Overly Warm Welcome [Xavier, later open]

[Clement Evans]

((Violence warning))

The three of them, the Vermont social worker, the Hammel recruiter, and Clement, had driven across the country rather than fly. Clement was too volatile to take on a plane, especially with a physical meta power that would attract unwanted attention. The car trip allowed the two men to get some shopping done as well. Clement had just the pair of poorly fitting jeans they'd fished out of the hospital's donations and three ratty t-shirts to his name. For the first time in his life, Clement had a full compliment of new clothes. He even had new sneakers, but had kept the old ones because they still fit, hand-me-downs from Minho. They were in a paper bag, still in the second file box. Clement had not unpacked. His new jeans were plain and a little stiff, his t-shirt red, his new sneakers white with blue stripes.

It was a lot to take in. Being meta. His dad dying. Vermont. Most of all, not seeing Minho every day. And it was weird to hear nothing but English. To have to speak it exclusively. It was harder and more annoying than Clement thought it would be.

Clement was dealing with it by not dealing with it. He was walking around, taking in all the... the... nature, he guessed. He'd never seen trees like this in person in his life, or so many of them in one place. They were fucking everywhere. And the grass was so prickly and green and strong. Sometimes even sharp. Too scratchy to sit on. The buildings and streets looked like the intruders, not the other way around. And the houses and businesses all had... space. Around them. Everything was green or blue instead of grey or black in Clement's smeary vision. And the whole place smelled... like... dirt.

Classes were finishing up, but he knew he'd be back in sixth grade come fall. The teachers wanted to test him to see what he knew, but he'd gotten lost pretty quick and hadn't cared. There was a big open place, sort of like a park, and he wandered over to it. There were a ton of trees there too. Trees that didn't have wads of gum smashed into the bark or staples and bits of old fliers stuck to them or carved swear words. Clement walked from tree to tree, looking up into the branches.

It was a tree way off to one side, near a wall, shorter than the others, that had something that glinted in it. Something that refracted a pinpoint of sunlight in a way he knew meant metal. Clement had never climbed a tree before, but a short run toward it and two steps up the trunk that lost him both his new shoes got him up to the first branch. The shoes were already loose so they wouldn't break if he popped the armor, but Clement was surprised when they came off so easily. They were safe on the ground, so he left them, feet sockless and bare.

The Hammel recruiter had told Clement there was a low tolerance of funny business at the school, so he was more than a little startled (and smug) to find that the metal was actually three cans of beer of a six-pack that hung from an empty plastic ring on a broken off branch. Clement had had beer, but didn't like it. More than once it had been the only food in the trailer, and he hadn't been so prudish as to go hungry rather than drink half a can. Drinking at 13 and 14 probably meant he was going to die in jail or have retarded kids or something else terrible, but Clement thought that if the people who researched all that shit really cared, the trailer would've had some bread and jelly in it.

Pulling a can off the ring carefully, he popped the top and drank. It was piss warm and more than a little flat, but not as bitter as whatever it had been his dad had liked. He didn't think about whose beer it was. If they were a student they'd picked a shitty place to hide their illegal liquor, and if they were a teacher then the school probably wasn't going to be as bad as Clement had seen so far.

First can drunk, Clement let it fall to the grass below and then considered. If he got tipsy at all, climbing down was going to hurt. He slid his hand through an empty ring and lowered himself till he could drop from the lowest branch and then sat facing away from the school and popped the second beer, laying the last can in its rings on the grass. He sat on his shoes, feeling the grass on his feet bottoms. Still scratchy.

[Xavier O'Conner]

Xavier had a really bad day. Everything just wasn't going his way. He woke up with his bed on fire, got yelled at by a teacher, and to top it off he had no beer in his room. Now he had to walk all of the way through the courtyard to the last beers he had. He had hidden them in a pretty obvious place, up in a tree, but no one would see it unless they were specifically looking for it, or with nothing to do and was wandering aimlessly.

