No I in Team


"In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow." —Friedrich Nietzsche.


3. Teamwork

Location: Outside enemy stronghold

11:00 HRS

The sound of gunfire was like a thousand tiny thunderstorms to James' ears, each pull of the trigger causing a minute crash of booming vibration. Once, he had found the noise grating, but now he was numb to it. A hundred years of fighting in wars had hardened him to the sound of death's herald, just as it had hardened his soul. Now, when he saw men die, he didn't let it touch him. He couldn't let it touch him, because he had a team to lead.

From his position in the shallow trench, just within the tree-line, he surveyed his comrades-in-arms. Over to the right, Dukes and Wraith were hunkered down, taking it in turns to lay cover-fire, drawing the enemy's attention towards them. To the left of the trench, Zero and Wade were picking their moments to pick enemies off, waiting for an enemy soldier to peep out from behind cover whilst looking for Dukes and Wraith. Getting Wade to put down his katanas and pick up a gun hadn't been easy, but the results were worth the hassle. Though he wasn't as good a shot as Zero, he was still a better marksman than anyone else on the team.

In the centre of the trench, Victor was standing beside Bradley, whose gun was silent. The youngest mutant on the team had closed his eyes, extending his mind across the no-man's-land of the open field, searching for electrical circuits to manipulate. James wasn't sure if Bradley's powers would work at this distance, but it was the best chance they had of unlocking the compound doors and getting inside the former Nazi stronghold. The compound itself was an old manor-house, and there were at least thirty armed guards defending it.

Whispers reached his sensitive ears from the left of the trench, though in truth, they only sounded like whispers behind the noise of the gunfire.

"Why doesn't he mount an assault?" asked Zero, probably not realising he'd spoken loud enough to be heard by James. Nobody in the team, other than Victor, knew how sensitive James' hearing was.

"I don't know," Wade replied, taking a shot at a target and narrowly missing. "Why don't you go and ask him?"

"I've found the door access panels!" Bradley shouted, pulling James' attention away from the pair on the left of the trench. He sounded excited, and James suspected he was pleased to be proving his worth to the team. "Just give me another couple of minutes. These access readers aren't like the ones at base. They've got a different security encoding. I need to go carefully."

"Hold the line!" James yelled to the team, as a spray of bullets peppered the mound of dirt in front of Wraith and Dukes. Both men were forced back down into the trench, where they waited for a lull in firing. But the enemy was learning, too. Now they took it in turns to shoot at the trench, providing a constant stream of fire, and they'd figured out that they were being picked off from one end. Now they avoided exposing themselves on that side. Crafty. Very crafty.

Victor peered over the mound and fired his weapon at the soldiers atop the compound, trying to break their concentration and gives Dukes and Wraith a chance to recover.

"This is ridiculous!" James heard Zero say. "I could clear that compound in thirty seconds. Every moment we sit here, we paint bigger and bigger targets on our own heads." The sharp-shooter gave a hiss of frustration. "Screw this. Cover me, I'm going in."

Before James could even open his mouth to object, Zero had launched himself from the trench and over the mound, running at speed towards the compound gates. His pistols were up, firing with regular precision, and each time he pulled the trigger an enemy body erupted in a spray of crimson red. Zero's actions, his disobedience, stunned the whole team, but they quickly recovered. Wade lay down cover-fire as requested, because there was little else for him to do. Wraith and Dukes, now that they were no longer targets, were free to resume shooting at the compound, and Victor joined in simply because he didn't want to be the only one not having fun.

Thirty seconds after Zero had left the trench, the guns fell silent, and Bradley opened his eyes.

"I've done it! All the doors are open!" he said, with an amazed smile.

James merely growled, ignoring the young man as he pulled himself out of the trench. His entire vision wore a coating of red, and not because of the violence that had been done here. Zero had disobeyed orders, putting not only himself, but the whole team at risk. James was furious, and only knew that the rest of the team was following him across no-man's land because he heard them haul themselves out of the trenches, and felt the vibrations of their booted feet as they hurried after him.

Zero waited for him, pistols in hands, a self-satisfied smile on his face. James bunched up his fists, and almost allowed his bone claws to extend from between his knuckles. At the last moment he managed to stop himself. He wanted to punch Zero. Hell, he wanted to impale the idiot. But he couldn't. He was the Captain. He had to behave with more decorum than that.

