(Continued from Overture)

Katrina's hair was tousled and greasy. Her legs ached from being curled up in a confined space for nearly fourteen hours. The journey was long and she was ready for a shower and a soft bed in which she could actually stretch out to her full height.

Her eyelids felt like they were lined with wool on the backsides. She hadn't been tired enough to sleep on the first flight, which had brought her to Hawaii. The second flight was filled with families on their way back from their early December tropical vacations. The two tatterdemalions sitting directly behind her in particular made sleep impossible on the second flight. One had a particular affinity for the Scooby Doo theme song and watched it over and over again on his portable DVD player. His parents had apparently not heard of headphones before, though they had been on the market for well over two decades. His younger sister seemed content to put her feet on the back of Katrina's chair and kick it constantly whenever she got bored with the coloring books her parents kept shoving at her whenever she started to fuss. In all, she hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep throughout the entire voyage.

Perhaps worst of all, her teeth felt like they were wearing sweaters. She needed to brush them so badly that she was afraid that if she didn't find a tube of toothpaste to replace the one that had been confiscated from her carry-on, her entire mouth would mutiny against her.

Despite the long travel time, she actually arrived at her destination only two or three hours after she had left Asia. It was not even noon yet local time, but her body was convinced it was long past bed time. Luckily, Katrina didn't have to attempt to drive in her sleep deprived state. A good friend of hers would be picking her up outside the baggage claim area.

It was a long drive from New York, to DC. Sara ended up stopping at a cheep hotel at 3 am, to rest her eyes. She rose at 9am, walked to the tiny room that registered as bathroom, and started doing the hair brush thing. Only Sara used the brush, not just on her head, but over her ears, her face her neck, arms, and you get the idea. The fur may not be scene, but it was felt, and when it wasn’t laying right it was a pain. She brushed her teeth, because morning breath was annoying as well, and then facumed her golden blond hair off of the bathroom floor with a portable hand vacuumed she had kept in her ditty bag.

It wasn’t till Sara put her illusion on, by putting her locket around her neck, that she realized there was something wrong. The illusion covered her skin, and her hair fell naturally over human ears, but there was little to no whites to her eyes, and tufts of light blond hair stuck out of her ears.

It was odd. One minute Sara was moving her hair back and forth, styling it into pig tails so the open window of the car wouldn’t tangle the longer strands, and the next she was trying to smooth the hair down. Hoping that the tufts of hair would style down with hair spray, but that made them worst. The popped right back up into place, taunting the kitty, and they looked worst when Sara tried to take her scissors to them. Still sticking out at unkept odd angles, taunting her in the mirror. She was a hot blond, with thick, old man, hair growing out her ears. Then there was the problem of her eyes. She very well, couldn’t use styling gel or scissors on the amber color of her irises and force them to show the whites.

She practically fell into the bed, or her room. Digging through her over night bag for something. She needed the illusion, because she needed the cover. She liked the cover. The cover was good. It was her, and people didn’t know her, without it. Her students that she preached adversity to, knew her as that tall blond in the artsy sweeter till they knew her name. That didn’t know her as that cat. She couldn’t imagine herself walking around in plane sight without that sort of blemish make up, and she didn’t remember how she ever got along without the illusion. That was 10 years ago. The past. She was so much more concerned about the now. For instance, now she needed something to cover hear ears and eyes.

. … . … . …. … . … . …. … . … . …. … . … .

Sara parked her brown station wagon, in the pick up, parking, at the air port. Chocolate brown was the least discussing way to describe the color of her car and when you stood a distance away the thing looked like a tootsieroll. It wasn’t the most expensive car in the world, but the back hauled art supplies and it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb during Sara’s investigations on FTAs. (Familiar to Appears. Also known as Bond Jumpers.)

