The fourth is an eerie ethereal waif in a flowy midnight blue dress, with big violet eyes, pale skin, and stringy raven hair, who is already looking up with interest at the group coming in from the train platform.

Eelle already knows who they are. Even with her psychic senses reigned in, she could feel the flavor of their minds long before the train actually stopped. One of them stands out from the others, stark in its purity of self-acceptance, and equally in dire need of a hug.

Here's a buxom, improbably curvy goth girl in a scandalously short black skirt and green tube-top, with bright amber eyes and an emerald streak in her jet black hair.

Despite the brisk morning chill, Cameron is comfortable, using the first of her two powers to stay warm. All she has to do is rouse her aerobic metabolism a little and numb her sweat glands, and the cold doesn't bother her.

Cameron isn't really thinking about being dressed like a whore, but that is the word she'd use if she was, and without an ounce of shame. She isn't dressed this way to make an impression, she's dressed this way to avoid making the wrong impression, so it just feels natural to her.

Eelle doesn't hesitate to walk right up and gently wrap her arms around this girl.

It's a huge invasion of privacy. Eelle has some control over her senses at range, but when she touches someone she gets everything. But she's betting Cameron won't mind. For a moment, she is two girls, one giving a hug to a new friend, one receiving a hug from a pretty stranger.

Cameron has no objections to the hug from the pretty stranger, but she is confused about why the pretty stranger.

"Um, hi. Are you sure you're hugging the right girl? I don't think I know you."

"My name is Purgatory. I'm psychic."

She'll mention her real name later. Her codename is the name that matters, now.

"I knew you needed a hug because I could feel it myself. It's nice to meet you, Cameron."

How much are you in my head right now? Cameron wonders. Is that how she knew her name?

Cameron returns the hug and snuggles up to the other girl, regardless. It isn't like Cameron has any secrets. Her family's dead, her powers are straightforward, and she actively rejects the idea that lust is a private matter in the first place. Actually, she doesn't want it getting around that she was born a boy, but she never planned to hide her ability to shift between male and female form at will, so.

Honestly, she's more discomfited by the possibility that this is a platonic hug and not a come-on. Cameron is less than comfortable with platonicly-intended affection.

I'm very, very psychic, but your hypothetical secrets are safe with me, Eelle projects. "I knew right away that you needed a hug, and almost as quickly that ordinary hugging for ordinary reasons is sexual for you. I wouldn't have hugged you and introduced myself if that bothered me."

For emphasis, Eelle drops one hand down to Cameron's butt and gropes her, hard, pulling her hips more firmly against Eelle's own. She's quick about it, and she's reading everyone else in the room, too. No one sees her do it.

Yum. Groping.

Cameron relaxes and just enjoys being touched, now that that's cleared up.

Then she giggles. Her ARC therapist, who is also a telepath, has been trying to define Cameron's emotional malaise since she arrived there, and Purgatory just plucks it perfectly out of her head on the first try and understands completely.

Being understood like that is a really, really good feeling. She was not expecting her first day at Whateley to be this nice.

Eelle wasn't expecting to meet someone so unbothered by having her in their mind this soon either. It's wonderful to be trusted, and be able to trust, so quickly. They were both alone, and now they're not.

And so non-platonic hugging can continue indefinitely.

Or at least until the school vans arrive, and a tall businessy-looking woman steps out to collect them.

"Okay, listen up! I am Mrs. Shugendo, I'm the Dean of Students at Whateley Academy. There are two shuttles here to take you to the school. I'm going to call off your names alphabetically. When I call out your name, let me know who you are, and then go out to the vans. Now, I know that you have a lot of questions, but, unless it's an emergency, save it for when we get to the school."

Mrs. Shugendo calls roll, and everyone scrambles to get themselves and their luggage into the vans.

The drive takes them past some spectacular scenery, past several old summer camps on the way into the mountains. Shortly, they turn off and proceed through a large gate set in an imposing stone wall. A pair of tall, gaunt, faceless gargoyle statues perch above like pieces of night.

