Disclaimer: I don't own them, obviously, or I would be rich and laughing at all the little X-Freaks...if you take insult to that, flame me, I don't care, I'm one myself.

Quote: A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
--Herm Albright

CHAPTER ONE

"Can I help ya?" the man asked dangerously.

I can't respond, though, because he's holding his trademark claws to my throat. You all guessed it, the Legendary Wolverine of the X-Men is pinning me to the wall, one hand gripping my right arm like a vice (which is understandable since I'm holding a six inch dagger) and the other hand, with it's extracted claws, is making sure that I stay against the wall.

Maybe I should start from the beginning. Jeez, how many months ago was that? Heh, I'm not even sure which month it is now. Well, I did notice Halloween decorations when I snuck in here. I know, I still can't believe that I actually infiltrated the X-Mansion, aint it cool? Anyway, it must be around October or November. Ah, then maybe it was about seven months ago that it all actually began. So, I'll start you out in mid-April. Here we go through one of those annoying time warps, hold on, and if you get motion sickness, the reader next to you makes an excellent air sickness bag. WOOT!

Algebra II, the most miserable class ever in vented, yet I was still in it. Most colleges like to see Algebra I and II on your resume, so I'd taken it. My hopes for college had pretty much died, however. I'd discovered that I was a mutant a few months back. My teeth started falling out. It was pretty gross, to tell you the truth. The first dentist was baffled until he say x-ray's, then he just threw us out. The third guy, I won't go into detail about the second, explained that new teeth were growing in, that I was a mutant, and would I please leave before he called the police? So my new teeth grew in, sharp, pointy teeth. It took me a while to relearn to chew food, biting my tongue would pierce it straight through. Next my eyes changed. This was (and still is) the best part of my mutation, since my vision improved wonderfully. My mutation gave me the eyes of a hawk during the day and of a cat at night. My pupils and iris's also took on the shape and color of a cats, kind of gold with slits for pupils. I thought it was cool, even if my classmates thought less of me for it.
So I'm one of those mutants that can't really pass for human unless I continually wore sunglasses and kept my mouth closed, but the entire 'hiding from the public' thing wasn't really an issue for me. My other 'gift' was being unseen. I couldn't go invisible, but people just didn't seem to notice me. Their eyes would pass right over me and would only really see me if I made a noise or something to get their direct attention. I've never been a loud person, so this wasn't a problem either. Even as a child I was the quiet one that was sort of, well, forgotten. So this mutation just made it seem cooler than before. So no one noticed me in the school to harass me about my extra chromosome or what ever it was that made me different. People in my school weren't too mutant-friendly anyway.

I wasn't the only mutant by the way. There were a few more. We only had a hundred people in our high school, so word got around quickly if anyone was 'outed'. I was one of the obvious ones. It didn't hurt my social stature any. I only had one good friend nicknamed Wolf, and i HAD a few other people that I'd hung out with at school. This one girl completely ditched me as soon as I'd told her. She spread the news to anyone who would bother to listen to her after that. So it was just me and Wolf, who had been my best friend since the 4th grade. Wolf was a mutant too, but her mutations weren't visible like mine. She could shape shift into a wolf, which I still find incredibly ironic since her nickname had been Wolf since the seventh grade. That has got to be one of the coolest powers in my opinion. Totally trumps mine. And she could also heal animals with her touch, also handy. No one knew that she had the X-Gene, but me (made me feel special).

For me, school was tolerable but slightly pointless. Not many colleges accepted mutants. There was also talk that the school was going to "remove" the mutants. Aint it a kick in the head?

We only had two teachers fighting for mutant rights. Our science teacher, Mr. Taylor, and our english teacher, Mr. Bouchard.

Mr. Taylor thought that us mutants were interesting. Any time that we wanted to get out of an assignment, we'd just get him into a discussion about the recent human evolution. He explained that my ability to be unseen was probably some form of telepathy, intercepting messages that ran between other people's eyes and brains. He had no idea what my eyes and teeth were for, except that, perhaps, my third mutation was a camouflage instinct to hide my other ones. When I'd asked about shape shifting (for Wolf's sake, she couldn't reveal her mutation, I wouldn't let her). He'd seen it as a sort of molecular adaptation. I didn't understand half of what he was explaining, but, hey, it got me out of an assignment.

Mr. Bouchard just refused to see any difference in the kids after they had been revealed as mutants. We were still the same class, even if some of us looked like freaks. He urged us not to let prejudice hold us back. His words meant well, but he couldnt make the whole world see his way. He couldn't even make the school board see his way. By the last month of school, it was announced that mutants were no longer welcomed at Fairview High School. This received both cheers and boo's.

The school took blood tests of all the students. I was exempt (thank God) because it was already obvious that I was a mutant. This was the first time that I'd ever used my mutations consciously. I went as unnoticed as possible and switched Wolf's blood with some girl's that I knew wasn't a mutant. The girl would get retested...she was popular, in the honor society, in all the girl sports...she would get retested. I don't know if she ever did, but I had to keep telling myself this. I wouldn't let Wolf get kicked out of school. She could pass for normal. If she could get herself through college she could go on and do some good. Help the animals and all that...then she could support her unemployed mutant-freak friend (that'd be me).

