This was some kind of punishment. The kind of punishment that had plausible deniability: where if he tried calling anyone on it, they'd give him their what could you possibly be talking about faces. 

His first interview with the staff of Xavier's was Maya Csendes. Ghost. The greeter who had possessed his body during a tour. And he couldn't even talk about that with people, because they were just like, well did you start it? And he would have to say yes but that was not the point. He didn't care if it was hypocritical, what he did was at least sort of natural. What she did was like--like--like taking a steak out of the fridge and gluing googly eyes to it and cutting it down the middle and sticking her hand in for a puppet show. It was not right. Or okay. 

But he had to interview her, because this was clearly some sort of psychological warfare perpetrated by the Mansion's counselor, aimed at making him give up before he'd even started. If he turned this one down, made excuses, all of the other staff and X-Men would find excuses, too. He knew it.

Jiri clattered and clunked around the social studies room, making way more noise then necessary as he set up his lone laptop and its webcam. He dragged desks around just because he could and he wasn't going to put them back afterwards, either. They wanted him to film this in a nice normal looking classroom, with the picturesque Mansion lawn out the window behind her? Fine. Sure. But someone was going to have to fix this room up first period on Monday and it wasn't going to be him. 

Eventually he ran out of ways to ruin the room's feng shui, and sat in a desk, his leg twitching as he read through the preliminary questions. People were so excited to talk to Ms. Csendes. Apparently she used to run a hippy bookstore and her husband was a literal unicorn. It was a little sickening, how readily the internet bought in to her innocent face.

Don't worry, internet. Jiri would be the one asking questions, here. 

In theory, this was a good idea.

Talk to the people through the internet. Get a little public support going so maybe the government would feel the pressure and release her bookstore. She could even make amends with the new kid she'd inadvertently traumatized by helping him launch this "Ask Me Anything" idea and championing him with the other Mansion adults.

That was the idea anyway. For some reason, Ghost was even more nervous about meeting Jiri again than she had been on her wedding day. At least on that day, she'd believed she was doing the right thing.

She dressed in Maya casual, a white flowing skirt and a turquoise top. It was something she would have worn before she'd ever left the Mansion. Maybe she was hoping to get back to those days, when things were better.

The knock on the door was timid even though the door was already open, she wasn't about to go anywhere near anything without explicit permission. "Is everything ready?" Sure looked like he'd moved things around a lot. Hopefully this wasn't too much of a burden for him. Maya ducked her head. "Please take care of me."

The woman looked sweet and polite, with her anime-white hair and her breezy-casual skirt and her cute little head bobs.

Fool Jiri once, shame on you, Mrs. Cscendes.

He smiled as she came in because that's what you were supposed to do when adults were helping you. "Yeah, everything's set up. Just waiting for you." She wasn't late but maybe she'd think she was and feel guilty. Yeah. "So, umm, you can sit over--"

>> "Please take care of me."

"Ah... there? You can sit over there." Over there. At the desk he'd dragged away from all the others. "What does that even mean?" He had to ask because what?

"...I'll be over here. You ready to start? Any questions before we do? Okay good." He flicked on the webcam. "Hello, Internet. InvasionOfTheBS here, from the Aububon X forums. I've got Maya Csendes aka Ghost aka That Bookstore Lady here with me. So. Let's get these questions rolling."

"Why the name Ghost? Is it because you possess people?" He managed to keep his voice pretty light and bantering. Just what people would expect from a Mansion kid cracking a joke at a staff member's expense. His grin was a little less polite, and a little more toothy.

There? Wha? Maya looked around and made her best guess. He was going kind of fast there. "It means be kind. You know. Like considering how the other person-" but he wasn't even listening so Maya tried to follow what he was saying instead and make herself ready. She crossed her legs at the ankle and smoothed her skirt and tried to find the lens of the camera. There was a camera, right?

"Wait, I-" She pressed her lips together as he started to keep from interrupting. She had probably spent enough time guessing and second guessing herself about this that now she knew it was a bad idea. He was going to rush right on through and it wasn't going to work and-

What did he want? An on-screen apology? He was the bodysnatcher here. Not her.

Apparently he was one of the vicious kinds of reporters. She opened her mouth to tell him to be nicer to the next people he interviewed and then stopped. He wasn't her kid. It wasn't her place.

"More likely, it's the way that I look when I use my other aspects of my power. I can go sort of see-through. Incorporeal. Like a ghost." She squeezed her hands together in her lap and tried not to fidget. "I don't know. It sounded like a better code name than Breezy or... something..." She gave an uncomfortable one shoulder shrug.

