Red Wizard's return. (Kaie first, then Open.)

[Red Wizard]

Sterling looked like he had been sick for a while, but was getting better. He still had dark circles under his eyes, but other than that, he looked rather healthy. His white button down shirt and black slacks were immaculately clean, as usual. Hell, the only thing that seemed "Off" about him was the fact that he was wearing a ratty old pair of converse shoes, seemingly as a rebellion to the entire "Rich boy" image.


He walked through the halls on the way to lunch, depositing his books in his locker. His earbuds in his ears, he was on a bit of a Norweigan death metal kick lately. That and Amon Amarth seemed to sum up his listening habits, lately, but hey, whatever kept the spellbook that was hanging off his belt by what looked like a wallet chain happy.

Damn thing was annoying.

He walked to the cafeteria, slightly happy that he didn't have to keep up a "Secret Identity". The Mortlock family was largely stuck up and snooty, aside from his parents, but they were all wizards. They could all take care of themselves. He was happy today, though, at having some semblance of  normal school life aside from crime fighting and whatnot. Extremely happy to have moved on from just chasing down bail jumpers, though.


The lunch hall, as Sterling preferred to call it, cafeteria sounded boring, was teeming with teenagers. Luckily, he was pretty well accepted here, despite his silver hair. Back in Gotham, kids had made fun of him for it. A lot. People here in Jump just sort of went along with it. Considering just how many teenage Supers were here, he felt almost normal.

Sitting down at an empty table with a cheeseburger, he kinda wished he had some friends. Maybe he'd start attending cosplay meets or something...

[Gaunt]

Kaie was a little late to lunch, as usual. She couldn't really eat the cafeteria food, it was way too small for her. She wasn't sure how much more mass than a normal person she had, but it was enough that she had to eat massive amounts of food. Sometimes she wondered how Ma could even get it all. The point was, squeezing through halls to retrieve her lunch from her locker added a little to her trip.

When she arrived at lunch, Kaie was surprised to see a table nearly empty. The only one there was a silver-haired boy who looked awfully familiar. As the giant approached, she remembered where she'd seen him. "Hey, mind if I take a seat?" she asked, brushing some chairs aside to make room for her to sit on the floor. "Din I see ya at a cosplay meet a while back? The Red Wizard outfit, right?" She was trying to cover for the fact that she couldn't remember his name. In fact, she wasn't even one hundred percent sure whether or not he'd mentioned it. Maybe if she was lucky, he'd mention it, or ask her name and give an excuse for her to ask his.

Kaie sat cross-legged on the floor, putting her giant lunchbox down next to her. From it, she pulled out one of her recent favorites; a Pizza Cheeseburger from her favorite cooking guide, Epic Meal Time. It shook the table when she set it down. It looked a little overkill, but Kaie was a growing girl. She needed something to fuel the other three or four feet of growth she still had in her.

[Red Wizard]

"Oh, wow, is that a pizza burger from Epic Meal Time? I made one of those for MY lunch this morning, but I left it in the fridge by accident."

Sterling laughed, before what she said hit home. Oh god, what was her name? Well, time to guess...

"Errr....Kaie? You were the Nepeta that saved my butt when those guys jumped me, right? I hope I got your name right. Mine's Sterling, if you had forgotten."

He gave his usual, boyish smile. It was good to see a semi familiar face. He had had to go back to Gotham as a sort of emergency, his physical well-being in danger because of some kind of weird magical reaction. Bu he was recovering now. That's a story for another time. Invariably, his mind wandered to wondering if she was single or not, but he quickly stopped that train of thought. He was a bit of a squirt compared to her and she probably wouldn't go for that. Also she barely knew him, and he realized how creepy that train of thought was and shut it the heck down.


"How have you been? It's been quite a while."

The wizard smiled, trying to keep the "Charm" down. He had accidentally been turning it on the past few days, uncontrollably. Like some kind of smarmodon. He really didn't want to end up like Sven from his favorite web comic, Questionable Content. So he dialed back the charm, and reminded himself to check his spellbook later that night to see if he had any fey spells or anything trying to activate against his will. It had happened to his father once. It could happen to him.

But it wasn't, actually. He was just being overly self conscious again.

[Gaunt]

"Yep!" Kaie laughed. The idea of one human trying to eat one of her meals was too funny for words, right up until the point they exploded. That would be kind of a bummer. "I'm a growin girl, gotta stay fed, ya know?" At last measure she was 12'6", but she hadn't checked this week. It was possible she'd hit another growthspurt.

Oh, Sterling. How had she forgotten that? "I remember, hard ta forget somethin like that, right?" Kaie gave a nervous smile, hoping she'd covered up her memory well enough. "And yeah, biggest Nepeta on record." That was pretty much true of any cosplay she did, though. Unless Giganta cosplayed. As far as Kaie knew, she didn't. Her records were safe, but for how long?

