2493/adult swim

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adult swim
Date of Scene: 18 September 2017
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Summary needed
Cast of Characters: Armor, Marvel Girl




Armor has posed:
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF HISAKO ICHIKI

is kind of too long in terms of individual events to be easily summarized on a T-shirt. It's a hard series of events involving studying, training, and participating in various semi-optional activities around the school campus. A veritable PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY.

So she feels way less bad about night swimming.

Hisako didn't invite anybody along because she's spent like twelve hours around people. The pool is soon going to need enclosure or heating but for now, summer hangs on grimly, aided perhaps by air pollution of various kinds or the subtle intervention of some mutants on this campus. She expected people to be out here anyway.

She was surprised to find that there weren't. Her long fluffy towel got thrown casually over a pool chair. Hisako called into the night several times and even did a walk around to look for people cunningly hidden, but... nope. On this fine Sunday night, everyone must've gone to Mutant Church or something.

"More for me," Hisako says, before jumping in the deep end! Sploosh.

Hisako is wearing a dark blue high-neck bikini. She regrets this a little now that she's in the water.

From a distance, the lights of the pool suddenly turn a dark and bloody shade. Perhaps it might draw the eye.

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Things are different here. And she knows, objectively, that this is a good thing. She knows that.

    But it is still so hard, adjusting to a place and time that is not yours. And nothing Rachel Grey does really convinces herself she'll be entirely used to it.

    More than anything, Xavier's School perhaps encapsulates all of her relief and her trepidation within its expansive campus. She remembers it, bits and pieces -- fragments of childhood memories drowned out in a sea of other recollections she'd rather forget. She remembers enough to know how to navigate this place, to feel the warmth of nostalgia... and then be troubled when one hall leads somewhere she's never seen. Or leads somewhere too familiar, where she can still smell the mortar and gunpowder and burning iron filling her lungs.

    Suffice it to say, then, it's more than a little alarming when, as she's in the middle of getting to learn this strangely familiar-yet-different grounds, she catches sight of some blood red glimmer from the corner of her gaze. It seizes her, almost immediately. Chokes her in a brief flurry of imagery that she shakes out of her head. But it can't quite keep the anxiety from her expression -- nor can it stop how she's almost immediately drawn to that sight.

    "Hello?" She's not actually sure -when- she arrives at the poolside. She didn't even realize there's a pool until now. Both those facts should be disconcerting to her, But Rachel has more pressing worries on her mind. Dressed in a simple pair of faded blue jeans and a red tank top, the time-displaced mutant treads slowly and carefully towards that warmed over body of water like someone approaching some sort of volatile bomb -- as if worried any second whatever that bloody shade might be might spring on her at any moment. Her mind reaches out, tentatively, to see just what might be there. Her thoughts are cautious. Nervous, even. And always, always, prepared for the worst.

    ((Is anyone there?))

Armor has posed:
The water is still rippling vigorously. It's filled with that strange red light. A towel sits on a pool chair. Did someone...

Is that a machine in the pool -

IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR YOU!

Alternatively:

Hisako opens her eyes when she feels a psionic tickle. It's not Jean Grey's, although it isn't like, hugely completely different from her 'voice' either, or so Hisako thinks. It's... she doesn't know, but probably not some kind of neo-psionic sentinel or whatever, so...

Geez, maybe she wants to swim, Hisako thinks to herself. She turns herself around from where she had just been floating there at the bottom of the deep end in her armor, which had appeared as she found out just how freaking cold the water was, and which Hisako had not lowered, because it was kind of neat to just float at the bottom of a pool.

EITHER WAY

The red figure breaches the water with sufficient force to send pool-slopping waves over the edge. "Uhh!!" Hisako says, intelligently. "Um! Hi!" One bulky transparent red arm waves - mystery solved, maybe, perhaps, kind of.

The armor vanishes.

Hisako splutters as she falls about one foot straight into the water.

Marvel Girl has posed:
    There's something in the water. That's pretty much entirely obvious from the way the once-clear-now-red waves are sloshing about with some active disturbance beneath their depths. There are some immediate possibilities Rachel is fairly sure she can rule out: one, it's probably not a Sentinel, because no Sentinel she's ever known has ever liked to go swimming in a pool. It's also probably not the beginning of an amphibious assault because, again, pool. And while the signature is unfamiliar to her, there -is- another sentient mind in there, tickling at the fiery, skittish edges of her thoughts.

