The library was peaceful and quiet. It had that booky smell to it--old glue on old bindings set on shelves with old dust on top. It didn't look as well used as the rec room he'd passed. It had a sort of stillness about it. If someone told him that no one had set foot in this place for two years, he would have believed them.

The receptionist helped him get set up in one of the little conference rooms tucked into an even more desolate corner of the already deserted space. She got his computer hooked up to the building's wifi, helped him check that his webcam was working by sitting patiently in the arm chair across from him while he adjusted the lighting settings. She talked, very pleasantly, as he calibrated the microphone.

Her name was Lisa, and he didn't know what her mutant power was--couldn't even tell if she was a mutant--but she was scary. 

"--as you understand, discretion helps us to keep all our residents safe. You will be discrete regarding the location of this filming, of course."

"Of course," Jiri agreed, in the same way he'd have backed away slowly from a tiger. "This is a nice, ah, generic setting. Could be any library conference room ever. I'll filter out any questions about where she lives. Scouts honor." He smiled extremely wide.

She smiled back, in matching degree. "We do appreciate you helping to paint one of our more controversial residents in a more human light. It's so very easy for things to get blown out of proportion, for the media to run wild. It's easy for young people like yourself to get backed into a corner, and have no choice in their actions. Like what happened to your roommate at the Mansion--Alex Maurell, is it?"

He hadn't mentioned his roommate. Or where he lived. He was pretty sure that was a threat: he was less sure of whether she was even trying to hide it.

Everything she said was so very, very pleasant. She had been nice from the moment he'd walked in, helpful, she'd anticipated things he'd need and had them ready before he'd even known he'd need them. He almost thought he was reading too much into it. He was already nervous about the upcoming interview--maybe his mind was just running wild, making everyone in this place out to be some kind of villain. Most of the people he'd seen so far had looked normal. Well, by mutant standards, but the point was if they'd been walking in the Mansion he wouldn't have wondered if they had a body count. Like she said, maybe even if they did, there was a reason for it, like with Alex--

Her smile widened fractionally. "I'm sure this interview will paint Ms. Whilver in a very positive light."

No yeah he was not imagining it.

"I am growing more and more sure of that, myself," he agreed. "Umm. I think I'm done with set up, and I've got some starter questions ready. We can start the live chat any time. I'll, ah, be reading the most upvoted questions from the chat, and she can answer them. If she wants." The receptionist was still looking at him, like he'd missed a signature on line three. "...I'll read the most discrete and positive upvoted questions?"

"I'll send Ms. Whilver down."

That smile. Maybe that smile was her power. He was glad he didn't sleep anymore, because he knew he'd have seen it in his nightmares.

This was not a good idea. No one really knew he was here, even, and he was starting to suspect that the overly efficient secretary knew that. When the Mansion's guidance counselor had okay'ed his idea for more interviews, he knew she'd been thinking of benign talks: Mansion staff, X-Men, maybe some local mutant business leaders if he could convince them that talking to a high schooler was good PR. 

He did not think she'd have okay'ed it if she'd known he had the Sanctuary in mind, as well.

This was for Alex, he reminded himself. The only mutant friend he really had at Xavier's. It wasn't enough to get all the good guys on tape. People liked that, sure, like they liked videos of puppies doing puppy things. But the stuff that really drew attention? The things that would make Alex's murder in self-defense seem inconsequential in scale? The good guys couldn't provide that.

He'd put up a flier in the Sanctuary, asking for any mutants who were wanted for crimes, anyone who would like to get their side of the story on the record. A no pressure interview by a fellow mutant (...and the internet). He didn't know who he'd expected to reply. A few small-time people like Alex?

Aura. Or, as the receptionist preferred: Ms. Rena Whilver. Aura the cop killer, Aura the furniture maker, Aura the Alex-better-appreciate-this-or-at-least-say-something-nice-at-his-funeral.

Maybe he was thinking about this all wrong. Maybe she really was an innocent, forced into a corner, someone who knew a lawyer couldn't help her so she'd taken matters in her own hands. She wasn't that old--barely even legal to drink. Most of her worst crimes, the ones that had made her a talking piece in New York news, were from when she was younger. Maybe she was just an Alex, if Alex had run instead of facing court. Yeah. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

Lisa smiled again on her way out. 

Jiri sat behind his computer, watching the initial questions start building up, and did his best to look like he believed it: innocent until proven guilty, innocent until--

On the bright side? Most of the internet agreed that she didn't kill mutants. As far as anyone living could tell.

