Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Jacen Daniels," he said as he extended his good hand out in a gesture of friendship. Unfortunately, it was bad form to shake with the left hand, but thankfully the indiscretion was not noticed. "Oh...sorry about the wiring. I might have had a hand in that...," he said as he handed her another tool that she asked for.

"No worries," Kylia said as she climbed back up in the systems and started to work more. Jacen thought for a second. It seemed this kid was a mechanical wizard, as it only took her maybe two passes with what she was working with to fix whatever problem was there. Of course, that allowed her to move onto the next problem with the systems.

"Hrm....well...I hate to say this, Kylia, but I should continue my patrols," he said as he turned and started to go on his way. "By the way, it was nice meeting you, miss...OH! We're having a rather large Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, stuffing, the whole shebang. It goes without saying that you're invited." He couldn't tell if she heard him or not, so he just shrugged his shoulders and kept on his way. Passing the infirmary, he noticed Hank STILL in there toiling away.

"Hank. You going to join us for dinner?"

"Yes....I'll be on my way, but first...." McCoy seemed intent on finishing his work. Jacen could respect that, yet at the same time was dumbfounded at how he could work in the labs for days on end without rest.

"Alright, but I should let you know I'm locking down all entrances to the basement."

"Very well, I shall be along shortly."

Jacen nodded and went about his way. As he walked along, he saw an out-of-the-way elevator chute. He didn't really know where it led, but he was willing to take a gamble. Better to pop up somewhere unexpected than to take a secret passage and wind up in plain sight of everyone. The particular elevator he took led to a room that he'd not seen before. Of course, he wasn't exactly a student, but one would have thought he would have known about this. It was a relatively small music room with not much in the way of equipment. There were a few trombones, coronets, clarinets, and the like but the one thing that caught Jacen's eye was the lone guitar and amp sitting all by it's lonesome in the corner. "Interesting that I wasn't told about this," he said as he walked over and looked over the instrument. The more he looked at it, the more he realized that he didn't really want to see everyone. Of course, the instrument was a good one, even though it was a Les Paul knock-off, but that was to be expected with training gear.

With one switch flipped, and one cord plugged in, Jacen pulled up a seat and set the guitar on his lap. He strummed through a few chords quietly, remembering some basic positions before launching into a slew of scales up and down the guitar neck. After nailing note for note a pentatonic A Minor scale, Jacen decided to amp it up a bit. With a sly grin, he cranked up the volume knob and hit a button on the amp, and with a flick of the wrist, a basic E5 chord was struck. He felt the rumble through his body before downtuning the bottom string and launching into an assault of some of the various songs he could remember. As much as he knew he should be there to at least meet Penance's sisters, he just wanted to stay away from the crowd and do his own thing.

"Pleased to meet you too. It's always nice to meet Morgan's friends," his father said, accepting the handshake and smiling warmly. Glancing between Morgan and Cathy, his mum then turned to his father. "Dear, perhaps we should go and find somewhere to place our coats," she said, winking at Morgan. "Huh? Oh yeah, the coats. Well, we'll catch up with you later son," his father said, patting him on the shoulder.

Morgan smirked. His mum obviously thought that Cathy and Morgan were a couple, even though they had just started hanging out today. Though, one had to admit that they seemed to look natural together.

Ha!! Admit it, you like her!!

I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incrimnate myself.

You can't do that against your conscience, you know.

...

Quiet, you.

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Raze simply remained silent, but kept the cheerful smile on his face. He knew better than to interrupt this moment between Rachael and her uncle.

"Of course! This place is my home," Raze replied. He wasn't kidding, either. This place had become his home since he'd first arrived. He had no one else, but here, he had a family, the kind that he'd never known.

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"It is. I consider myself blessed when I see some of the others here. For some of these kids, their parents were the first to turn on them. And other's never had parents," he said, his tone becoming slightly subdued. "Why do you ask?" he said.
Something about her tone when she asked told him that she felt awkward here, when so many of the students had family with them.

Regina looked up as Porter entered the kitchen. "Hey. Penny's saving us seats at the feast tonight, if you don't have anywhere else to be."

"Sounds good. What are you making anyway?" he asked, leaning over what she was messing with.

"Get any closer and I'll have to ban you from the kitchen." Regina teased, lightly tapping him on the nose, making it white.

