prospect.
"Brilliant," 'Alton' says as he takes up the air hockey paddle and puts himself on the opposite end of Jaden. He focuses on the game, thinking that it wasn't unlike table tennis, except only going on two dimensions and without a net. He tapped the puck, playing defense for now and getting used to how it bounced around off of the sides.
"Huh, this is a bit like playing bumpers, too," He commented as he saw his shot, smashing the puck forward under Jaden's arm and into the goal slot. "I suppose I'll look forward to both Mr. Thomas and Ms. Preston's classes. Both for the tough tutelage and the tight sweaters," He said with an innocent smile.
"By the way, those students that just arrived - aren't they all part of the new hero team in town?" He asks, shifting the conversation. "I heard they blew up a museum, a total travesty. I was looking forward to touring the city's educational spots," He said as he knocked the puck around some more. "Still, some of them have nice g- err, legs," He corrected, trying to steer the conversation somewhere closer to how they acted with each other. Blending in as much as he could.
"They took on that scary guy, right? Some kind of shadow user or something? Dusky?" He asked, trying to get some perspective on the public opinion about his future self.
Kylie throws herself into dancing with everyone, still miffed that Rory wasn't stepping up with Kayla.
She deserves to have some fun!
As the Terrible Trio approaches Mattie, Kylie's protective instincts flare, but she holds back. She needs to deal with this herself.
Still, she quietly slipped a feeler into Mattie's mind. If she got overwhelmed, Psyche would be there right away.
Holly moves through the crowd. most of them were over the awe of having a Movie star (okay, Television star) at school... though her new career as a superhero was giving her some of the WOW factor again. She takes her time going over to Sof, grace and Ne'veah , shaking hands and answering simple questions
What's got you all so excited? She asks, quietly, as she finally makes her way over to the girls.
As the enter the school Rory kind of begins to fall behind, Ms. Quinn offered to send him and Mattie here, but Rory chose to study at home so he could focus more on hero training and such. He never thought he could fit in at a place like this and being here re-enforced this feeling. Isaiah fades into the crowd, Shin heads to play games, and the girls heading for the dance floor, Rory seems to freeze for a moment insecurity eating away at his cocksure facade.
Slowly Rory heads for the dance floor, hoping to shake out of his malaise. As he nears the female members of the team he sees Mattie confronted by a trio of bimbos. His first instinct was to rush in and defend her, but he had just promised to treat her like an equal and not just his little sister. He continues to move closer to keep an eye on things and intervene if necessary.
Mattie turns at the tap on her shoulder, shrinking back as her old tormenters descend once again and begin belittling her. With each of the girl’s words she shudders, almost as if struck. For a moment she considers turning and leaving, or hitting them? Or something,.... more extreme. But then she remembers Kylie’s words... You’re Scorch!. For once, she’s happy that the other girl is likely to be listening to her thoughts ... staring at her tormentors she focuses her mind...
Praetoria is used to people gawking at her, so she takes it in stride and just tries to have a good time. She was happy to see Pru and Josh had seemingly gotten together, and jealousy hits her again as she wishes she was allowed to have the same kind of happiness they had found.
As she dances, she mutters a warning about A-Rob's crew, particularly about their handsy habits. When the cheerleader trio come and start harassing Mattie, a part of her wants to intervene, but ultimately she decides to let her handle it herself.
If she is capable of standing up to me and speaking her displeasure over me and Rory just being attracted to one another, then she should be able to handle those three.
The boys smirk and chuckle at your turns of phrase, and you even elicit an, "are you for real?" However, they don't appear completely mean-spirited about it.
Asking about your future self, you get a series of shrugs. "It's just life in Halcyon, man. You gotta roll with the punches,"Jaden says.
A darker-skinned boy shakes his head. "Yeah, well Dusk has some legit points. Look at all those old photos of the heroes back then. Whiter than mayonnaise."
"Yeah, but that means he can mind control people? Blow up monuments? Seriously, having Praetoria blow up her great-granddaddy's museum is okay to you?"
"No, just that whole 'Golden Generation' isn't so perfect either!
Their excitement is barely contained when you join them. Your entourage is apparently thrilled that you're a legit super hero. They barrage you with all sorts of questions about what it's like, and what your team is like, and what you're calling yourself.