Xavier went out into the courtyard and headed straight for where he hid his beer. He was on a mission and wasn't going to pretend something wasn't hidden there because the beer would be finished by the time someone found him. He finally faced the tree only to find a young kid enjoying his beer. Way to make his day worse.

" What the hell!!!!!!" Xavier shouted at the kid. Xavier's skin was already burning when he came outside and this little bit was enough for it to light. His arms went up first and then it quickly spread across his chest. " How did you get my beer?" It was obvious how, but Xavier was still fuming and couldn't fathom that someone stupid kid had gotten into it and drank two of them already. Xavier walked up and snatched the last beer. He opened it and slurped it all up.

Xavier changed his attention back to the kid. " Are you asking for a fight?" Xavier wasn't really asking, he was telling. This kid better have some kind of defense because he was going to get a lesson that he won't soon forget.

[Clement Evans]

He'd never realized grass had a smell. But it did. It was... a little how the beer tasted. A little bitter, a little sweet, a little sharp. It smelled green too. Clement had never associated a scent with a color before, but it felt right. It also had that 'dirt' smell underneath all of it, same as everything in Vermont seemed to, but the dirt smell wasn't... well, wasn't too bad. It was tentatively better than what Clement was around normally, the car exhaust and sun-baked trash and leftover fumes from cigarettes and fast food places. It was the unfamiliarity of it that Clement didn't like, how it constantly pointed out (and underscored and bold-ed and italic-ed) that this wasn't L.A., it wasn't anything like L.A., didn't want to be and was glad not to be L.A.

Clement wondered if he'd be so hung up on how things smelled if he could see better, but it was a brief thought that didn't get any further when he heard the voice.

"What the hell!!!!!!"

Clement knew immediately that he was in the presence of the beer's owner and that it was a fellow student, two things that automatically made him feel superior. And a little excited. There was a fight in that voice, and for once Clement didn't think he'd need too much by way of physical provocation to happily vent some of his anger. He got warily to his feet and knew he wouldn't have time to put his shoes on. It was too bad, they'd be an asset against a kid that much bigger than he was.

And then the kid started on fire.

Various swear words overlaid the thought meta school is going to suck. Clement dropped his unfinished beer (more than 2/3 gone). His head felt slow now that he had to concentrate on something, and he knew he was probably at least half drunk. Breakfast had been awhile ago, so he'd just had about one and a half beers on an empty stomach.

"How did you get my beer?"

"Anyone could get it," he replied, which was the truth. The hiding place was about the same as stashing something under a public park bench. Clement's mouth wanted to say something idiotic like 'are you really on fire', but he could feel the heat from where he stood.

The kid's shirt was going up and he just stood there like it happened all the time, chugging the can left. Clement knew if he made a break for it this kid would be the kind to run him down, and the last thing he wanted was to be jumped from behind by a dude on fire. His first day at a new school was not the greatest time to be given a real life example of how bad decisions gave equally poor results, but in Clement's defense it wasn't often that hidden caches of liquor belonged to teenage pyros with poor control.

...In a wider world view, anyway.

In less time than Clement had ever seen anyone finish twelve ounces of anything, the can in the big kid's hands was empty. And the kid was still merrily blazing away. Normally undaunted in the face of a challenge, Clement felt the whole fire thing was unfair and where was his stupid armor when he needed it? His arms weren't even changing color.

"Are you asking for a fight?"

A lesser kid than Clement (or perhaps a smarter one) would've unleashed taunts about the obvious size difference between them, or something about how it was playing dirty to be on fire against someone who wasn't, but one of the places Clement wasn't very talkative was a fight situation.

When his knees bent and his hands curled into fists, something in his body sent a message to his meta parts that he was about to go through with something stupider than usual and-

"YA! Sshibal!*" Armor from fingertips to shoulders. Clement blinked till the white spots cleared from his vision. The pain only lasted about three seconds, but it was bad. His chest was grey-blue to the base of his neck, and that made him nervous. Armor in a fight could be handy; armor popping in the middle of a fight would be a distraction he couldn't afford with the Human Torch. And he didn't know if the stuff was fireproof yet.

