Bodyslide
by akheliades

"Fekt."

He peered into the crystal cautiously, and then looked again at the diagram of the lattice structure. It emanated from the holographic projector and onto the table surface, drawing a small hum in its radiance. Radioactive displacement crystals were always tricky to work with, and only the foolhardy would consider repairing one by hand.

But Shatterstar was no fool. Perhaps it would have been safer and more efficient to grow a new crystal from a chemical bath, but that would have taken approximately two weeks, three days, and five hours, or so he surmised from his last set of calculations. There may be needful emergencies between then and now, he considered, though if there were none, the empty weeks could be well-used time for running through training scenarios in the Danger Room. He smiled ... this is a better option, he told himself.

It also got him out of one of his leader's plans involving team ethic; this time it was through some sort of traditional pastime that the others knew natively as baseball. Luckily, Cable had excused him from the event, followed by shock and claims of favoritism from his teammates.

Shatterstar had simply shrugged and returned to the machine laboratory, where he passed the X-Man Bishop, who was too engrossed in repairing his various firearms to manage a quick hello. Shatterstar knew better than to interrupt his old friend; he had a nasty way of somehow usurping his Danger Room hours from the master schedule. Despite his preventive measures against unwarranted changes through the computer console, Bishop sidestepped this maneuver by simply crossing out the alien's name from the sheet on the Danger Room doors, and locking him out when he took over those very hours.

At any rate, Shatterstar was never one to step away from a challenge. If he were careful, the crystal would be rebuilt completely, possibly even superior to the original, and after replacing it into Cable's 'port unit, the controls would be working with unparalleled precision.

He held the mini-laser gingerly, and set to work. Sparks began to fly above the "Real Men Wear Safety Goggles" sign. He had always felt it a little foolish for the sign-maker to brandish a cartoon face of Cyclops beside the message. After all, does he not wear that visor of his all the time? He needs no further eye protection. Rictor said something about it being one of those attempts at humor called "jokes," when he asked him once about it ...

"Are you sure it's going to work?"

"Yes."

Cable looked at the crystal hesitantly, and then over at Shatterstar. His face betrayed no expression but that eerie seriousness. Then again, that was what passed for normal when it came to the young warrior. Boomer ... or "Meltdown," as she referred to herself now, called it his 'Jedi Knight' face.

"Even his braids look like Obi-Wan's in Episode I. C'mon, guys ..." she said amidst groans and "you can't be serious, Boomer" remarks. It was when her face darkened at her old name and a glowing ball of energy appeared in her hand that the others began to nod vigorously and remark about how they never seemed to notice the striking similarity before.

Hearing of this close comparison, Shatterstar's interest was piqued, and he had gone with Rictor to see the movie, then a second time with Theresa when James couldn't make it. It angered James to some extent, and made for much more interesting sparring for Shatterstar on the following afternoon.

He went with Bobby when they were stuck at the X-Mansion for a Friday night, when the Brazilian felt the need to go out and do something. Twice he went on "Lord" Wolverine's behest as chaperone to Jubilee's date, first with that Nate Grey from the alternate reality that David Haller/Legion supposedly created, then the other with fellow Gen-X'er Everett Thomas, better known to the X-Teams as "Synch."

On both occasions, Jubilee chattered all throughout the movie, to the dismay of her date, but Shatterstar was more than happy to discuss the finer points of the lightsaber battles, oblivious to customs of silence in the movie theater. When he had a question about the movie, or about movie-watching in general (which was quite often, being a Zavian/Mojoworlder still unfamiliar to forms of 20th Century Earth media), Jubilee was more than happy to explain it, in exchange for some of his popcorn. Everett would have been more than happy to share his had Jubilee let him. Nate, being from an alternate reality and all, didn't understand what purpose it served, other than to clog arteries and drain pipes. Still, he would have offered some of his Milk Duds to the alien chaperone.

Both times, Jubilee's date would politely excuse himself before the audience would even "ooh..." and "aww..." at Anakin Skywalker's on-scene appearance. Even dateless, Jubilee insisted on seeing the credits to the end, so that she could hear the music change from a "friggin happy-go-lucky Ewok-y tune" to the "way cool Darth Vader death march" ensemble, much to the confusion of her chaperone. Afterwards, Shatterstar would accompany Jubilee to the video arcade, where he felt somewhat more comfortable, and as Jubilee put it to Wolverine, "they kicked major ass at Mortal Kombat IV and Marvel Vs. Capcom, and had a blast."

That was when Lord Wolverine glowered heavily at Shatterstar, and decided that he and Jubilee had spent enough time together, chaperone or not. Jubilee didn't mind Wolvie following along instead, since Wolvie was a really cool dude, though he did tend to scare off any teenage boy within a two-movie seat radius, date or not. However, he was quite good at convincing the guy at the popcorn counter into giving Jubille extra boxes of Gummi Bears.

Shatterstar didn't mind the change either; he simply found that some of Lord Wolverine's hours for the Danger Room were now unclaimed and for the taking.

Since Shatterstar's seventh viewing of the film, the computer screens of the Xavier Institute network have happily blinked a Darth Maul-dueling-Obi-Wan Kenobi screen-saver, despite all of the other X-Men and X-Force members trying in vain to search and delete it from the common network files.

