Aura had not been seen in NYC in almost five months. It was more then enough time to make the news speculate about her whereabouts and condition. Some thought she might be hiding others speculated death, though with no body and other disappearances known though shorter, no one could prove anything. Her last known location had been outside a medical facility that most believed Aura and some others had destroyed for unknown reasons.

Aura's long hair now reached her knees and had been dyed a sky blue shade. It was the idea of trying to hide in plain site. Though she had gotten glances no one had said anything or reported her which was good. Her lack of use of power was also something most people took to mean it was not her. This nserved her purpose well but she also knew that the first time she used her power people would likely know.

Having secluded herself in one of the more dense areas of trees, Aura let her power ignite into a blade of familiar pink energy, she spent the next hour practicing her strikes and different Aura weapons, she kept an ear out in case someone came. She really did not want to be outed quite yet as it might make things tougher, if the police discovered a dead body with very familiar marks.

Amber had been back in New York City for nearly a month.  Having first left because Abyss had abandoned her and then the later discovery that her adopted sister, Aura, had as well had been devastating.  Overall, she had lived in self-imposed exile in the woods for almost 2 years and it was only her profound loneliness that had brought her back to the city.  Since her return, things had been hard but were gradually getting better.  Slowly, she was remembering what it was to be human and that her human self was just as important as her dino self.  Slowly, her mind was starting to heal.

It was hard.  Remembering all those little, unstated rules of social interaction was what was hardest, many of which didn't really make a lot of sense when you stopped to truly consider them.  At the Mansion it didn't matter what she looked like, but once she went outside, everyone saw her as a monster and many treated her as such.  Then there was the claustrophobia that had developed sometime during her absence; it was no longer entirely comfortable to sleep inside under a roof and within enclosed walls.  But, slowly, it was getting better.

It wasn't unusual for Amber to leave the safety of the Mansion walls at night and find herself a park to shift in and enjoy her other forms.  As always, the deinonychus was her favourite, a sleek and proficient hunter that was small enough to remain mostly hidden if she was smart.  Tonight was such a night and she spent some time simply reveling in the enhanced senses and strength of her dinosaur body.  Mere humans could never understand just how limited their body's actually were.  

Had this night been like so many others, she would have run around for a few hours, maybe found something to kill and eat and then run home back to the Mansion.  This night was not like any other night.  Running around a large tree, she spotted something she hadn't seen in at least 5 months.  A familiar pink energy that could only belong to one person.  Aura?  Heart stopped in her chest, she let out an involuntary chirp.

Aura was considering her next series of strikes, maybe switching to another weapon type to help hard the rather obvious marks in the tree she had made. Sure their were other mutants that could have made them but she also did not wish to point fingers at them. With a sigh she shook her head, this keeping hidden stuff was tough on her, she hated hiding preferring to be on the front as it were.

She heard the chirp and at once her Aura covered her body and her other hand was half way into forming an axe head before she took in the mutant before her. She knew or assumed who it was immediately. She knew few other such mutants and this one she had been very close to and had even missed.

She let her weapons sink back into her Aura as she moved a few steps closer. "Amber?" she asked almost sure she knew the answer but the shock was still running through her. She had tried to look amber up upon returning of course but could not find her.

The other woman turned around and moved closer and there could be no more denying that it was Aura.  Where had she been for so many months?  Why was she back now?  Did that mean she hadn't abandoned her sister after all?  Had Ghost been right?  Her heart was beating heavily in her chest and she didn't have the words to describe the barrage of emotions currently racing through her.  

With a thought, Amber triggered a shift and her body molded and mutated itself, transforming from a dinosaur into a human woman.  Within moments she stood before her adopted sister, naked and completely unabashed at her nakedness.  Clothing was a human convention and one she followed mainly out of respect for the humans around her.  For humans, perhaps, it was also something of a practicality in order to protect from the rain and cold, but such things rarely bothered her now days.  As something half dead, it took a lot of cold for her to feel it.

"Aura?  Is that really you?"  The words came out soft and short, as if she couldn't' believe that she was actually seeing her real flesh and blood sister standing before her.  "But you left."  And now, somehow, amazingly, she was back.

She watched her sister shift with fascination. It was always such a lovely thing to watch. Her sisters nakedness meant littlie to Aura. Aura rarely paid to much attention to what she wore herself and cared littlie about what others wore. She was of course partial to her sister as well which helped. She valued ones powers much more and what they could do then appearance.

"It is me and I a sorry about that. I was not intending to do so. I don't recall the details but in a raid on a ragnarok medical company something went wrong. When I woke a short time ago, I had learned I had spent 3 months in a coma. Still you are the happiest thing I have seen since the wings of fate barred my entrance to the heavens. It's only been recently I was well enough to walk around safely." she said which was mostly true. She had looked for Amber before but had also known that her own presence might endanger her sister, police robots had been insanely out of control before her accident.

