Kaitlyn walked out of her new room, wearing some pajamas that one of the Sanctuary employees had gotten for her yesterday.

She had trouble believing that she wasn't actually dreaming. In the real world, people didn't just go and get things for her. She didn't have comfortable, good-smelling clothes like this. There was no such thing for her as a comfortable bed, or people who seemed to care about her. Pretty soon, she was going to wake up back at home to the sound of Dad's idle threats. Maybe he would start talking about Mom again, and how it was all Kaitlyn's fault that she was dead.

'If she was anything like you,' Kaitlyn wanted to tell him, 'I did the world a big favor.' That would make him so mad...

...Wait. No. I don't think about this kind of stuff when I dream. Was she actually dreaming? She pinched herself. It hurt. Nothing else happened.

The official, time-tested, #1 doctor reccommended dream test never lies. This was real.

Her stomach began to cry out for attention: grumblegrumblefeedmeNOWgrumble. The little girl remembered that she was hungry. That was why she started wandering the halls of the Sanctuary in the first place. Apparently, she could go to the dining hall at any time, then ask for anything she wanted to eat, and people would make it for her. It doesn't get much better than that.

Pancakes. I'm gonna ask for pancakes... with syrup, butter, and everything. Maybe they'll even put chocolate chips in it. This is gonna be great!

Now Kaitlyn was in the dining hall. Here and there, people were already sitting at their own tables and eating. It might have been 9 o'clock. A few of the Sanctuary residents were staring at her, but she didn't notice. The only thing on the smiling little girl's mind as she made her way to the kitchen staff was pancakes.

She was in the middle of the maze of dining tables when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, kid, what are you doing in here?"

She gasped. The person who was talking to her... his head was on fire!

Something that sounded like thunder rang throughout the dining hall. An explosive shockwave shot out of the girl's body, sweeping people, tables, and chairs off their feet. Fire-head got the worst of it; the blast knocked him into the air, and he broke a chair on the way down.

Kaitlyn just stood where she was, stunned. Oh no, not again!

The little girl started to worry; would Ms. Lori still let her stay after this?

Since Roland had returned to the Sanctuary, he began taking mental stock of the place. It wasn't so much in disrepair as it was atrophied from lack of use. It was a stark analogy to the state of the Order. He hadn't been around Miss Faust enough to know what drove and motivated her, but he sincerely hoped she had some plans up her sleeves. As it stood, the place was barely a hair above Romper Room with deadly intentions. Changes were sorely needed and he was determined to be the catalyst for said change.

The food in the cafeteria seemed to be a fine place to start. The so-so slop that it was currently peddling was barely above elementary school fare. While starving people off the streets would eat anything and be happy to eat it, professionals, which they needed more of, would demand something more substantial. Overseeing crime waves took alot out of a guy. This task, among many others, needed to be assigned to others. The workload needed to be shared among the troops. How else could a mutant army be formed?

Looking over the assembled eaters, Roland noticed many eyes upon him, not counting the guy with multiple eyes. It was a funny and ironic thought that these soldiers believed that mutants were superior to humans, but didn't see the further reach of such a hierarchy. Once you got past sapiens, the circle came full and mutants began to behave as animals. There could only be one Alpha in a pack. Roland's own eyes squashed any stray looks from the pups. Any time, any place. One punk was just as ----


THWWOOOOOOMMMM!

A shockwave blasted through the cafeteria, a wake of tables, chairs, and mutants flying aside. Roland's eyes travelled to the point of origin of the blast, finding a child. Judging from the living jack o' lantern dusting himself off, Roland could see how she might have been frightened. What a gift. If it could be sculpted and trained, it could be some great arsenal. Before Jacko got to her, he stepped between the two, his eyes locked with those of the flaming head. "Obviously an accident.Take a step back." Jacko's fiery grin peeled back over his skull. "And if I don't?"

Roland raised his hand in a gun gesture, his finger pointed between those orange orbs. In less than a blink of an eye, the same finger was curled around a warm trigger. "I'll put that light out for good. Find out if I will really do it.Please" Two birds with one stone. A potential weapon saved and the pack sniffed the air , recognizing the scent of true superiority. Jacko took a step back, like a good pumpkin. The rest of the room followed suit, returning to banal murmuring. The gun disappeared, Roland's hand reaching in his coat pocket and retrieving a cigarette. Leaning into the pumpkin, he lit the tip of it off his head and blew the smoke in his face. Go scare the tourists with that face.

