Shedding Light (open) }{ Jodie the flashlight

[Exxie]

Just out of the office. Jodie had been registering. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that she was going to join. Her benefactor had already paid for it all. She just had to say that she was here. It had been somewhat embarrassing having to put light manipulator in her form for powers. It sounded like all she was was a giant flashlight or something. She sighed and tightened her blonde ponytail. All alone now. She might be coming to the office more often than she knew she should, just to talk to someone. Well at least they had a pool. She loved swimming. Had ever since her parents had introduced her to their private pool. Yeah, they were rich. And all her life, she had been too. Then they started turning into lunatics and now she was poor. That in itself was crazy, and totally unfair. Luckily she had someone else looking out for her.

Oh boy. Jodie sat down in one of the chairs, clenching one of her hands into a fist.

"I don't even know how to use them properly, but I'm ostracized anyway. Nice. Smooth. And you ruined your birthday to boot." She shook her head. Then her eyes widened. She had been about to be a bit angry at her parents, her life and herself, but then a spark from her hand? WHAT WAS THAT? She stared at it for a minute, but nothing more happened and she brought her hand to cover her forehead and eyes.

"Figures. The minute I see something, I'm seeing things." A dry chuckle. Hybrid academy and she had no clue what her powers could truly do for her. At all. Grrrreeeaaaattt. This would be fun.

[Deleted]

"Oh dear," Jacques came to a sudden halt as he realized where he'd ended up. He'd just been wandering, letting the wind take him wherever it wanted to. Problem was that there was no wind, so it was literally where he'd decided to walk without looking. And look where he'd ended up!

He sighed, putting his hands on his jeans-covered hips and shaking his head at the door. "Oh you, I wish you could stay out of my fate," Jacques said, talking to the door in his strongest British accent as though trying to intimidate it. It clearly wasn't working. It was around then that Jacques finally realized that there was, in fact, someone else there. A cute girl for that matter. Maybe he'd lucked out then!

"Hiya!" He said, turning to face her with a cheery grin. He was wearing a dark blue v-neck shirt, making his blue eyes seem lighter, while his dog tags hung down on a silver chain. "Can't be in trouble, can you? This is quite the unusual place for people to be," Jacques said, taking a seat beside her, "is something the problem?"

[Exxie]

Jodie heard a voice and looked up from her musings. She saw the guy before her, and an eyebrow raised. In fact, a slight smile appeared somewhat involuntarily. He was hot. And his cheery smile couldn't help but cheer her up.

"No, I'm not. Just thinking about my powers. However, I'm quite certain I could become in trouble quite easily if I wished to. I'm not sure they'd punish me though. They seem to think I'm a little angel or something. And problems...let's see...too many to list. The principle one being that my power doesn't show up when I want it to and I have no idea what I can do with the stupid things. What are your powers? I'm betting you're not a human flashlight." Like her, she almost added. Stupid, stupid fate. She could have had super strength, aquatic powers, or anything else. Instead, she has light powers. Light-weight. Haha. She was torturing herself with this. She really needed to think about something else.

[Deleted]

"Look at you! So much better with a smile on your face," Jacques gave her a lopsided grin. Now if only she could smile wider - such a cute child. Nice figure too. Judging from her looks though, she wasn't too old - maybe two or so years younger than himself.

He raised his eyebrows, would people brood about powers? Why would they when it just made them more awesome and special compared to other people? A grin grew slowly on Jacques's face as she started talking in that insecure way that people talked when they were nervous or really troubled. Definitely a youngling.

Jacques leaned back, putting an arm around her chair, "me? Well? I'm not a human flashlight, though that would be a pretty cool power. It'd make you shine bright definitely get you noticed, like you, angel," he winked. Nah, she wasn't looking like a flashlight but she did have that bright angel look about her. "I'm just a normal person who can manipulate gravity. Jacques Darcy if you care."

[Exxie]

Jodie heard him exclaim and her smile turned into a quizzical sort of lopsided smirk. Well, she supposed he was hot, until he opened his mouth. Well, it wasn't quite that bad. But that sentence HAD sounded sort of funny. She watched as his eyebrows rose and then a grin. Then he commented on her powers and make the angel comment and her smile stayed, but her eyes said something to the effect of 'I am not amused'. His arm around her chair. This guy was sure friendly. Almost to a fault. She wasn't used to it. She turned around and looked at the arm. She was tempted to flick it, but was afraid of what would happen. Weird things happened when she touched other people lately.