"What the hell was that, North?!" he demanded, stopping in front of the sharp-shooter. It was all the decorum he could manage right now.

"That was about me saving us half an hour of sitting in a trench being fired at," Zero replied calmly. "Last week you told us that a good defence is a swift and decisive offence."

"When I want an offence, I will order an offence," he growled angrily. Behind, he heard the rest of the team stop a couple of paces away.

"What are you so pissed about? You know I could have taken out those guards as soon as we got here. I don't know why you bothered using that trench. Bradley could have done his work from here just as well."

Again, the bone claws threatened to show, but James held himself back, and took a step closer to Zero, trying to burn a hole in the man's head with the heat of his gaze. When he spoke, it was with quiet fury, but with enough volume to let the rest of the team hear what he was saying. They needed to know why Zero's actions had put them all in danger. They needed to know why James had given the orders he did.

"Did you ever consider the possibility that this field was mined?" he asked, and saw a moment of hesitation in Zero's eyes. "Or that maybe the enemy had placed trip-wires, or pits? I wanted Bradley to work from the trench because he needs to know what it's like to work under fire. He needs to know what it's like to feel that pressure, and feel the bullets breathing down the back of his neck."

"Under fire?" Zero laughed coldly. "Don't you think you're blowing this out of proportion, Logan? This is just a training exercise. There's no real pressure here. There never was."

From the 'former Nazi compound', some two-dozen helmeted heads rose up from behind cover. All of them were spattered with the crimson paint from the balls they'd been shot with. Another layer of paint coated the ground in front of the trench's earth mound. None of the 'enemy' soldiers looked thrilled about witnessing this argument, and they pointedly didn't come down from their hiding places.

"That isn't the point," James said. "How am I to take you into an actual combat zone if you won't follow my orders? My reasons for keeping you back in the trench were sound, but I have no need to explain them to you. Jesus Christ, Zero, you're a soldier, not some goddamn maverick. In fact, that's going to be your new name from now on, until you can prove to me that you're capable of following orders."

"I kinda like 'Maverick,'" Wade spoke up.

"Shut it, Mouth," James growled. Wade had earned himself that particular nickname two days ago, when he'd talked the entire way through one of the training sessions. Turning to the compound, James called out to the soldiers. "You men, get out of there and get cleaned up and restocked. You've got one hour, then we're switching roles." He waited long enough to see a salute from one of the men, then turned back to his own team. "As for the rest of you… understand this. When one of us fails, we all fail. One man's disobedience affects every single one of us. No booze and no TV for three days. And tomorrow we're up an hour early to do laps before training. Now, go and reload your weapons, and stock up on ammo. We have a compound to defend."

There was more than one silent groan from the team, but they knew better than to argue. James didn't like taking away their liberties, but it was one of the few ways he had of punishing them without harming them. He watched as they turned and headed back to the weapons lockers at the side of the field, Zero included. Victor loitered behind, watching his brother with disapproving eyes.

"Bit harsh, don't you think?"

"Harsh?" James asked, setting off after the team. "You know as well as I do that disobedience in a genuine battle situation can cost lives. I'm not going to watch men die because of one idiot's mistakes."

"Maybe not as much a mistake as you think. He's pushing you, you know. Testing how far you'll let him go."

"Then he'll learn that I can push back," James growled.

Victor shrugged, and picked up his pace to amble after the rest of the team. Once more, whisper-like voices reached James' ears.

"Don't you think you're being a bit hard on the Captain?" Wraith asked North.

"Maybe if he were a better leader, I wouldn't have to question his orders so much."

"But Stryker seems to think he's a good enough leader, and something tells me you'd follow his orders alright."

Zero didn't answer that. Instead, he glanced to Wade. "I suppose you think our new Captain's doing a stand-up job too?"

Wade gave his paintball rifle a dismissive wave in the air. "So long as I get to travel to new places, meet new people, and do a lot of killing along the way, I don't care who's calling the shots. Stryker, Logan… makes no difference to me."

Zero responded with a disgusted sigh, and walked a little faster, putting himself ahead of the group.

An hour later, all weapons had been reloaded, the soldiers had entrenched themselves in the tree line, and Team X was prepared to defend their compound against superior forces. With a few minutes to spare before the start of the next war-game, James lined up the team, ready to brief them on their mission objective.

