Miles chimed-in in regards to living at the Mansion, giving him a short list of the benefits of living there. He could be looked after, have friends, an education, and a future as a more intelligent him. Gina made an amused sound, but said nothing. Guglin, all the while, clambered onto the chair and began to dine. After eating some, he gave pause to answer the inquiries.

He loved the park, because the inside was boring.

His curiosity seemed piqued by Miles's pitch, thus this earned further questioning. They had to talk about fun, outside things, Gina thought to herself-- it was their best chance of getting him to stay. She leaned against the counter, folded her arms, and let the boys discuss boy things.

Miles thought that civilizing Guglin was actually important and worthwhile, but the little goblin seemed hesitant about the whole thing. His dirty cargo pants were proof that he didn't live at the Ritz and he seemed to be pretty fond of his hobo lifestyle. He loved the park. So much so that he found indoors boring and when he asked what they studied, Miles made a tactical blunder.

"Well, books, of course!" he replied.

Doh! That would probably turn him off, even if it was true. What else could Guglin expect from studying at a school other than poring over books?

"You could also... train with your mutant powers..."

Right. Train at being small. Train at using something that you likely have since birth and are probably more than used to it because you've never known any different.

"Maybe do some physical training..."

He lives in the park. How much more physical can you get than living outdoors, hunting around?

"Or learn some self defense..."

He's two feet tall. You can't expect him to go all kung fu with those tiny little arms and legs. Better stick to using his teeth.

He was losing this and he knew it. He felt like he was in a boat in the middle of a lake and going The boat is sinking! It's sinkiiiing! while he himself, repeatedly plunged an axe through it's hull. He then decided to 'embellish' things a little.

"I'm a hunter as well!" he added all of a sudden. "My dogs... they're like... professional hunting hounds and... and... the forest in the back of the mansion? Oh man, it's awesome! We got a hedge maze and at night you can go out in the forest and hunt... er... you can hunt..."

He darted his pleading eyes to Gina as if saying 'help me out here!'. He knew he couldn't say 'rabbits' or anything remotely cute or Gina would flail. Bears? Too big. Snakes? What if Guglin was afraid of snakes? The silence was starting to be evident and the lie too obvious, so he just finished it with "You can hunt... stuff!"

Geez. Who knew getting savages back into civilization would be hard? You'd think they'd jump at the chance.

Soon after his question was pronounced, the little goblin focused again on the task of enjoying the delicious chicken to the point where the conversation started to move slightly to the background as mere noise. Still, Guglin kept one sensitive ear directed toward the boy at least to show some respect for the free meal they gave him. He continued to talk as if the topic was very exciting while Guglin tossed more pieces of chicken to his wide open mouth. It was hard to miss with all that space since his mouth was bigger and wider than that of a human but some chocolate pudding still managed to escape and hit his face.

At least they could agree on the fact that studying books was very rewarding, so the little goblin nodded slightly at the mention but not with so much energy as to encourage the chat to move in that direction. Books were mostly boring aside from some interesting pictures that can be found in them but they all were good burning fuel if you "study" them enough to know which one was better. Some burned quickly without providing too much heat or cooking capabilities while others burned a little slower providing a lasting fire.
Or was he talking about really studying their contents? These small doodles contained in its entrails gave him more than one headache when his human father tried to teach him things from them but at least he had good memories of homemade food as reward for his effort.

His powers were a more interesting topic, so he directed his ears to him as two powerful satellite dishes. It would be worth to stop by and train his powers to suddenly changes places, that way he could control where to go instead of showing up in strange places. He could give it a try but them... where would he find so much adventure if not for his powers? Unpredictable always mean more fun, so he discarded the idea of training as silly and tosses another piece of chicken.

To some degree, he was proficient in all the things the ill boy named. Where they still learning that stuff? Maybe he could become their personal trainer or even better, a professor to teach them the art of hunting and surviving. After all it was a lesson he learned when he was younger from his mutant family and since them he had practiced these techniques every day. So far he was alive so he had to be good at it. Professor Guglin. It had a nice ring but was too long to use daily.

