It was the clash of the titans. The ultimate, epic battle between the Sanctuary's two greatest pool sharks, duking it out in a game of 61.

On one side of the table was Maurice, a diminutive, somewhat rugged member of the dining staff who wore a blindfold. When Kaitlyn asked, Maurice said that his vision merely distracts him. He always knew the exact location of any given pool ball at any given time during the game, and he didn't need to use his eyes.

"Your eyes don't distract you," Jack said with a fiery huff from the other side of the table, "you're just a show-off." Jack was easily recognizeable as the guy whose head was often entirely engulfed in flames, as it was now. The fiery man jumped the cue over the seven and eight balls, where it bounced off of the three and knocked the fourteen into the corner pocket. "Not that there's anything wrong with showing off," he added.

Kaitlyn didn't know how to play 61, but it looked way harder than your standard game of eight-ball. Apparently, you can't just hit any ball on the table when you're playing 61. You have to hit the ball with the lowest number before any other ball, or else it's a scratch and your opponent gets to hit the cue from wherever he wanted on his next turn. Not that this was a real problem for either of these guys, though. Maurice once put so much spin on the cue ball that it actually took a curved path around several others to hit the four. These guys spent a lot of time at the pool table.

"Hey kid." the flame-headed man said as Maurice was preparing to make another shot.

"Kaitlyn." The girl corrected him.

"Kaitlyn. Gotcha. You might wanna keep your hands off of the pool table while we're playing."

Her fingers curled around the green felt-covered edge of the table. "Why?"

Fate answered this question for both of them. One of the balls collided with the child's hand. Within a second, the Sanctuary had one less pool table.

KRRRACKOW!

Except for some cushions, shreds of felt, and a few chunks of hand-carved wood which used to be the legs, the entire thing had been reduced to splinters. Maurice took off his blindfold to stare at the scene before him, while Jack uttered words that little girls had no business hearing.

Kaitlyn stood in place, concentrating on standing. This would be so much easier if the room would quit spinning so much.

On days like today, lurking was the fashion. Nothing much to do, save sit around and watch some mutants play pool. Spying on the Order was always a treat.

Today, it was some flamer versus some blind swordsmen. The game was 61. A fun game, though Lenna'd never played it. Darts and poker were more her suit. Pool had all sorts of crazy mathematics to it. You had to know how to hit the ball, how to spin the ball, and how to sink the ball. Players played all sorts of angles. Lotta numbers. Lenna'd never taken much advanced math. Beyond the good ol' basics, it all confused her. She was lucky she'd never had to balance a check book.

Actually, luck had nothing to do with it. It was more, not paying taxes.

The game had been going swimmingly for everyone. Lenna'd kept back, out of range, up against the wall. Watched the game, real casual-like, arms crossed, attentive. Her money had been on the fire-top. Force of habit. She'd dated a guy with fire abilities, long ago. Old flame.

Blindfold-man had readied a shot. Flame-head had spoken to the little girl near the table, and then... things got murky.

Things got blowed up.

Lenna eyed the little girl with interest, eyebrow arched. Well, damn. Kid her size, that power? With the right influences, she could be useful. She pushed off away from the wall, and padded over to the girl called Kaitlyn. Lenna placed a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Hey." Lenna said. "Neat trick. That work on anything else?" She stood behind the girl, smiling. She done blowed up things good.

There was a hand on her shoulder. Kaitlyn turned her head slowly, so she wouldn't make herself too dizzy, until she saw the lady's smiling face. Smiling? Didn't she just blow up the big fancy pool table? Shouldn't people be upset with her right now, instead of remarking on how 'neat' her power was?

After a few perplexed moments, the child answered the lady's question. "Yeah."

With a nervous grin, the girl removed the hand from her shoulder and slowly picked up a ball that had rolled to her feet. If this lady enjoyed watching Kaitlyn's powers so much, she was going to get a kick out of this demonstration. Doing an about face with the heavy orb now in her grasp, she furrowed her eyebrows in concentration. Crack.