That's how I got kicked out of school. All I had left to do was stay at home, which wasn't really an option. Don't get me wrong, my parents weren't all that bad. My mom just accepted it right off the bat. My dad was verbally anti-mutant until I was revealed as one, then he would defend me (not all mutants) if he had to. My older brother and younger sister thought it was cool, but my sister kept getting into fights at school, trying to stick up for her 'mutie sister'. See, this is the part that Xavier comes in.

No, he didn't come visit me, or even try to recruit me. Heck, I didn't even know at the time IF he could even detect me. I'd been looking up mutant schools on the web and stumbled across Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. At the time, I didn't know that it was the X-Men's base of operations, or whatever it's called. I just decided that I'd go there.

You see, I was planning on getting enough money for the trip and tell my parents and all. I only had $250 dollars in my bank account though. I'd gotten fired after my eyes changed. I worked in a grocery store and, all though the boss didn't have a problem with mutants, he was losing customers that did have a problem. He was real nice about it though.

That's when people started looking for me too. A couple FBI agents wanted me (I would get extremely low wage for risking my life, which they made clear was expendable). A few anti-mutant-terrorist groups came. The catch about them was that I'd kill alot of mutants who were all 'socially dangerous'. Then there was the kind of people that you just don't say no to; gangsters, dealers and mafia men. Don't ask me how they found out about my powers of 'invisibleness'. Maybe the school put us muties into the Mutant Registration Act. Who knows? But they showed up, gave me an offer and left. These guys were the last straw. My home was no longer safe, and neither was my family. So I left. I got my $250 and stole my mothers van. I didn't keep it...I left them a note.

" Don't worry. I'll call when I'm where I'm going. You can pick up the van in Glendive. Sorry for all the problems. Love you, Calla."

Glendive had the nearest bus station. I had to make it all the way to New York, so I snuck onto the bus without paying. Dishonorable, maybe, but I had no choice.

Everything was fine for awhile. I'd get off at whichever bus stop that I'd feel like, either steal or buy some food, and then hop the next bus going east. It was easy and, I'm almost ashamed to say, I was getting good at stealing. The problem was, I NEEDED a shower. The busses were air conditioned, but it was summer and I was starting to feel dirty. Any books or movies fail to mention how run-away's manage this obstacle. I finally couldn't take it anymore and got off at some larger city, not sure which one. There, I found some apartments and staked them out until I found one with a single woman. I studied her work habits for three days, sitting unnoticed in the hall corner. When I was sure that she'd be gone for a few hours, I'd wait for her to leave and dart in while she walked out. Then I made my self at home. That first time, I was so afraid that the lady would come back and catch a mutant using her blow dryer and scream her head off till some lynch mob came after me. No one came, but I didn't loiter there to find out. By mid July I was an expert on getting in and out of people's houses, also, I'd figured that security systems with motion detectors didn't pick me up. If Xavier's school didn't accept me, I guess that I could always fall back on burglary.

All this sneaking around really toned up my powers. I could go completely unnoticed in public as long as I stayed out of people's way and didn't bump anyone. I was invisible in the dark and, with my night-vision-cat-eyes, I'd started lurking through cities for long periods at night. It was fun for awhile. With my luck, though, of course something bad had to happen. I started to realize that it was increasingly difficult to become NOTICED. I spent an entire week and a half in August actually buying bus tickets and focusing on being noticed. I had to keep sun glasses on and, of course, refrain from opening my mouth and revealing my pretty pointed teeth. So if anyone tried to talk to me on the bus or anything, I produced a 'borrowed' pad of paper and pen and scribbled out that I was mute, but could hear and for them to please not yell--which they tended to do anyway. Very few people did talk to me, though. I had to go back to being unnoticed when I started developing a new mutation.

Yea, my luck again. I was growing claws. I'd noticed my fingernails thickening, but I figured it was some weird reaction due to my abnormal diet recently--grab anything in the store that I could quietly sneak out with. But then my nails started to curl and grow pointy. I was turning into a freaking cat. I couldn't clip them either, that HURT. So I went back to stealing and sneaking. I admit, I was getting cocky about my skills. I'd left early June and it was now the first week of September and I'd made it to Pennsylvania. Here went my luck again tho. At the Penn/New York border, the bus was stopped. Supposedly, the state wanted to keep track of mutants that were entering. Their search dog found me. I guess my scent doesn't go away like the rest of me. They made me get off the bus and the driver 'forgot' to wait for me to get back on. It's ok. I was riding with a bunch of bigots anyway. The Mutant-Police-Wanna-Be's explained that they'd need my name and proof of ID to match with the files from Mutant Registration. If I wasnt in there, we'd have to go to HQ (swear to God, that's what they called it) and register me. Apparently, reaching for my wallet in my back pocket was a hostile action. One of their batons slammed into my stomach while the other's hit me in the back of the head while I doubled over.

The next thing that I knew, I was being dragged carelessly out of the back of their cruiser with my hands cuffed behind my back. Struggling caused me to be hit more. Just to tell you, I've got alot of French temper running through my veins. These guys were making me angry. I twisted and turned, clawing and biting at anything available.

Yea...that was a dumb idea...I didn't wake up for awhile...

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New chapter's coming up, promises promises.