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Apparently, the “stressful situations” comment had struck a nerve. He had never outright meant ‘oh, let’s provoke you to see how you respond!’ He had meant something a bit more tactful. But sometimes, the best way to see how one reacts in a certain situation is to throw them into that situation.

Lee was watching Tarin as she spoke to him, and Shin had the insightful notion what he said mattered to the man more than one might assume.

Were they using Kate as an example again? Ho boy, he did not recall much more about the young woman than he had already noted. But they could use hypotheticals. Honestly, that was probably what the people wanted.

Tarin asked a follow up, after Lee’s question. Shin tackled that one first. He told the man ”the student can stop the power control lessons at any time. Nobody forces them to do anything.”

Did lessons generally help? Yes. Did people usually keep doing the lessons. Yes.

”Most of the time, students who come to the mansion are seeking help with their powers. Some may come for other reasons, like a place to stay. Or school. We never force anyone to do anything they aren’t comfortable doing. But to answer your question, Lee…”

Shin turned away from Tarin, who he had turned his body slightly towards as he was speaking. Unintentionally.

”Kate was real, and I can’t really remember a lot of her training. I think Sam handled that. But if I had been training her, hypothetical situation incoming, I would have focused on learning why stressful things like strong emotions. Anger, fear, etc. Triggered the mutation. I would have taught some coping strategies, same as any therapist might. Calming exercises, breathing techniques. Kate might have benefited from learning to control or limit the fire. To find outlets. Figuratively and metaphorically. Education helps, too. Learning fireproof material, heats at which things happen, maybe having special clothing or bedding made. Generally, we would help her feel safer and more in control, empowered. Fire can be a scary power to have. It can easily get out of control, and burn. Everything. But at the same time…”

Shin stopped for a second. Another reference came to him, one that Tarin would not have understood. Yes. It was another Disney reference. Hell, two of them. Inside out and frozen. Why were Disney movies such good teaching examples for psychology stuff?! Even stuff like The Lion King could be modeled as one aspect of dealing with grief… but… nope. Tangent.

Shin explained how, even though staff aren’t trained psychologists, some can get analytical and deep sometimes. Mutations can be physical , emotional, mental, the entire spectrum. People can fear and want to hide, but shutting down and shutting out the world is not healthy. Concealing, avoiding emotions, that stuff is dangerous because when they do come out. And they will. Is so much bigger than if one had learned to cope and live and love themselves. Sometimes, you have to embrace the strong emotion, the sadness, etc. In order to heal and move forward. Because being in a headspace where you fear any loss of control, fear yourself? That is unhealthy, and can lead bad places.

”We train for all of those reasons, guys. But mostly, it is deeply personal and everyone needs to find their own path. We are teachers here. We help with tools and guidance, in the hopes it will be something. It isn’t perfect, but then… what is? Yes, the X-men teach people to fight. We teach them to fight for themselves.”

To reiterate, There was no way he would be able to prevent Sam from doing whatever he wanted to do, if he decided that was necessary. But that did not mean he could not try. Or would not have to.

He could not read minds. His psychic gifts did not flow in that direction. If they had, maybe he could have read Sam’s mind. To see the rage, to see the wrath that swept around his mind like a battering blizzard, blinding him to the path ahead.

The clone kicked the person. Travis, he had called them. Sam touched down, just as Shard called out to him. ‘Sam, stop this…’ and all that stuff. Sam did not respond. He was 100 miles away. Scratch that, he was in Antarctica.

Shard could not counter the aura of cold. He felt it, even at his distance away. An ambient drop in the temperature.

The heartbeat in his head went
DOOM
DOOM

What could he do to stop him? If push came to shove?

The clone grabbed one of the person’s hands, hauled the woman up only to smash them down with an ice punch. A swift kick followed for the person on the ground.

He shouted something else. It probably would not matter. ‘Not necessary… what…’

Yadda yadda. Sam lifted the Travis up by their collar. Real Sam, then. For all Shard had known, the one doing the kicks and punching had been real. But clones usually did not do much talking… he thought. He had not really dealt much with the clone. But that did not matter. Both people were around the person, one pinning arms, one holding the woman up by her collar.

>>>”A Lesson,” Sam bellowed.

