((ooc: No offense, Ben, but I don't think there's any way you'd have figured out about Calley's true mutation from him looking at the tarantula. He really was just lookin' at it, as far as you'd have seen. The fact that he can shift to more than tiger is known to five characters on this site, and four of them are NPCs! I've got quite a lot of his future plot lines planned around no one else figurin' his mutation out. So if you could just not mention that again, unless Calley's done something stupid IC to make you suspect that his mutation is more than he says it is... yeah. That's be great. )

Calley looked up as the tarantula crawled over to his forehead. "Any animal? That would be cool. But naw, I just do the tiger thing. And," he said, tilting his head to the side as the arachnid crawled down the other side of his head, over his ear, "I like spiders." He flashed a grin. It wasn't possible to tell that Calley was lying. Lying and truth were pretty relative with him--for instance, it was perfectly true that, at the Mansion, he only did 'the tiger thing'. And perfectly false, too, since he'd once come here as a house cat and infiltrated a very important meeting of the X-Men. Frankly, if Ben kept saying things like that, he was likely to find himself significantly more dead than alive. Calley liked people better before his Scary Boss Man, Hunter, made them disappear. So it was best that he distract the new guy from any such suspicions, quite immediately. "Talkative is good! I hear I can be talkative. But I think that's just because I talk so much. Hey, have you been registered as a student yet? 'Cause otherwise, we've got to find a teacher, or someone, to give you the paperwork. Which is sorta long and boring but pretty easy. And then you can get a room. I've got a single because I like sleeping as a tiger and I kinda sometimes purr in my sleep and it's really loud, but you can have a roommate if you want, just not me, 'cause I pushed the beds together in my room and I've got sort of a tent-fort built with the pillows and the sheets. Gah-! That tickles!" He reached a hand down the back of his borrowed T-shirt, and fished the tarantula out. "Hmm. We should really figure out who this guy belongs to. Maybe. 'Cause me and pets don't work. I had a hamster once." He watched the tarantula crawling back up his arm, again. "For two weeks. It wasn't a good idea." Something else that wasn't a good idea: taking your hamster into the back yard to play. It's not that the hamster died; it's just that he never found it again. He liked to think that it was alive somewhere, fostering a community of wild New Jersey Teddy Bear Hamsters. With pride.

((Ok im sorry and ill keep that in mind.))

There calley went with the numiours questions again...quite really the kid needed a chill pill...or a whole bottle of chill pills. Now this would have bothered most pepole but not ben...it was nice to someone talkitive...a nice break from humans who just seemed content on stareing at you

"Nah i havent signed up yet and i was hopeing somone could show me around...im not quite sure im gonna stay here or not...there's a few other places that i could go to and i'd like to have an informed decision rather than makeing a hasty choice."

Ben chuckled again "I like spider's too...but think if you can morph into one cat like a tiger..why not something similar like a panther? Who knows? It may just work." Ben smiled "Do you think you can show me around? I'd at least like to see the dorms."

Calley grinned, and wrapped an arm around Ben's shoulders. Not the arm with the tarantula, mind you, but the other one. "Ben, my shiny new friend, you should definitely enroll here. We can hook you up with some serious bio lessons. As a preview: tigers and panthers aren't all that similar. That's like sayin' that humans should try 'n' turn into monkeys, 'cause it might just work. Heh. Maybe for some of them, it would." He grinned, to let the the guy know he wasn't tryin' to be mean. Which he really wasn't. He was trying to guarantee that Ben here lived to see tomorrow. 'Cause if someone on the other end of Calley's necklace camera was payin' attention--and he got the distinct impression that someone always was--then any suspicion on Ben's part that Hunter's little spy boy could turn into multiple animals... well, that wouldn't be a long-lived suspicion. "The dorms, huh? I've only been here a few days myself, but I think I can handle finding the dorms. I know where the kitchen is, too. Would you like to tour the refrigerator?" The way Calley said it, the refrigerator was a legitimate tour stop. Possibly the most important one in the entire Mansion.

But before that most vital of stops... he took a few steps towards the stairs up to the second floor, and looked back at Ben with a 'you comin'?' tilt of his head.

((ooc: Iris, if you're followin' this thread... you could probably send Neena in any time. )

(OOC: Will do.

"I am not stubborn. There's no point in keeping burns from scarring..."Neena muttered irritably to herself as she walked down the middle hallway of the dorms, away from the infirmary.