Oh. Ooooooh. She was good. That nervous skirt smoothing, that I'm-so-innocent hesitance to her answer, that way her eyes couldn't quite seem to find the camera. She was good and she was trying to paint him as the bad guy here.

But if she wanted to be the good guy, then he could be a good guy two. They've be two body snatching good guys have a friendly internet chat.

"The camera is right here," the teenager helpfully said, tapping his finger on top of the webcam clipped to the top of his computer so she wouldn't have quite as much of an excuse to get all I'm so sweet that I can't even make eye contact with an inanimate object on him.

Jiri chuckled a little. "No mutant ability for naming, huh?" Just a friendly, good-natured rib. "No worries. Let's see what questions we've got coming in... Oh! There's a couple decent ones. Let's see here..."

" 'Could you show us your power?' Pretty standard request."

"Do you use you ever stand in front of a fan and use your power and get shoved across the room."

"Do mutants tell the truth when people ask about their powers, or do they hide stuff so other people don't freak out?"

Oh. That was the camera? But it was so tiny! The one she had at home, well... it was a few years old now. 'Thank you.' She mouthed the words, as if that would keep anyone from guessing what she was saying, but at least he was sort of helping her now.

And since he was helping, Maya started to relax a little too.

"I can certainly show you my power. I don't know how well the camera would pick it up?" She rolled her lips in on themselves as she asked Jiri with her eyes if that was a good or bad idea.

"I do not usually have fans going in a room. No. I have woken up sort of shoved in an air vent, though. Central air units are maybe a little outside my realm of comfort."

That last question sounded like a Jiri one. He wasn't so sneaky after all. Ghost tried not to let on that she'd figured it out, even if a little motherly pride was showing.

"Do people tell the entire truth when asked about themselves every time? Of course not. Not every aspect of every power is beautiful. Not every power is easily explained or neatly packaged." She was trying hard not to stray into the morally gray territory that was 'everyone has secrets.' Because Ghost knew exactly what the internet was going to do with THAT one.

"Don't worry, I've got you covered." He'd known the power question would come up. The power question always came up. It was the first thing anyone asked when someone posted about a new mutant: what can they do? Jiri, excellent host that he was, had come prepared. He scrounged in his backpack for a second, then tossed a plastic bag over to Ghost. Confetti. For her showing-up-on-screen pleasure.

...The whole air vent thing gave him pause. Blinking pause. That was, umm, special? Okay, so maybe she had some crazy mutation problems too. But getting caught in an air vent on accident wasn't the same as taking over his body on purpose. Jiri had never taken over anyone on purpose. Minus that psycho clown, but that had been under the supervision of a trained X-Man. So that was like getting permission. She was going to have to try a lot harder if she wanted to make him fall for this ridiculously sweet mask of hers. Seriously, how did people not see through this? She was giving off so many tells that it was all an act.

Like the way she seemed to puff up her chest a little as she answered the next question, like some part of her was proud. Proud as she looked at him over the webcam and freely admitted that she wasn't going to admit to anything. Uh-huh.

Okay. She wanted to play the innocent card? Let's see how long she lasted under this questions.

"Is it true that your husband is a magical unicorn?"

"What's it like riding a unicorn?"

And just in case she was trying to play naive after that last one:

"Is it hard having a husband that so horny all the time?"

She caught to bag and peeked inside. Confetti? It was an absolute dollar store grab bag: pineapples, kittens, and balloon shapes. Or was it some kind of bean...?

> "Is it true that your husband is a magical unicorn?"

"Magic?" Maya scoffed, distracted from her bag for the moment. "He's a healer." And an absolute cad. But she would refrain from besmirching someone else on camera in front of the never-forgetting internet. "Sometimes unicorn, sometimes man." You know. Like it was totally natural.

> "What's it like riding a unicorn?"

"I imagine it's like riding any other quadruped..." Her words tapered off as she noticed the sheer joy on Jiri's face. Maya did a quick review of her answer. And the question.

Oh dear.

> "Is it hard having a husband that so horny all the time?"

She really, really should get that divorce. Maya stood, skirt flaring in a movie-like dramatic wind. "No. It's hard having a husband who left!" And with that, Ghost went incorporeal. The bag and its contents churned in her irritated smoke form, glittering bits of confetti catching the light as they passed the camera.

"I suggest you move on to a more appropriate line of questioning." If she sounded churlish, well, it's because she was feeling it.

He loved how matter-of-fact she was about the unicorn husband. She didn't even look up from poking through the confetti; it looked like she had more attention focused on the pink kitten stuck to her fingertip than to the camera. From an outside perspective, Jiri had to admire her dedication, her studiousness in maintaining this facade. 

