((ooc: Continued for Slate from a single post in [FP] Red carpet and paint, and for Katrina from a fantastic post in [FP]The Teacher's Lounge.

Thomas is human.))

Americans. Truly, was there a better target for hawked goods? The vendors shouted and bustled in their own tongue and in the best English they knew, showing off their wares to those exiting the airport. Slate took in a deep breath as they stepped out under the gray sky. One of his first thoughts in China became this: ...I cannot heal lung damage. He shook his head slightly, and projected his next thought to the student at his side: Let us find the hotel, Thomas. This ...noise... does not suit me.

...Thomas?

Just a moment, Professor.

Slate turned in a slow circle on his heel, and found the teenager bartering in slip-shod Chinese over a case of Double-A batteries. He shook his head slightly. It was hard to hurry the student, when he was obviously applying the language courses which all of the Pax Academy Seniors had taken in preparation for this trip. Harder, since the slumping teen seemed to actually be faring quite well against the seasoned vendor. Slate could not help but feel a bit of pride in his favorite student. Thomas was human through and through, but his ability to step outside of his own emotions to rationally assess a situation was every bit as valuable as being able to toss around fireballs. More so, in Slate's opinion. He had earned his place on this trip, as had all seven members of the Senior Class.

The case of batteries was slipped under a lanky white arm. Four American dollars changed hands. Sorry for the wait, Sir. I got a newspaper, too.

...Was that really necessary?

Well, I figured we'd want to see if Ms. Dumonde's greetings to the Chinese officials on our behalf made the news at all.

Slate had been referring to the batteries, not the newspaper. The teenager frequently misunderstood questions like that. Slate would have suspected that he misunderstood on purpose, but he presumed it had more to do with half of the boy's mind always being focused on the black gaming consol in his left hand. He shook his head slightly, and accepted the newspaper. It had been tossed in free with the batteries, at the mere price of Thomas not trying to barter any lower.

They stopped at a small internet cafe, where Thomas sent one-handed e-mails confirming their safe arrival to Headmaster Csendes while Slate paged through the paper. His own Chinese was not highly developed, but his Japanese was rather up to par; he was able to decipher the meaning behind much of the kanji. There were quite a few mentions of the Chinese President's speech at Tian'anmen Square and its rousing affect on the people, and even more about Russia's demonic actions: news of their unwarranted troop build-up along the Amur River north of Beijing; continued refusals from their tyrannical government to release their genetically gifted Chinese prisoners; an interview with a Chinese mutant who had daringly escaped their blood-stained clutches and returned to his home country to spread the truth about the slave labor and mind washing that occurred across the boarder.

Slate glanced up briefly, and frowned at the computer screen over Thomas' shoulder. He was not sure whether Sebastian would ever actually receive that e-mail--even if they weren't behind Chinese firewalls, this was Sebastian--but he appreciated the time to scan the news.

There was no mention of dragon dying on Tian'anmen Square. There was only a single telling line, about citizens who had become so engaged by their leader's visionary speech that they became ill, and experienced hallucinations.

So. She had done it, then.

He folded the paper and set it aside as Thomas attached detailed instructions on how the Headmaster should work the intercom system at the Community Center (press the button and talk, Sir), and how to reset the fuse box if there was another power surge (it's in the basement. Take a deep breath, and flip the switches, Sir.). He set the paper aside, and used his limited Chinese to listen to the conversations all around them.

龍.

龍.

龍.

Dragon.

It was whispered under breaths and talked about with glances cast suspiciously around, as if to make certain that the cafe's residents still all had the look of foreigners and... people of like concerns.

死.

Death.

There was no doubt: Katrina had succeeded in the first notes of their overture. That the government was censoring news of the event would only cause it to spread faster. The Chinese government did not have the best track record for honesty with its citizens, after all, and they themselves knew it best.

Thomas and I are on our way to meet you at the hotel. Have the students arranged transportation to our next destination, yet? Slate sent the message to Katrina, in that directionless manner of focusing that he used.

Well done. He added. An afterthought, because he suspected she already knew what she had begun. The notes hung in the heavy air of the Chinese afternoon:

死龍.

