MEEP! I forgot the disclaimer from last chapter. Whoops.

All characters are owned by Marvel, excluding Amra, and anyone else ya all don't recongise. woot.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ (beginning and Beliving)

It was 11:30 at night when we arrived at the mansion. I was fast asleep, but was jolted awake by the landing.

"Murrrrrrrr... where are we?" I asked, pushing some braids out of my face and looking around. It was really dark, for about 10 seconds. Then bright floodlights came on, and I cried out. "Aiii!"

"Ya awake now, Pup?" Logan asked, looking down at me, my big trunk on his shoulder. I blinked rapidly, my eyes adjusting, and nodded. "Good. We're here. Now get up. You've got to get to your room." He said, and I looked around.

"Where's 'ro and Scott?" I asked, seeing that they were gone.

"Maintenance. They've got to make sure that the Blackbird is still in good condition after the flight." He explained as I sat up and stretched, my back popping.

"mmph... okies..." I mumbled, getting up and getting my small trunk and lifting it. "So... where to, oh so wise Logan?" I asked jokingly as he left the blackbird, and I fell into step behind him quietly. He walked like a cat... silent and powerful. Similar to the cougars that run around my property. "Where is everyone?" I whispered, not hearing anyone walking around.

"Asleep. It's 11:45. Either that or they're in their rooms, listening to music or talking to their roomates. We've got quite a group of people here." He said back in a low voice that sent shivers up my spine.

He stopped at a door on the second floor, and pushed it open quietly. "This is your room, kid."

The room was decent-sized, nothing like my room back home, but there was room to move. The walls were bare, with deep cherrywood wainscoating that ended at waist level, the walls painted a dark burgandy. "I like it." I stated as Logan put my trunk down next to the bed. "Very dark."

"The professor will want to speak with you in the morning, after breakfast. You'll meet a lot of the kids then. For now, do what you want in your room. Music can't be put on anything but headphones past 10 at night or before 9 in the morning, Breakfast is at seven, runs till 9. You won't have classes tomorrow, and the day after is the first day of summer vacation." Logan explained a few of the ground rules to me. I appreciated that.

"Thanks. So, I guess I'll see you in the morning? I'm just going to unpack my wet stuff before it mildews. But before I do... can you tell me where I can find something to drink? I SWEAR I'm going to get lost in this place if I look alone." I asked, popping open my big trunk after pushing it to the end of my bed.

"Two doors down is a bathroom, but if you're looking for something other than water, the kitchen is down the stairs and to your right." He gestured towards the end of the hall, then left me to my own devices. I sighed solemly, walking over to the window and looking out of it, gazing down at the immaculate lawn with a reflection pool.

It was now that the nerves of moving suddenly set in. I could feel the muscles on my shoulders quivering, and I began pacing the floor in silence, pondering what was going to happen to me. I pulled my MP3 out of my pocket and put on some metal. I continued my pacing through the sound of the 69 Eyes, Viking Head, and Dragonforce.

I knew that things would never be the same as soon as I settled in. I just hoped that the people here wouldn't judge me on my apperances.

The next morning I crept out of my room at seven, wearing my pj's. A white tanktop with teeny skulls and crossbones on it, with a pair of black gym shorts. Comfort. I walked down the hall, looking around and listening carefully for any movement. It was a quarter to seven, and I wasn't expecting anyone to be up yet.

The shock of moving kept me up all night long. I unpacked, arranged, organized and re-organized all of my stuff countless times. I wanted to practice changing again, but I didn't know how everyone would feel about practicing in my room, so I refrained.

I didn't feel like getting kicked out on my first day. That would be the worst thing to ever happen to me. I suddenly have this great opprotunity, and now, it's gone. Poof. Out the window.

I slipped into the bathroom with my toothbrush and paste. I began scrubbing my teeth, leaving the door open. A few moments later, I was extremely suprised. and when I say extremely suprised, I mean I leapt up on top of the counter and was brandishing my toothbrush like a weapon.