Crouching next to the young girl, he extended his hand."That's some gift you have there. I'm Roland Pruitt. What's your name?"

With the exception of a few grunts and the sounds of people getting to their feet, the dining hall fell utterly silent. All eyes were drawn to the scene at the center of the room.

Fire-head man was not amused. Sitting straight up to flaunt his non-amusement, he scowled at the girl and blew twin streams of fire from his nose. "What was that for?"

Kaitlyn kept her hands at her sides, averting her gaze, frozen in place by terror. "I didn't mean to..." she said softly, "I'm sorry."

The fiery man was holding half of a broken coffee mug by the handle. As he stood up and walked towards the girl, another man blocked his path. "Obviously an accident. Take a step back." Kaitlyn looked up at the two as they spoke, gasping loudly when a gun appeared in the newcomer's hand, and amazed further still when it disappeared. That must be one of those powers that the people here are supposed to have...

The newcomer kneeled down next to her, his fair hair and blue eyes somehow giving him an air of friendliness that sharply contrasted with his earlier behavior. "That's some gift you have there. I'm Roland Pruitt. What's your name?"

"I'm Kaitlyn." Kaitlyn gave him a little smile, deciding right then and there to be as friendly as possible to this man. Some of the people here were kinda scary; it would be nice to have a person like this around.

Her stomach grumbled at her again, withering her smile and causing her to look down at her belly. Food. She still needed food. But she didn't want to be away from Roland for very long. There might be another scary guy like fire-head just around the corner. She looked back up at her savior, unsure of what to do next.

Meanwhile, the hot-headed individual was making his way out of the dining hall. "What's eating you?" a relatively normal-looking man asked. Fire-head held the broken coffee mug at eye-level with this other man, as if the gesture explained everything, then continued on his way. "Ouch," the normal one replied, looking between him and the scene at the center of the room.

The drama appearing to be over, the other Sanctuary residents were now taking the opportunity to start picking up the mess and to resume their conversations.

All was returning to its natural state. Roland looked at the table and chair that Kaitlyn had been sitting in and in an instant they were back in place before her. She looked sad. Roland stood and looked around the room. Now what? No nanny to take to the baby. He'd have to find someone to do that. Maybe Isabel. She seemed to like sitting around the Sanctuary, so maybe she could watch some of these...kids. He might have chosen to abandon the scene that moment had the girl's mutation not been evident. With the right training, it could be something very useful. Especially in the package presented. Most law abiders would hesitate and then be on their back.

He went to the line and suggested to the servers to make something the little girl would like so she didn't do her thing again. they came up with pancakes, powdered with sugar and topped with chocolate chips, a tall glass of milk escorting it. Returning to the table, he placed these things before her with some silverware, its appearance on the table in its proper sequence. A chair appeared beneath Roland as he sat, leaving another table short and a disgruntled eater thinking of saying something. Only thinking. " Kaitlyn. What brought you here to the Sanctuary? Do you have parents that know you are gone? Are you an orphan?"

Roland continued to draw on his smoke, blowing it over her head. " Not often we see little girls running around unattended. llme what has happened so far here before now."

Pancakes. With chocolate chips. Exactly what Kaitlyn wanted, and she didn't even have to ask for them! She faced Roland, saying "Thanks, Mr. Pruitt." before digging into her food.

Her eating was briefly interrupted by a bump. One of the other Sanctuary residents fell flat on his butt because Mr. Pruitt poofed the other guy's chair out from under him. This made the girl start giggling. The chair's previous owner must have heard her, though, and an angry glance aimed in her general direction sent her back to quietly eating.

Suddenly, Mr. Pruitt started asking questions. "Kaitlyn. What brought you here to the Sanctuary? Do you have parents that know you are gone? Are you an orphan? ...Tell me what has happened so far here before now. "

Kaitlyn stopped eating and thought for a moment. She didn't want to talk about her father. "Ms. Lori brought me here. And Mars. Ms. Lori and Mars brought me here after I... umm... did some kind of weird exploding thing, like I did just a minute ago. I used that 'gift' that you said I had. And..."

