Players: David and Quenton
Summary: David is hanging up a welcome sign in the dormitory and gets to know Quneton.
Date: September 14, 2011
Log Title: Getting to Know a Student
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Ramsey Dormitories Lobby
The lobby of Ramsey Dormitories has two elevators at one end of the wall along with the entrance to a cafeteria. On the wall are three pictures that say 'In memory of'. One is of Douglas Ramsey, another of John Proudstar and the last one is of Jean Grey. There are several couches and tables down here for students to relax. Large windows in the front and sides allow for a lot of light in the room.
It is late afternoon and with of the students are on and about on in class or enjoying the weather around campus or Salem Center, David Alleyne, teaching assistant and general staff at the Xavier Institute is in the lobby of the Ramsey Dormitory. Although the semester has already started, the African-American mutant is making a Welcome Back Bulletin board. Stencils and strips of colored paper are strewn across a section of the lobby and he stands on a stool placing the “K” in Welcome Back on the board. Dressed in one of his staff uniforms, white and gold bodysuit with large yellow cybershades. He stands on the stool peering at his work pondering if it needs any changes.
Quenton is on a couch, hands wrapped around a heretical DC comic (it's the only major comic franchise without Marvel ones!). He mostly ignores the other students leaving the building, red eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Once the halls are clear, all that is left in the lobby are him and David. And eventually his eyes lift from behind those shades to look at David and whatever it is he's doing. His lips press tightly together at the 'Welcome Back' Bulletin board. And so, curiosity killing the cat, the young mutant rises and sidles on over, beside the older mutant.
As Quenton moves over towards David, the older mutant looks over and suddenly unbalances himself, the stool tetters a bit and down it goes, fortunately enough, David starts to drop, but rebounds off the wall and flips back over and down landing in a gymnastic type pose. Looking over at Quenton with a sort of embarrassed smile, David stands up and adjusting the cybershades and ahems. “Thank goodness there was an acrobatic student near by.” He offers a smile and then looks at the sign from his new position, “It doesn’t look bad. All the letters are even and straight.”
Quenton shifts slightly, lifting a hand and rubbing at his nape, glancing over at David and furrowing his brow. "There is?" His eyes glance over his shoulder, but then he pauses. "Well. I mean, if you mean me, I have to use my flying powers to do the more advanced maneuvers. You did pretty good, though," he comments, glancing over at the African American mutant. "You're a teacher, then?" Teachers. Quenton's still not sure what he thinks about the teachers here at Xavier's.
Nodding his approval of the sign, David then turns to Quenton and extends his hand, “Um, not quite a teacher. I’m a TA, teaching assistant. I used to be a student. I graduated, went to college, and came back to help out. And who knows then one day I’ll become a teacher.” He looks about the lobby realizing the mess he has left about with shreddings of colored paper, “Oh and I gleaned that little flip from a near by students. My powers allow me to mimic skills from others.”
Quenton glances at the hand offered and shrugs, moving his own hand towards it. He doesn't take the hand, however, instead letting his be taken if David allows. "Huh. That's a pretty badass power. Most of the students I ran into have pretty weird powers. That one seems pretty good to have." He glances over the shredded papers, nose twitching briefly while his arms cross over his chest. "With a power like that, you think you'd run this school by now."
Looking at Quenton’s hand, David reaches out to take his hand and shake it firmly. Releasing his grip, he moves to start picking up some of the mess he has made, but continues the conversation as he does so, “Well, thanks. It’s funny when I was a student here. I use to get made fun of because of my powers. Some students thought it was a ‘quiet’ power where as something like telekinesis or transforming into a big rock behemoth was seen as cool.” Looking out through a window for a second watching some students play basketball on the court, David balls up some of the shreds of paper and tosses it into a trash bin all the way at the other end of the lobby. “3 points.” He cheerfully states as the ball goes in. Looking at Quention, “As for running the school. Ms. Frost and Mr. Summers seem to have that under control. And I doubt anyone short of Professor Xavier himself could do better.”
Quenton squints a moment, but then his shoulders shrug. "Professor Xavier is dead now, right?" he wonders. "Not that I doubt Mister Summers and Miss Frost's ability, she sure knows how to give a speech, but…" He shrugs his shoulders, glancing over where the students are playing basketball. "I can't play sports anymore," he mentions, to no one in particular. "Not that I like sports."
