Florem

School for the Special

Looking up at the taller girl as she confirmed that she was also here to meet with a representative from the school, Abbie gave her a bright smile when she asked for her name, and introduced herself as Veronica. Well, it was nice to know that she hadn't just plopped down next to a complete stranger who also didn't even have anything to do with why she was here.

"I'm Abigail! But you can just call me Abbie." Abbie answered, turning just a bit in order to hold her hand out to Veronica in an invitation for a shake. "Nice to meetcha!" She added with an easygoing grin.

---

Continuing down the path through the park with his suitcase rattling along unevenly on its wheels behind him, Kurt glanced up after a short while and finally spotted the weeping willow that he had come here for. And from the looks of things, he was far from the only one here expecting someone. Noticing this, he just gave a heavy sigh to himself. Great. Other people. This day just kept getting worse and worse.

Resisting the urge to grumble to himself, still sour about the taxi driver's blatant overcharging, he just turned off the path and rattled his suitcase over to the nearest available tree. What he failed to notice in the midst of his internal complaining was the girl on the opposite side of the tree's trunk, with some sort of cable plugged into her neck, busy reading a physics book. Drawing his things up beside himself, he just stood them upright and then leaned one shoulder against the tree, reaching a hand up to scratch at his neck quickly, before crossing his arms unhappily.

School for the Special

@Florem Real sorry for the late response. I promise all my future responses will be more timely now.

@Mr Allen J

Haha, don't worry about it! I know how hectic college and stuff can get!

But

I'm Veronica?

@Mr Allen J

I'm so tempted to have Abbie ask 'Are you sure?' :p

School for the Special

@greywolf375

Ooh, good question! Hmm... I don't think anything in particular really inspired me to make Abbie, I just sort of came up with her by thinking about it. Kurt, however, I came up with while listening to this (Even though he's very un-Papyrus)!

School for the Special

Just to be clear, Abbie walked up to Veronica?

@Mr Allen J

Oh, yup, she did! And also just plopped down right next to her. c:

School for the Special

Woo, a post! Ahhh this is so exciting!

School for the Special

Toward the back of the bus, Abbie was sitting with her head resting lightly against the window beside her, her left foot tapping idly as she stared out at the nice little park on the other side. She'd been more or less like this for all of the bus rides over the last couple days, occasionally making a quick friend out of a nearby passenger, and asking them to wake her up at the stop they were going to get off, before taking a nap to keep herself going. She'd also been slowly working her way through the clothes she had packed away in her bag, changing in between buses whenever a restroom was available, and was now wearing a pair of simple denim shorts and a plain white tank top. It certainly wasn't the most luxurious way to be getting around, but it was the way that didn't cost her family an arm and a leg to get her out here to her new school.

Nope, just a leg.

Just as she was huffing a bit to herself at that, Abbie was jolted out of her thoughts as she felt the bus begin moving again. Suddenly realizing that she hadn't checked what stop this was, she glanced up and practically felt her heart stop as she realized that they were just beginning to pull away from her destination.

"Ah, hey, hold on! This is my stop!" She cried out as she jumped up to her feet, yanking her duffel bag up off the vacant seat next to her and slinging it onto her back as she hopped out into the aisle, ignoring the looks that all the passengers were starting to give her as she rushed up past the rows of seats, she stopped just as the bus was doing so again, pausing for a moment to turn to the driver and respond to his raised eyebrow with a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that, I was kinda spaced out there." She explained, before quickly fishing out the last loose dollar from her pocket and popping it into the fare box. "Thanks for stopping!" She added brightly, twirling on her artificial heel and quickly hopping out through the open doors to the sidewalk outside.

Straightening up as the bus finished setting off behind her, Abbie straightened up and took a deep breath of the fresh air, looking around for a few moments to get her bearings. The little park was nice, but not in any sort of showy way... exactly the kind of place she'd always loved. Looking to one side, she could already see what was presumably the river mentioned in the instructions for her meeting with the recruiter. With a quick adjustment of the strap of her duffel bag, she turned and started further into the park, beginning her search for the willow tree she needed to find.

After just a little while of walking as close by the bank of the river as she could, Abbie finally spotted what she could only assume was the willow tree she was searching for. If the tree itself wasn't enough to tip her off, there was also a guy with a funny-looking haircut waiting just underneath it. Recognizing what could only be another prospective student like herself, she smiled, and was about to make her way over to meet him when she happened to glance over and spot somebody else. Much nearer to her, on a little bench by the side of the main park path, was a girl with thick black hair, sitting with her eyes closed and looking just a bit out of place. Quickly theorizing that she'd just spotted another potential new classmate, Abbie smiled a little more, changing course to make her way over to the bench, unslinging her bag from her back just as she was drawing up to it.

