Participants:
| Scene Title | Crono 2 - The Bonding |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Valerie meets her new roommate Kendall, and surprisingly, they have a lot in common, and hit it off immediately despite teen awkwardness. |
| Date | October 18, 2010 |
With Kaylee studying for that test that she's supposed to be studying for, Valerie has the front of the house mostly to herself. Dressed in greens and yellows, she's not really what anyone would call fashionable, more thrown together, as she sits in the front of the apartment watch Missy fussily move around the apartment. The dog's behavior seems to be of great interest to her, as she watches her stick her nose against the bedroom door, whining a little. She wants to be in with her person!
Kendall is a newcomer to the place, having just moved in Friday. Naturally, he's been more or less hiding from the other people present, because he's not good with talking with strangers. (Of course, that's how people stop being strangers, but whatev) At this point, however, he decided to explore the place, so he comes into the room, then blinks at Valerie. It's… a girl, his age. What's he supposed to do with one of those? Maybe…. talk to her. "…hi?"
The door to the bedroom cracks open finally, and Missy lets out a pleased sound before she disappears into the room. Valerie has been in the apartment about as long as Kendall, but has spent a lot of time sleeping and then shopping for new clothes, it's almost as if she hasn't been here at all. Looking over at the new voice, she looks surprised. Someone her own age! "…Hi. You must be Kendall. Kaylee mentioned you'd be staying here too… You must have an interesting story to end up in a place like this."
"Yes, I'm Kendall, and I have a very interesting story. I died." Kendall tells her, with a perfectly straight face. He's even being truthful! "I'm alive again though, so it's all good. I'm not a zombie or anything. There's this whole time warp thing, it's very complicated." pause. "I'm Crono, if that makes sense." he's testing to see if she's a geek. Please say she's a geek, please say she's a geek…
Died and came back. Valerie sits up immediately as it's said. "Do you remember dying?" she asks, very much interested, but Crono may or may not ring any bells, so much as what he says seems to have grabbed her attention. "You're alive cause of a time warp? You were— rescued from the past before you were supposed to die?" She says without real shock that it's possible, but surprise that… "I didn't know that happened to someone…"
"Ah-" oh crap, Melissa told him not to tell anyone that. "Well, I watched myself die, even though it wasn't actually me? Does that count?" Kendall rubs his face. "Er, well… no one's supposed to know that, actually….." yeep. "But secrets are kept well here, right? I mean, Ferry, and all."
"I won't tell anyone," Valerie says, looking relieved at the fact that he was able to not die so much as… She understands wanting to keep it secret. Better than most. "That's— actually how I came here too. I was supposed to have died a couple days ago. I actually don't know if I died, cause of what happened, but I was trapped somewhere on the edge of Midtown on November eight— That was last week to me." And four years to everyone else? "I wasn't going to tell anyone who didn't know, so— don't tell anyone my secret either. My name's Valerie— I'm Kaylee's little sister." Four years littler than she should be, too.
"Oh…. really?" Kendall blinks at Valerie. "You've gone through a timewarp too? Huh. So I'm not the only one, then. Did you have anything special done to make it seem like you were dead? I had to use an illusion so that I actually did die, to everyone around me. Then they went through an entire month thinking I was dead."
"Not… really. I guess I must have been missing and persumed dead after the explosion. I looked it up and the apartment I lived in was right in the blast zone." Valerie says, though something in what he says has caught her attention, at the same time. "I guess everyone who I knew thought I'd died four years ago." But— "You made an illusion of yourself? How did you do that?"
Kendall considers. "Well, uh, I'm not entirely sure how I do it, but…" hmm, what can he do, for a demonstration? Aha. "Objection!" he suddenly yells, pointing out his finger, and the trademark white and red speech bubble appears over his head. ….why yes, he's a video game geek. Got a problem with it? "…kinda like that. I can make stuff appear."
"Wow, that's— that's amazing," Valerie says, blue eyes brightening with an impressed look, as she glances toward the slightly open door that the whining dog disappeared into a few moments ago, as if checking to make sure her sister isn't easedropping. "I've never seen anyone who can do that before, the bubble. It looks really neat. Where'd it come from?" She's been gone for four years, alas.