Aura did not understand the big fuss. Less then an hour after Aura had signed the sheet, Lisa had called her into a room in order to talk with her. She understood that drawing attention to Sanctuary was a bad thing. To many people like herself depended on the place for a home. The police desperately did not want to raid the place and she thought Lisa was right in that Aura should not say anything that might force their hand. When Aura had mentioned she understood keeping the base safe, Lisa had reminded her when she brought a Vampire Mutant to it's doorstep after she and Meld had bitten off more then they could chew.

When Lisa had made Aura stay in another room while she helped the guy with his equipment Aura simply accepted the order. It was habit and truth be told Lisa had helped her in more ways then she thought she might guess. It had been Lisa and Abyss who had found her original name for her and also informed her that her parents were dead. Somehow, police guessed a Mutant a red wood had enveloped their house and four others. Aura would likely never use the name to refer to herself, but she was grateful for their work all the same. Lisa had always been elusive about being a Mutant or human but Aura knew as much as she hated to admit it, did not think she could kill Lisa if Lisa was Human.

Getting the ok to proceed Aura made her way to the room. She smiled and knelt down as she saw a cute furry face. Scooping up the twenty pound mass of black and white fur into her arm's she smiled. She ahd no idea how old skunks could live or how old Solkat even was.

The black pencil skirt and white satin blouse made her look business like, her near butt length raven black hair had been braided neatly behind her reinforced the image. Aura was trying to make a good impression, sure most knew what she looked like and the lack of make up or any effort to conceal that it was her and Aura wanted people to know it was her.

Aura opened the door and stepped threw, her eyes looked around, at the equipment and the room curiously, more out of habit then actually looking for traps. After a minute she finally looked to Jiri and moved into the room and toward the chair. Sitting down and petting the very obviously skunk and smiled. "Hello, my friend. Thank you for this opportunity. I do hope your mansion friends don't look down on you for this" she said with easy sincerity. Lisa had mentioned his connection with the Manson knowing she was still holding a grudge against it's leader. "And please call me Aura" she said not really liking her old name much.

She wasn't at all what he'd expected, actually. Maybe he was an ass to have expected what he'd expected (what had he expected?), but she wasn't it.

He rose as the door opened. The young woman who entered was... well, cute. And pretty normal. She was shorter than him by a few inches, which was startling--he'd grown up seeing her on the news, and here she was, and he was taller. Everything about her was neat and tidy: she could have just as easily been a young businesswoman fresh from a meeting as a... well, as who she really was. Her smile was actually pretty cute, and he flushed a little in response as he offered his hand.

"Ms. Whilver? Sorry, Aura. I'm Jiri O'Leary. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Unexpectedly, it was. Maybe more surprising than pleasant, but he suddenly felt more optimistic about this interview. Maybe Lisa really was right: maybe there was a story here, something he really could help get out to the public. Set the record straight.

Also she was carrying a skunk. At first his brain tried to process it as a small dog, some kind of obscure mutt--but no, when she sat down and he had a chance to really look at it, it was definitely a skunk.  

That was a little weird, admittedly, but even having a pet skunk helped distance her from the image he'd built up in his mind from news reels. Her eyes roved over everything in the room. There wasn't much to see--besides the two arm chairs and the little side table where his laptop and webcam rested, it was pretty bare. Just him and her. He took the action as a nervous one, even though she didn't look outwardly nervous. But with her history, it would make sense if she'd developed a good poker face.

"Do you have any questions before we start? I figured we'd do a few easy questions first, then start looking through the ones the internet is throwing out. Keep in mind you don't have to answer any of them, the last time I did this, some were really silly, and some were a little... sensitive. If you want to skip a question, just say so."

He flashed a little grin, some of his own nervousness showing through. "The Mansion isn't going to know about this until we go live. What are they going to do? Ground me?"

He admitted that some of the staff were cool. The counselor had a good head on her. But adults were still adults, and they really didn't know what was best, sometimes. This was for their own good. 

She took his hand when he offered it to her. Aura had never cared much for the formality but had learned to deal with it, while working with Roach. Jiri himself seemed nice enough, she was pretty sure he was younger then her, not that it mattered much. Putting Solkat behind the ear she smiled again.

