"Where you from?" Rogue asked, glancing at Duo out of the corner of her eye as she took a corner, straightening out her crappy little four-door sedan. "New York," Duo answered. "By the way, I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Duo Maxwell; I run, I hide, but I never lie!" He extended a hand, waiting for Rogue to shake. Rogue looked at it for a second- 'Not his fault, girl', she told herself, 'He doesn't know about your mutation,'- and steered to the side of the road, picking up her leather gloves and slipping them on. Duo watched the proceedings with his eyebrows raised in polite confusion, his hand still extended. Rogue shook his hand finally, introducing herself, "I'm Rogue. No last name. I'm from Louisiana."

"Louisiana, huh? I've been there, to Baton Rouge," Duo lied, cocking his head at Rogue's hands. "What's the crap with the gloves about? Part of your mutation?" Rogue smirked at Duo's flippant tone, although it was tinged with sadness. Once he found out about her true power, he, like all the others, would leave. Restarting the car, she pulled back into traffic, heading towards the high school.

"My power is directly linked to skin-to-skin contact," she said. "When I touch someone without gloves on, I… I suppose you could say I 'absorb' them. Their personality, powers, and memories all become part of me. The person I touched usually remains unconscious for a day or so, although, in cases of long contact with them, they die. I'm unable to access all of my stored powers, though. The Professor said that to attempt to use them would most likely destroy me from the overload of energy. Sucks to be me, huh?" She flashed an ironic grin at Duo, waiting for him to flinch away.

The former pilot saw beneath the smile, to the lonely and fragile person beneath. 'G always said I was too kind,' he thought, continuing in his internal monologue, 'This chick's dangerous, though. I'll tell the guys, then, and we'll make sure to stay at a polite distance. I'd better classify her as a potential enemy. But she's obviously so lonely. I'll stay with her, then. Damnit, Maxwell, collecting strays again, are we?'

Aloud, he said, "No more then it sucks to be someone else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean," Duo said patiently, "That you still have a roof over your head-"

An explosion lights the night-cycle of the slums of L2, tearing a hole in the thin metal shell of the colony. The child with violet eyes wails in terror as the airless void is exposed, and the horrible, long suck of oxygen leaving begins. His best friend, Maria, is lifted from the ground by the force, and flung into the lightless, airless void. He keeps his eyes on her, long after her swollen tongue protrudes from her lips, her face bloated and blue, the shattered lenses of her glasses whirling in an ethereal dance about the ugly spectacle. The child with violet eyes learns, then, that there is beauty in death.

"-plenty of food to eat-"

A child cries, a thin, piping keen that makes the hair on the passerby's neck stand up. An outstretched, begging hand; wide, beseeching violet eyes immediately gluing themselves onto anyone that looked like they might have money to spare for a small runt of a beggar, a child with no friends, no family, no home. But all they spare is a glance, at least; a kick and a muttered oath, at best. The child gets up every time, patting his swollen, distended belly. Desperate, he glances about. A lady with a grocery bag! He grabs it and runs. The child with violet eyes learns, then, that there is no one who cares for the orphaned and lost, and that he will do whatever he must to survive.

"-and medical care. Much better to have that, at the price of touch, then to be an orphan in Somalia or some godforsaken place like that and not have any of that." Rogue looked at him out of the corner of her eyes; there had been a sadness and finality in his voice, as if he had lived without all of those things for a long time. As if he knew of what he spoke of.

"I guess," she said, unconvinced. "Here we are; the hellish institution known as Bayville High School." Duo vaulted from the car as soon as it came to a stop, dragging his brand-new, black (of course) backpack with him, landing with a click of his combat boots. "Awesome! It's been a while since I've been to school," he said, adding mentally, 'One that I haven't had to blow up, at least.'


"Hey, mutie freak!"

"Oh, look. The freaks got a new member. We're going to teach you a lesson, you freak!"

Kurt Wagner, better known as Nightcrawler, snuck a glance at the tall, silent figure walking beside him. Trowa hadn't done a thing when Kurt had turned on his holographic cover, besides raise one eyebrow.

