trans_9 | (no subject)

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Now, this was just terrific. Kurt had just been awakened in a strange place, had barely gotten dressed, and was still trying to pick odd bits of dried gunk off any bit of visible skin. Luckily, the suit he'd been fashioned with was customized, and it was actually absurdly comfortable, if one could ignore that weird, living pulse.

He was going to try very, very much to forget about it. There were other things to occupy his mind.

First of all, his things, whatever Stacy had deemed appropriate to take with him. Hopefully, his 'watch' was in there. not that he needed to know what time it was, but because it would hide his more startling features. The idea of strangers getting a glimpse of him like this was enough to make his mouth dry. Reactions from people he didn't know were usually pretty unfavorable.

Cautiously, he had stepped out of the lift, looking for the locker room. Everything looked somewhat the same, the halls all having that strange, living texture. Despite his nerves, he didn't dare try to teleport in here yet, lest he get stuck in some other hell-dimension. He was keeping himself as low to the ground as possible, not a problem given his unusual build, and trying to just not draw anybody's attention. Yet.

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Having met all those other superheroes had put Terry in a slightly better mood then before. The whole place was still really creepy, and sort of reeked of Spellbinder, but for now, he felt he could at least trust Jaime. But he also felt that he should do a bit of exploring, figure out where he was. Maybe find that locker room Stacy had mentioned and see if the Batsuit was there.

And then, he saw it. The blue guy. And he said what anyone from 2050 Gotham City would have said.

"Man, don't you know how bad splicing will mess you up?"

So much for his plans to get from point A to point B without being seen. Well, it wasn't like he was trying to be really sneaky; crawling behind things or on ceilings or some such rot would have probably yielded better results. Kurt just hadn't expected people to be up here.

He was peering around, trying to find the stash of items, when someone greeted him. Sort of. Actually, it almost sounded as if there was going to be a lecture behind that phrase if Kurt didn't cut him off.

He froze in place, before turning his head to peer over his shoulder, straightening his posture. A thin smile was offered, lips closed. There was no point in flashing predatory teeth. This guy already made him nervous.

"I am sorry, but I am not sure what you mean." The voice was quiet, accented heavily, and downright apologetic. "I agree that it sounds nasty, though." Whatever splicing meant..

Terry was a bit surprised when he got a head-on look at the blue guy's face. He'd seen the blue tail, and just assumed that was all to the guy. But the blue skin? And, he was a bit far away to tell, some fuzz. If that was splicing, it wasn't from any animal he'd seen.

"Don't know about splicing? Then how do you..." Then he remembered. "Riiight, time travel. You're from the past, right?" Though, he realized, the future couldn't be totally ruled out, either.

He paused for a moment, thinking.

"Wait. If you're not a splicer, then why are you blue?"

"Not at all." Well, shock was okay. Kurt could deal with a bit of surprise. It only got ugly when people were honest-to-God afraid. At the moment, he would attempt to appear as mild-mannered as possible, as hope his good nature simply won through any.. well.. ugliness.

"The past?" Well, it was his present, after all. Then it more or less dawned on him time wasn't exactly static, either. "From around, ah, 2003, Earth Years, or whatever. This is getting complicated." No, he certainly wasn't an alien, either.

The guy got right to the point, though, didn't he? "It was a tragic accident involving the Smurfs cartoon and a can of paint." A faintly uneasy grin, then. It wasn't like he enjoyed getting interrogated, even if the guy had good enough intentions.

"Actually, I was born this way." As far as he knew, at any rate, and it was probably the easiest way to sum up an odd story. Then one shoulder actually rolled in a shrug. "It is genetic." Let's not get into the family tree..

2003. That was a rather long time ago, for a kid from 2050.

"What's a smurf?" Terry muttered. Again, kind of a long time in the past.

"Genetic? Oh, you must be one of those mutants Kate was talking about."

"A teensy, tiny, little blue.. thing. They live in mushrooms." Kurt had actually brought up a hand, making a 'small' gesture between his thumb and index finger. "Nevermind. It is a silly cartoon." Just trying to ease the tension by saying something stupid. It didn't help when the other person didn't get the reference.

Kate. No, he didn't quite recall a Kate, but he had to be thankful for her, anyway, since she'd explained something to this guy, and he seemed rather nonchalant about it now. Kurt's face actually brightened. "Yes. That is it, exactly." A faint turn of his head, then, a grin flashing across his features. "I am a mutant. Not many are as colorful as I am, though."

This guy, as weird as he was, really wasn't anything too bad for Terry. When you've fought a glow in the dark skeleton, people with leopard spots and tails walk the streets, and the biggest gang in town dresses like clowns, you kind of get desensitized.

"So, a mutant, huh?" He was thinking about Kate, and what she had talked about. "So... are you another one of those superheroes that your government hates?"

"My turn for a question. What is splicing?" The word sounded familiar, but not exactly in that context. Besides, if people were going to assume he was into.. whatever it was, Kurt wanted to know about it.

"You are very blunt." Kurt merely blinked, yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light. "Hate is a .. pretty strong word. I would say that plenty are afraid of us." When you started adding in superpowers and the like, things got complex. "Not to mention mutants are like everyone else, good and bad." It was frustrating when someone undid all the work you'd done.

Another tight-lipped smile, then. "That is just how politics work, I guess."