"Off please. Conversation is fine, but my chair is my chair." She laughed a little to lighten the mood. She wasn't joking about his arm off her chair, but she was trying to say it in the nicest way possible. Kind of a hint. Her eyes were saying she was happy enough though. A normal person who could manipulate gravity? An eyebrow raised slightly, her smile turned into a normal one.

"See? That power is so much cooler than mine. Whatever mine is. So far I'm like this human glow-worm. That's basically all I've done so far." Jodie shrugged. Jacques Darcy, huh? French first name.

"Jodie Ree-shar. I notice you have a French first name." Curious. A French first name, yet a British accent. Very contrary. She didn't really have any accent to speak of. Or, if there was such a thing as a Canadian accent, perhaps she had that.

[Deleted]

Off? What? Jacques raised an eyebrow, slightly confused, but then realized that he was intruding in her space - like always. Pity not all people appreciated it. "Sorry, my bad," he said, grinning and complying. Well, there was his personal space problem again then. Whatever, some people liked it and others didn't. Problem was that Jacques never bothered remembering who did and who didn't. Oh well. Bad luck then.

"A human glow worm," he mused. Ah! So that's where the human flashlight thing had come from, right? Both glow worms and flashlights were bright stuff. "Surely you can do more?" Jacques asked, "it took me a while to do more than just lift myself off the ground, but I got there. Have you tried practicing?" Stupid question. She probably had.

Jacques nodded, "and I notice you have a French surname," he replied impishly. "I am French, to be honest. I was born in France but raised in London," he informed her, "it's quite a nice place. You can find almost anything there. What's it you normally go for if you find yourself out of things to do?"

[Exxie]

Jodie smiled at him slightly when he took his arm off the back of her chair. That was better. Then she heard him talk about the human glow-worm comment and then asked if she had practiced. Her smile disappeared and her blue eyes took on a very serious quality.

"These powers have caused nothing but pain in my life. I've tried to see if I could do more, but so far it hasn't had much effect at all. I don't want to encourage them though. You were obviously thrilled with yours, am I right? To me, mine ruined the normal life I wanted. Ripped away all chances." There was next to no emotion in her voice except perhaps a bit of frustration and tiredness. Maybe a dot of sadness. There was no anger though. It wasn't her way most of the time. She heard him say he noticed she had a French surname and she simply nodded. So he was French. Raised in London. That was an interesting life, especially considering the history between the French and English. Quite interesting. Jodie tried to think of the things she liked to do. It was a long moment. She was, after all, thinking over the question. A slight smile lighted on her lips as she spoke.

"I don't truly know yet. Most of my life has been spent reading books and living through the computer and the information the internet provided me with. Writing poems too. I haven't really gone to places, except where my...parents...took me for a couple holidays. What about you?"

[Deleted]

Uh oh. Wrong question asked. She obviously didn't have such a great experience with powers - though how did being a human glow-worm ruin lives? Jacques had the sense not to pursue the matter any further, though he did frown, "oh dear, I'm sorry," he apologized, nodding when she asked if he liked his powers. To be honest, now that he had them, he couldn't live without them.

"Normal," he mused, largely unable to understand why Jodie would want a normal life of all things. It was the most... normal thing. Wait - it was more unnormal than normal, but whatever. It was besides the point. "Can't you... hide it or something?" Jacques suggested. To be honest, he knew about next to nothing about her power and probably wouldn't be too useful. Unless moral support was useful, which it probably wasn't.

"Books," he nodded, "are they any good?" He'd spent the majority of his life doing things that he wasn't supposed to be doing and since books were something he was supposed to be doing, he naturally didn't do that. Xavier insisted on getting him to read, but he never believed his brother. "Me? Places? I'd say the same situation as you, dear. Wherever my parents take me. I'm not old enough to drive yet. London's a nice place to be though. Lots of things to do. Bars, clubs, markets and all. I've been back to France a couple of times, it's quite nice in the summer. But Scotland - all it ever does is rain."

