[Melody Newton]

Eclipse All my childhood heroes have fallen off or died + Kenzi Nadir

Melody's dad would have been fascinated with Kenzi's ability, but then he was fascinated by the abilities of most people. Still, Kenzi's was unusual, there weren't a lot of people with telepathic abilities at EMBA, and Melody seemed to know three of them. God knows how that had happened. "That's pretty cool." And it had certainly worked effectively. Using it for pranks would also have occurred to Melody, though perhaps not with the same amount of frequency that they obviously appealed to Kenzi. "Glitter, right… Let me know when to avoid them." She sat down awkwardly to untie the knot in her laces, before tying them normally. Being invited to LARP though, was not something she'd had in mind. "Isn't that the thing where nerds dress up as wizards and Vikings and things?" There was a definite uncertainty in her voice. She was good friends with Keke, but wary of trying something so stereotypically nerdy. Melody made serious efforts to appear as if she didn't care what other people thought, but as is often the case, this was a result of her actual concern over other's opinions. The Evergreen Metahuman Boarding Academy might be a school for people with abilities, but that didn't make it any different from your average high school. They had cheerleaders, jocks, everything. Not that they could compete against other schools in sport. People thought it was unfair if your quarterback could throw the ball the length of a football field. It probably was. That meant that social status was just as important here, maybe even more so, now that powers seemed to be factored into it. Melody, with her eyes, was different enough as it was. She didn't particularly want to join in with an activity like that which would paint a target on her back. On the other hand, she didn't want to just throw it back in this girl's face, she might have found out about her medication, but she'd promised not to tell regardless. "I uh… I dunno, I'm not really that into roleplay…"

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[Kenzi Nadir]

Kenzi took a deep, elegant bow, complete with a graceful wave of the hand. ”Thank you, thank you.” She said as if she were performing in front of a wide audience. ”I’ve been learning a lot of magic tricks too. As you can imagine, the attention manipulation is very useful for that. Makes things real easy. Maybe too easy.” She tapped her finger on her chin, thinking. ”Oh well, it’s still fun to see the look on someone’s face when you totally mindfuck them Apollo Robbins style.” She added with a wink.

”Dude, ya gotta come see one of my glitter pranks sometime. You don’t have to be the target for it to be interesting. Glitter is fucking beautiful, I mean, just look.” She pulled at her DIY sparkly purple t-shirt. Looking down, she noticed the blood stain on the bottom of the shirt. ”Oh shoot.” She felt the stain with her fingers; the blood was starting to harden. ”I forgot about that.” She studied it a little closer. ”Do you think it looks cool?” She asked Melody. ”I think it kinda looks cool.” She released her hold on her shirt. ”Ah, what the fuck, I’m keeping it!”

Kenzi shrugged. ”Depends on the setting. Most LARPing is medieval fantasy kind of stuff with swords and magic and all that. But we could do a viking setting. Or a sci fi setting. Or a zombie setting. We could even do a modern day kind of thing with Nerf guns and all that crap, but I dunno, I don’t think that allows for as much creativity. The one we’re planning is the fantasy one. I already have this whole rogue character that I’m super excited to unveil.” She gave Melody a playful elbow. ”And you don’t have to be a nerd, but it certainly helps.” She winked.

Kenzi smiled understandingly. Melody said she wasn’t into it, but there was something there, something in her voice that said she might be interested. Maybe Kenzi was looking into things too much, maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she held onto the notion that Melody wanted to join them. Still, she would respect her words. ”Why don’t you come check it out, just for the first round? You can just watch, you don’t have to join. Then you can see if you really wanna do it.” She shrugged. ”Wouldn’t hurt. Besides, I wouldn’t want you missing out on all the fun. It is really, really fuckin’ fun.” She grinned wide and thrust her thumb toward her chest. ”You haven’t roleplayed until you’ve roleplayed with me!” 

Melody Newton

[Melody Newton]

Eclipse All my childhood heroes have fallen off or died + Kenzi Nadir

Melody was quick witted, but even she struggled to keep up with the headlong rush of words out of Kenzi's mouth. She wondered whether the girl hadn't been sent here because of her powers or any other problems, but just because her parents wanted some peace and quiet. It was becoming easier and easier to believe as Kenzi showed no sign of slowing down. If anything she was speeding up, as if she was accelerating. Maybe it took a while to get to her top speed. Melody could only hope she'd reached that already as she inserted a sentence into the path of the oncoming barrage. "I guess I could come along and watch…" She could always leave before anyone she knew saw that she was there, or even better, come up with some excuse closer to the time. No doubt she could, there was always homework due in, although that in itself wasn't much good, as anyone who knew her knew that she rarely bothered handing any in, let alone actually doing it. It was more about making a point than because she couldn't do it. After all, she was here against her will. "I could try out something." Show willing, then if she didn't show up Kenzi might at least think she'd been interested before whatever excuse she produced came up. Although come to think of it, her father probably wouldn't be too impressed if she spent her time at boarding school dressing up and playing with fake swords. "Alright, fine, I'll try it. Once. That's the only promise I'm making." They were nearly back at the class Melody was supposed to be in. "What class have you got?"

© seadra of gs

[Kenzi Nadir]

”Yessss!” She clapped her hands together and gave a little jump. ”Trust me, it’s gonna be tons of fun, even if you’re just watching.” Of course, Kenzi hoped that Melody would be enticed into becoming a player. She wasn’t sure how helpful the laser eyes might be. Hopefully she could just set them to stun or something. It wouldn’t do to have players vaporized. It was just a game after all. Still, she didn’t need her powers to enjoy herself. The powers were a fun side effect of having a LARPing session with a bunch of metahumans, but definitely not a necessity.

Classes. Oh shit. ”Well I just missed history. Left my glitter bag back there, gonna have to go back, see what happened to it and try to get it back.” She bit her lip as she came to this realization. She’d all but forgotten about her prank gone wrong. The injury and her new friend had distracted her. It might be weird going back there, but no glitter should go to waste. She could take whatever punishment befell her. She was sure she could just slink out of there with her powers anyway.

”What do I have next though? Hm…” She put her finger on her chin, thinking. ”I think I have English next. I should probably go to that. I like English and I skipped yesterday.” She’d been skipping a lot of classes lately. She always had, even back home. The learning part of school had never been that important to her. It was the social aspect that really mattered. She still managed to squeak by with Bs and Cs (except for art class, where she didn’t accept anything less than an A+), so she wasn’t too worried about graduating. It did make her schedule a bit confusing though. When everyday was different, the word “schedule” didn’t hold much meaning.

”Well, it was nice meeting you Melody! And I’m not just saying that ‘cause it’s a thing people say. Like legit, you seem like a cool person. Imma head to class, but I’ll see you around.” She walked off into the hallway back towards her history class. “See ya at the LARP!” She said as she walked away, turning around briefly to give Melody two finger guns and a wink before walking forward again, a large grin on her face, a bounce in her step.

She’d made a new friend today.

Melody Newton