TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


2

Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler | X-Men Movieverse (AU) | Option 1

[quiteafew]

Kurt's eyes flew open when the hum of jet engines abruptly cut out, wondering for a heart-stopping moment if they were being attacked again. But there's no screaming, no shriek of metal, and this is most definitely not the plane he'd been in a few moments before.

For starters, even modified fighter jets (he assumes that's what the Blackbird was; Kurt knows old land vehicles, not planes) generally don't have room for what looks like a dolphin tank. For another, even the ones who called themselves his fellow mutants don't look at him with the amount of nonchalance that the other people in the immediate area are. It reminds him of the circus, or would if not for everything else being so alien.

Tightening his grasp around the metal rosary in his hand, Kurt begins to gravitate toward the dolphin tank. It's out of the way compared to where he had been, and familiar enough in that those creatures haven't seemed to change. And they're calming, which he suspects he may need soon.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko likes the aquatics lab, even if maaaaaaybe she isn't supposed to be in it but in her defense nobody said squat about not being able to swim with the dolphins and she's not clairvoyant; but hey, what the crew doesn't comment on won't incriminate her or alert the rather annoyingly irritable captain of this boat. She's absorbed in watching the marine tricks, the splashing and chirping between the animals as they play, and doesn't notice the other mutant in the room until his reflection, blurry and distorted, colors the glass beside her.

That blue is hard to miss and even harder to resist, and the clicking of rosary beads cements it, a smile already touching her face as she turns. "Kurt!"

And that...that is not her Kurt. The fingers, the tail, the color, yes; but he's conspicuously missing the fur. And the solidness of his yellow eyes. And the sheer size of the man's presence in any given room, because her Nightcrawler had never seemed shy, not like this where any of her age group could see it. "...Who are you?"

[quiteafew]

His head turns instantly when he hears his name, a sharpness to the movement that could indicate reasons to his reticence beyond mere shyness. He could also simply have quick reflexes; his build is similar enough to certain other versions of himself that a similar career path is likely.

"You had the name right the first time," he answers slowly, eyebrows drawing together. She doesn't look familiar to him, and if it weren't for her calling him by name Kurt would assume she didn't know him either. "My name is Kurt Wagner."

[electro_kinetic]

"Uh."

Noriko is still blinking at him as she studies the man in the coat; there are enough things right that it's confusing when she sees one wrong. He even has the sharp teeth, though. "You... You look a lot like a friend of mine. Same..." Well, this is going to be awkward. "Same everything, really, except for your face. And he was furry."

She isn't reacting badly, all told; she's used to her own version of Kurt, and so this guy being blue and having a tail is so far out of the realm of being a problem that it's laughable to think anyone would take offense. "You move like you were in the circus too."

[quiteafew]

"Fur would have been very useful in winter, though I dread your friend's summer." The words come from knowing absolutely nothing else to say. He isn't a unique creature in the mind of humanity; many religions and folklore have creatures in them that resemble Kurt. Some of them are even benign.

But this young lady is talking about someone she knows, presumably another human being, who looks like him. That throws him for a loop, long enough for silence to stretch while his mind wraps around the concept. On realizing thus (and that he's been staring, probably while looking completely flabbergasted,) Kurt looks away, coincidentally toward the rest of the lab.

"Entschuldigung," he murmurs in apology, his shoulders drawing in more than their normal set. "I am not very used--nein, accustomed, to people saying they know someone who looks like me."

[electro_kinetic]

"He sheds," she murmurs absently, still watching him, though more like she's trying to make sure he's...not her Kurt after a bad shaving accident than like she's concerned about than that he looks like a demon.

"I have no idea what that means," Noriko says, blank. "I..let me just show you," she continues, pulling her phone--now mostly a game engine and a photo repository--out to flip over to a picture of Kurt backbent and looking at the camera. "This is my Kurt. The one I know."

[quiteafew]

It would have to be one interesting shaving accident to leave scars like those. The whorls carved into his skin have been done with an artist's hand and carefully treated to heal cleanly and in relief to the skin. The scars twist as Kurt makes a face, thinking of how much the process of shedding must itch. And all the little hairs everywhere!