Kendall blinks at Valerie. "Huh? It's… are you not Evolved?" oh shit. He just screwed up AGAIN, didn't he?
"No, no, I am, I just— they weren't known to people back when I come from," Valerie says, that confused look she is getting unfortunately used to comeing back. When she comes from— it's a bit of a culture shock. Four years ago, abilities weren't publicly talked about. Ever. "I've just never seen anyone who can do that."
"Well I am pretty unique." awww, Kendall's bragging to a girl. That's cute. "But I know what you mean. Up until a little more than half a year ago, I didn't want anyone knowing I had powers either. My parents…" he hesitates. "My parents found out I was Evolved, and kicked me out. In the middle of that freakish snowstorm that almost destroyed the city. I was lucky that I got picked up by people who didn't care, otherwise I would've died."
"Those don't sound like very good parents," Valerie says, making a wrinkled nose expression at the thought of how he was treated, because of what he could do. "I had a weird upbringing, though— You're probably the first person my own age I've ever had a chance to talk to for long. I never even went to school. I had tutors my whole life."
Kendall blinks. "Oh, really? Well, I'm kinda… not going to school, either. Since I 'died', it'd be kinda weird if I suddenly started going to school again. And my schools had a habit of getting destroyed. My middle school when the Bomb went off, and my high school got blown up by terrorists. So…. yeah. And my parents were…" sigh. "They expected me to be perfect, and when I proved not to be, they got rid of me lest I mess up their image. I'm fairly certain my dad was a Humanis First sympathizer, if not more than that."
"Since they'll need to find both of us new identities eventually, you can always ask that your new identity be graduated. I know I'm going to ask that if I was declared dead," Valerie says, smiling a bit. "I don't want to have to take my GED again. I already studied for it once." And that seems like enough. "If you want to do that instead, I could teach you. I know a lot of things— Physics, Math, History, Japanese… My favorite thing is architecture, though. I love buildings."
"Wow, what a coincidence. I know a lot about architecture too! My dad's one. Somewhat famous in the area, he did a lot of homes on the Upper West Side when they rebuilt things after the Bomb went off. I think he wanted me to be one too, but I'd rather be a comic book artist." Kendall nods. "…Japanese? You know Japanese?" oooooooohh.
The things in common keep stacking up. Valerie scoots closer a bit, leaning in with interest at the tale of his dad, even if he'd rather have gone into comic books. "Your dad sounds like he's not a very good dad, anyway." A bigot, is the polite term? Perhaps. "Yeah, my dad wanted me to learn Japanese, so I had tutors for a few years who spent a lot of time teaching me how to speak it, and read and write it. What kind of comic books do you want to draw?"
"Well, I'm not entirely sure, I've toyed with the idea of making a doujinshi, but I think I'm a bigger fan of superhero comic books. Like Green Lantern, or heck, Scott Pilgrim, anyone can draw that." Kendall grins.
"Doujinshi?" Valerie repeats, though the way she says it seems slightly different. The translation of it doesn't mean what he's talking about, not to her, at least. "I'm afraid I don't know much about comic books, I didn't get have a lot of people to share that stuff with me." Ever before. "But I could learn."
"Yeah, you know, manga that fans write and draw to imitate the real thing. There's lots out there. There's even some that have been published, like a Phoenix Wright one. Well, it's based on a video game, but. It's a volume with about 10 different doujinshi artists. But anyway, if you're not into comic books, how about video games?" Kendall is definitely a nerd.
"I've never seen them enough to be into them," Valerie says, looking a little embarassed, even if she's also interested, at the same time. "Kaylee tried to catch me up on the last four years of movies, but— I didn't tell her that my experience with movies tended to be… old. All my tutors were in their forties and fifties. But I did get to watch a lot of old Samurai movies when I was learning Japanese… Could you let me borrow some video games?"
"Not only that, you can play them with me. I've got a few multiplayer games." Kendall's sounding really happy about this. She's willing to learn! "I can also get you some recent movies." Melissa did leave all her movies in the LGH, maybe he can pilfer some when she's not around to notice.