She still didn't want to talk about Dad, nor did she want to even think about him. But Mr. Pruitt wanted to know about it, and she didn't want him to get upset with her...

"And I have a dad. but he doesn't know where I am. And I don't want him to."

Kaitlyn promptly went back to her pancakes. No, she shouldn't have said that. She should have just said that she was an orphan.

The girl was red-headed, short, and very much out of place. Calley recognized her.

The man was black haired, vertically normal, and more well dressed than the average hobo his age. Calley recognized him, too.

For himself: he was shorter than one and taller than the other, brown-haired, and carrying a black kitten on his shoulder. Or he had been, a few minutes ago. Then everything had gone boom, and Calley had found himself here while the kitten had found itself... over there.

Considering the kitten was a splinter of his mind, the sudden perspective clash was a little confusing. And slightly nauseating. Though that might have been due to the kitten hitting a table leg.

A table leg unfortunately close to the man and the girl. The man, Calley recognized by smell: he'd been around the Sanctuary recently. Calley tended to meet people by smell first and sight later, these days. The girl he hadn't smelled before. She was very, very new, then. Nonetheless, he recognized her from two places.

Place the first: an NYPD missing poster that he'd lazily spied while begging donuts from his favorite cat-loving detective.

Place the second: the epicenter of the boom.

He reluctantly wobbled over to pick up his kitten, and caught the last part of the conversation.

>> "And I have a dad. but he doesn't know where I am. And I don't want him to."

"They're looking for you, you know." He piped in, returning the kitten to its shoulder perch. "The police. Your dad must have filed a missing person's."

Either that, or that whole 'Ms. Lori and Mars and the weird exploding thing' incident had them interested in her. That would explain why the missing flier had been in the office of a mutant crimes detective.

So, it seemed that Lori had brought her. One of the clones as well. While befriending Saturn in Romania, the others seemed to sort of merge together often. Big red muscles, got it. It was no doubt that they had seen the same potential in Kaitlyn that he had seen once her gift had manifested in person. "And it is a gift. Never forget that. You just don't know how to use it yet. But we will show you how to do that here."

She was mentioning a father that she was hiding from. Most people at the Sanctuary were hiding from something. Or they had found their niche in the world and snuggled in tight. Just as Roland began to wave off the family issues, a voice piped in from his side. A familiar voice. Too familiar. Too familiar to believe it was in such a close proximity. His head turned as time seemed to slow. The little tyrant. The Little Tyrant. His face turned into a combination of scowl and smile. How stupid could he be? His attention to security was as short spanned as his life might be. After all, this was Roland's turf. No phone calls to thugs like Bacchus.

The chair beneath him appeared three feet behind him as he stood, his body dropping to a knee as the pistol appeared in his hand. One fluid motion of will and intent. There was no little girl to shock, no room full of mutants. There was only the space between presentation and execution to ask a question.

"Stupid or brave, Slate?" The line sights were lined up to the sweet spot between the eyebrows. Perhaps two feet between origin and terminus. Perhaps Slate was both.

According to the voice coming from behind the girl, the police were trying to find her and take her back to her father.

This explained a lot to Kaitlyn. Ever since she woke up in the middle of Manhattan yesterday, she had been overwhelmingly afraid of the police, but she never understood why until now. The police wanted to take her back to her father. She didn't want to do that, so she wanted to stay away from the police. That made sense. Policemen were supposed to be the good guys, she thought, and so it was weird that she would be afraid of them.

Would good guys want to take me back to Dad? No. So they're not really good guys. That guy has a kitty!

It was true. The boy who had just told her about the police was also the proud owner of a shoulder-kitten. That is, a kitten who resides on one's shoulder. A shoulder-kitten. The sheer novelty and adorableness of such a thing could not pass by without her commenting on it. "There's a kitty on your shoulder!"

Certainly, one with a shoulder-kitten could not be a bad person. Why, then, was Mr. Pruitt pointing his gun at him? Something was wrong with the world. Kaitlyn didn't want shoulder-kitten-guy to get shot at! But Mr. Pruitt was a good guy. He saved her from fire-head-dude. But shoulder-kitten-dude had a shoulder-kitten, so he must be a good guy too! This was all wrong!

