Disclaimer: The characters portrayed within are the property of Marvel Comics and are used without permission in a non-profitable fan fiction. I do not own these characters. I do however own the rights to the following characters as they are my own creation: Angelo Hernandez (Crickett), Ryan Christed (R.C.), Xi Kanwan (Shekay), Arthur Bantham (Shifter), and Ashlyn Treudeax (Ivy). These characters are fictitious and any resemblance to any person, both real and unreal, are strictly coincidental. Please do not use these characters without prior permission.

Chapter 1
Getting to know one another.

Ryan Christed and Xi Kanwan were romantically involved, much to the dismay of the parents of both kids, long before Black ever recruited either one of them. By agreeing to join Black's group, called The Genogoths, Ryan and Xi thought they had found a way of avoiding their parents controlling desires. They got along great with each other because one fateful night, they had both found out they had extraordinary powers.

They had snuck away from their houses and met up in town. Ryan had driven both of them to a private make-out spot overlooking the city of Seattle. While making out, both of them suddenly unleashed their powers in the excitement. Things started flying all over the place in the car, and they had no idea what was going on. A cigarette lighter flew at Xi's head and she instinctively threw her hands up to deflect the object and when it hit her hands it mysteriously disappeared. So did everything else that she touched that flew at her head. Once everything settled down, both Ryan and Xi were scared out of their minds. They immediately went home and did not talk to each other again until Black showed up.

Contrary to what Ryan thinks to this day, Xi had known about her powers before that fateful night. She had been afraid to tell him of her powers before that, for fear he would think she was a freak. Before meeting Ryan, she had tried to get on at that new school in Snow Valley, Massachusetts, where supposedly they were teaching mutants how to use their powers, but the school ended up closing after some of the normal students had been killed by a bomb set off in the school by one of the new headmasters. After that, she found it next to impossible to track down any of the mutants that she had thought had been in that school. She only knew the name of one of the headmasters that had been at that school and her name was Emma Frost. When she tried to look up this person's name, she had come to find out that she was actually the CEO and Chairman of Frost Enterprises, which made her wonder if Ms. Frost was a mutant at all, or just perhaps financial backing for the school. Repeated attempts to get a hold of her had failed. Soon thereafter, she had met Ryan and decided to try to lead as much of a normal life as she could with a normal guy. Only Ryan turned out not to be normal. Then Black showed up at her door with an invitation that her and Ryan couldn't turn down.

And now she sat in the living room of the Genogoths Headquarters. Ryan was next to her asleep on the couch. Nobody had heard from Black in the four days since they had gotten there. She couldn't believe how nice the headquarters were. There were separate dorm rooms for each student and the girls and guys stayed in separate wings off the main living quarters.

There was a park located behind the massive building that had exercise equipment, obstacle courses, tennis courts, and basketball courts, where, if she remembered correctly, was where that Mexican kid, Angelo, and the black kid, Arthur had said they were going.

She had no idea what their powers were, only that they had them. They all had some sort of special gift, which was why they were there. The thing was that nobody was ready to show off their "gift" for anyone else. Everyone had formed their own special cliques rather quickly. Angelo and Art were the two oldest members, and both of them apparently loved basketball, so they had become friends very fast. Of course she and Ryan had been close long before they had gotten there, so they were close. They were even closer now than before they had gotten there. The only person who hadn't fit in was the petite little girl, Ashlyn. She was Cajun, they all could tell by the way she talked and everyone thought she was incredibly weird for all the plants she had brought in with her when she had moved in. Xi figured the plants were just a hobby of hers, but couldn't help wondering if maybe it was somehow related to her power.

Ryan stirred next to her on the couch and woke up long enough to start floating a glass of water from the coffee table over to him for a drink. Smiling, Xi reached out and touched the drink when it was mere inches from his hand, instantly teleporting the glass back to the coffee table. He huffed and playfully smacked her. He started floating the drink back to him. She giggled and got up off the couch and went to the kitchen. The kitchen had come completely stocked with everything they would need to survive for a month without leaving the house. She was startled when she came through the door to find Ashlyn sitting there with a plant on the table. The plant was dried up and brown, looking like it had long been dead. She looked like she had been crying.