"I understand, though I do not have much to hide, and my record has it's own filing cabinet" she said went on. Aura knew she had to hide some thing's of course but mostly Aura would try to be as honest as she could. The idea someone might try and ask silly questions seemed odd but their were a lot of fools out there.

"If they ground you i will happily break you free" she said with a laugh. She had no issues with the idea and she certainly owed Cold Steel one anyway. "Either way like any other Mutant you will always have a home here" she said trying to comfort Jiri on the idea.

"The questions wont bother me but the answers may bother you" she said knowing even among many mutants what she did was considered extreme. In a way they were right, the things she did were things she wished no other Mutants needed to do.

[/color=f700c5]"May as well relax right?"[/color] she said normally keeping her aura on well at Sanctuary though often not making it solid. Aura let her aura flow from her fingertip quickly letting it flow until it looked more like an extension of her nails which she then used to move a stray hair from her face, before letting the aura simply flicker off. A Moment later a faint pink outline formed around her body as Aura leaned back a bit in the chair.

She said she didn't have much to hide, and Jiri's shoulders relaxed another fraction. Nothing to hide meant nothing to be ashamed of, and that meant she had a clear conscience, right? So there was a reason behind what she'd done--the things she'd been accused of doing--something that explained it all. That was good to know. Really good. He was actually feeling a little... was excited the right word, when a part of him was still a little terrified? But he wanted to hear what she had to say. 

She reminded him of Alex, in a way--how she seemed so open about all this, so ready to talk to someone.

He laughed at her joke--break him out? She made it sound like the Mansion was a prison. She had a great poker face, just like he'd thought: if he didn't know better, he'd think she was dead serious about literally breaking him out of school. Good to know she had a sense of humor.

He jumped a little as her power trickled down her fingertips, but flashed a smile. "I'm not really here to judge you, or anything. I'm just the guy that reads the questions, so don't worry about me."

"If you're ready, then..." He waited for her acknowledgement, then flipped on the webcam. "Umm, hello there, Internet. This is InvasionOfTheBS, from the Audubon X forum. I've got Aura here with me. I see people have been putting up questions already, but yeah. We're officially open for business, here."

"First question, and I think you've already demonstrated this for me, but maybe you could for the people at home? Why did you pick the codename Aura?"

Like he said, they were starting easy. He had a few more questions in the same vein, things to help both of them feel relaxed, just like she'd said.

"I don't know if everyone can see," he reached up, and tried to angle the webcam a little bit, "But we've got an extra guest with us. So, umm, you've got a skunk for a pet? What's up with that? And should I be worried?" 

"Why did you agree to this chat? What are you hoping to get out of it?"

She nodded as he looked to her to start, she waved to the camera and did a two finger salute to the audience. {color=f700c5]"Hello"[/color] she said with friendly tone and smile. She ahd no idea how many people would be watching, she hoped a lot of Mutanst were watching the broadcast.

"I did not pick the name, it was given to me by a woman i once called my leader. My powers emerged in a school yard fight and by accident i cut the other girls spine in two, so humanity locked me away but Lady Miracle broke me out and gave me my name a long with many others being held with me, but no one else survived the forest. I watched them all die" she said sounding a bit sad about the event. It did still bother her but thanks to Maha she was sure her friends had made it to the great Mother. That had been a lot of comfort and had helped slay her flashbacks.

Aura took the cue and held Solkat up, which the Skunk clearly did not like a lot but Solkat tolerated it anyway as she always did. "To be honest for a long time i thought it was a cat. Skunks and cats just looked the same to me. I acquired her when a bunch of animal mutants decided to raid a zoo. I found her in the resulting stampede. I have never seen her spray anyone and i allow her the run of the place. She is very well behaved" Aura replied which was sort of true. Really the skunk just knew no one would touch it and so boldly wandered Sanctuary without fear.

"I want people to understand who i am and what i stand for. The news has no idea who i am and they don't care. Our people however must be united to survive and i hope to further that today. I also hope our kind will be able to see past the fear pressed into them by the normal media" she said honestly believing the general news existed to hurt her people and keep them down.

That was supposed to be the easy question. Everyone already knew the answer to that one: she was Aura because she did things with her aura. It was pink. That was supposed to be the easy, no-baggage-attached question. 

Instead they'd started things off with her leader--Lady Miracle?--cutting little girl's spines in half, imprisonment, and oh yes everyone died at the end.

