There was a battery of tests, at first. Things like general school-type knowledge was tested in the stuffy confines of an upper-story classroom. There were well loved wooden armchairs pushed up to heavy wooden library tables, and a large grey-green slate board hung on one side of the room, giving that 'classroom' feel to a place that would otherwise be called a solar, or tea room.
We placed well. Both Kurt and I were well read, having heard Miss Martha when she complained that we would always be treated like beasts, if we were stupid. Christine... did well. She had a different way of learning what she needed to pass the tests.
*Psst!* Mainly from my brain. *What's number 13?*
*Isn't this cheating?*
*Not if I'm learning as we go!*
*Are you really learning?*
*Yup! Eidetic memory, just like you.*
**Girls.** Charles easily cut into the deep telepathic communication we two dragon girls had developed. **Concentrate on your schoolwork, please?**
When we blush, my new sister and I flush with the same under-hue of royal blue. My cheeks and ears burned emerald and plum, while Christine's turned cerulean and navy. I quickly gave Christine the steps to work the mathematical puzzle, then the answer. Here, the only thing worse than getting caught cheating, was to get caught not helping your teammates when they needed you.
Next, there was a range of physical trials. We crawled, climbed, scaled, flew, and even got to swim in this huge pond in the wooded backlot of the manor. The tests felt more like playing around, than any evaluation... but Jean and Logan both said that they got a good purview of our individual talents while we splashed, and dove, and teased each other into greater feats of aerodynamic acrobatics.
Christine was practically jumping for joy when we got to the fighting portion of our evaluation. She was the first to square-off against Logan, and I couldn't help but smile. I was totally expecting one, or both of them to be surprised.
"OK." Logan gathered our attention with his grave, gravely tone of voice. "These spars are not 'to-the-death'. I wanna know how much you know about the body mechanics of fighting. First, we're going to cover self-protection; then we'll move on to offencive attacks." He squinted at my pretty blue sister, pointing a finger and a scowl at her. "NO, Christine! That does NOT mean kicking me in the nuts and calling me vulgar names."
She grumbled something about no sense of humor, but squared off with him, just the same. He proceeded to pummel the poor girl until she lost all control over her senses. One minute she was a thin teen girl, the next her bones elongated and her muscles flowed around them like putty. She rolled her shoulders and I could hear tiny pops as her bones resituated, and the carotene lumps on her vertebrae grew into pronounced spines as sharp as needles. Her stubby claws grew into razor-like talons and she grew an extra spike from her wrists and heels. My brain at once was confused, and knew exactly what I was watching... but I had never seen my own transformation from the outside.
He waited just long enough for her body to completely reform, before he whooped her. Chris did get in a few good strikes that would have maimed, or even killed a lesser foe; but Logan's jagged wounds sealed up almost as fast as she could rend his flesh apart.
Breathing hard, and chuckling to himself, Logan called a halt to their sparring match. Christine's form seemed to smooth like liquid flowing beneath her scales; pulling her in, shrinking her down to her 'normal' form. Her deep breathing popped her ribs back into their smaller configuration, and caused her abs to flex, compacting around her abdomen.
She placed light, human-sized fingertips over the shiny pink lines of the healing wounds on his chest and traced along the largest until it faded into a silver-white line.
"That is a handy trick you've got there..." Her rich voice was husky and breathless. "Can I keep you?"
Some sort of look flashed through his eyes, and the corner of his lip twitched in such a way that I was surprised when he grunted: "No." He grasped her fingers, pulling them away from his skin carefully, and let them go. Christine's hand hung in the air between them for a heartbeat before she brought her fingers together and pressed her fist to her sternum. She nodded once, but her eyes never left his. I don't know if I'll ever understand that strangely intense salute...
Kurt went next. He popped in and out of space, planting three out of every four hits he threw at our instructor. POP; POP; POP! Logan's head snapped back & blood splattered from his nose.
Christine was laughing and clapping her hands, as I looked on in awe. I never knew that my brother and partner in pranks most heinous was actually capable of this level of destruction. I mean... pranks are tough to pull off, but this was totally awesome!
Logan began to land more hits, as Kurt tired. Who would have guessed that displacing your body mass through a couple different dimensions several hundred times in a few minutes would take so much energy? No, I'm not being sarcastic, at alllllll...
Logan landed one hit a little too well, and Kurt flew up against the wall. He just sort of hit it with a splat and slid down like Sylvester the Cat. I had already taken a couple steps toward Kurt when I saw his arm come away from his side and he 'tapped-out' against the concrete blocks of the wall he was now propped up against.
