[IC] The X-Pendibles

[pyroman]

They made eye contact. It was rather brief, as Shawn's eyes darted back to Dr. McCoy. He wasn't staring at her or anything like that, but it was still strange to him having her taking notice of him looking at her. He was not staring. Definitely not. Though, he would admit that she would be a big help to his project. He wasn't going to ask her, though. It was a solo project, and asking the girl who knew everything for help seemed like cheating.

On the other hand, he felt kind of bad for her. All of her works and achievements would be undermined due to the fact that her mutation helped her in being as smart as she was. It wasn't her own hard work and dedication, it was because she had a mutant computer brain. It was only expected of her to be that good. And if she actually did work hard to prove something groundbreaking, then she'd be the showoff. There was no winning in that situation, and Shawn believed that he understood it.

"Moving on. We will be doing a brief unit on Determinism. Does anyone know what this is, and how it would effect the world we live in? A little tip for the people here who are using Star Wars in their projects, you should know what this is." The Doctor began to pace a little. Shawn flipped through his notes to see if he could find anything related to it. It was a new subject, so he wasn't going to find anything, but he was bound and determined to try anyways. He wasn't watching Star Wars, so Hank wasn't helping him, but nobody seemed to have the answer yet.

---

Caldwell had been operating on Chrys for a good bit of time. After he had actually found what he was looking for, finding more and extracting it with his biotic healing was a snap. What worried him were the reactions that Chrys was having. Having Chrys wake up right now was a bad idea, with him being open and all. He needed him to be asleep for just a little longer. All of the world became a blur to Caldwell. He was too busy focusing on the operation to even notice the flux that was happening to his patient. He needed to extract the limiting liquid as fast as possible and seal the boy up to prevent any sort of accidents or infections to his body.

Caldwell took what was supposed to be a bed pan and tried to use it to catch some of the vomit. It didn't work, of course, but that didn't stop him from calling a nurse to get the janitor in while he spoke with the patient.

He pushed Chrys lightly back down on the bed, urging him to relax. "The flood gates have opened, Chrys. Take it easy for now. Your body is surging with power since it was heavily stunted just a moment ago. Your friend, Shawn, he throws up too when he is carrying too much plasma. Your body isn't used to all of this, not yet, so you feel sick and unable to handle it all. I'll put you on some medication, but if it continues, we'll need to take another look at you."

---

Logan grunted with a soft shrug and a tilt of the head. A classic move. She had a point, and he guessed her views on life were valid. "Well, I'm not telling you what to do. Ask for help, don't, I'm not the professor." He was just about done for now. Standing up, Logan looked at the girl again and walked to the door. "Good seeing you. Get back to class." He spoke as he walked through the door back into the mansion proper.

---

"Correct." Miss Moonstar nodded to the young mutant in the back of the class. "In addition to the first President, George Washington, His Vice President and later Second President John Adams also lived in the house before the Capital's relocation to the District of Colombia. Washington set the plans for the relocation, but Adams was the one to complete the process."

Next to Bonny sat a rather large, metal man, writing careful notes as he scribbled on his paper. His name was Peter Rasputin, another new student in the Academy from beyond America's borders. He tried his best to write in English, the shapes difficult for his untrained hand. After a moment, he shifted back into a much smaller, fleshy young boy. If he kept putting stress on the pencil, he's break the pencil and maybe the desk. Miss Darkholme challenged him to doe everything in his metal form so he would have a better sense of his own strength while also working with his control of such power. As long as he didn't hit anyone full force, people would be fine.

[Silver Carrot]

Heidi waited for somebody, anybody to answer. She knew the answer of course, but she always liked to make sure nobody else also knew the answer before she answered. Seeing that nobody was answering, she could feel a few people glance at her expectantly. Just a few more nanoseconds she waited, for the exact time when her answering went from a know-it-all speaking over everyone, to the saviour answering the question before the teacher answered their own question and the whole class loses.

She raised her hand, and when Dr. McCoy motioned for her to continue, she started speaking, clearly yet still quietly, almost to herself; "Determinism is the belief that everything that happens is predetermined, and there is only one way anything in the future will actually happen. This would basically mean that we would have no free will and our choices wouldn't matter, as in a sense, they were already made for us."

