Arriving

[seismic_shockwave]

WHO: Kayla, TBD
WHERE: Xavier Mansion, Westchester County
WHAT: Kayla's arriving here
RATING: PG to PG-13. Kayla might think but probably not say cuss words.

Well, here it is. Xavier's School for the Gifted.

Kayla whistled lowly and took the earbuds out of her ears. The Chemical Wedding could wait, it wasn't as if she hadn't heard it several times already. She put the earbuds away and buzzed the door, saying her name and why she was there.

"Kayla Connors, your newest senior student."

She was a full year behind, a product of having been kicked out and feeling compelled to move far away. She could've probably just got a place and a job back home, but it didn't feel right. So she'd come to New York of all places, where the considerable (but far from infinite) amount of money she'd got in lieu of having a family had been whittled down to almost nothing really fast. So fast that she'd found herself needing to actually get her meals at the mutant shelter, where she'd started just volunteering at. It sucked, but rents in New York were way more than back in Winnipeg and she knew that she was going to have to find something better and quick, before she ended up flat-ass broke.

And another part of her knew that she really needed to finish high school, not just because it was an expectation, but because just about everything she'd ever wanted to seriously do with her life would be at least helped, if not outright made possible because of it. Anyway, she liked school back home and the last year or so, school was her oasis from home. That's when she had two different guys at the shelter give her ideas about what to do with herself. One had mentioned going to live in some mutant state in the middle of Antarctica with Magneto. Well, the dinosaur-obsessed small girl in her was glad that a place like that existed, but she wasn't an enthusiast of monarchies and besides, she felt comfortable in places where it snowed and where coffee could be bought. He hadn't pushed, though, and that was nice.

The other one had a significantly more practical idea, even if he wasn't nearly as cute and even if it did not involve dinosaurs in any way, shape or form. She'd heard of the school before, but no one had really presented a practical means of actually getting there and he'd helped her get in touch with Xavier's, and now, a few weeks later, here she was at their gate, which had just opened. Standing there, hesistating for a moment, she walked through and went up to the main door, pressing the buzzer. She'd managed to scrape up the money to take her own taxi there and now she stood at the door, carrying an entirely greater load of bags than was normal for a girl of her size. More than her entire body weight in things, actually.

And it was at the door she waited for someone to answer, hoping that this would be the best place for her.

Comments

[nohoundsallowed]

"I do like when they show up at our doorstep," Rachel commented to herself. "Makes some of this easier."

The redhead sent a quick not to Sage to get background info on Kayla Connors with images from the security cameras on the grounds. Not that the living computer wasn't already doing that, but it would be nice to make it look like Mrs. Grey-Ramsey was following protocols for once.

Rather than freak out the young lady at the gate with telepathy, Rachel used the intercom. "We'll be right there, Miss Connors."

She pushed herself away from the monitoring desk and went to go get the door. If she ran into another responsible adult-type, she figured she could snag them to go along, too. Unless it was Brooke. Then there would be shooing away.

[talk_to_you]

In this case, that would be Doug.

"What's up?" he asked his wife, as he fell into step beside her.

[seismic_shockwave]

"Okay." Kayla replied simply, waiting at the gate, looking around at the huge, exquisitely-manicured grounds. Really, it looked more like an Ivy League prep school than something equipped to deal with mutant training. What if the kids had some sort of accident? Hopefully, they had a really good insurance plan.

Her feet shuffled about a little. She reminded herself, it was just a school, and she'd done really well at school. But it was more about that, it was about a lot more than finishing up high school. It was about being a mutant and coming to terms with the powers she hardly ever used seriously, because they seemed to give her more trouble than they were worth.

But having a place to live and food to eat and stuff wasn't anything to turn away either.

[nohoundsallowed]

"We have a new arrival at the gate," Rachel replied as she hooked her arm through his. She glanced him over.

"I sent Sage info to run background checks. We're going to greet her. And afterward, we're getting you a sandwich. Poor man, I must be running you ragged at night." She smirked a little as she mentally opened the doors.

[talk_to_you]

"Hey, you don't here me complaining about that, do you?" Doug teased as he took her arm.

"Let's go see who we've got."

