17833/Alternative Uses

Alternative Uses
Date of Scene:	02 May 2024
Location:	Danger Room
Synopsis:	Noriko finds Jubes exercising or feeding her vampiric boredom. Noriko tests Danger Room swimming, kinda, and shares a big idea.
Cast of Characters:	Jubilation Lee, Noriko Ashida

---

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    For years, Jubilee has been given special permission to use the Danger Room to safely satisfy her blood lust. It's usually a disturbing program where she can slaughter entire virtual food courts of virtual mallgoers, but tonight might be the most disturbing.

    "Uh, order...fifty two..." Jubilee mutters, bent forward so her lips are up against the gooseneck microphone attached to her cash register. "...Fifty two."

    Anyone stepping into the Danger Room tonight would find themselves inside Burger Joint. Jubilation is wearing the unflattering polyester uniform of a part-time employee and she looks absolutely miserable.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko had her own ideas, new ideas, for the Danger Room, none of them sanctioned.  She's not sure why this wouldn't be allowed, so she didn't give any thought to her intentions when she donned her old Xavier's gym swim suit, some arm floaties, and a ducky inner tube for her test...back in the apartment.  She gets all the way to the Foyer of the Mansion when she beelines back to snag her towel and some sunglasses with a giddy trickle of electricity that jumps up her back, causing her to almost skip once before she departs out the door again.

It's a blaze down to the Danger Room, having not even thought that it might be in use at this hour.  Noriko doesn't even bother with a robe or cover up or anything.  She knows if she goes fast enough, she doesn't have to bother.

So this is how Noriko busts into the danger room food court wearing nothing but her bathing suit, completely barefoot.  She comes to a sliding stop and looks around.  "What the fuck?" she spits out lightning fast to herself as she stares at the tableau of mall around her.

"Where's all the blood?"  Because the mall or the food court is a favorite of Jubes' and who else would be in here, now.  Her eyes flit from one fast food joint to the next.  She might be scanning for Jubes, but she might also be scanning for her favorites that she remembers from Jubes taking her to the mall.  The food court was the best.

"Where's my order?" Noriko suddenly says, leaning against that tile wall to the side that constantly smells of low grade bleach.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Somehow, Jubilee manages to look especially dead behind the Burger Joint counter, just like everyone else who works there. Noriko appearing in her bathing suit and government issue flotation devices doesn't even cause a twitch on the vampire's face. "...What...?" Jubilee tries, teetering on that edge of life and death that all fast food employees occupy. This is where Jubilation would tease Noriko about her outfit, but that just doesn't happen. Somehow, she just looks tired. Before she has a chance to say more, a sweaty interruption appears.

    "Excuuuuuuuse me."

    Jubilee's expression sours as those warm, moist words bounce off of her face. She stares up at the Level 7 Karen and the open burger half that has apparently caused harm to her family.

    "I asked for extra onions and there's only like fourteen or fifteen onions here," L7 Karen points out, waving the burger in Jubilee's face. Jubilation narrows her eyes as she focuses on the miniature mountain of onion slices on the woman's burger.

    "...Are you... are you sure?" Jubilee asks with absolutely zero conviction, energy, or enthusiasm. It's the thousand yard stare of a part-time fast food employee.

    "That's the problem with this generation," L7 Karen remarks, now turning to face Noriko so she can hear and feel this, too. She's a moist-talker. A good amount of spit sprays from her unthinkable mouth.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Really?  I thought the problem was you can't count, or that you can't keep your spit in your mouth, but I guess if you really want 15 onions."  Noriko didn't misunderstand, but only Jubilation would know that.  After a sudden blur, a totem of onions is stacked up on top of the woman's burger.  They've been planed slightly to allow them to stack nicely up to the ceiling.  How?  The weight of the onion tower alone is enough to make the lady have instant troubles.

"Satisfied?...You know you aren't even real right?  Like, your children aren't anything but some bits and boops.  They don't matter.  They have no meaning, no future."  Noriko suddenly has a soda.  She slurps through the straw.  Then another blur and Noriko provides Jubes with a wet nap.  She's already cleaned up obviously.

"So Jubes...what gives?"  Noriko rolls her eyes around as slowly as she possibly can but they ring around like hyper marbles.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The tower of onions combined with Noriko's apparent lack of respect for her elders is enough to send the woman into a blind rage. She starts screaming moistly about how this country is going to hell in a hand basket and how it's a blessing that she's just glad her poor Richard isn't alive to see what became of society, godresthissoul, and how the customer is always right. Bits of nonsense splatter in the speedster's general direction. The cherry on top is the threat that she'll never come here again!

