Recent Posts

Locke gave Evelyn an awkward half smile, just a brief raising of one corner of his mouth. The smile ended quickly because Locke frowned and his gaze was directed towards Evelyn’s feet. Here he was, barefooted and wearing only one shirt instead of his usual three, but she was dressed like she was going to some sort of casual, public event. Didn’t anyone tell her that things tended to get dirty around Locke? He was in jeans yes, but there were holes in the knees and as usual, a fine layer of dirt on them. His hair had been trimmed, meaning that Locke once more took a pair of scissors to them and chopped at whatever angle he could reach. He no doubt looked more than a little grungy in comparison to the person that he was suppose to train. “Alright, first things first. Please take off your shoes.”

There were a few reasons why Locke had asked that of her, the least of which being that he didn’t want to mess up her footwear. Dance lessons echoed in Locke’s mind where he had been dressed much as he was this day, and his hightops had been removed at the suggestion of his teacher. Yes his feet slid a little more clad in only socks, but the cha cha didn’t sound like it was being performed by a scuba diver still in a wetsuit and flippers. Taking off shoes could be enough of a step outside of your normal comfort zone to throw you off, but it could be to your best advantage. “The ground here is uneven and I don’t want you twisting an ankle or anything with them on your feet.” Much in the way that Evelyn’s powers were constantly providing her with all sorts of tidbits of information, Locke’s earth sense was filling him in on the lay of the land. Height differences in the ground itself he could tell in the same way he knew how far a finger was from the fretboard of the bass while he played. The Californian’s frown deepened for a second, and he nodded his head.

He’d been authoritative without being cruel, providing a reason for his order that wasn’t abstract and made sense. The idea of instructing someone was novel, and this was really his first experience outside of his college courses where he would present activities to the class he’d have those in his care do. There was now powerpoint presentation, or games made with posterboard. It was just Evelyn, himself, and enough dirt to make an army of Fluffies.

Let's not forget that you've got Sledgehammer and his army of homeless at the Order's disposal

An interesting idea Forte. some of the Zodiac members sound a bit odd to me though. Like why is the sign for fish doing things with plants, and the crab is fear? For Pices maybe have it share some sort of feature with an aquatic animal? there is those angler fish that leads people to their doom, chomping at them with an impossible mouth of teeth. For cancer maybe some sort of shearing power, or take inspiration from the mantis shrimp? I also worry that the gemini ones may go into god moding. How is anyone suppose to deal with them if their powers are in essence not existant? The only ones who would be effective against them would be adapts. What about someone who replicates themself, or some sort of power that works in halves like the twin card from Cardcaptors?

As a member of the X-Men, there were certain duties that Locke had to fulfill. One such duty was helping those who did not understand or, in some cases, feared, people such as himself. Locke’s powers did have some element of offense to them. He had struck down targets before with his golems, and the explosions caused by quickly abandoning the golem could be devastating when Fluffy was made out of a hard material. Concrete traveling outwards at a rapid rate tended to hurt. However, the primary purpose of Locke’s powers, the thing that he said that he used them for was defense. On that graduation trip Locke had hardly stepped foot onto the beach before using Fluffy to keep the others, and himself, safe. By using the armor technique taught to him by Cold Steel Locke had covered himself with enough layers of rock formed by the very volcano he fought to keep from erupting long enough to avoid being burned alive. Undoubtably Earthwalker was someone to talk to if you wanted to know how to keep yourself in the realm of the living.

Which was why he was fulfilling a second duty, to help those at the mansion who might not know as much. Teaching someone who was older than him was an odd concept. His first year of college had been preparing him for educating minds younger than himself. The age gap between Locke and Ms. Evelyn Summers was smaller than the difference between Locke and the kids that he wanted to help, but it was still strange. Children don’t teach their parents how to prepare a meal. To minimize the awkward Locke had requested that she met him outside on the estate grounds. Working with earth provided by the Danger Room’s programming was like making grilled cheese sandwiches with toast and spray cheese. Same sort of supplies but did not leave a good taste in your mouth. Outside, where the dirt was real, Locke was in his element and his authority could be easier to accept.

With the warm weather Locke hadn’t minded waiting outside for Ms. Summers. Well waiting wasn’t quite the right word, since he had been enjoying the ninety degree heat for the last few hours, heading outside as soon as his morning chores were done with. Maybe the best way of handling this was to humble himself to her. As Locke pat smooth a patch of dirt with his foot he considered such a course. His self esteem had improved in leaps and bounds since he first came to New York. No longer did Locke feel compelled to hide himself behind his hair, and he had gotten use to people asking about the dead eye. However, just because he had grown use to the stares and variations of “What’s up with the messed up face?” did not mean that he felt comfortable answering them, or even talking about his dad. No, if Locke was going to be able to help Ms. Summer it would be better if he acted against type and treated her as an equal, or better yet, treat it as if he was her equal.

