Finding the Mansion hadn't been too difficult. Allison had been there once, after all, several months... perhaps a year ago. Anyway, she knew where it was, at least generally, in a vague sense. Google knew exactly.

Getting there wasn't hard, at all. Walk some blocks (which was not entirely comfortable, but still, wasn't hard), take the subway, and walk some more. Allison would have preferred not to have had to walk, but... well, that was how it was. It wasn't that difficult. And she'd evaded attention, largely by leaving off all tattoos on her face and keeping her hands hidden in pockets. That made the trip much simpler.

Getting into the Mansion... that might be difficult. She'd tried calling Cafas again, and his phone still seemed to be off; she was definitely going to have to inform him of that when she found him. In the meantime, there was a gate, and Allison didn't have a very obvious way through it. She frowned, standing a bit back to stare at it for a minute before spotting people and waving. "Hello! I'm looking for Cafas, would you mind letting me in?"

Whether it would work... well, Allison would be pretty suspicious if the situation were reversed. But it was worth trying; hopefully she could at least convince them to tell Cafas to turn his phone on for her. And this was the Mansion, after all, they were supposed to be trusting.

"Well, uh, I was just thinking, cuz, you know, you're all... You know... Kinda like... Eh... Um... You know, how you are, right? With the... You know, the thing that does... that... stuff... Well... I mean, right now, my power ain't workin, and, cause, like... Well, If ... No, no, that's not a good example... Like... What if... no... Uhm... Yeah. Can you turn it off, I guess?"

Smooth. Go talk to the adapted, Saph, it won't be awkward, Saph, No, not at aaaallll.

"So... I ain't good with words. You... Prolly noticed that, and I'm just sayin, with security bein my job an all. Like. What if someone attacked and... I ain't sayin you're dangerous or nuthin, don't get me wrong, I just... How are you doing?" How are you doing? Really? How are you doing. That's what he could manage.

Part of the problem was that he just didn't talk to the adapted known as Mama T much at all. Sure, they passed each other in the hallways, and it made him nearly fall on his face every time, but they'd never talked about her... Anti-mutation before. She probably got a lot of strange questions, and he felt like a dope awkwardly catching up to her while she was going for a walk.

Ever since that incident at the bar he had some questions. He was sure that guy was what Mama T was; She interacted with his sixth sense in the exact same way; He'd met someone else similar, though not as powerful in the past, and it worried him, to be honest. How many of them were there? Would she know?

>>"Well, uh, I was just thinking, cuz, you know, you're all... You know... Kinda like... Eh... Um... You know, how you are, right? With the... You know, the thing that does... that... stuff... Well... I mean, right now, my power ain't workin, and, cause, like... Well, If ... No, no, that's not a good example... Like... What if... no... Uhm... Yeah. Can you turn it off, I guess?... So... I ain't good with words. You... Prolly noticed that, and I'm just sayin, with security bein my job an all. Like. What if someone attacked and... I ain't sayin you're dangerous or nuthin, don't get me wrong, I just... How are you doing?"

Mama looked at Spahirus over her cup of coffee with certain... amusement. He pretty much showed up out of nowhere in the Mansion living room.
Well, not entire nowhere. He was an X, after all. Just not one Mama usually interacted with.
She waited patiently for him to rattle of things that did not make sense. She understood one thing for sure: he was uncomfortable.

"It's okay" she said the moment she could get a word in edgewise "Whatever your question is, ask away. It's okay to be curious. I promise. Believe me I have had the talk with plenty of mutants before."

Was she having too much fun with this? Maybe. A tiny little bit.

Kevin was thirteen (and a quarter, not just thirteen!) years old, and generally known to be unusually talkative. This might have had something to do with the fact that he had four lungs; it was perfectly natural for him to breath with one set, and talk with the other, with no need to ever do such a silly thing as pause his speech to breath. He knew, on some level, that other people only had two lungs, but couldn't quite understand why they didn't just talk with one lung and use the other to breath, and anyway, he tended to forget.

In addition to his four lungs, Kevin had two hearts; what particular use the second heart was was less clear, since they seemed to alternate beats. Whether one would speed up if the other ever stopped was unclear, and no one was quite willing to test. Kevin also produced blood at about twice the rate other people did, which might have been of some interest to him if it did him any good. Instead, he just got nosebleeds every few hours, so the skin below his nose was permanently tinged a bit pinker than it should be, and the little red pinpricks of broken veins spotted his skin even more than his freckles did. Sometimes, there were broken veins inside freckles. Kevin thought it was hilarious, even if no one else quite seemed to understand why.

