Participants:
| Scene Title | Gamer Girl |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Bonding time over GTA4, tales of brave exploits, and— was that a kiss? |
| Date | June 23, 2009 |
Magnes' apartment
It's evening, and Magnes has fully prepared for Elle's visit. He still has plenty of left over Game Fuel from Minea's sitting behind his blue Superman emblem beanbag chair, with a black Batman emblem one next to him. His room is modestly sized and covered in all sorts of comic posters, most notably a 5 foot Lois Lane poster above his bed, and a 6 foot Starfire in a bikini poster right next to it. He has 9th Wonders comics sitting on shelves circling around the room's walls, and all sorts of figurines sitting in various areas of the room, ranging from anime to comic book characters. The most notable thing in his room is probably the wooden entertainment center, not because of the television, which is only around twenty inches and not even HD (Someone should teach him to use his salary), but because of the vast collection of games, from SNES to 360 and Wii.
In his Superman chair, Magnes has a good ol' fashioned pizza on a large dish, but there's no box to be found. It smells a hell of a lot better than anything you'll find in a typical Pizza Hut, because this is a home made pepperoni pizza with all sorts of herbs and spices on it. Now he just waits for Elle to arrive.
Being removed from the active assignment roster is nice, in some respects. It means that Elle doesn't have a whole hell of a lot to be doing with her nights, besides unpacking, and consequently it isn't long before she shows up at Magnes' door. The agent is under watch, of course, as she usually is when she leaves Primatech— and particularly now, the way things have fallen into place since her return. Not that she's had any intention of going anyplace but right to her given destination! Tonight, Elle is a good little girl who's word is as shiny as a new nickel.
… ~Ding dong~.
Quickly standing up and awkardly racing to the door with a few tumbles, Magnes exits his room and opens the front door for her, smiling with deep redness in his cheeks. "Ah, uh, hey, Elle! I'm glad you could come, I got everything set up, I even made pizza from scratch."
When Magnes lets the door open, Elle can be seen leaning against the doorframe, arms folded. She smiles up at him, easing herself off the side so she can follow the agent-in-training inside. "Smells great," she notes appreciatively as she steps over the threshold, glancing around at her surroundings. Whoa, he wasn't kidding about the comic and game geekery.
Magnes closes the apartment door, leading Elle into his room, then closes that door as well, gesturing to the Batman beanbag. "I uh, hope the room isn't too much." Hey, at least he finally started having normal bedsheets! Well, if no one gets the obvious red and yellow Flash color scheme reference. He plops down on the Superman bag, then just stares up at her, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "So uh, we're in my room. You ever play a video game before?"
Truthfully? Well, just another benefit of living an impossibly cloistered life. With weight leaning into one hip, Elle looks down at Magnes from her still-standing position, gazing at his face for a moment before shaking her head. Her eyes are alive with a kind of entertained curiosity. "I really haven't. You gonna to ask me to play one?"
"I am! I showed someone else this game too, when it was their first time. I think it's a really good first game, as long as you don't have a problem with violence." Magnes has already set the game up, he just had to turn the television on, and it's GTA 4! "Alright, so basically, you can do whatever you want. Steal cars, beat up bums, shoot people. Uh, it's a little violent, just saying."
With a gleam of a roguish smile: "Oh, I'm okay with… playing it rough. Don't worry about me." Beside Magnes, the blonde focuses on settling down onto the Batman beanbag and arranging herself into a cross-legged position, reaching for the controller lying on the floor in front of her. Once it's in her lap she tilts her head at the array of colorful buttons, as if the letters on them are inscribed in another language, and then glances over at Magnes. "So. What do I do?"
"Ah, uh, here." Magnes moves the pizza behind them, next to the sodas, so he can scoot his beanbag next to her's and reach for her hands. It's just like showing someone to play golf! Sort of. "So uh, watch my fingers." he says as he presses her fingers over the buttons. "The stick moves you around, this jumps, that shoots, these buttons up here changes weapons, this one steals cars…" He pretty much goes on like that, attempting to show her how to do anything, though he's very patient. "I uh, you getting this?"
It's an odd sensation, having Magnes's fingers maneuvering hers around the totally foreign landscape of a game controller. Not really an unwelcome one, though. She twists her head over her shoulder to glance at him, her brief and interested gaze pointing up towards his face, before looking straight ahead again. With a 'hm', she sets the thing down and folds her hands curtly. "How 'bout I watch you do it, first."
"S-sure, Elle." Magnes doesn't move his bag away though, apparently just fine with sitting right next to her. "You can try the pizza before it gets cold, I know not many people get to try homemade pizza." He quickly steals a car in the game, knocking out some guy in a hawaiian shirt, then goes driving off, doing drivebys, ramming into people, then gets chased by the police; he loves the police chases. They chase him down that hill just like when he was playing with Veronica, then he hits a ramp at full speed, flying over a boat in the water, then jumps out of the car just as it hits the water and explodes. "I thought I'd like, you know, show off…"
Elle obliges, rising to go grab one of the aforementioned slices of pizza off the table. She hasn't had dinner, after all, and she's close to starving. Once she's back, leaning to take a bite as she holds a napkin underneath it, she doesn't seem to have an objection to sitting right next to Magnes either. She watches intensely for a while as he goes off on his virtual spree, sucking a spot of grease off her thumb as she looks at him sideways, eyes wide. "Wow, you're really good at this."
