Disclaimer: Chances are, if you recognize them they aren't ours. Clarissa McAdams, Juliana Reed, and Regina Taylor belong to LostAcanthus. Carina Atherton, Sven, Antonin, Harold, and Dempsey all belong to CallousCole. For everyone else you're looking at Marvel/Stan Lee. :)


Chapter One, Part Two

"… they brainwashed the captured mutants and locked them into a Virtual Reality world where they were forced to kill or be killed. Until something went dreadfully wrong and this arena was destroyed, leaving no survivors…"

The voice stops abruptly and the image on the T.V. freezes as Jean Grey turns to Scott, remote in hand. He shakes his head, and the faces of those around him are grim.

The four senior members of the X-Men along with Xavier were gathered in his office, Scott sitting in one of the hard leather chairs, facing a television screen. The doors were shut and locked, keeping prying eyes away and out of the subject matter of their meeting—although it was only a matter of time before one of the students turned on the news. Rain began to against the window outside, enhancing the glum mood of the situation.

"What do we do?" His eyes, hidden under his ruby quartz glasses, flick from one person to the next. "Is there anything we can do?"

"As far as we know, this was the only facility of its kind." Hank McCoy says, stepping forward slightly.

"But from the sound of things, it seems like the prisoners revolted. They did a damn good job of destroying the place, but at their advanced levels, there's no way all of them were destroyed as well." Ororo Munroes' hands are on her hips. Out of everyone in the room, she is the most visibly disgusted by the news.

"I scanned the surrounding area with Cerebro," the Professor began, "I'm hoping that maybe I can locate some of the mutants. While there's nothing we can do for them now, we may be able to help them in the future. Meanwhile, Jean and I will be doing as much research as we can. If there's a chance we can prevent this from happening again, we're going to do all we can…Jean?" he trails off and looks to the other psychic. Her eyes are distant, and her head is cocked slightly to the side, listening. "Scott, did you leave the kids along in the Danger Room?"

His face falls and his mouth hangs slightly open. He mutters an obscenity under his breath, and in an instant he's up and out of his chair.


The five bodies laid sprawled out on the floor in a gory mess. The dark city landscape that the Virtual Reality had generated slowly began to fade into a white paneled room large enough to fit a football field inside.

Along the far wall a panel popped open to reveal two dark figures. As they neared the bodies it was visible that they were both very wealthy men from the way they carried themselves, and dressed.

As one of the men stood over Carina's body, he began to speak haughtily, "What a pity, I was so looking forward to keeping this one for mys-" He abruptly stopped speaking and gurgled, blood was dripping from his mouth. When he turned, he saw that his companion was already dead where he stood. It wasn't until his body hit the ground that what had just happened began to dawn on him.

The five mutant bodies disappeared from the ground, and from what had appeared to be the wall to the humans, emerged the five mutants. Harold was panting because of the amount of energy that it had taken to make his illusion. Antonin smiled and grabbed Harold's arm to help him keep his balance, "Good job, I wasn't sure you had it in you. But we better get going before they figure out what's happened."

Already in their sight was a shiny blue barrier that was separating them from the next room. By the time they reached the opposite side of the room Harold had caught his breath, and was the first one to step across the barrier, "Here it goes-"

Carina's heart was thumping loudly in her ears when she approached the barrier separating her from the real world. Carina looked around the room warily one last time; this was her world, the only one she'd ever known. Without a second thought Carina crossed the barrier.


­­

The moment that she touched the barrier she had the sensation that she was floating. When the strange sensation stopped, she was thrown to the ground by the force of Sven's body before she could even look around. Once her ears stopped ringing Carina heard the gunshots over her head. She tried to move her arms, but only managed to turn her head under the weight of Sven's shielding grasp.

Even though she had seen many dead bodies, and killed some people too, it was still disturbing to be looking into Harold's cold, dead eyes. There was a bullet hole planted directly in between his eyes that had created a stream of blood that was slowly running down his face creating a halo of blood around his head.

Carina quickly snapped her eyes shut and concentrated on getting out of the room. She turned to look up and saw one of the shooters standing about ten feet away reloading his gun. On impulse she began to transform different parts of her body so that she was able to slither across the floor to the guard. Before he was able to react, Carina dug her fangs into his ankle. The man yelled out pulling his arm back to pistol-whip her, but his skin was already turning grey, and he began to tumble to the floor.


"Clarissa!" Hearing her name snaps her out of the calm she had slowly drifted in to, and her eyes pop open. She barely has time to register what is about to happen before John crashes into her. He's up in a second, glaring at Piotr.