She then proceeded to answer the question about her skunk, without much change in tone. She sounded a little sad for one, a little happy for the other, but she switched between them with no hesitation. Jiri stared at the squirming skunk in her hands, and wondered if poker face even began to cover it.

The internet seemed to reflect his confusion: a ton of questions about her past cropped up, as well as... others. In the same way he sometimes felt eyes on the back of his head, he felt Lisa's smile, just out of sight.

With great discretion, he picked the questions that seemed safest. Or at least, most likely to reflect well on the young woman in front of him. He kept his eyes safely on his laptop screen as he read, buying himself some time to figure out how he was supposed to react to her.

"How old were you when the, ah, school yard incident happened? Were you being bullied?"

"When you say 'locked away' do you mean like in a jail, or somewhere else? Did you have a fair trial?"

...And the third most popular question, because the internet did not have priorities (Jiri preemptively facepalmed on behalf of humanity and mutants alike, staring through his fingers to read it):

"What is the skunk's name, and can they be litter box trained like real cats."

He did not read that one like a proper question. That did not deserve to be a proper question.

Aura shrugged at the questions. "I don't know either of those because i don't remember. After Miracle liberated me, she began to manipulate my memories through a mutant names Sayre. The result is i recall nothing before my powers emerged. Not my name, age, what my parents looked like, the name of my school, my grades or the reason for the fight. I now know my name, age and that my parents are dead, but that was all given to me second hand." she said looking away from Jiri. Her aura seemed to ripple as she mentioned Sayre. She had encountered Sayre once after the forest but he had managed to get away, implanting the memory of his death in her and the Abyss brothers. They had not found a body or any signs when they rechecked the area.

"It was much like prison yes as for a trial i do not recall one, but i can not say that what i recall from that time was not manipulated or fabricated entirely. What i recall however is sitting in a cell listening to the screams of other young mutants as i waited my turn. No one ever returned when they were removed from their cell's and my turn never came up before we were freed." she went on her voice hardened at the mention of prisons. Her aura began to loose it's elegant form that seemed to flow around her as if she were in the center of a giant bubble gum bubble. Thickening in random places and dissopearing in others, it was several seconds before her Aura suddenly flowed back into a smooth coating over her skin.

"She is named Solkat after a dead friend but i have never trained her, i just feed her mice and let her do as she likes. She never goes very far though unlike that ungrateful parrot i once owned who flew away almost as soon as i let it out of it's cage" she said shaking her head. It had taken her awhile to understand that most animals did not act or behave like Solkat seemed to, not even other skunks. "It's possible she had training at the zoo of some sort as she has always seemed to like people" she said petting the animal who was now sleeping in her lap on it's back.

"My friendship with her is older then almost any other i still have. Most of the others are either dead or have moved on from the city" she said recalling many of the mutants she had encountered over the years. Some briefly others longer and some freindlier then others, Like her ink manipulating ex-girlfriend and Meld.

He wondered if Lisa had some way of sickening him where he sat. She was no doubt watching the interview--livestream, after all, and it was all too easy to picture it up on one of her double monitors as she worked on other things in her main screen. Maybe she was a mutant, and the growing sense of... of the dryness in the back of his throat and the way all his muscles were tense even though he wasn't doing anything and the this is just wrong feeling was some sort of doom-power.

Or maybe that was just a perfectly normal reaction to hearing a girl a handful of years older than him casually relate how she'd been kidnapped, literally brainwashed, and... what? Used for mutant experimentation? Something?

There was a term in his lit class he'd never quite grasped until now. Unreliable narrator. When someone was telling things straight, but you still had no idea if what they were saying was true. She was straight up saying it might all be a lie.

"How do you live with that?" Jiri blurted out. He wasn't looking at the questions on his screen, he was looking at the young woman across from him. "I mean, have you tried to track down records and stuff, figure out what's actually true and what's just a mutant messing with your head? I just..." He just didn't know how to finish that thought. He just... didn't.

It was around then that he noticed her aura. There still wasn't much emotion on her face, not as much as he would have expected, but the eddies and currents of her power were speaking volumes. 

Jiri swallowed, and returned to the safety of reading what other people wrote. He tried to scan for easy questions, ones that wouldn't cause bubblegum pink and nightmare fodder to hold the same place in his mind, but it he was starting to grasp the fact that he knew nothing about this girl. Not about who she was, not about how she'd react.