Film was rolling. The camera person looked like it was their best day, ever.

>>> ”Isn’t that right Travis.” Sam continued. “You are going to be the first example that is long overdue. You know how many times I had to rebuild my home from zealots like you!?!??”

So, Travis was a zealot, then. Pieces of the puzzle were being slid into place.

Sam threw uppercut number one.

Shard was really glad that so far, Sam had neglected to stab Travis with icicles, or freeze their arm, then shatter it like something from a violent video game. He could have done so much worse. The camera crew did not realize that, the audience at home probably would never realize that, but this was visible restraint.

‘… At least, for us mutants,’ Shard thought.

He had stepped off the large triangular platform, now. It was at the ready, hovering slightly off the ground nearby.

>>> ”YOU WILL REMEBER THIS! EVERYONE HERE IS UNDER MY PROTECTION! YOU EVER THINK OF TESTING YOUR MAGIC ON ONE OF US EVER AGAIN, REMEMBER THIS!”

Sam was hollering like a Greek God. Which was so not his usual character.

Right hook, uppercut. Jaw.

Oh, there was the ice, now. Climbing up Travis’s feet. Locking him in place. The (most definitely) ice clone changed form, to encase Travis. Cold Steel couldn’t alter his body like that. It held the woman in place, arms stuck in the ice.

Sam did some more wailing on her.

>>> ”She was a child and you used her as a Guinea pig! She’s human! More than I can say about you!”

Slide, slide. Pieces of the puzzle.

Oh shit.

Another punch, a broken arm.

Shard was moving forward now, running. It felt like he was running through jello, his arch nemesis. The shard platform was sliding across the grass behind him. It left some of the taller blades cut low.

>>> ”YOU WILL NEVER TOUCH MY FAMILY AGIAN!!!!”

Gut punch. Rib, crack.

Slow. So.

Slowww.

He had contemplated this, he hated to admit it. Planned for how he would handle Sam if the man snapped. Sam likely would have thanked him for it, on a more mundane day. It still made Shard feel dirty.

Sam leaned in close to the person, the woman who had touched Sam’s family, used a child as a guinea pig, done things bad enough to have caused… all this, right here.

A delivery driver dropped their bag of food in shock. In the audience, someone threw up. Travis looked like hell.

Shin, unfortunately, had been on errands. He was not wearing a comm on his ear. He used the more obvious handheld comm, most of the time. Ear comms were for special occasions. It was why he had missed the announcement of mansion on lockdown, and anything else important that day. Been left in the dark. Next time, maybe he would wear it more often. But that day, he completely missed what Sam had said to the woman known as Travis. It hardly mattered, in the grand scheme of things. Shard could figure out the gist of it.

He had been thinking for the last several seconds, the last minute or so, really. Summoning shards on top of that platform, building it up quietly, making it larger and larger, while out of the limelight. The entire time Sam had been attacking Travis, he had been building it up. Reinforcing it. Right now, the shard platform was huge. Which meant they Shard had a very large amount of pixels to create with.

Sam had just laid a massive smack down on a woman named Travis on the front lawn of the mansion, in front of students, loads of door dashers, and a full media entourage. This had to stop.

Usually, Shard armor takes time to form. This is because Shin forms it right. Smooth inside, not sharp. Not razors. Rounded. His power summoned razors. He used them to make body armor. How freaking stupid do you have to be to make armor out of razors?!

He had Sam’s dimensions. He was not using Henshin to snap everything into place, or form it up gently and calmly over time, so that things fit right. That was part of why it took him around five minutes to build up Shard armor on his person using the classic method. Safeties. Even Henshin took 2-3 minutes for full plate. But Shin was ignoring safety protocols, removing limiters.

The shard platform flew into thousands of little triangular razor blades, and soared at Cold Steel’s icy form. It happened fast, faster than Sam could likely process it.

A sound like safety glass crackling, or ice doing that slushy crunch?

He rapidly encased Cold Steel in a makeshift, piece-meal “shard armor” that was incomplete, and not smooth and safe on the inside. There was no better way to adequately describe it.

