NOTE:~ means telepathic communication. * means personal thought. [ ] means cyberpathy or computer-generated speech.

8/26/2006: Massachusetts Academy, Snow Valley, Mass.: 07:59:01 hrs EDT: Biosphere Conference Room

It had been four years since the biosphere's computer control center had been needed -- the biosphere proper was a self-sufficient ecosystem, only requiring the occasional removal of an animal to prevent overpopulation. *Much like th' X-Mansion,* co-headmaster Sean Cassidy joked mentally. *Ach, be kind, man -- y'r students deserve X-Men status, even if it is in Seattle as th' X-Men Black Team. Blame Frost an' her leather fetish...*

Sean sipped his coffee, waiting for his co-headmaster to arrive. As he did so, he smiled to see his wife Moira, the school's doctor and medical teacher, bounce their four-year-old son Gareth on her knee. After Moira and the McCoys had found the cure for all three strains of the Legacy Virus in late '98, Banshee had wasted no time in proposing to his love.

"Da! Catch th' ball!" Gareth giggled. He sonically levitated the baseball to his father, who caught it with his own voice.

"Excellent, croi o mo croi," Moira crooned in Scots-accented Gaelic. She swept the boy into her arms and kissed Sean farewell, whispering, "I've got t' ready th' med-lab-its' comsuite will let me remotely watch Gary. Best o' luck, accushla."

Sean kissed Moira back, careful to avoid letting his eyepatch slip. "Wit' th' two o ye? I dinnae need luck, m' love," he grinned. The Cassidys left, Gareth waving "bye!" to his "Aunt" Emma Frost. Emma let a small smile escape her lips as she came in from the Cerebro chamber.

"Cappucino, Emma?" Sean asked. She nodded, seating herself and chewing on a pencil.

"You're lucky, you know," Frost finally smiled. "I let my chance at matrimony slip by in favor of teaching the St. Croix twins, Artie and Leech a few years longer. Although I shudder to think what kinds of ice sculptures Drake would have created for the wedding..."

*Best t' get her mind off th' old days,* Sean thought. He gestured absently with the laser cannon left hand Forge had created to replace the one Banshee had lost when the first Generation X had graduated in final combat against Emplate in 2000. "Well, we c'n start by lookin' at our recruits," Sean said. "Who's on th' list?"

Emma pushed him a folder with dossiers and photos of 8 of the astounding 13 neomutants Cerebro's last sweep had detected. Sean opened the first folder and began to read.

"T'will be good t'have Frank back again-now we c'n teach him somethin' more useful than how t' tie his shoes," Sean quipped. He jumped as a space-time rift deposited a shaken Franklin and his luggage in the conference room.

"Can I...sit for a minute? I'm...still gauging my teleport range," the boy gasped. Sean got him a chair, while Emma poured Frank a glass of milk and pushed a box of doughnuts before him.

"Your shields are weak from the jump -- 'breakfast' is flashing in your mind," she chided her student. "You should have eaten before trying such a dangerous stunt!"

"I'll remember that, Miss Frost," Frank said between bites.

Emma did some mental arithmetic and gasped. "You teleported here from Pier 4, on memory alone...Good Lord!" she exclaimed.

Frank nodded. "It's still overwhelming for me. I remember running into my older self from the original Rachel Summers' timeline -- he scared the heck out of me. That's why I have to learn to control my powers," he said. "Not only to help others, but also to prevent that nightmare from happening..."

~Some parts of it were a dream,~ a mind-call sent.

Frank stood with a smile to see Rachel and Nathan Summers step out of Limbo with Illyana Rasputin, the Shade twins, Charles Lehnsherr, Luna Maximoff and Luna's bodyguard. Frank took Rachel's hand while Illyana said, "I made sure to study all of my destinations carefully before teleporting from the X-Mansion to Avengers Mansion to here."

"A wise choice," Frost nodded. "We won't get to the orientation until tomorrow -- I suggest you all unpack, get used to the campus, and perhaps go to Snow Valley if you so desire. Cabs do come out here with a phone call." The students and Luna's bodyguard dispersed, while Sean and Emma returned to their own studies.

Frank and Rachel stopped under a tree in the quad and sat, merely enjoying one another's company. Rachel gulped and began, "Frank...I've been thinking about everything. You, me, my being a clone...and if you don't want me as a friend..."

