"Oooooooh snap!"

Crash. Boom. Thud. Clatter. Crang! The sound of a metal platter hitting the floor and rolling around resonated through the mansion's hall.

It had been a silly thing. A simple thing. He'd just been running. He'd just been a yellow blur. And then, suddenly, breasts! He'd lost his train of thought, lost his focus, and lost his balance. Maybe the teachers were right that he shouldn't be running through mansion hallways? Especially with how often his teenage boy mind got distracted. But, nah, forget them. Eff that noise. He'd run when he wanted, where he wanted, and on who he wanted. Which reminded him. He'd knocked over a metal platter and a plastic vase full of flowers. And a girl. He was currently lying on top of the girl in an awkward position only Anime characters did better. Head. On. Chest.

"Whoops! Sorry!" He hastily scooted backwards, onto his backside and palms, cheeks rapidly coloring red. Maybe next time he dashed, he'd be crimson?

"Dammit!!" A voice from down the hall called. His head snapped in its direction. "You just have to blur on by and make messes. Every. Single. Time. Haven't I told you to go slower in the halls before!?"

A lecture. Fantastic. His head swung back to the pretty girl. She looked fine. No broken bones or noses. Some people had multiples of those. Maybe a little stirred and shaken, but none the worse for the wear. He had to get out of here. "Sorry, again!" He proclaimed quickly. "But I gotta dash!"

Up, he stood. Moved his hands into fists in the position of a runner, ran in place for a split second, aaaaand-- He was gone.

Amelia caught up to the spot in the hall where he'd been moments too late. "Dammit," she snapped, swearing for the second time that minute. Her eyes fell to the water puddle spreading from the overturned blue plastic flower vase, the spilled contents of flowers, and the metal platter that had finally ceased its rocking. Then, they hopped to a familiar face. "Sorry about that, Serena. He likes to run. I try to stop him... but 'there's just no stopping the yellow blur'." She air-quotes around the last part of the sentence, as if that was the time-honored refrain. She offered the girl a hand. "Are you alright?"

Serena was just walking along, minding her own business, and then BOOM!

She was on the floor, the tray was across the floor. And she was... pinned down. By a boy. Around her age, who was... Oh no, this was not happening. Nope, it could not be happening.

Serena was not in a semi-crowded area. With people staring. At the boy, face planting her breasts.

He got up, then apologised. "It's... Um, it's fine." Serena, red as the blood she controlled, replied.

Then, in a flash. The boy was gone. The redness in the blonde's face on the other hand, was most certainly not. Her face felt hot, she assumed it was reflecting that feeling visibly.

Amelia greeted Serena and offered her a hand. She took it. "Thanks, Amelia. I'm fine. Although that isn't something that happens to me very often..." she was still incredibly red.

The redness was hard to miss. Like a baboon's posterior in estrus. Boy Wonder in yellow was going to get some talkings-to about what was and was not acceptable mansion behavior, oh yes. She'd seen where he'd chosen to take a nap. Of course, he was used to the talks by now, but still. It was a matter of principle. Serena found her feet as she got hauled up. Amelia let go, once she was steady.

"He's an idiot," she said, as if that answered everything. To further illustrate the point, she added. "Most boys are. I had a 9 year old who grabbed my chest once. I slapped him. Hard. And then later, he gained 20 years and dated a friend. It was weird." So weird. "Not to change the subject or anything," she deftly changed the subject with a point of her finger and a gesture Serena's way. "But I was just looking for you."

Serena smiled awkwardly to Amelia's attempts to try and make her feel better. She was a really nice person. She nodded in response to her comment about boys being stupid. "I've had an incident involving a mischievous boy and a swimming pool too. The mansion seems to spawn some pretty bad ones."

Serena ran a few fingers through her hair and pulled it back slightly, before re positioning her hair pins as she spoke to the other female mutant.

She looked a little suprised to that last comment. "You were looking for me? What's up?" Serena asked with a smile.