"I been alright, what bout you?" Things had been rough for a while, but she was dealing with Vincent's disappearance now. Magic was a tricky thing, especially with how little control the blacksmith had had. He was probably back in his time now, if that made any sense. Time travel sure was confusing. She tried to put it out of her mind, focusing on her new-ish friend instead. She hadn't seen the young wizard in a while, and his hair was still silver. "Say, ye dye yer hair or is it jus' naturally like that?"

[Red Wizard]

"I know the feeling, my magic does crazy things to my metabolism."

He let out a laugh, done with his cheeseburger in about three bites, idly wondering if the cafeteria would allow him to buy more food as he nibbled on a french fry. He stowed his MP3 player and earbuds in his pocket, focusing more on the giant in front of him.

"I've been...well, I'm recovering, let's put it that way. Some kind of weird magical feedback almost killed me."

He had to explain why he had vanished off the face of the earth, right? He had explained the issue to the faculty at least eight times, and now that he wasn't vomiting blood anymore he actually felt pretty good. So as per usual, he was going to be a little flippant about the bad stuff in his life. At least he was back in school, right?

"Oh...uhh, my hair's naturally silver, yeah. It's not all that weird, my dad's is naturally blue. Actually I guess it is weird."

He laughed. He didn't watch a lot of anime himself, but his dad did. He had gone as far as to give himself Kamina tattoos and whatnot, and collected katanas. It was kind of embarrassing, really. When he realized he had finished his fries, he was sad. His stomach growled.


"Uh...do you know if they sell more than one meal to students?"

[Gaunt]

It had been the same way with Vincent, now that she thought of it. She guessed that energy had to come from somewhere. You didn't think about these things until you actually met a wizard. That left her wondering where Raven's magic came from. So far as Kaie knew, the goth girl didn't eat a ton. Maybe she was sneaking snacks when nobody was looking?

There seemed to be a lot of magical problems going around these days, at least among silver-haired prettyboys. A look of worry crossed Kaie's face. "Thas awful! Well, I'm glad yer aright now. Guess that stuff's more dangerous than I thought." The more she learned about magic, the riskier it seemed. Apparently, playing around with fundamental forces of the universe had some hidden dangers. It seemed obvious now, but somehow she hadn't thought of it like that before.

Kaie was sort of impressed. Unlike Sterling, she was pretty big on animes, and anime hair was a seriously cool thing for her. "Thas really cool! Is it cuz of the magic?" The metahuman scene seemed to bring out a lot of anime tropes for some reason. Not that she had a problem with it, that just made the superheroes even cooler.

She just shrugged at his question. "I ne'er had the food here, is way too small for me." she said between bites of her Epic Meal. The giantess pondered for a moment. "I can share a bit if ye want some?" She held up the megaburger, gesturing with it.

[Red Wizard]

Sterling smiled reassuringly. It had actually had a strange side effect, one that he wasn't really thinking that much about besides that it made hi ma LITTLE like a Tolkien Elf.

"It wasn't as bad as I make it sound. I mean, it sucked, but I won't die of old age now. Weird side effect."

He laughed lightly again when the question about his hair color came up.

"Nope, I've had silver hair since before I got my spellbook. I had black hair up until I was three, then it all fell out and grew in silver."

The last question, about the burger, he politely declined.

"Nah, I can wait til I get home to get mine. Thanks for the offer, though."

A thought struck him. Tomorrow was the start of Jump!Con,the two day event-weekend thing, a big convention dedicated to anime, superheros, and video games. He got free tickets, since his parents were sponsoring most of the event, and he had nobody to go with. Having two free tickets made no sense when you really didn't know anyone in town. Kaie was the closest thing he had to a friend, so far, so he decided then and there to invite her. It was spur of the moment, really. He wouldn't let her know that his parents were sponsoring it, per se, but he would reveal the VIP part of the ticket clause.

"So Jump!Con starts tomorrow, and I have two VIP tickets and nobody to hang out with...You wanna be my con buddy?"

He gave a small chuckle. He then decided against holding back the information that his parents were sponsoring the con. It would be weird if and when she found out while they were there.

"My...uhh...parents are sponsoring a lot of the con, so you'd get the whole guest of honor treatment."

[Gaunt]

Her eyes widened. "Dude, immortality ain't a side effect, is a power. There's some supers what have that as their only power." She could think of two off the top of her head, and from what she'd heard they were serious business. With Sterling's magic and his immortality, he could very well be an A-lister.

Kaie didn't know much about magic, but she was pretty sure that hair falling out and growing back silver sounded magical. Either that, or radioactive. Still, Sterling knew more about magic, and probably neither of them knew much about radiation, so she wasn't going to argue the point. "Well it looks cool. Kinda anime, ya know?" A little nerdy, but they'd met at a cosplay meetup. He could handle nerdy.