"Listen up," he said, as he walked along the line, his gaze transferring from the hulking Dukes down to the scrawny Bradley, back up to the statuesque Wade, and then across to Wraith and the newly-appointed Maverick, before back up again to Victor. "This compound has been located by enemy forces. Our orders are to hold it for one hour, to give an evac chopper time to reach us. The chopper will be landing at the rear of the compound, so a few minutes before it's due, I want Victor, Maverick and Bradley to head out to the landing area and make sure it's secure. If the chopper can't land, we can't leave. The rest of us will remain at our posts and lay down suppression fire whilst the chopper lands, and when it touches down we'll fall back to the rendezvous point. Questions? No? Good.

"Time to get ourselves comfortable; an hour is a long time to hold a building against a siege. Split up into three teams; Victor, Maverick, Bradley, you'll take the ground floor windows and the main door. Dukes, you and I will cover the second-floor windows. John, you and Wade have the rooftop. I'll signal when the chopper's inbound, at which point the three on the ground floor will head out back to do what needs to be done. When you radio back to advise the chopper's down, I want you, John, to teleport yourself and Wade directly to it. Don't go hanging around taking shots at anybody who might still be left out there. Dukes and I will make our way down on foot, covering our retreat as we go. Our objective is not to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, but to hold this building for one hour and escape unharmed. So no heroics this time. Dismissed."

He was given a round of salutes; a competently executed one from Dukes, a clumsy one from Bradley, a lazy one from Wade, a tense one from John, a regulation one from Maverick, and a somewhat mocking one from Victor. A proper company of soldiers would have about-faced and quick-marched away, but the group merely dispersed in silence. John lay a hand on Wade's shoulder, teleporting both of them to the roof of the building, whilst Dukes made for the stairs to the second floor. The room began to shake as he ascended, and James briefly questioned whether it was a good idea to put Dukes on the second floor of such a run-down building.

In the end, he decided it was. Unfortunately, he needed Maverick's skill to ensure the chopper landing zone remained clear, and he wanted Victor to go with him and make sure he didn't do anything stupid. He was sending Bradley with them because he wanted the young man to be the first off the battle-field, and because if anything went wrong with the chopper, Bradley was the best person to fix it. At least, the best person to fix it if anything electrical went wrong with it. He turned out to be quite hopeless at fixing problems of a mechanical nature.

Once he'd ensured the ground-floor team was settled, James joined Dukes on the second floor and picked a window facing the tree-line to crouch beside. There, he took out a cigar, bit off the end, and lit it, sticking it into the corner of his mouth and taking a long drag. Dukes was silently checking his weapons, ensuring his ammo belts and cartridges were easily accessible in the heat of the moment. It was a very methodical, calming way of preparing for the upcoming battle, and James made a mental note to pair Dukes with Bradley on the next training session. The kid would probably learn more working with Dukes than he would with Victor, whom he was terrified of, and Maverick, who seemed to have little concern for anybody but himself.

An alarm outside the compound sounded, signalling the game had begun, and the thunderstorm of gunfire immediately started again. It was loudest from below, where Maverick and Victor were undoubtedly peppering the entire tree-line with paint bullets. They would regret not conserving their ammo, soon. Dukes took a few shots too, timing them to coincide with movement amongst the trees. There were thirty soldiers out there. Thirty regular soldiers, granted, but when James had realised that they stood little chance of crossing no-man's-land and breaching the compound, he'd decided to give them an edge, to make it a fairer fight. Of course, none of the team knew about it yet. They had to learn that nothing was certain, in battlefield conditions, and the unexpected could happen.

In fact, the unexpected happened much faster than James had thought it would. One minute the steady storm of gunfire was thundering through the air, and the next minute there was an incredibly loud explosion, followed a few seconds later by a second deafening boom. The sound of gunfire slowed as Team X hesitated, and James knew they had stopped firing so they could look out at what had just happened.

There were two large holes in the field of no-man's-land, and clouds of dust were settling from the air. As James watched, two small canisters came hurtling across the field. One of them exploded in mid-air, accompanied by the sound of a single gun-shot from the floor below, but the other made its mark, landing on the ground and releasing a steady plume of smoke which began to obscure the battlefield.

