I own neither the Mutant X characters or some of the Heroes characters and or traits, I do however own the characters I made up so... please ask before using them... if you do at all.

P R O L O G U E

Kirra Ferrall gathered up her AP English books and placed them into her Hollister messenger bag, which she slipped over her shoulder before exiting the classroom. Once out in the hallway, her pale blue eyes found her best friend Abigail leaning against the wall at their usual meeting spot. Upon seeing Kirra, Abigail pushed her way through the underclassmen to reach her friend.

"Hello best friend." Abigail said as they linked arms. "What's for lunch?"

"Pizza." Kirra answered as they joined the throng of students headed toward the cafeteria.

"School or restaurant?"

"Restaurant."

"Oh, good." Abigail said with a sigh of relief. "I hate the school's pizza."

"Well then why don't you have some sausage, ladies?" Dante Santiago said as he came up behind them with his posse. Both girls turned to glare at the wannabe ladies man. "See, I even have it on me." He said, grabbing the crotch of his pants. "Why don't you have some?"

"Why don't you go and slam your head against a locker?" Kirra shot back in a sarcastically sweet voice. Without another word, the girls turned and continued to the cafeteria. They had not taken even three steps before they heard a loud metallic bang quickly followed by laughter. Turning around, Kirra and Abby saw that Dante had indeed gone to the nearest locker and slammed his head against it. And from watching it, they could tell he was getting ready to do it again. Both girls laughed with the rest of the students. Dante was oblivious to all of this as he continued to slam his head into the locker, over and over and over and over.

By the sixth time, he pulled back and blood was running down from a cut on his forehead and still he slammed his head. The laughing had mostly stopped now and students were telling him to knock it off. Kirra watched in horror as he ignored them and kept it up, more blood running down his face.

"Stop!" she cried out and he froze, his head halfway to the locker door, his eyes wide and glancing around like a startled animal as if it had just come back to reality.

"What the hell just happened?' he asked and was greeted with a long silence.

Christian Ferrall exited the shower stall, wrapping a large towel firmly around his lean hips. He pushed a hand through his wet hair, moving it away from his blue eyes. Walking through the men's locker room, he ignored the taunts from some of the "jocks" and headed directly for his locker. Spinning the combination, he popped it open and reached in, pulling out a bottle of Armani bodyspray. Unhooking the towel, he dried off, the cool air hitting his damp skin, causing him to shiver. Just as the towel left his hand to drop the floor and hand grabbed his shoulder from around the corner of his locker.

"Hey Abercrombie." Tyler Maderness said with a broad grin as Christian snatched the towel out of mid air and held it before his groin.

Shithead." Chris said as he punched his friend in the arm. "You scared the crap out of me." Tyler laughed at the comment and went to his locker next to Christian's. Sighing, the smaller of the two teens reached into his locker and pulled out a pair of white boxer briefs and slipped them on. Tyler dried himself off before he opened his locker and pulled out a pair of red boxers and slipped them on.

"So, Jockstrap." Christian said with a smile, turning to look at one of his oldest friends. "What's new wit 'chu?"

"Nothing much." Tyler responded, drying off his hair. "Jen's being a bitch, but then again-"

"When isn't she?" Chris finished for him. Tyler laughed as his friend pulled on a pair of pair of faded and torn Abercrombie jeans, the reason for his nickname. "You two will be back together in time for Homecoming."

"Most likely." He agreed. "You going?"

"Duh!" Chris said, slipping on his necklace and watch before pulling on a white v-neck shirt. "I'm not missing a god damn thing my senior year."

"You going with anyone?" the football player asked as his slid on a pair of jean shorts.

"Not really." Christian said, looking down.

"No word from Aaron?"

"None." Chris said with a sigh before glancing at his watch. "I gotta bounce." He stepped into his flip-flops.

Tyler and Christian did one of those hi-five-slash-handshake things so popular now a days.

"See you, Abercrombie." Tyler called after him.

"Later, Jockstrap." Chris called back. As he approached the exit, he passed the wall mirror. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a pale reflection in the mirror. Pausing, he stepped back and looked full on into the mirror, seeing only his reflection.

"Stop staring at yourself." Tyler called from his locker, laughing at the look Chris gave him. Hoisting his Relic messenger bag higher on his shoulder, he left the locker room, his reflection pausing a second to stair back at Tyler before following.

Robyn Hawthorne excused herself from the lunch table and headed toward the bathroom. After doing her "business," she exited the stall and gazed at her reflection in the mirror above the sink.

Small and petite with blond highlighted dark curls framing her heart-shaped face. Warm brown eyes stared back at her, taking in the image of her in a cheerleader's outfit, skirt and all. She was still having a hard time coming to grips with it. Her best friend Christian had made a weird face at her this morning when he picked her up for school. He'd taken one look at her and said "Traitor!"

He didn't really mean in, at least she hoped not. He was just weirded out that she had joined the "dark side," as they had always referred to the in-crowd.

Swallowing a laugh, she glanced around the bathroom and made sure it was empty before she lifted her short skirt to reveal a long, thin bandage on her upper leg where she had cut herself shaving this morning. Wincing a little, she began to peel back the bandage to check the wound.

When she didn't see anything she kept pulling. She kept pulling until the bandage was halfway off and she still didn't see anything. Biting her lip, she ripped the rest of the bandage off.

