Rupert took a sip of his coffee, trying to wash back the taste of bile. The fox girl really was just like an eager puppy. It was hard to put into words why mutants with obvious physical deformities unsettled him so much--maybe it was because he couldn't even pretend they were human. He looked at a mutie like Ruby, and he knew they weren't the same species. Before the Registration Act, it had felt like freaks were jostling against human society. Rubbing real people the wrong way. After all this, after the Stalkers and the raids and the Camps... there was nothing for it but all out war. It had begun already; humans had made the declaration, and the first organized strike. It hadn't been unprovoked. He looked at a mutie like Ruby, and he had to wonder why he wasn't playing for his own species' team anymore. It didn't matter that she was a kid, or that she didn't understand yet how much harm she was going to do. If a young viper wandered into a human home, it would be killed. Should mutants really be any different?

> "Uncle Grizzly, You aren't friends with Fusionist are you? You aren't going to give Emmy and I back to him...are you? I know you probably don't care about what we think but he hurt us and your guards are already doing a good job with that so you aren't going to make us go with him, right?"

He set down his coffee cup, and rubbed at his temples. "No, I'm not in the practice of giving over our inmates to deranged lunatics who may or may not have actually down any doctoral work. You don't have to worry about that." She just had to worry about everything else.

Ruby looked at Mr Rupert calmly, her tail still curled around her body. She had always wondered why people were so afraid of mutants, it was strange for her to think of a world were people judge a few people as a whole. It wasn't right in her opinion, you just couldn't judge a book by its cover and she knew that.

"Oh, good I'm glad..." Ruby trailed off, munching on the pancakes some more before finally speaking.Her green eyes looked over to Rupert catiously, "Uncle grizzly... are you uncomfortable around me because of my sisters or my ears. Because if you want I can hide them for you, I just dont wan't you to be uncomfortable around me."

It was true, Ruby felt a certain wave of tenseness coming from the man and she assumed it was because of her features or her sisters.

"I could also tell Sapphire, next time I see her to lay off on the practical Jokes. Oh...she may fill your bath tub up with Jelly Fish eventually. Or put Jello in your shoes or in your Shampoo. I argued with her before We were taken for her not to do it, but its hard to convince that girl to do anything."

Ruby took on a tone of maturity in her voice when she Mentioned Sapphire, because she thought what the older girl was doing to the man was childish.

Rupert barely heard the second part, about Sapphire's pranks. The Jell-O in his shampoo would explain a few things, like his sudden dandruff problem. He had more important things to think of, though. Like how to answer her first question. He ended up leaning back against his chair with a sigh, and meeting the fox girl's eyes.

"Yes, I'm uncomfortable around you. It's not because of your sisters, and it's not because of yours ears. Not directly, anyway. It's because... because sooner or later, you're going to kill me." He ran a hand through his hair, and forestalled any protest on her part: "Not you in specific--I hope not--but one of you. Your kind. Those ears of yours, and that tail, they make it so I can't sit here and pretend that you're human like I can with some of your people. When a man can't pretend there aren't any sides... he has to choose one. That's what makes me uncomfortable."

He was uncomfortable because in the grand evolutionary scheme of things, he knew he was choosing wrong. He was helping the freaks. He was helping Raina. He loved her, and a lot of people were going to get killed for his love in the future: he was helping to sabotage humanity's chance to eradicate the competition.

Ruby's ears flattened to the top of her head when he stated he was uncomfortable around her. The Fox girl had figured as much but that didn't mean it hurt any less. Ruby sighed,she had a feeling that this would happen. She really should have been used to this by now, humans feeling uncomfortable around her, but, she was still senstive about her ears and tail.

"Oh...I kinda figured it was something like that." Ruby replied, taking more bites of the pancake. "You don't have to choose a side Uncle Grizzly, you could always be neutral. You like mutants...sorta, and you like humans because you are one. So in a way you could try to be nice to everyone, even if we are mutants."

