"Yeah!" Parvati seems not to mind the subject change, to say the least. "Capoeira and ballet. Plus vocal training, which I guess I don't really need to keep up with anymore, and I had to spearhead a lot of political activism at my old school, we'll see how this campus is about that. You've got fencing, what else?"

"Oh, I did ballet too! Not recently, but back in sixth and seventh grade. I fence, I freeclimb, I did some competitive sprinting last summer, some gymnastics when I was a lot smaller, some private boxing classes, debate club... I'm what my trainer calls a dilettante." Jean-Paul had generally been joking, of course. He was aware that every afternoon Teddy could spend climbing cliff-faces with graduate students was one that got her away from her glaring mother, and was also one that he could spend stealing very nice cooking wine from the kitchen. It had been an understanding between them.

"I actually have no idea what the political fabric of Whateley Academy is," Teddy says after thinking for a moment. She's hoping Parvati's 'activism' is sit-ins and stuff, and not 'my uncle is a congressman and I want everyone to know it'. Which was how it had been at Teddy's old school. The flag pins, a terror. "But the school is supposedly neutral on the concept of super-villainy, which might have some implications."

wait hold on

'Political activism' doesn't mean 'I want to take over the world', does it? That could be awkward. Parvati doesn't seem like a super-villain, but Teddy's never actually met one, and they can't all act like the ones on TV.

"Neutral on - wow." Parvati shakes her head. “Well, I'll have to look into that. There’s got to be something propping it up, and I’ll just look like an idiot if I start pushing without knowing the background of the issue. Thanks for letting me know. Any other big surprises? Is Deathlist teaching chem?”

okay good

Teddy tries to think of things that surprised her about campus. The Crystal Hall, but they covered that, and Parvati had obviously started off better-informed about this being a Mutant School... but, hmm.

"Well, our RA– I mean, our "fixer"– is named Zafira. She's very large, and pointy, and nice, and if you need her email I can give it to you." Teddy has no idea whether being winged prepares one to meet Zafira.

Thinking about her reminds Teddy about Alice Carver, the devisor who offered to make Teddy some nail-sheaths. She drafts a quick email to her about scheduling that, now that she's presumably on-campus.

"Oh! And you're supposed to be thinking about a codename. I'm thinking of 'Glissade' but I really don't know."

There's a near-immediate response email from Alice saying that she's already in the Workshop and if Teddy wants to come now she can. If she doesn't, Alice will be in the Workshop pretty much every day for the foreseeable future.

"Oh, I'll probably meet Zafira at some point. 'Glissade' is a cool codename - I should check if 'Nightingale' is taken, since I'm a Siren with wings? Hmm, maybe I should do that now."

She opens up her suitcase and removes her laptop, then taps away. "Hmm... minor Marvel character, minor DC character, but it looks like nobody's got copyright on the name. And no actual supers. Nice!"

Is it normal for the engineering students to spend every day in the Workshop? Teddy finds the idea positively relatable, but she's learned over the years that that's usually a bad sign. Maybe she should bring snacks?

"Well that's good. Glad you knew what you wanted going in." Teddy sighs. "I don't really see why they can't just call me 'Teddy'. I was never a huge fan of professional wrestling-style nicknames, and I don't have, like, kids to protect." Masks aren't Teddy's thing either– too easy to be blinded by them, plus anonymity feels boring– part of committing to something is staking yourself on it. It's important to have skin in the game, and fun besides.

(Plus, Halloween masks always either cut into her mouth with the plastic, or the latex dust would get up her nose... blech. Bad sense memories.)

"If I head down to the Workshop to get my nails done, did you want to come?"

"I dunno, codenames are kinda part of the whole deal, aren't they? At least if you want to be a superhero, it's - part of what makes people take you seriously, I think. It's a little counterintuitive, because objectively the whole thing is kinda silly. But everybody's gotten used to it."

