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Noriko and Abigail, Backdated to 8/19
Abigail meets her new roommate. There's some awkward, but at least it doesn't go completely terribly.
At least, Abigail thought to herself as she shoved the door open, the rooms were pretty big if they had to be sharing. And then abundance of stuff on one side of it made it pretty damn clear which parts were already occupied. With a muted sigh, she moved to drop her bag onto the unmade bed and stared around the place with a critical eye.
Not bad. Not great either, but she could learn to live with it. Though a lot of that depended on the actual roommate.
Noriko had gotten word that she was getting a roommate, but classes had happened, and she wasn't surprised to have missed her arrival when she got back to her room and found a new, green-haired girl there. "Hey," she greeted her, walking into the room to drop her bag on her bed. "I'm Noriko. Or Surge."
She turned a bit sharply as the door opened again, but relaxed slightly once the girl came through it. "You're the roommate, I take it?" Abigail asked a little dryly. Either that or she was the least subtle burglar ever.
"No, I'm the girl who walks into random rooms and pretend they're hers," Noriko answered, wryly but without hostility. It was just the way she was. "What's your name?"
Well, at least she had an attitude on her. Good. "Abigail," she said with a faint smile.
"Well, welcome to Xavier's, Abigail," Noriko answered, not about to shorten it to 'Abby' unless she was invited to.
"Thanks, I think." The whole thing was still incredibly bizarre, but Abigail was nothing if not willing to roll with things. Sort of. "Anything I should know about?" She asked as she dropped onto the bed.
"Lots," Noriko replied, "depending on what you mean by 'should'." She wasn't being difficult; there was lots to say about Xavier's, but she had no idea what kind of person her new roommate was. She grabbed her desk chair and sat in it, resting her gauntleted hands in her lap. "What are you interested to know?"
She eyed the weird gloves on the other girl's hands for a moment before glancing back up to her face. Strange affectation or warning sign about the school? "What I should be worried about," Abigail said instead, meeting her eyes head on.
"Not these," Noriko assured her. It would've been pretty difficult to miss that look, and since Abigail was going to room here, Noriko really ought to explain. "I do electricity, and they help me regulate it."
"Electricity, huh?" Abigail gave her a searching look for a moment and then nodded. No reason not to take that at face value, though she'd still be doing some checking of her own. "Okay then. Anything else?"
"Superspeed, but I don't do that inside," Noriko replied, and shrugged. "What's your thing?"
"I meant more 'anything else I should be worried about in general'," Abigail said with slightly raised eyebrows, "but good to know." She considered the question for a moment, and then held up one hand. Which proceeded to catch fire.
Noriko watched the flames for a few seconds, then stated, "You should talk to Johnny. He's gonna freakin' love you."
Abigail gave her a dry look. "Is that a good thing?" She asked as the flames flickered out just as suddenly as they'd appeared.
"I'll let you get back to me on that," Noriko assured her, but then elaborated, "He's a pyrokinetic."
So no prizes for guessing a mutual interest, but someone she might need to watch out for anyway. Interesting. "Anyone I should be wary of, then?" Abigail gave her a knowing look to go along with the question. It was still a school, there was always someone.
Her immediate answer, before, would've been Anders. Now... Noriko shrugged. "We have a couple bitch queens, but that's about it." Even Midnighter didn't bite off the heads of anyone getting within six feet of him anymore. He just scowled at them. A lot. "There's a bunch of new kids coming in, though, so who knows," she added with a hint of a smirk.
"I can handle bitchery," Abigail said, somewhere between offhand and thoughtful. An entire school of superpowers and nobody liked throwing their weight around? It sounded almost too good to be true. And any new kids were likely to be just as confused at first, so no issues there.
But all the dancing around was getting tiresome, even if the answers themselves weren't bad. Really, it was her own fault for not just getting down to it, and Abigail fixed her new roommate with a level look. "So what's the bottom line on this place? Seriously."
"Seriously, it is what it says on the tin," Noriko replied evenly. "I didn't believe it for a long time, but they're doing their best to help us out, and they're leaving us completely free to do as we like. They're just providing us with opportunities we wouldn't have gotten otherwise."
"Alright, I can buy that." Or at least she could until she did a little digging around of her own, but that would come later. "And they really let everyone just roam around unsupervised?"
Noriko frowned, unsure what Abigail meant. "It's a school. It kinda comes with supervision."
Abigail snorted roughly in return. "There's supervision and there's supervision. I could put a hole through that desk right now," she nodded at the piece of furniture in question, "and would anyone come running?"
"Depends how loud you were. Or if it distressed me enough, could be Betsy or the Professor would pick up on it," Noriko answered. Before she dryly added, "But I don't care that much about furniture." Well, she appreciated having a real bed, but that was about it.
