She never thought this would be a problem for her, but now it was.

Somebody in her building had gotten wise to the fact that the ten-year-old girl with the dad who definitely wasn't old enough to have a daughter her age probably had something up with her. Unfortunately, that somebody had been the most obnoxious old lady ever, who'd hired a private investigator and everything to watch them. She would've sued them both for invasion of privacy if the private investigator hadn't caught photos of her meeting with a well-known mob boss.

...also, if the old woman hadn't called the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, also known as USCIS, also known as a giant pain in the ass, who then proceeded to check her photo and realize that she was in no way supposed to be on this continent. Apparently, her accent was still just that bad.

Basically, Kirsi was going to get deported if she didn't immediately find a place to hide out until they got sick of searching for her and gave up. And Kirsi really, really didn't want to get deported back to Norway, where she would inevitably be handed over to some police force. At least they hadn't found the Interpol listing yet, though she doubted that it would stay unfound for long. Maddox would be fine; he'd find another apartment, and no one would look twice at him because he wasn't on a Most Wanted list. But she wasn't as lucky, so she'd have to look a bit harder.

So, after minimal Internet research, she learned that she had two options if she wanted to stay in the New York City area. Getting another place to live was not one of them, because that took time, and she didn't have that quite yet. In the meanwhile, her choices were the Mansion or some place called Sanctuary. Both were supposed to be safe havens for mutants, which was better for her, because that meant there were other mutants there that could provide buffer, so to speak. But the Mansion was out of the question for now, because Ragnarok paid most of her bills, and Ragnarok hated the Mansion. So the Sanctuary it was. She knew nothing about the place, but she didn't have time to find out more before she left.

And that was why she was standing in front of the two absurdly large golden doors that led to the Sanctuary, carrying a small suitcase and a messenger. The messenger bag was full of her usual odds and ends - nails, coins, a Schmidt & Bender PMII 5-25x56 DT sniper scope... Meanwhile, the small but gaudy Frozen suitcase was full of clothes and other supplies of that sort. She didn't have too much to begin with, so it wasn't that much trouble to carry. But that wasn't all. Beneath the false bottom lay cash. Stacks and stacks of neatly tied hundred dollar bills, all untraceable. The hidden compartment was booby-trapped, of course - Maddox had helped her rig up a knockout gas thing that would trigger if someone tried to open it without entering the passcode, and the keypad itself was nearly impossible to find without knowing where it was. These weren't her life savings, of course - just what she'd had stored in their apartment. It was her getaway money, so to speak, and now she finally might need to use it.

As she stood there, looking up at the doors, she was unsure of what to do. Was she supposed to knock? Or was she just supposed to walk in? Just to be safe, she knocked.

...and then stood there and waited, because she wasn't sure what to do after that.

"Ya lookin' to get in, kid?" a boy asked as he approached. His hair was a fairly tangled mess and his eyes far older than his sixteen years. A nearly burnt out cigarette left his lips, dancing in his right hand. He looked her up down. "Ya don't have to wait. They give shit away here."

The boy walked up the stairs and past her, flicking the last of the ashy stick to the ground. He grabbed the handle of one golden door and pushed the small button that allowed the door to be opened. "I'm Marcus," he said, gesturing in. He half-frowned and spoke as if already exhausted, "You need help or something?"

"Mr. Hadden should be down in a moment," Lisa Wilson, secretary to the innocently named Sanctuary, stated plainly and pulled the door further open for both young Marcus and younger... "I'm Lisa Wilson. What is your name, young miss?"

Meanwhile the clack of shoes echoed down into the foyer as a tall young man of dark, brooding features but brilliantly blue eyes appeared. He was a bit out of breath and grinned slightly as he stopped abruptly upon the scene. "Geez, Ms. Wilson. You said it was urgent, everything okay?" he gazed about, settling his eyes on the girl beyond the doorway.

She was young, certainly, but not in how she held herself. Devon was used to seeing kids that had grown up too fast and even some that had never been children at all. She was pale, faintly shaded like too much light had gone through her, draining the color out. Her eyes were like steel, held firm as tightly as she held onto that case. "I'm Devon. Everyone good?"

"Yeah, dude, relax," Marcus rolled his eyes.

"Okay, come on, please come in," the volunteer lead added. Devon had thought something was wrong by the way the secretary had urgently called him down before hanging up the phone with an abrupt click.

Lisa Wilson nodded slowly at Devon, a move so simple but seemingly confirming a great deal. The woman could tell a whole story with one gesture. He marveled at it. Sanctuary was lucky to have her.

