aterat | Don’t change that channel!

Who; Mono and anyone
What; Practicing his powers
Where; Around the city
When; Mid-March
Warnings; None to start, I think! I will update if something comes up.
Note; If you would like something specific or have an idea, you are welcome to talk to me about it. I am also open to writing personalized starters or doing other stuff, just drop me a line over on the plotting post or send me a message on discord @ WhimsicalSpook#8219

Mono was just finishing his last delivery for the day, the bag slung over his shoulder now empty, and he had plenty of time to spare. Time the boy had taken to making sure he had before the sun went down to spend practicing with his abilities. Mono still wasn’t fond of them for obvious reasons, but he was serious about learning to control it better. Especially to avoid hurting those around him, or letting it get out of control like it had before. The signal that he always gave off was clearly around to stay, stronger than before he went back…

But the rest of it was getting easier, thanks to help from Illyana, giving him advice and ideas to try out. More experience never hurt, though, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget things in between meetings with her. So after work on days when he didn’t meet up with someone else were reserved for this. He would find his way to a quiet back-alley where no one would be disturbed by his messing about with stuff, and would get to work.

Practicing the whole… portals through televisions was obviously still not happening, and Mono had been staying away from the mirrors that almost acted similarly (because his reflection in those was scary)… But everything else that was on the table. At least on smaller, careful scales.

‘Skipping’ as he called it, was easiest. His form blurring and stuttering as he walked and went from one end of the alley to suddenly a few feet further with an unnatural glitching quality, like a tape that wasn’t quite playing right. The boy would go back and forth like that a few times, until he felt a little more confident with it, before moving on.

‘Tuning’ was… A little more difficult. He could remember how big and powerful he’d felt after… The Man in the Hat was defeated, the way buildings had creaked and stood taller around him as he gathered his energy to make a final skip to the tower. He wasn’t sure if he could do that, reverse the wear on a worn, crooked building as he was now. Mono was pretty sure he’d only been that strong because of what happened and how close he’d been to the tower. How desperate he’d been to save his friend.

Though… The opposite of ‘fixing buildings’ had nearly happened when he returned to Aterat, he supposed.

Still, he hadn’t managed anything quite to that scale since his return, and he suspected it was from being in the Tower for so long. Now that he was cut off, it wasn’t quite so strong. So he focused on stacks of run down, soggy crates. Trying to make the leaning tower of boxes go back to standing tall. Though, that day, the bottom crate had kind of collapsed instead under the strain. Cracking and splintering, sending the rest of the stack tumbling. “Aw… Nuts!” A window rattled just slightly in its frame as the natural signal he generated fluctuated in his frustration. Then he sighed, and it settled.

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“Me too, I kinda hated it. It seemed unfair to people to have stuff shared without being able to choose or not. And… It’s weird having to explain stuff about your world that people might not like, right?” He was pretty sure Illyana and Tommy both wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain stuff about their lives to people, even him! He didn’t like it either… On the one hand, maybe it would help if people understood what his world was like, on the other hand? Having to explain all that seemed like a really big bother, especially if it was upsetting to see. Even for him to learn about their childhoods gave him a conflicted feeling between it helping to know he wasn’t the only kid who’s childhood wasn’t what most adults expected and anger that they had been through such bad stuff too.

Mono’s expression was something a little hopeful at the idea. A whole room where he didn’t have to worry about getting in people’s way or breaking the wrong things. “Okay! I dunno what you would need to do something like that, aside from a room… But I can help test it when you do!” Which in turn helped him, so it was a win/win situation. Maybe more people would like a place like that too! “What do you mean, like summon a place or something to help make a room like that?” He’s not sure how summoning works, but it sounded like Illyana had an idea at least.

Ignoring the confusing parts more easily… The boy’s expression looked a little confused at first, but he guessed that kind of made more sense then adults suddenly making more sense. “I guess if you’re around confusing people long enough that you would get used to it… So the longer I’m here and growing up maybe the less confused I’ll be ‘cause I’ll just be used to it.” He finally decided, and kind of hoped that would be the case. “So if I’m here till I’m an adult maybe I’ll stop being confused as much!” Then again, that was a really weird thing to think about.