And belatedly, she rejoined the conversation. Was it bad of him that he was laughing so hard on the inside that the only thing coming out of his face was a little glitter of joyful tears?

...Then she got mad. Like, honestly mad. He didn't like her when she was mad. 

Behind the laptop, Jiri hunkered down, green eyes wide.

"What is your favorite part of being a mutant," the teenager read, in a quietly terrified voice.

"Cats or dogs, boxers or briefs."

"The Full Circle was always my favorite place to hang out and catch a quiet moment. Why did it close and do you have plans to reopen?"

So apparently unicorns weren't as magical as they were cracked up to be. But hopefully now everyone understood just how scary ghosts were.

Glitter cloud Ghost took a long moment to stare down Jiri even after he'd read off the next question. He couldn't see her face. She didn't technically HAVE a face. But she felt stern and she directed that sternness toward him.

Some things were just plain off limits.

"My favorite part." Was she being silly? The internet was dark and full of creepers. It wasn't exactly Jiri's fault, even if he had been the one to read the line of questioning. That meant the questions were still out there. Ghost took a deep breath and the whole room seemed to contract and expand with her. Right. She could do this.

"My favorite part used to be helping people. It was my pleasure to enforce a safe place in the Full Circle, but now...?" Now she'd had too many clashes for the benefit to outweigh the personal cost. "Now I just like being free." Lame. And her tone reflected that feeling. But it was pretty accurate. "Not everyone can take a flight break."

Ghost played with the confetti absently gathering and re-scattering the bits. She compressed the glittering bits into a sort of human shape and then let them all loose and churning again.

"Cats. Dogs lick too much." And they were needy. Cats were so responsible. Cailey was probably not bothered in the least that the Full Circle was on hiatus.

And speaking of the hiatus, "Uhm. So remember the part about Sebastian leaving?" Now she was feeling bad about how she'd reacted. The internet was pervy, yeah, but she was an adult. She should have handled it as such. "He apparently never finished immigrating. Maybe he couldn't with his history. I don't know. And now that he's off doing who knows what with his... he's apparently not a nice person. So, in order to stop further ah- disruptions from the unicorn, the Federal Bureau of Investigations decided to seize all his assets to cut off his funding. It makes sense and I'm glad they're trying to mitigate further potential damage.

I would just be more glad if they didn't lump my things in with his. I'm not funding him, but this way they're sure. I guess."

There was a weird, hypnotic disconnect between her words and her actions. The glitter kept on moving, tracing shapes and patterns that were almost beautiful before falling apart like a careless toddler walking through a sand castle. 

She sounded like she was calming down, but it was hard to tell. There was no face to reference, no body language. The glitter rage cloud was a poor substitute. Jiri continued to speak slowly, carefully, and respectfully, just in case. It seemed like she'd almost vacuumed all the air out of the room for a moment, there, and he was a little worried that the internet wouldn't figure out what had happened if she killed him off screen. Twice he had met her, and twice he'd been left feeling like he was really, really, really far out of his depths. Some mutants were just inherently terrifying.

Also apparently the magical healer unicorn was an evil illegal alien. That was... he would crack a joke, but the internet was way ahead of him, and he didn't want to die.

He was very glad she couldn't see his computer screen, or she'd know that evil unicorns had just become a meme. The chat was still working out how to gussy them up: villain moustaches? sombreros? glitter clouds? all of the above?

More safe questions. He could do this. He could survive. 

"How do I get mutants to like me?"

"Why did an incorporeal aeromancer and an equine healer have a puppy?" He didn't actually get that one--sounded like a the start to a joke--but puppies seemed like a safe enough topic, so he read it.

"Can you comment on whether your husband is or is not the evil unicorn behind the subway bombing a few years ago." And that one was just too silly to possibly be real. Maybe she'd laugh? Maybe?

"Respect isn't a bad way to start, but underneath all the differences mutants are still people. So, you get a mutant to like you by being a like-able person." Why would it be any different? "Politeness can go a long way too. I've never met someone who was polite and forgiving who couldn't get along with someone else." Though Jiri was proving to be a difficult nut to crack. Why did she even worry about what he was thinking? Maybe it was his smile. It was a hair too wide. Somehow that put it in the realm of mockery rather than friendliness.

She had to restrain the urge to push at him with her power. It would totally freak him out again. She didn't need to know the nuances of his expression. The benefit was not worth the cost.

> "Why did an incorporeal aeromancer and an equine healer have a puppy?"