Someone had just... appeared next to me. It looked like a man, but he was blue! And he had a spaded tail!

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" I squeaked, staying up on the countertop. He chuckled and shook his head.

"You are the new maachen?" He asked in a thick german accent, adding a bit of german at the end.

"Ja... Ich ist die." I spoke back, sliding off of the counter and spitting the toothpaste foam that remained out into the sink. "Wo ist du?"

"Ich nomme ist Kurt Vagner, but people call me the Incredible Nightcrawler." he boasted, then began scrubbing his teeth right alongside myself. I continued the process, then left the bathroom, walking down the hall back to my room. I could hear people start moving around, alarm clocks start going off, and just general morning noises coming from the rooms. I smiled and slipped into my room, quickly digging out my favorite pair of Tripp pants, black with silver cone accents, handcuffs hanging off of the front of them. I pulled on a black Cradle of Filth teeshirt, and tied back my hair. I slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and walked downstairs, smiling at everyone I met.

And my GOD. There were so many people crammed into this building! A lot of them were about my age, or a bit older, and there were some younger kids. After a few minutes of searching and asking directions, I found my way into the kitchen, where I saw Ororo standing by the fridge, drinking a glass of V8. "Good morning Ma'am." I greeted, happily smiling. She looked me up and down, then shrugged and returned to her juice. I chuckled, picking out an english muffin, spreading some cream cheese onto the fluffy pastery, then walking into the main dining room after pouring a glass of orange juice. I picked a seat across the table from a boy who was playing a game boy, and took a few sips of my oj, looking around a people.

"Hallo! Wie gehts ist es ihnen?" I heard the accent again.

"Hallo Kurt! Ich bin muude, Ich kline sleesihn."

"Where did you learn german?" I head Scott ask, and I looked over at him. He was followed by a red-headed woman.

"It was a choice between being in choir or being in german. I chose german, because I can't sing." I smiled up at Scott, and nodded at his female companion. "Who're you?"

"I'm Jean Grey." She extended her hand with a smile, and I shook it. "What's with the black getup? I heard from Scott that you were a nice, polite, fun girl."

"People like to judge based on appearences, so I decided to wear a goth-rocker outfit, just so that the people who want to judge me because I look like a freak, and not like me, can back down." I chuckled and shook my head. "But if they don't judge Kurt, then I don't see why they should judge me." I looked back at Kurt. "No offense, Sweets."

"None taken." he smiled fangily at me. I finished my conversation with Jean and Scott, then returned to eating my breakfast, eating down both halves of my english muffin, chugging down my oj, then slipping out of the dining room, heading for the front door. I was itching to explore.

"Amra!!" I heard a booming yell call for me. I turned my head, and saw Logan beckoning to me. "You've got an appointment with the Prof. Follow me." I looked longingly out the door, then turned and walked with Logan.

A few minutes later, I was seated in a leather chair before a very elegant mahogany desk, with a man who introduced himself as Charles Xavier, the leader of this school. I wasn't really paying attention to him, because he was going on this human rights spiel. I was watching the top of his head, and thinking about DeeDubs. Actually, I was thinking about DeeDub's shiny skull, and the fact you can reflect a laser pointer off of his head.

"So, since you seem to be a powerful young lady, you should start training with Logan. Your mutation leads to an over powering feral side that you have." that snapped me out of my reverie.

"what? My wolf side is overpoweringly feral?" I parroted, then looked at Logan. "So I have to train with him?" The Professor nodded. "Great..."

"Prepare to have your ass kicked." Logan joked. Inside, I was doubting his skill. He seemed a brash man. Leap right into the fight, headstrong. Not a good mixture with his small stature. Oh well, we'd find out soon enough if he was really dangerous.

I picked uncomfortably at the spandex and lycra mixture that was gripping my legs and ass. The suit I was assigned made me look absolutely FABULOUS, but it was sooo UNCOMFORTABLE. I couldn't get over it.