She glances at Teddy's nails and looks slightly confused. "I would love to come with, but I should really get unpacked sooner than later, right? You should totally show me when you're done, though!"

Bonkers. Teddy has never once taken a superhero seriously. They're cool, but it's like how a greyhound is cool. They're still ridiculous!

And you want to be one.

Touché.

Teddy says goodbye to Parvati, scoops up her picnic knife! basket of snacks, and heads back out, campus map in hand. Getting lost is for suckers. She orients towards the Workshop and starts herself walking, considering her nails. Supposedly, being an Exemplar should make her nails stop growing, or always stay a specific length, or something like that. Teddy is unclear on the specifics. The gemstones seem to be a separate issue from that entirely. The diamond coat has grown in pretty even now; Teddy's trimmed as much of the original nail off as possible, but there's still about a quarter-inch measure of overhang. It seems to consist of a sort of nail-rock matrix, with nail protein and diamond crystal weaving together into a composite. She thinks there's an occasional sapphire or ruby flecked throughout, but she's not a geologist. The effect overall looks like Teddy put superglue on her nails and then dunked her fingertips in a barrel full of tiny crystal shards. Pretty, reflective, even a little glamorous, but ultimately clumsy-looking, and prone to tearing bedsheets and toilet paper. Not ideal.

Ideal would either be normal nails that she could go back to trimming as short as possible (unlikely), or else some kind of jeweler's manicure from hell, to take the sharp edges off from the top of her nails. Still, for now, Teddy's more than happy to take some free metal nailsheaths. She's always liked schmoozing with upperclassmen anyway, and it's nice when people are nice.

The Workshop is in the labyrinthine Whateley tunnel system, in fact at the very center of the rat's nest of tunnels. Alice's email included directions to her section, and how to differentiate it from the others; apparently she's in Workshop section 105-∆.

Alice is a girl with a blacksmith's build, her hair cropped barely an inch from her scalp. She wears a partial suit of power armor and, at the moment, a welding mask and apron, because she is welding. As Teddy enters, she finishes up a join and puts down the welding torch, then flips up the mask. "Are you Teddy? If so, hi. If not, hi and what can I do for you."

Teddy was right, upperclassmen are cool. The arms on this girl, Christ. There were Exemplar biceps and then there were biceps. And she was doing unsupervised welding!

"Yeah! That's me!" Teddy chirrups, taking it all in. She juggles her basket of provisions for a moment, unsure where to set it down. She really cam down here expecting more of a shop-class vibe. This place seems more illicit and also much more professional, at the same time.

Either as some sort of proof of identity, or because she's picking up on Alice's no-nonsense vibe more than ever, Teddy shifts her stuff to one arm and extends her other hand, palm down and nails aglitter.

"The culprits."

Alice points her to where she can put down her basket; there's a lot of surfaces in the lab, and only some of them are completely covered with tools and materials. She then takes a look at Teddy's nails.

"Huh. If not for the big crystals at the base I would say you could just use a couple coats of Brick Polish. A chem gadgeteer developed it a couple of years ago. It is almost indestructible without the proper solvent. It would coat those little jagged bits. But the base crystals look pretty sharp too. Hmm."

She rummages around in a scrap pile until she finds a sheet of metal, then runs what may or may not be a sonic screwdriver over it. She reaches for Teddy's hand, then pauses. "May I touch your hand in order to help you."

Yes absolutely. Bestow your coolness unto me.

"Yeah, go ahead!" Teddy insists. "Why's it called Brick Polish? I might look into it anyway, my only plan besides this was finding someone with an indestructible angle grinder, and it's always good to have a backup." Avoiding touching things with her cuticles by themselves would be much easier than doing it with her entire nails. There's still the jaggedness to consider, aesthetically, but that might just be something Teddy gets used to slash hides under scrap metal.

