Aura was in battle, one of the most brutal she had been in, matched against an opponent she simply could not find a weakness or plan of attack for. She did not know how to hurt or escape it, well that was not entirely true, a dark thought echoed in her mind. She shook it off and continued to weather the assault. She was the last of the Arua, nearly the last of the xel siun's followers, even if she had discarded the gods. She had been crafted for battle. Her aura was no match for the war in her own fragile mind. Revelations had come to the woman in quick hard kicks to her stomach. Aura had never been equipped to handle her emotions through much more then battle and combat planning.

She had come to see Gemma but had learned Gemma was out, she took a deep breath as a kid skirted by her even though the corridor was wide enough. She realized her Aura had been flickering with her emotions. She brought it almost under control, but it was hard. No matter how much sleep she seemed to get her mind stayed exhausted, the screams of the dead haunted her dreams. In the past it would of meant a need to fight to embrace the simpleness of combat and bathe in the adrenaline but it hardly brought relief now like it once had.

The disappearance of those she loved had not helped her dark moods. Fate seemed cruel, how much easier it would be, to go out in a blaze of combat and embrace the freedom of the end. Alison was gone however and Aura had to try for her but a part of her thought the kid might be vastly better off here then in her own care. Alex was why she was here, Alison would never have liked it but Mirror both of them were the closent blood relatives Alex had.

Her eyes looked haunted and her shoulder drooped as she looked down at her hands, she had just learned how to escape the war she was in and now fate seemed like it wanted her to do it all over again, with the Mystics, the thought of combat against skilled foes should have brought her joy. It all just felt pointless to her however, she slid down the wall and closed her eyes trying to steady her nerves, her failure broadcast in whisps pf thick angrily flashing aura into existence before fading away just as quickly. Their faces, the 37 mutants she had killed while mind controlled flowed through her mind. She resisted the urge to break things or slash at the wall with her aura. She had enough damaged furniture at home. her eyes opened and she rose to her feet when she heard footsteps approaching.

Out of all the people, Mirror would not have expected to find Aura curled up in the Mansion hallway. It still made her jump, even after mending some fences, through Alex, and through Gemma. Hell, she had even come to the baby shower. Aura was... terrifying, and complicated. Right now, she looked downright haunted.

Maya pulled up short as she saw the woman. She was carrying a basket of clean laundry. Iris was down for a nap, but her powers of lavender scent still lingered around Mirror, enhanced by the clean clothes smell. (Babies came with so much laundry.) She looked at Aura carefully, noting the flicker of her powers as she stood.

"Um... hi there. Is everything okay?"

Aura had known Mirror since she was a teen and before either then had kids. The world had changed a lot since then, for Aura it had grown muddled, and lacked the clear simplicity it had started out as. One thing that had not changed was Aura had never felt quite right in the Mansion, their was always a lingering sense the place was for far better souls then hers. With the death that followed her.

"Hello my Doubled friend. I.....no, i do not think i am, nor have i been for longer then i think i understand. " she said glancing down at her hands as she spoke. "The dead of of our brothers and sisters haunt my waking moments, the rest haunt my nightmares. The mystics made me butcher thirty seven of our kind, made me use my knowledge and training to extend the pain all for a show. Aura went on maintaining a calm in her voice her face and aura did not support. This wisps of aura not quite solid formed and faded with her at random points around her.

"The mystics control wiped the false memories clean. Everything i am, everything i have done, all i was tought, the lies of a woman who only wanted a weapon. I just kept clinging harder and harder to those teachings, they were all i knew even as evidence stacked against them. I just wanted a world, where our children would not worrey of being killed or having their birth right stolen with magic or be used as weapon devoid of understanding how to be more. I thought at the cost of my mind and soul i could save our people, it was all that ever truly mattered to me. Worse i thought those i called gods would simply asign the holy war to another, perhapse less suited to the role" Aura said wondering if she sounded half as mentally exhausted as she felt.

"I failed so badly, My actions brought super from the other world and now theses mages rise against us. I could not save the order and i could not save our people. I was just a weak willed person unable or unwilling to put herself before the holy war." she said said shifting her stance a put, her words making her uncomfortable. Aura was unused to being so open about wounds like these.

"I'm sorry my old friend, i should not dump my wounds on you" she said her aura a sign post of the chaos in her mind and of her worries. Aura stopped short of explaining her true reason for coming to the mansion, it was hard to put into words, harder then she thought it would be.

