Twin-stalking Is a Thing Now, Apparently

[Toby Chastain]

If caught, Toby was pretty certain he could make a case for this not really being stalking, not when it came down to it, not really. Sure, he was technically following a set of twins in what he felt was a totally nonchalant and acceptable manner. Just sort of trailing along behind them and keeping a few notes about interactions and all. he still hadn't quite figured out their power, but he suspected that it activated by touch or something.

Oh, wait, one was looking his way. Time to suddenly become intensely interested in the fountain. Toby stared at it, peering intently and hoping that his ruse was totally working. He glanced to the side, back at the twins, and was fairly certain that he'd pulled it off. Confident, he started toward them again, only to find himself again spinning.

Birdwatching this time, apparently. Yep, definitely birdwatching and staring up at the sky and pretending like he wasn't noticing being noticed or something.

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

Poppy and Piper decided it was a good idea to explore. That was until Poppy had the strangest feeling. But glancing behind, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, no matter how far or fast they walked, there was just that one feeling of being followed. Turning behind her once more, she noticed a boy staring at the sky, almost as if he was interested in it, he appeared to be bird watching, but he just looked so... out of place? I mean, there wasn't really anything to spot at this point. With a quick word to her sister, Poppy approached the boy, being careful not to stand too close. She coughed politely, while keeping one eye on her sister. "Excuse me?" Poppy chimed cheerily. "Is there a problem? Do we have something stuck to our shoes, or did we drop something? I couldn't help but notice that you were following us." She didn't mean to sound rude, she was trying to be polite and friendly about it.

Piper came a little closer, but still kept a fair distance from the two, dodging people that came past, not noticing her. Last thing she needed was an emotional rush from someone else. She looked on as her sister conversed with the strange boy.

[Toby Chastain]

"Following you?" Toby repeated, before adding a "pshaw" noise and waving his hand in what he hoped was a fairly convincing manner. He held this demeanor for a few more seconds, noticing the other person coming in closer and looking a little shy. That was actually kind of adorable: one twin being all social and talkative while the other shrunk from people.

Toby looked at both twins again, and the last bit of his poorly constructed veneer crumbled. "Okay, so I might have been following you," he admitted, before holding up his hand, thumb and index finger close together, "just a bit. And by a bit I mean pretty much a lot," Toby nodded his head a few times, then sighed and just extended a hand. "Look, I'm Toby, and I'm trying not to be creepy and mostly failing here, so, maybe take some pity on me? Maybe?"

Well, it was worth a shot.

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

Poppy just stood with her arms crossed and a brow raised as the boy spoke at her, about how he wasn't, then sort of was. Poppy stood there patiently waiting for the boy to finish his failed attempt at explaining. "Why were you following us?" Poppy was genuinely curious, so her stubborn demeanor didn't hold for long. Why would some random follow two twins? She thought this school was safe, so if there was good reasoning behind his actions, she couldn't get too mad could she? And he did own up to it. Sort of. "Poppy. Belmont. Poppy Belmont." As much as she hated the thought of touching someone, he had put his hand out to her, and she couldn't be rude. She quickly shook his hand, retracting as quickly as she could without seeming rude. "Pity will be granted when you give an explanation." She repeated her earlier question as a statement. Reminding him she was waiting for an answer so he wouldn't get sidetracked by other conversational topics that may come up.

[Toby Chastain]

There was that question again, which nearly had Toby sighing. This is what he got for following girl twins instead of guy twins. They'd use guilt and make him feel bad and whatnot. Still a better reaction than getting his ass kicked though, so, yeah, he definitely was going to keep stalking them. he'd just have to hire out someone better. Or even better: get permission. Yeah, let's go for that instead, shall we?

"Is that a guarantee on the pity, or..." asked Toby, trailing off for a few seconds. Sighing, he reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, where he'd been tabulating notes. He flipped to show it. "See? I'm, uh, studying powers and people in their natural environments. There's just so much to this mutant power that we don't really understand and sometimes it seems like people aren't really trying to figure it all out. And since you two are twins and, let's face it, smaller than me and kinda cute, I figured following you is probably a decent bet."

Toby let out a slight laugh before rubbing at the back of his head. "I have to admit, I don't have a clue what your powers are. Like, it's probably something to do with touching, but for all I know you kill things on skin contact," he looked at their hands, taking a step back. "And if that's it, remember; you so promised pity."

