strangetrip | [GP/EP] Check-in Day

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

Liz was starting to get better at the whole check-in day stuff. She knew she hadn't seen 'everything' yet, but she was learning from watching Kitty and Caroline and the others how to approach distressed, confused, and even angry people. It wasn't always perfect, but she was getting better.

With the help from the bakery, there were muffins on trays in the lobby - Mary had insisted. She insisted on coming in every once in a while to restock the trays too.

Liz had helped bring another tray to the front desk and then moved to sit at one of the couches that had a view of the front doors. She had a complicated science essay for Kitty due in a week and Liz was having trouble finding the right wording to express her thoughts.

Every once in a while, Liz would look up to see if there was someone knew approaching. There could be no one today or there could be a lot. Briefly, she wondered if someone else from home would show up. A part of her was curious who that would be, but she found a larger part of herself was hoping no one else would.

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Ororo had no idea who Yogi was, but she assumed they were a bear with a picnic basket. Why they would have that was a mystery but not enough of one that she cared to find the answer.

As Tony continued to talk, her brow furrowed not quite understanding what he'd said but she wouldn't admit it. That would be admitting weakness and you didn't survive on the streets by admitting weakness.

"Do they arrive through the portals that Hurley spoke of? The ones that took you to other places that were never home."

"'Portals she says....Otherworlds. No, those lead to other worlds. You go through them and end up wherever the portal decides to put you and it's adventure time. Portal closes, you're back at the inn. I've been here for a month and a half, never been, so that's all I got." It took some effort for Tony not to pout at his lack of information. He wasn't used to being the boring individual around.

"As far as the other self business goes...uh, how much tolerance you got for physics talk?"

Ororo quirked her lips, "I will just do what I do back in New York with Professor McCoy, smile and nod when you look like you're expecting a response. I grew up on the streets of Cairo, I never went to school."

It was said as fact, without self pity. She was far from ignorant but she had never had formal education to learn physics either. Her science education was through hands on learning of life as a mutant until recently. Even now, Ororo wouldn't trade her street smarts for formal education.

Turning to lean back against the fence, Tony willed his armor to do a bit of work in forming a gauntlet along his right arm. Testing the stability by flexing his fingers, a projection emerged from the repulsor on his palm. While its primary use was for plasma blasts, light shows weren't out of the question. The 3-D projection was like stationary bubbles suspended in a semiopaque medium. Simple, but his suit was operating on crutches and it would do.

"One bubble, one universe. The, uh, club soda liquid they're suspended in? Could be a fifth-dimensional plane, could be some event boundary keeping them from being deterministically connected, could be literal club soda, who knows, this is all speculative where I'm from, bear with me."

His fingers gestured in a closing motion at the projection, making it scale out--far, far, out. A few bubbles became hundreds, becoming millions, multiplying into the infinite. "One of those bubbles has you in it, other bubbles have different versions of you, and so on. Zoom back in--" The projection rapidly zoomed in on a dozen or so of the globes, now all linked by a spider thread with a single bubble as the nexus. "This one in the middle? That's the hotel. Through some magic, mathematics, whatever you want to call it, it's breached the metaphorical club soda and plucked people into its delightfully nauseating pocket dimensional doors. What end? I don't speak kitsch so your guess is as good as mine."

Ororo stared at the projection. It was something that Hank would have. Surprisingly, she actually paid attention to his explanation and when he was finished, she actually understood the other reality comments and other versions of her.

“So, I was brought here and my reality split into another bubble, one where I came here, and one where I stayed.” Her lips quirked, “it sounds like something a mutant would do. Are there mutants here?” That was something she hadn’t thought to ask Hurley.

'Mutants?' That rang a bell.

"Define 'mutant.' If you mean the--ah, dang it." Tony snapped his fingers rapidly as he tried to recall what Kitty referred to them as. "The--the Z-Warriors. Yeah, that wasn't it. It had a letter. Brought to you by the letter...the letter X. X-Men. There we go."

That piqued her interest. There weren’t many non-mutants that knew that phrase. “There are X-men here?” The only ones that she knew were either her friends or the original ones with Raven.”

"One." Tony paused before relenting. "That I know of."

That raised a question. If what Kitty said was true and the Tony Stark wherever she was from shared an antipathy with the X-Men, what did that say about the young woman in front of him? Ororo didn't react to his name whatsoever, so either she was from some other world where that conflict didn't exist or she came before it.

“I have just came to the Professor’s mansion.” She gestured toward her outfit. “Mystique has begun to form the team again.” Since the outfits fit the person’s ability it didn’t strike her as out of place that he didn’t notice hers was an X-men uniform. She did however watch his reaction to the name. Mystique was famous or infamous in not just the mutant communities. For Storm, the reaction to the name told her more about the person than their words did.

"Ah, yeah. Cool?" Tony swiftly bore his teeth in an awkward grin. "Full disclosure, I don't know the X-Men. Well. I don't. Tony Stark in some other bubble does. Maybe Shadowcat rings a bell? She's the one I know."

Ororo shook her head, "but she could have been part of the original team. I didn't learn their names. I think it was back in the sixties." Which was twenty years for Storm, it was 1983 when she'd left Cairo for New York.

More information to file away, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. did so promptly.

"I could introduce you. She and I are collaborators in regards to research around these parts."

"What kind of research are you collaborating on?" Ororo asked with a little interest. She didn't know much about science but if it was to return to New York from the Inn, she might offer to be an eye in the sky.

"Researching our new digs." Tony gestured at the main body of the hotel. "Its own bubble, how it relates to every other bubble out there, how we can, uh, well not make it go 'pop!' but how we can pass in and out of the soapy film, if you will."

Escape, that was, and re-entry if necessary. He eyed Ororo, not missing the flicker of interest in her eye. "Always looking for more recruits."

Normally, Storm wouldn't be as open with a stranger as she was with Tony, but he knew an X-man even if it was one she'd never heard of. Which was why she pushed up from the fence and opened her arms, to allow the material that flowed along her arms to billow in the now manufactured current.

Her eyes turned white and she rose above the ground only a few feet. "if you need experiments in the sky, I can help." Ororo lowered herself to the ground once more and her eyes returned to their natural brown.

The wind billowed, making Tony's loosely styled hair flutter. A pulse of energy with Ororo at its center spread out, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. ran analytics 'Psionic capabilities? Witchcraft? Curioser and curioser.' Whatever it was, Tony could use it.

"More eyes in the sky, a body to test the barrier if you're so bold." No use being coy about it. "I've run headlong into that thing. Not that I'd expect a crash test from anyone else."

"I can use more than just my body to test it." Ororo said and held her hands out, palms upward but she made very sure that she was not facing Tony so that he wouldn't get accidentally hit with her lightening bolts.

Flashes of strong lightening bolts erupted from her hands. The light show was intense for a moment and then died down to nothing. "I am a weather mutant." She explained, though she probably didn't need to.

'Thor's got competition.' Came Tony's immediate thought. His glasses darkened to accommodate his vision against the violent flashes before they dissipated.

"You're hired."

"It will be my pleasure to find a way out." Ororo said with a small smile. She didn't think she could on her own when obviously others here could not, but she also had confidence in her abilities to try to blow a hole in the 'bubble'.

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[GP/EP] Check-in Day

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

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Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables

Re: Storm and Tony - Stables