She stood just outside the doors for a minute, as she tried to decide what to do. Air ports were high security and she didn’t remember how high. She blocked out most air travel that she had done. So the details like that were lost, because she spent her waiting time, and flying time, with her head down, staring at her feet. Trying not to think about the steal circular box going uncontrollably through the air. Trying to act distracted she stopped to look through her small shoulder bag. Using her thumb to push her sun glasses, that were hiding her eyes, back up onto her nose, and smooth her bangs that stuck out from under the silk scarf she decided to use as a head band, tied in the back so it covered her ears, and let her hair fall free over her shoulders.

She looked like a miserable famous person under cover. Shuting her small shoulder bag, she put a paper back book under her arm, and started walking towards the lobby. Now where exactly was Kat supposed to meet her? And even more importantly… when?

Katrina checked her watch again, still not certain that she had set it to the correct time. The watch read 11:17, which matched one of the five clocks prominently displayed on the wall over the luggage claim's large conveyor belt. She hadn't actually had any luggage other than her carry-on, but generally the luggage claim doubled as a friend/ family member claim, too. It made things convenient if all the bags went by in a row to be claimed, then all the people with the luggage went by in a row to be claimed themselves by their respective chauffeurs. In general, airports did a decent job of pointing people toward where they needed to go, both inside and outside the building. The wonder of the efficiency did not make an impact on the young blonde woman waiting for her ride. She just wanted to get picked up and taken to somewhere with a shower and a bed. And a tube of toothpaste.

Katrina didn't see any lioness women, nor and tall blonde women with a bit of lioness showing through that only Katrina could see for that matter. Truthfully, she hadn't been waiting all that long yet, but she was very tired. A family with three kids, two strollers, and seven suitcases was picked up by a purple mini van, vacating a bench near the window. Katrina snagged one end of the bench for herself before another, slightly smaller family swarmed toward it. Even though she had been sitting all day, she didn't have the energy to pace.

The young teacher watched the cars driving past, but really only saw them as colored blurs. Her mind was thousands of miles away, wondering about the progress of their mission ad wondering if they were even making a difference. They were supposed to be preventing a war, and so far they were rescuing refugees, which was a good thing, too, but made her wonder if there wasn't more they should be doing. Was there some way they could convince the leaders not to try and kill each other? The dragon illusion had helped raise opposition to the war among the superstitious country folk, but seemed to have little effect on the actual leaders of China. It didn't do anything to dissuade Russia from “defending” itself either.

Katrina sighed. Perhaps if another world power were to put the pressure on them both to back down... that was what she was here to find out.

Soon the blurs of the cars zooming by faded into a foggy oblivion. Her posture relaxed and her head tilted sideways. Her eyes closed. The din of the airport became nothing but background noise for Katrina's dreams.

Sara checked her watch. They still allowed watches in air ports. Right? Well no one was stopping her. Or running towards her. Sara took that as a good sign that watches were still allowed. Then again Sara had to look so strange. Thick sunglasses and hair scarf. Not the best fashion statements in the world.

Taking a deep breath, Sara made her way slowly, into the lobby, where she decided the best solution, was to pretend she was a monkey, and do what other people were doing. It took her a few minutes to follow a gentleman with a saign that had someone’s name on it, to the baggage clam conveyer belt. She stood there for another minute, bumping shoulders with people, trying to get through, and trying very hard not to get her tail stepped on. Thankfully that was still hidden by the illusion. Wasn’t it? Tail check Sara swiveled her neck backwards and looked down. Nope. No tail. Sara could feel it swaying back and forth behind her, but she didn’t see it. Please stay that way.

Stepping sideways, Sara pressed her way out from between people’s shoulders, and stepped back trying to see Katrina’s head over the crowd. She was rather eager to see the young lady, and get an update, first hand, about how the mission had gone. If it was still gong. And Sara desperately needed a new illusion. Her hand brushed by her ear, under the scarf, as she checked to make sure her tufts of hair were behaving themselves. She was still sort of new to wearing these illusions so she hadn’t gotten used to them when they stopped working. Tail Check

While mutant tolerance had changed since she first made her way to New York, Sara had learned to value her new social life. The social life tended to come apart when her illusion was off. So she needed Katrina.