Blinking a moment, “Oh no. I believe he is in Genosha right now. Not a hundred percent sure. But I am pretty sure he is at least alive.” David goes back to picking up the final strips of shredded paper, “She does give one helluva speech. The one she gave telepathically the other day was one of her best speeches. I remember my first day, she made it appear that Sentinels were about to attack us, but that was just a test to get us ready for anything that can happen at any time.” Tossing the last bit of paper into the bin, “Why can’t you play sports?” David is typically aware of most of the students and any issues surrounding them, but this year, David has opted to try to learn from the students themselves instead of automatically going to their files, if he doesn’t have to.
"I can't control my strength since the accident. You guys sure stay away from the student files," comments Quenton, almost jokingly, but he never smiles. Never. He watches out the window before he glances back down. He doesn't help with the shredded paper for some reason. "I can't control it at all. Which is why I gave you my hand to shake instead of the other way around. I don't know how well your body can stand twenty thousand pounds of pressure." He lifts a hand to scratch at his nose.
David hmmmmns and nods as he listens to Quenton, “Well, I can’t handle twenty thousand pounds of pressure, so thank you for not shaking my hand.” David goes to take a seat on one of the couches in the lobby, “Well the teachers and the full staff have read your file, hopefully. Personally I try to stay on top of the students and last year which was my first year as staff here, I tried to learn as much as I could about the student before I met them. Unfortunately, more times than not, they were upset when I knew certain things. So I have opted this year to try to learn directly from the students.” He shrugs as he reclines on the couch. “Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.” He then chuckles a bit, “You win some and you lose some, I guess.”
Quenton nods his head slightly to David, shifting as he moves towards the couch, also dropping down, making his body go limp so that he doesn't destroy anything, though furniture at Xavier's is pretty hardy. "I guess that's okay. It's what Darkstar does." Calling Kenta by his codename. "Anyway, were you ever a member of the X-Men or something? Did you ever do hero work? Save some lives, all that jazz?"
Noting how Quenton drops onto the couch and then smiling as he continues the conversation, “No I’m not an X-Man. I was on X-Force for a little bit.” David mentally ponders what has actually become of it and makes a note to ask Scott about possibly restarting it. “I wouldn’t call myself a ‘super-hero’ or anything, but I’ve stopped some robberies and helped out whenever I can when it comes to helping people out or anything. But I’m not nearly as qualified as X-Men or Avengers or anything like that. Is that something you aspire towards? I mean after graduation and working on your abilities and stuff?”
Quenton shakes his head. "No. I did the hero gig," he murmurs. "It got my partner killed. I'm through with that kind of thing. It's a thankless job and all people care about is that you're a mutant, not that you saved any lives." He shifts slightly. "Anyway, we didn't save lives, we saved people from getting beat up or mugged. And I stopped a bank… robbery once. But I didn't mean to do it how I did.'
David’s expression loses the smiles when Quenton speaks of losing his partner, “Oh wow. I’m so sorry to hear that.” Shaking his head sympathetically, “I can understand about having a job that is thankless.” His tone sounds as if he truly has experienced such a response from people, “Fortunately, this Institute is not about becoming a hero. It’s about control. Controlling one’s powers or abilities improves on their lives hopefully. I’ve seen many people graduate and go on to careers as doctors and lawyers or just go about their lives regularly. It’s not necessarily about becoming the next X-Man or superhero.” He pauses a moment, “Despite what some people may think, that is not the goal here. Or at least it is not my goal with the students I work with.”
Quenton shrugs his shoulders as he stares at the wall. "Doesn't matter. We wanted to be the gods we saw on the news. Like Spiderman and the Avengers. Hell, I was called Avenger boy." He chuckles, bitterly, shaking his head. "He's dead now, I'm alive, and the people who killed him, they're dead, too. I don't have to worry about anything anymore." He shifts slightly, then shrugs his shoulders once more. "Besides," he murmurs, glancing towards the older man, "once I learn how to control my powers I'm going somewhere where there's no people."
“Well, again sorry to hear about your partner, but the culprits are dead, if that brings any satisfaction to you.” David is not sure if it would or not, he exhales, “Avenger Boy?” He hmmmns and then, “Anyway, god. I am being rude. I’m David. Here we’ve been talking and I haven’t even told you my name. What’s yours?”
"It does make me feel better," Quenton says, almost firmly, through gritted teeth. "It brings me satisfaction to know that bad things happen to bad people. That bad people die." His fists clench slightly. "I just wish I hadn't blacked out when it happened. I wish I could have seen their faces, heard their screams." He releases a sharp exhale. "But I wasn't allowed that."