[seismic_shockwave]

And the doors just opened without her having to press a button. Either someone else did that, or ... no, she had a feeling that was telekinesis right there. Those doors didn't look like the kind that opened automatically. Kayla's eyebrows shot up a little with that.

"Hi. I'm Kayla." She smiled. "And that was one of you guys using your powers, wasn't it?" Telekinesis would be a pretty awesome power to have.

[nohoundsallowed]

"Hello. I'm Professor Rachel Grey-Ramsey, and this is Professor Douglas Ramsey. And that was me," she confirmed. There was a reason she had immaculate fingernails.

She did a low level telepathic scan. She didn't go any farther than surface thoughts.

[talk_to_you]

Doug did a little, more subtle scanning of his own. A side effect of his power was, essentially, that he could read a lot into a person's body language and gestures, not to mention reading the subtle meanings behind what they said. Not quite telepathy, but pretty dang close.

Not bad for somebody who used to basically have the power of super-hiding.

"Pleased to meet you, Kayla. What can we do for you?"

[seismic_shockwave]

Kayla had no idea whatsoever that she was being psi-scanned or being so closely observed by Doug. She smiled a little shyly, shuffling around what was a formidably large load.

"Well, I guess ... to start off with, somewhere where I can stow all this s- stuff. And then maybe show me around, because I'm five feet in the door and I'm lost already. I think some state houses are smaller than this place."

[nohoundsallowed]

"We have some private sitting rooms where we can put your stuff for the moment. This way." As there was nothing throwing up huge red flags, Rachel would have to wait to see what Sage found.

"If you're going to be a student here, we're going to need the scope of what you can do."

[talk_to_you]

Doug, too, was fairly unconcerned by what he saw so far.

"It's a fairly big place," he agreed. "But you get used to it."

[seismic_shockwave]

"My best subject was history, and ..." Kayla sighed. "Right. The mutant stuff. Well, I'm carrying my own body weight in stuff without any trouble, all by straps because if I picked up a handle I'd probably break it. I got hit by a car going 100 once and it hurt less than falling off of a bike as a kid. Wrecked the car more than me. And I can do this thing where energy moves through me, it's a shockwave I guess. Shatters, flattens, smashes stuff."

Kayla took another breath. "To be honest, I haven't used them much because there isn't a lot of reason to unless you're fighting super villains or Purifiers or something. Too dangerous. I don't accidentally trigger the shockwaves or anything, but I can't control them very well when I do use them."

[nohoundsallowed]

"We'll get transcripts from your last school to figure out placement," Rachel commented slightly absently. She was trying to place the best mentor/instructor for the girl. She was not coming up with much since Rictor was not at the school currently.

"Well, here at Xavier's we'll help you get more control and give you a safe place to live." Relatively, she knew. There was the occasional mansion leveling every few years.

[talk_to_you]

Hmm. Interesting powerset, Doug thought. He too, was pondering who might be a good mentor for the girl.

"That's the whole point of this school," Doug agreed. "To give a quality education, and also provide a means for you to learn to control your abilities."

[seismic_shockwave]

"I'm pretty happy, honestly, to be back at a school. If it helps the placement stuff, I have my Grade 11 report cards and grades." Kayla sighed. "I could probably handle AP in History and English pretty well, I'm pretty average in science and math, though. I did okay in PE."

"How many people are here? At the school?" She looked around again. It looked like a huge facility, but mutants probably needed more room than normal.

[nohoundsallowed]

"Any added information you have will help." Not that Sage was getting everything possible with her computer skills. Rachel squinted slightly as she tried to figure out how many people were at the school.

"Student-wise, we have at least 100 going here. Though the population at the school shifts with guest professors and so on visiting. Though the student population is climbing steadily the more we find mutants manifesting."

[talk_to_you]

"Which gives us very comfortable class sizes for the most part," Doug added. "And allows for a surprising variety of subjects."

[seismic_shockwave]

"Oh yeah? So it's probably a bit more like a university that way than a high school?" Kayla was definitely down for that. It would be good to have a wide variety of classes to choose from. "So what about the mutant training stuff? How do you guys do that?"

