Disclaimer: None of these characters are OCs. I don't own any of them. Kudos to you if you can figure them out without looking them up.

Chapter 2: the special class

Meet the Muir Island team. The students Xavier himself couldn't handle. The misfits. Moira's special class.

Officially known as the MacTaggert School, the name 'the special class' was given by some pompous uncouth young mutants attending the Bayville Academy while bullying some unfortunate new MacTaggert School recruit. Though the perpetrators of the incident have long since been forgotten, the name has stuck if only as an in-joke amongst those very same MacTaggert School students that seem to so enjoy self-deprecating humor.

And it really is a special school.

They have a lot of group meetings in order to foster a sense of belonging and community. Friendly competitions to teach independence and confidence. Every hour and activity is planned ahead based on the psychological benefits of routine and structure in such a way that even the fact that the days of the special class often seem less organized than their un-special counterparts in Bayville is designed to support responsible, mature decision making when faced with freedom and choice.

There is a sick bay of course as it was the Professor himself that funded the creation and upkeep of one in every outpost his weary and battled X-Men might be unfortunate enough to have to recuperate in. But this one is different as the center's primary goal is the mental health of the Island's residents making full use of the dim lighting, non-confrontational environment, and weekly visits from one Doc Samson, psychiatrist specifically trained in youth counseling. The good doctor rounds out the school's permanent staff along with caretakers Rahne Sinclair, heir to the MacTaggert throne, and Illyana Rasputin, returned MacTaggert School graduate.

It's interesting when you consider how the relatively newer residential program's needs and goals have similarly overtaken those of the original MacTaggert lab with which it shares a home.

Perhaps most influential to the program's continued existence, despite its lack of emphasis on proactive combative training and the need to create an army of mutant warriors, is the overall sense of well being and the successful lives graduates of the program go on to achieve even years after attending.

Created only a few short years after Xavier's original in Bayville, graduates of the MacTaggert School could boast the start of promising futures in both their professional and personal lives as compared to the sometimes tragic lives of graduates from Bayville, the first example of which would be the Evan Daniels debacle early on in the X-Men's existence and the latest most damning of course being the Jean Grey – Phoenix incident that had occurred only two years ago. It had caused the disbanding of the official combat ready X-Men which consisted of Cyclops, Rogue, and Nightcrawler, among others, turning the Bayville Academy back into an actual school. Doc Samson still blames himself for not bringing more attention to the young woman's state of mind when Xavier had placed yet another powerful mental block into her delicate psyche. Though, I digress.

I suppose we can begin with Arlee 'Buff' Hicks.

Arlee stood at her current height of five foot when she reached puberty at age 11. She hasn't grown an inch in the 4 years since, not lengthwise at least. Indeed her body has grown in every other way as it attempts to fit Arnold Schwarzenegger size muscles onto her tiny frame. Someone had told her once that it was a good thing because he ended up being governor of California, not to mention Jesse Ventura or even Hulk Hogan with his reality show contract. It didn't help. At her last weigh in she weighed well over 200 pounds with hardly an ounce of fat. There's no pain involved or really any change in metabolism, as is often found with these cases. It's just, she's a quiet girl. Not quite suited for a body that brings her such attention. However, as she walks down the streets of some busy city, it's never really the comments or looks of spectators that bother her. What bothers her is what she sees in the mirror every morning and the multitude of negative things she says to herself daily. It doesn't help to find that she can't hold on to a normal sized pencil and on the off chance that she does, can snap it without a thought.

And while Arlee holds attention because of the way her body looks, Sooraya 'Dust' Qadir, as a burka wearing hijabi, often garners it because of her lack thereof. Sooraya is an Afghani refugee deposited on the island only about a year ago after a brief stay at the school in Bayville ended in a few difficulties between her and the other students, the same kind of students responsible for the school's unofficial name. Officially her transcript states culture shock as the reason for her transfer and this is not far from the truth, but with the multi-cultural status of the Bayville Academy, culture shock is very easily a situation that is often taken care of by Xavier. No, Sooraya is at Muir because she is a refugee. A victim of a war she had no say in and a war that still haunts her. More than the things she's seen, it bothers her that the only reason she was pulled out was because she was a mutant. A mutant with a very battle useful power by the way to turn herself into a living sandstorm. And after a year of pretending to be a Westerner, where has it gotten her? Where is her family? Where are her friends? She prays for their souls daily because she does not know if they are alive or not. She blames herself for not going back and finding out. And after all this, the last thing she is willing to do is put her trust into the man that had recruited her because of her abilities and asked her to fight, against robots and holograms or not.