Curling his fists again, Clement let his posture show that he was willing. But that the first step would be up to tall, blond, and flame-y.



*ya - a word Koreans use to express anger, no English equivalent.
*sshibal - fuck

[Xavier O'Conner]

His beer wasn't hidden that well, but Xavier didn't care all that much. He thought people had the better sense not to drink someone else's beer. Especially if the owner was pissed off in general and needed his beer. Although the kid had no idea of any of this but that didn't matter to Xavier.

The fast put on of armor by the kid didn't even phase Xavier's mind. He was too busy planning his first punch. Xavier had plenty of muscle that traveled well with a flaming punch. Taking a defense position was a bad idea. The only good idea would have been to run far away and to not look back.

Xavier ran forward and threw the first punch not even hesitating. He wasn't going to stop. He wasn't even thinking stop. He threw a couple punches out trying to get any damage he could as fast as he could.

This kid had messed with the wrong person on the wrong day. Xavier's bad side wasn't pretty and sadly this kid was getting it hard. Even if he dodged the punches there was always the fire to contend with and Xavier was close and not moving backwards. Xavier towered over the kid and his flames heated to his anger. Xavier's mind was focused only on his rage and seemed more out of control than it had been in a while. Xavier was way past talking.

[Clement Evans]

Normally Clement did have better sense, but he was 3000 miles from his family, belonged body and soul to the state of Vermont, and had spent the last four days speaking nothing but English. He was running high on indignation and low on judgment, and figured any kid dumb enough to hide his beer in a tree deserved to have it picked like the forbidden fruit it was. Of course there were consequences, but being beat down by a kid over a foot taller on fucking fire was less After School Special and more COPS. Or maybe Cirque du Soleil. Well, it didn't matter, Clement's never seen any of them. It was just bad.

The kid vaulted forward, his long legs making the distance between them two giant steps, and Clement had just enough time to throw his armored arms up to deflect the first punch. The power behind it slammed Clement back against the tree, the rough bark skinning red hashmarks along his spine through his t-shirt. Between the first and second punches Clement's shout of anger cut off as his whole body armored up. When his hands dropped the kid got in a face hit, but it hit the armored mask and Clement didn't feel a thing. Which was great, because this kid could punch. Feel it or not, the force of it made the back of his head crash against the tree trunk and bounce off.

He was coughing. Why was he coughing? The kid was close enough that Clement could sort of see where his body was through all the fire, and he aimed a sharp kick at the dude's nuts. Looking down told him why he was coughing, too. He was on fire.

Not really him, not the armor, but his clothes. They were producing an oily black smoke that was billowing up right to the place the armor parted to let him breathe, and covering him in streaky soot. That his new clothes, his first whole set of new clothes, was getting trashed made him angry enough to try the offensive in earnest (and also kept him from dissolving in panic that he was on fire). And that he didn't know how long he could keep the armor up. So far he'd only lasted a few minutes at most.

Clement shoved himself forward with everything he had, enough to get what force he could behind a left hook he aimed at the big blond's middle chest. He didn't know he was going for the solar plexus, didn't know the word, but he knew that hits that connected where he was aiming sometimes took the wind out of a person, besides hurting like hell. Clement just went for the area he thought was where the kid's ribcage parted and put all of his 90 pounds into it.

The effort made him breathe hard, and he inhaled more smoke. Clement bent over, coughing, his clothes still burning, though there wasn't much left past a ring at his neck and another at his waist. He could hear the blows connecting but not feel them. It was strange, like he was inside a room and someone was knocking on the door.

And it was about to give out on him. Clement could feel the armor loosening in the way it did that said it was about to curl back inside him or whatever the fuck it did when it went away. The only thing he could think of was getting in one last hit, and he aimed his sturdily armored foot at the kid's knee in a stomp.

There was no pain when the armor dissipated, but he was still coughing, and the neck and waistband of his clothes still burned, turning the skin they rested on red. Clement noted dully that he was naked, and wondered if it would make a difference.