Kaitlyn was holding on to her glass of milk with both hands at the time. Moments later, her cup no longer existed. It had shattered into uncountable pieces, sending droplets of milk and tiny bits of plastic flying in every direction. Scared by the gun and the exploding cup in equal measure, she let out a brief, sharp scream. But she didn't hear it. She couldn't hear anything.

>> "There's a kitty on your shoulder!"

Calley grinned, one hand reaching up to grab the kitten back down. “Yeah. Want to pet--?”

>> "Stupid or brave, Slate?"

Suffice it to say that his other hand went up, too. There were several skills that Calley’s former employer had trained into him. Among them: standing very, very still, and making non-threatening eye contact.

“Calley. Stupid. I, ah, see you’ve met my brother.” His lips quirked into his usual habitual smile, contrary to his survival instincts. “I can give you his address if you want. He’s pretty easy to find. I’m, ah, sure he’d love to see--”

The explosion was close, wet, and sharp. Drops of milk splattered across his shirt. Calley felt a piece of glass dig itself into his arm. He flinched, and then steadied himself back up, hands still in the air, and grin in double force.

That gun. Was very close.

The girl’s scream startled his kitten, and—oh shucks—it leapt off his shoulder, and disappeared to relative safety amongst the many feet in the room. Once again, the little girl and her group were the center of attention.

Hands went up. Panic and the desire for survival played across the boy's face. Now that the initial shock had passed, Roland's vision focused down the long line of the gun. The face , the body, everything was Slate.

“Calley. Stupid. I, ah, see you’ve met my brother.”

Not Slate. Slate's twin? Lives here at the Sanctuary? What kind of family was that? Did they feel each other's pain, like so many twin stories suggested? It could be a consolation to make Slate writhe in horror in his office for some unknown reason.

" I can give you his address if you want. He’s pretty easy to find. I’m, ah, sure he’d love to see--”

Love to see? Doubtful, unless one counted a tiny room fit for interrogation and a free trip to France. Seriously, why would----

Air covered his face and body. It happened so fast that Roland didn't hear the scream on the other side of the bubble. He felt some wind and then he took his turn at flying. Time seemed to slow down as the table, the girl, and the twin zoomed away. The floor's tile sped by as he looked down at it, his feet pointed at the room's ceiling. Wind. He was a kite, passing by on a spring breeze, weightless. Until he hit the serving line. Then weight returned with a vengeance, as glass shattered and he found himself lying face down in coleslaw.

To kill children or not to kill children? That was indeed the question. Roland could hear giggles becoming cackles as Pumpkinhead and countless others reveled in the vindication of the Big Bad Wolf eating crow. But oh, how they forget. This wolf did not wear sheepskin. This wolf put hot metal in people. He pushed himself back until he was standing behind the cafeteria glass, hairnetted ladies staring at him. They weren't laughing. A towel wiped the muck from his face as he stared at the two children. He felt himself. No gun. His eyes scanned the floor, no gun.

A short vault and hop over the line and his eyes set about to looking for his weapon. The general fanfare died down as they saw this man was not one of good humor. Their eyes seemed to also look for what he was looking for and soon, soon the tables and chairs began to groan against the tile as people started deciding to take their meals elsewhere. " You have just about as long as it takes for me to find my weapon, kids."

Thud.

Kaitlyn opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor. Her chair was, too.

She sat up, trying to wrap her mind around what the heck just happened. The chair was a few meters away from herself, right next to the guy with the cat. She must have been thrown to the ground when her cup exploded for no apparent reason. Moving her gaze a bit further, she saw that Mr. Pruitt had his face in a bowl of glop on the serving line, another casualty of the exploding milk glass. Calley was grinning from ear to ear.

Calley. That was his name. Apparently, he had an evil twin called "Slate," who Mr. Pruitt wanted to shoot at. Slate was probably a bad guy, and that was why Mr. Pruitt, a good guy, wanted to shoot at him. But what about Calley himself? Was he a good guy, a bad guy, or what? Her keen ability to judge a person's character had been temporarily disrupted by Calley's kitty, in all its adorability. Now, with the kitten gone, Calley's true character would almost certainly be revealed.

