Players:
Summary: Mason meets Connor and Heather, but wait, there's talk of BROADWAY!
Date: Saturday, November 20, 2010. 10:08pm
Log Title: Broadway!
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Recreation Room
What was once the Parlor has been turned into a Recreation Room for the students. A nice plush carpet meets the light blue walls giving it a homey feel. A pool table at one end, a foos ball table at the other, and entertainment center with video game systems, movies, and of course, cable TV. Big comfy chairs and couches surround a coffee table for comfortable loafing. Long glass windows with a pair of French doors line one side of the room bringing in plenty of light during the day. The main rule in here is to clean up after yourself.
Late evening at the Rec Room, and there's music to be heard. Mason Steele, one of the newest students, has his keyboard set up downstairs, and he's decided to play around. One of his own songs right now, the teen dances his fingers across the keyboard, tossing his head as he sings out.
~I wanna know- what you know- when you know! I wanna go- where you go- when you go! I wanna know- how it feels at the front of the line!~
The rising teen star's blond hair flaps as he jams out. As seems to be his usual, he's wearing the trendiest clothes he can find. A plaid button down over a horizontal striped shirt is the choice at the moment, with a pair of cargo shorts which hang loosely on his hips. He hasn't chosen anything for his feet, staying barefoot in the rec room. Surely his footwear is around here somewhere.
Connor doesn't hear the music at first, as he's got his earbuds in and has his hands in his pockets as he comes in. Stopping to look up and to one side at the newcomer, some of the music pierces the sounds going through his ears. Taking out the earphones, the sounds of Daft Punk blast out at high volume as the other young man blinks at the trendy pop beat. Putting those away, he walks over towards the entertainment center and turns on the Xbox, searching through the library while he drags out a small memory card from his pocket. Plugging it in while the system boots up, he turns and looks at Mason silently as he plays.
Heather has just arrived home from her makeover with Chloe, which she only went to due to no small amount of arm twisting, so today she's actually looking, well, pretty. With her hair detangled, cut and styled, her eyebrows freshly trimmed and waxed and her makeup done, she even manages not to ruin it by wearing ugly mismatched thrift clothes. But that's only because she's wearing her squad uniform, though she's not wearing the goggles that she usually wears with the outfit. Her eyebrows are furrowed as she zips into the room, more dramatically due to their new neatness, and she plays a message on her tape recorder: "What's that noise?"
At first Mason doesn't seem to notice that he's not alone. His eyes are closed as he sings, and he seems rather encompassed by the music. However, after a few moments, the blue eyes open, and he realizes that he's not by himself anymore. He stops, but not abruptly. He finishes the line, and though he's in mid-song, he alters the sound to bring the song to a close. "Sorry, didn't see you two come in," he says with a bright white smile. "My name's Mason." He lets go of the last note, and switches off the keyboard. "Are you both mutants?" That's always a good conversation starter. He tosses his head again to reset his hair to it's proper place.
Connor cannot really resist, and keeping as straight a face as he can, he says, "No, I'm actually my evil twin and prince-in-exile from an alternate dimension, and she's a robot clone of Marilyn Monroe built by the government to fight the war on drugs. And you?" Before he sits down on the couch in front of the couch, and turns to pick up the controller, attempting to not start laughing.
"Chloe told me that she suspects I am just an alien and not a mutant, but I disagree," plays Heather from her tape recorder, after raising it up to her mouth and clicking one of the buttons. The tape recorder is briefly fiddled with before it plays a well-worn message, "Heather Brown, codename: Timeslip." She zips over to the couch as well, though she stops short of sitting, just moving her fingers through her hair (and for a brief moment seemingly surprised to meet no resistance).
The blond boy smirks as he steps away from the keyboard. "Well, you're the prettiest alien I've ever met," Mason offers. "And you're very honest for an evil twin." He then gestures back at Heather's tape recorder. "How'd you do that?" he asks Heather, pointing at he recorder. "Do you have like some cool powers that can control machines? That'd be pretty sweet. You could be a whole band just by yourself. Or can you see the future, and record what you're going to respond before somebody asks?"
Connor says from his spot as he starts scrolling through the new updates and adds in the Xbox news as he replies, "Actually, Heather lives in a quasi-accelerated temporal state. When she speaks, all you'll hear is a squeak unless she slows down. So she records what she says, and plays it back super-slow, so that we hear it normal." Turning his head finally to face Mason, "Connor Blake, Codename: Chase. A pleasure."
