A heads up, Bella is dead in this story, X23 has assumed her identity. X23 diverges from canon and is different as well. she doesn't have claws in her feet but has 3 per hand, she has also gotten her skeleton covered in Adamantium Beta due to having stayed in the weapon X program longer, Sarah Kinley didn't raise X23 but is her biological mother. She will vary a little from the comics/animated shows.

Prologue

She was born into a cold sterile environment, not like that of a hospital but the cold sterile environment only found in laboratories. A childhood of painful horrifying experiments run on her, exposed to radiation at the age of seven. Aside from being modified she was trained to become a killer throughout her childhood, extensive martial arts training, weapons training and to keep her controlled, she was constantly subjected to mind control and conditioning, she was the weapon they wanted her to be. In her early teenage years they started to send her on missions to assassinate targets. For a long time the missions had always been relatively simple. Her last missions had started to indicate she wasn't durable enough, so they decided to subject her to the most painful modification to date, if not for her unique abilities she wouldn't have survived. When the procedure was finished her heart had stopped, when it started beating again all of her memories had come back, the procedure had been like a hard reset to her brain, it undid all the carefully placed memory blocks and conditioning. She could hear their plans to wipe her memory of the procedure due to her superior hearing, despite still being in the water tank. She promptly violently escaped, having killed most of the people in the room. Once out she found help, but those that helped her paid a high price for it, she had a target on her back. For years, no matter where she went, the government program hunted her down, she wasn't safe anywhere, not even in foreign countries. Eventually she killed enough of them that they either gave up or there simply wasn't anyone left to try and capture her. Still for a long time she continued to hide, living on the road, working odd jobs left and right, never staying too long in one place. Her life was monotonous, solitary and she often was unhappy. She envied watching normal kids go to school, having normal lives, having loving families. She was already in her fifties but the experiments had caused her to stop aging at 18, she was unable to move forward, forever 18, forever a young, brunette with a fit body that often got her unwanted attention. As she moved around she had learned how to get new identities, they never came close to the name X23 she had been given in the laboratory though. Self mutilation was a daily occurrence, the temporary physical pain helped her to deal with all the mental pain from her past. As time went on she just wanted to experience part of a normal teenagers life, just one time she often told herself when sitting in her vehicle watching a high school to see the students arrive or leave. The way she lived had allowed her to have a nice chunk of spare cash in savings. It was more than enough to bridge a few years of high school. Thanks to modern technology it had become easier to do research and self study, she had already dabbled in online college classes from time to time, something to pass the time. Still her fear was that despite her research into high school life, she'd have a hard time fitting in. It took years and finding the right identity for her to pull the trigger on doing it. She had managed to find a perfect identity and would be able to use it in a perfect place, high schools in major cities were out of the question, too often did they have metal detectors to prevent students from bringing weapons into school, which was a problem for X23. But the small town high schools didn't have them. X23 had found an identity that was suitable, a 17 year old girl named Isabella Marie Swan. The girl's father Charlie Swan had died during his job as the police chief of the town she was going to move to. A town that Isabella Swan hadn't visited in ages, long enough for nobody there to know that X23 wasn't the real Isabella Swan. The girl had gotten emancipated after the death of her drug addicted mother Renee that she had lived with her entire life in Phoenix, Arizona. To make matters worse for the already traumatic hard life the girl had had, Isabella Swan had gotten in a bad accident and died in a small town in New Mexico on her way to Forks where she was planning to live until she'd graduate high school. It had been easy to break into the local police station where Isabella Swan had tragically died, to delete the digital and physical records of her death, same thing that X23 did at the local morgue. Isabella had already been cremated. So X23 found herself arriving in Forks, as long lost daughter of the chief of police that had died several years before. There had been a few advantages with taking the girls identity, she now owned the old hunting cabin Charlie Swan had owned, his house already having been sold as part of the estate and it had added more than enough money to her funds, not to mention X23 now being the recipient of Charlie Swan's police pension. She could only use the identity for a certain amount of time of course, but she had made a silent promise to Isabella that she'd make the most of it, hoping that if there was an afterlife the girl wouldn't be angry with her. She arrived in her truck with a truck camper in the bed, it was a convenient way to live on the road and she brought it due to not knowing exactly before hand what condition the hunting cabin would be in. There had been some indication from Isabella's personal effects that it needed some work since she had been planning to rent a house. And so X-23 found herself in Forks, Washington. A small logging town under a almost constant cloud cover, one of the least sunny places in the USA.