    So what is it?

    After a certain point, it's more curiosity than caution that draws Rachel further and further in towards the pool. The steps of bare feet across warmed tile become less the stride of someone readying themselves for attack, and more the measured steps of someone trying to unobtrusively observe a mystery in the making. Green eyes peer over the edge of the pool the closer Rachel gets, wide with a wonder that soon subsumes her worry as she draws yet closer still. Her brows hitch upwards, red lips parting.

    And somewhere around halfway through her commendable impersonation of 'staring like a yokel,' Rachel realizes what she's doing, half-hanging over the edge of the pool as she is, and closes her eyes with a put-upon sigh.

    "C'mon, Ray," she mumbles to herself. "You look ridiculous. It's probably just some kid trying to enjoy the pool and now you're just weirding them ou"SPLOOSH"UHHHHH HOLY CRAP!"

    It's with a graceless yelp that Hisako is greeted to the sight of Rachel Grey, post-apocalyptic temporal vagabond, practically leaping into the air in sheer shock the second she breaches the surface of the pool in all her armored glory. Sparks of fire at her fingertips, Rachel looks about ready to just smite what she's almost certain is some strange, pool-loving sentinel, when she catches a glimpse of the girl inside. And then the armor starts to fade. And she's face to face with a sputtering girl greeting her, while she is in mid, sparking flail.

    "Wait what-- oh no no no NO--!"

    Which is about when her lack of balance, combined with all that water now washing the floor beneath her feet, all lead to Rachel Grey pitching forward in her desperate attempt to right herself and halt her flames, flipping basically right past Hisako on her way to meet the pool headfirst with a loud SPLASH.

    The waters burble inelegantly with the sizzle of snuffing flames as Rachel sinks under the waves with the sheer density of her surprised embarrassment.

Armor has posed:
Oh no she's freaking out! "Hey!" Hisako says before Rachel bursts into brief flames and then splutters out as she topples forwards into the water. There is the familiar ploosh of flames going out.

Is she gonna drown?

Shiiiiiiiiiiit, Hisako thinks (more or less). The Armor comes back on with a displacement of water as she 'sinks' downwards, extending one booted leg to kick off the bottom and rise, bobbling gently up and sweeping up Rachel in an arm of pure psionic force - which curves around, a hand behind her head, raising it above the waterline.

"I am SO SORRY oh my God, are you okay?? Are you alright?" She is at least providing impetus towards the shallow end of the pool, although it's still pretty deep on that end. "I didn't mean to startle you! Here, let me get you - oh shit - your phone!!"

Does Rachel even have a phone?

Of course she would, so Hisako would think, if she hadn't just taken it for granted.

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Huh, thinks Rachel as she stares at the bubbling blue depths surrounding her, I can't even remember the last time I've been in a pool. It feels cold, but refreshing, in a way. As she sinks, she almost kind of enjoys it.

    And then he watches blue be invaded by the shimmer of red light and she's suddenly cognizant again of why she's even in the pool to begin with and all that enjoyment shatters against her overwhelmingly awkward shame. Right. That. That's one way to make a first impression, isn't it?

    At the very least, she's more or less complacent as Hisako sweeps her up into the safety of her psionically-reinforced grasp. She broaches water with a wet sputter, short red hair matting soaked locks against her forehead as she gasps in a suck of air. Her eyes are probably still squeezed shut because of the water, and not because she's hoping that, if she keeps them shut, this will have all turned out to just be an incredibly embarrassing dream. She feels like an idiot. She should be better than this. What's the point, if--

    Those green eyes finally open just slightly at the sound of that worried voice; Rachel peers at Hisako from where she is in the student's arms, hesitantly, before she manages a self-effacing sort of smile, "Uh. Hi," she manages, after a moment. "... Hell of a first impression?" Her voice is a bit too stilted and awkward to sell the wit behind that meek question; the attempt at a self-conscious laugh afterwards probably doesn't help.

    "You scared the crap out of me! Sorry, it's not your fault, I know, just -- I'm okay. I'm fine. --Wait. Phone?" Green eyes shutter in a blink. "Oh. Um. ... I don't have one yet. Sorry." Which might be an awkward thing to say, too, especially when the silence lingers after as Rachel becomes more and more cognizant of the hands around her. She reaches out, stiffly patting on one psionic limb. Her throat clears.

