Barnell was easy to find.  His knee still hasn't fully healed, and he was forced to use a crutch to get around the house (flying was always extremely taxing for him).  Consequently, he didn’t stay far away from  the common room these last few days;  watching television, reading a book, or sitting in front of his laptop.

Recent events have left him dispirited; two near-death-experiences in the very same week, Xavier and Cyclops critically injured – and worse of all, the resulting infighting.  He preferred to keep to himself and not engage with the rest of the students – uncharacteristic of the usually social teenager.

Busy typing on his laptop when the girl(s) walked into the common room, he didn’t notice them approaching until he noticed their reflection on his monitor.

“Oh, hi” he said meekly and swiveled around to face them, his hand reflexively reaching to the back of his neck “how's it going?”

Zoey takes a casual tour of the common room before approaching Barnell. With any luck this would establish her presence in the room and make the conversation with Barnell look more natural and less planned. Zoey knew that he had been through entirely too much shit of late and didn't want to place any undue pressure on the poor lad. That is also why she had advised the other girls in what she was mentally referring to as the Treehouse Club to maintain their distance; she didn't want him to feel as though he was being peer-pressured.

"Hi," Zoey mirrors Barnell's greeting, not putting much energy into her words either. "Oh, it goes well enough. Mind if I have a sit with you? I wanted to pitch a crazy idea to you."

Zoey plops herself down nearby, lowering her voice a bit further so that she can just barely be heard above the din of the commons. "So, some of the girls and I have been a little discontent with the handling of... recent events. We're leaving to do things our own way. You have a talent for making friends, and the way you got those passwords from the Danger Room was absolutely brilliant. I'd really like it if you could come with us as our IT and social media expert. I think you'd be a great fit for the job... you know, if you want it."

For her part Kate just saunters over to one of the couches.  Not the nice looking one, that one isn't comfy at all, but the slightly more ugly one that doesn't look quite so posh.  Since she isn't wearing any shoes she doesn't have to kick them off to fold her feet up under her as she settles down and catching Serena's eye she pats the spot next to her in invitation before letting her attention wander through the rest of the room.

Barnell looked over Zoey's shoulder to notice Kate slumping on one of the couches.  Trapped

"I...I'm not sure what to say" he was genuinely flustered "I mean, how can we abandon the Professor, at a time like this? And school has already started.  I can't just get up and leave"

Zoey did not consider herself an expert at reading faces by any means, but she was putting extra effort into trying not to make Barnell uncomfortable. She saw his eyes and where they had flicked to, and frowns. She snaps her fingers to get Kate's attention and gestures that she should leave for a bit. He's feeling uncomfortable; give us more space, she mentally instructs her if she is listening. Honestly she's not sure how Kate could give them more space since she'd slipped in so naturally even Zoey hadn't noticed her, but Barnell seemed to have the eyes of an eagle.

"Ah yeah, school, that's a thing," Zoey says breezily. "Uhm. Please don't interpret what I am about to say wrongly. The Professor, and the X-Men generally, seem to most value people who have the ability and willingness to fight. I have nothing but respect for you and I am meaning no disrespect by saying this, but you are not a fighter. I am not sure how much the Professional really needs you."

"School though, that's important," she continues, adapting a more cheerful demeanor. Cheerful by Zoey-standards anyways. "If you want to finish the year or semester or whatever, give it some time for my offer to turn over in your head, that's okay. There's no rush. The position will probably stay open for a while. The absolute last thing I want to do is make you feel like I'm coercing you into a decision. Heck, you could probably do the IT and social media stuff from your laptop without ever setting foot outside the Institute if you wanted."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:22, Sat 12 June 2021.

Serena is not there. No really. She's not even invisible. She's laying on Zoey's bed and reading manga.

"No, I guess he doesn't really need me" he said with a dejected sigh "It's just that I had a dream of becoming an X-Men.  Isn't that the most important part?" maybe, he wasn't so sure anymore.

"The Professor has been like a father to me.  More so than my real one. I'll feel like I would be betraying him if I left, after all he has done for me"  but there was one thing that could change his mind, though he skirted around it rather than asking directly:

"Who else did you say is coming with you?"

"Ahhh, dreams..." Zoey trails off, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. "I can't even remember what it felt like to have an ambition. Did I ever even have one?" I'm too young to feel this old.

"After saving he and Scott, I feel like my debt is repaid. It's true though, he's done a lot for us. Gave us a safe place to stay while we wrestled with learning how to not blow ourselves up with our capabilities..."

"Hm?" Zoey hums, mildly taken back by the question. "Just Kate and Serena for now... I couldn't think of anyone else but you to ask. Why, is that important?"

