Lenneth Ascher looked down at the group of 'students' that were awaiting her appearance in the drawing room and sighed. When she had told Xavier that she would take his worst cases off his hands, she hadn't realized how much teen angst could stink in her nostrils. She had read the case files of every single one of these kids and they all had something in common: homes broken up by their 'disease'. She used that word because it seemed the nicest one. According to one interview, which she had watched on a cd borrowed from Xavier's rather extensive files, one particular young lady had been treated by a small army of doctors as her family, well-off, decided that whatever was wrong with her could be cured. It reminded her of talking to Emma in the Institute, or the fate of her own daughter, both of whom had been locked away in asylums because of their abilities. Looking back at the screen, she thought with a pang of regret that perhaps she should have taken Xavier's suggestion that she teach her own daughter as well. Yet, the idea of looking her little girl, the little girl who had grown up completely without her, every day was more than even this old jaded woman could bear. Getting up, she straightened her belt, more as a settling reflex than from real need, and walked out of her office and down several hallways to greet her boarders.
Conversations continued as she stood on the edge of the room, just inside the door watching the five utterly self-absorbed set of teenagers that Xavier had sent her. Every one of them was dressed in their own best, which for some of them looked like it had been fished out of someone's trash. The first thing she was going to do with some of them was take them shopping for decent attire. Then she cleared her throat. Five pairs of eyes turned in her direction.
"Welcome all," she said quietly. "I hope you found lunch worth your while." She stepped further into the room, taking over with her simple presence as she always had at things such as parties and board meetings. No one dared to look away from her. They might have missed something if they did.
"I know Xavier met with each of you privately to tell you why you were being reassigned away from the Institute. Moved to a branch office, as it is." She smiled, her eyes half-lidded as she took in the smell of teenage hormones that were starting to go up, mostly in the three young men, though one of the girls was also giving off the 'interested' smell. "So I won't bore you with the details of why you were reassigned. I'll bore you with the details of how this place works." She leaned over the back of one of her chairs, scanning them all carefully.
"How this works is each of you is here to learn how to use your abilities. For whatever reason, you didn't fit in or work well with the other students of the Institute and were very close to suffering expulsion for your behaviors. But while Xavier believes that others can teach you about yourself, I don't think that is true. I think you have to teach yourself. So I'm basically going to turn you loose here on the grounds. You may fight with each other if you want. You may seek me out for 'instruction' if you wish. You can leave at any time; I will not even ask why. I'm not one to tell you how to live your life. I like Xavier's dream, but I've lived through a lot of the ugly things that human beings have done to each other in the last hundred years, so I see that dream as a tad bit naïve. If you want to be bad, fine, I went through being that way. If you want to be a hero," she clapped lightly. "Wonderful for you. If you just want to learn enough to pass for human, do as you please. I'm not going to dictate your morals and ethics for you."
She stopped and looked at her small group, letting her eyes drift over each of them individually. This was going to be an interesting endeavor at best.
"Questions?"
"You mean we actually get to question your methods," quipped one young man wearing what looked like a Salvation Army coat.
"You can question them if you like. But I reserve the right to not answer your questions, especially if I think that answers aren't going to help much."
"Great. So why are you doing this? You don't really buy into Xavier's dream, so why help him? Why not go the way of Magneto?"
She chuckled at his question. It was the one she had been anticipating. Why, indeed, was she helping a man who was following a dream she didn't really buy into?
"Good question, Joseph," she called him by his given name. "As much as humanity has done to itself, others, and species of animals, why would I care if they were exterminated? Because when you get right down to it, we aren't that removed from human. You want to see what humans can do to one another, look at what we mutants do to one another."
She moved around the chair, sat down and crossed her legs.
"I lived through the era of Hitler, darling. I was already older than you are now when he started his reign. I watched him, studied him, and his methods. Magneto, with all his touting of mutants as the next master race, sounds a lot like Hitler to me. And one thing I learned from that was you let a madman get up steam and he'll steamroll anyone and everyone in his path. Anyone that does not agree to be turned into one of his zombie followers is going to be exterminated. Free thought and speech will once more become outlawed. And I don't know about you, but I don't like to be told what to think. So I don't join Magneto. But if you're just looking for someone to tell you what to do, Magneto's your man. In that way, both he and Xavier are alike. They both like to get you to believe in what they believe. I'm just a little too jaded to believe in egomaniacal bullshit regardless of what package it comes in."