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

Poppy tried to keep a straight face as Toby explained the situation to her. Key word being try. When Toby had finished with 'promised pity' Poppy couldn't hold it, she burst into laughter. "You're scared of a couple of female twins who are smaller than you?" She laughed harder when the words came out. "Oh gosh. I mean, okay, so, yeah, females are pretty feisty and such, but still." Poppy took some time to breathe and finish laughing. "If that's all you were doing that's fine. Tactile Telepath. That's what I am. My sister is a Tactile Empath. So... I'm sure you'd end up hurting us more than us hurting you." Poppy smiled.

"Interesting hobby you got there, though." Poppy nodded. "I take notes on random things too. I take down notes for a thing I'm writing. I creatively record what happens in our lives - our meaning mine and Piper's - and put them in the Belmont Chronicles." Poppy indicated the sheets of paper sticking out of her pockets and a pen on a rope around her neck. "We could do each other a favor. You can study us, and deliver to me the results you gather. We can't understand our power as an outside person, and you can't understand it as an inside person, so I work on understanding it as a user, and you work on understanding it as someone from outside of the use of power." That was a fair (sort-of) compromise, right?

[Toby Chastain]

"For all I know you can evaporate people with your minds," Toby pointed out, adding a slight shrug. "All I can do is not sleep. Or eat. So you win the battle of powers. Unless you've got one of those that backfire in a semi-hilarious or not at all funny manner," of which Toby had seen both. There were some truly odd abilities out there. Thankfully most people just seemed to be empaths or something equally harmless.

Okay, that was ironic, given that one of these happened to be one. Toby did make a noise of understanding at the explanation though, his head bobbing. "That explains the avoidance," he said, tapping his phone and quickly adding a few lines of notes. He winced as he realized he was doing this while Poppy kept talking but, well, he didn't exactly want to forget it or anything along those lines.

"The Belmont Chronicles?" Toby repeated, looking up at them. And people called him a nerd, honestly. "I've got no issues working together. Right now, all I really know is that you two avoid each other. But it seems like," he tapped the phone, considering, "you both got powers that are psychically based but with a tactile trigger. Y'know," He paused, considering, "I worked with a girl on a project that had a power like that. weird name," he frowned as he scrolled through the phone, trying to remember and/or find notes.

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

"Evaporate you with my mind? Boy would that be interesting." Poppy grinned."Yes, that's right. Tactile telepathy and tactile empathy. Not much to boast about really. We mostly just get exhausted or headaches... Though sometimes Piper undergoes mood swings." Poppy explained. "Oh? Another like us?" Poppy knew she shouldn't have been as surprised as she was, but she was surprised that someone else had powers to do with touch. Poppy was now intrigued. "So... how many people do you have notes on?" Poppy asked as he looked through his notes. Poppy began writing down things for later.

"It's a nice day isn't it? Surely you noticed how nice today was when you were 'bird-watching'." Poppy smirked. "We should find somewhere nice to sit and talk. But uh... my sister is kind of... shy, so she might not stay with us, but I'm sure that'll be fine. That's fine right? Of course it is." Poppy beamed happily, chattering on.

[Toby Chastain]

"You would be surprised," Toby drawled. He'd run into a few crazy powers already, though disintegration had been so far fairly elusive. The talkative twin just kept right on going, talking about the power and so forth. It took Toby a second or so before he realized that he should probably be taking even more extensive notes than he already was. His fingers flew to produce a few more notes.

'Yup," was all he could manage at the question about another like it. "And, uh, a few? I'm looking for patterns and all, like I said. I've been doing some... research." Toby wasn't sure how else to put it than that. Maybe by referencing the bird-watching again, since Poppy was bringing it right back up and all.

"No worries," Toby said, before smiling and wiggling some fingers toward the other twin. "I don't bite unless, like, you want me to or something. Not that I'm..." Toby waved a hand before rolling his eyes. "Right, so, yeah, there's some benches that way," Toby gestured with a hand and then followed through with the gesture, walking that way.

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

As she followed him over to the bench, she just kept chattering happily about mostly random subjects. Piper trotted quietly behind as her sister chatted. Poppy finally settled on one subject. "Our parents were never around much. But I didn't mind y'know? Piper and I have always only had each other, and that's what's kept us from... well, losing our minds so to speak." Poppy shrugged. "I mean they were around sometimes, but even then they were never really... around. So it hurt more when we were recruited. Do I hate them? No, I love them as I know they loved us dearly, and everything they did was to clothe us and feed us and to protect us." Poppy said with a shrug. "I do miss them though. I always have. But what can you do?" Another shrug. "What were your parents like?" Poppy asked, genuinely interested. She sat down smoothing out her clothes, eyes sparkling with interest. Even though it was random tangents and rambles, she figured it was still a good way to learn from each other if they got to know each other first.

