Unfortunately, Beth didn't come that night. I didn't have any dreams that I could remember, but I slept well. When I woke, I found that it was raining and I had made a mess of my room from sleeping in my ice form. The sheets were soaked from melting ice and the thermostat was workin' double time to keep my room at seventy-two. I tried to amend the situation my absorbing the melted water and I resolved never to sleep in that form again.

I put on a sweatshirt and jeans and slung my back pack over my shoulder. In the bathroom, I combed my hair and put it back with a clip. On my way out from the dorm, I stopped by the laundry room to pick out a clean uniform. The stack of dirty things vastly outnumbered the stack of clean. I figured it was time to do a little laundry today, but hoped that someone else would do it before me. While it wasn't the toughest job on campus, laundry duty had to be one of the most obnoxious.

In my ice form, I ran to the Med-Lab for a change of bandages. Then, I joined everyone else in the kitchen for breakfast. The refrigerator was stuffed from Sean's early morning jaunt to the grocery. I finally decided on a bagel with strawberry cream cheese and a glass of Pepsi and orange juice. It was a bizarre mixture that Jubilee and I had discovered some weeks ago, purely by accident. It actually doesn't taste too bad, and is a sure fire way to become hyper. While I can't profess to know the science behind it, it's results are as effective as a Mountain Dew.

Paige winced as I sipped on it. Inwardly I was wincing too, it wasn't very good with a bagel. However, I persevered through it because I wanted to have plenty of energy today. Not for any particular reason, but because I had felt dead through most of yesterday and didn't want to have a repeat day.

When Emma came in, she announced that we would not be having dinner in Boston as we had thought. Too bad, we usually ate at Cheungs Chinese Express, and that wasn't a bad thing. Despite my first and rather unsuccessful attempt at eating there a few years ago, I found, after a few trips, it was one of the best places in Boston to eat. Almost as good as the Plate'o'Beans. Ya know, now that I think about it, most of our restaurant experiences have had rather traumatic results. Maybe eating in today wasn't such a bad idea.

After finishing breakfast, I took a route through the building to class. My first three classes and lunch passed without incident. However, fifth period Mutagenic Sciences was a nightmare; our semester exams were returned to us. I scored a low B, which was one of the better grades in the class. (M, of course, got a perfect grade.) Sixth hour was our training session, which we ran to through the rain.

In the locker room, Jubilee, M, and I changed into our uniforms while Paige husked into one. The room was much bigger than it needed to be, apparently from the students who attended the academy previously. It was equipped with showers, that were used if we had a class after our session.

At the moment, I was standing behind Monet, French braiding her long black hair. She had, by far, the easiest hair to braid. The fact of her being invulnerable made it easy for me to pull the braid as tight as it needed to be. It was also fun, like those Super Hair Barbies, to have so much to work with. Jubilee's hair wouldn't braid well because it was so short, and when I attempted to try it on Paige, I ended tearing her hair out...all of it. That had been a rather unpleasant experience for both of us. When I finished with M, I couldn't find a rubber band anywhere.

That's odd. I know there was a whole box of them.

But it didn't matter, I had a scrunchie in my locker. As Monet stepped away, her fingers flew to her hair, lightly touching it and searching for any imperfection. Having found none, she gave it another pat for good measure and left the room. Jubilee, Paige, and I lingered as long as we could, delaying the session, until Emma finally called us to come out.

In our absence, the others had voted on what sort of session we were going to have. I inwardly kicked myself for not having been out to vote, but I wasn't too disappointed, we were going to play a game of freeze tag. It might sound silly, or too child like, but that was far from the case. The session lasted for two hours and the rounds lasted twenty minutes each. Mutant powers were allowed and physical contact was required for a tag. The problem being, Sean and Emma were always "it". Other than the regular rules for freeze tag, it was a free-for-all.

