His clothes were not his own. The long sleeved green t-shirt kept his arms warm and fit him well but the black work out pants were one size too big. The clothes he had on his backpack the day he ran away were more for summer than winter, so he ended up accepting borrowed clothes from Mama T. Lucky for him, he didn't care much about the clothes he wore, except if the colors were too flashy, so he was quick to put on pretty much the first things she offered. The days were starting to get cold, specially if you were playing outside with your dogs, so he couldn't be too choosy.

'Playing' was a misnomer though. This was going to be serious exercise. He was in the backyard and had placed two rocks about six feet apart on one side of a flat area and another two rocks on the other side. Both of his dogs sat on their haunches watching him work, take crude measurements and aligning things. He then picked up a dirty white ball with black pentagons all over and showed it to his dogs.

Everyone at Xavier's practiced with their mutations, it was one of the reasons why they were here. Miles mutation however, involved turning into a black creature with loose morals and a penchant for resurrecting dead corpses into everlasting slavery, so he wasn't fond of using it at all. It pretty much terrified him and he went to great lengths to avoid turning into it.

His mutation came with perks though and two of them were sitting quietly, waiting for him to finish setting things up. Miles wanted to practice quick orders with his dogs and figure out how complex they could be before the animals' brains were simply too confused to follow them through. They understood everything he commanded, so... how about picking up the rules of a simple game of street soccer?

"See this here? This is a ball and we're going to play a game" he told his dogs, holding the ball close to them. Tinaker caught a whiff at it while Astor just stared attentively. "You two are going to try and get this ball between those two rocks, in any way you can. I will try to stop you. Hurting me is not allowed, but blocking me and trying to stop me is" he said while pointing at the two rocks behind him. "I will also try to get the ball between those two rocks behind you. You must stop me from doing that in any way you can, without hurting me."

That seemed complete and simple enough. He didn't expect the dogs to stand on two legs and kick the ball around, but pushing it over with their snouts and trying to get past him was expected. His animals were smart and had brains of their own. Once they were given orders, they tried to carry them out any way they could and he hoped to see some independent thinking from them.

Miles told his dogs to get on one side of the field while he took the other. He then raised the ball over his head as both dogs looked at it expectantly with their red, glowing eyes. They crouched a little, which pretty much meant they'd run for it the moment he let it go.

The boy tossed the ball between them and the two dogs went after it in comical fashion as they tried to push it somewhere, anywhere really, with their heads. Miles stood open legged, tried to cover as much area as he could and block any of his dogs from getting past. Tinaker was the fastest of the two and he ended up getting control of the ball and tried to get it past Miles, with Astor close behind him. The boy managed to kick he ball before the dog passed him and Tinaker ran after it. He was about to follow when he felt a cold wetness on the lower part of his back.

Astor had bitten on the upper part of his pants and planted his legs on the ground, pulling the boy back.

While he was getting pinned by one dog, Tinaker tried to regain control of the ball. As soon as he did, Miles tried to lose himself free, but Astor just unabashedly pulled his pants down to his thighs. He yelled as his pasty white tush was out for the world to see and fell down trying to get his pants back up.

In the meantime, Tinaker managed to score a goal for the canines!

The boy was back on his feet, tying his pants tighter and whining at the dog's play. "That's not fair! That was foul play, worth a penalty shot! Am I gonna have to read the whole rule book to you guys!?"

It had been quite a long time since Ruby had been out in this part of the mansion. The young fox girl had been sticking around the inside of the library for quite some time, doing research and really whatever she wanted to study. There were multiple reasons behind this, the main one being she honestly wasn’t as comfortable around people without Emerald around. It seemed silly, but her big sister was her rock for a lot of things and with her not being around it really did suck. With that said, she knew she couldn’t sit and mope forever, Ruby knew she had to grow up.

So here she sat beneath the tree , proving her independence in the only way she really felt was good for her.

By reading a advanced robotics book.

