When Sophia backed away and tried to get away only to trip and fall outside Ali looked confused. Then Streak and Neena followed after the girl with Neena telling everyone else to stay put. Ali turned to Nathan.

"Is the girl skittish or something?

All the others left the room. Nathan stayed put since he caught the glance from Neena. This left Nathan alone with Ali. Which was more than all right from his perspective.

"She came in here really scared. She started talking to us about how she needed to be 'fixed'. As if her mutation had broken her. But there's more to it. She didn't think of herself as a mutant.

And two of her guardians as she called them also paid a visit to us. One of them was lion with scales. The other was a small girl. She mentioned that she had another as well.

Streak and I tried to convince her of her being a mutant and we didn't get anywhere. Then the small child, Elizabeth, tells Sophia that she is a mutant. She believes her right off the bat."

"What do you mean guardians? What mutant has guardians? She summons them?"

This was all extremely new to Ali. She starts to think that ic could be possible. Mutants had all kinds of possibilities. This just was a very unexpected one.

Nathan really didn't understand Sophia's powers that much. Even she appeared to not understand. It was the first time he had seen anyone like Sophia.

"She has 'guardians' that protect her. I'm sure she can summon them but it appears that they can also come out of their own free will. Or maybe through her subconscious mind."

"And yet when she's told by one of her gaurdians that she's a mutant she believes it and not after being told by others? Maybe that's what she means by her need to be 'fixed'. Maybe she needs help in her mentality."

Ali wasn't trying to sound rude or put down the new girl, but at the same time she wasn't one to sugar coat things. She had always said what was on her mind and had a very good tendancy of being very forward and blunt.

Nathan loved that Ali didn't beat around the bush but he knew that others weren't too keen on it.

"I got the impression that her other guardians don't talk that much. I'm sure she could probably benefit from a stay at the Mansion. She does seem rather withdrawn though. I suppose it could be a mental thing. We aren't without our own faults as well."

Neena hung on tight as the metal arm arched backwards. Seeing the ground coming up fast, she loosed her grip and pushed off and away. Her feet and hands made a hollow clang as she impacted more metal; it seemed that the head belonging to the arms was beginning to appear as well.

<“Well, there goes the front walk,”> she thought to herself as she clung to the metal menace.

She could hear Sophia yelling for her to run, and she peered down to see the young girl cowering.

”There’s no need to run, Sophia! He’s just trying to protect you!” Well, Neena didn’t know that for sure, but it was a decent guess, considering the circumstances. She continued to call down toward the girl. ”He thinks you’re in danger! Are you scared?”

Likely someone who didn’t know the dark-skinned teacher would think that she should be the scared one, considering her precarious position atop the steadily-emerging, metal giant. Of course, Neena wasn’t afraid at all, just a bit disappointed that they’d have more repairs to make to the estate after this.

She knocked on the metal giant’s head. ”Shame on you!” she scolded, as if it could understand her words. ”You’re supposed to be protecting Sophia, not scaring her silly. Bad robot. Bad! You be nice and apologize to her.”

Yes, the speech sounded quite silly. And she honestly had no clue if the robot could even understand what she was saying, let alone believe it. But her options were few, and she hoped that, if anything, Sophia would understand, and calm down.

“NO!” Sophia shouted out, noticing a strange woman suddenly on the robot’s shoulder. Suddenly she was a lot more serious than before, her eyes glowing slightly as her robot’s did too. Both turned there heads toward the woman, Sophia looking at her as though still eager to whimper and cry, but summoning the strength to fight through it. But the robot stared back at her like a potential target of its master’s rage, eager to settle the situation and save Sophia instead.

“You’re wrong! You don’t know anything! I’m not afraid of him… He’s here to protect me… FROM YOU!” with that, all of the robot shot out from the ground, finally planting its feet on the ground ever so softly. It hand reached up to grab the girl as Sophia stood beside it almost eager to see what would happen. Her arms were in front of her, planted as though protecting herself and oddly excited, though she was not. In her mind, she knew that this robot was a guardian that only appeared at the most dire and horrible of times, only to protect Sophia. It was her previous efforts to keep it from coming out so that she could spare everyone and not cause any damage.

