Community service looked good on college applications. Not. That that had anything to do with why Katrina was offering up her time to help with the blood drive.

Nope. She was required to for one of her civics classes at the mansion. But that wasn't why either. She liked helping people, she really did. She just hadn't had much time for it lately, what with all the preparations for the SATs, the ACTs, all the college visits and applications she had to write.

This was actually kind of a nice break from all of that.

The blood-mobile was parked near Central Park. Nurses from the Red Cross did all the actual stabbing of people with needles, thankfully. Volunteers like Katrina were there mostly to help on the sidelines. She waited patiently while someone showed her how to label the bags with the person's information before they were filled up with any liquids, they showed her where the extra stores of bandages were, and the cookies in case anyone was feeling lightheaded, and finally they showed her how to organize the donations in the refrigerated back of the truck.

There was another girl there helping too. Katrina thought she might have been new to the mansion, but wasn't entirely sure. When the nurse finally ended her “how-to” lecture Katrina turned to her co-worker-for-a-day and smiled.

“I'm Katrina, what's your name?”

Serena had decided that she needed to get up and do something positive, before lessons started, to get her geared up for them (god, she was going to have soooooo much catching up to do...) so, ironically, she volunteered for a blood drive.

More specifically, she volunteered to help with the red cross. She listened as the nurse explained how to label and organise the blood so that it could be distributed to the appropriate hospitals when it was needed. She found it interesting.

Serena hoped that she would not accidentally activate her power around so much blood. Although, reminding herself to think positively, it would in any case be good practice for when she was around blood in the future.

After the nurse finished and wandered off to tend to her other duties, the other volunteer with Serena (Who she believed was also from the mansion) introduced herself. "Pleased to meet you Katrina, I'm Serena." Serena nodded with a smile to Kat.

"Serena," the young illusionist repeated. "What do you know, our names rhyme." The little blonde surveyed the other girl. She was a few inches taller than Katrina, but other than that they looked very similar. Both were slender, both had blonde hair, and both had light colored eyes, though Serena's were the color of the sky, while Katrina's own were the color of a cloudy day. Close, but not exact. She was almost certain the face was familiar, too. With the English accent she almost sounded like she could be...

No, that was impossible. She had said her name was Serena. Not Sarah. This girl couldn't be Zephyr's sister. She was supposed to be a human anyway, wasn't she?

"Are you a new student at the mansion? I feel like I've seen you before. Do you have an older brother?"

Just checking.

The young illusionist used to know every one the moment they walked in the mansion doors, but lately enrollment had grown and she'd been far too busy with her nose stuck in SAT prep books and college application essays to pay any attention.

While they spoke, Katrina got to work carrying sloshy bags of people's life-saving donations back to the refrigerated section of the truck for sorting and storage.

"So, what do you do? The main thing I do is turn invisi..."

The little illusionist (who mainly turned invisible) stopped short in the middle of a word. The door at the back of the van was open already, but she thought that all of the nurses were around the front, not back here. Something or someone was clattering around inside, then the van wobbled and there was some sort of crash.

Something was not right here.

She shifted her load to reach up toward to handle of the door when suddenly the entire door came flying toward her, striking her squarely and knocking her back, right onto her rear end.

Graceful.

Warm liquid seeped down the front of her coat and skirt.

Uh oh.

Serena smiled at Katrina's comment about their names rhyming. She saw a look on Katrina's face, as if she was busy trying to figure out the answer to a puzzle.

Then Katrina asked about her brother. Ah, she must think Serena was somebody else... She decided to clear it up. "I've been at the mansion a couple of months, and I USED to have a brother, he's gone now though." Serena said darkly.

Katrina began to speak about what she could do, Serena could swear that she was about to say invisible... that was interesting. There was something amise, the door to the blood drive van was already open and as Katrina approached it, the door swung open knocking her back.

Serena dashed forward to see a dark, hooded figure dash around the corner, with incredible speed.

Serena decided rather than attempt to catch someone who was much faster than she was, to instead check on Katrina. She froze, she was covered in blood. "Please tell me they didn't hit you harder than it looked and that you were carrying a blood bag..."

Serena was quite clearly worried, it didn't matter that she had only just met this girl, she was also from the mansion, she seemed friendly, and Serena would not allow someone who got injured near her to bleed out.

Her brother was gone!? As in abandoned her and left the country, gone? Because that sounded exactly like Zephyr. She would have asked more about it, but things were happening so fast.

The person in the truck burst forth, the contents of some of the bags of blood spilled all down the front of her, oh god it could be diseased, and the culprit was getting away!

Serena was wasting time checking on her, and though Katrina appreciated the sentiment, he was getting away!