"Ya lookin' to get in, kid?" Kirsi instinctively bristled as soon as she heard the voice, because kid? Really? She opened her mouth to say something clever back, but she was saved from having to think of something to say when the acrid fumes of cigarette smoke drifted in her general direction. She coughed instead, and glared at him when he spoke and opened the door, but she thanked him anyway because she was polite.

"I'm Marcus," the boy said. Kirsi didn't say anything; she just nodded to acknowledge she'd heard him. "You need help or something?" Before she could respond, the door pulled open even further, and a woman's face was framed in the doorway.

"Mr. Hadden should be down in a moment," was the first thing she said, and Kirsi frowned. Was she supposed to know who that was? If she'd had the time, she might've cased the place in advance, and checked in with some of her contacts as to its present situation, but she'd been in a rush. "I'm Lisa Wilson. What is your name, young miss?"

Kirsi didn't answer. She could sense someone moving towards the foyer at a seriously fast pace, and so she figured she might as well wait for him to show up, considering he was going to be here in a couple seconds.

Right on time, almost immediately after Lisa spoke, they could hear shoes echoing throughout the building. It was a pretty old building, actually - Kirsi wondered how many people were actually staying in a place like this. She doubted a lot of people were in the exact or an even remotely similar situation as her, but she supposed that other mutants could have been kicked out of their homes or something. She wasn't naive; she knew that happened to some people, as unfortunate as it was.

Kirsi raised an eyebrow as the newcomer spoke. He was a big guy - a good two feet taller than her - and she was pretty sure she'd seen his photo on one of those fashion ads in the mall. But that wasn't what caught her attention. "You said it was urgent, everything okay?" What, her very existence was supposed to be urgent now? There couldn't be any way that they knew who she was, right? Because if they did, wow, that was a bit... infuriating. Logically, Kirsi knew that if they did know, then this was a pretty normal response. But it was a little bit patronizing for them to call Calvin Klein down here, as if he'd be able to stop her if she was really on a mission.

So she nodded as Gucci introduced himself as Devon, and as Marcus "yeah, dude, relax"-ed him. She came in when he told her to, but she definitely did not miss that look. It was a very telling look, and what it told her was that Lisa had most definitely called Giorgio Armani down here to handle her. She bristled. That was a very heavy blow to her ten-year-old pride. She didn't realize, but a few nearby items were starting to vibrate with kinetic energy, betraying her agitation. A stapler clattered to the floor, having gone right off the edge of the desk, and a plant was shaking like a tiger had just jumpscared it.

If she'd been a bit older, or a bit more focused on her notoriety, she might have actually appreciated the sentiment. It also might have actually occurred to her that if Chanel was volunteering at Sanctuary, he was probably a mutant too, and she didn't know what his mutation was. But of course, it didn't.

"I'm sorry," she said, and there was an edge to her voice. "Am I missing something?"

"I would certainly hope not," Ms. Wilson stated firmly. "Mr. Hadden has become our welcoming party for new faces."

Marcus blew an exasperated bit of air through drawn lips. "I'm out," and he kept walking for one of the common rooms, eyeing the shaking plant as he went.

"Sure Marcus, no problem," Devon nodded, having glanced at the stapler as it dropped though he hadn't noticed the large fern vibrating yet. "Yeah... Sorry. When she called quickly I assumed something was wrong. We've been a bit wary since..." He sighed, pausing but he didn't linger long. "Since Texas. I-" he stopped, "We take the safety of the people here very seriously."

"I haven't even been here that long but it seems I'm the one most often around so I tend to do the hellos. A few other volunteer leads have joined up too, whom I'm sure you'll meet should you wish to . Again, sorry to burst in as you three were talking."

"Your promptness is appreciated," Wilson again stated. "I will not have young women standing alone on the street."

"Ah," Devon nodded slowly. "Yeah, I don't want anyone standing alone on the street. Least the lights are working now and are sure to stay working. Thank you Juliette," he grinned. His azure eyes then returned to the girl. "I hope you'll stay but it's up to you when you stay and for how long. You can grab a bite to eat before you go if you want. We've some snacks you can take as well. But I do hope you at least take a look around. Maybe I can answer some questions for you?"

Ms. Wilson picked up the stapler, returning it to its proper place on the desk. Her attention may have returned to her work but her eyes glanced back at Devon and the young miss now and then. Marcus slithered toward a sofa, two common rooms away.

Oh, right. Odessa.

She almost felt a little bit guilty, then and there, assuming this was about her. Of course they had other things on their minds, and Odessa had to be one of them. Clearly Abercrombie and Fitch had good intentions.

She still didn't trust the secretary.

