That's Politically Incorrect...-open-

[Ni Gustov]

“And that dear children, is why calling me quote un quote ‘spooky’ is politically incorrect.”

‘Dude, you’re insane.’

“And you’re an idiot, there, we’re even.”

It was amazing the idiocy of freshmen. They could all be smart, if they at least pretended to try. They could all be a contributing part to society, if they actually gave a damn. Unfortunately, most of them were there because of their so-called-powers, and nothing more. He believed that if you were going to come here, you should at least pretend to be semi-intelligent, and semi-globally aware. But he believe a lot of strange things, like the fact that twinkies could outlast any living, or dead, person, place, or thing. But I digress…

Who IS this guy anyway? He does seem awfully strange, doesn’t he? Well, there is only one kid in school who would be called ‘spooky’ and then tell another student that calling him ‘spooky’ was ‘politically incorrect.’

That guy would be Johnny ‘Ni’ Gustov.

Ni had come to the Hawthorn Academy his freshmen year, but his first issue started in second grade. He had always been picked on as a little kid (as he grew up, his antagonists grew fewer and fewer, until there were hardly any) because of his size. Ni was rather…short for his age then. (not that he wasn’t short now, he was just a bit more ‘average height’ at age seventeen.) The other kids never let him forget about that, and it had been many a time that he had been shoved into lockers. One day, just as Oswald Jackson had been about to shove Ni into a locker, something strange happened. Ni’s normally pale skin became a gray-ish, transparent color. He watched as his body lost all features, and became flat. Nothing was left of the ‘normal/physical ‘ Ni Gustov, now there was only shadow. Oswald had been severely freaked out, and fled down the hallway. That left an equally freaked out Shadow-like Ni hiding against the wall.

As time went on, Ni learned how to control his power, for the most part. He could now form the shadows of objects and people, making him hard to detect. Every now and then he would give a little clue as to where he was by smiling. For some reason, his teeth would have a hard time during the ‘shadow-shift’ and would sometimes still show up. It was a bit frustrating at times (Like when he had tried to sneak back in the house in eighth grade, but had gotten busted when his father saw his teeth) but most of the time, it wasn’t terrible. After all, he wasn’t fighting crime yet, was he?

He remembered first coming to Hawthorn Academy, and meeting other kids who were said to be ‘like him.’ It was intriguing, seeing all the different powers. Some he was jealous of, he couldn’t very well lift ten times his body weight (which isn’t that much to begin with) or blast laser vision from his eyes, and in comparison, his power seemed small. But he was a great spy, he could go by undetected, something most of the other students couldn’t do. (Save the Shapeshifters) He also remembered how he had been forced to wear a uniform. That was a bummer, seeing how his hair was bright shade of blue at the time, and considering the fact that he liked his black, gray, and red attire better than a tie and a pair of slacks. He had never had to wear a uniform before, and quite frankly, liked looking strange.

It was not the first time he had been called ‘spooky.’ It was not the last time either. But he would be fighting the fact that he was not all that ‘spooky’ for the rest of his school days. (or so he presumed) He would fight it amongst kids in his class (who weren’t being mean with it anymore, just joking) and kids younger than him. (In which case he would say some rather vulgar words, or stand up on a table and bark at them, in order to get rid of them)

Today, he was just trying to get rid of some idiotic Freshmen. It shouldn’t have been too hard, but he was multi-tasking. That was always hard for him, and something the teachers said he needed to work on. But how exactly does one multi-task while one is painting? (a rather morbid picture mind you) It was not easy, and Ni didn’t like it, but he knew this required some heavy duty freaking out.

‘Hey! I’m not stupid!’

“I didn’t call you stupid. I called you an idiot. There is, in fact, a difference.”

Ni, put a black paint-filled paint brush in his teeth, and stood back from the painting. The scene was pretty well…bloody. It was a picture of a Salvador Dali-like scene depicting a battle scene. The soldiers were hanging like over trees, and hanging, bending like ribbons and blowing in the breeze. It was only in black, white, gray, and red hues. Ni liked it, it seemed to disturb the other, younger, stupider, students.

