Word had spread among the students about a new student from England. Apparently it was a boy, from a rich family, a very handsome one at that if the rumors were to be believed. Apparently something happened when his powers emerged and he was coming all the way from England. Exactly who started these rumors is weirdly not so clear-- but it seems like the information came from the files Emma had on the boy.

When Banshee came down to go pick up the boy at the airport, he was surprised to be ambushed by several girls who had gathered with their own separate motives for going along on the trip. As Banshee had little desire to spend an hour alone in a car with a boy as he never did master small talk, he relented quickly.

Of course-- among those who showed up were neither Angelo nor Clarice who felt uncomfortable in public places due to their odd skin pigmentation nor Mondo who had barely left the Biodome ever since he came to the school. But a good half the handful of students at the school seemed to want to be the first to get to make an impression on the newcomer.

The ride to the airport had taken an hour, an hour that had turned out to be full of uncomfortable silences broken up only by occasional bickering as only those who are forced to live together despite having nothing in common might. Hardly anyone could have been surprised by the result and Banshee probably regretted taking them along rather than face that long awkward silence. Just because his powers revolved around screaming didn't mean he couldn't get a headache.

But eventually they arrived at the airport. They just needed to get to arrivals Terminal E where the British Airlines flight the boy came in on was meant to land without killing each other.

Jubilation had changed her attire since she was sent to a school where the freakin Juggernaut was the P.E. Teacher! She tried her best to see the best in people but guys like that? Guys who hurt her friends? Who hurt Wolvie? That was a harder task. She did trim her hair a little but about 30 seconds she realized going the full hair change new life new me was a bit too dramatic also her hair looked good if she did say so herself. Instead she had a Jean Jacket covered in patches including the Xmen symbol. In her inside pocket was a couple of Wolvie's Cigars. She'd never smoke em, not after the time she tried one and nearly vomited up a lung nooooo thank you. But the smell reminded her of the adventures they went on. Her pink shirt had been swapped out with an orange white and purple striped shirt. She wore jeans instead of shorts because Massachusetts was freakin cold she had got more comfortable boots with built in wheels and less flared gloves but she stuck with blue. Lastly were her shades. She still had a pair but darker and not pink she kept them in her front pocket. She leaned against a wall chewing gum with her earbuds in listening to Blue Oyster Cult's Firework.

Monet had come to talk to the others. But for whatever reason everyone was ignoring everone else. Her attempts to start conversations appeared to be met with people prefering to listen to music than talk to each other, or other teenage reasons that she didn't understand

She wasn't very bothered by the weather: being invulnerable had a number of advantages, so she wore clothes that she liked rather than dressing for the weather. Her designer puce leggings were both comfortable and looked like a million dollars, her blue T Shirt which went well with the hint of highlight in her hair had been tailored to match and the hand made sneakers looked a little like LA Gear sneakers but had better colour coordination

Cordelia walked into the kitchen and strolled about opening cupboards, drawers and the fridge pausing she decided what she'd like for her morning meal. She'd opted out of the long drive to the airport with the gaggle of girls. Sitting at the table she quietly ate her breakfast, as she did she heard one of the other, what she envisaged inmates, moving about. Hey Co-innie what ya upto?

While out of the car, Sean tried his best to try to make use of the signs. He might be a former spy, but the layouts of these airports could be unavoidably confusing for those who'd been out of practice of using them for a while. He was pretty sure they were at the arrivals section rather than the departures section, but there were so very many landing platforms.

Looking up at the closest building they had parked by, it did indeed say Terminal E. So that was a start.

"All right, lasses!" he called out to his charges, "Let's go in and see if we can find the lad."

It would be no easy task as it's not like the arrivals were neatly sorted by what flight they arrived on and they had never actually seen a picture of this boy before.

"This is not gonna end well." Jubilee remarked pausing her music. She was doing the math in her head. "Group of mutants+ New mutant making a major life change+ Public setting with human civilians= Them getting attacked by something." When you rolled with the X-Men, literally in her case, you couldn't take a pee break without a Sentinel showing up or the baddie of the week trying to kidnap you. She then grinned. Well either it wouldn't be boring or they'd have a nice day out. Win Win.