"Don't everyone rush to help me up at once, now." Claire grumbles getting to her feet on her own as all eyes are on Piotr, looking for an explanation.

"The small fiery one was getting on my nerves."

"Ok, now it's ON, tin man! Your flag is mine." John points a threatening finger at the giant metal man. Piotr raises an eyebrow as John begins to stomp towards him.

He's stopped by a sudden tug on his arm.

"Do you think that's really going to work?" It's Clarissa. He yanks his arm free with a sneer. "You keep running at him, you're gonna keep ending up on the ground. Strategy, John." She says, looking meaningfully at Carson and Juliana.

"Ok, you think you're so damn smart, then what's your plan?" he hisses.

"They obviously have an advantage over us. Piotr is like a brick wall." Juliana says hopelessly as she and Carson join the conversation.

"Well, Carson, I think you could take care of Pete." He smirks as John shoots a dirty look at Clarissa for giving the task to someone else. "John, it would be easier for you to distract Bobby." The fire-wielding mutant scoffs.

"I always have to deal with him."

"What, I thought you would like the opportunity to start some fires." She grins suggestively. "Keep him busy."

"I think I could cover Regina, her and her copies." Juliana offers and Clarissa grins, agreeing.

"What and you get to swoop in, get the flag and be the hero? I don't think so." John says immediately.

"I can run the fastest, John." She says with a shrug, as if it was obvious. He frowns, disgruntled.

"This blows."

"You'll get over it."

"Shit!" Carson yells suddenly. Regina is on their side and heading for the flag. John, Carson, and Clarissa take off after her. Carson dives at her and misses. She takes a glance back, grins, and before they know it, there are a dozen copies of the blue team running around. The result is chaotic, as they run into each other, into themselves, while Regina just laughs and heads for the flag. She snatches it from its home in the little orange cone and takes off jubilantly for her side.

Before she knows it, though, John is on her trail, and closing in. She turns back to stick her tongue out, and one of Juliana's vines jut out of the ground in her path. She goes down. The vine winds around her ankle, carrying her to the jail and dropping her.

Regina receives heated looks from everyone on her team, and she curses herself under her breath for being so stupid.

"I'll take that." Clarissa says snatching the blue cloth from Reginas hands, grinning.

John smirks. Maybe he will play by Clarissa's rules—for now.

"Hey, Icebitch!" he taunts, and Bobby glares at him instantaneously. John flicks his lighter open and draws a fireball into his hand. "Howabout you play fireman?"

"John." Bobby warns, but John just smirks and tosses the fireball towards him. He freezes it and before it even hits the ground John sends another one flying, which Bobby rushes to put out. John laughs. This might prove to be quite entertaining. He throws three more.

The remaining players of the two teams are left eyeing each other across the field, daring each other to make the first move. Carson approaches the line, and Piotr mirrors him.

"What do you say to a nice game of chicken, Tin Can?"

Piotr presses his lips into a firm line. "Why does everyone make the same joke?"


"You killed him! You BITCH!" Carina whipped her head up to see another gunman pointing his semiautomatic at her head. He started to pull the trigger, but before he was able to complete the action, his neck started to turn unnaturally until it snapped.

Dempsey slowly materialized in the spot where the man had been standing and grinned mischievously as he reached a hand out to help Carina up. "Thanks," Carina mumbled as she stood up with Dempsey's help. She shook her head, her first thought when she looked at Harold's body was, what if that had been me?

She turned her head and saw that Sven was helping Antonin get up, his head and chest were bleeding, and it looked like he'd been knocked out and shot after crossing the barrier. Dempsey winked at Carina and then left her side to rush over to help Sven with Antonin, like he needs it, but Antonin brushed off both of them as he started to limp through the corridor.

The rest of them followed behind Antonin, moving at a slow pace so that Antonin could lead. When they reached the end of the corridor Antonin reached for the door handle, but then fell short, "this is as far as I go, I'm not going to make it out the night, and I'm not going out alone."

Carina spoke first, "You don't need to die here, I'm sure they could help you."

"Who? Humans?!? I will never let another human hand touch me in this life, which isn't going to last much longer." Antonin's eyes burned with hatred when he turned his face towards Carina. She began to protest, but Sven put a hand on her shoulder, cutting her off.

"Let him stay, he will get his revenge and he will die here fighting instead of in some human hospital, he will die a noble and honorable death, one that he deserves."