"What's the matter?" Xi asked, curious why a girl would be crying over one plant when she had a room full of them.

"I didn't put him close enough to the window." Ashlyn said absently. "I should have listened to him"

"Listen to whom? Angelo? Art?" Xi said confused.

Ashlyn rolled her eyes and picked up the plant off the table. She closed her eyes and right before Xi's eyes, the brown and withered plant renewed itself as green as can be and sprouted new leaves.

Ashlyn opened her eyes and looked at the plant. "IT WORKED!" She exclaimed smiling, and as she left the kitchen, Xi could have sworn the plant waved bye to her.

So she was right. Ashlyn's power did have something to do with plants. But how was bringing a plant back from the dead a good enough power to warrant her joining this group? She decided she was too hungry to think about that and proceeded to open the fridge and look inside. She reached in and grabbed a Cream Soda and teleported it into the living room. As soon as the Soda flashed out of her hand she heard Ryan scream out after a loud thunk came from the living room. She rushed into the living room and saw Ryan standing to the side of the couch, rubbing his head. The bottle of soda was lying, spinning, on the floor.

"I'm so sorry, honey!" Xi said, her Asian features lighting up with concern. "I meant to get it on the coffee table."

"Would it have been too much to just carry it in here with you?" Ryan said, blue eyes flashing with annoyance.

"Isn't that why we are here? To learn about and develop our powers?" Xi said defending herself.

"By teleporting bottles of soda over my head?" Ryan said laughing.

Xi crossed the room over to where the bottle was still spinning on the floor and reached down to pick it up. As her hand got close to it, it scooted across the floor about a foot. Xi looked up at Ryan. "Knock it off." She said, smiling. When she reached down to pick it up again, the bottle scooted a little bit further.

"Can't teleport it if you can't touch it, can you?" Ryan said mockingly.

Xi tried a couple more times to get the bottle, then finally gave up and turned and chased after Ryan through the house.

"Dang, they got it bad for each other, eh?" Angelo said to Art.

They had been playing basketball on the court when they finally decided they would rather watch and see if they could learn more about the other "students".

"Yeah, but at least they'll keep each other company." Art said. "I'm wondering where Black went after dumping us off here."

"I don't know, amigo, but if his intentions were to dump us off in this mansion and disappear, I'm all for it."

The saw Ryan run by the hall and dart up the stairs to the girls dorm with Xi close behind.

"I'm going for a closer look." Angelo said and sprung in the air, landing on the first story roof that stuck out in front of the second story windows.

"Show off." Art yelled up at him. Art started climbing the lattice work next to the window. To help him along, he shaped his fingers into hooks and thinned his feet out to where they could fit into the lattice work. When he finally made it onto the roof, he saw Angelo crawling in through an open window. On further down, Art noticed a window that had vines covering it. "Must be Ashlyn's room." He thought to himself.

"C'mon, hombre", Angelo said, motioning for Art to come in through the window. As Art was coming in through the window, he realized they were coming in through the window of the last girls' dorm room. The sixth and final member of the group had yet to show up at the Headquarters. Art figured that was what Black was out doing, trying to find the sixth member. All of a sudden, there was a chime and a voice came over the intercom system of the house.

"Everyone report to the living area, please." The voice belonged to Black.

"Master of the house is home." Angelo said and headed for the stairs. As Art exited the room, he saw Ashlyn come out of her room. She was carrying a dozen roses with her and she was wearing a full body suit made out of durable leather.

"Grrrrrrrrrowwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrr." Angelo purred at her.

Ashlyn rolled her eyes and walked past him and down the stairs. When Angelo got downstairs, he saw that Ryan, Ashlyn, and Xi were all standing in front of Black. Angelo walked up and stood next to Ashlyn, looking her up and down. He turned toward the stairs and couldn't see Art coming down them.

"Where's Art?" Xi asked.

"I don't know, chica. He was right behind me." Angelo said confused.

"Art will be joining us in a little bit." Black said. "We will begin without him. Each of you have a gift as I'm sure you know. I'm going to start over here to my left and start introducing each of you to the rest of the group."

He gestured toward Ryan. "This is Ryan Christed from Seattle, WA, and his girlfriend, also from Seattle, Xi Kanwan. Next is Ashlyn Treudeax from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Angelo Hernandez here is from Mexico originally, and last but not least is Arthur Bantham, who is from New York City."