It took a moment to parse that question. When it did, all the confetti dropped out of her ghost form. A puppy? "Genetics are a strange and unfathomable wonder, aren't they?" The words were right, but the tone was wrong. Horror might best describe what she was feeling. A puppy? A PUPPY?

What had scared her was that they —the brigade of internet trenchcoat men— had seen enough of her child to see what he was becoming. Maybe she was too close to him. Maybe the changes were too subtle day to day, but now that it had been pointed out to her... yeah. The longer nose shape was there and the longer ears. She had a puppy. And strangers had to point it out to her. For some reason a fresh new flush of anger rushed through her.

"I don't know what Sebastian is up to. I apparently didn't know the man at all if he was bombing... a subway? He didn't do that kind of thing when we... I... He..." Oh God. She felt so cornered. She knew she shouldn't cry at the internet. It was a stupid question and she'd fielded a hundred of them from police and friends and co-workers. But maybe this was just one question too many. "I fell in love with a bad guy, okay? I didn't mean to. I would wish it never happened if I didn't have my puppy to show for it."

The cloud that was Ghost condensed, taking up less and less room.

>> "Politeness can go a long way too. I've never met someone who was polite and forgiving who couldn't get along with someone else."

...Was that a crack at him? He was pretty sure that was a crack at him. Her glitter just seemed more focused while her zephyr was saying it. Maybe it was paranoia, but there was something about the physical pressure of her wind that seemed like, just for a moment, she was pointing right at him.

Apparently the puppy question was just as indecipherable to her. She took a long time swirling it over, and then gave sort of a half-assed generic answer, in a weird reedy voice. Maybe it was just the reflection of her source-less sound waves off the confetti making her sound.

He wondered, just a little, how badly a sparkly purple pineapple could hurt if she tornadoed with it. The confetti had seemed so much more funny and harmless at the store.

The subway question had seemed more harmless on his laptop, too. Was she... going to cry? What would that even be, a rain cloud?

Oh god the puppy was her child. He didn't know she had a kid, how was he supposed to know she had a kid, he'd been spending every waking moment at the Mansion spending a discrete amount of energy to avoid her. He'd tried to do silly questions and he'd totally screwed up and--

And now she was condensing. He'd been joking about the rain cloud. Right? That wouldn't actually happen?

He pressed mute on the microphone settings, and put a hand over the webcam.

"Do you, ah, need to take a break?"

Sorry sorry sorry.

"No uh-Yes!" She wanted to say more, but she couldn't. If she didn't she was going to start crying in a way that there was no coming back from. So instead Ghost tried to focus on herself. Her breathing. Her smoky body. She made sure she was all clear of confetti before putting her body back together piece by piece.

"I knew it'd be hard. I knew it in my head. I just... an outside perspective is kind of harsh."

She came into her weight slowly. The more solid she got, the less comfortable she became. She could now feel the tear tracks on her cheeks so she scrubbed at her face with her hands. Her stomach rolled with her emotions. And now she could see.

"Is that..." In the shock of processing all the images that streamed by, Ghost jumped from sad right back to angry.

On the screen was the most filthy... She could not un-see... her puppy was a child!

She had to make it STOP and Ghost did not consider the how or why. It just. needed to. stop.

The aeromancer grabbed the computer by the keyboard and swung it in an arc rather like someone might throw the discus.

She didn't consider the fact that Jiri was still there. Standing. There.

She was getting herself back together. Literally and figuratively. It was... really weird to watch, like someone playing with the focus dial on a projector.

"Umm, we can stop, if you want. This was all volunteer to begin with and--"

And she had come up next to him, where she could see the screen. "Yeah," he said, in response to her half-voiced question. Maybe now she would see just how many things he was filtering. See? He wasn't trying to make her cry, the internet was. The things he'd been asking were perfectly tame by comparison to certain GIFs being produced at an alarming rate by people with crazy amounts of free time wait what was she--

"What are you--"

These were the last words he said before a computer slammed into his face. The teenager tumbled backwards in his chair, stunned. The laptop clattered down next to him. The stream was still muted, but now that his hand had been rather violently moved, the video was back up. The internet had a very good shot of pale white hands winging a laptop into a teenager.

Crap, Jiri thought, there's my face on camera, then.

He would be happy to learn, later, that it was more of a blurry rush of brown hair and then FACE before both of them fell to the floor, and the webcam bounced and rolled a few feet away. He was out of its view, but anyone leaving the room through the door would be in plain sight. Such as his assailant.

Jiri closed his eyes and played possum. Because he was alone with a crazy woman and the internet.