One little tee shirt ninja sank low to the ground after jumping heroically out of a second floor balcony. After rolling around and holding his shin for approximately 11 professional ninja seconds, he got back to his ninjaly ways.

Low to the ground, he went from shrub to bush to wall, up over the brick near a particular vine that had once held him up by the ankles. He climbed all the way down rather than taking another ninja leap. And then... he was free. Free into the night!

Now. Had he been the age that he should have grabbing a cab would have been no trouble. As he stood now (4 foot and some change) staying a ninja was his best bet. And a pocket full of cash didn't hurt either.

He had the cab drop him off at Club Evolution. He wanted to meet mutant girls. They were always more fun.

Ninja boy slunk around to the back. He didn't want to meet any bouncer. He, technically, wasn't yet a mutant. But he was a ninja. And ninja did not mind slinking through the kitchen to get to the dance floor.

Maya was spending a quiet night in Club Evolution.
All right, it was not that quiet.

Every once in a while she liked sneaking into the club. She was only 18, but she did not need to go through the bouncers - that was the bright side of being a mirrorwalker. Once you got in, nobody asked for an ID.

She would have preferred to come here with Twyla; one usually goes clubbing with her girlfriend. Especially if it all started in said club. But Twyla had to study now, so Maya came alone. Not really for the party... well, all right, not only for the party. She was keeping her eyes open and her ears too - in a place stacked full of mutants one could always gather some interesting information. She still hadn't given up on Mom.

Dressed in a blue tank top and jeans, Maya sat in a booth, sipping a beer. One does not order girly drinks so close to midnight....

Crouchy, crouchy ninja made his stealthy way through the taller tree trunks of mutants. They came in all colors. All manner of foliage. But how was he to approach a tree? Talking to a girl's woman's trunk never got a ninja very far... Maybe if he got one sitting down they wouldn't notice how very tall he wasn't.

And there was one. All alone. Hair so shiny. Lips so... moistened.

"Excuse moi, madame. Is zis seat taken?" A French ninja was obviously not what the buxom woman in a red dress was expecting. That or maybe the fact that his voice had not changed into it's deeper tone yet. He expected this change to go through at any moment and so he invited himself into the booth.

He was uninvited with a drink to the face. Slushy and strawberry flavored. It was yummy, but didn't really match his inside-out tee shirt. He was further uninvited by a pair of scaly, green hands with talons at the tip of each. Yeah. A giant lizardman of some kind ousted him out onto the dance floor.

There were little sounds of surprise from the cold of his hands and wet shirt when they came in contact with strangers. All he wanted was a lady friend. Was that so hard to come by at age 11?

There was a kid being tossed about. How did he even get in? The bouncer might be dumb, but not that dumb. He was clearly just out of his diapers.
A responsible adult like Maya Morris, age 18, could not just let him wander around like that.

"Hey kid, over here" she called out, waving at him. This was just her luck, playing babysitter in a friggin' club. But hey, she was now a member of the X-team, Mansion Greeter, the patron of puppies, kitties, and stray children. Mutant children, probably.

Oh God, let him be a mutant. And not one of those brats who are crazy over superheroes...

Jude did not respond to 'hey kid,' but used his small stature to duck under a leg and through an unsuspecting couple. He was not a kid. Not deep down.

Instead he climbed up to the bar and pulled his tee from off his head leaving his hair standing on end. He looked very sternly at the bartender and ordered a dry martini, no olive. The bartender gave Jude a long, solid look.

"I shange agez and I'm stuck. My ID would not look like me right now. I just need a drink." Lies. All lies. But Sebastian could change ages and so he knew it was possible. He also knew in his heart he was approaching 22 faster than he was approaching 12. It seemed to be enough.

"You're only gonna get pervs looking like that."

Jude frowned. This had not occurred to him. When he got his drink in had and tasted it, it was obviously seltzer water. He frowned, but paid anyway. At least it would appear to be a drink. Now he would go show it to the girl who had called him 'hey kid.'

He set the glass down on her table, she looked a bit too young to be here too by his estimation. Too young for Jude's taste anyway. "I am no kid." He tossed his wet tee into the booth in front of him. "And beer is the drink of peu sophistiqué. You are woman. Should be something sweet."

>>"I am no kid. And beer is the drink of peu sophistiqué. You are woman. Should be something sweet."

Oh great, the kid was French. Or just a snob. Probably both.

"Ya mean, like slushy?" she smirked, looking pointedly at the drink stains on his shirt. "At least I'm drinkin' alcohol and not water. What are you doing here anyway?"

Not like she wanted to talk to him or anything. He looked positively annoying. But he was also alone, and managed to sneak in, and she kinda felt responsible for him since she was stupind enough to talk in the first place.

Oh God, I'm turning into Rupert.

He looked at his drink, betrayed. How had she known it was water? Realization dawned on him, rosy as the sun at the break of dawn. Mutant. He was in a house of mutants. Just like the Mansion. Of course people could tell things about things they shouldn't have known.

Now onto the question of why he was here, "I am here az a social experiment. I happen to be stuck in child's form. Bartender say zis will only bring misfortune." Though the bar tender's actual wording was a little different, Jude knew when it was necessary to romanticize.

The tiny Frenchman took a moment to survey his quarry... well, pickings were slim as a pre-pubescent. He took a stiff sip of seltzer. It burned, but only in the way that all carbonated beverages did.

"Do you sink I could use zis face to my advantage? Help. I am lost?" He turned his surveying eyes to the crowd. This was a night for adventure, after all. What good would his adventure be if he did not venture?