"Unfair is one way to put it," she said with a hint of a smile. It was a very childlike way to put it, but she wasn't going to say that. Mostly because she agreed, it wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair, but that didn't make the unfair things any more fair. "Definitely weird. I mostly just disliked having to explain my past. There's a lot there people won't like." People probably wanted to understand. Illyana knew that people said things like that a lot, that they want to understand where people came from and how they got to be the way they were. That didn't make it easier though. Nor did it make the fears that it might cause them to see her differently go away.

"You'll be my official tester when I figure it out then." She gave him a grin and then waved a hand, conjuring up a tiny button that had the words 'official tester' written on it in big bold colorful letters. "Here, you can even have this button of authority of the position." She nodded her head. "Yeah, something like that. Or just a protection spell for a building already here." There seemed like there might be a lot of options to make it work.

"That's a positive way to look at it," and she tried very hard to hide the fact that she was laughing. It was pretty unsuccessful though. How could she not laugh at it though? All things considered it was a pretty accurate statement and yet it was somehow hilarious at the same time. "Maybe if you're here that long you'll end up understanding everything better than I do." It was strange to think about someone staying here that long, but also strange to think about him as an adult. She wondered what he might be like as one...

“Exactly, people don’t always like the stuff that happens in your past… But it’s not like you can do anything about that, so it just makes them upset and harder to explain!” He agreed on that subject quite a bit. Even if other people wanted to know and understand… If they didn’t like it, that made things feel awkward and weird. Like you had to make it better somehow, he thinks… But you couldn’t because it was in the past and it was already done.

A small ‘wow’ escaped at the very official button that made his being the tester seem all the more official. “That’s kinda neat, thanks Illyana. I promise I’ll do a good job of testing when you got it all ready!” He added with a tiny, clumsy grin. The boy would absolutely take this job seriously, and he was excited at the idea of having somewhere special to practice his abilities… Who knew how many people might need it in the future, too? Maybe there would be more people like him that needed a safe place to try to learn to do stuff better.

Mono isn’t sure about understanding adults better than Illyana, though perhaps that was just because he thought she was one of the smarter people around here… “Maybe, but I dunno. I think if they still confuse you sometimes, then they’ll probably still confuse me a little.” And it was, as she herself was thinking, weird to think about actually growing up and being an adult here in the first place. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen himself as an adult, after all, and that version of himself was pretty scary… He really didn’t want to be that version of himself here, so hopefully… Hopefully all this would work out differently than in his world.

"The problem is people don't care enough to listen." Instead they just got upset and rushed to conclusions. All because they were upset. What she thought about saying was that ultimately people were selfish and didn't want to know about the pain of others or their experiences. They only cared about how it effected them. But that was certainly a darker turn to the subject than she wanted to take. It was also something she knew was colored by her own past. When people had become furious with her and refused to listen to what she wanted. Fear and hate always won out over listening.

She flashed him a quick smile. "I know you will. I bet we'll have some fun too." Training could be fun sometimes. With the right people that is and Mono was certainly the right people. At the very least she didn't think they wouldn't have fun. Even just thinking about it brought back some somewhat pleasant memories of a good time here and there with her own friends while training. Bittersweet memories as always.

"Maybe people just confuse people," she shrugged.

Mono frowned slightly at that. “Seems kinda dumb, really. If they see things and they ask about stuff, they should care, shouldn’t they?” It explained some of it, but just made him a little more confused. At least concerning things like memory shares and having to talk about your past… It all looped back to the fact that adults, and other people in general in worlds that were far different from his own, were confusing.

“You think so? Even though it’s practicing something serious, it could be fun?” That was… an interesting way to think about it. Mono had never really thought about how his abilities might be practiced for fun. Frankly, the boy only understood things that were fun from random scattered interactions with the few people who showed him what they found fun or how to do something that was supposed to be fun.

“I think that kinda sounds right… At least thinking about the people I know.” He finally agreed. That much seemed like the honest truth, regardless of how old he was or would get. People were confusing and that was that.

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