A little voice in the back of his mind was just starting to worry that maybe she didn't know, either. Not even the skunk's name was a safe topic--that dredged up a dead friend, apparently, and reminded her of other friends lost.

How did she live like this? With a skunk as her closest companion?

The psycho killing sprees were starting to make a lot more sense.

Safe questions, safe questions...

No, he was not reading anything else about the skunk, or asking who Solkat was. No no no he was not asking her to take off her shirt, shut up internet. So what did that leave him?

"How do you go shopping when everyone knows who you are? Is it hard or do you just walk in and people are oblivious?"

It was clear she had shocked him and it wa snot surprising, of all the mutant horror stories she had heard none of them seemed quite as brutal as hers. She smiled sadly and shook her head. "I have Either a military organization or a para military organization was kidnapping recently arrested Mutant children, ones who had just gained their power with the intent of using them to hunt and kill other mutants, after they found out how our powers came to be. At some point Lady Miracle had a falling out with them when they wanted to experiment with her healing powers and slow aging. She freed as many as she could and trained us for Guerrilla warfare with the knowledge we would all likely die as we were hunted down." she said recalling being told their lifes would likely last months maybe less. "When i first made it to this city, i would have flashbacks to the forest that seemed real. I would hear the gun fire, the mortar exploding all around me.....I found Sayre a few years ago and he mentioned the reason for my shattered memories is due to his lack of skill. While he could not fix the damage he made the true path shine brighter in my mind, the parts that are still there. she has also tried to kill him but she was not sure Jiri wanted to know that as well. The event was clearly disturbing for her but the reaction was in her voice cracked as sh mentioned it, instead of visibly broadcast. She had even tried to dodge the part about her flashbacks.

" It's funny i did not understand shopping when i first came to this city and so i tended to hunt down my own food, dog's and cat's usually. I had been taught to make furniture in the forest as a way to practice the use of my powers so i built most of what i used. Now a day's, I hire people usually it lead's to less problems. Plus large numbers of humans make me nervous" she said laughing a bit. She had grown a lot in the years since she made it back to the forest. "People are surprisingly oblivious though, i hire people more for my own comfort" she said which was mostly true. She had a feeling many did not out her for fear of their own lifes. It was a reasonable thing to do and the right thing if they were human or did not want to trigger a blood bath when the police showed up.

SHe looked at Jiri and back to the camera. This seemed to be going smoother then she had thought. Not that she had really known what to expect but while Jiri was nervous he maintained his composure quite well she thought.

He wasn't sure if the crack in her voice would show up on video. It was so small, so quiet. It didn't show on her face in the least. Were people getting this? Like, really getting this? Or were they just sitting there, treating this like reality TV?

He found a question both he and Lisa approved of. One that he suspected he might know the answer to.

"Did you kill anyone when you were having flashbacks?"

"Were you still a minor when you came to New York?"

"Did anyone in law enforcement ever try reaching out to talk to you about getting counseling instead of going to jail, or something?"

He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that one, too. This was... this was really messed up, wasn't it? His sickness was starting to twist into something else, and he wasn't sure what. 

"Many times, the worst was an orphanage, i killed several children believing i was hunting down Sayre in the forest. I have great shame from that act, those children had no chance to find out if they were mutants. Frosty the x-mansion leader snapped me out of it and i escaped from the scene. she said frowning at the shameful act she had committed. She had tried to seek help after to cure her of the flashbacks.

"I was around 15 when i came to the city so i was a minor, though at the time the concept was unknown to me." she said not understanding what it meant until years after she was in new york. Her life style meant for the most part she could do what she as adding one more crime to the list was probably not relevant.

"No, Frosty encountered me shortly after i came to the city. He offered to take me to the mansion but that I had to talk with the police first. At the time i thought Humanity and Mutant kind were in open war so the idea of that did not work well as well a is figured i would be killed for all the deaths in the forest. By the time i realized humanity was not one united people, that the people in the first were different from the city, their was to much blood on my hand's for that to ever be an option" she said looking at her hands. They would never be clean, their was far to much blood on them for that. "No one should have so much blood on their hands. However since my hands are soiled already, i protect our people" she said firmly sorrow entering he voice.

"Eventually Frosty and Saph concerned me and had me arrested. They made a show of a trial and tossed me behind bars, took away my powers and prevented my attempts to kill myself for a last shred of honor. Fortunately i have friends" she said with a smile looking away at Jiri long enough to set Solkat down who looked annoyed at the interruption but accepted it.

