Disclaimer: Alanna and George belong to Tamora Pierce, Erik belongs to Leroux, and I don't own any of the X-men except the ones you don't recognize.

CHAPTER 1: In which several characters are introduced

Krista pulled on her wetsuit and donned her fake mermaid tail. The gypsy caravan had just pulled into the outskirts of another town and it was time to play Robin Hood (cough) rob the local moneybags blind (cough). Krista loved being a part of the freak show, one of the last of its kind. The Information Age was finally starting to arrive in this previously overlooked part of the world. She checked the water filter one last time, gave her partner, George, the thumbs-up, and slipped into her tank.

George started letting ticket-holders into the tent. Krista spotted their first target almost immediately. His wallet was so fat that it was putting strain on his back pocket. Fat Wallet stood rooted like a deer in a Hummer's headlights while his tiny brain struggled to deny Krista's existence. To Krista's delight, Fat Wallet decided to hold his breath and wait for her to surface for air, which would prove her to be a fake. Krista, of course, was not going to surface. Eventually Fat Wallet keeled over from lack of oxygen, and George gently relieved him of his wallet and not-so-gently rolled him outside. The same thing happened to Hippo, Mr. Striped-pants, Mr. Walrus, Mrs. Walrus, and Pocketbook. Rich people were hopelessly stupid.

The common people, on the other hand, were delighted to discover that Krista really could breathe water, mostly because it meant that everything the rich people had ever told them was wrong. The raggedy little kids pressed their noses right up to the tank and waved. Krista winked at a little girl and pointed to her pocket. The girl put her hand in her pocket and her eyes grew as wide as plates when she found a real American twenty-dollar bill. George had a soft spot for little kids, though he'd never admit it.

All too soon it was time to close up. Krista climbed out of her tank and sighed, blowing the last of the water out of the blowhole on her back.

"Hey, watch it!"

Alanna chose the wrong moment to enter the tent and ended up getting royally doused. George failed spectacularly to cover a grin as he handed her a towel. Alanna glowered. George tweaked her nose. Krista swiped the towel while the redhead was busy plotting dire revenge and got up to change back into street clothes.

"Krista, don't go! I want to introduce you to the latest member of our motley crew," Alanna called. "Just to warn you, though, his face could take some getting used to. We're thinking of billing him as the 'Living Corpse.'" With that, she grabbed Krista by the hand and dragged her outside. A few men were busy pulling the sleeping tents out of the blue Jeep. They waved the girls on to a new tent over by the old pickup truck.

Stepping inside, the girls were temporarily blinded by the contrast between brilliant sunset and dark, musty tent. Krista paused, trying to blink away sunspots before realizing that the two glowing dots were actually the Living Corpse's eyes.

"I've brought company!" Alanna trumpeted as she stepped into the tent.

"SQUEEEEEEEEE!" Krista squealed as she happily fainted.

"Oh dear," said the Phantom of the Opera.

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Professor X woke up with a pounding headache, which is never a good thing for someone with immense psychic abilities. For some odd reason, headaches always made him start calculus problems using arbitrary numbers. This, of course, made the headache worse.

The headache had come from a psychic blast that sounded something like "Squeee!" Unfortunately Professor X is not particularly glompable, and so he didn't know what "squee" meant. He was worried that whoever sent it might be in trouble. He had to find her, but first he needed to find maybe fifty Aspirins and the antiderivative of 453 t minus 27 t squared.

The professor wheeled his way to the kitchen, squinting against the light. Rogue, Wolverine, and Jubilee were already there, scribbling frantically on pieces of paper. Professor X stopped to look at what Logan was doing. Logan had a look of sheer terror on his face and was mumbling, "How am I supposed to take an antiderivative of an imaginary number if I don't know what an antiderivative IS?"

Rogue, with a supreme effort, wrenched herself away from her paper, chanting a number softly as she searched through the top cabinet and brought down a bottle of Aspirin. She gave it to Professor X and immediately sat down to continue where she had left off.

The professor quickly downed the meds and started rubbing his temples. Very slowly, the girls' pencil skritchings slowed and then stopped. Wolverine growled and snapped his pencil between his teeth.

Professor X looked up and started trying to explain. "I got a very strong psychic message last night, you see, and.."

"I got a strong psychic message, too," Storm snapped from the doorway. "How am I supposed to SLEEP if I sit bolt upright at five in the morning shouting, '226 and one-half t squared minus 9 t cubed plus a constant that may or may not exist?'"

"Uh, sorry?" the professor offered.

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A/N: Hi! If you just read this chapter, I love you forever because I have a talent for totally escaping the notice of the general public. Please send a review so that I know I'm not alone in the world. Any suggestions are extremely welcome, considering I'm a newbie (hey, everyone was a newbie at some point) and I'm lucky I figured out how to post this thing. I would appreciate any tidbits about the X-men, too.