Author's Note: Hey readers! During a particularly depressing school retreat I had several hours to plot out the next oh say thirty chapters, so don't expect this story to wrap up soon. If anything, it's about to get loads more complex. I apologize for foreshadowing so many events, several of which won't come up for a while because of who they involve and how characters need to be gracefully introduced. I'd love to just have a mutant convention and make the x-men hire their new couple members in one chapter, but I need to space things out. Maybe I'll do the mutant convention anyway... it could be fun. I'd also like to beg forgiveness for the poor quality of writing of this chapter and probably the next one too; they are just filler and background information for the better exciting chapters to come. Bare with me, things are starting to get really good soon I promise. Enjoy!

Oh one other thing, I sorta left Caroline hanging in the observation booth. So this next paragraph takes place before the last one from chapter nine, then the rest will come the day after. Sorry to confuse you.

Caroline was used to this feeling, the notion that some people were so much cooler than she was she shouldn't even bother attempting to make friends with them. Certain kids at school, summer camp, everywhere, they just had a charisma that drew others but told Caroline to stay away. It was likely something of an inferiority complex. But she'd never met people as awesome as these x-men. In particular the platinum-haired women who now entered the observation booth. "Hello Caroline. I am Ororo, also known as Storm. I lead the x-men. What did you think of our training session?" She sat down in the chair next to Caroline. "Um. Wow. It was amazing. But I really don't see a place for me here." Ororo could see from the girl's posture how nervous she was. "True. I am unsure as to what should be done. You want to stay here, there is no home to return to?" "Nothing and no one. Except another foster home, I guess." Storm's formal word usage impressed Caroline. Nobody else talked like this. Her African accent was beautiful. "If you wish to stay here, we could set up a sort of school for you, perhaps even recruiting other mutants of your own age. As of yet I have not discussed this with the others." "Would I be, like, an honorary X-man? That'd be cool. I don't care much about classes, but I guess I've got to finish high school for state requirements and all." "Yes, you do. I don't know about being an honorary x-man though. It's a very dangerous profession and, oh my. I didn't realize they were still, ahem, here. Shall we leave?" Storm had looked through the glass to see Driani and Logan who were still...there. "Yeah, lets." They departed to the library to discuss the rest of Caroline's future.

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After finally managing to pull herself away from Logan, Driani went up to her room to prepare for bed. She was exhausted and incredibly confused. She was so happy with Logan, and knew that she owed Faerie big time for setting the two of them up, but also felt un-loyal to Stephen. 'I mean, shouldn't I still be in mourning for him? I spend over a hundred years with him, and then I pick up with the next hot guy I meet? Ooh, but he is hot isn't he.' Driani closed her eyes and enjoyed the memory of Wolverine's arms around her. He was so different from her former lover, but in many ways he had more in common with her. They were two of a kind in many ways; on the outside they looked like heartless warriors, but inside they could both be sentimental saps sometimes. He was so perfect. She couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before. 'Focus, Dri-girl. Is this an okay thing to do? Date Wolvie and forget Stephen?' Of course it was. She was a vampire after all, notorious throughout literature and mythology for their lust and at times selfishness. Dri was a vampire, wasn't she? She wasn't the mysterious gothic beauty that vampiresses were supposed to be. Lately she'd felt like maybe she didn't want to be a bloodsucker anymore. Being evil didn't fit in with the mission statement of the x-men. She could get used to that, to going back to who she'd been when she was a mortal. Driani had always had doubts about whether she'd gone willingly to be Stephen's vampire bride, wondered if he'd messed with her memories to make stay with him, but she'd loved him to much to care. Even that was doubtful, since couldn't one as powerful as he manipulate her feelings as well? Yet whether she wanted to be a vampire or not really didn't matter any more, since she really had no control over it. There was nothing she could do to stop her bloodlust. She still couldn't trust herself that she might get too close to someone when she was hungry, which was all the time now that she'd 'given up' killing. If she heard someone's blood pumping through their veins during a moment of weakness, she might attack them, no matter who they were. She scratched the scabs on her legs from her fight with the sentinels. Then her powers would come back, among them her healing abilities. Currently her powers were waning, and her body wanted desperately for her to do something about that. This could present a problem, especially if she were going to be kissing Logan as frequently as she hoped to be doing from now on.

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Despite the late hour Kitty, Jubilee, and Peter were still in the rec. room. Jubilee was finishing a history paper for the correspondence course she used to fulfill her high school requirements, as she'd opted not to attend the local high school. If this icy/fire girl joined they might start a real school here. Jubs didn't know how she felt about that. At twenty two Peter had already graduated, and Kitty had finished early by taking an equivalency test instead of senior year. This new mutant thing wasn't going to effect them, unless they were tagged to be teachers. 'I shouldn't sulk that I want to stay the baby. Because I don't, do I? Ugh. But it's not like this place wasn't hectic enough.'

