CHAPTER 1:

FINDING AND PICKING

Ororo Munroe, the goddess over the elements and headmistress of the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, thought the idea was mad after the last battle in Washington, D.C., of the mutant war they lost. She thought the dream of the X-Men was dead. Yet, she made some phone calls, astonished by their yes'. One call she did not expect was Emma Grace Frost. The White Queen lost much during the war but is an educator. Storm called for that alone.

For years, Emma hated the X-Men. The only ones keeping her tethered to the team were the students and Scott. Both were gone, so imagine Ororo's shock when she received a call. Out for coffee, petty in all her ways, Emma smiled ear to ear as they drank coffee, gossiping about their children and the burdens of motherhood. If she didn't know better, a diamond tear shed from the retired White Queen's eyes. She was probably thinking what Scott would think of his strong girls.

Ororo swirled her gray computer chair around to look at the warm beach. After the unexpected destruction of the mansion in New York, she boldly decided to uproot and move the school to California. The mayor of San Francisco, Sadie Sinclair, graciously allowed them to set up on a secluded beach, a decision that surprised many but was welcomed by all.

As a weather witch, her office sat perfectly in the direction of the sun's rising and setting, giving the room more peace and tranquility. The strategically placed plants thanked her and the sun for their food and water.

Is she out of her mind? Doing this all over again?

"You aren't losing, darling," Emma, the topic of her thoughts, walked into her office. No knock. She flipped her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder, leaning against one of her unpacked boxes. "You've come to accept how amazing I am."

Emma flashed a perfect smile, inspecting her nails. "Don't let Elizabeth hear your projections," her cold blue eyes flicked toward Storm. "She's the jealous type."

"If you'd look past you," Ororo snorted, "I was thinking about how I moved Xavier's home here to California."

Emma shrugged, "it's better than a cemetery. And I don't think I could handle the bigotry in Texas. Or the swamp trash hicks in Flordia."

Ororo wouldn't use such…crude words, but she had to agree.

"As the school principal, would you like to meet with the school board or old friends?"

"School board, they're easier to manipulate."

Leave all the hard work on her shoulders while Emma goes and butters up to old men and women. This was her idea; we could go and face the music.

"Fine."

The last surviving mutants who fought the war and returned her call of arms lounged in the vast conference room. A round black stone table, like King Arthur, sat in the middle of the dimmed room. The walls were a deep gray, and there were no windows for their privacy. She made her way to the front, a projector behind her, as she held a hefty stack of portfolios.

"I'm sorry for the lack of chairs." She set the portfolios down on the table. They're en route."

Kitty Pryde, curly hair in a high bun, pushed off the wall. She waved off Ororo's comment with a smile: "We aren't high-maintenance, 'Ro. We can stand. But why bring us to California?"

She sighed, "To bring back the X-Men."

All the side conversations ended, and everyone's eyes were on her. She knew this wasn't going to sell well.

"And become soldiers, again? Like Xavier did to us when we were kids?" Laura Kinney, her stepdaughter, questioned. She lost her husband at the battle of Genosha. The mutants lost, desperately against the sentinels. They killed millions, including Wanda Maximoff, her twin brother, Kurt Wagner, Piotr Rasputin, and plenty of the students. It was a haven until it wasn't. A three-headed sentinel went supernova and destroyed the island.

Ororo shook her head, "I want this to be a fresh start. I want this to be a school for mutant children to feel at peace. Students who are 18 and up can become X-Men if they wish."

Betsy, wife to Emma, stepped forward, smiling. "Then we better start recruiting."

Ororo powered the projector, "You all won't like the choices Emma and I made."

Betsy rolled her eyes, "Puhlease, with these new bigots out here, we need tough kids."

"First up, we have Sydney Pierce…"

SYDNEY PIERCE

AGE: 15

HEIGHT: 5'4

POB (PLACE OF BIRTH): San Francisco, California

Unlike my human parents, I turned out to be a mutant. Go figure for parents like Donald Pierce and Allison Hodge. While my parents were out in the real world, committing genocide of the mutant people, I was safe with my granny and aunty as they raised me.