When it begins, we have three minutes to prepare. There are of course, different approaches to the preparation. First, there is the Starsmore Approach, which is sitting in a corner of the 'sphere until you're found and then becoming extremely violent when approached by whoever is It. Then, there is the Jubilee Approach, which is to run around like a chicken with its head cut off and try and rescue those who have already been frozen. Everyone else falls somewhere in the middle. I tend to follow a path that spirals to the center of the biosphere, looking for people to untag, or to help prevent someone from being tagged.

When being stalked by Emma, she was is nearly impossible to detect; often disguising herself as one of our team mates. But she usually gives us some hint of her presence: a imperfect disguise, a telepathic glitch, a lapse in shielding. Or other times, she shows no mercy: affects us senses of perception, or directly controlling us. All in all, not a pleasant experience.

At the moment, I'm on an ice sled, low to the ground, moving slowly through the woods. The down side of using a sled is that I can be followed, but if I am tagged, someone can follow it to me. Follow me. Someone ~is~ following me!

I break through the tops of the trees and into the open space above. I go higher and faster, gaining a little more altitude. It is only then that I notice the edges of my sled splintering away and large cracks are shooting through it. I realize that no one was following me, it was a telepathic suggestion given to me by Emma, forcing me up into Seans field of vision.

I can't hear his scream, it's higher than a human can detect, but I can feel its effects in my sled and in my own body. The vibrations are painful, it feels as though I'm being ripped apart. I'm too high to risk a shift to my human form, but I have to do something soon, the pain is nearly unbearable.

To my right I see Sean flying towards me, black and yellow streamers flaring behind him, mouth opened in what seems like a silent wail. Without Emma's assistance, I don't feel confident enough to freeze his vocal cords or cause any direct pain to stop him. I'm in too much pain to try and attempt an escape, doubled over on my sled, waiting. By now he's so close my sled has shattered completely. Though, I'm confident Sean will catch me, I can't help but to be afraid as I begin to fall. Soon, I feel his hand around my waist as he snatches me from my descent. I turn to my human form try to bite back a scream from the wave of pain that washes over me. But it quickly passes and I take a deep breath.

Sean casts me an apologetic glance and he drops me rather ungracefully to the ground. I'm out of the game until someone un-freezes me, so I sit back to watch what's going on with the rest of my team mates...which isn't a heckuva lot. I don't see anyone. No, wait, I see Penny in a tree watching something. I follow her gaze to a small hill in the clearing.

Hey, there ~isn't~ a small hill in the clearing!

To my surprise (more or less) the hill is really a wave of earth moving towards me. Mondo. He passes beneath me so quickly, I'm knocked over. Then he disappears into the ground. I scramble to my feet and begin running.

When I get to the waterfall, I begin making my way up to the top. Half way there, however, someone grabs me and pulls me into a thick clump of bushes. When I turn around, I see that it is Jonothan. His psyonic energy has been toned down to a mere sputtering of blue light, but his eyes are still a vibrant red.

("Gel, you are makin' an incredible amount o' noise.")

"Sorry," I whisper. I also wonder if he pulled me back to prevent me from being tagged or vice versa.

Because I wasn't a true telepath, I couldn't shield my thoughts or telepathic voice, so I talked to him in a hushed tone. "Sparky, I know this isn't the best time, but I haven't been able to get near you in weeks. I need you to tell me what happened with Ange in LA."

He didn't look at me. ("You're right, Popsicle, this isn't the best o' times.")

That went well, I thought disappointedly.

("Look, Skin never told me to keep my mouth shut,") he paused. ("He didn't need to.")

"Will you talk to me later?"

He didn't answer because just then the bushes were torn open by a sonic scream. A second later, psionic energy explodes from Jonothan. The surrounding trees go up in an un-burning blaze of reds and oranges. Sean is trying to use his scream to blast a path through the energy, but I wouldn't count on him getting in, Jono hasn't hardly used his powers, he'll have plenty left to spend avoiding Banshee.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity I had been given, I vacated the area. Soon, I found Paige sitting down, apparently from being tagged, and I unfroze her. Not wanting to linger in the open, I left her and continued making my spiral through the 'sphere.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

"Shades of Gray" 5/? by Me. Send all comments to monet@uky.campus.mci.net