((Continued from theultimatexmen.proboards.com/thread/13505/stuck-on-solo ))


This was ridiculous. This was dumb. He had a knife stuck to his hand and a sock stuck to his foot. He needed help. Maybe this was an alien thing, but he was in a school for mutants, and they probably dealt with this kind of crap all the time. They probably loved it. They would laugh at him, and tell him he had it way easier than the kid whose power was explosions. 

He needed to find a teacher. Any teacher would do. Here was hoping someone wouldn't get mad when he walked out into the hallway holding a dangerous looking knife longer than the legal limit. Maybe he'd just stuff his hand inside a shirt?

The scene was a silly one a minute later, as Elliott stomped down the hall, flat footed. One foot had the remnants of a cut up sock. The other was bare. His footing was uneven, and he had his free hand wrapped in a balled up dead kennedys tshirt. The first thing he'd found on hand... literally on hand. Hopefully, it wasn't going to get stuck too.

Eliott made his way to the offices. It wasn't likely he'd find someone off at the moment. It was the middle of the week. Teachers were probably teaching. He'd have to get lucky to find one who wasn't in a class at the moment. His one consoling thought was that it was close to lunchtime, and someone might be between periods... he started knocking on office doors until he got a reply. He wouldn't be picky. Any person would do. Math? No. self defense? No. Biology... he liked the sound of that way more than Herbology, or whatever the professors second course they taught was. He was surprised he hadn't encountered a potions master. Elliott knocked on the woman with a foreign-sounding name's door. 

"Hello?" He asked. "Anyone in?"

Her head was resting upon her desk in the office she rarely ever took advantage of because she had a better place to go for doing stuff. Xavia was caught in one of her pregnancy naps, though she didn't actually mean to fall asleep. The sound of someone's voice intruded upon her sleeping brain, she sat up abruptly, the paper she had been grading was stuck to her cheek. “What? Mmm? Oh... Uh... Come in,” she said groggily as she peeled the offending paper off of her cheek and set it aside, leaning back in her chair.

Man, these kids would have her sleeping in the most random places, wouldn't they? She tapped her fingers against her cheek to try and focus on waking up a bit more, but it was so hard when she was just... so blasted tired.

Of course, it wasn't just the kids, but lots of things had happened all at once. She couldn't exactly stay away from her jobs, though, and she couldn't avoid people even though she had every reason to want to... She just had to keep on trucking. Hiding away in her office didn't seem to work yet, she thought as she waited for whoever was knocking to come in.

The door clicked as he pushed it the rest of the way open. He edged around the stop that kept it in place while school was going. If that weren't there, it would have been locked and this whole scene would have been even more awkward. As such, it was awkward enough.

"Um. Hi. You're the biology teacher?" He didn't wait for confirmation. "Good. I've got a question about biology. Do any species ever experience some sort of exponential growth in abilities as they age?"

He was fairly certain of the answer. Lots of animals changed as they grew. But confirmation from a scholar was good. It helped. It might also help her understand why he had a t-shirt balled up around one fist, and a sock stuck to a foot. But maybe she wouldn't notice those things?

She peered at the guy with raised brows as he came in looking pretty frazzled and speaking pretty quickly, asking a question she was not sure how to answer right away. She wasn't really a college trained scholar, and as smart as she was, she sometimes ran into questions even she had to research. However, since the guy literally looked like he'd stuck his finger in a light socket to attract or magnetize things to him, including the knife that admittedly made her nervous as hell after having just been through what she did... Ahem... She tried to wrack her sleepy brain for the reply and finally came upon, "It's plausible, yes. Mutants in particular have a tendency to evolve, I t'ink."

In fact, she was sure she had it happen to her too, if going into... and falling out of a tree, which had to have been the weirdest experience in her life given what else had happened. She sighed tiredly and gestured toward the chair opposite hers, please, sit, etc. She may as well have this discussion, if not to help someone out but also to relate.

Yeah, that made sense. Mutants change. They mutate. Aliens must change, too. Maybe they mutate. Maybe he was an alien mutant of some variety. Come one, come all! Come see the talking alligator boy!

He sat down like a good little alligator lad. Though maybe less alligator, more ant man or frog boy? People often said he was green enough to be a frog.