[Tickout]

Well, you learn something every day. The place was in Philadelphia, and one of George's three homes. The only thing she knew about the dude other than him being the first president was that he had his face carved onto the big rock with three other dudes faces. One of the other guys on the rock was Abe Lincoln, maybe. She’d probably learn sooner or later. She jotted down a few notes on what was said; George had three houses, one was the original white house (the one in Philadelphia), and John Adams (the vice and later second president) was the one to finish off Georges move to where the white house is now. Good for John, he seemed like a productive dude.

She finished jotting her notes down in time to notice the person she was seated next to change size. And… material. She could have sworn the dude was made of metal and a lot bigger just a moment ago. Why’d he change? She shifted her gaze to look at him for a second before turning back to her paper. The teacher was talking, so outright asking something like that out loud would be embarrassing and rude. She’d give him a note asking. She took a fresh piece of lined paper and quietly tore off a piece, small enough to act as a little note, before scribbling her message on.

~Yo, you kind of just de- metalized out of nowhere and shrunk. You alright?

She read over her very brief note. It sounded a little overly concerned, since it really wasn’t any of her business, but then again it would be better to check if everything was alright. A little concern never hurt anyone, right? And there had to be some reason why he had to do that. She checked to make sure that the teacher was teaching not looking at her, and then handed/slid the once metal person the note. She made brief eye contact with him before looking back to her work.

[GrizzTheMauler]

Rubbing his head, Chrys nods. After his momemtary black out his head stopped pulsating. His only problem was the feeling. He could feel so mich more and it made him dizzy. Not only that, but he could sense a kind of flow around him. Something that gave a near inaudible hum. He would try to figure it out later. Trying to listen in on the hum made his ears ring. He nods at what Caldwell says then just lays back down. "I think I'm gonna sleep a while... Got anything for a migraine, doc?"

[pyroman]

Shawn let out a small, nearly inaudible huff. How bogus would that be, to be a person knowing fully that all of the choices you will ever make were predetermined by some greater force. Shawn didn't like that. He was in control of himself, and nobody had any power over his sound mind.

The doctor went on, talking about notable philosophers who had been known to dabble in such beliefs. Some of the students began to murmur about the know-it-all Heidi, who they were all sure was the only person that Doctor McCoy would call on for information about a new topic. One of the louder kids talking against Heidi was one of the younger students who was just taking the class because he was told to.

This was Johnny Alderdyce. A Hotheaded Pyrokenetic who spent more time messing around with that lighter of his than actually doing any school work. The thirteen year old mutant sat right behind Shawn, refusing to stop talking to one of the kids next to him about the braniac. In his hands was his lighter, the flame fluttering around on the top of the metal shell.

Shawn let out another huff of air, this time a little louder. He went to stretch his hands as far back as he could reach. Using what he knew from science, he effectively stole the fire from John, the little wisp of a flame stretching out before being sucked into Shawn's finger tips.

John grunted and closed the lighter, sitting up straight in his seat. He had something new to complain about. How nice was it that this older student was picking on someone who had only been there a few months? John bet he could get some people on his side with that argument, or at least against Shawn.

---

Peter was surprised to see the note placed on his desk. He wasn't quite sure how to react initially, but soon understood what was going on after a bit of thinking. Obviously the teacher did not want them to talk and interrupt the class, so speaking through notes seemed to be a good, if not sneaky, way to bypass that.

With his own pencil, Peter wrote on the other side of the little paper, careful with his English letters as he made his well thought out and elaborate reply. Peter's penmanship wasn't the best, even in Russian, but he was still going to try and make contact with the girl using his chicken scratch writing.

Yes.

Peter was not a very sneaky person, but he believed that he was not caught by Miss Moonstar when he put the piece of paper back on the desk of the girl next to him. He gave her a look in return, nodding slightly before going back to his notes. He still needed to work on controlling his strength in his steel form. He needed to be at the level where he can do everyday things as a large steel man without the worry of accidentally crushing something in his hands.

Miss Moonstar might have seen the passing of the note from Peter to Bonny, but said nothing to the two. Two foreign exchange students who knew next to nothing about american history. She was originally planning on starting a new project for the students to work on over the weekend, but felt like it would be better to unravel now and give them a longer amount of time to do said project.

"Okay everyone," She broke from the lesson and turned to the class. "We're going to be putting you all into small groups for our upcoming project. Make groups of three, and we'll be discussing the project."