She'd calmed down a bit now, but only after one of the fern's leaves disintegrated in a puff of green specks. That was when she'd realized exactly what she was doing, and actively forced herself to calm down so she wouldn't dismember any more foliage. If she'd been any other child, she probably would've destroyed everything in her vicinity just from remembering when she heard about the events of Odessa. But she wasn't any other child. War was war, and that was what this was going to turn into - war. She'd fled here from Scandinavia to get away from this sort of thing, but apparently it was just too global to run from.

Armani (she was starting to run out of things to call him) kept talking, and she startled a bit when he said Juliette. The name sounded familiar, but not in a good way. She was pretty sure she tackled the last Juliette she'd met off a rooftop, down ten stories, but it couldn't be the same one. And judging by his enthusiastic welcome, she would be able to stay here until everything blew over. That was good. Great, in fact. And yes, she had questions. So many questions. Because if there was one thing she did know about Sanctuary, that she realized not ten seconds ago, was that it looked so much more different at night than it did during the day.

Oops. She was pretty sure Panu had hired her to come raid this place with him and his dragon dad. That was... unfortunate. Hopefully, everyone here either had a very short memory or hadn't bothered to go outside when the META bots had raided.

"I would like to stay here, if that is okay," Kirsi said, quietly. "My name is Kirsi." When she wasn't pretending, or playing her accent up or down for her own reasons, her English was crisp and clear, but she was still clearly from not America. Unlike her fellow Scandinavian Panu, she'd had the advantage of attending an English- and Norwegian-speaking school, so she'd learned both languages simultaneously. Her words were still accented, though, and while she wished she could say that she paid full attention in the one class she was required to speak English in, she really hadn't. "I don't have anywhere else to go." Some little prideful part of her wanted to ask about the META bot attack, though. Hugo Boss might not know - she didn't recall seeing him around at the time - but the scary secretary might.

"Um," she began hesitantly, unsure of how to ask. She looked just like she was scared to ask because she was nervous, and she was - but not nervous talking to them, nervous that they'd figure it out and kick her out. "I heard that the Sanctuary was raided by META bots a few months back. Is that true?" She'd never gone into the Sanctuary, which was why she hadn't remembered at first. She'd only stood outside and watched as the META bots ran inside. Hopefully, that was enough for no one to have seen her when that happened.

Devon did not, could not hide his surprise at that question. His brow knit together in concern as he shot a glance over to the secretary immediately. They were questioning eyes but there was an annoyance in them too. "META bots attacked a homeless shelter?"

Lisa Wilson, secretary of Sanctuary, looked up from her work, pupils floating over the rim of her reading glasses. "Yes, that's correct," she nodded. "The problems were resolved with the correct parties informed." As quickly as she'd granted her attention, it was taken away and back on her work.

"Well I'll have to keep that in mind for the future," Devon scoffed, shaking his head. "Seems you know more than I do, Kirsi." He nodded and smiled broadly, taking a few steps closer to her. Normally with children he'd kneel or at least hunch down to get more on their level. Somehow, with this girl, he didn't think that right. It felt like that would have been patronizing.

"You can certainly stay here though. You can have your own room; there's a surprising amount of space though we're getting more and more visitors. All we ask is you let us know if you won't be back that night. If you plan to stay a while, and you're more than welcome to, we'll plan around that. We don't turn people away," Devon shook his head. "Everyone's welcome and we find a way."

Of course, not everyone would be welcome say if they caused violence amongst those here or brought a drug trade into their room, but Devon would never explain that to a young girl.

"If you still want to stay here, META bots aside, I can tell you we've got hot food, snacks, various volunteer mutants, a nurse, games, cable, free wifi..." Devon grinned, internet access was important to most if they managed to keep a phone. "We could go put your things in your room," he gestured up the stairs at one side of the foyer. "What do you say?"

...dammit.

Okay, American Eagle didn't know, as expected. But the secretary did remember. She just didn't care.

Great. Well, that was empowering. She'd accompanied Panu around the city to hack into every single one of those META bots. And there had been a lot of META bots. Did they even know that Ragnarok had it out for them? Well, even if they didn't and Ragnarok attacked anyway, she'd be fine. Her mutation was honed for combat, and she had... connections.

"Seems you know more than I do, Kirsi," Hollister laughed. Yes. Yes she did. She decided to just leave it at that, because thankfully, it didn't seem like it'd come back and bother her. He kept speaking. Free Wi-Fi caught her attention, as he probably had guessed by his grin, but probably not for the reasons he'd expected. She'd have to check if it was secure first, but it'd still be helpful. People mostly did business over the internet nowadays, and she was no exception.

