"That was supposed to be a team exercise, and you told them to leave their team member behind," Scott was furious, and barely managed to keep his voice even.

"It was an exercise in evasive maneuvers," Magneto corrected him in a tone that bordered on condescending – like he was humoring Scott's reprimand over the way he handled the training session (and he probably was, but Scott didn't back down). "The students must learn that collateral damage-"

"Her name is Magma."

"-is inevitable. They cannot lose sight of their objective."

"You should have stopped the program," Scott shot back.

"It was a success." And, Magneto added, now they had a record of La Lunatica's enhanced physiological capabilities. A productive training session.

Kitty withdrew from the control room where Scott and Magneto were still arguing, phasing back through the floor (hopefully unnoticed – she had been going for 'subtle' because she wanted to know what was going on). She stepped through the wall of the powered down Danger Room and found Luna still waiting for her outside the elevator. The others had gone upstairs half an hour ago. That was about as long as it took for news to travel at the Institute.

"You used your powers on Amara?"

Kitty opened the elevator door and stepped inside, and the younger mutant followed her. In some ways, Luna reminded her of Danielle Moonstar. Kitty met Dani in a dream last year, the result of her new friend projecting herself into her thoughts - she'd been trapped in a canyon, and was near death when Kitty and Kurt rescued her. Dani had the ability to bring people's nightmares to life through vivid illusions. Her powers frightened everyone on the reservation where she lived. After she recovered from her accident, Kitty had wanted her to stay at the Institute, but she made the decision to go home with her grandfather instead. She struggled with her powers and with using them, and Kitty thought that Luna had similar challenges to overcome. She wanted to help her.

"I don't see what the big deal is." Luna sounded defensive.

"Well," Kitty didn't see what happened, but she got the gist, "Did you ask her permission?" Jean was very conscientious about the use of her telepathy, for example. She would never read someone's mind without their knowledge (not intentionally).

Luna glared at her. "Am I supposed to ask permission in the real world? Why don't you ask permission before you walk through people?"

"Hey, I'm not attacking you," so no need to make things personal. And Kitty was doing better about not walking in on people (or through them). Luna had a point, she supposed. She would never ask permission mid-simulation, and she definitely didn't do it in the middle of a fight.

"Everybody else is."

"No, they're not," maybe they were staring, and/or having clandestine arguments behind closed doors – but no one was accusing Luna of anything, "The X-Men aren't like that."

Kitty stepped out of the elevator on the second floor and bumped right into Tabby. As soon as she saw Luna, her eyes narrowed and she demanded, "Luna, right? What'd you do to Amara?"

"Nothing." Luna was hostile.

"Bullshit." Kitty had never seen Tabby this mad – she was the most easy-going person she knew, "She won't stop crying 'cause of you. What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

"Tabby, come on," Kitty cut in, putting a hand on Luna's shoulder – a gesture of solidarity that the younger girl immediately shrugged off. "It was a mistake. She didn't mean to hurt Amara." Her powers would've been a challenge for any mutant to handle, and she was only sixteen. What she needed was acceptance and understanding – which was what the Xavier Institute promised her. That was the only way she'd-

"It wasn't a mistake," Luna snapped at Kitty first, "I did what I had to do to beat the Danger Room. We would've both been crushed if I hadn't."

"This isn't Apocalypse, it's a frickin' school!" Tabitha barked in response, "You weren't in any real danger!"

"Not everyone takes their training as a joke," Kitty tried to defend Luna's actions but she blurted the words out before she thought them through - but she didn't mean to suggest that Boom Boom didn't take the important stuff seriously, it was just…

"Amara sure as hell doesn't."

"I'll check on her-" Kitty wasn't choosing sides, even if that was what Tabby thought she was doing.

"Don't bother." The blonde glared at both of them, but her last words were for Luna. "You better stay out of 'Mara's mind – and her memories, got it?" She turned and stomped down the hall to Amara's room, throwing a timebomb into the potted fern on the accent table next to the bathroom. It exploded as soon as she slammed the door shut. Dirt and broken ceramic littered the floor, and Kitty sighed.

And because the timing literally couldn't get any better, that was when her phone rang. She hadn't even had time to change into her uniform before she went downstairs, and she still had it in her pocket. The number was one she didn't recognize, and if she was paying attention she would've noticed it had the same area code as Pietro's.

But she didn't, so she sounded as discouraged (and distracted) as she felt when she answered impatiently, "Hello?"

"Uh, hey Kitty."

"Lance?" She was surprised. It showed in her voice.

"Yeah. Pietro said you called." Pietro actually told him she called?

"I did-" she took one look at Luna's face and shifted the phone to one ear, "Look, I can't really talk right now. I'm in the middle of a thing- can I call you back? Like, in an hour?"

"Yeah, okay."

"At this number?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Talk to you later." Kitty hung up the phone. She felt guilty even though she thought she was doing the right thing – it wasn't that she didn't feel bad for Amara, or what it was she must've seen. It just seemed really important not to lay the blame on Luna (although she clearly needed some help in the 'acknowledging-my-powers-can-hurt-people-and-how-do-I-manage-that' department) because she was a new recruit and she hadn't even been here a week before they threw her in a danger room session with more experienced X-Men. Maybe she should've been assigned to the group with Jamie and Alison…

"This isn't going to take an hour, is it?" Luna was in a bad mood, and she was trying Kitty's (not very substantial) patience. Kitty was trying to channel her inner Jean but it was… not… working.

"What exactly happens when you use your powers?" She steered the girl towards her room, giving Amara's a wide berth and grateful that the voices on the other side were muffled.

