How did I ever get roped into this? Wolverine wondered. 'It'll be fun,' they said. 'It'll be easy,' they told me. Ha! And I thought Sabretooth was a liar… At the moment, Logan was sequestered away in a remote section of New Hampshire, and while he normally enjoyed being closer to nature and often found solace within the wilderness, on this particular occasion, he was one of three chaperones to a group of twelve young mutants, and he'd never been more annoyed in his entire life.

Scott and Jean had decided to take the teenagers from the Xavier Institute on a camping trip in an attempt to get them to further bond, as well as to give them an opportunity to practice using their powers in an area that was safely away from the rest of humanity. However, after Scott realized that there were eight male students in attendance at the school, as opposed to only four female students, he petitioned for Logan to join him as a chaperone. "You're a vital part of this team, and these kids really look up to you," Wolverine recalled him saying. "Come on, there's no way I can watch eight teenage guys all at once, but with you there, they'll be too afraid to try anything!" Well, those were some famous last words if Logan had ever heard them. On the bus ride alone he'd had to keep Bobby from pantsing everyone else in the vehicle…including Scott, who was driving.

And then of course, only when they'd finally arrived did Wolverine find out that he'd have the self-proclaimed 'ladies' man,' Remy LeBeau, in his cabin. It'll be all I can do to keep up with him during these two weeks, forget about anyone else. Along with Gambit, Logan was also in charge of Angel, Nightcrawler, and Colossus. Only after the first day did he realize that it was going to be a problem that he could neither teleport nor fly.

Jean's cabin consisted of Storm, Psylocke, Polaris, and Dazzler, four of the most beautiful teenage girls in the world, and it became clear pretty fast that it would be difficult indeed to keep the boys from fighting over them. After all, under Cyclops' care were the two most mischievous mutants in the entire school – Bobby "Iceman" Drake, and Hank "the Beast" McCoy, who also happened to be best friends. And of course, rounding out his cabin were Alex, his younger brother, and Forge, Storm's on-again, off-again boyfriend; two forces who were in and of themselves handfuls. Yes, Logan was pretty sure that this time he and the other leaders had bitten off much more than they could chew. I think I'd actually rather be fightin' those freakin' Sentinels right now. At least I wouldn't be stuck listening to these guys plan panty raids when they think I can't hear them anymore.

It was a strange situation all around, especially since not all of the teens really knew each other that well. While Hank and Bobby had already formed a tight bond, poor Piotr could barely remember everyone's names. And although Alex and Lorna had immediately hit it off, it seemed as if Alison was going to blind Kurt for not leaving her alone. On the other hand, Remy and Ororo were so close that it was almost difficult to get them to talk to the others. They had both endured very rough childhoods, and seemed to find comfort within their friendship that they couldn't glean from relationships with their other companions. Jean was aware that they had come to the Xavier Institute together, after knowing each other for several years beforehand, but she also knew that if they couldn't discover ways to connect with the other mutants, the future of the X-Men would be in jeopardy. Recently, Jean had found new hope in the fact that Storm and Forge had been dating, but it had been quite a bumpy relationship, and when things went wrong between the two of them, they went very wrong.

Taking all this into consideration, Logan had a hard time picturing anything but a grueling couple of weeks filled with teenage drama and angst, neither of which he was very well-versed in. As he made his way over to stop Alex from creating a hole in the ground with his plasma blasts for an Olympic-sized swimming pool, it was all he could do to resign himself to the fact that it was going to be the longest two weeks of his life.

And it had only just begun.

* I hope you guys really enjoyed the beginning of my new story, Long Walk Back to Reality. Please be sure to review and let me know what you think! Just as an obvious disclaimer, Marvel characters are still not within my possession, but all of my story ideas are my own intellectual property. Expect another chapter up soon, and in the meantime, have a wonderful week!

Until next time,

Ruby Sunrise