"We could go put your things in your room. What do you say?" Room. That sounded good. Kirsi was suddenly reminded of her time with the Black Rose. There had been barracks at their main hideout, and she'd slept in a room of her own, but everyone else had been in pairs down the hall.

...it was not a pleasant memory, mainly because they weren't really pleasant rooms.

"Okay," Kirsi said, unconsciously grimacing a bit as she remembered. "Lead the way."

"Great," Devon said with a quick nod. "Let me grab a key for you," he said and scooted off into an office at one end of the foyer, close to Lisa Wilson's desk.

The secretary looked up to young Kirsi and smiled. "Wonderful to hear you will be staying with us, young miss. Sanctuary will always," she stressed the word, "be a refuge for those in need, no matter what."

Devon's voice called out, "That's right. We'll worry about the logistics in a moment but let's get you settled." He appeared with a key and gestured for the stairs. He walked beside her, not behind or in front. While normally he would have helped her with her things, he waited for the young girl to present any sort of need for such. She seemed proud and almost expectant. This was going to require a closer relationship than other new arrivals, but that was okay. His work was about helping those in need and that's why he was volunteering, right?

Once they were alone at the top of the stair and a few paces down the hall, "Do you need anything special in your room? Maybe one without many things it? I can make sure there aren't any plants if that was a problem. I didn't want to ask downstairs in case it was a private matter. Everyone here is different, unique in many ways including ability, so you let me us know if you require something and I'll try to make it happen. Deal?"

"Great. Let me grab a key for you." Kirsi nodded as Banana Republic ducked into a nearby office, and then she was left with the secretary. Lisa said something inspirational-sounding about the Sanctuary, and he added to it, shouting from inside the office. That was nice. That still didn't make Kirsi like the woman.

...she was still a little bit peeved about the META bot thing. So much effort. So much effort - and time - wasted.

Levi's appeared again, and gestured towards the stairs. She definitely noticed how he stayed beside her when they walked, instead of in front of behind. Unfortunately, she wasn't really sure how to take that. She wasn't a fan of people leading her places walking beside her, because then it got awkward because she didn't know where to go, and it's very hard to follow somebody you're walking behind. Oh well. She'd take it.

After they'd made it to the top of the stairs, he spoke again, probably because nobody else was around anymore. And whoops. He'd noticed the plant. Well, this was a good opportunity. Kirsi didn't like revealing the entirety of her power to people, because that meant she'd always have something up her sleeve. So this was her chance to give a slightly modified explanation of her mutation.

He was rather nice, though. She almost felt bad lying (even just by omission), especially with his willingness to accommodate any issue she may have.

"It's okay," she said, sheepishly. "My power is - well, I can charge things up. And if I'm not focusing right, what happened to that plant happens." She didn't really want to say that it happened downstairs because she'd taken a lot of offense to their totally reasonable actions, so she didn't. They kept walking, but after a moment, she spoke again. Hey, he said he'd help, and she did need help. She wouldn't go into specifics, though, because she had a feeling he wouldn't like them. "Um, Ralph Lauren?" she said, out loud, and didn't even realize until it was too late to go back. Oh well. She'd just roll with it and hoped he wouldn't notice. "I may need a computer that - um, a computer." And, that was it. She wasn't going to say anything more, because that was bad enough. She'd almost asked for a computer that he wouldn't mind her downloading Tor on, if it wasn't downloaded already, but that would have been far too immediately suspicious. Better to keep it vague for now.

Devon laughed loudly, his eyes squinting and mouth twisting in uncontrollable amusement. The mirth of it flooded him, clearly a true response to the girl's joke of a nick name. He was still laughing as she asked about a compute so he tried to stop, but couldn't. He nodded though, still chuckling as he pointed downstairs.

"Yep- Downstairs there's a library- The computers- A little over a year old- Communal but you can use any of them," Ralph Lauren struggled to make full sentences but couldn't between chuckles. He held his sides as they began to hurt. "Well, you've got my number don't you? I guess I should say thanks!" He laughed another moment and started to walk again.

"There's computers you can use in the library area downstairs. I think they were good once, but a little old now. Perfectly usable," he nodded. "As for the plant, don't worry about it. Stuff like that happens and I find if you stress it, it'll just happen more often. I'll show ya to a windowed room with a nice view of the front. There's a couple plants to make good use of the light. You ever need them replaced, let Ms. Wilson or I know. Want to get rid of 'em? We'll just move them out."

He paused for a moment. This girl was something. Young but she had that look and apparently a sense of humor too. "Ralph Lauren," he laughed again. "I usually go by Tempest but you can call me whatever you want, Kirsi."

