Issue 1 Downtime

For a while, Daniel had come and gone as he pleased. He wasn't in any classes, so it wasn't like anyone would miss him, he'll he didn't even have a room. He always traveled light, and while he didn't exactly roll in money, by now he'd learned how to come into what he needed. He'd stayed in London for a while, working odd jobs in mutant town and the surrounding areas. Now, though, he'd managed to purge his powers (something he found easier around the low-power inhabitants of mutant town than the high-impact mutations of the X-Men), so he figured it was time to come back.

Right now he was sitting outside on the mansion. He pulled out a cigarette, lighting it with a flash of flame from his finger, lounging back on the step like he belonged there. Which, he reflected, he totally didn't.

Anika was out for one of her jogs, making sure to keep up her workout routine. Cardio cardio cardio. Once she reached the mansion, she showed to a stop, checking her stop watch with a grin, then resting her hands above her head as she caught her breath. "Bloody record, that." she said to herself. As she saw Daniel, she gave a short wave.

Wellllll now. Daniel kept his thoughts rather... restricted, a habit born of long experience in dating telepaths (and really, at this damned place, every third person was some telepathic ubergod), but he did give Anika an appraising, approving look. "Ambitious today?" he asked, once she'd finished timing herself.

Anika was likely giving him an appraising look as well, and not afraid to hide it. "Is that what they call it? Personally I push the limits every day. No fun in taking it easy," she answered finally catching her breath. "So I suppose what you call ambition is more just 'habit' to me."

He smirked. "Is this where I get all intimidated and impressed or whatever?" he asked. "I guess it would be good practice in that whole 'faking modesty' thing, but who ever really needed that?"

She laughed, drawing out her own pack of cigarettes. "How you feel is how you feel. I'm just saying it like it is. As far as modesty goes? We're on the same page. Very rare in my experiences that it has ever been useful."

"So it's always good to know exactly how awesome people should think you are?" he asked, holding out his thumb and making a little lighter-flicking motion as he produced another bit of flame for her to light it off of.

"I could give two shits what people think of me. I know I'm awesome, and that's all that matters." She moved the cigarette over the flame, lighting it with a long drag, blazingly locking eyes with him for a moment. She wasn't shy, that's for sure. After her cigarette is lit, she leans back, blowing the smoke to the sky. "Cute trick."

If she rattled him, it didn't show. "Ah, so telling people they're wrong doesn't do it for you? I'll remember that," he said, smirking. He shook the cigarette ash off his fingers as she teased his trick. "Saves me a buck every couple weeks," he said with a shrug.

"Is that your only parlour trick? Or do you have more hidden up your sleeve?" she asked with a smirk.

"Oh, I can come up with something new for just about everyone," he said, smirking.

"How thoughtful. Seems like you know how to please a crowd then."

He thought about that. "Yeah, sometimes. If I have a night to kill."

"If you're staying around here, there's plenty of those kinds of nights. Believe me," she said with a bit of a roll of her eyes. "This place gets dull pretty fast. I'm running out of bars."

"Yeah, it's been quiet. Place hasn't gotten blown up in, what, a year?"

"Oh, you've been here a while then? Does it get any better?"

He shrugged. "Been gone for a while. While I was here there was... let me see, terrorists, mad scientist assholes, giant robots... aliens a couple times, I think... I'm really kind of shocked, I expected the place to be a crater when I came back."

"Sounds like a blast," she said quite seriously. "Now I'm all sorts of jealous." She took another drag from her cigarette, taking a seat across from him.

"I'm pretty sure you'll have a chance to just about get killed. Keep the faith," he said, nodding reassuringly at her, though the smirk might have taken away from it.

"Perfect. Can't wait," she said, chuckling. "I'm Anika, by the way."

"Daniel," he said, offering his hand. Not with any ulterior motive or anything.

She reached out and shook his hand, not think twice. "Pleasure to meet you, and all that modest horse shit."

He shrugged. "It could be. We'll see." There was a flash of heat on the skin contact, but as she wasn't using her powers, there wasn't any other sign than that.

She didn't pay any attention to the heat. Considering the lighting of her cigarette, it would have made sense to her regardless. "What made you come back? Possibility of more of what you mentioned earlier?"

"Power's been all fucked up," he said. "Got it mixed up with a bunch of alien shit, had to let it cool off for a while to clear my system out. Figured I should let some experts make sure I wasn't about to explode or anything while I did it." He shrugged. "And really, this place is as good as any, right?"

She raised a brow. "Sounds extreme. The hell did you get into? Potential exploding is never good. We'll, not never. But... Yeah. So aliens fucked with you?"

"Nah, I fucked with them. But it got me kind of overloaded by the time I got back on-planet. It was kind of a whole 'thing.'" he held his hand out, and flame started dancing in it, growing larger as he experimented with various shapes. Now THIS is always a fun one...

"How the bloody hells do you get 'overloaded' by aliens?" she asked as she watched him. She didn't seem too impressed, obviously.

He shrugged. "That's my power. I can do whatever they can do. Kind of. But you get big crazy cosmic shit in there and it throws everything off." He cupped his hands and spread his arms, and the fire started to spread out in a wave toward the grounds, but he let off before it could do anything that might get him in a boring lecture, like burning trees down.

Anika paused, looking from her hand to his, then gave him a flat look. "Really?"

"Hm? Yeah, sure, why would I lie about that?"

"What about before? When you lit my cigarette? Or is it a thing you 'see'? Or' hear'? God are you one of those telepath types? Just my luck."

"Oh fuck no. Well, not now. I can always do a little fire. I just need someone else to give it a little shape." He let the fire in his hand play into a dagger, which then vanished into a puff of smoke. "Literally, this time."

"That's relieving. Pretty fancy power set. How long does it last? Judging by what you said before with the whole 'overload', I imagine quite a while?"

"It can, yeah. I'm trying not to for a while, keep things balanced out. Usually it'd just be until I wanted to take on something else."

"If I were you I'd have tried so many things until I dropped." She manifests a flame of her own in her hand, the shape forming into a beautiful, elaborately and deadly designed scimitar. "This one is one of my favorites. It's always fun to toy with designs and see which does best in the field."

"Oh, that's always fun. But me, I tend to focus on end results. Liiike...." he looked around, then settled his gaze on a lone boulder sitting on the grass. He whipped up a little string of flame in his fingers and cast it like a fishing line over to the rock. He studied the end of the line bouncing lightly on the surface of the rock for a second. Then, without warning, and with a rush of displaced air, the whole thing was enveloped in a ball of white hot fire. The feeling was like they were standing outside a blast furnace for a moment, before he dismissed the whole thing with a wave of his hand, leaving the molten rock hissing and as it cooled on the scorched earth.

Anika didn't seem bothered at all by the heat. If anything, it added more color to her face and sent a soft wave of energy through her. "I like it," she said, the sword in her hand forming back into a ball. "There's so many ways to do it. So many different forms, ideas, and raw destructiveness. End result is always the same, but getting there is what makes it fun." The ball of flame hovered in her hand as she stared at it with a small smile, comforted by the flame's flicker. She didn't show off any more tricks; no sense in revealing all the fun stuff.

He flicked his fingers with a smirk, making the surface of the fireball lash out like a little tentacle at her shirt.

She laughs, focusing on the flame at her shirt and causing it to move away, swirling and dancing in the air like a small mini tornado. "Please, do you know how many clothes I've had to go through? Unless you're willing to buy me another one, by all means," she teased.