*I don't own Buffy the X-Men or any related characters owned by those who do*

*A/N: The time-line is mid-season 2 of Buffy and the X-Men time-line is based loosely on the movies, i.e. Mutants are widely unknown. Though the characters and their ages may vary quite a bit from those in the films*

*Also a little shout out to theICEBear and Lyee Franklin who wrote Slayer X and The Cairn respectively, and inspired me to write a crossover fic in this Genre... UPDATE PEOPLE*

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Chapter 1: The New Girl - Part 1

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Sunnydale California was a quiet peaceful suburb with a college, cinema, military base, high school, skating rink, television network, night-club, mall, and several dozen graveyards.

The streets filled with the sounds of early suburbia, car engines turning over, alarms screaming their respective alarmees awake, early morning news playing on kitchen televisions as groggy adults desperately turned on coffee pots and waited for the deliciously stimulating fruits of poring water into a machine and hitting a button.

Children came down stairs, ate pop-tarts and waved goodbye to guilty parents racing to get to their cars and beat the surprising amount of traffic to office complexes, art galleries, theatres, ship yards, movie lots, academic institutions or a myriad of construction sites located somewhere downtown. Downtown Sunnydale. Sunnydale the suburb. The suburb with it's own Downtown.

If nothing else the cartography relative to the size of Sunnydale should have tipped anyone interested in moving to this quiet little suburb off, that there was something odd and not so quiet and not so suburban about it. But many people ignored the peculiarity of the cities design when confronted with the ridiculously affordable housing markets, many people like Joyce Summers.

Buffy, a blond, short, pretty, curvy, athletic girl, bounced downstairs wearing a pink ribbed sweater and pale pastel jeans. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. Looking around to make sure her mom wasn't, she unscrewed the top and gulped down the refreshing liqu...

"Buffy! Use a glass!"came the chiding voice of Joyce Summers from down the hall and quite out of sight.

Buffy pouted, then grabbed a glass and pored herself some more vitamin C before making herself a bowl of cereal she knew she would only eat three bites of.

"I'm gunna be late coming home from the gallary tonight, so I'll leave you some money to buy dinner." said Joyce's voice getting closer, "And by 'dinner' I don't mean pizza. Are we clear young lady?"

Joyce walked into the kitchen, the middle aged woman with curly sandy-blond hair fastened earrings while she hunted around the kitchen for her cup of coffee.

"Got it, Pizza does not equal food." regurgitated Buffy placatingly.

"I'm serious Buffy, I will not be one of those mothers who gives their children diabetes by looking the other way while they live on junk food."

"Pizza can give you diabeties?" Buffy was only half joking now.

"Oh and I'll need you to swing by the post office for me, I'm expecting a package from your father." continued Joyce choosing to ignore Buffy's question rather than admit she didn't know the answer.

"Ew..."

"Buffy." Joyce said exasperatedly.

"Alright I'll go pick up dad's package."

"Ew." Joyce said, stunned by her own imagination.

"Mom!" Buffy exclaimed covering her ears.

The two decided it was a very good idea to get out of the house early and end the conversation as soon as possible.

Buffy headed off to school pedestrian style while her mom hopped in the mom-mobile and drove off toward Downtown Sunnydale.

The air was clear, the birds chipper and chirping. The white sidewalks and well paved roads ran in grid patterns on compass points with very little hill so at any given point you could see down to the end of each road. The trees were all placed in regular intervals, occasionally a cul-de-sac would appear at the end of a side road, but even these were clearly labeled, "Cul-de-sac Lane" "Cul-de-sac Street" "Cul-de-sac Cul-de-sac", so that no unsuspecting newcomer would get lost or be forced into the horror of having to drive around in a circle and retrace the same road.

Finally the high-school came into view. Buffy saw the throngs of class-mates following their own regular patterns of stalling outside until the last minute before the bell rang. Approaching at a quickened pace, the young woman looked around for two in particular... and there they were.

Willow Rosenburgh, a pretty, sensibly dressed young lady with medium length red hair, and Alexander (a.k.a. Xander) Harris, who at first appearance looked rather jockish, tall on muscular for his age, but on closer inspection turned out to be quite the opposite.

"Hey guys!" Buffy waved manically as her best friends spotted her and did the same.

"Omygodbuffydidyouseethenewscienceteacherscurriculum?!It'ssoamazingwefinallyget tolearnsomethingImeanIfeelbadaboutthelastscienceteacherbeingeatenbyagiantfrogwomanbut..." Willow rambled in excitement, clutching a textbook to her like a teddy-bear.

