After having cleared out the library on the entirely false premise that it had been reserved for interviews Zephyr found himself reflecting that the mansion was not one of his preferred locales. Indeed, when compared to the multitude of attractions and distractions of NYC less than an hour away, a school full of hormone fueled adolescent mutants didn’t even make it to the top twenty.

Still, family tended to make for exceptions every rule. His sisters visits to the institute were not as frequent as they once were but she had a habit of extending an invitation to him when she did and, on occasion, the hessian even accepted. Much as he might dislike the place, keeping tabs on a school full of adolescent mutants was generally a good idea.

The fact that Maya tended to bake biscuits whenever he acquiesced might have also played a part in his sporadic sojourns.

On this occasion however the purpose of his visit was unfortunately somewhat more formal than he would have liked. Granted he’d owed Maya a favour but he hadn’t thought she’d call it in for something like this.

She’d made it sound simple enough, asking him to stop by and ‘just talk’ with her adoptive son. A perfectly reasonable request if you were the kind to take things at face value, much like a lemming with a cliff. Parents did not ask others to ‘just talk’ to their children unless there were problems, lord knows his own father had tried it often enough.

He didn’t begrudge Maya for making the request though, given Judes age the boy was likely being a little punk as most teenagers tended to be. Unlike most teenagers though Jude had a power set he could switch out almost at will, something that would make it difficult to establish any kind of authority.

‘And yet I’m going try.’ He thought with a weary sigh as he browsed his tablet and waited for Judes appearance. ‘The things I do for family.’

Splash attack has no effect.

Jude frowned as his magikarp took a double slap to the face that hit 5 times. "Ugh. Come ON! It's called DOUBLE slap not b*tch slap your enemy into oblivion." Magikarp fainted. He felt a tap, tap on his shoulder and shrugged it off in favor of changing pokemon.

Someone authoritatively cleared their throat. "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"

Ah. Yeah. Ghost made him promise to go see Uncle Simon. Jude checked the clock above the TV, a mere three inches from the top of the screen and he hadn't once looked at it once all day. Yeah. He had a meeting that was supposed to start 6 minutes ago. He saved his game and let the other kid have the console controller.

Blech. This was going to be awkward.

Jude jogged toward the library and ended up knocking at the big doors' entrance. Ghost got a lot of promises from him these days that made things totally boring, but... she was kind of all he had left.

"Anybody home?" Jude pulled open the door, a full 8 minutes late.

If he’d expected Jude to actually be on time the elemental might have been somewhat annoyed when the boy made a rather unenthusiastic showing around 10 minutes late. This however had been tempered with the knowledge that if the boy had been the sort arrive timely they likely wouldn’t have needed to meet in the first place.

As such Zephyr merely withheld another sigh and began to shut down his tablet as he sent his response on a thin stream of wind to Jude left ear. “In the back to you left, fourth shelf down.”

The hessian had deliberately not chosen a classroom or office for this meeting. If one were to work on the assumption that the boy was being a brat then it was unlikely he held positive connotations with either setting. The library however, while perhaps not the most exciting venue, was meant to be more of a neutral ground and would hopefully set a less confrontations of antagonistic tone.

When the boy shuffled past said shelves and was able to see the back of Simon’s head over one of the leather reading chairs the elemental made an idle gesture to the other empty places. “Feel free take a seat, or stand if you prefer, but I’m guess you’d rather be comfortable.”

When Jude has made his choice and made no immediate move to converse Simon set aside his tablet and asked a simple question. “So, how do you want this to go?”

His lips formed the words "show off" even if he didn't actually verbalize. Aeromancers just loooved to show off their sneaky whisper powers. Jude trotted to the location provided and after a short bit of deliberation, he took a chair that was one chair length away from Simon. Out of easy reach. That gave him, by his estimation, at least time to get off one snarky comment before he got throttled.

> “So, how do you want this to go?”

Jude folded his hands in front of him on the table top, ready for negotiations. "As painless as possible. Look. You don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Ghost's got stuff on both of us so we're here at her behest." Yeah. He just said behest. "What's it going to take to get this over?"

Well, at least the boy was practical and willing to conciliate, that already put him several steps above Duskmoor. It was actually a welcome change, unfortunately though this didn’t make Jude any less recalcitrant than the Orders bone mistress.

“That depends, what assurances can you give me that you won’t do something foolish if I say we’re done here?” There was a note of honest curiosity in the elementals tone as he posed the question; while teenagers tended to be impulsive and foolish as rule they weren’t always stupid. He was willing to give Jude a chance to put his mind to work.