Her contemplations were far from Kitty's and Peter's minds. Which wasn't to say that the two older mutants didn't have problems. Their relationship had always been rocky, but they seemed to have reached a temporary plateau with no ups or downs. Kitty was pretty sure that what she felt for Peter now was real, but it hadn't been all that long ago that he'd told her he didn't love her. Even if he did now, was she comfortable with him being fickle enough to drop her and then want to continue their relationship like nothing had happened? But he was here, right now, with his arm draped over her shoulders. Snuggling closer, she put her deep thoughts of the future aside and decided to enjoy him right now, regardless of how long-term their relationship was going to be.

The Asian teenager sitting behind her thought that that was probably a good idea. As with all the various couples within the x-men and their associate teams, she was torn between being happy for her friends and being bitterly jealous. She was sixteen and hadn't had a boyfriend since before she joined this band of hooligans three years ago. Maybe if they recruited more kids, there'd be some guys...? 'Guess this school thing could be okay...'

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For the first time in the two days since she'd been 'rescued' Caroline had a chance to think over the recent events in her life in their entirety. These x-men people were really something. They wanted to take her in, help her deal with her power. That would be good, since right now half of Caroline's room was covered in ice that she couldn't seem to melt. She didn't want to bother Ororo again, since the weather witch had attempted to put out the fire on her carpet just half an hour ago. The rains Storm created didn't effect the fire in the least, so Caroline had tried to cover it ice. That had resulted in her being stuck to the floor as she way now. She didn't mind, since it didn't feel cold to her. 'So, forty eight hours ago I was your average teen, and now I'm a super hero in training?' She could get used to that. Just like she'd adapted to the five foster homes with their various dysfunctional families. The people here seemed like they were family to each other, but as to how well they functioned Caroline could only guess at this point. Would she become part of it? And be hurt again when they dumped her? No. Not again. If at any point in time during her stay here she felt unwanted, Caroline promised herself to be on the first train out of here. But until then, she could handle living in a mansion with the most incredible people she'd ever met. Yeah, that'd be okay for a while.

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"Hey. Can I come it?" Sariceia knocked on Kurt's door. "Ja. What do you want?" He wasn't as angry as she'd thought he'd be. "Are you mad? I'm sorry I didn't leave, but I knew I could do better." 'Idiot! Apologizing like a little girl! Great way to make him fall for you.' "It's okay, leichben. I was a bit harsh. But what you've done for Logan and Driani makes up for everything. Their fighting was getting to be a pain for everyone." He grinned devilishly in an expression that always made Sariceia's heart melt, but she didn't show it. She was an excellent actress, a born performer. She briefly wondered if that could be a mutation too. "Yes, that did work out well didn't it? So, I was wondering, what have you heard from Jimaine or Margali lately?" The smile left his face to be replaced with a puzzled frown. "I've no idea where mother is, she comes and goes according to her own whims. Jimaine called herself Amanda Sefton for a while, but she's in a bit of a fix currently." Sariceia suppressed the urge to laugh at the terrible fate of Jimaine she hoped Kurt would tell her of. "What happened to her?" "She is now the sole guardian of a demonic demension called Limbo. She calls herself Magik. I don't get to see her much anymore." Sariceia's jaw dropped. "That's a shame. Uh, do you guys regularly deal with alternate demensions and such?" "Yeah all the time. It's no big thing around here."

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"Goddess, this is going to be so much work!" Ororo lay on her bed while her friend Rogue braided her long white hair. Rogue was wearing gloves so as not to accidentally absorb Ororo's psyche and powers. "Yeah, sughah. At least the girl can got to the local high school here, cause we sure can't teach her academics. I don't even know what we can do about controlling her powers." "It's not just her, there as so many mutants manifesting everyday. Of course, it's only the extreme cases like Caroline's that we need to worry about, but we still might have to have several of them live here. The school is the only place equipped to train mutants." Rogue finished one braid and started another. "So it'll be kinda like the New Mutants." Storm craned her neck around to look at Rogue. "What's that?" "Ooh, sorry I forgot you weren't here then. The X-men from another timeline got stuck here once. They're similar to us, except several of our missions turned out really different for them. At one point they started a team of kids called the New Mutants. I'm all done, what do you think?" Ororo inspected her hair in her mirror. "I suppose Caroline's team would be like this New Mutants. And thank you anyway, but I really don't like my hair in braids. It reminds me of that time I was a vampire." The irony of how that statement, while completely true, was rather unusual made both of them collapse into laughter.

Brilliant idea on my part: If these x-men aren't part of the Marvel universe, I can do whatever I want with them!!! Sort of. For the most part I'll try to keep true to the comics.

One last thing, I'm bashing on Amanda Sefton here in this fic. I have nothing against her, I'm actually quite a fan of her, but I like Sariceia better. Of course, since I created Faerie and all, she is more or less perfect in my eyes. This is a little biased I know. Didn't mean to offend anybody; I try to avoid negatively depicting any characters who I dislike, and when I can't do that I don't include them. I mean do you see Scott, Jean, or Xavier here? Sorry once again. I'll go into what I do and don't like about them another time. I'm finish now before you all really hate me. Bye!