Ruby seemed awfully sure of herself, looking at Rupert with a slight smile. Ruby took a look at her scruffy looking tail and instantly started trying to smooth it out. She did this for a little while before the tail looked almost as if it had been brushed by a comb.

"Uncle Grizzly, does my tail look dirty and matted to you? I really don't want it to look all gross because it's so soft and fluffy." She explained, a small nervous grin on her face.

Though the fox girl wasn't concieted she was always worried about how her tail looked. Even though the furry thing was still recovering from Jame's mutilation of it, it looked fairly well kept and groomed.

> "Oh...I kinda figured it was something like that."

That's what the fox girl answered; he had to wonder if she'd even heard him at all. How could she have kinda figured that he expected his death to be at a mutant's hands? It was a common fatalistic belief among the NYPD--one that was backed up by ever rising cause-of-death statistics--but an NYPD member she was not, and he doubted highly that she frequently spoke to any members besides himself.

> "You don't have to choose a side Uncle Grizzly, you could always be neutral. You like mutants...sorta, and you like humans because you are one. So in a way you could try to be nice to everyone, even if we are mutants."

Rupert shook his head, slowly, as if her words were buzzing around his head like a gnat swarm. "You really don't get it, do you. There's no neutral, Ruby; ever since people realized that your kind was around, and realized what that meant for humanity, 'neutral' has been an idealized joke of a dream. Have you ever studied the Holocaust, Ruby? Have you ever read about the German soldiers who were put up in the houses of Jews, sometimes? Some of them were very nice to the people they stayed with. They'd do house work, or buy sweets for the children, or help make dinner. Being nice doesn't change anything. If those nice soldiers had helped to smuggle those families out of the country, instead of being nice to them, maybe they'd have made a difference. If they'd stood up to what was happening, maybe they'd have made a difference. Being nice doesn't change anything; actions change things. Remember that."

> "Uncle Grizzly, does my tail look dirty and matted to you? I really don't want it to look all gross because it's so soft and fluffy." She explained, a small nervous grin on her face.

He ran another hand through his hair, and let his head lean back against his chair so that he was looking half and the ceiling and half at the top of the fox girl's head. "I've got to say, fox, I don't actually care what your tail looks like." Truer words were rarely spoken.

Ruby's ears flattened to her head, hands dropping into her lap, she sighed looking downwords as if contemplating what to say. Then, something inside the little foxling, snapped, just like that a twig that had been blowing in the gale force wing had finally snapped. All of the hurt and pain that she had been feeling, that her sister had been feeling, that she had seen everyone around her had been feeling, came out all at once.

Ruby slammed her slender hands on his desk rising up slowly.

"Mr Rupert, do you realize that I have read every book In the Library at the mansion? I know my history and I know very well about what happened in the Holocaust," Ruby had not yet looked at Rupert, but when she did it was a look of Burning rage in her eyes. "Believe it or not you are acting like a commander of one of the various labour camps those people were sent to! Do you have any idea what they do to us in there? You proabably do but you won't get off your ass to go help us! No matter what you do at this point, people will always remember you as the guy who just stood up as they were being beaten to a pulp!"

Ruby had never felt like this before, it was almost as if she couldn't take the stress she was gaining anymore. "It's just I can't take it anymore, there is a supposed 'resitance gathering' from what I have heard from rumors. But what have they done to help? As much as you have! I don't understand why so many mutants have to die in order for you...meaner humans to exterminate those who would harm them. "

Ruby finished grumpily eating the rest of her pancakes. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself down and it was working, gradually but working none the less.

It would be a long time before the fox girl understood the situational irony behind her words, if she ever did. Rupert simply listened, one hand propped under his chin and a condescending smile on his face as she slapped the table and glared and ranted and raved.

> "No matter what you do at this point, people will always remember you as the guy who just stood up as they were being beaten to a pulp!"

> "It's just I can't take it anymore, there is a supposed 'resistance gathering' from what I have heard from rumors. But what have they done to help? As much as you have!"

"Are you quite done?" Rupert asked, unable to keep the sardonic amusement from his voice. "Because some of us have work to be doing, and need our desks back."