As the students moved around, forming their friend groups and getting together, Danielle gave the groups papers about the project.

"A simple project, you will be choosing a president of your choice to focus on. As the packet says, you'll need to do research on their early life, their presidency, and their life after presidency. Include what battles and movements they took part in- and No, John Fitzgerald Kennedy will not be available due to people innopropriately using him in past years."

Peter did not find anyone to sit with, having been his second day at the school. He didn't know anyone, but was lucky enough to have another mutant choose to sit next to him. The older teen was nice enough to invite Bonny over with a lazy wave of the hand.

She looked tired. Her eyes had seen much more than any teenager should, and her face surely showed that. She smiled at Peter, sitting backwards in the chair to look at the russian boy in front of her.

"Sally." She introduced herself to both Peter and Bonny. "You can call my Skids if you want." Her voice even projected a maturity that shouldn't be hear coming from a sixteen year old girl. "We've got the Colossus of Rhodes looking like a little kid right now, and I've got no idea what your powers are. No matter what they are, both of you are knew, so I'm gonna help you out with this project."

---

"Migraine?" Caldwell looked back at Chrys. The good doctor stood up and reached into a small cabinet, pulling out a little container of pills. "Tylenol. It should work long enough for you to get your bearings." He set the container down on a nightstand, smiling at the patient. He wasn't sure if Chrys could swallow pills or not, but either way getting him some water to drink would not be a bad idea at all. "I'll be right back. Don't be afraid to try switching the locations of the pills back and fourth to start small."

He was gone for only a brief moment, back with a small plastic cup of water. That too was set down on the nightstand, and Caldwell stood ready for any other requests. "If you need anything, Chrys, feel free to call me. I won't be far."

[Silver Carrot]

Heidi heard kids murmuring. If she waited any longer, the Professor would have answered, she was sure of that. Or at the very least, he'd know she was waiting. Maybe he already did. Maybe the reason there was murmuring was because of the kind of kids who go looking for problems. Philosophy was taken by many people, Heidi admittedly included, who were just looking to get their class quota filled to the minimum without the trouble of taking (or retaking in Heidi's case) Maths or Science, and most these kinds of people were the type to jerk off in class, get bad grades, and then scoff at the people who do get good grades. That was fine. That was just being a teenager. She understood that somebody has to get their attention. Heidi just feels very self-conscious when it's her. At least Dr. McCoy doesn't encourage the bullying, unlike Kurt.

On that thought, she glanced to Shawn again. He'd just snuffed the flame of the loud voiced boy's lighter, and said boy suddenly sat up straight and glared at the back of Shawn's head. Heidi smiled at Shawn, hoping to catch his eye and give some kind of gesture of thanks. Maybe a thumbs up or maybe even just a smile. A smile's fine. I'm smiling right now. Don't need to change anything.

[GrizzTheMauler]

Chrys grunts, "You got it, doc." Looking at the bottle he holds out a hand, gabbing it. Dropping two pills out he puts the bottle back. He takes one with the water and sighs. Looking down at the other in his hand he focus, opening his other hand. "Come on... Shift for me..." He focuses on his power.

The pill blurs, then his hand... And then it pops in on itself and vanishes. Chrys blinks. "Uh..." He looks around but doesn't see it. That can't be right... Where did it go... Looking around he still doesn't see it so he grabs another pill, focusing on it. This time he reaches with his senses. All around him the distortion field pops up, the world being silenced by the stasis. Chrys turns the pill around, then halts. In his mind he can see the pill on all sides, all at once. Not only that, but he can focus in on anything within three meters. He suddenly realizes where the pill went. Holding out his empty hand he snaps and opens it. "Here." The lost pill pops into it, and the field breaks around him "Whoa..." That... Was weird... Is this what his power is? He'd had to- Grunting in pain, he notices his nose is starting to drip blood. He some Kleenex and tries to grab it with his power but his nosebleed gets worse and his head starts pounding. "Uh... Doc, need a little help..." He drops the pills on the table.

[Burning Kitty]

Rose Mary chuckled she was seeing someone about it, someone she associated with the personfication of big brother. She would have to ask her about the man with claws. She turned to follow him and go back to doing what she was doing before she got distracted. "What was I doing before?" She kept wandering she eventually bumbed into Professor Xavier. "Sorry, sorry." She found herself staring at her reflection in his bald head.