But Kurt was quickly learning that with Trowa Barton, the smallest gestures meant the biggest things. Kurt was, to be frank, terrified of the other boy. His first experience with Trowa had been frightening enough on its own; he was hard-pressed not to shiver when he remembered it.

He had 'ported into the living room, and felt an agonizing pain through his chest. In the space of a second, he had reversed the 'port, and ended up sprawled on the end of the couch. A bullet lay embedded in the wall, right where he had 'ported, and Trowa Barton sat coolly in the armchair, his gun pointed calmly at Kurt. The furry mutant had learned the value of never startling Trowa or his compatriots right then.

Trowa was unnerving even now, as he refused to react to the taunts and barbs. Closed, shadowed emerald eyes roved the halls, and Kurt could tell that the green-eyed young man was marking all potential exits with the grace and finesse of a practiced spy.

Kurt stopped at his locker, swinging it open. A picture of Amanda grinned from the inside of the door, sloppily taped. Trowa's eyes shifted to it, the were-lion's lip lifting in the tiniest of smiles.

"Your girlfriend?" Kurt started; that was the first time Trowa had said anything the entire morning!

"Um, yeah. Her name's Amanda." He scooped out several books, dumped them into his backpack, and slammed the locker shut, turning to Trowa. "The next class is Music. I can't play, but it's the only way I can earn my Fine Arts credits without taking dance or art. Your friend Quatre will be there- Oh, and the teacher is virulently anti-mutant, so he'll probably put you two on the spot."

Trowa shrugged once, and they proceeded on.


Quatre smiled at Kitty, finding her incessant chatter to be a welcome distraction from the pain of his Space Heart.

"-and anyway, then Jubilee was all like, 'No way!' And I said, 'Uh-huh.' So we went over to the window, and there Mr. Logan was, totally frozen in place by Bobby. It was really funny, but then we all had extra Danger Room sessions afterward, so it wasn't that good in retrospect."

Quatre was pleased that it was so easy to keep her off the subject of him: the girl only required a few 'hmms' inserted in the right pauses and she would blabber on endlessly for hours. It was first period, and they were currently sitting in a corner of the music room while the other members of the class glared or rolled up spitballs threateningly.

Trowa sat beside him, arms folded across his chest and head bowed as he whispered softly into his ear. Only the press of thigh to thigh gave any hint as to their true relationship. With their entry into the room beside two known mutants, they had immediately been marked as easy prey by the people sitting around them.

Mr. Forenser, a thin, weedy man with a pencil-thin mustache and slicked-back, oily dark hair, turned away from the whiteboard with a flourish, an ugly smile spreading across his face as he caught sight of the two new students. Tugging on his garish, plaid bowtie, he stepped forward and barked,

"You two! Names!" Quatre looked up and smiled politely, the innocent look glazing the obvious contempt in his eyes. "Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton, Mr. Forenser," he answered, putting a slight, sarcastic stress on the man's name. The man colored an unappealing shade of puce and continued, attempting to be intimidating, "And I don't suppose you two-" A pause of silence, filled with ugly, unspoken words. "- are educated in the art of music? Of course not, you're mutants after all." Trowa lifted his head, a dangerous glint in his eyes. Quatre's eyes narrowed as he said in a smooth tone,

"Actually, we are classically trained in the violin and flute."

"Oh, so you won't mind playing some Beethoven, hmm?" Trowa stood, shaking off Kurt's restraining hand, and moved over to the instrument lockers. He opened the first one, ignoring the teacher's glare, and shut it, moving to the second one, immediately choosing the two most expensive instruments, the two that were reserved for Mr. Forenser alone. He handed the violin to Quatre and took up his post behind him, inspecting the flute critically.

Quatre tightened the bow, slicked some rosin on it, and tucked the violin under his chin. "Which one?" Trowa, finished with his inspection, answered, "Beethoven's Ninth." The Arabian smiled, tapped his foot twice, and launched into the soaring, high notes of 'Ode to Joy.' Trowa began to play as well, his eyes half-lidded as his long fingers moved gracefully over the flute, each note perfect and defined, each combining with the violin to become a work of art. Kitty and Kurt smiled at each other in relief, ignoring Mr. Forenser's rapidly building rage.