"Hey there!" She greeted brightly, turning to plop down on the bench just beside the other girl while dropping her duffel bag on the ground on her other side. Once she'd settled in place, she turned to look at the girl once more, already shifting into a more relaxed position with her left leg crossed casually over her right. "Are you here for the school, too?"

---

"I don't care if you don't set the rates, it doesn't change the fact that they're ridiculous!" Kurtis snapped back at the understandably huffy taxi driver as he was stepping out of the cab with his wheeled suitcase, another bag tied onto the extended handle to make it easier to lug around as well. The blond was wearing a pair of thick gray sweats and a black jacket, both of which were just a bit warmer than was strictly necessary for the weather at the moment.

Grumbling a bit to himself after his little outburst as the door closed behind him, Kurt turned to look ahead at the park he'd been asked to meet the recruiter in. And what sort of 'recruitment' process was this anyways? Special school or no, he could easily think of some much better ways to welcome new students than making them stay overnight in some sketchy motel, only to meet in an even sketchier corner of some park. Letting out a noise halfway between a heavy sigh and a hiss, he just reached up to give the crook of his neck a few quick scratches, before setting off into the park proper, to meet with this representative of the school.

As he was walking along the path with his belongings wheeling along behind him, Kurt happened to glance up just as he was nearing the river he needed to head to. Thinking that he saw something move for just a moment in one of the oak trees just by the bank, he slowed down for a few steps, narrowing his eyes slightly, before letting out another heavy breath and shaking his head, turning instead to continue searching for the weeping willow that he apparently needed to find.

School for the Special

Name: Kurtis Geier
Alias: Kurt
Age: 19
Gender: Male

Abilities: Animation; Without any physical or mental exertion, Kurtis can will to 'life' any inanimate object that he is in contact with, and with some mental exertion can actively control it. He can revoke this 'life' at will.

Weaknesses: The difficulty that Kurtis has actually controlling the 'creatures' he animates, or keeping them 'alive' is a multiplicative product of the animated object's size, complexity, and distance from him. As a general rule of thumb, Kurtis can keep his 'creatures' alive at about twice the maximum distance that he can remain in direct control of them. If he does not actively exert his control on them while they are within range, or if they are outside of range, they will remain alive, but mindless, without any direction other than an odd compulsion to perform whatever task is normally carried out by the animated object. For example, an animated broom that Kurtis wasn't actively controlling would simply sweep all over the place until Kurtis either assumed control again, or de-animated it. Additionally, while Kurtis can animate more than one object at once, the difficulty in controlling and maintaining them is additive. For example, if he animated two brooms at once, they would both be limited to half their usual ranges. If Curtis at any point loses consciousness, either by sleeping or being knocked out, all of his animated objects immediately revert to their inanimate states.

The only exception to these rules is in the case of direct physical contact. If Kurtis remains touching whatever he's animated, it is exponentially easier for him to control and maintain whatever being he's created. No matter how close Kurtis is, however, there is no way for him to maintain one of his animated objects while he is asleep.

Without his animated objects, Kurtis is not only a totally normal human being, but an exceptionally weak one, in ways better expanded upon in his appearance.

Appearance: Standing at 5'6" - well below the average for young men like him - Kurtis is almost a pathetic figure at first glance. His dirty blond hair is cut fairly short, and always looking just a bit scraggly. His dull blue-gray eyes are set just above to rather pronounced, dark bags, and his face is almost always set in a slightly sour expression. He has a very thin build, his ribs easily visible on his torso, and the skin stretched over them is exceptionally pale, even for someone of his Anglo-Saxon descent. Kurtis often hides most of these features with heavy, cold-weather-appropriate clothing, even when lacking the appropriate weather to justify it, and so is often looking generally sweaty and uncomfortable.

Personality: The easiest way to describe Kurtis would be that he's a control freak. He despises - and lashes out against - anything that makes him feel powerless. In tandem with this, he has a superiority complex that makes it incredibly difficult for him to make friends, convinced that they're just too dumb to properly understand him. Because of his domineering attitude, it is not at all unusual for him to make a scene when something goes against his opinion. Despite all of his behavioral issues, he has yet to ever misuse his power, and every so often he'll give some hint that he still has empathy for other people, beneath all the natural abrasiveness.

Background: Kurtis was only a baby when he was abandoned by the totally unprepared young couple that were his biological parents, so as far as he's concerned, his adoptive family is his real family, despite him having known about his position from a rather young age. Even early in his life, Kurt was always different from the other children, not playing many games with them, often keeping to himself entirely for whole school days. Worried, his parents tried to get him the counseling they thought he must need, but that seemed to only make matters worse.

All throughout his childhood and teen years, Kurt's parents did their best to cope with his gradually worsening personality, as well as a gradually worsening sickliness due to what they discovered was a weak immune system. All throughout this time, he would spend most of his free time acting out power fantasies with himself, gradually cementing his self-image as someone that could handle the sort of power he dreamed about.

