Post Crisis

Gabe had extremely mixed feelings about this trip. On the one hand, he was going to the base of one of his favourite super-teams, and he was actually going to get training with his powers. On the other, he was going there because apparently they wanted better tabs on him; but not his sister. Oh, no, Cassie was perfectly responsible and needed absolutely no training on controlling her powers, but apparently Gabe did. Sadly the only distinction that Gabe could see was that he had been swapped over by people from a parallel universe and she had not. They probably wanted to keep track of him to prevent another situation like that, or at least so they could be aware of it earlier if a repeat were to happen, and in fairness, he was one of two Teen Titans they really had any jurisdiction over, and they were clearly already keeping an eye on Gabby if they had any sense.
 
His Grandma had explained it to him well before this was scheduled. He had held off from having to go to the Jean Grey Academy before by merit of his firstly not showing powers, and then not actually being pure mutant. She phrased it as the faculty having grown up almost, like of course she wanted her grandson to have less time at home. She had also said that it would be good for him to have some contact with powered children who weren’t his sister and didn’t take several hours of flights to reach each other, or pure luck to arrive in the right place by magical teleportation. He was more accurate over shorter range, and the Jean Grey Academy was certainly closer than Titans’ Tower.

His Grandma had offered to drive him down, but Gabriel had insisted on teleporting, largely to avoid the early morning wake-up, and naturally the long and boring drive as well, which would still only get them there in the late morning at best. It was better than a plane down to San Fran, but it was still way too long when there was a shorter option. He wasn’t planning to join as a student, but having some access to other mutant- or rather full-mutant- children would probably be useful.

Gabe had been fairly unsure of what dress-code there would be, even if there was one, which had led to a situation of a doctor-who t-shirt over a cloak-less version of his costume, accompanied with his definitely necessary glasses. If needs be he could just summon something else, so he was fairly sure that would be fine. Plus the whole “alien” thing paired with the galaxy patterns was too good to not try out; and it was a bit of a hint about why he’d taken so long to visit the academy.

Gabe had decided to take the safe route in arriving here. Which meant half an hour working out exactly the best part of the school grounds to arrive- it couldn’t be anywhere he was likely to actually teleport into someone or something- and the exactly GPS-coordinates to get there. The spell to teleport there had taken almost ten minutes to work, and then had decided to drop him into a tree instead of onto the ground. This was why chaos magic was called that. It never could quite do things correctly if they were meant to be specific.

After a pretty painful landing, Gabe dropped down onto the grass below, brushed off a little of the muck from himself- he presumed it had been raining in the last few days, causing all the mud- before making his way over to the school. He stopped in front of the doorway, looking up at it. By in front of the doorway, about two dozen metres away would have to do because that structure was simply a little too intimidatingly awesome to just walk right up to. This was far too cool. He was looking at the base of some of the best super-heroes ever. Beast? Awesome. Cyclops? Awesome. Ice-man? Well he was just cool.

He was actually going to be seeing their base. It’s a strange day when a school is too cool for you.

Gabe spent maybe three minutes just staring at the school- probably more like five- before he took a deep breath in and forced himself forwards and into the entrance. It was almost crazy that his heart was beating this hard, or that he was practically jittering, but what if there were x-men here, or even their kids? How awesome would that be? And he would inevitably screw up any chances of hanging-out with x-kids.

Gabe sighed at that point.

He saw himself walk over to the reception desk- it felt too surreal to accept that it was really him- and it took him almost a half-minute to get the courage from just standing there to try talking to them. He’d gotten to “Hi, I’m Gabri-“ before the receptionist had to tell him to speak louder. Three attempts later- at which point he was actually stammering a little- the receptionist got the point and directed him to a nearby chair. And that was when his humming started.

He checked the clock on one side of the room as he took the seat. Okay so he was five minutes early. Even with all that standing around due to nerves he was still early, that was how nervous he had been about setting a bad impression. It was better to look (and be, but that was beside the point) over-keen, right? Gabe sighed just very slightly.