The gunfire resumed once more as the members of Team X realised what was happening. The 'enemy' soldiers had enough grenades to blast themselves several protective holes across the field, and enough smoke-bombs to obscure their advance to those holes. The team in the compound taken up their positions expecting to do nothing but take pot-shots at men who could only cower in a trench; they hadn't expected their enemy to have this advantage, to go on the offensive, and they'd already wasted some of their ammo during the first few minutes of the game. Suddenly, the threat of defeat, the danger of going up against men who carried live grenades, became very real. The whole building began to smell of worry.

"I'll be damned," said Dukes, as he took a shot at something moving out in the smoke. "I suppose this was your idea, Logan?"

"Just trying to create a realistic scenario complete with genuine pressure," he replied, making a mockery of Maverick's earlier words.

There was another explosion outside, followed by another plume of smoke. The enemy soldiers were moving forward in pairs, one hole at a time, the men behind taking up the newly vacated holes, like baseball players running from base to base in order to reach home safely.

"If they keep up that rate of advancement," Dukes mused aloud, "they'll reach the compound long before the evac chopper gets here."

"Yeah, they're doing better than I thought they would with those grenades," James said appreciatively. Their commander, one Lieutenant Rockwell, showed more resourcefulness than James had given him credit for. If this was typical of the man's leadership style, he'd have to use the lieutenant for more of these training sessions. Even Maverick wouldn't be able to complain at the realism of this scenario.

For twenty minutes, James watched Rockwell's men advance cautiously but steadily across no-man's-land, and he felt the tension in the air of the manor-house mounting, becoming an almost tangible force. Then, twenty-five minutes after the game had begun, the enemy reached the compound gates. Logan reached for his radio, broadcasting on Team X's private channel.

"Bradley, you think you can run a low-level electric charge through that fence?" James asked, eyeing the chain-link compound gates.

"Yeah, no problem."

Another smoke-bomb was launched to obscure troop movement, and James picked up the scent of a static charge in the air. He didn't know how he was able to smell electricity, and he didn't care for the particulars. All he knew was that the charge Bradley was running through the fence was enough to shock anybody who touched it, but not enough to kill. Indeed, only a few seconds after the smoke-bomb had been activated, he heard a couple of pained cries from beside the gate, and saw the smoke cloud illuminate by white-blue flashes. Those men were lucky; Bradley could have killed them, if he'd been the vindictive type.

"Fall back to the nearest pit!" a voice called over the din of gunfire. James recognised it as Lieutenant Rockwell. He sounded tense but confident; he knew that he still had plenty of time to find a way to breach the perimeter. James wondered how Rockwell would handle this latest set-back, and he didn't have to wait long. The enemy's last grenade came flying, and it hit the compound gates before Zero could shoot it out of the air. The smell of melted, twisted metal reached James' nose, and his eyes confirmed it when the smoke cleared. He activated his radio again.

"Bradley, I'm going to need you to block that breach with one of those electro-magnetic forcefields of yours."

"Alright," Bradley agreed. "But I can't maintain a forcefield for very long. They're very draining."

James checked his watch. There was still half an hour to go until evac. At this rate, Team X would never make it out alive. "Just give me as long as you can, Bradley."

He couldn't see the barrier, but he could smell a change in the static charge of the air, and he knew Bradley had done as ordered. Would it tax him more quickly if men tried to pass that barrier? James wondered. Or did it drain Bradley's constitution regardless of whether anyone was trying to pass? Either way, the whole team was about to find out exactly what the youngest member of their group was made of.

There were still men in the trench at the tree-line, and they lay down cover-fire as several of the soldiers closest to the gates made a run for the breach. One by one they bounced off it, to the sound of electricity sizzling in the air. The cover-fire lasted long enough to allow those men to retreat to their bolt-holes again, at which point it stopped, and Team X, who'd been forced to retreat behind their cover to avoid being hit, were able to return fire.

It was a terrible stalemate. James didn't know if Rockwell knew how draining it was for Bradley to maintain his barrier, but the lieutenant seemed determined to breach it. He ordered another round of suppression fire, and threw another wave of men at the barrier-blocked hole. As Rockwell's men were retreating back to their holes for the second time, a voice came in over the radio.

"Logan," said Maverick, "you better think of something else, and fast. Bradley looks exhausted; I don't think he can sustain the barrier through another attack."

James glanced at his watch. Still twenty-minutes until evac. Bradley had bought them ten, but they'd need at least another fifteen before Victor, Maverick and Bradley could head to the rear of the compound. He glanced at Dukes, and saw the same calm determination in the large man's eyes that had been there at the start of the training session. No fear, no hesitation, just confidence that James would either get the job done, or they'd all go down fighting well.