What Kevin did not know, and no one had bothered to explain to him, was that his excessive blood supply was also why he was quite so... energetic. And fidgety, and generally incapable of ever staying still, no matter how literal or metaphorical the sense. Most people just assumed he had ADHD, which might not have been entirely inaccurate, if someone had been able to sort out the effects of his mutation to check. But no one had, and anyway, there were stranger quirks in the Mansion, so Kevin's energy was left alone, and when he saw a lady waving to him and his friends from the other side of the gate, he went bouncing over to check without bothering to wait for his friends. His friends were used to this, and stayed put; Kevin would get back much faster than they could catch up with him.

"Hey hi lady! What'cha doing, do you wanna come in? I dunno why they close that gate, everyone oughta come hang out here, it's awesome!" Kevin had, technically, stopped running when he reached the gate, and stood. He also, technically, then immediately started hopping from foot to foot. He only had two of those, fortunately, or it might have gotten even more confusing.

The lady blinked, and looked somewhat bemused for a second before answering. Kevin noticed this, but then immediately forgot. "Yeah, I'm looking for a friend of mine."

"Cool!" Kevin bounced up to the gate, and looked for a way to open it. That was boring, so he started climbing in order to look better. "I've got lots of friends here, how come you've only got one? You can meet mine if you want, they're fun! There's Mati, she turns into this fox thing that's made of fire, 'cept if you pet her she's fuzzy, but then she gets bored and bites you if you do that too long. And Theo, he's sorta creepy cause he always appears behind you and you never see him walking anywhere, he's always just kinda there and he glares a lot, but he's funny. And Mildred, she likes staying outside cause she kinda catches fire sometimes, only she doesn't always notice, so sometimes Tina'll start roasting marshmallows on her before she notices, and then she makes him make jello for us to make up for not telling her, which is awesome, someday he needs to turn the whole pool into Jello, he can do that just by touching the water, only so far he just gets sleepy before he can change the whole pool."

The lady was still blinking while Kevin hung over the edge of the gate, having given up (or, more specifically, forgotten about) opening it, and instead was busy chattering. "You have interesting friends," she managed to get in between Kevin's unlimited-by-breathing speech.

"Yeah! And then there's Quentin and Alois, Alois can throw bread around, like lasers!" Kevin demonstrated, punching through the air, then had to grab back onto the top of the gate. "And when he gets one big enough, like those bag-it French things, he can ride around on 'em like a broom, like Hogwarts! He did that for Halloween last year, 'cept then Mati ate it so he couldn't fly anymore. And Quentin, he's got this special room that's all high-tech and water beds and stuff, 'cause if he has a pillow it turns into razors, which is kinda creepy but he's not, apart from that, only he's got a bunch of scars from it happening, they're really cool, but he keeps trying to hide them so he's got really long hair, like it's down at his shoulders!" Kevin demonstrated, waving his hand around by his shoulder, though he remembered to hold on with the other one.

"Er... your friends sound very fun," the lady said. Kevin noticed it looked like someone had drawn on her face and leaned over to look closer. "Were you going to let me in?"

"Oh! Right!" Kevin shot upright, and began clambering down the gate again. "I dunno how, I think this gate doesn't open like that, so I'll go get someone and they can let you in. You wait there, I'll be right back and then they'll let you in and you can meet my friends, and maybe Mati'll let you pet her!" He jumped the rest of the way down, spun, and took off running for the Mansion's door.

"It's okay. Whatever your question is, ask away. It's okay to be curious. I promise. Believe me I have had the talk with plenty of mutants before."

He stared at her for a moment as she graciously met his bumbling curiosity.

"Oh. Oh thank god. You know, everyone always says you're really nice. Guess I shouldn't have been nervous, huh? Yeah... So... Well, I'm not even sure where to start asking! Oh, I know! Do y-"

"Hey hey! So there's this lady outside, her hair was all red and stuff, and I was talking to her about all of my friends and telling her cool things about them because I wanted her to know how great it was here because she seemed nice and I thought it might be cool if she could stay here or at least come inside and look around if she doesn't want to stay. I didn't ask her. Do you think she would like it here? Oh right, you haven't met her! She was looking for a friend and she said that my friends sounded interested, which is I was wondering if you thought she would like it here, which probably gives you a little more context because then it would make sense that she might like it here and can you open the gate please?"

