come the fuck on

[hemomancer]

It's a bright New England winter day. Xan and Leo have elected to take the tunnels from Poe dorm to the Powers Theory classroom, because regardless of their Exemplar ratings, they're still from California and it's eight degrees out. And the tunnels have central heating. Glorious, glorious central heating.

In the middle of an extended diatribe against artificial turf, Xan opens the door to Schuester Hall, which is... not the door to Schuester Hall.

Xan peers at it. "Are we being pranked or something? Has someone not been informed that I piss napalm?"

"You bleed napalm," notes Leo. "If you were pissing it we'd have a medical issue on our hands. Somebody could've thrown up an illusion, but I don't really see the point of replacing Schuester with... a bar? With some chick inside? Like, what, we're going to whip out our fake IDs and get in trouble? But Mom always says that if you can't see the point of a trap then whoever set it is smarter than you are. Let's go down the hall and take the south door."

"Jesus Christ," Xan mutters, hauling Leo in by the arm. "Let's avoid the cool-as-shit magic bar, he says. You're such a fucking girl."

Leo makes a noise of protest. "I'm working on that! And I object to your manhandling!"

"Shut up."

"Okay."

They behold the bar. It's a very nice bar. It has a window to some exploding stars. "Huh. I'm... pretty sure that's magic of some kind," notes Leo.

"So am I, dipshit, we're both wizards."

"Just making conversation."

Comments

[andomega]

"Very true on all counts. Anyway, that dimensional portal dealie isn't coming back any time soon, so I have the... privilege... of getting an eighteen-year-old girl matriculated into my school halfway through the term. Despite the fact that you're not even a mutant and your magic is like nothing we have in this universe. Sure do love my job."

[callmeleo]

"Wait, she's not a mutant?"

[andomega]

"Of course she's not a mutant, you little twit, she's from another universe, they don't even have the meta-gene complex there. The grown-ups are talking, get to your class. And Richardson, hide your damn flasks better, I don't even need to turn on my clairvoyance to see those things."

[stonedtimewitch]

"I have no real idea what I am or what meta-gene is, I just do time shit," Damara says. She fidgets with a lighter in her pocket. "There any way I can make you think I need blunt for medical reason?" She's a bit nervous despite her demeanor and she really wants something to smoke.

[andomega]

"You're not my student yet, feel free. Tell me about the kind of time shit you can do."

[stonedtimewitch]

She takes the one not-bar-provided blunt she has been saving and lights it. "I can touch things and make them old really," she explains, visibly calming down from the mere action of smoking. "It easy with dead things but with live things I can't age them. I just slow them down. I traveled before but it require timing something." She takes out a small music player she had tied around her neck and opens it. A gentle tune starts playing and a second Damara is now standing behind the teacher, her music player is almost done with its song. "I go back and front as long as this plays." The initial Damara does the time jump required to make this loop work. "That about it, I can go further but I only done it once... I really pissed that day." She leans against the wall, trying to pass of magic induced fatigue by slouching rebelliously and blowing out a cloud of smoke.

[andomega]

Johanna nods. "I'd classify that as... Warp 4t;b, if I had to make a guess. Which I do. Any other abilities?"

[stonedtimewitch]

"I good with needles and can eat lots of sweets without stopping," she offers. "Also I do this." She blows out a near perfect smoke ring. She had a lot of time to figure out how to do that.

[andomega]

"Impressive. What exactly can you do with needles?"

[stonedtimewitch]

"Knit a scarf, what else could I possibly do with needles and with someones neck," she says with an innocent smile. "I can make small magic go through yarn too but that about it."

[andomega]

"I'd recommend that you go for the crotch or gut while you're here. Still incapacitating, hurts a hell of a lot worse, but it isn't immediately fatal, and we've got healers for that. What kind of small magic?"

[stonedtimewitch]

"Like my normal time spell but not as strong and a little energy spell. It weak, like sticking fork into outlet."

[andomega]

"Hm. So, maybe PK 1a. I'd like to see if you could learn to do that without the needles; you don't necessarily follow our rules, but it still sounds like a crutch. And you'll probably spend some time trying to strengthen the effect. At any rate, that's a starting classification, and I'll let the lab techs at you next week or so. Now, for less nerdy chores. I can get you a full scholarship and a legal identity on the basis of your 'traumatic manifestation', so that shouldn't be a problem. You might have to take on a part-time job for the scholarship's sake unless you're comfortable mooching off Mr. Santacruz. Which you may be, I suppose. And you'll have to determine where you want to live. Of the cottages, the ones that you could fit into without irritating maneuvering would be Dickinson and Poe, which serve as the non-monstrous women's dorm and the queers' dorm, respectively. Richardson and Santacruz live in the latter, if that's a factor."