The vans park in front of a stately-looking building of red brick. A small sign names this building, Poe Cottage.

Mrs. Shugendo has all the students bring their luggage into the entryway, then sits them down in the adjacent common room for a talk.

"Welcome to Whateley Academy! Now, you'll get the formal welcoming speech from the Headmistress along with all the other freshmen, but this little talk is just for you. The reason that you were all told to come here a day ahead of the other freshmen, and the reason that you're being put up in this dormitory, is that you all have something in common that sets you apart from the other students, even beyond your individual mutations. You are what some call 'alternative lifestyle' types. You are gay, lesbian, transgender, or so aggressively bisexual that it is an issue for you. We don't condemn you for this; you didn't really have a choice in it, any more than you chose to be mutants. We realize that it's hard going through adolescence. We realize that it's even harder when you're a mutant. You have enough to put up with already, you don't need the extra aggravation of being branded a, quote, sexual deviant, unquote. Poe Cottage is a place where you don't need to worry about the kids down the hall finding out, because they already know about you, and you already know about them."

Cameron, who has every intention of openly being a sexual deviant, still thinks this is really cool. Clearly, she is in the right place.

"Now, while we are very proud of the fact that you were brave and honest enough to admit your, persuasion, on your admittance forms, I'm afraid that we're going to have to ask you to curb that honesty with regard to Poe itself. The sad fact is that your differences make you targets, and the secret of Poe prevents a lot of violence. If your sense of pride demands that you come out of the closet, then you have a right to. But please, have consideration for the other people here at Poe, and don't reveal the overall status here. You have been brought here a day earlier than the rest of the students to make this easier as you move in and sort out roommate arrangements."

The boy with the orange hair and the music, from the waiting room, speaks up. "Um, ma'am? What are the roommate arrangements? If everyone here is gay, are we supposed to room with the opposite sex instead? Because that sounds, awkward."

Mrs. Shugendo clears her throat nervously. "It will be boys with boys and girls with girls. To have it otherwise would advertise that there was something unusual going on at Poe Cottage to everyone who looked at the roster. However, I must remind you that carnal relations involving students, whether between opposite sexes or the same sex, is strictly forbidden at Whateley, and any homosexual student caught breaking that rule will be punished as severely as any heterosexual student doing so!" Which is to say, not at all, but she is still expected to say it with a straight face.

WHAT.

Oh shit.

Eelle quickly touches Cameron's mind and repeats Mrs. Shugendo's last thought before Cameron can... murder the woman, or whatever she is about to do.

Cameron is not that impulsive, but is very grateful anyway. She probably would've done something ill-advised if Purgatory wasn't there to clue her in to the lie.

She gets over her figurative heart attack and settles for internal grumbling about the GRATUITOUS HYPOCRISY instead. Fake rules are the worst. But her new friend is excellent.

Speech concluded, Mrs. Shugendo introduces the students to Ms. Horton, the "house mother" for Poe. Ms. Horton looks the part, and helpfully explains where all the basic amenities are located within the cottage.

Once her explanation is finished, the adults bring in three older students who are dressed in the school uniform.

"Let's get you broken into groups small enough to work with. These three are Steve Rossiter, Toni Chandler, and Rosalyn Dekkard. They'll be your Student Guides for today."

Steve calls out names until he's collected a group of only boys, including the orange-haired boy. Rosalyn calls out names until she's collected a group of only girls, including Eelle and the Asian red-head.

Eelle gives Cameron a friendly bump and a hand-squeeze before she goes off with the lesbians.

Toni does a little twirl, something halfway between casual stretching and Olympic break-dancing.

"So! That's the gayboys and the cislesbians taken care of! Leeeaaavvvviiiiinnnnnggggg.... Us!"

Toni gestures grandly and moonwalk-skates into the center of the remaining freshmen, a wide but warm smile on her face.

"The changelings."

"Changelings?" repeats the pinkette in the labcoat, tone soft and wondering as she exchanges glances with the other three remaining freshmen. "There's a word for it?"

