Cafas' face softened, a trick learned through rigorous training. He would not let the fool have the satisfaction. He was clearly trying to get himself punched. Heck, he'd managed to get Maya to take a swing, with a weapon no less. She assured him it was an accident. Cafas would have said the same thing.

“Whatever happened to that police pussy you were getting?”

Yup, he was really trying now. Desperately asking to be fed his own teeth. Old Cafas might have just done it. New Cafas reigned in his own brain and focused on answering questions. They wanted to know what happened with Calley? Fine, that was so easy to answer it barely warranted the shit eating grin the kid had in place.

Just like any other shock jock presenter.

"That one takes us back to balancing life. Two careers with long, stressful, irregular hours, and some awful timing. It happens. Taught me a hard lesson about balancing my social and professional life, which has so far been well used in my relationship with Ghost."

Calling Maya "Ghost" felt weird, but even so the thought of her calmed him and forced a tiny smile onto his face. The purple began to fade from his eyes, though whether that continued largely depended on Jiri and his chosen questions.

He'd come to a conclusion. An incredible, mind-numbing, terrifying conclusion: Cafas was actively trying not to punch him.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself as the knowledge of this new power flowed into his veins. Patience, young padawan: there would be time to grow strong in the force. It was important that viewers saw him as the light side, and Cafas draped in the darkness that seemed to inhabit all Mansion adults.

“I apologize, Mr. Johnson. That was unprofessional of me. Being a student of this school,” as opposed to one of its soulless adults, “I can get a little fired up about social justice.” Unlike the soulless adults.

Time to ease back on the heavy questions.

“So, I hear that you had no previous acting experience when you were cast for your role in Dusk. What do you think made you such a natural as a Fairy Prince?”

Plausible deniability was the name of the game.

“Are the rumors about a little on screen/off screen romance between you and your co-star true?”

“For many, being part of a blockbuster hit like this is the dream. Do you ever fear that there's nowhere to go but down?”

“I apologize, Mr. Johnson. That was unprofessional of me. Being a student of this school, I can get a little fired up about social justice.”

Cafas had the idiot sized up, and from here, there would be no shocks. He wanted to be deliberately inflammatory? Cafas wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. His publicist might have warned him about this from the start though. That would have left him in a much better position. "I understand that perfectly. You are forgiven."

Better hope I'm not in charge of your try outs kid. You seem like just the sort of fool to apply.

>“So, I hear that you had no previous acting experience when you were cast for your role in Dusk. What do you think made you such a natural as a Fairy Prince?”

"Natural? Haha, oh man, I wish. No, for me there were hours of grueling acting training, rehearsing day in and day out, then thirty takes. I think I got the hang of it by the last film though." So many hours of training. So. Many. Hours. Cafas could still hear the voices of his various tutors with perfect clarity. Honestly, if they hadn't already promoted the movie as starring an X-man, he figured they might have fired him early on.

Coulda saved me all this...

>“Are the rumors about a little on screen/off screen romance between you and your co-star true?”

Oh please, that one was just patently absurd. It had been absurd at the time. Where was Allison when you needed her? Cafas just laughed and shook his head, formulating how he was going to tackle the answer. How to phrase it that wasn't "How dumb actually are you?".

"No, that one was all hype. They actually did make us act as if we were dating for a while, but we put an end to that pretty quickly once we realised how much it was affecting our actual relationships. Sorry to disappoint."

>“For many, being part of a blockbuster hit like this is the dream. Do you ever fear that there's nowhere to go but down?”

Yeah, he was trying hard. So hard. Even Cafas could see it. Unfortunately for him, he was flailing blindly. Research would really up his shock jock game. "Not at all. Honestly, I can see a way up. With more experience I hope one day I might win an Oscar, or even just be nominated. I might not ever be part of something quite so sensationally huge as Dawn, but I'll always have the experience." Smile for the camera, show everything was fine now.

Come on kid, bigger and badder have had a go, what else you got?

Jiri had this poser sized up. From here, there would be no more buddying up, no more sudden disillusionment as he thought he might—just might--be able to like the same person that Maya Csendes did. As always, she was the ultimate litmus test: Ghost's approval was a clear sign of moral decay.

If there was a single (non-drunk) X-man who was legitimately a good guy, Jiri hadn't found them. At this rate, using the Brat Squad to get things done was sounding a whole lot better than trying out for a team of washed-up adults lip-synching their idealism.

“I'm sure you've got great things in your future.” See? He could smile too. “Speaking of the future: if you had to choose between your involvement in the X-Men and your career, which would you pick?”

He just needed to coast to the end of this interview. Let the guy smile all he wanted for the camera; let him dodge the hard questions behind party lines. Jiri was going to change things in a way this pretty boy never could.

“What would you say is the most meaningful way you've helped the world?”

Like any proper teenager, he slid his phone half-way out of his pocket, and started a text to Leo and Alex.

civil disobedience field trip 2 aussieland anyone? someone tell headmaster we need a lift

“I'm going to take the liberty of combining two questions here: is there anything you've seen at the Mansion that's crazier than you've seen in Hollywood?”

The X-Men would have to get off their asses if three of their own students got arrested.

>"Speaking of the future: if you had to choose between your involvement in the X-Men and your career, which would you pick?"

There we go, back to happy interview questions and fake smiles, not trying to get punched in the face. He wasn't even a shock jock with the courage of his convictions, he was backing down at Cafas' concealed anger.

"If the only factor was that one couldn't exist with the other, I'd take the X-men. While the money and acting is more fun, I feel like I do more good in the X-men." Even if they were now acting as mutant SWAT. They did many more instances of smaller goods.