[Exxie]

Jodie heard him ask if she could hide it and a hint of a smile tugged at her lips. She wasn't angry that he had asked that question before. She was angry that her life had turned out like it had. Jodie shook her head in answer to the question before explaining.

"I can't currently. Sure, it's just light right? Shouldn't show up that much. Except through my practices I've figured out that I glow when I'm happy. To be honest, I don't mind the powers so much as what they've done to my life I guess." She heard him ask about if books were good and sputtered a little, her eyes widening.

"Are they good? Would I have spent my childhood on something that wasn't?" She laughed.

"Some of them are. Some of them I hated, but most of the ones I read were good." When he spoke about the places and used the word 'dear', Jodie decided to just ignore that and smile slightly.

"Well I don't think it's quite the same. They brought me on holidays because they wanted to go on the holiday. I didn't really get to see much. Usually they were just business trips where they didn't want to leave me at home because our family had...enemies. Thank goodness that's over with. When I turned sixteen was the time when, by tradition, I'd be able to see the world." The tradition hadn't bothered her most of the time. But now realizing that she was way behind in the 'making friends' thing, she wondered. And she resented her parents. Sometimes she wondered if there was one good memory of them that she had that hadn't been tainted by their actions after her sixteenth birthday.

[Deleted]

Next goal: Get Jodie to actually smile. Jacques noted the thought in his head, resolving to make that happen at some point in time. He'd just play it out and see what happened.

"You glow when you're happy?" Jacques' eyes lit up. Screw getting her to smile, get her to light up! That would be so much more fun and cool! "Now that is cool," he declared. He disregarded the comment about her powers doing something to her life. If he was going to get her to be happy and light up, it was probably not what he wanted to be talking about right now.

Ok. She laughed. Glowing? Nope. Too bad. "Well," he said, face falling to some forlorn pout, "you know, some people are forced to spend their childhood doing things they don't want to do... like math, you know," Jacques suggested with a hopeful grin. He, thankfully, hadn't been one of those but he did know people who were like that.

"You know what, I'll pass on the reading thing, alright?" He suggested with a sheepish grin. The thought of tackling a whole book was still much too daunting for him. Chances were that he'd pick up a terrible book right off the bat anyways. So there was just about no point to this. And then he'd pretend that the conversation about books never happened.

He cocked his head, "no? I thought you were the type to just... sneak out and do what you liked," Jacques told her. "Surely if they were doing business, you'd have plenty of time." And the enemies... they could go screw themselves. If they were that much of a threat, they were probably stalkers then.

[Exxie]

Jodie heard him exclaim and saw his eyes light up. She smiled slightly. Seeing someone happy made her a bit happier. Not glow-happy, but still. Cool, huh? Well, she supposed it was a little cool. But when you were surrounded by people who could ooze acid, or turn invisible, or manipulate gravity, glowing wasn't really that interesting. When he pouted, she realized. He was waiting to see if she glowed. And it wasn't because it was a freak thing, just because he thought it would be cool to see. She wasn't being looked at as a freak right now. Jodie started glowing a little bit. There were a couple of advantages to glow mode. It made her skin look super clear of acne and stuff. And her hair looked really nice illuminated. Unfortunately, she also didn't know how to turn it off, so public places were kind of chancy. He said he'd pass on the reading thing and she shrugged.

"To each their own I guess." Then Jodie heard him say she looked like the type to sneak out and do whatever she liked and she laughed so hard she snorted a bit, trying to picture herself escaping her parents' notice. She was glowing more now.

"You don't realize what you're saying. My family is made up of professional assassins and spies. And they are all very paranoid. Even if I could have escaped their notice, I had unbreakable glass and reinforced locks. And that was just the window. It also had an alarm on each corner of the window, just in case someone tried to take the window off. On the plus side, I could play my music as loud as I liked because each room was sound-proofed." She laughed, still picturing herself trying to sneak away from her parents. Jodie knew she hadn't laughed this hard in a while. She grinned a bit even once the laughter stopped.

"Sorry. Just kept trying to picture me doing that without shaking in my shoes. I mean, I was only a trainee. And with my luck, they'd discover I was gone right in the middle of practicing on the shooting range."