PSL for Hannibal, post-concert

[electro_kinetic]

"Not that I mind a field trip, but how exactly did you talk the Professor into me staying in your house?"

She was still wearing her concert attire, leaning against the doorjamb of Hannibal's house. Helpfully, she had clothes with her, though how well they measured up to what she wore at a semi-formal event was anyone's guess. She was a reasonably polite guest thus far, short of this hesitation: nothing had yet mandated she get mouthy or violent.

"Should I take off my heels or do you not hold to that tradition?" She knew enough of her therapist by now to know he had connections to Japan and the culture, but how far those extended was unknown.

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[il_mostro]

"Well there you have it. We both have more common sense." He took another bite, still smiling. "Which makes us smarter than most."

[electro_kinetic]

"Intelligence only counts for so much, though," she says, and in the middle of chewing the lights quite suddenly die: it's not the fuse this time, it's Noriko. The lightbulbs stay off, but there's a little ball of light dancing at the end of her fingertips, about the size and intensity of the incandescents.

"Sometimes practical experience helps."

Ever seen ball lightning up close, Dr. Lecter?

[il_mostro]

Hannibal's chopsticks paused, as he looked around the house, and then back at the young lady's fingertips. His answer, when it was returned, was absolutely dry.

"I suppose it does. Although now I wonder if this means I should be complimenting you more often, and in a faintly inappropriate way."

If she was going to shut off his lights regardless, and all. The lightening ball was fascinating, though.

[electro_kinetic]

Her mouth twitches, amused, as the light is released and floats for a moment before fizzling, and the lightbulbs come back on just as they were before.

"I don't know if you should be. That's up to you," she says. "I won't say no, but I'm also not gonna hurt your lights. That's just redirecting the energy."

[il_mostro]

"Then I am very impressed. I thought it would take a great deal more effort for that sort of thing. Now you tell me it is as easy as breathing. You must enjoy your powers a great deal, to perfect them to this degree." Hannibal stated, giving her a long, thoughtful look.

[electro_kinetic]

"Electricity is predictable," she explains, lifting a shoulder. "It will always take the path of least resistance, through whatever material that happens to be. In most cases, with very little change, that path is through me: once I have it it's easy to manipulate. It's like a language. Once you learn the sounds, putting them together is a piece of cake."

"I enjoy most of what electrokinesis gives me. There are some side-effects that suck."

[il_mostro]

"It is more predictable than human behavior, I will grant you." He paused, then smiled at the analogy. "That rather sounds like music, when you put it that way. What are the side-effects of which you speak?
"

[electro_kinetic]

"Electricity is misunderstood. People think it's this wild, angry, uncontrollable force and they're mostly wrong. It's powerful, because it doesn't bend to any other force exerted on the earth. It defies gravity and temperature, and it has no constraint from human society. Nothing we do is strong enough to completely withstand and stop lightning; it only redirects it." And even then not all the time. But she likes the unpredictability of it, and the thrumming, almost pulse-like feel of the planet's electromagnetic field.

"It's very much like a song, really. It...if you can hear it, the earth hums. Electromagnetic current hums. Like a fluorescent tube." Not many peole hear those, either.

As to the side-effects, Noriko is less enthusiastic about sharing them. "If I'm not careful, my brain can start firing faster than the rest of me can keep up. And I always have energy--constantly. You know Restless Legs Syndrome? That to what happens to me sometimes is like a water drop, compared to an ocean." It's not a forgettable sight. "Thankfully the gauntlets and a lot of exercise usually keep me in check."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal listened to all of this intently - wondering how if someone could so easily manipulate the direction of lightening, a force she herself stated was unpredictable ...

How could such a person feel so very lost? Or at least, feel like she had no choices? Perhaps it was too much power, too much responsibility, and she felt overwhelmed. He would have to dig deeper before he came up with a solid hypothesis. Until then, he took another bite of his food and spoke once more. Keeping his tone light but the subject focused on her.

"So in a way, you are a living conduit of what lightening is. You both physically and emotionally copy it, whether you are aware of it or not."

[electro_kinetic]

"Physically, I function as both conduit--no resistance, which is why it doesn't hurt me to channel that amount of current--and capacitor. Capacitors have enough resistance through multiple gates that it seems like the current merely empties into it, before it all unloads. In reality, it's building and building until it overwhelms the resistance," she says, conversational and calm still though she tends to talk with her hands for illustration.

"I don't know about emotionally. It's hard to put an emotion to electricity, because while the visible effects don't last long, the current itself never stops. It's like water, it's always there. Just might take different forms."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal leaned back, mostly to avoid any sparks that might fly from Noriko's hands. Considering quietly what he could do here, and what he should do here. Noriko was far, far too dangerous to take out on her own. Ergo, he could never show his hand to her, not once. She could easily incapacitate him with a wave of one delicate hand.

"I see ... so really, all you control is the switch?"

[electro_kinetic]

"I won't shock you for no reason, Doctor Lecter," she says, watching him lean back. "It does take effort and conscious thought under normal circumstances."

She shrugs. "In a manner of speaking. I control the switch, and I can control the form the energy takes--sometimes it's electrical output, sometimes it's speed." Mostly, if she can manage, it's slowly bleeding out into the surroundings. That's harder to reliably do.

[il_mostro]

He looks at her more intently, before smiling. "I never thought you would, Noriko. Although I am concerned about your phrasing. You sound like you control your gifts ... but only up to a certain point. Do they tend to overflow?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Not often," she says. "But at a certain point, I can't control the current I've built up, especially if there's more energy than I have the capacity to redirect, or if I'm overloaded already. That happens less often now than it did before rehab."

[il_mostro]

Dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully, before he took another bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Followed it with another sip of wine, before he spoke, "Do you feel yourself a danger to the others around you, if you lose control? If you ... say, take a fall mentally? Could you possibly hurt someone then, or is it purely physical reaction?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Take a fall mentally?" she repeated, laying her chopsticks down carefully. "What exactly are you asking me, Doctor Lecter? If I'm a danger to people?"

[il_mostro]

"No. I am asking if you feel like you could slip up and hurt people." Hannibal stated smoothly, "That is an entirely different ... what is the phrase? Kettle of fish."

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko sighed. "There has been one occasion, yes. I was injected with a bioloical weapon that affect only mutants. It overloads our powers and kills us in relatively short order, but I was lucky. You remember that incident at the UN building about eighteen months ago?" she asked. That incident, if Hannibal remembers, was that the building imploded, killing more than a dozen people and injuring hundreds with the blast.

That was her. And a telekinetic who redirected the massive blast of concussive force. "Without an outside force acting on me, no, I don't feel like I could slip up."

[il_mostro]

Hannibal listened intently, while he quietly filled up her plate. Listening to her tale with some measure of interest, and a desire to do more search. "So only if someone else took the control away from you. Did Professor Xavier run through mechanisms that will help with focusing you?"
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