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Summary: Jinx decides to learn more about the "mysterious" Theo. After finding him in the garage, the two come up with a plan to help bring the JRXTC team to the same page.
Date: September 22, 2010. 7:45pm
Log Title: The Pizza Plot
Rating: PG
Xavier's Mansion - Garage
Home to various cars of teachers and X-men, the garage can house at least twenty vehicles. There is also an area that has a auto body shop set up so students and teachers and work on their cars. Almost any tool a mechanic needs can be found in this garage.
For the last couple of days, Theo has been hiding from people. After class, he is out the door like a shot. He comes to eat after everyone has left the cafeteria, or sneaks into the kitchen after curfew. He goes to the far side of the lake to study, and spends the rest of the time in either his room or the garage. Right now, it's the garage. Proto ambles around the shop, currently wandering under one of the professor's cars, examining it curiously.
Theo himself is at the workbench with a disassembled transmission. He's covered in grease, so it's good that he's left his shirt off to the side, folded neatly on a stool. He wears a pair of cargo shorts and his shoes, as with a socket wrench he undoes the next bolt to take apart more of the large, heavy piece of machinery.
Xavier's Academy has never been a large school and it should be easy to find one given student on the premises if one has enhanced senses. However, if one student doesn't know the other's scent, things can be made difficult, especially if that person doesn't really want to be found. Jinx has almost given up on finding Theo, and exasperated she stops by the garage to check and see who might be hanging out. The boy she finds with the transmission drags a laughing sigh from her lips, her tail curled low behind her as she draws up.
"Don't tell me… Theo?" she asks, her grin widening. "I have been looking for you all over…"
Theo looks up at the sound of his name. "Hey, what's up?" he asks, turning his gaze back down to the transmission. He pulls off another piece of the transmission, and puts down the socket wrench. Proto turns to face Jinx, and scampers back toward her, the snakelike camera studying her, and clicking away, as if taking pictures.
Jinx eyes the thing on the floor and takes a step back, a clawed hand slapping down to keep her short skirt from flaring too much. "I think we met like once back when I was new — what is that thing?" She eyes the machine cautiously. She has her messenger bag slung over her shoulder, and a short black jacket over her usual ensemble of short skirt and tank top. A chocolate tootsie-pop is pressed into her cheek, the stick a sharp contrast against her dark fur swirled with white. "If it zaps me, I am so going after *you*."
Theo grins. "That's Proto, he's on explore mode. He's waiting to identify you before he moves on. Just tell him your name and he'll leave you alone." The technopath walks over to grab a dirty rag, and wipe some of the grease and sweat off of his hands and arms. "I just installed his AI the other day, so I am watching to see how well the AI is learning. Don't worry, he can't hurt you."
Jinx frowns at the little machine. "Jinx," she says to the machine, watching it skitter about on tapping feet. Her tail has floofed a little in the process, and she takes a moment to swipe her purple bangs from her eyes. "Okay, cool," she tries to blow it off, though knows she doesn't sound cool at all. "So like… yeah. We're on this XTC team together. I wanted to come and say hi." Read: check out this mysterious 'Theo' that everyone talks about.
Proto's hard drive can be heard processing the name briefly, and then as quickly as he came up to her, he clatters away until he comes to the next interesting thing in the room; the fire extinguisher.
"Well, hi," he answers. He wipes some of the grease off of his torso, and grabs his plain white t-shirt off of the stool before pulling it over his head. He still smells like grease of course, complete with a smear under his left eye where he probably rubbed his face earlier. "Hope you didn't ask Robyn about me," he says with a slight smirk.
Jinx watches the machine carefully, her brows drawn downwards until the machine clatters away. "You made that?" She asks the obvious. "That's cool." As soon as the machine has retreated, she relaxes, leaning back against the workbench as she casually watches the other kid move, and the diagram of grease that paints him. "No, I didn't. Though just about everyone has an opinion about you, and not all of them are nice," she tilts her head, ear cupped towards the boy. "Why is that?"
"Yeah," Theo answers, placing his hands on his hips as he watches to make certain Proto doesn't get into any trouble with the fire extinguisher. "My first robot. That's why he's called Proto." He smiles wryly at the comment. "Yeah, well, if they don't like me, they can just steer clear," he says with a shrug. "Robyn thinks I hate him." Which is true, but he doesn't add that part.
"Robyn thinks most of the world hates him… I think that it is a required thought, being goth and all," she leans back, crossing her arms over her chest and her feet at the ankles. "Which is sorta funny when you think about him sucking people's energy and all. But… whatever," she rolls her shoulders in a dismissive shrug. "I guess my point here is that there's two kinds of guys here… guys who wonder why people hate them, and the guys who hate everyone. I know we have both types on this team, and I wondered if you had thought about how you were gonna deal with boobs watching your back?"