“If you can’t then we need to keep talking, there’s little point in blowing off this meeting if we simply have to repeat it next week. So tell me Jude why should I let you go? You made a good start appealing to my short term self-interest, see if you can build on that.”

He wanted guarantees that he wouldn't have fun or do anything remotely against the rules? Ghost was such a hypocrite in that regard. Jude flatly stared at Simon for a beat.

"No, I'm not making any more promises that I don't intend to keep. I'm doing the school thing and I'm going to do the whole puberty thing again. I'm not going to be a perfect little... ehm. I just need some leeway. It drives me bonkers to go through it slow. Again." Jude rubbed his temples. It also sucked being so close to so many yummy powers. What was he supposed to do? Nothing? All day, every day nothing?

"And if you're here to talk me into being an Xkid, you can... save your breath." Yeah. No point in being impolite. It would just get him in trouble faster.

Aside from offering a slight shrug at Judes flat rejection Zephyr offered no real sign of disappointment. It had been something of a long shot but at least the kid was smart enough to avoid empty promises.

The comment on reliving puberty however did give the elemental a moment’s pause until a half forgotten conversation with Maya came back to him. Some time ago Jude had claimed he held memories of his future life, or a future life if the hessian recalled correctly. It wasn’t the most absurd story Simon had even heard but nor was it the most believable.

In either case the boys less than amicable retort did provide a convenient segue to a half interesting conversation. “I take it then, you feel your time is being wasted? That your efforts could be better spent somewhere else?”

When that was immediately followed by a straight refusal to join the Mansion’s junior spandex faction Zephyr merely rolled his eyes. In his opinion the ‘Xkids’ and official ‘Xmen’ groups amounted to little more than glorified community service. And as much as he was tempted to share such thoughts doing so while in said Mansion would be something of a solecism.

Instead he tried a different track. “Whether you join the junior Xmen or not isn’t really my concern. However you’ve made it rather evident that you have too much time on your hands. The routine response to this is to find some way to keep you busy which is doubtless why you’ve been told about the… ‘Xkids’.”

Giving the boy a moment to absorb that Zephyr debated sharing a piece of his own less than ideal childhood before ultimately deciding against it. “Have you thought about you’ll do when you finish your education Jude? Or even what you could do now if you didn’t have to ‘do the school thing’?”

"A waste of time sounds a bit... harsh. I guess I'm forming the connections and learning stuff that'll help me be a successful mutant in the future." Jude rolled his eyes. "At best, I'm finding the useful abilities and getting familiar with their limitations. I know who to come to to borrow powers if I know what I need." Jude flicked a speck of flotsam from the tabletop. Unless he got proactive about it, he never knew what he'd want to have as a power in a fight.

He breathed an obvious sigh of relief about Simon's lack of X-enthusiasm. Even Ghost wasn't an X-man anymore. She didn't have a leg to stand on when she pressured him to join.

> “Have you thought about you’ll do when you finish your education Jude? Or even what you could do now if you didn’t have to ‘do the school thing’?”

"Eh... I tried the no school thing. I used a power to grow up prematurely, but there are drawbacks to an illegitimate identity. I ended up making a living off of my power, but... it wasn't a fulfilling one." Making a life out of tracking your crazy adoptive dad and all the potential horrendous futures he might cause to happen? Not super healthy.

"In my other future, I had a different skill set but it was enough to get into politics. Which in hindsight is skeezy. I do not recommend. Once they get something on you, you're owned. I don't want to be owned. At least, not like that."

Jude rubbed his chin. What was he going to do with himself? "If you have suggestions, I'm all ears."

Now this was interesting.

Not really knowing the boy, Zephyr had half expected him to be as straight-laced as Maya; ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ is an aphorism for a reason after all. That, and being a little punk didn’t always necessitate the disregard for rules that a more dissolute mind frame allowed. Sometimes it simply meant being a self-entitled brat who would bluster but was too apprehensive to carry through.

Not so with Jude apparently, if one could take him at his word. Still, the kid recognized the value of education even if he didn’t enjoy getting it which suggested a level of maturity beyond most of his peers. It also poked a hole in the boy’s future memories claim but that was beyond the scope of their current discussion.

Annoyingly, none of these insights truly helped divine an answer as to what precisely should be done with the child that would keep him from further mischief, honestly it was almost as if-

"If you have suggestions, I'm all ears."

And just like that an opportunity threw itself at his feet.