Luna replied reluctantly, "I see a memory. I'm in the memory, I live it with them. I feel what they feel, I know what they know." And afterwards? She got a boost of speed and strength from the strong (negative) emotions associated with that memory.

"What did you see?"

Luna shook her head. She refused to say. She said it was 'private', which was a little ironic but Kitty let it go. It was something she should probably talk to Amara about. The senior X-Man left Luna outside her room and she wished she had some… like, profoundly wise thing to say, but she couldn't think of the right words.

So instead she gave it her best shot. "Don't take Tabby too seriously, okay? Amara is her best friend, she's upset right now, but she'll come around," Kitty didn't know Tabitha to hold a grudge, especially when they both knew there wasn't any malice in what Luna did. She was scared (even if she didn't want to admit it), so she used her powers. Anyone could relate to that. "We are glad you're here," Kitty insisted, "And we're going to work with you and your powers." Nothing had changed in the way they were going to treat her. She was still welcome here. People just needed a few hours to cool off. That's all it was.

Half an hour later, Kitty disentangled herself from the rest of the X-Men and she remembered what she was planning to do. If she wasn't so busy worrying about Luna getting accused of something, or Amara not leaving her room, or Tabby being mad at her, then she might have been anxious about giving Lance a call. When she heard his voice and recognized it, her stomach did an uncomfortable flip that reminded her... well, she really didn't want to think about what it meant.

She just had a lot going on and she wished - not for the first time - that Jean was here. Hank said it would be 'a couple more days'. What did that mean? A couple days including yesterday because that would make this day two... or was it a couple days starting on Monday? The sooner Jean and the Professor got back, the better.

Kitty stood in the middle of her (empty) bedroom. Rogue gave her some privacy, which she was grateful for. She redialed Lance and the phone rang four times - she thought she'd be stuck with an answering machine again, but then she heard the click of a pick-up and his voice on the other end, "Yeah?"

"It's Kitty."

"Yeah, I know." Right. He obviously knew her number so...

"Did Pietro tell you why I called?"

"Uh, not really."

"Are you guys in New York?"

She heard him hesitate. "...yeah."

"When did you get back?"

"We didn't, uh, leave."

"You've been in New York the whole time?" And you didn't tell me? Kitty was under the impression that Lance was leaving, like, for good. That's what it sounded like when he said he was taking S.H.I.E.L.D.'s offer of employment because there wasn't anything for him in Bayville - and trust her, that hurt - and she assumed that he was off somewhere... doing whatever, spy training (he would make the worst spy, she thought).

"...yeah."

"Wow, okay."

"Kitty..."

"No, it's... fine," totally fine, she wasn't mad at all - in fact, she was over it, remember? "I know you hate flying so that's... just great." There was silence on the other end of the line, until Kitty spoke again. Did she sound annoyed? She was annoyed. "So, I was calling to ask if you knew whether or not S.H.I.E.L.D. was still into kidnapping people? Like they tried to do with Laura?"

"Who?"

"X-23." She took a name for herself. Kitty forgot that most people outside of the Institute wouldn't know her, let alone what she was going by.

"Uh, I dunno." Not the answer she was looking for, and all of a sudden he got defensive. "I didn't do it, if that's what you're getting at."

"I know you didn't do it, I was there."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to kidnap somebody?"

"Well, we don't know if it was S.H.I.E.L.D., that's why I called. Whoever it was went after a mutant," and Kitty knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. was really interested in mutants lately - enough to offer jobs to the one-time enemies of the X-Men.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. They were human, it was no big deal." But if the X-Men hadn't been there, it could've been a big deal. "So was it S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I dunno, Kitty. I didn't hear anything."

"Would you tell me if you had?"

"C'mon, Kitty." He sounded exasperated.

"Fine," she relented, "Thanks anyway." That was a bust on the S.H.I.E.L.D. front. Either they weren't involved, or they just weren't talking about it in front of their brand-new mutant recruits. That was a real possibility.

"Yeah." So, that was it? Kitty didn't know what else to add. She opened her mouth to say she was hanging up now when Lance spoke again. "There's one more thing," he said belatedly.

"What?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. knows that Mastermind's back. They caught him on surveillance... uh, somewhere in the city."

Mastermind. How did she know that name? "That's the guy who... altered Wanda's memories, right?"

"Yeah." For Magneto. He did that so that she couldn't remember what he did to her - locking her away in an institution for years because her powers made her too dangerous. And there was no reversing what Mastermind had done, so everybody just lived with the lie.

"What's he doing here?"

"I dunno. Pietro's checking it out."

"Okay. Well, um, thanks."

"Yeah."

"I should probably get back," Kitty added with forced lightness, "But it was nice talking to you." 'I guess.' "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Yeah."

"Bye Lance." He was as talkative as she remembered… which was not very. They used to talk on the phone a lot but that was when they still had some stuff in common - like going to school, and living in Bayville. Kitty couldn't believe he hadn't told her about New York, that he had never even left. And she was even more frustrated by the fact that it bothered her. He didn't owe her anything, they weren't 'together' anymore, so why did it hurt her feelings?

Bamf.

"Kurt, go away." She shoved her phone up under her pillow.

He brushed off her annoyance and raised his brows. "Don't you want to see Jean?" he asked innocently.

"What?"

Kurt flashed her a toothy grin. "Scott just got a call," he said, "They're less than an hour away."

"Let's go." Kitty wanted to go downstairs and be there to welcome them - so Kurt took her by the hand and they both teleported to the foyer, joining Scott. Jean and the Professor were finally coming home. That was the best news Kitty had heard all day.