However, none of that was the same once this woman began spouting off with her own thoughts aloud. Talking as though Sophia’s own protection was the issue and not herself, the woman had to be stopped in Sophia’s mind. Even though Sophia had little to no control in her guardians, when focused on a task, she could compel them to do as she desired. As well, she could never control when they came out, or how they might respond, but she knew from Elizabeth’s comments that they never came out except to protect Sophia or assist her if necessary. For this scary woman to be bad mouthing them was slightly disrespectful in Sophia’s mind, and she sought to correct this, yelling up the woman above her on her robot’s body as its arm quickly attempted to slam shut around the woman’s body, “You don’t understand! I just want to be fixed! My friends don’t appear because I want them to, they appear to protect me! I was trying to protect you from them! BIG GUY, SAVE ME!”

Streak waited as Sophia got up and dusted herself off. He watched Neena talk to her but that didn't seem to help much. Once again Sophia backed away only this time a huge robot looking arm came out of the ground and looked like it was going to squish Neena. He was about to move to get Neena out of harms way when she told them not to move. All he could do now was watch. A little feeling of helplessness washed over him briefly as he stood there. He wasn't used to this, however he knew Neena was very able to take care of herself in these sort of situations.

Great we just finished fixing this place up. He thought as the robot demolished the stairs and front walk. He waited until Sophia was done shouting at Neena before he again tried to help. "Neena." He shouted up to her. "Get off the robot. We need to do what Sophia says. Come down and I'll try to explain and we can work this out." Streak didn't know if Neena was even paying attention to himself and Sophia or if she was focused on the robot.

“You don’t understand! I just want to be fixed! My friends don’t appear because I want them to, they appear to protect me! I was trying to protect you from them! BIG GUY, SAVE ME!”

<"Well, that didn't make any sense,"> Neena thought as she dodge another swat. Who was Sophia trying to protect? Herself or Neena?

Preoccupied as she was, she didn't see Streak come out. But she did hear him.

"Neena. Get off the robot. We need to do what Sophia says. Come down and I'll try to explain and we can work this out."

"I'd love to- Uh! And I will- Whoa! As soon as the Big Guy- Ack! Quit's trying to squish me! I'm not a mosquito you know!"

Jumps and dodges punctuated her reply as she attempted to avoid being flattened.

The metallic man tried as hard as he could to swat away the pesky woman clinging to its body. Just has it had gotten close to doing so, the woman would jump again, moving out of the way and dodging the incoming attack with such skill that was rather unexpected by the mammoth metallic man. This woman kept leaping over his hand, moving out of way just in the nick of time that it was beginning to annoy Sophia, to the point that she was finally showing some emotion of anger and rage.

“GO AWAY! STOP PICKING ON HIM!” she wasn’t backing down, but then again, she wasn’t feeling very good either. Part of her was feeling bad about all of this: scared and frightened, but angry about this woman talking as though she knew what was going on, and claiming things that weren’t necessarily true. She didn’t want to bother anyone, she was merely sent here to get herself fixed, so that these guardians didn’t come out like this.

“STOP it… Don’t…” all the sudden, part of her body was feeling numb and dizzy. It was like her entire body was being consumed in a woozy like feeling through out her entire body. Knees were buckling, arms were as heavy as concrete, even her head felt lighter, all the while, tears running from her eyes and down her face as she was angry and upset with everything going on. She unexpectedly fell to her knees, a wave of wind passing through her entire body and head as she then fell down to her side. All her body went silent, even here eyes as they softly and gentle closed up, and she fell unconscious. As she fell asleep, the robot started disappearing in to tiny particles, like sand gently being blown off the ground, the robot disappeared in to nothingness, leaving nothing behind, except for Sophia quietly and pleasently asleep on the ground.

