Hello again to all my friends. I don't own X-men, but regardless the original characters that I'll be using in here do belong to me.

To Firewhisperer: The cracks on her skin are kind of spiderwebby when they first start out, or like paint on an old canvas. The larger they get the more of the dark skin underneath you see, so like portions of skin start to vanish, not like fall off, but dissolve or disappear into the darker parts of her skin, so like when you take out pieces in a cracked window or something is what it looks like when they get bigger. They're there because her powers are stronger than she is, cause they evolved pretty fast and she didn't use them so she didn't learn how to control them so they started to sort of reveal themselves in this fashion.

Chapter 13

"One, and two, and one and two..." the mantra of the room continued to repeat over the soft sound of the music. Storm stood at the front of the room, she evidently was the teacher of the ballet class. Naomi sat watching against the wall, stretching. She wasn't watching the people she was watching their overlapping shadows and their smooth movements, she smiled and leaned out across one leg while watching Ivy's shadow move smoothly into the different forms that Storm was asking for.

The one thing Naomi had to regret already about the class was everyone was in leotards. There had been extras from others who had left the class and one had been given to Naomi, unfortunately it was short sleeved, and while there were windows and light was coming into the room from them the cracks and black areas on her arms, like broken shards of glass were the subject of many a cursory glance from the girls in the room. She looked at them again herself, at least they hadn't been mobile in a few days. She supposed it had something to do with all the sunlight she'd been getting that they no longer looked for other places on her body. The sleeves did, however, cover the healing wound on her shoulder, of which Naomi was grateful.

After another few minutes of stretching Storm had the class divide into a few small groups then she came over to Naomi. "This is your first class," Naomi nodded, "Everyone else is going to be ahead of you, so I'll be working with you for a while to get you caught up with some of the lower level dancers in the class, alright?"

She smiled and stood, "Absolutely."

When the class finally let out Naomi was more tired than she'd been at the end of training with Nightcrawler. Her injured shoulder was aching slightly, she rubbed it while she walked toward the stairs planning to take a nice warm shower before getting something for lunch/dinner. She also planned to get out of the school for a few hours, maybe get familiar with the landmarks around town.

She collided with someone coming the other direction. "Sorry." She said as they both stumbled back a step.

"You should be." The other said, steely yellow orbs stared agitated at her, "Watch where you're walking around here or you'll end up in trouble." He stormed out the front door and vanished.

Naomi blinked, in the few moments she'd seen him she'd noticed there was an almost scaly texture to his skin and his hands ended in what looked almost like claws. She went over to the window in time to see a car peel out from the garage.

"Don't worry about it." She turned her head back to see Rune coming up the stairs from the basement. "Dragon's just a sore loser. He's also a bad winner." He wiped what looked like soot from his face.

"Dragon..." She turned back to looking out the window, the name fit him pretty well. She then looked back to Rune. There was more of what looked like smoke stains and a few small holes with burn marks on his shirt.

He smirked slightly at her appraising glance, "He breaths fire."

"Rune seems to be the only one who can agitate him enough though," Chameleon commented while coming down the stairs. Her hair was almost a calm color, a pale blue. She was in a low cut white shirt and holey slim jeans. "You seem to be the only one to get on his bad side Rune, you like having brimstone breath breathing down your neck?"

Rune shrugged, "He's no worse than anyone else I know of." He pointedly looked at Chameleon. She frowned and her hair darkened, turning a purplish color.

She flicked her hair back over her ear and looked over to Naomi, her eyes went to her arms, "What is that?"

Naomi dropped her own eyes to her arms, they were still cracked, almost like old paint in some places, others there were still gaps of blackness where there didn't appear to be skin. "I used my powers a little too much." She replied and went back to looking at the color changing girl.

She smirked, her hair turning a deeper shade of purple. "Well, that's just too bad, its such a ugly effect too." With that she sashayed past her and down to another class room.

Naomi looked at her arms again, ugly?

Rune shook his head, "She shouldn't be saying anything," he stated, Naomi looked up at him, "She has this nasty looking tattoo on the front of her thigh, she says its a chameleon, but it looks like a rainbow colored dysfunctional bug." Naomi blinked and tilted her head to the side slightly, "Everyone's seen it, especially in the summer when she's in those itty bitty bikinis that she thinks are flattering to her."

Her eyes then went to the tattoos on his arms. Feeling where her gaze had fallen he scratched the back of his head then wrapped one hand around the other wrist. "Mine are a little more complicated to explain than that."

"They're runes right? That's why they all call you that." Naomi began.

"Yeah, that and it's my name." Rune replied.

"So, you got them because of that?"

"No, I have them because of my parents." He started to walk off, "I can tell you don't like to talk about your parents, so don't try and pry into mine. I don't like talking about them either." He vanished into the kitchen.

Naomi stood there for a moment more before going up to her room. She took a quick shower then laid in the pale light coming in from her windows to make the black skin disappear.

There was a knock on her door while she was laying on the floor. She laid there for a moment more before going to the door. No one was there, there was three books on the floor though. She picked them up, the first was the works of Chaucer, the second was a novel, called Shadow Walkers, and the third was a textbook, Algebra.

There was a note in the Chaucer book, These are just for you to borrow. Make sure I get them back in the same condition. Flicker . Naomi looked at the back of the three by five card, it had a small map of the school, it marked her room and where Flicker's room was. Flicker's handwriting was small and sharp. She smiled, "Thank you." She called down the hall way, sure the boy was somewhere nearby.

Ugh, I had to rewrite this chapter twice. I went to save it and fanfiction had logged me out.

P.s. To all those who are artists out there who read my strange work, I love fan art! You can totally draw them up, even if you don't think you're good, you're probably better at drawing than I am. That, and I'd love to see how everyone sees my characters! 3

Until next chapter, yours truly.