"Splicing, well..." Terry wanted to say, it's a thing freaks do, but since he'd accused this mutant of being one, he didn't really want to offend him. So, he chose the scientific approach. "It's when people mix animal DNA into their own. I thought you might have been a hardcore splicer that mixed totally with some rare blue monkey or something."

Afraid - that's something Terry could understand. Plenty of people were afraid of Batman, not sure if he was a good guy or a bad guy. But, still, they'd never tried to stop him.

"Politics and businesses are both filled with total dregs." Well, rich dregs, but still dregs.

For a moment, Kurt was actually silent, merely staring at Terry with a bland, almost expressionless face. The gears were working. Not in a good way, mind. Finally, he just ended up blurting out the words in a confused heap. "You mean someone would do this to themselves on purpose?!" That hurt his head to even contemplate. No, he was very much himself, by now, and it wasn't as though he'd change that, but it had come with it's own unique set of problems..

"We are still the good guys. Sooner or later, people will see that." Fear was simply the natural response to the unknown. As long as it didn't get followed by hate, it was alright. How very Jedi of him.

"Yes, certainly. Both have taken advantage of us before. Still, they are not all bad." So Kurt wasn't much for making sweeping generalizations. Nobody was ever 'all bad', when you asked his opinion.

"Yeah, it's some sort of fashion statement. But totally freaky if you didn't agree to it." He still had nightmares about being a half-vampire bat.

"Yeah, there are some people who do the right thing," Terry said, "but in Gotham, it seems like there aren't any." He was bitter towards a lot of people in his city, that was true. It had clouded his judgment more then once.

Alright, it took something big to shock Kurt; he was regarding Terry with something very close to downright horror. It had just been very difficult to wrap his brain around the idea of someone casually manipulating their own body, to the point where they might resemble something like him, anyway. "Could they not stick to getting piercings in strange places?" You know, like most stupid teens he knew?

As far as having it done to you against you will.. Kurt was simply not going in that direction of conversation. It gave him the willies to consider being somebody's lab rat.

"Gotham?" Kurt repeated the name to himself, but left it at that. "Ahh. Apathy can be dangerous, too. But there are probably plenty of good people who are too afraid to do much else." Or so he hoped, anyway.

"Yeah, I'm really not sure what it's all about. I've always thought it was creepy." Being turned into a destructive gigantic bat can do that for you. His skin still crawling thinking about it.

Terry had been wondering if this guy really was from his world or not. The fact that Gotham didn't click sort of confirmed it.

He nodded slowly to the last comment. He'd been one of those people. He'd seen Bruce become one of them. "Well, there are still the superheroes, right?"

"It sounds like a bit too much body modification, at least to someone who is sane." Kurt had to wonder if it could have been used to help certain mutants. Turn it backwards, somehow. Some powers could be dangerous, could really ruin someone's quality of life..

No, he wasn't thinking about himself. He was thinking about Rogue.

"Ja. Inspiring others.. is it not what we do best?" Kurt had moved his arms out to flex; of course he was one of the heroes, right? Who wouldn't want to emulate him?

"Honestly, I'm pretty sure that Splicer don't really have everything together in their brains." Especially the group's creeping founder. There was a guy with more then a few loose screws.

"Too bad I don't do such a great job on the inspiring part. It would make my life a lot easier if I did." The Terrific Three had been pretty great, but they were gone - mostly by his doing. Still, the few weeks they were around, his relationship with Dana hadn't seemed quite so hopeless.

"It sounds like a real waste of good technology." Kurt shrugged, then. "I suppose I can understand tail envy." A brief grin, then. Who wouldn't want a few extra vertebrae?

"Just keep at it, man. You will get there. Not everyone is prepared to put on a set of tights." Not to mention risking life and limb, and all that good stuff. Still, leading by example. Sooner or later, things would start to change.

"So, what is your suit name, or whatever?" Right, well, if he'd never heard of Gotham at all, he wouldn't know about the bat-obsession surrounding the place, either.

"If a tail's anything like bat-sonar and claws, then no thanks." Terry said with a grin.

Of course things would change. Maybe if he got a Robin... but, there were reasons not to do that. Tim Drake was the biggest.

"I'm Batman." He said, just a tiny bit miffed that, once again, someone had implied that he wore tights.

Kurt waved his tail, almost absently. It was just a damn good way of expressing himself. "It is good for balance." He just chuckled at himself, then. Yeah, sure, he was a funny looking kid, but it did have its advantages. "Claws.. hm. That sounds like a real problem. I would rather not poke holes in all my clothes."

Batman? Kurt cocked his head to one side, racking his brain for any Batman stories. Nope. Nada. "You do not look very, uh, bat-like to me." Maybe he was being too literal.

"So, you do not have any mutations or anything, but you still suit up and go out?" The fuzzy wasn't mocking him; actually, Kurt seemed rather rapt at the idea. It took some guts to make yourself a target in the first place.

"No one is more glad of the fact that I'm not a bat then me. I was for a little while, and I realized that being a genetically mutated freak is not more me.
Er... no offense." And he really hadn't meant any. But splicing had been scary, and it hadn't helped that both Commissioner Gordon and Bruce had shot at him.

"But, I'm just human. My suit really does help with the fighting bad guys. It's got some pretty shway tech in it that lets me fly and sort of turn invisible."

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