She stood on a grassy plain. A cold wind whistled around large outcroppings of gray stone and tossed long blonde hair out of its way, but met no other obstacles. The wind carried sounds of groaning machinery to the ears of the young woman. There were no cannon shots yet.

She started running. She had to get there before it started or the fields would be painted red. She couldn't let that happen. She strained her ears, listening to the wind for any indication that she was too late. She heard voices...

Thomas and I are on our way to meet you at the hotel. Have the students arranged transportation to our next destination, yet?

Well done.

..

Katrina stirred on the bed. Someone was interrupting her strange dream with their sensible questions. If Slate was already here, it meant she had been asleep for quite a long time, even longer than she had expected. Her stomach rumbled, taking the opportunity to remind her that if she had been asleep for two days, it also meant she hadn't eaten for two days.

Katrina rolled over and realized that the bed was about as soft as plank of wood with a sheet draped over it. She groaned and stiffly sat up. She wished she hadn't. The moment she was upright her head throbbed and her vision swirled. Ghost-like images from her dreams floated in front of her eyes, haunting reminders that she had over-exerted herself.

Slowly she stood, leaning against the wall to keep her balance. She blinked in an attempt to clear her vision, but no matter how many times she blinked the dark stains on the floor that flickered at the corners of her vision refused to vanish and no amount of head shaking banished the dull echo of a roar from her ears. If she wasn't so hungry, she would have considered laying back down on the wood box that passed for a bed in this Chinese hotel room.

I just woke up. Let me check to see if the kids have done their homework. She sent the thought drifting aimlessly toward the familiar mind of the greyhound shifting healer.

Katrina got a drink of water, managed to pull on clean, slightly less rumpled clothing, and made her way stumblingly to the door, trusting her hands to guide her more than her eyes. Carefully, she continued in the same manner down the hallway and to the elevator without incident. Hopefully the continental breakfast buffet would still be open.

The delicious smells of fried noodles, bacon, scrambled eggs, milk soaked corn, and hot bean paste filled dumplings drifted to her nose as soon as the elevator door opened upon the first floor. She followed her nose to the dining room and heaped food of every variety onto her plate until it could physically hold no more. That was just fine, she wasn't sure she wanted to try that strange reddish-grey paste with veggies in it anyway. She was feeling better already, even just having smelled food. Perhaps if she ate something, the pounding in her head would subside the rest of the way.

“Ms. Dumonde, are you really going to eat all of that?”

Katrina slowly turned toward the voice so as not to spill anything. She hadn't even noticed the two students sitting at the table next to the buffet. One, named Julia, was a human girl with a passion for art. Her creativity also came in handy for solving problems. The other, Lynn, was a mutant with a unique gift for languages.

“Good morning ladies. I do have to get my energy back, so the food will be good for me. Mind if I sit with you?” She sat after they nodded and began eating as fast as her dignity and chopsticks would allow.

“I've heard a lot of people talking about what happened during the speech,” Lynn mentioned in a quiet voice.

“Oh?” Katrina looked up from her noodles. Lynn began filling her in, but as Katrina watched her speaking the after images from her earlier illusion began to creep over the features of both girls, giving them a decidedly unhealthy decayed look. Katrina's appetite died as surely as the Tian'anmen Square dragon.

((ooc: Zakiyaa is a rumor sensor; she listens to the wind, and hears the voices that it has passed over. Lynn is omnilingual.))

If you send the boys, they will be killed.

Her name was Zakiyaa. When she was forty-eight centimeters shorter, and had to rely on her brother to lead her through marketplaces because she could see over no heads, she had lived in southern Sudan. She had been body, breath, and mind of Sudan. She had stood in Sudanese winds with her hair untied and her eyes closed, and listened, and knew what moved the lips of her country. Now she was much taller and eight years older, and her lungs had breathed much of that time in New York City. It was large and crowded, but it had jobs and people who read about her country in newspapers that they put down after their coffee was finished. The wind blew quickly through the buildings sometimes. It whispered such nonsense and such hopes that it made her smile. The wind in Sudan had been loud and heavy with knowledge that a ten year old girl, some people in New York would say, had not been meant to carry. But it was a warning wind, a cautious wind, and it had brought her and her whole family safely into the United States of America.

If you send the boys, it had whispered to her from years of quietly moving lips, they will be killed. That is why her family had given her the water jugs, and she had gone.

