Xaviers!

Natalie shouldered her backpack, deciding that with all her other stuff dumped off in her room, maybe some food was in order. She hops into line in the cafeteria, carrying on a text conversation with her mother without touching her phone. She rubs the bridge of her nose as she tries to sort out all the strange signals that make passes at her phone.

((Open))

"Umm...sorry, excuse me," Alex says in a timid voice, stepping around Natalie to pick up a salad plate.

"Sorry," she mumbles again.

"Hey," Natalie starts to say before she realizes she was spacing again. "Sorry, get a bit lost sometimes. Lose track of time." She picks up a plate of her own, moving through the line behind Alex.

"It's okay," Alex says. She forces a friendly smile that looks...well, awkward and forced.

"Alex," Alex introduces herself. "I mean, I'm Alex. That's my name. Alex Kincaid."

Shari, having found her way to the cafeteria, is kind of hanging back and observing the crowd. Not at all scoping out people for someone who might be gullible enough. She gets in line and slowly works her way past people, balancing her tray. Her stomach is trying to tell her to go nuts, but she tries to keep it reasonable. She does add a donut though, figuring she might as well check one thing off the list. Next time she should just ask him for his student ID so he can pay for it. She gets a cup of coffee and places it on her tray when Alex squeezes past Natalie behind her. One sounds timid and the other kinda spaced out. Perfect.

"Hey." she says, turning around to the two with her friendliest smile. "What's up?"

"Natalie... Denisov," she says, "Sorry, mum's after me about something." Slight pause, "There, now she'll leave me alone for a bit." She looks at the newcomer, "Hey, just grabbing some food." She tilts her head, confused by something but she obviously decides to let it go. She dazedly puts more things on her tray. "At least they this place does food like the Institute. In large quantities."

Alex's face blushes at the sudden prospect of talking with two people. She seems to shrink into her hoodie a little bit.

"Hi," Alex greets the new girl weakly, waving. She glances around at the cafeteria, hoping to spot someplace to sit. Or hide.

"Shari." she says, tilting her head slightly at Natalie as if she's trying to figure out how she's talking to her mom. "You guys new here?"

"Pretty new. Just finished moving my stuff in. Had some problems with my previous university." She looks put-out as she has to fish out her student ID card to swipe for the meal.

"Me too. I mean, I just got here today," Alex says. "How about you? Are you new?"

"Yeah, kinda. Still getting the lay of the land. Found the food though!" she laughs, lifting her tray up slightly before putting it down and pushing it to the register. Reaching into her pocket she frowns dramatically. "Ah crap... I forgot my student ID. Damnit!" she curses before smiling apologetically at the cashier before turning around briefly to shrug at Alex and Natalie with a big expression of 'Whelp!' on her face. "Hang on, lemme just... take this back..." she says as she tries to shimmy past the two in the narrow checkout line.

"I'll just put it on mine. You can return the favor some other time," Natalie says, handing her card over to the cashier.

"You sure? Alright, thanks! I owe you one!" she says, putting her tray back in front of the cashier, hesitating a moment then reaching over and grabbing two granola bars to drop on her tray as well.

Alex opens her mouth, about to say something about this, but decides not to mention it. No need to cause trouble, right?

"It's easy to get lost," Alex agrees. "I have a lot of trouble finding my room."

"Yeah, the physical maps aren't much use in a place like this. At least the maps of the grounds are fairly good."

"I know right? Last night I straight up walked into the wrong room in the dorms!" she laughs, drifting towards more loud and boisterous as if to balance out the other two. "He was pretty calm about it though. I mean, relatively." she winks. Is that even innuendo? She sure seems to be trying to make it out to be, at least.

"You were in a boys room?" Alex's eyes are wide and she keeps her voice low, glancing around like she's worried about being overheard.

"I used to hang out in the boys' rooms at the Institute sometimes. Although I'm not sure how big of stickler this place will be about that. I suppose I should look at the handbook at some point."

Shari chuckles at Alex' reaction. "Yup. Demanded I give him a cruller." she nods, doing her best to make that sound like slang for something sleazy.

The trouble with innuendo, however forced, is that the target audience needed to be able to properly recognize the potential double meaning.

"Why did you want a donut?" Alex asks, obviously confused.

Shari looks disappointed for a moment, but she's not one to dwell on things for any amount of time. "Beats me, but if I had to guess he was probably hungry? He seemed like the type who forgets to eat occasionally. So, anyway, how'd you end up in this place?" she asks as she finds an empty table and sits down, apparently just kind of expecting the other two to join her.

"Went to the Institute in America," Natalie says as she sits and smiles at Alex encouragingly to hopefully get the timid girl to follow suit, "Then tried a normal university, but it ended up not being for me."

Alex follows, taking a seat with the two girls.

"Fought a giant armadillo," she mumbles.

"Mhmm." Shari nods along as she's chewing, doing a double-take at Alex and swallowing her food with possibly not chewing it quite enough, resulting in a couple of coughs.

"You what?" she asks when she gets control of her breathing again.

"Wait, you're that Alex? I saw that news story. That was a pretty cool thing you did!"

Alex shrinks in her seat a little bit, "Thanks, but...I mean, it really wasn't a big deal."

"Hey, it musta been kind of a big deal if it was in the news, right? What'd you do, Did you have to be clever about it or did you just go right up against it?" she asks, raising her fists in front of her face like a boxer and throwing a couple of mock punches at the air. At least she isn't aiming them at Alex, which is probably about as considerate as Shari gets.

Alex winces, "I-I don't know? I don't remember much of it. I doubt it was very clever."

"What about you?"

"Oh I just wandered in one day. Don't tell anyone I'm here, it's a secret." she says, leaning in close and whispering conspiratorially. It's so exaggerated, she's probably just pulling their legs, right?

Natalie spaces out. Shari had to be a code name, but for some reason the student directory isn't letting her search by code name. She frowns, filling out an e-mail to the webmaster suggesting that as a search improvement. "Yeah, right," she says, making light of the situation, "Because they just let people wander in here."

"You just gotta be careful about it." she winks at Natalie, her hair slowly growing out and turning red until it looks exactly like Natalie's

Natalie shakes her head, though she's smiling, "Damn shifters. Always a pain in the arse."

"Oh, wow," Alex says. "That's really cool."

"But yeah, I'm just messing with ya!" she laughs, dramatically tossing her hair over her shoulder with a jerk of her head. "That what you call it around here? Shifter? Cool. What's your guys deal then?" she asks before shoveling another impressively large forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.

"The official label on my file says 'technopath'," Natalie says, "In practice, it means..." Alex's phone chimes with a number that identifies itself as 'Natalie' sending a text message that says 'Hello.'

"That's amazing!" Alex says. She texts back "Hello" to Natalie.

"I can't do much. I mean, I'm a little harder to hurt than some people. Physically, at least. And sometimes I can fly?"

"I don't really get how it works, I guess."

"Super-Texting. Nice!" she says without a hint of sarcasm. "And oh, no biggie, just flight. Way to undersell!" she chuckles.

"Yeah, flight is nothing to sneeze at," Natalie says, finally beginning to dig into her meal in earnest.

Alex smiles softly at the compliments, "Thanks."

She picks at her salad, "You know, I've never really met other mutants before. It's...nice."

Shari grins at her encouragingly. "I guess it's not all bad. Plus you get to live in a mansion, how weird is that?"