”Iwantaquietaccompanimentforthissong, Iwantaquietaccompanimentforthissong, Iwantaquietaccompanimentforthissong.”[/b] His incantation was naturally set to the melody line he was humming. Most people would say that maybe that was a tiny waste of his magic. Those people would not be the people who- admittedly in a very very close radius- would now be able to hear how awesome his cover sounded.

Gabe was still jittering slightly, although he was trying to hide it. Were those butterflies? He pushed his glasses up his nose, and then closed his eyes. Naturally he had ended up singing the girl’s part of the Disney duet. Oh well. The song did at least reflect his feelings, maybe too well. He too had been just betrayed by someone who acted way too similar to himself but he had only known for a very short amount of time. Maybe he couldn’t write Disney songs that quickly, but he sure could find the one he wanted; which was why if his guide walked in now they would see something very interesting.

A boy dressed practically as nerd-ish-ly as he could reasonably be, leaning back in the chair, and quietly singing the Anna's part of a well-known and oh-too-familiar Disney song in time to an extremely quiet musical line that would disappear as soon as he stopped concentrating: ”Love is an open doooooor.”


(OoC: No-one should underestimate Gabe's fanboyism. No-one.)

Edward had meant to go to reception to show the new guy around. He really had. He'd actually been heading down to reception. He'd just gotten....distracted. Well, that was one word for it. He'd seen somebody who'd made a bird joke to Kayleigh recently. He'd actually only been out of the school's hospital for his overnight stay a couple of days ago after Kayleigh caught up with him, but Edward still fancied settling the score further. He'd been hoping for a quick, short revenge. A short push against a locker followed by a punch, and then out before the guy or his friends reacted. He'd forgotten the guy's name and powers, just remembered that he'd called Kay beaky. It actually almost went to plan. He'd gotten behind him, been walking up, but then the guy had seen his reflection in the locker, and Edward's hands had gone right through him. Right, phasing, that was his power.

That wouldn't have been much of an issue, if the guy didn't have his friends with him. One of whom happened to be very very strong. Edward ducked under the first punch that tore a hole in a locker door, kicked one of them in the knee and took a few steps back. All things told, it was a nice little fight. Edward actually got the guy he was going after in the first place about three minutes in, but by then all of his friends were involved. It was the super-strong one who got him in the end, after Edward had taken out four of his friends. By this point, coincidentally, he was right outside the reception doors, and, just as coincidentally, the next kick from the strong one took him in the chest and sent him skidding through the reception doors.

When he stopped moving, he groaned and lay there for a few seconds, feeling the bruises and marks along his body healing. His chest still felt like it'd been hit with a sledgehammer, but that was a feeling he'd gotten worryingly accustomed to recently. He groaned again, but slowly got to his feet. It hurt to breathe, but it was fading each time.

"TOSSER!" He yelled to the strong guy as he walked away, pulling a couple of his friends to their feet. Then he remembered which building he was in, and nodded apologetically to the receptionist as he brushed himself down. He didn't feel especially apologetic, however. He was just pissed. He looked around at the guy in the chair, the one wearing nerdy clothes and singing to himself. Was this the guy he had to show around? Great.

Gabe wasn’t strictly “new” so much as “likely to be coming here for relatively regular visits.” Even so, it was the same principle. His humming stopped immediately as the guy came through. His eyes snapped open as his accompaniment cut off abruptly, although it probably lingered long enough for the new entry to recognise it. That was hardly a concern though, because he seemed pretty bruised up. Had he gotten into a fight just outside the reception doors on purpose or something?

Gabe was unsure whether to go ahead and help out the guy- seriously, impacts like that hurt and he knew it, and he was only thinking of being kicked through the door by a person of fairly normal strength and landing like that- but Gabe could tell he was clearly a fighter from the sheer number of bruises. And those were already healing.

Gabe leaned forwards in his chair but made very little movement beyond that. He did start mumbling a spell, however. ”IwantDoor-Guy’swoundshealed…” Even after only one repetition he could see that the guy was healing too fast for that to really be necessary. He also guessed he probably wouldn’t appreciate being called “Door-Guy”.