Chapter 1

"I can see why Isabella didn't want to live in the cabin." X23 thought to herself.

The cabin was rustic to say the least, no running water, no electricity. There was an outhouse though. X23 was adamant to improve the cabin enough, electricity could easily be solved by placing solar panels, a battery bank and a inverter. The nearby creek provided water access. She took the truck camper off the truck and went to the local hardware store after picking up her new drivers license from the DMV and going to the bank to transfer Isabella's money into a new account with the local branch.

"I should stop referring to her as Isabella and consider myself Isabella from now on, I'll be staying here a while after all." Isabella thought to herself.

She got enough basic supplies in the local hardware store to get started on fixing up the cabin, wiring, light sockets, switches, outlets, wood, screws, plumbing pipes, a few tools to supplement the ones she already had and some bits and bobs. She placed an order for solar panels, deep cycle batteries and a inverter. At the local farm supply, she got a couple of water barrels and a pump. She dropped off the supplies at the cabin, and started giving the interior a good cleaning putting aside the stuff she'd take to the dump tomorrow after school. There had been little in personal affects in the cabin, but there were a few pictures and some guns, not that she needed the latter for protection. The pictures were a reminder that she did look similar enough to the girl to be able to pass as her, but the research had thought her that Isabella hadn't come to Forks in years and teenagers do change appearance wise as they grow up, so her training told her to just wing it in case somebody used to know the girl. She went to the local supermarket so she could have some dinner, Isabella rarely bothered to cook, usually preferring to live simply off of cereal, sandwiches and cheap premade meals. She took a quick shower in her truck camper while a hungry man warmed up. She settled outside under the truck camper's awning to eat her hungry man meal. Whoever built the cabin, whether it was Charlie Swan or somebody else, had picked a beautiful spot, near the creek, a clearing on part of the cabin. But surrounded by enough trees to keep it private and secluded. As she ate she saw a blur passing on the other side of the creek.

"What the hell was that?" Isabella thought to herself.

Her senses went into overdrive, her sharp hearing barely could hear anything abnormal, whatever it was went away from her. Since that thing was downwind her smell wasn't helpful either. Isabella went back to eating her hungry man, though she remained on alert. She smoked a cigarette before heading inside to watch the tv that was by now tuned to the local stations.

On the other side of forks, the thing came home. Heading straight inside.

"Did you have a good hunt, Edythe?" a motherly figure asked.

"Yes I did Esme, but we will need to be careful around the former chiefs old hunting cabin, it seems somebody is living there now. There was a RV of sorts and construction supplies stacked up against the cabin."

"Were you seen?" a worried fatherly figure asked.

"Not a chance Carlisle, I was moving too fast."

Edythe's smallest sister came into the house.

"Any idea who it is?" the Pixie asked.

"I'm wondering that too, I haven't heard anything about his estate putting the cabin up for sale. Too bad I couldn't save him, he was a good man." Carlisle said.

"No I couldn't see exactly but I'm pretty sure it's a girl or woman." She answered

The conversation went on a little longer but the strange family decided it would be best to give the area around the cabin a wide birth for now. Though they were somewhat curious as to who was staying at the cabin, When the chief had passed away shortly after they came to live in Forks it had been a great loss for the community.

Isabella went to bed fairly late, not the wisest idea given she had her first day of school the next day, the year had already started and she had read about warnings that dropping in when the year is already started can be more difficult than attending on the first day of the year. She managed to wake up just in time to be early at school. She quickly washed her face and make herself somewhat presentable. Form fitting jeans, tshirt, flannel shirt and sneakers would do, with a snap cap on her long head of hair. She got in her truck and drove to school, stopping off at the local drive through coffee stand for a latte with 2 extra espresso shots and a bagel. She pulled into the school parking lot a little early, parked her diesel powered ford f350 and went inside to the school office where a older friendly looking lady was already hard at work.

