It took a lot of psyching up.

Leo paced his room for hours one Saturday morning before he decided something had to be done. Something had to be done, but he knew that no one here was going to go outside the law. That’s why he was in the Mansion. He needed the law to protect him. That’s also why it took so much psyching up.

There? Nobody was going to be on his side.

This was possibly the most dangerous thing he’d done so far. If he could convince them to listen first, it could be worth the risk. He left a note so at least his roomie would know where he went. Then? He took the bus.

Foot tapping the entire way, Leo rode all the way to those famous golden doors. Sanctuary. Mutant Sanctuary. It was where the scariest mutants hung out in their own kind of mutantopia doing scary mutant things. They didn’t quite submit to human law, but then… that is why he was here.

Leo stopped and took a selfie in front of the Sanctuary doors first. He’d be stupid not to since he never ever, ever planned to come here again.

Go time. Armed only with a messenger bag with an over-full manilla folder of printed mutant dossiers, Leo pushed his way through the shiny surface and into the lobby.

How many humans had ever set foot in there and lived?

Hopefully, after today, at least one.

“Excuse me,” he addressed the blonde behind the desk in what he hoped was a polite tone. “Is there someone I can talk to about mutants I think have been wrongfully incarcerated?”

Lisa and smiled and asked the person before her to wait a moment. Random people making such bold inquiries set off alarms at a place where many of the more dangerous Mutant resided and even police stayed away from the golden doors. Officers had dissopeared in the area as well and the Humans who had once lived, as a token population at sanctuary had been long run out. Lisa quietly tapped at her computer for a moment then smiled.

Aura emerged from a hall way coated in a faint pink transparent energy. Aura blinked looking right over to Lisa who with a gesture indicated the Man in front of her. She kept her eyes on the the teenager as she made the short walk between them. He had no obvious powers but that was not wntirely uncommon. In fact only her blatant display of her own powers put her in the same boat, that and once she used them any one knew who she was.

"I would like to think I was wrongly locked away once or twice. I am Aura" she said with a friendly tone trying to hide her concern. This was unusual but whoever this guy was deserver some chance. "You may speak to me, once we understand more of what you want, we may let you proceed" she said keeping the smile but her tone grew more serious. Their were many here who had been wronged by humans, in fact almost everybody. They needed to be protected where Sanctuary could do so and her own reputation was already mud anyway. If this would be a fight she was also well equipped for that she hoped. Image sof her fight with Saphire moved through her head.

The secretary lady tapped away. Yeah, she'd asked him to wait, but Leo was almost sure she'd forgotten him since she paid him absolutely no mind after they had exchanged words.

Leo's heart may have skipped a beat when he saw the young woman walking down the hall.

Aura.

Just thinking the name made him break out into a cold sweat.

He was hoping he would get someone more reasonable or, barring reason, at least someone a little less prone to murdering and maiming. Leo had a little too much information on this front and his imagination was running wild. He was gonna be sick.

"I- uh." He licked his dry lips with his even dryer tongue. "I was hoping to share some information with someone here. Uhm. See, I- uh. I like to follow mutant affairs. Some mutants..." deserved to be locked up. Like Aura. Leo was smart enough to stop that train of thought before it came out of his mouth.

"Some mutants," he tried again, "were clearly not given a fair trial. Sort of like the weed thing and Colorado. Now that it's not illegal, drug charges are being re-evaluated. I think there are those that are locked away that need... re-evaluation."

Okay. So far, no stabbing. Time to go for broke. "I tried contacting a lawyer and couldn't get them to take me seriously. If you're interested, I would like to show you what I know." Did he want to go deeper into the depths of the Sanctuary? No. He wanted to live. But he also wanted to help free those that didn't deserve to be put away just because they were born different.

He was nervous which was not entirely uncommon at Sanctuary. Many Mutants were looked at a place with no humans like a dream or something they could never have. The fact that it existed seemed almost trap like. Aura had accepted it readily because she had not known anything else and it was familiar as well as a desperate need to find someone to lead her.

"Fair trial? Of course they did not get a fair trial. Like humans would ever grant us that! Marijuana will never evolve to replace humanity as we did and as such does not carry the fear we do. Humanity as a species knows their time is done and that we will eventually replace them. " she said simply. She had heard about the states legalization of the stuff, but their were far more pressing matters to concern herself with.

"I would love to see what information you can provide on the topic. Out here however is not the place to talk. Come Follow me" she said opening the door for Leo so the pair could travel to a private room. If he followed she would guide him to A Side room and close the door to try and make sure they were not overheard.

"May i ask your name and what you can do?" she would ask him, her own power coating her skin in a thin veil of pink. She always asked mutants what they could do both because she was curious and because if she had to fight them, they would then be a bit easier to defeat.

> "Humanity as a species knows their time is done and that we will eventually replace them."