Okay, so she wasn’t the most rebellious type of teenager, but still it was better than moping about in her room all alone. Her room was cold since Emerald left and god only knew if her sister was alright. Sure Emerald called, but that didn’t mean she did it all the time. Ruby just had to trust that her big sister could take care of her self.

Ruby’s readings were interrupted by a young man playing what seemed ot be soccer a few feet away from her. She gazed up from her reading, green eyes curiously watching the young man and couldn’t help but feel a strange spark of familiarity. He seemed so familiar to her somehow,e ven though they hadn’t met from what she recalled. Maybe it was that dream she had? Emerald was in it to, as were many of the mutants in the mansion, but that couldn’t mean anything…could it?

The fox girl started to giggle when she watched the boy get sorely beaten by the two dogs. Clearly, they didn’t know how to play fair, which considering they were dogs was completely understandable but it was still amusing to watch. Out of utter curiosity, Ruby rose from her calm seat beneath the grass and approached the young man, her brown hair blowing slightly in the breeze.

“You look like you are having a little bit of trouble,” The Fox girl told him, her ears and tail fully visible. “Do you need any help?”

The moment he heard her voice, he couldn't help but pick up on the familiarity of it, like if she were someone he had met a long time ago but he couldn't pick up from where. When he turned to look at her, the effect was pretty similar. Her green eyes were quite friendly, her fox ears and tail made his mind flash back to bits and glimpses from that damn dream, and her offer for help felt like it was the second time she was giving it.

He hadn't met her yet, but he was quite sure she was named after a gemstone.

His face flushed a tad and he hoped she had been too busy reading her book to notice the pantsing his own dogs had given him, but he was smart enough not to mention anything if she didn't. He instead focused on answering her question.

"Actually, I'm just playing a game with my dogs" he said, as Tinaker was now pulling the ball out from between the two rocks... then pushing it back in. Miles had given them no commands whatsoever on when to stop or continue, so they were still obediently at it, like badly programmed robots.

Robots. She was carrying a robotics book. Having his dogs obey simple verbal commands was easy, but having them follow complex ones was a lot like programming a robot.

"Then again, maybe you can" he concluded. "My dogs here are pretty smart and they're linked to me in ways that are difficult to explain. They can follow every command I give them to the letter. Almost too much to the letter as you can probably notice" Miles added as Tinaker pushed the ball between the rocks for a third time and was now going for a fourth.

"I can tell them to fetch anything or run here or there, but I wanted to test how far I could go with their orders and how much they could understand, so I thought... Can I teach them to play a simple game of soccer?"

He then gave a quizzical look to the foxy mutant.

"Can you really understand everything in this robotics book you're carrying? Do you think coming up with a bunch of instructions for a dog is that different from instructing a robot what to do?"

The fox girl did notice the boy's blush which caused her to smile a little bit, a giggle escaping her lips. He was pretty cute when did that and he seemed so embarrassed it was sort of hard for her not to laugh. She had only noticed his dogs trouncing him very soundly, so his pride was in tact when it came to the pantsing incident.

"You were playing a game with them? It looks like they were playing with you,"Ruby laughed, her tail swishing back and forth with amusement.

After she had settled down, she listened to what the other boy had to say and really couldn't help but notice some familar features with him. The voice, the dogs, even without knowing his name she remembered it had something to do with measurement of distance. However, she didn't even remember where she met him before…how odd was that?

Ruby looked over to him with a soft smile still plastered on his face. He spoke of what he was trying to do with those dogs and what it looked like to Ruby was he was maybe failing at being an Alpha. After all, her big sister could make almost any dog listen to her with just a bark, maybe thats what he needed to do to? While Ruby was a fox, the animal,though she had been getting some curves lately, she more or less fell into the same area of general dogdom.

"Of course I can understand it! Why would I be reading something I didn't understand, that seems sorta silly," Ruby explained as she adjusted the book beneath her arm. The fox girl pondered his question for just a moment before coming up with an answer, "It is, but the thing is, Robots can be programed and that take a lot more research than just this book. Maybe you need to give your dogs simplier commands or try to be more commanding with however you order them. For Dogs I know it's likely they don't see you as an Alpha and they might not obey you."

