"Bad... guy..." Why was no one chasing the bad guy? He heard a rip in his pants and wished that he was not in a crowded mall. It sounded again and he wished that he were not surrounded by girls. A length of tail was growing like a weed. Looking at it, the growth might not be apparent, but look away and back and there was a definite difference.

His shirt pulled tight and he tugged at the collar where it pulled tight against his neck. Two bulging buds pressed out from his scapula.

He stopped worrying about the bad guy.

Jude pushed himself up and scrabbled toward... well... where could he go? He lurched toward a glass window and then turned back in desperation. There was nowhere private in a mall. The loose crowd of people who had stopped to watch the floor show stepped back at his erratic movements.

Then it happened.

There was too much inside his shirt and something had to come out. The stegosaurus on his shirt stretched weirdly before the back of the jersey material split open and under-developed wings poked out from over his shoulders. There was no blood. No guts. No glory. Nothing really that made it a horror show besides the fact that it was all happening right there. Right in front of everyone.

He was pale as a sheet.

At least his shirt had stopped choking him.

Gina was trying hard not to freak out-- but, oof, what a nightmare. A loosely-clenched fist rose to her mouth anxiously as another girl, the girl that he'd collieded with other, shouted the name "Jude" and asked what was happening. Her gaze shifted to Gina, and Gina squirmed. She was compelled to stick around, make sure that "Jude" was okay, but she really wanted to dart off right now, particularly with the slowly gathering crowd.

>> "What should we do?"

Gina searched for a decent answer, but the words halted in her throat.

>> "Bad... guy..." the boy answered. Really? This kid was turning into a gargoyle, and his primary concern was still catching the "bad guy"

"I-I don't know," Gina admitted lamely. She wasn't going to leave the kid, even for a "bad guy"-- she was partially at-fault-- after all, it wasn't exactly a typical occurence to have someone turning into the male version of her. She shuddered as "Jude" stumbled out of the way, and looked back. The wings finally emerged, effectively destroying his shirt. At least there wasn't any blood, but the crowd most certainly wasn't helping. The boy looked very pale, mayhap a little mortified. Gina couldn't blame him. An uncomfortable speechlessness settled.

"O-okay," Gina sighed shakily, turning her attention to the spectator's who'd gathered here. She might as well spare him the embarrassment of being stared at, maybe help him find a shirt of some sort, after such an occurence, "The show is over-- nothing to see here!" She began brushing people off with the casual flap of her hands, her face pleading. Most of the crowd cleared when they saw that Gina was shooing them, "That's right, return to your shopping excursions."

All that was going on with him and he still wanted to play hero. Stupid kid.

She tried to follow him as he staggered away. But she gave him space to finish whatever it was he was doing. Whatever it was.

Wings exploded from the back of his shirt like something out of Alien.

Her heart thumped in her head.

The girl nearby didn't know what to do. Amelia couldn't blame her. She was still shocked this was even happening. As far as she'd known before today, Jude was a human. Now, he was what? Something with wings.

Nothing to see. Yeah right. But getting the crowd to disperse might help them sort this out without being the center of attention.

The crowd began to thin. Well, what the hell? Amelia mirrored what the other girl was doing and saying to help her out.

When the crowd was mostly gone, she turned back to Jude. "We need to get you some place less busy. Someone else can handle the bad."

He wanted to go somewhere else. Desperately. Despite there being "nothing to see" he really felt like a spectacle. He nodded to Ami's suggestion. "Anywhere." Jude even clenched his fists and pushed himself to his shaky feet. He was really hungry so he decided to amend his statement. "Anywhere withs food?"

And somehow that landed him in a chair at an ice cream parlor. They also sold waffles and his was on the way, à la mode, of course, but he wished he'd had enough money for two... for now he sat at the table with two girls as his guardians and a cup of water between his clawed hands. He watched ripples move out from where his unsteady hands surrounded the cup and tried very, very hard not to puncture the paper cup.

"So... I guess I should explain?" It looked like he was asking the water if it wanted to know why he looked like the gargoyle girl. "I copy powers." He cringed. "It's still new." Which was why he couldn't control it.

Gina had settled for a soda and a small order of fries. She wasn't really feeling like icecream, but Hell-- after watching a kid transform into your male duplicate, it was the least that she could do. There was simply something unnerving about watching someone shift like that. It called attention to the imperfections in her physique that had become so typical over the course of her young life. And now, a kid was battling with what it meant to look like a freak all-out.

It therefore wasn't without reason that she was so speculatively, unnaturally silent. Gina nursed her soda, absently churning the ice cubes about with a straw.

>> "So I guess I should explain? I copy powers. It's still new."

Gina glanced towards the boy as he explained to the two girls what had occurred, and why.

"I must admit, you had me quite scared," Gina said, an apologetic twinge in her tone and a subdued smile upon her lips, "Talk about an exciting shopping trip. New York is just shear craziness, I tell you."