Frank started. "Why wouldn't I want you as a friend!?" he blurted. "Ray, you're my best friend!"

She rested her head on his shoulder and sent, ~Thanks. I was just a little freaked when Mom and Dad told me everything on my 'birthday.' But you know all about big surprises, huh?~

~You got THAT right,~ he sent back with a smile.

Rachel suddenly felt a leap of emotion in Frank, and jumped up. "What was THAT?" she asked with an uncertain grin.

Frank blanched, but took a deep breath. "Red...you're...I'm...oh, geez," he stammered. "I like you! I was just afraid to say anything because I thought it'd screw up our friendship-"

Rachel teared up, placing a fingertip on Frank's lips. "You probably just saved it," she whispered, grinning from ear to ear. "I've gotta go unpack. But meet me in the pool in 90 minutes...we've got some more to talk about." She turned, teke-lifting her suitcases, and headed to the girls' dorm, her face a mask.

Her mind, however, had only one thought: ~YESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!~

Nate sensed his sister's giddiness and smirked. *Goof...still, I'm happy f'r her,* he thought. He had found his dorm room easily, and had begun to telekinetically unpack as he reclined on his bed.

A small, squeaky gasp came from the doorway. Nate rolled over to smile at a small boy in overalls. "Hey, Gary! Good t'see you," he said. Gareth smiled back and bounded into the room, helped onto the bed by a gentle teke-lift from Nate.

"'M Ma asked me t' ask ye t' watch me while she works in th'lab," Gareth pouted. "'M a big boy...I'll be good."

Nate ruffled the smaller boy's hair and said, "Y'know, even the biggest boys can get bored. Lemme dazzle you with the amazing flying clothes!" Gareth gasped, mesmerized as drawers, hangers, and the closet absorbed wave after wave of flying garments.

"Hey, Nate-I thought I was your roommate," Frank Richards smiled as he entered. He knelt before Gareth and said, "You're too young to be a student-scratch that. I was a student when I was 5, so you COULD be a student..."

Gareth giggled and shook Frank's offered hand. "'M Gareth Cassidy!" the boy laughed. Frank introduced himself and began putting away his clothes by hand.

"Take notes, squirt -- he's the smart one, I'm the cool one," Nate smirked. "Oh yeah -- he's the one in love..."

Frank finished unpacking quickly and grabbed his swimsuit and a towel. "No biggie," he shrugged.

"Who's yuir girlfriend, Frank?" Gareth asked innocently. The older boys looked at one another and laughed.

"We gotta be more careful, Gary," Nate quipped as Frank headed out the door. "Your mom'll kick my butt if we corrupt you." Gareth merely nodded, uncertain how to answer, as Nate scooped him up and asked, "You ever played Go Fish? I need a new opponent, and it's the most innocent game I can think of..."

Illyana finished unpacking her side of the room she would share with an as-of-yet unnamed roommmate. "Time to check on the queendom," she shrugged. Exerting hardly any effort, she teleported herself to a forest glade in Limbo. Her clothes faded into a bikini outfit made of leaves, and she sat atop a throne surrounded by scantily-clad fae. "Let the audience begin," she said magnanimously.

Two haughty elven lords, Duke Aethelred and Duchess Angwin, bowed before her. Aethelred asked, "Hail, Queen of Winter and Summer. Wilt thou be staying long?"

Illyana hid her contempt for the plotting Unseelie well. "I hath returned to the Otherearth to hone my powers, the better to rule this land, my duke," she said in a honeyed voice. "Certainly, thou canst not refuse me the right to become a better queen than I hath proven so far, canst thou?"

Angwin bowed again, replying, "Not at all, my lady. But pray, do not forget us in thy cold, mana-poor Otherearth, shalt thou?"

Illyana nodded once more, and called forth the Soulsword in its anchoring block of adamantine.

"So long as I rule and leave the Sword here, my oath of guardianship stands, my lords," she said. "Forget it not-nor the effect soulsteel has upon the fay body, eh?" She teleported, letting the poorly-veiled threat hover over her political foes. *Twits,* she thought, returning to Earth. *I killed Belasco when I was a mewling 12-year-old. Two upstart fae aren't even a challenge...*

Charles unpacked hurriedly, eager to see the campus and perhaps Snow Valley. *Can't forget this,* he thought with a smile, placing his family portrait on his dresser. It had been taken at his last birthday, and his entire family had gathered -- a rarity, given Crystal's added responsibilities as Queen of the Inhumans following the Maximus Massacre of '04.