Ruby was a little unsure how to handle dogs under someones mutation, but if they were just like normal dogs they should work like normal dogs. He should be able to assert his dominance over them, or at least try to teach them how to listen to his demands. It was just a matter of patience, just like robot building.

The dogs were, indeed, playing with him. Playing him like a fiddle that is. He didn't expect that level of teamwork coming from them, that was for sure. The challenge however, was how to get them to play fair without confusing them with too many orders.

She had a beautiful laughter and apparently knew her robotics quite well. Her tail swished when she spoke and her foxy traits and words made him realize she may know more about canines than what she read on books. She mentioned Miles might have a problem being the dog's alpha, and the boy raised his eyebrows and shook his head in disbelief.

"Nope. Totally the opposite" he said, trying to explain himself. His dogs sometimes showed glimpses of their old lives in their behavior and things like Astor being dominant over Tinaker still remained, but on everything else, the dogs were pretty much out of the ordinary. They were independent beings that had their own thoughts, but they were also slaves to Miles' will and his word was law to them.

"Look, I'll show you" he said as he pointed his finger towards Tinaker, who was pushing the ball a seventh time between the rocks.

"Stop!" he commanded. In an instant, the dog stopped moving and the ball kept rolling from inertia in between the two rocks. Tinaker's leg was lifted half ways, but he didn't lower it or dared to move.

"They are overobedient. I'm like... the super alpha to them and everything I say, they will try to do, except... they're still dogs and seeing how they follow more complex orders was the point of the game. Although..." he paused as his mind started to concoct an idea.

Maybe going one human vs. two dogs was a tad unfair, but one person plus one dog against the same composition had all the fairness in it he could possibly muster. He immediately smiled as he tought of the idea and wondered if she'd want to try it out with him.

"Would you happen to know the basic rules of soccer? Because I have a feeling we could make this practice game much more interesting if you do" he asked with a grin clearly drawn over his face.

Ruby's ears twitched about as she listened trying to carefully absorb everything he was trying to say. That and every single bird seemed to be making some sort of tweeting noise so her ears were picking up on that as well. While she didn't have the raw instinct that Emerald had,she did have the occasional urge to go run through the flowers and chase birds.

The boys abilities were ever so slightly unsettling for Ruby to say the least. It wasn't that he was being creepy it was just the fact that he was able to control these dogs so easily. With her lack of knowledge for this boys power the fox girl couldn't help but have her tail wrap around herself protectively.

"I know the basic rules of Soccer, I played on a small team for a little while so I know how to play," Ruby replied with a small nervous smile. "By the way your powers just work on your dogs right? You can't control other dogs can you? Just out of curiosity?"

It wasn't that Ruby didn't trust Miles, she was just sort of naturally frightened of things that looked like they could control the minds of dogs and possible dog related shifters. Ruby's concerns might be silly to most, considering Miles hadn't tried to use it on her yet, but she couldn't help her easily anxious mind running away with her. She hoped he didn't get offended by that but it was just something she had to ask.

Miles answered with "Splendid!" the moment the fox girl said she knew the rules of soccer and then darted to fetch the ball from between the two rocks. While she may have been concerned with Miles' control over his dogs overextending to other canines as well, it never crossed his mind that she'd be worried about such a thing. He simply thought that, indeed, she was just curious.

"Yup. Just the two dogs and none other. Come on over, I'll introduce them to you" he answered nonchalantly as he dropped the ball by his feet and waved a hand, ordering the dogs to stand to each side of him. People were usually afraid of his dogs, but he was hoping that handling the introductions with a bit of humor, she might feel at ease with them. She seemed a little nervous and he thought the dogs muscular build, unnatural behavior and red eyes might be the reason.

Miles deepened his voice a tad and started imitating an announcer from a TV show.

