10041/Noises Off

Noises Off
Date of Scene:	14 November 2019
Location:	Rec Room - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Brad has an introduction to Gwendolyn, and learns Andrea is scary.
Cast of Characters:	Haunt, Dragonfly (Armenteros), Rage

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Haunt has posed:
There's some ambient noise going on in the rec room, although from the door it would appear empty at a glance. The large television is on, revealing an NFL game: 49ers vs. Seahawks. The Seahawks are behind, in the second quarter: 10 to 7. There's some other activity in the room: the pool table. Some of the balls are milling around on it, relatively quietly, but when they hit each other there's a resounding 'SPAK' of sound. From a hallway it would sound like a very active game of pool.

Brad isn't entirely unfindable: he's just curled up on a couch, low: and since it's an floating set of sweatpants and sweatshirt, sitting on a couch with legs under him and no head viewable over the top of the couch, he isn't viewable very easily from a doorway. Still, he's there.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
With classes over for the day, Gwendolyn has very little to do. While, yes, she does have homework - getting back up to speed with classes after being homeless does take time - she doesn't have the spoons available to care about it right now. She comes into the rec room after dumping her backpack in her room upstairs in the Women's wing to do something. Anything really, other than think about school. A game of pool sounds like a good thing to watch or maybe even join in on, but she stops at the sight of nothing going on. "Huh." She looks around. "Hello?"

Rage has posed:
Heading into the recroom is Andrea with a guitar on her back and dressed in comfortable jeggings and a haltertop. She follows after Gwen so that the pair can hang out together. "Okay, so, whatcha wanna do for the rest of the day? Oh! I was thinking maybe this weekend we hit up the mall and start plotting for Thanksgiving. I know staff will do a dinner, but I was thinking we could do something for the students." She glances over to the TV, brows lifting. "Woo! Go Niners!" She cheers out, being that she is from San Francisco. "Gwen, I didn't know the game was on. Watch with me? That's my team."

Haunt has posed:
The rec room promptly responds, as if the spirits indigenous to games and enjoyment were upset with their suggestion of having fun. All of the cases of CDs and games rattle, pool cues move in their holders, a few falling over, the very loud impact from inside the foosball game creates a lot of sound, and the pool table balls scoot everywhere: a few of them become airborne, twisting in a strange wind-like spiral up above the board. At least one hits the ceiling, another jars a light fixture.

"On the couch," Brad announces loudly. Or rather, his disembodied teenage voice announces. Over the new din of random noises, it's probably hard to get any tone from it.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Gwendolyn was just inside the door when the Rec Room decides to readjust itself, moving back a step or two to avoid flying debris and lifting an arm to fend off anything that might come too close, even though she might be well out of the way. Only when things quit moving, the game on in the background, does Gwendolyn step into the rec room proper, looking about.

Wearing a baggy sweater and a pair of yoga pants, Gwendolyn looks like your everyday, average girl, except with antenna. And a visor like Cyclops. She looks back over her shoulder at Andrea, gestures to the room in a 'did you see that?' type gesture, and then shrugs. "Sure. I used to watch football. Saints, all the way, baby."

Rage has posed:
"Saints are traaaash." Andrea playfully says to Gwen as she hooks an arm about her shoulders with a grin. "Drew Brees was cute though." Her eyes track towards the couch and she grins. "Hey Brad!" She calls over to the invisible kid. "Gwen, you met Brad, right? He has telekinesis and he's invisible." She trots over to the couch and takes the guitar off, then flops down next to him gently. "Who are you cheering for?"

Haunt has posed:
Things do calm down and return to the pool table (and stop rattling) when Andrea talks, and he picks up on who she is. Her knowing HIS name was a big clue, really. "Seahawwwwwks, sorry," Brad laughs, but there's no upset there. "Patriots are my team," he says, with strong pride. "They'll be playing the Eagles soon," reports the boy. He sits up some, though his hood is still down: it's a very weird headless horseman situation.

"Um. I am, yeah, I'm also more than those two things," Brad admits as Andrea identifies his invisibility and telekinetics to the new person. There's a subtle brush of unnatural 'wind' towards Gwen; if she has super sense of touch, she'll definitely be aware of the very mild telekinesis present in the air. "That's what my powers are, yeah; for fairness, what does Gwen have? Is this normal? To say other people's powers?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Standing there at the back of the couch, Gwendolyn watches a disembodied pair of pants and a sweatshirt rise in a mockery of human form and, for a second, her brain doesn't process it exactly as it is. Clothes, unsupported, should fall, due to gravity, but they're obviously supported by something. That something is speaking to her. Touching her with light fingers of thought. That something is apparently named Brad.