"Well if you tell us his name and what he looks like and how old he is that would help" Monet observed. Otherwise she was going to 'look for the lad' in the coffee shop while reading a book and listening to music. Because that would be precisely as helpful as anything else she might choose to do

 Amended to reflect situation.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:39, Tue 07 Feb 2023.

Sean brought a hand up to his forehead with a self-depreciating groan. How could he forget such a detail. He'd been out of the service for too long.

He reached into his pocket and retrieved a cellphone. While he was getting up there in age, he could at least take pride that he wasn't a luddite as many in his age range had become.

"I'd properly forgotten. The boy sent a picture before he got on the jet," he explained as he started clicking through the phone messages. It took him longer than he would have preferred to click through to the pictures and forward it, but he did manage to do so.

All of the girls got a buzzing in their pocket on the identical phones Emma had given them. They were all savvy enough to know she really gave them the phones to track them. In fact, they found they couldn't turn the GPS option off. And who knew just how closely she monitored other activities they used it for. Of course, they each had their own solution to that issue-- from intentionally looking up and downloading stuff to really screw with her and get her to admit she is doing it if confronted about it to throwing caution to the wind to keeping a second phone for personal use.

The picture that arrived would probably be pretty disappointing to those who had taken too much stock in the rumor that this boy was super dreamy. In the picture he was dressed in all dark gray and black, had a coat that was probably long and everything from his nose down was completely covered with a mask covering his lower face and a turtleneck sweater under his coat. He has long medium length unkempt brown hair and brown eyes. It was also clear from the angle and lighting that he probably wasn't used to taking selfies.

"I figure the boy has got to come out those doors, sooner or later," Sean said while indicating the main doors for the terminal. "But if the lot of you go inside and search the lad out, we might find him faster."

And if the boy had a phone too, why couldn't they just send him a message? Because the boy was on a British phone service, of course-- he'd be getting a 'no service' signal unless he bought a connection to the airport wifi and he might not have a credit card to do that.

Jubilee pulled out her School Phone and lifted her tinted glasses examining the photo and then gave Teach a thumbs up."Do we know what's his flight number? Planes usually stream people in through a particular gate? I mean any well run..." she trailed off noting the absolute lack of any indication where any planes were coming from. "Wow and I thought LAX was incompetent. " She then had an idea and darted off to the SUV Trunk. She opened it after ensuring nobody was looking and with the help of some duct tape, cardboard, a black marker and a broom handle made a sign that could be held aloft and returned to Teach and Monet.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:31, Wed 21 Dec 2022.

Monet's phone was a lot nicer looking than the school phone. Once she had found it was a spy phone she had left it powered down in bubble wrap and tinfoil in her room. ~Strike 1~ she had thought to herself at the time, and then gone looking for other spying devices. Rather bizarrely perhaps she valued her privacy. And she was very very good at knowing how to locate and find spying devices.

"Sure we can go in" Monet commented. "If you want Jubilation I'll wait for him at the place where he would exist from the Gates."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:10, Wed 21 Dec 2022.

"I was going to give teach the awkward sign that makes him look like a dork and search the crowd myself. You could hit the Cafe or get a welcome gift I've got uh..." she pulled a five dollar bill, two dimes, a nickel, and a stick of big red chewing gum offering it to Monet. "Unless you think Freddy Mercury here can't handle standing in place with a sign" she joked.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:10, Wed 21 Dec 2022.

Cordelia glanced at the image on her mobile
Showing he was dressed in all dark gray and black, had a coat that was probably long and everything from his nose down was completely covered with a mask covering his lower face and a turtleneck sweater under his coat.

"It looks like we're waiting for a terrorist. How the Dickons did he get through security and onto the Aircraft looking like that?
This message was last edited by the player at 08:59, Thu 22 Dec 2022.

"If he looks like this I don't think the sign matters: But I'll take the dorkish sign. My ego isn't damaged by carrying a stick with a sign on it." she shook her head at the gum "Thanks but I don't do gum." and there was no chance she was going to hit an American Cafe. They couldn't even make a decent coffee, and every single food item was so full of sugar, salt and preservatives it wasn't even edible. Even the bread was so sugary that in Europe it had to be legally classified as 'cake'

"Cordelia's right though. Getting through security like that would be... interesting. And with passport control it's absolutly not happening: they demand you remove all face covering. Big issue with some Muslim women... I wonder if he has some sort of telepathy, illusion... Or maybe he just doesn't like being photoed. Still the photo shows his eyes. I think I'll recognise him by his eyes even if he doesn't have the scarf"

Monet did in fact take the sign then

"Maybe they got someone like freezypop to use a psychic cloak on him, or a holographic emitter, or he took a photo in his costume and then took it off and got on a plane and once he gets here he'll go change back into his costume and text us where he's standing. So we may see his face" she pointed casually to a random person walking by."But we won't know it so he can maintain his privacy." she suggested.