    "I -- I think I'm okay now. Thanks, I... huh." She taps that arm again. Pokes at it. "Is that psionic energy--?"

Armor has posed:
Hisako's own eyes are dark. Especially in, you know, night time pool lighting. She looks worried nonetheless, very clearly.

She laughs at the statement. OK, she thinks to herself, if she's joking she's at least coherent. "I didn't know if you could swim. I uh - here -" Tromp tromp tromp.

Now Rachel is mostly above water, or can be. "Oh, you don't? Well... that's convenient, isn't it! I always worry about forgetting around water and stuff like that. Um. I'm Hisako - you're Rachel, right? Tell me if I'm off, totally, no fear." She can sense (if not with powers) a certain degree of meekness there, after all.

"Uh - yeah," Hisako then says, with a self-conscious laugh. "You can tell? Most people figure it's a forcefield. I guess it's not like either one is wrong, huh?"

The armor sheds some water.

"So did you want to go swimming?"

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Convenient. Rachel snorts once at the thought. "I guess that's a word for it," she says after a moment as Hisako helpfully guides her back towards the shallow end of the pool. She watches the water tread rivulets around that barrier of psionic force, as if it was more comfortable to focus on that than the person next to her. "It kiiinda, um, feels like the opposite most of the time, though. It's just -- I'm busy." And, mainly, she has no idea what 'getting a phone' entails. The last time she tried she was intimidated by who knows how many different varieties of data plans. It reminds her of how different everything is here.

    But she'd rather not admit that 'getting a phone' is a daunting prospect to someone she barely even knows.

    "I can -- I mean, it's been a while, but I can swim. ... I... think." Red brows knit together, as if somehow now doubting whether or not it's true. She finally looks back to Hisako, as her name is mentioned, green eyes shuttering in a brief blink as if only half-registering the words. "Uh? --Oh! Oh. Rachel. Yeah. I'm Rachel. Yes. Sorry." She lifts a hand, rubbing the back of her head. "Hi, Hisako. You're -- a student? I don't usually make this much of an ass out of myself, I swear." Not a lot of conviction behind that claim, though.

    A small smile, hesitant but there, touches at her lips. She looks back down to that armor for a moment. "Yeah, it's... just something I do, I guess," she decides is the best way to explain it. "I can feel it." A second passes by as the water sloshes about them. Rachel places a hand on one psychokinetically-armored shoulder to push herself off of Hisako tentatively -- feeling her toes hit the ground of the pool, she touches off of it, bouncing back against the waters her smile grows.

    "Guess I can. I don't even remember there being a pool here," she murmurs, almost to herself, before she blinks. She looks down at her soaked clothes. Back to Hisako.

    "... Well, I guess I might as well now, huh?"

Armor has posed:
"Oh, I get it," Hisako says, a little lamely. She draws her arms back as Rachel seems to be recovering herself, and answers - "Yeah! I'm like in my last year, though. I'm trying for X-Man."

Does she know stuff about me? Does she know if I die or something? Hisako wonders.

She doesn't let it hit her mouth. She does laugh again. "No, it's fine, I didn't think about it. And sure, though I mean you might want to take your pants -"

Hisako stops dead.

The armor vanishes. She goes 'plunk' again, and hisses with surprise at the chill of the water again. After the slight dunk she treads water, though, neat as you please, explaining as she does, "When I jumped in for the FIRST time I didn't, like, expect it to be this cold. I don't think they start heating it until autumn."

Curiosity kills Kitty yet again as Hisako asks, "So you don't remember a pool here? It's not like... I guess it isn't exactly olympic regulation, it's more for fun, I guess. Or if someone really needs to soak a lot."

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Probably for the best that question doesn't find a voice. If Rachel's thoughts tread upon those glimmering curiosities, she also doesn't give a voice to them. She just looks aside, and clears her throat.

    "It's," she searches for the words to describe life as an X-Man. "... rough. It's rough, and it takes a lot out of you, and you might get killed or worse--" And she realizes, maybe, she's being overly negative, and so adds, earnestly if not at a lower pitch of voice, "-- and there's nothing else I'd rather do more. Um." The redhead rubs the back of her neck, casting her green gaze towards the sky as she mumbles a very quick, "Goodluck."

    She's in the middle of wondering if she should clarify she sincerely meant good luck so that Hisako doesn't assume she's just being sarcastic when that aborted advice is issued. Her gaze flits down toward Hisako, her left brow lifting incredulously as her lips purse together. She stays that way for a long, lingering second, before she looks down at herself.

