After history, Julie found herself in an AP English class that was seriously behind on their curriculum. The assignment she worked on she had done three weeks ago at her old school. She decided to ask Dana to keep her up to date on their assignments back home. She was not going receive a low mark on her AP exam because she had been forced into this place.

Then she had art class. They were painting still life portraits of fruit. So adventurous. Julie, however, was not a skilled artist to begin with, so it was probably a good start for her. She had wanted to get into the theatre program, but it turned out that everything except for art was already full.

Finally, it was lunch time. Julie could've inhaled all the food in the cafeteria she was so hungry. With her powers, she required to be energized; even when she wasn't using her powers she needed to fueled constantly. Fortunately she was blessed with an extremely high metabolism; otherwise she'd be the size of…well, she didn't like to think about that.

She went through the line, getting a salad, hamburger and brownie with a bottle of apple juice. The cafeteria was full of her new classmates, but she was stuck with the typical new kid dilemma: where was she going to sit? At her old school, she would have gone to her usual table with her old friends. Now, she had to find a whole new lunch table. There was Scott, Rogue and Kurt at a table with a bunch of other kids. She could go ask if she could sit with them, but what if they pulled the awkward 'we're letting you sit here out of pity' move?

"Julie!" Scott yelled to her from across the cafeteria. He waved her over, giving the green light to head over there.

She moved to head that way before a tall, blonde guy in the school's red and yellow leather letterman jacket stepped in her way. He was quite fit and quite charming to look at. From the patches on the side of the jacket, she guessed he was your typical school jock; football, and track state championships line the sleeves.

"Hey. I'm Duncan." His smile and leering eyes told her he was definitely your average cocky jock.

"Julie," she said shortly. Julie was not a huge fan of these types of guys. They automatically assumed they had their pick of women, instead of a girl being able to decide anything herself. She had established early on in her old school that she was not the type of girl these guys wanted; she would just have to do the same thing here.

"Why don't you come sit with me for lunch? There's a spot right next to me." He nonchalantly put his arm around Julie's shoulders, and started to steer her in the opposite direction of Scott and his friends.

"I would, but I was already planning on sitting with them," Julie said, pulling away from Duncan and pointing to the table where Scott was sitting.

Duncan's face immediately turned dark and angry. "That's not a good idea. You don't know this since you're new-"

"I know they're mutants," Julie said, reading his mind. "What you don't know, since I'm new, is that I am too. But before you knew that you were going to be quite the gentleman, weren't you? You were going to make me feel so special from all the other girls you've dated until you finally got into my pants. And if I was good, then, just maybe, you might keep me around. The real judgment of your character will be how you treat me now that you know I'm a mutant."

Duncan glared down at Julie, clearly angered that she would stand up to him. Julie saw his hand go for the tray. She probably could've stopped what was about to happen, but she had a feeling it would only create trouble for her and, by extension, the other mutants in the school. This guy probably had a lot of pull with the faculty, being so popular and all, and he could turn anyone against her in heartbeat. She'd seen it before. So, she let Duncan push the tray of food up, spilling it all over her.

Laughter erupted in the cafeteria, led by Duncan, who did it in her face. Looking into his eyes, Julie saw an evil lurking within him. Her body froze up and everything around her disappeared. She saw Duncan about five years down the road, leading a group of mutant haters on a raid against a group of innocent mutants who happened to cross their paths. It soon became a massacre. He kept on killing and killing…Julie closed her eyes trying to make the vision go away. Finally it went away and she was once again aware of her surroundings. Duncan was still leading the laughter and mocking. For some reason he had this desire to purge the world of mutants. But for now he had to live with torturing any mutant he came across in the hallways of Bayville High.

"Hey, Matthews!" Scott appeared from her, getting into Duncan's face. "What the hell? Who do you think you are? She's new!"

"Stay out of this Summers," Duncan said. He reached over to a nearby table and picked up some kid's Tupperware of soup. "Or you'll get it too."

Scott swiftly moved his hand, knocking the soup out of Duncan's hand and onto the floor. "I'm tired of your bullying, Matthews. It stops now."

"And are you going to stop me, Summers? Come on, blast me with your laser eyes and see what happens."

"Enough!" Julie exclaimed, stepping between the two guys. They were both considerably larger than her, but she could take them if she had to. "Scott, I'm fine. Let's go."

Julie had to almost push Scott away from Duncan, but finally she got him headed back towards his table. As they walked up to the table, Julie noticed the faces she hadn't seen in class before. A tall, pretty red head; a small, cute girl with brown hair put up in a high ponytail; and a black boy with blonde hair.

