Kaitlyn thought that “Charlie” was an unfortunate name for a girl who was so visibly mutated. People tended to assume that the 14-year-old girl was actually a 14-year-old boy. She was a shapeshifter, but her natural form was a pale, featureless, human-shaped blob, and she wasn’t good enough at the shape-shifting thing yet to make herself look like a human girl.

She was also one of very few girls near Kaitlyn’s age who lived in the Sanctuary, as of last week. A friend from the Mansion was kind enough to let Charlie join them at a birthday party. Now they were walking home from that party.

It was late, there weren't a lot of people around and they were in a bad neighborhood, but Kaitlyn still felt safe there. She knew that the graffiti around them was from Order-controlled gangs. Even though Kaitlyn wasn’t about to pull rank on any thugs in front of the newly-disowned-by-her-family Sanctuary resident, the graffiti was a good sign.

The two were having a great conversation about the party, until:

“Ow!” A glass bottle bounced off the back of her head, shattering as it hit the sidewalk. A group of older teenagers behind them burst out laughing.

“Get out of here, freak!” one of them shouted. And Charlie was getting ready to do just that. Kaitlyn, on the other hand, had just decided that these idiots were about to have a very bad day. She stopped. Turned around. Gave them a death glare.

There were seven or eight of the teens in all. The three biggest idiots at the front seemed to be the most amused, and most capable of beating up people smaller than them. They were each several heads taller than Kaitlyn, and her death glare was only making them more amused. “I think she’s mad,” one of them chuckled.

“Do any of you geniuses know what the word ‘quadriplegic’ means?” her voice was full of cold fury. If Charlie had eyes, they would be widening about now.

“Of course I do,” one of them lied. “I’m not stupid.”

Charlie put her hand on Kaitlyn’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The redhead shrugged off her hand and stepped closer. “Good. Then you know what you’re gonna spend the rest of your stupid lives as if you don’t leave us alone.”

Two of them thought she was threatening to turn them into some kind of small, unpleasant-looking animal. One of them, a boy near the back who wasn’t as physically imposing, picked up a discarded beer can and lobbed it. It bounced off Charlie’s shoulder.

Kaitlyn lunged forward. If her mutation went off like it was supposed to,  she wouldn’t have landed flat on her face.

The teens laughed aloud. The alpha idiots were closing in. It took Kaitlyn two seconds to realize that somebody nearby was an adapted. Nobody knew if Charlie would survive an adapted’s field.

She scrambled to her feet. “Charlie, run!”

She had been going by Cassandra this evening. By this point she felt it was as much a part of her as Sylvia was. It was her name, Sylvia was something in her past, with no ties left except one. Her sister. Who she had just been fighting with earlier that day...

She had gone straight to a bar... at 12pm... She had sat with a glass of whisky for several hours and mulled over what her sister had said. She didn't like it that she was a mercenary she didn't even particularly care that Cassandra had been working for mutants, or about humans.

She had been worried that her little sister would get hurt. After mulling this over Cassandra got up and left the bar. She was wearing a simple Green skirt and Red top. She walked through the streets, planning on going back to her apartment to see if any of her contacts had any leads on this 'Order' organisation which seemed to be a complete and utter shadow. 

That is, until she saw a group of teenagers bullying a bunch of mutants. She saw beer cans being thrown at a mutant with a visible mutation and someone else, who she also assumed was a mutant, facing off with them. She began picking up pace.

As the red head screamed something at her friend Cass broke into a run towards the group. She was so sick of mutant oppression.

Charlie wasn’t really getting with the program. She didn’t know about any of the things Kaitlyn was worried about, didn’t know that her life could have been at risk. All she knew was that Kaitlyn was smaller than her and younger than her, and she wasn’t about to leave her behind. And she had the distinct impression that she would be doing this if she ran, because Kaitlyn was standing her ground.

Charlie didn’t leave.

The jerks found this incredibly amusing. “He’s gonna let his girlfriend fight us,” one of them said. The blob-girl cringed.

As they advanced, Kaitlyn fell into a fighting stance, palms facing the teens. This could have been misinterpreted as an “I don’t want any trouble” stance, but this was quickly proven not to be the case when one of them tried to push her out of the way. She caught the boy’s hand.

“Hey! Sto—“ Crack. “OW!”

Her victim threw a left hook at her face. She stumbled from the impact, tried to regain her balance, fell off the sidewalk and onto the road.

His buddies were shocked. “Travis! Dude! She’s, like, twelve!”

“Little freak broke my finger!” he showed them his now unnaturally-bent pinky.

From her spot on the ground, Kaitlyn saw two women charging at the teens from behind. She could also see two right hands with broken pinkies. This probably wasn’t a good sign.

Cassandra picked up pace even more as the little girl lashed out and was then bashed to the ground. She immediately activated her mutation, only to find that it would work on the man that had lashed out. Nothing happened to the man. 

In all of her years using her mutation, Cassandra has only experienced this twice. The boy was an adapted. She would have to determine how wide his field was and to keep him back, or target his friends. Cassandra was striding towards them.