    "--Oh, yeah, because of the water--" she begins, before shaking her head, immediately looking away again. "I can just... hold on a sec." The redheaded temporal vagabond shuts her eyes, focusing for a moment. Telekinetic flame licking at her soaked skin, her clothes begin to bleed out into so much ambient, fluid matter, reconstituting themselves slowly beneath the crystalline waters until a simple, red one-piece takes the place of pants and shirt. "Presto change-o. Better. ... Right?" Maybe that sounds full of just a little self-doubt.

    Freshly redressed, Rachel looks around her with an expression full of pensive thought as Hisako speaks. Her right hand lifts, pushing into her wet mop of hair to slick her bangs away from her face. "You want it warmer?" she wonders, before Hisako's own question comes. She looks momentarily surprised, green eyes closing in a slow, stady blink.

    "Oh. No. I mean. ... I don't really remember. The last time I was here was..." A time she doesn't want to think about, says the slow scrunch of her features, the hesitant twitch at the corners of her lips. "... anyway, things are just... different. It's not a big deal." She puts forth her best attempt at a reassuring smile. It's not necessarily convincing as she pushes off the pool's marble flooring, to start floating Hisako's way. "But this is fun! Like... absolutely. Do you do this a lot? Do they let you come out here this late--?"

Armor has posed:
Hisako feels vaguely abashed, but she channels it into a laugh. "Thanks," she says then, before - well, she apparently is taking it in stride. Her eyes widen when the redhaired woman before her seems to erupt into flooding flame in the middle of water and then reconstitute everything as - a one piece.

"Wow!" she says. "Is that unstable molecules?"

"Are those unstable molecules," Hisako self-corrects afterwards.

After this she paddles in place, and when the offer is extended, she says, "Yeah... actually, that'd be great, if you won't be put out? I know people hate being treated like lighters or whatever."

Paddle paddle. She doesn't mind Rachel's approach, smiling at her, and she leans back to kick towards the far wall. "Usually for drills I do aerobic stuff, some lifting, power routines... swimming's better for low impact stuff, though. And I like just paddling around. Zero ambition."

She tilts further back, floating fully. "How about you?"

Internally Hisako thinks, with faint trouble: am i gonna nerd her to death with fitness stuff, ugh

Marvel Girl has posed:
    "Uh, yeah, something like that," is Rachel's less than eloquent answer to Hisako's corrected question as she plucks at one red strap demonstratively. Light sarcasm enters her tone a second later as her shoulders lift in a hapless kind of shrug. "It's probably the fanciest trick I know. Dunno what I'd do without it."

    Turning about in the water, if Rachel particularly minds being treated as a water heater, it at the very least doesn't seem to keep her from fulfilling the sacred function; heat draws inward with a psionic tweak, molecules vibrating as a few tongues of flame flick at the girl's red mane of hair. It takes some time, but that heat begins to suffuse through the water as she floats on by on her back, the warmth bubbling off her skin in an orange glow of evaporating water.

    "It's alright," she assures only afterwards, feet kicking up water with her every lazy paddle. "It feels better, right? I'm not, like... it's kinda hard to tell temperatures when I'm like this, so just say when, okay?"

    With that, green eyes turn towards the sky, considering the stars that peek out between the blot of rolling clouds with a quiet, thoughtful frown. She seems sufficiently lost in some thought or another by the time Hisako asks that question, such that it takes a moment before it truly sinks in.

    "... Things were kinda different where I'm from, my routine wasn't really... like this," she finally answers as vaguely as possible, gesturing around her. "This is good though. I like this. It's... it's really relaxing. Things here are definitely... good." If she sounds slightly uncomfortable, it's probably nothing important. She still manages a smile, small but sincere.

    "Zero ambition. I like that. Maybe I should try the way you do things."

Armor has posed:
Hisako reaches the wall of the pool and lets her shoulders rest against it. She kicks lightly as she watches Rachel get hot and spread that out. It's almost like a tea pot, she says, before calling, "Sure! Just take it easy, right?"

"I guess I should go a little high," she muses, "so that it'll get the whole pool." Thermodynamics! Possibly taught by an ice man. She doesn't interrupt as Rachel reclines; with all the pool lighting she can see that face clearly.

The vague words - all the talk of good, and how things are good -

"Well... I just try not to be all things to all people," Hisako says.

