A/N: At long last, I have updated this story. Yeah, you can gripe at me all you want to. I don't care. Just sit back and watch as our darling mutants get settled in for their first night in Magix.

Disclaimer: If anyone asks, I was attacked by a renegade stirrup. Why? Because it sounds a lot better than "fell without style from saddle".

Brave New World

2. A Whole New World

It was late in the evening when the groups began to file into their new schools. The first to gather were the Alfea girls. Hardly a soul passed them on their way to the dorms, since winter break was still going strong. However, these girls needed to be there early. They had a magical aptitude test the next day. Their instructor/chaperone was being shown to her room by Madam DuFor, leaving the headmistress alone with the five students.

"Man, I am totally psyched about this!" Tabitha pumped her fist in the air as Faragonda led the five girls through the halls. "We'll ace this test for sure!"

"Uh, Tabby, what if we don't?" Jubilee asked, sounding a bit worried. "We never studied magic before…"

"Lighten up, Jubes, it can't be that bad!" The blonde waved as she sashayed down the halls.

"Jean will probably pass it with no problem." Amara smiled, looking to the eldest of the girls with hopeful eyes.

The red-head blushed. "I don't know about that. I really don't think this is the kind of test you "pass" or "fail". It's an aptitude test."

"Quite correct." Faragonda interrupted. "For tonight, you girls can all stay in the same suite, but once you are placed in your respective grades, you will be shuffled around to be with others in your age group."

"Lucky us." Amara grumbled. She'd had a hard enough time adjusting to life in Bayville; heck, the modern world in general was hard to deal with coming from a place like Nova Roma. Her home country/kingdom hadn't even used electricity before the X-Men found her and brought her to the Institute. She'd hated the feeling of being so far behind, and Alfea was bound to be worse than Bayville had been!

"Oh, cheer up, Amara." Kitty smiled, patting the younger mutant on the shoulder. "We're all in this together, remember?"

Amara nodded, but said nothing further.

"Well, here we are, girls!" Miss Faragonda said cheerily, coming to a stop in front of a door. "Your temporary room. I hope it will suit you…"

"Don't worry, Miss F!" Tabby beamed in her typical carefree fashion. "We'll be just fine!"

Not much later, Saladin had a new set of problems to deal with. In his haste to get all of the boys to the school, he'd forgotten to research the teams they were a part of. Apparently said teams hated each other. But, as he already had the room assignments written up, they would just have to learn to deal with each other.

"This officially sucks." Bobby "Iceman" Drake grumbled, glaring daggers at his new silver-haired roommate.

"You're telling me! I have to room with an X-dork!" Pietro "Quicksilver" Maximoff exclaimed at a speed too fast for poor Bobby to understand.

"I don't see how anyone could have a worse roommate." The blizzard-maker complained, causing the fleet-footed mutant across the room to snicker.

"Easy. You could be stuck with Toad."

*~*Next Door*~*

"I can't believe I got stuck with you!" Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner growled. The normally cheerful elf was anything but when he discovered who he would be staying with for the night.

Across the room, Todd "The Toad" Tolansky returned the furry mutant's sentiments with a glare of his own. "Yo, I ain't 'xactly thrilled either. Bet you leave fuzz all in the sink."

"As if you'd notice."

"Hey, I wash my hands, foo'."

"Must be the *only* part you wash."

*~*across the hall*~*

"How did I get stuck with you two?" Lance "the Avalanche" Alvers groaned, running a hand through his brown mullet in agitation. Of all the people to have to share an airspace with…it had to be the Boy-Scout and the Card-Shark.

Why did life hate him?

"Stay on your side of the line!"

"Non! Remy go where he please!"

"I said, stay back there!"

"You not de boss of Remy!"

"Aagh!" Lance slammed a pillow over his head, trying to drown out the noise from Scott "Cyclops" Summers' and Remy "Gambit" LeBeau's argument. Alas, it didn't work, and he was left listening to their shouting until they finally wore themselves out enough to sleep.

Griffin, it seemed, had the easiest job initially. Rogue and Amanda both arrived in a timely manner, and were placed in a room together. The pair chatted amiably, curious as to who would be occupying the third bed in their temporary dormitory. The answer came sometime around midnight, when someone knocked on their door.

"It's open!" Rogue called out, not looking up from the book she was engrossed in. Both she and Amanda were already in their nightclothes.

"Ah, good, I caught you before you went to sleep." The headmistress greeted, opening the door wide enough so that she and two other women were seen from the room. "I thought I would introduce you to your suitemate…at least, for the moment."

"We've already met." Wanda rolled her eyes, annoyed about being dragged out of the house at such a late hour, much less having to share a room with an X-Man! And just who was the strange black girl in the room?

"Hello, Wanda." Rogue said stiffly. She supposed the gothic Brotherhood girl was okay…but the scarlet-clothed teen was notorious for having a short temper, and Rogue wanted nothing to do with arousing her anger. "Amanda, Meet Wanda. Wanda, this is Kurt's girlfriend Amanda."

"The human?" Wanda raised an eyebrow. She'd heard that the furry X-geek was seeing a human girl, but she'd never had the chance to investigate if it was true or not. Apparently it was.

"Apparently not as human as I thought." Amanda sighed. "I can't believe my mother hid this from me!"

"Maybe she felt you wouldn't understand." A new voice offered as Wanda rolled her eyes and stepped into the room. From her angle, Amanda could only make out a shoulder, and with the natural shadows playing off the woman's skin, she couldn't be sure what she looked like. Rogue, however, had a meltdown.

"Mystique!" She hissed, glaring daggers at the shapeshifter. "What are you doing here?"

"Why, Rogue, I thought you would be thrilled to see your mother." Wanda said sarcastically. The Southern Belle glared back at the other girl in distain.

"Well, you guessed wrong!" She shouted.

"Miss Darkholme, settle down this instant!" the headmistress ordered in a booming voice. Rogue quieted down, but never ceased glaring at her adoptive parent. "Now, Raven has agreed to teach Transformations this semester, which works out very well for the school since the last teacher ran away screaming." The purple-haired witch said. "No matter what your personal feelings toward her, I expect all three of you to be respectful in the classroom next week, is that understood?"

A resigned "Yes, Ma'am" sounded from Rogue, while Wanda muttered a "whatever" and Amanda nodded an emphatic "Yes, Miss Griffin".

"Good." The hawk-nosed witched stated. "Now, you three get to know each other. I will be by to fetch you in the morning."

And with that, she and Mystique were gone.

"Rogue, can't you at least be civil for five minutes?" Amanda chided the older girl. Contrary to what most of the X-Men believed, she knew about the history between the two. Kurt pretty much spilled the beans and his guts when he came crying to her the night his sister "killed" their mother. "I understand you're angry, but God!"

"You don't understand the half of it!" The skunk-haired girl growled.

"I understand enough to know that you're acting like a little kid." The brunette shot back. "Guess what, honey? We're not kids! We're living on our own in a strange dimension with other girls we most likely can't stand and we need to all grow up!"

"Spunky." Wanda said, studying the taller girl. "I like it. So, what do you think of the room?" Like most of the school, it was dreary and gothic in appearance, but that didn't mean it wasn't without color. Since the three had come in, splashes of green, orange, indigo, and scarlet penetrated the dark purple décor.

"It's already changing to fit us." Amanda said. "According to Miss Griffin, each room is spelled to reflect the personality and interest of its inhabitants. The same spell is in effect at the fairy school across the lake."

"Cool." Wanda said. She hadn't heard the whole lecture yet, and quite frankly didn't care. So long as her room had lots of red and black, she was happy.