She stood now on the rooftop of a Chinese hotel, with her hair untied and her eyes closed. The wind gusted and eddied. There was a storm coming in, and it could not decide which direction it wished to throw the clouds. Storms were playful by nature, and the wind was its indulgent parents. It was cold, and she was wrapped warmly in a sweater that had traveled all the way from China to be bought in a New York street fair. She wondered how it felt, to return home. Had it missed its winds? She missed Sudan, sometimes.

The day had been very hot. She remembered that. That was why the water was even more important than usual. They had been traveling for many days. There was a refugee camp towards the border, and there they could get passes to go to America, if they were patient. They could get a doctor for her mother and the baby brother who troubled her stomach, too. They had run out of water, though, and they did not know the land. They did not know where the covered wells were, or the thin streams. The wind was blowing from the East that day--from the scorching sun. Zakiyaa had tilted her head and listened, and told her mother what she had heard. There was a stream nearby--only two kilometers. It stood near a village whose people no longer breathed whispers into the moving air. She told her mother about the stream, and she cried. Her father said, 'We cannot ask you to do this.' Her brother said, 'She is not going! I will go. I will slaughter the pigs, and I will return with the water.' Her mother held her. Zakiyaa had cried. There was something everyone knew; the wind was loud with it, because a thousand tongues had moved softly through its words:

If you send the boys, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with water.

She had cried. Then she had dried her eyes, and taken all of their water jugs until she had looked like their pack mule. They could not send their pack mule with her, because it might get stolen. If it was stolen, they did not know how they would carry her mother. She was not sure she could carry that much water, when they were full. This seemed like a very big worry at the time. She was ten, and she was much smaller in body than she was now.

Here in China, eight years later, she was wrapped warmly in a sweater. Warmer still was her hand, clasped like a mitten by the hand of Lynn, an American girl who was very pretty. Zakiyaa wanted to tell her that she was pretty sometimes, but sometimes she thought she shouldn't; and some nights, she crawled out the window of her house in New York and sat bundled on the rooftop, listening and listening until her eyes grew heavy for just a whisper that Lynn thought she was pretty, too. Lynn was smiling at her, now. "Is it working?" She asked, in that voice that was so soft and small, like something precious and safe. Her right eyetooth was a little crooked. She tried not to smile widely, because she did not like to show it. The eyetooth was another something that was precious and safe--always hidden, except to those who sought after its every flash as something that was secret but true. She also had a large black birthmark on the back of her left leg. She wore her socks rolled up very high to hide it, but they had slipped down that Spring while the Pax students had been doing a field exercise on working in tandem.

"Yes," Zakiyaa said, "I can hear them, and I can understand. Thank you, Lynn." For having a warm hand. For having a crooked eyetooth. For your sock slipping down. They had trained for this: Zakiyaa heard the whispers of rumors that carried on the wind. Lynn understood every language. When they held hands and listened together, Zakiyaa understood even rumors that had first been whispered in Chinese.

If you send the boys for water, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with the water.

The men had been waiting by the river, as she had heard they would be. Every step had taken her towards the sun and into the wind, so she had two kilometers to listen, and accept. She was ten, but she heard much, and was beginning to learn that a ten year old had to accept much. A ten year old could not change the world. Especially not the world of Sudan.

The men laughed when they saw her. 'Here is another one,' one said, killing the fire in his cigarette by smothering it against the hard ground. 'I was hoping for a boy,' another joked, which his friends shunned by slapping him on the back of the head. 'Do you know the price for water?' Another asked. 'How can she? She is young.' The one who had killed his cigarette said.

'I know,' she had said. 'May I have the water?'

'After,' they said.

The stream had run swift and pure. When they were done, they helped her fill the water jugs, and load them again on her back so that she looked and felt like her family's pack mule. They had laughed again at the sight, but it was not a bad laugh. It was a laugh at something that was funny. There was good in everyone. She had struggled to walk back to her family. For two kilometers, she felt blood in a place it would not come again for two years. She would wake up one morning in her room in New York and wonder if the men had visited her in her sleep, for one very confused and sleepy moment.

