Xaviers!

"Seems we're at an impasse here."

"Step aside," Will said, sliding his way towards the intercom.

"Look, you amorphous sack of shit, I could have left you buried in the rubble at the hospital. You're lucky you get a name at all."

More letter blocks headed towards the window -- an F, a C and a K.

Apparently, the U was missing somewhere.

"Okay, this is accomplishing nothing." Ashlie says, pushing Will away from the microphone. "You need to come up with a better way to settle this."

"There's nothing to settle. I'm Will Stanton, and it's just going to have to learn to cope with that. Make it pick another name. Or I could come up with one for it."

"That is a terrible idea. And it has just as much claim to the name as you do. You're American, right? Don't you have a middle name you could use instead?"

"Angelina. Hard pass."

"Then unless you want me to flip a coin you'll have to make some kind of fair contest out of it."

"No no no, we can just use logic. Miriam pulled that bit out of me. It's no different than some toenail clippings or hair trimmings. If it wants to be a person, good for it -- but there's no way you can say it's fair for it to have my name."

"Unless she pulled you out of it to keep for herself. The two of you have equal claim to it as far as I am concerned and that's that. You want to fight over it then you can literally fight over it if you have to."

Will sighed. "Alright, if that's what it takes.

Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

Will's skin took on a shiny black sheen as his skin turned into some sort of rubber...

The control room door begins to hiss open when Will approaches it, but then slams shut.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. You'd just force it to turn into a punching bag and wail on it for a while. Race around campus, play a game of chess, nominate people to fight for you. I don't care, as long as it's fair."

"And just how is 'I'm way better at shifting than it is' not count as being fair? It's my fault he sucks and is dumb now?

Actually, that's probably Miriam's fault if anything, but still."

"I don't care. Figure it out."

"I DID figure it out, and it's going to be a punchin'. It's entirely fair, a one-on-one fight between someone who is good at punching and someone who is terrible at everything.

I mean, if we wanted to find something he was good at, it'd have to be, like, "remaining motionless in the hallway" or something. It can't be my fault that he has no skills, worthwhile attributes, or redeemable qualities."

"One week from now. Danger Room. Find someone to fight for you or do it yourself. I'll present it with the same choice once I feel certain it's able to make an informed decision, otherwise I will designate somebody for it."

"Straight-up fight? You're just delaying the inevitable if we wait a week, but if that's going to get this done, that's what's going to get this done."

"It only seems fair to grant enough time to prepare. If all parties agree they don't need it then you can hold it sooner."

"Right. Well, I'll go put up some flyers or something -- need witnesses to make sure, uh, no one backs out of the deal," Will nodded. "One week. That's more than I need."

"Fantastic." she deadpans, turning her attention back to the inside of the Danger Room.

Will had been messing around with the alphabet blocks.

The words he was spelling did not bare repeating in a family forum, but he was clearly annoyed by his counterpart.

"He's gone." she informs the blob. "Now, do you have a particular direction of things you'd like to focus on or should we continue with a somewhat random selection?"

The thing moved letter blocks around.

F -- O -- R -- M

B -- O -- D --Y

"Certainly. Let's establish a baseline to work with first."

Instead of the 8 smaller rooms dozens and dozens of blank mannequins simply appear along the walls of the chamber, showing varying body-shapes ranging from dangerously slim to overweight, male to female along a spectrum and general weight distribution from lower body to upper.

The blob...didn't immediately jump for one or another. It seemed to be taking it's time, as it slowly reached for one, than another, and then a third. It crept up a skinny frail, Jack Skellinton-esque male mannequin, before leaving it for a more roly-poly female mannequin, and then returned to center.

It seemed to glance back towards ASHLIE for a minute, before making it's choice -- a 5'8" female mannequin with long, wild hair. The blob receded into it, wrapping around it and shrinking down to cover/absorb it, filling in features and gaps as it went.


Will opened her eyes. They were bright green, with streaks darting out from her pupils. Her skin was still vaguely mocha colored from the coffee, and was marked by steaks of slightly pulsating green light, seeming to originate at her belly button and dart out in lightning-like patterns -- vaguely reminiscent of fiber-optic cabling.

"Well then, it looks like you already had details in mind. Feeling better?"

"Imnotquitesureyet," she said, quickly, and then blinked.

"I'm. Not. Quitesureyet. Stillhungry. Might. Beregular. Hungernowthough.

Woozylight-headed. Drugstoomany. Coffee. Was. Goodidea. Maybetoo. Good.

She looked down at her hands. "Didn'thavethis. Inmind. Don'tknowwhy. Looklikethis.

Maybehe'sright. Notmuchcontrol."

"I'm sure we'll be able to iron out the kinks. Maybe dilute out the accelerants some. And a fairly distinct shape with details could be a good indicator that you have a solid sense of identity. Or it's filling in details scattershot. You'll have to figure that out yourself."

"Arethesedetails..." she began, than took a deep breath -- her first actual breath since she took the form, actually.

"Are. These. Details. Acceptable," she said, far too slowly this time, as she tried to compensate for her sped-up thoughts. "I. Couldn't. Decide. I. Want. Them. All. For. Different. Situations.

I. Wantpeopletolikeme."

"Well, you're a shapeshifter, so you can have them all if you want. A 'base' shape or signature detail just helps you be recognizable for others and to distinguish yourself."

Will frowned, and nodded. "Whichdoyoulike? Youhaveapreferenceyes?"

"I have a sense of aesthetics, but I find preferences regarding bodies tend to be heavily influenced by urges I'm lacking." she... jokes?

"You look fine. I like the lightning patterns."

"I...don'tknow. Wherethosecamefrom. They'renew.

...TheCPUmaybe? AndtheRAM?"

"That would make sense. And you don't have to slow your speech down with me. I'm pretty fast on the uptake. But if you want to try and get rid of some of the franticness..."

The center of the room rises up to form a table with a lump of salt dough sitting on it.

"It's probably not very tasty, but it might dilute down the coffee."

Will looked at the dough dubiously.

"Thisisn'tHIMisit? Aployofsomekind?"

"It isn't, no. Test it if you want." she says, a cattle-prod appearing propped up against the table.

Will darted back from the cattle prod like it was on fire.

"Nonono, I'lleatit, I'lleatit," she said, darting at the dough and gobbling it down quickly, rather than approach the prod.

"That's not... Okay then..."

"Did that hit the spot?"

"Kind of...bland. Didn't taste like much of anything, actually," Will said. "I'm less hungry now, though; thank you very much."

She definitely was speaking slower, and with less inflection in her voice now. She also had gained a little bit of weight around the hips region -- more than just eating the raw dough probably would have done, one would imagine.

The speed with which Will decodes and adapts metaphorical meaning from objects continues to astound Ashlie. It's not that she doesn't follow or understand them, but the amount of processing power and cross-referencing it takes her compared to the casual, sub-conscious read of something that complex is enormous. Biological adaptation and optimization for pattern recognition. Patterns that only exist because of the way humans read them.

"Absolutely fascinating."