Probably not.

This was going to hurt.

[Xavier O'Conner]

Punching someone usually caused some sort of bruising or cuts on someone's hands but punching armor did worse. Xavier's hands were destroyed but he was too much in a rage to care or feel the pain in any way.

Xavier was all into causing as much damage as he possibly could and as hard as he could. Punching the kid up to a tree and another punch aimed at his head throwing it back. He was not expecting the kid to fight back. The kick to the groin slowed him down as he bent over in pain. That was the only pain that registered on his mind and it only made him angrier.

Xavier stood back up only to get mauled over by a hard punch to his chest. It knocked his breath out and already a bruise stared to form. he had backed up a few steps and caught his breath again before continuing his punch rampage.

Xavier had burned all of his clothes to shreds and had burnt his opponents. None of that mattered. He had burnt off his clothes before and was too busy getting all of his anger out on this kid for it to even matter. He didn't even notice Clement's armor disappear. The stomp on Xavier's knee did almost nothing and Xavier just continued on.

Xavier aimed one hard hit at Clement's face before sending some quick hard jabs at his stomach. Xavier wasn't even close to calming down at this point. Everything that had gone wrong that Xavier had shoved away came out and at this kid.

Xavier pushed the kid up to the tree and held him their with the kids feet off the ground. Xavier's fire was burning hard and he was panting as well. He could so easily change his hold and choke the kid and it was crossing his mind. All of his reason and judgment got clouded by his rage and pain. It was all getting let out and there was no way to stop it. The choke hold option was only there for a second, but it passed. Xavier stared up at this younger kid that he held against the tree by his shoulders in obvious pain against Xavier burning him.

[Clement Evans]

He saw the fist coming but not in time to do anything. Clement's vision was nothing but big dots of color, wavery with tears from the smoke with little white dots that exploded around the edges every time he coughed. The fist was a shape that filled his sight till he felt the pain. Clement let out a strangled mewing noise, half exhalation, half smoke-roughened squeak. His nose broke in a burst of blood and a hairline fracture cracked down Clement's left cheekbone. As a kid who'd spent years getting less than a thousand calories a day with no regard toward proper nutrition, his bones broke easily. Two ribs went, a third cracked, the breath whooshed out of him and he gasped. The points of contact left fist-shaped burns that started bleeding, darkly red and shiny, the blood crackling in the heat and flames.

Clement couldn't breathe. His nose was gushing, his throat felt squeezed, he'd had the air punched out of his chest, and he was still coughing. He couldn't get enough air. He choked on what tried to be a gasp when the burning hands pressed his shoulders against the tree. Clement was three feet off the ground and had just realized what he was smelling wasn't dirt anymore, it was his own burning skin, when he passed out. Lack of oxygen. His chest rose and fell shallowly, furiously, trying to fill lungs crowded with smoke.

Xavier's hands bled as he held Clement pinned against the tree trunk. The knuckles were split, and three of the fingers were broken, two on the right and one on the left. Punching armor had its drawbacks.

[enter the Seangularity]

((ooc: Xavier's injuries listed with Sly's permission.))

[Dr. Sean Neville]

As a telepath, Sean Neville occupied a relatively nebulous social space and walked a thin line between respecting the boundaries of others while maintaining social responsibility. In his personal life, the psychiatrist was a bit more willing to err on the side of boundaries. But, as the Hammel psychiatrist, Sean had certain duties towards the students and the other staff members. This was why he was more focused and attuned at Hammel, even if he kept his mental shields up most of the day while in public.

As such, Sean had become aware of the fight in the courtyard before catching sight of it visually, and without being informed by another person. He detested fights, both ones that involved students as well as ones with adults on principle. Violence was distressing, it was a last resort to be used only in self-defense, and he wouldn’t have it at Hammel under his watch.

He was out of his office immediately upon sensing the fight, making his way quickly (as quick as his middle-aged body would allow him to move) to the courtyard. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quick enough, for when he arrived, one of the boys was naked, and both of them sported injuries.

