Let's try this again (open)

[Alex Carpenter]

Alex was grumbling by the time he threw the lump of iron down on the ground, which cracked open to spill clumps of nails out onto the lawn. "Dammit, dammit, dammit... never fails. I fucking suck at being a mutant," he muttered leaning down to touch the nails, his body shifting to steel again. "All right... let's see..." He stood up, closing his eyes, putting one foot on the pile of nails again. Start at the edges... He probably didn't notice when they fused together, but he did notice when the outer nails started to liquify and flow up toward his foot.

[Aisha Khan]

Aisha came walking by, her clothes visible, the rest of her flickering in and out of view, in a very distracting way. Distracting like a strobe light, if anyone could see her. The effort of concentration was distracting her as well, and she almost walked into Alex "Ack! Sorry about that!"

[Alex Carpenter]

Alex jerked his head, and his control slipped. "What the... ah!" he cried out, solely from surprise (though it probably didn't seem that way) as tendrils of iron shot up through his foot.

[Aisha Khan]

"Oh my God!" Aisha yelled "Are you ok? What happened!?!"

[Alex Carpenter]

"I... I... I..." Alex would have been hyperventilating if he needed to breathe in iron form. "I... don't know," he said, calming down slightly when he realized that it didn't hurt. "I... didn't know I could do that." He wiggled his foot, which all worked, then tried extracting the foreign metal from his body... which also worked. "Huh... That was weird..."

[Aisha Khan]

"Oh, power practice." Aisha said, calming down a bit "What were you trying to do?"

[Alex Carpenter]

"Just trying to get it all to work faster," he said. "I haven't had much time to work on it lately, so I was just... well, y'know." He unconsciously turned his head from the strobe-appearance effect.

[Aisha Khan]

"Sorry." Aisha said "I can't get it to settle."

[Alex Carpenter]

"No, it's okay. I mean come on, I just rammed a spike of iron up through my foot. LIke I have any room to talk about control? Besides, I can see you. Kind of. More. That's good, right?"

[Aisha Khan]

"Its a change, anyway." Aisha replied.

[Alex Carpenter]

"We'll, it's nice to actually be able to see you. Even if it's not perfect yet."

[Aisha Khan]

"Yeah, it is getting better." Aisha said "It really helped to find out that machines can see me."

[Alex Carpenter]

"Yeah, must be nice for actual people to be able to see you."

[Aisha Khan]

"A few people can see me already." Aisha said, almost defensively. "Cal can, and so can Ashlie."

[Alex Carpenter]

Alex frowned, trying to remember the names. "Don't know Ashlie... Cal... isn't that the moody kid in Power Control with us?"

[Aisha Khan]

"Yeah, he's the one who is always a dick to Mr. Gabriel."

[Alex Carpenter]

"Huh. Well, now more nice people can see you," Alex said with a grin as he experimentally pushed a spike of iron through his hand.

[Aisha Khan]

"Does it hurt?" Aisha asked, sounding morbidly curious.

[Alex Carpenter]

"It... not really," he said. "It's... kind of like running your hand against a water current, I guess. Just... my hand's the water? It's weird. I don't know if there's really a good way to describe it." Frowning, he split off a chunk of metal into a small ball, then squeezed it into his hand very slowly... literally into his hand.

[Aisha Khan]

"Whoa." Aisha said "that looks kind of cool."

[Alex Carpenter]

"Yeah, but it... Ok, it's really weird. I can feel where it is... It has zero difference fromtherstof my body but something just makes it 'not me.' But... I think I can... Oops." Alex scowled as the blob of iron popped out of his chest, dropping out from under his shirt and hit the floor with a 'thud'.

[Aisha Khan]

Aisha giggled "Sorry." she said "I shouldn't laugh...but dude...." she giggled again.

[Alex Carpenter]

Alex couldn't help chuckling. "Well, it could have been worse," he pointed out as he picked the discarded metal up.

[Aisha Khan]

"Yeah, I guess...." Aisha said, laughing even more.

[Alex Carpenter]

Alex couldn't help chuckling himself. "Guess that rules out practicing in class. Last thing I need is for the class to stop because a lump of steel fell out of my pants," he mused.

[Aisha Khan]

"Can you like, try to make it fall out of someplace less embarrassing and hilarious?"

[Alex Carpenter]

"Well I wanted it to come out my other hand, but my body seemed to have other ideas," Alex admitted.

[Aisha Khan]

"I know how that goes." Aisha said wryly.

[Alex Carpenter]

"Is this where I make another piece shoot out the top of my head to break the awkward moment?"

[Amanda Weinrich]

"Can you do that?"