It was a short drop from the window sill into the plants below. Thankfully, the bush she landed in was more alive than dead, and thus her fall was cushioned. 

The shrubbery shook as she stood and stumbled out of it, dusting her clothes off as she went. She cast a baleful look back at the open window and snorted, curling her lip snobbishly. Good riddance. Maybe she'd escape the damn school once and for all. 

... Not like anyone would care. Her forced care givers had barely looked her in the eye once for the past few months. She doubted they would even notice she'd left.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she kept to the side of the building as she went, avoiding paths she knew had motion detectors and cameras trained on them. She just needed to make it to the outer gate, which she could scale easily enough after all the practice she'd had, and she'd be home free.

Though... she didn't exactly know where she was going yet. Most of her 'safe houses' had been taken down, sold, or were otherwise occupied by other squatters.

She could always go to Roach.... that Sanctuary place was always open, and no one spared her a second glance once they realized she was a mutant.

It was chance, really.

He'd happened to be on his way home from putting a hostage situation to a quick end when he couldn't help but notice the feeling of something plopping down from the window of a certain teenager's room. He'd just landed on the roof, and thus could easily survey the situation from there.

Elke... Honestly, he wasn't particularly surprised when he confirmed that she was indeed sneaking out again, and had done a great job of mapping out the security grid in order to get out undetected. That made this particular attempt premeditated. He wondered how long she'd been planning; honestly, he'd been neglecting her to the point where he wouldn't be able to venture a good guess... After everything that'd happened... He shook his head.

No time to dwell on pesky emotions and their rationalizations... He was too busy thinking of how long young Moose was gonna be grounded for this time.

There was the issue of presenting the fact that he'd caught her; presentation was really everything in these types of situations. She had to be utterly convinced that he'd been aware of her plans to sneak out, and had opted to wait until just this moment to catch her. This line of reasoning would instill a paranoia that he was always watching, and she could get away with nothing.

It was a quick and easy decision; he would catch her at the gate, while she was climbing up. That would put her in a vulnerable position so she couldn't think to flee.

He reached up to rub his thick stubble for a moment as he prepared what he was going to say his head. Yup.... that would work. A jump, glide, and tip-toe later he was in position. He would wait until the shorter girl was half way up the fence before he spoke up, spouting a stern and cross sounding.

"Goin' somewhere?"

A bit cliche, sure, but there was nothing wrong with leaning on a classic!

Halfway up indeed. She twitched, clinging to the fence like some sort of primate, and hazarded a glance over her shoulder.

Yep... it was him. He had this uncanny habit of turning up places she didn't expect him, kind almost like he was always watch--... Nah. He didn't care enough to watch her these days. He was always too busy being broody and grounding her.

"...yeah...what's it to you?" She stopped craning her neck with a sigh, and slid down the bars until her feet met the ground with a soft thud. She could have tried to get up and over the gate quickly, but she knew he was faster. That only left her with verbally challenging him. Or, so she thought, at least.

Danny had been spending more and more time around the Mansion lately - raiding their food supply, and occasionally sneaking into and hijacking their training room when nobody was around to notice. Occasionally, he even stopped and chatted with some people, most of which had no clue who he was and what he was doing in the Mansion. He suspected that somebody had probably caught on, but seeing as nobody had actually told him off on it yet, he was pretty much safe. Sort of. Except, he was now leaving the Mansion, and who looked like one of the X-Men had just leapt off a roof and was gliding towards Danny's exit. Which was bad, considering he had only met two X-Men so far, and only one of them had been nice. This one sure didn't look like he was the latter, considering he was starting a fight with some little kid. Danny could be taking this out of context, but he wasn't taking any chances.

He backtracked to a fence out of sight of the other two, making sure that he was mostly concealed by vegetation and trees, before starting to scale it. Except, he somehow missed the fact that there was a spider on it, and he hated spiders. He wasn't arachnophobic, by any means, but he just really didn't want one to touch his skin. Which that one did.

And bit him.

With a muffled yelp, his grip slipped, and he landed back on the ground with a thunk, the impact jarring him. He just lay there for a moment, winded. Now he had half a mind to throw himself at the spider and incinerate it for all he was worth, but he wasn't that badly injured. No need to do something that rash just yet.

"...yeah...what's it to you?"

Saphirus scoffed as the girl gave him some lip. Kids these days! If he'd said that to his dad when he was little... well, he'd be speaking to no one in particular... bad example. Still! Harumph, good old days, whatnot, up hill both ways, RAWR!

"Elke, I don't got time to play this little game. You know the deal. Two choices; get down, and go to your room, and you're grounded for a month. Or, try and run, get caught just like every other time, and you're grounded for two. Which one is it this time, eh?"

He folded his arms, his hand ready to dart to his crowbar, still hanging at his hip. "No clones... and if I-"

Thump. The feeling of something falling from a fence danced at the edge of his sixth sense's range. Something was out there.

A clone? When did she have time? Jees, she must have seen him coming and split while he wasn't looking. This one would be a diversion, then?

Saph peered at the young woman for a moment... This one seemed like the real one, though.. He could usually tell. Maybe he was losing his touch... His arms uncrossed, resting at his hips. "Aright, then... Two months it is."

WHOOSH! He'd still been sitting on a good bit of energy from a hard day's work, so flinging himself off toward the presumable true moose was a cinch. The costume clad hero burst through the bushes with his crowbar in hand; the intimidation factor was always appreciated by the super hero. Elke was smart enough to just give up when she knew she was cornered, so he didn't expect any type of fight.

"STOP RIGHT TH-... The @$%^ are you?"

It wasn't Elke, that was for sure...

Her lip curled as she stared at him. "Oh, i'm shakin' in me boots, boss." The teen snorted through her nose, her hands automatically fisting into the pockets of her coat. "More time in solitary? Anything but that!

The heavy sarcasm surely wasn't lost on him, nor the overly dramatic way she rolled her eyes.

Something thumped, like a sack of potatoes hitting the dirt, and it caught the X's attention. and that caught her attention. Her lips crumpled into an ugly scowl as she went along with his guess, all the while mentally going over what exact steps she would need to take to get herself up and over the fence in record time. She even tossed in a half asses sputtered curse word at his sentencing, before Saph had fled and left her standing there.

She didn't even waste time on grinning, as she hopped back up the bars, flung herself over the top, and landed in a crouch in the grass on the other side. Then, it was full-speed-sprint mode as she careened across the lawn toward the road.

Oh, crap. The conversation to the side had halted rather abruptly. There was a brief moment of silence, and suddenly, somebody sprung out of the bushes with a shout.

"STOP RIGHT TH-... The @$%^ are you?"

"JESUS @#&^!$@ CHRIST," Danny swore loudly as he scrambled backwards a little bit. He had not seen that coming. "Is this what you X-Men spend your time doing now? Scaring the $#!^ out of innocent people?" After taking a moment to catch his breath, because he had just fallen from a fence and then had somebody literally fly out of the foliage screaming at him, Danny scrambled up. He opened his mouth to say something probably very aggressive, before something moved in the corner of his eye. He craned his neck, peering over the other man's shoulder. "Uh, say, would it happen to be some little kid you were telling off?" he asked. "Because there's one tearing across the lawn right now. Don't want to distract you from your duties, so don't mind me. If she's your responsibility, might want to get her."