And, indeed, she didn't see the need. She's just come from a training session with one of the kids who could manipulate fire. Due to taking on the role of moving target, she had ended the session sporting several harsh burn marks on her arms and legs. When she made a stop to pick up some burn cream, the DocProf had cornered her, insisting that he could heal the wounds so they wouldn't scar. Considering she was likely to get burned again, Neena had tried dodging the treatment. A task that actually proved more difficult than it sounded. She had come away with wounds healed, and a half used tube of cream. It would have been full if she hadn't used it as a temporary weapon to squirt in the Doc's face.

Still muttering irrateably, and as usual not watching her feet, she headed down the stairs....

.... and ran face first into someone. She fell back on the stairs, on her back.

And found a furry, eight-legged critter trying to hold a staring contest with her. She lay there for a brief moment.

"Hmmm..... I think I'll let you win this round Legs." With that she sat up, picking up the spider. She noticed the two boys she'd bumped into. "Yours?" she asked of them, a bit dryly.

"YEah the fridge sounds like an excellent place to stop and im kinda hungry considering you ate my chicken." Ben said jokeingly...and ben noticed that calley seemed to want to change the subject...that useualy ment that when a person changed the subject it useualy ment they were hideing something. "And if you ask me...gah!"

Ben exclaimed as he was knocked over by a woman who seemed to be steaming. Ben jumped to his feet and held out a hand to help her up "Nah its not mine..i like spider's but not that much."

((Heres the repost you wanted))
"YEah the fridge sounds like an excellent place to stop and im kinda hungry considering you ate my chicken." Ben said jokeingly... "And if you ask me...gah!"

Ben exclaimed as he was knocked over by a woman who seemed to be steaming. Ben jumped to his feet and held out a hand to help her up "Nah its not mine..i like spider's but not that much."

There was talk of the fridge, and the joys of exploring its contents. Then there was a woman and a crash that took Ben down and nearly took him, too, and—and a tarantula in the air. Calley gah!ed, and stretched out his hands to catch his hairy new friend, but missed... and watched the poor poor arachnid land on the ground. No doubt in traumatized spidery shock. And it didn’t help that the mean knocking-people-over lady was staring at the defenseless little fellow in his moment of mental fragility. Her comments about letting the spider win earned her points with Calley, but her dry tone after picking the vulnerable mini-predator up was simply inexcusable.

Calley stuck out his hand demandingly. “Uh-uh,” he answered. “But I was gonna take care of him until we found out who’s he was. So give him back!” If he was in tiger form, he would have recognized the woman’s scent—while he hadn’t actually met her face-to-face, he’d become purringly acquainted with her back at the X-Men try-outs. This right here was the scent-sans-person that he’d smelled, and twined himself around briefly. But his human nose was deaf, and he’d been a little too preoccupied during that brief break between rounds to notice her in the observation room. She wasn’t being nice to the spider. It didn’t matter, particularly, that she wasn’t being mean, either. He wanted his eight-legged friend back.

"Nah its not mine..i like spider's but not that much."

That was one denial.

“Uh-uh.”

And there was the second. Neena wondered idly if both were simply trying to avoid getting in trouble. If so, she didn't understand why; the school allowed pets, and wasn't specific about what kind. So why try to hide a spider?

“But I was gonna take care of him until we found out who’s he was. So give him back!”

Neena's mouth twitched; she was trying not to grin. Okay, so the blue-eyed, brown-haired boy wasn't worried about getting in trouble. She recognized him as the tiger-shifter from the Xmen session.

Did tigers eat tarantulas? The thought popped into her mind suddenly. She'd seen housecats play with spiders before. And tigers and tarantulas were simply bigger versions, right? With a bit more deadliness about them.

Still sitting on the stairs, Neena held up her arm, and let the spider crawl back to the kid.

"Try the fifth room on the right, boys hallway. There's a kid there who's half insect. Might be his. And, eh, try not to play too hard with him in the meantime, Tigger. Or eat him," she added with an amused snort.

"Sorry for the unintentional tackle, fellas. Other than pet owner searching, did you need help finding anything?"

"Uhm yeah there was someone i was trying to find." Ben said as he scratched the back of his head "You wouldent happen to know where the perso nin charge is do you?" Ben shifted his weight awkwardly to his other foot. "Im looking to sign up or at least check out what the school has to offer before i decide to join or not."

Calley contemplated the woman’s words with a bit too much seriousness, as the tarantula steadily migrated from her arm to his. He took a seat on the step down from hers as Ben replied, looking back and forth between the two of them as the spider crawled to his head. It perched at the top of his skull, looking out over its domain, its thorax moving just the slightest bit up and down in thoughtful spidery contemplation of thoughtful spidery thoughts.

“...to sign up or at least check out what the school has to offer before i decide to join or not.” Ben finished.