"Ladieeeees and gentlemen! Welcome to the new edition of Soccering with the Stars!" he said, improvising as he went and mashing up different shows together. "On door number one, we have our new contestant, Tinakeeeeer!"

Miles waved both arms in exaggerated fashion as if presenting the smaller dog to the public and making cheering noises from the imaginary crowd. The dog remained unfazed and rooted to his spot, so the boy tugged at his ears a little and pulled at the sides of his mouth to make it seem like the dog was smiling.

"He is smart, he has better senses and above all, he is very fast! But will his size play against him? Because on door number two we have our returning champion! He's bigger! Stronger! but also slower and his name is.... Astoooooorrrr!"

Again with the exaggerated handwaving and even bouncing a little to the point it seemed like a dance, Miles was now presenting his larger dog to the audience. He made clapping motions, thumbs up motions and whsipered "yeeaaahhh!" as if a whole lot of people were screaming the word from far away in the bleachers.

He then centered himself between the two dogs, raised both hands to his sides and started lowering them slowly, as if presenting himself to the audience.

"And of course! The one, the only, your favorite celebrity for this rendition of Soccering with the Stars, it's your host... Miiiiiiiles Haxtooooonnnn! Yeeeaaaahhhh!"

Having introduced himself in such a way, he stopped suddenly as he now stretched both of his arms with extended fingers towards the fox girl.

"But wait! We have another celebrity joining us in the soccer arena! Will she be willing to team up with one of the contestants in order to play against Miles? Will she dare? Who will she pick as her teammate? Swift Tinaker or strong Astor? Whoever she chooses, give a round of applause to our newest challenger, the one, the onlyyyyyy...." he paused, as he expected to hear her give her name.

Thank Goodness Miles’ abilities did not extend beyond the two dogs, that would be quite unsettling to say the least. Ruby really didn’t want to deal with the constant fear of having her mind taken over by the kind, yet sort of oblivious boy.

The fox girl was unable to fight the grin on her face when she saw both dogs, while all larger dogs sorta made her nervous at first, (She was part of a fox hunt once not a fun experience), she warmed up to them fairly quickly. It might have been because of Miles acting silly, but whatever the reason all of her worries quickly evaporated once his showmanship started.

Astor sort of reminded her of Emerald except her was a smaller and looked a little more…deadish But he seemed to be sort of a big lug, just like her big sister,,so as soon as Miles told her she had a choice she knew who she was going to choose.

Speaking of Miles, when the young man finally said his name, Ruby felt that strange feeling of dejavu once again. Like this wasn’t the first time that they met, which was impossible, that just didn’t seem possible. Ruby stepped into the the “spotlight” and would give Miles such a coy grin.

“I, Ruby Lupin, pick Astor for my team, for I have more than enough speed to make up for his lack of speed,” Ruby announced, trying to make her normal soft and timid voice booming. While it didn’t work, it was still kind of adorable to see her try so hard. “I got to warn you Miles, I’m a killer Soccer player.”

The Fox girl got into position , her tail lashing back and forth as if she was a cat who had spotted a mouse. Her soft green eyes locked onto the ball and interestingly enough, she looked dead serious about this. Maybe she had inherited more from her sisters than everyone thought she did because at the moment, she looked like she was ready to play one vicious game of soccer.

Her name was Ruby.

Rubyrubyrubyruby. He knew he had heard her name before. This didn't feel like a first time at all, it was more like meeting again with an old friend and her follow up to his introduction had been so sweet! She picked Astor as her teammate and she said she'd make up for his lack of speed.

Wait a second. Astor was slower, yes... compared to Tinaker! He was still a dog and therefore faster than Miles. Ruby had fox traits on her, specifically her tail and ears, but there was a chance some of her fox abilities, if she had them, where still present in her human form and foxes were indeed fast and quite smart. Did this mean he was the slowpoke of the four?

The boy smiled when she claimed to be a killer soccer player. Could this actually be a challenge? He actually saw himself playing on the defensive if she was. This was going to be interesting!