Kate waits to make sure that Barnell isn't looking and then sticks her tongue out at Zoey but still she does as bid sliding off the sofa with a stretch and wandering to the far end of the room and out a second door away from the entrance near where Barnell and Zoey are talking.

Once outside she reaches out with her mind, she's been getting better at this even without new lessons just practicing older ones and soon enough shes figured out where Serena is and trots down the halls to burst in on her.  "Does Zoey know you're messing up her bed and wrinkling her comics?"

The question asked as she quite shamelessly joins the older girl on the bed all knees and elbows until there is just enough room to squirm next to her and see what she's reading.

"What? No, not at all!" he denied that it did, and rather quickly too
"Where would you stay?  I mean, if it is not too far away perhaps I could travel back and forth to the school every day?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:37, Sun 13 June 2021.

Zoey cocks her head. She feels like she's missing something, but Barnell didn't seem to want to discuss it so she let it go for now.

"Your role would be mostly digital so I don't think it'd be worth the inconvenience of a daily commute, especially until we've erected some proper buildings. You certainly can if you want though. The land I am looking at buying is in Ithica, a few hours' drive from here."

If Barnell allows it, she takes his laptop for a moment to type in the address and show it on a map.

---

Meanwhile; Zoey rarely actually makes her bed so it'd be hard for Serena to mess it up any more. It smells like the older girl too, especially that subtle peach-scented perfume she tends to wear. The manga is entirely Serena's; comics are one of the classic geeky hobbies that Zoey missed out on. She thought the format was confusing, and once became violently angry at the even more whimsical right-to-left-except-not-really layout that Japanese comics tended to use.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:19, Sun 13 June 2021.

"Ithica? that's a long way from here" he murmured to himself.  Then again...
"I guess I could drop out.  I don't think my parents would care all that much"

"If that's what you want to do," Zoey replies. "I'm already taking over responsibility for Kate, what's one more?"

Zoey stands and stretches. "It might be a while before I hear back on my land bid, but once I do we'll probably leave the next day. May want to start packing."

Serena ignores Kate's telepathic contact, but she doesn't ignore Kate when the latter bursts into what used to be Zoey's - and is now Serena's by right of conquest - room. Serena waits until Kate has settled on the bed before reaching over the other girl's body and grabbing the edge of the bed. She pulls, and there is suddenly more bed. Against all reason and common sense, the bed has gotten bigger without crowding out anything else or making the room larger. The manga is also bigger, also somehow, but it's still written entirely in the mysterious runic script of the Moon People. Most of the pictures feature two girls wielding weapons and doing adventurous-looking things.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:04, Wed 16 June 2021.

In reply to Serena (msg # 14):

Kate was not expecting that.  Looking from bed to room to comic and back brain not quite computing how all the angles work before giving up and just saying, "Neat."

So mystery of the expanding bed no longer clouding her brain she decides to just look at the pictures instead.  Moon runes or Japanese, either way it's Greek to her so picture book fighting it is.  After a few more pages she speaks up again.  "So, what are they saying?"

A girl with shoulder-length black hair and glasses is looking through the scope of a rifle, at a bull's head. Serena puts her finger on the speech bubbles on the next panel, which show a long-haired blonde girl behind the first.

"Toriko," Serena speaks for the brunette, "Support me."

Serena is reading the right page first, from right to left, top to bottom, then the left page the same way. It's totally different from the way normal books or comics are read. Some soldiers in the foreground are shooting at a blob of black and white spots.

The blonde puts her hands on the brunette's shoulders. "Roger that."

It's an undeniably tender pose, rather than matter-of-fact assistance.

Serena points at a few slashes above the panel showing the brunette squeezing the trigger. "You ever read any manga? Japanese people use a lot of uh, what's the word, onomatopoeia? Sound words. Like 'bark' or 'fizz.' They use a lot of those in their, well, every kind of visual anything. This one here says 'click,' but it's written without a couple of kana to signify that it's abrupt and foreign to the character experiencing the sound. This girl has never fired a gun before, see?"

Isekai Picnic, volume 2, chapter 11, page 18, if you're curious.

In reply to Serena (msg # 16):

"Not really.  I mean I'm sure that is what it says, but I can't read it."  Kate answered, and settles in for some second hand Manga and Japanese lessons.  Eventually though all fun must end and she'll pack up what few belongings she has, and an equally large bag of food 'liberated' from the kitchen.  It hasn't really sunk in to the teen that Zoey is rich enough that they won't have to worry about foraging when they go, and she wants to make sure she has at least a weeks worth of worry free dining.