Just Another Day

It was nearly four o'clock in the morning when the doorbell to the Institute rang again. This time, luckily, Kitty wasn't around to answer it. Instead, Logan—who had been impatiently waiting for this particular person to arrive—opened the door with a scowl on his face as he looked at the person on the other side. The kid had to be around 18 or 19 years old and he was taller than the Wolverine. He was around Remy's height and it was obvious to see he was muscular through the well-fitting jeans, tight black t-shirt, and combat boots. He had an Army print bag slung over his shoulder and it had 'LENNOX' spray painted in black letters. He had black hair and crystal blue eyes with a scar going through the end of his left eyebrow. Something that Logan didn't appreciate was the fact that the boy was wearing a scowl on his face, much like he was.

"You Conner Lennox?" Logan asked gruffly.

"You Logan?" The boy retorted without hesitation.

"You got attitude kid," Logan said, crossing his arms.

Conner snorted and rolled his eyes. "And you're a charmer?"

The two locked glares for what seemed like a few minutes. Logan quirked an eyebrow as he looked at the Army print back before looking back to the black-haired teen. "You a military brat?" Conner merely responded by pulling out the dog tags he had hidden underneath his t-shirt. They clearly said 'Conner Lennox' on it and Logan nodded. "You watch sports?"

Conner narrowed his eyes before the corners of his mouth quirked up a bit. "Football, Basketball, and Hockey. None of that baseball crap."

"You watch Hockey?" Logan asked skeptically. At Conner's nod, Logan let a slow smirk find its way on his face. The kid wasn't half bad. "You drink beer?"

"You offering?"

Logan smirked. Kid wasn't half bad at all.


A loud banging noise on the door startled Remy and Piotr awake. Remy was out of bed and had a deck of cards in his hands in seconds, while Piotr reacted with much less alarm and merely rolled out of bed and sat on the edge and started to stretch. Once Remy was sure they weren't getting attacked, he looked towards the clock on the nightstand in between his and Piotr's bed and his eyes widened. "Petey, tell me dat clock is wrong."

"The clock is right, comrade. It's five thirty," Piotr mumbled out, rolling his neck.

"Who in dey right minds wakes someone up at five in da mornin'?" Remy complained—not bothering to remember his roommate was a morning person and had woken up at five in the morning before—as he walked over to the door and yanked it open so the banging would stop. He was surprised to see Rogue standing in front of him in her X-Men uniform with an annoyed look on her face. He recovered from his surprise quickly and crossed his arms over his chest, flexing his arms in the process and let a smirk find its way onto his face. "Mornin' chérie. Ya came by to see Remy?"

"Ah came by, Swamp Rat, to let ya'll know that trainin' starts in fifteen minutes," Rogue said with an annoyed glare on her face. "And since Logan's gonna be the one runnin' it, Ah suggest ya'll are on time."

"Aw, why ya look at Remy like dat, chere?"

"Ah'm lookin' at ya like this cause, thanks to you and ya friends showin' up, all of us Senior X-Men have to wake up earlier to run our damn DR sessions and then we gotta help ya'll out with ya trainin' too!" Rogue glared at him. Her eyes drifted downwards to where he was wearing nothing but boxers with flaming cards decorated on them. While she couldn't deny that every inch of his muscled torso was appealing—which she would never say out loud to anyone—she was more annoyed with the fact that he more than likely just rolled out of bed and had gotten more sleep than her. "Get some damn clothes on Swamp Rat and get ready for trainin'." With that she stalked off, heading in the direction of the stairs, grumbling to herself the entire way down.

Remy closed the door behind him and grinned at Piotr who—after hearing the entire argument outside the door—was changing into his Acolyte uniform. "She wants Remy."

Piotr raised an eyebrow at his friend but decided not to dignify his comment with a response. Instead he merely continued getting dressed and walked into the bathroom to get ready for the training. He did not want to be late. After all, they were graciously invited into the Xavier Mansion, the least they could do was be on time for their training. Once he was finished brushing his teeth and making sure he was decent, he walked out to see Remy lazily shuffling a deck of cards and lounging out on his bad, fully dressed.

