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Oppression, Resistance & Revolution: Friday

"I'm sure most of you are keen on leaving this class early," Magneto announced as he walked into the danger shop precisely as the bell rang. "Rest assured your homecoming activities can wait. Fun and frivolity has it's place. So does knowledge."

"Before the fall break we watch a movie," he continued as he began his regular circuit around the room. "About a man and his desire for a free country for his people. You may ask: what made that man different from others? For that I can give you a simple answer: conviction. As I mentioned before, just because you may take the option of non-violence does not mean it's going to be easy."

He gave his students a sinister grin and snapped his fingers. The danger shop swift changed from blank walls to what appeared to be a modern day protest. The only switch to this that there were counter protesters on the other side.

"Today, we're going to test your conviction," Magneto said with a malevolent look of glee. "And just see how well you can do. If you wish to bow out... you may. However that may tell me more about you than any other class you have taken with me so far."

He pointed at the protest going on and gestured for the class to join in. "Begin."

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"Yeah," Evan grumbled, and then stretched his hands out so that the handcuffs simply slid over his wrists. "I know."

Cassidy vanished both pairs of handcuffs.

"People tell me that my world is strange," Cassidy said softly. "But I don't think I have ever seen people treat each other so badly before I started exploring this world." She paused for a moment. "This just makes me even more determined to have a safe place for people to live in when I am assigned to an area as their Queen."

She would never consider the Jhinka to be people after what she felt and witnessed because of them.

Jhinka, nothing. Cassidy should read up sometime about some of the horrific things that humans had done over the years.

"This is kind of nothing," Evan murmured, rubbing at his wrists as his hands took on their usual shape again. "I mean, it's terrible, yeah. But I've seen worse."

And he was technically only about a year and a half old! Gold star, Earth!

If Cassidy did that then she would lose that cheerfulness and her determination to take care of everyone would reach scary levels.

"I'm sorry that you have seen worse, Evan," she said sincerely. "No one should have to."

"Well, were you in class before break, when Professor Magneto showed us what was left of Genosha?" Evan was looking at his feet, now. Because that beat the temptation of thinking that maybe he could just blow the door off the van's hinges and make his bid for freedom. "Nobody should have to, but people do. That's why we have this class at all."

Cassidy nodded. "I remember that class and I will never forget it."

She had cried later in her own room. "I've only seen one place that bad... but it wasn't humans that had caused the death and destruction. It was hard to accept it was a simulation in class and there was nothing I could do to help the people we saw."

"It doesn't matter who it is who causes that destruction," Evan said, something sharp edging into his voice. "Human, mutant, it doesn't matter. Anyone that can do something like that is a monster, a villain, and they're wrong. Humans think that people like me will do something like that, you know? That we're the dangerous, bloodthirsty ones, and so they attack us first because they can and they justify it because we're different and it doesn't matter. Humans or mutants or aliens or what, they're all just horrible people."

There was steam rising from the corners of his eyes, red-hot with frustration.

"It shouldn't matter that it wasn't humans who did it, you know. Humans are just as capable of atrocities as anyone else."

Cassidy flinched at his anger, but she didn't pull away.

"Then they're stupid," Cassidy said evenly. "I don't care if someone is human or alien or Jhinka -- you don't treat anyone like we've seen people in class be treated." Her own voice was quiet, but there was steel in her tone. "You don't hurt people because they look or sound different. You don't label them as monsters because they're not who you think they should be. I said I didn't understand why things like this happen to anyone, Evan. Just because I don't understand doesn't mean I can't see how wrong it is."

Her eyes flashed and a small flame of witchfire appeared above her hand. "And if I see someone real treating you like that then they'll get a sudden understanding of why females can be the more dangerous of the species where I'm from."

Evan looked quietly at the flame in her hand, and then shook his head, jaw clenched tightly until he was certain he could put words together without getting more upset.

"I don't need to be protected," he murmured. "Not from people like these, not from people like the ones we're talking about. If I didn't want to be in this van right now proving a point, I wouldn't be. Just because I don't choose to be dangerous doesn't mean I can't be, you know."

Hence the seething, crackling power that was occasionally skipping like tiny bolts of lightning from his fists.

"But you're not dangerous to the people who care about you," Cassidy pointed out. "You're not dangerous to people who would never think to lash out at you -- and what's wrong with the way you look?" Demanded the person who still believed you had to be a pretty girl to be a proper Queen. "And I never said you needed to be protected, but friends look out for each other. I don't like that these things happen to anyone. I get that we're supposed to be proving that we can hold out against things like this without violence, but I will not pretend that if I saw someone treating people like they way we're seeing and talking about that I wouldn't get involved."

She frowned, trying to keep her temper in check, too. It wasn't Evan's fault that this situation scraped against everything she was and everything she believed in.

"I won't apologize for wanting to fight for the people I call friend -- or wanting to protect people I don't even know from this kind of hate and violence."

"Don't apologize, then," Evan said, his mouth dry and his throat tight as he pressed his hands against the van doors. "I want to fight sometimes, too. But there's a time and a place for fighting, and fighting for the wrong things just makes people even more afraid. And fear isn't a reasonable thing. If you use powers to fight, that fear might not be directed toward you, it might turn toward everyone with powers. It doesn't have to make sense, any more than anger does. Waving fire around and talking about how you're stronger doesn't help anything. It just makes for more frightened people who want to lash out at what they don't understand."

Cassidy immediately clenched her hand and the flame of witchfire went out. She kept her hand clenched tightly closed because she was furious with herself that she had upset Evan even more.

"I never knew how to fight until I came here," she finally said. "I was -- am still sometimes frightened by the things I see because I always want to understand why something is happening. You're right, it doesn't make sense and I don't know how to stop trying to make sense out of it."

Mother Night, but she missed Ender.

"I didn't mean to make things worse, Evan. That's not who I am and I hope you know that."

"I don't think it can make sense," Evan murmured, keeping his hands on the cool metal of the doors, leaning his forehead forward against it and taking a few deep breaths to try to calm himself down. "I just know that fear just makes for more hate, and I'm really, really tired of hate and fear, Cassidy."

"I don't blame you," she said softly. She leaned her head back against the wall of the van. "I wish I could do something to help because no one should have to deal with fear and hate all of the time. Nobody."

She didn't understand how someone could be afraid of or hate Evan, but she didn't say that because she knew that it wouldn't help anything right now.

"Nobody," he agreed softly, stepping away from the doors and taking a seat again on the little bench against the van's side wall. "And maybe someday, it won't be a problem any more. Maybe. If people just keep showing that there isn't anything to be afraid of."

"I hope so because I like the idea of a world like that. I like the idea of there not being so much fear of each other."

She sighed. "The entire time out there, I didn't fight or yell or anything. I didn't lash out and all I did was shield myself when they started throwing things, but we get put in here and I'm all about growling and using my power." She shook her head. "Ender and Raven would be so disappointed in me."

To be fair, Cassidy, you didn't get like that until you thought about someone hurting your friends.

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