The hunting topic was far more interesting than any of the previous ones so he focused completely on him, even forgetting the heavenly chocolate chicken. If the boy was lying, Guglin could not tell. He was so excited about the idea of hunting in the woods that he never stopped, not even for a second, to think that he was inventing all that. Certainly his dogs looked like hounds.
"Stuff." Guglin repeated merrily while he imagined all the “stuff” he could hunt. There was a kind of animal Guglin wanted to hunt since he was little. "Dinosaurs?" He saw them in movies and also in books, they were big and dangerous animals, so hunting them would be a challenge up to his skills. He did not see any of them in Central Park but that does not mean they did not live in the city anymore, maybe dinosaurs preferred smaller places like the woods behind the house.

Gina remained leaned against the counter, listening attentively as Miles proclaimed that they had books. Gina smiled faintly. Books. Way to give him an offer he couldn’t refuse, silly, Gina thought to herself. Watching Guglin inhale his food made her a touch hungry, too, so the gargoyle went and grabbed a cheese-stick for herself from the fridge, nibbling on it contentedly. Miles began warming-up to a different sales pitch, talking about training mutant powers, or conditioning yourself physically otherwise.

“They do have a very nice training facility,” Gina agreed, “And the self defense instructor’s really... knowledgeable.”

And cute, don’t forget cute. Mr. Johnson was a total knockout, and the Self Defense instructor/X-Man knew it quite well. Gina’s tail curled and flicked absently. He can teach me how to beat people up any day… The gargoyle sighed faintly. Miles suddenly shouted about hunting, and Gina looked up. What? What did he hunt, squirrels? Gina frowned. He’d better not be hunting those cute, innocent little squirrels. Those poor things. Miles paused for too long, and Gina caught-on.

>> "Stuff. Dinosaurs?"

Gina laughed. Something gave her the impression that Guglin was young.

“Well, we do have a dinosaur-shifting mutant here,” Gina said, “But you can’t hunt her. Her name’s Amber, and she’s a resident here. Really nice, too.”

Miles followed Gina's laughter with a snicker of his own. He did know Amber as well, and she'd not take kindly to being hunted by a little green goblin.

"Yeah, and regarding living dinosaurs, I don't know if you've got the memo, but dinosaurs are ex... they're ex..."

He was about to finish the sentence, when his conscience tugged at him, kind of going 'Now Miiiiles, are you really going to burst the little widdle goblin's bubble and tell him dinosaurs are extinct? Why don't you go and tell him Santa isn't real as well? Can't you just... humor him? Give him that joy and sparkle in his eyes that only make-believe can accomplish?'

"They're ex... pecting you to hunt them in the backyard. Yup" he said, as he looked and blinked at Gina, hoping she'd follow along.

Follow along... WHAT? He was improvising, for no reason whatsoever, except trying to make the poor goblin happy. Then, in the depths of Miles mind, something started to plot and take form...

Sometimes, when people went hunting or fishing... they'd come back home with absolutely diddly squat. He saw no damage whatsoever in taking Guglin out to hunt dinosaurs he was damn sure the little fella wouldn't even find anyway. As he thought this, the more mischievous side of Miles started to pop it's head in, as if going 'Hey, are we going to prank someone? Count me in!' and the teenager grinned, as the wheels in his head started to turn.

The boy crouched, trying to keep his face at a similar height to Guglin's while he fabricated a tale. "In fact, we have these small dinosaurs, they're really quick and shy the little buggers and they're called..." he paused, looking at Gina and figuring he owed her an explanation, then giving it to her along with a made up dinosaur name. "They're called... 'Imgonnaprankhimabitus' but... you gotta be careful!" he warned, barely able to contain his laughter now. "This is a mutant school and we have... mutant dinosaurs."

Stretching back to full height, he clapped his hands together and smirked at both of them.

"So! Are we ready to hunt us some dinosaurs!?"

It was hard for him to decide what of those things were worth staying in the school for and which ones were not good enough since there was so much to do in that school and everything looked so inviting. So far he learned that they have a place to hunt behind the house, a place with real dinosaurs like the ones that appeared on TV, they also had a magic oven and a fridge filled with food, apparently they can have mascots and they were encouraged in learning how to fight.
He already has a lot of these things in the park, minus the magic oven and the fridge but things at the school have a little something that made them a little more special. Maybe it was the company or maybe it was the fact that they were all like him… not green and with pointy ears, but mutants with different abilities. Even when the ill boy did not display any peculiarity, he has to be a mutant too. He decided to ask later as he tossed another piece of chicken toward his mouth.

