intotheout

Tip picked up her nametag marked "Gratuity" and nudged Bill out of the way so she could stick it to her shirt. Bill was all abuzz about the whole "bubble in space" part of the town the school was in -- or possibly just buzzing about something else? Hopefully not a broken something, she did not want to call J.Lo on her first day to come fix her pet billboard for her -- and she picked him up to reposition him onto her hair where he'd be less conspicuous. She'd already worked out on the way in on the shuttle that people here might not be familiar with Boov technology, but there was no guarantee someone wouldn't recognize a Bee from the early days of the invasion and freak out about it.

"Shush," she told him. "I'm sure this big sibling person will tell us about the portals and bubbles."

She assumed that was what the big sibling program was for, after all. Settling you into living on your own for the first time, making sure you didn't accidentally wander through the wrong portal into the vacuum of space. The basic stuff.

Velma	Velma wouldn't be the worst person for that kind of talk, actually. A lot of her classes back with The Super Patriots, Inc had covered weird topics like How to tell if you are in an alternate reality and Safety tips if you find yourself fighting evil in space Those lessons came in pretty handy for living on a supposedly normal island. Though the island blasting off into space put paid to that 'supposedly normal' bit pretty thoroughly. "Gratuity?" Velma called. "Gratuity Tucci?" This would be easier if she had a couple of scouts wandering around looking for her new little sister, but Velma was still sticking to her guns about not using her animus powers. Even when it meant wandering around the green, peering at people's chests and yelling someone's name. It would also be easier if she'd gotten out more during her last semester and recognized more faces. Oops.
Tip	Tip raised her hand and waved a little to get the girl's attention. "You'd be Velma?" she guessed. The girl seemed responsible enough to qualify for a mentoring program. She'd pronounced Tip's name right, for one, which weirdly wasn't always a guarantee, despite it being a pretty common noun and the name of a reasonably well known actor. So, you know, things were looking up.
Velma	Gratuity was a word! Who didn't know gratuity?! Sometimes Velma really questioned the world and the people in it. "I'd be Velma," she agreed, giving the girl a friendly smile. It probably looked a little weird; Velma hadn't been practicing her smiles much anymore, now that she no longer had to live in constant fear of a photo op. "Welcome to Fandom. I'm hoping you noticed that it's a little weird?" Please already have figured that out, Tip. Don't make Velma despair of you already.
Tip	"You mean like the fact that to get here we went through a portal and now we're not on Earth anymore?" Tip asked. "Or the part where this place is surrounded by a giant bubble but no one I talked to on the way in had even heard of the Boov?" Seriously. The Boov had been pretty hard to miss, what with the destruction of national landmarks and, oh yeah, moving the entire human population of the US to Arizona.
Velma	"The Boov?" Velma asked, giving Gratuity a blank look. "Yeah, sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about, either. It's pretty common around here, though. Nobody's heard of The Super-Patriots, Inc. and back home, it's impossible to get away from them." Literally.
Tip	Tip nodded slowly. "Yeah, no, that mostly sounds like something out of a comic book to me," she admitted. "Is it -- is this a time travel thing? Because my friend J.Lo -- not that one -- he's done some time travel stuff before and it got kinda weird, but not Boov-bubble-with-no-Boov weird."
Velma	"It could be," Velma said frankly. "It's 2016 now, when are you from? It's also just as likely to be an alternate reality issue. They're more common than you'd expect, especially around here. This island is a multi-dimensional nexus, if that means anything to you." And if it didn't, Velma would be able to explain. "...Your friend's name is J. Lo?"
Tip	"His Earth name," Tip said. "I can't pronounce his real name without a sheep and maybe a blender." This was kind of neat. Sure, it was weird that no one around here had heard of the Boov, but Velma wasn't looking at her funny for talking about them, anyway, and it meant that no one had even mentioned Dan Landry in passing yet. Which was probably some kind of record. "Different universes, huh?" No, Tip was not familiar with 'multi-dimensional nexuses'. But she was super used to people babbling at her about science things she hadn't actually learned about yet. "So I'm from Alien Invasion world and you're from Superheroes-R-Us land?"