Shifting his eyes from the window he’d been staring at Zephyr met Judes gaze with a bemused expression, torn between seriously considering the boys question or simply pawning him off onto someone else. It all came down to a question of time; how much he was willing to spend and how much he stood to gain.

“I might have an idea or two.” He began slowly, watching Judes face for any telltale expressions. “I assume you wouldn’t be opposed to a paying job?” Without truly waiting for the boy to respond he continued on. “If so I’m aware of a few opportunities, but I need to know what you’re capable of first, granted I don’t expect you to tell me everything, but if you can give me a flavor of what you can do currently, or perhaps I should say reliably, then that will help narrow things down.”[/font]

He might have an idea? How novel. Jude gave him the poker face that'd cleaned out most of the west wing of the boy's dorm. He wasn't committing to anything just yet, but at least things were getting interesting.

> “I assume you wouldn’t be opposed to a paying job?”

Head shake. Clearly he could and would since he had been supporting himself not that long ago.

Uncle Simon just wanted to know what he was capable of? "I can do what you can do." Pretty simple really. Only, just now,he had Elke's power, but if he was pressed to give an example, he could switch rather quickly.

“I can do what you can do”

‘I rather doubt that.’ The thought came with no small amount of hauteur yet the elemental managed to refrain from rolling his eyes at his nephew, instead limiting his expression to a skeptically raised eyebrow as he tried to recall if he’d ever been quite so cocksure of his own abilities at Judes age.

There was a world of difference between having a tool and being able to use it effectively. Duskmoor was a prime example; her mutation allowed her to generate and manipulate any osseous matter within reach. It was a power that could potentially change landscapes, destroy industries and forever shift a balance of world power towards mutants… and what did the girl do with it?

She used it to poke holes in people.

Giving himself a mental shake Simon dismissed that train of thought, he was here to deal with Jude, not Duskmoor and focusing on the latter was unlikely to improve his mood towards the former. “I know you can copy mutations Jude, it’s part of what makes you unique, even among your peers.” Read; royal pain because the staff never knew what to expect and couldn’t always adjust on the fly.

“What I’m asking is which mutations you have the most experience with as that will likely indicate how well you can use them and from that I can try to gauge the work you’d be best suited for.”

“Think of powers as video games.” Seeing the question look on his nephews face Zephyr did at last roll his eyes, “Yes I do play them on occasion, so don’t begrudge me the metaphor.” The last was said as the elemental stared Jude down, almost daring the boy to make a half-witted retort, thankfully the mischievous mimic kept his silence and the hessian continued..

“As I was saying, think of every mutant as getting one game and they play it until they master it, or become good enough to get by. You on the other hand, are a console and can pick up any game you see, however that doesn’t mean you can just start playing and be as good as someone whose been working at it for months or years. It takes practice.”

“So I want to know what your best at, do you have any kind of shapeshifting? Something that would allow for intimidation or surveillance? Powers that let you create or build even if it’s as simple as landscaping? What about mutations that grant you toughness, agility or anything else that helps you handle situations that would be dangerous for others?”

“I want to play to your strengths Jude but I can only do that if you tell me what they are.”

> “What I’m asking is which mutations you have the most experience with...”

Oh. Well, why didn't he ask that instead of asking what he did. On his own, he did nothing. It took a mansion full of mutants to give him variety. Yet another reason he'd given in to Maya's request. He really, should write those reasons down for rainy days.

> “Think of powers as video games.”

Were they really going down this road? Simon continued and it's wasn't a bad analogy —it at least proved that the old windbag got the gist of his abilities— but Jude already knew how his own power worked. He didn't need a lesson.

He also didn't want to get slapped. Jude wisely kept his remarks to himself. Simon was kind to him, but Jude had a sense that the elemental had something of a predator in him.

"True telepathy is ze ability that I had in the future. There aren't a lot of those on hand, but when I find it, that ability is probably my most comfortable. After that in order of hours of practice with them..." He took a moment for some quick fuzzy math "Probably aeromancy, power boosting, future vision, speed, face changing..." Was he forgetting anything? "I know where to reliably find all of those as well."

Regarding the ash haired boy pensively Simon ‘s fingers idly drummed against the armrest of his chair and his free hand rested on his chin as he mentally catalogued Judes laundry list of abilities and sought for some suitably menial yet productive task. Despite what the Order’s occasional marketing/recruiting efforts would have you believe, the vast majority of young mutants could not just go out one day and begin raiding banks and assaulting police.

Well they could, provided they were willing to end up in either a cramped concrete box, or a snug wooden one six feet under.