Theo arches his brow. He didn't know about Robyn's powers. He never really asked. But that's not why his brow is raised. "What?" he asks, as if he didn't hear her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
She rolls her clawed fingers in a gesture of 'there ya go'. "See? This is what I am talking about. Lucas does the same thing. So does James. Someone says something critical and it's all teeth and GRAWR," she twitches her nose. "I'm not the kind of person to just sit back and let things happen, so I figure if you have to prove something to everyone, let's get it out of the way so this thing can happen, because Selene… she will *so* not let up for even a second while we play teenagers."
The technopath looks more confused than angry. "No, seriously, what are you talking about? Why would I have problems with a girl on my team? Chloe and Heather and Jill have all been on my squads. Did somebody tell you I hated women or something?" He looks seriously worried about the concept more than angry. This is news to him.
A blink. Then two. "Uh…. no," she says carefully, wary now. She takes a breath, realizing that she needs to slow down. "I am like… the least of your worries. My powers are dorky at best," she twitches her nose. "I am talking about this JRXTC team, and I am talking about how this is going to work out. The whole school talks about how good you are at what you do," she points out. "Now, I don't care who you like and who you don't, but our Advisor here is Selene, and she has assured us that she will kick our asses in this thing. Not maybe, but *will*. I want to make sure we're focused. Do you understand?"
The technopath looks a little more relieved. "Sorry, I'm not all that popular," he admits. "I just try to keep up on what rumors are flying around about me. You're right though, from what Robyn tells me, Selene is pretty much psycho. I was just telling Robyn the same thing the other day. I think we should develop a code system that we can warn each other with if we seem to be letting our emotions get the best of us. Even a way that we can turn the tables on her. She wants control, but if we give and take control from her as one, it'll confuse her. Probably piss her off really good. People who are pissed off make mistakes."
She nods her head, bangs swishing over her nose. "Good. That is what I want to hear," she nods her head again. "I am not sure about a code, but I am willing to go along with what everyone wants. See…." she licks her lips and shifts her weight from foot to foot. "See.. I figure no one else in this school is going to give us this kind of experience. No one here is going to try and kill us, basically," she flashes a toothy grin that has nothing to do with humor. "So, this is like our moment of truth. We could be awesome as a team if we take a moment chillax… I know you could be awesome, and we'd all look fricking fantastic. Our futures could be made."
"Proto, abort!" Theo abruptly calls out. The small robot was about to pull the trigger on the fire extinguisher. "Last thing I need is to lose Proto because he does something stupid," he says to Jinx. "Sorry, I was listening. I think we need to be careful though. I'd rather be alive than get a good experience. Frost is stupid enough to put a serial killer on staff, we shouldn't be stupid enough to trust her judgment, so we need to really watch each others back, too. I'm sure it'll build great critical thinking skills, because if we screw up, it'll be putting us in critical condition."
Jinx's violet eyes light up. Bashing Emma Frost is one of her very favorite things to do. No one should be so perfect. "Dude… she totally *is* a killer herself. I don't know if it is mind control or what, but she basically told me that she would resort to anything to do what's right… what *she* thinks is right." The gossip is juicy and delicious as a ripe plum. "And I am glad to hear you saying all this. It's exactly the reason I came. I am super glad to see that you're as smart as they say and catch on quick."
Theo's deep brown eyes light up as Jinx reciprocates. "Well thank you, it's good to know somebody else on our team isn't either emo or too idealistic. Oh, I have a beautiful story for you. So, Emma wanted to ground me because of something I did," he doesn't mention what. "And she went and called Tony Stark from Japan to sit in. I pissed her off so bad. She wanted me to admit I had done something wrong, so I just held out and refused the whole time. You should've seen how pissed she was." He grins at the memory. It wasn't so fond at the time. "She's a self-absorbed witch with a capital B."
"Oh, of course she is. Made of money… what else do people with lots of money do when they get bored of spending it? They go into 'philanthropy', which is a fancy word for making the lives of kids horrible worldwide," she spreads her paw widely. "But seriously? *The* Tony Stark? I heard some kids from the school saw him at the Mall. I once saw him in Central Park, from sorta far away. That's so awesome."
Theo laughs, "Tony's a friend of mine. He got me a job in his company with R&D," He seems to puff up a little as he says it. No small matter of pride with that. "He's a pretty fun guy. Maybe you can come hang out with us sometime when he gets back. Though, it might not be until January. Emma grounded me until New Year's. I'm going to talk to Scott and see what I can do to get out of it, though."
Jinx's purple eyes go very wide now and she quiets. "He's a friend of yours? Get *out*," she is all a-squee with the possibility. "That guy is a legend. I would need to like, get a really good picture for the image inducer," she chews the side of her lip, pondering just what she'd pick. "That's so amazing Theo. So… what did you do that you got grounded for? Forget to take out the trash?" Now she teases, eyes dancing bright and deliberately trivializing whatever the wrongdoing was.