‘Well,’ the kid said after about a minute pause. ‘At least I don’t paint pictures of people being decapitated…You could get EXPELLED for that!’

Ni laughed. “No one is being decapitated. Sure, there’s blood, sure there’s gore, but there no scenes where all that stuff is being done.”

‘You’re a freak.’

“Thank you.”

The gaggle of freshmen still stood there. Ni sighed. Drastic actions called for drastic measures. Ni was going to be forced to do something stupid. So he did. For a moment, he coughed, cleared his throat, and made a harsh, mean-sounding, barking noise. Most of the kids in his class laughed when he did this now, but the freshmen flipped out. Some of them just stood there and stared for a minute, the others ran off immediately. As soon as they were gone, Ni started to laugh.

“Ah…what stupid little idiots.” He muttered, snickering to himself. “They love to make fools of themselves.” He stood back from the painting, looked at it, and picked up a dark-gray paint brush, and began working on the painting again.

[Anastasia Steele]

May I join this?
*Tilts*
Note: It may be a while before I post if you say yes. I'm thinking of joining with Melanie, but she hasn't been approved yet. XD

[Ni Gustov]

yes!
-of course you may join-
and if it takes a while
-i can wait-
A post late is better than no post at all

[Melanie McVayne]

Melanie McVayne was making herself content by sitting under a tree outside. As usual when she wasn't hanging out with her friends, doing schoolwork, or one of the other things that she did in her spare time, she was reading a book. And for once, it wasn't a vampire book. Anyone who knew Melanie would have been shocked. Though Melanie couldn't understand why. Yes, she had a little fascination with vampires, but it wasn't as if her life revolved around them. And, amazingly enough, she could actually read books about other subjects and find them just as interesting, if not more interesting, than the vampire books she read! Contrary to popular belief.

After reading for about a half an hour more, Melanie decided to look up (gasp) and take in her surroundings. She didn't expect much to be going on around her other than the usual groups sitting around and having conversation, so she was shocked to see a crowd of freshmen standing around a guy a year or two older than her. He was either a junior or a senior, she couldn't remember exactly. The point was, these freshmen were being rather obnoxious. By the looks of it, this guy was trying to do something, and these children wouldn't stop harassing him. Not that Melanie really had much of a right to call them children...she was a sophomore, only a year older than them. But at least she had the courtesy not to walk up to someone and start calling them names when they were in the middle of doing something.

So when he started barking out of nowhere, Melanie was a bit shocked at first, but then the corners of her mouth twitched up into a grin as she snickered at what she was witnessing. The freshmen were scared out of their wits, by the looks of it. A few curious ones stayed behind, but even they ran off as the barking continued. The barking stopped once all the freshmen had disappeared, and Melanie knew that was no coincidence. She had to admit, it was a rather interesting way to get rid of those little pests. And as far as how scared they were, she felt almost no sympathy for them. They brought it upon themselves.

Closing her book and standing up at once, Melanie made her way over to the barking guy. It would help if she could remember his name. She'd heard it mentioned by her friends, but she couldn't think of it off of the top of her head. Stopping just a few feet away from him, she earned a glimpse for the first time of what he was doing: Painting. What he was painting, she wasn't sure, because it was hard to make it out from the angle she was standing in. But at least she had a conversation starter now.

"What are you painting?"

(That could have been better... *Snorts* But at least I posted. XD)

[Ni Gustov]

Ni continued to stare at his painting, chewing lightly on the handle of the paintbrush. It was a strange habit, he had never chewed on any pencil, pen, or even crayon, that he had ever owned in his life, yet he always chewed on his paintbrushes. He wasn’t worried about ending up like Vincent Van Gough, he knew they didn’t put lead in paints anymore, so he couldn’t get lead poisoning unless he actually ate the paint of his house in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t about to do that, so there was no threat of lead poisoning, so the paintbrush chewing continued. He took the paintbrush out of his mouth after a while, and began doing some very small detail work on one of the soldier’s faces.