From the wide eyed looks she was getting, she could tell that each of them was either estimating her age or trying to wrap their minds around the fact that she had just put both Xavier and Magneto in the same category. Either one was probably causing them to fry brain cells just trying to process it.
"That said," she drew their attention with her voice. "Any other questions?"
Each of them shook their head; their eyes still wide like a pair of small moons in each face.
"Good. Go find your rooms. They each have your names on them with small envelopes enclosing the necessary key."
"We can lock our rooms," one of the girls blurted out.
"Yes. If I really want to get into your room, neither a door nor a lock is much of a problem for me. But it might make you feel more secure." She got up and went to the window, automatically telling the time from the light outside and the length of the shadows.
"Dinner will be served in four hours. If you are not there for the meal, it will not be saved for you. I expect each of you to be ready to introduce yourself to me and each other at the meal. I don't need speeches, you don't really have to prepare anything, and I already know your histories so we don't need to talk about that either. Just a simple name, age, and power will do." She turned her head slightly, so that one of her eyes was visible to the group. "You are dismissed."
They filed out, one after another, until only Joseph remained. He asked the second question she had been anticipating.
"How old are you?"
"Now that is a question that I will answer at my leisure. And my leisure is not now. Go find your room, Joe, and get settled in. There will be time for explanations later."
She listened to him as he walked out of room and sighed.
"That went well, now I suppose I ought to go handle some things before dinner." Back to her office she went, avoiding the hallway that lead toward the rooms she was using as dorm rooms for the students. She had decided against doubling them up, mostly because she hated the idea of roommates in the first place and second these children did not seem like the types who would take invasion of their privacy, even by someone who lived in the room, lightly.
Lenneth spent the next four hours in her office, occasionally looking up at the sound of things being thrown and words being yelled. If she had felt like enhancing her hearing just a little, she could have easily deciphered what was being said, but she wasn't terribly interested in the problems her students were having with each other already. They would figure out their own working order all too soon without her intervention. Hopefully, no one would end up dead in the process.
Dinner was served at six, as was her custom, which she didn't plan on changing regardless of who was living in the house with her. She walked into the dining room wearing a t-shirt with sequins that said, 'Queen,' tight black jeans, and a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos. Her hair, its customary black with gray streaks, was hanging mid-way down her back and she had allowed her eyes to returned to their normal dark brown/ nearly black color.
Sitting down at the head of the table, she met the gazes of the young people who were staring at her with looks of expectation over their plates. Her setting was empty save for a crystal tumbler with two fingers of whiskey and the decanter.
James stood behind her chair; his napkin draped over his arm, looking every bit the imposing British butler she had hired him to be. He was the one who prepared the meals, insured that she ate on a regular schedule, and handled any guests she choose to have in her home. He had long since come to terms with the rapid changes in his employer's appearance and did not comment on the fact that she currently was dressed rather like one of her charges.
"I trust you have all met James, by now. He's the person in charge in my absence. Don't ask where he sleeps or ask him personal questions, he doesn't answer them. Don't ask him questions about me, he won't answer those either," she said to the assembled. She picked up her glass and took a sip. The taste wasn't impressive; she was definitely going to have to speak with him about the quality of the liquor he had been buying lately. "Now, I suppose we should begin. Who wants to go first?"
That must have been some kind of cue because everyone looked down at their plates as if studying alien life forms. The sight made her giggle; some things would never change. No matter how bold most teenagers were, they always seemed to have this instinctive fear of being the first to have to do something.
"Well," she put the glass back down with a clink. "I suppose I shall simply have to volunteer someone to begin this exercise. Joseph, you may begin."
First Joseph gave her a sidelong look, then with what was definitely a sigh of resignation, he stood up and looked at the assembled.
"Joseph Staton Maxwell, though Joe tends to work just fine. 17 as of this past May, and I can make objects disappear, imbue them with some kind of sentient life force, and make them reappear somewhere else." He sat down with the speed of someone who was being shot at. From the look on the faces of some of his fellow students, he already had enemies and probably was going to be a target before too long.