"Can I help you?" the lady asked when she looked up.

"Yes I'm Isabella Swan, I was told I could finish my registration and pick up my schedule here." Isabella answered.

"Your parents need to – Oh I'm sorry, I forgot that you're emancipated, in all my years here we have never had a student like you, how are you holding up? I'm Mrs Cope." She said as she started pulling out papers.

"It's alright, I'm used to it, so I'm holding up fine. It's still somewhat vague how being emancipated will affect me in school." Isabella answered as she started filling out her registration paperwork.

"Well all the same rules still apply to you of course, but if you need to be excused from school we'll accept a note from you yourself and technically you can come to the parent teacher conferences. Like I said we have never had a student like you so not everything is worked out yet." Mrs Cope answered when Isabella started giving papers back to her.

Once Isabella was finished with the paperwork, Mrs Cope handed her, her class schedule. The Original Isabella Swan had been a straight A student so the new Isabella Swan had been placed in the schools advanced classes with a few specifically chosen electable classes, one being gym. She liked exercise in general, but gym was a easy way to get a free hot shower aside from exercise according to the research she had done.

"Well everything seems in order. You don't have a place to stay yet? I ask since you wrote down a post box." Mrs cope inquired.

"I'm fixing up a cabin, it's a little out of town and there's not really any mail delivery there, it's easy to go to the post office anyway after school. I want to finish my education here in peace and quiet." Isabella responded.

"Well we can certainly do our best to help you with that. I hope you'll like it in our little school."

"Me too, I hope it will be a good experience, enjoy the rest of your day." Isabella responded and left the office.

She went to sit in her truck and studied the map and schedule while having her coffee and bagel. The school parking lot started filling in. As she got out of her truck a Asian boy walked up to her.

"Hi you must be the new girl Isabella Swan. I'm Eric Yorkie, the eyes and ears of this place, anything you need, I'm your man. I have so many questions for you, I'm on the school newspaper and you baby are news. I'm writing a whole feature on you."

"I'm not news, not now, not ever. I just want to finish high school in peace and quiet." She said in a slightly angry tone.

"Ok, no feature, not if you don't want it. Can I walk you to your first class?" He replied having understood her intonation.

"Thank you, I just don't like being in the spotlight. Yeah sure, I'd appreciate it Eric." She said in a thankful and friendlier tone.

Eric helped Isabella to get to her first class of the day, there she met another puppy eyed boy that was also a transplant of sorts, his name is Mike Newton, the boy was clearly wanting to pursue Isabella, the time wasn't right yet but soon she'd gently let the boy down. A skill she had acquired over the decades, it was always better to be diplomatic instead of harsh when it comes to that sort of thing and she had to last a couple of years here without attracting too much attention. Eventually she met up with the boys outside the cafeteria, given they both invited her to sit at their table. There she was introduced to the rest of the crowd that usually sat at the table. there was Jessica Stanley, clearly the biggest gossip of the school. There was Lauren Mallory, the bitch of the school and who took an immediate dislike to Isabella. Tyler Crowley who rapidly joined the chase after Isabella club. And there was Angela Weber, who could be best described as kind, somewhat shy and insightful. The lunch food was decent, not restaurant quality of course but it was decent. That was the first time Isabella saw them as they came in, the gossip girl of course gladly explained who they were.

"They are dr and mrs Cullen's adopted kids, the big one is Emmet Cullen, he's together with Rosalie Hale the tall blonde, the girl with the wild bronze hair is Edythe Cullen, she's together with the blonde guy, Jasper Hale who looks like he's constantly in pain and then there's Alice Cullen, as gorgeous as the rest of them of course and every guy here is willing to throw themselves at her feet, but she refuses to date anyone from school, I think she feels we're beneath her. It's weird though how they are all together" Jessica said

"Jess, they aren't actually related to each other though." Angela said.