Scott sat and motioned for Julie to sit in the empty seat next to him. To the rest of the group he said, "Guys, this is Julie Summers. No relation to me. She just moved to Bayville yesterday. She's living at the Brotherhood house for now, but don't hate her just yet. We're going to try and convert her."

"How did you get pulled into that mess of a house?" the red head asked.

"Yeah, I'd kill them all," the black kid said.

"I just needed a place to live," Julie said, "and it was convenient that they're all mutants. I honestly had no idea there was an entire other place for mutants to live."

"Where is your family? I mean, your parents didn't just drop you off there and wish you luck did they?" the red head asked, laughing.

Julie got silent for a bit. Here came the awkward part, that would be followed by the pity. She hated pity. "Well, my parents were killed when I was two, so no they didn't do that. My uncle lives in England, so I kind of take care of myself. Back home I had a caretaker, but I decided to make this move on my own."

The entire table grew silent. Julie could see it coming-the pitiful looks and the guilt for bringing up the subject.

"I'm so-"

"Please, don't apologize," Julie said. "I'm so used to having to explain it to people that it doesn't bother me. I mean, I've had fifteen years to cope."

"Jeez, Scott, are you sure you don't have a sister you don't know about?" the black kid said.

Julie looked from him to Scott, confused. Scott looked at her, and Julie saw in his eyes-he truly understood. "My brother and I lost our parents when we were kids. Plane crash."

"Well, my parents definitely didn't go that way," Julie said. If only that was how they had died.

"Well, I feel sorry for you, being stuck in that fire trap. I'm Jean Grey, by the way."

The little brunette piped up, saying, "So, do you have a boyfriend back home?"

Julie openly laughed. "No. I've never had time to date. Plus, I have yet to meet a guy who could handle me, or who intrigues me."

The girl seemed to relax slightly. "So, what do you think of the guys who live at the house?"

"I don't know yet," Julie said, shrugging. "Pietro seems rather full of himself. Wanda is the quiet and mysterious type. And Lance is a guy who could care less about what others think. He's kind of cute though-" the girl immediately tensed up, "-but, I'm not into guys who are high school drop outs."

"He didn't drop out! He was kicked out!" She paused for a second, realizing that didn't sound any better. "He was set up by Principal Kelly to look like a mutant menace."

"Come on, Kitty," Kurt said. "Everyone knows he doesn't need any help to look like that."

The entire table laughed, except for the girl. She glared at Kurt before pushing back from the table and storming off.

"So, I'm guessing she and Lance have something between them?" Julie asked.

"Oh geez, was it that obvious?" Rogue said, with a deep Southern accent. She rolled her eyes, expressing her exasperation at the situation.

"That's Kitty," Scott said. "Lance is a bit of a sore subject for her, especially with us. They have a sort of love-hate relationship."

"She seems very predatorial," Julie commented. "Well, she has nothing to worry about. He's definitely not my type."

"Well, if you ever want to move into a place where you aren't worried about the house falling in on out, I'm sure Professor Xavier would be more than happy to bring you in," Jean said.

Julie noticed Jean was concentrating on something very hard, and then realized she was a telepath. Jean was trying to read her mind. Well, she was in for a shock. Julie had a strong mental block up at all times, and this poor girl was not about to get past it today.

"Well, I think I had best go and clean up before class," Julie said. "And maybe see if I can grab something from the vending machine before class. It was nice to meet you all. Scott, thanks for coming to my rescue."

Everyone at the table watched Julie walk out of the cafeteria. They all turned back to face each other and waited for someone to speak up first.

"I couldn't read her mind," Jean finally said. "She had a very powerful mental block that I couldn't even try to get through. She's been building it up for some time I can tell."

"She's living with the Brotherhood," Rogue said.

"I like her," Kurt said. "She seems like a good person. Perhaps we can set up a meeting for her with the Professor."

"Guys, we just met her," said Scott. "We need to figure out her angle. She does seem like a good kid, but I also feel like there's something she's hiding something. I'm not sure what, but it's odd for her to just show up out of the blue. We can talk to the Professor about it and see what he knows. Since Mystique's disappearance, I don't think she recruited her to be a part of the Brotherhood. But I highly doubt she just happened to stumble upon Bayville on her own."

"I say we all keep an eye on her," Jean said. "A friendly eye though. We don't want to scare her off."

Everyone at the table agreed. The bell for class rang, and they all parted to go their separate ways.