She finally turned away from the crowd, choosing to follow her nose. Sara breathed a sigh of relief. The family that was sharing the bench with Katrina, had put a seat between her, and themselves, and Sara took the seat, giving the younger teacher a nudge as she sat. “Hey.” She poked put her hand, that thankfully still looked like it had well manicured nails, on Katrina’s shoulder. “I could pick you up and carry you, but that would look really odd. Wake up."

She was sitting on an airplane. Just sitting. The plane wouldn't land ever again. It would just circle over the earth until...

...someone nudged her. Then put a hand on her shoulder for good measure.

>>>“Hey.” ... “I could pick you up and carry you, but that would look really odd. Wake up."

Katrina inhaled deeply, the body's natural way of bringing in fresh oxygen to the brain to wake it up. This was followed immediately by a big yawn. Her eyes blinked at the pretty blonde woman sitting next to her. That face was a very, very familiar face, one that she had spent hours on end visualizing in order to bring into existence. There was some of her own features in the face, and the two could easily have been sisters.

“Good morning, Sara,” she mumbled quietly. “Is it time to be going then?” The younger blonde stood and stretched, then slung her backpack over her shoulders.

"Nice disguise, by the way. Were you hoping to evade recognition?"

“Good morning, Sara,”

“Actually I think it can be considered afternoon now.” Sara said as she checked her watch. Again, How fast was her illusion disappearing? Tail Check Note to self. Invest in a compact mirror. Thanks to the illusion, Sara seldom needed a mirror for things on her face, but the way the illusions started to go, it probably wasn’t a bad idea.

"Nice disguise, by the way. Were you hoping to evade recognition?"

The fleshy area of Sara’s nose darkened, under the pail nose of her illusion that staid the same china doll color. “Actually I’m having a bad hair day.” Sara said. She pulled her sun glasses a little down her nose to show Katrina her eyes. “Among other things.”

Sara hastily shoved her glasses up closer to her face. High on the ridge of her nose. “So are you all set?”

>>>“Actually I’m having a bad hair day. ... Among other things.”

There were a pair of very cat like eyes hiding behind those sunglasses. Even Katrina's eyes that could see through her own illusions to the reality below, normally combining approximately half reality and half surreality in her vision like looking through a reflection on top of water to the rocks and weeds down below, could detect no trace of the human that was supposed to be covering those cat eyes.

“Ah, I see. I can fix that, but I'll need to rest first.”

Permanent illusions were like that, she had discovered. They were not really permanent, just very long lasting. Every once in awhile they needed to be refreshed to make sure they didn't wear out like replacing batteries in a flashlight. Some fixes were easy- Katrina could touch them and refocus on what the illusion was supposed to look like, and that was all she needed to do. With regular maintenance all the small amounts of time she spent concentrating on the illusion would build on each other making the vision stronger and stronger, of course it worked better if she continued to do touch ups on a regular basis. She hadn't seen WereCat in some months, so it was really no surprise that her human apparition was starting to wear a little thin in places.

“I can fix it this evening after a nap, I think. I didn't get much sleep on the plane. There were a lot of vacationing families on the plane back from Hawaii. Where are we staying? Thank you for making all these arrangements for me, by the way. You've been a really big help.”

>>>“So are you all set?”

“Ready when you are,” Katrina smiled at the disguised lioness and started walking toward the door. Once they passed through the portal, she'd have to rely on the older woman to lead the way back to the car.

Sara pushed her sunglasses back up on the ridge of her nose. Her hand padded the scarf around her ears, and she did one last tail check. She hadn’t realized how much she’d relied on the illusion till it was starting to deteriorate. With the confidence that she was still concealed, and that she would soon have her image hole, she was starting to relax. Scooping her book up, that hadn’t even it’s spine cracked, Sara started to follow Katrina.