"YIELD!" He groaned, "I yield to my better."
"Not bad, kid." Logan grunted with approval, while I took Kurt's upheld hand and hauled him to his feet. "I want you to work on your hand-to-hand skills, without the... popping."
Kurt frowned a bit. He really does like to use his special way of getting around... but he nodded and popped to the sidelines, leaving me standing alone to face Logan.
"You ready?" His voice was low, almost a growl.
I gulped down a nervous lump in my throat and looked at our grizzled instructor. Why hadn't I noticed that his skin was mostly scar tissue? Thin silver-white lines and pock-marks made a sort of morbid lacework over every bit of skin I could see, telling a sad tale of abuses that no one but Logan would ever truly know. I did NOT want to fight this dude...
"No..." My voice cracked a little, so I shook my head for emphasis.
"Good!" Logan barked the word as he lunged at me.
To my surprise, I was able to swivel out of the way of his charge, and soon found myself doing a sort of fancy two-step/pirouette combo, to scramble out of the way of each new assault.
In the back of my mind I could hear Christine chiding me for not pressing an obvious attack, here; or taking advantage of his loose footing over one of the hazards strewn throughout the room.
*SHUT UP!* I thrust the thought at her as I dodged another attack. I have never been a fighter! I just get out of the way of trouble, when it presents itself... I felt her mirth, then dead silence.
Logan pounced again, but this time I found that I had allowed myself to be herded into a corner. There was now nowhere to get out of the way to! EEP! SHE DID THAT ON PURPOSE!
His grin was a combination of hard won success and grim determination rewarded, when he landed both meaty hands on my shoulders, but slid off his face when I brought my wings around and hooked my duclaws into the meat of his deltoids. He only had time enough to realize what I was doing before I had launched him up and away from me with all the strength in my flight muscles.
Only his lightning reflexes, and years of practice at being tossed about kept him from being smashed into the opposite wall, like Kurt had been. He seemed to twist in the air like a cat, landing with his feet against the wall so he could dive back at me with all the force left in his own momentum. Yeah. That momentum I just gave him. Shit...
This guy was all business, now! I snapped my wings back to my body and twisted to the side, with my hands in front of my face, just in time to avoid the harsh metal of the FUCKING SWORDS he thrust into the wall on either side of me. Shit!
Shit! Shit! SHIT! I couldn't move my wings, this time, without slicing them on his impressive set of claws; so I did what any self respecting girl does when confined by a lunatic. I twisted between his arms, planted my elbow spikes in his pectorals, and forced my knee into his groin with enough force to send him back a couple of his body-lengths... Did I mention that this dude is short?
He also recovers super quick! I didn't even have time to gulp in another breath before he was bringing his double fistfull of three-foot swords to bear on me again! As he advanced I cast about the room for anything I could use as a shield, or weapon.
Kurt's hands were covering his mouth, and his eyes were wide with worry. Christine was making some sort of thrusting/jerking-off motion, and mouthing something that looked like 'toward'... whatever...
In a blink, Logan was driving toward me again with one deadly handful held up at eye-level and the other aiming to gut me.
Panic took my senses, while my brain chanted: 'What did I do wrong?!'
'What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?' I twisted out of the way of the spiky gut-punch, sucking in all I had, to get away from those damned knuckle razors. 'What did I do...? What Do I Do...?'
His other fist came down toward my head, and I realized that time had slowed. His claws were getting shorter. Christine, behind him, was growing into her larger form again. Kurt disappeared in a poof of dust. My fear vanished in an odd wave of pure, unadulterated joy. A blade of unimaginable beauty inserted itself between my face and Logan's claws, and the clash of bright metals was akin to church bells and angels singing.
The sword in my hand allowed me to lever Logan's mit away from my face, twisting the blades downward so that the claws and sword tip scraped the floor at our feet. Thankyouthankyouthankyou! My brain chanted at this blessed angel of steel death.
Time resumed its normal meander through space and perception, but my body now seemed to be moving much faster than I could think. The sword in my hand was part of my body, and we danced like lovers reunited. The sword was now leading the steps.
I vaulted over Logan, using his trapped hand as a springboard, and driving his claws further into the floor. He yanked his talons out of the concrete, but I had already turned in the air and landed on my feet facing him. Who knew all those aerobatics would come in handy for a fight? No more cornered dragons today! I stepped back a few more paces, and beckoned him to advance, with a twitch of my chin.