His earth sense alerted Lock that someone was coming his way, and he could only assume that it was someone he was suppose to be with. Locke wasn’t known for his social butterfly personality at the Institute, and because he tended to leave others alone, they did the same with him. If someone was approaching him, they had to have a good reason.

Locke raised an eyebrow as the young girl’s mouth became uncorked and words spilled out of her mouth at an astounding speed. It seemed that younger teen girls had the amazing capacity to speak at supersonic speeds. Forget having a mutant gene, having a double x chromosome was a guaranteed super power. Or maybe it was just that Locke tried not to waste words. He was a writer, but he tried to use only what words were necessary. In his introduction he had used less than thirty words, where as Adeline had in thirty seconds set that standard flying out the window. Did she even take a second to breathe in all that? Although he was still in his teens, Locke suddenly felt like that old man that people joked he was. There wasn’t that large an age gap between the two, but maturity wise was another matter.

The mouse girl thing seemed to be pretty self explanatory. It was one of the nice perks about having a physical mutation. People didn’t ask you what you did, or look at you strange when you told them you hadn’t learned their weight yet. From what Locke had observed, physical mutations also tended to make the mutant more accepting of other’s oddities or defects. Chris had been startled when he first saw the dead eye, but a large portion of that might have just been because Locke had kept it hidden so well. These days Locke didn’t feel the need to hide behind his hair anymore, and he actually could look at someone in the face without feeling like he needed to be wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask. Looking Adeline in the face was a little hard though. His growth spurts had not stopped yet, and Locke felt himself towering over her. Mouse girl indeed.

Or maybe it wasn’t so much her physical stature, but rather the trio of mice that rode about the girl the way you saw parrots on pirates. They were tiny things, looking up at him with curiosity and maybe a bit of nervousness? Hard to tell since they had noses that were twitchy. “’sup?”Locke addressed the rodents. They could not answer him, or at least not in English that he could hear or comprehend. Unless she had a cage tucked away in the suitcase those mice probably would be running loose about the school, not a good thing if you wanted to avoid them getting eaten by other’s pets. Locke had no critters of his own. Instead he had little siblings. “Ms. T probably knows what paperwork you have to fill out, if not we can find someone. I was a student here, but I’ve graduated from high school. Just spending time here until the fall semester starts up again. The classes here are like any other school, and yes, many people live here. Some with cats, so be careful with Speedy, Basil and Megaman.”

"If they tested you for that you'd know," Locke said, remembering his own experiences with it, despite the haze of heavy pain medications that he had been under. At the time there were two big crises to deal with, the first being the death of his father. It left a large hole in him that would take years to start healing up. The other was an overwhelming fear that he was going to be lost forever in darkness. He needed those tests to prove that he wasn’t going to be totally blind. Gina had one up on him at least, and he could offer that fact to her as comfort. ”That’s not too bad. My eye isn’t even light sensitive. I get migraines with bright lights too, but it sounds like you can at least tell when light’s on you.”

DocProf was willing to admit that whatever had afflicted Gina’s eyes was beyond his healing capabilities. That didn’t surprise Locke. Eyes were extremely sensitive things, impossible to recreate with dirt, and prone to having all sorts of issues go on with them. Maybe it was for the best that DocProf hadn’t messed around with Gina’s vision. It would be horrible if in trying to heal her, he made things worse. “Sorry if I made you,” he hesitated, trying to figure out what the right word was. Insult? That wasn’t quite it. ”Uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable was probably the best fit. Most of the time he felt uncomfortable about his own blind eye. Had anyone ever thought that maybe it wasn’t just a hysterical thing? Maybe it was something more serious.

If it was something more serious then someone had to show Gina how to handle a new lifestyle. Though in the end Locke did not loose the vision in both eyes, back when the accident was still fresh he had to be taught some basic coping techniques for a life without vision. He could spell words out in Braille, kept his money folded in ways that he didn’t need to look to see what the bill was, kept different shaped buttons on the inside of his shirts to tell the color. There were many different ways of making life easier for the visually impared, and Locke wondered if anyone had thought to show Gina them.

The thread has been started and the pm with link sent