"Enough!" The two lowered their instruments, the peace that had come to their faces disappearing immediately. "You two have detention for cheating." Kurt glanced helplessly at Trowa, who lifted one shoulder in the slightest of shrugs. Quatre sighed inaudibly as the other members of the class hooted in triumph, pounding their beefy fists on the desks. "You four," the teacher said, pointing at the mutants, "You just sit there in the corner while I teach the normal students how to play. And give me back my instruments!" The two laid the instruments down and slid over to sit next to Kitty and Kurt. All of them winced as the classroom erupted into a cacophony of something that was most assuredly not music, the other students screeching away on their instruments blissfully.

"Ugh…" Quatre muttered.


"Welcome to Physics," the teacher stuttered, his slumped, rounded shoulders quivering nervously. Scott rolled his eyes and leaned over to whisper into Wufei's ear,

"This guy doesn't care about us being mutants. He's much too involved in his books for that. Just be careful of Duncan," he jerked his head at the muscular football player, who was leering at them threateningly. Wufei twitched; he despised his partner.

Summers had spent the entire two periods before this jabbering away incessantly about Jean, his wonderful girlfriend. Wufei briefly spared a sympathetic thought for Heero, trapped with that woman, who, if Scott was any indication, was even worse then her lover.

"W-we w-will b-be studying the e-effects of vacuums on m-moving objects." The man, Mr. Soleda, forced out. Wufei growled under his breath; how dare this man underestimate him? He learned this in the fourth year of schooling!

Duncan reached into the pocket of his letterman jacket, grasping a piece of paper and a straw. The freaks were turned away from him, arguing quietly over Chang's theory, which, frankly, he was too cool to care about. He chewed the paper furiously, tipped the spitball into the straw and raised it to his lips, aiming, waiting a second, and firing.

Wufei spun at the slight noise, catching the spitball and flinging it back at Duncan, who caught it right in the nose.

"OWWWW! Ow-wow-wow!" Duncan tumbled off his seat, blood gushing from his nose. "Damn you, Chang," he groaned, writhing about melodramatically. Scott gaped at Wufei, who had managed to catch one of Duncan's spitballs. He had been beaned enough by Duncan to know that nobody could catch those stupid projectiles.

"Uh-oh…" he murmured as Wufei turned a violent shade of red and rose slowly from his seat, stalking towards Duncan.

"Imbecile! How dare you use my given name!" Duncan rolled over and attempted to scramble out the door, and Wufei, with an unsettling laugh, pounced. They rolled across the floor, socking each other in the face. Mr. Soleda squeaked and cowered in the corner, while all of the students leapt to their feet and circled around the combatants, screaming, "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

Wufei heaved Duncan over his head and into the wall, dusting his hands off pompously. "There. I have fought with honor." Marching back over to his seat, he sat and resumed arguing with Scott.

"D-d-detention, Wufei," Mr. Soleda gurgled feebly.


"Okay, egg-sucking scumwads!" The Physical Education instructor shrieked. Mr. Bonnes ("pronounced like 'bones' 'cause yours are going to be crushed!") was a former college football player, enraged by his fall into coaching high school students. As such, he tended to take out all his anger on the 'shrimps,' who couldn't fight back.

Mr. Bonnes also despised mutants, seeing them as aberrations and threats to such God-fearing, 'normal' people as, for example, himself. So, when he saw the new freaks, three of whom were short, two of whom, unfortunately, were taller then him, his day got much, much better. He particularly had a dislike for that foreigner 'Heero Yuy.' The shrimp was being much too condescending. He wasn't even frightened!

"Matt," he whispered, beckoning over one of his favorite players. The thick-skulled running back sniggered cruelly as he whispered his plan into the teenager's ear, sending him off to the locker room with a wink.


Heero ground his teeth together very slowly. All of his comrades had gotten detentions, which meant that he would have to come up with a plan to get a detention as well. They were the Gundam pilots, and they rose and fell as a team. Wufei got one for fighting, Quatre and Trowa for allegedly 'upstaging' the music teacher, and Duo for calling the literature teacher a 'withered old bitch who wouldn't know good writing if it popped up and socked her in the nose' to her face.