He had even maintained a user-interactive web-page, which took to acclaiming and criticizing the swordplay strategy of the Jedi-Sith duels all throughout the Star Wars series. It had won numerous awards from the Comics Site Alliance.

"It is fixed," Shatterstar said simply. "There are improvements from where these Shi'ar made use of some primitive methods, so its performance may be greater than before."

Cable sighed and opened the gleaming control panel. Looking on, Shatterstar oversaw its installation and power-up. Cable looked over at the young man.

"You're sure?"

"I am."

Cable had to accept his word - 'Star never revealed any confidence on matters unless he felt it was well founded. He doesn't even bluff in poker .. then again, he always wins, telepaths or not ... That skill still bothered him, to some extent.

He took a deep breath and performed a few quick relaxation techniques. Then he activated his neural net and found that refreshingly familiar presence. It had been with him for so many years that he could not imagine life with it.

"Professor? We need a favor."

"Certainly, Nathan. What is it that you require?"

"We're going to test the teleporter mechanism. Bodyslide by two, Sector 953, coordinates A90, B25."

"Are you certain you don't want me to run a diagnostic check on the system interface first?"

Cable thought for a moment, and looked over to 'Star, who sat on a nearby chair, polishing one of his blades with an old, worn cloth, then examining its shine from the fluorescent lights above. He cocked an eyebrow, and continued his vigorous polishing.

"'Star patched things up down here. Go on without it."

Cable knew very well that the Professor entity wasn't programmed to tsk, though he could have sworn he sensed something very similar from the sentient computer.

"Very well, Nathan. The fail-safe is activated, in case of accidents."

"Good. Thanks, Professor."

"Anytime, Nathan. I will wait for your signal."

"Trial run, 'Star - on my mark."

Shatterstar sheathed the blade and stood up. "I am ready."

It was times like these when Cable couldn't help but wonder whether the artificially-intelligent Professor or the former gladiator sounded more alive.

"All right, Professor. Bodyslide on the count of three: one, two ..."

The collision of the baseball bat to Cable's face would have been considerably painful, had Shatterstar not sliced it in half and in the process, narrowly missing Cable's cybernetic eye by a quarter of an inch. Similarly, Shatterstar was protected by an oncoming Warpath when Cable held him in a stasis field with his telekinetic abilities.

The rest of X-Force were nonetheless irritated, especially Warpath, who failed to make it to third base, and a grinning Rictor held one neatly-sliced half of the baseball that tagged him out. Bobby would have commented on how this might not have been the first time that James failed to make it to "third base," but after considering that he wouldn't be in held in stasis for long, he opted against personal bodily harm.

Meltdown popped her gum. Domino simply smiled in that mysterious way of hers.

"Cable! 'Star! What in high Heaven above are ye doin' over there?" Therese Cassidy yelled, much to the dismay of her teammates (she wasn't called Siryn for nothing). The others began to crowd around Cable, just as he remembered something. James was quickly released from the T.K. field.

"Sorry about that, James."

James rubbed his shoulders, and shrugged.

"No problem, boss. But why the sudden appearing act?"

"That's what Ah want ta know," Sam Guthrie said, removing his catcher's mask. He sneezed when some of the dust shook off in the process.

"Bless ye," Therese said, almost instinctively.

"It would seem that the bodyslide 'porter is functional again."

The others turned their heads to Shatterstar, who continued, but only after Sam had sneezed once more, and Therese blessed him again.

"Perhaps the coordinates have not been changed to suit the area. We are neither on Proudstar's reservation nor Arcade's Murderworld, but Xavier's grounds. We were fortunate not to have been 'ported into tree trunks, or even the mid-section of a large rock."

There were a silent moments, and then Cable began grumbling and adjusting data through his mental information link. He could swear that the Professor was doing some sort of electronic laugh.

"Fail-safe my flonqing ..." He looked around and saw quizzical stares, so he switched to muttering under his breath.

A few more silent moments passed.

"So, does anyone, like, have another ball?" Tabitha/Meltdown asked. "I mean, it's still the top of the seventh inning ... or is it the bottom?"

"Droga, this game is strange, " Bobby muttered, raising and dropping fingers, trying to keep count. I suggested futbal, but did they listen? ... no, they had to pick this one ...

"I think it's been enough of a game, and I suppose some of us are getting tired and hungry ..." Domino began.

"..goodidea ... wherearewegoing ... ineedtimeforashower ... howaboutmexicannothingbeatsthat ... mexicanareyoucrazyricwogobrazilian ... cmonguysenough ..." and so the chattering went on, as the members of X-Force all but charged towards the X-Mansion. Domino gave Cable a knowing smirk, as if saying, I told you this wouldn't work, and if you ever get another one of these hare-brained schemes again, you do the damn refereeing yourself, and stalked off to follow the others.

That woman could be very expressive with a smirk.

Cable called after her, then the kids, and fell to muttering when faced with having to carry the bases and pitcher's mound back into the Mansion.

For his own part, Shatterstar said nothing as he carried a water cooler in one hand, and an aluminum bat in the other. He swung it in a few slow arcs, and wondering about its capacity and effectiveness in battle, say, against a foe like that Darth Maul fellow ...

-- -- fin -- --