Welcome!

[Aaron Phoenix]

<sup>The Staff Room.

One of the only places where students were not allowed on the grounds. Sure they weren't allowed unaccompined in the sub-levels but at least they got down there from time to time. Here however it was a student free zone. A little thing Aaron was very thankful for. He didn't mind teaching but sometimes the students became head wrecking. But he couldn't complain that much, he had been exactly the same when he was a student.

Aaron was lying back on an armchair looking at television. It was the same old stories day after day. More violence, road deaths etc. It rarely changed. Of course it wouldn't. The news never showed anything remotely good and why would they? Bad news sold. They mixed the saying "no news is good news" up. It was meant to say "good news is no news."

At least that was how Aaron always saw it.

It was late enough in the day and most of the classes were now over. The fact was verified by several coloured lightshows outside the window. Most likely caused by overactive students who were just free of class. He hoped they wouldn't break anything, he was content enough where he was. But most of the time anything he hoped for didn't go his way. The Powers That Be didn't seem to like him that much.

He hoped someone else would turn up. If he had to here one more story about death on hte television he'd probably end up blowing it up. Which, whatever way you looked at it, ended badly.</sup>

[Kaylee Howlett]

After dismissing her last class, Kay put the playbills they had been reading from away and decided to hit the staff room. Her pounded head needed some peace and quiet for a little and the staff room was free of loud screaming kids. And of course walking through the halls and having groups of kids rush past squeeling at the tops of their lungs half the time wasn't helping her head. Each time she saw a child run past, the woman braced herself for the high pitched scream that was to come.

Making it through the chaos of kids out of classes for the day, Kaylee pushed the door open with her mind and closed it with her mind as well. Her hands were preoccupied with rubbing her temples in hopes of getting the pain to go away. Once she was in the room, Kay let out a sigh and began to let her body relax. She didn't realize there was someone else in the room until she opened her eyes and sat down on the couch. Giving Aaron a quick wave, Kaylee leaned backwards and had a cup of coffee float towards her. "My addiction is kicking in, so don't be alarmed if I start randomly talking about weird things." she said giving Aaron a quick smile before taking a long sip of her coffee.

Moving her gaze from her cup to the tv, Kay hated seeing the news these days. It was always the same thing and always worse than the last thing. Why couldn't people just say 'Hey same thing as yesterday happened today blah blah blah and now to the weather' or something that had nothing to do with mutants being 'put down' or arrested. Seeing people of her own kind, if one could call being a mutant something like that, was hard knowing that it was really happening. Humans were really hating mutants more each day and it was all because of the stupid news. With a glare on her face, Kay mentally pushed the power button and watched the image fade away from the screen. "Please don't tell me you were watching that because then you're just sick. Besides its the same thing day after day after day and its rightly annoying." Kaylee mumbled taking another sip of her coffee.

[Aaron Phoenix]

<sup>Aaron heard the door swing open and peered around the back of the armchair to see Kaylee walking into the staff room with her eyes closed. It's a wonder she doesn't hit into anything. Although I guess she must be used to doing this by now. He mused. His eyes followed her across the room and stayed on her as she moved towards him. She didn't seem to notice him.

Or if she did she was hiding it well.

As she finally did acknowledge his presence he simply nodded in reply, turning his attention back t othe news which evidently was now onto the weather. And Kaylee seemed to have her own opinion on his choice of progamme.

"Yes, I was watching it, but I wouldn't qualify myself as sick. It may be the same most days but there is always the chance that something might come up that might affect us. More than it already has." He finished bitterly. His thoughts were on the act. He had avoided being registered in the act but it had sent him running for a lot of his adolesence until he ended up here. He knew nothing apart from a mutant holocaust would be as far reaching as the act was but it was always better to be ready then being totally unaware of what might happen.

Wasn't it?</sup>

[Kaylee Howlett]

Hearing his reply, Kay could only glare at him. How could he sit there and act so calm while watching people report how many mutants had been killed or captured to be killed? She hated knowing that humans acted that way towards mutants and that they couldn't get along anymore. Though she knew that might never happen because there had to be some people out there that thought mutants were a danger to the community and blah blah blah. In her opinion it was the humans....no she wouldn't think like that, those were thoughts of a member for the Brotherhood and she wasn't that. She was an X-Men and fought to keep the peace between humans and mutants.