[nohoundsallowed]

"After a bit of testing to see what a student's powers are exactly and what power-level they're at, we match students up with mentors. From there, each mentor works with the student in whichever areas need improvement." Rachel opened the door to an unoccupied sitting room standing a couple feet away from it. She also had the plate by the door switch to occupied so no one would come in, sit on Kayla's stuff, and melt it. Which had happened before to another student.

[talk_to_you]

"And, of course, we always turn everyone over to, ah, Professor Logan for general toughening up and such," Doug added.

"We've also developed a number of practical training scenarios, for a wide variety of power scenarios. I should know. I handled the programming for most of them."

[seismic_shockwave]

"Makes sense." Kayla replied, gladly leaving behind her awkward things. "So I assume you're accredited like any other private school, so there won't be any trouble getting into universities? Providing, of course, my grades are good enough, of course."

It seemed almost a little mean to be asking those sorts of questions, but she wanted to know if there would be trouble with that or not. The opportunity to pick up with her education was at least as important to her right now as the mutant training stuff was. Which is to say that both were very important.

[nohoundsallowed]

"Fully accredited. We have graduates who have attended or are attending Rutgers, Princeton, and MIT." Rachel waited by the door for Kayla to remove her bulky belongings and arrange them however.

[talk_to_you]

"And some of our students have gone on from there to work for SHIELD, the UN, Stark Industries, and all other kinds of places," Doug added.

[seismic_shockwave]

Well, that was a little more impressive than her old school in Winnipeg. People there went on to the University of Winnipeg or Manitoba and mostly got jobs as teachers or for the provincial government. She wondered what it would even be like to work for someone like SHIELD. Probably not her thing. She tended to be pretty skeptical of military agencies.

"Well, I'm definitely sold. The educational attainment of the other mutant schools aren't quite that impressive." She was teasing of course, she'd never actually heard of another mutant school, though it was possible that one did exist.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel was going to keep mum on what happened to most of the mutant students who attended the Massachusetts Academy. Though when it had become more affiliated with Xavier's, the survival ratio increased.

[talk_to_you]

Aaaawkwwward.

"Definitely the best of the lot," he agreed, diplomatically.

[seismic_shockwave]

Okay. Something didn't ... go down quite right with that. At first her eyebrow quirked and then she decided it was probably best not to pursue it at all.

"So will I probably have a roomie or do you put everyone in their own rooms?"

[nohoundsallowed]

"Most students have roommates unless there is an odd number or an uncontrollable power active." By uncontrollable, she meant life-threatening.

[talk_to_you]

"We'll try and match you with someone compatible," Doug said, "though there's a lot of factors involved with that."

[seismic_shockwave]

"Cool. Yeah, roomies are fine. I'm hardly gonna complain, trust me." Being able to live there and go to school? Without paying a small fortune in rent or tuition? Pretty valuable, and no other school she knew of could even deal with the mutant stuff.

"... thank you. For accepting me. Means a lot." The smartassed confidence disappeared and she looked sincere, a little awkward. "Seems like there's not a lot of people out there who are accepting of people like us."

Us. That alone was a big, important thing. The idea of not being alone.

[nohoundsallowed]

Rachel could think of one roommate she could complain about, but they weren't going to try that pairing under pain of broken foundations. It wasn't time for the mansion destruction yet according to the redhead's calculations.

"Some people are more accepting once they get over the shock of something strange and new. But it's safer for everyone for we here at Xavier's to handle the newly manifested mutants."

[talk_to_you]

"In general, mutant-human relations are at a pretty good point in overall terms," Doug agreed. "On the national, governmental type level, anyway. On a personal level, it's always a crapshoot."

[seismic_shockwave]

"My parents think I'm going to Hell. If I called them tomorrow, they'd hang up and change their number." Kayla looked down for a moment. "I was far from the only one at the shelter with a story like that. Crapshoot. I guess that's one way to think of it."

"You guys don't have any problem with me going down there sometimes to help out, right? I owe those people a hell of a lot. Including the tip to try coming here."

[nohoundsallowed]

"We won't mind. Community service is an important part of the curriculum here." Rachel was momentarily distracted by Sage's report arriving on her xPad.

[talk_to_you]

Doug nodded. "The shelter is a good cause. We wouldn't deny you that opportunity."