"I think you should just go as you, you are beautiful just the way you are," Theo compliments her. He realizes after the statement that it might be a little too forward, and turns away to grab the socket wrench and start putting the housing back on the transmission. "I just signed the wrong line of the Driver's Ed form, so she wanted to make it out like I was forging my parents' signature. Completely ridiculous," he says, rolling his eyes.
"Thanks…" her ears dip back with the compliment, and she clears her throat as he realizes his flub and diverts attention. Listening to his story, she is silent a moment. "Did you forge your parent's signature?" She asks him, eyes watching him closely. She uncrosses her arms, and hooks her thumbs into her belt.
Theo stops turning the wrench a moment, but doesn't look back at her while he speaks. "I'm Theodore Fegenbush the third, my dad was the second." Past tense slips, but he's already said it and so he keeps going. "So I guess you could take it that way, from a technical perspective," he explains. There is still a little nervousness present, and he picks a couple of bolts off of the bench and starts placing them back in their holes.
Silent for a moment, she doesn't let it stretch long enough to be awkward. The girl isn't dumb, and learns from his slip, and his words. "I'm in that class. Forge as a teacher…. yeah. " 'Nuf said, there. Another pause and she steps forward, scooping up a couple bolts and moving to hand them to him, balancing them on the black leather of her palm. She wears a fingerless glove, almost invisible against the black of her fur there. "I guess you need to learn to do it better now, don't you?" she murmurs, her head bent so that any camera might never guess she were discussing anything other than the transmission. "I'm saving up for a Camaro."
Theo is is soberly quiet as he puts the next bolt into place, and takes the gracious opportunity to change the subject. He smiles again. "Yeah? What year do you want?" he asks, taking the next bolt from her hand. "If you need any help, I'm in Auto Shop IV, just let me know," he offers.
"I want a new one. As new as I can afford. I want— oh wait," she sets the bolts on the housing and turns, digging in the messenger bag on her shoulder and withdrawing a tattered and folded brochure from the dealership. "This one," she beams, her smile all honey and love for the car of her dreams. It's a Camaro SS in black, with white rally stripes over the hood. "Leather interior, supercharged 350 fuel injection…. " She breathes a breathy sigh. "Yeah. That's what I am gonna do. And thanks for the offer. At least the grease stains don't show on my fur," she grins.
The smile grows broader. "Beautiful machine," Theo adds. "You should ask Scott for one for your birthday. He loves cars!" Of course, the odds of a birthday present that expensive are pretty low. "It'll probably take a while to save the money for something like that."
A heavy roll of her eyes and she takes a step back, giving him his space. "You kidding? Scott *hates* me," she sticks out her tongue. A pause and then a grin. "So I guess between the two of us, we have both the headmasters pissed off at us… I suppose that says something about our power, huh?" She grins again. "I got most of it saved. Maybe I'll get it by graduation." She shrugs again and turns, dragging a claw over the housing of the transmission.
Theo laughs. "Well, I guess you can't win them all," he answers. "I already have my car. It's pretty sweet. I had picked out an old Mustang, but Tony decided to give me a prototype for my birthday as my first project. So who am I to complain?" He finishes reassembling the transmission, and wipes his hands on the rag again. "Of course, I can't use it now. Maybe I can talk Magneto into giving me a directed study on how to un-piss people off. He seems to do pretty well at that, considering he attacked the school a few years ago, but now is on staff here."
Now he sounds like he's bragging, and Jinx flashes him a less than charitable look over her shoulder. "Nice. Jerk," she teases. She steps away from the transmission and circles back towards the door. "I have never seen Magneto here, but I have heard rumors. You ever get the feeling that you need to be a villain to be on staff here? Hard to take them seriously when they all these pasts that we're supposed to overlook… so the way I see it, the best education we can get is from watching how they do it, and from each other." She swishes her tail behind her, a flag of swirling black and white. Contrary to regular striped skunks, Jinx's white are swirling patterns along her shoulders and legs without any direct striping. "We need to get the team together and have pizza or something."
Theo nods, "Yeah, I asked Scott if the point of the squads was to turn us into superheroes, maybe I should've asked if it was to turn us into supervillains. We should get together. I think it could be good. Then when we lure everyone in with pizza, we should get everyone to get all the garbage we have about each other in the open and deal with it, so that Selene doesn't have any ammunition."
She nods her head and taps her temple with her claw. "Just what I was thinking. Take away her weapons that can split us. Plus, pizza," she winks to him and pauses, leaning towards the door. "I'm glad I came looking for you, Theo. You're better than I expected."
