Xaviers!

The morning after Natalie cornered her in the Point, Shari feels strange going down to the dining hall for breakfast. She'd been an intruder from day one, but now she feels worse about it. She's got a whole list of people to talk to in her head and no idea what to say to any of them. Will had immediately asked if she'd been cleared by Sam, so that'd probably be a good way to start, so she nurses her scrambled eggs with strawberry yogurt for a good while as she glances around the room in search for Sam, ignoring the weird looks she's getting for stirring the scrambled eggs into her pink goop.

Sam quirks a brow as she sees Shari approaching with the new taste sensation.

"...did you lose a bet?"

"No. Why? It's breakfast food..." she points out awkwardly.

"First time I've seen eggs mixed up with... whatever that is."

"Strawberry yogurt. It's good."

"I'll take your word for it. Doing alright?"

"Yeah, just super!" she grins, giving Sam two thumbs up. It'd be pretty convincing if Sam couldn't feel the tension rolling off of Shari in waves.

Sam puts her fork down, looking intently at Shari.

"...what's wrong?"

"So... uhm... you saw the stuff you dug up in my head, yeah? But... let's say the context is a little different. A lot different, really."

"Well I guess the mindscape is kind of a metaphor, but the memories seemed... well, really vivid."

"Yeah, but... what if instead of Syria I was from somewhere much further away..." she asks, glancing up at Sam for a moment as she fidgets with her spoon.

"...why would distance matter?"

"Cause the place I'm from is... really far away. Lightyears away..."

"So you're... telling me you're an alien?"

"I mean... I guess that's kind of a nasty term..."

"Kinda..." she says, though it's not clear to which part she's responding. "There's another one of us here. Locked up in the cells."

"...oh."

And then it sinks in a bit. A frown settles over her features.

"Oh."

"Yeah... That's why I took on a new life. Exile."

"...you know what she tried to do to my girlfriend, right?"

"No, but... I can imagine." she says, staring at her egg-goop.

"Why are you telling me this? Does anyone else know?"

"Natalie. Will. The headmistress. I'm... working on telling people..."

"Can you help us at least? Figure out what the hell they dosed Tereza with?"

"I want to. I just don't know if I can. What happened to her?"

"They're tied up with some program in Russia that's running mutant schools. Not like this one. More like army training."

"They hit her with something and I couldn't read her."

"I know they're trying to brainwash people the same way I gave up my memories, but... that shouldn't work on humans. Maybe it has something to do with that. The Ritual takes some chemicals to induce the right state of mind, but I know we didn't salvage much after the crash..."

"She's lucky. The one we've got locked up tried to impersonate her, but she was kind of rubbish at it."

"That's really weird. She musta done that on purpose, but... maybe she was trying to make it seem like we're not that good at it so you'd be easier to trick?"

"I don't know, but I damned near melted her brain for it, so it was a bad decision on her part."

Shari frowns. "It doesn't really make sense though. If she got her with some kinda mind-blocker she could have tried. We've..." she stops for a moment and looks somewhere between embarrassed and shameful. "Our people have conquered telepathic races before. They're better than rubbish impressions and having their brains melted..."

"What is this, hometown pride? You don't have to make excuses for her."

"What? No! I just... it's weird, that's all..."

"I'm not saying we should write them off, but they can't be better than us at everything."

"It's really just the one thing..." she says awkwardly. At this point she's just staring at the table. "Sorry, I'm just trying to help, but I don't know what exactly they're doing and I'm scared."

"...they're the ones you were afraid would find out you had your memories back."

"Exactly! It's them I'm afraid of!" she bursts out, looking up at Sam. "I'm not trying to defend them, I'm afraid because I know what they're capable of!"

"I get it, Shari."

"...well it's not as if I didn't want to before, but I guess we'll have to kick their arses now."

"And I'll help. If I can. I told Miss Minamida that I would tell you guys everything I know."

"Guess there's only one question now..."

"...how do you look in spandex?"

"However I want to, really." she says, trying to crack a smirk.

"Important, aye? Because unless I'm completely mistaken, you just joined the X-Men," She grins.