Pressing the 'talk' button of his radio, he spoke again. "Wade. Think you could hold those boys off for a while, give Bradley time to recharge his batteries?"

"If I had my katanas, maybe. But you took them away from me, remember? Said I was… what was it… too reliant on them?"

"Yeah yeah, you can say 'I told you so' later. I hid your katanas in a sideboard marked with an oak leaf pattern on the second floor. Had a feeling you might need them. Get Wraith to teleport you directly to the sideboard, and then down behind that breach in the gate. We'll lay down as much cover fire for you as we can, but I suspect this will push you to your limits."

"I laugh at limits. Ha! In fact, I bet–"

"Wade, damn-it, shut up and get over here so I can teleport you," came Wraith's voice over the radio.

James turned his attention back to the battle-field. Rockwell's men had pulled back from the breach, returning to their holes where they couldn't be touched by the gunfire from Maverick, Victor and Dukes. The soldiers looked ready to mount another offensive, and sure enough, another round of cover-fire came from the trench.

"C'mon, Wade," James growled under his breath.

Just as Team X were forced to take shelter again, a blur of motion caught James' eye, and he saw Wraith deposit Wade behind the breach in the gates just as Bradley dropped the barrier, and then teleport himself back to the roof. Wade's katanas were moving even before Wraith was gone, flashing back and forth as they intercepted paint bullets, covering the blades in a coat of red which spattered all over both the ground and Wade. No doubt James would get an earful off the mercenary later, for asking him to get his beloved blades dirty, but it was a small and necessary sacrifice.

He looked at his watch again. 11:45. Just ten more minutes before the ground-floor team would have to move out back to secure the chopper landing zone. Returning his gaze to Wade, he saw the frown of concentration on the man's face, and wondered how the hell he was managing to deflect every damn bullet. He was being shot at from two directions; the trench at the tree-line, and the holes near the gate. The bullets would be travelling at different velocities, and there were multiple bullets flying at him with every passing second. James knew Wade wasn't just flashing the blades to create a sort of partial barrier; he was actually aiming for—and hitting—every single one.

"He won't be able to keep that up for much longer," Dukes commentated as he watch the mercenary's whirling blades. "All it would take is for one bullet to slip past his swords, and we're one man down."

James nodded. He'd asked a lot of both Bradley and Wade during this session; unfortunately, he now had to ask for a little more.

"Bradley," he said, into his radio, "I know you're tired, but we need a diversion. Wade's doing his best, but that big head of his is a tempting target."

"What did you have in mind?" Bradley replied. God, he sounded exhausted!

"Something small. Do you think you could tap into the enemy's radio frequency and transmit a fake voice?"

"I think I can manage that. What do you want Lieutenant Rockwell to say to his men?"

James smiled. Bradley was pretty quick off the mark. "Order a ceasefire, then an immediate retreat to the trench."

"I'm on it."

The gunfire continued. James glanced at his watch. 11.48, and Wade was starting to look like a man fighting for his life. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire from the field stopped, and James could almost smell the confusion out there. As the assault stopped, so did Wade, gulping in air to recover his breath. Then, movement out on the field. A few of the soldiers were moving out of their holes, back to the trench. They were picked off by Maverick. Rockwell's voice called out, ordering the men to disregard that order, telling them to stay in their damn holes, out of the line of sight of the damn sharp-shooter.

James smiled again.

11.53. The enemy had wasted five minutes in the confusion, giving Wade a chance to catch his breath, and Bradley a few extra minutes to recover. As well, Maverick had shot six of the soldiers, and there were probably more 'dead' behind the tree line.

Static crackled over the radio, and a new voice spoke.

"Team X Captain, this is Lieutenant Buckley, I am approaching your evac co-ordinates, touch-down in t-minus six minutes."

"Roger that, Buckley," James said. "Victor, Bradley, Maverick, time to get your asses to the pick-up zone."

"Wait, Logan," Bradley replied. He still sounded exhausted, but determined. "I should stay here. I can put another barrier up, long enough to give us all chance to evacuate."

"Bradley, you're exhausted–"

"I can do it, Captain!"

James sighed. He'd ordered no heroics, but at least Bradley had the decency to ask if he could perform heroics, instead of just doing it.