Zakiyaa knew the sounds of genocide, and the sounds of war. They were much quieter here in China. Holding Lynn's hand on the cold rooftop, she felt as warm as a summer day. She closed her eyes and listened to things she had not heard since she stepped onto the plane with her family, and went to America. It made her feel sick in her heart, and very far from home. Home was not New York. Home was a country where men did terrible things, but they helped a girl fill her water jugs, as well. She was eighteen now. She would like to return there, after she graduated from the Pax Academy. A ten year old was very small. An eighteen year old, though, was maybe large enough to change the world. She had forgotten to say 'Thank you' for their help. She wondered sometimes if 'Thank you' would have started some small change that would have had eight years to fester into something that meant people would not read about her country in newspapers that they set down when their coffee was done.

If you send the boys, they will be killed. If you send the girls, they will return with water. Her name was Zakiyaa; this meant 'Pure'. Pure was something that could not be lost or stolen or killed or raped. Pure was something that flowed in the desert; it was the wind that was under every whisper.

Together with Lynn, she went down to the hotel room to tell what she had heard to her teachers Dumonde and Swartz. What she had heard was this:

"Of what we are looking for, there are two main groups. There is one that is very close to here. They say that a rich man gives them money for weapons; they say they are strong, and that you should stand with them or stay out of their way. The other is far from here. It is to the West, and the South, but it is loud. They say that mutants who need shelter should go there, by the ways that very few whisper. Mutants are still being killed in China, they say--very many. Any who do not hide or are not useful. Plant growers are safe, though they may not be happy. They want the plant growers for their crops. Others are disappearing, like they have always been made to disappear. The borders with Russia are very hard to cross now; very unsafe, and very well guarded. The place to the West and the South, that is safe. That is what they say. I think that is where we should go. I think the ones who are begging to the rich man can care for themselves for now, and stopping them will stop nothing. I think we should help the people who seek help. I think that is where we can cause the change to come." Zakiyaa sat down lightly, nodding to her fellow students and her teachers. "Thank you," she said, because she would never forget to say those words again.

Where do you hide a pin so it will not be noticed? In a pin cushion, where it belongs.

And where do you hide a group of Americans traveling across China to Tibet? On a train, with a tour guide standing at the front of the car, relaying the glorious history of the Silk Road along which the train was currently traveling.

The train from Beijing to Lhasa would take 48 hours, after having traveled 4,064 km. During the journey the train would climb from an elevation of 43.5 m above the sea level to an elevation of 3,650 m on the Roof of the World.

As the train pulled away from the Beijing station, everyone was content to watch out the windows as they left the city behind them. Gradually the sky above the train changed from a dull, lifeless grey to a clear crystal blue. The tall industrial buildings were exchanged for grassy landscapes and occasional rundown warehouses or sagging barns. Traffic lessened on the roadways until car sightings were infrequent and pedestrians disappeared altogether. The passengers gradually turned from their windows and sought their own forms of entertainment to pass the time until they reached their destination.

Katrina flipped open her laptop and busied herself reading the newspaper articles she had downloaded before leaving the hotel. China's censorship was not so bad that she didn't have access to London and New York online newspapers. The headlines that appeared on her screen included articles such as “North Korea and Cambodia Promise to Support China”, “NATO Frowns upon Russia's Hostile Actions”, and “Japanese Minister Asks U.S. for Defense Aid in Case of Asian War”. She didn't realize that she was frowning at her computer screen as she read.

Julia opened up her sketchbook and began to draw the other passengers on the train. Soon the sleeping gentleman that sat across from her was reproduced in a two-dimensional format. He was soon followed by a woman staring out the window and holding her sleep son on her lap.

Zakiyaa put large noise canceling head phones over her ears and kept her face pointed toward the window. No one could tell if she was awake or not. Lynn, sitting next to her, slowly filled in the blank spaces in a Chinese crossword puzzle.

Felix and River debated animatedly, but quietly, about whether China was still actually communist.

Thomas, slouching in his seat so he could put his knees up on the seat in front of him, was staring intently at the hand held gaming console in his hand.

The other passengers read newspapers or knitted scarves or flipped through magazines or tried to keep their children from squirming out of the grasp and running around the train.

The tour guide gave up her monologue for the moment and found her own seat at the front of the car.