Yes, this was Gina-- attempting to make light of a situation for which she felt wholly responsible (and incredibly awful) for causing. Her gaze flickered from the ability copier, to the girl who'd just been standing by, down to the electric spring green of her soda. She took another sip of it and sighed.

The place smelled like burgers and milkshakes.

Amelia hadn't ordered a burger or a milkshake, but she'd been tempted. She'd settled for a soda. For now. All this difficulty with Jude's newfound power kind of took away any major cravings she had (save the burger and milkshake, of course. Because why not?).

This whole thing was so crazy. Jude was a mutant? She never would have guessed. That had to be difficult. Plus, he copied powers. So he never knew what was around the corner. He had to expect the unexpected.

Amelia nodded slowly as he explained, listening thoughtfully. This was something to be serious about, right? Ooooor you could do like Gargoyle-girl and decide it was a bit too heavy, and needed lightening up.

Amelia smiled as the girl looked her way. She could play 'mood light', too. "I certainly never expected this stuff either, Jude." She lectured with waggling finger and a teasing smirk. "Not you with these powers or you copping a feel. You certainly know how to surprise a girl."

"I did not cup a feel!" He wasn't always sure about the slang people threw around, but that sounded highly inappropriate. "I respect wemens!" His face, though slightly gray in hue now due to copying this girl's mutation, turned really red. Ami was his friend and a girl worthy of respect.

And speaking of crazy... "You don't shoot laser beams out of your eyes or anysing else I need to know about, right?" He asked the girl with the wings because he needed to know.

His waffle arrived and he frowned at the ice cream while it melted over the crispy confection. As much as he wanted not to eat out of protest, his tummy urged him to start shoveling.

Gina smiled, and listened as she churned her soda around. The brunette agreed that she, too, hadn't expected this-- this power-copying or copping a feel. That's right, he'd been getting grabby before this whole fiasco had gone down, hadn't he? Funny, how Gina had forgotten that.

The boy was indignant, declaring that he respected "wemens". He even flushed a little in the face. Cute, Gina chuckled. The kid that turned his attention to her, uttering perhaps the most absurd question Gina had ever been asked about her mutation before.

>> "You don't shoot laser beams out of your eyes or anysing else I need to know about, right?"

She arched an eyebrow at him, quirked an apologetic smile, and said, "No, sadly. I'm just-- well, you know. Nothing more than what you see."

Her fries arrived at the same time that the boy's icecream did, and Gina was alarmingly hungrier than she'd expected-- nervousness did that to her. She picked up a fry and nibbled it contemplatively. She had to admit, shooting lasers out of her eyes did sound pretty cool.

>>"I respect wemens!"

Riiiiiight. She believed him! Kidding.

The smirk never vanished. She was just giving him a hard time.

Her eyes shifted towards the gray girl as Jude asked about the laser eyes. That sounded like an overrated power to her. Way too dangerous to be fun.

Soda slurped through her straw. Man. She really did want more than just a soft drink.

She caught the waitress's attention before she left. "Hey. Can I get a cheeseburger?" The woman nodded with a smile, and 'mhmm'd at Amelia. "Thanks." She said, as the women vanished into the kitchen.

She looked to the gargoyle girl. A thought struck her. "Hey. I haven't caught your name. Mine is Amelia. 'Ami' for short." Pronounced 'Ah mee', or 'Ahmmy'. Not Amy. She extended a friendly hand.

"It's nice to meet you." She said, after she'd gotten that name.

Ami didn't believe him. It was written all over her face.

Well, she didn't have to believe him. He knew the truth and besides, he had a waffle to eat. And pout at. But it was so good the pouting didn't last long. Besides, things were looking up with Gina's answer. No laser beams to worry about.

At least the girls seemed to be getting along. Jude ate in relative silence racing against time as the warm waffle melted the cold ice cream.

So. Good.

>> "Hey. I haven't caught your name. Mine is Amelia. 'Ami' for short."

Was this one of those scenarios in which Gina should give het middle name, to maintain some fragment of dignity? If some name were to be soiled, it shouldn't be her first.

"Regina-- everyone calls me Gina," Gina introduced herself in a similar manner. Had she forgotten to introduce herself, after all of that? Oops.

>> "It's nice to meet you."


"Likewise... nice to meet you."

Gina continued to work at her soda looking towards Jude momentarily before returning to her food. Talk about the world's most awkward lunch.

((OoC: Where do you guys want to go from here?))

Amelia smiled.

Now that they'd been introduced and all, they could do the smalltalk.

She had a cheeseburger to wait on. So, smalltalk they had. About school, and sports, and fun. Whatever they all wanted to share.

Finally, her cheeseburger came, and... it. Was. Awesome.

All in all, it was a good day.