Saph's mouth didn't close as he stared at Kevin. Gosh... It never stopped surprising him. He could talk forever. It didn't stop. It was like some sort of polite and distracted carpet bombing of words... And you couldn't really hate it, because he was a nice kid; he never got in trouble, and he even tended to have a calming effect one some of the more... outgoing and destructive students.

"Oh... uhm... Yeah, Kevin. We'll open the gate... Just don't talk to stangers, okay?"

"Kay thanks see you later bye, I'm gonna go and tell her the good news and maybe ask her if she wants to play kickball, I bet she likes kickball, most people like-"

Saph looked over as Kevin went on about kickball. "Hey, uh... I gotta get the gate, but if you don't mind coming along, we can chat... I mean, if it's not inconvenient for you. I- eh- I understand if you've got other stuff to do." He stood and headed toward the exit as he talked, knowing that most people didn't like to be kept waiting too long at the gate.

Gemma chuckled at the relief on Saph's face. He had questions about adapteds the way pre-teens had questions about the other sex. It was all kinds of amusing.
Before they could get into the mutant version of 'the talk', however, Kevin ran up to them, and even momentarily slowed down by Gemma's aura he was going way too fast. There was someone at the gates. Gemma found herself already tensing up.

>>"Hey, uh... I gotta get the gate, but if you don't mind coming along, we can chat... I mean, if it's not inconvenient for you. I- eh- I understand if you've got other stuff to do."

"This is the stuff I usually do" she smiled, walking with him towards the gates. She was the guidance counselor, after all.

There was a red-haired girl at the gates. Technically the riot lockdown was over, but security was still high enough that she needed someone with authority to get in.

Gemma glanced at Saph and nodded towards the gates. X-men first.

...Wow. Allison had forgotten how overwhelming kids were. She was pretty sure she'd never encountered a kid quite that... energetic before, though, at least not that old. Mutation probably had something to do with it, considering where she was.

He seemed not to be able to teleport, though, for all the energy, so Allison had a few minutes to recover, and to attempt calling Cafas again. He didn't answer, nor did the phone ring; weird, since she didn't remember his phone ever being out of batteries before... but then Allison hadn't called him often before, either.

She still had the phone out when the kid returned; he didn't start climbing this time, but he did go back to bouncing from foot to foot. "They're coming! I dunno how they're gonna open the gate, 'cause I can't see a way to open it anywhere, but that's okay, he said he would. And he's an X man! Do you know any X men? They're really cool! So opening a gate's no problem!"

"Er, right." Allison was pretty sure the kid didn't hear her answer; he was busy continuing to talk. Didn't the kid need to breath? There were in fact adults approaching, though, so she let the kid keep talking and focused on them.

...Adults who... didn't look overly excited to see Allison. Hm. What had the kid told them? Allison gave a slightly hesitant smile and wave, and called to them. "Hello! I'm trying to get ahold of Cafas, but I think his phone's out of batteries?"

"Oh, darn." The tone the kid used to say that would normally be reserved for much worse words. Allison glanced down. His nose was bleeding, and he was already crouched down, leaning forward so the blood dripped on the ground.

"Are you okay? I have tissues...." A few, anyway. Somewhat squished, but that was what happened to tissues when they were carried around in pockets, even if they were in those little travel packs.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine! It's just something that happens sometimes. Cause of my mutation, or something. Hey, do you like kickball?" The way he was crouching somewhat restricted the kid's ability to bounce around. Instead, he was waving the arm that wasn't occupied pinching the bridge of his nose around in wild, uninformative gestures, apparently to make up for it.

Allison... really hoped her kid wasn't that energetic. She didn't think she could deal with that.

The older X-man fumbled for his X-communicator in his pocket so that he could use it's new function to open the gates without having to be in the security room. "Well, y'know I usually got this... I dunno... Kinda... Sixth sense sorta thing goin on... Um... Not like, the "I see dead people." thing, but... Well, I guess I feel things moving. I noticed that there's... Well, Like, a bubble around you. It's strange. So... You know it's like.. almost eerie... Like, a perfect circle. Hell, I know when you're in the next room causa it."

He paused for a second as they were about to walk out the front door. "That Ain't wierd is it? Is it the same for Sam? You talk to him about it at all? He's got that heat vision thing goin on."

Saphirus shrugged and continued walking. Their young associate was way ahead of them; he didn't seem to like being around Mama T's power very much. Saph could see the pros and cons, personally. For example, if he wanted right now, he could JOG to the gate.

