Logs:Extra Credit Dimension

Extra Credit Dimension
Dramatis Personae Avi, Naomi
In Absentia Echo, Nahida, Lael, Jax, Maya, Kyinha, Shane	2023-07-06 "You getting some easy mode first extra-dimension. Wrong-Bangor didn't have no buffet or vodka fountain."
Location <???> Dimension of Misfit Toys
The Room of Requirement has nothing on this place -- Hogwarts never had a condominium in the middle of their extra-dimensional pocket. It's weird, this building -- an experimental shipping container aesthetic, not all the way finished when it landed here, some walls and windows fully improvised with other materials that have been way-laid into this void. The pool, for some reason, is finished and mysteriously full. The locals swear the water is totally and completely fine. The locals also seem completely insane, but they haven't died yet. Look! Frankie is out swimming, and nothing is happening to him. Naomi hasn't joined this resident in the pool yet, though she has taken advantage of the Thrift Tree of Protest Shirts to change into a less bloody, less singed MAGNETO WAS RIGHT tee in black and purple. Her scrub pants are rolled up to her knees, legs dangling into the water from her spot at the edge of the pool. She's struggling, now, with rolling a joint on top of a hardback copy of Twilight, face scrunched up with effort as she pushes just a little more weed into the thin paper tube. Avi has availed himself of an old shirt from Ryan Black's See It Through tour, a little big on him. He's just tugging it on as he ambles out of the building, plenty wet already despite not being in the pool, his hair gleaming with a thousand droplets of shower-water. He tugs his scrubs up, too, plopping himself down beside Naomi. "Nahida gone an work her magic on that shit, too?" His tone is cheerfully amused, but his head still dips at the end, something twinging regretfully across his face before his smile reasserts itself. "Whole-ass buffet, endless booze fountain, plenty weed, I'm ready to settle down in a whole other-dimensional home." "Mmhmm. Want some?' Naomi is squinting at her work critically, twisting the end of the joint with a little space to spare. Shakes it up and down until the weed fills the internal space. "I ain't Harm, fair warning if it's shit or don't burn right or whatever." Still, she's reaching to her other side for a lighter, waggles both it and the joint at Avi. "Tch. You getting some easy mode first extra-dimension. Wrong-Bangor didn't have no buffet or vodka fountain." "Kiiiinda hoping I never take the training wheels off, one extra dimension is plenty." Avi waves away Naomi's self-crit, taking the joint and lighter without much fuss for the finesse of rolling. "-- unless we get to like, pick next time. These things should come with a menu, you know? Prefer plenty of weed, plenty of Thai food, no genocide, check all the radio buttons before you hit submit. Personally I'd ask for a good basketball court and Hulu. White Men Can't Jump been out a minute now and can we watch it in this dimension? I'm guessing no." "Have you tried thinking reeeeeeeeeeeeal hard 'bout Hulu Dot Com. Maybe a laptop will show up. I been trying for a drumkit for a minute." Naomi leans back, props herself up -- on her palms, first, then with a small grimace drops onto her elbows to look out over the pool. "No genocide is a good one. No Sentinels, too. No Nazis." She watches Frankie do another lap on the far end of the pool. "... Some Spotify, Echo's good but it ain't the same. A bowling alley. Last time, we went bowling." "Y'all went what?" Avi's eyes go wider, his brows hiking way up. He's looking intently at Naomi like he can suss out whether this information is True or Pulling His Leg; not being a telepath, he gives up on this attempt in short order. "Man everything anyone says 'bout some Other Dimension got me drawing a full entire new picture of what they like." Though now he's tipping his head back, looking up at the ugly-hipster-luxury-condo complex behind them. "-- though I sure wouldn't of pictured this, either." He lights the joint and takes a long drag before passing it back. "Books always make getting yoinked into other worlds into the biggest adventure but here we are, toking up by a pool. Think this realm got some kinda evil king we can vanquish?" He's looking out thoughtfully at Frankie in the pool. Naomi's face is normally quite expressive even without the use of eyebrows, but here the scales across her forehead only serve to make it even less clear to Avi if she's joking. Still, she looks serious when she says "Sure did -- right after last jailbreak, too. This place owes us a bowling alley. Anyway, we only been in the one." Naomi takes the joint, scrunches her nose at it. "...Well. Two now, I guess. This one feels less adventurey." She takes a short drag -- coughs violently -- goes back for a second that seems to go a little better. "Yo, Frankie, y'all got anyone evil in here?" she calls out, passing the joint back to Avi. Frankie stops his lap at one end of the pool, spits up water. "Depends, did you fucks bring that pipsqueak suckup asshole Russell with you?" In lieu of answer, Naomi rolls her head towards Avi. "Think this ain't that kind of dimension." "Shiit, I bet we could scrounge up enough stuff from round here to make ourselves our own bowling alley." Avi takes another hit. Where his other hand is braced beside himself, a thin strip of ice curls out, long and slick. "Nice smooth lanes'd be no problem. We just gotta rustle up some balls and there's hella shit to knock over. He passes the joint back, snorting at Frankie's answer. "Aiite we're not finna