[Tickout]

She opened the returned note, narrowing her eyes a bit in an attempt to decipher the chicken scratch provided. Her handwriting was somehow better than this mess. It took her a moment of focus, but she managed to make out the simple reply to her inquiry. He was fine, good enough for her. She offered the kid a thumbs up in recognition before moving to focus when the professor addressed the entire class. Hopefully she wasn’t caught in her note passing on her first day of school.

Instead of a potential lecture about passing notes, Bonny was met with a project about an early president of the United States. People were already gathering into their little groups of friends, and her, being new, was stuck with no one. She was half tempted to go ask the teacher if she’d have to do it later or alone, when someone sitting next to metal man gestured for her to come over. It looked like she had roped Peter into her group, and was inviting Bonny as well. She wasn’t about to turn down an invitation into a project group, so she got up and brought her chair so sit with the other two mutants.

The one who had gathered them all introduced herself as Sally, and Bonny could tell from a glance that she was pretty dead inside. More so than herself, which was mildly surprising. “Sup, Sally. I’m Bonny. Thanks in advance for the help. And if my powers had anything to do with the biographies of American Presidents, I’d be sure to let you know”. She paused a second before speaking again. “Just curious, but what about Kennedy wasn’t appropriate? What did people do? Aaaaaand also-” she turned her gaze from Sally to Metal man. “Never got your name.”

[pyroman]

When it came to fighting, especially infighting in his classroom, Hank McCoy preferred to have the people in question talk things out, normally in debate format. He was not oblivious to Shawn and Johnny's actions. Shawn didn't try very hard to conceal his little trick, and Johnny didn't try at all to hide his anger at the older teen. Hank was no therapist, but he could handle little things like this in his class.

Shawn caught the little smile that Heidi had given him and returned it with one of his own. He was glad to be able to help out a teammate and friend, even at the expense of his own reputation against a classmate.

"Determinism is the belief that everything is fated, and that out choices have already been made for us, for better or worse. Everything we say, do, and think, has been prewritten by the fates. Even in the Greek pantheon, the gods were subject to the fates, spinning the lives of every life form from beginning to end. Prometheus stealing fire from the gods as a gift for the humans? It was foretold, and witnessed by many."

It was a soft jab that Shawn picked up on. He tilted his head down to his paper and looked around. With no audible or noticable reaction from Johnny, the kid behind him didn't seem to understand the soft reference to the most recent events.

"Now, who can tell me what the opposite to determinism is?"

Shawn, now knowing what the first belief was, used his critical thinking to piece together an answer for Doctor McCoy's question. His hand raised, and Hank pointed to him to answer. "Non-determinism? Indeterminism? The belief that nothing is written out, and everything that has ever happened has happened by chance. Like our mutations. Happening by chance. Honestly, it's a miracle that we're all here right now."

With this newfound word, Shawn liked to believe that he supported Indeterminism. Everything happened by a roll of the dice, and nothing was written out. He wondered what sort of system of belief Heidi had, his eyes wandering back over to her as Hank began speaking again.

From behind him, Shawn could hear a rather sharp noise. He knew just what it was, but turned just enough so he could see it with his own eyes.

It was Johnny and his lighter again. In his left hand was the little lighter, his right pulling and twisting the flame with just the movements of his hands. Shawn was almost tempted to steal the flame again. If Johnny really wanted to start a fight, he should know that he was at a major disadvantage. Pyro, as Johnny called himself, could only manipulate fire, not generate. Shawn was able to do that and so much more, to the point where having a fight wouldn't even matter. Not to mention that Johnny was several years younger than him, which would make Shawn look bad if he did beat up the boy.

It was hard to resist the urge to do something though. Johnny continued to flip open and shut the lighter, being the only other sound in the room than Dr. McCoy's voice.

Hank noticed the obvious ajitation on Shawn's face, and stopped speaking to face him directly. "Shawn?" She asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yeah." He answered back. "Johnny and his lighter. I can't think or take notes when he's flipping it every second."

Johnny grunted and shut the lighter with a little more force than before. He didn't want to be in the class, he surely didn't care much at all about it, but he didn't want to get bad marks. He wasn't at that level of not caring just yet.