They quickly switched so that Remy was in the bathroom, while Piotr walked out of the room to head across the hall to John's. He knew quite well that the pyromaniac never woke up early for anything, and would need to be forced to get up. He closed the door to his room and was about to walk over to his friend's room when he bumped into something small and heard an 'oof!' just in front of him. He looked down and noticed Kitty on the ground in her uniform, rubbing her head with a small pout on her face. Immediately Piotr's face burned in embarrassment at the fact that he had knocked over the small girl because he hadn't seen her. "Katya, are you alright?" He asked, offering the girl a hand.

Kitty blinked upon hearing the Russian accent and looked up to see the gentle giant above her offering her a hand. Her cheeks dusted a pretty pink color as she accepted his hand and gave him a smile. "Yeah, like I'm totally fine. My mom always said I had a hard head, so no worries! I guess I really should watch where I'm going, because this totally happens like all the time! I'm just clumsy I guess!" Kitty babbled on, getting nervous because she was talking to the very attractive former Acolyte. As soon as the words spewed from her mouth, Kitty wanted to facepalm. Way to go Kitty. Dazzle him with your intellect.

Piotr smiled down at the girl and shook his head. "I should apologize. I did not see you there. I am glad you are not hurt."

"Yeah, no harm done big guy!" Kitty agreed before she checked the watch on her wrist before she grimaced. "But there will be harm done if you guys don't get outside soon. Logan's totally gonna flip! You guys better get moving! Oh and a piece of advice, don't eat anything," Kitty called over her shoulder as she ran down the hallway and phased through the floor. Piotr smiled in her direction before he walked over to John's door and opened it to see John sprawled out on his bed and snoring loudly.

Piotr sighed. No way were they going to make it on time for training.


"Logan, ya okay sugah? I don't think ya face is supposed ta be that color," Rogue commented as she looked at the feral man in front of her. Logan, Rogue, Kitty, Scott, Amara, Jubilee, and Jean were all waiting outside by the pool area for the former Acolytes to make an appearance. Conner was already there, dressed in the uniform that Logan had given him, and he looked less than pleased at having to wait more time for others to arrive—especially when Amara and Jubilee were shamelessly talking about how cute he was not five feet away. Logan's patience was almost completely shot. Not only was the second new recruit late, but now he was waiting on the Acolytes. He gave Rogue a look before he crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Can it, Stripes."

"They should like, totally be here soon Logan. I saw Pete on his way out the door to his room before I got down here," Kitty assured, trying to calm Logan down and trying to make sure the Acolytes didn't get maimed as soon as they got down stairs.

"They should be here on time, Kitty," Scott chastised in true leader fashion as he checked his watch. "Their five minutes late."

"Well to be fair we didn't really have much chance to give them proper notice of the procedures last night," Kitty pointed out, turning her pouting lips and puppy dog eyes to Logan. Logan made the mistake of looking at her and immediately his posture relaxed and he let out a low growl.

"They got five more minutes before they get killed."

"Whose gonna get killed?"

And just like that Logan's anger was back. He whirled around to look at the three men walking up to them. John was grumbling to himself and playing with his lighter while Remy stifled a yawn and Piotr scanned the group of people. "I hope you three have an explanation for why you're so late," Scott spoke up before Logan could pounce on them.

"Yeah, we were busy thinkin' of ways to get that stick outta ya ass, but we realized it's probably permanently inserted up dere," Remy retorted without hesitation. Scott clenched his hands into fists while Amara and Jubilee tried to stifle laughs. Conner's lips twitched into a small smirk of amusement.

Before anything more can be said Kurt 'bamfed' into the area with a girl standing with him. She was pretty with short blonde hair and big green eyes. She was almost Rogue's height and she had a pretty curvy body. She was decked out in the same uniform Conner was wearing and she had a small smirk on her face. "Zhe Professor told me to bring her. Zis is Marissa Holt zhe new recruit," Kurt explained. Marissa wasted no time in scouting out the area, completely ignoring the females and looking straight at the males in the group.