The trio's brutal verbal assault hangs in the air, leaving a palpable tension among those involved and those who heard it.
The music even seems to fade as everyone waits for Scorch's (or someone else's) response.
What do you do?
Horizon smiles and nods along to the argument he's incited, even as he feels some concern. There's people who have sympathies to Dusk, if not his methodology. It's alarming to him, but he hides his fear and frustration under his smile. He couldn't see what was so wrong with the Golden Generation that it would have turned him into such a violent menace.
"I guess I opened a can of worms here," He says apologetically. "Say, that Mosaic girl the news keeps talking about is over there with her friends. Maybe we should go and introduce ourselves, see if they want to cut a rug," He suggests to the boys, trying to steer them away now from thinking about Dusk.
He makes his way through the crowd to Holly and her friends, giving his best smile and putting out unearned confidence. "Good evening. I am Alton, and have just transferred to this school. I was wondering if you dolls would like to dance with me and my acquaintances. Can I sign your dance card?" He asks Holly, putting on the Alton persona.
Kylie keeps a poker face, but Mattie can feel Psyche's grin. "Thought you'd never ask. One order of Amber's secrets coming up!"
Isaiah works his way over to where Scorch and the rest were on the verge of some kind of argument. If Scorch had it handled, he wouldn't need to speak up, but he'd be there to support his teammate if needed.
Inquiry continued to pretend to be a van outside, but it did keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
You actually find yourself asking for dances alone. The air hockey players keeping their distance and watching your attempts with the interest of someone watching an expected car crash.
You sift through Amber's dirty secrets, and pull out a few choice gems. She has a fifth of vodka and a dime-bag of weed hidden in her dorm room. Six months ago, she was caught driving under the influence, but got off by getting the officer off.
Seeing the tension on the dance floor, the DJ quickly switches the song to Journey's Don't Stop Believing.
In short order, the vast majority of the students at the rec room are belting out Steve Perry's lyrics.
With Rory taking his sweet time to ask, Kayla decided to take Horizon up on his offer.
”I’ll dance with ya, Alton,” she says as she saddles over to him and starts dancing. The change to Journey makes the dance more of an improv group karaoke session, though. Realizing he has no clue to the lyrics, though, Kayla instead makes sure to keep the focus on the fact that she is dancing with him rather than his own awkwardness.
Psyche dutifully forwards Amber's dirty laundry along to Mattie. "See? She's not better than you at all. Go ahead and let her know what you know. The music's loud, so you won't be overheard by anyone unless you want to be. You can walk away if you want to, but you don't have to. You've got this."
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Mattie grins evilly as Psyche passes on the information. ”I think maybe you should get off my dance floor Amber. Don’t rush home too quickly though. You wouldn’t want to get stopped by another cop. You might stain another dress.
Oblivious to the perception that he was going to get rejected, he was still delighted by the much taller girl's acceptance of his invitation, as he grabbed onto Kayla's hand and with surprise probably on people's faces, spun her around into his arms. "Thanks for the dance, dollface. Hope you don't mind if I lead. This is a catchy tune," He said as he danced with her to an open section of the dance floor,
"Everyone else knows this? They're just belting it out. Must be a hot radio track," He asked as he was able to keep the timing of the music in mind as he danced with the legacy. Eventually he realized that he was drawing perhaps too much attention to himself, stepping back and grinning sheepishly.
"So...uh, I think I need a little help. Am I not acting like a regular joe? Quick, show me how dance to this," He hissed urgently to Kayla. "Wait, is nobody dancing? This is such a barn burner though!"
Rory didn't quite catch what manner of heat his sister was spitting but the one girl looked like a lobster that had just been pulled from the pot.
Just a small town girl... Hell yaeh Journey... living in a lonely world... Are they dancing to don't stop... took the midnight trian... Wow he is awkward
The music transitions to more contemporary dance music and Rory slides over to Kayla, Can I have this next one?
The approving smile Mattie feels in her mind matches the one spreading across Kylie's face exactly.
"See? Mattie, you've always been able to do this. I can't imagine you used to be an ugly duckling. They picked on you because they knew you could beat them at their own game. You're smart, hot, and fierce. Don't forget that. What on earth could they do to you?"