"We're all more than the sum of our parts." Gwendolyn's voice is calm, her head tilting towards Andrea for a second before turning in the general direction of Brad. She takes a step forward, offering a gloved hand to shake. "Gwendolyn Armenteros, Brad. A pleasure to meet you. My thing?" Her head tilts up a little, like she's trying to look at her own forehead where insect-like antenna poke out from just below her hairline. "Well, aside from the antenna, the eyes, the senses, and the wings." She shakes her shoulders and insect wings, like a Dragonfly's, make a brief appearance before folding back in along her back, inobtrusive beneath the sweater. "I can see the past by touching things, can take a punch, and apparently strong to boot." Her mouth is a straight line, almost a frown at going through her powers just like that so she changes the subject a little. "I prefer college football, to be honest. Anyone not Alabama, because their fans are jerks. Same with Patriots. Sorry, Brad." She smiles now, her nose wrinkling cutely.

Rage has posed:
"I think in this situation it helps explain why everything is rattling and the fact that you are a pile of floating clothes." Andrea says to Brad. "And you're lucky I can't see you, or I'd sock you for the Patriots comment. You're in New York, talking about the Pats. That's just ... a death wish."

Tucking her arms back behind her head as she eases back into the couch, she trains her eyes on the TV, smirking. "You never asked me about my powers." She says with a musical drawl in her voice.

Haunt has posed:
"Don't be sorry. When it comes to football I am a jerk," Brad answers, entirely unapologetic about it, but his voice is friendly. He accepts the handshake, which for sighted people is often a fun experience: the dismembered sleeve coming at them but there's an invisible hand there. Brad's hands are warm and broad; he'll probably be taller than he is when he's older. It's that slightly out-of-proportion teenage boy thing. "I can't see you, let's get that out of the way. So all I'm getting from my general... senses..... Is the wings, and that something is off about your hair," Brad answers her. He draws back onto the couch again but does move sideways, displacing a cushion to make space for both girls. He might still be in the center, though, because he's a teenage boy, and not stupid. "What do you see in the past? Like a dream?"

Brad's grin is invisible, but it comes into his voice when Andrea says he didn't ask her. "It's okay. Just let me say the blind part, it's ... anyway. Sorry. I thought it had to do with your singing. Is that wrong? You're not super-voice? That's natural? Shit, wow."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"Okay, this is wierd. Cool, but wierd." Gwendolyn's gloved hand has a bit of strength in it, despite being dainty, the girl squeezing and shaking before walking around the couch to sit down next to Brad, drawing her knees to her chest, her back to the couch. "Andrea on the left, me on the right." she helpfully explains, watching the clothes adjust themselves in their naturally unnatural movement. "And if you really want to see, let me borrow your hand."

Rage has posed:
Giving a feral grin over to Brad in the middle, Andrea says, "No, my voice is my own. That comes from tens of thousands of hours in the studio and grinding. My powers isn't really family friendly which is why the public doesn't know about them. Not even most of the students here at this school does. Only a select group of people. I just don't want to scare anyone, especially the younger ones." She cuts a glance over to Gwen across the way. "But just know that when I whip them out, it's because I'm trying to keep you safe."

Haunt has posed:
"Terrifying, Andrea. Okay." Since he doesn't know what the powers are and Andrea doesn't want to share, he moves back to Gwen. Brad's sharp: he won't pry with Andrea. "So. Gwen, right? Lots of names here. So you're super strong, with wings, can see the past, and a bunch of other stuff. I really need to call bullshit on the 'fairness' of abilities right now," Brad jokes, but his tone does betray jealousy. "Sure." He extends his hand when Gwen asks for it -well, empty-sleeve end gets extended, hand invisible. He knows which side each person is on, he does aim at Gwen correctly.

"You don't need to say where you are," he adds, with some discomfort, voice quieter. The TV erupts in action as a big tackle is made, and Brad goes quiet, listening to the explanation from the television for a moment.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Thankfully, long sleeves mean that it's easy to judge where hands are so, as Brad lifts his hands, he feels one of Gwendolyn's gloved ones taking it just by the wrists and then moving up to his fingers. "I see from inanimate objects." She explains. "By touch, which is why I have the gloves. Memories, generally, of what happened. The more emotional ones, the easier I see them. Like in a vision, more or less. Here." She leans forward a little and lifts one invisible hand to her face, letting him touch the visor for a second before moving just a little higher where her antenna protrude from her head. Hard, but soft at the same time. It's kind of odd, really, like a jointed finger, more or less, the one she lets him touch.