Ni wrote, but didn’t read regular books. Nope, he was more of a comic book guy. Not the superhero ones, that would be too cliché for where he went to school. He read the ones that were random. The ones that were jut there to be funny, a bit offensive to the parental units, but nothing else. He didn’t know too terribly many people who he hung out with that read too much. I mean, everybody had to read for class, but when it wasn’t required, why not read something with pictures? If the comic book artist had taken enough time to draw the pictures, Ni would read it. Even if the plot made no sense, or was completely random.

Still, he had seen lots of people who read…He didn’t know many of them, not by name anyway. (Ni was terrible with names and faces, couldn’t put the two together.) But he was pretty sure that he didn’t have any idea who the girl was. In fact, he only knew she was there because she surprised him.

“Gah!” He shouted, when she asked him what he was painting. The paintbrush jumped (along with the rest of him) and left a thin line of gray paint running up the painting. Ni looked at it forlornly, but said nothing to the girl. He didn’t want to make her feel bad about causing the very big mistake (one that he would fix later) so he wouldn’t yell at her. If it had been one of his friends, he would have tackled them, and said some rather vulgar words. But he figured he had done enough scaring of those younger than him today, so he said nothing for a few moments.

“I uh…” He muttered, looking at the girl out of the corner of his eyes, (which didn’t help, seeing as he wore glasses, therefore making his eyesight absolutely terrible) “Was painting a picture of a…erm…massacre. Apparently I can get expelled for it, though I doubt it.” He laughed a bit. “Stupid freshmen.”

It was then that he dipped his paintbrush in the paint thinner, wiped his hands on his black pants, and turned to face the girl.

“Sorry, no offense meant. We all have to be freshmen at some point…” He snickered, and bowed. “I’m Johnny Gustov. People call me Ni. Don’t know why, they just always have.” He grinned, his bright, white, semi-sharp teeth making him look a bit maniacal. (though he wasn’t insane in anyway, no matter what they tell you) “I’m afraid I don’t know you…And don’t have any clue, not even the foggiest idea, of who you might be. You new here? If you’re not, sorry, just terrible with names…” He grimaced, and took a quick glance at his painting again.

-gah!-
-the shortness of it all!-

[Melanie McVayne]

Melanie bit her lip as the guy jumped and ended up, by the looks of it, ruining his painting. Part of her wanted to laugh (though fortunately she was able to supress this part). The other part made her want to slap herself for walking up on someone like that. This guy looked as if he were about to have a heart attack. And she wouldn't exactly be happy if someone walked up on her when she was in the middle of writing or drawing and scared her like that. Obviously, the latter option won in the internal battle.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare the crap out of you like that. A massacre, eh? Yes, you could get expelled for that. But that's only if the teachers here were to find out about it."

That was a rare sight to see. Melanie, apologizing for something. It was something she didn't do much, but that was because most of the things that others expected her to apologize for were stupid. Let's put it this way: If Melanie were to tell you that you looked like an overinflated blimp in your clothes and you demanded she apologize, she wouldn't even consider it. Because, as with those freshmen, when people ask stupid questions like that and expect to get an honest answer, they bring it upon themselves. Which didn't make Melanie come off as the nicest girl in the world. This case was an exception. She saw no fault on the part of this boy. He was just sitting there minding his own business and painting, and probably would have kept on painting had she not walked up. So this warranted an apology.

Don't get her wrong, though, she was actually rather easy to get along with, as long as you remembered one simple rule: If you ask a question dealing with her opinion, you should expect to get an honest answer, even if it was one you didn't want to hear. And some people had a hard time dealing with that.

"That was some quality barking you did just then. I think you might have traumatized those freshmen for life."