The shards covered the body, at speed. They took no accounting for how it would harm the wearer of the armor, even if Sam had been wearing any degree of ice on his person. Shards were not rounded, triangles pointed inwards. It did not have any sort of beautiful shape. It was not golden lion armor. It was not a tuxedo. It was plain. It was basic, practical. The only thing he had been able to develop during the 24 hours he had been locked up by SUPER on the other side of the rift. Just armor, made for violence.

Read the description:
Default shard streamlined and seamless, with little ostentation other than two long triangular “icicles” on his right shoulder, jutting back, and tiny shards creeping up his right cheek. Boots and gauntlets and breastplate that aren’t overdone. And the whole thing gives off an ambient white glow.

That was how one would describe his default on a good day. Today was not a good day. This armor was far from seamless, far from streamlined. It was cheap, it was jagged, it had holes and it had visible lines where things tried to snag together. No ostentation, still, save the “icicle” things on the right shoulder. But those dug in at an angle that told him maybe he had actually speared them into the armor’s wearer, rather than built them up around him.

This was outside his usual parameters. This was a hasty, crap job. Boots looked like painful poky ice cleat monstrosities, and the gauntlets looked like what Sam had likely envisioned as the end result of his work on the woman’s hands. Blunted, mishapen, jagged, frigid, white mess.

The white glow was ambient, yes, but it flickered and pulsed.

This was not in Shin’s wheelhouse. This was not something he would ever create to wear himself. Or give to others. This was a knock off armor that nobody would ever want.

This was Temu. This was Shard armor from Wish. The Spirit of Halloween ‘super soldier’ version of his super sentai-inspired design. It was total shit.

Sam got it. He got Shin’s shard trash suit. The Asian didn’t even say anything as he clothed Sam in the stuff, he just ran and let his mind run the calculations. Whole process took long enough for Sam to notice the pain first, then the fact that he was no longer on the ground, but was moving upwards.

He had not even waited until it was fully formed to start the process of levitation. The second the boots were formed, Shard had already begun the process to levitate him upwards in the shard Iron Maiden at 45MPH. Not top speed, no. The gauntlets came next, to stabilize the wobbly-ass levitation, as the back shards and the front shards encased Sam in a “breastplate” that dug into him on all sides. The first few seconds of the process had probably hurt like hell, and been disorienting as hell, unbalanced, shoddy, makeshift work. Then he had tried to balance it, in spite of it being awful. Which had probably overcompensated for things, and thrown him lurching forward for a second, like he were going to fall, then thrusting him backwards, a little to the left at an angle, and— and— and…

Sorry Cold Steel. Suffice it to say, the ride was awful. Abstract, confusing shock and awe-awe-ful.

The camera was rolling as one X-men attacked another. It recorded the process as that X-man started flying upwards, up and up and up and up,

Until he stopped.

About 250 feet in the air.

Camera person swung footage to a woman in a red blazer and skirt, with hair coifed perfectly, and makeup in-place.

The reporter on the other side of the camera Said one audible word for the whole world to hear.

“Schism?”

Kevin wanted a full-on boxing ring, with punching bags and things. Shin opened his mouth, about to say that this school was not really a place to have that— no, not really— but he knew places that were good for that.

Lee beat him to the punch of response.

She told him he wasn’t even ready to spar, if they HAD been equipped for such things. Shin… felt like Lee were being a little overprotective, but was absolutely certain he, too, would act like that. They just needed to give it a few years. Baby Michael would be a learning experience for sure.

Lee was willing to train Kevin, though. A step in the right direction. Lee turned to him, asking about punching bags and stuff.

Shin said: ”I, honestly, know a good gym. I use it myself. Gotta keep up on boxing and stuff. You remember I used to box? I could probably talk with someone about wrangling up a bag, or else introduce you both to the gym. I’m even willing to help him learn some self defense, whenever you deem him ready, but—“ He looked to Kevin. ”Your mom takes point here. I’m just offering options.”

Better him, a trusted adult, than a stranger.

Tarin wanted to see dorms. Shin nodded and lead them to a few that were not currently occupied, on the boys side of the dormitories. Since the mansion had two sides, based on gender. He explained rules, curfew, no opposite genders in rooms when inappropriate, etc etc, (same genders too, he supposed, when they were in a relationship. This was 2024.