"As you might guess, it makes going out in public a little hard, with those on." She lets his hand go and leans back a little, reclining on the back of the couch. "What do you see of us? Clothes? Empty space? Anything at all?"

Rage has posed:
"I've been called terrifying before. Stuff of nightmares." Andrea is all grins as she brushes her hair back behind her ear. "But Gwen has cooler powers though in my opinion. Of course, now I'm a bit concerned with some of the stuff I loaned her the other day." She says as she lifts her brows upwards towards Gwen, biting her lip with a snicker.

She gives another glance towards the television to watch the game, shifting a bit forward as she pulls her hands around her to flop them on the top of her knees.

Haunt has posed:
"Just visually terrifying? Don't be upset if I don't react in fear, please," Brad teases Andrea, lightly mocking himself, too. "Oh. So you could touch this sweatshirt and see that I was happy when I got it as a gift yesterday?" Brad asks Gwen. "The feeling of what I was feeling? Is that useful?" he wonders. Brad then goes quiet as she draws his hand to her face. He's done this before plenty of times, he seeks out certain landmarks with his fingers gently, puzzled by the visor, and explores where allowed by touch. There's confidence but care to it: he's used to being blind. "Empty clothes? No. I see nothing. It's not just you. I'm listening to the game, not watching it," Brad says. "So, blind-blind, my eyes don't work. But I'm not helpless at all."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"That's just when you come in after a late night. Positively monstrous, you are, when you don't get your beauty sleep. And you just loaned me the two things. I'm being careful with them. You'll get them back." Gwendolyn teases, watching Brad or, rather, Brad's clothes as he explores the contours of her face. Not below the neck, please. That's for the third date.

Then, back to brad, her head shaking in the negative. "No, not the emotion. The actual act. It's..." She goes quiet as she considers how to word it to make it make sense to someone without sight. "Well, imagine a cake, freshly baked. How it smells, how it feels in your fingers, how it tastes. Generally I work with sight, but I pick up the echoes of those feelings and can read them. More or less. Makes using doorknobs interesting, let me tell you."

Rage has posed:
"I think the best part of a horror film is not knowing what the monster looks like, but you can hear it coming, feel it's breath on your scent." Andrea says as she shifts a bit on the couch away from Brad. From there, the sound of bones snapping can be heard. CRACK. POP. SNAP. It's brutal. The couch also starts to tilt as if a great weight was suddenly settled upon it. Breathing has grown heavier, as if the chest it comes from is thick and large. Up. Down. Rise. Fall. Her breath is also coming about three or four feet higher than it was before. While he feels up Gwen, she cuts a look over towards her best friend, tipping her a wink.

If only Brad could see what he was sitting next to.

Haunt has posed:
Brad had moved his hand down towards the side of Gwen's mouth, to pick up the side of her smile with fingers, but pulls away when she shakes her head. A head-shake is usually a signal to stop that, and he pulls his hands back.

** At NO time did he 'feel up' Gwen, despite whatever Andrea thinks.

He pulls his hands entirely into the sleeves, hooking the elastic at sleeve-ends into fingers: which makes his hands 'visible' through that method, as they're inside the sleeves now. He's just headless at this point. A glance down the neck-hole reveals emptiness there too.

And then Andrea is moving, doing things with her clothes, and Brad's reaction is to make the room shake, as pulses of his telekinesis go out. If she's getting naked, he'd like to know about it! 'Wind' presses towards the shifting, size-changed Andrea, and Brad twists, his back coming up towards Gwen as he automatically leans away from the very weird threat. What the hell is she doing?

"What are you doing?" Brad asks, with some force to his tone, to cover his uncertainty. If she's just teasing him, he doesn't want to overreact. "Please don't fuck with the blind kid, it's shitty," Brad adds.

DVDs are sliding around in the cases, and the remote has started to float, along with some cushions. Stress induced poltergeist effects.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
The movement on the couch does get Gwendolyn looking - through Brad, since he's not there - and her eyes widen, beneath the goggles, as Andrea nonchalantly strips off to her underthings and changes into what she and Gwen were alluding to - a very tall wolf-like creature that, right now, looks fairly terrifying. It's right about then that Brad scrambles against her, Gwen pushed against the arm of the couch, her chest against Brad's back, her goggles bonking him on the back of the head when he pushes close unexpectedly.

"She's showing off some, Brad." Gwen's voice is calm, her hands rubbing along the outside of his arms lightly, trying to calm him down, like one would a cat being threatened with a stint in an enclosed shower. "Shifting forms. Don't worry - she's not going to bite. She's just a lot more furry than she was before."