"It's still weird. I think Mrs Cullen cant have kids, that's why they adopted them." Jessica said in a jealous tone.

Isabella couldn't help but notice that the one named Alice was staring at her, she had golden eyes, couldn't have been more than 5"3 and had walked with the grace of a ballerina to the table she sat at with her adopted siblings. Alice Cullen was absolutely gorgeous, the entire family looked like they had just escaped from a fashion show runway or a photo shoot and were hiding in the schools cafeteria or something, but Alice was something else, she reminded Isabella of Audrey Hepburn in a way, beautiful and with bucketloads of grace. She was petite but still had nice curves in the right areas. She was also dressed impeccably, you could easily call her the schools fashion queen. The staring started becoming slightly uncomfortable, especially combined with that cheeky grin. Isabella turned her attention back to the table and ate her food while rejoining the conversations at times. She wasn't shy like Angela but came across as shy due to being unfamiliar with having a conversation with such a large group.

"Isabella, all the Cullens are staring at you." Jessica said.

"Stop looking yourself, it's probably why they are watching." Isabella nearly hissed to Jessica.

Lunch couldn't be over soon enough, it was bad enough already that most of the boys were trying to get her attention, with Jessica remarking that it was like sixth grade all over again, with Isabella being the shiny new toy. And on top of that Alice Cullen was staring continuously. She had Biology after lunch and the biology teacher Mr Banner had forced her to sit next to Edythe Cullen. Edythe had been looking at Isabella strangely the entire time, something that made Isabella afraid that Edythe suspected she wasn't exactly a normal human or that Edythe suspected she wasn't the real Isabella Swan. Isabella was relieved when biology was over and eventually found her way to the history class room. Mr Smith had made Isabella introduce herself and state what her hobbies are, she quickly decided to keep it to the bare minimum.

"Hi I'm Isabella Swan and I moved here to finish my high school education, I don't have much time for hobbies since I live by myself." Isabella quickly said to the dislike of Mr Smith who clearly had been expecting more.

He made her sit down in the sole available seat, the history class had double desks and the only available spot was next to none other than Alice Cullen. She went to sit down next to the energy bundle of pixie happiness, Alice was nearly jumping up and down on her seat from excitement.

"Hi I'm Alice, pleased to meet you." The pixie said

"Isabella." She replied kind of coldly.

"Should I make friends? Why didn't I give that any thought?" Isabella thought to herself.

"We'll be the best of friends." Alice said.

"Uhm, yeah. Err. I'm not really the kind of friend you'd want. I'm dangerous, it's best you keep your distance." Isabella stated while looking forwards unable to notice the disappointment on Alice's face

"She's so much hotter up close. And her happy energy rubs off." Isabella thought to herself.

Mr Smith saved the day by starting the class, they had apparently just started on the American civil war. Isabella suspected that he was a good history teacher since his class seemed to fly by. The content had her interest too, perhaps she aught to see about picking up a few books set in the civil war eventually she thought as the class was wrapping up. Once Mr smith dismissed the class Isabella made a immediate beeline for the door and stopped at her locker to pick up her gym gear. In the girls locker room she discovered that she shared gym with Rosalie Cullen, Rosalie was easily the text book definition of a goddess, but Isabella thought Alice was more attractive.

"Why can't I get that girl out of my head?" Isabella thought to herself.

Gym was pretty fun but also tense, Isabella had to constantly remind herself to be average. And even then it was obvious she was not among the top of the class, she was the top of the class. As gym wrapped up the gym teacher coach Clapp pulled her aside.

"You must be Isabella Swan, our newest student?" Coach Clapp asked.

"Yes, sir." Isabella answered politely

"Would you possible be interested in joining the girls athletics team? I think with the right training you could really excel at it. Talk it over with your parents."

"Coach my parents are dead, as a emancipated teenager living on her own I don't have time for extra curricular activities." Isabella answered with a feigned coldness and a real seriousness, she really didn't have the time for extra curricular activities anyway.