She hadn't seen Amelia too much recently, so it was nice to see her, but she was curious to see what reason the other girl was looking for her could be.

Mansion spawn? Gosh, she hoped not. She'd broken up enough kissing sessions in the library to know that nobody wanted that. She nodded in agreement. "Mhm," she said.

It hadn't taken her long to come to her conclusion. The girl was nice, and had the potential to become a pretty good friend. She hadn't seen the girl often, but Serena was someone friendly enough that she figured it'd be fun to spend time with her. And training was one such way Amelia knew to spend time. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in going to a lesson at the dojo I go to. One of the instructors there suggested it, and gave me a coupon for a free lesson. I thought it might be fun."

She smiled. It wasn't every day someone asked if you wanted to go learn martial arts. Amelia wasn't sure what Serena would say.

Serena's face lit up. She had never been invited to something like a training session before, It would be a first. She wondered what kind of dojo it was, she knew some self defense, how to punch, how to not get punched back... And she had quick reflexes, but she had never learned a formal fighting style.

She smiled to Amelia. "I'd love to! I've been meaning to get some more self defense lessons in, I know how to avoid being hit and I know how to throw a punch properly, but that's about it." She admitted.

Serena fidgeted with her fingers a bit. "So what made you pick me to take to your free lesson with you?"she asked.

So, that was a 'yes'! Amelia's smile grew wider. Man, Serena was uber excited about it. Practically bouncing on her toes. Talking about how yes, she knew some kung fu, but could do with a bit more, and how yes, she could throw a punch. Not that anyone actually knew kung fu or anything. Aikido, yes. Kung fu. No.

"You're nice," Amelia answered her question. "And I figured you'd get a kick out of it. I figured right." Plus, she hadn't seen some of her mansion friends in a while. She hadn't seen Becca, or Gina, or Megan. And that was kind of sad. She hadn't seen many of her high school friends, either. A lot of them had picked different colleges. She needed some new friends. Not in a pathetic way, or anything, but, well, you know?

"It's Aikido," she explained what she hadn't. "It's perfect for girls like us, who aren't big burly men. Perfect for tossing big burly men around. Should be fun."

Serena felt a smile spread across her face, and a mild surge of excitement. She hadn't exactly had much luck with her friends as of late. So she was glad to see that Amelia at least liked her enough to try and form a closer friendship with her. So she smiled. And would probably continue to do so, most of that day.

Serena had never learned anything about Aikido, She had heard of it though, more about using the weight and momentum of your opponent against them than making many aggressive motions yourself.

Where had she heard of it? It must have been a topic that had come up with her brother at some point, infact she was fairly sure he had suggested she try it, and she had come up with some excuse about school work because she didn't feel like learning how to hurt people...

Only now did Serena realise how silly that sounded. Self defense was in no way about hurting people.

"Well thank you, I think it sounds like it could be a ton of fun. I think my older brother actually suggested that I try it out a while back." She added, with a smile.

A nod made her head bob. "It is. Super fun. And maybe you'll get to meet one of the instructors I know. She's super cool," Amelia thought about Quin. Maybe she'd be on-duty? Maybe not. It'd be fun if Serena could get introduced to her. Was always fun introducing friends to friends. "Do you need to get anything before we take the subway? Coat? Purse?"

She herself needed to go grab her jacket from the greeter office. It was getting colder lately, as October was wont to do. "Tell you what," she interrupted, before Serena had a chance to reply to her previous question. "I'll meet you at the front of the mansion in ten. I've got to get my coat. You can go get anything you think you'll need." They both agreed.

Eleven minutes later, Amelia stood, hands in the pockets of her black leather jacket, collar turned up against the cold. Her scarf trailed over one shoulder, powder blue.

Serena simply nodded to Amelia and dashed back to her room, grabbing herself her coat and her purse. Just in case. She wrapped her red coat around herself, and then also a scarf of a matching colour around her neck. She then slipped a pair of gloves on.

