Aura Merelan stepped from a new silver Amanti, looking up at the sign at the front of the school that read The Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. She thanked the driver she'd only spoken a handful of words to before closing the door (She would have given him some money if she though he needed any). She'd finally made it here. Aura had hitchhiked the semi-short distance from her suburban home in New York City. Aura new enough about her parents, though she had no memory of them. She knew her mother had had a cousin who wasn't a mutant and who'd been pregnant around the same time her mother had. Aura's second-cousin, also a girl, was also a Mutant, and lived here at Bayville, New York.

Aura's power was like no one else's she knew of. Her parents had both been amazing top level Mutants. Her mother could control anything heat related; controlling fire or creating ice out the moisture in the air. Her father was much like Professor Charles Xavier, along with near complete control of the mind, was also an empath. However, neither of them had gotten the chance to attend any formal training. They'd had a first-class seat watching the cruelty that could come to a person simply because of mutated genes but refused to become hostile towards all. They shared the belief that one day, humans and mutants would be able to live happily in a peaceful society. Aura guessed that explained her amazing ability's. Unlike Mystic or Rogue, rather than being able to change her shape, or borrow/steal a Mutants power, Aura learnt other Mutants' power. Because of this she guessed, she had been tested positive for mutant activity when she was born. She'd never heard of a Mutant 'activating' at such a young age. Aura's parents had had a couple that knew what they were and had been ok with it. When Aura's parents disappeared when she was three, she'd gone to live with them. They'd told her all they knew about her, her parents, and their pasts. Aura found out later, that her parents were not missing, but deceased, having died in a riot.
They'd been crushed under the weight of the shear numbers of mutant haters. Her parents and four others had been killed. Aura was sad to know her parents had died painful deaths, but was consoled to know they hadn't simply abandoned her. She'd been taken well care of her entire life.

When Aura was four years old, Dan and Liz (her surrogate parents) moved out into the country with Aura, and they all found out just how special she really was. Aura had been outside, when she'd run into the road. The driver of the van, going at about 55 mph, didn't even see Aura before it was too late. Aura was hit and died instantly. The van stopped within feet of her crushed little body. Liz and Dan had come out screaming after looking out their living room window at the road. The driver had gotten out to check on the little girl. Out of nowhere, Aura, the van, it's driver, and a circle around Aura about 20 feet across, burst into flame. Dan and Liz hadn't made it close enough to the road yet to be affected more than being toppled over.

When they could finally look at the fire, (for it was so bright) a naked little Aura came running from the flames unscathed. She ran screaming and crying into their tearful arms. She was extremely hot to the touch. When they got the chance to look back up to the road, there was only the fire burns to say that anything strange had happened. There was not a single scrap of the van or it's driver. There was also not a single piece of grass within the area that had been burnt. The police reluctantly accepted the fact the car had been driving down the street and the engine had exploded. Afterwards, Dan and Liz decided it would be best to move out of that county and too New York City, were strange things happened everyday. It wasn't until this day however, that Liz finally told Aura the truth about what she was.

"When you were still inside your mother. We could see you… or at least part of you I guess. Your mother would turn off the lights, and a little fiery wing and other feathers could be seen. When ever I held my hand near her stomach, I even got the sensation like I could feel the heat and feather tips. It was amazing. I'll never forget it. That's the reasoning, behind your name Auranna, you've always given off this aura around you, even before you were born, of protection and grace. One day, your mother's cousin Kendra visited from Connecticut to tell Sara that she was pregnant too. I was there, I watched as when your mother and her sister hugged, a feather fell onto Kendra's stomach and seemed to be absorbed by it. I didn't even think about it until now actually.

But anyway, when you were younger, we were amazed the first night you came to stay with us, when we turned off the lights, we were confused when it still looked like a nightlight was on. Only thing was, we didn't have any nightlights. When I looked up at you, I realized it was you that was giving off the warm glow. I could see the fiery wings and feathers that surrounded you. It is a beautiful sight." Aura had never noticed the glow, or the feathers. When she went in front of the mirror and turned off the lights, she still couldn't see them. She loved her new parents, and the feeling was mutual. But the reaction her body had when she was learning new skills was taking a worse and worse toll on her. Her head would become a seemingly ticking time-bomb. Her migraines were intense. She hoped the man Dan and Liz had called "the Professor" could help her.

Aura had only met a small handful of scattered Mutants in her lifetime. Those she had, had given her enough surprises to last her a lifetime. After walking past someone in New York, she'd decided to stop in a local dinner. She'd ordered a small grape juice--her favorite-- but after turning her head to look out the window, she looked down to see an empty place where her glass had been a second before. However, she could still feel the cool glass on her fingertips. When she gripped the invisible mass and brought it to her lips (how people didn't see this and think she was totally out of her mind is still a mystery to her) she found the grape juice too was there, simply not visible.

She'd left the waitress an extra tip for the glass, which she'd smartly decided to take home with her. When she showed her parents, they were amazed. Dan had asked Aura to try doing it again. Even with her concentrating till she broke a sweat, Aura couldn't get it to happen again. But the next morning, as she was smacking for her obnoxious alarm, she found she could hear it, but not find it. After smacking around her bedside table for a good five minutes, she finally got it to stop screaming "Hit me baby one more time…" at her at the top of it's mechanical lungs.