Next we come to Barnell 'Beak' Bohusk. Barnell was born a beautiful child in an otherwise average family with average lives. This made him extraordinary and his life quickly followed suit. One day, when he was 13 he awoke to find a feather on his pillow. That was the start of an unusually awkward transformation into adolescence. Barnell's full transformation took him about a year and a half in which he lost 50 pounds, grew exceptionally lanky arms and legs, hollowed out his bones making him much more susceptible to fractures and breaks, lost most of his gorgeous locks of golden hair, grew what looked like the top half of a beak in the middle of his face (hence the name), and most irritatingly of all, grew a sparse collection of feathers in different areas around his body. Can you picture it?

He's broken his arm twice already but knows now how careful he needs to be and has learned how to deal with the tediousness associated with the shedding of old feathers and the rashes on his skin that form when new feathers begin to grow. These don't affect him as much as the fact that Barnell knew what life was like before looking the way he does now. It makes it hard for him the same way it's hard for Arlee, only she internalizes her pain where he externalizes. When he's angry he breaks things. When he feels trapped he likes to run, or when possible, fly. When he feels ignored, he yells and argues. When he's bored he does whatever sounds fun, despite the consequences. When he begins to feel sorry for himself, he teases others. It seems the only way he knows how to cope is to come up with trouble. Because even if the teasing or the breaking or the yelling is momentary, it is one less moment he spends dwelling on himself and his problems.

Now for the twins. On first impression the two St. Croix sisters look completely out of place in this home for misfits. The girls are equal in their remarkable beauty and the wealth, fame, and connections of their diplomat father are more than welcome to them. But no. These good fortunes of their birth are shadowed by another. Claudette is autistic.

The girls don't have an alter ego after being lumped together as 'the twins' since before they were born. It's nice after some time to finally be known by their given names and not as 'the autistic one' and 'the autistic one's sister.' Their parents long ago had considered separating the two as they aged. Why punish their 'normal' child with the limits and defects of the other? But Nicole couldn't do it.

She has an air of royalty and arrogance about her after spending her childhood years feeling guilt over being the lucky one, frustration from being forever limited by the abilities of her sister, and even jealousy for the attention that seemed to be only allotted for the other twin. But inside the emotions that won out were understanding and love though she often hid it well. Nobody understood Claudette as she did, and in a way the same applied in the reverse situation as well. To lose her, to lose each other, would in a way turn both girls mute. So she came along to the Island under the pretense that it was Claudette that stood to benefit, though with hidden struggles of her own unfairly forced upon a girl so young.

It helps also that the girls have been mutants since they were born and their powers would prove to be quite effective in their various difficulties with each other. The two 17 year olds could merge their minds and bodies into one 34 year old super powered woman. This stroke of luck of course could not last forever. At 60 they're joined form would be aged to 120 and no yet known superpowers in the world could help them then, so they do what they can, while they can. And while Nicole hates this loss of her independence and individuality, this body they dubbed Monet jokingly for Claudette's love of art and Nicole's nostalgia for the country in which they were born, is often seen roaming the residence halls for the benefit of Claudette.

Though Claudette's personality is all her own. She can draw for hours and loves the color blue. It's not unusual to see her sitting beside Gordon (who will be introduced shortly) in the kitchen sharing cookies and working on their respective masterpieces communicating in silence, hers completely in blue and his in every color but.

And finally we come to Gordon Lefferts, 7 years old. Runt. He is slightly telepathic with a sprinkling of empathy. Rather than hearing others' thoughts as many telepaths do, he feels them and sees them. Anger is not red like we often picture it. It's a dark purple with spikes of green, though this changes from person to person, moment to moment. Happiness is the color of orange soda with ice and the edges of pink sometimes bleed into it. Sadness is brown, dull and boring. Love is blue. Like Claudette.

He wears big coke bottle classes and spends much of his free time at Moira's side in the lab tinkering with his own set of beakers and an old microscope. They all know he looks like a nerd now but one day he will come to be a great man in his own accord because he'll see things with the brain of a scientist but the heart of an empath.

Gordon's parents had trouble with him because of the way he gleans things he's not yet old enough to understand and they're not yet prepared enough to explain. Like many parents often ask themselves even of their own normal powerless children, how do you raise a little boy that is so different from other little boys? The difference when raising a mutant is that the Lefferts never quite figured that answer out. It became especially tricky when they first considered their 'trial' separation. He saw it in them before they did. Their faces used to turn a deep blue sometimes when they looked at each other. But somewhere that blue faded and Gordon didn't know where it went. He wonders sometimes if that's where Claudette's crayon comes from.

Slow chapter I know. To make up I might post the next chapter by like friday or something. I've thought about it and updating only once a week means this story will go on for months and I'm not sure I like that idea for either myself or you. I haven't figured out a new schedule though. Maybe mondays and fridays?