The fact that Aura didn't think twice about her being naked was one of the many reasons she loved her sister.  Her knowledge of her sister's past was somewhat spotty, but Aura was often confused by the same sorts of things that she was.  Human convention was often baffling and the things that made sense to people often didn't make a lot of sense to her.  It as the little things, those small politenesses and considerations that just didn't have any place out in the natural world.  Aura understood her uncertainties like no one else seemed to.

"I thought you had abandoned me."  Tears were not often something she felt the need to fight back, but right now she was on the brink of them.  So many emotions going through her mind but the strongest one was joy.  Joy that her sister was back, that she hadn't been abandoned!  With her return, she once again felt like life could not only be lived but, perhaps, truly embraced.  Even if their pack numbered only 2, it was a start.  It meant she was no longer alone.

"I'm sorry I left.  When Abyss disappeared I needed to get away.  I didn't mean to be gone so long and when I came back, you were gone too.  I'm sorry I wasn't there to help save you."  She wanted so badly to run up and hug her sister, but she didn't move.  Neither one of them had ever been much for physical displays of affection.

"I would never do such a thing, my sister, not willingly anyway. The winds of fate may separate us I will always return to you. " she said quite glad she had found her sister again. she had been fearing the worst for her. She was not one for tears but she certainly felt something warm and comforting within.

"it's fine, what matters is that your here now. That we are together again. We may separate from time to time but that's only natural. One day even Abyss may come back to us as well as others" she said hopefully. She missed a large number of people, with abyss being one of the first on that list as had Amber been.

She walked up to her sister and did something she never did, she walked up and hugged her sister without saying anything, for a few moments."I am very very happy to see you Sister, the knowledge you are alive fills me with happiness." she admitted with a happy smile.

There was a sense of rightness in the world, having her sister back. "I'm never going to doubt you again," she vowed.  Now if only they could find Abyss and his brothers then everything would be truly right in the world.  She wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, where the big red mutant had gone and what had been so dire as to force him out of the city with no communication to anyone before or since.  She hoped he wasn't dead.

Amber accepted the embrace of her sister without comment for long moments.  Pack was important and no matter what Ghost had to say, there was something special in the relationship with your pack-mates that friends couldn't reach.  Maybe the right friend could one day become pack, but they would always be on the outside looking in.  When the moment had passed, she stepped away, smiling softly.

"Discovering you live fills me with happiness as well.  Should I move back to Sanctuary now?"  Upon her return to the city, she'd avoided the place due to all the painful memories.  Now, however, she had no such excuse although she would feel oddly sad to be leaving the Mansion.  True, no one there really understood what it meant to be back, but she had started to make friends and there were many nice mutants there.  Despite everything, she liked living there.

"Sanctuary is owned by a guy names Tempest now. While not hostile it is no longer the mutant haven it once was. I have not been back there since i woke up though and so can't speak for that. " she said noting she needed to visit sanctuary. She assumed she would be dissipointed but she thought she might find Solkat back there as well.

"I currently live at a hotel with another mutant named Hades, their would be room for you as well if your interested. For now it's just us but we have hope we can build better version of Sanctuary. Sanctuary was to random to focused on common street skum, like i was." she explained to her sister. She would never force her sister to move but she the option would b there.

"We will see each other no matter what you choose. I will show you how to enter where i am staying either way, but you must always make sure your not followed when you come. Where are you living now?" she said with a shrug.

It really had been a long time since she'd been at Sanctuary and she felt almost sad to think that things had changed to much during her time away.  Who was this Tempest person?  What had happened to Lisa?  What else had changed?  Maybe it was time to head back there and see for herself what state it was now in.

"Oh, I know Hades!  I found him while I was in Alaska and helped make sure he got back to the city.  I didn't think I'd ever see him again."  That had been a difficult time.  Months before she'd made the decision to come back to the city and within the further reaches of where she'd traveled to during her absence, she'd found and injured and possibly dying man in the wilderness.  He might have died without her intervention, helping make a shelter and find food for him.  "How did you meet him?"

 "I'm living at The Mansion now.  I like it there.  I think, if you don't mind, I'd like to keep living there."  It was hard to say so but as much as she loved having her sister back, she'd started to actually feel like she belonged with the people at The Mansion.  "But I'd like to come see where you live.  And you can visit me at the Mansion if you want to."  Or maybe not.  She might be mare more accepting than most of her sister's violent history, but she wasn't naive enough to think that there wouldn't be people out there that would take issue with it.

"we met long ago at Sanctuary. We have also worked together on numerous occasions. He also shares out views" she said referring to humanity. Aura tended to find Mutants who did not hang with humans much more then those who did. She also had great appreciation for his abilities in combat.

"Then keep living there. It is a safe location and it may help on other ways as well. But i do not think it would be good for me to visit you there. I am not very popular there due to my body count among other things. In fact cold steel has taken a particularly poor view of me as i have him"she explained. meeting her sister at the mansion was a poor idea but they could meet many other places Aura could show Amber.