"Doctor McCoy?" Johnny raised his hand and looked to the teacher. "I wanna take this outside. Shang here has a problem with me, and I'm not really good with philosophical debates." He was trying to hide it, or at the very least change it. When Johnny first came to the Mansion, he had a rather thick Australian accent. Ever since then, hes been trying to get rid of it for whatever reason.

"It's Shawn." He spoke back, a slight edge of annoyance in his voice. "And That's a bad Idea. Mutations aside, I spend most of my time working and training, rather than wandering around the mansion grounds doing whatever." The Shang comment didn't leave Shawn's mind.

These two were at each other's throats. Hank could see that, anyone could see that. Maybe Shawn let Johnny get too far underneath his skin to the point of irrationality. Hank let this train of though continue. Shawn and Johnny stay like this for the rest of the class, keeping everyone else from learning, and a fight eventually breaks out. They both get in trouble. Or, Hank controls the situation and allows them to have a very small and brief bout to alleviate some tension. Let them talk things out later, as right now, talking didn't seem to be a big option for Johnny.

"Alright." Hank stood tall and walked to the center of the class room. "It would be good for us to be enveloped in the warmth of the sun. If any mutations are used while the whole class spends the rest of the period outside, The entire class will have to do two essays this week." He stopped to think. He didn't know why he didn't think of it before. "Heidi? Do you have any ideas as to how these two and solve their problems in a calm and peaceful manner?"

---

Caldwell could faintly hear Chrys from his desk, and went to go and check things out. When he arrived, Calwell was surprised to see the mess of blood running down Chrys' face. He rushed to the boy's side, taking a seat and trying his best to help the boy with the tissues. "Let's see, let's see." He muttered to himself. First thing first they needed to plug the bleeding. While Chrys worked on that, Caldwell tried his biotic healing to attempt to speed up the scabbing process. Whatever blood vessal popped needed to be stopped and healed.

He let out a nervous chuckle, smiling at Chrys as he used his mutation. "Okay, perhaps we wait a little for your body to fully adjust before trying your powers again. Seems like trying them to grow your mutation and bodily capacity at the same time isn't for the best."

---

Charles let out a soft laugh, smiling at Rosemary as he turned his wheelchair around to face her. "It's quite alright Rosemary. We you on your way to class?" Charles taught a few classes here and there, normally smaller, weekly classes rather than daily. He had other things to attend to, but still wanted to be involved with the students at his school. "The second period had already begun, I hope everything is well."

Beside him stood the biker woman, the one who had seen Logan and Rosemary before. She stood tall and proud, though refused to say a word to Rosemary.

---

"I am Piotr." His accent was still heavy and rough. The boy cleared his throat and tried once more, looking at the two young women sitting by him. "Peter Rasputin." Perhaps Sally noticed how out of touch he was and decided to make a group with the two new kids? That was awfully kind of her.

Sally still seemed surprised that Bonny didn't know about JFK. Normally she looked tired and dead, but the look of mild shock overtook all that.

"You really don't know?" Especially in the mansion, where the headmaster was friends with a rather important person in that case. "JFK had a mutant brother, and someone assassinated President Kennedy. Magneto, you know, that mutant guy who controls all metal, tried stopping the killing bullet, but the G-Men tackled him and kept him from saving the President. They thought he was the one trying to kill the President, helping the sniper with his magic metal powers. Miss Moonstar has seen too many JFK projects to want to go back to a subject that will label Magneto as a villain even though he only messed up a couple times."

[Burning Kitty]

"I was looking for the person who I wanted to talk to about changing my classes. I got lost, found the garage, spoke with Logan. Nice guy, love the claws. Which made me question something I thought I knew. Saw her there briefly, never got her name. She didn't seem happy to see Logan or maybe it was because I was there with him. I helped Logan work on his motorcycle. He should be around more, why isn't he around more?" She was rambling because he was a telepath and she was trying to keep him focused on the words coming out of her mouth a mile a minute. "Is there a class that teaches mechanics? If not there should be." She was beginning to run out of things to say. She was about to ask something stupid and most likely insensitive, but she stopped herself before she put her foot in her mouth.

