Five friends.

Five mutants.

Two women; three men.

All imperfect.

The measure of their imperfection is in the eye of the critic. It also stems from who they are away from the others, but not to the point of caring about their personal attributes, like personality.

Jean Grey looked to all the world to be one of the best role models for society. Her mutation is anything but simple, but it is hidden from the naked eye of the surface searching appraisers. Her bright red hair is stunning, but not repulsive and evokes a sense of exoticism among those who see her. She had earned enough intellectual credit to but the title of doctor in front of her name and always has the highest mark she could achieve short of a working suicide. She comes from a rich, well established family and looks to have a fantastic legacy.

What they don't know is how much she hates herself. It is a common theme among the five students, but each is special in their own way. She hates the red hair, the green eyes, the pale skin, however she considers her insecurity of her looks to be one of the least of her problems. She hones extreme levels of telepathy and telekinesis. Each on its own make a deadly combination, but together is nearly cosmic.

Her past is once again a complicated one. Her family has an impressive reputation and fortune, but from her birth she was never meant to be a part of it. An unwanted child. Her family still accepted her, loving their daughter, but society told them not to. She was different. It was a secret from all but a few exactly how different she was, particularly after an ugly accident provoking her telepathy in the coming years.

When she suddenly disappeared from the social scene at the age of eleven, the town was curious, but her parents told everyone she had been sent to a boarding school in England, which no one could ever find any information for. An obvious lie. The truth would have been even more condemning for the little girl had it come out. Jean Grey was housed at a fancy mental institution across the country, far away from where the media could ruin them.

After two years, and some investigation on his part, Charles Xavier discovered the location of Jean. Jean was the daughter of an associate of his, and he'd noticed some strange mental readings from her. Wanting to know what had happened to the intriguing girl, he tracked her down and offered to bring her to his Institute. He offered help for control.

Her parents heard cure.

They were wrong.

They weren't the only parents who were wrong. Hell, they were not the first parents to wish their children were cured of who they were. Asking anyone who was once ashamed of who they are will tell another person as much. Like Jean, however, sometimes it's better to take the punishment of silence rather than the familial denouncements.

Warren Worthington the Third knew that all too well. His father had discovered what he was after he found his son trying to cut through the skin of his back so he could cut his wings out. A part of his father, a part for which the father himself was ashamed for possessing, wished he had let his son go through with what he was trying to do. Warren's mother had gone crazy trying to protect her baby when she had found out, had never been embarrassed of her son, but when she was killed in a car accident when Warren was twelve, he was left with a parent who flinched at the sight of him.

Warren's family was business. Always business. He was raised with it, and was heir to one of the biggest corporations of the 20th Century. It had hit the men of the family hard when Warren sprouted brilliant white wings from his back. It was a gorgeous sight, but it also made him a glorious pariah in society. Warren had only let one person from his childhood see his wings, and that child had laughed, pointed, and screamed, "Angel!"

Even as an adult, trying to make his mark in the business world just to stop his father from shutting his eye in horror every time Warren unfurled his wings, he hated them. Oh, he loved flying and always would. He didn't even hate the wings themselves. He hated what they represented. He was a successful businessman, had a wonderful life, but hated that his father hated him, even if in part. He prayed every night to real angels that his mother, who had always loved Warren unconditionally, would be waiting for him when he died.

Before she had been killed, Warren's mother, Kathryn, had contacted Charles Xavier. She had researched for hours of her free time into what had caused her son's...bodily additions. The only thing she could find was a paper, book, really, on genetic mutations by Professor Charles F. Xavier. Warren's father, obviously also named Warren but will be called Second simply for the sake of saving from confusion, found papers admitting his son to the professor's Institute.

He made sure his son got there, and saw him off for his first day of the crossroads of the rest of his life.

One person who was not seen off by his parents, and would never be seen off by his parents, was Scott Summers. Sure, Scott had grown up with loving parents, but after they were tragically killed in a plane crash which had also claimed the life of his younger brother, Alex, Scott was shoved into a Nebraskan orphanage to live out the remainder of his childhood. At twelve years old, his life change.

He was being beat up by a group of notorious teenage bullies he had just stopped from robbing a smaller group of elementary age girls when his eyes began to burn. At first, he thought it was just from the icy wind of the January air, but it felt different. Hot. Before he had a chance to think, a crimson beam of energy shot out of his eyes and into the brick wall in front of him. The bullies stopped punching and ran away, screaming obscenities at the scene before them. Scott had spent the night locked up in the county jail, so save him from the mob outside trying to kill him. That was where Charles had found him.

Charles adopted the boy himself and took him to the Institute where he helped him start a new life. Scott hated colors. He hated them, like the typical rule of human existence, because he didn't have them. Well, scratch that. He could see one color. Red.

Distinguishing between the colors, telling what their shade meant they were, became easier in time, but it was still a bit difficult given the circumstances. He was a respected member of the Institute, a role model for all children, but if self hate could be transferred to electrical power, he was pretty sure he could keep a small country powered for the rest of his natural life.

Small countries were something Ororo Munroe was used to. She came from a relatively large African country geographically, but each village was almost its own small nation. She was considered a goddess in hers from the time she was about eight. Her parents had been killed in a territorial war when she was four and she was stuck in Africa. That was, at least, until Charles found her at the age of twelve.

Her white hair had brought his attention to her instantly when he went searching for her, and easy target, and it was as beautiful and rare as the Loch Ness Monster. What was even more astounding was the way she was treated, like what was already said, like a goddess, and how that influenced how she treated others. Her arrogance at the time had been suffocating, but after she was brought to the United States and the Institute, well...that's a story for another time.

She was also one of the most respected individuals the Institute housed as an adult. She wasn't looked to as quite the role model Jean and Scott were, but the amount of trust the children placed in her made up for her slight jealousy of that. Jealousy was something she was tired of feeling, and it made it even more annoying that it was directed at a few people she was close to.

Henry, affectionately called Hank, McCoy could also understand jealousy. By birth he was shown to be different. How many children are born looking like shaved gorillas? As he grew, he began to look less like a hairless monkey and more like a bodybuilder, which he kind of was. He'd fallen in love with sports, finding a place for him to direct some of his frustrations. He had a ingenious intellect to boot.

However, at the age of thirteen, when his skin began to itch and burn and he was kept home from his northern Illinois school, his life was, like so many others, changed. His abilities of superhuman strength, agility, and durability among others began to outwardly show themselves even more. He began to look like an animal.

A blue furred, sharp toothed one that is. When his mother, Edna, had come in to check on him, she was more than a little surprised to see her awkward baby turned into what seemed to be a feral beast. His father, Norton, had contacted one of his past encounters, you guessed it, Charles Xavier, as soon as possible, hearing about his research on genetic mutations. He was also added to the guest list of the Institute.

Henry was a respected doctor with experience in anything that had to do with the word science, having a passion for it that could never be matched. It wasn't his specialty, but for obvious reasons, he was also interested in how mutations affected life. He searched for the cure society wanted for him, much to his family's discontent. So far, he had found no success.

Five completely different lives.

Five unlikely friends.

One school.

One mentor.

One story.

The story belongs to them, all of them. This is it.


So...this is what I spent my online class hour doing. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm not exactly sure what direction this story is headed, but I wanted to get a bit of introduction out there. Just for clarification, this story will start from when they all meet and will continue from there. The reason for acknowledging their futures as adults was for two reasons.

1.) I wanted to acknowledge that this is the same universe I'm talking about. 2.) I wanted to show you the direction I was planning on taking this, even if it's got many literary years to go before getting there.