The day I got my powers, at 12, I sat atop the creaky steps. Police lights flashed through our home while several officers removed their covers and solemnly looked down at their polished boots.

'I'm sorry to inform you, Mrs. Hodge, your daughter and son-in-law were found dead in their Manhattan home.'

My granny busted out in tears to put on a show for the police, but we all knew it was an act. That night, I slept better than I ever had.

But, because of my lineage, I am afraid the mutants will hunt me down and kill me. Or the humans will figure out I'm not one of them and also hunt and kill me. I know it's a horrible way to live, but it's kept me alive thus far.

Pushing my black round sunglasses on my face to hide my unique, ever-changing eyes, I stepped into a party. I usually don't go to these things, but it's Rocky Jackson's birthday—the girl I have been crushing on since middle school. I had to make an appearance, even for a short time.

On top of the black and white countertops, my eyes sifted through the room when finding the tall, dark-haired, white teeth and in shape hostess.

"Cute girl." Emma Frost's faint voice tickled my mind. She always does this, and I continue to tell her how much I hate it. Yet Aunty never listens to me. Why would she? "You got arrested again."

I said out loud, "You have no proof." Some people looked at me and muttered a freakish remark under their breath, but they kept away from me.

"Your harsh and quick response makes me think otherwise. I can dig deeper into your mind, or…you can tell me yourself."

I tried to use what she taught me about mind defenses to slam the door on her, but she was Emma Bloody Frost, an Omega-level mutant. Of course, it wouldn't work on her.

"Fine," I breathed, "Granny's hurtin' for money, so…I sold some of that shit being passed around the hellfire club to students at school."

Emma's anger raged in my brain, "I have never wanted to put my hands on a child more than right now."

"Well, you're gonna have to find me to do that."

"Found. You."

Face hot with anger, Emma bloody Frost pushed through the crowd of high school kids and stepped in front of me. It was odd for her to wear casual jeans and a white hoodie; she must've been at home with her wife. I wish it were Aunt Betsy rather than Emma in front of me right now. A talking-to would suffice better than whatever the White Queen has for me.

"For the last time," she grabbed me by my collar, dragging me out of the house. "You are not an adult. You should not be making adult decisions." Emma pulled me in front of her white Lincoln, her eyes softer than expected. "I already helped your Grandmother with all the bills, so you didn't have to worry. But seeing as you can't be left alone, you're staying with me."

I mumbled a few curse words, "Where?"

"The newly established X-Mansion. Your bags are already there; your Grandmother dropped them off while you were sitting in a holding cell."

I didn't complain as long as my Grandmother was taken care of. I could stop being paranoid.

The team looked over the portfolios around the conference room when Kitty and Betsy sat on the floor together.

Kitty hummed, "Warren's brother…on a scale of 1-10, how different is he to him?"

Thinking the question directed toward her, Betsy ran a hand through her raven hair, "11."

Kitty whistled and handed her the portfolio, "You got it."

URIEL WORTHINGTON

AGE: 20

HEIGHT: 6'6

POB: Bronx, NY

My family name is beyond the richest you could imagine. Before the war on mutant kind, my family held such a high status throughout the Americas. Their technology, trying to fit in with the rest of the world, killed my oldest brother, Warren Worthington III.

A good guy.

He was a true heir to my father's riches and glory until he became a 'monster' hidden away from society.

In a moment of my father's anger and frustration, he slipped up and had an affair with a South Korean woman. Together, they had something special until a mere bastard was conceived. Father demanded how it was possible as if he didn't understand basic biology and sex 101. My mother refused to end the poor bastard's life. So, as a child, I walked away with the name Worthington.

For someone who hated the 'monster' he helped create. He tried two more times, making a total of three of us. Though I am the one who fell from grace, I am deformed with four black voids of life wings and eyes to match, like the nothingness of space.