(OOC: Feel free to fill in the gaps in between.

“GO AWAY! STOP PICKING ON HIM!”

<"Picking on him??"> Neena grunted mentally as he dodged yet another swat. Who was picking on who? She was simply trying to stay alive.

“STOP it… Don’t…” Sophia's voice faded, and Neena turned to find out why.

"Wha-whoa! Gah!" What had been a metal man beneath her feet suddenly lost its solidity, dumping her onto the ground unceremoniously. She winced. "Well, that was interesting...."

She stood and limped over to where Sophia now slept quietly on the ground, likely passed out from overexertion. She sighed, and frowned up at Streak.

"Well, I guess I handled that rather badly. Wanna fill me in while we get her to the Infirmary?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Neena paused by her room to clean up a bit before going to sit beside Sophia's bed. Examining her reflection in the mirror, she thought why the girl had been so scared of her. It was hard from someone lacking fear to understand distrust in someone else, but she needed to figure it out before approaching the youth. Once she woke, fear of the dark-skinned teacher likely would be the last thing she remembered. They'd already started off badly, and Neena now had a wide breach to try and repair.

The best place she could think of was to start with her clothes. Black was supposed to be a somber color, and since she could do nothing about her hair and skin, she had to settle for clothing; earthy colors might work, nothing bright. Despite the pain the Infirmary lights caused her eyes, she ditched the dark glasses as well. And, of course, removing all of the tree debris left in her hair ought to help.

<"Not much else to do,"> she thought glumly. <"Hopefully it will be enough.">

She headed back to the Infirmary, and sat quietly by the unconscious girl's bed, hoping she wouldn't shriek or freak out again.

Everything happened so fast. Streak wasn't sure who to watch, Neena, the robot, or Sophia. It all seemed to happen at the same moment. Neena was dodging the robots swats like she was a bug of some kind, and Sophia passed out. As Sophia passed out the robot disappeared. It was an interesting sight but he was concerned for Neena when she fell from such a distance. She didn't seem too worse for the ware. Neena walked over to Streak and said,

"Well, I guess I handled that rather badly. Wanna fill me in while we get her to the Infirmary?"

"Sure." Streak said. He knelt down and gently picked up Sophia. He cradled her like he would hold a little child asleep in his arms. She was definitely someone who Streak didn't understand one bit. He headed indoors and straight to the infirmary past Nathan and Ali without a word.

Once there he waited for Neena to show up. She had taken off in a different direction. When she returned she was cleaned up and looking much more like a Headmistress of a school. Once she took a seat next to Sophia on the bed Streak began to fill her in.

"Well, first of all Sophia shows up at the door right? I open it and the next thing I know Nathan is there and so is Sam. Well, she starts acting scared of all the attention. From what I've gathered from watching her, she can create things out of either nothing or out of air molecules I'm not sure. She also has three 'guardians' as she calls them. You met the third, the biggest and apparently the most taxing on her mind. There is one named Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth is a little doll looking thing. She would be a cute looking doll if you didn't meet her and listen to her. She's really defensive about Sophia and pretty rude to other people. The other 'guardian' is a lion with scales that cover it's entire body. Truthfully it looks pretty cool. Sam, Nathan, and myself were talking to her and she started to freak out. A little like she did when you and Ali showed up only she didn't fall down the stairs. She backed up to the wall and that's when the lion, which Elizabeth told us a little later, was called Mordred and was her enforcer. Sophia managed to get Mordred back into the wall, where it came from, before it attacked us."

"The weirdest thing about her is that she is convinced that she needs fixing. Like there is something wrong with her. However, I do have to say that thanks to Elizabeth she believes she's a mutant. Sophia only seems to trust believe her 'guardians', especially Elizabeth, more than she trusts humans or mutants." He wasn't sure what else to tell Neena to help her. Streak thought for a moment and decided that he has told her as much as he remembers.