Jog. No hobbling. That was pretty awesome. Then again, someone could punch him in the face with no fear of having the blow land harmlessly on his right side.

That was less awesome.

What was even less awesome than that? The sight of the woman at the front gate. Saph froze in mid step as she came close enough to recognise. "No way... I- I mean, Sorry, I'll get the door." He was clearly shaken, though he was quick to explain it away. "yeesh, it really is strange, getting used to not having my powers, you know? Well, I guess not, huh?"

He kept his eyes on Alli as she explained why she was here... She knew Cafas, and Megan? The world was too small. Act natural, Saph. You've never met this woman. That was the Judge.

"Lemme get that gate for ya. I'm sure we can find him. Hey, Kevin, I think the kids were gonna go hang out at the pool. We can help... Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't ask you your name.This is Gemma, and i'm Saphirus. Wierd name, I know. Long story! What brings you in looking for Cafas?" He stayed a comfortable distance away as he cued the gate to slide open.

"If you're a mutant, you'll notice your powers won't work when you get closer... Don't worry about it."

>>"Well, y'know I usually got this... I dunno... Kinda... Sixth sense sorta thing goin on... Um... Not like, the "I see dead people." thing, but... Well, I guess I feel things moving. I noticed that there's... Well, Like, a bubble around you. It's strange. So... You know it's like.. almost eerie... Like, a perfect circle. Hell, I know when you're in the next room causa it."

"That's actually..." Gemma started, but Saphirus seemed to involved in the monologue that he finally managed to break into after the awkward silence that the counselor settled for smiling and listening all the way through. She did not entirely understand how his powers worked, but the fact that he could sense her personal aura, or lack thereof, sounded familiar.

>>"That Ain't wierd is it? Is it the same for Sam? You talk to him about it at all? He's got that heat vision thing goin on."

"Yes" Gemma nodded "That happens a lot with mutations that entail sensing something or someone from a distance. I just show up on a blank spot on the map."

The x-man scrambled to open the gates for the red-haired girl. Gemma put a hand on the kid's shoulder and sent him away to the pool where the other kids were playing, hopefully properly supervised.
The girl asked after Cafas, another one of the X-men. They sure were popular...

>>"If you're a mutant, you'll notice your powers won't work when you get closer... Don't worry about it."

"It's my aura" she hurried to explain as the redhead walked through the gates "You can't use your powers around me. Sorry about that. Welcome to the Mansion..."

Apparently they really weren't happy to see Allison. Or the man wasn't anyway; the woman either wasn't as worried, or was better at hiding it. They let her in, though... and if this were a week ago their suspicions of her could have been entirely justified, so she let it go with a smile. No point being mad that the man was both halfway intelligent and bad at lying. Her smile grew a bit (and more relieved) when the kid was sent away; he was way too much for Allison to handle for long. Though apparently a bit of his rambling had rubbed off on the man; he kept skipping topics.

"I'm Allison." Personally, she'd just started assuming any odd name had either been chosen by the person, or given to them by some sort of guardian or leader after their parents were gone. Apparently that was not the case with Saphirus's name, though... or else the Mansion had a lot fewer unusual names than the Sanctuary did. She supposed that would make sense... and was now wondering how Cafas had gotten his name. Oh well. "Nice to meet you both."

"Er." Politeness abruptly lost to fear as 'your mutation won't work' was mentioned. Allison froze just inside the gate, then put a smile back on and continued. She could always just run away from the woman's aura, right? They were outside after all, and there were only two of them. Besides, it was the Mansion; if she couldn't relax at least a little bit here, then there probably wasn't anywhere safe, no matter how she felt. She could at least always tell them she was pregnant if she had to, even if the X men weren't actually all good, they certainly had a reputation to protect, so they probably wouldn't risk hurting a pregnant woman in any way that damaged the pregnancy.

And anyway, she still needed to find Cafas. That was a good excuse to ignore the subject for now. "It's kind of a long story... you know he's in a movie, right? I am too, there's something we need to do for that, but it came up kind of last minute and his phone must be off."

"Cafas was in a movie? Sheesh, we hang out all the time and he never told me... Something he'd be embarrassed abou-"

The woman moved closer, and he got a better look at her... Yep... There was no doubt about it. It was the woman from the bar... As she got a little closer, his eyes widened just a little bit, and in spite of himself, he blurt out. "You're pregnant..." Holy crap. She was the girl from the bar. Those men had... And she was...

