Xaviers!

The young woman was talking on the phone in the cafeteria line. She was attempting to keep it quiet, but the exasperation was beginning to get to her. "Yes, Trevor, I placed all of my documents in the share before I left, including the write-up for the festival. No, I don't know why they're not there now. It isn't my fault that you didn't check before I left." She scoots forward as the line moves, "Talk to IT. Maybe they have a back-up." The cafeteria worker glowers at her. "I have to go. I'm holding up the line." There's a muffled protest on the phone as she hits the End Call button and drops the phone in her pocket as she says something that sounds both French and profane. "Sorry about that," she says sheepishly to the worker, "I'll have..." She works her way through the line and then goes to look for a place to sit.

((Open))

"Yes, Mum. I saw the news. How could I miss the news after you texted me all those links?"

A blonde girl with streaked hair is distractedly weaving her way through the dining hall, talking on her phone.

"Well that was nobody at the school, Mum. It was some nutters that rolled up."

Laura hears the conversation and mouths, "Parents, right?" to the blonde girl.

"Look Mum, I promise I'll call if anything else happens. Today's a good day otherwise. They finally found me another roommate!"

She nods to Laura then grits her teeth as she hears the response.

"...I'm pretty sure that wasn't my fault, Mum. Okay, I'm mostly sure."

Laura tilts her head at an available table, mouthing again, "Wanna sit?"

The girl loads up her tray, nodding again to Laura as she walks over.

"Alright, Mum. Love you too, bye."

She sits down with an exasperated sigh.

"Mother panicking about the attack on the grounds?"

"She doesn't like me being away from London. I mean, we're barely away from London, but that's how she is."

"Some of the people here could throw a rock and hit London. The train ride's not even all that long."

"I know, right? And I thought she'd be happy I got a new roommate, but now she's on about me not frightening this one off."

"I haven't even met my roommate yet. How'd your frighten off your last roommate?"

"I didn't!" She protests.

"People just think things are my fault because of my power."

"Oof, power blame is awful. There was a couple of months at my old school that I started documenting my location with selfies because people were blaming pranks on me."

"Oh, because you can fly?"

She shakes her head, "No. Because I can do this." As she finishes the sentence, her features adjust and shift, leaving Janice looking at a reasonable facsimile of herself.

The girl blinks for a moment in confusion before a big grin breaks out.

"...okay, I can see where you'd have fun with that."

"Oh, I do. But after I got accused of breaking curfew several times by people saying 'It wasn't me, it must have been Laura', I decided I'd have to prove they were full of it."

"Wait, you're Laura?"

"I'm Janice! You're my new roommate!"

Laura's features returned to her own, her food temporarily forgotten in her excitement. "Sweet! I was hoping to run into you soon!"

"Okay so... you haven't been on campus long so you probably haven't heard any stories about me."

"My power is... well, to make things go wrong. I think the boffins at X-Corp called it 'probability manipulation' or something like that."

"They do like having names for things like that. I take it that's where the power blame comes in."

"I am a literal jinx. I'm better than I used to be. Like now, I can direct it sometimes."

"I can see how that'd be hard for some people to deal with."

"And believe me, I am nearly one hundred percent certain my last roommate's hair dryer broke on its own."

Laura looks incredulous. "That was her last straw?"

"Well I mean, her hair doesn't look bad now!"

"Just ah... much, much shorter."

"Shorter?" Laura says, reaching up to touch her hair without thinking about it. "How did it fail... exactly?"

"Overheated," she winces.

"Like... fwoosh?"

"She put it out pretty quickly!"

"It just smelled really awful."

"Well, burnt hair would," she said. "At least I can usually just regrow mine. You know... just in case."

"You won't need to, I promise!"

"Is yours normally purple?"

"Unless I'm being someone else, it is. Never been able to do just 'me, but blonde' and dye won't stick through a shift for some reason."

"It looks pretty cool that way, as long as you like purple."

"I like purple well enough. Though due to the hair, I've eliminated most of it from my wardrobe."

"Oof, yeah. You'd look like you worked on a children's programme."

"Yes, no need to resemble whatever that Teletubbies thing was called. Now I just need to find time to fold more casual stuff back *into* my options."

"Oh, were your parents strict about how you dressed or something?"

"No. I just spent the last year-ish interning for X-Corp in Canada, their public relations department has a dress code, and my apartment and my suitcase were small."

"Oh, they're nice at X-Corp! I've been to their London office bunches of times."