Thankful for the warmth, Serena walked outside, taking slightly longer than intended to get the the front of the mansion than intended... No more than a minute or two though, so it would be fine.

She smiled as she walked up beside Amelia. "That's a nice scarf." Serena commented warmly.

She then turned to Amelia "So... where exactly are we going?" She asked, with a smile.

"Thanks," Amelia smiled. She liked her scarf a lot.

"The place is called Joe Dough's Dojo," she replied. She rattled off the address by memory, then glanced around. The easiest way to the place would be by subway. It didn't look like they had any flying mutants, transforming car people, or friendly speedsters to carry them to the station, so it seemed they'd have to walk. "Follow me," she said, and started walking.

It didn't take them too long to get to a bus stop. From there, it was just waiting for the bus, and taking it to the subway station. Amelia made small talk as they sat on the bus.

"So, what have you been up to?" She asked, as the bus rattled along.

Serena smiled slightly at the name. She had always found it a little funny how stores and businesses had this tendency to give their stores rhyming names and the such. She guessed it must have been to attract people due to them more, although Serena wasn't entirely sure how much amusing names would serve to bring in more customers.

But then again, maybe it was just part of the charm of owning a business, you got to name it whatever silly kind of thing you wanted to.

As they sat down on the bus, Amelia started to make some small talk. Serena turned to her and gave a sigh. "Unfortunately, not very much as of late. I've dealt with a few things around the mansion. But the last couple of months haven't been to great." Another sigh. "On the bright side though, I am trying to get out more and I have gotten a lot of reading done." She added with a smile.

"So what about you? What have you been up to recently, Amelia?" she inquired.

The words 'oh, the usual' sprang to mind, but she decided to illuminate on that because not everyone read minds. "I've been taking some college classes, and trying to figure out what major I want to take. I've been bobbling between a few different ideas. Nursing school might be cool, but so could something like law enforcement... it also might be interesting trying out volunteering at a fire station. Way too many choices, and not enough time to try them all. What with helping out at the mansion library, and being a greeter, and all of that. I've been swamped."

Maybe it was silly that she had laid out so many options for herself. That list of possibilities would probably overwhelm Serena. It overwhelmed her. She was certain that was the natural human or mutant reaction to such things. Perhaps she was using her time to make up for the fact that she really didn't have much of a social life, outside of friends? Who knew. No boyfriend. No girlfriend. Just a few school friends and people she knew. And bothering her brother could only entertain her so much before it became annoying and invasive. He deserved some privacy. Especially since he was in a relationship now, and not subject to her hookup attempts. So many disappointed ladies existed in New York, due to that fact.

Serena smiled at Amelia. She WISHED she had been as Busy as the other girl had just described herself. Well, Serena's grades where looking hopeful as usual, so she could apply to pretty much anywhere,within reason, that she desired. NYU was the obvious choice, she knew the city and had an apartment ready, so she could just get a job to help out and dig into her trust fund.

As to what she would do, Serena had absolutely no clue. Well, she had a few different ideas about what she could do. "That sounds really cool! I'm going to be needing to apply to university, or College. Whatever you want to call it. Soon." Serena wondered how much support the mansion had for students applying to courses...

She also recalled several confusing conversations with her older brother as he referred to them as universities and all her friends and their parents had referred to them as colleges.

"Fun stuff," Amelia said. Even though it really wasn't. Although, it was exciting. "I could probably help you figure some things out, if you needed it. I've got a bit more experience with that than you," 'having done it already', she mentally finished.

The bus rattled on as they talked, taking another turn. They were nearly to the subway station.

"You'll probably want financial aide, if you aren't planning to go in debt from student loans (and I wouldn't get one, in this economy). And there are scholarships for everything, if you know where to look." Scholarship talk was probably more interesting than 'should I be a vet? No wait, maybe secret service! CIA? FBI? NYPD, or maybe a fire fighter, EMT, nurse... or shampoo girl at Petco.' Sometimes, she felt like if she went and did everything, she'd be such a Mary Sue.