"Stop picking at your suit, Lupar." Lo... GAH, I had to remember. It's Wolverine, when we're in the suits. Why he wants to be known by an extremely pissy weasel, I'll never understand. I picked Lupar, after decided that lupus would give me away, and 'Beast' had been taken. "Ready for this? Obstacle course, straight through, with one stop. You've got to get the kid." He pointed to the 'kid', which in this case, was a stuffed shirt. VERY CONVINCING. I rolled my shoulders, and decided that was a bad idea, because now, my left shoulderblade ITCHED. Instead of just being annoyed by a perpetual half-wedgie, my shoulderblade itched like a two-cent prostitute's twat. Logan went on explaining something, while I fought with myself to get to that itchy part, gave up, and shifted to what I decided to call my 'Were' form, which was what I had lifted Tori off the floor with about two months ago. I sat on the floor and started scratching myself with my hind paw.

And oh my GOD, it felt GOOD. "Ready?" I shrugged, and nodded.

"Then three, two, one..." The buzzer went off, and I streaked off like a shot on all fours, my hands and paws digging into the fake dirt, which was actually shredded tires, heading for that shirt. In my mind, I saw my teeth digging into the front of the chest piece, and I could almost hear that beating heart... Or was that... hydraulics?

I slammed onto my hindpaws, almost falling backwards to avoid the wall that shot up infront of me. Going 35 into steel would have sucked, a lot. I fell backwards onto my ass, popping the base of my tail. I stood up and barely had time to rub the offended area, before I had to jump out of the way of a claw determined to get ahold of me. I leap up ontop of it, my front claws digging like meathooks into the gap between the head of the claw and the arm. I ripped like a cat, first one hand ripping in, then the other, then both ripping outwards. The splash of hydraulics liquid was a satisfying sound. I jumped from the retreating arm onto the foot-wide surface at the top of the wall that had risen earlier. I heard Logan applaud quietly, like on a golf course. I made a bow towards him...

And was promptly seized by another claw that came behind me.

"Stop the simulation." Logan called up to the control room, where one of the boys, Bobby, I think, was operating the controls. "See, Lupar, you are too cocky. If you would have paied closer attention, instead of trying to showoff, you would have gotten the kid."

I shifted back into my normal self, so I could talk. "Meh, it's not like I wouldn't have killed it like I did last time. I felt the instinct again in my head. to seize it and tear into it's chest cavity again."

See... last time that we did a simulation like this, my wolven side took over, grabbed the dummy by the throat with its teeth, and tore into the chest cavity, splitting it open like a ripe cantelope. It wasn't pretty. Stuffing was EVERYWHERE, including my teeth for the next few days.

"That's the point of doing these, so you can control that side. But it's not working too well, I can see." I shrugged, then pointed at the claw, which was still holding me by my waist. "Oh, yeah. Bobby! Let her go and get your ass down here, now!" I was dropped uncerimoniously onto my back, and I shakily got to my feet.

"Can I go back to my room now? I've been in here for an hour." Logan nodded, and I BOLTED for the door. I was undoing the buckles and everything else as I was heading for my room, so I could get this contraption off as fast as possible. I stripped out of it, tossed it over the top of my trunk, and changed into a pair of faded bluejeans that hugged my thighs and ass, and a brown teeshirt with a gold fluer-de-lis printed on it with darker brown swirling ivy patterns going to both sides. A pair of comfortable tennies, and I was heading for the door to walk around in the woods around the school. I wanted to avoid the other adults, because they treated me like a little kid, and the teenagers were nervous around me ever since I almost bit a kid that was trying to steal my bacon one morning. I had half-way shifted, and my teeth were an inch away from his hand when they snapped shut like a steel trap. So... I wasn't well received. The only three people in the school that conversed with me on a regular basis were Kurt, Logan, and a girl named Kitty. And I didn't even like kitty that much. I think that she was just a spy for the other teenagers. But that's beside the point.

As soon as I was about ten feet into the undergrowth, the school didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was absorbing the beauty of nature around me.