"Alright. If you say you can do it, I believe you."

"I should stay here too," Wade added, his voice crackling over the radio. "Just in case he can't do it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, mate," muttered Bradley.

"Enough," James interrupted. This wasn't the way the plan was supposed to go, but that was the thing about plans; they were rarely static things that went according to a man's wishes. Plans—good plans—needed to possess the flexibility to be changed at a moment's notice. "Maverick, Victor, head to the evac zone. Dukes, go with them. Ensure the area's secure. Wraith, be ready to get Wade out of there if things look like they're turning ugly. I'll cover Bradley. We've got five minutes left, people. Let's get this finished and go home."

If they managed to get out of this without incident, he might even relax his no-booze punishment. He could definitely use a cold one right about now.

There was a flurry of movement through the manor-house as everyone moved to their designated areas. The enemy soldiers seemed to sense that something had changed, and resumed firing on the compound. Their shots met with an invisible barrier; Bradley had managed it again, and Wade fell to stalking back and forth behind it, katanas at the ready in case the barrier should fail.

When James reached the ground floor, he found Bradley looking pale and covered with sweat. His brows were knitted in a tight frown of concentration as he held that barrier up with every scrap of energy he possessed. No wonder the kid polished off his steaks as easily as Dukes, if this was what his power took out of him.

He looked at his watch again. 11.58.

His radio crackled. Maverick spoke.

"The chopper is on the ground, but we're starting to take enemy fire. Commence evac immediately."

As soon as the word was given, James saw Wraith teleport to Wade's side, and then both men disappeared. He turned to Bradley.

"Time to go, kid. You've done good. Let it go."

With a gasp for air, Bradley opened his eyes, panting as he spoke.

"It won't take them long to realise we're not defending anymore, Captain. They'll be all over this compound in minutes."

"Then let's get the hell out of here."

Both men stood, but Bradley quickly collapsed, too exhausted to support his own weight. James hauled him to his feet, one hand under the younger man's arm, and all but dragged him through the house. At the back door, Bradley shrugged off his Captain's grip; he didn't want to show how exhausted he was to the entire team. James realised it would likely take Bradley days to recover from this. He'd given everything he had.

The chopper blades were spinning as the last two members of the team stepped out into the daylight at the evac zone. Everybody was aboard the chopper except for Maverick, who was picking off the enemy soldiers who took shots at the chopper. Keeping low to the ground, James herded Bradley towards the chopper, then nodded at Dukes, who reached out and hauled the kid into a seat before Bradley could offer a word of protest.

"Time to go," James yelled at Maverick, and the two men backed into the chopper, still laying down cover-fire. "Lieutenant Buckley, I'm damn glad to see you. Now if you don't mind, let's get this bird in the air. Any minute now, the compound's going to be swarming with enemy soldiers."

"Aye," Buckley agreed, and he set the chopper blades spinning fast enough to achieve lift-off.

The chopper began to rise, slowly at first because of the combined weight of the men in Team X, and then with greater velocity. Only when it was twenty metres above the tree-tops did James allow himself to relax, and he looked around at the faces of his companions.

They'd done well. Dukes, Maverick, Wraith and Victor all looked tense but elated, weapons held tight across their knees to stop them falling out of the chopper as it peeled off from the battlefield. Wade's fatigues were covered in crimson, as was most of his skin, and he sat back in his seat with his katanas across his knees, seemingly too tired to talk. Bradley, meanwhile, was slumped in his chair, and looked like he'd just gone ten rounds with a heavy-weight boxer. Today, the young man had proved his worth. Today, he'd proved that he belonged here, and that he was just as much a part of the team as anyone else.

"I'm liking the red," Wade said, glancing down at his paint-covered body. "Do you think the military could be convinced to change their colour scheme?"

"Yeah, it looks real pretty on you," Wraith said. Then he turned his dark eyes to James. "So, Logan, did you get what you wanted out of that little team-bonding exercise?"

"More than I thought I would," James confirmed. He'd learnt a lot, today. He'd learnt what his team were made of. He'd learnt some of their strengths, and their weaknesses. And he'd learnt that one day, he might even be able to trust them all with his life. From now on, they were brothers-in-arms, each and every one of them.

"What's next in the team-bonding montage?" Wade asked. "Back to HQ for some healthy, completely heterosexual soapy shower fun?"