"Oh I'm sorry, I totally forgot about that. If I can do anything just let me know, you don't have to do it all on your own." Coach Clapp said apologetically.

"I'm good thanks." Isabella answered neutrally.

She went to the girls locker room and took a nice hot shower, turning the hot water up as much as possible. Surprisingly for a place with so many showers the water was pretty hot. Too hot in fact, but due to her accelerated healing she wasn't really getting burnt and nobody was any wiser. The pain from the hot water scorching her back felt good, it made the mental pain fade for the duration of the shower. She couldn't stand in the shower forever of course so after soaping up and rinsing off she shut the water off, returning it to a neutral temperature position and dried herself off. School was over at this point so after changing she went over to her truck. While walking to her truck she felt a pair of eyes drilling into her. She glanced over her shoulder before getting into her truck and of course at the other side of the almost empty parking lot none other than Alice Cullen was staring at her again. Isabella shrugged it off, got in her truck and drove off, she had plenty of work to do at the cabin.

She stopped at the gas station to fill her trucks diesel tank and also filled a couple of gas cans for the generator in the truck camper and picked up a spare propane cylinder. There were a few advantages of having a base camp, being able to keep extra supplies on hand being one of them. Once home she loaded the truck with the things she wanted to throw away and drove it to the local dump. When she got back she started working on the cabin improvements, right now she wanted to lay plumbing to the creek so that the water barrels would be able to fill up with the flick of a switch. It was a easy job, she also installed filters so that she wouldn't have to worry about the water being reasonable safe to use and wouldn't be dirty. The wiring was installed for the pump and hooked up to a switch. Using her trucks battery to test it out the barrels were filled up with relative easy while she did some minor jobs around the cabin. Around 8:30 it was time to call it quits. She topped off the water tank of the truck camper and got started on dinner, she warmed up a box of tomato soup and made several grilled cheese sandwiches on the stove. After dinner she washed up and watched some tv. She experienced a vivid memory from her childhood when her mind wandered. Needing relief from it she took off her t shirt and let the claws in her right arm come out of her hand, immediately she sliced into her left arm, the physical pain provided immediate relief, the cuts though deep closed up really fast. She repeated the process several times until the memory was pushed back. She crawled into bed afterwards curled up into a ball of misery. So many doubts went through her head, part of her wanted to pack up and leave Forks behind, thinking this whole going to high school for the experience was a dumb mistake. The idea of leaving made her chest hurt, almost as if her heart was breaking.

"What is happening to me?" Isabella wondered before she fell asleep.

On the other side of town in the Cullen family home, patriarch Carlisle Cullen had just come home from the hospital where he worked as a doctor. He found his oldest daughter, Edythe sitting on the couch brooding, with his smallest daughter Alice glaring at her.

"What is going on here?" he asked

"Carlisle, the girl I saw yesterday on my way back from hunting is in school with us, apparently she's the daughter of the late chief Swan. –" Edythe said before being interrupted.

"Carlisle, she's my mate." Alice said with a hint of sadness but also with joy.

"Alice are you sure? It's not very common for our kind to mate with humans." Carlisle asked.

"I'm sure, I have had the occasional vision of finding my mate but it had always been somewhat general, I knew I'd see her in school for the first time and her general features, when I saw her today I just knew it was her, I want to go to her now, I've been feeling the pull since I first saw her."

"Alice sweetheart, do you know what this means? She's human, you'll have to change her or watch her grow old and eventually die. Are you really sure she's your mate? It's a life changing thing for both parties." Esme said with concern when she joined the 3 Cullens that were in the living room.

"I'm not even sure if it will go anywhere, she gave Alice a very cold shoulder in their history class today. And there's more, she smells strange, her blood smells a lot more metallic and it's very faint to begin with. I also can't read her mind. She's not like any human I came across before" Edythe said.

"She'll turn around eventually, I have seen it and she doesn't smell strange, she smells great, I sat next to her today so I know, she smells of pine with hints of orange and lavender." Alice said.