Rage has posed:
Obviously 'Rage' can't answer him in this form. She can't speak English anymore. The large triangle ears upon her head give a twitch, the broad muzzle of the monster parting to reveal those sharp teeth, the better to eat you with. Her fur is midnight black save a splotch of white upon her chest and over one eye. The couch creaks as she stands to her full height, her tail giving her balance as she walks around the room, creating loud thumps of heavy weight upon the floor. Her gleaming gold eyes glance towards Gwen, winking.

Haunt has posed:
"Alright," Brad says, tone insulant, even aggressive, irritated, but he seems fine with it, if you just take his voice into account. He's sweaty now and tensed up, which Gwen has a very close 'view' of. That, and to look inside his empty sweatshirt.

Brad then appears to disappear fully: his hoodie, pants, socks, it all turns invisible. He's still there, the weight is still there, but he did entirely vanish. "My showing off is dangerous, so I'm not going to. Do you not talk? It's creepy, Andrea," Brad says. It's defensively said. He's just not relaxed. He slides off of Gwen though, down the couch, and gets up: all invisibly.

Rage has posed:
There is a low 'chuff' a bit lower to the floor now as the feeling of fur can be felt brushing up against the legs of Brad and Gwen as the now wolven form of Rage goes trotting by with her clothing in her muzzle, tail wagging.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"I don't think she can in that form." Gwendolyn says with a sigh, watching Andrea walk around the room, Brad's weight against her. She doesn't move, letting him kind of rest against her, sandwiching her between him and the couch as Andrea wanders out of the room, her tail wagging, nails clicking as she makes her way wherever she's going. "Andrea's basically a werewolf, more or less." She scoots a little, so she can see the game and, for all intents and purposes, looks like she's sitting alone, talking to herself, despite the poltergeist movements around her. "You, I'm guessing, are more of a mind bullets move things with your brain sort of person." She goes quiet for a second, watching an incomplete pass bounce off a reciever's hands. "You okay?"

Haunt has posed:
Brad's sweatshirt, pants and socks reappear. He'd moved to hop over the couch to get away from Andrea, while invisible. Evading seems to be his thing. He waits for Andrea to leave.

"Sorry if you're her friend, but that was /total/ bullshit right there. Pretending her powers are all secret and scary, she can't talk about them, only to do that to mess with me? Whatever." Brad's ticked off, a flurry of angry comments. On the other hand, the room settles down, the remote ends up on the floor near Gwen's feet. Brad's clearly unhappy, but not enough to send the room into chaos.

"What's her problem? Ugh. I mean, I thought she was okay, but that was bullshit, aimed to mess with me. Is the world only centered on her and her famous popstar self?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
     "She was teasing." Gwendolyn sits up from her spot on the couch, the remote taken from the floor and placed on the coffee table where it won't hit the floor. "That doesn't make up for what she did but she just saw it as having some harmless fun. Teasing the new kid in the most uncool way I think she could without deliberately coming up with a worse way."

Yeah, Gwen doesn't sound pleased with her friend, either.

To her credit, too, she doesen't apologize for Andrea - that's Andrea's thing to do. Instead, she turns to the shape in the clothes and sighs. "Hey, Brad, I'm sorry I couldn't stop her. I didn't know what she was planning until she was doing it."

Haunt has posed:
"Okay, well, if she does it again, I'll show off. I'll put her through the wall," Brad says, his voice rising with his emotions about it. He's feeling threatened and humiliated, and it's coming out as anger. His hoodie arms show that he's crossed his arms defensively.

"It's not your fault," he says, though. His tone is tight, but he's not angry at Gwen. He stands there a minute, then comes back around to the couch, pulling his knees up, socks crossed one over the other. He doesn't crowd her this time.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Sometimes it's best to let a person be angry. Trying to calm them down when they have every right to be angry sometimes causes more problems that it solves so she simply stays quiet. He can hear her breathing, feel the shift of her on the couch as she crosses one leg over the other and leans back on the arm of the couch, reaching to stab the volume a little lower. Conversation should not be interrupted by Football.

"I know it's not. I'm still sorry she did it, though." Gwendolyn says simply, reaching out to touch his elbow or, rather, the elbow of his hooded sweatshirt, letting her touch stay for a second before withdrawing. "I'll talk to her. At some point."