"Wasn't actually planning on it, so don't worry." But Abigail was at least starting to get a sense of the place, so she nodded once. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Noriko replied on a tone that made it pretty clear she wasn't sure what she was being thanked for. Not that it mattered that much. "Anyway. Where are you from?"
"DC," she said with a slight shrug. "Not too far, in the scheme of things."
"Family?" Yeah, she was going for all the basic info. Abigail was welcome to ask the same questions right back, but Noriko wanted to get a sense of who her roommate was.
That earned a slightly raised eyebrow as Abigail gave her a level look. "You doing a book report or something? What does it matter?"
Noriko shrugged, unfazed. "It matters who I'm sleeping next to."
"And whether or not I've got second cousins makes a difference?" Abigail gave her a thoroughly disbelieving look. "If you're curious, just say so."
"When I'm curious, I ask questions," Noriko remarked. "It's a pretty basic manifestation of curiosity. Do your second cousins matter to you?" Very wryly asked, because they might, who knew. Which was Noriko's point: she didn't know.
Abigail's eyes narrowed slightly, if only because the whole thing was starting to feel weirdly like a job interview or something. Was this a thing you did at boarding school? "Do yours?"
"Nope," Noriko replied with a shake of her head. "Never close to them, and I ran away from home when I manifested."
That made Abigail pause. "...why?"
Someone who asked that question directly. It was a little unbelievable how few people had actually done that since Noriko had wound up here, and that in itself told her something about Abigail. "I nearly killed my mother, and my father wouldn't believe what I told him happened. It was get out or risk harming the people I loved."
It was on the tip of her tongue to say something about how stupid that was, but something made Abigail stop. At least her own powers had only destroyed a table. If she'd hurt something, hurt her mother, would she be so blase?
Instead, she just nodded. Didn't bother with platitudes, just accepted and moved on. "That was before the going public crap, I assume."
"Yeah, a few years back." Not that people going public had changed her father's attitude, she had learned from Keitaro. He still 'didn't believe in mutants'. "So, you gonna tell me about your second cousins?" she asked wryly. Really not asking about her second cousins. Or about her family necessarily, even. She just wanted to know what kind of person Abigail was.
"Don't have any," Abigail said immediately, and let herself drop back against the bed. At least the furniture was alright. "So what do people do for fun around here?" She asked the ceiling, eying it with minor suspicion.
"The same kids do for fun everywhere else," Noriko stated, not very impressed with how little she was getting in exchange of what she'd given. But hey, she wouldn't have told the first kid that asked her life's story either, back when she'd arrived. "Whatever they can, with some extras on account of - they told you about the Danger Room, right?"
"Doesn't ring a bell." Though anything with the word Danger on it had to be at least a little interesting. Abigail tipped her head enough to transfer her attention back down to her new roommate. "Let me guess, hazing facility?" She asked facetiously.
"Manner of speaking," Noriko agreed with a wry little twist of her lips. "Training facility. Completely optional, but if your idea of fun involves working on various intervention or combat scenarios..." Then it was pretty damn cool.
"Who's wouldn't?" The tone was offhand, but Abigail was deadly serious. And smirking. "Now that sounds like a good time."
Well, that told Noriko more about her new roommate than anything else in their conversation so far. "You've gotta have a spotter to get in," she warned her. "No solo training." They called it the Danger Room for a reason.
"Yeah whatever," Abigail said and waved a dismissive hand. "Always cross the street with a buddy, I got it." She could play along, to a point.
They were getting their fair share of rebels recently, Noriko thought to herself, and wondered whether this one had a cause. "Well, you ever need a crossing buddy, let me know. The more time I get in there, the happier I'll be."
"Yeah?" She propped herself up onto her elbows to regard Noriko with a bit more interest. "What do you usually do?"
"I'm a show, don't tell kinda girl," Noriko wryly replied. "We can go check if it's free now, if you're done staring at the ceiling."
"Hm. Rain check. Should probably at least pretend to put stuff away first," Abigail said, eying her bag like it might jump up and bite. "Will take you up on that later, though."
"Sure," Noriko agreed, and stood up from her chair anyway, grabbing a pen and paper to write down her number. "I'll get out of your hair. This is me, though. Has anybody told you about the Starkphones?"
"...the who in the what now?"
"You know Tony Stark used to go here, right?" Noriko checked. "He provided us all with the latest generations of phones he was working on, so we'd beta-test them for him. I have no idea if he's going to keep that going now he's gone, though." She could ask Kitty; she would likely know.
The name Stark seemed vaguely familiar, so Abigail just shrugged. She could look it up later. "Good to know."