Speaking of nerdy, he'd just made the ultimate geek proposal. A smile spread over Kaie's face, and she let out a sound that could only be described as a squee. She was going to Jump!Con! "I'd love ta! I been workin on an Ariel cosplay, this'd be a great time to test it out!" It was a little more adventurous than Ma normally liked, but it was Disney. Disney characters got more of a pass. And the more Sterling spoke, the better the news got. They had VIP passes! "Thas awesome! How ya score those?" Again, the news got better. Sterling's parents were apparently huge, rich nerds. "Yer family's awesome. My ma would never fund that stuff if she were rich."

[Red Wizard]

Sterling blushed slightly. His immortality wasn't all that cool. He could still be killed, but he wouldn't bring it up again aside from agreeing with her. It WAS kinda cool. Now would be the time to make a suave comment, but he really wasn't very suave. Not many classic game collectors were.

Then she complimented his hair.

"Thanks...Reminds me I need to finish watching Gundam 00 every time I look in the mirror."

He let out a laugh.

Then came the squee. It was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen. He got the urge to just jump up, fly up and hug her. But he didn't do it because that would be weird. Thankfully, he had more social graces than the guy writing him and controlling his actions. Instead he just smiled, glad to see her happy and slightly disturbed by his thought process. But hey, cute girl, teenage boy, what else do you expect but weird thoughts?

"My family's alright. My dad's a weirdo, but he means well."

He laughed.

"I'm sure you Ariel cosplay will be pretty great. All I've got is Sephiroth sitting half finished, and my Red Wizard."

[Gaunt]

Aww, now he was blushing. Sterling sure responded to compliments fast. Then again, she did too. Being a bit of a freak had that effect. People in Jump were more used to their kind, but with the two of them new in town they still had some adjusting to do. And even in Jump, they still weren't as accepted as more normal-looking folks.

Kaie laughed along with him at the Gundam quip. "I still ain't watched that, really should sometime." Maybe they could trade anime collections sometime. As long as she didn't accidentally give him some yaoi, that would be awkward. She'd gone to great lengths to keep it a secret, if word got around school Ma would find out, and then there would probably be a giant-slaying.

"Yeah, families are kinda weird as a rule. My ma's super strict, ya know? She's less than half my size an' she still scares me." Kaie laughed nervously. Ma was a lot more intimidating than she let on, especially if you'd grown up with her. She was glad when the conversation turned back to cosplay. "Ooh, Sephiroth would go well with yer hair." She burst out laughing again as an odd thought crossed her mind. "Sorry, jes' picturin' Ariel duelin' Sephiroth with a swordfish." She was pretty sure she could get a good-sized plastic swordfish, but probably not in time for Jump!Con. Maybe it could be used for a future con.

[Red Wizard]

Sterling laughed at the prospect of Sephiroth dueling Ariel. Though he wished it would have happened in Kingdom Hearts, it would have made the game somewhat better. Instead, Ariel was a magic type character.

Sadly, the bell rang, ending the lunch time fun. He stood up, getting ready to take his tray to the tray dropoff.


"We'll have to get there fairly early in the morning. I'll be there with the limo around nine AM, that okay? Oh, errr...I'll also need to know where we can pick you up."

He gave that boyish grin again. H was finally making friends,  and he was happy. He then realized rather suddenly as he stood up from the table that he might have to reassure her on the size issue for the limo.

"And don't worry about your height and the limo, either. It's hard to explain, but it's bigger on the inside."

 He would wait for her to give him her address, then put his tray in the dropoff. Then he would smile and bid her a good rest of the day.


Tomorrow was gonna be fun.

[Gaunt]

Kaie scarfed down the rest of her meal as the bell rang. She was going to be a little late, but one of the perks of being a giant was that nobody wanted to rush you. Stuffing her lunch bag in her pocket, she quickly got to her feet, shaking the table as she did. Tomorrow was already sounding exciting, although she wasn't sure about the limo. "Are ye sure bout that? I don' do well with cars..." There weren't a lot of vehicles that could take her weight.

Okay, so the limo was a TARDIS. Kaie grinned, thinking of the possibilities. "Thas awesome!" She felt like she'd been saying that a lot, but that generally happened when magic was involved. In her defense, magic really was awesome. A TARDIS limo was cool no matter how you figured it. Kaie said her goodbyes and scampered off to her next class.

The next day, Kaie was up bright and early. Everything had to be perfect, it wasn't every day you got a VIP pass to Jump!Con. By 9, she was out on the sidewalk in her Ariel cosplay. It was getting her a few weird looks, but she didn't mind. Those were a given for her.