ArchivedLogs:Crouching Spider, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Spider, Hidden Dragon
I know someone's going to kill me for the title oh god
Dramatis Personae Kai, Peter	2013-03-13 Kai and Peter meet in the kitchen. While Peter is in COSTUME.
Location <XS> Kitchen
The school is...quiet, up here on the main levels. The students and most of the teachers out for the break, there's very little activity to be found. Hallways are flooded with sunlight, but lack the cheery noise of students going about their day, and a mansion this size -- that quiet -- is actually kind of creepy, no matter what time of day. Maybe that's why Kai has chosen the kitchen for his exploration today. The young man has made quite a mess, actually, in exploring the various foodstuffs that are available. Bread and jam litter the counter, and a bag of chips lies open next to that. A multitude of glasses are lined up, each with a different liquid in them from milk, juice, and soda, to what appears to be chocolate syrup. Kai himself sits happily amongst the carnage, a pint of Chunky Munky ice cream in one hand, a spoon in the other. Dressed in a (now food-stained) Xavier's t-shirt and sweatpants, he has a wide, chocolate-smeared grin on his face as he digs into the treat, wedging out a chunk of chocolate and banana and shoving it into his mouth with a happy sound. Life on the outside is good. *THWUMP*. There is now a spider dangling from the ceiling. Unlike most spiders, he does not have eight legs, he is not hairy, and he is not tiny. No, this spider is actually in the shape of a human teenage boy! But don't let that fool you. He is wearing a red ski-mask, buggy-eyed yellow-tinted goggles -- blue jeans -- and a tightly bound backpack slung on his back. He is peering /down/ at Kai with what might be curiosity... but it's hard to tell, because -- well, GOGGLES. And face. Hidden. He is currently on the ceiling -- a strand of 'web-glue' having splatted to it, one hand gripping it firmly, his feet pushing up against it. How did he get up there? It's a mystery. But after a moment of watching Kai sloppily /devour/ snacks, he deigns to speak: "I... uh, dude I think you're supposed to /eat/ food not wear it." The scream that the sudden appearance evokes from Kai is sharp and high-pitched, and he THROWS his ice cream at Peter, shoving back from the counter hard enough to over-balance his stool. "{No! They have found us!}" The fall looks harder than it is, clearly. He's already scrabbling for the table, threading his thin body through the legs of the chairs. "{Please leave us,}" is a ragged sort of sound, a pleading whine that needs no translation. "{I cannot let him out again. I don't want to go back....}" His body shudders, and he begins pulling the chairs into a more formidable barrier. "{He will not be pleased if we go back.}" "Wha--" Ice-cream is caught, Peter is gone. In an instant; flash of red and blue and the ice-cream is on a nearby counter-top and Peter is a good *5* yards away from the kid, landing on the edge of a chair near the door -- crouched like a frog. Waving his arms. "RELAX! RELAX! I'm --" he pulls his mask up, exposing a human *mouth* at least; a chin and maybe a nose. But then he yanks the rest of it down. Because UGH he is getting tired of being so terrible at secret identities. "I am totally not -- like, a /monster/ or something oh man right you are from the lab, there were probably monsters, I /totally/ forgot I shouldn't have come in here in my mask and stuff I'm actually here on a /secret/ mission but -- oh, wait, you have /no/ idea what I am saying, do you?" Wait. The guy is gone, now. Kai frowns, and pokes his head out of his fort, craning his head around to peer at the...boy?...on the chair. "{Who are you?}" he asks, from the safety of his fort, staring with an open mix of fear and suspicion. "{Are you here from the doctors? He will not let you have me. Please don't make him come.}" He blinks as the boy continues talking, blinking with no comprehension, until Peter says the word 'lab'. Then there's another shriek, and Kai's withdrawing. "{I knew it! You ARE from the doctors! They say that word all the time!}" He lowers his head to stare, cat-like, at the masked boy. "{There are people here who will stop you,}" is offered with little confidence to his tone. "{Maybe they will get you before he does.}" When Kai peers, Peter relaxes; okay, maybe he didn't scare him completely se--ohGod he's shrieking again. Peter /hops/ back, now out the door, landing on a shelf that's directly beneath it; he's once again crouched down like a little frog, peering at Kai. "Oh GOD you are more jumpy than me," Peter says, before sucking in a deep breath: "OKAY. Okay okay okay, relax, you are /totally/ blowing my cover here, but --" WHY CAN'T HE STOP REVEALING HIS IDENTITY TO EVERYONE? The mask comes off; entirely -- Peter's face is beneath. Kai /might/ recognize him from the other day. Sans glasses, though. Peter proceeds to hammer his chest with his other hand: *WHUMP* "Peter." Then: THUMBS UP! Big, fake grin: "Good guy. SUPER-HERO." Kai watches as the boy peels off the mask, and then he just looks confused. He pushes a chair out with a bit of force, sliding it well away from the table. "Peter?" he echoes, extricating himself and pulling himself upright. Then he's slowly moving in that direction, tilting his head and STARING at the other boy. "Peter." Flat recognition matches Kai's sudden press of lips, and then he's moving forward, rapidly, a thin fist coming up to flailPUNCH at Peter's shoulder -- or any body part he can reach. "Peter! Why?" Another attempted (and unskilled) punch. "{You scared me to death! Is this how you make jokes, here?