Beau found himself wanting to be alone; there were too many people than he was used to. He didn't know any of them and all of them pretty much intimidated the young teen mutant. The mansion seemed really crowded sometimes, especially when everyone decided to gather in one area, but he had one thing going for him. There was one place he knew no one would bother or approach him. 

The blue-skinned lad made his way to the pool, covered up by his oversized black hoodie and a pair of sweat pants. Looking around, he took off the hoodie and sweats, revealing a pair of dark green swim trunks. Then, he silently stepped into the pool, still careful not to make any noise that would attract unwanted attention. That's why he was even doing this. He dove underwater, the bitter cold hitting his skin at first, but his body quickly adjusted to the cold temperature, and very soon he was comfortable despite being in a pool in December. 

The youngster swam instinctively, his webbed hands and feet allowing him to glide through the water, his senses working just as well as on land, and the gills on his chest meaning he didn't have to come up for air. Every now and then he'd drift closer to the surface as he swam, the small fin that ran the length of his pack poking out of the water before going back under. 

"CANNON BAAAAALLLL!"

It was amazing where you could sneak in if you just looked the part. Even more amazing that they had an uncovered pool in the dead of winter, but hey. Mutants, what cooky bastards!

All of her small form sank into the water like a bullet, barely missing the boy who was casually enjoying a swim. She'd left her shorts, shoes and coat on dry land, and was clad in a pair of boys trunks and a tank top in lieu of a proper bathing suit. The child let herself sink for a moment so she could squint at the boy in the water with her, before paddling back up for air.

"Hey! Merboy!" She splashed at the water loudly to make sure she caught his attention. "Wanna play shark hunt?!

Beau was loving having the whole pool to himself; it was a perk of his mutation. Nobody else had the nerve--literally--to dive into an icy pool in December, leaving him alone with his thoughts and he could just rela--

"CANNON BAAAAALLLL!"

Ohno. That was a person. And she'd just jumped in with him. The way the kid's heart was racing, one would have thought they were sharing a bathtub instead of a whole-ass swimming pool, but nonetheless he instinctively swam all the way to the bottom and just...stayed there. Luckily he had gills, so unlike her, he wouldn't have to come up for air anytime soon.

But she knew he was there, and the jig was up. Defeated, he slowly surfaced, swimming up to the top so that his dorsal fin appeared first, and then his head. "M-merboy?" he said finally, his voice timid and somewhat quiet, though the nickname made him smile a bit. Back home the closest he got to something like that was when the bullies called him Fishface. But...this one didn't sound teasing. 

"W-what's Shark hunt?" he asked sincerely, before looking down and realizing that he was shirtless, in a pool, with a girl, and his face turned a very bright purple as the blood rush mixed with his blue skin. 

His heart already felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, but...it was fine. It'd be fine, yeah.  He took a deep breath, trying not to seem as timid or embarrassed as he was, which was easier said than done in broad daylight, and with his hoodie lying on the ground nearby.

"I...I'm Beau...I uh...I just moved here about a w-week ago." 

She blinked at him like he was the slowest thing on earth.

"...You're a shark, right? You be the shark and i'll hunt you!" It was said cheerfully, without any malice and the biggest grin. Just two kids treading water when one of them rightly shouldn't be.

Her stringy, dark hair was clinging to her face in strands and she was missing a tooth on one side.

"I'll even be all like 'Oh no, I need a bigger boat!'" She made finger guns at him and paddled back a bit with a splash. "Pew Pew pew!"

The girl paused them, seeming to consider something.

"Or I can be the shark if you want and try to catch and eat you!" She snapped her teeth at him.

"I'm Elke by the way. I snuck in an hour ago."

Honestly, Beau was used to that look she'd given him. He was book smart, but his social graces left much to be desired.

At least she seems friendly, he thought to himself, though he couldn't help but notice that both possible scenarios had him being the one hunted. Timidly, yet somewhat trying to be playful, one of his webbed hands glided through the water, splashing her back, just a little.

Wait...snuck in? He was going to end up hanging out with troublemakers, wasn't he? While that normally would have bothered him, he was a little glad someone was paying some positive attention to him. Outside of his family, the Louisiana native never really had that

"It makes mo' sense that I be the shark," he said with a grin, his Cajun accent on full display as he dove underwater, resurfaced just long enough to splash her again, and then dive back down.

"Wahoo!" The kid crowed, flopping back into the water with her arms thrown victoriously in the air.


"Man, I wish I had my bow! Dunno where it is tho so I'll just have to pretend." She dove after him, kicking and paddling hard to try and keep up. She surfaced for air and he splashed her. She dove at him with a roar, making a huge splash in the water. If she could just get him in a headlock she could start to wrestle. Wrestling a shark had always been on her bucket list!