Gabe wasn’t entirely sure why the guy was yelling or why they’d been fighting, but it was a little hard not to have some sympathy for someone who had just got thrown through a door, even if they looked both dangerous and very angry.

He didn’t much care that he was being judged by the blonde guy- he’d just been judging back after all. Gabe glanced across at the receptionists and saw that they were relatively calm about this- well, given that someone had just been kicked through the doors- which seemed to imply this happened often.

The first student he had to meet at this school had to be the guy who clearly got in regular fights. Well, Door-Guy was unlikely to be paying him special attention unless he was his guide. Gabe seemed to curl in on himself, head pointing towards the floor, very close to wanting to summon his costume properly so he could hide his face in the hood. He forced himself not to do that, however, and to look the guy in the eye as best he could. Managing that only briefly the first time, he raised his eyes again.

”Er… Hi.” Gabe was back to speaking quietly again, too quiet for most people, but really it was impressive that he was speaking at all to Door-Guy. ”I’m Gabriel. I prefer Gabe.” He knew that now was the time that people were meant to start shaking hands and going on about how it was nice to meet the other person and so on- he’d spent enough time with his psychologist grandma to know the theories of how to come off well- but the guy was firstly too intimidating for that to feel appropriate, and secondly, he was scared that he would zap the guy from nerves. That might not come off well. ”I’m a Teen Titan and visitor …and half-mutant.” That seemed like a good enough introduction. His voice was actually shaking a little bit. Not so good. ”I’m guessing you’re either about to punch me in the face or show me around, and that you’d probably prefer not to be referred to as “Door-Guy”.” And those were the sorts of comments that would make his grandma wish she had come along. Hopefully he’d get the hint to introduce himself from that, anyway.

Edward leant against the wall as he waited for his chest to stop feeling like it had caved in. He made a mental note to get back at the super-strong guy. Just a couple of punches, that was it. Well, maybe if he let Kayleigh know, maybe fabricated a 'Beaky' or 'Birdy' in there somewhere, he could get her to help him. Not that he needed her to fight his battles, but just because she'd make it easier to wallop him. He shot a look over to the nerd again. Well, if he was giving this guy a tour around the school, he could wait a bit. For Edward to recover, anyway. But then suddenly the guy was speaking. As in, to himself. Edward listened in as the nerd continued to speak. Well, he was assuming he was door guy, unless the mutant who assumed the substance of anything he touched had accidentally used his power on the door again.

And apparently the kid was wishing for him to heal. Well, that wasn't weird at all. It wasn't like it was necessary anyway, his healing factor was dealing with it anyway. He raised an eyebrow at the guy. What was muttering over and over again supposed to accomplish.

"First sign of madness, you know," He said to the nerd, "Talking to yourself." The nerd made eye contact for a brief second but then looked back down. He looked up again afterwards though, and Edward tried to maintain the eye contact. He didn't want the guy getting shy on him. He blinked once at the somewhat stilted and awkward introduction, but tried to process the information he received disjointedly. So right, this guy was getting shy on him.

"Hello, Gabe," Edward said, somewhat bemused, "I'm Edward. I prefer to not be called Ed. I'm the guy who's showing you around. I won't punch you unless you piss me off." Well there's nothing like brutal honesty. He tried for a smile, and held his hand out for a shake. "You're a half mutant? What can you do?"

Gabe stopped when he saw the raised eyebrow. He cleared his throat and bit his lip slightly (what did he have against magic?); normally that was a cue to stop before people commented on the muttering- and there it was.

”Actually that’s repeating things over and over and expecting a different result.” Okay, he’d walked straight into that one, although he’d stopped before the other guy had really seen that. ”And that’s kinda offensive.” Especially given that mental health issues ran in the family; his father, Billy, that was, having depression, his grandma falling apart and hallucinating realities, his great-grandfather’s bipolarism… Well, it was lucky that they had a psychologist in the family, to say the least. He still smiled a little bit at that one, though.