"Well if you want, turn it back on but let me know first so I can get out. Even if they do something new its probably going to be along the same lines. That's all people cared to hear about is how dangerous we are and that we should be destroyed. They don't seem to understand that its not our fault we're the way we are." she said trying to keep her anger under control. She knew if she let it get out of hand a few things might accidently break. And as soon as she thought that the coffee pot exploded and the woman only grimaced at what she had done. "Crap." she muttered turning her head to stare out the window.

[Aaron Phoenix]

<sup>And now she was glaring at him. Brillant. He had half a mind to just glare back at her just to annoy her but he felt he was slightly above that.

But just slightly.

Aaron didn't hide what he thought about issues regarding them. He would despise not voicing opinons more so than indifference. Indifference would be bad but not unbearable. At least then he would know he had nothing else to say.

"Kaylee," he began pronouncing her whole name instead of just Kay. She had an awful lot to say for a person who only had their powers for a few months. "I don't like hearing this anymore than you do but I want to hear so that I can be sure that nothing bad will happen. I don't want anything bad to happen here again as I'm sure netiher do you." He knew she would agree with that after what she had lost. "You shouldn't block out all the bad things in the world, Kaylee, otherwise when they finally do something new you'll feel resposible when you know you could have stopped it."

He was waiting for her reply when he heard something explode. He turned around to see the coffee pot in smitherens on the ground. "If that what happens to you on caffine then stay off the thing, girl. I don't want to find out what else you can blow up." Which was not totally true, he always wondered how strong the others were but never really said anything about it.</sup>

[Kaylee Howlett]

"I don't like hearing this anymore than you do but I want to hear so that I can be sure that nothing bad will happen. I don't want anything bad to happen here again as I'm sure netiher do you."

She knew he was right and knew that she had to keep her emotions in check. Watching th news may be hard but it was something she would have to grow used to. Especially if she wanted to help keep peace in the world and with humans. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Its just watching it is so hard because not only are they showing mutants being hurt but I lost someone because of those....monsters." Kaylee said setting her coffee cup on the coffee table in front of her. She was pretty sure she didn't need any more caffine in her because classes were over and half the time she only drank the stuff to keep her up with the rest of the kids in her class.

It was just hard for her to watch those kind of things and not able to help them at times. If she had some sort of a teleportation ability, Kay would teleport to every mutant in need and do what she could to help them. Unfortunatly she didn't have that kind of power and all she could do was weep along with a few others that cried when seeing what half the things the goverment allowed to be shown on the news. Kay wished she could make those people sit and watch what they were putting on tv and then show them how mutants felt about seeing their own kind get hurt like that. It was like something from old history books, when slavery was a bad thing or something. But Kaylee knew this was worse than those historical facts in the world.

"If that what happens to you on caffine then stay off the thing, girl. I don't want to find out what else you can blow up."

With a half smile on her face, Kaylee let out a sigh as she turned to stare at the shattered coffee pot. "Sadly no that is not a result of coffee, that is a result of out of control emotions. The draw back for being a telekenetic and related to a mutant who was considered Omega leveled at that." she said trying not to think of how hard it was growing up with her emotions getting the better of her. There had been so many unexplained accidents around the orphange when she let her anger get out of hand or got scared in the middle of the night. And now it was just harder with everything going on.

[Aaron Phoenix]

<sup>"You're not the only one." Aaron murmured to himself. He had only lost one person to them but he was sure it was far worse for him. Was it? A voice in his mind asked. He wasn't sure. She had never known them but he had known who he had lost, who he had been in love with and who had died in his arms.

He thought he had it worse but he wasn't entirely sure.

Aaron thought she was impatient here. She didn't seem like the kind of person who was furious being trained when so many others were in trouble who needed help.

He never thought like that.

He knew that people needed their help of course but he didn't think that running about showing off their powers would help. People feared and hated them and if a mutant turned up anywhere trying to help another bad things would happen.

And that was him speaking from experience.

He forgot she was Omega level. Whatever it really meant. He didn't know what level he was and he was happy with not knowing. He knew that he could do a lot of things with his powers include melt most metals but he wasn't sure he was a powerful as Kaylee. Which is why he wanted to stay on her good side.

"So how was your day?" Aaron asked keeping up the conversation.</sup>