After a bit of chasing and splashing she needed to surface again though, since she needed to breath. She shivered slightly as she kicked to keep herself on the surface and wiped hair from her eyes.

"Man, this is f-fun! You swim like this all the t-time? I'm so jealous!"

He let out a happy yelp as they played, though the mention of a bow made him flinch just a little. She couldn't have meant a real one, right? Well, the good news was either way, she didn't have it with her, so that was good. He always felt like he was a natural swimmer, but this was the first time actually having someone to swim with. He felt the shyness melting away the more they swam, but eventually Elke surfaced for air again.

This time, as she did, he surfaced as well, not that he needed to, but he couldn't exactly talk under water.

"Oh! Yeah. I kind of have a unfair advantage," he said with a nervous smile as he raised his left arm, showing a small set of gills lined up perfectly with his ribs. "I'm quite literally...part fish," he explained. "And when I jump in water like dis, after awhile, it's not cold anymore."

That caused him pause. Wait. She couldn't do that, could she? His face suddenly got more concerned. "Hol' up. You can't do any of that...do you need to get out an' warm up? M-my jacket's pretty warm if you need it..."

"Holy crap, lookit' those!" Because she was a barbarian, she reflexively reached out to poke him straight in the gills with her finger.

"What's it like having your lungs outside your body like that?... I wonder if I could ever have gills..."

She was positively shivering now, with maybe just a tiny bit of snot starting to try and run out of one nostril. She didn't seem to mind though, for whatever reason. She seemed to have the decency to blush bright red while thinking about wearing a boys jacket though.

"Idunnodon'tyouhavecooties?" It all came out so fast it might not have even sounded like english. The girl was fiddling with the water nervously.

"Oi."

It might have been a little confusing at first since that voice sure did sound like the girl in front of them, but sure as heck hadn't come out of her mouth. Said girl made a strangled eep sound and inexplicably dove under the water to try and hide at the bottom, like she could breath under there.

If Beau were to turn around he would find an exact duplicate of her sitting behind him, one bare foot dipped into the water of the pool with the other knee tucked up into her chest and her arms draped over it.

This girl was wearing all her clothes... the exact same clothes as the other. Her hair was the same, and her face too. Only... this girl had a dark look in her eyes.

"I wouldn't swim with her too long or you might catch her idiocy."

Beau let out a very unmasculine squeal when she poked his gills, and he reflexively squirmed back. "That tickles..." he said sheepishly. "It's not really that different when I'm on land because unlike an actual fish, they kinda just...close up. Under water, my nose and lungs do the same, I guess?" he tried to explain, and thanks to his more book-wormy nature, he felt he did an okay job for his age.

"I don't think so, but cooties is better than what you could catch from being in this water too long. Like, I don't know....death?" he answered, his voice still quiet, but much more concerned.

Things after that happened pretty quickly. The voice coming from behind him, causing him to turn around, then the weird strangley sound that came from what was in front of him a second ago but was now behind him. And then there was another one sitting on the side of the pool? "I...what? Where did you...where did she? Are you--is she--twins?" He stammered, looking from the one girl to the spot in the pool where the other had been.

"Hol' on!" he shouted, turning and diving underwater, using his fish-like capabilities to dive all the way down, intending to pull his new friend(? Yeah. Friend sounded like the right term,) up to the surface.

The more stoic of the twins watched impassively, maybe boredly, as fishboy dove down to save her idiot sister. She watched as her twin flailed about stupidly as she was surely brought back to the surface and brought out a little sharp knife from a leather sheath at her waist to pick her short nails clean. When her twin was inevitably brought back up alive, the one in the pool took to trying to hide behind Beau like Elke couldn't see her.

"You know when your dumb@#$ jumps into cold water I can feel it, right?" She was pissed about it, too. Elke shifted black eyes onto the boy again with a frown and pointed her knife at him.

"You should have just left her at the bottom. She's dumb enough to jump in the water she's gotta deal with all the consequences."

She went back to picking at her nails with the blade while her twin sputtered incoherent nonsense at her from behind her merboy shield.

"What's this place anyway? Doesn't look like no school I've ever been in."

Sweet, he managed to save someone! That was a real boost to the fish-boy's self esteem, though the following conversation just confused the poor kid even more. He shirked back a little, slightly pressing against the 'idiot' twin as the one on dry land waved the knife at him.

"I couldn't just let her drown..." he murmured, his eyes looking down at the water instead of at the other girl. Looking back at the one he was protecting, he offered his arm to her so they could sit on the edge of the pool, keeping his mind off of the fact that he was making physical contact with a girl. Once she was situated, he went over to his hoodie, sort of regretting that he didn't bring any towels, but it was too late for that. Besides, it would dry out. Oversized hoodie in hand, he made his way back over to her, handing the hoodie to the probably freezing girl.