Then, "Are you... alright? You seem kind of zoned, I guess. You don't have to talk about it," and here Hisako kicks off the side of the pool and starts to swim diagonally, out into the cooler stretches. "But just let me know if you need like... water or something. We have that posh-ass pool house right there for a reason!"

Marvel Girl has posed:
    "What's it they say? 'You do you,' or something? Probably good advice to live by."

    The words are musing, in a way, as Rachel just floats her way through the pool, kicking idly now and then to keep herself afloat as she lets her percolating warmth spread slowly through every ounce of that water. She pauses only when that question comes drifting past her ears. Are you... alright?

    No, I'm not, she thinks. "Yes, I am," she says. "It's fine." She says it probably too suddenly, too forcefully -- and ends up spontaneously diving beneath the waves not seconds later. Water bubbles all around her as she pushes through its depths, breaching the surface in a little rush of heated water at the edge of the pool. It's only then that Hisako's offer reaches her. She blinks, and goes quiet a moment.

    "Thanks," she manages, "and sorry. It's just... I'm kinda new to like," she tries to find the right words; talking about these sorts of things never comes easy. "... 'all of this.' It's just -- still a lot to take in." The look she offers the de-armored girl swimming nearby is an apologetic one as she leans herself back against the wall, warm, flame-flicked arms settling across the water-beaded tiles behind her.

    "What's it like? School, I mean." Maybe that's too general. She squints, just a bit. "Here, I mean. It seems pretty fancy, huh? How's the teachers?" Be subtle about this, Rachel. "Like... you know, the vice-principal, or the geometry teacher, or whatever?" Yes, good, smooth.

Armor has posed:
Rachel dives and Hisako doesn't. Her eyes follow her and she turns around as she reaches the opposing wall again, crouching against it - one hand out of the water, feet poised like she's Spider-Man.

"It's totally fine," Hisako says, half-repeats. "And I think the water's getting there...? Like maybe in half a minute, stop with the heat." At this point Hisako has decided this is a pyrokinesis thing. She is, in some ways, naive - but you don't want to just pry that shit out in the middle of a casual encounter.

"Ehhh... Well, I really like it! It takes some getting used to, you know? You can probably tell I'm not American," even if her accent isn't strong enough to be represented in text, "so the first year was a little tough, since I had to really get my English down. And uh - they're both cool - do you know Mr. Summers?"
%

Marvel Girl has posed:
    "Half a minute," repeats Rachel, tilting her head back and squeezing her eyes shut. "Got it." And she just... relaxes, something still relatively foreign in concept to her, sinking into the bubbling heat as her muscles slowly wind down from the tense state they had been locked in after her first disastrous jaunt into the waters.

    Still, when her eyes crack open again, it's to offer a sympathetic -- maybe empathetic -- look Hisako's way. "I bet," she offers after a while. "Adjusting to a new place isn't easy." A lopsided smile touches on her lips as she looks the other girl's way. "Looks like you've got a pretty good handle on things now, huh?"

    She has an easier time, it seems, like this. It's a definite, but very totally definitely subtle (not really) contrast to the way she just sort of blinks and locks down when Hisako mentions 'Mr. Summers' by name. "No," she says immediately. "I don't, either of them." Sounds believable. Good job, Rachel, she mentally curses herself, before sinking a little bit more beneath the waters. "They were just random examples, y'know? Since it's not like -- I only ever interact with them in training sessions or on missions, so I dunno what they're like as..." She needs a distraction, where can she find a distraction--

    "Oh! The water! Sorry!" she immediately announces, as the flames sputter out around her and the heat starts to fade from her skin, steam now rising from the surface of the pool. "I hope it's not -- it's not too hot, is it?"

Armor has posed:
"Oh sure, that was years ago," Hisako says, eyes widening. Her arm comes round to sweep her hair back because it's gotten kind of everywhere, and as she does, she isn't looking when Rachel totally denies having namedropped some dude. Nonetheless she can hear the strain.

"Oh," she says. Inwardly she thinks: Maybe he's with Magneto or something in ... wherever. I shouldn't ask.

"Well I don't know if I'd say I'm like... close...? But they're teachers, you know, they have everyone to think about. If I can be totally real, like, to a complete or semi complete stranger? I was a little jealous when I was like, a freshman, because I kind of wanted the attention. I got over it, of course."

That is 100% true and not a lie.