Buffy just looked at Xander and raised an eyebrow. "I thought we agreed no more caffeine for Willow until ever?"

"Will... breathe..." Xander said putting his hand on Willows shoulder.

"OhrightbreatheImean..." Willow paused and took an overly dramatic series of breaths. "Sorry, I'm justso excited about the new Biology teacher."

"Oh!... right... yeah that's that's great Will." Buffy tried to sound somewhat convincing, but didn't try very hard.

"You don't understand!" defended Willow "The new text-books were published LAST YEAR!"

Buffy looked at Xander for help. He just shrugged, wiping some of his dark hair out of his eyes and looking around for what Buffy was sure were boobs.

"Aren't our text-books normally published last year?" Buffy asked as the three headed inside the large high-school, which seemed to be modeled after the sets and locations used in the 90's teen drama Beverly Hills 90210.

Willow just grabbed Buffy's back-pack and unzipped it pulling out her history book A war to end all wars. "Look!" she said pointing inside the cover.

Buffy and Xander followed her finger to a little italic date that read '1973'.

"1973!? I don't even know if my MOM was born in 1973!" Buffy exclaimed.

"Well it IS history... I guess." Said Xander.

Willow just threw up her hands either to express exasperation at Xander or agreement with Buffy or both.

The trio trotted to their lockers, trading backpacks for books and pencils as the bell rang then headed off to first period. American history couldn't keep anyone but Willows attention though Buffy noted that their homework was on a chapter entitled The Dangers of Interracial Marriage.

Filing out at five till nine Buffy turned to mention the homework to Willow when a dark and insidious figure appeared before them in an Armani pant-suit and Gucci shoes.

"Hi Buffy, Willow... " Cordelia chase greeted them with a surprising amount of cheer, still making a point not to acknowledge Xander who made it a point to acknowledge her bust-line.

"Cordelia, you why the happy? One of your running mates for overdressed class bitch die?" Xander snided then added. "No one died did they?"

Cordelia just smiled placatingly and said. "Oh Xander your so funny!"

All three of them stared.

"Alright look, " Cordelia confided "... I don't like pretending to like you anymore than you do, so here's the deal, see that girl over there?"

Cordelia pointed over to the drinking fountain where a young girl with curly brown hair and freckles wearing a pair of faded jeans and a baseball t-shirt was pushing the button trying to get water and getting nothing but a familiar chugging noise.

"I've never seen her before." remarked Willow.

"Riiiiight that would be because she's new. Now normally my job as school social coordinator is to introduce her to people and show her around, but..." Cordelia looked over her shoulder to make sure the girl was still occupied "... I can't afford to be associated with the fashion challenged before the Sady Hawkins dance, so If you can all show a little school pride and pitch in for the good of everyone, you can introduce her to the rest of the freaks and losers and I don't have to get my reputation dirty. Everyones happy."

"Doesn't that just make you happy?" Willow pointed out.

"Exactly." Cordelia affirmed as though there were no distinction between the two. "Look just do this for me and I'll try to stop the rumor about you three being in the film-club."

"But you started that rumor!" cried Xander.

"I like the film-club." said Willow quietly.

Buffy cut in. "We'll do it alright Cordelia."

Willow and Xander gave Buffy rather scandalized looks. Cordelia brightened up.

"It's not for you though, it's for her."

"Good, glad to see at least one of you has a brain." Cordelia deliberated then bent in closer and said quietly "Honestly Buffy if you weren't a total freak I might even say hi to you in the hall sometimes."

"Thanks Cordy." Buffy quipped as the tall brunette strutted off self-importantly.

"Favors for Cordelia? Isn't that like making a deal with the devil?" asked Xander.

"No, I said it was for her, no one deserves six hours of having to listen to Cordelia talk about herself." Buffy stated firmly as she led her friends over to the drinking fountain and the curly haired brunette.

The girl looked up as they came closer.

"Hi I'm Buffy!" Buffy said exuberantly putting out her hand.

"Cordelia pawned me off on you huh?" said the Girl folding her arms and looking at them under half closed, suspicious eyes.

"Count yourself lucky." Buffy replied not missing a beat "I had to live through the ENTIRE cordelia welcoming parade when I started."

The girl considered this for a moment, then took Buffy's hand and shook it.

"What's your name?" Asked Willow after she and Xander introduced them-selves.

"Katheryne." said the girl smiling. "Katheryne Pryde. But everyone just calls me Kitty."