He lunged at me from where he crouched, punching up at my ribs with those deadly claws of his half sheathed; but I met his thrust with a sort of dipping sweep that allowed me to twist his momentum further upward than he had planned, and exposed his own ribs to me.
My free hand jabbed into his side, between his ribs and hip, armored claws digging for delicious treasures. He roared in pain when I pulled a chunk of flesh from his belly, and I relished the sweet smell of fear and the horror in his eyes as I lifted the treasure to my lips.
**WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!** The thought that sliced through my mind was as sharp as the sword in my hands and just as painful. Sharp, bright, strong, and thrusting between my thoughts with a piercing intensity that belied a fire that could not... Would not be ignored.
We slammed the foreign thoughts out of my head like so much garbage being tossed in the dumpster; but the question did give me pause. What was I doing. Right now? Huh... What were we doing?
**Fighting against a worthy opponent, of course.** The ethereal thought that wound its way through my mind was neither my own, nor out of place in my head. It felt right... even though it was certainly not my own personality. It didn't really have a personality, though. It was... It just was.
I felt a familiar hand on mine and looked down. Christine was pulling the bloody mass of claws and flesh away from my face, murmuring something about not eating the help.
I looked at my other hand and couldn't help but smile at the beautiful blade that rested in my grip; content to warm my fingers with its otherworldly energies. Vorpal...
Its silver-black metal seemed to absorb all light, but refracted everything in rainbow hues too subtle for human eyes to see. I flicked it side to side admiring the trails of purple, green, and blue that sparkled from every facet of the blade that smelled of steel and blood and something... more. Vorpal...
"Where did you get that sword, Neffydd?" The professor used my whole name and I looked at him. His eyes held the kind of fear that a parent has for a child who has just done something horrible, without warning. Concern...? I remembered shutting him out of my mind and realized that he'd been trying to reach me physically and psychically for a few moments, now.
I refocused my eyes, blinking at him like a lazy cat, and gave him a toothy smile that wasn't entirely my own.
"*VORPAL?*" I asked, for clarification.
At his nod, I continued; but, while my voice was my own, there was a projected thought that wound subtly around my words. It changed and enhanced the meanings of my own thoughts, giving Xavier a better understanding of our situation.
"*I can remember no time without this entity,* although I don't think that It's ever been a sword before now... It feels like *we were forged to be together, and we might break if we're separated.* "
Professor Xavier raised a hand to regain my attention and smiled in that way adults do when they're trying to placate a frantic child.
"No one will try to separate the two of you." He placed his hands back onto the armrests of his wheelchair. "I would ask that you both refrain from eating any more of your instructors, or attacking any of our students, at all.
I looked down to where I had dropped the mass of blood and gore.
**That's all you. Swords bite; we don't eat.**
Yeah? They also don't talk.
The sword's silence definitely had the flavor of righteous indignation.
I tried to glare at the rebellious hunk of metal in my hand, but it seemed to collapse in on itself, becoming the small tattoo on the inside of my wrist again. Huh! So that's where it had come from? Now I just had to figure out how to call it forth without being scared shitless, or rampaging in a murderous rage.
As soon as I thought about it I heard a belabored mental sigh, as if the metal of the blade rasped against something it didn't like, then the Vorpal Blade slid out from between dimensions to fit itself into my palm.
I grinned at my new-found ability and looked up at my friends. "What...?" I asked, finally taking in the spectrum of emotions expressed among them, ranging from fear, to concerned interest, to glee.
Professor X pressed his lips together and made a dismissive wave with one hand, while reaching down and unlocking the brake lever on his chair with the other. Logan had his scarred face in a masque of indifference as he grabbed the handles at the back of the Professor's chair, turned it in place, then pushed it out of the reinforced hatch.
Kurt looked from my glowing expression, to the slow smile creeping across Christine's face. His normal cerulean visage blanched almost powder blue and he muttered something about cleaning his room before he popped out of the training room.
I turned back to Christine and quirked my eyebrow in a silent question.
"What?" She squared off her stance to mine. "Put that eyebrow down. I wanna see what you can do with that pig-sticker!"
**NO!** From the sour look on Christine's face, and the metallic echo of the command, I guessed that the Professor had spoken to all of us. **You may spar; but NO weapons, for now.** Vorpal slid itself home, with no further prompting.
Christine frowned a little harder before making a vague gesture toward the center of the room.
"One more round before dinner?" I proposed, and she nodded with a bright, sharp-toothed grin.