"Ha. Yeah." His voice was reedy. It was hard to be brave in the face of potential pink death. "You see, I'm not sure-uh. Maybe not every human is ready to be replaced, you know?" He clung to his messenger bag. It was the reason he had come and hopefully the reason he would leave again.

God. Leo could tell he was going to rehash every breath of this later. Maybe for the rest of his life. He had to make himself proud.

"I agree. This isn't the place." He followed Aura deeper into the bowels of what felt like a real life dungeon crawl. Everything could kill him here. Leo took a seat in the small room and set his bag in his lap.

"Me? Oh, I'm Leo. Nice to meet you." Kind of. He'd said it out of habit and now he was skating past that in hopes he hadn't somehow offended Aura. "I'm just a kid, but I'm pretty good at computers. It's actually how I got this." He took the opportunity to pull his stack of papers out of his bag. Leo spread the folders carefully in front of him.

Jamaal Brown. Henry Nedinnger. Stacy Coleman. Raavi Srivastav. Frank Smith. He had a whole bag of these files, but he spread only 5 on the top of the table for now. The ones he knew were worst off and definitely, indisputably deserved to get out.

"This one. Henry." Leo grabbed the file. "He was an EMT. I couldn't even figure out his power, but someone got diag... uhh figured out they were a mutant after taking a ride in the back of an ambulance with Henry. Like. He thinks he caught it from him. Henry's 62 years old now. Even if he pukes biohazards, I can't find a reason for him to be in jail right now." Not that he had to make an argument to Aura. All he had to say was X-gene and surely she would circle the wagons.

"Your a hacker?" she asked curiously. Aura was of average skill with computers. She also took note that he had not answered her question. Though she had met mutants who could access the Internet before. she decided to let it go for now, if he did not wish to stay here, he had a right to keep his power to himself.

Aura began looking through the folders. She only glanced at the crimes instead taking note of where each was being held. "These five are all held at the same facility, is that coincidence or are they held in the same cage?" she said looking up at him. Her aura seemed to dance around her in quick flickers.

"This is incredible, we have heard of none of these. she said waving her hand at the files. "Be assured this will be corrected if i have to kill every guard there" she said a blade forming from the tips of her fingers forming quickly, before Aura casually dismissed it.

"They caged me to, i am free. Animals have no right to cage us" she said shaking her head. "you don't need to tell me your power but if you can do more work like this, i could certainly make sure you receive sufficient compensation. How much would you like for all of your information. How's Seventy Five thousand sound in cash?" she said casually while considering the operation that might soon unfold.

"Same... cage?" The way she talked it was almost like she was socially inept. Less socially aware than Leo if he was able to recognize the fact. That had to happen somehow and he wasn't guessing it was too much time in her room or on the internet.

"No." He cleared his throat. "No cages. Prison. Jail?" There was a differece between those words for some. He didn't know what that difference was, but Leo was betting that neither did Aura.

Well, maybe she was doing some kind of metaphor thing?

"I think there's different prisons for women and men. It should say where they're being held. I can track those locations down and cross reference who is where. I don't think any are in anything less than maximum security, though." And with that thought Leo started to feel uncomfortable. Especially after Aura casually mentioned the wholesale slaughter of every guard ever.

"This information? It comes with a price, Ms. Aura."

And that price was apparently $75,000. Like zero, zero, zero. "I didn't mean... I-" Dumbfounded, Leo had to process that for a minute. That was a heck of a lot of money. His tuition could be paid for, for all of high school, and he'd still have enough to buy the biggest, baddest gaming rig in the city. He could make an investment or two and get himself set up for college. He could-

"N-no." The word was tortured coming from his lips. "I want to give this information to you with the stipulation that you won't kill a single human unless it's self-defense." If he thought he could get more human lives out of it, he would haggle for it, but this was a dicey move in the first place.

"where do you think someone with a few hundred murders and far more property damage? It was prison now...." she let the rest hang in the air, it was rather obvious where it was going in her opinion.

"You want us to try and get in heavily guarded prisons full of people with guns and not hurt anyone? You realize as soon as we are detected they will have every cop and army man around that prison? If we kill the guards and deny then the abillity to report any issues then we will save lifes as we will not have to fight through police and soldiers. We might not win that fight but it would not be pretty for anyone" she said still considering his words and refusal of the money.

"Do you realize that when i free these people they will be fugitives like myself? The guards are not just going to let this go and any escape will get the news right away as well. Which means i then have to extend further resources protecting them which further endangers our people and the humans going after them. " she went on with a shrug.

"The question is, how many bodies will you accept on your hands? No matter how this happens their will be a body pile and captured or free your hands will always be stained. I would ask if you can live with that but i will likely attack the prison on the documents you showed me. So in that regard, welcome to the club" she said with a dark laugh. It was fake though she tried to hide it. This man was an idiot she decided to herself.