The naked boy was covered in blood, and from a quick assessment, was also malnourished. He was being held up against a tree by unnecessary force by the other boy, whom the psychiatrist recognized as Xavier O’Conner. The billowing smoke confirmed that this was Xavier, one of the few pyrokinetics currently at Hammel. More than that, Sean knew Sam wouldn’t be involved in this.

None of this was acceptable.

His first duty was to end the violence and to make sure both boys received proper medical attention. His second duty was to sort out causation, and his third was to administer appropriate discipline.

His expression disapproving, he crossed with his long stride to the tree, prepared to separate the two. “Let him go, Xavier,” he said, voice stern. “Now.”

[Xavier O'Conner]

" Let him go, Xavier, Now."

Xavier was to focused on his rampage to notice that Sean had walked up. He did hear the words and they surprised him enough to remove his arm. Clement, being unconscious, slipped back down to the ground. He was indeed covered in blood from his nose and Xavier's bloody hands punching him.

Xavier's finger and knuckles were destroyed. Clement's armor had smashed them and it didn't help that he kept punching after his fingers were already broken. The bruise on his chest was now all of the way black and in the shape of Clement's fist. Clement was in way worse shape than Xavier. He had passed out from the smoke from Xavier's fire and from not being able to breath from his now broken nose.

Xavier hadn't meant to take it this far. Everything had piled up and was put out in this fight. Xavier turned to Dr. Sean and faced him, but couldn't bring himself to make eye contact. The rage still swelled in his head. His fire kept going creating black smoke with it. It was hard to calm down a raging fire much less a kid on fire.

Xavier turned his head and looked over at Clement. He had screwed up big time and now he was facing a guy who could get into his head and that happened to be the one thing he didn't want to happen. He had stuff in his head he didn't want anyone to know. He hadn't been in this kind of situation in a very long time.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

No matter the effort that Sean expended, he would never be his mentor, Robert Hopkins. This meant that he would never have the ability to help non-psychics to control their powers, as he wasn’t a powers trainer. It also meant that, as patient as he was, he wouldn’t face a fire with the Dalai Lama’s smile on his lips.

If only he also possessed telekinesis, then he would have been able to catch Clement’s body before it fell to the ground. Unable to do that, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket in order to create a barrier between his lungs and the smoke. With that in place, he moved past Xavier and came to his knees beside Clement’s unconscious form. Without moving the boy’s body – as it was quite possible that he had neck or back damage – he began to check him for the most immediate matters requiring medical attention.

That his back was turned and his mouth obfuscated by a handkerchief had no bearing on his ability to communicate. That was one of the benefits of telepathy. Projecting into Xavier’s mind, he commanded, Tell me, from the very beginning, what happened here.

As soon as Clement was stabilized, he would be able to check Xavier’s health. Then, it would be to Nik’s office with both of them.

[Christian Lucas]

Broken ribs aren't easy to heal. They take some time before you can breath properly and it can be months before the pain is entirely gone. So in Chris' left side, even now, three weeks after breaking two ribs, he could feel a constant ache. Every breath gave a slight tinge of pain and any time he reached too far on that side he would have to take a sharp breath to fight against the pain. It certainly slowed him down in his day to day life, but he had only been in the hospital for two days anyways so when he had returned so soon a few other teachers had been concerned. He'd made a name for himself, that was for certain. The teacher who jumped out of side of a building to try and protect his students.

He had of course been subject to playful teasing by people. Suggestions to avoid windows, people asking if he was afraid of ladders now. But it was all in good fun. He would smile along with those making the joke, and just keep on. His classes had actually gained more popularity since the incident too. Apparently his exploit had spread and even been exaggerated by the student body. Some of the students that were less familiar with his power seemed to think he had super strength or a very aggressive form of telekinesis. One had asked him if he could only blow up walls or other things too. This kept Christian on his toes but it was also somewhat tiring to keep having to explain otherwise.