"I'm fine, I'm fine. That guy is getting away! He's... stealing blood? We have to stop him!" What could he even want the blood for? Leech mutation? Pet vampire dog? Seriously!

The little illusionist pushed herself to her feet and started after hooded sweatshirt man. Even after all the countless hours of conditioning class over the past year, she wasn't going to be fast enough to catch up to him. He was too quick, and had too great a head start. She could, however, reach him with her illusions.

"Stop!" A tall, muscular black man with bleached hair stepped out in front of the escaping thief, holding his hand out. Nigel Banks, one of Slate's former employees at Mondragon Labs, was the first person Katrina thought of when she thought of intimidating figures. Surely the guy would stop for an illusion of him.

He didn't stop. The hooded thief just brushed right past illusion!Nigel without a second thought. Clearly she should have put him in a police uniform or something. She wished she had thought of it sooner.

Katrina turned back while still running, shouting back to the other girl, "What can you do? Can you stop him?"

Serena was actually a little bit shocked from the whole situation, as Katrina began to run after the hooded figure dashing like a pro sprinter ahead of the two of them, Serena began to run after her, if he was stealing blood, he might be dangerous, Serena couldn't let Katrina get hurt by him!

As Serena struggled to keep pace with the two of them, Katrina turned back and yelled at Serena.

Serena responded with a shake of her head, the man dived through a man-hole cover with astounding speed, he was out of their reach now. Serena looked back to see the sorry state of the blood that had fallen out of the van. She gasped.

People needed that blood! Oh god, blood everywhere, she had to keep calm, otherwise she might accidentally use it with her mutation. "Katrina! The blood!" She yelled to the other girl, pointing to the growing mess at the edge of the van.

The blood thief was just too fast for her to catch. He dove into a manhole, of all thing. Now normally Katrina would be completely okay with continuing to chase him, but she'd had a bad experience in a sewer and wasn't likely to ever want to go down there again. Not of her own free will.

She shuddered at the memories and turned back to where Serena was pointing at the large puddle at the back of the van. The little blonde illusionist reached into her pocket for her X-man communicator so she could perhaps get a little backup down in the sewer. She tried to avoid getting any of the red liquid that had drenched her dress front onto the device for fear it would stop working. Perhaps someone could track down the culprit and bring him to justice. After all, the blood he had ruined was supposed to save lives.

“This is Katrina,” she stated as clearly as she could into the little device in the palm of her hand, “I'm at the blood drive and someone just tried to steal a bunch of blood out of the back of the van. He may have been a mutant, he was very very fast. He got away, jumped down into the sewer.”

By the time she finished her call for backup, she had gotten back to the van.

There really was blood everywhere. There was much more than she had initially thought.

“This is awful. What are we going to do?”

While Kat ran off and the man began to edge away, she began speaking on a cell or something. Serena looked around. Good, nobody was around, or looking. She focused on the blood.

She had a theory. If she could manipulate the blood, it was probably some sort of telekinesis, so if she focused...

She began to glow slightly blue and made a connection with the blood. Yes... It was small but she could feel it. When she held the blood in her minds grip, she could feel... bumps in it. She figured it must be impurities.

Kat was returning. Serena released her hold on the blood and returned to normal before Katrina saw her. She turned to Katrina as she commented. "Yes... It is." Should she tell Katrina she might be able to do something?

But what if she freaked out at Serena's power? What if somebody else saw them?

She shifted about uneasily. "Katrina, I... I might.." Thoughts swirled Serena's mind like a hurricane.

Then one thing popped into her head, a mental image of her brother, smiling, reassuring her that she could do the right thing, and that she should do the right thing.

Serena's gaze shifted to something more... confident. "Katrina. I might be able to do something about this blood." Determination gripped the blonde haemokinetic now. She would fix this. Or at least give it her best shot.

Katrina tilted her head at the other blonde. She looked at the pooling blood, then back at Serena once again.

Do something? What was to be done? It was such a waste what had happened here. All this was supposed to go to help people and one selfish person ruined it, potentially even preventing someone's life from being saved.

The illusionist shook her head sadly.

“What could you do?”

There wasn't much she could imagine that would help in a situation like this. The damage was done.

Serena faltered for a moment. Katrina's shaking of her head at Serena. Could she do this? Katrina seemed like a fairly confident person, and if she didn't think that Serena could manage it, surely she couldn't.

No, Serena knew she could do this, maybe.

She turned to Katrina, a fire burning in her eyes. Please don't freak out, please don't hate me. Please, please.

"I can purify and separate it. I think."

Serena looked from left to right, to see that nobody else was around. She looked down to the blood and then looked at her hand, she opened and closed it, and then as she closed it a blue aura surrounded her. She focused on the blood and then spoke to Katrina at the same time.