Piper was mostly quiet and stood to the side, thinking about how easy it was for her sister to interact with people. People seemed to have an instant affinity with Poppy, whether it be friendship or otherwise, it was just... so easy, but then why was she having so much trouble. She had a fair idea of why, but it was just one of those things.

[Toby Chastain]

"Happens," Toby offered, addressing the bit about parents and all. "Mine were just... decidedly normal, really," he wasn't sure what else to really add about his perfectly balanced not at all weird family life. Sometimes people just got dealt a completely normal hand and they just had to go along with it and all. "I sometimes miss them, but more, like, in the abstract," he held up a hand, tilting it back and forth a little and adding a little wincing action to further punctuate the statement.

"They took the whole mutant thing pretty well too. I mean, I was always weird, so they probably saw something like this coming. It probably helps that my power isn't one of those fantastic ones," he shrugged. "I mean, it's no, reading people's thoughts by touch,' he nodded to the twins," or emotions."

Toby paused again, tapping his phone. Did he want to press on the power? He sort of did, but, well, he didn't want to go too far. Maybe something about how the manifestation and recruiting went. "Did you two manifest at the same time?" was what came out, as Toby looked from one to other. "Or was it a sort of domino effect, or did this," he gestured to both of them, "not happen until a few years had gone by or...?"

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

Poppy listened as Toby responded to her question. Their parents took it well too, but it was the first time they had been back. Poppy felt a pang of regret for not trying hard enough. Piper listened too, sort of regretting her own feelings towards her parents, she loved them, but she had hated them for never being around. Piper winced when their manifestation was brought up.

"We manifested at the same time. I mean like... We had the usual weird twinsense that most twins have, but we also had a feeling of being a different kind of different, y'know stronger emotions and such. Actually we sort found out when we had touched each other one day by accident, and it was around our fourteenth birthday, so not too long ago actually. We were sort of recruited about a week after that. Our powers make it really hard on top of the normal creepy twin thing." Poppy shrugged as she answered his question openly.

[Toby Chastain]

Toby did notice the slight wince from shy!twin (he honestly couldn't remember which one was which at this point and didn't really feel comfortable asking just yet). The explanation really didn't explain the whole wincing bit, but it did make Toby wonder some about the whole manifestation thing at the same time in general. Surely someone was studying that? Weren't, like, three of the Bellefontes triplets or something?

"I wonder if mutant powers run stronger in twins," he said aloud, mostly to himself. "But touching each other at the same time had to be kinda weird. Surprised you didn't get any--hey, uh, shy twin,' Toby gestured, "you might wanna watch out--" he pointed quickly, indicating that there did appear to be a game of frisbee shifting in Piper's general direction. Sadly one thing that Toby was not lacking in was general awareness. Sometimes he wished he'd gotten a spider-sense from his power as a weird side effect.

(This was, of course, nothing more than wishful thinking on his part).

[Poppy and Piper Belmont]

"Strong...er in twins?" Poppy tilted her head. Well it would make sense, after twins already had a weird connection as it is without any powers being added to that. Their manifestation was quite odd though, as they both found out at the same time by touching each other, and in the end they ended up with a way too similar to be coincidence power. Poppy didn't quite understand how it works, and with that, she hoped this newly acquainted bond with Toby would help her understand the ins and outs of her power. Poppy's head turned to see Piper only just catching the frisbee headed her way. It was a lucky catch to say the least, but Piper being a more sporty type of person, would have good reflexes. She threw the frisbee back to the students who were playing and she moved closer to Poppy and Toby, and more away from the game. "Nice catch Piper." Poppy smiled at her sister. Piper only nodded with a small smile in return.

"So what were you saying before that frisbee decided to say hi?" Poppy asked a tilt to her head in question.

[Toby Chastain]

The Frisbee came, and Toby half expected the shy twin to get bonked or something. He couldn't help but flinch as it came within range, and he unwound slowly as he realized that the girl had actually caught it, something that he probably wouldn't have been able to do without a good amount of luck being into play. He let out a slight laugh as the twins relaxed. "Yeah, no kidding," he managed. Soon he was back into position, smoothing his clothing and trying to figure out how to look suave after something like that.

"I was? I was," he said, before pursing his lips in concentration. "There was... twins being stronger and---" Toby patted around, twisting and turning. "Where did my phone... go..." Toby frowned as he looked around the ground, standing up and twisting. He knew he just had it before that little Frisbee incident, so surely it should still be laying around here somewhere nearby?