[stonedtimewitch]

Damara shrugs, "I guess dorm with those boys work, they cute enough. I guess I can do job but my English reading kind of shit so if you want me to be secretary find someone who like my skirt. Anything to worry about when your lab boys probe me? Will I need to bring lube?"

[andomega]

"Good call, Dickinson is full of bitches. I barely graduated from there without a body count. We've already got a full complement of secretariat, I'm afraid; scholarship jobs are mostly cleaning work. Sewer duty has the highest pay, and you get to kill monsters. Otherwise there's various janitorial jobs, landscaping, et cetera. And the lab boys are very professional, I assure you. Plus, they'll be absolutely terrified of you, so you'd be safe regardless."

[stonedtimewitch]

"Okay, I bitch enough for entire dorm anyway. Maybe I take job to kill shit, it sound fun but I not sure about walking in shit while doing it. Why that problem you have anyway? Do you not have grates in this world or do lab techs keep dropping waste down there to mutate the rats?"

[andomega]

"Some chucklefuck decided to install a portal to Hell down there, and it leaks occasionally. But there are also horrible sewer mutants. More albino crocodiles than giant rats, though."

[stonedtimewitch]

"Why the fuck would you do that? How the fuck would you do that?... also you want drink? I still have bottle from magic bar and your wrinkles tell me you need lots of alcohol."

[andomega]

"How: lots of magical unpleasantness and some human sacrifice. Why: probably to destroy the world, or something? I'd love a drink, but I've got brandy in my office, so you can keep your Chateau du Cat Piss with my blessing. Do you need food, or should I show you to Poe?"

[stonedtimewitch]

"Take me to my room and then point me in the direction of the sweets." She takes the small bottle out and tosses it into a trash can behind her. "Does anyone give shit about alcohol rules here?"

[andomega]

"Adults who aren't me, yes. I'm just more conscious of the inherent hypocrisy in telling you not to imbibe whatever, so I refuse to pretend to care. Plus I'm pretty sure you're eighteen, so any sensible country would let you drink anyway. And for the record, I never said any of that."

She starts off briskly eastwards through the labyrinth of tunnels.

[stonedtimewitch]

She smiles and puts out her blunt. She likes this woman more than she liked anyone in her old highschool. In her head she is memorizing the route, keeping time in her head for how long she needs to go down each corridor. "Whoever designed this place probably came from that portal, how you remember all of it?"

[andomega]

"Well, let's see. I have an eidetic memory... my mental processing speed is several dozen times that of a human... I have the ability to instinctually determine the best path to take at any time... I can read the future... I can see the power lines in the walls leading to Poe... the ley lines are aligned with the house of Venus... and I guess I've always just had kind of a knack for finding my way around."

[stonedtimewitch]

"Not fair, I demand map or a phone app or something. You even have phones in this world? Actually what do you have in this world, that probably biggest question. I know there is weed and chocolate but what about less important shit?" Damara is slowly realizing that she might be taking this a little too calmly.

[andomega]

Johanna pauses. "Ugh. Alright, I'm going to brave the precog headache to map out the differences between our worlds. Be very grateful, please."

Her eyes glow with a bright, flickery light. After a few minutes of this, she closes her eyes and pops a Devisor-made headache pill. "Fuckering hell. Okay. So, you don't actually know most of the things unique to your world, but you'll be pleased to hear that we don't have the Wardens- those are the fuckers with the swords. Our world diverges from the public face of your world in around 1940, when folks started popping up with weird superpowers. Bare-bones on that: there are superheroes and supervillains, the morality on that is a damn sight greyer than it sounds like it should be, people are super fucking prejudiced against people with superpowers, who are called mutants. There have been literal torch-and-pitchfork mobs. For some reason our celebrities line up pretty well, but this verse's tech is way more advanced because we have mad scientists and they patent shit. Also, we have mad science drugs, which are cool. There's some geographical differences, there's an island in the Pacific made and owned by a supervillain and a lot of the former Soviet bloc is mutant-controlled. And Detroit got nuked a couple of years ago. That's the overview."