"Anyway." Noriko put the piece of paper on Abigail's desk. "I'll see you later. Text me if you need anything."
At least, Abigail thought to herself as she shoved the door open, the rooms were pretty big if they had to be sharing. And then abundance of stuff on one side of it made it pretty damn clear which parts were already occupied. With a muted sigh, she moved to drop her bag onto the unmade bed and stared around the place with a critical eye.
Not bad. Not great either, but she could learn to live with it. Though a lot of that depended on the actual roommate.
Noriko had gotten word that she was getting a roommate, but classes had happened, and she wasn't surprised to have missed her arrival when she got back to her room and found a new, green-haired girl there. "Hey," she greeted her, walking into the room to drop her bag on her bed. "I'm Noriko. Or Surge."
She turned a bit sharply as the door opened again, but relaxed slightly once the girl came through it. "You're the roommate, I take it?" Abigail asked a little dryly. Either that or she was the least subtle burglar ever.
"No, I'm the girl who walks into random rooms and pretend they're hers," Noriko answered, wryly but without hostility. It was just the way she was. "What's your name?"
Well, at least she had an attitude on her. Good. "Abigail," she said with a faint smile.
"Well, welcome to Xavier's, Abigail," Noriko answered, not about to shorten it to 'Abby' unless she was invited to.
"Thanks, I think." The whole thing was still incredibly bizarre, but Abigail was nothing if not willing to roll with things. Sort of. "Anything I should know about?" She asked as she dropped onto the bed.
"Lots," Noriko replied, "depending on what you mean by 'should'." She wasn't being difficult; there was lots to say about Xavier's, but she had no idea what kind of person her new roommate was. She grabbed her desk chair and sat in it, resting her gauntleted hands in her lap. "What are you interested to know?"
She eyed the weird gloves on the other girl's hands for a moment before glancing back up to her face. Strange affectation or warning sign about the school? "What I should be worried about," Abigail said instead, meeting her eyes head on.
"Not these," Noriko assured her. It would've been pretty difficult to miss that look, and since Abigail was going to room here, Noriko really ought to explain. "I do electricity, and they help me regulate it."
"Electricity, huh?" Abigail gave her a searching look for a moment and then nodded. No reason not to take that at face value, though she'd still be doing some checking of her own. "Okay then. Anything else?"
"Superspeed, but I don't do that inside," Noriko replied, and shrugged. "What's your thing?"
"I meant more 'anything else I should be worried about in general'," Abigail said with slightly raised eyebrows, "but good to know." She considered the question for a moment, and then held up one hand. Which proceeded to catch fire.
Noriko watched the flames for a few seconds, then stated, "You should talk to Johnny. He's gonna freakin' love you."
Abigail gave her a dry look. "Is that a good thing?" She asked as the flames flickered out just as suddenly as they'd appeared.
"I'll let you get back to me on that," Noriko assured her, but then elaborated, "He's a pyrokinetic."
So no prizes for guessing a mutual interest, but someone she might need to watch out for anyway. Interesting. "Anyone I should be wary of, then?" Abigail gave her a knowing look to go along with the question. It was still a school, there was always someone.
Her immediate answer, before, would've been Anders. Now... Noriko shrugged. "We have a couple bitch queens, but that's about it." Even Midnighter didn't bite off the heads of anyone getting within six feet of him anymore. He just scowled at them. A lot. "There's a bunch of new kids coming in, though, so who knows," she added with a hint of a smirk.
"I can handle bitchery," Abigail said, somewhere between offhand and thoughtful. An entire school of superpowers and nobody liked throwing their weight around? It sounded almost too good to be true. And any new kids were likely to be just as confused at first, so no issues there.
But all the dancing around was getting tiresome, even if the answers themselves weren't bad. Really, it was her own fault for not just getting down to it, and Abigail fixed her new roommate with a level look. "So what's the bottom line on this place? Seriously."
"Seriously, it is what it says on the tin," Noriko replied evenly. "I didn't believe it for a long time, but they're doing their best to help us out, and they're leaving us completely free to do as we like. They're just providing us with opportunities we wouldn't have gotten otherwise."
"Alright, I can buy that." Or at least she could until she did a little digging around of her own, but that would come later. "And they really let everyone just roam around unsupervised?"
Noriko frowned, unsure what Abigail meant. "It's a school. It kinda comes with supervision."
Abigail snorted roughly in return. "There's supervision and there's supervision. I could put a hole through that desk right now," she nodded at the piece of furniture in question, "and would anyone come running?"
"Depends how loud you were. Or if it distressed me enough, could be Betsy or the Professor would pick up on it," Noriko answered. Before she dryly added, "But I don't care that much about furniture." Well, she appreciated having a real bed, but that was about it.