Kayla giggles at Shin’s time-addled confusion, but just plays along and keeps dancing with him until the song changed and Rory finally asked for a turn to dance. She smiled and gave Shin a quick peck on the cheek before turning to Rory for an actual dance.
As the beat picked up, she started dancing with Rory wholeheartedly. Her family probably wouldn’t approve of her provocative dancing she was doing with the young hero. But this was a celebration, and she was trying to put the troubles of her missing parents out of her mind.
But the more she danced, the more guilt she felt over the fact that she was partying while her parents were in trouble...or worse. As the song ended, she smiled a sad smile at Rory before turning and walking out of the gymnasium. She stops outside, her arms wrapped around her bare midriff while she looked up at the night sky, half hoping to see her mother fly overhead...
Holly fawns for a while (Oh, Ne'veah, I don't see Shawn anywhere? did he not ask you? Grace, how are you, how did that modeling gig work out. Oh my god, Sofie, Steve still hasn't even asked you on a date?!) but eventually makes her excuses, and finds her way over to the punch bowl. other people tend to avoid eye contact... as per usual.
she sips her punch as he makes her way across the crowd to Isaiah, waiting for the song to change to something slower. The guys here are kinda intimidated by me. She tells him, offering him a second punch. But you aren't, are you? You'll dance with me, right?
Isaiah accepted the punch and gave a slight bow. "Certainly! It would be bad form to leave you hanging just because most folks are having trouble working up the courage."
Isaiah proved to be an excellent dancer, despite not having had much real experience with it. There was a certain... clinical exactness, to his movements, however; like they had been carefully choreographed and were then executed almost mechanically.
The shift to up-tempo songs doesn't bother Kylie at first, even if the little box of deferred pain in her head was about halfway full. But as Kayla and Rory and others' dancing turned more... aggressive, she began to gracefully make her way off the dance floor, despite the smile she gave at Rory finally stepping up.
If they're looking for it, Psyche's presence is gone from the dancers' minds, but she tries to be graceful in that withdrawal as well.
Okay, no more dancing until everyone gets a collective cold shower.
She wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do instead though. Heading over to the couches was out for much the same reason as the dance floor, but air hockey was boring. Normally she'd work on her own status as Queen Bee, but after spending time with other capes that seemed more hollow than usual. She couldn't even hear anyone in undue mental anguish, which would have been sad for them, but would have given her something to do. Her 'It gets better' spiel was polished and ready to go, but didn't seem needed tonight either.
You've been standing here at the wall long enough to grow roots. Get a move on.
So she went outside. If she wasn't going to be seen enjoying herself, better not to be seen.
When Kayla emerged from the rec center a little while later as well, Psyche at first kept her distance, but once she felt the sorrow and guilt coming off of her instead of her more amorous feelings from earlier, she relaxed, comfortably slipping back into Kayla's mind. Those were emotions she understood.
"We will find them. You know that, right?"
Kayla turned towards Psyche, a frown on her face. ”Can we please just talk? I’m still not comfortable with this since Dusk...”
She walks over and sits next to Psyche in the cool night air. ”I hope so. They’ve never been gone this long. And I know nobody else believes us, but I’m positive Infini-Corp is behind it. Everybody thinks that they are such a nice and charitable company, but over the years my family has just came across too many coincidences to ignore.”
She rubs her hands across her thighs and sighs. ”I’m...I’m trying to stay positive. But I’ve been trained to be realistic too. And I know what them being missing for so long most likely means...and here I am more concerned with flirting and dancing and...and...” her eyes well up with tears and she leans her head against Psyche’s shoulder.
Shin rubbed the cheek that Kayla left a kiss on, grinning to himself. Not that he fancied Kayla, but he was still happy to get a kiss from a pretty girl. It made him feel like he had to step up his game and protect the girls on the team when they needed it.
Still, the now strangely frantic dancing is still out of his wheelhouse, as he steps off of the dance floor and onto a couch. The future could be fun sometimes, when he wasn't worrying about becoming a bloody radicalist.
That was another thing, he had to stop his future self for good and prevent that from ever happening to him. Shin had a lot of other things to do: Find out what had happened to his family. Figure out how to properly wield his still new powers. Figure out how to get back to his own time.
Though he'd leave that for last, he thought as Shin looked out at the other heroes having fun. The future was pretty fantastic despite its horrors.