”What about Eddie?” That idea really seemed just a bit too ridiculous, even when it was clearly a joke. That was probably why his grin was obviously present.

”How easy is that?” It was good to know that he wouldn’t just straight-up punch him, but that was hardly enough information, especially given how easily people claimed that he managed to piss them off.

Gabe reciprocated the shake a little tentatively. Nothing like being told that he might eot punched but not the necessary conditions to make a guy feel confident.

”Yup, half-mutant. Uh… quarter kree, quarter skrull.” It had sounded like the guy had been wanting an elaboration, anyway. ”I’m mostly a magician; I don’t take much after the alien side of the family.” He grinned just a little bit before continuing. ”Otherwise, normal human things. Mostly.” And, again, this was why his Grandma had wanted to come along.

He cleared his throat, looking for really any way that he could change the subject from his faux pas (or what at least felt like one to him). There was a more pressing issue, anyway. ”Shouldn’t we be dealing with whomever shoved you through? Detention or something?” Gabe seriously doubted that that was the right solution, but it was surely on the right lines.

Edward's eyebrow raised even further as the guy, Gabriel, explained actually what insanity was.
"Weren't you repeating the same thing over and and over and expecting something to change?" Edward asked, twisting the words only slightly, "The whole, "IWantDoorGuyToHeal thing?" He looked faintly sceptical as Gabriel told him it was offensive, "You're probably going to get way worse than that here. Just a tip." It wasn't like his family was immune either, what with aunt Carol that he wasn't supposed to talk about. And that was just his mother's side of the family. Wolverine and May had....instabilities, to say the least, and for all Edward knew, he did as well.

As the nerd suggested that Eddie would be an acceptable thing to call him, Edward tried to fix him with a death glare, but he couldn't resist smiling slightly at his nerdiness.
"Call me Eddie and you'll probably get punched," He told the kid, "Not even by me. I think my....I think my aunt has dibs on that name." May most definitely wasn't his aunt, but it was much easier to explain than "genetically my cousin and in terms of family like my niece and in terms of us like an aunt". So yeah, he went with aunt.
"It's easier than you'd think," he said honestly. He wasn't under any delusions about how much he ended up hitting people. 

"You're an alien?" He asked sceptically, "I'm going to be perfectly honest here, you look pretty human, and I feel like I know enough biology to say pretty confidently that's how how genetics works." Not that he paid much attention in biology. And then he paused as the alien thing twigged something in his mind. "You don't have a sister, do you?" He asked. He wasn't sure what was less likely. Two separate half-alien families, or him meeting both siblings. And then Gabe suggested detention, and Edward snorted. Yeah, he was gonna go running to a teacher.
"Snitches get stitches," He said, "So I'll give him a few instead. An overnight detention in the hospital."

”Um… yeah. Yeah I was. That’s just how my power works, sorry. ” Gabe shrugged. He had dug that hole for himself.

”I get worse a lot of places. I just can’t promise they won’t get lightly zapped if they try it.” He also couldn’t claim he actually would zap anyone who said such comments instead of yelling. His family not being insane was a little bit of a sore spot.

”Half alien. As I said, I don’t take after that side of the family.” Gabe grinned a little bit. He was going to look even more like a nerd now. ”And you could say that humans look like time-lords equally. Blame the laws of alien races, not me. And besides, skrulls are shape-shifters; it’s probably something about that.”

Gabe’s expression turned serious at the threat, but he relaxed a little at the next point. He was smiling again by the time he reached the end of his third sentence. That sounded fairly typically aunt-ish, from what he was aware. Plus, the idea of someone actually calling him Eddie was just funny.

Gabe’s eyes narrowed just a little bit at Edward’s question. ”I do.” Gabe somehow had a feeling that he wouldn’t know that- or even be asking that- unless he had already met her, which only led him to question what the crud his sister had been getting up to. He just hoped she hadn’t been doing anything else illegal.