She wasn't wearing particularly intimidating clothing. She didn't look particularly frightening. That is, until she got close to them. She had a cold, angry aura around her. The man saw her the second her final stride brought her face to face with him. "Back.Off." she said coldly as she pushed him back.

The man stumbled into his friends. Cassandra felt her ability returning. Good, his field was small. She bent down and smiled to the small red head, she moved some of the hair out of her face and behind her ear. She activated her mutation, suspecting the girl was at least a little hurt from hitting the ground as hard as she did.

Cassandra's eyes took on a deep green glow. She felt a familiar coldness spreading through her, only a small amount of it though. She hoped it would bring down any pain the little girl was feeling. She smiled and offered a hand to help the girl up. "Hey, are you ok?"  

She heard mumbling from the people who had attacked the girls. She spun around and glared at them, with deep green glow. "Got a problem with mutants do you?" The men seemed to be hesitating.

The broken finger changed the game. Travis and his friends weren’t actually going to hurt that girl, just scare her off, make her and her blobby friend feel unwelcome. But she wasn’t going to get away with breaking his finger, if he had anything to say about it.

The adult newcomer changed it again. None of Travis’s friends wanted to mess with this woman, who might actually cause trouble for them. If they messed around with blob-boy and his girlfriend, that was just dumb kids roughhousing. Messing with this woman could involve a 911 call and a policeman who would nab the whole group for their underage drinking.

“This isn’t funny anymore,” slurred one of the group’s two female members. “Lets go.”

The newcomer helped the little girl to her feet. It took all the girl’s concentration just to keep her balance.

“Hey, lady, it’s not what it looks like,” said one of the alpha-jerks, grinning, trying to be smooth. “We were just playing around with ‘em.”

“Let’s go,” muttered someone behind him. They all turned around to do just that. Travis was certain to give them all an angry glare on the way out.

In the process, he noticed that the little redhead was flipping the bird at him, the gesture perched by her hip where the adult couldn't see it.

Cassandra was relieved when they began to back off. She didn't really want to hurt the boys, even if they were arrogant, pathetic humans. They still were just kids. Well, the adapted looked a little older than some of the others and they were all drinking. 

But when the little girl flipped the adapted off, he growled and began running for her, with a bottle. They were all drunk, and it must have seemed like a good idea to him at the time. It wouldn't later. 

Cassandra, who hadn't seen the little girl give him a gesture, saw the man running for the little girl with venom in his eyes. She reacted fast, pushing the little girl out of harms way and easily dropping into a stance. He had no time to react.

Cassandra caught his arm, flicked her leg through his, putting him off balance and forcing him to the ground. His face hit the floor, not too hard, but enough to make him groan. She pulled his arm behind his back, pinning him down in a hold. 

His friends seemed a little too shocked to do anything, they were scared of the woman who had just effortlessly taken down their friend with her bare hands. She leaned on him and said with a cold, flat tone. "Stop whining, you don't know what pain is. If you were not an adapted, you and your racist buddies would be writhing on the floor from my mutation while I called the cops about your underage drinking..."  

The boy's eyes widened. He hadn't suspected another mutant. Especially one this... strong. He was terrified. "As it is... I'm feeling generous, so I'll let you go," She threw him into his friends arms. 

"Now get going before you actually make me angry." she said coldy.

Pushed out of the way, Kaitlyn almost fell over again. Luckily, Charlie was there to catch her. She leaned on the featureless, blobby mutant and watched as this stranger handled the whole situation for them.

Once the drunk high school kids had gotten farther away, Charlie started to mumble something to Kaitlyn. “If they didn’t have that adapted with them, would you have—?”

“That was awesome!” Kaitlyn exclaimed, staring at their savior, not even aware that Charlie was talking. The way she handled that – the hand-to-hand combat, the calmly-delivered threats, the revelation that she was actually a mutant – it was like some kind of action hero from a TV series just popped out of nowhere and saved the day.

Meanwhile, Charlie didn’t know how to feel. Those people might have killed her. Kaitlyn could have killed them! Tiny waves rippled under Charlie’s featureless face. This only happened when she was upset.

Cassandra smiled as the boys left. He would go home to nurse his broken finger, and if his parents had any common sense what so ever, they would punish him severely for going out and getting drunk. That is, if they weren't both bad and awful parents.

Cassandra turned to the pair. And she crouched down slightly, so she was closer to eye level with them and smiled. "Hey... Sorry if I scared you, I had to be stern to get rid of those punks. Are you two okay? Are either of you hurt?" she asked with a warm and friendly smile on her face. 

Just because Cassandra was angry and cold in the face of Anti-mutant racism, didn't mean she was like that all the time. She was generally pretty friendly, especially to mutants, even more especially to kids.

“I’m okay,” Charlie said, "Thanks to you." The way her mutation worked, those bottles they threw at her wouldn’t even leave bruises. She wasn't so sure about what the bigger kids would have done to her.