Lucas was already bored. Trees flashed by outside the window, but he wasn't really watching them. For being thousands of miles from home, the scenery wasn't actually all that different from what they had been able to see back home.

It was odd, to think that he actually had a place to call home now. For years he had been shunted around to so many new “homes” that the word had lost all meaning to him. Years in foster care will do that. Even his original home with his parents hadn't really been a home.

Everyday in elementary school he would get picked on by bullies. Sometimes he would run away, sometimes he would get so angry that he would fight back. At the time, those seemed like the only two options. After school he would return to the house and spend the evening trying to stay out of the way of his abusive, alcoholic father. It all seemed normal to him back then.

Then one day when he was walking down the stairs to meet the bus, he saw his father attack his mother with a kitchen knife. Eight-year-old Lucas hadn't known what to do, so he ran out the door to where the school bus was waiting for him. He sat in the very back of the bus, not knowing if his mother was alright. One of the older students, a huge kid two grades above him, noticed him and asked him why he was crying. Lucas could sense the teasing in the other boy's voice and felt his blood boiling and lashed out with both fists before the other boy could even guess that it was coming.

Before school had even started, they were sitting in the principal's office being questioned about what happened on the bus. A few minutes later, two police officers arrived and took Lucas down to the police station where he was questioned about what had happened in his kitchen that morning.

After his mother's funeral he was shuffled back and forth from one foster home to another. No one seemed to want a rough and tumble boy who had a tendency to escalate arguments into fist fights- even if he was only protecting the smaller kids from bullies. He didn't care. He didn't want them either.

He switched school so often that doing homework or even showing up at all seemed pointless. Going “home” was pointless. Everything was pointless.

He switched foster homes yet again. He knew the routine by now. He'd been following the pattern for six years. The family would be all friendly toward him for the first few days. Soon they'd realize that he didn't fit into their cozy little environment. They would start to get frustrated with his behavior and they'd get angry and give up on him, shipping him off to another “home” to start the cycle all over again.

This time, with the Englebretsens, things didn't follow the normal cycle. Sure, he acted the same way he always did, but they never quite seemed to grasp that he didn't care about them at all. Especially their eleven year old son, Davis. He stopped a punk from beating the kid up one time and earned himself a permanent shadow. The kid followed him everywhere. Somehow he could even tell when Lucas was going to skip class and appeared right behind him as he left the school grounds. Which of course meant that he Lucas had to stay in class or the little brat would start thinking it was okay for him to skip out of class too. And he had to be home for dinner on time or the little punk would pass out from lack of food. And he had to sit and do homework or Davis would refuse to do his own.

It was tough being a role model.

Lucas was just starting to get comfortable living with the Englebretsens when he realized he was a mutant. He had actually passed all his classes the last quarter of eighth grade, so they all went to a Yankees vs. Mets game as a treat. John Englebretsen had even gotten seats right behind the dugout from someone at work. It was an exciting game, but perhaps became a little too exciting. When the Yankees pitcher purposely plunked the Mets batter with the ball, Lucas had been so angry, he wanted to go out and hit the pitcher back. He didn't realize that his own fighting spirit was contagious, though, until the entire Mets team stampeded out of the dugout after the pitcher. Even some of the fans around them had attempted to climb over the railing and join in the brawl.

As soon as they got home, he started packing his bags. Certainly his being a mutant would be the last straw. After the haywire epidemic, no human family was going to let a mutant live with them- it was too dangerous. And he didn't want to move to yet another “home” when he had finally found a home. No, he would take his chances on the street.

John had found him packing and made him unpack again.

That fall both Lucas and Davis had been enrolled in Pax Academy. It had been the only school where they could go to school together.

As much of a pain as his little brother could be, Lucas found that he actually missed Davis. This was the longest he had ever spent away from home and his family. They would be wondering how he was doing. Maybe he would send them a postcard when they got to Tibet. If they ever got there, that was. This train was taking forever. He glanced at his watch.

One hour down and forty seven to go.

Lucas sighed, then looked over to see what Thomas was playing. From his angle, he couldn't quite see the small screen, so he leaned over until the little images came into focus. On the screen, small cartoon creatures battled using elemental attacks.

“Can I help you with something?” Thomas asked when his seat mate leaned almost far enough to rest his head on his shoulder.