He started laughing. Like, a lot. Kirsi was briefly worried that he'd had a seizure, in fact. But he managed to get a couple sentences out about the library downstairs, so she assumed he was okay. A library was nice, but not optimal. Maybe she could nab one of the computers and bring it up with her for added privacy, because she was pretty sure than a ten year old browsing the Deep Web was more than just a little suspicious.

He stopped laughing again after a couple more amused huffs to give more details. Old, okay, not good either, but she could work with it. She didn't really want to go out to buy her own computer because then she'd leave a trail (credit cards could be traced and cash was suspicious, and buying stuff online was always a bad idea when you wanted to stay low-key). So until she could find somebody with a clean laptop, preferably with some personalized hardware to ensure everything was as safe as it could be, she'd have to work with one of the ones here. It shouldn't be that difficult. The internet had tutorials for literally everything - there was definitely a site run by conspiracy theorists or something that explained exactly how to keep yourself hidden from the government.

As he talked about plants, Kirsi was suddenly struck by just how nice the man was. There weren't a lot of people who treated her so... well, like an equal. Most people looked down on her for being young, and those who didn't do that ran away because they were targets and she was going to kill them. A few business partners, maybe, treated her like a professional - Maddox, for one - but nobody treated her like a fellow human being of equal mental capacity.

Kirsi suddenly felt the overwhelming need to do something extremely nice for what was probably one of the only times in her life, as Devon joked about the unintentional nickname slip. And so, before she could stop herself or even consider how bad of an idea it was, she blurted something out. It was something that she herself only remembered on the spot, putting together the pieces - Panu's vendetta against the company of a woman named Lori, who had Order ties; the mission here to turn the police on the place and scare its occupants a bit.

"Do you know who the Order was?" she asked, very suddenly. She'd stopped in the middle of the hallway even as he continued walking, determined to give him even this tiny tidbit of information if it was helpful. Kirsi looked so much older than her age, all of a sudden - like she'd seen so much more than she should've. But it was enough to know when someone was really and truly genuine, and this guy felt about as honest as they got in his intentions to just help his fellow mutants. "Because you're standing on its grave."

She barreled ahead, each word coming out slowly and deliberately, because there was no going back now that she'd started. She was fully aware of the fact that the words coming out of her mouth sounded almost wrong in her childishly high-pitched voice, but she was hoping that he looked past that embarrassment and focused on the real important message. "They were a criminal organization. Mutant supremacists, occasionally terrorists. Officially, Sanctuary was just a homeless shelter, but unofficially, it was the Order's headquarters. A couple months ago, when it was raided by police, it wasn't really the police. Someone has it out for the Order, and the attack was to make sure it didn't come back. It worked, but now you're here. And for a long time, the Order and the Sanctuary were the same thing. I would be careful if I were you."

She didn't try to make it sound like a threat, but more like an honest warning - which it was. Technically speaking, she hadn't said anything detrimental to her main employer (in terms of how much of her total income came from them). She didn't know if Ragnarok had its eyes on Sanctuary now that someone was trying to revive it from the stumbling ruin it'd been, but if she hated the Order as much as Ragnarok seemed to, then she definitely would. Best to warn Devon, at least - she wasn't going to give him anything substantially more than that, but hopefully, it would be enough.

"The Order?" Devon's tone clearly betraying he had no idea who or what they were. He stopped a few yards down the hall and turned around. Ralph Lauren was no model and his turn was more to hear the reveal than to show one off. His brow knit together at the word grave.

He didn't interrupt her. Clearly she knew what she was talking about and it was important. It was disturbing to hear her talk of such things, but as he'd recognized earlier she had experience and maturity that likely came from an unfortunate past. How she knew all of this was perhaps part of that. Was a parent a member? Had sheen been here before? Most importantly, this was a warning of what else might come knocking.

"Thank you, Kirsi," Devon said after a pregnant pause, his voice deliberate and serious. "I'm not affiliated with this organization and I've no knowledge of it, until now. I'll keep aware of it though and look into it. Sanctuary and I are here to help, and it sounds like everyone wants to keep it that way. I'll be careful though as I go." The mirth had left his voice but he still smiled warmly.

There were secrets to uncover. He'd already questioned the depth of the Sanctuary's funding, its large infirmary, the golden doors... Lisa had said it was an old hospital, and maybe it was a long time ago, but she'd not mentioned this. Perhaps she had to be careful too. He'd have to keep his eyes and ears attuned for anything further.

"Let's show you that room and I can give you some time to settle in," he pivoted again, gesturing with one hand to her and the other down the hall. "Then we can head down for some food or to use the library. You're welcome to what you need as long as you need it," he nodded slowly.