"I don't usually stick to things." He explained inanely. It felt good to have validation, even if it was make my him feel a little crazy. "I jump. I kick. I've got tongues." He paused a beat. "Okay. Maybe they can stick to things. It's possible. But this morning, I couldn't get my socks off. And when I tried cutting them off."

Elliott waved the shirt hand around lamely. "The knife stuck. Then I wrapped it in a shirt so I wasn't running around a school with a knife. Pretty sure there are laws against that. Anyways." He coughed into a fist. "How do I turn it off?"

He pulled the shirt free. At least that came off. Now he just had half a sock and a knife. Wonderful. "Do you know how to turn this alien mutation off?"

"It sounds like you have had a rough morning t'is morning, erm... Excuse me, but... What is your name?" Her voice, still somewhat gruff from the sleep she took, cracked a little.

"I cannot give you t'at particular answer, except t'at perhaps you might train? I do unerstand what you are feeling.
Just t'e ot'er day, I uh... discovered my own growt' and am still pondering it. I ended up inside of a tree. I won't get into details as to why it happened, but it was very strange." She thought that maybe it would put the guy at ease if she could relate to him to some degree.

Her gaze took him in, she wasn't really worried about how he looked, and she was relaxed when he explained the reason he had the knife. It was to cut some socks off, not to threaten people. That was good to know.

"Elliott, Professor Xavia." Elliott said. He pronounced the name he saw on the door in the way he thought it was pronounced, in his mind, the right way. With a hard Zee, like Zay vee uh. Of course, he'd probably gotten it wrong but he remembered the first name better than the last.

Training was the last thing on his mind. Does one train to take socks off or drop a knife? They were so common place, it seemed ludicrous to him to imagine training to let go. He said nothing, in the politest way possible. This was a teacher. He could respect that. Even if he thought training to let go was hilarious. What was it, a human mutation? He most certainly was not inside of a tree.

What she was talking about sounded like mutant stuff, for sure. Maybe, he could apply some of the basics from the theory to his own needs, kind of like in mixed martial arts?

"Growth, huh." He humored her. "That is interesting. Yeah. This is probably something like that, professor. It's definitely very strange." He paused, quirked a hairless green eyebrow at her. "How did you get out? Of the tree." Maybe there was something he could learn there. For some reason, his mind kept repeating the phrase 'wax on, wax off' even though it was completely unrelated. He just wanted to wax off this death grip on the knife.

"Drop the 'professor' part, please, and it's Sah-vee-ah. Anyways, um... I... simply went t'rough it, I have not exactly gone into dept' yet to see what I could do wit' t'e growt' since I have to be careful right now." She stood up and walked over to her book case, looking through her binders for the notes she took on other peoples' powers and growths... It was something she did to try and bring more of these lessons into her class. Her belly, which was growing rapidly as her twins developed, was noticeable now, her blouse straining slightly over the mound. "I have been taking notes on ot'er people... Perhaps I could write t'ings down about yours? Wit' your permission, of course. I'd also be happy to let you see my notes."

She walked back to the desk and moved to sit down, looking toward him, but not grabbing a pen just yet.

He'd pronounced it wrong. That had been a fifty fifty gamble, at best. He'd shrugged at that, but hadn't apologized. People mispronounce or misspell names all the time. It happens. People always thought Elliott was spelled with one t.

Xavia's Description left a lot to be desired. She hadn't experimented. Standing up, he could see a baby bump. Likely, she didn't want to strain the kid. Okay. Fair enough.

What had he been here for again? Certainly not corrupting data about mutants and their powers with details about his. He'd never really even considered anything he could do as a "power". It was just physiology. Some people are better at running or jumping. The only unique thing about his anatomy, other than green skin, limited anatomy, and antennae was his hand tongues. But that could just be included in alien anatomy. This hands and fingers thing was new.

The elephant would have to be addressed sooner or later. With a sigh, he addressed it. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure my situation is quite the same as your students at this school. Everyone's been really kind to me. But I'm not quite a mutant like everyone else. I was born this way. It's part of why I'm shocked about this sudden change in biology. It's like a tadpole, growing legs and learning he can leap and cling to walls when previously, he swam through puddles and streams."