“You prolly scared the punks away,” Kaitlyn smirked at the identical pair of brunettes crouching in front of her, “But I thought you were awesome.” The little redhead was convinced that she was looking directly at one of the two women. She was actually staring off into empty space.

...Maybe she ought to reconsider how well she was doing. “Uh… is it a bad thing that I can see two of you?”

Cassandra gave a small frown of worry when the little red head asked if it was a bad thing to be seeing double... She looked the girl over, to see if there was anything visibly wrong.

It didn't look like there were any obvious injuries, of course in Cassandra's experiance, that didn't mean that there was nothing there. She leaned in slightly closer to inspect the girl. "It doesn't look like there is anything wrong, but that doesn't mean anything is... Could be a concussion. Are you in any pain?" she asked... Ironically.

She looked her over, and then quickly checked her friend. Who the boys had called her boyfriend. However she seemed to have fairly feminine body language and posture in general, and she did have a physical mutation.

There was the distinct possiblity that it was actually a girl, who had been mistaken for a boy due to drunk, arrogant teenage boys. On the other hand, it might just be a boy who happens to be rather feminine.

Cassandra gave the girl a worried look. "If you're feeling any pain at all, let me know. I can make it a little better. she smiled.

“I have kind of a headache,” Kaitlyn said to the empty air next to the woman’s head. She was going to ask the stranger about how her mutation worked, how she could use the same power to make those idiots writhe in pain or make a headache hurt less. But Charlie interrupted her train of thought:

“Kaitlyn, were you really gonna turn them all into quadriplegics? If the adapted kid wasn’t there?” the blob-girl sounded worried.

The redhead shrugged. “I dunno if they’d get it that bad. But they’d still need an ambulance.” She spoke so casually about hospitalizing people that it almost made Charlie shiver.

Cassandra observed the two of them carefully. She smiled to the young red headed girl. The girl had seemed pretty confident and also pretty cocky. That had ended badly for her. She looked the girl in the eyes and her own eyes began to glow a deep green colour. She felt a familiar sensation of numbness begin to climb her arm, as she lowered the pain level of the girl.

While Cassandra felt a sensation similair to small amounts of anesthetic on her arm, the girl should simply feel her level of pain lower to the point where it would not bother her. "There, that should feel a little bit better." Cassandra said with an infinitly gentler tone than she had used earlier while intimidating the teenagers.

She looked them both over. "Take it from me kid, never provoke or encourage someone you can't take bare handed or get away from." she said flatly.

Then she turned to look at the blob girl, who was shifting about uncomfortably. "I'm Cassandra. You can call me Cass," she added with a smile. "If you two tell me where you live, I can walk you home and make sure you are okay." she said firmly, but warmly.

The headache disappeared. “Thanks,” muttered the redhead.

Kaitlyn’s reaction to that advice would have been less than grateful, if she wasn’t too dazed to make some kind of comeback. It was good advice, certainly, for people who didn’t know that they were dealing with regular humans. And those morons were letting out so much mutant hate that they probably weren’t mutants themselves. And since adapteds were so rare, Kaitlyn was sure that…

“Good advice,” Charlie nodded gravely. In the next few minutes, Kaitlyn would come to agree with her. Until then, she would be too frustrated with herself to admit it.

“I’m Charlie,” said the androgynous blob. Her voice wasn’t quite high enough to make it clear that she was female.

“And I’m Kaitlyn. People call me Kait sometimes. We live in the Sanctuary, but you don’t have to follow us all the way there if you have stuff to do.”

A Smile reached Cassandra's face as the one teen agreed with her, They both introduced themselves, Charlie and Kaitlyn. "It's a pleasure to meat you, Charlie, Kaitlyn." Cassandra said with a warm tone. She wondered what drove such animals, the teens from earlier, to drink underage and then attack mutants for no reason other than hatred, it made her want to purge some of them...

No, she was getting ahead of herself and too angry, that trail of though, ended.

Cass smiled again. She had heard of sanctuary before, a safe haven, for all mutants, no matter what they had done, she wondered if the stories were true and also if anyone there might have any information on her item of obsession... The order.

"It's no trouble, I've heard of Sanctuary before, but I've never actually visited it personally, I would like to see it for myself and possibly ask around, in addition to the fact that I would feel better knowing you two had gotten home safely." the way Cassandra spoke of it, she made it sound like it was the most rational option for all parties, which really, it was.

If Cass didn’t also want to see the Sanctuary, Kaitlyn would be a little upset that she was going to follow along and make sure they were safe. The underlying assumption there would be that Kaitlyn couldn’t keep herself or her friend safe, that she needed more protection than what she could offer herself, which would have wounded her pride.

“It’s a pretty cool place,” Kaitlyn told her. “I could show you around if you want.”

“Kaitlyn,” Charlie said, “She’d probably want someone who doesn’t have a concussion to give her the tour.”

Kaitlyn answered this with several moments of confused silence. Then, she smirked. “But the concussion would make it more fun.” She knew that she probably needed to see the infirmary instead.

While leaning on Charlie for support, Kaitlyn tugged her several steps down the sidewalk. “This way,” she announced abruptly.