}" There's no mistaking that fear has been shifted to annoyance. To Peter's credit, he does not move to escape from FLAILPUNCHING, probably because young boy FLAILPUNCHING does not immediately 'ping' on his DANGER-DANGER radar. But he is still taken by surprise, and still throws his hands up, yelping. "Ah! Jeez! Hey, /stop/!" he exclaims, and then the mask is right back down, even as he waves his other hand about -- Kai's reflection flashed back to him in the goggles. "Secret identity! Hiding! /SECRET/!" HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN COMPLEX CONCEPTS WITHOUT LANGUAGE?! Kai does stop, but only after delivering one more ineffective blow. "Peter..." he grasps for another word, one he's heard on the largely-unintelligible television. ".../sucks/." He turns, then, and stalks back to the counter, righting the stool and pushing the chairs back as he goes. "{I don't even know why you're /wearing/ a mask. It's not even cold outside.}" He purses his lips, and stares at Peter as he climbs back on the stool. "{Are you a soldier or something?}" Then he winces. "{Right. You don't understand me any more than I can you.}" He points at Peter, then, and makes a marching motion with his upper torso, mimicking shouldering a rifle, then points back in the other boy's direction with a curious lift of his eyebrows. "{Soldier?}" "S... what?" Peter is... /flabbergasted/. So much that he doesn't even flail beneath that final blow! Kai, the boy who doesn't speak English, speaks enough of it to inform Peter that he /sucks/! "I do /not/ suck!" he insists, perhaps a bit more loudly than he should: "I... uh. Okay, okay." Deep breath, Peter: "I am sorry. I was on my way to... oh, man, forget it, you have no idea what I'm saying so: I am sorry." He holds out his hands in what he /hopes/ is the universal gesture of 'My Bad, Bro'. But then, Kai is making those curious gestures with fingers, marching, and a rifle, and... "Hu... oh, like, /soldier/? Wait--what? No. No," Peter says, and then he is /launching/ himself forward -- springing up into the air and landing on top of a kitchen chair, scooping up a large dish-rag and wrapping it about his neck -- tying it into a miniature cape. Hands up, like SUPERMAN. He makes flying noises. SWOOSH, SWOOSH: "SUPERHERO." Kai is back to the ice cream, giving Peter a wide, satisfied smile before he lifts his spoon. "Peter sucks!" is almost sing-songed as he digs back into the confection, shoveling an over-large spoonful into his mouth. He chews it slowly as Peter does his little pantomime, and his brow furrows. "Superman!" he says, the iconic image known even to a small North Korean farm boy. He mimicks the gesture, expression brightening as he makes the same sort of whooshing noises. "Superman!" Then he's giving Peter a highly dubious look, giving another pantomime swoop before he shakes his head, scrunching his nose as he makes a bicep curl (sadly, nothing happens), and points at Peter with another slow, sad shake of his head. Nope. Not Superman. At the point and head-shake, Peter's face beneath that mask takes a decisive 'D:<' look. Too bad Kai can't see it. But Kai /does/ get to see Peter's physical reaction -- lifting a gloved fingertip up to him, before hopping out of the chair -- walking to one end of the kitchen, CHECKING THE COAST, then -- back to the other end -- DOUBLE-CHECKING THE COAST. Yep -- it's official. The coast is /clear/. And then -- once more lifting that finger up to Kai! -- Peter proceeds to walk in front of the fridge. And then... he wraps his arms around it. Like he intended to give it a big, happy, friendly hug. And then... ...creak. He /lifts/ it. Okay -- just a few inches off the ground. But he is, quite literally, /picking up/ a fridge! It's a bit of a strain, and accompanied with noisy exertion sounds ('hnk!'), but yes, he is totally picking up a fridge... and putting it back down. *CLUNK* Then, right back to the seat. Superman YES. >:( Peter is still wearing his cape, too. Kai watches, a bit wide-eyed as Peter demonstrates his strength, the spoon stuck in his mouth like a flat, metal cigar. When Peter turns around, though, his expression drops immediately into bored interest, and he lifts a shoulder. Okay. He's got some skills, maybe. He waves his spoon obligingly, but the expression has shifted to patience. "Superman...why?" he asks, the question soft as he regards the strange blue and red gloves, and the mask. "Superman...no," he says, touching his face. "Why?" "Hm... oh right, the mask -- oh man I have /no/ idea how to explain the whole secret identity thing to you. Um... Clark Kent? Clark Kent -- do you know Clark Kent?" Peter asks, and his shoulders hunch up, his hands gripping the edge of the chair where his feet are perched -- knees popping up high. He thinks for a moment -- and then! He backflips off the chair, reaches for a note on the refridgerator (it looks like a menu schedule), snags a pen off a nearby countertop, and -- FLIP right back to the chair. On the back of the menu, he draws a big '?'