Heather seems a little bit taken aback at being complimented on her appearance, though she reacts that way at an inappropriate time due to the way she listens to people speak. She then nods her head quickly and gestures at Connor. She's not going to waste any time explaining something that's already been explained, especially since it takes such a long time! "I am not usually pretty," her machine states. There not much else to say on the matter.
"I doubt that," Mason says, his smile remaining strong. "I bet you're pretty every day of the week." He says it as if he likewise has nothing to say on the matter. He takes note of the fact that they both have introduced themselves with codenames. "So does everybody have a codename here?" he asks. "Or do you have to earn them or something?" He glances briefly at the Xbox before back to the two other students.
Connor puts the controller to the side and then stands up, stretching a moment, "Nope, but you usually pick one up along the way… it's just one of those things you get used to around here… welcome to where normal becomes theory and not a state of being." With that he walks over to Heather, and looks her back and forth, before saying, "It's nice… but it's not honest. Lemme guess… Chloe put you up to it. She was wanting to do something with you, and thought girly was the best idea, right?" Grinning the whole time.
"There is no way of knowing. I could have been a dragon for the rest of the week. A pug nosed dragon," plays Heather, even going one step further, "That breathes stink. You'll never know." She feels her hair, like it's a confusing and unfamiliar substance and then nods her head rapidly at Connor, "Yes, she wanted to do that. She told me to go with her in the demon world, and I do not remember why I agreed. But she said it could be used to influence people and unless I experiment I will not understand the possibilities." And she loves understanding possibilities. She moves her fingers across her eyebrows now.
Mason rolls his eyes. "I'm sure you'll influence people," Mason answers. "But I think it's your eyes. Make up doesn't create beauty, you have to have it already." He seems to enjoy the banter. He quietly stores the name Chloe for later investigation.
Then, as if it were some sort of drug, he walks back to the keyboard for his fix. He turns it on, and taps a few settings. It looks rather expensive, not the type of board that one picks up at Wal-Mart. His fingers casually play across the keys again, this time a much more casual tone, and a simple piano rather than all the hype he was playing before they came in. The volume is turned down, but it's still easily heard.
Connor reaches up to stop Heather from messing with it, "You'll smudge it all and mess up your hair if you keep doing that, Heather… you need to leave it alone or else everyone won't get to see you like this. Though…" And he looks her up and down before releasing the hand, "It does make me wish I had a suit." And with that he turns to watch Mason for several moments, listening, before he then goes back to sit on the couch, "So… who is this new person here in our school? Does he have a name? Or do we simply call him piano man?" Smiling a bit to show the jest as something more gentle.
Heather doesn't resist Connor moving her hand away, but kind of just twitches both of her arms for a few moments like she really, really wants to. She tilts her head slightly at Connor and then plays, "I will use my incredible time powers to figure out what his name is." She glances down at her machine, and then rewinds the tape, just playing the section of the tape where Mason introduced himself. After that, she fastforwards again to a more blank part of the tape. She finally sits down on the couch, instead of standing in front of it, and then stares at the piano with furrowed brows.
Remaining in the same key, the casual melody transforms into the song "The Piano Man." "I can jive with that," Mason answers. "Mason Steele. Code name…" enter epic building scale, and he speaks as if her were a movie trailer announcer, "The Piano Man." He doesn't bother to draw more attention to the fact that he had said his name earlier. There's something very Gershwin about his casual playing, and he twiddles a couple of high notes. "Don't worry," he tells Heather, attentive to her focus. "It doesn't usually bite."
Connor chuckles softly, and then replies as he watches the newcomer from the couch, next to Heather, "I'm kinda bein serious… it's a small school, and a very specialized one. So you're here because you've got a gift… sometimes it balances out, but a lot of us have been lucky in one regard for another. Sometimes we rub each other the wrong way, but it's usually best to get that kind of stuff out of the way early." Watching as the playing continues, he then shakes his head once more, "You know we should take advantage of this, Heather… you dressed up like this, I could take us down into New York, and we could go see Cats, or the Lion King, or something else Broadway. I've never been… and I don't think you have either."
Heather tilts her head slightly at Connor, and then says, "I could borrow some of Chloe's clothes. She's shorter than me, but I don't have any clothes that are particularly nice. My legs are waxed so I could even wear a dress. I have never been to Broadway, but they'll let me wear headphones if it's for hearing aid purposes, right?" She turns towards Mason and then shrugs at him, noting, "I don't hear music, I hear it shifted into noise. It's no insult to your talent. I just hear most of the notes as an ugly green."