The blonde freckled girl in the shiny blue duster gasps excitedly. "Wow really?! You guys, too?"

The curvy brunette in a t-shirt and jeans (no bra) meets everyone's looks, relieved and thoughtful.

Cameron returns glances from the other three with curiosity.

"Let's take a walk."

Grinning, Toni leads them outside, waving expansively to get them to follow her.

"So! On the same page, we all'a us are defectors in the war, leapers of the fence, crossers of the line, between dude and dudette. Boy and girl. Sticker and stuck."

She leads the group away from Poe, towards a secluded area nearer the center of campus. She points out the fancy Melville dorm that sits between Poe and a towering crystal dome which Toni informs them is actually the cafeteria.

At the statue of Noah Whateley, she stops.

"The thing you gotta remember is, as much as our gay pals've got our back, they don't really get it y'know? I dunno if you chose this, or if your mutation didn't give you a choice, but either way, us changelings have got a unique dealio. Its us against the world, lotta the time. So while we're out here, where it's just us gender-transgressors and nobody's around to drop no eaves, let's use this oppor-tunity t'be real, yeah? Introduce yo'self, tell us all about how you feel, where you're comin' from, and just for fun throw in the skinny on your mutant power!"

"I'll go first, yeah?"

Toni strikes a pose.

"My name's Toni Chandler, codename: Chaka, and I knew I wanted to be a girl since I was tiny. I got lucky. When I manifested my mutation, I got exactly what I wanted. I started changin' and my family was cool with it. And it came with these kickass ki abilities!"

Toni leaps into the air, gliding upwards with the barest of steps off the side of the statue, then flips up and stands on one hand on Noah Whateley's head.

"I'm what they call a 'ki-wizard' 'cause they never invented a'actual rating for super martial arts like they've got 'wizard' for super spellslinging or 'psi' for super," two fingers to her temple and a look of excessive concentration. "But I play with ki like the stuff was made just for me, so I can learn moves in one day that it takes baselines decades'a training and monk'i'tude to master."

Toni flips off the statue and lands easily in front of the busty brunette in the t-shirt.

"I'm also an exemplar, which gives me my rockin' bod. It mean's I've got a body image template, which is a whole thang. I'm low-level, so I'm only a littl'bit tougher and stronger than I physically 'should' be, but the part that matters here is that the Bee-Ey-Tee is a specific ideal, that yur body follows. If you changed as part of your mutation, and you didn't choose what you look like, you've probably got one."

"Uh," says the busty brunette in the t-shirt, after a moment of no one speaking. "I guess I'll go? My name's Ellen Dunkel. I don't have a codename yet. Me and my brother used to be the same person. So technically, I didn't used to be a boy? But I have all of his memories, so it feels like I was. I'm still not really sure how I feel about being a girl. I'm an exemplar, like Toni said, and everyone my family talked to told us that means there's probably nothing that can change me... back. So I haven't really thought about what I'd do if I could. Maybe I should...."

Ellen sighs.

"Anyway, my powers, like I said, I'm strong and tough, but not that far above baseline. My actual power is this."

Holding out a hand, Ellen flexes her fingers and an aurora of scintillating green energy starts to play around her fingers.

"Pretty classic. I shoot energy beams. But that's not all. I can also do things to anything I'm hitting with my beam, like, make stuff appear or change the way it looks. They tell me its something to do with ectoplasm."

"Whoa, and I thought my life was weird," the freckled blonde in the blue duster says.

"Speaking of my life! My name's Hayden Winters, and I used to be a gay boy, then I was a mutant and turned into a girl over the weekend. It was freaky, but cool. Being a girl is actually pretty neat, I just wish my boyfriend hadn't broken up with me over it. But! I'm a speedster! I can go really fast and it is awesome! Oh! Also when I use my powers, this happens."

In an instant, Hayden turns from a freckled blonde into girl-shaped black void, sliced out of reality.

"I'mstrongerinthesunandstuff." She turns back to normal. "I absorb light and it makes me faster. Cool huh? I think I'm going to call myself Silhouette."