Amid the war, I took it upon myself to get revenge. Revenge for killing my mother, so nothing tied her to his maddened affair. In front of my beautiful father, I killed my sister's loving and kind mother. Did she deserve it? Not in the slightest, but a mother for a mother. Stephanie will get over it, hopefully. And then, I strung up our beloved father and watched him plead for mercy. I sat in a chair, drinking a bubbly, and watched him struggle for life.

Days and weeks passed as I waited for Warren to come for me. He never did. I got a call from my buddy Creed saying he was executed on live television along with his wife, Paige Guthrie, and Creed's older brother, Kurt Wagner.

"I remember watching his execution," Elizabeth Braddock sat on a bar stool beside me. I never met her personally. She's a friend of the family's name and an old flame to my dearest angelic brother.

Gulping a sip of stale beer, I mumbled, "I shouldn't be angry with him, b-but I wished he would have known he had a brother."

"Then why not come meet your sister?" She asked.

I snorted, "You want me, the fallen angel, to meet my sweet sister?" It's ridiculous to think that was even an option. I killed her mother and our father. If she knows the truth…no. "Plus, I ain' a hero."

Elizabeth shook her head, "I suppose not. It's not about being a hero. It's about being part of something bigger than yourself." She finally looked at me, "Are you tired of running?"

I am.

"Then come with me." She reached out her hand for me to take. I don't know what I was thinking, but I took it.

X-CHILDREN:

"Welp, the fateful day gas returned."

On a sunny spring day at the newest installment of the X-Mansion, the X-children sat in the game room. Its contents are bare except for a few gray recliner chairs and a projector screen. Mrs. Munroe stated everything should arrive by Monday evening when school starts.

Megan Grace Frost plopped on one of the recliner chairs, legs and feet hanging over the arm, while she reached for her coke in the cup holder. She figured they moved out to California to escape all the death Westchester and Bayville held for them. She figured it was better in numbers than to scatter around the globe and get picked off one by one.

Nope, her mother and Mrs. Munroe plan on starting the X-Men back up, as if the last few moves went so well.

"Well?" Her eldest sister, Ruby, said. Unlike Megan, Ruby resembles their father, Cyclops, but has a stubborn and petty personality like their mother.

Megan takes after their mother on the outside and their father's kind and severe personality.

"The school is re-opening Monday."

Their cousin, River, lay her head on Ruby's lap." Wonderful. Is this going to get blown up, too?"

Most of the children in this current room lost one or both parents and other family members. Some died more gruesome, others publically, and there is a small percentage of X-men and their students scattered around the globe in hiding. River lost her mother, uncle, and aunt in one massive attack against one sentinel on her grandfather's island.

To bypass the solemness of their fallen parents, Megan tried lightening the mood by shifting the conversation to Aura Allerdyce. The daughter of the Scarlet Witch and Pyro, the Manics. That's what the kids used to call them. They were the couple you never crossed because they liked to play with their food.

Aura somehow didn't get their strange and intense personalities. She's laid-back and observant, unlike her cousin and best friend, Luna Maximoff, who is the go-with-the-flow and ready-to-fight type.

Joint at the hip since birth, they do everything together.

It's possible it had to do with them living next door to one another, while the LeBeaus would have been across the street if they weren't down south.

"Yay!" Aura slapped away Lukas' hand from her snacks. "Can't wait," She said with a roll of her eyes. Never had she met her father's much younger brother. He never spoke of Dylan. She said their parents kept her from staying with them after her mother's death.

She, Aura, figured he went to them to grieve properly. Since denying his request, he hasn't mentioned them again, and he hasn't grieved properly. He didn't want his daughter to see him in a state where all his best friends were dead—Uncle Pietro, Uncle Remy, and Aunty Roguey—gone. He could go to Aunt Laura, but she was trying to grieve while raising Luna.

Doesn't Papa understand that every X-man alive is grieving? He's not the only one.

"Can we talk about something else other than our dead friends and family?" Lukas muttered.

"I second that," River nodded to Wolverine's youngest son.

"I am not joking," Ororo said for the third time as she leaned into the table. Her face was indeed deadpan for Kitty to know she wasn't kidding.