Finally, one day, that power came to Kurt, when in he midst of one of his fantasies, he inadvertently animated one of his small toy soldiers. He wasted no time in showing this to his parents, who immediately decided that something like this, in Kurtis' hands, had to be handled by someplace that knew what they were doing. So, almost as soon as they learned about the Academy, they were sending him off to not only learn to control his power, but maybe, just maybe, make some friends among a group of people he might actually be able to relate to.

School for the Special

Ah, best wishes for your dad tomorrow, Phoenix! I think that I should be able to post IC then, but I'm not sure. Also, are we each going to make up a one-off background NPC for our character specifically to be meeting there?

School for the Special

Name: Kurtis Geier
Alias: Kurt
Age: 19
Gender: Male

Abilities: Animation; Without any physical or mental exertion, Kurtis can will to 'life' any inanimate object that he is in contact with, and with some mental exertion can actively control it. He can revoke this 'life' at will.

Weaknesses: The difficulty that Kurtis has actually controlling the 'creatures' he animates, or keeping them 'alive' is a multiplicative product of the animated object's size, complexity, and distance from him. As a general rule of thumb, Kurtis can keep his 'creatures' alive at about twice the maximum distance that he can remain in direct control of them. If he does not actively exert his control on them while they are within range, or if they are outside of range, they will remain alive, but mindless, without any direction other than an odd compulsion to perform whatever task is normally carried out by the animated object. For example, an animated broom that Kurtis wasn't actively controlling would simply sweep all over the place until Kurtis either assumed control again, or de-animated it. Additionally, while Kurtis can animate more than one object at once, the difficulty in controlling and maintaining them is additive. For example, if he animated two brooms at once, they would both be limited to half their usual ranges. If Curtis at any point loses consciousness, either by sleeping or being knocked out, all of his animated objects immediately revert to their inanimate states.

The only exception to these rules is in the case of direct physical contact. If Kurtis remains touching whatever he's animated, it is exponentially easier for him to control and maintain whatever being he's created. No matter how close Kurtis is, however, there is no way for him to maintain one of his animated objects while he is asleep.

Without his animated objects, Kurtis is not only a totally normal human being, but an exceptionally weak one, in ways better expanded upon in his appearance.

Appearance: Standing at 5'6" - well below the average for young men like him - Kurtis is almost a pathetic figure at first glance. His dirty blond hair is cut fairly short, and always looking just a bit scraggly. His dull blue-gray eyes are set just above to rather pronounced, dark bags, and his face is almost always set in a slightly sour expression. He has a very thin build, his ribs easily visible on his torso, and the skin stretched over them is exceptionally pale, even for someone of his Anglo-Saxon descent. Kurtis often hides most of these features with heavy, cold-weather-appropriate clothing, even when lacking the appropriate weather to justify it, and so is often looking generally sweaty and uncomfortable.

Personality: The easiest way to describe Kurtis would be that he's a control freak. He despises - and lashes out against - anything that makes him feel powerless. In tandem with this, he has a superiority complex that makes it incredibly difficult for him to make friends, convinced that they're just too dumb to properly understand him. Because of his domineering attitude, it is not at all unusual for him to make a scene when something goes against his opinion. Despite all of his behavioral issues, he has yet to ever misuse his power, and every so often he'll give some hint that he still has empathy for other people, beneath all the natural abrasiveness.

Background: Kurtis was only a baby when he was abandoned by the totally unprepared young couple that were his biological parents, so as far as he's concerned, his adoptive family is his real family, despite him having known about his position from a rather young age. Even early in his life, Kurt was always different from the other children, not playing many games with them, often keeping to himself entirely for whole school days. Worried, his parents tried to get him the counseling they thought he must need, but that seemed to only make matters worse.

All throughout his childhood and teen years, Kurt's parents did their best to cope with his gradually worsening personality, as well as a gradually worsening sickliness due to what they discovered was a weak immune system. All throughout this time, he would spend most of his free time acting out power fantasies with himself, gradually cementing his self-image as someone that could handle the sort of power he dreamed about.

Finally, one day, that power came to Kurt, when in he midst of one of his fantasies, he inadvertently animated one of his small toy soldiers. He wasted no time in showing this to his parents, who immediately decided that something like this, in Kurtis' hands, had to be handled by someplace that knew what they were doing. So, almost as soon as they learned about the Academy, they were sending him off to not only learn to control his power, but maybe, just maybe, make some friends among a group of people he might actually be able to relate to.

---

Woohoo, I actually did it! This is... a little bit rough, because I may have stayed up a little too late to get it finished, but it's finally done! If there are any problems with this, please let me know and I'll fix them right away!

School for the Special

Woooah @DragonSquirrel, a mutant... squirrel... thingy? That's awesome! Abbie and her shiny leg are gonna be psyched! :p