    "That's true," Jubilee mutters, eyes half-lidded under the weight of the cruelty of working part time for a fast food company, as she joylessly walks around the counter. While the woman continues to go on and on about how America used to be the greatest country in the world, Jubilation has already made her way behind her. There's a quick jerky motion, a bloodcurdling *snap*, and then the woman is down on the ground, covered in an avalanche of sliced onions. Jubilation stands there, hands positioned in the air like she was just grabbing something about as high as the woman's head before she fell to the ground.

    "I was just about to ask you the same thing," Jubilee replies to Noriko, casually stepping over the virtual person she just murdered. It's all very chilling.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko has to physically dodge the mouth droplets.  She keeps twitching laterally in space, like someone moving a doll around but not articulating its limbs.  Now she has soft serve in a safety cone.  It's only marginally easier for her to hold with her gauntlets than a small cone.

Suddenly there's only a pile of woman and onions in front of her.  She licks her ice cream cavalierly.  "Finally," she says with a hint of relief.  "I thought maybe I could actually swim in here without even getting shocked or making stupid swim fart gasses or anything.  Plus then no cancer."  Where there is deadness is Jubilation's eyes, there is a spark in Nori's, a spark of hope.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee looks Noriko up-and-down a couple of times and shrugs. She makes a vague gesture to the boundless splendor of the virtual Burger Joint. "Well, it's all yours," she says. "I think my shift is over, anyway." It's a joke. It has to be a joke. She's not punching a clock in the Danger Room. Still, she says it joylessly, as though she really just got done with a full shift of mindless fast food service.

    "But... I dunno, if I can let you even /try/ to swim dressed like that," Jubilee adds. This statement could be many things and a speedster would have no trouble picking up on the nuance. For an instant, it looks like Jubilation's face is about to form one of her usual, sassy smirks, like she's teasing the speedster about her outfit. That expression doesn't fully form. There's even a moment where she shifts her weight, both hands extended near her waist, as though she wants to draw Noriko inward, perhaps then lock the door to the Danger Room so no one can interrupt them. It would give her comment a much more adult and sensual tone. But, she doesn't completely follow through with that, either.

    Jubilation just stands there, dead.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"This is a te-" Noriko blurts defensively before one apparently dormant part of her brain catches up with her mouth.  She reeeeeally didn't want to get caught looking like this, but the obvious signals from Jubilation reach her quickly enough.  That look.  The way Jubes ever so slightly shifts her expressions, the care going into it even is a big tell.

The speedster responds quicker to the Jubilation's body language than her words.  She waits for Jubilation's hands to extend though.  They draw a small smile from the speedster as she moseys forward only to bump into what amounts to a dead blood battery.

"Have you eaten?" Noriko asks softly in that intimate space, never having backed off after the less than sexy and definitely anticlimactic collision.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Schrodinger's Body Language comes to an end when Jubilee hears Noriko's question. The dull, lifeless expression gives way to the harsh lines and angles of a frown. "Yes," she answers, dropping her tone a few notes like she's an annoyed teenager dealing with her nagging mother. "I got an employee discount."

    Ha.

    "I'm just bored," Jubes complains, stepping back so she has some room to twirl around in a circle as she answers. She makes it sound like it's something beyond normal, garden variety boredom, but doesn't elaborate. Instead, Jubilee snaps her fingers over her head a couple of times, as though she's trying to get the attention of a busy waiter who keeps skipping over her table.

    "Load up the swimming program or whatever," Jubes commands, evenly spacing her words so the Danger Room will obey them.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko smirks, but Jubilation leaning into putting Nori into the role of the mother only makes some corner in the back of Nori's mind want to rebel, smoke a cigarette or something that will instantly fake-pump up her coolness shield. She ignores this feeling with a roll of her eyes.

"/You're/ bored?" Noriko scoffs playfully as if Jubilation doesn't know the meaning of the word.  Before the simulation can change, Noriko scarfs another fake ice cream.  "Wait I wanted the tropical island," she complains but the scene has already changed to the concrete training pool and Nori's not standing on the side.

SPLASH!  Noriko reacted fast enough that her gauntlets sail to the side of the pool but she drops straight down to just below her chest.  "WHY IS IT COLD?!"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah, I am," Jubilee answers. "I've never been bored like this. I don't know how long it's gonna last but I hope it's not forever. I heard this happens to us sometimes, but, like, it's supposed to be in like hundreds and hundreds of years or whatever."

    There's no way Jubilation is dealing with the ennui of immortality this soon. She's just being dramatic.

    "It's /always/ cold," Jubilation points out, flopping down onto a plastic pool-deck chair that materializes just in time to catch her. She grabs the stupid Burger Joint baseball cap from her head and looks at it, idly playing around with the stitching.