"B-but 'Ro, they're assassins."

She nodded, "I am aware. Remy mentioned them to me before. They're good kids, and we could use their training."

"Fine," Kitty closed the folder, "Who's going to knock?"

Emma smiled, stepping beside the headmistress, "Why you, Kitty dear."

MCCADE/WINTERS:

Fucking bitch.

From day fucking one, I hated Emma Grace Frost. Yet, Scott and Rogue vouched for her. She said she was dealt a bad hand. Well, newsflash, we all have. That's why we joined the X-Men. I'll never forget or forgive her for weaseling her way into Scott's head after Jean died. I'll never forgive nor forget her playing with Betsy's heart, stomping on it, and marrying her as if Scott were nothing to her.

My fiance died. His son was in my hands as we ran to safety. Never looking back, Ororo called and begged for my help. At first, I wanted to say no, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. I'm only recruiting these teens because Ororo asked me to, not because of Emma.

Shaking my head, I glanced at my destination, muttering a few curse words. Who on earth names a club Club Tuesday?! Pulling out my phone, I made sure I was at the right location when I realized today's fucking Tuesday.

Fucking wonderful.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the club, avoiding dancing bodies. Head and eyes down, I navigated toward the bar when I spotted one of four of my targets.

Placing herself on a barstool, I mustered the courage to smile, "Can I get–"

"We all know you aren't here, Kitty Pryde of the X-Men, for a drink," my target, Skylar McCade, said. Amusement is written across her robust facial features. A black headband pushed her long mullet out of her face. I thought she was handsome, more than society thought a woman should look.

A dragon tattoo rested on the left side of her neck down into her shirt. She read in the portfolio the dragon represents the Seattle Assassin's Guild. Each member of the family she's meeting tonight has one in a different location.

"How'd you know?"

Skylar rolled her eyes. "You all are famous, one way or another." She placed a beer in front of me. "So let's skip the pleasantries and discuss why you're here."

I gulped down my beer in one breath and said, "I want to recruit you for our school and our X-Men team."

Skylar blinked at me. Her lips parted, but she said nothing, unsure what to say. Once the shock wore off, a harsh and insulting laugh spilled from her lips. She turned to one of the other workers and asked them to watch over the bar.

She refused to say anything, ushering me to the far-back rooms. My eyes stayed on the ground, afraid of what I'd see.

I join Skylar in a secluded room.

Thinking I was safe, my eyes filled the space when my cheeks turned red. I tried to look anywhere else because of my embarrassment, but my eyes stayed glued to a young man's head in between another man's legs.

The man's head tilted back against the couch, mouth open with pleasure. When Micha looked up with a pop, he wiped his lips and told the man to clean himself, but guests were present.

Micha is the twin brother of the current heir of the Seattle assassins, Malakai Winters. His eyes twinkled with innocence, but his sly smile said others. Still on his knees, his deep blue eyes flicked over me.

On the couch in the far corner sat Rosalie McCade, younger sister to Skylar. A sucker was in her mouth, and her bright pink eyes watched me with glee. Her pink hair was in two pigtails, bouncing up and down as she clapped excitedly.

"Look! Look Mali!" She pushed off the brown leather couch and got in my face, "An X-Man," Rosalie went to touch me. I took a step back.

"I thought you all were extinct."

"Get out of her face, Rosie." The final member of the family, Malakai Winters, watched me the moment I walked into the room. The rest of the room shadowed her jet-black hair, but her blonde streak shone brightly as it cupped her face.

No wonder she was the heir. Leadership oozed from her. She didn't yell or command me to speak. She sat on the couch, arms spread, waiting patiently for me to introduce myself and my query.

"What can we do for you, X-Man?" She asked politely.

Skylar threw an arm around me, laughing. "The answer's quite rich, cousin." She pushed me forward gently, "Tell her."

"I came with a proposal–"

"-she wants us to join the X-Men," Skylar finished for me, wiping a laughing tear from her eye.