The big park had a very nice training facility too but since it lacked a proper instructor it could be a little rough in the edges for a rookie. He was not a novice anymore but it was always nice to remember the basic of combat and surviving… who knows, maybe the self defense instructor could teach him a lot of new stuff. Maybe he could even teach him that crazy combat martial art that keeps appearing in movies. Could he? “Can we learn kunfu?” As with most questions, it was better to ask them loudly and since the woman seemed to know a lot about the instructor, she asked her. “Or ninja stuff!”

A mutant able to change into dinosaurs seemed to be a cool power. What would he do with these powers? There were a lot of dinosaurs Guglin liked a lot, from some herbivores to some flying reptiles but there was one that was his favorite and if he were to transform himself, he would turn into one of those tractors. These things were great hunters.

It was kind of disappointing to know that the dinosaurs were expecting him already… he could not approach them silently to catch them by surprise and since they probably knew how a hell of a hunter he was, they were all looking for good hiding places as they continued speaking. He lost the surprise factor before even starting the hunt… it was not a very good way to start but it was still better than nothing. To know that there were dinosaurs still out there, hidden or not, was very good news.

The boy continued with his speech, revealing the name of the small dinosaurs that inhabited the backyard. It was a very complicated name, long and full of consonants, so the little goblin just ignored it. Was what the point of knowing it anyway? Still, he continued listening to the boy whose head was now at his height. Not so far away from his teeth.
The boy warned him about the dinosaur student one more time and that time he managed to worry him. Gina said it in a very tender tone and she did not make it sound like something could go terrible wrong… the boy in the other hand was trying to point that out… How where they suppose to distinguish between a real dinosaur and that Amber? He did not want to hunt the people living there, not after they shared their food and knowledge with him…

It was a very complicated moral dilemma and he would have dwell in these matters for minutes if not for Miles´s battle cry that erased any leftover of doubt. The goblin jumped immediately from his chair to the floor, landing gracefully on his bare feet. He then looked up at the boy, who looked like a giant from his perspective and asked him a very important question regarding the hunting. “Where be weapons?” Even with all his experience, he knew it was always better to have some weapons available in case they find a bigger prey... he would love to have a spear like the one he forgot at home, or some javelins or even a sling to approach a dangerous dinosaur with some distant.

Gina tilted a curious gaze at Miles, quite confused. She didn’t expect Amber would want to be hunted at anytime, or in any place. Miles, however, was insisting that she would want to be hunted in the backyard. Gina frowned. Hunting a fellow student did not seem like a good idea at all. Gina listened intently as Miles explained these dinosaurs to him. The gargoyle inclined her head when he rattled off the name, realizing his intentions.

God, he was just like Grandpa Schuyler, telling Gina and her older brothers about the “witchabatchits and snipes” that lived in the backyard and under the house. According to Grandpa Schuyler, these were mischievous creatures that were rarely ever seen, and liked to pull pranks on little children. Now, they were doing the same, but with a goblin instead. A goblin that Gina had just found, and they were convincing him that they were going on a dinosaur hunt.

“Hopefully Amber’s not around,” Gina murmured to herself. Then, to Guglin, Gina said, “But we cannot hunt the white dinosaurs. White dinosaurs could be Amber. And hunting another student would be bad. Understand?”

There, now her conscience was clear. Now the boys could be silly boys, and have their silly-boy fun.

Well, now that warnings had been delivered, Miles gave the typical 'yeah, yeah, sure' nods at Gina, letting her understand he'd be careful, but in reality he had barely listened in typical silly-boy fashion as his brain was concocting ideas on how to prank Guglin.

The goblin was interested in learning Kung Fu of all things and how to be a good ninja, to which the boy simply replied: "Well, coincidentally, hunting dinosaurs is the first step to entering ninja classes."

He wouldn't be surprised if every answer he gave from this point on was some tall tale excuse to get Guglin out there hunting dinosaurs, though he hoped he didn't over do it and made the goblin suspect something was up. When the little green man asked for weapons however, that did give him pause.

Weapons? Well, obviously you needed weapons to hunt but there weren't any to be given in the mansion, unless... Aha!

"Okay, give me a moment" he said, as he gave a nod to his larger dog standing farther away and gave him a mental command. The dog bolted off and pretty soon they heard a clattering sound. Seconds later, the dog returned with a metal poker he'd taken from a basket near the fireplace.

Whoa, wait... If Miles was going to be pulling a prank and the dinosaurs were non-existant, guess who was going to end up at the wrong side of the poker? No, no... there had to be a better weapon to give the goblin.