"Unless he hid his eyes when taking that, or is hiding them now, I'll spot them" Monet said. She was a lot better at this sort of thing than most people. Especially now that she knew what to look for "And if is hiding from us, then... we have to wonder why he sent the picture. I mean you are right. All sorts of wierd things could be happening. But I'm going to follow the simple 'hear hoofbeats and it's a horse and not a Zebra' principle and not worry unless we see crazyness start. And what are the odds of that?"

"So who is 'Freezypop'? Is that like our glorious Headmistress's other half?"

"Emma Frost, Frost, Frozen, Freeze, Freezypop. Workshopping nicknames. Ice Queen sound a bit too mean." She shrugged smiling.

"I think FreezyMom is better. She's a lot of things" Monet said that as neutrally as she could, which was quite deadpan "But I don't think of her as a pop. Ice Queen isn't right either that would imply she's not got emotions. She's a bit too... no... that really doesn't suit her"

"I've always liked the Ice Queen in Narnia books. I know she's the bad guy, but she would be great in a movie. She's a woman who knows what she wants and goes get it. Er... I mean a well done movie..." she wasn't impressed with the one she'd seen
This message was last edited by the player at 12:39, Thu 22 Dec 2022.

In reply to Monet St. Croix (msg # 18):

You like a Murderous Tyrant...
Don't you think its kinda creepy?

"Ah the English word 'like' has many meanings. Thus it's imprecise. To be creepy it would have to be one of the word senses, and not the one I meant" Monet said "Perhaps 'admire the author' would capture what I meant better, but that's rather verbose. English is one of the more ambiguous languages. Certainly as it's moving from being a synthetic language to an isolativing language, despite it's problem with time, it's..." she paused. It was probably the case the other's were already tuning out

"So which bad guys do you like watching" she ended rather weakly, trying to recover from her linguistic geek out

"Arcade's Murderworld sounds like it'd be a neat watch so long as it's the Cmen or Avengers in there who can get out a kick the carp out of him" she joked.

"I think that would be a little too much like a documentary for me to enjoy it" Money commented "Much too scary. Anyway we were talking about C S Lewis. Really interesting guy. His bad guy 'Screwtape' is really thought provoking. Shame it's not been made into a movie"

"What about your Cordellia. What do you like to watch?"

Screams ring out from deep within the airport, although it is too far and the place echos and is filled with other noises too much to perfectly locate the source of the sound-- people who had been closer to the baggage area begin running by towards the main exit. Others that had been milling about in the various restaurants, shops and cafes react in a number of ways.

There are those who are too occupied with their meal or other activity to really pay any mind to those running by. Others perk up at the noise and begin looking around for answers with a sense of bewilderment. Still others quickly catch on the general vibe that people are fleeing from something, they should leave too-- although unaware of what they are escaping, they don't do so with the haste of the first wave. And there are even a few, possessed of curiosity, begin trying to head towards the direction so many are fleeing from seeking an answer before deciding what to do. While there aren't many who do this, the general panic soon causes the halls to become crammed with people.

"You owe me 20 bucks " she said to her teacher rushing towards where everyone was fleeing from putting her glasses down and parkouring onto the safety railing tempted to whip out her wheels and grind toward the threat... or a very confused student had to be one of the two.

This wasn't good. Not good at all. For all Monet knew this had nothing to do with their student or themselves... but what were the odds of that? Not that it really mattered: there were a lot of people here, and they would get hurt if this matter didn't get resolved quickly

Monet was the kind of person who could move across a room to catch a bullet aimed at someone else. It really didn't take her long to head deeper into the airport, flying over the head of the people there probably too fast for them to see: although they might be knocked back a little by the air she was displacing. She was heading for where the trouble was...