Chapter 1

I don't know when it exactly it hit me that my life sucked, but I think it probably happened sometime while I was waiting in line at the school cafeteria for another crappy burger and soggy fries. The food at Bayville High sucked, and it was no secret. But unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to have someone pack a lunch for me, like most kids, which meant that more likely than not, I was stuck wondering if the mystery meat was actually even meat or not.

So yeah, lunch wasn't exactly the highlight of my day.

"Hey, watch where you're standing, Summers!" A large football player shouted at me as he ran a shoulder into me, accidentally splashing a large gob of ketchup on my faded red shirt. It was an old shirt, and it was probably nearing the end of its life, but it was one of my favorite shirts. And now, it was ruined.

But the worst part was that I couldn't do a thing about it. I'm not exactly what you would call athletic, more like lanky and awkward. I've been told that I'm supposed to fill out by the end of high school, but I'm already a junior, and I haven't really seen any signs yet. Whether or not I still had time to grow, it didn't change the fact that this guy would probably beat me up without breaking a sweat if he really wanted to.

So I wasn't going to give him any reason.

"It's fine. I'll just go wash it out."

Actually, things were not fine, and chances were that the stain wasn't going to come out by running my shirt under a little bit of water. I guess there goes another shirt down the drain. And I really liked this one too.

"Of course you will." The football player said with a condescending smirk that I wanted to wipe off of his face with my fist. But I knew that I didn't stand a chance going up against anyone on the football team, so I just gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the snickering that I heard from all directions.

Although, it was pretty hard to see Jean Grey try to stifle a laugh. Jean was easily the prettiest girl in school, and naturally, being the hopeless idiot I was, I had a gigantic crush on her. Oh, and she was already dating the quarterback of our crappy football team. Yeah, I know, some luck, right?

The closest bathroom was in the back of the lunchroom, but I decided to take the long way to find a more secluded place to wash off my shirt. I definitely didn't need to let any more people see what had happened to me, although it probably wouldn't have hurt my reputation at this point. "Scott Summers: Perpetual Loser" seemed to be pretty firmly ingrained into most people's minds.

And I knew that I wasn't anyone spectacular. I didn't have the best grades in the class, even though it probably seemed like I was always reading. The truth was that I kept a book with me so that people would leave me alone for the most part. Being ignored was definitely better than getting picked on like some of the other less physically inclined guys in my class, although I still got my fair share of dirt kicked in my face.

I didn't come from a rich family either. My parents vanished on my brother and me when I was in middle school, and separate foster parents had taken us in. My brother was out on the West Coast somewhere with his new foster parents, but I was stuck in Bayville with my foster parent, Mr. Milbury, who lived in what was probably the least interesting part of New York. So I guess you could say that I wasn't exactly happy with how things turned out. But I still wrote to my brother all the time, and I guess that he was pretty happy on his end.

So yeah, I guess you could say that I was a pretty normal guy, aside from one little thing.

You see, about a year ago, I found out by accident that I had some pretty insane powers. No, really, I swear that I'm not crazy or anything. For a few weeks, I had been getting bad headaches every day, and out of the blue, I woke up one night and literally blasted away the roof with these…lasers or something that came out of my eyes. It was crazy, but Mr. Milbury didn't seem that surprised. He just gave me these sunglasses, and told me not to take them off, except when he needed me to.

I guess that I should have asked him more about what was going on with me, but to be honest, I didn't really feel like he was going to be able to help much. Still, it felt pretty cool to have these powers, even if I couldn't use them. It made me feel like I was special, and that maybe I was going to be someone famous down the road.

But high school still hasn't changed for me yet, and to be honest, I don't think it ever will. Even with my new powers, I'm still at the bottom of the food chain, and I'm not getting any closer to the top.

Speaking of the top, I had finally found the bathroom I had been looking for. It was by the administration building, and mostly teachers used it, so I knew that it was nicer than most of the bathrooms at school. Just as I was about to go in, a strikingly beautiful girl stopped me in my tracks.

"Excuse me, but are you a student here?" She asked with a British accent that seemed odd to me. Not because I haven't ever heard one before, but because there was something not quite right with it, but I quickly forgot about it once I took in her appearance.

She was just a little bit shorter than me, although some of her height might have come from the high heels that she was walking in. She must have been the first high school student I had ever seen walking around in high heels at school, but she definitely didn't seem to have any issues with them. Beyond that, the most striking thing about her appearance was her platinum blond hair, which ran down in perfectly combed fashion over her considerable…assets. Seriously, this girl looked like she belonged in some fashion magazine, not in a boring place like Bayville.