"Sure, knock yourself out," James replied. Please do.

He leant back in his seat and looked out over the forest canopy, allowing the team chatter to filter through his mind without paying attention to it. His second week of commanding Team X had ended with a successful mission, and he knew Stryker would be waiting at Bunker Five to hear his report. No doubt he'd be pleased by their performance.

o - o - o - o - o

Location: Bunker Five

14:06 HRS

It was just after two o'clock in the afternoon. William Stryker looked again at the orders he'd received only an hour earlier. A mission from his superiors in Washington. The first mission the newly-formed Team X would be going on together. He'd held them back for as long as he could, trying to give his science team time to study each mutant, hoping that some major breakthrough would come. Now, those who sat comfy in Washington whilst Stryker did all the hard work, wanted to see some results, to justify what they'd spent on forming this team. Until the scientific breakthrough came, they wanted Team X to earn their keep. He couldn't blame them for wanting results, of course, but he wasn't sure how the men would perform away from their simulated training exercises.

There was a knock at the door. "Enter," he called, and watched as the team's new Captain, James Howlett—or Logan, as he preferred to be called by everybody except Victor—stepped into his office.

"Sir," said Logan, pulling off a short, sharp salute. "We've just returned from training, so I thought I'd check in with you."

"And how did it go?"

"Quite well, actually." That wasn't a surprise. Stryker had sat in on Logan's first few training sessions with the team, but when he realised his presence was a source of unease for the mutants, he'd backed off and taken to recording the sessions covertly instead. He would watch today's session later in the day. For now, he listened to Logan's recount. "There were some initial problems with the first part of the exercise, but the mission was accomplished regardless."

"What sort of 'problems'?"

Logan barely even hesitated. "Nothing to be concerned about. I've already dealt with it."

Stryker nodded. Logan's way of running the team was not exactly… regulation. 'If you want to discipline someone, discipline me', the large Canadian had told him on the second day of his command of the team. 'I'll be the one to discipline the men.' Stryker knew why Logan had insisted on it being like that; he feared that if one of the team didn't perform as well as expected, they would be punished for their perceived failures. Logan wanted to act as a buffer between his men and punishment. He would take it, and dole it out where necessary.

"If you say you've handled it, I'll leave it at that," Stryker said. Besides, the tapes would tell him everything he needed to know, when he got around to watching them. "And the second part of the exercise?"

"Not a single casualty, and both Bradley and Wade performed beyond expectations."

"Good to hear." He glanced down at the orders on his desk. "Do you think they're ready to do this for real?"

Again, no hesitation. "Yes, sir. I do."

"I'm pleased to hear it," said with a smile. "Because we've just received orders. The team will be going on its first mission, leaving tomorrow evening."

"Tomorrow evening?" Logan frowned.

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"Bradley might need more time to recover. I pushed him hard today."

"Then he'll have to recover on the way."

"The way to where, Major?"

"Italy." He handed the paper over to Logan, and gave him a run-down of the report. "There's concern in Washington about the growing number of illegal weapons entering the country. Two days ago, a cache was seized from a private plane belonging to Stefano Bertelli, a leading figure amongst the Mafia. Unfortunately, Bertelli himself managed to escape by boat to Cuba, and from there he took a flight to Milan. Due to the nature of the situation, it's outside the military's normal jurisdiction. Team X has been asked to gather evidence of Bertelli's involvement in weapons smuggling, and apprehend him—alive—for further questioning. We leave tomorrow morning, arriving twenty-four hours later."

"You're coming with us?" Logan sounded surprised, and a little sceptical.

"Of course. I hand-picked this team, Logan. I want to be there to see it in action. And to take responsibility in case anything goes wrong." Plus, he wanted to remind Team X that they were still his team; not Logan's.

"I understand. If that's all, sir, I'll go and inform the men, and make sure they're well-rested before we set off tomorrow."

Stryker nodded. "Dismissed, Captain."

Logan saluted again and left the office, leaving Stryker alone with his thoughts.

Italy. Seven men against the Mafia. A covert operation into the very heart of a mob-controlled city, and a vital extraction in potentially hostile territory. Could it be done?

He looked to the picture of his smiling wife and son. "The things I do to keep you safe, Sarah," he sighed. Perhaps, once he got back from Italy with Team X and their Mafia prisoner, he'd take a few days off to spend time with his family. He owed them that much.