Owner	Pose
Negasonic	It wasn't that Negasonic was a *bad* student - she just was a difficult one to engage. She did her work when she was assigned it, she showed up to class - but her contributions tended to be 'sitting in the corner and texting away', and somehow having the knowledge from the class anyways. Maybe she was listening in her weird way. Either way, she was the type to hem and haw about this and that, and so when she needed extra credit in order to pass Bio201, (a class she was having difficulty with), well... she was half tempted to say 'eff it' and just let that portion of her degree wither into obscurity. Or she could volunteer in the labs in the manor for X amount of hours. Turns out, she chose Hank's lab. Why? Random, really. She knocks on the doorway into the lab, wearing her usual - trenchcoat, (black), yellow top, leather pants tucked into stompy boots, enough piercings to set off metal detectors three doors down, and black lipstick. "Hey," she calls into the place. "You ever get upset at that Mr. Beast guy?" she asks.
Henry McCoy	"I employ a law firm for the sole purpose of sending him weekly cease and desist letters." McCoy deadpanned. Then he considered Ellie for a moment, glancing down at the tablet he used for electronic correspondence while in the lab. "You're deflecting." he patted the counter, to beckon her over where he was standing. If she let him, he would pick her up bodily and set her on the counter before he began. "Ellie, you're not the first frustrated genius I'd had to coach back from the brink. Are you going to let me, or fight me?"
Negasonic	"First off," says Ellie, the young woman's eyes settling on Hank as she steps into the lab proper. No, she probably wouldn't let him *actually* pick her up. She already had her phone out, and was tapping away on the screen, her thumb sliding across it as he speaks. Instead, she gives a dubious glance to the counter proper, black-painted lips pursing in a frown. "... I'm not here to fight you, but if you think I'm a science genius, well... that's your first mistake. I'll leave that to people like you, and Kitty and the rest of the... you know. Students that are into this whole thing." "Whatcha want me on the counter for?" she asks.
Henry McCoy	"Kitty is well beyond student. She works for Stark Enterprises now." as if by explaining this he was proving a point. "I can see you don't want to be lectured." he admitted, sliding his tablet over to show her the latest on the mutant bomb gene research. "What is it about a potential career in science that offends your sensibilities?"
Negasonic	"You should stick with what you're good at, you know?" says Negasonic. "If you're a supermodel, be a supermodel. If you're good at acting, be an actress," says Negasonic. "If you're good at science, well..." she makes a gesture towards Hank, even as her eyes drift down to the tablet. "More of the mutant bomb gene stuff. Lots of mutants explode though," she says. "Myself, Tabitha..." she says, frowning back up towards him.
Henry McCoy	"Too literal, Ellie." Hank cautioned her. "Bomb is used metaphorically here. And in that mode, its more damaging. If people start to think of us as bombs, with a payload, it doesn't matter what your actual powers are, does it?" he explained in a way of asking. "So which are you Ellie, supermodel, actress, scientist, super hero?"
Negasonic	"That's right. It was like... bomb in the sense of activating the genes or whatever," says Ellie, waggling her hand in a so-so fashion. "What I am?" she says, lifting her chin as she looks towards Hank, her frown making her normal RBF look all the worse. "...Just doing my best," she says. "And that means like..." she narrows her eyes a little bit. "... a troll, I guess. Good with phones, computers, social media," she says. A snort. "Maybe I'm an influencer," she admits.
Henry McCoy	"Like Mr. Beast?" Hank wondered, seeming oddly free of judgement. He considered her a moment, folding one massive arm across his chest, cradling his chin in the other. "I do find value in that sort of thing when its linked to philanthropy. Is that something on your radar?"
Negasonic	"To be honest..." "I have no fucking idea," says Ellie to Beast, bringing her eyes up from her phone to look at him. "I get it if I need to have a direction or something, but I'm kinda just... waiting to see what life will hold for me." "I guess and helping with the X-Men... where I can," she says. "It'd be cool if I could actually get paid for something like roller derby," she says. "Because that'd be badass," she says. A pause more. "So... what's on your radar for the future? Besides this whole bomb gene thing?"