. THEN: He slips the mask off his head and slides the piece of paper up on his nose, replacing his face with said question mark. Kai watches all the FLIPPING, and frowns. "{That seems unnecessary,}" he says in a mild voice, watching as Peter scribbles on the menu. "{I hope they didn't need that.}" He continues to eat his ice cream, watching the shift of masks, and he frowns, leaning to tug at the paper until Peter's eyes are revealed. "Peter." he says, lifting his eyebrows as if this demonstration answers the printed interrogative. "No Clark Kent." He tilts his head, though, as if considering something. "{Your glasses that you wore yesterday were right, though. Maybe....}" "Peter," he agrees, although this is with a bit of a frumpled brow. The mask, of course, comes right back down. And the paper -- oh. Peter's drawing, now. That's good, maybe his drawings can help -- oh. Oh. Oh, /wow/, Peter seriously cannot draw. Is that a stick figure? It looks like... it looks like an L with a few too many lines. But he continues, nevertheless: A whole LEGION of stick figures. The primary stick figure -- who he draws with those googly goggles of his -- is currently in the process of punching evil stick-figures (you can tell they're evil because they have >:( faces -- but maybe Spidey-Peter isn't punching them; it looks more like his 'hand' is GLUED to them). Then -- he redraws >:( stick-figures with angry storm-clouds and question marks over their heads. He points at evil '???' stick figures, then at him, wearing the mask. Nods. Then, pulls his mask off -- points at evil '???' stick figures, points at his exposed face -- headshake. DO NOT WANT. Ah. Kai's face is full of comprehension at the crude comic-drawing, and he nods his head, sucking on his spoon as he looks at the image. Then he motions for the pencil, and when he gets it, he begins sketching. His ability is a little better than Peter's, and he draws another by the crowd of bad guys, a smaller stick figure. Then the bad guys are given guns, and Kai begins sketching a bigger figure...a dragon. It looks like most Eastern dragons, only rudimentary. Then he draws an arrow from the smaller figure to the dragon, and another one back. Then he touches his chest, sliding the menu back. He does not look proud of this fact, though. It seems more like an exchange of SECRETS, as he immediately watches the door when Peter has the paper again. "You..." Eyebrows crumple like folded paper underneath that mask as Peter /peers/ at Kai's work. When the form of a dragon begins appearing on that sheet -- well, you can't see it, but Peter's eyebrows are raising up toward his hairline. And when Kai points that finger at himself... those little buggers are going into /orbit/. "/You're/ the dragon?!" Oops. Little louder than he meant. Quieter, now, leaning forward and /peering/ at Kai, just above a whisper -- "YOU'RE the dragon. Like, /dragon/ dragon. Like," point at sheet, at said dragon, tapping madly. "Scales, wings, breathes fire, DRAGON." Kai stares uncomprehendingly at Peter, the mask unable to help him in translating what is being said. He furrows his brow, and taps the dragon figure again, and then taps his chest before opening his mouth and making a hissing roar of a noise. "Kai," he says, and then whispers the next word as he taps the dragon. "Foom." He clamps his mouth shut as soon as the syllable leaves his lips, screwing his eyes shut and...waiting? After a uneventful moment, he opens his eyes again, blinking at Peter owlishly. "Fooooom," Peter says, speaking the word slow and steady -- chewing it over. Foom? What... oh, he's tapping the... oh that must be the dragon's /name/. "It has a /name/?" Peter asks, and then: "You turn into a dragon named Foom." There is a long, stretched out pause there. And then, reaching out -- perhaps a bit more emphatically than he should -- and giving Kai a friendly, albeit ENTHUSIASTIC, shake: "YOU. TURN. INTO. A. /DRAGON/." Kai cringes as hands find his shoulders, and shaking him is much like shaking a sapling -- in that he trembles long after the shaking has stopped. It doesn't seem to be threatening, though, and his grin is bright as he nods along. "Superman!" he says in agreement, and then he's shoving the Chunky Munky at Peter, and offering his spoon. Because that's /totally/ what Superman would do. He even confirms it with a laugh that's bright, but spidery-soft. "Sooooooperman!" And he's content to share /all/ of his culinary finds. The next hour or so will see the kitchen seeing some truly frightening creations. Again.