To say that this school was adding insult to injury would have been an understatement. They were piling it on, one thing after the next, feral children, gorgons, classes she had to take, and now... something called mutation control?

Princess Amethyst did not like the word 'mutation' at all. She had a gift. A power. At worst, an ability. Mutation was something unnatural, something that happened to gorgons. Not demigods. And as for control? She had none. Her powers worked naturally by themselves. There was nothing to control about them. And yet, it had been made clear to her that showing up for this... assessment was mandatory for her continued presence at the school.

So, she went.

She showed up at the office door fashionably (but not awkwardly) late. She was wearing a light lilac dress, accented by deep purple amethysts encased in copious amounts of silver jewelry. This assessment better not include any actual exercise.

She knocked on the door, bracing herself for a completely unnecessary conversation.

It was more than happy to give back to the school. Xavier’s has been good to him. The X-Men made his job as a cop fairly easy, they helped to protect these kids from a world that could be cruel and harsh, they helped piece him back together when his own powers went crazy, and now they brought the woman he loved into his life. It was only natural that he would want to give back to them however he could.

What he didn’t expect was being offered a teaching position. He taught swimming, part-time, during the spring and summer months, but when they approached him with a new job title, he was surprised.

Mutation Control. He only thought that they were just joking at first. With what happened to him? They knew full well that for a number of years he had melded into the ocean and was adrift in thousands, millions of pieces. It took him years to reconstitute. Years! And yet they knew all of that. As a matter of fact, that had been the reason why he was chosen. If any mutant could survive something like that and come out of it reasonably okay, then they were certainly qualified to teach that course.

So...he accepted.

And things were going well. He helped those students that came through his door any help him could. Showing them techniques for identifying how their powers work, discovering what makes them tick, and methods for manipulating them. Some powers were easier to manage than others. But the passive ones, those were the ones that could be the most difficult. There was little he could do for someone who was made of jelly or could only speak in song titles. Still, he would offer as much assistance as he could. Sometimes people just wanted to know you were there.

This one, however, well, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Amethyst, the latest mutant hailing from Atlantis. Her abilities were...unique. But it wasn’t her powers that were most troubling, it was her attitude. She had been making waves around the mansion, ever since she showed up. Now he was going to have to deal with her. Perfect. Well, he’d do what he could to try and steer her on the right pa--

Knock, Knock

Setting her file down, he breathed. Jorge’s office was a little small but it was fine for his needs, containing a desk, a could shelves of books, and a file cabinet that seemed as if it could never be fully filled. Circling around his desk, he tugged on the door and found exactly who he was expecting waiting for him.

”Amethyst,” he said with a nod and a smile. ”Right on time.”

He was standing in his usual attire: scuffed up jeans,boots, a gray, Miami Dolphin’s shirt, and his brown leather jacket. His hair was not the rich darkness it used to be but was now much grayer, with strands of pure white dotted throughout. He turned, running his hand down over his beard and mustache as he made for his desk.

”Come on in,” he said, then pointed past her. ”Make sure to close the door behind you.”

>>”Amethyst. Right on time.”

She wasn't, but she was not about to point that out. Royalty was never questioned about their schedules anyway, especially not by guys in t-shirts and jeans.

"Mr. Cervantes."

Was he a professor? Or a tutor of some sort? Could someone be a professor of something that did not really need teaching? Amethyst had her doubts.

>>”Come on in. Make sure to close the door behind you.”

She did. She walked in and closed the door, but did not take a seat in the small and somewhat dingy office.

"Mr. Cervantes, I think I can save both of us quite a bit of time. My gift doesn't need any control, it works just fine on its own. I think me being here is a mere formality. I am happy to sign a paper if you need me to."

It definitely looked as if the reports he was getting about Amethyst were accurate. Just one look at the young woman and he could see that there was a bit of wanted privilege there. If there was one thing that Jorge didn’t care for, it was when people made unjustified demands of others. He understood she was supposed to be a diplomat of sorts, a citizen of Atlantis come here to ensure things were well with all the previous denizens of the city who made the move permanently.

Would she give an unbiased opinion? From what he was hearing, it certainly didn’t seem likely. But, he was being too hard too quickly. She was just a kid, after all, in a world she didn’t recognize. It was best to cut her some slack.

And then she had to go and open her mouth. He hated when arrogant people did that. She revealed that her mutation just...was...and didn’t require any more control. Therefore, not to waste any of their times, she was willing to sign a piece of paper so that she could move on with her day.