As he introduced them, each one stepped forward. All except Art, who of course wasn't there. Angelo noticed that Ashlyn was still carrying her flowers.

"And now for your gifts. I want each of you to come forward and demonstrate your abilities. Keep it safe and remember not to destroy anything."

Ryan stepped forward first and reached his hand toward Ashlyn's flowers. The flowers shot out of her hands and ended up in Ryan's. Ashlyn looked extremely pissed off, and started to step toward Ryan. Xi cut her off and walked up to him first.

"That was rude, give those back."

As Xi touched the flowers, Ashlyn realized that suddenly she was holding her flowers again and that Ryan wasn't. It only took her a moment to realize that she had her Roses back.

"How dare you!" She yelled and started advancing toward Ryan. As she advanced, the roses started getting bigger and the vines started wrapping around her body. By the time she got to Ryan, she was literally covered in a suit of thorn armor. She swung a spike covered arm toward Ryan, who quickly dodged out of the way.

"Hey! I'm sorry, geez!" Ryan said, continuously backing away as she swung again and again.

"That's ENOUGH!" Black roared. The kids stopped where they were. "Ryan, you will keep your hands off things that are not yours, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ashlyn, you will NOT try to kill your teammates if they touch your plants. Do you understand?"

"He hurt them, and she.." Ashlyn started pointing to Xi.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Black said again forcefully.

"Oui." Was all she said, hanging her head. The plant had reverted back to the six flower bouquet that she had started out with. She winced as the vines separated from her, and Angelo realized why she had come down wearing all leather. Even with the protection of the leather, he saw small rips in the leather caused by the thorns. There were multiple scratches that were bleeding.

"Wow, you must really care for plants, chica." Angelo said to her as she fell back in line.

She just looked at him and gave him a really creepy smile. He saw the vines in the roses start reaching out for him.

"Oh, no you don't!" Angelo said as he leapt up to the balcony about 20ft above them. The three of the other students gasped collectively at the site.

"No wonder he likes basketball." Ryan said.

"Well that only leaves one more student. Art, please demonstrate your power." Black spoke as if Art was standing in the room with them.

The three students on the floor looked around puzzled. Angelo yelled from the loft. "Hey, senor! Art isn't here, remember?"

"Oh, but I am."

The voice came from an end-table that was next to the stairs leading up to the girl's dorms. The table started twisting and melting and eventually reverted back to its original shape that was Arthur Bantham.

"Wow!" Angelo said as he leapt down to the floor. "You're a regular Mystique!" He said referring to the one time member of X-Factor and world renowned mutant terrorist.

"Not quite." Black said. "Art can change his shape, but only into inanimate objects. So far, he can't change his appearance to look like someone else. Mystique is just the opposite."

"Now that the five of you know each other a little better, I want to discuss something with you. As you know, this operation is called the Genogoths, and it's supposed to consist of six members. You may be wondering why there are only five of you. To tell you the truth, I just finished talking with Paige Guthrie, a mutant associated with the X-Men and she turned me down to come to this school. This is the tenth time she has turned me down, and she grows tired of me asking, so I'm afraid for the time being you will not have."

Black was interrupted by a knock on the door. He looked wide-eyed toward the door.

He walked over to the door and opened it up. There stood a hunched over girl of about 16 years of age; about 5'11" and very Native American looking.

"Help me." she managed to get out before she collapsed into Black's arms.

"Quick students, get her to the infirmary!" Black said.

Without hesitation Arthur said, "Here use me." With that, he melted to the floor and formed into a stretcher. Angelo laid the girl on the stretcher and the four students took a corner and quickly carried her to the infirmary.

Black stepped outside and looked around. It was dusk now, and a thunderstorm was rolling in. It was too dark to see past the gates, but all of a sudden there was a soft flash of lightning and Black saw the silhouette of what appeared to be two dogs or wolves standing at the gate. Not believing what he just saw, he turned and started to go back into the house. As he was about to shut the door, two blood curdling howls were followed by a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder.

Confused, Black decided it would be best to not pursue the matter. He headed down to the infirmary.