"You're fine! Really, thanks," Hisako says, making a wave with her hands. Literally - she pushes some water towards Rachel, though it has no real force behind it. "I mean it, this was like, ice, I was gonna die. Not actually die. It'll be perfect once the water mixes some."

Steam rises into the cool of the night. Well, maybe not.

"So what do you get up to? Other than training. Oh, I guess if I had to pick a teacher I hung out with most, it'd be Logan."

Marvel Girl has posed:
    "Oh. Right, no, yeah. That makes sense," says Rachel, who has at least gotten pretty good at hiding her disappointment when her roundabout probing yields no real fruit. She can at least feel some measure of relief that Hisako probably hasn't put two and two together. She really needs to get better at this.

    "I understand though. Really. They're like, superheroes, right? They help to try to make the world a better place for people like us, every day." She sounds, a bit, like someone reading a motto they read on a forgotten brochure, once. Especially considering she's an X-Man, too. But at least she sounds like she absolutely believes it. "You kinda want people like that to focus on you and think you're special. I mean... uh, wow, that sounds really stupid now that I say it out loud, huh?"

    For all she sounds awkward, though, she still looks so much more relaxed as Hisako pushes those mild waves her way. She blinks -- and then laughs, just a little, shaking her head. "Oh, uh. Great then! That's just super. I guess you owe me one now for totally saving your life."

    Arms stretching over her head, she rests her forearms over the wet mat of her head, green eyes turning Hisako's way, relaxed, comfortable -- until that question. She blinks, and seizes up for a moment, because really -- how does she answer that in a way that doesn't completely ruin the mood? It's what she's dwelling on now, instead focusing first on that one note with a, "Oh, I know Logan. We worked together, he's..." And that just reminds her more of unpleasant things. "... he's really good at what he does." There.

    "... Honestly? I don't... really know," she admits, after a while. "This whole world is just -- different, y'know? I don't know what there is to do here." Which is, at least, true enough for her standards. She offers a sheepish smile, turning in the waters to face Hisako. And instead of dwelling on it, she requests, voice tentative, "What about you? Got any suggestions?"

Armor has posed:
"That's why I want to be one! I'm at least kind of invincible," 'Armor' says, eyes widening. "I mean people try to do this and they can - I mean -"

Hisako gets tongue tied. "I was going to say like Warren or people, people who can, 'just' fly, but that's kind of a stupid way to put it. I'm tired, forgive me, I don't mean to be rude." She sinks a little into the water, but that may be because it is dangerously near Jacuzzi territory.

She keeps on listening. (Maybe she'll vouch for me, Hisako thinks, and immediately feels guilty.) "And what he does is drink beers, yeah," Hisako agrees, though her lips pull back into a momentary grin as she does.

Then her lips purse again as she considers the question. "Well... I guess it depends... I don't want to pry but - you're staying here, right? For good? Ish," she adds, because 'ish' is an important noncommital phoneme.

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Even as she apologizes, Rachel looks 'Armor's' way for a quiet, contemplative moment. "I've seen people do far more with far less," she finally says, filling her silence with words of carefully crafted neutrality. "Some of us don't really get the luxury of choosing, either." Those words are jaded, she realizes, and once again she admonishes herself with the faintest of winces.

    "I'm just saying, it's -- it's cool, Hisako. All you need is to have your heart in it, I guess." But she can't sell a line like that as easily as a real leader could, and she knows it.

    Still -- if she was threatening towards dourness before, it's all dispelled with a reassuring kind of smile -- one that blossoms into a grin at Hisako's assessment of Logan. She can't help it; snickering follows, and grows into a brief, warm laugh. "He's -- pretty damn good at that, isn't he--?" she manages between those brief peels of laughter, her expression truly warmed over with her amusement.

    It doesn't last long, as infectious as it might be, before that laughter tapers off with that pressing question. Hands falling back into the water, Rachel's expression ties up into considerate thought as she pushes off the wall and floats in Hisako's direction.

    "Yeah," she begins, "I'm st"uck here, her voice hitches,"aying here for like... uh, the foreseeable future. Kinda gotta get used to how things go here." She looks Hisako's way. "I could use someone to, like... show me the ropes, I guess." Her expression turns towards the apologetic.

    "That's too much to ask, isn't it? And I barely even -- sorry. If you can't it's, y'know, not a big deal, really. I can handle myself."