"This won't do, it's too heavy and... unbalanced" he said as an excuse, giving his dog another mental command, which made him disappear and reappear shortly with a broom on his snout. It was much better than a metal poker (for Miles anyway), since it was made out of wood and the bristled side made it uncomfortable enough that there was no way a two feet tall goblin could swing it properly and hope to hit anything or manage to hurt it.

Whoa, wait... what if Guglin was devious and creative enough? What if he snapped off the bristled side and used those sharp teeth of his to turn a harmless broom stick into a pointy spear? No, no... there had to be a better weapon to give the goblin.

"Are you hunting dinosaurs or cleaning up after them?" he asked as he dropped the broom next to the poker and gave his dog another mental command. His dog left and moments later returned with a wiffle bat, taken from the playing area the younger mutants stashed their toys in.

"Now this is a real man's weapon!" he said, holding the little yellow plastic bat with both hands and swinging it around. He then weighed it in his hands and pretended to study this masterpiece of medieval weaponry as he figured out a way to 'sell' the chosen weapon to Guglin. Surely, if he used big enough words, he'd manage to confuse him enough to accept his hunting gear.

"You see, mutant dinosaurs are from the zenozoic era and ... modern materials like this very special neo propylene polymer compound of... cylindrical... structurification... are like, the one weakness mutant dinosaurs have. So, once my dogs flush the dinosaurs out, you can hit them with this.... deadly piece of gene destructive plastic and you'll have hunted down your prey."

He kneeled down on one leg and offered Guglin the terrifying weapon with exaggerated pomp as he smiled and gave Gina a wink. Once he got up again, he gave them instructions.

"Now you two let me go out and get the backyard ready for hunting" he said, rubbing his hands. "Gina, when you hear me whistle, you take Guglin out and we're gonna have us some fun!"

Even when he heard that dinosaurs were several sizes bigger than him and well, any human being as well, he was extremely excited by the hunt. It was a chance to test his hunting skills but it was also an excellent opportunity to tighten the newly formed bond with those two mutants. Apparently dinosaurs were very rare and exclusive, probably limited for the enjoyment of the students so letting him participate was like a welcoming gift for him. Maybe they could have dinosaur steak for supper. The thought made him hungry so he climbed back to the table and picked another piece of chicken. There were just a few pieces left on his bowl, so he started to eye Miles's chocolate-less chicken.

Still, despite all the positive emotions whirling inside his chest, there was a certain feeling of uneasiness that bothered him. It was like an itch he could not ignore, invisible but still there, always present. While eating another piece of chicken, he wondered why he felt like that. He was not worry for himself and neither the ill boy nor Gina worried him since both of them had weapons on their own. The boy had those two ferocious dogs and she was able to fly and probably breathe fire. Then Gina reminded them about Amber and her white dinosaur form. That was it! He was worried about hurting Amber by mistake. He smiled and nodded vigorously since he could not talk because of the half-chewed chicken inside his mouth. With that outside of his mind, he focused on Miles that telling him that he could become a ninja by hunting dinosaurs. So maybe he was in a school for ninjas. And hunting dinosaurs was the initiation test. What kind of wickedly dangerous task would they need to accomplish to graduate?

Such a big school for ninjas would surely be packed with cool looking weapons, so what would it be? A bunch of ninja stars? Or could it be a deadly blade? Or... more like a fire poker. He stared at the long metal stick with disbelief. How could he expect him to swing that mammoth stick? He was not strong enough to lift it and it was almost as tall as his body. Luckily, the boy noted his mistake before he could even mention it and soon he commanded the dog to go look for another weapon. It was clear that they were reserving the ninja stuff for students.
This time the dog returned with a broom. Despite the appearance, it was way better. It reminded him of the javelins he had at home, deadly sharp and easy to throw. But the boy decided that it was not good. It was a pity.
He waited patiently while starting to regret asking for weapons, they were losing so much precious time... but then, the dog showed up with something that looked like a weapon.
Then, the boy explained its properties, a bunch of difficult words Guglin did not care to hear. For what he said, the bat was the most useful weapon to hunt dinosaurs... So he descended from the table one more time and accepted the colorful stick. He swung it once, weighting it as the boy did with the fire poker and he found that it was very light and easy to use. It was the best of the three weapons the boy showed him but since it was so deadly, he would not find the hunting, challenging or fun. So in order to avoid being rude, he did not refuse the weapon but as soon as the boy left, he climbed to the table to abandon the bat and devour what was left of the boy's chicken.