"Wasn't actually planning on it, so don't worry." But Abigail was at least starting to get a sense of the place, so she nodded once. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Noriko replied on a tone that made it pretty clear she wasn't sure what she was being thanked for. Not that it mattered that much. "Anyway. Where are you from?"
"DC," she said with a slight shrug. "Not too far, in the scheme of things."
"Family?" Yeah, she was going for all the basic info. Abigail was welcome to ask the same questions right back, but Noriko wanted to get a sense of who her roommate was.
That earned a slightly raised eyebrow as Abigail gave her a level look. "You doing a book report or something? What does it matter?"
Noriko shrugged, unfazed. "It matters who I'm sleeping next to."
"And whether or not I've got second cousins makes a difference?" Abigail gave her a thoroughly disbelieving look. "If you're curious, just say so."
"When I'm curious, I ask questions," Noriko remarked. "It's a pretty basic manifestation of curiosity. Do your second cousins matter to you?" Very wryly asked, because they might, who knew. Which was Noriko's point: she didn't know.
Abigail's eyes narrowed slightly, if only because the whole thing was starting to feel weirdly like a job interview or something. Was this a thing you did at boarding school? "Do yours?"
"Nope," Noriko replied with a shake of her head. "Never close to them, and I ran away from home when I manifested."
That made Abigail pause. "...why?"
Someone who asked that question directly. It was a little unbelievable how few people had actually done that since Noriko had wound up here, and that in itself told her something about Abigail. "I nearly killed my mother, and my father wouldn't believe what I told him happened. It was get out or risk harming the people I loved."
It was on the tip of her tongue to say something about how stupid that was, but something made Abigail stop. At least her own powers had only destroyed a table. If she'd hurt something, hurt her mother, would she be so blase?
Instead, she just nodded. Didn't bother with platitudes, just accepted and moved on. "That was before the going public crap, I assume."
"Yeah, a few years back." Not that people going public had changed her father's attitude, she had learned from Keitaro. He still 'didn't believe in mutants'. "So, you gonna tell me about your second cousins?" she asked wryly. Really not asking about her second cousins. Or about her family necessarily, even. She just wanted to know what kind of person Abigail was.
"Don't have any," Abigail said immediately, and let herself drop back against the bed. At least the furniture was alright. "So what do people do for fun around here?" She asked the ceiling, eying it with minor suspicion.
"The same kids do for fun everywhere else," Noriko stated, not very impressed with how little she was getting in exchange of what she'd given. But hey, she wouldn't have told the first kid that asked her life's story either, back when she'd arrived. "Whatever they can, with some extras on account of - they told you about the Danger Room, right?"
"Doesn't ring a bell." Though anything with the word Danger on it had to be at least a little interesting. Abigail tipped her head enough to transfer her attention back down to her new roommate. "Let me guess, hazing facility?" She asked facetiously.
"Manner of speaking," Noriko agreed with a wry little twist of her lips. "Training facility. Completely optional, but if your idea of fun involves working on various intervention or combat scenarios..." Then it was pretty damn cool.
"Who's wouldn't?" The tone was offhand, but Abigail was deadly serious. And smirking. "Now that sounds like a good time."
Well, that told Noriko more about her new roommate than anything else in their conversation so far. "You've gotta have a spotter to get in," she warned her. "No solo training." They called it the Danger Room for a reason.
"Yeah whatever," Abigail said and waved a dismissive hand. "Always cross the street with a buddy, I got it." She could play along, to a point.
They were getting their fair share of rebels recently, Noriko thought to herself, and wondered whether this one had a cause. "Well, you ever need a crossing buddy, let me know. The more time I get in there, the happier I'll be."
"Yeah?" She propped herself up onto her elbows to regard Noriko with a bit more interest. "What do you usually do?"
"I'm a show, don't tell kinda girl," Noriko wryly replied. "We can go check if it's free now, if you're done staring at the ceiling."
"Hm. Rain check. Should probably at least pretend to put stuff away first," Abigail said, eying her bag like it might jump up and bite. "Will take you up on that later, though."
"Sure," Noriko agreed, and stood up from her chair anyway, grabbing a pen and paper to write down her number. "I'll get out of your hair. This is me, though. Has anybody told you about the Starkphones?"
"...the who in the what now?"
"You know Tony Stark used to go here, right?" Noriko checked. "He provided us all with the latest generations of phones he was working on, so we'd beta-test them for him. I have no idea if he's going to keep that going now he's gone, though." She could ask Kitty; she would likely know.
The name Stark seemed vaguely familiar, so Abigail just shrugged. She could look it up later. "Good to know."
"Anyway." Noriko put the piece of paper on Abigail's desk. "I'll see you later. Text me if you need anything."
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