She snickered at the thought of those very freshmen calling their parents and demanding to be taken home because a crazy older student barked at them and tried to attack them (yes, she was well aware that he wasn't going to attack them, but who knew what had been going through the heads of those freshmen), Her attention was then drawn back to reality when she heard this boy introducing himself. Johnny Gustov, also known as Ni. Woot! Now she wouldn't have to keep addressing him as 'the boy' in her mind. That was one stumbling block they were over. Realizing that it would probably help him out if he had her name, she quickly gave it.

"Nope, not new here. I've been here since my freshman year. Which isn't saying much, since I'm a sophomore now. But back to the point. I'm Melanie McVayne."

(...I think this post may have actually been longer than my entrance post. Which is a rare occurence. 0.o)

[Ni Gustov]

-snick-
Niiice
-i gotta run for a bit-
i'll post later
-Adios-

[Ni Gustov]

Scare the crap out of him? Pfft. Nope, it was more like a surprise. Ni never got scared…well…not often…Only when people snuck up on him when he was concentrating. And when he painted, he did tend to concentrate pretty hard. You wouldn’t believe the scatter-brained junior could concentrate on anything, but he could. It was just a rare occurrence.

“First of all,” Ni began. “You didn’t scare the crap out of me…You surprised me. That was all.” He smiled, to show that he was cracking a joke. “And yeah, I suppose I could get expelled, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I didn’t draw anybody killing anything, just the dead people.” He stopped for a minute, pondering. “Well, I have drawn people getting killed, but I’d never kill anybody, so I think its alright. Its art, not a plan for murder.”

He smiled. Tenna had told him his barking was top notch too. Gah…why was he thinking of Tenna again? Tenna wanted nothing to do with him anymore. They didn’t even talk, yet he still wanted to keep in touch.

Tenna Andrews had been new in kindergarten. She was the tallest one in the class, whereas Ni was the shortest. They hadn’t been friends then, but Ni could remember feeling sorry (as sorry as a kindergartener could feel) for the ‘skinny tall girl.’ She got picked on just as much as he did, if not more. She didn’t have the necessary time in the small town needed to make friends. (it was about three generations of family members (or 50 years in the town), and if you married your cousin, your time in town didn’t count) Ni could remember asking his mother about her family, and Mrs. Gustov said she didn’t know and didn’t care. ‘Her parents are too high and mighty to make buddies with us farmin’ folk. Don’t you go wanderin’ about with her, just leave her alone Johnny.’ Was what she said exactly. Ni had taken her terrible advice as if it was the holy Bible. Ni didn’t know anything about her home situation (which was a single parent, who drank like no other) or anything about her. It wasn’t until second grade that they even talked.

Tenna was the one who found Ni during what she called ‘Shadow Ni’s first shadow-shift.’ The name Shadow-shifting had stuck ever since. She was the one who consoled Ni, who was hiding in the shadow of the lockers, blending in completely, except for his teeth. She had asked ‘What happened to your teeth?’ and Ni had replied. “Nothing happened to my teeth, something happened to my skin…I think I’m sick.” They had discussed (in second grader talk) how Ni was going to ‘Go back to the normal Ni.’ After a few hours (school now long since out) Ni was able to switch back. Tenna had stayed with him until he relaxed, and consequently shifted back to his normal form. She had been the one who had led the tired, and slightly hysterical second grader Ni into the boy’s bathroom, to show him his ‘funny looking teeth.’

Tenna had been the first to notice that Ni’s teeth (which, had they not changed, would have needed braces for about a year) had become bright white, straight, and slightly pointed. She had waited patiently until Ni was done touching his too-large-and-pointed canine teeth, and had then walked him home. She was the one who explained to his parents (in very intelligent and calm second grader speak) what had happened when Ni didn’t feel like talking to anybody. They had been best friends ever since.

Then, in eighth grade, Tenna got a boyfriend.