    Still annoyed, bored, cranky, Jubilation frowns at the hat. "You look hot in your bathing suit," she admits grumpily, not looking up from whatever her fingers are doing to her dumb hat.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Maybe it's like a 24 hour bug you caught or something," Noriko hopes aloud.  "Hundreds of hundreds of years?"  The possibility of Jubilation being bored for the rest of Nori's natural born life clenches Noriko's soul for a sliver of a second.

"So far so good!"  Noriko interjects on their discourse with her status report, her arms out the side as the floaties keep them dryish.  Noriko grumbles something about maneuverability as she clings to the big tube around her waist, swish swashing her feet under water so she can get the momentum of a turtle going.  "I know," she says precociously, lifting her chin ever so slightly.

"You should change into yourrrrs," Nori cajoles as she starts to get closer to the edge Jubilation is at.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee looks up from whatever's going on with her Burger Joint hat and watches Noriko do this thing she might later insist is swimming. The goofy motions. The floaties. Jubilee's lower lip sticks out a little as a grimace takes hold of her expression. Still, she leans forward and turns so she can see the faint outline of the Danger Room door as it blends in to the simulation, as though she's already thinking three steps into the future and wondering if the door is locked.

    No. No, no, no, she tells herself as she slinks back into her chair.

    "I don't feel like swimming," Jubes answers, focusing on the lie that they'd just be swimming if she went and got changed.

    "And also I don't know if I can be seen swimming with you while you're wearing all that equipment," she teases, finding something close to a smile again. It's a lie, of course, and they both know it.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Then you might just have to come and take them from me.  Then maybe you could float."  Now there's an idea.  Or rather, half of one.  The inner tube might make a more lucrative target for lounging in the fake sun.  Noriko flourishes a flirty little kick, trying to get Jubilation wet, but the trajectory of the water shoots off to the side at an odd angle.

Noriko pouts playfully, immediately ignoring her failure, and turns herself in a circle without total control.  She meant to swim off in the opposite direction as if she were delicately storming off but all she's doing is turning.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Nori..." Jubilee complains.

    She complains, yes, but then immediately looks over at the Danger Room door a second time. Jubilation falls back in her chair again, choosing to go silent instead of continuing her sentence. Her thumb absently finds its way up to her mouth so she can idly drag her nail against her teeth while different parts of her body plead their cases.

    The brain wins.

    "Nori, I work here now," is the pathetic excuse she gives. There's no reason she couldn't swim if she wanted to, employee or not. But... they're not talking about swimming in the Danger Room. Not really.

    "Oh, that reminds me. What flavor Dip N' Dots do you like? I have a budget for the talent show this year and I have a Dip N' Dots machine coming tomorrow." It's a sneaky trick to, perhaps, to reboot the conversation. Still, eyes linger. There's even another sneaky glance towards the door.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah...so...so do I," Noriko says with a smirk, knowing the full irony that is her having to take orders from Jubilation...especially after just shaking her alleged Renfieldism.  It's the cherry on top of everything else occupying her mind.

Nori chews at her bottom lip for a moment, lost in those other thoughts as she leans her head down on the inner tube.  "They come in more than one flavor?"  She lolls in her inner tube, rolling her arms and body till she's on her back...ish, balancing her buoyancy.

The speedster actually starts her legs up for real and the effect is more like a little motor.  Of course it still feels innncredibly slow to Nori, even if it looks like a good speed for inner tube bumper cars.  Once she gets going, she relaxes and just drifts serenely.

"I've changed my mind about water...well fake water anyway."  That is, she likes it now.  "What flavors are there?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Water only comes in one flavor, Nori...." Jubilee answers, now busying herself by tossing the hat into the air and catching it when it comes down. Oh. Duh. "You mean the Dip 'N Dots. I knew that. Like, there's brown...and white...and pink...." Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch. "...Yellow, I think..."

    Jubilee hesitates and holds onto the cap as she tries her best to summon some of her old memories from before her death. "No, no, that's not right. Uh, chocolate, vanilla, you know, those."

    "Banana," she adds, buried in a pretend cough.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah those are colors.  Try again."  Noriko's patient with Jubilation.  She knows sometimes Jubes has these slips every since she's become a vampire...or ever since she started getting distracted by this hat.  Maybe it's the bored-sickness.  She has a lot of time to think over things between breaths.

"Um, I vote for pink.  Maybe it's strawberry!"  Noriko, annoyed by the floaties, tries to wrench them off.  "Are you really not going to swim with me?"  One of the floaties flies off and launches into the pretended distance.  She keeps the other one on like nothing ever happened.