"It seems Ragnarok has fallen and the great threat it once bore with it, but their will be others of course. So me and Hades and some others are beginning the construction of a new order, something to keep us all safe. The orders fall left to much of a void, and the offer of help to those who would not fit the mansion lost their place as well" she said not knowing how true the last parts of her statement was but tempest seemed on the up and up so housing criminals seemed far fetched. Then again he had saved her.

It seemed strange that the mutant she had helped during her self-imposed exile had been close to her sister. Perhaps it was a sign of something bigger. Perhaps there was a reason their paths had crossed in such an unexpected of circumstances. Or perhaps it was just the random chance it had first appeared to be, who could say?

"I don't know Cold Steel but maybe you're right about not coming to the Mansion." She'd hate to see something bad happen to her sister, especially so soon after she'd come back into her life and especially if that something bad was her fault. "I like the Mansion but no one needs to know that your'e back or that I'm talking with you again." Mansion rules against killing only applied to her, not to those she chose to associate with. Killing had less meaning for her than it did for many because she was a predator at heart, but she still preferred not to kill humans. The only human(s) who had died by her had had been while she wasn't in control of her own mind.

She had only the barest understanding of Ragnarok was, based on what little information she had managed to glean through the internet and she merely nodded in response.  It had come and gone during the times she had spent away from society.  She was much more sad to hear about the demise of the Order.  Change was hard.  "If I can, want want to help."  If she didn't consider herself a mutant supremacist, and she didn't, she did have a strong sense of community to the mutant people as her people.  Abyss and Aura had both worked to instill such morals in her.

"Yea it likely would be, but we have many other places we can meet anyway. The mansion has some nice qualities to it, though it functions under a naïve mind set. I was there once or twice though never had the chance to look around." she said recalling she had actually been in someone elses body entirely when she was there. That had been a super weird experience but she had managed to pull through it. They had even toilet papered the mansion.

"You can certainly help, though I can not promise it won't strain your relationships at the mansion. The work that needs to be done well not as brutal as some of my past dealings will likely involve some violence and killing" she admitted not wanting to mislead her sister. She knew the mansion would be unlikely to like what Amber might need to do for the group, even hiding it was likely they would be found out and identified eventually. More so with their powers being very recognizable, dinosaurs and her aura were not the easiest thing to hide, not to mention her sisters rather pale complexion.

"We are looking to eliminate anti-mutant humans in power, which will most likely be through violent but hidden means. By killing those who matter we can make more difference then just killing worthless human gang members" she said considering hades power it would be much easier then it could be.

Amber didn't necessarily agree that the Mansion's mindset was naive but it wasn't something she had spent a lot of time thinking about.  In the absence of her pack, Ghost had promoted the idea of friendship to her and it seemed like that was a trait that many in the Mansion had in common.  Was friendship naive?  She couldn't really say and not in small amount because she didn't really, fully understand the concept.  She understood the idea of pack and family very well, but the lines between acquaintance and friend was far more fuzzy.  

"If I have to leave the Mansion then I have to leave.  We can deal with that if it happens."  She shrugged her shoulders.  It would make her sad to leave but her loyalties lie with her sister, as they always had.  "I've wounded and killed before.  You know how useful I can be with my powers."  Almost all of her killing had been of animals rather than humans and almost all of it had been either in self defense our out of necessity in order to eat.  The idea of killing intentionally for reasons outside of survival was vaguely unsettling, but she'd do what was needed.

She nodded at her sister's words.  They made sense.  If people had to die, they should be the right people, the one's who actually made things worse for mutants.  Gang members were just the foot soldiers and she'd never been one to join her sister's crusade against them.  "I can be hidden or violent.  I've snuck into places before.  Tiny lizards are hard to spot."  She smiled at the memory of her most recent foray into the Museum of Natural History.  "Did you know I can turn into a boar crock now?  Its a giant prehistoric crocidile and it can see in the dark!"  

Amber attitude impressed Aura as she suspected it would. her sisters ability to accept change was better then her own it seemed. Amber seemed willing to leave the mansion anytime where as Aura had taken awhile to accept Sanctuarys new fate. "yes you are very effective in combat" she said agreeing with a kind smile. She had not seen her sister kill a human before but she had seen her kill various other things and knew what her power could do.

Amber could be very useful with her powers though she had forgotten Amber could go small to which made her even more useful and valuable. " I did not, I have killed a normal crocodile once, but the meat was tough....Your so beautiful my sister" she said happily. She liked amber had kept working on her powers and felt it was one of the things that made Amber such a lovely person, Amber was willing to fight.

"So you met Hades already? That will make things easier for us. Hades helped me fight off over a hundred gang members about a year ago I think maybe a bit less. Would you like to see the hotel we are operating from?" she asked curiously, not sure what else to say in the excitement of meeting her sister again. She was just so thrilled at the occurrence, she had thought Amber and Abyss dead, now she just needed to late the Abyss.