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

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!event: newbie shuttle

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

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.]

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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."

Edited 2012-05-05 00:12 (UTC)

"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?

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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.

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.

"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."

"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?"

"None of the above," came Sparkle's reply as he looked up from that nice leg there to offer Victor a smirk. "Group home. Girls are in and out all the time. Boys too, I guess, but they don't care half as much about my hair or makeup as the girls do."

He gave Victor's face a thoughtful once-over, next.

"Yeah, you could probably pull off eyeliner if you knew what you were doing. If I'm still stuck at that school come Halloween, hunt me down and we'll make you the prettiest kid on the island."

"Gee, thanks," Victor said, but the truth was his green eyes were unusual enough that he'd been complimented on them before and didn't so much mind. "I went out with a Goth for a while. You and her should get together and give me a total makeover."

He didn't comment on the group home thing, but he wasn't going to forget it.

"A total makeover, huh? Is the hair off-limits? We could dye it."

He didn't even have the guy's name, and he was already thinking about what he'd look like with a few streaks of red, yes. And grinning a little and maybe allowing himself to do one little bounce on the balls of his feet at the thought.

"Maybe green, to match those eyes of yours."

Of course, naming the wacky colours first was always more fun. It let him get an idea of who he was talking to, for a start.

victor made a face. "Green dyes usually look like algae. Red? Pink?"

He ran a hand over the brown hair he was actually fairly satisfied with. "I'm ... more of a geek than anything. Not really the extreme look type."

"Hey, geek types I can work with," Sparkle decided. "What's your poison? Video games? Comic books? I like Nintendo, myself."

A sucker for Swarthy Italian Plumber racing, yes. So sue him.

"And music. I play a mean tin whistle."

So, totally a geek.

"Video games, computers, electronics in general, and superheroes," Victor said, then thought about it. A lot of the shine was off his fanboyness, so -- "Mostly the first three these days. What games do you like?"

"I can't help with the tin whistle thing, by the way."

"I'll cope somehow," Sparkle replied, waving that off. "I'll get you to sing or something."

Fear.

"And, you know... whatever I can get my hands on. We have a copy of Dark Rhapsody. I beat that, like, a million times. Maybe a million and two. I lost count."

Three. Three times.

"Hardcore," Victor said, only half mocking. "You have it with you? I didn't bring my Nintendo."

Molly had pouted.

"Nah. Harry and Doreen were keeping an eye on it, and they can't keep their mouths shut. It isn't like the game is actually mine, you know."

Property of the home, for the enjoyment of all. Even if Sparkle was the only one who ever played that one.

Because he'd beat the crap out of anybody who messed with his savegames.

"Yeah, can't imagine a lot of things are in a home," Victor said. "I just lived with friends, and there's a definite ... lack of personal property sometimes."

He shrugged. "If the school has a system, I'll play you sometime."

"And I will totally kick your ass," Sparkle decided, grinning broadly. "What games do you play, geek?"

Geek was totally a term of endearment.

Because Sparkle still didn't know this kid's name, mostly. But he might just go on calling him that anyway.

"It's Victor." Not that his teammates tended to remember it wasn't actually Sparky, Senor Cyborg, or Toaster, but the fact Vic was used to being called things that weren't his name was beside the point. "And, uh, pretty much anything? I like racing games and Space Battles stuff."

"I guess I can handle Space Battles," Sparkle mused, and then shrugged. "Better at racing games, anyhow. You get a lot of practise in when you need to play one of those multi-player ones or else everyone starts bitching about you being a controller hog."

He almost actually looked proud of that. It took skill to be a controller hog in the places that Sparkle tended to end up.

"And it's Sparkle," he added, in all seriousness, with a sort of 'laugh and I'm pretty sure I have a clear path between my foot and your balls' sort of look in his eye.

"Real name or code name?" This was Victor, not laughing! Though he was nodding in sympathy at the control hog thing.

"Uh, real?" Shit, Victor apparently hadn't been kidding about being a superhero geek, either. "My parents thought they were being clever when they went and stuck me with one of those 'Boy Named Sue' names. Whatever. I like it."

He'd been named after sparklers. Sparklers were cool. Ergo, Sparkle was cool by association. Or something.

He pulled another Twizzler from the bag and took a bite.

Victor held up his hands apologetically. "No judging," he said. "Besides, Victor's not some super-awesome name either. Not like we get to pick 'em."

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

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