The pool ball had broken into about seven chunks or so, instead of the tiny uncountable little bits that she was expecting. "I don't think I can really do it so well when I'm doing it on purpose," she explained, almost as much for her own benefit as for the lady's. "I blew up the pool table accidentally 'cause that guy hit my hand with a ball." Dropping her broken pieces of ball, the kid brought up her hand for the woman to see, two fingers slightly misshapen and already turning purple. She showed no signs of being in pain.

With a fiery sigh, Jack kicked at what used to be a leg of the table before walking off. "I guess we're gonna have to call it a draw, Mar."

Lenna watched the demonstration, still smiling. The girl's power cracked the ball. In her presence, too. That was pretty powerful. She thought she was better with it when it was on accident, though? Lenna shook her head. "You did great. I think you could do it even better with practice. Have you considered practicing?"

She looked at the girl expectantly. "Because I could help you practice?"

When they got out of the crowded area, she could explain her 'power' better. Until then... all she could do was lead the girl along.

"My name's Lenna, by the way."

>>"Have you considered practicing?"

Kaitlyn gave the lady a blank stare. It was a good idea to practice. Using her power more could help her at ontrolling it, but using it without knowing how to really control it was dangerous. Unless she was using it to blow something else up; that was relatively safe, most of the time. But she could only blow up so much Sanctuary property before she made the other residents mad, or worse, got kicked out. "I... uhh..."

>>"Because I could help you practice?"

"You could?" the child asked hopefully as she followed the woman.

"I'm Kaitlyn."

"Mhm," Lenna hmmed noncommittally.

It seemed that was enough of a promise to get her to follow. Lenna took them out of the rec room, on a roundabout path to the training room she'd discovered on-site. She'd asked around. It seemed like this place had a similar setup to the one used by every other faction. Fancy room, cool toys.

They swung by the cafeteria on the way to the training area, and talked some practice materials out of Cornelius. She left the cafeteria, a couple trash bags full of soda cans in-hand.

A few minutes later, they stopped in the room. Lenna looked around. The room was decent-sized, but...

Smaller than Slate's...

Lenna dropped the bags onto the floor with a clang. She reached in, and picked one up, setting it ahead of Kaitlyn a short ways away. Lenna stepped out of range, to stand behind the young lady.

"You can try that. Oh yeah. Something to note. My mutant power weakens other mutant powers, so any control issues you had earlier could probably be attributed to that. Anyways, give it your best shot. You'll probably do better this time, with me out of the way."

The kid had seen this room before, but she had never really learned what it was for. People rarely used it, and she didn't care enough to ask. It seemed like a good place to play with dangerous powers, almost as if it had been built for that very reason.

>>"You can try that."

Kaitlyn stepped forward and picked up the can while Lenna explained her own power: she made other mutants' powers weaker. When the explaining was done, the kid nodded, then turned her attention back to the can. Almost half of a minute went by as the girl stared at the spent pepsi container in deep concentration.

After a while, she stopped and looked back at Lenna, who might have been six yards away. "Are you messing with my power?"

"Nope," Lenna said succinctly. "I'm out of range." Her brows narrowed curiously. "Do you... do you need anger to activate your mutation? Or danger proximity? Should I throw something at you? Scout's honor, I won't aim to hurt." She held up crossed fingers.

The girl really didn't have much control over her power, did she? Well, that was what friends were for! And what irony, a mutant being taught power controls by a human. It certainly wasn't lost on the Adapted.

Lenna smiled at Kaitlyn, and said emphatically "Try again."

The kid would just have to take Lenna's word for it. She just shrugged at the questions. If Lenna threw something at her, there would probably be a decent explosion, but it would be reflexive. Kaitlyn wanted to make one on purpose.