Gabe was a little confused by Edward’s reaction to his suggestion. Okay, so, sure, maybe it wasn’t the best impression to be seen to be supporting the teachers as a visitor if you wanted to make friends with the students, but surely he’d support them getting their dues?

”You mean you’re going to beat him up as pay-back?” The only time he’d heard anyone (who didn’t immediately come off as a supervillain, and wasn’t from several thousand years ago, that is) support the “eye for an eye” philosophy was from some crazy guy who’d gone to his synagogue once and got arrested later that day after it turned out he was high (incidentally that was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen in Pittsburgh).

"I'm going to be honest, that doesn't sound like a terrible useful power to me." If Edward had to say "IWantClawsIWantClaws" every time he wanted to threaten somebody, or "IWantToHealIWantToHeal" after every other time he hung out with Kayleigh, he'd never get anything done. "Can you do anything else?" It wasn't like he only had one power, after all. And this guy was a half-wizard, half-alien, apparently. He could probably do more stuff than just mutter. "Lightly zapping people is also a great way to get yourself into trouble around here." 

Edward groaned internally as Gabe proved himself to be even more of a nerd than he promised to be.
"Here's a tip," He said, "If you reference Doctor Who more often than the British person in the conversation.....don't do that." Of course the school left him in charge of giving a nerd the tour around the school. Not like he could refuse. Not unless he wanted to dare them to send him back to jail. "So you're saying this isn't what you look like?" Edward asked, and thought back to what Cassie had turned into. "By any chance, are you normally a big, green scaly thing with claws?" He wasn't going to be subtle about having met Cassie, if this was her brother. He wouldn't dob her in about breaking the law, however. Even if it was a stupid thing to do. 

Yep, Gabe had pretty much confirmed it. They had to be related. It wasn't like they looked terrible alike, but how many half-aliens could there be running around New York City. Edward didn't comment any more on the subject, however. He did snort as the nerd sounded shocked about Edward beating the guy up.
"Either I will or a little birdie will tell him he's about to get hurt." He said cryptically.

”That’s cos you’ve not seen what it can do; which is plenty else. I’m guessing you want a demo.” Gabe suggested. He didn’t seek the response, though. He looked around the room briefly, before thinking of something interesting he could do. He’d get on with it in a minute. He’d just want to work it out precisely- plus leaving while Ed was still talking was one sure way to get some heavy judgement.

Gabe looked away at that, down at the ground. He paused for a whole two seconds before he realised he was trying not to come off quite so weirdly as usual. ”Says “let’s go pick fights with super-strong guys” man.” And he regretted that as soon as he’d said it. ” I mean… I’d hardly go to my full level, so I doubt that’d match me up to people looking for punch-ups level.” What an amazing save.

Gabe’s smile grew wide as Ed spoke next. ”Just proves you have no sense of good TV. And-“ Gabe drew that out to stress it. ”I think it’d be worse if the half-alien weren’t referencing a sci-fi program more.” He really was relishing being able to just say that. Most places he said that, it’d earn him a trip to his grandma- ie a medical psychologist.

”This is what I normally look like. My sister’s the weird one. She’s the shape-shifter, and, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d chosen what she looks like normally. The big green scaly thing is kinda her shebang.” He’d definitely met Cassie. How many other shape-shifters would choose to do that?

Gabe couldn’t help the disapproving expression at Edward’s response to his comment.

”I’d be impressed if a little bird had the guts to.” Gabe got the cryptic part, but not what about, and so he figured why not give a slightly sarcastic response?

”Okay, so, now for showing the use of the magic deal.” Gabe smiled pretty noticeably. ”Iwantintheschoolkitchen, Iwantintheschoolkitchen, Iwantin-“

Gabe felt himself wrenched away, stumbling slightly as he landed his spell at the entrance to the kitchen. They were apparently preparing lunch. He picked up one of the few dishes that already had something in it without really looking, and then vanished off with a similar spell.

Gabriel appeared this time on the other side of the doors Ed had entered by, pushed the door open, and, naturally, handed the bowl straight over to Ed. ”Doesn’t sound terribly useful, right?”