overthrow any despots but --" His mouth twists to the side. "-- nah, no but. I think we've had enough adventure for one school y... aw, hell, this is summer break now, ain't it?" "One ball," Naomi corrects, taking the joint and bringing it to her lips again. "All we need, Nahida can rustle up a competition set from there." She pulls in -- lets out a long stream of smoke. "Boy it's been summer, my birthday is in ..." This trails off, unclear if this is a subject change or the weed hitting Naomi's system. "...I was signed up for summer school. Wonder if we can get P.E. credits for this?" Passes the joint back, eyes catching on that smooth strip of ice at Avi's side. "...Intensive Mutation Workshop. Gotta count if psionic self-defence does." "Dang. Bet we could find some cake. With or without weed." Avi is giving the matter of Extra Credit a slow contemplation over his next puff. "Mmm. Probably depend on how good you can convince your advisor this is -- aw, shit, Lael'n'em gonna get Mr. Jackson to give extra credit on this jonx easy." "Ohdamn, you right. Lael ain't even need it neither. Miss Maya maybe I got a shot." Naomi tears her eyes away from the strip of ice and lies down, looking up into the Aggressively Normal, Aggressively-Always-Daytime sky. "You think you could freeze summer-face Mr. Da Costa now? Ionno that gonna help you get extra credit but it's worth a shot." "Woooah. How badass would it be if I stuck him in a block of ice and he went fwoom straight outta it. I should ask him." Avi swings his legs slowly, kicking long ripples into the water. "-- His grades don't need it but some extra credit hours might help with all the time he's been spending in other dimensions, he ever want to leave Xavier's." His brow furrows as he says this, and he opens his mouth -- closes it again. Looks over at Naomi thoughtfully, then, with a small sink of shoulders, looks down into the water. For a moment he's silent, and then, softer: "... what happens. When y'all leave Xavier's." "College?" This is at once defensive and hopeful, with a little bit melancholy twisted in. "Art school is college, ain't it? Lael's gonna get in wherever he wants. Scholarships an' all." Naomi makes a small grabby hands gesture for the joint. "... I been thinking 'bout Howard, I got the grades for it, but there ain't no point leaving New York if they won't let me into the marching band." Her other hand drifts to the bottom file of her scales and taps there. "...I think Spence's brother is always hiring. So that's plan B. Move into Freaktown, save on room and board. Maybe Harm's cult will let me crash? Ionno." She rolls her head over to look at Avi, kicking out at the water. "What's your plan? Tell me you ain't looking at West Point or something." For a second Avi is derailed by a puzzled, also reflexively-defensive: "What's wrong with West Point? 'side from they'd never accept me." He passes the joint back, his expression still settled into a pensive frown. "Yeah. I mean, I just. I know Xavier's ain't no Shangri-La or nothing but --" His eyes have flicked to Naomi's scales, and he bites down on his lips. "If I had half y'all's brains or talent I'd be set, you know? Or -- not set-set but -- Howard be lucky to have you. Just -- always had it drilled in how I gotta work twice as hard as them just to make it half as far and I ain't grown no scales. How you plan around a world that'd put you back in Lassiter just for --" His mouth compresses, head shaking. "Boy, we been in the turn mutant powers into military assets location for two damn months and you wonderin' what's wrong with West Point? Tch." Naomi takes another hit, blows smoke up into the sky. "Shit, ionno from good plans, we all know planning under pressure ain't my thing. Feels like the choices are, work four times as hard while hiding as much of you as you can and maybe get something, lie down and take the scraps, or --" She gestures down at her shirt with the joint, ash falling on the silhouette of Magneto's face. "-- do terrorism about how it ain't fair." "This don't got shit to do with no soldiers. You gonna go 'head and say nobody should go to medical school 'cuz all these shitfuck doctors slicing people up to see if Harm can make better medicine? How many of the labcoats you figure come outta West Point vs. somewhere like Howard? None of us should go to college at all, probably, cuz looks to me like every politician and scientist who touched this place probably got a degree first. Long before they ordered people like us tortured in here or ordered actual soldiers sent off to --" Avi's shoulders have curled in harder, and he pulls his legs back out of the water, pushing himself to his feet. There are thick patches of ice left behind on the tile where his hands have been pressing, and for just a second the water that ripples away from his legs feels considerably more chill before it washes away into the rest of the heated pool. "I'mm'a try and find some --" His voice is a little tighter, and he's looking not at Naomi but up at the perpetually-sunny sky. "... dinner. You want?" Somewhere between Harm and Howard Naomi's jaw has gone tight. "Sorry," is apologetic but tight, too, and what she doesn't elaborate. Doesn't look at Avi either, save for where his exit crosses into her peripheral vision. "Nah, thanks. I'm good." She does hold out the joint again, just in case Avi wants one last hit before he goes. "Let me know you find some Hulu on your way to dinner, though. If this is gonna be the only dimension we catch a break in," and against the icy tile her shoulder hitches up towards her ear, "we oughta make the most of it."