Velma	"Yeah, exactly," Velma said. "Lots of people are from different worlds. My last roommate was from a world with, like, a dinosaur preserve in Antarctica or something. And then there are some people who aren't from Earth at all. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to blow your mind or something, but Alien Invasion World probably prepared you for all that, huh?"
Tip	Tip shrugged. "Seeing your mom get abducted when you're 11 kind of ups your weirdness threshold." Also, living with a semi-amphibious alien creature. "Though -- if no one else here went through facing the Boov and the Gorg. . . . I guess that sort of makes me the weird one." Greeeeeeat.
Velma	Velma looked around to find the bright pink pony. She didn't seem to be around, but there was a bright green...student?...stomping around. She'd(?) do. "Pretty sure that's the weird one," Velma said, pointing. "You just have a different history than anyone else. So do I. That's not so bad around here." Not that Velma was really in a position to give anyone 'making friends and fitting in' advice.
Tip	"That's . . . an alien," Tip said. She wondered if J.Lo would be able to tell her the species or planet of origin. "I'm, like, 90% sure. Her fingers aren't even attached to her hands."
Velma	"Yup," Velma said. She had plenty of experience with aliens. Or, rather, Velveteen did. Velma still wasn't sure where the lines between the two were drawn. "So, you're starting to gather that this isn't your normal school. Being in outer space with alien students isn't even the weirdest part. Sometimes weird things attack. Sometimes you wake up a boy or a little kid or someone completely different. And sometimes it rains, like, tapioca pudding or something." She spread her hands. "Welcome to Fandom."
Tip	"What do you mean 'weird things attack'?" She'd get to wondering about the 'waking up a boy' part later. That didn't sound like it could be life threatening.
Velma	"Well, there were aliens that attacked the graduating seniors last weekend," Velma said with a sigh. "Which were totally different from the aliens that attacked the island two weekends before that. That's how the island ended in space, I guess. It's been a very alien-heavy month. But those guys were the Brood, not the Boov."
Tip	Tip blinked at her, then spun on her heel and marched around in an angry circle kicking at the grass for a few moments. "Of course! Of course the school I picked gets attacked by aliens on the regular. Why the hell wouldn't it?" She threw her hands up, groaned in the back of her throat, and stomped her feet a few times before collecting herself and turning back to Velma. ". . . Pardon my language."
Velma	"It's high school. Gratuity," Velma said, laughing. "We use worse language on the regular." She...couldn't really say anything about the alien attacks. She'd only been here a semester and she'd seen two. That had to be statistically significant or something. "We're in space, so I'm guessing the odds of alien attacks are only going to go up," she said. "But if you stay in the dorms, nothing really bothers you. You can let the people who like to fight get out there and fend them off while you watch TV or whatever." That was what Velma had done. Look, she'd put in her 'saving the earth' time in already.
Tip	"Habit," Tip said, her usual excuse. She honestly wasn't a big fan of cursing, especially not the way most teenagers used it. "Mom gets mad if I say something 'sucks'." Then she had to resist the urge to stomp again. "You really just watch TV while the town's getting attacked?" Apparently superhero world hadn't really rubbed off on Velma.
Velma	Yeeeeeah, about that. It was a lot more complicated than that. But Velma wasn't going to get into that with anyone really. "Yup," she said. "Talk to some of the people in town and you'll get why. There are a ton of other students who are just lining up to be child soldiers." And she'd put in her time already.
Tip	Well, that was a creepy way to put it. "I did that for awhile when the Boov first showed up," she admitted. "But my mom had just been abducted. And I was eleven." And it wasn't like she'd been gung-ho resistance fighter later, either. Even after she'd decided she was going to help stop the Gorg, she'd done it by being sneaky and clever, not throwing herself into fights. "You know, they should probably include the probability of ending up in an action movie scenario in the brochure for this place." She'd met several people, mostly boys, who would still be super stoked to come here if they did.