Then, Kaitlyn became aware of the fact that people were laughing. It was the first sound that she heard since her cup had blown up, and it sounded dull, as if she was wearing earplugs. The girl stuck her fingers into her ears, just to make sure. Nothing there.

Well, at least she could hear things, now. Meaning she could ask questions and hear the answers. While everyone else was leaving, she made her back to the table. "Calley, are you okay? Do you know why my milk blew up like that?"

"You have just about as long as it takes for me to find my weapon, kids."

Weapon? Oh. Gun. A glint of light coming from under a table caught her eye. "I thnk it's under there," she said helpfully, pointing at the table in question; then, for good measure, she added "Are you okay?"

The little girl made a cup go boom.
The little girl did not know who did it.

The little girl made the Big Bad Trigger-finger angry.
The little girl told the Big Bad Trigger-finger where his gun was.

Calley remembered being distinctly smarter than this, back when he was that height. His habitual smile twitched in place for a moment.

“Miss,” he said simply, “ ‘kids’ is plural. That means he’s threatening both of us. So.”

So yes. Calley bolted toward the door.
The little girl could take care of herself, even if she didn’t know it yet.

It appeared the little girl was helpful, pointing out the location of his gun. she also asked if Roland was alright, which disarmed him a second time. It was just an accident. There would be little point in destroying a potential weapon just to satisfy his ego. Fortunately, the twin made for the door. Maybe he shared cowardice with his other. Either way, his adrenaline was still surging and he needed to defuse it. he also needed Kaitlyn to go somewhere else, as another boom might cause him to react and end her short life early.

"I'm fine. Why don't you make sure that Calley is alright. He went through that door over there." he pointed with the gun in the direction of the door, sliding it into his waistband after. He moved in the direction of said dorr, hoping she would follow. Should she go through the door after Calley, it would be locked and barricaded once she went through. he liked Kaitlyn, which was why he had to get away from her. In all of his kills, Roland had never killed a child. he didn't want to start today.

“Miss, ‘kids’ is plural. That means he’s threatening both of us. So.”

Threatening?

Kaitlyn could do nothing but stare as Calley ran out the door. She had a feeling that she seriously needed to re-assess her current situation. What was it that Mr. Pruitt had said? You have just as long as it takes for me to find my weapon... what did he mean by that? What did they have that much time for? The girl looked back at Roland, who seemed to be pointing his gun at the door. Was he trying to shoot at Calley again? Even though he knew that Calley had an evil twin?

Wait. 'Threatening both of us.' He was threatening us? How could she not have noticed this? ...Would now be a good time to run?

"I'm fine. Why don't you make sure that Calley is alright? He went through that door over there."

Kaitlyn regarded the man with some suspicion.

"Sure," she answered, trying to mask her suspicion with a smile and fake cheer. She didn't quite know how to classify Mr. Pruitt any more. Maybe she shouldn't have trusted him as much as she did.

The girl walked to the door with the man, making sure to direct her smile at him when she reached the doorway. After she rounded the corner and was sure that he couldn't see her, she began to run as quietly and quickly as she could in the direction that she thought Calley had taken. Perhaps he could clear things up, if he was to be trusted.

He wasn’t dead yet. There were no running boot steps after him. Had the guy been wearing boots? He seemed like the type.

Calley turned a corner and dived behind row of potted plants under the community notice board. Seasonal meal choices, fresh for spring. Construction alert: the cathedral would soon be converted to a parking lot, to make room for more resident and visitor parking.

A scant second later, a large orange tom cat emerged from the other side of the plants, and kept up the boy’s path down the hall at a calmly strolling pace. His pesky clothes were left behind the pots, hopefully out of easy notice.

With his more sensitive ears, he heard the pursuit. The quiet flight wasn’t what he’d been expecting. The little girl rounded the corner, with no sign of the man behind her. Back in the cafeteria, through table and people legs, his kitten self confirmed things: the man wasn’t following them. In fact... he appeared to be locking the door behind them, much to the confusion of the other diners (though they didn’t seem inclined to protest, given the gun still in his hand).

That, friends. That was a new bar for anti-social behavior.

The orange tabby cat sat down in the middle of the hall, and gazed serenely up at the oncoming girl.

“I don’t think he’s following,” it said, in a voice perfectly recognizable as the young man’s. If a bit more hissing. Cat’s teeth, you know.