"Well now you all have decided to grace us with your presence, line up!" Logan barked out, practically growling at everyone. The Acolytes quickly moved to fall in step with Conner while Marissa practically skipped over to stand on the blue-eyed boys' other side and smiled up at him. Conner didn't seem to notice. With the newbies in line and his senior X-Men in a row behind him, he walked in front of the new recruits and shot them an intimidating stare. "You five are here today cause ya want to learn to control your powers or in some cases become X-Men. Now in order to do that, you're all gonna be put through the wringer, and whoever survives at the end of it has got permission to stay here." Remy and Conner's snort caused Logan to twitch slightly while the two boys shared a look and a small smirk. Logan's growl caught their attention once more however, as he gestured to the pool next to him. "First thing we're gonna work on is rescuing someone," Logan said gruffly.

He looked over to Scott who stepped forward and took over while Kitty, Rogue, Amara, Jubilee, and Jean all started to head over towards the pool and jump in, swimming towards the middle a good distance away from one another. Scott clapped his hands together and stepped in front of the group. "Alright, you'll each have to save one of the 'drowning' victims in the pool. Your time will be taken and how effective you are will be taken into consideration. No powers are to be used on this. Any questions?"

"Can we use mouth to mouth?" Remy asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as he looked over to Rogue in the pool.

"No," Logan growled from behind Scott, his claws coming out.

"It was just a question…"

Scott cleared his throat to get everyone's attention once again. "Alright Remy, you'll be rescuing Rogue—" Scott paused as he heard Rogue's mild cursing, before continuing. "Peter, you're partnered with Kitty. John you'll rescue Jean, Marissa you have Amara, and Conner you have Jubilee." At Jubilee's high-pitched squeal at being paired with the attractive newcomer Conner grimaced, but he chose not to voice his complaints. Instead everyone moved to stand by the pool, in front of their partners. Scott held the stop watch in his hands and looked over at the five mutants before he clicked the watch. "Go!"

Immediately each of the five dove into the water. Remy wasted little time to swim his way over to Rogue—who looked anything but pleased—and grinned at her. "Bonjour chere," Remy greeted, swimming close by the mutant instead of trying to save her like he was supposed to be doing.

"Ya aren't suppose ta be talkin' Swamp Rat," Rogue retorted with a narrowed glare.

Remy's grin turned into a smirk before he swam closer to the girl. "Ya right, chérie. Remy should be savin' ya," he muttered as he snaked his way around her waist, his hands travelling a bit lower, to grab her rear-end. Rogue's face immediately flared red and she elbowed Remy, taking satisfaction in the fact that he looked pained seeing as she hit him in the stomach. She swam away from him and over to the edge of the pool to pull herself out, while Scott frowned in confusion.

"What happened?"

"Ah'd rather drown!" Rogue huffed as she moved to stand by Logan and crossed her arms in annoyance.

Remy laughed and swam over to the edge to get out of the pool and sent a shit-eating grin towards the absorbing mutant before he looked at the others still trying to complete the task. Piotr was swimming towards the end of the pool, already holding Kitty with one of his large arms as the small brunette giggled. Whether she was giggling due to the fact that she was excited to be in Piotr's grasp or because she was thoroughly amused with the utterly confused and disturbed expression on Jean's face as John spoke about how her hair reminded him of fire and how she should totally set her hair on fire, he didn't know. It was a toss-up. Marissa seemed to be having some difficulties trying to save Amara while Conner, like John, was already done. He, however, felt no need to make any sort of conversation with Jubilee and instead just crossed his arms and stared into the water.

Piotr reached the edge of the pool and shifted his positioning so he was holding onto the edge with on hand, while he lifted Kitty up and out of the water with the other. Once he was sure she was completely out of the water and out of 'harm's way' he hoisted himself up and out before offering Kitty a hand to help her stand. She smiled up at him and accepted his hand before she went to walk over to Rogue with Jean—who had decided that walking away from the pyromaniac was in her best interest. Jubilee quickly followed after once she realized that Conner wasn't giving her the time of day and Amara joined the four other girls as soon as Marissa had successfully gotten them both to the edge of the pool.

"That was pathetic!" Logan roared as he looked at the five new recruits. He snarled. "You all better hope you've got some sort of skill or this month trial period is going to be the worst 30 days of your life!"