Newbie Shuttle, Portalocity Terminal, BWI (Saturday Morning Fandom Time)

[ultron_junior]

After everyone was done shouting at and/or hugging him to say goodbye – and there had been a lot of both –Victor Mancha had two choices in getting from Los Angeles to BWI. The first was taking a commercial flight, which would have been reassuringly normal.

The problem was that, even if he somehow got past the metal detectors, he suspected his circuitry might count as the kind of portable electronic device that wasn’t very takeoff-and-landing-friendly. He didn’t exactly have an easy off switch, and crashing a plane by mistake seemed like a big step towards super-villainhood.

Which meant he got to the Baltimore airport via portal. He’d never been through one before so he didn’t have much to go by, but it seemed like a nice portal: If nothing else, it smelled far better than Cloak’s ... cloak had. Victor was grateful to know that hadn’t been the state-of-the-art in teleporting.

And now he was on the East Coast other than New York for the first time. Once he’d exhausted the little potential for exploration the terminal had, he sat in a semi-comfortable airport chair, suitcase at his feet, and tried to break the Tetris high score on his phone while keeping watch for any other kids.

[OOC: Operation newbies: Go! I will be slow for a few hours after 5:30 EST, but otherwise around all night.]

Comments

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

Yeah, okay. So, Sparkle didn't really know what to think about this going to school in America thing. Sure, it was supposed to keep him out of trouble. Or, well, more trouble than he could get in back in Toronto. Small towns, a more laid-back atmosphere, blah blah blah and so on.

Sparkle really didn't look all that thrilled to be here. He hadn't even been able to smuggle a pack of smokes on the plane, so he was leaning up next to the 'no smoking' sign on the wall, a cherry Twizzler sticking out of his mouth.

Close enough.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

"Are we all headed to Fandom, then?" Thomasina asked from where she was sitting just a little further down the wall. She had seen a few people, over the last few days, dressed like the young man, but very few, and while she had no desire to try it out for herself it did seem a remarkably striking style.

She was still getting used to trousers, herself, although she could certainly admit that they were much more practical than skirts, and covered much more than most of the skirts available in the present. Different mores she could accept, but she wasn't quite ready to reveal that much herself.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"All sentenced to the same prison camp," Sparkle agreed, still gnawing on the end of his Twizzler. "Doomed to rot away on some island in America. I bet it's just like The Rock."

He wasn't talking about Newfoundland.

Probably.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

Thomasina... considered that.

"I was given to understand that this is, in fact, a school?" she said, her voice rising at the end enough that it seemed more a question than anything else. "Certainly the letter I received seemed congratulatory more than punitive." And she hadn't done anything to deserve imprisonment, not that she knew of.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Same thing, isn't it? Boarding school somewhere? I bet it's got uniforms and, like, bars on the dorm windows."

Sparkle hadn't actually looked at the pamphlet that Lewis had handed him, no.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

Raising an eyebrow at Sparkle, Thomasina shook her head. "The brochure which I received seemed to indicate a much more... open? plan to the school. I do not believe it will be so horrible as that."

And, really, what was the problem with uniforms?

(Thomasina really should have seen the ones a few weeks ago.)

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Yeah, well, that's what they want you to think. Have you ever seen a brochure you can trust? I mean, like, really? They're all trying to sell something they don't even really have. Smiling faces out on the lawn in the sunshine. I bet there's graffiti on the walls and broken glass on the stairs."

If there wasn't now, there probably would be as soon as Sparkle got settled in.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

Well, no, but that's because Thomasina really hadn't had much experience with brochures.

They weren't really a thing in the early nineteenth century, and though she was sure she'd come across others during the last few days, they hadn't been something on which she'd spent much thought.

"If it is as bad as that," Thomasina said, "I am certain my..." Whatever Hannah was. "Friend will help me away from here. You, too, I'm certain."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Me too, huh?" Sparkle looked kind of amused at that, at least, pulling a Twizzler from the bag and holding it out to her. "Are you saying your friend would help me get out too, or that I'd help you out?"