"Well, lots of practice and all, y'know?" Magnes gives a modest smile, swimming the guy back up on to dry land. "Oh, uh, I forgot! I got a present for you. I saw you doing electric stuff and well, I just thought you'd get a kick out of it or something." He passes the controller over to her, then leans forward, digging through the DVDs in his entertainment center, then pulls out a Superman DVD. "I was thinking, when you kept shocking me, you remind me of Livewire. I mean, she's a villain and all, but she's a cool villain." He offers the DVD, smiling in amusement. "Can you travel through wires?"
Taking the controller, Elle rests it in her lap as her expression of interest evolves into one of puzzlement. When she sees what is to be presented to her, her chin comes off her hands and she takes the DVD, flipping it over in her hands and gazing at both sides. "Aww, Magnes," she says, amused delight on her face. What she does next might or might not be unexpected: she leans right over, brushing her lips against the gravitokinetic's cheek in an electric ~kiss~. BZZT. That's her thanks! Only then does she sit back, satisfied.
"Nah, I can't travel through wires. That'd be cool, though. All I can do is make it as it comes." To prove her point, electric lines zap from four of her fingertips and coalesce into a hovering, soft-blue sphere, just above her palm. See?
"Wow, it's like, some anime thing. I can't shoot stuff, well, I don't think I can." Magnes reaches over to lightly touch her right arm before releasing it, attempting to shift the gravity of her arm from down to up. It's no lighter or heavier than before, but she'll find her arm trying to swing up as if that were the natural direction for it to hang. "It'll only last for thirty seconds. I uh, change gravity. I don't know if you saw that whole fight on the news or not…"
He's also very very bright from the kiss.
Whoooa. The electricity near Elle's hand zaps out as her arm sort of floats upwards of its own volition; she clamps her other hand over it to force it down to her side, even though that makes it feel like she's holding it over her head. This is… weird. She blinks several times in succession. "Yeah, I figured, after watching you leap upside-down the other day. And if you're talking about the fight where you were in Japan?— I heard about it. Didn't see it, though." Sorry. There's been other things on her mind, understandably. "I expect you'll wanna tell me all about what happened?" As her arm settles back to normal, her voice becomes mildly teasing.
"I uh, well, if you're not gonna tell me how irresponsible it was like everyone else usually does. Because I know it was irresponsible, doesn't mean I can't at least think it was kinda cool." Magnes shrugs, grabbing two cans of Game Fuel, offering her one. "I was training with Hiro and Kimiko, then Kimiko got kidnapped and I was out looking for her. So this guy walks up and says he's gonna take me too. Long story short, it sorta turns into flying around, smashing into the ground and buildings and stuff. I couldn't really hurt the guy, no matter what I did, at least until the very last kick when I put everything I had into kicking him in the chin. But even that didn't really put him down, and in the end I guess I sorta lost." He sighs, shrugging helplessly. It probably at least looks cool on video. "I wouldn't have fought him if I didn't think he knew where Kimiko was." You can't kidnap a woman and not expect his hero complex to kick in!
Hey, at least he didn't elaborate some false version of the story where he valiantly kicked all ass. Elle stretches out her hand, seeking to lay it on top of Magnes's shoulder comfortingly. "I am so not going to tell you how irresponsible you were," she tells him matter-of-factly, lifting her eyebrows as she withdraws her touch and accepts the can, ~popping~ it open without really looking at it. "You might not believe me, but I've done a coupla things in my time. Have to act on your impulses once in a while, you know? For the record, I think that sounded really brave." One side of her mouth curves upwards in an motionless shrug, as she continues regarding him.
"You seem, uh, well, enthusiastic, so I guess I can kinda see where you might be a little impulsive sometimes, maybe, like uh, Catwoman or something." Magnes goes silent for a moment, staring into her eyes, then down at the floor, then her eyes again. "I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm still new to the whole girl thing, so if I do or say something stupid, just zap me or something."
In reply, Elle just kind of smirks at this, and she does stretch out a pointer finger to BZZT the kid on the chin— but it's an affectionate motion. Whether it's a direct response to the request to curtail saying stupid things is up to interpretation. "You're so cute when you're embarrassed, Mags. Have I told you that before?" She just got compared to Catwoman! That, in itself, is cause for bemusement.
"Y-yeah…" Magnes rubs his chin after a surprised jerk from being jolted, gently reaching out to brush a finger over her hair to cause it to stick up for a few seconds, just like her arm did. Affectionate electricity, meet affectionate gravity! "You're, uh, yeah. I like your…" A pause, again, the words stuck in his throat, then he just blurts it out, "Eyes!" very awkwardly.
It takes a moment to notice the sudden feeling of feather-ness and lightness in her hair. "Heeey," Elle reproves, mock-indignantly raising her hand to flatten her hair again. No touchie. Eventually, she ends up tossing her head and shaking her ponytail out entirely so she can redo it, paying mind to the gravity-affected strands the entire time. The compliment takes her by surprise, and she shoots a glance at Magnes, one side of her mouth quirked upwards in endless amusement. "You're so sweeeet. But you are sorta new to the girl thing, aren't you." That's okay! Elle doesn't mind.
"Sorry." Magnes says with suppressed amusement, smiling as she deals with her hair. He only bashfully nods at her observations, popping his can open finally. "I've got down romantic dates, I've sort've got conversations covered, and I think I know how to kiss. That's where my girl skills end."
UNFINISHED