"It means an apology," he murmurs, leaning closer to look at the little screen. His eyebrows raise when the picture comes up, his tail swishing behind him. "He's younger," the words blurted out as Kurt himself bends to peer more closely. The fur he can see, and the eyes that are almost nothing like his own. The tail looks different, mostly that the spade appears to be smaller than his own and he can't see the bone ridge (but that could be the angle). And it could be that the wrinkles that he himself is developing around the eyes and mouth are hidden by fur, but this other Kurt's cheeks are a little plumper, his body a little leaner. He looks very much like himself, not so many years ago.

[electro_kinetic]

"Oh," she says, handing the phone over so he can see it as close as he likes.

"He's...older than me? By a good bit." She can't help but find the parallels in the Kurt she knows and the one she's looking at, between the blue and the teeth and the faint German accent--or not so faint in this case. "Are you both Catholic?"

[quiteafew]

Murmuring his thanks, he cradles the phone in a care-worn and callused hand. Instead of even attempting to navigate with his thick fingers, Kurt snakes his tail over a shoulder. Using the spade of his tail, he zooms in on the picture with a deftness that implies experience.

Hm. Not so young, maybe? The fur really makes it difficult to tell whether the other man's begun developing wrinkles, and for the first time he feels a deep kinship with those who've had a difficult time telling his age. "And I much more, I imagine," he answers offhand, looking up from the phone when the young lady asks about his religion. Kurt smiles then, a wide and bright expression that creases the corners of his mouth lightly. "If he is, then yes. We would both be Catholic."

Re: Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler | X-Men Movieverse (AU) | Option 1

[agathaheterodyne]

Agatha looked up and smiled warmly at him, before going back to observing the dolphins. She had missed the presence of obvious constructs. His blue skin reminded her of home, and she wondered what he had been built for.

Much like these dolphins. Unfortunately, the dolphins all looked... like dolphins. For the life of her, she couldn't figure out how they had been modified, and it was driving her crazy, not knowing.

[quiteafew]

It's in Kurt's nature to return a smile given, even when that means showing more than perhaps is wise of his narrow teeth. The tips are sharp, but he's old enough now to hide that under most circumstances.

For a few moments he watches the dolphins in silence, breaking the silence with a soft question. "To ask you whether I am hallucinating all this would be very silly, wouldn't it? To expect the truth if I were and you were part of it?"

[agathaheterodyne]

When she had seen the teeth she had been startled, but into a wider smile. Another Jaeger? She had never seen one quite that shade...

And then he spoke and she tilted her head. No Jager, then. She enjoyed their company, though she knew few did. Knowing they meant her no harm helped. Well, there was Vole, but he hardly counted...

She chuckled lightly. "You really are on a space dirigible," she assured him. "No hallucination."

[quiteafew]

That reaction is unusual to see from someone he doesn't know, but certainly one he's seen before. In the circus it was common, particularly when he'd accidentally startle one of the fellow workers while moving around in the shadow.

His expression remains unchanged until she describes the ship as a dirigible; English is neither his first nor his second language, and while the word sounds familiar the definition is one he can't quite put his thumb on.

"You'll have to forgive me," he says, eyebrows still drawn together in thought. "I know the word, but I can't quite remember the definition. Do you mean to say a ship?"

[agathaheterodyne]

"Well yes, an airship," she said, then considered, "Well, they claim it is a space ship, but fundamentally the concepts must be similar. I would know with more confidence, but they don't generally let us into the engine room or wherever it is they steer it from.

She made a face. "Admittedly I never got to see where Castle Wulfenbach was steered from either, so I might not be able to compare there... but I bet if they let me take the mechanism apart, I could not only understand it, but improve it!"

[quiteafew]

Do forgive the silence on Kurt's part; the part about their being in space has just sunk in. A very loud part of him doesn't want to believe it's possible; he grew up in twentieth century Germany, not the fifteenth century. What he's seen is far and beyond what he knows is possible.

"A space ship," he murmurs, raising a hand comprising of three digits to rub at his forehead. "But this is--you said you would understand how this ship works? Do you know how it was that I would have come to be here?"

He might be less inclined to believe her if he weren't under the impression that Castle Wulfenbach were a literal castle, instead of a whimsical ship name.

Posting from my iPad, please excuse errors and brevity.