It was almost twighlight. The tail end of the sunset, and the woods were starting to get dark. And I loved the forest at this time. It's when everything comes alive, and if one was careful enough, you could catch nature being nature. Not scared, not tamed, just... instinct.

I made my way to a stream that I had found, and shifted to my full wolf form. I loved trotting through these woods like a ghost. Just a silver wolf moving through, nothing odd that people had to stop and talk to, or ask questions. Sure, I'd been pointed at and spotted a few times, and a few times pictures had been taken of me, but there was noone trying to shoot me, or follow me.

I slunk through the undergrowth, following my stream, ocassionaly dropping my head to the ground for a smell here or there, digging into the bank after a curious noise, jumping after frogs. Maybe the Professor was right. I was indulging this new side of me too much. But I loved this feeling of contentness that I had aquired. I tried staying away from the outdoors for a week. A single week straight, and at the end of the week I nearly bit the kid. My senses were worn thin, I was irritable, and I felt trapped. Like I was in a cage, and I couldn't get out. I almost had a panic attack twice that week. For all that it was worth, I fought like a demon in the danger room. I was pissed off, and the only thing around that was forgiving enough for me to tear into was Logan. So I mauled him. Several times. And I was right about his instincts. He leapt into the battle too fast. He kept after his opponent with a steady pace, but he moved too slow to be effective against a fighter like myself. I never let him get ahold of me. I'd slide in, slash his arm to ribbons, then slide away, until opprotunity presented itself again, and I would throw him to the ground and pin him down.

Logan... I paused, and sat down, looking at the running water. Sure, it was known by a few people that I had... an infatuation, I'd say, with the man. He was a rugged, mean, rough man, and he wasn't afraid of me. He didn't really accept the fact that I had to look around all the time, or that I freaked if my letters from my mom didn't show up twice a week like promised, but that's all part of who I am. And I didn't like the fact that he always smelled like whiskey. Sure he couldn't die from it, but he didn't have to smell like it all the time. I honestly knew that I should give up on him because I was too young for him, but I think that the age is exempt if one of the members doesn't even recall their birthdate. I sighed and shook my head.

"Something on your mind, Pup?" I heard a gravelly voice call. I leapt to my feet and looked around in a slight panic. Someone had snuck up on me in my lamentation. I snarled a challenge, my mane bristling up. "Hey, no need to challenge me, Pup. I'll come out where you can see me." And a man did emerge, wearing furs and smelling like meat. "Now, can we talk, or are you going to stay in that wolf body? Either way, it doesn't bother me. You understand my words enough as it is." I lowered my lips, but my hackles still stood on end. "Okay. I guess I get to talk to a wolf. Boss said it'd probably be like this. Name's Sabertoothe, and I know that you are Lupar. Bossman has been watching you for awhile. And I know about your dislike of the containment at that school..." I raised my head, and my ears flicked forward. He chuckled. "I see I've got your attention. Yeah. I know that school, and how they say you need to control your powers and repress your instincts. You're a very feral person, I can tell. I've seen you around the woods a lot." I took a few steps towards him, and he decided to continue.

He told me about a... Fraternity of sorts, a brotherhood of mutants. A group that stood for the rights and freedoms of every mutant out there, that wasn't afraid to show their faces and openly say that they were a genetic advancement. One that said don't repress your powers, embrace them. He offered me a place with them. I shrunk away from him a bit. He reached out and patted my head, ruffling my ears. I snapped playfully at his hand, gripping his glove in my teeth and shaking it slightly. He chuckled. "I'll leave you with this though. If you want to talk again, or if you just want out of that place, use it. But be off the property and alone." He extracted a metal object from an inner pocket. It looked like a pen. He offered it to me, and I took it in my teeth. "I'd give ya the business card so you could call us, but I know how easily those teeth shred paper. But you'd better head back. Don't want to get stuck locked outside, do you?" He shooed me off, and I sped off, my body slipping through the undergrowth like a sliver shadow.

That night, I lay awake, staring at my ceiling. I was weighing my choices.