When told to try again, the young mutant spent a few moments looking thoughtful, then gripped the can as tightly as she could, staring at it with an expression of exaggerated fury. Soon, the can was gone. With a loud pop, it turned into tiny aluminum chunks, which fell from her hands into a small pile on the floor.

Kaitlyn rubbed her eyes for a moment, then turned to look at a point several feet to the left of Lenna's head as she spoke. "I think that, ah..." she rubbed her eyes again, then looked directly at the lady "I think anger helps."

"Mmm," Lenna nodded understandingly. "Sometimes, it does. Getting beyond it, though. That's the tough part. Rage can be a crutch. You need to learn to walk on your own."

She bent over, pulled a tall beer can from bag, and under-hand tossed it Kaitlyn's way. "Catch. This time, try not to focus on the anger? And tell me, do you have to hold it to make it go pop? Or could we try Target Practice...?"

There was something slightly wistful about the way she said those last two words.

Kaitlyn fumbled with the can, nearly dropping it. "Stuff only blows up if I'm touching it. If I'm not touching stuff, I kinda blast everything. But I can do this!" Setting the tall beer can on the ground, she took ten steps away, then pointed her arms at it and squinted in concentration.

To be honest, she didn't like doing this. But Lenna sounded like she wanted target practice, and Kaitlyn didn't want to disappoint, so... maybe I could try to keep it small?

For ten seconds, nothing happened. The two could even hear the faint squeaking of the air conditioning system, which--

THWOOOoOooOOM!

-- certainly couldn't be heard over the deafening roar of Kaitlyn's power. A cone of distorted air shot out of her hands, knocking the now-warped aluminum flying across the room faster than the eye could follow. Kaitlyn's feet left the ground, but her butt soon collided with it a meter further back.

The kid hugged her arms. Her incredibly sore arms. Ow... This definitely didn't work as she had intended.

"...I'm okay!"

Lenna watched.

And was not disappointed. Without holding the can, she could knock it around. Holding it, she could make it blow up real nice. In this case, the can went flying... and so did the girl. Really? Lenna arched an eyebrow.

Kaitlyn's focus would need a bit of practice, but the force behind it was good. Poor thing. "Yeah, we'll definitely have to work on that... maybe if you bulked up so you weren't lighter than a bag of potatoes, it wouldn't throw you around so much..." She trailed, walking up to help the girl off the ground. She offered Kaitlyn a hand, frowning sympathetically. "Do you want to do more practice...? Or, do you want to hear about something cool?"

Hmm... If Kaitlyn practiced more, she might end up hurting herself more. On the other hand who wouldn't want to hear about something cool? "I wanna hear about something cool!" she announced excitedly after Lenna helped her up. It wasn't a very hard decision.

The kid tried not to act like her recent use of her power had hurt her.

((OOC: Let me know if this is alright. I don't want to cause any timeline conflicts for you.))

"Did you know The Sanctuary has their own type of special team for people with your kinds of special abilities?" Lenna asked. "The kind of team that would help you gain control over your powers, and provide many benefits, should you join? A super kind of team where you could fight nefarious rascals like the X-men, and help The Sanctuary clean the streets of cheapskate thugs?"

She smiled at Kaitlyn. Was she offering Order membership to a little girl who'd just flung herself across a room? Hey. If the girl wanted any hope of becoming a top notch child soldier, one had to start young. She'd train her, if Kaitlyn wanted her help.

It wasn't like she'd throw her to the wolves unprepared.

... Maybe.

A special team? A team that would help her gain control of her powers and do other nice things for her if she joined? A super-hero team that fights bad guys!?

At first, Lenna's news earned an awestruck expression.

Kaitlyn had been what many people would call super powers. She had survived living with her father, somehow got whisked away to the Sanctuary, and had been living with a new family ever since. Now, she was being called to use her powers to fight evil. The child felt like the main character in a book, like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, who also overcame their definitely-not-awesome pasts to fight bad guys and become awesome. The kid was going to become a super hero.

"Can I join?"