In the works

Valerie has looked forward to this day with equal parts excitement and dread but now that it has come she is having some trouble recalling the excitement. As the automatic doors of Foundation High School: Atlanta close behind her she can aready here the faceless anonymous voices whispering:

 [male voice]"Daaamn just how tall is she?"

[male voice, stoner accent]"I'd like ta climb that mountain..."

[female voice]"Wow..."

[female voice]"Great hair..."

[female voice]"Bitch..."

Just short of driving Val bonkers, or worse requiring a reaction, a voice is heard shouting over the chaos.

"Valerie? Valerie Anne Dobson?"

Val had to admit it was a bit overwhelming. She'd actually never done the school thing like this, all she had was tutors and home schooling before now. She'd been too fragile for the hustle and bustle around her. The sum total of her public school experiences was sound bites on the news and what she'd seen in shows and movies.

Of course in all these silly dramas the main character didn't tower six or more inches over everyone. She was, with her new heels, tipping around seven and change. She was tall, 'leggy' (her dad's definition before he headed back out on a six week consultation), and the newest addition to Foundation High School.

She tried to let the whispers roll over her, like her friend Phil told her, but the last one made her look out of the corner of her eye. It was one nest of girls, all in top label clothing. She couldn't figure which one of the 'cheer squad' it was that had said the last but she figured it might be smart to avoid all of them. At least that was what her mom had said.

She smiled and turned to the voice that had called her by name. Stay on the ball, stay out of trouble, try to blend in. She told herself as she looked at the principal. She was in bell bottoms, a jacket and a nice polo style shirt from Phil with a 'companion cube' logo, standing at 7 feet in her boots, she figured she could do the first two.. but the last was dead on arrival. Sorry Tower.. you'll have to be content with 'staying out of trouble'. She thought silently to her 'sponsor' as she thought of him.

"Yeah, that's me." She said with a grin, as she offered her hand. A month ago, she wouldn't have for fear of crushing his but she was learning control and confidence with her new powers. "You must be.. Principal MacDana right? I was suppost to check in with you first and go over my class schedule right?" She asked politely, feeling the eyes of the entire hallway on her as she spoke.

The Principal doesn't quite smile but somehow manages to seem friendly and very little like the school administrators Val has seen on television. Somehow it's almost disappointing for her.

"Yes Miss Dobson. Your schedule and other matters of a private nature."

He turns and passes a hand over a flat metal panel on his office door which subsequently slides silently open.

"Right this way."

"Sure, I can do that.." She said carefully as she  followed him. Apparently her school wasn't any more normal than she was.

The Principal gestures to a chair in front of his desk and seats himself in a high backed chair behind it.

"First let me welcome you to Foundation High School's Atlanta Campus."

"Your parents arranged for you to be enrolled here how much did they tell you about the school?"


OOC: They told you little to nothing beyond the name of the school and the principal.

"Well I as told the name of it, they arranged for me to attend and that is about it. It's not the closest school but it is fairly close." Val admitted as she took a seat. She drummed her fingers on her leg for a moment before continuing with a question.

"I'm here because of my 'enhanced' abilities right?"

"In short yes. But perhaps not in the way you are thinking."

"I'll give you the short version."

The Principal raises his hands at about twice shoulder width and then brings them down to about waist height. As they pass a virtual screen appears showing the front of the Myth Foundation Headquarters in Saint Louis MO.

"Doctor Aleksandyr Myth founded the Myth Foundation to study the Parahuman phenomenon in 2004. In 2007 he founded the Foundation High School Network with the first school opening in St. Louis in the fall of that year. Within four years there were seven schools under the FHS banner with the other six being located in Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, and Phoenix."

"The schools function legally as private schools but are operated on a scholarship only basis and before you ask, no, not everyone in a Foundation school is a parahuman. The schools are fully funded by the Myth Foundation and receive no government monies at any level."

He extends a hand toward Val showing that he has a black and gold credit card and obviously intending for her to take it.

"This is your stipend card Ms Dobson. You will use it to pay for your books, your food while at school functions, and your school uniforms which will be required beginning with the second week of school. You will also find there is a small discretionary account to which you will have access."

He gives he a meaningful look. "If you waste it HE will notice."

"In your case, and that of a small number of other student, the card also serves as a commlink connecting you to the Myth Foundation. Unique to yours is the ability to reach Mr. Hightower as well."

Once she has taken the card he asks, "Any questions before I continue?"

"I have a few questions." Val admitted as she took the the card and tucked in her wallet. "The first and most important is do you know anyone who can do custom uniforms to code? I'm a bit outside 'petite' sizes and I have 'special tailoring' needs. I tend to pop stitches just by stretching. I figure ask now, I avoid embarrassing myself late. The dress code I can look up in the school guide."

She shrugged as she stopped to think. Snide, smart mouthed and occasionally flippant she might be, but clearly she wasn't getting the 'normal' high school treatment and that meant she needed to stop and think before engaging her mouth.