"Hey hey... No need to get vicious." Porter laughed but backed up. "Just wanted to see what was holding you up... There's someone looking for you."

"Oh." was her only response. "My parents... They have no idea about all this... They just think this is a high class school... "

Sonya's face was now the shade of a tomato from the comment that Markus's brother made. "Actually, she's my cousin's daughter," she said. Ana hugged Markus tightly as if to differ. Sonya then noticed that Markus's brother was looking at her. Actually...more like checking her out.

"Oh Aunt Cassy, Pietro's a really good father to Ana," assured Sasha. Although his sister is crazy and his father is the evilest mutant out there. Aunt Cassy looked at Pietro. Then surprislingly hugged him. "Welcome to the family," she said, "Oh if you'll excuse me I need to find the ladies room," and walked off. After Pietro pulled himself together, Sasha finally spoke to him. "You know, Ana's life is endangered. I think your sister is fine, but your father is whom I'm really concerned about. What will happen when he finds out about her?"

Ana managed to slip away from Markus and crawled over to where Morgan and Cathy were. She sat between Morgan's feet and began untieing them. Then somehow managed to tie them to each other. Ana giggled. twisted Then she crawled over to Cathy, wanting something to drink.

Kade had walked into the kitchen. He sniffed at the air..."MMmnnn.. food"
And then went straight for the fridge. He bent over and peered throughout all the draws in search of something delictable. He reached in and pulled out a green apple...
"Mmmn..." He then peared around at the others looming amongst the kitchen. He cracked a smile after taking a bite out of the apple that hung in his hand.
"Hello..."

"Well..." Pietro began, "I'd like to say that can't happen, but with dad you never know."

He sighed sadly. "All I can say for sure is that I'll fight him to the death before I allow him to ******** with her head. He'd probably turn her into a mindless henchman just to spite me... ******** b*****d..."

It was weird that only a year ago, Pietro had still been powerfully devoted to his father, confident in his return. And yet now, seeing how mutant aggression had only lead to further hatred toward his kind, and the way everyone Magneto seemed to touch went straight to hell... he knew that he couldn't possibly put little Ana through the same thing.

Speaking of which...

"Hey, where'd the kid get off to?" he asked, noticing that she'd wandered away from Markus and Sonya. Trying to keep a cooler head this time, Pietro strolled out into the living quarters, searching for his girl, who was, if she was anything like her father, off causing mischief.

Jacen had forgotten how taxing it was having to use your whole arm to play guitar, and readily put the thing down after a short while of playing. "Damn arm's throbbing," he said to himself as he hit the switch on the amp and proceeded to head out of the room.

Shutting the light off and the door behind him, Jacen was surprised to see that there was no one really wandering these particular halls. He figured someone would be giving a grand tour of the grounds, but it didn't look that way at all. Thinking nothing of it, Jacen walked down the hall with a grimace on his face. His injury was causing a small amount of discomfort.

He had passed quite a few people, and students here. Most of them were introducing other students to various family members. After winding his way through the crowds, he saw Penance sitting at the rather large dining table with her sisters.

"Hey babe," Jacen said to Penance as he walked up behind the three.

"Hi," she said while he took a seat next to her youngest sister. "These are my sisters, Dawn and Avril."

"Hi," Jacen said with a smile on his face as he extended his good hand to the young kids, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to come out to visit when I said I would."

"It's ok," Dawn said as she shook his hand, "We watched the news and know you had a reason." Avril was a little less talkative and didn't shake Jacen's hand readily.

"What's the matter, Avril?," Penance asked, "You were asking where he was."

"Don't worry about it, Ev," Jacen said. "I'm sure she'll talk to me when she wants to." Just as he said that, Avril climbed up in his lap. The advantages of being a young kid. "Heh, see?"

"See, I was right," Dawn said, a smug sense of righteousness awash over her young face. Penance laughed, and Jacen only sat there puzzled. He didn't know what exactly they were going on about, and he figured it was best he didn't. Still with Avril on his lap, he hopped over to the seat next to Penance and turned slightly to face the two.

"I'm assuming dinner will be soon?," Jacen asked, "I've not eaten a thing yet, and I'm about ready to find Sauron and turn him into ptero-steaks..."