It had been half a year since Fern had promised herself she would visit the mutant school but as the days went on, the thought of leaving her cosy little apartment and stable job to venture out into the “mutant world” got scarier and scarier. She felt that didn’t need to learn how to control her powers because she didn’t want to use them ever again and it wasn’t as if she had become some kind of social reject due to being ‘one of them’. Fern hadn’t told anyone in New York about her abilities and planned to keep it that way – if it was anything like the situation back in Australia, Fern would have no hope of keeping her job or apartment if she told anyone. Very few people had noticed or asked about the dull green pattern across her palm and after she made up some lie or another, people would drop the subject. Apart from that, there was no way anyone could have guessed that she was a mutant, she hadn’t used her powers – even accidentally since leaving Australia.

There was absolutely no reason for her to visit this “school” but here she was standing on the foot path paying the taxi driver. How had it come to this? Was she so selfish that she thought she needed as much help as other mutants who were in much worse positions than her and could not possibly manage to live a normal life? Or did she just need someone to talk to who could understand what was wrong with her? Whatever the reason, here she was so she may as well make the best of it. She walked cautiously down the path towards the huge building. It wasn't a bad looking place, just like a normal school. Maybe coming here wasn't such a bad idea after all. Who knows maybe they will be able to fix her.

It was around that time that a fairly large explosion went off in the middle of the Mansion grounds.

This probably wasn’t doing much for the Mansion’s image as ‘not so bad after all.’ And if any prospective students knew the truth, that would only dig them into a deeper hole. You see, Kaitlyn was engaging in psychological warfare with the people who lived across the street from the Mansion.

She wasn’t supposed to do this kind of thing in the Danger Room, because she might have accidentally broken part of the room’s holoprojector system the last time she was in there. There were some technicians in there at the moment giving it some repairs, along with a minor upgrade to make sure the room would be Kaitlyn-proof in the future.

Kaitlyn decided it would be good to keep practicing anyway, and what better place to do it than outside? She could just stop if someone got close enough for her to hurt them, and it’s not like anything important would break. The people across the street called in to complain about the noise a few minutes ago. Had the words “dirty mutants” not been involved in that phone rant, Kaitlyn would have stopped. As it stood, she was suddenly very curious about just how big and loud her shockwaves could get.

That last blast was the only one she’d made after the phone call. Ears ringing, she suddenly realized how dangerously close she had just come to knocking out all the windows on the front of the Mansion. Also, there was a prospective student hanging out at the front gate. Maybe she should stop.

In fact, maybe she’d just given that girl a really bad first impression of the Mansion. While this was technically a good thing, she’d rather this stranger dislike the Mansion for the right reasons.

She started walking towards the front gate. “Hey there!” she shouted, “Don’t worry, it’s safe to come closer if you want! That normally doesn’t happen!”

Just as Fern was getting her courage up, an explosion went off not too far away. Fern jumped due to the loud noise and shockwave.

‘What was that?’ she asked herself and then began to panic as she saw a young girl walking away from where the blast came from. At least the girl was walking and didn’t have any visible injuries or else Fern might have rushed over into a very dangerous situation.

>>“Hey there! Don’t worry, it’s safe to come closer if you want!”
With that permission Fern hurried to the little girl.

“Are you okay honey? What happened?” Fern asked as she fussed over the girl, checking for any signs of injury from the blast.

>>“That normally doesn’t happen!” the girl said very calmly
Fern looked up at her with confusion. She hadn’t really thought this through had she? Here she was on the grounds of a mutant school, and explosion had just gone off from where this child was standing, obviously normal children didn’t hang around the grounds of a mutant school and survive explosions without a scratch on them.

“Did you make that happen?” Fern asked, slowly taking a few steps back. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust this girl or was afraid of her it was just that Fern couldn’t even control her own powers – and all she could do was (sometimes) make plants move, that was pretty pathetic compared to being able to explode things. This girl was only young too, meaning that she probably had less control over it then Fern did.

“I’m Fern” she said, not game enough to get closer to extend her hand in greeting. “Do you go to school here?”

“I’m fine,” Kaitlyn said with a nervous chuckle. “I was just practicing with my power. Accidents don’t happen as much when I get to practice.”

She could understand Fern wanting to keep her distance. And she could tell that was what Fern wanted to do; she’d seen the signs in people’s body language often enough that Fern might as well have said it outright.

“Yup,” she answered Fern’s last question. “I live on campus a lot, too. Kaitlyn.” The redhead moved closer and, smirking, offered her hand to shake. Just to watch Fern squirm.

Fern didn’t want to be rude and she especially didn’t want to make anyone angry – at least not someone as powerful as this. So Fern took a small step forward and took Kaitlyn’s hand, extending her hand purposefully to show the dark greenish lines across her palm. This girl, Kaitlyn, didn’t know how pathetic Fern’s powers were and hopefully when she saw that Fern had a mutation too, she might feel as nervous as Fern was. She didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, and she certainly didn’t want to make Kaitlyn angry, but she did want Kaitlyn to be on the same boat as her.

“So they like teach you normal school stuff but only mutants can come here?” She asked, curious about this school. Fern wasn't sure that she would like it here - she was scared of this little girl! How would she go if she had to face someone with a visible mutation. Fern was a nice person and she tried not to discriminate - deep down she did want to accept everyone but it was a bit difficult when all her body can think is
runrunrunrunrunrunrun

The green lines on Fern’s hand didn’t even phase Kaitlyn. Being around people who could kill with superpowers was normal for her. They shook hands.

“Yup,” Kaitlyn affirmed. “There’s mutation control and self-defense classes too, but just normal history and math and stuff aside from that. And ‘cause we’re all mutants, humans don’t run around starting fights with us like they would at public schools.” For all the X’s rhetoric about coexisting, Kaitlyn thought it was pretty funny that the school would only let mutants in.

“Thinking of getting in?” Fern seemed around the same age as some of the older high school kids, but free room and board and generous scholarships made the school a good deal for the mutant kids who just got kicked out of the house. And there were plenty of those kinds of kids around Fern’s age.