>>"Hello my Doubled friend. I.....no, i do not think i am, nor have i been for longer then i think i understand."

Aura, with an existential crisis. Maya put the laundry basket down. She was not equipped for any of this, but Aura, for once, looked so miserable that she needed to try.

>>"The dead of of our brothers and sisters haunt my waking moments, the rest haunt my nightmares. The mystics made me butcher thirty seven of our kind, made me use my knowledge and training to extend the pain all for a show."

Maya turned pale. "The mystics... what?"

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The mystics made... Aura hunt mutants?... Was she here because of that? Her mind went to fight mode, but Aura did not look determined to fight. She looked... broken. Words came tumbling out.

>>"The mystics control wiped the false memories clean. Everything i am, everything i have done, all i was tought, the lies of a woman who only wanted a weapon. I just kept clinging harder and harder to those teachings, they were all i knew even as evidence stacked against them. I just wanted a world, where our children would not worrey of being killed or having their birth right stolen with magic or be used as weapon devoid of understanding how to be more. I thought at the cost of my mind and soul i could save our people, it was all that ever truly mattered to me. Worse i thought those i called gods would simply asign the holy war to another, perhapse less suited to the role"

Maya did not get... most of that. She knew Aura had always been a militant pro-mutant fighter, to the level of murder, but in a twisted way, she was protective of their kind. If she really killed mutants... no wonder she looked broken. And her aura flickered, like her entire being was called into questions.

>>"I failed so badly, My actions brought super from the other world and now theses mages rise against us. I could not save the order and i could not save our people. I was just a weak willed person unable or unwilling to put herself before the holy war."

Maya sighed. She still did not know what to say.

>>"I'm sorry my old friend, i should not dump my wounds on you"

"Well... you came here." Maya noted gently "We have not always been on the best of terms, but you need help, and you came here. You trusted us with Alex. Maybe you can trust us with... helping you figure this out?"

Mirror was surprised, Aura could see it in her paling face. Aura forced calmness into herself and organized her thoughts but her sucess was not total and still a few whisps of pink appeared around her only to fade again. It was reasonable its not like Aura spent much time in the Mansion given her own and what she assumed would be others discomfort.

Aura could have asked the Syndicate, they had the money and would have been willing, and possibly even safer option to sort things out for her. They had already tried and even largely succeeded in getting Aura to have an actual job and to stop fighting every day to draw down some of the attacks on her as well as the addition of SUPER hunting her. It had largely worked but it had given Aura alot time to think. The syndicate however was her employer. How could she admit weakness, how could she tell them she was becoming less useful, less needed. Did it even matter any more? She just had no idea.

She nodded softly, not looking at Maya's face as she spoke. "Look, the truth is i had been planning to talk with you or the Null. She said the pink whisps growing n number and frequency but still without substance and Aura remained oblivious to it. " I...I, had to come to say good bye to Alex. Find a Mystic base and start the final dance. I can't tell them though. If Allison were here i could but.." she said not truly wanting to abandon Her daughter but not knowing how to deal with the mental sludge pool her mind and soul were.

"I found Mystics kidnapping Mutant children, I fought my way with a female mutant with agility to the front of the train. We made it to the front car and the kids were freed, but we were ambushed, i took some magic beam to my back and was knocked off the train and plummeted toward the water below. I must have survived because i woke up a puppet. Our Frozen friend, my telekinetic friend and a portal...friend" she said, her aura had began to flicker more, the whisps growing longer and taking odd shapes before brekaing up and fading, a reflection of Aura's mind. Zek having been one of the few people Aura so far had not found a way to tolerate Mutant wise.

"This may sound odd, but I have always trusted the Mansion. More then that I trust you, we are kin through Alex and that makes you the closest thing i have to blood family, my friend. I am unsure i deserve the help your offering but I am willing to try, for Alex. she let out a sign and with focus the pink whisps faded out entirely. SHe gathered her thoughts. a moment before continuing. "What is it you propose, old friend? What information that's left id this mind is yours" Aura said unsure what information was even helpful in this. Aura for her part had no idea where to even begin and had passed information that seemed relivent to the issue at hand. She was just glad the ghosts were being quite.

If their was a way to resolve this and still be there for Alex she needed to go that route, no matter what it cost her. She had seen the Mansion and i'ts x men as fools thinking their ideology unachievable but also had believed that after the order had defeated Mutant kinds enemies they would need those in the mansion as leaders, well warriors like her faded away. The world refused to be so black and white for her however and it made things tough.