I realized after a moment that I was staring, and I quickly averted my eyes, "Uh, yeah, I am. Name's Scott." I said quickly, thrusting out a hand, silently cursing myself for not being able to talk to a pretty girl. Not that I had ever had much success talking to Jean or anything.

But to my surprise, she simply smiled and shook my hand, "Emma. Emma Frost."

Before I could fully comprehend the fact that she wasn't completely freaked out by me, Emma pointed to a piece of paper in her hand.

"Do you happen to know where Room 203 is?" She asked, a perfectly manicured finger tapping on said room number on her schedule.

"Oh yeah, totally. I can show you where to go. But, um, I kinda have to take care of this." I replied, pointing to the ketchup stain on my shirt, trying to hide how uncomfortable I was talking to her. I mean, could you really blame me?

"I see. That's going to stain." She said, crinkling her nose in disgust at the sight of the offending red splotch.

Tell me about it.

"Yeah, so if you don't mind, I'm going to go clean it off." I said, gesturing towards the bathroom door.

By the time I had finally washed out all of the ketchup and got out of the bathroom, Emma was already gone. I guess that she had gotten tired of waiting for me, and had left. Well, I'm sure that conversation was going to be the most I would ever end up talking to her for the rest of high school. Girls like her usually ended up hanging out with the rest of the popular girls, who wouldn't come near me with a stick.

I guess it was nice knowing her while it lasted. I was willing to bet that within a week, she would completely forget that I even existed and our conversation would become an afterthought for her. That was the way that things usually went for me.

Not really thinking much of it, I headed to my fourth period class, Trigonometry. It was actually one of the subjects I really enjoyed in school, mostly because of all of the angles involved in it. I don't know, maybe I'm just weird like that.

I opened the door to find that the room was surprisingly quiet, odd for a high school class. However, I quickly realized that the silence may have had something to do with the stunning blond standing at the front of the class. Right, Room 203. I had neglected to remember that my class was in said room.

"Oh, Scott, sorry for leaving you behind, but I didn't want to be late to my first class at Bayville, and I managed to get someone else to help me." She apologized, while I took a moment to comprehend the fact that she actually remembered my name. Yeah, I know, pathetic.

"Yeah, no problem. I understand." I replied quickly, before being ushered to my seat by Mr. Henderson, who actually was one of my favorite teachers. He was probably the main reason why I actually enjoyed Trigonometry, mostly because it felt like he actually cared about the subject. But even he seemed pretty distracted today.

"Hey, Scott, do you know the new girl?"

I nearly leapt out of my seat once I realized that Jean was asking me a question. And she was leaning up against my desk. She definitely wasn't doing my teenage imagination any favors.

"Not really. I helped her find this class, but that's it." I replied, doing my best to pull out my books from my backpack in a casual motion. I figured it would look cooler, and it would hide the fact that I was currently freaking out about talking to Jean.

"Oh, okay." Jean nodded, motioning to go back to her desk on the other side of the room while I frantically tried to think of something to say in order to keep the conversation going. But it was too late, and Jean was gone before I even had one word ready. I was pathetic.

Like seriously. My best chance ever to talk to the girl of my dreams, and I can't even manage one word.

I didn't really have any time to dwell on that, because Emma took the opportunity to introduce herself to the class, who had more or less settled down and focused its attention on her.

"My name is Emma Frost, and yes, I am the daughter of Winston Frost. I don't hate any of you yet, and it would be in your best interest to keep things this way. That's all."

Damn.

"Er, thank you, Emma. Please, take a seat in the desk behind Scott." Mr. Henderson said awkwardly, not sure how to deal with the situation. Trust me, I would have reacted exactly the same way.

And from the bewildered expressions from the other students in our class, I suspected that most of us felt similarly. Emma strode past me with all eyes following her, but not before flashing a smile in my direction. Apparently, that gesture did not go unnoticed, because, before I knew it, all eyes in the room were now trained on me.

I didn't know it at the time, but that was the start of my new life, and I had no one but Emma Frost to blame for it.

Something that I've hated about the X-Men movies so far is that they've essentially thrown Cyclops to the curb, when I feel like he's personally one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise. So I've decided to give him his due in an original story that will be connecting him with the X-Men in the First Class universe, since I feel like it offers a more interesting premise.

But I don't want to write something that no one has any interest in reading, so please, let me know if you want to see more with a review or a PM. Thanks for reading!