"I'm good at the moment, I think but I imagine there are a bunch of rules in the rule book that I need to read and watch out for. The big question, is there anyone you suggest I stay away from or avoid?" Find out who the principal thinks are the trouble makers and steer clear of them.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 18:03, Mon 01 Sept 2014.

"All school uniforms are tailor made on campus of a proprietary MythTech(tm) material. I assure you that you will have no issues with normal activities while wearing them."

(OOC: Essentially the school uniforms count as an armored bodysuit. This will not cost Val any PPs because it also wont give her any benefit.)

"After your assessment at headquarters in St. Louis you will receive a...utility outfit...for your more vigorous activities."


"As for your social life; I will not presume to give you instructions. Who you associate with is your decision and I am confident you will make good decisions in that area."

"Adequate answers?"

"fair enough sir, I will try to stay out of trouble. My 'incident at the mall aside I don't go looking for trouble. The most violent, aside from my weekend job tearing apart cars for my Uncle Louie, itching I like doing is watching movies at the mall  I just want to get through school and learn to be a normal, well mostly, kid and survive high school and maybe do something studied like go into acting."  She tried to NOT show her disc like of being put in a costume, which is how she saw the 'utility outfit', though she found the idea of the assessment reassuring.  She really wanted to know her limits. She would rather not feel another broken bone again, but somehow she figured that wasn't in her future.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Mon 01 Sept 2014.

The Principal is about to continue when he turns his head slightly and placed his index finger next to his right ear.

"Understood"

When he looks back to Val his smile has returned.

"It turns out that your briefing will be complete tomorrow during your assessment."

"You will be excused from school tomorrow. A Myth Foundation representative will pick you up at your home at 6:00am in the morning."

"I hope you enjoy your first day of school Ms Dobson. I look forward to having you contributing as a student here. Good day."

Polite but clearly a dismissal. To emphasize the point the door opens of its own accord.

"okay, then I best get to my classes then thank you for taking the time to fill me in sir."  Val said as she got up and  walked through the door. She would definitely talk about this with Tower the next time they met. This was NOT 'regular' high school and she had a bad feeling coming here would put her far into the 'heroic hijinks' category that she had wanted to avoid  in the future. And the ASSESSMENT sounded just as bad. Simply because she was really tired of testing from the months of it since her change.

Giving another sigh, she pulled out her schedule and map to head to home room, time to get a taste of 'real' school in where you don't get a doctoral candidate teaching you math or self paced English Lit. She hoped that whoever she got accepted Heinland and Pohl as literature though, she was rereading Friday and Starship Troopers

The rest of Val's day is fairly uneventful with the most significant events being the meeting of her teachers. Two of them really stand out in her mind; Mr. Smith, who teaches all of the math and science classes for her grade level, and Coach Basher, the PE teacher for the entire school.

Mr. Smith is very very competent and very very serious to the degree that he makes the most fierce of her tutors seem like a hippy kindergarten teacher.

Coach Basher is friendly, really really loud, and runs a gym class that would make a navy rescue swimmer think about calling in sick. What's more he is very knowledgeable about how to make someone with Val's abilities work just as hard as everyone else.

Lastly, try as she might, she cannot identify any of the other parahuman students.

6:00am comes early and a man in a perfectly tailored suit a Myth Foundation insignia on the lapel is waiting at the door exactly on time.

Not that she was looking too hard, Val thought as she went through the school, if a fellow student was a meta they were entitled to their privacy. Not that she could do the same. There weren't many 7 foot tall normal girls, she thought wryly. She enjoyed the challenges her teachers gave her. Mr. Smith was a lot like the teachers she had in the hospitals and the Coach challenged her like no one else had. When her 'escort' arrived she smiled at him.

"You're a little old for a prom date..but about right for getting me to the mad scientists." Val joked as she offered her hand. "I'm Val, and you are?" She said putting her joking aside.

The man is fit, tall (in company other than Val that is), and attractive enough that no teenage girl could avoid noticing.

"Call me Wilson Ms Dobson. Are you ready to go?"

Val nodded.

"Sure thing, sooner done the better." She said as she check iPad and backup battery. She could read and listen to the music while they go to wherever it was that they were going. "Any idea how long it will be getting there and back? I got to update my parents if it's going to take a lot of time past six or seven in the evening."

When Val looks up from her iPod she is standing in a well appointed lobby in front of a desk manned by a statuesque woman with long golden hair and beautiful fully feathered angel wings. There are several men and women within sight who are wearing various versions of the Myth Foundation uniform. Several of them, including one woman with deep blue skin and pitch black eyes, have the posture and demeanor of highly competent armed security though they possess no obvious armor of weapons.

Inward the building has the look of a cutting edge and very expensively appointed medical facility while in the outward direction there is a glass wall with several sets of double doors. Outside the decor includes the white marble columns of an ancient Greek temple leading out to the streets of the river city of Saint Louis Missouri.

Wilson stands nearby trying and failing to stoneface his way through something halfway between an embarrassed grin and a self satisfied smirk. Somehow on him the whole thing seems charming.