Ni and Tenna had been best friends since second grade, when Ni’s issues had started, and everybody thought the two of them would hook up. Ni thought so too, until Tenna got a boyfriend. This guy was really disrespectful to Tenna, and it made him sick to watch. When the three of them would hang out (Ni feeling uncomfortable all along) this guy would not stop calling Tenna ‘Fat’ or ‘Bitch’ and a number of other disrespectful names. When he started to beat Tenna, Ni had told her ‘dump him.’ Tenna had responded ‘You’re just jealous.’ It was true, but Ni really did have her best interests in mind, and didn’t want to see her hurt.

One night, he had shadow shifted, and snuck into the guy’s house. Once there, he waited for him to come into the kitchen. (it sounds creepy, but Ni didn’t care, this was his only friend, and she was being mistreated) After this guy came in, Ni proceeded to kick the crap out of the guy. (Which is not expected, seeing as he’s on the short side, and really thin) Tenna never forgave Ni, and now rarely ever spoke to him. It hurt Ni to see his best friend protecting a jackass, and to see her hate him. But ever since then, he had a strong sense of respect for women.

Tenna had never spoken to Ni again.

Violently he shook his head. “Sorry.” He muttered.

“Haha…Yeah, I pride myself in my barking ability. I can do a Doberman, and a Pitt Bull too you know. It’s a bit harder, the Doberman bark. Hurts the throat a bit.” He laughed again. “I hope I did traumatize them, then they’ll leave me alone!”

“What a coincidence! I’ve been here since freshmen year too…Only instead of being a sophomore, I’m a Junior.” He put his paintbrush down on the easel, and bowed. “Pleasure to meet you Melanie”

He looked around, and grimaced. “So now that the idiotic freshmen have disappeared, we have no one to make fun of. So…what are you doing out here today? I know why I’m out here, but why you’re out here is beyond me.”

[Melanie McVayne]

Melanie shrugged as Ni explained that he was merely surprised, and that she hadn't scared the crap out of him. To her, it was basically the same thing, but she let him go on with his explanation. She had a lot of respect for a guy who could bark at a bunch of freshmen to scare them off. Not many people at this school would have the guts to do something like that, especially in a crowded place, like the campus usually was around this time of day. Melanie also listened as he talked about his artwork...and agreed with him. There was nothing wrong with painting or writing about that subject matter...as long as you didn't give hints that you were actually going to do it or anything. Unfortunately, most schools weren't as easygoing about that as Melanie and Ni were. If you wrote something that even seemed remotely threatening and they saw it...you were pretty much screwed.

"I understand. Now let's just hope the school understands. To be safe, you probably shouldn't go around showing teachers your artwork..."

A bit of an assumption there. Maybe Ni didn't want to play it safe. Maybe he wanted people to see his artwork. Melanie couldn't know this, she'd just met the guy. She stayed silent for a bit. It was clear that Ni was thinking about something. Again, she had no way of knowing what he was thinking about, but she could tell it was triggered by whatever he'd been talking about before. She didn't say anything, and let him get lost in his thoughts. It wasn't until he returned to reality that she finally spoke up again.

"A doberman, eh? Well, I was going to ask you to do one, but I guess I won't now. What would you classify the bark you just did as?"

She tilted her head. She would try to classify it herself, but she hadn't really been paying all that much attention to exactly how the bark sounded. She nodded as he mentioned what grade he was in. Only a year older than her. That made her feel a little less self concious. Not that she would ever admit that she was self concious, especially to someone she just met...but that was beside the point. She was a bit shocked that he was bowing. She was really starting to like this guy. He was weird, and he knew it. But instead of trying to hide it, like most people would, he was practically flaunting it. Which, again, took a lot of courage, so Melanie did respect him for that.

"Well, I was sitting under a tree reading, before I heard barking. That broke my concentration a bit."

Melanie smirked. She was, of course, joking around with that one. She didn't blame his barking for distracting her at all. She had quit reading before he'd started barking. Not very long before, mind you, but still.