"So, I was thinking...I need to do something with my time," before boredom alone turns her back to drugs?  "It's just...I need more," she admits.  "So I don't go insane.  So I was thinking maybe I could enroll and start a softball team."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Huh... I would've bet you'd say banana," Jubilation admits. She shrugs. "Whatever." Hat toss. Catch. Toss. Catch. By now, it no longer smells like burger grease. The Danger Room's processing cycles have moved on to other things a while ago and the simulated smells of Burger Joint are no longer cached in memory.

    "No, Nori, I'm not gonna swim with you because we both know how that's gonna go and it's not gonna be swimming and I don't need to get fired from this job, okay?" Jubes explains, rolling her eyes a little. She sounds positively exasperated by it, perhaps even resentful of her improved decision-making. She knows their hands will wander and then one thing will lead to another and another and another and another.

    "Yeah, that's cool. You love softball..."

    Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch.

    Wait. Wait. The hat lands on the chair as Jubilee fails to catch it. Hold up. Suddenly, she's standing. A moment later, she's walking through the pool, still fully clothed like a Burger Joint employee, and treading water as she moves towards Noriko. "Enroll?" she repeats, unable to hide the absolute joy this brings her. Her smile stretches to the limits of her face.

    "Are you serious?"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Oh I only like the real thing," bananas Nori means.  She tries not to look too invested in Jubilation's reaction to all of this, not the dip n' dots.  Idle kickity kick in the water.  Noriko watches the whorls of water furl out in extended time before she sucks herself back into the moment with Jubes.

Nori groans at Jubes rejection of her swimvances, flailing back on her inner tube dramatically.  A lick of electricity shoots from her fingertips and flashes the water.  She sighs, lolls her head back, and just stares at the simulated ceiling.  It's not even the danger room ceiling.  "Scott definitely made this one."

When Nori hears the surface of the water broken, she straightens back up, part of her sinking back into the water a little more.  She's grinning.  Perhaps not as much as she would be if Jubes /weren't/ wearing her Burger Joint uniform, but this'll do.  She props herself up on her elbows against the tube with an easy, welcoming grin.

"Well, yeah.  I mean.  Don't expect me to have a major picked out yet or anything but...I was thinking about it.  I hear the classes aren't all just lectures.  Some you actually get to talk and have a brain and stuff...but, I was thinking we really need some kind of college team you know?  Something everyone can cheer on if they want to."  Or maybe these are all just convenient excuses to get to play softball again.

"...What do you think?-I mean, I'll get an extra job to pay for the tuition or whatever-I just-"  It matters.  It really matters what Jubilation thinks and in this moment, there's a vulnerability laid bare in Nori all for Jubilation to see.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation lurches forward and throws her arms around Noriko's neck, forcing the speedster into a sudden and awkward kiss. The tube gets in the way, so the risk of this escalating is relatively low. Relatively.

    It only goes on for a second or two before Jubilation's enthusiasm breaks free.

    "What do you mean? I think that's awesome!" She practically shouts it. Jubilee tries her best to cut Nori off when she starts going on about tuition and second jobs. "No, no, no, I can figure all that out, not you!" she motor-mouths. "You can't be tired for your classes and stuff! I've got this big girl job now, right? There's a comma in my paychecks and everything."

    She's a fan of this revelation.

    Hardly a moment passes before Jubilation is already out of the pool, dripping virtual wet on the virtual ground. "N-O-R-I, with her swing, she'll touch the sky!" Jubilee begins chanting, throwing her arms in the air like she's in the stands at a pretend softball game in some near future, as she walks aimlessly towards the Danger Room's exit. Apparently she decided it's time to go back to their apartment but hasn't said so. Nori will need to figure it out on her own, as Jubilee has already succumbed to her imagination.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Why would I-" be tired for her classes.  Noriko has so much time on her hands, but she doesn't argue.  Jubes is going to take care of it.  Someone in her life is going to take care of something for her...someone who isn't holding her hostage in some or multiple ways.  It's different.  Noriko smiles softly, just happy that Jubes is on board.

When Jubes starts dripping her way out of the pool, it's hard for Noriko not to motor over and mosey on up after her, but the speedster quickly falls into a stare as her legs fail to keep moving and she comes to a stop.  She watches Jubilation all the way to the exit before she realizes A) she needs her runaway floaty.  B) JUBES. HOME. NOW.

As the simulation melts away, so does the simulated wetness.  When she finally catches up with Jubes, they are both dry, Nori's gauntlets are back on, and she wraps her arm around Jubes' waist.

"You've got commas in your paycheck?  You're such a badass," Noriko gets out before her thoughts consume her on their stealthy walk back to the apartment.