She molds the sheet metal to Teddy's fingernails, where it sticks like wet clay despite not feeling warm in the slightest. "Bricks are what we call really tough mutants around here. Brick Polish makes your fingernails brick-tough. You can pick it up at the store. I would advise against plan angle grinder; for one thing you would probably get hurt, for another it probably would not work anyway if the nails are part of your mutation, they would just grow back that way."

She allows the metal to set for about ten seconds, then pulls it off and starts cutting out the nail covers. Within a minute or so they've all clattered to the table, and she hands them to Teddy. "Here you go. Unless you would like them anodized?"

Teddy would be fine because she's careful, but the advice is noted. It seems well-informed.

"What does anodizing do, it sounds very cool."

~Oh, dulce est~

...huh? What? Why did Teddy just. Think something in Latin. Which she doesn't understand. Zuh.

Alice doesn’t seem to notice. “Anodizing changes the color of metal. I could make it blue, pink, gold, any number of colors.”

Okay, Latin slogans bouncing around her head. Must be because this is such an educational environment. Whatever.

"Oh, wild!" Teddy exclaims. She examines her Sword's hilt, its belt, and so on for a second. "This sort of bronzy color would be nice, if you could pull that off. Gold would work too. This is great."

"I can do bronze."

She fiddles with chemicals and wires for a little while, then dunks the covers in a bucket of acid with wires and a chunk of scrap metal in it. When she pulls them out and rinses them off, the covers are a lovely warm bronze color. She puts them in a little bag, along with a small bottle, and hands it over. "There you go. Just apply a small dot of the glue to the underside and apply them like you would any other false nails. If you need to remove them for any reason, just immerse your hands in white vinegar for fifteen seconds and the glue will dissolve. Do not use the vinegar afterwards, in case I had to specify that."

Teddy's grasp of where magic starts and chemistry ends is fraying as she watches.

"Noted! Do you... want... a snack?" Teddy asks, tripping on the topic change. She gestures helpfully at her basket, which overfloweth with bags, tins, and boxes of food. "Or, like, snacks?"

“No, thank you. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

"No, I'm all done. Thanks! This was incredibly professional." Teddy places the bag of nails in the basket, and leaves the workshop in the least Goldilocks way possible.

She is heartbroken that her snack gambit didn't work. Even shy people liked snacks, right? Right? Maybe cool seniors with buzzcuts and metal-scultping powers didn't. Tragic!

Now that she's objectiveless, Teddy finds herself curious about this giant underground tunnel system. Are there rodents of unusual girth? Illicit drug abuse? Monkey bars?

No rodents, drug abuse, or monkey bars make themselves apparent. It’s mostly just long stretches of featureless hallway, studded with doors at irregular intervals. It seems very easy to get lost in. 

Yawn. This place really isn't anything like her old school.

Teddy's flawless navigational skills (and official campus map!) avail her in this situation. At least back at Whitman there will be more people, whom enjoy snacks.

There certainly are. In the common room sit Zafira, an old woman with horns, an adorable little girl, and a six-foot-tall humanoid cockroach, all laughing about something.

"Hi, Teddy!" Zafira says when she enters. "Ooh, what's in your basket?"

"Goodies. And a knife!"

She puts the basket on the common room's common table, palming the inedible bag of nail-sheaths out of it. Teddy's not too sure why there's a grandma here, but the more the merrier.

She perches herself in a convenient chair and begins exactingly applying the sheaths to her fingers. Gotta make sure she doesn't mix up the left and right fingers. Probably.

Zafira laughs. "I only eat once a week, but nice thought. Any of you gals interested?"

The cockroach shakes her head. "Strictly insectivorous," she buzzes regretfully.

The old woman looks through the goodies. "Hmm... okay, this is kosher," she says, taking a bag of hot chips.

The little girl takes a bag of cookies. "Ooh, strawberry! Standard new-girl warning, me and Reba" - she hooks a thumb at the old woman - "are both 18, we've just got GSD."