"Okay!" Valerie says, genuinely appearing to be excited about the idea. Willing to be exposed to new things. It's certainly better than all the hiding from everyone that's been pushed upon her since she came back. There's a lot she missed out on, living like she did. And she knows it. Then she tangents, backwards in the conversation, "How big of an illusion can you make?"
"Uh…." Kendall frowns. "I…. don't know. I've never tried to make a really large one. The largest I've ever made was…. a YuGiOh monster, but it wasn't any bigger than, say…" he glances up at the ceiling. "Eight feet tall, or so. I mean, I'm not sure I could make it look like the Statue of Liberty was taking a stroll downtown or anything."
"What's a YuGiOh monster look like?" Valerie asked, still very interested in his ability, though she doesn't seem disappointed he can't make the Statue of Liberty walk through downtown. "Do you have to study something a lot before you can make it?"
"Not at all, although at first, I had to draw what I wanted in order for it to show up. That changed, a few months ago, now I just need a prop, or a specific pose, like I did earlier. I can't make anything without a trigger, though. I've tried." Kendall shrugs. "Ah… YuGiOh monsters, well…. there's a lot of them. Hundreds. They're from an anime, and it's a card game."
"Does it look like a two-dimensional object or does it look real?" Valerie asks, apparently stuck on the questions of his ability. "Can you show me one of those monsters? Or— something cuter than a monster maybe. Do they make cute monsters? Like bunny rabbit monsters, or something?"
"…it looks real." Kendall sniggers. "Oh, there's lots of cute ones. Be right back." off he goes, to the room that's now his, and he comes back five minutes later with a half dozen cards. They bear names such as Rescue Cat, Hanewata, Mecha Bunny, Spore, Elefun, and Kuriboh. One by one, he lifts them up, saying the name, and the monsters appear around him.
One by one, Valerie's eyes brighten and she lets out a small laugh at the cutest ones, reaching out to try and touch them, to see if they're solid. "That's amazing. I couldn't do anything like this. It's like they each have their own personalities, even— do you control all of what they do?"
"Well more or less. I mean, I can make them do things that it'd be expected." Rescue Cat rubs against Valerie's leg, and it feels like a real cat…. wearing a hardhat. The others, minus Mecha Bunny, just kinda float in the air.
"It even feels real— you have an amazing gift, Kendall," Valerie says, touching the hardhat kitty with her hand, and petting it gently. "Do they have to stay close to you? How far can you be from an illusion that you create? I'm guessing you probably have to see it? But can you create them through binoculars or something?"
"I… don't know that either. Oh! But actually, once I make an illusion, so long as the people around me thinks it's there, I don't have to be present anymore. I was told once that something I made stayed even after I left. I think I put the images and sounds and stuff directly into peoples' minds, so as long as they still believe it's there, it stays. So…" Kendall shrugs his shoulders, and one by one the monsters disappear, Rescue Cat vanishing last as he stacks the cards.
"So your ability is partially telepathic, too— you anchor the image into their minds," Valerie says, as if that makes perfect sense to her, looking a little sad to no longer have the creature in her hands. It was, after all, very cute. "So do you have any video games here now? We could try playing one of your favorites." He'll just have to go easy on her— she's a newbie.
"Hmmm. I guess so. What is it you do, by the way? You said you were Evolved, but…" well, if she doesn't want to say, Kendall won't press her. "Ah, as for games, uh… it's not multiplayer, but it's very easy and a lot of fun. It's called Katamari Damacy." it's trippin' balls, yo. Literally.
There's a knowing smile that tugs on the corner of her mouth. "I'll show you later, since you were so nice to show me," Valerie says with a smile, before she stands up and gets read to get introduced to this Katamari Damacy game. "Dad always said I was a quick learner, so hopefully that'll apply to video games, too!"
"Ok, let's go." after all, Kaylee told him he could hook up his game systems to her nice bigscreen TV, so the gaming experience should be fantastic. Kendall grabs the game, makes sure the PS3 is hooked up, and loads the game. And a very catchy song starts playing…