"It's my mutation. I have haemokinesis. I'll need your help though." Serena was actually feeling extremely uncomfortable about this situation. She had just revealed her mutation to an almost complete stranger, and was asking for her help.

But she couldn't waver. She was commanding confidence in her voice, so she would continue to show that for as long as she could. And She WOULD do this.

“Oh.” When Katrina pictured a blood manipulator, it was usually some evil maniac tough guy wielding a blood red sword or maybe demon wings made of blood or something. She wasn't horrified or anything, just a little surprised. One couldn't help what they were born with, she supposed. Perhaps there was a horribly cruel evil bunny mutant out there somewhere to make up for it. People didn't choose their own powers to match their personality, nor did you power define who you were.

“That's handy,” she replied after a moment of surprised silence. She softened that with a friendly smile. Knowing what she could do didn't change anything. She was still the same person, of course. “I've never met someone who could do that before. You can't... do it while it's still inside of people, can you?” That would be truly scary, at least in the wrong hands. Note to self, make sure to warn Serena not to boast about her powers in front of evil people.

“Anything I can do to help, I'll do it. You want to be invisible while you do this thing so the bystanders don't freak out? Just let me know.”

Serena smiled and nervously murmured. "Not what you expected huh? And no, I can't, as far as I can tell, it's only blood outside of the body. But I tested it earlier, and I can feel the impurities, like bumps, which makes sense I guess." She realised that she was going on a bit.

She looked embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm going on, it's just that I'm really nervous about my power and scared of what most people would think about it. And Invisible sounds tempting... but I really do need your help, I don't think I'll be able to purify and bag it at the same time, I'm going to need you to bag them, label them and then put them in the freezer."

Serena felt like she was going on endlessly, hopefully it wouldn't get on Katrina's nerves, she liked Katrina.

Katrina smiled more readily now that she had gotten used to the idea of a good blood manipulator.

“Hey, don't worry. My powers used to freak me out, too.”

The blonde teen surveyed the soggy red scene, eying all the work there was to be done.

“If you think it is still usable, that you can get all the brass and twigs out of it or whatever else is in there, then let's do it. Let me just get some new bags and another marker from the front table.”

Katrina almost walked around the front of the truck, to where volunteers and nurses were carrying on unaware that anything had happened, with a big red blood stain all down her sun dress. Heh, oops.

After a moment of concentration, imagining herself in a sparkly clean dress, she had an illusion to cover up the dark red. She smiled and walked out as if nothing at all was wrong. Walking like she knew exactly what she was doing, she grabbed a stack of empty bags and a think permanent marker then turned and went straight back to Serena again. She let the illusion fade away as she got back.

“They don't seem to realize what happened back there. Let's try to keep it that way. Maybe if we just stay behind the truck no one will see and tricks you have up your sleeves even without being invisible.”

Katrina set down the stack of bags, opened one of them, and stood holding it expectantly.

“Ready when you are.”

Serena smiled and nodded to Katrina. "Alright, I can do this. I hope." She looked nervous, yet determined to do this.

Serena took in a deep breath. "Okay, here goes." The same dazzling blue aura surrounded Serena from earlier, she reached out and the blood became enveloped in the same aura, even the blood staining Katrina's dress.

She opened her moved her hands and a mass of blood about the size of a basket ball gathered, some from the floor, and all of the blood that had stained Kat's clothing.

She opened her palm and all of it suspended. She then began moving her hands with it, spinning it around, feeling the mental bumps in the sphere and removing them by opening channels through the blood and twisting and turning it.

A neat pile of dust and other things spawned on the floor near the pool of blood. Serena then held the now pure sphere in the air and turned to Katrina, barely holding concentration, this was hard. "Okay, get ready."

There was something incredibly disconcerting about blood that had a life of its own. It made just as much sense as someone picking up a puddle of water after a rainstorm with their hydrokinesis, but somehow knowing that the globules of liquid floating through the air used to be inside of a person made it more than a little creepy. It also made it fascinating.

Katrina couldn't take her eyes off of what Serena was doing. She watched every little wibble in the liquid, noticed the way the droplets seeped out of her dress and flew to join the growing red globule, noted how en masse it was just a little transparent on the edges, but much too thick in the middle to see through, memorized the exact shade of red... she was so mesmerized that she almost didn't realize that it was about time to actually catch the stuff.

“Oh, right. Ready!”

The blonde illusionist held open the little plastic bag, careful not to get her fingers in the way. She looked from the blood over to Serena, who seemed to have a look of intense concentration on her face. It looked difficult.

“You can do it!” She cheered on her new classmate, hoping to give her the inspiration to keep going.