"For some reason... I don't doubt you are" he said, stepping back to his area of the field. Both dogs followed him. "Okey, let me fix this as best I can and see if it works out..."

Miles crouched and looked straight at the red eyes of his biggest dog. "Astor, we will play a game now. You will try to get the ball between those two rocks..." he said, pointing at the rocks behind him "...and you will obey every order Ruby gives you. Ignore my voice commands. Now go where Ruby is and wait until we begin the game."

The dog kept looking at him and didn't move. That was odd. Was this a case of too much loyalty, or did he just say something too confusing for his dog to understand? Miles retraced the orders he had given and found his mistake.

"Ok, scratch that. Move to where Ruby is and you will obey every order she gives you, THEN ignore my voice commands."

The dog still did not move. Why would he if Miles had voiced his newest orders and the dog had been told not to obey voice commands the first time?

The boy grumbled at his own inability to command his dogs properly. He then petted the dog's head and used his mental link instead. He ordered Astor to move to where Ruby was and told him to follow any order she gave him, while ignoring any of his voiced commands during the game. The dog complied and moved next to Ruby and Miles stood up, grinning.

"All set now. He's yours to command and will follow any order you give him. Technically, I could cheat..." he said, tapping at his temple with one finger "but it's not my style. I play a fair game."

Miles stepped back a little behind Tinaker to stay closer to his goal posts, predicting a quick advance from Ruby and Astor. He raised a hand. "On the sound of the whistle... begin."

The boy brought his fingers to his mouth as if he were holding an invisible whistle in it. His eyes were not set on the ball, but on Ruby's green eyes instead.

"Preepreeeeeep!" he shrieked, pretending it was a whistle.

And the game began.

That look that Miles gave her, she had seen that look before. This wasn't the first time they met, but the previous time seemed like a distant memory. Ruby vaguely remembered the dream from what everyone called the Age of Sebastian, she remembered being with Emerald and helping her but that was a normal memory for her.

While she was older in this one, things weren't much different than normal, the main difference was the fact that she was a lot older in this vision.

Ruby shook the thoughts of Deja Vu out of her head once that "Whistle" was blown, her over sized ears flatten at the sharp noise. The game had begun and the fox girl had darted forward kicking the ball right form beneath Miles.

"Go get it Astor!" Ruby exclaimed, watching the dog take control of the ball. Ruby would dash in by his side, quick as flash, letting the dog hand the ball while she ran on his side, waiting for the other dog and Miles to try to take it back form him

This was going to be a battle of the ages.

Boy, she was fast!

They passed right by him, taking control of the ball like he wasn't there. He barely had time to turn around and he was already watching their backs. She ran right next to Astor, the 'slow' dog, the one in control of the ball, the one who wouldn't be alive if it hadn't been for her.

What? Where did that come from? A glimpse of the big dog sitting still over a deadly machine flashed before his eyes, but he pushed it away. He had a game to play.

"Tinaker, block! BLOCK!" he screamed at the smaller dog. He didn't expect the dog to somehow get the ball off their two opponents, but he could delay them enough for Miles to move closer to his 'goal posts'. The mixed breed was closer to the incoming players and sprung as fast as he could to get in their way, trying to force them to redirect the ball somewhere but forward.

Meanwhile, Miles was striding as fast as he could to reach the middle area of his rocks. He couldn't reach Ruby or Astor fast enough to fight them for the ball, but if they made a shot for the goal area he could try and reach with his legs to stop it.

Ruby was in control, she had this whole sort of thing worked out as long as nothing went terribly wrong she and Astor would have a clear shot at the goal. Of course something went wrong though, as the zippy smaller dog barreled into the two, trying to block them from making a goal. The fox girl was familiar with this tactic and knew the larger dog couldn't keep up with these shenanigans.

If he couldn't dash away from a mine fast enough or notice he was standing on one he certainly couldn't do this.