"Oh, yes!" Mason agrees. "Broadway musicals. I've never gotten to see one. LA isn't really a theatre kind of town." He hasn't mentioned what he gift is, unless his mutant power is playing piano. As Heather makes her comment, he pauses his playing, holding the chord. "What do you mean?" he asks. He considers what Connor said earlier. "Does it have to do with the temporal…thingie? That would be terrible if you couldn't hear the difference between notes. I think I'd just shrivel up and die." He releases the notes, but still finds his thin fingers caressing the keys as if he was still playing, but without pressing them down.
Connor taps the side of his head, "For Heather it's synesthasia… sounds become colors. That she understands speech is still kinda mind-blowing, because everything we say comes out as sparkles, or primary, or something like that." But then he sighs and bounces in his spot, "Well… I've been to theater in Seattle, but that was only a couple times. We saw Wicked and Aida… but I have a problem with theater seating… I dunno who was sitting there before and what they did. Makes my butt itch." After another moment's pause, he adds, "I think I understand what you mean, but for me it's drumbeats. There's natural rhythm to everything, even a heartbeat if you listen to it."
"Low notes all sound the same to me, and some are out of my hearing range, but all nasty green. Really high notes sound like normal low notes would, I guess," plays Heather, responding to Mason. She shrugs at Connor and notes, "It's not that mind blowing. It's how I experience things. I think it's mind blowing that you don't. It sounds like a strange experience."
Mason raises one brow. "Well," he says, that's easily fixed. And I think they call that crabs, Connor. Do you play?" He adjusts the keyboard settings, and plays another chord. It's a remarkably high register. Piccolo. "What's that sound like?" he asks the girl. "Does that have more color? Or what about singing?" he adds. "Can you hear it better when it's a person's voice?" He's suddenly made this his personal mission. Nobody should be without music.
Connor looks back at the screen, which has gone black from idle, "Drums, a little singing… but I'm not all that good. Mister Gilpatrick has us working with keyboards… I've been putting together some jazz with an electronic influence. But I'm amatuer… never been in a band, or anything." After that he looks to Heather to see what her reaction is.
Heather tilts her head slightly at the sound of the piccolo, and plays on her recorder, "A variant of navy. If music is sped up properly, I can listen to it fine. It's really distracting, though, since I can see little else. But usually I can't understand vocals, due to my translation system, but I know Chloe has something that works. Have you met Chloe? She's my roommate." She lowers the recorder once it's done playing and proceeds to sing a song in fast speak. It is squeaky and obnoxious and makes absolutely no sense.
Mason pulls both his upper and lower lips between his teeth at once as Heather squeaks. He doesn't make fun of it, but hits a few more keys on his keyboard, changing some more settings. "Okay," he says, "Well, fast we can do. I haven't met her yet. I haven't met most people yet. I got here on Thursday," he explains. "But then my mom had never been to New York City, and neither had I, so we've been spending most of our time out there before I jump in on classes on Monday." He plays a cord that seems to cross over a few different instruments of different ranges. "I've heard about Mr. Gilpatrick, I can't wait to meet him," he says. "Okay, check this out Heather."
Mason's fingers fly across the keys, the song starts abruptly, and speedily jump from one part of the piano to the next, while his feet tap the pedals in rapid succession. There's four instruments that are present, and the song is rather difficult to make out a theme to for most people. Whatever he's playing, he's playing it much faster than it's intended. Even with his seemingly effortless skill, as he plays now, he seems to require his full attention on the keys so that he can keep zipping across the keyboard at a speed that makes it difficult for anyone who isn't a speedster to be able to watch his fingers effectively. Piano, violin, trumpet, and clarinet are the programmed instruments. After about fifteen seconds, he finishes, holding the chord, and lets out a breath. "Phew, never tried that before," he pants.
Connor sits back and just waits for Heather's response, but he does pick up the controller again, and proceeds to shut down the Xbox in the meantime.
Heather closes her eyes, if only because seeing the double transposed images of the music and her actual vision at once poses the problem of sensory overload. She crinkles her nose slightly as the sound finishes and plays, "Whatever notes you play, they're going to be weird for me. They just have to be sped up to my frame of reference, that's all there is to it. I can hear how the notes connect better, but I don't like the notes, they make no sense. There's a wrongness to them."
Mason lets out a sigh. "Okay, well, it was worth a shot," he answers. "That's about all I got in me. I don't think I can go much faster than that." As if there was suddenly the need to exert muscle strength, he drops to the ground suddenly and does two quick push-ups before pushing up to his feet again. The sound of him hitting the ground seems rather heavy, more than would be expected for someone of his size, and he offers no explanation for the sudden activity. "We'll have to jam out sometime, Connor," he tells the other boy. "It'd be good times. I bet you're like Ringo Starr in disguise." He resists the urge to keep playing for Heather's sake, and switches the keyboard back off. "Hey, what's your powers anyway?" he adds, realizing that he has heard what Heather's powers are, but not Connor's.