[Tickout]

… oh. Well, that was the daily history lesson for her. Her eyes were wide by the end of the story, and she averted her gaze to the ground. That was heavy. She wasn’t quite sure what to say about it, and after a few seconds she mustered a simple “... Oh.” She knew of Magneto, the famous metal mutant, but she hadn’t known any stories about him. Much less any like that. “I.. that’s really bad to hear.” It took her a moment to muster up eye contact again. She wasn’t the most in touch with history in the states, so learning about the connection it had to her new school was a bit of a shocker.

She cleared her head of her surprise, focusing on the task at hand. She made eye contact with Peter, giving him another thumbs up. “Peter, nice name. I’ll be honest, I’m kind of hopeless with American history, which is… pretty obvious at this point. I can name some stuff about Europe and the French revolution, but not much else”. She looked at Sally- aka, the one that knew what was going on the most. “So, what president do you think would be the best for us, a group with only one skilled in the field person, to do?”. She’d read over the package she was given earlier to see if she missed any key presidents they could work on, but for now picking a dude and getting some info together seemed like the best bet.

[Silver Carrot]

The flipping lighter was annoying Heidi as well, but the fact that a fight might break out was concerning her. Still, Dr. McCoy stepped in and looked to be resolving things. Heidi breathed a sigh of relief. Then he asked her what she things they should do, and how they should handle it. A whole list of possible things went through her mind, but it'd be have to be something they both thought was fair, so she'd need their input on this. Both of their inputs.

"Well, um, I think a contest of some sort. Something that you can both do more or less equally as well, so there's no bias from the start. Any ideas, you two?"

[GrizzTheMauler]

Chrys nods, holding the tissue. Once it had scabbed over, his own healing factor kicked in, regenerating lost blood. He laid back in the bed. It had been a while but the pain meds still weren't kicking in it seemed. He just sighed and closed his eyes, drifting off for a bit. He wasn't worried. He was getting stronger, and that's all that mattered.

In his dream he saw the box. Instead of walking to it he held out his hands. "Come." The box blinked out and reappeared in his hands. It was quite heavy, but he had the feeling that, he was strong enough to hold this. He turns the box in his hands. It was peculiar, the stars were actually on it, moving slowly around the surface. Feeling the box Chrys finds a lid, and taking it off he awakens, the pounding gone.

With the headache gone, Chrys can see that the world around him has taken a brighter look. He sits up and scratches his neck. "Well then... No use lying out around here..." Chrys stands, heading out of the infirmary. With every step he can sense the space around him. When he's outside he closes his eyes and lets the feeling out. He can sense the location of nearly everything around him. He heads to his dorm room, showering and changing into fresh clothes, checking his schedule. Since he did a lot of homeschooling, he's ahead if most of the seniors and has college courses. Luckily he's only missed Advanced Robotics, his least favorite course. He has a bit if time before his Combat Encounters course so he works on his paper for Ethics.

[pyroman]

"It wasn't you." The woman beside Charles spoke. Her voice was sharp and quiet, though you could tell she didn't like talking all that much due to the strange edge he had to put on her voice to make it sound as good as it did.

Charles smiled. He had the sense that she would have continued talking, had something conflicting not come up. He didn't say anything about it, but nodded to her last question. "Yes, Forge is in charge of the mechanics class, though he does run strange hours for the class due to him also being the chief operator of the Danger Room." He motioned to the woman beside him, who only cast him a small glance in return. "I am an old friend of her's, and I'm glad to hear that Logan is back safely after another trip out." Logan was probably one of Charles' toughest students. Not in the scholarly way, no. Logan didn't care for that at all. Charles did his best to help Logan find out more about himself, and was almost always there for him when he had one of his bouts of amnesia.

---

"Reagan." Sally suggested with a twinkle in her eye. "Most people want to do the big ones, like Washington, Adams, Lincoln, but the Actor-President Ronald Reagan is the one we should go after. Everyone loved him, both parties loved him and he was a real charmer in the face of everyone he ever met. Seems a little weird, yeah?"

Peter was not the most studious or observant person out there, but he believed that he knew what she was getting at. It would have made sense, too, given his age, time of presidency, and what was happening during that time. "Are you meaning to say that this president was like us?"

