Author's note: hey guys! On the advice of Pantherpitcher32 (thanks so much for the reviews! Your support means so much to me! You too B Oots! Clues to the identity of the camera-installer in this chapter...)I'm keeping the other characters. So if I don't mention them, know that they are still there just, uh, hiding. Unless I come up with a brilliant plot that involves the not being there... Also, I've abandoned any attempts at following the Marvel continuum. I took some of the characters but some of them and all the plots are completely my own. I may 'borrow' some events or explanations from the comic books, but chances are that they won't fit in with any other events. Sorry to confuse you. I know I've foreshadowed half a dozen plot lines, they are all coming together I promise. Just gotta put 'em into words and type it up. Thinking in comic illustration format is bad. Anything to apologize for: not for lack of trying, but I cannot write in accents. That was always one of my favorite parts of the comic books, how everyone talked different, but I just can't. Maybe you can pretend that the characters are speaking in dialect... Enjoy!

She was right. I did get very interesting, very soon. Beginning with her first ever Danger Room training session. She was wearing the standard issue x-men costume, and though it was despised by all the female members of the team for its ugliness it looked lovely on Sariceia with its tight fight. She had decided to use her stage name Faerie as her codename. "All right faireey girl let's see what you can do!" Logan was taunting her. He would not be easy to deal with, in fact not of the x-men would be at first, but they'd come around. She wasn't sure if she could charm people as well as objects or if her charisma was natural, but these people would be her friends before they knew it. Until then, she could tease back. Stepping towards Wolverine, she leaned into his face and glared at him. "Hey, it's FA-RAY, got it?" This guy was obviously used to intimidating people and seemed vaguely shocked that she had stood up to him. Flashing him a grin Sariceia turned and looked at the other mutants. Shadowcat and Storm were stretching while Colossus ran through some brief warm-ups. Nightcrawler teleported down from the control booth where Caroline was watching, after setting up the program to equip seven mutants with foes to fight. Driani morphed into Vampira, who appeared to be a totally different woman. She was now taller and darker, looking quite formidable in her black costume with the cape/shawl thing. She'd be fun to get to know.

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Driani herself was miserable. She needed blood. She'd never gone this long without it before, but oddly didn't want to hurt anybody. She truly was not herself. Stephen and Driani had never known the full extent of their vampiric abilities, or really cared. They just had fun, and making the comatose girl hold her soul for her had been fun at the time. But it certainly wasn't now. Driani had now idea who she was. Her old persona would not have hesitated to continue with her diet. She would not have even been ashamed of telling her friends about it. Not now. The odd memories and knowledge that were not her's ere coming more and more often now. Her personality and emotions were hopelessly confused. How did it effect her to have a soul and not a spirit? Eventually she'd want to, need to, be whole; she'd have to take back that battered spirit and deal with the pain of her lover's death. Until then, she would be a x-man, attempt to atone for the terrible things she had done. But without her drinking, how could she? Her problems would soon be solved, though perhaps not in the method of her choosing. No, definitely not the way she would have chose.

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Enigma bided her time. She was recuperating from her transverse home and wanted to be at full strength before she confronted these people. On behalf of her host body she would have vengeance on the vampire girl, and whoever was close to her. The vampiress had caused Enigma considerable inconvenience. When an entity such as she wanted to manifest itself it did not like to be stopped. And this girl had stopped her. And she would pay. Oh yes, she would pay.