>>"I am here az a social experiment. I happen to be stuck in child's form. Bartender say zis will only bring misfortune."

"Suuure, Benjamin Button" Maya smirked. It was a smart pick-up line though, for a mutant club at least. It did not add to the kid's charm, but Maya made a mental note to store it for later, in case she was ever asked for an ID a mutant bar. Being stuck in a child's body? If he was telling the truth, that was another mutation that was just bound to suck real bad.

>>"Do you sink I could use zis face to my advantage? Help. I am lost?"

"Depends on what you wanna achieve" Maya shrugged "But I wouldn't push my luck, some perv's gonna hit on you sooner or later, and I doubt you have super strength too." she smirked at the kid. "My name is Maya, by the way."

> "Suuure, Benjamin Button"

"No Jude Csendes." They didn't watch a lot of movies at the Csendes house. "And I've had 'alf my physical years stolen from me." He sipped on his seltzer then took a long, contemplating look at the girl's beer. "I do not want puberty again." And for that he was miserable.

Romance seemed to be out the window. Beer girl only confirmed the bar tender's perv opinion. The problem was, Jude's tastes were grown up.

> "My name is Maya, by the way."

Jude raised his glass to clink against Maya's bottle. "Iz a beautiful name." His adoptive mother's name, but if he said that out loud that was like admitting that he needed an adoptive mother to take care of himself.

"What are you doing here, Maya? Looking for love?" He seemed to shake off his gloom and rekindled his spirit with the thought of romance by proxy.

>>"No Jude Csendes. And I've had 'alf my physical years stolen from me. I do not want puberty again."

So, the kid was behind with his reading list. Oh well.

"I can see that you wouldn't" she smirked. As someone who's gone through puberty twice simultaneously, she could totally understand the sentiment. Poor kid. Maybe he was telling the truth, after all "That sucks, man."

>>"Iz a beautiful name. What are you doing here, Maya? Looking for love?"

She smiled. Flattery was still flattery, even if it came from a male 11-year-old. "Cheers" she nodded, clinking her bottle to his glass.
Love, he said? What kind of a line was that, again? Maya but back a grin, and looked at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Maybe I am."

>"That sucks, man."

"Yes. Sucks." He took his time enunciating every part of the word. Because it did and he wanted to give full weight to the word without it being robbed by his accent.

As for looking for love, >"Maybe I am."

"If you are, zat gentleman keeps looking here." Jude took his freshly clinked glass and motioned it subtly toward the doorman. The big, burly bouncer type that often threw out unsuspecting sneakers. He was staring straight at them with a very intense gaze. "I sink he iz daring us to be trouble." And just the thought made him want to be trouble.

Jude scooched over a little closer to Maya. "You are perhaps too young to be here?" He tried (and failed) to keep a grin off of his face. Not that he had gotten in here legitimately either...

>>"If you are, zat gentleman keeps looking here. I sink he iz daring us to be trouble. You are perhaps too young to be here?"

"That's not the kinda love I'm into" Maya smirked; the bouncer was indeed glancing over at them. Must have been quite a sight: an underage tomboy and a little boy drinking together in a mutant bar. It sounded like the beginning of a very bad joke...

"Well, I'm older than you are" she grinned back at Jude "But I did not come through the front door, if that's what you are asking."

Maya shivered, and felt goosebumps rise on her skin; first warning, fifteen minutes to midnight. She sighed, and stiffled a yawn. Almost changing time.

"Oh?" He turned back to inspect the guy. "What kind of love are you into?" The way he asked sounded very childish and innocent. He just wasn't sure what she had gathered from the door guy that he hadn't. He was strong and manly. Wasn't that what girls wanted? Someone sort of like Aurum, his nemesis?

"You are not older than I am." He insisted. And then he noticed her shiver. It was quite cold outside, but his coat would not fit on her even if he offered it. His tee shirt might be able to help her, but that was his sacred ninja mask. Instead he yawned and streeeeeeeetched his arm up over and around Maya's shoulders.

Yes. The good old yawn and stretch. All to keep the girl warm, of course. His intentions were pure.

>>"Oh? What kind of love are you into?"

Maya elegantly ignored that question. Breaking the news to the kid that her kinda love included an extra pair of boobs in the realtionship might have been cruel so soon after they got introduced. He seemed to innocent. And cute. In his own annoying, begging-to-be-messed-with manner.

>>"You are not older than I am."

She did not argue with that either. It was either true, and then that was just Awkward with a capital A, or it was not true, and then she wouldn't want to ruin the little boy's game.
Then, he put an arm around her shoulder.
Oh boy.

Her first instinct was to punch his lights out - then again there was a possibility he was really just a ten-year-old, and who would punch a ten-year-old?... Maya blinked in surprise. Then shivered again.

"All right" she sighed, lifting the arm off her shoulders, picking it up with two fingers "I'll be right back."

Disappearing in the general direciton of the bathrooms, Maya smirked to herself. This game was just about to get a lot more interesting...

Jude knew when he was being brushed off. He had moved in too soon! He hadn't given her enough time. She hadn't adjusted to the whole adult in a kid's body thing yet. Maybe it couldn't be done. He tried to do some mental math. Maybe 16? If he grew out some stubble when he was 16, he could try this again?

There was one perk to getting left at the table. Free last 1/3 of a beer. He ditched his drink for hers and slipped out of his seat. He had hoped that Club Evolution would help him find someone highly evolved enough to help him.

No such luck.

Now all he had was a part of a cheap beer, a soggy tee shirt and slim pickings.