“Whatcha doin'?,” Lucas asked, without removing his head from its shoulder-hovering position.

“I am playing a game. More specifically, I am currently working my way through a dungeon to find a particular item, called a Sacrificial Knife, that I need in order to make my Eevie 'evolve' into a Necreon.”

“Oh.” He watched the battle unfold on the tiny screen for a few moments, then added, “Is there a multi-player mode?”

“Not unless you have your own copy of Pokemon White or Black.”

“Darn.”

Julia turned around in the seat right in front of them, “I've got a copy of White if you want to play. I never really got into it, so you can start a new game if you like.”

“Cool! Thanks Jules! You're the bestest! I'm sure I'll be a poke-ee-man master in no time!”

Thomas rolled his eyes.

((ooc: Felix has a bloodhound ability; he can track individuals and scent the differences between genders, species, and sub-species--including the difference between humans and mutants. River and Julia are humans.))

On the small alter was a scalp. And not just any scalp--the scalp of a Yeti. It was ancient; its skin was leathery gray and dried with age. The coarse hairs may have burned a fiery red once, but they had smoldered back to a dusk-orange. The old Tibetan woman, keeper of the little shrine just across the boarder from China, was speaking in tones of hushed mystery, her arms moving like the wings of a crow. Lynn, with her omnilingual ability, looked thoroughly impressed. The rest of the students could have understood the woman's words by merely touching their Korean American classmate, but there was a lot to be said for listening not for words, but for meaning. None of them were missing the meaning. The old woman ended her rendition with a final flap. Lucas let out a burst of applause that abruptly died when he realized he was the only one doing so. Julia, crouched down lightly with a sketchpad balanced on her knees, was furiously scribbling wisp-thin lines on a white sheet of paper that were rapidly coming together to form her imagination's image of what the scalp's owner had once looked like. Its arms were raised in the air, in one of the old woman's crow-flap gestures. River had taken out a camera, to which the old woman had cawed something that was clearly understood as 'no flash photography'. Thomas had even glanced up from the screen of his black gaming consol. This was a dangerous thing for Thomas to do.

The slumping teenager's eyebrows knit together, then relaxed as he gave an 'ah-ha!' nod. "Ah," he said, and only 'ah'.

River made the mistake of encouraging him. "What's with the 'ah'?" She asked, frowning down at her camera's small screen. The shrine was dark, and that 'no flash photography' rule was seriously cutting down on her image resolution. Maybe with a bit of Photoshop... but if you had to Photoshop your Yeti scalp picture, what good was actually seeing it in the first place?

"I read an article about this in the Natural Sciences Digest while doing a report on cryptozoology back in Sophomore year." Thomas informed them all, in a matter-of-fact manner that cut through every crow show in the country. "A scientist in London took a sample of hair from this 'scalp', and tested its DNA. It's just a piece of goat hide."

Julia's hand stopped sketching. River gave up on her camera with a little sigh. The shrine keeper hadn't caught the teenager's words, but she'd certainly caught his meaning: her glare could summon an entire murder down upon his head, with black wings flapping. Lucas could actually feel his excitement draining out. It flowed through his shoulders, down his arms like soggy macaroni, and out through the soles of his boots. His boots were the warmest he'd been able to buy, but his feet still were feeling the climate change. Tibet was cold.

"Why do you have to kill the magic like that?" He demanded.

Thomas gave a single-shouldered shrug. His eyes were already back on his game.

"Why?" Lucas repeated.

"It's the truth," the slumping teenager replied.

Outside the shrine, Zakiyaa was holding her earmuffs in her hand, and Felix had his scarf pulled down. His nostrils flared the slightest bit as they aimlessly took in scents. Aimlessly, but not without purpose. Outside with the two students were their chaperones, Ms. Dumonde and Mr. Swartz.

"The resistance contact is here. I cannot hear more than that." Zakiyaa shook her head slightly, her hair catching in the chilled breeze. "All the rumors say that the first safe house on the path is here. I am sorry I cannot hear more."