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Back at the x-mansion Faerie was discovering that this whole fighting thing was much harder then it seemed. She was holding her own against the various holographic foes that assailed her, but barely. Her flexibility and acrobatic training were the only weapons in her arsenal, unlike the rest of the x-men who had years of fighting experience. She paused briefly to look up at the observation booth where the teenage watched them. Poor kid, she-. A fatal mistake. The virtual villain attacking her gained the advantage and pinned her, positioning its knife for the killing strike... when it disappeared. Thank god for those safety locks. The other mutants looked around to see why their own sparring partners were gone, and spotted Sariceia still lying on the floor, totally exhausted. She sat up wearily. "Don't say anything. I'm bad at this. I'll get better. Start it up again." Logan smirked, but everyone else just looked disgruntled that their session had been cut short. "Frankly, I'm surprised the pixie lasted this long." Ignoring him, Nightcrawler turned to Faerie. "Actually, me too. When did you learn to fight?" "Never, it's all natural. Give me a minute and I'll start over." No you won't. Go take a shower. You're in no condition to train anymore today." "I am too and I will. Start it up again." "No, it isn't safe for you." "I'm not your little sister anymore you can't boss me around!" Her emerald green eyes turned dark and stormy. With a wave of her hand she coaxed the machines into starting up again, with the safety locks on minimum. She could and in all likelihood would get hurt, but didn't care. This was one more test to prove herself. She would pass. Forced to turn their attention back to the robots and such now assaulting them at greater power the x-me couldn't watch Faerie. This time she didn't think at all, about anything. There were instincts in her she never knew about, and they were kicking into high gear. Flying kicks, triple punches in the blink of an eye, dodging and attacking, it all came to her effortlessly. It was incredible. She didn't notice when the other x-men shut down their own programs to watch her until they shut off hers too. "Liar. Nobody fights like that naturally. I know." Vampira did not like having her place as the new girl taken. Especially by this little imp, her antithesis in every single way. "Do you? Well, you learn something new everyday. Kurt can tell you about that." With a pointed look at the blue-furred mutant she waltzed out of the danger room. Shadowcat looked at Wolverine. "And you didn't want to train her. She's already trained. She just needs to be tamed" "He can't do it. And I'm not going to. Let's ditch her." Driani made her feelings on the subject of Sariceia known. Naturally Logan defended his ability to train anyone he wanted to. Before they knew it they were in another full blown fight. Just as they prepared to start swinging at each other, which would have had disastrous results for both them and anyone who tried to stop them, Sariceia walked back into the room. "Do they do this often? By the way Kitty, I heard that." "Yeah they do. What about it?" Rachel was curious; Sariceia spoke like their quarreling surprised her. Sari laughed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. They don't know that they are perfect for each other?" Driani and Logan stopped dead and yelled in unison, "WE ARE NOT!" "Uh, yeah you are. I can see it. Rachel you're a telepath, right? Show them what I see." "I'll try. What do you see?" "This." With the mental wall down, Rachel easily pulled herself, Logan, and Driani into the faerie's mind. It wasn't represented by physical things the way minds sometimes were; just empty space with the emotions Logan and Driani felt for each other laid out for both to see. She'd completely blocked them off from anything personal, showing them only that her intuition, which was never wrong, said Wolverine and Vampira were in love. She supplied a list to them of the many things they subconsciously loved about each other. They had hated each other because each felt that the other was too much like them, both valued their uniqueness. Driani's suspicions were right; Logan was physically attracted to her just was she was to him. Rachel's astral form projected into Sariceia's head smiled and vanished, leaving Logan and Driani to further look through the things Faerie knew about them. Sariceia watched them for a minute, then pushed them out back into the physical world. They stared at each other for a moment, then started kissing. Everyone in the room except Rachel and Sariceia gasped. Ororo walked up to the new team member. "I don't know how you did that, but on behalf of all of us I would like to sincerely thank you." Rogue added, "They were always fighting, and it got to be real annoying. They probably still will be, but if they actually like each other now... wow. I just can't believe it!" Sariceia smiled. "Your welcome. I think we should leave them alone, don't you?" Everyone turned towards the new couples, who were now making out passionately, then quickly left the room. Driani and Logan didn't even notice.

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Caroline was terrified. Having seen these people in action, she was no longer sure that she was better off here than in a foster home. She hadn't really loved her now-dead aunt. The woman had only taken care of her for the money she got from Caroline's mother's will. She had loved her mother, but she was too was long gone. Her powers had manifested not out of grief for her aunt but out of shock at having nowhere else to go. The power thing was kind of neat. She made a miniature ice sculpture form on her finger, then melted it with the fire. She now could control it, but had a feeling that if she were upset she'd have a repeat episode of what happened outside her school. One of them would probably come up to talk to her soon, ask if she wanted to join. The people didn't bother her, even the blue one, except that they were so much more sophisticated. To learn to fight like they did and to defend mutants everywhere would be fascinating and a good cause to devote her life to, but she did not have what it took. Not at all. Caroline was not gorgeous like these beautiful women in the room in below her. She had was neither tall nor short, her figure was not the best, and her bland looking brown hair did not suit her mediocre skin toning. Her sparkling brown eyes would have been her best features if not for the fact that they were different shapes, giving her a witchy possessed look when she smiled. One round eye and one almond-shaped. It was almost like a split personality thing, the cool person that the almond eye might belong to, and the geeky but happy girl who might have had the round one. She thought little of herself and her skills, especially in comparison to the x-men. They were all older than she was, too. Shadowcat couldn't be more than a year or two her senior, but was so much more mature that she could be ten years old. But Caroline couldn't just run away. She'd wait and see what they wanted her to do.