Jorge sighed in relief. ”Oh thank god,” he breathed and smiled. Flopping into his chair, he shook his head. ”And here I was, completely worried that I was going to have to waste your highness’ time. Just let me find the right form…”

He leaned down, fishing through his desk drawer, idly flipping through files, not really searching for any wayward form, and instead merely frown and straightened up.

”Sorry, seems I’m clear out of my Free Pass forms.” His saccharine smile was hard to miss as he gestured to the chair in front of his desk. ”Looks like we’re going to have to use up our allotted time to just get to know one another after all. So, once again, please,” he smiled but the sternness was clearly there as well. ”Have a seat.”

>>”Oh thank god. And here I was, completely worried that I was going to have to waste your highness’ time. Just let me find the right form…”

Alright, so maybe she had misjudged the man. Maybe he did know how to interact with royalty. He had been on the Atlantis mission, when the X-men first arrived and caused havoc. Maybe he felt rightfully guilty about that. Amethyst gave him a benevolent smile - which faltered as he made a show of not really searching for any forms.

>>”Sorry, seems I’m clear out of my Free Pass forms. Looks like we’re going to have to use up our allotted time to just get to know one another after all. So, once again, please. Have a seat.”

Sarcasm. It seemed to be the go-to last resort of unwitty people around here. Amethyst pressed her lips together as she took a seat. She was going to have to do this the hard way.

"In my culture, sarcasm is disrespectful." she noted in a light tone "But I understand you were not aware of that. Now, about my powers. My blood turns into rubies upon contact with air. That's it. This is not a power one needs to exercise."

Sometimes it was a battle of wills with these kids. He didn’t come to this office everyday with the intent of being a jerk to these students but he knew when some needed a dose of reality. Everything he was picking up off the princess told him that she was going to be a tough nut to crack. And before she was sent into Gemma’s presence, Jorge needed to talk to her to try and buff some of those sharp edges.

Otherwise Gemma was just going to destroy her.

So he offered her a smile, an insistence to sit down, and opened her file. Sadly it seemed that she didn’t care for his manner of speech and reminded him that sarcasm was disrespectful to her people before proceeding to rattle off how her abilities worked. He smirked as he listened to her, saying nothing until she was done talking. When she was, he cleared his throat and clicked a pen.

”Oh, I’m well aware,” he said with a nod. ”But while you say you have control, there are things you do need to learn to have control over.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a baggie. Inside was an array of precious stones: jade, sapphires, and white topaz. ”Namely, cleaning up after yourself.”

It wasn’t unheard of for teenagers to cry or be emotional. But even the most sad of them knew how to blow their nose into a tissue and toss it into a trashcan. This made things extra tricky since Amethyst was essentially leaking precious stones, but that wasn’t something that the school needed the kids to just stumble across. And it would be even worse if she found herself outside the school walls. What would the darker side of the world do to a cash cow like her? He shuddered to think.

”Queen Achlus assured us that in your diplomatic role that you would be a bastion for Atlantis. I have to admit, records of how you’ve been reacting to your fellow students has been...disheartening.” He gave her another look. ”And for the record, being snobby and arrogant? That’s also considered disrespectful to this culture.”

This was not going to be a comfortable conversation. The man seemed hell bent on making Amethyst go through the motions of establishing that her power did not need control. What did he think she should be doing? Bleeding rubies on purpose? Was he just doing this for fun? Was he biased against Atltaneans or something?

>>”Oh, I’m well aware. But while you say you have control, there are things you do need to learn to have control over. Namely, cleaning up after yourself.”

Amethyst's eyes widened. Officially, everyone else was only supposed to know about the rubies. Sure, she had been in a tough place emotionally, and some gemstones had leaked while she was trying to survive this hostile environment, but she did not expect the adults to notice. They were barely ever around anyway.

>>”Queen Achlus assured us that in your diplomatic role that you would be a bastion for Atlantis. I have to admit, records of how you’ve been reacting to your fellow students has been...disheartening. And for the record, being snobby and arrogant? That’s also considered disrespectful to this culture.”

Again, with the sarcasm. Amethyst folded her arms as she glared back.

"Did the slime gorgon tattle on me? You know, some things about powers are private." the green girl had been all too happy to pick up gems she'd dropped; she had a thing for shiny things, and was probably not above theft and treachery. "I hope you are having meetings with the other students too about how they reach out to me. So far I have been locked out, mocked, and told to leave."