Now, with his ribs healed up to a point and classes more or less back to normal Chris had gone back to his wandering the school campus when he wasn't teaching. It let him think better when he was moving and he constantly met new students and kept tabs on things. He was pretty good at relating to them and helping them with problems and in return they kept him informed on the current gossip. It was nice to be trusted by them, and he did his best to avoid damaging their trust. Occasionally he'd have to take it up with one of the other staff members, especially Dr. Neville for the bigger ones, but usually it was pretty easy to keep the issues minor and help with petty disputes.

Today he had no classes at all. It was strange that way, coinciding with some other school function or some such. He had shown up anyways, despite his lack of any actual paperwork right now. His main reason being that he had nothing at home other than Mozzie. But even his ferret wasn't enough to keep his mind busy. So he let the school be his distraction. The constant movement and buzz of the school kept him awake and happy. Unfortunately today there was also a bit of extra buzz at a certain point in the day. He heard someone yelling for help near the courtyard. Apparently there was a fight and someone was being hurt. Never a quite day. So he rushed to the supposed location of the fight.

He arrived there just as Sean was pulling his handkerchief out and pressing it to his face. Chris kept back for a few moments as he assessed the situation. Xavier and some other boy. The kid reminded him of many children he had seen in African countries, his cheekbones pressing against his skin like knives just about to cut through cloth. Now though this cloth was covered in blood that had been pouring out from an obviously broken nose. The way the kid was breathing suggested something was wrong with his chest, and that's when Chris noticed through a patch in the shirt, that it seemed this unnamed child had at least one broken rib. Chris' own ribs ached in sympathy.

The good doctor obviously had this part in hand for the moment. Chris' first reaction was to jump in and help him, but he knew the first step was to get help. Pulling his cell phone out he called the emergency number and explained as quickly as he could what was happening. As he was talking he saw Xavier. The boy's hands were ripped up and bloodied, and he was entirely naked. Obviously his power had taken hold of him again. The burns on the younger boy certainly implied that it was Xavier who had done the damages. As Chris observed this, he also spotted three half melted beer cans. Xavier had been drunk for this?

Crossing over to Xavier as he finished talking on the phone, he grabbed his still hot shoulder and dragged him by it until they were about ten yards away from the tree. "Speak. Now." It was obvious that Christian was not happy about this. He had high expectations from Xavier, and every time he did something this dumb, he was taking one step closer to juvie or worse, jail. So now that something this major had happened, Chris expected a damned good reason for such unacceptable actions.

[Xavier O'Conner]

Xavier had a lot of explaining to do. He didn't have much choice to give them or not. If he didn't give them then Sean could probably search his mind and find it easily or ask the other kid which would probably give the answers happily if asked for them. Xavier didn't want to give any words. he didn't like the idea of explaining what he had done. Instead Xavier sent pictures leading through what had happened. He tried forgetting some of them, but they were fresh in his mind.

Christian was not the guy Xavier wanted to see. Chris had a knack for finding Xavier in his worst moments with this being one of them. Xavier was glad that Chris was out of the hospital, but in all honesty, Xavier had been avoiding him. He had made Chris a promise to try harder and this was not trying harder.

Xavier let Chris pull him away from the tree a little bit. He wasn't on fire anymore but his skin was still hot to the touch and smoke was still coming off of him. He couldn't even begin to explain himself to Chris. How was he even supposed to? Xavier could have easily ended a life over nothing and all he had earned was broken fingers and bloody knuckles. Xavier went for the awkward silence instead and couldn't make eye contact with anyone. He was looking for any place to run and he knew his eyes would give it away.

He knew they were broken the moment the pain started coming back. He couldn't uncurl his fist with out getting a wave of pain and nausea. His knuckles continued to bleed freely down his arm and onto the ground.

Being naked was not his biggest problem and he wasn't too worried about it while being sort of hidden by the trees. Xavier had screwed up royally and now he wasn't sure he cold face the consequences.