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They were paid well for their work, just as they should be, what with the hassle of getting plans for cheap sentinels and the trouble of bugging. They would continue to be paid as long as Karen got the video and tape from the cameras and microphones in the mansion. It was interesting stuff. Who would have thought that freaks actually try to live like normal people, with complex relationships and what not? The two men liked Karen and what she was doing, exposing those filthy mutants. It was one of the best jobs they'd pulled off yet. How long they'd be able to pull it off was anyone's guess.

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Sariceia took off her perspiration drenched uniform and stepped into her shower. She stayed in faerie form, since morphing was so painful she chose to do it only when necessity required it. Her skin cells flipped inside out, her wings pulling themselves from deep inside her spine. Soon she wouldn't be able to do it at all, as the pain grew worse and worse each time. Her decision depended not on whether she got the job as an x-man, but entirely on Kurt. She'd been so angry when he'd used that tone to tell her to leave. His big-brother-protecting-little-sister tone. She would have to make him see her as a woman, as his equal, before she could even begin to start discovering if he had romantically inclined feelings towards her. It was such a long road when she wanted him as her boyfriend now. But she'd come off pretty well with the fighting and the matchmaking. Her skill scared her a little, the knowledge that she had capabilities she was completely unaware of. The moves had just come to her naturally. Same with knowing that Logan and Driani should be together. She had known that they weren't cognizant of their feelings for each other, but she had no idea that they'd do that just because she told them they didn't really hate each other. It made her jealous. If only she could do that with Kurt... aside from telling her that she loved him, her sixth sense gave her no clues as to if he loved her back or even if he might grow to love her in time. It had chosen a hard time to be picky about what information it gave out. Of course, he was now mad at her for showing him up when he told her to leave. She'd have to apologize. Her obstacles in this relationship were few but huge ones:

He probably still saw her as a little girl, and

Amanda.

Err. Amanda. Jimaine had been Sariceia's role model, but it wasn't a job the sorceress had chosen for herself. It wasn't even that Sariceia admired that many of her qualities, just her ability of making Kurt fall in love with her. Something that, at this point, it looked doubtful that Sariceia would ever be able to do. But she'd never given up before, at anything. Well, there were some things. Things she'd rather not think about.

But the first step she had to take was to get good at this super-hero thing.

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When the immediate joy at their realization had worn off, Driani and Logan went back to staring at each other, though not as they had before. For one thing, they were no longer glaring, but the much more noticeable fact was that they were not yards apart, but standing rather close. Very close, so that when Logan leaned over to kiss Driani he didn't have far to reach at all. She closed her eyes and kissed back but then pulled away. "Don't you think we should, um, talk about this?" 'That's the women, always want to talk when there's more fun stuff to do. But she is right.' "Sure darlin', what about?" She laughed. "Sit down with me." She pulled him down to sit next to her on the Danger room floor. "So, just 'cause she told us to, we like each other now?" He feigned disappointment. "You only like me? From the way you were kissing me a minute ago I'd have guess otherwise." Driani slapped him playfully. "Shut up. Just because I love you doesn't mean that I don't still hate you. But that doesn't make any sense does it? All the things I still disliked you for are still there, just they don't seem as important as the things about you that I hadn't realized." "Yeah. I still think feel like I ought to hate you, but why did we hate each other in the beginning anyway? I don't get it." "I don't either. I can tell you that I hated you because I was scared when you came here in the middle of the night, and I don't like to be scared. Everything else sort of piled onto that. This is entirely too confusing, and since I too want to get back to what we were doing a minute ago," she moved into his lap. "Let's figure it out later, shall we?" Logan didn't respond. At least not verbally. He couldn't, as his lips were quickly busy with something else.

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She was alone in the dark. The room had no windows or door. She was kneeling on a hard wooden floor, dressed in black silk. Before her was a paper, fine parchment, written on in blood in a language older than Sanskrit. With whose blood? Her own. Her arms were cut in elaborate designs from her wrists up to her shoulder, as well as on her lower legs, waist and back, all the wounds bleeding slowly. The centers of the whorls on each of her fingertips were pricked deep and bleed profusely. It was sickening. She tried to move but froze, her limbs sore as though she'd been stationary for hours. She had been sitting without any sign of activity for longer than she could have ever guessed. A force she did not know of had decided that it was time for her to move again.

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I hope I didn't gross anybody out with either the kissing or the bleeding part. It wasn't my intention for it to be quite so graphic, but it couldn't be helped. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. I don't know if that's good or bad. I know for a fact that there is worse stuff out there. My secret is out; I dreamed up Driani for the sole purpose of being Wolvie's girlfriend. (Who wants to guess who Faerie is for?) It was right after I read the book in which Mariko dies and I was just too fed up with Marvel torturing him. Though I may have to torture him a little myself before I'm through... Please review. It's what writers live for. Hope you enjoyed this chapter!