Velma	Bury a few friends before you were sixteen and you got pretty cynical with your outlook about kids going off to fight. "Yeah, I fought for awhile as a kid, too," Velma admitted reluctantly. "Got that out of my system, fortunately." Again, going with the bare bones of the story. "But if they told the truth about what went on here, the insurance premiums would skyrocket." The Super-Patriots, Inc had really off priorities. "And once they explained that sometimes your future kids show up, calling you mom, their numbers would drop pretty quick, I guess."
Tip	Tip was starting to get the idea that Velma might not be an average citizen in Superhero land. Velma didn't seem big on talking about it, though, so Tip wasn't going to bring it up. "Okay, but so long as they don't then demand money for therapy bills, I think I could be okay with that."
Velma	"Now that I think about it, that would be a great way to pay for this place," Velma said, though she couldn't repress a shudder at the idea of therapy. Just one more way The Super-Patriots, Inc had scarred her for life. "But, yeah, I think I covered the basics? Waking up weird, random invasions, hey we're in space, squirrels spy on you...That's the big stuff."
Tip	"Squirrels," Tip repeated. No, that part hadn't been covered yet. "Is that a joke, paranoia, or are they special space squirrels?" Honestly, it could be any of those.
Velma	"None of the above," Velma said, trying not to laugh. "They were there on Earth, too. But they read and write and drink rum and every day there's a radio broadcast talking about what we did the day before to really creepy detail."
Tip	Tip huffed out a sigh through her nose. "Once again, would've been useful information in the brochure." She wondered idly if it was too late to transfer. Except then Mom and J.Lo would probably decide boarding school at all was a mistake and then she'd be grounded again. And really, the squirrels couldn't be worse than UFO conspiracy nuts. And she'd handled them just fine. "So . . . I mean, other than watching TV when people attack, is it cool here?" she asked. "Do you like it?"
Velma	"It's about a thousand times better than my old school," Velma said quietly. Even mostly sticking to her room and avoiding people, she could say that. The death-rate was lower, for one. So was the betrayed-and-backstabbed-by-your-best-friend-and-boyfriend rate. Though that might be because Velma didn't have either here. "People are generally friendly, nobody goes out of their way to screw you over, the classes aren't too hard, and the weird stuff isn't so weird that it drives you away." Though her tolerance for weird might have been calibrated differently than everybody else's. "All things considered, Fandom's not that bad. It's the kind of place where you can let your freak flag fly and no one else really cares, because everybody's doing the same thing."
Tip	"I suppose it has to have its good parts," Tip observed. "To get people to stay with all that other stuff going on." And hey, it wasn't named after Dan Landry, like her middle school had been. Major plus.
Velma	"And you're already used to weird things happening, so you're in a much better position than most other people who show up here." Maybe not Velma, who'd been convinced to attend by Santa Claus, but a lot of other people. "And one thing I'll give this place? The good is awesome. Just watch out for the glitter."
Tip	". . . Does it do anything special, or do you mean in the 'gets everywhere and doesn't come off easily' sense?"
Velma	"Gets everywhere and doesn't come off," Velma said. "And the administration loves it. So you won't actually be able to avoid it, but you might minimize it some." Not really, though. It was glitter.
Tip	She was going to have to be careful with Bill. If anything could gum up a tiny alien robot, it was glitter. "Forewarned is forearmed," Tip agreed. "Thanks."
Velma	"It's my job as your Fandom-assigned big sister," Velma said. "And if you need anything or have other questions, feel free to come talk to me." She'd even make an attempt to be out of her room sometimes!
Tip	"I'll definitely keep that in mind," Tip promised. She probably wouldn't actually do it, though. Tip was independent to a fault. "I know Mom'll feel better, knowing I have someone looking out for me. Thanks."