Henry McCoy	"I'd say I was focused on the Bomb gene research, but we've just come back from Methusela with a very disturbing bit of information, that I think takes priority." he confirmed, looking slightly grim, his yellow eyes hiking up to consider. "Might be too heavy to lay on you right now, but you and everyone else on this planet will be forced to confront it at some point."
Negasonic	"Well, shit, you can't say something like that and not give me a sneak preview or something, right?" She deepens her voice. "There's this thing that will destroy all life on Earth... but I'm not gonna say what it is, neener neener," she says, frowning up towards Hank as she says those words in a deadpan. "So what is it?"
Henry McCoy	"On a world in the Methusela system, we discovered the record of the goddess Nadilla. In it detailed what we think is a devourer of worlds. An entity that strikes a balance between the gods of creation, and the forces of absolute destruction." he showed her an image of a massive armored humanoid as tall as the Colossus of Sardinia might have been. "They call it, Galactus."
Negasonic	"Yeaaaaaah," says Negasonic, glancing to the tablet. "Sounds like an Avengers thing. Maybe a Superman thing," she says to Hank. "...what are *we* going to be able to do about something that devours worlds? If it even exists," she points out, waggling her fingertips at the tablet.
Henry McCoy	"Who's to say its even true, in whole or in part, maybe we're being spooked. Suffice to say, we have to look into it. Even more so, we need to know what the Collector knows about it. Blackmailing us into getting this record for him, just to save Howard The Duck, is all well and good. We'd do it again for our friend, but now that's over. Its time to know what he knows, and our contract with him is resolved, and so is its protection from our ability to inquire." Hank affirms in the way he likes to use ominously polite language in a threat, on the rare occasion he would make a threat.
Negasonic	"... well, shit," says Negasonic. "... well, if it's anything someone like me could ever help with, reach out," she says. "But that kinda thing seems way way way over my head, for lack of a better term." "Or rather, why are you telling me?" she asks. "You think I can do something about it?" she asks, lifting her chin as she looks up towards Hank.
Henry McCoy	Henry McCoy explained gently, but firmly "Becoming an X-men, its not graduation sort of thing. Its something that's already happened to you, and you realize all at once, that the thing you are facing is your responsibility. Influencer, scientist, super model, actress. These are things that are open to you Ellie, you have immeasurable potential. But you will also be an X-men, and I think many of us would wish that wait. That you might live, love, and laugh a little first. There's only so much we can do, the mantle comes for us, and its a combination of our internal moral compass, our excellence, our compassion by which it rests on our shoulders."
Negasonic	Somewhere in the middle of all that, her phone buzzed, so Ellie brought it up and started scrolling through it. Was she listening? "... yeah," she says. "Something like that," she adds. "... or whatever. Is that what you tell yourself in the mirror every morning?" she asks of him.
Henry McCoy	Henry McCoy laughed, the combination of her quip and the casual disrespect played into her mode perfectly. He relented and returned his attention to his tablet, ordering a few machines lowered down from the gantry crane system. "Every morning I look into the mirror and I tell myself that Ellie is going to flunk biology." seeming fairly amused. "Not that you'll need it on Tiktok."
Negasonic	Ellie rolls her eyes at the threat. "So whatever. I'll repeat it. They just said you might need some help down here, so I thought I'd come down and see what kinda things you had. You know. Someone to watch the beakers as they boil over or whatever," she says.
Henry McCoy	"Those tools in that autoclave for three minutes." he said, pointing without looking up. "Then I want ten RNA cartridges ready for insertion into my samples in bay four. Then I need you to prep the database for the results. Label everything in bay four, get me some space in the freezer, label that as well. Chop chop, my dear Ellie. Your pretty smile doesn't buy you much in this lab." Did Ellie ever smile? Hank was.
Negasonic	"Sure, sure," says Ellie when the orders come out. She had her phone in one hand, and the tools going into the autoclave with the other hand. "What the fuck is an RNA cartridge though?" she asks to Hank, the quip about her smile going ignored for the time being. She did smile occasionally. Usually when she found something funny. And she had a kinda mean sense of humor.