He forwards her some recommended reading, and a note he's trying to get in touch with some magic users he knows with anti-psychic defenses. Might be slow going, though.

She thanks him, then continues about her day.

Stuff in the halls are tense for a while - apparently Kid Omega's a major ring leader of some of the kids - but people pretty quickly forget about the fight in favor of some other drama. Apparently Kid Omega unveiled a different popular mutant, with a rival clique, as having an 'ugly' mutation he'd been covering with illusions. Which is a stupid thing for people to be gossiping about, but it loses the other kid his clique. The kid turns down Loki's offer to hang out, so other than keeping an eye out for bullies she drops it.

And then it's time for psychic lessons with Five in One.

The girls are where they said they'll be.

It's Celeste who speaks this time. "You're familiar with meditation, correct?"

"Yeah. Really familiar."

"The origin of our powers is a mutation, not magic, but we will explain the centering and sensing processes, from that meditative base, and hopefully it will apply to you as well," Celeste says.

"Magic's pretty much about telling the universe a really, really good story, so much so the universe changes what it's doing for a little bit, so I think if I give it enough of a reason it'll work."

Esme hums, focusing more intently on Loki, while Celeste nods. "That's good," Celeste says. "Now, the first step is to picture your mind - the shape doesn't matter, but contained images are harder to penetrate than uncontained ones, and the imagined defenses of the space are often at least somewhat in line with actual mental defenses."

She hums, settling in to meditate.

The shape of her mind is obvious.

It isn't contained, for one, the way fire can't be truly contained. It's an ocean and it's fire and it's a thousand chaotic shifting things and telling what it's doing now should be hard and what it's going to do next should be impossible, and she weaves a story into its unstable bones. She is Loki and Loki is chaos. She is the burned god who rose from her own ashes as a phoenix, she is the destroyer of fate and the breaker of chains -

She's calm, when she opens her eyes, centered, like her thoughts and emotions are a whirlwind around her, notable only if she wants them to be.

"May we sense your mind?" the five girls ask as one.

Loki nods.

And a thread, a gentle touch winds through her whirlwind. It's not as adaptable as she is, but it doesn't have to be, because it knows itself. (It's five things, and they're connected in a loop, but unstably, exacerbated by the buffeting chaos of Loki's mind.)

"Now. Try to throw us out."

Well, what does fire do, but burn things? Those links are looking awfully tenuous.

The five flinch - out of sync, Sophie's hand going to her head - and the intrusion in her mind retreats.

"Good," Celeste says. "I don't think you have a psychic instinct, but I think you're covering with magic well enough. That was clever, breaking our links. Separated opponents are weaker."

"Thanks. Are you guys okay?"

"Yes," they say together, then Celeste alone continues with: "When we're this close to each other reestablishing the links is a lot easier. Now, we want you to try that a few more times..."

They walk her through several variations on identifying and rejecting intruders. They can modify how hard their own mental image is to detect or impact and can change how it appears, which makes for a very good teaching tool.

Loki's not going to get past throwing off active mind readers - she's still not going to be good against passive readers, but it takes an active connection to mind control someone usually anyways, which is what she's really concerned about - this evening.

Her brain's tired and her head hurts by the time they're done, and she's thoroughly grouchy and ready to sleep, but she musters enough enthusiasm to thank them for the lesson and plan a similar one next week.

In the meantime: Silv has a very, very good idea.

Loki's not been here long, so she might've only kind of noticed, but their music teacher super plays favorites. Super super super. Silv's heard it's worse with the actual chorus and band sections for older kids.

They should maybe teach the teacher something. Nothing harmful, just a little prank... Embarrass her at worst.

"Oh, that sounds fun! What're you thinking?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd have some ideas? We shouldn't use our powers, though - the school leader people kind of ignore stuff that's happening if no one uses powers in it. We could get in a lot of trouble if we were abusing magic and all, but if it's just, like, paint, who really cares?"

"Huh! A prank without magic removes a lot of my obvious ideas... Do you know what we have to work with?"

"Just what we have or can find in the forest, though I think there's some supplies we can maybe borrow. Or borrow without permission."

Loki carefully mulls over the concept of theft for the sake of a prank. "Only stuff no one will miss, though," is what she decides is the best answer.

"Sure! That means it'll be longer before they catch us anyways."

"Sounds like the best of both worlds, then."

"Definitely."

And off to the secret hideout to plot their nefarious mischief! Silv has a lot of really weird and probably not entirely implementable ideas.