Frowning, Robyn ran her hand over the smooth skin, not even finding a scratch. She glanced at the bandage, which showed blood on the inside, confirming that there had been a wound. Apparently she healed extremely quickly. Tossing the bandage into the wastebasket, she smoothed her skirt back into place and headed back into the cafeteria. She had just sat back down into her seat when someone sat in the chair next to her. Looking over, she found Christian straddling the chair backwards, his arms crossed over the back.

"Okay, so I think I've got it figured out." Chris said, ignoring the dirty looks he was receiving from the rest of the table.

"Figured out what?" Robyn responded

"Why you're a cheerleader." He said as if it were obvious. "You're obviously not Robyn."

"I'm not?"

"Of course not. You're a pod-person."

"Oh, no, you've discovered my secret, now I'll have to kill you." She replied with a smile, causing Christian to laugh.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Melinda, the head cheerleader spoke up. "You know, away from here." His hazel blue eyes snapped to her before swiveling back to Robyn. Not everyone was okay with his homosexuality.

"You okay for a ride tomorrow?"

"Yeah." She responded. He leaned in and kissed her on the lips. Most people though they were dating when they did that, and she let them. Christian was gay and his kissing her on the lips meant absolutely nothing.

"I'll catch you later then." He said as he stood up, bag over his shoulder. Christian then looked at the rest of the table. "Everyone, always a pleasure… leaving you." Without another word he turned and headed for the exit, leaving for his dual enrollment classes. The moment he was gone, Melinda and the other cheerleaders turned toward her.

"What?"

"This isn't like Bring It On, you know?" Melinda said. "We don't do charity cases here. Especially to people like him."

Robyn was saved from saying a comment that probably would have gotten her kicked off of the squad by the school bell, signaling the next period.

Gabriel Thorne walked around the perimeter of their base, his turn at guard duty. To his left was the base proper, with the barracks and a converted office building used by his CO's. To add insult to injury, a storm was brewing on the horizon. And he wouldn't be allowed inside just because of a little thunderstorm, at least, not until his shift was over.

Hoisting his rifle higher on his shoulder, he turned around and began marching back in the direction he had just come from so that the base was now on his right and the desert was on his left. This went on for the better part of the next hour, pacing back and forth, waiting impatiently for the shift to change so he could go get some sleep. He truly started to get pissed when the first few drops of rain hit his face.

"Fuck it." He said to himself and stopped his pacing. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a cigarette the looked as if it might have been sat on at one point. Gabriel placed the cigarette between his lips and glanced around, his brown eyes scanning for any of his superiors. Upon seeing that it was safe, the soldier lifted his right hand up to the end of the cigarette and snapped his fingers.

A small, but brilliant blue flame snapped into life over his thumb, lighting up the end of the cigarette. After a quick inhale, Gabriel waved his hand and the flame went out. Exhaling, he smiled, relief spreading across his dark-skinned features. And just as he inhaled again, the downpour started, but strangely, Gabriel didn't care so much now.

Raphael DeSantos sat in the back of homeroom staring absentmindedly at the clock on the far wall, counting down the torturously slow minutes until the bell would ring and school would be dismissed. Twenty minutes. Still twenty minutes. The hand moved. Nineteen minutes. Sighing in frustration, Raphael closed his eyes and when he reopened them a second later the clock read 3:00 exactly. No sooner had that thought registered in his mind then the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.

Blinking in confusion, he stood up, bookbag over shoulder and left the classroom with the other students. As he walked, he thought about what had just happened, his body moving on autopilot, moving at the right spots and opening the glass doors to the hallways. He was so caught up in his own head that he didn't' notice the students before him had all stopped, which caused him to crash into someone's back.

"Watch it!" the girl snapped.

"Sorry." Raphael muttered. "What's going on?"

"A fight." She answered before giving him her back. Sighing, Raphael used his significant height advantage to peer over heads and see who was fighting. He didn't recognize them and they looked young.

"Freshmen." He muttered with another sigh. This was going to postpone getting to his car. As he thought about it, he blinked and when he opened his eyes he found himself staring at his red Chevy Cobalt. Blinking at the sudden brightness of the sun, Raphael glanced around the parking lot and saw his friend Robyn approaching, in full cheerleader uniform.

"Hey Raffie!" she called as she jogged up to his car. "I gotta stay for practice."

"That's okay."

"So, would you mind picking me up in the morning?" She asked sweetly.

"No problem." He responded

"Awesome." She replied. "I'll catch you later." And without another word, she turned ang jogged back to the gymnasium. Without Robyn to distract him, Raphael's thoughts immediately returned to what had just happened.

Skye Ashwood entered the house, followed by her sister Isabelle and their mother. Ignoring the already escalating fight between them, Skye headed directly upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. Locking her door, she went and plopped herself on her bed, sighing. As she ran her hand through her dirty blond hair, her features… melted for lack of a better word. All the superb make-up simply vanished, revealing somewhat plain features with a few pimples. Her too-skinny figure filled out, adding a little fat for a more healthy appearance.

This was the real Skye, not that anyone had seen her since Freshmen year. She winced when she heard full on screaming and a door being slammed.

Sighing, she flung herself backward so that now she was lying on… the beach. Her room was gone, replaced by an endless white beach, beautiful blue skies, and a perfect ocean crashing against the shore. Her fake self was back in place and she was now wearing a bikini and sunglasses. She needed a little alone time on the beach before going down to dinner. Sitting up, Skye glance around.

"Something's missing." She said to herself. Concentrating, three men in small swimming trunks appeared out of nowhere and headed toward her. One began massaging her back, while the other two started on her feet.

"Ah, much better." She said as she relaxed into the illusion.

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