It was by nobody's standards an ideal day to hold a protest. The weather was overcast-- rain was definitely on the horizon, and while the streets had been closed by the local council in order to let the protest march peacefully and safely up the street, by standing in the middle of the road in a thunderstorm the marchers truly were trying their luck. None of the weather forecasts had predicted lightning, but every single one of those forecasters knew that the weather could turn on you as quickly as a wild animal, that trying to predict it was a fickle art, and while you could monitor trends, you could never be one hundred percent sure of what was to come.

It was the only legitimate form of fortune telling out there, but it would not take a climatologist or a psychic to predict that trouble was looming on the horizon today.

The protest was walking down Waterbury St towards Cromwell High School. The roads were cleared ahead of the march, and leading the pack was one of the higher members of the Friends of Humanity, a society dedicated to the continued preservation of human superiority. Their aim was not, as their signs preaching Safe Schools declared, to keep society safe, but to keep society pure of the unpredictable, the unknown, the new.

Half a block in front of the protest, a man rose slowly up through the bitumen. He was dressed very nicely in a suit and tie, with his black leather shoes polished enough for them to shine. Erik had always had a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps it was because his home life was so terribly unassuming, and the nature of his powers was made more for stealth and secrecy than for theatrics, but whenever he had the attention of a crowd he certainly came into himself. The protest slowed down to a stop, moving no closer towards the terrorist.

"Surely you would have learnt by now." He said loudly, projecting his voice in a very theatrical manner. He would've been at home reading the bard. "Cromwell High School have made the right decision. I suggest you disperse now, while you're still well enough to take your children to school tomorrow morning, or you can stay and suffer the consequences."

For several seconds, the march stayed immobile, as his message was murmured and carried down through the crowd so everyone could hear what he had said. But they were not the kind who idly accepted and yielded to threats, even when it would've been the sensible course of action. Instead, they slowly began to march towards Erik once more.

Let it not be said that Erik Lensherr was an impatient man. While people could assume that having the ability to walk through walls implied that the person did not have the patience or the time to simply unlock a door, it was certainly not the case for Erik. For him, to use his powers was to use the abilities that God had given him. If he were made to feel ashamed of his abilities, if he was led to believe as others believed: that he was a freak of nature, an abnormality, then he would be a coward. Erik believed that everyone was here for a purpose and some were meant for higher purposes than others.

He collected the papers he'd been working on in the room that he had claimed as his own. It was the master bedroom, of course, and the wardrobe was filled with expensive clothes and shoes that had never belonged to him. The dresser contained nick-nacks and personal items that he didn't not care for, because they were not his. The older couple who owned them no longer needed them wherever they were now, but that was not to say that it was Erik's right to defile them.

With his notes in a plain manilla folder, he sunk through the floor and into the dining room, from where it was only a short walk to the living room, which had become the default meeting area in their short sojourn in this particular house. Several hours ago he had left a short note on the fridge-door with details for his Brotherhood of the meeting he was to hold here in half an hour or so. There were things that needed to be discussed, and they were not all of the protest-infiltrating variety.

It was a cold morning in Greenwich, Connecticut. The sort of cold that got into your bones and stayed for the winter, especially when your bones had already seen their fair share of winters and wished nothing more for the warm weather to return. Erik Lensherr was not a physically imposing man, by anyone's standards. He was lean, though he hadn't always been, and skin that had once stretched over healthy flesh and bones now sagged a little in places, and where it didn't, it had wrinkled and creased in well-marked lines that could all tell countless stories.

Erik wrapped his dressing robe tighter around his waist and tied it securely with the belt. It was quite early, much before anyone else in the house rose for the day, but it was the way that Erik preferred things. It gave him a bit of time alone with his thoughts, which always brewed better when he had a strong cup of Earl Grey to stew them in, and time to read the paper, before someone strolled in wanting to read the comic section or the sports page. He flicked the kettle on and fetched a cup and teabag from the cupboard. He looked out the window. It was still dark out, though the cloud cover that blanketed the sky was illuminated in such a way that it wasn't completely pitch dark. It would probably rain, later on in the day.

Erik set the cup down on the counter and strolled through the kitchen wall, out into the garden. He strolled ever so lightly through the garden, the tips of his slippers skimming lightly through the grass until he reached the letter box. A chill ran through Erik's spine. Phasing helped a little against the cold, though it was no miracle cure.

He picked up the newspaper and peeled the plastic away, stowing it away in his pocket to be appropriately disposed of later, while he scanned the front page for newsworthy news. The Giants had won the Super Bowl, said the main headline, but Erik was not at all interested. His attention was drawn to an article in the bottom corner. "PUBLIC SCHOOL ACCEPTS MUTANT ENROLMENTS". He read the article as he walked back inside the house not bothering with locks or doorknobs as he went, as he was too old to stand outside in the cold for hours. The article was the same ridiculous drivel that all the papers printed these days, expressing caution and thinly-veiled scepticism at the appropriateness of the decision on the behalf of the school-board. The article directed him to turn to page four to read more, so he spread the newspaper out on the kitchen table and read the rest of the article.

A Friends of Humanity Spokesperson confirmed that the organisation will hold a peaceful demonstration in Connecticut next week. Melissa Beatbaker announced in a press conference that the pro-humanity group plans to march in protest to Cromwell High School's decision to accept mutant enrolments.

The kettle whistled and Erik stood to pour himself his tea. It was such a massive step forward for the mutant community to have a public school open enrolment, only to have this organisation seek to reverse the breakthrough. Such intolerance was not to be born. Education was a basic human right, and every child, no matter their race, sex, class or religion was entitled to it, why should they make an exception based on the make-up of one child's genes? Erik tossed the used teabag into the trash and took a tentative sip of the Earl Grey. He would call a meeting of his Brotherhood to discuss this new development. In the meantime, he would solve the crossword.

( ooc )