Armor has posed:
"It's OK, it's OK!" Hisako says, perhaps in part to push past her own inner feelings of embarrassment. She smiles again, big and cheek-crinkling. Inwardly she is kind of agog and is really hoping that nobody heard that. When Rachel gets close enough she reaches forwards for an arm pat or shoulder squeeze. "I'm boring as shit 'cuz I try to focus on school, but what I was going to say is - if you were, uh... likely to go back, you might just want to take it easy, but since you aren't..."

A moment where breath is held. Some dude with a big head on the moon may be leaning forwards.

"You need to find something you can do with others," Hisako says.

That came directly out of my ass, she thinks.

No, wait, she remembers where she saw it. No she doesn't. I'm pretty sure that's from Doraemon, she concludes internally. Cool! I'm a giant idiot!!

It doesn't hit her face. She smiles. It's a pretty practiced smile but /Rachel doesn't know that/. "I don't know what because I don't know your tastes. I bet you don't either! But like... Tennis!" YOU SAID THAT BECAUSE SHE HAS A DYKEY HAIRCUT, HISACCHI, says the inner policeman in everybody's head (the one, in specific, in Hisako's). "Or... hmm... it's a bad time of year to start with gardening..."

"But it's all about being able to spend time with others," Hisako continues, "and just get to know them better, person to person. Without having like... the future, or anything, just weighing at you. I'm totally babbling now, but you know what I mean? I bet it sounds /really stupid/ but that's like the best thing for people adapting to a foreign country, and that's kind of where you are!"

Hisako smiles again, even as her eyes flick momentarily towards the treeline, as if hoping for Sentinels. No luck.

Marvel Girl has posed:
    When that hand finds her shoulder, Rachel's instinctive response is to stiffen just a bit like someone who's learned to be wary of physical contact right down to a reflexive degree. By the time she's bumping into the wall, though, she's at least relaxed a little -- and fought off her other instinctive response to swat the hand away.

    Muscles loosening up a little underneath Hisako's touch, Rachel just shuts her eyes and tries to let the warmth of the water wash over her. That pregnant pause is met with relaxed silence on Rachel's part, eyes creaking open into expectant jade slivers for that dramatic reveal of Hisako's advice...

    You need to find something you can do with others.

    ... and somehow, someway, the little sliver of her stare manages to squint all the more with her newfound incredulity. Silence reigns, awkwardly, in the midst of Hisako's troubled thoughts. Her brows knit inward. It's probably for the best that she, for once, doesn't skim those thoughts, otherwise she'd be even -more- confused.

    "Uh," she begins, eloquently, "thanks?" Because she's really not sure if she should be expressing gratitude, but feels a bit obligated to.

    It's awkward.

    Made all the more awkward by Hisako's follow up; the smile, at least, manages to relax her, practiced though it is, even as her head cocks to the right. "Tennis? You think I'd be good at that?" she asks, as if the implications completely blow over the future-displaced Grey's head. "Never really thought about it... huh. Maybe..."

    But before she can dwell on that overmuch, Hisako rambles on. She just watches, in silence, head slowly tilting more and more. And then... she snorts.

    "I'm not that great with people," she confides, feeling more at ease in that moment than she has this entire time. She reaches out, resting her own encouraging hand on Hisako's shoulder as she looks astray. "But I feel like I'm not the only one now, so, um, that's encouraging. Thanks for that." Is she joking, or sincere? It's hard to say.

    "There's no Sentinels, Hisako. I already checked." Probably the former.

    Maybe.

Armor has posed:
Hisako...

Quietly produces her Armor around her right arm and brings it up to punch her head clean off. It lands in the volleyball court with a peaceful expression.

Submerges below the sea level of the pool and never surfaces again. The funeral is small and tasteful.

Rises up into the heavens and is never seen again.

Joins the Avengers.

Ends up marrying that weird guy just because he's also from Japan and has three kids with him except it's strange and they all go back to Japan and Japan is gradually infiltrated by robots and is eventually a land of cyborgs just before Magneto rolls them all up and throws them like a basketball at Professor Xavier.

... in actual reality, looks up to say with a dry sort of swallow, "Yeah! You'd probably be great at tennis. I can tell you're in shape."

Four seconds or two panels later she says quietly, "Don't tell anyone."

Marvel Girl has posed:
    Rachel's response, in all her infinite wisdom, is to not utter a word.

    She just quietly and solemnly taps her nose.