Deep down, for as sarcastic as Jorge could be, he actually did care a lot about the students in this school. Whether they were sweet and innocent or nightmarish brat monsters, he did actually give a shit. He knew that a lot of the reason why these kids could be so prickly is because they didn’t know who to trust. Eventually they would learn that Jorge was here to keep them safe.

Would Amethyst? The royal-minded young woman seemed certain that she was in the right and that her mentality was the one true way things should be. But she couldn’t walk around the halls, carrying on in this matter. Nor could she walk outside these school walls thinking that either. That was liable to get her into more trouble than she would be able to get out of.

It seemed that he had struck a nerve. When he unveiled the baggie of precious stones, she immediately went wide-eyed, seemed almost embarrassed by it. He partially felt bad for throwing that out onto her, but at the same time he knew that this was something that needed to be addressed. You could just walked around, dropping jewels as you please. That’s something that’ll easily get you kidnapped.

But Amethyst surprise was immediately masked by annoyance and arrogance. She demanded to know if it was one of the new arrivals from Atlantis that had “tattled” on her and proceeded to denounce the way that she was treated by the other students in the school. He knew there was some bad blood from the Gorgons who had been stuck living in the Necropolis towards royalty like her. And some of the other students, well, they didn’t respond well to someone strolling about the halls with a royal stick up their butts.

If she was going to act like a bratty princess, she was going to be treated like one.

He shook his head. ”No one tattled. These were found and considering your ‘gifts’ it not hard to put two-and-two together,” he explained. He shook his head at the denouncement of her treatment and snorted. ”I’m sorry, Amethyst, but when you carry yourself with that ‘I’m-better-than-you’ attitude, your not bound to make too many friends.”

He took a second to jot down another note, taking back those stones and settling them in his desk. The rest of the staff will figure out how to dispose of them. It was just better to keep them out of her gaze lest it continue to make her uncomfortable.

”Listen, princess,” he said respectfully. ”I understand this is a cultural change here. But you need to make a better effort while you are here. You need to try to see things from the rest of these kid’s point-of-view. You can’t carry yourself with the same air here that you did at Atlantis. A lot of these kids have had extremely hard lives. They’ve suffered and this is the first place they feel comfortable. We want you to be comfortable here too but you have to meet us halfway.” He took a breath, leaned back and watched her for a moment before he finally continued. ”And please, stop referring to the physically mutated as ‘Gorgons’. They don’t deserve that.”

>> ”No one tattled. These were found and considering your ‘gifts’ it not hard to put two-and-two together."

Amethyst looked skeptical. Since her powers had only been known to a small circle within the royal family back in Atlantis, she doubted these people here could figure them out so fast. It had to be guesswork, at best. And she was not about to indulge this man with the very private details.

>>"I’m sorry, Amethyst, but when you carry yourself with that ‘I’m-better-than-you’ attitude, your not bound to make too many friends.”

"It's not an attitude. I am better." she noted coolly. How could she not be? She was royalty. She was beautiful, elegant, educated, and wealthy, not to mention of noble blood. That was not an attitude, that was just a fact of life. One that this man was clearly not sophisticated enough to accept.

>>”Listen, princess. I understand this is a cultural change here. But you need to make a better effort while you are here. You need to try to see things from the rest of these kid’s point-of-view. You can’t carry yourself with the same air here that you did at Atlantis. A lot of these kids have had extremely hard lives. They’ve suffered and this is the first place they feel comfortable. We want you to be comfortable here too but you have to meet us halfway.”

"Halfway?" She arched an eyebrow. Halfway where? Halfway to disaster? Amethyst had already come more than halfway, agreeing to move to the school, taking on this ridiculous diplomatic mission that she was pretty sure the Queen had given her because she wanted her out of the palace, and could not spare anyone else to show off to the humans. She lived in one room, had no servants or staff, and had to fend for her own food. This was not halfway anywhere. It was all the way awful.

>>”And please, stop referring to the physically mutated as ‘Gorgons’. They don’t deserve that.”

"What should I refer to them as, then?" Amethyst tilted her head with a sarcastic look "Did you know one of them tried to threaten me into leaving, using her powers? Is that behavior that is encouraged among your students?"

It was honestly like talking to a brick wall. He may as well pull up a chair to the side of a building and speak directly to it as opposed to this pampered princess. God, why did he take this job. He would honestly rather be dealing with Ambrosia dealing criminals or a fart-powered rocket button flying about the city (true story). But, he always had a soft spot for the kids here. They had grown through more than most adults ever will, and they deserved a chance.