The room stayed silent except for Skylar's rude laughter. I was prepared to give a mediocre argument when Malakai surprised us all by saying, "We're in."

Skylar quit her laughing fit, "What?"

Malakai's eyes never left me when she responded, "Did you forget who lost in the mutant war? Rogue, Gambit, Aunt Bella Donna. They were our friends and mentors. Don't we owe it to them to pay it forward?"

I nodded with a growing smile, "Excellent–classes start on Monday. Orientation day is on–"

"Hold on, we want something in return."

Of course, there's always a catch.

"We and Lyla and Leo Creed."

I raised a brow, "Um…dead and or alive."

Malakai shrugged her shoulders, "either works for us."

shit.

LYLA/LEO CREED:

I made a promise to an enemy turned friend before her death to watch over her family. It's safe to say that I failed miserably. Both her daughter and son are dead. One executed and the other…gone. After their demise, I promised to keep the rest of my promise.

Was it smart?

No, but a promise is a promise.

Hidden underground in Antarctica, I stood with layers of warm clothes but couldn't keep myself warm. Beside me, a guardsman tapped a few buttons on a security pad, dipped his head to do a retinal scan, and stepped back.

After a moment for the computers to compute, the thick concrete doors slid open for us to walk inside the cages.

A chair awaited me between two clear cages, each simple with a mattress on the floor, a toilet, and a sink.

Removing one of many layers of jackets, I rested it behind my chair and sat.

The prisoner's intense eyes watched every move I made and studied each breath I took when my gaze flicked over them.

The boy, Leo Creed, is a giant in height and muscle mass. He filled his orange jumpsuit after being in prison for a year. His golden locks coiled against his thick brows while puckering his lips at me in amusement. A well-kept and thick mustache lay upon his upper lip. I didn't see much of his father, Victor Creed, in his facial features, but his build was much like him, as was his sadistic smile.

To my right, Lyla Creed. The spawn of Raven Darkholme and Victor Creed. Her eyes were gold like her father's. She was hiding secrets, hurt, and death. At the same time, her twisted smirk showed interest in me. Her dark gold hair, long, she assumed, was tamed in a small knot. A scar ran under her left eye, and tattoos kissed from her neck down to her fingertips. Who knows how she got them with a healing factor?

Why are they in such a secluded prison?

It's not because of their parent's identity, but it has something to do with it. Victor Creed raised them. I feel like that's explanation enough. SHIELD had them on their watchlist for years due to the many deaths they caused, the burglaries they were a part of when younger, the selling of mutants to the highest bidder, as well as prostituting male and female mutants to the highest bidder. They run drugs, guns, people, and anything they can get their hands on to earn a quick buck. And it worked for them until it landed them here, in cages.

"Stormy," Lyla's milky-smooth voice chirped, "What do we owe the pleasure?"

I crossed my long legs with a smile, "I want you to come to the new school I built. To learn adn become X-Men."

"You're kidding." Leo's voice has a rich husk. It reminds me of whiskey, while Lyla's voice is brandy.

I shook my head, "I am not."

"You're here for something else," Leo snuffed.

Victor and Raven taught them well. Never take anything at face value.

"A promise."

Lyla, a predator, inclined her head to the side, studying me. While Leo spoke, "A promise?"

"Yes, her mother," I pointed to Lyla, "asked me to watch over her children during the war. You included Leo."

"Did a banged-up job; both of her siblings are dead, and we're locked up in here."

I play with my hands, trying to avoid their telling eyes, "I couldn't stop them from being part of something greater than themselves."

"And you want us to fight for you?" Lyla asked.

Essentially, eventually, yes. I want a more fierce X-Men that doesn't back down and doesn't worry too much about morals.

"What's in it for us?" Lyla asked as she tapped against the glass.

"Your freedom," I said plainly, "All I ask is that you follow my rules. No killing other students and or teachers. No killing on the grounds and no killing anyone we tell you not to."

Leo looked at Lyla.

Lyla looked at Leo.

Together, they nodded and agreed to my terms.

Excellent.

The new and approved X-Men are ready to start their training.