The rooms themselves were perfectly serviceable. Nice enough, exactly what you’d expect from a dorm. He explained that the mansion had a kitchen and living room and laundry, for all the obvious reasons.

>>>
”Well, I guess you were right that he can come home regularly, Tarin,” Lee said.

Shin thought it was wonderful the kid had a home to come back to, honestly. A lot of mansion people did not.

Tarin replied to her, ”I guess I was.” he said.

”Of course,” Shin stated. ”We are happy to see it. We are here to help the parents, as much as we are the students. And it would be terrible of us to keep them from each other.”

Now, if the parents were violent abusive people, that was a different subject. But they were not talking about anything like that. He had not ended that statement with a “as long as they want to see them” for that reason, as much as because it did not seem to him very grammatically correct. But what did he know, he was a Japanese teacher, not an English teacher. And Lee was good peoples.

It seemed Lee appreciated him not mentioning the danger room. Shin had read that right. She assuaged his concerns, they would have something that would work.

Shin nodded yep.

Then she turned towards him. And talked about her recent sparring match. Which had been recorded, and, what, posted online? Or had he misheard that one?

>>> ”Sparring match is a clever euphemism for prize fight.” Tarin chimed in.

”Prize fight?” Shin arched an eyebrow, and crossed his arms.

>>> ”It is SO good! Did you want to see it?” Kevin said eagerly, pawing at a pocket for his phone.

Lee was rolling her eyes. Not really dying to show off.

>>> ”It’s finally clicked in for Kevin that maybe his mother does know what she’s talking about with what she’s been trying to teach him at the gym for the last six years.” She noted.

He threw on a shocked look. Shocked. All while trying to avoid actually looking at the phone the kid was trying to thrust into his face.

>>> ”Anyone who saw that video and doesn’t respect what you can do in the gym deserves to find out first hand.” Tarin added.

”I don’t even have to see the video to agree with that,” Shin said, gently turning Kevin down with a ‘that’s okay, no thank you, maybe some other time.’

He did not need to see it. He had seen enough fights.

Tarin had a question, a happy escape from the video conversation.

>>> ”The kids that stay here…can they leave any time they want?” He asked.

Shin opened his mouth to comment on curfews, and stuff like that. But Tarin self-edited to clarify. Shin closed his mouth, and thought on his answer.

”Well, this is kind of a boarding school, but people aren’t under lock and key. We try and keep students safe the best that we can. We have good security. Kids still go out sometimes during the day, for free time. Security screens people coming in, usually. We generally don’t want kids out and about in the big city, though.”

What they wanted wasn’t always what they got. Visions of Koga and Kokoro, of all the other younger students on walkabouts, of kids getting into difficult situations and needing to be rescued, of literally a few months prior, when they had to huddle in the basement of the mansion to avoid a cataclysmic event from a wizard being warped by wild magic… all of that happy stuff… danced through his head. And he felt slightly guilty with their track record. Hell, he had taken a kid for ramen and wound up teaming up with him to fight an all you can eat noodles and pork bun onslaught. And that had been under his watch.

”People have lives,” He offered weakly. ”Mutant kids tend to grow up fast. It’s a big world.”

He hoped that didn’t bother her, or Tarin. This was not a prison. But maybe it should have been more of one? He didn’t know.

Him and Tarin agreed about something. Lee tried to deflect, tried to say her part was less than it had been.

>>>
”Oh come on.” Tarin said

Without saying a word, Shin held out a hand, palm up, with a gesture towards him, like “What Tarin said.” There was some disbelief on his face.

They would not go into the subject in-depth in front of Kevin. It had been something a bit more than a topic for a simple tour. But, COME ON, Lee. She was right, Kevin’s father HAD saved a lot of people that day, but COME ON! She had to put more on her actions than simply “I was there, I did not do a lot…”

”Yeah. I think we all agree you’re downplaying yourself quite a bit,” Shin said. ”A lot of people did important stuff that day, and you were one of them. But anyways, we are doing a tour here.” He looked to Kevin.

”What part of the mansion do you want to see the most, Kevin? We’ve seen the classrooms. There’s bedrooms upstairs, stuff outside, basketball court, hedge maze maybe? All sorts of stuff.”