Haunt has posed:
"Why are people that have everything always shitty?" Brad asks, still upset. "She's a famous popstar, she doesn't look like a freak all the time, and she has to be a bully? Bleh. She told me about how she donates to charity and that I might like her suicide hotline. I'm still not happy about that. I'm not a loser." Brad doesn't draw away from the touch: touch is one of his major senses. He does lift his hands to (presumably) rub his face with them and push his hair back. Hints of what he's doing show in the drape of fabric as the sleeves drop towards his elbows, and the shift of his shoulders.

"To be honest I probably would have been a colossal dick if this hadn't happened to me. I would've been hot shit, playing football." Wistful tone.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"Here, let me see your hands again." Gwendolyn says, her voice soft, turning down the lights in the room. Instead of just doing things, she says what she's doing as she does it, in steps, so he can hear it. "I'm taking off my goggles - you felt those." There's a click of metallic catches unfastening, and the sound of metal on glass as they're set on the table. "I'm now taking off my sweater. Don't worry - there's a shirt on under this. And I'm doing this for a reason." More rustling. "Now, give me your hands. Please."

She takes both his hands lightly, at the wrists again, carefully, so he knows what's coming and brings them to her face again. "I know what it means to look different. Touch my eyes." Yes, her eyes. "What you are going to feel are the lenses that make up my eyes now. They're blue, like sapphires, and faceted. The light that comes in is super bright, usually, but the goggles help cut it down to managable levels. When you've done that enough, feel my arms. You're going to feel spines. Chitin plates. So I know what you mean about being different."

Haunt has posed:
"Two girls undressing in front of me in one afternoon; man," Brad says. He lost a lot of anger and upset when Gwen started to narrative THAT piece of information. Teenage boy can prioritize properly: being angry at Andrea is less important suddenly. He's a little nervous, and the room rattles along with that tension.

"Your /eyes/?" Brad asks, when she returns and pulls his hands to her face. He's uncertain about it, doesn't stick his fingers in her eyes right away. "Huh," Brad says. No judgement, while he feels over them gently. He orients to her arms, and gently examines her forearms. He's slow and methodical about it, since touch is one of his main resources now.

"I wasn't trying to say anything about you. Just that she sucks," Brad says, apologetic. "You have wings, right? Can you fly?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
She's not doing it to be sexy. Really. Gwen's just making parts that are normally hidden beneath clothes a little more accessable, and the way the spines on her arms are laid out, rolling up her sleeves would shred the fabric. She likes that sweater, so she goes with the sweater off route.

"Sort of." Gwendolyn responds, and Brad can almost hear smile in her voice as the fluttering of wings fills the room as she unfolds them, letting him touch one of them if he so chooses. It feels like a bunch of hollow sticks in a framework wrapped in thick plastic - like a dragonfly's wing. "I'm still learning. It's not something I could just pick up and do, y'know. It's...scary. And I don't like heights that much, to be honest." She giggles. "But, yeah...I can fly. I can hover for almost a whole minute now, and I can do without my goggles sometimes, when the lights are low." The implication is that there's hope.

Haunt has posed:
"I can fly too. And it is damn scary," Brad agrees, with a softened empathy. Exploring her mutant skin has drawn his attention off of his upset with Andrea really effectively. "Flying around with your eyes shut is a little insane, so. I don't go like, fast." He twists to examine a wing. Some of the telekinetic 'breeze' arrives again, too: he's using that to supplement what he can feel with his hands. "These are neat. They're like... I don't know what they're like," Brad says.

So you can't see when it's super bright with your goggles? Well. Then you know." What the blind thing is about. "We should fly. ....Low." He grins invisibily. "I'm just normal looking. My hair's kind of long now. Hard to cut: also, why bother," Brad grins. Equality, after all. He draws her palm to his hair, if she wants to be pulled. His hair is soft and long for a boy, to the eyebrow-level, and wavy in a disarray around ears and nape.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
"Yeah, it's...like staring into the sun, when I hit the mutation. Hearing went up too, so I've got earbuds that act as filters. Otherwise we'd not be having this conversation." Gwendolyn's hands go up to his hair, brushing through it carefully. "Jeez, you're shaggy."

She leans back, the couch settling a little when she does. "When I changed, I thought it was pimples. Skin rashes. And then the whole eye thing. Ended up hiding in my room and playing sick for a few days. It was...bad. Like, earmuffs and ski goggles to keep the world managable bad. And can you imagine how /hard/ it was to find ski goggles in Louisiana?" It's not a rhetorical question either - it was really, really hard!

She reeaches down to grab the remote, raising the volume a little so they can chat and pay attention to the game. "So." She pokes him gently. "Tell me. Why is the 12th man is better than the Niners?"