"I mean it's not impossible." Sally returned somewhat carelessly. "But yeah. There's no way that Big Ron wasn't a mutant. My best guess, he influenced people with some sort of verbal mutation. Not gonna lie, he wasn't a bad lookin' guy back in the day." She was getting off topic, Sally knew this. Her hand slid toward the guidelines paper to see what needed to be done. They couldn't really speculate on the project whether or not he was a mutant, but he was still an interesting president nonetheless. "So, where are you guys from, anyways?" She had her guesses, but she wanted to ask them personally than assume.

"Russia." Peter responded quietly. "Near Siberia." They probably didn't know much about Russia, so he was going to spare them the specifics.

---

Shawn hummed to himself in thought. There didn't seem to be much that they could do that would be an equal fight. "Combat, I'm trained, he's not. I'm a Scholar, Johnny isn't. I'd say Quake, but I'd have to be careful about static and a rise of my powers making the gamy fry. Powers, I've got him beat. We could try rock-pape-"

"Fine." Johnny cut him off. "I get it. You're so much better than me that anything we do put's me at a natural disadvantage. I'll take the loss, I don't even care." The boy huffed and threw his arms together, hunching forward in his seat. He thought he could just start some trouble and end up on top, but Shawn listing everything made it obvious how much better he was at everything than Johnny. Of course he's better, he's-

"Well. In any case, I still think we should continue class outside. It will be nice to get some fresh air." Hank stepped towards the door and opened it, motioning for his group of students to walk out.

Shawn rose and went out the door, casting an uneasy glance at Heidi. He sorta felt bad about it now, having somewhat shamed Johnny into accepting defeat rather than actually settling it somehow. He knew that this would dampen the relationship between Shawn and Johnny, but he wasn't really sure if the other option of fighting would have ended much better. Maybe he shouldn't have done it the second time, maybe he shouldn't even have done it the first.

[Burning Kitty]

Rose Mary found the rather laconic woman to be off putting. "Don't let me hold you up. Before you go though and how do I get to the person I need to speak to about changing classes?"

Tatiana still in French class smelled the distinct aroma of blood, not just a papercut either. It was far away and judging by how it feint it was, quite a bit of blood. She excused herself from class with the excuse of needing to purge her bladder. She began hunting for the source of the smell. She stalked the halls like a predator on the prowl. She found herself in the dormitory. She did not have a good feeling about this. Where it split to seperate the males and females she could smell it from both sides, female side had the stronger scent. She proceeded down the female dorm hall. She found it the strongest outside her door. She slowly opened the door, the smell of blood was near overwhelming, on her bed was a dead pig. Clearly the second source was the killer who got blood all over themselves when they practically gutted this poor pig. She wouldn't be able to sleep in that room until the aroma was completely aired out. She ran over to the boys dorm and found the culprit. He was taking a shower. She kicked the door to shower stall open. She grabbed him by the hair and dragged him naked around the school. She reached out to Charles with her mind. "I have a problem with a fellow student. He thought it would be funny or whatever to gut a pig on my bed. I am dragging him to your office now, you may want to bring a towel or something I found him in the shower, didn't let him get dressed." The kid struggled against the vice like grip on his hair. He kicked and screamed. Tatiana stopped and turned. "Stop wiggling like a fish on land." The boy looked like he wanted to say 'What if I don't?' She pulled his face closer to his and proceeded to bear her fangs. "I could always turn you into one of the Mystikos vampires, as your sire you would be my slave. I would not be a kind mistress, I would be very cruel and you would beg for more, all the while hating yourself and me." She never tried turning anyone, didn't know if she could. Wouldn't try with this fool he wasn't worthy to be one of the great Mystikos. Her threat to turn him into a vampire slave while false was effective, he ceased to struggle to get free, he continued to struggle to maintain a sense of decency.

[Silver Carrot]

Heidi gave a glance at Shawn that suggested that she knew, understood and they they'd talk in a minute. First, she wanted to talk to Johnny. She walked alongside him. "Why did you try to pick a fight with someone older than you? You know we get trained to fight here, so you'd also know that the older any of us are, the better we can fight. You really should just try to talk out problems instead of resorting to violence, speaking of which, I know you have a problem with me, and you're not alone. Super-intelligence is my mutation. I can't help it. I can't turn it off. I've tried just keeping my mouth shut but now I'm socially awkward and almost friendless."

She stopped, and faced him. "I can see it. You have great control over your mutation. You'd make a fantastic X-man if you were just a little more forward-thinking and mindful. Keep that in mind."