Of course there were PE uniforms, which he was not going to change into in front of others. He had too many scars, both physical and mental, for that. The five pilots huddled together in a corner, talking to each other softly.

"So anyway, Rogue and I skipped first period and hung out in the library. She likes Poe too, actually."

"I prefer Eliot," Trowa said, glancing up as one of the football player's shadows loomed over them. The idiot- Joe, he believed- grinned piggishly and taunted,

"What's the matter, faggots? Too frightened to change clothes in front of us real men?" Scott, in the corner, looked over and then resumed dressing, ignoring the confrontation. The new mutants could handle themselves well enough, if the Danger Room was any indication.

"And you're mutie freaks, too!" Joe said delightedly. "Looks like me and my mates'll have to teach you all a lesson!" Heero stiffened slightly, enough to warn the other pilots. The former Wing pilot had always been the most sensitive about the rapes that the OZ soldiers had often committed. He had always been the only one chosen for that particular punishment, as the OZ soldiers often despised him for killing their comrades, and knew that physical torture wouldn't get results.

"If I were you," Wufei warned, "I wouldn't say another word." Joe's eyes lit up in pleasure, knowing that he had found a sore spot. "Oh, so maybe you fags like being beat up?" Heero's fingers clenched and relaxed, blue eyes staring blindly into shadowed memories.

Duo reached over and wrapped his arm around the shorter boy's shoulders, shepherding him out of the locker room. The others left, glancing at the jocks and silently planning their revenge.


"Okay! We're going to play dodgeball," Mr. Bonnes shrieked, rubbing his hands together fiendishly. "Kurt, Kitty, Scott, Jean, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, Duo and Heero, go over there. All the rest of you, come stand near me."

The mutants trooped over to stand forlornly against the wall, facing the line of athletes, who tossed the hard foam balls in their hands threateningly. The mutants were outnumbered by at least five to one. "One, two, three… GO!"

A hail of balls flew full-force towards the mutants. Heero and Quatre, the two shortest pilots, ducked and ran to stand near the center line, their bodies gracefully arching to avoid the balls. The others leaped into the air, catching the balls and throwing four forward to the former Wing and Sandrock pilots, who threw them at the opponents.

WHOMP! The projectiles collided with an explosion of air against Joe and his three comrades, the force such that they lost their balance and fell, arms windmilling wildly, to the floor. Scott shared an impressed glance with Jean, motioning the two younger mutants to stand with them against the wall. It would be interesting to watch the new mutant's tactics, at the very least.

As the balls continued to fly, Wufei caught two more and tossed them into the stockpile at their feet, saying, "You'd think they'd have a better strategy."

"They're bigots, Wuffers! Their average intelligence quotient is about the same as an unusually slow mollusk."

"That's a very good simile, Duo. I'm impressed."

"Don't call me WUFFERS!"

All the while, they continued to toss them to the others, who wound up and fired them at the opponents, who usually fell over with a noise akin to that of a dying giraffe. Mr. Bonnes, standing on the sidelines, puffed up with rage, his beefy visage coloring a vermilion shade.

Finally, the opponents were left with no more ammunition, or people. Matt stood, shivering, in the center of the gym, his eyes glancing furtively back and forth. Heero and Quatre looked at each other, smirked, and fired. The balls hit him in the chest and face, and he toppled, streaming blood, to the floor.

The others, who were sitting against the wall sullenly, bruised and bleeding, leapt to their feet and charged the pilots, rage written large on their faces. Trowa, Wufei, and Duo leapt forward, joining the fray.

Joe scrambled at Heero, his ugly face shining with blood. The slim pilot crouched and jumped forward, fastening his hands around his throat and methodically slamming his head into the floor. Joe gurgled and lost consciousness, and Heero moved on, joining the other pilots in tearing a swath of destruction through the crowd of athletes.

Scott ducked as Matt sailed overhead, hitting the wall and sliding down. Mr. Bonnes stalked forward, through the mounds of bleeding jocks, and pointed a quivering finger at the pilots, who stood, unruffled, in the center of the carnage.

"Yuy! DETENTION!" Heero smirked at that, pushing his sweaty hair back.

"Mission accomplished."