Well, all except for Amethyst, of course.

Oh, the second that she said she was better, he knew then that the conversation had died. He didn’t exactly expect any breakthroughs with her in one day, but he had hoped for a glimmer of something that was salvageable. Sadly it seemed as if that was going to have to happen another day as the princess was digging in her heels rather deeply. She wasn’t going to budge.

She attempted to victimize herself by stating one of the students had threatened her to leave. That wasn’t hard to imagine. He stared at her for a second before he continued:

”Was this another student you called a ‘Gorgon’?” he asked bluntly. He brought it back around to her holier-than-thou behavior. You act like an ass, people are going to treat you like one. ”And, for the record, in instances like that, you need to tell the staff so we can investigate the matter, not keep it to yourself. You may not believe it, but we are here to help. A lot of students have suffered here and they all have the right to be treated fairly. Same goes for you.”

He watched her for another moment before closing her file.

”All I’m suggesting...is that you try. Try to talk to your fellow students, try to engage, and try to lower your nose because let me express a harsh truth to you...here, in this place, you are not better than anyone. All of you are on equal ground. And that’s something you need to learn very quickly. Do we understand one another?” It was a question, but said more a statement. If she could dig in her heels, so could he.

>>”Was this another student you called a ‘Gorgon’?”

"Yes, why?"

Of course it had been a gorgon. A disgusting one, too. She'd spat on her, for the gods' sake.

>>”And, for the record, in instances like that, you need to tell the staff so we can investigate the matter, not keep it to yourself. You may not believe it, but we are here to help. A lot of students have suffered here and they all have the right to be treated fairly. Same goes for you.”

He was saying all the fancy words about fair treatment and equality and things, but Amethyst was getting the distinct impression that the man did not like her very much. The feeling was mutual. These people were clearly biased against demingods. She doubted that if she complained about the goop girl throwing slime around there would be any real consequences. Like prison, or exile.

>>”All I’m suggesting...is that you try. Try to talk to your fellow students, try to engage, and try to lower your nose because let me express a harsh truth to you...here, in this place, you are not better than anyone. All of you are on equal ground. And that’s something you need to learn very quickly. Do we understand one another?”

Some people just lived in some kind of alternate reality with a whole bunch of false beliefs. Amethyst sighed and said what she hoped would get her out of the office as soon as possible. "Crystal clear, Mr. Cervantes."

At least he did not dig deeper into her mutation.

Amethyst twas going to be tough to break through to. She lived her life as royalty and now she was being expected to live as an equal amongst a class of people that she spent her life looking down upon. It wasn’t that Jorge knew her entire history, but just from this conversation alone, he could tell how she felt about her fellow mutants. Demigods and Gorgons were still the status quo for her. She was going to be in for a rude awakening up here.

The softer approach wasn’t working so he attempted to be a bit tougher. It was a tactic that tended to work with criminals. A few choice words, reminders, things that would make them second guess their place in the grand scheme of things. It didn’t work on everyone but for the majority it seemed to do the trick. But the look in this one’s eyes spoke volumes. She wasn’t buying it...not yet.

If there was one thing that Jorge could say about her was that she knew when to play the game. She understood that Jorge wasn’t going the budge and that one of them was going to have to. Finally, she was the one to relent, staring at him as he asked her if they understood how things were going to work now. He knew people well enough to know when they were shitting him, but this was probably the best he was going to get from her.

He sighed. Well, he tried his hand at counseling. If anyone else complained about her, it was going to be Gemma’s turn. Vaya con dios. He jotted another note on her file before he closed it and slipped it back into the file cabinet.

”Okay. I think we’re done here,” he announced. ”I understand your powers are involuntary. But I would suggest some better management control. Try not to leave those gemstones lying around,” he said. ”That could lead to unwanted attention. Is there anything else about your abilities that we need to know?”

All Amethyst wanted was to get out of the office and not have to deal with Mr. Cervantes ever again. If she had to smile and curtsy to do that, she would. She did.

>>”Okay. I think we’re done here. I understand your powers are involuntary. But I would suggest some better management control. Try not to leave those gemstones lying around. That could lead to unwanted attention. Is there anything else about your abilities that we need to know?”

"Nope!" she said cheerfully, already on her way to the door "I'll make sure they are swept up, Mr. Cervantes."

Hopefully, no one was going to look too closely at how they got there in the first place.