And with that, she caught up with Shawn. She wasn't about to lecture him. She didn't think that would help much, but she places her hand on his shoulder for a brief second to get his attention and then muttered; "I'm sorry. I know how unpleasant it is to have another person feel that way about you as if it's your fault. It's even worse when you're a thirteen year old super genius who actually answers all the questions and tries to talk to people about her abilities. That's....not really an excuse for how reclusive I became, I know. I tried to be too careful. But...I'm getting better now," she paused and smiled to herself. "...Thanks to you."

[Tickout]

“That sounds fine by me” Bonny said, giving a small nod of agreement to Sally for her choice. Reagan sounded like a pretty interesting guy from the short lesson she got from Sally, plus doing a president that wasn’t mainstream meant they wouldn’t have to worry about a repeat presentation. They’d have something unique AND cool. She wasn’t sure about how the president being a probably mutant played into the project, though; she had imagined writing about something in history wouldn’t rely on hypotheticals.

She looked between Sally and Peter when she asked their origin, and she chimed in after Peter gave his origin. “I’m from the great up North; Canada, to be precise” she said. “Nothing really that interestin’ from the area I lived in, but it was nice regardless.” The fact that she was speaking in past tense got to her a little bit- it was only a day and talking about home was making her… well, a little homesick. She mentally shook her head and got back to the topic at hand; it was best not to think about that kind of stuff.

“So, still a bit new. Are there textbooks in the class, or do we go down to the library to grab books for research?”

[pyroman]

"You'll have to talk to our student councilor about getting your classes changed. Doctor Smith will be happy to help however he can." Charles would have spoken more, had someone not attempted to speak with him telepathically. He would still hear the whisperings of the voices around him, quiet and almost inaudible. However, this voice was louder than the others.

"If you'll excuse us." Charles rolled away from Rosemary, bringing the near silent woman with him. He had a conversation with another mind that he needed to wrap up to see them physically.

"please, meet me in my study with the culprit, and please allow him to get some clothes

---

Johnny didn't have much to add, who said he wanted to be an X-Man? He just wanted to fine tune his mutation enough to where he wouldn't have to be worried about getting ganged up by those purifier guys. He didn't need some brainiac telling him how to pick his battles.

Shawn's head turned as the hand was placed on his shoulder. It was Heidi, probably there to talk to him about Johnny and the fight that almost was.

He was surprised to hear what she had to said, and gave her a calm smile in return. "Hey, it's what friends are for, right? Not to mention that we're in a team together, and I want to make sure that we're all improving where we're lacking. Just like friendship, leadership is earned, and both are earned through understanding, respect, and trust. Plus, if we're ever playing trivia, I want you to consider me being on your team." He cracked a smile and a joke, stepping out with the class to the little fountain behind the mansion.

Hank took a look at his watch and sighed. It seemed that they wouldn't be able to spend as much time outside as he wanted to. The period change was going to happen soon, so there wasn't much of a point in trying to cram in another lesson in. "Okay everyone, if you have any work for other classes, not is the time to take fate into your own hands and do it. You have until the end of class. Twenty minutes."

Shawn wasn't crazy worried. He didn't have any work to do, so he could just spend the rest of class doing whatever. Good news for him.

---

"Textbooks?" Sally sighed. "Most of Miss Moonstars work is independent. We have textbooks, and use them for the lessons, but hardly for actual work. The librarian, smart dude, he can help us chase my tangent and lead us in the right direction of our president."

"Okay everyone. Off to the library to work on that project. If you haven't picked a president yet, you still have time. It's okay if another group has picked the same."

[Burning Kitty]

Tatiana lifted the naked boy to eye level. "The Professor has requested that I allow you to get dressed before you see him. If you are nice I will allow you to wear boy's clothes, piss me off again and I will force you into the girliest outfit I can find. Are you going to behave?" The kid nodded in affirmative. "Good boy." She dragged him back to the bathroom. The boy started to say something. "Good boys don't question their superior." The kid shut up an she finished dragging him into the bathroom. "Now put on those bloody clothes." The boy complied. Once he was no longer naked she proceeded to begin dragging him by shirt coller this time."

"Dr. Smith hunh? Didn't realize he did that." She waived goodbye to the Professor as he rolled away. She then proceeded to go to Dr. Smith's office.