The younger girl took point, leading the way out, and for some reason, that made Sara smirk. It brought back old memories and yet, Sara felt like she had an ace up her sleeve when they made it to the door, because after that, Katrina could try to lead, but Sara knew where the car was. The thought rang through the feline’s mind in a taunting melody.

Once outside the door, Sara took point, without even having to change her stride. No she wasn’t purposefully in competition with the tired girl, but Sara hated being the one following. Always had. Always would. Call it a cat thing.

“I made reservations at a hotel that’s about half an hour from here. It’s has three stars, but the reviews on line, were positive. I hope you don’t mind sharing a room.” Sara spoke as the two found their way to the tootsiroll mobile. Sara pushed a button on her key ring, because all cars now a days have those handy dandy buttons to unlock your car. You have no idea how much easier that unlock button made it for Sara, when she was dragging someone, in handcuffs, to her locked doors. No more wrestling with them, and the keys.

The muffled clunk announced that the doors were open, and Sara angled herself into the driver’s seat. Her book and shoulder bag were both tossed into the back seat, and she buckled her seat belt.

WereCat strode forward on her long feline legs to take the lead once they were outside. Her tail, visible only to Katrina swished as if to say, “Your proper place is third in line, and mine is second.”

They strode onward at a quick pace which seemed fast to the tired young illusionist, but her legs were glad to stretch after being cramped on the plane for such a long time. She did her best to keep up, employing a slight skip to help her gain ground again if she fell behind. They reached the car in short order.

WereCat's car was not exactly a sports car that grease monkeys like Geo would drool over. It's lines were not aerodynamically designed in a way that also pleased the eye. It would never have a place at a classic car show, not matter how much time passed. It was not an eye catching color that would attract police officers attention or raise insurance rates an infinitesimal amount. It was not the type of car someone would notice, even if it had been parked across from their driveway for several hours. It was not a car that was likely to be broken into, even if the doors were left unlocked. It was brown, and that's about all there was to say about it.

Katrina had never been so glad to see a car in her life. As soon as the doors were unlocked, she slithered in and sank into the soft, well padded seat. They were almost on their way to the hotel, and by extension the bed!

>>>“I made reservations at a hotel that’s about half an hour from here. It’s has three stars, but the reviews on line, were positive. I hope you don’t mind sharing a room.”

Katrina smiled, “I wouldn't care if we had to share a park bench at this point. Anything would be better than what the Chinese call beds. They're more like wood boxes with sheets draped over them.”

Katrina buckled her seatbelt automatically without thinking about it, and tucked her backpack in between her feet as Were started driving.

“So, what's new? Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

(OOC, not exaggerating about the Chinese beds!)

Sara shrugged when asked about things that had happed while Katrina was gone. “A few things. Nothing completely out of the ordinary.” She put her station wagon in gear and eased out of the parking spot. Then started following the giant maze set up by the air port, to get back onto the road.

“There are a pair of twins, students at Pax, who will probably never sneak out of their rooms again. Zelek had abducted them, and thanks to some outside help, they’re now safe.” Ok so that wasn’t necessarily in the realm of being ordinary, but you have to remember that Katrina was talking to a bipedal cat.

“Iris and I went to the colony in Antarctica and the future looks promising between us and them. The most difficult part of the journey was getting the blood test from me.” She was being vag about the news up date for now, but they would have more time, later tonight, after Kat had fixed her illusion.

Sara waved a man in front of her, at an intersection. The man had been letting everyone else through but when the second car, tried to bully his big tricked out truck in front of her, Sara pushed her way into the traffic. It was her turn and he didn’t hold the right respect. The truck slammed on his breaks so that his over sized tired squealed, and Sara happily lead the line that left him in the dust.

“How did your mission go?”

Katrina shuddered a little bit at the mention of the fledgling vampire. He still creeped her out, more so than any of the other vampires ever had. It might have something to do with the fact that he was the only one who had ever tried to eat her.

“I'm glad they are safe, at least.”

>>>“Iris and I went to the colony in Antarctica and the future looks promising between us and them. The most difficult part of the journey was getting the blood test from me.”