She tilted her head at him as he openly doubted things, and then she replied, "Some of us are born wit' powers and some grow into t'em... As far as growt' goes, from what I understand by some of t'em happen naturally and some of t'em happen t'e way--- I mean... uh... t'ey happen when truama happens," she cleared her throat and ducked her head, flipping the book open to the page about one who was born that way and their growth happened naturally. She flipped the book around and then pushed it forward toward him.

"I have been studying about t'is for t'e last few years, sometimes we evolve and grow fast, and sometimes slow." Xavia pointed to the words about growth and such.

Her mouth curled up only slightly as she waited for his response to the book.

Whew boy. Wow. He had completely whiffed that explanation. He supposed a rational human or mutant might not immediately go from "I'm not quite a mutant like everybody else" to "I am not a mutant." That would be a bit of a stretch. She thought he had meant that he was born a mutant, with powers from the start. He didn't, like, have them activate for the first time when he was twelve, due to a traumatic event involving clowns or something.

He waited for her to finish, then tried it from another angle.

"Alright. Fair enough. But let me ask you, have any of the mutants you've studied... ever been from somewhere other than here?"

Oh. That might be misunderstood also. He pointed at the floor below them with his free hand, not the knife hand, to sort of act out his point.

He didn't want to scare her off from helping him by flat out saying he was extraterrestrial in origin, but it was a major part of him. If he said it point blank, he worried she'd throw him out of her office... and he was trying, really trying, not to screw this mansion thing up. His antennae twitched in anticipation of her reply.

"What do you mean... not from here? I mean, mutants are born all around t'e world if t'at is what you are asking." She was so confused by this odd fellow who was asking for her to give answers, and seemingly not sure how to take the answers she was giving. Her brows puckered with her confusion, and she leaned back into her chair, frowning quietly. What in the world was he talking about?

She peered at him and gave him a chance to answer, resisting the urge to scratch her head. Her mouth curled upward in an encouraging smile even if her eyes did reflect said confusion.

She. Didn't. Get it.

Elliott sighed, and pushed back his antennae with one hand. This was getting a little frustrating.

"What I'm trying to say. And please don't think I'm crazy. Is that if you use data from me for your mutant data notes, I'd corrupt the data. Because as far as I know, I'm not. A mutant, that is. I'm not from here." He gestured at the ground again. "I came from up there." He pointed at the ceiling seriously.

"You can say I'm lying, but that's what I believe. I've seen pictures of the pod that crash landed on my birthday. If mutants exist, why not extra terrestrials. Honestly, as far as I'm concerned we're not too far off from each other. So if you still want to use my data, go ahead." He shrugged. Somehow, the big deal seemed smaller now that he'd made himself look like a fool.

Extra terrestrial. He said he was an alien. She stared at him for a moment, blinking a few times as she processed this information. Well, perhaps it could happen... Who was she to dispute the possibility of someone coming from outer space? But the whole pod thing, it was kind of what made it weird to hear. She wasn't going to judge him though. Also, she was no psychologist to dispute his claims. "Umm, okay... But the answer is still the same... I mean..." She paused because she was pretty sure he misunderstood her.

"That is... most species have some means of growth, adaptation, and mutation. For instance, there are some fish in the sea t'at start out as female, but say, all t'e males in t'e school have somehow gotten killed off... One or two, if not more of t'e females adapt by becoming male fish in order to breed. I know it isn't t'at fascinating to most people, but it could give at least a little bit of an answer."

Ummm okay was not the kind of reply Elliott liked. Umm okay sounded like someone who didn't believe and was uncomfortable. He'd made her uncomfortable. Well, people always assuming ones a mutant simply by the color of their skin is pretty discomforting too.

He really didn't hold it against her, her discomfort, but he didn't really feel bad about it. Such is life. You live. Your living makes people uncomfortable. You move on.

What she was saying sounded a lot like what he had been thinking... "That's kind of what I was thinking." He said as much. "Only, my species is changing due to some factor. Maybe an adaptation. Maybe I'm hitting my species form of puberty and I was actually only ten or twelve in "ALF" years." Which would make a large portion of his intimate relationships awkward, at least on the human females part.

"The real question," Elliott said thoughtfully. "Is how do I stop it. Or maybe, how do I dew so I'm not sticking to your door knob here in a few minutes when I leave."