His father and mother flanked him, with Pietro, Crystal and Luna to the left of them. Wanda, Arthur (Charles had never felt comfortable calling his brother-in-law "Vision," prefering to use the synthezoid's legal name) and their sons Thomas and William were on the right. And his mother's "special friend" leaned on Magnus and Rogue, a grin on his roguish face.

"Uncle Remy...you always do remind me to have fun," Charles grinned. He hid his gift from Remy -- a set of lockpicks which had driven his father mad with concerns of "you'll make the boy a felon!" -- in with his jeans, and tossed himself onto his bed. A pair of familiar mindscans made him grin.

*The terrible twosome,* he thought...

"Atomic batteries to power," Tom grinned, his buzz-cut head at odds with his polo shirt and jeans.

"Turbines to speed," Bill smirked, turning up the amp on his sibling's cyberaxe. Tom psi-linked with the technoinstrument's CPU and went silent, concentrating on turning out an approximation of Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls." Bill rolled his eyes and phased through their closed door, heading for the next-door room of his uncle Charles.

~Come in,~ Charles sent. Bill phased through the door, catching an orange Charles magleved from a bag of fresh fruit his mother had insisted he take to school. "Our fellow Scion of Lehnsherr is at his guitar again?" Charles asked.

Bill collapsed onto the vacant bed, peeling the orange carefully as he nodded. "He's getting weird, Chuck," he muttered. "Too much time in cyberspace...at least I have girls to keep me occupied."

"Oh yeah? Ray's taken, 'Yana's running with the fae host, and Luna's blood-related," Charles replied. "If you want to wait for Gailyn Bailey to get here..." Bill shuddered -- the last time he and Gailyn had met, it had proven emotionally bloody for both of them.

"I'd rather take my chances in a cage-match with that nutjob brother of hers," Bill snapped. "Although Luna has filled out pretty nicely..." Charles made gagging noises and magleved a pillow at his nephew. Bill phased, and grabbed the other pillow to retaliate.

"Now...should I wear the pink sweater or the blue?" Luna asked her bodyguard.

"Wurf."

"You have a terrible sense of fashion, but it's a daring departure from the expected," Luna crooned, aping her Aunt Janet uncannily.

Skritch scratch.

"Now STOP that! Don't you know how much trouble Mom and Daddy went to to get Miss Frost to let me keep you in the dorm!?" Luna glared at her bodyguard.

"Whiiiine..."

"Oh, don't look so sad," Luna sighed. "We'll go for a walk in the biosphere soon."

"Pant pant pant."

"You're a pushover," Luna laughed. A knock at the door made her bodyguard leap up from his bed.

"BOW WOW WOW!!"

"Down! Oh, hi Ray, Illyana! C'mon in -- don't mind my shadow," Luna grinned. Rachel and a dressed Illyana came in, gasping with delight to see the bodyguard.

"The Ice Queen let you keep him in here! Oh lucky -- no roommate," Illyana shook her head. Rachel gave the bodyguard -- Lockjaw, Luna's family's teleporting giant dog -- a doggie treat and a scratch behind the ears. He accepted the treat with a polite "burf," and licked Rachel's face as she shrieked.

"Down! Silly puppy!" Rachel laughed uproariously. "I didn't want to shower until after I got to the pool!"

Illyana and Luna exchanged a knowing look and simultaneously sang, "Goin' to th' chapel..."

Rachel speared her friends with mock-death-glares, and finally gave a small laugh. "He said he likes me," she whispered.

"WHAT!? Dish, girlfriend, DISH!!" Illyana cackled.

Ray shook her head and headed out the door, only saying, "I have to be to the pool in a half-hour to meet him...see ya later..."

She headed back to her room, ignoring the disappointed cries of "Tell us what happens!"

As she reached her room, a mindcall of ~Miss me, cous?~ made Rachel gasp and laugh.

~YES!~ she sent back, running into the outstretched arms of her closest female relative. "I thought you and Joe hadn't manifested!?" Ray grinned, looking over her roommate.

"Hey-mutancy happens," Gailyn Bailey grinned...

NEXT: A pool party, a new student, and mutant power classes defined -- be here!