"Here; it'll keep ya plenty warm," he comforted before turning back to the angry one.

"It's not like other schools. It's a place for mutants, especially youngins to learn to control their powers. I was sent here from Louisiana because there's part of my ability that I can't control," he said, getting more and more timid and quiet as the conversation got more personal. "I've only been here about a week, but...I like it so far."

"Why?" She countered, not even bothering to look at him. "It's easy. Just do nothing. Don't get involved. She sinks, you swim. End of story."

They exited the pool, she moved to stand. She was short, as was her twin. Still, she had confidence wrapped around her like a cloak, with just an twinge of aggression. She watched as her twin blushed, muttered a soft thankyou, and shrugged the boys sweatshirt on. That felt like an invasion of privacy she hadn't asked for.

"Take it off."

The twins locked eyes. One tense and shivering like a leaf in the wind. The other standing with her back ramrod straight and a frown on her young face. A muscle in her jaw twitched when her twin jerkily shook her head.

"Mutant's, huh? Cool. School's lame though. You'd be better out on the streets learning how to use it first hand. The hoodie. Off."

Again, the clone shook her head. Elke started talking slow, lazy steps toward the two of them.

"I ain't never been to Louisiana. Born and bred here. What kinda stuff you need help with, Fishboy?"

"I...I can't do that..." he stammered quietly, still not making eye contact with the twin that he'd internally dubbed 'the mean one.' He was showing somewhat of a heroic streak, though that probably just meant if nothing else worked out he could get a sweet gig as a lifeguard when he grew up. Seeing her put the hoodie on made him feel better, at least she was bound to warm up, anyway.

However when told to take it off, and the nice one refused, Beau kind of wished he'd had the hoodie, so he could hide in it like he normally did. But it was for a good cause, right? Yeah, of course; he was helping, and she was sweet. Actually nice to him, and that meant something.

"I...I...l-l-like school," he said, his stutter coming back; he was much more comfortable with the other one, it seemed. This one really intimidated him, and he didn't have anywhere to hide, so he just sat next to the 'sweet one' and inched a little closer, like they could somehow protect each other or something. "Pretty sure I won't last long on the s-s-streets..."

He took a deep breath. "Until a week ago I'd never left. And...well, I always have the stuff like the blue skin and the breathin' underwater, but...sometimes other things happen. Like adapting to cold water, and sometimes I've done...other things," he said, his face turning purple as he blushed deeply, still looking down at the pool. "The other day, someone accidentally sat on me and I kinda...shocked him. Like an electric eel or somethin'," he said quietly. "Like...I think I can do stuff some fish can do, but I...I can't control it." He still didn't make eye contact; the only reason he knew that much was because ever since his power surfaced, he'd taken to reading extensively about fish.

Elke stopped an arms length away from them, gaze swaying from one to the other and back.

"Sounds to me like the @#$% learned not to sit on you real quick though, right?" She tossed a crooked grin at him before lunging suddenly at her clone. She caught her by the collar and held fast as the other tried to escape. "Noo! I don't wanna! He gave it to me, it's mine!"

"I said take it off! I didn't consent to you putting it on in the first place!"

A short struggle ensured, which resulted in the clone getting a boxed ear and Elke physically removing the coat from her like she was a cranky toddler throwing a tantrum.

"Jesus @##% Christ, why did I even bring you along. Musta lost my damn mind when I made that decision."

Now one twin was crying and Elke was standing over her growling about what a sissy she was. Then the Native turned and thrust the slightly soaked coat back at it's owner, no worse for wear despite the struggle.

"Here. Word of advice, don't go offering my clones things without asking me first. They hoard damn near everything and I don't want your clothes on my body."

He nodded slowly, figuring in that sense he really couldn't argue with results. In the resulting scuffle, he just sort of stayed quiet, scooting back out of the way and wishing he could shrink away and hide because he wasn't a fan of any sort of confrontation, and despite her meanness not being directed at him, she was still pretty scary.

Sheepishly, Beau took the hoodie back when it was offered, and he scrambled into the slightly soaked fabric, pulling the hood up and nesting in it like he was so used to.

"I...I have another one..." he said, face still purple with a blush, though it was harder to see with pretty much just his yellow eyes showing through the raised hood. "I d-d-didn't know she was a c-clone," he admitted, glad to be back in his hoodie, truth be told; it was pretty much his security blanket, though he wouldn't admit it.

"But...your power is making c-clones? That's r-really c-cool," he said, those shy yellow orbs making eye contact with the original for the first time. He really wanted to comfort the clone but at this point, he didn't know how, and more importantly he didn't want to invoke the wrath of the original.