"All right then. We shall go to your right then, Joe." Lenneth indicated the brown haired girl sitting to Joe's right. "Your turn, Miss."
"Andrea Cather," she said quietly standing for the assembled to see. "I'm 15, I turn into dirt." She sat down again, her eyes never once coming up from the tablecloth. Across from her was another young man, this one shaved nearly bald except for one long plait down the back of his neck. Crossing his arms over his chest, he refused to stand.
"Nicholas Andrew Cadance. 22. I phase shift objects. I can turn liquids into solids, solids into gases, gases in plasma. The shapes tend to stay about the same, at least for a little while. But hey, whatever." He shrugged and turned his head toward the door. A knock, light though it had been, had been heard while he was speaking. Lenneth gestured for James to go get the door and continued on with her students' introductions. The girl next to Nicolas wore glasses, though from the way she carried herself, Lenneth was almost certain she didn't actually need them. She simply wore them.
"Diana Jean Hora. D.J. is easier. I can create illusions that seem completely real." She almost sat down before remembering she was supposed to give her age. "18."
"Leaves just you, sir," said Lenneth to the young man sitting on her left. He hadn't said anything the entire meal, not even before she had come in and sat down. "Oh, that's right. You don't talk. You're rather like my daughter, Billie, completely without vocal equipment." The dark haired boy nodded and then tapped his knife against his plate in a short morse code signal. "That's all right, I read your file. And I do sign quite well. But we'll have that conversation later, Anthony." She stood up and looked at them with a calculating gaze. "Well, I suppose now it's my turn."
James reentered and said loud enough to be heard clearly.
"Master John Ashburn, madam."
"Show him in, James," she said casually.
"My name is Lenneth Elizabeth Ascher-Essex. Ascher is my family name, Essex being my married name. I suppose at the moment my title is headmistress of this school. I'm older than anyone you are probably ever going to know. And I've mastered my own chemical make-up, allowing me to control my looks and my apparent age, as well as create substances from the chemicals that I ingest," she said to her students, allowing herself a quick glance at her lover when he entered the dining room carrying a pair of bags. "With that said, I know there are questions. However, it seems something has just come up. So, you all eat while I find out what exactly is going on."
Stepping away from her seat, she pushed it back under the table. Johnny refused to meet her eyes, even with his ever-present shades on. He just shouldered his bags guiltily. Walking past him, she stepped out into the foyer. With her back to him, knowing he had followed her, she said quietly,
"Why are you here?"
"I've been reassigned."
"Oh really," she said with slow drawl. "Why?"
"Professor X thought this many kids would be a problem even for someone like you," he said. She still hadn't turned to look at him. But she could hear the fact that he was lying before he even finished the sentence.
"Johnny, what really happened? Xavier wouldn't have sent you to back me up. You can barely control your own powers, how are you supposed to be any help to me?"
Johnny reached out to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. His lower lip was caught between his teeth.
"Len, look at me," he asked quietly. She turned at his touch. He was undoing his top button with his free hand. It was then that she saw the bruise at his collarbone. He grimaced when she touched it with her fingertips.
"What happened, Johnny Ashburn," she said, her voice almost clinical.
"I got into a fist fight with a certain Cajun. About you."
Lenneth rolled her eyes, withdrawing her hand from him.
"Over me. I assume this is because of my tryst with said Cajun?"
"Why the hell didn't you tell me that you were sleeping with him," hissed Johnny. She waved his anger away with one hand.
"I'm not under any obligation to report my sexual activities to you, Mr. Ashburn. After all, it was you who decided that what we had wasn't terribly important. And what Remy and I had certainly wasn't anything important," snapped Lenneth, brushing her dark hair off her shoulders in a nonchalant manner. Johnny stood, dumbfounded at her behavior.
"So this my fault?"
"You getting upset over our dissolved relationship. You getting into a fight with Remy. You running to me when you've made an ass of yourself. Yes, I would say this is all your fault." She stepped past him, heading back toward the dining room. "Johnny, I suggest that you take your things and go running back to your parents until Xavier lifts your suspension. Because I don't want you here. Not now. Maybe at another time. I trust you can show yourself out. Have a good evening."