[Mia Bell]

Mia walked out of her last class for the day. It was weird still being in classes this time of the year, she was used to getting out in the beginning of June, not the end of June. In a month, it would be a year since she came to Hammel. At least that anniversary was a good and positive one. She just wished it wasn’t as close as the other two anniversaries that were negative.

As she walked through the courtyard, she had decided to do some poetry writing, and enjoy the fresh air. But that idea quickly left her mind when she saw Dr. Neville hovering over a young boy who had been obviously beaten half to death. She ran over to Sean, “Dr. Neville! What happened? Is he okay?” She hadn’t even noticed Xavier and Chris. It was a good thing she hadn’t right now either, Xavier was in enough trouble at this point in time. And when Mia did put the pieces together and finds out Xavier did do this, and why he did it; he might just lose a friend. Mia doesn’t like violence, or bullies, or even alcohol; and she especially wouldn’t like those three put together. If she found out that this was the kind of person Xavier really was, then he wasn’t someone she wanted to be friends with.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Although Sean’s back was turned and he was physically focused on Clement, he still sensed Christian’s arrival. He was grateful for the younger man’s sudden appearance, since the fight was severe enough that any additional (responsible) hands were welcome.

Before he could ask, Christian had already pulled out his cell phone to call for emergency medical assistance. That was another reason for the psychiatrist to be grateful. While Sean kept up to date with his First Aid and other medical requirements, as dictated by his license, he was not a physician or a paramedic. It was better to have an expert in physical medicine on hand, particularly given how severe Clement’s injuries were.

Around him, the smoke began to dissipate, which told him that Xavier was beginning to calm himself. That was also a good step, since it meant that they would be safer, without threat of new fire. It also meant that, after a moment or two, he would be able to breathe, and could have use of both of his hands.

As soon as the air was clear, Sean dropped the handkerchief to the ground, taking a deep breath as he continue to examine the boy in front of him. Already, he could see that the armored boy’s ribs were in bad shaped, possibly cracked or worse. To Christian, he projected, We’ll need a stretcher for him..

Not hearing a response from Xavier, either verbally or within his mind, Sean spoke mentally to the boy. Answer him, Xavier. You’ve been asked twice now.

It wasn’t merely a matter of sorting through information for discipline and punishment. They couldn’t administer proper medical attention without knowing what had transpired. While the psychiatrist could simply find that information in the boy’s mind, he didn’t want to do that; he wanted Xavier to have a chance to explain for himself.

Although, Sean also didn’t want an audience for this. The boys were naked and injured, and they were entitled to dignity, freedom from the prying eyes and ears of their fellow students. Thus, when the psychiatrist sensed that Mia had arrived, and mere seconds later, heard her voice address him, he looked briefly over her shoulders. “Mister Lucas and I have this under control, Mia. But if you can make sure that nobody else comes this way?”

The fewer students who saw this, the better it was for everyone involved.

[Deleted]

Oriel had seen the ruckus from his dorm window and as soon as he saw those flame spark, he was hightailing it out of his room and downstairs. Hopefully to either 1) get in on the action, or 2) keep Xavier from actually killing somebody(not that he knew how he was gonna pull that off). And if all else failed, he'd probably get to witness some prime bad-assery on the fire bender's part, he hadn't really seen Xavier in action since the foster center(especially since he'd been irrationally avoiding the flamethrower since arriving at Hammel).

By the time he arrived, though, it was already mostly over and there was not one, but two naked kids stuck at ground zero. One was definitely Xavier and Oriel had to keep himself from heckling out a whistle at him. The other kid looked like he'd just been introduced to the worse side of Xavier. Unfortunately(or fortunately depending on how you looked at it) there were also and equal amount of teachers on the scene, Dr. Neville and some other dude he never bothered to learn the name of.

And the pink-haired Mia, another girl he barely knew, but who was apparently Xavier's roommate. As Oriel ran towards the scene, he slowed, unsure if he should continue, but still wanting to make sure his friend(?) was more or less Ok.