I sat bolt upright, threw the blankets off, and stalked out into the hallway. I walked myself towards the end of the hall, I was heading for Logan's room. I stood outside his door for a long time, shivering slightly in the cold. I stared at the solid oak door, listened to the sleeping man's breath inside. I focused myself, and tranformed my right hand's nails into the meat-hook claws of my were form, and carved two horizontal parallel lines as high up as I could reach on the door, then intersected them with a diagonal line that started at the top right and ended at the bottom left. The shavings from the wood ended up on the floor, and I left the door, heading back for my own room.

I made the same mark on my door, then headed for Kurt's door. I growled softly, and leaned my forehead against the door, and made the mark once more. But I knocked softly on his door. A few moments later, a few swears in german, he opened the door. "Jah?" He asked sleepily, and I couldn't stop myself. I seized him in a hug and rested my head on his shoulder. "Was ist wrong, Lieblingshund?" He asked, pulling me into his room and shutting the door, hugging me back and petting my spine. I poured out what was on my troubled mind to him. He owed it to me after he poofed into my room at three in the morning to tell me that his adoptive sister had turned up missing. I know that his problem was a lot bigger than mine, but it was no less important to him as this was to me.

He sat with me on his bed for a long while, pondering and talking with me. It wasn't even about the factions. He explained to me that the Brotherhood was a rival of Xavier's henchmen, and I dismissed it. He said that they were evil, and I countered with 'what is evil?' He couldn't answer me that. We talked until five in the morning. We started at one.

He finally asked me about the mark I left on his door after he opened it to go to the bathroom quick for water, and he saw it as he came back.

"I've been leaving that as a marker on the trees on my regular run through the woods, and I'm going to use it here for one reason alone. That is to show what is making me stay here."

"Who all has the marks?"

"You, Myself, and Logan."

"The wolverine? Why him?"

"Because he's the only one here that could possibly understand my wild side. And he's also one of the few people that understand the bliss of being around someone without having to be forced into a conversation. Just the companionship is enough." I said two of the reasons. The third was... I was eighteen now. I was free game.

Kurt nodded, and took another drink of his water. I sat on the floor, leaning against his bed, and he stood across the room from me, leaning on his tail as if it was a stool. "I don't vant to give you any svay one vay or anoter, Amra. Follow your instincts."

I stood and nodded at him. "Danke, Kurt..." I walked to him and gave him a hug again. He hugged me back, and I did something that I hadn't done before. I gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Ich liebe dich, Kurtti."

His back stiffened up and he chuckled. "Don't go saying that to me. You'll get my hopes up." I laughed slightly, and wiped at my eyes. Tears were welling up, and I didn't like it. "Have you made a decision?"

"Yeah..."

"And that is?"

I let him go and slunk away towards the door. "And you think I'm going to tell? You'll know in twenty-four hours time, Liebe."

He nodded. "Wiedersehn. Und Luck."

I smiled at him and left. I looked down the hall slightly longingly at Logan's door, then growled and shook my head. I knew it wasn't ever going to happen, and his companionship was only there because the Professor wanted him to watch me.

I flitted around my room for about twenty minutes, gathering the essentials and tossing them into a huge camping rucksack that I had picked up in my month here at the school. When I stood normally, it towered over my head about two feet, then hung halfway down my thighs. It was BIG.

I packed it and stuffed it in the back of my closet. I rounded up my musical equipment, placing it all in it's respective cases, and put them with the rucksack. The sun was coming up now. I could hear Logan walking down the hallway, and he paused in front of my door. He stood there for a few seconds, and I thought he was just going to walk past and go down to the kitchen for his coffee like always, but he knocked on the door. I shut the closet door and opened the door to him. He was standing there in a pair of gym shorts and a beater tanktop. "Yeah?"

"What's with the territory markings?" He demanded more than asked. I leaned on the doorframe and crossed my arms.

"Think I'm going to tell you? Get down to breakfast. You'll know in a day or so." He snorted and left. I smirked, proud of myself for getting away with being a smart-alec to him. I could hear him muttering under his breath, and I just walked back into my room and locked the door.