However distant he might be though Jude was family, or at least, close enough for Maya to consider him so. It wouldn’t do for the teenager to end up in dire straits so shortly after speaking with his ‘dear uncle’. No, something subtle was needed.

“Telepathy,”

Quite possibly one of the most valuable abilities it was unfortunately in rather short supply. Simon himself had only encountered two during him time in the city and both had been his employers at one time or another which spoke volumes of what such power could achieve financially, never mind politically. Unfortunately Hunter hadn’t been seen for almost half a decade and Slate’s intermittent morality made him an unwise source of power for anything he’d want Jude to attempt.

A pity really but one couldn’t have everything.

“aeromancy,”

Masking a slight frown at graceless epithet for his own power Simon nonetheless considered the possibilities. There was little that couldn’t be achieved with sufficient mastery of the air, the only question was how much his nephew already knew and could be safely taught; air blades were rather useful in less diplomatic situations but it wasn’t a skill he was willing to hand over to a teenager if the boy couldn’t figure it out himself.

Ghosting however, was another matter entirely. Maya’s own personal forte, the ethereal state was surprisingly versatile with advantages in both reconnaissance and combat provided there was no source of fire nearby. Unfortunately the technique was rather detrimental to one’s health, at least as Maya practiced it and Jude would likely need weeks of practice before he was adept enough to change states without losing pieces of himself.

“power boosting”

An… interesting claim, and one that caused the elemental to arch an eyebrow despite himself. Magnification of other powers was a rarer ability than telekinesis and a good deal more valuable. The city had nearly been torn apart the first time an amplifier had happened to wander through and the only one Zephyr had met had left him with a migraine roughly the same size as the crater he’d put in Mondragon labs.

Phenomenal cosmic power was highly overrated.

“future vision,”

“I’m sorry, what?” The words cut through Judes preamble like razor wire through freshly fallen snow. “Future vision? Please tell me you haven’t found a mutant with precognition.” If he had well, disappointment wouldn’t begin to describe how he felt about the boy’s lack of initiative.

Still, he’d have to believe it before he could be disappointed; family or not Simon had heard his share of tall tales and this one reeked to high heaven.

> “Future vision? Please tell me you haven’t found a mutant with precognition.”

Well. At least he believed Jude. The kid heaved a sigh. "It's never as good as it sounds. Personal futures of a target you can see and it's not exactly a car you drive. More like a train on tracks and nobody knows who put them there. Unless we used the power on each other that got weird." Really weird. Like, Groundhog Day weird.

"I could go get it now and come back to see yours if you wanted. But the Future's fickle." And addictive. "I tried to use it to find Ghost and Sebastian when... you know. Took me more than a year to find Ghost and still someone else beat me to it." It had been more effective to track Sebastian since he had a much broader reach.

Jude cleared his throat. "I set up some investments, but I had to empty most of it to fix the Iris Apartments." Back when he'd been the man of the empty house and he'd had bills and a mortgage to pay. Boy, was he glad to hand that burden back to Ghost.

Hm. He hadn't thought about setting up another one. Maybe something more legitimate looking like a fund that would mature when he came of age? He could wait another 3 years to become independently wealthy.

As Jude made a halfhearted attempt to elucidate the specifics of the future vision power, the elementals drumming fingers slowed and then stopped as he started parsing the implications of the teenagers words and his brow once again creased in contemplation.

By the time his nephew trailed off Simons gaze had wondered to a spot above the boys head and he gathered his thoughts after only a moment or two of silence. “That is…. Interesting. If what you’re saying is accurate, what you see isn’t the future so much as a potential sequence of events.” It was a difference most would consider a minor technicality but one which could have quite significant repercussions. “But if you try to act on information it seems you cause a divergence from the path you saw, though the degree of divergence would vary.”

Brining his eyes back to the ashen haired boy Zephyr frowned for a moment as he considered how best to proceed. “I can’t be certain but, a power like that sounds as though it would really only be useful on a larger stage; for events where your own actions are unlikely to have any impact, playing the stock market is actually a perfect example. If you try to use the visions for anything more… personal, you’d likely end up with a butterfly effect and a notably different future from what you saw.”

“I almost think I’d prefer not knowing, but if you find yourself with that power again let me know; there are a few things I’d like to try.” Because honestly, who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to play the markets like that?

Realizing they’d taken something of a tangent Simon steepled his fingers and took a deep breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. He had a clearer picture of what Jude was capable of but there were still a few specifics that needed to be addressed.

“Going back to your mutation, how long can you hold on to a borrowed power?”