>“What would you say is the most meaningful way you've helped the world?”

Technically he wasn't at liberty to discuss that. While he was never certain that they'd actually saved the kid, The Ranger and him had removed a catastrophically powerful nuclear research aide from North Korea. Heck, it was hard to tell what the kid himself was capable of. But Jiri probably expected an answer.

"Relatively early into the deputation of the X-men, the riots broke out. I was working almost around the clock on the riot squad, keeping the groups from killing each other and our fellow officers. I honestly hope it's the most good I've ever done, it's certainly the scariest thing I've ever done." There, that was a perfectly good answer, and his second place answer anyway.

>“I'm going to take the liberty of combining two questions here: is there anything you've seen at the Mansion that's crazier than you've seen in Hollywood?”

Ah, now that one was certainly pushing on the edge of political correctness. They had to be asking about students they could classify as monstrous. Cafas wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of pretending to know what they meant.

"Crazier? No, but pretty on par. I've seen some jury rigged speaker set ups that would terrify any electrician. You know that one in Rom-Coms where they throw someone's stuff out a window? I've seen room mates do that in the name of cleaning. The love triangles around here get pretty hairy too. Still, the only thing Hollywood just doesn't come close to is the danger room." Even Cafas couldn't comprehend everything that room could do, and he'd arguably spent more time in it than any other person alive.

He was just reading questions now, barely listening to the made-for-TV drivel coming out of the older man's talk hole.

“vivaLaRevolutionInBed writes: Constrained actions and politically correct speech and working with Stalker 2.0, oh my. What would it take for the X-Men to finally disassociate themselves from the police?”

Leo's reply had come quickly, with a quiet little vibrate in his pants: Will ask. Two seconds, he's gotta stop talking first.

Yep. That sounded like Headmaster Ruddy.

tell him Gemma wants to meet ASAP, that'll get him running

It wasn't even a lie: the Mansion's Counselor, aka Responsible Adult MVP, had been looking for the Headmaster… pretty much since the guy took the job, actually.

“You have the world's attention. What would you say to the mutants in your old country? The humans?”

Alex's reply came a second later, and was a bit more concise. Whhhhyyy?

Only three y's? Yeah, he was half-way sold already. Jiri's typin' thumb swiped back a swift reply: majority rules, we're totally going

“They say getting a puppy is a big time commitment. With your busy schedule, where do you find time to walk yours in the park?”

It seemed innocent enough, to someone paying only half a mind. Perfectly innocent, to anyone that didn't know the commenter was sniping at Ghost's son.

we need to make posters. and make sure we can stream from aussieland. do we have to get new data plans or what?

Suffice it to say, texting-while-interviewing could be as dangerous as texting-while-driving.

Ah Jiri had clearly lost interest. Potentially at the point he realised Cafas wasn't actually going to kick the piss out of him on air? He actually appeared to be texting. Hardly a surprise, half the people he passed in the street tended to be completely engrossed in their phones or tablets. Pick-pockets were having a field day.

>“vivaLaRevolutionInBed writes: Constrained actions and politically correct speech and working with Stalker 2.0, oh my. What would it take for the X-Men to finally disassociate themselves from the police?”

Cafas looked directly into the camera, purple creeping into his eyes though he kept his face as pleasant as possible. "While I'd love to give you an answer, that's not my call to make. You should ask Cold Steel." Cafas sure wanted to, he just couldn't pin the guy down. He'd be on the edge of quitting if he didn't think he was going to need them to help with Ragnarok.

>“You have the world's attention. What would you say to the mutants in your old country? The humans?”

A brief dit-dit-di-dit as the laptop picked up interference from Jiri's phone. Cafas smiled internally, shooting a surprised glance at Jiri. That was exactly why they didn't allow phones to be left on while on sets. Such an amateur move. Cafas turned back to the camera, scolding himself for his own vindictive pleasure. Then the question really hit him, and he paused a silent moment to think. "Mutants are not your enemies, we aren't your latest threat. We're your daughters, your sons, your brothers and sisters. We're your family, your friends. End this dark stain on our history. Together, we're so much more than the sum of our parts."

"And to the mutants, though you may be bitter, angry, and scared, violence is not the solution, it will only make things worse. Rise above it, meet hatred with love, cruelty with kindness. Violence is not a solution, it is a regrettable final resort. Do everything you can to avoid it. It will be hard, you will likely fail along the way, but stick to the path with everything you've got. To quote a far greater man than I, If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do."

... That may have been a little too much.

Cafas couldn't find it in himself to even smile sheepishly, his face just kind of froze on a serious, entreating expression. He had to wonder if this happened to everyone that made such monologues. He'd spoken from the heart and it refused to bow to the social expectation that he be embarrassed about it. In fact, he decided to take his own advice and release his pent up anger at Jiri, letting it dissipate into the ether.

>“They say getting a puppy is a big time commitment. With your busy schedule, where do you find time to walk yours in the park?”

There it was, like a slap in the face and... The light on the camera was gone. Actually, a large chunk of the camera was. Cafas had been running his finger over a screw in his chair. That screw was no longer under his finger. He was as shocked as anyone. "Damn, sorry Jiri." Like, almost genuinely so. The kid had it coming, but still, Cafas hadn't meant to do it.

"My-uh..." He could correct that. "... 's kid is kinda a touchy subject. We can take the abuse you know, but he's only four, it's not right to target him." Cafas shook his head, to disappointed in himself to be angry at Jiri. It wasn't really his question anyway, was it. "Write down the make and model for me and I'll buy you a new one."

I guess that's cut then.

((OOC: Fade to Australia.))