"If she is your mate that may explain why she smells different to you, though I have never come across a human that smells more metallic let alone with a faint smell. Are you sure about this Edythe?" Carlisle asked.

"I sat next to her the entire time during biology, she smells like metal to me." Edythe answered.

They were joined by Rosalie.

"She's also very athletic and heavy. When she used the springboard it bottomed out. I think you should take her own advice, that she's dangerous and stay away from her. She's a danger to this family. And I won't allow her near us." Rosalie added.

Alice hissed at Rosalie while getting into a offensive stance

"Alice go hunt and don't come back until you've calmed down. Rosalie you stay here I need to talk to you." Esme chided the pixie and the blonde.

Alice Cullen quickly ran from the house into the woods. After hunting she went to the cabin, it was late enough that Isabella would be asleep already. She got as close as she dared to, but it felt wrong, this was bordering on stalking. So after hearing Isabella's restless breathing she forced herself to go home. With sadness she returned to the luxurious mansion thinking of the conditions her mate was living in.

Isabella woke up in the morning, it had been a hard night, she couldn't shake the feeling that going to high school was a mistake. She had finally fallen asleep after bartering with herself to at least finish out the week, it was Wednesday already after all. She got up and started her morning routine. School was better that day, the new toy had lost some of her shine by being indifferent towards their advances. Of course there were those that were persistent, it would take some time to get rid of them, being emotionally more mature seemed like a good option. Alice Cullen continued trying to strike up a conversation, it was infuriating to Isabella. She didn't want to make friends, acquaintances was fine, a few people to sit with during lunch to have generic high school conversations with was fine too, but nothing too deep. Deep conversations was something that came with friendship. It had been over a decade since they last came to try to capture Isabella, but she didn't want to have roots in this place, just in case she had to go on the run again. She finished the school week and had steadily set in the structure of going to school and working on the cabin. Since winter was approaching, she had given the wood stove a good cleaning, the wiring, though basic was starting to come together. She planned to add a bathroom to the cabin in the future so she looked into renting a small digger to make a septic system. Her years of working temporary construction jobs were coming in handy. Soon it was Friday, aside from Alice Cullen who refused to let up, school had become more bearable. She drove to Port Angeles after school to pick up a small excavator. She easily pulled it on it's trailer with her super duty pick up. When she got back to Forks she stopped at the lodge a local diner. It was the standard local place you'd expect in a small town, she went in and sat down at the counter and ordered a steak. When she was nearly finished the waitress came over.

"You must be Bella Swan." The waitress stated.

"Guilty as charged." Isabella answered.

"Your dad took you here often when you were still little when you'd visit. He also came here every Thursday for a steak and cobbler, the cobbler was your favourite when you were little. I'm sorry for your loss. Do you want some cobbler on the house? It's still the same recipe." The waitress asked.

"I don't really remember much of that to be honest. Thank you. I got a little room left so I'd love some but you really don't need to give it on the house." Isabella answered

"It's no problem." The waitress said as she set down a plate with the house cobbler.

"Isabella, you have good taste." Isabella thought to herself when she tasted the cobbler.

She paid her bill, leaving a generous tip for the waitress and went back to the cabin. She unloaded the digger and got started on digging for the septic system until it got too dark. She got started on her homework that was due the next week and got thinking again, she could hold out another week, perhaps inform about changing the class she shared with Alice Cullen. Once her homework was finished a memory had crept back into her mind, inflicting self harm made it go away again. She woke up a little later than usual on Saturday and got her day started with a big bowl of cereal and coffee. She got dressed in her work clothes and went outside with a travel mug of coffee to continue the excavation work. After a few hours she was nearly done, as she was finishing up a old chevy truck came driving down the dirt driveway. She drove over to where the truck stopped in the excavator. As she got off the excavator a young native American looking boy got out of the truck.

"Hi, you must be Bella. I'm Jacob Black, I don't know if you remember me."

end notes:

In future chapters it will be revealed why Edythe cannot read X23's mind. But I don't think I'll make X23 a shield, she already has a impressive list of powers and abilities.