Calley sat up straight. “Too crunchy.” He declared, to the world at large. Not to say that he hadn’t tortured and then eaten the odd spider in his day, particularly back when he was house catting around the city... but he was much more in the mood for something squishy-chewy, not crunchy-juicy, at the moment. Like gummi bears. “Are there gummi bears in the kitchen?” He asked the lady. Mostly ‘cause she looked older than him and, therefore, more likely to be in charge of something or another.

...Sometimes, it was best to ignore Calley.

"You wouldn't happen to know where the person in charge is do you? Im looking to sign up or at least check out what the school has to offer before i decide to join or not."

“Too crunchy. Are there gummi bears in the kitchen?”

Both boys had just managed to raise Neena's curiosity level enough for her to forget her annoyingly irritating infirmary visit. One corner of her mouth raised in a half-smile.

"To Question Number One, Miss Tipper is the Headmistress in charge. But if you're looking to register, or need a place to crash for a bit, I can help you with that one.

"As for Question Number Two, check the snack cupboards, above the fridge. Not sure what's up there, but I'm sure there's something chewable." She made a mental note to go through the student files again; she hadn't spoken with 'Tigger' as of yet, and didn't know anything about him, not even his name. She assumed one of the other teachers had set up his file; there couldn't be too many tiger-shifters with blue eyes in the school, right? If not, she could find him later, as it appeared he had more pressing issues to resolve.

She stood and headed down the stairs, motioning for the other boy to follow her over to a table in the front room. "I'm Neena, by the way, Danger Room teacher. What can I call you m'friend?" She handed him one of the New Resident folders as she spoke, smiling fully this time.

(OOC: Would like to take this oppertunity to say that Hunter sent Calley's file ahead with a (very good) false history, so if you do go digging after him you'll find everything appearing above board)

((ooc: *stands proudly* I am Caleb Yeldham, orphanage-runaway extraordinaire! My powers are shifting to tiger, and healing! My interests include eating, and joining the X-Men!))


Calley twitched to his feet, in a move that made poor Mister Legs cling to his scalp for dear life. "The snack cupboards! Genius!" He exclaimed, wrapping his arms around this wonderful forgiven-for-mentally-scarring-the-tarantula woman in a brief hug. "Thank you!" And with that, he dodged down the stairs towards the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs he pirouetted around one bare heel to shout back up at Ben: "You should definitely come here! And take the remedial courses! Those're the ones I'm in!" This was said with a perfect lack of shame. And then he was off running, with a terrified tarantula in his hair, to hunt down gummi bears.

...I refuse to associate myself with you, a voice in the very back of his mind piped up.

Good luck with that, Calley heartily wished it, with a grin. And then he was out of sight around a corner, still running.

((ooc: I shall leave you in Neena's capable hands, Ben. I have to see a stoic teen and a Scary Boss about throwing things at girls' heads. ))

Ben sighed and chuckled a little "Nice kid but about as sharp as a bag of we mice." Ben said jokeingly. Ben reached down and helped her up. "Yeah i could use some help lookin for a place to crash..can you help me?"

(OOC: lol I had no doubts. I just mentioned it since she didn't actually meet him at the gates, which would not be unusual, as there are other teachers. Plus Neena's very absentminded, if you haven't noticed. ;D The though of a file search was simply to give her a name to call Calley other than 'Tigger', though that works just as well. lol *to Calley* At ease soldier! Commence to throwing things! *salutes* )

"The snack cupboards! Genius! Thank you! You should definitely come here! And take the remedial courses! Those're the ones I'm in!"

Neena shook her head. "Eh, probably shouldn't have told him where we keep the sugar.... Oh well. Hopefully that tiger form isn't prone to hyperactivity."

"Yeah i could use some help lookin for a place to crash..can you help me?"

"Yeah, I think we can manage that," she replied with a chuckle. She flipped open the folder. "You're more than welcome to stay here. We have a pretty wide range of subjects, and if you need it, we can help you get the equivelant of your high school diploma. If you need it, there's a special room here to help you gain some control over your mutation. Or, if you just need a place to stay, you're still welcome. I just need you to fill out this form for the Headmistress's files. Everything is confidential, though I do have two questions for you."

She pointed to the part of the form that asked, 'What is your mutation?' and 'Is it dangerous to you, or those around you?'

"I need to know the answers to those question now, just in case we need to set you up with special rooming or training, 'kay?" She gave him a smile to show she wasn't prying; it was simply procedure. Though she was guessing that, unless 'Tigger' was immune to many odd things, this kid's mutation wasn't but so dangerous, or out of control.

Of course, with mutants you never knew.