Wait where did that come from? A strange sense of deja vu came over Ruby and she felt as if, something was sort of similar to her time before. Astor wasn't near death this time, but competing with the dog just reminded her of that dream that everyone seemed to have long ago.

[red]"Astor pass!"[/red] Ruby ordered, smiling like a loon when the dog passed the ball to her.[red] "Now block."[/red]

In response Astor tried to block his little buddy, all while Ruby tried to kick the ball down the field towards the "goal".The way she was smiling to herself was an indicator of how she was feeling.It was great, Ruby hadn't felt this great in months and now that she was out with someone she cared about she was feeling better.

Wait a second.

Cared about...hadn't she just met this kid?

This was quite impressive. Miles was so used to order his dogs around and looking mostly at their backs whenever he gave an order. To see Astor's face and his red, glowing eyes while following someone else's command and obeying it implicitly felt weird. It also made him think this had it's uses in other situations, but before losing himself in the possibilities, the boy stretched his leg and tried to block. She had managed to leave Astor's side and catch a pass from the dog, while leaving Tinaker occupied with Astor.

She kicked the ball, he lifted his foot, but he wasn't paying that much attention to where the ball was going.

Her smile was distracting him.

She seemed to be having so much fun, giggling and enjoying herself. Not like last time, she had been so concerned then.

Last time?

The ball bounced off the tip of his foot, messing the direct path it had to the center of the goal, swerving to his right, bouncing off the rock...

... and into his scoring area, between both stones.

Miles raised both arms in disbelief. He had been so close to defending that and she had scored so quickly! A killer player indeed! He bursted out laughing at seeing the score go 1-0 in such a flash, unless...

"Well, I guess that ends up our practice round. Now that we're all warmed up, we can start playing the real game" he joked, as he picked up the ball from behind his rocks.

"Tinaker, get to her area. I'll throw you the ball" he commanded his dog as he gestured with the ball in hand for Ruby and Astor to get farther back.

He'd have to stop looking at her smile if he wanted to win this thing.

Score one for Ruby and Astor! This was an event, for once Ruby Lupin was good at a sport. Well, really and truly she was good at sports that required her to run around as long as there were no real rules to go by. Not that she wanted to cheat, but Ruby tended to make her own rules as she went along with certain games. It was just more interesting that way and monotony could easily dull the mind.

Of course, Ruby played by the rules since Miles told her too, but she was the one usually telling him to play by the rules.

Wait What?

Ruby shook her head a little, feeling as if she had been here before once again. These feelings kept coming back to her and really, she didn’t know how to react. How do you react to things that seemed so real and yet so distant at the same time.

Those green eyes of hers focused on Miles, trying to get a good idea of what his strategy was for the next part of this game. She could usually do it fairly well as long as she wasn’t disturbed too much and it seemed that Astor was actually synching with her pretty well.

The fox girl’s muscles tensed and she looked ready for anything Miles was about to throw at her. If he wanted a real game, the quick footed, Ruby could give him a real game.

There was something about the way she stood and positioned herself that made Miles doubt if his little trick worked, since it was one of the oldest in the book and quite risky, judging by the speed she had displayed. He'd had Tinaker go out and look for a pass but in reality he had no intention of giving it to the dog, all he wanted was Ruby and Astor to move back and give him enough room to maneuver the ball and reach midfield at least with it still on his feet.

Which he tried to follow through.

Dropping the ball to the ground and immediately following it behind with light taps, he tried to advance as much as he could and keep control of the ball. If they both came for him, he'd pass it at Tinaker and hope for the best. If they split, he could try to outmaneuver the dog or Ruby, but if he lost the ball to either, it would be another goal for sure. Tinaker was behind his opponents and there was no way Miles could outrun either of them.

Still, that didn't stop him from providing commentary.

"Lionel Messi advances with the baaall, he moves, he dribbles, he's in control ladies and gentlemen... he's about to make a paaaaass!"

Bull, he dashed to the right with the ball still on his feet and left the dog waiting.

Seriously, could he really outsmart a fox?