Connor rolls his eyes, "I already got one friend calling me Ringo half the time, Thanks much… please don't start." Chuckling as he stands up, and then grins at Heather, "Okay… to really understand what I do, you'd need to understand college level physics, so I'll simple it as best as I can…" Walking towards Mason, he continues, "I have a connection to the mother of all black holes, that gives me the ability to manipulate the energy particles we call gravity." To demonstrate, he lifts his hand and a bolt of blue green energy flies out, infusing the keyboard, and for a moment it floats, just up a couple inches before settling back, "But my main ability from this is I can teleport… short distances via what's called a gravity lens… and then longer distances via a one-way wormhole I can generate a few times a day."
"I call it Spaceslipping," comments Heather helpfully, since she doesn't get to explain his powers like he explained hers. She also says, "It seems to have an indirect connection through the fourth and fifth dimensions, if we want to consider those time and potential time, though that's a pretty arbitrary way of defining our coordinate system, it's the one that suits our understanding of these things best." She glances towards Connor and requests confirmation, "Right?"
Mason pulls a small box from his pocket, tic tacs. As Connor starts to explain, he pops a couple into his mouth, and raises it out to Heather and Connor each to offer some to them. His whole body goes tense as Connor's energy strikes his keyboard. A stricken appearance crosses over his face. "Um…" he rolls the tic tacs in his mouth a little, and they can be heard clicking against his teeth. "That's cool?" he answers, clearly having no idea what Connor or Heather were talking about. "But, if you don't mind, that keyboard is very expensive, and I don't want it to get vaporized or anything."
"Spaceslipping… yeah, that's a correct term too… and sorry to bother you with that. I've just worked hard to master field intensities and uniformity, it's fun to show off… as for the other stu-" And in mid-word he vanishes, leaving a slight ripple of reality in the air, and at the same moment the air is wavering, he's standing next to Heather once more, the space around him doing the same thing as he sits down on the couch, "-ff… it's more what I'm known for here. I don't think a weekend goes by that I don't get someone pestering to take them into town 'real quick'…" Making fingerquotes, "Or other places. Most of the time I don't mind, since people who ask know what they're getting into."
"Speaking of going into town really quick," plays Heather to Connor, standing up from the couch, "I should end my wake cycle and get changed into Chloe's clothes if we want to go into the city. I'll make sure to keep my hair and everything nice." She does take the offered mind, pretty much obliterating it the moment it crosses past her lips. "If you were being serious, anyways. I can't tell tone through my translator."
"Yeah, I'll put my keyboard up and grab some shoes," Mason adds. "I've never been teleported before. I think that'd be worth the trip by itself. "I never knew that being a mutant could be so cool," he states as he picks up his keyboard, and then the stand with his other hand.
Connor looks back and forth between them, and laughs a bit, "Guys… it's it's almost three am New York time, and I don't think there's any shows on right now… besides… we'd have to get tickets or something online first, set them on will-call for pick-up." Looking to Heather, he then says softly, "I was being serious. I know how it goes, I don't say things I don't mean, Heather. You know that." And touching her on the shoulder, he turns to leave, "How about this… we start with a trip into Salem to hit the Mall? There's a comic shop and a couple other places a lot of us go… Chloe can give you a touch-up and we can shop for a dress for you to wear for the show, allright Heather?" Then with a thumb to Mason he adds, "I don't know much about women's fashion, but he might be able to pick up that slack."
Mason pulls out his phone and checks the time. "Dang, it really is," he says. "So much for the city that never sleeps. Good thing tomorrow's Sunday…or today." He nods to Heather. "We'll get something that brings out that radiance that you're rocking out just by being you," he tells Heather. "Maybe your roommate will want to come with us too." He sticks his tic tacs back in his pocket a bit awkwardly, since he's carrying his keyboard and stand in hands. "I'm gonna hit the sack, I'll see you tomorrow." With another flash of his smile, he starts to head for the hall, humming a tune to himself.
Heather looks at her watch and says, "Oh. I thought it was three pm…" Even though the windows would indicate otherwise. As attuned as she is to the nature of time itself, it seems that the schedules of day to day life elude her, since she has a totally different operating schedule. As Connor touches her shoulder, it gets her attention, and she concentrates to translate the speech in her own head before nodding at him, slowly enough that she's not nodding quickly. "I don't know anything about women's fashion, but if something looks good it looks good, right? Not much else to know," she decides.