He was staring... Holy hell, say something, Saph, Say something! It wasn't like she was super pregnant, but she'd been rather skinny the last time he saw her, and now, I mean, she could have just let herself go or something, he'd understand if that was the case, but...

"I mean... You're looking for Cafas... Oh" Atta boy! Divert attention from yourself by making it look as though Cafas had knocked someone up! What the hell, that was a horrible idea! Oh holy jesus, oh crap, oh holy jesus crap!

"Gemma... You know where Cafas could be? I think I saw him around earlier..."

"Yeah." To both questions, probably, if Cafas hadn't gotten around to mentioning it. Not that Allison blamed him, really; she was perfectly aware of how the books and movie were viewed. For that matter, she didn't have a high opinion of them either, but several million dollars was sufficient motivation to ignore that. "It's--"

"...What?" That probably wasn't actually audible. Or intelligible, since Allison's voice had kind of broken halfway through it. It took a second to remember to close her mouth, try to get her eyes back to a normal size, and then try speaking again. "You can tell?"

Not that it should be impossible. Allison was a lot heavier than she used to be. But that still put her barely above average, if at all. Did this guy sense peoples' physical conditions, or their thoughts, or...? But hadn't they just said mutations didn't work around the woman? "How can you tell?"

...And they arrived at entirely the wrong conclusion. Like everyone else. "Cafas isn't...."

...You know what, actually? Cafas could defend himself from his friend's conclusions. Let him figure out how to explain that no one was the father without saying rape for once. Or say it and let them pity the poor little girl while Allison wasn't around. Whatever. Allison was sick of explaining it.

>>"You're pregnant..."

>>"...What? You can tell? How can you tell?"

Gemma blinked in shock and turned to look at Saph. Just what on earth did he think he was... oh. The girl's reaction was not denial but shock similar to Gemma's. The counselor turned back to her to take another look. She was skinny, but if one knew what they were looking for... Saph was probably right. Maybe.

>>"I mean... You're looking for Cafas... Oh... Gemma... You know where Cafas could be? I think I saw him around earlier..."

"Cafas isn't...."

Good lord, Cafas.

Gemma sighed and squared her shoulders in a gesture that showed that this was a situations she had faced many times before. You don't get to be a guidance counselor for more than a decade without having to deal with teenage pregnancies. Mutant issues still threw her off sometimes, but this was not one of them.

"He should be around somewhere. Saph, would you be a darling and go fetch him? I'll take... Allison, was it?... to my office. I've got food and tea, if you want any. We'll figure out the rest, but there is no reason why we should do so while standing in the doorway."

"Right, yeah! Good idea!" Did he completely ignore the girl's inquiries pertaining to his knowhow of her pregnancy? Why yes, he did; his mind was too busy yelling 'GET THE @#$% out of here, Saph!' at him over and over again.

"I'll go get Cafas, then. Yeah..." He turned and jogged off, cursing as he nearly fell on his face leaving Gemma's aura. The X-man then hobbled quickly toward the mansion...

Where he hell was he going to find Cafas? Maybe he could just... not look for Cafas? call it a day? Take a nap? No, that would be inconsiderate and, more importantly, abnormal. Everything was going normally. He definitely was not a moonlighting vigilante that murdered people he considered to be evil. Not. At. All.

"CAFAS! CAAAAFAASS" Atta boy, call for him at the top of your lungs. You don't look stupid and weird enough already.

Deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, mind focused, nerves pushed aside. He was an X-man, he had done more dangerous things than this. Cafas started running along the shingles, adjusting for the slope as best he could, praying none slipped. The tree he was aiming for stood ahead of him, the branch a half a floor lower than him. That wasn't what worried him, the five yards and rounded landing surface did that. he had a zero percent margin of error.

Which apparently Saph did not appreciate. His concentration was shattered by the X-man's shouting. he clearly required Cafas, but there had to be a better way to find him didn't there?

"CAAAAFAASS"

Apparently not.

His attention swung back to hat he was doing mid jump. It cost him though. He missed his mark, grabbed for it, and was rewarded with a back-flipping trip to the ground, hitting every branch he felt it was humanly possible to hit. He lay in the dirt, gazing up at the branch he had wanted to jump to. He was pretty sure he was bleeding in a few places, and there would certainly with bruises.

He pushed himself up and limped his way around the corner in time to catch Saph before he was inside. "Parkour training is coming along well, thought I'd save you asking. What's up?"