Over the next few weeks, her closet became bare looking, her cloths slowly disappearing. And by no means could she get them back. She'd tried, concentrating for a good hour at seemingly blank space begging her favorite Giants sweatshirt to reappear but to no avail. On an outing with a group of friends, they had decided to go to the neighborhood park, one none of them had been in for years. Swinging on a tire swing, she nearly fell off when she got another spitting migraine. The voices of her mixed group of friends came rushing into her mind. Thoughts and wants Aura simply didn't want to know. Attempting to shake her head clear, she said frustratingly, "My gosh Adam, is that all you ever think about? I know we've always joked about it but… I mean seriously… Is everything a math or physics problem to you? Does it really matter what the velocity of a basketball pumped to approximately 6 pounds rolling down the slide which is exactly 8 meters tall is? Does it really matter how many leaves are on that Oak tree?… And you two," she said, turning on two of her friends who she knew were smitten with each other, ".. Would you two just go get a room? My gosh, you two have enough fantasies to make a romance novel series… If you like her Jamie, just ask her out on a date. You don't have to drag the other 7 of us around, we all know you wish you hadn't anyway." With a look of shocked horror, she gave a quick goodbye before running back to her house a few blocks away, struggling because she was trying to keep her hands over her ears as if they might block out all the things she'd heard, and especially wishing she could take back the things she'd said. She tried to talk to her parents about it, but all she could get was worry, and a small amount of amusement from Dan seeing as how the advice she'd just recently given Jamie and Sarah were close to the exact words he had said. Aura however, could never figure out exactly when she picked up these gifts, or who they were from. It was after this though, that her parents suggested she go to see her cousin and Professor Xavier. Especially after her headaches refused to go away and she couldn't go to sleep at night because of the eroticness of the neighbors across the street.

As the Amanti pulls away, she checks herself. In all of her nineteen years , she'd never been around this many mutants before. For the first time, she could feel each individual one. She could sense each individual power…and there it was… a small echo of herself, the echo she knew was her cousin Jean. It called out to her; she recognized it, but feared it just the same. Auranna still worried deep down inside her, what would happen when she was complete? She had to have given Jean part of her gift for a reason right? She picked up her torn backpack by one of its tattered straps. With a twist of her forearm, she puts the pack on her shoulder. She moves her naturally silvery-blond curls out of her deep emerald eyes. Brushing imaginary dust from her jeans and denim jacket over a simple black tee, she makes her way past the gate and towards the grand oak doors at the front of the enormous facility.

Aura could remember how every single one of her birthday candles for as long as she could remember had gone to her being normal. When she was younger, she'd been able to learn new abilities relatively easily, without the blinding headaches. She remembered with a small grin of her sixth birthday when playing out in the small yard her parents had managed to get, she'd accidentally frozen the sprinkler. It had been one of the most amazing things she'd ever seen. She'd stopped giggling the way a typical six year-old does to stare in awe at the water that stood still. She walked towards it, and when she was close enough, reached a hand to touch it. She found the water hadn't been turned to icicles, but instead she'd slowed it down to the point it wasn't visibly moving. She leaned in, sticking out her tongue to one of the suspended droplets. Just as her tongue was about to taste this stilled water, her mother came out the door to ask if she was enjoying herself. Aura glanced in her mother's direction before she brought her head back, to find the water was again moving at it's regular speed and it was moving directly into her nose. "Mommy, Mommy, come look!" she'd cried, shaking her head of the feeling of water in her airway. Liz had patiently shook her head and with a sigh that ended in a smile at the little girl full of wonder at how bugs crawled, and walked to her. "What amazing discovery did you make today Baby?" Aura remembered how Liz had always seemed to call her that, even after she'd graduated from her high school, after 'the Talk', and after Aura had decided to leave to come here, to this institute where the most skilled mutants resided. Liz's last words to her had been softly whispered in her ear. "I love you… and I just want you to be happy Baby…" Aura remembered how Liz had made her way down to her in the yard, and stooped down to her level. Aura grabbed Liz's hands, begging her to watch. Liz nodded, answering that of course she would watch, and to just show her what she was so excited about. Aura was nearly bursting at the seams to show Liz what she could do. She turned, concentrating on the water. In the blink of an eye, the water was again frozen. Aura turned squealing in delight to her flabbergasted mother. Who scooped her up, disbelief on her face. She reached out to the still waterfall in front of them. When her hands touched them, the droplets came lose and fell to the ground.

Slowly, over the years, learning how to use and control what she had learnt became harder and harder, along with more painful. They started off small and nearly unnoticed. But as she traveled around New York City in her years of adolescence, and had seconds of interaction with other mutants, most of which she had no idea were even standing next to her on the subway, or serving her the classic hotdog with all the 'fixings' at the corner stand, her body and mind had begun to fight the transformations. Her head turns this way then that as her eyes search the area around her, the great detail that had gone into building this place. She sets her pack down on the cement stoop next to her before taking a deep breath and knocking firmly on the thick doors.

To be continued…