[agathaheterodyne]

"How you came to be here seems to have very little to do with how this ship operates. There is a being called Q who uses some sort of science I have never seen before. He doesn't stay around long enough to be studied," she said, mourfully. "But all of us were somewhere else one moment, then somewhere here on the ship. The technology here is fascinating, however, and most of the people are quite nice!"

You're fine. Sorry for the delay, Easter and work ate my time

[quiteafew]

His head is beginning to hurt--or spin, Kurt's not quite certain which. His tail winds around his own ankle before he forces it to fall slack.

"I have noticed that I draw little attention here." Which is why the concept of being in space isn't one he automatically rejects out of hand; it isn't his preferred genre, but he's read enough science fiction to wager that in a different world his appearance would be quite unremarkable. "Forgive me if I assume wrongly, but you speak like a scientist--or an engineer, perhaps?"

[reincarnshaman]

A black cat appears next to Kurt and starts chasing after his tail in the way that cats do when something moving catches their attention. She hasn't tackled it yet, she's just stalking and batting at it.

[quiteafew]

The movement of shadow catches his eye and Kurt half-turns, just in time to feel the swat of a little paw against the spade of his tail. He grins, a warm expression that brightens his face, and begins to dart his tail to and fro, more like a mouse or rabbit (probably a lot more like a rabbit, as Kurt has hunted them enough to know how they move.)

[reincarnshaman]

This is fantastic, in the cat's opinion, at least. She continues to try and pounce on the tail, occasionally vanishing and reappearing in an attempt to get ahead of it. The strange tail thing must be conquered!

[quiteafew]

The first time the cat vanishes Kurt freezes, stunned. He just barely manages to yank his tail out of the way in time, eyes still wide.

"What in the world are you," he murmurs, obviously not expecting any kind of answer because this is a cat. Which teleports, and gives him a wicked idea. The next time the feline lunges Kurt teleports himself a foot away, vanishing and reappearing in puffs of smoke.

[reincarnshaman]

And now the cat is miffed. HOW DARE YOU STEAL HER TRICK. She starts stalking and circling him, tail twitching.

"She's an ordinary house cat," a red haired man with an Irish accent says walking up to the two of them. "Well an ordinary house cat that teleports." He scratches the back of his head some what sheepishly.

"Every test we've run on her, blood work to magery, says she's a domestic short haired house cat. But that's familiars for you. Perfectly normal except some weird little thing."

[quiteafew]

Kurt's just going to lean on a nearby wall, bringing his feet up a moment later so that he's suspended on the wall. Chasing his tail is one thing, but he rather would avoid kitty teeth in his ankles.

And that's where he is when the other man walks up, Kurt's face jerking away from the cat and toward him when he speaks. An apology is on his tongue for startling him--essentially, by existing while looking so strange--but like most other people here, the man doesn't seem bothered.

"A familiar, then? A little different from what I'm accustomed, but this seems to be a place for it. She's beautiful."

[reincarnshaman]

Trever has seen weirder under his bed at home. Well, actually under his cousin's bed. The poor thing had unfortunately picked the wrong child to try and scare and got a spear in its foot for its trouble. Trever has also killed weirder things, but only if they needed killing, not just for being weird. So, no, Kurt doesn't bother him at all, though he is mentally going through his 'files' of creatures to try and figure out what he is. He doesn't pick demon because they don't exist in his world.

"Aye. And she knows it too. Be nice to the man, Veena," Trever says right before Veena pounces. She stops what she's doing and starts to groom herself industriously, like she totally meant to do that. Completely. Wasn't going to pounce the guy at all.

"She's the only one of her kind... well. No. I lie. Four out of her six kittens can do the same trick. But up until then she was the only known domestic cat that could teleport."

[quiteafew]

Good luck trying to figure that out without asking. Before he'd heard the word 'mutant' and what it meant, Kurt had spent most of his life wondering if he were some sort of fairy child. Demonic heritage was right out considering how many of his adopted mother's talismans would have singed him, not to mention that carving Enochian into his skin as he has would have likely killed him. But the Fair Folk are strange in appearance and deed, and if his mother had been human it would explain why iron holds no poison for him.

Veena's little show of nonchalance brings a laugh out of Kurt, or rather the body language and expressions involved with none of the sound. For a man whose face can be frightening, he has a bright smile that reflects warmth easily. "Oh, the only one? Perhaps that's why she was stalking me; she didn't like someone else doing her trick."