Felix sniffed, sneezed, and snorted. He swept an intense stare around the small town, making a child who'd been peering around the side of a house scuttle for cover with a squeal. The chorus of laughter from out of sight hinted at a larger group, and some sort of dare that had probably just been lost. "It's here, all right. There's mutant scent everywhere--most of it's stale, but there have been a large number moving through." His head jerked up in a sudden breeze as if of its own will and his nostrils flared again, fiercely. "Just set me loose. I can find this safe house."

"A more subtle approach than just bursting in might better, if we want to consider what our first impression will be," Thomas suggested, stepping out from the shrine with Lucas right on his heels. When Thomas stopped, Lucas nearly plowed into him. In the energized teenager's hands was a white game consol that he was holding nearly up to his nose.

A victory whoop burst from his lips, and one hand quickly punched the air before sweeping back down to punch at the little consol's keys. "I just caught a Deus! And you know what I'm going to name it? Magic. And you, Thomas, are never going to kill it. I'm going to evolve it into an Exdomine, and take down that Necreon of yours."

"I look forward to it," Thomas replied mildly, "though Avemachina is the highest evolution for a Deus. Steel/Psychic type. The only Pokémon in the game with the From Above ability. You may wish to evolve it all the way, before you fight with me." He recited the memorized facts and recommendation easily; his attention was clearly still on the conversation he'd walked out on. "If you do not mind," he addressed his teachers with equal mildness, "I might have a plan."

((ooc: Tag. ))

Dear Mister President,

I am a senior high school student that is working abroad to provide relief to the mutant refugees of the China and Russia conflict. These people are torn from their families, driven from their homes, and if they are not useful enough to the two opposing governments they are simply discarded. Even children are not spared the horrors of slavery, torture, rape, and starvation.

Our class has aided in setting up a pathway for refugees to travel to a safe location in the mountains, but we are sorely in need of aid. The things we need most to help the refugees get through the winter are food, warm clothing, and blankets. Please send supplies through the above address in Tawang, India, for aid sent through China will certainly be waylaid by the government.

Sincerely,
River Smith

Katrina set the letter on top of six others, all destined to be sent back to the United States, once she had finished grading them. The letters were short, as they had to be if anyone was going to actually read the whole thing without skimming, so it wouldn't take long. Even in these short paragraphs Katrina could see the personalities of the students shining through their writing style, perhaps because she was getting to know them so well throughout their time together. River's letter was practical, Felix's intense, Lynn's both shy and eloquent, Lucas' energized, Julia's... creative, Zakiyaa's compassionate, and Thomas' was perfectly precise.

This particular class assignment was a practical one. The letters really would be delivered and they really did need any aid they could get. So far, their plans were running smoothly, but as winter rapidly approached it became apparent that it would not be an easy season. Food was short everywhere in China and getting even small amounts of it across the country was becoming increasingly difficult. More and more refugees were finding their way along the trail to the camp sheltered in the mountains, the temperature kept falling, and supplies were having more and more trouble finding their way safely to the refugees, due to weather, accident, or the occasional raid by hungry bandits.

To increase the chances of actually receiving aid, Katrina had decided that it would be best for her to deliver the letters in person. She had connections with several politicians from her childhood days being the daughter of a senator, and the head of the executive branch was someone she was sure would remember her. She also had an appointment to keep with one particular lioness while she was home.

All around, it made perfect sense to take a short trip back to the states to take care of those things that needed her attention, however, the young teacher still had doubts as to whether she was doing the right thing. It worried her to leave all of the students with Slate as the sole adult and she felt like she was abandoning the mission. She had tried to make it shorter, but with travel times what they were, a week was the shortest amount of time possible for such a venture, especially with the roundabout way she'd have to travel through the mountains by hoof and by foot to India in order to take a private jet to Hawaii, then finally a commercial airliner to DC. There were so many things that could possibly go wrong while she was gone!

Trust. She'd just have to trust that things would be fine. The students could take care of themselves and the mission; it was what they had been trained for. If anything happened, she would still be in contact through email and her mind would be open to Slate, should he need to tell her anything. Nothing would go wrong anyway. There was no need to worry.

She put the letters into a manila envelope and slipped it into her backpack. She was pretty much ready to go; she had packed light so everything would be easy to carry while hiking. All she had left to do was say goodbye to Slate.

((ooc: Continued for Katrina in "Allegro con brio" and "Presidential Suite".

Continued for Slate in "Scherzo".))