Because those were two pretty different things, there.

One sounded like way more fun.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

"The former," Thomasina clarified, "although I do hope that someone so averse to his own imprisonment would be willing to aid someone else in need of escape."

Not that she expected to need escape; she was still seeing this all as a grand adventure, the purpose of which she hadn't quite yet figured out. That was part of the adventure itself, really.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Well, yeah, I guess. What quality sheets do you think they put on the beds there? We could probably tie them together and use those to make our way out of the building, right down the outside wall. We'd have to go at night, of course, or else we'd get caught."

A beat.

"Well, you might get caught. I've been doing this for ages."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[godscrankshaft.livejournal.com]

Thomasina thought back to her last flight through a window -- the last rather more literal -- and giggled. "We might find ourselves somewhere we least expect, should we use that egress," she suggested. "Windows do not always lead where one expects."

To be fair, she didn't yet understand the 'unorthodox portal' that Portalocity had arranged for her; that it had never been the window itself hadn't yet occurred to her.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

"So how soon do you think the shuttle's going to get here?"

Victor was getting impatient to just get going, really. He was starting to wonder if this was a trap.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Either too soon, or not soon enough," Sparkle reasoned, taking another bite of Twizzler and idly offering the other kid the bag. "Depends on how quickly you want to end up stuck in some boarding school for the rest of your summer. And how much you like airports."

The vending machine had been all out of the flavour of Doritos that he liked. He had decided then and there that he didn't like this airport in particular.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

Victor took a Twizzler, wrapping it idly around one finger as he spoke. Not his favorite candy, but free sugar was always good.

"It's my first time in one," he said. "Airport or boarding school. Hopefully the second'll be a little more exciting than the first. This terminal is so much duller than I thought it was gonna be."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"God, if the bus doesn't get here soon, I might just go ahead and die before we ever make it to the school." Yep. Complaining already. "I mean, I didn't even want to come here. So far, America is way more boring than everyone says it is."

Where were the muggings, huh? Or the... the... something. Baseball players. Fake-n-bake orange tans... Apple pie?

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

"America's pretty interesting," Victor said. "Just not the airport parts of it."

He stuffed half the Twizzler in his mouth. "Why, where are you from?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Toronto," Sparkle replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Or Mars. Or the land of the fairy princesses. It doesn't matter. Anywhere would be more exciting than this."

A beat.

"But mostly Toronto. I'm not making a break for the door mostly because it's one hell of a hike back."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

"I'm from LA," Victor smiled. "Think I have even further to hike back than you would, dude."

He tilted his head. "Though I'm not sure I exactly know the way to the land of the fairy princesses."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Whatever it is, it probably involves some way more fabulous clothing than either of us has. Maybe feather boas, some fake breasts. I don't know... do you have the ankles for heels?"

Yes. Yes, there was a shake of his hips to go with that one.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

Victor grinned and flipped up the edge of his pants. "What do you think? But eee, I'm afraid if my friends back home saw me like that they'd just never let me come home without playing dress-up," he said. "I live with a bunch of girls."

Ad Xavin, who was ... mostly a girl. And a jerk.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Yeah? Well, that makes two of us. But most of the girls I live with aren't half as good at putting on eyeliner," Sparkle joked, leaning forward a little and batting his eyelashes. "But those are definitely good legs for tall shoes."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[ultron_junior]

"Now I know what to be at Halloween, I guess," Victor said, and glanced over as he let down his pants leg. "But you'd have to give me pointers on the eyeliner. You live with sisters? Or friends?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"What happened to your hair? Did you stick your finger in the socket to do that?"

Sorry, was that tactless? 'Cause this is Minako.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle! [5/04]

[myownface]

"Actually, they call it hair gel, Blondie," Sparkle replied around his mouthful of Twizzler. "You never heard of it before?"

Sparkle could do tactless. He could do it like a champ.

"I guess you don't want to get all that styling crap in that pretty little ribbon of yours, huh? Because wow, I don't think I've seen anyone over the age of, like, four wearing something like that in their hair."