Ah, that was a good thing. Katrina gave a nod of approval to that. It would be very good to have a place for the Pax students to go and see mutants working together to use their powers. Having ties in the colony could also be useful in any number of political situations.

Her nodding was cut short when they pulled their way dangerously into an intersection, cutting off another driver who was attempting to be rude. Katrina grabbed the handle on the door to stabilize herself during sudden jostling movement and turned to stare wide eyed at the truck whose brakes were squealing. Luckily, the truck was able to stop before hitting anyone.

Okay, she was definitely awake now. WereCat continued as if nothing out the ordinary had happened,
>>>“How did your mission go?”

“Well, we're still going on it. The students seem to be doing well working together and problem solving. I'm not sure if things are getting much better, though. Helping the refugees is a good start, but sometimes I feel as though we aren't actually having an impact on the leaders. It is very difficult to change anyone's mind when they seem to have it set so firmly. Sometimes I wish just talking to the leaders of the world could make a difference. Maybe, just maybe we could make them see reason.”

They seemed to be getting nearer to their destination. In any case, they seemed to have reached the area where all the hotels were clustered and where lots of the small houses mixed in had bed and breakfast signs in the front yard. Thank goodness, she could really use a nap.

Sara eased her car off of the mane drag, and slowly they started to pass one hotel after the next. Though it would still be a little while before they reached the one she’d booked.

“I was hoping you coming home, would mean that everything over seas was settled.” Her brow knit and she glanced side ways at the younger teacher. This was such a big task for someone her age. Wait. How old was Kat again? Sara counted the years back as they drove.

After some mental thinking and mental head slapping, Sara decided Katrina couldn’t be called too young for this task, and at the same time Sara told herself she shouldn’t be feeling old. “Making them see reason would be the best thing, but Katrina, sometimes people just don’t. When you present someone with a different idea, you have that person’s ideas and beliefs already in their minds.”

>>>“I was hoping you coming home, would mean that everything over seas was settled.”

“Well, no. Not exactly. We've been basically successful in helping the refugees escape. Any day now they should be crossing over into safety. Now we just need to work on the leaders. I've got an appointment with Banks tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to get him to work on putting pressure on the Asian countries not to do anything drastic.”

She had to believe they would make the passage safely. The plan was flawless. Even with just Slate in charge of the seven seniors, the plan was so perfect it practically ran itself. Her presence in China for this one week was unnecessary. By the time she returned, that particular stage would be reaching its conclusion and the next movement would begin.

>>>“Making them see reason would be the best thing, but Katrina, sometimes people just don’t. When you present someone with a different idea, you have that person’s ideas and beliefs already in their minds.”

Katrina watched the buildings flash by outside the window as she thought about WereCat's response. Washington DC in the winter was just as beautiful as always. If anything, the light that reflected off the snow seemed to make the impressive buildings shine all the more. It was the capital city of one of the world's most powerful countries, and it looked every bit the part. There was power here. Hopefully she could sway it toward contributing to the peacekeeping and hopefully that power would be enough to make a difference.

“I would like to believe that people can change their minds.” She was counting on it in fact. She wanted to believe that every being, whether mutant or human had good in them in some balance. Reason, she believed, could help nurture the goodness within anyone and eventually even the most evil of men and women could change.

Sara hanced a glance sideways at Katrina. She liked to believe that it was possible to change people’s minds as well. She also knew from experience that changing someone’s mind was easier said than done.

Sara faced turned back to the road, and their car turned, smoothly, into the hotel. There was relief that this part of their trip was finished, and at the same time, Sara worried about what was to happen next.

This was for her students. Not her. Sara needed to know that she was making things better. Or at least doing what was for the better good.

The car came to a stop and Sara’s stomach growled. A reminder of what she hadn’t been able to get, that she still wanted.. .. .. “Home sweet home. I’ll show you to the room, then I think I’ll raid the vending machines?”