"My kill count is approaching a level humans would require an army to match. No sane human would let me go no matter how much remorse i felt. The fools should have just shot me when they had my powers off" she said, it was what she would have done in their place. End one of the biggest threats as soon as they could.

The news was right about Aura, and so was Lisa. Simultaneously. She was a terrifying death machine that had come into the city and butchered dozens of innocent people. Men, women, children, cats, dogs, orphans. But she was really, really misunderstood.

If such a small word could even fit her situation. There was a little ball in Jiri's chest that was starting to feel hot; frustrated, and not at her. This could have been Alex. If he'd spent too long in that desert of his, or ran into a psycho brain washer instead of a nice guy while he was out there. This could be any kid, human or mutant. The dictionary had the word child soldier for a reason, and it wasn't because anyone was playing around.

She was screwed. As far as the legal system was concerned. And she knew it, which was worse. The media sometimes painted her as a brainless killer, but Jiri was sitting right here, and she wasn't. Good at hiding her emotions, yeah. But she'd obviously thought these things through for herself, once she'd had enough distance to. 

She knew she was screwed up.

...Also, 'Frosty'? Oh. Ohhh. Cold Steel. Gotcha. 

...Heh.

Her sense of humor was just as well hidden as the rest of her, but it was there. And Jiri realized, suddenly, he did want her to come away from this whole thing looking good. Not innocent--it was a little late for that--but... like a person. What had Lisa said? 'In a more human light'? That. He scanned the questions people were sending in, found the ones he could use.

"Would you say you get fewer flashbacks now? Have you killed anyone on accident since you got them under control?"

"If you could stop fighting, and no one would try to throw you in jail or anything stupid like that, would you?"

"You disappeared from the media twice for a few months each. Were you on some kind of self-discovery-spirit-walk-journey to commune with your inner pink?"

Internet, you had stupid ways of phrasing things, but it was a valid enough question at the core.

"They are gone now, I had to learn to accept that i was not responsible for the deaths of mircle and the others. You see Lady Miracle had standing orders, any fighter who could not make it back to camp was to be killed. I could not kill Sayre my friend. He was captured and a day later all 206 of us except for me were dead. I was trapped under my barracks during the initial mooter shelling and was over looked when everyone else was gunned down' I Blamed myself and took shame from the fact i had lived, while Solkat and the other died fighting the human attack. " she replied her Aura beginning to manifest brief wisps of pink which faded just as quickly as they appeared.

"I....Buried them all....dug each grave...everyone i knew at that point....was dead" Aura fought for her composure and lost. Several tears ran down her face and her hands were shaking badly.

"No, our people face danger from the Human's and they must be protected as long as they are in danger. I meet so many mutants with tragic pasts, the sorrow our people endure must be sopped. Our children deserve to grow up without fear without the danger of being turned into a weapon or of being killed" her fist formed a dagger like blade without her notice as it came down into the chair gashing a deep hole in the arm of her chair. Strong emotions did terrible things to her control, but the dagger soon flowed like liquid back up into her fists slowly fading away. "When the danger is over i will have no place in this world and will give myself to the gods above. Monsters like me don't get to live in paradise" she said wiping the tears from her face. She gathered her composure after a few minutes.

"The first time i got knocked out on a fishing boat and wound up in japan. Im not sure how, i was out for quite awhile. Learned how to wield a sword there though and had a few encounters with the Yakuza. They learn faster then gangs here. The second time i had to return there...for a personal matter" she said clearly not wanting talk further about that second trip.

He'd offered to pause the chat, stop it, when Ghost had started to cry.

He didn't do the same for Aura. He couldn't: she wasn't some goodie two shoes local bookstore owner, she was one of New York City's--one of North America's--most notorious mutant criminals. And right now, where all the world would be able to reply it on YouTube, were it would get passed around from hand to hand and spread on forums that weren't even mutant-centric, she was crying. She was breaking down just like a woman her age should when talking about things as messed up as she was.

He didn't offer to stop, because this was exactly what she needed. It wouldn't help her with the police, nothing really could, but it might help other mutants understand her. So they wouldn't judge her before they'd even met her, like he had.

He was a little afraid to ask this one. Afraid in the Lisa-was-watching sense. But he wanted to hear the answer, and so did the internet.

"Can humans and mutants ever get along?"

"What does your ideal world look like?"

"Do you think the ends justify the means?"