Simply nodding as Quenton speaks, “Well, bad things happen to all people. Not just bad ones, but…” David sits up on the sofa, “You know what.” He blinks and nods more affirmatively, “You’re right. There is a sense of…” David struggles to find the right word, but continues, “…I don’t know. But there is something to knowing that people, in this case the ones who killed your partner, that something happened to them. That there was a consequence. They did something wrong and they paid the price for it. Death in their case, but either way, it wasn’t unjust. It wasn’t as if they simply got away with it.” David continues nodding his head as Quenton’s words impact him and he looks at the boy.
"Yeah," Quenton agrees, leaning back on his seat, fists clenched. "You're probably one of the first people who agreed with me there. You and Nathanial. Good people." He scratches at the bridge of his nose, glancing aside at the man a moment and lifting his shoulders. "One of my powers is I fly into an uncontrollable rage and my strength increases, the more time I'm enraged. It's uh… It's how they died."
Moving to recline on the sofa, David may or may not agree with Quenton, but he does understand. “So you flew into a rage when they killed your partner and so you strength got so powerful that you are not sure what you did, but whatever happened while you don’t remember. The bad guys are dead.” David makes a note to read Quenton’s file, but pauses a moment and makes a face when Nathaniel is mentioned, “Nathaniel? As in Nathaniel Sheridan?”
"Uh, sure? A student here? Ice powers? Is also very strong and fast? Black hair? Can speak French?" Quenton murmurs towards David, glancing over at the man. "He didn't tell me what squad he was on, though, but we met. We were at the attack on the Grand Central Station on the eleventh." He scratches the bridge of his nose once more.
“Oh ok.” David shakes his head and smirks a bit, “Sorry, I thought you meant a different Nathaniel. A former graduate from here and a good friend of mine is also named Nathaniel, but he is an empathy.” When the mention of an attack on Grand Central Station is mentioned, David stiffens up a bit, “There was an attack on Grand Central? Oh wow, I hadn’t heard about it.” The cybershades he is wearing seem to flicker and a holographic keyboard appears before David as he starts to type and then a hologram of a google page appears as he starts to search for information on the attack, “What happened?”
"The Friends of Humanity attacked the station, looking for mutants that they were blaming for the September Eleven attacks." Quenton glances over towards David. "Uh… someone beat them up and broke one of their arms. And shot one in the hip and leg. I uh… left the scene, 'cause someone destroyed the lights, too."
Pulling up a website with information about the attack, David nods as he peruses it and then waves his hand and the hologram of the keyboard and website seemingly disappear as the shades flicker off. David sighs as he mutters, “Ignorant jerks. That is exactly what the Friends of Humanity are. You’d think those zealots would realize that we are all human.” He exhales and turns to Quenton, “Well, you are safe, so that is good. I don’t know yet if you’ve been given one of those.” David pulls out device, “It has a panic button on it. It’s for situations when students are in danger to alert the campus.”
Quenton nods slightly, pulling his cell phone from his jacket pocket and showing it to the African American mutant. "Yep, got it right here. Cell phone, panic button and all." David's phone claims that SHIELD showed up shortly after, but turned the Friends over to the police. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, there, either. They're in jail, they're gonna be set free, and do the same thing all over again."
“Good you have the phone.” David offers a smile but rolls his eyes, “Well, hopefully that doesn’t happen, but you have to be realistic too.” Satisfied with the information he has received regarding the FoH incident, David asks, “So do you know what squad you are on? I know classes just started on Monday, but how do you like it here so far?”
Quenton shrugs his shoulders as he glances towards the man, then back at the door. "I'm on the Paragons, led by Darkstar. Probably was one of your classmates. He seems okay. I don't know who else is on my squad. And it's okay. Feels like regular school, until the combat classes begin. I skip those a buthough," omments, shrugging his shoulders.
“Darkstar, huh. Kenta is a good guy. I actually haven’t seen him in awhile. We fought a giant demonic octopus squid thing in another dimension once.” David’s cybershades flicker again as the roster of the Paragons appears in a hologram and David nods his head, “Good bunch for your squad. That’s pretty cool. Have you chosen of been given a squad name yet?”
"Uh… weird," Quenton murmurs, glancing up at the other mutant and shrugging his shoulders. "That you fought that, I mean. And yeah, a name was already chosen for me," he agrees. "I'm gonna be Rage. Real inventive, right?" He chuckles bitterly. "But I can't help but think it fits."
Laughing a bit, David sighs and stands up and his school phone's alarm goes off, “Well, it was good getting to know you.” He bows, “I have to go get some work done, but we will meet again.”