Shocked into submission, Carina gaped at Sven, He Talks?!? And he talks well?!? Antonin and Dempsey were just as surprised to hear Sven talk, and watched him as if waiting for some alien to pop out of his body now. But before Carina was able to start asking Sven a million questions a minute, one of the doors along the corridor opened and a man emerged armed with a machine gun. "Well, that's my cue," Antonin began to limp towards the man, "get out will you still can…" he trailed off as he started to cause big blasts through out the corridor.

Sven threw the door open, and Carina was blinded by the bright sun shine, before her eyes were able to adjust Sven grabbed her and began to drag her out into the open. They ran until the dome of the building was visible from afar. Explosions were ringing through the air, and then one resonating BOOM! That crashed so hard the ground shook and Carina and Dempsey were thrown off their feet. It looked as though the whole building was about to come crashing down, and with the next explosion, it did. As dust and rubble flew up into the sky, the remains of the building began to smoke, little sections of fire spreading all around.

"Well, I guess he got his revenge," Dempsey said indifferently, as he stood up and began to sluggishly brush himself off, "well it's been fun guys, but I'm gonna go now." Dempsey slowly began to blend into the surrounding hills, until he was barely visible, and before fading completely he gave a final wink to Carina, he was gone.


John is quickly getting out of hand and having a little too much fun—the grass around the playing field is quickly smoldering in patches.

He hears his name shouted, but it's too late. Kitty is headed straight for him—and he's on the wrong side of the line. Before he knows what's happening, Clarissa is crashing into him and he's on the ground, out of Kittys' way. "This is the second time today, Clarissa." He smirks, "You must really like me."

She pulls him up off the ground, ignoring his comment (she's already planning on ripping him a new one later), and they take off for their side. But Piotr is in front of them, blocking their path. They skid to a stop and John starts to double back, but runs into Kitty. Clarissa runs into Piotr with her hands out, fully intending on shocking him in his metal form.

Nothing happens. She blinks in confusion, hands on his chest, electricity sparking between them, and still…he's not fazed.

"Sorry svetliak, it does not work that way, I'm afraid." He says smiling down into her shocked blue eyes.

John and Clarissa trudge to the jail, both thoroughly pissed.

With those two taken care of, Carson and Piotr resume their game of cat and mouse, and Kitty rushes off to get Regina out of jail. Clarissa and John realize what she's up to, and immediately yell for Carson to get them out.

As soon as Kitty crosses the line, Juliana has vines popping up left and right, trying to trip her, some forming walls. They hardly slow her down—she phases through them easily. She tags Regina out of jail and keeps hold of her hand as they run for the flag.

"CARSON!" Clarissa and John yell for the millionth time, their hands outstretched and fingers wagging impatiently.

"Alright!" he sighs; he was just playing with the giant metal mutant after all. Piotr grabs him and tries to pull but nothing happens. Carson doesn't move. Piotr tries again, but it's as if Carson is just too heavy. He grins and lifts Piotr, tossing him in the general direction of the jail. He lands with a giant thud, leaving a Piotr-shaped dent in the lawn.

Carson takes off to free Clarissa and John. Bobby, looking up from one of the fires he's still trying to put out, sees Carson and immediately runs after him.

Kitty thrusts the flag into Reginas hand, trusting her to get it back to base while she goes back for Piotr. Now Juliana turns her attention towards Regina, who just smirks as copies of herself form out of thin air.

Carson barely beats Bobby to the jail, and slaps John and Clarissas hands, freeing them. Before Bobby can stop, he slams into Carson and they both fall to the ground.

"Go stop Regina!" Clarissa yells and takes off for the flag. John goes the same direction.

"YOU go get her!"

"Why SHOULD I?!" They both dive for the flag and grab it at the same time.

"Clarissa, let GO."

"I can get it back FASTER!"

"Will you just give me the flag?!"

"No!"

"Fuck you!"

A voice clearing makes them look up.

It's Scott, and beside him they can see Regina doing a victory dance with the blue flag in her hands. The game's over; they lost.

The rest of their classmates are standing behind him, looking at Clarissa and John disapprovingly. Feeling like a fool, she lets her grip slacken on the flag and John snatches it away from her quickly.

"While I can't say it was the most impressive use of teamwork, you guys did do a fairly good job." He was addressing everyone, but directed his next comment at John and Clarissa specifically, "Although I might need to have a talk with some of you later."

John groans as their warm, grassy surroundings suddenly shimmer and fade until they are replaced with the cool, gray metal interior of the Danger Room.